Stanley Kurtz at the National Review Online describes how he was first granted and then denied access to the records of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a fund worth $50 million led by Bill Ayers and chaired at one point by Barack Obama. Kurtz’s research purpose was to discover the extent of Barack Obama’s relatinship with Ayers, and the part the Candidate played in Chicago educational politics. The Wikipedia entry notes that the Challenge suggests that its story and the role it played in the politics of education in Chicago promised to be an interesting one.
The Collaborative’s responsibility was to help identify potential grant recipients, prepare requests for proposals and develop other means for the Challenge to intervene in supporting the local school council-led reform process in Chicago. In 1995 the mayor of Chicago succeeded in the first of several efforts to undermine the power of these councils. But the Challenge fought back by funneling millions of dollars into the councils and associated reform groups, including $175,000 to the Small Schools Workshop. The Workshop had been established in the early 1990s by William Ayers who hired Mike Klonsky, a Chicago cab driver who had earned a Ph.D. in education from the University of South Florida, and former activist with Ayers in Students for a Democratic Society, or SDS. Klonsky had achieved limited notoriety in 1977 when he traveled to Beijing to seek the endorsement of Communist China for a political party he had helped establish in the United States, the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist).
At times the attempt by the Challenge was controversial. An effort to funnel $2 million to the Local Schools Councils was criticized by one Challenge board member, Arnold Weber, a business sector representative and former President of Northwestern University, who saw the Councils as a potential “political threat” to school principals. Of course, the councils were formed precisely to provide parent and political activists with the power to influence schools. Board chairman Obama offered to meet with the Collaborative to resolve the concerns raised by Weber.
The answers to many of the controversies may be contained in the CAC’s own voluminous records, which Kurtz had been granted permission to inspect. He wrote of the trove with same anticipation as Edmund Dantes might have felt when he found the cave of jewels beneath on his fated island:
a large cache of documents housed in the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC)… that document cache contains the internal files of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The records in question are extensive, consisting of 132 boxes, containing 947 file folders, a total of about 70 linear feet of material.
As Kurtz prepared to board his flight to Chicago with written permission in hand to access the documents, he received a message informing him his access to the CAC documents had been pulled.
Just before my plane took off, I received an e-mail from the special-collections librarian informing me that she had “checked our collection file” and determined that “access to the collection is closed.” I would be permitted to view the single CAC-related file from the Office of the Chancellor records, but nothing from the CAC records proper. … After arriving in Chicago, I found a message, not from the special-collections librarian, but from Ann C. Weller, professor and head, Special Collections Department. In answer to my question of who had authority over access to the collection, Weller said, that “the decision was made by me” in consultation with the library director. Weller stated that no one currently has access to the collection and added that: “The Collection is closed because it has come to our attention that there is restricted material in the collection. Once the collection has been processed it will be open to any patron interested in viewing it.”
It’s an interesting story because it illustrates how much importance people put upon controlling information. If Kurtz had been represented by someone else, or if he had hired a graduate in education to study CAC as a case study in effective advocacy, he might gotten further. As it was, he probably set off every alarm bell in an unspecified outer defense shield. In this case, it’s not clear who is controlling the information, whether it is at the behest of William Ayers, Barack Obama or whether it has just happened that way. Until the documents are opened — “after the collection has been processed” — then it may turn out there is nothing in those archives at all but dry-as-dust accounts discussions between Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn and others and between Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn and others. Umberto Eco, writing about a search for the truth — and a crime — in a fictional library, wrote this dialogue between his two principal characters, the novice Adso of Melk and the monk William of Baskerville.
“I have never doubted the truth of signs, Adso; they are the only things man has with which to orient himself in the world. What I did not understand is the relation among signs . . . I behaved stubbornly, pursuing a semblance of order, when I should have known well that there is no order in the universe.”
“But in imagining an erroneous order you still found something. . . .”
“What you say is very fine, Adso, and I thank you. The order that our mind imagines is like a net, or like a ladder, built to attain something. But afterward you must throw the ladder away, because you discover that, even if it was useful, it was meaningless . . . The only truths that are useful are instruments to be thrown away.”
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159 Comments
1. Terry Baker:Welcome to Chicago.
Aug 18, 2008 - 6:18 pm 2. John Blake:“Certain schools maintain that words are all we have, so all we have are words. … Words echo voices of the dead. How else bespeak ideas? Here be dragons, in Terra Incognita on blank charts: Reality takes us all for fools.”
Anyone who thinks the likes of Ayers and Dohrn would ever release their “secret archives of the Inner Party” (Orwell) little understands the totalitarian mentality. Meantime “the evil that men do lives after them,” as Brutus in deadly circumstances once declaimed.
Aug 18, 2008 - 6:26 pm 3. Wolf Pangloss:That reminds me that the Billary Clintons were going to release all their papers too. How’s that little charade going?
Aug 18, 2008 - 6:27 pm 4. lc:Is it true that the child is father to the man?
Aug 18, 2008 - 6:49 pm 5. MarkJ:Imagine if, oh say, an individual of Democrat inclinations tried to look into a prominent Republican politician’s earlier affiliations and activities…and ended up being stonewalled in the same way as Mr. Kurtz. Don’t you think they’d be screaming to the New York Times about a conspiracy faster than you can spell W.A.T.E.R.G.A.T.E.?
Aug 18, 2008 - 7:08 pm 6. NahnCee:Betcha they’d let Sandy Berg in to review whatever his little heart and sticky fingers desired.
Or maybe not, since he’d be reporting back to Bill and Hillary on what he found.
Aug 18, 2008 - 7:16 pm 7. NahnCee:Ooops – above should (of course) read Sandy Berger.
Aug 18, 2008 - 7:17 pm 8. bobal:It’s Sandy “socks” Burglar, not Berger.
Aug 18, 2008 - 7:22 pm 9. Lifeofthemind:The mileu of Hyde Park conspiratorial left wing politcs produces a culture that needs thorough airing. The best way to expose it to public scrutiny would be through some BBC costume drama. Unfortunately there is not enough time before the election. There are variants of this dominating to some degree most campus communities in America now. Perhaps Berkely has a similar feel. The difference for the University of Chicago may be the bright line running back to the 1930s. Few other schools are like Chicago. This may in part be because it does not have an Engineering department, because it is at heart a graduate school, because it is isolated from the coasts, because the proletarian industrial and racial politics of the region feed into left wing narratives. At Columbia there was a strong old left comunity before WW-II and strong new left forces after the war but only a tiny minority could feel themselves totally wrapped into that sealed world over the last 30 years. For people who are living this activist dream it can be like time has stood still. They can imagine themselves as joining the world of the Cambridge spies Burgess, Maclean and Philby.
Aug 18, 2008 - 7:34 pm 10. jaymaster:This might well be an unpopular position here, but before I get all a twitter on this one, I’d like to know how much of this money came from private donations versus how much came from public tax money.
It doesn’t matter really to me, because I won’t be voting for Obama anyway, but on principal….
If the majority of the cash came from private contributions, then I don’t have a problem with keeping that info, well, private. But if it came from federal or local tax monies, then it’s a different story.
Aug 18, 2008 - 7:35 pm 11. Gus Smot:And WHAT would you have the librarian do? BETRAY the very grant recipients who entrusted their causes and hopes to the Challenge?
How many grant recipients, councils and associated reform groups need to be dragged through the American public’s notorious media gauntlet, until they are but sobbing sound bytes bemoaning their ill-fated sex tapes and the Rube Goldberg devilry that broadcast it globally? How does that promote public service?
I should love to see the Neocons try to sully the tales of those same Collaborative servants who, on that day of days in chilly unsuspecting January, did win a wealth of funds, public and private, from the greedy grip of the Common’s scarcity! To stand against them was to beckon a storm of them, flooding into Special Collections reading area, some lilting a list of wrongdoings, others shrieking the names of abstract principles, as if to mourn them. Resist they may, but the Fox News Cameras and even the mighty Cavuto himself would be swallowed into the undulating mass of sweaters, scraggly hair and patched blazers!
Aug 18, 2008 - 7:38 pm 12. Doug:William Ayers, Model Citizen?
Amazingly, instead of disowning Ayers — which would make a lot more sense — Obama’s rebuttal document defends the man who implicated himself in terror bombings in his own 2001 memoir, Fugitive Days. The document calls it a “lie” that Ayers is an “unrepentant domestic terrorist” and that “the impression of Ayers’s good citizenship is incorrect.” It attempts, with endorsements from Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and two university professors, to make the case that Ayers is really a model citizen.
A model citizen — at least if you overlook the sworn congressional testimony that ties Ayers to a murder…
—
‘They Wanted More School’
Obama on education reform.
In his book The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama tells of a “youth town hall meeting” he conducted in 2005 at Thornton Township High School, in what he describes as a predominantly black suburb of Chicago. To prepare for the visit by their newly elected and highly popular senator, students there were surveyed about the quality of their education, with the idea that they could present their concerns.
Obama writes:
“[T]heir number one issue was this: Because the school district couldn’t afford to keep teachers for a full school day, Thornton let out every day at 1:30 in the afternoon. With the abbreviated schedule, there was no time for students to take science lab or foreign language classes.
How come we’re getting shortchanged? they asked me. Seems like nobody even expects us to go to college, they said.
They wanted more school.”
Senator Obama probably did not know that the average teacher in Thornton Township District earned an impressive $83,000 that year, short days notwithstanding. (The figure does not include administrators, who made much more.)
In fact, more than one-quarter of the district’s teachers made more than $100,000 in 2005, according to figures compiled from the Illinois Board of Education by Champion News under the state’s freedom of information laws.
But Obama did at least identify the short school day at Thornton as a problem. Unfortunately, he has been less than audacious about the same problem in the nearby City of Chicago — a place where the teachers’ union that strongly supports him has been shortchanging children for decades in precisely this same way.
The elementary-school day and year in Chicago proper are the shortest of any major U.S. city. It lasts five hours and 45 minutes, and the schools are open just 174 days per year. This is entirely a result of the intransigence of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), a staunch ally of Barack Obama and an early endorser of his presidential candidacy.
The CTU has vigorously resisted all attempts to increase instruction time in Chicago schools. In 2007, the CTU thwarted Mayor Richard M. Daley’s attempt to make teachers teach for full school days. They negotiated a new contract that contained no extra hours but significant pay raises for the next four years.
—
David Freddoso –
• Life Lies – 08/17
• Life with Obama – 08/13
• Dreams From My Farmer – 08/05
Aug 18, 2008 - 7:45 pm 13. steveaz:I am reminded of John Kerry’s military records. I think we’re still waiting for those.
Knowing the mind of the naughty child, I’ll make a parent’s prediction: I expect the Fund’s protectors will stonewall for a while to build suspense, and to draw O’s opponents into making public speculations about the records’ contents…and then they’ll release a sanitized version of the records to their favorite ‘news’ organization, the New York Times.
The Times’ story-line will be “Gosh, Neocons, what was all the fuss about.”
