Wednesday News

Good Morning Conflucians!!

Barack Obama had an op-ed piece in yesterday’s WSJ. In it he says we need to balance regulation with businesses need to create jobs and, well, make lots of money. For example:

Sometimes, those rules have gotten out of balance, placing unreasonable burdens on business—burdens that have stifled innovation and have had a chilling effect on growth and jobs. At other times, we have failed to meet our basic responsibility to protect the public interest, leading to disastrous consequences. Such was the case in the run-up to the financial crisis from which we are still recovering. There, a lack of proper oversight and transparency nearly led to the collapse of the financial markets and a full-scale Depression.

Over the past two years, the goal of my administration has been to strike the right balance. And today, I am signing an executive order that makes clear that this is the operating principle of our government.

This order requires that federal agencies ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth. And it orders a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive. It’s a review that will help bring order to regulations that have become a patchwork of overlapping rules, the result of tinkering by administrations and legislators of both parties and the influence of special interests in Washington over decades.

Note that this move is right as Republican’s take over the House and have increased numbers in the Senate, with momentum at their back. So as we see and have seen before, Obama is moving to compromise and move to the right even before debate begins on the topic. That is of course not surprising to us as we’ve noticed his right leanings from before the primaries. This problem is also noticed at Salon:

But on the day before House Republicans are expected to vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, primarily on the specious grounds that it is a “job-killing” regulatory Frankenstein, the White House’s decision to suddenly be concerned about the right balance between public safety and commerce is strange and discomfiting. The big battles of the next two years are going to be all about defending the regulatory achievements of the Obama administration — healthcare reform and bank reform — in addition to ensuring that the Environmental Protection Agency isn’t hamstrung by Republican opposition as it carries out its Supreme Court mandate to treat greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

The Salon article goes on to make the case that this is a terrible fumble by Obama:

The strategy is unfathomable, and the notion that we must now seek to strike the “proper” balance — as if the proponents of greater regulation had been carrying the day in recent years — is just plain nutty.

Here we go again. Why do they keep being deluded with example after example, with signal after signal, with appointment after appointment? Deluded that Obama is left leaning? That he’s even liberal? Other than a few speeches, just words, what in his past would lead them to think this? Haven’t they noticed who funded him, who basically created him? Why do we keep having these perfect examples, perfect demonstrations of who Obama really is only to have places like Salon or HuffPo or others gasp, act surprised, and shake their heads thinking he’s made a mistake or is getting bad advice.

No, it’s not a mistake. It’s not nutty. It’s not a fumble. This is who Obama is. It’s who he has always been. How many more examples do you people need? Have you bothered to read the health care bill or noticed who wrote it? Did you not notice the tax cut for the very wealthy. Did you not notice the lack of regulations or strings attached with the financial bailouts. This stuff has been from day 1 people.

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In related news, we’re going to see a new tone as the Republicans make noises like they want to repeal the health insurance lobbies hard fought victory represented by the Obamacare bill:

Obama issued a statement late Tuesday said he is “willing and eager to work with both Democrats and Republicans to improve the Affordable Care Act. But we can’t go backward.”

Republicans largely ignored an attempt by Democrats to rename the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act” to temper the language following the Arizona shooting this month that killed six and injured 13, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).

But Republicans now mainly refer to the “job-destroying” health care law.

“Obviously there are strong feelings on both sides of the bill and we expect the debate to ensue along policy lines,” said Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the majority leader. “We are going to be about decency here and engage and promote an active debate on policy.”

Of course what they want to do is repeal any good parts of the bill. And there may even be a few good parts stuck in there against the wishes of the lobbyists who wrote most of the bill. Republicans don’t really have the numbers to do anything in this round of kabuki theater. So this show is about setting the stage for later “compromises” and possible defunding efforts. Which sadly Obama will likely to all to wiling to go along with.

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Another front in the battle Republicans are waging against the working class should be of no surprise. Obama set up Elizabeth Warren in a pseudo position just for the purpose of giving the Republicans something to knock down. And that process looks to be starting soon:

The chairman of a financial services oversight panel sent a letter to Elizabeth Warren, head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, saying he is skeptical of the new bureau’s very existence and demanded details about how it will operate.

Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas), who chairs an oversight panel of the Financial Services Committee, said in the letter sent Tuesday that he thinks Warren is “tasked with executing a fatally flawed plan.”

He then asked Warren to answer three pages worth of questions about the new bureau. Some of the queries are operational, including how Warren will staff and organize the agency. Others are more broad, inviting her to explain how Congress should best perform its oversight role, given the body is not funded through the traditional appropriations process.

Neugenbauer also wants details on meetings Warren has held with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve, and other financial regulatory agencies.

“What policies are in place to avoid potential duplicative, conflicting or overlapping rulemaking that are currently underway, but will ultimately be under the regulatory authority of the CFPB?” he asked.

He concludes asking Warren to explain how she plans to “avoid the kind of over-regulation that might stifle innovation.”

And so it begins. The only hope we have of some sanity in consumer protection and financial regulations is about to be taken out. And it appears to have been planned this way from the beginning.

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As mentioned last night, Joe Lieberman has announced he won’t run for a fifth term. Which means he’ll server two more years. Does that mean he’s planning on running for President? Does that mean he’ll join whoever the Republican party bosses select for their presidential candidate on the ticket as VP? Or maybe he’ll just head over to K-street and collect is rewards.

Also mentioned last night, Sargent Shriver died at age 95. And Don Kirshner died at age 77.

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In strange political news, “Baby Doc” Duvalier decided to return to Haiti – never a good idea if you stole nearly 1B. And now he has been arrested and charged with corruption:

Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier was charged with corruption and the theft of his country’s meagre funds last night after the former Haitian dictator was hauled before a judge in Port-au-Prince

Two days after his return to the country he left following a brutal 15-year rule, a noisy crowd of his supporters protested outside the state prosecutor’s office while he was questioned over accusations that he stole public funds and committed human rights abuses after taking over as president from his father in 1971.

“His fate is now in the hands of the investigating judge. We have brought charges against him,” said Port-au-Prince’s chief prosecutor, Aristidas Auguste.

He said his office had filed charges against Duvalier, 59, of corruption, theft, misappropriation of funds and other alleged crimes committed during his period in power.

What was he thinking?

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After Goldman Sachs invested gobs of money in Facebook with the intent to offer investment opportunities here and abroad, they’ve decided not here. Mostly to skirt around some SEC requirements. You know, being the upstanding corporate citizens that they are:

There was another question about the planned Facebook stock offering that went beyond whether the social media leader is a good investment now or if it’s overpriced. A more serious issue was how investment banker Goldman Sachs was structuring a “private placement” deal to skirt U.S. securities law.

Now it seems Goldman Sachs has decided that “intense media attention” no longer made it worthwhile to go forward with offering a piece of Facebook in the U.S.

Does that mean the deal is over? Does it mean that Facebook will do a deal in the U.S. with proper financial disclosure?

Unfortunately, neither. Instead, the Wall Street Journal is reporting today that Facebook will go ahead with its private stock sale but exclude U.S. investors from the deal.

“In a statement provided to The Wall Street Journal, Goldman said the move came after officials at the New York securities firm ‘concluded the level of media attention might not be consistent with the proper completion of a U.S. private placement under U.S. law,’ ” Aaron Lucchetti reports for the Wall Street Journal.

Under the planned offering, only wealthy clients of the investment firm would have been allowed to purchase a piece of Facebook. The arrangement sounded fairly complex; but basically, the idea was to put all the Goldman investors into a single fund and then count that fund as “one” investor. Why? By doing so, they would get around required public financial disclosures for any company with 500 or more investors. (There was more money coming in from another investment firm in Russia.)

Money for nothing and the clicks are free. Yea, I just made that up. TM by DT. So we the taxpayers make all this possible because they have our money backing them up allowing them to make riskier deals, and the deals they make are not just risky, but they’re fashioned only around the wealthiest clients. And the funny part here, it looks like it’s going to make suckers and losers out of these wealthy clients because they may be making yet another bubble with what they’re doing, that will just pop down the road. Time will tell.

And speaking of Facebook, they were planning on opening up users phone numbers and addresses to third parties, but have backed down, for now, after some complaints:

Just before the weekend, Facebook announced that it had expanded the information users are able to share with external websites and applications, to include home addresses and mobile phone numbers.

This enables developers of e.g. an ecommerce site to more easily fetch the address and phone number of a potential customer to streamline the checkout process.

For the record: users needed to explicitly opt to share this data before any application or website could access it, and they were evidently not able to share their friends’ addresses or mobile phone numbers with applications.

Sure enough, the dialog box (see below) wasn’t super clear about that, so Facebook was unequivocally opening itself up for a new sh*tshorm to hit the deck.

This morning, Facebook announced that it has temporarily disabled the sharing feature, looking to relaunch it in the next few weeks after making some changes.

Facebook dubs these future changes ‘improvements’ repeatedly, but of course the company is responding to the wave of criticism it has received for quietly releasing the new sharing feature, on a Friday evening no less.

I suspect they’ll enable it. But perhaps just add a bit more complexity to the privacy settings systems so there is an additional way to opt out. If you can figure it out of course.

That’s a bit of what’s in the news this morning. Chime in with what you’re reading.

Sunday News

Good Morning Conflucians!!

First up, and clearly the most important news, the Packers won last night. And didn’t just win, but won 48 – 21 against the Falcons:

Behind a nearly flawless performance by quarterback Aaron Rodgers, the Green Bay Packers pounded the Atlanta Falcons, 48-21, at the Georgia Dome to earn a place in the N.F.C. championship game.

Rodgers completed 31 of 36 passes for 366 yards and 3 touchdowns, and also ran for a score. He led Green Bay on one long scoring drive after another, putting on an offensive clinic and controlling the game. The Packers gained 442 yards over all, and did not have to punt once.

“This just feels so good right now,” Rodgers said. “To be able to put up that kind of a performance as an offense is incredible.”

They will travel to face the winner of Sunday’s second N.F.C. playoff game, between the Bears and the Seahawks, next Sunday.

Oh yea. A classic line up of the oldest of rivalries would be the Packers against the Bears. We’ll know tomorrow who it will be.

There is continuing good news for Congresswoman Gifforts:

We continue to hear about hopeful signs of recovery from Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. On Saturday morning, doctors removed her breathing tube, freeing the Congresswoman from the ventilator. At the same time, they inserted a tracheotomy tube into her windpipe to protect her airways and inserted a feeding tube from outside the skin into the stomach to help provide nutrition.

The Congresswoman’s progress to date is remarkable. She is opening her eyes and moving her limbs on both sides of her body. This is significant since brain injuries often leave a patient with impaired function on the opposite side of the body from where the brain was damaged. In the Congresswoman’s case the bullet struck the left side of her brain which, as well as controlling the muscles on the right side of the body, controls the speech centers. We don’t yet know how the shooting may have affected the Congresswoman’s ability to speak. Now that doctors removed the breathing tube, they hope to determine what, if any speech rehabilitation will be necessary.

There is a long way to go of course. And there’s a lot they don’t know about speech and of course finer motor control, and indeed full brain function. But things look pretty hopeful.

One sad outcome of the tragic shooting and this time very likely from the venomous, over the top, reactions from the media, one of the victims of the shooting has been arrested for making threats at a tea party event:

A man who was wounded in last week’s shooting rampage in Tucson was apprehended by authorities Saturday after he allegedly threatened a “tea party” activist at a town hall meeting of victims and eyewitnesses of the attack.

James Eric Fuller, a 63-year-old Democratic activist, was arrested after shouting “You’re dead!” at Tucson Tea Party spokesman Trent Humphries, said Pima County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Jason Ogan. Fuller was shot in the knee and back Jan. 8 when a gunman opened fire, killing six and injuring 13, including Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Fuller, a disabled veteran and former campaign volunteer for Giffords, was charged with making threats, intimidation and disorderly conduct and was involuntarily committed for a psychiatric evaluation, Ogan said.

