Fresh from the President's observation that private package carriers always do better than the public option--"It's the Post Office that's always having problems!"--the government-run mail monopoly has announced its latest cost-cutting effort:

Financial incentive for early retirement. The Post Office is overstaffed.

Up to 30,000 employees can take the $15,000 bonus, which the Postal Service describes as a way to save up to $500 million in savings during the next fiscal year, which begins in October.

The offer is available to Post Office retail clerks, distribution center mail handlers and clerks, and motor vehicle technicians. Letter carriers are not eligible, since the Postal Service is targeting only areas where it has an excess of workers, and the number of addresses grows on average by 1.5 million each year, according to the agency.

The Postal Service negotiated the deal announced Tuesday with the American Postal Workers Union and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union.

The Postal Service lost $2.4 billion during its third quarter and forecasts a $7 billion year-end loss, according to figures released earlier this month. The financial woes can be tied in large measure to roughly $7 billion in mandated payments to fund current and future retiree health benefits. Postal officials say they will not make the payments for future retiree benefits if it faces an expected cash shortfall next month.

Come rain, come snow, come heat, come sleet, come $15,000 buy-out, nothing stops the mailman!

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 12:00 PM | Comments (3)
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Interesting.

It was an assessment Feingold said he didnÂ’t like, but the prospect of no health care legislation brought a burst of applause from a packed house of nearly 150 citizens at the Mercer Community Center.

“Nobody is going to bring a bill before Christmas, and maybe not even then, if this ever happens,” Feingold said. “The divisions are so deep. I never seen anything like that.”

This was at a townhall meeting last week. I'm surprised we're only hearing about it now. If it gets wider play, I'm sure Senator Feingold will be walking it back.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 11:24 AM | Add Comment
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After a bit of fun at the expense of legacy media below, it's only fair that I highlight a legacy media victory. Bloomberg news filed a FOIA request and lawsuit months ago to get the Federal Reserve to disclose the emergency loans it has been making as part of the financial recovery program under Presidents Bush and Obama.

The Fed resisted, despite Obama's statement that agencies "adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure” in responding to requests under FOIA.

Today, a U.S. District Court ordered the Fed to comply with the FOIA request.

The judge said the central bank “improperly withheld agency records” by “conducting an inadequate search” after Bloomberg News reporters filed a request under the information act. She gave the Fed five days to turn over documents it told the reporters it located, including 231 pages of reports, and said it must look for more at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which runs most of the loan programs.

The central bank “essentially speculates on how a borrower might enter a downward spiral of financial instability if its participation in the Federal Reserve lending programs were to be disclosed,” Preska wrote. “Conjecture, without evidence of imminent harm, simply fails to meet the Board’s burden” of proof.

David Skidmore, a Fed spokesman who said the boardÂ’s staff was reviewing the 47-page ruling, declined to comment on whether the central bank would appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York.

Good for Bloomberg. (It is also worth mentioning that in Bloomberg's story on Hassan Nemazee the financier's connections to Obama and Clinton were in the very first sentence.)

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 10:48 AM | Add Comment
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This is a big deal, but not just for the reasons you think:

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan and the Federal Bureau of Investigations say Hassan Nemazee, with residences in Manhattan and Katonah, N.Y., fraudulently applied for the loans for Nemazee Capital Corp., of which he is chairman and chief executive.

Federal prosecutors contend Nemazee obtained the money by giving the banking giant "numerous documents that purported to establish the existence of accounts in Nemazee's name at various financial institutions containing many hundreds of millions of dollars," the Justice Department said in a statement. "In fact, those were fraudulent and forged documents."

Do you know what's not in the CNN article? Or this Reuters one? Or this AP one?

A crucial detail from Nemazee's bio:

National Finance Chair - Hillary Clinton for President, 2008
National Finance Chair - Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC)
New York Finance Chair - John Kerry for President 2002 -2004

He was also nominated by President Clinton to be U.S. Ambassador to Argentina.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 09:30 AM | Comments (32)
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Obama formally retracts his Bizarro-world "forecast" of a mere 1.2% GDP contraction for the year -- the rotten intellectual foundation upon which his shanty-town edifice of blockbuster spending is built-- and admits that it's going to be 2.8% contraction.

And I bet that's still overoptimistic by half.

