Wampum

This just dropped into my inbox.

UNITED STATES NORTHERN COMMAND
Media Release

DIRECTORATE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, HEADQUARTERS, NORTHERN COMMAND,
250 VANDENBERG, STE B016, PETERSON AFB, CO 80914-3808 PHONE: (719) 554-6889 DSN: 692-6889

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 30, 2008
Northern Command gains dedicated response force

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo -- For the first time in its existence, Northern Command is gaining a dedicated force to respond to potential chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosive (CBRNE) incidents in the homeland.

"We are now building the first of three CBRNE Consequence Management Forces," said USNORTHCOM Commander Gen Gene Renuart "On the first of October, we'll have an organized force, a trained force, an equipped force, a force that has adequate command and control and is on quick response 48 hours to head off to a large-scale nuclear, chemical, biological event that might require Department of Defense support."

The CBRNE Consequence Management Force, or CCMRF, is a team of about 4,700 joint personnel that would deploy as the Department of Defense's initial response force for a CBRNE incident Its capabilities include search and rescue, decontamination, medical, aviation, communications and logistical support.

Each CCMRF will be composed of three functional task forces ask Force Operations, Task Force Medical and Task Force Aviation that have their own individual operational focus and set of mission skills. Depending on the different mission requirements and the incident commander's priorities, Task Force Operations, Task Force Medical and Task Force Aviation units would have varying roles and responsibilities based upon the type of catastrophe and the size of the geographical area. In USNORTHCOM's first CCMRF, the Army's 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team, assigned at Fort Stewart, Ga, will form the core unit of Task Force Operations.

Although CCMRFs are a joint force comprised of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines, the first CCMRF will fall under the operational control of USNORTHCOM's Joint Force Land Component Command, Army North, located in San Antonio, Texas, Joint Task Force Civil Support, USNORTHCOM's subordinate command in Fort Monroe, Va=2E, would serve as the operational headquarters and work closely with state and local officials and first responders.

"Army North has done an outstanding job anticipating the needs of our federal, state and local partners, and training the CCMRF to be prepared to respond when called upon," said Army Col Michael Boatner, USNORTHCOM future operations division chief.

"We're excited about obtaining a ready and capable team that we can quickly activate and deploy as part of a federal response package when responding in the aftermath of catastrophic events", Boatner said, "This response force will not be called upon to help with law enforcement, civil disturbance or crowd control, but will be used to support lead agencies involved in saving lives, relieving suffering and meeting the needs of communities affected by weapons of mass destruction attacks, accidents or even natural disasters.

USNORTHCOM is the joint combatant command formed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to provide homeland defense and defense support of civil authorities.
- 30 -

I think I'll order The Role of Federal Military Forces in Domestic Disorders, 1877-1945, by Clayton Laurie and Ronald Cole, and read the Revised Statutes of 1874, specifically S.R. 5297, 5298, 5299 and 5300. This was an interesting period, for Indians, for Cavalry, and for the Congress.

Posted by EBW at 07:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While the children played in the post-hurricane waves I watch and was surprised to see a ray leap out of water, then another, and another, and another. Some close inshore, some at the outer breakers. I've no idea why rays attempt flight, but they do.

Posted by EBW at 05:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I know more about Iraq, and Pakistan, than some. I also know more about Federal Indian Law than some. Autism too, and hey, math. So all the barrage of pseudo-heavy-duty questions about foreign affairs seems wicked belabored, and sexist to boot. The candidate has a record, good, bad or indifferent, and areas of expertise that offer better insight into the candidate's ability to perform the job interviewed for than questions about things the candidate shouldn't have put paid time to think about until weeks ago.

What are the basic contours of the Alaskan Native Claims Settlement Act? How does Federal Indian Law issues under that Act differ, or are made unique to Alaska and the Act, from the general run of Federal Indian Law? What are the lessons that the United States can draw after decades of experience from modern Settlement Acts, the things to seek, and to avoid, in the implementation of similar Acts such as Maine's two Settlement Acts, and the drafting of similar Acts for other states such as North Carolina?

What are the basic contours of the Alaskan oil and gas industry? Where is production, where is distribution? How much goes to eastern Pacific coast ports, how much to western Pacific coast ports? What are the basic factors that are required to know to function as the executive of a energy exporting state?

What are the legal and regulatory issues for the Alaskan fisheries? Where are the salmon stocks headed?

Dumb questions get dumb responses, because few candidates will simply plow over a field of weeds and use the earned media opportunity to say something coherent and not stupidly partisan or uselessly reactionary to wicked dumb pre-positioned rhetorical devices.

OK, so I'd pay money to see Joe Biden take Berkeley's old math orals in algebra, analysis, geometry or logic, or try to keep up one end of a conversation about Federal indian Law, but that's not because I care about his place in the spectrum of sexual diffeomorphisms or his gender preference. Just a twisted kind of payback for partitioning Iraq and racist and sexist manditory minimums for drugs and for being MBNA's tool (along with Maine's ever gracious Senators).

Posted by EBW at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

When you're working field, things like this are what make, or break, a competitive campaign's run. Voting the assisteds, the precints that are purged each cycle, striking the early voters off the persuasion and final walking lists, ... there's an art to it, and voting starts tomorrow in Ohio.

Posted by EBW at 04:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The bill is here. 110 pages in pdf format of the "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008".

Section 109, Conflicts of interest, does not propose, as a matter of policy, preference for administration and execution which is inherently non-conflicted (public sector, academic, etc.).

Allen, Yes.

Michaud, No.

Yes, there are two Maines, and in each, the same analysis leads to a distinct conclusion.

Posted by EBW at 08:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Citigroup acquired Wachovia overnight.

The European Common Bank is trying to stabilize the market at mid-day (European).

