Akkam’s Razor

This really should come as no surprise, as McCain has an established track record of pulling the ejection handle or rapid reverses.  By now you’ve certainly heard that John McCain has ’suspended’ his campaign.

(Yeah, yeah - I know its an F-16, an Air Force jet, and the Thunderbirds.  But it works…)

This morning, the WSJ reports the following occurred:

• The Washington Monthly - More on tax policy…
• Angry Bear: Roubini and the Bail-in this weekend - If Lehman collapses expect a run on all of the other broker dealers and the collapse of the shadow banking system[.]

Popularity: 4% [?]

• The Washington Monthly: John Didn’t Get What He Wanted - John didn't get what he wanted. Right. He could have waited to make his decision until after Palin had been thoroughly vetted. That, however, would have meant giving up his clever idea of announcing his VP pick the day after Obama's convention speech. Alternately, he could have gone with one of the people who had been thoroughly vetted: Pawlenty, for instance. But "neither was the transformative, attention-grabbing choice Mr. McCain felt he needed, top campaign advisers said". So he decided to gamble it all on someone he barely knew and had not vetted.

• Joe Bageant: Moving to the Center of Elite Consensus - What voters are expected to believe is that after a 30-year class war against the bottom 90% of income earners, the source of their troubles are black rappers and inner city fathers and not criminality on Wall Street or a corrupt political system. The road to the White House over the past 30 years has been paved by pretending to believe the absurdity that the individuals who pull the levers of power over people's lives are named Willie Horton, Sister Souljah and Ludicrous, and not Robert Rubin, Phil Gramm and Hank Paulson.

These are my links for August 12th through August 13th:

• Contrariwise: Literary Tattoos - Words - particularly from books - as bodyart.
• The Washington Monthly: The Burbs - Matt points us today to a discussion on the Freakonomics blog about the future of suburbia in the face of increasing gasoline prices. The consensus view is fairly grim, but it reminds me of a few random points about urban land use that have been on my mind for a while. There's no big overarching point here, and nothing especially original, just a few thoughts that don't seem to get much attention in blogospheric discussions of the burbs.

I have a hard time defending former Bush press secretary Scotty ‘Flounder’ McClellan, especially given his prior performances:

YouTube Direktvideo link

That said, he appears to be the latest of the loyal Bushies troubled by their consciences after leaving the administration.  So far, the book has delivered observations on wartime propaganda, an apology to Richard Clarke, the revelation Bush outed CIA-operative Valerie Plame via Scooter Libby, the non-suprise that the Administration has allies within FOXNEWS, that Bush similarly declassified National Secrets to advance a political agenda, warnings to be serious and skeptical regarding administration claims on Iran, and (of course) that propaganda and a media operating somewhere between lazy, incompetent, and compliant directly enabled the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Foxnews now confirms that convicted DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey was found dead of a suspected suicide in Florida, as initially reported by their local affiliate. Palfrey was convicted on 4/15/2008 of money laundering, illegal use of the mail, and racketeering in the operation of her “high-quality fantasy service”, operated under the name of “Pamela Martin and Associates”. The investigation of her service resulted in the resignation of Randall Tobias from his position in the US Aid office, Harlan Ullman, the creator of the phrase “Shock-and-Awe”, and an admission of the use of her services by the “very sorry” Louisiana Congressman David Vitter, who is still in office. In the same time period, several additional White House resignations were tendered, apparently unrelated to the DC Madam. In the run-up to her trial, the US DOJ of Justice issued a gag order, stating that her phone records were in fact an asset, forbidding her from discussing (and profiting from) their contents. She intended to call her “johns” to the stand as part of her defense. The case has many interesting unexplored angles.

BC’s Brian Ross had initially said the following (reported at ThinkProgress, with video at Crooks and Liars):

“There are thousands of names, tens of thousands of phone numbers,” Ross said. “And there are people there at the Pentagon, lobbyists, others at the White House, prominent lawyers — a long, long list.” Ross added that the women who worked for the service, potentially as prostitutes, “include university professors, legal secretaries, scientists, military officers.”

ABCNEWS’ Brian Ross had acquired many pages of her cell phone records and had breathlessly pitched them as holding several major names, abruptly reversing course on the night that the 20/20 piece aired.

As usually is the case in Washington, much of it is dull. There are no members of Congress we can find in these phone numbers, no White House officials. Quite frankly, but for the few exceptions, most of the men on this list just aren’t newsworthy.

During that same time period, allegations were made that one of the highest persons in the Bush White House as well as an ABC news personality were allegedly affiliated with the list. Larry Flynt also got involved, at one point stating that he was following 20 Congressional leads, but no other names had come forward.

Other little nuggets of interest:

• Cryptome has the phone numbers in list format (note, also on Scribd as images. See this story on Newsvine regarding the crowdsourcing of the bills).
• Maggie Burns mentions what Ms. Palfrey was doing on 9/11, as deduced by the phone records.
• There is a very clever honeypot at dcphonelist.com which allows users to search for a phone number, highlighting suspect phone numbers. They display statistics for numbers of interest.
• This is not the first suicide related to the Madam.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Breaking News vis MSNBC:

WASHINGTON - A cargo ship contracted by the U.S Military Sealift Command has fired at least one shot toward an Iranian boat, a U.S. defense official said on Friday.

“It was an MSC vessel,” the official said, confirming the ship fired on an Iranian boat.

Other details were not immediately available. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain did not have any immediate comment.

Of course, this is excellent for John McCain.

Popularity: 7% [?]