"Through seven years of war an exclusive club has quietly flourished at the intersection of network news and wartime commerce. Its members, mostly retired generals, have had a foot in both camps as influential network military analysts and defense industry rainmakers. It is a deeply opaque world, a place of privileged access to senior government officials, where war commentary can fit hand in glove with undisclosed commercial interests and network executives are sometimes oblivious to possible conflicts of interest." As a government contractor this pisses me off.

"This means that for every $100 of legal tender that is deposited with the bank, the bank is allowed to loan out $90. Should this $90 be spent in such a way that it is eventually re-deposited with a bank, that bank is able to issue a new loan of $81 based on their fractional reserve requirements. If this process continues uninterrupted, the bank can issue up to $1,000 in newly created fiat money from that original $100 deposit. Because bank credit has been legally decreed by the government to be a medium of exchange, the banks just created $900." Devin explains why the credit crunch is crippling the economy. Of course, Bob Reich is right that there's not much push to grow right now, either.

Dear Change.gov: Let's title these better, eh?

LOVE IT.

Like I wasn't going to link to this.

"But I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the original theory of the bailout–that it would step in and provide a firewall to prevent future failures–has been proven wrong. I still think it was worth trying, prospectively; there seemed to be at the time, a reasonable prospect that it would save money in the long run by forestalling the need for future bailouts. But in hindsight, it hasn't worked." Yeah, I thought buying up troubled assets would work. I think it even might have, had it been pursued. But it was shelved, and … nope.

"The researchers’ conclusion is that one example of disorder, like graffiti or littering, can indeed encourage another, like stealing. Dr Kelling was right. The message for policymakers and police officers is that clearing up graffiti or littering promptly could help fight the spread of crime." Somewhere, Malcolm Gladwell emailed this to Leavitt and Dubner and appended a two-word commentary: "Suck it!"

"Both programs had the misfortune of being contrary to federal statutes and punishable as felonies. The Bush Justice Department itself participated in these criminal schemes, and therefore should be counted upon not to prosecuted them. But with time wearing short and the prospect of a new administration descending upon Washington, Bush may shortly act to issue a pre-emptive class-based pardon to insure that his helpers not be prosecuted. And if the pardon is class-based, one prominent beneficiary will be George W. Bush himself. So 2008 promises to be a near perfect replay of pardons farce of 1992.

"New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, has different ideas. On Friday, Nadler introduced House Resolution 1531, anticipating and condemning such a pardon."

“They pushed to get earnings, but in doing so, they took on more risk than they probably should have if they are going to be, in the end, a bank subject to regulatory controls,” said Roy Smith, a professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University. “Safe and soundness has to be no less important than growth and profits but that was subordinated by these guys.”

“We’ll be working out the details in the weeks ahead,” Mr. Obama said, “but it will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jumpstart job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy. We’ll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels, fuel-efficient cars and the alternative energy technologies that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil and keep our economy competitive in the years ahead.”

Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton first spoke after their primary fight on a flight in June to Unity, N.H., their first stage-managed appearance after he won the nomination. As they settled into their seats on his plane, the conversation, according to people on both sides, was far less awkward than they had feared. Over the passing weeks, the relationship gradually improved.

“They got past this long before their supporters and the party activists did,” said one Democrat who is close to both Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton.

It's a reasonable idea in a reasonable timeframe.

"TwitterFE is a read-only clone of Twitter's front-end that fixes many of my frustrations with the site's front-end engineering and creates a new platform for future third-party development. Any site could roll these types of improvements back into their core services. Twitter APIs are full-featured enough I can clone the Twitter front-end without creating yet another stand-alone Twitter-like site."

This is the defining line of torture: not some arbitrary comic book technique, but a psychological and physical fact: pushing another human being to the point where choice becomes unavailable to him or her. You can do this in any number of ways; it can take Agcorpse2 three seconds of electrocution or it can take two months of sleep deprivation, hypothermia and darkness. But the line it eventually crosses is the same line.

… and why we Christians have also been persecuted, so I think it's human nature. But religion and civil society are both about overcoming human nature through recognition of our collective failings.

That comment may light people's nuts on fire, but … yep.

"The Street's view of the world is fundamentally flawed. Banks are important to the economy because they're financial intermediaries. They connect savers with investors and borrowers. This is a vital function, but there's nothing magical about it. At any given time the world contains a vast pool of money that can be put to all sorts of uses. Financial intermediaries simply link the pool to the uses."

