Katielou
I agree, the M-E would be the most difficult item on Barack’s list of ‘things to do’. If he can somehow bring the ordinary Israeli people into the equation (most are prepared to give up land for peace), as a way of weakening the power of the rabid Zionist groups he has to deal with at home and elsewhere. These don’t represent Israeli opinion at all. For that matter, the Israeli government usually doesn’t seem to represent Israeli opinion on that issue either!
Thank you JV!!
That’s what I meant to say but just wasn’t up to it.
A bit like Ponting as captain. ๐
Little wonder there are no spectators at the match and no free to air coverage of the Indian tour in Oz.
Bloody awful cricket and time for some heads to roll.
paddy
Do you think the Indian bookmakers might have got to Punter? I can’t think of any other explanation. ๐
287 DG
While Rasmussen was very good on the national average, he was pretty damn ordinary on the states. I remember reading where he got nearly all the swing states wrong by a fair margin.
289 KL
I’m pretty leery of Fareed Zakaria. CNN are bunking him up as a shining new star but really he is just another mouthpiece for the Old n Powerful.
You need a “pedigree” to disseminate news on CNN as an anchor lol
Wolf Blitzer – Former longtime AIPAC employee.
Anderson Cooper – Former CIA.
Fareed Zakariah – Council of Foreign Relations.
They have all been well schooled on the “appropriate” line of thought.
Still, it’s better than the batshit crazy neocons and theocrats on Faux News i suppose.
303
jv
LOL
Judging by the state of the Indian economy. I doubt even the bookies have enough to get at anyone. ๐
So faster bowlers bowl slower over rates?… and slower bowlers bowl faster over rates?
306
Spammy
By jove, I think he’s got it! ๐
Indeed spammy.
Faster bowlers have much longer runups.
Spinners take just a few steps. = less time between deliveries.
Bloody good article here by George Packer on the future ahead for Obama.
The New Liberalism
How the economic crisis can help Obama redefine the Democrats.
It makes what passes for political analysis in this country, all look a bit trite and trivial. ๐
HarryH,
They got Colorado, Ohio and Indiana wrong by 4, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia by 2 and Missouri wrong by 1. That does not seem to be too bad to me. I do not know how it compares with other polling, though. All were within margin of error. If you get that close, then getting it precisely right is a matter of luck.
They were wrong in Pennsylvannia by six, however, which while still within margin of error is at the extremes.
Nevada looks like their worst in the swing states – that was outside the margin of error.
307 – ha! ๐
That bit has been bugging the shit out of me all day – thanks ๐
On to the US… I note lot’s of people are surprised that not a huge amount of Dem’s rode in on OB’s coat-tails… no idea why that would be but I reckon it has to be a good thing… there’s lots of low hanging fruit as they say for later on … I would have thought
David Gould
But their errors were all in one direction. All their swing state polls were too favourable to the Republicans. If their errors were a bit each way then you could say they weren’t bad.
Rasmussen has a clear Republican bias in their method. They have an even clearer Republican bias in their narrative agenda.
I submit that they gained their reputation for accuracy in Republican winning years when their method and their narrative agenda coincided with the desired outcome.
This year they got caught out a bit and their swing state polls were lopsided.
This is not just a crack at Rasmussen alone. I think nearly all polling companies are a bit suss. Nate at 538 has the best approach by weighting all polling firms for their bias and record.
312 Spam Box Exactly. I thought the damage to the Republican name would have been enough. It’s only 2010 for the next one. Non presidential.
308 Paddy
Fantastic article by Packer. Great reading.
Great too see you back online, jv. “Twas a grand day indeed, still in a bit of a daze.
As for the M.E., until the oil runs out, I don’t hold out too much chance for lasting peace, unfortunately. If everyone can hang back with the nukes for another 30 years, there might be some hope as peak oil passes and renewables start to baseload globally.
Katuilou,
top links to the NYer and Newsweek; excellent background to the campaign. Am deep-filing the lot for future reference. So many of the dramatis personae in the essays/chapters are like characters from a long running serial. We know them like Trekkies.
————————————- http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/62266
Over 50 states, Rasmussen had a total lean of 27 points to the Republicans, just over half a point per state.
Hardly a massive lean. And it is one that matches pretty much exactly with the margin they missed the total result by.
To see if that was out of the ordinary, you would have to compare them with other pollsters.
However, given that some other pollsters were giving the Democrats an 11-point national margin, wrong by 4.5, their state margins would have had to have been out by a similar amount.
I would suggest that one reason that Rasmussen was out by that much – assuming that it is not simply margin of error, which I believe it is – might be the bounce in people identifying as Republicans immediately after the Republican convention.
I would also suggest that polling companies have no interest in deliberately distorting their results, as it will show up over time and lose them credibility and therefore money.
And I agree that looking at lots of different pollsters can give you more accurate results.
As far as I know, fivethirtyeight does not weight polls for the leanings of their polling companies; they weight them for past accuracy (which is similar but not the same thing). This would mean that if Rasmussen had a .5 per cent Republican lean then they would have been, on average, wrong by .5 per cent in all elections, no matter who won.
313
HarryH
I submit that they gained their reputation for accuracy in Republican winning years when their method and their narrative agenda coincided with the desired outcome.
“namely the diebold voting machines”
My gosh: how many more people are in on this conspiracy? At this rate, it must have involved 49 per cent of the population of the United States …
I suppose the fact that Gallup predicted an 11 per cent win and Obama only won by 6.5 means that Diebold was operating big time?
And I thought with the election over there would be nothing to argue about. ๐
In the only states that mattered, the swing states, Rasmussen were consistently wrong in favour of the Republicans. These states were polled and analysed to within an inch of their lives but Ras got them consistently wrong in one direction.
David, for a pessimist, your absolutism in polling companies’ integrity is interesting. Many of them, including Ras, are partisan. And they aren’t going anywhere, regardless if they lose a tad of credibility when their narrative agenda goes a bit awry.
Zog is still around claiming his accuracy long after the Kerry fiasco.
Ras is no better or worse than most other pollsters except he should have an R next to his name.
Rasmussen(R)
PPP(D)
Zogby Interactive(XXX)
Consistently wrong by a tiny margin. Statistically, there is no difference between 51 to 49 one way and 51 to 49 the other way. And consistently wrong in the swing states is overstating it, although very slightly. Rasmussen had Missouris as a tie. ๐
My faith in certain polling companies is based on knowledge of their records, knowledge of their methods and a still modest but growing knowledge of statistics generally.
As to integrity, I am a pessimist over the short term; I am actually an optimist over the long term.
Just out of interest, what kind of results would you expect to see from a polling company that was completely honest and never adjusted the numbers one way or the other? In other words, if we make the assumption that Rasmussen is crooked, how close to the actual results would you expect a non-crooked operator to get? And, for whatever number you pick, why that number?
David
I’m not saying that polling companies are or aren’t crooked. I’m saying they are partisan.
Ras has a clear Republican lean.
CNN/Time has a clear Dem lean.
For longtime pollwatchers like you and me, i think it gets nearly predictive how certain polling companies numbers are going to look.
