SAR #11024

Appealing to the better angels of our nature assumes facts not in evidence.

What Part of 'No' Don't You Understand?  The best tidbit from the Al-Jazeera documents is that when Palestinian negotiators offered Israel all but one small part of Jerusalem as part of a peace deal, Israel rejected the offer out of hand. So much for a two-state solution, so much for any solution not draped in blood.

Competing Views:  Before Team Obama gets too far into a training regimen for The Competition, we should do well to decide what the event is, what the goal is, where the goal posts are and who keeps the score. Or is this a Special Olympics event?

Multiple Choice:  Clarence Thomas's failure to report over $680,000 of his wife's income over five years was (1) lying (2) accidental (3) inadvertent (4) an oversight (5) deliberate falsification of a federal record.

Summertime:  Greenland's 2010 “melt season” was nearly 50 days longer than average. The season “started exceptionally early at the end of April and ended quite late in mid- September."

Helping Hand:  Worried that pharma not making enough money new drugs, the government is building a billion-dollar drug development center so the taxpayer can fund the research for the next generation of overpriced pharmaceuticals.

Recycling:  The Fed capitalizes the Treasury by buying Treasury bills. But now the Fed needs recapitalization, so the Treasury will write checks to the Fed so it can continue to buy Treasury notes.

Who's On First:  President Obama has chosen GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt to chair the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, saying “Jeff's somebody who brings a wealth of experience to the table," referring to the money he got from TARP for GE, the profits GE made by shipping thousands of jobs overseas and his conviction that “what is good for our country is good for General Electric, and vice versa.”

Quoted:  “Only 47% of working age Americans have full time jobs... the long term unemployed make up 42% of total unemployed... a full one third of the US population receives at least part of their food through [the food stamp program].”

Let Us Count the Ways: Thousands of Tunisian-inspired Yemenis are demonstrating to end the 32-year despotic rule of “President” Ali Abdullah Saleh, a strongman backed by the US military and little else.

What He Said:  Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) says that if the GOP discards its confrontational approach now, “the shooter wins”. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) agreed, claiming that “nobody is going to put a gun to anybody's head here.” No, they do that in Arizona.

All You Need Know:  GM and Chrysler are not profitable making and selling cars unless they get to finance the cars and bank the interest on the loans.

Progress:  In the olden days blatant corruption and fraud were so infrequent that things like the Keating Five were scandalous. Today the American government does not cover up fraud and corruption; it is defined by it. How else can the complete lack of indictments, arrests, and trials be explained?

Reincarnation:  Obama, channeling Clinton, Summers and Rubin, is planning to use a “regulatory review” as an opportunity to embrace even more of the Republican economic plan, dismantling more of the regulatory protections that have so far escaped gutting. Under the guise of being a “fiscal conservative” he will use the State of the Union address as a forum to praise “American innovations”. You know, innovations like writing sub-prime adjustable rate-option mortgages, bundling them into MBS, chopping them CDO and writing CDS, and bringing down the global economy.

Pay to Play: Last year the US shipped $337 billion overseas to pay for oil imports. This does not include several hundred billion on the US military's efforts at keeping the world's petroleum available.

Porn O'Graph:  Unseasonable weather.