Stimulus Wrecker Cramdown Jobs

By John Batchelor on April 30, 2009 10:14 PM | 4 Comments

Here in the searing desert of Victorville, California is a creative and fresh theme for the $1 trillion stimulus package and those much ballyhooed infrastructure projects in the Golden State. The Tear Down Corps -- a hasty, handy way to buoy housing prices by removing oversupply. Calculated Risk features a Youtube clip from a collection by an intrepid SoCal reporter who has discovered that the town of Victorville has forced a local bank to tear down new model homes or face mounting daily fines. "It was Matthews Homes(right)... It was Guaranty Bank of Irvine who was paying for the destruction of these homes... The story is there were found model homes and twelve almost finished homes.... The bank was being fined daily by the city of Victorville for the unfinished home, and they decided to destroy the homes... The guy who's running this machine here told me (the reporter) that they've got another twenty homes in Temecula, California... That's about an hour from here ... The location of this site is Victorville, California, on Fair Valley Road and the 395..."

The Senate Rejects Cramdown.

While the Guaranty Bank wreckers were busy in California, the Democratic dominated Senate refused the White House request for a so-called cramdown that would permit bankruptcy judges to reduce dramatically the value of houses. Mortgage lenders and banks opposed the cramdown as unneeded and overwhelming government intervention in the marketplace. The complaint is that the foreclosure process works and that the government is damaging small lenders who did not cause the national crisis. Enough senators agreed wuth the small lender argument so that the measure failed 45-51. A rare and surprising setback for the Obama administration and its rescue of American housing prices. Now the wreckers can go back to work stabilizing house prices with a backhoe. There are many ways to cram down a house to save the village. A CR poster comments with serene irony:

"Lot of model homes are really bad to live in - whatever makes them a good model works against the eventual owner... But here - a huge development with all the underground work already done... in an area where it is just plain butt ugly... what the heck were they thinking - oh now I remember - create more MBS..." ShadowInventory (profile) wrote on Thu, 4/30/2009 - 6:03 pm

Seeking Patient Zero

By John Batchelor on April 30, 2009 12:36 AM | 34 Comments

La Gloria Challenged By Mexico's Chief Epidemiologist.

Days after the European media identified the the mega pig farm "manure lagoon" of La Gloria in Veracruz State as the most likely source of the A/H1Ni outbreak, the chief epidemiologist of Mexico M.A. Lezana (right -- far right) has directly challenged the solution. "Highly improbable," asserts Dr. Lezana. Smithfield Foods of Virginia asserts that it's one million pigs in the CAFO at La Gloria are virus free and that it is a Mexican company to blame. Lezana's office says that the pigs at La Gloria are from North America and the genetic material in the virus are from North America and Europe. After this cross-purpose blame-shifting, the Mexican authorities advance a novel and creative explanation. Lezana says that among the first mortalities was a Bangladeshi born street vendor in Mexico City who fell ill in early April. No names. The man is said to have met his brother in Merida, Yucatan in early April and returned to Mexico City before he died. The assertion is that the brother, a Bangladeshi or a Pakistani, was also ill. No names.

What of La Gloria's Famous Five Year Old?

Until the unnamed Bangladeshi street vendor was introduced into the mystery plot, the star suspect Patient Zero was five (not four) year-old Edgar Hernandez of La Gloria. Edgar, who is as photogenic as a Hollywood hero (right), is now healthy and extremely clever about his identification. He lives with his mother Maria del Carmen Hernandez and his baby brother. He likes to run around pretending to cough at the camera men and say that he feels "Bad, very bad," and then laugh. Mom Maria says that Edgar fell ill with a fever and headache in early April. The Financial Times timeline says it was April 2. His mom took him for healthcare, and he recovered swiftly. However many others in La Gloria fell ill. Smithfield sprayed the town to fight the cloud of flies that hovers over the CAFO and the neighborhood. Other residents says that the pig waste from Smithfield's manure lagoon pollutes their water. There is a long-running dispute between La Gloria and Smithfield. Smithfield and its highly pressured CEO Larry Pope denies everything. Mexican officials confirm that Edgar Hernandez did carry the A/H1N1 virus, but they have not confirmed any other resident did or does. No one else in Edgar's family got sick at all. A state public health doctor says, "We just don't know how he (Edgar) got sick. Maybe it was a genetic accident of some kind."

The Mystery Continues.

Edgar Hernandez's fly swarmed home in La Gloria, Veracruz State is a long way from two Bangladeshi/Pakistani brothers in Merida, Yucatan. Also, the Financial Times timeline points to a La Gloria health official requesting assistance in February for an outbreak of an acute respiratory disease; and on April 6 there was a health alert in La Gloria with a 400 seeking medical treatment. You are correct if you conclude that the search for Patient Zero continues. Jason Gage, Bloomberg, told me on Sunday 26 from Singapore that the genetic material in the A/H1N1 had been identified as North American swine flu, Eurasian avian flue, and North American human flu. How did Edgar become positive on April 2 if not for the pigs of La Gloria? And why cannot Smithfield find the A/H1Ni in one million pigs -- all of whom will be slaughtered soon enough unless that Bangladeshi subplot fleshes out. More soon.

The Last Days of the Republicans: Part 12

By John Batchelor on April 29, 2009 12:28 AM | 4 Comments

Will Specter Be the Last to Go?

by John Batchelor

The GOP may have lost Arlen Specter and surrendered Pennsylvania, but John Batchelor asks: Can they find the courage to keep their rising stars and not cede more political ground?

Arlen Specter saw the gravestone that awaited him in the elephant graveyard of the Republican Party and, like Scrooge with the Ghost of Christmas Future, chose another fate. The graveyard remains half empty, however; there's plenty of room for the purposeless pachyderms of the once fundamental Republican state of Pennsylvania.

My Hoosier-born, railroader grandfather, John C. Batchelor, campaigned passionately for the GOP in suburban Philadelphia, in the 13th District of Montgomery County--from Hoover's easy win in 1928 to Eisenhower's confident win in 1956--and he taught me how to work for the party as early as 1952 when I used a sponge to seal envelopes for Ike's campaign. I puzzle now how to explain to him what has happened in the 70 years since my grandfather took my dad to the Republican Convention in Philadelphia to nominate the vainglorious Wendell Willkie in June 1940.

"Win Pennsylvania, and you will dominate national policy; lose Pennsylvania, and you will struggle on the Hill.

Who lost Pennsylvania? This question would confound every Keystone State Republican boss from the Camerons of Bucks County, who delivered for Lincoln in 1860, and held the vote fast for 40 years, to Tom Ridge of Erie County, who was a phone call from being vice president in August 2000. Three times Robert E. Lee's marauders charged up the Cumberland Valley to break the Union in half, and three times Pennsylvania held the line with body and heart. Since Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania has been the Republican crucible not only for vote-pulling but also for moneymaking and war-fighting. Win Pennsylvania, and you will dominate national policy; lose Pennsylvania, and you will struggle on the Hill.

Who lost Pennsylvania after Ronald Reagan's twin sweeps? The Republican turncoats that surrendered the national party to Southern self-dealers such as the gifted huckster and shaman Newt Gingrich and the cunningly embittered Bush family of Texas.

It is a sober irony that the 1994 road to the majority on the Hill and then the Bush and Cheney White House in 2000 passed through the same provincial capitals that once launched Lee's army into Pennsylvania and hosted the separatist cults of the Klan and the Dixiecrats that hollowed out the Democrats for 100 years. The loquacious Gingrich was born a Pennsylvanian in Harrisburg, and yet he has maintained for more than two decades quarrelsome policies about tolerance, charity, and labor that have alienated the voters of the Keystone State since 1988--as if he is either deaf or a willful vandal.The Bush family and their cardboard Rasputin, Karl Rove, have never regarded Pennsylvania at all--abandoning it to virile Bill Clinton and the comic Ross Perot in 1992 and shrugging it off as a Democratic henhouse ever since. The failure to put working-class hero Tom Ridge, governor and Vietnam War veteran and pro-choice Catholic, on the ticket in 2000 was Bush family cowardice, the product of an arch-Texas chauvinism and a fashionable Ivy League ennui.

Now that Arlen Specter is gone, broomed from the party by the Stars-and-Bars clique in the Senate cloakroom and on nostalgic talk radio, what is the future? The bullish Democrats are a long way from peaking. First up is to consider that John McCain will go, not as a Democrat but more likely as an independent like Horace Greeley at the end--a seer and crackpot of the GOP who went out wildly as a Democratic candidate for president in 1872. Olympia Snowe of Maine may follow as a defector for 2012, though by then the results from the 2010 cycle will make Snowe an aftertaste. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, George Voinovich of Ohio, and Sam Brownback of Kansas are confirmed retirees. A strong rumor is that erratic Jim Bunning of Kentucky is done. Kit Bond in Missouri is hanging it up, and Charlie Crist in Florida is hardly a cocky candidate. The 178 House Republicans are less threatened, but then they start with such reduced numbers that a surge will leave them enfeebled as compared to inert. The much mentioned Republican governors, led by Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Rick Perry of Texas, and Mark Sanford of South Carolina, are the Three Stooges of the base problem that the Republican Party is a frisky Dixie fraternity.

The Republican Party has abandoned Pennsylvania to the Democratic Party's innocuous platitudes and a masterless servitude for the rest of the century. Arlen Specter isn't tomorrow; he is a zombie like the rest of his deathless Senate gang who voted last October 1 for the TARP bailout of the zombie bankers and their liberty-strangling rope.

The Hank Paulson-engineered bailout of Wall Street, the Bush flight from his own presidency while the people's wealth was stolen, the Obama-approved betrayal of the UAW, the congressional disgrace to shovel more of our future into a resuscitation of fox hunters, are all debates that have meaning to the voters from the Delaware Valley to the Cumberland Valley to the Susquehanna Valley. Where are the hearts that will make a stand at Little Round Top? The Keystone State will rally. Show yourselves. In response, the few Republicans who remember glory are either mute or distracted by the gossip of Lee's colonels. The bugle blows retreat.

John Batchelor is radio host of the John Batchelor Show in New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

April 29, 2009 | 12:05am

Politics, Republican Party. Arlen Spector. Newt Gingrich. Ronald Reagan. Wendell Willkie. Tom Ridge,John Mccain. Olympia Snowe. Judd Gregg. George Voinovich. Sam Brownback. Jim Bunning. Kit Bond. Charlie Crist. Bobby Jindall. Rick Perry. Mark Sanford, How Republicans Lost Pennsylvania,Keystone State

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jacklegs

I need to work up 700 words on why the republican party is not entitled to 80 million tax payer dollars for their 2012 campaign. By 2012 the republican piety will consist of Newt Gingrich and Michael Steele.

Should they be allowed to divvy up 80 million dollars pretending they are a political party?

The 80 million is supposed to be check off dollars from your income tax. Quiet DC secret: people every year check off less and less, so quietly the parties are supplementing the check off dollars with other tax dollars.

We need 435 replacements. The best amongst them will offer to stay on and give our newbies a hand. The rest will become (unwelcome) lobbyists. We can do it!

2010 we elect only 40 members of the House and nothing passes without our support. That could spell the end of their corruption.

michaelslevinson.com
youtube.com/poetprophet

michael stephen levinson

2:16 am, Apr 30, 2009

jacklegs

So to the issue of forming a new political party, because we certainly need one. We need to make our politics new.

