That’s seems eminently reasonable to us and we are glad to see Paul Volcker brought to the front of the regulatory battle.

President Obama has embraced Volcker’s idea to prohibit large financial companies that have both commercial and investment functions, such as Goldman Sachs, from engaging in speculative trading.

Large banks have already said that they oppose the idea. Do you blame them? These guys had the best deal around, since mobsters built Las Vegas and they don’t want to give any of that up.

Volcker said commercial banks, whose deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation,  should not be allowed to engage in speculation that does not benefit their commercial customers.

The ban would distinguish between commercial and investment banks – a separation that had existed until 1999 when Congress, Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers and President Bill Clinton repealed major provisions of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act.

This wasn’t exactly the beginning of the wild ride on Wall Street, but most likely the beginning of the mortgage derivative schemes, the irresponsible lending practices and so forth – all leading to our present economic quagmire.

It appears that Paul Volcker has the right idea – to roll back some of the deregulatory schemes, which have turned the financial mills into legalized gambling houses.

One thing we wonder about, though… Why wasn’t he allowed to speak publicly before Scott Brown won the Massachusetts senatorial race?

Technorati Tags: banks, gambling, las vegas, regulations, Volcker, wall street

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1- Fan of Polaroid
2- Inspirational
3- Creative
4- Connected to fans
5- Empowering

Lady Gaga expressed her enthusiasm about her new role, saying: “…what I’m excited about doing is working with Polaroid and taking the iconic image of the Polaroid instant film photo and bringing it into the digital age of cameras.”

New products (whatever they might be) from the partnership between Polaroid and Lady Gaga should be available by the end of this year.

Good luck to both.

Technorati Tags: creative director, Lady Gaga, Polaroid

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When rainwater falls on the filled-in valley, it trickles through the rubble and picks up pollutants off rocks that came from deep underground. The water emerges mixed with pollutants such as metals and chemicals called sulfates, which can be toxic to the insects and fish in small Appalachian streams. It is also toxic and damaging to other animals, humans and entire ecosystems.

Although the companies are required by existing laws to “rehabilitate” the damaged areas, the wanton destruction of the mountains is more than obvious to anyone who sees it.

The latest development in the mountaintop removal battle is a study published by a group, headed by a University of Maryland researcher, who said it performed the most comprehensive study to date of the controversial practice, also known as “mountaintop removal.”

They also did something that scientists usually don’t: step beyond data-gathering to take a political stand.

“The science is so overwhelming that the only conclusion that one can reach is that mountaintop mining needs to be stopped,” said Margaret Palmer, a professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences and the study’s lead author.

The group’s paper, published in the journal Science, was released in the same week that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – which has been scrutinizing these mines – angered environmentalists by supporting a new mine permit. The EPA said the Hobet 45 mine, in West Virginia, had made changes that would eliminate nearly 50 percent of the environmental impacts and protect 460 union mining jobs.

Palmer said the group’s work did not echo the idea implicit in this EPA decision: that there could be a “good” mountaintop mine, whose environmental consequences were acceptable.

So, the fight goes on, but this time it seems that the advantage has shifted a notch to the good guys.

Technorati Tags: coal, destruction, Environment, EPA, Mountaintop Removal, pollution, study

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We also wonder if Accenture being directly linked to Arthur Andersen and its connections with Enron could possibly be considered any better that Tiger’s infidelity, screwing around and so forth. That in fact seems like a no-brainer. Enron has hurt not only the economy, but also thousands, upon thousands of people, maybe even millions.

Tiger in turn, has seemed to hurt Elin, but probably mostly himself…

We haven’t checked all of Tiger’s sponsors. We do know for a fact that Nike, has been widely criticized for the use of child slave labor. We also wonder if Blackwater, er… Xe is among his sponsors. How about Altria, formerly Philip Morris, or Exxon, so very famous for not paying up for the damages of the Exxon Valdez disaster?

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There’s been an avalanche of company name changes in the past few years. In some cases this was done in order to make the name more marketable, or maybe easier on the eyes, or hopefully easier to remember. More often rebranding came about in the wake of some unsavory event, practice, or even a conviction.

Many people don’t even realize that so very often the very same and often unchanged company lurks under a completely new name. That of course is often the whole idea behind the change and rebranding has become a big business in its own right.

Andersen Consulting, linked to Arthur Andersen and its conviction for that super shady Enron outfit is now called Accenture. The Tiger Woods ads have been pretty effective and hardly anyone even thinks of Accenture as anything but a successful, modern consulting firm…now registered in Hamilton, Bermuda.

Exxon’s switch from Esso came about because of myriad legal challenges between different spin-offs of the Standard Oil Company and Humble oil. It did take us all a while to figure out how to pronounce this weird combination of letters. Now, of course it is called ExxonMobil and as far as we know, neither the old, nor the new entity has paid for the damages caused by the drunken captain of the Exxon Valdez and the huge oil spill in Alaska.

The infamous mercenary company Blackwater has re branded itself as Xe – supposedly pronounced as “zee”. A Pretty innocuous name it would seem for a company, whose employees have shot a whole bunch of unarmed civilians in Iraq. The problem is that there is already a company named Xe…

Who hasn’t heard about Phillip Morris, the class action suits, the chemicals, including extra nicotine added to their cigarettes and all the other machinations?

As it turns out, Phillip Morris is called Altria now. Almost sounds like one of those drugs, which we keep seeing advertised during the evening network news. Maybe like something to shrink an enlarged prostate, or to help you fall asleep?

How about the Value Jet Airlines? After the infamous crash in the Everglades with the loss of 108 people, it has come to life again under the name of Air Tran.

Technorati Tags: accenture, Adultery, andersen consulting, blackwater, esso, exxon, Rebranding, sponsorship, tiger woods, Value Jet Air Tran, xe

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Economists say the unemployment rate could reach 10.5 percent next year because employers remain reluctant to hire.

October was the 22nd straight month the U.S. economy has shed jobs, the longest on records dating back 70 years.

Nearly 16 million people can’t find jobs even though the worst recession since the Great Depression has apparently ended. Persistently high unemployment could hurt the recovery by restraining consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy. That percentage is obviously much too high, as is the percentage of the economy held by the debt repackaging mills – read Wall Street and banks.

So, the news isn’t good despite some small rays of hope coming from the supposedly recovering automakers. The dollar continues to lose value, ostensibly to make U.S. products more attractive abroad, but in reality, because we continue printing money as if the national debt wasn’t an issue. The interest rates hovering at near zero percent might be attractive for certain borrowers, but totally counterproductive in the area of savings and secure and meaningful investments.

There seems to a slightly growing tendency to rebuild some of our former manufacturing might, following the example of Germany, which is a huge exporter, second only to China.

It would certainly be about time. After all, it has been a very long time, since we ceased to be a manufacturing giant, preferring to buy cheaper products elsewhere. It has also been a long time, since the importance of quality has been displaced by an ever-present quest to save 10 cents here and seven cents there.

Technorati Tags: Economy, Highest, Jobless, Rate, Reagan, Since, unemployment, US

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I had the misfortune of riding the Metro train into Washington Thursday, along with a sizable group of these protesters, where I was able to look at a goodly number of them up close and to listen to some of the conversations.

That experience seemed to perfectly mesh with a story I was at that moment reading in the Washington Post, which said that about 75 percent of the country’s 17 to 24-year-olds are ineligible for military service, largely because they are poorly educated, overweight and have physical ailments that make them unfit for the armed forces.

Glancing from the paper up to the people surrounding me on the train, it was quite obvious that the story was basically correct. Listening to the conversations only confirmed that feeling.

Will this be the caliber of citizenry, which might be influencing how you or I will live in the next few years, or the way, in which our children and grandchildren will be forced to live?

President Obama’s Wednesday trip to Wisconsin, to emphasize the need for an improved education seemed more necessary than ever before…

Technorati Tags: Bachmann, Caongress, conservatives, Education, Health Care reform, military, obesity, protest, tea baggers

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__________________________________________________________________

Lets add up the very dubious “achievements” of the last eight years.

First: The stolen election of 2000, which started it all.

Second: The attacks of September 11, 2001.

Third: The approval of the Patriot Act and its effects on our democratic system, including the creation of the all-encompassing Department of Homeland Security, illegal wiretapping and domestic spying, the firing of U.S. Attorneys, Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force, creation of a police state and an atmosphere of overall paranoia and so forth, and so on.

Fourth: The push towards the invasion of Iraq, along with totally untrue “justifications”, such as the presence of weapons of mass destruction, al-Qaida being centered in Iraq and the “urgent” need to depose Saddam, etc, etc.

Fifth: The inept and I mean INEPT attempts at nation building, which of course – besides the actual conquest of Iraq – have caused the longest-lasting war in U.S. history and have cost the lives of approximately one million men, women and children and over 4,000 American soldiers, with tens of thousands of young men and women being crippled for life.

Sixth: The total monetary cost of this artificially created conflict is estimated to be in the trillions of dollars and counting. Making certain specific, but often not even specified corporations very, very rich in the process – with U.S. taxpayer’s money, of course.

Seventh: Causing the United States to slide from a position of a beacon of freedom to most of the world, to a universally despised entity, which allows and in fact employs torture, extraordinary rendition, secret prisons and all kinds of nasty methods, formerly the domain of the most unsavory of regimes.

Eight: The deregulation of all kinds of industries, including the airlines and of course, the financial (read: debt repackaging mills) sector.

Ninth: The creation of the largest national debt and government deficit in the history of the known world. As a matter of fact, the debt clock on Wall Street – which has been switched off during the Clinton administration, because it wasn’t needed – was turned off again, this time, because they run out of digits….Yes, folks. Our national debt now totals some $56 trillion. That’s about $480,000 for every household in the U.S.  Isn’t it amazing that we had a surplus under the philanderer Clinton and a totally crippling debt under the teetotaler Bush?

Tenth: Becoming an economic cripple, with foreign creditors holding huge chunks of whatever real wealth remains in the U.S.

Eleventh: Not producing very much of anything any longer, allowing other countries to take the technological lead in many areas, allowing our infrastructure to crumble (besides the anti-terrorist barriers in front of government buildings), having an educational system that continues to produce illiterate adults, who often have no idea what lies beyond the borders of their counties and spend an incredible amount of time watching the moronic offerings of the television industry. And lets not forget the government’s peerless performance during and after Hurricane Katrina.

Twelfth: And this is the crowning, but not surprising touch of the last eight years: The seeming collapse of the debt repackaging mills, which George W. Bush had the gall to call “our financial system” and of course, another super urgent call to bail it out at a cost of another $700 billion, to a trillion dollars of taxpayer’s money. This, after bailing out Bear Stearns, Fannie May, Freddie Mack, AIG and others.

I will leave the 13^th point out of this discussion, as we all fervently hope that it won’t be needed and that point number 12 is the last serious point of damage that the present occupant of the White House and his corporate masters will cause to all of us.

In closing, allow me to congratulate all of those who have re-elected Bush in 2004!

Technorati Tags: 9/11, afghanistan, bush, damage, iraq, neocons, patriot act, torture, war

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Ronald Reagan and his Merrill Lynch Treasury Secretary Donald Regan

Reagan and Bush 41 quadrupled the national debt in only 12 years. Bush 43 doubled it again in only eight. It is now 10 times higher than it was in 1980 when Reagan was elected.

The hero of the conservatives, Ronald Reagan begun an era in which a small minority grew vastly rich, while working families saw only meager gains. He also broke with longstanding rules of fiscal prudence. While the taxes on the super-rich went as high as 90 percent in the past – still leaving them more than enough for a lavish lifestyle – the so-called “trickle down Reaganomics” lowered those taxes by about two-thirds. The rhetoric of course emphasized the tax benefits for the average Americans, who were ostensibly the beneficiaries of those policies.

All of this, while the Regan administration kept preaching about “small government, free markets and democracy”.

Those who actually believed in the above Reagan TV commercial should be seriously surprised that the Federal debt as a percentage of GDP fell steadily from the end of World War II until 1980, rising for the first time in decades under Reagan and Bush 41, falling under Clinton and rising again under Bush 43.

Even though some people like to portray the Reagan legacy as an anti-communist success story, Reagan’s biggest legacy was the change in America’s financial rules.

Let’s start with the tax cuts for the rich, following with turning the federal retirement from a Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) to the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS). The former was (and still is for some long-time federal employees), a pension system, based on years of service and FERS consists basically of the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), a 401k setup, in which untold billions of federal worker’s retirement funds get largely invested in various Wall Street schemes every two weeks. It was in effect an enormous gift for the Wall Street apparatus, while depriving millions of government employees of a viable retirement option.

At the same time, the Reagan administration deprived the Americans of the ability to deduct interest payments for anything not directly related to their primary real estate holdings.

This of course has started the epidemic of rising household debt.

Lets not forget the super-costly S&L crisis, brought about by Reagan’s deregulation.

Lets not blame poor Ronnie for everything. After all, he only started the ball rolling, even though it was in a very big way. As you probably realize by now he was only the front for all of the shady financial “wizards”, who relentlessly continue their lobbying and machinations to the present time.

The next really big breakthrough in their efforts came with the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 or CFMA (H.R. 5660 and S.3283), which in fact removed regulations of all kinds of financial crookery (called “products” by the industry) and which has returned the U.S. stock markets to the days before the 1907 Wall Street crash – in reality to legalized betting, which happens to be illegal outside of Wall Street. It was Bill Clinton, who towards the end of his second term signed this bill.

Let’s also not forget Enron and a whole bunch of other events, for which nobody has really gotten punished in any meaningful way.

Lets not forget Greenspan, Rubin, Summers and others, who continue to play important roles in our economy.

And don’t for a minute forget the fact that former and present Goldman Sachs executives are sprinkled throughout both the government and our financial system, continuing in their unrelenting mission.

