Bailout debacle

OK, it seems the country went to the dogs in my absense. Or, may be people just figured out it was bad.

With due deference to the GOP free marketers, this isn't a problem the markets can solve, at least, not immediately. We need to buy time. I was going to explain why but I found this marvelous piece that does a better job than I could.

There are many reasons why we got to this state, but for the time being, letting the credit system fail is a recipe for disaster. This "bailout" or "rescue" fails to address the underlying cause. It buys time. But, without a functioning credit system, we could have a total economic meltdown, world wide. So, we need to fix the underlying issues, but in the meanwhile, we can't let the patient die.

Chris Rock on Letterman

I've suspected Chris Rock to be one of the wittiest commentators around. And I'm including the pundits and famed hosts, etc. Don't go to him for complex analysis. But he has a way of distilling stuff ... here he was referring to certain people's inability to move on since Hillary lost the democratic race.

"Hillary is not running, she lost the election. Yes she got 18 million votes. The Patriots scored a lot of points. But they lost to the Giants."

Btw - he was referring to Bill Clinton who preceded him on stage. The former president spoke eloquently and intelligently, but Chris, to the surprise but acknowledgment of Letterman and the audience, pointed out how the former president seemed very reluctant to mention Barack by name.

Bless You !!!

I thought this was funny as hell. Turn up the volume on this.

AIG gets a helping hand

So Bernanke and Paulson get in and bail out AIG by making available an $85B loan. Wow! These are unprecedented times. Some of those Lehman employees have got to be really ticked off.

On a lighter note I read an interesting commentary regarding the differential treatment that Freddie and Fannie got versus Lehman. Fits the AIG case as well. "If you screw up, make sure you don't put just your ginormous company at risk. Make sure you do so in a fashion that puts the entire economy at risk. Then you get the hand-out." In the case of AIG what had everyone nervous was the cascading effect of an AIG wipeout - they are the largest insurers of all those securities out there. AIG gets wiped out, then every significant broker, lender and investment bank out there would have to go and redraw their balance sheet with pretty clear consequences.

Which also makes me wonder, what does this buy, other than time? And what exactly needs to happen in that time for the markets to gradually absorb the impact. If the root of the problem is the housing mess (negative equity, insolvent home owners and such) ... that's not getting better anytime soon. Home prices aren't on their way back up and we have many more foreclosures to go. The economy isn't exactly growing or making it easier for people to stay current.

Again, as before, I don't think there was a choice. Ultimately Paulson and Bernanke very likely made the right move. And yes it makes sense for the government to intervene for bigger players than smaller - real world, sorry. The rescue though, just feels pointless at worst, delaying at best, if nobody has a more fully blown-out plan.

Article here.

Election and the issues

See link here.

Mini Me Palin

I thought the below cartoon is funny.

Lies, damned lies, and political campaigns ...

Paul Krugman has a scathing article criticizing the lies being pandered by the McCain campaign. I say lies because these are so egregiously misleading that its hard to know how you can even get around to justify them. McCain appears to have decided a Willie Horton tactic is best.

To give some context, this is the famous Willie Horton ad that was used against Michael Dukakis by then Vice President Bush to extraordinary effect, shifting the polls in Bush's favor:



The facts in this ad were not incorrect. The issue was the ad made it seem as if Dukakis had caused the death of these people, which was misleading. These tactics had been used before and since, but in many cases, such as in the case of McCain's claims around Obama raising taxes, you needed a very nuanced understanding of the issues to understand why McCain is not right.

Well, the McCain camp decided to set a new low standard in Washington. They have taken this one step further. Here's the ad that McCain released:



The problem is that the bill Obama voted for actually was intended to teach children to protect themselves against sexual offenders, i.e. not "sex education" as the ad is suggesting.

The condemnation against McCain has been immediate and almost universal outside the core Republican circles. However, he got himself a lot of free airtime and a lot of people will believe this lie, no matter how many times its corrected.

McCain himself claims the ad was factual. This article covers clips from The View, where he got grilled on this. McCain uses his mock outrage about the "lipstick on a pig" comment to deflect answering the question.

To counterattack, the Obama camp has released a so-called "tough" new ad, which frankly is very tepid, non controversial and ineffective by comparison:



The media is pretending as if these ads are in the same league, but there is just no comparison.

The most effective response has come, not from the campaign but from Planned Parenthood. Here's the ad they came up with:



Now if the Obama camp were the GOP, this is the ad they'd be running against McCain, and McCain would lose. We, with values, must suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous attacks from those who shout about having values but have none. Let us see if Obama chooses the Presidency at the cost of his values. His meeting with Clinton yesterday suggests he may be seeking a middle ground.

Creatinism in schools

There may be a new approach that Creationists can take to get their view of creationism in classrooms. This article discusses a view that is being proposed by the director of education at the Royal Society. Essentially, his point seems to be that enough people believe in Creationism and are rejecting the accepted scientific view that it may be worth addressing these issues in an academic way in schools rather than dismissing them off hand.

Rev Prof Reiss, a biologist and Church of England minister, does have a point. We have for years argued that if we present the science and scoff at the Creationist views so dearly held by people, then it will magically be banished. It has not happened. In fact, as this article suggests, belief in Creationism may in fact be gaining ground. We need a better approach.

