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Thursday, January 29, 2009
Hothouse Flower?From the New York Times, word that Obama's not one for putting on layers of clothing and turning down the thermostat: The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.
“He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.” LOL! That's certainly a logical explanation: Don't raise the bridge, lower the river, I suppose? To be fair some liberal bloggers chided Obama for his environmental faux pas, but Wonkette somehow managed to convince itself that he was wearing a sweater: You will recall that, under Bush, everybody had to be in jacket and tie at 6:45 AM, on Saturdays, because he was a *****. President Obama goes to work around 9 AM — later than your Wonkette, for christ’s sake! — and sometimes he wears a SWEATER over his shirt instead of a proper tailcoat and jodhpurs. Yep, they managed to turn it into a celebration of the One, and got a chance to bash Bush as well!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Updike PassesI was not a big fan of his "Rabbit" novels, but the man had some talent. One of my absolute favorite bits of baseball writing was his "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu", the story of Ted Williams' final game. A tight little flock of human sparrows who, from the lambent and pampered pink of their faces, could only have been Boston politicians moved toward the plate. The loudspeakers mammothly coughed as someone huffed on the microphone. The ceremonies began. Curt Gowdy, the Red Sox radio and television announcer, who sounds like everybody's brother-in-law, delivered a brief sermon, taking the two words "pride" and "champion" as his text. It began, "Twenty-one years ago, a skinny kid from San Diego, California . . ." and ended, "I don't think we'll ever see another like him." Indeed. Labels: John Updike
Monday, January 26, 2009
Ayers: Still DeludedCheck out this amazing interview with the Weather Underground nut: But the third aspect of the dishonesty was the idea that some Americans are true and real and OK Americans and other Americans are marginal and bad and dangerous and toxic. The problem with that is that we live in a wild and diverse democracy, and I’m as much an American as Sarah Palin. I was born here. I’m a citizen I have every right to speak.
And the idea that she was trying …to say that because I hold certain views or because I have a certain history – that incidentally that I have dealt with and that I have accounted for in every way required of me – somehow disqualifies me from public participation. There's so much crap in there, it's hard to tell where to start shoveling. He has "accounted for" his history? Not true; although he (mostly) admits involvement in dozens of bombings, he almost never admits exactly what he did. He doesn't think that some Americans are marginal and bad and dangerous and toxic? I suspect he didn't feel that way about LBJ or Richard Nixon back in the day. Nobody says that his history disqualifies him from public participation. But his history does deserve to be considered as part of analyzing his public participation. Nobody says he doesn't have every right to speak; just as nobody says we have to listen to his deluded ramblings.
Friday, January 23, 2009
The Juicebox MafiaThe continuing war between lefty bloggers and the New Republic magazine continues. Ezra Klein, one of the most influential liberal pundits in the media writes: I actually agree with one part of Jon Chait's attack on J Street: There is, among liberals, a sort of "narrative of persecution and bravery" attached to criticizing Israel. And Chait is right: This narrative is wrong. It's wrong despite his best efforts, but wrong nevertheless.
Chait notes the case of Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at Harvard University, and so will I. Walt is the co-author of The Israel Lobby, a book that has some problems but a whole lot more truth than its critics admit. The thesis of The Israel Lobby is simple, and much of it verges on the obvious. It holds that American policy towards Israel is the result of interest group politics. Just as there is a sugar lobby that shapes sugar subsidies and a Cuba lobby that sustains the embargo, there is an "Israel Lobby" that works assiduously to shape our policy towards Israel. And this lobby, like many other lobbies, has been successful. And the resulting policy hasn't been optimal for either America or Israel. J Street is discussed by Chait here: Last year, a new Middle East lobby called J Street was formed to push American Jewish opinion in a more conciliatory direction. "What we're responding to," wrote J Street Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami last year, "is that for too long there's been an alliance between the neo-cons, the radical right ofthe Christian Zionist movement and the far-right portions of the Jewish community that has really locked up what it means to be pro-Israel." Well, you can imagine what folks like Ben-Ami considers to be "pro-Israel"; basically it means to be pro-Palestine and to decry the influence of the Israel Lobby (AIPAC). Chait points out that there is a narrative popular among the Left that basically says that if you go against Israel you will be derided as an anti-Semite and drummed out of polite discourse. The first part may be true (Klein offers examples) but both Klein and Chait agree that the latter is not. To me, the Left's fascination with the Palestinians is revealing, but not of anti-Semitism (although there is some of that too). It's more that it reveals the infantile template that Lefties impose on new situations: Oppressor bad, oppressed good. It's a template that sometimes works--the civil rights movement, sexual harassment, etc., but causes quite a bit of mischief when it doesn't. For starters, who's to say the Israelis are the oppressors and the Palestinians the oppressed? I would imagine the citizens of Sderot have felt oppressed over the last several years. TNR head honcho Marty Peretz has dubbed Klein and other anti-Israel bloggers the Juicebox Mafia, which is a terrific term (so good that Klein is apparently considering marketing it).
