Bam Bam

The same word popped up in both statements from Benjamin "Bam Bam" Netanyahu and Barrack "Bam Bam" Obama in response to the ISF massacre of the international flotilla in international waters; regrettable. A growing contingent of disparate voices have been throwing around more specific accusations on the matter. Kathryn Ryan's excellent Nine to Noon slot on NatRad covered the issues known at the time very well. Wikipedia has a thorough summary.

One legal opinion reckons the actions of the Israel Defense Force, backed by the political executive power of Netanyahu, has commited an act of war not piracy. Over at Kiwiblog, I said piracy. Approximately right but exactly wrong, eh. Either way it's serious. The Turkish Navy is intending to escort the next inevitable aid flotilla to Gaza.

This is what we in the Beltway call a "serious diplomatic incident". Flicking through my history files, there are a few faint parallels in the collective unconscious. The humanitarian aspect has echoes of the 1973 Mururoa Peace flotilla that Norm Kirk backed with a clutch of NZ Navy vessels and an Ozzie tanker. No, that anaolgy collapses pretty quickly. There was the Berlin Airlift of 1948 and 49, which resulted in an end to the Soviet blockade. But not quite. Maybe if the Soviets started shooting at the US airborne flotilla, it would have more in common.

Whatever the point of the military exercise was, this is a gargantuan fuck-up by the political and military leadership of Israel. Things have been tense between Israel and Turkey ever since Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. The dawn raid by the IDF; the murders of persons as yet unknown, the subsequent jailing of everyone in the flotilla (except the Irish, who were running late) and the communications jamming by Israel does not bode well for international relations for a very long time.

The capricious, fickle and illegal blockade of Gaza is a more wretched version of the ghettoes endured by Israel's not far dead relatives under Hitler. The US Jewish lobby circuit is finding it harder to recruit. Pro-Israel David Farrar is an NZ example of this change in generational thought. Israel can no longer get away with playing the Hitler card.

Just for once, I think the world has got sick of Israel getting away with murder. This is the 21st century. Godwin's Law will not save them this time.

Optional tangents:

There were quite a few Swedes aboard the flotilla. Will Bam Bam Obama be asked to return his Peace Prize?

Where were Israel's five Dolphin class submarines during the incident?

US and Them again?

Bernard Hickey has posted up a vicious and eloquent economic argument on why NZers should fall out of love with President Obama. Here's a sample, but go read the whole thing:

It’s clear to me he is a liar and a fool. New Zealanders should protest his economic and trade policies at every step. Our Prime Minister John Key should use one of those precious few minutes on the phone with the gilded one to tell him to rack off with his protectionism and his bailouts. They damage America and they damage the rest of the world. The honeymoon is over.

He is a liar because he promised a change to the status quo in Washington and he promised not to make the same mistakes from the 1930s that helped turn a recession into a depression. Yet he has done just that. He is a fool because he appointed exactly the wrong people to run his economic policies and has not intervened to stop them doing even more of the ruinous things started under Bush and Cheney.

There's increasingly smaller differences in the political management between the Bush/Cheney years and the Obama regime. Bush put up steel tariffs. Obama is protecting the sacred cows of US Dairy and the dogs of automobile manufacturing:

Mr. Obama and his advisers expect G.M. to emerge from court protection in a few months as a new, radically smaller company owned by the federal government, the United Automobile Workers union and its bondholders.

The economic damage is going to be painful enough, but there is little hope or change elsewhere either. Airport security continues to devise more circles of hell, from naked body scanners to fingerprinting outgoing Americans. Wiretapping of US citizens is continuing. There's talk of rape photos from Abu Ghraib being suppressed by the White House, on the grounds that they would "further inflame anti-American opinion" and "put our troops in danger."

Israeli PM Netanyahu has ignored Obama's call for a halt on new settlements on Palestinian land, favouring "natural growth." You'd think that with America's budget worries, there would be justifiable pressure brought to bear on Israel, seeing how Israel relies on the US for money just like Cuba used to with the Soviet Union.

Because only Jews are allowed to criticise Jews, here's Jeffrey Goldberg summing up the settlers' logic:

The settlers are arguing that their human rights would be violated if they were made to move to Israel. That's right. It used to be that a person could fulfill his Zionist destiny in a place like Petah Tikva, but no more: Now, it's a sin against God, apparently, to live anywhere but in a government-subsidized trailer on a barren hill in the mountains of Samaria.

