29 March 2008

...two men pursuing a lawsuit in federal court in Hawaii ... think a giant particle accelerator that will begin smashing protons together outside Geneva this summer might produce a black hole that will spell the end of the Earth — and maybe the universe.

Scientists say that is very unlikely — though they have done some checking just to make sure.

Just a sec, I'll check to see if we can reach a consensus. That way we'll know the science is correct. Oh, wait...that works only for global warming.. What do you mean, come on, they're both world-ending, aren't they?.

The world’s physicists have spent 14 years and $8 billion building the Large Hadron Collider, in which the colliding protons will recreate energies and conditions last seen a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. Researchers will sift the debris from these primordial recreations for clues to the nature of mass and new forces and symmetries of nature.

The lawsuit couldn't have been brought before all that time and money was spent, could it?

But Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho contend that scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, have played down the chances that the collider could produce, among other horrors, a tiny black hole, which, they say, could eat the Earth. Or it could spit out something called a “strangelet” that would convert our planet to a shrunken dense dead lump of something called “strange matter.” Their suit also says CERN has failed to provide an environmental impact statement as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.

Now that's classic! Who do they submit the environmental impact statement to...God? Or maybe he has to be the issuer?

I've been out of the real estate business for 8 years now, and I worked in California, not New York, but even so this item was a surprise:

I can't make logical sense out of it, because it seems to say that the big side of the split goes to the buying side and the smaller side of the split to the selling side. I guess they must be using the term "broker" to mean "agent", since typically the company employing the agent is actually the broker. Each company involved in the transaction has a broker who holds the company license, with the other agents (who can be either brokers, themselves, or simply licensees, 'broker' being an experience and education qualification).

Thus there are typically four parties to a transaction. One is the brokerage which holds the listing, with the second being the individual agent who represents the brokerage. One brokerage, of course, can employ many agents. Similar on the buying side; an employing brokerage and an agent doing the work.

We always spit the commission 50-50 between the two brokerages, with the agent then taking a split from his employing brokerage. The size of the agent's split depends upon their ability and production level. In my time, a brand-new agent with minimal training got a 50% split, with the split going as high as 90% for high-producers doing a lot of volume, valuable people you didn't want moving to another company for a better deal.

The listing brokerage has a lot of expenses associated with the house listed for sale, mainly advertising, on top of ordinary business overhead for the office itself. The selling brokerage typically has only ordinary business overhead to consider. It's obviously more expensive to be the listing brokerage and you'd expect them to get the bigger side of the split, but maybe the writer's example reflects the buyer's market and the fact that buyers are harder to find and thus at a premium.

When you figure the 6% goes four ways, runs two companies and makes a living for two individuals, it isn't really that much money for any of them. The general public may look at that 6% and say oh, boy, what does the broker do that's worth that much, and the prospective new agent looks at the 6% and says I'm going to get a real estate license and get rich, but that isn't the way it works out.

Big-name brokerages who can attract a lot of agents to work for them can do well, as can the top-producing agents, but for the rest of the real estate business it's not that easy.

She may show people where the bodies are buried before this is all over. Consider this:

When Murtha announced last week that he would endorse the senator from New York, he gave her a uniquely valuable gift. No politician is better positioned to deliver votes when Pennsylvania holds its presidential primary on April 22 than Murtha, who has lived in the same Johnstown neighborhood since winning a House seat in 1974.

This is VERY revealing, because Murtha works for House Speaker Pelosi, arguably the most powerful politician in the Congress, and Pelosi wants Hillary to drop out. Murtha is an old-time politician and unindicted Abscam co-conspirator who knows all about shady deals and back rooms where the bodies are buried, so for him to go directly and openly contrary to Pelosi means something is up. His endorsement is significantly revealing in that respect, at least.

And did you notice how Clinton did it? First Pennsylvania governor Rendell came out for Clinton. Pennsylvania senator Casey went for Obama, covering Rendell. Now Clinton has slapped her trump card, Murtha, down on top of both of them.

"We don't want this to degenerate into a big fight at the convention," Dean said on ABC. Saying it "would be nice" to have the nomination settled by July 1, a month after the last votes in the Democratic contest are cast on June 3, Dean said completing it sooner would be "all the better."

