November 30, 2008 30 November, 2008

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The Daily Slog

Late Night Humor The Tonight Show with Jay Leno Barack Obama’s people are trying to lower expectations. Everyone thinks he’s going to be able to fix everything. If they want to lower expectations, they should keep some of those Bush people on. A political organization has filmed a new TV ad thanking Sarah Palin for all she did for the campaign. The organization is called the Democratic Party. The executives of the Big Three automakers have said that they will now carpool to Washington next year instead of flying in on private jets. To make sure there won’t be any problems, they will drive a Toyota. The economy is so bad, the White House turkey turned down the pardon. He says he lost all his money in the stock market and has nothing left to live for. Late Show Top Ten Top Ten Signs President Bush Doesn’t Care Anymore 10. Hasn’t taken off his Iron Man costume since Halloween 9. The menu for the White House Thanksgiving dinner? Corn dogs and Beefaroni 8. Drew a picture of Garfield on Dick Cheney’s bald head 7. He’s barely trying to ruin the economy anymore 6. Spent the entire weekend in the Oval Office pardoning himself 5. Saw Osama at Arby’s drive-thru but didn’t feel like chasing him 4. Spends Cabinet meetings scanning classifieds for next job 3. Primary focus is surpassing Hank Paulson’s high score on “Guitar Hero” 2. Asking Obama, “How soon can you bail me out of the White House?” 1. Started dating hefty interns Late Show with David Letterman They have a new balloon at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade: the John McCain balloon — it never gets off the ground. A mailman was arrested for not delivering junk mail. Still no word on bin Laden. Obama got $800 billion to rescue the economy. All I can say is, Thank you, Oprah. During the transition, President Bush is busy granting pardons. Today he pardoned Sarah Palin for her interview with Katie Couric.

Today’s Papers Mourning in Mumbai The New York Times leads with emerging questions about how the Mumbai gunmen evaded security forces and whether the government could have heeded warnings from last year that showed the city was vulnerable from the sea. The Washington Post leads with more details about how the attacks went down, as told by several American survivors who were fired upon with no defense but to play dead. The Los Angeles Times off-leads the latest from Mumbai, while the top slot goes to possible future repercussions of today’s bailouts. The government’s deficit could top $1 trillion next year, and analysists warn “the nation’s next financial crisis could come from the staggering cost of battling the current one.” The WP’s lead story is full of Mumbai attack survivors giving their gruesome, tragic play-by-plays, including one group of Americans fired upon in the “posh lobby café” of the Oberoi hotel. Nashville resident Linda Ragsdale at first pretended to be dead, but was shot when she pulled a 13-year-old American girl to the ground, hoping to help her escape the gunfire. The girl died on the floor next to Ragsdale, who spoke from a hospital. (The general death tolls vary, but all three papers report 6 American deaths.) Outside the hospitals, the city is slowly beginning to stir again: The LAT notes that Mumbai prides itself on being a city that bounces back quickly, as it did after a 2006 bombing. That optimism is leading many to resume their normal activities, though some are referring to the attacks as their “9/11″ and remain leery of crowded public places. Indian defense minister A. K. Antony told the country’s parliament in 2007 that he had received intelligence about attacks from the sea, the NYT reports, based on details in the Indian Express. A subsequent investigation showed the Indian Navy and Coast Guard lacking in long-range surveillance equipment. (None of the papers catch the overnight news that Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil, facing heavy criticism for the attacks, has resigned.) New initiatives ranging from $600 billion spent to lower mortgage rates to $200 billion handed off to stabilize Citigroup have ratcheted the government’s bailout costs to $8.5 trillion—half of the United States’ total economic output this year, the LAT reports. Both the Bush administration and Obama’s economic team are approaching the current situation as direly as a war, “vowing to spend whatever it takes to avoid a depression; they’ll worry about the effect later.” Not all of these staggering figures are direct government spending, and the government even stands to make money on transactions like the purchase of equity in troubled banks. But at the very least, Bush and Obama’s aggressive responses to the crisis may threaten Obama’s expensive policy proposals like middle-class tax cuts and a healthcare overhaul. We need a healthcare overhaul more than ever, experts tell the WP in a front-page story on the system’s wastefulness and inefficiency. The U.S. spends 16 percent of its GDP on healthcare, but the numbers show Americans getting a poor return for their investment: we’re “29th in infant mortality, 48th in life expectancy and 19th out of 19 industrialized nations in preventable deaths.” The consensus among insurers, physicians, and executives on the direction the industry should go is “remarkable” for people with so many competing interests; most of the experts suggest dramatically increasing efforts to promote prevention and wellness. The NYT reports that, as part of an agreement with Barack Obama, Bill Clinton will release the names of 200,000 donors to his foundation to “avoid any appearance of conflict of interest with Mrs. Clinton’s duties as the nation’s top diplomat.” Releasing the donor list was one of nine conditions Clinton agreed upon with the Obama transition team, a detailed pact that also allows Obama’s State Department to review the former president’s future speeches and business activities. Known controversial donors to Clinton’s foundation include the house of Saud and “a tycoon who is the son-in-law of Ukraine’s former authoritarian president.” The Cathedral of St. John the Divine’s in Manhattan, the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, will be reopen today after the completion of a $41.5 million renovation, the NYT reports. The cathedral’s massive pipe organ, which was dismantled after a 2001 fire, will be played for the first time in seven years at the rededication service. The WP fronts a story on the complete absence of acorns in the D.C. area this year, a mysterious act of nature that has botanists abuzz and squirrels starving. The acorn drought seems to be part of a natural cycle for the area’s oaks, and similar conditions have been reported as far away as upstate New York and Nova Scotia. Lucille Two is back! After surviving numerous tabloid marriages, “loopy” interviews, and a debilitating brush with brain disease, Liza Minnelli is returning to Broadway in a new show entitled “Liza’s At the Palace.” Along with the usual celebrity new-beginning pleasantries, Minnelli tells the NYT how she took control of her life’s drama and why she’s decided to stay single.     Late Night Humor Late Night with Conan O’Brien In a speech this morning, Barack Obama said, “This isn’t about big government or small government. It’s about building a smarter government.” When he heard this, President Bush said, “I get it, I get it. I’m leaving.” Earlier today, John McCain gave his first press conference since the election, and he said that for a lot of people, Sarah Palin was an energizing factor during the campaign. Unfortunately for McCain those people are called Democrats. A new study has found that the Ford Motor Company makes the cars with the highest safety ratings. Apparently Ford cars are so safe because they never leave the dealer’s lot. The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson Sarah Palin is back on the campaign trail. She’s going to go to the Senate runoff election down in Georgia. As soon as she finds out where Georgia is, she’s going right down there . . . Somali pirates have captured another ship. Interestingly, al-Qaida has declared war on the pirates — it’s like evil versus evil. It’s like Dick Cheney versus his lawyer. The pirates have gone high-tech. They even have MySpace pages. Current mood? “Looking for booty.” Jimmy Kimmel Live! I had $350,000 riding on Lance Bass to win “Dancing With the Stars.” Now I have to sell my house. Unless Lance comes up with the money he owes me. For many voters, dancing wasn’t so important. The undecided factor was the economy. Barack Obama’s wife Oprah Winfrey has her “Favorite Things” show this week. She’s featuring affordable things this year . . . thumbtacks.

 

 

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The Daily Slog   Trivia • On November 4, 2008, the average American voter traveled 1.1 miles to vote and it took 20 minutes 12 seconds. • Forty-seven percent of American voters select straight party lines when voting. • Patti Sue Daygull of Louisiana has moved so often and so regularly, she has voted every year for the past 28 years but never in the same district twice. • In the 2004, 1256 votes were cast by absentee ballot by people who died between voting and election day. • In Jersey City, NJ, the ballot for November of 2000 had a record 68 separate offices and issues to be selected. • The average American who paints a bathroom in his/her home will spend 7 hours 17 minutes on prep work, painting and cleanup. • More than fifty percent of Americans over the age of 40 wait for the evening before making long-distance telephone calls even though they have flate-rate plans. • Growth rates for toenails can vary much as much as 127 percent from one week to the next. The reason behind this phenomenon has not yet been discovered. • Twenty-one percent of fax machines in the United States had received nothing besides ’spam faxes’ for more than 11 months. • Banker and philanthropist J.P. Morgan had a desk made out of steel-reinforced balsa wood. • As of 2007, more vehicles have traveled on the New Jersey Turnpike than any other road in the world. • Nolan Ryan has touched more baseballs than any other person. • In “polite society” in the nineteenth century, sperm whales were called “manly whales”. • The earliest-known hangers for garments were found in archeological digs in Mesopotamia and date back 3300 years. • The average American high school student has 146 different ‘away messages’ saved for use with Instant Messaging applications. • Voldemort, the dark wizard of the Harry Potter series, was the most popular write-in candidate in the 2008 Republican primary election, easily beating perennial favorites such as Superman and Mickey Mouse. • The Guinness Book of World Records gets about 150 applications annually for “cutest baby.” • Over 9,000 people in Des Moines, Iowa signed a petition urging the United States to immediately end its occupation of North America. The organizers wished to demonstrate that people often sign petitions without agreeing with them, but even they were surprised at the high level of support for American withdrawal. • Over two-thirds of Americans polled agreed with Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s quip that “the world needs less love and more common decency.” • In honor of Rudyard Kipling’s 140th birthday, Oxford University asked students how much they like Kipling. Nearly half responded that they’d never kipled. • 12 percent of Icelanders under the age of 35 say they were members of a rock and roll band at some time in their life. • On October 22, 1998, Slava Gilusick of Haverford, PA, claimed the last unused three-character ID for AOL Instant Messaging. • India exports more human hair, in total and per capita, than any other country. The color of 99.502 percent is classified as “black” or “ebony”. • Sarah Palin and Joe Biden both weighed 6 lbs 15 oz at birth. • Meatloaf is mentioned more often than any other dish when people are asked to name a ‘comfort food’. Today’s Papers Fight To Save Citi The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Wall Street Journal lead with the late-night announcement of a plan to rescue ailing banking giant Citigroup. Under a plan that the NYT describes as “radical” and “complex,” the federal government will protect Citigroup from potential losses on a pool of troubled assets worth around $306 billion. On top of that, the Treasury Department will inject $20 billion into the company—in addition to the $25 billion the financial institution has already received from the department’s Troubled Asset Relief Program. The LAT highlights that this is “the largest single rescue effort thus far in the current financial crisis.” The Washington Post off-leads the Citigroup rescue but leads with word that President-elect Barack Obama and Democratic leaders are considering a huge fiscal stimulus plan that could total $700 billion over the next two years. Transition officials aren’t confirming that something of that magnitude is being considered, but more Democrats are raising it as a possibility. USA Today leads with a look at how those who will be flying over the Thanksgiving holiday have a better chance of making it to their destination on time this year. Efforts to decrease congestion at New York airports coupled with the schedule cutbacks by financially struggling airlines have cut down on traffic and have decreased delays. After Citigroup’s stock plunged about 60 percent last week when it became engulfed in a crisis of confidence, executives and federal officials began intense negotiations to try to prevent the problem from spreading to other big banks. “This time … the company in jeopardy is truly gigantic,” notes the WP. Citigroup is the largest U.S. bank by assets. It is involved in so many aspects of the financial system—and in more than 100 countries—that it seems to fit the very definition of “too big to fail.” Under the plan, the government will protect Citigroup from losses on a $306 billion portfolio of assets mostly made up of loans and securities that are backed by residential and commercial real estate. Citigroup will be responsible for covering the first $29 billion in losses. (The LAT says $36 billion, because, it specifies, the $29 billion would be on top of approximately $7 billion already in a rainy-day fund.) After that threshold has been reached, the Treasury Department, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and the Federal Reserve will absorb 90 percent of any further losses. For its trouble, the government will receive $7 billion in preferred shares—on top of the $20 billion of preferred stock it will get for its additional cash infusion. The government didn’t mandate any changes to the company’s leadership, but the banking giant did agree to grant the government power over its operations. The LAT notes that the government can now “effectively prohibit stock dividends for the next three years” and everyone says Citigroup had to accept limits on executive compensation and to agree to implement a plan to modify mortgages to avoid foreclosures. Of course, no one knows whether it will be successful. The NYT highlights that this will be the “government’s third effort in three months” to stabilize the markets and could be used as a precedent to rescue other financial firms. To recap: First, the government said it would buy troubled assets, then scrapped that plan in favor of injecting money into financial institutions. Now it’s made it clear that it’s ready to try a mixture of the two for certain institutions. The previous efforts led to a bit of optimism in Wall Street, but that optimism has always proved short-lived. The WSJ points out that the portfolio involved in this rescue is really only a drop in the bucket for a company that has $3 trillion in assets, including $667 billion in mortgage-related securities alone. In a separate piece inside, the NYT points out that this new plan “raises about as many questions as it answers,” particularly if it’s seen as a model for an industrywide rescue. How does the government decide which assets to include? How would potential losses be calculated? Has it even considered all the assets that could lead to losses in the future? Even if this helps the market as a whole, there’s no guarantee that it will pervent problems in financial institutions further down the road. It’s unclear how influential President-elect Barack Obama’s pick for Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, was in the weekend’s negotiations. The WP and LAT both say that as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Geithner was involved and kept Obama updated. The NYT agrees Geithner was critical to the negotiations on Friday, but says he backed away a bit after news began circulating that he would be appointed. The WP adds a little historical gem by pointing out that Citi’s origins can be traced back to a firm called First National City Bank that, in the 1920s, repackaged and sold bad loans from Latin America and billed them as safe securities. After the scheme collapsed, it became Citibank. Decades later, repackaging bad loans as safe securities is at least part of the reason why Citigroup is suffering so much heartache. Curious about how Citigroup got into the predicament it’s in today? If so, be sure to read yesterday’s detailed NYT piece that explains how the company went from being worth $244 billion two years ago to $20.5 billion today. The story is particularly interesting, considering that Robert Rubin, Treasury secretary under President Clinton and an economic adviser in Obama’s transition team, plays a starring role in the saga. Speaking of Rubin, the NYT takes a look at how Obama is creating “a virtual Rubin constellation” in his economic team. Obama’s three top economic advisers “are past protégés” of Rubin, who also has ties to other members of the president-elect’s transition team. But even though the three advisers once shared Rubin’s formula of favoring balanced budgets, free trade, and financial deregulation that was so popular in the 1990s, they all recognize that times have changed. They’re now following Obama as he promises to increase regulation and plans to take the country deeper into debt. While the WP says the next fiscal stimulus package could involve as much as $700 billion, the real number could prove to be even greater. The LAT says “congressional allies” are talking about a program that could total as much as $900 billion of new spending and tax cuts. Whatever the exact number may be, everyone says Democrats in Congress want to pass legislation at the beginning of the new year so Obama can sign the new stimulus package quickly. Besides the obvious point that such huge amounts of spending will dramatically increase the national debt, there’s also concern that it could prove too much stimulus, which would create massive inflation once the economy recovers. But many seem to agree the real risk is doing not enough rather than too much. The WSJ also notes Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is considering asking for the second half of the $700 billion bailout package to implement new programs, which would mark a reversal from what he said last week. Paulson apparently would use the funds to make it easier for households to borrow money and to reduce foreclosures. The WP takes a look at how the Federal Reserve has been playing a relatively quiet role in the crisis. Even as the Treasury’s every move is analyzed and debated, the Fed has lent $893 billion to a variety of institutions that are having trouble getting a hold of cash to continue operating. In some ways, it’s carrying out the original goal of the TARP program by allowing financial institutions to put up troubled assets as collateral for the loans. But it’s doing it all out of public view, as the Fed is refusing to reveal not only which companies are asking for money but what collateral they pledged. The Fed insists this type of secrecy is necessary to avoid creating a stigma for the firms that ask to borrow money, which would make the program much less effective, because companies would be reluctant to seek the central bank’s help. In other news, the LAT takes a look at how there’s growing concern in Iraq that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is setting himself up to become “a benevolent Shiite Saddam.” Once dismissed as a weak leader without real power, Maliki has been able to navigate his relationship with the United States and stands to gain if the security agreement is approved this week as expected. He would then officially become the man who brought an end to U.S. occupation, which could help him consolidate power in January’s provincial elections. Supporters dismiss the suggestion that Maliki could become a dictator but say that Iraq needs strong leadership in order to move forward. “In some ways, we are seeing a return to traditional Iraqi political culture, where authority is centralized in the person of the leader in Baghdad,” A U.S. official said. The NYT points out that after preaching to his 20,000-member congregation that they should strengthen their marriages through Seven Days of Sex, the Rev. Ed Young told the couples yesterday to keep going. “We should try to double up the amount of intimacy we have in marriage,” Young said. “And when I say intimacy, I don’t mean holding hands in the park or a back rub.” Young insists this is not a publicity gimmick but rather a simple way to feel closer to a spouse and to God. “If you’ve said, ‘I do,’ do it,” he said. What about singles? “I don’t know, try eating chocolate cake.”   The Making of Modern Hebrew Two books on the revival of an ancient tongue. Reviewed by Yehudah Mirsky Sunday, November 23, 2008; BW11 RESURRECTING HEBREW By Ilan Stavans Nextbook. 219 pp. $21 YEHUDA AMICHAI The Making of Israel’s National Poet By Nili Scharf Gold Brandeis Univ. 445 pp. $35 In the Bible, the Book of Ezekiel begins with the heavens opening to reveal a stunning vision of God. Above the angels, astride a throne, like a fire encased in a frame, the prophet sees a kind of “hashmal.” This word is unique to Ezekiel’s vision; in the entire Hebrew scriptures, it appears only there. Its exact meaning is uncertain, but the Talmud — the vast compilation of Jewish law, lore and interpretation from the first centuries of the Common Era — offers a powerful etymology: It comes from the phrase “Creatures of fire . . . keep their silence [Hebrew: HASHot] and murmur [u-meMALelot].” Thus, tradition holds that the mysterious hashmal is the aura surrounding the heavenly throne, woven from the breaths of angels, so sacred as scarcely to be audible, even to God. Yet on the streets of Israel today, hashmal is everywhere. As any child can tell you, it means “electricity.” The reinvention of Hebrew as a modern, spoken language is an astounding story, underappreciated not only abroad but even in Israel (which may be a paradoxical sign of its success). As this one, small example indicates, it is a story of extraordinary inventiveness, achievement, complexity and, also, loss. In Resurrecting Hebrew, Ilan Stavans sets out to explain how an ancient, holy tongue was converted into a contemporary, secular language. He values Hebrew’s new vibrancy but also describes its development (some would say coarsening) in less than a century into a “messy, boisterous, even chaotic” pastiche. This slang-filled, everyday mixture of Hebrew, Arabic and English seems almost as far removed from the elegance of the first generation of modern Hebrew writers as it does from the stark, rock-hewn language of the Bible. Stavans, a professor of Latin American culture at Amherst College, is a gifted scholar and man of letters. His book is essentially a travelogue: Spurred by an enigmatic dream, Stavans went to Israel, where he had lived for a year as a young man, to explore his Jewish identity and his emotional relationship to Hebrew. His quest quickly led to the figure at the center of spoken Hebrew’s revival, the late Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858-1922). Born in Lithuania as Eliezer Perlman, Ben-Yehuda moved to Palestine in 1881, 15 years before Theodore Herzl published The Jewish State, the founding manifesto of Zionism. In Jerusalem, Ben-Yehuda established several newspapers and went about creating — with his wife, child and their bewildered domestic help — the first Hebrew-speaking household in millennia. He adopted a fierce secularism and equally fierce cultural nationalism in which the revival of Hebrew was central. As Stavans writes, “Ben-Yehuda’s Zionism was linguistic. You might almost say he wanted Jews to create their own country so that they could speak Hebrew in it.” This required new vocabulary, and so Ben-Yehuda embarked on a decades-long project: a massive Hebrew dictionary in which he offered stunningly erudite etymologies both for existing words and for the terms he was inventing. He was not without foes. Traditionalists recoiled at his unabashed secularization of the holy tongue, while many other figures of the Hebrew revolution, like the colossal poet Hayyim Bialik and the towering essayist Ahad Ha-Am, thought his work soulless and mechanical. Arguably, that group of writers left an even deeper imprint on contemporary Hebrew than did Ben-Yehuda, but the rebirth of spoken Hebrew is nearly inconceivable without this difficult, quixotic man. Stavans’s journey proceeds mainly through conversations with passionate and learned interlocutors — including waitresses and cabdrivers as well as linguists, translators, historians and writers — to which he brings a relentless inquisitiveness and deep love of language. Amid a flood of books about Israel, he offers a new and revealing angle on its society. Yet some things are missing. Stavans notes in passing but does not explore the fact that Hebrew never really died: Throughout history it remained a universal Jewish written language, used not only for liturgy but also for legal opinions, philosophy, mysticism, travel writing, poetry, natural sciences and more. Indeed, all that richness is on display in Ben-Yehuda’s dictionary. Another gaping omission is the role that the rhetorical force and flavor of ancient Hebrew have played in shaping today’s Israel. Stavans makes no mention of the ways in which, as the historian Gershom Scholem suggested in the 1920s, Zionists thought they were secularizing an ancient language but actually were summoning biblical echoes and attitudes into modern life. This observation has been borne out in the politics of religious Zionists, whom Stavans never mentions. They are among the leading standard-bearers of Hebrew in an increasingly globalized Israel, where many elites seem to be switching to tech-infused English as fast as they can, another phenomenon he neglects. The complexities of the Hebrew revival are also at the center of Nili Scharf Gold’s exhaustively researched, passionately argued and highly persuasive study of Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000), Israel’s “beloved unofficial national poet.” Born Ludwig Pfeuffer to an Orthodox family in Germany, Amichai fled with his parents to Palestine in 1936, trained as a teacher and fought in Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. His reputation rests above all on his collection Poems: 1948-1962, in which he emerged in open rebellion against the ideological verse of the Independence period. In its stead he offered spare, beautifully measured lines that mixed everyday speech with allusions to classic Jewish texts and prayers, a contemporary style with ancient echoes that seemed new and quintessentially Israeli. Scharf Gold, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, probes Amichai’s Israeli-ness in two ways: first, by exploring his formative experiences in Europe and, second, through skillful use of nearly 100 hitherto unknown love letters written by the poet to a woman who left him — and Palestine — in 1947. Amichai belongs to a founding generation of writers who, according to Israeli mythology, gave up their native languages to write exclusively in Hebrew. But Scharf Gold shows that, in reality, Amichai remained deeply engaged with German culture for decades and even composed a number of poems in whole or in part in German, then translated them into Hebrew. She also demonstrates that major poems ascribed to his experiences in 1948 were written earlier, emerging from his personal life and not the crucible of war, though he carefully covered his tracks. She refers throughout to Amichai’s “poetics of camouflage,” a locution that makes sense when we think of the stigma the new and would-be heroic state of Israel attached to the aged and victimized diaspora. But although camouflage is undeniably a part of Amichai’s work, it is not the whole story. His 1958 poem “Not Like a Cypress” reflects his desire to remain himself but also to be part of a greater enterprise, emerging “Not like a cypress/Not all at once, not all of me,/But like grass, in a thousand shoots,/Wary and green. . . . “ At the close of Resurrecting Hebrew, Stavans poignantly notes that “my search for Hebrew was for something far more multifarious than a language. . . . It was an existential condition, a way of being, of establishing contact with others, with God, and with myself.” Perhaps Amichai, in the subterfuges that Scharf Gold reveals, was also seeking to connect with his people, his multiple homelands and his God. Those strange and strained connections are part of today’s Hebrew and Israeli cultures; they are creatures of fire that alternately murmur and keep their silence. · Yehudah Mirsky, a former State Department official, is a fellow at the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute in Jerusalem. He is writing a biography of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. Headlines If His LSAT Score Is Good, This Kid’s Got a Big Future “US Teen Lives 118 Days Without Heart”–headline, Reuters, Nov. 19 Is That Supposed to Count as a Miracle? “Lawyer: 3 Saints Took No Steroids”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 19 How Could a Flight Attendant Help a Land Plane? “Flight Attendant Helped Land Plane”–headline, Globe and Mail (Toronto), Nov. 19 Now He’s a Flight Risk • ”Canadian Prisoner, Too Fat for Cell, Released Early”–headline, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 12   • ”Obese Have Right to 2 Airline Seats: Canada Court”–headline, Reuters, Nov. 20 The Preferred Term Is ‘Citrus-American’ “Orange Man Faces Murder Charge”–headline, Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Va.), Nov. 19 Though New Zealand Is Even Worse “Australia Not so Awesome Say Critics”–headline, Internet Movie Database, Nov. 19 Maybe He Was Just Happy to See Herself “Woman Hit Be Man With Gun in Pants”–headline, Gaston (N.C.) Gazette, Nov. 19 News of the Tautological “Paris Hilton Will Come to Party”–headline, Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia), Nov. 22 News You Can Use • ”Find the Right Global Dance Partner”–headline, AdAge.com, Nov. 20   • ”Tips to Stop Wild Turkeys From Terrorizing You”–headline, Boston Globe Web site, Nov. 19 Bottom Stories of the Day • ”USA Gymnastics Hears No Complaints About Karolyis”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 19   • ”Huckabee Won’t Rule Out 2012 Run for President”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 19   • ”Michael Moore Has Mixed Feelings About a Big 3 Bailout”–headline, Detroit News, Nov. 20   • ”Obama Naming Washington Insiders to Cabinet”–headline, Star Press (Muncie, Ind.), Nov. 20

