Rocketrek Starts!

John writes from Oklahoma City:

Hey Marc,

The first Native American astronaut, John Herrington, will begin his transcontinental bicycle tour this coming week. His plans changed from earlier this year when he had thought he would begin in Sacramento. Now he will be starting at the west end of the Olympic Peninsula and following a roughly diagonal route across the lower 48 to Cape Canaveral. Along the way he will be speaking at to school groups, many on reservations throughout the western states.

We're pretty excited about this. We, along with the Chickasaw Nation, Trek Bicycles and GearUp South Dakota (a program to encourage high school students on reservations to go on to college and take science and math courses--so far it has had a 100% success rate in getting the kids to go to college!) are sponsors of the ride. You can get more information about the trip at rocketrek.com. He will be posting daily updates during the ~3 month tour. Also, you can read a summary of the trip plans at city-sentinel.com. Peter, my son, wrote the article for that weekly Oklahoma City paper.

More Treachery?

McCain is accusing Obama of being the Kremlin's tool for exposing McCain's lobbying connections to Georgia. The shooting war between the two antagonists certainly amps up the attention these connections will get. If McCain hadn't already been bought and paid for, his accusations might have bite.

A Canadian Opinion

Of the housing mess:

IT WAS the extreme greediness of privileged Americans that caused hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens to lose their homes, undermined the economies of not only the U.S., but of nations around the world, and sabotaged the stock-market investments of heaven only knows how many million grey-haired pensioners like me.

...In the case for the prosecution, let us present, as Exhibit A, two government-chartered, U.S. companies: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

They own or guarantee nearly half of America’s $12 trillion worth of home mortgages, and fears that the devastation in the mortgage industry had rendered them unstable and undercapitalized recently sent their stock market prices into a dive that horrified their shareholders.

Moreover, the bad news sharply eroded the value of bank shares, including the Canadian ones in my modest retirement fund. Since not only American banks but the central banks of many nations held billions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities that Fannie or Freddie had issued or guaranteed, a collapse in the value of these securities may yet have disastrous consequences for the entire world economy.

It’s now clear that federal politicians in the U.S. have long been insanely permissive about the way Fannie and Freddie went about their business.

Why? The politicians joined the club of greed.

"In Washington," the New York Times reports, "Fannie and Freddie’s sprawling lobbying machine hired family and friends of politicians in their efforts to quickly sideline any regulations that might slow their growth or invite greater oversight of their business practices."

The lobby made sure that Fannie and Freddie would not have to meet the same financial standards or endure the same tax burdens as their competitors, and that government guarantees would stick the taxpayers for any losses they incurred. The companies did not offer home loans. Instead, they bought mortgages from banks, and accepted the risk of defaults. This allowed the banks to issue more and more mortgages.

With the assistance of campaign contributions and muscular lobbying, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac got together with lawmakers in Washington, brokerages and investment banks on Wall Street, and real estate agents all over the U.S. to build what the New York Times called "an unusual and mutually beneficial co-dependency."

...Jonathan Kopell of the Yale School of Management explained that the two mortgage titans gave money to nonprofit activist groups, and thereby made it hard for such groups to criticize them.

"Likewise, there was another set of entities, essentially a huge industry, that profits from every additional loan that Fannie or Freddie can buy," he continued. "The more loans they purchase, the more business there is for them, and so they’re willing to work with the enterprises."

As a tsunami of foreclosures swept across America, home prices declined, and so did the mortgage assets of Fannie and Freddie.

A lot of Americans, however, had grown rich while busily involving themselves in the racket of issuing mortgages to a whole lot of other Americans who could not afford them.

..."It seems to me we’ve seen enough evidence over the years that the capitalist system is not going to be destroyed by an outside challenger like communism," the late Molly Ivins wrote on the AlterNet website. "It will be destroyed by its own internal greed. Greed is the greatest danger as we develop an increasingly winner-take-all system."

"It’s dispiriting indeed to watch the U.S. financial system, supposedly the envy of the world, being taken to its knees," Gretchen Morgenson recently wrote in the International Herald Tribune.

"But that’s the show we’re watching, brought to you by somnambulant regulators, greedy bank executives and incompetent corporate directors. This wasn’t the way the ‘ownership society’ was supposed to work."

When greed’s in charge, no society works.

Wow!

The Olympic Opening Ceremony was just amazing!

Strange Work Ritual

T.C. turns 50.

National Enquirer Shoots; It Scores

Lots of disappointment today in the left blogosphere with John Edwards. Elizabeth Edwards is just as popular as he is, if not more so, and people are angry on her behalf.