La BCE injecte 120 milliards d'euros sur les marchés
La Banque centrale européenne a alloué, lundi 29 septembre, 120 milliards d'euros aux banques de la zone euro dans le cadre d'une opération spéciale visant à soulager les tensions sur les marchés monétaires. (AFP)

Posted by EBW at 08:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The outages list is reporting that house.gov is non-responsive. The $1.2T mercedes bill apparently has quite a few readers.

Posted by EBW at 08:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Every time we're in the vicinity Jonah wants to see The West Wing, well, actually he say's "[D]wight's House", but he really enjoys watching West Wing at bed time over the past three years of living vagrantly with us and puts the disks in his player for personal showings and repeats and repeats and ... well, he's autistic so that works for him. Its nice that some of the dialog comes back to us.

h/t Avadon.

Posted by EBW at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The main point made for socializing the bank failures is that "main street" borrows money for payroll, and therefore the bank failures will cause pay businesses which borrow against booked orders or assets or ... to ... and come back empty handed from the bank.

Why? That part of the story is a simple message, but if borrowing requires public money, why go through a series of margin taking private institutions? Why isn't the US the lender? We do have some experience in failures of infrastructure, and if FEMA is still a Bush/Brown mess, we have other choices, even staying within the government captured by the "no government is best" tax loophole mafia. States too, particularly progressive states, and municipalities where there are large payrolls in otherwise "no government is best" states, may take the place of the current set of payday lenders to businesses.

To the simple message that ends " ... and come back empty handed from the bank" we add, "comma, but fortunately we still have government, so the city, state, or national government made the loan, and middle class life went on, uninterrupted by the collapse of perpetrators of the sub-prime mortgage fraud."

If that doens't fill the pay envelope companies that borrow can issue script of their own, After all, it isn't their business that is failing, its their end of the corporate payroll borrowing system that failed, and that failure is, in theory, temporary, so they can issue script.

This isn't an isolated problem, at least not in the offered, and so far unproved, narrative, but there really are a lot of alternatives, assuming the offered narrative proves more true than false, to try before mass cannibalism and zombies start to stalk the streets. Cooperation doesn't get much play in the corporate, for-profit media, but it did us well in Maine during the Ice Storm. Assets, from wood in my neighbor's basement, to space heaters and fuel, moved around, and few were very cold for very long, even though the event, from the freeze to the day CMP and out of state crews restored downed lines lasted for weeks in central Maine, and many weeks in Washington County.

When our economy failed we first got food stamps, then a Maine issued EBT card. There's nothing wrong with simply expanding this, issuing cards at the work sites where payroll envelopes are handed out, and letting the existing system work for the working and the non-working poor and the morally distant from necessity (except when banks can't lend money till payday, and even then) working middle class. We learned that "social solidarity" is a fake if it is just for other people.

The Cooperation is a choice too.

The simple message can also end " ... and come back empty handed from the bank, so they put their heads together and worked with what was at hand, issued EBTs and reconciled local borrower scripts through the state for food and non-food payments. Its an experiment and it works."

Posted by EBW at 07:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Serguei Lavrov's proposed a pan-European Summit to explore a proposal to create a new system for the collective security in Europe.

Maybe he was watching last night's farce and he'd like to exploit the dumbness of all three pretenders to the Office of the Presidency, none of who can be bothered to pick up the NATO kitty by the tail and figure out its sex or utility.

Posted by EBW at 08:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

John McCain is making hay our of Barak Obama's willingness to meet with anyone, without precondition.

So what could "our guy" talk with "their guy" about?

Suppose its President to President. It would be useful to ask Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about the politiical structure of the Islamic State, how it differs from the United States and other republican forms of government, and the remaining constitutional monarchies, in that the head of state is not the President, and the head of state is not a figure head, but the senior member of the executive branch of the Islamic Republic. Given the years of discussion of uranium enrichment and whether the intended yield is LEU (fuel) or HEU (weapon), a frank and open discussion of the chain of custody and the command and control of hypothetical nuclear weapons would be healthy.

Not knowing where actual launch authority, or launch capability resides, from year to year, with the Pakistani nuclear weapons inventory, is one of the more interesting features of that nuclear weapons state. In Iran, assuming the common American assumption of intent, who gives the order to fire? To whom? How? With what safeguards? Try to imagine not knowing how the Soviet, or modernly, the Russian launch authority and recall capability operate, and having no "red line" ... where do you end up other than pre-emptive first strike, or the slightly more humane mass launch on warning without recall?

Doesn't, at the very least, their guy need a tutorial from our guy on how to peacefully co-exist with other guys (and from time to time a gal or two) who already have weapons and who have figured out how not to get killed (yet) by them? Part of our heartfelt sentiment about proliferation is that we wish we, and the Sovs, hadn't, that they don't actually do much other than cost a wicked big heap of money and make diplomacy difficult.

If that's too hard how about clearing up the difference between "widest point" and "deepest channel", since that has been the source of serious difference between Iran and Iraq for most of the past century, and boating is a presidential passion, from time to time.

Suppose its Head of State to Head of State. It would be useful to ask Ali Khamenei how he determined that nuclear weapons are contrary to religion, and whether the test lies within the pre-Islamic revealed texts of the Tawrat, Zabur and the Injil, the Torah, the Book of Psalms, and the Four Christian Gospels, respectively, or is unique to the Qur'an.

Given the age of Ali Khamenei, it woud be useful to ask him also about how he was chosen to succeed Ruhollah Khomeini, and the changes to the composition of the Assembly of Experts due to the most recent elections. Does he think it likely that he will be succeeded by a mujtahid (independent jurist) such as Mohammad Khatami, by a taqlid (follower) such as Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani or Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, or by some other person, perhaps a Marja Taqlid (a source of imitation) such as Ali Husaini Sistani, who happens to be in Iraq?

