The Freedom to Get Paid for Lying

Republican Nihilists Determined to Learn Nothing from their Mistakes

2012-01-23T03:39:00.000-08:00

Thus has it ever been: Wealth is Virtue, Poverty is a Crime

If our ideology crashed our economy, we can always blame the poor, and double down on a failed ideology of tax breaks for the wealthy.

Who are th real 'job creators'? The rich or the poor? The rich who use their surplus for wall street speculation or the poor who actually spend every spare cent on living essentials thus creating economic demand which is the heart of the economy, of which 70% is due to consumer demand.

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Martin SteinPortland, Oregon

Martin Stein is Trusted.Trusted Commenters enjoy the privilege of commenting on articles and blog posts without moderation.

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Obama must explain in plain language to the population exactly why we cannot survive another Republican administration..

.

I think that the policies that Republicans champion border on evil They are based on greed, division,caste,conflict, the equation of monetary wealth with moral worth, demonetization, misinformation, and the perpetuation of the mythology of the uber rich as some kind of inherently superior of masters who as supplicants we need to be dependent upon for out survival. They want to punish the poor, the sick and the vulnerable as collateral damage in the economic societal law of the jungle they envision society to be,as a drain on our resources. They are also race baiters who want to frame blacks and other ethnic groups as being a drain on society and its resources.

It is not only the economic policies that need to be rejected, but also the philosophical belief systems that form the foundation from which these policies are created. He needs to unmask and explain the Orwellian mind games that the GOP has played to get millions of Americans to enter into a political sadomasochistic relationship with them making them vulnerable to misleading propaganda and vote for policies that make them poorer.

2102 is a much about our philosophy of who we as a society are as the policies we pursue because the former is the foundation of the latter. The GOP has gotten millions to accept a nihilistic belief system based upon economic myths, race and class division.

Jan. 22, 2012 at 9:07 p.m.Recommended132

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Germany vs USA Economy

2012-01-21T19:12:00.001-08:00

FOXNEWSRTRAITORS posts the following on Yahoo Daily Ticker:

Germany has 56% of GDP consumer spending, US has 70%
Germany has 21% of GDP manufacturing, US has 13%,
Germany spends 11% of GDP on health care with everyone covered, US spends 17% with 50 million uncovered..

Germany is not perfect, and they may get taken down by southern Europe, but the US won't have a healthy economy until we are much closer to Germany's numbers.

There are only Two Kinds of Republicans ...

2012-01-17T12:22:00.000-08:00

millionaires and fools ...

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/capitalism-crisis-either-dems-gop-solution-174655678.html;_ylt=ApJa.9y91zupC28e7ehQxJGiuYdG;_ylu=X3oDMTQzb3ZkdXFsBG1pdANGaW5hbmNlIEZQIEp1bWJvdHJvbiBMaXRlBHBrZwMwMjI3OWVlZC05ZThiLTNmMzAtOTNjYi1iMjQ5ZjMzYTA1ZmQEcG9zAzEEc2VjA2p1bWJvdHJvbgR2ZXIDNDcwYzAzNjAtNDEzNC0xMWUxLWJiMTctYzE5ZTM0NzBkOWVi;_ylg=X3oDMTFvdnRqYzJoBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25zBHRlc3QD;_ylv=3

smald4lib • Lester Thurow's The Future of Capitalism, written mid-1990s:

"History teaches us that the survival-of-the-fittest versions of capitalism do not work. The free market economies that existed in the 1920s imploded during the Great Depression and had to be reconstructed by government....It is well to remember that the social welfare state was not implemented by wild-eyed leftists. Its midwives were almost always enlightened aristocratic conservatives (Bismarck, Churchill, Roosevelt) who adopted social welfare policies to save, not destroy capitalism by protecting the working class...If one asked what must governments do in capitalistic socieities to make conditions better, the socialist answer was to own and run business firms. That answer proved to be incorrect. The right answer is to force a high level of private and public investment."

There are two kinds of Republicans: Rich Republicans and Stupid Republicans: The Rich Republicans keep the Stupid Republicans Stupid. And Stupid Republicans keep Rich Republicans Rich.

Clear Channel and Bain Capital - Tyranny of the Airwaves - 1932 style Demagoguery Rules

2012-01-05T18:01:00.001-08:00

Aartemio 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand You are all operating out of the premise that Clear Channel and Cumuluis are about doing good and profitable business ---- sorry, but NOT the case!

They have a clear political agenda, an agenda that includes heavily subsidizing loosers like Beck and cutting out the public's access to progressive media.

Just look around the nation. This market switch is not unique, it is a trend, a slippery dunk to the far right, a la Europe 1932.

Just as Fox is a video propaganda machine, these radio chains are the radio version.

If you want to understand their decisions, that is the place to start.

As for me and my house (as they said in the Bible) we shall follow the Good News to be found wherever progressive media can be yet gleened in the Bay Area and abandon KGO and its 5th columnist Ronn Owens (don't even get me started about their prime time weekend spot) and change my dial away from 960 as well if these changes go thru.

IF they move the current 960 line up to 910 to gain range and strength, then there me and mine shall be as well.

A Like Reply 2 weeks ago 2 Likes F .

Aartemio 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand PS... Thank you Bill Clinton for deregulating the media and allowing such clear economic and public service disasters as this. How many strations does Clear Channel control? Has anyone noticed any positive benefit from the re-emergence of monopolies in this or ANY industry?

It ain't just the Republicans my friends! :-(

A Like Reply 2 weeks ago 0 Like

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Rangerz 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand Well, let's add this up capitalistically: Hartmann and Miller with millions in advertising, book/CD/ticket sales, top radio awards versus Beck, who cost Fox millions and couldn't even get 500 people to show up for free to see him. Yes, in liberal SF....seems like Clearchannel learned their lessons in profitability from some book written circa 2004 about mortgage investing. Worse for them, if they keep playing games, unhappy listeners will just move to the Internet to hear the hosts they want. So much for the advertising money!

A Like Reply 2 weeks ago 0 Like

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PO'd former listener 1 comment collapsed

Collapse Expand Clear Channel doesn't care if this station loses listeners. It does not care if this station loses money. All it cares about is destroying the most popular (the only?) progressive radio station that we have here in the Bay Area. I mean, come on, Glen Beck taking Stephanie Miller's time slot? It's a joke, but an horrible one.

It's unbelievable to me that this could happen in the most liberal area of the country. Then again, it's all about the money, which Clear Channel has plenty of.

I'm still really pissed off about them running KKSF off the air, but this is much worse. Green 960 with ALL of the radio hosts helped me keep my sanity in a world of right wing hate mongering and nonsense. And for this to happen in a hugely important election year is just appalling.

