Just Keep Dancing

(An ad may precede this video.)

The Art and Science

of Huffington Headline-ology

The headline reads...

Tom Brokaw Speaks Out On Olbermann Exit

And the story?

Buried in the fourth paragraph (that starts with Phil Rosenthal's name being misspelled):

Rosnethal then asked Brokaw what he thought of Olbermann's exit. "You're not going to get me to go there," Brokaw said.

Nothing new here.

Just a reminder that when you dig around under the hood of the Big Shiny Expensive Elite New-Age-y Thing, don't be surprised to find that a grimy, 2-stroke lawnmower engine that runs on gossip, engineered indignation and soft-core-porn is pulling the plow.

Sunday Morning Comin' Down

"You say you tweet a revolution." Edition.

So where were we?

Oh yeah.

Quote of the day?

"The looting and whatnot" -- Tom Friedman, from "Meet the Press"

Hillary Clinton was on every channel today and sounded something like this:

For more than 30 years we have luuuurved the Egyptian people and told the gummint they have to reforms. And now, as long as the Egyptian military continues keep their trigger fingers calm, We're gonna be like three little Fonzies here. And what's Fonzie like? Come on Yolanda what's Fonzie like?

Yolanda: Cool?

Hillary: What?

Yolanda: He's cool.

Hillary: Correctamundo. And that's what we're gonna be. We're gonna be cool.

Chris Wallace on Fox mercilessly grilled John Boehner thusly --

Wallace: So, Republican Speaker John Boehner, your saying that all of Obama's so-called investments are unacceptable?

Boehner: Well, Chris, The American People...

And we're done with Roger Ailes' crackhouse network.

So we click...click...click...

Back over to "Meet The Press", where David Gregory mercilessly grilled John Boehner thusly --

Gregory: So, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, what about these cuts?

McConnell: The message The American People sent is...

Sigh.

In the last six year, I'm sure I've done over 200 of these Mouse Circus "Sunday Morning..." playlets and watch hundreds more, and I honestly am hard pressed to recall another time when the contrast between the grave, complex realities of world events and the fatuously smug dysfunction of the Villager Sock Puppet brigade was on such blinding display it was on "Meet the Press" today.


First came the Tweets.

Gregory: Hey, lets look at a bunch of tweets Chuck Todd.

Chuck Todd: That's a lot of tweets, David Gregory.

Gregory: Would you call it an assload of tweets, Chuck Todd?

Chuck Todd: Many American would, David Gregory. According to our new Gaffer/Quinnalporpoise poll, 44.5% of Americans either agree or are quite likely to agree if you bought them a couple of Stingers, while the Nabob/Abendigo numbers say 48.2%.

Gregory: Wow, Chuck Todd, that is nearly a majority.

Second came an "interview" with Tom Friedman that [as I have already written one post down]

consisted of The Mustache of Understanding standing in front of a camera at Davos -- at the single point on the face of the Earth which, at the moment, is almost literally the opposite end of the cultural, political, climactic, ethnic and economic Universe from everything that is happening in Egypt -- to yap out platitudes about globalism:

Friedman: You know, the first rule of politics...

Friedman: You know, the big danger in punditry is to confuse your hope and the reality of the politics...

Friedman: You know, the looting and whatnot...

Friedman: There are three things that could happen: Something good, something meh and something bad.

Gregory: Tom Friedman, you are wise beyond all human understanding and other than getting everything fucking thing wrong for as long as anyone can remember, you have never been surprised by anything in the Middle East. Does this surprise you?

Tom Friedman: Not a bit. Now I have to go -- we're doing naked 1995 Krug Clos Ambonnay champagne and Truffle Chutney shots off of Arianna Huffington's tits in the hotel hot tub.

Gregory: Sounds exciting.

Friedman: Winner gets to pick an industry to randomly fuck with, use our captive media courtiers to bubble up to 100 times its actual value, cash out and strip it bare at the top of the market, toss the carcass on the scrap heap of history and call it "creative destruction".

Gregory: And now, back to our panel.

Harold Ford, Junior: You have lots of people in Egypt who have education and stuff.

Gregory: Great insight, Harold Ford, Junior!

Chuck Todd: The White House is afraid of what effect this may have on Israel.

Gregory: Would you like to randomly interject some words and phrases, Republican analyst Mike Murphy?

Murphy: Turkey. Muslim Brotherhood!

Gregory: And based on that, what are the likely outcomes?

Murphy: Two things that might happen -- One good and one bad.

Harold Ford, Junior: I read on Wikipedia that the median age in Egypt is 24. Also I would like to mention that I am under 40. This is important for reasons I obviously do not understand, but which I will vaguely imply with words like "global citizen".

driftglass: Why, Harold Ford, Junior?

Harold Ford, Junior: In order to get my turn on camera while at the same time not saying anything definitive that will make me look like an idiot a week from now.

driftglass: Not to worry, Harold Ford, Junior. The Friedman Rule applies here -- no one on these shows is ever held responsible for anything they say.

Harold Ford, Junior: I agree with everyone about everything. I wall now say "Walk to the middle." "Alienating the extremes on the Left and the right." "Compromise." and "Center." very quickly, back-to-back.

