mickrussom

Andrew Klavan at Pajama Media

2011-10-15T05:19:00.000-07:00

Andrew Klavan: The Facts of Life for Liberals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLr2if-BdA4

Andrew Klavan's Talking Crap 3: ABSOLUTE CRAP!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG2OHTORppE

Andrew Klavan: Behold! Your Public Sector Unions at Work
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su4PwZCWUdg

Andrew Klavan's Economic Smackdown: Paul Ryan vs. Barack Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr9pAsH-1Ao

Klavan's One-State Solution: Give the Middle East to the Jews
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIEeiDjdUuU

Andrew Klavan: Why Do Blacks Vote for Democrats?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9ZpD34Xk3M

Andrew Klavan: Michele Bachmann Makes a Gaffe!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3h1-VdNXw8

PJTV: Andrew Klavan's Rules for Wannabe Pundits
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-7LSheIb8Q

PJTV's Andrew Klavan: Are You A Racist? A Frank Conversation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7stz35gN44

Andrew Klavan: Barack the Magic Suit, A Political Fairy Tale.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOmTH1fIhBE

Andrew Klavan: PBS Exposed! Hidden Camera Rocks Sesame Street
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmhzAUYLU90

Andrew Klavan: The Extremists are Coming!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx_I1lzJ94w

Andrew Klavan: How to Behave During an Islamic Massacre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKerbOi_mrI

Andrew Klavan: Stop the Hate!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TJ7OGl4CGw

What's the Matter With America? (Soros, Huffington, Maher, & Olbermann Can't Be Wrong)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee35SdRS5Oo

Andrew Klavan: The Hilarious World of Abortion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AGaufgGzC8

Andrew Klavan: The Highway to Hell, Leftist Remix Edition
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3DhquH12jQ

Andrew Klavan: The History of Western Culture in 2 1/2 Minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrhCivQrrRQ

Andrew Klavan analyzes the Barack Obama stimulus package in his very serious commentary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJDRZVZ0vTE

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Rips Into His American Cusotmers.

2010-09-24T01:48:00.001-07:00

Q: "Are you concerned that American Netflix subscribers will look north and ask for the same discount Canadians get at $7.99?"

Reed Hastings (A): "How much has it been your experience that Americans follow what happens in the world? It's something we'll monitor, but Americans are somewhat self-absorbed."

In response to Reed Hastings calling his American customers "self absorbed" I think he is a god damned ungrateful puke that takes our money, craps on us and drives around in expensive vehicles, etc, living the high life while stepping on the backs of hardworking Americans that solicit his business. This kind of disgusting behavior makes ME SICK, and Ill be sure to let everyone I know how little Reed Hastings thinks of the Netflixing Americans out there.

Its unbelievable that these lucky rats in business sit there and think they are in command of the throne of God - check Zuckerberg laughing at us thinking our stuff is secure and private on Facebook -

"They trust me — dumb fucks," says Zuckerberg in one of the instant messages, first published by former Valleywag Nicholas Carlson at Silicon Alley Insider, and now confirmed by Zuckerberg himself in Jose Antonio Vargas's New Yorker piece.

We are just "dumb fucks" to him.

You see these lucky instant billionaires start thinking that they are better, and that WE THE PEOPLE, we the meek, are somehow lesser and should be treated poorly.

The most disgusting thing about these people is they extract wealth from WE THE PEOPLE, but they seem to like to spit in our face.

My wish for today is Reed Hastings gets a horrible aggressive cancer, they he can find out he will die like the rest of us self-absorbed American assholes he takes money from.

World Bank says don't take dollar's place for granted

2009-07-31T11:09:00.000-07:00

World Bank says don't take dollar's place for granted

Sun Sep 27, 2:18 pm ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) – World Bank President Robert Zoellick said the United States should not take the dollar's status as the world's key reserve currency for granted because other options are emerging.

In excerpts released on Sunday from a speech that he is to deliver on Monday, Zoellick said global economic forces were shifting and it was time now to prepare for the fact that growth will come from multiple sources.

"The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar's place as the world's predominant reserve currency," he said. "Looking forward, there will increasingly be other options."

Zoellick said that a meeting of Group of 20 rich and developing countries in Pittsburgh on Thursday and Friday had made "a good start" toward increased global cooperation but they will have accept global monitoring of their activities.

"Peer review will need to be peer pressure," he said.

Zoellick said that the G20, as the new chief forum for international economic cooperation, also must not forget the 160 countries left outside its structure and should try to open opportunity for them.

"We need a system of international political economy that reflects a new multi-polarity of growth," Zoellick said. It needs to integrate rising economic powers as 'responsible stakeholders' while recognizing that these countries are still home to hundreds of millions of poor and face staggering challenges of development.".

THE GREAT AMERICAN BUBBLE MACHINE - By MATT TAIBBI - Rolling Stone (Current Issue, July (9-23) 2009) - and two other articles by Matt Taibbi

2009-07-02T14:52:00.001-07:00

THE GREAT AMERICAN BUBBLE MACHINE - By MATT TAIBBI - Rolling Stone (Current Issue, July (9-23) 2009) - and two other articles by Matt Taibbi.

"It's a gangster state, running on gangster economics, and even prices can't be trusted anymore; there are hidden taxes in every buck you pay"

THE GREAT AMERICAN BUBBLE MACHINE

From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression - and they're about to do it again

By MATT TAIBBI

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.

By now, most of us know the major players. As George Bush's last Treasury secretary, former Goldman CEO Henry Paulson was the architect of the bailout, a suspiciously self-serving plan to funnel trillions of Your 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 rear end in a top hat chief of Merrill Lynch who bought an $87,000 area rug for his office as his company was imploding; a former Goldman banker, Thain enjoyed a multibillion-dollar handout from Paulson, who used billions in taxpayer funds to help Bank of America rescue Thain's sorry company. And Robert Steel, the former Goldmanite head of Wachovia, scored himself and his fellow executives $225 million in golden parachute payments as his bank was self-destructing. There's Joshua Bolten, Bush's chief of staff during the bailout, and Mark Patterson, the current Treasury chief of staff, who was a Goldman lobbyist just a year ago, and Ed Liddy, the former Goldman director whom Paulson put in charge of bailed-out insurance giant AIG, which forked over $13 billion to Goldman after Liddy came on board. The heads of the Canadian and Italian national banks are Goldman alums, as is the head of the World Bank, the head of the New York Stock Exchange, the last two heads of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York - which, incidentally, is now in charge of overseeing Goldman - not to mention ...

But then, any attempt to construct a narrative around all the former Goldmanites in influential positions quickly becomes an absurd and pointless exercise, like trying to make a list of everything. What you need to know is the big picture: If America is circling the drain, Goldman Sachs has found a way to be that drain - an extremely unfortunate loophole in the system of Western democratic capitalism, which never foresaw that in a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.

The bank's unprecedented reach and power have enabled it to turn all of America into a giant pump-and-dump scam, manipulating whole economic sectors for years at a time, moving the dice game as this or that market collapses, and all the time gorging itself on the unseen costs that are breaking families everywhere - high gas prices, rising consumer-credit rates, half-eaten pension funds, mass layoffs, future taxes to pay off bailouts. All that money that you're losing, it's going somewhere, and in both a literal and a figurative sense, Goldman Sachs is where it's going: The bank is a huge, highly sophisticated engine for converting the useful, deployed wealth of society into the least useful, most wasteful and insoluble substance on Earth - pure profit for rich individuals.

They achieve this using the same playbook over and over again. The formula is relatively simple: Goldman positions itself in the middle of a speculative bubble, selling investments they know are crap. Then they hoover up vast sums from the middle and lower floors of society with the aid of a crippled and corrupt state that allows it to rewrite the rules in exchange for the relative pennies the bank throws at political patronage. Finally, when it all goes bust, leaving millions of ordinary citizens broke and starving, they begin the entire process over again, riding in to rescue us all by lending us back our own money at interest, selling themselves as men above greed, just a bunch of really smart guys keeping the wheels greased. They've been pulling this same stunt over and over since the 1920s - and now they're preparing to do it again, creating what may be the biggest and most audacious bubble yet. ...

IF AMERICA IS NOW CIRCLING THE DRAIN, GOLDMAN SACHS HAS FOUND A WAY TO BE THAT DRAIN..

BUBBLE #1 - THE GREAT DEPRESSION
Goldman wasn't always a too-big-to-fail Wall Street behemoth, the ruthless face of kill-or-be-killed capitalism on steroids - just almost always. The bank was actually founded in 1869 by a German immigrant named Marcus Goldman, who built it up with his son-in-law Samuel Sachs. They were pioneers in the use of commercial paper, which is just a fancy way of saying they made money lending out short-term IOUs to small-time vendors in downtown Manhattan.

You can probably guess the basic plotline of Goldman's first 100 years in business: plucky, immigrant-led investment bank beats the odds, pulls itself up by its bootstraps, makes shitloads of money. In that ancient history there's really only one episode that bears scrutiny now, in light of more recent events: Goldman's disastrous foray into the speculative mania of pre-crash Wall Street in the late 1920s.

This great Hindenburg of financial history has a few features that might sound familiar. Back then, the main financial tool used to bilk investors was called an "investment trust." Similar to modern mutual funds, the trusts took the cash of investors large and small and (theoretically, at least) invested it in a smorgasbord of Wall Street securities, though the securities and amounts were often kept hidden from the public. So a regular guy could invest $10 or $100 in a trust and feel like he was a big player. Much as in the 1990s, when new vehicles like day trading and e-trading attracted reams of new suckers from the sticks who wanted to feel like big shots, investment trusts roped a new generation of regular-guy investors into the speculation game.

Beginning a pattern that would repeat itself over and over again, Goldman got into the investment-trust game late, then jumped in with both feet and went hog-wild. The first effort was the Goldman Sachs Trading Corporation; the bank issued a million shares at $100 apiece, bought all those shares with its own money and then sold 90 percent of them to the hungry public at $104. The trading corporation then relentlessly bought shares in itself, bidding the price up further and further. Eventually it dumped part of its holdings and sponsored a new trust, the Shenandoah Corporation, issuing millions more in shares in that fund - which in turn sponsored yet another trust called the Blue Ridge Corporation. In this way, each investment trust served as a front for an endless investment pyramid: Goldman hiding behind Goldman hiding behind Goldman. Of the 7,250,000 initial shares of Blue Ridge, 6,250,000 were actually owned by Shenandoah - which, of course, was in large part owned by Goldman Trading.

The end result (ask yourself if this sounds familiar) was a daisy chain of borrowed money, one exquisitely vulnerable to a decline in performance anywhere along the line ....

BUBBLE #2 - TECH STOCKS
Fast-Forward about 65 years. Goldman not only survived the crash that wiped out so many of the investors it duped, it went on to become the chief underwriter to the country's wealthiest and most powerful corporations. Thanks to Sidney Weinberg, who rose from the rank of janitor's assistant to head the firm, Goldman became the pioneer of the initial public offering, one of the principal and most lucrative means by which companies raise money. During the 1970s and 1980s, Goldman may not have been the planet-eating Death Star of political influence it is today, but it was a top-drawer firm that had a reputation for attracting the very smartest talent on the Street.

It also, oddly enough, had a reputation for relatively solid ethics and a patient approach to investment that shunned the fast buck; its executives were trained to adopt the firm's mantra, "long-term greedy." One former Goldman banker who left the firm in the early Nineties recalls seeing his superiors give up a very profitable deal on the grounds that it was a long-term loser. "We gave back money to 'grownup' corporate clients who had made bad deals with us," he says. "Everything we did was legal and fair - but 'long-term greedy' said we didn't want to make such a profit at the clients' collective expense that we spoiled the marketplace." ...

But then, something happened. It's hard to say what it was exactly; it might have been the fact that Goldman's co-chairman in the early Nineties, Robert Rubin, followed Bill Clinton to the White House, where he directed the National Economic Council and eventually became Treasury secretary. ...

Rubin was the prototypical Goldman banker. He was probably born in a $4,000 suit, he had a face that seemed permanently frozen just short of an apology for being so much smarter than you, and he exuded a Spock-like, emotion-neutral exterior; the only human feeling you could imagine him experiencing was a nightmare about being forced to fly coach. It became almost a national cliche that whatever Rubin thought was best for the economy - a phenomenon that reached its apex in 1999, when Rubin appeared on the cover of Time with his Treasury deputy, Larry Summers, and Fed chief Alan Greenspan under the headline THE COMMITTEE TO SAVE THE WORLD. And "what Rubin thought," mostly, was that the American economy, and in particular the financial markets, were over-regulated and needed to be set free. ...

The basic scam in the Internet Age is pretty easy even for the financially illiterate to grasp. Companies that weren't much more than pot-fueled ideas scrawled on napkins by up-too-late bong-smokers were taken public via IPOs, hyped in the media and sold to the public for megamillions. It was as if banks like Goldman were wrapping ribbons around watermelons, tossing them out 50-story windows and opening the phones for bids. In this game you were a winner only if you took your money out before the melon hit the pavement.

It sounds obvious now, but what the average investor didn't know at the time was that the banks had changed the rules of the game, making the deals look better than they actually were. They did this by setting up what was, in reality, a two-tiered investment system - one for the insiders who knew the real numbers, and another for the lay investor who was invited to chase soaring prices the banks themselves knew were irrational. While Goldman's later pattern would be to capitalize on changes in the regulatory environment, its key innovation in the Internet years was to abandon its own industry's standards of quality control.

"Since the Depression, there were strict underwriting guidelines that Wall Street adhered to when taking a company public," says one prominent hedge-fund manager. "The company had to be in business for a minimum of five years, and it had to show profitability for three consecutive years. But Wall Street took these guidelines and threw them in the trash." Goldman completed the snow job by pumping up the sham stocks: "Their analysts were out there saying Bullshit.com is worth $100 a share."

The problem was, nobody told investors that the rules had changed. "Everyone on the inside knew," the manager says. "Bob Rubin sure as hell knew what the underwriting standards were. They'd been intact since the 1930s." ...

Goldman has denied that it changed its underwriting standards during the Internet years, but its own statistics belie the claim. Just as it did with the investment trust in the 1920s, Goldman started slow and finished crazy in the Internet years. After it took a little-known company with weak financials called Yahoo! public in 1996, once the tech boom had already begun, Goldman quickly became the IPO king of the Internet era. Of the 24 companies it took public in 1997, a third were losing money at the time of the IPO. In 1999, at the height of the boom, it took 47 companies public, including stillborns like Webvan and eToys, investment offerings that were in many ways the modern equivalents of Blue Ridge and Shenandoah.. The following year, it underwrote 18 companies in the first four months, 14 of which were money losers at the time. As a leading underwriter of Internet stocks during the boom, Goldman provided profits far more volatile than those of its competitors: In 1999, the average Goldman IPO leapt 281 percent above its offering price, compared to the Wall Street average of 181 percent.

How did Goldman achieve such extraordinary results? One answer is that they used a practice called "laddering," which is just a fancy way of saying they manipulated the share price of new offerings. Here's how it works: Say you're Goldman Sachs, and Bullshit.com comes to you and asks you to take their company public. You agree on the usual terms: You'll price the stock, determine how many shares should be released and take the Bullshit.com CEO on a "road show" to schmooze investors, all in exchange for a substantial fee (typically six to seven percent of the amount raised). You then promise your best clients the right to buy big chunks of the IPO at the low offering price - let's say Bullshit.com's starting share price is $15 - in exchange for a promise that they will buy more shares later on the open market. That seemingly simple demand gives you inside knowledge of the IPO's future, knowledge that wasn't disclosed to the day-trader schmucks who only had the prospectus to go by: You know that certain of your clients who bought X amount of shares at $15 are also going to buy Y more shares at $20 or $25, virtually guaranteeing that the price is going to go to $25 and beyond. In this way, Goldman could artificially jack up the new company's price, which of course was to the bank's benefit - a six percent fee of a $500 million IPO is serious money.

Goldman was repeatedly sued by shareholders for engaging in laddering in a variety of Internet IPOs, including Webvan and NetZero. The deceptive practices also caught the attention of Nichol as Maier, the syndicate manager of Cramer & Co., the hedge fund run at the time by the now-famous chattering television rear end in a top hat Jim Cramer, himself a Goldman alum. ...

"Goldman, from what I witnessed, they were the worst perpetrator," Maier said. "They totally fueled the bubble. And it's specifically that kind of behavior that has caused the market crash. They built these stocks upon an illegal foundation - manipulated up - and ultimately, it really was the small person who ended up buying in." In 2005, Goldman agreed to pay $40 million for its laddering violations - a puny penalty relative to the enormous profits it made. (Goldman, which has denied wrongdoing in all of the cases it has settled, refused to respond to questions for this story.)

Another practice Goldman engaged in during the Internet boom was "spinning," better known as bribery. Here the investment bank would offer the executives of the newly public company shares at extra-low prices, in exchange for future underwriting business. Banks that engaged in spinning would then undervalue the initial offering price - ensuring that those "hot" opening price shares it had handed out to insiders would be more likely to rise quickly, supplying bigger first-day rewards for the chosen few. So instead of Bullshit.com opening at $20, the bank would approach the Bullshit.com CEO and offer him a million shares of his own company at $18 in exchange for future business - effectively robbing all of Bullshit's new shareholders by diverting cash that should have gone to the company's bottom line into the private bank account of the company's CEO. ...

Such practices conspired to turn the Internet bubble into one of the greatest financial disasters in world history: Some $5 trillion of wealth was wiped out on the NASDAQ alone. But the real problem wasn't the money that was lost by shareholders, it was the money gained by investment bankers, who received hefty bonuses for tampering with the market. Instead of teaching Wall Street a lesson that bubbles always deflate, the Internet years demonstrated to bankers that in the age of freely flowing capital and publicly owned financial companies, bubbles are incredibly easy to inflate, and individual bonuses are actually bigger when the mania and the irrationality are greater.

GOLDMAN SCAMMED HOUSING INVESTORS BY BETTING AGAINST ITS OWN CRAPPY MORTGAGES.

Nowhere was this truer than at Goldman. Between 1999 and 2002, the firm paid out $28.5 billion in compensation and benefits - an average of roughly $350,000 a year per employee. Those numbers are important because the key legacy of the Internet boom is that the economy is now driven in large part by the pursuit of the enormous salaries and bonuses that such bubbles make possible. Goldman's mantra of "long-term greedy" vanished into thin air as the game became about getting your check before the melon hit the pavement.

The market was no longer a rationally managed place to grow real, profitable businesses: It was a huge ocean of Someone Else's Money where bankers hauled in vast sums through whatever means necessary and tried to convert that money into bonuses and payouts as quickly as possible. If you laddered and spun 50 Internet IPOs that went bust within a year, so what? By the time the Securities and Exchange Commission got around to fining your firm $110 million, the yacht you bought with your IPO bonuses was already six years old. Besides, you were probably out of Goldman by then, running the U.S. Treasury or maybe the state of New Jersey. (One of the truly comic moments in the history of America's recent financial collapse came when Gov. Jon Corzine of New Jersey, who ran Goldman from 1994 to 1999 and left with $320 million in IPO-fattened stock, insisted in 2002 that "I've never even heard the term 'laddering' before.")

For a bank that paid out $7 billion a year in salaries, $110 million fines issued half a decade late were something far less than a deterrent - they were a joke. Once the Internet bubble burst, Goldman had no incentive to reassess its new, profit-driven strategy; it just searched around for another bubble to inflate. As it turns out, it had one ready, thanks in large part to Rubin.

BUBBLE #3 - THE HOUSING CRAZE
Goldman's role in the sweeping disaster that was the housing bubble is not hard to trace. Here again, the basic trick was a decline in underwriting standards, although in this case the standards weren't in IPOs but in mortgages. ...

None of that would have been possible without investment bankers like Goldman, who created vehicles to package those lovely mortgages and sell them en masse to unsuspecting insurance companies and pension funds. This created a mass market for toxic debt that would never have existed before; in the old days, no bank would have wanted to keep some addict ex-con's mortgage on its books, knowing how likely it was to fail. You can't write these mortgages, in other words, unless you can sell them to someone who doesn't know what they are..

Goldman used two methods to hide the mess they were selling. First, they bundled hundreds of different mortgages into instruments called Collateralized Debt Obligations. Then they sold investors on the idea that, because a bunch of those mortgages would turn out to be OK, there was no reason to worry so much about the lovely ones: The CDO, as a whole, was sound. Thus, junk-rated mortgages were turned into AAA-rated investments. Second, to hedge its own bets, Goldman got companies like AIG to provide insurance - known as credit-default swaps - on the CDOs. The swaps were essentially a racetrack bet between AIG and Goldman: Goldman is betting the ex-cons will default, AIG is betting they won't.

There was only one problem with the deals: All of the wheeling and dealing represented exactly the kind of dangerous speculation that federal regulators are supposed to rein in. Derivatives like CDOs and credit swaps had already caused a series of serious financial calamities: Procter & Gamble and Gibson Greetings both lost fortunes, and Orange County, California, was forced to default in 1994. A report that year by the Government Accountability Office recommended that such financial instruments be tightly regulated - and in 1998, the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a woman named Brooksley Born, agreed. That May, she circulated a letter to business leaders and the Clinton administration suggesting that banks be required to provide greater disclosure in derivatives trades, and maintain reserves to cushion against losses. ...

Clinton's reigning economic foursome - "especially Rubin," according to Greenberger - called Born in for a meeting and pleaded their case. She refused to back down, however, and continued to push for more regulation of the derivatives. Then, in June 1998, Rubin went public to denounce her move, eventually recommending that Congress strip the CFTC of its regulatory authority. In 2000, on its last day in session, Congress passed the now-notorious Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which had been inserted into an 1l,000-page spending bill at the last minute, with almost no debate on the floor of the Senate. Banks were now free to trade default swaps with impunity.

But the story didn't end there. AIG, a major purveyor of default swaps, approached the New York State Insurance Department in 2000 and asked whether default swaps would be regulated as insurance. At the time, the office was run by one Neil Levin, a former Goldman vice president, who decided against regulating the swaps. Now freed to underwrite as many housing-based securities and buy as much credit-default protection as it wanted, Goldman went berserk with lending lust. By the peak of the housing boom in 2006, Goldman was underwriting $76.5 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities - a third of which were subprime - much of it to institutional investors like pensions and insurance companies. And in these massive issues of real estate were vast swamps of crap.

Take one $494 million issue that year, GSAMP Trust 2006-S3. Many of the mortgages belonged to second-mortgage borrowers, and the average equity they had in their homes was 0.71 percent. Moreover, 58 percent of the loans included little or no documentation - no names of the borrowers, no addresses of the homes, just zip codes. Yet both of the major ratings agencies, Moody's and Standard & Poor's, rated 93 percent of the issue as investment grade. Moody's projected that less than 10 percent of the loans would default. In reality, 18 percent of the mortgages were in default within 18 months.

Not that Goldman was personally at any risk. The bank might be taking all these hideous, completely irresponsible mortgages from beneath-gangster-status firms like Countrywide and selling them off to municipalities and pensioners - old people, for God's sake - pretending the whole time that it wasn't grade-D horseshit. But even as it was doing so, it was taking short positions in the same market, in essence betting against the same crap it was selling. Even worse, Goldman bragged about it in public. "The mortgage sector continues to be challenged," David Viniar, the bank's chief financial officer, boasted in 2007. "As a result, we took significant markdowns on our long inventory positions .... However, our risk bias in that market was to be short, and that net short position was profitable." In other words, the mortgages it was selling were for chumps. The real money was in betting against those same mortgages.

"That's how audacious these assholes are," says one hedge-fund manager. "At least with other banks, you could say that they were just dumb - they believed what they were selling, and it blew them up. Goldman knew what it was doing." I ask the manager how it could be that selling something to customers that you're actually betting against - particularly when you know more about the weaknesses of those products than the customer - doesn't amount to securities fraud.

"It's exactly securities fraud," he says. "It's the heart of securities fraud."

Eventually, lots of aggrieved investors agreed. In a virtual repeat of the Internet IPO craze, Goldman was hit with a wave of lawsuits after the collapse of the housing bubble, many of which accused the bank of withholding pertinent information about the quality of the mortgages it issued. .... But once again, Goldman got off virtually scot-free, staving off prosecution by agreeing to pay a paltry $60 million - about what the bank's CDO division made in a day and a half during the real estate boom.

The effects of the housing bubble are well known - it led more or less directly to the collapse of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and AIG, whose toxic portfolio of credit swaps was in significant part composed of the insurance that banks like Goldman bought against their own housing portfolios. In fact, at least $13 billion of the taxpayer money given to AIG in the bailout ultimately went to Goldman, meaning that the bank made out on the housing bubble twice: It hosed the investors who bought their horseshit CDOs by betting against its own crappy product, then it turned around and hosed the taxpayer by making him payoff those same bets.

And once again, while the world was crashing down all around the bank, Goldman made sure it was doing just fine in the compensation department. In 2006, the firm's payroll jumped to $16.5 billion - an average of $622,000 per employee. As a Goldman spokesman explained, "We work very hard here."

But the best was yet to come. While the collapse of the housing bubble sent most of the financial world fleeing for the exits, or to jail, Goldman boldly doubled down - and almost single-handedly created yet another bubble, one the world still barely knows the firm had anything to do with.

BUBBLE #4 - $4 A GALLON
By the beginning of 2008, the financial world was in turmoil. Wall Street had spent the past two and a half decades producing one scandal after another, which didn't leave much to sell that wasn't tainted. The terms junk bond, IPO, subprime mortgage and other once-hot financial fare were now firmly associated in the public's mind with scams; the terms credit swaps and CDOs were about to join them. The credit markets were in crisis, and the mantra that had sustained the fantasy economy throughout the Bush years - the notion that housing prices never go down - was now a fully exploded myth, leaving the Street clamoring for a new bullshit paradigm to sling.

Where to go? With the public reluctant to put money in anything that felt like a paper investment, the Street quietly moved the casino to the physical-commodities market - stuff you could touch: corn, coffee, cocoa, wheat and, above all, energy commodities, especially oil. In conjunction with a decline in the dollar, the credit crunch and the housing crash caused a "flight to commodities." Oil futures in particular skyrocketed, as the price of a single barrel went from around $60 in the middle of 2007 to a high of $147 in the summer of 2008.

That summer, as the presidential campaign heated up, the accepted explanation for why gasoline had hit $4.11 a gallon was that there was a problem with the world oil supply. In a classic example of how Republicans and Democrats respond to crises by engaging in fierce exchanges of moronic irrelevancies, John McCain insisted that ending the moratorium on offshore drilling would be "very helpful in the short term," while Barack Obama in typical liberal-arts yuppie style argued that federal investment in hybrid cars was the way out.

GOLDMAN TURNED A SLEEPY OIL MARKET INTO A GIANT BETTING PARLOR - SPIKING PRICES AT THE PUMP.

But it was all a lie. While the global supply of oil will eventually dry up, the short-term flow has actually been increasing. In the six months before prices spiked, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the world oil supply rose from 85.24 million barrels a day to 85.72 million. Over the same period, world oil demand dropped from 86.82 million barrels a day to 86.07 million. Not only was the short-term supply of oil rising, the demand for it was falling - which, in classic economic terms, should have brought prices at the pump down.

So what caused the huge spike in oil prices? Take a wild guess. Obviously Goldman had help - there were other players in the physical-commodities market - but the root cause had almost everything to do with the behavior of a few powerful actors determined to turn the once-solid market into a speculative casino. Goldman did it by persuading pension funds and other large institutional investors to invest in oil futures - agreeing to buy oil at a certain price on a fixed date. The push transformed oil from a physical commodity, rigidly subject to supply and demand, into something to bet on, like a stock. Between 2003 and 2008, the amount of speculative money in commodities grew from $13 billion to $317 billion, an increase of 2,300 percent. By 2008, a barrel of oil was traded 27 times, on average, before it was actually delivered and consumed.

As is so often the case, there had been a Depression-era law in place designed specifically to prevent this sort of thing. ... In 1936, Congress recognized that there should never be more speculators in the market than real producers and consumers. If that happened, prices would be affected by something other than supply and demand, and price manipulations would ensue. A new law empowered the Commodity Futures Trading Commission - the very same body that would later try and fail to regulate credit swaps - to place limits on speculative trades in commodities. As a result of the CFTC's oversight, peace and harmony reigned in the commodities markets for more than 50 years.

All that changed in 1991 when, unbeknownst to almost everyone in the world, a Goldman-owned commodities-trading subsidiary called J. Aron wrote to the CFTC and made an unusual argument. Farmers with big stores of corn, Goldman argued, weren't the only ones who needed to hedge their risk against future price drops - Wall Street dealers who made big bets on oil prices also needed to hedge their risk, because, well, they stood to lose a lot too.

