Italian "foreign food" ban grows

What started in Lucca is now spreading to other cities in Italy. These people are complete idiots.

The tomato comes from Peru and spaghetti was probably a gift from China.

It is, though, the “foreign” kebab that is being kicked out of Italian cities as it becomes the target of a campaign against ethnic food, backed by the centre-right Government of Silvio Berlusconi.

The drive to make Italians eat Italian, which was described by the Left and leading chefs as gastronomic racism, began in the town of Lucca this week, where the council banned any new ethnic food outlets from opening within the ancient city walls.

Yesterday it spread to Lombardy and its regional capital, Milan, which is also run by the centre Right. The antiimmigrant Northern League party brought in the restrictions “to protect local specialities from the growing popularity of ethnic cuisines”.

Luca Zaia, the Minister of Agriculture and a member of the Northern League from the Veneto region, applauded the authorities in Lucca and Milan for cracking down on nonItalian food. “We stand for tradition and the safeguarding of our culture,” he said.

Mr Zaia said that those ethnic restaurants allowed to operate “whether they serve kebabs, sushi or Chinese food” should “stop importing container loads of meat and fish from who knows where” and use only Italian ingredients.

Asked if he had ever eaten a kebab, Mr Zaia said: “No – and I defy anyone to prove the contrary. I prefer the dishes of my native Veneto. I even refuse to eat pineapple.”

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Bailed out banks actively sought lower paid foreign workers

Shocking. Who ever would guess that the banks would do such a thing while firing over 100,000 people in the US alone?

Banks collecting billions of dollars in federal bailout money sought government permission to bring thousands of foreign workers to the U.S. for high-paying jobs, according to an Associated Press review of visa applications.

The dozen banks receiving the biggest rescue packages, totaling more than $150 billion, requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years for positions that included senior vice presidents, corporate lawyers, junior investment analysts and human resources specialists. The average annual salary for those jobs was $90,721, nearly twice the median income for all American households.

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Carrie Fisher has launched a blog

No, it's not politics. But she's a good writer, a funny person, and she almost made Joe and me pee our pants with her backstage stories about Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd (and her comment about Sarah Palin that I still can't publish), so the queen of glitter's new blog gets a mention on a slow Sunday. She really is funny.

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AIG requesting more government support

The welfare mama is back. Pay back the $450 million in bonuses paid out to 400 people and then talk. The first subject to be discussed should then be capping payouts as Senator McCaskill has proposed. Take it or leave it. If the tables were turned, you know this is what AIG and Wall Street would do. They've kicked sand in the face of Americans too many times to play along with their games so now is the time for some tough love, provided AIG wants to stay in business.

American International Group the insurer rescued from collapse by the government in September, is in discussions with Washington about a federal backstop for some of its assets, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

AIG is also considering selling units through public offerings, the newspaper reported, citing an interview with AIG Vice Chairman Paula Reynolds.

"We're looking at a broader array of recapitalization options," Reynolds said.

"We both realize that the environment's changing and we have to adjust to that environment," she said, referring to the federal government.

Backstopping the insurer's assets would be similar to guarantees the government provided for assets belonging to Citigroup and Bank of America, the Journal reported.

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Republicans have zero ideas on the economy (but David Broder thinks their votes matter)

Read Frank Rich today. He explains that the Republicans really have zero to offer. Zero:

If anything, the Republican Congressional leadership seems to be emulating John McCain’s September stunt of “suspending” his campaign to “fix” the Wall Street meltdown. For all his bluster, McCain in the end had no fixes to offer and sat like a pet rock at the White House meeting on the crisis before capitulating to the bailout. His imitators likewise posture in public about their determination to take action, then do nothing while more and more Americans cry for help.

The problem is not that House Republicans gave the stimulus bill zero votes last week. That’s transitory political symbolism, and it had no effect on the outcome. Some of the naysayers will vote for the revised final bill anyway (and claim, Kerry-style, that they were against it before they were for it). The more disturbing problem is that the party has zero leaders and zero ideas. It is as AWOL in this disaster as the Bush administration was during Katrina.

If the country wasn’t suffering, the Republicans’ behavior would be a laugh riot. The House minority leader, John Boehner, from the economic wasteland of Ohio, declared on “Meet the Press” last Sunday that the G.O.P. didn’t want to be “the party of ‘No’ ” but “the party of better ideas, better solutions.” And what are those ideas, exactly? He said he’ll get back to us “over the coming months.”

His deputy, the Virginia congressman Eric Cantor, has followed the same script, claiming that the G.O.P. will not be “the party of ‘No’ ” but will someday offer unspecified “solutions and alternatives.” Not to be left out, the party’s great white hope, Sarah Palin, unveiled a new political action committee last week with a Web site also promising “fresh ideas.” But as the liberal blogger Markos Moulitsas Zúniga observed, the site invites visitors to make donations and read Palin hagiography while offering no links to any ideas, fresh or otherwise.