Gregory: Your ham-fisted navigation of this complex topic back to safe vocabulary that we can all enjoy has given me a steely erection.

Over on "This Week..." Christiane Amanpour violated every canon of Village Punditry by actually going personally to the place where the story is breaking and interviewing people on sight and/or who have actual, deep knowledge of relevant history and events.

For example, it took Mohamed ElBaradei about ninety seconds, to seal the collective wisdom of the "Meet the Press" sock-puppets inside an oil drum and sink it into the sea:

All this talk of "The Muslim Brotherhood" is bullshit. They're a crackpot religious minority just like your own goofball Christian fundies, and that the Egyptian gummint has been using as a boogieman to justify their repression.

Way to go, Christiane.

Unfortunately, we have to take points away for letting George Will open his cake-hole to talk about Napoleon, France and how that might happen in Egypt.

The Secret Police Are Not Here To

Create repression.

They are here

to preserve repression.

All politics may be local, but all politics is certainly politics.

BTW, "Meet the Press" shit the journalistic bed so comprehensively this morning that it is taking me some time to decide whether or not to even bother going into it.

Let's just say that the tragic hilarity of David Gregory sitting in Washington D.C. watching a Twitter stream with Chuck Todd...followed by an "interview" with Tom Friedman that consisted of The Mustache of Understanding standing in front of a camera at Davos -- at what is almost literally the opposite end of the cultural, political, climactic, ethnic and economic Universe from everything that is happening in Egypt -- to yap out platitudes about globalism...is such a jaw-dropping failure of journalism at every level and triumph of lazy, Villager clique insiderism that it almost defies parody.

Tweets From The Last Days of Empire

A Flailing Tyrant's

High-risk strategy (h/t Greg Khalil)

Your Weekly Professional Left Podcast

And do they only stand
By ignorance?
Is that their happy state,
The proof of their obedience and their faith?

-- John Milton, "Paradise Lost"

Button, Button, who's got the Button...

You do, if you take advantage to the chance to pick up this mint-condition memento of the final days of the Mainstream Media, available at Blue Gal's Cafepress Store (and keep listening later in the year for an opportunity to win one). Also too, the Podcast Donate Button Button below allows listeners to throw a contribution specifically towards the podcast. Thanks for your listenership and support!

Thanks again to Frank Chow for the graphic at the ProLeft website and Heather at Crooks and Liars Video Cafe for their help. And don't forget, our archives are available for free with no downloads at Professional Left.

The Challenger

This extended excerpt is from my post of January 29, 2009:

In Memoriam.

There are a thousand ways to remember tragedy.

I remember the Challenger in several, discrete episodes one of which I’ll go into after this by Danny Miller from the Huffington Post, who recalls that day like so:

Touching the Face of God: Remembering the Challenger

What baby boomer wasn't obsessed with the space program? As a kid growing up in the 1960s I followed every Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo launch with enthusiasm and wonder and created scrapbooks of the missions. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were cultural icons in my childhood the same way Elvis and the Beatles were.

…

I can't remember a news event that affected me so viscerally before or since. I couldn't even imagine the grief that the families and friends of the astronauts experienced as they watched the live broadcast of their loved ones' completely unexpected and terribly violent deaths.

…

That’s not a bad take on how Challenger felt to a lot of us.

Why, on 9/11, the only emotionally analogous memory I could dredge up to frame the nightmare I was seeing was from that day -- January 28, 1986 -- when this passionate son of the Space Age saw the most complex machine ever built by man, sailing into the stratosphere with the most “American” crew it had ever borne, blown to atoms, live and in color.

But I also remember another, later chapter of that catastrophe.

A specifically and contemptibly political chapter.

See if this doesn’t sound appallingly familiar:

A Republican Administration which, for grubby political ends, decides to do something incredibly dangerous and reckless.

To get what they want, Administration heavies lean hard on the Department charged with assessing the risk of their endeavor. They make it clear that “The President Wants This!” and that the consequences of not find a way to "Yes" may be very unpleasant.

In response, the men at the top -- The yes-men. The politically-sensitized careerists and bureaucrats -- steadily whittle away at every rationale underpinning each of the risk assessments. Insisting that the engineers frame each scenario in the most “optimistic” possible terms.

In other words, Pure Fucking Cheney-Think: that incessant thugging-down of every cautionary voice as somehow disloyal or harebrained, and the relentless amping-up of any data, not matter how wispy and wishful, that helps to spin a happy tale of glory and triumph.

In short order, the engineers who actually know what the risks are, are pushed aside, ignored or beaten into equivocation. Which, if you don’t have a conscience and have the authority to screw someone out of their career, is really not hard to do. You pick, and pick, and pick until the experts admit they cannot say with 100% certainty that your insane idea will end in ruin.

Of course they can’t.

Unknowns multiplied by unknowns multiplied by still other unknowns make for a predictive model which can be shot to sunshine if you are an ideologue hell-bent on seeing only what you want to see. If you are the kind of freak who absurdly insists that science must either be a flawless seer of what-is-to-come...or it's just "opinion" in which case isn't one opinion just as valid as another?