The internal Democratic tumult over the battle, now in its 14th month, is the latest challenge for Clinton. Her best hope for victory lies in extending the process until she can overtake Obama in the popular vote. She hopes to make strides in the 10 remaining contests, the biggest of which are Pennsylvania on April 22 and Indiana and North Carolina on May 6.

But those politicians wanting Hillary to drop out now, before those contests, claim that they only want her to bow to the will of the people! Odd logic of the kind I call Liberal Logic. Listen to the will of the people, drop out before all of them can be heard.

If Obama really thought he was going to win easily, he'd kick back and never mention Hillary again, let her rave away on her own. Whenever her name came up he would simply smile, then change the subject.

I once watched an angry hostile panel trying to question the old labor leader, John L. Lewis. I was emotionally on the side of the panel, at the time, so I wanted them to get him. Instead, he sat there calmly and answered with non-answers which completely avoided the point while at the same time not appearing to dodge the question. He looked like a noble lion surrounded by a pack of hysterical hyenas, and I've never forgotten it...what was that, 40 years ago, minimum. As anti-Lewis as I was, I was very impressed by his performance and could only applaud in appreciation as he ended.

Clinton has given no signal that she is considering dropping out. Campaign advisers said the pressure has only hardened her resolve and has created a backlash among supporters who feel she is being unfairly attacked.

To counter the impression that Clinton is prolonging the race, her campaign has begun describing what they say is a pattern of trying to force her to "the sidelines" every time she appears on the verge of victory. In an e-mail to her supporters, Clinton asked: "Have you noticed the pattern?"

"Every time our campaign demonstrates its strength and resilience, people start to suggest we should end our pursuit of the Democratic nomination," she wrote. "Those anxious to force us to the sidelines aren't doing it because they think we're going to lose the upcoming primaries. The fact is, they're reading the same polls we are, and they know we are in a position to win."

Hillary also knows some things that don't appear in the polls...in fact, they may never fully appear, even afterwards.

You see, it won't be enough if Hillary drops out as a result of pressure. She also has to drop out with a happy face, and then tell that 28% to please go ahead and support Obama, instead.

I suspect even Dean cannot envision Hillary dropping out with a happy face on, right now.

Apparently Hillary's team ran an attack ad referring to it, and Obama's team responded:

Doesn't he know that the oil company's customers actually pay those taxes at the pump? Exxon will still make its $40 billion because that's what it needs in order to stay in business and have exploration money to spend looking for new oil, so if you tax Exxon more then that simply means the price goes from $3.50 to $3.50+ in order to pay those taxes.

I keep wondering. Okay, sure, Obama figures that most people don't understand this so he can get away with saying things like that...or maybe he's saying what he really believes because he doesn't even understand it, himself?

I think James Carville is a jerk most of the time, but I have to admit that he does speak out plainly:

Last Friday the New York Times asked me to comment on New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama for president. For 15 years, Richardson served with no small measure of distinction as the representative of New Mexico's 3rd Congressional District. But he gained national stature -- and his career took off -- when President Bill Clinton appointed him U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and later made him energy secretary.

So, when asked on Good Friday about Richardson's rejection of the Clintons, the metaphor was too good to pass by. I compared Richardson to Judas Iscariot. (And Matthew Dowd is right: Had it been the Fourth of July, I probably would have called him Benedict Arnold.)

I believed that Richardson's appointments in Bill Clinton's administration and his longtime personal relationship with both Clintons, combined with his numerous assurances to the Clintons and their supporters that he would never endorse any of Sen. Hillary Clinton's opponents, merited a strong response. ...

In a bit of bloviation that brought joy to my heart, Bill O'Reilly pronounced himself "appalled."

Keith Olbermann, about two degrees shy of the temperature necessary for self-combustion, quipped, "So if he's Judas in this analogy, who's Jesus?"

Even Diane Sawyer took the analogy to the extreme, questioning, "Are you saying that he made a deal of some kind when you talk about 30 shekels?"

All of this will become clear when Obama picks Richardson as his vice president.

This guy writes an article complaining about Hillary's 3 a.m. phone call ad, asking "why wake the president?"

