But our winner, the United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Where are you guys? Three major Native American reservations in South Dakota, particularly the Cheyenne River Reservation, have been buried under snow and ice with major power failures, for two weeks.
From today's meeting between President Obama and Senate Democrats today comes this gem . . . .
"If the price of certainty is essentially for us to adopt the exact same proposals that were in place for eight years leading up to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression -- we don't tinker with health care, let the insurance companies do what they want, we don't put in place any insurance reforms, we don't mess with the banks, let them keep on doing what they're doing now because we don't want to stir up Wall Street -- the result is going to be the same," he said. "I don't know why we would expect a different outcome pursuing the exact same policy that got us into this fix in the first place."
Middle class Americans, Obama said, "are more and more vulnerable, and they have been for the last decade, treading water. And if our response ends up being, you know, because we don't want to -- we don't want to stir things up here, we're just going to do the same thing that was being done before, then I don't know what differentiates us from the other guys. And I don't know why people would say, boy, we really want to make sure that those Democrats are in Washington fighting for us."
A two part series, from Time magazine, of a total breakdown of a platoon and especially one soldier's descent into madness in Iraq. The leadership vacuum, moral and the chain of command not recognizing what was happening. {I added 'abeers' photo's}
I'm sure we'll be hearing much more about this book in the coming weeks!
While the "news" media focuses on the Tea Party mad hatters and their awesome political clout, there's another potential financial meltdown in the pipeline.
This report from Baseline Scenario will possibly get move coverage in the coming week, as the markets react. In the meantime I just thought I'd post a quick Essay about it, as a kind of "Heads Up".
Upon waking from his midday nap and taking a good long stretch, President Obama meandered into the kitchen. He stood there wondering to himself whether he was hungry, thirsty, or both, when his vegetative musings were side-tracked by the pronounced dripping of the faucet. Goodness gracious! Was that old thing still dripping? He'd been meaning to get around to replacing that old washer for, oh, two, three year now, it must have been.
Not a life-or-death situation, but all those little drops must add up over time, he thought. It's not the biggest job, either, but it's not necessarily a simple job. He'd have to crawl under the sink and shut off the water, find some wrenches, remove the stem valve...and frankly, he wasn't sure if he had any spare washers he could scrounge around for that would fit. He might have to take a trip down to the hardware store. Even if he had some washers, there's the problem of tightening them just so. Too tight, and the handle won't turn. Too loose, it still drips. But those were just technical issues.
The President drifted off into another room as these ideas were percolating through his thoughts, hemming and hawing over the Republican accusations of runaway government spending, and lingering mightily at the prospect of what the water utility's lobbyists might say. He didn't want to rush headlong into the job hastily getting everybody riled up, but neither did he want to fritter away another afternoon just lolling around or warming a chair. That's not what he came to Washington for. The last thing he wanted was to be pulled up short in the middle of the job, ending up with a useless sink.
He vacillated between considerations, ambled about, hesitated, then moved slowly on again, before finally deciding he wasn't going to diddle daddle with this fiddle faddle any longer. Not this time. Fixing that faucet was the right thing to do. Heck, he could probably stimulate the economy, save the taxpayer some money over the long haul, and claim environmental stewardship, while he's at it. He reckoned he should probably just mosey on down to the hardware store, and take a gander at their washers, first thing in the morning.
Green, green, it's green they say
On the far side of the hill
Green, green, I'm goin' away
To where the grass is greener still
-- New Christy Minstrels
As some of you may know, I have not considered the Green Party a viable vehicle for independent politics. I have argued that they are organizationally calcified, obsessed with programmatics, and would lack the flexibility to adapt to a strong 3rd-party upsurge.
At the same time, I've noticed a lot of people touting the Greens as our best independent vehicle, citing their having thoroughly progressive politics, a nationally-recognized organization in place, and ballot status in many states and I am moved by this. I have put in many years with independent left politics, including:
California Peace & Freedom Party
Barry Commoner's Citizens Party (Northern California executive board)
Lenora Fulani's New Alliance Party (I was their main typesetter)
Ross Perot's Reform Party (active in New Jersey branch's bloody factions)
But I have never seen as much broad 3rd-party sentiment as I am seeing now. Not even close. Politically chaotic, from teabaggers (whatever their leaders may tout), to commie radicals to pissed-off liberals to Golden-Mean moderates, but never as much part of the mainstream discourse. Geez, I remember the days when 3rd party votes weren't even counted.
So in these circumstances, I am reconsidering my position on the Greens. It may be the case that the Greens or elements of the Greens will be more responsive to an independent upsurge than to maintaining their own organizational status quo.
