Poll: France 'most pessimistic' country for econ outlook

For those who know France this will come as no surprise. Even in the best of times France always looks for a black cloud in an otherwise blue sky. In this case though, the sentiment may be right. Things can and will get worse.

The "End of Year" survey by Gallup International of 51 countries found that France beat second placed Ireland and third placed Austria for the dubious recognition as most pessimistic, economically-speaking. Its score of negative 79, a drop of 20 points from last year, was the lowest the poll has recorded since 1978. "Even in 1978, after the second oil crisis that called into question an entire economic system, the French have never shown themselves as pessimistic as today," said the poll.

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Gay man apologizes to Amy Koch for 'ruining her marriage'

Amy Koch is the Minnesota republican who recently resigned after admitting an 'inappropriate relationship'. As Senate Majority Leader, Koch had campaigned to put an anti-marriage amendment on the ballot.

John Medeiros writes:

We apologize that our selfish requests to marry those we love has cheapened and degraded traditional marriage so much that we caused you to stray from your own holy union for something more cheap and tawdry. And we are doubly remorseful in knowing that many will see this as a form of sexual harassment of a subordinate.

The full letter in the CityPages has much more of the same.
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The PolitiFact Fact—"Welcome to post-truth politics"

Krugman takes on the PolitiFact kerfluffle (I know, misspelled, but the word "fluff" needs to be in there somewhere).

And he generalizes the point rather well. After inventing an Obama statement as outrageous as Romney's latest slander, he concludes (emphasis added):

Oh, Mr. Romney will probably be called on some falsehoods. But, if past experience is any guide, most of the news media will feel as though their reporting must be “balanced,” which means that every time they point out that a Republican lied they have to match it with a comparable accusation against a Democrat — even if what the Democrat said was actually true or, at worst, a minor misstatement. ...

So here’s my forecast for next year: If Mr. Romney is in fact the Republican presidential nominee, he will make wildly false claims about Mr. Obama and, occasionally, get some flack for doing so. But news organizations will compensate by treating it as a comparable offense when, say, the president misstates the income share of the top 1 percent by a percentage point or two.

The end result will be no real penalty for running an utterly fraudulent campaign. As I said, welcome to post-truth politics.

Something we've known since at least Al Gore in 2000, but it's nice to see it codified.

Call it the PolitiFact Fact: "Welcome to post-truth politics."

BONUS: Here's part of what Romney actually said:

In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort, and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others.

I credit his writers. If that doesn't encapsulate perfectly the mindset of every Republican voter I've met (save one), I don't know what does.

Call it the Song of the Undeserving: Using the Republican party to club someone you hate.

Scratch every Republican voter I know (save one), and you'll find someone at war with the "takers," however defined. A lesbian couple I know voted McCain because one of them wanted to get even with a predatory cousin (!). It never fails.

(About that "save one" — he's a Republican only culturally, but his mind rules his emotions. He's turning into a progressive on the merits, fast; he just needed to be exposed to them. Yes, Virginia, there really is hope for the world.)

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Santa remains as popular as ever

In this poll, he's even more popular today than he was a few years ago. What's not to like about the guy who flies through the sky on a sled pulled by reindeer?

And so they do. Year after year, Santa Claus survives the scoffers and the Scrooges and the 6-year-old playground skeptics. He endures belittling commercials that portray him shopping at Target or taking directions from an iPhone. He shrugs off scolds who say his bagful of toys overshadows the reason for the season. Two-thirds of parents with kids under 18 say Santa's an important part of their celebrations this year. Moms, especially, have a soft spot for the man in red — 71 percent of them say he's important, and that's a big jump from 58 percent just five years ago. His overall popularity is up slightly from an AP-AOL poll in 2006, before the recession hit. In these bleaker times of homes lost to foreclosure and parents sweating out their next paychecks, the poll shows Santa riding high with families both wealthy and poor.

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Business and consumer spending slow down

One of the two dropping is bad news so this is troubling news heading into the eurozone storm that is just starting. (And no, it doesn't matter that we're outside of the eurozone. We're all too connected for that not to have an impact.) It's too early to tell yet if consumers came to the rescue for year end holiday shopping but we're in for more delicate times if that didn't happen.

The Commerce Department said on Friday consumer spending ticked up 0.1 percent after rising by the same margin in October. Economists had expected spending, which accounts for two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, to rise 0.3 percent. In another report, the department said non-defense capital goods orders excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for business spending, fell 1.2 percent last month after declining 0.9 percent in October. While the reports suggest some slowing in activity, they are unlikely to change perceptions that economic growth will top 3 percent in the current quarter after a 1.8 percent pace in July-September, boosted in part by a rebound in inventories.

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Lost VA dog turns up eight years later in CA, reunited with owners

Absolutely wild story. Imagine finding your dog 8 years later. And they found her because the owners put a microchip under the dog's coat. I did that with Sasha. It wasn't that expensive, and obviously worth it (well, it did take 8 years for someone to get the dog and actually think of trying to the microchip, but still). Read the rest of this post...

Wash Post raves about Obama victory over House Republicans

Hard to add to three great lede paragraphs in this Post story on the payroll tax holiday extension:

Facing withering criticism from across the political spectrum and abandoned by Senate allies, House Republicans bowed to political reality Thursday and agreed to a two-month extension of a payroll tax cut for 160 million Americans. The agreement represented a remarkable capitulation on the part of House Republicans, who had two days earlier rejected such a deal with Democrats as the kind of half-measure that their new majority was elected to thwart. And it amounts to a Christmas gift for President Obama, who attempted to paint his Republican opponents as willing to raise taxes for millions of Americans. Such an image could have cost the party politically just as it is gearing up to try to take back the White House and the Senate in 2012.

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Report: 6,200+ killed in Syria

Any number is likely to be a guess at this point but whatever it is, it's likely to be much too high. The Guardian:

Syria is facing increasingly fierce international condemnation for its handling of months of demonstrations against President Bashar al-Assad's rule, partly inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings that have swept across North Africa and the Middle East. Syria says it is fighting foreign-backed "terrorists" and on Thursday announced that more than 2,000 of its security forces had been killed in the unrest. The British-based Avaaz rights group said it had collected evidence of more than 6,237 deaths of civilians and security forces, 617 of them under torture. At least 400 of the dead were children, it added.

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Putin's wealth valued at $179,612

Some people believe that Mitt Romney is just a simple "99%" kind of guy or that Obama really had no real chance to change the system. There are surely some people who will fall for this too, but are there enough of them this time to believe such a tall tale?

Vladimir Putin has faced claims that he is the richest man in Europe, presiding over a mafia state and with a personal fortune of more than $40bn (£25.5bn). But Russia's central election commission has said his bank balance was rather more modest – a mere $179,612. The prime minister's income from the past four years was $557,744, it added. Putin was also said to own two modest apartments, in Moscow and St Petersburg, and a plot of land. The politician, who usually travels in an armoured state-owned Mercedes, owns several cars, including two vintage Volgas – a 1960 GAZ M21 and a 1965 GAZ M-21P – as well as a 2009 Lada. He also has a car trailer made in 1987.

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Spain appoints former Lehmen exec as economy minister

It's not that unusual for the US to appoint former Wall Street big shots (or those in Wall Street's pocket, like Geithner) to run the Treasury department, but one might think Lehman would be a bit too toxic considering the nature of the current economic crisis. BBC News:

Spain's new conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has named his new cabinet after being sworn into office. Luis de Guindos, a former Lehman Brothers executive, will be economic minister, while Cristobal Montoro was appointed treasury minister. The new ministers will be required to help steer the country through its toughest economic crisis in decades.

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