Fitzmas and Google Ads

For my last post, I hopped over to Technorati to see what was filed under the "fitzmas" tag. Gotta love the Google Ads that came up on that criteria:

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Technorati Tag: fitzmas

Fitzmas: After the Storm, the Praise Begins

Fitzmas Day has come and gone, and it was definitely an exciting day. However, the unspoken end result is that we all know we didn't get everything we were hoping for. We got the nice Lego set, but the bicycle we had set our hopes on wasn't there. But the Jolly Old Elf, Fitz Cringle himself, assures us that it's still a possibility for our birthday.

Now that the dust has settled, the AP reports that Bush is stressing the "innocent until proven guilty" angle.

"Scooter has worked tirelessly on behalf of the American people and sacrificed much in the service to this country," Bush said. "In our system, each individual is presumed innocent and entitled to due process and a fair trial."

For the President who was running on a pledge to restore honor and integrity to the White House, that's a pretty fine hair to be splitting. As this WaPo article mentions, the bar for which firing is merited has been raised as Fitzmas seemed to be drawing nearer.

But more to the point, the trail of commendations for failure is getting longer and longer.

Scooter - "worked tirelessly on behalf of the American people"
Harriet - "the best person I could find."
Brownie - "doing a heck of a job"
Tenet and Bremer - Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

Realistically, at this point, it would seem to be time to start discussing Bush's criteria for awarding praise. Frankly, we all know your buddy can put lipstick on any old pig and call it a beauty queen, but at some point the listener is going to realize that his buddy is setting him up on some pretty disappointing blind dates.

Technorati tag: fitzmas

The Onion Fires Back

After the flap over the use of the Presidential seal, this is apparently the Onion's retort. (I know everyone else has been posting it, I just wanted to join in on the fun)

Bernanke Nomination - Extended Post

My original post on the nomination of Ben Bernanke as Fed Chief was done while I was at work, and necessarily brief and admittedly completely free of added value. Alas, such are the hazards of the employed blogger. And frankly, given the comment-love I get from my three or four regular readers...tough titties.

However, since I did make a point of putting "Economics" in my sub-title content
description, it would be pretty weak if I didn't comment on this baby.

As mentioned in my original sparse post, the Bernanke selection was considered a very good choice by Brad Delong. Given my time constraints, that was the best commentary I could find on the subject.

Upon arriving home, I hopped over to Brad Setser's blog, where I was reminded that Bernanke was responsible for coining the idea of the "global savings glut" to explain the U.S. current account deficit situation. The essence of the theory boils down to:"US fiscal policy has had essentially no impact on the US current account deficit and continued large current account deficits pose relatively few risks," from Setser in an earlier post on the "global savings glut" here. The earlier post is devoted to what would effectively be the Roubini and Setser rebuttal of that argument. From a political-left perspective, reading about the global savings glut at the time, it was hard not to take away the sense that the theory was mainly an attempt to deflect criticism away from the current fiscal policies, and shift the blame to a nebulous "elsewhere".

More troubling was this New York Times column by Paul Krugman from Jan 25th of this year, prior to his move to the Council of Economics Advisors.(Courtesy pkarchive.org)

The last name one often hears is Ben Bernanke, currently a member of the Fed's Board of Governors. (Before going to the Fed, Mr. Bernanke was chairman of the Princeton economics department, where I'm on the faculty.) If Mr. Bernanke were appointed directly from his current Fed position to the chairmanship, there would be general acclaim. But he may soon move to the Council of Economic Advisers. Why?

Surely it's not because this administration, with its disdain for technical expertise in all fields, wants his advice. I hope I'm wrong, but my guess is that what's intended for Mr. Bernanke is a form of hazing: he will be expected to prove his loyalty by defending the indefensible and saying things he knows aren't true.

That might seem a tolerable price to pay for the Fed chairmanship - but a year of it might well make Mr. Bernanke damaged goods from the point of view of the markets.

It's a dilemma. I don't have any sympathy for the administration's perplexity. But I do wish Mr. Bernanke the best of luck, and hope he knows what he's doing.

