JayB

Perhaps others may have taken "We will not apologize for our way of life..." to to mean: "We will continue to borrow like the world will end tomorrow and spend money like drunken sailors while we use the worlds resources 3 times as much as anyone else as we damn well please so sod off and just move out of Iraq so we can get our pumps in there and move along to Afghanistan we're not apologizing for any of this at all." ? Hmmmm.... C'mon now Bill. You've done plenty of good while consuming all of those resources. Provided a good home with heat, light, food, etc for your family, provided an income for other folks, enabled other people to do the same, contributed a fortune in taxes to help fund medicare, medicaid, social security, public education, foreign-AID, scientific research, etc - all without borrowing like a drunken sailor. Take off the hair-shirt! It suits Prole much better than you, my friend!

If anyone wants to absolve themselves of the sins which their American lifestyle makes them complicit in, I will be happy to take receipt of the title to their cars, their homes*, and direct transfers of all funds used to supply the above with fuel, water, electricity, modern medicine, travel, and any consumer goods over and above those which are part of a third-world caliber subsistence lifestyle into a special account that I'll set up for that very purpose. I'll be happy to forward the funds thus derived to a charity of your choosing on an annual basis. Any funds not donated to charity will be used to indulge in angst-free heli-skiing trips to Valdez, extended fly-fishing and kayaking junkets in New Zealand, summers climbing in Squamish and the South Platte, etc but I'd be willing to consider purchasing carbon offsets commensurate with the resources that I consume on all of the said trips if anyone insisted. Cleanse yourself, my Children! Heave your guilt onto my shoulders! Amen! Hallelujah, and start signing those checks...! *Sans the 125% LTV, I/O, Neg-AM Option ARM or similar mortgage, if applicable.

Actually - I presented you with some very direct questions that could have been answered with a total of about 20 words or less. For example: " 1. Canada and New Zealand. 2. Need qualifications that I don't have and am not likely to get. 3. They've either quickly imploded or lapsed into totalitarianism. This is why I prefer to compare the US to hypothetical societies instead of real ones. " Easy. Obama is best explained as a manifestation of American values, ideals, beliefs, etc - rather than a repudiation of all things American.

Yeah I agree, that was total bullshit. how so? i heard that to mean: we are a pluralistic society that accepts equality for women, all religions, etc - the al queda manifesto against the usa said we had to essentially apologize and renouce those lifestyle choices though. Here's to hoping that Obama makes it safe for the commentariat on the Left to use many of the words that he incorporated into his inauguration speech without ritually festooning them with scare quotes. Might take some getting used to after eight years. Might even have to manually undo some auto-format settings in Word. _______________________________________________________________ 'Fighting to "secure" political "freedoms" for Afghani women in the face of "Islamist" "repression." Ooops. Dang! Back-cursor...delete...back-cursor-back-cursor-back-cursor....delete....there we go Fighting to secure political freedoms for Afghani women in the face of Islamist repression.'

Alas - here we have someone who will never lack for purpose, and will find perpetual solace in an everlasting contempt for all aspects of the existing order. Keep chasing the mirage of the Great Dorm-Room Utopia over the next dune, good man, no matter what ramparts reality throws in your way! 'Tis the land where Critical Studies majors in skinny emo-jeans, converse high-tops, and turtlenecks have arisen from behind their counters at the comic-book stores, cast their vintage-frame glasses aside, and seized the commanding heights...onward, onward...you can almost see it from here... You're a trip, man. Despite the overwhelming and spectacular failure that your positions on everything from militarily remaking the world safe for American capitalism to "fixing broken windows" have been, you're still (weakly) casting poo at those who've been (correctly) pointing out that your ideological emperor's been butt-assed naked for the last 25 years. It's weak dude. Once again - the question becomes, compared to what? Which existing society most closely embodies your ideals, and why haven't you moved there? If no country that even roughly approximates your ideal visions has managed to persist for more than a few years or no longer exists, why *exactly* is that? I hate to break this to you, but the changes that an Obama administration or any successive administration brings about will be exceedingly minor in the grand scheme of things. Only an infinitesimal fraction of the traditions, laws, customs, principles, and beliefs that form the basis of the American way of life (which doesn't seem all that congenial to you) will change in the slightest over his administration, or the course of your life. Enjoy.

