Meanwhile…

Meanwhile… 24 February 2010

Posted by marisacat in California / Pacific Coast, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.
trackback

In pictures: protesters and riot police clash in Athens during 24-hour general strike – The walkout comes as Greece is considering tougher austerity measures to ward off a financial crisis that has undermined the euro and raised fears that financial market contagion will spread to other weak economies such as Portugal, Spain and Italy [EPA]

****

While I was wandering around the UK Telegraph I notced they referred to Jeb Bush as the “former California Governor”… well, not to worry! We elected Arnold, once on the infamous Recall of Grey Davis and once all on his own, so obviously we would have elected Jeb, given the chance.

The Bush Rove machine screwed up, they needed a long standing Cali division, as well. For Neil or Marv… Or, hey for Doro… we are big on turning out the wimmens vote in Cali…

************************************

Comments»

1. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 February 2010: A jaunty little tune in honor of Telly the Orca:

Neko Case “People Got A Lotta Nerve”

Reply
marisacat - 24 February 2010: I think Telly is on a mission…………

Reply
2. marisacat - 24 February 2010: Krugman comments on and links to the Martin Wolf column in FT that is getting some traction (registration is free). PK says MW is darker and more pessimistic than he is…

Gee… Martin admits there may be no recovery… what a breakthru!

LOL………………….

Reply
marisacat - 24 February 2010: Here is the link to Martin Wolf… FT did not ask me to log in…

Unhappily, the result of what I call success would probably be a still bigger financial crisis in future, while the results of what I call failure would be that the fiscal rope would run out, even though reaching the end might take longer than worrywarts fear. Yet the big point is that either outcome ultimately leads us to a sovereign debt crisis. This, in turn, would surely result in defaults, probably via inflation. In essence, stretched balance sheets threaten mass private sector bankruptcy and a depression, or sovereign bankruptcy and inflation, or some combination of the two.

I can envisage two ways by which the world might grow out of its debt overhangs without such a collapse: a surge in private and public investment in the deficit countries or a surge in demand from the emerging countries. Under the former, higher future income would make today’s borrowing sustainable. Under the latter, the savings generated by the deleveraging private sectors of deficit countries would flow naturally into increased investment in emerging countries.

Yet exploiting such opportunities would involve radical rethinking. In countries like the UK and US, there would be high fiscal deficits over an extended period, but also a matching willingness to promote investment. Meanwhile, high-income countries would have to engage urgently with emerging countries, to discuss reforms to global finance aimed at facilitating a sustained net flow of funds from the former to the latter.

Unfortunately, nobody is seized of such a radical post-crisis agenda. Most people hope, instead, that the world will go back to being the way it was. It will not and should not. The essential ingredient of a successful exit is, instead, to use the huge surpluses of the private sector to fund higher investment, both public and private, across the world. China alone needs higher consumption.

hmm such pretty talk of moving monies around from huge surpluses to fund higher investment… not likely.

Wyden and Judd Gregg (didn’t he used be one of the beloveds of Ob?, LOL) introduced a bill this week to reduce corp tax from 34 to 23% iirc, it was an 11 pt reduction.

GOOD LUCK!!

Reply
3. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 February 2010: Simple question for the White House summiteers

“What value do the health insurance companies bring to the transaction?”

Reply
marisacat - 24 February 2010: And do they grab all the covers and blankets at night??? … (since they are ALL in bed with them).

Reply
4. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 February 2010: Thanks for the Bageant (last thread) and the FT links!

Maybe Telly could get a hold of some insurance execs and a congresscritter or two.

Reply
marisacat - 24 February 2010: Shaken ins. executive!

Reply
catnip - 24 February 2010: I think Telly has better taste than that.

Reply
marisacat - 24 February 2010: Well he has marked dislikes… one report I heard said he is housed alone, too agreesive wtih his, er… uhm… peers (the other performing orcas).

