Month: July 2008

Clive Crook surveys the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mess:

Paulson hopes, of course, that he will not have to use the methods he is asking Congress to allow, and that merely requesting the option will be enough to calm the markets. We shall see. The problem with the Treasury’s approach is that, even while asking for these powers, thus confirming that it cannot let the enterprises collapse, it insists that they must continue "in their current form". If the enterprises prove unable to finance themselves privately, then they cannot, by definition, continue in their current form. So on reflection I don’t know whether the announcement is about the art of muddling through or the art of self-contradiction. Maybe both.

A Baptist church goes ahead with plans to give an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle away in a Youth Conference shooting contest. Because Jesus was so into guns.

A giant bill-board with a hatching egg in Chicago  – for McDonald’s.

The egg stays open from 6:00AM till 10:30AM, to indicate the availability of fresh eggs during that time. Once the breakfast time is finished, the egg billboard shuts and stays closed as a whole egg till the next morning.

Best to keep them on. The man behind the "Men On A Mission" calendar just got excommunicated.

This video of an almost surreal bird formation in mesmerizing. Nothing is more miraculous than this planet and the living creatures on it.

A Frenchman fears a German plot:

This question of regional languages in Europe should also be seen in the context of a German-inspired geopolitical initiative in Brussels. Today in Europe there are interest groups who agitate for reforming Europe on an imperial political model. The gambit of encouraging the recognition of all minority languages is just a decoy, an oblique strategy that in fact aims to deconstruct, to de-knit European nations other than Germany, who all include groups belonging to linguistic minorities.

The Alabama senator, Jeff Sessions, is moving to keep the legislative provision that uniquely stigmatizes people with HIV in the law as inadmissable to the US. HRC has asked its members to email their senators. This is becoming a struggle. If you live in Pennsylvania and can email your support for removing the ban to Senator Specter, that could help.

That’s the new statistic for those on the government’s terrorist watch list. It will keep growing.

Fallows has a series of posts on China’s frantic preparations for the Olympics.