Thanks for the link... although, I'm not sure it took me where you intended it to. A Google search on Satyajit Das kicked up all kinds of interesting stuff, and a number of interviews which I listened to but, apparently, I didn't find the one you referenced. I'm particularly curious about this data point:

$485 trillion Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) outstanding.

This is the one I'd like to verify. Thanks.

You're right. The amended link took me right there. I finally found it on my own at another source. Same author, different group quoting him. I finally decided that $485 trillion was such an extraordinary number that I could probably put it straight into Google by itself and kick it. Satyajit Das' projections, ultimately, were quoted by lots of folks it seems. It does appear, however, that a bit more than just residential mortgage backed securities went into his figure. Thanks for following up.

Deep breath. ;-)

Thanks for hunting those up for me. I did stumble across them as I tried to find the Satyajit Das interview. I appreciate your help.

Whoa! That's an absolutely extraordinary collection you've put together. Jeebus. Nice job!

Congratulations on your blog! Bookmark has been added! Is that your picture at the top? Handsome devil.

Yeah. I caught Ezra's piece late Friday afternoon. And thought, Well, will Glenn, or won't Glenn ...? Got my answer. I read Ezra's post as Friday-Throwaway. I've tended to cut Young Ezra a little slack since his move to TAP. Without wanting to cloud the issue Glenn raises, I think Ezra's writing, now, is different in some substantial ways from his pre-TAP writing, and I've wondered if he would settle back down in time. Ezra can be quite incisive on an array of issues. Others, not so much. Here, I think, he got complacent and took his eye off the ball. He missed Glenn's point in many of the same ways that Glenn's readers did (me included). Too bad Ezra didn't follow the comments. Acceptance, and fitting in is a powerful motivator (see Maslow). And, it's true; Ezra, like Joan Walsh, is really enamored of his appearances on Hardball.

Jason G, This: First of all, don't take on Ezra Klein. You're not up to the task. is just a really stupid thing to say. Glenn Greenwald isn't Michelle Malkin, fer FSM's sakes. The issues are a good deal deeper and more profound. I'd be surprised if even Ezra doesn't agree with Glenn before all is said and done. Why don't you email Ezra, Jason, and see?

Thank you, thank you for the link to Bill Moyers' interview of Sandy Levinson. Sandy's book added to my Christmas wish list at Amazon.

Levinson: Every value entails a trade off with another value.

Yep. Just so, Sandy. Just like the discussion we're having here right now.

The raw/visible/working/gut-wrenching definition of cognitive dissonance is fully on display in the furor you created on the thread at Shakesville. Holy crap. Those responses even caused me to back up and look at my own at your original post response to Dana Goldstein. You've really launched a marvelous defense of "first principles," and you've offered a window into what happens when you gore someone else's ox. In truth, the longer I bang my head against it, it's hard to defend any one group's civil rights, and any single person's individual rights (my own included), if the Constitution is gutted. Some things really are bigger than one person, or one group. It shouldn't have to be this kind of choice. But, damn. That is the choice we've been offered... until Paul loses the nomination, anyway.

Ezra writes: ...but if we allow constitutional rights to be cleaved from reproductive rights* -- if, in other words, we let admiration for Paul's courageous positions render us unwilling to hear criticism of his dangerous positions -- then we let him split the progressive coalition best able to argue for a broad restoration of rights**, and so we will end up with neither reproductive freedoms nor constitutional protections.

* Were not constitutional rights the basis for reproductive rights?

** So far, Dodd and Kucinich are the only two progressives I've heard discuss - or, argue in favor of - the restoration of the civil liberties we've lost. Just because the progressive coalition is in position to argue for their restoration, it does not automatically follow that they will restore them. [Having written that before I've fully explored Charlie Savage's piece in the Boston Globe]

Having school in session over the weekend is kind of a bitch. ;-)

January 14, 2008 Issue

Copyright © 2007 The American Conservative

Authoritarian Temptation

Can we trust the the presidency to a mayor like Giuliani?

by Glenn Greenwald

Needless to say, no one will accuse Glenn of promoting Rudy's campaign.

Teaser: The title of Glenn's forthcoming book appears to be revealed at the end.