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Disappointments Are A Part of Life...But times reading about them is very satisfying. So loud, in fact, you can feel it outside the security perimeter.
That's right, despite having in hand magic purple tickets, and lining up hours before the gates opened, I saw nothing. I heard, beyond the guns, nothing.
I followed all the signs, I went to the appointed spot. . . and what? There was almost no one who had a clue of what was to happen next. Some people who seemed to know what they were talking about stood on the back of a garbage truck and shouted--sans any amplification--so that all anyone could make out was that they were pointing in a certain direction. Most of us followed.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Cardinals In the Super Bowl?Well, we've got a black man headed for the White House and the Redbirds heading to Tampa; how many would have dreamed that possible four years ago?
Friday, January 16, 2009
Heroic US Air Pilot ProfiledNice to see a hero being celebrated for a change: The pilot of Flight 1549 was Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III, 57, of Danville, Calif., an official familiar with the accident told The Associated Press. Sullenberger is a former fighter pilot who runs a safety consulting firm in addition to flying commercial aircraft.
Sullenberger, who has flown for US Airways since 1980, flew F-4 fighter jets with the Air Force in the 1970s. He then served on a board that investigated aircraft accidents and participated later in several National Transportation Safety Board investigations.
Sullenberger had been studying the psychology of keeping airline crews functioning even in the face of crisis, said Robert Bea, a civil engineer who co-founded UC Berkeley's Center for Catastrophic Risk Management.
Bea said he could think of few pilots as well-situated to bring the plane down safely than Sullenberger. And: The pilot "did a masterful job of landing the plane in the river and then making sure that everybody got out," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "He walked the plane twice after everybody else was off, and tried to verify that there was nobody else on board, and he assures us there was not." More here: In the minutes after takeoff, the pilot managed to maneuver past the skyscrapers of Manhattan and into the crowded Hudson River, even though the engines were disabled after apparently hitting a flock of geese.
Passengers said the plane was vibrating violently and the cabin began to fill with smoke. To reach its splashdown spot, witnesses said the jet glided over the George Washington Bridge before plopping into the water.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
20th Hijacker 'Tortured'Says a judge. The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a "life-threatening condition." Jules Crittenden comes up with a good response; only use techniques which have been approved by liberal bloggers: Throwing heavy objects at people, for example. It would normally considered a criminal act, and certainly was not authorized treatment of U.S. detainees at any time during the last troubled eight years. But in the wake of the Muntader al-Shoedi Brogan-chucking incident, throwing things has been embraced by the Arab world and the American Left as a legitimate form of speech. Consequently, it would seem there is no reasonable barrier to talking to people in this manner as part of a responsible, humane effort to encourage them to see the errors of their ways. In other news, all those "completely innocent" people who were swept up to Gitmo and eventually released? Terror suspects who have been held but released from Guantanamo Bay are increasingly returning to the fight against the United States and its allies, the Pentagon said today.
Sixty-one detainees who have been released from the U.S. Navy base prison in Cuba are believed to have rejoined the fight, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said. That is up from 37 previously, Morrell said. Of course, the bleeding hearts will claim that their adoption of terrorism stems from their treatment at Guantanamo.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Liberal Dope at the White HouseAirhead, too. One month after the worst attack in U.S. history, George W. Bush watched a 100-minute-long Anthony Hopkins film called Hearts in Atlantis.