In an interview with Democracy Now on Thursday, Fuller linked the shooting to conservative leaders associated with the tea party, including Sarah Palin, Fox News commentator Glenn Beck and Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle. “It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target,” Fuller said.

This looks pretty directly linked to the hyperbole and crazy over the top reactions and finger pointing. The media does have influence. Mission Accomplished DailyKos and MSNBC. Of course that doesn’t mean the over the top right should not be held accountable for their insanity and bad taste. As we’ve said before, they’re professionals at this stuff. Don’t kid yourselves. In this case it’s very likely this recent victim was overwhelmed with the tragic event and not in his right mind. Of course now we’ll get to measure the quality and class of the right by how they react to this. Will they say this guy was mislead and overwhelmed by what happened and not necessarily influenced by the media? Not likely. Let even more escalation of the insanity continue.

Here’s my .02 on the matter. This is all Media Kabuki. All theater. Occasionally crazies do crazy things. We of course expect some investigations into who and why,  and the usual documentaries and even made for TV movies on the event. In the first case we had a real crazy apolitical person do something horrible. But it seems clear it wasn’t about Giffords politics per se. In the second case I’d guess we have someone overwhelmed by his own injury and the violent event and the loss and injury of friends, and likely with a bit of prodding from the nuts at MSNBC and others, the guy snapped and made a threat. There is no indication he would ever carry out the treat. The emotion is understandable if you’re injured/dazed and mislead with such emotion. But what do we see on both sides of this tragedy. Finger pointing, yelling, over the top, crazy foaming at the mouth about the evils of each side. And the result is more and more anger on each side from the troops. All noise and anger and yelling, keeping everyone focused on the other side as the enemy. Who benefits from that? What are we not talking about and doing something about while we’re all distracted by this theater? I’m not necessarily saying this is carefully organized by both sides to keep the rabble fighting each other. Divide and conquer. It might just have resulted naturally from events, and now the media seeing a good thing is flaming the fires. Step back and take a look at the landscape and think about that some more. Neither party nor the media is your friend. Don’t listen to them. Step back and analyze.

In other news, Tunisia just had a bit of a revolution, as noted here yesterday, and now there’s some hints about the state of Egypt:

Moments after Tunisian president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was ejected from his palace, tweets began flying across a region that was at once enthralled and appalled by the specter of an Arab leader being overthrown by his own people.

“Today Ben Ali, tomorrow Hosni Mubarak,” gloated one tweeter, referring to Egypt’s long-serving president. “Come on Mubarak, take a hint and follow the lead,” urged another.

And prominent Egyptian blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy observed: “Revolutions are like dominos.”

They follow up with:

On Saturday, a day after Tunisia’s president was forced into exile by massive street demonstrations, the Middle East was still reeling, with calls for copycat protests reverberating across the Internet, in cafes and on street corners as far afield as Jordan and Yemen. For the first time in the history of a part of the world long calcified by autocratic rule, a dictator had been forced from office by a popular revolt, and it was all broadcast live on television

Leaders braced for the fallout. Elites analyzed the potential for the revolution to spread. Ordinary people celebrated, marveled, gossiped and wondered: Will it happen here? What can we do? And, perhaps most important, who will be next?

More on the Tunisian event can be found here. Oh yea, more middle east instability. Just what we all needed. It’s a scary world out there. Perhaps the politicians, pundits, and media could cool their engines and stop playing games for a few minutes.

In science news, it appears smoking does more damage and sooner than we thought. It starts to damage your DNA between 15 and 30 minutes from the first time you smoke:

The researchers looked at the level of chemicals linked with cancer, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), in 12 patients after smoking.

A PAH was added to the subject’s cigarettes, which was then modified by the body and turned into another chemical which damages DNA and has been linked with cancer.

The research shows this process only took between 15 and 30 minutes to take place.

[...]

Martin Dockrell, director of policy and research at Ash (Action on Smoking and Health), said: “Almost everybody knows that smoking can cause lung cancer.

“The chilling thing about this research is that it shows just how early the very first stages of that process begin – not in 30 years but within 30 minutes of a single cigarette for every subject in the study.

Time to put down those smokes. And don’t pick them up if you haven’t.

In some fun but strange news, and just when you thought things seemed to be going backwards politically and economically, we could see wooly mammoths walking the earth within 4 years:

If you thought “Jurassic Park” and the large, reconstructed skeletons seen in museums were the closest we’d ever come to seeing extinct creatures come to life, you might want to think again.

Akira Iritani, a professor at Kyoto University in Japan, is looking to resurrect the woolly mammoth now that a new cloning technique can make it possible. Not only is it possible, but the woolly mammoth could also be reborn as soon as four years from now.

[...]

In 2008, Dr. Teruhiko Wakayama from the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology developed a cloning technique that allowed him to use the cells of a mouse that was frozen for 16 years to clone a new mouse. This technique has paved the way for new clone-related opportunities, and has inspired Iritani to resurrect the woolly mammoth.

Iritani plans to use this technique to pinpoint healthy nuclei within mammoth cells in order to extract and use them for cloning.

“Now that the technical problems have been overcome, all we need is a good sample of soft tissue from a frozen mammoth,” said Iritani.

I for one welcome our new Wooly Mammoth overlords. Well, someone had to say it.

That’s a bit of what’s in the news this morning. Chime in with what you’re reading.

Wednesday News

Good Morning Conflucians!!

Obviously the news is still mostly about the Arizona tragedy and all the political and social issues being talked about. Let’s take a look at a few articles on the subject to see what’s new there. First as was mentioned yesterday, those crazy Westboro Baptist Church religious nut cases plan to protest the little girls funeral. Just when you thought those people couldn’t be more sick and evil. But heartening is the reaction and the people that plan on protected the family and funeral:

Arizona lawmakers moved quickly Tuesday to try to block protesters from the funeral of 9-year-old shooting victim Christina Green, passing an emergency measure prohibiting protests within 300 feet of any funeral services.

[...]

The actions were prompted by the Westboro Baptist Church, a publicity-seeking Kansas congregation known for demonstrating at the funerals of U.S. soldiers, arguing that their deaths are retribution by God for America’s acceptance of homosexuality. The church announced it would protest Green’s funeral, scheduled for Thursday, because the family is Catholic.

The protest drew instant and unanimous condemnation from Arizonans.

“Protesting or picketing outside the funeral of an innocent victim is despicable,” said House Speaker Kirk Adams. “It’s time to bring Arizona in line with the many other states that protect the sensitivities of victims against groups that use fear and hate to denigrate the lives of Americans.”

Adams sponsored the emergency measure that prohibits people from picketing or protesting within 300 feet of any residence, cemetery, funeral home, church, synagogue or other establishment during or within one hour of a funeral service or burial service.

The House and Senate passed the bill unanimously Tuesday. Gov. Jan Brewer signed the measure Tuesday evening.

If that’s the face of not accepting homosexuality in America, no wonder many in the GOP have been moving in the direction of repealing DADT and being open to gay marriage. Something to think about and understand when it comes to changing the tone and framing of a political/social topic.

Politico has a piece talking about three of the GOP potential campaign frontrunners for 2012 and how they’re fairing through this tragedy. I’ll save you the trouble, Pawlenty wins the day. That is, he comes out more moderate and unscathed. Palin of course is the target of many. And Newt seems to be playing the roll of Rush/Beck trying to drum up the base.

In an interesting op-ed at WaPo, Krauthammer (heads up, warning, winger alert) in addition to the some winger stuff (step carefully), has a few observations about language and symbols in politics:

Finally, the charge that the metaphors used by Palin and others were inciting violence is ridiculous. Everyone uses warlike metaphors in describing politics. When Barack Obama said at a 2008 fundraiser in Philadelphia, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” he was hardly inciting violence.

Why? Because fighting and warfare are the most routine of political metaphors. And for obvious reasons. Historically speaking, all democratic politics is a sublimation of the ancient route to power – military conquest. That’s why the language persists. That’s why we say without any self-consciousness such things as “battleground states” or “targeting” opponents. Indeed, the very word for an electoral contest – “campaign” – is an appropriation from warfare.

I think the best stab at the politics of this may be Jon Stewart’s clip posted in last nights post. Take a look again if you missed it.

Let’s look at a few other things going on. In news of the doublespeak delicately placed on a dungheap, it appears Obama and the Chamber of Commerce are getting cozy and mending all those faux rifts:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce signaled Tuesday that its rift with the administration is beginning to ease, just three months after bitterly sparring with the White House during midterm campaigns.

In a speech at the Chamber’s headquarters, directly across the street from the White House, Tom Donohue, the group’s president, said disagreements with the administration have “never been personal.”

He noted “a new tone” at the White House and praised President Obama’s selection of William Daley as his new chief of staff, calling him “a real pro.”

Donohue nonetheless struck a combative note as he vowed to fight for the Chamber’s policy goals this year, which include expanding trade, lowering the federal deficit and curbing regulations it thinks are excessive.

“We will not allow the business community to be intimidated, and we will use every tool at our disposal to challenge those who try to silence our voice,” said Donohue, referring to Democrats’ attempts to force the Chamber, one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington, to reveal its donors.

Such kabuki theater. Aren’t you so happy they’re getting along now? Yea.

Meanwhile in real leadership news, SoS Hillary Clinton is the first SoS to go to Yemen in over 20 years:

Hillary Clinton made the first trip by a U.S. Secretary of State to Yemen in 20 years on Tuesday to underline to the Sanaa government the urgency and importance of fighting al Qaeda at its grassroots.

Washington is anxious for Yemen, next door to the world’s top oil exporter, to step up its fight against an al Qaeda wing based in the Arabian peninsula state where militants have attempted ambitious attacks against U.S. and Western targets.

“It’s not enough to have military-to-military relations,” Clinton said before her plane touched down in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, where she was due for talks with President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

“We need to try to broaden the dialogue. We need to have this dialogue with the government,” she added.

This is all part of the massive new workload Hillary has had to take on to repair the damages from the leaked State Department cables. At least we have Hillary doing this work and repairing those relations. I’d hate to think how this work would happen if Joe Biden had the position as he claimed he was offered.

In Illinois news, they are eliminating the death penalty:

After more than a decade of debate over whether the state’s system of capital punishment could ever be fair, state lawmakers voted on Tuesday to end the death penalty in Illinois.

The move, which came only hours before a new group of lawmakers takes office in Springfield on Wednesday, leaves the future of capital punishment to the Democratic governor, Patrick J. Quinn, who has not indicated whether he will sign the legislation. If Mr. Quinn agrees to the ban, Illinois will join 15 other states without capital punishment.

There’s some great news at least. We could use some.

In international monetary news, China is going to open the Yuan for US trade:

State-owned Bank of China Ltd has offered yuan trading to U.S. customers, a sign that Beijing this year may increasingly promote the use of the Chinese currency in major financial centers.

The change at Bank of China announced in a posting dated Dec. 2010 means that customers can trade in yuan in the United States for the first time rather than having to do so in Hong Kong.

The New York branch of China’s fourth-largest bank said it now lets companies and individuals buy and sell the yuan via accounts with its U.S. branches, although U.S. businesses and individuals can also trade the currency through Western banks.

“The authorities are promoting the use of the yuan in international trade and this is another step in that direction and this means we should see the growth of yuan trading in other regional centers across the world,” said Robert Minikin, senior currency strategist at Standard Chartered Bank in Hong Kong.

The move is seen as another small step to redenominate trade in yuan after persuading mainland importers and exporters to reduce settling trade in the U.S. dollar and striking trade settlement agreements with Russia, Brazil and other countries.

