SO I’M GETTING SPAMMED from a dating site called Mate1.com, which I had never heard of. Do they spam like this in general, or has some joker set up a fake account in my name?
If it’s the latter, well, sorry to disappoint you, ladies, but while I may be hyper-masculine, I’m not in the least bit available . . . .
PRESSURING RAHM EMANUEL TO RESIGN? But then who in the White House will stand up to Reid and Pelosi?
LOTS OF big electronics markdowns.
OUCH: Illinois Attorney General Gets a Grade of “C-“. “Is the Attorney General really suggesting that the Illinois Supreme Court should reach a conclusion to strip the elected Governor of the State of his executive powers because his political opponents think it would be best? Can’t the State’s chief legal officer come up with something better? . . . What is most shocking about the AG’s papers is that I expected so much more. Some case authority. Something other than strained arguments based on the dictionary. Something more high-brow than quoting Barack Obama and Harry Reid. The AG may end up winning this case, but not on the strength of her papers. C-”
I’d say it’s more a question of whether the fix is in. But maybe I’m too cynical about Illinois justice.
UPDATE: Bill Quick thinks the fix is in. But he’s such a cynic.
A SHOCKING FAILURE OF DIVERSITY: No Southerners yet in Obama Cabinet.
VIDEO: Bush with troops in Iraq.
PRAISE FOR GOOD journalistic citizenship at the Chicago Tribune.
BLACK AND WHITE AND dead all over.
SURPRISE! Bush visits Afghanistan. “The rally for over a thousand military personnel took place in the dark, cold predawn hours — it was about 5:30 a.m. local time when the president strode into the hangar to loud cheers.”
A BUNCH OF jewelry on sale, at Amazon.
MORE BIG-MEDIA RETRENCHMENT: Denver Post owner seeks to slash expenses by $20 million.
SOME VERY COOL family-photoblogging from Melissa Schwartz.
JOHN TIERNEY: “If we want our children to be scientifically literate and get good jobs in the future, why are we spending precious hours in school teaching them to be garbage collectors? That’s the question that occurred to me after reading about the second-graders in West Virginia who fought for the right to keep recycling trash even after it became so uneconomical that public officials tried to stop the program. As my colleague Kate Galbraith reports, their teacher was proud of them for all the time they spent campaigning to keep the recycling program alive. . . . I’ve always thought of recycling as essentially a religious sacrament –a fine activity if pursued voluntarily, but not something that should be mandated or taught in public schools.”
SOME HOLIDAY party-food recipes. I used to make hummus a lot, and this reminds me that I haven’t whipped up any in a while.
Of course, there’s always the delicious bacon-and-cheese roll. It’s got bacon!
UPDATE: Via Bob McManus, a link to delicious bacon rice-krispie treats. With bacon!
A HOME STATE PAPER ON Chris Dodd’s “Inept Handling of Conflcts.”
For the first time in his Senate career, Christopher J. Dodd, the senior Democratic senator from Connecticut, is politically vulnerable. In part, that’s because both the Senate Ethics Committee and the Public Integrity unit of the Justice Department are looking into mortgage loans he got from Countrywide Financial.
The Justice Department investigation is broader. It seeks details not just of Dodd’s loans but also of other loans made under Countrywide’s VIP program meant to seek better loan terms for FOAs (Friends Of Angelo, a reference to then-Countrywide company Chairman Angelo Mozillo). NBC news has reported that the program made mortgage loans to a variety of politically powerful Washington insiders over a number of years.
Plus this:
The always voluble Sen. Dodd is uncharacteristically silent about his failure to call attention to what was the increasingly reckless lending practices of the banking industry.
A key figure in this scandal, Countrywide Financial, saw its low-income loan portfolio grow from $1 billion in 1992 to $80 billion in 1999, and to $600 billion in 2003. This was a result of a revision of lending regulations made in 1995 that effectively eliminated traditional income and down-payment requirements to encourage wider home ownership, particularly among minorities. In effect, it was an affirmative action program for the loan business.
