Political campaign raffles breast implants to raise money

It's easy to tell that this wasn't Texas because politicians there would know to also include big hair that's been bleached blond. Reuters:

A Venezuelan politician is offering breast implants as a prize in a raffle to raise funds for his parliamentary election campaign.

"Some people raffle TVs and we decided to offer this. It's an interesting prize and there's a lot of interest," Gustavo Rojas, an opposition candidate for a National Assembly position, told Reuters while campaigning in Caracas.

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Tennessee mosque fire ruled as arson

Religious rights only apply to Christians or possibly Mormons. CBS News:

Federal officials are investigating a fire that started overnight at the site of a new Islamic center in a Nashville suburb.

Ben Goodwin of the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department confirmed to CBS Affiliate WTVF that the fire, which burned construction equipment at the future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, is being ruled as arson.

Special Agent Andy Anderson of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told CBS News that the fire destroyed one piece of construction equipment and damaged three others. Gas was poured over the equipment to start the fire, Anderson said.

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Frank Rich on their billionaires

Frank Rich has a magnificent column on their billionaires, the ones who fund the Hard Right (and fund it and fund it and fund it).

His take-off points are the Beckinalia in DC and Jane Mayer's seminal New Yorker article that exposes the really big money behind the Tea Party "movement".

(I put "movement" in quotes because the Tea Party isn't a movement in my view. Movement Conservatism is a movement; the Tea Party eruption is just a well-funded — and fully confused — manifestation.)

A taste of the Rich article (my emphasis):

All three tycoons are the latest incarnation of what the historian Kim Phillips-Fein labeled “Invisible Hands” in her prescient 2009 book of that title: those corporate players who have financed the far right ever since the du Pont brothers spawned the American Liberty League in 1934 to bring down F.D.R. You can draw a straight line from the Liberty League’s crusade against the New Deal “socialism” of Social Security, the Securities and Exchange Commission and child labor laws to the John Birch Society-Barry Goldwater assault on J.F.K. and Medicare to the Koch-Murdoch-backed juggernaut against our “socialist” president.

It's not the evil you should notice. It's the scope. Their billionaires have been at it since Roosevelt, and they'll be at it until the New Deal is a mis-remembered aberration. (Texas school books will call it the "Bad Deal" and no one will correct them.)

There's a reason their billionaires are so persistent — that's the only group Movement Conservatism really represents, Big Money boys and their right to rule like kings. The peasants who worship them are just tools.

So who represents us? Where are our billionaires? Naturally, our billionaires will actually work for, oh, justice, and humanity. Not horribly personal, I admit, and the incentives are all wrong. But surely there's a Roosevelt out there somewhere.

And don't say George Soros; as I pointed out here, George Soros is a "former member of the Carlyle Group." Compared to the determination in just one Koch finger, Soros is a dabbler, a dilettante.

So, a must-read from Frank Rich; you can find it here. Jane Mayer's must-read New Yorker article is here. And we've included a video of Jane Mayer here, interviewed by Rachel Maddow.

(Where's my blogging knife?)

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How real is the 'oil eating microbes' story?

About as real as other BP funded "science" that we've read recently. Looking at how eager the administration has been to move this problem along, it's not easy to have faith in government reports either. (A big thanks to those in the Obama team who want to continue the Bush policy of trashing the public's trust in these organizations.)

The oil eating microbes are for real, but let's not get carried away with the story.

An Aug. 24 study in the journal Science had great news for Gulf Coast residents: A newly discovered, voracious microbe is rapidly eating the oil spilled in the BP gusher. The specially adapted oil-eating bacteria are so effective, said lead researcher Terry Hazan of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, that they have apparently devoured an entire 22-mile-long underwater plume. Skeptics noted that Hazan's research was funded by BP. Does that discredit the good tidings?

Don't trust the sunny news: The BP funding sure makes this look like "fuzzy science," says Alex Moore in Death + Taxes. But worse, all the good news is coming from government-affiliated labs and federal agencies. Private labs are "skeptical," and one of them, Woods Hole, just reported that the undersea plumes appear intact. Wouldn't the Obama team gain a lot by turning "the worst oil spill of all time to the luckiest" one?
"Scientists reporting natural cleanup funded by BP and US Dept of Energy"

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A hodge podge of photos from yesterday in Alsace

Meet Noirdie the goat.



