"The most obvious culprit in a legislative meltdown that many warn could take the economy down with it were House Republicans, who had gotten an earful from their constituents disapproving of the bailout and had been strongly against it from the start."
The people speak and the politicos listened. That this is an odd occurrence is--in itself--a sign of the (bad) times.
"(F)ew Westerners realize that their anguish about China’s rise has its mirror image in Beijing. A debate is stirring among Chinese scholars and officials about how to manage the West’s decline; how, they are asking, can they best shape the behaviour of Western powers to advance Chinese interests and values?"
Harsh. Panic-inspiring in fat-cat land. Very likely the truest solution, if not the only solution.
"You know where that very important $700-billion figure came from?
"With Wall Street's fate hanging in the balance, and with Sarah Palin's incoherence sparking interest in Thursday's vice presidential debate, it was easy to overlook another major story Monday that got less attention than it deserved. The Justice Department released a nearly 400-page report with this jaw-dropping bottom line: 'Our investigation found significant evidence that political partisan considerations were an important factor in the removal of several ... U.S. attorneys.'"
"Like George Bush, who is demonstrably imbecilic and morally retarded, the “hockey mom” who “worked her way to the top with grit and determination,” also fuels the na�ve, jejune notion that “anyone can be President of the United States because we live in a democracy.” Forget the pablum concocted to pacify the masses; the POTUS could actually be ‘anyone who hails from a family with direct ties to the power elite of our bourgeois democracy or who shares their sociopathic tendencies and is willing to sell their souls to do their bidding.’ But who amongst us wants to burden our atrophying minds attempting to understand complexities when the simplistic sweet little lies are so much more palatable and takes so few brain cells to process?"
A potshot at the current POTUS and the other idiot who could be POTUS if everything breaks against Us or the hyena cabal gets its way--again.
You hear "$700 billion" often enough and you just stop thinking about it as real money, but it's really a huge bundle of cash that can actually do things. Here's a practical outline of the current bailout idiocy related to "$700 billion."
Oh, yeah, the other war... Notice how Saudi Arabia is the crux of these talks, the country that was also central to Al Qaeda contacts surrounding 9/11 and wasn't invaded or even threatened by the current misadministration.
"No one will be more relieved than John McCain if a major crisis erupts on Thursday to overshadow the debate between the vice-presidential candidates, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden."
The only way Palin could "win" this debate is if Biden does such a strong job of showing up her many faults that he comes across looking like a bully. And he'll look like a bully anyway because in this battle of wits, Palin is unarmed.
Hmmm... Urban windmills and now algae-based biofuels. We gotta take a closer look at this Holland country, don't We? Especially when you consider that this algae-based process can not only produce oil-replacing fuels, it can also help "fix" carbon dioxide from the air, a vital step in reducing the greenhouse effect.
The old joke is "You can always tell when a politician's lying: when his lips are moving." Now We can do it Webtastic fashion and isn't that really what it's all about?
Biggest ripoff of Our times. The sooner We get past this foolish level of waste, the better.
You might know I love games, and I've posted one before because of its social conscience, but here's one that has a direct impact on a societal concern: cancer.
Yes, play this game and you will help raise money for cancer research based in the United Kingdom.
Every little but helps. And this one is more fun than most.
Another headline: House votes down massive bailout measure
Well, well, well...
Lawmakers quickly point fingers after bailout fails
Dow Jones drops over 700 points...
...but that doesn't even rank in the Top 10 percentage declines
On the other hand...Fed Pumps Further $630 Billion Into Financial System
Maybe Some Perspective on the Financial Crisis will ease your mind
Bank Borrowing from Fed Already Exceeded Bailout...and Bloomberg Analyst: $700 Billion Bailout Could Balloon to $5 Trillion...
Or maybe not.
A fellow C-Jer--citizen journalist--brings you a major bit of news you ain't seeing on FoxNoise, CrapNN and the notworks (sic).
Take a few minutes--or a few cups of your favorite hot beverage--and get a broad perspective of the mess We're in.
Remember: Forwarned is forearmed.
Makes sense because ram-rodding this bill would be the S.O.P. for the hyena cabal...if they had the votes.
"We thus want to acknowledge the progress you have made in your evolution from economic superpower to economic basket case. Normally, such a process might take 100 years or more. With your oscillation between free-market extremism and nationalization of private companies, however, you have successfully achieved, in a few short years, many of the key hallmarks of Third World economies."
hahahahahathetruthhurtshuh
Here's a simple, practical, economical solution to the current financial "crisis":
"1) Mandate the renegotiation of the terms of all non- or poorly performing mortgages to a reasonable and fixed rate of interest.
7) All of the above can be done without the Government actually purchasing the loans from the banks."
Read the post to see how it solves the regulatory and "executive overpay" obstacles as well...
A deal that still pays out billions to hyenas is not a deal. Follow this one to badger Congress into letting them clean up their own mess and Keep Us Out Of It.
You want to track your candidate's soundbites at the verbal atomic level? Here. Knock yourself out.
Burning the Tide | Popular Science
We have two nearly-unlimited energy suppliers, the Sun and the oceans. Makes sense to be tapping them right about now.
Has the McCain Campaign Broken Sarah Palin? - The Plank
I doubt it: She was broken long before the McCain Freak Show picked her...
A few other smackings:
Mad Dog Palin -- AlterNet.org -- "Here's the thing about Americans. You can send their kids off by the thousands to get their balls blown off in foreign lands for no reason at all, saddle them with billions in debt year after congressional year while they spend their winters cheerfully watching game shows and football, pull the rug out from under their mortgages, and leave them living off their credit cards and their Wal-Mart salaries while you move their jobs to China and Bangalore.
And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket."
Oh, there's so much more in this piece! Here:
"Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she's the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV -and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation."
And that's very far from all in this wickedly-perceptive piece:
"It even crossed my mind that there was an element of weirdly self-destructive pique in McCain's decision to cave in to his party's right-wing base in this fashion, that perhaps he was responding to being ordered by party elders away from a tepid, ideologically promiscuous hack like Joe Lieberman -- reportedly his real preference -- by picking the most obviously unqualified, doomed-to-fail joke of a Bible-thumping buffoon. As in: You want me to rally the base? Fine, I'll rally the base. Here, I'll choose this rifle-toting, serially pregnant moose killer who thinks God lobbies for oil pipelines. Happy now?"
"The Palin pick was the most crassest, most bigoted decision that I've seen in national electoral politics, in my--admittedly short--lifetime. There can be no doubt that they picked Palin strictly as a stick to drum up the victimhood narrative--small town, hunters, big families and most importantly, women. Had Barack Obama picked Hillary Clinton, there simply is no way they would have picked Sarah Palin. To the McCain camp, Palin isn't important as a politician, or even as a person."
A Solar Grand Plan: Scientific American
A brief summary of an energy development plan that could provide as much as 35% of the U.S.'s electrical needs by 2050.
Estimated cost? Check it out and compare to the "Screw you, taxpayer" bailout...
Interesting to note how the educational system went from "post-age-12 corrective education" as the norm and swung strongly to "pre-age-12 bolster the ego" without ever seeming to figure out that an educational system has to evolve with the child, not so much with the times.
Stem cells hold the key to a dizzying array of potential treatments, from skin grafts to cancer. The only way to properly harness this potential is to keep investigating and share what's learned as quickly as possible. That the U.S. of part of A., led by a moron who can't spell "science," has pulled away from fully pursuing stem cell research is a decision that will definitely come back to haunt Us.
Washington Mutual gets bought out by J.P. Morgan in a deal brokered by the government and the WaMu guy at the head of this financial failure is set to make $19 million?
