Saturday Night Open Thread

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Less nukes but more iPods

Consumer appliances continue to take a beating during the recession. At least our priorities are right though as iPods continue their growth path and are considered more important than microwave ovens. From CNBC:

The microwave, it seems, is one of the biggest casualties of the recession: Less than half of the adults surveyed said they consider the microwave a necessity, a 21-percent drop from the 2006 survey.

Among other appliances consumers have begun to drop from their necessity list are clothes dryers (-17%), air conditioners (-16%), dishwashers (-14%) and TVs (-12%).

In other words, they see those items as more of a luxury than a necessity.

This may be a bit deceiving though. Don't you think that people are making due with what they have instead of rushing out to upgrade their appliances? Also, with the housing collapse, these numbers are all going to take a beating since there's less need for new. These items tend to last long enough that they don't need to be replaced every couple of years as we may have seen during the easy credit years.

As for the iPod, even during a recession people like to have some amount of enjoyment without dropping a ton of cash. Even for us, as frugal as we are, we're upgrading to a new iPod for our summer road trip. And yes, if our fridge was to die tomorrow, that would be replaced immediately, contrary to what some may think. We could get used to anything if we really had to - like anyone - but the hassle of shifting ice blocks to keep food cool sounds like a nightmare. For vacation, perhaps, but beyond that I wouldn't want the hassle. Read More......

Former GOP lawmaker, and KKK member, arrested in Prague

Our good friend, former Republican state lawmaker, and KKK leader, David Duke, was arrested in Prague for denying the Holocaust. It's a crime punishable by three years in prison. Too bad he didn't go to the Vatican instead. They'd have made him a Bishop. Putting that aside, it's understandable why the Czech Republic would have laws against Holocaust denial. Though I am waiting for the religious right to now come to the rescue of their poor soulmate. After all, he's a bigot being persecuted under hate speech laws. And you know how the religious right is all up in arms over European hate speech laws. Perhaps some intrepid reporter should ask the Concerned Women for America, Focus on the Family, and the Family Research Council how they feel about David Duke's arrest under hate speech laws. It would make a fascinating story. Read More......

Freed US hostage from Somalia tanker slams 'evil' Limbaugh

Is it possible for the leader of the GOP to speak without making a racist attack? Sure it's popular among the dwindling members of the GOP but for the rest, not so much. Former hostage Shane Murphy is fed up with blowhards like Limbaugh and has had enough.

"He was worried about the order he had given to wipe out three teenagers on the high seas," Limbaugh said. "Black Muslim teenagers."

"You gotta get with us or against us here, Rush," Murphy said. "The president did the right thing...It's a war.... It's about good versus evil. And what you said is evil. It's hate speech. I won't tolerate it."

Limbaugh seems to hate America and the American way. The old America that Limbaugh leads still thinks it's OK to spout racist hate speech and that's why they are on the outside looking in. Read More......

The Geithner bank "stress test" that wasn't

What a flop of a report. After the buildup to this important report on the health of the US banks it turned out to say very little and left the important details out for another day. What a confidence builder.

The Federal Reserve, releasing details of how it conducted "stress tests" on the nation's 19-largest financial institutions, said "most banks" are currently well capitalized but need to hold a "substantial" amount above regulatory requirements in case the recession worsens.

“Most banks currently have capital levels well in excess of the amounts needed to be well capitalized," the Fed said in its eagerly awaited report.

The report said the tests are a “forward-looking exercise designed to estimate losses, revenues and reserve needs” under two different macroeconomic scenarios, including an adverse one.

Whatever. Geithner never gets better and with each flop, dodge and continuation of Paulson policy, he gets more annoying. Challenging times require a lot more leadership than we are getting today. Read More......

Obama playing hard ball on health care to prevent GOP filibuster

Congress will take up health care reform under the reconciliation process. That's very good news. It means the Republican Senators can't filibuster the legislation -- and that Obama doesn't have to sell out his proposal to get votes of Republicans or even those conservative Democrats. The bill needs 51 votes, not 60.

The New York Times reports that Obama was the driving force for using reconciliation:

At the prodding of the White House, Democratic Congressional leaders have agreed to pursue a plan that would protect major health care legislation from Republican opposition by shielding it from last-minute Senate filibusters.