A good way to start is to hold an Independent Party convention, before the fall of 2010, our purpose, to run 435 fresh faces for the complete House of Representatives, and levery open seat in the Senate, too.

People will respond to this idea, a renewal of our politics, as long as we make it clear "politishinz" are NOT WELCOME to join.

Our party is for normal honest people who believe in an honest day's work, who are uncomfortable living off the public trough. Politishinz, llike the Clintstones and Bidens live off the public trough!

So we know what w don't want. Politishinz whose whole demeanor is running for election and living off the taxpayer's wealth.

To get started we need to create a giant event that monopolizes television for four days and nights. Lets see . . 200 thousand delegates X $200 delegate fee = forty million dollars, a chunk of decent money to put together a four day out-doors gathering.

The duty of the 200, 000 delegates is to each write, or sign on to at least one plank in our platform which will be based on specific solutions, not policies.

Whoever writes a plank it should be limited to 300 words. All the planks will be posted at our super convention web site. Delegates will post their support for this plank or that plank, or all the planks, according to their personal agenda.

Example of a plank. "We will do our part as a nation to end the human slaughter in Darfur, sending seasoned troops if necessary."

Someone might add to that. Writing a plank is more than some loose statement on policy. We need specifics that will appeal to all the independent voters!

The reason you write a plank is because everyone might vote in advance for your idea and then you will have the honor of coming to the platform and reading your 300 hundred word program to the 200,000 delegates, for public ratification.

You write the planks. When we meet, using state of the art wireless technology we will politic all day, ratifying all the planks. At night it will be time for delegate's entertainment.

After you read your plank you get to hang out back stage and meet all the delegate's entertainment people who will be making music an hour before nightfall. Bring your autograph book. Getting Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan on the same page will go for a bundle on ebay

Expect and / or plan on Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Joan Baez, Bruce Springsteen, Mick Jagger, every body who is anybody, Bono, Metallica. All the best musicians will all sign up to play our convention, and lots of movie stars will be on the platform to introduce the bands so it will be a great party. Your party!

The 40 million will cover the cost of bringing the groups. There will be DVD rights to be divided, and money from HBO or a deal with the cable companies for "pay per view," which could bring in an additional 20-30 million dollars to divide amongst all the candidates for the House of Representatives.

This convention will be super on hi-fi high definition TV. Why will all of these groups show up? Is that what you are wondering?

Because this is my idea and i am the man who wrote down the prophetic spoken poem for all mankind with every line a delicate sensible rhyme, starting with the story of Adman and Even in the Gar Den ov Edum and all the generations of men and how the Cheyenne - easy people became yellow skinned and what happened when Moses went up to hear the big sigh on Mt. Sigh-a-Nye.

That is why? Because every line in my Television Scripture has a law, a riddle, or a truth buried in and creative people respect talent and creativity. Because my written down Television Scripture has all of that and more!

The talented people in this world respect talent - my inspiration - that I created a spoken poem for all mankind is step one - a reason for all of the groups and you to show because i need to set the stage for my presidential candidacy and this is how I intend on doing it - by making our politics new - renewing our politics!

World Peace begins with a peaceful night when all the world's peoples are doing the same thing at the same time. That is a mystical concept - my concept, backed by a spoken poem for all man kind. When something is truly mystical you miss a lot but you get a tickle.

J. Edgarina, the Pervert of Dirt marked me down as a person of interest in 1969! Those Fascist Bureaucracy Ink bastards invaded my life, altered my records, destroyed my friendships and marginalized my life.

Though I'm approaching 70 i feel stronger than ever. He who waits gets. Time is on my hands! It's getting to be time to get it on for all mankind. The means of achieving world peace is in my sights - we have the technology, and I am going to deliver the world to peace with a world wide television program. That is my plan.

This might rub you, but people with talent - performing artists understand iamb going to give a giant performance, like old blind Homer, like Dante, and performing artists are cool with that.

You need to renew your politics. I need to get elected president. I am sure we can find some common ground.

The only quest yin is - is my spoken poem worth listening to. For that you need to hear the Story of Adman and Even in the Gar Den ov Edum, as that is a solid advance six minutes of the world wide show. Find that on my web site / also on you tube.

You also need an innovative solution to every major prob limb facing us. I have considered the prob limbs we are facing for years. So I have an innovative solution for every issue, too.

I seek only the chance to give a speech. That's pallah tics.

Independent Party . . . well, we are all young at heart so we could amend that, after a vote of course, to Youth Independent Party. . . . . YIP . . . . Abbie Hoffman will smile down on all of you.

Abbie was my friend. he invited me to come to Woodstock and recite my poems between the bands, but I told his commune I had to make one last trip on a merchant ship (where I was given the spoken poem for all mankind) and when i met with the members of his commune as they were inviting me to join them and help build the stage at Woodstock, there were two FBI kids there who reported to FBI headquarters that i was a dangerous revolutionary poet. That was 1969.

michaelslevinson.com
youtube.com/poetprophet
amazon.com "New World Hors D'oeuvres"

michael stephen levinson

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11:31 pm, Apr 29, 2009

DustyMills

What in the hell have you been smoking?

1:50 pm, Apr 30, 2009

dm10003

we don't need a third party, we need a second party.

4:25 pm, Apr 29, 2009

carouzer

"The GOP may have lost Arlen Specter and surrendered Pennsylvania, but John Batchelor asks: Can they find the courage to keep their rising stars and not cede more political ground?"

If Bobby Jindal, Eric Cantor and Sarah Palin are the "rising stars" that the GOP needs to support then the GOP is doomed to irrelevancy. With a brain-trust like that, plus GOP Chair Michael Steele and a "thought leader" like Rush Limbaugh telling the party what it can and cannot do, their is no hope for this pathetic group of naysayers and ideologs.

12:16 pm, Apr 29, 2009

Martyz42

Off hand I have trouble finding anything George Bush did that was anything other then a disaster except for the fact that George Bush & Dicky Cheney & the rest of the Bush crime family have done more for the reduction of republicans that the democrat's could have done in fifty years. Thank you George Bush for actually doing something for the benefit of the people of this nation. Thank you George for leaving the old GOP with nothing other than what is really left, a party of Confederate's, religious fantasy believers, money grabbers, owners of multinational companies, racists & just plain stupid ignorant white trash red neck's. That group is all that George Bush left us with, bless you Georgie, great job. Hell the Bush crime family out did FDR in trashing the republicans, keep it up Dickie Cheney, open your BS filled mouth all the way to prison where you belong.

10:58 am, Apr 29, 2009

richardtim

I've read the last two columns by Batchelor excoriating Republicans and I still can't figure out what the hell he thinks a
good republican should be or who would qualify as a good Republican. As far as Specter is concerned, I say good riddance. He's a hack who as far as I can tell has no real sense of conviction about anything other than getting reelected.

10:47 am, Apr 29, 2009

Picachu

Veronicaxy - very thoughtful observation. Nice to read a comment like this that is not grinding some partisan ax.

10:29 am, Apr 29, 2009

muddog

shortcourse....
Actually he is representing Pennsylvania... Had he stayed a Republican his conservative "Club for Growth" (read rich country club white guy) opponent would have taken his seat BUT Toomey would have been killed in the general election as Pennsylvania has a shrinking G.O.P. base. Yes Spector was (is) being politically expedient BUT he also did not want his legacy to be written by the conservative wing of the party....

The G.O.P. has only itself to blame....

10:12 am, Apr 29, 2009

Veronicaxy

I'm puzzled by all the "Republican Party is dead" rhetoric.

This has been said of the Dems too for decades about their rare capability to get a President in the office, or effectively counter the negative, bullying rhetoric honed by Michael Deaver and duplicated to great success by the party at large.

The exceptions are Clinton and Obama, and the credit goes to their campaigns, not the party.

Even if you consider Bush II a disaster, he was voted in twice (or by so close a margin it had to be called elsewhere). The Reps had a successful formula and they stuck by it.

Democratic presidential candidates rarely attempted to stand up to the bullying of the Republican party, trying to 'take the higher road', I guess. But it just made them look clueless and ineffective. Obama actually stood up to it like a stern, patient adult in a room of nasty children.

So the Republicans lost this one and Obama finally provided a positive alternative and benefitted from the average American's distaste for Republican tactics.

I think that's the key: has the Dem party learned and made part of their DNA anything truly influential from the success of Clinton and Obama? That has yet to be seen.

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9:44 am, Apr 29, 2009

Ritarita

Bush
was voted in
Twice.
Stop reading
Here.

(2)

10:19 am, Apr 29, 2009

Ritarita

My point
Is
That having
Your Dad's
Cronies
Stop a recount
And
Hand you an election
While you got
Fewer votes
Only counts as a win
In third world
Cesspools.

1:57 pm, Apr 29, 2009

CyniCal1

Rita,
A lot of people smell milk carton and think it smells funny, they still take a swig before they spew it out and gag. What's your point?

11:58 am, Apr 29, 2009

olopez

The republican party has been on life support since G. Bush 1. G Bush 2 was that last gasp a body takes before it stops breathing all together. I believe the party is dead. I'll go to the funeral, but I won't mourn it's passing.

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8:09 am, Apr 29, 2009

NHBill

It's as dead as Micheal Myers.

10:58 am, Apr 29, 2009

rjcrawford33

What a weird column. So many adjectives that you have to read it very slowly so that you can guess what he is really saying.

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6:13 am, Apr 29, 2009

Iolanthe

Heh, that was my thought, too. At first I was all, "Wow, this is really well written." Then I read some more and thought, "This is over-written." Then I got to his phrase, "...congressional disgrace to shovel more of our future into a resuscitation of fox hunters..." and I went, "B'zuh? Self-indulgent, much?" Hey, Tina, more editing over here, please! This guy's writing style is interfering with my ability to enjoy the collapse of the Republican Party.

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11:47 am, Apr 29, 2009

Ritarita

Don't usually
Love complaints
But
That's a good
One.

1:53 pm, Apr 29, 2009

feralrom

Yeah, it reads as if he's more interested in his clever compound adjectives than in his point.

10:08 am, Apr 29, 2009

xbainx

Every day, the news is better and better. I love these Republicans. As far as I'm concerned, Arlen Spector can declare himself his own nation as long as he actively works against the Republicans.

The Republicans are a party of negatives. I don't care what gays do. I don't care what women do with their bodies. I don't even care if somebody enjoys doing tons of cocaine. These are all not my problems. But we as a society should have free healthcare and well-run public schools. When did military spending become the only thing tax money could go towards?

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1:39 am, Apr 29, 2009

shortcourse

Just culling out the deadwood. Spector is a self serving politician. He does not serve the people in Pennsylvania. Obviously, xbainx does not work for a living because he/she/it would understand someone has to pay for free health care (nothing is free not even freedom) and would also realize that health care is not in the constitution but protection of its citizens is.

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6:56 am, Apr 29, 2009

connie47

The people of Pennsylvania have elected him over and over and over, so your statement that he does not serve them is obviously dishonest. Your personal attack on xbainx is a cheap shot, just what we've come to expect from you.

12:50 pm, Apr 29, 2009

AlanD2

@ shortcourse: You are already paying for "free" healthcare in emergency room costs for uninsured, lost productivity, deaths, and suffering. Under a single payer government system, we could reduce expensive unnecessary treatments, advertising, legal overhead (people have to sue insurance companies to get reimbursement in many cases), profits, etc.

