Everything you need to know about the economy you can tell by the expression on Treasury Secretary Geithner’s Vulcan-like face

So much for bipartisanship

John McCain twitters: “Yesterday President Obama said GOP’ers have decided to just ‘be against whatever the other side is for.’ So much for bipartisanship!” Boy, that Obama guy, he just wrecks everything.

The exit strategy

Obama said in the 60 Minutes interview that we need an exit strategy from Afghanistan and “The Afghan Army and police are that exit strategy.” You know, there must be some middle ground between Bush’s messianic claims to be spreading freedom and democracy, and Obama’s disregard at best, cynicism at worst. After initially planning to force Karzai out, only to realize that there was no one else remotely capable of maintaining even the pretense of running a central government, the Obamaites are now leaking that they plan to make him a figurehead, with a “technocrat” prime minister or chief of staff of our choosing installed to really run the show. But the inevitable military coup will no doubt do just as well. I don’t see what could possibly go wrong with that scenario.

By the way, when are people going to start describing our military activities in Pakistan as a war and maybe, I don’t know, discussing whether it’s a good idea?

Practice what?

Headline of the Day (Daily Telegraph): “Doctor Who Strapped Ecstasy Pills to Scrotum Allowed to Resume Practice.”

The Sci-Fi, excuse me, SyFy, Channel has a message for you regarding the conclusion of Battlestar Galactica: All this has happened before, and all this will happen again – but until then, please watch “Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering.”

Caption contest, papal version

The pope is on his “no condoms for you” tour of Africa. Here he is in Cameroon or possibly Angola (the BBC website is a little confused). Please practice safe captioning.

Power corrupts, a jacket with a seal and your name on it corrupts absolutely

JAY LENO: Let me ask you some personal things. Now, how cool is it to fly in Air Force One?

OBAMA: Now, let me tell you, I personally think it’s pretty cool. Especially because they give you, you know, the jacket with the seal on it.


Here we go again.

You know, us dogs aren't really so much of the dogs that we think we are

Name of the Day, from the obituary of actor Betsy Blair: her daughter Kerry, when she was married to Gene Kelly. Kerry Kelly.

Betsy Blair was best known for her role in the movie Marty, where she played a girl dating Marty, whose loser friends considered her too homely to be dating Ernest Borgnine, but in the end he decided that he liked her anyway. The irony is that Blair was more mousy than homely, but Hollywood wouldn’t give the role to the more homely, but more talented, Nancy Marchand (Tony Soprano’s mother, Lou Grant’s publisher Mrs Pynchon), who had played the role in the earlier television version (which I remember as quite good), Hollywood’s idea of homely or plain people being Ingrid Bergman with glasses or Michelle Pfeiffer without makeup.

He deserves my silence

Bush, giving a speech to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, said “I’m not going to spend my time criticizing [Obama]. ... He deserves my silence.” Don’t we all, don’t we all (except the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, evidently).

Of course he did go on to criticize Obama, though not by name, warning of moves to “replace free markets with government.”

OR POSSIBLY A UNIVERSAL REMOTE: “I believe freedom is a gift from a universal god.”

WE CAN LAUGH ABOUT IT NOW: He talked about Aaron Burr’s duel with Alexander Hamilton, saying “At least when my vice president shot somebody, it was by accident.”

BUT NOT SO FUN TO READ IT: He said that he plans to write a book about the 12 toughest decisions he had to make, and that he thinks it will be “fun” to write the book. I suspect after a few minutes of writing, he will think it less fun and the 12 toughest decisions will all be about spelling and grammar. And of course, all decided wrongily. He said, “I’m going to put people in my place, so when the history of this administration is written at least there’s an authoritarian voice saying exactly what happened.”

Maybe a little authoritarian silence is in order now, George?

How do they justify this outrage?

Yes, the AIG bonuses are obnoxious – “retention payments” AIG prefers to call them, when the only appropriate means of retention for many AIG employees would be a pair of handcuffs – but I find myself unable to muster that much outrage. In the larger scheme of things, it’s the need to prop up this criminally-run company with $170 billion of taxpayer money that’s the real scandal. Compared to that, $165 million in bonuses is kind of a sideshow, the insult to injury ratio here being 1:1,000.

Barack Obama, however, can muster, or can at least fake, some populist outrage, asking, “I mean, how do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?”

That’s a good question. Let’s help them out with some suggestions. CONTEST: how can they justify this outrage?

Not so Modern Times

Hindu nationalists have stopped a plan to build a 67-foot statue of Charlie Chaplin in India, objecting that the Little Tramp was a Christian. 

CONTEST: What might make a 67-foot statue of Charlie Chaplin more acceptable to Hindu nationalists?

