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Yeah we should send them a bill when this is done. In our defense, had Europe's banks failed, ours would have too. England was in the midst of a bank run in October (Ireland & Estonia were due next). Spain would have followed soon after. If you think we wouldn't have had a dollar/bank run very quickly following effectively all of Europe's central banks failing, I don't know how to show you. Did you follow what happened to Lehman? Derivative holders of which AIG has 2 trillion counterparties) are exempt from chapter 11 (and all other bankruptcy asset stays). They sieze collateral first (ironically that was added to the recent bankruptcy legislation to prevent a big bank failure from spreading through the banking system via derivative counterparties). Since they sieze collateral first they get better values and in the case of Lehman who started the process with $600 billion in assets and 550 billion in liabilities, only had $450 billion in assets and $550 billion in liabilities when they filed. That missing $100 billion started a run on money market funds. The hole with AIG would probably be in the neighborhood of $200 billion (even after the TARP funded collateralization payments). And then AIG's counterparty banks (mostly European but also domestic) don't have insurance on their loans so their regulators would require them to issue substantially more equity (which means they'd have to go to their governments--many of which would be in the midst of central bank runs--for support. Had Lehman not caused everyone in both government and finance to realize that this is a very high rope and we have no net, AIG would have probably gone through chapter 11. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1263 This American Life has a very good program on how close we came to a pretty nasty result.

Parent is right on.

I'm rendered speechless on a daily basis by the national media's use of the DJIA as a proxy for economic confidence. It's thirty companies (which thirty varies), several of which deserve to take a hit.

Bank of America: following its acquisition of Countrywide and later Merrill Lynch, after months of forensic accounting work involving thousands of accountants, it became clear to shareholders that fraud was widespread in all three parties involved, their assets largely fictional. Criminal investigations are ongoing.

American Express: Converted to a bank holding company to qualify for TARP help. Did not have enough money in subsidiary bank deposits to cover card purchases, as it had long relied on selling bonds (asset backed securities). The Fed had to buy these bonds to keep American Express afloat.

Citigroup: Needs no introduction, has paid at least tens of millions in fines and settlements, for everything from ratings fraud to outright theft from account holders. Putting my feeling that their very existence is evidence of government corruption aside, it is on the hook for untold billions that it doesn't have (and never really did, imho), and its assets are currently worth about a fifth of their peak in the bubble.

JPMorgan Chase: Another "bad actor", with a laundry list of scandal too long to post here. Now owns Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual. Again, investors believe its assets are fiction.

AIG: Though not currently part of the index, it was a major mover from 2004-4-8 to 2008-9-22 when it was delisted. It recently posted the largest quarterly loss in history, $61.7 billion. There is evidence of massive fraud, and even rabid left-winger Ben Bernanke said this month, "AIG exploited a huge gap in the regulatory system" and "to nobody's surprise, made irresponsible bets and took huge losses." Additionally, due to the tangled mess of insurance and obligations, its performance affects the stock prices of nearly every other company traded.

Personally, I think that the energy, chemical, and pharma companies should take a hit as well. We need to use less oil, chemical companies' margins are high because they don't pay to pollute, and affordable health care means less profit for Pfizer. As for GM, they have lied to customers and shareholders alike about safety and efficiency, and pursued an adversarial relationship with government. The idea that ever-increasing revenue for these companies (Disney and Microsoft too!) is in our interest is insanity.

I wish fewer people got their news from neo-nazis like Glenn Beck. I know my chances of getting those on the right to listen to NPR is slim, but I have to mention This American Life, by far the best reporting on the financial crisis that I have found.

Anyone considering this kind of service should be required to watch or listen to "This American Life - Reality Check" the NPR show where a pet bull "Chance" was cloned. As much as we might miss a lost pet, I think in the grand scheme of things it's actually nice to know that this simply doesn't work - that the pet we loved was something truly unique and irreproducible.

This American Life had a great piece on a cloned show bull a while ago. You can listen to the episode here (click on the orange 'Full Episode' link -- it's the second segment, so you'll need to skip ahead), or you can watch/rent/torrent/buy Episode 1 of the Showtime version of the show. Interesting stuff....

There is this great This American Life episode about an electrician who thinks Einstein was wrong. He teaches himself some physics and maths and writes letters to famous physicists imploring them to see the genius of his ideas. Most throw his stuff in the garbage after a glance - it is amazing how many lunatics write things like this - but a few politely point out some of the areas where he is wrong and suggest that he get beyond college prep math. The latter always regret it. In his own mind the electrician is not wrong, the staid academic community just cannot grasp his revolutionary insights. So he writes back again. And again. And again. Until people beg him to stop wasting his and their time.