It would also be useful to understand his understanding of the Shi'a theory of velayat-e faqih, the "guardianship of the jurisconsult (clerical authority)" the basis for theocratic political rule by Islamic jurists.

There is so much our guy and their guy, whom ever either may be, to talk about, without precondition, that it's a shame the Likudniks call it treason. But they have their reasons.

One thing that it would probably be difficult to talk about, but good to get off our collective chest, is why crap like House Concurrent Resolution 362 keeps getting within a dog's breakfast of getting passed and sent on to the fool in the Oval.

Posted by EBW at 08:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I think Senator Obama lost last night's debate. I think he lost, not because of what he said, but because of what he didn't say.

He didn't say limiting executive compensation was a fig leaf, and that if a billion in graft would result in a net savings, it was a bargin, but that he intends to ask his Justice Department to prosecute and where pleas or convictions obtain, to fine and fine heavily every single person at any level of management responsibility, and where executive conduct met the plain intent of the Statute of Frauds, to jail the guilty.

He didn't say that granting new authority to the Secretary of the Treasury was an absurd capitulation of the Legislative Branch's Constitutional responsibility for oversight of the Executive Branch and the place to start was holding hearings to determine if any federal agency failed to properly carry out its responsibilities and impeaching the officials, if any, who played any role in facilitating any of this mess. When that is done, then extending, changing, or reducing the responsibilities of the Department of the Treasury may be properly considered.

He didn't say that "saving the firms" really was just the "summer homes in Aspen and The Hamptons" version of Survivor, and that while the TV versions of "vote them off the island" are cheap to produce and yield amusing distraction for millions, the trillion dollar knock-off for the seven-figures demographic was not happening. He didn't talk about how to go about nationalizing or dissolving the failed firms with all the assets going back into the US Treasury, how a second Resolution Trust Corporation would work.

He didn't say that the marginal tax rate before Reagan, and the regulatory regime the financial services sector was subject to, before Reagan, were close and obvious policy goals that we should see and steer towards, through all the fog and bombast of the corrupt enablers of the greatest generation of swindlers and cheats.

He didn't say Phil Gramm had a role in the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, otherwise known as the Enron loophole, and in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, which removed Depression-era laws separating banking, insurance and brokerage activities. He didn't say that Switzerland has an extradition treaty with the US, and Switzerland too has laws against fraud.

He didn't say that James K. Galbraith & William K. Black and Bernie Sanders and Nouriel Roubini each have proposals, and discuss the pros and cons of each, and leave Senator McCain to either attempt to keep up, or fall back on his not terribly relevant record, without mentioning the Keating Five prosecutions for the S&L failures

MB thinks he won last night's debate. Maybe so, but he didn't put anything nourishing on the table, and millions of decided, and undecided voters will try and chew over what they heard and saw, and try to find the defining differences between the two parties on the question of the day, and they don't even have "I understand one, I don't understand the other" clarity. Just two men mumbling over how much to give away, unable to act as if our lives mattered at all.

Most of the paras above were mined from Avadon's morning post. She's several time zones ahead of me (in general).

Posted by EBW at 07:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A week and a day ago I paused crossing a street in Geneva, taking a break from a meeting about Europe centered banking to get fresh air and walk to the local Starbucks, and I paused. It was a Clarisa Dalloway moment. I wanted to see things clearly and remember them, because the exchange in Moscow was shut down, and AIG was going to fail in days, and ... this, I realized, was a moment to remember. Where I was, what I was doing, what I was thinking, how I thought the world worked. Because soon these beliefs would be ... curious or correct.

Neither one was particularly useful on Pakistan. Both seem to think Pakistan is a state, not an ongoing project that may, or may not, revert to prior outcomes. It was like listening to Wes Clark fobbing off the Tribal Area policing problem to the Saudis because ... they were just as foreign as we are. But McCain was dumber about things Obama was dumb about.

Neither one was particularly useful on Iran. We should talk to Dinner Jacket, not becuase he's a threat, but because he's an economic populist, and we should talk to ... well, Khomeini is dead, so Khamenei, and Khatami and Rafsanjani and Larijani and ... because it is the beginning of the presidential election cycle and anything less is daft. But McCain was again dumber about things Obama was dumb about.

Neither one was particularly useful on Russia. What is the freaking point of NATO? Who in their right minds wants a suburb of Moscow in a mutual defense pact with a suburb of Brussels? I swan, WW3 will begin because treaty obligations require Moscow to use nukes to defend Wallons from attacks by Flemish on over choice of language in playgrounds in the communes of Bruxelles-Hal-Vilvorde. We've got two guys who are wicked dumb about Europe.

Posted by EBW at 09:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A week and a day ago I paused crossing a street in Geneva, taking a break from a meeting about Europe centered banking to get fresh air and walk to the local Starbucks, and I paused. It was a Clarisa Dalloway moment. I wanted to see things clearly and remember them, because the exchange in Moscow was shut down, and AIG was going to fail in days, and ... this, I realized, was a moment to remember. Where I was, what I was doing, what I was thinking, how I thought the world worked. Because soon these beliefs would be ... curious or correct.

I would have liked to hear Obama say we're going to let the courts work things out among the collapsing creditors. I'd have liked him to offer the Treasury as the pay-day lendor patrie (from parens patrie for those who've been in family court, local government as the last responsible parent), rather than some pre-failed lender using Treasure assets. I'd have like to have heard a clear vision, and I suppose the clear vision I heard was that there is no clear vision.

I kept thinking of gilded guillotines ...

Neither one was particularly useful on Pakistan. Both seem to think Pakistan is a state, not an ongoing project that may, or may not, revert to prior outcomes. It was like listening to Wes Clark fobbing off the Tribal Area policing problem to the Saudis because ... they were just as foreign as we are. But McCain was dumber about things Obama was dumb about.

