CNN.com - Ambassador predicts Milosevic arrest - March 15, 2001

Wonder if any of this will lead back to our old buddy Henry Kissinger and the ill-fated Yugo.
- posted by levinson @ 3/30/2001 12:07:00 PM

 
Salon.com News | The shame of San Francisco A great piece on the controversy over an Edison School in San Francisco. People like to bash the far right for their ruthless political tactics, but the far left can be just as bad, though they're not as well organized nationally. There's more to the story than what's here, but this is a very good and comprehensive look at the proposal. It's also pertinent to those of us in New York as Edison is going to be rejected by five schools today. Interestingly, the parents in each district voted on the matter, but any parent who didn't vote had their voted counted as a "no" vote. That provision was put in by the School Board. One of the reasons why these schools are failing is low parental participation, so as Giuliani put it, it was a done deal from the start. It's too bad in my eyes since the city and state have been unable to turn these schools around, and now they are blocking anyone else from making an attempt. There needs to be a concerted effort to break the strangle-hold the far left has on schooling in these districts. Their methods simply don't work in the lower-income schools. We know that, and it's not a knock on their intelligence, but it's time to try something else. Edison may not be the answer, but what's there currently isn't either.
- posted by levinson @ 3/30/2001 10:57:00 AM

 
A truly new low for any president in the modern era. I like how he claims that the clammoring and yelling at public events by the press corps is considered a "press conference" in his eyes. He just looks more and more foolish every day. Also, without the press conference, the media will be free to print wild conjecture about what he may be attempting both in the white house and on the hill. Since he doesn't want to have a press conference to clarify any of his policies, he'll be without any pulpit, much less a bully one. Perhaps Time will have him on the cover as "The Incredible Silent" or "The Incredible Frightened" or "The Incredible Hiding President". This is all so sad. Flashback to William Safire circa 15.2.01. I wonder if he'll have anything to say in his next piece about this travesty of a president. Interestingly, Paul Gigot of the Wall Street Journal thinks that if W's budget doesn't get through, that it will be the end of his domestic presidency. To my reccollection, this was also the test faced by Clinton with his budget proposal that passed by one vote, a democrat Bob Kerry who is now employed elsewhere. It will be interesting in the post-McCain-Feingold era (whether or not it passes) to see how much clout W has on the Hill. At least it won't be a boring spring in Congress.
- posted by levinson @ 3/30/2001 09:11:00 AM

 
CNN.com Well, the bill is severable. Looks like there's a real chance on this thing. I sound like a mobster. "Do you think we can get this thing of ours passed by those friends of ours?"
- posted by levinson @ 3/29/2001 01:05:00 PM

 
www.psychoexgirlfriend.com Most have probably heard of this one already, but it's really twisted. This guy has some balls putting this stuff up barely a month after the last one was left. Check out how quickly these things come in succession. 2/7/01 was a particularly difficult day.
- posted by levinson @ 3/29/2001 11:28:00 AM

 
from The Hill www.hillnews.com Things are getting really ugly on the Hill now. This is a dangerous time with the vote to make the bill non-severable coming up. (If it's non-severable, that means if the court finds any part of the bill unconstitutional, the whole bill is thrown out.) It seems that some of the McCain-Feingold troop are considering voting for non-severability, a rare provision to attach to a bill. Perhaps one of the weakest arguments I've read comes from Tom Harkin who "cited reluctance to let the Supreme Court write campaign finance law." [quote from article, not from Harkin] This is truly pathetic and I think the concern over what the Court may or may not do is getting a little out of control. Clearly the court is deservedly under a black flag right now, but to use their possible ruling as a reason to vote to make this bill notably irregular is to call into question his motive for being in the Senate. Is this the attitude he takes to every vote? Does he wrangle over how the courts will look upon each bill that comes across his desk? I don't think he does, so what the comment tells us is that he really doesn't want to ban soft money, is enjoying raking in the cash (for his party) at expensive fund-raisers, and doesn't give a damn if it looks corrupt to his constituents. Hopefully the glare of the public light will force these senators to do the right thing, but if not, I think the democratic party should seek to sever them from the ranks. It's okay to raise soft money when it's legal. It' also okay to be very, very good at it. However the whole thing reaks of corporate ownership of the legal system (more than it already does) and to not strike it down when given the opportunity is a cowardly act. As noted in the article on the Kyoto Protocols, we, as Americans, should seek to do things that lead the way (even though in this arena we are by no means a front-runner) because they are hard. It will be hard on the democrats to raise as much money as the republicans if soft money is taken away, but that shouldn't deter them. Perhaps, right now, they fear their ability to connect with their constituents if their corporate cudgel is removed; I don't know. I can only hope something forces them to take this very difficult, but also first, step.
- posted by levinson @ 3/29/2001 08:30:00 AM