"In my experience," former secretary of state and national security adviser Henry Kissinger told The Post, "I cannot think, off the top of my head, of a snap decision that had to be made in the middle of the night." Indeed, Kissinger added, "I think that one should reduce the number of snap decisions to be made." ...

How many probing questions is a groggy president supposed to ask at 3 a.m.? How much confidence should he or she have in the answers?

How many answers will he have for an attack-oriented press the following days if he chooses NOT to be awakened, instead? At least in his own residence at 3 a.m. he probably won't have to be faced, as Bush was, with being told, on camera while reading a story to young school children, about what was known at the time about 9/11.

What do you think he actually was told? Do we know? At that time, did we actually know they were even deliberate attacks of terrorism yet, or only that planes had struck the Twin Towers? Had the Pentagon been hit yet?

Bush may not have been awakened from sleep in the middle of the night, but he also had to do his thinking and make snap decisions while sitting in full view of a room full of school children, teachers, and press.

After which, his enemies mocked him for how they interpreted his reaction to the surprise news.

Now this author seriously wants us to believe that he's right to ask "why wake the president?" as well as why any president would possibly want to put himself in that position?

Bush wasn't even in a position where he could ask probing questions of his informant, let alone wonder how much confidence he should have in the answers.

But either you get it now or you never will. That's the importance of the Bosnia tape.

Many in the press get it, to their dismay, and it makes them uncomfortable, for it sours life to have a person whose character you feel you cannot admire play such a large daily role in your work. But I think it's fair to say of the establishment media at this point that it is well populated by people who feel such a lack of faith in Mrs. Clinton's words and ways that it amounts to an aversion. They are offended by how she and her staff operate. They try hard to be fair. They constantly have to police themselves.

I like Peggy, but this is simply nonsense CYA journalism. Clinton got reelected to a second term with far too much of the press in either denial or forgiveness of Clintonian mendacity, fairness is not an appropriate term. In fact, it's laughable.

The press back then assured us what when Clinton lied it was only about sex, just like they claim that Bush lied when he said it was only about WMD, but in both cases it is the liberal press which is lying, and far from seeking fairness.

What's their mantra? "If it bleeds, it leads." There's your fairness on full display.

What struck me as the best commentary on the Bosnia story came from a poster called GI Joe who wrote in to a news blog: "Actually Mrs. Clinton was too modest. I was there and saw it all. When Mrs. Clinton got off the plane the tarmac came under mortar and machine gun fire. I was blown off my tank and exposed to enemy fire. Mrs. Clinton without regard to her own safety dragged me to safety, jumped on the tank and opened fire, killing 50 of the enemy." Soon a suicide bomber appeared, but Mrs. Clinton stopped the guards from opening fire. "She talked to the man in his own language and got him [to] surrender. She found that he had suffered terribly as a result of policies of George Bush. She defused the bomb vest herself." Then she turned to his wounds. "She stopped my bleeding and saved my life. Chelsea donated the blood."

I think that's a fabulous job, especially the line about the suicide bomber suffering terribly from the policies of George Bush.

"Middle classism" or " Two Americas"? [Victor Davis Hanson]

Would somebody do the calculus?

Is "the brilliant" (and I do mean brilliant) Rev. Wright's current purported $1.6 million 10,000 sq. ft. mansion (cum elevator and butler's pantry) under construction in a gated Chicago community a better reflection of his hated black "middle classism," or is the Obamas' $1.65 million stately domicile more indicative of Michelle's former lack of pride in America?

Perhaps kindred populist John Edwards of two Americas and 30,000 sq.ft fame can adjudicate.

Mark Steyn on a popular subject with a popular conclusion that, well, just might be wrong:

In their heyday, the Clintons ran a thuggish operation fronted by an ingratiating charmer. Now the charming facade’s gone, and the backroom thuggery is ineffective. The Clinton campaign’s letter to Nancy Pelosi suggesting that she might like to “reflect” (if you know what we mean) on her call for the super-delegates to support the winner of the popular vote (ie, Obama) was notable not for its menace but for its clumsiness: Few sights are more forlorn than an enforcer who can no longer enforce.