Aug 18, 2008 - 7:54 pm 14. whiskey:Jaymaster and Gus Smot –
The Annenberg Challenge received both state and federal funds, and IIRC City of Chicago funds.
Therefore, a public accounting is in order.
Smot’s position is — of course dirty, radical dealings were at hand. THAT’S why it’s being hidden.
The danger of course is that Obama will be exposed as a liar (”Ayers is just a guy who lives in my neighborhood.”) Instead being shown intimately involved with Ayers and Dorhn over a decade.
Aug 18, 2008 - 8:19 pm 15. Konyok:Wretchard the cat’s ears swivel hither and yon and unerringly settle on the heart of the matter.
“We are the ones that we have been waiting for.”
And who was it that prepared the ground for him?
William Ayers is the key to unlock the secrets of Barack Obama.
Aug 18, 2008 - 8:25 pm 16. wretchard:Kurtz, however he may protest, is probably locked out of the records. They may have been closed simply because the records should remain confidential. However, the initial grant of access followed by its withdrawal will present the appearance that someone has done the calculation that the resentment or suspicion generated by closing off the records will represent a lower cost than allowing it to be revealed, a kind of minimax. It’s a dead end now, but a tantalizing one, the finis Africae of the labyrinth. It is precisely because Obama is such a mysterious figure that these dead ends or closed records have such an effect. If the public knew him better, and had a better sense of who he was, then there would probably be less interest in clues.
Aug 18, 2008 - 8:26 pm 17. Voltimand:This collection is housed in the library of a public university of the state of Illinois, which answers ultimately to the Illinois state legislature and specifically to whatever legislative committee(s) have a say about how it is operated because it has a say about how it is funded. The remarkable statement by the local professorial gatekeeper that there are documents that are “restricted” is a hoot. All materials go into library collections on the assumption that they are there for the purposes of research (remember research? That’s what people at universities do . . .) Closing such collections “until” they are vetted is a reasonable thing to do, provided that you can give a good reason why such documents have not been vetted heretofore. A single member of the Illinois state legislature can wreak havoc with that argument.
If Stanley Kurtz knows what he’s doing, he willforth with go over the heads of the library sentries to the state officials responsible for such collections, and see what kind of moving and shaking he can accomplish.
If there’s an ayers-obama axis waiting to leap out like a jack-in-the-box, that would give even more impetus to getting the light of day on this business. Remember, it’s not the deed, it’s the cover-up. UIC’s library has provided the cover-up.
This is by no means a closed case.
Aug 18, 2008 - 8:33 pm 18. jaymaster:OK then, if it was public funds, then public disclosure is in order.
To be honest, I don’t know the details. And I don’t really care about this one, so I’m not even going to follow the links and do the research. Sorry.
IMO, there are enough other reasons to vote for McCain that this one is down in the noise floor.
Aug 18, 2008 - 8:33 pm 19. Peterike:As if anyone who’s paid the slightest attention doesn’t already know Oblarney is a stone-cold Marxist. As if apples don’t fall far from trees.
It’s all patently clear to any honest observer. Marxism was — as literally as possible — mother’s milk to BHO, and grandmother’s milk, and surrogate father’s milk, and college professor’s milk, and on and on. He sips from no other springs. What else can he be?
It’s good that real journalists — not any from the NY Times, natch — pursue these specific issues, because bit by bit they bubble up, and this election is bound to be a close run thing (I figure a few tight states, at least, will go to BHO based entirely on voter fraud). Bit by bit the word seeps out, like the oil off the California shore. Will enough seep out in time? I don’t know.
We have the conventions, where anything can happen. Then the debates. There will be debates, won’t there? BHO has shown with the recent Saddleback affair that he is even more Bushlike than Bush when asked a question that throws him. Which is to say, when asked a question he can only answer with a lie. Which is to say, without a script he’s a bad liar.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Allen West for Congress!!
Aug 18, 2008 - 8:36 pm 20. Voltimand:http://www.allenwestforcongress.com/
BTW, I didn’t check the above discourse that carefully. Did anyone note that Ayers is a faculty member of UIC? Like all cover-ups, the gunpowder trails lead to detonations in multiple directions.
Aug 18, 2008 - 8:39 pm 21. Doug:The hope is such details might convince some other voters to change their minds.
It is, as we all know so well, all about
Aug 18, 2008 - 8:41 pm 22. Konyok:Hope and Change.
Or, is it that Barack Obama is the key to the secrets of William Ayers?
Aug 18, 2008 - 8:41 pm 23. Alexis:GS:
If the records of Senator Obama’s friends ought to be accorded confidentiality, shouldn’t that confidentiality also be accorded to the records of neoconservatives? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
I don’t particularly like how General Motors, Firestone, and Standard Oil got together to buy up trolley companies and replace city trolley systems with gasoline-powered buses. Yet, if obstructionist tactics used by Ayers & Co are legitimate, so are the same tactics when used by corporate polluters.
The tobacco companies eventually had whistleblowers. When will nonprofit philanthropic corporations also get their whistleblowers? It appears to me that corruption and nepotism within nonprofit corporations is one of the most underreported scandals in modern America.
Aug 18, 2008 - 8:45 pm 24. starling:Wretchard wrote: Kurtz, however he may protest, is probably locked out of the records.
Kurtz appeals to his readers at the end of the piece to write, email, or call the UIC President and ask for the release of the records
I took Kurtz’s suggestion and sent an email to PresidentWhite@uillinois.edu
My letter is below. Feel free to use or modify as you see fit.
thoughtfully
starling
***
From: Starling D Hunter [mailto:starling@MIT.EDU]
Sent: Mon 8/18/2008 4:33 PM
To: PresidentWhite@uillinois.edu
Subject: Making CAC Records Available
Dear President White:
I have recently learned that UIC is refusing to make available to interested
parties records of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge that are in your library’s
possession. I urge you to immediately make those records available and,
further, to take all necessary measures to ensure their safety and integrity.
I also strongly encourage you to make known the identity of the person(s) who
has donated the CAC papers so that (s)he might be petitioned to grant full and
unfettered access of the collection to the public.
As we both know these documents contain information about the service and
associations of Senator Barack Obama, the current Democratic nominee for
President of the United States. Given the unique rigors of that high office,
as well as the especial importance that all Americans rightly place on
leadership style and executive ability, these records will surely help to flesh
out the portrait of this candidate who could be our next Chief Executive.
It is of utmost importance that you grant access to these records. I trust that
you, President White, will do so and promptly.
thoughtfully
Aug 18, 2008 - 8:51 pm 25. cjm:Dr. Starling D. Hunter III
given that obama has never done or said anything remotely interesting, these closed archives are just more of the same. we already know all we need to know about mr empty.
Aug 18, 2008 - 9:25 pm 26. Konyok:William Ayers abandoned the direct action radicalism of his youth and converted to Gramscian-Fabian revolution.
His father’s lawyers succeeded in obfuscating the conspiracy charges against him in the Weatherman bomb plots.
When Ayers surfaced from his flight from justice he pursued a master’s degree in education. To his utter amazement, he found that the gate was unguarded. To his further amazement he found that having been a fugitive from the law was far from an obstacle to his new career. It gave him distinction. To the timid souls in the education department he was an exciting and romantic figure.
Over time, Bill mastered the jargon and cultivated the right connections. He secured a nice sinecure for Bernadette and made a name for himself in education.
Today William Ayers is a respected educational theorist with a special interest in developing and implementing curricula. (In fact, Ayers is the current vice president of Curriculum Studies for the American Educational Research Association, AERA.)
He is the author of several influential books on education, the focus on integrating social justice themes into such disparate subjects as science, mathematics, and, yes, social studies.
Is he the one who prepares his ground?
Here are some pertinent links:
http://www.matthewktabor.com/2008/05/19/revisiting-aera-bill-ayers-the-weather-underground-and-public-education/
http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon0423ss.html
The infamous NYT Sept. 11, 2001 book review:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE1438F932A2575AC0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=3
And the great man’s own web site:
http://www.billayers.org/
Aug 18, 2008 - 9:33 pm 27. John Samford:OT, Here are some Soviet military maps of the former sovereign state of Georgia. Did the Russians leave yet?
http://www.topomaps.eu/caucasus/georgia100k.shtml
Enjoy. Nothing like a good topo to make things clear.
Aug 18, 2008 - 9:36 pm 28. John Samford:On topic, The old library dodge is a time honored way for politicians to spend some of their bribes. Look at Rabbit Carter and his 400,000 he got from the Saudi’s to put the shaft to Israel.
Aug 18, 2008 - 9:41 pm 29. NahnCee:It beats having your VP get caught red-handed with a bag full of Chinese bribe money.
Contributions to Presidential libraries should be limited to 100$US per person.
If the University and/or elected officials won’t divvy up the paperwork, would a freedom of information request legally make any difference?
(Do moonbats have any idea how they tip their hand and reveal their ignorant bias when they use words like “neocon”?)
Aug 18, 2008 - 9:46 pm 30. cedarford:Sorry Wretchard, but I had a full post on Pakistan composed and missed getting it in on the previous thread by a few minutes when you shut it down after it was up a short time and only 70 posts. So here it is:
Teresita – Wicked comeback to the deranged, idiotic saber-rattler John Samford. (Last thread comment on Musharraf)
=====================
Pakistan has some hard days coming. Its economy is in tatters and its polity is divided. It is now being hit by factional terrorist bombings and leaders of all movements fear (wisely so) that they may be targets of assassination by other factions.
The big problem is that the basis of Pakistan was to be a Pure Muslim (Pak in Urdu) nation (Stan in Urdu and other CA languages). Where all ethnicities were supposed to get along under Islam and a British Democratic derived, Islam-modified system.
It hasn’t worked recently as Baluchis fight Punjabis and the Sind and Punjabi and Indian exiles contend with the dangerous and independent Pashtun and Kashmir separatists. Ethnicity and degree of Islamic radicalization have trumped the national dream of 60 years ago and created a near-failed, nuclear armed state.
It’s exceptionally dangerous because Pakistan desperately added more Islamization, getting the bomb, and nationalist hostility on “never” giving up the jihad for Kashmir. And any that advocate backing away from those positions gets killed. And only the military holds the mess at a pressure below that of an explosion and civil war.
And in all that, Pakistan has a well educated middle class that is justly fearful that their prosperity and position is being negated…
And to make matters worse, the Pashtuns have used their autonomy, radical Islam to make inroads into the ISI and military and offered training and sanctuary to all Islamic terrorists under the shield of Pakistani sovereignity. And that is putting them square in the crosshairs of India, the US, the EU – as they realize how their domestic Muslim terrorists are aided and even trained by bad guys sheltered in Pakistan. And Russia. And Iran, which has a long history of enemity – from ancient Persian, Mogul Empire days to Sunni Pak persecution of Iranian and other ethnic Shiites directly, or within Afghanistan. Even China, Pakistans other twisty as the situation demands ally during the Cold War, besides the USA, has major concerns as it is finding its Muslim rebels are being trained in Pashtun lands.