 

November 20, 2008 20 November, 2008

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The Daily Slog   Late Night Humor The Tonight Show with Jay Leno It’s reported that Barack Obama’s new attorney general is going to be Eric Holder. Here is what we know about him: His name is Eric Holder. It’s being reported that Hillary Clinton will accept the position of secretary of state. Actually this works out great for the Clintons. While Hillary is concentrating on foreign affairs, Bill can get back to concentrating on domestic affairs. Barack Obama says one of his top priorities once he becomes president is closing down Guantanamo Bay. And to make sure it closes, he’s going to turn it into a bank. According to the New York Post, Sarah Palin may appear on the season finale of “Desperate Housewives.” In a related story, John McCain just got a big Flomax commercial. Late Show Top Ten Top Ten Things Overheard During Obama’a Meeting With McCain 10. “Oh, just preparing to be president. What have you been up to?” 9. “I know a guy who would be a perfect secretary of plumbing” 8. “What is the deal with that Alaskan babe?” 7. “Let’s wrap this up; Wheel of Fortune’s on” 6. “Seriously, what was the deal with that Alaskan babe?” 5. “Actually, it’s now the ‘Straight Talk Express and Girls Gone Wild’ bus” 4. “Uh John, this isn’t another debate” 3. “Where’s the soup? Someone said there’d be soup!” 2. “I know I’m trailing by 192 electoral votes two weeks after the election, but I’ve got you right where I want you!” 1. “Maybe you’d be president-elect if you hadn’t crossed Letterman” Late Show with David Letterman Cold in New York City. So cold, today Sarah Palin spent $150,000 on mittens. Sarah Palin has landed a $7 million book deal. She got it through a guy named Joe the publisher. When she was asked about writing a book, she said, “You bethcha! As long as I don’t have to read it.” Wow — $7 million. Maybe now she can buy her own clothing. Late Night with Conan O’Brien Yesterday in Chicago, President-elect Obama met with former political rival John McCain. Both men said it was a relief to put their differences aside, sit down, and really make fun of Sarah Palin. Yesterday, President Bush awarded a National Medal of the Arts to Stan Lee, the comic book artist who created “Spider-Man.” Afterwards, Bush said it was the first thing he’s done as president that “felt right.” Political experts say Hillary Clinton may not be given the position secretary of state because of Bill Clinton’s activities. When he heard this, Bill said, “It’s only fair — she denies me positions all the time.” The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson Happy birthday to the Alaska senator, and convicted felon, Ted Stevens. Today he turns 85 to life. Michael Jackson is in trouble again. He is supposed to testify in a lawsuit, but his lawyer says he’s too sick to travel. He can only travel in an emergency — like a Jonas Brothers concert. Jimmy Kimmel Live! Raging fires in California. So far, 32,000 acres have burned. It seems ironic that the flamingest state in the Union voted against gay marriage. It looks like Hillary Clinton might be Barack Obama’s secretary of state. She went from almost being president to a secretary. Sounds like somebody needs to watch “Working Girl” — that’s not how it’s supposed to work. The secretary of state travels all over the world meeting with foreign leaders sometimes spending months away from his or her husband. But that’s just the sacrifice Bill is willing to make. Lost and Found • ”Clash Over $700bn Bank Bail-Out’–headline, BBC Web site, Nov. 18   • ”Opec ‘Lost $700bn on Cheaper Oil”–headline, BBC Web site, Nov. 19   ‘This Is Now Bone of My Bones and Flesh of My Flesh’ “First Person in World Gets Organ Entirely Made in Lab”–headline, KARE-TV Web site (Minneapolis), Nov. 19 And You Thought They Were Just Happy to See You “Scientists Rediscover Pocket-Sized Primate”–headline, Globe and Mail (Toronto), Nov. 19 Today’s Papers Panic Grips Wall Street The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal lead with yet another terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day at the stock market. The Dow Jones industrial average plunged 5.1 percent and closed below the 8,000 mark for the first time since March 2003. The market is now down 43.5 percent from a high point hit a little over a year ago. USAT notes that the market has “wiped out nearly $10 trillion in wealth since the October 2007 peak” and the WSJ highlights that the recent plunges have nearly wiped out “all the gains from the last bull market, which lasted from October 2002 to October 2007.” Optimists who had hoped the market had nowhere to go but up after the lows of last month were hit with a cold dose of reality by a string of grim economic news made it clear that the pain is far from over. The Los Angeles Times gives big play to the stock market woes but leads with news that the California Supreme Court has agreed to review legal challenges to Proposition 8, the voter initiative that banned same-sex couples from getting married in the state. The court’s move suggests that it wants to resolve all issues relating to marriage between two people of the same sex in one ruling. The court refused to allow the marriages to continue until a decision has been made, but legal experts warn this shouldn’t be read as a sign that the court is ready to uphold the ban. Investors looking for reasons to be anxious about the economy’s future didn’t have to look far. The leaders of Detroit’s Big Three were grilled for a second day by skeptical lawmakers who made it pretty clear the U.S. auto industry shouldn’t be expecting a bailout; the Federal Reserve’s leaders warned that they expect the economy to be in a recession through the middle of next year, if not longer; new data showed that builders started fewer homes last month, marking the fourth straight month of declines to reach the lowest level in at least 49 years since the government has kept track. And that wasn’t the only data to reach a record. Perhaps most worrying of all, the Consumer Price Index fell 1 percent in October, its biggest one-month drop in the index’s 61-year history. While the average consumer is likely to welcome a decrease in prices, it can be disastrous for an economy and brought back the much-talked about fears of deflation, a prolonged period of falling prices. The NYT focuses on deflation—”an economists’ nightmare”—in its lead story, while the WSJ devotes a separate front-page story to the issue. Deflation was “a hallmark of the Depression and Japan’s so-called lost decade,” notes the NYT. Everyone still thinks the chances of deflation are extremely slim but the fact that it’s even a concern ramps up the pressure on President-elect Barack Obama and lawmakers to pass a new fiscal stimulus package. “Whatever I thought that risk was four or five months ago, I think it’s bigger now, even if it is still small,” Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn said. Even talking about deflation now marks an amazing turn of events considering that this summer the big concern was inflation and many economists openly worried about the prospects of stagflation, the simultaneous increase of inflation and unemployment. The only reason people aren’t more freaked out at the record-breaking prices decline is that it was mainly due to falling energy prices, which is good for consumers and is generally seen as a bad indicator of long-term trends. Excluding energy and food, prices fell 0.1 percent in October, which is far more modest but hardly insignificant since, as the WSJ notes, it marked the first decline since 1982. The WP points out that broadly speaking, economists worry that “businesses are losing any ability to set prices because demand for their goods has dried up.” Due to all the depressing economic news, more consumers are choosing to play it safe and save what they have. Or as one economist succinctly puts it: “People are scared to death.” The LAT points out that this decline in spending suggests that the only way the economy will get a boost is through increased government spending. Indeed, the NYT points to a number of statistics that make it seem “clear that the nation is entering a more frugal era after several years of conspicuous consumption.” The nervousness over the economy’s future could clearly be seen in the markets, where, as the WSJ points out, investors seem once again to be willing to accept nearly no returns in order to sink their money into the safe haven of short-term Treasury bills. The pain wasn’t isolated in stocks. The WSJ highlights that by some measures, “bonds were hit harder than stocks.” The WP points out that this anxiety in the bond markets makes it difficult for companies to raise money. In the WSJ’s op-ed page, Andy Kessler says that while investors are taught that they should listen to the stock market, right now you should “stick wax in your ears and don’t listen to the market until February.” When it’s working properly, the market can be a good indicator of the economy as a whole but due to the credit crisis Kessler is “convinced the stock market is at its least efficient today” and investors shouldn’t read too much into the declines that are sure to come in the next two months. While investors have lost trillions in the stock market over the past year, many top officials at companies that are at the heart of the current crisis managed to make a pretty penny over the past five years, reveals a WSJ analysis. Fifteen leaders of large home-building and financial firms made more than $100 million in that time period, for example. Among the 15 are the heads of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. This is hardly a new phenomenon as periods of economic booms usually translate into astronomical paychecks for those who participated in the bubble. During the technology bubble of the late 1990s, more than 50 people made more than $100 million right before the crash. The LAT and NYT front, and everyone mentions, the latest news from the presidential transition. President-elect Obama has decided to nominate Tom Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader, as secretary of health and human services. Everyone sees the nomination as a sign that Obama plans to aggressively tackle the issue of healthcare since Daschle is an experienced legislator who wrote a book about health care. Apparently, Daschle made it clear he would only accept the cabinet position if Obama also named him the administration’s point man to develop a health care plan. “Being a Cabinet secretary is a car and driver and you get to go to the head of the line at the airport, unless you’re Defense or State,” a Daschle associate tells the WP. “This was key for Tom to have that White House connection.” In other transition news, everyone says Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona appears to be Obama’s choice to become homeland security secretary. Daschle’s selection not only provides another example of how Obama is filling his administration with Washington veterans, but also promises to test his strict ethics rules. Daschle’s wife is a registered lobbyist whose list of clients might provide conflicts of interest for her husband but her focus is in the aerospace and military industries. And, as the NYT details in a piece inside, Daschle himself is also open to examination. Since leaving the Senate, Daschle has been a board member of the Mayo Clinic as well as an adviser to a law and lobbying firm. Although this might not prevent his appointment, Daschle might have to recuse himself from issues that relate to his former employers, “a potentially broad swatch of the health secretary’s portfolio,” says the NYT that notes the lobbying firm has dozens of health care industry clients, including pharmaceutical companies and health care providers. And, of course, the Mayo Clinic is also a health care provider as well as a research institution that receives grants from the National Institutes of Health. The LAT fronts an interesting interview with a senior officer “Zimbabwe’s version of the KGB: the Central Intelligence Organization.” The meeting between journalist and spy, which is carried out in the utmost secrecy, reveals how a group of people who could once counted on to be the most loyal to the president have become disenchanted. The senior officer estimates that 60 to 70 percent of CIO officers no longer back President Robert Mugabe. “That the dark heart of Mugabe’s web of fear is abandoning him underscores how tenuous his grip on power has become,” writes the LAT’s Robyn Dixon. In the WP’s op-ed page, Michael Kinsley writes that Americans may have just elected a president who is part of the one group that suffers from socially-sanctioned discrimination in the United States. Although Obama claims to have quit smoking, “the evidence is ambiguous.” Regardless, if he hasn’t quit “we should forgive him” because his “good habits outweigh his single bad one.” And perhaps his failure to quit is part of the reason why he’s been able to maintain his now-famous calm demeanor. “If he needs an occasional cigarette to preserve it,” writes Kinsley, “let’s hand him an ashtray, offer him a light and look the other way.”   They Like Nothing Better, Except Messing Up Messerschmidts “Gremlins Still Jinx LAUSD Payroll”–headline, Daily Breeze (Torrance, Calif.), Nov. 18 But Poor Old Goebbels . . . “German Medic’s Account Confirms Hitler Had Only One Testicle”–headline, FoxNews.com, Nov. 19 ‘Why Are Those FA Bans Driving on the Left?’ “Drogba and Ferguson Hit by English FA Bans”–headline, CNN.com, Nov. 19 But We’ve Been Taking It, and We’re Not . . . What Were You Saying Again? “Gingko Biloba Doesn’t Prevent Dementia, Study Finds”–headline, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 19 ‘Come to Think of It, 900,000 Pounds Was Pretty Heavy’ “Nestle Recalls 900,000 Pounds of Lean Cuisine”–headline, ABCNews.com, Nov. 18 Isn’t There Any Mandatory Retirement Age? • ”Fired 44-Year-Old Stripper Sues Club for Age Discrimination”–headline, FoxNews.com, Nov. 18   • ”70+ Strippers Sue Club”–headline, Clear Channel, Nov. 18   News of the Tautological “Dead Body Found in Cemetery”–headline, News Virginian (Waynesboro, Va.), Nov. 14 News of the Oxymoronic “Scientists Find New Penguin, Extinct for 500 Years”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 19 News You Can Use • ”Getting a Job With Obama Easier Than You Think”–headline, Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram, Nov. 16   • ”Brothel Offers Free Entry to Men Who Have Its Name Tattooed on Their Arm”–headline, Daily Telegraph (London), Nov. 18   • ”Facial Scars Can Help Win a Woman’s Heart”–headline, Daily Telegraph (London), Nov. 17   Bottom Stories of the Day • ”3 Residents Attend City Council Hearing”–headline, El Paso Times, Nov. 19   • ”Texas Legislature Set to Consider Some Odd, Trivial Bills”–headline, Dallas Morning News, Nov. 16   • ”Obama Doodle Not for Sale, Owner Says”–headline, Chicago Tribune, Nov. 16   • ”Hollywood and Climate Change Experts Ponder Global Warming”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 19   • ”Vice President Cheney Indicted by Willacy County Grand Jury”–headline, Brownsville (Texas) Herald, Nov. 1 Today’s Business Press : Deflation Fears Suck Air out of Markets Sound the alarms! Consumer prices are in a freefall, stoking fears the economy is on the precipice of deflation. The Labor Department on Wednesday reported the prices of consumer goods fell by 1 percent in October, the biggest one-month drop in 61 years. As the New York Times points out, no, falling prices are not a good thing for an already shrinking global economy. “While most consumers might welcome the idea that things are getting cheaper, deflation is an economists’ nightmare,” the NYT writes. For starters, declining prices would greatly minimize the impact of the Federal Reserve’s previous rate cuts. Unresponsive monetary policy is what sunk Japan in the 1990s, the so-called “lost decade,” pundits are quick to point out.  What is the Fed to do? Cut again. According to the Financial Times, “the US central bank may cut interest rates again by as much as 50 basis points from the ­current level of 1 percent in December.” Analysts at JPMorganChase predict the Fed will go even lower—down to zero by early next year. It’s not just the United States that is seeing a rapid decline in prices. Prices are also falling across Europe and in Japan, the NYT reports. Deflation fears sank U.S. markets on Wednesday to their lowest levels since the current financial crisis began. According to the Wall Street Journal, investors ditched equities and bonds. “The stock market’s fall to a 5½-year low was led by the credit markets, where prices of corporate and real-estate bonds fell to their lowest levels in more than 20 years,” the newspaper writes. Things look equally bleak overseas this morning. Asian stock markets fell on average by 6 percent Thursday to plumb five-year lows, Reuters reports, adding that oil fell below $53 a barrel. European markets opened down as well on Thursday, the BBC reports.  Part of the fears in Asia came from a surprise report out of Tokyo this morning. “Japan unexpectedly posted a 63.9 billion yen [$671 million] trade deficit in October, reinforcing concerns that falling exports will push the country deeper into recession,” the FT writes. Economists had been banking on a trade surplus. The outlook is looking only marginally better for struggling Iceland. Overnight it announced its Nordic neighbors Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway will pitch in and lend Iceland $2.5 billion. Viewing the struggles of the world’s largest economies, a new theory is emerging from global business leaders: It will be the emerging economies that get us out of this mess. These emergent powers, including China, India, and Brazil, make up 30 percent of the world’s GDP. Josep Piqué, chairman of European airline Vueling, told the NYT that “the emerging countries are the solution to the overall global slump.” “Like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high-hat and tuxedo.” That’s how one lawmaker described the chief executives of the Big Three automakers’ “tone deaf” decision to fly by corporate jets to D.C. in search of a bailout, the Washington Post writes. By the time a deeply skeptical House financial services committee had finished grilling GM’s Richard Wagoner, Ford’s Alan Mulally, and Chrysler’s Robert Nardelli, it was clear the Big Three could go home empty-handed, writes the Los Angeles Times. Coupled with the Senate’s decision to cancel a vote on providing auto loans, it is clear that “[m]any members of Congress worry that Detroit has not changed its big-spending, gas-guzzling habits, and that company executives will be back in a few months asking for billions of dollars more to stay afloat,” writes the LAT. If Detroit falls, the South could rise writes the WSJ, noting, “Foreign makers have been lured to South Carolina, Alabama and other Southern states over the past decade by generous tax benefits and laws that make it easier to build a largely nonunion work force.” That labor “flexibility” has allowed the likes of BMW and Toyota to quickly downsize when necessary in a way the Big Three could only dream of doing. While retailers on both sides of the Atlantic grapple with the prospect of dire Christmas sales (even the vaunted online retail sector is cut-throat this year), at least one set of consumer companies already is looking to the New Year. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that a “group of companies including Starbucks, Nike and Sun Microsystems has banded together to urge Congress to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and promote investment in renewable energy.” The coalition, Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy, advocates “stimulating renewable energy, promoting energy efficiency and green jobs, requiring 100 percent auction of carbon allowances, and limiting new coal-fired power plants to those that capture and store carbon emissions,” MarketWatch reports. And finally, rewind to a previous financial crisis: the technology and dot-com collapse of 2000. That’s when fund manager Alberto W. Vilar allegedly starting swindling a total of $20 million from his clients—including $5 million from Lily Cates, the mother of actress Phoebe Cates—to keep his operation at Amerindo Investment Advisors afloat. Vilar and his partner Gary A. Tanaka were convicted on a series of fraud charges yesterday in federal court in Manhattan, the NYT writes. For Vilar, the verdict marks a staggering fall. “The investor and music lover accustomed to opulent living, front-row opera seats and the gratitude of arts impresarios, now faces a more humble prospect: prison,” the newspaper writes. The Ethicist Say No to the Gas Companies By RANDY COHEN Natural-gas companies in our area can drill in one spot and extract gas more than a mile away by using “horizontal” drilling. These companies offered to lease homeowners’ mineral rights — about $4,000 for my partner and me. For environmental reasons, we strongly oppose this drilling, but most of our neighbors are enthusiastic about the profits, so drilling will likely be done under our house whether or not we agree to the lease. What should we do? JESSICA MAY, FORT WORTH It is understandable that you feel powerless in the face of community-wide sentiment — gold rush! — but you should not sign the lease. To fail to resist what you see as injustice simply because you fear that you cannot win the fight assures the very defeat you dread. If nothing else, this is a short-term view. Political struggle is long. Even if you lose the first battle, you fight on, and by resisting from the outset, you shape the conditions of that struggle. I reject your premise that drilling is inevitable no matter what you — and by extension, your neighbors — do. (Local environmental groups might suggest effective actions that you have not considered.) If the gas companies believed that, they wouldn’t continue to offer the money to all and sundry. What’s more, the example of local resistance to such schemes can affect the actions of gas companies in their future dealings in other neighborhoods. But the most potent argument for your declining to sign what you regard as a devil’s bargain is this: It violates your own principles. Even if all your neighbors are doing it. (Shooting a guy in an orgy of rioting — same deal. You shouldn’t play along even if everyone else in the roiling mob is firing furiously.) In what sense do you oppose drilling if you sell your mineral rights to the first person who puts cash on the table? Ethics concern our actions, not just our arguments. A dear friend was facing some difficult times, including an increasingly strained marriage. I went to visit him for a few days to provide some support. One evening, while he was away, his wife seemed to make sexual advances to me: nothing explicit, but I felt uneasy. In my opinion they are a bad match, but I keep that to myself. Do I alert him to her inappropriate advances or silently file it with my opinion? NAME WITHHELD, NEW JERSEY Keep it to yourself. The wife’s actions are too ambiguous, too anomalous and too easily denied by her for you to provoke a confrontation in an already shaky marriage. Furthermore, if you had responded to her putative pass, who knows whether she would have followed through or backed off? Even if she explicitly propositioned you on that one occasion, that, too, would belong in your file of silence. Everyone does foolish things from time to time, particularly when under stress. Such things are often best overlooked. (There’s a phrase for it in German: einmal ist keinmal. Loosely: once does not count.) If everyone were called to account for each utterly atypical marital gaffe made when the moon was full and the wine was flowing, civilization would collapse into a heap of rubble. I would not offer this get-out-of-jail-free card for more serious offenses; I am not proposing a kill-one-guy rule or even a one-affair exemption. I am suggesting that there are times when a friend’s happiness is best served by a tactful silence. UPDATE: He said nothing. The couple have gone into counseling and are, he says, “making progress.” Who Says Conservatism Is Dead? “Woolly Mammoth Genome Sequence May Bring Beast Alive”–headline, Bloomberg, Nov. 19 Don’t Know? Vote O. A new poll from Zogby International shows Obama voters to be shockingly ignorant of political trivia involving their own candidate: 83% failed to correctly answer that Obama had won his first election by getting all of his opponents removed from the ballot, and 88% did not correctly associate Obama with his statement that his energy policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry. Most (56%) were also not able to correctly answer that Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground. Nearly three quarters (72%) of Obama voters did not correctly identify Biden as the candidate who had to quit a previous campaign for President because he was found to have plagiarized a speech, and nearly half (47%) did not know that Biden was the one who predicted Obama would be tested by a generated international crisis during his first six months as President. . . . 57% of Obama voters were unable to correctly answer that Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate. Wait, it gets worse. The test was multiple choice! Most Obama voters did recognize John McCain and Sarah Palin, respectively, as the guy who didn’t know how many houses he owned and the lady with the pricey clothes. And it’s not as if these questions were really hard, like asking Obama’s middle name. Even we don’t know the answer to that one. Who Says Conservatism Is Dead? “Woolly Mammoth Genome Sequence May Bring Beast Alive”–headline, Bloomberg, Nov. 19 We Thought He Was the Smooth One “Bill Clinton in Talks to Smooth Wife’s Path to Cabinet”–headline, The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 19