This was complete and utter crap - the 1936 law, remember, was specifically designed to maintain distinctions between people who were buying and selling real tangible stuff and people who were trading in paper alone. But the CFTC, amazingly, bought Goldman's argument. It issued the bank a free pass, called the "Bona Fide Hedging" exemption, allowing Goldman's subsidiary to call itself a physical hedger and escape virtually all limits placed on speculators. In the years that followed, the commission would quietly issue 14 similar exemptions to other companies.

Now Goldman and other banks were free to drive more investors into the commodities markets, enabling speculators to place increasingly big bets. That 1991 letter from Goldman more or less directly led to the oil bubble in 2008, when the number of speculators in the market - driven there by fear of the falling dollar and the housing crash - finally overwhelmed the real physical suppliers and consumers. By 2008, at least three quarters of the activity on the commodity exchanges was speculative, according to a congressional staffer who studied the numbers - and that's likely a conservative estimate. By the middle of last summer, despite rising supply and a drop in demand, we were paying $4 a gallon every time we pulled up to the pump.

What is even more amazing is that the letter to Goldman, along with most of the other trading exemptions, was handed out more or less in secret. "I was the head of the division of trading and markets, and Brooksley Born was the chair of the CFTC," says Greenberger, "and neither of us knew this letter was out there." In fact, the letters only came to light by accident. Last year, a staffer for the House Energy and Commerce Committee just happened to be at a briefing when officials from the CFTC made an offhand reference to the exemptions.

"1 had been invited to a briefing the commission was holding on energy," the staffer recounts. "And suddenly in the middle of it, they start saying, 'Yeah, we've been issuing these letters for years now.' I raised my hand and said, 'Really? You issued a letter? Can I see it?' And they were like, 'Duh, duh.' So we went back and forth, and finally they said, 'We have to clear it with Goldman Sachs.' I'm like, 'What do you mean, you have to clear it with Goldman Sachs?'" ... [I]n a classic example of how complete Goldman's capture of government is, the CFTC waited until it got clearance from the bank before it turned the letter over.

Armed with the semi-secret government exemption, Goldman had become the chief designer of a giant commodities betting parlor. Its Goldman Sachs Commodities Index - which tracks the prices of 24 major commodities but is overwhelmingly weighted toward oil - became the place where pension funds and insurance companies and other institutional investors could make massive long-term bets on commodity prices. Which was all well and good, except for a couple of things. One was that index speculators are mostly "long only" bettors, who seldom if ever take short positions - meaning they only bet on prices to rise. While this kind of behavior is good for a stock market, it's terrible for commodities, because it continually forces prices upward. "If index speculators took short positions as well as long ones, you'd see them pushing prices both up and down," says Michael Masters, a hedge-fund manager who has helped expose the role of investment banks in the manipulation of oil prices. "But they only push prices in one direction: up."

Complicating matters even further was the fact that Goldman itself was cheerleading with all its might for an increase in oil prices. In the beginning of 2008, Arjun Murti, a Goldman analyst, hailed as an "oracle of oil" by The New York Times, predicted a "super spike" in oil prices, forecasting a rise to $200 a barrel. At the time Goldman was heavily invested in oil through its commodities-trading subsidiary, J. Aron; it also owned a stake in a major oil refinery in Kansas, where it warehoused the crude it bought and sold. Even though the supply of oil was keeping pace with demand, Murti continually warned of disruptions to the world oil supply, going so far as to broadcast the fact that he owned two hybrid cars. High prices, the bank insisted, were somehow the fault of the piggish American consumer; in 2005, Goldman analysts insisted that we wouldn't know when oil prices would fall until we knew "when American consumers will stop buying gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles and instead seek fuel-efficient alternatives."

But it wasn't the consumption of real oil that was driving up prices - it was the trade in paper oil. By the summer of2008, in fact, commodities speculators had bought and stockpiled enough oil futures to fill 1.1 billion barrels of crude, which meant that speculators owned more future oil on paper than there was real, physical oil stored in all of the country's commercial storage tanks and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve combined. It was a repeat of both the Internet craze and the housing bubble, when Wall Street jacked up present-day profits by selling suckers shares of a fictional fantasy future of endlessly rising prices.

In what was by now a painfully familiar pattern, the oil-commodities melon hit the pavement hard in the summer of 2008, causing a massive loss of wealth; crude prices plunged from $147 to $33. Once again the big losers were ordinary people. The pensioners whose funds invested in this crap got massacred: CalPERS, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, had $1.1 billion in commodities when the crash came.. And the damage didn't just come from oil. Soaring food prices driven by the commodities bubble led to catastrophes across the planet, forcing an estimated 100 million people into hunger and sparking food riots throughout the Third World. ...

BUBBLE #5 - RIGGING THE BAILOUT
After the oil bubble collapsed last fall, there was no new bubble to keep things humming - this time, the money seems to be really gone, like worldwide-depression gone. So the financial safari has moved elsewhere, and the big game in the hunt has become the only remaining pool of dumb, unguarded capital left to feed upon: taxpayer money. Here, in the biggest bailout in history, is where Goldman Sachs really started to flex its muscle.

It began in September of last year, when then-Treasury secretary Paulson made a momentous series of decisions. Although he had already engineered a rescue of Bear Stearns a few months before and helped bail out quasi-private lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Paulson elected to let Lehman Brothers - one of Goldman's last real competitors - collapse without intervention. ("Goldman's superhero status was left intact," says market analyst Eric Salzman, "and an investment-banking competitor, Lehman, goes away.") The very next day, Paulson greenlighted a massive, $85 billion bailout of AIG, which promptly turned around and repaid $13 billion it owed to Goldman. Thanks to the rescue effort, the bank ended up getting paid in full for its bad bets: By contrast, retired auto workers awaiting the Chrysler bailout will be lucky to receive 50 cents for every dollar they are owed.

Immediately after the AIG bailout, Paulson announced his federal bailout for the financial industry, a $700 billion plan called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and put a heretofore unknown 35-year-old Goldman banker named Neel Kashkari in charge of administering the funds. In order to qualify for bailout monies, Goldman announced that it would convert from an investment bank to a bankholding company, a move that allows it access not only to $10 billion in TARP funds, but to a whole galaxy of less conspicuous, publicly backed funding - most notably, lending from the discount window of the Federal Reserve. By the end of March, the Fed will have lent or guaranteed at least $8.7 trillion under a series of new bailout programs - and thanks to an obscure law allowing the Fed to block most congressional audits, both the amounts and the recipients of the monies remain almost entirely secret.

Converting to a bank-holding company has other benefits as well: Goldman's primary supervisor is now the New York Fed, whose chairman at the time of its announcement was Stephen Friedman, a former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs. Friedman was technically in violation of Federal Reserve policy by remaining on the board of Goldman even as he was supposedly regulating the bank; in order to rectify the problem, he applied for, and got, a conflict-of-interest waiver from the government. Friedman was also supposed to divest himself of his Goldman stock after Goldman became a bank-holding company, but thanks to the waiver, he was allowed to go out and buy 52,000 additional shares in his old bank, leaving him $3 million richer. Friedman stepped down in May, but the man now in charge of supervising Goldman - New York Fed president William Dudley - is yet another former Goldmanite.

The collective message of all this - the AIG bailout, the swift approval for its bank-holding conversion, the TARP funds - is that when it comes to Goldman Sachs, there isn't a free market at all. The government might let other players on the market die, but it simply will not allow Goldman to fail under any circumstances. Its edge in the market has suddenly become an open declaration of supreme privilege. "In the past it was an implicit advantage," says Simon Johnson, an economics professor at MIT and former official at the International Monetary Fund, who compares the bailout to the crony capitalism he has seen in Third World countries. "Now it's more of an explicit advantage." ...

And here's the real punch line. After playing an intimate role in four historic bubble catastrophes, after helping $5 trillion in wealth disappear from the NASDAQ, after pawning off thousands of toxic mortgages on pensioners and cities, after helping to drive the price of gas up to $4 a gallon and to push 100 million people around the world into hunger, after securing tens of billions of taxpayer dollars through a series of bailouts overseen by its former CEO, what did Goldman Sachs give back to the people of the United States in 2008?

Fourteen million dollars.

That is what the firm paid in taxes in 2008, an effective tax rate of exactly one, read it, one percent. The bank paid out $10 billion in compensation and benefits that same year and made a profit of more than $2 billion - yet it paid the Treasury less than a third of what it forked over to CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who made $42.9 million last year.

How is this possible? According to Goldman's annual report, the low taxes are due in large part to changes in the bank's "geographic earnings mix." In other words, the bank moved its money around so that most of its earnings took place in foreign countries with low tax rates. Thanks to our completely hosed corporate tax system, companies like Goldman can ship their revenues offshore and defer taxes on those revenues indefinitely, even while they claim deductions upfront on that same untaxed income. This is why any corporation with an at least occasionally sober accountant can usually find a way to zero out its taxes. A GAO report, in fact, found that between 1998 and 2005, roughly two-thirds of all corporations operating in the U.S. paid no taxes at all.

This should be a pitchfork-level outrage - but somehow, when Goldman released its post-bailout tax profile, hardly anyone said a word. One of the few to remark on the obscenity was Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat from Texas who serves on the House Ways and Means Committee. "With the right hand out begging for bailout money," he said, "the left is hiding it offshore."

BUBBLE #6 - GLOBAL WARMING
Fast-Forward to today. It's early June in Washington, D.C. Barack Obama, a popular young politician whose leading private campaign donor was an investment bank called Goldman Sachs - its employees paid some $981,000 to his campaign - sits in the White House. Having seamlessly navigated the political minefield of the bailout era, Goldman is once again back to its old business, scouting out loopholes in a new government-created market with the aid of a new set of alumni occupying key government jobs.

AS ENVISIONED BY GOLDMAN, THE FIGHT TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING WILL BECOME A "CARBON MARKET" WORTH $1 TRILLION A YEAR.

Gone are Hank Paulson and Neel Kashkari; in their place are Treasury chief of staff Mark Patterson and CFTC chief Gary Gensler, both former Goldmanites. (Gensler was the firm's co-head of finance) And instead of credit derivatives or oil futures or mortgage-backed CDOs, the new game in town, the next bubble, is in carbon credits - a booming trillion-dollar market that barely even exists yet, but will if the Democratic Party that it gave $4,452,585 to in the last election manages to push into existence a groundbreaking new commodities bubble, disguised as an "environmental plan," called cap-and-trade.

The new carbon-credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that's been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won't even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance.

Here's how it works: If the bill passes; there will be limits for coal plants, utilities, natural-gas distributors and numerous other industries on the amount of carbon emissions (a.k.a. greenhouse gases) they can produce per year. If the companies go over their allotment, they will be able to buy "allocations" or credits from other companies that have managed to produce fewer emissions. President Obama conservatively estimates that about $646 billions worth of carbon credits will be auctioned in the first seven years; one of his top economic aides speculates that the real number might be twice or even three times that amount.

The feature of this plan that has special appeal to speculators is that the "cap" on carbon will be continually lowered by the government, which means that carbon credits will become more and more scarce with each passing year. Which means that this is a brand-new commodities market where the main commodity to be traded is guaranteed to rise in price over time. The volume of this new market will be upwards of a trillion dollars annually; for comparison's sake, the annual combined revenues of an electricity suppliers in the U.S. total $320 billion.

Goldman wants this bill. The plan is (1) to get in on the ground floor of paradigm-shifting legislation, (2) make sure that they're the profit-making slice of that paradigm and (3) make sure the slice is a big slice. Goldman started pushing hard for cap-and-trade long ago, but things really ramped up last year when the firm spent $3.5 million to lobby climate issues. (One of their lobbyists at the time was none other than Patterson, now Treasury chief of staff.) Back in 2005, when Hank Paulson was chief of Goldman, he personally helped author the bank's environmental policy, a document that contains some surprising elements for a firm that in all other areas has been consistently opposed to any sort of government regulation. Paulson's report argued that "voluntary action alone cannot solve the climate-change problem." A few years later, the bank's carbon chief, Ken Newcombe, insisted that cap-and-trade alone won't be enough to fix the climate problem and called for further public investments in research and development. Which is convenient, considering that 'Goldman made early investments in wind power (it bought a subsidiary called Horizon Wind Energy), renewable diesel (it is an investor in a firm called Changing World Technologies) and solar power (it partnered with BP Solar), exactly the kind of deals that will prosper if the government forces energy producers to use cleaner energy. As Paulson said at the time, "We're not making those investments to lose money."

The bank owns a 10 percent stake in the Chicago Climate Exchange, where the carbon credits will be traded. Moreover, Goldman owns a minority stake in Blue Source LLC, a Utah-based firm that sells carbon credits of the type that will be in great demand if the bill passes. Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, who is intimately involved with the planning of cap-and-trade, started up a company called Generation Investment Management with three former bigwigs from Goldman Sachs Asset Management, David Blood, Mark Ferguson and Peter Harris. Their business? Investing in carbon offsets. There's also a $500 million Green Growth Fund set up by a Goldmanite to invest in green-tech ... the list goes on and on. Goldman is ahead of the headlines again, just waiting for someone to make it rain in the right spot. Will this market be bigger than the energy-futures market?

"Oh, it'll dwarf it," says a former staffer on the House energy committee. ....

"If it's going to be a tax, I would prefer that Washington set the tax and collect it," says Michael Masters, the hedge fund director who spoke out against oil-futures speculation. "But we're saying that Wall Street can set the tax, and Wall Street can collect the tax. That's the last thing in the world I want. It's just asinine."

Cap-and-trade is going to happen. Or, if it doesn't, something like it will. The moral is the same as for all the other bubbles that Goldman helped create, from 1929 to 2009. In almost every case, the very same bank that behaved recklessly for years, weighing down the system with toxic loans and predatory debt, and accomplishing nothing but massive bonuses for a few bosses, has been rewarded with mountains of virtually free money and government guarantees - while the actual victims in this mess, ordinary taxpayers, are the ones paying for it.

It's not always easy to accept the reality of what we now routinely allow these people to get away with; there's a kind of collective denial that kicks in when a country goes through what America has gone through lately, when a people lose as much prestige and status as we have in the past few years. You can't really register the fact that you're no longer a citizen of a thriving first-world democracy, that you're no longer above getting robbed in broad daylight, because like an amputee, you can still sort of feel things that are no longer there.

But this is it. This is the world we live in now. And in this world, some of us have to play by the rules, while others get a note from the principal excusing them from homework till the end of time, plus 10 billion free dollars in a paper bag to buy lunch. It's a gangster state, running on gangster economics, and even prices can't be trusted anymore; there are hidden taxes in every buck you pay. And maybe we can't stop it, but we should at least know where it's all going.

The Big Takeover
The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution

It's over — we're officially, royally fucked. No empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country's heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British Empire.

The latest bailout came as AIG admitted to having just posted the largest quarterly loss in American corporate history — some $61.7 billion. In the final three months of last year, the company lost more than $27 million every hour. That's $465,000 a minute, a yearly income for a median American household every six seconds, roughly $7,750 a second. And all this happened at the end of eight straight years that America devoted to frantically chasing the shadow of a terrorist threat to no avail, eight years spent stopping every citizen at every airport to search every purse, bag, crotch and briefcase for juice boxes and explosive tubes of toothpaste. Yet in the end, our government had no mechanism for searching the balance sheets of companies that held life-or-death power over our society and was unable to spot holes in the national economy the size of Libya (whose entire GDP last year was smaller than AIG's 2008 losses).

So it's time to admit it: We're fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and stupidity. And the worst part about it is that we're still in denial — we still think this is some kind of unfortunate accident, not something that was created by the group of psychopaths on Wall Street whom we allowed to gang-rape the American Dream. When Geithner announced the new $30 billion bailout, the party line was that poor AIG was just a victim of a lot of shitty luck — bad year for business, you know, what with the financial crisis and all. Edward Liddy, the company's CEO, actually compared it to catching a cold: "The marketplace is a pretty crummy place to be right now," he said. "When the world catches pneumonia, we get it too." In a pathetic attempt at name-dropping, he even whined that AIG was being "consumed by the same issues that are driving house prices down and 401K statements down and Warren Buffet's investment portfolio down."

Liddy made AIG sound like an orphan begging in a soup line, hungry and sick from being left out in someone else's financial weather. He conveniently forgot to mention that AIG had spent more than a decade systematically scheming to evade U.S. and international regulators, or that one of the causes of its "pneumonia" was making colossal, world-sinking $500 billion bets with money it didn't have, in a toxic and completely unregulated derivatives market.

Nor did anyone mention that when AIG finally got up from its seat at the Wall Street casino, broke and busted in the afterdawn light, it owed money all over town — and that a huge chunk of your taxpayer dollars in this particular bailout scam will be going to pay off the other high rollers at its table. Or that this was a casino unique among all casinos, one where middle-class taxpayers cover the bets of billionaires.

People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

The crisis was the coup de grâce: Given virtually free rein over the economy, these same insiders first wrecked the financial world, then cunningly granted themselves nearly unlimited emergency powers to clean up their own mess. And so the gambling-addict leaders of companies like AIG end up not penniless and in jail, but with an Alien-style death grip on the Treasury and the Federal Reserve — "our partners in the government," as Liddy put it with a shockingly casual matter-of-factness after the most recent bailout.

The mistake most people make in looking at the financial crisis is thinking of it in terms of money, a habit that might lead you to look at the unfolding mess as a huge bonus-killing downer for the Wall Street class. But if you look at it in purely Machiavellian terms, what you see is a colossal power grab that threatens to turn the federal government into a kind of giant Enron — a huge, impenetrable black box filled with self-dealing insiders whose scheme is the securing of individual profits at the expense of an ocean of unwitting involuntary shareholders, previously known as taxpayers.

Candidates for Sale
What do Obama and McCain have in common? The same big donors, who will expect to have their way no matter who wins

MATT TAIBBI

Posted Aug 21, 2008 9:42 AM

Remember the total, hideous, inexcusable absence of oversight that has been the great hallmark of George Bush's America for almost eight years now? Well, now we're getting to see that same regulatory malfeasance applied to yet another cornerstone of our political system. The Federal Election Commission — the body that supposedly enforces campaign-finance laws in this country — has been out of business for more than six months. That's because Congress was dragging its feet over confirmation hearings for new FEC commissioners, leaving the agency without a quorum. The commission just started work again for the first time on July 10th under its new chairman, Donald McGahn, a classic Republican Party yahoo whose chief qualifications include representing Tom DeLay, the corrupt ex-speaker of the House, in matters of campaign finance.

Apart from the obvious absurdity of not having a functioning election-policing mechanism in an election year in the world's richest democracy, the late start by the FEC makes it almost impossible for the agency to do its job. The commission has a long-standing reluctance to take action in the last months before a vote, a policy designed to help prevent federal regulators from influencing election outcomes. Normally, the FEC tries to root out infractions and loopholes — fining campaigns for incomplete reporting, or for taking shortcuts around spending limits — in the early months of a campaign season. But that ship sailed way too long ago to take the stink off the 2008 race.

"The time for setting the ground rules was earlier," says Craig Holman, a lobbyist with the watchdog group Public Citizen. "There isn't time to do much now."

That's especially true given the magnitude of what we're dealing with here: the biggest pile of political contributions in the history of free elections, nearly a billion dollars given to presidential candidates in this season alone. Because the FEC has been dead in the water for so long, it's likely that we'll still be in the dark about a large chunk of this record manure pile of campaign contributions when we go to vote in November.

But that doesn't mean that a little sifting through campaign records doesn't tell us quite a lot about who's backing whom in these races. The truth is that the campaigns of both Barack Obama and John McCain are being inundated with cash from more or less exactly the same gorgons of the corporate scene. From Wall Street to the Big Oil powerhouses to the military-industrial complex, America's fat-cat business leaders know that the Animal House-style party of the last eight years that made almost all of them rich with bonuses, government contracts and bubble profits is about to come to an end, and someone is going to have to pay to clean up the mess. They want that someone to be you, not them, and they've spared no expense to make sure both presidential candidates will be there to bail them out next year.

They're succeeding. Both would-be presidents have already sold us out. They've taken the money and run — completing the cyclical transformation of the American political narrative from one of monopolistic Republican iniquity to an even more depressing tale about the overweening power of corporate money and the essentially fictitious nature of our two-party system.

In layman's terms, we've gone from being screwed to being fucked. Who knows — maybe Barack Obama will surprise us if he wins the election. But if you look at the money, it doesn't look good.

Thanks in part to the dormant FEC, corporate America has had even easier access to the candidates than usual in its effort to buy off the next government before the crash. In fact, this election has seen some excellent new innovations in the area of campaign-fundraising atrocities. Chief among them is the rise of so-called "joint committees."

It used to be that campaigns could raise a maximum of $2,300 from each individual.. Now, both candidates — but especially McCain, who far outstrips Obama in this area — routinely hold fundraisers in which individuals can give far more to a joint committee. Technically, the candidate still pockets only $2,300 in contributions. The bulk of the money raised — in McCain's case, a whopping $70,100, or 30 times the previous limit — goes to the state and national arms of the candidate's party, which can then spend the unprecedented haul on behalf of the candidate. "This allows CEOs to walk in the door and drop $70,100," says Holman. "It basically allows campaigns to exceed the spending limits."

McCain has raised more than $63 million via these joint committees, thanks to more than 1,000 "megadonors" who have each given at least $25,000 to his campaign effort. Obama, by contrast, has some 471 megadonors — and a close examination of their backgrounds underscores some of the differences in corporate America's attitudes toward the two candidates.

One of McCain's chief sources of corporate money is the private-equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, memorialized for its takeover of RJR Nabisco in the movie Barbarians at the Gate. Through the pretext of joint committees, 10 KKR executives have given McCain $285,000, and it's not hard to figure out why. Two of McCain's key campaign proposals — lowering the corporate tax rate to 25 percent and making purchases of industrial equipment fully deductible — would save a single KKR subsidiary, Energy Future Holdings, $49 million.

"Just in his tax policies alone, McCain is saving corporate America $175 billion a year," says James Kvaal, who analyzed McCain's tax policy for the nonprofit Center for American Progress.

McCain has also raked in big contributions from two other giants of the buyout world: the Carlyle Group (famous for its close ties to the Bush administration) and the Blackstone Group (whose co-founder, Pete Peterson, wrote a $28,500 check to McCain after he took home almost $1.8 billion from a public offering last year). McCain has also received monstrous sums from hedge-fund managers, attracted by his pledge to keep the tax rate on their earnings at only 15 percent.. Executives and family members in a single hedge fund, Knott Partners, have contributed some $225,700 to McCain's campaign.

Then there's the predictable influx of cash from would-be military contractors. John Lehman, a former secretary of the Navy whose firm builds the Superferry transport vessel, not only donated $28,500 of his own money, but bundled at least $250,000 for McCain from other donors. Donald Bollinger, who is a contractor on the controversial Littoral Combat Ship, gave $27,300 and bundled a whopping $500,000. Anyone want to bet on a decrease in Naval appropriations in a McCain presidency?

McCain has also received big money from telecommunications magnates. The senator has always been a friend to the industry: Back in 2003, just four days after AT&T sent him a check for $10,500, he sponsored a bill to ban state and local taxes on Internet service. Since 2007, McCain has taken in some $1.3 million from the communications industry. Just four members of the McCaw family, which owns the telecommunications firm Eagle River, have kicked in $123,200. McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, was a former lobbyist for BellSouth, Verizon and SBC Communications. His deputy campaign manager, Christian Ferry, was a partner to Davis at Verizon. One of his chief advisers, Charlie Black, is the head of the lobbying firm BKSH and Associates, which represents AT&T. His Senate chief of staff, Mark Buse, worked for AT&T Wireless. All told, of 66 current and former lobbyists working for McCain, some 23 come from the telecommunications industry.

Given McCain's telecom backing, it's not surprising that the senator has had one of his characteristic changes of heart. As recently as last November, McCain was staunchly opposed to retroactive immunity for telecommunication companies that took part in Bush's illegal spying on American consumers, saying their actions "undermine our respect for the law." Now, jammed to the gills with telecom cash, McCain calls himself an "unqualified" supporter of immunity, praising the telecom industry's warrantless wiretapping as "constitutional and appropriate."

All the same, plenty of other evidence suggests that much of Wall Street is betting on an Obama win. In fact, some observers believe that KKR announced a multibillion-dollar public offering this summer because it expects McCain to lose. "They're doing the public offering now so that the compensation can be taxed at the lower rate while Bush is still in office," says a strategist for a major labor union. "They're betting Obama is going to win, and they're getting their money while they can."

Other companies are getting in on the ground floor with the new chief by stuffing money in his ears. Overall, Obama is flat-out kicking McCain's ass when it comes to Wall Street contributions, raking in nearly $9 million from securities and investment executives, compared to $6.2 million for McCain. Obama has received more contributions from Goldman Sachs than from any other employer — more than $627,000 at this writing — not to mention $398,021 from JP Morgan Chase, $353,922 from Lehman Brothers and $291,388 from Morgan Stanley. Even among hedge-fund executives, who have an unequivocal interest in electing McCain, Obama is whipping the Republican, collecting $500,000 more than McCain. All of which begs the question: Why would corporate giants like these throw so much weight behind a man who promises to strip them of billions in tax breaks?

Sadly, the answer to that question increasingly appears to be that Obama is, well, full of shit. He has made no bones about his plans to raise income by soaking the rich, promising to roll back the Bush tax cuts for people making over $250,000, increase the top tax rate on capital gains to 25 percent and raise the top rate on qualified dividends. He has also pledged to deliver a real stomach punch to hedge-fund managers, raising the tax rate on most of their income from 15 percent to 35 percent.

These populist pledges sound good, but many business moguls appear to be betting that the tax policies, like Obama himself, are only that: something that sounds good. "I think we don't want to make too much of his promises on taxes," says Robert Pollin, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts. "Not all of these things will happen." Noting the overwhelming amount of Wall Street money pouring into Obama's campaign, even elitist fuckwad David Brooks was recently moved to write, "Once the Republicans are vanquished, I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for that capital-gains tax hike."

Those worried that Obama might be all talk when it comes to needed reform had a real scare in July, when the senator failed to show up to vote for the Stop Excessive Speculation Act, a bill designed to curb rampant oil speculation. Oil speculators provide the perfect microcosm of what happened to the economy under Bush. Back in 2001, investment banks like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan got together and created an online exchange called the ICE for trading energy commodities. The ICE ended up buying the British-regulated International Petroleum Exchange; it then opened trading windows in the U.S., allowing Wall Street investment banks to make oil-futures trades on American soil, on their very own commodities exchange, without any federal regulation whatsoever.

"In financial terms, they were playing blackjack at tables where they themselves were the dealers, in casinos they themselves owned," says Warren Gunnels, a senior policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders. "It was crazy." Trading on the ICE had a massive impact on U.S. gasoline prices, and more than one legislator wondered if energy speculators were manipulating the market, as energy traders like Enron had been before. The speculation bill was designed to regulate the ICE and place limits on trades. But on the day before Obama returned from his eight-day, eight-country, megadazzling international photo op, Democrats failed by a vote of 50-43 to force a vote on the bill, as heavy lobbying by investment banks like Goldman Sachs torpedoed the effort.

Not only did Obama not show up to vote, he appeared at a public forum three days later flanked by Jon Corzine and Robert Rubin, two former Goldman executives, to discuss how to revive the economy. Here you have the basic formula of campaign contributions in a nutshell: Powerful investment bank gives big money to candidate, needed reform requires candidate to cross said investment bank, candidate pussies out and finds way to be gone at the moment of truth, candidate resurfaces later in arms of aforementioned investment bankers.

Obama's absence on oil speculation was eerily reminiscent of his previous decision to change his mind about giving retroactive immunity to telecom companies for spying on Americans. Obama withdrew his pledge to filibuster the immunity bill right around the time the Democrats announced that AT&T would be sponsoring the Democratic convention. So no filibuster on retroactive immunity from the top Democrat — but conventiongoers in Denver will get tote bags emblazoned with the AT&T logo. So that's something.

Look, we all knew this was coming. Once Obama vanquished Hillary Clinton, it was inevitable that his campaign would start roping in the Clinton moneymen for the fall confrontation with McCain. Among those snagged by Obama were Iranian millionaire and former Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chairman Hassan Nemazee, venture capitalist Alan Patricof and the touchingly plugged-in Wall Street power couple Maureen White (First Boston) and Steven Rattner (Morgan Stanley). Rattner and White, the former chief fundraiser for the DNC, are longtime friends of the Clintons; she quit the DNC in 2006 to build Hillary's war chest, while he backed Joe Lieberman against Ned Lamont and flirted with a Mike Bloomberg presidential run. Such are the people who are now whispering in Obama's ear.

Over the summer, the Obama camp has relentlessly pushed the notion that its record fundraising is mainly the result of small online donations. The first presidential candidate to raise so much money that he could afford to eschew the spending limits that would be imposed if he accepted federal matching funds, Obama claims that he opted out of public funding so that he could have a campaign "truly funded by the American people." And indeed, he has a record number of small donors, with some 45 percent of his campaign cash coming from contributions smaller than $200.

