I would like to point out that the link to the very concise

TPM Comment Policy

has now been restored to its former position above every comment box you type a comment into.

These were announced by Josh Marshall in this April posting titled "Acceptable Commenting" after getting a lot of input from users, and in many previous posts to that one, he announced an intent to enforce some behavior rules. It was pretty clear to me they didn't enforce during the heights of the primary and the following election because the staff decided they had no time to do so, just as they decided it was no time to fix all the software problems. So, if some users thought the announced comment policy was never going to be enforced, what they were really doing is betting that staff here would stay too busy to do what they said they were going to do.

The "Terms of Use," page, on the other hand, looks to me like intentionally broad and vague legalistic gobbledygook, like it is based on something some lawyer wrote back during the dotcom boom era, and which now is included with blogging software packages, then altered by thousands of bloggers in order to protect themselves legally, intended only to be pulled out when something gets so out of hand that legal threats begin. I humbly suggest to management that it is a mistake to point to "terms of use" as something people should use as regards behavior guidelines on the site, as it just confuses people because of its legal purpose..

On the possibility of big three auto company "bailouts," I am seeing lots of commentary on this site wihich seems unaware of the following situations.

Reported November 19 in the New York Times Business Section, as well as elsewhere:

A Sea of Unwanted Imports: Unsold Foreign Cars Hogging Space at California Port, filed from Long Beach, California.

In the print edition, there was also  a chart illustration showing unsold inventories way up for Mazda, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Honda, Volkswagen, Subaru, Toyota and BMW and refers the reader to another news item:

Facing a Slowdown, China's Auto Industry Presses for a Bailout From Beijing, filed from Guangzhou, China.

The port article itself mentions another situation at the Long Beach port: their single largest export is also piling up, recycled cardboard and paper which typically goes to China to pack the products they sell.

Then, we have this situation:

Advantage of Corporate Bankruptcy Is Dwindling

in which examples are given of failing companies choosing to shut down and liquidate rather than reorganize because they cannot obtain the financing to operate while they reorganize.

I am seeing lots of arguments that seem to be unaware that this is a global recession, this is not your garden variety U.S. recession. Jobs are going to be in short supply worldwide. In the short term, if you downsize American business, if you are arguing, for example, that "tough medicine" for "Detroit" is necessary to get their act together as they have not before, you will benefitting the workers of foreign companies and calling for higher unemployment in the U.S., at least short term. If a U.S. citizen needs a new car, they have them sitting there in Long Beach, and they will sell them cheap. Sure, long term, innovation and the smart consumer will prevail, and maybe we've still got both those things. But in the short term, and I am talking a couple of years or a decade, any tough medicine you prescribe for the auto companies, you or your family or friends may also eventually have to take in the lack of jobs.

I think the global economy is evolving right this minute, and the winners and losers in the new global economy are being chosen. It may even be the right thing to let the auto companies fail.I don't have any answers and I pray the new administration has some. But I don't see any benefit in arguing for "tough medicine" without the realization that much of the world is in the same boat as us, as if we are alone in the world. This is not the same old same old auto or airline company bailout situation. Realize the ramifications of what you are asking for.

he's baaack in the news. If Mr. Karzai gets his wish, that would sure be some fun for a President Obama: a choice of squashing Karzai or being accused of letting terrorists with U.S. bounties on their head run free.

Update: Reuters, Nov 17, 2008 7:57am GMT: Afghan Taliban prepare response to Karzai safety vow

My highlighting:

....According to the storyline that drives many advocacy groups and Democratic activists - a storyline often reflected in comments on this blog - we are up against a sharply partisan, radically conservative, take-no-prisoners Republican party.  They have beaten us twice by energizing their base with red meat rhetoric and single-minded devotion and discipline to their agenda.  In order to beat them, it is necessary for Democrats to get some backbone, give as good as they get, brook no compromise, drive out Democrats who are interested in "appeasing" the right wing, and enforce a more clearly progressive agenda.  The country, finally knowing what we stand for and seeing a sharp contrast, will rally to our side and thereby usher in a new progressive era.

I think this perspective misreads the American people. ....