Tell Me the bailout is to benefit the taxpayers. Go ahead.
"The decision this month to permanently deploy a U.S. Army brigade inside the U.S. for purely domestic law enforcement purposes is the fruit of the Congressional elimination of the long-standing prohibitions in Posse Comitatus (although there are credible signs that even before Congress acted, the Bush administration secretly decided it possessed the inherent power to violate the Act). It shouldn't take any efforts to explain why the permanent deployment of the U.S. military inside American cities, acting as the President's police force, is so disturbing. (Writer James) Bovard:
'Martial law' is a euphemism for military dictatorship. When foreign democracies are overthrown and a junta establishes martial law, Americans usually recognize that a fundamental change has occurred. . . . Section 1076 is Enabling Act-type legislation—something that purports to preserve law-and-order while formally empowering the president to rule by decree." (Emphasis Mine.)
And once again the mainstream media drops this one, Congress rolls over and spreads its anal sphincter and the hyenas howl with glee.
I believe since late 1999... Here's the current scheme in the crucial swing state of Ohio.
Yeah, what did the murderous moron tell former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales? About anything? Seems to Me that there are hundreds such questions, all capable of uncovering criminal intent and activity, just floating--like swamp gas--throughout this misadministration.
Sarah Palin is an idiot. Her answer to a straighforward question on the bailout versus health reform, posed by the inoffensive Katie Couric, is now Exhibit J, as in Jackass. This penny-ante governor of a two-bit state (97% of it is in Federal hands) is so way over her head.
Here's someone else--a former "You go, girl!" supporter of her same sex--who says Palin is a problem:
"Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.
No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted."
And lest you think My calling Palin an idiot is overly harsh, here's one more tidbit from Ms. Parker: "If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself."
"Senior White House officials played a central role in deliberations in the spring of 2002 about whether the Central Intelligence Agency could legally use harsh interrogation techniques while questioning an operative of Al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah, according to newly released documents.
In meetings during that period, the officials debated specific interrogation methods that the C.I.A. had proposed to use on Qaeda operatives held at secret C.I.A. prisons overseas, the documents show. The meetings were led by Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, and attended by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Attorney General John Ashcroft and other top administration officials."
HAHAHAHAhahahaha
Like THAT'S going to make any level of difference in that hyena's cackle...
Hussman Funds - Weekly Market Comment:
"The appropriate solution is not for the government to purchase bad assets with public money. The only way such a transaction would add to the institution's capital would be for the government to overpay for those assets. Rather, the government should either a) provide new capital, taking a claim in front of the company's bondholders and stockholders, or b) execute a receivership of the failed institution and immediately conduct a “whole bank” sale – selling the bank's assets and liabilities as a package, but ex the debt to bondholders, which preserves the ongoing business without loss to customers and counterparties, wipes out shareholder equity, and gives bondholders partial (perhaps even nearly complete) recovery with the proceeds." (Emphasis Mine.)
"Overpay for those assets." Overpay.
Unlimited-$700-billion-at-a-time-with-no-executive-salary-caps-or-possible-decision-review, anyone?
"In the following Edge original essay, Taleb continues his examination of Black Swans, the highly improbable and unpredictable events that have massive impact. He claims that those who are putting society at risk are "no true statisticians", merely people using statistics either without understanding them, or in a self-serving manner. "The current subprime crisis did wonders to help me drill my point about the limits of statistically driven claims," he says.
Taleb, looking at the cataclysmic situation facing financial institutions today, points out that "the banking system, betting against Black Swans, has lost over 1 Trillion dollars (so far), more than was ever made in the history of banking".
"Personal accountability by state leaders for the crime of aggression – initiating an unprovoked war – is the most profound as well as the most difficult goal of the continuing evolution of international criminal law.
The bailout IS bad news:
25 Harshest Reactions To the Wall Street Bailout...Some of My favorites:
"This is scare tactics to try to do something that's in the private but not the public interest. It's terrible."
"As of now we [journalists] are, as a group, behaving just as we did the last two times the administration sought to rush through a hastily thought out, ill-conceived plan. Why in the world are we being so gullible and naive?"
"The point is this is one of the most important irrevocable economic decisions we will ever make. Let's make it in a state of panic."
VIDEO: Marcy Kaptur - an Ohio congresswoman puts a beatdown on Bush Bailout...They call this "Bein' taken' back to the woodshed" in Texas.
Economists Sign Petition Against the Bailout...194 and counting
China banks told to halt lending to US banks
And Let's let the prescient Ron Paul Answer the President:
"The very people who have spent the past several years assuring us that the economy is fundamentally sound, and who themselves foolishly cheered the extension of all these novel kinds of mortgages, are the ones who now claim to be the experts who will restore prosperity! Just how spectacularly wrong, how utterly without a clue, does someone have to be before his expert status is called into question?
Oh, and did you notice that the bailout is now being called a “rescue plan”? I guess “bailout” wasn’t sitting too well with the American people."
Here are the numbers: The murderous moron vetos a $35 billion program to provide health care for children below the poverty line, but goes on TV days into a financial meltdown on his watch to bullshit Us for at least $700 billion to slit Our economic throat and let the hyenas lap up the blood.
Here's a take on the murderous moron's (most recent) cretinous performance:
"It took President Bush until Wednesday night to address the American people about the nation’s financial crisis, and pretty much all he had to offer was fear itself.
There was no acknowledgement of the shocking failure of government regulation, or that the country cannot afford more tax cuts for the very wealthy and budget-busting wars, or that spending at least $700 billion of taxpayers’ money to bail out Wall Street and the banks should be done carefully, transparently and with oversight by Congress and the courts."
And one more, just to make the point very clear:
"This time the nation had to deal with the painful image of a scared president clutching a White House podium so tightly that his tension was audible. "We are in the midst of a serious financial crisis," began Bush, who proceeded to tell America what it already knows: Banks aren't making loans, credit markets are freezing up, and businesses and families can no longer afford to borrow essential funds.
Grasp. Grasp. Rumble."
He's not alone in thinking that...
Other numbers listed: 877-851-6437, 800-828-0498 and 800-614-2803.
It's your money the hyena cabal wants to throw at fat cats. Call.
Glenn, We knew all along that Sarah Palin was nothing but a joke. Now that you have proof, all We can do is applaud your candor.
"Fantastic misgovernment is not an accident, nor is it the work of a few bad individuals. It is the consequence of triumph by a particular philosophy of government, by a movement that understands the liberal state as a perversion and considers the market the ideal nexus of human society. This movement is friendly to industry not just by force of campaign contributions but by conviction; it believes in entrepreneurship not merely in commerce but in politics; and the inevitable results of its ascendance are, first, the capture of the state by business and, second, what follows from that: incompetence, graft, and all the other wretched flotsam that we’ve come to expect from Washington."
Oh, there's more. Much, much more.
"According to people who have been briefed, the NIE will paint a 'grim' picture of the situation in Afghanistan, seven years after the US invaded in an effort to dismantle the al Qaeda network and its Taliban protectors," (ABC News' Brian) Ross writes.
Now why oh why would the hyena cabal hide this news? "I thought we were winning this war."
Wait a minute. Wait. One. Fucking. Minute.
Another source confirms the plans.
This is fundamentally, absolutely, abysmally and criminally wrong.
"It is largely forgotten that the war for American independence was initiated in large part by the British Crown's practice of using troops to police civilians in Boston and other cities. Professional soldiers used in the same ways as modern police were among the primary grievances enunciated by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence."
From "Are Cops Constitutional?"
Police, We need. A standing army as "riot police with tanks"? No. Fucking. Way.
Domestic rejection of ongoing plans...