I hope to God that someone starts up another progressive radio station to replace this one. My God, this is the fricken' Bay Area!!! San Francisco!! Yes, we can move to the Internet to listen to progressive radio hosts, but why the hell should we have to? We have a right to have our voices heard to. I am so angry. What's next?

And we can fill this blog with thousands of comments and it won't matter, as it didn't when they took away KKSF. I just wish that there was a way for progressives to buy up a local radio station (like one of those old rock stations that seem to be EVERYWHERE) and make it into a progressive station and make it listener owned so it can't be sold out when Clear Channel comes in and throws a bunch of money at the station owners.

Anyone out there have the knowledge and experience to do this? We need an "Occupy the Airwaves" movement!!!

A Like Reply 5 days ago 0 Like

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Clear Channel's Tyranny of the Public Airwaves in San Francisco, killing Green960

2012-01-05T17:32:00.000-08:00

Clear Channel exercises its freedom of speech by denying the public any alternative to the right wing hate speech that dominates AM talk radio.

Evidently Clear Channel is part of the Republican political strategy for the 2012 election, trying their best to suppress the liberal vote in California.

Stephanie Miller's show had turned into a nonstop ad for her stupidly named 'sexy liberal' comedy roadshow, and Thom Hartmann was obsessively compulsively tilting quixotically at one conservatard after another in his twisted quest for Socratic dialog with the certifiably insane, yet to replace these stalwarts with of all people the psychotic demagogue Glenn Beck??? It is truly an insult to the entire Bay Area that must warm the cockles of Rupert Murdoch's cold dead heart.

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http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8974

Clear Channel, our public airwaves and public interest obligations

Emmy award-winning former Los Angeles TV news producer Sue Wilson (an occasional guest contributor on media issues at The BRAD BLOG over the years), whose documentary film Broadcast Blues focuses on, among other things, the dangers of Clear Channel's dominance in the radio market following the passage of the Telecommunications Act, noted yet another change by the company over the weekend. In Sacramento, the state capitol in very progressive California, where there has been no progressive AM talk stations on the public airwaves for years, more Rightwing radio was quietly added to the airwaves.

She charges, on a Facebook page linked from her FCC watchdog website, OurPublicAirwaves.com, that last Wednesday, the company "pulled a fast one on its listeners in Sacramento" by replacing an FM rock station with simulcast programming from talk station KFBK, the station which launched, and still carries, Rightwing talker Rush Limbaugh.

Wilson writes that the move "means that hard right-wing talk will fill another 50,000 watts of OUR PUBLIC AIRWAVES in the Sacramento region, ranging from Lake Tahoe to Santa Rosa. It means our region now gets four stations promoting pro-corporate 'conservative' hate speech, but zero stations promoting any opposing ideas."

She says this means that "Limbaugh can tell millions that Occupy Wall Street protestors are 'Pure, genuine parasites,' and 'smug, stupid idiots' whose parents will need to 'housebreak 'em all over again'" while Sean Hannity "defends UC Davis cops use of pepper spray [and] can tell millions that Occupy protesters are 'Lunatics Of The Left Wing'", while at the same time on KFBK's sister station KSTE Rightwinger Michael Savage "calls occupiers 'vermin'".

"[There is n]obody there to counter this propaganda," she charges. "'Conservative' talk radio supporters will tell us that this is all about free speech, and if we don't like it, we should just change the channel."

"They are right," Wilson says, "it is about free speech. OUR free speech. Where is OUR opportunity to get an alternative message out to our community on OUR PUBLIC AIRWAVES?"

She goes on to say that no matter the politics, stations are granted FCC licenses for use of the public airwaves in exchange only for serving in the public interest.

"How is a hard right corporate power grab serving YOUR public interest?," she rhetorically asks. "Answer: It is not."

Politics aside?

In 2008, Bain Capital LLC, a Boston-based private equity firm founded in 1984 by current Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, purchased the Clear Channel conglomerate in a leveraged buyout.

Clear Channel's removal of progressive talk from San Francisco's airwaves at the beginning of a Presidential election year when Romney is seen by many to be the GOP's likely nominee is bound to raise eyebrows and renew progressive concerns about media consolidation under the 1996 Telecom Act.

Collins, however, doesn't see a conspiracy behind the shakeup in San Francisco. "I just don't think the decisions were about politics," he says. "But, it's very easy to see that there's an industry bias against Liberals and a basic industry presumption that Liberals can't be successful in talk radio."

"The real failure of this was to promote progressive talk in the same manner as conservative talk is promoted," he says.

Indeed, it's not just the corporate radio industry that seems disinclined toward supporting and promoting progressive programming. In 2006, Collins released a memo from ABC Radio Networks instructing affiliates who carried programs syndicated by Air America (the progressive radio network which declared bankruptcy the same year) to black out all ads from some 90 major corporate sponsors, including Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Visa, Exxon Mobil, Cingular, McDonald's, and even the U.S. Postal service and the U.S. Navy. All of them, the memo reads, "do not wish to air on any Air America affiliates

Microsoft - Defective by Design

2012-01-01T21:22:00.000-08:00

is there anyone who thinks the new Microsft Office tool 'ribbon' menu was designed in response to user's requests, or was tested to ensure productivity was not impaired?

hahhahhahhahahah

every product microsoft ships is defective by design, what is the first thing you have to do to a new windows pc? you have to spend hours fixing it by installing numerous antivirus and firewall tools.

where is the class action lawsuit to reimburse all microsoft customers for lost time and productivity as victims of their defective products?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbon_(computing)

https://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&source=hp&q=+microsoft+tool+ribbon+sucks&pbx=1&oq=+microsoft+tool+ribbon+sucks&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=372466l377552l3l378410l12l8l1l0l0l1l312l1778l0.2.5.1l8l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=890a274ff6b690bf&biw=1093&bih=485

the sooner we all move to open office and gimp the better

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Incorrect assertions by MicrosoftAccording to MS help on removing the ribbon, "The Ribbon ...is part of the Microsoft Office Fluent user interface, is designed to help you quickly find the commands that you need to complete a task. Commands are organized in logical groups that are collected together under tabs. Each tab relates to a type of activity, such as writing or laying out a page. To reduce screen clutter, some tabs are shown only when they are needed. When the Ribbon is minimized, you see only the tabs."

I think that many of us may disagree with sections of this paragraph from Microsoft.

Commands are not organized into logical groups, they are merely plastered across the screen in a logic defying manner that only serves to look pretty and make conventional functions hard to find. Finding commands is not quick because the density of icons is spread out across the screen instead of gathered into a close area, so the eye must search back and forth across the screen until a poorly designed icon that is not well related to previous menu choices may be found. It is like reading the this paragraph.