Insurance companies make money by not treating people - what a wonderful system for you and your fellow citizens (/sarcasm).

11:33 am, Apr 29, 2009

Picachu

Health care may not be in the constitution, but the declaration of Independence lists certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I'm not sure how you neo-con cowboy capitalists figure good access to healthcare is something foreign to the founding priciples of this country. The only way to get anything in your world is if you can pay the full ticket price that is set by greedy and uncaring people who worship the almighty dollar. This isn't the United States of Cowboy Captialism but you sure seem to think so. You people are all about money and you make me sick. BTW the deadwood is all you have left in your ridiculous excuse for a political party.

10:16 am, Apr 29, 2009

Ritarita

short-
Do phony wars
Count according to
The Constitution?
And isn't the term
Self serving politician
Kind of redundant?
You may think
Spector is deadwood
But we think he's
A vote.

9:28 am, Apr 29, 2009

Grundy

Nothing less than what I would have expected you to say - living down to your expectations.

4:05 am, Apr 29, 2009

800 Million Years Young

By John Batchelor on April 29, 2009 12:14 AM | 5 Comments

100 Days Young and a Gamma Ray Burst Celebration.

My colleagues in the commentariat this day are marking the first 100 days of the Obama administration with feverish reflections about the meaning of politics, fiscal discipline, pragmatism, the Air Force 1 Cousin fly-over of Manhattan. All well. I want to join in milestone marking by going from the surface of the modest rocky and wet planet Earth, 4.5 billion years old, around a modest G type white dwarf star, 4.8 billion years old, to the near edge of reality, as we understand it in four dimensions. To the beginnings of the cosmos, at 13.8 billion years old. There is a stark new revelation from a combination of satellite and ground-based telescopes (the SWIFT satellite, the 2.2 metre ESO at La Cilla, Chile and the VLT ESO at Paranal, Chile - right and below) that presents a gamma ray burst (GRB 090423) that signals an explosion of stars that took place 13 billion years ago. This is time travel back to when the comos was 800 million years young. The red-shift on this GRB was 8.2, meaning it is the most distant object ever observed -- most distant by a great deal. The cosmos did not make stars until it was 200-400 million years old. This GRB discovery is Methusaleh's homey. The quest now is to go back farther in time, to the birth of the first stars, to Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel.

"This discovery proves the importance of gamma-ray bursts in probing the most distant parts of the Universe", says Nial Tanvir, the leader of the team who made the VLT observations (the 2.2-metre ESO/MPG telescope at La Silla and ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal, both in Chile.) "We can now be confident that even more remote bursts will be found in the future, which will open a window to studying the very first stars and the ultimate end of the Dark Age of the Universe."

"Extinct"

By John Batchelor on April 28, 2009 1:23 PM | 17 Comments

Steve Schmidt anticipated within days on CNN -- calling the GOP "extinct" -- what Arlen Specter's defection to the Democrats confirmed within these hours. The GOP is gone with the wind. Schmidt was John McCain's chaotic and belligerent campaign guru, and he played a poor hand indifferently. The failure to respond to the Bear, Sterns collapse in March 2008, the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapse in July and August 2008, and the Lehman and AIG collapse September 14-21 were all indications that the McCain team was inadequate to the times, even to the breaking news. The Obama team is not a fresh page; it is not change the channel. The Obama team is the professional government crowd old, borrowed and new enough. The Obama campaign managed the news better than the McCain campaign. Not about the war, about the financial panic. Did the Obama team have the correct answers after the market cliff-diving started, mid September? No. TARP was palaver, still is, and the Democrats embraced it like a winning quarterback. It was Hank Paulson's and Ben Bernanke's plan, and it was futile and false. McCain stood by like a well meaning relative. The GOP is dead. The Democrats are successful. The biggest and most effective bloc of voters right now is none of the above. The GOP failed. What remains of the deracinated Republican Party is a cult of the Confederacy Lite, and the cultists lives in the same sort of isolationist denial as the original brand.

Kill the Pigs?

By John Batchelor on April 27, 2009 11:00 PM | 7 Comments

Reporting from Mexico Points to a Veracruz State Pig Farm in February.

Henry Miller, Hoover Institution, reported Sunday 26 consistent with his years of work with J B S that the most likely source of the killer swine flu (an antigenic creation, part swine, avian and human virus) is the rural humans who live in close proximity to pig livestock. Here is the pay-off for Henry Miller's prescience for identifying the pig as the killer's kitchen. The Virginia-based pork empire Smithfield Foods partly owns a massive Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) in La Gloria, in deeply agrarian Veracruz

State, where Mexican officials now argue the swine flu outbreak commenced in mid February. The first victim, Patient Zero Hombre So Far, was a four year-old boy, who has since recovered. not waiting on the pig disputations. Russia China and the Philippines have stopped pork imports. A CAFO is a mega pig farm, and in La Gloria there are one million pigs under clouds of black flies and a suffocating stink. It is also called a manure lagoon. Some other residents fell sick in February. Health officials sealed the town and sprayed the flies that swarmed through the homes. Conditions deteriorated:

According to reports gathered on the website of James Wilson, a founding member of the Biosurveillance Indication and Warning Analysis Community (BIWAC), about 60 per cent of La Gloria's 3,000-strong population have sought medical assistance since February.

"Residents claimed that three pediatric cases, all under two years of age, died from the outbreak," wrote Mr Wilson. "However, officials stated that there was no direct link between the pediatric deaths and the outbreak; they said the three fatal cases were isolated and not related to each other."

Smithfield Farms now states that the company found no signs of swine flu in La Gloria or in any of its herds. A speaker for Mexico National Organization of Pig Production and Producers says, "We deny..." Meanwhile the caseload in Mexico is accelerating: Two thousand have been hospitalised with "grave pneumonia." Half have made a recovery so far. Authorities in Asia and Europe are not waiting on the pig disputations. Russia China and the Philippines have stopped pork imports form Mexico. Ham and bacon will soon disappear from the menu and the meat counter -- (Order it in writing boldly when the waitress asks, "What's ya poison, ace?") -- and perhaps also global recovery will hesitate with the patrons.

Mortality Rate.

Henry Miller also pointed to the early and unreliable math of a mortality rate between 6-7%. This would be not the nightmare scenario of the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1917-1918, which killed at the rate of 60%. But it is staggeringly high for modern expectations. The scale of the populations in Mexico and along the US border now vulnerable to infection over the warm weather months is 50 million and up. This describes a national numbness. There is reason for better news. Henry Miller writes me that the mortality rate depends upon the number of infected overall, and there may be tens of thousand more than reported in the Mexican two thousand so far, just because people in Mexico don't usually report a small fever and recovery. This could lower the mortality rate to well under 1%, which is consistent with yearly flu. We can still fret if we want like the folk looking harried and unprepped at the emergency CDC communication center (right). For light reading at the CDC coffee counter, Henry Miller adds the dystopian details of the opening chapter of a thriller: "Kill the Pigs!"

"If the swine flu outbreak becomes a pandemic with a high rate of severe complications (such as pneumonia) and death, we will need to be smart, nimble and flexible. That will involve triage on many levels -- including decisions about which patients are likely to benefit from scarce commodities such as drugs and ventilators -- as well as "social engineering" determinations about issues such as mandatory quarantine, the canceling of public events, shutting airports and closing our southern border...."

Human-to-Human

By John Batchelor on April 26, 2009 12:42 AM | 4 Comments

Perilous Pig.

A new, threatening virus is cooked in what is called an antigenic shift, when at least two different viruses infect a cell and combine by exchanging their genes during replication. The best kitchen for this poison is a pig, because a pig can be infected by viruses that attack a pig as well as viruses that attack birds as well as viruses that attack humans. Henry Miller, Hoover Institution, taught me over the years that the reason we watch Southeast Asia so closely for an outbreak of the dreaded H5N1 jumping from birds to humans, is because that is the part of the world where humans live closely with livestock, especially with the perilous pig. This is also a scenario that describes Mexico City, Mexico State, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Baja California, San Luis Potosi. The anecdotes so far point to an unusual spike in flu cases late in March in Mexico City hospitals. From my lessons, it is most likely that the flu started in the provinces, in the farms, and then only later showed up in the big city. And when it reached Mexico, it was the human-to-human version of swine flu, H1N1. The jump from birds to pigs to human is complete. What happens next is a product of self-preservation and the strange philosophy called politics.

The Mortality Rate.

Mexico officials assert that the mortality rate has steadied. The textbook says that the mortality rate for swine flu is ten percent. In comparison, the mortality rate for avian flu outbreaks can be 100% in the first 48 hours. Anecdote so far indicates that this swine flu related outbreak responds to two of four anti-viral drugs that are readily available to US and Mexican hospitals. The new reporting of possibilities of infection, from San Diego to San Antonio, Kansas, Canada and New York, all point to sources who have recently been in Mexico on business or holiday. The WHO, holding out the chance that this outbreak has "pandemic potential," declares that this is right now "a public healthy emergency of international concern." This does not solve the situation, but it does identify the scale of the threat.

Politics of Pandemic.

It also introduces politics. In Japan, they have already introduced temperature screening to passengers arriving from Mexico. Asia is said to be "on alert." In Mexico City, President Calderone has started emergency powers to order closings and quarantines. In Washington, the White House confirms that President Obama was in Mexico City and meeting (right) with possibly flu infected officials on April 13. The word "panic" is commonplace in news bulletins from Mexico. The headlines just hint at border closings and blockades. The White House has been quick to say that the POTUS is monitoring the moving story through the CDC, State and Homeland Security. It is a fair guess that many municipal and state authorities along the Mexico-US border are meeting and conferring from Saturday to Sunday to Monday to discuss potential defenses. One school has already been ordered closed in Texas, more likely will follow in California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. In precaution. It comes to mind, here at the end of speculation, until there is more, that two of the states now being threatened by the "pandemic potential" are already in severe disrepair from the collapsing real estate and the sharp spike of unemployment. The governors may move with the cynicism of chauvinism.

War Crimes Tribunal

By John Batchelor on April 25, 2009 12:52 AM | 16 Comments

Rahm Emanuel Slipped.

A rare and surprise slip by the nimble White House chief of staff when, on Sunday 19, he asserted that there would be no prosecutions based on the Torture Memos. The POTUS made the same mistake two days later when he ruled out prosecutions. The White House then remembered that the AG Eric Holder and Justice was supposed to be in charge of decisions about prosecution. The correct version of events, Rahm Emanuel and POTUS tardily recalled, is that it was Eric Holder who persuaded the White House to release the original memos, over the objection of DCI Leon Panetta. So now Eric Holder is supposed to be in charge of deciding if a grand jury investigation is appropriate. Yet this leaves the White House in the same fix it started in. How to stop the building trouble over the Torture Memos? The feeble pitch to the Wall Street Journal is that the White House is "aiming to move on." The Wednesday evening POTUS meeting with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid is said to have controlled the calls for investigation, prosecution, condemnation. But the language to describe this event is most edgy:

On Wednesday night, the president met Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the White House to say he opposed an investigative commission. Sen. Reid went before the cameras the next day to side with the president, in effect scotching the commission idea for now. By late Friday, administration officials said they believed prosecutions were unlikely ever to happen.