The senator did pay attention to Countrywide Financial and to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since he received more than $700,000 in loans at below-market rates from Countrywide. Fannie and Freddie also provided $165,400 in political contributions to Sen. Dodd, making him the No. 1 recipient of such funds, ahead of Barack Obama at No. 2 with $126,349.
Ouch. Plus, an Open Letter to Chris Dodd:
It was so amusing when congressmen — many with good haircuts by the way — pressed the Big Three honchos about the way they travel, the hotels they stay in and the places where they eat.
Those are questions that need to be asked of guys who hire folks who carry lunchbuckets to work rather than wear Guccis.
Speaking of expensive clothes, I’m noticed that you were in such a hurry to give $700 billion to the Wall Street guys that you didn’t ask any of them to step down.
But really, no one would expect you to make that demand of your friends. I mean, you are a “Friend of Angelo,” which means you got low-interest, no-points loans for a $500,000 refinancing on your Washington, D.C., townhouse and a $250,000 refinancing on your Connecticut home.
The cheap loans came from Countrywide, and some sticklers think that was a violation of federal law. But you said you got the good deals because you were a good client and not because you are chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.
To be honest, even the New York Times didn’t buy that.
Ouch.
KEITH OLBERMANN spotted in Iraq. “Some Iraqi journalists stood up to apologise.”
UPDATE: Roger Simon: “But more importantly and more apposite to today’s event was that other, oft forgotten, reason Bush went to war in Iraq – that the only way to bring true peace to the Middle East would be through democracy. He wanted to spread the democratic system preemptively. A lot of people have sneered at that idea lately, but while they were sneering Iraq has inched forward toward a democracy. It’s even turning into a (somewhat) decent place to live. That buffoon-like shoe chucker – his name is Muntazer al-Zaidi from Al-Baghdadia channel which broadcasts from Cairo – proved it. No matter what happens to al-Zaidi now (and it won’t be much if anything), it will be nothing like what would have happened to him if he had hurled a shoe at the president during the previous Iraqi administration of Saddam Hussein.”
PHYLLIS CHESLER: President-elect Obama: Are We Our African Sisters’ Keepers?
BELDAR PREDICTS: Blagojevich won’t be impeached until convicted in court. That would be bad news for Obama, if so.
UPDATE: Bad reviews for A.G. Lisa Madigan: “The legal argument in the brief is embarrassingly inadequate.”
THOUGHTS ON failed states, cholera, and “preventive action.”
INTERNET ATTENTION SPAN: 40 Inspirational Speeches in Two Minutes.
IS THE G.O.P. on the comeback trail?
A DAMNING COMMENT ON OUR POLITICAL DISCOURSE:
“The single best thing about the election of Obama,” he says, “may be that we now have a chance to view the terror threat without the distorting lens of Bush hatred.”
Indeed.
NEW JOBS IN Solar Power. I’d install a solar system if I could get a good deal. I wish Elon Musk’s Solar City were operating in my area. Not only would solar save me some money, but it would substitute for the backup generator I’ve been meaning to get.
UPDATE: Dan Cleary sends this link to a story about a new solar factory in Tennessee.
THE END OF OBJECTIVITY AT GOOGLE? “Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears in its search results. It’s a historic statement – and nobody has yet grasped its significance. . . . None of this would matter, if it wasn’t for one other trend: a paralysing loss of confidence in media companies.”
UPDATE: A reader emails:
I work at Google, so naturally this was of great surprise and interest to me. Two thoughts:
1) Notice the article does not link or even quote anyone from Google saying that its staff will make selections.
2) I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the various tech publications, but the Register is known as trash to basically everyone. Read with caution.
If Google disavows this, I’ll certainly post on that.
IS ILLINOIS REALLY the most corrupt state? I’d say that depends on whether the District of Columbia counts as a state. . . .
DRIVING THE FORD FUSION HYBRID and getting 43.1 mpg on the streets of L.A.
L.A. TIMES: Pressure builds on Obama to release his Blagojevich contacts.
UPDATE: Obama’s Bert Lance? Not sure that quite fits.
