Undernews For September 21, 2009

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September 21, 2009

WORD

Let us not become the evil that we deplore. - Rep. Barbara Lee, September 14, 2001

LAUNCHING THE BAILOUT RIP-OFF

Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, Vanity Fair - Last October, Congress passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, putting $700 billion into the hands of the Treasury Department to bail out the nation's banks at a moment of vanishing credit and peak financial panic. Over the next three months, Treasury poured nearly $239 billion into 296 of the nation's 8,000 banks. The money went to big banks. It went to small banks. It went to banks that desperately wanted the money. It went to banks that didn't want the money at all but had been ordered by Treasury to take it anyway. It went to banks that were quite happy to accept the windfall, and used the money simply to buy other banks. Some banks received as much as $45 billion, others as little as $1.5 million. Sixty-seven percent went to eight institutions; 33 percent went to the rest. And that was just the money that went to banks. Tens of billions more went to other companies, all before Barack Obama took office. It was the largest single financial intervention by Treasury into the banking system in U.S. history.

But once the money left the building, the government lost all track of it. The Treasury Department knew where it had sent the money, but nothing about what was done with it. Did the money aid the recovery? Was it spent for the purposes Congress intended? Did it save banks from collapse? Paulson's Treasury Department had no idea, and didn't seem to care. It never required the banks to explain what they did with this unprecedented infusion of capital.

Exactly one year has elapsed since the onset of the financial crisis and the passage of the bailout bill. Some measure of scrutiny and control has since been imposed by the Obama administration, but even today it's hard to walk back the cat and trace the money. Up to a point, though, it's possible to reconstruct some of what happened in the first chaotic and crucial three months of the bailout, when Treasury was still in the hands of Henry Paulson and most of the money was disbursed. Needless to say, there is no central clearinghouse for information about the tarp money. To get details of any kind means starting with the hundreds of individual recipients, then poring over S.E.C. filings, annual reports, and other documentation-in other words, performing the standard due diligence that the government itself failed to perform. In the report that follows, we have no more than dipped a toe into the morass, but one fact emerges clearly: a lot of the money wound up in the coffers of some very surprising institutions- institutions that should have been seen as "troubling" as much as "troubled." A Reverse Holdup

The intention of Congress when it passed the bailout bill could not have been more clear. The purpose was to buy up defective mortgage-backed securities and other "toxic assets" through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, better known as tarp. But the bill was in fact broad enough to give the Treasury secretary the authority to do whatever he deemed necessary to deal with the financial crisis. If tarp had been a credit card, it would have been called Carte Blanche. That authority was all Paulson needed to switch gears, within a matter of days, and change the entire thrust of the program from buying bad assets to buying stock in banks. THE REST OF THE STORY

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT SAYS ISRAEL PROMISED HIM NO ATTACK ON IRAN

Reuters - Israel promised Russia it would not launch an attack on Iran, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview in which he described such an assault as "the worst thing that can be imagined."

Israel has hinted it could forcibly deny Iran the means to make an atomic bomb if it refuses to suspend uranium enrichment and has criticized Russia for agreeing to supply to Tehran S-300 anti-aircraft weapons that could complicate an attack.

In an interview with CNN, Medvedev denied Moscow was backing Iran but said it had the right to supply defensive weapons and said sanctions against Tehran should only be used as a last resort.

An attack would lead to "a humanitarian disaster, a vast number of refugees, Iran's wish to take revenge and not only upon Israel, to be honest, but upon other countries as well," Medvedev said, according to a Kremlin transcript.

"But my Israeli colleagues told me that they were not planning to act in this way and I trust them."

During a meeting in the Russian resort of Sochi in August, Israeli President Shimon Peres said Israel would not attack Iran, Medvedev said. After the meeting, Peres told journalists Medvedev had promised to reconsider a contract to sell S-300s to Iran.

"When he visited me in Sochi, Israeli President Peres said something important for us all: 'Israel does not plan to launch any strikes on Iran, we are a peaceful country and we will not do this'," Medvedev said.

Asked about the possible delivery of S-300s, Medvedev said Russia had the right to sell defensive weapons to Iran.

"Our task is not to strengthen Iran and weaken Israel or vice versa but our task is to ensure a normal, calm situation in the Middle East," Medvedev said.

THE ENDLESS OBAMAMERCIAL

NY Post - During his first eight months in office, President Obama has sat down for three times as many television interviews as his most recent two predecessors combined. . . .

In the New York Times alone, according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, 405 stories on the Obama administration have appeared on the front page through mid-August of this year totaling 119,678 column inches. That's 9,973 column feet of Obama coverage on the Times front page alone. . .

As of mid-August, Obama submitted to a total of 66 television interviews, dramatically outstripping his two predecessors, according to Martha Joynt Kumar, director of the White House Transition Project at Towson University in Maryland.

During the same period of their own presidencies, President George W. Bush gave 16 television interviews and President Bill Clinton gave just six.

Obama is also out-hustling his predecessors with the print media, giving 36 interviews with newspapers and magazines during his first seven months in office -- nearly doubling the numbers given by Bush and Clinton.