 
Salon.com News | A national disgrace
A little more strident and eloquent than the blurb I put yesterday on the Kyoto Protocol. I like the quote from Kennedy.
- posted by levinson @ 3/29/2001 07:57:00 AM

 
Spring Look: Thin Dresses and Blue Lips
I empathize with the people in this article. I'm totally fed up with the cold weather. Just tired of the fact that I'm still wearing a scarf and overcoat in late-March/early-April. Normally I'm not one to advocate tampering with the weather, but in this case I'm willing to make an exception. If the global warming people really want to make their case that there are severe weather problems, they should present their case that the same pollutants that are causing the ice caps to melt and heat up the winter, are also causing these unseasonably low temperatures in the spring-time. It's not enough to write articles when we have a 50 degree day around Thanksgiving. Anyway, I think I'm going to wear a bathing suit to work.
- posted by levinson @ 3/29/2001 05:38:00 AM

 
Street Cred by James Cramer
Cramer throws a great big FUCK YOU at just about everything W and his cadre want us to think about them. For all their talk about industrial experience, the Bushies don't know squat about the economy. The thing that really resonated with me is Cramer's line about being in touch with the people in the trenches of Capitalism. The Treasury department used to be in touch with the ground-war that was waged daily on the streets of American capitalism. This group is still hemming and hawing about weather or not to hold on to $100 million in options from their various companies. Getting a whif from Cramer about what it was like under Rubin, and the contrast with O'Neill is truly depressing. There's still an opportunity for the department to bring in some Wall Streeters, but it doesn't look good. This sucks, and, as Rob said yesterday, it's only March.

Now I have to go subscribe to TheStreet.com, Cramer's website. I love reading his stuff.
- posted by levinson @ 3/28/2001 10:27:00 AM

 
Campaign Finance Reform: The Issue
If Politics makes strage bedfellowes, Campaign Finance Reform has seemed to put together some strange ones on paper. Scroll down this page until you hit the table in the "The Money" section. I find it interesting that in terms of soft money, the democrats have been behind, but not too far. $13.5 million in '92, 18.9 in 96 and 1.3 in '00. Certainly in this last election cycle, the dems kept pace. However, look at the Hard Money row in each. In all three of the cycles, the dems got their clocks cleaned. $110.8, 197.5, 177.5 from 92-00 respectively. On paper, one would expect the republicans to be harping on campaign reform since they enjoy almost a $200 million fundraising advantage. Of course, there are more stringent laws regarding hard money uses. Since soft money is largely anonymous and used for such things as "issue ads" (you know, the hate-filled campaign that Bush waged in South Carolina to pigeon-hole McCain?), it can be assumed that republicans see this as being essential to their success in politics going forward. Finally, it looks like the hard money limits are going to be raised, perhaps more than double. In that case, the democrats need to seriously adjust their hard money fundraising techniques for the upcoming cycle in order to adequately finance the opposition needed to take back the houses of congress.
- posted by levinson @ 3/28/2001 09:49:00 AM

 
EPA chief Whitman: Kyoto treaty is dead
I don't know enough about the Kyoto accords to speak intelligently on this (I don't consider the sound-byte reports on it to be sufficient), but I do think that simply to use the fact that it puts the main burden to restrict greenhouse gasses on the US and less of a burden on developing countries to do the same as justification for not ratifying it is nonsense. There may be other problems with it, and it's worth noting, as Whitman does, that no other industrialized nation has ratified it, but I still feel that the US should take the lead on this. We've taken the lead in industrialization and its harmful effects on the environment. Now that we're in a position to move beyond those harmful methods, it's childish to complain that the little guys who are still developing clean technology (or simply don't have the resources to implement them) need to do it at the same time. Taking a significant lead on this (and perhaps Kyoto isn't the way, but the issue isn't about to go away) is our best policy.
- posted by levinson @ 3/28/2001 08:20:00 AM

