BTW – Kerik was supported by Guliani. With Kerik gone, Guliani might have problems trying for the 2008 presidential ticket.

Posted by: b | Dec 11 2004 16:00 utc | 4

WTF!
But Danforth said, “No one, to my knowledge, has cast doubt on the personal integrity of the secretary-general — no one — and we certainly don’t.”

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Dec 11 2004 20:26 utc | 6

The American Association of Sniffers of Underwear (ASSoU) wants to makes adultery punishable by a denial of marriage benefits.
This is not a joke, even though it is a joke.

Posted by: fauxreal | Dec 12 2004 1:01 utc | 8

@JJ:
If old Libo gets it, maybe he’ll get boils all over, like the original one.
@Faux:
No work gets done next term, for sure. Might be a good thing.

Posted by: FlashHarry | Dec 12 2004 2:29 utc | 10

Shit, Faux…….nothinggggggsssss toooo far out these days.
Sat. night post:
If anyone can still appreciate individual acts of Extraordinary Courage, or enjoys sailing, there’s an amazing Sail underway right now by a young woman who’s the embodiment of the great British nautical tradition. She was born to sail, as Jane Goodall was born to be w/chimps or Picasso to paint. She skipped lunch as a young child to save money to buy her first sailboat.
Her name is Ellen MacArthur. She’s all of 28 & on her 2nd Race Alone Around the globe. Her first was @24 in a monohull race called the Vendee Globe. She finished in 2nd place. When she landed in France @race’s end, it was bedlam. (One guy in that race had to sew his tongue back on – to give you a perspective on the magnitude of the challenge involved.)
Now she’s trying to break the World Record for Solo Circumnavigation of the Globe in a multi-hull sailboat. She’s sailing a trimaran. It’s ~72days. If you have a cable or DSL hookup, you can watch on Video clips & via Webcam. For those w/out, still great photos via Satellite on the trip site. Link
She started in Falmouth England, rounded Europe & is heading into the Southern Ocean bet. Africa & Brazil. We can follow from the comfort of our homes -gulp!!- as all alone she takes on the storms & icebergs that plague that part of the Oceans. (Site in Eng. & French.)

Posted by: jj | Dec 12 2004 6:59 utc | 12

Kerik’s resignation is another example of lightning striking a tree in the forrest. Does anyone believe
the official story? It’s true that this sort of thing
has caused problems in the past, but I can’t help wondering who helped Kerik “find” the incriminating document. How was he convinced to go quietly so quickly? Or am I just so far gone on conspiracies that I can’t take anything that comes out of this administration at face value?

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Dec 12 2004 12:22 utc | 14

Has anyone else received this mail. What to do about it. Is it something like those Nigerian scams or is it to be taken serious. I have received it now twice.

May Allah the most merciful and compassionate be with you. My name is Mohammed, You can find out all about me, my profile, origin etc from the BBC website below stating all about me. All the happenings at Iraq has made me a public figure without privacy. please browse through the site below to acquire more details about me.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/news/asylumday/case3.shtml
From the site above, you will note that this is not scam . This is real. I have some funds in a financial institute in Europe and I need your help to assist my son to retrieve it. The doctor has already told me that I have less days and as you receive this mail, it is possible that I am
dead. All that matters to me now is that my only son Mohammed junior gets to inherit my elongings. Allah the most compassionate and merciful will guide you, please get to me so that we could discuss about the percentage and clear your mind, as you might initially want to be a doubting thomas to this venture which is intented with good. Please note that I can not use my family because I am very sure that Iraq rebellions are monitoring them. I also can not go to Europe because I do not have travelling papers as an asylum seeker and my ill health. If you are interested in assisting him, please send your contact information to my son(mohammedjunioraljafaer@yahoo.co.uk) for
further discussions and the transfer of necessary
documentations.
thanks
mohammed al-jafaer.

Posted by: Fran | Dec 12 2004 15:58 utc | 16

Fran, I get a variant of that letter every two weeks or so. Someone must have conned me somewhere along the way, and left my name on a list of easy marks….

Posted by: alabama | Dec 12 2004 17:03 utc | 18

CP and Alabama, thanks! This was my hunch too! But with all those tragedies happening one never knows. Shame that there always people misusing other people’s pain to enrichen themselves.

Posted by: Fran | Dec 12 2004 17:28 utc | 20

Can you believe this?
Retired Army colonel, 70, sent to Afghanistan

In fact, he was so sure it was an error that he ignored the postcards and telephone messages asking if he would be willing to volunteer for active duty to “backfill” somewhere on the East Coast, Europe or Hawaii. That would be OK, he thought. It would release active duty oral surgeons from those areas to go to combat zones in Iraq or Afghanistan.
But then the orders came for him to go to Afghanistan.
…
He is one of about 100 over the age of 60 known to be serving. The Department of Defense couldn’t provide exact figures.
Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, an Army spokesman, said the service has taken back some 350 soldiers who had already retired from the military. But some of those could have done 20 years of duty and still be only in their late 30s. He did not know how many of the returning retirees are 60 or older.
The reason, he said, is clear: “It’s the continuing demand in the service.”
The Navy has 36 medical personnel and 16 chaplains who are over 60.
There is one Marine between 60 and 65 currently serving.
The Air Force has 12 chaplains over 60 and 32 medical personnel between 60 and 65.
“The rules say it’s at 60 years of age when people retire,” said Dov Schwartz, an Army spokesman. The Army will issue waivers allowing people who are older to serve if they have needed skills. Returning, though, is “totally voluntary,” Schwartz said.

This is the last one for today, it seems there is endless new stuff on the net and everyone seems to be out anyway.

Posted by: Fran | Dec 12 2004 18:34 utc | 22

Fran, thanks for the links. Even Jews from Israel are moving to Germany……What goes around…
Looking for Investments – buy rental property in East Berlin & advertise in any Ca. newspaper….(not entirely joking)
I found this art. most helpful of all I read this am in understanding Boomerang Effect of Psychotic Fascist policies of USgov/NeoCons: New Persian Empire: Iran Strengthens Its Hand Amid War On Terror.
Slowly but Surely rest of world groping their way toward forging alliances against xUS – EU, Iran, China, Brazil, Venezuela.
Just as Capital Overplayed it’s hand & Destroyed America Economically by shipping all our factories to China etc. so the elite could steal all the money that should be paid in wages; Militarists in pursuit of same megabucks -and hoping to put a brake on the ChinaMonster they created by giving them all our technology thru stranglehold on Chinese energy supplies – overplayed their hand, trying nostalgically for One Last Time, a Classic Imperial Adventure in ME in the Age of Satellite Communications!!!
Textbook stuff. Charlie Chaplin where art thou? Tragedy & Farce while the young flee to Germany for Freedom. Curious how Europe learned the lessons of WWII but US which emerged dominant has yet to!!

Posted by: jj | Dec 12 2004 21:29 utc | 24

Just watching BBC (C = censored thesedays) re the Gaza attack.
Qui Bono?

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Dec 12 2004 22:22 utc | 26

Gary Webb is dead. He apparently committed suicide after the break up of his marriage and subsequent financial hardship.
In 1996, Webb wrote a series of stories entitled Dark Alliances. The series reported how a US-backed terrorist army, the Nicaraguan Contras, had financed their activities by selling crack cocaine in the ghettos of Los Angeles to the city’s biggest crack dealer. The series documented direct contact between drug traffickers bringing drugs into Los Angeles and two Nicaraguan CIA agents who were administering the Contras in Central America. Moreover, it revealed how elements of the US government knew about this drug ring’s activities at the time and did little, if anything, to stop it. The evidence included sworn testimony from one of the drug traffickers – a government informant – that a CIA agent specifically instructed them to raise money for the Contras in California.
Webb is quoted in the article because he said he was a successful reporter until he broke this story, but after this story, his credibility was attacked, the mainstream media failed to cover the real story (Webb says it was even worse than he first learned.) The site for this story notes:
We believe…journalists are selected on the basis that they areunlikely even to attempt to report “dangerous ideas” of this kind – troublemakers are quickly identified and filtered out as ‘committed’, ‘biased’ and ’emotionally involved’. By contrast, successful journalists, with rare exceptions, are happy to remain within the ‘acceptable’ parameters of debate, echoing government opinions without challenge, presuming the essential benevolence of state-corporate power, focusing on non-threatening problems, interpreting crimes as mistakes, and so on.
His work and the suppression of what his investigations revealed were featured in the recent book Into the Buzzsaw, which includes 18 other stories of journalists smeared as conspiracy freaks for telling the truth.
Gary Webb interview
Rest in Peace

Posted by: fauxreal | Dec 13 2004 2:27 utc | 28

Positive violence – Holy Smoke

Posted by: Anonymous | Dec 13 2004 10:36 utc | 30

Now his double affair laid bare – Kerik cheated on wife with Judith Regan and correction officer

Posted by: b | Dec 13 2004 17:47 utc | 32

Anyone have any thghts. on whether we can get a twofer w/Kerik affair, getting rid of his Patron at the same time? Keep smearing that shit, boys.
Uncle $cam, one error that I know of in the above post. California DID NOT Ban DieBold, Unfortunately. It only banned it’s use in counties DieBold had installed an uncertified software patch (& I think lied to the state about it). In one of the most Dem. counties in the state, Alameda (Including Berkeley) unhappily it’s in use – so they can skim Dem. votes.
W/all the justifiable focus on the National Coup d’état, the rigging of elections at the state level is being overlooked. This has allowed the Mobsters not only to Steal the Senate, but to do endruns around State Legislatures. Should the Legis., by some happy accident, be some bold as to actually pass legislation that benefits citizens, this can be thrown out in “referendums” using this rigged equipment. Working Californians finally had medical care til they pulled this.

Posted by: jj | Dec 13 2004 21:00 utc | 34

SPANK THAT MONKEY!!

Posted by: Joseph Duveen, Baron Millbank | Dec 14 2004 3:24 utc | 36

I am relieved to be posting something that is (I hope) neither terribly provocative, nor (I hope) divisive, nor that may reveal any inanity, thoughtless bias, or lack of humanity on my part – in other words, other peoples’ thoughts and opinions, with which I claim neither to agree nor disagree, but merely find very interesting. This is a lengthy exerpt and I have no web address to provide:
Debating the Dollar
December 10, 2004
Morgan Stanley Global Economics Team
A weakening dollar is now center stage in world financial markets. But dollar depreciation is not the endgame of global rebalancing. It is the means toward the end — a long overdue realignment in the mix of global saving and consumption. Morgan Stanley’s Global Economics team has been actively debating the currency issue and its implications for the world economy. Below are excerpts from a recent roundtable discussion we conducted on the dollar.
Stephen Roach: A $40 trillion world economy is woefully out of balance. This shows up in many forms, but the most glaring sign is an unprecedented disparity between the world’s current account deficits (America) and surpluses (mainly Asia and, to a lesser extent, Europe). The key to a successful global rebalancing hinges critically on tempering the risks of the world’s most serious excesses. For me, that speaks of a shift in the world’s relative price structure — namely, currencies — in order to re- establish a more sustainable equilibrium. That’s where the dollar comes into play. But currency adjustments can’t do it alone. A weaker dollar could also be key in forcing the interest rate adjustments that address the asset-driven excesses of the American consumer — quite possibly the biggest risk factor in today’s US and global economy. If the depreciation of the dollar implies tough adjustments elsewhere in the world — like forcing export-led Asian and European economies to stimulate domestic demand — then that’s not such a bad thing either. Global rebalancing is a shared responsibility.
Stephen Li Jen: I think everyone is too sanguine about this de facto competitive devaluation by the US. To me, this is very serious, and a very dangerous policy pursued by the US. I’ve never heard any central bank telling the world not to buy their assets. But this was essentially what Alan Greenspan said in his Frankfurt speech on November 19. We are now talking about a gradual sell-off in US Treasuries that would take yields on 10-year notes to 5.0%. But if the world really were convinced by Greenspan, why would bond yields stop at 5%? Why should US equities be spared?
Richard Berner: I certainly agree with Stephen Li Jen that it can be a dangerous and risky game for Fed officials even implicitly to talk down the dollar. Chairman Greenspan, himself, is often guilty of believing that he can wave his magic wand to manipulate markets to produce the desired result. History shows that even he is sometimes humbled by the collective wisdom of millions of investors.
I believe that Fed officials would like to promote — if they can pull it off — a shift in the mix of financial conditions that will facilitate rebalancing. That shift entails higher US rates, an associated compression of equity multiples, a tightening of domestic borrowing costs, and a weaker dollar. Officials must have decided that the risks of the current mix of financial conditions, with all of its potential consequences for growing imbalances and prospective abrupt asset price adjustments, were greater than those entailed in a strategy aimed at letting the air out of the dollar in a more orderly way.
By the way, while I agree that having a central banker talk down his/her own currency can be dangerous, I think we’d all agree that it is broadly appropriate — nay, essential — for central bankers to signal their policy intentions. So Greenspan’s related comment that market participants should expect rising interest rates is certainly an integral part of today’s Fedspeak.
Joachim Fels: On Dick’s last point, I have the sneaking suspicion that the Fed’s policy of talking the dollar down is part of their game plan to create higher inflation in the US. Core inflation (as measured by the personal consumption deflator) at 1.5% simply doesn’t give you enough of a safety margin against deflation if and when the next recession hits. And, in highly indebted economies such as the US, a little more inflation helps to grease the wheels. That’s why I think that stagflation will be the name of the game in America in the next few years.
Jen: The possibility of stagflation is a perfect example of what I mean by stressing the potential pain of a competitive dollar depreciation. Yet everyone is still insisting “it won’t hurt.” I think they are missing the point. The whole purpose of the competitive devaluation of the US dollar is that it would hurt the rest of the world. It is about taking jobs and output from the rest of the world, and leaving the rest of the world to find other ways to come up with alternative sources of demand.
The US is effectively exporting bubbles to the rest of the world by forcing other nations to run a low-interest rate, strong exchange rate policy. Look at Japan in the late 1980s: they were forced to cut their discount rate in half between the Plaza and Louvre accords that demarcated the dollar’s descent in the latter half of the 1980s. What happened in Japan in the late-1980s? Japan was left to deal with the bubble and its aftershocks for the ensuing 14 years.
Roach: Stephen, your response is a classic example of what I call the global blame game — the notion that it’s unfair for America to foist its problems on to the rest of the world. While I have some sympathy for this argument, I would also stress that Asians and Europeans have been asking for trouble on this score for a long time. Unable or unwilling to stimulate sustained growth in their own internal demand, they have hooked their economies to the fortunes of the hyper-extended American consumer. The idea that such a “free-rider approach” is a good way to run the world – – Americans consume Asian goods and Asians gobble up American bonds — was dangerous from the start. It has led to huge dollar overweights in official reserve positions of all major non-US central banks — overweights that now look fiscally reckless to America’s creditors in the event of a sustained further drop in the dollar.
I am not as worried as you that this will be a competitive devaluation that will take jobs and output from the rest of the world. America’s manufacturing base has shrunk so much in the past 20 years that such a dramatic turnaround is problematic at best. What I am most worried about is that the dollar’s weakness will trigger a real interest rate response that will finally bring the American consumer to his or her knees. With the rest of the world lacking in consumerism, this raises the distinct possibility that we are headed for a protracted period of subpar global growth. Rather than bemoan America’s willingness to take a long overdue adjustment — one that the wise men of Europe and Asia have long sensed was appropriate — why can’t the rest of the world respond with a growth agenda of its own?
Jen: My point is not so much about blaming the US for imposing pain on the rest of the world. It is a fact that there will be pain — that’s not a judgment call. That’s how the US current account deficit can be compressed. That’s how the US can generate (some) inflationary pressures that prompt Fed tightening. Up to this point, dollar depreciation is a zero-sum proposition! That is now about to change.
If it didn’t “hurt” anyone, there wouldn’t be any change in the US inflation or demand outlook, and the Fed would be no more justified in hiking rates than if the dollar did not weaken. In other words, a weaker dollar being the trigger for a more hawkish Fed must involve pain in the rest of the world, which is a point that the rest of the world does not understand. The talk in Euroland and Japan is, “how much more currency strength can we tolerate before we get hurt.” That misses the point.
As you yourself have argued, Steve, it is the next step — when the rest of the world and the US take proper action — that determines if we can move on to a state that is more sustainable in the long run. Going from A to B will not be a smooth path, because equities and bonds are being talked down in the process: Greenspan cannot talk down the dollar without talking down other dollar-based assets as well. Bottom line: I don’t disagree with you. I just think that the world doesn’t understand that pain is a part of the game here.
Roach: Stephen, thanks for the clarification. Your point is an important one that I certainly do appreciate. I guess it boils down to how the world copes with pain — constructively (i.e., structural reforms in Europe and Asia plus deficit reduction and increased private saving in the US) or destructively (trade frictions and protectionism). I worry that Asia hasn’t gotten over the 1997-98 crisis syndrome — that it holds a grudge that may complicate the rebalancing endgame.
Andy Xie recently wrote the following: “It is in the overwhelming interest of the region (Asia) to fight back. The global economy should not be there just to serve the US. Everyone’s interest must be taken care of. The only sustainable equilibrium is a cooperative one.”
My question to Andy: If all Asia does in defense is sell Treasuries, it may end up shooting itself in the foot — i.e., incurring huge fiscal costs of currency losses for that portion of their dollar portfolios they do not sell. Asia needs a backstop of balance and resilience that will enable it to withstand the pain of a weaker dollar. If all there is to Asia is capex and exports, then Asia will get creamed when its US-centric external demand dries up. Talk about being beholden to the “kindness of strangers!” America is hooked on foreign capital inflows. Asia is hooked on the excesses of American consumerism. There is pain involved in breaking both of these habits. I agree with Stephen Li Jen that the world is in denial over that possibility.[…]

Posted by: Pat | Dec 14 2004 10:30 utc | 38

Someone is posting under my name, the above was not your Uncle $cam…. looks like we are being trolled…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 9 2005 4:30 utc | 40

To clairify, it was a post I did, but I didn’t post it today, looks like a ghost in the machine…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 9 2005 4:51 utc | 42

Uncle, same thing happened to me on another thread earlier today.

Posted by: jj | Sep 9 2005 5:00 utc | 44

wow. I”m in here too, must be a time machine or, worse yet, a worm hole. Anybody know how far back this thing goes?

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 9 2005 6:09 utc | 46

maybe this is where Pat went.

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 9 2005 6:12 utc | 48