Ninja Monkie Bacchanal

Here is an interesting article in the LA Times about a slightly different take on the legacy of Republican politics in the United States:

Republicans continue to push the idea that this is a center-right country and that Americans have swooned for GOP anti-government posturing all these years, but the real electoral bait has been anger, recrimination and scapegoating. That’s why John McCain kept describing Barack Obama as some sort of alien and why Palin, taking a page right out of the McCarthy playbook, kept pushing Obama’s relationship with onetime radical William Ayers.

OMG! I totally want this! It is freaking AWESOME!!!

I saw this today:

Less than two months after federal food regulators said they were unable to set a safety threshold for the industrial chemical melamine in baby formula, they announced a standard that allows for higher levels than those found in U.S.-made batches of the product.

Food and Drug Administration officials on Friday set a threshold of 1 part per million of melamine in formula, provided a related chemical isn’t present. They insisted the formulas are safe.

The setting of the standard comes days after The Associated Press reported that FDA tests found traces of melamine in the infant formula of one major U.S. manufacturer and cyanuric acid, a chemical relative, in the formula of a second major maker. The contaminated samples, which both measured at levels below the new standard, were analyzed several weeks ago.

So, I looked up melamine on the inner-tubes thingy. Here is what melamine is normally used for:

Melamine is combined with formaldehyde to produce melamine resin, a very durable thermosetting plastic used in Formica, and melamine foam, a polymeric cleaning product. The end products include countertops, dry erase boards, fabrics, glues, housewares and flame retardants. Melamine is one of the major components in Pigment Yellow 150, a colorant in inks and plastics.

Melamine also enters the fabrication of melamine poly-sulfonate used as superplasticizer for making high-resistance concrete. Sulfonated melamine formaldehyde (SMF) is a polymer used as cement admixture to reduce the water content in concrete while increasing the fluidity and the workability of the mix during its handling and pouring. It results in concrete with a lower porosity and a higher mechanical strength exhibiting an improved resistance to aggressive environments and a longer life-time.

The use of melamine as fertilizer for crops had been envisaged during the ‘50s and ‘60s because of its high nitrogen content (2/3)[7]. However, the hydrolysis reactions of melamine leading to the nitrogen mineralisation in soils are very slow, precluding a broad use of melamine as fertilizing agent.

Nice, huh?

I don’t understand what drives people to do this:

Indian forces fired grenades at the landmark Taj Mahal hotel Friday, the last stand of the suspected Muslim militants, just hours after elite commandos stormed a Jewish outreach center and found six hostages dead.

More than 150 people were killed in the violence that began when gunmen attacked 10 sites across India’s financial capital Wednesday night. Fifteen foreigners, including five Americans, were among the dead.

Article 1, Section 6 of the United States Constitution states:

"No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office."

What does this mean for you? Well, it means Senator Clinton might not be able to be the next Secretary of State. That’s what.

Today, the federal government announced a new bailout deal for Citigroup. This is getting ridiculous. Here is Robert Reich’s take on it:

This is not a particularly good deal for American taxpayers, but it is a marvelous deal for Citi. In return for all the cash and guarantees they are giving away, taxpayers will get only $27 billion of preferred shares paying an 8 percent dividend. No other strings are attached. The senior executives of Citi, including those who have served at the highest levels in the US government, have done their jobs exceedingly well. The American public, including the media, have not the slightest clue what just happened.

At what point do we stop this? Businesses fail. That is what happens. Let them fall into bankruptcy under the new bankruptcy laws they helped get passed earlier this year. And yes, I know the new laws really affect individuals filing, not corporations, but it fun to daydream. 

Here is the current list of front-runners for President-Elect Obama’s Cabinet:

1. Secretary of State - Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY)
2. Attorney General - Eric Holder
3. Secretary of the Treasury - Robert Geithner
4. Secretary of Homeland Security - Gov. Janet Napolitano (D-AZ)
5. Secretary of Commerce - Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM)
6. Secretary of Health and Human Services - Tom Daschle
7. Chief of Staff - Rep. Rahm Emmanuel (D-IL)

Not a bad line-up actually. Now we just need to figure out SecDef. My money is in keeping Secretary Robert Gates there for at least one year. The NYT has a complete run-down of all of the current contenders. And honestly, this discussion beats the pants off of talking about crappy ‘tween movies like Twilight.

It smells like irony to me:

Here’s a delicious chunk of schadenfreude for all of our uniformed men and women in the Gay Militia fighting the fundies out West: “[Colorado Springs-based ministry] Focus on the Family announced this afternoon that 202 jobs will be cut companywide, bringing the total number of employees to around 950. …The cutbacks come just weeks after the group pumped more than half a million dollars into the successful effort to pass a gay-marriage ban in California.” To the suddenly unemployed Culture Warriors in Colorado: don’t be upset! And please don’t complain? No complaining!! If you complain, Jesus will kill you.

This should NOT HAPPEN in the United States of America:

Some 691,000 children went hungry in America sometime in 2007, while close to one in eight Americans struggled to feed themselves adequately even before this year’s sharp economic downturn, the Agriculture Department reported Monday.

The department’s annual report on food security showed that during 2007 the number of children who suffered a substantial disruption in the amount of food they typically eat was more than double the 430,000 in 2006 and the largest figure since 716,000 in 1998.

That is the question. I am leaning towards the Washington Independent’s suggestion:

The pressure is ratcheting up on President-elect Barack Obama to do something as soon as he takes office about the Bush administration’s years of law-breaking.

The lawyer and writer Scott Horton, in an excellent feature in the December issue of Harper’s, lays out the Obama administration’s options. Horton points out that there is a long litany of potential crimes the new administration could go after -– from using the Justice Dept. for political purposes to issuing no-bid military contracts to corrupt companies.

But the most obvious crime that’s prime for prosecution is officially sanctioned torture.

We must tell the world that NO ONE is above the law. Not even the President of the United States of America.

From MSNBC.com:

World leaders holding an emergency meeting to combat the economic crisis agreed Saturday to a far-reaching action plan that, over the next 4 1/2 months, would begin to reshape international financial institutions and reform worldwide regulatory and accounting rules.

Under the plans outlined by the leaders, countries such as China, Brazil and India would gain greater roles and responsibilities as part of a restructuring of the international financial system, while European leaders won a commitment to new regulations and controls on banks, rating agencies and exotic financial securities. The leaders also agreed that a dramatic failure of market oversight in “some advanced countries” was among the root causes of the financial crisis, an implicit rebuke of the United States.

I am curious how the new Obama administration will address this in April. With the inclusion of China, India, and Brazil in leadership roles within the World Bank and IMF, we are in for some more serious change. Not necessarily bad change, but certainly painful change.

The leaders agreed to set up a new regulatory body, “a college of supervisors,” to examine the books of major financial institutions that operate across national borders, so regulators could begin to have a more complete picture of banks’ operations. They demanded greater scrutiny of hedge funds and the completion of a clearinghouse system to help standardize and limit risk on some of the opaque and exotic financial derivatives that helped bring down Wall Street’s investment banks.

Leaders also agreed to submit their countries’ financial systems to regular, vigorous reviews by the International Monetary Fund — assessments that some countries, including the United States, had long resisted. And they urged new constraints on the pay schemes at financial firms that “reward excessive short-term returns or risk-taking.”