For example, i was more than happy to see Mason/Dixon and Rasmussen giving slight edges to the Repubs in the swing states because i knew that meant the Dems were winning.
I was more than happy to see CNN/Time give Virginia as +10 because i knew it meant about +6.
As for Rasmussen and their narrative setting, they are the polling company that most aggressively goes about setting narratives with their poll questions and the disseminating of the information.
Their push-polling narratives are exclusively done to help the Republicans.
I would have thought this was clear by reading their releases each day.
I will also point out that we are only looking at Rasmussen’s very last polls here.
If we examine Rasmussen polling from a week prior to the election, Florida and North Carolina – for example – lean to Obama. Given how stable Rasmussen had the national race over the last month, we can assume that all their polling in the states in the last week was simply within the margin of error. If the election had occurred three days earlier, Rasmussen would have had a much reduced Republican lean in the swing states.
Again: statistically there is literally no difference between two close results.
Rasmussen, by the numbers, appears to be one of the, if not the, most accurate polling company. And this is consistent with its results over quite a long time.
What exactly do you mean by ‘partisan’? They only way that they can be partisan is by altering their numbers in some way or other. Are you claiming, for example, that Rasmussen deliberately altered their polling methodology between seven days prior to the election and the polls they took on the last day?
If not, what is the precise claim that you are making?
David, i think it’s clear what claim i am making.
Although, like Rasmussens daily releases, maybe not clear to you.
*insert smiley face
cheers
The general claim is clear; the precise one not so. What I want to know is by what methodology you think Rasmussen injects partisanship into its polling. Look at the polling the week before the election. Compare it to the polling done the weekend prior to the election. Are you claiming that Rasmussen altered the numbers, either directly or by changing their methodology, to make their final results lean more to the Republican side? If not, what are you claiming?
Lol David,
Just to finish up this little discussion, what i am saying is that whenever Rasmussen is wrong, he is wrong in the Republican direction. Pretty clear.
Whenever CNN/Time were wrong, they were wrong in the Dem direction. Pretty clear.
Whenever Mason/Dixon were wrong, they were wrong in the Republican direction. Pretty clear.
Whenever CBS were wrong, they were wrong in the Dem direction. Pretty clear.
Nearly all polling firms have a partisan lean. It is pretty easy to judge the true race by adjusting for these leans. Hat tip to Nate Silver.
Above and beyond the actual topline numbers, Rasmussen tries to set a Replublican narrative with his pushpolling periphery questions and his daily write-ups. Pretty clear.
46%
It’s a puzzle ‘aint it? How could 46% of Americans vote for the old bloke and the dimwit? FORTY-SIX freakin percent!! My confidence in the good citizens of the USA is not yet restored.
My faith is Ponting’s captaincy never existed. I called for his removal last year and I’m doing it again.
I’ll be sitting in the members stand on Friday night (yes I do have some bourgeous habits) to watch play cricket (20/20 – my son likes it). Ponting, I’m glad to say, isn’t playing, but Gillie is captaining the Allstars. It’ll be good to see him back at the Gabba.
Morning all, what a great morning. Just went for a nice kayak round the bay where I live, here’s me a few hundred meters off-shore and a pod of dolphins (50+) come swimming my way. I stop and just float, watching as they came towards me, finally they’re upon me, diving under and around at the last minute. I sat there transfixed watching them go off to wherever it is their going, man it was cool.
Anyway, enough about me, seems some dude has been regurgitating stuff he’s read here and is passing it off as his own work ;)…. it’s all so Julie Bishop.. anyhoo
Republicans ‘must change to survive
THE Republican Party must abandon its “stringently right wing” positions on gay marriage, abortion and immigration or it could be banished to the political wilderness by the American people for decades, says the deputy director of a conservative think tank.
As the recriminations over the Republicans’ defeat in last week’s elections continued, the deputy director of the Hoover Institution, David Brady, said the party had moved too far to the right, leaving behind a significant proportion of its supporter base, and that more would leave unless the party returned to the centre.
THE federal Government has released details of its long-awaited call for expressions of interest on live internet-service-provider content filtering trials.
The Government is asking all ISPs to participate, as their feedback is important.
Child protection group Child Wise welcomed the news, but a technical group has dubbed the venture a risky business for ISPs.
BigPond, the nation’s largest internet service provider, is reviewing the call’s terms and conditions before making a decision.
The Government, through the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), has completed closed lab trials of ISP content filtering conducted by Enex TestLab. The live trial, however, is the first step towards evaluating whether ISP-level content filtering is feasible in Australia.
As well as Google MSN and Yahoo. They have signed a pact against censorship.
MN Senate Race Update:
Al Franken is now 206 votes behind Norm Coleman, and with the Democratic leaning counties yet to recheck their figures, you never know, Franken could take the lead before the official recount commences next month.
Oh, to have been a fly on the wall when Barrack/Michelle met George/Laura today.
On Sunrise this morning (just flicking through – honest!), they said that the first time (not this time) George met Barack and shook his hand, he immediately turned to an aid and got a squirt of sanitising gel.
Has anyone heard of this before?
Surely it can’t be true!
I have contacted Google and I am assured they are aware of what the Australian Government is doing. They will make a statement in time.
I contacted my local members office. Basically got the brush off. Which means I am totally p!ssed off!
Thanks Paddy. I’m totally gob smacked! They even make the punter have a squirt of the stuff in the line up.
I need a reality tune-up. Sigh.
The Japanese would be experts at this.
Sorry, answer to #344 Flaneur.
Morninโ All,
Ferny,
Be interesting to surmise what would happen to the 46.1% figure of Sep voters who went for Bomb-Bomb & Yup-Yup if voting was compulsory.
Hope you get to see Gilly go the tonk at the Gabba. Itโs one of the modern gameโs most brilliant and honest spectacles.
As for Ponters, heโs a great batsman, but not very bright, is bereft of nuance and lacks the temperament to captain a team at Test Match level.
Spammy, great story about the dolphins. Such a joy to encounter the playful poddies in their own domain. The ones jailed in Seaworlds have been effectively Gitmo-ized.
Mind you, I still think it’s a all a bit of a storm in a teacup.
The govt is floating balloons to keep Fielding and Xenaphon onside till they’ve passed the budget bills.
Hopefully the Govt is just playing games with Telstra while the *real deal* is this one.
Splitting the big T into two parts. http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24632522-664,00.html
Alas, even with the best will in the world. I still think Conroy’s a complete tosser and Rudd needs to shuffle him out of the portfolio. ๐
An article from one of my early heroes, Desmond Tutu.
“I AM rubbing my eyes in disbelief and wonder. It can’t be true that Barack Obama, the son of a Kenyan, is the next president of the United States. But it is true, exhilaratingly true. An unbelievable turnaround. I want to jump and dance and shout, as I did after voting for the first time in my native South Africa on April 27, 1994. We owe our glorious victory over the awfulness of apartheid in South Africa in large part to the support we received from the international community, including the US, and we will always be deeply grateful. But for those of us who have looked to America for inspiration as we struggled for democracy and human rights, these past seven years have been lean ones.”