On the other hand, it seems ludicrous to entrust such a debate to teachers in schools. With the internet at people's fingertips, it would be easy for well informed students to run circles around teachers, where the discussion becomes moot. It's like asking someone who has seen an aircraft fly and read a little bit about the science, but no fundamental understanding of all the principles to go back to the middle ages and explain it to people then. The problem would be, at a certain point, the person wouldn't be able to explain it. At that point, the credibility of the argument would rest on the credibility of the debaters, and the credibility of the debater wouldn't be much. My teachers in school had trouble explaining such non controversial topics as osmosis, surface tension and momentum. How in the world would they have actually been able to conduct this debate?

Getting rewarded for eating someone else's cake

Imagine being under investigation for alleged ethical lapses and being selected for the Ethics award.

Oh, the irony. Just before the Department of Interior's inspector general released reports that laid bare the oil-and-sex scandal in the department's oil royalties office this week, Interior won an annual award from the federal Office of Government Ethics.

Read more here

Did I really say that?

Interesting how people's opinions change. Biden thought Obama was not qualified, now he does. And, as the video below shows, McCain thought being a Governor or the mayor of New York didn't make you qualified. Now he thinks Mayor of Wasilla and two years as Governor of Alaska does.




He says, "I am prepared. I am prepared. I need no on-the-job training. I wasn't a mayor for a short period of time. I wasn't a governor for a short period of time."

The difference being, Biden can argue that his view of how Obama campaigned led him to reassess whether Obama meets his benchmark. In McCain's case, he has changed the benchmark itself.

Palin's interview - part 1

What I saw of Governor Palin's ABC interview today and early reports on the interview suggest that while she was prepared, she wasn't prepared well enough.

She didn't know what the Bush doctrine was, for instance. She suggested that she was qualified to be commander in chief because she knows about oil. She suggested that Georgia should be part of NATO and that the US would be obligated to go to war with Russia because of it, if Georgia was attached, which is factually correct but reminiscent of how WWI began - I think the fact that she brought up war with Russia has a lot of people in Europe worried tonight. She did back down a little on global warming, but its clear she and McCain disagree. She tried to wiggle out of her comment of Iraq being a war being fought for God by referencing Lincoln, but ultimately came across as a religious zealot anyway, at least to non fervent Christians.

I think she did well enough for the GOP supporters, but Obama supporters are probably sleeping a little easier tonight. Anyway this is the ABC news link and this is Huffingtonpost's summary.

Revisionism

Dailykos, a highly liberal site, is alleging the WSJ edited their archives to remove negative references to Sarah Palin. If true, interesting how "unbiased" the WSJ is.

McCain interview and more ...

Very interesting interview with McCain, and its interesting to see the line of attack and the explanations that McCain offers.

And this explains why a lot of comics are praying for a McCain-Palin victory.

Interesting point of view on what shouldn't have been an important issue this election

Sarah Palin's Myth of America - Time magazine article

The world gets "bearder" everyday

I'm guessing some of you read this article on TOI, about a Muslim airman questioning the Indian Air Force's no-beard policy.

I was quick to dimiss the case. The two most common rebuttals are
(1) Technological: How do you fit that high tech helmet with a tight seal; remember it delivers oxygen among other things
(2) Secular: The armed forces would prefer "uniform" appearance (On a side note - I now realize why the dress-code is referred to as "a uniform", duh! I have my doofus moments). The armed forces is not the place for you to stake your individuality. Most armies, modern and ancient, have had the uniformity tenet.

But if this brings Govinda to mind i.e. "it happens only in India", take a gander at this very similar case in Israel. Worth a double take.

The technological problem apparently isn't a slam dunk, since women with long hair have no problem serving in the Israeli air force. They manage to find a way. The article however fails to mention it's dealing with hair on diametrically opposite sides of the head.

Second, on the notion of uniformity of appearance in the armed forces - we do make exceptions for Sikhs. Btw - last time I checked, the British and Canadian armies also make the exception.

If only all arguments were simple. That said, I would need an overwhelming argument proving that "uniforms" are explicitly discriminatory against a religion to overturn what is common sense for the army, navy and air force.

Which gives me an opportunity to rant against religions that require distinctiveness in appearance. First of all, keep that in your home and out of public view. Second, religion is supposed to be about what's inside. Consider this an equal offender statement against crosses, kirpans, ash and hats. Granted in a democracy I cannot (and don't particularly care to) enforce what you look like in public. But at least when you get near the military ... what's that phrase ... FALL IN LINE!

Troopergate and more ...

This in my view is biased report, as it doesn't really explore the case in Sarah Palin's favor. Still, it does offer some fascinating information on Troopergate and her stand on women's rights.



Chances are that this will prove to be much ado about nothing because she'll probably not be found guilty by the investigators, who will cite insufficient evidence. Liberals will scream blue murder, conservatives will play victim. If, by chance, the investigation does find her guilty, McCain and Co. will say its biased pointing to annoyed Republicans out to get her and biased Obama supporters, etc. It won't change anyone's mind about anything. It's a non issue.