Part of the reason behind this is China’s too high exchange reservers. Here’s more on what’s happening:

The thorniest problem in economic relations between the United States and China is getting worse, just as the world’s two biggest economies prepare for a summit next week in Washington.

At issue is the imbalance in their financial relationship. China’s central bank said Tuesday that Beijing’s holdings of foreign cash and securities amount to $2.85 trillion – a jump of 20 percent over the year before – despite Chinese promises to try to balance its trade and investment relations with the United States and other countries.

[...]

Foreign exchange holdings are a broad measure of a nation’s economic links with other countries, reflecting exports and imports, investment and the flow of speculative “hot money” into local markets. Some reserves are helpful, and Asian nations in particular, stung by their financial crises in the 1990s, seek to keep a war chest for times of trouble.

But with China’s foreign currency holdings far exceeding those of any other country, it has been urged by the United States, International Monetary Fund and others to import more, allow its exchange rate to rise in value, and use some of the reserves, for example, to boost the purchasing power of Chinese citizens. Although some recent statistics have shown a move in that direction – the country’s trade surplus has narrowed for the past two years, as China’s imports grew faster than exports – the surge in reserves is a pointed reminder of the difficult questions that still face Hu and Obama.

[...]

The renminbi, also known as the yuan, is considered by a wide range of economists to be undervalued in relation to the dollar, and China keeps tight control of the exchange rate, in part to protect its powerful export industries.

[...]

An administration official, who spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of discussions between the countries, said that it is an ideal time for China to let its currency float more freely. The lack of progress shows that the country’s export lobby still has the upper hand, the official said.

On the one hand we want China to let the value of the Yuan to float freely and find it’s proper value. On the other hand China wants to keep tight control and wants to start using that tightly controlled money it trade with others instead of the US Dollar. But China has to worry about its US holdings at the same time. And as long as they keep such tight control, it’s less usable as a trade currency. We’re in a strange dance together. But China plays rough. Let’s hope we and other parts of the world are up to the challenge.

In sad news, David Nelson of Ozzie and Harriet fame died. In other sad news, exactly one year ago today the Haiti 7.0 earthquake hit, and they’re still not much better off. But back with a bit of good news, mentioned yesterday, Tom DeLay got sentenced with 3 years of jail time.

That’s a bit of the news. Chime in with what you’re reading.

Sunday News

Good Day Conflucians!!

Time for some late morning, early afternoon news. Obviously the big news story is still the tragedy in AZ. Here are a few links of interest. Here is a brief on the victims of the shooting from MSNBC. They mostly talk about the judge, but mention the others. And the authorities are looking for a “person of interest” that may be connected to the shooting:

The Pima County sheriff’s office released a photo of a man they described as a person of interest who was wanted in connection with Saturday’s shooting, which left 13 wounded, including Democratic Rep. Giffords, 40. The unknown person was photographed by a surveillance camera near the shooting suspect, Jared Lee Loughner, 22.

The person appears to be white with dark hair and about 40 years old.

“We want to know if the person of interest is associated with” the suspect, Pima County Deputy Jason Ogan said in a telephone interview. “We released the photo to see if anyone knows him.”

We’ll see how this story continues to unfold. It seems clear that the motives behind the crime are based on mental illness and not on politics per se. It’s sad to see lots of politically motivated venom as a result. Since the venom is usually in the form of pointing fingers for inciting to violence, it’s obviously ironic.

Let’s see what else is in the news. Democrats are mounting a new sales pitch to save the health insurance reform bill:

Democrats, who were widely perceived to have blown the political messaging over President Obama’s signature law, are revving up for a campaign-style offensive in an attempt to get it right the second time around.

[...]

Party officials said they will also showcase regular folks who have benefited from the health-care law – such as those younger than 26 who are now able to stay on their parents’ insurance plans and people with preexisting conditions who can now get coverage – in local and national media to “put a face” on popular provisions.

“It’s not often you get a second chance to make a first impression, but [Republicans] are giving that right to us,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. “Right now, people don’t realize all the good things in the bill. The more we have an opportunity to talk about them, fewer and fewer people are going to be for repeal.”

Always nice to have a do-over. Wish we could have a do-over of the Dem primary too.

Banks are launching a new season of higher and higher fees. You know, because they’re hurting so badly. Here’s an article about BofA’s approach:

Bank of America will begin offering greater rewards to its most affluent and active banking customers but reduce services for its most basic users, executives said Wednesday, as the financial industry seeks to make up for lower revenues amid heightened federal regulations.

Under the new program, consumers who carry low account balances would be subject to a $9 monthly maintenance fee. Meanwhile, those with at least $50,000 in deposits and investments would receive priority customer service and higher interest rates on their savings. The new accounts will be tested in Arizona, Georgia and Massachusetts this month and are slated to be rolled out nationwide late this year or early next.

“We’re in a new economic reality. We’ve seen our customers’ behaviors change, their financial needs change,” said Susan Faulkner, Bank of America’s deposits and card product executive.

Aren’t they special.

In WikiLeaks news, the US wants to get hold of twitter data originating from WikiLeaks and Iceland wants to have a talk with the US ambassador over that:

The American ambassador to Reykjavik has been summoned to explain why U.S. investigators are trying to access the private details of an Icelandic lawmaker’s online activity as they try to build a criminal case against WikiLeaks.

Revelations that the U.S. Justice Department obtained a court order to examine data held by Twitter Inc. on Birgitta Jonsdottir, an Icelandic parliamentarian who sits on the country’s Foreign Affairs Committee, immediately caused consternation in the tiny North Atlantic nation.

“(It is) very serious that a foreign state, the United States, demands such personal information of an Icelandic person, an elected official,” Interior Minister Ogmundur Jonasson told Icelandic broadcaster RUV.

“This is even more serious when put (in) perspective and concerns freedom of speech and people’s freedom in general,” he added.

Here’s more from the BBC on the US wanting WikiLeaks twitter data.

In geopolitical news, the US and China are renewing military to military relations again:

Stealth fighter jets in development. Guided missiles dubbed “carrier killers.” As America’s top defense official visits China next week, its growing military capabilities are redrawing the security landscape in Asia, putting the country with the largest standing army on a potential collision course with the United States.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who arrives late Sunday for a five-day visit, will formally restore military-to-military exchanges, cut off a year ago by Beijing over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. His visit marks the first to China by a serving defense secretary since William Cohen’s in 2000.

Let’s hope that goes well. It’s a tricky world, and we don’t need any more crap to happen. Here’s the important quote:

“We are settling into what all observers agree is a Sino-American security rivalry. The key is to manage and stabilize it so it does not become a conflict,” said Dan Blumenthal, a former China country director at the Pentagon and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.

Now on the lighter side of things, last week was the Consumer Electronics Show. All the geeky gadgets you could ever want. The consensus seems to be, if you hadn’t already guessed, the mobile world has taken over. This from PCMag:

Ask someone what CES 2011 was all about and I can almost guarantee you they’d say “tablets.” Pop stars designing camera equipment aside, the biggest stories of the show were the official unveiling of tablets powered by Android 3.0 “Honeycomb,” the arrival of dual-core cellphones like the Motorola Atrix and LG Optimus 2X, and Microsoft’s announcement of building Windows on ARM chips, which are found in portable devices. Mobile companies were white-hot at CES 2011.

At the same time, the traditional giants of the show faltered. With 3D underwhelming audiences everywhere, the Sonys, Panasonics, and Toshibas of the world were left without a narrative. Sure, 3D was still all over CES 2011, but good 3D? Breakthrough 3D? 3D you’d actually want? Not so much. Sony’s glasses-free 3D TV demonstration was the only impressive 3D technology I saw, but it’s not even a real product yet, and in any case there’s still a dearth of good 3D content that’s preventing a lot of people from lining up to buy one of these sets.

And similar from WaPo:

You could once be safe in calling the Consumer Electronics Show “the TV show.” Now it might be more accurate to call it “the wireless show.”

Instead of manufacturers competing to see who could build the biggest or the flattest set, the race here is more likely to involve connectivity. And the most popular way to connect to the Internet and all the photos, music and videos available there is without wires – either over a home wireless network or on the go, via a mobile-broadband service.

The smartphones and tablets that have been drawing crowds and conversations here represent the most obvious sign of the shift. Both take advantage of steady advances in screen, processor and storage technologies, but they would be far less useful without faster mobile-broadband access and wider coverage.

Sorry TV people, 3D TV is a stupid gimmick that’s going nowhere. It’s a mobile and app world now. But don’t write off the TV world yet. I think there is a revolution going on with TV over the internet. But it’s still early days and it’s hard to tell where that will end up. Certainly GoogleTV and AppleTV and various other set top box platforms are getting interesting, but I don’t think they’re at the cutting the cable level yet. Still, if I were Comcast, I’d be getting nervous.

And finally in a bit of science news, here’s a fun article on programming microbes to do really cool things:

Genetically modified microbes could perform many useful jobs, from making biofuels and drugs, to cleaning up toxic waste. But designing the complex biochemical pathways inside such microbes is a time-consuming process of trial and error.

Christopher Voigt, an associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco, hopes to change that with software that automates the creation of “genetic circuits” in microbes. These circuits are the pathways of genes, proteins, and other biomolecules that the cells use to perform a particular task, such as breaking down sugar and turning it into fuel. Voigt and colleagues have so far made basic circuit components in E. coli. They are working with the large California biotechnology company Life Technologies to develop software that would let bioengineers design complete genetic circuits more easily.

Designing a microbe for a particular task would then be much like writing a new computer program, says Voigt. Just as programmers do not have to think about how electrons move through the gates in an integrated circuit, he says, biological engineers may eventually be able to design circuits for genes, proteins, and other biomolecules at a level of abstraction. “If we apply computational processes to things that bacteria can already do, we can get complete control over making spider silk, or drugs, or other chemicals,” he says.

I for one welcome our new programmed microbe overlords.

That’s a bit of news on this lovely Sunday morning. At least here. Chime in with what you’re finding.

Wednesday News

Good Morning Conflucians!!!

First up in weird news, in case you’re not already getting that apocalyptic vibe from earlier this week, more birds have suddenly died, this time not in Arkansas, but in Louisiana:

Birds dropping dead from the skies and rivers flowing with tens of thousands of dead fish sounds like a cheesy Hollywood movie about the Apocalypse. Or the ravings of a Revelation-obsessed street preacher.

But residents of several US states are coping with the reality of mystery mass wildlife deaths, which have left officials scratching their heads and jumpy members of the public joking (nervously) about the end of the world.

Today it emerged that about 500 red-winged blackbirds and starlings had been found dead in Louisiana. Their tiny corpses littered a short stretch of highway near the city of Labarre after apparently falling dead from the sky.

That would be spooky enough. But the Louisiana bird die-off came just a few days after up to 5,000 blackbirds fell to earth in neighbouring Arkansas in the small town of Beebe. Residents there had reported stumbling upon the bodies littering the ground and even being hit by them as they fell. One woman said she was struck while walking a dog. Another avian corpse bounced off a police car.

In even more grim news, anglers and other members of the public reported that more than 80,000 drum fish had suddenly died in the state’s Arkansas river, about 100 miles west of Beebe. The silvery bodies of the fish floated in the river and washed up on its sides having died at roughly the same time. In another incident, hundreds of miles away on the Maryland coast of Chesapeake Bay, tens of thousands of dead fish also washed up on the shore.

Yea, that’s what I said. WTF? I’ve got rosary beads, incense, a statue of Sheba, among a few other things. What are you holding onto for dear life? What was the name of the other horseman anyway?

