Dec 16 2008
Will All Gore attend? Gmoke over at Daily Kos writes about what Gore has publicly advocated, and folks are taking him up on it, Civil Disobedience Against Coal – March 2, 2009. Read the email from Bill McKibbon — it’s one of the best I’ve seen when it comes to understanding the consequences and responsibilities of civil disobedience.
Open thread is open!
Dec 15 2008
The hard times are just begining and 2009 is looking to be worse. States are running out of money to pay unemployment claims. The New York Times reports —
30 States’ Unemployment Funds Running Out
Thirty states are at risk of having the funds that pay out unemployment benefits become insolvent over the next few months, according to the National Association of State Workforce Agencies. Funds in two states, Indiana and Michigan, have already dried up, and both states are borrowing from the federal government to make payments to the unemployed…
It is recommended that states keep at least one year of peak-level benefits in their trusts, but many have not, and already some states are far worse off than others.
The situation puts states, many of them facing huge deficits, in an even tighter vise. As more people lose their jobs, the revenue base that the benefits are drawn from shrinks, making it harder to pay claims. Adding to that burden is that states will eventually have to pay back what they borrow…
States that come up short have the option of borrowing from the federal government, but if the loan is not paid back within the federal fiscal year, 4.7 percent interest is accrued, which cuts into states’ general funds…
As such, they are then forced to raise taxes or cut services, or both.
We’ve created this mess by having low taxes in good times and not saving for bad times.
Four at Four continues with an update from Iraq, Obama and the left, and All aboard Obama.
Dec 15 2008
Dec 15 2008
My oh my, what an interesting week, and I don’t mean that in a good way. From our trade deficit to our automakers on the brink of joining our domestic consumer electronics firms, things aren’t looking all that swell. The latest indicators are showing, at least for November, what has been on everyone’s mind, the economy. Some are saying, though that things will pick up, that the recession began a year ago and we’ll come through it by 2009. We’ll see, when the average worker is able to stop worrying not just about making rent or that mortgage payment, but also putting food on the table, then I’ll agree. Globally, like the United States, things for now look dim. And like I said, the figures show it…which leads us to the Numbers!
Dec 15 2008
But at least no one is throwing shoes at me. To the best of my recollection.
This epic episode has turned into an odd odyssey. A life passage moment, a kind of passing through a portal, a rebirth thing? Who know when you are in the middle of it. But a bit unusual for sure. And as usual, when things are unusual, the best thing to do is surrender and enjoy the ride. Embrace the bitter, then sit at it’s hoary feet and attempt to learn the lessons it has to teach, secure in the knowledge that these are real, meaningful, lessons. As real as the pain that accompanies them…and as real as the fact that if you don’t learn them this time….they will come back to teach you again.
People are winging wingtips at the wicked witch, the ruling class is openly planning the winter campaign of the class war, the expiration date on 1984 has still yet to pass, denial has become our 51st state, surpassing Palinland in size and the sheep still sleep peacefully in their burning beds. Surrealists and satirists are still out of jobs as the tattered flag of reality blows in the gale force of change, losing more of its once proudly undisputed threads with each passing nanosecond even as the handmaiden seamstresses of what passes for a media and our modern storytellers frantically attempt to weave a new one, unable to admit that they too are fucking clueless, lest they too join the ranks of the dispossessed and foreclosed, even as they are clamored to by a desperate but retreatingly interested populace now only wanly asking wtf.
Who am I to argue? I surrender. And kneel at the feet of the bitter, eating it’s dregs and listening to it’s story, which will at least, be honest. And in the midst of it all manage a wry and knowing smile looking back at the shaft of the spear that is my life even as I stare at the tip and watch it sharply penetrate the future, secure in the knowledge that “when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro,” and pulling on my workboots for the times to come.
Good night Gracie, I will be back soon! For like a kidneystone, this too shall pass. Lest this come off as grim, I am having what could be called fun, though like unto Lawrence of Arabia, it has been observed that I have an unusual definition of fun! See ya soon.
