Iraq’s Prime Minister tells the Brits to get out:
British combat forces are no longer needed to maintain security in southern Iraq and should leave the country, Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, has told The Times.
Well, let’s go then. I’d aim for the end of the week. Whatever happens is on al-Maliki.
I’m going to move from hoping that McCain brings up Ayers and/or Wright in his debate with Obama to really hoping he’ll use this line in his presence.
I had no idea he was Nobel good.
Everyone on my street who had an Obama sign in their yard received a copy of this letter:
Dear Neighbor:
Please don’t take this the wrong way, but a friend has recommended that I reach out to you about a problem that you may be having but may not be aware of: Have you ever considered whether your ostentatious support for Senator Barack Obama is really a disguise that hides a deeply anchored form of racism towards Black-Americans?
And it goes on and on like that. A neighbor who writes for the Washington Independent has the whole letter here. I’m not angry about it – it’s more pathetic than anything else, really. If anything, it stoked some fires. It sure pissed off my neighbor Jack, a 70-something vet who is four-square in Obama’s corner. He went out and put up more Obama signs after getting his. Keep it up, guys. But after you lose? Please go away.
Amy Winehouse/Tears Dry On Their Own
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsPJ7c1njdo[/youtube]
Bat for Lashes/What’s a Girl to Do?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1wnOUH2jk8[/youtube]
Miranda Lambert/Gunpowder & Lead (ignore the video, dig the music)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpsTfMYJK0M[/youtube]
A week and (almost) 3,000 miles later, I’m back from Cape Breton, with a few detours through other bits of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Maine. A rather wonderful area of the world. Even with all the driving involved, I’m quite glad I did it. Pictures and more, later. First, I have to process both the fantastic news of another victory for good, and then the apparent open adoption of bloodlust as a motivator at McCain-Palin rallies.
(It was figured that this trip also allows me to say that I’ve now travelled every single mile of I-95, from Houlton, Maine to Miami, Florida. Just because.)
It’s a mix, tonight:
Klaxons/Golden Skans
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYKfX60bPrI[/youtube]
Bob Dylan/Tangled Up In Blue
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn3iybtxNZw[/youtube]
Jens Lekman/Postcard to Nina (really, give this one a listen)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrfWsKCWcjI[/youtube]
The end of a corridor in a room and pillar coal mine:
Right about the time that this gets posted, I will probably be wishing that I’d gone to the warmth of Grand Cayman, instead. Here are some of the images that I’ll be using to conjure that warmth.
Following This American Life’s extraordinarily well-received Giant Pool of Money episode, comes another look at the factors involved in the recent FUBAR’ing of the financial system. This episode focuses on:
[T]he 36-hour period, two weeks ago, when the credit markets froze. Plus, what it’s like now for businesses to get short-term loans, and how the hardship is spreading to every sector of the economy.
[ . . . ]
[On the topic of “credit default swaps”], the show talks with Michael Greenberger, a former commodities regulator, who tells the story of when it was decided not to regulate credit default swaps. And how that decision was emblematic of the way we didn’t regulate a lot of the toxic financial products we’re hearing about now.
[ . . . ]
Was the $700 billion bailout bill signed into law today a good idea or a bad one?
I haven’t heard the show myself, yet*, but it’s been very well received by a number of people that I respect. You can download it for free here. (It’s free to listen to at the site anytime, and free to download as an MP3 until the end of this week.)
*I was driving through a part of Massachusetts when it aired. I never would have guessed that there was a a part of Massachusetts that didn’t receive NPR.
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