Ameribank, Inc., of Northfork, West Virginia.
That makes 12 for the year, and 5 of those were in the past 2 months.
Author: Matthew G. Saroff
Palin Invitation to Iran Protest Withdrawn
It looks like once Hillary Clinton and refused to share a stage with Sarah Palin, someone got some common sense, and realized that inviting her was a bad idea, so the whacko with the Tina Fey glasses has been disinvited.
Everyone wins, except for John Sidney McCain III, Sarah Palen, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Funny how their interests seem so similar.
Georgian President Saakashvili More Like Bush Than I Had Thought
Certainly, he’s adopted the Bush mantra, “Never tell the truth when a lie would do,” when he denies spending money lobbying the United States.
Dude, we have the paperwork filed by senior McCain adviser’s Randy Scheunemann’s company, Orion Strategies, showing the payments to them totaling 800 grand.
The Other Palin for President
Honestly, I’m more of a Terry Jones or John Cleese supporter, but I can live with Michael Palin.
I see this as a completely appropriate homage to Screaming Lord Such.
Bolivian Governor Arrested
The arrest of Leopoldo Fernández of Pando is likely tied to the unrest there recently, though the accusation is that he supervised the massacre of peasants, which is a not uncommon activity of political leaders in that part of the world.
In any case, it looks like Bolivia is not cooling down, and my guess is that Bush and His Evil Minions&trade are doing their best to make sure that it won’t cool down.
Politics 101: Criticizing Your Opponent Makes Her Less Popular
So says Matthew Yglesias, so say we all.
Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead
I am not calling calling Carly Fiorina a witch. This is rather a reference to the report that when Fiorina was fired from HP, that people there started singing the song spontaneously.
I imagine that after a series of gaffes, McCain staffers are singing it to, because following her latest screw-up, where she said that neither Palin nor McCain (later modified to include Obama and Biden) were qualified to run a large company, she has been kicked off the campaign circuit.
Of course, experience at HP would appear to indicate that she wasn’t qualified to run a large company either.
Your Daily Palin Update
Well Palin has now gotten her AG to instruct her employees not to honor subpoenas from the state senate, and the Anchorage Daily News cuts them a new one on this.
McCain doesn’t get it. Sarah Palin is not Cindy McCain, and the press won’t sweep this under the carpet for the “Maverick Straight Talker”.
Heck, they wouldn’t sweep it under the carpet for Cindy McCain these days, they’ve been wringing their hands about how McCain now, and when you have a cover-up this blatant, people will keep looking.
Mindless paranoid secrecy is almost always the worst course of action, which is why it’s so ironic that it bit them on the butt with Sarah Palin’s email.
It seems that she was using Yahoo Email for much of her correspondence with staff, and someone from 4chan hacked into her email (here, here, and here), and then posted what they found on Wikileaks.
Note to self: Never ever piss off anyone from 4chan.
Pakistani Military Told to Shoot at Americans
It appears that the Pakistanis have gotten a bit hot under the collar about US incursions, as they have just authorized firing on US troops if they cross the border:
“The orders are clear,” Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said in an interview. “In case it happens again in this form, that there is a very significant detection, which is very definite, no ambiguity, across the border, on ground or in the air: open fire.”
Jeff Stein of CQ politics, makes a very good point here, that Pakistan increasingly seems to resemble Cambodia before the Khmer Rouge.
- The Cambodians tolerated the North Vietnamese, the Pakistanis the Taliban.
- The US engaged in cross border bombing to target their opponent.
- The US escalated to cross border troop actions.
- The effect of the escalation was to drive the local populace to our opponents.
- The leader of the country was ousted.
There is one difference though, which Mr. Stein notes: Pakistan has nuclear weapons.
Remember When I Said that this Election Cycle was Getting Odd?
Well, it now appears that the Virginia Republican Party is holding a rally for minority outreach, and the lead speaker is George Allen.
George “Macacca” Allen headlining a minority outreach event?
Honestly, the source is not The Onion.
Lawyers File Ethics Complaint Against Monica Goodling
They have drafted a letter asking the Virgina Bar to investigate former DoJ lawyer Monica Goodling, which is about the only way that anything close to justice will happen, since Michael “Bush’s Bitch” Mukasey has refused to prosecute clear violations of the law.
Background here.
Can Everyone STFU About the Level of Support that Clinton is Giving Obama?
She was scheduled to give a speech at protest against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad going to opening ceremonies, and she pulled out when she found out that Sarah Palin had been invited too.
Protesting against Ahmadinejad in New York is political gold, and Clinton dropped out of the rally, and has been campaigning in Florida and other states, because she supports the Obama’s campaign for President.
How it Should Be Done
The Democrats are worried about the offshore drilling issue being used against them. They know that it’s bogus, but it’s also VERY easy to demagogue.