Assets

Iraq has sentenced shoe-throwing journalist Muntadar al-Zeidi to three years in prison, and Afghanistan’s supreme court has upheld (in a ruling issued secretly) the sentence of 20 years given to journalism student Pervez Kambaksh after a 4-minute trial for the crime of downloading material about the role of women in Muslim societies from the Internet. Like the original court, the supreme court didn’t bother hearing from the defense. Freedom, ain’t it grand?

Chinese premier Wen demands reassurance that China’s investment in US bonds will be safe. “Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets.” Our assets. Oh good.

Speaking of Chinese “assets,” Wen also spoke about Tibet, on the 50th anniversary of the, oh what do they call it, “the abolition of slavery after a failed uprising by its feudalistic upper class.” Anyway, he said of the captive nation, currently locked off from the outside world as troops go house to house and monks are being re-educated, “Tibet’s peace and stability and Tibet’s continuous progress have proven the policies we have adopted are right.” Quod erat demonstrandum.

It doesn’t take a front seat or a back seat or a middle seat

Today Hillary Clinton met with the Chinese foreign minister and answered some questions, including the inevitable one about human rights. Here were her hard-hitting words: “Well, human rights is part of our comprehensive dialogue. It doesn’t take a front seat or a back seat or a middle seat...” And certainly not a window seat. A baby seat, perhaps? “...it is part of the broad range of issues that we are discussing. But it is important to try to create a platform for actually seeing results from our human rights engagement.”

I think we can all agree that it is ever so important to try to create a platform for actually seeing results from our human rights engagement. Whatever that means.

Obama’s education speech: This is no picnic for me either, buster

Today Obama gave a speech about education or, as he so eloquently put it, “how we will reward quality and incentivize excellence, and make a down payment on the success of the next generation,” to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

He addressed the Republican “distraction” meme, saying he can do more than one thing at a time just like Lincoln built the transcontinental railroad single-handed while fighting the civil war, and Roosevelt fought both the depression and the Japs, and Clinton... oh, I can’t be bothered making a Monica joke, I really can’t.

He started by making the surprising claim that education is actually important. “In a 21st-century world where jobs can be shipped wherever there’s an Internet connection, where a child born in Dallas is now competing with a child in New Delhi, where your best job qualification is not what you do, but what you know”. In comments, what does a child in Dallas know that one in New Delhi does not?


STOP CONFUSING US WITH NUMBERS, BARACK, WE WENT TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS: “In 8th grade math, we’ve fallen to 9th place. Singapore’s middle-schoolers outperform ours three to one.”

He blamed lack of reform in education on politics and ideology. “I think you’d all agree that the time for finger-pointing is over,” he said, in what sounds like an exercise in finger-pointing if ever I heard one.


YEAH, BUT HE’S BACK IN CRAWFORD NOW: “We’ve accepted failure for far too long.”

WILL THIS BE ON THE TEST? Other nations are doing a better job educating their children because “They’re spending less time teaching things that don’t matter, and more time teaching things that do.” I’d like a list of things being taught that don’t matter.

Diagraming sentences, I’m guessing.

Do they still teach diagraming sentences?


“From the moment students enter a school, the most important factor in their success is not the color of their skin or the income of their parents, it’s the person standing at the front of the classroom.” I think he means the teacher. Of course in this country whether the teacher sucks or not might be just a little bit related to the color of skin and income of the students.

OBAMA KNOWS WHAT YOU’RE THINKING – SO WATCH IT! “To any student who’s watching, I say this: Don’t even think about dropping out of school. Don’t even think about it.”

And there were some other things about charter schools (he wants more) and pay for teachers (he wants more for good ones, but didn’t say where it would come from), a longer school year and/or day, etc etc. Also, when he was growing up in Indonesia, his mother would wake him up at 4:30 a.m. to force him to study, saying, “This is no picnic for me either, buster.”

Another day, another distraction

Obama, signing his executive order for stem-cell research, gave a rather dumb reason for it: “The majority of Americans – from across the political spectrum, and of all backgrounds and beliefs – have come to a consensus that we should pursue this research.” The majority of Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs can’t correctly define the term “stem cell.”

Eric Cantor says this is all a big “distraction”: “Why are we going and distracting ourselves from the economy?” Get used to the R’s calling any item on the D agenda, or anything D’s want to talk about a distraction. Obama’s executive order was simply fulfilling a campaign promise. The Republican platform, as I recall, read, “1. Oh look, something shiny! 2. Oo, something else shiny!! 3. Shiny shiny shiny!!!” etc. I’m pretty sure Obama can do more than one thing at a time without being terribly distracted.

McCain’s #1 earmark of the day: $935,000 for Pasteurization of Shell Eggs, MI. Because a little salmonella never did anyone any harm.

More serious

Follow-up: remember that 9-year-old, 80-pound Brazilian girl, pregnant with twins, who had an abortion after being raped by her stepfather? The Catholic Church has excommunicated her mother and her doctors but not, of course, the stepfather because, according to the archbishop, abortion is “more serious” than raping a little girl for three years. Priorities, people. President Lula has publicly disagreed with the Church on this. By the way, how does the Church even know the names of these people?