ON SPEED TRAPS AND MORALITY

Gary Imhoff, DC Watch - There are two major types of crimes. Some acts are bad in themselves, and when we make these crimes illegal we want to catch and punish every person who commits them. Murder and robbery are bad, and we don't want "moderation" in solving those crimes. But other acts aren't bad in themselves, though they may be illegal. Driving at 35 miles per hour isn't a bad thing. It could be illegal to drive at 35, if the speed limit is 25 miles per hour, but there is no moral turpitude involved in driving at 35 mph. Speed limits are practical matters; if they are set reasonably in order to ensure public safety, they are socially useful. But even then, we want speed limits to be enforced only as much as necessary in order keep traffic in general traveling at a safe speed. We don't want over-enforcement both because we know that speed limits are to a large extent arbitrary and because there is no moral failing involved.

Towns that set their speed limits too low for actual driving conditions, and then enforce those speed limits strictly without regard for how enforcement has an actual impact on safety, earn our disapproval. The same goes for towns that install red light cameras at places where the red lights may be unexpected or are difficult to see until the last minute, or that install red light cameras and then shorten the time for yellow lights. An even clearer example of laws that create crimes that have no moral component is parking laws. A town that makes its parking regulations and parking signs and notices confusing and difficult to obey, and then blanketly issues parking tickets, isn't just enforcing the law; it is simply manipulating laws with the purpose of issuing tickets.

In the past, these problems have usually been associated with small towns that use traffic laws as a desperate money-raising opportunity, and these towns have been scorned as backwaters to be avoided. Now, some big-city mayors and councils have decided that they, too, can use traffic laws as revenue raisers, that there is no shame in turning their cities into speed traps, or red-light traps, or parking traps. Washington is one of those big cities. Keep it up, and we'll be like those small towns in the '50's and '60's that were on the "to be avoided list": if you're going north or south on the east coast, and passing by Washington, stay on the beltway and keep out of downtown.

THE HIDDEN POTENTIAL OF PEE

Josh Peterson, Planet Green - Many of us do not have the privacy required to dispose of our cellular waste in the out of doors. This is a shame, because urinating outside can save, on average, three gallons of water per water-closet visit. Of course, you can let your yellow water mellow, but if you eat a lot of asparagus, you might be headed for a smelly situation. You can also urinate into an old pop bottle and put the urine outside, then reuse the bottle. But that means you have to carry around a bottle full of pee. This might be hard to explain to visiting relatives.

But if you are determined to pee outside, then you might as well try and put that pee to good use. Urine is mostly sterile cellular waste. It's safe to use in the garden, unless you are afflicted by a urinary tract infection, in which case, you should see a doctor and have that taken care of.

Our urine is full of useful chemicals like nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. But urine contains salt, making it a bit powerful to apply directly to plants. You'll have to mix the urine with grey water at a ratio of 8 to 1. You don't necessarily have to dilute for lawn fertilization, but you need to make sure to spread the wealth around.

When you use urine fertilizer in your garden, make sure to use the urine as soon as you make it. Old urine won't keep. It will go bad. Don't apply the urine to the leaves of the plants. The urine needs to go in the soil around it. If you use bottle-top funnels to save water, the urine fertilizer would be best applied that way.

If you find yourself, with too much urine, you can always put the urine on the compost pile.

Tree Hugger - A Brazilian environment group, SOS Mata Atlantica, [is] encouraging their citizens to pee in the shower, and save 1,157 gallons of water annually per household. And not just with a press release, but also with very cute television ad campaign. The absolutely delightful cartoon advert shows all manner people from the Statue of Liberty to Gandhi to a frog piddling in the shower. . . This 'pee in the shower' campaign has its own website in Portuguese. But the message is universal, which might be why the story has been picked by media outlets the globe over.

HAS PENTAGON LAUNCHED WAR AGAINST OBAMA?

This is an important story that has some of the earmarks of an incipient rebellion by the Pentagon (and perhaps as well the unhappy to be investigated CIA once headed by Defense Secretary Gates) against a president it perceives as weak enough to push around. If Obama caves on this one, it is not only bad news for the Afghan misadventure but for the proper relationship between the president and the military.

Washington Post - Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says emphatically: "Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) -- while Afghan security capacity matures -- risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible." His assessment was sent to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Aug. 30 and is now being reviewed by President Obama and his national security team. . .

He repeatedly warns that without more forces and the rapid implementation of a genuine counterinsurgency strategy, defeat is likely. McChrystal describes an Afghan government riddled with corruption and an international force undermined by tactics that alienate civilians.

McChrystal's assessment is one of several options the White House is considering. His plan could intensify a national debate in which leading Democratic lawmakers have expressed reluctance about committing more troops to an increasingly unpopular war. Obama said last week that he will not decide whether to send more troops until he has "absolute clarity about what the strategy is going to be."

The commander has prepared a separate detailed request for additional troops and other resources, but defense officials have said he is awaiting instructions before sending it to the Pentagon.