Technorati Tags: bush, clinton, Economy, goldman sachs, greenspan, Reagan, reganomics, Rubin, summers, takeover, US, wall street

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Despite what anyone could possibly say we turned Iraq into not only a mess, but also several hundred thousand people have died in the process and we managed to spend untold billions of dollars to do it.

Will Afghanistan/Pakistan turn into a similar – this time a nuclear-armed mess?

The shadows of Vietnam are almost unmistakable: More troops, changes of strategy, changes of generals – all for naught. It looks like still another quagmire.

Maybe it is time for our fearless leaders to dig up some history books and re-learn the experiences of others and finally realize that at this stage many Afghans prefer the bloody Taliban to the corrupt Karzai regime. Yes, folks, the Taliban might be severe in their religious beliefs, in their punishment and in their treatment and attitude towards women, but for the most part they are at least honest. To be sure their religious rules and methods are no worse that those of Saudi Arabia – a country with which we have pretty close relations.

Go ahead, visit some of the smaller Afghan towns and villages and ask the people, whom they would prefer out of the two lousy choices. The answers might surprise you.

In the meantime, we wonder if our two ongoing wars will bring about songs as good as the Vietnam War did…

Technorati Tags: Afghan, iraq, Pakistan, Vietnam, wars

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Something to think about.

As a wise person said some time ago: ” In the U.S. you live to work and in Europe, you work to live”. How about Asia and Africa?

_______________________________________________________________________________

America is the Newest High Tech Sweatshop

As is Tradition – It’s Thirsty Thursday and today we’re serving our Tea Cold

Did You Realize This was Happening ?

when we look at the problems in the economy today, little do we realize that the undocumented worker problem includes so many degreed H1B Visa Holders.

how did this happen ?

we’re really not sure but it looks like a simple case of Bait and Switch.
the H1B workers were lured to Offshore Positions and then the positions never materialized; or they were significantly different than advertised. Business Week did an exhaustive study on the problem.

when you think of what the Off-shoring phenomenon did to the American economy – you can understand why this problem was kept hidden so well; for so long.  the people who are being trapped are well educated, just looking for  a better life. much like the American Tax Payers they are replacing in these jobs.

The real question is – What is Going to Stop This ?

are congress and the department of labor in conversation on this problem ? are they looking at the impact to the American workforce ? have they looked at the impact to the economy ? is there anyway to fix this ?

and what of the companies involved –

are they going to be held accountable for both sides of the issues ?
for what they did by decimating the american workforce ? and as well for turning H1B workers into literal slaves. there is no way this can be ignored.

there are more than a million people under scrutiny because of this malfeasance. the US Dept of Immigration and Naturalization; as well as the Department of State are equally culpable. they issued these H1B Visas to these workers and did nothing to monitor them. some of americas’ largest states house the largest H1B Visa Worker populations – ie: California,  New Jersey, Florida, Texas.

New Jersey by far seems to be the epicenter for the east coast – and New Yorks’ financial district is supplied from this source; so they can’t deny their part in making this financial crisis worse.

These are all States heavily invested in Offshoring and Offshore profiteering.  Very much like the pirates who founded each state.  ahhhh how history repeats it self with irony.

could some of these angry underpaid tricked people be the future terrorists that we fear within our country ?
People always talk about fearing their co workers going “Postal”. well if they do, in this case you can be assured that they have the right stuff to do us alot of harm. Do not forget that many of them know our deepest and most intimate secrets – because they wrote the software and monitored the security of the networks.

they work for Your Bank, Your Mortgage Company, Your Credit Card Companies, Even Taking Calls for  Your Pharmacy and Your HMO.. Yessssss it’s turned things totally inside out. but you can be assured that the greedy pirates who set up this whole Offshoring profit scheme; are sitting high up in their concrete towers, on wall street laughing, at the rest of those who fell for this obvious ponzy scheme.

Whomever thought replacing Tax Paying Citizens with non taxed non citizens was  a bonified genius, the all american winner - lets give that guy an american freedom medal for stupidity above and beyond the call of need.

Quite Frankly Scarlet My Dear,  it Appears that America Is Now the Prisoner of it’s Own Greed.. Would You Care for One Lump or Two Dear ?

Technorati Tags: labor, slavery, sweatshops, work

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Even though the United States now spends $2.4 trillion a year on medical care – which is much more per capita than comparable countries – we rank near the bottom in rankings on premature deaths caused by illnesses such as diabetes, epilepsy, stroke, influenza, ulcers and pneumonia, according to research by Commonwealth Fund.

North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad has commented on these not really surprising findings, saying:

“All of these countries have much lower costs than we do, and they have higher quality outcomes than ours.”

These sad statistics are probably not due solely to the inadequacy of the U.S. health care industry, which has actually proven to be quite good, at least in certain, top facilities. This is not to say that it is good, or even adequate in most places, particularly in view of its exorbitant cost.

Other causes include of course our basic diet; all of those adulterated foods, which much too often are the only ones available to the average citizen. The food additives, the healthy, natural ingredients removed either in order to increase profit, ease of processing and transportation, or simply to cater to our now perverted tastes.

Considering the fact that the average container of so-called full-strength soft drink contains the equivalent of about 17 teaspoons of sugar – which isn’t even sugar, but the ever-present High Fructose Corn Syrup, should give all of us pause. And if it isn’t sugar, it is Aspertame, NutraSweet, or some other low-calorie sweetener, which could be even worse.

Just think how the epidemics of obesity, diabetes and other diseases would most likely fade, if we stopped stuffing ourselves with such totally unhealthy substances.

Meanwhile, it appears that we are at risk even from formerly healthy, natural foods as well. As it turns out, cultivation, processing, storage and transportation introduce all kinds of dangerous food-borne diseases. Most risky appear to be: leafy greens, eggs, tuna, oysters, potatoes, cheese, ice cream, tomatoes, sprouts and berries. Apparently bacteria, from E.coli O157:H7 in spinach to scombrotoxin in tuna, are contaminating more and more of these essential foods. People who have eaten them suffered a range of illnesses, from mild stomach cramps all the way to death.

In addition, potatoes have emerged as threat to health, because many processors and restaurants have been putting them through the same machines, which were already contaminated by raw meat and poultry.

The FDA has been under fire for years for failing to adequately ensure food safety. A wave of recent food borne illnesses has placed increasing public pressure on Congress to do something about it.

As it stands, it appears that we should grow all of our own food, and avoid almost everything coming down the pike from the food producing and serving industry – and that of course includes those awful soft drinks – and providing that we do have health insurance, be very careful which medical establishments we actually trust our lives to.

Another option for some might be to move to another country, where the food supply hasn’t been so totally messed by greed and stupidity. Italy comes to mind as one of the possibilities. The Italians do take their food seriously and are minimally if at all interested in imported foodstuffs, considering their own as the best. This attitude extends to particular regions. As an example:  Sardinians eat “Sardo” food and drink Sardo wine and beer, with hardly anything coming over even from the Italian mainland.

We know that this is impractical for most people, but why should almost everyone be forced to play Russian roulette with their health in arguably the richest country in the world?

This brings up another issue. Much has been said about the dangers of smoking. The funny thing is that in most other developed countries, where smoking is more prevalent than in the U.S. people are generally healthier. Could it be the chemicals added by manufacturers to the cigarettes, rather than the tobacco itself?

Technorati Tags: cancer, contamination, diabetes, E.coli, food industry, medical industry, obesity, processed foods, reform, soft drinks, tobacco, US Health Insurance

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We realize that money talks and that China is holding trillions of dollars of U.S. debt, but this isn’t exactly a celebration of the Chinese people, their history, or their culture, but of their Communist party.

Human Rights Watch, a tenant of the building, put it quite succinctly:

“We want to make clear we have no objection to honoring China as a nation, a great civilization or a vibrant people. However, this date commemorates the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, a political entity that is responsible historically for many grave violations of human rights.”

There is no doubt that China has made enormous strides in the past 60 years – mostly in the economic and military direction, that Shanghai and other cities have huge clusters of skyscrapers and that it is developing, for better and for worse in leaps and bounds. At the same time, let’s not forget the tens of millions of human lives and suffering that this transformation has cost.

Let’s not forget the “Cultural Revolution”, the Tiananmen Square massacre and many other events, before we light up our landmark buildings in de facto celebration of these crimes.

Technorati Tags: anniversary, china, communist, Empire State Building, genocide, party, US

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President Obama and the other leaders declared that in the future, the meetings of the Group of 20 nations would be the primary way of coordinating global economic policy. The G20 will take over the job that had been done for decades by G8.

That’s all fine and not exactly unexpected, even though many of the countries not included among the wealthiest and most influential eight, or twenty have long been pressing to expand the G8 format and even to expand the G20 to include more members.

That’s the economic/organizational side of the summit so far. The more surprising development occurred later on Friday when Presidents Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and Prime Minister Gordon Brown have together condemned the “discovery” of another Iranian nuclear enrichment facility.

The crux here is that Iran actually officially informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the existence of the underground facility on Monday and the U.S., French and British intelligence agencies have known about it for several years. It would be pretty hard therefore to call the facility exactly “secret” at this point.

Quite quickly Iran’s President has canceled a previously announced press conference in view of the “Big Three” statement on its nuclear program. It appears therefore that the move has succeeded in its probable goal of preempting any announcements on the subject by Iran.

In any case, both the “discovery” and the official condemnation by Obama, Brown and Sarkozy should make the upcoming meeting of Iran with six world powers quite interesting. We’ll be watching.

Technorati Tags: brown, Economy, G20, iran, nuclear, obama, Sarkozy, summit

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No Fox, of course, because what would be the point, anyway? The viewers of that network have their own, well-entrenched, seemingly unmovable opinions and their minds do not appear to be open to anything new – certainly not to anything that Barack Obama might propose.

The president taped the interviews in advance, so he would not have to rush from studio to studio all morning.  Nevertheless, he is the first president to appear on five major networks in a single day.

Whenever there are big-time interviews of this sort, broadcasters go into a more, or less controlled frenzy. Executives meet with producers and presenters and brainstorm to no end. What approach should we take? Do we have any clever lines to use here? Are there any left-field questions that might make headlines?

It is most often a question of what to leave out: there are many subjects that beg to be asked, but only so much time to ask them and get the responses.  It wasn’t a surprise that  health-care was a big topic and also the issue of economic recovery, the probe into the CIA interrogations during the Bush era and the war in Afghanistan

Even the most seasoned anchors will have butterflies in their stomachs when facing a president, and agonize about the tone and the phrasing of his questions. “Should I be hostile, or friendly? Would pushing one big question appear more noble in the viewers’ eye than trying to hit all the bases?”

But what is the president trying to sell? He must have a big international message ahead of the U.N. General Assembly and the Pittsburgh G20 meeting next week. Something that will create big headlines in newspapers around the Middle East, Europe and in Iran on Monday morning, and on the main U.S. broadcasts Sunday evening.

The coming week is certainly a very big deal for his relations with the rest of the world.

Troublesome people, such as Libya’s President Muammar Gaddhafi and Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be in New York for the United Nations General Assembly gathering. Mr Obama will chair the U.N. Security Council, and as far as we know, it will be the first time a U.S. president has done so.

On Tuesday, Mr. Obama will meet on the sidelines of the U.N. gathering with both the Israelis and the Palestinians. It is hard to imagine a more difficult endeavor then that. The Israeli side, which is not interested at all it seems in a two-state solution, but rather in the creation of a “Greater Israel” in the West Bank, which is already covered with hundreds of Jewish settlements and the Palestinians, who of course insist on stopping the settlement activity and in creating a capital of their new state in Arab East Jerusalem. We wish President Obama all kinds of luck in this quest, as this is probably the single most divisive issue, not just in the Middle East, but in most of the world.

The next step will be Pittsburgh for the G20. The leaders of China, Russia, Japan, India, France, Germany, the UK and other countries will be all smiles, of course, especially during the unavoidable group photos, but you can be certain that they will be watching Obama’s every move and latching on to his every word.

Therefore, Sunday’s TV interviews will without a question be very important in setting the tone for the whole upcoming week and beyond and there is no doubt that the political news will be coming in an endless, if not necessarily meaningful stream for the next several days.

Technorati Tags: G20, Health care, obama, politics, tv, UN

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Both sides have engaged armies of lobbyists, spent millions of dollars to try to persuade both the politicians and the American public that their point of view is the correct one.

The media, and in particular the right wing branch of it have been spreading all kinds of myths and rumors about “death panels”, supposedly long waits for medical attention in countries such as Canada, France and the UK. As it turns out, access to primary care in all of those countries is faster, more efficient and certainly cheaper than in the United States.

Myths about deciding whether to treat grandma, or not have also proven to be just myths and lies, pretty much as the other fairly tales spewed out by the special interests and their mouthpieces.

The strange thing is that the health care industry is contributing to both the proponents and the opponents of health care reform. I guess they want to cover all the bases.

In the meantime, not too many people seem to be publicly considering the implementation of a variant of health insurance systems, which are working quite well in Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, or Japan. For the benefit of those petrified by the prospect of “socialized medicine, none of those countries, with the exception of Sweden are really socialist. All are among the strongest pillars of our beloved capitalist system and for some reason; all have health care systems that are affordable, efficient and equitable. In short: way better than ours in almost every respect.

As an example: Germany has some 200 PRIVATE insurance companies. The German citizens can pick and choose among them at will. The companies compete among each other to persuade the people that their offering is better than the next guy’s. Almost everyone seems quite satisfied with this arrangement.

Switzerland had a similar system, with private, for-profit health insurers. That changed after a national referendum was conducted in the 1990s, which forced the insurance companies to revamp themselves into a not-for-profit model. At last look, the Swiss health care system remained one of the very best in the world.