Meet Sumdumass, the Slashdot electrician of politics, economics, FISA, law, or whatever shiny object has caught his fancy this week. He'll tell you the same things you can hear from any guy who is half in the bag down at the end of the bar but he'll occasionally throw in some tangentially related link and scream about how it proves his point - even if no one else can see it. He's a genius, really! He's just misunderstood. Only the chosen few can see just how bright his light shines. And Rhino, my boy, aren't you oh-so-lucky to be one them.

And you do realize these folks weren't exactly picked up off the street for jaywalking, right? Most, if not all, were caught on the battlefield, and those who weren't, like Khalid Sheik Mohammad (considered the Forrest Gump of terrorism) were put there for their positions in terror groups such as al-Qaeda. For the most part, the folks in this prison don't have "sob stories".

Ahem. I'm not saying that everybody there is innocent. I will suggest that this is one of those times in our history that we're going to be embarassed about once enough years have passed. There are enough well publicised stories of the insane screw ups associated with Guantanamo that it's time to stop drinking the official Kool Aid about "Most, if not all were caught on the battlefield..." and other such nonsense.

I highly recommend this epsiode of This American Life to anybody who isn't familiar with the other side of the story.

Giving risky loans to people less likely to be able to repay them is what caused the crisis.

http://debatebothsides.com/showthread.php?t=73500
http://www.ptmortgage.com/blog/2008/10/01/pointing-fingers-was-it-cra-and-minority-lending-that-caused-the-mortgage-mess/
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=did_liberals_cause_the_subprime_crisis

Long and the short of it: CRA/CAP loans actually had better underwriting standards, and the evidence suggests that rather than being the bulk of the weight of failing loans, CRA/CAP loans have lower default rates than comparable commercial lending. The GSAs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) and Congress (including Democrats) are not without responsibility, but the policy Card's talking doesn't really have much to do with the heart of the problem.

A better explanation of some of the underlying mechanics is given in an award-winning episode of This American Life called The Giant Pool of Money. There's a lot of blame to go around -- from the borrowers up through the securitizers who sold global investors the Mortgage Backed Securities, but it seems pretty obvious that without the MBSs and in particular some of the faulty representations of the risks involved in MBSs, you couldn't have had the disconnect between the loans and sensible lending standards (*not* mandated by the CRA), which is ultimately where things really started going off the tracks.

No one in the government encouraged mortgage lenders to make the "liars loans" (loans with no effort to verify employment and income status), package them and re-market them as AAA securities on the international market. Listen to this (45 min or so).

You're being a bit literal.

No, I'm being a Minnesotan living in Virginia.

To see what I'm talking about, listen to this Podcast about both parties' operations in Pennsylvania. Yes, it's an hour of your time but you will see what campaigns are deploying to win voters.

It's not super opinionated geeks like you or I that foam at the mouth over the tiniest technical detail.

It's not people who spout absolutes.

It's people with tact, social skills, resolve & general human approachability (read: good looks).

Staying in Iraq until we 'win the war' would be the irresponsible thing to do.

That phrase right there might shut out the people in Pennsylvania who are of the opinion that we have never lost a war nor stood down to a conflict.

I mean this in the nicest way possible (and even apply it to myself) but please at least act open minded and try to understand where your listener is coming from if you're going to debate politics. You would expect the same if a dyed in the wool Republican approached you to discuss an issue.

As such, though the leverage ratio was officially 12.5, somebody who held nothing but mortgages could be levered up 35:1. And if you owned some bank issues, you could get nearly infinite.

But I'm wondering... what makes you think that these limits were going to be further increased?

You obviously know more about these details than I. What I was working from was what I heard in the second program: Another Frightening Show About the Economy. You can download it for free at the moment from: here.

Here's the summary for part 2:

Act Two. Out of the Hedges and Into the Woods.

One more confusing financial product that's bringing down the global economy. And one of way to think about this product is this: If bad mortgages got the financial system sick, this next thing you're about to hear about, helped spread the sickness into an epidemic. These are "credit default swaps." Alex explains. (19 minutes)

The segment was so well done, it's hard to summarize, but I'll do my best. In essence, "Credit Default Swaps" (CDS) were presented as a form of insurance that a lender could by so as to minimize the risk that a loan would default. So far, so good. Then, somebody realized they could by a CDS for a loan they did not even own. So what? It got out of hand when someone realized they could make money by buying a CDS for something that was questionable. How so? Like buying life insurance. Like buying life insurance on somebody ELSE. Who is old and feeble. I have an opportunity to buy a policy for, say, $1M on this person. And YOU have an opportunity to buy the same kind of policy from your agent. The sicker the person, the more of an incentive there is to buy in.