The function choices are not even the same as the 2003 menu choices, so previous users have to hunt through multiple mouse menus to find what is not shown in the new Ribbon.

Tabs may relate to types of activities that do not seem to be carefully related.

The ribbon hogs screen space in an abhorent manner making the document window seem completely irrelevant. Taking of valuable screen space is especially noticeable on short screen laptops.

When I minimize the Ribbon, I'd like it to disappear completely.

Microsoft refers to it's software as "Professional." The Ribbon does not seem to meet the standards for 'professional' since it does not maintain continuity for those professionals who use it.

Is Microsoft's feedback loop completely broken? If sales are their only parameter, then they certainly are not doing themselves and their users any favors.70.89.209.81 (talk) 16:41, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

[edit] Any Usability Studies Cited by Microsoft?it would be nice to see a reference to any studies Microsoft has released to support its claim of productivity enhancement, given users' self reported impairment of productivity by 20-35%. Allowing for the bald faced facetiousness of the productivity argument, there should be discussion about other strategies justifying this massive antagonizing of their customer base, i.e. is it yet another of Microaoft's many lock-in strategies? Ensuring lock-in of new users to Office vs Open Office, by training new users in a non standard non portable unique and crippling interface. It would also seem to be potential grounds for a class action lawsuit if in fact productivity is reduced as much as the 20-35% report. if so, Microsoft should have foreseen this and conducted sufficient usability studies to defend any such legal action on behalf of its long suffering abusive relationship victims aka 'customers'. — Preceding unsigned comment 11:49, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

In my to-do list there's a desire to write a summary of the story of the MS Ribbon. Once you learn that the Office most used command is Paste and that users in focus groups were asking MS for new features that already existed in Office (that obviously they didn't found), it starts to explain many things about the redesign. Office 2007 was certainly designed based both on collected usage statistics and goal-based design. The designers issued a series of blog posts discussing the design process, they should be added as a reference to the article. Diego (talk) 10:09, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

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Roy Leban, Founder of Puzzazz - we're building the future of puzzles for electronic media. kwds={visionary, entrepreneur, UX, photographer, pizza maker, writer, blogger} 5 comments collapsed Collapse Expand How is it possible that Microsoft hasn't figured out the Ribbon sucks? Have they ever watched people using it? (Really just watched, not run a flawed usability test that is doomed to give invalid results before they even start it.)

A good rule: First, build something that works better. Then, make it pretty. Doing it the other way around is a recipe for disaster.

A Like Reply 9 months ago 10 Likes F .

Mahadev 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand Ribbon is really the best feature on the Office suite! It is so easy to use.. cannot wait for Win8.

A Like Reply 9 months ago in reply to Roy Leban 2 Likes F .

Yasir Alam 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand It takes some getting used to, I'll give you that, but on the whole I like the Ribbon interface. It's an interesting evolution from drop down menus. The context sensitive tabs really let you get at more features at a glance than any other way of doing things. I don't know if Windows Explorer has enough functions to require such an interface, but it was a godsend for office products.

A Like Reply 9 months ago in reply to Roy Leban 1 Like F .

Steve, big fan and power user of computers and the internet, occasionally a bit of a nerd, fairly knowledgeable tech-head. it's not just computers as it's other subjects I like to keep up with and give my opinions/reviews... 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand Oh dear! I absolutely hate the stupid stupid ribbon idea in the new versions of MS Office that claims to be better - trust me, it really isn't. I have an older version with real menu system. Now I read they want to introduce this daft idea into the new version of Windows? (before even letting the paint dry properly on Windows 7, when is this expected to be forced on an unwilling public?)

How much does this stink of some sort of desperation that a) it's being started already, and b) cynically leaking design ideas - I suppose the chatter is worth it. Listen up Microsoft: if it ain't broken then don't meddle with it. (read: don't fuck with it) there are many other places in the operating system where there are plenty of means to improve, appearance isnt one of them.

This might only be a pre-alpha series of leaked shots, but I really hope they don't place this in with out other options like regular menus for people who don't have or want touch screen (your possible saving grace in this argument) but aren't blind enough to need big stupid buttons to click...

Stunts like this will drive more people to Linux. ~S

A Like Reply 9 months ago in reply to Roy Leban 0 Like

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Cow 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand Microsoft built the ribbon interface almost purely on user test group ideas. People were complaining that too many options were buried under all these ridiculous menus they had to dig through. Besides, keyboard shortcuts (which are still the same) are faster than either.

A Like Reply 7 months ago in reply to Roy Leban 0 Like

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Vanno Davis 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand wow i cant wait for windows 9 to see how they move up from this

A Like Reply 9 months ago 0 Like

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Thedlinktv 3 comments collapsed Collapse Expand I really like teh fact that Microsoft is really keeping all info about Windows 8 closed, it just builds up excitment. I personally think Ribbon is a great addition to Windows 8, I use it on Office 2010. Also adding Xbox and Windows Phone UI to Windows 8 would really slap Apple across the face. Plus a Windows Store, for apps? Microsoft is definetely stepping up to the plate. Who knows what could be next, maybe better software like Windows Live Essentials, or change of the taskbar. Let's take our place back Microsoft!

A Like Reply 9 months ago 6 Likes F .

Olisaebuka Maduka 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand Agreed

A Like Reply 9 months ago in reply to Thedlinktv 1 Like F .

Steve, big fan and power user of computers and the internet, occasionally a bit of a nerd, fairly knowledgeable tech-head. it's not just computers as it's other subjects I like to keep up with and give my opinions/reviews... 1 comment collapsed

Collapse Expand You know the problem here? (not a major problem, just a minor annoyance) is that we have to get yet another online ID, and personally I prefer to keep my laptop separate and only log in to services when I need them not have it built into the operating system...

A Like Reply 9 months ago in reply to Thedlinktv 0 Like

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Sure 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand Yeah! More MicroSatan and Winblows.

NYPD - How to Make a Police State in Three Easy Steps

2011-12-30T06:12:00.000-08:00

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/414/right-to-remain-silent

http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-05-04/news/the-nypd-tapes-inside-bed-stuy-s-81st-precinct/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft

Police corruption is the first sign of the decline of a nation into fascism.

This story of the NYPD committing a whistleblower cop Adrian Schoolcraft to a psych hospital should make anyone familiar with the history of Soviet Russia worried for America.

The very act of being upset about a police invasion of your home certifies you as an EDP Emotionally Disturbed Person who must be hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital.