Neither one was particularly useful on Iran. We should talk to Dinner Jacket, not becuase he's a threat, but because he's an economic populist, and we should talk to ... well, Khomeini is dead, so Khamenei, and Khatami and Rafsanjani and Larijani and ... because it is the beginning of the presidential election cycle and anything less is daft. But McCain was again dumber about things Obama was dumb about.

Neither one was particularly useful on Russia. What is the freaking point of NATO? Who in their right minds wants a suburb of Moscow in a mutual defense pact with a suburb of Brussels? I swan, WW3 will begin because treaty obligations require Moscow to use nukes to defend Wallons from attacks by Flemish over choice of language by children in playgrounds in the communes of Bruxelles-Hal-Vilvorde. We've got two guys who are wicked dumb about Europe. One is teachable, the other not.

I so miss Hilary Clinton, not her lame early primary campaign, but her thinking on her feet, her smarter, many wrongnesses.

Posted by EBW at 09:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Al Gore at the Clinton Global Initiative this morning.

The current economic crisis was triggered of course by the sudden collapse of an assumption. The so-called subprime mortgages were many of them without collateral -- that people weren't expected to pay back. The assumption was that if you lumped them together and securitize them, and magically that is going to remove the risk ... That assumption just went splat, and things began to unravel. And now in the midst of this frenetic effort to find a bailout, many are saying we should have prevented this. We should have realized that the short-term greed was overcoming a clear vision of what the risk was. Well, now is the time to prevent a much worse catastrophe, because the world has several trillion dollars in sub-prime carbon assets, based on the assumption that it is perfectly alright to put 70 million tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere every 24 hours.

Since we met here last year, the world has lost ground in the climate crisis. This is a rout -- we're losing badly. The water supply is partly held in the ice packs of the mountains and the glaciers. They're disappearing. Haiti was ravaged by four different hurricanes, and of course the devastation came after the environment had been devastated with all the trees had been cut down. There are still people in Galveston waiting for food, for water, and medicine. A half a million people were evacuated from their homes in California because of record fires. The University of Tel Aviv just published research showing that for every one degree of warming, there will be a 10 percent increase in lightning strikes all over this planet, with drier vegetation in a warmer world and more dead vegetation because beetles are no longer held back by frost.

The fires are out of control on every front -- the strength of the storm, the depth of the drought, the movement of tropical diseases into areas that never experienced them before. This is the result of a dysfunctional, insane global system that we have to change. For the first time in all of human history, we as a species have to make a decision. If we make the right decision ... the answer to the economic crisis can truly provide an opportunity to make the right kinds of change.

...

We should stop burning coal without sequestering the CO2. The coal and oil companies have spent in the United States alone half a billion dollars in the first 8 months of this year promoting the lie that there is such a thing as "clean coal." "Clean coal" is like "healthy cigarettes" -- it does not exist. It could theoretically exist. The only demonstration plant was canceled. How many such plants are there? Zero. How many blueprints? Zero.

...

Today the U.S. Congress is talking about energy. They are, without debate and without a single hearing, preparing to lift the moratorium on the development of oil shale, which would vastly multiply the amount of CO2 from every gallon of gasoline. This is utter insanity, and it demonstrates that the wealth and power and influence of the entrenched carbon lobby, that twists policy and puts out illusory impressions, is overwhelming the free debate. We need to stop this.

...

I believe that for a carbon company to spend money convincing the stock-buying public that there's no risk from the global climate crisis represents a form of stock fraud, because they are misrepresenting a material fact. If you're a carbon company and you're going out there and trying to convince people to buy your stock and that the climate crisis isn't that big a deal, and you're superstitiously giving money to these phony think-tanks that go out and try to gin up phony arguments while the entire scientific community has put out five unanimous reports in the past years practically screaming from the rooftops about how we need to solve this -- if you're a carbon company doing this, in my opinion you're guilty of a form of stock fraud, and I hope the state attorneys general around the country will try to take some action on that.

...

And if you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what's being done now, I believe we've reached the stage where it's time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal-fired power plants that do not have sequestration.

Posted by EBW at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I didn't expect "panic" or "recession", and the whole i-can-read thing was like our idiot was p0wnd by someone with diction and complete sentences. Tres odd.

And McCain's lost the election. He was way up in Ohio, and now he's down by a MOE. If his numbers keep falling at this rate Florida will get competitive by this time next week.

Posted by EBW at 09:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The WSJ writes The bold McCain statement ... I simply can't imagine (shortage of hallucinigens) what the WSJ is going to do with NBC's Kelly O'Donnell's copy, that McCain's staffers claim there is [no] political calculation in [suspending the McCain Campaign and avoiding a debate] and say without action the country could slide into a Depression by Monday and added "we'll see 12 percent unemployment" if action is not completed..

I think I'll buy tomorrow's WSJ and snip out the heirloom copy. Monday's Journal will have to announce the depression of course, or Tuesday's, and if the 12 percent comes out of the financial class, where's the downside?

Darn. I just realized I'm at the wicked pointy end of the Outer Banks, and while there are towns yet at the extrema, further away than we are, the nearest newstand likely to carry the Journal is ... Newport News or Norfolk or ... more than a hundred miles away. A collector's investment lost.

Posted by EBW at 07:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Another humdinger from Fafblog! the whole world's only source for Fafblog.

... I guess what we're sayin is, we will never blow up this particular country, that we are standing in right now, in this particular way, ever again."
"Unless there's a real good reason," says Giblets.

Posted by EBW at 06:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We can only wait and see where he, and his advisors, come down on the fundamentals. I do wish he wasn't wasting everyone's time doing prep on how not to get caught by some foreign/militarism policy chestnut and was working on the only thing that matters -- the economy.