In the months and years ahead, we’re going to accomplish amazing things together. No president has ever had the support of such a powerful grassroots movement, and Barack and Joe will need you to continue fighting alongside them.
But before we take the next step, we need to get our house in order.
The Democratic National Committee poured all of its resources into building our successful 50-state field program. And they played a crucial role in helping Barack win in unlikely states like North Carolina and Indiana. We even picked up an electoral vote in Nebraska.
The DNC took on considerable debt to make this happen.
Make a donation of $30 or more now to help the DNC pay for these efforts, and you’ll get a commemorative 2008 Victory T-shirt.
Help the DNC and get a 2008 Victory T-shirt
The DNC began building a 50-state organization in 2005.
The infrastructure they put in place over the last four years opened up a new batch of battleground states where a Democratic nominee hadn’t been competitive for a generation.
In the final few months, the DNC went above and beyond to expand our ground efforts and ensure victory.
We couldn’t have won this election without their support.
As we start laying the groundwork for real change, we need to help the DNC recover the resources it took to win. Please make a donation today and get your 2008 Victory T-shirt:
This movement for change is just getting started, and we look forward to working with you to bring the change this country needs.
Thanks for everything you did to elect Barack and Joe,
Obama for America
Last night Deustche Bank downgraded General Motors stock to a sell, and the punters duly obeyed, knocking off 23%. The reality, (as I mentioned many months ago) is that GM will be bankrupt pretty soon unless Uncle Sam’s wage slaves stump up some billions. They’ve just sloshed in yet another 40 billion to AIG, bringing the total to a staggering 150 billion (!), and now everyone and their dog is lining up for a handout.
It’s dire, and Obama is going to inherit this colossal mess in a few months, and you wonder just what he will be realistically able to achieve as they plunge deeper into recession and the national debt balloons into gigantic proportions.
If ‘liberal’ has been a dirty word in the US, then get ready for ‘free markets’ to take a position right next to it! LOL
Chris B – there’s a huge discussion going on over at whirlpool re: the net filter, lots and lots of reading, petitions etc. Not sure if there’s anything of use in it but it might be worth your while checking it out.
I tried but gave up after one too many and puppies will die type comments
Thanks guys 348 paddy 353 Spam Box. I was curtly dealt with by the ALP organiser I spoke with and told the “experts will be handling this issue”. Inferring I didn’t know what I was talking about. I suspect I will get a lot of ALP people off side during this implementation.
353
Spam Box
I tried but gave up after one too many and puppies will die type comments
Ooh shame on you Spammy!!
Deserting all those dying puppies…….. Not to mention the kittens. ๐
Gosh, my youthful days are certainly haunting me today! Miriam Makeba has died. She left South Africa in 1959 – just when I was starting at Uni. She was not only a very brave woman, but she had a voice to die for. A heroine to many of us.
Here is the current poll on Internet censorship. They have run a few with the same results. The ALP does not know what it has walked into. I signed up to Whirlpool. I suggest anyone interested in this subject do the same. Also contact their local member. http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1084545
Stop Australian Internet Censorship
17649 signatures so far! [view all signatures]
Petition created by: Michael Meloni
Australian Senator, Stephen Conroy, is set to introduce mandatory Internet filtering in 2008. This petition has been organised to put an end to the filtering in Australia, before it begins!
Existing reports (some even conducted by the Australian Government) show that ISPs and customers will be forced to pay if mandatory filtering is introduced. The 2003 Ovum report on filtering commissioned by the Howard Government even finds that smaller ISPs will not be able to absorb the costs like large ISPs.
Furthermore, industry groups have all warned that the filtering can and will be bypassed. Why waste money on something that isn’t going to work?
Show your support by signing this petition. Show Mr Conroy and Mr Rudd that Australia does not require a Government babysitter.
This petition will be forwarded to all politicians concerned.
I is very obvious to me that the ALP is not listening. Even though members of the ALP read this blog. I highly recommend everybody get involved in this. If we had wanted censorship we would have voted LIBERAL!
352
Kirri
It’s certainly looking a bit dire out there at the moment.
There’s an excellent, if depressing, take on it at Robert Reich’s blog via Alan Kohler on Business Spectator today.
The Mini Depression and the Maximum-Strength Remedy
This is not the Great Depression of the 1930s, but nor is it turning out to be merely a bad recession of the kind we’ve experienced periodically over the last half century. Call it a Mini Depression. The employment report last Friday shows job losses accelerating, along with the number of Americans working part time who’d rather be and need to be working full time. Retail sales have fallen off a cliff. Stock prices continue to drop. General Motors is on the brink of bankruptcy. The rate of home foreclosures is mounting.
Thanks Paddy, I’ve not gotten to businessspectator yet, but will soon.
Yep, it’s truly a very BIG shake-down of the world as we know it.
Kirri, i was watching a bit of CNBC last night and they were still talking nervously about credit default swaps.
Roubini was in the studio and he predicted the S & P has another 30% to fall yet!!!!!!!!!!
What the government doesn’t take into account is satellite Internet. New technology means satellite Internet speeds are getting faster and faster. A big new European satellite system is going up very shortly. It’s called Galileo, it will be super fast high speed broadband. The Europeans will not tolerate censorship of any kind.
Yes we will be able to use Galileo here in Australia, they are putting up 32 satellites.
Let’s assume that the Government brings in quite reasonable laws. The really really scary thing is what happens when the Liberals get back in. They had previously tried to put through the most draconian Internet censorship laws in the free world. Massive fines and jail for uploading and download porn anywhere in the world. The ALP brought in HECS, the Liberals exploited it for all they were worth.
How do you define porn or child porn?
Does this famous Salvador Dali child porn?
Well now, at least Senator Conroy has given me something to do since the US election is over. ๐
Oooo, now I’m a troll. ๐
What? After what the Liberals tried to do with censorship? Free market? Haven’t you been watch the free market and its destruction of the global economy? This is the second time the free market has tried to destroy the world economy. Remember 1929?
Now you are just trolling and getting way of topic for Whirlpool. My point was simply that we should focus on the issue and those responsible. We shouldn’t be scaremongering about the evil Liberal party, instead we should be putting partisan concerns aside and fostering a bi-partisan opposition to this lunatic censorship idea.
Naughty boy! ๐
Bless Annabelle Crabb. A few snippets from her latest piece. ๐
Hail to the chief: Kevin leaves us speechless……
And now that Barack Obama has been elected to the US presidency, everybody wants to be an orator.
Not Kevin Rudd, it should be said. When he delivered his formal acknowledgement of the US election result to the House of Representatives yesterday, the Prime Minister sounded as though he was reading aloud from the agenda for the National Association of Metallurgists’ annual general meeting….
…Unlike Mr Rudd, Mr Turnbull did not mutter his words absently into his notes, like a preacher padding while he looks for the right passage in Corinthians.
He projected. He gesticulated. His voice was deep and textured.
…..Are we witnessing the emergence of a new force in Australian oratory?
