THE STAR TREK CALENDAR PICTURE OF THE MONTH IS...



...Mr. Sulu!!!

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Pope Slams Modern Societies For Godlessness

From the AP via the Huffington Post Newswire:

Pope Benedict XVI warned Sunday that modern culture is pushing God out of people's lives, causing nations once rich in religious faith to lose their identities.

Benedict celebrated a Mass in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls to open a worldwide meeting of bishops on the relevance of the Bible for contemporary Catholics.

"Today, nations once rich in faith and vocations are losing their own identity, under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain modern culture," said Benedict, who has been pushing for religion to be given more room in society.

More here.

What does it mean, exactly, "for religion to be given more room in society"?

You hear this bullshit all the time here in the US, that religion is under fire, that there needs to be more display of religion in public, that more God equals a better society. But how does that work exactly? From my perspective as an agnostic leaning atheist, we've got plenty of room for religion in society. People are always talking about God's will. The schools teach Christian inspired abstinence-based sex education while tolerating "student sponsored" religious events and prayer meetings. Politicians crawl over each other to out-God the opposition, always saying "God bless America."

Maybe the Pope was talking about secular Europe, but I'm pretty sure he was including America. But put all that aside for a moment to modify my original question: why must religion be given more room in society?

There is no public discussion on this question. It seems that the prevailing attitude is that religion is generally a good thing, so more of it seems to be a reasonable goal. But what would it do, having religion play a stronger role in society? How is it going to make life any better? Nobody really ever asks that, which is why nobody appears to have an answer. What's particularly troubling to me is that not many Americans seem to be troubled by this. I mean, if you supported the proposition that more religion in society is good, wouldn't you want your view to be grounded in a strong and reasonable argument? But no such argument, short of vague assertions that God is great, or Jesus loves us, exists.

It's one thing to lose an argument, but I'm really disturbed by the fact that there is no argument about this. C'mon. Shouldn't the god-believers at least have to make a legitimate case?

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Ogbonnaya scores 2 TDs, saves another as No. 5 Texas cruises

From the AP via ESPN:

Ogbonnaya scored two touchdowns and saved another in the fifth-ranked Longhorns' 38-14 rout of the Buffaloes on Saturday night that sets up a matchup of unbeatens with top-ranked Oklahoma in Dallas next week.

The senior running back scored on a 65-yard dump-off and a 13-yard gallop through the befuddled Buffs' defense, then saved a score when he chased down cornerback Jalil Brown at the Texas 16 after an interception of Colt McCoy.

Ogbonnaya's trio of tremendous plays helped the Longhorns (5-0, 1-0 Big 12) take a 21-0 halftime lead and assured there would be no peeking toward next weekend's Red River Rivalry against the Sooners.

At least not until the game's end, when the Longhorns' contingent of fans chanted "Beat OU! Beat OU!" as the players gathered in the end zone for the school song.

"It's what these two teams should have at midseason. It's two top-five teams that are both playing really well," Texas coach Mack Brown said. "We'll have everybody in America talking about the game next week, and that's what we want."

More here.

Okay, by this point in the season last year, I was very much of the opinion that Texas just wasn't serious about winning football games. I mean, they won games and all, but by margins beneath their talent, and they clearly had problems with big games. They couldn't beat Oklahoma. Indeed, the last time the 'Horns beat OU was during their legendary 2005 season on the way to winning the national championship, led by Marvel Superhero and X-Men candidate Vince Young--I'll never forget the look of disgust on OU coach Bob Stoop's face; it was beautiful.

So why the hell am I talking about last season and OU for a post about Texas beating the Colorado Buffaloes? Even though Texas is still untested in that they really haven't played anybody on their level yet, it is now clear to me that the Longhorns are dead serious about winning football games this year. Last year there were a lot of sloppy mistakes, a lot of off-the-field bullshit, and it showed during games, lots of depressing comedy. Not this year. I mean, okay, there are still mistakes here and there, and there is weakness in the running game, and in the defensive secondary, but they're improving with every game. The 'Horns are focused and efficient in a businesslike way. No bullshit.

And taking care of business is what Texas did in their opening Big 12 game, on the road, which is always tough in this conference, unless it's against, say, Baylor. So Colt McCoy, "the Doctor" I like to call him, as in "Doctor McCoy," is no Vince Young, but he's looking damned good, buffed up, giving hits instead of taking them as he runs for yardage worthy of his predecessor. And he's fucking accurate. And man, our linemen, on both sides of the ball, are fucking scarey, in the good way--that's the most important part of the game, down in the trenches; linemen don't win games, but their performance provides the foundation upon which teams win.

Of course, none of this means that Texas will beat OU, but for the first time since '05, I'm feeling very good about our prospects. I'm feeling like it's going to be a good game; if they lose, Texas will look good doing it. But, as I'm sure you know, I really, really, really want the Longhorns to beat the Sooners. I really, really, really want to see Bob Stoops throw his stupid fucking OU sun visor down on the ground in disgust. I've really come to hate OU in ways that dwarf my disdain for Texas A&M. As my buddy Matt used to say, the reason the Aggies hate us so much is that they know that they're really only a secondary rivalry; OU is the primary rival, and I've come to fully understand that only in my adult life. Because OU sucks.

Beat the fuck out of 'em, Texas!!!


Texas wide receiver Jordan Shipley, left, pulls in a pass for a touchdown over
Colorado cornerback Cha'pelle Brown in the first quarter of an NCAA college
football game in Boulder, Colo., on Saturday, Oct. 4, 2008.
(AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

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MADONNA STILL SUCKS

From the New York Times courtesy of the Huffington Post Newswire:

Aerobic, Not Erotic: The Concert as Workout

At 50, Madonna can no longer be seen as a clubland ingénue, a Hollywood glamour queen, an iconoclast rejecting a Roman Catholic upbringing or a kinky provocateur, and she won’t be any kind of dowager yet. Time has brought out her core: careerist ambition and a combative tenacity.

Has there ever been a colder pop sex symbol? For all the invitations in her lyrics, Madonna has always projected more calculation and industriousness than affection. She works; her audience looks and pays, becoming another conquest.