Three immediate glitches here. The first glitch is that it was Harry Reid who said an investigation would be "unhelpful." Mrs. Pelosi did not agree. The second glitch is the caveat "for now." This sort of qualification is what makes the Republican ops actually look virile when the Torture Memos come up in TV and radio chat. The third glitch is the same old mistake Rahm Emanuel and the POTUS made earlier. The White House is back to saying that there won't be any prosecutions. The White House either does or does not remember that AG Eric Holder is supposedly in charge of decisions about prosecutions. The word "unlikely" is vigorous ambiguity.

What Next?

George Soros has joined the push for the Torture Memo investigation, and George Soros gets what he wants from the Obama administration -- or at the least obtains a promissory note. Also, there is TV time in an investigation and that will tempt the Congress mightily. All three cables and every network in Asia and Europe will park Torture-cams in a Hill hearing room . The chance to grandstand about torture and justice and American exceptionalism is like a fountain of youth drug. What will the hearing look like? A credible model scenario is 1953, the close of the Korean war. It started with the Senate stirring angrily as the POWs were returned slowly form the North Korean prison camps in March and April, 1953 At first, new POTUS DD Eisenhower was able to constrain the outrage (right). By the fall, the cunning and punchy Senator Joe McCarthy, already in full feather, was in position to call for and create an investigation on the Korean war crimes committed against POWs.

...on October 6, 1953, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, appointed a special subcommittee, chaired by Senator Charles E. Potter, to inquire into the nature and extent of Communist war crimes committed in Korea.

The Future.

The drama and progress of the Joe McCarthy-directed, Charles Potter-authored Senate report reads like a template for the conclusion of the likely imminent Torture Memos investigation. If you blink and say, the Korean civil war Kim-regime abuse, torture and murder of the captured American and United Nations troops was clearly criminal behavior in wartime, was clearly a violation of the Geneva Convention, then look over the language of those calling for an investigation of the torture policies of the Bush administration, such as the petition from the George Soros-directed Open Society -directed CommissiononAccountability.org: "Waterboarding. Slamming into walls. Excruciating physical positions. The United States tortured detainees after September 11, 2001." The petition calls for a 9/11 style commission to "look into the facts... report on lessons learned... recommend measures that would prevent any future abuses." Now read the introduction and then the recommendation of the McCarthy/Potter Senate investigation 1953-1954, calling on the United Nations to establish and investigation:)

INTRODUCTION
On June 25, 1950, the North Korean Peoples' Army, without warning, attacked the Free Republic of South Korea. During the ensuing 3 years of warfare, the Communist enemy committed a series of war crimes against American and United Nations personnel which constituted one of the most heinous and barbaric epochs of recorded history. When the American people became aware war atrocities had been committed against American troops, thousands of letters were sent to Members of Congress by parents, wives, and relatives of servicemen, requesting an immediate investigation.

IX. RECOMMENDATION
It is recommended that a resolution be offered in the Senate of the United States proposing that the Senate express its grave concern over these Communist atrocities and recommend to the United States delegation to the United Nations the establishment of an impartial investigating commission of the United Nations. The purpose of said commission would be to inquire into and report the facts of all war crimes committed by the North Korean and Chinese Communist forces in or near Korea since June 24, 1950, and the means of subjecting the criminals responsible to just and lawful punishment.

POTUS Blinks, Day 7 on the Torture Memos

By John Batchelor on April 24, 2009 12:26 AM | 10 Comments

White House Plans to Release More Documents -- and Photographs, Too.

Congressional leaders met on Thursday with POTUS at the White House to discuss comity, yet what dominated the headlines afterward were the Torture Memos. House GOP Leader John Boehner asked POTUS to release the documents that explicate what intelligence the Bush administration actually obtained from the suspects under torture. The POTUS made no commitment.

According to Boehner, the president said further disclosures were being discussed by the administration. However, the White House official, who asked not be named, said the president made no explicit statement about a review.

The NYT put the new information, if that's what it is, in a more deeply ambiguous fashion:

The president did not foreclose the release of more documents, officials briefed on the session said. But Mr. Obama suggested to Mr. Boehner that the additional information would not be definitive on the value of the information obtained from the detainees, they said.

More, Nancy Pelosi may have reiterated her notion of a Truth Commission. POTUS may have discouraged the Speaker. This may be half of a blink. Majority Leader Harry Reid cagily declared that any formal inquiry of the Torture Memos and attendant material would be "unhelpful." At the same time news emerged that the White House, through its obedient agent the DoD, is planning to release 44 photographs of abused prisoners in four weeks, on May 28. The photographs are said not to be as disturbing as the original Abu Ghraib snapshots. But then, these will be official photographs of suspected abuse. The Obama administration is releasing the 44 photographs in response to legal pressure brought by the ACLU over a long period of time. The Bush administration fought until the end. Now, the Obama administration will compromise, sort of.

"This will constitute visual proof that, unlike the Bush administration's claim, the abuse was not confined to Abu Ghraib and was not aberrational," said Amrit Singh, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained the agreement as part of a long-running legal battle for documents related to Bush-era anti-terror policies

Meanwhile, AG Eric Holder (above at House hearings today) declared that he will not selectively release documents supporting or explicating the original four Torture Memos. No compromise, so far.

What of the CIA?

The new damage here is twofold. First, all hope of cease-fire is wrecked between the most partisan rightist Republicans and the most partisan leftist Democrats. Like the Barnburners and the Abolitionists before the civil war, the two strident camps, small in comparison to the electorate, now can dominate every conversation about the Torture Memos. The civil war of talk is launched; the two self-elected champions will insist upon center stage until 2012. The POTUS cannot stop this wrestling. The blinking today at the White House may have been the POTUS suddenly realizing that the grudge match does not need him to do other than stand by and hesitate. Also, the always creative George Soros has announced that he will join the brick-throwing in demand for an investigation. The second damage is to the POTUS's relationship to the spooks. The trip to Langley on Monday (right) was to seek to heal the rift caused by the original memo release. This is Day 7. News of the 44 additional photographs to be released, suggestions of a Truth Commission, blogosphere bloviating of a war crimes tribunal and a 9/11 search and destroy investigation, all this will deepen the paranoia and alienation among the spooks, present, past and future. The relations between Langley and POTUS may be compromised without possibility of repair. Too soon to be certain. One voice suggested it was too late already:

"My sense is the president was trying to please a lot of audiences at one time and that over the last [week] he has totally failed to put the mind of the intelligence community at ease," said Mark Lowenthal, a former senior advisor to CIA Director George J. Tenet. "He is going to end up with a national clandestine service that will not be willing to do anything because they feel he will not be there for them when they need him."

Old Dads in the Dock

By John Batchelor on April 23, 2009 1:07 AM | 22 Comments

The Wall Street Journal Inquires Re The Torture Memos.

"So the CIA requests a legal review ... - and, seven years later, Mr. Obama says only the legal advisers who are no longer in government should be investigated...Is this President going to put his predecessor in the dock too?"

The brutish answer is yes, George W. Bush is already in the dock, and with him Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Porter Goss, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales and their legal deputies. The Obama administration has opened the dungeon doors. The inmates have lawyers, sponsors and astonishing motives. The indictment, prosecution and condemnation of the Bush administration is the near term goal for the aggrieved. The long term goal is a searing self-righteousness. The Obama administration has willy-nilly moved into battle with the most partisan, best-armed, most ruthless part of the political apparatus that did not vote for Mr. Obama. The non-partisan voters will recoil and despair. It does seem overmuch to say that a civil war has started already. Perhaps what can be heard is the rattling up of the guns toward Charleston Harbor. Did the Obama administration have no other political course? The same question could have been asked of Jackson, Lincoln, TR, FDR, RMN before they picked fights they couldn't finish. This will be remembered as an unforced error. Both sides will struggle relentlessly. Mr. Obama, having arisen as a healing element, has now let loose patricide. Take your seats, ladies and gentlemen, while you have leisure, we are about to see the old regime of dads fight to the death. Slowly, the ghost of William Butler Yeats takes another bow from a Sligo graveyard below Ben Bulben.

...Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,...

The Kellerman Case Mystery

By John Batchelor on April 22, 2009 11:18 AM | 19 Comments

Scheduled to Receive Bonus of $850,000.

The sudden news of the suspected suicide of Acting CFO David Kellerman, 41, at Freddie Mac will focus the story of what is wrong and what is criminal and what is conspiratorial in the crater of the government backed lender. Freddie Mac has so far required $30.8 billion of Treasury bailout funds, while its equally sick relative Fannie Mae has required $15.2 billion of bailout soup. What is wrong is that David Kellerman was the fourth Chief Financial Officer in six years, following a parade of disgraced, inept, overwhelmed or stupid predecessors. In 2003 Freddie's board discarded Vaughn Clarke during the first wave of accounting troubles that indicated fraud and corruption. The replacement Martin Bauman resigned for yet unexplained reasons during the flush of the housing bubble. The Bush administration pushed out replacement Anthony "Buddy" Pisezi in September 2008, just after Hank Paulson's Treasury put Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae into what was called receivership. Kellerman had been at Freddie for 16 years, staring in his twenties as an analyst and auditor, graduating to controller and principal accounting officer, before he was elevated to Acting CFO. Importantly, Kellerman took command of the finances just as the global markets collapsed September 2008 and the TARP emergency overwhelmed all financial services. It seems significant at this point that Kellerman received, along with 91 others at Freddie and Fannie, a retention bonus in March of 2009, over the objections of members of Congress. Kellerman's bonus was scheduled to be $850,000.

Awaiting Forensics at the Scene of the Crime.

David Kellerman's wife called the Fairfax, Virginia police at 4:48 am Wednesday 22. At the Hunter Mills Estates subdivision in Reston, Virginia (right, model home), the police found Kellerman's body in the basement of the brick-built home. Local TV reported no signs of foul play, however caution here is to await forensics. We have grim sad details of a widow with a five-year -old daughter and mention of Kellerman holding barbecues for University of Michigan football games. What we lack is a motive. The possibilities of a motive are so overwhelming that it is foolish to choose. There is a loud suggestion that the death is connected to the mysteries at Freddie since last year -- at least in that both Freddie and Treasury have issued condolences by named chief officials:

In a statement, Freddie Mac's interim CEO, John Koskinen, said, "The Freddie Mac family is truly saddened by the news this morning," and that Mr. Kellermann's "extraordinary work ethic and integrity inspired all who worked with him." Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, in prepared text, said, "Our deepest sympathies are with his family and his colleagues at Freddie Mac during this difficult time."

Beyond suggestion, there is nothing to rely upon until the scene of the death is investigated and, more critically, until the documents, files, mobile phone lists, work product, interviews with associates and probable suicide note(s) are available or at least reported on. The suicide is a reminder of the many financial collapse related suicides of the 1930s that I have reported upon since last fall. It also reminds of the suicide in the Enron case January 2002, when Enron Vice Chair J. Clifford Baxter, 43, was found dead in his car in Sugarland, Texas. Baxter's death was a warning sign that Enron was a crater in the markets, and that there would be prosecutions and disgraces to follow.

What is Criminal?

If we knew of specific crimes at Freddie, there would be a new theme in the news. Instead all we have now are the seedy, incomplete, suggestive facts. Since last fall, there has been an active Federal grand jury investigation that was started by the militantly relentless US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and was then passed over to the more convenient US Attorney for the Eastern District of Maryland, which may mean public corruption as well as wire fraud issues. The opera music rises. The current Freddie flack immediately responded to an inquiry after Kellerman's demise,

"We know of no connection between this terrible personal tragedy and the ongoing regulatory inquiries discussed in our recent SEC filing," said David Palombi, Freddie's chief spokesman. Freddie said the SEC also is investigating and has told the company to preserve documents. Freddie has said it is "cooperating fully in these matters."