CB, I think you’ll find that Galileo (as in the European satellite system) is a GPS system, designed to be independent of the US system. It is not, as far as I know, a broadband internet system.
Speaking of satellite, it’s horrendously expensive compared with ADSL or cable, and not really an alternative unless you live in outer whoop whoop and don’t mind the cost.
Turnbull was very impressive.
It was inspiring listening to him talk about Obama’s historic victory. Listening to Rudd speak, you would almost think that McCain had won …
374 Kirribilli Removals I thought read somewhere it is high speed broadband as well. For remote towns. But on checking Wiki it doesn’t mention broadband.
lol Chris.. you really have upset some at WP… I’m buying some stuff on ebay right now. I’ll nip over to WP in a bit and give em a blast for ya… I got your back buddy ๐
377 Spam Box Just one. Nothing to worry about. Someone on here mentioned that Conroy got the Family First in. I did a search on Conroy. It did not find any entrees for Conroy, even in the archives.
Just as Obama is in the market for a dog, the Fed is buying…(dead ones only! LOL):
Willem Buiter once said that US regs permitted the Fed to lend against any collateral, including a dead dog. We are getting perilously close to that.
America needs to get its consumption down, but apparently the powers that be are going to use any trick possible to try to keep the American shop-a-holic habit going.
(nakedcapitalism)
…and today, this from Bloomberg:
The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.
…can you smell the dead dogs? Two friggin’ TRILLION dollars worth of canine carcasses??????????
Kleptocracy is the new democracy.
Under the Bush/Cheney regime, withholding information was a standard procedure, and it seems to have infected the Federal Reserve:
Bloomberg News filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Federal Reserve system Friday, seeking documents related to the financial services crisis, the news service reported.
The suit, filed in federal court in New York, asks for documents the government says are held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The bank, one of a dozen in the Federal Reserve system, has not complied with FOIA because it has not been considered a government agency.
In contrast, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington is subject to FOIA. However, the bulk of the documents Bloomberg wants are housed at the New York bank, the Fed told Bloomberg.
According to Bloomberg, the Fed has made loans totalling $1.5 trillion to banks, not including the $700 billion bailout package. Bloomberg is seeking information on the collateral the banks posted for the loans. The news serviceโs FOIA requests have gone unanswered.
…so much for ‘free, open and transparent markets’ when a couple of trillion dollars of taxpayer’s liability can be parceled out with NO public accountability.
This is outrageous, scandalous, and oh, so terribly Bush/Cheney. Pity the poor punters as their great grandchildren are being sold into servitude by this mob of hustlers who were supposed to protect them from this disaster in the first place!
And just to put all this in historical perspective:
The Fed balance sheet is expected to balloon to $3 trillion by the end of the year, up from $900 billion in August — a rise in the Fedโs balance sheet from 6% of GDP to more than 20% of GDP in four months. In Japan, which was known for quantitative easing during its own deflationary crisis, the central bankโs balance sheet rose progressively from 9% of GDP to 29% of GDP. But this was over ten years from 1994 to 2004. At the current pace, the Fed might do in six months what it took ten years to do in Japan. Amazing.
379
ROTFL
Now then Kirri. That dog’s not dead…..It’s merely….resting. ๐
378
Chris B Says:
November 11th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Someone on here mentioned that Conroy got the Family First in. I did a search on Conroy. It did not find any entrees for Conroy, even in the archives.
That’d be me, Chris.. Conroy formulated the Senate preference deal that got Fielding in..he was warmly supported in this by our good friend Adam Carr! As a result I’ve been reduced to the tedium of voting below the line in Senate elections!
BTW, I wouldn’t find an entree for Conroy whatever the restaurant (except maybe dog turd tartare)
382 paddy I’m not dead yet. Woof!
383 Gippslander Someone on Whirlpool has asked me for the evidence for this. They are interested in it.
Conroy is pretty much the head of Victorian Labor, so he must have been intimately involved in any negotiations on Senate preferences.
It was not a plot to get Family First in, though: it was a plot to protect Jacinta Collins from the Greens.
Fanie Mae reports third quarter losses:
The numbers are staggering. Fannie Mae lost $29 billion during the third quarter, more than it earned from 2002 to 2006. So many homeowners are falling behind on their mortgages that Fannie Mae could seek tens of billions of dollars in government handouts next year.
(NY Times)
…and there is NO end in sight as property values keep falling, and Fannie expects to call the Fed for 100 billion in help next year.
God, it’s beyond imagining just how cataclysmic this meltdown is. The financial system was a waxwork creation and the arsonists just lit her up.
Paddy, if only it was sleeping…if only! LOL
Kristoff in the NY Times give a lovely line to Bush:
An intellectual is a person interested in ideas and comfortable with complexity. Intellectuals read the classics, even when no one is looking, because they appreciate the lessons of Sophocles and Shakespeare that the world abounds in uncertainties and contradictions, and โ President Bush, lend me your ears โ that leaders self-destruct when they become too rigid and too intoxicated with the fumes of moral clarity.
…that just about sums up the little squirt’s world view, and beautifully.
Whirlpool member just got an email from Scott Ludlam.
Hi,
Thanks for getting in touch with the Greens regarding the internet censorship issue โ Iโm just letting you know that Iโm going to be raising the issue in the Senate today, and you can watch the broadcast live online here:
In the Senate question time at about 2:30PM eastern summer time today I plan on asking Communications Minister Stephen Conroy about his project for mandatory internet censorship, the so-called โclean feedโ which youโve written to me about.
If you miss the broadcast Iโll have the transcript and a video clip here as soon as possible: http://scott-ludlam.org.au/
Depending on the Ministerโs answer, you might like to give him a call on (02) 6277 7480 or email him on senator.conroy@aph.gov.au
This proposal has raised major concerns in the online community โ thanks for taking the time to add your voice to this debate.
They will tell you, You are not in my electorate. Ignore it. They need to hear from us.
387 David Gould Thanks David, I have passed the information on.
388 Kirribilli Removals The worse it gets, the more Barack Obama will be given license to operate.
Just imagine if the ALP lost the next election and Tony Abbott was appointed Minister for Communications.
Re Filtering:
I’ve just installed another PC for my 8 year old and downloaded free Aus Gov blocking software. Whenever Mrs K uses that PC, she frequently has to override the blocker for perfectly innocuous sites.
So my question: If we don’t know what they are blocking should we allow government to decide what’s ‘in’ and what’s ‘out’?
Or, is this nanny state stuff gone mad?
From my post on whirlpool.
Just imagine if the ALP lost the next election and Tony Abbott was appointed Minister for Communications.
Answer:
DON’T EVEN JOKE ABOUT THAT! You’ll give them ideas! :O
Spam Inbox. Gee some people are touchy about mentioning what the Libs may do, on Whirlpool
Chris B, it’s like opening a bag of frogs on crystal meth in there sometimes… they all start hopping out ๐
Is your user name Marxx?
It appears the Liberal tactics on there are if you post something they don’t like call them a troll.