The aggressive approach reflects the big political claim that President Obama is staking on health care, and with it his willingness to face Republican wrath in order to guarantee that the Democrats, with their substantial majority in the Senate, could not be thwarted by minority tactics.

While some Democratic senators were reluctant to embrace the arrangement, Mr. Obama made clear at a White House session on Thursday afternoon that he favored it, people with knowledge of the session said.

Mr. Obama has given way in some battles with Congress, but the new stance suggests he may be much less willing to compromise when it comes to health care, his top legislative priority, even if it means a bitter partisan fight.

The no-filibuster arrangement is fiercely opposed by Republican leaders, who say health care is too important to be exempted from the Senate rules that usually mean major bills must win support from 60 senators.

At the White House meeting this week, Mr. Obama told senators from both parties that he did not want a health care overhaul to fail if it came up a vote shy of the 60 needed to break filibusters, the people with knowledge of the session said. Republicans have used the procedure themselves in the past, but Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, told Mr. Obama in the meeting that that approach was likely to heighten partisan tensions in Congress.

Several points:

First, good for Obama. That's the kind of leadership we need to pass health care reform.

Second, from what I hear (and as Senator Kent Conrad indicated to the Times), several Democratic Senators really didn't want to go along with this reconciliation plan. I wrote a post on this yesterday. It's mind-boggling that Democratic Senators still worry about bi-partisanship. They act like bi-partisanship is the ultimate goal. That's so wrong. It may come in handy sometimes as a tactic, but, the goal is good legislation. (Plus, this move also takes power away from those conservative Democrats who could play games if 60 votes were needed. Even the votes of some Democrats are expendable here.)

Finally, Mitch McConnell says the Republicans are going to be mad. The NY Times thinks Obama may face GOP 'wrath." Whatever. They already are mad and Obama's been facing their wrath since he got elected. How many voted for the stimulus in the middle of an economic crisis? Three. How many voted for the budget? None. The same day McConnell was at the White House whining about the Democrats using reconciliation, he was leading a filibuster against Kathleen Sebelius' nomination to be Secretary of HHS. The traditional media has been obsessed with the topic of bi-partisanship, but fail to see it as a two-way street.

This is an important move by the president. Clearly, he is committed to passing the agenda of change upon which he was elected. Health care reform is at the top of his agenda. Let's not forget, the titular head of the GOP wants Obama to fail. It's unfortunate that so many Democratic Senators were idiotic enough to fall into the GOP trap -- again and again and again.

It's probably good that Obama served in the Senate -- and served only for a short time. He has a sense of how insular and out-of-touch many of those people are -- and wasn't there long enough to become one of them. If any of the Democrats in the Senate looked around, they might notice there are a lot more of them than in 2006. They've been winning elections by promising change and among other things, health care reform. It's time to use the power to deliver. On this issue, Obama gets that.

Now, the challenge is to get real health care reform. If it gets screwed up now, it's because Democrats screwed up their signature issue -- and gave too much power to the health insurance industry and its lobbyists. Read More......

Teabagger arrested for threatening to turn the Oklahoma City capitol steps into a bloodbath

A number of us have been saying for a while now that the Republicans' extremist, anti-American rhetoric was going to push someone to violence. And it almost just did. From WIRED:

Daniel Knight Hayden, 52, was arrested by FBI agents who identified him as the Twitter user CitizenQuasar. In a series of tweets beginning April 11, CitizenQuasar vowed to start a "war" against the government on the steps of the Oklahoma City Capitol building, the site of that city's version of the national "Tea Party" protests promoted by the conservative-leaning Fox News.

"START THE KILLING NOW! I am willing to be the FIRST DEATH!," read a tweet at 8:01 PM that day. "After I am killed on the Capitol Steps, like a REAL man, the rest of you will REMEMBER ME!!!," he added five minutes later. Then: "Send the cops around. I will cut their heads off the heads and throw the[m] on the State Capitol steps."

Hayden's MySpace page is a breathtaking gallery of right wing memes about the "New World Order," gun control as Nazi fascism, and Barack Obama's covert use of television hypnosis, among many others.

Wow, you mean a potential domestic terrorist was associated with gun issues. Funny, but that's exactly what the Homeland Security report said - the one the Republicans and the religious right wanted us to ignore. Read More......

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The poem of the week is "Mirror" by Sylvia Plath. It comes with this advisory from the poem of the week blogger: "I love this one, but it hurts." It does. A little rough for a beautiful spring Saturday.