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In a related news, Goldman Sachs and some Russian group invested nearly 1/2 billion in Facebook. That’s right, those two know everything there is to know about a whole hell of a lot of people now. Wonder if their joint bank account number is 666 by any chance. Note to self, get more statues of other religious figures. Here’s some coverage:

The “great vampire squid” of finance, Goldman Sachs, has invested $450 million in the emerging great vampire squid of cyberspace, Facebook. As the New York Times’ DealBook reported, the deal is gives Goldman a leg up on the huge fees investment banks will get when the social-networking company eventually sells shares to the public. And as the Times and Wall Street Journal also report, Goldman will also haul in huge fees from those clients who want to invest themselves.

Meanwhile, Facebook gets the capital to keep buying talent and startups, and to fuel its expansion in all kinds of other ways — and it gets to sell stock in what amounts to a shadow stock market that’s growing faster than regulators seem willing or able to understand, much less deal with.

This looks like a better deal for Facebook than its investor, putting Facebook’s value at $50 billion, which makes sense in today’s increasingly bubble-like market. Silicon Valley is going a bit wild again– not as crazy as the late 1990s, mind you, but there’s a froth element to the local economy.

Given a deal of this size and importance, there should be some SEC scrutiny. Yea right. But some report that there might be:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s plan to offer clients up to $1.5 billion in Facebook Inc. equity may invite U.S. regulators to take a closer look at whether the owner of the world’s most popular social-networking site is circumventing disclosure rules, securities lawyers said.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, whose rules require any company with more than 499 investors to disclose financial information, is already scrutinizing the market for trading shares of closely held companies including Facebook, according to a person familiar with the inquiry, who declined to be identified because the matter isn’t public

Goldman Sachs invested $450 million in Facebook and is planning to create a special purpose vehicle for its clients to make additional investments worth as much as $1.5 billion, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal is private. Some private companies avoid crossing the disclosure threshold when investors’ funds are channeled through a single entity, such as a private equity firm or hedge fund.

“The real question is, what are the details of this special purpose vehicle?” said James Angel, a finance professor at Georgetown University’s business school in Washington. If the investment is designed to circumvent the rule, “the SEC should be looking very closely at it.”

Good thing we have a Democratic president that is looking out for us and will do what’s right. Oh wait, no we don’t, she was tossed under the bus. Instead we have an empty suit actually owned by Goldman Sachs. Oh yea. Why is this feeling even more biblical all of the sudden? Maybe we could have some leaks about all these things, about how Goldman Sachs helped fund an unknown candidate, about the Banks and their shady deals, about corruption in government at many levels. No, instead we get none of those useful leaks, but instead leaks that lead us to more wars in the middle east. Nice distraction.

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Let’s see what our grand congress has in store for us this session. First we have this from Slate about how the Dems sound like Repubs and the Repubs sound like Dems:

The parties have switched not only offices but arguments. Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said Republicans were going to spend “countless hours trying to repeal health care reform rather than focusing on jobs, the economy and deficit reduction. Every minute wasted on trying to repeal health care reform fruitlessly is one less minute the Republicans will spend on job creation and turning this economy around.” If that sentiment sounds familiar, it’s because it was a Republican refrain during the House’s debate over health care in 2009 and 2010.

Sometimes this required the Democrats to contradict themselves. They complained that the GOP House effort to repeal health care was a meaningless show because the Democratic Senate will never allow such a measure to proceed. But when defending their record on economic issues from the last session, they pointed to bills they passed that they knew would never get past a Republican filibuster in the Senate.

Democrats also complained that the Republicans were adding to the deficit and have shut them out of the legislative process. Next week, when the House votes to repeal health care (or, “job-killing health care,” as they call it), Democrats will not be allowed to add amendments. They were also not allowed to participate in writing the rules under which the measure will be considered. Democrats did this kind of thing when they were in power, of course, but they say Republicans had pledged to be more open and transparent.

Oh dear. WaPo has more coverage on the upcoming battle over health care insurance bailout. Expect this to be a lot of noise and distraction for a while. Such theater. A Republican bill written by the health insurance lobby where the Repubs (and insurance companies) pretend to hate it and Dems (sadly actually) like it. And the working class are screwed again. As usual.

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It looks like there will be some turnover from both the WH staff and the VP staff. There’s some noise about Gibbs possibly leaving. And now we’re hearing that Biden’s CoS is stepping down. Along with that, LATimes has a few more rumors:

The White House staff reshuffle continued Tuesday with Vice President Joe Biden announcing that his chief of staff is leaving, while speculation swirled that the president may appoint a well-connected Chicagoan to a top post.

Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, is resigning to become president of Case Holdings, the holding company of AOL cofounder Steve Case. Over the last two years, Klain helped position Biden as an influential figure in the White House while assisting in the confirmation of a pair of Supreme Court nominees: Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

His departure surprised even some members of Biden’s staff. Klain had been mentioned as a possible candidate for President Obama’s chief of staff, but the president may be opting for someone with a higher profile.

After Rahm Emanuel quit to run for mayor of Chicago, Obama appointed longtime aide Peter Rouse to the chief of staff job on an interim basis.

Now, Obama is considering William Daley for a senior position, possibly chief of staff. Daley is the brother of outgoing Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, and he served as Commerce secretary under President Clinton.

As the great David Bowie once said: “Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes.” Something tells me none of these changes are going to be for the better. Any bets?

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In some rather funny, in a macabre sort of way, news, a murderer was found guilty in part because of his google search history:

Julie Jensen died as a result of ethylene glycol in her system, an ingredient found in antifreeze. On the morning of her death, someone attempted to “double-delete” (apparently unsuccessfully) the computer’s browsing history, which included a search for “ethylene glycol poisoning.”

Jensen was found guilty of first-degree homicide in 2008 based on this and other incriminating evidence, including a letter written by his wife before her death. He appealed the conviction, arguing for one that the warrantless police search of his computer violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals did not agree as he had signed a consent form.

As the article humorously mentions, does that mean we’ll be getting a CSI Internet Division spin-off?

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In sort of related news, CA Supreme Court ruled that police can search your cell phone without a warrant when you’re under arrest:

The California Supreme Court ruled Monday that police do not need a warrant to search a cell phone carried by someone under arrest.

The justices determined a Ventura County deputy had the right to conduct a warrantless search of the text messages of a man he had arrested on suspicion of participating in a drug deal.

The state court ruled 5-2 that U.S. Supreme Court precedent affirms that police can search items found on defendants when they are arrested.

I understand this in terms of searching your pockets, etc. But the problem with this ruling is one of not keeping up with technology. With smartphones these says, searching what’s in your very powerful large computer (in a small space) that can include pretty much every important document found in your house, bank, accountant, etc. That is, all of your personal records of note could actually be on your phone. This can also provide full access to all of your email, all of your social media accounts, and all of your history of communication of every sort for years. It’s possible that your smartphone could easily be the equivalent of raiding your home, your lawyers office, your doctors office, etc. I hope this issue is revisited with those issues in mind sometime soon. In the mean time, I’ll suggest some privacy protection ideas in a later post.

In other court news, CA Prop 8 is heading directly to the state Supreme Court and bypassing the 9th circuit (more accurately, the 9th circuit just punted):

Instead of resolving a thorny “standing” issue itself, and thus launching the appeal on its way to the United States Supreme Court, a three-judge panel instead first asked the Supreme Court of California for guidance on whether the private litigants who appealed the August 2010 ruling striking down the same-sex marriage ban had the legal right to do so.

The 9th Circuit just acted, to be sure, but not even the most conservative legal scholar can dare call this an instance of “judicial activism.” Instead, the tactical punt from one San Francisco court to another is consistent with a centuries-old judicial concept: never decide what you don’t really have to decide, especially when you have a plausible excuse for not deciding it. Here, the 9th Circuit blamed the not-completely-unexpected detour on the lack of “controlling state precedent” on the question of what to do with an appeal where, as here, both the sitting governor (the since-departed Arnold Schwarzenegger) and the sitting attorney general (the since made-governor Jerry Brown) refused to carry it out.

By diverting the case away from the federal courts and toward the state supreme court, by asking for clarification of state law by and from the state’s highest court, the 9th Circuit has almost certainly delayed a substantive ruling on the merits of the case for at least a year and likely longer. The standing issue will likely have to be briefed all over again before the state high court, and a new oral argument date will likely have to be set, and then a new vigil will begin for people all over the world who are waiting for final word from the courts on whether same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.  All of this will take six to nine months, at least.

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In news of the “is that news?” department, many people are obsessing and perplexed that Sarah Palin re-tweeted a pro DADT tweet. Yes, you got that right, just by Palin re-tweeting something (with no extra quote), people are actually spending time trying to figure out what she might have meant. I kid you not:

Online pundits are trying to interpret Sarah Palin’s stance on “don’t ask, don’t tell” after she echoed an Internet post by a conservative lesbian commentator who slammed the opposition to the policy’s repeal.

Tammy Bruce wrote Monday on Twitter that “this hypocrisy is just truly too much. Enuf already – the more someone complains about the homos the more we should look under their bed.”

Palin’s retweet of the post raised questions about her own stance on the military’s policy, which was repealed by Congress late last year. The former 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee hasn’t spoken about the policy except to say last February that she was surprised at President Barack Obama’s support for a repeal because it was not a priority at the time.

Palin representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday, but Politico said the retweet is a hint that Palin supports the repeal. Gawker said Palin is not “in the context of her party, rabidly homophobic,” then wondered if perhaps she didn’t understand the tweet or pushed the wrong button.

Now our pundits are reading tea leaves. Oh wait, that’s what they’ve always done. They really should get out more.

That’s a bit of what’s in the news. Chime in with what you’re reading.

Sunday News

Good Morning Conflucians!!!

Hope you’ve recovered from your Yew Years celebrations. Or at least have an ice pack on your head and ear muffs to keep down the noise. I tend to watch the Rose Bowl Parade despite it being riddled with conservative leanings in numerous aspects of its organization and choices. This year there was a 100 year tribute to Ronald Reagan. Fine, but you won’t see one to a Democratic president. In fact among the 1/2 dozen or more presidents who have marshaled the parade, none have been Democrats. They have a bit of history of that. But I still watch it because I liked the floats, I like the bands, and well, I just like a parade. So sue me. I also like gay pride parades, saint patrick’s day parades, and most any other parade. Nothing like a street party, organized or not. Some of the football games were pretty good too. The Rose Bowl game was great. TCU beat Wisconsin in a game that got really exciting right at the end. On the other hand the Fiesta Bowl between UConn and Oklahoma (UConn got a shellacking) showed what a joke the whole BCS system is.

Other than those distractions, some news actually has been happening. Some new provisions from the health insurance bailout and kabuki bill go into effect. Changes include closing the “donut hole” and restricting insurance companies to spend 80% of the money they get in premiums  to either be for insurance claims or, get this, any activities that may improve the customers health. Yea, a bit open ended. Let’s see, activities, well, there’s advertising. There’s “educating” doctors and their own staffs. And of course retreats to well, do more education. Oh, and studies, I’m sure there will be studies. And of course there is no budget to actually enforce any of that. You know, budget cuts.

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It appears that Carol Moseley Braun has become the frontrunner among black candidates for the Chicago mayoral race. And apparently, when we say mayoral race, that’s the most important thing, your race:

But now that she is in the spotlight, Braun will have to answer questions about her qualifications, as well as problems that led voters to boot her from the Senate in 1998 after one term and why voters should hand City Hall’s keys to someone who hasn’t been elected to anything for years.

She trumpeted her own resume Saturday at a rally with U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, who announced on New Year’s Eve that he was withdrawing from the race, and state Sen. James Meeks, another African-American who gave up his own run for mayor days ago.

[...]

On Saturday, Braun did not mention Emanuel, or two other prominent candidates, former public schools president Gery Chico or City Clerk Miguel del Valle, by name. But in recent days she has signaled that she plans to portray Emanuel as an outsider and not a Chicagoan. Emanuel beat a challenge to his residency, with an elections board decision to place his name on the ballot — a decision that is now being challenged in court — but Braun is not about to let the issue go.