I think that we also owe ourselves to explore the Japanese system. It is one of the most efficient and in fact beloved by practically everyone (including foreigners, who are also covered) health systems anywhere.

There is no doubt that our situation will require some major changes, not only to the issue of exorbitant costs and often skimpy coverage, but also to the problem of the actual U.S. health care industry – the most expensive anywhere in the world – one of the most inefficient, incompetent and heartless systems, certainly in the industrialized world. Sick people or people with a so-called “pre-existing condition” run a very serious risk of either not getting health insurance, or downright losing their existing coverage. Health coverage is not only for the healthy – who cost the insurance companies very little money – but mostly for the sick, who often desperately need it.

I can envision the usual comments, from the usual suspects, who for some reason either actually believe, or are told to believe that we have the best health care system in the world.

Isn’t that exactly what the worst president in the entire history of the United States has called it as well not so long ago?

Technorati Tags: germany, Health, insurance companies, japan, myths, propaganda, reform, special interests, Sweden, Switzerland, system, US

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The more we read into it, the more attractive it seems to run for office. Why is it only THEM who can vote themselves all kinds of perks and not us? And how can they get away with calling what they do “service” to the country?

____________________________________________________________________________________

I received the note below tonite from a dear friend, and decided to forgo todays prepared post in favor of this very powerful One To One Message of Unity.

do you realize that some of our legislators work as little as 45 days total for the year, and claim upwards of a quarter of a Million Dollars Yearly Until They DIE.  this happens after they serve just ONE TERM.

I invite you to join me in a mass repost of this message – with an email to your legislators. let them know that you think that it’s time they addressed The Real Golden Fleece.

Let them know that You Want Them to Stand Up and Do The Right Thing NOW.
No More Delays on the Righting of this wrong. BadGals and Our Entire Posse’ will be reposting this message on our blogs over the course of this week; to let everyone know where we stand on the Real Fleecing Of America.

How Can Legislators Ask Us for More when They are Taking More From Us ?

LET US SHOW OUR LEADERS IN WASHINGTON “PEOPLE POWER” AND THE POWER OF THE INTERNET. PLEASE FORWARD TO ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS.

IT DOESN’T MATTER IF YOU ARE REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT!

KEEP IT GOING!!!!

Propose this in 2009:

START A BILL TO PLACE ALL POLITICIANS ON SOCIAL SECURITY

———— ——— ——— —-

SOCIAL SECURITY:

(This is worth reading. It is short and to the point.)

Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years.

Our Senators and Congresswomen do not pay into Social Security and, of course, they do not collect from it

You see, Social Security benefits were not suitable for persons of their rare elevation in society. They felt they should have a special plan for themselves So, many years ago they voted in their own benefit plan.

In more recent years, no congress person has felt the need to change it. After all, it is a great plan.

For all practical purposes their plan works like this:

When they retire, they continue to draw the same pay until they die.
Except it may increase from time to time for cost of living adjustments. ….
ALSO YOU ONLY HAVE TO BE ELECTED FOR ONE TERM TO COLLECT THIS BENEFIT.

For example, Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7, 800,000.00 (that’s Seven Million, Eight-Hundred Thousand Dollars), with their wives drawing $275, 000..00 during the last years of their lives.This is calculated on an average life span for each of those two Dignitaries.

Younger Dignitaries who retire at an early age, will receive much more during the rest of their lives.

Their cost for this excellent plan is $0.00. NADA!!! ZILCH!!!

This little perk they voted for themselves is free to them. You and I pick up the tab for this plan. The funds for this fine retirement plan come directly from the General Funds;

“OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK”!

From our own Social Security Plan, which you and I pay (or have paid) into, every payday until we retire (which amount is matched by our employer), We can expect to get an average of
$1,000 per month after retirement.

Or, in other words, we would have to collect our average of $1,000 monthly benefits for 68 years and one (1) month to equal Senator Bill Bradley’s benefits!

Social Security could be very good if only one small change were made.

That change would be to Jerk the Golden Fleece Retirement Plan from under the Senators and Congressmen. . Put them into the Social Security plan with the rest of us

Then sit back…..And see how fast they would fix it!

If enough people read this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe good changes will evolve.

Technorati Tags: congress, golden fleece, Pensions, perks

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The implementation of Social Security and Medicare, gun control, civil rights, prohibition and a host of others have been very hotly debated over the years.

None of these important, controversial and divisive issues have produced such a wave of scare tactics and disinformation from its opponents as the current battle being waged over the reform of health care.

The fact is that practically everybody agrees on the need to repair health care. We also know that if present trends continue, by the year 2050 health care will consume some 40 percent of the U.S. national economy, which would of course be a disaster, probably on a larger scale than the present recession. Why is it then than most Americans are refusing to face that reality?

Costs are rising at such a pace that many businesses cannot afford to provide health insurance for their employees any longer and some 14,000 people lose their coverage every day.

At the same time, the insurance companies and other opponents of health care reform keep telling us that that the reform will create “socialized medicine”. By the way, aren’t Medicare, Medicaid and the medical coverage of members of our military socialized medicine? Those, for some reason even the opponents want to keep. The insurance companies and their cronies are also spreading outright lies about the so-called “death committees”, euthanasia, and long waits for medical attention in countries with universal medical coverage.

The truth is that Americans wait longer to see primary care physicians than patients in other industrialized countries. Of course we wait much less time for elective care and surgery, because of our overabundance of specialists, who make quite a bit more money than general practitioners. We are also among the world leaders in the area of unnecessary and often dangerous and expensive medical procedures and tests.

The Commonwealth Federation studies now show us last among industrialized countries in the areas of access, quality, and efficiency of health care. Our life expectancy is also lower.

In our present system the insurance companies have all the power – power of life and death in fact – over who gets insured and who keeps their insurance coverage. The costs of health care and health care coverage have been rising at a practically uncontrollable rate.

Even though such groups have repeatedly denied it, there is now documented evidence that the insurance companies, their allies and some conservative groups have been fanning the flames of this controversy and encouraging their followers to attend and disrupt some of the town meetings, which members of Congress and the president have held in the hope of clarifying the myths and disinformation.

There is also evidence of coordination and cooperation among several conservative talk show hosts on this issue.

At the same time, there is also evidence that even insurance companies are beginning to recognize the need to change the way in which they will have to operate in the future.

Considering the cost and the deficiencies of our present health care arrangements and the long-overdue need to repair them it is not difficult to realize that fixing the system is probably the most pressing problem that we are all facing in the long term.

Why should we bow under the pressure from backward, uninformed morons, carrying posters of Barack Obama with a Hitler mustache, or those who choose to openly carry guns outside venues where the president is about to speak? Are they trying to make a statement about health care reform, or emphasize their second amendment rights?

We wonder if they really know what this is all about and whether these are actually citizens exercising their rights, or just sheep being led special interests. Judging by the caliber of the protesters, their methods and their language, we tend to believe that they are more akin to mindless sheep, rather than well-informed citizens expressing their legitimate views.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

For some reason we hardly hear discussions of any options beyond the British and Canadian models. Why there is hardly anything in the media, or in Congress about other health care systems, variants of which are working quite well in Germany, Switzerland, Japan and other countries? Or about the French model, judged by the World Health Organization as the best in the world?

Technorati Tags: disruption, Health care, insurance companies, lies, meetings, reform, ugly

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Post tags: disruption, Health care, insurance companies, lies, meetings, reform, ugly

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The old saying that “you are what you eat” couldn’t be more accurate in these days of processed foods, food additives, genetically modified (GM) plants and animals and generally incredibly adulterated food supply.

Remember your last visit to the neighborhood supermarket? Did you notice all kinds of novel products of food science on the shelves, those often in packages festooned with health claims? Well, if you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid most food products that make health claims and that is simply because health claims on a food product could be a good indication that it’s not really food, but in fact a food product, not something that you would want to eat, if you intend to stay healthy.

Have you thought what the so-called “American cheese” is made of? As it happens, it is not really a cheese at all, but generally manufactured from a set of ingredients such as milk, whey, milk fat, milk protein concentrate, whey protein concentrate, salt, and that mixture for some strange an unexplained reason meets the legal definition of cheese here in the U.S. Avoid it if you possibly can!

Although the public hasn’t really been informed about the fact that a huge percentage of formerly perfectly healthy plants, in particular corn, have been genetically modified, that is indeed the sad truth, in the U.S. at least. The reasons for this are multi fold. The first and foremost is as usual profit and savings for the producers, processors, wholesalers and retailers. The industry will of course counter these facts by saying that they have simply made the plants more resistant to disease and to parasites, which of course requires less spraying with poisonous chemicals (read more profit) and that this is of course better for us, the economy and the environment. If you have been blessed with at least an average IQ you really should not take these claims at face value. In addition, nobody, but nobody knows at this fairly early stage of genetically modifying everything in sight, what the effects of this practice will be both for humans and their long-term health, for the animals, the plants, the environment and for the planet at large.

That’s all fine and dandy, but how do you know that the fresh-looking food product that you pick up the supermarket has not been messed with by the food industry? The short answer is: you don’t. Since genetically engineered soy and corn are used in many processed foods, it is estimated that over 70 percent of the foods in grocery stores in the U.S. and Canada contain GM ingredients. The problem is not just in the “classic” variety of processed foods, meaning, packaged, canned and/or frozen, but also in the fresh-looking fruits and vegetables laid out in the produce section of your store. There is no way of telling whether the corn, or the apples, or anything else for that matter hasn’t been messed with in some way by someone along the line. At least the packaged foods have ingredients listed on their labels. Here you can find out that almost everything nowadays – even the foods that none of us would have suspected – contains corn in some form and the ever-present poison of the modern world: high fructose corn syrup as well as a bewildering array of chemicals, the discovery of which in your “food” should make your hair stand on end.

Let’s not forget the artificial, low, or no-calorie sweeteners. Have you noticed that obese people often drink diet drinks? And why do we have a diabetes epidemic in this country? Avoid these sweeteners like the plague. Even though normal sugar might not be the healthiest substance around, it is still hugely more healthy that aspartame, Nutra Sweet, Splenda or high fructose corn syrup.

In short, if you want to lose weight, you probably have a better chance of succeeding if you stick to sugar, rather than all of the other artificial sweeteners.

Buy locally produced food. This is particularly important for those people, who are lucky enough to live near the place they were born, as the genetic makeup of plants and animals from a given area is related to that of the people born in that particular area as well and agrees with them much better than something carted from thousands of miles away.

Do not buy water in plastic bottles. Get a filter and some stainless steel, or aluminum SIGG bottles and despite the convenience try not to use your microwave oven so much, or the Teflon coated pots and pans.

Read the labels, ask questions, and demand pure, unadulterated foods. You might not always be able to get them – at least not right away – but if enough of us question these irresponsible practices of the industry, refuse to buy their products and demand access to a “clean” food supply, the industry will eventually be forced to comply and adjust. Let’s just hope that it isn’t too late.

Technorati Tags: diabetes, foods, genetically modified, Health, high fructose corn syrup, obesity, processed

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Post tags: diabetes, foods, genetically modified, Health, high fructose corn syrup, obesity, processed

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Enjoy this video from The Onion. After all, only one country can be the world’s biggest polluter at any one given time.

China Celebrates Its Status As World’s Number One Air Polluter

Technorati Tags: china, pollution

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I particularly like the very last line of this video: “A doctor named Goldman squeezes your sack”.

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: goldman sachs, investment firms

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Most of the competition for these firms has been removed, sometimes by default and in other cases almost by force, such as when then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson – a man closely allied with Goldman Sachs has threatened to fire Bank of America President Ken Lewis, if the latter backed out of the deal to buy Merrill Lynch. Needless to say, the acquisition of Merrill did go through, eliminating one of Goldman’s main competitors. At the same time,  Paulson has decided to let Goldman Sachs’ biggest rival Lehman Brothers and its second biggest competitor Bear Stearns go under.

Matt Taibi writes in his Rolling Stone Magazine article: “The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who’s Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.

There’s got to be something there. Former Goldman CEO Henry Paulson was the Bush-era architect of the bailout, a suspicious plan to funnel trillions of our dollars to a handful of his old friends on Wall Street. Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton’s former Treasury secretary, spent 26 years at Goldman before becoming chairman of Citigroup – which in turn got a $300 billion taxpayer bailout from Paulson. There’s John Thain, the unsavory chief of Merrill Lynch who bought an $87,000 area rug for his office as his company was falling apart. Thain – a former Goldman banker enjoyed a multi-billion-dollar gift from Paulson, who used billions in taxpayer funds to help Bank of America rescue Merrill Lynch. Robert Steel, a Goldman alumnus and then head of Wachovia, got himself and his fellow executives $225 million in golden parachute payments as his bank was taking a deep dive.  Joshua Bolten, Bush’s chief of staff during the bailout, and Mark Patterson, the current Treasury chief of staff, who was a Goldman lobbyist only a year ago, and Ed Liddy, the former Goldman director whom Paulson put in charge of bailed-out AIG, which forked over $13 billion to Goldman after Liddy came on board.

Do you see something, anything wrong with this scenario? You would have to be deaf, blind and illiterate not to see what is happening.

It looks too much like a well-orchestrated power grab, with the few ever-richer Wall Street conglomerates taking over an ever-bigger chunk of our economic resources. That along with plans to increase the oversight powers of the Federal Reserve – another conglomerate of private banks – would pretty much create an almost total dominance of our economic system for the foreseeable future.

And now, please take a look at this great exchange of views on the subject, during a discussion on France 24.

Lo and behold! Even Glen Beck had something interesting to say about Goldman Sachs. Watch this clip.

Technorati Tags: Bailouts, conspiracy, goldman sachs, jp Morgan, paulson, theft, wall street

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We realize that the U.S., along with most of the countries of the world is struggling with the after effects of getting the worldwide finances looted during the past 25, or so years. We are still trying to dig ourselves out from under Alan Greenspan’s legacy at the Federal Reserve and the incredibly dumb and in fact criminal lack of oversight of Wall Street and the banks.

