Mail bomb traveled on passenger flights within Middle East

While the TSA is busy destroying our civil liberties, the enemy has moved on to other tactics. What's especially annoying is that some are questioning the effectiveness of the new intrusive body investigations. Enough is enough with this nonsense.

One of two powerful bombs mailed from Yemen to Chicago-area synagogues traveled on two passenger planes within the Middle East, a Qatar Airways spokesman said Sunday. The U.S. said the plot bears the hallmarks of al-Qaida's offshoot in Yemen and vowed to destroy the group.

The airline spokesman said a package containing explosives hidden in a printer cartridge arrived in Qatar Airways' hub in Doha, Qatar on one of the carrier's flights from the Yemeni capital San'a. It was then shipped on a separate Qatar Airways plane to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, where it was discovered by authorities late Thursday or early Friday. A second, similar package turned up in England on Friday.

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A dog day Halloween

Sasha waits for her buddy Chato to join her on the way to the Halloween party.

Chato in his jockey costume.

An adorable toy poodle dressed as a lobster.

No clue.

Bumblebee

No costume, just adorable.

Sasha tucks herself in after a long day.

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Frank Rich: The Tea Party's job is to 'distract attention' from people 'who've cashed in and cashed out'

There's no question that Frank Rich fully gets the Billionaires' Coup (his phrase; my eager theft). Here he is again on the rich complexity that is:

(a) Tea Party hubris; (b) the billionaires who fund it; and (c) the acknowledged (by both sides) "country club" split between the Roves and the Rubes (Mike Huckabee and the "lesser" ilk).

This will have to be just a taste, with less than the usual commentary — I'm soon to embark on trains, planes, and strangely-named buses again. Your taste (the first one is free; click for more):

But whatever Tuesday’s results, this much is certain: The Tea Party’s hopes for actually affecting change in Washington will start being dashed the morning after. The ordinary Americans in this movement lack the numbers and financial clout to muscle their way into the back rooms of Republican power no matter how well their candidates perform.

Trent Lott, the former Senate leader and current top-dog lobbyist, gave away the game in July. “We don’t need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples,” he said, referring to the South Carolina senator who is the Tea Party’s Capitol Hill patron saint. “As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them.” It’s the players who wrote the checks for the G.O.P. surge, not those earnest folk in tri-corner hats, who plan to run the table in the next corporate takeover of Washington. Though Tom DeLay may now be on trial for corruption in Texas, the spirit of his K Street lives on in a Lott client list that includes Northrop Grumman and Goldman Sachs.

There really is more, and that more is sweet (or bitter, depending on your mood):

What made the Tea Party most useful was that its loud populist message gave the G.O.P. just the cover it needed both to camouflage its corporate patrons and to rebrand itself as a party miraculously antithetical to the despised G.O.P. that gave us George W. Bush and record deficits only yesterday. ... The more the Tea Party looks as if it’s calling the shots in the G.O.P., the easier it is to distract attention from those who are actually calling them — namely, those who’ve cashed in and cashed out as ordinary Americans lost their jobs, homes and 401(k)’s.

At least someone with New York Times inches (and Sunday inches at that) is onto them in print. Read on.

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Small Hong Kong apartment that converts into 24 rooms

This architect did an amazing job with a very small space. Even with the rolling walls that convert, I suspect one would have to be highly organized and tidy to make this work. Read the rest of this post...

Rand Paul head-stomper charged with assault

Good. Read the rest of this post...

'France is the only nation in the first world where there is meaningful resistance'

Chris in Paris has been regularly covering the French strikes and Sarkozy's intransigence (for example, here and here and here). Ian Welsh puts a bottom line to it: 'Pray for France.'

At this point in time, France is the only nation in the first world where there is meaningful resistance to the rush of Austerity (aka. Hooverism) and the attempt by elites to permanently break the power and wealth of the middle and working class.

Pray for France. Because if they fall, no one is even trying, and if they fall the elites will know they can take anything away from any first world’s nation’s population.