And

Madonna turned to messages: a save-the-world video that torpedoed its good intentions with overkill, juxtaposing John McCain with Hitler and Barack Obama with Gandhi. Although her outfit and a mop-with-bangs wig made her look like a bad 1970s comic-book character, Madonna was close to inspirational in an electrocharged version of “Like a Prayer,” with golden-rule religious teachings projected overhead. She followed it awkwardly, with guitar-slinging rock versions of “Ray of Light” and, returning to earthly things, “Hung Up,” with a feedback finish. She wants punk’s old rebel credibility.

More here.

Okay, when I say she sucks, I mean only by the standard she set for herself back in the day. That is, she still manages to release a pretty good song or two every few years. As a pop singer, I'd say that Madonna is okay. But she's just another pop singer, divorced these days from the sense of cultural significance she exuded for about a decade or so, from, say, 1982-1992.

I've ranted about this at length here on more than one occasion. Madonna obviously jumped the shark long ago, yet like a zombie she's still there, still touring and releasing records, still important fodder for the gossip trade, still ripping off zombie fans of their hard earned cash. But who's really into her lately? I mean, it's been a long time since one could honestly assert that she has any real cultural significance. It's really hard for me to get past the feeling that what she's got going now is simply a more media-savvy version of the slow fade into obscurity suffered by the baby boomer performers who've preceded her, you know, the Beach Boys and their ilk.

One thing that's become utterly clear to me since my last rant about Madonna is that she never really understood exactly why she was important back in the 80s. Here's my take. Her personality - hard working, greedy and ambitious, controlling, sexually aggressive, New York hip, spiritually confused, angry - was absolutely perfect for the post liberal, post hippie Reagan era. I mean, Madonna is cocaine. All euphoria, but totally self-involved. How could she not have become a superstar in the 1980s? But the 80s ended, and Madonna stayed the same. I mean, sure, she toyed with different musical styles, changed her outfits, but what she was about always stayed the same. There has never been any sense of self-understanding, which is why she has never been able to take the ideas that launched her to cultural prominence and expand upon them, or examine them, or move them toward new or different ideas.

Greed was all the rage back in '82 when "Borderline" first hit the charts, but what does greed mean now? How does the Material Girl fit into an America where such right-wing cultural values are being shredded by reality as we watch on television? Madonna has never understood herself, and that's completely evident today.

It's also why she is totally irrelevant.


What the fuck does she think she's doing? She can't even play guitar.
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

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Biden vs. Palin -- Who Won? 6 Short Takes on the VP Debate

From AlterNet:

Sarah Palin's task was to avoid getting caught in specifics, and she did that with aplomb. Early on, she made her strategy explicit, saying that her answers may not be "what the moderator wants," or what Joe Biden might want to hear, but that she'd "talk straight" to the American people.

She did that by avoiding just about every question for the rest of the debate. In answer to Biden's charge that McCain had voted repeatedly to deregulate the financial sector, she launched into a discussion of taxes; when the subject turned to the bankruptcy "reform" bill, she launched into a slogan-riddled discourse about "Main Street" versus "Wall Street" -- the trite words of the day. Several times she went back to a tested talking point about Barack Obama's support of (Bush's) energy bill, barreling head-on through whatever topic moderator Gwen Ifill was trying to probe at the time.

Throughout, she tried to play up her folksiness, at one point saying "doggone it," and twice winking mischievously at the camera. If you'd been drinking each time she said the word "maverick," you would have ended up with severe alcohol poisoning.

More here.

I've been blowing off presidential debates for over a decade now. They're generally boring in terms of the argumentation, and as I've moved to the left, they always leave me a bit depressed given how mainstream politics have shifted so far to the right since the Reagan era. But because I think Sarah Palin is hot, and because the Katie Couric interview made me hopeful that Palin's rhetorical efforts would end up as something of a train wreck, I watched this one.

And I was disappointed. Really, I couldn't even focus on the whole thing. I ended up doing chores around the house while the debate played on TV. It was that lame.

I mean, okay, Biden was pretty good. That is, he actually came to debate--don't get me wrong; I don't like him or anything, what with his credit industry loving ways and all. But it was clear that he was there for some good arguments, which is how he started out. After only a little while, however, it became completely clear that Palin was there just to look pretty and sound smart, winking and shit, and using words like "Iran" and "General McClellan," who was one of Lincoln's generals during the Civil War, rather than the current US commander in Afghanistan, but no matter. No real debate. No real clash.

I was reminded of my high school debate and competitive public speaking days. Back then, and probably even now, it was pretty easy to win a round if you had a judge who didn't know much about academic debate, usually a soccer mom or the like, by simply sounding good while using big words. It didn't really matter that you didn't know what you were talking about, as long as you came off like David Brinkley or Linda Ellerbee. The suburban mommies and daddies loved that shit.

On the other hand, if you got a debate coach from another school as judge, or a college kid who used to debate in high school, you were totally fucked if you had no idea what you're talking about. Looking good didn't count for shit. You always had to size up your judge and strategize accordingly. Of course, if all you were capable of doing was immitating famous broadcast journalists, you'd have to always play the looking good angle--these people usually lost at state and nationals, where tournament organizers weren't so hard up for judges.

Anyway, I've been sensing a fear on the left that Palin's use of the looking good gambit will play well with swing voters. I'm not buying it. Swing voters are indeed wishy washy vessels of political ignorance and apathy, but eight years of disastrous GOP rule, coupled with this current credit and finance crisis, have rubbed almost everybody's nose in Republican bullshit. It's going to take a whole lot more than grace under fire to convince average Americans that continuing Republican rule is a good idea. Sarah Palin is not Ronald Reagan, and this isn't 1980: for once, even the retarded middle understands that there are important differences between the far right-wing Republicans and the right-wing Democrats.

She's just not a threat to the Obama/Biden ticket. Period. Things are so fucking bad that uplifting rhetoric and a perky smile won't do shit.

But wouldn't a real debate have been nice for once?

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Sammy



Frankie



Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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Offended neighbors get Utah park statue moved

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

A Utah state park moved an American Indian-inspired statue of a humpbacked flute player Thursday after objections that it was offensive because the male figure is anatomically correct.

Officials at Edge of the Cedars State Park moved the sticklike figure from in front of its museum to a spot behind it so it can't been seen from the street, park manager Teri Paul said.

The park, in Blanding, is the site of an ancient Pueblo Indian ruin, as well as the modern-day museum.

The sculpture is a modern interpretation of a Hopi symbol of a flute player. Made by artist Joe Pachak, it has welcomed visitors to the park for 19 years.