We also realize that the present administration has not started both of the “elective” wars that we are now waging overseas, and that it hasn’t arrested the hundreds of more, or less, or not at all guilty terrorism suspects, still languishing in the Guantanamo prison among other places.

The point is that despite earlier promises, we still have as many soldiers in Iraq, as we did under Bush and that we have increased our deployment in Afghanistan. Also, nobody seems to want any of the Guantanamo prisoners. We don’t believe there should be any discussion in the matter and that the solution to that particular dilemma is rather simple: send the long-suffering and often innocent prisoners to live in and get the titles to the houses and the properties of the neocons and send the latter to Guantanamo, along with many of the bankers and Wall Street thieves.

What? You don’t like that idea? What could possibly be more just under the circumstances? Building a long stretch of gallows on the National Mall?

Getting back to the financial issues. There is no doubt that the first huge bailouts, or whatever the heck they call the multi-billion-dollar giveaways started at the end of the Bush 43 presidency. Most of the money asked for and given to AIG and other financial conglomerates by Hank Paulson – a well-known Walls Street insider – is still unaccounted for. The question is why did the Obama administration hire guys like Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner, who along with Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan were an integral part of the plan to loot our treasury and allow the bankers and Wall Street to run roughshod over everybody else? These are the very same guys who allowed the so-called Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 to pass at the end of Clinton’s presidency. Despite earlier moves, the most obvious of which was the actual founding of the Federal Reserve and the subsequent loosening of the regulatory reins by the George W. Bush people, the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 was the most serious and glaring act committed against our financial well being.

Now that with the addition of Al Franken the Democrats have finally achieved the coveted filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, can we really expect some long-awaited and long-overdue reforms to get enacted? Don’t hold your breath. The thousands of lobbyists, representing all kinds of special interests are swarming all over Capitol Hill, often dwarfing our elected representatives and their staffs, not only by sheer numbers, but also with money, favors and special deals. After all, we are not only talking about reforming health care, or enacting a truly meaningful climate legislation, but also about the main event, which is really a fight about preserving and if possible increasing corporate profits. And that of course is the real name of the game, as it always has been.

It doesn’t really matter that the majority of Americans want a public health plan in addition to the private ones and that most are truly concerned about the state of the environment. Most politicians do not really represent the rank and file citizens, or the country at large, but rather corporate interests. The situation is no different in the case of many government agencies, which despite popular perception are less concerned with protecting our interests, health and safety, but largely act in the corporate interest.

Going back to the Federal Reserve, which has failed abominably, particularly in the last 25 years to perform its main and most important mission, namely, to protect the public against the banking system. Just as in the case of the other agencies, unfortunately one cannot expect the Fed to fulfill its officially stated mission, if it is in reality a front for the banking industry. In fact, according to many experts, the Federal Reserve was the principal cause of the financial disaster that we have experienced and giving it even more oversight power seems by far more dangerous and foolhardy than playing Russian roulette. Doing so is simply another example of rewarding failure, just as the government has rewarded the banks with the bailouts for their failure.

It is therefore regrettable that President Obama has gone along with the advice of his flock of financial advisers and although we hope that by some as yet unknown miracle things will work out somehow, many feel that the president, along with the rest of the country may actually have cause to regret taking that road.

The economic recovery will not happen any time soon, despite the predictions of forecasters in the government and other places. What the financial “gurus” are touting is a recovery, but the bailouts will not really create that at all and the economy is not going to magically spring back to life as they keep telling us. They are simply propping up the industry, which has actually caused the disaster.

The drop in employment, productivity, wages and consumption might slow down a bit, but it is going to be a long time, before the economy actually recovers. And it is probably the hope of the industry insiders that by that time the public might actually be fooled into believing that the trillions of dollars doled out to the financial industry had the desired effect, when in fact it is simply another chapter in the unprecedented looting of our national financial resources.

In other words, it appears that the Democrats are just as proficient at looting the U.S. treasury as the Republicans, but that is frankly no surprise at all.

Technorati Tags: Bailouts, banks, democrats, Economy, federal reserve, greenspan, looting, majority, republicans, summers, wall street

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What we basically have is that science – and you cannot really debate science politically – tells us that there is a climate problem and that unless we take immediate and sweeping steps immediately, the consequences for the ecosystem that our children and grandchildren will live in will be serious and severe.

There is a saying that “everyone is entitled to an opinion, but not to his own facts”. Climate change is one of those cases in which we have facts, despite what the naysayers might be saying. It is of course a global problem and the U.S., or Europe alone, without the cooperation of China and India and the rest of the world will not be able to accomplish much.

Frankly, we have to agree – at least in part with some of the conservatives, as the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill is not really the most efficient way of handling the problem. It will once again create a huge trading market for Wall Street; it will become another object of speculation. The permits to emit carbon, the speculation, and the derivatives will not only increase the overall cost of the program, but will also make our energy costs more volatile.

In short: there are better ways of addressing the climate change than a cap-and-trade system. One is the carbon tax in which you would collect the tax from the polluters and recycle the revenues towards more environmentally-friendly energy producing sectors. That would of course make the dirtier sources of energy more expensive, while making solar, wind and other “clean” energy sources relatively cheaper.

This would make businesses and individuals more interested in investing into these clean sources of energy and into a low-carbon economy in general. Wall Street would also have relatively little – if anything – to do with this process and that after all the mess that the Street shysters have caused for everyone seems encouraging in its own right.

A carbon tax would not only be considerably less complicated and not so prone to speculation as the cap-and-trade option, but it would actually encourage people and businesses to purchase and use less polluting vehicles and appliances and provide a real incentive to produce energy – electricity in particular – in a much more environmentally friendly manner.

The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill will not really reduce emissions, or produce any environmental benefits for at least 10 years. It is also the kind of bill that makes the coal producers perfectly comfortable. Many pollution permits were given to utilities that use the coal. What the bill really amounted to was as it is often the case – another noble idea that was incredibly diluted under pressure from lobbyists and special interests to the point of becoming pretty much useless.

The only thing that seems to make Americans change their wasteful habits is cost. When the price of gasoline exceeded $4 per gallon, everyone rushed to buy a fuel-efficient vehicle and the huge SUVs were almost impossible to sell. Most automakers – particularly those who relied on pickups and other large vehicles felt the pinch the most. Now that gasoline costs considerably less than $3 per gallon, people are not so worried anymore and that believe it, or not is not very good news at all. That’s why we need to have an incentive such as a carbon tax. It would make people and companies see that being greener, less wasteful and less polluting basically costs less in the long run, besides protecting the environment.

In a way cap-and-trade would do that also, to a degree, providing we have a real cap, so we are actually reducing emissions. In that manner the price of energy would go up, based on its carbon content. The cap-and-trade option is a supremely complicated way of achieving anything, as you would have to go through many steps to actually achieve any results. And at each of those steps different interests could intervene. The carbon tax solution would be much simpler, most likely cheaper overall, more efficient and less prone to speculation.

The European cap-and-trade system, known as the Emission Trading System (ETS),  is the world’s largest pollution market, and it offers important lessons for the U.S.  The main lesson is that cap-and-trade, by itself, won’t make much of a dent.

Despite what the naysayers, special interests and conservatives in general might say, we can only hope that the U.S. Senate will not go along with the cap-and-trade model and that it will show some leadership, common sense and backbone and will actually approve a carbon tax climate bill – one that is not diluted by special interests and lobbyists, but the kind of legislation that will actually do both the environment and all of us some real good.

Technorati Tags: Basically, bill, Cap and Trade, carbon tax, Climate, congress, Environment, inadequate, Wrong

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From Cairo, the presidential entourage heads for Germany, for a chitchat with Angela Merkel and a visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp – a very good tactical and even strategic move in our opinion. From there, Mr. Obama heads for the 65^th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy and hopefully a renewal of French-U.S. relations, which have descended to a new low during the Bush years.

Speaking of  the Saudi segment of the trip, there is no doubt that from the moment Barack Obama stepped off Air Force One (which for some reason departed Tuesday night from Dulles International Airport, instead of Andrews Air Force Base for a change) the visit started with pomp and pageantry fit for a king.

King Abdullah staged an elaborate welcome ceremony, showered Obama with compliments, put up the president at his lavish desert horse farm and gave him a bulky gold necklace that the king says carries special meaning.

“Those are only given to the very few friends of the king, and you are certainly one of those,” Abdullah said as he presented the thick chain and large medallion to Obama.

We would love to see Mr. Obama wearing the half a pound, or so of gold around his neck for the rest of the trip, but don’t hold your breath. The expensive trinket will most likely be stored somewhere safe. Considering the price of gold, it might also serve as a down payment on the trillions of dollars of taxpayer’s money given out to all of the financial shysters.

As a matter of fact, President Obama took it off after a few minutes and a few photographs.

It was actually more than a mere, heavy and expensive necklace, but rather the King Abdul Aziz Order of Merit, Saudi Arabia’s highest decoration.

Though we haven’t been able to confirm it for sure, George W. Bush appeared to receive that very same award during a stop in Saudi Arabia in January 2008. Wonder what he did with it…

Technorati Tags: award, Cairo, Muslims, necklace, obama, Saudi Arabia, trip

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As of late, all we hear are reports, comments, discussions and opinions about the swine flu epidemic.

How can the media switch over so completely from one topic, to another, without even skipping a beat? An estimated 6,290 drug-related murders occurred in Mexico in 2008. As of today the total number of deaths confirmed as being caused by the H1N1 virus, popularly known as the swine flu has reached 26 worldwide, 25 of those in Mexico and one in the U.S.

So the tally is 6,290, to 25 and despite that fact, if you watch U.S. television it would seem that the only problems facing Mexico at the moment are the swine flu epidemic and the economic losses related to reduced tourism and a reduced economic activity in general.

Whatever happened to the drug war? If we ignore the television news for a moment it turns out that Mexico’s drug war is alive and well. The body count continues to climb, illegal immigrants continue to cross the U.S. border and the only palpable difference is that the Mexican troops and police have ditched their black ski masks for the moment in favor of either surgical masks, or respirators in the vain hope of avoiding catching the flu.

So, what’s the conclusion, you might ask? The same as always: don’t succumb to the media frenzy and if you want real news and not the sound bite -riddled fragments of what television generally offers, look elsewhere. Some reputable newspapers still exist and their reporting is usually considerably broader and more responsible that the boob tube version.

Technorati Tags: coverage, epidemic, media. television, Mexico's drug war, swine flu

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One of the problems with the Chapter 11 bankruptcy for Chrysler is the resistance of a number of its lenders, who understandably do not want to lose their money.

Chrysler will seek to rid itself of its overwhelming debts in court. Afterwards, according to the administration plan, the company will get roughly $10 billion in new government aid and be merged with Italian automaker Fiat.

One wonders if this will be a viable solution for Chrysler. After all, the company has been bailed out in 1979 by $1.2-billion government loan guarantees. Later, in 1998 Daimler bought Chrysler but sold most of the loss-making unit to Cerberus Capital Management in 2007.

German automaker then known as Daimler-Benz paid $37 billion for the U.S. automaker in 1998, but it soon found itself weighed down by uncompetitive labor costs and lost sales to nimbler Japanese rivals.

What basically made Chrysler, then Daimler Chrysler and now once again Chrysler uncompetitive was the fact that its management insisted on producing light trucks, SUV’s and such ludicrous models as the Dodge Magnum, equipped with a 425 horsepower “hemi” engine, Dodge Charger, Challenger – all harking to the crappy, so-called muscle cars of the 60s and 70s, the ever-larger Dodge Durango and so forth. The entire company lineup didn’t have and in fact still doesn’t have a viable, well-designed “normal” sort of a passenger vehicle at all.

About the only viable parts of Chrysler are their minivans and the Jeep brand, first bought by American Motors, then acquired by Chrysler, but Jeep might end up being sold off.

Despite the long history of the Volkswagen “buses” and other smallish European and Japanese vans, Chrysler has to be credited with a great marketing coup, when it introduced a scaled-down, front wheel drive, garageable boxy vehicle under the name of “minivan” in 1984. Practically every vehicle manufacturer in the world (including Fiat) makes minivans nowadays.

Fiat, in turn is not exactly on a very strong footing either. This might be a case of the lame, allying itself with the lamer. At least the Italian automaker does offer a whole line of fuel-efficient vehicles, which Chrysler does not. It would also be an opportunity for Fiat to return to the U.S. market, where it hasn’t had a presence for over 25 years.

Besides bringing back the new, modernized iteration of the small, but legendary 500, Fiat actually produces a complete line of vehicles, from the super-efficient mini cars, through medium and fairly large sedans, wagons, minivans and trucks, many equipped with modern turbo diesel engines. The once mediocre quality is said to have improved.

At this point it’s hard to say whether the Americans will wean themselves from their Toyotas, Hondas and Nissans in order to risk a totally new for them brand such as Fiat. Although we would much rather drive a little Fiat, rather than an oversized Chrysler SUV, there is no doubt that both Chrysler and its new master Fiat will have to fight an uphill battle on the U.S. market at least for some time.

Technorati Tags: 500, bankrupcy, chrysler, efficient cars, Fiat, jeep, Merger, minivans

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After the release of the torture memos and thanks to the constant efforts of many individuals and groups we now not only know, but also have tangible proof that the Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Such information would have provided a foundation for one of Bush’s main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network and Saddam’s regime.

Dick Cheney and others, who advocated the use of sleep deprivation, isolation, stress positions and waterboarding, insist that they were legal.

A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue said that Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld demanded that the interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration.

Now we also know that CIA interrogators waterboarded two alleged top al Qaida detainees repeatedly – Abu Zubaydah at least 83 times in August 2002 and Khalid Sheik Muhammed 183 times in March 2003.