But all politically-motivated scare-mongering aside, the man was on the shortlist for Fed Chief for a reason. His resume and background are all absolutely top-notch. As it seems likely that his confirmation will be quick and uncontested, I wish Mr. Bernanke the best and hope he proves any concerns unfounded.

The Editors on Iraq

Even though I primarily read The Poor Man for the witty, insightful commentary, I think The Editors may have reached a new plateau with this one:

I realize I should be celebrating the latest famous victory in Iraq, namely the purported approval of something calling itself “a constitution”; but, after celebrating the fall of Baghdad, the killing of Ebay and Uckfay, the capture of Saddama Claus, our string of military victories in Samarra, Fallujah, Najaf, Samarra, Najaf, Fallujah, Samarra, the blue fingers of freedom, Saddam’s trial, and every other fucking turning point and tunnel-ending light I forgot to mention, I’m all celebrated out, and I’m starting to wonder how many fucking backs the insurgency has left for us to break. I’m starting to think that all these “victories” may be mostly PR events, designed to cover up domestic political problems and the fact that Iraq is a complete disaster.

Bush to name Bernanke as next Fed Chief

According to all the kewl news channels, it looks like Bush is poised to nominate Ben Bernanke as the successor to Alan Greenspan as Fed Chairman.

Since I'm only an interested observer in this one, I take reassurance knowing that Brad DeLong has spoken highly of him in the past, and has given a thumbs-up to the approval.

"Does the Pope Sh!t in the Woods?" Department

Heh...from the current msnbc.com frontpage....

I especially love the baby-eating snarl photo.

Political Action Alert - H-1B Visas

Regular readers know I've been rather lazy about posting lately, and this one will continue my laziness by basically pointing right to a Kos diary, but it's important.

Apparently, the Senate Judiciary Committee is considering increasing the H-1B visa cap by 60,000 in order to generate more revenue as an attempt to cut the budget deficit.

Since approximately all of exitramp's readers are located near ExitRamp World Headquarters, in Lovely NorthEast Pennsylvania, I'll point out that Sen. Specter is the brainchild of this one. I urge everyone to contact Senator Specter and express your opposition to this measure. (Specter contact form here) The IEEE has proposed an alternative of raising the fees for existing H-1B visas to generate the additional revenue, which strikes me as the optimal solution. The last thing we need in this time of decreasing consumer confidence, stagnant wages, and skyrocketing energy costs is to have a larger pool of immigrant labor to put a downward pressure on wages for skilled workers.

New Owners for the Radisson at Lackawanna Station

Today's big Scranton-area news item is the purchase of the Radisson at Lackawanna Station hotel by a California-area real estate firm. This is certainly some good news for downtown Scranton, since there was some question earlier this year regarding the hotel's future. As reported by the Times-Tribune, the new owners, Akshar Lackawanna Station Hospitality LP, a unit of El Centro, Calif.-based Calvin Investments LLC, bought the facility for $7 million, and plans to spend $1.5-1.7 million to update the hotel. Most of these will be basic upgrades of amenities, which I've heard is a long-overdue move, along with plasma flatscreen TVs in the rooms, which will be a nice touch. Of course, this news comes hot on the heels of the recent purchase of the Hilton Scranton from bankruptcy by Spectrum Origination LLC.

So, the two upscale hotels in downtown Scranton are now under new ownership. The big question is now whether downtown Scranton can support two luxury hotels in the near future. The impending completion of the Casey parking garage will certainly help, given that the lack of parking was the biggest complaint of the Hilton's previous management.

Some quickie research on hotels.com shows that the Hilton and Radisson are both in the $100-150 per room range, which is pretty goddamned pricey for a hotel in a small city. Especially given that the other two 3-star-rated hotels in the list have rooms starting at $57 and $89. Note that the Hilton Scranton is not rated, but I'm sure it would rate comparably. Also, I note that hotels.com listing is not aware of the fact that the Radisson has High-Speed Internet, which is rates as a pretty significant screaming red light to me.