So very true. And he puts his finger on the mechanism, the so-called cost of doing business:

Notice something here: the protesters are doing economically damaging things. They aren’t just showing up in the mall ... Elites think in terms of costs. If the cost of something is less than the benefit of doing it, assuming the return is also high enough they will almost certainly do it. ... The benefit of raising the pension age is that it pays for bailouts, bonuses and high salaries for the elites (since it helps pay to continue the financial casino.) Unless the cost is clearly going to be higher than the gain, they will do it.

I've been fortunate enough to witness this resistance first-hand. So far, no one has blinked. The French Senate passed Sarkozy's "reform" last week. Ian is right; it's what happens next that counts.

Pray for the French; they appear to be mounting the only real resistance in the developed world.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Brilliant, scathing, Maureen Dowd piece on Obama

When she doesn't try to be funny, she's viciously right on target. Read the entire column, please. It's that good and on point. (And she also mentions Joe's gay marriage question to Obama this week.)

His inner circle believed too much in the power of the Aura and in protecting the Brand. They didn’t think they needed to sell anything or fight back when the crazies started sliming them. They didn’t care that the average citizen needed an M.B.A. to understand the financial plan and a Ph.D. to fathom what the health care plan would mean.

Because Obama stayed above it all on health care and delegated to Max Baucus, he missed the moment in August of 2009 when Sarah Palin and the Tea Party got oxygen with their loopy rants on death panels. It never occurred to the Icon that such wildness and gullibility would trump lofty rationality.

As the president tries to ride the Tea Party tiger, let’s hope for this change: that he puts some audacity in his audacity.

Funny she should mention August of 2009.  That was when the Teabaggers were disrupting all the Democratic health care townhall meeting.  When no one had the balls to stand up to the little fascists, Speaker Pelosi alone penned an op ed in USA Today calling them un-American.  When the White House got asked if they agreed with Pelosi, they threw her under the bus.

Bad political decisions have consequences.  And when you string too many bad decisions together in a row, you get a Republican Congress.

PS Why is it that journalists still think it okay to quote the work of bloggers without giving us credit? The gay marriage question to Obama that Dowd mentions in another part of the same article is Joe's question to the President. Dowd doesn't mention Joe, but she does, at another point, mention the NYT's Peter Baker (why cite one and not the other?). The Washington Post pulled the same crap last week about the same topic. If we can give them credit when we cite their work, they can do the same. Read the rest of this post...

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

Good morning. Happy Halloween...it's an especially scary holiday this year given the looming elections. Based on my cursory observation of costumes in DC, Christine O'Donnell sure made witches relevant again. There were also a lot of Chilean miners roaming around.

The Sunday shows are rife with politicos today, but there is one guest on all of the main shows: Obama's terrorism adviser John Brennan. He's on NBC, CBS, ABC and CNN.

For politics, you can watch the chairs of the Senate campaign committees, Menendez and Cornyn, duke it out on "This Week." The Chair of the DNC is on "Meet the Press." The Chair of the RNC is on "State of the Union." Not sure you'll hear anything new from any of them.

Oh, FOX is hosting reality show star Sarah Palin. She might run for Prez "if there's nobody else to do it." Surely, no one could do it like Sarah.

One last thing: Congrats to our colleague and friend Naomi Seligman on her marriage to Andrew Gumbel last night. Read the rest of this post...

Goldman Sachs reviewing early bonus payments

Because paying taxes back to the country that saved their ass is asking too much. CNBC:

In a break from recent practice, Goldman Sachs has considered paying out 2010 compensation before the end of the year, rather than early next year, according to people familiar with the matter.

That move, if Goldman were to make it, would be one way to combat the uncertainty hanging over income tax rates in 2011 and beyond by allowing employees to take advantage of the current tax rates. But an early payout could also be perceived by critics of the firm as a way to enrich Goldman employees by gaming the system.

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