Which is a great percentage — but it's only eight points better than John Kerry in 2004 and only 14 points better than George Bush that same year. In truth, Obama is still raising tons of money from big corporate donors. In June alone, as Obama was raking in more than $30 million from small donors, he also bagged $6 million in a single fundraiser at Ethel Kennedy's home in Virginia and another $5 million at an event in Hollywood. But time and time again, you see Obama aides boasting about how the day of the big-dollar donor is over. "More people are involved, and I think that necessarily dilutes the impact of any individual — which is probably a good thing," one prominent Obama supporter recently declared. This staunch champion of the small donor happened to be none other than James Rubin, son of former Goldman Sachs co-chairman Bob Rubin.

Obama's decision to embrace Clinton's moneymen coincided with his decision to attend a public forum on economic policy with an A list of Clinton-era economic advisors, including Rubin and Corzine. "The message is that he's going to be a friend to Wall Street, just as Bill Clinton was a friend to Wall Street," says Pollin. "Wall Street will want to be at the head of the table."

By now it should be clear what type of service Wall Street will demand. The financial disaster dumped on us by eight years of Bush's mismanagement has left America with the prospect of short-term solutions in the form of massive government bailouts, and long-term solutions in the form of reform and regulation. A big chunk of the $1 billion in cash that will be spent on the presidential race this year represents Wall Street's desire to make sure that both candidates can be counted on to make the short-term bailouts large and passionate, and the reforms gentle and halfhearted. "They want to make sure there's socialism when they need it — bailouts — and capitalism when they need that," says Pollin.

Both candidates are already falling all over themselves to signal their business-friendly approach to the economy. McCain entered this election with a reputation as a strict Goldwater conservative.. "I have always been committed to the principle that it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly," he declared. McCain also sounded off in the past about troubled quasi-governmental lenders Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, pledging to "make them go away" and to strip them of their right to lobby.

But this year, McCain — perhaps emboldened by the $238,100 he got from seven JP Morgan Chase executives or the $500,000 bundled for him by Chase executive James Lee Jr. — caved in and supported Chase's outrageous government-backed acquisition of Bear Stearns. He also backed the recent bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae — no surprise given that former Fannie Mae lobbyists are serving as his chief of staff and the head of his vice presidential vetting panel...

Obama also supported the Freddie Mac-Fannie Mae rescue, and that, too, is no surprise, given that he hired one former chairman of Fannie Mae to chair his vice presidential vetting panel and hired another former Fannie Mae chairman to serve as his consultant on housing issues. Most of us will never get within a hundred miles of a single Fannie Mae chairman, but Obama has already hired two — and he isn't even president yet.

This, folks, is the way of the world. Forget all the promises to make the rich pay their fair share. As the candidates get closer to office, the actual paying customers move to the front of the line.

Sadly, both candidates have an extensive history of being dependable pals of campaign contributors. Back in 2000, when Obama was a state senator in Illinois, an entrepreneur named Robert Blackwell Jr. hired him to be his lawyer, paying him a monthly retainer of $8,000 — big money for a part-time legislator with an annual salary of just $58,000. A few months later, Obama sent a letter urging state tourism officials to give a grant to one of Blackwell's companies, the amusingly named Killerspin, to fund a table-tennis tournament. Killerspin received $320,000 in public funds; Obama pocketed $112,000 in fees from Blackwell.

So far this year, Blackwell has bundled more than $100,000 for Obama's campaign. Looks like there's going to be a shitload of table-tennis tournaments all across America next year.

McCain also likes to write letters for big contributors. In 1998, four months after BellSouth contributed $16,750 to the senator, he sent a letter to the FCC asking it to give "serious consideration" to the company's request to enter the long-distance market. He later wrote letters on behalf of Paxson Communications, which donated $20,000 and let him use their company jet, as well as Ameritech and SBC Communications, which raised $120,000 for McCain at a time when they were seeking permission to merge.

McCain's still sticking by that gang. Former Ameritech chairman Richard Notebaert bundled more than $100,000 for him this year, and two of McCain's key fundraisers, Peter Madigan and Tim McKone, hail from SBC. The point is that politicians are intensely loyal to the people who give them money — and not anywhere near as loyal to the promises they've made to suckers like us. No matter who's in the White House, the direction of the government has remained remarkably stable. Clinton's treasury secretary, Rubin, was a Goldman Sachs man; Henry Paulson, the current secretary under Bush, is also a Goldman Sachs man. It'll probably be a Goldman man again next year. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. In sickness or in health, the faces may change, but the money remains. "It's not an accident that both administrations picked for leading economic advisers people from Goldman Sachs," says Pollin.

The really distressing thing about all of this is the signal it sends to Americans. Goldman Sachs posted a record profit of $11 billion last year, much of it from betting against the subprime mortgage market they themselves helped to fuck up. That little energy exchange Goldman set up, the ICE, made a profit of $240 million last year, as gas prices skyrocketed. It may suck to be you right now, but all that pain isn't so bad if you are a big oil speculator.

When you live in million-dollar Manhattan townhouses and make billions in profits betting on the pain of the ordinary foreclosed homeowner, you shouldn't get to run around on TV with the prospective president on your arm. You should be hung by your balls. But that's not the way it works, and despite what you might have heard about "change," it probably never will be.

For all the excitement that Barack Obama has garnered, and all the talk about a new day in Washington, it would be tragic if the real legacy of his election victory was to finally expose the essentially unchanging, oligarchic nature of our political system. It's the same old story: Money talks, and bullshit walks. And don't be surprised if we're the ones still walking after November.

[From Issue 1059 — August 21, 2008]

This was all predicted in 1971 by THE CAPITALIST CONSPIRACY (By Edward Griffin)

http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=8515

And re-iterated in Alex Jones' THE OBAMA DECEPTION

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw

And of course, a dying call to sense by even Paul Krugman, who thinks ZIRP will be suicidal in the USA as it was in Japan:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/zirp/

The Conscience of a Liberal

Paul Krugman

December 16, 2008, 2:47 pm
ZIRP!

That’s zero interest rate policy. And it has arrived.. America has turned Japanese.

This is the thing I’ve been afraid of ever since I realized that Japan really was in the dreaded, possibly mythical liquidity trap. You can read my 1998 Brookings Paper on the issue here.

Incidentally, there were a bunch of us at Princeton worrying about the Japan problem in the early years of this decade. I was one; Lars Svensson, currently at Sweden’s Riksbank, was another; a third was a guy named Ben Bernanke. I wonder whatever happened to him?

Seriously, we are in very deep trouble. Getting out of this will require a lot of creativity, and maybe some luck too.

It is not longer about party, but about policy

WE HAVE UNTIL JULY 6th TO TELL THE USDA WE DON'T WANT THEM TO PROCEED WITH THIS NON-SENSE!

2009-07-02T14:50:00.000-07:00

WE HAVE UNTIL JULY 6th TO TELL THE USDA WE DON'T WANT THEM TO PROCEED WITH THIS NON-SENSE!

http://ga3.org/campaign/GEtrees

Here's why I'm making the call:
1. There's nothing wrong with the way naturemade trees. They take in carbon and release oxygen, provide shade, food, shelter. I love 'em just the way they are!!
2. Doing an open field "test" is totally reckless as they have absolutely no control over wind's transport of pollen, including the pollen of genetically altered trees.
3. If past history is any indication of future behavior, they will most certainly deny any downwind "contamination"; or as they've already done - sue anyone downwind who owns property where one of their "patented" plants happens to sprouts up!!
4. Eucalyptus trees come from Australia. I thought "environmental" groups were on a campaign to remove invasive plants brought to the U.S. from other parts of the world and return the land to its natural flora. So why are the USDA & their buddies creating and "testing" eucalyptus mutants here in the U.S.?

The link above will have you send in a nice note to the USDA. You can do that if you wish, but I'm hoping you'll join me in calling Secretary Vilsack's office 202-710-3631 and give 'em hell for even considering such a preposterous notion!! or call the toll free capital switchboard & ask for his office: 800-828-0498 or 800-459-1887 or 800-614-2803. In fact, while you've got them on the phone, you may want to tell them you don't want any GE anything! God did a wondrous thing in creating the Earth. It's time people appreciate it and take care of it, instead of destroy it & "change" it to meet their own greedy lusts!! 'cause that's what all this genetic engineering is really all about - making $$$ for a few CEO bigwigs & their government counterparts.

Don't let anyone fool you into thinking that taking care of anyone's personal greed and lust is on the list of why you're here. And don't cower to those who would try to force their selfish ways on you, either physically or by manipulation and deceit. Those people need a good swat across their bottom and be sent to the "dunce" corner as they're obviously too stupid to know why they're here and how to get along in this world.

If you agree with this message, then PLEASE SPREAD THIS CALL TO ACTION LIKE WILDFIRE - WE HAVE ONLY UNTIL MONDAY - LET'S OVERLOAD THEIR PHONES!! (just be sure to remove my email address before forwarding - thanks!)

"When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed." Ayn Rand (1905-1982) Author. Source: Atlas Shrugged, Francisco's "Money Speech"

'Politicians and diapers should be changed often - and for the same reason.' http://www.FireCongress.Meetup.com

http://www.KickThemAllOut.com

************
NOTICE: George W. Bush issued Executive Orders allowing the National Security Agency to read this message and all other e-mail you receive or send, to listen in on your phone conversations, and to "sneak & peek" into your home without your presence --- all without warning, warrant or notice. Bush ordered this to be done without any legislative or judicial oversight. Obama has NOT reversed these unConstitutional orders! SO WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT

http://ga3.org/campaign/GEtrees

AUSTIN - Gov. Rick Perry joined state Rep. Brandon Creighton and sponsors of House Concurrent Resolution (HCR) 50 in support of states' rights

2009-04-14T19:07:00.001-07:00

AUSTIN - Gov. Rick Perry joined state Rep. Brandon Creighton and sponsors of House Concurrent Resolution (HCR) 50 in support of states' rights under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

"I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state," Gov. Perry said. "That is why I am here today to express my unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm the states' rights affirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I believe that returning to the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution and its essential 10th Amendment will free our state from undue regulations, and ultimately strengthen our Union."

Perry continued: "Millions of Texans are tired of Washington, DC trying to come down here to tell us how to run Texas."

A number of recent federal proposals are not within the scope of the federal government's constitutionally designated powers and impede the states' right to govern themselves. HCR 50 affirms that Texas claims sovereignty under the 10th Amendment over all powers not otherwise granted to the federal government.

It also designates that all compulsory federal legislation that requires states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties, or that requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding, be prohibited or repealed.

81R5789 MMS-F
By: Creighton
H.C.R. No. 50 (State of Texas)
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"; and
WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that specifically granted by the Constitution of the United States and no more; and
WHEREAS, The scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment means that the federal government was created by the states specifically to be an agent of the states; and
WHEREAS, Today, in 2009, the states are demonstrably treated as agents of the federal government; and
WHEREAS, Many federal laws are directly in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; and
WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment assures that we, the people of the United States of America and each sovereign state in the Union of States, now have, and have always had, rights the federal government may not usurp; and
WHEREAS, Section 4, Article IV, of the Constitution says, "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government," and the Ninth Amendment states that "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people"; and
WHEREAS, The United States Supreme Court has ruled in New York v. United States, 112 S. Ct. 2408 (1992), that congress may not simply commandeer the legislative and regulatory processes of the states; and
WHEREAS, A number of proposals from previous administrations and some now pending from the present administration and from congress may further violate the Constitution of the United States; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the 81st Legislature of the State of Texas hereby claim sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States; and, be it further
RESOLVED, That this serve as notice and demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers; and, be it further
RESOLVED, That all compulsory federal legislation that directs states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties or sanctions or that requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding be prohibited or repealed; and, be it further
RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to the speaker of the house of representatives and the president of the senate of the United States Congress, and to all the members of the Texas delegation to the congress with the request that this resolution be officially entered in the Congressional Record as a memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.

The Obama Deception

2009-03-27T13:51:00.000-07:00

A must see film (2 hours) by Alex Jones of Infowars.
The Obama Deception HQ Full length version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw

For Christ's sake, KISSINGER is working with Obama, if that isn't a red flag, you have a lot of reading to do.

The Obama Deception is a hard-hitting film that completely destroys the myth that Barack Obama is working for the best interests of the American people.

The Obama phenomenon is a hoax carefully crafted by the captains of the New World Order. He is being pushed as savior in an attempt to con the American people into accepting global slavery.

We have reached a critical juncture in the New World Order's plans. It's not about Left or Right: it's about a One World Government. The international banks plan to loot the people of the United States and turn them into slaves on a Global Plantation.

Covered in this film: who Obama works for, what lies he has told, and his real agenda. If you want to know the facts and cut through all the hype, this is the film for you.

Watch the Obama Deception and learn how:

- Obama is continuing the process of transforming America into something that resembles Nazi Germany, with forced National Service, domestic civilian spies, warrantless wiretaps, the destruction of the Second Amendment, FEMA camps and Martial Law.

- Obama's handlers are openly announcing the creation of a new Bank of the World that will dominate every nation on earth through carbon taxes and military force.

- International bankers purposefully engineered the worldwide financial meltdown to bankrupt the nations of the planet and bring in World Government.

- Obama plans to loot the middle class, destroy pensions and federalize the states so that the population is completely dependent on the Central Government.

- The Elite are using Obama to pacify the public so they can usher in the North American Union by stealth, launch a new Cold War and continue the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The only reason we aren't in a Nazi-Germany style fascist totalitarian authoritarian police state is because the Internet keeps hope alive with the likes of Ron Paul and others who seek to help us in the fight against the oligarchs.

The world of democratic republics is coming to a close, its up to YOU to try and stop these people at every level every day. Tell someone else about how the Federal Reserve and currency manipulation is being used to break us into submission.

I missed the Animal Farm "More equal than others" clause in the constitution too

2009-03-13T12:07:00.000-07:00

Here is a debate on general welfare and how stuff like this came to pass, but was clearly no intended by the authors of the document of root law.

In Federalist No. 41, James Madison asked rhetorically: "For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power?" (In reference to the general welfare clause)

So strongly did the founders believe that "general welfare" wouldn't be expanded as written:

In Federalist No. 84, Alexander Hamilton indirectly confirmed Madison’s point. (That the "general welfare" clause was "clearly" nota free pass for government)

Hamilton argued that a bill of rights, which many were clamoring for, would be not only unnecessary, but dangerous. Since the federal government was given only a few specific powers, there was no need to add prohibitions: it was implicitly prohibited by the listed powers. If a proposed law — a relief act, for instance — wasn’t covered by any of these powers, it was unconstitutional.

"why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?"

Hamilton goes on to argue that making Amendments (eg, enumerating Free speech, press and assembly) and enumerating the 'right' would have the following effect:

(A bill of rights) "would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretence for claiming that power — that is, a power to regulate the press, short of actually shutting it down. "

"With respect to the words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers (enumerated in the Constitution) connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators." --James Madison [The US Supreme Court has found the meaning of "general welfare" in the Constitution to be much more elastic than did Mr. Madison. But as the "author of the Constitution," what does he know?]

James Madison, when asked if the "general welfare" clause was a grant of power, replied in 1792, in a letter to Henry Lee,

If not only the means but the objects are unlimited, the parchment [the Constitution] should be thrown into the fire at once. [6] [p.257]

Dwight Eisenhower's Secretary of Agriculture, Ezra Taft Benson met with USSR's Nikita Khrushchev and related:

"I have talked face to face with the godless communist leaders. It may surprise you to learn that I was host to Mr. Khrushchev for a half day when he visited the United States, not that I'm proud of it. I opposed his coming then, and I still feel it was a mistake to welcome this atheistic murderer as a state visitor. But, according to President Eisenhower, Khrushchev had expressed a desire to learn something of American Agriculture - and after seeing Russian agriculture I can understand why. As we talked face to face, he indicated that my grandchildren would live under communism. After assuring him that I expected to do all in my power to assure that his and all other grandchildren will live under freedom he arrogantly declared in substance:

"You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept communism outright, but we'll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you'll finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won't have to fight you. We'll so weaken your economy until you’ll fall like overripe fruit into our hands."

"And they're ahead of schedule in their devilish scheme."

(Ezra Taft Benson "Our Immediate Responsibility." Devotional Address at Brigham Young University. 1968.) [access the audio file on this page.]
http://www.awakeandarise.org/media/EzraTaftBenson-selection7min.mp3
http://www.awakeandarise.org/media/StandUpForFreedom-by_Ezra_Taft_Benson.mp3

Glen Beck:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMzLgSuBr54

Closing with:

"...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it...it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government , and to provide new Guards for their future security. ..." --The Declaration of Independence

I guess some are more equal than others.

Pelosi Made Repeated Requests for Military Aircraft, Documents Show

2009-03-10T13:53:00.000-07:00

Representatives for Judicial Watch, which obtained e-mails and other documents showing the requests, say House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has treated the Air Force as her "personal airline."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly requested military aircraft to shuttle her and her colleagues and family around the country, according to a new report from a conservative watchdog group.

Representatives for Judicial Watch, which obtained e-mails and other documents from a Freedom of Information request, said the correspondence shows Pelosi has abused the system in place to accommodate congressional leaders and treated the Air Force as her "personal airline."

The e-mails showed repeated attempts by Pelosi aides to request aircraft, sometimes aggressively, and by Department of Defense officials to accommodate them.

"I think that's above and beyond what other members of Congress are doing and what is expected of our elected officials," said Jenny Small, a researcher with the group.

The group reported that Pelosi was notorious for making special demands for high-end aircraft, lodging last-minute cancellations, and racking up additional expenses for the military.

In one e-mail, aide Kay King complained to the military that they had not made available any aircraft the House speaker wanted for Memorial Day recess.

"It is my understanding there are NO G5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable ... The Speaker will want to know where the planes are," King wrote.

In another, when told a certain type of aircraft would not be available, King wrote: "This is not good news, and we will have some very disappointed folks, as well as a very upset Speaker."
Pelosi's office has not yet responded to requests for comment.

Solzhenitsyn

2009-02-20T17:48:00.000-08:00

"Let me emphasize this strongly: no one is to suggest doing anything illegal here. Protest all you want but please respect the law."

Dred Scott / SCOTUS: Humans can be property.

The laws can be illegal. The government is no longer abiding by the limits of power in the constitution. Things have gone on long enough. People should consider violence against a government that is planning to ration health care and decide when we die, we should be able to take this murderous lying terrorist government and do something about it.

You all need to read Solzhenitsyn.

In the camps Solzhenitsyn and other prisoners nourished murderous fantasies of what they might have done to their tormentors if they had understood their fate: "What if, instead of waiting for the knock on their door, they had (knowing there was nothing to lose) set ambushes -- several people in each apartment building, armed with axes and hammers, ready to crack the skulls of the police? What if every security operative, going out at night to make an arrest, was uncertain whether he would return alive?" -- Solzhenitsyn

We are no longer free, there is no freedom here, the government is authoritarian and totalitarian, this is a Police State.

We are fast approaching the point of no return and you and your children will be subjected to an authoritarian government.

The law of this land was formed after the forced removal of another government that did not represent. Remember, NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION ? How are the children and unborn children whose money have just been spent represented.

This is a joke of a nation, and the people are simply putting up with it because it limps along, we can get food and some work and so its all ok, don't harbor violent thoughts.

If you are having violent thoughts, I'm not saying act on them, but they should be considered.

The time is nigh. Revolution (after Ron Paul's defeat) is probably the only viable option. Look at Romania, it can be done, and it doesn't have to be overly bloody, but at some point the levees must break.

Warning: Out of Control Spending Bill has Strong Healthcare Language that should concern you.

2009-02-11T22:04:00.001-08:00

Before I report on the out of control spending bill, here is the quote of the day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEfICUoWKBw

"And let me just say to all the chattering class... that so much focuses on all those little tiny porky amendments... the American people really don't care." - Senator Charles Schumer aka Gun grabbing thief traitor.

The stimulus bill contains the following language:
- Computerization of all health care rendered lands in a central database
- Various frameworks for universal health care
- National health care stuffed into HR-1. In Tom Daschle's book on page 196 he suggests the next president sneak national health care into a spending bill to bypass senate protocol and found it to important for the senate to vote on.

Check out pages 454-455 in HR-1 @ http://thomas.loc.gov

Basically strong language is put in here, and a long standing Medicare/Medicaid provision where Doctors can do whats best, there is language to do whats most economical. All being done with representatives performing little or no review.

WARNING: Swinestein wants to kill Net Neutrality in "Stimulus"

Dianne Feinstein Introduces Amendment To Kill Net Neutrality in "Stimulus"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/11/feinstein_stimulus_amendment/?ref=most

Sen. Dianne Feinstein hopes to update President Barack Obama's $838bn economic stimulus package so that ISPs can deter child pornography, copyright infringement, and other unlawful activity by way of "reasonable network management." Clearly, a lobbyist whispering in Feinstein's ear has taken Comcast's famous lies even further into the realm of BS.

Obama - The Emperor with No Clothes

2009-02-03T20:18:00.000-08:00

Emperor Obama has no clothes.

- Raytheon lobbyist second in command at Pentagon.
- Goldman Sachs lackey second in command at Treasury.
- Can't even form a cabinet without 3 tax evaders, one of which is still "out there."
(he was going to back Daschle until Daschle resigned, so he has no f-ing spine)
- The tax evader left in the Cabinet: The head of the IRS and the head of the Treasury, Geithner.
(The other of course being Killefer)
- He can't even vet his cabinet and we face record spending deficits and a perpetual stranglehold of the military industrial complex in a complex world full of China, Russia, India and radical Islam. What a sad joke.
- Lied about no lobbyists
- Lied about having a new degree of accountability and a SUNSHINE period of new laws, yet just two days after the "Lilly Ledbetter Law" (which is illegal and unconstitutional), he signed the bill with no review at whitehouse.gov as promised. He also signed another bill with no Sunshine, a bill that gives 38 billion in health care to "kids", 38 billion we don't have. These "kids" can be here illegally and get help through this bill.
- Appointed a gun-grabbing Rich pardoning treasonist Eric Holder as AG, the top cop of the USA, a man who helped a fugitive evade justice.
- Has not put a dime in for a single new nuclear power plant but wants to help bridges and roads so we continue to drive ? This man has no energy policy, he is a fraud.
- Tries to cover up a lie to the American public a new piece of legislation, normally called a budget, as a rescue bill. In it is illegal government backing of political organizations like Acorn.
- Daschle was paid millions by the health care industry, he was a health care lobbyist, and yet he wanted Daschle to run the US's health at the cabinet level ?
- The media is a piece of dog crap and has totally failed to communicate the level of ineptitude, conflict of interest and lies promulgated by a Presidency which isn't even a month old.

- Obama dozed while Kentucky froze, Obama pulling a "Katrina" with Kentucky.
- Ron Paul says, and has said for decades, spending like drunks got us into a fiscal black hole: Snobama's plan: spend more ?!?!?!
- Obama, Blagojevich and Rahm Emanual have a LOT to hide. THey literally lived next to each other, Rahm had (until being Snobama's chief of staff) Blagojevich's old federal congressional seat. Blagojevich hepled Snobama cheat his way to the Illinois senate by getting other candidates thrown off the ballot in Illinois. Why do you think Blagojevich was so mad? Obama DID owe him, big time. Rahm and Obama are using Blagojevich and trying to cut his head off to keep him away.
- Can you say Rezko? The media can't. Obama is guilty as sin.

1. They met in 1990. Obama was a student at Harvard Law School and got an unsolicited job offer from Rezko, then a low-income housing developer in Chicago. Obama turned it down.

2. Obama took a job in 1993 with a small Chicago law firm, Davis Miner Barnhill, that represents developers -- primarily not-for-profit groups -- building low-income housing with government funds.

3. One of the firm's not-for-profit clients -- the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp., co-founded by Obama's then-boss Allison Davis -- was partners with Rezko's company in a 1995 deal to convert an abandoned nursing home at 61st and Drexel into low-income apartments. Altogether, Obama spent 32 hours on the project, according to the firm. Only five hours of that came after Rezko and WPIC became partners, the firm says. The rest of the future senator's time was helping WPIC strike the deal with Rezko. Rezko's company, Rezmar Corp., also partnered with the firm's clients in four later deals -- none of which involved Obama, according to the firm. In each deal, Rezmar "made the decisions for the joint venture," says William Miceli, an attorney with the firm.

4. In 1995, Obama began campaigning for a seat in the Illinois Senate. Among his earliest supporters: Rezko. Two Rezko companies donated a total of $2,000. Obama was elected in 1996 -- representing a district that included 11 of Rezko's 30 low-income housing projects.

5. Rezko's low-income housing empire began crumbling in 2001, when his company stopped making mortgage payments on the old nursing home that had been converted into apartments. The state foreclosed on the building -- which was in Obama's Illinois Senate district.

6. In 2003, Obama announced he was running for the U.S. Senate, and Rezko -- a member of his campaign finance committee -- held a lavish fund-raiser June 27, 2003, at his Wilmette mansion.

7. A few months after Obama became a U.S. senator, he and Rezko's wife, Rita, bought adjacent pieces of property from a doctor in Chicago's Kenwood neighborhood -- a deal that has dogged Obama the last two years. The doctor sold the mansion to Obama for $1.65 million -- $300,000 below the asking price. Rezko's wife paid full price -- $625,000 -- for the adjacent vacant lot. The deals closed in June 2005. Six months later, Obama paid Rezko's wife $104,500 for a strip of her land, so he could have a bigger yard. At the time, it had been widely reported that Tony Rezko was under federal investigation. Questioned later about the timing of the Rezko deal, Obama called it "boneheaded" because people might think the Rezkos had done him a favor.

8. Eight months later -- in October 2006 -- Rezko was indicted on charges he solicited kickbacks from companies seeking state pension business under his friend Gov. Blagojevich. Federal prosecutors maintain that $10,000 from the alleged kickback scheme was donated to Obama's run for the U.S. Senate. Obama has given the money to charity.

And then of course, there is Obama's connections to Iraqi Arms Dealer, Nahdmi Auchi, and of course Aiham Alsammarae :

Barack Obama has had questionable dealings (including the purchase of his home) with Tony Rezko, who is on trial on corruption charges, and who may have directed kickbacks to Obama.

Rezko has had numerous business deals with Nahdmi Auchi, who once sold arms to Saddam Hussein and had other dealings with the Hussein regime.

Resko and Auchi also had business dealings with Aiham Alsammarae, a fugitive from Iraqi justice who allegedly stole $650 million from the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity, who is now apparently living in Chicago, despite having been convicted and sentence to 14 years in prison in Iraq.

His mere association with these men, however—men who have continually operated on the edge of the law, and sometimes over that edge into clearly illegal activity—is troubling, and peels off some of the veneer of a candidate who promises "change" but instead seems to be far less pure than the image he'd like to project.

Change. yeah right. Of the guard maybe. Suck you can believe in. God given rights, you have none, the whole founding principles of "god" as an abstract higher construct than the state giving us inborn rights? Gone. The State is GOD under Snobama and these military industrial crooked thieving hacks.

Enjoy the ass you elected, America. And people still have the balls to laugh at Ron Paul?

Every promise already broken. Clinton re-treads everywhere. Tax evaders, corruption self serving pukes from all walks of life, from any side of the GOP/Democrat aisle, the military industrial complex strong, the state is a god replacement, Oceanea and Ingsoc being constructed as the average Joe thinks he needs the state to put sugar in his tea. Lies corruption, lack of leadership, inability to make simple decisions like cabinet members who can even follow basic tax laws and then traipsing around to the TV and apologizing to America for this mistake. REAL ACTION, Snobama, would be to FIRE Geithner. But no, the head of the IRS is a tax evader while Ed and Elaine Brown of New Hampshire rot in jail while the terrorist government charges people for "aiding" them and they ROT in jail while cabinet level Senators and political re-treads run the country and don't pay taxes and help give the Wall St. scum and bankers a free pass on the tax payer's dime.

I think the US better elect a heavily libertarian or as a lame ass alternative a heavily GOP Senate and Congress in 2010 or the US is cooked, finished. Remember Clinton had a republican congress to deal with, and everyone seems to refer to that era as the gilded age. If there is no partisan gridlock in the USA, the government becomes a totalitarian authoritarian tax and spend monster, no matter who is in control. Sickening.

Emperor Obama feels his hoards of serfs, plebians and prole's goods and services shouldn't piss off other System Lords (Oligarchs) of foreign powers he needs to borrow money from:

"I think it would be a mistake, though, at a time when worldwide trade is declining for us to start sending a message that somehow we're just looking after ourselves and not concerned with world trade," he said in an interview

We must also take pause when looking at the stimulus bill (inflated budget with no spending cuts). Nobody working for the government is getting cut. We, the taxpayers are. Sure you can call government employees tax payers, but they are simply digging ditches, then filling in the holes and repeating. Those who make GDP happen pay the freight. Out of the 900 billion, only 1 billion for small businesses ?!? 85% of America works for small business!

