...charade (otherwise known as Iranian democracy), sung to the tune of "Beat It"

...are apparently jointly dead today.

I'm dancin`, but maybe not dancing hard enough; I'm playin`, but maybe not playing hard enough, I'm workin`, that I'm doing plenty hard enough.

All these people dying well younger than me...it's just troublesome.

If only because I'm too busy working to worry or think too much about it.

Sighing,

Traveller

I really, really, really can't wait 'till Bobby Brady Jindal steps up to the plate.

Just had to share.

The US Men's national team just beat Spain 2-0 to advance to the finals of the Confederation's Cup. LINKEE

If Spain had won they would have broken the record for an unbeaten streak in international play. This is a HUGE upset.

Becuz, as always, Bird is way ahead of me. :)

Here's what I got when going over to Trevino's new site.

WARNING.

JPM, citing changes in law, ups balance transfer fees to 5%. Barney Frank outraged. :^)

I find JPMChase's actions entirely predictable. Credit cards are a commodity business, and the basic margins for prime and near-prime customers (i.e. credit worthy ones) are thin. The way the companies make money is via the fees, etc that cross-subsidize the main product, as well as the higher rates available on sub-prime borrowers and habitual balance carriers. Curb those and the providers will inevitably go looking for other sources of revenue. Either that or they'll jack up rates on prime borrowers, which is presumably the one thing the drafters of the legislation didn't want to have happen while their President is trying to get people borrowing & spending again. Congrats on the own-goal!

I find Frank's outrage disingenuous. "Banks should be able to impose fees to cover their costs, not to create a “new profit center"? Que? This makes about as much sense as saying "automobile manufacturers should be able to impose fees to cover their costs not to create a 'new profit center'"

a) Newsflash to Frank: The Banks need any profit center they can find, Barney. You want them recapitalized, no? Then suck it up; that capital flows from retained earnings or investors buying stakes in profitable firms. The banks will recapitalize at precisely the rate they make money at, no faster, despite any handwaving on your part.

b) In any case, who the hell are you to say what is or isn't a profit center? You were apparently under the impression that you could legislate away the existing ones, so the banks just went out and jacked things up to recreate one. Quelle surprise! Block that and they'll find another equally unpopular with your constituents, because they're in the business of making money and your constituents are in the business of not wanting to pay for services (whether via prices or taxes, as you are no doubt well aware by this late date.)

EnTrust Capital Inc., Andy Cuomo’s personal and campaign money manager, received state pension funds to invest from a Cuomo kickback investigation target.

Granted that it isn't clear that there's a quid pro quo between the investment in EnTrust and Liberty Oak, Hank Morris, Cuomo or any other parties. Still, the money invested in EnTrust is basically the same cash that Morris was paid kickbacks to steer towards CSG and Liberty Oak, so the whole thing thing has a taint to it. Cuomo is being called on to recuse himself and appoint some kind of independent investigator/prosecutor to look at EnTrust, which makes sense to me given the incestuous nature of the whole thing.

Pwned.

The Republian Gov. of South Carolina, Mark Sanford was in Argentina, not the Appalacian Trail, for the last six days. LINKEE

Scratch one 2012 Republican Presidential hopeful.

It will be a fun couple of days watching this play out.

It seems to me that the incumbent faction is feeling a deathly threat. That much is obvious. What I'm wondering about is if it might actually result in a change of policy.

Internally, I would think they would double down and become more repressive. They would have to in order to keep dissension tamped down. They will also need to be more socially conservative to keep their dwindling constituency happy and pumped up.

But on foreign policy? Can they really afford to be attempting to widen their influence with Hezbollah and Hamas? Might they take the Russian offer to provide fuel for supervised nuclear plants? It seems to me that the Iranian foreign policy is a) unpopular locally, witnessed by the success of Moussavi's 'present a kinder face to the world' campaign. And b) it isolates Iran economically, which also feeds discontent. If Ahmadinejad/Khameini care about adapting for survival, this would be the place they would do it.

Perhaps this is what is motivating the Obama administration's reticence to cut off possibility of talks. There might be a possible opening here, as distasteful as dealing with goons is.

Here's a situation where I approve and endorse what Obama did. He purposely called on Nico Pitney in his presser today, and why not. Pitney has done a stellar job covering events in Iran at HuffPo, and I'm gratified to see that Obama and his WH staff have been following Pitney's continuous and extensive updates. Calderone has a follow-up here, and it looks like Pitney conducted himself commendably.

If I didn't know any better, David Brooks is in favor of socialized medicine.