It was on this contemptible corruption of science that Big Tobacco was built, and that Global Climate Change is still dismissed as "unproven" by agenda-pounding wingtards.

And because no one can predict the outcome of unknowable events with perfect certainty, once the wormy shits from the Big House on Pennsylvania Avenue can bully the analysts into admiting any element of doubt exists, they then have all the room to maneuver they need.

And so, against the consensus advice of their experts but with the consent of their appointed lackeys -- their own pet "Heckofajob" Brownies and Bremers -- the Reagan Administration threw Challenger into the sky and killed it.

I supposed the single, merciful fact that philosophically separates the Shuttle Disaster from the Iraqi Disaster is that once the Challenger exploded -- once the debris fell into the ocean -- no one could continue to cling to the belief that the Challenger Mission could still somehow be salvaged – that “Victory” could still somehow be achieved -- by pouring more money and lives down that rat hole.

But other than that, the parallels roll right down the same, predictable, disgraceful track.

After the failure came the parade of experts. All in impressive uniforms, bulwarked by impressive credentials. All spewing highly technical doubletalk specifically designed to make the non-experts feel stupid and silly.

In other words, spouting bullshit calibrated to make anyone who was not suited up in a NASA-issue lab coat and blessed by the Administration that dared to venture a harsh question or skeptical opinion feel like an idiot.

Feel like they were somehow besmirching the brave sacrifices of our noble astronauts.

Is this sounding at all familiar?

And they may well have gotten away with it if it weren’t for this guy.


Richard Feynman: A physics genius with that rare, mentor’s gift for communicating the often exotic intricacies of the scientific world with admirable plainness and clarity.

It was Feynman who, during the hearing -- live and on-camera -- used the simple props of a C-clamp, a glass of ice water and a chunk of O-ring material to demonstrate irrefutably that the stuff they used as gaskets on the shuttle would fatally lose its elasticity when the temperature fell below freezing.

Period.

Who wrote this in his appendix to the “Roger's Commission Report on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident”.

(emphasis added)

"It appears that there are enormous differences of opinion as to the probability of a failure with loss of vehicle and of human life. The estimates range from roughly 1 in 100 to 1 in 100,000. The higher figures come from the working engineers, and the very low figures from management....

“Finally, if we are to replace standard numerical probability usage with engineering judgment, why do we find such an enormous disparity between the management estimate and the judgment of the engineers? It would appear that, for whatever purpose, be it for internal or external consumption, the management of NASA exaggerates the reliability of its product, to the point of fantasy.”

...

“There was no way, without full understanding, that one could have confidence that conditions the next time might not produce erosion three times more severe than the time before. Nevertheless, officials fooled themselves into thinking they had such understanding and confidence, in spite of the peculiar variations from case to case.”

“Official management, on the other hand, claims to believe the probability of failure is a thousand times less. One reason for this may be an attempt to assure the government of NASA perfection and success in order to ensure the supply of funds. The other may be that they sincerely believed it to be true, demonstrating an almost incredible lack of communication between themselves and their working
engineers.

“In any event this has had very unfortunate consequences, the most serious of which is to encourage ordinary citizens to fly in such a dangerous machine, as if it had attained the safety of an ordinary airliner. The astronauts, like test pilots, should know their risks, and we honor them for their courage. Who can doubt that McAuliffe was equally a person of great courage, who was closer to an awareness of
the true risk than NASA management would have us believe?

"Let us make recommendations to ensure that NASA officials deal in a world of reality in understanding technological weaknesses and imperfections well enough to be actively trying to eliminate them. They must live in reality in comparing the costs and utility of the Shuttle to other methods of entering space. And they must be realistic in making contracts, in estimating costs, and the difficulty of the projects.

"Only realistic flight schedules should be proposed, schedules that have a reasonable chance of being met. If in this way the government would not support them, then so be it. NASA owes it to the citizens from whom it asks support to be frank, honest, and informative, so that these citizens can make the wisest decisions for the use of their limited resources.

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”

Substitute "White House" for "NASA" and "Iraq" for "Challenger", and if Richard Feynman were alive today and making the same kind of clear, rational observations he would be flogged as a traitor on Fox, or as a terrorist-sympathized in the Wall Street Journal, or as a disloyal American who refuses to support the troops by Tony Snow.

Every Fucking Day.

There are a thousand ways to remember tragedy, and I can’t think of any way sadder than to realize that that subspecies of Rodenta Republicana Americanus whose political hubris and contempt for science authored the Challenger tragedy have, over the years, proven themselves time and again to be uniquely incapable of learning a single god damned thing from their own failures.
...

To which I have nothing to add, except this clip of Richard Feynman

destroying NASA's bullshit cover story using a few, simple props in under one minute.

David Brooks Goes Mad

After his years of well-documented public Centrism intoxication and infamous "Broder binges" during which he was known to go without solid food or solid facts for weeks on end, beloved children's entertainer and star of the popular Bravo Network cooking show "Vanilla XTRAX" -- David Brooks -- has reportedly succumbed to what neuropunditologist are referring to as "Equidistant Delirium Tremens" or "EDTs": a severe neurological disorder brought on by chronic and long-term Centrism addiction and characterized by the acute and overwhelming certainty that every object in the visible Universe is exactly the same distance from the tip of one's nose as every other object.