One more tidbit on Daschle:

In an appearance on Meet the Press on February 12, 2006, former Senator Daschle endorsed a controversial warrantless surveillance program conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA); Daschle explained that he had been briefed on the program while he was the Democratic leader in the Senate.

Slumdog Millionaire : Hating this movie == provincial retard.

2009-01-21T01:52:00.000-08:00

I read this today, some clown at boston.com actually let this drivel make it to a page that has comments disabled:

MOVIE LOVERS, if you believe that "Slumdog Millionaire" is a four-star fairy-tale romance, then I propose that "The Godfather" was about Italian cooking and male bonding.

Maybe I didn't get "Slumdog Millionaire," but I did suffer through until the end, which is more than the two women sitting behind me did. They left halfway through. And other good friends (who call flicks "films") didn't even last that long.

This movie is a sordid, sadistic, terrifyingly dark film. Good photography, I'll give it that. But a terrible tale. If you have been hoodwinked by Hollywood's hype on this one, then I propose you go and buy some Bear Stearns stock.

Maxine Weintraub
Wayland

Hating this movie makes one a provincial retard, its that simple. A terrible tale? How the fuck-so? The only thing unrealistic about it is the ending, and that's to prevent wrist-slitting.

Hey, Maxine Cunt Weintraub, why don't you spend a year penniless in the ghettos of Mumbai and see how things turn out to fucked up stuck up cow? Let's silence the dying so we don't have to listen to their terribly annoying screams?

And to compare this in an analogy to The Godfather? Is that the closest movie that comes to mind? This seems to indicate a severe lack of movie-experience to draw any parallels between these two films other than both will be considered epic.

And to mention Bear Stearns ? Feeling a bit guilty there about your Banker thieve friends, about Bernie Madhoff and a vast conspiracy by a certain sub-group's cabal?

Its amazing that when the underbelly of the world is exposed all cunts like Weintraub can think of is THEMSELVES.

Welcome to big government.

2008-11-05T11:13:00.000-08:00

Now that the Republicans started with new world order, big government and big government watching and controlling *everything* you do, the new guard in Washington will finish us off for good.

- guns banned
- rights curtailed
- spying on citizens continues
- "civil police force" created as a party apparatus to intimidate people who do not believe in the new world order
- monetary jubilee
- continued debt, spending and war
- stabilizing societal constructs eroded and replaced with state-supremacy wherever possible to teach the populace that the government is the supreme construct.

Basically the government has gotten into the business of controlling you from cradle to grave with empty and broken promises. The people of this country fall into the trap of GOP/Democrat identity politics when the two operate as a single rights-denying anti-libertarian, authoritarian totalitarian illegal regime.

Those who perceive November 4th, 2008, as a win, will rue this day once the power drunk lobbied crooked thugs in Washington take this "mandate" and screw the public.

- raw milk will be banned
- immunizations forced
- our food supply will continue to degrade in quality
- energy will be rationed to control you, not for the purposes of being green
- natural and herbal medicines will be banned
- your lifestyle will determine eligibility for all of this "free" healthcare
- etc.

The new world order of Oceania is upon us, and Ingsoc is strong.

You dumb fuckers deserve this government of your own creation in your own scared, greedy selfish bloodsucking image. Fuck you.

Apple sucks. Fuck you if you like apple for non-technical reasons, e.g., look and feel.

2008-10-31T21:46:00.000-07:00

Apple sucks.

I was in Stanford shopping mall today, and all the stores were giving out candy to kids from 5-7 for Halloween.

Except the fucking Apple store.
They had a ugly mongoloid puke with a mohawk and faggot Ipod necklace standing in the door looking like a fucking jerk. And they did not give candy.

Stevbe Jobs and Apple the mega-corporation are both greedy motherfuckers that can suck my balls. At leatst MSFT's Bill Gates along with Warren Buffet created the largest charity in the history of the world.

Not apple. They sue people. They overcharge for commoditized shit. They act like fart sniffing pompous fucking assholes.

I hope Steve Jobs, who ripped all his ideas from Xerox PARC, Woz and Draper, had a kid he didn't "acknoledge" until later in life, and acted like a fucking messiah when he is basically an intellectual property thief with a personality cult around him., fucking dies of cancer.

How about that Mr Jobs, you cheap fuck, Too cheap to give out candy to kids but you can hire mohawk wearing know-nothing fuckers to stand idly at the door.

The USSSA - The United States of Soviet Socialist America

2008-08-30T12:31:00.000-07:00

The state of affairs in the US is in rapid decline. The minute Palin gets picked she goes from being an unknown to being crucified in the media as the biggest dumbest threat that ever existed. In an election where pundits constantly question experience, it should be noted that the two Democrats that ran, Clinton and Obama, have no executive experience whatsoever. (Hillary could claim fly on the wall proxy experience).

Palin is NRA, pro life, does not consider global warming made made according to the press. Ok, lets get that out of the way. Please note that her husband and son are democrats, apparently.

Lets talk about China and Russia. Both had budget and trade surplus. America's Fed is scrambling to balance the need to fuel a false economy with cheap money and the collapse of the dollar. The military is stretched too thin. Situations like the one in Georgia, the USA is powerless to react. North Korea/Kim Jong, Venezuela/Chavez, insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran/Ahmedinejad, the collapse of Pakistan, the loss of nearly every ally in South America and a foolish congress pissing Columbia off.

Pollution on the rise, coal fire plants and strip mining about, Diesel, wind, solar and nuclear power still a future option with no action so far...

Gestapo governments at both the state and the federal level with the power to impose the death penalty roam around terrorizing the US tax-payers and citizens with tax rates an order of magnitude higher than those in the pre civil war era, most rights are severely and illegally curtailed, elections are bought with a media circus or stolen with fraudulent election machines.

This is a totalitarian authoritarian autocracy constructed by both parties that sell Ingsoc, the sale is that Ingsoc is a friendly socialist mother-government sent to protect you and to give you a standard of living. Ingsoc is the opposite. It gives you imprisonment and the perpetual rule of an oligarchical collectivist government.

Seriously, PUTIN/MEDVEDEV is far better than this. Even Hitler is better than this because he was an honest man, he said "kill them all" and he kept his promise.

This is the worst government in world history because so much is at state. The Senate, the Congress and the White House and at least half the supreme court are criminal traitors and we need a Generallisimo like Augusto Pinochet to come in and have these people thrown from airplanes at 20,000 ft.

Seriously. All the neocons, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Rice, Rove, all the traitors, most of the congress and most of the senate, all thrown from airplanes, and a large number of the oligarch CEOs and all the executives at Fannie and Freddie, and all the Fed members, Bernanke, Greenspan, all thrown from aircraft for being traitors at 20,000 ft.

This is the worst congress and presidency ever, and the people should be considering a revolt not an election at this point.

A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy…. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader…. If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security.

The said constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.

How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!

The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.

Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can.

It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.

The right to freedom being the gift of Almighty God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.

It is a very great mistake to imagine that the object of loyalty is the authority and interest of one individual man, however dignified by the applause or enriched by the success of popular actions.

If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.

above by Sam Adams, who has been reduced to being a fucking beer-brand in the USA.

At the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 18, 1787, a Mrs. Powel anxiously awaited the results, and as Benjamin Franklin emerged from the long task now finished, asked him directly: "Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" "A republic if you can keep it" responded Franklin.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. (Including politicians, even the President).

The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, & what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always, well informed. The past which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive; if they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independent 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & What country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is its natural manure. -- Jefferson

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
* Samuel Adams, in a speech at the Philadelphia State House (1 August 1776)

Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.
* Benjamin Franklin 1738

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
-- Richard Jackson (often attributed to Franklin)

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.
* Learned Hand, in "The Spirit of Liberty" - a speech at "I Am an American Day" ceremony, Central Park, New York City (21 May 1944)

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.
* Thomas Jefferson, in Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774)

... Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses
Satire X, circa AD 150, before the long painful decline of the Roman Empire

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.
Edward Abbey

You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments: rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the universe.
John Adams

In a state where corruption abounds, laws must be very numerous.
-- Tacitus circa 100 AD

The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.
-- Tacitus circa 100 AD

In this election if one calls oneself a Democrat of a Republican and agrees with these fucking traitors and one thinks this is due process and these elections are going to lead this republic into a time of peace and prosperity, one would SICKEN and DISGUST any of the founders of this country. The allegiance to either of the parties makes a traitor, and a lazy ass that wants to delegate authority to a higher power rather than participate in the proper regulation of power and are collectively responsible for turning this formerly great nation into a totalitarian authoritarian oligarchical collectivist evil empire who will suffer the same fate as the Roman Empire.

Its sickening to have to share a country with self destructive lazy cry baby whiners that want a mother of a government.

Proof the USSSA is becoming a fascist piece of shit:

New York Times story about how internet traffic is increasingly flowing around the US as web-based industries catch up in other parts of the world. Other issues, such as the Patriot Act, have made foreign companies wary about having their data on US servers. From the NYTimes:

"Internet industry executives and government officials have acknowledged that Internet traffic passing through the switching equipment of companies based in the United States has proved a distinct advantage for American intelligence agencies. In December 2005, The New York Times reported that the National Security Agency had established a program with the cooperation of American telecommunications firms that included the interception of foreign Internet communications. Some Internet technologists and privacy advocates say those actions and other government policies may be hastening the shift in Canadian and European traffic away from the United States."

Our own fascist government is taking a beautiful thing American scientists invented, the Internet, and chasing the rest of the world away from our Internet infrastructure because of fucking illegal traitor warrant-less searches that violate the 4th Amendment amongst others.

As predicted.

2008-07-25T22:17:00.000-07:00

Back in 2005, I declared as the housing crisis unraveled, and jobs became scare and the economic calamity that was bound to befall us due to unrealistic housing valuations, that crime would rise.

I chuckle to hear the morons and the moron news stations report moronically on the rising crime, violence and the reduction in giving (philanthropy drops to zero when there is over taxation, meals on wheels is having trouble operating, etc, and magically, when the government stops taxing the SHIT out of the people , giving goes WAY UP!)

You see, we have a government that is strapped for cash, and with a progressive system, even if your wages adjust higher due to the inflation, so do the taxes, in the end you are left with less disposable income. Less money to SPEND. Less money to GIVE. Less money to even makes ends meet. (I don't care if you can't make payments on a house you bought you cant afford. I hope you get cancer if you are one of these morons. You live off of my responsible back you puke and the inflation used to try and fix your mess is FUCKING ME IN THE ASS.).

Philanthropic giving is way down here in The Peoples Republik of Kalifornia. And Violence is up. Way up. So much for the most unconstitutional, repressive and illegal gun control laws. So much for high taxes and a bitch-nanny state.

The government has orchestrated this horrific situation by not acting when the greedy folks were laying out this disastrous course, and of course, acting stupidly, corruptly and ineptly when the hurricane hits.

These state and federal governments are terrorists. They are illegal and they are suppressing and controlling the public and if this isn't a sign that Amerika is not in the same stages as 1930 Germany, you better wake up.

You will wake up soon under the crushing fist of an authoritarian totalitarian fascist regime. Because you are an irresponsible fat fucking lazy sucking-from-the-teat-of-government inactive bullshit whining piece of shit that would make the likes of Patrick Henry PUKE. You will get the twisted piece of shit government you deserve because YOU can't deal with the idea that YOU and YOU alone are responsible for your existence. The nanny state to tuck you in is a false construct. It will become a twisted regime to rule you like a satanic mother. You will get what you deserve by construction this awful government.

You better get a whiff of true Libertarianism and ditch this moron identity-politics and this notion the Republicans or Democrats are anything but Stalin and Hitler in a party. Its not THEM who will save YOU, its YOU that will save YOU.

If Thomas Jefferson were alive today, he would be in jail.

And as the train derails further and further, the fascist authoritarian state and Federal Reserve will blame this and that and ask for more power, and you will give it. Because you are too stupid and pathetic to bail your own ass out of the mess your made for yourself and you whine like a bitch for MOMMY!

Prepare for the hell of your own creation, moron bootlicking sheeple of the regime.

Restoring the Second Amendment, Habeus Corpus and Civil Rights

2008-06-27T01:03:00.000-07:00

Today was a good day for liberty.

Yes - a small victory in a sea of FISA, wiretaps, and amendment violations galore. This was a small step to legalizing the constitution.

These individual (implicit/god given right to self defense where the second amendment enumerated again the right to stave off authoritarians) firearms rights makes this a lot harder to pull off:

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i32/zeioccw/einsatz1.jpg

http://www.cloakanddagger.de/home%20page%20itemsHitler%20and%20the%20Dalai%20Lama_files/Einsatzgruppen-IN-action.gif

http://www.memorialdelashoah.org/upload/minisites/ukraine/images/expo4_02_l.jpg
http://www.angelfire.com/apes/conspiracy/nazigun.jpg
http://hsgm.free.fr/recent/einsatzgruppen5.jpg
http://hsgm.free.fr/recent/einsatzgruppen8.gif
http://hsgm.free.fr/recent/einsatzgruppen2.jpg
http://hsgm.free.fr/recent/einsatzgruppen4.jpg
http://oybay.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/armenian_genocide_440.jpg
http://www.friendsoftibet.org/main/images/tibet_execution_3.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1371/1047105414_d6cd502f21.jpg

Fidel and Raul Castro shooting someone extra judicially. Notice the victim here is unarmed.
http://faustasblog.com/uploaded_images/execution-777128.jpg

The Second Amendment means the same thing if you write:

Ronald McDonald likes to make hamburgers, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Or, as the opinion states:

Logic demands that there be a link between the stated purpose and the command. The Second Amendment would be nonsensical if it read, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to petition for redress of grievances shall not be infringed." That requirement of logical connection may cause a prefatory clause to resolve an ambiguity in the operative clause ("The separation of church and state being an important objective, the teachings of canons shall have no place in our jurisprudence." The preface makes clear that the operative clause refers not to canons of interpretation but to clergymen.) But apart from that clarifying function, a prefatory clause does not limit or expand the scope of the operative clause.
There are NO COLLECTIVE RIGHTS. They do not exist. The Militia Act of 1792 says if you do not have a rifle and 20 rounds for that rifle you are breaking a federal law at this moment. This militia is the unorganized militia, and between the federalist papers, the state constitutions, the US Federal Constitution and a lot of early tests in the new Republic, it was a RIGHT, it is your right , the government has a limitation in power than is cannot take the implicit/god given rights away, and its ENUMERATED again, apparently the framers had the foresight to realize tyranny would again rule the day.

Lets review where SHALL NOT is used elsewhere in the Constitution.

Section 9
The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended

Amendment 4
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment 8
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment 9
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment 15
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Amendment 19
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Amendment 26
The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

Regulated at the time more or less meant 'well trained.' They WANTED a large group of pissed off minutemen to get rid of a tyrannical regime.

I case one hasn't noticed, piles of rifles really make life difficult for our invading army in Iraq, maybe we should consider doing the same thing to this illegal terrorist government.

"The right of the people to keep and bear Arms SHALL NOT be infringed."

62%+ in this CNN poll agreed with SCOTUS ruling:

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i32/zeioccw/shallnotbeinfringedwethepeople.png

Not that I need a democratic consensus in a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC, but gun grabbers are wrong and are bordering on treason.

All too many of the other great tragedies of history--Stalin's atrocities, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holocaust, to name but a few--were perpetrated by armed troops against unarmed populations. Many could well have been avoided or mitigated, had the perpetrators known their intended victims were equipped with a rifle and twenty bullets apiece, as the Militia Act required here. If a few hundred Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto could hold off the Wehrmacht for almost a month with only a handful of weapons, six million Jews armed with rifles could not so easily have been herded into cattle cars.

My excellent colleagues have forgotten these bitter lessons of history. The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed--where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.

-- Alex Kozinski, U.S. Circuit Judge, 9th District.

The Fed devalues the dollar such that purchasing power is half of what it was in 2005, and the SCOTUS gives back an enumerated right that neither the state nor the Federal government ever had the right to take away, and there are still people pissed about the guns *not* still being banned in a place where violent and gun crime are through the despite the gun ban.

From the opinion.

Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.

We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals

Why we need to have power with the people, check out Death By Government:
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/USSR.TAB1.1.GIF
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/CHINA.FIG1.5.GIF
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.TAB1.GIF

Cathy L Lanier, the Police Chief in DC [She is already in deep shit by creating military checkpoints and forcing citizens to check in and out of neighborhoods as if she and the illegal police goons are the Schutzstaffel], said that they would work up a spate of legislation to defy the Supreme Court, and would be arresting people despite the ruling. If you shot this woman and claimed you were ridding our country of a Democratic terrorist, I would let you off or hang the jury if I was on your Jury. These police officers never read the 14th Amendment's Equal Proteciton of Laws clause.

Lanier: While the policies are being revised, Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said, officers who find handguns in residents' homes will "use their discretion" about whether to arrest the owners.

More on Herr Obersturmbannführer Lanier:

D.C. Government Faces a New Reality

Class Action Filed Over Checkpoints
Rights Group Calls Police Activity in Trinidad Neighborhood Unconstitutional

If the police can have, so can you:
"no state shall… deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms."
~ Thomas Jefferson

"And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the Press, or the rights of Conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; ..."
Samuel Adams

"Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence ... from the hour the Pilgrims landed to the present day, events, occurences and tendencies prove that to ensure peace security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable ... the very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good."
George Washington

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
Richard Henry Lee

"The great object is that every man be armed." and "Everyone who is able may have a gun."
Patrick Henry

"Those who hammer their guns into plowshares will plow for those who do not."
Thomas Jefferson

"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"
Patrick Henry

"The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that ... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; ... "
Thomas Jefferson

"The best we can help for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."
Alexander Hamilton

"The greatest danger to American freedom is a government that ignores the Constitution."
Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson knew what he was doing when he decided we need to be able to defend ourselves from government, and be the instrument of change and overthrow a corrupt government if and when it happens? He was right. The government should not feel it can walk into our homes and take control. The government should ALWAYS have to fear that such acts would be a significant risk.

Please also note the leading cause of childhood deaths is drowning in pools. Guns dont even register.

Doctors are better at killing you by accident than guns are on purpose ...

Total number of gun deaths in the U.S. in 2005: 31,000

http://www.ichv.org/Statistics.htm

Total number of deaths in the U.S. from medical errors in 2005: 44,000-98,000

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/extract/353/13/1405

The total gun deaths (acccidental and non-accidental) were still lower than the lowest estimate of deaths due to medical errors, with most of the medical errors stemming from flawed paperwork and medication administration.

Accidental gun deaths are below 1,000 a year. In 2005, last year they have numbers for, accidental firearms deaths numbered 789, according to the CDC WISQARS Mortality Reports.

http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html

So now that we have the right to guns, when do we get rid of the free-speech zones and get a vote in congress?

At the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 18, 1787, a Mrs. Powel anxiously awaited the results, and as Benjamin Franklin emerged from the long task now finished, asked him directly: "Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" "A republic if you can keep it" responded Franklin.

MySQL: The worst of OpenSOURCE, The maintainers and copyright holders should be jailed and after put into a pillory where feces are thrown at them

2008-06-14T15:28:00.000-07:00

Hello. If you are a maintainer or employee of the MySQL project within Sun, I want you to you to suffer horribly. I really do. I want you tarred and feathered and I want you in a public pillory so I can kick you.

If I don’t see mysql-4.1.24.tar.gz on a mirror soon, you are the worst form of scum. I got the “free” bkf client. I got your 4.1.24 tag. I got everything right. However, I noticed that your source repository has some rather critical files missing. This is disgusting. If Microsoft ever held the world hostage with pay-for updates for bugs they would be decried! However, you hold the world hostage with your bugs. For this you deserve to suffer. MySQL stole contributions from the public domain to try and greedily secure licenses. Since your software has no warranty, then you have no license, and you have no right to call you code stolen if I make derivative works. I’m not modifying your piece of shit database, I’m “using it,” and there is nothing you can do to “enforce” your license because you stole code from the public and held it hostage, and you hold both private and national security hostage with pay-for-bug-fixes. Criminals. Criminals. I seriously would like slash all the tires of all the pig-fucking MySQL developers who work for Sun now. This virus licensing shit has to stop. If I was supreme dictator, I would revoke all licenses for “copyrighted” shit if you hold the world hostage for bugfixes or stop maintaining the code. That’s it. If its unmaintained or buggy, its no longer yours. It turns BSD-free-for-all so engineers can fix the world without you rat bastard fucking marketing and bean counting fuck-pigs destroying our planet one fucking bug at time. Pigs.

For this you deserve severe punishment. Also, MySQL should be sued by the FSF for using the words GPL anywhere on the MySQL site. MYSQL STOLE all contributed code when they switched the license. This was done in bad faith and if you think I’ll every pay you a god damn dime you can choke on cock, I’ll just switch to Postgres - but MySQL simply pissed me off on the way.

To all GPL Nazis, fuck you, I ignore your impossible to enforce license and treat everything as LGPL, and I use the Nvidia binary driver. HAHAHAHAH. How about that, fuckers? And you made no money doing this, and you have no honor.

Your ass, in sterns, now.

America at its Best, The Economist.

2008-06-07T10:29:00.001-07:00

The Economist. 6/7/2008. "America at its Best" (Pictures McCain and Obama) I hoped the meant, "America at its best ??? " - They didn't.

June 7th 2008

America at its best (Proper Title: "America at its best ?????????????")
The primaries have left the United States with a decent choice; now it needs a proper debate about policies: leader

Please write into THE ECONOMIST. You'd think it should be called the propagandist.

These two clowns, and HRC, are the worst pieces of sell out trash in American history.

The day after clinching, Obama kowtows to the AIPAC.

McCain is a disgrace. Covering up information on POWS, one of the Keating 5 scum from the S&L crisis, if Kerry flip flops, then this guy is the King of all FLIP FLOPS. This man is a stupid, uninformed MORON, and his predisency will make Bush's look good. He once sung "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" to the tune of the beach boys Barabar Ann. He is a civil liberty CRUSHING GUN GRABBER, rated F-- by the GOA.

I hate to use something from Soros (whom I hate), but here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U39zae4IxUA
(McCain has done this several times in several forums. War for him is a funny subject apparently.)

GOA McCain, F--
http://www.gunowners.org/mccaintb.htm

Anyways, I could admonish on McCain forever. He is a phony, a spineless whimp, and he betrayed the US as a POW, there were lots of POWs, but hardly any of them wrote the anti-American commie screeds like McCain did so believably and with such fervor (there is a Switft Boat movement against McCain, but the information around the issue is classified, and his swift boat vets are silenced completely). Little McCain wanted to save his skin, there was no honor. You know now that McCain will drape himself in the flag so calling him on his gun grabbing anti-American totalitarian authoritarian legacy will likely result in YOU being called a anti-American and your patriotism will be questioned. He will most likely not be swift boated as he deserves. Hanoi Jane there is, Hanoi McCain there will not be. I wonder why is it that the soldiers and the patriots buy propaganda to support those who are constantly willing to expose the military servicemen to MORTAL DANGER.

And Obama. Change. What changes we dont know (He doesnt either, it was obvious he didnt write the speech to the AIPAC). This could go either way, but bombing Iran seems to crop up on his agenda. He predends to not take lobby money, but he has surrounded himself with HIGHLY connected people who, while not taking money from companies, will certainly be at the behest of the Medical Industrial Complex. Look to natural and herbal medicine, off label use, and non-western medicines to be CRUSHED TO DEATH under his legacy.

These two are the death of individual liberty, the death of the middle class. Neither have once made a fucking PEEP about America being completely INSOLVENT, BROKE, OUT OF MONEY and in HUGE FISCAL CRISIS due to the fiat DOLLAR being near COLLAPSE. "They" dont care, they think militarism can still save them.

They want to spend money bombing Iran, playing world police and further making the under classes entirely dependant on the government for everything every day.

Fuck "The Economist" for this disgusting garbage propagandist cover.

Ron Paul for me. I refuse to partake in the systematic establisment of the Orwellian Oceania with Ingsoc as the guiding idealogy.

Read 1984. Now. This eventuality was pegged 60 years ago.

These people represent PEOPLE as an AGGREGATE TERM, there is no personal liberty, there is no individualism.

This represents oligarchal collectivism, mega-corporations, and the military industrial complex.

CHANGE. Indeed. For the worse. If you dont believe me, look at the fight the Democrats put up against Bush in the last 2 years.

CHANGE. Higher taxes through inflation. Less disposable income. Less middle class. Less liberty. Fear being used to allow power grabs to protect your security.

You are property of the United States of America, Inc.

==========================================================
Ingsoc is oligarchical collectivism - Ingsoc rejects and vilifies every principle for which the Socialist movement originally stood, and it does so in the name of Socialism.

The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc.
==========================================================

The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world.

Goods must be produced, but they need not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by continuous warfare.

War, it will be seen, accomplishes the necessary destruction, but accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way. In principle it would be quite simple to waste the surplus labour of the world by building temples and pyramids, by digging holes and filling them up again, or even by producing vast quantities of goods and then setting fire to them. But this would provide only the economic and not the emotional basis for a hierarchical society. What is concerned here is not the morale of masses, whose attitude is unimportant so long as they are kept steadily at work, but the morale of the Party itself. Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war. It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist. The splitting of the intelligence which the Party requires of its members, and which is more easily achieved in an atmosphere of war, is now almost universal, but the higher up the ranks one goes, the more marked it becomes. It is precisely in the Inner Party that war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest. In his capacity as an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones: but such knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of doublethink. Meanwhile no Inner Party member wavers for an instant in his mystical belief that the war is real, and that it is bound to end victoriously, with Oceania the undisputed master of the entire world. All members of the Inner Party believe in this coming conquest as an article of faith. It is to be achieved either by gradually acquiring more and more territory and so building up an overwhelming preponderance of power, or by the discovery of some new and unanswerable weapon. The search for new weapons continues unceasingly, and is one of the very few remaining activities in which the inventive or speculative type of mind can find any outlet. In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for " Science ". The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc [Ingsoc is oligarchical collectivism - Ingsoc rejects and vilifies every principle for which the Socialist movement originally stood, and it does so in the name of Socialism]. And even technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty. In all the useful arts the world is either standing still or going backwards. The fields are cultivated with horse-ploughs while books are written by machinery. But in matters of vital importance - meaning, in effect, war and police espionage - the empirical approach is still encouraged, or at least tolerated. - George Orwell, 1984

The new aristocracy was made up for the most part of bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organizers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists, and professional politicians. These people, whose origins lay in the salaried middle class and the upper grades of the working class, had been shaped and brought together by the barren world of monopoly industry and centralized government. As compared with their opposite numbers in past ages, they were less avaricious, less tempted by luxury, hungrier for pure power, and, above all, more conscious of what they were doing and more intent on crushing opposition. - George Orwell, 1984

The alteration of the past is necessary for two reasons, one of which is subsidiary and, so to speak, precautionary. The subsidiary reason is that the Party member, like the proletarian, tolerates present-day conditions partly because he has no standards of comparison. He must be cut off from the past, just as he must be cut off from foreign countries, because it is necessary for him to believe that he is better off than his ancestors and that the average level of material comfort is constantly rising. But by far the more important reason for the readjustment of the past is the need to safeguard the infallibility of the Party. It is not merely that speeches, statistics, and records of every kind must be constantly brought up to date in order to show that the predictions of the Party were in all cases right. It is also that no change in doctrine or in political alignment can ever be admitted. For to change one's mind, or even one's policy, is a confession of weakness. If, for example, Eurasia or Eastasia (whichever it may be) is the enemy today, then that country must always have been the enemy. And if the facts say otherwise then the facts must be altered. Thus history is continuously rewritten. This day-to-day falsification of the past, carried out by the Ministry of Truth, is as necessary to the stability of the regime as the work of repression and espionage carried out by the Ministry of Love. [The Ministry of Love's charter is to enforce loyalty and love of Big Brother through fear, torture, and brainwashing - maybe even waterboarding.] - George Orwell, 1984

Suet, Lard and other Animal Oils are not your enemy in cooking

2008-05-30T05:19:00.000-07:00

I heard this on a thread about hostess pies:

Something about Hostess pies turns me off. Maybe it's the words "beef fat" in the ingredients. I know animal fat traditionally was used in pies, but in this day and age, it seems like a very unhealthy and unnecessary relic.

Actually, my wife tells me Oreo cookies used to contain animal fat, too. But now they don't. So if Nabisco can take it out, why can't Hostess?

If I want a pie, I'll take a real, homemade one over the packaged variety any time.

Two others followed on in a sentiment close to mine:

What's this "was"? To this day, suet and lard are both commonly used ingredients in pie crust. There's also this stuff called "butter" which you might have heard of, and I don't want to burst your bubble or anything, but I hear tell that comes from an animal too!