I still like the guy, though. I hope he ends up in the next Administration somewhere.

Hippies

So whassup with Steve Pearce's congressional campaign in New Mexico? He's worried about hippies:

With Phish gone, Jerry Garcia dead and Woodstock nearing its 40th anniversary, I think we can all admit that hippies are no longer here (though their... particular love of a certain plant is well in place, as one can see from Seth Rogen and James Franco's newest movie).

Well, except for in the deluded minds that are behind the advertisements at the Steve Pearce campaign. If you saw the Albuquerque Journal the other day (hell, for all I know, today as well), then you saw an ad where hippies holding signs showing "radical" positions.

Hmmm.... Hippies.

Ahh, Bernalillo, New Mexico, during the hot summer of 1978 - 30 years ago! I remember sitting in my grandmother's mobile home on a stifling hot summer's day and listening to my dad and Gramita (my grandmother) discussing hippies:

Dad: I think I saw some hippies at the store.
Gramita: I saw some hippies last week.
Dad: Ooooh, hippies!

I thought the conversation strange, because I had hardly seen any hippies for years - since, say, 1972? They weren't very common by 1978 - almost vanishingly rare, like whooping cranes.

Thirty years later, it's safe to say, hippies are essentially gone. Yet Steve Pearce bases his campaign on a fear of hippies.

Tick, tick, tick: Time moves on.... It had moved on by 1978. How much more so today?

Hell Hath No Fury

Like a White House aide scorned:

Bradley Blakeman, a former aide to President George W. Bush, claims in a lawsuit filed Thursday that the comedy flick starring Kevin Costner and Kelsey Grammer rips off his own version of the story, titled "Go November."

Blakeman is seeking unspecified "monetary and other appropriate relief" from the Hollywood stars and the backers of "Swing Vote," including the Walt Disney Company.

The complaint, filed in Long Island, New York, alleges that Blakeman in 2006 gave Grammer a copyrighted script of his idea which bears a "striking resemblance" to the movie released this August by Disney's Touchstone Pictures.

..."Go November," the law suit says, has an "extraordinarily similar" plot, with several identical characters, and also foreseeing Grammer playing the same role of incumbent president.

SN&R Flips Over "bare"

Kel Munger gives a glowing review here:

Artistic Differences has assembled a cast made up of the best and brightest of the area’s young musical actors. That makes this production reminiscent of last summer’s Hair in all the finest ways: dynamic voices, a lot of humor, a heart that won’t ignore injustice. As the star-crossed leads, Lucas Blair (Peter) and Ian Cullity (Jason) are in impeccable voice. Blair has the good-hearted, earnest-kid vibe down; and Cullity makes Jason’s emotional wavering both frustrating and true. Kelly Daniells, the company’s managing director, turns in a heart-rending performance as Ivy, a true victim of love. Maggie Hollinbeck does a great deal with a small role, mingling grace with pain as Peter’s disappointed but loving mother—and Hollenbeck’s duet with Blair in “See Me” will break the heart of anyone who’s had to come out to a beloved parent as well as any parent who’s had to listen.

But the scene stealers are Jason’s misfit sister, Nadia (Joelle Wirth), with a “good girl wrapped in a bad girl” attitude that puts Stockard Channing’s old Rizzo role in Grease to shame, and Sister Chantelle (Natasha Greer), who manages to channel Diana Ross, Oprah and Madea—sometimes in the same scene. Joshua James (Lucas) does what he does best—stir things up with a rousing dance number, as he did so well in Cabaret earlier this year at Runaway Stage—in “Wonderland,” a paean to the joys of the rave that precedes a dance scene set in one of the underground parties (and is very reminiscent, in a 21st-century way, of Hair’s acid trip).

Once again, Artistic Differences will have people lining up next to the light-rail tracks for the show of the summer.

Behind The Eight Ball

Today is 08/08/08!

Is that lucky?

Meet The Boss

Making bad choices in Vegas:

Casino mogul Steve Wynn was slapped in the face at his hotel during a recent run-in with two sisters with a history of prostitution, Las Vegas police said.

The incident unfolded about 9:30 p.m. July 25 at the V.I.P. valet parking area of Wynn Las Vegas, according to a police report.

As Wynn headed for the doors, Sarah Cournede stepped out from a small crowd and propositioned him, the report said. Wynn put his arm around the woman and continued toward the doors, where he told a door man to summon security, the report said.

Wynn held onto Cournede as she struggled to escape, and her sister, Maria Cournede, eventually joined the fray and tried to pull her sister away, the report said. During the struggle, Maria Cournede slapped Wynn in the face, the report said.