Update: The Rehnquist Appointee is going on the boob tube at 9pm. I'm going to sip out of a drink with an umbrella every time he says something that reminds me of the vote that only Barbara Lee saw through. I should be looped before the the commercial break.

Posted by EBW at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mr. King is not the most gifted interviewer in television. A bunch of time wasted on predictable staged "gotchas" and the opportunity for philosophical discourse wasted.

I have to remind myself, there's a reason why King and CNN don't bring in someone like Cole to do the interview (not that Juan is "the best Iran scholar" at hand, but he's a well-known person, not a cypher), and that's because King, and CNN, have interests other than enlightenment, interests that always take priority -- the interest in keeping Larry in the spotlight, of keeping CNN's properties CNN's.

CNN employee interviews head of state on events affecting CNN's ratings.

Not a word about the candidates for president -- those still possible from the last cycle, and those possible who were not in the last cycle.

Posted by EBW at 09:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I couldn't help but notice that the story framing during the 4pm NPR show assumed that the Poulson/Berneke romance with unbridled power and budget was a sure thing, and that the interview Senator was invited to justify his "skepticism".

Of course, he wasn't bright enough to ask where the "neutral reporter voice" found its optimism and start from the position that he wasn't pessimistic, he was being realistic, while Poulson, Berneke, and an infinite number of pro-administration pundits were enjoying a reality very different from the common, shared, doesn't-come-from-a-bottle kind of reality, a reality with lots of numbers and some pretty well-known properties of addition and subtraction and books that do, sooner rather than later, tend towards balance, not extravagance.

You can call the NPR Ombuds critter at (202) 513-3245 and share a view on the utility of public funded "reporting" being advocacy for the administration.

Don't forget, NPR supported the Iraq war in 2003, MediaMatters tracking has the Right-Left split of airtime for experts at 2-to-1 in favor of the conservatives, and as Noam Chomsky has pointed out, NPR is biased toward ideological power and the status quo.

So they're sold on the idea of $700,000,000,000.00 going unconditionally to socialize bad debt, bad risk, and bad men.

Posted by EBW at 04:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Dennis writes:

Protecting the public interest in any economic "bailout"

Dear Friend,

The U.S. government has been turned into an engine that accelerates the wealth upwards into the hands of a few. The Wall Street bailout, the Iraq War, military spending, tax cuts to the rich, and a for-profit health care system are all about the acceleration of wealth upwards. And now, the American people are about to pay the price of the collapse of the $513 trillion Ponzi scheme of derivatives. Yes, that’s half a quadrillion dollars. Our first trillion dollar compression bandage will hardly stem the hemorrhaging of an unsustainable Ponzi scheme built on debt "de-leverages."

Does anyone seriously think that our public and private debts of some $45 trillion will be paid? That the administration's growth of the federal debt from $5.6 trillion to $9.8 trillion while borrowing another trillion dollars from Social Security has nothing to do with this? Does anyone not see that when we spend nearly $16,000 for every family of four in our society for the military each year that we are heading over the cliff?

This is a debt crisis, not a credit crisis. Just as FDR had to save capitalism after Wall Street excesses, we have to re-invigorate our economy with real - not imaginary - growth. It does not address the never-ending war on the middle class.

The same corporate interests that profited from the closing of U.S. factories, the movement of millions of jobs out of America, the off-shoring of profits, the out-sourcing of workers, the crushing of pension funds, the knocking down of wages, the cancellation of health care benefits, the sub-prime lending are now rushing to Washington to get money to protect themselves.

The double standard is stunning: their profits are their profits, but their losses are our losses.

This bailout will not bring real jobs back to America. It will not bring back jobs that make things. It does not rebuild our schools, streets, neighborhoods, parks or bridges. The major product of this financial economy is now debt. Industrial capitalism has been destroyed.
In the next few days I will push for a plan that includes equity for every American in any taxpayer investment in this so-called bail-out plan. Since the bailout will cost each and every American about $2,300, I have proposed the creation of a United States Mutual Trust Fund, which will take control of $700 billion in stock assets, convert those assets to shares, and distribute $2,300 worth of shares to new individual savings accounts in the name of each and every American.
I will also insist that all of the following issues be considered in whatever Congress passes:

1. Reinstatement of the provisions of Glass-Steagall, which forbade speculation
2. Re-regulation of the finance, insurance, and real estate industries
3. Accountability on the part of those who took the companies down:
a) resignations of management
b) givebacks of executive compensation packages
c) limitations on executive compensation
d) admission by CEO's of what went wrong and how, prior to any government bailout
4. Demands for transparencey
a) with respect to analyzing the transactions which took the companies down
b) with respect to Treasury's dealings with the companies pre and post-bailout
5. An equity position for the taxpayers
a) some form of ownership of assets
6. Some credible formula for evaluating the price of the assets that the government is buying.
7. A sunset clause on the legislation
8. Full public disclosure by members of Congress of assets held, with possible conflicts put in blind trust.
9. A ban on political campaign contributions from officers of corporations receiving bailouts
10. A requirement that 2008 cycle candidates return political contributions to officers and representatives of corporations receiving bailouts

And, most importantly, some mechanism for direct assistance to homeowners saddled with unreasonable or unmanageable mortgages, as well as protection for renters who have lived up to their obligation but fall victim to financial tragedy when the property they live in undergoes foreclosure.

These are just some thoughts on the run. You will hear more from me tomorrow.

Posted by EBW at 01:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While I hope the tempo on this issue slows, I want to collect the responses of the Maine delegation to the question of what are their thoughts on Secretary Paulson's plan, as they know it. Naturally people's views on something complex may change over time, and statements are subject to modification.

