Religious extremists take majority share in Iranian telco

This is not a good sign for the future of Iran.

As Iran continues to manage the aftershocks of its contested presidential election, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has moved aggressively to tighten its grip on society, most recently with its takeover of a majority share in the nation’s telecommunications monopoly.

The nearly $8 billion acquisition by a company affiliated with the elite force has amplified concerns in Iran over what some call the rise of a pseudogovernment, prompting members of Parliament to begin an investigation into the deal.

Turning to the US, it is disturbing to see the arrests in Pittsburgh related to using Twitter. I may have issues with the protesters but it is bothersome to see praise for Twitter when it's in Iran and no outrage when there are arrests for similar use in the US. Is it right or wrong in both cases? Read the rest of this post...

Stephen Hawking, Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton, and Data were playing poker...

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Microsoft joins 10:10 campaign

Uh oh. The US Chamber of Commerce might not like this news. How dare a business thinks about the environment! Thankfully the folks in Redmond are smarter than the knuckle-draggers at the Chamber of Commerce.

B&Q;, Microsoft and Pret a Manger have become the latest household names to join the 10:10 climate change campaign, joining 25,000 individuals, 1000 businesses and hundreds of schools, hospitals and other organisations.

The 10:10 campaign, which the Guardian supports, involves pledging to cut carbon emissions by 10% during 2010. Founded by the eco-documentary maker Franny Armstrong, the campaign aims to demonstrate a groundswell of public support for ambitious short-term action on climate change and put pressure on the government to commit to deep national cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

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GOP member shoots target with Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's initials

Jesus Christ.

A South Florida Republican said it was a mistake to shoot at a target with the initials of the Democratic congresswoman he is trying to unseat.

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HRC: Obama gets until 2017 to keep his promises, and don't criticize him until then

Speechless. Read the rest of this post...

How is it possible to negotiate with a company like this?

Heckling and flipping off the parents? How low can the insurance company go? They're lower than whale sh*t in this case but since when has this industry ever been responsive to customer needs? For those in Congress who are blocking insurance reform, these are the people that they are supporting. LA Times:

Surrounded by supporters, Hilda Sarkisyan marched into Cigna Corp.’s Philadelphia headquarters on a chilly fall day, 10 months after the company refused to pay for a liver transplant for her daughter.

"You guys killed my daughter," the diminutive San Fernando Valley real estate agent declared at the lobby security desk. "I want an apology."

What she got was something quite different.

Cigna employees, looking down into the atrium lobby from a balcony above, began heckling her, she said, with one of them giving her "the finger."

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Limbaugh: "We all agree with the Taliban and Iran" that Obama does not deserve Nobel

Regardless of whether the award was premature or not, this is incredibly inappropriate. I actually just as offended about the "our president is a worldwide joke" part:



LIMBAUGH: I think that everybody is laughing. Our president is a worldwide joke. Folks, do you realize something has happened here that we all agree with the Taliban and Iran about and that is he doesn't deserve the award. Now that's hilarious, that I'm on the same side of something with the Taliban, and that we all are on the same side as the Taliban. Read the rest of this post...

What would a Nobel laureate tell the gays?

My take on President Obama speaking tomorrow at the Human Rights Campaign dinner.

And now, to add insult to the injury, we face the subtle bigotry of "incrementalism." The White House has found a new buzzword - a rhetorical silver bullet to get the President off the hook for yet another forgotten promise. It's a common tactic of this particular White House. For example, did that promise to get DADT repealed suddenly become more trouble than it's worth? No problem. Simply change your commitment from "repealing" DADT to now only promising to "change" it in an incremental way. That way, you can take a small Solomon-esque step towards putting a friendlier face on the daily discharge of two gay service members under this administration, while still keeping the main policy in place and hopefully avoiding the pesky controversy that often comes with principle.

In three stories in the past twenty-four hours we've seen the appearance of the "incrementalism" buzzword (here and here), and one story reports that President Obama is going to explain to our community on Saturday night how necessary incrementalism is to achieving our rights.