Australian Weather Forecast

For the next week at least, drier than a mummy's medicine cabinet.

Gentle Little People

This is why I moved from N.M. - they're hiding behind furniture everywhere in the Rio Grande Valley:

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- For more than a year, speculation, rumors and mystery have surrounded the former leader of the Gallup Catholic Diocese, in Albuquerque, N.M.

Last July, Bishop Donald Pelotte sustained multiple injuries in his home. He said he fell down a flight of stairs, but a mysterious 911 call from Pelotte is casting doubt on his claim -- so are his injuries.

...And adding more mystery to his injuries was a bizarre call to 911.

A dispatch log from September details Gallup police were called to the bishop's home after he told operators "gentle little people about 3 to 4 feet tall wearing Halloween masks" were in his home.

"Can you tell me what happened?" the dispatcher asked.

"They're just moving. They've been quiet. They've been going upstairs in the bedrooms and hiding behind the artifacts. But they don't talk," said Pelotte, adding that they were wearing masks.

"What kind of masks do they have?" asked the dispatcher.

"Ma'am, I don't have the time to tell you. You'll see it for yourself. Please send somebody over here," said Pelotte.

He then told the dispatcher that the little people were gentle, but that he was going to hide in his bedroom.

In April, Pope Benedict XVI accepted the bishop's resignation. The bishop has been living in Florida.

Just Too Ambitious For One CD

Former White House speechwriter Mark W. Davis finds the Republicans to be tone deaf in trying to link the vigorous appeal of Teddy Roosevelt (John McCain's hero), and the world of early-20th Century Republicanism, to today's world. Referring to today's youth:

So how are Republicans reaching out to them?

I have on my desk a CD sent out this spring from the Republican House Policy Committee. Fat, 1970s lettering bears the title, "Freedom Songs." The cover image of the CD package is a sepia-tone photo of Teddy Roosevelt.

Open it up and you are treated to photos of Warren G. Harding staring into the horn of a crank phonograph, Herbert Hoover listening to a wireless, and a glum-looking Calvin Coolidge simply glowering at a camera. In an accompanying letter, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan writes that the CD includes "riffs by Dr. Russell Kirk," as well as "the pounding rhythm section of the Austrian School of Economics."

So while the Obama Democrats transform America's youth into a Facebook army, the Republican Party is offering this disc, Mr. McCotter writes, "as an alternative to an eighty story high stack of dry white policy papers."

Did I forget to mention it can also be podcast?

To The Last Second, Shoveling Them Out The Door

Just like we puzzle over the Dutch tulip bubble, people in the future will marvel at the subprime crisis:

Mortgages issued in the first part of 2007 are going bad at a pace that far outstrips the 2006 vintage, suggesting that the blow to the financial system from U.S. housing woes will be deeper than many people earlier estimated.

...Evidence that lax lending standards were leading to higher mortgage delinquencies first emerged in late 2006. The first major casualty of the subprime credit crisis, New Century Financial Corp., imploded in early 2007. Yet the data from the FDIC and others suggest that lenders didn't substantially tighten standards until at least July or August 2007, when credit jitters hit Wall Street and financial stocks began to swoon.

...Last month, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. said it expects losses on prime mortgages that weren't securitized and remain on its books to triple from current levels. The increase in bad loans is driven mostly by jumbo mortgages originated in the second half of 2007, a company spokesman said.

Until these bad loans are fully digested, "foreclosures will remain at record highs, the financial system will be under severe stress and the broader economy will sputter," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com.

...Questionable business practices may have played a role, too. Some of the 2007 loans "were knowingly originated as really bad loans," says Chris Mayer, a professor of real estate at Columbia University's business school. Mortgage originators who profited handsomely from the housing boom "realized the game was completely over" and pushed mortgages out the door, says Mr. Mayer.

Mystery Man

Walking Sparky last night, I stopped to read SN&R under a street lamp. Things were quiet, calm.

I focused over the newsprint and suddenly noticed a pair of tennis shoes catching the light in the jet black darkness. Odd. Then I realized they were attached to legs. Suddenly I realized there was a dark-skinned man in dark clothing standing quietly just a few feet away. He was fishing out a cigarette with one hand and he held a beer bottle with the other. He didn't say a thing, but nodded and quietly started walking away.

Ever-confused, Sparky decided to follow him. The man leaned down and petted Sparky until Sparky was satisfied. Then without a word, the man stood upright and quietly vanished into the night.