And 20 or 30 years from now, when we're still cleaning up the toxic mess they've "Left Behind", you'll be worshiping GWB as a living god...just like Reagan. Alas - here we have someone who will never lack for purpose, and will find perpetual solace in an everlasting contempt for all aspects of the existing order. Keep chasing the mirage of the Great Dorm-Room Utopia over the next dune, good man, no matter what ramparts reality throws in your way! 'Tis the land where Critical Studies majors in skinny emo-jeans, converse high-tops, and turtlenecks have arisen from behind their counters at the comic-book stores, cast their vintage-frame glasses aside, and seized the commanding heights...onward, onward...you can almost see it from here...

Strong team, strong climb. Thanks for sharing.

"We will not apologize for our way of life..." Can't help but think that this line inspired a few quizzical looks back and forth and a momentary pause between claps amongst The Nation's subscriber base.

I chalked the quiescence up to the possibility that a certain cadre of posters might be feeling adrift with all of the above topics losing their emotional resonance by the day. I can't help but draw parallels to a man listening the broadcasts to his HAM-radio for a while, then staring blankly at the meticulously organized and copiously stocked shelves of canned food, ammo, and "Left Behind" series books in the underground shelter/compound/black-helicopter-surveillance-evasion-module he's constructed in his backyard at sometime around noon on January 1st, 2001. BushHitlerMcFascistCheneyBloodForOilTotalitariConspiriBurton, we hardly knew ye....

Well, this particular cretin was out kayaking and fly-fishing for a couple of days, so I hope that you'll pardon my absence. It's not that I can't respond, it's just that it's tough to summon the energy to respond to what you've presented. It's difficult for me to discern a central argument to respond to in those posts, and it would take more energy than I have at the moment to crank out an argument to deal with each assertion that forms the basis of the sub-arguments to be found in each of the snippets, so I'll just have to put forward a few assertions of my own. -Neither Grey Davis nor Swarzenegger have governed as "free market fundamentalists," and you'd be hard pressed to find such a creature amongst the Democratic majority that actually controls the legislative and regulatory output in Sacramento. If such a man exists, he must take direct personal inspiration from Sisyphus. -California's state and local taxes comprise the sixth highest of any state, and California has been in or near the top-ten in this category since at least the 1970's. California residents pay over $5,000 per capita in state and local taxes - currently the 7th highest in the nation. The state currently ranks 47th out of 50 in terms of it's business tax climate (State, local, corporate, property, sales, and unemployment insurance taxes). If California is having trouble paying it's bills, its not because people and businesses are taxed too lightly. -If you are arguing that national policy is to blame, you'll need to demonstrate that the said policies have adversely affected California in a manner independent of any particular legislative or regulatory policies that California has enacted or enforced. -Your stance against outsourcing is really just an argument against the mutual advantages of trade. If you really think that this practice is harmful for the nation, and California in particular, why draw the line at jobs, and why demarcate the borders around the US? Per this line of reasoning, California would be better off if it mandated that all companies operating in California had to locate 100% of their operations in California, contract all of their services with California businesses, etc. If a business in Oregon offered them a better value for their money - tough. You could extend the same logic down to the region, city, and town level. Ditto for all raw materials, machinery, etc. Want to sell diamonds? Better find 'em in California, buddy... Irrespective of what spending programs are desirable or useful from a particular point of view - states have to allocate scarce resources that have many alternative uses in a framework that's determined by the amount of taxable revenue generated by the citizens and businesses within the state. States have significantly less scope to finance their deficits than the Federal government. This is the reality. It's unfortunate that the folks running California seem to have forgotten this to the tune of ~40 Billion dollars that they have no idea how to finance. All states will have a hard time funding their budgets during this recession, but the fact that California's taking the worst hit suggests that the policy and regulatory framework in California may have something to do with it. STP has pretty well spelled out the options that they have available to them now.

1. Which particular policies are you referring to here, and what is your best estimate of their fiscal impact in the current and, say, previous three budgets? 2. How much tax revenue does California's public sector generate on its own?

Revenue boom pretty well traces the housing boom. I think that personal income tax accounts for roughly 40-45% of California's tax revenues, and sales tax for something like 20-25% of total revenues. Quite a bit of the YOY growth in both income/sales was driven by housing related activity, mortgage-equity-withdrawal, HELOC spending, etc. Now that the housing market in California is undergoing a mean reversion back to levels determined by fundamentals, both employment/income and sales are cratering. Exercising a bit of restraint on the spending side during the boom-years would have gone a long way towards preventing and/or alleviating the budget problems that California is experiencing. I suspect that the fiscal picture is even worse for many cities/counties, and we'll see more of them go bankrupt before things bottom out in 2010-2012.

