The Chinese investors were undoubtedly naïve earlier in the run of this thing, but they got wise much sooner than the NPR report makes it seem —and furthermore, much sooner than the penetrating strategists in Washington seem to have realized.

As to the dispersion of our debts, some early indicators of the horror that may be yet to come were the Norwegian muni fund that blew up on U.S. mortgages last winter, a couple of European pension funds iirc, and most embarrassing of all, the trips to China Alphonse Jackson and Paulson made for the express purpose of suckering the folks over there into buying yet more mortgage- and other asset-backed securities.

The American guys apparently thought that there had been some miscommunication regarding recent auctions. The Chinese assured them that there had not. I think these trips, especially Paulson’s, might have been the sledgehammer that was needed to convince certain folk in executive Washington that they had a big problem looming.

By which I was momentarily taken aback, partly from its audacity [There were at least 3 other kids in line between me at the front and him at the back], but perhaps almost as much by the poetry of its conception, and to which I responded with words to the effect of: Where did you hear that? the rejoinder to which was: I made it up. It just came into my head and I invented it.

After half a century I can’t recall the kid’s name. Henceforth I resolve to refer to him as “McCain”.

What the Freepers miss, or rather, given they are after all Freepers and so miss just about everything, is that the models for America’s future, near- to mid-term at least, have narrowed to three:

[1] Darfur, with millions of starving nomads wandering about;

[2] Sweden, the state acting as house nanny; and

[3] Ruloflawya, with universal access to Judge Hardy to rule on the equities between homeowner, the kindly, generous and well-meaning Nell Trueheart, and the mortgage holder, that heartless, rapacious tinkle-down capitalist Snidely Whiplash.

Freepers long for Darfur, but what with 9/11, Iraq, torture, GTMO, FISA, institutionalized cronyism, Katrina etc already on the books, the out-of-touch numbskull currently in the White House perceives his legacy is already so deep down in the dumpster, were he to do nothing now, it might be incapable of being rescued by ex post mis-facto Trumanization, and he wouldn’t have left no argument for being less hopeless than Buchanan, President of the Know Nothings.

[That’s what his legacy is down to: hoping to leave behind a trail of Talking Points to allow others to argue he MIGHT not have been the Worst.]

His similarly out-of-touch preferred successor responded so late to emergency siren that it’s taken him a couple of weeks to see that, while unlike the Water Boy he could run on Darfur, he can’t both do that and win this election at the same time.

So what to do…what to do… and having looked over the remaining options for any signs as to which might be bear the strongest evidence for having derived from the Almighty Power and Wisdom of the Awesome Universal Surge, well, Sweden’s pretty much the obvious choice.

Watch Vanderhei on Hardball. He makes a good point about how both campaigns are playing these games but McCain’s campaign can’t hide it as well. He doesn’t give examples but it rings true.

To a hammer, everything is a nail.

Haiku On The Senator’s Surge

O sacred Surge,
Answer to everything;
Born humbly in a Baghdad manger,
Now reborn,
Perfect in Poughkeepsie.

Thanks for reporting and dissecting this one!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10…..ref=slogin

Take a look at the three dead babies wrapped up from the pics originally running with the only story:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/i…..ry.190.jpg

and see if you can figure out why in the world American troops would have been “not welcome there”

One of the military officials who agreed to discuss the new report said the Special Forces troops who had called in the strikes could conduct only a limited assessment of the damage and casualties afterward because they were forced to leave the village soon after the strikes, fearing retaliation from the villagers.

“We were wrong on the number of civilian casualties partly because the initial review was operating under real limitations,” said one of the military officials, who said of the Special Forces soldiers, “They were definitely not welcome there.”

But hey – supporting democracy, God’s mission, booyah. It just gets so depressing to see it all and to realize that, generationally, we’ve pretty much signed off on the trade in of “soldiers” who protect civilians for the new creed of “warriors” who make war, and on torture and politically approved killings and political use of the Dept of Justice to harass and imprison political enemies. The debts that have been accruing aren’t all financial – the moral ones have mounted up just as fast and high.