And foreign rejection of ongoing plans...
No! Really? The off-White House pushing a damaging bill that undermines the American people, the checks and balances of a Constitutional government and benefits the hyena cabal to no end?
No! Really?
Good question, especially when the $700 billion is not a limit, but an "outstanding amount" that can revolve endlessly.
Daily Kos: State of the Nation
Okay, what gives? The financial markets are still running, but the hyena cabal wants Us to fork over an unlimited budget to overpay for rich people's follies and reward them for their idiocies, while handing over the reins of financial controls to an unquestionable insider and to do so in the next few hours, without due diligence?
"Chinese officials have already said they view gold as a strategic asset and would like to diversify their foreign-exchange reserves away from the dollar. China holds just 1% of its reserves in gold, World Gold Council data show, equivalent to roughly 600 metric tons. Even so, it is the ninth-largest official holder of gold.
The U.S. is at the top of the list of official holders. It holds 78.2% of its reserves in gold, which is about 8,133.5 tons of gold."
It almost begs the question: If the U.S. holds so much gold, why is it so insistent on not having its currency tied directly to a gold standard?
"(Salam) Adhoob said some of the investigations conducted by his agency and others uncovered 'ghost projects' that never existed or other instances where Iraqi and U.S. contractors did poor-quality work. In one case, $24.4 million was spent on an electricity project in Nineveh province but an oversight agency found that it 'existed only on paper.'"
Kinda like the government of the Constitution of the United States of (part of) America: It, too, only exists on paper.
Cooling people off by cooling their hands... Sounds strange, but given the hand's anatomy, it makes a ton of sense.
CEO pay emerges as bailout barrier - David Rogers and Patrick O'Connor - Politico.com
U.S. Treasury Widens Scope of Plan to Buy Bad Debt (Update2)
What Nobody's Saying: The Bailout Will Kill the Dollar
Dirty Secret Of The Bailout: Thirty-Two Words That None Dare Utter
Lawmakers Battle Over Rescue Plan
FedUpUSA States That $700 Billion Bailout Threatens U.S. Democracy, Sovereignty
Dollar May Get `Crushed' as Traders Weigh Up Bailout (Update5)
"(Former New York Governor Elliot) Spitzer's omen went further to note that not only did the White House do nothing, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye after 50 state Attorneys General and many legislative attempts failed to halt the worst of the predatory lending excesses."
Okay...
"First the wording of the proposed limit of $700 billion shows that it is not a limit at all. The text reads the bailout “shall be limited to $700,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time.” This means that the bailout is truly unlimited. As Chris Martenson describes in his great article regarding the proposal:
So what happens when you have vague language and an unlimited budget? Fraud and self-dealing. Mark my words, this is the largest looting operation ever in the history of the US, and it’s all spelled out right in this delightfully brief document that is about to be rammed through a scared Congress and made into law."
"The real economic side of this financial crisis will be a severe US recession. Financial contagion, the strong euro, falling US imports, the bursting of European housing bubbles, high oil prices and a hawkish European Central Bank will lead to a recession in the eurozone, the UK and most advanced economies."
Alarming? Yes. Chicken Little? I wish I could bet "yes"...
Okay, then see this: Americans Want Bailout - Poll, also in CNNMoney.com
Will the real eventual payee please stand up?
So empathy is related to a greater sense in favor of social policy? Uncaring conservatives, is what you mean? A little clarification might be due.
There's a fine line between government reports and outright propaganda. Seems the fine line was crossed somewhere in paragraph four.
The current misadministration has a $700 billion garbage buy-up plan. Don't take My word for it: What else are "toxic assets"? And here, courtesy of the Associated Press, is the draft of the bill that seeks to create a Garbage Buying Agency--a privatized garbage buying agency--that coule end up costing Us over a trillion dollars.
LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL FOR TREASURY AUTHORITY TO PURCHASE MORTGAGE-RELATED ASSETS
"Sec. 8.Review.
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."
What the hell? Another fucking bill that says "We'll do what the hell we want and you can just go suck it"? And because the crisis is so widespread amongst the rich feebs in Congress, they will gladly roll over on this bill, actually applying chapstick to their mealy mouths in order to "suck it" with greater vigor.
Can idiocy be quantified? I'd say 27% quantifies abject idiocy to a T...
"U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Saturday denied that the Bush administration -- in conjunction with the nation's telecommunication companies -- devised a 'dragnet' electronic surveillance program that funneled Americans' communications to the National Security Agency without court warrants...
...Despite Mukasey's denial, contained in a court filing (.pdf) made public Saturday, Mukasey asked a federal judge to grant immunity to the nation's telecommunications companies accused of assisting with the alleged surveillance dragnet."
Come again? You didn't do it, but you want immunity for those who "didn't" do it with you?
We are idiots. Pluperfect, fucking idiots for allowing these hyenas to run helter-skelter roughshod over Us.
"The dominant conservative philosophy of our time is a belief in a ruling class of elites. In practice it prefers for citizens to be ignorant of the most basic elements of policy and nonparticipants in the process of governing. On the heels of the different tactics I highlighted last week to keep voters from actually voting (columnist John) Fund's comments was a revelation. He represents those who have shaped our bellicose foreign policy and forcefully pushed for an unregulated, laissez faire economic state of nature.
They prefer undemocratic forms and seek to discourage the diffusion of knowledge. They want for us to be incurious about disastrous policies or abdications of responsibility, to dismiss our most important policies as trivia. They want for us to not ask questions, even when thousands of our fellow citizens are sent to die in a faraway land, or when the financial industry melts down as it has this week. They want for us to not pay attention, or to not care. They don't want high information voters or low information voters. They want no information, and no voting. They resent our attempts to influence our nation's direction. They want to be left alone to shape the country as it best suits them, for us to take our lumps and theirs as well. They want for us to not bother." (Emphasis Mine.)
There have been convictions in open court based on much less evidence that what We see over the past 7 years of the current misadministration. Has the justice system lost its mind? Has the citizenry? Or is it just a case of such massive indifference to moral right that We are doomed to see this in the future as the clearest sign this nation was well on its way to dissolution?
And the comedians are leading the way to truth...
Rich fat-cats plunge their billion-dollar companies into holes so deep God don't see the bottom, but they get millions in bonuses and payouts and the people who sit at the end of this sick food chain--the bulk of the whole deal--get diddly. Diddled, actually.
What are the odds these suggestions are implemented? I'd say the same as Hell building an hockey rink.
Economists are saying that the current meltdown will cause the largest loss of wealth in history...
...in a nation with the largest debt in history. This doesn't add up to a rosy future, right?
"Vets are killing themselves in growing numbers, but the government sees suicides as a way to lower the official average processing time of claims."
And consider this: The murderous moron in the off-White House is the first president in U.S. history to block additional benefits for veterans in active duty.
But what can you expect from a military slack-ass?
Replacing The American Dream with The American Ream...
The signs are there, the tendency has been clear since 2000 and the mainstream media is finally latching on to all the nuances. Will that be enough to derail the Fraud Express?
This is a little unsettling and maybe even alarming, given the tendency We have now as parents to limit aspirin to only older children. I wonder if a longitudinal study of ibuprofen is in the works.
Can't sue the telecomms because the government erroneously says so? Fine. Sue the hyenas while they cackle.
Whoever wants to follow Vincent Bugliosi's blueprint for properly charging the murderous moron in the off-White House with murder for his series of proven lies concerning the Iraqi War would have to deal with the knowledge that his/her career could very well be destroyed, win or lose.