A country with the bomb, falling apart – with every other major power now deeply concerned about it being the training source and sanctuary of global terrorists. And the spiritual homeland of the growingly terroristic and fundamentalist Pakistani diaspora now “blessing” the West as immigrants or descendents of immigrants.
The people talking Partition of Pakistan may have about the only solution short of war to a dangerous ungovernorable place. Strip off the ungovernable Northwest Territories and Baluchistan. Make the welcome of those ethnicities remaining in what’s left conditional on not subverting it. The Punjabis, Sindhs, and Indian exiles all seem to work well together and have the same goals of education, prosperity, and building the Pakistan of 60 years ago that Muhammed Jinnah and the Muslim League wanted. Present-day Pakistan isn’t it.
Aug 18, 2008 - 9:49 pm 31. Elroy Jetson:I think someone should start asking questions of Mr. Obama concerning his Annenberg days. After all, this period of time was a huge part of the resume he brings to the table. He’s proud of it; he touts it. So the question is: Why be so secretive about an era that you recall with fond memories? Why not invite the public to take a look at how you handled a leadership role?
Aug 18, 2008 - 10:26 pm 32. cjm:This is too weird. As it has been said before, he invites us to take a close look at him and when we do, we can’t find anything. This is worse than a mere empty suit.
c4, is there any topic you aren’t expertly boring on? god forbid the world miss your treatise on pakistan, so post here there and everywhere. i have a new word for you – “logorrhea”.
Aug 18, 2008 - 10:31 pm 33. cedarford:Of course, since I went OT, I should go to the subject, particulary since I read the whole Kurtz case earlier today explaining what happened and why he believes the CAC is crucial to voters understanding Obama, his thinking, his policies, even his executive abilities in the only job he ever had where he was a leader.
(At HLR he was titular editor, but shared power and responsibility, little there was, with faculty advisors and other Board students.)
Kurtz’s full report on his difficulties with University of Illinois and their shifting arguments on why he can’t see documents in their posted catalogue can be found linked through blogger Ann Althouse’s post:
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2008/08/why-wont-university-of-illinois-let.html#comments
Those who wish to read Kurtz’s article at source can go here:
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=MTgwZTVmN2QyNzk2MmUxMzA5OTg0ODZlM2Y2OGI0NDM
After the MSM covered for Edwards, you would expect them to back Kurtz to salvage a bit of reputation, but again this is still the same largely liberal media that dissected every aspect of Bush’s past life in 2004 while calling any scrutiny of Kerry’s past “Swiftboating!” Just like Democrat partisans still do. The vocabulary between liberal Democrats and most members of the declining MSM tends to be indistinguishable.
Other joint MSM-Dem favorites include “Something right out of the Karl Rove playbook”, “The Unitary Presidency”, “Hopeless quagmire of Iraq”, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism” and of course anything that blames Bush for everything to do with the 213th major hurricane to hit America and the failure of the people of Louisiana to cope with it.
Enough on that.
But with Kurtz, people can look at the article and see the machinations of the university administrators seemingly geared to block embarassment of wealthy activist elites, their Favorite sone Senator.
But I will add the excerpt of his article why Kurtz says it is so important that the reporting has access and the general public is informed prior to the pivotable 2008 Election:
Libraries are designed, not to unduly restrict information, but to make it available to an interested public. This country is now mere months away from a momentous presidential election in which a central issue is the political background and character of a relatively young and unknown senator. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge records almost surely contain important information on Senator Obama’s political associations, policy views, ideological leanings, and leadership ability. His role as board chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge is the most important executive experience Obama has held to date. Given this, the public has an urgent right to know what is in the Chicago Annenberg Challenge records.
Aug 18, 2008 - 10:32 pm 34. buddy larsen:@Starling: compliments on the very strong & engaging letter. May it work. BTW, if i may, how are things in the mideast? How is ”Georgia” settling on the young students? Thanks in advance for any reply.
@S (from prev): Thanks S –good reply imho. Some few items on which I must’ve written unclearly earlier, as I was misinterpreted, but I’ll leave it off this new thread, maybe for another time. Do have to say, i was not defending current debt levels except to object to presentation as nigh-insoluble. Here’s what you may be missing: people around the world are invested in USA system, and will continue to be, despite some inflationary loss of purchasing power (as long as it’s in the channel). Reason is USA political reliability and strategic depth –rule of law, redress, hearing, due process, a myriad of positives that the Rus invasion only highlights and lifts in value. As evidence i cite long bond rates (and yessir, I have heard all rationales already many times over, and wish to remind that in the end a number is a number).
@ash: (prev thread) plainly i was using a parallel construction to better flow the reader along –see context –but thanks!
sorry for the o/t –had to answer somewhere –please return to your regulary unscheduled deprogramming.
Aug 19, 2008 - 12:44 am 35. Doug:Buddy,
Aug 19, 2008 - 12:51 am 36. supercargo:You called Oil correctly on the way up, what’s your guess for the future now?
(assuming no major wars or other large disruptions)
So who did Obama favor? What does it say about his politics? Those are character issues that should be put before the American people. Who knows? Maybe the candidate did a good job at the institute.
Aug 19, 2008 - 1:01 am 37. buddy larsen:Doug, after two years of the industry laboring mightily to harvest the highest greatest powerfulest incentive there could ever be, that is a doubling of price, production has hardly budged –still in the mid-high 80s of millions of barrels per day. The global slowdown coming into view will by demand destruction pull oil prices down some –most are putting the floor around 100 – 110, tho outliers say 80. But it won’t be at these levels any longer than it takes the globe to clean up its balance sheets and consumers to get their confidence back. I’ve sold none of my little positions in oil & oil service, but i’m kicking myself brutally for not bailing on June 15 and buying the same positions back now –that difference is making me nauseous. Must be getting too old for this stuff –not loose enough –too much second-guessing –need a better model than Mr. Sobersides, for this market. I’m back to where i was in 2006 if not 2005, on paper.
Sitting around like a big dumbstruck ninny while little St Elmo’s fires pop up and dance all around my comms gear.
“Oh, ya know whut? Ah thank Ah’ll blink muh eyes. Yep, ah thank ah will. Yessir, ah need ta blink muh eyes. well here goes!” (Blink) “Hoo boy, you did it, you blinked yore eyes. blinked ‘em good, blinked ‘em real good. Ain’t chew sumpthin!”
Aug 19, 2008 - 1:57 am 38. buddy larsen:Ivan the Terrible is posting terrible production numbers. So is Mexico. It will take a truly stunning recession to bring oil down past 80, is my guess. China’s interior mkt is down 60% in 08, with inflation running around 10%. I dunno what to make of that, the Middle Kingdom is opaque. note that neg 60 is off a few years of doubles tho. hey if the entire globe goes back to 2002, will we be six years younger?
Aug 19, 2008 - 2:12 am 39. AllenS:Don’t worry, the University of Illinois will release the papers soon… all three pages.
Aug 19, 2008 - 4:12 am 40. Doug:You got your Peak Oil, and you got your NATIONALIZED OIL!
—
As Oil Giants Lose Influence, Supply Drops
Oil production has begun falling at all of the major Western oil companies, and they are finding it harder than ever to find new prospects even though they are awash in profits and eager to expand.
Part of the reason is political. From the Caspian Sea to South America, Western oil companies are being squeezed out of resource-rich provinces. They are being forced to renegotiate contracts on less-favorable terms and are fighting losing battles with assertive state-owned oil companies.
And much of their production is in mature regions that are declining, like the North Sea.
The reality, experts say, is that the oil giants that once dominated the global market have lost much of their influence — and with it, their ability to increase supplies.
Aug 19, 2008 - 5:27 am 41. Doug:—
Good to know that in your doddering declining years, you’ve joined ranks w/me at my prime wrt gunslinging for fun and profit in the futures corral.
…eager to expand.
Aug 19, 2008 - 5:33 am 42. John Samford:And we remain the only country on Earth that treats our Natural Resources as Environmental Hazards.
“Teresita – Wicked comeback to the deranged, idiotic saber-rattler John Samford. (Last thread comment on Musharraf)”
She proved I was correct. None of her quotes advocated a nuclear war. Like I said. If the Russians want a war, bring it on!
That is NOT advocating war, that is saying I don’t fear one. Two different things, at least to those who are literate.
I can see why you and Teresita have problems.
Launching personal attacks on me because I don’t share your phobias, your gut wrenching fear, your cowardice about facing Russia won’t make the Russians stop. That will require military action ( not a statement in favor of war, just a simple fact).
There is a chance that such action will lead to the use of nuclear weapons (not a statement in favor of nuclear weapons, just a simple fact).
You don’t avoid that be cowering in fear, by hiding your head under the pillow, hoping they go away. You avoid that by kicking the Russian butt up around their shoulders and promising to do worse if you have to (not a statement in favor of war, just a simple fact).
We ARE stronger then they are. Prove that and demonstrate that we are willing to use that strength, IF WE HAVE TO, and the Russians will back down (not a statement in favor of war, just a simple fact).
I am NOT advocating war, I’m advocating self-defense. If you can’t see the difference, it’s your problem. I don’t want to deal with your problem, there are other problems I enjoy more.
So insult me if you will, it matters not to me, but please stop putting words in my mouth.
If my poor writing skills combine with your poor reading skills to have you see things that aren’t there, just skip my posts.
That way you won’t have any call to mis-represent what I say.
“Liars when they speak the truth are not believed.”
Aristotle, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
Greek critic, philosopher, physicist, & zoologist (384 BC – 322 BC)
“A liberal is a person whose interests aren’t at stake at the moment.”
Aug 19, 2008 - 5:34 am 43. Charles:Willis Player
See wikipedia for the genesis of the labyrinth story.
Christianity holds that Jesus is the get of God and Mary. What is not unique about this story is that there was a union of a god and a mortal. What is unique about the story is that offspring was fully human–and not a centaur, a minotaur or — in indian mythology–an elephant man.
Aug 19, 2008 - 5:36 am 44. Teresita:Charles: Christianity holds that Jesus is the get of God and Mary. What is not unique about this story is that there was a union of a god and a mortal. What is unique about the story is that offspring was fully human–and not a centaur, a minotaur or — in indian mythology–an elephant man.
Not unique at all. Caesar claimed to be descended from the goddess Venus (or Aphrodite).
Aug 19, 2008 - 6:13 am 45. Teresita:John: I am NOT advocating war, I’m advocating self-defense.
Self-defense is when Russia invades a country in NATO for which our Senate has committed us to protect. But you are willing to escalate to a nuclear War because one set of ex-Soviets are having a scrap with another set of ex-Soviets. Get some perspective, man!
Aug 19, 2008 - 6:15 am 46. Doug:ot, Yon en route to Kabul, needs our support.
—
Af-Pak Reporting
Looking back on the Iraq war, for all the attention the media paid, their reporting was anything but balanced.
The outcome of the war was being negatively affected by irresponsible journalism, some of which was intentionally misleading.
We truly could have lost the Iraq war due in large part to journalistic travesties.
That we won the war despite the media demonstrates just how great our soldiers are.
And let’s never forget the price that the British and others paid, like the Poles, and even the Georgians.