The other alternatives that Congress has are half measures and amazingly expensive.

Joe Klein explains why.

Every time a tape gets released of this guy I'm at first flabbergasted he was in the White House, then a little relieved. If this guy didn't permanently f%^& up the country maybe nobody can:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/us/politics/24nixon.html?hp

I can think of no better title right now:

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/1635147,abbate-sentence-video-bar-beating-062309.article

A Cook County judge sentenced Chicago Police officer Anthony Abbate to two years probation this afternoon for beating a petite female bartender in a drunken rampage at a Northwest Side Bar.

He could have received five years in prison. Five years seems extreme. But zero time in jail? Even a month or a week would have been a token punishment for blatant and violent criminal behavior.

Truly hard to believe.

In the early 1990's, one of the two magazines that got me thinking politically was National Review (the other was The New Republic). It was informative and had actual arguments against Democratic policies, as well as counter-proposals for actual policies.

So twenty years later, in this same publication (or at least its weblog), I came across Victor Davis Hanson explaining that Barack Obama is a post-modernist, with a

Apparently, the Barack Obama who's committed to winning in Afghanistan, who's dropping missiles into the living rooms of Salafi terrorists in Waziristan, is a post-colonialist. Now then, I'm not sure where Hanson has gotten this notion. To give him the maximum benefit of the doubt, in the same way that people think Greenspan is an Objectivist because he was enthusiastic about Ayn Rand in his youth, perhaps Hanson assumes that because Obama was into Fanon as an undergrad, then he must obviously be eagerly anticipating the socialist revolution of the oppressed peoples of the world. I can just barely believe that Hanson is mis-representing Obama rather than making s*it up. Hanson has a bee in his bonnet about BHO being a post-modernists so who knows, maybe as a classicist, he's been so angered by post-modernist drivel that he's come to see post-modernists everywhere and in everything. Maybe.

But then, we have Andrew McCarthy, who one-ups the nonsense by clarifying what motivates Barry:

I am saddened and appalled by the level to which NR has sunk. Now granted, these two posts are from the blog rather than the print magazine, but I believe the technical term for this sort of writing is "bat-sh*t insane." Seriously, these read like dispatches from an alternate reality.

There are actual things one can argue with Obama about. One could argue against the new policy in Afghanistan to avoid firefights when civilians are present. One could argue that letting tax rates return to their Clinton-era levels would be a disaster. One could argue against Obama's health care plan. But seriously, when folks are ranting against an Obama 8/10 of which is a product of their fevered imaginations, it's just impossible to take them seriously. When you start ranting about Obama the totalitarian's love of Islamicist tyrants because all evil people really share the same dastardly goal, you may as well be strenuously opposing Obama's planned peace treaty with the Klingon Empire.

that someone named HankP might consider puttin into the 'related sites' section: http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/

Since I was missing vint., I went over there and tried to argue with him a bit:

http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2009/06/christian_evangelization_of_mu.html#comments

How to get to Phuket or Ko Samui?
...I am having have a fantasy of taking the train. These are my current concerns...how it get in some diving and underwater photography which I haven't done in way too long.

See link for train schedules, pretty damned interesting, and, at $36 dollars, damned cheap. the problem is that from Surat Thani, I suppose you have to take a bus the last leg to Phuket. Maybe a 10 hour trip?

Map here:

Rail Routs in SEA

http://www.seat61.com/Map-SEAsia.htm

Fares, pics and what not at the seat 61 site:

http://www.seat61.com/Thailand.htm

Train Runs Through Bangkok Market - Watch more Funny Videos

The trouble is that I have very little time in Bangkok, 6 days, and I've scheduled some oral surgery....so I'll be traveling in pain...but what the Hell?

I'm so use to European Trains...this looks so exotic...but I'll probably fly.

Smile, and the whole world smiles with you.

I'm also excited about the car trip all the way up Luzon to San Fernando.

You know, for all my trouble, and I've got plenty....this is pretty cool.

(I'm also doing this as a distinct post because I think the rail map of South East Asia is...important to see...and think on regardless of what I might do).

Traveller

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/stimulus-package/sotomayor-fight-eroding-whats-left-of-latino-support-for-gop/

It's all downhill from here.

So--when professional @$$#ole Perez Hilton wanted to come up with the worst insult possible to direct at some hip-hop artist, he came up with "faggot"? To quote Ace: "What. A. F***ing. Idiot."

Of course, we can expect the usual suspects to start calling for Hilton to face a hate crime prosecution, right?