Republicans - the Party of the Living Dead

2011-12-27T05:03:00.000-08:00

since when have Republicans done anything good for the country? it boggles the mind. It is now a zombie party, full of the living dead, hell bent on destroying the country by mindless adherence to failed ideology. But the media need a horse race so they continue to maintain the fiction that the Republican party is actually viable and actually has ideas worth considering. George W Bush should have been the final nail in the coffin of the Republican party, but it continues to live on merely because it serves the ruling economic royalty who own the country.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/opinion/krugman-springtime-for-toxics.html?src=me&ref=general#comments

Martin SteinPortland, OregonMartin Stein is Trusted.Trusted Commenters enjoy the privilege of commenting on articles and blog posts without moderation.

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..Voters need to wake up to the fact that the Republican party as now constituted is a threat to the well being of the United States. They are against practically every measure that would improve the economic well being of ordinary Americans, the welfare of children,, and the environmental well being of the planet.

They are in favor of practically every every measure that would increase the coffers of the wealthiest Americans and corporations at the expense of ordinary Americans, men, women and children alike.

They are so cravenly immoral, that a former seemingly reasonable Republican like John Huntsman would decry environmental control regulations. I could envision a man losing his soul in order to gain the world. I cannot conceive of someone like Huntsman losing his in order to go from one to two percent in the polls.

Republicans warn us constantly about the "socialist ' threat, the threat posed by American Muslims and Sharia Law and numerous other manufactured political Freddy Krugers to scare the masses into compliance with their agendas.

However, to my mind the biggest threat to the health and well being of our society and our way of life is the Republican party who by their actions and proposals are truly the enemy of the good in our country.

At least hatters had a reason for their madness. What is the excuse for Republicans being so greed obsessed, nihilistic, irresponsible, and short sighted?

To me they represent a threat to our cherished ideals

Dec. 25, 2011 at 8:44 p.m.Recommended820

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..Republicans usually deny the effects of things that exist but that they can't see (mercury, CO2, climate change) but pull out all the stops to combat things can't be seen because they don't exist (weapons of mass destruction, welfare queens, job-killing regulations).

Dec. 26, 2011 at 8:44 a.m.Recommended109Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.

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..The knee-jerk conservative reflex is to be anti-everything government. You can argue facts with them all day long; show them cost-benefit ratios that prove regulations save lives and money - and none of it matters. They don't dare admit any exceptions to their anti-government creed, lest the faith of their followers fall into doubt.

Complaints from the right about 'uncertainty' are a giveaway. Their believers follow them because they offer simple, unbending explanations of how the world works and enemies to explain away everything that contradicts those beliefs. To admit that there might be anything their rigid world view can't handle threatens the faith of their followers in their leadership.

They are no longer a political party. They have become an authoritarian cult. The party that invented "political correctness" as a disparaging label is now far more rigidly conformist than any liberal ever was, and the trend is accelerating. At some level the party leadership knows and understands this, but can't give it up without losing control of their base.

Let doubt of any kind seep in, and their control over their followers will begin to crumble. Keeping that control, even at the price of causing further damage to the country, is their first priority. The party of the Neo-Cons has evolved into the party of the Neo-Know-Nothings.

This pretty much explains the growing Republican antipathy to science, reason, or logical consistency.

Dec. 26, 2011 at 5:24 a.m.Recommended90

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Enjoy It While You Can - Before the Great AH5N1 Plague Purifies the Earth

2011-12-27T04:41:00.000-08:00

Sounds like a civilisation terminating event once AH5N1 bird flu virus goes airborne, no more iphones, no more laptops, no more governments, no more gasoline, just a very bad smell everywhere and a sudden quietness once the weeping and gnashing of teeth stop, oh the humanity!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/science/debate-persists-on-deadly-flu-made-airborne.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2

The A(H5N1) bird flu was first recognized in Hong Kong in 1997, when chickens in poultry markets began dying and 18 people fell ill, 6 of them fatally. Hoping to stamp out the virus, the government in Hong Kong destroyed the country’s entire poultry industry — killing more than a million birds — in just a few days. Buddhist monks and nuns in Hong Kong prayed for the souls of the slaughtered chickens, and world health officials praised Hong Kong for averting a potential pandemic.

But the virus persisted in other parts of Asia, and reached Europe and Africa; that worries scientists, because most bird flus emerge briefly and then vanish. Millions of infected birds have died, and many millions more have been slaughtered. Since 1997, about 600 humans have been infected, and more than half died.

Dr. Donald A. Henderson, a leader in the eradication of smallpox and now a biosecurity expert at the University of Pittsburgh, noted that even the notorious flu pandemic of 1918 killed only 2 percent of patients.

“This is running at 50 percent or more,” Dr. Henderson said. “This would be the ultimate organism as far as destruction of population is concerned.”

With Faith in the Buddha, Sariputta Walks on Water

2011-12-25T09:03:00.000-08:00

South of Savatthi is a great river, on the banks of which lay
a hamlet of five hundred houses. Thinking of the salvation of the
people, the World-honored One resolved to go to the village and
preach the doctrine. Having come to the riverside he sat down
beneath a tree, and the villagers seeing the glory of his appearance
approached him with reverence; but when he began to preach, they
believed him not.

When the world-honored Buddha had left Savatthi Sariputta
felt a desire to see the Lord and to hear him preach. Coming to the
river where the water was deep and the current strong, he said to
himself: "This stream shall not prevent me. I shall go and see the
Blessed One, and he stepped upon the water which was as firm
under his feet as a slab of granite. When he arrived at a place in the
middle of the stream where the waves were high, Sariputta's heart
gave way, and he began to sink. But rousing his faith and renewing
his mental effort, he proceeded as before and reached the other
bank.

The people of the village were astonished to see Sariputta, and
they asked how he could cross the stream where there was neither a
bridge nor a ferry. Sariputta replied: "I lived in ignorance until I
heard the voice of the Buddha. As I was anxious to hear the doctrine
of salvation, I crossed the river and I walked over its troubled waters
because I had faith. Faith. nothing else, enabled me to do so, and
now I am here in the bliss of the Master's presence."

