Forerunner of the Republican Plan for America

"Clashes have been breaking out among Egyptians waiting in long lines for subsidized bread and the president has ordered the army to start baking more to contain a political crisis."

Of course, our President would order the army to bomb and shoot, rather than bake.

The New Attorney General: More of the Same

The new Attorney General is typical of the Bush Administration appointees: an incompetent twit as this CNN piece makes clear:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Attorney General Michael Mukasey has been taken aback by the scope and variety of potential terrorism threats facing the United States, he told reporters Friday at an informal meeting in his office.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey receives terrorism updates during national security briefings.

"I'm surprised by how surprised I am," said Mukasey, who as a federal judge presided over terrorism-related trials in New York.

"It's surprising how varied [the threat] is, how many directions it comes from, how geographically spread out it is," he said.

Oh, golly, gee whiz , he's just so surprised. Twit! Must have had his head in a Bible for the last ten years, but, especially, the last five while Americans have been killing and/or torturing lots of innocent Muslims along with the occasional guilty one. You know... creating asymmetrical warriors... err... terrorists.

Saudi Government Will Retrain 40,000 Clerics

According to the BBC, here, the Saudi government has assigned the ministry of religious affairs to retrain 40,000 imams to reduce the growing extremism in their society.

So maybe when they're done we could hire them to do something with the Southern Baptists, Pat Robertson, Jeremiah Wright, et. al.?

Three Cheers for Ralph

Chris Hedges says, "...leave Nader alone. If honesty, vision and integrity were qualities that mattered in a national election, Nader would be president."

And a better world it would be.

Dirty, Rotten, No Good ABCNews

Fire Brian Ross and anyone else who had anything to do with putting this in print. If you'd rather not look: Hillary is pictured with Monica and the blue dress. The words "inform" us that Hillary was, maybe, in the White House while Monica was doing Bill.

This might even be beneath the National Enquirer's "standards".

Thin-skinned Krugman Defends NYT Censorship

Yesterday, New York Times columnist and blogger, Paul Krugman, played cheerleader for Benny the Wanker's corrupt actions in continuing to reduce interest rates (see post below.) Krugman's post was picked up by the Economics Blog at the Wall Street Journal where a commenter called Krugman's opinion a "typical jew response to monetary policy."

Krugman edited his post to include a link to the origin of this comment and opined , "Now you see why comments on this blog have to be moderated."

Umm... no, I don't, Paul. While the comment may be offensive to you and doesn't add rationally to the discussion, it does not justify censorship, which is what "moderation" means at the New York Times blogs. Censorship by a publisher implies that the publisher is not to be trusted to present the whole range of opinion and since Krugman supports that it is reasonable to be suspicious of his opinions.

Because Paul Krugman gets paid very well for allowing businesses to publish his opinions publicly, one would be justified in thinking that he would he would have a greater respect for free speech and the First Amendment and develop a reasonably thicker skin to boorish opinions opposed to his. I am rapidly losing respect for him, which is important because he is one of the few voices who usually argues effectively against elitist economics and its false propaganda.

Nothing Liberal About This

Today on his blog ,"The Conscience of a Liberal", Paul Krugman cheers Benny the Wanker and the Feddies for slashing interest rates and emphatically recommends more. Low interest rates didn't get us into this mess and they are completely appropriate to get us out Krugman opines. I say opines because he makes no argument. He sets up a strawman and knocks it down. He is most certainly not a liberal in this stance. He is quite simply a supporter of the "criminal" behavior which got us here.

Interest rates are ridiculously low if the lender is forced to lend money at a rate which does not include adequate return for risk of default and for inflation. At 1%, a rate which Krugman cheers, there is neither. The lender is swindled here, forced to lend its deposits as quickly as possible to generate sufficient income to pay its bills regardless of risk. Twice threatened the lender must make poorly qualified loans and perhaps go out of business when the loans are defaulted on, or hold its money and go out of business because it cannot generate enough income to pay its bills.

Faced with this situation, lenders created the "criminal" loan-bundling vehicles, the creators of the sub-prime crisis, in order to survive by passing the "criminally" mandated, uncompensated risk on to others.

Krugman thinks this is just wonderful. I think Krugman is more than just wrong. I think he is intellectually dishonest here. He knows better.

By the way, don't look for cogent comments to his blog entry. The people that control those censor and/or delay comment until it is no longer useful.