It is an awful movie, and as it drags on I feel increasingly uneasy. Surely the president should be doing something else. Occasionally he gets a phone call from Andy Card, his chief of staff, who, as I understand it, is in the West Wing meeting with the head of the F.A.A. to determine when Washington’s Reagan National Airport will be safe to completely re-open (some flights began operating earlier in the week). Each time the phone rings, I hope the president will excuse himself to join them. But he doesn’t. Over the phone, the president tells the men to “get that airport opened up!” and then heads to bed.
That night I leave the White House feeling more anxious about our national security than when I arrived. Of course, national security did not suffer during the Bush Administration. He seems to think that the president should be running around like a demon, opening the airport himself.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
The Cardinals One Game from the Super Bowl?Good lord, I never thought this would happen. I root for the Cardinals, but refuse to live and die with the team, because there's too much dying. When they first moved to the Valley in 1988, I remember a friend insisting that he was going to bleed Cardinal red from then on. I told him that he'd better get some transfusions ready, because he was about to do a lot of bleeding. The Cardinals back then were clearly one of the worst NFL franchises in history. You could make an argument for the Tampa Bay Bucs, but even the Bucs in only 13 seasons had the same number of postseason victories (1) as the Cardinals. And they have not exactly covered their time in Arizona in glory. This is only the second time (in 21 years) that they have had a winning record. It was noted that this was the first time since 1975 that they had won their division. I'll be rooting for the Iggles this afternoon, because if that happens, the Cardinals will host the NFC Championship. But if past history is any indication, the Cardinals, in a game they should win, will lose. Sorry, but out here we're pretty fatalistic about the team.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Jimmuh Speaks OutAnd removes all doubt that he's a fool. Since we were only observers, and not negotiators, we relayed this information to the Egyptians, and they pursued the cease-fire proposal. After about a month, the Egyptians and Hamas informed us that all military action by both sides and all rocket firing would stop on June 19, for a period of six months, and that humanitarian supplies would be restored to the normal level that had existed before Israel's withdrawal in 2005 (about 700 trucks daily).
We were unable to confirm this in Jerusalem because of Israel's unwillingness to admit to any negotiations with Hamas, but rocket firing was soon stopped and there was an increase in supplies of food, water, medicine and fuel. Yet the increase was to an average of about 20 percent of normal levels. And this fragile truce was partially broken on Nov. 4, when Israel launched an attack in Gaza to destroy a defensive tunnel being dug by Hamas inside the wall that encloses Gaza. Ah, it was a defensive tunnel? On another visit to Syria in mid-December, I made an effort for the impending six-month deadline to be extended. It was clear that the preeminent issue was opening the crossings into Gaza. Representatives from the Carter Center visited Jerusalem, met with Israeli officials and asked if this was possible in exchange for a cessation of rocket fire. Wait a minute! I'm confused. Wasn't there supposed to be a six-month ceasefire that Carter was trying to extend? If so, how is it possible that one of the things beinf offered by Hamas was "a cessation of rocket fire"? Labels: Gaza, Israel, Jimmy Carter
Boycott the BCS?Bill James, the famed writer of baseball books, suggests we do just that. In truth, my objections to the system are a little different than Stern's. His biggest objection, I think, is No. 4 above—that the BCS system is used to justify something that should not be justified. To me, the deal-breaker is No. 3—the imposition on the computer rankings of irrational rules that essentially guarantee the failure of the process. James is spot-on there. He points out that due to complaints about teams running up the score, the computer rankings are forbidden to take into account the scores of games, or even which team was at home. That's insane. There are ways to adjust for runaway scores, but to treat a 21-20 loss on the road as the same thing as a 57-14 loss at home is ridiculous. Labels: Bill James, College Football
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
The First Sign You're In TroubleReading this article on an author who lost a small fortune in the Bernie Madoff scandal, this popped out at me: I often asked Richard, the head of our feeder fund, how Madoff made such consistently good returns. Although Richard tried to explain it to me, it was clear he didn't know, either, because I'd leave our meetings still unable to explain to anyone else how it worked. Years ago, I partnered with another real estate guy to make mortgage loans on apartment complexes. We had one lender who had two different loan officers whom I'll call Steve and Sally. Steve was a big picture guy, the sort of person you'd put up to give a speech on the philosophy of lending. Sally was the nuts and bolts person. As it happened their skills complemented each other, so they should have worked well together. But their company decided to put them in competition for loans, and my partner and I were supposed to choose one of them. Well, you can probably guess the problem. My partner, who's a great talker, wanted to go with Steve, while I wanted to go with Sally. Being an accommodating guy I went along with the choice of Steve for a few weeks. But there was a problem. I would call Steve with a nuts and bolts problem; how do I do X. Steve would launch into a 15 minute discourse on X and how it related to Y, at the end of which I often felt like I knew less than when we started. So I started suggesting to my partner that we go back to Sally. He resisted. So I tried to get the loans done through Steve, with the result that one of them got completely mangled in underwriting, despite the fact that I had previously confirmed the analysis with Steve. It cost us a pretty good commission, and I was able to convince my partner to switch our business back to Sally. Moral of the story: If somebody can't explain something to you, it's probably because they don't understand it themselves. And if they don't understand it themselves, why are you relying on them to make major financial decisions that will affect you?