An unintended consequence of the Iraq war was that we ignored Afghanistan/Pakistan, where things only got worse. Now many are calling Af-Pak “The Good War,” but let’s see how long that lasts. Our NATO allies hide behind the sturdy legs of the United States and Great Britain, who do most of the real fighting in Afghanistan, just as they did in Iraq.
Now that media attention is turning back to the Af-Pak war, let’s hope that the sum of their reporting will be more informed and less biased than what came out of Iraq. If the Iraq model is followed again, the Western politicians will say whatever is expedient, bending to popular pressure created by the media, many of whom understand the bending of truth better than Einstein understood the bending of light.
Meanwhile, the press will meander around like a herd of buffalo, occasionally stampeding in unison off a cliff, and taking public perception with them to the jagged rocks below.
—
I have just left Nepal and landed in Bangkok, en route to Kabul. My plan is to spend some time in Afghanistan, head back over to Iraq in late September, then possibly return to Afghanistan before the year’s end. In any case, I plan to keep my boots in Iraq and Afghanistan through the U.S. elections.
The last time I headed to Afghanistan, I spent far more money than I earned. Folks just didn’t seem to care about that war.
I am willing to stick it out, and have already proven that willingness in Iraq, but I simply will be unable to do so without generous reader support. These days support is scant.
Folks seem to think I got rich off Moment of Truth in Iraq (I didn’t). There will probably be no independent journalists who spend more than a month or so in Af-Pak during any given year. Same with the mainstream reporters I know. This means there will be almost no firsthand reporting from the Af-Pak battlefields, and less than a trickle comes to today. If readers want me there, I’ll commit, but reader support is absolutely critical.
I can’t do it without you, and your support is needed TODAY.
I should be in Afghanistan later this week.
—
Michael Yon
KABUL, Afghanistan: Afghan leaders celebrated Independence Day on Monday with a small ceremony inside a fortified military compound, in marked contrast to the parade and public festivities a year ago and another sign that Taliban militants are bearing down on the government.The top U.S. general in Afghanistan issued a rare public warning Monday that militants planned to attack civilian, military and government targets. Only hours earlier a suicide bomber killed 10 Afghans outside a U.S. base.
Aug 19, 2008 - 6:16 am 47. Teresita:Click Here to read the entire AP article in the International Herald Tribune.
—
—
Ten French troops killed in Afghanistan -
ht – Deuce @ http://2164th.blogspot.com/
Peterike: BHO has shown with the recent Saddleback affair that he is even more Bushlike than Bush when asked a question that throws him. Which is to say, when asked a question he can only answer with a lie. Which is to say, without a script he’s a bad liar.
Which is further to say McCain is going to clean up in the debates when we finally see that boy wonder pitted against a man who was tried by fire and lived a life in full. And the longer Putin stays in Georgia, or the closer he gets to Tblisi, the less Americans will be inclined to elect hand the nuclear codes over to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Aug 19, 2008 - 6:24 am 48. cjm:i am looking for obama to have serious meltdown — an unprecedented outburst — during the debates. if obama even shows up to have a debate.
Aug 19, 2008 - 6:49 am 49. ash:S, sorry for jumping on you on GDP line in the previous thread, it was only after reading yours’ and Buddy’s comments more thoroughly today that I realized you were quoting him. I found the discussion very interesting. My understanding of the US debt situation is that any other country maintaining similar levels of debt would have their currency shot to hell by now but US saving grace is its general use as an exchange currency. A historical precedent would be the British pound and their debt at the wane of the British empire. I’m keen on learning more about that monetary history but I haven’t, as of yet, found much literature on it. I’m open to suggested readings.
Aug 19, 2008 - 7:02 am 50. Salt Lick:Given what we know of Ayers and Obama, contents of these records would be explosive. The main reason — they touch on voters’ CHILDREN.
Aug 19, 2008 - 7:29 am 51. mark_b:Teresita:
Will Smith (IMDB)
# Hancock (2008)
# I Am Legend (2007)
# The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)
# Hitch (2005/I)
# Shark Tale (2004) (voice) .
# I, Robot (2004)
# Bad Boys II (2003)
# Men in Black II (2002)
# Ali (2001)
# The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000)
# Men in Black Alien Attack (2000)
# Wild Wild West (1999)
# Enemy of the State (1998)
# Men in Black (1997)
# Independence Day (1996) …. Captain Steven Hiller
# “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” …. William
From a gossip story at msnbc:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5652059/
“Of course I could be president if I wanted to,” Smith told the newspaper Aftonbladet, according to our translator. “But being president isn’t the kind of job you’d want to have with the way things are today.”
Smith also said that he has toured the world many times before, and says he’s never seen peoples’ opinions of the U.S. this low. “As luck would have it, every four years, the people decide if the president gets to stay in office,” Smith said. “I believe it’s not going to happen.” Smith revealed that he’s going to meet with Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry once he returns to the U.S. and is probably going to campaign for him. “I can be very involved,” he said.
Above interview was in 2004. If he was involved in Kerry’s campaign, maybe he wasn’t too visible. Who knows, if Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman get a hold of him he may turn out OK.
Ronald Reagan’s list is too long for this thread. Interesting to note that he did die in Bel Air.
John Samford:
Do not confuse belligerence with cowardice. If you cannot defend your arguments amongst friends, how will you fair with your enemies?
Aug 19, 2008 - 7:35 am 52. George:“It’s an interesting story because it illustrates how much importance people put upon controlling information.”
More than than, the Left values controlling what goes into the minds of children.
Aug 19, 2008 - 7:41 am 53. Doug:And what goes in their pockets:
“The CTU has vigorously resisted all attempts to increase instruction time in Chicago schools.
In 2007, the CTU thwarted Mayor Richard M. Daley’s attempt to make teachers teach for full school days.
They negotiated a new contract that contained no extra hours but significant pay raises for the next four years.
Aug 19, 2008 - 7:48 am 54. slade:RE: speculative comment about complicity of the husband in Bhutto’s death.
I almost wish that hadn’t been shared even as speculation. Just when I think I have enough global street cred to swagger with my own smug sophistication, I get hit with that little gem. The world is one big recti-linear space fractionating into a schizoid world of dislocated history and space through the circumlocutions of those determined to “re-orient” [Buddy] a world filled with occidents.
British Secretary Kimmit in a CNBC interview concurs with [the implications of] posts above that market pressures will eventually modify the military aggression of Russia to levels in line with the accepted norms of the post-modern world – business and investment capital leaving the country faster than you can say Nigeria. The Chamberlain/appeasement issue was raised and rejected. Worth noting or repeating that the modern markets are different. For one thing they respond faster. The Bigger Brains of the Board can fill in the picture at another time. Money talks.
Aug 19, 2008 - 8:03 am 55. ash:money talks, yeah, but national control of ever more scarce resources is a pretty darn big club especially if one accepts that money is but a convenient marker for underlying ’stuff’.
Aug 19, 2008 - 8:17 am 56. Roderick Reilly:jaymaster said:
“”"”If the majority of the cash came from private contributions, then I don’t have a problem with keeping that info, well, private. But if it came from federal or local tax monies, then it’s a different story.”"”"
Unfortunately, many of the people of great financial means these days have acquired a leftist orientation. Darndest thing, considering that it wasn’t “socialism” that made them rich. because these people are spending their “private” money to affect public institutions and policies, it sure as hell doesn’t matter that the funding source is private. If the public is affected, which was the intention this case, then those records should be considered public domain. Period.
Aug 19, 2008 - 8:23 am 57. slade:national control of ever more scarce resources is a pretty darn big club
I’m gonna be smart and let Buddy et al handle the economics if they so decide but my guess is that reducing production of nationalized oil markets to stabilize price will experience fall in price – counter intuitive if you live in the last century but eminently sensible if you factor in the future value of current technology now under development. This technology will be exported faster than you can so solar nanotech and it will happen rapidly. Everywhere except Russia where capital is not feeding economic growth, as noted earlier by others.
I still think this was a bad play on the part of Russia – reflects the thinking of the last century. Not to mention the other theme that seems to have been dropped – the planned aspect that is being revisited at Elephant Bar. Lots of convenient outcomes.
Not for all Georgians.
The average American lacks global street cred. I think that is one of the reasons the left-leaning media has been so successful. Inquiring Minds Want to be Told.
Aug 19, 2008 - 8:44 am 58. ash:Ignore history at your peril. Just because it happened last century doesn’t make it irrelevant. Nations/Empires controlling resources plays a big part in what happens in the world.
Aug 19, 2008 - 8:56 am 59. Cover-up in Chicago? « The View from Alexandria:[...] Richard Fernandez, in a post that quotes Umberto Eco and whose title, “The Library of Babel,” alludes to Jorge Luis Borges, observes: It’s an interesting story because it illustrates how much importance people put upon controlling information. If Kurtz had been represented by someone else, or if he had hired a graduate in education to study CAC as a case study in effective advocacy, he might gotten further. As it was, he probably set off every alarm bell in an unspecified outer defense shield. [...]
Aug 19, 2008 - 9:01 am 60. slade:The name of the game is opportunism – economic, political, historic.
To my mind this episode in Georgia never passed the smell test. Couldn’t put my finger on it. Some posters here helped with their views. The picture clarified but not completely to my satisfaction. Beyond that I never posted. Had nothing to say. Now some *evidence* is emerging suggesting that central planning was … well … front and center to the operations. In other words, History was being well used in the service of the future, we presume.
Yes Nations/Empires are strong drivers of history. I expect a lot of people know that.
Aug 19, 2008 - 9:18 am 61. Charles:George:
“It’s an interesting story because it illustrates how much importance people put upon controlling information.”
//////////
Its always helpful to remember that at the opening shots of the war on terror the communists and the jihadists walked arm in arm at demonstrations in USA and europe. It was strange and puzzling to see.
Some secret ox was gored. Some minotaur in the labryinth beneath the palace of the king.
Therefor its always helpful –when you see stories about information control–or anything really– coming from the communists–to look over and and see what sort of parallel development is going on with the jihadistas–and vice versa
See The UN Bans Criticisms of Islam
Aug 19, 2008 - 9:21 am 62. pst314:“The Collection is closed because it has come to our attention that there is restricted material in the collection. Once the collection has been processed it will be open to any patron interested in viewing it.”
Then the library should produce the documents declaring the material to be restricted, so that we can see whether or not they were always restricted or whether the restriction was placed only after Mr. Kurtz requested access.
Aug 19, 2008 - 9:56 am 63. buddy larsen:If USA financial system is Georgia, this week is shaping up to be the first week of the war. This morning: wholesale prices/July announced, 1.2% up (from up .5% estimated). This is highest in 27 years. If Fed raises rates, which it must, another slice of mortgages go bad, so Fed can’t raise –and is likely stuck as-is. This leaves plain old money supply to tame inflation –long slow and harsh on employment if wholesalers can’t pass on these costs.
Good news is, the bad news is per July, and August looks better to date –reports say.
