Fierce Planet

May 07, 2008

McSame Old Thing

McCain vows to name more 'Alitos' and 'Robertses'

WASHINGTON — John McCain sought to burnish his conservative credentials Tuesday with a broadside against "the common and systematic abuse of our federal courts by the people we entrust with judicial power" and a promise of "better judges" in the mold of Supreme Court Justices John G. Roberts and Samuel Alito.

Do you want more Alitos on the court? I sure don't.

Posted by jnfr at 09:04 AM | Comments (0)

May 06, 2008

Show Me the Legislation!

I keep out of the primary fights for the most part. At this point I could not be more of a Yellow Dog Democrat — I'll vote for anyone to get the Republicans out of power, to keep them from further trashing this country.

But I have to say one thing about this gas tax kerfluffle. Both Clinton and McCain are currently Senators, and for all that they are going on about a summer gas tax holiday, neither of them has actually introduced any legislation to that effect. And as long as they don't introduce legislation, actual words on paper entered into the record that we can look at and analyze, then it's all hot air and pandering.

Now I don't think such a bill has any chance of being passed, but if these two are serious then they ought to have some legislation in process, at least to try and pass it. The fact that neither one has bothered gives the lie to all their talk.

UPDATE: Here it is. John Cole found it. No text available yet, but at least she's put it up.

UPDATE: And here is MCCain's version. Both are currently in the Senate Finance committee.

Posted by jnfr at 08:54 AM | Comments (0)

May 05, 2008

Economic Inequality

It's not just in the U.S., and it's worse than you think. Read this Washington Post article on the superrich of the world. They're not like you and me.

Today, the world's more than 1,100 billionaires have a net worth that's roughly double that of the bottom 2.5 billion people on the planet. The richest 10 percent of adults worldwide own 85 percent of global wealth, while the poorest half only barely one percent. The world's almost 10 million millionaires have seen their wealth double to nearly $37 trillion over the past 10 years.

Posted by jnfr at 12:10 PM | Comments (0)

May 01, 2008

Codpiece Day

It's a sad occasion really, thinking back on the last five years of death, destruction, waste, incompetence and media collusion.

Yes, that's quite a package.

Posted by jnfr at 01:54 PM | Comments (0)

April 30, 2008

McCain and Bush - Out of Touch

This video says it all.

Posted by jnfr at 10:16 AM | Comments (0)

April 29, 2008

McCain's Endless War

Is this what you want in Iraq? Not me.

Posted by jnfr at 07:16 AM | Comments (0)

April 25, 2008

Random Friday

For all you Warcrack addicts out there, an oldie but a goodie.

Posted by jnfr at 03:10 PM | Comments (0)

April 24, 2008

Numbers, numbers

I was curious about the voting totals for Clinton and Obama, since Clinton has been declaring that she's won the most votes cast so far. So I once again ran to the USA Today Election Results page, and tossed a bunch of things in my spreadsheet.

It really is remarkable how close these two candidates are. I'm going to lay out the percentages to each candidate below, along with the "other" percentage. There's something interesting here.

	Clinton	Obama	Other

Total w/o FL or MI	47.4	49.2	3.4
Total w/FL only	47.5	48.3	4.2
Total w/FL & MI	47.7	47.3	5.0

I didn't muck around with leaving out caucuses or any of that silly stuff the Clinton campaign is doing. Obama leads in the "legal" count, which excludes FL and MI. Obama leads with FL in, where at least his name was on the ballot. Only when you add in MI as well, where Clinton was the only name on the ballot, does she eke out a slight lead.

In all cases the "Other" vote is larger than the difference between the candidates' vote totals. And as you add in the two "extra-legal" states, the "Other" vote gets larger and larger, especially when it comes to adding in MI, of course, which went nearly 45% "Undecided".