 

November 19, 2008 19 November, 2008

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The Daily Slog   Late Night Humor The Tonight Show with Jay Leno The latest rumor is that Barack Obama has offered the job of secretary of state to Hillary Clinton. That’s kind of sad considering how close Hillary came to being the first female president. Imagine after that . . . her next job offer? Secretary. Hillary Clinton might make a very good secretary of state — she can cackle in seven different languages. Today in Chicago, for the first time since the election, John McCain sat down with President-elect Barack Obama. Obama agreed to sit down and talk to McCain without any preconditions. Barack Obama’s mother-in-law might be moving into the White House with them. Joe Biden was right — hostile forces will test Obama in the first few months. Late Show Top Ten Top Ten Good Things About Being Named James Bond 10. “I’ve made a fortune selling autographed crap on eBay” 9. “I have amazing gadgets, like a clock that’s also a radio” 8. “Lots of admiring looks when they call my table at T.G.I. Friday’s” 7. “At the movie theater, I get a free squirt of chemical butter” 6. “Once, I received a $5,000 residual check that should have gone to Pierce Brosnan” 5. “Calling my boss ‘M’ instead of Mr. Glickstein” 4. “When my brother says, ‘Bond, Fred Bond,’ he just looks like a jerk” 3. “Always gets a laugh when I order my Jamba Juice ’shaken, not stirred’” 2. “Halle Berry once accidentally slept with me” 1. “President Bush keeps calling me about capturing bin Laden” Late Show with David Letterman They’re saying Hillary Clinton may be secretary of state. If she takes that job, it means she’ll be spending a lot of time away from home. Today, she took out her pantsuit with the travel stickers. Then she bought an electronic ankle bracelet for Bill. Sen. McCain and President-elect Barack Obama got together for a visit. Obama thanked McCain for choosing that nutty Alaskan chick. Then Obama said to McCain, “Hey I’m catching up to you — I just got a second home.” Late Night with Conan O’Brien Last night on “60 Minutes,” Barack Obama said that since he won the election he has slept in his own bed every night. After hearing this, Bill Clinton said, “Man, this guy has a lot to learn.” Earlier today in Chicago, Barack Obama tried to smooth things over by meeting with his former opponent John McCain. Obama congratulated McCain on running a good campaign, and McCain congratulated Obama on being “a stupid jerkface.” Henry Kissinger says if Barack Obama picks Hillary Clinton to be his secretary of state, it will be a sign of “great courage” on his part. Then Kissinger said, “Seriously Barack, protect your nuts.” Obama says that he’s taking his time picking out a dog for his daughters because he’s looking for a pet that won’t shed its hair. Which is the exact same reason he picked Joe Biden. The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson According to literary agents in New York, Sarah Palin is about to sign a $7 million book deal. They didn’t say she was going to write one or read one, but she’s going to sign it. She’s not ruling out running for the Senate in 2010. She’s already formed an exploratory committee to explain to her what the Senate is. The fire in California has threatened Oprah’s house. Don’t worry — she turned on her force field and the fire went away, ashamed of itself. Today’s Papers By Daniel Politi Posted Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2008, at 6:51 AM ET The Los Angeles Times and Washington Post lead with the chief executives of Detroit’s Big Three begging lawmakers for taxpayer-funded aid to prevent a possible collapse. But senators were less than receptive to their plight and it looks increasingly unlikely that the automakers will get a bailout from Washington anytime soon. Even senators who are generally supportive of the industry weren’t shy about criticizing the companies. “Their discomfort in coming to the Congress with hat in hand is only exceeded by the fact that they are seeking treatment for wounds that are to a large extent self-inflicted,” Sen. Christoper Dodd said. “No one can say they didn’t see this coming.” The New York Times leads with news that Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens lost his re-election bid to Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. It was certainly close, but Begich leads with more than 3,700 votes with approximately 2,500 still outstanding, which is beyond the margin of victory that would allow Stevens to call for a state-funded recount. The victory gives Democrats 58 seats in the Senate, with two races still undecided. The Wall Street Journal leads with the lashing that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and, to a lesser extent Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, received at a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee. Paulson said he wants to keep the rest of the bailout money for emergencies and allow the Obama administration to decide how best to use the funds. But lawmakers criticized Paulson for his unwillingness to devote some of the bailout money to aid homeowners at risk of foreclosure. USA Todayy leads with AAA’s annual Thanksgiving survey that found that while many Americans are changing their holiday travel plans, they’re still, for the most part, making the trips. The total number of people who plan to travel for Thanksgiving is a bit less than last year’s record, which marks the first drop since 2002. The leaders of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler blamed the current downturn in the global economy for much of their woes and warned lawmakers that if one of the companies were to collapse it would have catastrophic consequences for the country. The leaders of GM and Chrysler both said that they’re at risk of running out of money soon without more federal assistance. While senators, for the most part, said they recognize the industry’s importance they also were quick to emphasize they’re not convinced giving the companies another $25 billion would be enough to keep the companies out of trouble for very long. When the executives were asked whether they’d be willing to cut their own salaries to $1 a year, they all said yes. Still, that was hardly enough to satisfy skeptical lawmakers who heaped criticism on the Big Three. In the WP’s op-ed page, George WillNYT notes in its business pages, bankruptcy protection isn’t what it used to be. Whereas bankruptcy protection “always offered a glimmer of hope” that a company could reorganize and continue operating, that is increasingly unrealistic in the current climate. Companies are now avoiding bankruptcy protection like the plague because they know that bankruptcy equals liquidation if they can’t get credit, and, needless to say, loans are pretty hard to come by these days. One possible compromise would be for the government to offer loans to a bankrupt company, which would benefit taxpayers since they would be the first to be repaid. That is precisely the solution that Mitt Romney NYT. Romney says that while the “American auto industry is vital to our national interest,” bailing out the Big Three would “virtually guarantee” their demise. Instead, a “managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs.” The government should guarantee financing for the bankrupt companies and make sure that consumers know their warranties aren’t at risk. When Republican Sen. Bob Corker brought up the idea of bankruptcy with government backing, GM’s chairman dismissed it as “pure fantasy” noting that such an action “would ripple across this economy like a tsunami we haven’t seen. It seems to me like a huge roll of the dice.” Begich’s victory not only effectively ends the career of the longest-serving Republican senator but also brings Democrats one step closer to reaching the 60 seats necessary to obtain a filibuster-proof majorityy. Yesterday, Democratic lawmakers kept the dream of reaching that magic number alive by overwhelmingly voting to allow Sen. Joseph Lieberman to keep his committee chairmanship. “This was done in a spirit of reconciliation,” Lieberman said. NYT, LAT, and WP all front word that Eric Holder currently appears to be the top choice to become the next U.S. attorney general, although no final decision has been made. Obama’s advisers continue the vetting process but plan to officially offer him the job if he gets enough support from Republican lawmakers. Holder, a senior official at the Justice Department under President Clinton, would be the first African American attorney general. The biggest sticking point in his nomination is that Republicans are certain to bring up that as deputy attorney general he failed to oppose Clinton’s pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich. But few think that will prevent his confirmation. The WSJ fronts word that former President Bill Clinton is prepared to make concessions on his activities in order to help his wife get the position of secretary of state in Obama’s administration. Not only would he stop being involved in his foundation’s daily activities, the former president has also said he would be willing to disclose the names of all new donors and seek clearance from both the White House counsel and the State Department’s ethics chief before accepting any money or paid speaking engagements. In addition, he has agreed to publicly disclose “major” past contributors, although no one has been able to define what “major” means. Despite all these concessions, it’s still not clear that the former first lady even wants the job, note the WSJ and NYT. Although she was apparently enthusiastic about the prospect when Obama first brought it up, she’s now wondering whether she wouldn’t rather stay in the Senate. She’s apparently reluctant to give up the independence that comes with being a senator in order to become a subordinate to a former rival. Of course, this could all be part of a bargaining tactic. But the NYT also notes that if she becomes secretary of state it would be much more difficult for her to get rid of the $7.6 million debt that she has left over from her presidential campaign. Whether she wants it or not, there are plenty of opinions on whether she should get the job. The NYT’s Thomas Friedman says that too much attention has been paid to the former president’s role and activities, when the really important question is what kind of relationship Clinton would have with Obama. Having the full backing of the president “is the most important requirement for a secretary of state to be effective,” notes Friedman, who admits that he’s not sure whether Obama and Clinton can have that kind of relationship with everything that went on between them during the primaries. For his part, the WP’s David Broder is certainly more direct and says that appointing Clinton “would be a mistake.” Although she’s qualified, the position wouldn’t be “the best use of her talents” and isn’t what Obama needs. Plus, carrying her husband’s baggage would make the job that much more difficult. “If Clinton can be of service to Obama in Foggy Bottom, she can be of even greater value as an ally on Capitol Hill,” writes Broder. Meanwhile, the NYT’s Maureen Dowd for some reason finds it relevant to ask David Geffen what he thinks. Yes, Geffen made a bit of a splash when he badmouthed the Clintons in the heat of the primary battle, and no one doubts his fundraising prowess, but does anyone care what he thinks? In case you do, Geffen likes the idea of the former first lady running the State Department. Clinton and Obama must be breathing a huge sigh of relief.   other magazines: The Redprint: Newsweek’s Karl Rove prescribes a Republican comeback plan. Newsweek, Nov. 24 Karl Rove offers a 10-point plan for the Republican Party, stressing the importance of adapting the GOP’s core values for the new era. “The party should embrace both tradition and reform; grass-roots Republicans want to apply timeless conservative principles to the new circumstances facing America.” The party must make inroads among young people by promoting a “green” agenda and should focus on retaking Congress in 2010. … The cover story likens Barack Obama to Abraham Lincoln, which the 44th president himself did in the pages of Time in 2005. Both men are known for their humility, strong rhetoric, and taking the helm during a pivotal historical moment. … The lame-duck Bush administration is being flooded with pardon requests, but those hoping for one are likely to be disappointed as Bush has granted fewer pardons than any modern president. Weekly Standard, Nov. 24 The cover story examines the Chinese government’s alleged practice of harvesting the organs of imprisoned dissidents to sell on the black market. Because the initial claims were made by members of the Falun Gong, they have gone unheard for years. “For various reasons, some valid, some shameful, the credibility of persecuted refugees has often been doubted in the West.” … Fred Barnes thinks President Obama will breathe new life into the GOP simply by enacting his liberal policy agenda. “Starting now, the person with the biggest role in shaping what Republicans and conservatives say and do is President Barack Obama.” … An article drops in on the Republican Governor’s Association convention in Miami, picking the brains of the party’s rising stars about Bush’s legacy. Only Gov. Jon Huntsman of Utah confronts Bush’s job performance, saying he was not a fan. Big Three Breakdown in DC Today’s Business Press Just $25 billion more dollars (okay, maybe a bit more) in cheap government loans, that’s all The Big 3 automakers need to retool and avoid collapse, the CEOs of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler pitched to Congress on Tuesday. “From the response they got, it will be a tough sell,” BusinessWeek reckons. The New York Times concurs, writing “after four hours of testimony, it appeared they had not persuaded enough lawmakers to move quickly on a bailout.” The Democratic leadership, the newspaper adds, has not succeeded in mustering enough support to tap the $700 billion bailout fund to rescue the troubled carmakers. It’s just as well, opines The Wall Street Journal, contending “the money is a tool of Congressional industrial policy to turn GM, Ford and Chrysler into agents of the Sierra Club and other green lobbies.”  The WSJ’s suggestion? For starters, ease “onerous” fleet mileage standards that “force the companies to make cars domestically that are unprofitable.” This, the newspaper concludes, would probably save Chrysler from bankruptcy. Meanwhile, auto bailout fever is spreading abroad. Foreign automakers are watching the proceedings in Washington with great interest, pressuring lawmakers back home that if Detroit gets a bailout, they’ll need one too. This is precisely the rationale in Beijing where China’s car industry “is quietly pressing… for government help as it copes with a jarring slowdown,” the NYT writes. European automakers are fishing for state aid too, taking advantage of the EU’s dithering on whether such help would constitutes a breach of competition rules, according to the WSJ. Meanwhile, the business prospects for the leading carmakers worsens by the day. Ford’s marketing chief yesterday described November auto sales as “just terrible.” And, it emerged yesterday, the resale value of American cars — as measured by the Kelley Blue Book people — continues to lag behind European and Asian car models, not a good sign for the Big 3. If Detroit loses its fight for bailout bucks, it won’t be alone. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday that neither Detroit nor homeowners facing foreclosure deserve access to the dwindling $700 billion bailout reserve. “The primary purpose of the bill was to protect our financial system from collapse,” Paulson lectured House Democrats urging homeowner relief. “The rescue package was not intended to be an economic stimulus or an economic recovery package.” The fault lines are widening indeed between Paulson and House Democrats, who accused the Treasury Secretary of misleading them on the original intent of the aid and accusing him of not knowing what to do next, The Washington Post reports. “There’s a lack of confidence, it seems to me, both in this body and in the general population,” Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski (D-Pa.) lashed out at Paulson during the hearing. “Do we have a plan? Where are we going?” Paulson seemed cool under fire though, repeatedly stating the package is for stabilizing the financial system, not as “a panacea for all our economic difficulties.” “You cannot be serious!” To paraphrase, that’s New York State Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo’s reaction to suggestions that A.I.G. – recent beneficiary of $150 billion in rescue loans - might hand out executive bonuses this year. It “seems hard to believe that A.I.G. could pay significant bonuses or give raises to its executives after the company has quite literally been bailed out by the American taxpayer,” Cuomo wrote to CEO Edward M. Libby, the NYT’s Dealbook reports. Cuomo also pointed out that Goldman Sachs, UBS and Barclays have all waived bonuses for this year. Shares in Hewlett-Packard soared 14% yesterday, Business Week reports, as the granddaddy of Silicon Valley beat the street and surprised analysts by reporting an upbeat outlook for 2009. While tech giants such as Cisco, Sun Microsystems and Intel all languish, HP delivered a fourth quarter profit of $1.03 a share, benefiting from what CEO Mark Hurd described as, “its global reach, diverse customer base, broad portfolio, and numerous cost initiatives”. Even more surprising news from Silicon Valley comes from the WSJ, which reports Google and Proctor & Gamble have started swapping employees in a an “odd couple” pact to leverage the next generation of online advertising. P&G needs to learn more about online consumer habits as its market moves increasing to the Net while Google “craves a bigger slice of P&G’s $8.7 billion annual ad pie as its own revenue growth slows.” Lastly, if you get home early for Christmas this year you may need to thank Pres. Bush. The White House on Tuesday gave the green light for commercial airlines to use military air space across the country during the holiday season to ease mid-air congestion, the NYT writes. The move may not be necessary. The Air Transport Association is predicting for the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend that the number of air passengers will be down 10 percent on last year. Headlines Bailing Out Detroit • ”It’s Impossible to Lose All 16 Games in an NFL Season”–headline, Detroit Free Press, Nov. 17   • ”The ‘Liberal Lion’ Is Back”–headline, CQ.com, Nov. 17 It’s Titled ‘A Modest Proposal’ “Government Report Shows More US Children Wanted for Food in 2007 Than Any Time Since 1998″–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 17 ‘I Should’ve Had the Moo Shu Pork!’ “Man Who Had Ricin in Las Vegas Motel Gets 3½ Years in Federal Prison, $7,500 Fine”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 17 That Would Be a Strange Place to Have a Contest Anyway “Wis. Woman Pleads No Contest in Toilet Corpse Case”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 17 ‘Where’s the Rest of Me?’ “Half Way Man Injured on Mo. 32″–headline, Bolivar (Mo.) Herald-Free Press, Nov. 17 Turns Out They’re Lighter Than Water “State Officials Solve Mystery of Floating Beets”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 17 Breaking News From Stardate 4202.9 “ ’Doomsday Machine’ Repairs to Cost $21 Million”–headline, FoxNews.com, Nov. 17 News You Can Use • ”Slick Roads Lead to Numerous Accidents”–headline, Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle, Nov. 18   • ”SF: Pit in Sidewalk Makes Walking Risky”–headline, San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 18   • ”Bizarre: Bake Your Own ‘Fetus Cookies’ ”–headline, WorldNetDaily.com, Nov. 17 Bottom Stories of the Day • ”From Justice Stevens, No Exit Signs”–headline, Washington Post, Nov. 18   • ”Stevens Happy Expulsion Vote on Ice”–headline, Roll Call, Nov. 18   • ”Quebec Election: Charest, Dumont Spar Over Who’s Nicer to Infertile Women”–headline, National Post, Nov. 17   • ”Hagel, Unrestrained, Lashes Into Bush, Rush and the GOP”–headline, Puffington Host, Nov. 18 New Republic, Dec. 3 With the selection of Rahm Emanuel as Obama’s chief of staff, Noam Scheiber wonders whether Obama is truly committed to his mantra of “No drama.” Scheiber also ponders what Washington, where “rumor-mongering and backbiting are semi-official sports,” will do to the morale of Obama’s faithful campaign workers, when forced to mix with “every ambitious law-school grad along the Amtrak corridor.” … An article on Detroit’s ailing auto industry imagines what would happen if the big three—GM, Ford, and Chrysler—were allowed to fail. At least 3 million people would immediately lose their jobs, but from there the crisis would “reach into every community with a parts supplier or factory—and, to a lesser extent, into every town and city with a dealership. In short, virtually every community in the country would be touched.” New York, Nov. 24 As the infamous Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital—”the nuthouse, the punch line, the must-avoid vacation spot”—enters redevelopment as a hotel and conference center, a story reminisces about the prominent place the “Chelsea Hotel of the mad” has enjoyed in popular culture over the last 78 years. Norman Mailer was sent there in 1960 after he stabbed his wife with a penknife. Mark David Chapman, who shot John Lennon, paid a visit in 1980. … The gulf emirate of Dubai has emerged as a sandy safe haven for those fleeing the financial meltdown in the United States. The expatriate community seems to consist largely of blond Texans like 24-year-old Brooke Butler, who found a sales job there a month after starting her search. However, Butler and her peers do not seem to be digging in for the long term. “People don’t stay in Dubai for long. Everyone is passing through. But for now they are here, waiting out the storm.” The New Yorker, Nov. 24 The magazine’s food issue features Calvin Trillin’s piece on the meat-seeking quest he took to Snow’s Barbeque, which Texas Monthly just dubbed the best barbecue in the Lone Star state. The restaurant’s hours—it’s only open on Saturdays starting at 8 a.m.—required the author to make the early-morning trek to partake in pounds of smoked brisket, sausage, and pork. … To prepare Malia and Sasha for life in the White House, an article offers anecdotes from former first kids on domestic life at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. “The generations of girls who have inhabited the White House compose a sort of underground society, initiating one another into the place’s charms—’Have a helluva good time,’ Alice Roosevelt Longworth wrote to Susan Ford.” One is left to wonder what sort of advice the Bush twins will give the Obama sisters.