So, we'll see if the various business travellers, and expatriates coming home to visit family can support the two biggie hotels. Or perhaps, some genius-level marketing will cause the "convention destination" plan to work out. Time will tell.

Leaving Las Vegas

I just got back from Las Vegas, without too much damage to the bank account.

I left the computer at home and have been spending the last few hours catching up on the blogosphere. There are a few new posts that will be going up shortly...

stay tuned!

Rove Testifying in Plame Case

Interesting development...via MSNBC

WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors have accepted an offer from presidential adviser Karl Rove to give 11th hour testimony in the case of a CIA officer's leaked identity but have warned they cannot guarantee he won't be indicted, according to people directly familiar with the investigation

[...]

The U.S. attorney's manual requires prosecutors not to bring witnesses before a grand jury if there is a possibility of future criminal charges unless they are notified in advance that their grand jury testimony can be used against them in a later indictment.

Rove has already made at least three grand jury appearances and his return at this late stage in the investigation is unusual.

The prosecutor did not give Rove similar warnings before his earlier grand jury appearances.

Is it possible there is still some semblance of justice in this world?

Bush Defends Miers Pick

Bush hosted a press conference today to defend picking Harriet Miers to the SCOTUS. To me, the key quote was:

Dismissing suggestions of cronyism, Bush said: “I picked the best person I could find.

A woman with absolutely no judicial experience was the best person he could find? That guy sure seems to have trouble finding things...WMD in Iraq, that Osama dude, Anthrax mailers.

I'm honestly not sure why he even pretends anymore. He might as well get up there and say: "I'm nominating this chick because I goddamn want to, bitches, and I'm the President so there ain't nuthin' you can do about it!" At this point, it would hardly even prompt me to raise an eyebrow.

I am, however, eagerly looking forward to seeing which well-connected, incompetent campaign contributor, or frat buddy he nominates to replace Greenspan next year. By design, they will have to be someone who's filed for personal bankruptcy protection at least twice, and who's key policy idea would be the Federal Ponzi Scheme Committee. (motto: "Everybody gets rich, except the last one in! Buy in NOW!")

*** Update(13:30) *** Okay, reading msnbc, I am informed that picking political friends for the Supreme Court has a long and storied past. Lincoln and LBJ did it, and my boy FDR did it twice. They also schooled me to the fact that Rehnquist, himself, also had no judicial experience prior to ascending to the SCOTUS. d00dz! I hereby throw in my hat for the next available supreme court slot! I would consider it a personal honor to be the first completely unqualified justice!

It's Like X-mas and my Birthday and Columbus Day, all rolled into one!!

Allow me to add to the chorus of giddy cheerleading that has sprung up far and wide across Left Blogtopia today. Today may well be the most joyus day for the last 5 years. Indeed, at this moment it seems that the chickens have come home to roost, the other shoe has dropped and "that" has been inserted into pipes and smoked. After years of shameless, undisguised corruption and cronyism, the wheels seem to be coming off the republican graft-mobile.

Let's review some of the fine events of this momentous day:

1. House Majority Leader Tom Delay has been indicted by a Texas Grand Jury on a conspiracy charge related to his campaign finance activities for TRMPAC. He has stepped down as majority leader, and is claiming this is all partisan politics.

2. On the other side of the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is being investigated by the SEC due to his apparent insider trading of his family's company HCA Inc. earlier this summer.

3. And crossing back over once again, a House panel was hearing pledges from government auditors that they will closely examine millions of dollars in contracts the Bush administration awarded to politically connected companies for Hurricane Katrina relief.

Lord knows I'm trying hard not to get too excited, here, but damn if right now I am not (to steal from atrios and The Editors) singing the "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy" song while doing the Snoopy dance. After all these years of watching this go on, seeing some form of censure being levelled against these crooks is the best present anyone can give. Sigh.....!

Tom Delay Indicted

In a confirmation that there is still some justice in this world, the AP is reporting that Tom Delay has been indicted for the Campaign Finance probe.