This statement has the off-key ring of lawyer talk. Thirty-one billion dollars so far tossed into the black hole of Freddie is a lot of motives. The after-crime investigation is going to shake the Freddie tree, and all manner of tall tale will be told by employees, former employees, delivery persons, correspondents, travel agents, lawyers; and then the wife and family can go to work with a law firm and a wrongful death suit if there is a glint of evidence that Kellerman was set up, or was abandoned, or was used as a fall-guy, or was roped into a scheme. The music rises the more.

What is Conspiratorial?

Dawn Kopecki, Bloomberg, reminded me, along with my co-host Thaddeus McCotter, 11th Michigan (R), on Sunday 19, that she was with the show back in 2005 to report on the original accounting scandals at Fannie and Freddie. We reminisced on and off air, and Dawn Kopecki, who is gifted and diligent as a financial shamus, communicated that the final, cataclysmic Fannie/Freddie collapse started last summer, when finance ministers from many prominent countries who used to be adversarial, such as Russia, China, Japan, grew anxious about the worthiness of their bond holdings in Freddie and Fannie. (There was good reason to worry for about a year, as the stocks had been spiraling down and many analysts had long been crying fire in the theater.) The story goes that the foreign finance ministers telephoned Tresury Secretary Hank Paulson and told him that they were nervous and that they might start dumping their bonds if there was not a backstop at Fan and Fred. Soon, Paulson and Treasury took over Fan and Fred in what was called receivership. The stocks of both companies went down up to 99% (see right, the Fred stock price to September 08, when Kellerman took his temporary post). The financial collapse of Lehman and AIG followed within a month as the housing bubble pushed everything into panic selling. I asked Jim Rogers on Sunday 19 in Singapore what to make of the Dawn Kopecki report that Hank Paulson had been advised (pressured?) by foreign finance ministers? Jim Rogers said that he knew of the pressure at the time, and that Paulson moved to protect the bondholders (China, Russia, Japan, usw). Treasury receivership was the only way that Paulson could figure to satisfy Moscow and Beijing and Tokyo. They (Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo) had bought the stuff assuming that the US Treasury would not let Fan and Fred fail. Jim Rogers said that the outstanding obligations of Fan and Fred derivatives remains in the tens of trillions of dollars. Repeat. Tens of trillions of dollars. Old, really old, worrisome metaphors come to mind. Smoke, fire, arson. And what about the energy price spike of winter, spring and

summer 2008? Did that make the foreign finance ministers specially nervous? And how come Fan and Fred were permitted to turn into instituions that were too big to succeed? And is it credible that Moscow and Beijing and Tokyo can threaten the US Treasury and the US Treasury surrenders without a fight? I cannot connect even one of these dots to the Kellerman case. We do have the facts that Freddie Mac has had four CFOs in six years. Two forced to resign in disgrace, one jumped overboard with no explanation right now, and one suspect dead by his own hand. Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo? Reads like a list of villains from the 20th century, doesn't it? The opera music is deafening.

581e

By John Batchelor on April 22, 2009 1:18 AM | 5 Comments

Closer to Eden.

Fresh, astonishing revelation from La Silla, Chile, using the HARPS spectograph on the gargantuan mirror of the 3.6 metre ESO telescope (above), is the smallest exoplanet yet discovered (before Kepler goes to work), Gliese 581e. Low-mass red dwarf star Gliese 581 is 20.5 light years out, and now has a four planet system. Gliese 581e is just 1.9 times the size of Earth, and is said to be a rocky planet. Unhappily, 581e is not in the habitable zone, too close in for life to prosper, orbiting its sun in only 3.15 days. There is other good news. A new work up on another of the system, 581d, shows that, though it is seven times Earth, it is well in the habitable zone and likely has an ocean. The hypothesis is that 581d is a rocky and icy giant that has migrated into the heat of the habitable zone. The two others in the system, 581b at sixteen times Earth, and 581c at five times Earth, are both too close to the star to sustain liquid water and life conditions. In all, we have, in a very close neighbor star, a system most like our own, and there are likely other planets in the same sytem that we have not observed yet. If there is an observer out there in the MilkyWay, what they see of us is the gas giants Saturn and Jupiter, and the rocky and frozen worlds of Neptune and Uranus. The rocky inner planets, Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury would be unavailable -- until and if our curious neighbors put up a Kepler of their own.

Kepler.

Bob Zimmerman, author of the sensational "Universe In A Mirror," my Hubble watcher, took a moment last Sunday 19 to cheer the Kepler planet-finder robot now undergoing a shakedown cruise in Earth orbit. The eye has winked open and started taking continual photographs of a small piece of the sky in the constellation Cygnus (below). The optical system is built to see a shadow flicker on a front lawn from the distance of the moon. It will start by staring at the TrES-2 system (below), where we already have recorded a gas giant and can expect more planets in orbit. We expect to find 50 to 100 Edens in the next 3 to 5 years, that is, rocky and wet Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones of G-type stars such as ours. Heaven. Why this all matters is that we are close, very close, to recognizing that our 500 million year evolution of the tool kits of DNA working with carbon-based organisms since the Cambrian explosion is routine and banal in the Milky Way. We are a modest planet, in a modest star system, in a modest arm of a modest galaxy. Are we being watched as we are watching? Probable.

Unconditional Surrender Harman

By John Batchelor on April 21, 2009 1:08 PM | 16 Comments

California Champion Declares War on Holder Justice.

The potent, vindictive, California-immovable Jane Harman now counters the leak of an NSA transcript that smears her as a Zionist tool by launching RPGs at Eric Holder and Obama Justice. This inspired and menacing letter is deadly force in Washington. Jane Harman uses ground force strength to demand Justice release the transcripts of her conversation with an unnamed AIPAC op re the Bush administration prosecution of AIPAC flacks for lobbying the Bush DoD. "I call on your Department to release all transcripts and other investigative material involving me in an unredacted form. It is my intention to make this material available to the public." The facts of the case will make Bush Justice look feeble. But the Harman demand of Holder Justice will make the Obama team look feeble, since they will not (and likely cannot) comply. Then Jane Harman launches a bunker-buster air strike on Obama Justice:

I also urge you to take appropriate steps to investigate possible wiretapping of other Members of Congress and selective leaks of investigative material which can be used for political purposes. As you know, it is entirely appropriate to converse with advocacy organizations and constituent groups, and I am concerned about a chilling effect on other elected officials who may find themselves in my situation.

This is Washington combat the old fashioned way, worthy of Huey Long, LBJ and RMN. No prisoners, no negotiations. It tells me that Jane Harman will not accept anything less than Unconditional Surrender from Justice and probably also the NSA. She is bringing up the fact that all of Congress will side with her in this flap. Congress is a kingly power. It has constitutional claim to be the indispensable part of the three part government. The fifty-six cranky framers built Congress carefully. The House of Representatives (the People's House) is by far the most critical and useful of the two chambers, with the power of the purse and with direct contact with party leadership at the state and federal level. Jane Harman can count on uniform and unwavering support from all of the California delegation. And California is one of two states (Texas) that no one member of Congress would be so foolish to question. Obama Justice is outgunned and out numbered. This will be a massacre. Jane Harman may demand the White House apologize, and she may pull StateSec HRC and DefSec Gates into the fight on her side. The NSA is about to suffer an airs trike as well, though it will be with stealthy stuff. Putting the Harman counter attack together with the launch on warning missiles going out over the Torture Memos, the Obama administration best prep and reinforce the bunkers. We may not see much of this war above ground. It will be ruthless. There will be a debris cloud.

Why the Leak?

My colleague Larry Johnson, No Quarter, a veteran State, CIA and DoD watcher proposes that the Harman leak is part of an Obama administration build-up to a Palestinian deal. This looks correct. For weeks, there has been word of the Obama team softening up Congress for the change of direction in the Mideast. The newly elected PM Bibi Netanyahu is due into Washington soonest, and those talks will be bold and blunt on both sides. Netanyahu can rely on major figures in Congress to back up his defense policies. If it remains accurate, as Aaron Klein told me Sunday 19, that the Obama team aims to employ the cock-eyed and anti-Israeli Saudi scheme from '02, turning over the Golan, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza to the PA (Hamas Lite), then there is a scrap coming. Jane Harman is one of the AIPAC champions on the Hill who Netanyahu can count on. The Obama leak hit her but did not kill her. Now that she is going to war, Netanyahu's tasks may get easier. The same NSA that tracked Harman has also tracked all members of Congress for decades, but especially since 9/11 and the build-up of US intelligence gathering. All members of Congress. All members chatting about Israel, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, and so forth Pakistan. All. Especially members of Congress who embarked on CODELs to the Mideast to visit Israel, Palestine, Jordan. Including three former members of Congress who now exercise White House authority, Obama, Emmanuel and Biden. If you can leak on a major member of the Legislative (Article I), you can leak on a major member of the Executive (Article II.) Incoming!

"...a confidence gap when it comes to the American people..."

By John Batchelor on April 20, 2009 8:50 PM | 15 Comments

POTUS Explaining.

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The Cabinet meeting in this news cycle was routine, bland, workmanlike, indifferent. The somber POTUS remark that he had ordered his Cabinet to identify an additional $100 million of cuts did call attention to itself. A $3.9 trillion Obama budget is now in debate on Capitol Hill. The mention of $100 million is trite. Bob Gates could get $100 million by cutting out coffee and donuts at Army camps and on Navy ships for six months. Why then? There must be polling about government spending, and the polling worries the White House. My professionals told me Sunday 19, especially of the Wall Street Journal, that the Tea Parties on Tax Day, protesting the usual confiscatory taxes, managed to expose another theme in American protest, which is that the federal government is wasteful. Not just the Executive, but everything, from Congress to the military to the stimulus package. Wasteful is not a partisan opinion. It is deep disregard. The L shaped economy has years to go before there will be a sense of aggression in the American pocketbook. The Obama administration is not going to be rewarded for spending, no matter the explanation. If the POTUS is explaining too much -- such as a slight $100 million cut -- then the POTUS is not convincing enough. The POTUS gave away the game when he ad libbed that there is "...a confidence gap when it comes to the American people..." The word trust would have been more articulate, but the POTUS shrewdly avoided the trouble of declaring a "trust gap." Who is the POTUS talking to? The people? Himself?

More Explaining At CIA

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The report from the POTUS visit to the CIA HQ at Langley, Virginia is that it was "part pep rally and part explainer." This is enough to make the point that the POTUS going to Langley was defensive, hesitant, ill-considered. Playing defense is not for presidents. JFK moved to fire the CIA apparatus after the Bay of Pigs. Richard Nixon never did trust the Agency and figured it was feeding the Watergate scandal revelations (it was actually the FBI). George W. Bush permitted Don Rumsfeld to ignore the CIA in the conduct of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now POTUS Obama comes to Langley, seeking to explain himself. Not a promising start, and, like the $100 million cuts, if you are explaining too much, you are not convincing enough. Who is the POTUS talking to? The spooks? Himself?