Large Hadron Collider

What on earth is the LHC?

Check this one - LHC primer from CERN

If at first you don't succeed ...

This is an extremely amusing article that I couldn't resist posting. This Nepalese porter is on his 25th wife. Now that's perserverence!

You wouldn't know it if you watched the news!

I couldn't agree with you more, Dhakks.

How is free market economics supposed to correct market imbalances if the government bails out corporations every time they mess up? This is socialism for corporations! We either believe in free markets, or not.

Two interesting revelations I came across in NPR:

• The first is that a significant part of Fannie and Freddie's capital is deferred tax credit, i.e. the present value of taxes that won't need to be paid as a result of losses that are carried forward. The problem is that these don't constitute assets that can be drawn upon in case of a crisis like this. Which basically means that the crisis was much more dire than imagined at first.
  

• The second is that the combined outstanding debt of Fannie and Freddie is roughly $5 Trillion. Yes that's trillion, not billion. That is more debt at stake than any company in history. It's more than the debt of every country in the world except the US. Hell, its more than the GDP of every country in the world except the US. In fact, the crash of the Japanese economy would arguably be less of a strain on the world economy than Fannie and Freddie.
  

The aggregate cost of this debacle to the tax payers depends on how much of the loans will actually prove to be bad. Estimates range from $25BN to $200BN.

What has astonished me today is that effectively the US government has taken on $5 trillion in credit exposure upending a fundamental argument made by Reagan when privatizing these behemoths. The world, by general consensus, just avoided what is possibly the closest it has come to a global financial meltdown since the Great Depression, and the news has focused on lippygate and Lou Dobbs spent an hour on a tirade against illegal immigrants. This is surreal!

Fannie Freddie Sammie

I didn't think of it but I couldn't have said it better.

I am a little perplexed by the common perception (media, public) that capitalism is somehow supposed to be painless.

I don't know enough (the scale of numbers is beyond grasp) to say that these firms, as others before, "had to be saved" or not.

But any time you mess with the principles of risk and reward, specifically how "you earn it", you get a few possible outcomes (1) you're setting bad precedents (2) you typically postpone the problem (for another generation) rather than solve it (3) it comes back to bite you in some other form, sometimes even worsened in magnitude.

The common refrain is that a gradual pain is better than a severe shock for the economy. I buy that. And I don't.

Oh, by the way, Warren bought it. I don't think the alternative (letting them collapse) was ever on the table. Just not possible.

Also, interesting article on Warren's concern with potentially more bank failures here.

The world speaks ...

A survey by the BBC suggests that across 22 countries around the world suggests Obama is the preferred candidate in every one of them. Bush, in contrast, had got the majority of at least three countries voting in his favor. Meanwhile, Gordon Brown, the UK PM, has actually gone so far as to seemingly endorse Obama. If this gets out among the US populace, it might do even more damage to Obama's flailing numbers.

Fannie and Freddie, what do you think?

The Government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the weekend. Paul Krugman argues in his column that this signifies the failure of the Fed intervention. What do you think? Is this a failure of the Fed strategy? What does it say about the economy?

Barack on H1B proposals

Times of India has been circulating a rather interesting rumor that Barack Obama is anti H1B visa and would stop the H1B program.

This is an interview with Barack Obama that suggests he has a more nuanced explanation. Here's a summary:

• He supports a temporary increase in the number of H1Bs.
• He supports making H1B automatically available for immigrants who come to the US to study. In fact, some Democrats want faster route to Green card for them.
• He wants to make investments in education to make it unnecessary to hire people with bachelors degree from abroad.
  

In any event, immigration is a radioactive topic at the moment, so I'd treat all pronouncements at the moment with a pinch of salt.

Who will win ...

This blog may prove to be profoundly premature, but here is my take for what its worth.

After a week or so of watching the news cycle and looking at the right wing reaction to the selection of Palin as VP and the dramatic viewership of an otherwise lacklustre GOP convention (the GOP conventioned garnered higher ratings than the DNC convention), let me revert back to my original prediction - there is roughly a 67% chance of McCain winning.

Here's my reasoning:

• Firstly, the GOP has pulled a fast one by selecting Sarah Palin. Two months is just not enough time to vet her. The GOP will keep her under wraps for most of that time and the DNC is just not good at tearing down their opponents. So, the positives of Sarah Palin - fresh face, conservative platform, exciting, good speaker - will all be apparent, whereas the negatives won't. The people who bring them up, such as Bill Maher and DNC surrogates, will sound shrill and will turn off even their supporters.


• The DNC has taken the GOP bait. While the focus was on Obama, the continuous attacks were slowly wearing down his appeal. I had hoped, that the DNC and Obama would turn the attention back on McCain, who, frankly, would have found it hard to withstand scrutiny, especially given his 67+ policy reversals. Initially, the continuous re-emphasis of McCain-Bush by the DNC seemed well thought out and working. Then came Palin and the DNC got distracted. By making Palin the focus of attention, the GOP has been able to make the issues about Obama vs. Palin. By comparing Obama to Palin, they draw him down to her level and it takes the focus off McCain, so the GOP wins. Everyone who has concerns with Palin, will still be able to vote for McCain and those who have concerns with McCain, can vote for Palin. They can bring Obama down while not affecting their ticket as much.
  

