Cinderella & Sidney McCain Up-Date

Dig this. The McCain campaign sent a letter to The N. Y. Times asking them to go easy on Cindy McC, as referenced below. Then they complained when The Times apparently spiked the juicy parts, as requested by the campaign. More on McCain's war record from "former counsel to the president" (Of what, exactly?) John Dean. Sick & tired of politics, elections, & all ideologies other than our own. Enough. No, wait a minute. We really thought ol' J. Sidney III wasn't to blame in this mess, but...

From Pullman, Wash.

University of Spoiled Children Trojans: 69 Washington State University Cougars: 0

No, It Never Stops

We've found more outrage. Shocking, simply shocking. This harpy (Seriously, is there a "women can get away w/ this kind of crap" directive at the McCain & RNC operations?) is all over the tube, & now she's claiming that population changes can lead to an area becoming less "real."

McCain senior adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer, a self-described "proud resident of Oakton, Virginia," said on MSNBC that "Democrats have just come in from the District of Columbia and moved into Northern Virginia, and that's really what you see there. But the rest of the state, real Virginia, if you will, I think will be very responsive to Senator McCain's message."

Unless these people are ready to fight over what exactly constitutes a "real" American, we'd advise them to close their pie-holes forthwith.

Let's Have A Fucking War Then, Crackers!

Cheers to a Tommy Christopher (Birth name? We doubt it.) at something called AOLNews (?) who has made available (w/ video of the poor man's pitbull avec lipstick, Rep. Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachman) two statements on a subject dear to our heart: Anti-AmeriKKKanism. Is it our imagination, or do the Republicans prefer to have women make these bizarre sorts of charges? We'll give you Mme. Gov. Mooseburgers paraphrase right here, saving your aging fingers & tiring keyboards.

Palin also made a point of mentioning that she loved to visit the "pro-America" areas of the country, of which North Carolina is one. No word on which states she views as unpatriotic.

Amplification from the pool reporter who filed the story is here. The "tell" here is the Palin spokesmodel trying to weasel her way out of it:

In an e-mail, Palin spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt emphasized that the Alaska governor was not insulting D.C., she was merely highlighting the virtues of far-flung cities and towns across the nation. "She was reinforcing the message that the best of our America isn't confined to our nation's capitol," Schmitt wrote.

Uh, Tracey, "our America?" Isn't that what you're supposed to try to avoid? Because let us just tell you, you gap-toothed cousin-fuckers, you can keep your "AmeriKKKa." The dry dusty plains, abandoned factories & decaying swamps are all yours, real AmeriKKKans. And if you two-bit punks want to fight us for any of our land, that's just fine, 'cause we'll squash every last one of you between the Armies of each Coast & Chicago that will roll you bitter cracker gun-worshippers up into one ugly pile somewhere in Kansas. You want another Civil War, War Between the States, War of Northern Aggression, whatever you want to call it, we're ready to roll any time. Any time at all. Anything to get you to shut your yaps once & for all. What w/ our elitist educations & so on, it'll be a slam-dunk. Seriously. Let's take it outside & have a war about this, loudmouths.

Not Like You Or Me: Poor Little Rich Girl Cindy McCain

Not in the least bit surprising, a hit piece on the former Cindy Lou Who. Following are the most telling parts of the first half.

She initially seemed like an ideal political partner, giving Mr. McCain a home state, money and contacts that jump-started his career. [...] Those close to Mrs. McCain say she aspires to be like another blonde, glamorous figure married to an older man: Diana, the Princess of Wales.

Just don't be like Queen Nancy.

The two often relax in separate places: Mr. McCain prefers the family’s ranch in the Arizona desert, while Mrs. McCain’s refuge is a high-rise condominium on the Pacific. (Her husband is “not a beach person,” she recently told Vogue.) [...] The separation had a political upside: Mr. McCain, initially considered something of a carpetbagger, boasted that his family lived in Arizona. He flew home on weekends, but spent part of them campaigning.

It's almost as if Republicans are kidding or something when they say they stand for family values. Below: Cinderella Hensley Stepford McCain at a hospital in Nha Trang, Vietnam, on June 19, 2008. Photo: Chitose Suzuki/AP

"Real" Americans: Dumb as Fucking Rocks, But Thinning the Herd

Here's another surprise, from this week's issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (one of our favorite publications): Those non-elitist plumbers, unemployed factory workers, & cousin-fuckers in the innards of our nation, the Midwest & South (Darkest AmeriKKKa) are actually this stupid.