If you compare the "Other" vote, which includes undecideds, to the difference in vote totals between the two candidates, you find that in the first, legal case, there are still almost twice as many "Other" votes as the difference in vote totals between the two candidates. Adding in FL, it becomes almost six times as many "Other" votes, as the difference between the vote totals. And by adding in MI, you finally get the "Other" count to nearly 15 times the difference between the two candidates' vote totals.

I personally think the only vote total that matters is the legal vote total under the party rules that all candidates agreed to. I know this sucks, especially for Florida, but there it is. Once you start adding in the two states that voted outside the rules, the level of uncertainty rises to a point where Hillary's claims of being ahead in the popular vote just doesn't hold water.

Posted by jnfr at 02:54 PM | Comments (0)

April 23, 2008

Food Shortages?

Some disturbing stories:

Costco CEO: demand rises for rice, flour

Costco Wholesale Corp, the No. 1 warehouse club operator, has seen increased demand for items like rice and flour as customers, worried about global food shortages, stock up, its chief executive said in an interview on Tuesday.

James Sinegal, the CEO, told Reuters the retailer had seen a spike in demand in the past week and a half, and some stores, including locations in California's Bay Area, had limited quantities. "There's been an increase in purchasing, but we think it's manageable. At the moment, we think we have it relatively under control," he said....

"Relatively" under control. That's good to know. How about this?

Wal-Mart's Sam's Club limits rice purchases

Sam's Club warehouse division said on Wednesday it is limiting sales of several types of rice, the latest sign that fears of a rice shortage are rippling around the world.

Sam's Club, the No. 2 U.S. warehouse club operator, said it is limiting sales of Jasmine, Basmati and long grain white rice "due to recent supply and demand trends."...

Hmmm.... But wait, there's more...

Bakers feeling pinch of short supplies

Already feeling the pinch from soaring wheat and flour prices, U.S. bakers are now beginning to experience some supply shortages.

Rye flour stocks have been depleted in the United States, and by June or July there will be no more U.S. rye flour to purchase...

That's in the U.S., where we aren't used to shortages of this kind but where most of us can manage, even with short stocks and rising prices. In other, less wealthy places around the globe, there are food riots happening now, some of them bloody.

The soaring cost of food

..."A wave of food-price inflation is moving through the world, leaving riots and shaken governments in its wake," says the Economist.

Demonstrations over the prices of rice are occurring all over Asia and food riots in Haiti claimed the lives of six people earlier this week....

Some of it driven by drought...

A Drought in Australia, a Global Shortage of Rice

...The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere, once processed enough grain to meet the needs of 20 million people around the world. But six long years of drought have taken a toll, reducing Australia’s rice crop by 98 percent and leading to the mothballing of the mill last December.

Ten thousand miles separate the mill’s hushed rows of oversized silos and sheds — beige, gray and now empty — from the riotous streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, but a widening global crisis unites them.

The collapse of Australia’s rice production is one of several factors contributing to a doubling of rice prices in the last three months — increases that have led the world’s largest exporters to restrict exports severely, spurred panicked hoarding in Hong Kong and the Philippines, and set off violent protests in countries including Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Italy, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, the Philippines, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Yemen....

Nervous yet? I am.

Posted by jnfr at 12:39 PM | Comments (0)

April 22, 2008

Voting Today?

Tell your story. Did you have a problem voting? VoterStory is collecting the experiences of any and all voters. VoterStory works to protect voter rights, and you can use the form below to submit your story.

Also, you can call to find your polling place!

Posted by jnfr at 07:14 AM | Comments (0)

April 21, 2008

He's Not Anti-Anything!

When Stephanopoulous asked McCain about his endorsement by Paster John Hagee, McCain denounced his anti-Catholic bigotry, then said:

MCCAIN: I’m glad to have his endorsement. I condemn remarks that are, in any way, viewed as anti-anything. But thanks for asking.

Deep thoughts from John McCain. He also said that he appreciately Hagee's strong support for the state of Israel. Georgie didn't ask him about Hagee's millenialist fantasies, and how McCain could "appreciate" someone who wants Israel to exist so that it can be destroyed in the end times.