Don't read David Broder's column today. It conveys everything wrong with the conventional wisdom, of which Broder is the king. In short, he thinks Republicans are "The Votes Obama Truly Needs." He's been listening to Republicans on the Hill who are whining Democrats have been mean to them. They're complaining about the process, which Broder thinks is legitimate. Actually, Broder should read Rich's column. Because while the GOPers complain, they still have zero ideas -- and the Republicans actually did cause this economic crisis in the first place (a fact Broder chooses to ignore.)

What Obama needs is a stimulus package that will save the economy -- with or without Republican votes. Along those lines, Broder should also read Jane Bryant Quinn's column in the business section of his own paper. She actually look at the substance and writes:

So President Obama appears to have it about right: Government spending, including state and local, for a quick fix; temporary tax reductions to help households pay down debt and, eventually, spend the money to strengthen the private sector; and no permanent tax cuts that would stick us with even worse deficits than are projected now.

On saving the economy, policy matters more than process. Read the rest of this post...

Respecting the presidency

From Washington Monthly's Political Animal:

Former Bush White House chief of staff Andrew Card complained to right-wing talk-show host Michael Medved that President Obama is insufficiently respectful of the presidency. Apparently, one demonstrates respect for the presidency by their choice of attire:

"...I found that Ronald Reagan and both President Bushes treated the Oval Office with tremendous respect. They treated the Office of the Presidency with tremendous respect. And some of that respect was reflected in how they expected people to behave, how they expected them to dress when they walked into the symbol of freedom for the world, the Oval Office. And yes, I'm disappointed to see the casual, laissez faire, short sleeves, no shirt and tie, no jacket, kind of locker room experience that seems to be taking place in this White House and the Oval Office."

....The other thing to consider here is exactly how one "respects" the presidency. For Card and others who served with Bush, it's about choice of clothing. For those who serve with Obama, it's about honoring institutional limits and the rule of law.

Or, put another way, where exactly does a loyal Bushie get off talking about "respecting" the presidency? Did George W. Bush always wear a coat and tie? Sure. Good for him. But while he was wearing nice clothes and demanding that his staff do the same, he also oversaw a scandal-plagued White House that trashed constitutional norms and routinely ignored the laws that the president twice swore to faithfully execute.

One respects the office by honoring its place in a constitutional system, not by wearing a suit.

And, as we already pointed out, the myth that Bush required jackets in the Oval Office is just that, a lie. Read the rest of this post...

ESPN's homophobic NBA ad

One simple question. If the ad called a show of affection between blacks and whites "weird" and "disgusting," would you find it just as funny? The point of the joke is that a man showing affection to another man is weird and disgusting. It's subtle homophobia - actually it's not subtle at all, at one point the one guy moves away from the other out of fear he may touch him. Gay-bashing is not acceptable from ESPN or the NBA, or the idiotic ad firm that came up with this ad. Every year we have a new ad that pokes fun at the notion that a man might show affection to another man. They wouldn't make fun of inter-racial affection, so why are gays fair game?

And anyone out there who thinks this ad is much ado about nothing, where do you think kids learn to hate gays, and adults learn to kill gays? From their friends, and their icons. Shaq just told millions of kids that it's weird and disgusting for another guy to show him affection. Lesson learned.



Feel free to post your thoughts on ESPN's YouTube page. And thanks to reader Jeremy for catching this.

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Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

The economy is the subject. And, the shows are crawling with Republicans who oppose Obama's effort to fix the economy. Now, you know, none of the hosts of the shows will demand any accountability from the Republicans for the collapse of the economy under the watch of their leader, George Bush. Instead, we'll be led to believe that the Republicans have some great and valid ideas for saving the economy -- with no acknowledgment of the fact that the GOP's policies destroyed the economy. Some things never change.


Here's the lineup:

ABC's "This Week" - Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.

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CBS' "Face the Nation" - Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

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NBC's "Meet the Press" - Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and John Kerry, D-Mass.

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CNN's "State of the Union" - Govs. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn., and Jennifer Granholm, D-Mich.; Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and John Ensign, R-Nev.


"Fox News Sunday" - Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.; Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee.

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Protectionism is the hot subject of debate - so what?

Since the day Obama was sworn in, the French have been obsessed with what new protectionist policy Obama will or won't promote. Oh really? While I sympathize with the people of Roquefort in their battle against Bush's 300% tariffs against their cheese, it was Sarkozy who immediately talked about supporting the Societe Generale bank and not letting it fall into foreign ownership, such as fellow EU member Spain. How was that not protectionist? How loudly did the EU yell? Not so much. If anyone dared to attempt to buy Danone screams of protecting the French identity are immediately rolled out.