After Davis groused about former President Bill Clinton’s decision to campaign for Emanuel, Braun did the same — adding her own dig at Emanuel.

“What we have is an outsider running for mayor and bringing outsiders in to help him,” she told reporters a few days ago.

Somehow it’s really hard to get excited about that election. If it’s a battle between recent race card player vs. a new race card player, I really hope there’s an alternative to both.

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Brazil elected their first woman president, Dilma Rousseff,, and she just got sworn in:

After signing the oath of office, Ms Rousseff began her 40-minute inaugural address by noting that this was the first time in Brazil that the role of president had been given to a woman.

“I know the historical significance of this decision,” she said to widespread applause. “Today, all Brazilian women should feel proud and happy.”

Nine of her 37 ministers will be women – a record for Brazil.

Ms Rousseff then said this was “just the beginning of a new era” for Brazil, and promised to protect the most vulnerable in society and “govern for all”.

Wonder what that’s like. Of course remember that she’s an evil former Marxist guerrilla:

The daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant father, Rousseff studied economics in college. She was tortured in the 1970s for her membership in a leftist guerrilla group opposed to the military dictatorship that then ruled the country. Before joining the Lula government, she held state posts focusing on energy.

The Workers’ Party candidate takes control of an economy that is expected to grow 7.5% this year and to lead the region out of the global recession. She also takes the helm of a nation that gained enormous visibility and prestige under Lula’s presidency.

Relations with the United States are in flux, with the Obama administration pleased with Lula’s regional leadership as a counterweight to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez but upset over his attempt last year to broker a deal ending Iran’s international isolation over its nuclear program. On Sunday, Chavez will be the first foreign leader with whom she meets.

That will be interesting to watch.

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And speaking of things to watch, the pipeline between Russia and China is now operating. This is a big thing:

The first oil pipeline linking the world’s biggest oil producer, Russia, and the world’s biggest consumer of energy, China, has begun operating.

The pipeline, running between Siberia and the northeastern Chinese city of Daqing, will allow a rapid increase in oil exports between the two countries.

[...]

The project cost $25bn ($16bn) and was partly financed be Chinese loans.

Russia overtook Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil producer in 2009.

China surpassed the US as the world’s largest consumer of energy last year.

“The operation of the China-Russia crude oil pipeline is the start of a new phase in China-Russia energy co-operation,” said Yao Wei, general manager of Pipeline Branch of Petro China, as he pushed a button near the Russia-China border to start the flow of oil.

Feeling nervous yet? While they’re doing that, we’re suffering with heartbreaking unemployment with no end in site and now hearing the drumbeat of war with Iran helped along by Wikileaks. Why are the supposed progressive blogs that should be screaming about the banks (and why no secrets have leaked out about them) or about the escalation of violence throughout the middle east, or about the epic failure of Obama and a Democratic supermajority leading to a GOP landslide in the House, instead worshiping Assange or if not that, still swooning about the great feminist and brilliant leader in the WH. And have you noticed both of those efforts seem like the same sort of religious craziness and have the same effect of keeping people distracted and apart. Um, you people might want to wake up.

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OK, for some humorous, ironic news, the North Korean leader sends a message of peace:

North Korea, in a New Year message, said tensions with South Korea should be defused while calling for “intense combat training” for the North Korean army.

“The danger of war should be removed and peace safeguarded in the Korean Peninsula,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported, citing a New Year editorial carried by newspapers including Rodong Sinmun and Joson Inmingun. “If a war breaks out on this land, it will bring nothing but a nuclear holocaust.”

The jokes write themselves.

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Meanwhile, it’s Hasta la vista baby for Schwarzenegger:

When he leaves office, Mr Schwarzenegger has said he hopes to write books, specifically the autobiography that he says publishers have been urging him to write for two decades.

He has also pledged to continue his work on public policy, although he has not been specific about working with any organisation.

One theory is that he could try to become a global ambassador as an environmentalist.

The nightmare appears to be coming to a close. Well, it wold except the state is in deep shit that will take some time to recover from. Let’s see what gov. moonbeam can do. While we’re on the topic of deep shit, here’s a good slide show of Detroit in ruins as symbolism of the decline of America.

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There have been a number of notable deaths this year. Here are a few I’ve noticed (in no particular order): J D Salinger, Tony Curtis, Lynne Redgrave, Dennis Hopper, Elizabeth Edwards, Leslie Nielsen, Gary Coleman, Tom Bosley, Barbara Billingsley, Dorothy Height, Rue McClanahan, Teddy Pendergrass, Jill Clayburgh, Don Meredith, Blake Edwards, Stephen J. Cannell, Eddie Fisher, Ted Stevens, Patricia Neal, Mitch Miller, George Steinbrenner, Robert C. Byrd, Jimmy Dean, Art Linkletter, Lena Horne, Dixie Carter, John Forsythe, Robert Culp, Fess Parker, Peter Graves, Alexander Haig, Charlie Wilson, John Murtha, Pernell Roberts, Robert Parker, Richard Holbrooke, Ted Sorensen, and of course Paul the Octopus. I’m sure there are a lot I missed, but that’s a heck of a lot. May they all RIP.

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There are a lot of year in review pieces out there. What are the biggest stories of the year for you? Certainly the top few would have to include the BP oil spill, the only beginning Wikipedia stories, the Tea Party movement, and the GOP historic win in the midterm elections. In addition I’d add that a big story of the year has been the changes in social media, especially facebook, but also twitter and others. And another story has been the further domination of mobile computing and tablets in all their forms. It seems to be an app world and a social media world. One other area we’re just seeing the beginnings of now that I think will continue to move and dominate is all about streaming media. That includes video to mobile devices of course but also to new efforts to move into the TV space.

On those last couple of topics, here’s a good summary of changes in both mobile platforms and social media from WaPo:

The year 2010 began with a herd of manufacturers chasing Amazon’s Kindle. It ends with some of the same companies in pursuit of Apple’s iPad. In between those tablet-computing crazes, we’ve all been challenged to keep up with the expanding universes of social networking and smartphones.

Nothing illustrates what makes the tech business both fascinating and frustrating as well as the rise of Facebook.

The social-networking site crossed the 500 million-user mark and debuted numerous features, such as an upgraded e-mail service and options to share your location with friends and get discounts from nearby retailers.

On the topic of streaming, a good article on the topic can be found at TechCrunch:

You can extrapolate from this streaming culture in several directions. In the home, television and gaming are now virtualized. The content comes in via various services, is attached to the streaming network, and is consumed and metadata-tagged across devices before being pushed back out on the mobile network. As we vote for these services with our clicks and device shuttling, the amount of revenue will grow to a meaningful share of delivery models. That in turn will drive advertisers and companies seeking relationships with audiences toward an equitable business revenue stream on both sides.

As a result, Netflix will be able to produce useful metadata that can be mined to reduce the cost of customer acquisition, in their case Hollywood windowed content. This produces interesting economic effects, such as AT&T losing customers to a Verizon iPhone but saving even more overall by lowering the expensive acquisition costs of the iPhone subsidy. Similarly, if Apple TV/Netflix customers present a more influential cloud of metadata across the same recent/archive content base as Comcast provides, the media cartel may decide to lower the cost of their premium content to preserve a direct connection to the targeted audience.

Put in dollars, we spend $350 a month on Comcast (triple play including broadband and something called a land line I have no use for) and perhaps $30 or so on on demand movies. Let’s say $140 of that is for broadband (50 megabits downstream) and basic cable, so add $8 for Netflix and $50 for Apple TV recent movies and shows. There’s about a hundred bucks delta there, which will probably convince Comcast to unbundle some of their premium network shows to tap the new Airplay audience without losing a percentage of those customers. Seems counter intuitive but look what Google does with Maps, Google Voice, and Gmail. Trade lock in for a bigger slice of a broader targeted market.

The real competitor is Facebook, which faces the same calculation as Netflix in expanding revenue to keep the balance of value while growing the streaming audience. The DVD market is already dead, but BlueRay will not replace the revenue. Once we move to realtime acquisition and deployment of content, we’ll never go back. Simply put, the quality (or lack of it) of television and first run movies will encourage us to wait for the majority of it to hit the download or streaming venue and cherry pick the hits in the theaters. And those cable or satellite services that count on us not switching will find the rich metadata moving away from them even if we keep both services until the shakeout runs its course.

Worth reading the whole piece. Some things to ponder.

That’s a bit of what crossed my desk. Chime in with what you’re finding out there. Or just what’s on your mind. OMG, I didn’t even mention Sarah Palin. Oh dear, I just did.

Sunday News

Good Morning Conflucians!!

Hope you survived the holidays. So far. If you’re visiting family, drink up. If you’re dealing with just your household, you’ll need another batch. The picture above is of the red room at the White House this year. What, your holiday preparations don’t look that neat. Join the club. Later in the week we’ll do some year end lists and all around looking back. Today let’s just toss up a bit of news to start the conversation. If you have a moment between drink and dealing with family, add to the collection of what’s going on. Or just say what’s on your mind.

So let’s see what’s what. Oh yea, Rahm Emanuel got a pass and is allowed to run for Mayor of Chicago. And with that, we got the first bit of drama:

Rahm Emanuel is a resident of Chicago and eligible to run for mayor, city elections officials ruled Thursday, removing the primary obstacle to the former White House chief of staff’s bid to lead the nation’s third-largest city.

The decision of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners was followed a few hours later by the surprise withdrawal from the race of state Sen. James Meeks, who said the remaining African-American candidates must rally a “divided and splintered” black community in Chicago to beat “the front-running, status quo candidates” — a list presumably topped by Emanuel.

Meeks’ decision to exit and urge the city’s large African-American community to rally around a unity candidate tightens a still-large field of people seeking to replace retiring Mayor Richard M. Daley.

It could also provide a boost to the chances of the two other leading black candidates, former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun and U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, both of whom trail the well-known advisor to President Barack Obama in polls.

Presumably Meeks wants people to either rally behind Braun or Davis. But, but, but, I thought Obama’s guy was anointed. I’m so confused. Now here’s some news that will irritate many, apparently Bill Clinton is going to campaign for Rahm. Yea, that’s what I said. WTF:

Clinton is scheduled to headline a public event that highlights Emanuel’s role in passing a crime bill that put 100,000 more cops on the street nationally.

The visit is expected to be Clinton’s first in the new year and election cycle.

Who the heck knows what’s going on behind the scenes here. Your guess is as good as mine. WTF…

A few days ago Obama did his fake evolution on gay marriage dance:

Nearly two months ago, President Obama told a blogger that his position on gay marriage — he publicly supports only civil unions — was something that he was “wrestling” with. He even strongly hinted that he would reverse his stance in the future. Of course, since Obama was actually for gay marriage all the way back in 1996, until he ostensibly wasn’t, and since he opposed Prop. 8 and is for gay equality in every other aspect, it’s fairly obvious that his position right now is that he supports gay marriage.

That interpretation and wishful thinking is just a riot. Seriously people, ever notice who he surrounds himself with, what he wrote in his autobiographies, what his main advisors have said recently regarding it’s just a lifestyle, etc. But at least they noticed enough for this bit:

Notice the very first sentence. It’s not that there is no news to make, only that Obama doesn’t want to make it yet. Will he wait for the presidential campaign, apparently under the belief that it’ll be a net political benefit for him? Or will he keep it in his pocket for the next time he compromises with the GOP and his liberal base complains that he’s just like George W. Bush?

So even their very best rose colored classes interpretation has Obama triangulating and using their issue only if and when it has political advantage. Inspiring.