To take a former president to court on criminal charges for acts taken while in office is--without a doubt--a test case. And test cases come about when no other option is available. For the case of State/County/The People vs. George W. Bush for murder, either a few damn-the-torpedoes patriots need to come forward or a smaller case needs to grow until the only way it can be properly resolved is by nailing the DUI serial failure to the wall.
"The current excess leverage now unwinding was the result of a purposeful SEC exemption given to five firms.
You read that right -- the events of the past year are not a mere accident, but are the results of a conscious and willful SEC decision to allow these firms to legally violate existing net capital rules that, in the past 30 years, had limited broker dealers debt-to-net capital ratio to 12-to-1.Who were the five that received this special exemption? You won't be surprised to learn that they were Goldman, Merrill, Lehman, Bear Stearns, and Morgan Stanley."
Three of those have blown up and a fourth, Morgan Stanley, is rumored to be on the verge of a buyout from Chinese firms.
For another take on the problem, linking Fannie/Freddie to the same "Gnu Age" financial paradigms, read this.
And to pinpoint the the bill that led to Enron's eventual collapse and the current meltdown, a bill that netted the senator's wife a cushy $2 million salary, a bill that a much-lauded Federal Reserve chairman is now backpedaling from with Keystone Kops grace, read this.
Democrat Dan Siegelman was Governor of Alabama. Karl Rove--according to sworn testimony--targeted Siegelman to help his best friend's wife. The politically-motivated witch hunt led to Siegelman serving nine months in federal prison. Republicans helped overturn his conviction on appeal.
Congress has been investigating this politization of the Justuce Department (spearhead of the attacks on Siegelman) and have subpoenaed Rove to appear before the House Judiciary Committee. He has refused. In defiance of the subpoena, Rove continues making numerous public appearances, but none in Congress.
Congress has allowed Rove to duck the subpoena, when by law, he should have been cited for contempt long ago.
You can now urge your Congressional representative to enforce the law and cite--force--Karl Rove to obey its mandates and testify before the Judiciary Committee. Accountability is necessary to preserve the integrity of the rule of law; without it, We encourage the presence of ever-more hyenas in Our midst.
When will the U.S. of part of A. reach the point where a bailout of this size and nature is (A) useless and (b) impossible? Next time? Or maybe this time?
Like with any drug-based treatment, some work spectacularly well and others cause serious harm. It makes sense that the human body has a defense mechanism to protect DNA and that it would have different degrees of reactability.
On another topic, there's a (possibly) significant increase in the number of children treated for kindey stones. Obesity causes serious health problems; here's one more.
And finally, migraine sufferers are at higher risk for blood clots in veins. There's long been a connection between restricted blood flow and migraines, however, blood "thinners" haven't been very useful in treating the blinding headaches. But research into clotting and blood vessels constriction could lead to better treatments soon.
"Even the mainstream press has gotten into the act. One of the pleasures of the 2008 campaign -- I admit they have been few and far between -- is watching all those who once admired John McCain for his truthfulness realize the true depths of his moral depravity. When McCain is linked to Palin, moreover, as he so frequently wants to be, lying experiences something of a multiplier effect. These candidates lie so much that they have taken to lying about their own lies...
...Why do Republicans lie so much? Why is McCain following the Bush script? Why, at the very moment when he wanted a "maverick" by his side, did McCain pick a congenital liar to be his running mate? Republicans engage in what I can only call "structural lies." To understand what this means consider this: Just about every significant lie uttered by Republican politicians is designed to make them seem less conservative than they really are." (Emphasis Mine.)
If you feel such a strong need to disguise your true positions, then you're...in politics.
"Why does the school system require classes like math, English and science but not basic personal finance? We force students to learn trigonometry and the like, yet how many of us ever use it again after graduation? In contrast, how many transactions involving money will we each conduct on a daily basis for the rest of our lives?"
I don't agree with the remark about trigonometry (it teaches thinking skills), but teaching financial skills is a failing that needs correcting immediately. In fact, if these skills had been taught over the past few decades, We most likely wouldn't be in the mess We're in now.
Maybe that answers My unspoken question right there.
A 3-D solar cell, capable of absorbing more light in both quantity and spectrum.
The kid's 12. But I bet that when I was 12 I played shortstop far better than he does.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz
"Why did the Fed fail?
The coup d'grace was the Iraq War, which contributed to soaring oil prices. Money that used to be spent on American goods now got diverted abroad."
Stiglitz delivers a brief, lucid and revealing analysis, but then goes on to offer a sterling set of practical solutions that--given the level of pure guff going around the campaigns--have almost no chance of being used anytime soon.
If nothing wrong was done, why seek immunity? End of that debate.
Spying on any citizen, without any basis for doing so, is right? Then why seek immunity? End of that debate.
If obeying a government order couched as a request is right, then why seek immunity? End of that debate.
Is it the Justice Department's role to not only instigate what is clearly a series of illegal acts againt citizens, but then to turn around and try to cover up the entire sordid affair with ex post facto blanket immunity? Let's end that debate by having the whole hyena cabal put on trial.
"Remember school elections. Remember the kids who ran and won. There was the rare charismatic kid who stepped up, won and then wondered why she wasted her time.
But mostly it was the kids who cared too much. The kids who got a kick out of the tiny bit of power, the ability to sway how the world functioned. And they cared more about winning than you ever could.
The leaders of the Conservative movement are those kids. They care way more than you could. They care so much about personal freedom that they ll fight to keep you from having the right to choose. Smaller government is so important to them that they ll hire companies from military industrial complex to support the military. They're so sure of their Free Market philosophy that they ll keep science they find immoral out of the marketplace of ideas.
Basically, they believe in nothing, except their right to run things."
Agreed, it's one man's point of view, but it amounts to the tip of an iceberg that the U.S of part of A.'s average citizen--and they are almost all average--never even conceive of thinking about. Not that they should take what foreigners think into account when it's time to vote (most don't bother to vote anyhow), but to notice that the world is watching what amounts to nothing more than blowhard monkeyshines.
Simplistic. Almost childish. Plenty capable of being subjective (a few of the questions were obviously identifiable with the candidate quoted.) But here's the thing: It does try to match position statements that exemplify what each candidate (says he) stands for.
In about 90 seconds, you can discover who you support. To My surprise, 11 of the 13 answers I gave favored one candidate; I was expecting more like a 60/40 balance.
This isn't newsworthy, but the irony is so thick, so freaking heavy what with the collapse of financial institutions lately that pointing it out makes a ton of sense. And you might learn something, too, for it has a "Control Your Credit" game.
"...But there's another problem. The government is borrowing so much money that it drives the interest rates up! You pay MORE interest on your mortgage, car loan, and credit cards, because the government cannot balance its books. That extra interest you pay is therefore another hidden tax. The government, in its 'generosity', gives you a tax credit on mortgage interest that is higher because of their own borrowing!"...
"...Our nation is in trouble. We don't make many of the products we used to make. Consequently we don't have the products to sell that we used to. We don't even make most of the products we need ourselves (like that computer you're staring at this very moment). Result: we have a massive trade imbalance. Cash is flowing out of the nation, and it's not coming back in anywhere near as fast. There's no way to spin it; that is a major problem. Our nation is becoming poorer, it is hopelessly in debt, and all the artificial escalation of stock prices cannot conceal that.
And as the artificially pumped up stock market continues to decline, the true scale of the economic horror which is the product of decades of government corruption, will become apparent to all."
United States Congressional Record - March 17, 1993 - Vol. #33, page H-1303 - Speaker- Rep. James Traficant, Jr. (Ohio) addressing the House of Representatives.
Odd how he went from fiscal conservative to outright thief.. Oh, wait a minute: That's called a neo-con. You know, the ones who don't fix the problem, they just it fix it so it works for them.
Un. Be. Lievable.
