Ideas Differ, we Just Aren't Sure How

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=151537&f=19

I got caught up in the sexy headline, thinking 'wait, is someone going to finally inform people about the different policy rather than just whether it gives someone a 1 point bump in polls or whether voters care about things'. I was wrong.

The obvious thing to do would to explain each plan, then explain how they differ and are similar. Maybe even a little commentary from a few folks with some non partisan experience in the issues.

Instead we get a bunch of misdirection and partisanship. First, the article only includes quotes commenting on the plans from conservative partisans (McCain, Paulson, and Cato), which is an absolute travesty. When people talk about media bias this kind of crap is what needs to be front and center.

Second, the piece is completely muddled because the author seems trapped in a giant vortex of ideology and reality. The Democrats have the big government plan for wanting to provide $30b in support to home owners but actually McCain supports giving investment banks $400b in near free loans. Dems want to increase regulation but maybe that's what's needed but the President is proposing new rules next week (but actually he wants to stream line - ie cut back - regulation). Plus the Dems have a plan to keep people in their homes while making the owner and lender split the loss over the long term but McCain and Bush don't like that and call it dirty names.

A simpler story would have been just to note that the economy has to soak up a few hundred billion in losses. McCain thinks it should fall on 2 million home owners first, tax payers second, and billionaire bankers whose lobbyists run his campaign last. Clinton and obama think it should fall on billionaire bankers first, people with bad mortgages second, and the tax payer last.

Welcome to the jungle

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=151295&f=19

This extended piece on arms dealing is well worth the time.

Keep in mind that the company profiled is just one of many shady companies with a multi million dollar contract and license to trade in weapons. Each one has its own details, but the shape is almost always the same: one or two man show with ties to the old country get a contract to provide Soviet weapons at American price levels, no questions asked.

Also, given that it is a government (Albania) giving them to a private firm giving them to another government (us) I am not sure why we need the private sector. I am sure the margin between the $22 per 1000 he paid and what we paid - probably no less than $60 - could easily pay for a couple DoD bodies to check if the ammo was older than my mother before dropping a few hundred million.

Keep your hands off my cookie

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=151038&f=19

http://mobile.washingtonpost.com/detail.jsp?key=208821&rc=to&p=1&all=1

Not totally sure what to make of it, but I found it interesting that on the same day you had a Federal appeals court ruling that a New York law requiring airlines to provide water for passengers stuck on the tarmac for more than 3 hours unfairly impedes the FAA's ability to regulate the industry but the supreme court ruled that neither the President or Congress have the power via the icj to make texas review a death penalty case where a foreign national's rights were clearly violated.

Is this just a fluke or does the past 25 years of growing conservative jurisprudence really come down to 'you don't tell me who not to kill and I promise not to regulate when Washington gets too complacent'?

Just Like Us

Apparently the stuffy Brits at the Economist are trying to moderate what little shame they have for the 19th century by dubbing china the 'new colonialists'.

In an article full of inuendo and 'some say' modifiers, the most striking thing isn't how much of what is said parallels the colonial era, but rather how the charges thrown China's way apply to the modern day Anglo alliance.

'China is coddling dictators, despoiling poor countries, and undermining westen efforts to spread democracy and prosperity.'

Yet you could just as easily have started with America and gotten a robust slate of examples - Saudi Arabia and Egypt; west Africa and central America; and Russia, the entire arab world, and Ethiopia.

The difference is that we 'won' the resources of Africa and south America by propping up local dictators and encouraging civil wars so that we could take them an near 0 costs. Today we are 'losing' those places because we have yet to fully adapt to the notion that the emerging democracy on those continents means we will have to pay for them. While the US continues to undercut trade negotiations, cut and tighten aid budgets (save sexy issues like HIV, micro finance, and malaria - only the last of which has any potential for big benefits at a national level), and strong arm leaders to back the 'war on terror', china is building bridges (literally), floating massive loans, and planting cell phone towers.

Will we 'win' or 'lose'. The truth is it is less about that than whether some will succeed in creating a 21st boogie man for paccom, Lockheed, and the cia to battle.

'To An Athlete Dying Young'

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080312

Just read it.