The unmistakable symptom of the onset of full-blown EDTs is a sudden, manic flurry of confused and contradictory Centrist sock-puppet writing:

Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Burke

By DAVID BROOKS
Published: January 27, 2011

Every Thursday my gurus, Mr. Burke and Mr. Hamilton, get together at the Heavenly Rest to drink and talk politics. Mr. Burke prefers a whiskey and water, while Mr. Hamilton likes a good strong Sex on the Beach. This week, they ended up talking about President Obama.

Burke: I congratulate you. Your president is most prudent and wise. He has decided to focus on three things: education reform, infrastructure investment and scientific innovation. He’s not wasting money on desperate schemes to pump up the employment rate before the next elections.
...

Hamilton: You’re mad, Burke! Obama has completely misread the national situation. The United States is careening toward disaster. The deficit this year is the highest in history: $1.48 trillion.
...

Burke: My dear sir. He’s an officeholder, not a think-tank Johnny. I know intellectuals are perpetually exercised by the crisis du jour, but the current deficits are not really that big. A tad more revenue and a normal bit of spending restraint will take care of them.
...

Hamilton: You vastly underestimate the structural problems leading to slowing growth rates, higher unemployment and higher inequality. I advise you to read Tyler Cowen’s new e-book, “The Great Stagnation”
...

followed by withdrawal into a nearly cataleptic state.

Mr. Brooks is said to resting comfortably.

All of us here at the driftglass blog wish him a speedy recovery.

What You Didn't Know Is

that Rahm Emanuel spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocane powder.

Let the neck-stabbin'-pencil sharpening

begin.

To Your Scattered Gulfstreams Go

Arianna Huffington reports back from the Potlatch at the End of the Universe.

Bursting at the Seams

The Congress Centre, the official hub of the World Economic Forum, has been expanded and renovated, but there is still the feeling of a crowded, buzzing beehive -- especially in the main executive lounge outside the Sanada room where many of the sessions take place. Today, the lounge was so packed -- with people who instead of attending panels and speeches were schmoozing -- there wasn't a seat to be found. So, when I met up with Justin Webb and Sareen Bains, who were interviewing me for the BBC's Today show, we ended up sitting on the floor and doing the interview there. As we sat there, a constant stream of people walked by -- including Jamie Dimon and Larry Summers. I wonder if they thought I was having a 60s moment and had decided to start some sort of Davos sit-in as part of my "doing something about unemployment" drive.

Burnout, Davos-Style

As I said, getting enough sleep isn't the highest priority among Davos participants. It's partly the active, after-hours scene (many of the parties don't even start until 10 or 11), and partly the way lack of sleep has become a sort of virility symbol for many of the world's movers and shakers. In the cult of no sleep, 7 a.m. is the new 9 a.m. Despite the late nights, trying to make a breakfast appointment in Davos is an exercise in sleep deprivation one-upmanship. "Oh, hi Arianna, yeah, 8 is a bit late, but it's fine because that'll give me time to have gotten in a couple of ski runs and a conference call with Moscow first."
...

It is good to know that all the pixels that gave their digital lives to rope "Jennifer Aniston"/"bad hair"... "Lady Gaga"/"Blood & Semen"...and "Kings Of Leon"/"Homophobic"/"Glee"...into the same headlines did not live in vain.

Centrism

Exceptional Americanism

Your two-word summary of the "State of the Union" speech.

For one hour, the endless, chittering cacophony of sharp, mad voices was suspended.

All else is commentary.

And then came Paul Ryan's response.

Or, as it was once called, "This is John Galt Speaking".

Finally, Teagagger Hive Queen Michele Bachmann

pre-rejected a Commie "Sputnik" metaphor...

...in favor of her very own "Vanguard Moment".


Not that Bachmann's latest, spectacular display of absolutely medieval, pre-literate ignorance will matter in the slightest: among the Pig People, Rightward-facing paranoid raving idiocy is considered to be a sign of special grace.

Like a splinter of the True Cross.

Or a picture of dinosaur-riding Baby Jebus galloping into Philadelphia to help Superman and Thomas Jefferson write the Star-Spangled Banner.

Irresponsible Political Speculation

While you wait.

So, imagine you're Democratic Party Boss with this problem: you have seen the revenue projections for the City of Chicago for the next 3-4 years, matched them up with expenses, and noted that the Windy City is about to go through Seven Years of Famine.

It is going to get very nasty -- much worse than anyone has let on outside of winks and nudges and pregnant pauses in public speeches.

To make matters worse, rather that use his Years of Plenty to build a municipal system with enough real stamina and financial strength to withstand the coming crash, Mayor Santa Claus used his raw, unchecked political power to pawn everything that wasn't nailed down (and quite a bit that was) to pay for his Going Away present to himself: one last year of Credit Card Prosperity and Praise as he walks out the exit and into history.