Rep. Tom Allen, 1st CD -- called, question left with staffer. (202) 225-6116 (WDC), 774-5019 (Portland), 283-8054 (Saco)

Rep. Michael Michaud, 2nd CD -- called, question left with staffer. No position at this time. (202) 225-6306 (WDC), 942-6935 (Bangor), 782-3704 (Lewiston), 764-1036 (Presque Isle), 873-5713 (Waterville)

Sen. Olympia Snowe -- called, question left with staffer. No position at this time. (202) 224-5344 toll-free (800) 432-1599

Sen. Susan Collins -- called, question answered by staffer. Has called for hearings, wants Congress to stay in session over the weekend. [EBW: so she's already on the "decide in haste" side of the issue.] Statement coming by email RSN. (202) 224-2523, no toll-free.

Of the non-incumbents running in the current cycle, I'm only interested in Chellie Pingree's statement, as she'll be in the 111th Congress after Tom either moves up to replace Susan, or returns to private life.

The choices seem to be tight credit and job loss, particularly for the financial industry in New York, and hyperinflation. My businesses revenues are dollar denominated, and most of our expenses (other than my salery and payments to Verisign and ICANN) are euro denominated, so a crashing dollar is not in our best interest.

I suppose if the dollar falls far enough, and that really depends on how much US debt gets dumped, we can have a shoe and shirt manufacturing base in Maine again. What protectionism couldn't maintain against the NAFTA and WTO models of economic integration, a manufacturing base, the dollar closer in value to a peso or a yuan is what Goldman-Sachs is willing to risk, so long as no great fortune is harmed. An odd way to restart the economy, but there are already "falling dollar benefits United Widgets" stories in the press, I saw them in Ohio just weeks ago.

So what are Maine's delegation's preferences? Shoes, shirts and services, à la Caribbean, then further "away", sweat shops, or auctioneers finding the true value of junk paper.

Here's 14 Questions for Paulson and Bernake, worth more than 2 minutes and 20 seconds of everyone's time.

Update: Paulson and Bernake are trying to stampede Congress. Its the usual "objectively pro-Saddam and WMD" thing, only the economy is the barb on whip.

Posted by EBW at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My first call of the day, at 9:00 am, was to Congressman Tom Allen's Washington office to request that Tom vote against the $700 billion bank bailout.

What was your first call of the day?

Afterthought. If Senator Obama utters a word about anything else, war, peace, the price of tea in china, or any of the infinite inventory of dumb crap his, and the McCain squad of intellectual jellyfish have been heaving over the transom in an attempt to keep afloat in mounting seas of ridicule, if he doesn't thank Jim Lehrer for each in a series of interesting, but lesser questions, and deliver an undistracted by interruption series three minute vignettes on what's wrong with the Goldman-Sachs plan to save Goldman-Sachs, he'll be missing the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to lecture, as an academic running for high political office, on the fundamental problem facing the polity. Al has shown that it can be done, and back in the Bush debates in the '00 cycle, showed that the election can be lost by following the debate script.

We know the stuff Senator Clinton is made of, it would be nice if instead of talking about, ever so carefully, what stuff Senator Obama is made of, his campaign demonstrated it.

Unless Jim Lehrer is likely to come up with something more important than granting unprecedented powers and budget to a Bush appointee's unreflected plan of the week to save wealthy people by robbing everyone else, like an invasion fleet from Mars or worse.

Posted by EBW at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the review from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune.The show of course, is playing everywhere.

The three candidates vying to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad faced intensive questioning Monday on U.S. foreign policy, particularly regarding the Middle East and Israel, at the third debate in Minnesota's Third Congressional District race.

Each sought to distinguish his position on how best to deal with the threat of Iran gaining nuclear weapons and on Arab-Israeli relations.

Republican Erik Paulsen, a seven-term member of the state House and its former majority leader, faces DFLer Ashwin Madia, an attorney and Iraq war veteran, and Independence Party candidate David Dillon, a family business owner. Madia and Dillon are first-time office-seekers.

The debate, held at Bet Shalom Congregation in Minnetonka and coordinated by the Jewish Community Relations Council, was attended by several hundred people.

Iran and issues related to the Middle East were the first topics of discussion. Paulsen characterized Iran as "a serious threat" and, as he has in the past, criticized Madia for statements the DFLer has made that Paulsen said did not sufficiently recognize the threat. Paulsen said that no strategy should be taken off the table but that economic sanctions should be explored first.

"Iran is a threat, not only to Israel, it's a threat to the United States and it's the most important threat globally," Paulsen said.

Calling Iran "a menace that needs to be dealt with," Madia said the United States should defer to Israel on the threat Iran poses to Israel, but he also advocated using "every tool in our toolbox" before exploring a military option.

"As a Marine, when someone says threat, you attack. I'm not there yet," Madia said.

Dillon said that diplomatic talks have not worked and that it is time to demand divestiture and other economic sanctions with a country "that has been doing a land-office business with other countries."

That's a serious failing in a person with a pulse. An accidental collision between two nuclear inventories of 5,000 weapons each has been a public policy issue since Kennedy vs Khrushchev in 1962 (inventories then: 27,297 to 3,332). Its not a fun thing to think about, it is easier to live with by consigning it to the "I forgot" part of the mind, but so are April 15th, non-elective trips to hospital, and funeral etiquette for the dead. Someone has to think about these things, and it's expected that people wanting to write legislation and conduct oversight would be willing to think about the unthinkable, at least once, if called upon by necessity. Making "I don't need to think about" silos, runways, and subs, not to mention the deployed anti-ship and multi-mission thermonuclear weapons systems, of both red and blue players, and the assets of the other eight nuclear weapons states, a campaign message is peculiar. Unfortunately, it plays well enough in electoral politics, the local rag could not be bothered to notice that there's about 10,000 more nukes ticking down to use-or-lose than the imaginary one that drives the NeoCons wild.