The former intelligence official said:  “there was constant pressure on the intelligence agencies and the interrogators to do whatever it took to get that information out of the detainees, especially the few high-value ones we had, and when people kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s people to push harder. Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s people were told repeatedly, by CIA and by others, that there wasn’t any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies.”

Senior administration officials, however, “blew that off and kept insisting that we’d overlooked something, that the interrogators weren’t pushing hard enough, that there had to be something more we could do to get that information,” he said.

Dick Cheney claimed that a senior Iraqi intelligence officer had met Mohammad Atta, the leader of the 9/11 hijackers, in Prague just months before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The FBI and CIA found that no such meeting occurred.

In short: all of the neocon’s efforts to justify the modifications to the U.S. Constitution, the lies leading up to the launching of the war in Iraq, the justification of torture – against both the U.S. and international laws, the diminishing of the American standing in the world, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people – mostly civilians, the black prisons, the expenditures of trillions of dollars and the entire “war on terror” enterprise seemed to have failed all across the board. All we have left now is a really bad taste in our collective mouths, a failed economic system and a huge number of troops deployed throughout the world,  fighting a probably impossible to win war. In addition, we still don’t know for sure the details of what really happened before, during and after 9/11.

After all of this, nobody, except Scooter Libby has been convicted of anything as yet.

There is of course hope that these people – who have invariably and blatantly dared to wear the pins with the American flags in their lapels – will be finally brought to justice. The statements of President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and the efforts of Senator Patrick Leahy and other members of Congress seem to point in that direction.

Just to remind you of whom we are talking about, here’s a short, albeit incomplete list of some of the most influential neocons:

The neocons, who worked directly for Cheney included Scooter Libby, David Addington, John Hannah, and Cathie Martin.

Those under Rumsfeld included Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, Stephen Cambone, William Haynes, John Bolton, and David Wurmser. But there were many more neocons in other key positions, including Elliott Abrams and Richard Perle.

They relied on authorizing memos drafted by lawyers like John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, Jay Bybee, Steven Bradbury, and John Rizzo. David Addington directed the work of these lawyers.

The actual torture was directed by CIA Director George Tenet, whose infamous “slam-dunk” remark about Iraq’s WMD’s now has acquired a double meaning: head-slamming and head-dunking.

The White House Iraq Group (WHIG), led by founder Andy Card and chair Karl Rove masterminded the whole “War on Terror” enterprise, including torture and the insane invasion of Iraq. The other key members were: Karen Hughes, James Wilkinson, Mary Matalin, Nick Calio, Stephen Hadley, Condi Rice, and Ari Fleischer. The invisible powers behind the scenes were Henry Kissinger – who met regularly with Cheney – his partner Paul Bremer, who was chosen by the neocons to destroy Iraq, James Baker, weapons contractor Frank Carlucci, and media baron Rupert Murdoch.

They also worked with a powerful neocon network inside the corporate media, among them with Bill Kristol, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Charles Krauthammer, and Fred Barnes, Judith Miller and Michael Gordon (NY Times), the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, and Joe Scarborough, Pat Buchanan, and Col. Jack Jacobs (MSNBC).

One pundit who deserves special mention is William Safire of the NY Times, who did more than anyone else to create the myth of the Prague Conspiracy between al Qaida and Iraq, based entirely on the fantasies of Laurie Mylroie, Meyrav Wurmser, Frank Gaffney and Michael Ledeen.

Of course George Bush was The Decider who had to sign the ultimate authorizations to nullify the Geneva Conventions and thereby legalize war crimes.

Technorati Tags: bush.cia, crimes, failure, iraq, neocons, prosecution, torture, treason, war

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The U.S. Government has offered a fairly good retirement pension system, called the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) until 1987, when the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) replaced it. What FERS has in effect done was to deprive the millions of Federal workers, who entered the service starting on January 1, 1987 of a viable retirement option, providing a very small pension-like payment and the bulk of the “benefits” locked into the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), which is for the most part a 401(k), stock market-based retirement fund. The government provides matching funds to a limited part of the employee’s contributions.

What is a 401 (k) you might ask? Basically it allows a worker to save for retirement and have the savings invested while deferring current income taxes on the saved money and earnings until withdrawal. Taxes will of course have to be paid when the money is withdrawn after retirement.

When the 401 (k) was created in the 1970s it was meant simply to supplement – like Social Security -  the worker’s retirement fund and also give them the option of managing some of the investments on their own. It was never meant as a substitute for a viable pension.  Probably a good idea at its inception, except that fairly soon the 401 (k) has become the only retirement option for practically all American workers, the pension funds started to disappear and almost everybody was left only with their 401 (k) s and the Social Security, making both of these supplemental and in many cases “emergency” sources of retirement income the de facto rule, rather than the exception.

The way it works in practice is that both the Wall Street and the mutual fund managers have gotten another huge – totaling untold trillions of dollars to date – gift not only from the government, but also from the myriad private companies who have chosen to offer their employees a 401(k) as the only retirement option, instead of a pension. The reason is of course incredibly simple. The 401 (k) is much cheaper both for the government and for the corporations than a pension and it is also very lucrative for the financial industry.

Things were going reasonably well according to some for a while, despite the fact that even with the bullish market the actual 401 (k) balances were laughably small, even in the best of cases totaling enough for a person to live reasonably well for only a few years – far short from most people’s expectations of being able to enjoy retirement for 20, or more years. What really destroyed the hopes of millions of people was the recent Wall Street meltdown, which has practically wiped out even those meager savings, making untold people realize that their hopes of retiring in their late 50s, or early 60s were totally unrealistic and that despite having worked for 20, 30, or even more years, they might have to work until they die. Providing of course that they still had a job.

The original pitch described the 401(k) as a contemporary version of the get-rich-quick scheme: The promise of strolling along a sun-dappled beach in retirement would be easily realized, so long as workers regularly contributed modest amounts to the accounts, then let the compounding magic of the stock market do its work. If you listened to the mutual fund companies and the media, only fuddy-duddies and dinosaur employers would be foolish enough to opt for the old-fashioned defined-benefit pension, the type employers paid for and professional managers oversaw, and which guaranteed monthly payments in old age. According to this propaganda the old-fashioned pensions offered workers security, but would never reward them with riches.

Despite the hype, in 2004 the median 401 (k) balance for people who have contributed to it for more than 20 years was around $60,000, in many cases less that many people’s annual income. And this was the promised get-rich-quick scheme? Now the balance sheets are even lower. Most 401 (k) funds have lost up to 80 percent of their value. The money hasn’t evaporated of course. It simply changed owners. It went directly from your pocket, to some financial charlatan’s account in one way, or another.

We realize that many, or even most people do not have much say, or choice in the matter and might be forced to get a job as a cashier at Target, or Burger King, even though they have worked for a large corporation, or the government for 20, or 30 years and will have to continue working until they drop. Let’s just hope that they still have health insurance, as despite the planned national health insurance reform, the U.S. medical and drug industries will continue to be the most expensive and lucrative enterprises anywhere for many years to come.

About the only saving grace is the fact that the Bush administration’s attempts to make Wall Street the “trustee” of the Social Security were not successful. Otherwise, we would be even deeper in the hole than we already are.

Amazingly enough, these plans were being endorsed at one time not only by the Republicans, but also by otherwise respected scholars, including some prominent academics and many other so-called “smart guys”. In hindsight it seems patently obvious that they were either in the pocket of the financial industry (which of course very much includes the Federal Reserve), or that they were incredibly stupid and naïve.

It would be even better if the government stopped raiding the Social Security fund for its day-to-day expenditures and actually secured the fund, maybe even started contributing to it the trillions of dollars, which it has given to banks, insurance companies and Wall Street investment firms.

Would that be too much to ask? Probably so, since correct and logical solutions seem to go out the window much too often, to be replaced by still another expensive and almost always unsuccessful scheme.

Technorati Tags: 401 (k), Options, Pensions, Retirement, Scam, Social Security, US, Workers

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“The massive losses at AIGFP” – the AIG unit that developed the well-known credit default swaps – “resulted significantly from a shift in a way the unit did business after I left the company in the spring of 2004,” said Greenberg, who was actually ousted in the spring of 2005 by the AIG board, due to a federal fraud investigation.

Greenberg left AIG only months before it became obvious that the credit default swaps – particularly those linked to subprime mortgages, were becoming a major problem. Similiarly, he came to Washington two weeks after the rage over AIG bonuses died down, getting a much gentler reception in Congress than Edward Liddy, the man brought in to clean up the mess.

“Who’s responsible for the fall of AIG?” asked the oversight committee chairman, Edolphus Towns.

“Clearly, the successor management has to be charged with that,” said Greenberg.

Lawmakers failed to elicit a single admission of fault from Greenberg.

AIG’s claim that he misappropriated $4 billion in assets? – “Totally incorrect.”

Couldn’t control the derivatives business? – “Not true at all.”

Congressman Jason Chaffetz brought up the claim by Robert Mundell,  the Nobel Prize-winning economist who named Greenberg as one of “five causes of the crisis.”

“I think he’s wrong,” Greenberg said.

Doesn’t this remind you of all the explanations we have heard from Alan Greenspan about how it wasn’t his fault that the economy and the Wall Street tanked??

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If you have read our posts up to now and watched the videos, you must realize that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and the rest of their administration have a whole lot of explaining to do as far as 9/11, the lies leading up to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, domestic spying, the firing of the U.S. Attorneys, the use of torture, the further deregulation of what they have the gall to call “our financial system” and a whole gamut of other issues.

It appears then that rather than having to explain their deeds in a court of law (let’s not lose hope here), the boys have decided to publish their memoirs in book form.

Bush’s book tentatively titled Decision Points, is scheduled for a 2010 release by Crown.

Instead of telling his life story, Bush will concentrate on about a dozen personal and presidential choices, from giving up drinking (that was probably a mistake, as maybe he wouldn’t have committed all of those errors, while in a drunken stupor) to picking Dick Cheney as his vice president to sending troops to Iraq. He will also write about his relationship with family members, including his father, his religious faith and his disgraceful response to Hurricane Katrina.

We know that George W. Bush has had an extensive experience with books. This photo from the morning of September 11, 2001 is a case in point.

Financial details were not disclosed, although publishers have openly expressed doubt that Bush would receive the $15 million Clinton got for his memoir, My Life.

There are even rumors, that Bush asked Dick Cheney to write the book for him. Andy Borowitz writes: “according to sources close to the former president, Mr. Cheney was his second choice to write the memoir after Mr. Bush was turned down by his first choice, author James Frey.

Known for his reluctance to acknowledge mistakes, Bush said the book would include self-criticism, “Absolutely, yes,” but cautioned that “hindsight is very easy” and that he would make sure readers could view events as he saw them.

“I want to recreate what it was like, for example, right after 9/11,” he said, “and have people understand the emotions I felt and what others around me felt at the time.”

Asked if he might write about the ouster of his first defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, or about his decision not to pardon Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, choices both openly disputed by Cheney, Bush said he didn’t know.

We suppose that if Cheney actually has anything to do with Bush’s book, those chapters may very well have the expected flavor.

Most top officials in the Bush administration, from Condie Rice to Karl Rove, have either completed their books or are in the midst of writing them. Dick Cheney has said he plans to pen a memoir and Laura Bush has a deal with Scribner.

Frankly, what could any of those books tell us that we already don’t know? Will they reveal the true events of 9/11, the “intelligence findings” about supposed WMD’s in Iraq, or how the administration has colluded with the Wall Street crooks? Those would be revelations of the first magnitude, but don’t expect to see any of them in any of these books.

Save your money and buy something actually worth reading and short of supporting Senator Patrick Leahy’s “commission of inquiry” and a much needed investigation by the Justice Department of the eight years of Bush’s and the neocons’ rule, we would much rather forget all of these distasteful characters and just wait for what history will really have to say about them.

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See our earlier posts on the subject:

Cheney War Crimes: Just Look at the Statute

There’s More to Dick Cheney Than Even He Realizes, Pt 1

Fun and Games With Georgie, Dick and Condie

Government-Sponsored Torture, a Stain on America’s Honor

Americans Say ‘Dig Up Those Skeletons, Leahy’

Would You Like To Help Prosecute Bush and Chaney ?

Mr Holder, do you care about the Military Rapes sanctioned by Bush Co ?

Technorati Tags: books, bush, Cheney, Laura Bush, Rice, Rowe

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BadGalsRadio says:

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Welcome to The Cookout..

today we are providing you with a early spring treat. fresh from the innernet tubes. how ever fresh that may be at the moment..

This is 03/26/09’s contribution to the Truth and Fairness Project; by BadGalsRadio.com and Politicus.us.

We are asking all political and human rights bloggers to join us in creating a pool of information on the 9/11 FRAUD.

We will be sending our findings regularly to Atty Gen. Eric Holder; asking for a Special Prosecutor – for Bush Co. Please Won’t You Join Us in Revealing The Truth to Mr Holder, so that the tragedy is documented properly; by those who’ve suffered the most, the survivors.

See our earlier posts on the subject:

• Americans Say ‘Dig Up Those Skeletons, Leahy’
• Would You Like To Help Prosecute Bush and Chaney ?
• Mr Holder, do you care about the Military Rapes sanctioned by Bush Co ?
• Government-Sponsored Torture, a Stain on America’s Honor

today’s buffet style so you just grab what you like

lets start it out with a lil Salad Tossin, why don’t we..

you can also have it supersized if you like, it’s all good today

$648,766,755,124
Iraq War Cost

and then we get to the sides – you can have it with or without sauce. it’s all up to you.

This is with Ketsup..

this is from solarpowerrocks.com

this is info from the National Council for Science and the Environment.