• The GOP has taken control of the news cycle by focusing on issues they can win: social issues, character, patriotism, oil and experience. They have managed to keep the conversation off the topics that the DNC wins: economy, job losses, healthcare and competence.


• Hillary is betting that taking on Palin in 4 years is better than waiting for 2016 after an Obama win. Why? Well, if she was that against Palin, wouldn't she have appeared on Larry King or something to rebut her. By not responding, she has left an opening for Palin. Even a small residual feeling of rancour due to Hillary would undermine Obama's efforts.
  

Overall, the demographics are against Obama. He needs to win swing states where the voting blocks that decide the election are not the ones that have been flocking to him. The economy is in his favor, but with Palin on the ticket the GOP has managed to completely drown out the historic Obama speech last week and the focus is no longer on the economy.

One last point, this election is a battle against two groups of master marketers. Most voters have no idea what these candidates stand for, what their policies are and what they actually will do. They don't know and don't care.

In an article on this subject, Rick Shenkman comments that: (i) people are not really smart, (ii) The Daily Show viewers are no smarter than Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly viewers, (iii) people are surprisingly resistant to facts, (iv) people are not getting smarter, and (v) young people are not paying more attention. None of this is news to a marketer.

A lie repeated often enough becomes indistinguishable from truth. The reason is people, at the end of the day, are trusting. They believe what they are told, especially when it comes from sources they trust. It's an evolutionary quirk that is actually an advantage in most situations. If we see or hear something multiple times, our brain registers a pattern, and imprints it. It explains why most of us readily accept Newton and Einstein's laws, despite the fact that few of us have ever bothered to verify them. That's why the two sides in the evolution debate have such a hard time - very few of them know anything about what they are debating. They all believe, because they have heard it so often that they believe it must be true.

Once they believe something, People use negatives to reject, and positives to accept. So, a creationist will cite the most damaging information about evolution and the most positive one about creationism. Reverse how the information is presented, and they will reject the information before accepting their error. This is because most people like to have a positive self image. Accepting they were wrong is not in their nature. So, a convenient and ultimately self affirming lie will persist even in the face of incontrovertible evidence of an inconvenient truth.

The meme Obama is trying to implant is McCain-Bush. The meme McCain is trying to impant is Obama is not qualified. Obama's meme, however, requires people to also acknowledge that Bush was a disaster while avoiding making those who voted for Bush defensive. McCain's meme is ultimately simpler, it says you were right on the issues, wrong on the person - trust me, I will be better. McCain has the psychologically easier task.

So, here's the question, can Obama get the conversation back in his favor? Can he use his organization skills to offset the GOP spin machine? Can he implant the McCain-Bush meme effectively, or will the GOP be able to distract and plant doubts? I give Obama a 33% chance of pulling it off, and that too because he has been so exceptional a marketer so far.

Sheer brilliance in comedy!!

Jon Stewart again. The Daily Show Team is brilliant. 4 mins 50 sec into the clip there is an brilliant juxtaposition of McCain and Bush. It shows better than I ever could what I was trying to express a few days ago, that McCain has no new ideas.




... and this is probably best introduction to McCain you'll see. Its irreverent, but very funny. Enjoy.

Nuclear deal approved ...

The India and US nuclear deal has been approved by India and the nuclear suppliers. Now it requires the ratification of Congress. Let's see where Obama and co. stand on this. There is a risk, albeit small, that Congress will delay the matter till next year, not wanting to yoke the new President to a deal like this.

Leander Paes triumphs

Leander Paes and partner Zimbabwean Cara Black have won the mixed doubles title at the US Open. This is his fourth Grand Slam win and second US Open. He has previously won two Grand Slam mixed doubles titles with Martina Navratilova and another with Lisa Raymond, but this is the first time he partnered Cara Black. He is also playing in the men's doubles, and has a chance for another potential victory.

A stutter in India ...

Recently, there has been much talk about how India is going to become dominant in the world. This report on the issues facing Tata Nano production in West Bengal is an example of why that growth will not be easy. Quick summary, strikes and protests have stopped the construction of the Nano production facility in West Bengal.

Knowing West Bengal, they would have protested the construction no matter how much cause they had. A gut reaction would be to blame the intransigence of undereducated farmers, the hold of the communists and pandering by politicians. However, a closer look reveals that it may not be as simple as that. Government heavy handedness and a willingness by Indian companies to use government influence to strong arm people and not be fair were also to blame.

In this case, the West Bengal government literally took away hundreds of acres of farmland to give to the Tatas and paid the farmers "adequate compensation". Since there was no auction, the compensation is the government's estimate of the land's value, and not the market value it might have fetched. So, financially, its unclear how fair the deal is.

Also, imagine being a farmer and then having the only thing you know how to do being taken away from you, without your consent. It would be like someone giving me a packet of money and saying you can never work in a company again.

The Chinese by contrast do this relatively easily, for example in the relocation of 2 MM people during the construction of the 3 Gorges Dam. The question is, should India emulate the Chinese? Are the pains of the few less relevant than the gains of the many?