Due to this admission of changed (ahem) circumstances, Obama announced he would be putting his spending programs on hold in order to devote all of his presidential power to spurring a recovery is doing the exact same shit he was doing last week.

Why did the OMB hold out this long against CBO predictions? Simple; the Obama administration needed sunnier numbers in order to justify its plans to spend vast sums of money on its social-engineering agenda. Even in the best of times, these programs would be disastrous, but during a deep recession, they will kill any hope of economic growth. In short, OMB indulged in political hackery, hoping to continue their deception long enough to get ObamaCare and cap-and-trade through a compliant Congress. Now they have to admit that they either conducted an incompetent analysis while most significant economists scoffed at their projections for growth, or cooked the books.

Or he can blame Bush for bequeathing him an economy even more ruined by Republican malfeasance than he ever, ever suspected.

I'm guessing Option 3. Who wants to bet against me? I'll give you 100:1 odds.

Posted by: Ace at 08:30 AM | Add Comment
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(looks like me and Ace are on the same page) The release of the CIA report on interrogations of terrorists showing that enhanced interrogation techniques worked highlights one of the core failings of the left, a lack of moral courage. This statement will certainly cause outrage among that class as it runs entirely counter to their self-perception and the moral high ground they claim to stand on, nonetheless it is true. Every member of society is dependent on the shared moral values that allow us to live together. The simplest of these is the idea that none is allowed to do harm to others, the golden rule. John Stuart Mill from On Liberty:

That principle is that the sole end for which mankind are warranted,
individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action
of any of their number is self-protection. That the only purpose for
which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized
community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others

Edmund Burke:

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

We organize and deputize certain members of our society to enforce this against malefactors. We authorize punishments, imprisonment and even execution for those who violate the pact of doing no harm. But this is not simply an admonishment to not actively abuse others. In order for such a code to function it imparts obligations to action. Mill again:

There are also many positive acts for the benefit of others which he
may rightfully be compelled to perform, such as to give evidence in a
court of justice, to bear his fair share in the common defense or in
any other joint work necessary to the interest of the society of which
he enjoys the protection, and to perform certain acts of individual
beneficence, such as saving a fellow creature's life or interposing to
protect the defenseless against ill usage—things which whenever it is
obviously a man's duty to do he may rightfully be made responsible to
society for not doing. A person may cause evil to others not only by
his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly
accountable to them for his injury.

Sins of omission are equally morally wrong as sins of commission. If you have knowledge that a man will kill an innocent and you fail to act you are culpable. The fact that taking action is distasteful to you or counter to your nature does not absolve you from that moral obligation. As a member of society you are bound to support this concept if not by your action then by your acceptance or acquiescence. Certain actions must be taken to safeguard all and those who oppose these necessary functions are by nature parasites, enjoying the blessings of a liberty they have not earned. George Orwell (attributed)

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

Khalid Sheikh Mohamed planned and executed the depraved and deadly attacks on 9/11 killing thousands. When we captured him, it was certain that he had knowledge that could help prevent future attacks. This presented us with a moral obligation to gain that knowledge. To fail to take steps, including waterboarding, that would lead him to tell what he knew would be a harm by omission. As a society we have determined that those who have committed certain evils, such as terrorism, can be executed, either as punishment, a deterrent to others or to ensure that they can never do such evil again. How can we then maintain that we should not pour water on the face of someone who has knowledge that can prevent future acts of mass murder? It is unfathomable. Even if you remove the idea that we sanction killing by the state, the failure to take forceful acts, not even rising to the level of torture, to save lives shows a lack of moral courage. 

Now we have reached a point where we have told our enemies that we are not willing to actively interrogate them if they are captured. We have abdicated our responsibility to prevent evil and when future acts of terror kill innocents we are guilty for that failure.

Posted by: Uncle Jimbo at 08:08 AM | Add Comment
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Well of course they did. We have had confirmation on this from high-ranking CIA officers for years. Not sure what additional proof is to be found in the documents re-stating that evaluation, but at least one document has been released.

