The Talking Dog "Sure, the dog can talk…but does it say anything interesting?" He ain't The Man's best friend

Orwell that ends well

After its insistence on having Hitler’s chauffeur OBL’s motor pool mechanic and occasional driver Salim Hamdan be the defendant in the first of the show trials military commission trials for embarrassing the Bush Administration by prevailing in the Supreme Court “war crimes” (specifically, being involved in a war against the United States when George W. Bush is President), it now seems that, having failed to control even its rigged and flawed proceedings (those damned military judges and juries refuse to sully their oaths any more than they already have by participating in these travesties of justice as it is)… and...

Continue reading...

Dog Bites Man

In a [not particularly] stunning move, the Washington Post, whose managing editor is [my college classmate] Marcus Brauchli… wait for it… endorsed [my college classmate] Barack Obama for President. WaPo’s main criticism of McCain– who the editorial acknowledged liking and admiring– is the inability to reconcile McCain’s purported strength on national security with his choice of a running-mate who is simply unprepared to be commander in chief. WaPo also acknowledged McCain’s lack of coherent economic policies, especially his newfound support of the Bush tax cuts. WaPo’s rap on Obama, of course, concerns WaPo’s principal weakness and Obama’s principal electoral strength,...

Continue reading...

Hofstra Brouhaha

Amdist a disastrous economic climate where the stock market dropped 733 points, second worst (in points) ever… in the middle we have… the the debate, stupid. The last one, at Hempstead, NY’s Hofstra University. Look, boys and girls: Bob Schieffer is a Republican tool, from Texas no less, whose brother Tom is George W. Bush’s ambassador to Japan (and Bob goes to ballgames with the Bush family). I would refuse to debate if Schieffer were “moderating”… period. But that’s just me. Obama is doing fine anyway. Hence, we have the debate about bulls*** issues like… negative campaigning and attempts to...

Continue reading...

Paper trails

It seems that the CIA had written White House approval for waterboarding and some of its other torture enhanced interrogation techniques of suspected terrorists. Slowly I turn…

Continue reading...

Recovery?

Well, the first kind appears to be dramatic improvements in the stock market of over 900 points gain in the DJIA and proportionate gains elsewhere in light of concerted efforts of major nations to pour money to shore up their beleaguered financial sectors, after a number of high level meetings over the weekend, including in Washington. Maybe this will be what the doctor ordered and we’ve seen the “market bottom”… and maybe we haven’t. It does strike one that the current financial crisis is far more serious than the simple short-term liquidity problems that have caused the collapse or forced...

Continue reading...

Compassionate Conservatism

As FDR was said to save capitalism from itself, it seems the Bush Administration and its Republican allies in Congress were hellbent on killing capitalism nonetheless, and so, they managed to dismantle most of the capitalism life-sustaining equipment set up by the New Deal (because it got in the way of the unbridled greed of their big business constituents)… and now, after an insane roller-coaster day that saw the first ever 1,000 point intra-day swing in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the 9th straight loss day and the largest one week percentage loss ever, SecTreas Paulson, in conjunction with...

Continue reading...

This can’t be good…

NYU Professor Nouriel Roubini, an economist who has been in the news of late because he has been freaking right with just about all of his doom and gloom projections, and for the right reasons, tells us that the world is facing, in the short term not merely an inevitable and deep recession, but a possible global meltdown of the financial system and market crashes and severe global recession, following days of market panic including yesterday’s over 650 point plunge in the Dow and overnight collapses of over 10% in European and Asian markets. Every day, it seems, more and...

Continue reading...

Slow news day

We’ll start with an issue that’s been buried by other events today: a federal judge, U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina of the district court in Washington, DC, ordered 17 Chinese Uighur Guantanamo detainees (detainees that the U.S. government has asserted are innocent) brought to his courtroom by Friday and released within the United States. The government, of course, is working on an emergency appeal, but God bless Judge Urbina for, after nearly 7 years, finally acting to enforce our laws… the most basic right of us all against the might of our government, that habeas corpus be afforded in...

Continue reading...

Wondrous providence

Sure, the financial markets are in wild gyrations, and after being down precipitously (800 points in the Dow), ended the day at a merely very bad day down 350 in the Dow and 3-4% drops in other major markets, amidst wide fears that we are seeing what amounts to the end of days in our financial system. And… these guys are at it again… rearing their heads into our, you know… precious bodily fluids sacred air space. Who will save us? Fear not, citizens…he’s back, with all of his dangeralness.

Continue reading...

All is not lost

Forget the polls and the media obsession with “momentum.” Forget his [inconceivably stupid] mishandling of the economic crisis. Forget his choice of a running-mate whose experience makes Barack Obama’s look like Al Gore’s. Forget it all. The American people will come to their senses, and John McCain will close the gap and go on to win. Hugh Hewitt, ladies and gentlemen. He’ll be here all week. In all seriousness, when parsed of its charming left-bashing, Hewitt’s point is that if, somehow, the election gets turned around to “war on terror” issues, as happened in ’02 and ’04, rather than “we’re...

Continue reading...