JULES CRITTENDEN ON BUSH’S VICTORY LAP: “Mission Accomplished? Well, since you ask, yes. Just like last time, when the mission of knocking out Saddam was accomplished. Don’t believe me, just ask Obama. Or his guy Gates.”
A KRUGMAN-CORKER car calumny.
UPDATE: Related thoughts from Megan McArdle.
SOME MEDIA ATTENTION for my colleague Jeff Hirsch.
JOE BIDEN: “I will work less.” Apparently, the Obama-Biden Administration is taking my advice!
STILL MORE ON CHRIS DODD:
The most preposterous of the many competing for that title is the requirement that the automakers develop plans to revive their companies and present them in March. That’s three months away. Consider this: It’s been six months since Sen. Christopher Dodd, one of the authors of this fiction bill, pledged to release the approximately 100 pages of documents related to his sweetheart mortgages with Countrywide Financial.
Dodd’s woven many tales of why he can’t, won’t or doesn’t need to and never intended to release the documents from deals that will save him tens of thousands of dollars over the terms of the mortgages. The favors Dodd accepted from Countrywide sparked a Senate ethics investigation and may be part of a federal criminal probe into Countrywide’s furtive, sustained campaign for influence in Washington.
Read the whole thing.
EVEN CHICAGO’S CROOKS are appalled by Blagojevich.
ILYA SOMIN on Why We Don’t Need World Government to Solve Global Problems. Certainly a global government that looked like the United Nations wouldn’t be likely to solve many problems, though it would be a boon for graft.
VICTORY LAP? Bush is in Iraq.
YOU DON’T SAY: Democrats’ Scandals Play Into GOP Hands. “Two years ago, it was the Democrats who were pounding congressional Republicans for a string of lobbying, legislative-payoff and sex scandals, but now it’s the Democrats and President-elect Obama who are on the defensive a little more than one month before they are to take charge of the government and strengthen their grip on Congress.”
AMY ALKON: Hooking up is no tragedy. That’s certainly how I felt.
ASSOCIATED PRESS: “President-elect Barack Obama, relatively young and inexperienced, is facing a rapidly growing list of monumental challenges as he prepares to take the reins of a nation in turmoil.”
He’s young and inexperienced? Now they tell me. I thought he was fresh and dynamic!
MORE ON THOSE UNDERFUNDED / OVERGENEROUS PUBLIC PENSIONS: As City Goes Broke, One Expense Is Safe:
Here in New York, the hostages go by different names, but serve the same function. They turn up without fail whenever the city is running short of money: library hours, firehouses, police officers, class sizes, day care centers, garbage pickup, health clinics. As perennial hostages to budget-making, these basic services, public servants and municipal buildings are captive to the current fiscal crisis.
Not so for the fastest-growing expense in the city since 2000: pension funds.
“The city’s payments to the pension plans have grown at 25 percent annually since fiscal year 2001,” said Martin Davis, a labor and pension analyst with the city’s Independent Budget Office.
In 2000, city taxpayers contributed $615 million. By June 2008, the amount had climbed to $5.6 billion. With investment losses over the last year or so, the public costs are sure to rise again. The value of city pensions is protected under the State Constitution, a trust between employer and worker; once employees enter the system, their benefits cannot be reduced. But they can be increased, and have soared, thanks to State Legislatures and governors keen to curry favor with large unions. . . .
So what began as a reward for taking a risk has become a guaranteed payment. On Monday, in the second year of a stock market slide, checks for about $12,000 will be put in the mail to thousands of retirees — many of whom have long since left New York for states with warmer climates and lower taxes.
If the taxpayers are smart, they’ll do the same thing . . . .
MORE GOOD PUBLICITY FOR THE S.E.I.U.:
A nonprofit organization founded by California’s largest union local reported spending nothing on its charitable purpose — to develop housing for low-income workers — during at least two of the four years it has been operating, federal records show.