Reuters: Tehran Hides Shahab-3

By John Batchelor on April 19, 2009 11:28 AM | 5 Comments

The dippy but sincere and suicidal Tehran Twelvers paraded their toy soldiers Saturday 18 in a festive, repetitive, unimaginative fashion, with Ahmadinejad, running for re-election as regime mouthpiece, making remarks copied from the last two year's lessons in world conquest. Of note is that the missile parade did not include the Shahab-3 advanced IRBM. It did demonstrate showboat special ops leaping from helicopters in a Bollywood fashion. The Tehran Twelvers have a two-tier military system: the regular Army, made up of careerists and dullards; and the IRGC, made up of careerists and dullards. Family connections and cash explain everything. Importantly, these two hordes have never fought a battle nor conducted a regional or world war. The death duel with Iraq in the 1980s ended in a cratered generation. The Al Quds force, the asymmetrical warfare unit that is part secret police and part saboteur, is tiny, well-paid and out of video cam sight in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Sinai, Gaza, Venezuela, Nigeria usw. Why did they hide the Shahab-3? In the minds of the Twelvers, this is a peace gesture. Shrug. In 1938, at Hitler's 50th birthday party in Berlin, the Wehrmacht displayed the famous 88 mm anti-aircraft cannon (left) for the first time. Tyrant parades have meaning. The 88, deadly against enemy armor, altered the pace of the second world war. The Shahab-3 is a major weapons system. More soon.

Springtime 1787

By John Batchelor on April 18, 2009 11:35 PM | 6 Comments

James Madison Was the Congressional Hero.

Five feet tall, shedding his hair quickly, unwed and clumsy around women, bookish, stubborn, compulsive, passionate, James Madison, 36 years old, was the engine inside the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Speaking to the encyclopedic and crisp Richard Beeman, author, "Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution," on Sunday 19, and we will focus much on the wonder and intellectual power of James Madison of Virginia. Madison arrived in Philadelphia earlier than all the rest of the delegates, May 3, 1787 -- ten days before the conqueror delegate, George Washington, who had agreed to attend (and lead) the convention as late in the day as March 28. Benjamin Franklin awaited them both, and was the grand old man of the infant nation. These three, in Beeman's thrilling, transforming, intimate, careful telling, were the indispensable of indispensable men. The inspiring, silent Washington, the ancient, weakening, wise, devoted Franklin, and the ever ready bunny of revolutionary energy James Madison. Madison was a bookworm and long thinker to the point of charming feverishness. The challenge for him (he took the mission personally) was to replace the feeble Articles of Confederation with a constitutional government that was both revolutionary in scope and not unacceptable to the 12 delegations (Rhode Island did not show up). Madison's plan was a national bi-cameral legislature with powers over both the states and the citizens. This was radical, reckless and heroic. James Madison was directly confronting the rich Virginia and cocksure New York, neither of which intended to surrender their money or authority to an outside government. Madison also imagined choosing the legislatures with an undefined tool of proportionality based on population and wealth. Madison also knew that a chief magistrate (chief executive, president) was needed, but he arrived in Philadelphia with this detail unfixed. He knew that the fight to construct a bi-cameral legislature -- a Congress that was more powerful than the states and could overrule the states -- was the same as launching an assault on the victories of the rebellion. Madison planted himself right next to the slothful secretary of the convention, James Wilson, and did not miss an hour of the arguments from May 25 until the convention succeeded and stood down September 28, 1787. Madison's stubborn, tireless, gifted will outlasted the Virginia Plan, the Alexander Hamilton Plan, the New Jersey Plan, and every compromise version in between that did not satisfy his aim to make the Congress -- made up of republican representatives elected by the people -- more potent than the individual states.

The People are the King.

Late July, 1787, in the argument over how to handle impeachable offenses of the chief magistrate of the nation -- what we call the chief executive or president -- Gouverneur Morris of New York proposed a guideline that all the delegates agree with, though none was sure how to construct it in the document. "This magistrate (president) is not the King, but the prime-minister. The people are the King." The delegates generally agreed. However it was the translation of the kingship of the people that remained the struggle. James Madison argued and schemed and manipulated to defend the rights of the Congress. The relentless, randy Gouverneur Morris was the bullying, relentless, overwhelming voice for a strong chief executive. Ever since, versions of Madison and Morris have advanced similar cases. The struggle for 222 years is unsettled. Congress or president or people, who is the king?

Obama Stunts Chavez

By John Batchelor on April 17, 2009 9:37 PM | 11 Comments

Not Quite a Handshake.

The photograph is meant to tell the story, but at this point there is fresh confusion. At the OAS confab at Trinidad, POTUS Obama sought out POV-for-Life Hugo Chavez in order to speak in friendship. The early report is that Mr. Obama said, "I want to be your friend." No report of Mr. Chavez's rejoinder. We do have the snapshot. Is this a handshake? Not quite. It is more of a surprise meeting, a grasping of hands, a hambone moment before the photogs. There will be plenty more angles of the shot, looking at the digital cameras raised behind the men. Later, the White House was quick to say there would be no private meeting between the two executives. Why do we have the photograph? A stunt. No policy change. No policy at all. Hugo Chavez can return to his inspired baiting of the United States, his cagey alliance with oil-soaked Islam, chiefly the tyrants of Tehran, and his ruinous nationalization policy that has wrecked and doomed the Venezuela economy. And Mr.

Obama can return to his amiable stroll through the corridors of power, meeting, greeting, chatting and engaging, sort of. No harm. No foul. Then again, this does look like a big propaganda win for Chavez. This does look to validate Chevez's decision to invite into Venezuela not only Tehran agents and Hizballah recruits, but also Russian warships and strategic bombers as well as an arms factory. This does establish the case that Hugo Chavez is now on the same playing field as the POTUS. Is this what Mr. Obama means by "no pre-conditions" before a meeting? The famous Palmerston remark does suit the moment. "Nations have no permanent friends or allies, only permanent interests."

John McCain and Alvaro Uribe.

You will recall that John McCain made a lengthy visit to Columbia during the campaign, and that he was with the pro US President Alvaro Uribe at just the moment Ingrid Betancourt was rescued from the FARC gangsters by spectacular special ops. You will recall that there were well established links between the FARC gangsters and Chavez. You will recall that there is constant fighting along the Colombia Venezuela border (right). You will recall that Chavez has a hand in all the mischief of the Andean nations. You will recall that Uribe and Chavez met and spoke of bi-lateral trade as recently as Tuesday 14 April, and that they avoided political rapproachment. There will be other voices after this photo op presidential grasping of hands. President Uribe. John McCain. Ingrid Betancourt? Ms. Betancourt's President Nicolas Sarkozy? And not to forget Hugo Chavez.

Columbine Bankers

By John Batchelor on April 16, 2009 11:50 PM | 5 Comments

Ten Years After The Massacre.

Prepping for the show Sunday 19, when I speak with Dave Cullen, author of the mesmerizing and appalling "Columbine," a comprehensive review of the mass murder of children by two sick people ten years ago, April 20, 1999, I was stumped and then gripped by the brief chapter on "Psychopath." I read this paragraph with a fresh chill. "Researchers are just beginning to understand psychopaths, but they believe psychopaths crave the emotional responses they lack. They are nearly always thrill seekers. They love roller coasters and hang gliding, and they seek out high-anxiety occupations, like ER tech, bond trader, or Marine. Crime, danger, impoverishment, death -- any sort of risk will help. The chase new sources of excitement because it is so difficult for them to sustain." Did you notice? "Bond trader." And then I put this up against what I read daily about the grotesque risk the big banks and attendant shadow banks sought out and took during the well-known housing bubble of 2002-2008. AIG's counterparty bets with CDS is astonishing until you consider there may have been a psychopathology to the behavior. The risk was the desire, not the money. All the major banks took part in similar fashion. Where was the adult supervision? Anger management? Were the traders psychopaths? No. But perhaps a few, more than a few, and perhaps that behavior was acceptable to the sane. Or perhaps the psychopaths were very good at disguising their rage and compulsive, reptile-brain risk-taking. Another stunning paragraph from the "Psychopath" chapter: "Psychopaths are distinguished by two characteristics. The first is a ruthless disregard for others: they will defraud, maim, or kill for the most trivial personal gain. The second is an astonishing gift for disguising the first. It's the deception that makes them so dangerous. You never see him coming. (It's usually a him-- more than 80 percent are male.) Don't look for the oddball creeping you out. Psychopaths don't act like Hannibal Lecter or Norman Bates. They come off like Hugh Grant, in his most adorable role." Does this sound too much like Jamie Dimon, Tim Geithner, Vikram Pandit, even Lloyd Blankfein? Is the big banking culture a nest of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold types? Impossible! Are they thrill seekers? Why are their banks either insolvent or fashioned with an architecture of opacity? Will JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs pass the stress tests due Monday May 4? You ask?

If the Psychopaths Didn't Do It.

There is the possibility that the reason the banks are insolvent, the dollar is deteriorating to dust, and the great nations of the Earth face a decade of helplessness or famine is that we are burdened by bad leadership which we accept as inevitable. Joseph Stiglitz, speaking to Bloomberg, doesn't look for psychopaths. As encapsulated by a savvy poster at Calculated Risk, Stiglitz just sees more Federal foolishness:

MrM (member) wrote on Thu, 04/16/2009 - 8:47pm.

Joseph Stiglitz on Bloomberg

Stiglitz Says White House Ties to Wall Street Doom Bank Rescue

A sample of quotes

"All the ingredients they have so far are weak, and there are several missing ingredients," Stiglitz said in an interview. The people who designed the plans are "either in the pocket of the banks or they're incompetent."
"We don't have enough money, they don't want to go back to Congress, and they don't want to do it in an open way and they don't want to get control" of the banks, a set of constraints that will guarantee failure, Stiglitz said.
Relying on low interest rates to help put a floor under housing prices is a variation on the policies that created the housing bubble in the first place, Stiglitz said.
"This is a strategy trying to recreate that bubble," he said. "That's not likely to provide a long run solution. It's a solution that says let's kick the can down the road a little bit."

While the strategy might put a floor under housing prices, it won't do anything to speed the recovery, he said. "It's a recipe for Japanese-style malaise."

Japanese is the thing this year. There is Always Weary Cynicism to Soften the Rest of the Century.

Case of the Missing Sunspots and the Mysterious Market

By John Batchelor on April 15, 2009 8:33 PM | 10 Comments

Rumor Starts On Wall Street the Recession is Over.

Searching for explanations for how well the markets are behaving despite the overwhelming gloom of unemployment, bank insolvency, government interventionism and the worldwide collapse of trade, manufacturing and resolution, I ran right into the blunt, unexpected, fresh rumor among the traders at the end of the day that the recession is over. This startling measure was not on an idle blog. This was a respected tout at the grim tidings Calculated Risk. These folk are snappy. I would call them bright and cocky like Somalian pirates if this was not momentarily a negative.

dryfly (member) wrote on Wed, 04/15/2009 - 4:15pm.

Market action at the end of the day was incredible. I'm missing the rumor...

:: ::

Rumor is the recession is over...