It raised objections only recently from a group of Blanding's more conservative residents, who were concerned that the figure has male anatomy, Paul said.

At first park officials were going to ban the figure from the park altogether. But another group of citizens complained of censorship.

More here.

It's tempting to blast the crazy Mormons here, but you get this kind of bizarre parochialism all over the place, even in New York City from time to time. And this is bizarre. We're talking about a stick figure. With a stick pee pee. I mean, I'm all for obscene and pornographic art freaking people out on Main Street and all, but this doesn't even come close. It's a stick figure. With a stick pee pee. And this stick pee pee took nineteen years to finally offend someone.

It's very cool that the local anti-censorship group kept the statue from being banned outright - in addition to widespread American parochialism, it's wonderful to note that we also have widespread defense of free speech, even in Cow Town, USA - but the compromise, which simply moved the offensive stick pee pee out of sight, is nearly as much of an insult as banning it would have been. That is, moving it concedes that the anti stick pee pee people have a point worth considering, which they don't.

Why on earth must we continually rearrange society to accommodate primitive and superstitious morons?


See? It's a stick pee pee.
(AP Photo/Edge of Cedar State Park Museum, Teri Paul)

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Small Businesses Frozen by Crisis

From the New York Times:

Small businesses in America — the 27 million companies employing fewer than 500 people and in most cases fewer than 20 people — account for half of the nation’s output. A downward swing, whether caused by expensive borrowing or pessimism, could weaken the economy and shrink employment. Small businesses employ 40 percent of the work force, the Census Bureau reports, and they outpace large companies in generating new jobs.

“Small businesses are sitting on their hands,” said Chad Moutray, chief economist of the Small Business Administration. “Either they can’t get the capital or they don’t want the capital. They read what is happening, and frankly they are scared.”

And

That sense of bracing for harder times is evident in little ways, at companies large and small. George Wendt, the owner of Chicago Metal Rolled Products, which forms steel into supports for stadium roofs, school gymnasiums, large canopies and the like, has reduced the steel he keeps in inventory over the last month, buying only what is immediately used.

That decision, multiplied across many companies, means suppliers will make less and stockpiles will shrink. There will be less production to drive the economy.

More here.

The complexities of economics can make understanding what's at stake in this credit crisis, or mortgage and lending crisis, or financial crisis, whatever you want to call it, seem daunting. That's true enough. But when you get down to it, the basics are pretty simple.

Here's a little history.

Deregulation mania, pushed for a couple of decades by the rising, and then dominant, Conservative Movement, resulted in the repeal of Depression era banking regulations which made it possible for banks to issue home loans to people who couldn't possibly afford to repay them. Those banks then sold the loans to brokerage houses which then packaged them together into larger units, and sliced them up into shares which were then bought by legitimate investment companies.

Quick aside: if you're wondering why bad loans were considered to be a good investment by legitimate investors, you're in good company. The only explanation I've heard is that these investors expected the real estate bubble to expand for a much longer time than it actually did. Yeah, I still don't get it. Maybe they thought that increasing collateral value meant that they weren't actually bad loans. Suffice it to say that being a capitalist doesn't necessarily correlate with possessing intelligence or foresight.

Anyway, it turns out that, even though not every brokerage house and bank was in on the game, just enough were that when the foreclosures began, it sent serious shock waves throughout the entire financial sector: all these companies loan money to each other, sell each other various securities; if you get a certain percentage of them going belly up, it fucks over everyone. That is, one company's inability to pay its debts affects lots and lots of other companies, which in turn are unable to pay their debts because they were depending on that first wave of insolvent banks to pay their fucking debts. Big house of cards caught up in a chain reaction from hell.

We had this all figured out back during the 1930s, and had a lot of laws and regulations designed to keep such cross contamination from bringing the house down, but such thinking was incompatible with right-wing free market ideology, the same sort which dominated business and politics before the 30s, and so it had to go.

Bottom line here: banks are now afraid to loan money to other banks, which means that available money for loans to consumers and non-financial businesses is hard to come by. That's bad because businesses, especially small businesses, depend critically on access to credit or loan money.

Like banks, at any given moment, virtually all businesses don't actually possess in liquid cash what they're worth. They're waiting for payment for services rendered or goods sold in order to pay off obligations like payroll or previous loans. I mean, they've got the money on paper; they just don't have access to it until they get paid what they're owed. In the meantime, however, life goes on, and they have to pay what they owe. That's where credit comes in. You get some loan money to make it through normal expenses until your accounts have been settled. The whole fucking economy works in this way. Credit literally greases the wheels of capitalism.

But what happens when you can't get that credit to make payroll or service your own debt or do any number of things that businesses need to do in order to remain viable? You cut expenses. You lay off workers. You produce less. You find as many corners to cut as possible. Now picture all businesses having to do that. You don't simply have an economic slowdown; you have reverse growth, a.k.a. recession, with high unemployment, soup lines, etc.

This financial crisis is very real. It's not simply about a bunch of fat cat Wall Street assholes. The popular resentment against bailout is one that I understand and sympathize with. Why reward rich pricks in suits who would just as soon sodomize your grandmother as have a hamburger? Thing is, without a massive capital infusion, taking care of the insolvency mess left behind by all those shitty mortgage securities, to make all these nervous bankers feel like it's safe to loan money again, things will just keep getting worse; small business, and then later big business, will just keep slowing down, which will in turn result in mass layoffs, which will in turn result in street riots and social instability the likes of which no living American has seen in his own country.

The problem as I see it is crafting a bailout that fixes the system without rewarding the assholes who broke it in the first place. We also need to make sure this doesn't happen again. We also need to provide relief to all the consumers, who I prefer to call citizens, who've been caught up in this storm's wake. Congress is moving in that direction - praise them all for rejecting Paulson's first "free money for assholes in suits" proposal - but they're not there yet.

If we're lucky, they will be soon.

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SUPERMAN'S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN

So the economy is falling apart while we all watch on TV, and the major presidential candidates, Congress, and the White House all seem powerless to do anything. What to do? What to do?

Think about comic books!

From retroCRUSH:

Okay, but my favorite thing about Jimmy Olsen was that he existed as one of those characters that the publishers, writers, and editors felt comfortable doing anything with. Jimmy could take a secret serum and turn into “Elastic Lad” and actually become a real superhero. He also turned into a giant turtle and all sorts of crazy monsters along the way, but the coolest thing existed in the form of a secret signal watch to call on Superman whenever he got into a jam. Talk about fulfilling the sidekick dream, Jimmy had direct access to the ultimate big brother who could kick anybody’s ass.