The charity, launched by a scandal-ridden Los Angeles chapter of the Service Employees International Union, had total expenses of about $165,000 for 2005 and 2006, and all of the money went to consulting fees, insurance costs and other overhead, according to its Internal Revenue Service filings. Charity watchdogs say that nonprofits should never have zero program expenses in two successive years and that well-performing charities direct at least 70% of their annual spending to their charitable purpose. “Of the 5,000-plus charities we’ve looked at, I don’t think we’ve ever seen one that didn’t spend anything on its charitable programs,” said Sandra Miniutti, vice president of Charity Navigator, an online rating service.
Nice work, guys!
CAN YOU PUT CAR COMPANIES under the TARP? Why not? Congress is obviously an irrelevant sideshow. Why let any of their votes actually, you know, affect anything?
PROTESTERS CALL for Jesse Jackson, Jr. to resign.
CHRISTMAS DISCOUNTS on gourmet food.
MORE THOUGHTS ON LUNAR PROPERTY RIGHTS, from Ilya Somin. Meanwhile, here’s a paper that Rob Merges and I wrote on the subject a while back.
THE PERFECT GIFT: A subscription to Pajamas TV! Hey, if you don’t like the Legacy Media, put your money where your mouth is and support New Media. . . .
A BUNCH OF bargain toys for Christmas and Hanukah. Lots more toy deals here.
A BLAGOJEVICH ROUNDUP, from Ellen Podgor at the White Collar Crime blog.
RICH KARLGAARD: Turning Around America — A Modest Proposal.
DO MEN FIND ANOREXIA SEXY? Well, some men: “Anyway on a side note, she describes herself as someone who worked in ‘fashion magazines,’ but when you Google her it seems like she was also once on staff at the New York Review Of Books — which is sort of the annoying part: literati dudes actually dig waify anorexic types, in my experience, more than bankers.”
CHRIS DODD UPDATE:
Please consider the following list:
Congressman Barney Frank/Sen. Chris Dodd/ Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox:
These three were given the charge to watch the financial system in America, to make sure Wall Street greed-heads and other pernicious people did not hurt the folks. So tell me, how did they do?
Cox, a former Republican congressman himself, simply did nothing, allowing bad mortgages to be traded like sports cards as he fiddled in his lavish office.
Frank and Dodd, as finance chairmen in the House and Senate respectively, actually promoted irresponsible mortgages in the name of “inclusion” — the liberal concept of giving people stuff if they can’t buy it. Dodd also took a sweetheart mortgage from since-failed Countrywide Financial, which saved him close to $100,000. And Frank publicly said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in “good shape going forward,” just weeks before both government entities collapsed.
Still waiting on those HUD forms from Dodd.
DISHONEST POLITICIANS in Massachusetts:
According to an affidavit, the agents recorded Dianne Wilkerson, a longtime state senator, accepting a $1,000 bribe from a constituent who wanted her help getting a liquor license for a proposed nightclub called Dejavu.
The evidence helped lead to Ms. Wilkerson’s arrest in October on charges of taking more than $23,000 in bribes, and one piece in particular — a photo of the senator appearing to stuff cash up her sweater and into her bra — has become a symbol of broader problems on Beacon Hill. . . . Ms. Wilkerson and the councilor, Charles Turner, were only the latest in a string of public employees charged with corruption here this year, and the arrests have stirred anger among voters and hand-wringing on Beacon Hill. Within days of Ms. Wilkerson’s arrest, Gov. Deval Patrick appointed a “task force on public integrity” that will recommend changes to the state’s ethics and lobbying rules by year’s end. . . .
While the current scandals are not as outsized as the case involving Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois, political observers here say that distrust of government officials has not been so acute in years.
If you don’t trust ’em, then don’t trust ’em with so much of your money. Massachusetts voters had a chance to do something about that in November, but didn’t. I wonder how many are regretting it now?
Meanwhile, the “task force on integrity” response is right out of the book.
SO IS THIS GOOD OR BAD NEWS? Stricter toy regulations claim Selecta as victim.
EMBARRASSING: AG Lisa Madigan’s argument to the Illinois Supreme Court about ousting Governor Blagojevich. Illinois state government is looking like one big clown show.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ASKS: Has the 401(k) failed?
