Subject to Change, version 2.0
Mostly found objects; at least until I find something I want to write about.


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Saturday, May 28, 2005
 

Indian call staff quit over abuse on the line.

Indian call staff quit over abuse on the line Amelia Gentleman | New Delhi | May 29The Observer - Abuse from British and American customers is driving increasing numbers of Indian call centre workers from their jobs, defeated by the strain of handling persistent rudeness. Irate customers was cited as one of the main industry stress factors in a recent survey of call centre staff and some organisations have begun employing psychiatrists and counsellors to help employees to cope.

 [The Agonist]
11:05:38 PM    

What Are They Hiding?.

 Hunter mentions this article, but I'd like to focus on the possible compromise:

One of John R. Bolton's leading Republican backers, Senator John McCain of Arizona, signaled his support on Friday for a compromise in which the White House might allow Senate leaders access to highly classified documents in return for a final vote early next month on Mr. Bolton's nomination as United Nations ambassador.

This is good. This is a compromise where the Dems get what they want - the documents they requested. But the White House has other ideas:

"The Democrats who are clamoring for this have already voted against John Bolton," Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said in a telephone interview. "This is about partisan politics, not documents. They have the information they need."

But Frist asked for the documents too:

The aide, who would speak only without being identified when discussing conversations between the two leaders, also said Dr. Frist had intervened with the administration to try to get an intelligence briefing that would satisfy opponents of the nomination.

This is about the White House hiding documents from the Senate:

Mr. Biden and Mr. Dodd [succeeded] in convincing fellow Democrats in dozens of phone calls that the vote was not about Mr. Bolton but about standing up for the Senate and its prerogatives against incursions by the executive branch.

So Frist, McCain and the Democrats think it is reasonable and right for the White House to turn over the requested documents.

What is the White House hiding? That is the question EVERY self respecting reporter in Washington should be asking themselves right now. Let's see if ANYBODY asks that question tomorrow morning on the Sunday shows. They won't - proving that the Media is simply incompetent.

 [Daily Kos]


11:03:58 PM    

Filibuster post mortem.

Mark Kleiman is absolutely right: What I'm sure of is that the deal makes no Constitutional sense.Either the Constitution allows filibusters to block judicial appointments, or it forbids such filibusters. (It seems to me impossible to distinguish between judicial-nomination filibusters...

 [Majikthise]
7:09:07 PM    

Wall Street Journal: GOP fails to lead.

Nation's quintessential conservative editorial page says GOP Congress flailing.

 [The Raw Story | A rational voice - Alternative news]
7:08:10 PM    

David Francis on Mobility and Inequality.

Mark Thoma reads the Christian Science Monitor, and finds a good article: Economist's View: Is The American Dream Fading?: This article discusses the decline in income mobility in recent decades and asks if the US "...is becoming less of a meritocracy, where skill and intelligence determine success, and... more of a class-bound society...": The American Dream gains a harder edge, By David R. Francis, CSMonitor.com: The American dream, at least on the economic side, is fading.... Today... nearly 1 in 5 American households has zero net worth or actually owes more than it owns. And the odds of a son or daughter rising above their parents in such a financial predicament have shrunk. 'Income mobility has declined in the last 20 years,' says Bhashkar Mazumder, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. What that means is that the US is becoming less of a meritocracy, where skill and intelligence determine success, and becoming more of a class-bound society, where economic background, including the better education money can provide, matters more.... Most Americans don't believe that to be true, surveys show. But academic studies suggest that income mobility in the US is no better than that in France or...

[Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal]
10:05:18 AM    

Well, that didn't go very well, did it? Go read Suzanne Nossel on Bolton's lack of leadership leading to the US losing control of the agenda at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference, which wrapped up yesterday. Bolton didn't prepare...

[War and Piece]
10:03:14 AM    

Failing upward


Flowers in the street



Analysts Behind Iraq Intelligence Were Rewarded



By Walter Pincus

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, May 28, 2005; Page A01



Two Army analysts whose work has been cited as part of a key intelligence failure on Iraq -- the claim that aluminum tubes sought by the Baghdad government were most likely meant for a nuclear weapons program rather than for rockets -- have received job performance awards in each of the past three years, officials said.
The civilian analysts, former military men considered experts on foreign and U.S. weaponry, work at the Army's National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC), one of three U.S. agencies singled out for particular criticism by President Bush's commission that investigated U.S. intelligence.