 

November 18 – 2, 2008 18 November, 2008

Late Night Humor The Tonight Show with Jay Leno President-elect Barack Obama is still looking for a White House dog. In fact, he has spent more time selecting a dog than John McCain did selecting a running mate. President Bush had some good dog advice for the president-elect. Bush advised him to get a dog that is easy to train. Bush told him it took him almost eight years to get Barney to bite that reporter. According to CNN, Barack Obama’s popularity going into office is higher than Clinton’s, Reagan’s, or either of the President Bushes when they entered office. On Fox News, he’s somewhere between Attila the Hun and lead poisoning. President Bush briefed President-elect Obama on the state of the nation this week. I don’t want to say things look bad, but Obama’s new slogan is “Maybe We Can.” Late Show Top Ten Top Ten Signs You’re Watching A Bad Spy Film 10. Keeps leaking classified information on his Facebook page 9. He has a license to fish 8. It’s set in the dark, dangerous world of photocopier repair 7. Hero’s new high-tech gadget: a shampoo that’s also a conditioner 6. Sexy new Bond girl has five kids and a loving husband named Todd 5. Villain’s plot to destroy the world’s financial system is spoiled when the bank beats him to it 4. Main character announces, “The name’s Bond — Shecky Bond” 3. It’s about a plot to steal the Colonel’s fried chicken recipe 2. “Jet pack” looks suspiciously like Hello Kitty backpack 1. He promises to find Osama, yet seven years later, nothing Late Show with David Letterman On this date in 1972, the Dow Jones hit 1,000 for the first time. Unfortunately, the same thing happened today. And on this date in 2000, Bill Clinton was the first president to visit Vietnam. At least that’s where he told Hillary he was going. Barack Obama’s family is out looking for a dog for the White House. I hear Beverly Hills Chihuahua is on his short list. He’s looking for a pet that does not shed . . . that rules out that thing on Donald Trump’s head. Late Night with Conan O’Brien The Republican Party is considering naming the first African-American chairman in their party’s history. Unfortunately, Republicans are having a hard time finding an African-American who is white. When Barack Obama’s daughters Malia and Sasha move into the White House, they are going to have to get used to having a chef cook their meals. The White House chef is furious about it and said, “Great — four more years of making SpaghettiOs and chicken fingers.” Yesterday in Georgia, John McCain was campaigning for a Republican congressman who is facing a runoff election. You can tell McCain is a little bitter about his defeat because instead of saying “my friends,” he now says “my ungrateful bastards.” People in the publishing industry are speculating that President Bush will write a book after he leaves office. And by “write,” they mean “draw.” The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson They say that Barack Obama’s transition is going to cost $12 million. It sounds like a lot, but it’s less than Sarah Palin would have spent on the inaugural gown, the tiara, the cape, the scepter . . . golden trousers for her husband . . . It’s rumored that they’re going to make a Monopoly movie. It’s official — Hollywood’s out of ideas. With the way the real estate market is, it could actually be quite scary. Jimmy Kimmel Live! California is burning again. We have a tradition here. Once every six or eight days we set the place on fire. While the fires were smoldering, much of the state was participating in an earthquake drill. They pretended there was a 7.8 earthquake. They say it was the biggest pretend earthquake ever to hit the United States. Five million people participated — only six people died. Barack Obama is hard at work selecting a Cabinet. The big rumor is he may select Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. Finally — a secretary Bill doesn’t want to sleep with.

Today’s Papers Exit Quietly The New York Times leads with word that the Iraqi government has been firing inspectors general who are supposed to keep an eye out for corruption. These oversight officials were put in place in every cabinet-level ministry at the behest of American officials in order to bring some level of transparency to the Iraqi government. But as claims of corruption in the Iraqi government increase, it seems Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government would rather get rid of the watchdogs instead of dealing with the growing problem. USA Today leads with a new report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction that reports the Pentagon spent around $600 million in more than 1,200 Iraq reconstruction contracts that were canceled. Almost half of these contracts were canceled due to problems with the contractor, including failure to deliver and poor performance. The Washington Post leads with a look at how a number of political appointees have been transferring over to civil service posts in preparation for the end of the Bush administration. Between March and November, around 20 political appointees in a variety of departments have become career civil servants. The Wall Street Journal leads its world-wide newsbox with, and the Los Angeles Times fronts, the hijacking of a huge oil tanker by suspected Somali pirates more than 450 nautical miles from the Kenyan coast. The hijacking of the Saudi-owned Sirius Star supertanker carrying more than $100 million worth of crude came as a shock because pirates usually operate much closer to shore and don’t go after such huge targets. The LAT leads locally with news that the California State University system is proposing a plan to cut enrollment at its 23 campuses by 10,000 students due to the state’s budget woes. The dismissals of the Iraqi oversight officials were done so quietly that no one knows exactly how many people it actually involves. Out of a total of 30 cabinet-level ministries that have one inspector general each, some say as many as 17 were fired. Other estimates are much lower and the head of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, said he knew of six dismissals. Interestingly, the Washington-based Bowen says much of the blame for this turn of events lies with the United States because it created the powerful positions but provided little training and support for what was an alien concept in Iraqi politics, known for its secrecy and back scratching during Saddam Hussein’s reign. Of course, the suspicion is that Maliki will either seek to leave the jobs vacant or fill them with supporters. It is difficult for managers to get rid of employees with civil service status The WSJ notes that the hijacking of the Saudi-owned oil tanker “sharply increases the stakes” in the efforts to protect energy supplies. Although hijackings by pirates off the Somalia coast have been on the rise, these attacks are usually closer to shore and none of the affected vessels came close to having the dimensions of the Sirius Star supertanker. “What this represents is a fundamental ability of pirates to be able to operate off the coast to an extent we have not seen before,” U.S. Navy Lt. Nathan Christensen tells the LAT. “It’s the largest ship we’ve seen attacked.” Although there have recently been stepped up efforts to monitor the Somali coast to try to push back against the pirates, the threatened area is huge and amounts to “four times the size of Texas,” notes the WSJ. Many fear that this hijacking means that pirates are becoming more daring and sophisticated in their attacks. They certainly have a financial incentive to carry out these risks as ransoms continue to increase. The NYT points out the pirates’ profits are expected to reach $50 million this year. The LAT fronts an interesting look at how the bad economic situation coupled with increasing deficits may be just what the doctor ordered for President-elect Obama to finally be able to overhaul the nation’s healthcare system. Some have been suggesting that Obama should put healthcare on the backburner since there’s so much else to deal with, but others say the new administration will have a rare opportunity to take dramatic action. Not only are doctors and physicians worried about the newly unemployed joining the millions of Americans who are uninsured, but businesses also see it as an urgent issue since medical benefits eat up so much of their budgets at a time when profits are shrinking. The NYT points out an eleventh-hour plan by the Bush administration to issue a rule that would prohibit health care providers from discriminating against health care workers who oppose abortions or sterilizations procedures due to their “religious beliefs or moral convictions.” This means it would be illegal for a health care center to require staff members to perform or assist in these procedures. Three officials from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are speaking up against the plan, saying that it would put in doubt 40 years of civil rights law that already prohibits job discrimination based on religion. The WP goes above-the-fold with a long profile of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that details how the former head of Goldman Sachs has changed quite a bit during his 30-month tenure. Although he was skeptical, to say the least, of government involvement in the economy when he first arrived in Washington, he was forced to change his mind when faced with such a disastrous economic picture. “My thinking has evolved a lot to the point where I’ve seen regulation up close and personal,” Paulson said. “I’ve realized how flawed it is and how imperfect, but how necessary it is,” he added. Paulson said that sometime in the next few weeks he’ll unveil a set of plans to update the country’s regulatory structure so the government can properly oversee a bigger chunk of the market. He’ll also urge the new administration to give the government the power to take over any failing financial institution, not just banks. “There is no playbook for responding to turmoil we have never faced,” writes Paulson in an op-ed piece in the NYT. “We adjusted our strategy to reflect the facts of a severe market crisis, always keeping focused on our goal: to stabilize a financial system that is integral to the everyday lives of all Americans.” Paulson insists that as Obama’s administration will take over and try to figure out how to best deal with the slump, it will benefit from a more stable banking system as well as having the authority and resources to tackle the problem. Indeed, in an interview with the WSJ, Paulson said he’s unlikely to tap into what is left of the $700 billion bailout package because he’d rather keep it on hold for an emergency and not make decisions that will tie Obama’s hands. “I’m not going to be looking to start up new things unless they’re necessary or it’s just clear that they need to be done,” Paulson said. This suggests that the Bush administration doesn’t plan to use any of the bailout money to prevent more home foreclosures, a course of action that many have been pressing for. One of the strongest proponents for action in the foreclosure front has been Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, whom the LAT profiles today on Page One noting that she’s one of the few officials “whose reputation has actually improved during the financial crisis.” Bair’s focus on the issue, on top of her willingness to criticize the Bush administration, may earn her a spot in Obama’s administration, particularly since the incoming president has always highlighted his plans to include Republicans in his government. In an op-ed piece in the LAT, historian Matthew Pinsker says that Team of Rivals, the book on the Lincoln presidency that everyone seems to be citing these days as Obama puts together his cabinet doesn’t tell the whole story. While it’s true that Lincoln gathered former rivals in his cabinet, that approach didn’t work as well for him as many assume. Not only did Lincoln anger friends, but he also ended up having to rule with an iron fist over his advisers after his former rivals almost destroyed his presidency. “Lincoln was a political genius,” writes Pinsker, “but his model for Cabinet-building should stand more as a cautionary tale than as a leadership manual.”   First Same-Sex Marriage, Now This “John Dingell ‘Married to General Motors’ ”–headline, Detroit Free Press, Nov. 15 Plus Ça Change • ”Ms. Lewinsky, the former intern at the center of the investigation into sex and lies at the White House, had said in her debriefings with prosecutors in recent weeks that she had given Mr. Clinton the Zegna tie on his 50th birthday, in August 1996. According to what Ms. Lewinsky told a close friend, Ms. Lewinsky told the President that because they would not be able to see each other every day, ‘when I see you wearing this tie I’ll know that I am close to your heart.’ On the day of her testimony, Mr. Clinton was inveighing against handguns in a televised ceremony. Prosecutors apparently wondered, Was the tie a sign, a plea for solidarity?”–New York Times, Aug. 19, 1998   • ”Transition Aides Look at Bill Clinton’s Ties”–headline, New York Times (Paris edition) Nov. 17, 2008 Bill Ayers Finally Speaks Out “Hunters Urged to Shoot Pigs”–headline, Jackson (Mich.) Citizen Patriot, Nov. 15 Why Wasn’t He in the Courtroom to Begin With? “Judge Halts Work on Everglades Bridge”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 14 Now She Outranks Adam “1st Woman Named 4-Star General”–headline, Arizona Republic, Nov. 15 Those Election Spurs Are Fast! “Obama Election Spurs Race Crimes Around Country”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 16 Stay Away From State Control Creeps “State Control Creeps Closer to County”–headline, Paris (Texas) News, Nov. 17 News of the Tautological “Lightning Strike at Church Called ‘an Act of God’ ”–headline, Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, Nov. 15 News You Can Use • ”Plagued by Fungus? Bacteria? Try Copper Socks”–headline, Reuters, Nov. 15   • ”Clicking Knees Are Antelopes’ Way of Saying ‘Back Off’ ”–headline, BMC Biology press release, Nov. 15   • ”Death Is Natural, Constant, Inevitable–So Live With It”–headline, Arizona Republic, Nov. 17   • ”We’re Divorced–You’re Not My Friend”–headline, CNN.com, Nov. 14   Bottom Stories of the Day • ”Nothing Changes at Top of BCS Standings”–headline, MSNBC.com, Nov. 16   • ”Texans in Washington Could See Influence Wane”–headline, Dallas Morning News, Nov. 16   • ”Jesse Jackson Concerned About Bush’s Last Days”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 16   • ”Fat Cats, Friends 1st in Line for Barack Obama Inauguration Tickets”–headline, Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 16

Headlines The Ethicist Am I My Bookkeeper’s Keeper? By RANDY COHEN I am a minister in a small Baptist congregation. The church alerted me that because of a bookkeeping error, I’ve been receiving several hundred dollars more than I should in each paycheck. I probably should have caught the mistake, but I was never good at numbers. That’s why I went into theology. They want me to refund this money. Must I pay for someone else’s mistake? NAME WITHHELD, TEXAS You’re not being asked to pay for “someone else’s mistake” but to return something that doesn’t belong to you, money paid in error. If you found someone’s wallet, wouldn’t you give it back, even if someone made a mistake by losing it? But while you are obliged to refund this money, your employer should not demand immediate and inconvenient repayment of the total sum. The error accumulated over months; its correction, too, can be gradual. But surely a minister must be good with numbers. Ten commandments, 12 disciples, 40 days and 40 nights of rain, the Trinity — muddle those numbers, and you’re heading for heresy. UPDATE: For reasons unrelated to this dispute, the minister left the job to work for a nonprofit in another state. The church offset some of his debt against unused vacation time and uninvested retirement withholdings. He wrote a check for the remainder, $520. I own a busy cafe-delicatessen with 25 employees. All the workers except two enjoy listening to background music from the radio while they work, as do I; those two say it irritates them, gives them headaches and makes it hard to talk to the customers. I turned off the music, but most of my workers say I’m unfair. Should I heed the majority or respect the wishes of those two employees? H.D., NEW YORK Headaches? Are the antimusic duo misrepresenting their distress as a chronic medical condition, like those cabdrivers who were “allergic” to cigarettes? I admire both your concern for working conditions and your nod to workplace democracy. And while the minority should be protected from the tyranny of the majority — or else we would all be assailed by the Top 40 — here you have a supermajority, 24 out of 26, more than what’s needed to break a filibuster or override a presidential veto, a near-consensus worth heeding. Are there situations when majorities are too slight to set some policies? Yes. Is this one? No. One way to proceed gently: introduce music so quiet that it’s barely audible, then gradually increase the volume each day, leveling off when the two holdouts object. Who knows: they might get used to it or even come to like it. UPDATE: Soft music now plays on weekends and holidays when the two audiophobes are off. Employer, employees and customers enjoy it. Can someone paid by my community college to tutor students in my chemistry classes also be a grader for me? The tutor feels this may be a conflict of interest. But don’t I, the teacher, have the same conflict when I teach the class and grade students’ papers? MIKE DANIEL, BAKERSFIELD, CALIF. The tutor is overly fastidious. Because he is paid by the college, his financial relationship to the students is like that of any other teacher, as you note. His grading papers would be problematic if, as is sometimes the case for tutors, he were paid directly by individual students (or encouraged them to tip heavily). Such payments could be seen as a sort of bribe to ensure a higher grade. In those circumstances, he would have to recuse himself from grading his students’ papers.

 

 

 