Most car surfing injuries and deaths occurred in August, and 74 percent of the incidents occurred in the Midwest and the South.

Gee, we so wish we could be "real" patriotic Americans like those people. Honest to fucking gawd, we're just about in favor of a literacy test for voters in certain areas. If not a literacy test, at least require that these "real" Americans not be mouth-breathers.

Annals of Humour, Vice Presidential Candidate Division

Click here, & then zip your cursor & click merrily on the various objects. (Our favorite is the red 'phone, but we're nihilists around here.) Other funnies from the same source:

Campaigning in one of the swing state's conservative strongholds, Palin said Obama hasn't been forthcoming about his ties to ACORN, the Association of Community Activists for Reform Now. The group faces allegations of voter registration fraud in Ohio and other states. Obama has said he doesn't have any significant links to the group. "You deserve to know," Palin told thousands surrounding her stage in a suburban community park. "This group needs to learn that you here in Ohio won't let them turn the Buckeye State into the Acorn State."

Know what exactly? This is as tiresome as all get out. If the McCain/Palin campaign has any evidence of any "ties" between ACORN & Obama & Bill Ayers or Frosty the goddamned Snowman, let them come forth w/ those ties, rather than demanding that Sen. Obama prove a negative.

We ♥ L. A.

We knew there was something that set Los Angeles apart from other major cities besides the fact that wilderness (natural, not cultural) is often a mere hike away. Tim Rutten, in the Incredible Shrinking Newspaper™©, adds other factoids.

Putting aside for the moment the simple historical fact that our natural disasters -- earthquakes, floods and droughts, as well as fires -- predate development, there is another way to look at this. Alone among the world's great cities, Los Angeles does not exist at the confluence of great rivers, on the shore of a fine natural harbor or astride some important traditional trade route. It never was the historical seat of some great power.

It exists because it has a magnificent climate and a fascinatingly beautiful natural setting, and because a bunch of ruthless, steely-eyed guys with their avarice on overdrive realized that they could get rich selling good weather and open space, if they willed a city into being. They succeeded beyond even their counting-house fantasies; the result was Los Angeles, which is unique among the world's great cities in that -- until the construction of Disney Hall and the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels -- it lacked a single inarguably distinguished public building but possessed the world's finest store of fine domestic architecture.

Ah, that explains it. There's no actual reason for the City of The Angels (Haw-haw!!) to be here. We could quibble w/ that last clause, but we won't be bothering today. (Ok, just one: "Store of fine domestic architecture?" What is this, a wine cellar? And have we done well "storing" all that architecture?)

Liberal Conspiracy, Not Bias

The Liberal Bible (on page A1 of both the New York & National dead-tree edition) & the Liberal Catechism (merely on the first page of Sports) have both chosen to shine the liberal spotlight on a controversy from the world of high school football, that Times from Northern California, our Times from the Southland. One could certainly compare & contrast here. But we just wonder what's up? Is this A-11 formation a liberal deal of some sort? That is implied in the NYT take on it.

To its proponents, the A-11 represents the logical and inevitable evolution of a game that is becoming faster and more spread out at all levels. The alignment diminishes, or eliminates, the need for a traditional offensive line, where players can weigh 300 pounds even in high school. And, coaches say, it reduces injury because it involves glancing blows more than smash-mouth collisions.

Glancing blows? Instead of smash-mouth football? Obviously, this is a liberal move to turn our young men into weaklings. The only reason we've triumphed so far in the war on terror is that our boys play football, & the Islamists prefer soccer, which doesn't even allow them to use their hands. Talk about obscurantist. W/o macho sports teams & the culture around them, where will we get the next generation of warriors for the "long war" we face against the enemy?

There Will Always Be An England

Singer Christina Aguilera and perpetual party girl Paris Hilton were also at the club in Mayfair, downing champagne. Miss Hilton apparently did her best to attract a prince, but to no avail. Prince William chatted with her only briefly before walking away and Harry tried to ignore her sexy dance, according to witnesses - a good thing too, as his girlfriend Chelsy Davy was there.

