I think I am going to watch the Gas Bags this morning, just to see how out of touch they are.

This is an Open Thread.

Booman writes:

I'm just guessing, but I think this story is going to get a lot more favorable treatment in Left Blogistan than the toxic assets plan received yesterday.

The Obama administration will call for increased oversight of executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies as part of a sweeping plan to overhaul financial regulation, government officials said...

Let me be the first to disappoint Booman. I do not want the government regulating executive pay, except when the government is propping up a company through a bailout. I do want executive pay to be fairly taxed in the interest of the common good of the Nation. What I do applaud about what is being reported is the intention to prudently regulate an industry, the financial industry, that turns out to be more like a public utility than a typical private sector concern. More.

That's the conclusion of a must read piece in Harper's by Chicago-based labor lawyer Thomas Geoghegan about what our culture of legalized usury has wrought.

Writes Geoghegan:

"Basically, we're all waiters now; we're bowing and scraping and working for the banks. Look closely at any American, and it's even odds that he or she, directly or indirectly, is somehow employed by the 'financial services' industry,' which covers insurance and real estate and financial instruments of any kind."

[More....]

An early look at Sunday's news:

• The New York Times tells Obama to stop sending mixed signals on Guantanamo, state secrets and other Bush policies. The Times urges Obama to get behind an investigation into Bush's policies:

  Everyone wants to move forward. The only way to do that, and make sure the system of justice is working properly, is to know exactly how Mr. Bush broke it.

• The Washington Post has a very interesting, long profile of a how a man whose son was murdered came to forgive his killer and assist him in getting parole.

• Ali al-Marri's family stands by him as he's moved to Illinios to face criminal charges.

Feel free to add the news you find of interest this morning.

I watched "Australia", the epic movie with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman tonight... Comcast and Netflix both have it available.

After the dismal reviews, I wasn't expecting much except beautiful scenery. But I liked it, especially the second half which had more action, and the young Brandon Walters as Nullah, a half-Aborigine, half caucasian boy. I wanted to pluck him from the screen and fight Nicole Kidman for him. I also would have leapt at the chance to do a "walkabout" with his grandfather "King George."

Now I want to re-watch Peter Weir's "Last Wave" -- the 1977 film about a white lawyer who defends a group of aborigine kids on a murder charge and in the process learns about "Dreamtime." (Trailer here.)

I remember being so fascinated by "The Last Wave" and "Dreamtime." For months, I defined everything that happened by it. Even now it reminds me that anthropology and the study of indigenous cultures don't get enough attention.

President Obama is launching his previously announced surge of agents and surveillance technology to the Mexican border, to beef up the fight against the drug cartels.

Obama's efforts mark a shift from the homeland security priorities of the Bush administration, targeted mainly at the threat of Islamist terrorists overseas and illegal immigration at home. While the new president has vowed to maintain counter-terrorism efforts, the addition of fighting Mexican drug trafficking as well human smuggling networks represents a new emphasis.

You can expect the military will be involved as well. Another imprudent, ill-advised move, in my opinion.

It's 70 degrees and sunny, time to head outdoors.

What's going on in your neck of the woods? This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

BTD - Read this from Glenn Greenwald on the value of public anger. An excellent piece.

You think you have economic worries? Cheer up, things could be worse. You could be getting divorced and no longer able to afford your weekly expenses of $53,000, including:

• $700 for limousine service,
• $4,500 for clothes,
• $1,000 for hair and skin treatments,
• $1,500 for restaurants and entertainment, and
• $8,000 for travel

And find yourself in court arguing that a $43 million settlement just isn't enough because it would only last 16 years and even though you did agree to accept that amount in event of a divorce, you only did so because your husband preyed on your fears of ending up divorced and childless.

As a result, you could find yourself on the witness stand for days while trying to convince a judge you need $100 million in cash and stock in addition to $130,000 a month in alimony.

