Haley Barbour: Come to Mississippi and enjoy the beach

If only it wasn't a bad joke. Stay tuned for the daily changing of the story. Read the rest of this post...

Curfew imposed following more deaths in Thailand

Parts of Bangkok are now "free-fire zones" with orders to shoot on sight.

Thailand will impose a curfew and send Red Cross workers to evacuate women, children and the elderly from Bangkok's deadly protest zone where 25 people have been killed in three days of rolling street battles between anti-government activists and soldiers.

A towering column of black smoke rose over the city Sunday as protesters facing off with troops set fire to tires serving as a barricade. Elsewhere, they doused a police traffic post with gasoline and torched it.

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Latest attempt catches 'some' of oil leaking into Gulf

Since the news is being spun by BP, it's difficult to say what's true and how much "some" really is. With a bit of luck, perhaps this may help ease the problem while a more serious solution is being addressed.

Engineers successfully inserted a tube into the damaged riser pipe from which some of the oil is spewing, capturing “some amounts of oil and gas” before the tube was dislodged, the announcement said. The tube was inspected and reinserted, BP said.

“While not collecting all of the leaking oil, this tool is an important step in reducing the amount of oil being released into Gulf waters,” the announcement said. It did not say why the tube had come dislodged or how much oil and gas were taken aboard the Discover Enterprise, the drill ship waiting to separate the oil, gas and water as it is siphoned off. The gas that reached the ship was burned using a flare system on board.

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Weekend thoughts on wealth

For your weekend consideration.

Paul Krugman has put up a nice set of Saturday blog posts. One of them is about the IMF world fiscal report, Navigating the Fiscal Challenges Ahead (pdf). Krugman makes all the major points, and asks the right question:

[W]hat the report says is that there has been a fundamental deterioration in the fiscal outlook for advanced countries. Not only are they running up a lot of debt in the crisis, but — and much more important — they will emerge from the crisis with large structural deficits that weren’t there before. So spending cuts and tax increases loom.

But here’s the question: where are those structural deficits coming from?

This turns into a discussion of the (Pete Peterson–funded) deficit freaks, how they will read the report, and why that reading is wrong. But buried in Krugman's post is this remark, which I'd like to focus on:

[W]hat the report actually says is quite different: it says that the financial crisis has made us permanently poorer, which among other things reduces revenue, and governments have to tighten their belts to make up for that loss.

I think it's really important that, as a nation and as individuals, we wrap our agile minds around that concept: The financial crisis has made us permanently poorer. (Of course, "permanent" is a relative term; in my agile mind, anything that lasts ten years is permanent.)

This may not be all bad. Three quick points:

• The nation has been here before, most recently in the 1970s. The high-water mark of real post-war wealth was roughly 1958–1972. Jobs were plentiful, wages were strong, and wage growth was strong. Ordinary people not only felt prosperous, they were prosperous.
  
  Then came 1973, the Great Oil Crisis, and all that changed. The newly formed OPEC cartel sent energy prices soaring, Americans waited in long lines for gas, new cars were sold with locks on gas caps, and our thinking suffered a sea change.
  
  We hunkered down and waited. It was ten years before the country even started to climb out.

• Americans are now larded up with debt. In 1982, profits came back, but wages stayed permanently depressed. People felt "prosperous," but only because the Dow was up and the rich were crowing about it. How could the rest of us participate?
  
  At first, the "prosperity" of ordinary people was wife-driven. Second incomes were both necessary (thanks to St. Ron) and possible (thanks to dreaded bra-burners and women's lib types). You couldn't take part in the Gordon Gekko "boom" without a second income.
  
  When that source petered out (when all the women who wanted jobs had gotten them), our "prosperity" became debt-driven. That period lasted until, oh, yesterday (ok, 2008). By my count, that's 20-plus years of debt intake. Clearing that debt is a job that has to be done. Starting now is a very good thing.
  
  How long will it take to clear 20 years of debt? If it "only" takes ten years, we'll have gotten off lightly — and it will feel like forever.

• Times when people don't chase wealth can be really good times. We don't always have to ride the big waves; the quiet troughs can be nice. Besides, when the waves are too high, most of us crash anyway.
  
  And we might as well face it — the real boom, the big Post-War Boom, is never coming back. Never. We spent that money in the 80s, it went to the rich, and it's gone for good. The Reagan "boom" was a dream — a wet dream for some, and a nightmare of chasing for others. There was no real money there for us, just a vision of money, just out of reach. Nothing Clinton did corrected that damage; and then came Bush.
  

So my point? The times are changing, but this is not bad news. We can finally let go of the dream and enjoy living in the real. Financially we'll be somewhat tattered — debt destruction is work — but the decade will have its joys. How does ten years of not turning equity into vacations sound to you? How about ten years of not flipping condos — or thinking you should — to stay even?

We've spent the last 20 years chasing an out-of-reach blonde (or blond), who frankly would never be ours. Won't it feel good to stop?

I do think we need to adjust to life ahead of us. It's the end of an era; things will be vastly different; America's place in the world will permanently change. But there's no reason not to enjoy it for the gift it is.

Weekend thought — here's to enjoying it!

GP

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In defense of Harvard and Yale only on the Supreme Court?

Nobody wants an idiot on the court (outside of the Teabaggers) but this argument for yet another Harvard or Yale grad sounds flimsy. Does this mean Thurgood Marshall shouldn't have made the cut? As a business person who watched "the smartest people in the room" run Enron into the ground and then watched the Ivy League elite screw up Wall Street and the global economy plus watching Washington from afar, any argument supporting yet another person from one of two top schools in America simply doesn't float. That it's an old boy network who takes care of its own is unquestionable. That these two schools are the only schools that can deliver someone smart enough sit on the Supreme Court? Hardly.