651 replies on “A New Dawn”
Katielou
I agree, the M-E would be the most difficult item on Barack’s list of ‘things to do’. If he can somehow bring the ordinary Israeli people into the equation (most are prepared to give up land for peace), as a way of weakening the power of the rabid Zionist groups he has to deal with at home and elsewhere. These don’t represent Israeli opinion at all. For that matter, the Israeli government usually doesn’t seem to represent Israeli opinion on that issue either!
Thank you JV!!
That’s what I meant to say but just wasn’t up to it.
A bit like Ponting as captain. ๐
Little wonder there are no spectators at the match and no free to air coverage of the Indian tour in Oz.
Bloody awful cricket and time for some heads to roll.
paddy
Do you think the Indian bookmakers might have got to Punter? I can’t think of any other explanation. ๐
287 DG
While Rasmussen was very good on the national average, he was pretty damn ordinary on the states. I remember reading where he got nearly all the swing states wrong by a fair margin.
289 KL
I’m pretty leery of Fareed Zakaria. CNN are bunking him up as a shining new star but really he is just another mouthpiece for the Old n Powerful.
You need a “pedigree” to disseminate news on CNN as an anchor lol
Wolf Blitzer – Former longtime AIPAC employee.
Anderson Cooper – Former CIA.
Fareed Zakariah – Council of Foreign Relations.
They have all been well schooled on the “appropriate” line of thought.
Still, it’s better than the batshit crazy neocons and theocrats on Faux News i suppose.
303
jv
LOL
Judging by the state of the Indian economy. I doubt even the bookies have enough to get at anyone. ๐
So faster bowlers bowl slower over rates?… and slower bowlers bowl faster over rates?
306
Spammy
By jove, I think he’s got it! ๐
Indeed spammy.
Faster bowlers have much longer runups.
Spinners take just a few steps. = less time between deliveries.
Bloody good article here by George Packer on the future ahead for Obama.
The New Liberalism
How the economic crisis can help Obama redefine the Democrats.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/17/081117fa_fact_packer
It makes what passes for political analysis in this country, all look a bit trite and trivial. ๐
HarryH,
They got Colorado, Ohio and Indiana wrong by 4, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia by 2 and Missouri wrong by 1. That does not seem to be too bad to me. I do not know how it compares with other polling, though. All were within margin of error. If you get that close, then getting it precisely right is a matter of luck.
They were wrong in Pennsylvannia by six, however, which while still within margin of error is at the extremes.
Nevada looks like their worst in the swing states – that was outside the margin of error.
307 – ha! ๐
That bit has been bugging the shit out of me all day – thanks ๐
On to the US… I note lot’s of people are surprised that not a huge amount of Dem’s rode in on OB’s coat-tails… no idea why that would be but I reckon it has to be a good thing… there’s lots of low hanging fruit as they say for later on … I would have thought
David Gould
But their errors were all in one direction. All their swing state polls were too favourable to the Republicans. If their errors were a bit each way then you could say they weren’t bad.
Rasmussen has a clear Republican bias in their method. They have an even clearer Republican bias in their narrative agenda.
I submit that they gained their reputation for accuracy in Republican winning years when their method and their narrative agenda coincided with the desired outcome.
This year they got caught out a bit and their swing state polls were lopsided.
This is not just a crack at Rasmussen alone. I think nearly all polling companies are a bit suss. Nate at 538 has the best approach by weighting all polling firms for their bias and record.
312 Spam Box Exactly. I thought the damage to the Republican name would have been enough. It’s only 2010 for the next one. Non presidential.
308 Paddy
Fantastic article by Packer. Great reading.
Great too see you back online, jv. “Twas a grand day indeed, still in a bit of a daze.
As for the M.E., until the oil runs out, I don’t hold out too much chance for lasting peace, unfortunately. If everyone can hang back with the nukes for another 30 years, there might be some hope as peak oil passes and renewables start to baseload globally.
Katuilou,
top links to the NYer and Newsweek; excellent background to the campaign. Am deep-filing the lot for future reference. So many of the dramatis personae in the essays/chapters are like characters from a long running serial. We know them like Trekkies.
————————————- http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/62266
http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/62533
Over 50 states, Rasmussen had a total lean of 27 points to the Republicans, just over half a point per state.
Hardly a massive lean. And it is one that matches pretty much exactly with the margin they missed the total result by.
To see if that was out of the ordinary, you would have to compare them with other pollsters.
However, given that some other pollsters were giving the Democrats an 11-point national margin, wrong by 4.5, their state margins would have had to have been out by a similar amount.
I would suggest that one reason that Rasmussen was out by that much – assuming that it is not simply margin of error, which I believe it is – might be the bounce in people identifying as Republicans immediately after the Republican convention.
I would also suggest that polling companies have no interest in deliberately distorting their results, as it will show up over time and lose them credibility and therefore money.
And I agree that looking at lots of different pollsters can give you more accurate results.
As far as I know, fivethirtyeight does not weight polls for the leanings of their polling companies; they weight them for past accuracy (which is similar but not the same thing). This would mean that if Rasmussen had a .5 per cent Republican lean then they would have been, on average, wrong by .5 per cent in all elections, no matter who won.
313
HarryH
“namely the diebold voting machines”
My gosh: how many more people are in on this conspiracy? At this rate, it must have involved 49 per cent of the population of the United States …
I suppose the fact that Gallup predicted an 11 per cent win and Obama only won by 6.5 means that Diebold was operating big time?
And I thought with the election over there would be nothing to argue about. ๐
In the only states that mattered, the swing states, Rasmussen were consistently wrong in favour of the Republicans. These states were polled and analysed to within an inch of their lives but Ras got them consistently wrong in one direction.
David, for a pessimist, your absolutism in polling companies’ integrity is interesting. Many of them, including Ras, are partisan. And they aren’t going anywhere, regardless if they lose a tad of credibility when their narrative agenda goes a bit awry.
Zog is still around claiming his accuracy long after the Kerry fiasco.
Ras is no better or worse than most other pollsters except he should have an R next to his name.
Rasmussen(R)
PPP(D)
Zogby Interactive(XXX)
Consistently wrong by a tiny margin. Statistically, there is no difference between 51 to 49 one way and 51 to 49 the other way. And consistently wrong in the swing states is overstating it, although very slightly. Rasmussen had Missouris as a tie. ๐
My faith in certain polling companies is based on knowledge of their records, knowledge of their methods and a still modest but growing knowledge of statistics generally.
As to integrity, I am a pessimist over the short term; I am actually an optimist over the long term.
Just out of interest, what kind of results would you expect to see from a polling company that was completely honest and never adjusted the numbers one way or the other? In other words, if we make the assumption that Rasmussen is crooked, how close to the actual results would you expect a non-crooked operator to get? And, for whatever number you pick, why that number?
David
I’m not saying that polling companies are or aren’t crooked. I’m saying they are partisan.
Ras has a clear Republican lean.
CNN/Time has a clear Dem lean.
For longtime pollwatchers like you and me, i think it gets nearly predictive how certain polling companies numbers are going to look.