These numbers endanger the Dollar rally, which to date has been in some part an improvement in the trade gap (foreigners need more dollars), which has power limited to the size of the change in the gap (about .4%), unless exogenous events, like say a Russian invasion, sends safe-haven buyers.
So Dollar dynamism may power-down in the manner of the Fed and the Georgian Army midweek of wk 1 of the invasion. Mobility restricted by greater force, greater force multiplied by immobility.
SEC Chairman Chris Cox a couple hours ago announced an investigation now in process, involved those “ARS” vehicles (Auction Rate Securities –what we’ve mentioned here in re the Boom’s sudden Stalingrad), in twelve (that’s 12) different financial firms. These will be the biggies of course, i’m sure the list is on the web news by now.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, gold & oil are up strongly, indexes down sharply, financials down very sharply.
Consolation, this run of events is so thouroughly bad, it can’t get much worse –and the indexes are still on the sweet side of 20% down, and 20% is MUCH better than, say, 30%. A bottom here or near? well, these things end when they end –depth and duration is incredibly dependent on those dadgum house prices –they have to quit falling and wiping away both borrower & lender equity.
Biggest fear –interest rates responding to inflation, backing up higher, raising cost of houses, in effect lowering value further.
it’s a war out there, folks.
Aug 19, 2008 - 9:59 am 64. ash:“it’s a war out there, folks.”
but, but, against who?
“These numbers endanger the Dollar rally, which to date has been in some part an improvement in the trade gap (foreigners need more dollars)”
Last summer I speculated to a banker friend of mine that ‘well, all this talk of currency prices really is underpinned by the reality of trade’. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “well, 20 or so years ago, that was true but now there are huge piles of money just floating about looking for return”. I asked about a relative ration of ’spec’ currency trades vs trade driven ones and he mused “20 or 30 to 1″.
Aug 19, 2008 - 10:10 am 65. Charles:Wretchard mentions Babel in his headline. Here is a wikipedia report on the origins of the Babel. It comes from a story in Genesis. (Because men build the tower for their own glory rather than God’s glory–God gets jealous and splits up everyone’s language so no one could understand each other. So that the tower that was meant to bring unity — instead splits up the people.
Aug 19, 2008 - 10:15 am 66. buddy larsen:splits ‘em up and ‘’scatters them to the winds”. The historic tower in Babel, the ancient site just south of modern Baghdad, is said –this is either a Biblical mention or from archaeology, dunno, wish i did –to’ve been painted sky blue. hey, that’s UN’s color!
war against who, asks ash –my first word flash, “nature”.
Aug 19, 2008 - 10:24 am 67. j-rog:Earlier point about the supposed non-uniqueness of the Christian incarnation story (Ceasar descended from Venus). It was common for Roman leaders to invoke divine ancestry, until eventually the emperor was hailed as a god. But there’s a difference. Claiming divine ancestry allowed a pagan to assert a demigod status above and beyond normal humanity (ubermench anyone?). The unique and fundamental claim of the Christian incarnation is that Christ’s human nature is one hundred percent human, no different than you or I.
Aug 19, 2008 - 10:28 am 68. buddy larsen:war between man & ”time” –wealth creation as a control of the future via control of ability to feed yore genetic strain through as many successive tomorrows as humanly possible.
war between Fear and Greed –the old saw answer to, “what is investing?” but this would be a subset –a battle in the war –of the biological imperative pawed at above
war between the two dualities in human nature, ‘’self” vs ”other”.
Aug 19, 2008 - 10:33 am 69. buddy larsen:Another place to look for answers:
“We’re surrounded. That simplifies the problem.”
Gen. “Chesty” Puller, USMC, when his 1st Marine Div was surrounded by 22 Chinese divisions at the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir in the Korean War. Later, retired (i assume), he observed,
“Our Country won’t go on forever, if we stay soft as we are now. There won’t
Aug 19, 2008 - 11:06 am 70. Jay:be any AMERICA because some foreign soldiery will invade us and take our
women and breed a hardier race!”
People interested in the connection between finance and politics should read the Cambridge University Press book on the Wiemar Republic. I am upstairs and the book in downstairs and I can’t remember the author’s name. He is a Brit. The Wiemar Republic and especially the cities and towns after 1919 spent more than the collected in taxes. The Great Depression hit Germany earlier than the other major countries. More and more Germans lost trust in the coalition government but Hindenburg’s actions allowed the Nazis to come to power.
Aug 19, 2008 - 11:11 am 71. ash:I believe that the Obamites, ignorant of theat history, but angry with the existing system want to radially change our democracy. But unlike Adoph they have no Mien Kamp to guide them. Plus they are even more corrupt than the folks they want to replace.
…all these American economic problems aren’t our fault? They are imposed by ‘others’?
Aug 19, 2008 - 11:11 am 72. Paul:The University of Chicago is a public institution. Most of the funding for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was presumably public. There is no good reason why an inquiry of the conduct of one of its co-chairman should be off limits or denied to the public. The leftists are being given the right to play politics with public funds any time they wish. However, Republicans in power will never dare call out the University of Chicago on this matter or anything else. In the latest Housing bill, ACORN was given millions again for indoctrinating the ghetto and conducting voter fraud.
The University/Educational/ Non-profit foundation complex funded primarily with public funds works hand in hand with the MSM to limit acceptable viewpoints to leftist thought and to promote this vile leftist propaganda to the American general public.
The linkage to the Georgian War is that this most dangerous of encounters is getting little play in the media and Academia . There is very little coverage of the Russian atrocities, or real discussion of the consequences of this matter because that would badly stain a precious ally of the left.
Aug 19, 2008 - 11:15 am 73. buddy larsen:ash, that could not be farther from what i meant to say. “other” is everything not-you, starting with the stuff touching you right now –your clothes, chair, desk, floor. Somebody else wanted them, but you got them. Go from there.
Aug 19, 2008 - 11:16 am 74. ash:I was jiving on the existential stuff but when you got into “we are surrounded” I started to have my doubts.
Aug 19, 2008 - 11:32 am 75. buddy larsen:somebody else needed the food & energy, and education & medical care you’ve consumed. somebody else needed the fillings in your teeth. somebody else needed your wife. somebody else needed your parents. but if somebody else had all that, then you would be the somebody else who needs them. Question we need to ask: am i worthy? if so, why? if not, don’t i have a problem? how can i fix it?
WSJ’s Robert Frank was just on tv, promoing new book “Richistan”. He said the number of millionaires in USA doubled in the last ten years, and that as of now one in twelve US households had a net worth of $1mm or more.
That’s what the ravening South Ossetians burning Georgia are on the march to re-balance. The message is, if they can’t have all that stuff, then neither can you.
Aug 19, 2008 - 11:33 am 76. buddy larsen:…but Chesty Puller WAS surrounded. 1st Marines fought their way out, in the coldest frozen winter imaginable (the “Frozen Chosin” they called it), outnumbered 30-1, and in the doing his 12,000-man 1st Marines broke up and scattered six of the 22 full 16,000-man soviet-size Chinese divisions surrounding and trying to annihilate him.
Aug 19, 2008 - 11:40 am 77. cjm:two words: American Cannae
Aug 19, 2008 - 11:44 am 78. Teresita:Charles: Because men build the tower for their own glory rather than God’s glory–God gets jealous and splits up everyone’s language so no one could understand each other.
God scattered the folks at Babel. He scattered Cain away from his family. He scattered Adam and Eve from the garden. He made the Hebrews wander the desert for 40 years. He scattered the 10 northern kingdoms into the Assyrian Empire, he scattered the Jews to the four winds. All because the people broke this or that rule. How do we know the God who gathers people together in the Christian Church is the same one who spent thousands of years scattering people?
Aug 19, 2008 - 11:47 am 79. Peterike:&buddy The message is, if they can’t have all that stuff, then neither can you.
Envy 101. The most misunderstood, under examined human emotion that drives a vast swath of Lefty dystopian trouble-making. For the definitive take, read Helmut Schoeck’s “Envy,” a book that totally changes how you see the world. Only ten bucks on Amazon. Should be required reading for every college student (and Democrat), but probably isn’t read by as much as one in a million. It’s like an acid bath for Lefty thoughts.
Aug 19, 2008 - 11:48 am 80. Teresita:Buddy Larsen: That’s what the ravening South Ossetians burning Georgia are on the march to re-balance.
The Russians claim 2,000 South Ossetians dead and their whole capital city leveled. Western reporters finally made it there, and they say 40 dead, tops, and some buildings have a few holes in them.
Peterike: Envy 101. The most misunderstood, under examined human emotion that drives a vast swath of Lefty dystopian trouble-making
The Left envies people who have more stuff, the Right envies people who have more fun. The bible says thou shalt not covet thy neighbors ass, but it also says thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife’s ass.
Aug 19, 2008 - 12:05 pm 81. cjm:people on the left have no capacity for fun.
Aug 19, 2008 - 12:19 pm 82. mark_b:Charles:
Wretchard mentions Babel in his headline. Here is a wikipedia report on the origins of the Babel. It comes from a story in Genesis. (Because men build the tower for their own glory rather than God’s glory–God gets jealous and splits up everyone’s language so no one could understand each other. So that the tower that was meant to bring unity — instead splits up the people.
Aug 19, 2008 – 10:15 am
————————————
God does not get Jealous. God is Jealous. He wants man to love him as he loves them. This confusion of languages illustrated in this tale is discipline. Man is once again trying to get a shortcut to godliness (here secular humanism) and God is again lovingly setting him straight.
The first time is when Adam eats the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Man is looking for a shortcut to godliness and eats the fruit. His eyes are indeed opened. He sees that through disobedience his is without God. Naked. Does God kill Adam?
So the tower was not meant to bring unity, it was meant to bring a “Name” for themselves. A name they believed equivalent to Yahweh.
The protectors of the “Library of Babel” are trying to keep the “light” out of these documents, purportedly to keep the “language from being confused”, but in reality to keep us from seeing that they have used their power to “make a name for themselves”, in their quest to attain Godliness.
Aug 19, 2008 - 12:22 pm 83. mark_b:Teresita:
God gathers as well as scatters. Joseph gathers his family into Egypt. Nehemiah rebuilds the walls of Jerusalem. God wants everyone to be gathered to him. What did Jesus say about Jerusalem?
The gathering and scattering is likened to threshing, and the end product is much improved from the first.
Aug 19, 2008 - 12:31 pm 84. Lifeofthemind:Paul,
Aug 19, 2008 - 12:33 pm 85. buddy larsen:It is not at The University of Chicago, it is at the University of Illinois Chicago (Circle) campus. Please do not confuse the two schools. Obama taught at the Law School for the private University of Chicago.
@Peterike: one of the big Ten –do not covet. ah, ”period”. i guess the reasoning is so complex, so intertwined with the normal & healthy –even Godly one might characterize –ambition to succeed, that it’s better just to say, ”don’t do it”.