I don’t think 401(k)s have done any worse than defined-benefit plans — those are in terrible shape too, as a bit of poking around at PensionTsunami.com will illustrate — but one advantage of 401(k) plans and the like (including 403(b)s, 457s, SEPs, etc.) is that they’re transparent. When your 401(K) balance drops by 30-40% you know your retirement is in trouble; when public (or corporate) pension funds take a similar hit we get bland reassurances that everything’s okay. Isn’t it better to know where things stand?
Of course, with defined-benefit plans, you can always hit up the taxpayers or shareholders, one way or another, to make things up. But that only goes so far, and there’s reason to think we’re hitting the limits of what can be done that way.
HMM: Senate Democrats Had Enough Republican Votes to Pass the Bailout. Just not enough for political cover, given its unpopularity.
MICHAEL BARONE: Rod Blagojevich, the Stupidest Governor in the Country, Puts Obama in a Bad Light. “I’ve long since come to the conclusion that Rod Blagojevich is clearly the stupidest governor in all of our 50 states, and he may be the stupidest governor I’ve had occasion to write about in the four decades when I’ve been co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.” How did he become Governor? Family connections: “Blagojevich is the son-in-law of 33rd Ward Democratic Committeeman Dick Mell. Ward committeemen are hugely important in Chicago politics: Dan Rostenkowski and his father had been the 32nd ward committeemen from 1935 to 1995; the ward committeemen from the 11th ward since some time in the 1940s have been Richard J. Daley, Richard M. Daley and John Daley; the 13th ward committeeman Bill Lipinski, retiring suddenly from Congress in 2004, was able to get the Democratic nomination for his son Dan Lipinski from a group of ward committeemen despite the fact that Dan Lipinski was a political science professor at the University of Tennessee and hadn’t lived in Chicago for years.”
SO I SUFFER FROM HyperHimboism? It’s a fair cop. And yes, it is Bill Whittle’s fault.
Meanwhile, in response to the question of what to do about endocrine-disrupters, I’d say that if the science suggesting a hazard holds up (right now it’s pretty preliminary), they should be regulated so as to eliminate (or at least reduce substantially) the risk. Mark Kleiman will probably regard this as some sort of huge concession, but that’s based on his rather serious and ongoing misapprehension of what I’m about. As anyone who has read my work on regulation (e.g., this piece) would know, while I’m skeptical of regulation in many cases, I am not, in fact, opposed to all regulation, all the time. That’s a straw man, with a rather crude caricature of my face daubed on. Honestly, when I read Kleiman’s comments about my blog I often wonder what he’s reading in place of InstaPundit. (Here are some related thoughts from Megan McArdle.)
But hey, maybe others see me differently. Maybe I’m hyper-masculine after all! Please weigh in, gentle readers, via this latest Insta-Poll:
MICHAEL GREENSPAN WRITES: “I was reading through old posts (mine, not yours — I’m a big Instapundit fan, but I’m not insane) and found this: ‘It seems to me that the best hope for the Democrats is for Bush to be so successful at foreign affairs and national security that by 2008 nobody cares anymore.'”
Heh. It did kinda work out that way.
ARTHROPODS: Is there anything they can’t do? “Now, I’ve finally gotten Glenn Reynolds and Glenn Close together in one post — with ticks.”
Anyway, I think the linkage between parasites and politics is pretty straightforward . . . .
OOPS: Rahm Emanuel, Blagojevich staff talked.
Meanwhile, Jim Lindgren offers a defense of Obama, Emanuel, et al.
MORE ON THOSE UNDERFUNDED / OVERGENEROUS PUBLIC PENSION FUNDS:
Governor Carcieri has cut the state’s work force to its lowest level in recent memory, leaning heavily on a change in retirement benefits that pushed hundreds of workers into retirement earlier than they had planned.
But the exodus has put an unexpected strain on Rhode Island’s public retirement system.
There are now fewer active employees paying into the pension system and more people collecting retirement payments than had been predicted.
The result is a projected hole of $20.4 million that Rhode Island taxpayers will make up in the coming year. That price tag may be offset by savings this year, but the jump in those collecting pensions also adds $33 million to the retirement system’s already massive unfunded liability, according to a report by the state’s actuary, Texas-based Gabriel Roeder Smith & Company, that was made public yesterday.