Don't believe it. It's a smoke screen. There has been no incremental movement whatsoever by this administration towards repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell, repealing DOMA, or passing ENDA. Again, I take you back to the gay passports. It's a nice gesture, don't get me wrong. But how is putting our partners' names on passports in a handful of states, holding a cocktail party for some gay leaders while banning others, issuing a Pride Proclamation, and nominating a gay ambassador to an island when we've had gay ambassadorial nominees for 12 years already - how does any of this even incrementally advance the President's major commitments on DADT, DOMA, ENDA, the HIV travel ban, and so much more?

It doesn't. They're nice small steps worthy of a President, and a civil rights community, living in the last century. They are unworthy gestures to a core Democratic constituency that was made specific, repeated promises in exchange for its votes, promises that are now being rewritten to ease the political pain of true leadership.

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Opt-out "public option" - Krugman says it could be good

And I do like the fact that it lets the bad guys simply walk if they want. Good luck with that when they see how much better our health care is in the civilized states.

Then again, if Lieberman and Nelson are intrigued... Read the rest of this post...

DNC says GOP has thrown its lot in with the terrorists

How downright edgy of our little Democrats. What have they done with my father's oldsmobile? Read the rest of this post...

Oil Prices Back in the News

Inspired by a CNN report of oil sheiks threatening to quote oil prices in euros instead of dollars, it is worth repeating something I have said for a long time. “Don’t get your shorts in a twist.” It matters less than you think, and the major damage is in the optics, not the economics.

The main thing to realize is that oil traders don’t care what currency you use to pay for your boatload of crude. Well, within reason they don’t. They too have access to banks with foreign exchange rate screens on the Internet, and will be happy to accept any hard currency that can be readily converted to whatever they actually want. Yes, they take euros and yen as well as dollars.

What really matters for us is whether they HOLD their earnings in dollars (dollar bank accounts, dollar treasury bonds, dollar CD’s or dollar stock shares, etc.). Even if somebody pays for their crude oil in dollars, if the oil country turns around and uses that money to buy, say, German government bonds denominated in euros, then the value of the euro is strengthened and the dollar is weakened. It is exactly the same logic that is at play in the sometimes scary scenarios of the Chinese government selling off all their holdings of dollar assets and crashing the world economy. (Relax, even if they shift out of dollars, they aren’t going to do it overnight – It really will be far more boring than a James Bond movie), What matters at the end of the day is people’s holdings, not the price tag on what they are buying.

But if the sheiks start quoting oil prices in euros, get ready for a lot of moaning and whining about the decline of the dollar and the loss of US prestige. And that is real – It is a symbol of how our completely insane economic policy of pretending we can buy anything we want (wars, huge tax cuts spring to mind), and not pay for it, really does have consequences. The world doesn't trust us to run our economy with a steady hand, and that is the root of the problem. The boring staid "German central banker" types inspire more confidence than our guys, and they don’t want the prices quoted for the things they buy to gyrate wildly because the US doesn’t know what a steady, stable economic policy looks like (at least not until last November)

Interestingly, if you look at a history of world oil prices over the past 10 or 20 years, you can immediately see that the euro equivalent price of oil was way more stable than the dollar price for long periods of time. Why? Because the fluctuations in the dollar price of oil had more to do with fluctuations in the value of the dollar than they did with actual supply and demand for oil. With oil exporters wanting a more or less stable revenue stream (and able to enforce it with their market power), they simply made sure the real price in euros stayed flat.

Even so, it is true that the fluctuations over the past two years have been more dominated by supply and demand than exchange rate changes. Nobody should need convincing by now that sharp ups and downs are entirely possible, even probable over the next few years, but it wont really matter what currency the price is quoted in. Hey, if they start quoting oil in euros we might even get people to understand exchange rates! Well… Nah. The news producers are just going to have to do a little arithmetic before reporting to us what oil prices did today. Read the rest of this post...