The U.S. government just bought 80%--80 freaking percent--of an insurance company that by all rights should have folded like wet toilet paper.
Welcome to socialism for the morons who ran this show into the ground. Forget "protecting the taxpayers," for who do you think is going to pay for all this debt-assumption?
Remember when the murderous moron began his misadministraton with a growing economy and a budget surplus? We now have the largest national debt in world history and an economy that lurches and stumbles like a DUI frat boy.
(See what I did there?)
Spot-on criticism of the media, primarily newspapers, that failed to truly track the financial meltdown We see today. Who did a good job? The business press, naturally...and the Web.
Deregulation! Free markets! Debt-consumption powers the economy! Checks and balances and true value are passé!
Say hello to "Busted Big-Time." It's been shown time and again--this time with careful scrutiny--that central financial dealings such as stocks, mortgages, insurance and banking, need regulation. Fancy computer models that basically amount to debt spun several ways, creating fees and charges for middlemen and leaving more debt in its wake, are totally stupid.
I say "yes." Too many freeloaders, slackers, wannabes and just plain idiots, many of them with tenure. College is not for everybody, and in fact, should be more stringent in its overall acceptance policies.
Elitist? Hardly. College is to prepare a person for contributions to society, not to serve as a kindergarden for recessive adults. Here's My point in a nutshell: High Schools Failing: Colleges Now Spend Billions on Remedial Classes.
"Oh," you say, 'That's not the universities' fault. Lay that blame on the K-12 educational system." I say the blame lies with both, for K-12 education is below world standards and colleges keep accepting these sub-prepared, largely-unfocused drones. After all, remedial classes generate billions of dollars, for you don't think colleges are just giving them away, right?
Seems to Me that the murderous moron in the off-White House needs to be told that one of the basic tenets of the Constitutional government of the U.S. of part of A. is accountability.
I know he can't spell it, so someone has to explain it to him. Even if he does feel he can wipe his ass with that same Constitution.
There's someone out there who is actually--let Me get this straight--is actually claiming to pick a daily winner in the political campaign?
There are times when the First Amendement is the only thing between a publication and a baseball bat to the head.
The record for the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history may be broken in less than 48 hours if AIG Insurance goes under, as expected. A $1 trillion bust that will give Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, a renowned expert on The Great Depression, a chance to put his expertise to use in a real-life scenario.
"White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay..."
"White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re “untested”...
"White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist...."
"White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a “light” burden."
Not all of Us are confused...
I blogged about this, wrote articles about it and bring it to your attention here on Jots: Given the changing times and changing skill sets for success, schools are potentially doing more harm than good.
Takes less than 20 minutes to see Ken Robinson's take on this issue. (And explore the TED videos: They are a wealth of great ideas, humor and unforgettable moments.)
"If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising two beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian..."
"...If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner-city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.
If your husband is nicknamed "First Dude," with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable."
Ah, yes, the confusion... is only in the U.S. of part of A.
The rest of the world sees right through it.
Here's the suggestion, in full:
"My idea is simple: why not have a Wikipedia style web site where students will upload their work and qualified professionals in various industries will give marks.
Two pros will grade each assignment. Students can be identified by id numbers to preserve anonymity.
What do you think? People can get "karma" for helping with the grading and everyone can be assured of higher standards in the schools."
Okay, your turn.
"What (David S.) Addington wrote for Bush that day was more transcendent than that. He drew up new language in which the president relied on his own authority to certify the program as lawful. Bush expressly overrode the Justice Department and any act of Congress or judicial decision that purported to constrain his power as commander in chief. Only Richard M. Nixon, in an interview after leaving the White House in disgrace, claimed authority so nearly unlimited." (Emphasis Mine.)
Part of an ongoing series describing the misadministration's criminal acts within the Justice Department.
Now here's a poll with teeth and biting sarcasm... Over 500 economists were surveyed on whose economic plans--Obama's or McCain's--would be best for the economy in the long run.
See the results and notice how Adams frames the survey, in other words, he provides context on why the survey was done, how it was done and what it might or might not mean.
Gallup and other pollsters should either step up or shut up.
Sixty-eight percent of respondents agree that polls should be banned. If you take into account IQ, 97% those with IQs above 20 stated polls should be banned.
There, I've just replicated Gallup's methodology for zero cost.
With the Internet becoming a daily utility for millions of people, the tendency is to want to limit it in some way. That's been the case since its beginnings and now governments--not just authoritarian ones--are either moving to control parts of it (Homeland Security, anyone?) or are being used as tools for corporate attempts at control (ComCast and RIAA, anyone?)
Always-innovative Google is out to sea on this one. Literally.
The business benefit (reduced taxes) is obvious; the legal implications are ultimately more important.
.DJI - DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE INDEX - Google Finance
Notice how the Dow started the day--another Black Monday--with a precipitous drop...
This isn't the endgame, people, this is part of the mid-game, the early part. There's plenty more to follow.
Forget the names for a minute and focus on what is being said and why. And you'll come to the conclusion--as I did--that this is f***ing ridiculous.
Lehman Brothers, AIG Insurance, Merrill Lynch... Banks closing like clockwork, Fannie and Freddie as government wards, world markets nosediving on the news that the U.S. of part of A.'s financial house of cards is tumbling. The largest mortgage financing collapse is followed by the largest bankruptcy in history and possibly the worst economic crisis since the 1930s and yet the smoke and mirrors have kept Us looking some other way.
Here's a brilliant, incisive and prescient report from NPR's radio show This American Life that explains the current situation and what it could really lead to.
Claiming "We are more secure" while the Constitution is shredded, a private army scuttles unwatched and billions of dollars are poured into a political swamp of lies that kills thousands of people is a claim that demands analysis.
And in the analysis, the misadministration's neo-con view on the fundamental issue of national security comes up woefully wrong.
I heard some doubt about "Obama Waffles" as a product. I refused to mention where it was presented, simply because I believe the product itself--not where it's sold--is offensive enough.
Okay, here's where it was sold: At the Values Voters Summit, a Republican gang-bang of democracy, implying that non-Republicans don't vote based on values. And here's a clip by the American News Project interviewing the creators of the product and discussing its packaging, as well as their thought-processes, such as they are...
The "Cristo Rey model" for schools is bound to be controversial, what with its emphasis on hard-core values and strict adherence to "dated" curriculum, but it works, and parents who can't afford private schools at least have a viable option for their children's academic future.
I wonder what the children think...
Hominids and early humans could hunt down prey merely by running after it, keeping the animals in motion until--as the article ending points out--they quit or die.
So We're the dominant animal on the planet because We persisted.
I can live with that.
Selected quotes:
"...So how does a Russian view the world when tiny Georgia fires rockets "pre-emptively" on tinier South Ossetia and finds America taking the side of the rocketman "in freedom's name"? Let's just say that our Russian fails to share your perspective..."
"...The American Century may well be at an end, with only the debts - unfeasibly big debts - to be settled. The Chinese, the Arabs, the Europeans, even the Russians hold your IOUs. When the money runs out, aircraft carriers are window dressing..."
"...Over here, after all, we thought George W Bush was the most improbable thing your conservatism could contrive. Shows you what we know. A George Bush who was merely stupid and mendacious seemed the extreme edge of what the presidential process might produce when someone's vital interests were at stake..."
"...A book-banning, anti-abortion, creationist with scant consciousness, if any, of the outside world is not a brand that travels well. Ms Palin reportedly does not travel at all, save to cross fly over Canada... "
"...According to those around Mr John McCain, the official Republican general election candidate, your presidential contest is "not about the issues". Come again? Have you run out of things to talk about, America? I can see that Mr McCain might have a long list of things he would rather not discuss, most of them involving the incumbent with whom he shares a party. But does your polity truly intend to suspend all disbelief, all debate, all thought, because of a well-groomed moose-killler?..."