 
The Hostage Economy
Krugman throws a pretty large rebuke at Bush here. I've begun to see other media outlets referring to his op-ed pieces. There is a dearth of liberal writers out there at the moment, and Krugman is one of their best with strong economic credentials. I think his best feature is that he succeeds in succinctly a) debunking the "logic" behind W's plan, b) presenting an alternative for consideration, and c) reminding the public of past Rebuplican economic travestites. It's not easy to accomplish that in a semi-weekly column, but he seems able.
- posted by levinson @ 3/28/2001 06:49:00 AM

 
Consumer-Confidence Index Rises to 117, Boosted by Hopes for Future Growth
Would one way to interperet this be that the country is telling W to go back to the ranch with his economic "policy"? W has been trotting through the country side telling us how he's concerned about the economy. I wonder if his address tonight will have adjusted to the fact that these data show the common man basically tuning him out completely. Also, I think it shows that people generally feel that the correction will be short lived and that, despite some assertions we're not headed for a long and deep recession.
- posted by levinson @ 3/27/2001 08:34:00 AM

 
Salon.com Politics | Poison Paul?
Things are really heating up early in this final week of campaign finance reform. Two quotes speak the most to me, "[i]t's guys like Wellstone who hurt the cause of reform far greater than Mitch McConnell ... [t]he purists are what Lenin called 'useful idiots.' They end up doing more damage to the cause of reform than the most vicious opponents." My brother and I noticed something similar to this sentiment within the party back in '92 while watching "The War Room." There was a heated debate about weather or not to make more signs for the TV cameras on the final night of the Democratic convention. Second quote from Salon article, "I don't think these guys are the great chess players that everyone makes them out to be." An interesting take on the people we expect to be involved in vast conspiracies. When you're on the side of this reform, as I am, it is easy to see anyone who supports something other than what was proposed as a party to a scheme to destroy the bill. However, there are some very sane, though perhaps strategically foolish, reasons for supporting the Wellstone amendment. As noted in the article, the real vote that will show who does and does not support the amendment is on non-severability. (Whether to include a provision in the bill that if any piece of it is overturned by the courts, the entire bill becomes invalid.) Almost all bills are non-severable and Bush's request to make this one severable is an interesting though bold-faced strategy. I want to watch the severability debate. That will be ugly.
- posted by levinson @ 3/27/2001 06:37:00 AM

 
Senators Seeking a $60 Billion Cut in Taxes for 2001
I just don't get it. Some one please explain to me how this will help the economy. How does giving people $300 help power companies in California finance their debt? So they can spend more on power that they don't have? Domenici wants to look "responsive." Responsive to.....? I just want an economist to show me how this will "quickly" help the economy.
- posted by levinson @ 3/23/2001 09:56:00 AM

 
Auditors: Pentagon paid $409 each for $39 sinks

This is funny. Apparently the Pentagon overpaid for the items it bought to the tune of $1.2 million and they're complaining that the auditors should have deducted the $45,000 in refunds the Pentagon has already received. Okay guys, so now it's a $1.15 million overpayment. Anyone feel better about this?
- posted by levinson @ 3/22/2001 11:05:00 AM

 
Fool.com: Guide to Credit Scoring (Special) August 7, 2000

Here's Fool.com's take on the whole Credit Scoring "system."
- posted by levinson @ 3/22/2001 07:54:00 AM

 
The Lowdown on Your Credit Rating

I'm a little late on this one, but it looks as though Fair, Isaac might be coming clean on what your credit score is. Unfortunately, it's not clear whether or not their calculation technique is going to be made public. After all, that's the information that could be really useful for people who want to improve their score.
- posted by levinson @ 3/22/2001 07:43:00 AM

 
The Stock Market Crash!

I like the bottom one on this page.
- posted by levinson @ 3/21/2001 12:30:00 PM

 
Bush Says Patients' Rights Bills Too Costly, Threatens Veto

The political- and media-savvy sides of my personality (such as they are) came of age under the Clinton administration. I payed some attention during Bush I, but not to the day-to-day stuff. It is therefore a new experience for me to be constantly dismissing out of hand the comments of the President. I cannot help but regard him as nothing but a fool and a puppet of those in his administration. What strengthens this is the reports of how he "governed" in both Texas and now. He makes no decisions on his own and is totally dependent on the research and analysis of others to digest information. There is no independent thought on his part. This is not delegation of authority, it is relinquishing of authority. To make matters worse, his administration is stocked with the old men of his father's generation that got us into the great mess of recessions and debts we are only now out of. The stink of time wafts off these men like a bad musk, and our country is moving towards another recession. The Bush's will be two-for-two in recessions if we ever officially declare one. It is disheartening to have no care or confidence in the rhetoric of the president. I don't care if he agrees with me, I'd just like to be sure that he's the one actually behind the wheel. Bush II isn't.