And

Enter Jack Kirby. When he moved from Marvel to DC to usher in a whole new adventurous world for the 1970s Kirby insisted on taking over the book with the lowest sales so someone with a steady job wouldn’t lose work.

That book, Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen, is where and when the Jimmy Olsen series truly became a vitally interesting comic book, containing a continuity of stories that every serious reader of comic literature should own.

Jack Kirby made Jimmy Olsen modern, relevant, and totally far out. Jimmy throws away his bowtie and basically becomes an action-packed superstar that isn’t afraid to tell the authoritative Superman where to fly.

Jimmy’s far out “Fourth World” trip lasted about four years until his book hit cancellation, no doubt because it has gone too far into the “wild.”

Click here for more.

Being born in 1968, the Jimmy Olson I first got to know was the revamped guy from the early 70s. I mean, I understood that Jimmy had long played a totally secondary role for Superman, being someone else besides Lois to fall out of windows for the Man of Tomorrow to rescue, but Jimmy's "Mr. Action" phase in the 70s, the twentysomething suave and competent crusading photojournalist who hung out with superheroes and aliens, and only used his signal watch to contact his Kryptonian mentor under the most dire of circumstances, captured my imagination, often as much as DC's actual costumed characters.

And the Jack Kirby stuff is as good as anything he did at Marvel, maybe even better. Kirby took the weirdness of what was at that point thirty years of accumulated Superman storyline into the realm of sublime art. If you ever get the chance, you should try to check out some of the Jimmy Olson clone stories Kirby did: I have never experienced a comic book moment as compelling as when Jimmy has to fight hundreds of evil clones of himself, with his fists, at the same time.

You know, Lois Lane had her own title, too, and by the time I was reading her stuff in the late 70s, there were lots of cool underwear shots. I guess DC's editors knew what nine year old boys wanted to see. Don't believe me? Check this out:



Hubba hubba! But this is about Superman's Pal not Superman's Girlfriend, so I'll end this post with this fabulous cover courtesy of retroCRUSH:



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ROLLING STONE COLUMNIST STARTS TO REALLY KICK ASS

From Rolling Stone via AlterNet, Matt Taibbi goes for Sarah Palin's jugular:

Mad Dog Palin

But watching Palin's speech, I had no doubt that I was witnessing a historic, iconic performance. The candidate sauntered to the lectern with the assurance of a sleepwalker - and immediately launched into a symphony of snorting and sneering remarks, taking time out in between the superior invective to present herself as just a humble gal with a beefcake husband and a brood of healthy, combat-ready spawn who just happened to be the innocent targets of a communist and probably also homosexual media conspiracy. It was a virtuoso performance. She appeared to be completely without shame and utterly full of shit, awing a room full of hardened reporters with her sickly sweet line about the high-school-flame-turned-hubby who, "five children later" is "still my guy." It was like watching Gidget address the Reichstag.

Within minutes, Palin had given TV audiences a character infinitely recognizable to virtually every American: the small-town girl with just enough looks and a defiantly incurious mind who thinks the PTA minutes are Holy Writ, and injustice means the woman next door owning a slightly nicer set of drapes or flatware. Or the governorship, as it were.

And

The great insight of the Palin VP choice is that huge chunks of American voters no longer even demand that their candidates actually have policy positions; they simply consume them as media entertainment, rooting for or against them according to the reflexive prejudices of their demographic, as they would for reality-show contestants or sitcom characters. Hicks root for hicks, moms for moms, born-agains for born-agains. Sure, there was politics in the Palin speech, but it was all either silly lies or merely incidental fluffery buttressing the theatrical performance.

Much more here.

It took me awhile to warm to this guy, but I'm really starting to like him. He has advanced the sociopolitical insult to levels never even imagined by the likes of Hunter S. Thompson, but the Generation X writer takes his work into areas his gonzo predecessor would not. That is, Matt Taibbi moves fluently back and forth between dry evisceration and poignant observation. I mean, it's fairly easy to lampoon GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, as Tina Fey and numerous others have deftly shown, but going from "It was like watching Gidget address the Reichstag" to the assertion that American politics have been reduced by television to nothing more than the grandest of reality shows is nothing short of sublime.

Go check out his essay. It's the definitive Sarah Palin piece. And look for more Matt Taibbi--I'm starting to think that he may be one of the key essayists of our time.

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FROM THE REAL ART SPORTS DESK
TEXAS, LSU GO TO 4-0, MOVE UP TWO SLOTS IN RANKINGS

From the AP via ESPN:

QB McCoy nearly perfect as Texas embarrasses Arkansas

It came at the hands of another near-perfect performance by McCoy, who put up five touchdowns and has Texas (4-0) coasting into its Big 12 schedule after a 52-10 romp over Arkansas that ranked among the biggest blowouts ever in the historic rivalry.

The loss was the worst in the series since a 52-0 Texas shutout in 1916 and the fourth-most lopsided meeting between the schools.

It was an embarrassing rivalry debut for Petrino in a series famous for close games. In the previous 10 meetings between Texas and Arkansas, the average margin of victory was fewer than nine points.

But the Razorbacks (2-2) left Austin as another overmatched opponent for Texas, which have now outscored opponents 198-36 this season.

"This is the best we've played since the national title year," said Texas senior offensive lineman Cedric Dockery, recalling the 2005 season. "It shows up on the scoreboard and in the win column."

More here.

Okay, this game was frustrating. Well, not the game itself, but the way I watched it. As usual, I woke up Saturday afternoon only to find that Texas/Arkansas was already well underway on the local ABC affiliate. The good thing was that Texas was up by twenty eight points. "Cool," I thought, "I'll watch a rip roaring rout in the second half." And a rout it was. Texas had extended its lead to forty two points midway through the third quarter. I was loving it! And that's when ABC decided that the game had ended and switched over to ESPN coverage of a game I didn't really care about.

All told, I only got to see a little more than half a quarter of play. That's the thing about living outside my home state: you've really got to relish those televised Longhorn moments when you get them. I mean, yeah, I do get to see a lot of Texas ball out here in Louisiana, but that's only because they're so nationally prominent. Lord help me if I was a Baylor fan. Well, Lord help me if I was a Baylor fan in any case, but the point is that I'm not living in Longhorn country, and television executives know it.