What was he thinking?

Amidst all this talk about "executive experience" in this time's Presidential elections, one question that the GOP had to answer was what ideas do they have to turn the US around? After all, dire predictions abound for the country, with people expecting America to be plunged into a third place behind India and China by middle of this century.

McCain's performance has been criticized as one of the worst ever by a Presidential candidate since Carter in 1980. To me though, the hallmark of the speech was a complete lack of direction. What does he stand for or intend to do?

For instance, one theme John McCain brought up was bi-partisanship after the GOP spent 3 days rolling out speaker after speaker to level character attacks against Obama, Biden, liberals and the DNC. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were singled out. So, this is bi-partisanship? Did the rest of the RNC not get the memo? Is McCain in charge, or did he just suffer amnesia?

He talked a lot about reforming Congress, but what reform? What specifically does he believe is wrong with Congress? The only thing he mentioned was that people came there with selfish motives, but then, how does he hope to fix that? Why, in his 25 years in that body, has he not proposed the changes before?

He distanced himself from Bush and the Congress, yet all he could offer was some old examples of rebellion. But, if he's different, what's different? What does he stand for the Bush did not? What does he hope to do that Bush did not? In fact, his only real explanation was that there are good ideas out there and we should trust him to find them. Obama offers change as a fruition of hope. McCain offers the hope that he can change. Is that all he has to offer?

He said he cared about the plight of the economically disaffected, but then went on to offer not a single substantive policy proposal for the future. The tax cuts he touts are an extension of Bush's tax cuts with a few tweaks. How is that different? What will he do in the next four years that Obama will not, or for that matter Bush would not have proposed?

He brought up energy independence, but if you actually scratch under the surface, he doesn't have a single idea apart from opening up more reserves for drilling and a token gimmick for a fuel efficient car. If America had enough reserves to be energy independent, they would have already. The fact is America doesn't have the reserves to meet all its needs. All McCain is offering is a bunch of distractions.

He hailed Obama for his achievement of being the first African American candidate, but did not use the term African American. Instead he cited "all men are created equal, ..." just before praising Obama's achievement. I may be paranoid, but the first thought that struck me was that is he trying to remind people that Obama is "uppity"?

He also used "civil rights issue" as a description of the school voucher program, which is a veiled reference that the GOP has been successfully using to suggest that the voucher program enables people not to attend schools dominated by people who they don't want to associate with, i.e. other races. This is straight out of the Rove playbook - prima facie irreproachable and compassionate, while achieving the completely indefensible effect of exploiting race.

He said he was the person who could bring peace, yet spoke more of war and fighting, rather than diplomacy and alliances. He mentioned he would protect Georgia from Russian dominance. How? What does he actually plan to do? I don't seriously believe anyone has an easy answer, but then he brought it up.

He promised to cut pork, but what pork will he cut? How does he expect to get legislation passed if he angers all the Senators and Congressmen? How can you believe he will do something no one in history has managed to do, including his hero Ronald Reagan? Also, the bulk of government expenditure isn't pork, it's interest and allocations to defense, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Unless he reforms those, he won't really affect the deficit. Does he have any plans to reform those?

Tax and spend liberals are a danger to a nation. Left uncontrolled, profligate spending could result in burgeoning debt, economic malaise, and a sense of entitlement among workers that reduces productivity and growth. However, if what McCain said was that the best the GOP has to offer, its singularly underwhelming and depressing. Obama has a plan. I don't like everything in it, but its better than no plan and 'I'll figure it out as I go'.

'Worst speech ever' may be an exaggeration. However, the speech illustrates that the GOP has a much more fundamental problem. They have, under Bush, implemented almost every one of their agenda items except disbanding social security, banning abortion and banning gay rights. They have no more ideas to offer. McCain may yet win. However, it might be better for the GOP that he does not. They need to come up with a revised recharged platform. Not this old fatigued set of ideas.

And now for something completely different

In case you missed it, there was an extremely interesting discovery made recently. Scientists were able to recently find yet another example of Dark Matter, that seems to confirm earlier observations.

What is Dark Matter? This is a fairly good article explaining it. Suffice it to say that if our current models of astrophysics are correct (i.e. Einstein etc.) then the observed matter out there cannot really explain what we see . Galaxies are moving too fast, spinning too fast and the Universe is expanding too slowly for ordinary matter to explain it all. If the models are correct, there must be more unknown kinds of matter (i.e. matter that must be there, but which we haven't directly detected) as there are known kinds, in fact much much more. These exotic kinds of matter make up over 90% of all matter, yet we know nothing about it.

So, either we know nothing about 90% of matter, or our current models are wrong - which would be equally as troubling.

It's pretty heartening that we have found evidence that brings us closer to an understanding of these elusive unknown quantities.

I couldn't have said it better myself ...

Jon Stewart demonstrating why he is the best news team on TV. The extraordinary hypocrisy of so many in the news media and politics brought to you by the best news team on TV - The Daily Show. I would have said more, but the clip more than speaks for itself.