Take a look here. Though the war in Iraq now costs about $120B a year, two authors (one a Nobel prize winner) estimates the total cost of this war exceeds 2 Trillion Dollars.

“Accrued liabilities for U.S. federal employees’ and veterans’ benefits now total $4.5 trillion. Indeed, our debt for veterans’ health and disability payments has risen by $228 billion in the past year alone…

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the interest payments on the money borrowed to finance the Iraq war will total $264 billion to $308 billion.” That $2,000,000,000,000?

Well, that amount of money could’ve built solar thermal plants here that would have provided energy for 2/3rds of our nation’s energy demand.

oooooo that gitmo sized bottle looks like a dealbreaker for the former first lady on the side.

Colin Powell’s former chief of staff: Cheney is ‘evil,’ his fearmongering is ‘assisting’ al Qaeda.

A portion of this was clipped from “Think Progress” Thursday, March 19, 2009 Weeks after President Obama was inaugurated, Dick Cheney gave an interview to Politico slamming Obama’s detainee policies and warning that he was making America less safe (charges he repeated again last Sunday). Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff who left the Bush administration in protest, wrote an essay on the Washington Note last evening slamming Cheney’s fearmongering. Wilkerson calls Cheney “evil” and says his detainee policies were only “assisting” terrorists:

Cheney went on to say in his McLean interview that “Protecting the country’s security is a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business. These are evil people and we are not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek.” I have to agree but the other way around.

Cheney and his like are the evil people and we certainly are not going to prevail in the struggle with radical religion if we listen to people as he. […]

take your pick of these juicy items, remember take as much as you’d like it’s all for youuuu..

this is a short clipping from 911 sharethetruth.com

A Call To All True Patriots to Investigate September 11

We have actively studied the questionable nature of the official version of what happened to our nation on September 11, 2001.

Throughout the first year after 9-11 we ignored and did not believe those who asked us to question the official story. Like millions of Americans we believed America had been attacked by terrorists from abroad.

Sadly, we are now convinced that rogue elements within our government committed a vicious criminal act against its own citizens for the larger purpose of swaying us to support both domestic and foreign policies mapped out in the late 1990’s. 9-11 was Hitler’s Reichstag fire of 1933 and Roosevelt’s Pearl Harbor masterfully coordinated to achieve the desired ends of an imperialistic role for America in the world, patriotic support at home and the erosion of our constitutional rights.

In a nutshell, the war on terrorism is a cruel hoax by a misguided, out-of-democratic control small group of individuals sabotaging the best of American values. We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis combined with severe domination from an Orwellian corporate media knowingly or unknowingly being of service to the true powerbrokers behind the curtain.

okay lets get down to the Meat and Potatoes,

Unplug the War Machine By Facing the Disturbing Truth Behind the Events of September 11, 2001

They lied about Iraq and Afghanistan and just about everything else. Why are we willing to accept their version of 9/11 that made it all possible?

Initially, most of us fell for their version of the events. But then came the slip-ups. The leaseholder of the World Trade Center admitted on PBS in ‘Rebuilding America’ that WTC-7 was ‘pulled‘ on 9/11 (See video here in Windows Media Format), which is the standard slang for controlled demolition. (911 sharethetruth.com)

How Bout a Lil Fish..

this fishing expedition caused us to loose control of our internal politics; and our economy. all over a Ruse. Damn fish stories.. always turn out to be lies. We should have known better.

Studies: Iraq a $12 billion-a-month war

(msnbc)

Lets have a lil Chicken…

this is a part of a piece from MIT

Claims of “victory” and the human cost in the Bush years

then we after offer something for those who don’t like the other meat, take a samplin of this hotdog

HOT DOG !!!

This My Friends is the Steak -

Yowzer – did he say “Held Secretly“; when did he become sheriff of the world ?

It’s Time for Dessert Finally..

Most bitter lesson

(Source: Clipped from Christian Science Monitor)

why it’s Condilicious..

we’ll be presenting our special DICKins edition real soon; and no-doubt it will include lots of assorted Nuts and Screws.

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Here are the links to our previous articles on the subject:

Government-Sponsored Torture, a Stain on America’s Honor

Americans Say ‘Dig Up Those Skeletons, Leahy’

Would You Like To Help Prosecute Bush and Chaney ?

Mr Holder, do you care about the Military Rapes sanctioned by Bush Co ?

Technorati Tags: Cheney, Condie. Bush, conspiracy, Crime, Dick, George, neocons, Rice, war

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We think that this is a commendable initiative. The problem is that the idea hasn’t seemed to catch on for some reason.

The Right calls it a witch-hunt, the Left seems to consider it a cop-out and President Obama appears to wish that it would just go away, saying that he is “more interested in looking forward than in looking back.”

We are posting this new series of reports in conjunction with our friends at BadGalsRadio, who are just as interested as we are in finding the many unanswered questions in this issue.

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For the next week, we will focus on the Truth and how we may be forced to get it, from Dick and Dumber.  We’ve thrown our support behind the movement for a special prosecutor and it’s our humble opinion that we need to act now.

In Essence, to wait will be a national mistake. The crimes are still fresh, and in the minds of the people who were the victims, globally. The blood and reputation of America was spilled in the name of game; so why not see if Game Recognizes Game on the battlefield; of a Truth Commission.

Sen. Patrick Leahy has come up with an agenda and hopes to get the much-needed support of the U.S. citizens; in forming this court and investigating commission.  It is the right of the American people to have the truth about why these two liars could walk away; from such a huge mess.

President Obama must put his support behind Atty Gen Eric Holder’s formation of such a commission; in order to give it the credibility that it will need to remove the years of lies blockading the facts.

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What the hell is going on here? There’s a whole gallery of neocons that begs to be very thoroughly investigated. There are crimes galore to be probed. Unconstitutional and anti-American, not to mention anti-human rights peccadilloes to be probed, uncovered and to hopefully eventually end up as criminal indictments. If we are to continue being a country based on laws, this kind of an investigation is absolutely mandatory.

Senator Leahy, in turn told Time Magazine “It’s a lot easier to look forward if you know what happened in the past.”

As Leahy envisions it, the Truth Commission’s priorities would be to investigate the politicization of prosecution in the Justice Department under former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the wiretapping of U.S. citizens, the flawed and often manufactured intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq, and the use of torture at Guantanamo and so-called black sites abroad. The commission is to be modeled after one that investigated the apartheid regime in South Africa. The panel would have subpoena power but would not bring criminal charges. The South African commission also allowed those testifying to seek immunity from prosecution. That’s kind of too bad, as there are some, who definitively should be prosecuted.

The changing of long-standing policies and having the White House legal office issue de-facto permission for using torture, staining, to say the least the honor of the United States as a whole and so very unfortunately the honor of our armed forces, certainly deserves a thorough inquiry. There is little doubt that the enlisted men and women, who have become almost household names after the photos from the Abu Ghraib prison abuse orgies have surfaced, are not the only ones who should have been punished. How about the members of the Federalist Society – an association of mainly far-right attorneys who gained top positions in the Bush administration, particularly in the Justice Department and were instrumental in producing memos, that in fact changed the entire U.S. Government’s outlook on the Geneva Conventions and paved the way for the use of torture and the disgraceful at times treatment of prisoners, detainees and others labeled with the newly-invented “enemy combatant” category, but also high-ranking military and CIA officers, who have actually embraced those directives?

Remember the Nazi scumbags, who during the Nuremberg trials tried to excuse themselves by saying that “they were ordered to do it”? As we all remember those excuses didn’t work. Why should then somebody else use a similar excuse for the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo excesses, or for outrages committed during the so-called extraordinary renditions?

That’s just one side of the coin, though. The manipulated “intelligence findings”, which allowed the U.S. to invade Iraq are another issue worthy of a thorough investigation.

Let’s not forget the quick, in the-middle-of-the-night approval of the voluminous Patriot Act, the illegal wiretaps and other kinds of domestic spying and on and on.

It certainly does seem like there is a whole lot worth investigating and clearing up here. Why is it then that there seems to be so little interest among the executive branch, Congress and the Justice Department? Why isn’t our new Attorney General Eric Holder lending support to Senator Leahy’s quest?

BadGalsRadio says:

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The Iraq War was not an American conflict - yet we are still paying for it as we live and breathe this moment. President Obama says that his goal is to bring the troops out of Iraq in 16 months, but why should he then move them into Afghanistan?  When will there be enough of this sectarian violence for oil?

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Could it be that the people in power are afraid that a thorough digging through this mess might uncover some very messy skeletons?

Let’s take this issue a bit further. All the way back to September 11, 2001 as a matter of fact.

There are probably more conspiracy theories about 9/11 by now than about the Kennedy assassination and about Area 51, aliens and whether Britney Spears is wearing panties on a given day all put together.

Some are of course total crap, but others make at least some sense. If you have time, watch this video, which I have posted a few weeks ago. I’m sure that some of those arguments don’t hold much water, but others seem at the very least plausible and certainly intriguing. Just make sure you are comfortable, as it is almost 1.5-hours-long.

Let’s get back to the lack of interest and the seeming resistance to support Senator Leahy’s plans to create a commission of inquiry. Could it be that the people in high positions are either afraid to stir the hornet’s nest, or simply don’t want to see some of the details of what really happened on 9/11 to see the light of day?

All we know at this point is what was in the official version of the events. Namely, that Osama bin-Laden’s al-Qaida boys have planned and executed the attacks, using four hijacked airliners. Is that true, or false? And who are we to believe? We will abstain from quoting the numerous theories, suspicions, suppositions and presumptions that are floating around the world – the video alone should give you enough food for thought.

What we would like to finally see is for the U.S. as a country to come clean and discover (if it hasn’t been discovered already) what really and truly happened before, during and after that fateful day in September of 2001. And that is why we support Senator Patrick Leahy’s efforts to conduct an in-depth investigation of what has transpired during the past eight years. We owe it to ourselves, to the troops who have put their lives on the line in the name of the “war on terror”, to their families, to those who have vanished on September 11th and to their families as well.

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BadGalsRadio has posted a follow up on this story. This time about the growing problem of rapes in the U.S. military. The Pentagon said it received 2,923 reports of sexual assault across the military in the 12 months ending Sept. 30 2008. That’s about a 9 percent increase over the totals reported the year before, but only a fraction of the crimes presumably being committed.

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Look here for other reports about the “war on terror”, about the newly-released revelations of torture and prisoner mistreatment and other issues.

Technorati Tags: 9/11, al-qaida, holder, investigation, Iraq War, lack of interest, Leahy, neocons, obama, resistance, truth commission

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His first and greatest challenge and priority was as expected the totally messed up economy, which despite all kinds of broadsides and criticism from the right, he certainly inherited from his predecessor.

In the present economic malaise Mr. Obama’s performance and achievements are being compared at every step with Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s performance at the height of the Great Depression, starting with his inauguration in 1933. It took FDR years and the huge war effort during World War II to actually bring the U.S. economy from the brink of disaster, to being the most powerful entity in the world. President Obama is aiming for a much quicker turnaround. The multi-trillion-dollar “stimulus” and the earlier “bailout” expenditures prove how seriously the present administration is taking its role in this crisis.

Fortunately, not all of the taxpayer’s billions are being channeled to Wall Street and the banks – the real culprits in this economic mess. A good chunk of it has been earmarked for long-overdue health care and education reforms, with the former being considerably more costly. Repairing the U.S. transportation infrastructure – including finally a serious study of developing a fast rail network, which practically every developed country in the world already possesses and fixing and stabilizing the thousands of crumbling highway bridges and overpasses, as well as developing a “smart” energy grid and seriously investing in alternative sources of energy.

Those issues, along with lifting of the restrictions on cell stem research, the decision to close the extraterritorial prison in Guantanamo, banning torture, reversing some of the provisions of the Patriot Act and setting the withdrawal date from Iraq are definitely and without a doubt big achievements in their own right. It in fact appears that Barack Obama has already accomplished more in his first 50 days than George W. Bush in his entire eight years in power.

Why is it then, that some either uninformed, or simply envious members of what the British call “the loyal opposition” are being disloyal? Wouldn’t you call statements such as “I hope he fails”, or placing obstacles to the president’s agenda at every turn as disloyal behavior? Not just disloyal to the president, because that is not really required of the opposition, but disloyal to the country. After all, most of the problems the Obamistas are dealing with didn’t arise overnight, but have been with us for many decades now. They do require fixing, or at least improving not so much for the good of the White House, as for the good of the country at large.

Nobody is asking the “loyal opposition” to rubber-stamp everything, the way things were done in Congress under Bush. Dissent and divergent opinions are not only welcome, but also needed, but just because the members of the opposition feel that they have lost their grasp on power (which is more than true), doesn’t mean that they have to behave like spoiled brats.

So, get over it “loyal oppositionists”. You have been trounced in the election and for a very good reason. Now it is time for you to actually get to work fixing what you have screwed up, instead of going out on junkets paid for by the K Street lobbyists.

Like it, or not, President Obama gets a strong B+, or maybe even an A- from us for his first 50 days in office. The less than perfect score is mainly, but not solely awarded for his continued push to continue the war in Afghanistan.

Haven’t any of his advisers told the president that nobody has ever won a war over there?

Go check your history books. Alexander the Great managed to conquer the then smallish country and establish a Greek rule over there, but only for a time. The British were totally routed  in the 19^th century and we all know how the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan has ended. Things don’t look any different now. It is definitely time to change the Pakistan/Afghan policy, since the present one obviously isn’t working.

Technorati Tags: agenda, ambitious, crisis, Economy, obama, opposition, politics, republicans

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Funny, but in 2007 almost everyone thought that things were honky dory.

Doesn’t sound good, does it? The largest trade decline in 80 years! This is serious stuff, when you realize that 80 years ago globalization was pretty much in its infancy.