Such a tough questioner, our Georgie.

Posted by jnfr at 08:47 AM | Comments (0)

April 19, 2008

What Interests Voters?

One Philadelphia paper dared to ask. Here's what they found.

Posted by jnfr at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)

April 18, 2008

EdWords

Damn, it was good to see John again. The longer this primary season goes on, the more I miss him.

Posted by jnfr at 08:05 AM | Comments (0)

April 17, 2008

"The Clear Loser Is ABC"

Tom Shales speaks for me. Although really, we are all losers when these sorts of stupid trivialities are the only things the moderators care about.

When Barack Obama met Hillary Clinton for another televised Democratic candidates' debate last night, it was more than a step forward in the 2008 presidential election. It was another step downward for network news -- in particular ABC News, which hosted the debate from Philadelphia and whose usually dependable anchors, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, turned in shoddy, despicable performances.

For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with.

Emphasis added.

UPDATE: Greenwald analyzes the press responses and concludes:

Let the David Brooks, Roger Simons and Marc Ambinders band together and self-righteously defend this trash. As always, it's vital to remember that they don't actually speak for anyone other than the discredited journalist class of which they're members.

Posted by jnfr at 07:36 AM | Comments (0)

April 16, 2008

Condoleeza Rice

Torturer.

"Torture, and conspiracy to commit torture are crimes under U.S. law, wherever they occur in the world."

Posted by jnfr at 02:25 PM | Comments (0)

April 15, 2008

Random

I'm swamped with no time to post, so here's a cat playing a theramin. (Hey, at least it's not about the stupid primary!)

Posted by jnfr at 01:35 PM | Comments (0)

April 14, 2008

Not a Particularly Deep Thought

But really, this primary season is making nearly everyone I know act like a crazy person.

Posted by jnfr at 10:15 AM | Comments (0)

April 10, 2008

Iraq Me, Dave Petraeus

I find the Petraeus/Crocker hearings so infuriating, so pointless, that I can only turn to Jon Stewart to make sense of it all.

Posted by jnfr at 04:30 PM | Comments (0)

April 09, 2008

"Overutilized and misconfigured"

Which is exactly what we were saying at the time. Now the FBI makes it official.

FBI probe: Lieberman campaign to blame for crashing own Web site

A federal investigation has concluded that U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman's 2006 re-election campaign was to blame for the crash of its Web site the day before Connecticut's heated Aug. 8 Democratic primary.

The FBI office in New Haven found no evidence supporting the Lieberman campaign's allegations that supporters of primary challenger Ned Lamont of Greenwich were to blame for the Web site crash.

Lieberman, who was fighting for his political life against the anti-Iraq war candidate Lamont, implied that joe2006.com was hacked by Lamont supporters.

"The server that hosted the joe2006.com Web site failed because it was overutilized and misconfigured. There was no evidence of (an) attack," according to the e-mail.

Emphasis added.

Posted by jnfr at 10:25 AM | Comments (0)

April 07, 2008

He's Delightful!

John McCain, such a charmer.

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain's intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, "You're getting a little thin up there." McCain's face reddened, and he responded, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.

Anecdote from Cliff Schecter's new book on McCain.

Posted by jnfr at 12:35 PM | Comments (0)

April 02, 2008

Wal-mart Relents

Keith wins.

Brain-damaged former employee can keep money

A former Wal-Mart employee who suffered severe brain damage in a traffic accident won't have to pay back the company for the cost of her medical care, Wal-Mart told the family Tuesday....

"We wanted you to know that Wal-Mart will not seek any reimbursement for the money already spent on Ms. Shank's care, and we will work with you to ensure the remaining amounts in the trust can be used for her ongoing care," Curran said.

"We are sorry for any additional stress this uncertainty has placed on you and your family."

Wal-Mart's reversal came as shock to Shank....