The politicians in Europe as well as the US always tout the benefits of free and open markets, but let's be honest about this one. When push comes to shove, none of them really like it. It's OK to talk about it but I suspect if we outsourced their jobs or put them on an uneven playing field, they'd be the first to cry. Just look at the no calling phone list in the US that doesn't allow business, but makes an exception for our glorious leaders. Sure, that's fair.

This past week Republicans - who always love an uneven playing field when business needs cheap labor - have been bellyaching about Obama and the "protectionist" stimulus plan that forces products to be made in America. And? It's a stimulus for the US, isn't it? Isn't the purpose here to get money into the hands of Americans and get them working? I automatically assume other countries will do the same until I see otherwise, regardless of what they say or how loudly they yell. If we're going to have a global stimulus plan, shouldn't people like Angela Merkel fork over more money? Pay up or shut up. I don't remember Merkel being very pro-Europe or pro-world when she forced the EU to back down on pollution laws so her German car manufacturers wanted to pollute. If there was ever a celebration to honor the 50th or 60th anniversary of the Marshall Plan in Europe I missed it and I live a stones throw away from where it was all signed so I think I might have noticed.

And let's talk about Brazil and Lula who is also making a fuss about tariffs and protectionism. Glad to see you at the party, old boy. Let's talk about those ugly import taxes you slap on software coming from the outside world. Since the corporate world in Brazil runs on US/European software, how about leveling that or does protectionism only work in one direction there as well? And then there's Medvedev in Russia who is also on the issue. Just how easy is it for foreign business to operate in Russia?

Over in the UK, Secretary of State for Business Peter Mandelson is now taunting the unions for sticking up for themselves. (And while on the subject, what the hell is anyone in this day and age doing referring to him as "Lord" Mandelson? Good grief, what democrat could sink so low as to use any such titles and yes, that includes the equally archaic "Sir" bullshit. Please.) British labor unions have had wildcat strikes recently to object to imported labor while UK unemployment has been steadily rising. The ever-clever Mandelson thought it would be a good idea to attack the unions and call them protectionists who could trigger a depression. Of course.

It would naturally be the unions who caused an economic depression and definitely not the idiots who led the economy (cough, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, cough, New Labour, cough) into relying so heavily on the house-of-cards banking economy. I see. So the people who are going to suffer the most because of the dysfunctional economy are the ones to blame. Nice folks, those New Labour types. Hard to imagine why everyone hates them so much and think that a pompous silver-spoon-in-the-mouth Conservative is a better choice. Is there a difference?

From the unions perspective, these people are scared and rightly so. They will be the first to be cut and with EU now including what seems like the world, they have to struggle with much more competition from cheap labor. Imagine what banks or top tier businesses would do if they had to compete in such a way. They're more the hunters and not the hunted. Mandelson was then joined by a fellow minister as they told strikers that if they didn't like it, they could travel to Europe for another job, as if that would settle the debate.

In the EU, yes, this is in fact true. It's completely legal to move from one country to another for employment but of course in reality, this is the big lie. If you want to move from the UK or France or one of the other traditionally "rich" countries and head east to say, Hungary, you can. Whether you want to take a massive pay cut and then try and navigate the move for you and your family is another story. Even in the US where we have one country and one culture, it's not easy for workers to migrate. In Europe you are in a different country every fifty feet where it's a different language and culture, so how easy is that? It's not, but people like Mandelson already know that. They're just being obnoxious.

I get the whole argument about the benefits of the free market but as I've said in the past during the primaries, free trade has not delivered on its promises. Did the economists and politicians over promise? Maybe. Maybe the problem is that the benefits to average families just isn't as great as they were led to believe. Maybe it's time politicians engaged in a conversation about this rather than dictating from above. It's a complicated issue and not everyone has a title to rest on when times get tough, nor do they have the option to even ask for a $150,000 company car. Not everyone has contracts to do speaking tours for hundreds of thousands of dollars per speech.

As the global economy sinks, this will only become a bigger issue. The prosperity that was abundant on Wall Street (and campaign contributions) never trickled down to the rest and these are the people who are asking - rightly so - what's in it for me? Everyone at the top of business and politics seems to have prospered from the big talk though but for the rest, not so much. Maybe it's time to talk more about this instead of simply demonizing or kicking people who ask about what's in it for them. It's a fair question and deserves to be answered. Read the rest of this post...

And one for Google

Accidents will happen, from Armed Forces. This was one of the first albums I ever purchased and still love it today. My Aim is True was the first. Read the rest of this post...

Google blacklisted the internet on Saturday

It only lasted for 40 minutes (they say - seemed longer to me) but Google had an internal error that effectively blocked every search page result. It provided the results but refused to click through. I was looking for something that turned up a Wiki page yesterday and that was blocked so I tried another and another. Everything was blocked and Google threw me to a generic warning page alerting me to the dangers of Wikipedia's URL as well as a few other harmful sites such as real estate sites. Hmm, maybe they were onto something.