Texas/Colorado may or may not be shown here next Saturday, which is a drag because I'm sure UT/OU will be shown here, and I'm still quite afraid that my next Longhorn TV fix will be watching Mack Brown once again be outcoached by Bob Stoops. Yeah yeah, I'm finally ready to admit that the 'Horns really are playing well this season, but they still haven't played anyone as good as or better than they are yet. What's going to happen?

I'm trying not to think about that. For now, I'm just going to enjoy this number five ranking Texas has fallen into, just as I'm enjoying LSU's number three ranking.


Texas quarterback Colt McCoy attempts to elude Arkansas defensive
end Jake Bequette during a second-quarter option play in an NCAA
college football game, Saturday, Sept. 27, 2008, in Austin, Texas.
(AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)

Speaking of LSU, again from the AP via ESPN:

No. 5 LSU stays unbeaten with scrappy win over Mississippi State

Scott surpassed 100 yards rushing for a fourth straight game, leading No. 5 LSU to a 34-24 victory over Mississippi State on Saturday night.

"We played a very physical defense and ... matched that physicality or exceeded it," Miles said. "I think we can run the football against any opponent."

The Bulldogs turned in a feisty performance in a bid to add another surprising result to a week highlighted by upsets of No. 1 Southern California, No. 3 Georgia and No. 4 Florida.

Mississippi State trailed by only 10 during much of the fourth quarter, but Scott's 27 carries for 141 yards kept LSU (4-0, 2-0 Southeastern Conference) moving and the clock rolling.

And

However, LSU starting interior defensive linemen Ricky Jean-Francois and Charles Alexander both were shaken up in the first half. Alexander briefly returned in the fourth quarter, Jean-Francois did not, but remained on the sideline in uniform.

More here.

Okay, I got to see this one, just as I get to see every LSU game here in Louisiana, sometimes twice because of rebroadcast on local stations, and it was exciting. Kind of exciting in the way that the Auburn game was exciting, and that's a problem. While a member in good standing of the SEC, which is accompanied by a certain level of respect if only just because, Mississippi State is no Auburn. LSU should have beaten the shit out of MSU and they didn't. My thinking is that the loss of Jean-Francois and Alexander is what opened the game up for the Bulldogs; fortunately, the two dominating defensive linemen were only out for that game. On the other hand, inconsistency and sloppy play is a problem that has plagued the Tigers during the Les Miles era, and I wonder how we're going to do the rest of the season--maybe we'll convincingly beat number two Alabama, rubbing Sabin's nose in it, but lose to, say, 0-2 South Carolina.

It would be just awful to lose to a bunch of game cocks.


LSU wide receiver Demetrius Byrd (2) breaks away from Mississippi State
defender Tay Bowser (28) in the second half of an NCAA college football game
on his way to scoring a touchdown in Baton Rouge, La., Saturday, Sept. 27, 2008.
Byrd scored on the play and LSU defeated Mississippi State 34-24.
(AP Photo/Bill Haber)

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FREE MARKET FAILURE
S.E.C. Concedes Oversight Flaws Fueled Collapse

From the New York Times:

The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, a longtime proponent of deregulation, acknowledged on Friday that failures in a voluntary supervision program for Wall Street’s largest investment banks had contributed to the global financial crisis, and he abruptly shut the program down.

And

“The last six months have made it abundantly clear that voluntary regulation does not work,” he said in a statement. The program “was fundamentally flawed from the beginning, because investment banks could opt in or out of supervision voluntarily. The fact that investment bank holding companies could withdraw from this voluntary supervision at their discretion diminished the perceived mandate” of the program, and “weakened its effectiveness,” he added.

And

Because it is a relatively small agency, the S.E.C. tries to extend its reach over the vast financial services industry by relying heavily on self-regulation by stock exchanges, mutual funds, brokerage firms and publicly traded corporations.

More here.

Atrios over at Eschaton, an economist by training, noticed the same article and called "voluntary regulation" an oxymoron. Indeed, if rules are optional, there's no point in following them, which is exactly how Wall Street and the entire US political establishment, both Republicans and Democrats, like it. I might have been surprised hearing about this SEC "voluntary regulation" except for the fact that Bush, back when he was governor of Texas, used a similar phrase while introducing a plan for lowering the record levels of pollution produced by petrochemical plants on the Gulf Coast--clearly the White House employs "voluntary regulation" when they want nothing to happen.

I've railed away for years now about the cult of deregulation dominating Washington since the 90s and earlier. There's no point in going on about that right now especially because recent events have made it utterly clear to anyone without an impaired brain that we really do need to regulate business in some way shape or form. No need to beat a dead horse. At the moment, anyway.

But what's got me kind of amazed at the moment is how so many smart, well educated people, in government and in the private sector, could have been so fucking stupid for so long. Take a moment to consider all the years that deregulation mania has captured these people's imagination. You know, all the years we've heard economic debate reduced to "cut taxes" and "get the government off the people's backs" and all that crap. I mean, you know, sometimes it is a good idea to cut taxes or to streamline or eliminate absurd laws that have outlived their usefulness or were badly written in the first place--it's not as though there was never a nucleus of a good argument in all the hoopla from the get-go. But it seems like it's been years since the deregulators and tax cutters actually had to make that argument; it seems like it's all become such conventional wisdom that the establishment takes it as truth no matter what.

That is, lots of really smart people had come to believe that the market really is magic. Cutting taxes is like waving a wand. Deregulating is like saying "abracadabra." Really, public discourse on economics has, until very recently, become fucking retarded. And I swear to god, it appears as though the people who had the most to lose, the Wizards of Wall Street, started to believe in magic, too. How could they not know that extraordinarily risky investments, when spread throughout the entire investment world, could fuck up everyone? It really looks like they were counting on the Magic Market to make everything work out somehow.

This is the same mentality that brought down Enron--it's also probably the same mentality that's been inside the Oval Office for nearly eight years, too, but that's another discussion.

Anyway, what good are all those brains and educations if people refuse to use them? What good is all their expertise if they prefer to believe in fantasy, the supernatural powers of the market economy, over reality, of which they must be aware somewhere inside their magic addled brains? Is is possible that our entire ruling class is completely clueless? That's the really frightening thing about all this.

