Slog: News & Arts

RSS icon Comments on The Morning News

1

Yup. The world just keeps getting more fucked up with every passing day. Think I'll get away from it all for a while. Kenya, perhaps. Wonder if they'll let me take the machete on the plane.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty | January 31, 2008 8:54 AM
2

A question for Hillary during tonight's debates:

Everybody knows the support of Bill Clinton is important to your campaign and to you personally. Do you believe the content of your husband's support will be influenced by the millions of dollars in donations his foundation recieves? Why?

Posted by Adam | January 31, 2008 8:55 AM
3

Today's New York Times has an awesome Nicholas Kristof column on the dynasty question.

We Americans snicker patronizingly as “democratic” Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Singapore, India and Argentina hand over power to a wife or child of a former leader. Yet I can’t find any example of even the most rinky-dink “democracy” confining power continuously for seven terms over 28 years to four people from two families. (And that’s not counting George H.W. Bush’s eight years as vice president.)

Hey Nick, why fight it any longer? Bush & Clinton Forever!

Posted by cressona | January 31, 2008 8:57 AM
4

After last nights "Reagan Worship" that the Republicans did the moderator needs to ask Hillary and Obama if FDR would endorse either one of them and why?

Watching the debates I kept expecting one of them to put on a Reagan mask and say "I'm the Reaganiest!!"

BTW: John McCain is a Presidential Funeral waiting just for his innaguration...we need to pay attention to his running mate.

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger | January 31, 2008 8:58 AM
5

Wow. The Clinton Foundation was supposed to be for...what exactly? Spreading good somehow, right? Not securing mining deals with brutal dictators for hefty kickbacks. Unless I read the prospectus wrong.

Habitat for Humanity it's not. Jimmy Carter he is not. Come on, Bill -- leaving aside the election, you're supposed to be better than this.

Posted by Fnarf | January 31, 2008 8:58 AM
6

It's odd that the NYT appears to be going after Bill while endorsing Hillary. If there is anything to it, I doubt it will hurt Hillary though. It's probably too complicated for the MSM and general public.

Posted by Fitz | January 31, 2008 9:03 AM
7

Fnarf, the Clinton Library hasn't exactly been forthcoming with the identities of its donors. Frank Rich from the NYT has been all over this:

Just before the holidays, investigative reporters at both The Washington Post and The New York Times tried to find out why [the names had not yet been made public], with no help from the Clintons. The Post uncovered a plethora of foreign contributors, led by Saudi Arabia. The Times found an overlap between library benefactors and Hillary Clinton campaign donors, some of whom might have an agenda with a new Clinton administration. (Much as one early library supporter, Marc Rich’s ex-wife, Denise, had an agenda with the last one.) “The vast scale of these secret fund-raising operations presents enormous opportunities for abuse,” said Representative Henry Waxman, the California Democrat whose legislation to force disclosure passed overwhelmingly in the House but remains stalled in the Senate.

Posted by cressona | January 31, 2008 9:04 AM
8

There is a strange satisfaction I had in the goods from china being dangerous and the half retarded parents buying such goods at wal-mart. with this development of leukemia medicine being tainted, i think the federal government needs to step in and enforce at least some kind of standard of safety for imports. i also suggest people stop buying chinese crap.

Posted by Bellevue Ave | January 31, 2008 9:04 AM
9

as for shell oil; hurray on profits! now lets up the dividend yield!

Posted by Bellevue Ave | January 31, 2008 9:06 AM
10

5280 -- believe it or not, despite the horrors in Kenya, Burma, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, and other places, the world is actually getting better, not worse. Something like a fourth of the people living in extreme poverty (less than a dollar a day) in 1990 have moved up as of today. Fewer people are being killed in wars, not more. Vastly more people have clean drinking water. Remember that the news industry has a vested interest in harping on the bad stuff.

Posted by Fnarf | January 31, 2008 9:06 AM
11

Bellevue Ave @8:

There is a strange satisfaction I had in the goods from china being dangerous and the half retarded parents buying such goods at wal-mart.

Yeah, things really do come full-circle. In fact, guess who used to be a board member at Wal-Mart! And guess why Wal-Mart wanted this mystery individual to be a board member.

Posted by cressona | January 31, 2008 9:10 AM
12

Fnarf is an optimist and doesnt have selection bias. horrible tragedies strike us harder now because they are fewer than previous.

cressona, i think there comes a time when kids with leukemia getting bad drugs from china crosses the line. how many alternatives are there for this medicine and if there are very few we need to have politicians with enough backbone to tell china "kill as many of your countrymen who allow this to happen, and we wont create an inefficient bureaucratic nightmare for your imports."

Posted by Bellevue Ave | January 31, 2008 9:17 AM
13

Actually, I'm a pessimist about most thinks (Seattle Mariners), but the statistics don't lie.

Posted by Fnarf | January 31, 2008 9:24 AM
14

No, Fnarf, you think that because most of the third world now have cell phones, they're somehow magically doing better. Tell that to the guy getting his head chopped off.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty | January 31, 2008 9:33 AM
15

I think I prefer Brak for President

Posted by happy renter | January 31, 2008 9:39 AM
16

5280, do you always use stupid plea to emotions? so why are you using them now?

if you ask someone who has victimized if crime is worse or better they will most likely say worse, but if you ask 100 people with only 10 who have been victimized, the consensus would likely say better.