Noirdie (or "blackie," in French) is the goat of my friend Frank, from graduate school, who now lives out in Alsace, a region in eastern France along the border with Switzerland. Frank likes his animals, so his home has become a virtual Noah's Ark of animal goodness. Frank and his wife and two kids have two Golden Retrievers, eight or so cats, four chickens (for the eggs), a goat (who lives with the chickens), a parrot, a parakeet, and a turtle. I think that's everything. The luxury of having a nice house in the country.



Every morning Frank, or the kids, go out to the henhouse and pick some fresh eggs for breakfast. The last two days we've had "oeufs à la coque," which I think is soft-boiled eggs. They were quite good, my first time with super fresh eggs - and look kids, no salmonella!



I'm not an expert on French geography, but the area out here sure looks like farm country.



As I mentioned yesterday, it's also flower country.



And cat country.



It's also, apparently, frog country. On our drive around the neighborhood, Frank explained to me that this pathway through the woods was closed every September because of frogs. You see, they mate in September, and hoards of them gather on this road to either mate, or go mate, or something. Suffice it to say, the road is closed for a good month due to frogs. Seriously.



The other fun thing we came upon, while out running a few errands, was a wedding party off to get married, or off to the reception. The bride was taking the horse drawn carriage, it's not clear where the groom was.




It was a pretty rainy weekend, unfortunately, but yesterday evening the sun finally popped out a bit. The sun is gorgeous here at sunset, reminds me of the sun you see in Paris at this time of year, or the sun you see in the Netherlands (think Rembrandt). This is simply Frank's fruit basket, but I loved the way the sun was hitting it just for a few minutes.



And finally, here's a last shot of Noirdie. (And if you can't get enough of her, here's a short video I shot of her on my iphone.)

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German Bundesbank board member sounds off on Jews and Muslims

Creepy. If this guy has his job by the end of the day on Monday there's a problem.

German government officials and immigrant leaders are condemning remarks by a board member of Germany's federal bank as racist and anti-Semitic.

Thilo Sarrazin of the German Bundesbank came under fire Sunday for telling the weekly newspaper Welt am Sonntag that "all Jews share the same gene." He also said Muslim immigrants in Germany were not willing or capable of integrating into the country's mainstream society.

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Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

Something very interesting is happening today. The Obama administration is being represented by its Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Sean Donovan. We rarely see Obama cabinet secretaries on the Sunday shows -- or anywhere on t.v., it seems. The usual suspects from that crack team in the West Wing must be on vacation. Duncan is on ABC. Donovan is on CNN.

"Meet the Press" is in New Orleans with Senator Landrieu, Mayor Landrieu and Brad Pitt. Still think one of the best cable news interviews ever was Anderson Cooper's take down of Mary Landrieu in the wake of Katrina. It's here. How much you want to bet both Landrieu's make a pitch for oil drilling? That's where their real interest lies.

Florida's Democratic Senate candidate Kendrick Meek is on CBS and CNN. CBS also hosts Joe Miller, the Sarah Palin-endorsed teabagger who is ahead in Alaska's GOP Senate primary. On Friday, his campaign tweeted that his opponent, Lisa Murkowski, is a prostitute. Yeah, that one's really ugly.

And, FOX somehow managed to get Glenn Beck as its only guest. Quite a "get."

The full lineup is here. Read the rest of this post...

Video: Brother, Can You Spare a Dime (Al Jolson edition)

In my opinion, there are no greater white jazz singers in the first half of the 20th century than Al Jolson and Fred Astaire. Astaire is a jazz drummer (yes), and his off-the-beat phrasing is precise and perfect.

But for pure expression, Al Jolson, whatever his other failings, is the king.

Here he sings "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime" far better than any later interpreter, including Barbra Streisand, who sang a career-making version herself.