The reason for mentioning this is because Biden just opened his mouth on the subject:

Vice President Joe Biden is predicting that the evolution in thinking that will permit gays to soon serve openly in the military eventually will bring about a national consensus for same-sex marriage.

Changes in attitudes by military leaders, those in the service and the public allowed the repeal by Congress of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, Biden noted in a nationally broadcast interview on Christmas eve.

“I think the country’s evolving,” he said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “And I think you’re going to see, you know, the next effort is probably going to be to deal with so-called DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act).” He said he agreed with Obama that his position in gay marriage is “evolving.”

Funny thing is, DADT was repealed largely because of the effort of the log cabin Republicans and the efforts of Joe Lieberman, among others. I don’t think Obama and the main New Dems wanted it repealed right now. Obviously because Obama could have stricken it from day one. But the noise we’re hearing now is that Obama won’t be able to do it because the Republican House won’t let him. Um, what about that last two years? And so, you guessed it, we’re talking about a campaign issue for 2012. Used and abused, right out in the open. Wonder if anyone will catch on?

In related news, of course DADT is still the law of the land and in effect. If you tell, you’re still out:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is warning troops that the law allowing gays to serve openly in the military is not officially in effect yet.

Though President Barack Obama has signed the law repealing the “don’t ask, dont’ tell” policy, the change is not expected to be in place for a number of months. The Pentagon issued a memo that Gates sent Wednesday night to armed forces branch heads and other officials explaining the timing and stressing that troops can still run afoul of the old law.

I’ll believe it all when I see it. Also, since the law of the land before DADT was that it was illegal to serve if you were gay (and they were allowed to ask, or get it out of you buy any means), what technically happens when the improvement, sadly, that was DADT is repealed? Why isn’t anyone asking that?

When the new congress starts in January, it looks like they’re going to allow mobile devices on the House floor. And you thought they were distracted before. Now instead of paging or texting their underage boyfriends, the old congressmen can have video conference calls with them. Yea, I said that. Well, it will be a large Republican majority. I’ve got my scandal popcorn ready, how about you. OK, back to the story:

Under new House rules, members next year will be able to use their BlackBerrys, iPads and iPhones on the House floor.

Use of the devices was previously banned on the House floor, but incoming Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) wants to ease restictions on the devices.

Wonder if they’ll read any bills on their devices. Yea, right.

And speaking of fun apps, there’s a Cherokee language app:

Nine-year-old Lauren Hummingbird wants a cell phone for Christmas — and not just any old phone, but an iPhone. Such a request normally would be met with skepticism by her father, Cherokee Nation employee Jamie Hummingbird.

He could dismiss the obvious reasons a kid might want an iPhone, except for this — he’s a proud Cherokee and buying his daughter the phone just might help keep the tribe’s language alive.

Nearly two centuries after a blacksmith named Sequoyah converted Cherokee into its own unique written form, the tribe has worked with Apple to develop Cherokee language software for the iPhone, iPod and — soon — the iPad. Computers used by students — including Lauren — at the tribe’s language immersion school already allow them to type using Cherokee characters.

Finally, news in the Art world is that some Warhol, Lichtenstein, and Fudge prints have been stolen:

“An unknown suspect broke through a hallway wall into the apartment and removed artwork, watches and other jewelry. A video recorder attached to surveillance cameras inside the apartment also was taken,” police said in a statement.

The total haul was worth around $750,000, the New York Post reported, citing unnamed sources.

The lifted Warhol prints were “Superman,” “The Truck” and the eight-piece “Camouflage.” The Lichtenstein prints were “Thinking Nude” and “Moonscape.”

The Carl Fudge painting was “Live Cat.”

Why does this sound like the beginning of a Batman movie where later we’ll see these prints hanging in the hideout of the Joker.

That’s a bit of what’s happening. Chime in with what you’re reading or doing.

Wednesday News – Net (Non)Neutrality Edition

Good Morning Conflucians!!

Big news this week is the FCC ruling on net neutrality or in this case, the lack of net neutrality. Yet another case of Obama handing over what is the people’s to the few rich and powerful. But before we get to that, another cowardly Obama move deserves notice. Namely how the administration is preparing for their own indefinite dentition order for “terrorists”:

The Obama administration is preparing an executive order that would formalize indefinite detention without trial for some detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but allow those detainees and their lawyers to challenge the basis for continued incarceration, U.S. officials said.

The administration has long signaled that the use of prolonged detention, preferably at a facility in the United States, was one element of its plan to close Guantanamo. An interagency task force found that 48 of the 174 detainees remaining at the facility would have to be held in what the administration calls prolonged detention.

“We have a plan to close Guantanamo, and this detainee review process is one element,” said an administration official who discussed the order on the condition of anonymity because it has yet to reach the president.

So nice of them to add that bit about they can still “challenge” their continued incarceration. That doesn’t mean those don’t get put into the “circular file” of course. Another bit of information from the same article relates to what was in the defense authorization bill:

Provisions in the defense authorization bill, which has passed the House and is before the Senate, would effectively ban the transfer of any detainee to the United States for any purpose. That rules out civilian trials for all Guantanamo detainees, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. His potential prosecution had remained possible even though the administration had balked in the face of political opposition to a trial in New York.

The defense bill, if it passes the Senate, would effectively force the administration to conduct only military commissions and at Guantanamo Bay, which would also have to remain open to house those held indefinitely. The bill would also create new requirements before the administration could repatriate or resettle detainees who were cleared for release by the interagency task force.

So much kabuki theater. Notice that this is still a large majority Democratic congress doing this. And notice Guantanamo never closed. But I’m sure the president will be really disappointed in all this. As it turned out the bill didn’t pass (see below on the stop gap bill for even worse news).

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OK, so back to possibly loosing the ability to watch Netflix online. What everyone not on the side of the big telco’s and cable companies wanted was a pretty simple net neutrality ruling that basically said you can’t discriminate network traffic based on its starting point or its end point. Clean, simple, and to the point. But that’s not what we got. What we got instead was a watered down “we really don’t think you should do that”, mostly. And some big loopholes you could drive a truck through. And on top of that, big exceptions. Really big exceptions. Basically the future of all internet, wireless, has no limitations whatsoever. So telco’s running wireless services are now free to charge different rates depending on where traffic is coming from or where it’s going. That is what Obama did today.

Let’s see some of the coverage. First from ars technica:

The Federal Communications Commission is releasing the details of its new net neutrality Order in stages. Although the FCC’s new ban on “unreasonable discrimination” for wired ISPs allows certain kinds of traffic discrimination (not all bits need be equal), the agency made clear after today’s meeting that “paid prioritization” deals with Internet companies are unlikely to be allowed. Critics had worried that the new Order would only affect outright website blocking, leaving paid prioritization untouched (or even implicitly sanctioned).

“Pay for Priority Unlikely to Satisfy ‘No Unreasonable Discrimination’ Rule,” advises one subheading of the new net neutrality rules. Ed Whitacre’s dream of directly charging Google and Yahoo to “use his pipes”—a key event in starting the entire net neutrality debate—appears to be dashed.

[...]

As we’ve reported, the FCC’s new rules forbid Internet providers from blocking lawful content and they require transparency from ISPs. They also require that network management and packet discrimination to be “reasonable,” but that only applies to wireline broadband. Wireless operators gets a free pass on rationality; they’re limited only to the transparency and blocking provisions.

[...]

“Specialized services” like IPTV (think AT&T”s U-Verse) will also be allowed over the last-mile broadband connection, although the FCC insists it will watch their deployment for anti-competitive behavior. But the Order rather strongly suggests that priority deals are “unlikely” to fit into this “reasonable” framework.

Let’s look at some of that closer. First there is some attempt to say it’s bad in normal, reasonable situations to have priority deals for either end of the internet connection. That is, it would be bad in normal situations to charge a starting point like a department store or netflix or a blogger different rates for different bit rate or quality of service priorities. And similarly in normal, reasonable situations it would be bad to charge end users or even low level ISPs different rates for different levels of priority traffic. OK. So what does normal and reasonable mean?

Well, it turns out they say some things aren’t normal and reasonable, and that includes things like video. So Netflix or Youtube or similar starting points can be charged more than others. And you as a user can be charged more to receive those. Don’t confuse that with prioritizing based on the type of data or “packet” which could reasonably say video is a bit lower priority (because it’s so big). Those types of rules are reasonable and effect data of certain shapes regardless of what video, who’s sending it, and who’s receiving it. In this case they don’t say that, they say that’s a special case and you can let, say, Comcast charge Netflix more to send data or you more more to receive Netflix data.

And look what else they say, they say wireless, e.g., cell, is exempt for the most part. They do say they should play nice, and they’ll be watching. You know, kind of like how the administration watched BP in the gulf. And remember, when you hear that about cell, keep in mind that’s very possibly the future of the internet as we move to 4G and then 5G cell systems; those will be faster than the alternatives. And by this ruling, those will already have unfair practices well in place. And you know how hard that is to get mega corporations to give up something. Kind of like how hard it will be to get any administration and congress to give up sucking 100M a year from social security and medicare after Obama pushed through that tax bill. So through your cell service, be prepared to pay different rates based on who you are and what you receive.

Two days ago, over on huff and puff, Al Franken had a column about the issue. Here’s a snippet from that:

This Tuesday is an important day in the fight to save the Internet.

As a source of innovation, an engine of our economy, and a forum for our political discourse, the Internet can only work if it’s a truly level playing field. Small businesses should have the same ability to reach customers as powerful corporations. A blogger should have the same ability to find an audience as a media conglomerate.

This principle is called “net neutrality” — and it’s under attack. Internet service giants like Comcast and Verizon want to offer premium and privileged access to the Internet for corporations who can afford to pay for it.

The good news is that the Federal Communications Commission has the power to issue regulations that protect net neutrality. The bad news is that draft regulations written by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski don’t do that at all. They’re worse than nothing.

And sadly, we learned they did worse than nothing indeed. Here’s a follow up article at huff and puff on what eventually passed (emphasis mine):

Late Monday, a majority of the FCC’s commissioners indicated that they’re going to vote with Chairman Julius Genachowski for a toothless Net Neutrality rule.

According to all reports, the rule, which will be voted on during tomorrow’s FCC meeting, falls drastically short of earlier pledges by President Obama and the FCC Chairman to protect the free and open Internet.

The rule is so riddled with loopholes that it’s become clear that this FCC chairman crafted it with the sole purpose of winning the endorsement of AT&T and cable lobbyists, and not defending the interests of the tens of millions of Internet users.

For the first time in history of telecommunications law the FCC has given its stamp of approval to online discrimination.

Instead of a rule to protect Internet users’ freedom to choose, the Commission has opened the door for broadband payola – letting phone and cable companies charge steep tolls to favor the content and services of a select group of corporate partners, relegating everyone else to the cyber-equivalent of a winding dirt road.

[...]

Internet users deserve far better, and we thought we were going to get it from a president who promised to “take a backseat to no one in my commitment to Net Neutrality.” Watch now as he and his FCC chairman try to spin tomorrow’s betrayal as another “mission accomplished.”

Don’t believe it. This bogus victory has become all too familiar to those watching the Obama administration and its appointees squander opportunities for real change. The reality is that reform is just a rhetorical front for industry compromises that reward the biggest players and K-Street lobbyists while giving the public nothing.

Say it with me everyone: we told you so. He’s a stooge for the mega pro monopoly corporations. What else do you have to see to finally not say he failed, because he did exactly what he wanted to do, and finally not say, well he’s intelligent and he means well, because he does exactly what he means. What more needs to happen people. Well, at least they’re noticing he’s not on their side. Mostly. Got hope?

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And speaking of faux messiahs like Obama or Assange on the left or similar ones on the right, why is it that some percentage of people on both sides of the political spectrum will follow someone like that? Here’s a nice quote from a early socialist and labor leader, Eugene Debs:

I don’t want you to follow me or anyone else. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I could lead you in, somebody else would lead you out.