Is Obama's hand constrained by Chief of Staff Rahm "son of Irgun" Emanuel at all? His brother, Ari Emanuel, is the inspiration for Jeremy Piven's Ari Gold character in the TV series Entourage. Clearly there's enough Cheney-like arrogance in the family to get what they want:



So I'm with Bernard Hickey. President Obama, the love has gone. I'm looking forward to hearing Terry Michael, founder and executive director of the Washington Center for Politics and Journalism, at the inaugural American Politics Appreciation Society meeting tomorrow. The subject is Obama's first 100 days. Should be fun.

Supreme Court Idol

If you think choosing by-election candidates is tricky, consider the minefield Obama faces in replacing outgoing Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Regime change at the White House is onerous enough as it is. Every favour has to be remembered and rewarded, applicants and supplicants line up for positions as the ancien regime is removed and replaced. Tax returns and titty bars have come back to haunt prospective placements in the new administration.

Hell, it makes the Beehive's hiring of purchase agents look spectacularly uncontroversial by any measure. But these administrative positions are transitory. Eight years maximum, then you're out. The Supreme Court is for life. Or as long as it is wanted. Consider it like a royal perogative with a non-fatal exit strategy, bounded by the sum of historical charters with which one gets to write in the margins.

So, who are the prospects? Obama sez he's looking for empathy with people's hopes and struggles. Fair enough, Democrat presidents have always gone for diversity compared with the GOP's old white man syndrome. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wants to look beyond the current judiciary for real life experience.

Not that there's a dearth of talent in the Court of Appeal Circuit. Judge Sonia Sotomayor ticks a lot of boxes:

Of Puerto Rican descent, Sotomayor grew up in a housing project in the South Bronx, just a short walk from Yankee Stadium. She was diagnosed with diabetes at age 8. Her father, a tool-and-die worker with a third-grade education, died the following year. Her mother, a nurse, raised Sotomayor and her younger brother, who is now a doctor, on a modest salary.

On face value, that's great. The problem arises from the Catholic upbringing that goes with the Hispanic territory. Sotomayor attended Cardinal Spellman High School, which was equipped with segregated teaching and a full set of priests and nuns. Thing is, the Supreme Court does not need yet another Catholic. One more would present a two thirds majority.

Charlie Savage in the NYT mentions Judge Kim Wardlaw. The notable judgements listed on Wikipedia give a generally liberal flavour. For example, here's Roe v. City of San Diego:

In dissent, Wardlaw wrote that a police officer selling videos depicting himself engaged in sexually explicit conduct is not a constitutionally protected activity of public concern, and was properly grounds for termination. The Supreme Court agreed with Wardlaw, and reversed the Ninth Circuit majority in a per curiam decision without hearing argument.

On the other hand, there's one little hiccup, Card v. City of Everett from last year:

Wardlaw, writing for the court, held that a monument displaying the Ten Commandments on city land did not constitute city's establishment of religion in violation of First Amendment.

Too much God in this one too?

Another frontrunner is Diane Wood, who sits in the Seventh Circuit, Obama's home turf. Wood was raised as a temporary replacement for the Supreme Court after Ginberg announced she had pancreatic cancer. The Chicago Sun Times mentions a some of Wood's activism:

Wood clerked for Blackmun after he authored the 1973 Roe v. Wade case mandating that abortion be legal. She has cited that case in three opinions taking the pro-abortion-rights side of cases that came before the 7th Circuit:

• She wrote in dissent against bans on "partial-birth abortion" in Illinois and Wisconsin. The Supreme Court OK'd such bans in 2007.

• She ruled that Planned Parenthood could use the "RICO" anti-mob law to sue anti-abortion protesters -- a ruling ultimately reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

• She wrote in dissent that an Indiana law requiring in-person counseling before a woman could seek an abortion should be blocked.

If they're looking outside the judiciary, Stanford professor Kathleen Sullivan is another contender. Janet Napolitano is cosmopolitan enough, being of Italian Methodist extraction. Big enough cajones to hassle right wing extremists in her position as Secretary for Homeland Security too.