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Reine



Phil



Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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THE REAL RON PAUL

From the Houston Chronicle:

Some Galveston officials miffed by Paul's no vote on Ike aid

Some Galveston officials aren't too pleased with their congressional representative, Ron Paul, R-Lake Jackson, for voting against the $22.8 billion disaster recovery aid package on Wednesday.

"That's sad. That's bad," City Manager Steve LeBlanc said.

"I find it very distressing," said Councilwoman Karen Mahoney, who represents the West End of the island, where damage was extreme. "He's voting against aid for the region that he represents? I don't find that very representative."

And

Eight of the Houston area's nine lawmakers voted for the bill, with the exception of Paul. His spokeswoman, Rachel Mills, said Thursday that the congressman did not vote for the bill because it contained other "unconstitutional" provisions, which she did not specify.

Paul is famous for his consistent positions on limited government and low taxes. His views have drawn a vocal grass-roots following across the country.

Reactions among Galvestonians were mixed.

"That's not too good," said Mareia Schreiber while shaking out water-soaked artwork. "It feels kind of bad for the citizens of Galveston."

But other residents said Paul's vote didn't bother them. "We've worked hard all our lives," said Gene Lossow. "We take care of ourselves. I don't need FEMA or anything else. We got insurance."

More here.

A few observations:

1. This is the real Ron Paul. He's been a Libertarian, even when he's a Republican, for many years. Libertarians believe the government should do nothing except build roads, maintain a court and police system, and keep a military force only to be used if our borders are actually invaded. Seriously. They're total kooks, utterly disdainful of the complexities of modern existence, pushing a civic philosophy that has a serious chance of functioning only in pre-industrial societies.

Voting against disaster relief for his own constituents is thoroughly in keeping with his entire record as a politician. That doesn't make it right, but the majority in his district who voted him into office have absolutely no room to complain--this is what they get.

2. This Gene Lossow character, the Galvestonian who "take[s] care of [himself]," is fairly typical of the Libertarian point of view: we're all on our own; if you're in distress it's your own fault for not being prepared for every conceivable emergency; don't take my money; don't ask for help; fuck you. I'll be the first to admit that such an attitude probably works pretty well out on the range, or in the Yukon, or the Outback, or in some Robert Heinleinesque future Mars colony or the like, but the reality is that most of us are at the mercy of the vast concentrations of wealth and political power known as corporations, which are run by the wealthy elites who own the country--most of us cannot possibly be prepared for every conceivable emergency. We really do need Big Government to take care of us.

3. I continue to be amazed by Ron Paul's left wing popularity. I mean, he's clearly a nice guy and all, and it's hard not to like his anti-war views, but that's all incidental. His Libertarian philosophy is ultimately the exact opposite of everything the left believes. He would have the strong rule the weak, and too fucking bad because that's freedom. Well, okay, not really, but that's what these Libertarian loonies think. Clearly, all these dumbass hippie kids who love Ron Paul aren't really listening to what he has to say.

Score a few more points for American ignorance and apathy. Filthy goddamned hippies...

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FREE MARKET FAILURE
The trust problem

From Princeton economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's blog Conscience of a Liberal:

The two striking things about the Paulson push since last Friday have been (1) demands for complete discretion, with zero accountability and (2) a complete refusal to explain the theory of the case — to explain why this thing is supposed to work, so that we can have an open discussion of whether he’s right.

The whole premise of the bailout push has been “We’re the grownups, we know what we’re doing, just trust us.” Sorry, but that’s how Colin Powell sold the Iraq war. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice … you shouldn’t get fooled.

And that, by the way, is why Paulson’s whopper about oversight matters. On one hand, the secretary poses as the adult providing supervision, with no need to explain his decisions; on the other, caught with his hand in the cookie jar, he offers childish excuses.

Click here for the rest.

We should all be amazed by the White House's audacity here, but, of course, we're not. As Krugman observes, this is typical Bush behavior going back to at least 9/11, and probably earlier--remember Cheney saying something to the effect of "now the grownups are in charge" shortly after they took office? That they would drop a proposal on Congress with the potential to become a massive giveaway to GOP cronies rather than a desperately needed shoring up of the US financial system is simply how these guys do business. I guess if there's anything amazing in all this, it's that this move shows they have far more contempt for the American public's intelligence than had been previously understood--previously, you may recall, it had been understood that the White House believes that Americans are stupider than shit.

It should also be noted that this "do as we say without questioning" bailout plan is as good an example of Naomi Klein's "disaster capitalism" thesis as it gets. That is, with the news that the White House bailout plan has existed already for some six months, and is only now being revealed to the public, to be hastily adopted under crisis conditions, that is, rammed down the people's throats without warning or discussion, is exactly how Klein's "Shock Doctrine" works. Once major distaster occurs, rush in before anybody else can even think, spouting out plans previously hatched in conservative think tanks that sound coherent and effective on the surface, while demanding adherence-or-else. Then forcefully impose such psychotic right-wing theory on frightened and battered populations. They did this with the Patriot Act. They did this with Afghanistan and Iraq. They did this in New Orleans with Katrina. They tried, and failed, to do it with Social Security--the problem there was that there isn't actually a crisis with Social Security, and the public failed to bite at the fear-mongering bait.

And now they're trying to do it again.

Fortunately, people in Congress, from both parties, are sick of all the lying bullshit. Right-wing ideological purists hate the market intervention; Democrats can't stomach the hundreds of billions going out to massive businesses without any oversight at all. Whatever it takes. In the end, Wall Street's going to get the money, which will infuriate the aforementioned purists, but I'm very thankful for their delaying skepticism at the moment. Once the dust clears, a coalition of Democrats and not so pure Republicans will pass the bill by a most likely veto proof margin. And I'm pretty sure it won't be free money for irresponsible assholes in suits. Big strings will be attached, and that's a good thing.

But still, what Paulson offered last Friday was just so insulting...

(Naomi Klein discusses this current financial meltdown in terms of her book The Shock Doctrine on Democracy Now here.)

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Democrats To Relent On Offshore Drilling Ban

From the AP via the Huffington Post Newswire:

Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in a months-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., told reporters Tuesday that a provision continuing the moratorium will be dropped this year from a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running after Congress recesses for the election.

Republicans have made lifting the ban a key campaign issue after gasoline prices spiked this summer and public opinion turned in favor of more drilling. President Bush lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling in July.

"If true, this capitulation by Democrats following months of Republican pressure is a big victory for Americans struggling with record gasoline prices," said House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio.