Dec 15 2008
And as the citizenry watched in horrified silence as their emperor strutted his detachment from reality down the street, it was a child who, in her young innocence of political correctness and the social pecking order had the common sense to ask, “Why isn’t the Emperor wearing any clothes?”
At which time all hell broke loose.
Dec 15 2008
I’m getting these questions about Marx, again, over on Big Orange. “You’re against capitalism; are you some kind of marxist?” they ask. To me it doesn’t really matter: either I am a marxist or I’m not a marxist, depending on whether or not the gang affiliation of “being a marxist” means a lot to the person asking the question. But here’s a diary about old Moor, his chicken-scratchings, and his legacy.
OK, so this isn’t going to go away. I wrote a long diary on this last year, but I can see it’s time for another one.
(Reposted from Big Orange (and rewritten a bit) for the viewing pleasure of the Docudharma people)
Dec 15 2008
Always Making Sure
The Rich Get Theirs
While The Middle Class Gets Nothing
Executive Pay Limits May Prove Toothless
Loophole in Bailout Provision Leaves Enforcement in Doubt
By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 15, 2008; Page A01
Congress wanted to guarantee that the $700 billion financial bailout would limit the eye-popping pay of Wall Street executives, so lawmakers included a mechanism for reviewing executive compensation and penalizing firms that break the rules.But at the last minute, the Bush administration insisted on a one-sentence change to the provision, congressional aides said. The change stipulated that the penalty would apply only to firms that received bailout funds by selling troubled assets to the government in an auction, which was the way the Treasury Department had said it planned to use the money.
Face to face with the Taliban
Exclusive report from a Taliban veteran’s compound in Afghanistan and on the battlefield
Ghaith Abdul Ahad in Afghanistan
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 14 December 2008 19.44 GMT
Qomendan Hemmet sat cross-legged under a window of the mud-walled room. His shoulder, sunk in an old military jacket, rested against the wall and a radio antenna stuck out of his pocket. Next to him sat his deputy, wrapped in a big blanket, silent and sleepy. Around the room sat his men, their faces contorted by years of fighting and poverty, dressed in shalwar kameez and magazine pouches, eyes dark as the kohl lining them. Radios crackled, phones rang non-stop, and more fighters came, drank tea and left with orders.“Salar is the new Falluja,” declared Qomendan Hemmet emphatically. “The Americans and the Afghan army control the highway, and five metres on each side. The rest is our territory.
USA
States’ Funds for Jobless Are Drying Up
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Published: December 14, 2008
With unemployment claims reaching their highest levels in decades, states are running out of money to pay benefits, and some are turning to the federal government for loans or increasing taxes on businesses to make the payments.Thirty states are at risk of having the funds that pay out unemployment benefits become insolvent over the next few months, according to the National Association of State Workforce Agencies. Funds in two states, Indiana and Michigan, have already dried up, and both states are borrowing from the federal government to make payments to the unemployed.
Unemployment taxes are collected by states from employers, but the rate varies from state to state per employee. In good times states build up trust funds so that when unemployment is high there is enough money to cover the requests for benefits, which are guaranteed by the federal government.
Dec 15 2008
I saw it on CNN International News last night. George W. Bush and I were both stunned momentarily. Shoes thrown at the outgoing 43rd President of these United States. One shoe as “… a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!” The second shoe from “… the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!”
wOw.
Hitting someone with a shoe is considered the supreme insult in Iraq. It means that the target is even lower than the shoe, which is always on the ground and dirty.
Dec 15 2008
 Muse in the Morning |
State of the Onion XXVII
Art Link Suspended in Blue
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Dec 15 2008
Throwing Shoes: Free Speech Please Join In
With The Free Speech Thing And Not The Throwing Of The Shoes
Ned’s Atomic Dustbin – Kill Your Television
Just In Time For That New Media