"...Let's be clear about that, too. I am not one of those Europeans who succumb to the charisma of Mr Obama. I have watched Mr Blair work a room. Unfashionably, I thought the Democrats should have stuck with a deplorable Clinton. I also thought the Obama Berlin gig an absurdity. I do not trust anyone who answers "hope" and "change" to every hard question. And I have no belief in an "anti-war" candidate who proposes dusty death without end in Afghanistan.
Mr Obama remains - you know this bit - the first African-American to have a serious hope of becoming president. Yet what do we find? Merely journalists adjusting every too-close-to-call poll in their heads to accommodate their certain knowledge of race in American life. We Europeans, some of us, do not therefore form judgments. This continent invented industrialised racism, and persists with the habit of mind. But seriously: a black man talking seriously or a moose-killer forbidden to attempt coherent speech? And your choice is?"
"...Ms Palin is a symbol of deep American introversion, of the fact that you have ceased to take yourselves seriously and, more important, don't much care who knows it. Arguments over the relationship between the wider world and your choices have become irrelevant. You have detached yourself, finally, from the global community. This is isolationism as never before conceived. "American" in my life has been lingua franca, for better or ill. Now you talk to yourself.
And you talk, my friends, in the sort of gibberish that once you spurned. It's not about Ms Palin, as such. It is about the process that creates a candidate-grin manipulated to serve darkness, ignorance, fear, a war economy, and the flaunting of stupidity.
Nice going."
A gentle slap to remind Us who's who and what's what. Statehooders in Puerto Rico: Take notice.
Cronyism, strong-arm tactics, open disdain for foes, disregard for procedures, naked greed, hypocrisy... The list is growing, but hey, don't she look like Tina Fey?
The foolishness of a society | the will to exist
By far, My favorite city in the U.S. of part of A. is New Orleans. I wandered its streets at all hours over nearly a decade, talked to hundreds of its residents, saw its glory and grime and never spent a dull moment in its embrace. To watch the aftermath of Katrina and the monumentally-stupid inaction and fumbling of the current misadminstration was a punch to the gut with every emerging detail of misery and incompetence.
But.
If it takes a massive investment to protect the low-lying lands of New Orleans and its properties, and if that investment is made predicated on rescuing those who expect to be rescued when Nature takes its objective course, then I agree with this article.
On the other hand, if what caused the problem--as it is becoming obvious--was monumental stupidity and inaction, then why don't We take the money from the perpetrators of Katrina's aftermath and those who received huge government contracts to do nothing, and start rebuilding the protection of New Orleans, so that private investment can rebuild the city itself?
Daily Kos: State of the Nation
Lies, damn lies and statistics...
Bring on the subjectively-created, statistically-b(i)ased polls regarding misperceptions based on campaign lies. That will help the nation, right?
Politics Blog Posts powered by BlogBurst | Reuters.com
One million application for absentee ballots, to vote in Ohio, sent out by the McCain machine, that are misprinted and thus invalid. So who pays for this? The State of Ohio, to the tune of possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars in notifications and extra processing costs.
Now, could this have been avoided? Yes. But consider that Ohio--along with other states--has been purging or trying to purge electoral lists, primarily in Democratic-leaning districts and toss in what appears to be a bogus electoral "drive" in what is widely acknowledged to be a swing-state and you get the frame of an ugly picture. With McCain squarely in the middle of it.
"Obama Waffles"? Legitimate headline, legitimate observation, legitimate criticism. But as a waffle-mix product, an Aunt Jemima-like reference that tosses in the candidate wearing "Arab-like headdress on (the product's) top flap"? Illegitimate and sleazy.
Nooo, racism isn't a problem in the U.S. of part of A. And Alaska isn't cold in the winter, either.
And here's what happens when lies--and the increased web-based ability to uncover them as such--start to take a toll on a campaign.
Just file this under 'So that's why the burger-fries combo is way cheaper than a salad."
My first response was "Worst I've ever seen," and that agrees with Mr. Eland's assessment. In any case, finishing at the bottom of a list is something the murderous moron is very, very familiar with in his so-called career...
I grew up with myopia that reached 20/600 status in My teen years. Thanks to contact lenses and later surgery, I enjoyed 20/30 vision. Here's a new product that could eventually take legally-blind and worse sight and make it possible to have normal vision. Just in time for Me, I'd say.
"...(V)oters vote for president not primarily on the issues, but on five other factors -- 'character' factors: Values; Authenticity; Communication and connection; Trust; and Identity... George W. Bush used (this) same observation in his two races. Gore and Kerry ran on the issues. Bush ran on those five factors.
In the 2008 nomination campaign, Hillary ran on the issues, while Obama ran on those five factors and won. McCain is now running a Reagan-Bush style character-based campaign on the Big Five factors. But Obama has switched to a campaign based 'on the issues,' like Hillary, Gore, and Kerry. Obama has reality on his side. And the campaign is assuming that if you just tell people the truth, they will reason to the right conclusion. That's false and they should know better."
From the horse's mouth, so to speak, George Lakoff's take on the current presidential campaign. More knowledge here than in any 10 campaign speeches.
t r u t h o u t | Blizzard of Lies
To say that politicians lie is like saying dogs bark: Some do it more than others, but they all do it to some extent. But the trend in this campaign has gone from "trickle" to "flood," or in the article's angle, from "flurry" to "blizzard."
Originally posted here.
No, thus has nothing to do with pictures and beveled edges. George Lakoff is considered the Father of Framing, the method of using words to outline, define, project and communicate ideas for specific conclusions. Though undeserved, you could call him the Father of Lies, but that title was already taken. Probably by a Republican.
What Lakoff did was pinpoint how words could mold thoughts to achieve a certain result, whether the words were used in a press conference, radio interview or speech. And the Republicans, by and large, have become fanatical framers. That the Truth gets buried in the repetitive blizzard of their words is merely... an objective.
Ignoring this element is not possible: Race plays a role regardless of one's opinion or simply because of it.
From a heads-up by Gabriel Pagán, what the hell is Bill Clinton talking about?
1) We have no sugar cane industry anymore, and if We tried to bring it back, We'd have much less land for it than required for a strong ethanol production level.
2) Even if We did, the laws he once chaired required Us to sell the raw cane to the U.S. of part of A. at barely above cost for refinement and We bought back the finished product at barely below market rates. Unless Congress allowed Us to refine the raw cane here for local use or refine for export sales, all We'd be doing is giving the U.S. Our efforts in exchange for a paltry discount on fuel purchases.
3) Kudos for placing the onus on Us to do it with the suggestion that if We could, then hell, anybody could do it. Nothing like a backhanded compliment to get the ol' juices flowing.
I wouldn't be surprised... We've reached a point in the current U.S. empire when internal goals--the battles over purely political fanaticism--are so important that the external world is less than a game board: It is just dirt to be piled for a height advantage.
"On September 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 people died, and more than 6,000 were injured as al-Qaeda hijackers crashed commercial aircraft into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington. The Bush people act as if someone else was in charge when it happened.
It's the greatest political mystery of the 21st century, perhaps inAmerican history: how have the Republicans avoided responsibility for 9/11? How can they keep claiming the deadliest attacks on the American mainland as a badge of honor, rather than a stain on their record?"
A rogue nation that lost the world's respect, enmired in a war it cannot win without utterly destroying one country and maybe itself, fostering enemies while attacking neutrals, forcing the use of nuclear weapons as "defensive tactics" and shredding the Constitutional foundation that helped make the country great in the first place.