And from the comments:

Paris Hilton sounds so desperate doing sexy dances in front of men who are already taken. How she thinks she can compete I've no idea. - Tess Fenwick, London, UK, 16/10/2008 16:49

"Soldiers from William's regiment die every day, while he plays the soldier at clubs. God, poor Diana, what her son has become. Worse than his father. - Anon, London" Actually Anon - that's the Labour Government's fault- They are killing off the Army in Iraq and Afghanistan... and killing the people of Iraq and Afghanistan too. The Conservatives don't seem to mind too much. ...and nobody could be worse than Charlieboy. He will end the Commonwealth. - Jonathan, Redditch England, 16/10/2008 16:45

Can't even have a story about some toffs & royals out boozing w/o dragging politics into it. No wonder the Republicans are afraid we'll become more like Europe.

Sports Wrap-Up

And we mean it! No Raider coverage this yr. A season summed up by an anonymous editor at the L. A. Times:

L. A. Season ends with a series of lowlights, instead of first Series appearance in 20 years

Obama: "Uninformed & Patently Stupid"

We dived just a bit deeper into the tundra of "Canada" Free Press, where we encountered the Obama = Marx article. (Immediately below.) Oddly enough, there doesn't seem to be much Canadian content in the Free Press. Another sample from the same typist:

As it stands now, ACORN’s admitted voter fraud may just hand Obama the election. There has been massive ACORN-created voter fraud reported—and being investigated—in virtually all of the US’ swing states. If so, the days of the US Republic will—officially—be over. By no stretch of the imagination is this an exaggeration. And Obama claims he wasn’t aware of either ACORN’s voter fraud or Ayers terrorism? If so, we may soon have the most uninformed—if not patently stupid—presidents in our nation’s history. But, it is not the case and Obama knew and knows exactly what he’s doing. One can only surmise that William Ayers may end up being Obama’s Secretary of Defense.

Yikes. Most frightening part: She (still) realizes that it might be considered an "exaggeration," so she emphasizes that it really isn't an exaggeration. Really.

O! Obama!

As opposed to unfettered, free-market, laissez-faire capitalism,

Communism has never worked in any country in which it has been tried. In practice, Communism—the ultimate goal of liberalism—affords [sic] everything to and for the power elite and little to nothing for everyone else. It also does away with the concept of meritocracy—unless of course one is a member of the aforementioned power elite. However, more and more this is what Democrat [sic]presidential candidate and Senator Barack Obama seems to be proposing.

Isn't "power elite" redundant? And if we're going to question writing, let's question it at the American Thinker, where they question who wrote Sen. Obama's book, Dreams from My Father. Their suspect is both surprising & to be expected. Thanks to Brother Brick for both of these splendid items.

Sarah Speaks, Jaws Drop

Oh, the questions this sort of statement raises. Like, why did Allah's sheep get more of those resources than we did? What if the guy who made the invocation at the rally a few days ago about G-d getting his cosmic ass whupped by Hindu [sic] was right, & G-d's been slacking lately? If G-d's blessing America, why doesn't America have all the fuggin' oil & gas? We ain't kissin' no holy ass that won't give us all the fuel we need for our SUVs. Oh, the statement itself? Like you couldn't guess.

"God has so richly blessed this land, not just with the oil and the gas, but with wind and the hydro, the geothermal and the biomass," Palin said. "We'll tap into those." Palin said some of the countries the U.S. relies on for energy use their resources "as a weapon." And she said the billions spent each year on oil imports should be circulated within the country "for the sake of the nation's security." "We need to drill here and drill now," Palin said as the crowd chanted "drill baby, drill." A protester at the back of the crowd shouted "No blood for oil."

We'd actually prefer it if the Sky Fairy would "bless" us w/ candidates able to use common sense & reason, but we've been neglecting our prayers recently. And does G-d really want us to dump all those burned hydrocarbons into our "spacious skies?"

Econ Wrap-Up

People (media, & the loudmouth morons of the financial community, that is) seem very happy that there are big banks to buy failing banks, making even bigger banks. Proves the fundamental soundness of "our" economy, they claim. Consolidation is a good thing, because it makes for more competiti...No, wait, that's not it...The good thing is, that...that these banks will really be too big to fail (like GMChrysler, for example) & they'll still be able to do whatever they desire, knowing that the gummint will be there to bail them out. What a relief for our free markets. Imagine. The eventual result of "demand-side," "trickle-down," unfettered free market economy is, is... TA-DA: Socialism!! OK, not really. The whole fucking system, whether run by Wall Street, or Wall Street execs taking a sabbatical in Washington, is still run by pathetic aging male Anglos in suits, ties & the same mind-set.