Now, replace "old and feeble person" with "Lehman Brothers". And for "insurance company", try "AIG". And multiply just You and Me with hundreds or thousands of CDSs in play. With many, many other companies. As I understand it, there was no regulatory limit on how many CDSs could be purchased on the exact same debt issue. And, because there was no mandatory reporting or the like on what CDSs were out there, we really don't know just how many of these are out there. With all the repackaging of these as securities, sliced and diced and sold as yet more instruments, we don't know just how bad the situation is.

Again, I cannot do the show justice. Listen to the podcast. I'd love to hear your take on it once you have done so.

This American Life. Episode 192. Poker pros describe how they finance both the house cut and their own living expenses (to the tune of around $200-300k/yr) off businessmen who think they know how to play, while on net winning little or nothing off each other.

Hear this:

A journey through the minds of undecided voters. For months -- through the Swift Boat ads, the convention speeches, the debates -- we tracked a few of these voters to find out why they just can't make up their minds. Plus, a story of someone courting undecided voters, and another about people trying to sabotage undecided voters (and everyone else).

Prologue.

Host Ira Glass asks how it's possible that some people still don't know what they think of President Bush just a few days before election day. Act One. My Buddy, Hackett. Ira spends hours talking to James Hackett, known to his friends, and by the end of the story, to Ira, as Gig. He's a doctor in Cincinnati and a lifelong Republican. But he hates President Bush. Pretty much hates everything he's done since taking office. Over several months, he sways from Kerry to Bush and back again, sometimes with Ira's help, before coming to a final decision -- one that probably surprises even him.

As for the recent "bailouts", it's going to be the profitable and well-off being taxed to bailout institutions that gave money away (rich people's money, mostly) to that part of the general public that is never going to pay that money back.

It's NOT "rich people's money, mostly". The bulk of investments made on our (US) stock exchanges - and I'd guess world-wide as well - is institutional. Some of that is money-market funds bought by the middle class and above; but the majority, I believe, is retirement money. This affects a very large number of Americans (and yeah, I'm one of them).

At this point the problem doesn't really have much to do with bailing out those people who bought houses that were way out of their price range - those people have largely been foreclosed on already.

If you can take an hour to learn quite a bit about what led to all this, listen to the "This American Life" episode 'The Giant Pool of Money'. The way this crisis came to be is breathtaking in terms of the greed, arrogance, and stupidity involved.

Develop a thug caste: Not yet, I think so at least.

Oh, they're way ahead of you.

Suppose you're an immigrant who has applied for permanent residency through your spouse (an American citizen). It's a long, grueling process that requires mucho paperworko and at least a couple of years to process and analyze the applicant, with enough draconian rules to make an eary 20th-century Ellis Island official blanch. Because, you know, we gotta make sure that them immigrants ain't terr'rists, nevermind that real terrorists would no longer use official routes, nor necessarily be foreign nationals.

Now, suppose your spouse dies in a car accident. Common sense would allow some time for you to grieve over your loss and maybe find some way for you to stay or pursue citizenship.

Under the Bush administration, they give you a notice to get out of the country ASAP. Now, the more legalistic among us would agree with the government on this one: their rationale for staying was just taken away from them, so their application may be rendered void. But it becomes complicated if you managed to have children by this time. Okay, says the Bush administration immigration officials, the kids can stay 'cause they're citizens, but you're leaving. Bullshit! you say and hire a lawyer. After a long, protracted process where the government plays all the dirty tricks that SCO and the various RIAA member companies played, the judge becomes pissed and orders the government to allow you to stay and finish the application. Victory?

Nope, there was a law signed ca. 2004 that gives the DHS and immigration expanded powers, to wit: they can kick you out for any reason, without recourse or appeal, or even an explanation. They legislated in a trump-card because they don't want to follow the law.

And that's just the lawyers and USCIS officials. Should we honestly expect the DEA, ATF, CIA, FBI, Secret Service, US Marshals, or the military to be free from political corruption, given it was this easy for the government to destroy someone's hopes, then spit and piss on them on the way out?

Reference: "The Audacity of Government".

Not just men.

Listen to act two about Zora (starts at 20:00 at the audio-link below):

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=178

Originally aired 02.23.2001

        30-second Promo
        Full Episode
        $0.95 Download
        Buy CD

178: Superpowers

We answer the following questions about superpowers: Can superheroes be real people? (No.) Can real people become superheroes? (Maybe.) And which is better: flight or invisibility? (Depends who you ask.)