Done. Recovery starts now. I know it is anecdotal, but there it is. In markets, anecdote is what you get before the thundering herd shows up. All metrics are rear view mirror stuff. The future is a rumor. Wells Fargo reports profits, Goldman Sachs does a secondary stock offering, POTUS makes his "glimmers of hope speech," Ben Bernanke says he is "fundamentally optimistic," and there we have it, rally time. The contrary evidence is everywhere. The chief of the NYSE says the March rally was day-traders gaming volatility. UBS just cut its global workforce by 11%. The US has "disinflation," whatever that means (and it sounds like politically correct deflation), with an overall price decline not seen since 1955. The California high-end real estate market is a tomb. Credit cards are blowing up like AQ cells. TARP banks are refusing to lend. Where is the good news?

No New Bad News Does Not Mean Good News.

The US economy looks to be paralyzed and that might be generous. The declines continue if perhaps at a slower rate than the cliff-diving of Q1 '09. It's more like an out of control somersault. The sweaty political class has done the worst damage, with the TARP and stimulus package and grotesque $1 trillion budget all in train to retard recovery for decades. The markets are halved from October 2007 and showing the profile of a major and even historically frightening bear market. The 12% unemployment number in California and Michigan and elsewhere by this summer is generally accepted. There is no crippling jolt that we have not already imagined. Perhaps we are getting used to the abyss. Perhaps this looks like a handhold on the way down. Of course this makes no sense. Mitigating metaphors are meaningless in a depression. Is this a bottoming? Is this a claw back? Of course I do not believe it. No new bad news is not good news at all.

Sunspotlessness and the Markets.

NASA correspondent Bob Zimmerman and I have been watching the solar minimum for the last months. It is a puzzling tale of NASA predicting that we are any month now going to return to the 11-year cycle of minimum to maximum to minimum that we have recorded for two hundred years. Then it doesn't happen. The sun has not been this inactive since 1913. We may be in a deep solar minimum. No one can be sure. There is a surprisingly limited amount of information about the sun and its sunspots, dating back at most to the 17th century. Does it affect life on Earth? Yes. Lack of sunspots is associated with climate change, even a mini ice age during the Late (Baroque) Renaissance. I know it is folly to connect the lack of sunspots for 2009 with the strange behavior of the markets for 2009. I also know it is folly to say that the recession is over. I also know it is futile to predict what happens next to the markets. This is my way of reminding myself that we don't know what we don't know, and we never did know what we don't know. We are blind into the deep solar minimum. We are blind into the deepening recession. How long can the solar minimum last before it is worse than 1913? One more year. There is a horror prediction. One more year of a sagging bear market, of falling house prices, of climbing unemployment, of vanishing credit, of withering trade. Of missing sunspots.

Axis of Evil Rolling Along

By John Batchelor on April 14, 2009 6:19 PM | 12 Comments

Nuke Provocation Is The Thing This Year.

The rogue Kim Jong Il regime of North Korea is a proliferator for hire -- Have Evil, Will Travel -- and it only moves when there is money in it. The apparent sudden announcement by the Kim regime that it is turning out the IAEA inspectors, walking away from the deathless Six-Party Talks and just generally acting like a miscreant rogue and provocateur is most likely behavior that can be linked to the recent Tehran regime provocations. Examine the timeline. Tehran tests a missile for a satellite launch. Kim tests a missile (above) for a satellite launch. Both missiles can carry a warhead as well as a spacecraft, and both can reach many countries. It does seem significant that the Tehran regime attended the Kim missile launch and reportedly paid for the whole show. Soonafter, Tehran announces it has seven thousand P2 centrifuges and is opening the Isfahan facility to mass produce nuclear fuel. Next, the Kim regime kicks out the watchdogs and says it may restart its nuke plant. Does this not appear a game of bad cop, really bad cop? Meanwhile, the Pakistan regime at Islamabad (that sold the P2 centrifuge technology to Tehran) announces that it has sent a carte blanche to the jihadist-linked Sharia law caliphate of the Swat Valley. This is the Taliban unchained along the AfPak border, and the narco-lords of Kabul, America's neighborhood ally, are the first target. In sum, the Axis of Evil is rolling along, substituting the rogue and failed Pakistan for the rogue and failed Iraq. None of this is an Obama administration failure. Yet. The Obama team has inherited what remains of the Bush administration's policies for the Kim regime, the Tehran Twelvers, and the Pakistan medieval anarchists. After John Bolton's successes in the first Bush administration to build a containment policy, the Six-Party talkers tried drift, cash, credulousness and a blind eye toward the Tehran regime's involvement in Kim's whorish conduct. The result so far is back to the future of 1999. The Bush policy team could have, if it had been historical and not haphazard, off-loaded blame for the axis of evil on the British empire's (and Churchill's) feudal colonial policy in the Ummah and on the recklessness of the United Nations to leave the Kim pere regime in place in 1953. Shrug. No one much does footnotes of history on cable these days. So far, POTUS Obama is drifting along with a long line of indifferent appeasers and start-over equivocators. Dogfight coming. When?

Churchill Figured Mussolini Did It.

The failure to confront inconstant B. Mussolini for his stupid and cruel 1935-36 adventure in Abyssinia was seen by Churchill, writing after the war in 1948, as the turning point that encouraged the ambitious but, at that point in the saga, not well-armed A. Hitler to risk provocation and land grabbing against France and so forth. Once Mussolini invaded Abyssinia (right), to avenge a humiliating forty-year old defeat by rifle wielding locals against Italians at the Battle of Adowa, to show off that Italy was as bold and modern as the next carnivore, the frail League of Nations collapsed into self-accusation and ranting. Perhaps the Kim regime is Mussolini Lite. Tehran is an ambitious successor to the Nazi Berlin. I am still watching the Tehran and Kim dance to see if the analogy holds up. Below find the headline from November 1934 that hinted how Hitler was entertaining Mussolini as a junior partner in evil-doing. You ask what this all has to do with the collapse of the markets and the gleeful plundering of the Federal Treasury by the bankers on Wall Street? The Devils go to work only after the democracies are beggared by indecision, bad policy and Wall Street's random moral turpitude. See 1929-1933 for the swashbuckling. See 1934-1939 for the Devils in for the kill. Uncle Sam stayed willfully dopey until Pearl Harbor.

Brainstorming Appeasement

By John Batchelor on April 13, 2009 10:02 PM | 10 Comments

Obama Administration Struggles With Language.

The long argument against the Tehran regime will have successes. Not now. M. Ahmadinejad's provocative visit last week to the Isfahan nuclear energy facility was not a good day for the United States. The Tehran boast that it has up to seven thousand centrifuges in operation is well past any redline identified over the years by the UN watchdog the IAEA. The day of reckoning was last week. In a surprising response from Washington, there is a fresh gossipy policy report in the NYT that the Obama team is "brainstorming" new diplomatic words and definitions in order to find a way not to confront Tehran over its nuke weapons programs. The word "appeasement" is unattractive. More useful is the word "accommodation."

A review of Iran policy that Mr. Obama ordered after taking office is still under way, and aides say it is not clear how long he would be willing to allow Iran to continue its fuel production, and at what pace. But European officials said that in talks with Mr. Obama and his aides during his trip to Europe, there was agreement that Iran would not accept the kind of immediate shutdown of its facilities that the Bush administration had demanded....

"Our goal remains exactly what it has been in the U.N. resolutions: suspension," one senior administration official said. Another official cautioned that "we are still at the brainstorming level" and said the terms of an opening proposal to Iran were still being debated.

What Happens Next.

Tehran is a predator and a sneak. When the Americans advance, Tehran plays victim. When the Americans retreat, Tehran boasts and provokes. What will follow from the Obama team opening with concessions is that Tehran will grow aggressive and cocky. We have seen this before. The Devils in November, 1934 were craven and cock-sure. Chancellor Adolf Hitler celebrated his 1923 so-called Beer Hall Putsch with much vain publicity in the foreign newspapers. Hitler spoke on the same spot where he had called for a new Reich eleven years before, and he boasted to the reporters that it was not true that he had ducked for cover under the gunfire of the police, rather he had fallen while trying to help an invalid nearby. Hitler also announced the distribution of half a million Reichmarks to the widows and children of deceased Nazi party fellows. Applause. On the same page, there was a preliminary announcement of an alliance between Hitler's Nazi dominated government in Germany and Mussolini's Fascist dominated government in Italy. Few were fooled other than the appeasers in the Stanley Baldwin government at London and the FDR government in Washington. The NYT of 1934 was hesitant. Side by side with Hitler's self-promotion and hints of the Mussolini cunning was a lengthy piece about the "Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League." The League believed it was necessary to emphasize that it was not only made up of Jews. Everyone knew the threat, the League announced. Everyone understood that Hitler was not going to behave. The League called for boycotts of and sanctions on Germany. The League pleaded for the democracies to confront Hitler's villainy. The Nazi abuse against the Jews and invalids and gypsies and communists and dissenters in Germany was constant and merciless. The threats and plots against Germany's neighbors were obvious, most especially Austria, Czechoslovakia, France. Hitler claimed that he was righting the wrongs of the Versailles Treaty. London, Paris and Washington maintained that if they could satisfy Hitler's demands, then the peace would hold. No one had stomach for war. The public would not permit belligerent words in the parliaments. The horror of the First War was still fresh. London, Paris and Washington had to find a peaceful way. The worldwide economy was in collapse. There had to be a reasonable settlement. London, Paris and Washington were still brainstorming. The word "appeasement" was unattractive. More useful was the word "accommodation." It was 1934. Diplomacy bought two more years.

"...Perdicaris Alive...Raisuni Dead..."

By John Batchelor on April 12, 2009 2:11 PM | 30 Comments

Early Reports of a Navy Fight and a Rescue.

In war, the first three reports are wrong, so it is necessary to assume that the reports from the hostage negotiation are inexact at best, but all services are now reporting Robert Phillips is free of the pirates. Early reports also suggest the rescue was a gunfight, with three pirates KIA, one captured, and the victim free. The US Navy will brief. More details needed about the captors. The Maersk Alabama crew is still undergoing questioning by the FBI at Mombassa (right), so more details will emerge of the tussle onboard during the capture. No details on the pirates. Who are the pirates? Darod? Hawiye? Who are the so-called elders who were used as intermediaries? Answer those questions, name them and identify their clan and village, and you begin to unravel the story of their op. Was this strike random? Or did they have information about the in-bound to Mombassa Maersk Alabama? If one pirate is now in U.S. custody, detained and interrogated by the New York office of the FBI, we can presume the questions will have answers.

Helicopters Over a Pirate Base.

CNN reports that a so-called pirate base at Harardhere (right) (that would be Hawiye clan territory northeast of Mogadishu) reports there were two unidentified helicopters nearby in the last hours. Much speculation that the Marines are coming, all of it pirate palaver. The bully pulpit is a weapon. TR used it to make it clear that he was going to play grand strategy at Morocco when he dispatched a task force to rescue Perdicaris. No comparable statement yet from the Obama administration. The Christian Science Monitor picks up that the not-unsympathetic-to-Obama New York Times does provide an odd detail from the report of StateSec HRC remarks in the last news cycle:

The New York Times reports that although the US may be preparing to take action against the Somali pirates as it did against the Barbary pirates 200 years ago, it now faces a far different enemy. The Times considers whether the US will launch an all-out war against the pirates as it did two centuries ago.

Will this happen in Somalia? Last week - even before a French effort to rescue a family in a separate hijacking ended with the death of one hostage - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged the world to "end the scourge of piracy." But Somali piracy is not an isolated problem. It's the latest symptom of what afflicts an utterly failed state - a free-for-all on land that has consumed the country since the central government imploded in 1991. As any warlord there can tell you, the violence is almost always about cash. "We just want the money" is their mantra.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton vs. TR and John Hay.