Because you can’t say twitter without witter

Today McCain twittered yet more projects he doesn’t like and/or understand. #1: $75,000 for the Totally Teen Zone in Albany, Georgia. I guess because it sounds like a lame ‘70s thing. Or because McCain thinks you don’t need after-school gang-prevention programs for at-risk teenagers when you can just yell at them to get off your lawn.

Wasteful spending

McCain has continued to twitter alleged pork: science projects, the arts, anything with the word “museum” in it. Yesterday, for example, he complained about “$143,000 for the Dayton Society of Natural History in Dayton, OH.” Now if it were the Dayton, Tennessee Society of Natural History...

(The site of the Scopes Monkey Trial. Keep up, people!)

And in an email today, McCain says, “I’m asking you to join me today in supporting the effort to stop this wasteful spending. I’m urging you to make an immediate donation of $25, $50, $100, $250, $500 or whatever you can give to my re-election campaign for the U.S. Senate to continue the fight to bring an end to wasteful spending.” So send him some money, you know you’d only waste it on beaver management and natural history museums.

Of political sideshows, legitimate governments, and the fine art of Karzai-confronting

Another, late contender for Name of the Day: Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla Mandela, running for election to the South African Parliament.

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John Boehner pens an op-ed piece for the Post accusing the Obamahoovians of a “carefully calculated campaign” to distract people from their nefarious budget with all this talk about Rush Limbaugh. A budget that “increases taxes on every American”. “Something is wrong,” he says, “when the discourse in Washington is more focused on a political sideshow than, say, the fact that Congress is attempting to terminate a school choice program that serves thousands of needy children in the District of Columbia...” Oh, he does hate him some sideshows, does John Boehner.

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Hillary Clinton stood next to Mahmoud Abbas today, saying that his regime was the “only legitimate government” of the Palestinian people. Abbas’s term of office expired eight weeks ago.


She described the Israeli government’s plans to demolish scores of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem as... those of you with delicate sensibilities may wish to skip to the next paragraph... “unhelpful.”

During her trip, she said that “The two-state solution is the inevitable, inescapable outcome of any effort” but she also said that the US would support any Israeli government. So what she’s saying is that it’s okay to give unflinching support to Netanyahu while he works against the outcome she claims to be working towards, because that outcome is inevitable and inescapable. So that’s okay then.

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Speaking of legitimate governments, there’s an article in the WaPo on Karzai and the debate, largely between Karzai and the Obamatonians over the timing of presidential elections in Afghanistan (Obama clearly wants Karzai out, but it’s very unclear, at least to me, what sort of government he wants in Afghanistan and who it would be run by. Gosh, isn’t it nice that he’s learned so much from Bush’s mistakes like, for instance, not having an exit strategy in Iraq?). The WaPo author, Pamela Constable, says Karzai, while “once perceived as a charming leader and famous for wowing tribal elders and international conferences, has grown increasingly unpopular and remote as his government becomes tarred as weak and corrupt.” It’s not “tarred” as weak and corrupt, it actually is weak and corrupt. Some of that has to do with all the “wowing” of tribal leaders, many of whom are strong and corrupt.

She writes that Obama “finally confronted Karzai in a phone call about his frequent complaints over civilian casualties at the hands of coalition forces and air raids.” Which tells you something less than pleasant about Obama: he not only “confronted” Karzai over his oh so unreasonable objections to the killing of innocent Afghan civilians, but evidently leaked the fact to the press, thinking that standing tall for America’s right to bomb civilians made him look manly and presidential (or should I say preznidenshul?). I’d give a lot to see the transcript of that conversation.

Children in the news

A Brazilian girl 9 years old, pregnant with twins, no less, after being raped by her stepfather, has had an abortion. The Catholic Church says she shouldn’t have.

NYT: “Seven police officers here [Chicago] will be disciplined for failing to detect a 14-year-old boy’s impersonation of a police officer for five hours, including driving a patrol car and pulling a suspect’s arm behind his back so officers could handcuff him.”

Bogollagama v. Butts. Two names enter, one name leaves.

Name of the Day: White House deputy counsel Cassandra Q. Butts.

It’s the Q that really makes it work, really ties the whole name together.

No, I don’t know what it stands for.

Pakistan has sprung into action in response to the terrorist attack on Sri Lanka’s cricket team, creating a task force to figure out how to blame India. It also offered a reward of $125,000, which some would say is rather low for an attack which wounded 6 team members, killed 6 cops and 1 (or 2) civilians, damaged the reputation of Pakistan and threatened to make something about cricket interesting. But it’s nice to know that the US dollar is still the currency of choice for bounties.

Oh dear, that story has brought up a second Name of the Day: Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama.

But there can be only one, so

poll by twiigs.com