You probably know the rest of that playground poem from memory, but Smitty’s a married man and his wife’s not named Tammy. However, Smitty did get a shout-out from Tammy Bruce when she had as a guest on her radio show our good blog-buddy Big Fur Hat from IOwnTheWorld.com:
If you lack the patience to listen to the whole thing, you can cheat by skipping forward to a bit past the 7-minute mark, where you’ll hear this:
Tammy Bruce: I’ve gone to the lounge at IOwnTheWorld.com, and you’ve got pictures there, you’ve got people’s favorite photos, you’ve got some videos, you’ve got . . . Big Fur Hat: I got a haiku — I got a haiku from Smitty . . . TB: Oh, I read that! BFH: I got a haiku from Smitty the other day . . . TB: I read that! I didn’t know what a haiku was, and now I do, and I thought it was a very good haiku.
And they go on from there, in mutual praise of Smitty’s “Haiku Sonnet for Sarah Palin,” which is unlikely to be included in the next edition of The Norton Anthology of American Literature, but did get reposted at IOwnTheWorld.
Meanwhile, I’m jealous both of Smitty for having been praised by Tammy, and of Big Fur Hat for having been a guest on her show. But now that we know she’s into poetry . . .
There once was a conservative sapphic,
Whom I would throw some blogosphere traffic,
If I were on her show.
There’s a joke there, I know,
But the punchline might be pornographic.
No, wait, I can do better than that:
There once was a blogger named Smitty,
Who gained fame by composing a ditty.
But alas, the poor fool
Got deployed to Kabul
And complains that the bandwidth’s a pity.
For more than a year, I’ve been warning against the idea that we are in an economic “recovery.” It’s not just the disturbing persistence of an unemployment rate above 9 percent.
That’s the symptom, not the disease.
What the U.S. economy is suffering from, and what no amount of neo-Keynesian “stimulus” can remedy, is a capital shortage. And in fact, the successive government interventions since 2008 aimed at fixing the economy have mainly worsened the fundamentals.
Consider, for example, the attempts to cushion the collapse of the housing bubble by trying to halt foreclosures or offer “assistance” to deadbeats who can’t make the payments on houses worth less than the mortgage value. What’s the net economic effect?
At Calculated Risk, Tom Lawler, a real estate economist and former risk policy veep at Fannie Mae, tries to figure out how many people have actually lost their homes to foreclosure, short sales or deed-in-lieu desertions. The answer: Not enough. Lawler . . . says the number of foreclosures that have been completed so far is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of loans that have gone bad. . . .
[T]here could be roughly three times as many homes on the market as there are now. Lawler points to 1,445,000 completed foreclosures and short sales at the end of 2010, compared with 4,296,01 mortgages that are past due by 90 days or more.
To adapt an old Marxian expression, we have a “reserve army” of unforeclosed deadbeats, who are on one hand a steady drain on the vitality of the financial sector but, on the other hand, a looming threat to the real-estate sector. Either the deadbeats are permitted to fall further and further behind on their mortgages (not good for the banks) or else the banks foreclose and all those homes are dumped onto an already glutted real-estate market.
It’s a lose-lose situation for the overall economy.
How will policy-makers respond? Badly, I predict. The most likely response is more inflationary pumping by the Fed, more deficit-funded bailouts for the deadbeat homeowners and/or the lenders, and perhaps also some more cumbersome regulation.
Also, consider the fact that 11 percent of U.S. homes are now sitting empty. If one out of nine existing homes lacks occupants — they can’t even find a renter, much less a buyer — what does that tell you about the market for new homes, and the home-construction industry that depends on that market?
BEIJING, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) — Two people were killed and 223 have been injured in the Chinese capital amid traditional New Year fireworks frenzy that lasted from Wednesday evening to Thursday noon. . . .
On Thursday, Beijing dispatched more than 20,000 street cleaners after a night of fireworks. A total of 2,380 tons of exploded fireworks have been swept up by workers.