Yeah, We're "safe," if by "safe" you mean "The murderous moron is leaving soon."
The power of free-flowing cash, personal optimization ("I want the most for Me"), media focus and political expediency.
Here's an interesting--if not fascinating--merging of technology and Web content. Quotd uses blog postings and commentary from selected (wide-ranging) sources to get a "feel" for certain questions or positions. In essence, it is a fluid "poll" of opinions, concentrating on opinion-makers. Well worth watching.
How could I not toss in a blog titled "Foolocracy"? I mean, really!
Here's the whole post:
David Patterson, New York’s Governor, is standing by his words. The Governor, who spent 21 years in the state legislator, stated that grassroots activists were often ignored when they called on the capitol. For professional lobbyists, it was a different matter. Legislators paid attention them.
Patterson said the legislators “were acting kind of like Count Dracula and that kind of thing.”
State legislators were angered by the comment, but it was not just a single, off-hand remark by Patterson. “The sun would go down, and they’d go back to who they really are — a bunch of bloodsuckers,” Patterson said of the lawmakers.
Patterson said that only by changing campaign finance laws would the content of information become more important than the financial contributions of a group.
Some members of the state legislature were waiting for Patterson to apologize, but you have to wonder why. Anyone who knows politics knows Patterson hit a problem straight on the head. Unfortunately, no one does anything to fix the problem.
Yeah, emphasis Mine, along with "You can wait until Hell freezes over and you will never deserve it."
And we're so gulled by the GOP that half the country actually thinks it's unfair..."
Good to see I'm not the only one pointing out this idiocy.
I LOVE this idea! Hate the list, but LOVE the idea. We could do this in Puerto Rico and, to save time and effort, We could only list the 1-2 Fools that aren't corrupt.
Now if We took the listed, ran a lottery and the picked name were to be summarily executed in public, I think We could clean up the cesspool We call "legislature" within 5, maybe 6 years. (These Fools are hard to straighten out, you know...)
I wonder if these examples of evolutionary adaptation to a changing environment are taught in schools that think creationism is science...
I would have argued against this 'til I was blue in the face.
Then I got married. And divorced.
I will argue this is substantially correct 'til I'm blue in the face.
A $50 billion boost to the economy wersus the possibility of a few million openly-addicted citizens...
May I ask how much money alcohol and tobacco add to the economy, versus the actuality of a few million openly-addicted citizens?
I especially grin at Myth #4, that debunks the whole notion that an economy grows through spending, instead of savings. That's like saying your body gets healthier by bleeding copiously.
"If democracy in this country is to continue to be “Of the People, By the People, For the People”, America needs the Fourth Estate back. This country depends on the media for governmental checks and balances. For too long, the media have been preoccupied with their own checks and account balances. Citizens must demand the return of purveyors of truth. Democracy depends on it."
The article focuses on the U.S. media "monopoly," but what does Puerto Rico have? Three daily newspapers, one of which is on the verge of shutting down, while the other two are owned by the same cartel, a cartel that is the single-largest investor in Our largest bank, and said cartel has sold its two newspapers to a Chilean company, whose full takeover of Our newspapers is slated for 2010.
Oh, as an aside: 6 of the 7 judges on Our Supreme Court come from the cartels' long-engaged law firm. The odds that 6 of over 9,000 lawyers/judges would randomly come from one single law firm--not even the largest law firm--are laughingly small. But who's laughing about that?
"The feeling is familiar. I had it four years ago and four years before that: a sinking feeling in the stomach. It's a kind of physical pessimism which says: 'It's happening again. The Democrats are about to lose an election they should win - and it could not matter more...'
...Polling in Germany, France, Britain and Russia shows that Obama would win by whopping majorities, with the pattern repeated in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. If November 4 were a global ballot, Obama would win it handsomely. If the free world could choose its leader, it would be Barack Obama...
...But if McCain wins in November... Europeans and others will conclude that their dispute is with not only one ruling clique, but Americans themselves. For it will have been the American people, not the politicians, who will have passed up a once-in-a-generation chance for a fresh start - a fresh start the world is yearning for...
...Of course I know that even to mention Obama's support around the world is to hurt him. Incredibly, that large Berlin crowd damaged Obama at home, branding him the "candidate of Europe" and making him seem less of a patriotic American. But what does that say about today's America, that the world's esteem is now unwanted? If Americans reject Obama, they will be sending the clearest possible message to the rest of us - and, make no mistake, we shall hear it." (Emphasis Mine.)
Karl Rove was subpoenaed by Congress...almost three months ago. He has left the country, returned, attended numerous public events and now works for Fox News. The subpoena is related to ongoing investigations in matters deemed to involve malfeasance, i.e. potential crimes in government actions.
So why is Karl Rove not dragged before Congress? Get it done, people. Get it done.
"When the history is written on the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it will go down in the annals of corporate scandals as one of the greatest accounting scams committed in broad daylight."
It used to be that "military intelligence" was considered an oxymoron; maybe We can start using "U.S. intelligence" as an example, seeing as how it took them about 5 weeks to get this one right...
You have got to be kidding...
Oh, no, this is Texas: Guns are a right; education--if it happens--is a mistake.
"My guess is that something big is in the works and what ever it is, it’ll be delivered in such a way that could turn the tide of the 2008 election. Is there a conspiracy within our government to manipulate public opinion?"
The first sentence can be viewed as paranoid, partisan, poppycock, perceptive or prescient. But the question can only be answered with a firm "Yes." Of course there's a government conspiracy to manipulate public opinion. That's a given. That's why We have--or are supposed to have--a "Free Press."
The big concern is an "October Surprise," some major event catalyzed by the current hyena cabal to push the elections into Republican hands (beyond the open mockery and thievery of e-voting.) Possible "Surprises":
--Palin's daughter "miscarries."
--Palin's son gets killed in Iraq.
--An attack on Iran, or further incursions in current wars.
Let Me be clear: I don't want any of this to happen. But I won't bet against any of them.
"Since November will almost surely bring a return to the rule of law, why not devote our energies and full attention to the electoral process? To keep our eyes on the nominees is to be filled with renewed self-belief; to turn back to the current administration is to feel heartsick and ashamed. Why willingly look in one direction when one can look in the other?"
The thrust is to pursue legal action against the murderous moron and his hyena cabal, the misadministration of the past eight years. Because one option is "more of the same": McBush misleading Us into Part III. But if either November winner does make changes so as to then properly uphold the rule of law--and nothing more--then We face this:
"If that is the case, the United States will continue to be what it has been during the last eight years: a country governed by the rule of men (their beliefs, their preferences, their choices), not by the rule of law (where beliefs, preferences, and choices are constrained by invariable and nonnegotiable prohibitions on cruelty and fraud). "
There is so much more to read and ponder in this article. You should take the time to do so, knowing full well that those that should are all of Us, and those that will are, well, maybe just you and Me.
Two comments... no, three:
1) "Blew it"? Regardless, the election is November 5th. Unless the rumors of a stolen election are not rumors...
2) Salient points here: "Liberal" media didn't know who Palin was, tossed facts around like confetti, the Obama campaign did attack her (never a good strategy with a woman candidate)... But: Party leaders didn't know who Palin was or when (if) she had been properly vetted, saying that the "liberal" media was careless with facts is the ebony-burnt-pot-in-the-dark-closet calling the kettle "black" and let's face it: Palin IS inexperienced for the position she's in.
3) Is it a misprint that they spelled "Gallup" as "Gal lup"?
"People vote Republican because Republicans offer "moral clarity"—a simple vision of good and evil that activates deep seated fears in much of the electorate. Democrats, in contrast, appeal to reason with their long-winded explorations of policy options for a complex world."