Class Warfare at The New York Times

From the first page of "Business Day" in yesterday's National Edition.

Next Victim Of Turmoil: Your Salary What, then, will the next stage of the downturn be about? It is likely to revolve around the worst slump in worker pay since — you knew this was coming — the Great Depression. This slump won’t be anywhere near as bad as the one during the Depression, but it also won’t be like anything the country has experienced in a long time. Income for the median household — the one in the dead middle of the income distribution — will probably be lower in 2010 than it was, amazingly enough, a full decade earlier. That hasn’t happened since the 1930s. Already, median pay today is slightly lower than it was in 2000, and by 2010, could end up more than 5 percent lower than its old peak. [...] What will make this recession different, no matter how deep or shallow it is, is that it’s following an expansion in which most families received little or no raise. The median household made $50,200 last year, slightly less than the $50,600 that the equivalent household earned in 2000, according to the Census Bureau. That’s the first time on record that income failed to set a new record in an economic expansion.

You are so screwed, America. On the other side of the aisle (& the other side of the first page of Business Day) we are cheered by this.

Banks’ Bailout Unlikely to Crimp Executive Pay He said he did not think the Treasury plan went far enough, but he praised it as attacking the “perverse incentives” that led to the crisis. Compensation experts say that the provisions, though politically prudent to appease public anger, will probably have little real impact on how financial executives are paid in coming years. They predict banks will simply pay higher taxes and will find other creative ways of paying their executives as they see fit. Some say there could even be a sudden surge in compensation as soon as the government program ends, in a few years, leading to eye-popping numbers down the road. “Congress’s record of regulating executive pay has been unblemished by success,” said Kevin J. Murphy, a finance professor at the University of Southern California, pointing to perverse outcomes of past efforts.

Whew. We were worried that the driving forces behind our fabulous economy wouldn't be adequately compensated for all they do.

Is There No Decency? Must All Be Shared, in the Public Eye?

Nancy Reagan (who wanted to be Queen, but had to settle for being First Lady for eight yrs.) fell down & broke her pelvis recently. Terrible, we wish her the best, but look at the sappery this inspires.

We'll See You in Court

In Nebraska, it's another of those "legislative member spills beans before retiring" deals. Not exactly a "Why the hell didn't this old bastard say, let alone do, something about all the awful behavior he's blabbing about now?" moment, but not unamusing.

State Sen. Ernie Chambers filed the lawsuit last year seeking a permanent injunction against God. He said God has made terroristic threats against the senator and his constituents in Omaha, inspired fear and caused "widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants."

Praise Jah that someone, at last, is trying to establish some responsibility & accountability for some of the crap that's been going on lately. What if, for example, it were true that God threw the election of '00 & really did choose George W. Bush to be president, because God knew he would be allowing Bin Laden to attack us for our immoralities & lesbian witchcraft or whatever the eff Falwell & Robertson said. And God made the wrong choice. That might be worth a few zillion dollars.

Life on the Trail

From here.

Wednesday's debate may be his last chance to win this race. By John Dickerson Posted Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2008, at 7:32 PM ET To get a sense of what John McCain is going through on the eve of the last presidential debate with 20 days before Election Day and Barack Obama leading in the polls, I decided to put some pressure on myself: I delayed working on this story until 45 minutes before my deadline. To approximate the string of people in McCain's ear offering advice, I turned on Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. Be the happy warrior! Attack! Talk about Ayers! Don't mention Ayers! Fire your campaign staff! ACORN! I then put Wagner on my iTunes. I'm finding it very hard to concentrate. If we're all lucky, I may just give up and end this piece right here.

No such luck. WARNING: The phrase "media filter" is used later in the piece, w/o apparent irony. And it's long. Therefore, in the public interest, we will skip to the outro, letting a paid professional wrap it up for us.