I have no idea what decades in capture does to a whale, but maybe if feasible he should be returned to the ocean (assuming he was nto born in captivity)…

Reply
marisacat - 24 February 2010: Tidbit on Telly… after he killed his trainer in Canada he was traded to Sea World (so Nightline says…) … with the proviso he only be used for mating. Whoops.

Reply
marisacat - 25 February 2010: hmm I just heard that he was captured off Iceland, when he was two.

Killed in ’91, ’99 and now ’10. Hey he waited, 11 years this time.

Reply
mattes - 25 February 2010: I can’t even go there.

It’s outrageous what we do to these animals. We make them crazy.

Reply
marisacat - 25 February 2010: oh I agree… no wonder they strike back.

An event at a SeaWorld a few years ago, one where the trainer lived, the poor animal was performing the next day.

I read that Telly/Tillikun was never to be in a situation where trainers were in a pool with him or swimming with him.. because of his size, the largest in captivity, he was USED for splashing the audience.

Reply
Madman in the Marketplace - 24 February 2010: from the Bageant:

You can argue that people have always screwed other people for a buck, or a drachma or a shekel. You will win with that argument every time. However, the real issue is about how many people got screwed and how hard by how few. Under 250 years of capitalism, the rising take from the ongoing screw job has grown astronomical. Enough to buy every political tub-thumper in Washington and a Supreme Court. Enough that if the elite cartels on Wall Street rip 300 million Americans for trillions, leaving them squinting at the fine print on their eviction notices, they cannot do jack about it. Except pay the next ransom demand for their credit . On their credit cards. Then sign their children into future debt slavery.

yup

Reply
5. catnip - 24 February 2010: I see Weiner is getting some blowback from “progressives” for his little floor speech. (Nothing like grandstanding and then running to dkos to raise some $$$ for your efforts.)

Reply
Madman in the Marketplace - 24 February 2010: that speech was kind of fun. I rather enjoyed the feckless theater of it.

Reply
catnip - 24 February 2010: I’ll give him that for the performance but, as several kossacks (!) have pointed out, the Repubs aren’t the only party that’s a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance companies.

Reply
Madman in the Marketplace - 24 February 2010: yup, very true.

Reply
6. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 February 2010: The Unemployed Now Have Their Own Union, and It’s Catching on Quickly

It’s been only a month that a union for the unemployed has come into existence through an ingenious grassroots organizing campaign. In case you haven’t heard about it, the union’s name is “UR Union of the Unemployed” or its nickname, “UCubed,” because of its unique method of organizing.

UCubed is the brain-child of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), whose leaders feel that the millions of unemployed workers need a union of their own to join in the struggle for massive jobs programs.

The idea is that if millions of jobless join together and act as an organization, they are more likely to get Congress and the White House to provide the jobs that are urgently needed. They can also apply pressure for health insurance coverage, unemployment insurance and COBRA benefits and food stamps. An unemployed worker is virtually helpless if he or she has to act alone.

Joining a Cube is as simple as it is important. (Please check the union web site: http://www.unionofunemployed.com). Six people who live in the same zip code address can form a Ucube. Nine such UCubes make a neighborhood. Three neighborhood UCubes form a power block that cntains 162 activists. Politicians cannot easily ignore a multitude of power blocks, nor can merchants avoid them.

The union is built from the ground up. Cube activists will select their own leadership in each cube, neighborhood, block and higher group as well.

Reply
marisacat - 24 February 2010: hmm I know I have heard of another one, because it had a different name, seemed to me it was a coalition of formerly employed in the creative arts … in NYC. Part of what they were working for, iirc, was that new workers should nto be forced into intolerable working conitions…

Reply
Madman in the Marketplace - 24 February 2010: Freelancer’s Union?

Reply
marisacat - 24 February 2010: that’s it!

Reply
7. marisacat - 25 February 2010: Lordy… how long for David Paterson. IF he called the woman, nver should have done that.

Or forget and then… remember doing that.