The Left Blogosphere Is All A'Twitter

Happy with Paris today. Some of their comments just slay me:

* Gandalf
To pile on Matt's post below, it appears McCain made a major miscalculation with his celebrity attack ad. Hilton's response is now the top story on Google News, and apparently the McCain campaign is receiving so many media requests about it, that they had to post a from response on their website. They have gotten into a spat with Paris Hilton, which there is basically no way to win. Hilton has nothing to lose, and the back and forth just highlights the frivolic idiocy of McCain's recent attacks.

It feels really weird to say it, but Paris Hilton kind of feels like Gandalf returning to Middle Earth, "at the turn of the tide." Her age-based attacks on McCain are even in line with Obama's new ad that opens with a line that could be interpreted as a shot at McCain's age. McCain is going to be on the defensive now, even though he started the attack in the first place. Obama's "proud to be ignorant" line is getting a lot of play, too.

Paris Hilton is playing a not insignificant role in the presidential election. Who'd have thunk it? Man, politics is weird.


* As much as I tend to hate her and her ilk...
....you just don't fuck with Paris Hilton.

What did he think, she would be too busy to respond? Did he think she would just pass up a chance to be in the spotlight? Did he think her family, with its famous name, would just stand by while McCain trashed them?

"Don't hate the media, become the media" -Jello Biafra


* It's more than a little funny that Paris Hilton's response ad could just be the definitive turning point in the campaign. It is just so bad for McCain on so many levels.
"He's the oldest celebrity in the world"? That line alone was enough.

First her mom calls McCain's ad "completely frivolous", and then Paris does this.

Well, poetic justice is about the only kind we've got left these days, but this alone seems to say we've got enough to get by.


* Every time the gray-hairs tangle with pop culture, they lose, because pop culture just doesn't quit.
This is definitive proof that McCain learned nothing from the fall of Communism. He no doubt still thinks it was all Reagan's doing, and had nothing to do with jazz, Levis and rock 'n roll.


* As someone over at dKos put it:
Say what you want about Paris Hilton, she gets paid to go to parties. Try arranging that for yourself sometime.


* Oldest Celebrity in the World
Adding to the poetic justice, this puts his age at the forefront without any way to claim Obama's campaign is somewhat responsible for playing the age card. Paris said everything the campaign couldn't, and leaves McCain in a box, for he can't pin responsibility on Obama (and thus find a way to be portrayed the victim of this series of event) nor can he escalate the debate with Paris (who relishes the media spotlight and has nothing to lose in this debate).

Even sweeter poetic justice still, now it is McCain who is associated with Paris Hilton, giving Sen. Obama the ability to frame the contrast as he did today - "Instead of running ads about Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, they should be talking to energy experts and make a difference" - thus making the choice between more GOP nonsense or common sense.

And now that McCain has responded to the Hilton ad saying Paris agrees with McCain's energy policy, could it not be called the McCain/Paris energy plan? Can Paris now be labeled McCain's energy advisor?

There is enough snark to last for days, and you can bet that John McCain's outrage that his clever ad bite back so hard will compel him to compound the error before it's all said and done.


* Amen to all the above.
The only thing McCain has to be thankful for is that takes some attention away from his pimping out his wife at the Buffalo Chip beauty contest.

Or, come to think of it, does it just encourage whoever won that contest to seek her own 15 minutes of fame?

Once again, Paris Hilton could only win from that development, and McCain could only lose.


* its interesting as hell.
All day long I was thinking that the Obama advertising campaign wasn't interesting enough, and how we needed to bring back the 527's.

Well, this ad is interesting and it didn't come from the Obama campaign.

The one thing no political candidate can survive is ridicule. And McCain has just been roasted.

This may very well be a significant event in the campaign.

1.2 million views as of this writing. And wait until people hear about it on the radio tomorrow morning, and get to the office and check it out....

This is going to be the definition of viral.


* the world of celebrities
has become so important and powerful in our culture, that it's now butting up against the presumably far more powerful world of politics.
Absolutely surreal. The only thing that could possibly top this is if McCain showed up on an episode of American Gladiators to face off with Wolf in the Joust.

I really do want to see a McCain vs. Hilton debate. She would cream him.

(As an aside: why hasn't anyone pointed out that Paris Hilton can't run for president? She's under 35).


* As an aside...
It appears that Obama's response on the tire gauge is having an effect too, as McCain has had to concede that he AGREES with Obama.

Yeah, think they're still going to be passing around those tire gauges with such glee?

How about an ad highlighting all the positions McCain has had to switch to Obama's viewpoint? Ie, Iraq, tire gauge, and now soon (because of Paris Hilton), Obama's energy policy compromise.