McCain never really explains why his ability to fight, to buck his party, or to do unpopular things is going to improve anyone's life. Yes, he's been tested more, and endured more in life, than Barack Obama. But voters want to know: How's that help me? McCain has got one more night to make the case.

On the other hand, we heard a person on the radio last night who believes that Sen. McCain is a maverick who doesn't go along w/ the party & "reaches across the aisle" because (Get this!) "his North Vietnamese torturers beat the fight out of him." That explains that.

20 Yrs. Ago Today

Kirk Gibson hit his big deal gimping homer against the Oaktown As. Not looking as if there'll be any such miracle for the former Bums of Brooklyn tonight.

No, Canada

It appears our cousins, friends & neighbors to the north will be allowing conservative Steven Harper to continue in office. Although it's not as bad as it initially sounds.

But the Conservative Party leader was expected to fall short of winning the parliamentary majority he sought by calling early elections. That would force him to continue relying on the opposition to pass legislation, as he has since first winning power in 2006.

Though a lack of comprehension of the parliamentary process seems to be keeping the Canucks from effectively dealing w/ their problem.

The party winning the most seats generally forms the government, with its leader becoming prime minister. The opposition parties could unite and topple Harper if they won enough seats for a majority, but analysts said that was unlikely because the parties have no tradition of forming such coalitions.

Wise up, neighbors.

One Hundred Yrs. Ago

The Chicago Cubs won their most recent (never say last) World Series against the Detroit Tigers. Not that it does a heck of a lot for the Dodgers, but....

From the Columns

J. Goldberg: Continues to be an idiot. E. Robinson: Belabors the obvious. Though how is it that the obvious is never apparent to the Republican base?

Now that it's election time, the party -- as usual -- is trying to convince Americans that it stands on the side of the little guy. Sarah Palin has been trotted out to convince everyone that the party cares deeply about the eternal roster of cultural issues -- God, guns, gays, abortion, etc. If McCain and Palin were elected, the party would doubtless return these issues to the storage locker until the next election, at which point they would be dusted off once more. [...] I defy anyone to give a coherent explanation of what today's Republican Party, under George Bush and now John McCain, wants to do except perpetuate itself in power. When a political party reaches the point of lurching incoherence, the most effective cure is a good, long spell in the wilderness. Americans should help Republicans out by sending them home to get their act together.

It is this reporter's opinion that a good long spell in the torments of eternal hellfire would be more appropriate. But what do we know? E. J. Dionne: Worried that those base (Aren't they, though?) Republicans are moving the proverbial Overton window, & relegitimizing the extra-drooly right.

Yet culture war politics is relatively mild compared with the far-right appeals that are emerging this year. It is as if McCain's loyalists overshot the '60s and went back to the '50s or even the '30s. What we are witnessing is the mainstreaming of the far right, a phenomenon that began to take shape with some of the earliest attacks on Bill Clinton in the 1990s. False claims that Obama is Muslim, that he trained to overthrow the government and that he was educated in Wahhabi schools are a standard part of the political discussion. These fake stories come from voices on the ultra right that have dabbled in other forms of conspiracy, including classic anti-Semitism. McCain and his campaign do not pick up the most extreme charges. They just fan the flames by suggesting that voters don't really know who Obama is, hinting at a sinister back story without filling in the details.

Not that endorsements or whatever mean a damn thing, but Mr. Dionne, no doubt in his capacity as a full-fledged member of the cocktail weenie circuit in the Washington "village," brings us this tidbit about another defection from the McCain camp.

When Christopher Buckley, a novelist and former speechwriter for George H.W. Bush, announced last week that he would vote for Obama (his first vote ever for a Democrat), he referred to words once spoken to him by his late father. "You know," the conservative hero William F. Buckley Jr. said, "I've spent my entire lifetime separating the right from the kooks."

Too bad Bill didn't really take his task completely to heart. Unless some of the zillion pro-segregation pieces National Review published weren't "kooky," just, well, right? And to keep it even, if not fair, last words from the Hammer of Kraut (which is usually striking the Anvil of Idiocy):

Until now. Today, on the threshold of the presidency, Obama concedes the odiousness of these associations, which is why he has severed them. But for the years in which he sat in Wright's pews and shared common purpose on boards with Ayers, Obama considered them a legitimate, indeed unremarkable, part of social discourse. Do you? Obama is a man of first-class intellect and first-class temperament. But his character remains highly suspect. There is a difference between temperament and character. Equanimity is a virtue. Tolerance of the obscene is not.