@Teresita: Spinoza the renegade jew thought that God was all in the mind, which proved rather than disproved his existence. In that sense, it has to be the same God, creating the free will which is the human nature of the mind, which human nature is of course quite likely to sooner or later screw up the mind, which screwed up mind is quite likely to re-focus itself on God in order to regain the non-screwed up state of being –until such time as the mind forgets again, at which time the mind’ll screw up again, at which time it’ll re-focus again, rinse and repeat. cycle breaks anytime so beware & don’t be in a bad state too much unless you like it that way (see criminal mind). Gnostic but solid, imho. No-spin Spinoza.
Aug 19, 2008 - 12:38 pm 86. buddy larsen:@mark_b 12:22 –yowsuh!
Aug 19, 2008 - 12:47 pm 87. 3Case:“That reminds me that the Billary Clintons were going to release all their papers too. How’s that little charade going?”
Howz ’bout John Kerry’s full military records? Seems to be a pattern here….
Aug 19, 2008 - 1:05 pm 88. slade:the connection between finance and politics
Deregulation of the financial markets – starting under Reagan, S&L crisis, leading up to Glass-Steagall repeal under Clinton, removing separation between investment banking and commercial banking, which led to new mortgage vehicles including new bundled derivatives (CDO’s and their ilk) and the appropriately named “sub-prime” mortgages that are now working their way through the financial system – inadequate regulatory control and accountability – nobody really knows or ever will know who holds the “bad paper.” Already been around the globe a few times from what I understand.
The fear is that a Democratic Executive and Congress will enact punitive and/or inappropriate regulatory legislation to reverse the end game. Obvious example is Sarbanes-Oxley which has increased the cost of doing business without impacting the off-book accounting vehicles. Another example is the anti-speculation rhetoric which will lead to what kind of legislation? Another example is the windfall profits tax. (tax code not regulatory reform but same ballpark.) Not to mention nationalizing a handful of the usual suspect industries.
Wrap it all up in a package of “comprehensive” reform and it’s Hillary Health Care Part II – gridlock from an inability to compromise and lack of focus to implement incremental reforms.
I don’t really care what’s buried in the Tower of Chicago but I am angry at the systematic dismantling of reasonable regulatory code started by the Republicans and continued under Clinton, and I am very skeptical of the technical and political skill set on Democratic side of the aisle to design regulatory reform legislation that isn’t punitive or just stupid (windfall profits tax schemes).
Spengler over at Asia Times makes the point that the reason the Russians don’t understand their American counterparts is that they can’t believe we are this stupid. There’s a lot of that going around.
Aug 19, 2008 - 1:21 pm 89. fred:What are the Ossetians really like? I’ve never been to that part of the world, so I have no bearing on the cultures there. It SOUNDS like the Ossetians have a long history of being scoundrels and savages. Is this true? Are the Georgians indeed more cultured and prosperous? And because of this, the Ossetians want to drag Georgia through the mud?
I refer my questions to those more knowledgeable.
Aug 19, 2008 - 1:41 pm 90. jdwill:to fred
One source:
http://books.google.com/books?id=hEFJ0sGr6e8C&pg=PA102&dq=Chechnya:+,+Tombstone&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=0_0&sig=ACfU3U3k5zCWMzV4FjclSvraLHc1yJLVsg#PPA72,M1
p 72
…, the Ossetes have always been Russia’s most loyal ally in the Caucasus; they are closely allied with the local Russian Cossacks; they provided a disproportionate number of officers, and especially senior officers to the Soviet army (and claim to have won more decorations as Hero of the Soviet Union, the highest Soviet award for valor, proportionate to there numbers than any other Soviet people); …
So they may well have a special claim on Russian protection and loyalty.
Aug 19, 2008 - 1:50 pm 91. slade:And that’s not to mention that second tier cost of deregulation, which is the unfunded pension plans that are dumped into another Government-Sponsored Entity when unregulated competition forces the players into bankruptcy – airlines and utilities. This will be bigger than S&L crisis. Socializing the cost of doing business it’s being called. That’s not far from the truth.
Aug 19, 2008 - 1:52 pm 92. Doug:Teresita said…
Buddy Larsen:
“That’s what the ravening South Ossetians burning Georgia are on the march to re-balance.
“The Russians claim 2,000 South Ossetians dead and their” whole capital city leveled. Western reporters finally made it there, and they say 40 dead, tops, and some buildings have a few holes in them.”
——
Steve @ Threatswatch.com said…
“I have a student who was born in Tblisi, has family still there.
Says they called him and said all the killing is being done by Chechens, who ahve been loosed like dogs, first in Ossettia, then into Gori from there.
I said to him that they were used because they don’t care, and fight like animals.
Aug 19, 2008 - 2:01 pm 93. Paul:He just nodded.”
Lifeofthemind,
You are right. My post was inarticulate and poorly researched.
My point was that the large Public and Private Universities get a major portion of their funding through grants, loans and/or direct funding from the government.
I’m only aware of small Christian and Conservative colleges that eschew government funding. That’s because only Christian, Conservative and perhaps now Jewish colleges are penalized for their political views.
It seems to me that a private institution that receives most of it funding to the tune of millions of dollars each year should be required to protect equally the rights of all its students, faculty, administration and the public when applicable. Title NIne regulates sports for women that way, even though the Equal Rights Amendment failed for women.
Aug 19, 2008 - 2:02 pm 94. buddy larsen:I hope it’s just ’stupid’. Sarbox has kept billions of dollars wasting on skyscrapers of accountants doing mountains of clerical busywork that prevents no wrongdoing and does waste our financial resources while driving business offshore. KGB could not have designed a better financial weapon of mass destruction.
Today during this crisis period in our financial system, when confidence in our system is most vital, a large and important conference in Singapore of precisely the international financiers whom we need to, frankly, side with the west, was treated to a speech by a Harvard professor, an ex IMF economist, which rampaged around the money world and set off another round of sell-offs of the stocks of our big financial firms. Some defenders of our system are wondering why, since the potential for this sort of event is already well-understood & priced-in, that he and his people would choose this crucial week and event to basically deliver the underlying message that at least some of the powerful interests are now stepping into public view to announce to the world that they intend to be AWOL from home defense. I’ve noticed there’s often a gleeful chortle on our troubles from these types, and sure nuff he treated the audience to “we’re gonna see a whopper!”. And we might indeed –a big failure is often the signal buyers wait for before they’ll come in –which is why a big failure is a strong ‘bottom’ signal. But jeez.
Aug 19, 2008 - 2:13 pm 95. jdwill:Stray thought:
Obama in the news today – “I will let no one question my love of country”
1. He is always making diktat’s
2. He has a sort of disembodied voice.
He will eventually wear thin and be subject to ridicule when he sounds off thusly.
Aug 19, 2008 - 2:14 pm 96. slade:Of course the smug pretension of the Spengler article implies a certain bias that encroaches into the substance of his thesis.
Not all Americans are stupid.
Aug 19, 2008 - 2:20 pm 97. Mongoose:Slade: Chess? Monopoly? Spengler is playing bridge (at his club, no doubt).
One of his more useless articles.
Aug 19, 2008 - 2:27 pm 98. buddy larsen:stray thought –the phalanxes of government agents double-checking the sarbox double checking of the comptroller’s double checking of accounting’s double checking of some guy’s expense account –could they not have been better employed enforcing the law against naked shorting that since this mess began has amounted to a free ability of shorts to hammer down a stock without even owning any claim on a single share of it? this has cost hundreds of billionsa of value –people’s hard-earned money –and has driven thousands and thousands of small individual investors right out of the market. but who can bother with reality when they have to worship the cloud-cuckoo in cloud-cukoo land?
Aug 19, 2008 - 2:31 pm 99. Doug:– Strange Creatures –
2005
(Found this while looking for news item about transfer of wealth from democracies to autocracies, which I haven’t found yet.)
Finally in 1991, Russia announced that it would adopt the markets and democracy of her Cold War adversary. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out as many hoped. Privatization became a giant swindle in which well-positioned bureaucrats divvied up amongst themselves the vast Soviet carcass. Russians would vote, but active and participatory civic associations would never develop. Within a matter of years, power and wealth were once again highly concentrated. Former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin remarked, in superlative Russian fashion, “We wanted it to go better, but it turned out as always.”
—
For centuries, a Kremlin oligarchy, whether comprising Muscovite and Kievan princes, the Romanov court, or the General-Secretary’s Politburo, has governed Russia. But this seems to have finally given way to a rough and imperfect liberty. This does not mean, of course, that thousand-year-old traditions disappear overnight, or for that matter, over a decade of nights. The tiny parasitic elite is back, this time in the form of the superrich “new Russians,” and the siloviki, the super-bureaucrats. These groups, as Billington notes, are the chief obstacles to democratic change.
If you wish to understand the nature of arbitrary power in Russia, look no further than a little flashing blue light, the migalka. Available to elites with cash and connections, it confers on its owner the right to disregard any and all traffic laws. I’ve seen migalka-equipped Mercedes 600s and Land Rovers drive on sidewalks and fly through red lights at busy intersections.
During the Yeltsin era, a handful of “oligarchs” built financial-industrial clans that came to control nearly half the Russian GDP. Such a concentration of wealth, especially in the absence of reliable legal and financial institutions, distorts the growth of markets. Some estimate that this thievery has created a gap between rich and poor wider than the one that preceded the Revolution. By most indicators, Russia is now a Third World country, yet it is second only to the U.S. in its number of billionaires.
With the end of the Cold War, Russia lost half its industrial output. Each year, Russia’s population declines by a stunning one million people. At this rate, by 2050 its population will have shrunk by a third. Male life expectancy is 58 and falling (it’s 75 in the U.S.). One cause, according to a parliamentary report, is “stress generated by people’s lack of confidence in their futures and those of their children.” Another is alcoholism. The suicide rate between 1995 and 2000 was quadruple that of Europe. A sodden, depressed Russia can only be further eclipsed on the international stage.
President Vladimir Putin is working to reverse this. In his mind, a good number of Russia’s problems—poverty, terrorism, mafiosi, Chechnya—are the result of a weak and semi-dismantled state, and so he has set about rebuilding it. His soft authoritarianism, coupled with various tax, legal, and benefit reforms, has contributed to economic growth averaging 6.5% per year since 1998—though Russia’s economy is still only slightly larger than that of Los Angeles County. Putin has also taught the country’s most powerful men that they are nothing compared to his state. But if Russia is to democratize, the state cannot always win.
Aug 19, 2008 - 2:37 pm 100. slade:—
But one thing is certain. Russia possesses one-third of the world’s natural gas, 7% of its oil, one-fifth of its precious metals, endless forest and farmland, ports on seven seas, the world’s second-largest nuclear stockpile, and 140 million patient and educated citizens—all spread across eleven time zones. This means that no matter how stormy its progress, Russia will matter. Like the ocean, the strength of a nation is a matter of ebb and flow.
Spengler is playing bridge (at his club, no doubt).
I could hear the sniffing and huffing half a world away, Mongoose.
Aug 19, 2008 - 2:51 pm 101. slade:Buddy – I am pretty sure I agree with what you wrote
– to the effect that *enforcement* of adequate regulatory control should do the trick. Noticeable for its complete absence in the sub-prime issuances. Don’t need the Accounting Nazi’s foot patrolling the mahogany boardrooms in their fake Gucci loafers looking for pennies.