November 18, 2008 18 November, 2008

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The Daily Slog   Late Night Humor The Tonight Show with Jay Leno President-elect Barack Obama is still looking for a White House dog. In fact, he has spent more time selecting a dog than John McCain did selecting a running mate. President Bush had some good dog advice for the president-elect. Bush advised him to get a dog that is easy to train. Bush told him it took him almost eight years to get Barney to bite that reporter. According to CNN, Barack Obama’s popularity going into office is higher than Clinton’s, Reagan’s, or either of the President Bushes when they entered office. On Fox News, he’s somewhere between Attila the Hun and lead poisoning. President Bush briefed President-elect Obama on the state of the nation this week. I don’t want to say things look bad, but Obama’s new slogan is “Maybe We Can.” Late Show Top Ten Top Ten Signs You’re Watching A Bad Spy Film 10. Keeps leaking classified information on his Facebook page 9. He has a license to fish 8. It’s set in the dark, dangerous world of photocopier repair 7. Hero’s new high-tech gadget: a shampoo that’s also a conditioner 6. Sexy new Bond girl has five kids and a loving husband named Todd 5. Villain’s plot to destroy the world’s financial system is spoiled when the bank beats him to it 4. Main character announces, “The name’s Bond — Shecky Bond” 3. It’s about a plot to steal the Colonel’s fried chicken recipe 2. “Jet pack” looks suspiciously like Hello Kitty backpack 1. He promises to find Osama, yet seven years later, nothing Late Show with David Letterman On this date in 1972, the Dow Jones hit 1,000 for the first time. Unfortunately, the same thing happened today. And on this date in 2000, Bill Clinton was the first president to visit Vietnam. At least that’s where he told Hillary he was going. Barack Obama’s family is out looking for a dog for the White House. I hear Beverly Hills Chihuahua is on his short list. He’s looking for a pet that does not shed . . . that rules out that thing on Donald Trump’s head. Late Night with Conan O’Brien The Republican Party is considering naming the first African-American chairman in their party’s history. Unfortunately, Republicans are having a hard time finding an African-American who is white. When Barack Obama’s daughters Malia and Sasha move into the White House, they are going to have to get used to having a chef cook their meals. The White House chef is furious about it and said, “Great — four more years of making SpaghettiOs and chicken fingers.” Yesterday in Georgia, John McCain was campaigning for a Republican congressman who is facing a runoff election. You can tell McCain is a little bitter about his defeat because instead of saying “my friends,” he now says “my ungrateful bastards.” People in the publishing industry are speculating that President Bush will write a book after he leaves office. And by “write,” they mean “draw.” The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson They say that Barack Obama’s transition is going to cost $12 million. It sounds like a lot, but it’s less than Sarah Palin would have spent on the inaugural gown, the tiara, the cape, the scepter . . . golden trousers for her husband . . . It’s rumored that they’re going to make a Monopoly movie. It’s official — Hollywood’s out of ideas. With the way the real estate market is, it could actually be quite scary. Jimmy Kimmel Live! California is burning again. We have a tradition here. Once every six or eight days we set the place on fire. While the fires were smoldering, much of the state was participating in an earthquake drill. They pretended there was a 7.8 earthquake. They say it was the biggest pretend earthquake ever to hit the United States. Five million people participated — only six people died. Barack Obama is hard at work selecting a Cabinet. The big rumor is he may select Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. Finally — a secretary Bill doesn’t want to sleep with. Today’s Papers Exit Quietly The New York Times leads with word that the Iraqi government has been firing inspectors general who are supposed to keep an eye out for corruption. These oversight officials were put in place in every cabinet-level ministry at the behest of American officials in order to bring some level of transparency to the Iraqi government. But as claims of corruption in the Iraqi government increase, it seems Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government would rather get rid of the watchdogs instead of dealing with the growing problem. USA Today leads with a new report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction that reports the Pentagon spent around $600 million in more than 1,200 Iraq reconstruction contracts that were canceled. Almost half of these contracts were canceled due to problems with the contractor, including failure to deliver and poor performance. The Washington Post leads with a look at how a number of political appointees have been transferring over to civil service posts in preparation for the end of the Bush administration. Between March and November, around 20 political appointees in a variety of departments have become career civil servants. The Wall Street Journal leads its world-wide newsbox with, and the Los Angeles Times fronts, the hijacking of a huge oil tanker by suspected Somali pirates more than 450 nautical miles from the Kenyan coast. The hijacking of the Saudi-owned Sirius Star supertanker carrying more than $100 million worth of crude came as a shock because pirates usually operate much closer to shore and don’t go after such huge targets. The LAT leads locally with news that the California State University system is proposing a plan to cut enrollment at its 23 campuses by 10,000 students due to the state’s budget woes. The dismissals of the Iraqi oversight officials were done so quietly that no one knows exactly how many people it actually involves. Out of a total of 30 cabinet-level ministries that have one inspector general each, some say as many as 17 were fired. Other estimates are much lower and the head of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, said he knew of six dismissals. Interestingly, the Washington-based Bowen says much of the blame for this turn of events lies with the United States because it created the powerful positions but provided little training and support for what was an alien concept in Iraqi politics, known for its secrecy and back scratching during Saddam Hussein’s reign. Of course, the suspicion is that Maliki will either seek to leave the jobs vacant or fill them with supporters. It is difficult for managers to get rid of employees with civil service status The WSJ notes that the hijacking of the Saudi-owned oil tanker “sharply increases the stakes” in the efforts to protect energy supplies. Although hijackings by pirates off the Somalia coast have been on the rise, these attacks are usually closer to shore and none of the affected vessels came close to having the dimensions of the Sirius Star supertanker. “What this represents is a fundamental ability of pirates to be able to operate off the coast to an extent we have not seen before,” U.S. Navy Lt. Nathan Christensen tells the LAT. “It’s the largest ship we’ve seen attacked.” Although there have recently been stepped up efforts to monitor the Somali coast to try to push back against the pirates, the threatened area is huge and amounts to “four times the size of Texas,” notes the WSJ. Many fear that this hijacking means that pirates are becoming more daring and sophisticated in their attacks. They certainly have a financial incentive to carry out these risks as ransoms continue to increase. The NYT points out the pirates’ profits are expected to reach $50 million this year. The LAT fronts an interesting look at how the bad economic situation coupled with increasing deficits may be just what the doctor ordered for President-elect Obama to finally be able to overhaul the nation’s healthcare system. Some have been suggesting that Obama should put healthcare on the backburner since there’s so much else to deal with, but others say the new administration will have a rare opportunity to take dramatic action. Not only are doctors and physicians worried about the newly unemployed joining the millions of Americans who are uninsured, but businesses also see it as an urgent issue since medical benefits eat up so much of their budgets at a time when profits are shrinking. The NYT points out an eleventh-hour plan by the Bush administration to issue a rule that would prohibit health care providers from discriminating against health care workers who oppose abortions or sterilizations procedures due to their “religious beliefs or moral convictions.” This means it would be illegal for a health care center to require staff members to perform or assist in these procedures. Three officials from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are speaking up against the plan, saying that it would put in doubt 40 years of civil rights law that already prohibits job discrimination based on religion. The WP goes above-the-fold with a long profile of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that details how the former head of Goldman Sachs has changed quite a bit during his 30-month tenure. Although he was skeptical, to say the least, of government involvement in the economy when he first arrived in Washington, he was forced to change his mind when faced with such a disastrous economic picture. “My thinking has evolved a lot to the point where I’ve seen regulation up close and personal,” Paulson said. “I’ve realized how flawed it is and how imperfect, but how necessary it is,” he added. Paulson said that sometime in the next few weeks he’ll unveil a set of plans to update the country’s regulatory structure so the government can properly oversee a bigger chunk of the market. He’ll also urge the new administration to give the government the power to take over any failing financial institution, not just banks. “There is no playbook for responding to turmoil we have never faced,” writes Paulson in an op-ed piece in the NYT. “We adjusted our strategy to reflect the facts of a severe market crisis, always keeping focused on our goal: to stabilize a financial system that is integral to the everyday lives of all Americans.” Paulson insists that as Obama’s administration will take over and try to figure out how to best deal with the slump, it will benefit from a more stable banking system as well as having the authority and resources to tackle the problem. Indeed, in an interview with the WSJ, Paulson said he’s unlikely to tap into what is left of the $700 billion bailout package because he’d rather keep it on hold for an emergency and not make decisions that will tie Obama’s hands. “I’m not going to be looking to start up new things unless they’re necessary or it’s just clear that they need to be done,” Paulson said. This suggests that the Bush administration doesn’t plan to use any of the bailout money to prevent more home foreclosures, a course of action that many have been pressing for. One of the strongest proponents for action in the foreclosure front has been Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, whom the LAT profiles today on Page One noting that she’s one of the few officials “whose reputation has actually improved during the financial crisis.” Bair’s focus on the issue, on top of her willingness to criticize the Bush administration, may earn her a spot in Obama’s administration, particularly since the incoming president has always highlighted his plans to include Republicans in his government. In an op-ed piece in the LAT, historian Matthew Pinsker says that Team of Rivals, the book on the Lincoln presidency that everyone seems to be citing these days as Obama puts together his cabinet doesn’t tell the whole story. While it’s true that Lincoln gathered former rivals in his cabinet, that approach didn’t work as well for him as many assume. Not only did Lincoln anger friends, but he also ended up having to rule with an iron fist over his advisers after his former rivals almost destroyed his presidency. “Lincoln was a political genius,” writes Pinsker, “but his model for Cabinet-building should stand more as a cautionary tale than as a leadership manual.”   First Same-Sex Marriage, Now This “John Dingell ‘Married to General Motors’ ”–headline, Detroit Free Press, Nov. 15 Plus Ça Change • ”Ms. Lewinsky, the former intern at the center of the investigation into sex and lies at the White House, had said in her debriefings with prosecutors in recent weeks that she had given Mr. Clinton the Zegna tie on his 50th birthday, in August 1996. According to what Ms. Lewinsky told a close friend, Ms. Lewinsky told the President that because they would not be able to see each other every day, ‘when I see you wearing this tie I’ll know that I am close to your heart.’ On the day of her testimony, Mr. Clinton was inveighing against handguns in a televised ceremony. Prosecutors apparently wondered, Was the tie a sign, a plea for solidarity?”–New York Times, Aug. 19, 1998   • ”Transition Aides Look at Bill Clinton’s Ties”–headline, New York Times (Paris edition) Nov. 17, 2008 Bill Ayers Finally Speaks Out “Hunters Urged to Shoot Pigs”–headline, Jackson (Mich.) Citizen Patriot, Nov. 15 Why Wasn’t He in the Courtroom to Begin With? “Judge Halts Work on Everglades Bridge”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 14 Now She Outranks Adam “1st Woman Named 4-Star General”–headline, Arizona Republic, Nov. 15 Those Election Spurs Are Fast! “Obama Election Spurs Race Crimes Around Country”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 16 Stay Away From State Control Creeps “State Control Creeps Closer to County”–headline, Paris (Texas) News, Nov. 17 News of the Tautological “Lightning Strike at Church Called ‘an Act of God’ ”–headline, Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, Nov. 15 News You Can Use • ”Plagued by Fungus? Bacteria? Try Copper Socks”–headline, Reuters, Nov. 15   • ”Clicking Knees Are Antelopes’ Way of Saying ‘Back Off’ ”–headline, BMC Biology press release, Nov. 15   • ”Death Is Natural, Constant, Inevitable–So Live With It”–headline, Arizona Republic, Nov. 17   • ”We’re Divorced–You’re Not My Friend”–headline, CNN.com, Nov. 14   Bottom Stories of the Day • ”Nothing Changes at Top of BCS Standings”–headline, MSNBC.com, Nov. 16   • ”Texans in Washington Could See Influence Wane”–headline, Dallas Morning News, Nov. 16   • ”Jesse Jackson Concerned About Bush’s Last Days”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 16   • ”Fat Cats, Friends 1st in Line for Barack Obama Inauguration Tickets”–headline, Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 16       Headlines The Ethicist Am I My Bookkeeper’s Keeper? By RANDY COHEN I am a minister in a small Baptist congregation. The church alerted me that because of a bookkeeping error, I’ve been receiving several hundred dollars more than I should in each paycheck. I probably should have caught the mistake, but I was never good at numbers. That’s why I went into theology. They want me to refund this money. Must I pay for someone else’s mistake? NAME WITHHELD, TEXAS You’re not being asked to pay for “someone else’s mistake” but to return something that doesn’t belong to you, money paid in error. If you found someone’s wallet, wouldn’t you give it back, even if someone made a mistake by losing it? But while you are obliged to refund this money, your employer should not demand immediate and inconvenient repayment of the total sum. The error accumulated over months; its correction, too, can be gradual. But surely a minister must be good with numbers. Ten commandments, 12 disciples, 40 days and 40 nights of rain, the Trinity — muddle those numbers, and you’re heading for heresy. UPDATE: For reasons unrelated to this dispute, the minister left the job to work for a nonprofit in another state. The church offset some of his debt against unused vacation time and uninvested retirement withholdings. He wrote a check for the remainder, $520. I own a busy cafe-delicatessen with 25 employees. All the workers except two enjoy listening to background music from the radio while they work, as do I; those two say it irritates them, gives them headaches and makes it hard to talk to the customers. I turned off the music, but most of my workers say I’m unfair. Should I heed the majority or respect the wishes of those two employees? H.D., NEW YORK Headaches? Are the antimusic duo misrepresenting their distress as a chronic medical condition, like those cabdrivers who were “allergic” to cigarettes? I admire both your concern for working conditions and your nod to workplace democracy. And while the minority should be protected from the tyranny of the majority — or else we would all be assailed by the Top 40 — here you have a supermajority, 24 out of 26, more than what’s needed to break a filibuster or override a presidential veto, a near-consensus worth heeding. Are there situations when majorities are too slight to set some policies? Yes. Is this one? No. One way to proceed gently: introduce music so quiet that it’s barely audible, then gradually increase the volume each day, leveling off when the two holdouts object. Who knows: they might get used to it or even come to like it. UPDATE: Soft music now plays on weekends and holidays when the two audiophobes are off. Employer, employees and customers enjoy it. Can someone paid by my community college to tutor students in my chemistry classes also be a grader for me? The tutor feels this may be a conflict of interest. But don’t I, the teacher, have the same conflict when I teach the class and grade students’ papers? MIKE DANIEL, BAKERSFIELD, CALIF. The tutor is overly fastidious. Because he is paid by the college, his financial relationship to the students is like that of any other teacher, as you note. His grading papers would be problematic if, as is sometimes the case for tutors, he were paid directly by individual students (or encouraged them to tip heavily). Such payments could be seen as a sort of bribe to ensure a higher grade. In those circumstances, he would have to recuse himself from grading his students’ papers.

 

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The Daily Slog   Headlines In That Case, We Send Our Regrets “Popular Party Bites”–headline, Vindicator (Youngstown, Ohio), Nov. 12 He Used Pink Slips–Couldn’t Even Face Them “Fort Myers Resident Lamely Fires 68 in PGA Q-School”–headline, News-Press (Fort Myers, Fla.), Nov. 13 What Else Does It Kill? “Study: Calif. Dirty Air Kills More Than Car Crashes”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 13 ‘Winter’s Nothing to Write Home About Either’ “Greeley Remains Critical After Fall”–headline, Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 12 Must’ve Been Painful “EBay Vendor Passes Gigantic Feedback Milestone”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 13 Help Wanted “Coast Guard Searching for Fisherman off Cape Cod”–headline, Boston Herald, Nov. 13 Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control • ”Kosher Meat Shortage in US Turning Jews Into Vegetarians”–headline, Arutz Sheva Web site, Nov. 12   • ”Intoxicated Nebraska Man Assaults Wife for Macaroni Dinner”–headline, FoxNews.com, Nov. 12   • ”Street Sinks on Housing”–healdine, Forbes.com, Nov. 11   • ”Kucinich’s House Hit With Paint Balls”–headline, Plain Dealer (Cleveland), Nov. 11   • ”Electronic Heat Trap Grips Deep Earth”–headline, Carnegie Institution press release, Nov. 12   • ”Nepal to Sashay on World Quality Factor Ramp”–headline, Himalayan Times (Katmandu), Nov. 13 News You Can Use • ”Sometimes the Truth Lies Somewhere in the Middle”–headline, Pampa (Texas) News, Nov. 8   • ”Sometimes It’s Hard to Judge the Scope of the Problem”–headline, Times Argus (Barre-Montpelier, Vt.), Nov. 10   • ”Sometimes You Have to Get a Little Lucky”–headline, FoxSports.com, Nov. 10   • ”Sometimes Continuity Trumps Change”–headline, Washington Post, Nov. 10   • ”Sometimes You Win at $7.99–Cotes du Luberon”–headline, American Chronicle, Nov. 12   • ”Sometimes Math Doesn’t Equate”–headline, San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 10   • ”Sometimes It Helps to Be a Little Crazy”–headline, TechRepublic.com, Nov. 11 If They’d Told Us This Before the Election, McCain Might Have Won “With Obama, U.S. Can Score World Cup”–headline, Yahoo! Sports, Nov. 11 ¡La Muerte Pelón! “Peru Offers National Hairless Dog to Obama”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 11 Questions Nobody Is Asking “Can John Edwards Make a Comeback?”–headline, CNN.com, Nov. 11 An Amazing Display of Self-Control “Edwards Avoids Affair in First Speech Since Scandal”–headline, FoxNews.com, Nov. 11 Even Experts Have Enemies “They’re Watching You: Paranoia on the Rise, Experts Say”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 12 What Would We Do Without Consultants? “Narcissists With Big Egos Lead Many Law Firms, Consultant Says”–headline, ABA Journal, Nov. 11 He’s a Good Engineer but He’s Dead and Gone “Dell’s Casey Jones Leaves VP-Global Marketing Post”–headline, AdAge.com, Nov. 11 Garcia v. Warner Bros. “Mayor of Batman Sues WB, Nolan”–headline, Variety.com, Nov. 11 They Heard It Was Filled With Hot Chicks “Officials Work to Aid Tenants of Incubator”–headline, Jackson (Mich.) Citizen Patriot, Nov. 12 Today’s Papers First Step The New York Times and USA Today lead with, while the Los Angeles Times fronts, the Iraqi cabinet approving the much-debated security agreement that calls for U.S. troops to withdraw by the end of 2011. After nearly a year of negotiations with the United States, 27 of the 28 cabinet ministers who were present at yesterday’s meeting voted in favor of the agreement. The Status of Forces Agreement, which would replace the United Nations mandate that expires at the end of the year, now goes to the Iraqi Parliament, where a contentious debate is expected to unfold. The Wall Street Journal’s world-wide newsbox leads with the meeting between President-elect Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain that will take place in Chicago today. The meeting could be mutually beneficial, as Obama will need Republican cooperation in Congress and it gives McCain the opportunity to reclaim his “maverick, bipartisan mantle” after a heated campaign. The Washington Post leads with a look at how Barack Obama wrote letters to the employees at seven federal agencies before the election that included descriptions of how his administration would run specific government programs. The American Federation of Government Employees distributed the letters, which were written at the request of the union’s president. In the letters, Obama described how he wants to cut back on private contractors, remove existing roadblocks on scientific research, and promote tougher regulations to protect workers and the environment. Many of the promises made by Obama would require additional spending, which the president-elect has recognized would be difficult to obtain given the current economic conditions. The LAT leads with a rare bit of good news for Southern California as calming winds brought about “the first major break in days” in the fight against the wildifres that broke out on Thursday. As of late last night, the fires were 80 percent contained. It’s unclear how big of a fight opponents of the security agreement will put up in parliament this week. The WP says that the overwhelming “cabinet vote indicated that most major Iraqi parties supported it,” but opponents continue to insist that the pact would need to be approved by a two-thirds majority. “If we need to get two-thirds, then there will be difficulties,” a Kurdish lawmaker tells USAT. Even if it crosses the parliamentary hurdle, the agreement would then have to be ratified by Iraq’s three-member presidential council. The Sunni representative on the council, Vice President Tariq Hashimi, has called for a referendum on the pact and could veto any agreement, notes the LAT. But the WSJ points out that “his opposition may be thawing” and some Sunni lawmakers have already expressed support for the agreement. The WSJ says that the “substantive points of the deal haven’t changed” much since the more than 100 amendments requested by the Iraqi cabinet were mostly “seen as cosmetic.” The Iraqi government made a big point of emphasizing that the clause stating that U.S. troops could be asked to stay longer has been removed. “This withdrawal date is firm and holy and will not be changed according to conditions on the ground,” government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said. In practice though, the Iraqi government can still ask U.S. troops to stay. Besides setting the withdrawal date of Dec. 31, 2011, the agreement also calls for U.S. troops to leave Iraqi cities by the end of June. In addition, a joint U.S.-Iraqi committee would decide whether an American service member who commits a serious crime outside of a U.S. base while off duty should face an Iraqi court. Does this mean we’ll see U.S. troops standing trial in Iraq anytime soon? It’s very unlikely, notes USAT in a helpful Q&A, because it’s simply “almost unheard of for a U.S. troop to be off duty and off base in Iraq.” As Congress gets ready to debate whether to bail out Detroit’s Big Three automakers, the LAT fronts a look at how a failure in the industry wouldn’t just affect the employees at General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. About 70 percent of the parts in most automobiles are made by outside suppliers that employ hundreds of thousands of workers. This is a point that will likely be emphasized this week when lawmakers hear testimony from industry leaders. But in a front-page piece, the NYT says that many industry experts say that people often underestimate how quickly foreign-owned automakers could step in and pick up the slack if one of the Big Three were to suddenly vanish. That’s not to say the change wouldn’t be painful, especially considering that foreign-owned automakers use more parts from overseas. The NYT fronts word that Obama’s advisers are looking into former President Bill Clinton’s fundraising and activities in order to determine whether there’s anything that should prevent his wife from becoming secretary of state. This is seen as a sign of just how serious Obama is about making Sen. Hillary Clinton a member of his cabinet. In fact, Democratic sources tell the paper that as long as they can figure out the former president’s role, it’s likely that Obama would ask her to take the job. As others have said, it’s highly unlikely that Obama would have risked causing another rift in the party unless he was serious about the appointment. While it’s easy to imagine that a Clinton confirmation hearing could be heated, a few Republicans gave their support yesterday. “It seems to me she’s got the experience. She’s got the temperament for it,” Sen. John Kyl, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said. “So my own initial reaction is it would be a very good selection.” The NYT says many pointed to the news that Gregory Craig was named White House counsel as a sign that Clinton is on the real short-list for the State Department job. Some had expected the man who represented Bill Clinton during impeachment proceedings to become national security adviser or deputy secretary of state. But Craig was a strong supporter of Obama from the beginning of the campaign and strongly criticized Clinton’s claims of foreign policy experience. The WP fronts a look at how giving the position to Clinton could provide many “benefits and pitfalls” to the Obama administration. Since leaving the White House, Bill Clinton has tried to position himself as “something akin to the world’s philanthropist in chief” and as secretary of state his wife would oversee many of the country’s foreign aid efforts, which could turn the “couple into an overwhelming force in global aid.” Former presidents are usually kept at arms-length but that might prove difficult for Obama with such a high-profile figure who will have a direct line into the administration. If his wife becomes secretary of state, the former president would definitely face increased scrutiny about his fundraising and lobbying activities, particularly since he has refused to publicly disclose the names of those who have donated to his philanthropic activities, as well as his presidential library. In the famously-detailed vetting document that Obama is asking those who want to work in his administration to fill out, one questions asks applicants whether there are “any categories of personal financial records . . . that you (or your spouse) will not release publicly if necessary. If so, please identify these records and state the reasons for withholding them.” The WP points out that “in the margins of a copy of the application leaked from the transition team, the word ‘Clinton’ is written next to that paragraph.” Bottom Stories of the Day • ”Stanhope Elmore High School Not on Lockdown”–headline, Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, Nov. 14   • ” ’Daddy Llama’ Reported Missing Near Peach, Crawford County Line”–headline, Telegraph (Macon Ga.) , Nov. 12   • ”Former Plainfield Landfill Gets New Name”–headline, Indianapolis Star, Nov. 14   • ”Additional Votes Have No Effect on Harris Co. Election Results”–headline, Houston Chronicle, Nov. 13 • ”Voters Mostly Reject Plans to Split, Unify School Areas”–headline, Arizona Daily Star (Tucson), Nov. 11   • ”Estonia’s Ansip Surprised at Sarkozy”–headline, Baltic Times (Riga, Latvia), Nov. 11   • ”Criticism Mounts Among Gays Over Calif. Ban”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 11   • ”Canada Plummets in Gender Gap Index”–headline, CanWest News Service, Nov. 12 • ”Euro Rises to 16-Day High Against NZ Dollar”–headline, RTTNews, Nov. 13 • ”Local Pub Names John Edwards ‘Turkey of the Year’ ”–headline, Star-Telegram Web site (Fort Worth, Texas), Nov. 12   • ”Few Will Miss Following Campaign News”–headline, Pew Research Center for People and the Press Web site, Nov. 12   • ”Another Shoe Washes Up on Canadian Coast”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 13 While America Slept “Van Winkle Files Late Election Complaint”–headline, Sun News (Myrtle Beach, S.C.), Nov. 12 World’s Shortest Honeymoon • ”Crist’s December Wedding Will Follow Tradition”–headline, Tampa Tribune, Nov. 13   • ”Gov. Charlie Crist Faces Tough Times at Home”–headline, South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale), Nov. 13   What Would We Do Without Experts? “Experts: Abuse Often Behind Kids Killing Parents”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 12 News You Can Use • ”Frozen Semen Works in Rhinoceros Artificial Insemination”–headline, LiveScience.com, Nov. 13   • ”How to Smell Like Your Favorite Spaghetti-Slurping Mob Boss”–headline, Metro (Canada), Nov. 13   • ”Are You Rude? Maybe You Should Think Again”–headline, CNN.com, Nov. 11   • ”Hey, Bozo–Time to Get Your TV Ready for Digital”–headline, Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 12 • ”Pet Q&A: Things Your Pet Might Swallow”–headline, Star Press (Muncie, Ind.), Nov. 12   • ”How to Cope With the Tough Teenage Years”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 12   • ”Fleeing Cops? Don’t Give Them Your ID First”–headline, MSNBC.com, Nov. 12   • ”Don’t Get in a Lather About Soap in Radio”–headline, Detroit News, Nov. 12   • ”You Must Remember This: Forgetting Has Its Benefits”–headline, The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 11   • ”You’re Never Too Old to STRUT YOUR STUFF”–headline, Star Press (Muncie), Nov. 12 Headlines ‘Mutts Like Me,’ Indeed • ”Some Chicago Jews Say Obama Is Actually ‘the First Jewish President”–headline, Ha’aretz, Nov. 13   • ”Report: Galilee Bedouin Claim Obama as Lost Member of Tribe”–headline, Ha’aretz, Nov. 13 Can’t He Just Inflate the Tires? “Barack Obama’s Car Could Fuel More Problems”–headline, Boston Herald, Nov. 12 Police Seized Feces, Urine During DNC “VP-Elect Biden Hopes to Be a Hands-On No. 2″–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 14 Human Rights Groups Are Still Executing People? “Taliban Calls on Human Rights Groups to Stop Executions”–headline, Daily Telegraph (London), Nov. 13 At Long Last, Wendy Can Feel Safe “Wendy’s Manager Arrested for Sexual Assault”–headline, QSRWeb.com, Nov. 13 ‘And We Don’t Care How Pretty Your Eyes Are’ “Board Rejects Pupil Appeal in Gun Case”–headline, Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, Nov. 13 No Krill for You! “Bad Seal Blamed in Plane’s Landing”–headline, Ledger (Lakeland, Fla.), Nov. 13 Wait Till You Hear What His Second-Best Friend Did “Prosecutors: Man Shot 45 Times by Best Friend Lived Through First 32 Shots”–headline, FoxNews.com, Nov. 14 ‘That Was One of the Funniest “Seinfeld” Episodes Ever!’ “Product Recall: Muffin Tops”–headline, Seattle Times, Nov. 14 So Someone Else Inflicted It? “Teen Fakes Self-Inflicted Neo-Nazi Attack”–headline, FoxNews.com, Nov. 14 Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control • ”Exploding Toilet Sends Boy to Hospital”–headline, ParentDish.com, Nov. 13   • ”Giant Asian Smog Cloud Masks Warming Impact: U.N.”–headline, Reuters, Nov. 13   • ”Earth May Face Freeze Worse Than Ice Age: Study”–headline, Reuters, Nov. 12   • ”Credit Crunch Putting the Bite on Cafe Culture”–headline, Reuters, Nov. 13   • ”The Government Is Losing Its Mind”–headline, FoxBusiness.com, Nov. 13   • ”Hillary Clinton Eyed for Secretary of State”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 14 • ”Indian Invasion”–headline, New York Post, Nov. 11   • ”Climate Change Threatening Lemmings”–headline, Christian Science Monitor Web site, Nov. 6   • ”Lawsuit Claims Victoria’s Secret Bras Cause Rashes, Hives”–headline, FoxNews.com, Nov. 11   • ”The New York ‘Times’ Will Not Take Your ‘Bitchassness’ ”–headline, New York magazine Web site, Nov. 11   • ”Europe Welcomes Abnormal Veggies”–headline, New York Times Web site, Nov. 12   •  “Radioactive Beer Kegs Menace Public, Boost Costs for Recyclers”–headline, Bloomberg, Nov. 11   • ”Obama Family Dog More Important Than Daughter’s Health”–headline, New York magazine Web site, Nov. 11 Wouldn’t It Have Been Easier Just to Call In Sick? “Cleveland Police Officer on Leave After Shooting Teen”–headline, WEWS-TV Web site (Cleveland), Nov. 12 We Hope It Still Pays Off Next Season When We Get Around to It “This Season, Procrastination May Pay Off”–headline, New York Times, Nov. 9 A Sucker Bet if Ever There Was One “Sun Gambles Big as Outlook Darkens”–headline, CNN.com, Nov. 12