Once again, the Federal Reserve is going to come to the rescue of Wall Street. Once again, it will be in the name of helping out "us".
The idea behind giving the banks cheap money was that the banks would lend it to consumers and businesses. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened: Since the start of the crisis, bank lending has fallen off a cliff. The banks are, however, lending to the Federal government, which needs to fund record deficits by borrowing more than $1 trillion a year. The combination of the Fed's desire to stimulate lending via cheap money and the government's desire to stimulate the economy by running a huge deficit has made it a great time to be a bank: Banks can borrow from the government at artificially cheap rates and then lend the money back to the Federal government at higher rates, pocketing the difference.
And now it's going to get even better to be a bank.
PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) - Aid workers in Haiti rushed to provide tents on Sunday with the coming rainy season threatening further misery and anger building among the desperate population over the stumbling relief effort.
While officials say food distribution has finally moved into high gear, more Haitians protested Sunday, saying the government had done nothing for them as the one-month anniversary of the January 12 devastating earthquake approached.
Meanwhile, the case of 10 Americans charged with kidnapping children in the wake of the disaster here took another turn, with their Haitian lawyer saying he had quit after being accused of seeking to bribe the judge.
The January 21 Supreme Court decision [.pdf] in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case lifted bans on corporate spending for campaign finance, drawing heavy criticism from across the country for the ruling's potential to undermine the American democratic process.
Now with that ruling in their back pockets, "[a]t least half a dozen leaders of the Republican Party have joined forces to create a new political group with the goal of organizing grass-roots support and raising funds ahead of the 2010 midterm elections, according to people familiar with the effort", says the Wall Street journal in an article January 30.
The Supreme Court ruling could potentially allow the group, called the American Action Network, to take unlimited contributions from corporations for use in political campaigns.
Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence
Disclaimer: Nothing said here should be taken to imply that airport/train connections are the primary transport task for either light rail, mass transit, conventional intercity rail, or high speed intercity rail. In other words, the focus of an essay in a regular weekly series on one particular topic does not imply anything along the lines of "most important thing".
However, recently, I keep running into the issue of taking the train to the airport. I read an recent article in an air travel industry publication that focused on the airport connections associated with the projects funded in the $8b HSR funding. I read an older piece about the proposed intermodal station in Chicago that would allow our Ohio trains to get to O'Hare. And the proposal to terminate the California HSR at the redesigned Lindbergh Field came up as part of the discussion at the California HSR blog.
So with the Super Bowl coming up to distract things, I succumbed to what was clearly fate, and am going to discuss taking the train to the airport.
A strategist at the Deutsche Bank had something interesting to say last week regarding the economic crisis in southern Europe.
"The problems currently faced by peripheral Europe could be a dress rehearsal for what the U.S. and U.K. may face further down the road," Jim Reid, a strategist at Deutsche Bank in London, wrote in a research note today.
It seems impossible that what is going on in Greece has anything to do with America. After all, Greece has defaulted on its debts so often over the last two centuries that you could almost set your watch to it. It was always contained in the past because Greece's economy is so small, so why would this time be different this time?
And yet, it isn't contained this time. It is spreading and no one knows how far it might go.
The East India Company's first corporate charter was granted in 1600 for a period of fifteen years. The company struggled to advance its trading and turn a profit initially but by 1609, business was picking up and King James I renewed the charter in 1609, for an indefinite period of time.
Imperialism worked like it always has and the corporation was able to expand toward many different places and grow bigger and richer. Thanks in large part to the stockholders and other rich people, deregulation of the company proceeded to occur over the years.
Monopolies were imposed soon enough. Another company was briefly set up by the government to try to compete, but they soon argued that there really was no strong competition against the company, so the companies merged.
Catching this, not much up yet, gives me a chance to catch up on the Brit Iraq War Inquiry, still ongoing.
First the Brits with theirs, next the Dutch and theirs and now some very prominent Aussie's are calling for their own! Could the pressure start mounting on the Power that controlled the whole extremely failed policies of the previous decade? Time will tell but most residents of this country are apathetic and arrogant as to most everything especially baring their guilt and guilty in mass, as the The pitbull in lipstick said at the no American Flags tea gathering, "We don't want to look back'"!
The January 21 Supreme Court 
Disclaimer: Nothing said here should be taken to imply that airport/train connections are the primary transport task for either light rail, mass transit, conventional intercity rail, or high speed intercity rail. In other words, the focus of an essay in a regular weekly series on one particular topic does not imply anything along the lines of "most important thing".