And as for "unhealthy"...well, unlike the trans-fats in partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, lard and butter haven't been suggested as a possible cancer-causing agent. Give me a lard and butter crust any day.

and...

You know, that's one of the things wrong with the modern world - not enough animal fat! It was flat out riduculous for Nabisco and the other large biscuit companies to go away from lard and beef tallow, as it was for fast food restaurants to switch to vegetable shortening for fries. At the base of this is a lot of government propaganda (I have learned that WHATEVER the federal government says is bad is probably good, and vice versa). And too, they replaced animal fat with hydrogenated oil, which is even worse than animal fat! I went back to lard for biscuits and pastries years ago, and have recently started frying in lard. I don't know where to get beef fat, or I would use that also.

You see beef fat, suet and lards are better tasting and more natural and less preprocessed than the hydrogenated poison used in cooking.

All this new crap, with this anti-trans fat kick, we are getting hydrogenated oils, waste oil now called canola and all sorts of "better" oils that may be less in terms of calories or have less saturated fat, but are toxic.

Did you know most vegetable oils at or near medium and higher cooking temps become toxic and create carcinogenic and mutagenic garbage, where animal fats do not even to very high temperatures?

Also note all the haute cuisine , French, new American, or any other high class cooking always uses lard and bone marrow wherever possible over lesser substitutes.

Your notion of health cant simply be calories. Check out the people who have lost a lot of weight on "fatkins" Atkins - and then go to the doctor and get lower triglycerides and LDL cholesterol readings.

Processed food in general is bad. The bleached flour in a Hostess pie is far more of an issue than the beef lard.

And if you drink coke, note that when in Great Britain/UK , they use sugar. REAL Coke classic tastes great! But here in the USA, we now use High Fructose Corn Syrup. Tastes like crap, and is very unhealthy processed crap. They hid the recipe change by making "New Coke", and when they switched back to "CocaCola Classic" they put in HFCS instead of sugar.

There is absolutely NOTHING (at least not CHEAPER) that tastes better than real animal lards in cooking. PERIOD. Food is tasting like crap and actually goes rancid a LOT faster than it used to due to all the stupid mettling around with age old recipes, and everyone is getting fatter all the time despite the innumerable "healthy" substitutions going on.

Blueberry Hostess Pies taste the best. And most of the things that are "healthier" are propaganda to allow manufacturers to use cheaper garbage in our food, and to slowly force the population into eating vegetable matter and "edible" waste products because having everyone in an overpopulated earth eating meat doesnt scale as easily. So your standard of living will drop as the Government complex feeds us stuff that is worse than a WWII ration or a modern MRE.

Laphroaig - The best single malt.

2008-05-25T15:31:00.000-07:00

I hear all these Costco-single malt drinkers. These retards that get minis in first class on an airplane, buy these fake get ups from Sam's club, those who think they know scotch. The throngs of consumers who think they know what a real scotch should taste like. They want something to make drinking easy. Good scotch isn't work per se, but the flavors and complexity must come before making drinking spirits easy to drink.

Laphroaig. Laphroaig 10, Laphroaig 10/Cask Strength, Laphroaig 15 and the super-Laphroaigs, which are aged more than 15 years.

The other day I had a glass out by the computer. My wife came in an said, the computer smells like its screwed up, like that "blue smoke" smell. I leaned over expecting the acrid burn of of the "blue smoke" on to find Laphroaig fumes wafting up from the glass.

Laphroaig tastes like everything. For a guy who has had his share of the tipple, from beeradvocate/ratebeer top 100's mostly covered, lots of Oregon, Colorado and California fresh taps covered, a ton of vintage wine covered, I like spirits - and if they came without alcohol I'd still like them. Laphroaig to me is burning tires and gasoline. Laphroaig is peat smoke and caramelized flavor. Laphroaig is intense. Laphroaig's only problem is that at its weakest its 40%ABV and I could spend a whole evening drinking a whole bottle if it werent for the self-limiting intoxication mulling over the complexity and flavors present in Laphroaig.

If you think you like scotch - get some Laphroaig and try it. If you dont like it, ok, get some Balvenie Double Wood, if you don't like that, please switch to Bartles and James wine coolers and stop bothering the adults.

U.S.: Russia must ‘de-escalate’ Georgian threat

2008-05-09T23:56:00.001-07:00

U.S.: Russia must ‘de-escalate’ Georgian threat

Moscow's decision to send troops to breakaway region sparks dispute

Hey Putin. How about you tell the USA to go fuck ourselves in the goat ass and shove it where the Sun dont shine.

I love to watch a broke assed country like the USA with a fake currency and a deeply stressed military barking orders at a country that isnt being run by a cabal of bloodsucking asshole idiots.

Seems Russia is +500 billion or so, and the USA is -9,000,000,000,000 , plus another 30-60T in debt obligations.

Hey, US federal government, no one give s flying fuck what your broke ass says anymore. Morons.

Myanmar junta accept aid, not aid workers

2008-05-09T23:53:00.000-07:00

Fuck Myanmar. Also, how can a country that is bankrupt (The USA) give money to these people ? It seems we are far more interested in Myanmar and the hurricane there than New Orleans.

This government is a piece of shit. How can they take taxes from us and give it away when we are suffer a drastic drop in the standard of OUR living?

Phil O'Shaughnessy

2008-05-04T22:08:00.000-07:00

Phil O'Shaughnessy : He is a pigfucking bastard motherfucker at Creative Labs - the makers of soundblaster products.

What happened is Creative pushed EAX. They were ruthless and used lawyers to bankrupt Aureal, the inventors of better technology, and after the litigation, they picked up the superior technology on the cheap.

After this ruthless act, they went along selling sound cards until Vista: Then they had to fuck the world one more time. They would only make EAX work for a fee. They crippled the fucking drivers for all the hardware accelerated cards to force people to pay up for the drivers.

I hope everyone who is responsible for shitty drivers at Creative gets cancer and fucking dies, and I hope everyone at Microsoft who decided to break DirectSound and other old APIs in Vista fucking gets cancer.

You motherfuckers are destroying the business you thrive on by fucking up old games and shit, you fucking morons. Watch Apple/Linux and others fuck your dumb asses out of business.

Anyways, Phil O'Shaughnessy, he is the main guy - the face - behind this fucking asshole unacceptable piece of fuck-shit act. He was trying to get this guy, Daniel_K, Daniel Kawakami, to stop helping people fix the fucking sound in Vista by threating to sue him for providing drivers HE FIXED - alone. Creative fuck labs.

And engineers at creative: grow a set of fucking balls and quit. You ought to be fucking ashamed of working there you fucking assholes. What a pathetic piece of shit you create. If you are in IEEE, you should be kicked the fuck out you fucking assholes.

Washington DC - The Whore Killers - First Chandra Levy and slime-Condit, next Brandy Britton and now DC madam (Deborah Jeane Palfrey)

2008-05-03T11:55:00.000-07:00

Washington DC - The Whore Killers - First Chandra Levy and slime-Condit, next Brandy Britton and now DC madam (Deborah Jeane Palfrey).

Interesting. Time Magazine said Palfrey said she would kill herself. But this was not the case, she said she would be "suicided," in a fashion similar to Brandy Britton. See here:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1736687,00.html

Glad to know Time is in the pocket of the military industrial complex fraud-media. Ms. Palfrey is on record as saying she would not commit suicide and, if she was found dead, it would be murder. Link. If you want to hear the words come from Ms. Palfrey's own mouth, here is a link to her last interview.

Hear it here: http://www.infowars.com/media/230707palfrey.mp3

Oh yeah, and statistically speaking, women very rarely hang themselves. They prefer guns and pills. I wonder why both these women, Britton and Palfrey, hung themselves. Probably the same rope. Collateral Damage in the D.C. Madam Case Like most of us, I chuckled and grinned when the case of the DC madam (Deborah Jeane Palfrey) first broke. A high class call girl service operating in Washington DC? Yeah, I was scandalized ... while waiting for the names to start trickling out. Ms. Palfrey gave her client list to ABC News fully intending to take down the high profile johns with her. Randall L. Tobias, the former CEO of Ely Lilly and top State Department lieutenant to Condi Rice, was the first big fish to be outed. In his capacity as Director of Foreign Assistance, Tobias encouraged sexual abstinence, and discounted the use of condoms, in preventing HIV/AIDS. Wikipedia profile. Later news interest shifted from the johns to the hookers as word leaked that Ms. Palfrey recruited highly educated women of class. Brandy Britton, 43, a former assistant professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (see pic on far right), became an escort for financial reasons (single parent raising two kids) according to Palfrey. Arrested on prostitution charges in 2006, Ms. Britton "hung herself" in February 2007 before she was scheduled to go to trial. Link. It is rumored that a US Naval Academy instructor and legal secretary at a large DC law firm were also escorts for Ms. Palfrey. If the girls are going to suffer, I say publish the names of every guy caught up in this thing. If this prosecution is so serious that a mother of two has to die, then let's destroy the lives of all the dudes too. 05/05/2007.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey found dead of supposed suicide at her mother's home in Florida. Brandy Britton was also found dead of a suicide hanging. Strange that both women decided to hang themselves? Ms. Palfrey is on record as saying she would not commit suicide and, if she was found dead, it would be murder. Link. If you want to hear the words come from Ms. Palfrey's own mouth, here is a link to her last interview. 05/01/2008.

DC Madam Predicted She Would Be Suicided

"Rape, beating, maiming, disfigurement and more than likely murder disguised in the form of just another jailhouse accident or suicide would await me," Palfrey wrote - Time Magazine curiously quick to re-affirm suicide story Paul Joseph Watson

Prison Planet
Thursday, May 1, 2008

Deborah Jeane Palfrey predicted she would be "suicided" on several occasions both recently and as far back as 17 years ago - comments that now appear ominous in light of the announcement that the former head of a Washington escort service allegedly killed herself today.';
Click here to listen to Palfrey clearly state that she would not commit suicide. DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey predicted she would be "suicided" on several occasions both recently and as far back as 17 years ago - comments that now appear ominous in light of the announcement that the former head of a Washington escort service allegedly killed herself today. "If taken into custody, my physical safety and most probably my very life would be jeopardized," she wrote in August 1991 following an attempt to bring her to trial, "Rape, beating, maiming, disfigurement and more than likely murder disguised in the form of just another jailhouse accident or suicide would await me," said Palfrey in a handwritten letter to the judge accusing the San Diego police vice squad of having a vendetta against her.

During several recent appearances on The Alex Jones Show, Palfrey also said that she was at risk of being killed and that authorities would make it look like suicide. She made it clear that she was not suicidal and if she was found dead it would be murder. Palfrey had threatened to release the names of well-known clients of her upscale call girl ring in the nation's capitol, and had indicated that Dick Cheney may be one of them. "We now know it goes at least as high as a United States Senator," Palfrey told The Alex Jones Show, "I'm hearing rumors now from other people that there are other possibilities in that stratosphere so to speak, on that level." "No I'm not planning to commit suicide," Palfrey told The Alex Jones Show on her last appearance in March, "I'm planning on going into court and defending myself vigorously and exposing the government," she said. "Blanche Palfrey had no sign that her daughter was suicidal, and there was no immediate indication that alcohol or drugs were involved, police Capt. Jeffrey Young said," according to an AP report. Click here to listen to Palfrey clearly state that she would not commit suicide. Click here to listen to the entirety of a July 2007 interview with Palfrey. UPDATE: In an almost uncanny development, as soon as this article started to go viral on the Internet, Time Magazine released a story claiming that Palfrey told author Dan Moldea that she would rather commit suicide than go to jail. What a funny coincidence!

No one ever said that the DC power structure was smart but we see time and again just how dag nasty they really are:

'D.C. Madam' dead in Florida Palfrey had been convicted of running $2 million prostitution ring The Associated Press updated 1:46 p.m. PT, Thurs., May. 1, 2008

TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. - The woman convicted of running a high-end Washington prostitution ring that snagged a senator killed herself Thursday, police said, weeks after she was convicted on charges she vowed not to go to prison for. The body of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, 52, was found in a shed near her mother's manufactured home about 20 miles northwest of Tampa. Police said she left at least two suicide notes and other writings to her family in a notebook, but they did not disclose their contents. The mother found Palfrey, who had apparently hanged herself with nylon rope from the shed's ceiling. A man who answered a phone listed for Palfrey's mother declined to comment. But defense attorney Preston Burton, who represented Palfrey in her criminal trial that ended last month, said: "This is a tragic news and my heart goes out to her mother." Palfrey's 76-year-old mother immediately called 911. "Obviously the mother's very distraught, discovering your child in that state," said Capt. Jeffrey Young of the Tarpon Springs Police Department. Young added that Blanche Palfrey had no indication her daughter was depressed to the point of being suicidal. There's no early indication that alcohol or drugs were involved in the death, he said. Authorities said Blanche last spoke to her daughter earlier that morning, telling Deborah Palfrey she planned to take a quick nap. Young said the FBI was notified about the death, "due to the ongoing cases we knew Ms. Palfrey had in the Washington area," but they are not investigating. 'This is a real bad tragedy'
Erwin Matthews, 73, who lives five houses down from Palfrey's mother in a community of mostly retirees, said he and his girlfriend heard Blanche Palfrey screaming around 10:30 a.m. "She said: 'My daughter's hanging there by herself,'" Matthews recalled. "That's when everybody went running over there. This is a real bad tragedy." Palfrey was convicted April 15 by a federal jury of running a prostitution service that catered to members of Washington's political elite, including Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican. She had denied her escort service engaged in prostitution, saying that if any of the women engaged in sex acts for money, they did so without her knowledge. She was convicted of money laundering, using the mail for illegal purposes and racketeering. But the trial concluded without revealing many new details about the service or its clients. Vitter was among possible witnesses, but he did not take the stand. Channing Phillips, the spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in the District of Columbia, said that under sentencing guidelines, Palfrey faced 57 to 71 months in prison. She was free pending her sentencing July 24. "I am sure as heck am not going to be going to federal prison for one day, let alone, you know, four to eight years here, because I'm shy about bringing in the deputy secretary of whatever," Palfrey told ABC last year when she released phone records that revealed some of her clients. "Not for a second. I'll bring every last one of them in if necessary." Prosecutors said Palfrey operated the prostitution service for 13 years. Vitter: 'Very serious sin'
Vitter, a first-term senator who is married and has four children, has acknowledged being involved with Palfrey's escort service and has apologized for what he called a "very serious sin." But he avoided commenting further. Besides Vitter, the trial also concluded without the testimony of military strategist Harlan Ullman or Randall Tobias, a former senior State Department official. Both men had been named among possible witnesses. One of the escort service employees was former University of Maryland, Baltimore County, professor Brandy Britton, who was arrested on prostitution charges in 2006. She committed suicide in January before she was scheduled to go to trial. Last year, Palfrey said she, too, was humiliated by her prostitution charges, but said: "I guess I'm made of something that Brandy Britton wasn't made of."

Former Asst. Professor Charged With Prostitution In Her Home Britton Has Doctorate In Sociology

POSTED: 9:30 am EST January 19, 2006 UPDATED: 8:05 pm EST January 19, 2006 ELLICOTT CITY, Md. -- A woman charged with running a prostitution ring has an unusual resume, including a doctorate in sociology and an academic interest in women's studies. Brandy Britton, 41, earned her doctorate from the University of California at San Francisco and founded the Institute for Women and Girls Health Research in the Ellicott City home where she allegedly ran the prostitution service. Britton, a former sociology and anthropology professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, was charged this week with four counts related to prostitution, The (Baltimore) Sun reported. Police say she charged hourly rates of $300 and up.
On the Web site that police allege she used to solicit business, Britton says she receives money for modeling and companionship -- not for prostitution. On the Web site, she went by the name Alexis Angel. Britton was released on her own recognizance Tuesday, according to a Howard County court commissioner. She could not be reached for comment Thursday. The Web site police took notice of advertises her home as a "discreet, upscale location in Howard County" offering evening and full-day appointments for up to $2,500. Britton was arrested Tuesday after an undercover Howard County police officer scheduled an appointment with her. Court documents say she led the lieutenant to an upstairs bedroom, told him to undress and leave $400 on the table by the door. He then left the room and let in vice and narcotics officers. Police confiscated numerous business records in Britton's name. Police refused to give details of those records, including whether they listed clients' names. "She was brazen, but you would have to be looking for her site," said Pfc. Brandon Justice, a spokesman for Howard County police. "When a person uses mass communication, it increases the likelihood that police are going to be tipped off." Police said they charged her with "engaging in prostitution, maintaining a building for the purpose of prostitution, allowing a building to be used for prostitution, and allowing a person into a building for the purpose of prostitution." Neighbors said they remember men visiting the house at all hours. They also complained about Britton's two potbellied pigs. "You come out your front yard and have pigs in your front yard," said Ed Gordon, one of Britton's neighbors. "It wasn't exactly what we expected in this neighborhood. Of course, there's other things we didn't expect in this neighborhood, either." In 1999, Britton lost her job at UMBC and filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against the university. In dismissing the suit, which is on appeal, a federal judge in Baltimore cited complaints about Britton from UMBC students and colleagues, and an accusation by the National Institutes of Health that Britton falsified data on a federally funded research project. Britton had taught sociology at the school beginning in 1994. After losing her job, Britton directed the Institute for Women and Girls Health Research Inc. Britton also participated in meetings of a committee of the Maryland Drug Treatment Task Force, chaired by then-Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. Howard County police began investigating Britton in March 2005 after receiving "numerous" complaints and then finding "her services and rates" posted online, according to charging documents. The Web site, however, states: "Money exchanged in legal adult personal services for modeling is simply for my time and companionship. Anything else that may occur is a matter of personal choice between consenting adults of legal age and is not contracted for, nor is it requested to be contracted for in any manner. This is not an offer of prostitution." Stay with News4 and nbc4.com for more information.

Gulf States May End Dollar Pegs, Kuwait Minister Says

2008-05-02T13:29:00.000-07:00

Gulf States May End Dollar Pegs, Kuwait Minister Says

May 1 (Bloomberg) -- Gulf states are considering dropping their pegs to the dollar after the U.S. currency's decline stoked inflation across the region, Kuwaiti Finance Minister Mustafa al- Shimali said.

``Yes, there are some'' Gulf Cooperation Council states considering dropping their pegs to the dollar, which has fallen 13 percent against the euro in the last 12 months, al-Shimali said in an interview in Kuwait late yesterday without naming the countries. ``Some countries will do what we are doing.''

Al-Shimali's comments may restoke speculation of a change in Middle East currency systems that eased after the United Arab Emirates and Qatar last month ruled out any revaluation or dropping the dollar peg in the short term. The issue will remain a key issue as long as inflation remains high.

``Inflation is rising in the Gulf to a great extent because of loose monetary policy,'' said Marios Maratheftis, head of research for Standard Chartered Plc in the Middle East in a telephone interview from Dubai. ``Tightening monetary policy can only happen if they drop their currency pegs or strengthen the currency, preferably both.''

The U.A.E., Bahrain and Qatar lowered their benchmark interest rates today by a quarter point, matching a cut by the U.S. Federal Reserve a day earlier. The move is needed to maintain the dollar pegs. Saudi Arabia is on its weekend while Oman moves its interest rates in line with the London Inter Bank Offered Rate.

Gulf Inflation

Inflation is running close to 10 percent in Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., while Qatar's consumer prices rose 14 percent in the fourth quarter.

The Kuwaiti dinar has appreciated 7.9 percent against the dollar since the nation in May became the only Gulf Arab state to drop its peg to the U.S. currency. Contracts to buy U.A.E. dirhams in 12 months time are trading at a 2 percent premium and Saudi riyal forwards are trading at a 1.3 percent premium to the spot price, suggesting that some traders are betting that those countries will follow Kuwait in revaluing. The link to the dollar meant that imports in euros and other currencies that have strengthened against the dollar became more expensive.

The idea of dropping the peg ``has been started by other Gulf countries and they are partially going this way because the dollar has been going down for some time,'' al-Shimali said yesterday.

Forum meeting

``This news has already been in newspapers,'' al-Shimali told reporters at a meeting of the Fourth World Economic Forum in Kuwait today.

Reuters reported today that al-Shimali said he was citing newspaper reports and not expressing his own opinion when commenting to Bloomberg on the future of the Gulf dollar pegs.

When asked at the forum about Gulf states considering dropping their pegs, al-Shimali told reporters that he would not comment on behalf of Gulf states.

Officials at the Qatari, Omani and U.A.E. central banks were not immediately available. The Bahraini and Saudi central banks were closed today.

Revaluation speculation peaked in November after U.A.E. central bank Governor Sultan Bin Nasser al-Suwaidi said he was considering dropping the dirham's peg to the dollar, and a Saudi Arabia central bank official said that Gulf states may revalue their currencies together.

All the GCC states, apart from Oman, are planning to form a single Gulf currency by 2010. The group's central bank governors will meet in June in an attempt to get the project back on schedule.

``The case for currency reform is strong,'' Simon Williams, chief Middle East economist at HSBC Holdings Plc, said in a telephone interview from Dubai. ``The inflationary pressures the Gulf faces not only demand a stronger currency, they also require an independent monetary policy. The issue is not going to go away, but I don't believe that change is close.''

STFU Chelsea: Chelsea Clinton Startled by Monica Query

2008-03-25T19:14:00.000-07:00

INDIANAPOLIS — Chelsea Clinton had a quick retort Tuesday when asked whether her mother's credibility had been hurt during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

"Wow, you're the first person actually that's ever asked me that question in the, I don't know maybe, 70 college campuses I've now been to, and I do not think that is any of your business," Clinton said during a campaign visit for her mother, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Clinton had picked out the male questioner as she wrapped up a question-and-answer session at Butler University. It wasn't immediately clear what statement by the first lady the questioner was referring to. Before she was fully aware of her husband's relationship with Lewinsky, a White House intern, Hillary Clinton said the allegations about that relationship were manufactured by a "vast right-wing conspiracy."

The Clinton bitch mother has taught her chick well. These people think they are above lines of questioning? What the hell? Her liar mother can make up fake stories about sniper fire and C-17s. She can pretend to believe Bill and calling allegations of perjury a "vast right wing conspiracy" This is all done by THREE voluntary public figures. Chelsea is a voluntary public figure! (Note: I don't give a shit about Clinton's BJ/stained dress, but lying about it was retarded)

Despite being a know-nothing stupid bitch that should have no right to speak without being DESTROYED by real journalism - she gets a free pass - "nothing I say" - can be a subject of debate!

I am sick of this bitch. I hate this bitch. She is a know nothing bitch that has not relevance and it’s a sad , sad day where "they" are actually planning to build her a dynasty as well.

Clinton can smear Obama like a right-wing pro, and can destroy the possibility of defeating McCain in the name of power and lust for power, and she can field her stupid daughter to campaign on her behalf and then whine and cry and bitch if anyone even makes a negative statement about that loser-silver-spooned worthless bitch Chelsea (and I'd say the same of the Bush twins, all three of these asshole bitches should be in uniform and in Iraq). Even the inbred hemophiliac assholes of Britain's royal family can do the time in Afghanistan right now, but these American Royalty bitches get a free pass at the press and it sickens me.

Chelsea, you stinking bitch, get the hell out of the public eye. You suck, you are a know-nothing, and if it wasn't for your parents being who they are, you wouldn't ever by listened to by anyone ever, and you would probably be single your entire life. Chelsea: you SICKEN me.

Look what you got, America, by letting your polls get rigged and letting your media be controlled by the military industrial complex. Look what you got. Diebold already knows the result of this SELECTION, and its McCain. And that traitor gun grabbing piece of SHIT is probably the worst thing for America right now.

You proles will be begging for RON PAUL once you see what you have doomed America to.

Wholesale Prices Jump in January - Confidence plunges, inflation rate soars

2008-02-26T12:07:00.000-08:00

Thanks Bernanke and the Criminal US Government.

Wholesale Prices Jump in January
Tuesday February 26, 12:30 pm ET
By Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer

Higher Costs for Food, Energy and Medicine Push Wholesale Prices Up Sharply

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Battered by bad economic news, consumer confidence plunged while wholesale food, energy and medicine costs soared, pushing inflation up at the fastest pace in a quarter century.

The Labor Department said Tuesday that wholesale inflation jumped by 1 percent in January, more than double the increase that analysts had been expecting.

Meanwhile, the New York-based Conference Board reported that its confidence index fell to 75.0 in February, down from a revised January reading of 87.3. The drop was far below the 83 reading that analysts had forecast and put the index at its lowest level since February 2003, a period that reflected anxiety in the leadup to the Iraq war.

Consumers have been shaken by a prolonged slump in housing that has pushed the country close to a recession.

A third report Tuesday showed that home prices, measured by the S&P/Case-Shiller Index, dropped by 8.9 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, the steepest drop in the 20-year history of the index.

"Home prices across the nation and in most metro areas are significantly lower than where they were a year ago," said Robert Shiller, one of the index's creators. "Wherever you look, things look bleak."

The January inflation surge left wholesale prices rising by 7.4 percent over the past 12 months, the fastest pace in more than 26 years.

The worse-than-expected performance was certain to capture attention at the Federal Reserve, which has chosen to combat a threatened recession by aggressively cutting interest rates in the belief that weaker economic growth will keep a lid on prices.

But the combination of rising inflation and weaker growth raises the threat of "stagflation," the economic malady that plagued the country through the 1970s, when a series of oil shocks left households battered by the twin problems of stagnant growth and rising inflation.

The 1 percent jump in wholesale prices followed a 0.3 percent decline in December and was the biggest one-month increase since a 2.6 percent increase in November. That gain had been driven by sharply higher energy costs.

The big jump in wholesale prices followed a report last week that consumer prices had risen by a worse-than-expected 0.4 percent, reflecting higher costs for food, energy and health care.

The wholesale report said that energy prices jumped 1.5 percent, as gasoline prices rose by 2.9 percent and the cost of home heating oil jumped by 8.5 percent.

Food prices, which have been surging because of increased demand stemming from ethanol production, rose by 1.7 percent last month, the biggest monthly increase in three years. Prices for beef, bakery products and eggs were all up sharply.

Core wholesale inflation, which excludes food and energy, posted a 0.4 percent increase, the biggest increase in 11 months. This gain was led by a 1.5 percent spike in the cost of prescription and non-prescription drugs.

The cost of book publishing was up 1.7 percent while the price of light trucks and passenger cars both rose by 0.3 percent.

Prices excluding food and energy are up 2.5 percent over the past 12 months, the fastest 12-month gain since a 2.5 percent rise in the 12 months ending in October.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080226/ap_on_go_ot/economy

=====

Confidence plunges, inflation rate soars

1 hour, 5 minutes ago

No good news today on the economic front. Consumer confidence plunged, the wholesale inflation rate soared, the number of homes being foreclosed jumped, home prices fell sharply and a report predicts big increases in health care costs.

Consumer confidence weakened significantly as Americans worry about less-favorable business conditions and job prospects. The New York-based Conference Board says in a report released on Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index plunged in February to 75.0 from a revised 87.3 in January.

The reading — the lowest since the index registered 64.8 in February 2003 — is far below the 83.0 analysts expected.

The index measures how consumers feel now about the economy. It has been weakening since July, suggesting that wary consumers may retrench financially, which could fatigue the economy further.

Inflation at the wholesale level soared in January, pushed higher by rising costs for food, energy and medicine. The monthly increase carried the annual inflation rate to its fastest jump in a quarter century.

The Labor Department said Tuesday that wholesale prices rose 1 percent last month, more than double the 0.4 percent increase that economists had been expecting.

The January surge left wholesale prices rising by 7.5 percent over the past 12 months, the fastest pace in more than 26 years, since prices had risen at a 7.5 percent pace in the 12 months ending in October 1981.

The number of homes facing foreclosure jumped 57 percent in January compared to a year ago, with lenders increasingly forced to take possession of homes they couldn't unload at auctions, a mortgage research firm said Monday.

Nationwide, some 233,001 homes received at least one notice from lenders last month related to overdue payments, compared with 148,425 a year earlier, according to Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac Inc. Nearly half of the total involved first-time default notices.

The worsening situation came despite ongoing efforts by lenders to help borrowers manage their payments by modifying loan terms, working out long-term repayment plans and other actions

U.S. home prices lost 8.9 percent in the final quarter of 2007, Standard & Poor's said Tuesday, marking a full year of declining values and the steepest drop in the 20-year history of its housing index.

"We reached a somber year-end for the housing market in 2007," said one of the index's creators Robert Shiller. "Home prices across the nation and in most metro areas are significantly lower than where they were a year ago. Wherever you look things look bleak."

The S&P/Case-Shiller home price indices, which include a quarterly index, a 20-city index and a 10-city index, reflect year-over-year declines in 17 metropolitan areas with double-digit declines in eight of them.

By 2017, total health care spending will double to more than $4 trillion a year, accounting for one of every $5 the nation spends, the federal government projects.

