Sir Walter Scott on the Cheney-Bush relationship

Wish I could take credit for this one myself, but I can’t. It is a letter to the editor (me) at my newspaper; yes, there are a few blue people in red states:

Dear editor:

Two quotes by Sir Walter Scott made 200 years ago explain the Cheney-Bush relationship: “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” And, “I cannot tell how the truth may be, I say the tale as it was told to me.”

We should all be aware by now that Vice President Dick Cheney was the invader of Iraq for the purpose of controlling Iraq’s oil and further enriching corporate friends. The first quote by Walter Scott pertains to Cheney and the second explains Bush’s relationship to Cheney.

What if George Bush had been president a decade earlier?

What if he had been president in 1995, when Timothy McVeigh parked the Ryder rental truck outside of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City?

Would he have called for a Patriot Act inside the country? Would Bill Kristol had defended him then? Would Dick Cheney tried to have spirited white supremacists to Guantanamo?

Think about it.

Mechanization an answer to illegal immigration?

Robotic fruit pickers could be just that in the agricultural industry:

Vision Robotics, a San Diego company, is working on a pair of robots that would trundle through orchards plucking oranges, apples or other fruit from the trees. In a few years, troops of these machines could perform the tedious and labor-intensive task of fruit picking that currently employs thousands of migrant workers each season.

The robotic work has been funded entirely by agricultural associations, and pushed forward by the uncertainty surrounding the migrant labor force. Farmers are “very, very nervous about the availability and cost of labor in the near future,” says Vision Robotics CEO Derek Morikawa.

The trick to avoiding robotic single-mindedness that would usually flunk a task like this? Two robots — hence the two mentioned above — differentiating the labor. One hunts the oranges or whatever, the other actually picks.

When mechanization was first proposed decades ago Cesar Chavez strongly opposed it. But, he’s dead and the United Farm Workers is little more than a money-solicitation machine today, trading on his legacy.

Nonetheless, it has weighed in:

The United Farm Workers' leaders say they aren't worried about the robots, because they don't believe the machines will ever be able to do the job as well as people. Spokesman Marc Grossman predicts that mechanical hands will damage the fruit and make it unappealing for supermarket shoppers. "There are already machines that will pick wine grapes, but the high end wine growers don’t use them, because they want the quality," Grossman says.

Farmers, and growers’ groups, strongly disagree. In fact, interest is spreading beyond California:

The Washington Tree Fruit Commission started investing in the project last year, and Vision Robotics is talking to other agricultural groups with crops ranging from cherries to asparagus.

I think it’s a good idea, overall. And, in most the Southwest, the robots should be able to be solar-powered, eliminating fossil fuel issues.

That said, this won’t reduce pressures south of the border, just one area of incentives on our side.

The answer down there, or part of it? Two words: Birth control.

Anyway, given the immigration bill being back on the Senate’s platter, I wonder if this is going to get any airplay. It needs it.

The “Schmuck Talk Express” caves to lobbyists

Gee, shock me that John McCain has feet of political clay. From Huffington Post:

John McCain, who made his name attacking special interests, has more lobbyists working on his staff or as advisers than any of his competitors, Republican or Democrat. …

All told, there are 11 current or former lobbyists working for or advising McCain, at least double the number in any other campaign. …

A Huffington Post examination of the campaigns of the top three presidential candidates in each party shows that lobbyists are playing key roles in both Democratic and Republican bids — although they are far more prevalent on the GOP side. But, all the campaigns pale in comparison to McCain's, whose rhetoric stands in sharp contrast to his conduct.

“Too often the special interest lobbyists with the fattest wallets and best access carry the day when issues of public policy are being decided,” McCain asserts on his website, declaring that he “has fought the ‘revolving door’ by which lawmakers and other influential officials leave their posts and become lobbyists for the special interests they have aided.”

In actual practice, at least two of McCain's top advisers fit precisely the class of former elected officials he criticizes so sharply.

Nothing about McCain surprises me any more, to be honest.

Housing bubble scare in bonds

Merrill Lynch discusses dumping $800 million of mortgage securities, rather than trying to bludgeon Jason Giambi.

A sale would give banks, brokerages and investors the one thing they want to avoid: a real price on the bonds in the fund that could serve as a benchmark. The securities are known as collateralized debt obligations, which exceed $1 trillion and comprise the fastest-growing part of the bond market.

(The story doesn’t mention that CDOs also comprise one of the shakiest sections of the bond market, especially those based on mortgages rated subprime or one level above.)

And, plenty of people are worried about fallout:

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox said yesterday that the agency’s division of market regulation is tracking the turmoil at the Bear Stearns fund.

“Our concerns are with any potential systemic fallout,” Cox said in an interview.

“Systemic,” eh? That’s not a good thing here. BUT, this bubble has to be fully lanced, or like a free-floating piece of arterial plaque, it will land elsewhere.

Blogger Bondad provides more insight:

CDOs are theoretically an insurance policy against a blow-up in the mortgage industry. However, these investments have never been tested by a real problem in the market. That does not mean they won't work as advertised. It simply means that the market has never tested them.

He says Merrill could just be using this as a tool to beat down Bear, or that it could be a more serious issue.

Bud Selig, come on down

And talk more about steroids yourself, rather than trying to bludgeon Jason Giambi.

When you said in 1994 it was maybe time to talk about them “again” already four years before the MacGwire-Sosa home run chase, it’s obvious you’re lying through your teeth with other claims that you really didn’t know they were a problem.