At the same time, it is hard to imagine the present economic crisis to encompass practically the entire world – the developed and the not so developed countries – without globalization. The toxic assets would not have spread throughout the world, which, like now, has not yet embraced globalization. Yes, folks, the banks and all the other visible and invisible financial webs are so incredibly intertwined, that when the greedy bastards from Wall Street screw up, or just plain steal, they take down with them continent, after continent.

Speaking of Wall Streeters and other interconnected branches of the globalized economy, we have recently read in interesting article in the Washington Post, describing how some out of work, but still rich financiers are tackling the recession. Here’s an excerpt:

Poor guy – surfing lessons, dancing, snowboarding in the Alps, the Amazon, etc, etc.

It’s nice to have money. Some of it is probably mine and maybe yours too.

In the meantime, lets get back to the World Bank report:

The World Bank paper says that 94 out of 116 developing countries have experienced a slowdown in economic growth. Of these countries, 43 have high levels of poverty.

Just think what the depression will do to them. People, who had almost nothing, will now have even less. And you thought you had it bad?

Technorati Tags: Economy, money, obama, unemployment

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Just a parting thought for the night:

We keep hearing all kinds of comments on the present economic crisis, from “this is socialism”, “Obama is a communist”, “this is Obama’s crisis” and so forth.

Just to set the record straight: Barack Obama took office some 45 days ago. The economic crisis has started at least several years before. The first “socialist”, or “communist” bailouts took place under the Bush 43 administration.

We don’t agree with the policy of bailing out the very institutions that have caused the problem in the first place. We didn’t agree with them under Bush and we still don’t agree with them under Obama.

It seems though that now at least SOME of the huge amounts of money are being channelled to certain useful causes, such as repairing the crumbling infrastructure, exploring energy alternatives, improving health care, etc.

What does set us on edge is the fact that the Truth Commission proposed by Senator Patrick Leahy is not receiving nearly enough of badly needed support and that the cells of Guantanamo are not at this very moment being filled with the Wall Street white collar criminals, who should have by now been rounded up, tried and sentenced.

Technorati Tags: 45 days in office, conservatives, crisis, Economy, obama

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Here’s a big thank you for all of our top Entrecard droppers for February, 2009.

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Faith and Facts -30

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Politics 2000 – 30

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Thank you all! Please keep coming back!

And now an even more important category, we think.  The number of clicks of our ads on your blogs:

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Have also received an ad display from the WalkingNewspaper, for being one their top droppers.

Thank you all again!

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Despite the fact that the United States still has the largest rail network in the world, unlike many other developed and even undeveloped countries, our passenger rail service leaves a whole lot to be desired, mainly because it is more profitable for the railroads to carry freight, rather than people. Read more on that in our guest post at  Phuck Politics.

The funny thing about the project is that despite some real need to improve the passenger rail service in the Northeast Corridor, between Washington, New York and Boston where the Amtrak Acela service crawls along, instead of flying, there are some other plans afoot.

Why aren’t the Acelas flying, you might ask? The reason is rather simple: the Acela trains were actually built four inches (10cm) wider than they should, reducing the permissible tilt on the turns from 6.5 to 4.2 degrees, effectively reducing the speed on large sections of the Northeast Corridor. At issue is basically the fact that it has been determined that a more pronounced tilt, at a higher speed could be dangerous if two trains were traveling in opposite directions on the same turn. So, the Washington, to Boston trip, which could have and should have taken just over three hours, if everything was copasetic, takes over six hours. That is not high-speed rail by our definition, not in the 21^st century, anyway.

There are also many other needed route improvements throughout the U.S., including in the Midwest and along the West Coast. All of those seemed to have been dwarfed by the urgent need to build a 300 mph magnetic levitation train (maglev) – similar to the German/Chinese super-fast route in Shanghai – from Disneyland, to Las Vegas.

Just think what a super-fast and the world’s longest so far maglev rail line between the cute, but kitschy Magic Kingdom and the not so cute and even kitschier Sin City could do to improve our dire passenger rail situation. Sounds like a great idea. Don’t you think? I am already trying to envision Mickey Mouse, dressed as a Nevada hooker, with gambler’s gold bracelets and chains here. That logo could and should be prominently displayed on the new trains, so there is absolutely no doubt about what we are dealing with here. Are you listening Harry Reid? Did you coordinate this great idea with Amtrak Joe first?

Is the line going to include extensions, leading high-speed trains to the whorehouses of Nevada as well? We sure hope so. Just think of all of those needy customers, already pumped up with Viagra, Levitra and other erectile dysfunction remedies rushing along, trying to make it there under four hours. We all have heard warnings that “if your erection lasts more than four hours, get medical help right away”. Maybe the trains should have fully staffed onboard emergency rooms? The Cleveland Clinic warns that: “Priapism is a persistent, usually painful, erection that lasts for more than four hours and occurs without sexual stimulation. The condition develops when blood in the penis becomes trapped and unable to drain. If the condition is not treated immediately, it can lead to scarring and permanent erectile dysfunction.”

Those trains better be fast and on time. We would hate to see all of those gold chain and bracelet-wearing dumbos develop any “scarring and permanent erectile dysfunction”. That might negatively impact the Nevada whorehouse industry and along with that the all-important casino enterprises, which by the way did not appear to receive any DIRECT financial assistance from the stimulus bill so far, with the exception of the possibility of the magnetic levitation rail line, of course.

Viva Viagra!

Technorati Tags: disneyland, hookers, kitsch, las vegas, levitra, maglev, magnetic levitation, protitution, rail, train, viagra, whore houses

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How could any legislator worth his salt even consider voting on a very serious piece of legislation, without actually reading it? Lets not forget that many of those, who have obediently voted for the Patriot Act are still members of Congress. How can that be tolerated?

That was during the supposed “emergency” caused by the events of 9/11. The latest no-read vote was held because of the economic “emergency”.

The $787-billion “stimulus” plan was signed, after being negotiated largely in closed -door sessions, with only a very limited number of physical copies available. Lawmakers had less than 24 hours to review the over 1,000-page bill before the vote was taken – hardly enough time to read a bill with such critical implications for our economy.

The “stimulus” bill is full of convoluted and almost impenetrable language -including more than 100 uses of one form or another of the word ”except.”

In short: there are the haves and the have-nots. The billionaires and millionaires are the haves and that qualifies them to be the puppet masters – with the rest of us playing the role of puppets.

Just because some non-tax paying “expert” says that the government is the one and only entity, which can bailout the haves, doesn’t make it a fact. But facts and reality do not of course have anything to do with it. They have the control not only over the money supply and printing of it and we, the puppets can only bitch about it and pay our taxes to the Federal Reserve, which will be more than happy to loan the money back to the government at the interest rate of their choice.

And so it goes, except now in much larger, and in fact unprecedented amounts – larger than probably almost any expenditure that the U.S. has made during its entire history – even when it is adjusted for inflation.

Let’s not forget the earlier “bailout” payments to Wall Street and the banks and the planned additional $2 trillion, or even larger “helping hand” that Secretary of the Treasury Geithner has mentioned not that long ago.

Long live transparency, accountability and the democratic system!

And for those with a lot of time o their hands, we offer the full, after-the-fact text of the House Stimulus bill.

Technorati Tags: bailout, banks, change, federal reserve, obama, stimulus, transparency, washington

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The stimulus plan also includes some provisions for reforming the U.S. health care system. Unfortunately, the main trust of the reform appears to be the digitizing of health records and not that much more.

The real problem appears to be the fact that even though we spend more per capita for health care than any other nation, according to the World Health Organization, we rank 37^th in the overall quality of health care and we’re 29^th in the area of infant mortality and last among 19 industrialized nations in preventable deaths.

We actually spend about $2.3 trillion a year for health care and despite that fact have only these dismal statistics to show for it.

An average of 195,000 people in the USA died due to potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors in each of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002, according to a study of 37 million patient records that was released by HealthGrades, the health care quality company.

Read some of our earlier posts on the subject

If You Think that $700 Billion is a Lot, Read This

More Beefs About US Medical Care

U.S. Health Care and Diet Reform Are Long Overdue

At this juncture some 50 million Americans are uninsured and 50 more million are denied proper coverage by their insurance companies. Polls show that among all industrial nations Americans are the least satisfied with the quality of their health care.

Canada’s universal single-payer health system has been in operation for about 25 years now and despite some criticism emanating from our side, both the physician and the patient’s satisfaction levels are quite a bit higher.

It has been estimated that if we implemented the Canadian model in the U.S.,  all Americans would have good, or at least adequate health coverage at a much lower cost.

The last attempt to reform the U.S. health care system was defeated, mainly because the insurance companies and the K Street lobbyists worked very hard to keep the present status quo.

These entities have tried very hard to convince Congress and the American people that the Canadian model was in fact inferior to ours, which some people have the gall of calling the “very best in the world”. The actual facts speak for themselves, though. Canadians live longer than Americans, are generally healthier and spend less on their health care.

So it appears that the planned digitization of health records – although probably a good idea – is not nearly enough. Don’t you agree?

Technorati Tags: canada, companies, expensive, Health care, inadequate, insurance, lobbyists, needed, pharmaceutical, reform, system, US

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Don’t let the measly $790-billion figure fool you into complacency. You can already add the $700-billion cost of the earlier Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), which by my calculations brings the total to $1.49 trillion.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner – who got his half-million-dollar severance from the New York Federal Reserve Bank and is very much an insider – just like his predecessor Henry Paulson was – has announced that as much as $1 trillion of bad loans still on the books of financial institutions might be bought and another $1 trillion could be made available to boost bank lending. My trusty calculator shows a $3.49-trillion figure already and I’m still not sure if this is the end of it.

Frankly, at this point I have lost track of how large the U.S. national debt is, who do we owe the most money and how in the hell are we supposed to repay these humongous loans and at what interest rates?

Not much information is forthcoming from Mr. Geithner, the Fed, or from any other quarter for that matter. Let’s not forget that all of these people sucking out our assets in order to prop up banks and investment mills are bankers and as such traditionally provide as little information as possible to the press and to the general public. Maybe we should bring back waterboarding, in order to find out where OUR money is actually going and why?

In the meantime, Treasury Secretary Geithner defends his approach and in this TV appearance discounts suggestions that banks should be allowed to go bankrupt. I suppose that throwing good money after the bad is what these people do best…

And in closing watch and listen to a refreshingly candid assessment of Geithner, the Federal Reserve and other issues from Congressman Ron Paul.
Why didn’t we elect him to the office of president?

Technorati Tags: approved, federal reserve, geithner, lack of transparency, now what?, stimulus, treasury, US

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Watch how the learned professor draws a chart of the decreasing purchasing power of the dollar, the rising cost of commodities and the consequent rise in the stock market index. Amazing that some people would actually believe this crud. At the same time, see how similar the scenario of 1933 is to our present debacle.

Rising debt, ever-rising cost of almost everything and of course, since we got off the gold standard in 1933 – no real value to the dollar. Now the government (read the Federal Reserve) can print as many nearly worthless dollars as they want and nobody is even going to question them about it.

Anyway, take a look at the video and draw your own conclusions.

Technorati Tags: debt, fdr, great depression, inflation, lies, propaganda, prosperity, recession, rising, roosevelt

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Barack Obama has been characterized as another right of center, liberal, corporate chief executive. We would tend to agree.

The very first official act of his administration was to sign an executive order prohibiting any restrictions on using taxpayer’s money to continue bailing out Wall Street. That alone should point where his real priorities lie.

He has also issued other executive orders, among them a ban on torture, closing of the Guantanamo prison and others.

Has (along with Hillary Clinton) named special envoys to the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan and a climate envoy. Has issued orders to draw down and eventually end the disastrous Iraqi adventure. Unfortunately, increasing the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan is being planned – a totally wrong approach to the problem – and CIA’s Predators continue to strike people (guilty and otherwise) across the border in Pakistan.

Mr. Obama’s economic team consists of relative fiscal conservatives – if you can call them that – the same people, who were already deeply involved in the failure of the Wall Street and in the deregulation efforts. As an example: Larry Summers was very closely involved with Alan Greenspan and was one of the people, which has spoken against regulating the “derivatives” trading. The new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is the former president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. If that isn’t enough to raise some red flags, what is?

There’s also been talk of making the Federal Reserve the overseer of the financial bailout, stimulus, or whatever you want to call it. Is that any different from naming the fox as the guardian of the chicken coop, or having Wall Street as the “trustee” of the Social Security system?

It’s been only a week, and the score sheet definitely shows some mixed results. Lets wait and see how things look down the road.

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But what is this institution in reality? Even though most people assume that the Fed is another U.S. Government agency, the reality is that the Federal Reserve is a privately owned bank with 10 private members. At this point the citizens of the United States owe these people at least $10 trillion.

And who might you ask are these 10 private members? Here’s the list:

Rothschild Bank of London

Warburg Bank of Hamburg

Rothschild Bank of Berlin

Lehman Brothers of New York

Lazard Brothers of Paris

Kuhn Loeb Bank of New York

Israel Moses Seif Banks of Italy

Goldman, Sachs of New York

Warburg Bank of Amsterdam

Chase Manhattan Bank of New York

All are by a strange (?) coincidence owned by the Rothschilds.

A central bank existed in England as far back as 1694. The Rothschilds completely dominate the banking system. It is estimated their wealth goes into the trillions.

Baron Nathan Mayer Rothschild boasted at one time:

“I care not what puppet is placed upon the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man that controls Britain’s money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply.”

Well, baron, it appears that it isn’t just the British money supply. Is it?

How did it happen that the Federal Reserve got weaseled into the U.S. financial system? As it turns out it is really quite simple.

The idea came about at a meeting on Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia in 1910. The bankers in this country, especially J.P. Morgan, created a currency panic in 1907 in order to get the American people to accept the idea of a central bank and in 1913 that idea has become a reality.