 

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The Daily Slog   Late Night Humor Thurs  The Tonight Show with Jay Leno There was a big meeting this week between Vice President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President Dick Cheney. Or as they are calling it, “plugged hair meets plugged arteries.” I prefer to call them “foot-in-mouth meets shot-in-face.” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has called for emergency assistance for the auto industry. She said it was an absolute emergency. But since it was Nancy Pelosi, no one could tell from her facial expression that it was an emergency. The National Enquirer says that after campaign staffers blamed her for losing the election, Sarah Palin went on a rampage . . . yelling and screaming and throwing things. But see, that’s the National Enquirer. Are you going to believe them? These are the same people who said a year ago that John Edwards was having an affair. Late Show Top Ten Top Ten Highlights Of The Dick Cheney/Joe Biden Meeting 10. Cheney barred the door and yelled, “You’ll never take me alive” 9. It was three hours of Guitar Hero 8. Biden gave Cheney the number for his hair-plug guy 7. Enjoyed a nice lunch interrupted by two shotgun blasts and a heart attack 6. Lynne Cheney blinking out in Morse code “Help me. Help me. Help me.” 5. Cheney had to leave early to get Bush’s head unstuck from a microwave oven 4. Had a heart attack during a heart attack 3. They agreed the “Late Show Fun Facts” book may just be the thing to bring this country together 2. For about 20 minutes, Cheney’s pacemaker got HBO 1. Upon seeing Biden, Cheney muttered, “I was hoping for the Alaskan broad” Late Show with David Letterman Sarah Palin might make a guest appearance on “Desperate Housewives.” When John McCain heard this, he said, “I’d like to be on ‘Bonanza.’” Sarah Palin says she wants to be bipartisan; she would like to help Barack Obama. And I thought, Hasn’t she helped him already? Obama is organizing his Cabinet. This is a high-pressure time for him. Meanwhile, John McCain is at an Applebee’s blowing on his soup. Barack Obama has named Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff and he is bringing in Madeleine Albright to be part of his transition team. It looks like Obama is bringing back all of our favorites from the Clinton administration. Except for that heavy-set intern. Late Night with Conan O’Brien Earlier today, President Bush was in New York and he gave a speech about the financial crisis and other problems facing the country. The speech was called “So Long Suckers.” In Washington, D.C. today, Dick Cheney gave Joe Biden a tour of the vice president’s living quarters. Afterwards, Biden said he loves the house, but he’ll probably turn the dungeon back into a rec room. The Republican Party is considering choosing an African-American Republican to be their party’s chairman. Unfortunately, neither guy wants the job. American Express is in financial trouble and reportedly wants a $5.5 billion loan from the government. Unfortunately for American Express, the government only takes Visa and Diner’s Club. The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson People in L.A. have been participating in an earthquake drill. Authorities are saying the drill has been a huge success apparently people in L.A. are used to things being fake. Barbara Walters is doing a special on the man who got pregnant. If you get a sex-change operation then find yourself pregnant, you may want to ask yourself how good the doctor was. All I’m saying is, if you get a sex-change operation, hang onto the receipt. Sarah Palin did another interview. This time on the “Today” show. She’s been on NBC, Fox News, local news, magazines . . . she’s talking so much they can hear her from Russia. The economy is terrible. The Sharper Image went bankrupt. Who would have thought that a place that sells useless garbage would go bankrupt! Linens ‘n Things went bankrupt, too. I think I saw that coming, though, because they didn’t care . . . besides linens, they didn’t care what they sold. Linens . . . and things.   Today’s Papers Money Makes the World Go ‘Round The New York Times and the Washington Post both lead with stories about this weekend’s meeting of the Group of 20 in Washington to discuss the global financial crisis, while the Los Angeles Times stuffs the news. World leaders from 20 countries drew up plans to begin the process of regulating financial activity conducted across national borders, but they postponed many of the more difficult decisions until their next meeting, scheduled for April 2009. The LAT leads with the latest on the wildfires sweeping across Southern California. Over 30,000 people have fled and hundreds of homes have been burned. At the economic summit in Washington, members of the Group of 20, plus Spain, the Netherlands, the United Nations, and other international organizations, gave a greater role in the planning process to developing nations such as China, India, and Brazil. Europeans walked away happy, according to gloating French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and President George W. Bush adopted a far less stringent defense of free markets than he held when he announced the summit in October. Some of the measures to which the group agreed include the establishment of a “college of supervisors” to oversee the activity of financial institutions that operate internationally, closer scrutiny of hedge funds, and more frequent and diligent reviews of countries’ financial systems by the International Monetary Fund. The NYT downplays the summit’s conclusions with a quote from an MIT economist who claims that these were “plain-vanilla” measures that could have been accomplished without a summit, and the only significance of the event was that it was attended by the developing nations included in the G-20 instead of just the larger powers of the Group of 8 nations. President-elect Barack Obama, who both papers agree will face more difficult decisions at the spring summit, was not present this weekend but did send two senior advisers in his place. The LAT goes inside with a story on Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who took the opportunity at the summit to say that he hopes for improved relations between his country and the U.S. under the Obama administration. In California Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger proclaimed a state of emergency yesterday in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, adding to his earlier proclamation for Santa Barbara County. Fires yesterday tore through a mobile home park in Sylmar, where 500 homes were destroyed, in a blaze that a local fire chief described as the worst he’d seen in the city in three decades on the job. Flames struck downtown L.A., as well, where the temperature reached a record hot and dry 93 degrees. Several highways in the area have been shut down, throwing a wrench in the evacuation plans of many. Calls for reform abound in another front-page story in the LAT that laments the present failure of 401(k) plans to guarantee financial security for Americans’ retirement years. Committee meetings in the House of Representatives and other research groups have entertained suggestions from experts that include returning to a system that guarantees a pensioner’s benefits instead of just the employer’s contribution, as well as a proposal to offer government-backed retirement savings accounts that would yield a fixed return, provided for by the elimination of tax breaks that participants in 401(k) plans currently receive. To date this year, the average employee’s 401(k) balance has dropped by 21 to 27 percent. A front-page NYT story kicks off a series examining the role natural resources play in inciting conflict in Africa. Over an expanse of column inches not often granted to such topics, the article considers the value of the tin ore that the Congolese unearth through the exploitation of the poor. Inside the A section, the LAT includes news that the U.N. has sent in an official to facilitate talks between Congo’s president and the rebel leader responsible for clashes with soldiers in the eastern part of the country. On a more trivial note, the NYT also fronts a story that wonders if Obama will be the first e-mailing President. While the President-elect hopes to be the first to have a laptop in the Oval Office, he may have to surrender his Blackberry and give up e-mail, as President Bush did, because of security risks and laws that allow presidential correspondence to become public information. The WP reports that Iraq’s prime minister and its top Shiite cleric will support an agreement to keep U.S. forces in Iraq through 2011, when the measure goes before the Iraqi parliament. The article predicts that this will greatly aid in the agreement’s passing. The NYT, however, takes a less sanguine view of the pact’s chances for success, pointing out that the most prominent Shiite bloc did not attend yesterday’s meeting with top Iraqi politicians, held to gauge support for the plan. The WP goes inside with a feature that draws parallels between the Great Depression and today’s economic climate. Maryland residents who grew up in the 1930s share their tales of scrimping, saving, and going without luxuries. The interviewees wag their fingers at grandchildren who are too quick to pull out the credit card, but also remind the younger generations that even the Great Depression came to an end. Also in the WP, Chris Cillizza breaks down five post-election myths. Mostly, Cillizza takes a contrarian’s perspective, claiming this election did not signal the death knell for the Republican party and choosing Sarah Palin was not necessarily a mistake. However, he also points to pre-election predictions that fell flat (namely, black voters and the young were not the crucial factor in Obama’s victory). In the WP Magazine, though, faux-news takes top prize in a feature on The Onion. The piece goes inside the production of the satirical weekly newspaper, where stories are invented to fit the headlines. A story in the NYT Style Section buzzes about possible schools the Obama daughters might attend in Washington, a topic about which D.C. parents have been speculating since November 5, as Hanna Rosin noted on “XX Factor.” Will they choose a place like Sidwell Friends, the elite private school attended by Chelsea Clinton? Or could the Obamas shock the region’s parents by enrolling their daughters in public school, as former President Jimmy Carter did with his daughter? Washington’s “power parents” are holding their breath in anticipation.   Change.gov: The Economist and Time on Obama’s transition. The Economist, Nov. 15 The cover story downplays the significance of the upcoming G-20 summit: “[G]lobal finance will not be remade in a five-hour powwow hosted by a lame-duck president after less preparation than many corporate board meetings.” International finance is a “tug-of-war” between global markets and national sovereigntyit cannot simply be “fixed.” The leaders have a chance to make progress, “but only if they temper their hyperbole with realism and humility.” An article calls Obama’s transition “the most difficult in living memory” and urges him to “translate his vague philosophy of ‘hope’ and ‘change’ into governance.” Obama’s transition team is guided by Reagan’s, which “hit the ground running” and worked closely with a policy think tank. President Bush is also trying to ensure that the transition moves fluidly, requiring even low-level staff to draw up detailed briefings and giving Obama unusual access to various departments. Time, Nov. 24 The cover story surveys Obama’s transition, reporting that it already occupies 120,000 square feet of office space in Washington. The president-elect has announced staff picks relatively early and plans to choose his Cabinet by the end of the month. Obama is doing his best to avoid a repeat of Bill Clinton’s “chaotic” 1992 transition that left him ill-prepared for his first term. A column scolds journalists who have heralded Obama as “a messiah who can give black people some manners, a God-child descending from the heavens to teacheth benighted African Americans the virtues of books and proper English and the evils of Pacman Jones and blaming the white man.” Obama is a president, not a moral reformer, and statistics show that blacks are already helping themselves: Oprah and Bill Cosby are among their most respected figures, and 60 percent of young African-Americans find rap music’s depiction of women offensive. New York Times Magazine, Nov. 16 The cover package features a series of interviews with outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, footnoted and “amplified” by other Bush administration figures. Rice thinks that electing a black president “says around the world that you can overcome old wounds.” And she’s convinced that the administration she worked under has set the stage for positive change around the world. In a brief interview, Karl Rove says he’s never been booed off stages, as was widely reported. “I’ve been booed on stages,” he says. “I’m a little bit tougher than to walk off a stage because someone says something ugly.” An article takes a bird’s-eye view of the movement that led Obama to victory, summarizing the moments and turning points that created a climate of “change.” One such moment came in Iowa, when Obama told his staff he would “hold their hand,” effectively turning their apprehension into triumph. Mother Jones, November/December An article by Al Gore challenges the United States to transition to exclusively American-made electricity in 10 years. While it would require sacrifice on the part of every citizen, a dramatic reduction in the cost of alternative energy sources has placed self-sufficiency well within reach. With the right technology, there’s enough wind, solar, and dam energy to power the entire world. An article totals the costs of the Bush years, calculating both actual spending (Iraq) and lost opportunities (salaries that fallen soldiers didn’t earn). All said, “the gap between what we could have produced and what we did produce will easily exceed $1.5 trillion.” Republicans “simply trusted in supply-side economicsbelieving that, somehow, the economy would grow so much better with lower taxes that deficits would be ephemeral.” That’s a fantasy, and the only way to dig ourselves out of the hole is to cut spending or raise taxes. Harper’s, December A front-of-book essay examines the historical relationship between masquerading (think Boston Tea Party) and politics, noting how often political debates are filled with participants adopting imaginary personas. Why do people mask their shared humanity in textbook partisan biographies? “The partisan badge, the counterculture face paint, creates the illusion of membership in something less dull and burdensome than the whole human race.” An article lays out a blueprint for prosecuting the “outlaw” Bush administration, arguing that “simply ‘moving on’ is not possible.” But a president who committed “war crimes” is an unusual legal situation: It’s hard to know whether he should be tried before an international criminal tribunal, a foreign court, or in U.S. military courts. The fourth and best option would be a “commission of inquiry”a slow, deliberate process that would gradually build public consensus. But it would only be a first step, to be followed by formal prosecution. Must Read P.J. O’Rourke’s acerbic essay in the Weekly Standard is the most amusing and unconventional “death of conservatism” analysis you’ll find this week. Best Politics Piece A Time column on African-Americans’ motivation to improve themselves without a “messiah” is a refreshing antidote to hyperbole. Best Culture Piece A profile of Malcolm Gladwell in New York is both a window into an intriguing writer’s mind and a study of journalistic celebrity. Must Skip New York’s cover story is a mass of high-flying, post-election feel-good-isms. Save it for future generations, but you’ve heard all this elsewhere lately. Copycat Award Articles on Obama’s transition in Time and the Economist include paragraphs that sayall but word-for-wordexactly the same things about Obama avoiding Clinton’s mistakes by using his transition to hit the ground running. Late Night Humor Tue The Tonight Show with Jay Leno President Bush and Barack Obama had their big meeting yesterday at the White House. And they found that with all their differences, they have one thing in common: Neither trusts the Clintons. Barney, the White House dog, bit a reporter last Friday. And today, Rahm Emanuel bit Barney. There’s a new rumor that Hillary Clinton may end up being secretary of state. Which means she would have to spend the next four years traveling all around the world. To which Bill said, “Yes!” In the Senate, 90-year-old Robert Byrd will step down as Appropriations Committee chair. He’ll be replaced by Hawaiian Sen. Daniel Inouye, who is 84. Finally, we’re getting some young blood in there. Late Show with David Letterman On Veterans Day, John McCain laid a wreath at the “Tomb of the Unknown Plumber.” McCain is back to his full-time job: yelling at people who park in front of his house. Sarah Palin was on the “Today” show cooking. Don’t kid yourself she’s a great chef. She reads all the cookbooks. Palin is saying it’s the media to blame for Republicans losing the election. Well, yeah it’s their fault she entered beauty contests instead of a library. Late Night with Conan O’Brien It was reported today that President Bush is mad that Barack Obama leaked details of Obama’s White House visit. The president said, “What happens in the ‘couch fort,’ stays in the couch fort.” It was also reported that Michelle Obama wants her mother to move into the White House with them. This is expected to be the first time Barack uses his veto powers. One of the Obama girls is allergic to dogs, so someone has offered the Obamas a hairless puppy. The children have already named the puppy James Carville. Late Night Humor  Wed The Tonight Show with Jay Leno After the election last week, Barack Obama took his wife on a date to their favorite Italian restaurant in Chicago. Today, Bill Clinton, John Edwards, and Eliot Spitzer called him a “new kind of Democrat . . . a pioneer.” There are reports that Barack Obama is going to close Guantanamo Bay. He also wants to close all Cracker Barrel restaurants. When they move into the White House, Barack Obama will be getting a dog for his daughters. He was very clear on its care. He said, “You’re going to have to feed it; you’re going to have to give it water; and you’re going to have to clean up after it. Do you understand that?” And Joe Biden said “Yeah, yeah.” The election for senator in Minnesota is taking an odd turn. Only a few hundred votes separate the two candidates, and ballots are showing up in the trunks of people’s cars, and in all kinds of odd places. And everyone is yelling fraud. Turns out, Minnesota is an old Indian word that means Florida. Late Show with David Letterman I am sick of the economy, and now, American Express is asking the government for $3.5 billion. Here’s the weird part: They’ll only have to make monthly payments of $24. The post office is also affected. They may lay off 4,000 workers. Unless those layoff notices get lost in the mail. Egyptian archeologists have discovered a 4,300-year-old pyramid. Yet another house John McCain forgot about. Barack Obama may be living in the White House with his mother in law. He may want to rethink closing Guantanamo. Late Night with Conan O’Brien Obama is preparing to move his whole family to Washington. Barack and Michelle are looking for a church in Washington. They’re probably asking every prospective pastor the same question, “Have you ever been videotaped screaming, ‘God d*** America!’?” Some political analysts say that the ’80s sitcom “The Cosby Show” helped Obama get elected by portraying a black family in a positive light. They also say Obama would have been elected 10 years ago, if it weren’t for Flavor Flav. Producers in Hollywood say that America is now ready for a black James Bond and a black Wonder Woman. America may even be ready for a black Michael Jackson. The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson The transition continues in Washington. Vice President Dick Cheney is meeting with Vice President-elect Joe Biden tomorrow. Cheney will give him a tour . . . hand over the keys to the dungeon, that sort of thing. The country of Peru wants to give Barack Obama a hairless dog for the White House. Didn’t Obama just spend months trying to keep a little bald guy out of the White House? President Bush said today that he regrets the infamous “Mission Accomplished” banner. He said if he were to do it over again, the banner would say, “Git ‘er Done.” Jimmy Kimmel Live! Many people believe that the election of Barack Obama has brought this country together like never before. They say the red states and the blue states are finally merged to form one big purple blob. In only 69 days or so, Barack Obama becomes our 44th president. It’s going to be exciting, but weird not having Dick Cheney in charge. Barack Obama’s mother is planning to move to Washington with the first family; she might even move into the White house with them which sounds like a sitcom. Joe Biden could play the kooky neighbor that they talk to over the fence. “Obama’s House” could be the name of it. Barack Obama and his wife visited the president and Mrs. Bush at the White House. Obama has been very critical of the president; fortunately, the president cannot read, so he didn’t know about it. Obama said his favorite part of the tour was when the president showed him the secret dial under his desk that he uses to control the price of gasoline. Matt Lauer talked to Sarah Palin on the “Today” show. He got a glimpse of Palin at work in her kitchen. She was cooking a moose. It was Bullwinkle day at the Palin house. For lunch, they had a flying squirrel.