The problem is likely to get worse.
CHRIS DODD UPDATE: Senator opens mouth, inserts foot:
Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, suggested on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that Rick Wagoner, the chief executive of GM, “has to move on.”
Where does Dodd get the temerity to make such a proposition in light of his own incompetence and scandal? Dodd is in charge of the committee that could have kept us from entering the current credit crisis. He’s the same man who is in charge of regulating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and is No. 1 on their list of donations. . . .
Dodd also received preferential loans from Countrywide Mortgage Bank, and then said he wasn’t aware that he was getting a “special” deal. How is that possible?
The bottom line is that Dodd received special treatment from a company that he was in charge of regulating and to this day he has refused to release details of those transactions. If Dodd has done no wrong, then why not release the documents and dispel the accusations?
Why, indeed?
WHICH WOULD YOU RATHER HAVE: Internet access or sex?
MICHAEL GREENSPAN on bow-ties and hypermasculinity.
Plus, the downside of hypo-masculinity:
One occupational hazard, she says, is cheap men — guys who want to haggle over the “donation” all night. One particularly odd phenomenon she’s noticed: The men who ask her to use a strap-on on them — guys who want to be pegged — are the cheapest clients. “They always want to negotiate the price or tell me they only have so much,” she says. She shrugs and shakes her head. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s like every time.”
Bummer.
UPDATING Greg Palast.
POTS, KETTLES, and Bill Moyers.
CHARLES DUNLAP, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Talk of the coup of 2012. God, no.
BITES FROM THE APPLE: A roundup of news from the Apple Empire.
MICHAEL YON: On the Front Lines in Afghanistan, Part Two. My favorite part: Lithuanian Special Forces as “sort of a weaponized version of Borat.”
BAILOUT ANGER: “Festering animosity between the United Auto Workers and Southern senators who torpedoed the auto industry bailout bill erupted into full-fledged name calling Friday as union officials accused the lawmakers of trying to break the union on behalf of foreign automakers. . . . Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama all house auto assembly plants from foreign automakers, and union officials contend the senators want to drive UAW wages down so there would be no reason for workers at the foreign plants to join the union.”
GREENHOUSE UPDATE: Czech president hits at EU climate deal. “Czech President Vaclav Klaus hit out at the EU climate deal concluded Friday and described global climate issues as ‘a silly luxury.'”
MICKEY KAUS: “Now that everyone is criticizing work rules, it’s easy to forget that they don’t represent a perversion of the collective bargaining process–they are the intended result of that process, and were once celebrated as such. . . . Sen. Corker’s proposed bailout compromise apparently did try to tackle the issue of work rules. But the UAW balked at the Corker requirements (which would also have cut pay to parity with Toyota and Honda’s U.S. factories) and the deal collapsed. That shouldn’t be a surprise. A ‘web of rules’ is what adversarial Wagner Act unions were designed to produce.”
NOT EXACTLY A TRAGEDY in Illinois. But not exactly a comedy, either.
POSTPONING THE GALA: “Amid an intensified ethics investigation of Representative Charles B. Rangel, an opening reception for a school named in his honor has been postponed. . . . The reception, scheduled for Tuesday evening, would have come a week after a House ethics committee voted to examine the congressman’s role in preserving a tax loophole for an oil drilling company whose chief executive pledged $1 million to the Rangel Center project.”
RANGEL HITS OBAMA CLOSER TO HOME:
It certainly didn’t take long for scandal to rear its ugly head in the new era of Democratic control. Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich saw to that, and in spectacular fashion.
But while most attention is fixed on the Blagojevich scandal — coming as it does in President-elect Barack Obama’s home state and replete as it is with enough tape-recorded talk of peddling a Senate seat, shaking down contributors and blackmailing journalists to make even FBI agents blush — it may not be the most troublesome one for the new president.
His more vexing problem could turn out to be that other, quieter scandal dogging Democrats. That’s the one involving Rep. Charles Rangel, head of the House Ways and Means Committee.
There’s actually more than one scandal, but read the whole thing for the details.