Prologue.

Host Ira Glass talks to comic artist Chris Ware, who thought about superheroes a lot of the time as a kid. In grade school, Chris drew superheroes, he invented his own character named The Hurricane (not to be confused with Reuben Carter), and he made a superhero costume. Sometimes he wore parts of the costume to school under his regular clothes, which went fine until he realized he would have to change clothes for gym class. Ware's book, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, is also inhabited by a "superhero" of sorts. (6 minutes)

Act One. Invisible Man vs. Hawkman.

John Hodgman conducts an informal survey in which he asks the age-old question: Which is better: The power of flight or the power of invisibility? He finds that how you answer tells a lot about what kind of person you are. And also, no matter which power people choose, they never use it to fight crime. (13 minutes)

Song: " That Man," Peggy Lee

Act Two. Wonder Woman.

Kelly McEvers with the story of Zora, a self-made superhero. From the time she was five, Zora had recurring dreams in which she was a 6'5" warrior queen who could fly and shoot lightning from her hands. She made a list of all the skills she would need to master if she wanted to actually become the superhero she dreamed of being. Sample items: martial arts, evasive driving and bomb diffusion. She actually checked off most things on the list ... and then had a run-in with the CIA. (16 minutes)

Song: " Goldfinger," performed by David Sedaris

Act Three. The Green Team of Boy Millionaires, Beppo The Amazing Supermonkey from Planet Krypton, and The Man from Sram.

Ira talks with Jonathan Morris, the amazingly funny and charming editor of the website Gone and Forgotten, an Internet archive of failed comic book characters. Jonathan explains what makes a new superhero succeed, and what makes him tank. (9 minutes)

Song: " Signal in Sky," The Apples in Stereo

Act Four. The Wonder Twins.

Ira talks with journalist Jason Bleibtreu about Luther and Johnny Htoo, twelve-year-old twins, and the leaders of a rebel army of Burmese separatists called God's Army. Everyone around them, both their own forces and their enemies, believed they possessed superpowers, that they could not be harmed by bullets, that they had the power to command ghost armies. Bleibtrau visited the twins while they were in the jungle and explains why they were so widely believed. (9 minutes)

Song: " Superman," Spouse

Not just men.

Listen to act two about Zora (starts at 20:00 at the audio-link below):

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=178

Originally aired 02.23.2001

        30-second Promo
        Full Episode
        $0.95 Download
        Buy CD

178: Superpowers

We answer the following questions about superpowers: Can superheroes be real people? (No.) Can real people become superheroes? (Maybe.) And which is better: flight or invisibility? (Depends who you ask.)

Prologue.

Host Ira Glass talks to comic artist Chris Ware, who thought about superheroes a lot of the time as a kid. In grade school, Chris drew superheroes, he invented his own character named The Hurricane (not to be confused with Reuben Carter), and he made a superhero costume. Sometimes he wore parts of the costume to school under his regular clothes, which went fine until he realized he would have to change clothes for gym class. Ware's book, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, is also inhabited by a "superhero" of sorts. (6 minutes)

Act One. Invisible Man vs. Hawkman.

John Hodgman conducts an informal survey in which he asks the age-old question: Which is better: The power of flight or the power of invisibility? He finds that how you answer tells a lot about what kind of person you are. And also, no matter which power people choose, they never use it to fight crime. (13 minutes)

Song: " That Man," Peggy Lee

Act Two. Wonder Woman.

Kelly McEvers with the story of Zora, a self-made superhero. From the time she was five, Zora had recurring dreams in which she was a 6'5" warrior queen who could fly and shoot lightning from her hands. She made a list of all the skills she would need to master if she wanted to actually become the superhero she dreamed of being. Sample items: martial arts, evasive driving and bomb diffusion. She actually checked off most things on the list ... and then had a run-in with the CIA. (16 minutes)

Song: " Goldfinger," performed by David Sedaris

Act Three. The Green Team of Boy Millionaires, Beppo The Amazing Supermonkey from Planet Krypton, and The Man from Sram.

Ira talks with Jonathan Morris, the amazingly funny and charming editor of the website Gone and Forgotten, an Internet archive of failed comic book characters. Jonathan explains what makes a new superhero succeed, and what makes him tank. (9 minutes)

Song: " Signal in Sky," The Apples in Stereo

Act Four. The Wonder Twins.