PEAK FOOD FOLLOWS PEAK OIL

From an interview by Chris Arsenault of the Dominion in Canada with Jeff Rubin. For more than a decade, Jeff Rubin was Chief Economist at CIBC World Markets, one of Canada's largest investment banks. Rubin recently broke ranks with the financial crowd to publish his book, Why Your World is About to get a Whole Lot Smaller. The man once touted as Canada's top economist now predicts the end of globalization because of triple-digit oil prices. . .

Jeff Rubin - When gas is seven dollars a gallon, no one is going to have to buy my book to know what to do. Folks are going to get off the road because they can't afford to drive. When there is no bus to get on, they will get their politician's attention. Why are we bailing out Detroit when 50 million vehicles are likely to head off the road in the next ten years? We should be investing in public transit, not cars. .

Let's understand that when we are talking about hydrocarbons, we aren't just talking about moving cars or powering container ships. We are talking about food. Modern agriculture is really the massive transformation of hydrocarbons into food [through] fertilizer, irrigation and mechanization. If you look at arable land under cultivation, it hasn't grown in the last 10 to 15 years. All the increases in world food production have come from increasing the yield per acre. All of those increases have come about by adding more fertilizer to the land and using more tractors.

The real challenge is: does peak oil equal peak food? If there are going to be wars, I suggest that will be the fault line.

Take countries like Saudi Arabia; they are buying land in Pakistan and Africa to grow food. The countries that rent the land? None of that food is going to their populations. What happens when their population starts to starve and they see their land being used to grow food for people in other countries? Is that a sustainable model?

BAUCUS IN BED WITH HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY

Financial Times - When Max Baucus circulated his $856bn healthcare reform proposal last week, the White House was among the last to get a copy. The centrist Democratic Montana senator, who chairs the all-important Senate finance committee, sent advance copies of the much-anticipated draft bill first to key figures on "K Street" - shorthand for Washington's powerful lobby firms.

"I was told that . . . K Street had a copy of the Baucus plan, meaning, not surprisingly, the special interests have gotten a copy of the plan [first]," said Robert Gibbs, spokesman for Barack Obama, the president.

In his "bipartisan" plan, which is likely to dominate Capitol Hill in the weeks ahead, Mr Baucus junked the public option. Yet he still failed to attract the support of a single Republican.

"You have to wonder why we have waited so long for a compromise plan that didn't get any Republican support," said a senior Democratic staffer in the House of Representatives. "If we are not going to get any Republicans, then why are we dropping the public option?"

Critics of Mr Baucus, whose draft bill provoked attacks from right and left, point to the six-term senator's close ties with the healthcare industry. Two former chiefs of staff to Mr Baucus - Jeff Forbes and David Castagnetti - are prominent lobbyists for the healthcare industry. Both have had meetings with the Democratic senator this summer.

The principal author of Mr Baucus's draft bill was Liz Fowler, a former senior lobbyist for WellPoint, a large health insurance company. Ms Fowler's predecessor as Mr Baucus's chief healthcare official was Michelle Easton, who now lobbies for Wellpoint at the lobby firm Tarplin, Downs & Young.

The busy "revolving door" between Mr Baucus's office and K Street is lubricated by a handsome flow of election campaign donations. According to Open Secrets, an independent watchdog, Mr Baucus has received $3.8m in donations from the health industry, which puts him among the top five recipients on Capitol Hill. The $690,000 he received last year from health "political action committees" - vehicles for campaign donations - was the highest for any lawmaker. . .

"Seldom have so many waited so long for so little," said Lloyd Doggett, a Democratic lawmaker from Texas, after the plan was released. "This isn't negotiation; it is capitulation to the insurance industry." Lynn Woolsey, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said: "We wouldn't vote for that for anything."

WHERE THE BAILOUT ENDS. . .

Philadelphia Inquirer - The budget deal reached in Harrisburg, which includes an extension of the state sales tax to cultural performances and venues - including museums - has stunned and angered the arts community. "We heard nothing about this until late last night," Peggy Amsterdam, head of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, said yesterday. "It must have been a very last-minute deal. Not only will it hit the arts organizations, but it will make it harder for people to pay." . . Sources familiar with the final package said the deal calls for the creation of a special fund for cultural institutions and the arts. The fund would get the bulk of the ticket-tax revenue - the exact percentage was unclear - and use it to support institutions previously subsidized by the general fund, such as museums, theaters, and zoos. Senate Republicans, who had steadfastly opposed any new taxes, insisted on the fund.

CONTROL FREAKDOM UPDATE

Sam Smith - Barack Obama wants a mandatory mandate for health insurance, he wants to tell local public schools how they should run their classes, he says that if a health care bill passes he will "own it" and now he wants to tell New York how to run its election for governor:

NY Times - "President Obama has sent a request to Gov. David A. Paterson that he withdraw from the New York governor's race, fearing that Mr. Paterson cannot recover from his dismal political standing, according to two senior administration officials and a New York Democratic operative with direct knowledge of the situation. . . The move against a sitting Democratic governor represents an extraordinary intervention into a state political race by the president"

This follows Obama lobbying Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick on how he should handle filling Ted Kennedy's seat, which raises the question:

If a white southern congress member calling a half white president a liar is racist, what is a half white president bossing around two black governors?