Camille Paglia, Adam Gopnik and others have recently published a rash of comments of how refreshing it is that we have a president that doesn't work that hard. This on the heels of the "CEO management style" as reported by the New York Times makes me want to vomit. This fool behaves like he's the head of a country club. Making sure the dress code is adhered to, giving the military a different colored beret, and bitching about cell phones. It's all very alien to me and I'm not sure exactly what I'd do about it, but I do know that the next four years are going to be insufferable.
- posted by levinson @ 3/21/2001 12:07:00 PM

 
Rolling Blackouts Ordered in Calif.

There is no better way to describe this than the IM I just received from Rob, "isn't the present level of difficulty in california when you just quit and start a new game of SimCity?"

Crystallizes it perfectly. Bravo.
- posted by levinson @ 3/20/2001 08:49:00 AM

 
McCain Says Odds Are Favorable as Debate Begins on His Bill

McCain had some charts of the size of donations since the soft money loop-hole was found in the early 80's. It was frightening. I'm hoping they can do away with this, but I have a feeling what will pass is a half-baked solution that doesn't really fix the problem. Perhaps, though, McCain really does have the votes. I'd like to see some data on what the House thinks of the legislation. After all, it may not get past Tom DeLay and his cronies.
- posted by levinson @ 3/19/2001 09:21:00 AM

 
Did Bush bungle relations with North Korea?

Isn't it great to be back in the days of such comments as, "the president is always right"? I can't believe this. Only a front man for a complete fool has to speak such drivel. I also enjoy how internally they can't get their stories/explanations straight. Is this how a "CEO President" works? Sounds more like a start-up with no business plan.
- posted by levinson @ 3/15/2001 08:12:00 AM

 
60 Percent in Poll Approve of Bush Early in His Term

Interesting thing about this poll is that people "approve" of Bush. They don't tell us the exact questions asked, but the assertion from the poll that ought to garner a few more headlines is that more than half of those polled feel that Bush is not in charge of what's happening in his administration. To me that is deeply disturbing, and I wonder why people are comfortable or "approve" that the man who is supposed to be a branch of government unto himself is not actually in charge of his administration.
- posted by levinson @ 3/14/2001 07:08:00 AM

 
Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | Pay for play

This is really interesting. Some of the "shock jocks" talk a little about this. "Opie and Anthony" (afternoons in NYC) are the most vocal about how bizarre, deceptive, and structured the radio industry is. There's nothing worse than actually tuning in to one radio station all day. I've done it and it's miserable. No wonder Napster is so successful. I've got 30-odd hours of only the music I want and don't have to sit through insufferable commercial blather to hear it. This article explains how the uber-section of the radio industry works. A three player system involving the record company, the radio stations and "indies." Indies are the middle men in the industry. A left over dinosaur that now charges millions a month to promote the records produced by record companies to the radio stations. As much as I hate the radio, this makes it worse. The "shock jocks" are a breath of fresh air in this morass of structure, sterility and, most of all, banality.
- posted by levinson @ 3/14/2001 06:47:00 AM

 
Tax Poll Loopholes by William Saletan

A nice look at poll numbers and how they're tabulated. I've noticed things like this in the past where the wording is jumbled and can therefore be manipulated, but this breaks it down very well.
- posted by levinson @ 3/09/2001 12:06:00 PM

 
CNN.com - Team to attempt human cloning

Does anyone see the irony in a group of doctors meeting in Rome to announce their effort to clone a human being?
- posted by levinson @ 3/09/2001 11:45:00 AM

 
Macho on North Korea

An interesting analysis of the questions the media need to raise with the White House. North Korea is the only real "rougue nation" that can possibly justify our "missle shield" idea. The most interesting part of the opinion is when Friedman brings up the conflict in the White House that others had noted from the beginning. Now it's coming to fruition and we'll see to what degree Powell is respected by the men that glom onto him for dear life in the public eye. I have a sneaking suspicion that the old white guys will prevail as they have thus far when confronting Powell.
- posted by levinson @ 3/09/2001 09:47:00 AM

 
Can Hollywood See the Tiger?