Gorillaz - Demon Days Live

Your humble author was recently notified of the details regarding the planned Gorillaz live show at the Manchester Opera House, Nov 1st-5th. As of right now, there is no ability to purchase tickets, but the link is labelled "coming soon".

The timing of this event truly blows, since my schedule for the week is fairly well booked. However, I pass the information on to my readers since it's one of the few interesting scoops I have.

Enjoy.

In a world first, Gorillaz' smash hit second album Demon Days will be performed in its entirety across five consecutive nights (November 1st - 5th) at the Opera House, Manchester - as part of a series of trailblazing events ahead of the inaugural Manchester International Festival in late June and early July 2007.

The album's guest musicians will descend on Manchester to take on the task of recreating the three-million selling Demon Days live onstage. The two-dimensional band members will take a back seat as their musical collaborators are brought together for the first time ever, in five remarkable and unrepeatable performances. Guest musicians will include Happy Mondays front-man Shaun Ryder and UK hip hop artist Roots Manuva, with further names to be announced in the run-up to the event.

"I mean this event is the one and only time this is ever gonna happen, where we'll be able to bring together the 'Demon Days' guest performers along with these other musicians. So it's a definite one-off."Russel

***Update*** (3:15pm) From the official gorillaz site, we learn that tickets go on sale Oct. 3rd.

PeakOil - IMF Chimes in

In this kos diary, Jerome a Paris notes that the IMF has weighed in on the impending global oil peak.

IMF warns investment in oil production and refining is too low to reduce prices

In a draft of the main chapter of its World Economic Outlook, the IMF writes: "Based on current investment plans, production capacity is unlikely to grow enough to outpace future growth in consumption and create adequate spare capacity." (...)

The IMF's report, which will be published on Wednesday, says Opec's ability to lower prices is limited because its cushion of spare oil capacity has shrunk due to high demand, mainly from the US and China. The report predicts that the situation is unlikely to improve in the next five years.

As he points out: "Okay. so we now have the following companies and institutions on record about Peak oil: Chevron, ExxonMobil, the International Energy Agency, and the IMF." Peak Oil isn't just for Tinfoil Hatters anymore. And there are some major forces here, domestic and international, who are making some noise here. It's only a matter of time before the message finally gets some serious legs.

Technorati tag: peak oil

FSM - Interview with His Prophet

via eschaton, an interview with the One True Prophet of the Flying Spaghetti monster.

GM: When did you know you were the chosen Prophet for the great Flying Spaghetti Monster? Does He still speak to you?

BH: I had of course seen spaghetti several times throughout my life, but it wasn't until He revealed Himself to me and touched me with His Noodly Appendage that I knew I was Chosen. Does He still speak to me? If by that you mean "Do I hear voices in my head?" the answer is yes. Further evidence that He is near me abounds. I oftentimes find that I have made mistakes in my day-to-day activities. These, clearly, are the work of a mischievous Flying Spaghetti Monster, tampering with my work with His Noodly Appendage, purely for his own amusement.
...
GM: Is there any sort of structured ranking within Pastafarianism (i.e., other than The Prophet, are there any levels within the religion that parallel church official rankings)?

BH: There are rankings in the church, yes. Structured rankings, no. I have been told by Him that I am to procure a pirate ship of immense proportions and engage on a mission to spread his Word. The most endeared members of the church will be accompanying me. And in the case of female members, by "endeared" I of course mean "endowed".

Go. Read.

Peace be with you...ramen.

Bush using Katrina to push School Vouchers

It comes as no surprise, of course, but the BushAdmin is now attempting to use the Katrina relief efforts to push the classic republican wet dream of School Vouchers.

From the WaPo:

In proposing $1.9 billion in aid for kindergartners through 12th-graders whose schools were ruined by the storm, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings originally said the administration was setting aside $488 million for private-school tuition and other help, to re-create as normal an environment as possible for the uncommonly large segment of children from New Orleans who had attended Catholic schools.