The 6.7 percent annual increase in spending — nearly three times the rate of inflation_ will be largely driven by higher prices and an increased demand for care, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Monday. Other factors in the mix include a growing and aging population. The first wave of baby boomers become eligible for Medicare beginning in 2011.

With the aging population, the federal government will be picking up the tab for a growing share of the nation's medical expenses. Overall, federal and state governments accounted for about 46 percent of health expenditures in 2006. That percentage will increase to 49 percent over the next decade.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080226/ap_on_bi_ge/economy_rdp&printer=1

Not a new problem, Andrew Jackson: Central Banking is a Den of Vipers and Thieves

2008-01-18T09:20:00.000-08:00

Please consider Andrew Jackson's words on central banking:

"Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the Eternal God, I will rout you out... If people only understood the rank injustice of the money and banking system, there would be a revolution by morning." ….

Andrew Jackson publicly pledging to defeat international monopolist bankers to their face in his speech. Jackson vanquished a global cartel in its plans for a privately owned “U.S.” central bank. A public murder attempt on Andrew Jackson failed shortly thereafter by a double misfire of the assassin’s pistols.

UPDATE: Spot Gold At New Record High On US Rate Cut Talk

2008-01-11T03:07:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: Spot Gold At New Record High On US Rate Cut Talk

(Adds analyst, trader comments.)

LONDON (Dow Jones)--Spot gold hit a new record high Thursday as talk of further interest rate cuts in the U.S. sparked a flurry of buying and pushed the metal even closer to its next big target of $900 a troy ounce.

As of 1830 GMT spot gold had hit an all-time high of $895.50/oz, breaking above Wednesday's record high of $891.50/oz, following comments by U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, traders said.

Bernanke said Thursday that more rate cuts "may well be necessary" as downside risks to the economy "have become more pronounced."

The comments caused the U.S. dollar to weaken against the euro, which hit a high of $1.4815.

Financial markets expect as much as 0.75 percentage point of additional cuts in the fed funds target rate by the end of March, an expectation that seemed supported by Bernanke's remarks Thursday.

"Buyers are just waiting for opportunities to get back into the market," said TheBullionDesk analyst James Moore. Spot gold slipped from its high late Wednesday and some analysts predicted that gold could be in for a correction, but the interest rate talk prompted further buying.

Moore said the interest rate situation is helping to keep the U.S. dollar under pressure, and hawkish comments Thursday by the European Central Bank president added to fears of a U.S.-led slowdown.

Indications of further interest rate cuts to come out of the U.S. added further fuel to the spot gold bull run, which has seen prices rise as much as 7.5% since the start of the new year and 40.7% from the start of 2007.

Additionally, market uncertainty surrounding mortgage lenders and bond insurers, if it intensifies, is likely to encourage further gold buying, along with intensifying recession fears, said HSBC analyst James Steel.

Gold is seen as a hard asset when equities are volatile, and as a protection against inflation, with fears of that growing amid rising oil prices.

While $900/oz is seen as the next target, many investors are predicting this is just the beginning of a bull run with a few more years to go.

Strong fundamentals of constrained mine supply against a backdrop of economic uncertainty are likely to lift spot-gold toward $1,200/oz, James Burton of the World Gold Council said.

Momentum in the gold bull run is being led by investor interest, as indicated by the demand for exchange traded funds. That demand is expected to cause gold to average $850/oz in 2008, with $1,000/oz likely to be hit before the year's end, said New York-based Midas Fund manager Thomas Winmill.

But he said while investor interest has skyrocketed, physical demand, particularly in gold jewelry-hungry India, has tailed off.

"So we will have to see if investor demand can overwhelm that," Winmill said.

U.S. Dollars No Longer Accepted at Indian Tourist Sites

2008-01-03T12:54:00.000-08:00

U.S. Dollars No Longer Accepted at Indian Tourist Sites

Thursday, January 03, 2008

NEW DELHI — No dollars, just rupees please.

In a sign of how the once mighty U.S. dollar has fallen, India's tourism minister said Thursday that U.S. dollars will no longer be accepted at the country's heritage tourist sites, like the famed Taj Mahal.

For years the dollar was worth about 50 rupees and tourists visiting most sites in India were charged either $5 or 250 rupees.

But with the dollar at a nine-year low against the rupee — falling 11 percent in 2007 alone and now hovering at around 39 rupees — that deal has become a losing proposition for the tourism industry.

The country's tourism minister said, though, that the decision was only in part a reaction to the currency's plunging value.

"Before the dollar lost its value, there was a demand to have (admission tickets) just in rupees," Tourism Minister Ambika Soni told the CNN-IBN news channel.

Soni said that charging only rupees would not only be more practical, but would save money because "the dollar was weaker against the rupee."

The Taj Mahal, India's famed white marble monument to love, which had charged tourists $15 or 750 rupees, has been refusing to accept dollars since November.

The move makes visits pricier for American tourists, who now have to shell out nearly $20.

And it's likely to get worse.

"We expect a slight appreciation of the rupee to continue, although it won't be as dramatic as last year," said Agam Gupta, head of foreign exchange trading at Standard Chartered Bank in India.

The dollar has fallen against most major currencies, and it has lost ground against the rupee due to an influx of foreign capital into India, said Gupta.

Soni said she was not worried about the decision affecting tourism numbers as India provided more than just budget attractions.

"I always say it's not numbers I am looking for or working for. I am working for tourists to have a complete experience," she said.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,319807,00.html

U.S. producer prices surge in November

2007-12-13T21:06:00.001-08:00

U.S. producer prices surge in November

Biggest jump in 34 years due to record rise in gasoline prices

The Associated Press
updated 8:44 a.m. PT, Thurs., Dec. 13, 2007

WASHINGTON - Wholesale prices shot up 3.2 percent in November, the biggest jump in 34 years, propelled by a record rise in gasoline prices.
The big inflation pickup in the Producer Price Index, which measures the costs of goods before they reach stores shelves, came after wholesale prices inched up by just 0.1 percent in October, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
When volatile energy and food prices are removed, all other prices rose by 0.4 percent in November, after being flat the month before. The last time this price barometer registered a bigger increase was one year ago. The pickup in “core” prices suggested inflation may be seeping into a wider range of goods.
The inflation figures were worse than economists were expecting. They were forecasting overall wholesale prices to go up by 1.5 percent, and core prices to increase 0.2 percent.
Soaring energy prices were mostly to blame. (NOTE: No, its the Fed)
They leaped by a record 14.1 percent in November.
Gasoline prices posted an all-time high increase of 34.8 percent last month. Diesel fuel prices jumped 35.8 percent and home heating oil soared 31.5 percent.
In another report, new applications filed last week for unemployment benefits dropped by 7,000 to 333,000, the lowest level since the middle of November. It was an encouraging sign that the employers aren’t resorting to large-scale layoffs as they cope with an economy whose growth has been slowed by housing and credit troubles.
The figures were close to analysts’ forecasts for claims to dip to 335,000.
Still, new-job creation has clearly lost speed this year as construction companies, factories, mortgage companies and others slash jobs because of the housing collapse and credit crunch.
Rising inflation could complicate the Federal Reserve’s job of trying to keep the fragile economy expanding and inflation low.
The Fed on Tuesday sliced a key interest rate to 4.25 percent, the third reduction this year, in an effort to prevent the country from falling into a recession. Rate reductions are a bracing tonic for weak economic growth, while rate increases are used to combat inflation.
Oil prices, which had neared $100 a barrel, have moderated. But they are still high. High energy prices can slow economic activity and spread inflation if they cause the prices of lots of other goods and services to rise.
“Elevated energy and commodity prices, among other factors, may put upward pressure on inflation,” the Fed warned on Tuesday. The Fed pledged to continue to “monitor inflation developments carefully.”
Some bright spots in the inflation report: food costs were flat in November, after rising by a sharp 1 percent in October. And, costs for electronic computers dropped 2.4 percent.
But prices for many other goods moved higher. Light motor truck prices rose 2.3 percent, the most in one year. Passenger car prices went up 0.6 percent and platinum and gold jewelry rose 2 percent.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22240224/

Oil Min: Iran Has Halted Oil Transactions In Dollars -AFP

2007-12-12T01:19:00.000-08:00

Oil Min: Iran Has Halted Oil Transactions In Dollars -AFP

Sat, Dec 8 2007, 09:40 GMT
http://www.djnewswires.com/eu

Oil Min: Iran Has Halted Oil Transactions In Dollars -AFP

TEHRAN (AFP)--Major crude producer Iran has completely stopped carrying out its oil transactions in dollars, Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said on Saturday, labeling the greenback an "unreliable" currency.

"At the moment selling oil in dollars has been completely halted, in line with the policy of selling crude in non-dollar currencies," Nozari was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.

"The dollar is an unreliable currency, considering its devaluation and the oil exporters' losses," he added.

The world's fourth-largest oil exporter, Iran has massively reduced its dependence on the dollar over the past year in the face of U.S. pressures on its financial system.

The U.S. has successfully encouraged major European and Asian banks to cut their dealings with Iran in a bid to make the Islamic republic give way on its controversial nuclear program.

Washington has also blacklisted major Iranian banks for alleged support of terrorism and seeking nuclear weapons, charges denied by Tehran.

Iran has reduced its assets in dollars held in foreign banks and urged OPEC to take collective action to price oil in other currencies such as the euro, instead of the U.S. currency which is used across the world at present.

The decline of the dollar, which has weakened considerably against the euro and other currencies in the past 12 months, has affected the revenues of OPEC members because most of them price and sell their oil exports in the U.S. currency.

Anheuser-Busch to increase the price of beer

2007-12-02T12:58:00.001-08:00

Anheuser-Busch to increase the price of beer
Rising ingredient costs will continued to be passed along to consumersupdated 2:48 p.m. PT, Thurs., Nov. 29, 2007ST. LOUIS - Anheuser-Busch Cos. thinks consumers are more than willing to pay a little extra for beer.
The nation’s biggest brewer will continue raising prices to counter a rise in the cost of ingredients, Chief Financial Officer W. Randolph Baker told a group of stock analysts at a conference in New York Thursday.
Baker said consumers have accepted price increases on most products in 2007, sustaining profits for the maker of Budweiser, Bud Light and Michelob.
“Our object for the year was to find a way to cover (cost increases), and we did — but just barely,” Baker said. The cost of agricultural commodities like hops and barley has risen steeply, Baker said.
Baker highlighted a bright spot for Anheuser-Busch — an apparent increase in consumer interest for domestic beers. Last year, beer industry shipment volume grew 2.1 percent, he said, the best annual performance since 1990. he said beer industry growth in 2007 has continued to exceed expectations, up 1.8 percent to date.
“We see the resurgence in interest in beer. With the momentum there, it’s likely you’re going to have strong demand for beer,” Baker said.
Anheuser-Busch will boost advertising spending next year to strengthen demand for its flagship brands, Baker said. Much of the spending will be made on national television ads, with spending increasing by double digits in 2008, he said.
U.S. beer sales have lagged in recent years with the growing popularity of wine and cocktails. A report released Thursday by Goldman Sachs analysts Andrew Sawyer and Judy Hong said they’re concerned the trend will be difficult to reverse.
“We are encouraged by the strategy to increase (Anheuser-Busch’s) focus behind the core brands, but it remains to be seen whether these efforts will lead to stronger volume growth anytime soon,” the report said.
International beer sales have outpaced domestic sales, and Anheuser-Busch has been disappointed in its mainstay brand Bud Light, Baker said.
In the third quarter this year, revenue for the U.S. beer segment rose 2 percent, while revenue from international markets jumped 8 percent.
“The biggest priority is accelerating the growth of Bud Light, with a focus on improving our domestic beer profitability and performance,” Baker said.
Anheuser-Busch shares fell 63 cents, or 1.2 percent, to $51.26 Thursday.

Ben Stein: Entitlements ‘Bankrupt’ U.S. Today

2007-11-27T23:09:00.000-08:00

Ben Stein: Entitlements ‘Bankrupt’ U.S. Today

Ben Stein, the economist, commentator, and one-time Nixon speechwriter, also well known for film and TV roles, says the cost of Medicare is already completely out of hand.

In fact, the future cost is beyond our ability to pay — period.
“Medicare is such a crisis you can hardly imagine,” Stein said in a video commentary for Fortune magazine. “Actuarially, the U.S. is bankrupt right now.”
He isn’t speaking theoretically. Stein says that the locked-in, required spending — figures not up for debate — simply overwhelm not only the potential income from taxes, but the actual value of the assets themselves.
“The liabilities foreseeable up until the year 2050 discounted back to present value exceed the total wealth of the nation,” Stein said.
“Every building, every warehouse, every K-Mart, every Wal-Mart, every Target, every Sears, every ship, every plane, every acre of wheat or corn, every oil well, put them all in one big bond, it would not equal the liabilities of Medicare,” he said.
According to the American Academy of Actuaries, Medicare spending in 2006 hit 3.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). That figure will jump to 6.5 percent of GDP by 2030 and rise to 11.3 percent by 2080.
Remember, too, that Medicare is not 100 percent coverage, so these estimates are not the total cost of health care, just the government’s liability.
Add Social Security entitlements, and things at first blush don’t seem so bad. Social Security payments added on are projected to total 12.7 percent of GDP by 2030, rising to 17.6 percent in 2080, according to the actuaries.
It can be easy to presume that the economy can potentially grow its way out of the entitlements mess — until you realize that GDP is the whole economy and not the federal budget.
Consider, for a moment, that federal revenues average 18 percent of GDP. This means that in 2007 — this year — 40 percent of federal revenues already goes to entitlements.
All things remaining equal, the Medicare and Social Security “bite” climbs to 80 percent of the budget by 2040.
Entitlement spending consumes the entire federal budget by 2080, bankrupting the government. Education, security, defense, disaster aid, housing, environment, science, transportation — everything else — gone.
“So it’s a real serious problem,” Stein said. “The solution to this problem is extremely difficult to figure out.”
Means-testing — simply put, requiring wealthier Americans to pay more out of pocket rather than rely on Medicare — is probably inevitable, Stein said.
That puts people who are doing the right thing and saving in a bind, since it adds an inestimable new cost to retirement: health care.
“As a close friend of mine says, this is the joker in the deck: What are your medical costs going to be when you retire?” Stein said.
“It could be much, much larger than you think. That means you have to save even more,” he said.
Scarily enough, the U.S. personal savings rate fell below zero in 2005 and is now a couple of points below zero.
Critics point out that such figures from the U.S. Department of Commerce mislead. For instance, the figure only counts after-tax savings. Your 401(k) and the value of your home are not added in.
Don’t look for a silver lining there, though. Home values in the third quarter fell 4.5 percent, following a 3.3 percent decline in the second quarter, according to the latest S&P/Case Shiller home price index.
And the massive number of adjustable-rate mortgages due to reset have not yet begun to kick in. That will add to the already large numbers of unsold homes on the market with no buyers to buy them — pressuring prices that much more.
Meanwhile, retirement research from Boston College shows that nearly three-quarters of Americans who are eligible to participate in 401(k) plans do so. Nevertheless, less than one in 10 of them contribute the maximum amount allowed under the plan.

Dollar Drops to Record Low Against Euro

2007-11-24T14:10:00.001-08:00

The treason against our salaries and our fixed incomes continues.

Dollar Drops to Record Low Against Euro
Friday November 23, 9:04 pm ET

Dollar Drops to Record Low Against the Euro Amid Speculation of Another Rate Cut NEW YORK (AP) -- The dollar hit a new low against the euro in thin trading Friday as speculation continued that the American credit crisis will lead to another cut in interest rates in the U.S.

The 13-nation European currency spiked early to hit $1.4966, breaking the previous record of $1.4873, set the day before.

"Once again the message ... coming through is that with further rate cuts expected from the Fed, the dollar is struggling to find any serious supporters," said James Hughes, an analyst at CMC Markets.

In late afternoon trading, the euro had retreated to $1.4838, up from the $1.4833 it bought late in Europe the day before, but down from the $1.4848 it bought in New York late Wednesday.

The dollar fell to purchase as little as 107.56 Japanese yen, dropping below the 108-yen level for the first time since 2005. It recovered slightly to purchase 108.18 yen, down from 108.62 yen late in Europe on Thursday and 108.68 yen in American trading Wednesday.

The British pound, meanwhile, fell to $2.0612 from $2.0634 the day before in Europe and $2.0644 in New York Wednesday.

The Thanksgiving holiday weekend kept many players on the sidelines, while Japanese financial markets were closed Friday for the Labor Thanksgiving Day holiday.

The euro, the pound and other currencies have been climbing steadily against the dollar since August amid fears for the health of the U.S. economy, stoked by the subprime credit crisis.

The euro is on track to trade in a $1.50 to $1.60 range over the coming months, Norbert Walter, chief economist at Deutsche Bank, told Dow Jones Newswires on the fringes of the European Banking Congress.

In that range, it is overvalued by about 30 percent, he said.

Earlier in the day, Commerzbank AG Chief Executive Klaus Peter Mueller said he expected the euro to trade in the $1.50 to $1.60 range over the next 12 months.

The dollar has been further weakened by interest rate cuts, which can be used to jump-start an economy, but can also weaken a currency as investors transfer funds to countries where they can earn higher returns.

The Federal Reserve has already cut rates twice and speculation is growing that as the subprime fallout continues, it will be forced into another cut.

In other New York trading, the dollar rose against the Canadian currency. The Canadian dollar was worth $1.0108 Friday, down from $1.0160 late Thursday, according to Dow Jones' Interbank foreign-exchange rates, and from $1.0126 late Wednesday in New York.

The dollar's decline: from symbol of hegemony to shunned currency

2007-11-17T15:01:00.001-08:00

The dollar's decline: from symbol of hegemony to shunned currency

By Andy McSmith Published: 17 November 2007

The decline of the dollar, symbol of US global hegemony for the best part of a century, may have become so entrenched that some experts now fear it is irreversible.

After months of huge and sustained turmoil on the money markets, lack of confidence in the world's totemic currency has become so widespread that an increasing number of international traders are transferring their wealth to stronger currencies such as the euro, which recently hit its highest level against the dollar.

"An American businessman over here who is given the choice would take anything but the dollar," David Buik of Cantor Index said yesterday. "I would want to be paid in yen, and if not yen then the euro or sterling."

Matthew Osborne, of Armstrong International, added: "The majority would say sterling. There are a few dealers in the City who may take the view that they'll take dollars now, while they're cheap, and hold on to them for 12 months.

"But the problem is so serious that there are people who in July or August might have been thinking, 'I'm paid in dollars, how annoying' for whom it's now a question of, 'Do you have a job; do you have a bonus?' "

The collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market in the US, which is fuelling the dollar unrest, has already brought down one British bank, Northern Rock, and has forced others to declare vast losses. Yesterday, just as it appeared that the dollar might have finally reached its floor, there was another warning that the sub-prime crisis is going to get worse. The US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, warned an international business summit in South Africa: "The sub-prime market, parts of it will get worse before it gets better." Huge numbers of US homeowners are still cushioned by introductory interest rates set when they took out loans in 2005 or 2006, he said. When these introductory offers run out, their interest payments will increase, setting off another wave of defaulting and repossessions. And the dollar is enduring its rockiest spell in recent memory.

Kenneth Froot, a Harvard university professor and former consultant to the US Federal Reserve, warned yesterday: "Part of the depreciation [of the dollar] is permanent. There is no doubt that the dollar must sink against periphery currencies to reflect their increase in competitiveness and productivity."

Professor Riordan Roett, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, told Bloomberg News: "There is a loss of confidence in the dollar and the US. It may only reflect the widespread dismay with the Bush administration, but it is obvious that the next administration, of either party, will have a steep uphill struggle." As well as reaching its lowest level against the euro, which has been trading at more than $1.47, the dollar has also fallen to its lowest level against the Canadian dollar since 1950, sterling since 1981, and the Swiss franc since 1995.

Its plight was made still worse by a jarring signal from China that it was switching to other currencies. Cheng Siwei, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, told a conference in Beijing: "We will favour stronger currencies over weaker ones, and will readjust accordingly."

The warning was reinforced by a Chinese central bank vice-director, Xu Jian, who said the dollar was "losing its status as the world currency".

China has stockpiled £700bn worth of foreign currency, and has only to decide to slow its accumulation of dollars to weaken the currency further. Last month, in a humiliating turn of events, the central bank in Iraq, four years after the United States invaded, stated that it wished to diversify reserves from a reliance on dollars.

Korea's central bank has urged shipbuilders to issue invoices in the local currency and take precautions against the weakened dollar, and three of the world's big oil exporters, Iran, Venezuela, and Russia, are demanding payment in euros rather than dollars. Iran insisted that Japan should make all its payments for oil in yen, rather than dollars.

Warren Buffet, who is reputedly the richest man in the world, was asked on the US network CNBC last month what he thought was the best currency in the world to own now. He answered: "Not the US dollar."

The Wall Street Journal ran an online poll asking people which currency, they would prefer to be paid in. The euro came top, ahead of sterling, with others such as the Canadian dollar, yen and Swiss franc trailing far behind. One respondent wrote: "Being an expat in Europe with a European employment contract, I am paid in euros, and happy to get paid in euros, and shop in the US, just as long as the cycle lasts through my retirement, so I can pick up pension in Europe and retire in the US."

The Federal Reserve has cut interest rates twice since September to revive the US economy, but the cuts – combined with the possibility that more were on the way – made the dollar less attractive to investors. Yesterday, it recovered slightly when one Federal Reserve banker, Randall Kroszner, dampened speculation about further interest rate cuts, saying that rates were low enough to get the economy through a "rough patch".

Problems with the greenback, combined with cheap air fares, have encouraged more Britons to go shopping across the Atlantic. British tourists spent £785m in New York last year, the city's marketing and tourism organisation said yesterday. There were 1,169,000 visitors to New York from the UK in 2006, with 54 per cent going for four to seven nights and 31 per cent staying for two to three nights. They spent an average of £112 a day. The average age of the UK visitor is 40.

Christopher Heywood, director of tourism PR for NYC & Company, said he expected the dollar crisis to attract yet more British shoppers. "The savvy traveller who's coming here for the shopping can really get a bargain. They're coming with one suitcase and leaving with two or three," he said.

"We have people coming over here even for weekend trips to shop for the famous brand names. People are coming for the department stores that everyone around the world knows, but also for the boutique stores out of the centre of Manhattan, anything from Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue to Bleecker Street in the West Village and SoHo."

How the government is stealing from you with inflation, again.

2007-11-12T17:58:00.001-08:00

Say you are on a fixed income, e.g., pension or social security.

If you inflate the currency but there is not adjustment or an insufficient adjustment for this inflation, this is the administrator of the currency stealing from you.

The commodities Price Index published each week clearly shows the theft going on and how radical it has been for the past two years, see:

Sept 27 2007
http://www.economist.com/images/20070929/TAB3.gif

Sept 24 2005
http://www.economist.com/images/20050924/TAB3.gif

CPI from 131 to 216.

Did your salary go up 66% in the last two years? No. You were just stolen from. The fed lowered interest rates and increased the money supple (They stopped publishing the M3 to hide this, so to see it, look here:
http://www.nowandfutures.com/key_stats.html
)

If you hold dollars or are paid in dollars then you were stolen from.

Now, if your salary does adjust upwards, you get hit with a higher tax bracket for the same of less purchasing power, meaning tax revenue goes up, but you purchasing power does not, or goes down. You were just stolen from again.

If your salary hasn't doubled since 2000. You lose.

Now, try to convert your money say to Swiss francs and hold them in a Swiss account and earn a lowly 2% interest. This terrorist government will try and ding you for income on the 2% interest! YOU JUST WANT TO KEEP THE VALUE OF YOUR MONEY STABLE! They have the nerve to track and tax your earnings in a foreign currency! They only reason I want to hide my wealth in Swiss Francs is to keep it from getting inflating to hell and they want to charge me for that?!?! Also, it is common for the USDOJ to seize and freeze accounts held by US citizens in foreign tax havens because you are "funding terrorists" and bull like that, they want to keep us bank slaves to the dollar.

This is INSANE, and the Boston Tea Party was over some measly less than 10% VAT on tea.

We are being taxed at about 50% [all said and done] (Sales, fed income, state income, tollbooths, interest, capital gains, etc), and now they want to keep in you dollars and dilute you position out from underneath you!

It is *so bad* right now as a worker paid in dollars its insane.

They say CPI is not core inflation, wrong, see the fed itself saying the two are supposed to be the same:

See here:
"Analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York indicates that this measure is no better than a moving average of the Consumer Price Index as a predictor of inflation."

http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/staff_reports/sr236.html

The fed has been known to substitute steak for ground beef in the basket of calculations they use ( but reveal to no one about how core is actually calculated) to get the number they want.

You'll notice when reading Fed documents they are often vague, voodoo or self contradictory. They have to be. They are selling you bullshit. If you ran your household like them, you would be in default and homeless and garnished. If you ran your company like the Fed, you would be out of business. Its that simple. They are running our country's currency into the ground trying to keep Wall St. aloft, and trying to keep the housing and credit card crisis from imploding, but are making things far worse.

Kuwait just de-pegged the dollar, not in the news, but it happened:
"Kuwait pegs dinar to basket of currencies"
http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2007/05/20/afx3739653.html
Note: used to be pegged to the US dollar.

"Gulf economies 'may shun greenback peg' "
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=199669&Sn=BUSI&IssueID=30237

Ben Bernanke is a criminal and should be jailed forever.

2007-11-09T17:54:00.000-08:00

Ben Bernanke's moves to satisfy Wall St. have failed. Commodities prices are sky high. Salaried, hourly and fixed income employees everywhere are being SCREWED by inflation.

Try to exit dollars to Swiss francs or offshore your money, and you'll realize you might be labeled a terrorist and your money seized in an investigation. Also the banks and other colluders to exiting the US dollar position heavily load the transaction.

Realize that the Swiss Banks , even on numbered accounts, will let the US know of interest you get (This is new since 2002)! This was traditionally not the case, but know this, even if you legally change your post tax money into another currency and then get interest which is at or slightly below CPI-inflation, you can be thrown in jail for not reporting that "income." Even though this income offsets the fucking brutal inflation going on.

The real thief is this occupying force known as the US Federal Government. They undermine the states and the people, they arbitrarily ask for large taxes and they inflate the shit out of the money debasing everything you own! Then when the appraiser comes and values your house at some asinine inflated price, you pay skyrocketed property tax, and with inflation the salaries that did go up (not many did), you get subjected to AMT and other "rich guy" taxes!

They are literally STEALING your money by printing more of it. Ben Bernanke should be put to jail as a traitor. This guy is worse then Julius Rosenberg, and he was electrocuted. Ben Bernanke - the worst traitor against America alive today.

Sept 27 2007

http://www.economist.com/images/20070929/TAB3.gif

Sept 24 2005

http://www.economist.com/images/20050924/TAB3.gif

Your money purchasing power was halved in 2 years. Your salary didn't go up. Get it? You are not only being lied to, you are being fleeced and stolen from, and every paycheck over the last two years has been less money than the previous one.

If religion is the opiate of the masses, goverment handouts must be crack to idiots.

2007-09-16T23:34:00.001-07:00

If religion is the opiate of the masses, goverment handouts must be crack to idiots.

Salt water can be burned when subjected to RF

2007-09-11T23:39:00.000-07:00

Salt water can be burned when subjected to RF

see:
http://www.watertechonline.com/news.asp?N_ID=68148
http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/11/can-saltwater-be-burned-as-fuel/
http://green.yahoo.com/index.php?q=node/1570
http://www.physorg.com/news108666600.html
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iT1KAi6UEPN8LqZlvLnfsxP7ToKw

An Erie cancer researcher has found a way to burn salt water, a novel invention that is being touted by one chemist as the "most remarkable" water science discovery in a century. John Kanzius happened upon the discovery accidentally when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies, it would burn. The discovery has scientists excited by the prospect of using salt water, the most abundant resource on earth, as a fuel. Rustum Roy, a Penn State University chemist, has held demonstrations at his State College lab to confirm his own observations. The radio frequencies act to weaken the bonds between the elements that make up salt water, releasing the hydrogen, Roy said. Once ignited, the hydrogen will burn as long as it is exposed to the frequencies, he said. The discovery is "the most remarkable in water science in 100 years," Roy said. "This is the most abundant element in the world. It is everywhere," Roy said. "Seeing it burn gives me the chills."
Roy will meet this week with officials from the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to try to obtain research funding. The scientists want to find out whether the energy output from the burning hydrogen — which reached a heat of more than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit — would be enough to power a car or other heavy machinery. "We will get our ideas together and check this out and see where it leads," Roy said. "The potential is huge."

Yahoo marks mails with Ron Paul as spam.

2007-09-11T23:34:00.001-07:00

Yahoo is on an anti-Ron-Paul binge, along with the rest of the terrorist media in the USA.