As long as you tell Bush what he wants to hear, you will be rewarded. So do you think Bush really understands the war in Iraq?

[The News Blog]
7:55:10 AM    

Yes, I Would Like FRENCH Fries With That!.

I think it wonderful when a member of the wrong-wing publicly atones for an error of his ways. Take Representative Walter Beaman Jones Jr. - PLEASE! While representing the Third Congressional District of North Carolina [PDF] - the most gerrymandered...

 [The Left Coaster]
7:53:55 AM    

Friedman: Torture is so unattractive.

Guest post by Donald Johnson

Tom Friedman wrote one of his very rare columns on the torture issue today. It's the type of argument one expects from him -- we should close Gitmo because it is a tremendous PR problem...

[Body and Soul]
4:20:17 AM    

Been in so long it looks like down to me.

The Marines dropped all charges yesterday against one of their own who admits he shot and killed two unarmed Iraqis and propped a scornful cardboard sign nearby as a warning to others: The killings occurred on April 15, 2004, near...

[Body and Soul]
4:19:03 AM    

Bob Rubin on Social Security.

From The Hill: Rubin urges Democrats not to reveal their hand: Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, the steward of President Clinton's economic policy, told the House Democratic Caucus yesterday that it needs to continue to "hold firm"... and advised the Democrats not to introduce their own plan, according to aides and lawmakers in the meeting. Rubin, who has gained huge stature in the party for presiding over the national finances during the Clinton boom years, counseled congressional Democrats against engaging Republicans on specifics. He urged them instead to cast the debate in terms of principles.... In a sweeping review of the fiscal health of the country, the strength of the dollar and international trade, Rubin said that Social Security ranks third behind deficit reduction and Medicare reform as the most important economic policy issue facing the country. He also warned his fellow Democrats that they would need to work in a bipartisan manner with Republicans to address Medicare's deep problems.... "From a political standpoint, [Rubin] said, hold firm because you have a difference in principles; their principle is a privatization plan, ours is not to add to the deficit, and there's not a whole lot of room for compromise. 'They...

 [Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal]
3:08:17 AM    

Why Oh Why Are We Ruled by These Liars? (George W. Bush Smirks Edition).

Kevin Drum's shrillness level exceeds aleph-null: The Washington Monthly: "George Bush's rhetorical stance is that democracy is on the march and 138,000 troops are more than enough to get the job done in Iraq. He knows perfectly well this isn't true, but in public he just smirks and says that he'd be happy to send more troops over if any of his generals asked for them.... George Bush... [is] one of the shrewdest politicians to inhabit the Oval Office in a long time, but he doesn't sound like he's being shrewd. He sounds like he really believes that our current troop strength is perfectly adequate. So what's the answer? As Juan Cole says, 'Sometimes You are Just Screwed.' Bush knows near term success is impossible with current troops levels, just as he knows that his economic policies are unsustainable as well. In both cases, he seems to be hoping only that he can avoid disaster during the next three years and then hand off both problems to his successor in 2009 while he retires to the ranch. Politics doesn't get much more cynical than that....

[Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal]
3:07:14 AM    

Electricity in Iraq. Jim Henley notes:

Unqualified Offerings: Tim Lambert's tabular history of the "good news" on the [Iraq] electricity front is a useful contribution to the field. His summary: Due to lack of maintenance, electricity production fell from 9000 MW in 1991 to 4400 MW before the war. Since then, there have been many announcements of improved generating capacity and production has fallen further to 3560 MW. Sadly, Dana Gioia's poem, "News from 1984," is not online....

[Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal]
3:05:22 AM    

Jim Henley Has Some Good Advice.

He tells us:

Things That Surely Go Without Saying But Don't:

Beating captives to death does not exhaust the list of "abuses" one can commit against captives. We know of two people, so far, who had their legs crippled and were hung from the ceiling until they died. We have not been discussing the people who had their legs crippled but weren't hung from the ceiling, the people who were hung from the ceiling and didn't die, or those who were tortured in other ways at Bagram Air Base, but what we know makes it pretty clear such people existed. (For instance people whose legs were beaten, but not to the point of permanent ruin.) The torture apologists will intone "two people two years ago" because that's their established method: exaggerate a detail until it obscures the full story. Don't fall for it. Fire Donald Rumsfeld. Impeach Richard Cheney. Impeach George W. Bush. Do it now.

[Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal]
3:03:30 AM    


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