Of course, Obama could eliminate the matter by sticking to those tasks outlined for him by the Constitution.

David Sirota, Open Left - Late last week, President Obama joined a big chunk of the Colorado and D.C. Democratic establishment in endorsing appointed Sen. Michael Bennet (D) and trying to crush a 2010 primary challenge by former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff (D. . . Now, the Denver Post weighs in with a pointed editorial criticizing Obama for his penchant for trying to crush primaries not only here in Colorado, but all over the country:

[] Only 24 hours after former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff launched his campaign, the president bigfooted his way into the primary, issuing a glowing endorsement of current U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet. . .

Obama has jumped into other primaries, as well. He endorsed Sen. Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican-turned-Democrat, in his bid against a more liberal opponent. The president also gave a quick thumbs up to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand when there was a chance she might be challenged by another Democrat for Hillary Rodham Clinton's old New York Senate seat.

Still, Obama doesn't know who the best candidate is for Colorado. The issues in this race haven't even been broached. Certainly we have no problem with the president endorsing someone - in fact, we like to do it, too - but c'mon, let's have a campaign first. []

Obama is in the White House precisely because he didn't listen to D.C. insiders who tried to crush his own primary bids for U.S. Senate in 2004 and for president in 2008. So it's more than a bit strange to see him expending serious political capital trying to crush primary challenges - especially in swing states like Colorado and Pennsylvania where the backlash to that kind of "bigfoot" behavior can demoralize his much-needed base.

The Denver Post is exactly right when it points out that when "the establishment jumps into primaries. . . it can backfire." And in a mid-term election when the Democratic base may be particularly incensed at the failure of this president and the Democratic establishment to more aggressively push a progressive agenda, that chance for a backfire is especially high.

BRZEZINSKI SUGGESTS OBAMA MIGHT CONFRONT ISRAEL ATTACK ON IRAN

Weekly Standard - In a little noticed interview with the Daily Beast . . . Zbigniew Brzezinski suggests that Barack Obama do more than just refuse to support an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear sites -- the American president must give the order to shoot down Israeli aircraft as they cross Iraqi airspace:

DB: How aggressive can Obama be in insisting to the Israelis that a military strike might be in America's worst interest?

Brzezinski: We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?

DB: What if they fly over anyway?

Brzezinski: Well, we have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you arena't just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a Liberty in reverse.

THE COST OF LONG LINE FISHING

Delmarva Now - Data recently released by the National Marine Fisheries Service indicates that during the 2007 and 2008 seasons, the U.S. pelagic long-line fleets destroyed or threw away incidental by-catch including 11,823 swordfish, 1,345 blue fin tuna, 34,611 sharks, 611 blue marlin, 744 white marlin, 321 sailfish and 300 turtles. This long-lining (fleets stretch nearly 40 miles of gaffed line through the water) is also taking place in the Gulf of Mexico, during the prime spawning season of the mature Bluefin tuna. . . The mature bluefin population. . . has been reduced by more than 80 percent since 1970. . . Bluefin tuna are one of the most highly evolved fish species; they can weigh up to 1,500 pounds and can swim at speeds over 20 knots,

GREAT MOMENTS AT THE FCC

Gawker - A shaken nation will be holding its head just a bit higher, knowing that the FCC has said it wants to "further investigate" the 2004 Janet Jackson Super Bowl boob-flash incident that still scars America to this day. Broadcasting & Cable brings the joyous news: Our long national nightmare may be drawing to a close. If only we can re-open this investigation.

"The evidence in this case strongly suggests that CBS had access to video delay technology at the time of the 2004 Super Bowl," the commission said Tuesday in a brief to the Third Circuit Appeals Court in the Janet Jackson Super Bowl Reveal case. The FCC asked the court to remand the decision back to the FCC so it could investigate further its assertion that the violation was "willful."

If a TV network can fudge answers to a governmental body about the availability of time delay technology in a Super Bowl halftime show and get away with it after just a five year investigation, are we really a nation at all?

MAJOR BRITISH TRADE UNIONS CALL FOR PARTIAL BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL

Jerusalem Post - Britain's 6.5-million member labor federation, the Trade Union Congress, has adopted a policy calling for a consumer-led boycott and sanctions campaign against Israel at their annual conference in Liverpool. The TUC policy calls on the British Government to condemn the "Israeli military aggression and the continuing blockade of Gaza" and end arms sales to Israel, which it said reached a value of L18.8 million in 2008. It also calls for a ban on goods originated from the settlements and an end to the European Union's preferential trading terms with Israel. . . Maintaining that it was not a boycott call, Barber added: "This is not a call for a general boycott of Israeli goods and services which would hit ordinary Palestinian and Israeli workers, but targeted, consumer-led sanctions directed at businesses based in, and sustaining, the illegal settlements." The GC said that each union would interpret how to implement the boycott and encouraged affiliation to a radical anti-Israel group.