And the most emailed story on Yahoo News this morning was this one, exposing the number of fallacies in yesterday's GOP convention. Of course, a lie repeated often enough becomes part of people's consciousness, until people can't tell it apart from the truth.

Progress or regress

What is a sign of a nation headed toward a greater destiny?

One of the thinkers I admire wrote recently about the difference in attitudes in the 60s or 70s.

When the English factory worker sees the boss drive out in his Rolls Royce, he says, “I’d like to put a bomb under that car.” But when the American worker sees the boss drive out in his Cadillac, he says, “I’m going to own a car like that some day.”

I trust we haven't lost out on the positive attitude - the hallmark of the American Dream and the state of the 'optimism economies' of India and China.

Speech perfect ...

Interesting! I just watched Sarah Palin's speech. I hate to be proven right, but the media is so predictable and so reactionary. The press had set such low expectations for her that she couldn't fail to meet them. Now, the CNN commentators are falling over themselves complimenting her, "Wow! She can speak. How touching! How feminine!" ... How predictable. They now predict that the race will be close, and McCain could win. Surprise.

While everyone is falling over themselves praising her, what did they expect?

That she'd be an inarticulate bumbling speaker? But, we knew she could speak well. Its the one quality that all beauty pageant contestants must learn, and anyone who watched her speeches would have known that.

That her speech will be badly written? This, unlike many of Obama's speeches, wasn't a speech she wrote. It was written for her by expert speechwriters, Matthew Scully, who's one of the top speechwriters in the country. So, its hardly surprising the speech was well crafted.

The three things that struck me about the speech were that:

• This was a very strident speech that questioned their opponents character, unlike Barack Obama and Biden, who tend to focus on issues. McCain has clearly abandoned his commitment to running a clean campaign.
• The speech criticised Obama and Biden, but didn't lay out any specifics of what she and McCain would do. Her only promise was that she and McCain are people of good character, so people should trust them. Let's hope that McCain will do more.
• She was extraordinarily smug and sarcastic - I believe she just told the public, "bring em on". Expect the DNC to do just that.

The way she performed in the speech suggests that she'll do well in debates. The only problem for the GOP is that she may be so steely that it might be make a lot of men nervous and coupled how unknown she is on the issues, the DNC could make her look like Bush on steroids.

Ah ... now its sexism

This is a really good interview with Carly Fiorina.

Apparently, Sarah Palin wasn't picked because she is a woman. She was picked because she was more qualified than Barack Obama. And, its sexism to say otherwise, despite the fact that Carly herself knows nothing else about her. Also, it seems not to matter that Sarah Palin has diametrically opposite views as McCain on key issues such as global warming, because "people don't vote on single issues". Apparently, this is about diversity and coming together, except that many of these issues may be issues she will have to deal with.

Apparently, 20 months as Governor of Alaska (which, I am told has fewer people than a neighbourhood in Bethesda, MD), and 8 years as mayor of a town of 5000 (with 54 people under her) is enough executive experience to be President, more so than years in the US Senate. As Colbert points out in the clip below, by that token, Palin actually has more experience than McCain. Isn't the ticket the wrong way around?

Gyanifying on the palin' buzz

Let me catch my breath.

Astonished and flabberghasted that McCain has the temerity to select such an inexperienced person to be a heartbeat (or lack thereof) away from the Presidency, I have gone a bit overboard with tracking the revelations.

The revelation of how short and last minute the vetting process was probably has been the most astonishing. Apparently, she was only interviewed once on the the day before she was selected. I believe most companies spend more time interviewing most of their candidates than she spent to get the VP post, that too for a Presidential candidate who actuarially has a 1 in 3 chance of dying in the next 8 years leaving her in charge. This of course says little about Sarah Palin and volumes about McCain.

The incredulity about the choice is apparently shared by many senior Republican commentators too, except that they are murmering it in private. There are even bookies offering 8-1 odds that she will be asked to step aside.

Notwithstanding the hoopla though, I think the predictions of her demise may be premature.

I watched her in a number of speeches, and she is actually quite a good speaker, so the speech tonight may surprise people. She has only to memorize it, not to actually develop the content. She is also a pretty effective debator, expecially when the responses are required in short soundbites on tried and tested issues, which the campaign should provide her with the ammunation for.

Her Achilles' heel is likely to be that she has so much to familiarize herself with, that there are probably some less popular issues that she may need to deprioritize learning about. So, I'd say, if there is an embarrassing stumble, then it will be at a town hall somewhere or when being grilled by some reporters, where an unexpected question yields an unexpected answer.

I could be mistaken, but my guess is that given the low expectations of her, she may surprise people to a point where there will be a rise, before the fall. If she's very lucky, the fall may come too late to have any influence on the election.

With this holy water, I cleanse this blog

I am blessedly in the company of future heads of state who are preparing for the vetting that will come. And no I'm not referring to Raj. He tried the pageant route but didn't make it past the 2nd round.

Now come forth and gyanify ...

... and now we have revelations of business failures and more!

Sarah Palin, apart from being a Governor, was also a business woman, with a very mixed record. It seems that she ran at least a couple of business went went south. Sounds like the current incumbent, doesn't it?

Meanwhile, Obama becomes the first candidate to lay down a Science policy. Here are some of his answers.