The document is written with an eye to politics -- the authors do not want to stick a thumb in the eye of their Democratic clients. And so they hedge on the fundamental questions... up to a point. While hedging and claiming they can't know with 100% certainty how much intelligence is directly attributable to EITs, there doesn't seem to be much question that EITs loosened the tongues of the three waterboarded terrorists. Here's Hayes quoting from the report:

Let’s review. Abu Zubaydah gave up some information before the use of EITs. But “since the use of the waterboard…Abu Zubaydah has appeared to be cooperative,” and gave up even more intelligence. Al Nashiri provided mostly historical information in the short time before EITs were employed. “However, following the use of EITs, he provided information about his most current operational planning…” And “accomplished resistor” Khalid Shaykh Muhammad provided mostly useless information before the application of EITs. Afterwards, he “provided information that helped lead to the arrests of terrorists” – so much information, in fact, that he was regarded as the “most prolific” intelligence source.

Reasonable people can – and do – disagree about the morality of using EITs. But only the most accomplished resister could continue to claim that they were not effective.

But all liberals are in the "most accomplished resister" category. On FoxNews, Juan Williams, for example, handled this report by simply denying it, by insisting against the expert opinion of the CIA that we still don't know if waterboarding really worked, or if they intelligence they provided us with was "bad intelligence."

As has been pointed out too many times to count, there is a genuine question here, a difficult philosophical one: Do the lives of innocents outweight the moral qualms of engaging in what would in other circumstances be morally objectionable behavior?

Truth-denying members of the "community-based reality" are however determined to avoid that question and simply assert over and over, despite the evidence arrayed against them, that there is no trade-off here whatsoever, because "torture never works."

It's a bitter irony that lefties are the ones forever complimenting themselves that they are nuanced thinkers concerned with substance and asking important questions, and that it's their opponents who can only conceive of the world in simplistic terms and bumper-sticker slogans.

Torture Consists of Getting Cigar Smoke in Your Face: PowerLine discusses the EIT effectiveness report as well as the report on alleged interrogation abuses.

The two incidents deemed most serious were the threatening of Abd Al-Nashiri with a loaded handgun and with a power drill. As noted above, these threats were made (but not carried out) by a debriefer who was not trained or authorized to use enhanced interrogation techniques (the CIA distinguishes between debriefers and interrogators.) This same debriefer also threatened Al-Nashiri by saying that "We could get your mother in here." It is worth noting that he said he wanted Al-Nashiri to infer, based on the debriefer's accent and the threat that he made, that he (the debriefer) was from a Middle Eastern security service that has the reputation of using such tactics. The implication was that Al-Nashiri was well aware that the Americans would do no such thing.

The same debriefer was also involved in a "ruse" where he and others tried to convince a detainee that they had shot another detainee, whose "body" the detainee was led past. This one individual accounts for a significant proportion of the improper interrogation techniques documented in the IG's report.

Some of the misdeeds documented in the report border on the humorous, like the claim that interrogators "smoked cigars and blew smoke in Al-Nashiri's face during an interrogation." The horror!

It's prosecutable torture to even threaten a terrorist.

As Hudson Frost asked in Aliens, "What the hell are we supposed to use, harsh language?"

Apparently not even that.

Eric Holder, pardon-facilitator of Marc Rich and non-prosecutor of the Black Panther vote intimidation thugs, says he's duty-bound to press this inquiry because he was so horrified at reading about these "abuses."

Posted by: Ace at 08:02 AM | Comments (1)
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There has been a great deal of conversation about putting up an actual challenger to Senater Barbara "Ma'am" Boxer this coming year. Her numbers are in the drink and it looks like a Republican candidate might benefit from a nation-wide backlash against the President and Congress.

The two names splashed around so far have been Chuck DeVore and Carly Fiorina. DeVore is a state senator assemblyman* running up against term limits. He doesn't have much name recognition even here in California. He supports nuclear power and offshore drilling, but also created prisoner rehabilitation programs that don't work.

Fiorina is probably most well-known for her stint at HP, which earned her accolades as the "most powerful woman in business." She advised the McCain campaign on economics (is that a plus or a minus?). She has great name-recognition in both California and the nation. Last Tuesday, she filed papers to officially announce her candidacy for Boxer's senate seat.