(For the record, I think its 6-to-5 that Hizzoner will end up as either the Ambassador to China, or head of the permanent U.S trade delegation there, and that this most recent visit from Obama and Hu Jintao finalized those arrangement.

As America's attention pivots from West to East, the China post is quietly becoming to 21st Century American ambassadorial prestige what the Court of St. James was in the 20th Century, and over the years, Daley has been a consistent and unstinting praiser of China. He has already visited several times, and hosted numerous, high-lever official visits and delegations in Chicago dating back as far as the Clinton Administration.

With his resume intact, his Democratic Party bona fides plated in gold, his pockets full of political chits, his brother in the White House and his great love of all things protocol-and-authoritarian-related, I would be surprised if the Man on the Fifth Floor doesn't end up on the other side of the Earth mangling the English language on behalf of corporate interests in front of an entirely different group of prostrate journalist-stenographers before the end of 2011.)

So, Party Boss, what do you do now?

You'll need someone ruthless to take Daley's place.

Someone who can summon the muscle to hammer the size of city government and scope of city services back inside the revenue curve far enough so that you can also start paying down the debt the city saddled itself with during the go-go-Goldman-Sachs days of borrowing against all the future lotteries you were going to win, all the future horses that were going to run in the money, and all the future inside straights you were going to draw.

Someone who can fire lots of people and slash lots stuff citizens really want and need while keeping the Clout Machine intact; who can bury hundreds of still-twitching gummint careers that do not want to be buried, and do it without unlimited access to the heaps of cash and make-work political sinecures that have always been the most reliable winding cloth for the unquiet political dead.

A loyal Party soldier who doesn't mind that no one is going to build statues or name parks to commemorate their reign. Someone whose first name is going to be "That fucking fucker" in every CTA bus barn, teacher's lounge, block organization barbecue and police locker room for years to come.

So if you are one of the major rising stars in the Democratic Party

how much better, then, to only almost be that person.

How much better for your long-term political heath to prove your Party Omertà by diving face-first into the bucket of flaming shit that the job of governing Chicago will be in the ugly, broke-ass, binge-hangover post-Daley days that are surely coming...

...only to be miraculously unhorsed at the last minute by an act of God, which not only leaves you free to fight another day, but also free to assert that you would have done it all so differently.

That but for the sake a fluky court decision, you could have saved the great city from Balkanizing along its deep ethnic and economic fault lines and sinking into the lake.

Not saying that's what happened.

Just saying that, if I were Aaron Sorkin, that's the way I'd write it.

Rue Paul

Hybrid mutant abomination to give wingnut response to Centrist State of the Union Speech.

From USA Today:

Tea Party fave defends Bachmann's response to Obama

By Catalina Camia, USA TODAY

Rep. Michele Bachmann insists her remarks tonight to the Tea Party Express won't interfere with the official Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union Address.

Bachmann, a Tea Party favorite who is thinking of running for the GOP nomination for president, told reporters that she's not in "competition" with House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who was officially tapped to speak to a national televised audience after Obama's address.

Bachmann, a Minnesota Republican in her third term, was defended this morning by another Tea Party favorite: Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.
...

For those trying to keep track at home, Ryan is the "intellectual heavyweight" who believes that gummint should be gutting and slashing and radically deregulating its way to pure, undiluted plutocracy as fast as possible and behind whom the entire GOP hides in fear of being asked math questions.

Bachmann is the thoroughly unhinged shoutycrackers Palin doppelganger with the Charlie Manson eyes who traffics in every crackpot, McCarthyesque conspiracy theory and wild historical revisionism that has ever been anonymously emailed to her by Concerned Patriot CHUDS

(Including how the Founding Fathers ended slavery -- presumably with the help of Baby Jebus, who had just ridden in on a dinosaur to write the Constitution...)

...has a permanent seat on the Sean Hannity Olde Time Brownshirt Gospel Hour, and which the good people of Minnesota's 6th congressional district have seen fit to send to Washington for three terms and counting.

In a Better Universe, people this casually sadistic and jaw-droppingly stupid would obviously never be allowed within a million miles of the political gear-box of a global superpower.

However in this Universe, together, they are the Republican Party in all its mad, reality-averse, rage-drunk glory.

Shine on

you crazy diamond!

This one is for wonderful my brother, who is recovering from surgery today.

Privilege Has Its Memberships, Ctd.

International Edition

There is no Class War.
There was a Class War.
Your side lost.

From the New York Times:

A Hefty Price for Entry to Davos
By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN

What’s the price tag to be a Davos Man?

Chief executives, government leaders and academics around the world are headed to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting this week — a heady power gathering that mixes business, politics and Champagne in the Swiss Alps. It is an event that draws a wide range of decision makers, from Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase to Prime Minister George A. Papandreou of Greece to U2’s Bono, ostensibly to contemplate how to solve the world’s problems.

Of course, much of the week is really about one thing: networking. As the “Black Swan” author Nassim N. Taleb described it to Tom Keene of Bloomberg Television, the event is “chasing successful people who want to be seen with other successful people. That’s the game.”

An invitation to the meeting is supposed to be considered an exclusive honor. But for corporate executives, the cost of being a Davos Man, or, yes, a Davos Woman, even for just a couple of days, doesn’t come cheap.
...

