Comments on: Links and Quick Takes 1/15/08 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/01/links-and-quick-takes-11508.html Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:16:39 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Anonymous http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/01/links-and-quick-takes-11508.html#comment-3053 Anonymous Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:40:00 +0000 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/01/links-and-quick-takes-11508/#comment-3053 s, My, my, some people seem constitutionally unable to consider that the US might be in the wrong. What about the presence of helicopters? This clearly isn't kosher under the rules the US is choosing to invoke to permit its presence.<br/><br/>We don't run the world. There are such things as international laws to prevent conflict, as much as this Administration has tried to repudiate them. We've been trying to create a causus belli with Iran since the Chinese and Europeans started buying more oil from them.<br/><br/>I haven't tracked it down, but I was told about an article in the New Yorker (I think, or maybe Esquire) which quoted two former State department employees, both Mid East hands who spoke the local languages. They later got married but at the time, didn't know each other and independently reported the same fact set to contemporaneous witnesses.<br/><br/>Post 9/11, Iran came to to the US via the Swiss, twice, and said, "We will help you get Osama and stabilize Afghanistan. We will leave when we have done that. We will also force the Palestinians to the table and get the to agree to the Dayton accords. It is costly for us to continue to be seen as a rogue nation."<br/><br/>What was the reply? None, and we apparently tried getting the Swiss diplomats who acted as middlemen in trouble too. s, My, my, some people seem constitutionally unable to consider that the US might be in the wrong. What about the presence of helicopters? This clearly isn’t kosher under the rules the US is choosing to invoke to permit its presence.

We don’t run the world. There are such things as international laws to prevent conflict, as much as this Administration has tried to repudiate them. We’ve been trying to create a causus belli with Iran since the Chinese and Europeans started buying more oil from them.

I haven’t tracked it down, but I was told about an article in the New Yorker (I think, or maybe Esquire) which quoted two former State department employees, both Mid East hands who spoke the local languages. They later got married but at the time, didn’t know each other and independently reported the same fact set to contemporaneous witnesses.

Post 9/11, Iran came to to the US via the Swiss, twice, and said, “We will help you get Osama and stabilize Afghanistan. We will leave when we have done that. We will also force the Palestinians to the table and get the to agree to the Dayton accords. It is costly for us to continue to be seen as a rogue nation.”

What was the reply? None, and we apparently tried getting the Swiss diplomats who acted as middlemen in trouble too.

]]> By: s http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/01/links-and-quick-takes-11508.html#comment-3051 s Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:27:00 +0000 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/01/links-and-quick-takes-11508/#comment-3051 On the semantic argument about the Straits it is absurd to suggest the US was ships should stand down when speed boats, known to practice warming tactics, are approaching. On the contrary, they should be aggressively repelling them with any and all means. This article reads like a lawyers opening statement for the defense. Who was it that said the constitution is not a document to be hanged by? Apply the same logic. The story is ridiculous. On the semantic argument about the Straits it is absurd to suggest the US was ships should stand down when speed boats, known to practice warming tactics, are approaching. On the contrary, they should be aggressively repelling them with any and all means. This article reads like a lawyers opening statement for the defense. Who was it that said the constitution is not a document to be hanged by? Apply the same logic. The story is ridiculous.

]]> By: Anonymous http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/01/links-and-quick-takes-11508.html#comment-3049 Anonymous Tue, 15 Jan 2008 20:38:00 +0000 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/01/links-and-quick-takes-11508/#comment-3049 Odd NYT article on Baltimore suboprime. They pick the Belair-Edison neighborhood as an example of crisis but then many paragraphs in is, "In 2007 foreclosures were initiated on 181 houses in the neighborhood, or one in 35, according to research by the Community Law Center. This represents a slight drop from 211 initial filings in 2006, even as foreclosures rose elsewhere in the city and state." Odd NYT article on Baltimore suboprime. They pick the Belair-Edison neighborhood as an example of crisis but then many paragraphs in is, “In 2007 foreclosures were initiated on 181 houses in the neighborhood, or one in 35, according to research by the Community Law Center. This represents a slight drop from 211 initial filings in 2006, even as foreclosures rose elsewhere in the city and state.”

]]> By: Anonymous http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/01/links-and-quick-takes-11508.html#comment-3035 Anonymous Tue, 15 Jan 2008 12:35:00 +0000 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/01/links-and-quick-takes-11508/#comment-3035 Re: Dean Baker<br/><br/>Chicken or egg? Which is the better explanation? Re: Dean Baker

Chicken or egg? Which is the better explanation?

]]> By: Anonymous http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/01/links-and-quick-takes-11508.html#comment-3032 Anonymous Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:05:00 +0000 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/01/links-and-quick-takes-11508/#comment-3032 Minor point:<br/><br/>"Mystery shoppers have repeatedly found that women get charged more for cars on dealers' lots, even when they are informed and hondle."<br/><br/>Hondle? Minor point:

“Mystery shoppers have repeatedly found that women get charged more for cars on dealers’ lots, even when they are informed and hondle.”

Hondle?

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