Check (but what's the point)

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article;jsessionid=E6E5E9B1A6296713E7525240559711EE.w5?a=147503&f=20

One of the most annoying things in chess is when an opponent with their back against the wall starts checking you incessantly and pointlessly solely to stave off the innevitable defeat. More than a few players lose their cool, do something stupid, and let the other person back in the game. But 95% of the time it is just a signal they have thrown in the towel and are just stalling.

That is sort of how I feel about the surge, Awakening councils (could something with such a stupid name ever work), the benchmarks, the baghdad separation wall, etc. Gimmicks that force the participants in the Iraq civil war to step back for a few months, regroup, then keep moving towards check mate. So long as we are a player in the game things won't get better.

The Gerson Files

---In honor of mike gerson's ridiculous piece on obama today I am starting my own fictional tour of president McCain's zany adventures. If anyone is listening, enjoy. ---

For McCain, leadership is not something you can use against him. I mean, he was tortured 30 years ago.

But let's do a little thought experiment. Imagine 60 days into his presidency he leaves for Iraq. Unannounced and in the middle of the night he arrives in bagdad and choppers to his favorite local market. In darkness and, surrounded by a combat brigade, announces to the media 'look at the surges success. I mean 2 years ago I wouldn't have been able to just walk around like this. But we need more markets open, so I am announcing we are going to send two more battallions and extend the surge until the mission is accomplished. If that's 5, 10, or 100 years it doesn't matter.'

The next day the local paper outside Fort Hood carries the headline 'President Promises More Reinforcements to Iraq'. The story includes quotes from numerous high ranking officers about how the military is on the brink of breaking, and how this will mean even longer tours and less time home for those fighting. Buried deeper in the paper is a story of a returned soldier whose ptsd claim had been denied, was told he was being sent back, and had then committed suicide. This one will not make the national news.

The president then returns to the Green Zone and summons the leaders of the major political parties to meet him in Saddams old palace.

Those dependent on US supplied weapons show up. At the head of the table the president thunders 'you need to fix your country. Now cut the bullshit!' The assembled politicians look at each other slightly confused and perturbed. 'I don't know what your problem is' he continues 'but get over it!'

He gets up and abruptly leaves. At the door he stops, turns, and adds 'I know what leadership is. If you cannot make the hard choices and lead your country I will find someone else who can.'. He then walks out and is out of Iraqi airspace within two hours.

The next day the major papers thunder in applause. 'Tough talk' is the buzz word. In Iraq the story is the huge insult that has been handed their leaders. Over the next month the political process collapses. Inter and intra party violence spikes dramatically as iraqi's jostle for position. And cooperation with the Americans sky rockets as everyone jocky's to become the 'one who can.'

Hit and run

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article;jsessionid=43382C1BA69209F248F31B8AE23709DC.w5?a=145497&f=21

In this Times article about how Democrats allegedly lack a plan for dealing with Medicare they apparently forgot the link to John McCains plan. Oh wait, he doesn't have one...

The Gaza Two Step

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article;jsessionid=43382C1BA69209F248F31B8AE23709DC.w5?a=145481&f=19

I applaud todays article on the growing crisis in Israel and the occupied territories for trying to take a strategic look at the problem rather than just rehashing the same tied rhetoric. The analysis for the most part is great and it is definitely worth a read.

My main comment is that the lack of good options isn'tjust because we do not talk to hamas (which no matter how many times we call them terrorists is still a party that was elected to lead Palestine in free elections). It is because we continue to willfully pretend we do not know how negotiations work.

Hamas has clearly signaled over the years they are willing to live peacefully along side Israel. They have never engaged in anything more than small scale attacks aimed at maximizing public fear. They have repeatedly offered to negotiate cease fires the past two years. And, they have never crossed any of the clear bright lines that would trigger an all out regional war (which is the only way they could hope to affect Israels destruction).

But those positions are all part of a negotiating stance. The main Palestinian complaint about the PLO was that they basically traded those positions away for what has amounted to almost nothing given the subsequent collapse of the Oslo process. To think hamas is going to just hand Israel the important legitimacy that would flow from recognition and the huge advantage Israel would gain from taking away the one tactic the Palestinians have - violence - just for the chance to negotiate again is naïve. Or else rather insidious.

The reality is that for reasons beyond my understanding the US has no interest in fostering a settlement. And that is too bad because every day the Israelis wait weakens their bargaining position, not the Palestinians.