Reply
marisacat - 25 February 2010: Village Voice:

[B]efore the new account refocused his memory, the governor’s earlier impression was that the Times had hyped its own report on a fight that Johnson had with his live-in girlfriend on Halloween night. On February 17, the day the first Times story appeared, Paterson said that the paper’s account “wasn’t supported by the facts,” claiming that there had been “no independent evidence presented that would substantiate any claims of violence committed by David Johnson against a woman.”

But the new Times piece quotes the woman’s lawyer as saying that the governor himself had personally spoken with the woman on the eve of a court hearing on the matter. The woman also said that she’d been contacted and visited by members of Paterson’s state police detail. She later failed to return to court and the complaint was dropped …

Reply
8. catnip - 25 February 2010: And there you go: CNN’s Ed Henry reports that the WH wants to get this health insurance “reform” done by the end of March – as I predicted – just in time for Easter resurrection optics (born on the nite before xmas! I see a theme here…)

Reply
catnip - 25 February 2010: They should pawn off that HUGE chandelier in the hearing room. That would subsidize somebody’s health care bills.

Reply
catnip - 25 February 2010: I think Biden is napping…

Reply
marisacat - 25 February 2010: I heard a little of Reid. Pretty lame, but what else is new………

Reply
catnip - 25 February 2010: He’s such a wimpy-sounding man.

Reply
catnip - 25 February 2010: What’s an “undercover patient”?

Reply
marisacat - 25 February 2010: never heard that before… where is BHHM when needed!!

Reply
mattes - 25 February 2010: I want to apply!

Reply
9. catnip - 25 February 2010: Looks like Sebelius is just window-dressing. I wonder if she’ll even be allowed to speak.

Reply
marisacat - 25 February 2010: She got an opinion piece in USAToday this am…, along with Nancy de Parle. I think the Ladies are dun.

Reply
catnip - 25 February 2010: If this was a military spending summit, you can be damn sure Gates would have been front and center setting the stage.

Reply
marisacat - 25 February 2010: She speaks!

Reply
catnip - 25 February 2010: and Joe finally woke up. 🙂

Reply
10. marisacat - 25 February 2010: hmm the market dislikes something today, off 173…

not that it matters……….. etc., and so on.

8)

Reply
11. catnip - 25 February 2010: haha…Obama McPork got a tad defensive with McCain when he brought up the earmarks and Phrma deal.

Shorter Obamalama: John, you lost the election. STFU.

Reply
mattes - 25 February 2010: Do you know how many Pharmas headquarters are in Illinois?

Reply
catnip - 25 February 2010: Well, you know that you can’t say Obama was bought by the industry because, if you do, his defenders will claim that ’employees’ – not corporations – contributed to his campaign. Whereas, when they attack Repubs or Blue Dogs, they have no problem saying they were bought whole cloth by those industries.

Reply
mattes - 25 February 2010: iirc, Reagan was our man.

Reply
12. mattes - 25 February 2010: Bernanke: Wall Street’s Greek Debt Contracts To Be Investigated By Federal Reserve

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers Thursday that the central bank is looking into the use by Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms of a sophisticated investment instrument to make bets that Greece will default on its debt.

Bernanke said the Fed is looking into companies’ use of credit default swaps, a form of insurance against bond defaults.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/25/bernanke-wall-streets-gre_n_476687.html

…right.

Reply
catnip - 25 February 2010: “looking into”

Sure. That sounds promising! I’m sure the Greeks will be appeased by that tough talk.

Reply
13. BooHooHooMan - 25 February 2010: { all flustered like} 😉

Frankly, mcat, this is a little disconcerting from last thread on Telly the alleged Orca and trainer-for-lunch suspect.

hmm apparently ‘Telly” bagged his third. He has been “involved” in two other deaths…

It should be noted
1. Telly was never charged – let alone convicted in the two prior
Fuck the Kibble/ I’m Goin for The Big One hors douvre-icides.
and
2. Without a solid description and a good line up, and NOT the old “We’re lookin for an Orca..” and there’s only one easy pick when he turns to the right side making the humongo dorsal fin visible in the instant before our clumsy Orca suspect adds insult, injury, and OTHER deaths to the mix upon smashing through the mirrored wall, taking out the “witness” and interrogation rooms, and mostly demolishing the rest of the Police Department.