Except we aren’t Egyptians, and the vast majority of us will never set foot in Cairo. For those of us who aren’t traveling the world on an expense account, the Atlantic‘s Clive Crook offers this helpful reminder:
This is very important to remember. Whatever is happening in Egypt — and frankly, I’m not sure that it’s a “revolution” — it isn’t likely to be influenced by anything I write about it, or Rush Limbaugh says about it.
In fact, there appear to be limits even to Barack Obama’s ability to influence events in Egypt, contrary to rumors that the president is planning to walk to Cairo and feed the protesters with five loaves of bread and two fishes.
Despite our apparent impotence, however, there are a lot of people who seem obsessed with the idea that we must watch what we say about Egypt. They seem to believe that only certain thoughts are permissible about Egypt. If we say the wrong thing, or even think the wrong thing, we might somehow influence the situation in Egypt for the worse.
This is a type of psychotic delusion called “magical thinking”: If we think good thoughts about Egypt, good things will happen in Egypt. If only we believe in peace — with all our hearts! — there will be peace.
According to the Magical Thinking School of Foreign Policy, the root cause of Egypt’s miseries is American wickedness. It is the evil in our own hearts — our ignorance, our prejudice — that has caused these tragic events. Therefore, say the magic thinkers, if we will purify our minds, renounce our xenophobic bigotry, cross our fingers and hope for democracy in Egypt, then democracy in Egypt will happen.
He said he’s fed up with being president and would like to leave office now, but cannot, he says, for fear that the country would sink into chaos. . . .
When I asked him what he thought seeing the people shouting insults about him and wanting him gone, he said, “I don’t care what people say about me. Right now I care about my country, I care about Egypt.” . . .
When I asked him how he responded to the United States’ veiled calls for him to step aside sooner rather than later, he said he told President Obama, “You don’t understand the Egyptian culture and what would happen if I step down now.”
Here’s a video news report featuring an interview with Ibrahim Kamel, a member of the ruling National Democratic Party:
UPDATE: The Egyptian NDP is crucial to answering the big question about the violence that began Wednesday: “Who let the thugs out?”
Foreign journalists were beaten with sticks and fists by pro-government mobs on Thursday, and dozens were detained by security forces. The U.S. condemned what it called the “systematic targeting” of the reporters, photographers and film crews who have brought searing images of Egyptian protests to the world.
Foreign photographers reported attacks by supporters of President Hosni Mubarak near Tahrir Square, the scene of vicious battles between Mubarak supporters and protesters demanding he step down after nearly 30 years in power
(Via National Journal.) Could it be that the thugs (many of whom carried NDP identification) were doing the bidding of the president’s son, Gamal Mubarak? And could it be that Gamal’s otherwise unexplained ouster from the NDP is related to Wednesday’s hooliganism?
UPDATE II: The latest Associated Press video report:
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has issued a sharp criticism of attacks on journalists, peaceful demonstrators, human rights activists and diplomats in Egypt.
Clinton said the attacks violated international norms on freedom of the press.
Without directly blaming President Hosni Mubarak’s regime, she said, “It is especially in times of crisis that governments must demonstrate their adherence to these universal values.”
Preliminary figures released Thursday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development showed that Egypt’s decision to block Internet services for five days cost the country an estimated $90 million. The OECD said the blocked telecommunications and Internet services accounted for about 3 percent to 4 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, which accounted for about $18 million a day.
The Internet amounts to as much as 4% of the economy in Egypt?
Considering that the Internet provides about 100% of my own personal economy (hint, hint), I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised.
On Thursday night, an ambulance driver told TIME that he witnessed a tank open fire on anti-government demonstrators near the Egyptian Museum, where pro-Mubarak forces had launched attacks the previous day. “The army has started to cooperate with the pro-Mubarak people. I saw this with my own eyes,” he told TIME. “I saw a tank open fire from the bridge onto the demonstrators below the bridge so that they would be scared and run.”
When I first saw that Tweeted — “Tanks open fire on protesters” — my immediate reaction was two words: Ruh-roh.
But the report seems to indicate that, if the ambulance driver’s account is correct, these were basically just warning shots. I reckon warning shots with a .50-caliber machine gun are pretty serious business, though.