HAPPY THREE HUNDRETH BIRTHDAY, SAMMIE

We've missed this important date by a couple of days, but Pablo Davis hit it right on with this piece about the writer who inspired the first version of the Progressive Review forty-five years ago - then called The Idler.

Pablo J. Davis, Discrepo - Three hundred years ago was born to a struggling, lower-middle class household-the father a bookseller-in Lichfield, England, an infant son who would become a large, clumsy boy, a lover of books, and then a man, one of the giants of the literature and cultural life of the English-speaking world.

His name was Samuel, "Dr. Johnson" as he became known in his later life and ever since. For over two centuries, the world has thought it knew him because a young Scotsman who idolized him, James Boswell, brought him alive in quite likely the most famous biography ever written in English. Boswell's Johnson was a cantankerous old Tory who growled out his prejudices with an acid wit.

In large part due to Boswell, the world has tended to see Johnson as a conservative, as a man of the political Right, and many of that persuasion have claimed him as a kind of secular patron saint.

Ah, but there was much more to the man than that. Reverential of traditions and hierarchies, both religious and political-in his words, "I am a friend to subordination"-he believed respect was due to legitimate monarchs, yet he also scorned aristocracy when it was weak of character and mean-spirited. . .

Casting himself as a Tory in a Whig-dominated age, he was in truth not a man of hardened doctrine. But throughout his life, Johnson hated and wrote passionately against militarism and war, against empires, against racism and slavery. He famously wondered, during the Revolutionary crisis in Britain's American colonies, "Why is it that the loudest yelps for liberty come from the drivers of Negroes?"-that is, slaveowners and traders.

Once an acquaintance scolded him for giving alms to a beggar who surely "would lay it out on gin and tobacco". Johnson's memorable, moving retort: "And why should they be denied such sweeteners of their existence? It is surely very savage to refuse them every possible avenue to pleasure" in the midst of the bitterness of their lives.

Above all, Johnson wrote. Constantly guilt-ridden at (he believed) his sloth and procrastination, he produced an astonishing body of work, including The Lives of the Poets, the path-breaking Dictionary of the English Language, a complete annotated edition of Shakespeare, Rasselas, a marvelous parable of the fundamental unity and equality of all mankind, several astonishing runs of essays of cultural observation and moral uplift (including the Idler series), and much, much more.

The complex humanity, intellect, and morality of the man shine through in this passage: "No man has a right to any good without partaking of the evil by which that good is necessarily produced; no man has a right to security by another's danger, nor to plenty by another's labor, but as he gives something of his own which he who meets the danger or undergoes the labor considers as equivalent. No man has a right to the security of government without bearing his share of its inconveniences."

SOME QUOTES

Wikipedia - Johnson says people who aim to do great things for humanity often end up feeling that they have not done as much as they should. This should not discourage us, however; the important thing is to do whatever we can.

"If I had ever found any of the self-contemners much irritated or pained by the consciousness of their meanness, I should have given them consolation by observing, that a little more than nothing is as much as can be expected from a being, who, with respect to the multitudes about him, is himself little more than nothing. Every man is obliged by the Supreme Master of the universe to improve all the opportunities of good which are afforded him, and to keep in continual activity such abilities as are bestowed upon him. But he has no reason to repine, though his abilities are small and his opportunities few. He that has improved the virtue, or advanced the happiness of one fellow-creature, he that has ascertained a single moral proposition, or added one useful experiment to natural knowledge, may be contented with his own performance, and, with respect to mortals like himself, may demand, like Augustus, to be dismissed at his departure with applause."

Stating that "money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and that the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use", Johnson praises those who spend their lives inventing new amusement for the rich and idle. Chief among these are the newswriters, who have multiplied greatly in recent years. Johnson identifies the necessary qualities of a journalist as "contempt of shame and indifference to truth", and says that wartime offers the perfect opportunity to exercise these.

"Among the calamities of war may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates, and credulity encourages. A peace will equally leave the warrior and relater of wars destitute of employment; and I know not whether more is to be dreaded from streets filled with soldiers accustomed to plunder, or from garrets filled with scribblers accustomed to lie."

Johnson bemoans the repetitiveness of news coverage. He suggests that, instead of announcing an event all at once and then rehashing it endlessly, newspaper writers should reveal the story gradually to keep readers entertained.

"Thus journals are daily multiplied without increase of knowledge. The tale of the morning paper is told again in the evening, and the narratives of the evening are bought again in the morning. These repetitions, indeed, waste time, but they do not shorten it. The most eager peruser of news is tired before he has completed his labor; and many a man, who enters the coffee-house in his nightgown and slippers, is called away to his shop, or his dinner, before he has well considered the state of Europe."

Johnson explains how he chose his pen name. "Every man is", he says, "or hopes to be, an Idler." He promises his readers "obloquy and satire": "The Idler is naturally censorious; those who attempt nothing themselves, think every thing easily performed, and consider the unsuccessful always as criminal." However, he says that this incurs no obligation and that disappointed readers will have only themselves to blame.