For example, i was more than happy to see Mason/Dixon and Rasmussen giving slight edges to the Repubs in the swing states because i knew that meant the Dems were winning.
I was more than happy to see CNN/Time give Virginia as +10 because i knew it meant about +6.
As for Rasmussen and their narrative setting, they are the polling company that most aggressively goes about setting narratives with their poll questions and the disseminating of the information.
Their push-polling narratives are exclusively done to help the Republicans.
I would have thought this was clear by reading their releases each day.
I will also point out that we are only looking at Rasmussen’s very last polls here.
If we examine Rasmussen polling from a week prior to the election, Florida and North Carolina – for example – lean to Obama. Given how stable Rasmussen had the national race over the last month, we can assume that all their polling in the states in the last week was simply within the margin of error. If the election had occurred three days earlier, Rasmussen would have had a much reduced Republican lean in the swing states.
Again: statistically there is literally no difference between two close results.
Nate Silver gets a write-up in the NY TImes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10silver.html
HarryH,
Not clear to me. ๐
Rasmussen, by the numbers, appears to be one of the, if not the, most accurate polling company. And this is consistent with its results over quite a long time.
What exactly do you mean by ‘partisan’? They only way that they can be partisan is by altering their numbers in some way or other. Are you claiming, for example, that Rasmussen deliberately altered their polling methodology between seven days prior to the election and the polls they took on the last day?
If not, what is the precise claim that you are making?
David, i think it’s clear what claim i am making.
Although, like Rasmussens daily releases, maybe not clear to you.
*insert smiley face
cheers
The general claim is clear; the precise one not so. What I want to know is by what methodology you think Rasmussen injects partisanship into its polling. Look at the polling the week before the election. Compare it to the polling done the weekend prior to the election. Are you claiming that Rasmussen altered the numbers, either directly or by changing their methodology, to make their final results lean more to the Republican side? If not, what are you claiming?
Lol David,
Just to finish up this little discussion, what i am saying is that whenever Rasmussen is wrong, he is wrong in the Republican direction. Pretty clear.
Whenever CNN/Time were wrong, they were wrong in the Dem direction. Pretty clear.
Whenever Mason/Dixon were wrong, they were wrong in the Republican direction. Pretty clear.
Whenever CBS were wrong, they were wrong in the Dem direction. Pretty clear.
Nearly all polling firms have a partisan lean. It is pretty easy to judge the true race by adjusting for these leans. Hat tip to Nate Silver.
Above and beyond the actual topline numbers, Rasmussen tries to set a Replublican narrative with his pushpolling periphery questions and his daily write-ups. Pretty clear.
46%
It’s a puzzle ‘aint it? How could 46% of Americans vote for the old bloke and the dimwit? FORTY-SIX freakin percent!! My confidence in the good citizens of the USA is not yet restored.
My faith is Ponting’s captaincy never existed. I called for his removal last year and I’m doing it again.
I’ll be sitting in the members stand on Friday night (yes I do have some bourgeous habits) to watch play cricket (20/20 – my son likes it). Ponting, I’m glad to say, isn’t playing, but Gillie is captaining the Allstars. It’ll be good to see him back at the Gabba.
Morning all, what a great morning. Just went for a nice kayak round the bay where I live, here’s me a few hundred meters off-shore and a pod of dolphins (50+) come swimming my way. I stop and just float, watching as they came towards me, finally they’re upon me, diving under and around at the last minute. I sat there transfixed watching them go off to wherever it is their going, man it was cool.
Anyway, enough about me, seems some dude has been regurgitating stuff he’s read here and is passing it off as his own work ;)…. it’s all so Julie Bishop.. anyhoo
Republicans ‘must change to survive
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/republicans-must-change-to-survive/2008/11/10/1226165481953.html
Chris B – look away – NOW ๐
Canberra calls net filter trial
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24632210-15306,00.html
TIme to make an appointment with my local member.
As well as Google MSN and Yahoo. They have signed a pact against censorship.
MN Senate Race Update:
Al Franken is now 206 votes behind Norm Coleman, and with the Democratic leaning counties yet to recheck their figures, you never know, Franken could take the lead before the official recount commences next month.
Oh, to have been a fly on the wall when Barrack/Michelle met George/Laura today.
On Sunrise this morning (just flicking through – honest!), they said that the first time (not this time) George met Barack and shook his hand, he immediately turned to an aid and got a squirt of sanitising gel.
Has anyone heard of this before?
Surely it can’t be true!
I have contacted Google and I am assured they are aware of what the Australian Government is doing. They will make a statement in time.
I contacted my local members office. Basically got the brush off. Which means I am totally p!ssed off!
340
Flan
True.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A03E0DA153FF93BA15753C1A9609C8B63
Thanks Paddy. I’m totally gob smacked! They even make the punter have a squirt of the stuff in the line up.
I need a reality tune-up. Sigh.
The Japanese would be experts at this.
Sorry, answer to #344 Flaneur.
Morninโ All,
Ferny,
Be interesting to surmise what would happen to the 46.1% figure of Sep voters who went for Bomb-Bomb & Yup-Yup if voting was compulsory.
Hope you get to see Gilly go the tonk at the Gabba. Itโs one of the modern gameโs most brilliant and honest spectacles.
As for Ponters, heโs a great batsman, but not very bright, is bereft of nuance and lacks the temperament to captain a team at Test Match level.
Spammy, great story about the dolphins. Such a joy to encounter the playful poddies in their own domain. The ones jailed in Seaworlds have been effectively Gitmo-ized.
Mon Nov 10:
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/nonsequitur;_ylt=A0WTUelBlxhJfHwBjwQDwLAF
http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/62551
342
Chris B
The writer of this article, Mark Newton “gets it”.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/10/2414895.htm
Mind you, I still think it’s a all a bit of a storm in a teacup.
The govt is floating balloons to keep Fielding and Xenaphon onside till they’ve passed the budget bills.
Hopefully the Govt is just playing games with Telstra while the *real deal* is this one.
Splitting the big T into two parts.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24632522-664,00.html
Alas, even with the best will in the world. I still think Conroy’s a complete tosser and Rudd needs to shuffle him out of the portfolio. ๐
An article from one of my early heroes, Desmond Tutu.
“I AM rubbing my eyes in disbelief and wonder. It can’t be true that Barack Obama, the son of a Kenyan, is the next president of the United States. But it is true, exhilaratingly true. An unbelievable turnaround. I want to jump and dance and shout, as I did after voting for the first time in my native South Africa on April 27, 1994. We owe our glorious victory over the awfulness of apartheid in South Africa in large part to the support we received from the international community, including the US, and we will always be deeply grateful. But for those of us who have looked to America for inspiration as we struggled for democracy and human rights, these past seven years have been lean ones.”
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/like-mandela-obama-can-lead-his-country
Great article @349
kerneels
Full link. here.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/like-mandela-obama-can-lead-his-country-to-a-better-future-20081110-5lsk.html
Obama for America
Chris —
In the months and years ahead, we’re going to accomplish amazing things together. No president has ever had the support of such a powerful grassroots movement, and Barack and Joe will need you to continue fighting alongside them.