Another excellent message from Rep. Alan Grayson

Alan Grayson spoke on the House floor last night -- with a message for Democrats and Republicans. Unfortunately, it is important to remind Democrats that Olympia Snowe was not elected president. Love this guy:
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Pelosi dissed Baucus bill, wants "strong public option going into conference with the Senate"

This is a very good sign. Yesterday, in a closed Democratic caucus meeting, The Speaker was critical of the Baucus health care bill yesterday, according to The Hill:

“The savings [in the Baucus bill] come off the backs of the middle class,” Pelosi told a closed-door caucus meeting. “This is why we need a strong public option going into conference with the Senate.”

The remark, confirmed by several of those in attendance, demonstrated that Pelosi is increasingly siding with the liberal members of her caucus on strategy.

Leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have consistently pushed the bill to the left in order to improve the bargaining position it will have in conference with the more centrist Senate when it hammers out a final version.

For the record, Pelosi would also be siding with a large segment of the American people who want that public option: 61% in the latest Quinnipiac poll. But, in the world of Capitol Hill, it's easy to overlook what the people want. Max Baucus demonstrated that.

The fact that Progressives are asserting their authority is making the Blue Dogs cranky. Apparently, the Blue Dogs, who have tried to control the agenda, don't like others Democrats using their power, via The Hill:

That strategy has infuriated centrists, particularly Blue Dog Democrats, who don’t want to take politically risky votes on provisions likely to be bargained away in the final hours. They feel Pelosi and other leaders have ignored their suggestions.

“This isn’t about achieving bargaining power in conference,” said Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.), a Blue Dog leader. “We should be coming together to see what can be achieved.”

Of all people, Sandlin is the last person to be whining right now. She famously claimed "victory" when the Blue Dogs used their bargaining position to delay passage of the health insurance reform bill before the August recess. Sandlin was unabashed about flexing the muscle of the Blue Dogs:

“It is because of the Blue Dog Coalition that there is no floor vote before the August break.”

The Blue Dogs aren't running the show this time.

And, I'm sick of hearing politicians whine about taking tough votes. That's their job. If they don't want to take hard votes for critically important policy, they shouldn't be in Congress. Read the rest of this post...

Friday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Big morning, huh?

The Nobel Peace Prize for Obama. Wow. Chris is right, "Not sure anyone saw this one coming." Including anyone at the White House. The Nobel Committee seemed influenced by the fact that Obama is not George Bush. That is prize-worthy.

And, I just watched the NASA rocket crash into the moon. Okay, I watched it on CNN and I could't really see anything. But, it happened.

Let's start threading... Read the rest of this post...

Breaking: Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

Not sure anyone saw this one coming. CNN:

The first African-American to win the White House, Obama was praised by the Norweigan Nobel Committee for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

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Bono speaks to UK Conservative conference

After cozying up with Rick Santorum and the US right wing extremists, how else do you beat that act? Bono and his silly little title needs to go away. Nice to see the Twitterers taking him to task for his latest stunt.

The band's frontman became a villain on the web today moments after he turned up as a support act at the Tory conference. While the Tories hoped Bono's surprise address – via a giant videoscreen – would provide a shot of welcome celebrity pizzazz, the singer could hardly have imagined his appearance would have such a swift impact on his profile.

Many of the responses on Twitter were hostile as the tag #BonoToryScum quickly spread over the social networking site. "Look for U2's new song called Where the Streets Have No Low-Income Housing," tweeted Deadeye_Dick.

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Iran sentences activist to death sentence

The kangaroo court has made sure to include all of the juicy bits including a confession. Yes, he was conspiring with the US and the monarchy is naturally part of it as well. Things never get better in Iran with the extremist government.

A revolutionary court in Tehran handed the penalty to Mohammad Reza Ali-Zamani, 37, after convicting him of muhabereh – taking up arms against Iran's Islamic system.

The sentence was imposed after he confessed to working for a little-known exile group, the Iran Monarchy Committee, which Iranian officials describe as a terrorist organisation. Prosecutors alleged that he plotted political assassinations with US military officials in Iraq before returning to Iran "aiming at causing disruption during and after the election".

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