The problem is, however, that the Clintons DO in fact control hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps, which are perhaps more privately being made know to be available to the superdelegates, who in their spare time run reelection campaigns of their own.

This letter to Nancy was the "for show" stick that could be held up, but it was sent as a subliminal message to all of the supers: we have the money which will get you reelected, if you are in our favor. If you aren't, we'll kill you.

Hillary and Bill pretend this secret message does not exist. So do the superdelegates. But it does.

You think I'm joking or out of my tree, but you tell me another way to figure the 8 Bill Clinton years when Republicans were pointing out all of the things that are coming out today, yet the Clintons survived them all. How? Bill survived the consequences of an impeachment. How? Hillary miraculously became the senator of a state in which she had never even lived. How?

You can ask yourself a zillion questions about the Clintons surviving this or that situation, but it always comes back to...how?

Nobody knows, but they did. She'll survive this primary, too, and nobody will, at least ostensibly, quite know how.

In terms of personal accomplishments and service to country, Obama's cupboard is virtually bare next to McCain's. The same goes with political actions. You don't have to parse a John McCain speech to figure out where he stands. Heck, you don't even have to listen to McCain's speeches to know where he stands. From campaign finance to immigration to the Bush tax cuts to the Iraq War, McCain has been a man of action rather than words. Such men develop records and reputations. They become known quantities.

On the other end of the spectrum stands Barack Obama. Obama lacks a biography that tells you where he stands. He also has taken no defining or even noteworthy political action in his short time in public life.

Very, very true. It is McCain's strength and Obama's weakness, which he covers up with eloquent speeches as best he can.

But this is the funny part, because they were trying desperately to figure out a way to attack McCain's excellent speech the other night, hitting Obama in his own strength:

The bumbling gumshoes at the lefty website Think Progress got busy investigating McCain's speech and discovered that Rear Admiral Timothy Ziemer had given a speech featuring remarkably similar language in 1996. "Plagiarism!" the left wing blogosphere cried, nearly in unison.

The American Prospect's Ezra Klein seemed the most excited by the "scandal," apparently thinking that with proper massaging, it could devastate McCain:

"Some of you will remember that Joe Biden's 1988 bid for the presidency was felled when he plagiarized a major speech from British politician Neil Kinnock. Now, via Think Progress, McCain looks to be risking a similar fate. Turns out quite a bit of his foreign policy speech yesterday was stolen, without credit, from a speech Admiral Timothy Ziemer gave in 1996."

"What's particularly telling is where the lifting happened--in the section where McCain explained his deep hatred of war. Turned out it wasn't quote his after all. If that section of the speech, which seemed so very personal, but was in fact anything but, than what can we really take away from the address? The point of the speech was that McCain's core beliefs militate powerfully against war. But that's not true for his policies, and we now learn, those aren't strictly his core beliefs. This seems like a big deal to me."

You could probably bet a bundle, and win, that Ezra hadn't heard the Admiral's speech back in 1996 and remembered it! No, he undoubtedly Googled it up from somewhere.

Without leaving you in any further suspense as to how the brouhaha ended, suffice to say McCain's critics beclowned themselves in the extreme.

Turns out Admiral Ziemer's 1996 speech borrowed from a speech that McCain gave in 1995. The fact that the McCain campaign had posted the 1995 speech on its website should compound his critics' embarrassment. The additional fact that no one at Think Progress contacted the McCain campaign or even checked the Senator's website before charging "Plagiarism!" will likely cause professional writers to think twice before citing a Think Progress report in the future. (Bolding mine)

This is because they thought they found what they so-badly wanted to find, they didn't even want to know the truth. And, do you know what? Some fools will believe them, even so. Dan Rather still stands by his false documents, for instance, and so do some who simply don't want to believe otherwise.

Next week, McCain will make his first systematic attempt to frame that debate. His campaign has arranged a weeklong tour to highlight arguably his greatest political asset: his compelling personal story as the son of a distinguished military family, a Navy flier, and a prisoner of war in Vietnam. On a sentimental journey, McCain will tour a Navy facility in Mississippi named for his grandfather, the Naval Academy in Annapolis, and naval bases in Pensacola and Jacksonville, where he trained as a flier, led a flight squadron, and returned after being freed from captivity in Hanoi.