But before we take the next step, we need to get our house in order.
The Democratic National Committee poured all of its resources into building our successful 50-state field program. And they played a crucial role in helping Barack win in unlikely states like North Carolina and Indiana. We even picked up an electoral vote in Nebraska.
The DNC took on considerable debt to make this happen.
Make a donation of $30 or more now to help the DNC pay for these efforts, and you’ll get a commemorative 2008 Victory T-shirt.
Help the DNC and get a 2008 Victory T-shirt
The DNC began building a 50-state organization in 2005.
The infrastructure they put in place over the last four years opened up a new batch of battleground states where a Democratic nominee hadn’t been competitive for a generation.
In the final few months, the DNC went above and beyond to expand our ground efforts and ensure victory.
We couldn’t have won this election without their support.
As we start laying the groundwork for real change, we need to help the DNC recover the resources it took to win. Please make a donation today and get your 2008 Victory T-shirt:
https://donate.barackobama.com/victoryshirt
This movement for change is just getting started, and we look forward to working with you to bring the change this country needs.
Thanks for everything you did to elect Barack and Joe,
Obama for America
Last night Deustche Bank downgraded General Motors stock to a sell, and the punters duly obeyed, knocking off 23%. The reality, (as I mentioned many months ago) is that GM will be bankrupt pretty soon unless Uncle Sam’s wage slaves stump up some billions. They’ve just sloshed in yet another 40 billion to AIG, bringing the total to a staggering 150 billion (!), and now everyone and their dog is lining up for a handout.
It’s dire, and Obama is going to inherit this colossal mess in a few months, and you wonder just what he will be realistically able to achieve as they plunge deeper into recession and the national debt balloons into gigantic proportions.
If ‘liberal’ has been a dirty word in the US, then get ready for ‘free markets’ to take a position right next to it! LOL
Chris B – there’s a huge discussion going on over at whirlpool re: the net filter, lots and lots of reading, petitions etc. Not sure if there’s anything of use in it but it might be worth your while checking it out.
I tried but gave up after one too many and puppies will die type comments
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1084545
Thanks for fixing the link, Paddy.
Thanks guys 348 paddy 353 Spam Box. I was curtly dealt with by the ALP organiser I spoke with and told the “experts will be handling this issue”. Inferring I didn’t know what I was talking about. I suspect I will get a lot of ALP people off side during this implementation.
353
Spam Box
Ooh shame on you Spammy!!
Deserting all those dying puppies…….. Not to mention the kittens. ๐
Gosh, my youthful days are certainly haunting me today! Miriam Makeba has died. She left South Africa in 1959 – just when I was starting at Uni. She was not only a very brave woman, but she had a voice to die for. A heroine to many of us.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/miriam-makeba–the-empress-of-africa-1008976.html
Here is the current poll on Internet censorship. They have run a few with the same results. The ALP does not know what it has walked into. I signed up to Whirlpool. I suggest anyone interested in this subject do the same. Also contact their local member.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1084545
Stop Australian Internet Censorship
17649 signatures so far! [view all signatures]
Petition created by: Michael Meloni
Australian Senator, Stephen Conroy, is set to introduce mandatory Internet filtering in 2008. This petition has been organised to put an end to the filtering in Australia, before it begins!
Existing reports (some even conducted by the Australian Government) show that ISPs and customers will be forced to pay if mandatory filtering is introduced. The 2003 Ovum report on filtering commissioned by the Howard Government even finds that smaller ISPs will not be able to absorb the costs like large ISPs.
Furthermore, industry groups have all warned that the filtering can and will be bypassed. Why waste money on something that isn’t going to work?
Show your support by signing this petition. Show Mr Conroy and Mr Rudd that Australia does not require a Government babysitter.
This petition will be forwarded to all politicians concerned.
17649 have signed so far – help us get to 1,000.
We have achieved 1764.9% of our goal. Let’s keep going!
http://petitions.takingitglobal.org/oznetcensorship
356 –
I know I know – a moral vacuum, remember ๐
I’m all about dolphins today…and chickens, although I’ve always been big on chickens ๐
What you can do.
http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/?tag=cleanfeed
I is very obvious to me that the ALP is not listening. Even though members of the ALP read this blog. I highly recommend everybody get involved in this. If we had wanted censorship we would have voted LIBERAL!
352
Kirri
It’s certainly looking a bit dire out there at the moment.
There’s an excellent, if depressing, take on it at Robert Reich’s blog via Alan Kohler on Business Spectator today.
http://robertreich.blogspot.com/
363
Thanks Paddy, I’ve not gotten to businessspectator yet, but will soon.
Yep, it’s truly a very BIG shake-down of the world as we know it.
Kirri, i was watching a bit of CNBC last night and they were still talking nervously about credit default swaps.
Roubini was in the studio and he predicted the S & P has another 30% to fall yet!!!!!!!!!!
What the government doesn’t take into account is satellite Internet. New technology means satellite Internet speeds are getting faster and faster. A big new European satellite system is going up very shortly. It’s called Galileo, it will be super fast high speed broadband. The Europeans will not tolerate censorship of any kind.
Yes we will be able to use Galileo here in Australia, they are putting up 32 satellites.
Let’s assume that the Government brings in quite reasonable laws. The really really scary thing is what happens when the Liberals get back in. They had previously tried to put through the most draconian Internet censorship laws in the free world. Massive fines and jail for uploading and download porn anywhere in the world. The ALP brought in HECS, the Liberals exploited it for all they were worth.
How do you define porn or child porn?
Does this famous Salvador Dali child porn?
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/d/dali/seashade.jpg
369
Chris B
Eeeeek!!! Good grief Chris.
For God’s sake don’t let Kevin see that.
You know how it upsets him.
Let’s just be nice instead eh?
http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/images15/ShiranianPuppy1205thru0206024.JPG
Well now, at least Senator Conroy has given me something to do since the US election is over. ๐
Oooo, now I’m a troll. ๐
Naughty boy! ๐
Bless Annabelle Crabb. A few snippets from her latest piece. ๐
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/annabel-crabb/annabel-crabb/2008/11/10/1226165481699.html
CB, I think you’ll find that Galileo (as in the European satellite system) is a GPS system, designed to be independent of the US system. It is not, as far as I know, a broadband internet system.
Speaking of satellite, it’s horrendously expensive compared with ADSL or cable, and not really an alternative unless you live in outer whoop whoop and don’t mind the cost.
Turnbull was very impressive.
It was inspiring listening to him talk about Obama’s historic victory. Listening to Rudd speak, you would almost think that McCain had won …
374 Kirribilli Removals I thought read somewhere it is high speed broadband as well. For remote towns. But on checking Wiki it doesn’t mention broadband.
lol Chris.. you really have upset some at WP… I’m buying some stuff on ebay right now. I’ll nip over to WP in a bit and give em a blast for ya… I got your back buddy ๐
377 Spam Box Just one. Nothing to worry about. Someone on here mentioned that Conroy got the Family First in. I did a search on Conroy. It did not find any entrees for Conroy, even in the archives.