My god, it's full of monitors.

"There are a certain segment of conservatives who literally cannot believe that anybody would see the world differently than the way they do. They have not just forgotten how to persuade; they have forgotten about the necessity of persuasion."

"In that way I think the talk succeeded. Uncountable number of people let me know that they had "never even thought about" the next 1,000 years of their faith. I got the sense they did not know they were allowed to. Now they do. I wrote my talk up as a monograph, which the Q folks say is one of their most popular essays.

The Q conference features speakers talking both about the Christian church and the culture at large. It represents the arm of change within the American Protestant Evangelical branch of Christianity — the strand that has been most politically active in the US in recent decades. If you'd like to have direct contact with the emerging church of the next generation, this is a good venue to touch many edges of it at once."

"The Zawahiri letter is one of the first real indications we have of the new international state of affairs (the Ahmadinejad letter of congratulations may also have been a good sign, but was leavened by the author's lack of real power and the fact that he's running for reelection). The terrorists are now exposed as racists, on top of everything else. We have many miles to go in Afghanistan and the northern and western precincts of Pakistan, and more blood to shed–and innumerable ways to screw up, since no one has ever gotten Afghanistan right–but the wind seems to have shifted slightly and is now at our back."

"So how you feel about Lieberman should ultimately hinge on how you feel about Obama, and how you feel about Obama should ultimately hinge on your opinion about whether he is liable to put that political capital to good use. If you believe Dean's implication that Obama is going to use that political capital to pass both significant climate change reform and significant health care reform within the first two years of his presidency, you probably ought to give him the benefit of the doubt. If, on the other hand, you see Obama as someone more concerned with the accumulation of power toward ambiguous, uncertain, or incorrect ends, this is liable to be the first of a long line of displeasing decisions, and you had better get used to pushing back against the White House." I still wish McCain had picked Lieberman, and I bet Obama would've pushed the same way if that had happened.

Looks like Obama will use new media to continue to speak directly to the American people. I support this fully.

"Ziegler had contacted me by e-mail, asking if I'd like to interview him; the interview itself was conducted by telephone. Ziegler asked, among other conditions, that I post a full transcript of the interview, which I have. The transcript below is intended to be representative as possible from my shorthand transcript, with the exception of two or three rapid-fire ad-hominem exchanges being edited out. The transcript, however, is not safe for work." Well, I found it funny … but only because this Ziegler guy has zero credibility with me, while Nate has a lot.

"Writing a blank check or sitting back and doing nothing both appear to be less than ideal. Indeed, as Edward L. Glaeser, an economist at Harvard, points out in an entry on this blog, unconditionally supporting the embattled auto industry would be wasteful, yet allowing G.M. to fold would lead to millions of lost jobs.

"He supports a third way: letting the automakers file for Chapter 11 and then allowing the government to intervene."

"Schmidt decried U.S. government policies of the last eight years, which in his eyes have relied on the private sector to fix many ills. It's time to look for new ways for government and private businesses to work with each other to address problems, he said. His ideas, however, will likely face opposition from lawmakers concerned with federal deficits; at one point Schmidt talked about US$10 billion just for tax incentives for alternative energy companies."

"In other words, the loss of a single American car company wouldn’t necessarily dissolve all those jobs that the entire auto industry 'supports.' The failure of General Motors, for example, wouldn’t eliminate the entire car-wash industry. Car-washing jobs are primarily dependent on Americans’ continued demand for automobiles — whether they’re from Detroit or Nagoya — and not the operations of any one automobile company. If a foreign company could swoop in to fill that demand with minimal disruption, then, theoretically, car-wash employees would keep their jobs.

"That’s not to say that there would be no ripple effects whatsoever from a G.M., Chrysler and/or Ford bankruptcy. In fact, C.A.R. has done a more recent — and much more relevant — study on just this question."

"Mr. Chowdhury — who says the idea for EnergyPods came to him in a nap — recalls a seminar in which one banker responded to a survey question with a note saying she knew she had no fatigue-related problems at work because the only time she fell asleep was when she sat still. Mr. Chowdhury laughs a bit ruefully: 'Maybe we could have avoided the crisis we are in now if these people had just gotten proper sleep.' ” As a sleep-apnea sufferer, I can tell you just what a difference getting good sleep makes from my own experience.

