Final Crows Arrived and We're Off!!

Consuella and Diane have both arrived safely and all is well. Consuella had a good day yesterda ybeing introduced to Kunming's scenery. Mom had a nice dinner with the Xizhou family. Diane made it through a monsoon in Shanghai. It is warm and sunny and we are heading off Right Now to the ceiling of the world to test our high elevation chops and medidate on boutique hotel verandas overlooking a sacred mountain. What an adventure! More later....

I am sipping Gin and (Lemon) Juice with my Mom In KUNMING!!!

she is here. she is talking about things she read in magazines. things about the election. brain development. china. she cracks me up. she likes my apartment. and we really are drinking gin and juice.

Morning Show Madness: McCain 2.0

I was just scanning the news to see how depressed I could get about the economy when I stumbled upon this pastiche of McCain on every single morning show. Apparently, John is taking a populist turn: praising workers, dissing executives. But, I scratch my head and think.... You are an Anti-Regulator and so much of this crisis started with deregulation and loopholes that he supported. Workers (and unions) depend on RULES that PROTECT them from Greed and Corruption. It makes me kind of ill to watch this, but here goes... John McCain becomes a populist with a very very rigid set of talking points.

And: notice at 2:12, he says, "dead-a-little." Does this mean John is rigged up as the spokesperson for some mysterious man behind the curtain? Will the real Wizard of Oz please stand up!

UPDATE:

From Steve at the Washington Monthly
To hear John McCain tell it, when it comes to the Wall Street crisis, he deserves credit, not for taking steps to prevent it, but for knowing it was coming.

On CBS's "The Early Show" yesterday, McCain said, "[T]wo years ago I warned that the oversight of Fannie and Freddie was terrible, that we were facing a crisis because of it, or certainly serious problems.... [T]he influence that Fannie and Freddie had in the inside-the-beltway, old-boy network, which led to this kind of corruption is unacceptable, and I
warned about it a couple of years ago."

Evidence to support McCain's gift of foresight is surprisingly thin. In fact, evidence to the contrary is much easier to come by.

ABC's Jake Tapper found an interview McCain did in New Hampshire, shortly before the Republican presidential primary, on the seriousness and the dimensions of the subprime mortgage crisis. McCain conceded that he didn't see the mortgage crisis coming.

"I don't know the dimensions of this. It's hard to know what the dimensions are.... [I]n this whole new derivative stuff, and SIBs and all of this kind of new ways of packaging mortgages together and all that is something that frankly I don't know a lot about.

"But I do rely on a lot of smart people that I have that are both in my employ and acquaintances of mine. And most of them did not anticipate this. Most of them, I mean I can find some that did. But, a guy that's on my staff named Doug Holtz-Eakin, who was once the head of the Office of Management and Budget, said that there was nervousness out there. There's nervousness. There was nervousness that we had such a long period of prosperity without a downturn because of the history of our economy. But I don't know of hardly anybody, with the exception of a handful, that said 'wait a minute, this thing is getting completely out of hand and is overheating.'

"So, I'd like to tell you that I did anticipate it, but I have to give you straight talk, I did not."

Funny, he seems to have a far different message now. I wonder why that is?

ANOTHER MCCAIN REINVENTION UNDERWAY.... Yesterday, on the "Today" show, John McCain rejected the notion of government intervention to support AIG, saying, "I do not believe that the American taxpayer should be on the hook for AIG." NBC's Matt Lauer asked, "So, if we get to the point, in the middle of the week when AIG might have to file for bankruptcy, they're on their own?" McCain replied, "Well, they're on their own."

This morning on "Good Morning America," McCain took a far different line on the bailout. "I didn't want to do that. And I don't think anybody I know wanted to do that. But there are literally millions of people whose retirement, whose investment, whose insurance were at risk here," McCain said.

It was yet another reminder that when it comes to addressing trying economic times, McCain has to pretend he never believed all of the things he's always believed.

A decade ago, Sen. John McCain embraced legislation to broadly deregulate the banking and insurance industries, helping to sweep aside a thicket of rules established over decades in favor of a less restricted financial marketplace that proponents said would result in greater economic growth.

Now, as the Bush administration scrambles to prevent the collapse of the American International Group (AIG), the nation's largest insurance company, and stabilize a tumultuous Wall Street, the Republican presidential nominee is scrambling to recast himself as a champion of regulation to end "reckless conduct, corruption and unbridled greed" on Wall Street. [...]

McCain hopes to tap into anger among voters who are looking for someone to blame for the economic meltdown that threatens their home values, bank accounts and 401(k) plans. But his past support of congressional deregulation efforts and his arguments against "government interference" in the free market by federal, state and local officials have given Sen. Barack Obama an opening to press the advantage Democrats traditionally have in times of economic trouble.