The World-honored One added: "Sariputta, thou hast spoken
well. Faith like thine alone can save the world from the yawning
gulf of migration and enable men to walk dryshod to the other
shore." And the Blessed One urged to the villagers the necessity of
ever advancing in the conquest of sorrow and of casting off all
shackles so as to cross the river of worldliness and attain
deliverance from death. Hearing the words of the Tathagata, the
villagers were filled with joy and believing in the doctrines of the
Blessed One embraced the five rules and took refuge in his name.

http://sacred-texts.com/bud/btg/btg86.htm

The Wise Contemplative Abstains From Debates Such as These

2011-12-25T08:52:00.000-08:00

"Whereas some priests and contemplatives, living off food given in faith, are addicted to debates such as these -- 'You understand this doctrine and discipline? I'm the one who understands this doctrine and discipline. How could you understand this doctrine and discipline? You're practicing wrongly. I'm practicing rightly. I'm being consistent. You're not. What should be said first you said last. What should be said last you said first. What you took so long to think out has been refuted. Your doctrine has been overthrown. You're defeated. Go and try to salvage your doctrine; extricate yourself if you can!' -- he abstains from debates such as these. This, too, is part of his virtue. ~
sutta digha nikaya metta/canon/digha/dn2.html

We Pick the Buddha We Can Relate To

2011-12-25T08:43:00.000-08:00

amorfati@geocities.com wrote:

>> " maybe we are projecting our own desires about the character of Shakyamuni on Him. We westerners desperately want a jolly santa claus type buddha, it seems."

>>> So what? Projection is the Name of the Game. ... I have a 'weight-challenged' friend who has a statue of the short fat buddha (Hotei) on his altar. I have an intellectual friend who has only the head of a greek apollo style buddha on his altar, detached from the body. I have a sensual friend who has the yab-yum buddha image on their altar. We pick the Buddha we can relate to. Soon, we will have Buddhas that look like Elvis, or Buddhas hanging from a cross.

>> We've already had those buddhas. They're called Elvis and Jesus.

Classified Ad Classics - Man Seeking Relationship

2011-12-25T08:35:00.000-08:00

"Newly Separated in dead-end job seeks dumpy neurotic for mutual

psychological torture, tepid sex, and co-dependency. I enjoy drinking,
smoking, p0rn0graphy, and self-righteous indignation. I can't stand
movies, and the last album I bought was The Marshall Tucker Band's
Greatest Hits. I have middling intelligence but try to appear smarter
by affecting a world-weary air, memorizing useless facts, and
chuckling at my own mean-spirited, agenda-driven jokes. I'm 32 but
look 40 and feel 60.

You are a whiny, bitter shrew with a misplaced sense of entitlement
and unrealistic expectations. In time you will become coolly hostile
when I don't fulfill every unmet need you've ever had. Bonus points if
you just finished screwing every guy in town and but now want to take
it slow with me. My perfect night would include getting hammered in a
sh*t-hole bar while you flirt with seedy old drunks, followed by an
embarrassing screaming match.

I would be open to an unsatisfying fling that leaves me filled with
regret and dread but prefer a long-term, soul crushing descent into
booze and pills. No friendships. I don't need any damned friends. Age
unimportant, but I will condescend to women under 30 and rehash mother
issues with women over 40. Serious replies only, please.

More Quotes to Live By

2011-12-25T08:17:00.000-08:00

"The ontology of materialism rested upon the illusion that the kind of existence, the direct 'actuality' of the world around us, can be extrapolated into the atomic range. This extrapolation, however, is impossible . . . Atoms are not things." Werner Heisenberg

"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. --Friedrich Nietzsche
"The vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world.
And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice." - George W. Bush
(Washington DC, Oct 27 2003)
"The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation

that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing
falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any
refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the
war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this
process of grotesque self-deception."
--Mark Twain, 1917

"The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong." Winston Churchill

"There are two ways of losing oneself: by insulation
in the particular or by dilution in the 'universal'"
Aimé Cesairé

"Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music."
- Anon

"Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

"If the law is on your side, argue the law; if the
law is against you, argue the facts; and if the law
AND the facts are against you, just argue."

"Is it progress if a cannibal uses a knife and fork?" Stanislaw Lem

"Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance." -- Oscar Wilde

"A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory."
-Steven Wright

"It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others."

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." - Hunter S. Thompson

"Brain cells come and brain cells go, but fat cells live forever."

"the tragedy of Canada is that they had the opportunity to have British culture, French cuisine,
and American technology. Instead they ended up with American culture, British cuisine, and
French technology."

"To meet everything and everyone through stillness instead of mental noise is the greatest gift you can offer to the universe. I call it stillness, but it is a jewel with many facets: that stillness is also joy, and it is love."
eckhart tolle

"To read a book early in the morning, at daybreak, in the vigor and dawn of one's strength—this is sheer viciousness! —"
—Ecce Homo, WIASC, 8

"Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving
taxi cabs and cutting hair." George Burns

"Walk with the Gods. And he does walk with the Gods who lets them see his soul invariably satisfied with his lot and carrying out the will of that "genius", a particle of himself, which Zeus has given to every man as his captain and guide." Marcus Aurelius Antoninus [121 A.D. -- 180 A.D.] -- Meditations

"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the same sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart."

- H. L. Mencken

"What do you call someone in possesion of all the facts? Paranoid." -William Burroughs

"What I see in Nature is a grand design that we can understand only
imperfectly, one with which a responsible person must look at with humility.
This is a genuine religious feeling and has nothing to do with mysticism."
Albert Einstein

"What is the difference between a sh*thead and a brown-noser"? the answer is depth perception

"When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly."
- Barbara J. Winter

"You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why
bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but
what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One
descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of
conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher
up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know." Rene Daumal

(Terence McKenna) They were urging me to experiment with my voice and I discovered years later, taking Ayahuasca in the Amazon jungles, tribes of Indians that have actually mastered this art, and that saturate their bodies with DMT and harmaline, and then sing. But for them this singing is not a musical exercise, it's a pictorial exercise. They see what they intend. This is a kind of telepathy. Well, it's humbling, it's transformative, it's astonishing to realise that Shamans all over the world for time uncountable have been accessing this appalling, complex, ontologically challenging, scientifically impossible, reality. This means that culturally we are living out some kind of schizophrenic delusion, because we live our lives totally ignorant of these possibilities, or perhaps only glimpsing them at the edge of anaesthesia, or something like that, unless, of course, we have the courage to be counter-cultural heads, but even then many people confine themselves in the private world of their own reflection because social pressure and, indeed, social legislation make it very touchy to talk about these things. But I say to you, this is part of the human birthright. This is as much a part of the game as birth, sex and dying.
From the Camden Center Talk
(Terence McKenna)

“Men, too, secrete the inhuman. At certain moments of lucidity, the mechanical aspects of their gestures, their meaningless pantomime makes silly everything that surrounds them. A man is talking on the telephone behind a glass partition; you cannot hear him, but you see his incomprehensible dumb show: you wonder why he is alive. This discomfort in the face of man’s own inhumanity, this incalculable tumble before the image of what we are, this “nausea,” as a writer of today calls it, is also the absurd. Likewise the stranger who at certain seconds comes to meet us in the mirror, the familiar and yet alarming brother we encounter in own photograph is also the absurd.”
- camus