Paul Krugman:

The Geithner plan has now been leaked in detail. It’s exactly the plan that was widely analyzed — and found wanting — a couple of weeks ago. The zombie ideas have won. The Obama administration is now completely wedded to the idea that there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the financial system — that what we’re facing is the equivalent of a run on an essentially sound bank. As Tim Duy put it, there are no bad assets, only misunderstood assets. And if we get investors to understand that toxic waste is really, truly worth much more than anyone is willing to pay for it, all our problems will be solved.

. . . [T]hese funds will have skewed incentives. In effect, Treasury will be creating — deliberately! — the functional equivalent of Texas S&Ls in the 1980s: financial operations with very little capital but lots of government-guaranteed liabilities. For the private investors, this is an open invitation to play heads I win, tails the taxpayers lose. So sure, these investors will be ready to pay high prices for toxic waste. After all, the stuff might be worth something; and if it isn’t, that’s someone else’s problem.

But we must protect the "Masters of The Universe." This is truly outrageous.

Speaking for me only

Kevin Drum thinks so:

Taxing the million-dollar bonuses is one thing — I may be a little ambivalent about that, but overall I don't think it's all that problematic — but the bill that passed last night taxes away bonuses from anyone with a household income over $250,000. That's a couple of mid-level analysts. This is likely to hit tens of thousands of fairly ordinary workers who had nothing to do with AIG's troubles and who simply don't deserve this kind of treatment.

Memo to Kevin, these "ordinary" AIG employees who make over 250,000 a year would be out of a job if the federal government had not bailed out AIG. The unemployment rate in the country is 8.2% and climbing. Believe me, there are better examples for your concern. Oh by the way, this newfound concern for those ordinary $250K/year earners? Does that mean you now support the Bush tax cuts? Do you oppose rolling them back? Migawd, some of the things we are reading now are just incredible. Finally, if there is a good policy purpose to not taxing the lower ends of the rich employees of AIG, then let's hear it. But to expect sobbing over people who have jobs, who make $250k/yr and who have their jobs thanks to incredible amounts of government money, well, that's just too much.

Out of touch is the proper description of what this exemplifies.

Speaking for me only

Unlike Jeralyn, my distaste for Ward Churchill was manifest. I did not care for his grandstanding and, imo, imbecilic statements about 9/11. Of course, the defenders of the Bush Administration's disastrous Iraq Debacle would use Ward Churchill as a way to demonize all opposers of their catastrophic policies. Today in the NYTImes, Joe Nocera plays a similar game, this time over AIG:

Yes, the $165 million in bonuses handed out to executives in the financial products division of American International Group was infuriating. . . . But death threats? “All the executives and their families should be executed with piano wire — my greatest hope,” wrote one person in an e-mail message to the company.

What is Nocera's motivation in this? To marginalize objection to the financial bailouts and leave the discussion to "Serious People." Of course death threats are outrageous and I will go one further than Nocera - prosecute the e-mailer. But an idiotic e-mail has nothing to do with the real discussion going on here. It is a cheap trick from Nocera. Does he have a point to all this? As best I can make out, it is this:

Yesterday, I wrote about the deportation of former Nazi Guard Josias Kumph, now 83. Having lost his years of appeals in the U.S., ICE officials removed him from his Wisconsin home and deported him to Austria.

Today, Austria says it has freed Kumph:

Austrian justice ministry spokeswoman Katharina Swoboda said Vienna had warned U.S. authorities in the past that Austria would be unable to prosecute Kumpf because the statute of limitations relating to his crimes had expired. The main reason was that Kumpf was younger than 20 at the time of the crimes.

"We have always pointed out to the United States that he cannot be charged here with the crimes of which he is accused," Swoboda said.

Kumph is not a citizen of Austria. He was born in Serbia. He came to the U.S. from Austria. Even though he will be considered an "illegal alien" in Austria, he will be allowed to stay because he cannot be extradited to another country.