"California controller to suspend tax refunds, welfare checks, student grants. John Chiang announces that his office will suspend $3.7 billion in payments owed to Californians starting Feb. 1, because with no budget in place the state lacks sufficient cash to pay its bills. By Evan Halper and Patrick McGreevy January 17, 2009 Reporting from Sacramento -- The state will suspend tax refunds, welfare checks, student grants and other payments owed to Californians starting Feb. 1, Controller John Chiang announced Friday. Chiang said he had no choice but to stop making some $3.7 billion in payments in the absence of action by the governor and lawmakers to close the state's nearly $42-billion budget deficit. More than half of those payments are tax refunds. The controller said the suspended payments could be rolled into IOUs if California still lacks sufficient cash to pay its bills come March or April. "It pains me to pull this trigger," Chiang said at a news conference in his office. "But it is an action that is critically necessary." The payments to be frozen include nearly $2 billion in tax refunds; $300 million in cash grants for needy families and the elderly, blind and disabled; and $13 million in grants for college students. Even if a budget agreement is reached by the end of this month, tax refunds and other payments could remain temporarily frozen. Chiang said a budget deal may not generate cash quickly enough to resume them immediately." http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-budget17-2009jan17,0,4472460.story

Yup. Misread the caption. Hopefully the Palestinians will get some posters of their own along with their next batch of American flags in the next aid/rocket shipment.

You've been putting forth this "viewpoint" since McCain lost. It's as incoherent and misinformed now as it was then. The folks in Gaza have provided us with a bit of fodder for a thought experiment. Image Source "Hey....wait a second....that's an image of President...Obama that they're burning..." Looking forward to a series of "Hey...wait...!" moments from the American left when the Obama administration discusses the evidence pertaining to the Iranian nuclear program, etc. It's a whole new day in America. sickie

i was living in texas during the clinton years and here in seattle during the bush years... absolutely no comparison. so...by your experience, who was more hated then? I'm just happy that the American left once again sees no distinction between it's political interests and the national interest, and that the days in which the folks detonating themselves in crowded Baghdad markets are referred to as "The Resistance" are soon to be behind us. Hopefully the propensity to indulge in wild conspiracy theories in the wake of political alienation and disappointments is in abeyance as well. I think that - even allowing for the Black Helicopter folks during the Clinton Era - you'd have to go back to the days of the opposition to the Roosevelt administration in the late 1930's to find a similar dynamic at work in American political life.

It seems that the obvious answer is while mutual funds and so forth are invested in these banks so are many of Paulsons very wealthy buddies. Had a personal beef with the heads of Bear Sterns? I suspect that most of the policy being rolled out at this point has been developed in coordination with the incoming Obama administration, so for this and other reasons, I doubt that cronyism is the best explanation. I actually think that despite my protestation, the article above contains the answers - the government doesn't want to run retail/commercial banks, and don't want to add the bombs in Citi's (and other's) books directly onto the already staggering public tab for the bank rescue operations. Be that as it may, once you start talking about putting public money at risk, the time for fretting about the common stock holders has long since passed, IMO. At some point I think we'll have to add the seize-declare-liquidate-clear mechanism that the RTC used to deal with the S&L debacle in the 80's to the playbook.

Why anyone is worried about the common stockholders being wiped out at this point is beyond me. The company you own stock in implodes, the value of the said stock goes to zero - irrespective of whether the mechanism that brings about the said implosion is bankruptcy, a government takeover in lieu of liquidation, etc. Using government money to prop-up zombie companies and prevent common stockholders from taking a hit is worse than the government simply taking over the company outright. Don't think we'll see the credit markets unfreeze until someone puts a price on the repackaged I/O-negative-amortization-option-ARM laden portfolios that grant the holders the title to condos that rent for a quarter of the monthly mortgage, fields of empty McMansions outside Bakersfield, etc. Ultimately, that'll be the price at which the underlying properties can be bought and rented out for a profit - at least in the case of the stuff that's already been built. The floor on raw or partially developed land is likely to be much lower. Unfortunately - regional banks concentrated their loan portfolios far too heavily in residential construction projects, and the land that they loaned money to builders to develop is going to be find a floor at something like 50-90% less than what the builders paid for it. Combine the residential construction cluster with an equally dire outlook in commercial real estate (equally heavy loan concentrations in regional banks) and you can expect a substantial increase in the number of small and mid-sized banks going under in 2009-2010.

Back in early May. No need to pay off anything related to the wager, but if you happen to see a 3/2 in Ravenna that rents for ~$1500/mo (haha) that comes on the market in June, let me know...