Aug 19, 2008 - 2:58 pm 102. buddy larsen:i used to think Spengler & wretchard were the same guy. Back when both were soo-dinam-inus.
Aug 19, 2008 - 2:59 pm 103. buddy larsen:right, slade — time & energy & cost are constraint enough on work, must we add utter perverse stupidity?
Aug 19, 2008 - 3:04 pm 104. DanM:Buddy,
“must we add utter perverse stupidity?”
Yes, apparently so… The fact that it happened says that is exactly what it took…
Aug 19, 2008 - 3:18 pm 105. buddy larsen:DC is an unbelievable mess. The emblem and avatar of the dignity of the person is being run by hordes of unionized clock-watchers who cannot be fired.
Aug 19, 2008 - 3:35 pm 106. Doug:- How I beat the fatwa, and lost my freedom –
Some 900 days after I became the only person in the Western world charged with the “offence” of republishing the Danish cartoons of Muhammad, the government has finally acquitted me of illegal “discrimination.” Taxpayers are out more than $500,000 for an investigation that involved fifteen bureaucrats at the Alberta Human Rights Commission. The legal cost to me and the now-defunct Western Standard magazine is $100,000.
Aug 19, 2008 - 3:37 pm 107. Dan:I’m not sure which thread to post this on, but the proper thread appears closed, so forgive me for butting in…
(Georgia related)
Roki- Tunnel of Misfortune
http://www.geotimes.ge/index.php?m=home&newsid=12020
Aug 19, 2008 - 3:38 pm 108. Doug:Buddy,
Aug 19, 2008 - 3:39 pm 109. buddy larsen:I heard the head of Dept of Energy say they had 120,000 employees.
Any idea what they do?
Mostly work on its budget, which is then mostly spent on working on its next budget.
but, oh, what, lessee, maintain the website, vet ideas that come in, aggregate incoming regulatory reports. Write some guidelines and best practices.
Sound about right? Probably needs fifteen people, so, it may be overstaffed. Outsourcing to private would really work here.
Jimmy Carter’s Dep’t of Government Payroll Padding, a Boulder Dam across a mud puddle.
Aug 19, 2008 - 4:04 pm 110. DanM:Or, slots filled from the NRC’s Office of New Reactors division…
Aug 19, 2008 - 4:05 pm 111. Holdfast:CDOs are not, strictly speaking, derivatives (well, except for the synthetic variety). The thing about CDOs is that it is very likely that most of the Notes they issues are still intrinsically fine, but they cannot be properly valued. Since the notes were issued in tiers, even a 3 or 4% default rate in the underlying mortgages (and other loans – franchise, student loan, auto, etc) should only touch the bottom couple of teirs – though there are no doubt a few particularly unlucky CDOs out there with an abnormally high concentration of defaults.
For origins of much of the sub-prime mess, look at the crusade against “red-lining”, though obviously the Fed’s easy-money regime also played a large role.
Aug 19, 2008 - 4:08 pm 112. slade:Fast learners, the business community is not. If you don’t self-police, someone else will do it for you. This alone explains the simply heinous oversight failure of the Anderson accounting firm in the Enron corruption. Sarbanes-Oxley was not born of spontaneous combustion. One of the problems facing the next Congress will be dealing with regulatory failures vis a vis the “economic justice” of the Democrats.
I think it is common knowledge at this point that Obama was running for the experience – and maybe for the VP slot in best scenario. But due to the success of his campaign – and/or failure of the Clinton machine – he’s now going for the whole enchilada, ready or not.
As a voter, I am concerned that he carries the youthful weight of unreconstructed liberalism – hence concepts like “economic justice” and the juvenile marketing blunders with halos and hope and such. If he is as smart as claimed, he will grow out of it. I don’t think he’s there yet, but more importantly, his team of advisers appear entrenched. In my mind, neither Obama nor his team support economic and fiscal policies that will benefit this country in the long term, ease the short-term cycle out of the market slow-down, or increase national security through a strong domestic economy. I hope I am wrong – usually am – but I don’t like what I am hearing.
Aug 19, 2008 - 4:11 pm 113. slade:Thanks Holdfast – interesting. I have read, but it probably requires validation, that another sub-prime driver was too much liquidity in the markets. Looking for Return in All the Wrong Places, so to speak. I think there is some truth to this.
Aug 19, 2008 - 4:18 pm 114. Mongoose:Buddy:
Wretchard seem more the type for Go, no?
Just sayin’
Aug 19, 2008 - 4:25 pm 115. buddy larsen:Holdfast, the subprime tranches have some liquidity due to the 22 cents on the dollar that Merrill kitchen-sinked with a month or so back –but jeez –who wants it –
Aug 19, 2008 - 4:34 pm 116. bobal:God does not get Jealous. God is Jealous.
St. Aquinas said you don’t know God truly until you understand God is far beyond anything you can say about God. After he had his moment of infused contemplation he said everything he had written was like straw, then he died.
Aug 19, 2008 - 4:40 pm 117. buddy larsen:Mongoose, the old old belmont was so obscure you wouldn’t believe it today. Wretchard was entirely nome de plume, and writing objective analysis of the brand new enemy AQ. Very little of that then, and stumbling across belmont was like an finding an oasis in the dark.
Aug 19, 2008 - 4:44 pm 118. bobal:For example, envy of possible gains from receiving inequitable treatment deters most people from seeking favors from government and thus helps preserve equality under the law.
from an article about Schoeck’s “Envy”
hehe, as a farmer I can tell you that’s not been my experience.
Aug 19, 2008 - 4:44 pm 119. Doug:“For origins of much of the sub-prime mess, look at the crusade against “red-lining” ”
…and eventually everyone got on the gravey train to instant wealth.
—
A more accurate description of Barry, I think, Slade:
Peterike…
As if anyone who’s paid the slightest attention doesn’t already know Oblarney is a stone-cold Marxist. As if apples don’t fall far from trees.
It’s all patently clear to any honest observer. Marxism was — as literally as possible — mother’s milk to BHO, and grandmother’s milk, and surrogate father’s milk, and college professor’s milk, and on and on. He sips from no other springs.
Aug 19, 2008 - 4:47 pm 120. buddy larsen:What else can he be?
—
Even his newfound fake grey hairs from Oahu won’t enable him to grow out of this.
Instant Maturity and Wisdom
you have to wonder, re any new unknown cheshire cat president, what is the procedure with football, say if AF1 is in the air with POTUS, and Russia launches full ICBM attack, and POTUS won’t push the button?
Aug 19, 2008 - 4:53 pm 121. Doug:At least we won’t have wasted money on costly and unproven missile defense.
Aug 19, 2008 - 4:56 pm 122. slade:Maturity in a Bottle and Wisdom in a Pill.
Too bad it doesn’t work that way.
Aug 19, 2008 - 5:00 pm 123. Doug:Autocratic Governments Outgrow Democracies
The wealth of autocratic governments is soaring and the wealth of liberal democracies is collapsing. As recently as 2003, democracies had $400 billion worth more wealth than autocracies, 600 billion to 200 billion. Today the autocratic governments have almost $1 trillion more wealth than democracies.
Last year alone, autocratic assets grew 60% and democratic assets shrunk 7%.
Autocratic governments are doing everything they can to produce more energy from existing sources, our government’s doing everything they can to prevent more energy from existing sources, and it is leading to a huge transfer of wealth.
Aug 19, 2008 - 5:04 pm 124. bobal:Russian Troops Continue To Withdraw By Taking Prisoners and Stealing Hummers
Where is Russian Bear when we need him?
Aug 19, 2008 - 5:08 pm 125. buddy larsen:no, really –JUST for FUN, Tom Clancey style –what happens if POTUS has a deal with Ivan, and he’s in the air, and he has a bodyguard or two in on it who shoots the guy with the codes and the football, and Ivan launches per plan, and AF1 just flies on to Moscow? Would it take an hour for USA to implement plan II –IOW, too late? i know we have air & sea too (well, air is maybe down right now due to the embarrassingnuke vs cruise missile mix up), but, what about that football i wonder?
Aug 19, 2008 - 5:19 pm 126. Dan:Gray. The new non-gray?
Who knew? This guy has it all. I’m hooked. Where do I sign up?
Aug 19, 2008 - 5:23 pm 127. Teresita:Doug: The wealth of autocratic governments is soaring and the wealth of liberal democracies is collapsing. As recently as 2003, democracies had $400 billion worth more wealth than autocracies, 600 billion to 200 billion.
Doug, the total value of just household wealth in the US was approximately $44 trillion in 2000. This excludes corporate capitalization. Your article only talks about net wealth owned by governments but you didn’t read it closely enough. All it means is that assholes who run countries sitting on oil don’t run budget deficits. But they don’t take that money and help the people either.
Aug 19, 2008 - 5:30 pm 128. bobal:In that case Buddy were all screwed, and I mean it, and the best place to be if you’re an American is on one of our nuclear subs.
Aug 19, 2008 - 5:30 pm 129. bobal:I got to admit it. If I was a typical Ivan in Georgia, I’d try to get my hands on a Hummer too. That chance don’t come along very often.
Aug 19, 2008 - 5:33 pm 130. Mongoose:Why not just force AF1 to enter at Sheremetyevo? That would keep the President in the dark for hours. Would not have to shoot anyone. He would not even have to “punt”.
Bet Barry would not even notice the side track…tell him it is an honor or something.
(Always wondered why they called it the “football” – now i get it.)
Aug 19, 2008 - 5:44 pm 131. programmer:Conspiracy theory time:
Are the 20 prisoners really Georgians or are they the SpecOps guys left to gaurd the Communication Hummers being shipped home after the earlier military exercises?
Aug 19, 2008 - 5:44 pm 132. NahnCee:would spec ops guys allow themselves to be taken without a shot being fired, and their communications hummers confiscated without them being blowed up? esp if it’s russians (for god’s sakes) trying to do the taking?
Aug 19, 2008 - 5:49 pm 133. buddy larsen:hold your breath alright.
Aug 19, 2008 - 5:49 pm 134. programmer:Ok, NahnCee, you’ve got me there. SpecOps would at least drop the thermite where it would do the most good. However, as the conspiracy theorist, I don’t have to be consistent, so let’s suppose it was 20 civilian contractors hired to bundle things up and load them for shipment. They’re just in it for the money. Is that better (or worse)?
Aug 19, 2008 - 6:17 pm 135. Charles:As Oil Giants Lose Influence, Supply Drops
Aug 19, 2008 - 7:04 pm 136. bobal:New York Times ^
Good article but
No mention of liberals cutting off supplies in the USA.
People complain about the oil companies. The oil companies are a godsend. Talk about biting the hand that makes everything in your life possible.