"Every mode of life has its conveniencies. The Idler, who habituates himself to be satisfied with what he can most easily obtain, not only escapes labous which are often fruitless, but sometimes succeeds better than those who despise all that is within their reach, and think every thing more valuable as it is harder to be acquired."

HOW THE BAUCUS PLAN SCREWS OLDER PEOPLE

Unsilent Generation - There are aspects of the Baucus health care reform plan that don't bode well for Medicare recipients. But the people who stand to get screwed most by the plan are those who aren't old enough to qualify for Medicare, but are still old enough to be discriminated against by insurance companies.

For several months, the Columbia Journalism Review has been publishing analyses of the Massachusetts health care system, which in many ways serves as a model for the current national health care reform-a "canary in the coal mine" for the rest of us. The state mandates that all residents have health insurance or face a tax penalty. And while it does provides some regulation of private insurers, it doesn't bar them for "age rating"-setting different premium rates based on age. . . State law allows insurers to charge older people up to twice as much as younger people for the same coverage. In other states, the disparities can be even greater. . .

The main solution that's been proposed for this problem is to make it "easier for self-employed people and retirees who are 50 to 64 to be exempted from a stiff tax penalty if they can't afford insurance." So rather than force insurance companies to stop discriminating on the basis of age, the state may begin "allowing" 60-year-olds to live without health insurance. So much for the great Massachusetts universal coverage model.

DAN BROWN CREATES A MYSTICAL CITY THAT DOESN'T EXIST

David Plotz, Slate - In the mid-1990s, just before Dan Brown discovered angels and demons, Washington, D.C.'s alternative weekly, the City Paper, published a popular column in which it tried to solve local mysteries sent in by readers uncovering the truth about baffling buildings, locations, and phenomena. The column was called "Washington's Mundane Mysteries," because, it turned out, that's what all of them were. Those sinister brown metal boxes on certain downtown street corners? Merely storage bins for extra copies of the Washington Post. That massive vault looming over Rock Creek Parkway? Just a Department of Public Works pump house.

This is not Dan Brown's Washington. In his new novel, The Lost Symbol, there are no mundane mysteries in Washington, no mysteries that can be solved with a phone call or two.

When I heard that Brown was setting his newest novel in the city where I've spent my entire life, I confess I was secretly excited and curious. I'm an addict of D.C. books, a sucker for conspiracies in the halls of power. Having slogged through The Da Vinci Code, I knew that Brown's Washington wouldn't precisely be the city as seen on C-SPAN. I expected a heavy dose of Freemasons but also hoped he could offer a cunning take on theologically suspect Supreme Court justices, ominous senatorial rituals, and the secrets of the White House. . . . I am sorry to report The Lost Symbol turns out to be perhaps the strangest novel ever written about Washington. It is awesomely wrong about what makes the city compelling.

The fundamental premise of The Lost Symbol is that Washington is a "mystical city," and it is this error that makes the book so maddening. In Brown's Washington, the marble, the wide streets, the monuments all signify some kind of connection with the divine. The city encodes transcendental secrets about God and the potential of the human mind. But anyone who has spent more than a Tourmobile ride in D.C. knows that what makes Washington interesting is its very smallness, the contrast between its grand architecture and the human machinations that take place within it. From high to low, from Democracy to The Pelican Brief, Washington novels have exploited and reveled in this human spectacle. There are conspiracies in Washington, but they are conspiracies about money, sex, elections, and public policy. Those are the currencies of our city.

Brown posits a Washington oozing with spiritual energy and secrets of the known universe. But in the real Washington, if you held a panel about the Ancient Mysteries, the unification of religion and science, and all that other Brownian hoo-ha, you couldn't fill a small conference room at the Brookings Institution even if you served a free lunch and invited all the interns. Washington is the least spiritual, and least mystical, place imaginable: No one has thought about their immortal soul here since Damn Yankees.

EUROPE FUNDS ORWELLIAN SPY PROGRAM THAT WOULD MONITOR 'ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR' ON WEB

Telegraph, UK - A five-year research program, called Project Indect, aims to develop computer programs which act as "agents" to monitor and process information from web sites, discussion forums, file servers, peer-to-peer networks and even individual computers. Its main objectives include the "automatic detection of threats and abnormal behavior or violence".

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of human rights group Liberty, described the introduction of such mass surveillance techniques as a "sinister step" for any country, adding that it was "positively chilling" on a European scale.

Stephen Booth, an Open Europe analyst who has helped compile a dossier on the European justice agenda, said . . . projects such as Indect sounded "Orwellian" and raised serious questions about individual liberty.

"This is all pretty scary stuff in my book. These projects would involve a huge invasion of privacy and citizens need to ask themselves whether the EU should be spending their taxes on them," he said.

"The EU lacks sufficient checks and balances and there is no evidence that anyone has ever asked 'is this actually in the best interests of our citizens?'"

Miss Chakrabarti said: "Profiling whole populations instead of monitoring individual suspects is a sinister step in any society.

"It's dangerous enough at national level, but on a Europe-wide scale the idea becomes positively chilling."