Google placed the internet on a blacklist today after a mistake caused every site in the search engine's result pages to be marked as potentially harmful and dangerous.

The problem affected internet pages across the whole planet, and lasted for around 40 minutes before engineeers were able to fix it.

The glitch centred on Google's malware detector, which is designed to keep internet users from visiting sites Google believes may install malicious software when users browse them. Google blamed "human error" when an engineer tried to add one web address to the list of those deemed suspicious, and mistakenly added them all.

"We periodically receive updates to that list and received one such update to release on the site this morning. Unfortunately (and here's the human error), the URL of '/' was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and '/' expands to all URLs. Fortunately, our on-call site reliability team found the problem quickly and reverted the file," Google said in its official blog.

The incident occurred at around 2.40pm.

Apart from lost advertising revenue – which one expert estimated at $2-3m (£1.4-2m) – the incident is embarrassing for the world's most popular search engine, known for its reliability.

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Retain the cream of the crop? The milk has soured and is rotting.

Compensation consultants are so full of it. I get that they're now in survival mode themselves since they helped feed this distorted system of bonuses, but c'mon, this is nuts. The new approach is to throw in secretaries and IT workers, as if their bonuses are even remotely in the same league as the financial genius' who are easily pulling in hundreds of thousands, often millions, per year in bonus money. Fine. Let's pull out those workers from the picture and let's see how much higher the average bonus really is above $112,000. Go ahead and then see how well America responds.

The other weak claim from the apologist crowd is that people depend on their bonus and that it's a contractual obligation. Oh really. And what does that contractual obligation have to say about their business going bankrupt and requiring billions to keep them in business? Yes? Did I hear something? You were saying? It's easy to sympathize with the non-financial people who make much less though again, they are already making similar money to other businesses *before* they receive their bonus. It's not clear why everyone else has to foot the bill for these bonuses when they're just as worried about their own jobs and whether or not they will be told there will be salary cuts. It's not 2006, it's a post-bubble world so accept it or try your luck elsewhere.

CNBC also has joined the fight to defend the bonus culture, inviting a Wall Street "legend" who defends the bonuses by telling us that "others like sports stars or movie stars" do it too. Perhaps they do, but did they cause the collapse of the global economy? This "legend" is as off as Rudy Giuliani, who thinks we need bonuses so that restaurants in NYC can stay in business. Is it now the American way to reward failure with billions of dollars of federal money? Isn't that socialism for the elite? How about we reward success? Wall Street experienced an expansion in pay leading up to the Great Depression as well and that eventually leveled out as money dried up. Maybe Wall Street banksters want to pay back the previous bonus money that was paid despite it being taken off the books? Screw the lot of them and bring on McCaskill's plan. Take it or leave it. Read the rest of this post...

Free speech is alive and well

This on the heels of goading the national unions to strike for two days. The wheels are falling off, but of course, it's never been about forward movement. It's all about soundbites, hyperactivity and the issue of the day. What is it about the bubble mentality and the right wingers?

To jeer President Nicolas Sarkozy has become a serious offence, punishable by the sacking of any official who allows the boos to reach the presidential ears. The police chief and the most senior national government official in the Manche département (county) of lower Normandy have been fired in successive days, to the fury of local politicians, including members of M. Sarkozy's own party.

The officials' offence was to fail to shield the President from the boos and whistles of protesters when he made a speech in the town of Saint-Lô earlier this month. Their dismissal has fuelled a debate about President Sarkozy's increasingly autocratic behaviour. Two high-profile ministers from ethnic minorities, appointed by M. Sarkozy to much fanfare in 2007, have been placed in the political deep-freeze by the President in recent weeks. Last year he ordered the firing of a successful Corsican police chief after nationalist protesters had invaded the garden of his friend, the actor Christian Clavier.

The latest victims of presidential pique are two recently-appointed officials who had overall responsibility for public order when M. Sarkozy visited lower Normandy to speak on education reform on 12 January. About 3,000 demonstrators protested. M. Sarkozy was furious the demonstrators had been allowed to come so near that he could hear them faintly.

He was heard to say at the time: "Quel con, ce préfet." (What an arsehole, this prefect is.) A prefect is a governor appointed by the state to oversee the administration of each département. On Thursday, it was announced that the prefect of the Manche département, Jean Charbonniaud, was being moved to another job.

Yesterday it emerged that the director of police in the Manche, Philippe Bourgade, had also been told to "look for another post". M. Bourgade, less than two years into his job, was France's most successful provincial police chief according to a system of statistics M. Sarkozy introduced. Interior Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie admitted the officials were fired for "making arrangements which failed to meet the importance of a situation".

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