The American people pay hundreds of billions of dollars per year to the much-hated IRS, which is the collection agency for the Federal Reserve.

In 1916, three years after he was duped to allow the creation of the Federal Reserve President Woodrow Wilson was saying:

“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world-no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small amount of dominant men.”

There are also many statements uttered by earlier presidents, including Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and others on the subject of having a central bank. Not surprisingly, every one of them was very much against creating such a parasitic institution.

Maybe it is time not to create hugely expensive bailouts (who are we bailing out with our money, anyway?), or equally huge “stimulus” packages, but re-evaluate our dependence on the Federal Reserve and it’s affiliates.

Much more extensive information on the reality of how the U.S. Central Bank operates can be found elsewhere and you should look up this information on your own, if you are interested. The myriad and numerous details would be beyond the scope of this short article.

In the meantime, you might be interested in viewing this longish, but very informative video and draw your own conclusions:

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Also, why does ABC television still persist in having poor Dick Clark take part in this silly exercise, calling it Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest? I did watch just for a few minutes and must say that there wasn’t really anything worth watching in that show. Seacrest was blabbing away along with Lionel Ritchie, passing the baton to Clark every few minutes. Some “reporter’ kept interviewing carefully screened spectators in the mindless, Hollywood/Entertainment Tonight style of “reporting”.

By the way, the chilled crowds were controlled to make sure order was preserved and dressed in product endorsements to make sure the economy survived.

Although the New Year arrived in regular, one-hour intervals throughout the world, the Times Square extravaganza organizers, along with ABC tried to make it seem like it was only happening in Times Square and as if the Big, Rotten Apple was the center of the World.

We believe that it would be appropriate only if the central entertainment of the New York celebration was an event in which carefully chosen, from among the guiltiest of Wall Street “smart guys” were tied to whipping posts, given at least fifty lashes each and then gotten tarred and feathered. It would be a much more entertaining, just and popular event that the silly dropping of the ball.

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If you think that the sub-prime mortgage issue and the derivatives and other “financial products” scams are the main issue here, just wait a bit. I assure you that this is just the tip of the iceberg. It is almost a certainty that fairly soon we will “discover’ the true scope of the callous, often incredibly stupid and enormously costly financial crimes committed during the last few years.

On Friday, December 19, 2008, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson called on Congress to release the second $350 billion, saying that the $14-billion bailout of the U.S. automakers has exhausted the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

Excuse, me Mr. Paulson, but none of us have the slightest idea where the first $350 billion went. Who got it and why? Are you simply trying to bail out your Wall Street buddies?

On a related note, why is the former chairman of the NASDAQ stock market Bernard Madoff, and as of late the chairman of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC only under house arrest, bracelets and all? Why hasn’t the scumbag been thrown into a damp cell somewhere, while the feds – who have so obviously totally dropped the ball on him – try to squeeze the criminal bastard, in order to recover at least some of the $50, or so billions that he stole from all kinds of people over the years, while running his Ponzi scheme?

Even though I am no great fan of American cars, why was it so hard to shell out $14, or $17 billion on them and so incredibly easy to “bail out” the financial manipulators, who have in fact contributed more than anyone to this economic meltdown?

Both the Treasury and the Fed seem inexplicably reluctant to release any specific information as to whom the money has gone so far, saying that it is a “secret’.

I got news for you, guys. The money isn’t yours, but mine and I and all the rest of the American taxpayers, who shelled it out, have an unalienable right to know what the hell you are doing with OUR money and whether we are actually going to get it back, or whether it will it once again disappear into the cesspool, which our government officials insist on calling “our financial system”.

P.S. The day after the posting of this article, the Associate Press reported that most of the Wall Street firms, which have received hundreds of billions of dollars of our money still own and use fleets of corporate executive jets. Yes, folks, AIG, Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley all still own jets, which are being used for business, personal and pleasure trips by its executives. Pretty sweet,  wouldn’t you say? We pay them and they fly to golf, ski and dine.

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That is not really surprising, but how about the remaining 29 percent? Who could possibly be happy with his performance, or lack of it?

The poll also indicates that support for the war in Iraq has never been lower. Thirty percent of those questioned favored the war, while 68 percent opposed it.

Once again, we wonder, who are these people, encapsulated in the 30-percent figure…

Could they be daft? Or totally uninformed? Probably all of the above.

Lets get back to the miserable 29 percent of those, who DO approve of the president’s performance. We assume that those people enjoy the economic meltdown, the torture issue, which has stained our national honor, the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, the ravages wrought upon our environment and so forth.

In closing, we wonder if such patriots parade around with American flag pins prominently stuck in their lapels…

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The rest of the cleanup is done with traditional tools: rakes and brooms. Do any of you own one of these very efficient, non-polluting, low-tech implements?

Los Angeles has already implemented a ban on gas leaf blowers and the whole area has very quickly become a much more pleasant place to live. No more roaring blowers, no more toxic two-cycle exhaust fumes and no more clouds of dust. Check out the Zero Air Pollution (ZAPLA) website on this issue.

Considering the fact that the leaf blowers are not really a very efficient way of removing leaves – in my personal experience, only marginally easier to use than a good rake – the deafening noise and pollution that they produce is really not a worthwhile price to pay. I could say pretty much the same for gas-powered weed whackers, which I have refused to buy for all these years for the same reasons, opting instead to continue using a variety of hand tools, including a very old machete, which when properly sharpened is an incredibly efficient and satisfying tool to use.

Using these power implements probably harkens to the same mentality that has created what is called “a very efficient” agriculture in the U.S. “Efficient”? Not when you take into account the amount of energy and pollution that the myriad agricultural machines consume and produce. How about the often deadly for the environment artificial fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides? Don’t even get me started on the genetically modified plants and animals, or the corn ethanol, or the high fructose corn syrup and all the other so-called benefits of our industrialized “civilization”.

Maybe the economic meltdown, along with rising energy prices (don’t let the temporary reduction in the price of oil fool you), along with (hopefully) more stringent and responsible environmental regulations under the Obama administration will change our perception of what is efficient and correct to use. And if all goes well, gas-powered leaf blowers will become regulated to a degree, where we will seldom, if ever have to put up with their annoying roar.

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Post tags: blowers, gas, leaf, noise, not, pollution, useful

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Personally, I do not see (and haven’t seen for decades) even one vehicle offered by GM, Ford, or Chrysler in the U.S., that I would be even remotely interested in owning. The cost of fuel is certainly part of the problem, but there is so much more. Lets list a few of the problems: Lousy handling: That has been corrected to a large degree in the past few years. Even the most blatant example of the “great American boat ride”, namely Cadillac has in the past few years totally redesigned their cars, making them fast and tight and zippy. But do we really need the Caddy Escalade, particularly in the pickup configuration? How about the Lincoln LT pickup?

Lousy quality: Remember the Ford Pinto, the Chevy Chevette and Vega, the American Motors Pacer and Gremlin and a host of other truly crappy vehicles? GM’s TWO Speed automatic transmission was a true classic of brainlessness. How about Chrysler’s line of “muscle cars” of the 60s and 70s? If I remember correctly neither the Charger, nor the Challenger, or the Barracuda were anything more than a huge engine, installed into a cheap, rattling and a distinctly non-durable body, with a suspension not much more advanced than a horse drawn buggy.

Many years ago I owned an International Harvester Scout. An almost reasonably sized predecessor to today’s SUVs. The thing looked tough and rugged, had a small V8 engine and a four-speed manual transmission, large knobby tires and a winch. A real macho machine. Right? Wrong! It was the very last American vehicle that I bought. The thing would shut down when it rained and wouldn’t restart until the weather cleared. The dealer replaced the ignition system three, or four times, until he finally got it right. The “rugged” rear drive shaft broke in half, while accelerating a bit too fast from a red light. One day the gearshift lever just came off and I was incredulously left holding a long, bent steel rod, with a knob on the end. And if that wasn’t enough, about a year after buying this new vehicle, I noticed rust holes in the vehicle’s body, just above the rear wheels. Looked underneath and gasped. There was nothing, not even a suggestion of a lining in the wheel well. In short: everything kicked up by the big, knobby tires went straight up in between the body panels – which of course were not even painted and certainly not rustproofed – and ate them up. That’s what I call “good design” and “quality” folks. Can you blame me for not falling for another piece of Detroit iron since that time?

At the same I admire and like a host of well-built American cars from the 30s, 40s and 50s. Has it really been that long since they offered us some quality products?

The sad truth is that pretty much all of the U.S. automakers have been actually designing and producing pretty good vehicles all along, except that most of them never see the U.S. market.

Take for example the very well built Ford Mondeo. Reasonably pretty, with good handling, comfortable, with crisp steering, etc. Of course some 70 percent of Mondeos sold in Europe are equipped with diesel engines – something that we in the U.S. can only salivate about – and despite Mondeo’s relatively hefty (by European standards) weight, the diesel still provides a pretty good mileage. Unfortunately, Ford Mondeo is built at Ford’s plant in Genk, Belgium, and the decline in the dollar’s value against the euro makes the prospect of exporting this car to the U.S. utterly untenable.

Even the otherwise decent Chrysler minivans are only available with a diesel option in Europe, but not in the U.S.

In short: the Big Three U.S. automakers have been forcing the huge, gas guzzling (and profitable for the manufacturers) SUVs down the American public’s throats for a great many years now. The bigger-the-better mentality has been with us for much too long.

Overall, there has been not nearly enough of an emphasis on quality and certainly not on environmental consciousness in the past several decades. The quality problems are not limited to the auto industry, but to our overall business “strategies”. Saving a few pennies has become more important than building something well and planned obsolescence has become still another tool to keep the corporate profits up, while simultaneously screwing everybody else.

That said, I see no reason to pump billions, or even trillions of dollars into any industry, which has for many years now tried to steal money from all of us. If we are to have a free market system, propping up the corporations – in particular the financial industry – is certainly not the way to go about it.

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Only a few major financial institutions still have national headquarters on Wall Street. Many have moved over the years to new offices in other parts of Manhattan or New Jersey, or Iowa and South Dakota. Others have mercifully gone under, unfortunately taking with them billions of our dollars.

Wall Street has become an increasingly residential strip of late. You are more likely to run into runners, baby carriages, or fitness clubs than a stretch limo-driven Wall Street multi-millionaire here. Those are safely ensconced in their mansions in the Hamptons, or wherever, where they can count their remaining millions, or even billions in quiet, luxury and peace.

It is rather doubtful that any of these people care in the least about what the damage that they have caused has cost millions of ordinary people in dozens of countries. It also seems pretty doubtful that any of these miscreants will ever get properly punished. They certainly have enough money to hire the best defense lawyers and enough influence in high places to be able to avoid prosecution altogether.

Over the past few weeks, most of us have seen photos and videos of Wall Street traders, ripping their hair out, or slumping in utter dejection. Should we feel sorry for these guys and consider them victims of their super-rich and crooked bosses, or rather judge them as part of the problem?

As far as we can tell, the jury is still out on that…

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Journalists are usually more attuned to working in the present tense, for the past few weeks explaining to us all of the seldom-heard terms, such as mortgage-backed securities, credit swaps, derivatives and so forth. That’s all fine and dandy and informative, but since the media seems to be totally concentrated on covering today’s, or yesterday’s events, in particular those that are outrageous in some way, a lot of these economic woe and outrage stories haven’t been talked about very much until the bottom fell out of Wall Street and out of the associated financial mills.

Both the public and the government would have been much better served, if the media has warned us about what was coming – on the basis of all kinds of existing facts – a year ago, or five years ago, or even 10 years ago.

The Washington Post reported on October 15, 2008:” [Brooksley E.] Born [head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission] wanted to shine a light into the dark. She had offered no specific oversight plan, but after months of making noise about the dangers that this enormous market posed to the financial system, she now wanted to open a formal discussion about whether to regulate them – and if so, how.

Greenspan, Rubin and Levitt were determined to derail her effort. Privately, Rubin had expressed concern about derivatives’ unruly growth. But he agreed with Greenspan and Levitt that these newer contracts, often called “swaps,” weren’t exactly futures. Born’s agency did not have legal authority to regulate swaps, the three men believed, and her call for a discussion had real-world consequences: It would cast doubt over the legality of trillions of dollars in existing contracts and create uncertainty over how to operate in the market.

At the April meeting, the trio’s message was clear: Back off, Born…”

The reported meeting took place in April of 1998. Why did the media wait 10 years, before reporting this? These were of course Clinton administration’s officials and it is quite obvious that the meltdown and the total lack of oversight is not the exclusive domain of the Bush 43 administration. There is also no doubt that the present day officials are at least as guilty and probably more so that Alan Greenspan and his boys.

Although there have been some few and far between media reports about the new financial methods, instruments and machinations, they have never been given nearly enough prominence, neither on television, the radio, or in the newspapers. As usual, the best one in this regard was probably National Public Radio, but very few of the mainstream media even bothered to try to warn anyone, possibly because they didn’t want to “rock the boat” of our virtual prosperity. I am sure that nobody wanted to be blamed for puncturing the housing, or the Wall Street bubble, even though quite a few people have said that this situation could not last forever.

For the past few years we have been hearing all kinds of enthusiastic reports about the Dow reaching record heights, about insane prices of real estate and so forth. Hardly any mention of what all of this was really based on. Nobody seemed to be interested in delving a little deeper, finding out (as if it wasn’t pretty obvious) and informing the public that these figures weren’t in fact real, but virtual, based on hype, lies and greed. It took the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Fannie and Freddie, AIG and others for the media to actually get off their fat butts and report.

Just think that most of the present meltdown could have possibly been averted if the news media was more interested in getting to the root of the stories, instead of the usual sensational events, such as Britney’s panties, or their lack thereof, or how Paris Hilton was fairing after her DUI arrest, or how well in fact the U.S. economy was doing.

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