According to the official website for Project Indect, which began this year, its main objectives include "to develop a platform for the registration and exchange of operational data, acquisition of multimedia content, intelligent processing of all information and automatic detection of threats and recognition of abnormal behaviour or violence".

It talks of the "construction of agents assigned to continuous and automatic monitoring of public resources such as: web sites, discussion forums, usenet groups, file servers, p2p [peer-to-peer] networks as well as individual computer systems, building an internet-based intelligence gathering system, both active and passive".

York University's computer science department website details how its task is to develop "computational linguistic techniques for information gathering and learning from the web".

"Our focus is on novel techniques for word sense induction, entity resolution, relationship mining, social network analysis [and] sentiment analysis," it says.

A separate EU-funded research project, called Adabts – the Automatic Detection of Abnormal Behaviour and Threats in crowded Spaces – has received nearly L3 million. . .

It is seeking to develop models of "suspicious behavior" so these can be automatically detected using CCTV and other surveillance methods. The system would analyze the pitch of people's voices, the way their bodies move and track individuals within crowds. . .

Open Europe believes intelligence gathered by Indect and other such systems could be used by a little-known body, the EU Joint Situation Centre, which it claims is "effectively the beginning of an EU secret service". Critics have said it could develop into "Europe's CIA".

WHY LIBERALS DON'T DO BETTER

The BuzzFlash Progressive Marketplace - Don't Like the Right Wing Propaganda Blaring Everywhere you Go From a TV. Turn It Off with a TV B Gone Universal On/Off Remote for North America. . .

Revolutionary Clicker that will Turn off Any North American Television from 1-20 (possibly as far as 50) Feet Away (As Long as You Can Point Invisible Infra-Red Light at Television). Can't Stand FOX in a Bar? Your Relative Giving You a Headache by Watching CNBC But Hid the Remote? Listening to Hannity in a Laundromat Giving You a Headache? This is a Remarkable, Inexpensive Device! . . .

A BuzzFlash note: when you turn off a TV on private property, you do take a risk of being kicked out or perhaps even arrested. It's better to ask first to change the channel or turn the television off. BuzzFlash does not condone the breaking of any law or anyone getting into a fight or arrested over guerilla turn-off-television (or specific programming) tactics. That is a risk the user chooses to take. Remember, you must be within about 20 feet or less of the television and have the LED on the front of the remote aimed at the television. Because of different codes on televisions, it may take up to a minute to turn off as the keychain TV B Gone device goes through different codes. It can also be used to turn televisions back on. . .

BuzzFlash will be leading a campaign in relation to television watching in the news in the near future, building it as we progress together. And we will be focusing on right wing media propaganda stations. We won't be complaining or correcting them, because they don't give a damn. BuzzFlash has other ideas in mind, starting with turning them off.

WHERE THE BAILOUT ENDS. . .

LA Times - As it was, every seat was taken. One young woman plopped on the floor, next to a microwave oven. A young man stood in the corner, shifting from one foot to the other. Three teens scrunched on top of a desk. Everyone's attention was riveted on the slight, soft-spoken man pacing the small patch of bare linoleum in front of them.

It was a scene to warm the heart of any musician or stand-up comic. Alas, John Collier isn't an entertainer. He is a teacher, and this was his third period U.S. history class at Fairfax High School on the city's Westside. Forty-five students were shoehorned into a classroom designed for perhaps 30 -- and this on a day when three students were absent.

The impact of California's budget cuts has varied from school to school. Because of the patchwork of federal and state funding for education, some campuses have felt the pinch far less than others. But at schools like Fairfax, hard hit by the $6 billion in education reductions enacted by the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, this is shaping up to be one difficult year.

"I'm very frustrated," Collier said. "I mean, it's a good class -- it's an honors class, and the kids are really good. But it's unreasonable to ask me to teach a class of 48 kids and give attention to everybody."

GREAT MOMENTS IN OBAMASPEAK

George Stephanopoulos: That may be, but [the health care mandate] still a tax increase.

Obama: No. That's not true, George. The -- for us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it's saying is, is that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase. People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I'm not covering all the costs.

Stephanopoulos: But it may be fair, it may be good public policy. .

Obama: No, but -- but, George, you -- you can't just make up that language and decide that that's called a tax increase. Any. . .

Stephanopoulos: Here's the...

Obama: What -- what -- if I -- if I say that right now your premiums are going to be going up by 5 or 8 or 10 percent next year and you say well, that's not a tax increase; but, on the other hand, if I say that I don't want to have to pay for you not carrying coverage even after I give you tax credits that make it affordable, then...

Stephanopoulos: I -- I don't think I'm making it up. Merriam Webster's Dictionary: Tax -- "a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes."

Obama: George, the fact that you looked up Merriam's Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you're stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn't have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition. I mean what. . .

Stephanopoulos: Well, no, but. . .

Obama: ...what you're saying is...

Stephanopoulos: I wanted to check for myself. But your critics say it is a tax increase.

Obama: My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics say that I'm taking over every sector of the economy. You know that. Look, we can have a legitimate debate about whether or not we're going to have an individual mandate or not, but. . .

Stephanopoulos: But you reject that it's a tax increase?