Oddly enough - I seem to recall reading that Mexico had the foresight to hedge against the downside risk for a couple of years ago, but if those options expire before the price rises, it'll be interesting to see what happens at PEMEX and the fields that they manage. Overwhelming dependence on oil for government income + declining production + decades of underinvestment in exploration/infrastructure + corrupt management + intransigent unions = Mexicluster.

Should make for interesting times in the various petro-states. The revenue shortfalls that are bound to materialize if oil stays in the $20-$60 band will likely drive reform in some, and repression in others. Top candidates for increased repression include: Venezuela, Iran, and Russia, IMO.

The literature on the evolution of the immune system also makes for fascinating reading, and featured prominently in the Dover trial: http://www2.ncseweb.org/kvd/exhibits/immune/immune_evo_annotated_bib.html

Haven't listened to the story yet - but that's potentially very significant. At the genome level, the distinction between what's viral and what's human becomes very blurry on account of the fact that roughly half of our chromosomes are composed of endogenous retrovirus's and various other self-replicating elements that aren't too far removed from self-replicating RNA. Quite a bit of interesting material out there on the role that retroviral genes appear to have played in the evolutionary genesis of the placenta, etc out there if you're interested... "Gene conversion and purifying selection of a placenta-specific ERV-V envelope gene during simian evolution. Kjeldbjerg AL, Villesen P, Aagaard L, Pedersen FS. Department of Molecular Biology, University of Aarhus, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. alk@mb.au.dk BACKGROUND: Most human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) invaded our genome at least 25 million years ago. The majority of the viral genes are degenerated, since no selection preserves them within the genome. However, a few intact and very old HERV genes exist, and likely are beneficial for the host. We here address evolutionary aspects of two HERV-V envelope genes, ENVV1 and ENVV2, located in tandem and containing a long open reading frame. RESULTS: The ENVV2 gene is preserved with an intact reading frame during simian evolution, but none of the ENVV genes are found in the prosimian species tested. While we observe many transposon insertions in the gag and pol regions of the ERV-V2 provirus, the ENVV2 genes have escaped transposon crossfire in all species tested. Additional analysis of nucleotide substitutions provides further strong evidence of purifying selection on the ENVV2 gene during primate evolution. The other copy, ENVV1, seems to be involved in gene conversion of the major part of the envelope. Furthermore, ENVV1 and ENVV2 show placenta-specific expression in human and a baboon species. CONCLUSION: Our analyses show that ERV-V entered our genome after the split between simian and prosimian primates. Subsequent purifying selection and gene conversion have preserved two copies of the ENVV envelope gene in most species. This is the first case of gene conversion involving long open reading frames in HERVs. Together with the placenta-specific expression of the human and baboon ENVV1 and ENVV2 envelope genes, these data provide strong evidence of a beneficial role for the host." Full Paper: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=18826608

I definitely agree that empiricism should be a common basis for knowing and for understanding. But consider this: Although one might see religion to be grounded in an irrational basis it contains a certain amount of rationalism or, more correctly, legalism. Isn't a certain consistency of logic characteristic of two theologians of different beliefs arguing to each other the rightness of their particular religion or ideology? The particular issue that comes to my mind is the Temple Mount. I don’t recall if it was Gershom Gorenberg who made the observation that value judgments are instrumental in solving the problem presented by this issue but several years ago I recall reading or hearing his explanation of it. The facts alone are not enough to solve the problem. His point was that one has to consider the value judgments of both sides and treat them as ~equally true. Don’t ask me how he proposed to perform that balancing act! I suppose my fear of cold logic is its systematization so that something along the lines of that described in Hannah Arendt’s Banality of Evil is allowed to flourish. BTW, I believe in inoculations although I reserve judgment on some aspects of commonly accepted modern life. Don't have time to respond at length, so I'll have to defer to a couple of quotes: "The Sleep of Reason Brings Forth Monsters" ~ Goya. "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." ~ Voltaire. Reason may not be sufficient defend against the the kind of madness represented by totalitarian ideologies, but it's certainly necessary.

Who said anything about the mentally ill? I was just contemplating the most likely fate of a hapless census worker who made the mistake of making eye-contact at the door, and shortly thereafter found himself in the conversational equivalent of "The Rubs Itself with Lotion Pit" in the "Silence of the Lambs." "Salvation-by-Organic-Hobby-Garden! Naval Mastermind and Chief-Technical-Officer! Dauntless Fluoro-Crusader and Hope-for-the-Future-Personified! Oh Jesus - now he's locked the door and he's reaching for the ice-climbing photo album!!!!!! Must. Escape. Aaaaaaaaaaaaargh......"