Plenty of unsavory Orcas out there. Who’s to say some
fleet-footed Tourist Orca didn’t twinkletoe into the tank?
Perhaps with accomplices? 😯
Then made their escape, blending in with the crowd?

😉
–>I am not kidding, “involved” is the word being used.

Reply
marisacat - 25 February 2010: My fav was the man found lying naked (and D E A D) on Telly’s back in ’99… bite marks and even his underwear off… but “it is unknown how he died”.

What a scream!!

Reply
BooHooHooMan - 25 February 2010: Jeezis. 😆 Maybe he got the fuck of his life.

Reply
catnip - 25 February 2010: That was a frame up!

Reply
BooHooHooMan - 25 February 2010: Either that or the cigarette killed him.
Matching Large and small satin robes nearby …
(okay I’ll stop)

Reply
BooHooHooMan - 25 February 2010: There is much to be learned from this unfortunate incident.

For one, FLOTUS could announce another
War on Obesity in Children,
perhaps she could hop right in their tank with the Mama and
Baby Calf Orca’s and work on their controlling their eating habits.
Ya know, Get Right In There between Mama and Baby Calf and start lecturing away.

And then of course this:
Who’s to say some
fleet-footed Tourist Orca didn’t twinkletoe into the tank?
Perhaps with accomplices? 😯

which I think we’ll see sooner or later from US tho it seems PERFECT for Israel and their Mossad on their latest extrajudicial killing,
the DUBAI Assassination, using European and Canadian Passports.

Coulda been an ORCA!™
PLENTY of wealthy JET SET ORCAS in DUBAI !
Taking in the sun!
Coulda been any one!

Find any Orcas Wearing a Yarmulke??!?? No?
Traveling with an ISRAELI Passport?!? NO?!?? – CASE CLOSED!

Reply
marisacat - 25 February 2010: EVERYBODY but the orca was in Dubai for the Big Kill. 12 + 15 and now Aussie passports.

Is Mossad a jobs program? I guess so!!

Reply
marisacat - 25 February 2010: I just saw the French are chiming in… too. Their passports got used TOO. Me TOO!

Is there anyone who was not in on the Mossad kill? (Ohter than poor Telly of course!)

Reply
mattes - 25 February 2010: Well, that’s one way to spread the blame around…

Reply
14. mattes - 25 February 2010: Jundallah arrest proves timely for Iran
By M K Bhadrakumar

TEHRAN – If the snow-covered Elbruz mountains rising just north of Tehran took on an extra glint in the bright wintry sunshine on Wednesday, there was good reason. It was the morning after the dramatic capture of the 31-year-old leader of the dreaded Pakistan-based terrorist group Jundallah, Abdulmalik Rigi, in a stunning operation by Iranian intelligence. snip

In turn, that would have implications for the United States-Iran standoff. But that is only one aspect. The fact is that Tehran has put Washington on the back foot at a critical juncture. Rigi is bound to spill the beans – he may already have begun – and much is going to surface about the covert activities by the US forces based in Afghanistan to subvert Iran by hobnobbing with Jundallah, which, incidentally, is also known to have links with al-Qaeda.

Rigi apparently had a meeting with his US mentors in an American base just a day before his journey to the UAE. It seems he was traveling with a fake Afghan passport provided by the Americans. A lot of highly embarrassing details are trickling in already that will be eagerly lapped up by the so-called “Arab street” and which will make the entire American position on the situation around Iran look rather weak.

The American doublespeak on terrorism comes out all too starkly.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LB26Ak01.html

Reply
15. BooHooHooMan - 25 February 2010: Appropos of nothing,
but What kind of I Shit You Not Timing is this?

A sign of the times?

Shark filled aquarium in Dubai mall springs leak

By ADAM SCHRECK
The Associated Press
Thursday, February 25, 2010; 11:55 AM

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Water gushed from a leak in a shark-filled aquarium in a ritzy Dubai mall on Thursday, sending startled shoppers scattering and shutting down nearby shops in one of the city’s proudest attractions.