Democrat Ashwin Madia's "not there yet", and that's refreshingly honest, but the paper of record gave the Republican more words and more prominence within the piece, as well as framing the issue uncritically as a shoot-don't-shoot weaponization choice, not within the larger context of the NPT, and the puzzle of how, if at all, to fuel reactors designed to produce heat for steam for electrical power generation, and what to do with the global inventory of highly enriched uranium, and also plutonium.

Independent Party David Dillon appears to be simply wasting space. Divestitures and sanctions ... why? For what reason? To what end? What policy end does he hope to accomplish, other than reduce the ties that bind west Asian economies and states together? A war by economic means with Iran will help secure the ends of the Bush Regime in Iraq how???

Anyway, that's the If I Ran Iran Show, as performed at the Bet Shalom Congregation in Minnetonka and coordinated by the Jewish Community Relations Council, which like most retail political outlets, places a very low standard for public discourse about war and peace in the Middle East. If the performance of the show is different in a theater near you, drop me a line.

Posted by EBW at 07:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The IEPREP Working Group's charter originally included more than just figuring out how, assuming some administrative requirement, to seize unpolicied network resources for higher, policied ends. The use case was disaster response, and we started work with one of the three items on the wishlist being:

Access and transport for database and information distribution applications relevant to managing the crisis. One example of this is the I am Alive (IAA) system that can be used by people in a disaster zone to register the fact that they are alive so that their friends and family can check on their health.

The WG produced RFCs 3487, 3689, 3690, 4190, 4375, and 4958, all dealing with router and voip issues, that is, creating the mechanisms for ranking resources and allocating by ranking, but nothing for the "I Am Alive" system. That was the one thing I thought was more important than dumping local yocals and their silly chatter off the net so that General Halftrack could save the world.

I thought, since we had this thing we'd written for domain name registration, which just happened to have this irritating (in the sense of enabling automated harvesting of email addresses for sale within the gray-to-black spam marketplace) mechanism for creating WHOIS data, and having written it so that just about any linux laptop could be configured to run the client end of the protocol in less time than it takes to write this post, that we were close to having an "I Am Alive" system.

The problem was, the router weenies wanted to re-solve the problem shown to be wicked difficult in the RSVP work in the prior decade, the scaling of connection state necessary to reserve resources, and the WG drifted off into the then-new Real Time area of the IETF, cause that was a cool problem to solve and few of the VoIP people lived through the RSVP effort.

Anyway, we still don't have a global, or a national, or a state, or a city, or a tribal, or a ... application where people, the ones that don't need network in an emergency, at least not as much as General Halftrack does, can beacon after some mass casualty event that they are still among the quick. After the Katerina landfall and a group of people were working around the dysfunctional FEMA to provide wireless access and backhaul to what was left of the wireline infrastructure, it was apparent that (a) people really do need network after a disaster, to find housing and more, and (b) an IAA beaconing system would have revealed the magnitude of those not causing an IAA registration much more quickly than FEMA allowed. The game of keeping the number of corpses caused by Brownie and other RNC morons under the number of corpses caused by Mohamed Atta and his gang of 18 suicides could have been brought to an earlier conclusion.

The rumors coming out of the Ike landfall area are disquieting. Nothing really has changed since Katerina, and the provisioning data for an IAA system could include more (or "later") data than simply "insert name alive at some-time and some-place", it could include looking for who and needing what and going to where and ... data -- and it could be someplace a little less inobvious than somewhere in the maze of which government's and which relief organization's dotted namespaces.

I'm in the name space business, and I'm writing applications for new top level domains, and I'm sure that my company, which is about as goodie two shoes as there is in the internet, can operate a .sos, we operate several top level domains already and expect to operate more, after all, we're not unskilled or unclued, so I'll write the application. We don't yet know what the ICANN fee will be, it was $50k per in the last round, and the figure could be much higher in the coming round, now scheduled for 2Q2009, but that's just "ask for" money -- when we ask for it, people will give it. The alternative is leaving the body count in FEMA's hands, and that's hardly a win in the Grover Norquist drown-government-in-a-bathtub moral universe. At least not for those still alive in the disaster area.

.sos -- a top level domain for I Am Alive (IAA) applications.

Posted by EBW at 02:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Jonah settled in beside me to watch television, and the clicker was flaky so we had a few minutes of Fox were we learned that many fine people were protesting against Ahmadinejad in New York.

So I hopped over to the JPost for what the correct thinking is. The JPost credits these -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the United Jewish Communities, the UJA-Federation New York and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs -- but not the AIPAC, with organizing today's little media blip.

Its election season in Iran, and I'll bet next years membership cost in the American Mathematical Society that in the US/IL press, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be demonized for something he didn't say, but rather quoted, on Qods Day, and Mohammad Khatami will be lionized for saying ... the same thing, not quoting an older icon, and not on Qods Day. I still prefer Khatami, but the degree of dumbness about Dinner Jacket is about as bad as hating Elvis because of his open shirt and dancing while singing are immoral.

Posted by EBW at 08:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I watched the sun sink into water. If there is less cloud cover this morning I'll watch the sun rise out of water. Its a good place to pause, I've got a spec to finish, code to write, projects to review, several architectures -- link, address and route; dns; and service -- to write, before another set of back-to-backs -- ICANN @ Cairo, with Paris either before or after, and the IETF @ Minneapolis.

The children are happy, the blue crabs are wicked crabby, and birds and fish of kinds fill the reflected seas and skies. Tomorrow I'll take the kids to the beach and we can splash about and see what the surf fishers have -- when we where here last we got hands on doing catch and release of a very large ray.