> "And if there is still one hellish, truely accursed thing in our time, it is > our artistic dallying with forms, instead of being like victims burnt at the > stake, signaling through the flames."-Antonin Artaud. ~

List of Corporate Scams

2011-12-24T12:12:00.000-08:00

it's pretty surprising when you think how many commonly known companies have been around forever while practicing a business model based on outright deception, the only secret is not to get too greedy like Enron

like

Amway - scam poor desperate ignoramuses into thinking they are starting a 'business' by buying a garage full of motivational tapes and books from the scam artist

Sleep number mattresses - $3000 for a $300 air mattress

Quiznos sandwiches - though the scam here is to defraud the franchisee rather than the customer, with onerous operating rules and lockin contracts

Goldline - gold 'investing'

Hedge Funds - made-to-order out-of-the-box ready-to-wear Ponzi scheme

Credit Card companies - free 0 percent come-ons with sneaky overlimit fees

Traffic Camera Photo Ticket companies - setting yellow light timing to guarantee high numbers of $500 photo tickets

Cell Phone Companies like Sprint - relying on overage charges listed in incomprehensible units like cents per kilobbyte equivalent to tens of thousands of dollars per gigabyte

Payday Lenders - interest rates of +400% APR

The Original Confidence Man - Americas Great Invention

2011-12-24T10:17:00.000-08:00

amazing, there actually is an identified original con man!

William Thompson (confidence man)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

William Thompson was an American criminal whose deceptions caused the term "confidence man" to be coined.

Operating in New York City in the late 1840s, a gently-dressed Thompson would approach an upper-class mark, pretending they knew each other, and begin a brief conversation. After initially gaining the mark's trust, Thompson would ask "Have you confidence in me to trust me with your watch until tomorrow?" Upon taking the watch (or, occasionally, money), Thompson would depart, never returning the watch.[1]

Thompson was arrested and brought to trial in 1849, in a case that made newspaper headlines across the country. The New York Herald, recalling his explicit appeals to the victim's "confidence," dubbed him the "confidence man." Per the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known use of the term was printed in The New Orleans Picayune.

The Thompson case was a major inspiration and source for Herman Melville's 1857 novel The Confidence-Man.

[edit] References1.^ Karen Halttunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women, p 6 ISBN 0-300-02835-0

[edit] External links"Arrest of the Confidence Man," New-York Herald, 1849

Hedy Lamarr Quotes

2011-12-21T17:57:00.000-08:00

Hedy Lamarr
Jack Kennedy always said to me, Hedy, get involved. That's the secret of life. Try everything. Join everything. Meet everybody.

I don't fear death because I don't fear anything I don't understand. When I start to think about it, I order a massage and it goes away.

I don't believe in life after death. But I do believe in some grinding destiny that watches over us on earth. If I didn't, the safety valve would give and the boiler would explode.

Analysis gave me great freedom of emotions and fantastic confidence. I felt I had served my time as a puppet.

It's funny about men and women. Men pay in cash to get them and pay in cash to get rid of them. Women pay emotionally coming and going. Neither has it easy.

All my six husbands married me for different reasons.

I am not ashamed to say that no man I ever met was my father's equal, and I never loved any other man as much.

American men, as a group, seem to be interested in only two things, money and breasts. It seems a very narrow outlook.

Lawyers know how to take isolated complaints in a divorce case and build them into one big one.

Let any pretty girl announce a divorce in Hollywood and the wolves come running. Fresh meat for the beast, and they are always hungry.

Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.

I'm a sworn enemy of convention. I despise the conventional in anything, even the arts.

I've been an important star and lived a full life, yet I only hve three close friends. I guess that's all anyone can expect.

I don't have any gnawing guilt over contributing to any unhappiness suffered by my husbands. They were as much to blame as I was.

I enjoy countless hundreds pursuing me. I love those who love me the most. I am sort of flattered by men showing attention to me.

Perhaps my problem in marriage-and it is the problem of many women-was to want both intimacy and independence. It is a difficult line to walk, yet both needs are important to a marriage.

Some men like a dull life - they like the routine of eating breakfast, going to work, coming home, petting the dog, watching TV, kissing the kids, and going to bed. Stay clear of it - it's often catching.

The ceremony took six minutes. The marriage lasted about the same amount of time though we didn't get a divorce for almost a year.

The ladder of success in Hollywood is usually a press agent, actor, director, producer, leading man; and you are a star if you sleep with each of them in that order. Crude, but true.

I have always felt that if a man gives you a solid gold key to his door he is entitled to the courtesy of a visit.

I have not been that wise. Health I have taken for granted. Love I have demanded, perhaps too much and too often. As for money, I have only realized its true worth when I didn't have it.

I know why most people never get rich. They put the money ahead of the job. If you just think of the job, the money will automatically follow. This never fails.

I must quit marrying men who feel inferior to me. Somewhere there must be a man who could be my husband and not feel inferior.

I think women are concerned too much with their clothes. Men don't really care that much about women's clothes. If they like a girl, chances are they'll like her clothes.

I was born an only child in Vienna, Austria. My father found hours to sit by me by the library fire and tell fairy stories.

I would tell anyone who wants something from someone else to feign not wanting it. People are perverse. If you show great affection to them, they'll run the other way.

I'd rather wear jewels in my hair than anywhere else. The face should have the advantage of this brilliance.

Hedy Lamarr

Can Bank of America Escape the Derivatives Apocalypse?

2011-12-21T12:41:00.000-08:00

Bank of America just pulled back from going below 5$ stock price, does that mean they have their trillions of exposure to risky derivatives and inherited countrywide toxicity under control?

--------------------------

....Nomi Prins: How Many Regulators Does It Take to Screw Investors Out of $1.2B?

..By Stacy Curtin
Daily Ticker – 7 hours ago

"Nothing has changed since AIG," says Nomi Prins, author of Black Tuesday. "These companies are too complex [and] the regulators too inept."

The most recent fallout from lack of regulatory oversight of the banking and investing industry is the collapse of MF Global, run by former Goldman Sachs CEO Jon Corzine. A stunning $1.2 billion in client funds are still missing more than month after the company buckled on fears of its leveraged bets on European debt. (See: It's the Leverage, Stupid: Jon Corzine's MF Global Goes Bust)

The problem is banks and brokers "have too many different competing businesses that are mixed with customer funds… and [there's] so many different regulators whooshing about not being responsive, not being accountable, not talking to each other," says Prins, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs and currently a senior fellow at Demos.