In other words, a simple lie beats a complex truth.
To be fair, a simple truth would also "beat" a complex lie. Only read the article and you'll see that "predisposed Republicans" aren't much interested in truth; rather, they prefer simplicity. And lies are easier to produce than truth.
Of course they are, just like unemployment figures, cost of living statistics, import-export balances and GDP numbers.
But.
Exxon records $11.68 billion in profits for the second quarter of 2008... and still falls short of what analysts expected. This historic profit margin broke the earlier all-time record--also set by Exxon--of $11.66 billion, set in the fourth quarter of 2007. In three quarters, Exxon has banked over $32.4 billion in profits.
All this for a commodity that isn't scarce (check OPEC's production figures and remember the U.S. and other oil-producing companies don't belong to it) and has been traded on a market subject to the whims of speculators.
One of which is Exxon, playing all the angles, from government to market.
Despite the evidence, McCain insisted on repeating a bare-faced lie in his acceptance drone, namely that Russia was the initial party to have "invaded the small democratic republic" of Georgia in order to "intimidate and control oil supplies."
Who is McCain's "security advisor"? Randy Scheunemann.
Who does Randy Scheunemann lobby for? The true initial attacker of South Ossetia, Georgia (and no, statehooders, not the one with Atlanta in it.)
Why is Georgia so important? Look at a map and think "oil, Iran, Israel, Russia, Iraq and neo-con democracy-at-gunpoint idiocy." But bottom line, it's about oil and the power derived from controlling it.
And from this side of the Atlantic, estimates that the Fannie/Freddie bailout could cost Us about $5 trillion.
Yes, that's trillion, as in "thousand billion". Five of those. And the two guys who fucked this up so royally, Daniel Mudd and Richard Syron, are walking away with about $29 million in severance pay, pension and deferred compensation.
Yes, million, as in "thousand thousand." Twenty-fucking-nine of those.
Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!
Reported in London Independent, but largely ignored by the mainstream media. Not the first time, not the hundredth, possibly the thousandth time in the past two misadministrations.
The Fourth Estate acting like a quarterback sneak on fourth-and-50...
"Of the 935 false statements made by the administration, according to the study, Bush was reported to have led all White House officials with 259 false statements, which included 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al Qaeda. Second on the list was Powell with 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaeda.
"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al Qaeda," wrote authors Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003." (Emphasis in the original.)
You can find the report, "Iraq: The War Card" at the Center for Public Integrity.
Consilience--the bringing together of information to enhance knowledge--is the natural twin of the online world. The barriers between information sources that We have endured for centuries is practically gone, and what were once called "monks" are now called "infomediaries."
When it comes to synergizing information, AI constructs don't work well, for they become less specific given more information. Humans, on the other hand, become increasingly specific and simultaneously more capable of creating new connections when given more information.
Science, the method and process of adding information to achieve or confirm conclusions, is the beneficiary of this new interconnected world. The image of the scientist working alone in his lab is replaced by the light-speed flashes of dozens and hundreds of messages, papers, articles and reports an hour, an immense supply of information illuminating new paths, uncovering new options and revealing previously-unseen horizons.
Fact: 99% of all the scientists in history are living today. They, and the online world, are one of the greatest sources of potential progress We have ever had. Whether that potential is entirely positive or balanced strongly away from the negative, is up to Us and the use We make of this consilience-enhancing online world.
From a website that's quickly becoming a New Favorite of Mine comes a personal epigram collection related to the rewards--and pain--of being a teacher.
"One day when you realize that you’re really teaching something well to a kid who really wants to learn, you’ll feel like the hero of a story. But, if there’s a story at all, the kid is the hero."
There's plenty to learn here, for teachers and parents. No quiz on this material, so peruse and enjoy.
Newsweek states: "Cancer won." I disagree. The game is far from over, but the myriad angles of attack have to be better coordinated. From DCA trials in Canada to stem cell research in South Korea to low-cost designer drug treatments in the U.S., turning cancer from deadly killer to manageable disease is a battle We can win if We act in concert.
And when We realize exactly how much Our lives contribute to cancer, We can go about changing the world as We know it.
Let's see...about 78% of the houses in the U.S. of part of A. have been financed under Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The government gave each lines of credit and subsidies worth billions of dollars. Subsidies and lines of credit--creating government sponsored entities--increases the risk of a collapse because it reduces fiscal responsibility. This isn't a new problem: It was specifically predicted in 2003, by Ron "35 Questions on Iraq" Paul.
Savings and loans. Airlines. Big Three automakers. Government of Puerto Rico. Subsidies and lines of credit waiting to implode.
As the gap between the haves and have-nots grows, so does the acuity of the problems the gap creates or exacerbates. However, what can you expect from U.S. government leaders when their own city shows a deep divide?
Could it be that the political unity underlying the divide--the shared desire for government intervention--gives "free rein" to exploit the widening economic gap?
Simple: Palin wants to be the Vice-president, a job she gets by being elected. So ducking the press, Our representatives charged with the task of helping Us get to know her and her policies, is like not interviewing (pun definitely intended) for the job.
And in My experience, people who don't want to interview for a job are A) Hiding something, B) Looking for a shortcut or C) Not interested in the job. You pick, for it's obvious Palin and her handlers have.
Look, We know times are tough. But the only money matters you can really take care of are your own. So here's a dead simple list of mistakes We often make (yes, I'm definitely included in that Jenial "We") that undermine our personal financial strength and potential for growth. Go and sin no more.
"I believe that no one — including the President — is above the law.
I oppose all forms of torture, and I support both closing the Guantánamo Bay prison and ending indefinite detention.
I oppose warrantless spying.
I believe that government officials, no matter how high-ranking, should be held accountable for breaking the law and violating the Constitution.
I reject the notion that we have to tolerate violations of our most fundamental rights in the name of fighting terrorism.
I am deeply committed to the Constitution and expect our country’s leaders to share and act on that commitment — every day, without fail."
Find out, in index card simplicity, what's being trampled in Our Bill of Rights. If you didn't know, now's the time to learn. If you did, think about the losses. And in either case, the responsibility--right and duty--to act is in your hands. Get started now.
That last sentence is key: The liberal mind simply can't comprehend how anyone could not repent in such a situation. The explanation is obvious: the distilled essence of conservatism as practiced in America today is sociopathy." (Emphasis Mine.)
It's a longish article, with several equally-interesting links that open the door to other interpretations, but the central theme of Republican use of lies, force, tunnel vision of politics-as-life-or-death, freely accepting costs others pay and lack of conscience does add up to sociopathy and makes one wonder where this is going to end.
Heehee, it's great to have somebody thrashing the whole lot with non-partisan zeal!
"Now, we may have an honest and verifiable election in November, although I can't see how. And we may elect a president and vice president who abide fully by the Constitution, the treaties our nation has ratified, and the laws that are on the books, although that seems highly unlikely. We might even see unconstitutional laws repealed, tyrannical executive orders torn up, and the Constitution amended to strengthen checks on power and expand the democratic influence of the people, although if you believe all that I've got a quick little cakewalk of a war to sell you. But think for a minute what message all those successes would send to future presidents and vice presidents and their subordinates: If you break the law, the punishment shall be that the duumvirate immediately following yours will not break the law. Oh, the horror!"
And quoting again from this article:
"Next weekend in Andover, Mass., a group of attorneys, academics, and activists will gather to plan the prosecution of Dick Cheney, George Bush, and the lawyers and advisors who, together with them, are responsible for war crimes. The conference is open to the public and expected to be well attended: http://war-crimes.info "
God bless America. Right?
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