I wish people could keep that in mind when they mostly blindly follow a leader.

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Let’s see what else is in the news. Oh yes, after a year or so of skyrocketing health insurance premium costs (mine when up nearly 100%, and that’s with no doctor visits as an excuse even), the Obama administration is looking into it. It looks like they’ll be writing some really stern letters again (emphasis mine):

Moving to restrain skyrocketing health insurance premiums, the Obama administration is proposing rules requiring insurers to justify increases of more than 10% a year in 2011.

At the same time, administration officials plan to step up federal review of premiums if state regulators cannot adequately protect consumers, a move cheered by many leading consumer advocates.

The increased oversight comes as consumers nationwide struggle with rate hikes that have exceeded 30% in some places, even as insurance industry profits have swelled.

In the lead-up to passage of the new law, the soaring rates fueled calls to give state and federal regulators more power to scrutinize premiums and even deny increases that appear unjustified. Only some states currently have such authority.

The draft regulations unveiled Tuesday would not give state or federal officials the ability to deny rate hikes. Instead, the administration is relying on state regulators to scrutinize proposed hikes and to assess if they are justified by increases in the cost of care or other factors.

Yep, mission accomplished again.

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Oh yea, the large majority of Democrats in congress couldn’t get together on a spending bill, so they punted for a stop gap until March when the Repubs, sill a minority in the senate, will of course be in complete control and will demand massive cuts:

Congress passed a stopgap funding bill last night to keep the government open into March, when Republicans will have greater power to cut federal spending.

On a 193-to-165 vote, the House backed a stripped-down measure that would freeze pay for federal employees, provide $160 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and head off cuts in Pell grants for college tuition. The Senate approved the bill hours earlier, 79-16.

[...]

The measure is needed because the Democratic-controlled Congress — in an unprecedented breakdown of the budget process — has failed to pass a single one of the 12 annual spending bills that fund the day-to-day operations of every federal agency.

It’s a feature not a bug as a certain klown likes to say. Let’s start placing bets on what will be cut next year.

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The other big news of late was the results of the census showing some shifts in congressional seats. Two states lost two seats each, New York and Ohio. And a number of states, mostly in the northeast lost one seat each. And a number of states in the south and west gained seats. Here’s some general coverage at Bloomberg, local coverages at the NYTimes and the Miami Herald for some sampling of results.

That’s a bit of what’s happening. Chime in with what you’re seeing.

Sunday News

Good Morning Conflucians!!

The big news yesterday was the Senate passing the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT):

In a landmark vote that for some echoed the nation’s greatest civil rights struggles, the Senate on Saturday moved resolutely to abolish the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which for 17 years has forced gay and lesbian members of the armed forces to keep their sexual orientation hidden.

The 65-31 vote, which came after a charged and sometimes vitriolic debate, was surprisingly bipartisan. Eight Republicans joined Democrats in voting to repeal the Clinton-era policy.

“It is time to recognize that sacrifice, valor and integrity are no more defined by sexual orientation than they are by race or gender, religion or creed,” President Obama said Saturday. “It is time to allow gay and lesbian Americans to serve their country openly.”

“Our government has sent a powerful message that discrimination, on any level, should not be tolerated,” said Joe Solmonese, president of Human Rights Campaign, which fought for years against the ban.

The big winner, and “Democrats man of the hour“, in this effort is of all people Joe Lieberman:

The Democrat-turned-independent from Connecticut drove the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy from sponsorship to the final push across the finish line in a 65-31 vote today, winning over liberal hearts, at least for the moment.

“He’s certainly one of my heroes today,” said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. “His determination, his tenacity has kept this going all year. This would have not happened without Sen. Lieberman.”

If Joe is your party’s man of the hour, you’ve got one hell of a boring party. The Democratic party has long since jumped the shark, but this one takes the cake. Lest we forget, Joe supported John McCain in the general election. Some of us may have done something like that as protest, but Joe really wanted McCain as president. Obama of course could have stopped DADT on day one. And he could have not fought previous court rulings overturning DADT. And it seems clear Democrats in general would have been happy to drag this out another two years so it could be a campaign issue. But no more. Joe helped push this legislation through despite Obama and others best efforts to keep it a low priority and to not move it anytime soon.

The big loser in all of this is John McCain:

Here is John McCain, in full-throttled white populist mode, spinning DADT’s repeal as plot by the elite Georgetown-Manhattan axis of America. The notion, which McCain pitches here, that DADT is a victory for people who either never served in the military, and don’t know anyone in the military is demagoguery. Worse, it’s of a piece with McCain’s habit of setting his clock according to his own disposition.

So Robert Gates, an Air Force vet, disagrees with John McCain, and by the factual lights of McCain, Gates is dismissed as as “political appointee who’s never been in the military.” Admiral Mike Mullen,Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs, disagrees with McCain and is transformed into someone who McCain does not “view as a military leader.” And a policy with the support of nearly 80 percent of the American, can only be viewed through the machinations of Georgetown cocktail parties. Even the military itself, in McCain’s mind, is bent to his prejudice. By implication he defines it as  provincial outfit almost totally rooted, not in a time or a place, but in the smallness of McCain’s square mind.

A bit harsh. Though for the life of me I don’t understand where McCain was coming from on this one. Follow the link and watch the video of McCain down in the hold and still digging.

Boxer had a nice thing to day (from the LATimes article):

Shortly before the climactic final vote, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D- San Francisco) recalled the activists who had fought against the policy for years.

“We have come a long way because people put their fear aside and they came forward and they told their stories. They took the light and they focused it on the truth. We’ve come a long way because of their families who loved them and have spoken out,” Boxer said. “This is America at its best, when we open our arms to equality, freedom and justice.”

Yea, Democrats talking about justice after they’ve abandoned any semblance of democracy. But still, it’s nice. There’s a related article about some troop reactions and another about Gay rights in general for the year.

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On the other hand the Dream Act failed in the Senate to get past a filibuster proof majority:

The 55-41 roll call Saturday by which the Senate voted to pass the Dream Act, which would give hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants a path to legal status if they enrolled in college or joined the armed forces. The vote fell five short of the 60 needed to enact the legislation before Republicans take over the House and narrow Democrats’ majority in the Senate next month.

The article names names. In a fence sitting move only Obama could love, the newly elected Dem Senator from WV stayed home and didn’t vote. He made noises that he would vote against it (the only Dem), but in the end didn’t do it. I suspect he was really for the repeal, but thought he couldn’t get away with voting that way. I think he underestimates his constituents. Or he’s just an ass. Probably both.

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From Politico we have Durbin saying the Senate will ban Guantanamo prisoner transfers:

One of the leading supporters of civilian trials for some Guantanamo prisoners and of bringing detainees currently there to the Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), said Saturday that the Senate is likely to concur in a House-passed measure that effectively bans both those options for the rest of this fiscal year.

“I think that issue has been resolved,” Durbin told my colleague Manu Raju on Saturday. “I think it’s necessary to include the langauge. The reason is that we hope at the end of the day…to still work out an agremeent and the bureau of prisons so they will buy this Thompson prison which has been sitting vacant for so many years.”

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Back to the story no one wants to talk about anymore, the wars. Our death toll so far this year is 700 more troops in Afghanistan:

Taliban insurgents launched attacks in Kabul and a major northern city on Sunday as the death toll for foreign troops in Afghanistan hit 700, making 2010 the deadliest year of the nearly decade-long war.

[...]

The grim milestone for foreign troop deaths was reached after a member of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was killed overnight by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan. ISAF gave no other details of the incident.

A total of 521 foreign troops were killed in 2009, previously the worst year of the war, but operations against the Taliban-led insurgency have intensified over the past 18 months.

About 2,270 foreign troops have been killed since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 by U.S.-backed Afghan forces, according to figures kept by Reuters and monitoring website http://www.iCasualties.org.

Roughly two-thirds of those killed were Americans.

How long will this insanity continue? What is the point here? There is little or no Al Qaeda left. We will likely never end this in a good way. Eventually we will drag ourselves out there after countless more lives lost. And the end result will likely be the same as if we just left tomorrow. So leave tomorrow.

Which is why all the fighting and killing in Pakistan is all the more insane. Here’s more war drumbeats for more in Pakistan:

After serving as the senior U.S. diplomat responsible for Kandahar, Bill Harris is convinced that American forces have made “staggering progress” against insurgents this fall in areas around Afghanistan’s second-largest city.

But he is equally certain that the overall war will fail if the United States does not find a way to eliminate the de facto sanctuary that Taliban fighters have established in neighboring Pakistan. “As we sat there for a year . . . we knew the insurgents who attacked us were going to Pakistan to re-equip, replenish, retrain and get orders to attack us again,” he said.

Basically he’s saying if you don’t go over into Pakistan and eliminate them, you can never win in Afghanistan. That’s the kind of story you’ll be hearing all the way off the cliff. War, it’s big business.

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And speaking of crazy, the Ukraine is going to reopen Chermobyl as a tourist attraction (no, you can’t make this stuff up):

If the typical beach vacation – the one where you spend several days on the beach reading bad fiction and soaking up sun – has lost its allure, the Ukraine would like to make a suggestion: come soak up radiation and some real human drama at Chernobyl, the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history. Starting in 2011, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant site and the surrounding “exclusion zone” will be opened to tourists for the first time since the plant’s reactor No. 4 exploded on April 26, 1986, blanketing the area in radiation.

Maybe if we tell all the “creative class” idiots that it’s the coolest thing to do, they’ll all go.

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It’s time for all the end of the year summaries, lists, and oddities to start rolling in. Here’s one on the 10 worst predictions of the year. Here’s my favorite:

“More people are going to be put to work this summer.”

-Vice President Joe Biden, White House briefing, June 17, 2010

The “recovery summer,” as the White House termed it, seemed like a good bet for the administration after more than 300,000 new jobs were added between March and May — admittedly not enough to keep up with the number of people entering the workforce — but the economy actually retrenched over the course of the summer. By August, private-sector job growth had had fallen by two-thirds, the unemployment rate was still at 9.5 percent, and GDP growth had fallen to just 2.4 percent — nowhere near fast enough to make up for the crash.

The summer of disappointment quickly became a fall of despair when it was announced that the unemployment rate had increased to 9.8 percent in November — and voters punished Biden’s party accordingly during the midterm elections.

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In some other fun news of the week, the number 1 retweet of the year was Stephen Colbert with the following:

“In honor of oil-soaked birds, ‘tweets’ are now ‘gurgles.’”

I have to admit, I retweeted that one myself.

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And in lack of privacy, creepy news of the week, Android phones (via Google), can now recognize you in voice searches:

Time to add a new service to the “cool but creepy” category. Google announced that Android phones can now learn the sound of your voice for more accurate voice searches.

Personalized recognition is an opt-in service for Android versions 2.2 and higher. Once you give the go-ahead, Google begins recording voice searches and using the data to build a speech model just for you. “Although subtle, accuracy improvements begin fairly quickly and will build over time,” says the Google Mobile blog.

Always keep in mind, if you’re using free services from someone like Google for voice, email, docs, etc., read those license agreements and privacy policies. Those services are free in exchange for them data mining your information.

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And finally in space news, the old Voyager 1 has reached the edge of the solar system:

A NASA space probe dispatched 33 years ago for the first close-up studies of Jupiter and Saturn has entered the tail of the solar system, a place where the constant stream of charged particles flowing from the sun ebbs.

This final phase of solar system exploration should last another four years, computer models show, though scientists overseeing the two Voyager spacecraft really don’t know what to expect.

Voyager 1 is now about 10.8 billion miles from the sun, traveling in a region of space known as the heliosheath, a turbulent area between the sphere of space influenced by the sun and magnetic forces from interstellar space that lies beyond.

