Too much choice
 

I read that the first time you posted it.

Yep. Republicrats.

Too much choice
 

I appreciate the sentiment, but I don't think I posted that before.

Too much choice
 

Must have read it on my own.

Fallujah
 

For those who have followed his reports (and even those who haven't), reporter Dexter Filkins of the NYT gave an interview with Terry Gross of NPR yesterday (link to audio).

Filkins was embedded with a company of Marines in the recent battle in Fallujah, and spends time during the interview telling the tales of bravery and tragedy that he saw there, and the horrors of urban warfare. Gripping stuff.

Fallujah
 

Wow.

Coalition member to US: Drop Dead
 

Notwithstanding the installment of Micronesia's protective coral reef of beads and shells, and Bush's considerable diplomatic skills, it appears that the coalition continues to fray at the edges.

Brad DeLong excerpts a WSJ.com article on Poland's disenchantment.

• Opinion polls show a big majority of Poles want their troops out of Iraq and also want Europe to have a common defense policy, something Washington views as a possible threat to the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
  
  Washington's ebbing influence in this most pro-American swath of Europe reflects a broader phenomenon this series of articles has explored: Some of the largest challenges facing the U.S. now flow from the sources of its great power.
  
  Its democratic domestic politics can leave it deaf to even its closest friends abroad. America's sheer size and might breed resentment and, in the geopolitical marketplace, stir competition. Its economic example spurs Europe to band together to compete. Its faith in elections prompts an effort, in Iraq and Afghanistan, to impose democracy through arms. For many abroad, America's goals inspire, but its actions often exasperate.
  
  "America failed its exam as a superpower," says Lech Walesa, the former Solidarity trade-union leader who became Poland's first post-Communist president. "They are a military and economic superpower but not morally or politically anymore. This is a tragedy for us." Mr. Walesa laments what he sees as America's squandered leadership because he thinks the EU isn't ready for prime time.... [C]an Europe offer itself and the wider world a vision to match, and perhaps one day even supplant, America's role as "leader of the free world"?
  
  In a campaign debate this fall, President Bush chided Sen. John Kerry for belittling the coalition in Iraq. "Well, you forgot Poland," said Mr. Bush. On a host of issues, however, many Poles, as well as some other allies, wonder if Mr. Bush has forgotten them.
  
  Many Britons, for example, complain that Prime Minister Tony Blair has gained little in return for his steadfast support in Iraq. From climate change to treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and the Middle East peace process, Washington has mostly sidestepped British requests. Poland, America's other keen ally on the Continent, smarts over Washington's refusal to grant Poles visa-free access to the U.S., a privilege enjoyed by France and 26 other countries.... A state-owned arms company filed a formal protest earlier this year after it lost a bid to equip the Iraqi army. Polish officials also feel they got short shrift in Washington when they tried to influence U.S. decision-making in Iraq.
  
  "We shed our blood for them but they don't treat us well," says Mr. Walesa, who visited the U.S. this fall to meet officials and politicians. He had no trouble getting a visa himself but made little headway in securing easy entry for his compatriots. "America doesn't like Poles; it only likes Walesa," he says.

Random rant
 

This just requires me to get something totally unrelated off my chest.

Read the fucking boilerplate, assholes. If you show up at the closing whining like a little bitch because you finally noticed the provision that has been in every draft of the document without comment for 3 months requiring your client to pay transfer taxes, I will slap you upside the head like the little girly-bitch you are.

Also, litigators should think twice before trying to negotiate transactions. At the least, please try to prepare in some way, like maybe skimming an ABA model or parsing through the table of contents of a how-to manual downloaded off the internet, before trying to "negotiate" with me based on your "never in your career" having seen something as outrageous as your client being expected to rep as to its due incorporation, valid existance and good standing, and ownership of the transferred property. You incompetent, bumbling fucks, tell your client to get a real lawyer, like off a flier picked up off the floor of the subway. Any solo-prac in podunkville two-years out of law school who has negotiated two chicken-shit-supply contracts for Bob's Grain and Feed would do a better job.

Thank you, I feel marginally better.

[Insert Light Bulb Graphic Here!]
 

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...home-headlines

Dem leaders looking to make an anti-abortion Hoosier the party chief.

Yo, happy new year to you too.

Say(income up 35% this year)_hello(increase in Republican dominance in national politics)_for(student loans... gone)_me

Social Security Trust Fund Poll
 

Channelling Snow, "Debt, what debt? We don't need no stinking debt!"

The younger Bush is doing his best to give him a run for him money, Papa wasn't bad either.

Too much choice
 

You have a mortgage? If so, shouldn't you sell your house and rent so that you don't have so much debt?

Too much choice
 

Maybe it would, except that (1) the government distorts my incentives with the mortgage deduction, and (2) borrowing lets me leverage my assets and capture the (recently recockulous here in California) increases in home values all for myself.

Scarry, but Interesting
 

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationwo...orld-headlines

[Russia and China to hold joint military exercises]

Too much choice
 

Be fair. Depending on who wants to make the specific adjustments under discussion, both Repubs and Dems have been scare-mongering SS for decades. Each side takes its turn arguing that the system is just fine, or that the scare is, at least, overblown. Fact is, old farts scare easily, and they vote massively, so you can make virtually any systemic change you want if you can tie it in somehow to "saving SS." This isn't about saving SS - it's simply a way to make government less meaningful.

Having said that, I'm curious what new system is going to replace the safety net of SS for the twenty percent who lose their whole discretionary portion. We're obviously not going to let them starve, so are we simply making the investment portion risk-free?

Too much choice
 

Although it hasn't been addressed openly, yes. In order to get any sort of a majority you would have to guarantee some minimum level of return, or at least preservation of capital.

That 20 percent in effect will form an insurance pool. The hope will be that there will be enough people doing well and receiving reduced benefits (another thing they won't speak about publicly yet, mandatory reduction of benefits for the budding Warren Buffets among us) that it will more than offset the folks who tank and have to be bailed out.

Too much choice
 

Seems to me a slight rise in the max-wage number coupled with liberalization of 401k rules would fix things up very nicely, without screwing with the one governmental program that seems to have worked for so long. Anything new is going to have a ton of those pesky unintended consequences. (Or, as someone I admire phrased it, those things that we don't know yet that we don't know.)