At each stop, aides say, McCain will talk about a value that shaped him, such as service or education, and how he would incorporate that principle into his presidency. "At each place we will speak to a value that John McCain took away from his life experience revolving around that place," a senior campaign adviser said. "We will tie past to present to future."

Later this spring, McCain plans to fill in his economic agenda, partly by visiting troubled rural and inner-city communities where he will deliver a conservative empowerment message reminiscent of that of former Rep. Jack Kemp, R-N.Y., who is now advising him.

If the past month is any guide, while McCain lays down these markers, Obama and Clinton will be gouging each other. In the past few days, Democrats have witnessed one prominent Obama supporter liken former President Bill Clinton to Joseph McCarthy and one prominent Clintonite liken New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to Judas (for endorsing Obama). The Clinton campaign says that Obama can't be trusted as commander-in-chief, and the Obama campaign says that Hillary Clinton can't be trusted, period.

And, lordy be, they're both right! That's the best part, the Democrats are all correct for once!

They could be using that money to buy the presidency if they weren't fighting each other. Wouldn't it be interesting if this was the year when the guy with the most money didn't win?

This would all be good sport, to be sure, were it not for the gathering impression that the two-way battering is taking a serious toll on the Democrats’ prospects in the fall. Poll after poll indicates that Obama’s and Clinton’s negatives are rising—and so are John McCain’s approval ratings, along with his lead among independents over either of them. Then there’s the data indicating that pronounced bitterness is setting in among both Obama and Clinton supporters toward other side: Roughly 20 percent in each category now say they would support McCain if their preferred candidate fails to win the nomination. Ugh.

Which brings us back to those party elders and the calls for them to step in. Now, let’s be clear, those calls are coming exclusively from Obama’s adherents. And they have some logic on their side: If it’s all but mathematically impossible for Clinton to wind up ahead in pledged delegates or the popular vote—and it is—then what conceivable purpose is being served by further bloodshed?

But the desire for a deus ex machina intervening to usher Clinton from the race runs into a number of problems, beginning with the fact that there simply aren’t many Democratic deities around...

And there you have it, as far as I'm concerned. The article could have ended right here.

No, according to Hillary’s adjutants, the people most likely to have sway with her on this topic are not party elders at all but instead her fiercest loyalists, those who’ve won her trust over the years by dint of their unwavering support. ... For the moment, none of these people, as far as I know, is advising Hillary to fold. They are not idiots and they are not blind—they can read the writing on the wall and do the math as well. But they also believe that, though Clinton’s path to the nomination has narrowed to a cliff walk, it hasn’t been barricaded. If she beats Obama in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Indiana, it may widen again, should the superdelegates start questioning his durability and the potency of his electoral coalition. Or Obama’s candidacy could suddenly blow up in a more spectacular fashion—over further revelations about Wright or some other political IED planted on the roadside ahead.

The question is whether any of those that Clinton trusts are willing to intercede with Hillary if the rancor of the campaign continues to escalate.

Asked and answered, as they say in the courtroom novels. Her loyalists, the author admits, are neither idiots nor blind. They still think, rightly enough in my opinion, that she has a chance to win. And nobody will leave or advise her to quit as long as they do.

When she notices their ranks thinning markedly, that will be her sign, but not before.

Some senior members of Clinton’s campaign have no intention of sticking around if Obama is substantially ahead come June; as much as they’re devoted to their boss, they want nothing to do with a black-bag operation designed to destroy her rival, no matter what the cost. But these same people are also deeply convinced—beyond spin, beyond talking points, to their core—that Obama would be doomed against McCain. And Clinton believes this, too, which is one important reason why she persists despite odds that grow longer each passing day.

Yet, by an irony, Clinton’s grim assessment of Obama’s chances may also be the best cause for hope that she will, sometime between now and the middle of June, find it in herself to leave the stage with a modicum of grace. It may even be a reason, as Walter Mondale’s campaign manager, Bob Beckel, suggested in a column this week, that she winds up filling, against her instincts, the slot as Obama’s veep. For if HRC believes that Obama will lose in November, there can be no doubt that she’s already calculating, in the back of her head, the best way to position herself for 2012. A scorched-earth campaign against Obama is plainly not the way to do that. A classy exit, a show of unity, an act that apparently places party before self: That’s the ticket.