Obama: I absolutely reject that notion.

WHY SALT TASTES GOOD ON ICE CREAM

Jorn Barger - [Recently on] Mad Men, Grandpa Gene ate ice cream right out of the container and salted each spoonful before putting it in his mouth. It was an odd sight. . . .salt isn't normally the first thing you think of as an ice cream topping. . . Salt has its own flavor when it's concentrated (if you salt foods too much or eat some all by itself) but used judiciously, salt takes the natural flavor of food and enhances the intensity. . . Salt makes ok food taste good and good food taste great. Along with butter, salt is the restaurant world's secret weapon; chefs likely use way more salt than you do when you cook at home. It's one of the reasons why restaurant food is so good.

As food scientist Harold McGee writes, salt probably won't make ice cream taste sweeter but will make it taste ice creamier, particularly if the ice cream is of low quality, as the store-bought variety might have been in 1963.

I'm not sure that salt makes sugar taste sweeter, but it fills out the flavor of foods, sweets included. It's an important component of taste in our foods, so if it's missing in a given dish, the dish will taste less complete or balanced. Salt also increase the volatility of some aromatic substances in food, and it enhances our perception of some aromas, so it can make the overall flavor of a food seem more intense.

BOOKSHELF: A PARADISE BUILT IN HELL

By Rebecca Solnit

Publishers Weekly: Natural and man-made disasters can be utopias that showcase human solidarity and point the way to a freer society, according this stimulating contrarian study. Solnit (River of Shadows) reproves civil defense planners, media alarmists and Hollywood directors who insist that disasters produce terrified mobs prone to looting, murder and cannibalism unless controlled by armed force and government expertise. Surveying disasters from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake to 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, she shows that the typical response to calamity is spontaneous altruism, self-organization and mutual aid, with neighbors and strangers calmly rescuing, feeding and housing each other. Indeed, the main problem in such emergencies, she contends, is the elite panic of officials who clamp down with National Guardsmen and stifling regulations ORDER

LOCAL HEROES: MAKING THE PATRIOT ACT LESS UNAMERICAN

U.S. Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Jon Tester (D-MT), Tom Udall (D-NM), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Daniel Akaka (D-HI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) have introduced legislation to fix some of the problems with surveillance laws. The proposed legislation includes more effective checks on government searches of Americans' personal records, the "sneak and peek" search provision of the PATRIOT Act, "John Doe" roving wiretaps and other overbroad authorities. The bill will also reform the FISA Amendments Act, passed last year, by repealing the retroactive immunity provision, preventing "bulk collection" of the contents of Americans' international communications, and prohibiting "reverse targeting" of innocent Americans.

SEVEN FORMER CIA HEADS TELL OBAMA NOT TO INVESTIGATE THEIR AGENCY'S CRIMES

Reuters - Seven former heads of the CIA urged President Barack Obama on Friday to end the probe into allegations of abuse of prisoners held by the agency, arguing that it would hamper intelligence operations. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder last month named a prosecutor to examine whether criminal charges should be filed against Central Intelligence Agency interrogators or contractors for going beyond approved interrogation methods, including using a power drill and death threats to scare detainees.
The former CIA chiefs countered that the cases had already been investigated during the Bush administration and lawyers had declined to prosecute all but one contractor.

"This approach will seriously damage the willingness of intelligence officers to take risks to protect the country," they said in the letter. "In our judgment, such risk-taking is vital to success in the long and difficult fight against terrorists who continue to threaten us.". . . The former CIA directors warned that Holder's decision "creates an atmosphere of continuous jeopardy" for those involved and that there was no reason to believe the investigation would be narrowly focused.

They also warned that releasing more details about interrogation methods could help al Qaeda operatives elude U.S. intelligence efforts and plan operations.

"Disclosures about CIA collection operations have and will continue to make it harder for intelligence officers to maintain the momentum of operations that have saved lives and helped protect America from further attacks," they said.

RIGHT WING DISCOVERS ALINSKY

Politico - At tea parties and town halls, conservative demonstrators oppose health care reform with signs bearing the abortion-rights slogan "Keep your laws off my body" or the line "Obama lies, Grandma dies" - an echo of the "Bush lied, they died" T-shirts worn to protest the Iraq war. Conservative activists are yelling "Nazi!" and "Big Brother!" where they used to shout "Nanny state!" and "Big Government!"

And the 1971 agitator's handbook "Rules for Radicals" - written by Saul Alinsky, the Chicago community organizer who was the subject of Hillary Clinton's senior thesis, and whose teachings helped shape Barack Obama's work on Chicago's South Side - has been among Amazon's top 100 sellers for the past month, put there in part by people who "also bought" books by Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck,and South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint. . .

Dick Armey did not, in fact, participate in the freedom rides of the 1960s. Brandon said the former House majority leader was an undergrad in Jamestown, N.D., at the time, working his way through school putting up electric poles, and "wasn't politically active at the time."

And while they're handing out Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" at FreedomWorks, Armey himself told the Financial Times last month: "What I think of Alinsky is that he was very good at what he did but what he did was not good."

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