But before we get to the fees for private planes, hotels, and a car and driver, there’s the all-important ticket. And it isn’t free.

Just to have the opportunity to be invited to Davos, you must be invited to be a member of the World Economic Forum, a Swiss nonprofit that was founded by Klaus Schwab, a German-born academic who managed to build a global conference in the snow.

There are several levels of membership: the basic level, which will get you one invitation to Davos, costs 50,000 Swiss francs, or about $52,000. The ticket itself is another 18,000 Swiss francs ($19,000), plus tax, bringing the total cost of membership and entrance fee to $71,000.

But that fee just gets you in the door with the masses at Davos, with entry to all the general sessions. If you want to be invited behind the velvet rope to participate in private sessions among your industry’s peers, you need to step up to the “Industry Associate” level. That costs $137,000, plus the price of the ticket, bringing the total to about $156,000.

Of course, most C.E.O.’s don’t like going anywhere alone, so they might ask a colleague along. Well, the World Economic Forum doesn’t just let you buy an additional ticket for $19,000. Instead, you need to upgrade your annual membership to the “Industry Partner” level. That will set you back about $263,000, plus the cost of two tickets, bringing the total to $301,000.

And if you want to take an entourage, say, five people? Now you’re talking about the “Strategic Partner” level. The price tag: $527,000. (That’s just the annual membership entitling you to as many as five invitations. Each invitation is still $19,000 each, so if five people come, that’s $95,000, making the total $622,000.) This year, all “Strategic Partners” are required to invite at least one woman along as part of an effort to diversify the attendee list.

As part of the strategic partner level, you get access to the private sessions as well as special conference rooms to hold meetings. And perhaps the biggest perk of all, your car and driver are given a sticker allowing door-to-door pick up service.

At the moment, the forum says they are not accepting applications to become “strategic partners” unless the company is from China or India and must be one of the 250 largest companies in the world.

In fairness, it is worth pointing out that membership at all levels doesn’t just get you access to the meeting in Davos, but also to at least a half-dozen other meetings held around the world. Membership also gives you access to the forum’s various research projects as well.

All those costs, of course, don’t include the travel-related costs of getting to Switzerland, schlepping around and perhaps holding a dinner or a cocktail party for clients (which is where the real action happens anyway.).

One large investor is renting a five-bedroom chalet this year just outside of Davos for himself and his staff. The cost? $140,000 for the week. A car and driver, which the World Economic Forum will organize for you, is about $10,000 a week for a Mercedes S Class.
...

And so forth.

By way of contrast, this month I am trying to figure out how to put together enough nickels and sack lunches to get to Netroots Nation 2011.

And back.

Writing about life on Capitalism's Olympus in 1998, Richard Sennett had this to say about how the New Ruling Class views us little, shire-folk:

The dizzy life of Davos man

Yet I had an epiphany of sorts in Davos, listening to the rulers of the flexible realm. "We" is also a dangerous pronoun to them. They dwell comfortably in entrepreneurial disorder, but fear organised confrontation. They of course fear the resurgence of unions, but become acutely and personally uncomfortable, fidgeting or breaking eye contact or retreating into taking notes, if forced to discuss the people who, in their jargon, are "left behind." They know that the great majority of those who toil in the flexible regime are left behind, and of course they regret it. But the flexibility they celebrate does not give, it cannot give, any guidance for the conduct of an ordinary life. The new masters have rejected careers in the old English sense of the word, as pathways along which people can travel; durable and sustained paths of action are foreign territories.

As a reminder to those who do not already know them, here are the Two Commandments:

1. There is a Club.
2. You are not in it.

Having Gnawed Through His Shackles

and apparent incapacitated the buzzard who comes nightly to peck out his liver, the legendary LowerManhattanite has returned to our itchy latitudes with a book novella-length essay on, well, jeez...on several many jillion things.

I wouldn't even begin to know where to sink in the carving knife to cut you a slice that would do it justice.

Best go read it yourself.

Suddenly Regretting My Decision

Not to run for Mare.

From Crain's:

Emanuel loses ballot challenge in Appeals Court
January 24, 2011


(Crain's) — The Appellate Court overturned a lower court ruling and said Rahm Emanuel cannot stay on the ballot for Chicago mayor, setting the stage for a state Supreme Court showdown.

A lawyer for Mr. Emanuel says the former White House chief of staff will appeal a ruling that says his name can't appear on the ballot for Chicago mayor. Mike Kasper said on Monday that they will take the case to the Illinois Supreme Court.

The Appellate Court ruled 2-1 Monday that Mr. Emanuel does not meet the residency requirements to run for mayor in the Feb. 22 election.
...

There are so many ways that this is Rahm's best, long-run political move that it would be easy to read canny intentionality into it.

And that would be wrong.

However I am sure of one thing: somehow, some way, this is good news for John McCain.

Sunday Morning Comin' Down

"Extremism in the defense of Fake Centrism is no virtue" Edition

The Mouse Circus was like a Louisiana beach today: however nice the surface may look, everywhere you poke a stick, the same toxic goo oozes to the surface.