But that rationale works only from Hillary's point of view. Why would Obama view her as a help? With her as his vice president he wouldn't have to worry about a 3 a.m. phone call waking him up...he'd probably never get a wink of sleep as long as she was around, anyhow.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce my running mate, Hillary Clinton. As vice president, she'll be only a heartbeat away from the presidency. Mine, unfortunately. I'm Barack Obama, and I can't believe I approved this foolish ad.

While Sen. John McCain will not decide on a vice president for many months, Rob Portman gets the highest marks inside the Republican presidential candidate's organization.

Portman's background is legislative (House Republican leadership), executive (George W. Bush's Cabinet), diplomatic (U.S. trade representative) and economic (Office of Management and Budget director). He comes from a swing state (Ohio), is young enough (52) to contrast McCain and conservative enough (89 percent lifetime American Conservative Union rating).

My question would be what makes Novak think McCain is going to wait for many months? Indecision? McCain is on a self-introduction tour right now, we just read, and since McCain is arguably already much better known than any of his possible vice presidential selections, why now choose him early and get the nation used to the idea at a time when the Democrats can't even figure out who they want for president, let alone vice president?

The war is costing Americans at least $10 billion a month - as the economy heads into a recession. US casualties are down but unending. The pace of operations is stretching the Army and Marine Corps to the breaking point and forcing us to neglect security obligations in Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world. Bearing such costs on the road to success is noble; doing so while spinning our wheels is folly.

That is why the Democratic candidates for president are right to pledge, if elected, a gradual drawdown of US forces from Iraq. The idea that such a withdrawal is "precipitous" or "hasty" - let alone a "rush for the exits" - is nonsense. Both Senators Obama and Clinton are proposing a gradual drawdown over 12-16 months...

Except for the fact that it's just about as fast as it can be done, that is. The Democrats made a big thing about Bush's rush to war, which took quite a long time getting the men and material over there, a fact somehow forgotten. You can't bring that many men and that much material back home much faster than 12-16 months...and that's presuming that al-Qaeda does not step up Dunkirk-like attacks as American forces diminish in number. If they're smart, they'll lay low until all the Americans leave...but is al-Qaeda really smart? Witness how they lost Sunni support in Anbar, for instance, which definitely wasn't smart.

Uh, how would you adjust the pace? Speed it up? After all, it makes no sense to slow it down if Iraq begins to make "real political progress", does it?

The CYA close. Any suggestion what "sufficient forces" means? Ha! Of course not.

If it is taking all of the forces we have there presently to deter regional aggression and prevent terrorists from establishing a safe haven, why would fewer troops be able to do the job better?

It's a stupid article, from my point of view, but lots of Democrats are going to think it actually makes sense.

If Obama wins, look for the possibility of another Dunkirk. Hillary is actually more sensible on this subject, I think, despite her inability to tell the truth.

It's that hope which, ironically enough for the man promising hope, makes me prefer Hillary to Barack, if that's the only choice I had. Fortunately, although I'm trying hard not to get my hopes too high, I think McCain has a good chance.

Exhibit A in the national obsession with identity is Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's pastor of disaster. A few weeks ago, Wright's linguistic fireballs introduced portions of America to an identity-based subculture many never knew existed (or, if they did, were in deep denial about).

Rev. Wright, however, is merely a drop in America's teeming, frothy bucket of identity conflicts. Gender identity also plagues us, or so we're told. This month, for instance, Conde Nast's Portfolio magazine broadcast the allegedly daunting problem of sexism in corporate America. The article's exquisitely ironic subtitle ("Weren't we supposed to be beyond this by now?") echoes what many Americans are likely thinking at this point. So thick is the air of identity, however, that the much-publicized study somehow misses the point of its own concluding paragraphs, in which two female business school professors suggest that, rather than facing discrimination, many women just might not be cutthroat enough--they're "equality builders," one says--to rise to the top. (Apparently, Hillary Clinton missed that particular memo.)

Actually, she is the proof of the pudding. She's not only cutthroat enough, she's also at the top of the female heap right now, the first woman ever to run for president.