Just as Obama is in the market for a dog, the Fed is buying…(dead ones only! LOL):
Willem Buiter once said that US regs permitted the Fed to lend against any collateral, including a dead dog. We are getting perilously close to that.
America needs to get its consumption down, but apparently the powers that be are going to use any trick possible to try to keep the American shop-a-holic habit going.
(nakedcapitalism)
…and today, this from Bloomberg:
The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.
…can you smell the dead dogs? Two friggin’ TRILLION dollars worth of canine carcasses??????????
Kleptocracy is the new democracy.
Under the Bush/Cheney regime, withholding information was a standard procedure, and it seems to have infected the Federal Reserve:
Bloomberg News filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Federal Reserve system Friday, seeking documents related to the financial services crisis, the news service reported.
The suit, filed in federal court in New York, asks for documents the government says are held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The bank, one of a dozen in the Federal Reserve system, has not complied with FOIA because it has not been considered a government agency.
In contrast, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington is subject to FOIA. However, the bulk of the documents Bloomberg wants are housed at the New York bank, the Fed told Bloomberg.
According to Bloomberg, the Fed has made loans totalling $1.5 trillion to banks, not including the $700 billion bailout package. Bloomberg is seeking information on the collateral the banks posted for the loans. The news serviceโs FOIA requests have gone unanswered.
…so much for ‘free, open and transparent markets’ when a couple of trillion dollars of taxpayer’s liability can be parceled out with NO public accountability.
This is outrageous, scandalous, and oh, so terribly Bush/Cheney. Pity the poor punters as their great grandchildren are being sold into servitude by this mob of hustlers who were supposed to protect them from this disaster in the first place!
And just to put all this in historical perspective:
The Fed balance sheet is expected to balloon to $3 trillion by the end of the year, up from $900 billion in August — a rise in the Fedโs balance sheet from 6% of GDP to more than 20% of GDP in four months. In Japan, which was known for quantitative easing during its own deflationary crisis, the central bankโs balance sheet rose progressively from 9% of GDP to 29% of GDP. But this was over ten years from 1994 to 2004. At the current pace, the Fed might do in six months what it took ten years to do in Japan. Amazing.
379
ROTFL
Now then Kirri. That dog’s not dead…..It’s merely….resting. ๐
378
Chris B Says:
November 11th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Someone on here mentioned that Conroy got the Family First in. I did a search on Conroy. It did not find any entrees for Conroy, even in the archives.
That’d be me, Chris.. Conroy formulated the Senate preference deal that got Fielding in..he was warmly supported in this by our good friend Adam Carr! As a result I’ve been reduced to the tedium of voting below the line in Senate elections!
BTW, I wouldn’t find an entree for Conroy whatever the restaurant (except maybe dog turd tartare)
382 paddy I’m not dead yet. Woof!
383 Gippslander Someone on Whirlpool has asked me for the evidence for this. They are interested in it.
Any links?
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2004/results/sendVIC.htm
Here is Antony Green’s minimal comments.
Conroy is pretty much the head of Victorian Labor, so he must have been intimately involved in any negotiations on Senate preferences.
It was not a plot to get Family First in, though: it was a plot to protect Jacinta Collins from the Greens.
Fanie Mae reports third quarter losses:
The numbers are staggering. Fannie Mae lost $29 billion during the third quarter, more than it earned from 2002 to 2006. So many homeowners are falling behind on their mortgages that Fannie Mae could seek tens of billions of dollars in government handouts next year.
(NY Times)
…and there is NO end in sight as property values keep falling, and Fannie expects to call the Fed for 100 billion in help next year.
God, it’s beyond imagining just how cataclysmic this meltdown is. The financial system was a waxwork creation and the arsonists just lit her up.
Paddy, if only it was sleeping…if only! LOL
Kristoff in the NY Times give a lovely line to Bush:
An intellectual is a person interested in ideas and comfortable with complexity. Intellectuals read the classics, even when no one is looking, because they appreciate the lessons of Sophocles and Shakespeare that the world abounds in uncertainties and contradictions, and โ President Bush, lend me your ears โ that leaders self-destruct when they become too rigid and too intoxicated with the fumes of moral clarity.
…that just about sums up the little squirt’s world view, and beautifully.
Whirlpool member just got an email from Scott Ludlam.
Hi,
Thanks for getting in touch with the Greens regarding the internet censorship issue โ Iโm just letting you know that Iโm going to be raising the issue in the Senate today, and you can watch the broadcast live online here:
http://webcast.aph.gov.au/livebroadcasting/eventdetailsSenate.aspx?eventid=965629
In the Senate question time at about 2:30PM eastern summer time today I plan on asking Communications Minister Stephen Conroy about his project for mandatory internet censorship, the so-called โclean feedโ which youโve written to me about.
If you miss the broadcast Iโll have the transcript and a video clip here as soon as possible: http://scott-ludlam.org.au/
Depending on the Ministerโs answer, you might like to give him a call on (02) 6277 7480 or email him on senator.conroy@aph.gov.au
This proposal has raised major concerns in the online community โ thanks for taking the time to add your voice to this debate.
Cheers,
Senator Scott Ludlam
Here are some more contact numbers.
Kevin Rudd
Griffith Electorate Office
630 Wynnum Road
Morningside, QLD, 4170
Tel:
(07) 3899 4031
Fax:
(07) 3899 5755
Julia Guillard
Lalor Electorate Office
Shop 2, 36 Synnot Street
Werribee, VIC, 3030
Tel:
(03) 9742 5800
Fax:
(03) 9741 6213
Anna Burke
Chisholm Electorate Office
523-525 Station Street
Box Hill, VIC, 3128
Tel:
(03) 9898 0675
Fax:
(03) 9890 5636
Maxine McKew
Bennelong Electorate Office
Level 3, 230 Victoria Road
Gladesville NSW 2111
Tel:
(02) 9816 5911
Fax:
(02) 9816 5988
They will tell you, You are not in my electorate. Ignore it. They need to hear from us.
387 David Gould Thanks David, I have passed the information on.
388 Kirribilli Removals The worse it gets, the more Barack Obama will be given license to operate.
Just imagine if the ALP lost the next election and Tony Abbott was appointed Minister for Communications.
Re Filtering:
I’ve just installed another PC for my 8 year old and downloaded free Aus Gov blocking software. Whenever Mrs K uses that PC, she frequently has to override the blocker for perfectly innocuous sites.
So my question: If we don’t know what they are blocking should we allow government to decide what’s ‘in’ and what’s ‘out’?
Or, is this nanny state stuff gone mad?
From my post on whirlpool.
Just imagine if the ALP lost the next election and Tony Abbott was appointed Minister for Communications.
Answer:
DON’T EVEN JOKE ABOUT THAT! You’ll give them ideas! :O
Spam Inbox. Gee some people are touchy about mentioning what the Libs may do, on Whirlpool
Chris B, it’s like opening a bag of frogs on crystal meth in there sometimes… they all start hopping out ๐
Is your user name Marxx?
It appears the Liberal tactics on there are if you post something they don’t like call them a troll.