Thank goodness, Barack Obama is finally reaching out to Republicans!

Thank God Barack Obama is finally behaving like a Moderate!

Thank Mammon Barack Obama is finally friendly to business!

Sure, it was all kinds of fun watching David Gregory batting an oily halfwit like Eric Cantor around like a cat toy for a few minutes. Proving, if nothing else, that the average Republican is so callow and has a sense of civic responsibility so rotted out they can be spooked into shitting themselves on camera by little more than a follow-up question or two tossed back at any one of the flagrantly ridiculous lies and frauds in which they traffic.

(And, frankly, probably had a lot more to do with this number than with any authentic, spontaneous generation of journalistic integrity on the part of Mr. Gregory:

Ratings Report for ABC News’ “This Week with Christiane Amanpour” For Sunday, January 16, 2010

January 21, 2011

On January 16, 2011, ABC News’ “This Week with Christiane Amanpour” drew 2.46 million Total Viewers and 660,000 Adults 25-54, according to Nielsen Media Research.

For the second week in a row, “This Week” narrowed the Total Viewer gap (-5%) with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

...
Christiane Amanpour is the anchor of “This Week” and James Goldston is the executive producer. The program airs Sundays on the ABC Television Network.

(Sunday, January 16, 2011) TOTAL VIEWERS A25-54 MM/Rtg

ABC “THIS WEEK” 2,460,000 660,000/0.5

NBC “MEET THE PRESS” 3,240,000 1,060,000/0.8

CBS “FACE THE NATION” 2,990,000 790,000/0.6

FOX “FOX NEWS SUNDAY” 1,320,000 500,000/0.4 )

But lets face it, oily little twats like Cantor, sold-out, dried-out, venom bags like McCain and the hundreds of others who hold high office and wield tremendous power on behalf of their depraved ideology because our fellow Americans elected them: every time you look into Michele Bachmann's deranged, soul-dead eyes, remember that the only reason this unhinged botch exists as a national figure is that tens of thousands of Minnesotans have looked into those same crazyholes and seen Sweet Baby Republican Jebus smiling back at them.

The Great Wad wants it's bullshit Centrist fairy tales treated as gospel, and so everywhere else it was like this...

George Will: The number of Americans who identify Barack Obama as "Liberal" has dropped by 10 points. His popularity among illiterate hicks is up!

Krugman: Yeah. He appointed the guy who has laid off whole cities-worth of Americans, exported those jobs overseas, makes most of his dough as a financial manager of his foreign bank accounts...and the rubes think this is a good thing.

3...2...1...



There's a brand new stance but I don't know its name

That rube-baiting Baggers do again and again

It's big and it's bland full of tension and fear

They do it over there but we don't do it here

Fascists! Turn to the Right.

Fascists! Turn to the Right.

Oooh, fascists

We are the goon squad and we're coming to town


Beep-beep

Beep-beep

Listen to me

don't listen to me

Talk to me


don't talk to me

Dance with me


don't dance with me.

No

Beep-beep

There's a brand new talk, but it's not very clear

Oh bop...Centrists

That people from K Street are talking this year

Oh bop, Centrists

It's loud and tasteless and I've heard it before

Oh bop

You shout it while you're outsourcing jobs to Bangalore

Oh bop, Centrists

Centrists...Turn to the Right!

Centrists! Right!

Centrists!

We are the goon squad and we've never left town

Beep-beep

Beep-beep

Listen to me

don't listen to me


Talk to me

don't talk to me

Dance with me

don't dance with me, no

Beep-beep

Beep-beep

Countdown Finally Reaches Zero

Cable news personality now unemployed.

The story so far...

1. One company/organization/entity took over another company/organization/entity.

2. The company/organization/entity did a little light housekeeping, after which there was at least one empty desk that made a lot of people say "Oh shit!" and start looking over their shoulders.

With two exceptions, this has been the story of every company/organization/entity I have ever worked for.

In days gone by, I might have tossed this to Steve Gilliard for his insight, but of course Steve is long gone.

I might have linked to Jon Swift, but he too is no longer a member of our vale or tears.

I might have linked to a couple of blogs that briefly and with great fanfare took on the task of shouldering Steve's legacy, but they have ceased operations.

I might have gone to Google Blog Search for a sampling of what some of my peers are saying, but the top search results when last I looked were from places like The Hollywood Gossip, TMZ and The Daily Beast. It appears that "blog" no longer means what I thought it meant.

Which is not to say that the world is not full of well-spiced commentary: at First Draft, Adrastos has some good insight, as does Nicole Belle, as do other

It is merely to say that things change.

Then they change again.

That the distant grinding you hear is the sound of the tectonic plates of commerce and power in constant motion and heedless of our little problems and concerns.

And in the room the women still come and go

Still talking of Michelangelo.

Your Friday Professional Left Podcast

WARNING: Strobe-lights and dry ice used extensively during this performance. No one will be seated during the exciting last five minutes!





Butto, Button, who's got the Button...

