"Alcoa, the biggest aluminum company in the country, encountered two problems peculiar to Iceland when, in 2004, it set about erecting its giant smelting plant. The first was the so-called "hidden people" -- or, to put it more plainly, elves -- in whom some large number of Icelanders, steeped long and thoroughly in their rich folkloric culture, sincerely believe. Before Alcoa could build its smelter it had to defer to a government expert to scour the enclosed plant site and certify that no elves were on or under it. It was a delicate corporate situation, an Alcoa spokesman told me, because they had to pay hard cash to declare the site elf-free but, as he put it, "we couldn't as a company be in a position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people." The other, more serious problem was the Icelandic male: he took more safety risks than aluminum workers in other nations did. "In manufacturing," says the spokesman, "you want people who follow the rules and fall in line. You don't want them to be heroes. You don't want them to try to fix something it's not their job to fix, because they might blow up the place." The Icelandic male had a propensity to try to fix something it wasn't his job to fix."
wvng: As an aside, while it is enjoyable to poke fun at the Icelanders for believing in elves, I would be remiss if I did not mention that Americans won't elect people to high office if they do not have an omnipotent invisible friend.
Speaking of "invisible friends", the Left behind interviewees are unhappy about what the editors left behind. Plus a truly fascinating recreation/simulation of the Flight 1549 event, in sync with the cockpit voice recordings:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Speaking of foreign affairs, Maddow and Mitchel discuss the Obama initiatives in the Middle East, and the big change in diplomacy since they've come to power:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
DCCC just trying to help repuglicans with their apologies to Rush. LOL
Josh Marshall: TPM Reader PD chimes in from the Rush Wars ... You know what's great about all this Rush nonsense? It looks like the Democrats, from Robert Gibbs to Rahm to the DCCC, are finally using some of the techniques of bitch-slap politics against the Republicans. If GOPers are put on the spot and agree with Rush, they're taking an unpopular position about the direction of the country. If they disagree, they're immediately forced to grovel and look weak doing it. Only in this case it's sort of like the bitch-slap theory combined with jujitsu, because the Dems are actually getting Rush to administer the slaps. I'm about your age, and I'm not sure I've ever seen the Dems have the confidence to make Republicans look weak like this.
Maddow and Dean discuss Rush and internal repuglican politics, democtatic politics, and moving policy forward.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Chris in Paris: Billionaire investor Ross makes the case for Obama
Rich investors always love the Republicans, right? Hardly. The fact remains that the Bush administration talked about how much they loved Wall Street but the results speak for themselves. It's been severely damaged and only by paying attention and becoming proactive will it improve. Obama was right yesterday when he cautioned against basing long term policy on "fits and starts." ...
Onto the now and the future:The Obama administration is doing a much better job with regards to the dealing with the economic crisis than its predecessor says Wilbur Ross, chairman and CEO of WL Ross & Co.
"The prior administration seemed to have as its objective, putting out the least amount of money at the least risk. I think this administration recognizes that the problems are very big and it's ok for the government to take some degree of risk," Ross told CNBC Wednesday.
The administration was better at recognizing that residential real estate was at the heart of the problem and they were dealing with it decisively.
"You can't have American families losing $5.5 trillion in their homes. You can't have 12 million families who owe more on their house than it's worth and think that you'll have a vibrant consumer. And the consumer is about 70 percent of the American economy," Ross added.
...
Josh Marshall: Jared Bernstein, late a TPMCafe blogger, now VP Biden's Chief Economist, tees off on James Cramer's "shovel ready nonsense."
KOS' DemfromCT: Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up
...
Tennesseans are confident about new president Barack Obama’s abilities, but aren’t happy with the way their state Legislature has started its 2009 session, a new survey from Middle Tennessee State University finds.
The poll found that 53 percent of Tennesseans now approve of Obama, even though only 42 percent of them voted for him just four months ago.
MSNBC: More on that NBC/WSJ poll:
Republicans, Hart argues, "have been tone deaf to the results of the 2008 election... They never heard the message. They continue to preach the old-time religion."
McInturff, the GOP pollster, agrees. "These are difficult and problematic numbers."
...
Olberman and Turley on the newly released Bush Memos.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Continuation of the ABC tax story, now becomes even more of an indictment of ABC news. From John Aravosis: Possibly the dumbest story ever
ABC wrote the story. The good folks at TNR spotted it, and explain the problem:I've seen a lot of dumb news reports in my life, but I'm not sure anything can quite match this one from ABC News. The premise of the report is this: Barack Obama plans to raise taxes on people who make more than $250,000, so the reporter has gone and found people who earn a little more than that sum who plan to decrease their income so that they come in underneath the magic line.Look, it's fair for someone not to know how the tax system works. For the longest time, I honestly didn't know how it works (still don't get a lot of it). But reporters usually have editors. And in this story, you also had sources explaining how it actually works. You'd think the reporter would have said "uh oh" and canned the story.
Now, the obvious objection here is that the tax code doesn't work that way. .....
In fact, ABC has now changed the story and made it acceptable. The story now points out that the sources have it all wrong. But that's not what the story said yesterday. And ABC's explanation of the edit is, while kind to the reporter in question, less than honest:Editor's Note: Yesterday ABC News published a version of this story which some readers felt did not provide a comprehensive enough analysis of Obama's tax code for those families making $250k or more. ABCNews.com has heard those concerns and after review has decided to post an updated version of the story below.It wasn't "some readers" who thought the story had a problem, ABC's own editors obviously agreed, and edited the story. Second, the concern wasn't that the story didn't provide a comprehensive enough analysis. The concern was that the story entirely misrepresented Obama's tax plan. And the editor's edit proves that those concerns were correct, and shared by the editors.
No comments:
Post a Comment