Not that the actual content of the song matters to me, of course, in these "not a recovery" times. Nor those stunning period pictures either. Far be it from me to put these sounds and sights before you for a reason — because, you know, this is just entertainment — look, it's shiny, and it's got free Wi-fi.

Ok, you got me. Remember the Forgotten Man; this could be any of us these days. Al Jolson, singing it straight to you:



By the way, did you notice the lyrics? In this version, you do.

They used to tell me I was building a dream
So I followed the mob.
When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear
I was always there, right on the job.

They used to tell me I was building a dream
With peace and glory ahead.
Why should I be standing in line
Just waiting ... for bread?

Once I built a railroad, made it run
Made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad, now it's done,
Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once I built a tower to the sun
Brick, mortar and lime.
Once I built a tower, now it's done,
Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee-doodle-dee-dum.
Half a million boots went marching through hell,
And I was a kid with a drum....

Brother, can you spare a dime?

When this was written, the "railroad racing against time" and "tower to the sun" (New York skyscrapers) were the bee's knees, the biggest and brightest that Money could produce with small people's labor. Then the small people were cast aside.

Tough times; it's not just for "those people" any more.

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Report: Belgian Cardinal encouraged rape victim to remain silent

It's the moral leadership that always wins over the public. It's no wonder the Catholic church can tell others how to live their lives when they remain beyond reproach. BBC:

The former head of the Catholic Church in Belgium tried to stop a victim of sex abuse from going public with their story, Church officials have confirmed.

During a meeting in April, Cardinal Godfried Danneels advised the victim to delay a public statement until the bishop who abused him had retired.

Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, who was also at the meeting, admitted to the abuse in April and resigned.

The victim recorded the meeting, and released the tape to Belgian media.

On the tape, the cardinal tells the abuse victim: "It might be better to wait for a date in the next year, when he is due to resign.

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Stephen Colbert on the Beckining

Once more, Comedy Central presents the best MSM — or LSM, or SSM (side-stream media) — analysis of the now-concluded Beckification available. Rich accurate analysis, wrapped in a comic soufflé that was actually pulled out of the oven in time. Piping hot and sharply funny.

Kudos to those 12 Emmy-winning writers who churn out, let's see, two terrific minutes each per show. Way to go; I'm so jealous. "Silver freedom spaceship that runs on human tears"? That's up there with "Tek Jansen, you've obviously had many girlfriends." Like I say, jealous; I haven't had many girlfriends.

Did you notice, by the way, the Beckian chalkboard comment at 5:25: "Why was the Reconstruction Era evil?" It's like Colbert's The Wørd, only ... evil.

Colbert, at his White House best. Enjoy:



The Beck — still crazy, after all these years.

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Did fabricated demand make it easy for Wall Street to rake in suspect profits?

It sure sounds like it. A few months ago Bill Clinton provided a strong defense of Wall Street and blasted liberals who were upset with the easy handling of Wall Street. At the time, Clinton argued that the rhetoric needed to cool down because after all, Wall Street had not done anything illegal during the bubble years. While we may eventually have a few convictions related to driving up the bubble, for the most part, Clinton was correct. That's also the problem according to many on the left. If these actions were in fact legal, it's only because too many in Washington from both parties caved in to Wall Street and let Wall Street write their own rules of the game.

A ProPublica analysis shows for the first time the extent to which banks -- primarily Merrill Lynch, but also Citigroup, UBS and others -- bought their own products and cranked up an assembly line that otherwise should have flagged.

The products they were buying and selling were at the heart of the 2008 meltdown -- collections of mortgage bonds known as collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs.

As the housing boom began to slow in mid-2006, investors became skittish about the riskier parts of those investments. So the banks created -- and ultimately provided most of the money for -- new CDOs. Those new CDOs bought the hard-to-sell pieces of the original CDOs. The result was a daisy chain [1] that solved one problem but created another: Each new CDO had its own risky pieces. Banks created yet other CDOs to buy those.

Individual instances of these questionable trades have been reported before, but ProPublica's investigation, done in partnership with NPR's Planet Money [2], shows that by late 2006 they became a common industry practice.

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