November 11, 2008 17 November, 2008

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The Daily Slog   Headlines In That Case, We Send Our Regrets “Popular Party Bites”–headline, Vindicator (Youngstown, Ohio), Nov. 12 He Used Pink Slips–Couldn’t Even Face Them “Fort Myers Resident Lamely Fires 68 in PGA Q-School”–headline, News-Press (Fort Myers, Fla.), Nov. 13 What Else Does It Kill? “Study: Calif. Dirty Air Kills More Than Car Crashes”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 13 ‘Winter’s Nothing to Write Home About Either’ “Greeley Remains Critical After Fall”–headline, Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 12 Must’ve Been Painful “EBay Vendor Passes Gigantic Feedback Milestone”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 13 Help Wanted “Coast Guard Searching for Fisherman off Cape Cod”–headline, Boston Herald, Nov. 13 Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control • ”Kosher Meat Shortage in US Turning Jews Into Vegetarians”–headline, Arutz Sheva Web site, Nov. 12   • ”Intoxicated Nebraska Man Assaults Wife for Macaroni Dinner”–headline, FoxNews.com, Nov. 12   • ”Street Sinks on Housing”–healdine, Forbes.com, Nov. 11   • ”Kucinich’s House Hit With Paint Balls”–headline, Plain Dealer (Cleveland), Nov. 11   • ”Electronic Heat Trap Grips Deep Earth”–headline, Carnegie Institution press release, Nov. 12   • ”Nepal to Sashay on World Quality Factor Ramp”–headline, Himalayan Times (Katmandu), Nov. 13 News You Can Use • ”Sometimes the Truth Lies Somewhere in the Middle”–headline, Pampa (Texas) News, Nov. 8   • ”Sometimes It’s Hard to Judge the Scope of the Problem”–headline, Times Argus (Barre-Montpelier, Vt.), Nov. 10   • ”Sometimes You Have to Get a Little Lucky”–headline, FoxSports.com, Nov. 10   • ”Sometimes Continuity Trumps Change”–headline, Washington Post, Nov. 10   • ”Sometimes You Win at $7.99–Cotes du Luberon”–headline, American Chronicle, Nov. 12   • ”Sometimes Math Doesn’t Equate”–headline, San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 10   • ”Sometimes It Helps to Be a Little Crazy”–headline, TechRepublic.com, Nov. 11 If They’d Told Us This Before the Election, McCain Might Have Won “With Obama, U.S. Can Score World Cup”–headline, Yahoo! Sports, Nov. 11 ¡La Muerte Pelón! “Peru Offers National Hairless Dog to Obama”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 11 Questions Nobody Is Asking “Can John Edwards Make a Comeback?”–headline, CNN.com, Nov. 11 An Amazing Display of Self-Control “Edwards Avoids Affair in First Speech Since Scandal”–headline, FoxNews.com, Nov. 11 Even Experts Have Enemies “They’re Watching You: Paranoia on the Rise, Experts Say”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 12 What Would We Do Without Consultants? “Narcissists With Big Egos Lead Many Law Firms, Consultant Says”–headline, ABA Journal, Nov. 11 He’s a Good Engineer but He’s Dead and Gone “Dell’s Casey Jones Leaves VP-Global Marketing Post”–headline, AdAge.com, Nov. 11 Garcia v. Warner Bros. “Mayor of Batman Sues WB, Nolan”–headline, Variety.com, Nov. 11 They Heard It Was Filled With Hot Chicks “Officials Work to Aid Tenants of Incubator”–headline, Jackson (Mich.) Citizen Patriot, Nov. 12 Today’s Papers First Step The New York Times and USA Today lead with, while the Los Angeles Times fronts, the Iraqi cabinet approving the much-debated security agreement that calls for U.S. troops to withdraw by the end of 2011. After nearly a year of negotiations with the United States, 27 of the 28 cabinet ministers who were present at yesterday’s meeting voted in favor of the agreement. The Status of Forces Agreement, which would replace the United Nations mandate that expires at the end of the year, now goes to the Iraqi Parliament, where a contentious debate is expected to unfold. The Wall Street Journal’s world-wide newsbox leads with the meeting between President-elect Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain that will take place in Chicago today. The meeting could be mutually beneficial, as Obama will need Republican cooperation in Congress and it gives McCain the opportunity to reclaim his “maverick, bipartisan mantle” after a heated campaign. The Washington Post leads with a look at how Barack Obama wrote letters to the employees at seven federal agencies before the election that included descriptions of how his administration would run specific government programs. The American Federation of Government Employees distributed the letters, which were written at the request of the union’s president. In the letters, Obama described how he wants to cut back on private contractors, remove existing roadblocks on scientific research, and promote tougher regulations to protect workers and the environment. Many of the promises made by Obama would require additional spending, which the president-elect has recognized would be difficult to obtain given the current economic conditions. The LAT leads with a rare bit of good news for Southern California as calming winds brought about “the first major break in days” in the fight against the wildifres that broke out on Thursday. As of late last night, the fires were 80 percent contained. It’s unclear how big of a fight opponents of the security agreement will put up in parliament this week. The WP says that the overwhelming “cabinet vote indicated that most major Iraqi parties supported it,” but opponents continue to insist that the pact would need to be approved by a two-thirds majority. “If we need to get two-thirds, then there will be difficulties,” a Kurdish lawmaker tells USAT. Even if it crosses the parliamentary hurdle, the agreement would then have to be ratified by Iraq’s three-member presidential council. The Sunni representative on the council, Vice President Tariq Hashimi, has called for a referendum on the pact and could veto any agreement, notes the LAT. But the WSJ points out that “his opposition may be thawing” and some Sunni lawmakers have already expressed support for the agreement. The WSJ says that the “substantive points of the deal haven’t changed” much since the more than 100 amendments requested by the Iraqi cabinet were mostly “seen as cosmetic.” The Iraqi government made a big point of emphasizing that the clause stating that U.S. troops could be asked to stay longer has been removed. “This withdrawal date is firm and holy and will not be changed according to conditions on the ground,” government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said. In practice though, the Iraqi government can still ask U.S. troops to stay. Besides setting the withdrawal date of Dec. 31, 2011, the agreement also calls for U.S. troops to leave Iraqi cities by the end of June. In addition, a joint U.S.-Iraqi committee would decide whether an American service member who commits a serious crime outside of a U.S. base while off duty should face an Iraqi court. Does this mean we’ll see U.S. troops standing trial in Iraq anytime soon? It’s very unlikely, notes USAT in a helpful Q&A, because it’s simply “almost unheard of for a U.S. troop to be off duty and off base in Iraq.” As Congress gets ready to debate whether to bail out Detroit’s Big Three automakers, the LAT fronts a look at how a failure in the industry wouldn’t just affect the employees at General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. About 70 percent of the parts in most automobiles are made by outside suppliers that employ hundreds of thousands of workers. This is a point that will likely be emphasized this week when lawmakers hear testimony from industry leaders. But in a front-page piece, the NYT says that many industry experts say that people often underestimate how quickly foreign-owned automakers could step in and pick up the slack if one of the Big Three were to suddenly vanish. That’s not to say the change wouldn’t be painful, especially considering that foreign-owned automakers use more parts from overseas. The NYT fronts word that Obama’s advisers are looking into former President Bill Clinton’s fundraising and activities in order to determine whether there’s anything that should prevent his wife from becoming secretary of state. This is seen as a sign of just how serious Obama is about making Sen. Hillary Clinton a member of his cabinet. In fact, Democratic sources tell the paper that as long as they can figure out the former president’s role, it’s likely that Obama would ask her to take the job. As others have said, it’s highly unlikely that Obama would have risked causing another rift in the party unless he was serious about the appointment. While it’s easy to imagine that a Clinton confirmation hearing could be heated, a few Republicans gave their support yesterday. “It seems to me she’s got the experience. She’s got the temperament for it,” Sen. John Kyl, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said. “So my own initial reaction is it would be a very good selection.” The NYT says many pointed to the news that Gregory Craig was named White House counsel as a sign that Clinton is on the real short-list for the State Department job. Some had expected the man who represented Bill Clinton during impeachment proceedings to become national security adviser or deputy secretary of state. But Craig was a strong supporter of Obama from the beginning of the campaign and strongly criticized Clinton’s claims of foreign policy experience. The WP fronts a look at how giving the position to Clinton could provide many “benefits and pitfalls” to the Obama administration. Since leaving the White House, Bill Clinton has tried to position himself as “something akin to the world’s philanthropist in chief” and as secretary of state his wife would oversee many of the country’s foreign aid efforts, which could turn the “couple into an overwhelming force in global aid.” Former presidents are usually kept at arms-length but that might prove difficult for Obama with such a high-profile figure who will have a direct line into the administration. If his wife becomes secretary of state, the former president would definitely face increased scrutiny about his fundraising and lobbying activities, particularly since he has refused to publicly disclose the names of those who have donated to his philanthropic activities, as well as his presidential library. In the famously-detailed vetting document that Obama is asking those who want to work in his administration to fill out, one questions asks applicants whether there are “any categories of personal financial records . . . that you (or your spouse) will not release publicly if necessary. If so, please identify these records and state the reasons for withholding them.” The WP points out that “in the margins of a copy of the application leaked from the transition team, the word ‘Clinton’ is written next to that paragraph.” Bottom Stories of the Day • ”Stanhope Elmore High School Not on Lockdown”–headline, Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, Nov. 14   • ” ’Daddy Llama’ Reported Missing Near Peach, Crawford County Line”–headline, Telegraph (Macon Ga.) , Nov. 12   • ”Former Plainfield Landfill Gets New Name”–headline, Indianapolis Star, Nov. 14   • ”Additional Votes Have No Effect on Harris Co. Election Results”–headline, Houston Chronicle, Nov. 13 • ”Voters Mostly Reject Plans to Split, Unify School Areas”–headline, Arizona Daily Star (Tucson), Nov. 11   • ”Estonia’s Ansip Surprised at Sarkozy”–headline, Baltic Times (Riga, Latvia), Nov. 11   • ”Criticism Mounts Among Gays Over Calif. Ban”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 11   • ”Canada Plummets in Gender Gap Index”–headline, CanWest News Service, Nov. 12 • ”Euro Rises to 16-Day High Against NZ Dollar”–headline, RTTNews, Nov. 13 • ”Local Pub Names John Edwards ‘Turkey of the Year’ ”–headline, Star-Telegram Web site (Fort Worth, Texas), Nov. 12   • ”Few Will Miss Following Campaign News”–headline, Pew Research Center for People and the Press Web site, Nov. 12   • ”Another Shoe Washes Up on Canadian Coast”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 13 While America Slept “Van Winkle Files Late Election Complaint”–headline, Sun News (Myrtle Beach, S.C.), Nov. 12 World’s Shortest Honeymoon • ”Crist’s December Wedding Will Follow Tradition”–headline, Tampa Tribune, Nov. 13   • ”Gov. Charlie Crist Faces Tough Times at Home”–headline, South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale), Nov. 13   What Would We Do Without Experts? “Experts: Abuse Often Behind Kids Killing Parents”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 12 News You Can Use • ”Frozen Semen Works in Rhinoceros Artificial Insemination”–headline, LiveScience.com, Nov. 13   • ”How to Smell Like Your Favorite Spaghetti-Slurping Mob Boss”–headline, Metro (Canada), Nov. 13   • ”Are You Rude? Maybe You Should Think Again”–headline, CNN.com, Nov. 11   • ”Hey, Bozo–Time to Get Your TV Ready for Digital”–headline, Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 12 • ”Pet Q&A: Things Your Pet Might Swallow”–headline, Star Press (Muncie, Ind.), Nov. 12   • ”How to Cope With the Tough Teenage Years”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 12   • ”Fleeing Cops? Don’t Give Them Your ID First”–headline, MSNBC.com, Nov. 12   • ”Don’t Get in a Lather About Soap in Radio”–headline, Detroit News, Nov. 12   • ”You Must Remember This: Forgetting Has Its Benefits”–headline, The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 11   • ”You’re Never Too Old to STRUT YOUR STUFF”–headline, Star Press (Muncie), Nov. 12 Headlines ‘Mutts Like Me,’ Indeed • ”Some Chicago Jews Say Obama Is Actually ‘the First Jewish President”–headline, Ha’aretz, Nov. 13   • ”Report: Galilee Bedouin Claim Obama as Lost Member of Tribe”–headline, Ha’aretz, Nov. 13 Can’t He Just Inflate the Tires? “Barack Obama’s Car Could Fuel More Problems”–headline, Boston Herald, Nov. 12 Police Seized Feces, Urine During DNC “VP-Elect Biden Hopes to Be a Hands-On No. 2″–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 14 Human Rights Groups Are Still Executing People? “Taliban Calls on Human Rights Groups to Stop Executions”–headline, Daily Telegraph (London), Nov. 13 At Long Last, Wendy Can Feel Safe “Wendy’s Manager Arrested for Sexual Assault”–headline, QSRWeb.com, Nov. 13 ‘And We Don’t Care How Pretty Your Eyes Are’ “Board Rejects Pupil Appeal in Gun Case”–headline, Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, Nov. 13 No Krill for You! “Bad Seal Blamed in Plane’s Landing”–headline, Ledger (Lakeland, Fla.), Nov. 13 Wait Till You Hear What His Second-Best Friend Did “Prosecutors: Man Shot 45 Times by Best Friend Lived Through First 32 Shots”–headline, FoxNews.com, Nov. 14 ‘That Was One of the Funniest “Seinfeld” Episodes Ever!’ “Product Recall: Muffin Tops”–headline, Seattle Times, Nov. 14 So Someone Else Inflicted It? “Teen Fakes Self-Inflicted Neo-Nazi Attack”–headline, FoxNews.com, Nov. 14 Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control • ”Exploding Toilet Sends Boy to Hospital”–headline, ParentDish.com, Nov. 13   • ”Giant Asian Smog Cloud Masks Warming Impact: U.N.”–headline, Reuters, Nov. 13   • ”Earth May Face Freeze Worse Than Ice Age: Study”–headline, Reuters, Nov. 12   • ”Credit Crunch Putting the Bite on Cafe Culture”–headline, Reuters, Nov. 13   • ”The Government Is Losing Its Mind”–headline, FoxBusiness.com, Nov. 13   • ”Hillary Clinton Eyed for Secretary of State”–headline, Associated Press, Nov. 14 • ”Indian Invasion”–headline, New York Post, Nov. 11   • ”Climate Change Threatening Lemmings”–headline, Christian Science Monitor Web site, Nov. 6   • ”Lawsuit Claims Victoria’s Secret Bras Cause Rashes, Hives”–headline, FoxNews.com, Nov. 11   • ”The New York ‘Times’ Will Not Take Your ‘Bitchassness’ ”–headline, New York magazine Web site, Nov. 11   • ”Europe Welcomes Abnormal Veggies”–headline, New York Times Web site, Nov. 12   •  “Radioactive Beer Kegs Menace Public, Boost Costs for Recyclers”–headline, Bloomberg, Nov. 11   • ”Obama Family Dog More Important Than Daughter’s Health”–headline, New York magazine Web site, Nov. 11 Wouldn’t It Have Been Easier Just to Call In Sick? “Cleveland Police Officer on Leave After Shooting Teen”–headline, WEWS-TV Web site (Cleveland), Nov. 12 We Hope It Still Pays Off Next Season When We Get Around to It “This Season, Procrastination May Pay Off”–headline, New York Times, Nov. 9 A Sucker Bet if Ever There Was One “Sun Gambles Big as Outlook Darkens”–headline, CNN.com, Nov. 12

 