At a BBQ a few weekends ago, some people asked me which of the two I support. At the time I hadn't looked all that closely at either, though I knew that DeVore is some kind of a jerk. I also appreciated Fiorina's defense of Sarah Palin during the campaign last year. It looks like my gut instict wasn't wrong:

The DeVore campaign, certainly wasting no time, launched a cheeky website to “welcome Carly to the race,” asking supporters to send Fiorina one of four pre-scripted emails. Found among the original choices was the patronizing option to ask Ms. Fiorina, 54, to “make up her mind” on abortion, adding that “Carly Fiorina has never said whether she’s pro-life.” The DeVore campaign has since changed the wording to “suspect on life issues,” but the sentiment—that Fiorina is some sort of pro-abortion Manchurian Candidate—remains the same.

Following the launch of the website, DeVore allies began widely circulating an item from the Wall Street Journal that so matter-of-factly described Fiorina as “pro-choice on abortion” it reeked of poor campaign opposition research. Yesterday, the article was amended to show that Fiorina was, in fact, pro-life.

You should have detected a theme here.

Despite DeVore’s protestations, Fiorina settled on the contentious issue of abortion years ago. And contrary to the campaign’s constant refrain, she proudly calls herself a “pro-life, conservative, and life-long Republican.”

[...]

“If DeVore doesn’t make it to the general election, he’ll be sure to bloody up Fiorina on her way,” said one Republican activist with ties to the DeVore campaign, speaking only on the condition of anonymity.

Not a good beginning for DeVore.

*Thanks to irishspy for the correction. See, no name recognition!

And In Other California Elections News: Imported from the sidebar.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and California Attorney General Jerry Brown are the top Democratic names for the race for Governor Schwarzenegger's chair. Not surprisingly, Newsom, who brayed on television last year that California would have gay marriages "whether you like it or not!", is polling way below Jerry Brown. The surprising part is that he polls worse than Brown even in San Francisco.

It's too early to count anyone out, but if Republicans put up even a token challenger, they stand a good chance against either of these guys. Newsom managed to offend just about everyone even marginally socially conservative. Jerry Brown's disastrous tenure in the governor's mansion has not been forgotten, either.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:27 AM | Comments (2)
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Happy Tuesday!

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:16 AM | Comments (16)
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Thanks to Maet for only doing substantial damage to the ONT in my absence rather than utterly destroying it. What did you people do to him anyway? According to people whoÂ’ve seen him in person, all he does now is sit in a corner with his knees up to his chest, rocking back and forth and not responding to external stimuli. HeÂ’s also got a pronounced facial tic but IÂ’m told that may have been a pre-existing condition. ItÂ’s a shame, but ONT is not for the weak, faint-hearted or sober.

HereÂ’s a couple of semi-related items for ya.Â’ Stick with me here: If you follow the first one it might improve your chances of attaining the second one.

Item number one: Here in the lovely Evergreen State (motto: why does this place seem to be the national epicenter for weirdness?) has been opened a new treatment center for cyber junkies.

” The first US retreat for internet addicts has opened its doors, welcoming a teenager that was captive to the World of Warcraft online role-playing videogame. The 19-year-old boy went from pursuing quests in Azeroth to bottle-feeding baby goats and building a chicken coop as part of a reStart Internet Addiction Recovery Program at a rural five-acre spread in the state of Washington. "We are a cold-turkey place; no technology," reStart psychotherapist Hilarie Cash said.”

“The retreat has beds for six patients. A 45-day stay costs $14,500 plus cash for daily expenses such as renting camping gear for wilderness adventures. It also treats internet addicts as out-patients, with typical patients ranging from 18 to 28-years-old with "extensive exposure to porn, but not much to sex".

”The reStart rehab program includes teaching skills such as starting conversations and reading body language. Videogame addicts and ONT commenters typically need to be reprogrammed to be conscientious about everyday tasks such as bathing, cooking, and household chores, according to reStart. They also need tutoring when it comes to dating."

Item number two: ItÂ’s entirely possible that the previous paragraph was edited in some way. But the ONT always seeks to be helpful, and while we canÂ’t really provide any practical advice concerning personal hygiene and/or household chores, we can at least try to help you out on the dating front by providing an MRI-eye view of nature taking its course. I suppose itÂ’s safe for work but be warned: the participants are Scandis, so try to overcome your revulsion at the thought.

Thanks (I think) to Phil the News Junkie who also has numerous sexy pics of nekkid cellphones on his blog along with international beauty pageant contestants that may or may not have silicone additives.

more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 05:40 PM | Comments (14)
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