“They told me that the aquarium exploded,” an employee of a nearby shoe store that was ordered shut said on condition of anonymity, because she did not want to jeopardize her business. “We feel upset because it’s the end of the month and the start of the weekend and we were expecting many customers,” she said.

Awwww…So I suppose now they’ll only get
half the customers if they’re lucky.
Maybe a quarter. Puts a whole new meaning in retailers trying to get a leg up on the competition.

Reply
BooHooHooMan - 25 February 2010: My luck I’d be in the Two Dollar electric massage chair
right near the shark tank when it went…

Reply
marisacat - 25 February 2010: 8)

Reply
BooHooHooMan - 25 February 2010: 😀 Oh I’m not goin that easy!

Reply
marisacat - 25 February 2010: i think telly just got the dubai sympathy vote!!!

Reply
catnip - 25 February 2010: It’s FiletOFishMageddon!

Reply
BooHooHooMan - 25 February 2010: I just can’t do the Health Care Mogul’s… “Summit.”
After this little show, They are all going to back pat and butt slap each other silly on their way to “bipartisanship” and GOP rehabilitation to get this plunder for the Insurance Scam Industry.

The Corps want it, Wall Street wants it, the R want it, the D HAVE to have some pathetic thing to show…. the Tort Lawyers want it, The Insurance Companies definitely want it, they all want mandated customers and they’ll slap some lip service safe guards on it. The latest ruse seems that the R is out against these Regulatory Boards – bullshit – the Oligarchs will control them as easily too…They are engineering this faux fight to pass the mandates and go back to EACH of their respective bases with the Mo Betta Partisan scam…

I saw Obam talking about how out of college he had a fender bender and called his insurance company and they “laughed at him” and went on to say ” now everybody new it wasn’t really insurance” he stopped short of saying what the racket really is

So rampaging whales and sharks it is.. 😉

Reply
16. catnip - 25 February 2010: Oh no – Biden’s talking. This could go on well into the nite…

Reply
catnip - 25 February 2010: Uncontrollable babbling – Biden’s pre-existing condition.

Reply
marisacat - 25 February 2010: Rush has taken real pleasure in playing some of the more stumbling parts…

Carry on!

Reply
17. BooHooHooMan - 25 February 2010: And they leak this today during the HCR Cartoon Summit

Odierno requests more combat forces in Iraq —
beyond the Obama deadline
Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Thursday, February 25, 2010 – 2:39 PM

In a move that could force President Obama to break his vow to get all combat troops out of Iraq by August of this year, his top commander in Iraq recently officially requested keeping a combat brigade in the northern part of the country beyond that deadline, three people close to the situation said Wednesday.

Reply
marisacat - 25 February 2010: Unleash the Boneyard! Divvy up the war toys… Carry ON!!

Reply
catnip - 25 February 2010: I read an article a few days ago that hinted (i.e. was obviously leaked) that they wouldn’t get all of the troops out by the deadline because of the elections etc etc etc.

Reply
18. marisacat - 25 February 2010: hmmmmmm Ben Smith links to both Times and the NY Post

February 25, 2010

Categories:New York.

Paterson criminal justice aide resigns

The implosion in Albany appears to be accelerating this afternoon, with Governor David Paterson’s Criminal Justice Coordinator, a senior aide, resigning in protest because, she said, the State Police had lied to her about their involvement in an incident detailed by the Times today.

Denise O’Donnell’s resignation is, the Post says, a “huge blow.”

Her statement:

The fact that the Governor and members of the State Police have acknowledged direct contact with a woman who had filed for an order of protection against a senior member of the Governor’s staff is a very serious matter. These actions are unacceptable regardless of their intent. snip

She was unequivocal… guess so if she wants another job as ”Criminal Justice” Coordinator, or whatever the verbiage was…………….

Bye all……………

Reply
19. marisacat - 25 February 2010: gnu…….

LINK

……………….. 8)

Reply