Posted by Bellevue Ave | January 31, 2008 9:40 AM
17

Far fewer people are getting their heads chopped off than before, 5280. They're just all news when they do now. The improvement in living standards in the third world is real, not "cell phones" but clean water, reduced risk of war and famine, smaller families, and growing incomes. Look at what's happening in China and India -- a billion people moving out of extreme poverty.

Posted by Fnarf | January 31, 2008 9:42 AM
18

My mom and I were talking about the problem of tainted Chinese products awhile ago...

She told me she thinks the Chinese government is intentionally tainting their products as part of some kind of longer range plan to take the U.S. out.

I laughed at her and told her she has turned into a crazy conspiracy theorist. But my mom has never really done anything remotely crazy. In fact, she's so wholesomely normal it's almost funny. And since then I've heard at least two more similar reports of this happening...

I'm beginning to think perhaps my mom is on to something...

Posted by Queen_of_Sleaze | January 31, 2008 9:46 AM
19

the cost to china for tainting their goods outweighs the benefit long term.

Posted by Bellevue Ave | January 31, 2008 9:51 AM
20

Well, sure, BA, stupid pleas to emotions work almost every time. That's why they're 90% of what you see on the nightly news. But seriously, though, ask Ari what her opinion about crime is after last night. Here's a bit of breaking news for you that I don't talk about too much here: I'm a retired 32-year veteran of the Denver PD. You wanna talk about crime, sheesh, I could write the book. Probably could make a lot of money if I did. But my original point is the same - the world is a pretty shitty place, and it's getting shittier by the minute.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty | January 31, 2008 9:55 AM
21

A handful of tainted Chinese goods are being targeted by news organizations because the stories feed one of our ugliest American impulses: nativism. Very few Chinese goods are tainted, and just as many American goods are tainted as well, or were back when we used to make goods. The purpose of these stories is to drive up racial and national resentment against China, nothing more.

5280, you need to get outside and smell some flowers or something.

Posted by Fnarf | January 31, 2008 10:04 AM
22

And now I finally know why you are "fifty-two eighty". Denver. Duh.

Posted by Fnarf | January 31, 2008 10:05 AM
23

Fnarf, don't get me wrong. I like you. I like BA. Fuck, I even like Ecce. And you're mostly right. You're also, unfortunately, mostly wrong. Tremendous hunks of the world are still without electricity on a regular basis. India and China, as of earlier this morning, are completely without Internet service. And as for flowers, I don't think they do too well in 9° temperatures and snow.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty | January 31, 2008 10:14 AM
24

Loved the "duh" comment BTW. Yeah, I'm actually at 5400, but nobody would ever figure that one out.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty | January 31, 2008 10:18 AM
25

@20: Such a bias is an occupational hazard for police.

Posted by Greg | January 31, 2008 10:19 AM
26

5280: in 1990, ALL of China and India were without internet service all the time. So was most of the US.

Actually, according to The Economist, technology is the leading cause of income equality in developing countries, but that doesn't change the fact that WAY more people in the world have electricity today than just a few years ago. I'm not making these numbers up, like you are:

"IN China 25 years ago, over 600m people -- two-thirds of the population -- were living in extreme poverty (on $1 a day or less). Now, the number on $1 a day is below 180m. In the world as a whole, a stunning 135m people escaped dire poverty between 1999 and 2004. This is more than the population of Japan or Russia -- and more people, more quickly than at any other time in history."

Also: "in South Asia, for instance the number of those without clean water has been nearly halved since 1990" and in 2007 "for the first time in modern history fewer than 10m children were dying each year before the age of five".

"The number of conflicts (both international and civil) fell from over 50 at the start of the 1990s to just over 30 in 2005", according to the universities of Uppsala and British Columbia. "In total, the death toll in battle fell from over 200,000 a year in the mid-1980s to below 20,000 in the mid-2000s." "During this decade civil wars have come to an end or been restrained in Aceh, Angola, Burundi, Congo, Liberia, Nepal, Timor-Leste and Sierra Leone. These places then drop out of the news."

Posted by Fnarf | January 31, 2008 10:28 AM
27

Yep, the Clintons have been entirely vetted. There are absolutely no additional scandals that the Republicans could possibly dredge up.

Posted by keshmeshi | January 31, 2008 10:34 AM
28
Suicides among active-duty soldiers in 2007 reached their highest level since the Army began keeping such records in 1980.

Not to defend the VA or anything, but we weren't involved in any real wars between 1980 and 2003. And Desert Storm doesn't count.

Posted by keshmeshi | January 31, 2008 10:36 AM
29

I'm sure the VA has a thing or two to say about Gulf War Syndrome.

Posted by Fnarf | January 31, 2008 10:39 AM
30
Posted by Fnarf | January 31, 2008 10:45 AM
31

It's actually cool flying into DIA on one of the newer planes with the little pull-down screens with the GPS and shit. The screen says 5600 feet and the wheels are like 10 feet off the runway.

Posted by Fifty-Four-Hundred | January 31, 2008 10:48 AM
32

So if Sen Clinton is so popular and pre-determined and all, how come Sen Obama gets way more contributions from the average American and more total dollars?

Just saying ...

And India only lost half it's Net capability - the part that goes thru the Middle East.

Posted by Will in Seattle | January 31, 2008 11:40 AM

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 45 days old).