By the way, interesting pattern here:

• Sarah Palin was Miss Wasilla and runners up in Miss Alaska.
• Cindy McCain (nee Hensley) was Miss Junior Rodeo Queen of Arizona.
• Carol McCain (nee Shepp) was a swimwear model.

... all the women McCain pick seem to have been models or beauty queens.

CNN grilling a McCain surrogate

This is an amusing interview. It is absolutely clear that he has no idea why Palin is qualified. He doesn't have anything beyond the talking points.



Keep watching over the next few weeks. As a blogger I read recently explained, the tactic will be as follows:

1. What, it couldn't be true! She's too good. It's not worth dignifying.
   
2. It's not true.
   
3. Why are you trying to prove it's true? It's media bias.
   
4. You can't prove it's true.
   
5. It's shameful that you have uncovered this evidence.
6. It's not really relevant.

Rumors and lies ...

First, let me provide an updated corrected version of a rumor I helped spread yesterday. Sarah Palin, it turns out, was not a member of the Alaskan Independence Party. Her husband was. Here are some of the details. Of course, the fact still remains that the head of the party said Sarah Palin had been a member, although he may have misremembered.

The GOP is accusing the DNC and Obama supporters of running false insinuations against Sarah Palin. This is a bit rich considering what McCain and GOP supporters are running against Obama. This is just one example of the type of rumors and accusations that they are circulating - this one through a paid online banner. The fascinating thing is that a close examination of the photograph reveals that it was doctored to add a cigarette in Obama's mouth.

This does not justify unwarranted and unjust attacks on Sarah Palin, but so far, the respone to her have been rumors which have largely been substantiated. Methinks the GOP doth protest too much!

Changing the paradigm ...

This is one of the most insightful pieces of analysis on McCain's ploy and why it might work. Essentially, it argues that McCain is trying to change the conversation from who is the most qualified and has the better answers to who has the right values. Ultimately, the article argues it is through cultural narratives, metaphors, and frames that we understand and express our ideals. Sarah Palin upends Obama and Biden's appeal to family values and blue collar ideals, by putting a truly woman of the people. It also puts a person with truly Western conservative ideals, putting Obama's Western strategy at risk.

There is early evidence at Rassmussen report that Palin is generating the type of enthusiasm and lift for McCain that he must have hoped for. The question is, will this survive an intense scrutiny of Palin.

It'll be interesting to see how Obama and Co. respond.

More updates on Sarah Palin ...

Hmmm ... now it turns out that Sarah Palin's 17 year old daughter, a senior in high school, is pregnant. Sarah Palin says Bristol, her daughter, is planning to marry the father of the child. The salacious aspects of this story aside, it's fascinating that Sarah Palin has decided to run for VP at a time when she has a newborn baby with Down's syndrome and a pregnant teenage daughter. Obama threatened that he will fire anyone on his staff exploiting this story. He says its a purely personal matter.

There is another interesting rumor that earlier this year Sarah Palin had traveled to Texas to speak at an energy conference when she was seven months pregnant when her water broke. Rather than cancel her speech and go to a hospital, she decided to give her speech and take a flight back to her home town in Wasilla (a 14 hour delay). Interesting level of concern about her son. Here's a very funny decision map of what she did.

On Sarah Palin's qualifications, she's supposed to be a big tax cutter, and has fought pork. As an example her introductory claim was that she had said, "Thanks, but no thanks!" to the bridge to nowhere. Really? As an Alaskan newspaper reports, that the facts are somewhat different. Ms. Palin basically supported the bridge wholeheartedly all through her election campaign and even thereafter, and only backed down after the money had already been cut by Congress. It's a bit like saying, "You can't fire me! I quit!" Very different from her claim!

This is even more interesting. According to Citizens Against Government Waste, the aggregate earmarks for Alaska in 2008 (i.e. under Sarah Palin's watch) was ~$379MM, about $100MM more than any other state in the US. Also, as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, she hired the firm of Hoffman Silver Gilman & Blasco to help secure spending projects for her town and from 2000 through 2002, Wasilla received more than $5.5 million in federal cash for transportation and social service projects.

On her clean image, the current troopergate is not the first controversy she has faced. She was almost recalled when she was mayor for firing her police chief and library director for not supporting her in the elections. Sort of akin to the Justice department scandal. Also, she was part of 527 group associated with the indicted Senator Ted Stevens, someone she was publicly supporting until recently.

Oh, and there might be some even more explosive material. It seems that Governor Palin was once a member of the Alaskan Independence Party (AIP), a party reportedly dedicated to the secession of Alaska. Here's a video of the head of the AIP boasting about it (around 6 minutes into the video). Here she is again saying relatively nice things to the AIP in an address after becoming Governor. Makes you wonder about her comments about putting Alaska first :) At least, that's what the GOP would have said had she been a DNC candidate. Luckily she is from the patriotic party, so the question will probably never arise.

The GOP candidates ...

Governor Sarah Palin is a surprising VP pick in more ways than one. However, her relative inexperience could lull people into underestimating her, which could be a mistake.