"Shared common purpose on boards w/ Ayers?" Was that the Weather Underground Board of Advisers? No? Then it doesn't count, Charles. We refuse to tolerate any further obscenity from you.

Big Sister Is Watching. And Winking.

Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Re-Birth of The Cool

Mostly as an excuse to run this shot of Bird & Miles wailing (we assume; it might have been their crummiest gig ever)we refer you all to a not-entirely dull & pointless item in today's L. A. Times, concerning "hot" & "cool" in American culture & even politics.

Three-score years ago, or thereabouts, some cats named Miles, Dizzy and Charlie brought forth upon this continent (OK, actually it was the Three Deuces club in New York) a new musical style, conceived in heroin addiction and dedicated to the proposition that white people can't dance to fast rhythms. Bebop jazz was born, soon followed by its close cousin, beatnik culture. Together, they forged a new attitude that would define popular culture in the second half of the American Century. That attitude, of course, was cool, or "cool pose" as the sociologists call it, and it has come back to haunt us this season, though no longer decked out in goatee and Jean Genet beret.

Everything seems to be coming back to haunt us lately. Why is that? Are those chickens over there? We didn't know they could fly like that.

Can We Call Him A Limey Drunk?

Silly drunk (Is he still a Limey, or did he sell out his motherland for a mess of American pottage?) Christopher Hitchens vitriolizes the current campaigns, while revealing what a scaredy-pants he is. Is he worried that "civilization" under Sharia Law will cut off his single-malt?

I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that "issue" I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity. Obama is greatly overrated in my opinion, but the Obama-Biden ticket is not a capitulationist one, even if it does accept the support of the surrender faction, and it does show some signs of being able and willing to profit from experience. With McCain, the "experience" is subject to sharply diminishing returns, as is the rest of him, and with Palin the very word itself is a sick joke. One only wishes that the election could be over now and a proper and dignified verdict rendered, so as to spare democracy and civility the degradation to which they look like being subjected in the remaining days of a low, dishonest campaign.

As if there were the slightest possibility of a "capitulationist" ticket of any sort being nominated by any party we can imagine. And just how big is that "surrender faction" here in the U. S. of A.? A few thousand fundamentalist Muslims & some "peace-at-any-price" Quakers? Mr. Hitchens, read yourself once in a while. It's good practice, even for someone as experienced at slinging crap as you.

Random Boring Notes From Nowhere...& Anywhere

This will make the bail-out/rescue an even trillion, right? Why no, we misunderstood the text at the top of gmail™©, which read: U.S. Treasury to inject $250 billion into banks. Huh?...Turns out it's from the already committed $700,000,000,000.00. Whattaya know. Is there anyone w/ any money left? Anywhere?...The longest presidential campaign in remembered subjective history drags toward an almost perceptible conclusion somewhere in the not too far future, pretty much unchanged since the last time we pretended we gave a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut about any of this, w/ the exception that the right's rabid weasels have begun screeching about "voter fraud," hoping to establish a case that Obama couldn't possibly be the winner, remember, shhh...he's black, you know...or a defense for the voter suppression they'll engage in...blah blah...Do you ever ask yourself, "Why do I keep bothering? What difference could it possibly make?"...Or do you sometimes find yourself holding your breath waiting for the Bush Admin.'s last-chance-at-anything "October Surprise?"...Looks like those fuckers who made the planes that sneaked up on our boyz at Pearl Harbor many yrs. ago still have some money, if no one else does, as Mitsubishi UFJ has just bought into Morgan Stanley, w/ the "assurance" of our gov't. Did you get a firm handshake on that one, Mitsubishi?

The announcement came after federal officials assured Mitsubishi UFJ late Sunday that its planned investment would be protected, according to people involved in the talks. The Treasury’s assurances amount to another extraordinary move by the government and could serve as a model for future deals. The tense, weekend talks were so critical to the financial markets that they drew in both the Treasury and the Japanese government. Mitsubishi and the Japanese government pressed the Treasury Department to guarantee that if the United States were to inject money into Morgan Stanley at a later time — a step the Treasury has ruled out for now — the move would not wipe out Mitsubishi’s investment.

Happy 13th!!