Ira talks with journalist Jason Bleibtreu about Luther and Johnny Htoo, twelve-year-old twins, and the leaders of a rebel army of Burmese separatists called God's Army. Everyone around them, both their own forces and their enemies, believed they possessed superpowers, that they could not be harmed by bullets, that they had the power to command ghost armies. Bleibtrau visited the twins while they were in the jungle and explains why they were so widely believed. (9 minutes)

Song: " Superman," Spouse

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1090

Host Ira Glass describes the thing that we all do at some point: talk expertly about something we don't actually know anything about. It's so common, explains This American Life contributing editor Nancy Updike, that some friends of hers invented an imaginary magazine devoted to such blathering. It's called "Modern Jackass."

NON BIASED Source?

NON BIASED Source?

It's especially true with the INS under DHS under the Bush administration. There is a hard-to-find clause in recent immigration law that grants the INS broad authority to kick a non-citizen out. If a green card candidate is disqualified for a questionable reason (e.g., the candidate was recently married to a citizen, but is now widowed) and fights them, the INS can invoke this trump card, even if a court orders them to let the candidate stay. There is no recourse, no appeal, and no oversight. Because of the rather obvious potential for blatant abuse, the INS so far only uses this when all other avenues are exhausted, and as such has gone unnoticed with the possible exception of public radio.

In a way you're right, this is a good time to buy. But this assumes two principles. First, you do not have to sell your current home to buy a new home. Second, creditors are now being very conservative with their investments, so you have to have impeccable credit, savings and income to get a mortgage these days.

That is also why many economists think this will be a time of very slow growth/recession, because mostly investors will only invest in knowns, safe investments that have guaranteed rates of return. They got overly interested in making easy fast money with mortgage brokering to people that could not maintain the mortgage and now they are gun shy. What this means for innovation is that people will not invest in new technology, or emerging companies, or finance expansion by companies looking to extend into new markets. This extends even into China and India as well because they were also investing in the mortgage markets, right now getting investment is tight world wide, so a lot of companies are loosing out on speculation.

There was a great NPR/This American Life that explained how the housing crisis turned into a global credit crunch that is the root of all the recession claims. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1242

On the first episode of the This American Life tv show they covered the story of what happened when people tried to clone a very docile bull. Let's just say that one of the owners ended up in the hospital after the cloned bull gored him. (This story originally aired on the radio show)

I'm willing to bet that the people who get these cloned pets won't get what they bargained for.

On the first episode of the This American Life tv show they covered the story of what happened when people tried to clone a very docile bull. Let's just say that one of the owners ended up in the hospital after the cloned bull gored him. (This story originally aired on the radio show)

I'm willing to bet that the people who get these cloned pets won't get what they bargained for.

From what I understand, cloned beef is now in the food supply, so they may have advanced their techniques since the show you saw was produced.

First episode, mid-2007:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/TV_Episode.aspx?episode=1

Cloned meat in food supply, early-2008 (Wired says it already is, NPR says it is approved):

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/15-11/ff_clonedmeat
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18137332

Farmer states that progeny of clones are in food supply on this page:

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/15-11/ff_clonedmeat?currentPage=4

For an excellent end-to-end journalistic account of the subprime bubble, I highly recommend the recent This American Life episode:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355

(Unfortunately, link does not contain a podcast, though it does link to a shorter All Things Considered version of the story.)

An hour-long insightful and comprehensive examination from many different angles.

You think that's bad? How about ignoring even seemingly innocuous treaties with Canada—despite being at peace with them for over a century? How about kicking immigrant widows out, and giving the finger to courts that dare say "You can't do that"? It's all about the administration's demonstration of unitary executive power. There are numerous examples of this, but this radio show demonstrates how meticulously it pursues any challenge to the President's, and by extension, the administration's authority—no matter how small.

I say there's a new Godwin's Law. As a discussion's posts increases, the probability that the 2001-2009 George W. Bush administration or 1930s-40s Germany gets mentioned approaches 1.

All that money must be what allowed our (Der) Homeland Security to stage all those phony ops - against Scott Ritter, against all those so-called "terrorists" (of Libery City, Miami, and elsewhere).

This post is meant as supportive of DocRuby's primo post. Best way to critique the CIA - read, compare and contrast the book written by yet another submediocrity hired by the CIA (Class II), against the episode from This American Life (2.23.2001) concerning Zora, a CIA applicant who was super-qualifed, but was, of course, turned down for the job.

Somewhat snarky (or sick) as this sounds I think you are right. The one true advantage that a suicide bomber confers is actually not the cheapness but the use of a human at all. As much as we may tend to hear them described as terrorists, etc. the simple fact of the matter is that most sucide bombers are anything but true believers but the misled, the misguided or the depressed.