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The Daily Slog   Late Night Humor Thurs  The Tonight Show with Jay Leno There was a big meeting this week between Vice President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President Dick Cheney. Or as they are calling it, “plugged hair meets plugged arteries.” I prefer to call them “foot-in-mouth meets shot-in-face.” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has called for emergency assistance for the auto industry. She said it was an absolute emergency. But since it was Nancy Pelosi, no one could tell from her facial expression that it was an emergency. The National Enquirer says that after campaign staffers blamed her for losing the election, Sarah Palin went on a rampage . . . yelling and screaming and throwing things. But see, that’s the National Enquirer. Are you going to believe them? These are the same people who said a year ago that John Edwards was having an affair. Late Show Top Ten Top Ten Highlights Of The Dick Cheney/Joe Biden Meeting 10. Cheney barred the door and yelled, “You’ll never take me alive” 9. It was three hours of Guitar Hero 8. Biden gave Cheney the number for his hair-plug guy 7. Enjoyed a nice lunch interrupted by two shotgun blasts and a heart attack 6. Lynne Cheney blinking out in Morse code “Help me. Help me. Help me.” 5. Cheney had to leave early to get Bush’s head unstuck from a microwave oven 4. Had a heart attack during a heart attack 3. They agreed the “Late Show Fun Facts” book may just be the thing to bring this country together 2. For about 20 minutes, Cheney’s pacemaker got HBO 1. Upon seeing Biden, Cheney muttered, “I was hoping for the Alaskan broad” Late Show with David Letterman Sarah Palin might make a guest appearance on “Desperate Housewives.” When John McCain heard this, he said, “I’d like to be on ‘Bonanza.’” Sarah Palin says she wants to be bipartisan; she would like to help Barack Obama. And I thought, Hasn’t she helped him already? Obama is organizing his Cabinet. This is a high-pressure time for him. Meanwhile, John McCain is at an Applebee’s blowing on his soup. Barack Obama has named Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff and he is bringing in Madeleine Albright to be part of his transition team. It looks like Obama is bringing back all of our favorites from the Clinton administration. Except for that heavy-set intern. Late Night with Conan O’Brien Earlier today, President Bush was in New York and he gave a speech about the financial crisis and other problems facing the country. The speech was called “So Long Suckers.” In Washington, D.C. today, Dick Cheney gave Joe Biden a tour of the vice president’s living quarters. Afterwards, Biden said he loves the house, but he’ll probably turn the dungeon back into a rec room. The Republican Party is considering choosing an African-American Republican to be their party’s chairman. Unfortunately, neither guy wants the job. American Express is in financial trouble and reportedly wants a $5.5 billion loan from the government. Unfortunately for American Express, the government only takes Visa and Diner’s Club. The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson People in L.A. have been participating in an earthquake drill. Authorities are saying the drill has been a huge success apparently people in L.A. are used to things being fake. Barbara Walters is doing a special on the man who got pregnant. If you get a sex-change operation then find yourself pregnant, you may want to ask yourself how good the doctor was. All I’m saying is, if you get a sex-change operation, hang onto the receipt. Sarah Palin did another interview. This time on the “Today” show. She’s been on NBC, Fox News, local news, magazines . . . she’s talking so much they can hear her from Russia. The economy is terrible. The Sharper Image went bankrupt. Who would have thought that a place that sells useless garbage would go bankrupt! Linens ‘n Things went bankrupt, too. I think I saw that coming, though, because they didn’t care . . . besides linens, they didn’t care what they sold. Linens . . . and things.   Today’s Papers Money Makes the World Go ‘Round The New York Times and the Washington Post both lead with stories about this weekend’s meeting of the Group of 20 in Washington to discuss the global financial crisis, while the Los Angeles Times stuffs the news. World leaders from 20 countries drew up plans to begin the process of regulating financial activity conducted across national borders, but they postponed many of the more difficult decisions until their next meeting, scheduled for April 2009. The LAT leads with the latest on the wildfires sweeping across Southern California. Over 30,000 people have fled and hundreds of homes have been burned. At the economic summit in Washington, members of the Group of 20, plus Spain, the Netherlands, the United Nations, and other international organizations, gave a greater role in the planning process to developing nations such as China, India, and Brazil. Europeans walked away happy, according to gloating French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and President George W. Bush adopted a far less stringent defense of free markets than he held when he announced the summit in October. Some of the measures to which the group agreed include the establishment of a “college of supervisors” to oversee the activity of financial institutions that operate internationally, closer scrutiny of hedge funds, and more frequent and diligent reviews of countries’ financial systems by the International Monetary Fund. The NYT downplays the summit’s conclusions with a quote from an MIT economist who claims that these were “plain-vanilla” measures that could have been accomplished without a summit, and the only significance of the event was that it was attended by the developing nations included in the G-20 instead of just the larger powers of the Group of 8 nations. President-elect Barack Obama, who both papers agree will face more difficult decisions at the spring summit, was not present this weekend but did send two senior advisers in his place. The LAT goes inside with a story on Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who took the opportunity at the summit to say that he hopes for improved relations between his country and the U.S. under the Obama administration. In California Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger proclaimed a state of emergency yesterday in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, adding to his earlier proclamation for Santa Barbara County. Fires yesterday tore through a mobile home park in Sylmar, where 500 homes were destroyed, in a blaze that a local fire chief described as the worst he’d seen in the city in three decades on the job. Flames struck downtown L.A., as well, where the temperature reached a record hot and dry 93 degrees. Several highways in the area have been shut down, throwing a wrench in the evacuation plans of many. Calls for reform abound in another front-page story in the LAT that laments the present failure of 401(k) plans to guarantee financial security for Americans’ retirement years. Committee meetings in the House of Representatives and other research groups have entertained suggestions from experts that include returning to a system that guarantees a pensioner’s benefits instead of just the employer’s contribution, as well as a proposal to offer government-backed retirement savings accounts that would yield a fixed return, provided for by the elimination of tax breaks that participants in 401(k) plans currently receive. To date this year, the average employee’s 401(k) balance has dropped by 21 to 27 percent. A front-page NYT story kicks off a series examining the role natural resources play in inciting conflict in Africa. Over an expanse of column inches not often granted to such topics, the article considers the value of the tin ore that the Congolese unearth through the exploitation of the poor. Inside the A section, the LAT includes news that the U.N. has sent in an official to facilitate talks between Congo’s president and the rebel leader responsible for clashes with soldiers in the eastern part of the country. On a more trivial note, the NYT also fronts a story that wonders if Obama will be the first e-mailing President. While the President-elect hopes to be the first to have a laptop in the Oval Office, he may have to surrender his Blackberry and give up e-mail, as President Bush did, because of security risks and laws that allow presidential correspondence to become public information. The WP reports that Iraq’s prime minister and its top Shiite cleric will support an agreement to keep U.S. forces in Iraq through 2011, when the measure goes before the Iraqi parliament. The article predicts that this will greatly aid in the agreement’s passing. The NYT, however, takes a less sanguine view of the pact’s chances for success, pointing out that the most prominent Shiite bloc did not attend yesterday’s meeting with top Iraqi politicians, held to gauge support for the plan. The WP goes inside with a feature that draws parallels between the Great Depression and today’s economic climate. Maryland residents who grew up in the 1930s share their tales of scrimping, saving, and going without luxuries. The interviewees wag their fingers at grandchildren who are too quick to pull out the credit card, but also remind the younger generations that even the Great Depression came to an end. Also in the WP, Chris Cillizza breaks down five post-election myths. Mostly, Cillizza takes a contrarian’s perspective, claiming this election did not signal the death knell for the Republican party and choosing Sarah Palin was not necessarily a mistake. However, he also points to pre-election predictions that fell flat (namely, black voters and the young were not the crucial factor in Obama’s victory). In the WP Magazine, though, faux-news takes top prize in a feature on The Onion. The piece goes inside the production of the satirical weekly newspaper, where stories are invented to fit the headlines. A story in the NYT Style Section buzzes about possible schools the Obama daughters might attend in Washington, a topic about which D.C. parents have been speculating since November 5, as Hanna Rosin noted on “XX Factor.” Will they choose a place like Sidwell Friends, the elite private school attended by Chelsea Clinton? Or could the Obamas shock the region’s parents by enrolling their daughters in public school, as former President Jimmy Carter did with his daughter? Washington’s “power parents” are holding their breath in anticipation.   Change.gov: The Economist and Time on Obama’s transition. The Economist, Nov. 15 The cover story downplays the significance of the upcoming G-20 summit: “[G]lobal finance will not be remade in a five-hour powwow hosted by a lame-duck president after less preparation than many corporate board meetings.” International finance is a “tug-of-war” between global markets and national sovereigntyit cannot simply be “fixed.” The leaders have a chance to make progress, “but only if they temper their hyperbole with realism and humility.” An article calls Obama’s transition “the most difficult in living memory” and urges him to “translate his vague philosophy of ‘hope’ and ‘change’ into governance.” Obama’s transition team is guided by Reagan’s, which “hit the ground running” and worked closely with a policy think tank. President Bush is also trying to ensure that the transition moves fluidly, requiring even low-level staff to draw up detailed briefings and giving Obama unusual access to various departments. Time, Nov. 24 The cover story surveys Obama’s transition, reporting that it already occupies 120,000 square feet of office space in Washington. The president-elect has announced staff picks relatively early and plans to choose his Cabinet by the end of the month. Obama is doing his best to avoid a repeat of Bill Clinton’s “chaotic” 1992 transition that left him ill-prepared for his first term. A column scolds journalists who have heralded Obama as “a messiah who can give black people some manners, a God-child descending from the heavens to teacheth benighted African Americans the virtues of books and proper English and the evils of Pacman Jones and blaming the white man.” Obama is a president, not a moral reformer, and statistics show that blacks are already helping themselves: Oprah and Bill Cosby are among their most respected figures, and 60 percent of young African-Americans find rap music’s depiction of women offensive. New York Times Magazine, Nov. 16 The cover package features a series of interviews with outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, footnoted and “amplified” by other Bush administration figures. Rice thinks that electing a black president “says around the world that you can overcome old wounds.” And she’s convinced that the administration she worked under has set the stage for positive change around the world. In a brief interview, Karl Rove says he’s never been booed off stages, as was widely reported. “I’ve been booed on stages,” he says. “I’m a little bit tougher than to walk off a stage because someone says something ugly.” An article takes a bird’s-eye view of the movement that led Obama to victory, summarizing the moments and turning points that created a climate of “change.” One such moment came in Iowa, when Obama told his staff he would “hold their hand,” effectively turning their apprehension into triumph. Mother Jones, November/December An article by Al Gore challenges the United States to transition to exclusively American-made electricity in 10 years. While it would require sacrifice on the part of every citizen, a dramatic reduction in the cost of alternative energy sources has placed self-sufficiency well within reach. With the right technology, there’s enough wind, solar, and dam energy to power the entire world. An article totals the costs of the Bush years, calculating both actual spending (Iraq) and lost opportunities (salaries that fallen soldiers didn’t earn). All said, “the gap between what we could have produced and what we did produce will easily exceed $1.5 trillion.” Republicans “simply trusted in supply-side economicsbelieving that, somehow, the economy would grow so much better with lower taxes that deficits would be ephemeral.” That’s a fantasy, and the only way to dig ourselves out of the hole is to cut spending or raise taxes. Harper’s, December A front-of-book essay examines the historical relationship between masquerading (think Boston Tea Party) and politics, noting how often political debates are filled with participants adopting imaginary personas. Why do people mask their shared humanity in textbook partisan biographies? “The partisan badge, the counterculture face paint, creates the illusion of membership in something less dull and burdensome than the whole human race.” An article lays out a blueprint for prosecuting the “outlaw” Bush administration, arguing that “simply ‘moving on’ is not possible.” But a president who committed “war crimes” is an unusual legal situation: It’s hard to know whether he should be tried before an international criminal tribunal, a foreign court, or in U.S. military courts. The fourth and best option would be a “commission of inquiry”a slow, deliberate process that would gradually build public consensus. But it would only be a first step, to be followed by formal prosecution. Must Read P.J. O’Rourke’s acerbic essay in the Weekly Standard is the most amusing and unconventional “death of conservatism” analysis you’ll find this week. Best Politics Piece A Time column on African-Americans’ motivation to improve themselves without a “messiah” is a refreshing antidote to hyperbole. Best Culture Piece A profile of Malcolm Gladwell in New York is both a window into an intriguing writer’s mind and a study of journalistic celebrity. Must Skip New York’s cover story is a mass of high-flying, post-election feel-good-isms. Save it for future generations, but you’ve heard all this elsewhere lately. Copycat Award Articles on Obama’s transition in Time and the Economist include paragraphs that sayall but word-for-wordexactly the same things about Obama avoiding Clinton’s mistakes by using his transition to hit the ground running. Late Night Humor Tue The Tonight Show with Jay Leno President Bush and Barack Obama had their big meeting yesterday at the White House. And they found that with all their differences, they have one thing in common: Neither trusts the Clintons. Barney, the White House dog, bit a reporter last Friday. And today, Rahm Emanuel bit Barney. There’s a new rumor that Hillary Clinton may end up being secretary of state. Which means she would have to spend the next four years traveling all around the world. To which Bill said, “Yes!” In the Senate, 90-year-old Robert Byrd will step down as Appropriations Committee chair. He’ll be replaced by Hawaiian Sen. Daniel Inouye, who is 84. Finally, we’re getting some young blood in there. Late Show with David Letterman On Veterans Day, John McCain laid a wreath at the “Tomb of the Unknown Plumber.” McCain is back to his full-time job: yelling at people who park in front of his house. Sarah Palin was on the “Today” show cooking. Don’t kid yourself she’s a great chef. She reads all the cookbooks. Palin is saying it’s the media to blame for Republicans losing the election. Well, yeah it’s their fault she entered beauty contests instead of a library. Late Night with Conan O’Brien It was reported today that President Bush is mad that Barack Obama leaked details of Obama’s White House visit. The president said, “What happens in the ‘couch fort,’ stays in the couch fort.” It was also reported that Michelle Obama wants her mother to move into the White House with them. This is expected to be the first time Barack uses his veto powers. One of the Obama girls is allergic to dogs, so someone has offered the Obamas a hairless puppy. The children have already named the puppy James Carville. Late Night Humor  Wed The Tonight Show with Jay Leno After the election last week, Barack Obama took his wife on a date to their favorite Italian restaurant in Chicago. Today, Bill Clinton, John Edwards, and Eliot Spitzer called him a “new kind of Democrat . . . a pioneer.” There are reports that Barack Obama is going to close Guantanamo Bay. He also wants to close all Cracker Barrel restaurants. When they move into the White House, Barack Obama will be getting a dog for his daughters. He was very clear on its care. He said, “You’re going to have to feed it; you’re going to have to give it water; and you’re going to have to clean up after it. Do you understand that?” And Joe Biden said “Yeah, yeah.” The election for senator in Minnesota is taking an odd turn. Only a few hundred votes separate the two candidates, and ballots are showing up in the trunks of people’s cars, and in all kinds of odd places. And everyone is yelling fraud. Turns out, Minnesota is an old Indian word that means Florida. Late Show with David Letterman I am sick of the economy, and now, American Express is asking the government for $3.5 billion. Here’s the weird part: They’ll only have to make monthly payments of $24. The post office is also affected. They may lay off 4,000 workers. Unless those layoff notices get lost in the mail. Egyptian archeologists have discovered a 4,300-year-old pyramid. Yet another house John McCain forgot about. Barack Obama may be living in the White House with his mother in law. He may want to rethink closing Guantanamo. Late Night with Conan O’Brien Obama is preparing to move his whole family to Washington. Barack and Michelle are looking for a church in Washington. They’re probably asking every prospective pastor the same question, “Have you ever been videotaped screaming, ‘God d*** America!’?” Some political analysts say that the ’80s sitcom “The Cosby Show” helped Obama get elected by portraying a black family in a positive light. They also say Obama would have been elected 10 years ago, if it weren’t for Flavor Flav. Producers in Hollywood say that America is now ready for a black James Bond and a black Wonder Woman. America may even be ready for a black Michael Jackson. The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson The transition continues in Washington. Vice President Dick Cheney is meeting with Vice President-elect Joe Biden tomorrow. Cheney will give him a tour . . . hand over the keys to the dungeon, that sort of thing. The country of Peru wants to give Barack Obama a hairless dog for the White House. Didn’t Obama just spend months trying to keep a little bald guy out of the White House? President Bush said today that he regrets the infamous “Mission Accomplished” banner. He said if he were to do it over again, the banner would say, “Git ‘er Done.” Jimmy Kimmel Live! Many people believe that the election of Barack Obama has brought this country together like never before. They say the red states and the blue states are finally merged to form one big purple blob. In only 69 days or so, Barack Obama becomes our 44th president. It’s going to be exciting, but weird not having Dick Cheney in charge. Barack Obama’s mother is planning to move to Washington with the first family; she might even move into the White house with them which sounds like a sitcom. Joe Biden could play the kooky neighbor that they talk to over the fence. “Obama’s House” could be the name of it. Barack Obama and his wife visited the president and Mrs. Bush at the White House. Obama has been very critical of the president; fortunately, the president cannot read, so he didn’t know about it. Obama said his favorite part of the tour was when the president showed him the secret dial under his desk that he uses to control the price of gasoline. Matt Lauer talked to Sarah Palin on the “Today” show. He got a glimpse of Palin at work in her kitchen. She was cooking a moose. It was Bullwinkle day at the Palin house. For lunch, they had a flying squirrel.

November 11, 2008 17 November, 2008

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The Daily Slog   Late Night Humor Thurs  The Tonight Show with Jay Leno There was a big meeting this week between Vice President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President Dick Cheney. Or as they are calling it, “plugged hair meets plugged arteries.” I prefer to call them “foot-in-mouth meets shot-in-face.” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has called for emergency assistance for the auto industry. She said it was an absolute emergency. But since it was Nancy Pelosi, no one could tell from her facial expression that it was an emergency. The National Enquirer says that after campaign staffers blamed her for losing the election, Sarah Palin went on a rampage . . . yelling and screaming and throwing things. But see, that’s the National Enquirer. Are you going to believe them? These are the same people who said a year ago that John Edwards was having an affair. Late Show Top Ten Top Ten Highlights Of The Dick Cheney/Joe Biden Meeting 10. Cheney barred the door and yelled, “You’ll never take me alive” 9. It was three hours of Guitar Hero 8. Biden gave Cheney the number for his hair-plug guy 7. Enjoyed a nice lunch interrupted by two shotgun blasts and a heart attack 6. Lynne Cheney blinking out in Morse code “Help me. Help me. Help me.” 5. Cheney had to leave early to get Bush’s head unstuck from a microwave oven 4. Had a heart attack during a heart attack 3. They agreed the “Late Show Fun Facts” book may just be the thing to bring this country together 2. For about 20 minutes, Cheney’s pacemaker got HBO 1. Upon seeing Biden, Cheney muttered, “I was hoping for the Alaskan broad” Late Show with David Letterman Sarah Palin might make a guest appearance on “Desperate Housewives.” When John McCain heard this, he said, “I’d like to be on ‘Bonanza.’” Sarah Palin says she wants to be bipartisan; she would like to help Barack Obama. And I thought, Hasn’t she helped him already? Obama is organizing his Cabinet. This is a high-pressure time for him. Meanwhile, John McCain is at an Applebee’s blowing on his soup. Barack Obama has named Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff and he is bringing in Madeleine Albright to be part of his transition team. It looks like Obama is bringing back all of our favorites from the Clinton administration. Except for that heavy-set intern. Late Night with Conan O’Brien Earlier today, President Bush was in New York and he gave a speech about the financial crisis and other problems facing the country. The speech was called “So Long Suckers.” In Washington, D.C. today, Dick Cheney gave Joe Biden a tour of the vice president’s living quarters. Afterwards, Biden said he loves the house, but he’ll probably turn the dungeon back into a rec room. The Republican Party is considering choosing an African-American Republican to be their party’s chairman. Unfortunately, neither guy wants the job. American Express is in financial trouble and reportedly wants a $5.5 billion loan from the government. Unfortunately for American Express, the government only takes Visa and Diner’s Club. The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson People in L.A. have been participating in an earthquake drill. Authorities are saying the drill has been a huge success apparently people in L.A. are used to things being fake. Barbara Walters is doing a special on the man who got pregnant. If you get a sex-change operation then find yourself pregnant, you may want to ask yourself how good the doctor was. All I’m saying is, if you get a sex-change operation, hang onto the receipt. Sarah Palin did another interview. This time on the “Today” show. She’s been on NBC, Fox News, local news, magazines . . . she’s talking so much they can hear her from Russia. The economy is terrible. The Sharper Image went bankrupt. Who would have thought that a place that sells useless garbage would go bankrupt! Linens ‘n Things went bankrupt, too. I think I saw that coming, though, because they didn’t care . . . besides linens, they didn’t care what they sold. Linens . . . and things.   Today’s Papers Money Makes the World Go ‘Round The New York Times and the Washington Post both lead with stories about this weekend’s meeting of the Group of 20 in Washington to discuss the global financial crisis, while the Los Angeles Times stuffs the news. World leaders from 20 countries drew up plans to begin the process of regulating financial activity conducted across national borders, but they postponed many of the more difficult decisions until their next meeting, scheduled for April 2009. The LAT leads with the latest on the wildfires sweeping across Southern California. Over 30,000 people have fled and hundreds of homes have been burned. At the economic summit in Washington, members of the Group of 20, plus Spain, the Netherlands, the United Nations, and other international organizations, gave a greater role in the planning process to developing nations such as China, India, and Brazil. Europeans walked away happy, according to gloating French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and President George W. Bush adopted a far less stringent defense of free markets than he held when he announced the summit in October. Some of the measures to which the group agreed include the establishment of a “college of supervisors” to oversee the activity of financial institutions that operate internationally, closer scrutiny of hedge funds, and more frequent and diligent reviews of countries’ financial systems by the International Monetary Fund. The NYT downplays the summit’s conclusions with a quote from an MIT economist who claims that these were “plain-vanilla” measures that could have been accomplished without a summit, and the only significance of the event was that it was attended by the developing nations included in the G-20 instead of just the larger powers of the Group of 8 nations. President-elect Barack Obama, who both papers agree will face more difficult decisions at the spring summit, was not present this weekend but did send two senior advisers in his place. The LAT goes inside with a story on Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who took the opportunity at the summit to say that he hopes for improved relations between his country and the U.S. under the Obama administration. In California Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger proclaimed a state of emergency yesterday in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, adding to his earlier proclamation for Santa Barbara County. Fires yesterday tore through a mobile home park in Sylmar, where 500 homes were destroyed, in a blaze that a local fire chief described as the worst he’d seen in the city in three decades on the job. Flames struck downtown L.A., as well, where the temperature reached a record hot and dry 93 degrees. Several highways in the area have been shut down, throwing a wrench in the evacuation plans of many. Calls for reform abound in another front-page story in the LAT that laments the present failure of 401(k) plans to guarantee financial security for Americans’ retirement years. Committee meetings in the House of Representatives and other research groups have entertained suggestions from experts that include returning to a system that guarantees a pensioner’s benefits instead of just the employer’s contribution, as well as a proposal to offer government-backed retirement savings accounts that would yield a fixed return, provided for by the elimination of tax breaks that participants in 401(k) plans currently receive. To date this year, the average employee’s 401(k) balance has dropped by 21 to 27 percent. A front-page NYT story kicks off a series examining the role natural resources play in inciting conflict in Africa. Over an expanse of column inches not often granted to such topics, the article considers the value of the tin ore that the Congolese unearth through the exploitation of the poor. Inside the A section, the LAT includes