"It just so happened that the leading manufacturer of devices to reduce diesel-engine emissions by 90 percent was one Corning, Inc. After Bill delivered this Christmas present to Corning, Hillary would take up the company’s cause in Washington so well that CFO James Flaws said, 'The Clinton-Corning partnership is very rewarding for both of us.'" Ugh.

It's always interesting to see how others use their machines.

Alex is always after me to use this.

Nifty!

I'm not incensed. I'm unsurprised, and confident that this level of hate dies out in two generations.

"Instead of throwing cash at the company, why not offer to back up the warranty with a federal guarantee for every car sold during GM’s Chapter 11 reorganization? New cars are extremely reliable and the true cost of the warranty is probably close to $500 (source). GM is currently delivering 170,000 cars per month. If GM imploded and nobody purchased any of its brands or the purchasers would not honor the old warranties, the Feds would be on the hook for something like $85 million for every month that GM was being reorganized. If the Chapter 11 reorganization lasted for 9 months, we’re talking about less than $1 billion of exposure or 1/50th of the cost of what Congress is currently contemplating." Seems reasonable to me—would keep people buying GM cars.

"Far many more individuals have served in uniform that have never fired a round in anger than have. You pass more people every day that wore their uniforms proudly and never visited a combat zone than have." Like my dad. Like Will.

"I fear that the university is trying to capitalize on who Wyatt's are. I know that the athletic director went so far as to ask one of the fellow photograpers at the game to shoot pictures of them. For what purpose has yet to reveal itself." Will is right. I was complicit. I feel awful.

"A virally-generated national day of protest across America is taking shape to protest the attack on the core civil rights of a small minority in California. It's a protest to demand equal treatment under the law for gay couples. It's a radical demand for a traditional institution and also a protest against those who seek to impose religious restrictions on civil law. It is a defense of both religious freedom and the freedom of those whom many (but not all) religions condemn." If I weren't going out of town, I'd go today. I find what happened in California to be unconscionable.

"Not so long ago, corporate giants with names like PanAm, ITT and Montgomery Ward roamed the earth. They faded and were replaced by new companies with names like Microsoft, Southwest Airlines and Target. The U.S. became famous for this pattern of decay and new growth. Over time, American government built a bigger safety net so workers could survive the vicissitudes of this creative destruction — with unemployment insurance and soon, one hopes, health care security. But the government has generally not interfered in the dynamic process itself, which is the source of the country’s prosperity."

"The United States government has direct ownership of almost 650 million acres of land (2.63 million square kilometers) - nearly 30% of its total territory. These federal lands are used as military bases or testing grounds, nature parks and reserves and indian reservations, or are leased to the private sector for commercial exploitation (e.g. forestry, mining, agriculture). They are managed by different administrations, such as the Bureau of Land Management, the US Forest Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the US Department of Defense, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the US Bureau of Reclamation or the Tennessee Valley Authority." Wouldn't have figured Alabama to be eighth-lowest.

"But there's a pretty simple solution as well. The US government should order a complete replacement for its vehicle fleet to be delivered over the next four years. The new vehicles must be either plugin electric hybrid, pure electric, or possibly natural gas. Obviously retooling both at the manufacturers and suppliers is required to deliver this order so the government should be willing to prepay a significant part of it as it does for new weapons systems. That gets money into the system fast and creates/saves jobs almost immediately. It lets the suppliers retool as well as the final assemblers." Exactly. It's where government spending HAS VALUE.

I can't believe Dan even had to ask.

"The graph below tells a compact story of United States health spending relative to that of other nations.

Shown on the horizontal axis is the gross domestic product per capita in 2006. The vertical axis represents 2006 health spending per capita. The data points in the graph represent two dozen developed countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (O.E.C.D.)."

"One of these prejudices is the fear of red ink. In normal times, it’s good to worry about the budget deficit — and fiscal responsibility is a virtue we’ll need to relearn as soon as this crisis is past. When depression economics prevails, however, this virtue becomes a vice. F.D.R.’s premature attempt to balance the budget in 1937 almost destroyed the New Deal."

Glad they finally indicted this guy. Hell of a weld job they did, though.

This child is seriously cute. I am, also, terribly biased.