A majority of folks, including a number of Democrats and Independents, don't think that John Roberts is an ideologue bent on overturning every vestige of civil rights and civil liberties protections in our possession.  Instead, they have good reason to believe he is a conservative judge who is (like it or not) within the mainstream of American jurisprudence,...

.....attacks on Pat Leahy, Russ Feingold and the other Democrats who, after careful consideration, voted for Roberts make no sense.  Russ Feingold, the only Democrat to vote not only against war in Iraq but also against the Patriot Act, doesn't become complicit in the erosion of civil liberties simply because he chooses to abide by a deeply held and legitimate view that a President, having won a popular election, is entitled to some benefit of the doubt when it comes to judicial appointments. Like it or not, that view has pretty strong support in the Constitution's design.

The same principle holds with respect to issues other than judicial nominations...

How can we ask Republican senators to resist pressure from their right wing and vote against flawed appointees like John Bolton, if we engage in similar rhetoric against Democrats who dissent from our own party line? How can we expect Republican moderates who are concerned about the nation's fiscal meltdown to ignore Grover Norquist's threats if we make similar threats to those who buck our party orthodoxy? ....

-Barack Obama, "Tone, Truth and the Democratic Party," Daily Kos, September 30, 2005

There's a bunch of stimulating essays in answer to that question

from Bernard-Henri Levy, Robert B. Reich,  Ayaan Hirsh Ali, Michael Novak, Michael Walzer, Tyler Cowan, Garry Kasparov, John C. Bogle, John Gray, Qinglian He, Jagisch Bhagwati, Kay S. Hymowitz and Rick Santorum,

at the Templeton Foundation website,

with comments from readers along the left side.

for that imposition of martial law that some strident voices in the blogosphere promised me was coming.

....Mr. Bush said American voters in large numbers had "showed a watching world the vitality of America's democracy and the strides we have made toward a more perfect union."

Mr. Bush said, "All Americans can be proud of the history that was made yesterday." He called Mr. Obama's life "a triumph of the American story, a testament to hard work, optimism, and faith in the enduring promise of our nation."

"Many of our citizens thought they would never live to see that day," he said....

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also paid tribute on Wednesday to Mr. Obama's historical accomplishment.

"As an African-American, I'm especially proud," she said in remarks at the State Department, where she also vowed to cooperate fully in the transition to a Democratic administration. "This is a country that's been through a long journey in terms of overcoming wounds and making race not the factor in our lives," she said.

Mr. Bush said he had invited Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, to come to the White House to spend time with him and the First Lady. "Laura and I are looking forward to welcoming them as soon as possible," he said.

--New York Times

But hey, credit where due: blogistan's Bush-derangement-syndrome fearmongers were sure right about that bombing of Iran before the election.

There is a good chart answering that in the New York Times today.

Confession: I am actually creating this post as a test to see if posting a blog entry updates my comments and recommends lists, the updating of which have been stalled since October 25. But I decided to throw in a recommended link so I'm not just wasting space with a test, and I really do heartily recommend the chart.

so we can see all the Reader Blogs past a few hours worth?

The Reader Blogs page still has only a link to the October 12-18 posts at the bottom, and it's October 21. Leaves the viewer with only the most recent few hours of posts since Saturday midnight, puts the rest in a graveyard somewhere. It's like taking a bunch of candidates' names off a ballot, leaving only the most recent eligible for consideration.

Please report here with a comment.So Al Shaw is aware of the size and location of the problem. From this reply to me on his thread, he seems not to have gotten many complaints about that.

Mine haven't been updated since the two comments I made soon after the new software was put in and those have the wrong timestamp on them.

"Lawmakers Weigh Plan for Stimulus"
by Louis Uchitelle, October 9 New York Times: 

....Under the stimulus package that the Congressional Democratic leadership is considering, the mechanism for funneling money to the states and cities would be an increase in federal funding of state Medicaid programs. Those states hardest hit economically would receive more proportionally than those relatively better off.

Whatever the amounts, the federal subsidies would free up money the states currently must put into Medicaid. States might divert that money to cities, for example, to pay teachers and vendors, or it might be used to quickly resume public works projects shut down for lack of funding.

Senator Barack Obama the Democratic presidential candidate, now supports a stimulus plan similar to the one the Congressional Democratic leadership is seriously considering....