SO IF THE AUTO BAILOUT WAS SO GREAT FOR THE ECONOMY, why did the stock market go up after it failed?
UPDATE: Reader Austin Johnson writes: “I’m not defending the bailout but I work on Wall Street and have to point out how wrong this argument is. If you look at the intraday Dow chart you will notice that it starts off massively negative. It stayed down until the rumors started to percolate through the market that Bush was going to do the bailout anyway. Then the market ticked up.” So the real lesson here is the irrelevance of Congress, I guess . . . .
BARACK OBAMA: Cowboy! (Via Bill Quick).
ANN ALTHOUSE ON Using the courts to oust Blagojevich on the theory that he’s “disabled” from serving as governor. “Given that ‘conviction on impeachment’ is one of the specified reasons for inability to serve, using this procedure as an alternative to the impeachment process looks like an abusive power grab.”
I served on a commission to revise the Tennessee Constitution for gubernatorial disability — summary here — and I agree with Ann Althouse. The way you get rid of a crooked governor is via impeachment. Why play games here? If the case is so obvious, that shouldn’t take long.
UPDATE: Fiscal collateral damage?
ANOTHER UPDATE: Contradictions.
MICHAEL S. MALONE: Could the Internet Have Prevented World War II?
AMAZON PRIME IS on sale for Christmas, letting you get a year of free two-day shipping for $59. I’ve been an Amazon Prime user since it first started and I’ve loved it.
UPDATE: Reader Maggie Goff writes:
You’re the one who got me to try Prime. Amazon sent me a free trial notice on October 18, 2006. It was for 60 days. They’re smart, let me tell you! If it had been only a couple of weeks, or even a month, I wouldn’t have really seen the benefits of it. However, in that TWO month period, (I had always hesitated in ordering an inexpensive item because of shipping charges) I got to experience ordering a $5.99 paperbook for one of my sisters one day, and a $7.00 DVD for one of my brothers, and then a $24.99 heart pendant for my Mom,and a sale audio book for a nephew, etc etc. The really great part is that I could set it up so that the items would automatically go to THEIR addresses, and get there within TWO days, and all I had to do was CLICK ONCE. NO SHIPPING CHARGE. Of course it’s not FREE, but within a short time I’ll use up the $79 fee each year. I recommend it to everyone I know. I love Amazon. The few times I’ve had to deal with customer service, they’ve been terrific. And it’s totally wonderful that you can have them call you at YOUR convenience. You put your number, and the date, and the time you want them to call you on the online form, and by golly THEY DO! You can even put NOW, and within a few seconds the phone is ringing. I can’t say enough about them. Thank you.
I’ve been very happy myself. And reader Kenneth Miles writes: “Thanks for the heads-up about Amazon Prime. At $79 I thought it was a little steep and would just settle for the free 5-7 day shipping. At $20 off the regular price for a year I jumped right on it. Amazon is my favorite place to shop, all my needs are met. It has been fun to watch them grow from a book store to what they are now.”
SO, DO WE BELIEVE IN RAHM EMANUEL’S INNOCENCE, OR NOT? Personally — not that I have any inside knowledge — I doubt that Emanuel has done anything actually wrong. (He may conceivably have done something that might be considered a crime in Fitzgeraldland, but you could say that about pretty much anyone). Emanuel’s smart, as even his critics acknowledge, and surely too smart to get sucked into Blagojevich’s lowbrow deal-making. At least, I’d be surprised to hear otherwise.
JEFFREY KLUGER: Does Obama Want to Ground NASA’s Next Moon Mission?
Some critical thoughts from Rand Simberg. “A Big Sloppy Wet Kiss: That’s what Jeff Kluger gives to NASA and the Bush administration in this Time piece.”
Kluger’s certainly unfair to Lori Garver, who’s handling Obama’s transition on space. She was Executive Director of the National Space Society back when I was what passed for a CEO in that organization, and while we’ve had our disagreements over the years, she’s very smart, she’s very capable, and she knows a lot about NASA and space, and not just from having served as a NASA Associate Administrator. Also, the notion that she doesn’t support manned space is silly. I was just remarking to the Insta-Wife yesterday that I was very happy that Lori Garver was handling space transition matters for Obama, and I doubt he could have found anyone better.