She has negotiated the extraordinarily corrupt Alaskan system for many years (first as mayor of a town with about 4000 to 8000 people, then, for the last two years as Governor of the state), which is commendable, and at the very least, suggests she's an extremely astute politician (perhaps the fact that she has relatively little to lose helped).

She has clearly brought good luck to the campaign, with Hurricane Gustav providing the excuse to get Bush and Cheney off the GOP convention agenda, which must be a huge a relief to McCain and distressing to Obama.

She is a pretty good speaker. An example of her effectiveness is this speech she gave after her gubernatorial election.

After taking office, she was responsible for signing the deal with TransCanada for a gas pipeline. The deal is interesting, because of some of its terms. For instance, it offers a $500MM subsidy to TransCanada. There is also some debate about whether building a pipeline to Alberta, CA was consistent with putting "Country First". This is likely to be spun by both sides. The GOP will sure tout her independence from Big Oil and her executive experience. The Democrats will point out she just shipped US jobs abroad and gave a handout to the oil companies (giving subsidies like this to oil companies is pretty normal, but seems extraordinary in a year when so many people are likely to be in foreclosure).

On the other hand, she apparently got her passport only a year ago. Has not really traveled around the country.

She has several right wing views that directly contradict McCain's. She believes creationism and is pro teaching of 'intelligent design' in school. She believes that all forms of stem cell research should be banned. She believes that global warming is not man made.

She takes an extreme view that abortion should not be offered to rape victims, and should only be offered if the mother's life is in danger. This is from an Anchorage Daily News article on the Alaska gubernatorial debate:

The candidates were pressed on their stances on abortion and were even asked what they would do if their own daughters were raped and became pregnant.

Palin said she would support abortion only if the mother's life was in danger. When it came to her daughter, she said, "I would choose life."

Sum total, if her daughter is raped, Sarah Palin intends to make her bear the rapist's child.

And this is from the Juneau Empire:

Palin, however, isn't interested in talking about her views.

"She would not seek out this issue. She feels like there are several other issues that are paramount to the future of the state," said Curtis Smith, spokesman for the Palin campaign.

Smith said Palin is opposed to abortion, but believes an exception should be made if the health of the mother is in danger.

That's the only exception Palin would make, though, Smith said.

"She doesn't make exception for rape and incest, only for health of the mother," he said.

There is slight nuance here. A health exception could include something that would consider the quality of health of the mother. A life exception is only if the mother's life is in danger. Palin herself advocated the latter. So, if a pregnancy would only, say threaten the mother's ability to bear more children, I assume her answer would be it should not be terminated.

By the way, she also opposes all forms of birth control, including hormonal treatment, condoning only traditional Bible approved approaches. She has advocated criminalizing abortion and banning birth control.

Many conservatives are echoing a view that Geraldine Ferraro expresses, that smart people can learn the issues on the job. However, consider the contrast between the reaction to the two candidates. In Obama's case, he was considered inexperienced despite literally pages of opinions expressed by him on virtually every major national issue dating back, in some cases, more than a decade. In Sarah Palin's case, there is almost nothing on most issues of note, apart from social issues and a few issues that affect Alaskan's. The most astonishingly creative explanation for her experience on foreign policy was Michael Barone who notes, "Alaska is the only state with a border with Russia. And it is the only state with territory, in the Aleutian Islands, occupied by the enemy in World War II."

As a campaign ploy, this is brilliant. It means that she can morph into whatever position McCain wants to occupy. As a former beauty queen pageant, she should have the poise to carry it off. However, it reminds me of the movie The Dead Zone. In the movie, Christopher Walken's character has a premonition about an up and coming star politician (Martin Sheen) who he realizes would plunge the world into a needless nuclear war. In this case, similarly, the US is faced with selecting a VP whose views on most subjects are completely unknown. In fact, in most of these cases, she has probably never thought about the issues at all, and will rely on her advisers. It will be a complete roll of the dice.

It was interesting to note Geraldine Ferraro's unwillingness to endorse Obama was telling of the resentment some Hillary supporters feel. In her case, she is still smarting for having been called a racist. However, the analysis she repeats in the interview, while factually correct, ignores a larger reality. Obama does get 90&+ of the Black vote (although, he got substantially less at the beginning of his campaign and it increased to nearly 100% by the end). However, not even ALL the black votes alone would have won him the election, when Hillary was receiving more votes than any other candidate in history. In fact, Obama led Hillary among every demographic under 45. Its only in the over 45 population that Hillary made it up, by winning both the majority of women and the majority of white working class men. The big divide in the election was age, not race.

It is this fact that McCain may be attempting to address by selecting an even younger and attractive running mate. It may, after all, be what helped Palin to win the position over her more qualified female conservative counterparts.

Meanwhile, McCain is busy reinventing himself. This site is liberal and so biased. However, a look at the sources suggests that even adjusting for the bias, McCain has clearly flip flopped on virtually everything imaginable. He has been very maverick is cavalierly moving from moderate positions to a completely right wing one. As Michael Kinsley so eloquently points out in connection with the experience issue, all this raises the question which John McCain should we believe? Either way, as Michael Kinsley puts it, one of them is, what's the word I'm looking for ... ahh, lying!