This is more than just about giving Obama an opening; it's principally about McCain trying to reinvent himself on the fly, hoping no one notices.

[In 1999], McCain had joined with other Republicans to push through landmark legislation sponsored by then-Sen. Phil Gramm (Tex.), who is now an economic adviser to his campaign. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act aimed to make the country's financial institutions competitive by removing the Depression-era walls between banking, investment and insurance companies.

That bill allowed AIG to participate in the gold rush of a rapidly expanding global banking and investment market. But the legislation also helped pave the way for companies such as AIG and Lehman Brothers to become behemoths laden with bad loans and investments.

McCain now condemns the executives at those companies for pursuing the ambitions that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act made possible.

In other words, McCain personally gave the financial industry a green light to do exactly what they did. And now he's outraged.

It's precisely why McCain's economic message has been so oddly incoherent this week. Turning on a dime, he's gone from supporting fewer regulations to supporting more, from supporting less oversight to supporting more. McCain is slamming Wall Street execs for playing a dangerous game after McCain helped throw out the rules.

McCain said during the Republican primaries, "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should." He continues to prove it with each passing day.

In case anyone was wondering....

I have been camped out her in Kunming this week, not posting much. When I read the news, I am starting to get weary. Watching the US economy implode is not a fun activity. I sit at the bar with friends lamenting the future of the world. There are so many cynical people here who really think McCain is going to win. I literally cry in my whiskey.

I did my part this week and registered for an absentee ballot with the Chengdu Consulate. There was something very exciting about applying for a ballot in China. Apparently, Cook County is the only county in Illinois that will allow you to vote via email. My friend from Texas has to fax it in.

In other news... I have been preparing for the arrival of my mom and her two lovely lady friends. We are going to take a 10 day trip up into the mountains of Shangri-La and wind our way back through Lijiang and Dali, back to Kunming. I have made a makeshift bed out of foam and thick quilts for my mom to sleep on. I have filled the house with flowers. I am really excited to show them my city and take a break together. I live in semi-retirement at this point, but I know they really need a break from the hectic Chicago work-a-day lifestyle.

It is strange to think that just three weeks ago I was sunning on the beaches of northwest Sumatra and soaking in an entirely new environment. It will be good to go up high into the Himalayas for a change of scenery.

This picture makes me laugh. There was an old school desktop just sitting on the beach. The boats were bobbing out on the ocean, the breeze was blowing... and then the modern world jumped into view. Makes me happy to leave my computer by itself some days.

McCain vs. The World

It seems that McCain and his foreign policy team have taken a very Cold War-era approach to the rest of the world. In simple math, it goes something like this... Georgia=good, Russia=Bad. According to McCain's chief foreign policy guy, Randy Scheunemann, Russia and China are not our allies and pose serious threats the the United States and democracy in general.

I like the way Ezra responds to this madness:

One thing worth keeping in mind about great power conflicts is that they're rarely inevitable. At times, France and England have been at war, and at times they've been allies. A lot of it has to do with how leaders interact with each other, and whether they aggressively court conflict or publicly seek a constructive relationship. If you court conflict, soon enough, the other country does, and both sides build up a narrative of slights and provocations -- many of them quite real -- that lead to war and discord. But it is a choice: You can decide whether you want a relationship defined by transgressions and stare-downs, or whether you want a relationship where the overriding narrative is of alliance and both sides work to play down points of disagreement. Scheunemann, here, is courting conflict, and as McCain's chief foreign policy adviser, that's a pretty good indicator for how a McCain administration would look.

One of McCain's ideas - a league of democracies - is supposed to counter the perceived threat of a Russian or Chinese veto in the United Nations Security Council. While I think there are critical issues where a Chinese veto stymies progress (eg. Burma), the Security Council does a great deal to serve the interests of the United States.

Yglesias puts it well:

The UN Security Council mechanism by design prevents any country from taking action that is deemed contrary to the vital interests of the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Russia, or France. This causes some very real problems. It’s important to note, however, that it’s a completely two way street and, historically, the U.S. does more vetoing than any other country. I think it would make a lot of sense for the United States to propose shifting the Security Council from a unanimity rule to some kind of qualified majority rule. But what Scheunemann seems to be contemplating (a world in which the US does get to protect its vital interests, but Russia and China don’t) is going to be a non-starter in Moscow and Beijing for obvious reasons.