Well, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the regulatory body in charge of overseeing the securities industry and markets, has been busy -- but only in allowing banks to settle charges of wrongdoing with nothing more than a slap on the wrist. By neither admitting nor denying wrongdoing, the SEC has allowed banks from JPMorgan to Citigroup "get off" on a wide range of issues with just financial penalties and settlements. (See: Taken to Task: Jamie Dimon's House of Ill Repute)

Enough was finally enough for New York District Court Judge Jed Rakoff. Frustrated with inadequate punishment for financial malfeasance, he last month rejected the $285 million settlement between Citigroup and SEC, saying the deal was "neither reasonable, nor fair, nor adequate, nor in the public interest." (See: Taken To Task: Capt. Cronyism, Hank Paulson)

Comments:
nonamespecified

how is it possible? hahahah, Obama and Holder are both financial illiterates and Obama was rolled by Paulson. We will be asking the same question when the next hedge fund ponzi scheme folds like Bridgewater Associates. There are 8000+ hedge funds with no regulation, many claiming 18% yoy returns, go ahead and tell me that 20+% are not ponzi schemes.Reply. 27users liked this comment

bob308 6 hours ago

Relationships between federal regulators and big busness has always been a dubious arrangement. CRIME THAT PAYS IS CRIME THAT STAYS! Reply . 17users liked this comment

craign 6 hours ago

IMHO there will be no perp walks. Politicians are not going to bite the hand that feeds them. Oh there will be a lot of posturing and tough talk from both parties, but in the end nothing will be done. Reply . 12users liked this comment

Thumbs UpThumbs Down0users disliked this commentXX 5 hours ago Report AbuseNomi Prins is only telling half the truth. That's not the reason! The real reason is the special amendment inserted into the 2005 bankruptcy law by Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa), the same guy who co-sponsored the Gramm-Bliley-Leach Act that repealed Glass-Steagal. The amendment to that law grants derivatives contract holders and hypothecation contract holders the right to KEEP whatever assets are in their possession when the firm that deposited went bankrupt - stepping ahead of line of all other claimants. No wonder the money's now in JP Morgan's (and other banks') systems now.

It's the same reason Bank of America recently moved $53 trillion in potential derivatives bets liabilities from its Merill Lynch unit to its main depositary unit holding some $1 trillion in mom-and-pop depositors' assets - OVER the objections of the FDIC, which is supposed to insure customer deposits. The derivatives contract holders required Bank of America to do it when its credit rating was downgraded. The counter-parties wanted their bets against Bank of America to remain safe. 7 Replies 4users liked this comment

axonmor 5 hours ago Report AbuseAmerica...of the wealthy, by the wealthy and for the wealthy.. 0users liked this comment

bob308 5 hours ago Report AbusePut your comment into plain language XX.. 4users liked this comment

ethos 5 hours ago Report AbuseBofA put its risky derivatives into an account backed by your deposits. If the derivatives go bust, guess who pays off the counterparties. Not BofA. The dumb depositors. Take your money out of BofA.. 2users liked this comment

bob308 6 hours ago Report AbuseBring back Glass-Steagall! Reply . 24users liked this comment

Thumbs UpThumbs Down1users disliked this commentcecebe_ont 7 hours ago Report AbuseThere are no watch dogs, no accountability, and no ethical people at the top. Need I say more. Reply . 10users liked this comment

Thumbs UpThumbs Down0users disliked this commentmichelle 5 hours ago Report AbuseWhat the SEC is doing is disgusting and sickening!!!!!! We want real justice to be done, not just a little fine, with Absolutely No Accountability!!! Funny, if you or write a "bad check" we will go to jail, but these whoring thieves get not one day of jail time, not even being brought up on charges... More 2 Replies . 10users liked this comment

Ayn Rand vs Friedrich Nietszche - the prophet of selfishness vs the prophet of power

2011-12-20T13:27:00.000-08:00

It boggles me how a third rate novelist wanna be philosopher like Ayn Rand is so popular now, it really bespeaks the anti-intellectualism of the American conservative that they would think a crackpot like Ayn Rand has any depth worth plumbing besides a few bon mots about the virtue of selfishness which so conveniently plays into their need to justify their greed and indifference to their fellow countrymen.

Whereas the prophet of will-to-power, Nietzsche, is now almost completely forgotten when his ideas about will-to-power are only all too much in evidence in the dysfunction in American government, petty power junkies giving each other the finger as they try to grasp more and more power for themselves.

Alas, woe is us, the idiocracy cometh!

Given What We Know Will Happen - What is the Best Way to Invest and to Protect Savings?

2011-12-19T18:31:00.000-08:00

Ok, it's pretty clear that the following will happen:

1. Obama will get elected in 2012

2. Wall Street will continue to roll him with impunity

3. Congress will continue to be worse than dysfunctional

4. Europe will break up as Greece and a few others default

5. The Arab spring will decay into a reign of terror like all good revolutions

6. The hedge fund implosion will get serious as more Madoff Ponzi schemes are discovered like Bridgewater Associates, and losses mount to 100's of billions instead of just a few billion

7. Global Warming will accelerate faster than most scientists expect, and the Greenland ice sheet will start to slide off

8. An asteroid will ....

wait

what?

oh, right, is gold going up or down?

Impeach Supreme Court Justice John Roberts for Misrepresentation and Judicial Activism in Citizens United

2011-12-19T17:51:00.000-08:00

why this idea to impeach Justice John Roberts never got off the ground is beyond me, he blatantly lied during his confirmation hearing about respecting precedent, then indulged in the most blatant ideological case of judicial activism in singlehandedly ramming through Citizens United and making it in effect a revolution in the country's electoral system that no one was asking for, to the detriment of democracy. If that isnt grounds for impeachment, I dont know what is. If Justice Roberts is never held to account for his overreaching then America is as good as finished.

Care2 petitionsite IMPEACH CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS

signatures: 124
signature goal: 1,000

to Vice President Biden
Sponsored by: G Evans

A Supreme Court Justice must be above politics, but not above the law. Justice Roberts lied to congress while under oath during the confirmation process, and is legislating from the bench. Robert's ruling has taken away the voice of the people and given all the power to the corporations, some of which are multi-national...giving foreigners more say in how our country will be run than you, the American citizen.
Dear Mr. Vice President Biden,

We the undersigned respectfully request impeachment proceedings be brought against Chief Justice Roberts for lying under oath during his confirmation hearings regarding legislating from the bench. A Supreme Court judge should possess the utmost integrity, honesty and trust. We feel he has betrayed and lied to the American public, and should be removed from that post.

This petition is now closed.

.# 12318:10, Jun 30, Ms. Debra Pilla, FL
Chief Justice John Roberts lied to me, and the American people, and the Judiciary Committee. This is treason!! It's high time for impeachment! Justice must be served. He is not above the law!! The Right-wing justices are taking lobbyist money to the court!! Treason!! Signed, A Responsible and highly disgusted Republican.

