Onanism Open Thread

You celebrate your birthday your way.

Franz Kafka International Named Most Alienating Airport

Break out of ennui and use this an an open thread. Feel free to post Kafkaesqe, terrifying, alienating links or otherwise comment on the meaningless nightmarish quality of human existence.

I’m No Economist, but I Think We Need Prosecutions!

I’m hooked on the economics blogs these days. Blame Dakinikat for starting me on a (probably hopeless) quest to understand the economic meltdown. I have been mathphobic since the eighth grade when I was horribly traumatized by algebra. And geometry! Don’t even get me started. When I was an undergrad, I was forced to take [...]

Inside the U.S. Treasury

Don’t worry, you won’t have to pay it back.  (Your grandchildren will get stuck with the tab) From McClatchy News: Welcome to life in Mendota — the unemployment capital of California. With a 41 percent jobless rate, the town’s social fabric is tearing at the seams. Alcoholism and crime are on the rise. To save [...]

Globalizayion

Today is my birthday. I was raised in a fundie Christian church that taught me how the Hebrews were delivered from bondage in Egypt and led by Moses to Mount Sinai where Yahweh entered into a covenant with them that gave them the land of Canaan.  I learned that under Joshua the Israelites begin the [...]

Tuesday: Reboot

(Early morning meeting.  This will be quick) Nicholas Lemann, who I know nothing about, has written Mad and Madder in The New Yorker that hints at why Obama may be reluctant to nationalize the banks.  Well, *another* reason that is independent from the fact that his banker backers have him by the junk: Bank nationalization [...]

Flim Flam Men: My Mathphobic Tour of the Econ Blogs

In his New York Times column today, Paul Krugman writes that with the epic financial meltdown and the administration’s response, the U.S. has now tarnished it’s reputation as the unquestioned leader of the global crisis response. That leadership role was only partly based on American wealth; it also, to an important degree, reflected America’s stature [...]

The He-Man Woman Haters Ride Again!

Misogyny never dies.  From Greg Sargent: Is the Rush Limbaugh strategy giving way to the Sarah Palin strategy? Multiple Democratic strategists say the party plans to increasingly elevate Palin in the same manner it has employed Rush for weeks, using her high-visibility, her social conservatism, and memories of her harsh attacks on Obama during the [...]

TOTUS Speaketh:

From the transcript of Obama’s announcement on the auto industry: And so today I’m announcing that my administration will offer GM and Chrysler a limited additional period of time to work with creditors, unions, and other stakeholders to fundamentally restructure in a way that would justify an investment of additional taxpayer dollars. During this period [...]

Monday: Who appointed the financial wizards as Gods anyway?

Automakers are on the frontpage of the NYTimes again today.  It looks like someone is trying to replace the finance giants smarting asses with a new whipping boy.  Who can feel much sympathy for the guys who ran Detroit?  They’ve known for at least 30 years that the oil would run out and that we [...]