It’s now a little past 7 p.m. ET Thursday, three hours until dawn of Friday in Cairo. We’ll see how the situation develops. Meanwhile, more scary news:
The Obama administration also reached out to Egypt’s top military officer, stressing the U.S. desire to see calm restored to the streets of Cairo, where pro- and anti-Mubarak forces fought with fists, stones and clubs.
One of the things that has puzzled me for the past couple of days is why U.S. media seem so tardy in following up on indications (see yesterday’s Reuters article and Tuesday’s report by Eric Dondero) that Egyptian military chief Lt. Gen. Sami Enan may emerge as the post-Mubarak leader.
The most obvious explanation — one I discussed by phone yesterday with Dondero — is that the Western press evidently jumped to the conclusion last week that Mohamed El-Baradei is the de facto popular leader of the anti-Mubarak opposition. This media-as-deciders trick gets exposed by Egyptian student Sam Tadros at American Thinker:
CNN’s anointed leader of the Egyptian Revolution must be important to the future of Egypt. Hardly! Outside of Western media hype, El Baradei is nothing. A man that has spent less than 30 days in the past year in Egypt and hardly any time in the past 20 years is a nobody. It is entirely insulting to Egyptians to suggest otherwise.
(Hat-tip: Darleen Click at Protein Wisdom.) El-Baradei is just a media-hyped camera hog with no meaningful popular support and — perhaps most importantly — no support within the Egyptian military. And as the Tadros article makes clear (read the whole thing) the army’s distrust of Mubarak’s son Gamal, who has no military background, was an important background factor in the current crisis. Tadros’ criticism of El-Baradei echoes the quote from the Egyptian university professor who called for Gen. Enan to help form an interm government:
We do not want El-Baradei. He spent too much time abroad, and knows nothing of the daily reality of the Egyptian people. He does not represent us.
This explains a lot about what has happened in the aftermath of Tuesday’s speech by Mubarak. Because El-Baradei is not a popular leader and has no real political base, his status as figurehead leader is dependent on the continuation and success of the protest movement. Once the “transition process” turns to actual politics — i.e., organizing a party, canvassing for votes, etc. — El-Baradei is through.
Remember that before Mubarak’s speech, the protesters had already announced that they were planning their biggest demonstration for this Friday. So when Mubarak announced that he would leave office after the September election, what did El-Baradei say to CNN?
El-Baradei, having already delivered an “ultimatum” that Mubarak must leave Egypt by Friday, said Mubarak would be a “dead man walking” if he did not go immediately.
This radical intransigence by El-Baradei was the precursor of what has happened in the past two days. El-Baradei clearly wants to get credit as the man who overthrows Mubarak, but if that doesn’t happen now — while El-Baradei still has the protest crowds and the TV cameras — then his moment at center stage is past.
CNN and other Western media are assisting El-Baradei in his self-glorifying game. They need to wake up and smell the opportunism.
You may have already seen some of this footage showing Wednesday’s charge (by what one of our blog commenters called “irregular cavalry”) on the anti-government protesters in Cairo. But it is, as Alyssa says, “astonishing.”
The End is near. I have no illusions about this regime or its leader, and how he will pluck us and hunt us down one by one till we are over and done with and 8 months from now will pay people to stage fake protests urging him not to leave power, and he will stay “because he has to acquiesce to the voice of the people”. This is a losing battle and they have all the weapons, but we will continue fighting until we can’t. I am heading to Tahrir right now with supplies for the hundreds injured, knowing that today the attacks will intensify, because they can’t allow us to stay there come Friday, which is supposed to be the game changer. We are bringing everybody out, and we will refuse to be anything else than peaceful. If you are in Egypt, I am calling on all of you to head down to Tahrir today and Friday. It is imperative to show them that the battle for the soul of Egypt isn’t over and done with. I am calling you to bring your friends, to bring medical supplies, to go and see what Mubarak’s gurantees look like in real life. Egypt needs you. Be Heroes.