Salman Rushdie talks about the possibility of the strike in Hollywood ushering in a new influx of foreign films. I hope so, I'm pretty tired of a lot of the stuff coming out of Hollywood right now. The fact that Gladiator garnered the most nominations is a disgrace with the two best movies of the year competing with it. For the record, I think Traffic and Crouching Tiger are the only two movies in the category and I give the award to Traffic. While I think Crouching Tiger is slightly superior in its artfulness, Traffic is too directly intertwined with so many of the issues that underly our country right now. More importantly, they are issues our politicians refuse to deal with logically. One of the things I found most dis-heartening about the Clinton administration was its continual waging of the "war on drugs." For eight years he allowed McCaffery to relentlessly dump money and arms on Colombia without in any way equivalently boosting treatment centers in the US. He still believes that drugs are confined to the inner-cities and that all we need do is shut down some dealers in Colombia and the problem will go away. If he doesn't feel this way, his actions do not indicate it.

To return to Hollywood, however, I hope the "Academy" recognizes that Gladiator doesn't belong in any category save special effects. I hope Traffic is recognized not simply because it was so spectacular, but because its based on a five hour film that was made 11 years ago. Though I haven't seen the original ("Traffik") it was clear in one scene that some of the script was a bit dated.

Catherine Zeta-Jones amazes a Colombian drug lord with a plastic child's toy made of plastic. The toy is actually 95% cocaine. The toy is not detectable by drug sniffing dogs and yields almost 98% pure cocaine when dissolved. This is an older smuggling technique that was used not with toys, but with dog crates. Those huge beige plastic dog crates. 95% cocaine. Stunning amounts of coke in them.

Again I digress. In the face of the great movies that came out this year, the academy will truly have shown that it can be bought if Gladiator wins anything but special effects.
- posted by levinson @ 3/09/2001 09:06:00 AM

 
Commerce Approves Census Head Count

I've ranted about this before but my outrage on this is no less now than it was a few months ago. Glomming on to the Constitution in its language calling for "actual enumeration" as a rebuke to statistical sampling is too preposterous to be believed. Of course, it's the same argument that was used to combat a fair and accurate count of votes in last year's election, so we shouldn't be surprised.
- posted by levinson @ 3/06/2001 01:50:00 PM

 
MTA NYC Transit Full System Map

Check out the map and find where the 4-5-6 (green) line meets the E-F (orange and blue) lines. To the lower-right of Central Park. If you live in Queens and work in downtown Manhattan (a lot of people) you get off the E-F there and take the 6 to Grand Central, then the 4-5 (express line) all the way downtown. If you live on the Upper East Side and work in mid-town, you take the 6 down to 51st street and then walk or take the E-F through mid-town if you're lazy like me. Here's the rub, and is one of the major failing points of the NYC Mass Transit system. You have a huge amount of people (they were stacked 7 deep in front of every car this morning) trying to get on the train at 51st street. Conversely, you have the entire Upper East group that works in mid-town (the people who work downtown take the express and by-pass 51st street) trying to get off that very train at the exact same time. I have pictures of a typical 6 at home that I'll post. The conductors of the subway only like to wait a certain amount of time in each station. On most mornings, they start trying to close the doors to leave the station before everyone is off the train. No one has yet attempted to get on the train. Also, since there are so many people trying to get on the train, they can only separate enough to let people get off the train in single file. It takes a long time. This morning the doors tried to cut me in half, and I was about the half-way point of people trying to get off. Remember, no one's got on yet. A woman on the platform, seeing this, said for all to hear, "every fucking morning, they do that shit every fucking morning." I may not have said it quite like that, but I can't imagine it from her perspective as she was in the fourth row of people waiting and probably wasn't going to get on that train, and maybe not the next one.

Everyone knows that we need a 2nd Avenue subway line, but the MTA is proposing it stop at 68th street. 8 stops from 125th street to 68th street. It's comical how far that comes from addressing the problem. No one would get on the train because it doesn't go anywhere. The current line that services the east side runs down Lexington Ave. Some of the richest people in Manhattan live in the Sutton Place neighborhood. That's from around 55th street to 42nd street and 3rd Ave to the East river. 3rd ave is the next one closer to the river after Lex. Any questions as to why the 2nd ave subway will stop 13 blocks before this neighborhood and long before it can meet up with the E-F coming out of Queens?
- posted by levinson @ 3/05/2001 08:36:00 AM