Here's Wikipedia's list of these and other contenders. Rule out the blokes. Apart from Ginsburg going, there's a woeful lack of women on the bench. The next two appointments are almost guaranteed to be women. From my position of ignorance, I'd say Diane Wood's the one. Kathleen Sullivan might get the next nomination when the time arises.

Spock's Gambit

Maureen Dowd quotes Barack Spock on the withdrawal from Iraq:

“This is a human enterprise,” he told Lehrer. “It’s not going to be flawless.”

BHO presents...

Congratulations to the 44th President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama. And thank you American voters, who have demonstrated that you can learn from your mistakes.

Clinton for SoS?

If Obama was looking for a Madeleine Albright surrogate, he could do a hell of a lot worse than hand former primary rival, Hillary (Rodham) Clinton, the Secretary of State position. The prior frontrunner, John Kerry, seems destined to replace Biden as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

[Clinton's] confidant today suggested that the role of Secretary of State, with its clearly defined parameters, might be a "better job" than that of vice-president. Bringing Mrs Clinton inside the tent would have the added advantage of removing her from the battlefield should Mr Obama's administration, constrained by economic crisis, begin to go back on campaign promises such as introducing universal health care coverage.

While Obama's support for protecting the endangered car factories is an early mis-step, the advice he's getting on putting together his administration team is top-notch.

Sermon on the bumper

Steve Bell is on the money:

The Hoover Manoeuvre

BBC has Obama's first press conference in full. Along with the transition government website, already there is a change in attitude towards the press. No more Gollum/Cheney secrecy. Roll on Jan 20 2009.

McCain concedes

Just watching McCain's concession speech now. He begins by paying his respects to President-elect Barack Obama. Loud boos ensue and McCain damps them down with a hand. Not a minute in, TVNZ chop back to Paul Henry. Commentary takes precedent over McCain's speech, which is cut short during an important moment. If McCain can't get those rednecks under control, it bodes ill for the future of the Republican party.

Captain's Log 1331.05.11.08

McCain is showing early leads in the swing states of Florida, Virginia and Indiana. All are around 51 - 55 percent in McCain's favour, but this will swing back to Obama. Why? A closer look at Florida, for example, shows the large Democrat bases around Palm Beach have not finished counting yet. Early days still.

President Obama

For the record, I'm calling it with over 300 Electoral College Votes to the Young American and 54 percent of the popular vote.

$150k to pimp Kissinger as Yoda

Maureen Dowd plots a brilliant, and hopefully prescient, script on Sarah Palin going AWOL:

"Does McCain know the maverick’s maverick has gone all mavericky on him?"

Ms Bob Roberts

If you haven't watched Sarah Palin's debut on Saturday Night Live yet, have a look.

Opening sketch:



Closing sketch:



Most of the actors avoid eye contact with her completely. The last time I saw friction like this was in Bob Roberts, when Tim Robbins' candidate appears in a SNL-type show called Cutting Edge.

The Independent concludes, "Though her performance will no doubt increase her skyrocketing celebrity, a cynic might venture that it has come to something when a person seeking to become vice-president of the most powerful nation on earth celebrates being an object of derision."

Brother, can you spare a paradigm?

While the second law of thermodynamics is having its way with the world economy, there are up sides. Take Bill Ralston, for example. The credit crisis is media hysteria, Chicken Little material. Nothing wrong with an occasional deficit or ten. We'll get through it. Elsewhere, there are cries that tax cuts are not the thing to be doing, at least, not at the moment. The counterfactual implication is obvious. Raise taxes. Socialise Labour's loses. Mike Moore has pandered to the premise that it's not all that bad. It's not the end of capitalism. There will be no Depression in New Zealand.

The sky is not falling, but we are caught between famine and flood. It is not the end of capitalism, but a New Deal is coming. Colin Espiner calls austerity the New Black. He's in good company on the Stuff blogs, with the dark thoughts of the excellent Bruce Sheppard and the increasingly broody Bernard Hickey.

There's a fine line to had, I must admit. Prudence declares that you minimise use of the words 'bank' and 'run' in the same sentence, lest one causes a self-fulfilling prophesy to come on down. Yet shutting up and saying nothing, in the face such dangerous fluctuations in information (in this case, money), is akin to complicity in destruction. There will be destruction. McCain was right, insofar as this is the end of the beginning.