The theme? "Obama leads while McCain follows."



* Yeah, I saw that climbdown as well
Total, 100% capitulation. Remarkably stupid stuff from McCain to have started a food fight over that specific point. Now he looks dumb, for having brought it up in the first place, AND leaves a lot of frustrated supporters behind by totally hanging them out to dry.


* Wow great video
Paris delivered that policy section perfectly. She sounds lucid and smart, and seems to have an amazing sense of humor by prefacing it by pretending to be her stereotypical bimbo character. I think she not only just p0wned McCain, but her critics too.

I bet McCain enjoyed being called older than dirt to his face. Awesome. I hope Obama sends her a thank you card, she earned one.


* My Dad Likes To Say
That Paris is stupid like a fox, and while we laugh at her she's laughing all the way to the bank. Looks like he was right; I'll have to tell him about this.


* Not all blondes are stupid...
I've seen Paris Hilton on the late-night talk shows and she's clearly not a dumb blond. That's just male sexism. Although there are exceptions, women don't get to be A-list celebrities without having at least average intelligence.


Though You Probably Still Could Drown Her
By throwing a mirror into the swimming pool.

MoDo, And The Mockery Campaign

The unseemly evolution of the 2008 Presidential campaign has led right into Maureen Dowd's bailiwick - snarkville. And she's up to the challenge. A selection:

Now John McCain is pea-green with envy. That’s the only explanation for why a man who prides himself on honor, a man who vowed not to take the low road in the campaign, having been mugged by W. and Rove in South Carolina in 2000, is engaging in a festival of juvenilia.

The Arizona senator who built his reputation on being a brave proponent of big solutions is running a schoolyard campaign about tire gauges and Paris Hilton, childishly accusing his opponent of being too serious, too popular and not patriotic enough.

Even his own mother, the magical 96-year-old Roberta McCain, let slip that she thought the Paris Hilton-Britney Spears ad was “kinda stupid.”

McCain’s 2000 strategist, John Weaver, was equally blunt with Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter: “It’s hard to imagine America responding to ‘small ball’ when we have all these problems.”

Some of McCain’s old pals in the Senate are cringing at what they see as his soulless transformation into what he once scorned.

“John’s eaten up with envy,” said one. “His image of himself was always the handsome, celebrity flyboy.

“Now somebody else is the celebrity,” the colleague continued, while John looks in the mirror and sees his face marred by skin cancer and looks at the TV and sees his dashing self-image replaced by visions of William Frawley, with Letterman jokes about his membership in the ham radio club and adventures with wagon trains.

For McCain, being cool meant being a rogue, not a policy wonk; but Obama manages to be a cool College Bowl type, which must irk McCain, who liked to play up his bad-boy cool. Now the guy in the back of the class is shooting spitballs at the class pet and is coming off as more juvenile than daring.

Around the McCain campaign, they grouse that Obama “hasn’t bled.” He hasn’t bled literally, in military service, just like W., the last holder of an E-ZPass who sped past McCain. And he hasn’t paid his dues in the Senate, since he basically just stopped by for directions to the Oval Office.

As a new senator, Obama was not only precocious enough to pounce on turf that McCain had invested years in, such as campaign finance lobbying, ethics reform and earmarks. When Obama did reach across the aisle for a mentor, it was to the staid Richard Lugar of Indiana, not to the salty Republican of choice for Democrats, McCain.

When the Illinois freshman took back a private promise to join McCain’s campaign finance reform effort, McCain told his aide Mark Salter to “brush him back.” Salter sent an over-the-top vituperative letter to Obama. “I guess I beaned him instead,” Salter told Newsweek’s Howard Fineman.

McCain could dismiss W. as a lightweight, but he knows Obama’s smart. Obama wrote his own books, while McCain’s were written by Salter. McCain knows he’s the affirmative action scion of admirals who might not have gotten through Annapolis without being a legacy. Obama didn’t even tell Harvard Law School that he was black on his application.

Redneck Stonehenge

A man's home is his castle:

HOOPER, Utah — A farmer has erected a fence in his backyard made of three old cars sticking up in the air to send a message to new neighbors that he can do whatever he wants on his farm.

"This is just a fun way for me to say, 'Hey boys, I'm still here,'" said Rhett Davis. "This is my redneck Stonehenge."

Meet Our Cats

Hands-on, as they say:

Three tigers attacked a 16-year-old employee at Branson Interactive Zoo and Aquarium, formerly known as Predator World, early Monday afternoon.