You may recall my complaints here and here about the U.S military’s footdragging and evasions regarding the question of whether American air strikes on August 22 on an Afghan village killed “5-7” civilians, as the U.S. said, or 90, as the civilians themselves said. Well, now U.S. Air Force investigators have concluded that the civilian…
Author: Alan Vanneman
JJ Johnson, Howard McGhee, and Sonny Stitt play Charlie Parker’s “Now’s the Time”
Market Collapse Due To Rich White Guys, Says Times
Various conservative windbags have been blaming the current financial crisis on damn hippie legislation that forced honest, hard-working white banks to give money to lazy black people. But now the New York Times reports that it was a banker-friendly Securities and Exchange Commission that gave the big Wall Street firms the rope they needed to…
Further thoughts on the current discontents
If we can take Barack Obama at his word—and I fear we have to—we are in all likelihood entering a new era of regulation. Whatever Wall Street Pacification Package emerges from the current confusion, it certainly won’t turn things around before election day, which is looking more and more like a blowout win for the…
Thoughts on the current discontents
By now it’s abundantly obvious that no one of any consequence—with the dubious exception of Newt “Kiss of Death” Gingrich—has been following my analysis of the current economic situation. Either that or I’ve been singularly unprescient. In any event, the things that I said were going to be happening don’t seem to be happening, and…
Trust me, I hate this as much as you do, which is why you’ve got to trust me
It’s time for Democrats to wake up and tell Henry Paulson to go to hell. At first blush, Democrats in Congress, particularly House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, seemed quite ready to go along with Paulson’s request for a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street for three reasons: 1) Most of them don’t know shit about economics;…
Getcher Red Hot Economic Analysis Here!
I don’t know anything about economics, but I know what I like, and what I like is Naked Capitalism’s analysis of the Paulson plan. The long story short of NC’s analysis is that the financial system is, um, fucked up because housing prices became grossly inflated. Stability won’t return until housing prices fall to the…
Does that mean we lied? Part II
The way David Ignatius tells it, Secretary of Defense Bob Gates will do anything to express his sorrow for the deaths of innocent Afghan civilians killed by U.S. troops. He’ll even stand in the hot sun, wearing a pinstriped suit! According to Ignatius, Gates also announced that “United States will adopt a new approach of…
Milt Jackson Quartet in Japan 1990
So does that mean we lied?
Yesterday Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, speaking in Kabul, offered “sincere condolences and personal regrets” for recent deaths of Afghan civilians as a result of U.S. air strikes. You may remember that on August 22 a U.S. airstrike killed “five to seven” civilians, according to the U.S. military. Or was it closer to 90? Gates…