If we've all been living in a society run by the elite from Harvard or Yale, maybe there's something wrong with Harvard and Yale. They should get over themselves because it's not as impressive as they might like to think. Here in France people often complain about politicians all being from the same school or business leaders all being from one or two schools. They often talked about how much more open the US was but the reality today doesn't support that argument. The US has become as narrow minded as Old Europe and possibly even worse. At least in France the population is on 60 million and it's only one of twenty five countries in the EU so that power is limited. There are also "elites" from the UK, Germany, Spain, etc.

Surely in a country with as many people and as many fine universities as we have in the US there has to be more than just Harvard and Yale. No? Are some really saying that what school someone attended in their twenties is really a defining and qualifying moment? What a sad day when it comes to this. Read the rest of this post...

Evidence suggests Gulf oil spill much worse than initially thought

The bad news on the oil drilling disaster continues. And as Gaius wrote about the other day, we need to hope this can be contained to only the Gulf. If it gets into the Gulf Stream the entire east coast could be impacted. The Gulf Stream also heads off the coast of Ireland and past France and beyond.

How did that self-regulation go? Same old story, different industry.

Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.

“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”

The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.

Big surprise that BP isn't interested in finding out how bad the spill is:

BP has resisted entreaties from scientists that they be allowed to use sophisticated instruments at the ocean floor that would give a far more accurate picture of how much oil is really gushing from the well.

“The answer is no to that,” a BP spokesman, Tom Mueller, said on Saturday. “We’re not going to take any extra efforts now to calculate flow there at this point. It’s not relevant to the response effort, and it might even detract from the response effort.”

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Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

The big topic today is the Supreme Court nomination. On the various shows you'll see Democratic Senators Leahy, Feinstein and Schumer. The GOPers will be represented by some of the harshest right-wingers: Sessions, Kyl and McConnell.

On the eve of Tuesday's Democratic primary in Pennsylvania, CNN is hosting Arlen Specter and Joe Sestak. The final Morning Call/Muhlenberg College tracking poll of the race has the two tied at 44% each with 11% undecided. (I think this ad by Sestak is one of the best political ads I've seen in a long time.) You can also hear from the recently defeated Bob Bennett on Candy Crowley's show today, too.

FOX News, however, is taking things in a different direction. The main guest is that renowned author and political expert Laura Bush.

Here's the lineup. Read the rest of this post...

Dave Clark Five

Yesterday's Jimi video was live TV. This is about as phony/lip-synced as it gets but it's still a fun song.

After our early morning wake up from burning whatever below, we eventually made it onto our TGV in Nice for the ride back up to Paris. Our very smelly Saturday continued as we open the door to our train and noticed an odd scent that was a cross between curdled milk and the putrid smell of rotting fish. It wasn't our day as we realized it was the otherwise normal looking 60-something year old couple sitting behind us. Someone obviously didn't believe in deodorant or that he smelled. Others arrived and immediately looked around to see what or who was causing the stench. Newcomers all started to either plug their nose or rub it in the hope that maybe something was wrong and it needed to be adjusted. Many left and begged the conductor for other seats elsewhere. We had already tried that option but it was completely booked due to the Cannes Film Festival and the Monte Carlo Gran Prix.

Once the flailing stopped and his bags were settled onto the luggage rack, the smell eased up a bit. As if they weren't bad enough, the nasty wife jumped over the seat to yell at Jojo for laughing while matching a movie. "It's a quiet train" she barked. "Perhaps, but aren't their regulations against that horrible funk?" Only four more hours left with our train mates. At least they slept so arm movement remained limited. I still think she was bitter because she had to live with that smell every day. Either that or she just realized that her haircut was the same as Moe from the Three Stooges.

The cats were thrilled to see us and slept on top of us. Sushi ventured out in the middle of the night and brought us a wonderful gift which was waiting for us on the floor. He usually eats everything but in this case, it's a headless something-or-other. In the cat world, it's a big honor to be left such a gift, so thanks Sushi. If only it was an equal honor in the cat world to find the dustpan and pick it up and dispose of it. Read the rest of this post...

Ash clouds move again, UK airspace closes, again

Thank goodness the trains are still going. If you are headed to London, the schedule is going to be a mess in a few days. BBC:

A no-fly zone has been imposed over parts of Northern Ireland, causing renewed disruption for air travellers.

The move by the Civil Aviation Authority comes as a dense volcanic ash cloud from Iceland heads towards north-western parts of the UK.

Belfast's airports are shut until 1300 BST. Dublin Airport is open despite some Irish Republic flight bans. The Isle of Man's Ronaldsway is closed.

Forecasts say ash may extend over the UK on Monday and Tuesday.

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Some weekend Bill Bryson reading

If you enjoy his books, you will enjoy his column as well. This one is about items around the house including eating times and the bedroom. Bill Bryson at The Guardian.

Beds themselves became a particular source of disquiet. Even the cleanest people became a steamy mass of toxins once the lights went out, it seemed. Twin beds were advocated for married couples, not only to avoid the shameful thrill of accidental contact, but also to reduce the mingling of personal impurities.

Beds were hard work, too. Turning and plumping mattresses was a regular chore – and a heavy one, too. A typical feather bed contained 40lb (18kg) of feathers. Support was on a lattice of ropes, which could be tightened with a key when they began to sag (hence the expression "sleep tight"), but in no degree of tension did they offer much comfort. Spring mattresses were invented in 1865, but didn't work reliably at first because the coils would sometimes turn, confronting the occupant with the very real danger of being punctured by his own bed.

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