And heating season has started in Maine. Conroy's is $3.359/gal. The led at the Bangor Daily News is "The cost of heating a home this winter is expected to be higher than at any time in recent memory." An odd way of saying more Mainers will be colder and hungrier and sick and dead this winter than any since Hoover. Something worth reading is a blog on windpower in the Gulf of Maine and beyond.

Posted by EBW at 07:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was in Geneva on March 10th when the New York Times broke the story. My friend asked me if this (and this is probably the only area of life where American Exceptionalism is warrented) was simply morality at the service of politics and I hesitated. I paused. I thought. Then I replied as we crossed a street that there was something wrong with the disclosure arising from the FBI, and that, even for non-Indians, the FBI was, and remains, primarily a political force, not a law enforcement institution.

In March, only Northern Rock was known to be dead. Bear Stearns was alive. IndyMac was alive. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were alive. AIG was alive. The bank failure list was exotic and ... remote.

h/t susie.

Posted by EBW at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Not surprisingly, Haaratz is recycling the "wipe Israel off the map" fiction in the run up to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visit to New York Monday for the United Nations General Assembly. Also not surprisingly, Sarah Palin wants a big piece of the anti-Ahmadinejad rhetoric.

Posted by EBW at 08:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The route of the flight back from Geneva via Madrid took the plane over Nova Scotia, making landfall east of Halifax, and following the Atlantic coast until Cape Ann, just north of Boston, where the route went inland to Dulles. The visibility was good, so I saw the familiar outlines of Long and Brier Island on the Fundy side of Nova Scotia, which are barrier islands, like the islands that form Cape Hatteras, and the islands of Maine, Portland, Portsmouth, and the marshes of New Hampshire.

As I watched, and learned some geography I didn't know previously, I thought about Tom and Susan and their messages to Maine voters. I thought about the messages of both parties during the legislatives. How fragile our existence is in Maine is not something either Tom or Susan message on, or either state parties during every budget cycle, though the Republicans manage to express that fragility in the "too much taxes" message.

I wish that instead of getting email from Tom's communications director responding to paid media (ad buys) by Susan's surrogates (the National Federation of Independent Business, who don't represent my independent business, or any I know of) I was getting the message from Tom that this is what caused the banking collapse and this is the reform that will reduce the likelihood, and magnitude, of another banking collapse, even if it means unreformed "banking" moving to London or Singapore. I wish Tom's message was these are the changes needed to improve the way these parts of government function and how he'll patiently work to get a majority in the Senate, and the House, to pass legislation to reform government. I wish Tom's message was here is where public money can create wind farms, whether off the coast of Atlantic Canada or off the coast of Maine, whether in a public entity or as tax incentives to private entities. I wish Tom's message was this is how the heat leakage in residential housing is going to be reduced, and this is how new housing in Maine won't look like a poor imitation of the forever cheap gasoline powered suburban sub-prime roll-outs that exist away.

Posted by EBW at 05:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Dwight's work from 2002 at PLA has been collected by Avadon and published here.

Posted by EBW at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As I walked across the street today to a Starbucks (wicked huge hot milk "venti latte", the Swiss form of caffine uptake might as well be chewing on beans) this afternoon it occurred to me to "look carefully", to look to remember where I was, my life in this Mrs. Dalloway moment. The day the Russian exchanges closed.

Later I called up the ABA and after some forwarding talked about a meeting at the ABA next Friday, when I'm back in DC (though I really rather be in OBX, kayaking with the kids).

As if banking has a future...

Posted by EBW at 05:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Michael Brennan writes:

Over the last several months, there is mounting evidence that the Bush administration is intent on pursuing military actions against Iran. Many of the same arguments that were used to justify the war in Irag are being advanced again. During my congressional campaign, I repeatedly called for an end to the war in Iraq and for sustained diplomatic efforts with Iran. In keeping with that pledge, I have been working with a number of people and organizations in Maine to prevent a war with Iran.

Below is a petition that we have drafted in conjunction with Peace Action Maine, Pax Christi Maine, Veterans for Peace and and other organizations, calling on Congress to resist Bush/Cheney's attempts to promote a war on Iran. We are collecting signatures until October 1, 2008 and will then present the petition to our Congressional delegation and other members of Congress. Please join me in endorsing this petiton and adding you name to those opposing a war on Iran. You can sign the petition by sending an email with your name and town to info@peaceactionme.org.

Mainers Against War On Iran

We petition our national government concerning relations with the State of Iran. We urge our Congressional Delegation and every member of Congress to take the following action:

• Oppose preemptive military action and acts of war against Iran;

• Oppose Congressional resolutions to authorize naval blockades or economic sanctions that would cause hardship to the Iranian civilian population; and

• Support comprehensive and consistent diplomatic efforts to promote peace and nuclear non-proliferation.
  

It is our view that a war on Iran will cause further loss of American lives as well as the needless suffering of innocent people, expand conflict generally, contribute to the U.S. national debt, dramatically increase energy costs and move the world away from sustainable peace.

(email peaceactionme.org to sign)

Michael's decency in public life is an inspiration. I don't think Ahmadinejad is any more of an ogre than Olmert, in fact, Olmert's killed hundreds, and Ahmadinejad's done no worse than the average head of state that could halt executions. Doing other than drooling in public when Iran is the subject is wicked difficult for people who've invested in electoral politics. But group thinking isn't going to avoid the obvious potholes, and we've already buried several dozen Mainers, and hundreds more have been given much more than was in fact needed for other people's shared errors and wild-eyed insanity.

Posted by EBW at 04:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Three years ago our application for the first linguistic and cultural top-level domain, .cat for the Catalan linguistic and cultural communities, was approved.

The idea was my circa 1999 proposal for .naa, but I was unwilling to risk $50,000 of own and tribal money in the circa 2000 ICANN process, a wise choice as only 7 of 41 applications were approved and so 34 checks were deposited and not returned.

Posted by EBW at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)