The US$700 billion bailout (or is it a US$820 billion rescue?) was just a small step. Never mind that the scale and urgency of the situation requires that most of the work is being doled out to private companies, outsourced at a rate that may be less than the usual one percent commission rate. Never mind that this multi-billion dollar niche is hopelessly compromised with conflicts of interest in the hopelessly incestuous business world.

Yes, there will be enough lawsuits and class actions to keep Boston Legal with scripts until next century. Many, like Tom DeLay, will get away with it. With a half a billion dollar salary over eight years, the former head of Lehman Brothers could afford God as his attorney. The venerable Henry Waxman did what damage he could, asking the suit, "Is that fair?" The pause elicited was worth around $100,000 alone.

Like Eichmann in Jerusalem, it will all be too little, too late. The damage is done. International markets, that bastion of pure and unadulterated flow of information, has got AIDS. All around the world, lenders are crossing their legs to avoid infection. Prospective business partners might be pure as driven snow, but the level of distrust is too high. The lenders have been chastened.

While New Zealand's banking structures are much more sound compared with the Northern Hemisphere's, we will suffer nonetheless. Whether it is through deposit insurance or tightened lending criteria or a possible downgrade of credit rating after the PREFU, transactions are going to incur higher costs. The actions business took for granted will require more effort. The river crossed in summer climes is a dangerously swollen river in these turbulent times.

New Zealand is wont to get carried away. We never really recovered from the '87 crash. Drama queens that we were, our stock market remained in a hissy fit while most markets bounced back. As Brian Easton said in that bFM interview above, NZ has taken plenty of historical precedent in hard times for shrieking for the government to fix it, fix it, fix it!

The popular mandate will become evident with landslide wins for Obama in the US and in NZ with a landslide for Key. Unshackled from long-time political hedging by careers in law and business respectively, there lies enough potential in both to present a New Deal to the public. Implicit in this, is that these administrations will be open to ideas. Out of such destruction, something new will hopefully sprout.

The other Biden Palin debate

This just in. SNL covers the VP debate. Comedy gold.

Que Sarah, Sarah

Well, the VP debate has been and gone. Gosh darn it and shucks, Palin didn't suck. Most of her utterances were in whole sentences even. Unfortunately, that's as good as it got. Here are the top 150 words used by Palin, as run through Wordle:



Compare this with Biden:



Compare the use of monosyllables in the former with the political language in the latter. Folksy may sound comforting, but it's devoid of meaning. The talking points and buzzwords are there, yeah. But they are islets in a torrent of poorly scoring Scrabble moves. You've got to worry when 'also' is the most common word used.

She name dropped foreign sounding leaders passably, but mixed up her US generals.



This is General McClellan.



This is General McKiernan. Oh well, at least she got Petraeus right, not mixing him up with Patton.

Mad GOP III - Beyond Palindrome

Inspired by Chris Rock on Letterman, who described Alaska as Mad Max with snow.

Debate-a-bull

John McCain is making me look predictable.

He's suspending his campaign! He's not attending the debate with Obama! He goes to Washington to dip his wick in the Wall St miasma! He rushes down to Mississippi leaving the deal in limbo land! He IS attending the debate with Obama!

You know what that means. The Palin-Biden VP debate is still go. Repeat, the Battle of the Jabberwock is go!

9/11 Porn

If 9/11 doesn't give McCain a bounce, I'd be surprised. 9/11 is a core strategy for the Republican ticket, as demonstrated by this horrible fear and loathing porn shown at the Republican National Convention:



So today was McCain's day. It wasn't Palin's. The GOP has released the messiah, Sarah Palin, to a soft interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson. Check out the blather:



I want to see this woman on Hard Talk.

Palintology

A short round-up of facts and comedy on Palin:

Vanity Fair covers the parallel timelines of facts and conspiracy theories on the Birth of Young Trig.

Robin Williams sums up Palin in 2 minutes on Letterman.

A fairly comprehensive list of the abyss between what Palin says as what she does.

Baby Trig makes Newsweek story. Palin promises help for special needs families in her speech, in spite of cutting SpecEd funding by 62 percent when she was Governor.

There's no sign of the Republicans letting the press actually interview Sarah Palin. According to Republican campaign strategist Rick Davis, "We’re going to do what we think is in our best interest. If that means access to the press, we’ll give it to you."

Michael Palin for President:



Hat Tip RobiNZ