Yahoo's Terry Semel , who wants to do business with Nazis:
The Wall Street Journal buries this tidbit in the middle of a blog post about Terry Semel's talk at the D Conference. The Yahoo CEO went all Vichy France when asked about Nazi collaboration:One attendee asked Mr. Semel if Yahoo would have cooperated with Nazi Germany the same way it has with China. His response: "Yahoo has a basic obligation not to have a point of view on basic content, and to present content ... and aggregate things and to allow people to make their own choices. I don't know how I would have felt then." "Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. You say 'Nazis,' I say 'business partners.'"

Anyways, there is an inordiate amount of email I email myself back when sending out messages about Ron Paul that gets thrown into spam.

Nazi-Yahoo is trying to censor Ron Paul.

Not Voting Ron Paul is SUICIDE for the USA. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWfIhFhelm8

2007-09-08T01:15:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWfIhFhelm8

Congressman Paul's consistent voting record prompted one of his congressional colleagues to say, "Ron Paul personifies the Founding Fathers' ideal of the citizen-statesman. He makes it clear that his principles will never be compromised, and they never are." Another colleague observed, "There are few people in public life who, through thick and thin, rain or shine, stick to their principles. Ron Paul is one of those few."

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/

If you vote anyone else in 2008, you are a strange being.

Terrorist Ben Bernanke just screwed all salaried employees and all people with money saved

2007-08-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

The fed just lowered rates today - a lot.

"Helicopter Ben" just committed a crime and a giant theft against all salaried employees and savers in the US. http://www.safehaven.com/article-4020.htm

The Fed, in a surprise announcement in Washington, lowered the so-called discount rate by 0.5 percentage point, to 5.75 percent. Policy makers dropped language indicating their bias toward fighting inflation, and instead highlighted a rising threat to economic growth.
What this means is he is helping "investors" that do and create nothing churning nothing and screwing doctors, firefighters, regular Joe's, retirement accounts, savers and anyone with any financial sense and responsibility.

What this does is makes what you get paid every paycheck worth less. This makes your dollar buy less shit from China, Germany, wherever. What this does is makes all that money you saved for college and retirement worth LESS.

This man is a terrorist criminal and should have his leg cut off.

This is a bail out of BANKS who try and sell their junk debt to YOU and other suckers, these banks already own your lives, you pay them more in interest every month than principle, they sell your debt back to you via the GSEs and via selling the junk debt to retirement and pension funds.

They got us into this mess, yet they still get helped.

You see, Chrysler was a loan, S&L was a bailout, the Airlines was a bailout ... The relative cost of those in this situation is nothing.

Voters - its up to you know to write in to congress and have someone like Ron Paul appointed the head of a committee to stop this rampant insanity.

I also recommended the immediate forming of unions at workplaces that will only work gold or a constant gold equivalent in dollars. Dollars are a fake piece of fiat shit that clearly means nothing anymore, and the The Fed is a quasi-government entity that needs to be stopped and eliminated if it cant handle the simple task of keeping the money supply at a reasonable healthy level (+1%-1.5% inflation).

Again, here is a link to the economist to see how bad your pay and your dollars have been hit:

Another way to show you all how bad you are being screwed:

Key food prices rising sharply.

I hope that helping 10,000,000 people afford a house they can't afford for a few more months, maybe a year, by debasing the currency and making ALL PRICES RISE FOR EVERYTHING is worth it.

This monetary policy is suicidal.

Ving Rhames' dogs killed more people than my guns.

2007-08-04T10:51:00.001-07:00

Dogs kill man at actor Ving Rhames' LA home

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Massive dogs belonging to "Mission: Impossible" co-star Ving Rhames attacked and killed a live-in caretaker at the actor's Los Angeles home on Friday, police said. The caretaker, whose name was not released by authorities, was found dead on the front lawn of Rhames' gated home in an expensive Brentwood neighborhood, covered in dog bites, a Los Angeles police spokesman said.

Welcome to a world where defensively using or brandishing deadly force with a weapon will land you time in jail, but murdering people with your dogs will mostly likely result in no or light punishment.

I get sick of being attacked by rogue dogs (I've been attacked 3 times by rogue dogs and had to run away and stand on cars, etc, to escape mauling.) I had shot and killed the dogs that attacked me I would likely be in jail for the illegal discharging of a firearm.

This Ving Rhames idiot better be held to account for his hounds of hell, that god damn murderous idiot.

Car manufacturers, you suck with spare parts.

2007-07-29T13:21:00.000-07:00

If I were in charge, I would make a law that would prohibit the obfuscation of replacement parts for cars or anything for that matter. Part number obfuscation would result in the de-incorporation of a given company or possibly the firing squad shooting of that company's CEO.

What happens is this: You want a part, say, a rear light assembly. You look it up on various sites. They list mostly fake part numbers for non-genuine parts. You ask dealerships for the real part number and they basically laugh at you, they simply wont allow you to shop around with the real part number.

So finally you figure out what the real OEM part number is, some stores on tradmotion.com websites seem to keep them around, then you shop around.

You ask various local dealerships for a good price and they again laugh at you and treat you rudely. Fuck these people. Ill never buy a fucking car from that place - I hope its worth future business to fuck people on parts.

Then you put that part number in and search for an online store that sells that part:
1) you get lies (the part is listed with the OEM PN, but is the non-genuine part)
2) they charge hidden handling fees
3) they markup for shipping and don't allow you to have the shipping billed to you
4) they don't give you the OEM part, but a look-alike work-alike and a huge markup.
5) you can't easily return the part for being defrauded

So, Toyota, and all other car makers, is it worth it to create a fraud industry of fake parts, and fraud rip off dealer-net tarnishing your name? Why doesn't the fucking car come with a parts list and a fucking repair manual asshole fuckers? In my world, I would have the CEO shot to death because he is ultimately responsible for this premeditated assault and defrauding of the public and require any car allowed to be sold that it be sold with a complete parts list and a repair manual. I don't believe if capital punishment for normal citizens, but generals, politicians and company executives, I think that capital punishment should be used often.

If I ever have executive powers, I will have CEOs shot for shit like this. I don't mind companies making money, but swindling and defrauding and poisoning the tax paying law abiding good-faith public will not be tolerated.

AMD is no longer competitive with Intel

2007-07-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

I don't know why people think about AMD much right now. If you check out spec.org benchmarks, the Opteron 2222 machines (3.0 GHZ) don't have a prayer at beating the 5160/X6800, in either FP or INT. Especially INT since almost everything you want to run fast is INT, the video cards do all the important vector and FP math.

How bad is the fastest opteron 3.0ghz at INT?
http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/results/res2007q2/cpu2006-20070319-00686.html
BASE: 13.5
PEAK: 14.9

At FP?:
http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/results/res2007q2/cpu2006-20070319-00687.html
BASE: 14.3
PEAK: 15.2

How good are Xeon 5160s at INT?:
BASE: 19.1
PEAK: 21.0
http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/results/res2007q3/cpu2006-20070707-01376.html

FP?:
BASE: 17.1
PEAK: 17.7
http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/results/res2006q4/cpu2006-20061127-00155.html

I also only trust base measurements, because peaks are hacks at compiler options to make code a perfect instructions mix for the CPU arch, which almost never happens in real life.

I don't know why people suddenly think AMD is competitive, its not.

Its maximum wattage outputs are far higher, they cost more and have random sockets, now its 940-AM2 and F-1207, they have a huge family of sockets before now, which is stupid (and hurt AMD, especially getting rid of 940 and 939 and working against the Opteron 1xx sales).

If you put together a gaming rig which you aren't overclocking this year and its not Intel - I feel bad for you. I have an X6800 and a 8800GTX, and I've had them for 6 months. Nothing AMD/ATI has done even registers on my radar as a remote threat. This will not change throughout this year except for the new crop of 1333MHz FSB CPUs.

AMD scales better due to integrated memory controller. This scales better when you put more than 2 sockets in a box. Who cares, no one games with 4 socket motherboards.

Intel had Netburst, which put AMD ahead - way ahead. Now Intel has Woodcrest/Conroe, which could potentially get AMD to quit making silicon if they cant catch up.

See:
"AMD considering getting out of fabrication business"
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070619-amd-considering-getting-out-of-fabrication-business.html

Conroe is potentially AMD-ending event. For myself, I have a host of Intel and AMD machines at home and at work, and I can say for 1-2 socket motherboards, AMD doesn't even exist anymore.

Epigenetics + some thoughts on disease and groups of people

2007-07-28T14:59:00.000-07:00

A cat was cloned. The DNA is identical. Yet the coat on the cats are not the same.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1820749.stm

Epigenetics. It seems that DNA can be controlled within the cell by attaching methyl or other suppressive functional groups onto the DNA. There are now cases which document identical twins where one gets cancer, the other doesn't.

What affects eipgenetics? What we eat, our environment, smoking, paint fumes, poisonous mercury, poisons in flame retardants in mattresses, outgassing of polyurethanes and PVC + hv (UV light) outgassing poisons, Donald Rumsfeld's ultra-poisonous carcinogenic aspartame.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3411/02.html

Its interesting, along with anti-sense RNA and a better understanding of epigenetics, disease may soon be obsolete, if the governments and the large drug companies let this information exist. I strongly sense there will be a very vigorous campaign to keep these ultra cures, especially food-cures, out of accepted therapy by the internal medicine racket in the USA.

Why else would a known carcinogen like aspartame be allowed on the market? Or how about the article [ http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/11/healthscience/snvital.php ] that shows the while french fries made in animal lard are higher in fat, they have less toxins? Did you know that light oils used to fry things cause things like HNE to appear in your food?

You see people are usually individually incapable of having all the answers. Large groups of people seem to think they have more right answers than individuals, but they end up adding all the individual wrongness, so large groups of people can be very wrong.

Nature and the natural order was forged over eons of time and its very hard to out-think nature. People today think they solve problems, like making things low fat and then poisoning everyone with HNE.

The rabbit hole is very very deep. So deep that one should question everything.

"Think for yourself, question authority" -- Timothy Leary

Try to not take solace in being part of something bigger than yourself. Keep reminding yourself that large groups of people have been very wrong in the past, and always seek to audit what you or your groups are doing. Try to correct the wrongs or find faults in the group in order to boost credibility, don't cover things up to save the group or for the love of money.

This will kill us all if we don't learn to audit the veracity of things done to use via laws or policies of things like the government, the AMA, etc.

Terrorist government.

2007-07-28T14:41:00.000-07:00

Now I'm not one to say that the ragheads are right and the US is evil. I think the US has a lot of law abiding tax paying citizens being turned into subjects by a terrorist government.

Definition, terrorism:

Terrorist \Ter"ror*ist\, n. [F. terroriste.]
  One who governs by terrorism or intimidation; specifically, an agent or partisan of said government.

We have the death penalty, we have an intimidating, constitution breaking, radically partisan (left and right wing) AUTHORITARIAN, autocratic federal and state systems that have gone way beyond the bounds laid out for them by both the federal and state constitutions.

"What have you wrought? -- Mrs. Pownall
"a republic, Madam, if you can keep it." -- Benjamin Franklin

A CONSTITUTIONAL republic, mind you, NOT A DEMOCRACY.

Democracy = sharia
Democracy = lets stone all the gays if 51% of us want to.
Democracy = one sheep and two wolves voting to eat the sheep.

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
-- Richard Jackson via Benjamin Franklin

"Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power."
-- Benjamin Franklin Poor Richard's Almanack of 1738

So what we have here is a federal autocracy (both left and right wing politicians are autocrats today) that is effectively suspending the constitution, breaking its own root laws, taxing the public, prosecuting wars while our own treasury is broken and empty, inflating the money and selling out debt to foreign nationals such that the nation interests of the US are now leashed to other communist autocracies like the PRC China.

Banks also manipulate this government so that GSEs secure bad debt, we bail out the Savings and Loan banks if the default, and manipulate the government to hand out money at a very low rate. Banks lower the cost of money, manipulate the public by lobbying for tax deductions of interest (which leads to higher prices and more debt load) and basically own everything existence. The banks get a lot more tithing that the churches do.

Finally the energy companies which refuse to modernize and allow OPEC and other cartels and rackets to manipulate America. Because the Us refuses to move to nuclear, wind and tidal/wave motion and solar power, we are owned and operated by OPEC, and we must compete with China for a resource which should no longer be needed. We should be on the verge of the hydrogen economy, instead we still "burn wood" (coal) to produce energy. Its rather sad that the US today has more in common with 1800's industrial England that it does with "the world of tomorrow." burning coal for power, thats rich.

Take your country back, vote for libertarians or independents or independent thinkers like Ron Paul, vote for people who want to change things by dismantling the evil machines in the government, not by erecting more autocracies and authoritarian bureaucracies to fix the monster that is there.

Remember, this government is supposed to be our GUEST, not our ABSOLUTE RULER (which it is today). Remind them of this before its too late.

Everyone knows we are already at or very near where elections are fake.

Communist countries used to have elections, just like us. Without a constitution that means something, our lives could degrade into the second world very easily.

CF bulbs is murder. Mercury = Murdercury

2007-07-28T14:38:00.000-07:00

Anyone who buys CF bulbs is giving money to GE and others. This is like paying to get autism promoted. Do you all like autism? If so, run out and buy a stash of CF bulbs.

Some idiots say ROHS is not needed, and Mercury is ok - its disposed of properly! Yeah, right, thats why 1/160 people today get autism for "no reason." Could it be all the horrible nervous system destroying compounds and elements in the environment released by strip mining and unmitigated use of these CNS hazard materials in consumer products? Nah. Its just a natural rise. (Riiigt).

The word is that Pharox bulbs, for Oxxio customers overseas, use LED and less power than CF and don't contain any Murdercury. why dont you all write GE and ask why they prefer Murdercury CF over arrays of LEDs?

Avril Lavigne needs her leg cut off

2007-07-28T10:32:00.000-07:00

I wish someone could cut Avril Lavigne's leg off. Either. This would probably stop her from doing her garbage videos and quit making her horrible music with horrible lyrics with her horrible wardrobe and punch-me-in-the-face makeup. Someone shooting her would lead to her becoming a music martyr.

A weak dollar isnt going to boost the economy.

2007-07-28T10:17:00.000-07:00

This whole weak dollar is going to save the economy is laughable. The fed has two choices, inflate the dollar to keep the illusion of affordability for those who are about to go under, and allow the government and the folks who have way too much debt (no one should have any debt at all, maybe a house payment and that is it, no seconds or HELOCs) to try and pay the loan off with inflated dollars.

But this comes a high price.

1) If you make money, and your salary isn't being adjusted for inflation, the purchasing power of the dollar you get at work is simply going down all the time.

2) For those who save, or have positions indexed in dollars (stocks, etc), you lose.

So the way you trivialize debt is to trivialize all money.

Now since the world is more global, we have unnaturally cheap PRC Chinese goods keeping us afloat, but hard things like copper, gold, aluminum, steel, gas, food, etc, are all getting drastically more expensive while your salary stays the same.

If the PRC Chinese overheat and their prices start to rise from production cuts, or our M3 money supply shrinks due to housing and other paper-wealth that is leveraged, then we have a bad situation.

The fed needs to prevent deflation and prevent hyper inflation at the same time. Too much inflation and oil gets sold in Euros, not dollars. Lots of deflation mean lots of defaulting on loans.

This is what happens when people are allowed to screw up. The people learned this from Amtrak, American Airlines, the Savings and Loan industry, the GSEs and Chrysler.

Also, this weaker dollars leads to exports stuff only washes if you make a lot of stuff people want, and you get most of your raw materials to make things in your own country.

The USA only makes giant machines and Boeing aircraft, the rest of the crap the US sell is lawyer services, tax services and software (which is being commodities). If the crap hits the fan, the fan, the US doesn't make much that others need to survive. The US can be written off more easily that it thinks.

Also, if you are actually making electronics or high tech stuff here, world class hardware that cant be CMed out to Taiwan, Korea or PRC, then you pay your CMs more due to the weak dollar but you sell your product in dollars, which others can buy cheaply due to its weakness. Pay more for the raw materials due to a bad exchange rate, and "charge less" due to a bad exchange rate. Not good.

Its simple. If the dollar inflates 2x, and you 2x your sales without raising prices, you've done nothing. And if your buying raw materials from external countries, this complicates this even further.

People: focusing on fundamentals and making money and not "growing " is more important. This is how Warren Buffet got rich, and how Microsoft has 40 Billion in cash. While people paid way too much in the past for .coms for a chance at growth, the real investors try and focus on making money, making cash, increasing principal.

All you debt-jerks are really screwing it up for us realists who believe in making money not getting rich quick or "having your money work for you."

SuSE 10.2 Give me a break.

2007-07-24T17:19:00.000-07:00

All I have to say is SuSE 10.2 isn't very good. I regularly use RHEL/CENTOS 3.x, 4.x and 5.x, and installation, updates and package management is a breeze.

Yast/Yast2 takes forever to do things, and it attempts to be a system-wide control panel, not a package manager.

I installed yum on 10.2 and never needed Yast2 since, but damn this is annoying.

Now for the real kicker. Yast2 allowed the selection of kernel-bigsmp on an x86_64 install, and it gleefully installed that 32-bit/IA32 kernel and wiped out the old default kernel! What the fuck? No I have to go and grab 9 packages or so (who the fuck thinks of breaking the kernel, kernel headers, modules, kernels and sources apart like this?) and manually install them while booted into Knoppix and manually edit grub and then fix up the package issues when I get this piece of shit to boot again.

A note to Novell / SuSE: Fix your fucking package manager so it doesn’t install shit that fucks the whole system up. Thanks.

Right now, I primarily use FreeBSD, Gentoo and Redhat/Centos, with a majority of my "supported/production" work being in Centos. I always hated my sidetracks into Mandrake/WomanDrake, Mandriva/Mandrivel and SuSE/OpenSuSE. This stuff has been a consistent timesink while offering nothing.

Also, AppArmor, this stuff is shit. Yes, I know SELinux is a huge pain in the ass and leads to people just going:

selinux=0 capability=0 capability.disable=1

And this is wrong, but AppArmor. This stuff is the way lazy admins will go and it is crap, its not really a work-alike to SELinux, and it can be easily bypassed.

Anyway, thanks Novell / (more like non-novel) for a shit product no one needs.

Note to the world, if you see:

request_module runaway loop modprobe binfmt-464c or something similar

Then it is most likely a 32 bit kernel on a 64 bit system.

Oh, I like how RPM makes it hard to find arch once the packages are installed. That’s nice. (yum front ends this nicely). rpm -qa shows package names with no arch info. Stupid. You can use RPM on Knoppix by saying : rpm -dbpath to your system you are trying to rescue. Kind of useful.

Also, making usb bootables (key flash pen jump Thumb-Drive, why assholes call these things 90 different names is beyond me) and installing over the network with SuSE is a bigger pain in the ass, and the damn SuSE keeps asking for CDs and DVDs from time to time which is asinine.

Oh, and SuSE, the boot.local sucks, there is no easy place to put after everything is done for the runlevel, run this, so I had to make a file for rc.d and do all this fancy shit to make it run last and activate it through chkconfig. What a fucking pain in the ass.

Also, SuSE shows these fucking gay non-LANG=C characters all over the place. I wish this internationalization shit was totally fucking off and gone by default. I remember Solaris asks on version 8 or 9, do you want normal C ASCII text, or all this fucking shit that came after it and fucked everything up? Anyways, between i18n, ncurses, terminal types, and /etc/sysconfig/fonts-config , /etc/sysconfig/console, and stupid non-working frame buffer modes (I wish vga=extended was the default for all these distros) which scroll slow as ass, the world of plain Using plain English in *nix has gotten WORSE, not better and the C language has English syntax, what the fuck?

Also, what the fuck is with distros burying the sources and being cute with this shit? Cant we just get the /usr/src/linux directory symlinked to the actual pile of shit that is the kernel, as in, go into the kernel directory and if you ran make install, it would overwrite exactly all the files installed via the package. Then for the 40 kernels that exist , you can just move the symlink to the running kernel and all these stupid nvidia, cisco vpn and 3rd party drivers would find all the shit they needed without this constant shit. On SuSE I had to make oldconfig for the kernel to be useful.

make oldconfig , make prepare, make, make modules (vestigal in 2.6)

Oh, and the final thing. Asshole linux repackagers, listen up. Stop modularizing the shit out of BASIC stuff like sata and PATA drivers. What the FUCK are you thinking, when the shit hits the fan, if the kernel has the storage modules inside of it, rather than a module, then you actually not have to get Knoppix to fix shit. Assholes. I know the whole entire gigantic library of drivers would be a pain, but OpenBSD and FreeBSD generic kernels boot any random shit, but linux vendor packaged kernels have this fucking fetish for initrd/piles of modules that is just getting fucking old. Give me a real reason why to try and take shit out of the "base" kernel and shovel it into modules? The compatibility problems by having two drivers that may not like each other in the kernel together is FAR outweighed by the pain in the ass these initrds are to make if you need to get into the system real bad.

GOSH, like in Napoleon Dynamite.

Get Victoria Beckham off the TV now.

2007-07-21T20:59:00.001-07:00

#1 - she has an annoying voice.
#2 - she "strikes a pose" as if she is some sort of supermodel every 30 seconds.
#3 - Americans don't care about trophy wives of British soccer athletes.
#4 - her bumpers piss me off when I'm watching a real show like Scrubs.
#5 - I wouldn't ever watch the show based on the bumpers, but the bumpers make her out to be a shallow idiot and she seems like annoying, stupid kept woman I have no interest seeing on TV.

Stephen Monier, Federal Marshall, NH - Jackbooted Gestapo Thug.

2007-07-21T00:19:00.000-07:00

Ed and Elaine Brown are true American patriots. They prove that even if you buy your house and own it 100%, the government still wants you to pay up or they will illegally deprive your of your property.

This illegal government is growing in size and strength. They are destroying what made America great, the freedom, the independence, the defiant come back American patriot, reduce to a 9-5 drone that gives half his pay to destroy foreign lands via the military industrial complex, then those lands get rebuilt by the military industrial complex, and then the military industrial complex relocated to Qatar to avoid paying any taxes, half my pay not to rebuilding New Orleans but to destroy and rebuild Iraq as we funnel taxpayer money to the military industrial complex in Iraq.

And these puke Federales actually have the gumption, the fucking gall to attempt to criminalize these people.

Can't America be a place where you leave people who want to be left alone the fuck alone?

All you pathetic gun grabbing communists and autocratic authoritarians that believe in central governments take a whiff of the shit in the air, the Iraq shit, the Putin/Ahmadinejad/Kim Jong/Musharraf shit, the Castro shit, the PRC China shit. Central governments murder people, reduce freedom and subjugate people to their will.

America has become what it was designed to be a safe haven from. This crap with the rule of law is being confused with the rule of banks, the rule or a certain select few over the many, the rule or big business and the military industrial complex over the waning middle class. And these bastards defied the constitution by making our money into shit, by taking it off the gold standard so they can steal your money even if you save it by inflation!

The people have been robbed and fucked by the US government so much they are used to it now, and heroes like Ed Brown come of ass "radical" or even "terrorists."

One of the stupidest statements ever made.

2007-07-20T22:18:00.000-07:00

"If Islam's sole interest is the welfare of mankind, then Islam is the strongest advocate of human rights anywhere on Earth." -Mos Def

Women are murdered for adultery is common in Islamic Sharia. Gays are murdered in Sharia. Women are routinely executed in Saudi Arabia for having affairs initiated by powerful men who then "dispose" of them. Clitorises the world over are chopped off of women in the name of Islam. Islam has a fairly deserved bad reputation, Mos, and your views on this religion disgust me.

Human Rights by Mos Def:
http://www.homanla.org/New/iran_execution_4.jpg

http://www.ahwaz.org.uk/images/afrawi-hanging.jpg

http://www.adpi.net/Edam/Edami_Payam_amini-1.jpg

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/images/iran_execution_hanging_1.jpg

http://save.nazanin.googlepages.com/hang4a.jpg/hang4a-full.jpg

http://www.iranfocus.com/uploads/arak-27-08-04-execution.jpg

http://atangledweb.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/execution.jpg

http://zope06.v.servelocity.net/hjs/sections/middleeast/images/AhwaziExecutions.jpg

http://vwt.d2g.com:8081/iran_hanging.jpg

http://www.stopchildexecutions.com/minors/Mahmoud_A_Ayaz_M.jpg

http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/fariba2.jpg

http://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/jul2006/1_3.jpg

http://wiki.bmezine.com/images/4/48/FemaleCirc.jpg

http://www.benettontalk.com/female_circumcision.jpg

http://chrisandtanja.com/siljeandrodger/diversity.jpg

http://img69.exs.cx/img69/5982/femcirc1.jpg

All the Islamic governments, from Uzbekistan to Turkmenistan to Afghanistan to Iran, Malaysia, Sudan - all of them with the exception of Turkey and maybe Egypt a decade or so ago are murderous bloodthirsty and despicable and routinely violate human rights worse than any other nation.

How many people must be stoned to death in the name of Allah for you to "recognize." How many clitorises chopped off? How many gay man hung? How many concubines of sick murderous Saudi men must be killed off in the name of Islam for you to "recognize?"

You want Islam to be a force of God, then work to stop murder by Islamists and Islamofascists.

Shahed, leader of a militant Islamic group, al-Muhajiroun. Shahed is not un-Islamic. We read in the sacred hadiths, "Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said, 'I have been commanded (by Allah) to fight people until they testify that there is no true god except Allah, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and perform Salat and pay Zakat.'"

Your friends, Mos Def:
http://kotisivu.mtv3.fi/jjokunen/shahed.jpg

PRC China - murderous regime that poisons the west with bad product.

2007-07-16T09:53:00.001-07:00

China tires bad:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/26/business/26tire.php

The organising committee of Beijing’s Olympic games has promised to investigate charges that official merchandise is being manufactured using child labour.

The PRC Chinese poison dog food:
http://www.themoneytimes.com/articles/20070523/chinese_protein_export_scandal-id-104033.html

The PRC Chinese poison toothpaste:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/02/us/02toothpaste.html?ex=1181620800&en=d26dab8b2bd85303&ei=5070

The PRC Chinese poison Children's Toys:
http://consumerist.com/consumer/chinese-poison-train/15-million-thomas--friends-toys-recalled-due-to-lead-paint-from-china-268658.php
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070614/thomas_recall_070614/20070614?hub=CTVNewsAt11
http://blogs.eastbayexpress.com/92510/2007/06/thomas_why_hath_thou_forsaken.php

Chinese Seafood Detained for Safety
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070628/D8Q239O00.html

CNN "The China Syndrome" Special on China's dire problems in keeping food clean:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/business/2007/07/04/vause.china.syndrome.cnn

- Cow milk so inundated with antibiotics you can not make Yogurt from it.

- Pigs force-fed waste water.

- Lard made from separating fats from sewage.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2118920,00.html

China Jails 2 Protestant Church Leaders
http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/nation_world/20070709_ap_chinajails2churchleaders.html

The PRC Chinese government has murdered countless people:
"DEATH BY GOVERNMENT: GENOCIDE AND MASS MURDER"
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.TAB1.GIF
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.FIG1.GIF

Brigitte Biver - stupid bitch who needs to be sold into slavery

2007-07-12T10:28:00.000-07:00

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/465472,CST-NWS-fireworks12.article

Brigitte Biver called 311 about 9 p.m. on July 4 to report illegal fireworks so deafening that they sounded like they were exploding right over her Norwood Park home.

When Biver was transferred to Chicago's 911 emergency center, she thought she would get an even quicker response. Instead, all she got was laughter -- hysterical laughter.

"I have never heard anything like that in my life. This person was laughing uncontrollably. When she picked up the phone, she burst into laughter. She probably had been laughing for a while. I kept on saying, 'Hello. Hello.' But she couldn't talk. She never stopped laughing," said Biver, 58.

'She hung up on me' "I finally said, 'I'd like to report some heavy fireworks activity.' She was still laughing as she asked where I was located. I said Norwood Park. Still laughing, she asked where in Norwood Park. Then, she said, 'Ma'am, you're gonna have to call back.' I said, 'Can I have your name please.' But she hung up on me."

Biver was furious. But she regained her composure long enough to dial 911 again, never mentioning the previous call.

This bitch. Inflation is rising to record levels. There is a trade defect. There are people dying every day in an expensive war. Potential housing collapse / ARMageddon seems imminent. The dollar is getting murdered against the Euro, commodities and the British Pound.

And a few folks blow off some traditional steam on the 4th, and this fucking cow things that this is important for the RAPE-MURDER-INFERNO emergency service line?

Unreal. The detachment from reality in the US is complete.

Sopranos ending means cancel HBO

2007-06-13T08:31:00.000-07:00

Now that David Chase has completely ruined his series (ever noticed how all the good mob movies ended with a rather satisfying ending?), its not time to cancel HBO. Since 6 Feet, Deadwood and Sopranos are all gone, why have this piece of crap around?

Why didn't HBO , as OMC said it in "How Bizarre," 'Buy the Rights.' They didn't need Chase anymore. Chase is an idea guy, and not a super great one at that, get this, a miniseries featuring plot-lines ripped from tens of great mob movies. Its fun to watch. Who would have thought?