But however much their personal reasons vary the fact that they are willing to blow themselves up sends a clear, and direct message. When the lives of a people are so bad that they can be found willing to kill themselves then what does that say? Put another way, when the people a government "serves" are so willing to die then no illusion of happiness can be maintained. And people, unlike robots can go where people go, cafes resteraunts, etc. They can look like anyone, be like anyone thus engendering the paranoia that destroys a civilization.

Look at Israel. The goal of suicide bombers there has been to make people afraid to go out, afraid to shop, afraid to sit in a cafe. Afraid, period to trust that the person next to them won't explode in a shower of nails at any moment. Not being an israeli I can't say how pervasive the fear is but my impression is that it is nonegligeable. Similar things could easily be said of Iraq where the prospect is that the neighbor might kill you for being a member of the wrong tribe or sect.

Until a robot offers gains at a comparatively cheap price they won't be chosen by "terrorists". Wealthier governments may prefer them but to what end? The laws of war (yes they exist) and the logic of war assumes human decisionmaking, an automatic robot seems more like a landmine, something that would kill "impersonally" and, like landmines seems likely to be one of those things that may do as much harm to the ones who deploy it as their "enemies" (let alone civilians) and will last long after the conflict in which it 'served'.

This American Life, is a PRI radio show that you can listen to online. They ran a good piece called "Know Your Enemy" that featured a meeting between a would-be suicide bomber and the Israeli minister of defense. The interview is enlightening both for the characteristics of the bomber and the process by which such suicide bombers are produced.

Here is a link to the "Habeus Schmaebeus" podcast: http://podcast.thisamericanlife.org/special/310_bonus.mp3 Listen to this and tell me you still believe all of the gitmo detainees are a threat to our country.

Try listening to this program. Chase down the Seton Hall studies too. They're good reading. I highly recommend "A profile of 517 Detainees through Department of Defense Data" for a high level overview.

I know this because I was a soldier myself. Regardless of what you hear in the media, the military does not like to waste resources. Wasting money is bad. It will get you in trouble. Wasting some other's soldier's time is a HUGE No-No!

Wasting someone's time who is not really military that belongs to some organization with three initials like CIA or NSA.... well, you just don't do that.

> There is the Lancet source.

For more information the NPR program This American Life did an episode called "What's in a Number?," which was on The Lancelet study and the methodology of how they did their estimate. Very fascinating to listen to if anyone is interested in statistics and how this kind of work is done.

> There is the Lancet source.

For more information the NPR program This American Life did an episode called "What's in a Number?," which was on The Lancelet study and the methodology of how they did their estimate. Very fascinating to listen to if anyone is interested in statistics and how this kind of work is done.

I see this claimed all over the place by people who have some problem with Guantanamo, but I haven't seen where the evidence for this comes from. These people are given hearings to determine their status, and tribunals to determine their guilt or innocence, and without evidence, they are not found guilty. The charges against them are specific, and I read many of them online a while back. None of the charges read "some guy said he belonged to Al Qaeda." Yes, some were brought there without sufficient evidence... and were subsequently released. Doesn't that mean that the tribunals are working properly?

This just makes me think of David Sedaris' essay "Six to Eight Black Men", where he comments (briefly) on this phenomenon in Michigan. The essay can be read here, but really it's better listened to (Episode 201, Act 2) - for whatever reason, his writing is always experienced better when read by him.

I really doubt your profession had anything to do with it. It may not be time to give up yet, though, Frank. If you are interested, there is lots of scientific research about how to make a happy marriage or long term relationship. If you want to geek out on the topic of divorce, geek out by looking into how to avoid them -- possibly this one, definitely any future ones. If you have a kid with this woman, you can't really divorce her anyway. You can divorce her legally, but your kid will always force you to have interaction with her, consider her when making major life decisions, and so on. You can begin the geeking out by listening to the 3/26/04 episode of This American Life. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/ You might also check out the book Divorce Busters by Michelle Weiner Davis, which is based on many of the ideas that reasearcher talked about, and actually saved the marriage of a couple I know -- the gentleman had already moved out in this case. They've been back together for a couple of years now. (That book is actually good for anyone -- even if you're not on the brink of divorce, and even if you're not actually allowed by the stupid government to get legally married. I wish it had a less scary title so I could give copies to people as a wedding/commitment ceremony gift.) Good luck, Frank.

Reminds me of the This American Life episode, Spies Like Us. Check out act 1, the lobby channel.