And at the end of the day, each country is going to do what it is going to do:

If the U.S. were to try to invade Burma in the face of Russian and Chinese opposition, in the context of new great power tensions, you’d just wind up with a bloody proxy conflict not with vast new humanitarian benefits. The problem, at the end of the day, is with the underlying pattern of facts — SLORC is terrible, Burma is close to China, China sees defending Burma’s sovereignty as important, and China is a big and important country these days. Given those facts, there’s no great procedural fix no matter what you do with the UN Security Council. But the Security Council mechanism, as currently operating, has a lot of value in other domains that would be lost if we cast it aside in pursuit of a fantasy that doing so would somehow allow us to completely brush off opposition of other major countries to certain proposed military adventures.

Thou Shalt Not Cook On T.V.

I love Thailand. After weeks of protests across the country, the Prime Minister was finally forced out of office for...hosting a cooking show.

Dieting: Save My Soul and Our Planet!

I remember the first time I heard the Dalai Lama say that in order to find inner peace Americans should eat less. Now we have the United Nations saying we should reduce meat consumption in order to slow global warming. And, sure science says a reduced calorie diet extends life by up to 1/3, but these days who knows if that is a good thing.

Look for Illinois

A little statistical analysis goes a long way. It seems that governors in small states have higher approval ratings because "In a large state, there will be more ambitious politicians on the other side, eager to knock off the incumbent governor; small states often have part-time legislatures and thus the governor is involved in less political conflict."

I include this not only because Gov. Palin seems to follow this trend, but because Gov. Blago (my former boss) seems to have hit a new and lowest low. Yikes!!

Sino Space Walk Planned

While my mom and her two lady friends will be here in China, there are bound to be some fun newspaper reports to take home for souvenirs. It's like they planned it or something....

Palin's Jeramiah Wright?

It seems that Republican VP candidate Palin has some interesting 'religious mentor' issues in her closet as well. I wonder if the Democrats will mention it (probably not) and what the Republicans would have to say in her defense. Ideas: She was not in the pews that day. She does not subscribe to these extreme views of her pastor. America (and Wassilla, AK, even) are bastions of sin and only the saved will survive the wrath. What bittersweet revelations...

Kroon placed Zephaniah in a modern context, warning that the sinful habits of Americans would invite the wrath of God. “And if Zephaniah were here today,” Kroon bellowed, “he’d be saying, ‘Listen, [God] is gonna deal with all the inhabitants of the earth. He is gonna strike out His hand against, yes, Wasilla; and Alaska; and the United States of America. There’s no exceptions here — there’s none. It’s all.’”

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan and the Atlantic

Bangkok Bliss

I put a few photos of my recent trip through Bangkok here on my Facebook page. It was the first time I had the chance to navigate the city on my own, but there were the usual stops to Chatuchak JJ Market and stunning views of the river. Enjoy!

Indonesia Pictures

I have posted a few of the pictures from my trip to Indonesia on my Facebook page. I plan on posting more so stay tuned, You can click here to take a look! If that does not work, just go to my Facebook page and scroll down on the left to my picture album called Awesome Aceh.

Melting Machines

I wish I could say it has been a great 24 hours, but I have been battling with technology. I hate to admit this, but I am not that great with computers and my technical Chinese (How DO you say compressed air?) is lacking. Yesterday. I noticed my precious laptop running sloooow and hooooot and getting angry with sudden shut downs. As you may well imagine, my computer is my lifeline to the outside world. I NEED it. So, I set off in search of a can of compressed air to blow out the piles of Kunming dirt nad dust that must have been accumulating.

At the computer bizarre, I found weak little vacuums and screen cleaner. Then, I found someone who seemed to know what I was talking about. She somehow convinced me that a can of air with some 'detergents' was just what I was lookin' for. Sure! It says it is used to clean precision instruments and that is exactly what this hardworking laptop is to me. So I took home the spray and blasted the chemical mist into the vents and around the keys to 'remove the dust and dirt'...BUT seconds later I realized the spray was melting my computer!!!! MELTING, like the Wicked Witch of the West. I scrubbed, to no avail. My heart sank.

After a few drinks with friends who came over and consoled me that the most precious, expensive thing I own was not dead.... I realized a few things: I cannot afford a new laptop so must make this work; I should NEVER trust Chinese computer people again unless they know me; I really really really love and depend on this machine; I CAN reinstall Firefox and solve one of the random scary 'crash' issues I have been facing today; When the fan stopped, I realized perhaps I need to go to a professional for help on that one; AND my old laptop has a lovely grey-ish talc powder patina on the entire keyboard that will forever serve to remind me how careless I am not to have done an 'allergy test' like they advise on the bottles of hair dye.

I am trying to remain calm in the face of random shut downs, sticky keys and crashing programs, but I wanted to write this on the computer as long as it is staying on and functioning for a few minutes. I hope on my life this is not the last dispatch from Old (Nuclear Bomb Tested) Faithful.

UPDATE: The NYT today posted a recall notice on Vaios. Funny, my model is not included but it does remind me that other people have melting computers as well.