Anyways, Chase directed only the first and last episodes. It shows. The last episode was inferior.

Also, it tended to be that things that he wrote and co-wrote were below the batting average of the shows.

He left curb stomp Coco out there, the Russian guy in the woods, Silvio in a coma, The FBI guy saying "we'll win this yet" without explanation, Uncle Junior demented, Paulie with unresolved issues with Tony, you name it, this scumbag Chase (David DeCaesare, lets call this prick by his name, David DeCaesare) left everything hanging.

The show ended for my when they killed big pussy anyways.

I wish someone would capture David DeCaesare-Chase, and cut his right leg off above the knee. And while cutting it off laugh and spit in his face. Tell him he didn't need that right leg like everyone didn't need a proper Sopranos ending. Thats what I wish would happen. He may have money and hubris, but he now would have to limp like the bitch gimp he is, and his little piles of money couldn't change that.

Anyhow, I think HBO should hijack the rights and hire even bigger and better writers to finish this off with style. One of the greatest movies of all time, Godfather, ended properly, this is just a piss poor excuse at being artsy, but in reality its a giant F.U. to the fan base.

Everyone, get the stones to get up and cancel HBO. It just went from Home Box Office to seriously Heavy Body Odor.

Janitor's Evil State / Evil Eye music : Koyaanisqatsi

2007-06-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

In the scrubs episode "My New God", (98th episode), the music playing during the evil stare is Koyaanisqatsi, by minimalist composer Philip Glass, who was himself lampooned in the south park episode "A South Park Christmas." The Janitor rules.

Core inflation, Inflation, Money Supply, The Fiat Monetary System Nearing Breakdown.

2007-06-06T01:04:00.001-07:00

Core inflation, Inflation, Money Supply, The Fiat Monetary System Nearing Breakdown.

The New York federal reserve said that using "core inflation" is not good inflation metric, it is more telling to use a moving average of CPI.

Which means that all those times "healthy" inflation numbers were reported the numbers were seen as good simply because gas and food were not used in the calculation of those inflation numbers.

Reading 'The Economist' paints another ugly picture for inflation: 100 USD in the year 2000 is equivalent to 204 USD today. Did your salary adjust (double) to accommodate this horrific inflation?

In fact, inflation is such a problem and is latent on everyone's mind it was satirized in a cartoon in the Economist:

A bull with horns and a t-shirt that says "Markets" runs full speed towards a soccer ball. He punts the ball at full speed and full strength. The ball flies away. The bull flexes his muscles after his stratospheric punt. A HUGE soccer ball comes back and blows the bull away. Another bull with bandages and bruises comes into the picture with the caption "Inflation!" That "record" down when normalized against commodities, gold, industrials, steel, anything, isn’t so "record" high. It’s a new low being sold as a high - but the invisible hand knows.

With inflation, core or "All Items," factored in, the current "record" markets are just getting back to where they were five years ago, and if those records are adjusted for inflation… - Things aren’t doing to well - certainly not a record.

The Fed has been printing money, expanding the money supply for the last 6 years such that a dollar today is worth half as much as a dollar in 2000. See:

Big Mac Index (The Economist):
Big Mac in April 2000 was $2.15
Big Mac today: $3.22.

Wire: (anecdotal)
A coil of ROMEX wiring for houses used to about $35 bucks in 2000.
ROMEX (100ft 10/2) is $95 + shipping (weighs about 20lbs)

Gas: (energy.ca.gov)
Gas Price, 7/2003: $1.60 (CA)
Gas Price, Today : $3.50(CA)

US Median House Price of Homes Sold (source economagic.com)
Year 2000 - $165,000
Year 2006 - $232,500

US Average Price Of Homes Sold (economagic.com)
Year 2000 Q1: $202,900
Year 2006 Q1: $ 290,100

Has your salary nearly doubled since 2000? Looks like the money supply was expanded (M0 + M1 + M2 + M3 ), prices adjusted exactly to the increased money supply, yet a dollar is just as hard to earn. Jobless claims are underreported, and those who are not educated and in demand or not yet commoditized by inexpensive overseas or immigrant labor aren’t doing too well as far as being able to maintain a standard of living that the US should be capable of supporting.

The Fed stopped publishing the M3. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply . This is most likely a strategy to hide the vast increase in money supply.

The calculations for inflation that are often quoted is the 'core inflation,' which excludes GAS and FOOD. Yet this has been said by the NY Fed: "Analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York indicates that this measure is no better than a moving average of the Consumer Price Index as a predictor of inflation."

CPI and the "Core Inflation" are more or less the same thing. Inflation is being underreported. The prices for things not made in China / PRC are rising sharply.

This is Stagflation. We better hope for the dollar to come back to being money and hope interest rates go up. For all those with big loans they need to tie, those who foolishly borrowed greedily stole money from the children's future for transient low quality items and a McMansion - a liability for the owner in the form of taxes, insurance and paying interest, and a boon for the banks and local governments.

Low interest rates and "cheap money" help buy things you cant afford and may help stimulate non-US / overseas / emerging market sales, but salaries are still paid in USD, so rooting against the dollar destroys what is saved, destroys the value of profits and the buying power of the dollars for both businesses and employees.

Death to Microsoft Exchange OWA - pisses me off.

2007-06-03T22:19:00.000-07:00

I have Vista on a machine. Exchange 2003 OWA doesn't work properly with Vista. Microsoft, the pack of assholes, requires a patch to the exchange server OWA to make OWA work on Vista RTM. No one should have to patch the server simply to fix a broken fucked up client like IE7.

Anyways.

Firefox works great. Its not the premium client - but hey, at least I donut have to ask IT to risk breaking a working exchange server simply to make Vista work.

So now the main reason for tolerating exchange, OWA (outlook web access), looks like shit because I have to use Firefox to actually be able to reply to things - and Microsoft premium OWA requires fucktive activex, so that means opera and firefox have to look like shit.

Now here is the kicker.

You know how Firefox is super-awesome and saves half filled out forms and post boxes for you so in case of an accidental forward/backward or crash, its all there for you when you get back? Well IE7 doesn't do that shit, and somehow, OWA fucks Firefox from being able to work its magic in the reply box.

So I lost about 3-4 minutes work on a longer email reply.

All I have to say to Microsoft - give me a break. Microsoft can pull off vista, have a huge OS that works ok, a huge API, you name it. But they cant manage to keep libraries straight (WinSXS anyone? What a fuck-up), the 64 bit emulation sucks (WOW64 is a dirty, lame hack and Windows in 64 bit mode sucks, stuff like palm desktop doesnt even work right over USB), they manage to have an IE 7 that sucks worse than FireFox in every way but startup time (adblockplus - yes , stumbled upon, yes). Not even IE7Pro can help to unfuck how bad IE7 is, the Interix environment (Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications), get this, ar was fucked up because they named is ar64 or something, and the userland on Interix out of the box sucks hard - so hard, its hard to bootstrap the GNU toolchains - and what the fuck is with .NET frameworks. Why not just do the $JAVA_HOME thing and be done with it? Why is this stuff so melted and glued and stapled into the OS? Here is a directory with the VM and some classes and shit. Use if you want to.

This is all to say that the core, the David Cutler / DEC/VMS rip off part works great. The frosting sucks shit. Microsoft needs to pay more attention to not getting fucked by stupid shit. The kernel works great, now stop making shit flavored frosting and everything will be grand.

I wish microsoft had a super thin no login require portal to post stuff like this so they could improve this stuff. If I was gates/ballmer/whoever, I light a big fire under the product managers for transgressions like this - letting open-source stuff drastically out-pace Microsoft on usability.

Marvell SATA Controller

2007-05-26T14:41:00.000-07:00

I have a D975XBX2 Intel MB. It has a Marvell 88SE61xx Controller. This is a criminal chipset and is the worst SATA controller ever made with the worst drivers and if I was Pinochet for a day, I would throw the CEO of this company out of a C-130 at 20,000ft for all the hard drives and data loss this chipset causes.

This chipset is criminal.

Why dont Asus, Intel, etc, why dont they just solder 3ware or LSI or any decent non-FAKE-RAID (FRAID) chips on these motherboards? Why would a program manager ever choose an asic that has fake raid, is crap, has crap drivers and sucks?

Conroe vs. Netburst

2007-05-26T14:40:00.001-07:00

Conroe vs. Netburst

In response to:

http://badhardware.blogspot.com/2006/03/conroe-roadmap-and-prices.html

Wrong. Why Netburst CPUs are way worse than Conroe:

1) The Conroe has an extra execution unit (4 instead of 3)

2) The pipeline 1/3 the size Netburst CPUs (12/14 stage pipeline vs 30+ of Netburst)

3) The FPU is significantly improved (SSE4, etc)

4) The heat dissipation is lower per unit of work done and lower overall.

5) The caching algorithms used by the Conroe CPUs are drastically improved.

The main bottle neck these days is DRAM refresh cycles and how slow mass storage is, but if you are waiting for things to render or things to encode, the Conroe will be drastically faster.

Check out:

http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/

http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/results/

You will see Netburst CPUs doing horrible, AMD single core doing well, AMD dual core doing ok, and Intel Woodcrest and Conroe absolutely killing the competition.

The 4MB cache Conroe CPUs are the ultimate CPU ever to be offered to the public at such a low price point.

I think that buying the E6600 4MB will provide a huge improvement over that piece of junk, hot Netburst.

Intel is throwing out the junk silicon dooming you to a Netburst CPU. Why in god's name would you want to get a new rig with an obsolete piece of junk?

Corel users: Get an E6600 a large fast hard drive like a WD5000YS, and reasonably fast memory.

Post benchmarks if you are going to make performance claims.

------------------

Conroe roadmap and prices
Intel Conroe Prices Core Duo E8000 4MB 3.33GHz 1333MHz Q4 $1199Core Duo EEdition 3.33GHz(L2 4M) 1333MHz Q3 $999Core Duo E6900 4MB 3.20GHz 1066MHz FSB Q4 $969Intel Core Duo E6800 2.93GHz(L2 4M) 1066MHz Q3 $749Intel Core Duo E6700 2.67GHz(L2 4M) 1066MHz Q3 $529Intel Core Duo E6600 2.40GHz(L2 4M) 1066MHz Q3 $315Core Duo E6500 2MB 2.40GHz 1066MHz FSB Q4 $269Intel Core Duo E6400 2.13GHz(L2 2M) 1066MHz Q3 $240Intel Core Duo E6300 2MB 1.86GHz 1066MHz FSB Q3 $209Core Duo E6200 2MB 1.60GHz 1066MHz FSB Q4 $179Core Duo E4200 2MB 1.60GHz 800MHz FSB Q4 $169Intel Celeron D 350, 3.2 GHz ( L2 256K) 533 Mhz NOW $99Now, let compare Core Duo E6900 and Celeron D350.E6900 is better: 2X due to 2 coresE6900 has 2 times higher FSB clock, but can dual cores communicate with memory simulatenously?E6900 has 2 MB L2 per core, thus it is 8 times bigger than at Celeron D 350But E6900 has price 10 times bigger !?Conclusion for Corel user: You will pay 10 times more for the 2 times faster Corel execution.Conclusion for both cores user: When one nice day, when Intel masters Hyper Transport, you will have 4 times more performance for 10 times higher prices. Well, let be correct, when Intel finally make it, E6900 price should be some $500 (Intel will not voluntarily lower its prices) and you will get 4 times more performance for 4 times more money, if you are black mailed with Intel. Otherwise, why to wait, when I can make higher performance boost per $ with purchase of any AMD64? Yes, but E6900 is Intel's next generation processor. Well, after the facts above, it seems me more like Intel's next generation fraud.

------------

Bad Hardware Week is not technically inclined and should not be listened to.

Batch file for clearing all the logs at once in Vista.

2007-05-19T01:28:00.000-07:00

Vista has quite a large number of log files. Sometimes its nice for troubleshooting to wipe out all the logs and create a problem to see that problems manifestations in the logs. The following in a batch file will do this.

wevtutil cl "Application"
wevtutil cl "DFS Replication"
wevtutil cl "HardwareEvents"
wevtutil cl "Internet Explorer"
wevtutil cl "Key Management Service"
wevtutil cl "Security"
wevtutil cl "System"
wevtutil cl "EndpointMapper"
wevtutil cl "ForwardedEvents"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-ADSI/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-AltTab/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Backup"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Bits-Client/Analytic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Bits-Client/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-CAPI2/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-CertificateServicesClient-CredentialRoaming/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-CodeIntegrity/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-CodeIntegrity/Verbose"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-COM/Analytic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-CorruptedFileRecovery-Client/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-CorruptedFileRecovery-Server/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-CredUI/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-DateTimeControlPanel/Analytic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-DateTimeControlPanel/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-DateTimeControlPanel/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-DCLocator/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnosis-DPS/Analytic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnosis-DPS/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnosis-DPS/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnosis-MSDT/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnosis-MSDT/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnosis-PLA/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnosis-PLA/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnosis-WDI/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnostics-Networking/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnostics-Networking/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnostics-Performance/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnostics-Performance/Diagnostic/Loopback"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnostics-Performance/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-DiskDiagnostic/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-DiskDiagnosticDataCollector/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-DiskDiagnosticResolver/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-DriverFrameworks-UserMode/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-DxgKrnl/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-EFS/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-EventCollector/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-EventCollector/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Eventlog-ForwardPlugin/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-EventLog-WMIProvider/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-EventLog/Analytic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-EventLog/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-FileInfoMinifilter/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Firewall-CPL/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Forwarding/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-FunctionDiscoveryHost/Tracing"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Help/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-HotStart/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-HttpService/Trace"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-International/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-IPSEC-SRV/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Acpi/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-BootDiagnostics/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-PnP/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Prefetch/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Process/Analytic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Registry/Analytic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-WDI/Analytic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-WDI/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-WDI/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-WHEA"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-LanguagePackSetup/Analytic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-LanguagePackSetup/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-LanguagePackSetup/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-LDAP-Client/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-MeetingSpace/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-MemoryDiagnostics-Results/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-mobsync/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-MPS-CLNT/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-MPS-DRV/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-MPS-SRV/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-MUI/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-NetworkAccessProtection/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-OfflineFiles/Analytic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-OfflineFiles/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-OfflineFiles/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-OfflineFiles/SyncLog"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-PowerCfg/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-PowerCpl/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-PrintSpooler/Aux-Analytic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-PrintSpooler/Core-Analytic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-PrintSpooler/Core-Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-PrintSpooler/ISV-Analytic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Program-Compatibility-Assistant/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-QoS-Pacer/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-QoS-qWAVE/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-ReadyBoost/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-ReliabilityAnalysisComponent/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-RemoteAssistance/Admin"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-RemoteAssistance/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-RemoteAssistance/Tracing"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Resource-Exhaustion-Detector/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Resource-Exhaustion-Resolver/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Resource-Leak-Diagnostic/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-ResourcePublication/Tracing"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-RestartManager/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-RPC/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-RPC/EEInfo"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Security-Licensing-SLC/Perf"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Sens/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-ServiceReportingApi/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Services-Svchost/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Services/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-AuthUI-Common/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-AuthUI-CredUI/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-AuthUI-Logon/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-AuthUI-PasswordProvider/BootAnim"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-AuthUI-PasswordProvider/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-AuthUI-Shutdown/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-DefaultPrograms/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Shwebsvc"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-ZipFolder/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Speech-UserExperience/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-stobject/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Subsys-Csr/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Subsys-SMSS/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-SystemHealthAgent/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-TaskScheduler/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-TaskScheduler/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-TaskScheduler/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-TerminalServices-PnPDevices/Admin"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-TerminalServices-PnPDevices/Analytic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-TerminalServices-PnPDevices/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-TerminalServices-PnPDevices/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-TerminalServices-RemoteConnectionManager/Analytic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-TerminalServices-RemoteConnectionManager/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-TerminalServices-RemoteConnectionManager/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-UAC-FileVirtualization/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-UAC/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-User-Loader/Analytic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-VolumeSnapshot-Driver/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-WindowsUpdateClient/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-WinINet/Analytic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Wininit/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Winlogon/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Winlogon/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-WinRM/Analytic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-WinRM/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Winsock-AFD/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Winsock-WS2HELP/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Winsrv/Analytic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-Wired-AutoConfig/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-WLAN-AutoConfig/Operational"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-WMI-Activity/Trace"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-WSC-SRV/Diagnostic"
wevtutil cl "Microsoft-Windows-WUSA/Debug"
wevtutil cl "Setup"

Hey, Oprah, there are black people in Louisiana that need your help never mind Africa.

2007-01-05T09:38:00.000-08:00

Hey, Oprah, there are black people in Louisiana that need your help never mind Africa.

Nelson Mandela != God, Messiah, etc. Just wanted to clear that up. He poops like a man, and has , in conjunction with his wife, done some very naughty things.

Let me tell you how to fix the world. Start with yourself, make sure you don't drink too much, do hard drugs, exercise a bit, and keep yourself financially solvent, obey laws, work and self actualize if possible. Then be sure your family members you are responsible for do the same, then work on extended family, then work on friends, then work on your town/county/state, THEN work on your country, THEN, maybe then, when all the other problems are solved, THEN think about Africa. If everyone took care of their own damn house, there wouldn't be any problems in the world.

Something awful said it best:

Oprah Winfrey Does Care About Black People

I have never liked Oprah Winfrey. There's something about her that sets me wrong in the same way as a flowing curlicue wig on a baby or a man with no teeth seen from a distance biting into an apple. This unease I feel at the sight or sound of Miss Winfrey goes well beyond my innate distrust of her people and the crafty indolence to which her race is genetically predisposed. There is an ill-defined something at her core that is amiss.

Over the years she has transformed herself several times over. She has gone from corpulent maven of baby mama drama, to over enthusiastic motivational den mother, to her current incarnation as cooing self-righteous philanthropist. This latest and greatest Oprah, already bound for media sainthood, is the one which concerns me the most.

After having already saved the written word, Oprah announced the grand opening of her theme-park-cum-elite-academy for girls in South Africa. Located somewhere near a giant pit full of people dying of AIDS, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy intends to "nurture, educate and turn gifted South African girls from impoverished backgrounds into the country's future leaders". Winfrey believes this can best be achieved by spending 40 million dollars building a sprawling state-of-the-art campus for a very small number of girls.

Many critics wondered aloud and possibly into microphones why Winfrey had chosen to spend all of her money educating girls in Africa when there are plenty of perfectly adequate girls in the United States.

"I became so frustrated with visiting inner-city schools that I just stopped going. The sense that you need to learn just isn't there," [Oprah Winfrey] says. "If you ask the kids what they want or need, they will say an iPod or some sneakers. In South Africa, they don't ask for money or toys. They ask for uniforms so they can go to school."

"Girls excited about their new opportunity. Not pictured: 2,848 girls still living in poverty."

In response to their requests for school uniforms, Oprah built a campus that includes a beauty salon, yoga studio, state-of-the-art theater, stately dorm rooms that put most American university dorms to shame, wireless internet and a giant gold statue of her with those creepy eyes that follow students wherever they go. Yes, girls who lived inside refrigerator boxes next to a pile of dirty diapers are finally able to activate their chakras and download videos of white people dancing next to moving cars. It's sort of like finding one of those Japanese guys who spent the last 60 years on an Island in the Pacific thinking World War II was still going on and then flying him immediately to California to tape an episode of Jeopardy.

Oprah received over 3,000 applications for her Leadership Academy and she accepted the 152 girls with the most tragic or heartwarming stories. They're mostly AIDS babies, maybe a few kids raised by hyenas, one with two heads and a heart of gold, some adorable puppies that survived cross-country adventures with their kitten friends, that sort of thing.

The 2,848 kids who just weren't quite feeble and heroic enough to pass muster were shown the door. No school uniform, no iPod, just a gift tote with some bath salts and a candle that smells like apple pie.

Oprah's Leadership Academy opened its doors on January 2nd of the new year. Being a Harpo Production, the Academy could not have a low-key opening. It received a full-scale media blitz, press releases by the dozen and a plush party featuring celebrities who no doubt care deeply about creating the next generation of leaders in Africa.

Tina Turner, Chris Rock, Sydney Poitier, Mariah Carey and Mary J Blige were all present at Oprah Winfrey's Hollywood-style opening of her leadership academy in Henley-on-Klip, Meyerton, on Tuesday.

Local businessman Tokyo Sexwale was also present and Nelson Mandela was expected to attend although he had not yet arrived by midday.

In addition to a businessman with the most awesome name ever in the history of all time, the party included a lavish spread of cocktails, delicacies and a cigar bar. The students who were rejected by the Academy were allowed to dig through the trashcans for crusts of bread and Tina Turner's used sanitary napkins. Some time around 9 PM Nelson Mandela shit in his pants and Oprah read a poem by Maya Angelou about a rock on fire rolling down a mountain being the black struggle.

The touchingly misguided, or misguidedly touching, saga of Oprah's misguided school for impoverished African girls reminds me most of all of a scene from one of my favorite movies.

Near the end of Steven Spielberg's cinematic thrill-ride Schindler's List there is a scene in which Oskar Schindler, a true Nazi hero, has shepherded his ragtag band of Jewish misfits all the way to an armaments factory in the middle of nowhere.

Evil Russians are coming to kill the last of the Nazis and so he has to escape in the middle of the night. The Jews - who are so grateful for his guidance that they have made a ring out of the gold elderly Jews secrete from their gums - stand around thanking Schindler and wishing him well as he and his wife prepare to flee into the night.

After saying a tearful goodbye, Schindler realizes that had he curbed his own life of excess he might have been able to save more Jewish people. He points to a car and a ring with a Swastika and cries "this is worth like 500 Jews", or something to that effect.

The Jews quiet him down and send him on his way, but the moral of the scene is clear and is one Oprah should ponder before embarking on her next epic of philanthropy: even when you do good, you can do more good if you try harder. Or something along those lines.

Someone's advice on how to get ahead at work...

2006-12-31T09:28:00.000-08:00

Someone posted this on how to get ahead at work:

Show up before everyone.
Dress nicer and look more awake than anyone else
Do not have a bunch of personal crap in your work area
Do not try to be different in dress or style
Do not have a tattoo showing
Do not pierce anything but each ear once (female)
Do not ever discuss religion, sex, politics, or the boss with anyone
Do not look for friends at work… you work for money. Period.
Do not smoke at or near work
Be working when they are talking
Take short lunches and zero breaks
Stay late and leave last
Never call in sick
Never be late
Do not use vacation for one year straight.
Keep your car clean and not full of garbage. Yes it matters
Keep a daily log as to what you do
Do whatever the boss tells you to. Everything is your job. Coffee maker, sweeper, no questions asked. But log what you do.
If your boss is wrong and wants you to do it wrong, do it wrong. Then log it.
If co-workers begin crapping on you for your efforts, write it in the log but do not tell anyone.
Do not ask for a raise. ever. When you want more money you will find it elsewhere and then you will give your current employer a chance to match it. No raise, then give 2 week notice and go to the other place. At the new place use the exact same formula.

If you follow this guide I gaurentee[SIC] you will either move ahead where you work, or gain so much great work-ethic and work-experience that you will go find what you want.

You’re welcome.

Robots don’t make happy workers. A lot of places are now allowing Dogs to accompany workers at work, one larger company that comes to mind is Google. Companies are becoming more aware and placing more importance on the well being of employees creating a sustainable workplace.

I do agree the advice helps impress pointy-hair bosses (PHBs) who are automaton know nothing drones in corporate culture, but it was folks like Wozniak, Allen, John Draper, that gave rise to new technologies, wacky wonky scientists doing what they loved how they loved doing it.

This sounds like advice for people who really have nothing to offer and have to do everything in their power to appear as if they do.

Working hard != working smart, and billions of competitors to the USA, Japan and EU prove that despite a superior apparent work ethic, the goods delivered are mostly shoddy, second rate and rarely world class. It is the summation of mediocrity and folks mastering the advice above.

Air Travel improvements needed now.

2006-12-30T01:37:00.000-08:00

The MD-80 should be deprecated.

All planes should be supplied with tracking monitors that show position altitude, attitudes ( Y P R ) airpseeds Mach IAS TAS, etc.

All planes should have a working cockpit chatter station.

All planes need free wireless internet service, if they wont give you free food, booze or comfort, at least let the victim passenger blow the time away with the internet.

TV technology table. I want to buy an SED when it comesout. Otherwise, I'd go with LCD

2006-12-30T01:10:00.000-08:00

	OLED	DLP	LCD	Plasma	LCOS/DILA	RP LCD	SED	CRT
Contrast Ratio	very high	very high	medium	high	medium	medium	highest	highest
Typ. Brightness	600+ cd/m2	750+ cd/m2	700 cd/m2	1000†† cd/m2	750+ cd/m2	450 cd/m2	400 cd/m2	300 cd/m2
Longevity (hours)	TBD	2-4k (lamp)	30k**	30k**	2-4k (lamp)	2-4k (lamp)	TBD	20k+
Burn-in	No	No	No†	Yes	No	No	No	No†
Viewing Angle	160°+	170°	160°+	170°	180°	170°	180°	180°
Fully Digital Display	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Refresh Rate	<6ms	NA	<12ms*	<8ms	<12ms*	<12ms*	<2ms	NA
Max Resolution	1080p	1080p*	1080p	1080p*	1080p	1080p	1080p	1080i
Weight (lbs)	lightest	medium	light	medium	medium	medium	medium	heavy
Set Depth	<1-2"	6.5" - 24"	2"+	3" - 7"	24" - 30"	13" - 20"	<4"	16" - 30"
Screen Size	<10"	43" - 73"*	<82"*	<103"*	<82"	<70"	TBD	<42"
Power consumption	Very Low	Medium	Low	Medium	Medium	Low	Low	High
Fairly new development noticed at CES 2006 * Expected LCD backlight lifespan or plasma half-life; note: differs from manufacturer claims † Fixed images can result in burn-in over long-term (unusual) †† Plasma "real-world" measurements after calibration are considerably lower

Death to HDMI, HDMI is a SCAM, do not buy, it wont work.

2006-12-30T01:01:00.000-08:00

I returned all the HDMI cables I bought and will never use them again. The companies (Best Buy, Circuit City) are price gouging making even trying this stupid standard a $300 affair (cables start at $40 per, and go to $200+). I bought a Sony receiver and hooked up the DVD to the receiver, no audio, had to use a separate cable. LAME. HDMI out through receiver from HDTV cable didn't work either, had to go back to optical component. I tried TWO (2) Sony receiver and HDMI is as far as I can tell: NEVER works with audio, barely works with receivers, and if someone uses a component IN and HDMI OUT or vice versa, nothing works as it should.

This is a sad, pathetic DRM infected standard that is basically worthless, and I will work tirelessly both in real life and on the internet to expose this non-working standard this is the WORST piece of crap rip off standard I have ever seen in my life - concerned more with securing digital signals than delivering working content and audio. These cables are probably inferior to shielded component video and optical audio anyway with these flimsy thin wires.

Thank the powers that be we PC users can still rip and burn whatever we want, DRM fails and this crap will fail to stop it, and we have things called standards, e.g., PCI, where when you want to play ball we use things like TCP/IP and PCI STANDARDS that anyone can implement. Consumer electronics are crap, this standard is crap, and this whole thing is a scam. Sad.

Sysadminons - System Administrator minion.

2006-12-15T20:28:00.000-08:00

When you refer to system administrators, please use the word:

sysadminion.

The reason we use minion is that invariably system administrators, production/ops folks, etc are bossed around by a retard, and the system administrators are his minions.

And we aren't even talking about Windows guys, they are just called Windows Guys.

Evard Munch sucks and Google Murders Chinese Dissidents

2006-12-12T19:32:00.000-08:00

Google murders Chinese dissidents by helping out the authoritarian Chinese find and kill them. I'll be Page or Brin is on a waiting list for a dead Chinese dissident organ or something.

And Murdoogle puts Edvard Munch, on the front page, who incidentally SUCKS (that art is like a bunch of crappy finger paint smears), but when it was Veterans day, no special front page.

Google also seems to violate the GPL on the Google appliance - ask them for all the source code for for all the GPL stuff the mucked with - lets see if you get it. I suspect they modified the Linux kernel and distro, but you'll be the last to know.

Elizabeth Fraser

2006-12-10T16:00:00.000-08:00

The House MD theme, Teardrop, by Massive Attack is perfect, except the lame vocals by Elizabeth Fraser . I hereby call to all music makers, PLEASE, offer a vocal-less version of every one of your songs.

I seriously want to get the original digital tracked master of this track so I can remove her voice, its awful whiney crap, like a bad version of Alanis.

I always liked Steely Dan vocals since they are not sensible, and distract from the music little. The lyrics to 95% of all music including this are whimsical CRAP, and most people are no "3 Tenors" or Charlotte Church at singing.

Stop all crap vocals, crap lyrics and make good music.

House MD rules.