Monday, January 05, 2009
The Most Annoying Liberals of 2008Compiled over at RWN. I generally agree with his picks, especially the top spot. Labels: John Hawkins, Liberals, Right Wing News
Social Activist Supports Peace, Non-Violence; Becomes OutcastOf course, this is not how this piece is being spun: When the scheduled federal trial begins this month for two Texas men who were arrested during the Republican National Convention on charges of making and possessing Molotov cocktails, one of the major witnesses against them will be a community activist who acted as a government informant.
Brandon Darby, an organizer from Austin, Tex., made the news public himself, announcing in an open letter posted on Dec. 30 on Indymedia.org that he had worked as an informant, most recently at last year’s Republican convention in St. Paul. Mr. Darby’s revelations caused shock and indignation in the activist community, with people in various groups and causes accusing him of betrayal.
“The emerging truth about Darby’s malicious involvement in our communities is heart-breaking and utterly ground-shattering,” said the Austin Informant Working Group, a collection of activists from the city who worked with Mr. Darby. “Through the history of our struggles for a better world, infiltrators and informants have acted as tools for the forces of misery in disrupting and derailing our movements.” Actually there is no indication he was an infiltrator; rather it appears obvious that he was a legitimate volunteer who became an informant when he learned of plans for violence at the RNC. But that doesn't stop a HuffPo blogger from waxing indignant: The trial for Austin residents David McKay and Bradley Crowder is on January 26th, and each could be imprisoned for up to 30 years. I am hoping that within three weeks our new administration stops shadowing those trying to rebuild my city like they are enemy combatants. Because it is important that social activists like McKay and Crowder be free to make as many molotov cocktails as needed. Hat Tip: Memeorandum. Labels: Bradley Crowder, Brandon Darby, David McKay
Friday, January 02, 2009
Short Palin, Go Long RomneyOddsmakers have installed Sarah Palin as the favorite to win the Republican nomination in 2012. Despite a slew of negative press this fall about Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) running mate, online gaming site Superbook.com puts Palin’s odds at 3.5-1, the best among Republican hopefuls.
Other top GOP contenders include former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, whose odds are set at 4-1, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, at 5-1. As I pointed out earlier, VP candidates on losing tickets their first time around are very poor bets to win their party's nomination the next time around. In fact, I went back to the 1930s and couldn't find a time it happened. I like Palin. But as Allah points out, 2012 is likely to favor the Democrats, barring a Jimmuh Carter term for Obama. If that looks like the case, expect the younger players to sit it out, leaving room for Romney or some dark horse candidate like Charlie Crist. Labels: Charlie Crist, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin
Greg Sargent is moving over to write a Washington Post blog. Michael Goldfarb writes: Greg Sargent, the prolific TPM reporter, announced today that he's heading to the Washington Post to run a new blog. Sargent is an unrepentant Democratic partisan, which means he should fit in well with the staff at the Post, but also a top notch reporter. During the campaign, Sargent would ping the McCain press shop with questions all day long. Because TPM is so overtly partisan, he rarely got the answers he was looking for, but for his persistence, if nothing else, Sargent earned a grudging respect from the McCain staff. Sargent, of course, was the American Prospect writer whom I forced a retraction out of on the Jack Abramoff story (with expert assistance from Donald Luskin). That story also ended up causing a retraction by Paul Krugman. Labels: Greg Sargent
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