Wave goodbye to Voyager. And no Star Trek: The Movie jokes about “vger” either.

That’s a bit of what’s in the news. Chime in with what you’re reading or seeing.

Wednesday News

Good Morning Conflucians!!

A few interesting things happening in the news. First up, we have a cure for HIV infection, at least in one patient:

Doctors believe that they may have found one of the largest breakthroughs in the battle against HIV, the virus which leads to AIDS. The news broke today (December 14) out of Berlin, Germany when doctors confirmed that Timothy Ray Brown received a stem-cell treatment while battling leukemia. His doctors recently published a report in the journal Blood affirming that the results of extensive testing “strongly suggest that cure of HIV infection has been achieved.”

Here’s the abstract of the paper in question for any of you up on your hematology research. Here’s the salient point:

In conclusion, our results strongly suggest that cure of HIV has been achieved in this patient.

There’s a lot of work yet to do, and this may not be an overall cure, but it’s a major breakthrough.

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As reported yesterday by RD, a federal judge in VA ruled the mandate to buy a private product part of the health insurance company bailout bill is unconstitutional. Here’s a follow up article about the ruling and the VA district attorney’s winning strategy:

Virginia’s go-it-alone legal strategy to challenge the nation’s sweeping federal health-care overhaul – once questioned by both advocates and some opponents of the law – seems to be paying off for state Attorney General Ken T. Cuccinelli II after Monday’s court ruling, in his favor, that a key provision of the law is unconstitutional.

When Cuccinelli (R) filed suit in March against the federal law – rather than signing on to one filed jointly in Florida by 20 other attorneys general – Democrats said it was an exercise in grandstanding for political gain.

[...]

But his decision has undermined those who contend that constitutional challenges to the law are frivolous.

“There’s no question that this was a gamble in terms of how the litigation would have been perceived if he’s received the third strike in a row,” said Jonathan Turley, professor of law at the George Washington University Law School. “It’s certainly a gamble that’s paid off.”

Cuccinelli has maintained all along that filing his own challenge made more sense than signing on to the Florida effort.

The Virginia General Assembly had passed a law in March that made it illegal to require state residents to carry health insurance. The conflict between the state statute and the federal law gave Virginia unique standing to sue, he argued.

“You just don’t go to other states to protect your own laws,” Cuccinelli said in an interview Tuesday.

That being said, the real test will be the supreme court. Which at the earliest would be sometime next year, and likely the year after that. I think it’s an interesting issue and very worth a supreme court case. Clearly there’s gray area with being “punished’ for inaction with respect to having to buy a commercial product. And of course when the health insurance lobbyist wrote the bill, making that part not a tax was a big issue. Those calling the issue silly or frivolous were being silly.

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And speaking of silly, Republicans that think the 2010 midterm elections were about them are of course not even close. A new poll out back up what everyone should know (again):

Republicans may have made major gains in the November elections, but they have yet to win the hearts and minds of the American people, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The midterm elections – in which Republicans gained 63 seats to take control of the House and added six seats to their Senate minority – were widely seen as a rebuke to President Obama. Still, the public trusts Obama marginally more than they do congressional Republicans to deal with the country’s main problems in the coming years, 43 percent to 38 percent.

The poll suggests that the election, while perhaps a vote against the status quo, was not a broad mandate for Republicans and their plans. The survey also underscores the degree to which Americans are conflicted about who they think is setting the agenda in Washington.

The president’s narrow advantage is a striking contrast to the public’s mood at this time in 1994 and 2006, the last two midterm election years when one or both chambers of Congress changed hands.

[...]

In the new poll, just 41 percent of respondents say the GOP takeover of the House is a “good thing.” About 27 percent say it is a “bad thing,” and 30 percent say it won’t make any difference. Most continue to say that the Republicans in Congress are not doing enough to compromise with Obama on important issues.

At this time in 1994, six in 10 Americans said the GOP had taken a stronger leadership role in Washington, while just one in four said Clinton was firmly in charge. In the new poll, Americans are about evenly split between Obama and the Republicans in Congress on this question.

Of course it’s idiotic comparing 2010 to 1994 for many reasons. One is that in ’92 Clinton won a three man race without  a majority. So his numbers were building up from a low point. Obama’s numbers in contrast have been steadily coming down from a high point. Also in ’94 Democrats got shown the door precisely because a large number of them were breaking the law. Whereas in this case, we have a supermajority Democrats in congress and a Democratic president elected in ’06/’08 to fix a majorly broken economy. And in the last 4/2 years respectively, it’s gotten worse. And for better or worse (or right or wrong), the voters wanted a new direction. That is, it’s the economy stupid. On top of that, Obama’s a real piece of shit and the congress that just does what he says (same as they just did what Bush II said before) were getting a bit tiring.

But what these numbers do indicate to me is that if things don’t get better economically, esp. with respect to jobs, then the Republicans will incur losses in ’12. If we’re around high 8% or higher in unemployment, there’s going to be some more changes. And they might just be dramatic.

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The Commandant of the Marines says repealing DADT will result in casualties:

The Marine Corps’ top general suggested Tuesday that allowing gays to serve openly in the military could result in more casualties because their presence on the battlefield would pose “a distraction.”

“When your life hangs on the line,” said Gen. James F. Amos, the commandant of the Marine Corps, “you don’t want anything distracting. . . . Mistakes and inattention or distractions cost Marines’ lives.”

In an interview with newspaper and wire service reporters at the Pentagon, Amos was vague when pressed to clarify how the presence of gays would distract Marines during a firefight. But he cited a recent Defense Department survey in which a large percentage of Marine combat veterans predicted that repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law would harm “unit cohesion” and their tight-knit training for war.

“So the Marines came back and they said, ‘Look, anything that’s going to break or potentially break that focus and cause any kind of distraction may have an effect on cohesion,’ ” he said. “I don’t want to permit that opportunity to happen. And I’ll tell you why. If you go up to Bethesda [Naval] Hospital . . . Marines are up there with no legs, none. We’ve got Marines at Walter Reed [Army Medical Center] with no limbs.”

I understand Commandant Amos’ concern for his marines and why he would want to move very slowly when it comes to any change that shakes things up. But it’s way past time for this change. We have women at most levels and in combat (though we pretend they’re not), and of course for a long, long time, we’ve had people of color in the armed forces, even though both of those were changes that shook things up and were distractions at the time. I have faith in the marines that they can handle such a change just fine. If memory serves, the previous commandant has similar issues. I hope he can take a lead from his boss, Adm. Mike Mullen, and move to deal with the new realities instead of throwing wrenches in the works.

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In the latest news from the world of WikiLeaks, the Air Force has blocked WikiLeaks from it’s own networks:

The Air Force is barring its personnel from using work computers to view the Web sites of The New York Times and more than 25 other news organizations and blogs that have posted secret cables obtained by WikiLeaks, Air Force officials said Tuesday.

[...]

Cyber network specialists within the Air Force Space Command last week followed longstanding procedures to keep classified information off unclassified computer systems. “News media Web sites will be blocked if they post classified documents from the WikiLeaks Web site,” said Lt. Col. Brenda Campbell, a spokeswoman for the Air Force Space Command, a unit of which oversees Air Force cyber systems. “This is similar to how we’d block any other Web site that posted classified information.”

Colonel Campbell said that only sites posting full classified documents, not just excerpts, would be blocked. “When classified documents appear on a Web site, a judgment will be made whether it will be blocked,” she said. “It’s an issue we’re working through right now.”

The other armed forces are handling it differently:

Spokesmen for the Army, Navy and Marines said they were not blocking the Web sites of news organizations, largely because guidance has already been issued by the Obama administration and the Defense Department directing hundreds of thousands of federal employees and contractors not to read the secret cables and other classified documents published by WikiLeaks unless the workers have the required security clearance or authorization.

“Classified information, whether or not already posted on public websites or disclosed to the media, remains classified, and must be treated as such by federal employees and contractors, until it is declassified by an appropriate U.S. Government authority,” said a notice sent on Dec. 3 by the Office of Management and Budget, which is part of the White House, to agency and department heads.

A Defense Department spokesman, Col. David Lapan, in an e-mail on Tuesday night sought to distance the department from the Air Force’s action to block access to the media Web sites: “This is not DoD-directed or DoD-wide.”

The Air Force may have gone too far. We’ll see how that plays out. And in related news, Julian Assange paid bail, but is still in jail:

Sweden tonight decided to fight a British judge’s decision to grant bail to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has spent more than a week in prison over sexual assault allegations involving two Swedish women.

A dramatic day in and around City of Westminster magistrates court saw Assange win bail, but then be forced to return to what his lawyer Mark Stephens described as “Dickensian conditions” at Wandsworth prison while the international legal battle played out.

Sweden has decided to contest the granting of bail to Assange, who is being held pending an extradition hearing, on the grounds that no conditions imposed by a judge could guarantee that he would not flee, a legal source told the Guardian.

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And speaking of crimes, it looks like the Senate will pass the near trillion dollar deficit increase and social security destruction bill today:

The U.S. Senate today is poised to pass President Barack Obama’s $858 billion proposal to extend Bush-era tax cuts for all income levels, cut payroll taxes and extend expanded jobless benefits.

Majority Leader Harry Reid said last night on the Senate floor that the chamber will start debate at 11 a.m. on the measure. Before a vote on final passage, senators will take up three amendments, Reid said. Amendments require a two-thirds supermajority for adoption.

Senate passage will send the tax bill to the House, where Democrats — who threatened last week not to bring it to the floor — late yesterday discussed a plan to let Democrats vote on an alternative to estate-tax provisions many of them oppose.

We will see soon after that what happens in the House. Please write your congressman and tell them not to pass anything like this POS giveaway to the rich and obvious ploy to destroy social security and medicare.

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Rahm “The Fish” Emanuel got a Chicago style grilling yesterday about his mayoral run:

The most serious attack on his candidacy came in the first 90 minutes of the hearing as the lead attorney challenging Emanuel bored in on the issue of whether the former White House chief of staff meets the requirement of being a Chicago resident for one year prior to the Feb. 22 election.

But after that, it was open season as a long line of citizens who object to Emanuel’s run for mayor quizzed him on everything from when and where he purchased a city sticker for his car to whether he played any role in the violent 1993 Waco, Texas, siege to if he has ever been a member of the Communist Party.

Sadly I think he’ll be able to run just fine. And sadly he’s still the front runner.

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Interest rates have been inching up and the Fed has taken notice:

Interest rates are marching upward, making it more expensive to take out a mortgage or get a loan to expand a business, and diluting efforts by Congress and the Federal Reserve to strengthen the economy.

The rise is partly because of good news: The outlook for growth has improved, putting less pressure on investors to keep their money in ultra-safe bonds. When there’s less demand for bonds, their interest rates – or yield – go up to attract more investors.

And the better economic outlook could allow the Fed to pull back sooner than expected on the extraordinary steps it’s taking to keep rates low.

But bond investors are also spooked by the tax-cut deal between President Obama and congressional leaders, which if enacted would increase the budget deficit substantially over the next two years.

The climb in interest rates is confounding the Fed’s efforts as it tries to bring down rates by buying $600 billion in Treasury bonds. The central bank affirmed that it would stay on course with those plans Tuesday after a policy meeting.

Yes, it’s good and it’s bad and it’s messing up their efforts to make money cheaper. It’s all going to end in tears I tell you. Our economy as well as the world economy is fragile. The dollar is on the brink. It’s scary out there. The current worry about interest rates going a bit higher (as if things are getting better.. give me a break) reminds me of a small leak in a dam being plugged by a finger. Sadly we’re all living in the small village below the dam.

On that lovely note, let’s open the floor to more news. And some positive news please. Chime in with what you’re reading.