What do do?
Pass a bill that allows it, but contains provisions that will make the Republicans vote against it.
Include things like:
- Reducing the distance to shore from 100 to 50 miles when the Republicans want it much closer.
- Having the states receive no royalties from new drilling, which makes legislative approval next to impossible.
- Eliminates $18 billion in tax breaks for big oil.
- The bill would also force the release of 70 million barrels of oil from the nation’s emergency reserves
- Provide tax breaks for efficient building construction and companies that promote bicycle commutes
- Require all utility companies to generate at least 15 percent of their power by alternative fuels by 2020.
The senate will never pass this, it will never get pasty filibuster.
All of which have Bush threatening a veto, so you have a trifecta: The Dems vote for it, the Repugs vote against it, and then they have to vote to support Bush’s veto.
Job well done.
And In the Department of the Bloody Obvious
meIt turns out that if surgical residents work less than 80 hours a week, then there are fewer complications from the surguries that they perform.
Hoocoodanoed??
Our Friend the TED Spread
The TED spread is the difference in interest rates between the LIBOR rate, which banks use to lend each other money over night, and the 3 month US Treasury bill.
While interest rates go up and down, generally the TED spread is fairly constant….But not now.
It just hit a record high.
It’s not that the LIBOR has gone up much, but that so many people want T-Bills right now, because they see nothing else as safe, that they have bid down the interest rates on that instrument.
Your Regular Georgia Update
There are rumblings in the Council of Europe about ejecting both Russia and Georgia, which just goes to show what memberships in the Council of Europe are actually worth, seeing as how this was shortly followed by Russia signing treaties with South Ossetia and Abkhazia guaranteeing protection in the event of an attack.
Still Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the NATO secretary general, has declared that Russia cannot block Georgiaan membership in NATO, which implies that Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has not read the NATO charter, which states that there can be no extant border disputes for a nation to be brought into NATO.
The only way for Georgia to get into NATO at this point would be to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and somehow come to a consensus on what the borders were.
American Psychological Association Votes to Prohibit Helping Torture
The depressing part is that the vote was far closer than it should have been:
The vote, 8,792 to 6,157 in a mail-in balloting concluded Monday, may help to settle a long debate within the profession over the ethics of such work. Psychologists have helped military and C.I.A. interrogators evaluate detainees, plan questioning strategy and judge its psychological costs. The association’s ethics code, while condemning a list of coercive techniques adopted in the Bush administration’s antiterrorism campaign, has allowed some consultation “for national security-related purposes.”
The referendum, first posted on the Internet as a petition in May, prohibits psychologists from working in settings where “persons are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law (e.g., the U.N. Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions) or the U.S. Constitution, where appropriate,” unless they represent a detainee or an independent third party. The association’s bylaws require that it institute the policy at the next annual meeting, in August 2009.
And in the Financial Collapse Race, WaMu is Coming up on the Right
Well it appears that Washington Mutual is trying to find someone to buy them, and their large institutional investors have have agreed to waive a stock dilution clause, which, along with reports that US Regulators are helping them look for a buyer does not bode well for the company.
In any case, it appears that Citi has given the deal a pass.
Meanwhile, in an excercise of remarkably good journalism, Matthew Garrahan of the Financial Times went to the bank, and saw that people are queuing up to get their money out.
Dead bank walking.
Livni Wins Kadima Leadership Election
I really don’t think that her victory in a tight race to replace Olmert as head of the Kadima party will amount to much.
Kadima was very much the party of Ariel Sharon, who is gone, and I would not surprised to see them in 3rd place next election. I peg Benyamin, “The Craziest Motherf%$#er in the Middle East,” Netanyahu winning it.
Then again, my knowledge of Israeli politics is neither broad nor deep, that way madness lies.
Economics Update
Again, as this seems, this is only the so called little stuff, because there is a lot of big stuff again
I’ve been firmly in the recession camp of the, “Is it recession yet,” dispute, and the the Leading Economic Indicators falling again reinforces that notion, though the fact that the Philadelphia Fed Factory Index rose runs counter to that, but as it is the first rise in 10 months, I put that one in the outlier category.
Meanwhile, the weekly, and this week affected by hurricanes, new filings for unemployment rose to 455K and housing starts fell to a 17 year low, even as mortgage rates continue to fall.
Of course, not too many people can get the loans these days, because all the money is fleeing to treasuries.
Gas prices tick higher – Sep. 17, 2008
Housing Starts Plummet to 17-Year Low in August – Economy * US * News * Story – CNBC.com
In energy, eased off of a bit, as did gasoline for the first time in 9 days, as the panicking over Hurrican Ike moderated.
Finally, I just want to say that Tom Toles is a bloody genius:
