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Wednesday, July 31, 2002 |
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Olbermann vs. Coulter Our media class has a hard time focusing on more than one subject at a time. Keith Olbermann's latest column suggests that the media's (and political elite's) mad quest to convict Bill Clinton of adultery helped push more important topics -- like our vulnerability to terrorist attack -- off the national agenda. It's a great piece: "Ann Coulter didn't cause Sept. 11... But with hindsight one has to ask why the prospect of a country unprepared for terrorism wasn't a sexy enough topic for her and the others to use to pound Clinton and the Democrats." Remember, during Monicamania, any time the Clinton administration decided to do anything in the international sphere -- like firing missiles at bin Laden's Afghanistan training camp -- it was accused of pulling a "Wag the Dog" stunt to divert the national dialogue from the more pressing matter of the presidential genitalia. [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment]
7:48:11 PM 
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Recession? What recession? Last winter the economics establishment reviewed its numbers and declared that we'd entered a "light" recession in 2001 but that it was so brief -- only one quarter of actual "negative growth" (economist-speak for "decline") -- that it didn't even technically qualify as a recession (two consecutive quarters of "negative growth"). This came as heartening news to the legions of laid-off workers, who could at least console themselves with the knowledge that the Bush administration was planning to bank some of their Social Security money in the collapsing stock market.
Now it turns out that the economy actually shrank for the first three quarters of 2001 (most of which predated the 9/11 disaster). Yes, Virginia, there was a Bush recession. For much of the U.S., there still is. [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment]
7:47:28 PM
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Motley Fool: "In 1999, Microsoft spent $2.9 billion in stock buybacks; in 2000, $4.9 billion; and last year, a whopping $6.1 billion, all of which intended to hide the dilution from stock option grants." [Scripting News]
7:40:54 PM
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Jenkins' ear I love reading Holman W. Jenkins Jr.'s Wall Street Journal column for its insights into how business leaders think. Not for Jenkins is the conciliatory, "let's look at things from the other side's point of view" approach of his colleague Al Hunt, the Journal's token near-liberal. Jenkins provides the unvarnished master-of-the-universe capitalist perspective -- you can practically hear the squeak of the armchair leather, the chomp of the cigar. This, say his columns, is the way the world works. (Interestingly, Jenkins' bio suggests he has spent his entire career in journalism and has no business experience.)
Today Jenkins reviews the business careers of our president and vice president and exonerates them of any wrongdoing. So what if Bush benefited from some sweetheart transactions? So what if Cheney sold Halliburton high before asbestos laid it low? They're businessmen, dammit -- this is what they do!
Look, you government-handout-seeking lefties: "Mr. Cheney was hired to open doors... Not to belabor the obvious, but a big part of Mr. Bush's value to partners and investors was his political visibility too." What are you, an idiot? Of course businesses hire politicians because of who they know!
Such honesty is disarming. Strangely, though, in Jenkins' analysis, the moment Bush and Cheney got elected, everything changed: "Only a moron suspects Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney went to the trouble to become president and vice president to throw bones to business cronies."
In other words, when out of office, Bush and Cheney got paid the big bucks to win friends and influence people, because they were so well-connected; but once they took office, they suddenly cast off all ties to their "cronies" and were transformed into even-handed public citizens.
Permit me to be moronic, then, for a moment: Maybe Bush and Cheney did not become president and vice president solely to "throw bones to cronies"; maybe they got elected with the help of those cronies' cash and intend to repay the help with far more than bones. Maybe the "you wash my hands, I'll wash yours" deals that made Bush his fortune as a private citizen bear a striking resemblance to the "you wash our hands, we'll wash yours" relationship his administration has maintained with its friends in business. Maybe it's the way the world works that's moronic. [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment]
7:39:12 PM
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Joe Conason's Journal. Bush administration praises Pennsylvania miners -- then cuts funding for the Mine Safety and Health Administration! Plus: Hillary conspiracies get lamer by the day. [Salon.com]
7:37:23 PM
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Questioning The Impending American War on Iraq. For some time now, the world has been aware of the current US administration's basic plan to force a "regime change" in the nation of Iraq. The world watches with trepidation as President Bush, and to all appearances the rest of the nation he represents, accelerates toward a bloody return to the Persian Gulf. As an American, I fear that the propaganda machine is already out in full force-that we are being denied the full facts of the case in order to garner political support for an unjust war. [kuro5hin.org]
7:30:53 PM
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Steve Gillmor on why trusting Microsoft is not the best idea. [Scripting News]
But backstage it's a different message: Microsoft .NotYet. Trust us -- we're patenting the HailStorm schemas. Trust us -- but we're not rewriting our apps in .Net. Trust us -- we're locking you in with licenses for upgrades that will never happen because -- trust us -- we're going to change our minds.
5:40:46 AM
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Superfund follies Damien Cave's Salon cover story today is a must-read. "Companies like Atlas Tack, and its parent company, Great Northern Industries, are the happy beneficiaries of the Bush administration's new Superfund policy. By refusing to clean up the sites and then collect costs from the responsible parties, Bush and the EPA have essentially given the nation's biggest corporate polluters a multimillion-dollar reprieve -- at a huge personal cost to less influential citizens." [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment]
5:34:25 AM
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Monopolizing speech. For all the hoopla about copy protection, history makes it fairly clear that if devices can play unprotected content, you're going to have copyright infringement. Someone will break the protection and pass unprotected files around. You can fix this by making devices that refuse to play unprotected content. Some people might consider it a violation of free speech, if you have to be a major media corporation to make a playable file; especially if a DMCA-like law were to make it illegal to forge watermarks, so that you can actually go to prison for creating a playable file, without being an approved vendor. Joe Biden, however, has introduced a bill to do exactly that. [kuro5hin.org]
5:25:35 AM
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Glenn Reynolds comments on Delaware Senator Joe Biden's new entertainment-industry-friendly bill. "These legislative initiatives aren't just about copyright. They're about building a regime that's hostile to content that comes from anyone other than Big Media suppliers." [Scripting News]
5:24:10 AM
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Bankruptcy Barons
The Financial Times has published a table that shows the amount of loot hauled home by management in the latest spate of bankrupcies. The table speaks for itself.
5:20:08 AM
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Salon Blog watch You've probably read about the new bankruptcy bill that Congress is this close to passing -- it makes it tougher for consumers to declare bankruptcy and wipe out their credit-card debts. The credit card companies are wildly in favor of this, of course (I'd have more sympathy for them if they didn't so avidly market high-interest cards to people with marginal credit histories). The bill has now gotten tangled up in crossfire between factions in the abortion wars. The Bush Impeachment Countdown has an intriguing Machiavellian explanation for what's happening. [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment]
5:15:42 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Michael Alderete.
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