You do, if you take advantage to the chance to pick up this mint-condition memento of the final days of the Mainstream Media, available at Blue Gal's Cafepress Store (and keep listening later in the year for an opportunity to win one). Also too, the Podcast Donate Button Button below allows listeners to throw a contribution specifically towards the podcast. Thanks for your listenership and support!

Remember, Liberal Sanity is not covered under Obamacare...

Thanks again to Frank Chow for the graphic at the ProLeft website and Heather at Crooks and Liars Video Cafe for their help. And don't forget, our archives are available for free with no downloads at Professional Left.

“Even a Thief

Takes ten years to learn his trade” -- Japanese proverb

Time again for another exciting episode of..."Guess the Subject/Guess the Writer."

Ready?

From today's New York Times:

...
There are plenty of team players in government who do whatever the leader says. There are too few difficult members, who have complicated minds, unusual perspectives, the toughness to withstand the party-line barrages and a practical interest in producing results.

3...

2...

1...

Time's up and pencils down.


Subject: Joseph Isadore Lieberman.

Writer: David Brooks. David. Fucking. Brooks.

And in all seriousness, how could possibly have been otherwise?

I mean, according to Bobo's meretricious metrics, Lieberman is as close to being the Perfect Democrat as is humanly possibly: one who took wildly wrong, Wingnut positions on more issues than I can count, stabbed members of his own Party in the kidney over and over and over again, all while standing on a pile of whining, lying sanctimony high enough to knock satellites out of orbit, blatting about non-partisanship.

(Greenwald nails a few dozen more theses to that Villager Cathedral Door here:

...
This is all just the small illustrative tip of the iceberg that is Joe Lieberman's hideous, destructive political career. It leaves out his alliance with the worst religious extremists in the country, such as Rev. John Hagee, his steadfast refusal as Homeland Security Chairman to investigate some of the Bush administration's worst failures and abuses, and -- of course -- his overarching, unyielding, blind support for anything and everything Israel does, even trying to construct similar absolute allegiance to Israel as a litmus test for American politicians. In a 2008 report, Think Progress compiled all the ways that this Democratic Hero has not only failed to support progressive values, but led the way in waging war on them, and this amusing Gail Collins column from yesterday perfectly captured Lieberman's rotted "character."

And Alex Pareen also has a few sprigs of cilantro to toss into the stew:

The evidence of Lieberman's usefulness is that he voted for various things the Democrats wanted him to vote for, eventually. But politics -- especially in the Senate -- is about more than the final vote. It's about the process. And Lieberman acted as poisonously as he could during the process of passing legislation like the healthcare reform bill. He helped drag it out and he killed the Medicare buy-in for no reason other than spite. Brooks knows this full well...)

Brooks can peddle such twaddle -- and believe it with all his widdle heart -- because, like his own spectacular failure on the matter of Iraq and his subsequent, squirmy, self-absolving, whitewash of that failure, Bobo has never been one to let mere Reality stand in the way of dropping yet another steaming load of fact-free, intellectually bankrupt, "Centrism Uber Alles" claptrap smack into the center of the op-ed page of the New York Times.

Because at this point, that is literally his only stock-in-trade.

Which is why he is truly America's leading Conservative intellectual.

How I Foolishly Lost $5.00

In the Sekrit Liberal Conspiracy Headquarters office pool.

So George Soros, the ghost of Barack Obama's Luo tribesman father, and I were sitting around the cafeteria doing what Liberals do (this being Wednesday, we were talking about how sad it was that the technology did not exist to let us each have a gay human/animal hybrid Karl Marx clone baby) when the following question came up: Having worn their own lies, hypocrisies and fuckups like a massive shit fedora for several consecutive weeks now, which time-tested dog whistle was the new House Majority Party going to use to put the Republican base back to sleep?

Withing minutes, the grid was done, the money collected, and all eyes were on our email in-boxes.

Would it be the classic "Filthy Usurper with Feet Arrogantly up on the People's Desk?"

Perhaps something icky and "job killing" was being "jammed down our throats" again?

That plush, luxury "prison" built in Illinois with "Stimulus dollars"?

Nefarious Muslims gathering every Friday in the streets of New York City to block traffic?

The Kenyan Classic?

The $200 Million-dollars-a-day profligacy?

And then, ten seconds later, we had a winnah!

The Chicago Way !!!

Bread winner with your tax dollars - and, it's getting worse!!!

Bread Winner....

Bread Winner...Making Babies!

And so forth...

Lot of caps? Red Letters, bold face and Exclamation!points? And all in Giant Persuadamond font, so you know it has to be true? These wizards of the forensic arts do not miss a trick (although mine arrived without eagles rampant on sparkly flag logos, so I guess they had to economize somewhat.)

Dang.

I had ACORN and "Death panels" in the office pool, but I should have know better: "Scary, Undeserving Brown People" has been the perennial and prohibitive favorite of the Right for over a century, and betting against them going with "Welfare Queen" when they need to change the subject is stupider than betting against Seabiscuit.

It's like betting against the Seabiscuit...in the 1940 Santa Anita Handicap...from the movie "Seabiscuit"...having already seen the movie "Seabiscuit" a million times.

Just goes to show that it rarely pays to be a hunch bettor.