-Grey

The list of people held that have nothing to do with the fighting is absurdly large. There is a comedy writer that was held because of a parody cartoon he wrote. Many people are held simply based on rumors and anonymous tips. Two people that are members of an obscure chinese religion are being held even though they have been found perfectly safe because the government claims they have no where to release them to, when there is a large population of that religious sect in Florida.

http://thisamericanlife.org/pages/descriptions/06/ 310.html

A good, non-inflamatory, report of what is actually going on in Guantanamo and why it is un-American.

If you want to know why so many things are secrets now, listen to this week's edition of This American Life, entitled "Habeus Schmabeus".

It's brilliant radio--interviews with former Gitmo detainees included--presenting evidence that most of the people apprehended and fucked over by the US government are guilty of absolutely nothing, and are being held, still...because if their stories were widely known, even the 1/3 of Americans who still love their Bush would be utterly appalled at what The Land of the Free has turned into under this bastard.

It's secret, and they're imprisoned, to save his face and save him some shame. The local laws are just the same crap on a less horrific scale.

One section of the book-- "Secrets of the Mall of America"-- was read by the author as part of the September 23 edition of the public radio show "This American Life". The show is in their online archives for this year. Or you can go directly to the stream of the show.. Hodgman's part begins around 45 minutes into the show.

One section of the book-- "Secrets of the Mall of America"-- was read by the author as part of the September 23 edition of the public radio show "This American Life". The show is in their online archives for this year. Or you can go directly to the stream of the show.. Hodgman's part begins around 45 minutes into the show.

I like many of the PBS radio programs, but it's frustrating that (IMHO) their best show - This American Life - is not podcastable. Boo.

The blame for the events that created the situation in which Katrina could wreak so much havoc goes everywhere, and most probably a helluva lot to the state and local level.

But the blame for the response to the disaster once it occurred most definitely goes to FEMA and the dept of Homeland Security specifically, and to the federal gov'ment in general.

There's an episode of This American Life (transcript pdf) where Ira points out that the president had already signed an order declaring those areas that would be affected by the hurricane as a disaster area even before the storm hit.

The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing.

The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the parishes of Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Bienville, Bossier, Caddo, Caldwell, Claiborne, Catahoula, Concordia, De Soto, East Baton Rouge, East Carroll, East Feliciana, Evangeline, Franklin, Grant, Jackson, LaSalle, Lincoln, Livingston, Madison, Morehouse, Natchitoches, Pointe Coupee, Ouachita, Rapides, Red River, Richland, Sabine, St. Helena, St. Landry, Tensas, Union, Vernon, Webster, West Carroll, West Feliciana, and Winn.

Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Debris removal and emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent Federal funding. -- from the Office of the Press Secretary

At that time, there should have been no more question about who was in charge, but apparently there still was. Apparently many members of FEMA were, for some reason or another, sitting on their hands and waiting for specific local persons and agencies to ask for help. This is a little naive when one considers that the level of devastation obliterated virtually all means of communication in the areas hardest hit.

In fact, it's so clear that the federal government really was responsible for the vast overwhelming lionshare of failures in the aftermath of Katrina that Mr. Bush did, eventually, I believe make some statement along the lines of an apology--something more than his initial mild statement of, "the response was inadequate".

The blame for the events that created the situation in which Katrina could wreak so much havoc goes everywhere, and most probably a helluva lot to the state and local level.

But the blame for the response to the disaster once it occurred most definitely goes to FEMA and the dept of Homeland Security specifically, and to the federal gov'ment in general.

There's an episode of This American Life (transcript pdf) where Ira points out that the president had already signed an order declaring those areas that would be affected by the hurricane as a disaster area even before the storm hit.

The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing.

The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the parishes of Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Bienville, Bossier, Caddo, Caldwell, Claiborne, Catahoula, Concordia, De Soto, East Baton Rouge, East Carroll, East Feliciana, Evangeline, Franklin, Grant, Jackson, LaSalle, Lincoln, Livingston, Madison, Morehouse, Natchitoches, Pointe Coupee, Ouachita, Rapides, Red River, Richland, Sabine, St. Helena, St. Landry, Tensas, Union, Vernon, Webster, West Carroll, West Feliciana, and Winn.

Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Debris removal and emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent Federal funding. -- from the Office of the Press Secretary

At that time, there should have been no more question about who was in charge, but apparently there still was. Apparently many members of FEMA were, for some reason or another, sitting on their hands and waiting for specific local persons and agencies to ask for help. This is a little naive when one considers that the level of devastation obliterated virtually all means of communication in the areas hardest hit.

In fact, it's so clear that the federal government really was responsible for the vast overwhelming lionshare of failures in the aftermath of Katrina that Mr. Bush did, eventually, I believe make some statement along the lines of an apology--something more than his initial mild statement of, "the response was inadequate".