If you didn't read Steve Kleinedler's essay, about the death of his husband, Peter Dubuque, you should. It really tells the story of why marriage equality is important -- and also how absolutely ordinary marriage is in Massachusetts. Steve learned that when Peter died. Equality matters.

And, finally, Obama. Here's today's weekly address:
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Some morning Horowitz

Last night a friend called with a last second "I have two extra tickets for Verdi's Masked Ball opera" so our normal Friday schedule of Cambodia chicken was changed. Beautiful music and the stage sets and costumes in the final set were stunning. I was hoping to locate a photo or two online but so far, nothing. The baritone last night was especially great but I wondered what the tenor thought about the roaring applause.

Obviously not opera but after the show I was thinking about Horowitz and how talented he was. I think I was thinking about how I always appreciated great singers but didn't necessarily ever have a desire to sing. Piano on the other hand is something that I used to think seemed uninteresting to play (I was a drummer) but today when I listen to it, I wish that I knew how to play. It impresses me that Horowitz played so exceptionally well for so many years. Again, looking at how our societies (whether in the US or Europe) throw away "old" people, here's yet another example of someone who continued to love what he did and was incredibly talented and brought joy to so many people for so many years. Could you imagine if Horowitz was told "you are too old" when he his 55 years old? What a crazy world we live in. (BTW, part I is here, but I preferred part II linked above.) Read More......

Obama moving to update college loan system

This is a good battle for Obama and one that he ought to make. The lenders have been squeezing college students (and parents) for too long and even many universities went along with the program, driving business into the hands of the easy lending businesses. If the US wants to be serious about competing and staying ahead, it's not going to get there by sitting back and ignoring education. AP:

President Barack Obama on Friday renewed his call for the government to stop backing private loans to college students and replace them with direct government loans to young people, a challenge to a decades-old program with strong congressional support.

Obama's plan to eliminate the Federal Family Education Loan program could save $48 billion for taxpayers over the next decade, but critics warn it could turn the Education Department into a national bank. Lenders and some college officials oppose the proposal, which Obama backed as a U.S. senator and pushed during the presidential campaign.

Longer term, something is going to have to change with the costing of the system as well. The US university system is pricing itself out of the global system. Even for American families, how is it possible to afford the university system? There have been a number of articles in recent months about Americans traveling abroad to the UK or Canada for college due to the much lower prices for top schools. If the quality was comparable but pricing was considerably lower, would you encourage your own kids to investigate a non-US university for undergraduate studies? Read More......

The upside to the Jacob Zuma victory: Zimbabwe

South Africa's Thabo Mbeki was a well known supporter of Robert Mugabe who never showed an interest in getting tough despite countless reports of human rights abuses. In Mbeki's eyes, somehow the violence didn't matter because Mugabe was a fellow liberation fighter. Starvation, torture, political assassination and election theft were of no consequence. Soon to be South African President Jacob Zuma, also of the liberation movement, sees Zimbabwe in a completely different way. Zuma has been close to various groups within South Africa who have protested against Mugabe's terror and assuming he continues along the same path, will change South Africa's position on Zimbabwe. This will be a very welcome and long awaited change. The Guardian:

Zuma has been outspoken in his criticism of Mugabe's autocratic rule. He supports of the power-sharing agreement between Mugabe's Zanu-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change, led by Morgan Tsvangirai but he has criticised his predecessor Thabo Mbeki's "quiet diplomacy" towards Zimbabwe.

Tendai Biti, finance minister in the unity government and secretary-general of the MDC, is looking forward to a Zuma presidency. "I don't think it will be quiet diplomacy," he said. "That was buried on 22 September 2008, the day Mbeki was removed. I expect a more forthright, honest and hands-on diplomacy.

"Jacob Zuma is not Thabo Mbeki and that means a lot. I know the man and meet him regularly and know the way he thinks."

Another change - potentially, at least - is the tribal change in power. Mbeki is a Xhosa as is Nelson Mandela. Zuma is a Zulu from the hear of KwaZulu-Natal. The two tribes share no love for each other for historical reasons including during the anti-apartheid struggle. Even today, KwaZulu-Natal is very separated politically from the other regions of the country. How much this will impact Zuma's term is a question to be answered but internally, this is a major shift in power. Read More......