And

"The White House has made it clear they will not accept anything with a drilling moratorium, and Democrats know we cannot afford to shut down the government over this," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "We look forward to working with the next president to hammer out a final resolution of this issue."

Click here for the rest.

Okay, this completely encapsulates why I so hate the Democrats. They know, fucking know, that more offshore drilling will do nothing to ease prices at the pump. It will do nothing in the short term because it will take a decade or more for oil companies to get their operations up and running. It will do nothing in the long term because the amount of oil coming from these future offshore operations will be negligible in terms of affecting the world oil market--virtually all economists are telling us this. The Democrats know this. Republicans know it, too, but they're just fine with lying to the public, which they do all the time anyway, so this is very much their thing. Democrats, on the other hand, are supposed to be above this kind of pandering bullshit. They ought to be leading instead of caving.

But here we are.

They whine that it would be shutting down the government, and they just can't afford to do it. But so what? They would have the truth on their side: it would be Bush shutting down the government if he vetoed the bill, not Congress. Bunch of fucking pussies. I mean, it's very cool that they're standing up to the White House on the Big Bailout and all, but right in the middle of their Adlai Stevenson moment, they fuck it up with caving on drilling.

They do this again and again and again. What good are they?

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Charlie Haden Returns To His Bluegrass Roots

From NPR's Weekend Edition:

During radio's Golden Age, live country and bluegrass shows were popular from coast to coast. Back then, listeners to KMA in Shenandoah, Iowa, might have tuned in to hear the Haden Family Band. Charles Edward Haden stole the show as the 2-year-old yodeling cowboy.

Charlie Haden's singing career lasted only until his teens, when he was stricken with a strain of polio that affected his vocal cords. But with music coursing through his veins, he went on to become one of the jazz world's most sought-after bassists and composers. He played with Ornette Coleman, Keith Jarrett, John Coltrane and Ringo Starr, and has been a longtime collaborator with guitarist Pat Metheny.

But the bluegrass music of his youth was an irresistible siren song. So now, with his son Josh and his triplet daughters (Petra, Tanya and Rachel), he's made the recording that's been on his mind for years: Rambling Boy.

And

It seems to be a little-known fact that Tanya Haden's husband is actor and comedian Jack Black, star of movies such as Tropic Thunder, School of Rock and High Fidelity. He sings "Old Joe Clark" on Rambling Boy. He's mostly known for his rock 'n' roll persona — and recordings with Tenacious D — but here takes on bluegrass music.

"I was nervous about it," Black says. "But once I got into the studio and Charlie taught me the melody line and the lyrics, something took over my body, and I felt like I was transported to another time."

Click here to listen to the interview, complete with cool bluegrass tunes.

To this day, I continue to be stunned by a tiny bit of information I picked up a few years ago watching Ken Burns' PBS miniseries Jazz: when sax player Ornette Coleman was inventing what would later be called free jazz in the late 1950s, he hired a bass player from the Grand Ole Opry to become one of his faithful sidemen, Charlie Haden. I was like, the Grand Ole Opry? The Grand Ole Opry?!? What the fuck? I mean, okay, I totally dig classic country and all, but you just can't get further apart than free jazz and Minnie Pearl. Fucking wow.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not at all a fan of free jazz. Call me old school, but I tend to enjoy musical dissonance only when it is in strong juxtaposition to musical assonance. That is, without some accompanying musical structure, you know, chords, scales, themes and motifs, that kind of thing, dissonance is simply annoying noise. I'm fully aware that thousands of music snobs worldwide disagree with me, but fuck 'em. This is like "The Emperor's New Clothes"; they're full of shit no matter how many five dollar words they use to make their shit taste yummy.

But enough of that. Haden eventually moved on to more musically sounding music, and his collaborations with Pat Metheny are fun. I'm not a fan, but I respect his work and position in jazz history. And, of course, I'm still weirded out, in an entirely good way, by his down home beginnings. That's what makes his return to his roots so interesting. This isn't the greatest bluegrass I've ever heard, but it's good, and weird given its pedigree.

Somehow the addition of talented professional weirdo Jack Black to the mix makes perfect sense.

Go check it out; it's well worth the fifteen minutes the piece runs.

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FROM THE REAL ART SPORTS DESK
TEXAS GETS ANOTHER LOPSIDED WIN OVER AN INFERIOR OPPONENT
LSU BEATS QUALITY TOP TEN OPPONENT IN DRAMATIC FASHION

From the AP via ESPN:

McCoy breaks career TD pass mark in Longhorns' triumph over Owls

Instead, the Texas quarterback coolly tossed a perfect strike down the middle of the field for a 60-yard touchdown play and the No. 7 Longhorns romped to a 52-10 win over Rice on a record-setting Saturday night for McCoy.

McCoy passed for four touchdowns against the Owls, giving him a school record 62 for his career. He finished with 329 yards on 19-of-23 passing and led Texas (3-0) in rushing for the second time this season with 83 yards on eight carries.

"He's just taken over," Texas coach Mack Brown said. "This is his team. He's having fun."

McCoy even got into the power running attack, bowling over two defenders who outweighed him by 230 pounds on an 8-yard TD run in the first quarter.

And

All of Texas' wins have come against teams from Conference USA and the Sun Belt. The Longhorns plays Arkansas next week in a game that was postponed two weeks because of the hurricane.

Click here for the rest.

Okay, so this wasn't shown live in New Orleans, but I did get a chance to watch a quarter or two for an FSN rebroadcast shown here in the middle of the night. And what I saw was cool, along the lines of what I've seen for the 'Horns' last couple of drubbings of utterly over matched teams: they looked pretty good and confident; they moved the ball well; their freshman secondary allowed a lot of passing yards, but stiffened when they had to. Colt McCoy is finally fulfilling the promise I and many others saw in him a couple of seasons back. I mean, he's looking pretty goddamned good.

But...

Like the AP article excerpted above observes, Texas hasn't really played anybody worth mentioning yet. I was really looking forward to what would have been last weekend's game against former Southwest Conference rival Arkansas, who beat LSU last year in a late season SEC matchup that almost derailed the Tigers' shot at the national championship, but it was postponed by Hurricane Ike. Now, since the Razorbacks got the shit kicked out of them by Alabama, it looks like Texas will once again be playing a wildly overmatched opponent for the rescheduled date next weekend.