Yesterday, however, as new fine print of the proposal emerged, White House and Education Department spokesmen confirmed that the government payment -- as much as $7,500 per child -- would be given for a year to any displaced family that now prefers an alternative to public schools. "Parents may choose to send children to private schools. They may not. But this is their choice," said Susan Aspey, the Education Department's spokeswoman.

Yes, let's please take the money out of our public schools and divert it to private schools. That's a surefire way to ensure that education in America is top-notch.

This subject has always held it's own particular place of hatred in my heart. If people who choose to send their children to private schools can have their tax dollars diverted away from the public education system since they're not using it, it only logically follows that childless people like myself should then have their school district taxes refunded, due to the fact that I'm not utilizing the services, no?

No, bitches! Shared sacrifice for the public good is how the system works. If you as a parent don't like the education available through public education, then work to make it better. If you still feel that you need to send your children off to a private school, fine, but don't expect to get pity from me about how much money you're spending.

Iraq - Ugliness in Basra

Earlier today, several news sources were reporting that two Britons were arrested in the Basra area for allegedly shooting two Iraqi policemen. This was quite a bit of a shocking news item, since the British-occupied Basra region has been much quieter than the....well...entire rest of the country.

So, just now, I decided to check and see what the updates on this story were. Apparently, according to MSNBC, there's a bit of some disagreement on exactly what happened, but it sounds like the two Britons have been released. According to the British government: "the two men were released as a result of negotiations." Ah, good. Glad to hear that's all settled up.

Oh, but the disagreement? Ah, yes:

British soldiers used 10 armored vehicles to break down the walls of the central jail in this southern city Monday and freed two Britons, allegedly undercover commandos arrested on charges of shooting two Iraqi policemen, witnesses said.

Well, sure...I mean really...."released after negotiations" versus "liberated by the use of military mechanized force storming and destroying the prison"..."po-TAY-toh", "po-TAH-toh."



There ain't a whole lot in the rest of the article that makes the British government's story sound terribly credible. And the pictures in the article aren't too pretty either.

I imagine now that there's some hard evidence showing exactly how sovereign the Iraqis' sovereignty really is, things are only likely to get more interesting.

***UPDATE(10:12pm)**** The Independent has a bit more info.

Saturday News Roundup

Since I seem to have less to say than usual, here's some of the more interesting news items today, from the nytimes:

1. Toyota is stating that they plan, for some not yet concrete future date, to eventually be making all of their vehicles as gas-electric hybrids. They say the key to achieving this goal will be halving the current $3000-5000 premium brought on by the cost of the hybrid technologies. Though they can't yet come up with a target date, they're only shooting for one million hybrids by 2010, so presumably it's going to be significantly past that date. If that stated goal correctly sums up their position, it sounds like they're not expending too much energy examining hydrogen power technologies.

2. Some senior republican congresscritters are joining in the calls for CIA Director Porter Goss to release an internal report which "criticizes his predecessor, George J. Tenet, and others for lapses on terrorism in advance of the Sept. 11 attacks." The article seems to indicate that this report is fairly damning of the Tenet-led CIA, and that Goss is reluctant to release it because of concerns that the release "could be damaging to the agency's morale." I find it interesting that there is now some bi-partisan support for the public release of the report.

3. Four years on, the search for the Anthrax mailer appears to be stalled. The article discusses the lengths to which investigators have gone in order to try and track down the origins of the anthrax bacteria, paper, and photocopiers used by the mailer. The point is also made that many of the people involved in the search are highly committed to catch the culprit, because, without an eventual arrest, it certainly seems like it would embolden others to try a similar tactic. Hell, frankly, I'm a little surprised that we haven't heard of some well-connected wacko who tried something similar.

4. Finally, the White House has approved NASA's plan for the next generation of space exploration vehicles which would be desinged using exiting technologies currently in place on the shuttles. Re-use of the existing technologies will clearly allow for a quicker, cheaper transition to the new vehicles. Let's hope NASA has a sense of which technologies merit re-use, as opposed to the ones that tend to blow shit up.