Seems to me, once released from those Medicaid expenses, states would be loathe to have to start picking them up again, especially if the economy continues in recession with loss of employed taxpayers, and other states would ask for the same deal. This is a step to more centralization on health insurance. The Federal health care expenditure will grow larger on the books, but I think the issues raised by that would be a good thing on the path.

If you are interested in movement towards single payer, consider expressing support  to your Congressperson for using this method for any aid to states.

There is an error in Reader Blog navigation with the recent re-loading of the Reader Blog archives onto the new server that hurts functionality of the site for users. At the bottom of the "Recent Reader Blogs" page, you have listed the following: Recent Archives October 5-October 11, 2008 September 28-October 4, 2008 September 21-September 27, 2008 September 14-September 20, 2008 NONE OF THESE LINKS HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED THE CORRECT URL TO TAKE YOU TO THOSE ARCHIVES, they all have the same url as the Recent Reader Blogs page: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/archives.php It is only when one clicks on "Click here to view the full archive" is it possible to get to those weekly archives, to get links with the currently urls assigned to them. Readers who want to use the most recent weekly link to see Reader Blog posts from earlier in same day that have scrolled off. They click on the first archive it and think that is all there is. This is important because not having easy, clear accesss for all readers to a least a day or two of posts increases churn, rewards "in clubs" of regulars who follow each others' blogs by name, and is real negative as to getting new or old members to write posts of quality. If they spend a lot of time on a post, it is only accessible for a few hours for reading (and Recommends) except to readers who happen to have figured out they have to click on the top secret second link to get the real weekly archive.

Japan and Australia pumped 15 billion dollars into money markets on Wednesday and Hong Kong slashed interest rates BUT the Indonesian market halted trading as the benchmark fell more than 10%. Japan's Nikkei plunged 9.4%, the biggest drop since Oct. 1987. Oh, and Japan's corporate bankruptcies have jumped 34%, climbing by the fastest pace in eight years. The Hang Seng slumped 5.5 percent, and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index declined 4.8 percent. Trading has been halted in Russia because of double digit drops. The UK will announce a new £45 billion ($78.8 billion) bank bailout plan in the UK any moment now, costing each taxpayer £1,400-2,000 each. Spain is setting up a 30-50 billion Euro fund to buy bank assets, decided to stop waiting for common EU action. The bank of Italy's director said Italian banks may need more capital. Saudi Arabia has admitted to The Financial Times it has liquidity difficulties; the Saudi stock market plunged 9.8% yesterday and the Dubai Financial Market was down 7.6 per cent, similar to its performance on Sunday. The seven stock markets in the Gulf have shed about $150 billion of their capitalization in the past three days. The Icelandic government has seized the country's second-largest bank, is close to bankrupcty, and is pleading with Russia to hand it a $5.4 billion life-line loan. The European markets will be opening shortly, and the futures don't look good. Not bothering with links because things will change. Sorry to interrupt your breakfast.

I found many of the comments on Marc Ambinder's October 3 post: Rebuilding The Republican Party: Not Tabula Rasa to be an exceptional read, offering up lots of food for thought. Some get into Cameron's popularity in England as a contrast, which makes it even more interesting.

from today's New York Times is here.

It was an attached illustration for this analysis piece:
Economic Memo: Credit Enters a Lockdown,
by Peter S. Goodman, September 25, 2008.

By Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post, September 24:

...."Basically, Obama's advisers are our advisers," said one Democratic leadership aide....

Obama's involvement with the Democratic leadership has not just been through his aides. He spoke personally with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) on Sunday morning, hammering out demands on corporate governance regulations, executive compensation caps and financial oversight that would go along with the $700 billion, according to congressional leadership aides. Pelosi's chief of staff, John Lawrence, has maintained close contact with Obama economic aides.
And Summers, who has become one of Obama's closest domestic policy advisers, is not the only Clinton administration official helping congressional Democrats. On Monday night, Democratic leaders convened a conference call that included Summers, former Treasury secretary Robert E. Rubin, former Securities and Exchange commissioner Arthur Levitt, Wall Street economist Allan Sinai and California investment banker William Hambrecht, almost all of whom have ties to Obama. Roger Altman, another Obama adviser from the Clinton Treasury, is scheduled to appear at an Obama economic forum in Scranton, Pa., today....