I don’t think Mike Griffin is a bad guy, either — and I think his heart is in the right place — but I don’t think he’s been a success at NASA, and I don’t think that this press offensive is going to help him, or NASA, or the cause of humans in space.
UPDATE: Jerry Pournelle: “I have not seen Lori since the first flight of the DC/X, which is some years ago. She was there as head of the NSS, with a new baby, out in the White Sands high desert, which ought to be some indication of her determination and enthusiasm. She’s a lot more sympathetic to NASA than I am, but I think no government monopolist.” Not enough of a NASA fan for Mike Griffin and Jeffrey Kluger, apparently.
BEWARE OF nanophobia.
EXTRACTING methane hydrates for fuel? Seems risky to me, but I await further data.
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: The real Barack Obama.
LOOKING FOR MORTGAGE-MELTDOWN SCAPEGOATS? Well, good luck with that. Just remember that it’s going to be hard to go after bankers while ignoring problems like Chris Dodd’s mortgage.
POPULAR SCIENCE: Obama clashes with NASA Moon program.
SO THE BACKSEAT DOME LIGHT IN MY CAR was left on the entire time I was in Grand Cayman and, unsurprisingly, it wouldn’t start when I got home. Should I get one of these for next time?
FEEL BETTER ABOUT THE U.S.: Nigerians look at the Blagojevich scandal and are jealous:
“Look at the Governor of the state of Illinois in the United States, Rod Blagojevich. The man who wants to sell Obama’s Senatorial seat to the highest bidder. He is definitely going to jail. The FBI evidence against him is overwhelming”
“The man should have been a Governor in Nigeria. What he has done, trying to cut a deal, and arrange something for himself, is standard and familiar practice in Nigeria. In the 1999 elections, some Godfathers collected money openly from aspirants and supported the highest bidder. In every election, most Nigerian voters support only the highest bidder. In Oyo state, Adedibu practically sold the Governorship seat to Ladoja. When the man refused to pay, he got him kicked out. Ngige also lost his seat because he refused to pay.”
“But the Americans are telling us that you cannot sell elective positions. It is not a cash and carry affair. And that whoever does so, is under the big watchful eyes of Big Brother. Where is the Nigerian equivalent of the FBI?”
“They are busy eating pepper soup and acting as bodyguards and house boys to the same enemies of the state that they are supposed to be watching.”
Not a cash-and-carry affair. Too bad word didn’t reach Chicago . . . .
I THOUGHT IT WAS WRONG TO QUESTION PEOPLE’S PATRIOTISM: Granholm calls vote against bailout “Un-American.”
IT’S A SINISTER LIBERTARIAN PLOT TO DISCREDIT GOVERNMENT: Rod Blagojevich is actually Nick Gillespie.
But getting Dan Rostenkowski of all people to speak out in defense of Chicago politics was surely the masterstroke. Brilliant!
THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN: “David Cole, a longtime, trenchant critic of the Bush administration’s war-on-terror tactics, defends preventive detention, albeit with due process protections and other limitations. . . . For Cole, preventive detention is justified because the conflict with Al Qaeda is war-like enough to bring into play traditional military detention rules; more process—lawyers love process!—is needed because of the differences between this conflict and traditional war. I don’t know whether Cole has changed his mind or has always believed that the Bush administration’s basic approach was right but just went too far.”
THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS GIFT: A subscription to Pajamas TV at a discount price. Improve your mind (or someone else’s) and support alternative media, all at once!
MORE ON HOLLYWOOD AND CHE GUEVARA: “Aye caramba. Yes, the real lesson to be drawn from a man who oversaw summary executions and ran Cuba’s economy 20,000 leagues under the sea is that profits and capitalism are evil.”
TOM MAGUIRE on Rahm Emanuel: “My guess – Rahm didn’t play ball but he didn’t call the coppers, either, which leaves him in an ethically gray area.” I expect we’ll find out.