Aug 19, 2008 - 7:18 pm 137. Lifeofthemind:Paul it is always tempting to say those bums are taking taxpayer money and there ought to be a law. Restraint is a virtue. If Statism and censorship are wrong when used to aggrandize power by Liberals at the expense of peripheral interests then it is also wrong when used to increase the authority of the State at the expense of a public but peripheral entity such as the University of Illinois. On the other hand the State Universities are notorious for featherbedding and should be privatized. The only justification for them was the need to set up Veterinary and Normal schools under the land grant system for the Old Northwest Territory. I am sympathetic to an argument if proven, that the library is violating the terms of it’s endowment by withholding these documents. The fact that that endowment comes from the public purse is regrettable.
Aug 19, 2008 - 7:20 pm 138. Charles:Coalition Helps Afghanistan ‘Bank’ on Its Future
American Forces Press Service ^ | Tech. Sgt. Kevin Wallace, USAF
Posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2008 7:46:41 PM by SandRat
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, Aug. 19, 2008 – U.S. forces here are using commercial banking services to bolster Afghanistan’s economy by putting about $100 million worth of monthly business transactions into private banks.
Aug 19, 2008 - 7:22 pm 139. buddy larsen://////////////
They ought to buy their food — especially wheat from the Afghans too — to wean them off poppy production and Taliban pay offs. In fact, as much of the supply train as can be safely bought on the local economy should be bought on the local economy and then train the locals to sell their products to the gulf states so they have new markets as US soldiers leave.
Here’s a condensed & readable overview of the relationships among some of those financial matters discussed lately.
Aug 19, 2008 - 8:46 pm 140. buddy larsen:Terms of Undonement
Your quick & readable
Aug 19, 2008 - 9:38 pm 141. A to the F:hopefully emailable
Orwellio malleable
terminally fallible
ring-a-ding
ka-ching ka-ching
Obama tax plan
I continually stand in awe of you, Wretchard. Tying in current events with literature, in this case The Name of the Rose, is simply brilliant. Why aren’t you in a major daily newspaper????
Aug 19, 2008 - 9:56 pm 142. bobal:The Obama tax plan gives me hope. We generally don’t elect people that promise to dramatically raise our taxes. Obama is sneaky though, making it seem most people’s taxes won’t go up.
Aug 19, 2008 - 9:59 pm 143. Elroy Jetson:bobal,
Aug 19, 2008 - 10:31 pm 144. bobal:If you are an American voter, I would not be going out on a limb if I said that you are the only one who is “inspired” by Obama’s tax plan.
My pet peeve is the capital gains tax as it applies to real property. I said to my accountant one day, it’s a tax on inflation. He had a better phrase, it’s a tax on the passage of time.
Aug 19, 2008 - 10:37 pm 145. wretchard:Why aren’t you in a major daily newspaper????
Because nobody would hire me. Actually, I wouldn’t hire myself either. Most people who post on the site (with some exceptions) are probably happy they have day jobs. There is a certain benefit to not having to sing for your supper. I’m going to make the bold prediction that in the future many more will write than do today and that we will all find some way to monetize our information output (lawyers and consultants already do) but fewer will write in the generalist and journalistic sense implied by the old news model. I don’t think journalism is going away. It’s just changing form.
Aug 19, 2008 - 10:44 pm 146. Wadeusaf:Of Annenberg and an open Public accounting of deeds, and mistakes. Private Not for profit corporations have become a neo-marxian equivalent of the collective in a market driven state. These are “agencies of change” and the folks who run them are not at all interested in sharing anything that might put in danger the source of their funding. Unless of course not sharing would result in the removal of said funding. It seems a maze of funding options and sources that would make tracking Al Qaeda finance seem like a walk in the park is employed to not only muddy the water on whether it is a private NGO or a Public OTGO, and I foresee years of lawsuits in trying to prize the information out of their hands. It will be a task greater than repealing executive privilege.
Or they could just open the books, and the Annenberg files, so we, all of us can look. The risk is that we would all of us reach our own conclusions on Annenberg, on “OH”, and on a host of similar institutions of high fraud and higher flim flam.
On Pakistan, my impression is that as long as the leader of the ruling majority party blames Musharif for the death of Benazir Bhutto, no progress can be made against the Taliban or against Al Qaeda in the Frontier Provinces. Afghanistan and all those hi-tech plans are held captive by the widower husband’s morbid blindness, while Pakistan is strangled from within. It is the only explanation that makes sense.
If we cannot move military through Poland to support Georgia, the only sensible route is up from Iraq, through Turkey (and perhaps Iran). I am sure the turks would not mind helping us eliminating another threat or two, even if it came to an armed confrontation. but no one is willing to bet the store yet on the American gut check which will be the November elections.
Aug 19, 2008 - 10:47 pm 147. buddy larsen:what’s sneaky are the ”refundable tax credits”, which are really direct distributions to the non (or nearly non) taxpaying bottom 60% from the taxpaying top 40%.
The innovation is to run this thru IRS rather than HHS, so that he can net it against the massive tax increases levied against that 40% minority, and thereby get a number which allows him to campaign as a “net tax-cutter”.
Two words: Orwell.
Aug 19, 2008 - 11:40 pm 148. 2164th:Did everyone catch Barack Hussein’s little quip about “John McCain’s president
Aug 19, 2008 - 11:47 pm 149. buddy larsen:(snip from my link @ 9:38 PM)
“The latest Congressional Budget Office data shows the bottom 40% of income earners already pays no income taxes. Indeed, they receive a net payment from the federal income tax system — meaning from the taxpayers — equal to 3.8% of all federal income taxes, because of the refundable tax credits under current law. The middle 20% of income earners, the true middle class, pays 4.4% of federal income taxes.
Overall, the bottom 60% of income earners pay less than 1% of federal income taxes on net. When “tax credits” primarily go to this group in the form of checks from the government (rather than a reduction in their tax burden) it is simply an abuse of the language to call the spending a tax cut.
Consequently, to say, as the campaign does say, that the candidate’s tax plan is a tax cut on net — and that it would limit taxes to 18.2% of GDP — is grossly misleading. The Obama tax plan would sharply increase real taxes. It also would come nowhere near to paying for the massive increases in federal spending he has proposed, including the spending that is disguised in the form of refundable tax credits.”
(please read the whole thing –this guy Obama is an ambition-assassin nonpariel)
Aug 20, 2008 - 12:13 am 150. bobal:ambition-assassin
Good phrase
Aug 20, 2008 - 12:40 am 151. whiskey:Wade, Turkey is backing Russia. So we will have no help there.
Speculation is, Russia has offered Arms and other elements to Turkey to gain their cooperation, and the Islamists who run Ankara despise the West certainly. This is not Kemal Ataturk’s Turkey, rather it is Osama bin Laden’s. The Saudis have funneled a lot of money to the religious party, which in turn has infiltrated and Islamicized the military.
Turkey has a lot more people than Greece, to give one example, and would like to rule it (again). The people there would like to rule a great deal of the Balkans. Other nations in the area are just as weak, and Russia would like that play (swoop in as protector against Turkey).
Aug 20, 2008 - 12:56 am 152. Doug:Believe this, Buddy?
—
Obama skewers McCain over definition of ‘rich’ -
“While Obama downplayed the significance of Bill Clinton’s presidency when he was campaigning for the nomination against Clinton’s wife, he now cites it as an economic marvel. “During Bill Clinton’s era in the 1990s, incomes for the average family went up by $6,000,” he said.
Aug 20, 2008 - 2:31 am 153. Teresita:“During George Bush’s reign in the White House, we have seen the average family income go down by $1,000.””
Wade, Turkey is backing Russia. So we will have no help there.
Then how about we back Greater Kurdistan and see how they like them apples.
Aug 20, 2008 - 6:16 am 154. S:Turkey apparently blocked US relief ship but talking about maybe being ok with naval presence (NATO) in black sea? ny idea what the motivation here is/was? Russia has been leaning on Turkey and eyeing the straits for century. Seems a fairly stupid calculation on Turkey part, no?
Aug 20, 2008 - 7:31 am 155. Paul:Lifeofthemind:
To a certain extent, I agree with you that restraint should be used.
However, my problem is that major Universities’ chief benefactor has become the government, with the decision making done primarily by the bureaucracy of government. This bureaucracy is thoroughly controlled by leftists, often through the Public Employee Unions. As a result, Universities have become even more leftist, forcing out anyone of conservative opinion.
There are a multitude of ill effects on society and democracy as a result. Too many to describe. The following is just a couple of examples.
By slowing winnowing away conservative voices at the Universities, the Democrats have slowly eliminated the intellectual underpinnings of conservative thought. Many of the new ideas of the right used to come from University professors. Arthur Laffer of USC formulated the beginnings of supply side economics. Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago formulated monetarism. Now, few Universities even teach supply side economics even after the success of the Reagan tax cuts, Prop 13, the Capital Gains cut of the 90’s, and the Bush tax cuts. I have several Ivy league educated MBA acquaintences who if you mention tax cuts or propose oil drilling, they look at you as if you made an obscene gesture. Look at the top 25 Econ blogs, many of which are run by University professors, only one or two are supply siders .
More and more, the democrats want to push policy making away from legislative and executive branches of government to boards, panels, or commissions of so-called “experts”. This way they can deflect criticism of their ruinous policies on the “experts”. But the Democrats know that these “experts” will almost always be Democrat experts. Controlling the Universities largely means you control the expert debate. Conservatives are often overwhelmed by the sheer number of public funded leftist experts. Look at the Global Warming debate, or the Polar Bear Threatened Species listing. Conservative voices are drowned out.
In California, our politicians have relinquished policy making to these same “expert” agencies and boards like the Coastal Commission, the Air Quality Management District, the Southern California Air Resources, and the Department of Fish and Game. These agencies and boards have been given a broad mandate to enact policy in the name of environmental protection without hardly any public input. All sorts of inane and destructive regulations, like the banning of wood burning fireplaces, have been enacted with no public recourse.
Slowly but surely, largely behind closed doors, our lives are being controlled and our rights are being taken away.
Aug 20, 2008 - 8:51 am 156. Lifeofthemind:Paul, I agree. Public funding of research universities grew during WW-II as part of the defense establishment. The money is like a drug that can’t be stopped. The surprising thing is that rather than seeing the values of the military infiltrating and controlling the life of the univerities the opposite has occured. The values of obscurantist specialists and faculty grievance mongerers have infiltrated the government. Resources are wasted and our ability to react in a crisis is hindered.
Aug 20, 2008 - 9:00 am 157. Lifeofthemind:Wretchard,
Aug 20, 2008 - 9:03 am 158. buddy larsen:Given that I am looking for a job, and therefor should not be on the blog now, I would be happy to “sing for my supper.”
”they look at you as if you made an obscene gesture” …those acolytes of the Western Orthodox Church do.
Aug 20, 2008 - 9:52 am 159. Wadeusaf:Whiskey,
I dunno about that, turkey will do what is perceived as being in their best interest, and historically that means backing the strong horse. That isn’t Russia, and it certainly isn’t Al Qaeda, so while they don’t understand what makes a democracy strong, they do not doubt the strength of the US. They do however doubt our commitment.
Aug 20, 2008 - 3:15 pmSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.