More On Bair The Bear From The NY Times

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At a public meeting three weeks ago, John C. Dugan, the comptroller of the currency, blasted a proposal to impose stiff new insurance fees on banks as unfair to the largest banks, which he regulates. The financial crisis stemmed in part from problems at small banks, he insisted. Sheila C. Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the regulator for many smaller, community banks, could barely hide her contempt. The large banks, she said, had wreaked havoc on the system, only to be bailed out by “hundreds of billions, if not trillions, in government assistance.” She added, “Fairness is always an issue.”

- Stephen Labaton and Edmund L. Andrews, Regulators Feud as Banking System Overhauled

Change We Can Put On A Pike

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“You probably don’t know much about Sheila Bair, but she is looking out for you, and that is why the big guys on Wall Street and their allies in the Obama administration are out to get her.”- Robert Scheer, A Republican to Save Us

I thought early on that Bair should have been made Secretary of the Treasury, and bank shill Larry Sommers and his crew, including Timothy Geithner, should have been left out in the cold economic winter they worked so hard to help create.

Instead we have a consumer minded Republican fighting tooth and nail against a predominantly pro-bank Democratic administration, and the status quo, regardless of how underhanded and dehumanizing it is, will reassert itself.

What was it Obama wanted us to believe in again?

A Bully In A Sandy Box

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"Netanyahu's hysteria about Iran is a piece of misdirection intended to sidestep the issue of Israel's own nuclear arsenal. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty, and allows regular inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, even if the latter is not completely satisfied with Iran's transparency. Israel just thumbed its nose at the NPT. Israel would only have the moral high ground in demanding that Iran cease enrichment research if it gave up its own some 150 warheads." - Juan Cole, Obama/ Netanyahu Meet Produces Few Results

Hedging Towards Bethlehem

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"Fear stops us from objecting to government spending on a bloated military. Fear means we will not ask unpleasant questions of those in power. Fear means that we will be willing to give up our rights and liberties for security. Fear keeps us penned in like domesticated animals." - Chris Hedges, The Disease of Permanent War

But if "perfect love casts out fear", what is the role of the Body of Christ in a society, any society that is defined by fear? What does the Church look like when it moves in love against a culture of fear?

Roll Models

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I can't really recommend this weeks screed by Eugene Robinson, Old Faithful of Nonsense, in part because his slurs against the state of Wyoming are personally offensive, but also because he adds little new information or insight into his subject, the post power presence of Grinning Dick in a world that would largely like to him to go away. The exception is this one bit concerning Cheney's expressed preference that the Republican party look more like Rush Limbaugh than Colin Powell: "Let’s see: Given a choice between a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state who has given to his nation a lifetime of exemplary public service or an entertainer who brags about how much money he makes from bombast and bluster, Cheney would go with the gasbag."

Crocodile

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The viral nature of our affair,the defeat of serendipity with rage; We've declined gold for fortune's ore, refined whim to arrogance and spent it on a cold and sensual beast.

Was it a broken sense of power and light; Base nature interpreting experience as it blindly cedes to desire? When was wisdom ever an artifact of wanting?

Shedding tears like a serpent sloughing skin, wriggling free from woe, we clothe instead with the glean and shine of apathy, Trade heart for appetite, for something more easily appeased, And providence moves through probability to latent entropic will.

Satiated, but unfulfilled Is something we can live with.

FA - Falcon Arc

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We tracked her across the Falcon Arc to the jagged upthrust of granite and quartz known as the Conundrum Spire. It used to have another name, a useful name, back before the Coral Plague wiped out all the Indians, finally letting us forget there'd ever been anyone here but those brave and noble declensions of Europe. The Russians took over most of the casinos, fledgling archeologist abandoned Native American studies in droves, and local tourist boards lobbied to rename landmarks hoping to jump-start economies still suffering from the lingering stench of death.

But that was too long ago to bother with, and is relevant only as it pertains to the peyote camps and mescaline messiahs our quarry seemed to be taking refuge with.

We unpacked two cases of Mobile Reconnaissance And Containment Arrays once we hit the Spire's eastern foothills. The MoRACA hounds came three to a case, and were the size of a Jack Russell terrier when their ceramic and alloy frames were unfolded and assembled.

Each hound was slaved through satellite to the brain of a suspected terrorist held at a secret government prison in western Texas. The prisoners were themselves controlled by a mixture of chemical and electronic stimulus, not the least of which was a manual kill switch.

An early test had seen a hound go rogue when a fuse blew at the prison, taking down the main control system. A Pakistani general known for his inventive methods of interrogation used his temporary freedom to take his mount for a joyride through a suburban mall in Idaho, killing 14 people before a lab tech was able to strangle him to death with a power cable. The kill switches were installed almost before the fuse was replaced.

Tapping my headset, I opened the line to the control facility. "Sigma Station, this is Lisper, I've got six hounds ready to hunt and need a pair of riders."

"Acknowledged, Lisper, queueing up two riders."

"Hey, is Cumonde available?" I asked, trying to catch her before she finished configuring the network.

"Let me check." Then after a pause, "Controller Cumonde is available, would you like him as primary?"

"Perfect," I agreed, "thanks."