One of my favortite This American Life stories is Lost in Translation (5/30/2003, Episode 238), in which:

Act One. The Chasm Between Comedy and Music. Why is it that karaoke machines only have songs on them? If what they do is take a version of a public performance and allow the rest of us to give our own interpretations of the material, why aren't there other options, like the "you talkin to me?" scene from Taxi Driver, or Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Jonathan Goldstein and producer Starlee Kine find out why, when they go to a karaoke club that has, along with all the songs, comedy routines for people to perform. (11 minutes)


It's freakin' brilliant, with Jonathan Goldstein innocently picking a routine from the early 90's which happened to contain jokes about the first Iraq war and how incompetent Iraq is. Unfortunaetly, this was delivered just after bodies started coming home during the current fiasco. Also, I think there's some joke about Mike Tyson, but, of course, that was a little touchy, too, having just gone through the rape proceedings.

Good stuff.

I saw this yesterday from the Car Talk article. I installed it on my home Windows 2000 machine last night and listened to three hours of This American Life

Man, it's really great software!

Think about it - when was the last time you actually *looked forward* to something on the radio?

Every. Damn. Week. So many of This American Life's shows have just been completely superb, it's by far my favorite running show of any genre or any medium. Funny. Sad. Uplifting. Depressing. Unforgettable.

Car Talk is great too, but the main emotional appeal there is "side-splittingly funny". Not that there's anything wrong with that, but TAL can do that when they feel like it, and they branch off in lots of other directions too. (They do get points for the very useful website though -- need to find a reputable mechanic in your area?). (Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is also very funny, but smug -- sometimes charmingly, sometimes smarmily -- and with humor that will mostly go stale in well under a week. Still worth listening to though.)

So there's good stuff on the radio -- just not on the commercial stations. And I don't know of any show anywhere that's even half as impressive as TAL has more or less consistently been for the past seven years or so.

And when was the lst time on TV?

...okay, you've got me there. Is anything on PBS as good as the stuff NPR/PRI has been doing? There's NOVA, and "Masterpiece Theatre", and lots of kids shows, but beyond that I'm not aware of what they're offering, and none of it wins me over the way TAL has.

Think about it - when was the last time you actually *looked forward* to something on the radio?

Every. Damn. Week. So many of This American Life's shows have just been completely superb, it's by far my favorite running show of any genre or any medium. Funny. Sad. Uplifting. Depressing. Unforgettable.

Car Talk is great too, but the main emotional appeal there is "side-splittingly funny". Not that there's anything wrong with that, but TAL can do that when they feel like it, and they branch off in lots of other directions too. (They do get points for the very useful website though -- need to find a reputable mechanic in your area?). (Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is also very funny, but smug -- sometimes charmingly, sometimes smarmily -- and with humor that will mostly go stale in well under a week. Still worth listening to though.)

So there's good stuff on the radio -- just not on the commercial stations. And I don't know of any show anywhere that's even half as impressive as TAL has more or less consistently been for the past seven years or so.

And when was the lst time on TV?

...okay, you've got me there. Is anything on PBS as good as the stuff NPR/PRI has been doing? There's NOVA, and "Masterpiece Theatre", and lots of kids shows, but beyond that I'm not aware of what they're offering, and none of it wins me over the way TAL has.

Sarah Vowell did a piece a few weeks back on This American Life about the whole sordid history of The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Give it a listen

On the radio show This American Life, a segment described how police used the case summary of an FBI profiler as a template for a forced confession. Under pressure to find the killer(s), police used intimidation and duress to coax a suspect to sign a false confession, the conviction since overturned by DNA evidence. The suspect, unaware of case particulars, was given a confession to sign lifted verbatim from an FBI profiler's report. The police used a best guess of how the crime occurred based on the evidence to frame a patsy.

In the not distant future with Total Information Awareness, it will be trivial to find a patsy for any crime. The person murdered attended the same university and you shared a class or two (enrollment database). You enjoy violence and murder (video store database). The murder occured a mile away and within 30 minutes of when you filled up your car at the gas station (credit card database). We have established relationship, motif, and opportunity.

My point is that extremely causal data will be used to make relationships where none exist and to support conclusions which no hard data supports. It will become trivial to gather a group of suspects for any crime, none of which have anything to do with it.

The databases will be used to get tough on crime, which was a euphemism in the 80's for put pressure on police and courts to find a patsy and put them away to make us politically significant. The wave of released prisoners based on evaluation of DNA evidence in recent years is proof of this.

Are you a terrorist? I bet if we look at the proper data points we can make anyone look like one...