Is there a pirate base strike coming? Presidencies are built on small moments played out against the backdrop of largely undefined forces that will later be organized into an historical era (right, the John Milius "Wind and the Lion" version of the American task force at Morocco, 1904). For example, Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon in September, 1974, and it is impossible to think of the presidency in any other fashion than built on a Republican deal to spare Nixon a trial for his conduct despite the colossal drama in Southeast Asia. Jimmy Carter panicked at the news from Desert One in the spring of 1980, and that was the whole Carter era of appeasement and bad luck in one blow. George H.W. Bush failed to go for the kill in Baghdad and built a bully trap for his obtuse eldest son. Bill Clinton misled about the woman and empowered his mate. George W. Bush landed on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln to stand beneath a banner that was unacceptably boastful. Is this POTUS Obama's moment? Perdicaris alive. Now Raisuni dead? Launch air strikes on pirates? What else?

Littoral Combat Ships.

Chuck Nash, USN, speaks Sunday 12 to the Robert Kaplan argument that the US Navy must have three levels of combat ships, a deep water Navy for the sea lanes, a long-rang strike force to confront North Korea and China, and what is not yet available, a coastal patrol force, a littoral combat task force, (see below, first US Navy littiral ship commissioned, U.S.S. Freedom) to use as a counter-terror patrol unit.

But it (US Navy) still does not have enough of a sea-based, counterinsurgency component to deal with adversaries like Somali pirates and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy. (The latter's force features speedboats loaded with explosives hidden in the many coves of Iran's coastline, which could ram ships on suicide missions.)

The Navy has plans to build 55 new Littoral Combat Ships to deal with this deficiency. Yes, these fast, maneuverable ships have low drafts and are thus suited for many different kinds of unorthodox missions close to shore. But the oceans are vast, and ships cannot be in two places at once. Without sufficient numbers of them, it's hard to believe that they will make much of a difference. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in his recent budget statement, indicated that only a few of these ships will be built at first, even as he endorsed the whole program...

Obama's Barbary Coast

By John Batchelor on April 11, 2009 6:33 PM | 11 Comments

Pirates Hold At Least 200 Captives.

The International Maritime Bureau reports on piracy worldwide and now updates daily (weekly is no longer enough) to track the threats along the Somalia and Tanzania coast. The high stakes Obama administration drama with the Maersk Alabama Captain Richard Phillips is just a small piece of the gigantic map. (Maersk Alabama arriving in Mombassa today without its captain, right.) At least two hundred sailors from all nations are now missing and presumed in captivity, and at least a dozen ships are held along the coast. Examples from the last days:

09.04.2009: 0210 UTC: Posn: 06:44.85S - 039:20.06E: Dar es Salaam anchorage, Tanzania.

While the crew kept a vigilant anti piracy watch onboard a container ship, robbers boarded her and succeeded in throwing one life raft into the sea. The crew raised alarm, mustered and reported to the authorities. Vessel did not attempt to recover the life raft due to the large number of robbers.

09.04.2009: 0020 UTC: Posn: 13:08N - 049:13E: Gulf of Aden.

Pirates in a skiff chased and fired upon a bulk carrier underway. The vessel commenced evasive manoeuvres and contacted the coalition naval forces for assistance. A military helicopter arrived and upon sighting the aircraft, the pirates aborted the attempt.

American Task Force.

The USS Bainbridge is now joined by Halyburton and soon by the Wasp-class anti-pirate flagship Boxer (right) (an amphibious assault ship that resembles a small aircraft carrier) in a face-off with four pirates in a lifeboat. There are unconfirmed reports of more pirate vessels in-bound to aid the captors. There are unconfirmed reports of troubled, incomplete negotiations between the pirates, the U.S. Navy, and so-called Somalia elders representing the pirates. The pirates are armed and there are multiple reports of firing from the lifeboat. There are reports of other Americans taken off an Italian-flagged tugboat in the Gulf of Aden: From Bloomberg:

In a separate incident, an Italian tugboat was hijacked by pirates in the Gulf of Aden. The Buccaneer, a tugboat with a crew of 16, was seized as it was towing two barges, said Shona Lowe, a spokeswoman for NATO's Northwood Maritime Command Center near London. Ten of the crew are Italian nationals, she said.

The U.S. container ship Alabama is the first U.S.-flagged vessel hijacked since a maritime protection corridor was set up in the region in August, according to the U.S. Navy. Pirates have taken more ships this past week than in the first three months of the year, according to U.S. and French navy data. They're operating outside their usual hunting grounds in the Gulf of Aden, one of the world's most-traveled trade routes, to avoid naval patrols.

"The United States is deeply concerned about the unprecedented level of piracy" and the impact on commercial shipping and the safety of mariners, Laura Tischler, a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department, said in a telephone interview in Washington.

Long Since Out of Control.

The pirates are not aimless fools in skiffs who drift around for plunder. They are sent by two masterful clans from the Somalia coast, the Hawiye around Haradhere and the Darod around Eyl. My best signals source reports there are long standing jihadist links through Sudanese contacts who use the coast for gun-running. The whole of the Somalia coast is Sharia; the word of the jihadists is armed medieval absolutism. There is no indication the four pirates who have Phillips are jihad; however the clan chiefs and their sub commanders on the coast are all informed by the jihadists, depend upon the jihadists like great lords from afar, and by now the Phillips drama is a useful confrontation with the US. Note the incomplete reports of negotiations, with the Americans insisting upon arrests, the pirates demanding freedom, the return of their comrades, cash.

Pentagon spokesman Major Stewart Upton said he had no information about an agreement to release Phillips. The New York Times quoted Somali officials as saying negotiations had broken down after U.S. officials insisted that the pirates be arrested and a group of Somali elders representing the pirates balked at that demand.

"It is possible to say the talks may break down hour by hour because the Americans are afraid of losing their captain and in turn we suspect they may arrest my colleagues after they get their man," said the pirate, who identifies himself only as Da'ud, in an interview

American policy has failed along this coast since at least 1992. But now the clans have found the weakness -- maritime security -- are are exploiting it with sophistication and cunning. Three American warships with air cover -- enough to dominate a city -- are now paralyzed by the hostage standoff by four pirates in a borrowed lifeboat. The jihadist websites have another lesson to preach: America is a pitiful, helpless giant.

What Would TR Do?

I reviewed John Milius's 1975 "Wind and the Lion," and found reasons why the film found resonance at the time. Gerald Ford had inherited from the disgraced Richard Nixon and the country was feeling betrayed. Ford then ordered the bugging out from Saigon which meant the triumph of the fascist Hanoi regime. Cambodia was a well known nightmare that America refused to acknowledge, and what followed was the decade long genocide of Pol Pot. There there was the considerable fact of the 1973-75 OPEC triggered recession that sent unemployment soaring just as young professional women were coming into the economy in great numbers. In sum, America was in despair, feeling defeated and cheated and unappreciated, the usual mood of a misunderstood and clumsy hero. Milius's movie writing altered and re-imagined everything about TR, Pedicaris (who was male, not the slim, gorgeous Candace Bergen) and the Berber cuthroat chief Raisuni -- who is portrayed as "the last of the Barbary pirates." What it did get right was the sense of great joy in America conducting itself outrageously in order to get what it wanted. Milius's TR (Brian Keith, above, never better) declares the the American grizzly bear should be the national mascot, not the bald eagle -- "a dandified vulture." And when the Marines, aiming to right the wrong of the Pedicaris abduction for ransom, storm Morocco regime's palace, the movie and the music are light opera, high romance, goony up-lifting fun. Easter Sunday 2009, we look to have reached another such moment of despair, defeatism, self-conscious pride in American foreign policy. In 1804, Tom Jefferson finessed his Barbary problem with a task force, a hasty, operatic gunfight and a legend. The Marine's hum the hymn. In 1904, TR finessed his problem with a superb cablegram: "We want Pedicaris alive or Raisuni dead," and a task force with bayonet-tipped Marines (below from "Wind and the Lion"). The new Barbary Coast is Somalia. Blackhawk Down was a Bush and Clinton failure. This is a second chance. Will the Obama administration give the order and find a way to win?

Pirate Hostage Killed

By John Batchelor on April 10, 2009 2:21 PM | 23 Comments

Sarkozy Ordered Assault to Rescue French Family.

The U.S. Navy awaits orders after the report that Maersk Alabama skipper Richard Phillips tried and failed to escape his captors in the lifeboat. Will the Seals deploy? Will POTUS discover the order that John Hay once received from TR in June 1904 and sent in a telegram to the American admiral on the scene: "We want Pedicaris alive or Raisuni dead!" Re the French victim: On April 4, pirates captured a French private yacht Tanit, carrying two couples and a small child, 400 miles off Puntland, and held the young families hostage until President N. Sarkozy, refusing to bargain, gave the go order. One hostage is dead. Not the child, so a guess at this time is that it may be the father. Other hostages unhurt. No report on pirates. The major worry now is that the pirates with Phillips will learn of the French rescue op and panic that they are to be assaulted. How will they learn? They have a radio onboard, because this is a fully equipped Maersk craft. The FBI may be speaking with them now, if they have a translator, if Phillips is still alive.

TR Sent In The Marines.

John Milius's cantankerous 1975 "Wind and the Lion" is loosely based on the June 1904 incident in Morocco when TR responded to the shenanigans of the sheik Raisuni, who had grabbed the American mining engineer Pedicaris as a ploy for ransom. Also because there was a long standing family feud over the control of Morocco, dating back to the usual foggy Ummah family relations. The scenarios came to a head the week of the 1904 Republican convention. TR and his Secretary of State John Hay (Lincoln's private secretary and a heroic melancholic) seized the chance to make headlines and boost their election campaign. The GOP celebrated. Recall that TR was an accidental president, inheriting the office from the assassinated William McKinley in September 1901, so the nomination and campaign were his first ever run for the presidency. Now POTUS Obama has an opportunity. POTUS has the magical TR chance. Does he follow (TR) Sarkozy? Or does he negotiate with pirates? "We want Phillips alive or the pirates dead!"

Pirates "Around the Clock"

By John Batchelor on April 9, 2009 10:24 PM | 26 Comments

Blackhawk Down In Deep Water.

Suddenly the Obama administration has a foreign policy problem that does not permit simple blame-shifting to the previous presidency, and the problem has the face of the worthy Maersk Alabama's Captain Richard Phillips. Joe Biden knows this is alarming and ignored his smug aide to comment that DNI Blair and his team are working "around the clock" on the hostage scenario. The Maersk Alabama was reported in bound to Mombassa with food aid for East Africa when it was boarded and captured several hundred kilometers at sea. Early reports are that Phillips exchanged himself for his crew, and that the attackers then set off in a fully-provisioned, enclosed lifeboat that can sustain them for at least a week as they negotiate with the U.S. Navy's Bainbridge. The Somali pirates are not random scavengers. They may very well have been tipped or guided to their target by Mombassa based sources. The whole of the Somali coast is rich with two clans who practice piracy as a business plan. This is measured and sober hostage taking for ransom. Robert Wright, FT, told Simon Constable and I weeks ago that the dip in piracy incidents off Somalia was weather related not because the surface navies of the US, Italy, Germany, Britain, India, Russia, France have intimidated the pirates. This is

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