I guess we'll have to wait until Big 12 play begins in two weeks. I do hope the Longhorns are as good as they appear to be.


Texas quarterback Colt McCoy (12) slips away from Rice defensive end Scott Solomon
as he scrambles for a 15-yard gain during the second quarter of an NCAA college football
game Saturday, Sept. 20, 2008, in Austin, Texas. McCoy rushed for 83 yards and passed
for 329 in Texas' 52-10 victory. (AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)

Again from the AP via ESPN:

LaFell's touchdown catch lifts LSU past Auburn in thriller

Jarrett Lee and Brandon LaFell hooked up on an 18-yard touchdown pass with 1:03 left to lift No. 6 LSU to yet another dramatic comeback win over No. 10 Auburn, 26-21 Saturday in an SEC West showdown that once again produced a fantastic finish and wild momentum swings.

The last five meetings have been decided by a collective 19 points in a rivalry that has produced more than drama. The winner has gone to the SEC championship game in six of the last eight seasons.

And

The only major difference in this one was the road team came out on top. The last eight games in the series had gone to the home team. LSU (3-0, 1-0 Southeastern Conference) also snapped Auburn's streak of six consecutive victories at Jordan-Hare Stadium against Top 10 teams.

Click here for more.

On the other hand, this game was pure joy to watch. Full disclosure: I only saw the second half. I was taping it to watch later because I had been planning on hanging out with some non-football friends, but that didn't materialize until around halftime, so I said "fuck it" and flipped over to ESPN. That's when I found out we were down by eleven.

So the pure joy came from watching an incredible road comeback against a hardcore top ten SEC opponent. I didn't see Lee's agonizing first half interception - well okay, I did get to see about three or four replays - so, to me, he was fucking brilliant. Fuck man, everybody was brilliant. The Tigers are arguably better this year than last year's national championship team was. And Coach Les Miles, as usual, gave us lots of theatrics: okay so we went three and out after the successful onside kick early in the third quarter, but it was a fucking successful onside kick!!! When we didn't have to do it!!! The Tigers have both talent and balls.

I've been saying for several years now that the SEC is so tough (three of this week's top five are from the SEC) that if a team can make it through conference play undefeated, the national championship is simply a formality. Looks like the Tigers have a shot at proving my new maxim.


LSU wide receiver Brandon LaFell (1) scores a the game-winning
touchdown against Auburn during the second half of an NCAA
college football game in Auburn, Ala. on Saturday, Sept. 20, 2008.
LSU won 26-21. (AP Photo/Butch Dill)

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EVERYBODY HAS ALWAYS BELIEVED IN "REDISTRIBUTION"

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Financial crisis will cost taxpayers hundreds of billions

Struggling to stave off financial catastrophe, the Bush administration today laid out a radical bailout plan with a jawdropping price tag — a takeover of a half-trillion dollars or more in worthless mortgages and other bad debt held by tottering institutions.

Relieved investors sent stocks soaring on Wall Street and around the globe. The Dow-Jones industrials average rose 368 points after surging 410 points the day before on rumors the federal action was afoot.

A grim-faced President Bush acknowledged risks to taxpayers in what would be the most sweeping government intervention to rescue failing financial institutions since the Great Depression. But he declared, "The risk of not acting would be far higher."

The administration is asking Congress for far-reaching new powers to take over troubled mortgages from banks and other companies, including purchasing sour mortgage-backed securities. Administration officials and congressional leaders are to work out details over the weekend.

Congressional officials said they expected a request for legal authority to buy up the bad loans, at a cost in excess of $500 billion to the government. Democrats were discussing whether to try to attach middle class assistance to the legislation, despite a request from Bush to avoid adding controversial items that could delay action. An expansion of jobless benefits was one possibility.

Click here for the rest.

A few years ago, during one of my rare and cautious conversations about politics, economics to be specific, with my very conservative father, he asked me after a few minutes if I believed in "redistribution." Fortunately, I had been recently listening to Rush and Hannity, to which my father listens religiously, so I was aware of how the right-wing talk idiots were using the word. For them, "redistribution" means using government money for people and programs for which conservatives don't believe it should be used. Of course, that's not how they would define it: they would define it as taking away somebody's hard earned income and handing it over to somebody who didn't work for it--a very related idea is that "redistribution" is inherently unfair and unjust, and that the government should never "redistribute" income. But that's bullshit.

I responded to my dad, "Everybody believes in 'redistribution;' the only real questions in this area are about whose money is being 'redistributed,' how much, who gets it, and why." For some reason I don't remember, phone ringing, distraction, whatever, the conversation ended right there, and I never got a chance to explain what to my father must have been an exercise in absurdity: how could everybody believe in "redistribution" when all conservatives and businesses are strongly against it?

Obviously, opposition to "redistribution" is lip service only. That is, countless Americans oppose the concept in the abstract, but fail to recognize countless instances of "redistribution" which they fully support, be it cheap or free mineral or logging rights handed out to private companies, massive tax breaks handed out to the rich but not to the poor and middle classes, cheap or free patent rights handed out to chemical companies, subsidies for various industries, stadium and arena deals, massive no-bid contracts and sweetheart deals given to companies and individuals friendly with government insiders, and the list just goes on and on. Indeed, conservative dissident Kevin Phillips in his book Wealth and Democracy has well documented how virtually all of America's fabulously wealthy families throughout history have benefited enormously from government money.

Everybody believes in "redistribution," whether they admit it or not. And we're currently experiencing one of those rare occasions where the hypocrisy is so egregious that conservatives feel compelled to explain themselves: "no, no, no, it's not socialism; you see, we have to do this or the consequences would be too terrible to consider."

Don't get me wrong. I actually agree. This isn't socialism, which is about government ownership of the economy for the purpose of giving workers a fair shake. We really do have to do this or everybody is fucked. But it is "redistribution." And it is in no way anything new. We've been doing it throughout our nation's entire history. The only real issue to consider here is whether we, regular ordinary tax payers, are actually going to get something for our money beyond saving a financial system which renders most of its benefits to wealthy and irresponsible elites.

Personally, I believe that if we don't attach some big time strings to this bailout, like heavy regulation coupled with some "redistribution" aiding ordinary Americans, it's all going to happen again, and there won't be any money left to save us next time.

(Kevin Phillips interviewed by Bill Moyers on this most recent financial meltdown here.)

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Frankie



Sammy



Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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