# 12210:33, Jun 12, Mr. Matthew Lewis, MN
Justice Roberts confirmation hearings were a sham. It's clear he values right-wing politics over the rule of law. It's a shame. The American public should not be forced to deal with this man's biased rulings for the next generation or more. Please do the right thing (no pun intended) and remove Justice Roberts from the Supreme Court..

# 12105:56, Jun 12, Mr. david vallely, WA
Justice Roberts lied to congress during his confermation and his rulings giving corporations more rights than real people is turning America into a third world dictatorship rather than a democracy. Real people go to jail when they kill people. Real people can only spend $5,000 on a political campain while he ruled corporations can spend any amount they want to influnce the peoples business. This ruling came in a case unrelated to political spending and violates the courts own rules. To save democracy in America he must go !.

# 12023:47, Jun 09, Ms. Debi Feistkorn, GA
This man has to go while we still have some semblance of a democracy..

.# 11612:30, Apr 20, James Hugh Sttrickland, FL
The activist republican court will vote for torture, corporate control of government and supression of human rights. It is an outrage..# 11520:43, Apr 19, Michele Lockman, PA
I am very disturbed by Justice Roberts' lack of ability to be bipartisan. He does not seem to understand the separation of church and state and other important tenets of the Constitution..

# 11405:32, Apr 16, Name not displayed, NC
This corporate puppet never should have allowed on the bench - never mind being assigned to the Chief Justice role..# 11317:05, Apr 12, Mr. Dwight Irons, NC

.# 10808:14, Mar 24, Mrs. Marguerite Pastirchak, NY
Want Judge Roberts because he has sided with the corporations over the people. He is a terrible leader and will only hurt our democracy more..# 10708:03, Mar 19, Mr. neal morell, CA
i will never pledge allegiance to the flag of the united CEO's of america. once a republic, which did not stand, one nation, under fraud, with liberty and justice for all multinational corporations..# 10606:54, Mar 18, Mr. Andrew Kaufman, TN
How can someone who is supposed to rule impartially make such a one-sided and obviously biased decision against the American people in general? I say that Chief Justice Roberts needs to be called to task and made to answer for this..# 10516:22, Mar 17, Ms. charlotte roginski, TX

.# 10414:06, Mar 17, Mr. Larry Sankey, CA
This is nothing less than the selling of our democracy to the highest bidder. It completely undermines the power of individual citizens. It is among the worst, if not the worst, Supreme Court decisions in the history of our nation. The people must send a message to those who would sell out our country. It is not acceptable. Not only Chief Justice Roberts, but every member who supported this decision should be impeached..

# 10314:45, Mar 16, Mr. richard beaudoin, CA
.# 10210:42, Mar 16, Mr. Rick Jones, CA
Money should not equal free speech..

# 10110:23, Mar 16, Jason Felts, MN
If gross incompetence is not a good enough reason to impeach someone, then what on earth is...?.

# 10010:07, Mar 16, Mr. James Ott, TX
Roberts was brought in as a pawn of the previois regime and will continue to do damage until he is impeached..

# 9909:41, Mar 16, Name not displayed, TX
I believe the only the best example of is too hold him accountable,he broke the law . End of story!.

# 9809:19, Mar 16, Ms. Joanna Freeman, TX
This kind of arrogance displayed by the supreme court is just further flagrant spitting in the face of the American public, and we can no longer stand for it. We must fight together to bring this injustice to an end, immediately! I have been fighting for America for as long as I have been able to, and it is an important thing to note that sometimes the largest threats to our country are not foreign, but domestic. The Supreme Court has long been the great justice in the world, but with a partisan leadership and a leadership built upon the corruption to which Chief Justice Roberts achieved this seat, we have no choice but to remove this man so that we can bring justice back to the people of this country. We must all stand together to fight, and protect the country that we all so dearly believe in..

# 9709:05, Mar 16, Mr. Ricardo Valbuena, CA
Corporate America already has too much power in our system. Adding unlimited corporate contributions to political campaigns will sell out America. We also need more regulations on banks, lobbying, and foreign imports. We need to go back to the basics, give everyone health care and buy American!!!!.# 9608:42, Mar 16, Name not displayed, CA
Chief Justice? What a joke. This man has no wisdom and only makes decisions based on his on self serving reasons..

# 9511:22, Mar 11, Mr. Anthony Marzullo, MD
Justice Roberts is a disgrace to the American judicial system. His disdain for public criticism and pandering to corporate greed needs to be eliminated from our government. We the people need to take back our country from these corporate puppets..# 9408:16, Mar 11, Susan Chemey, IN

.# 9306:47, Mar 11, Mr. David Cornwell, IN
Justice Roberts needs to go. Start the process of impeaching him, please..# 9212:05, Mar 10, Mr. James Weaver, WA
Justice Roberts is a disgrace to our judicial system of justice and impartiality..

# 9104:50, Mar 10, Mrs. Darlene Zelechowski, WI
Chief Justice Roberts lied to even get his job, Impeach him now..# 9003:38, Mar 10, Name not displayed, IL
He sold democracy to the highest bidder. This is NOT what the founding fathers envisioned..

# 8915:28, Mar 09, Name not displayed, OH
this guy is a disgrace to the bench.

.# 6800:19, Feb 03, Mr. Ian MacLeod, OR
I am a wartime veteran, son of two wartime veterans, brother of a wartime veteran, nephew, cousin, grandson, etc. of many other veterans all of whom joined during war as my brother and I did. We were raised on military bases by a father who spent his working life in the military. We were taught to love America, and to be active in the governing of it and to keep an eye on that government to keep tit honest. Well, we arrived on the scene far too late for that; all we could do is what we can. We were also taught to know the enemies of America by what they taught and what they did. My entire family swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies both foreign and domestic. By all that I've learned and been taught, it is clear that there are now domestic enemies of the Constitution of my country on the bench of the Supreme Court. They are: Sam Alito, Anthony Kennedy, John Roberts, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Their rulings to date have almost all been anti-worker, anti-environment and pro-corporate raiders. This time, they have over-reached in the name of a clear agenda that judges on the highest court in the land should never have! They have harmed my country, and now they have turned it over to the corporations in a way that will give these soulless, compassionless, destroying entities, even those from the lands of our greatest enemies, more power over both the electoral process and the legislative processes of my country than the originators and rightful holders of those powers - We the People! This must be stopped, repudiated, reversed, and the perpetrators, traitors all and criminals as they clearly lied to gain their positions, must be impeached, brought to trial and punished to the fullest extent that the laws they disrespected allow! My entire family for generations has risked their lives for this country; my nephew does so now. We have earned better than this, being ignored, from our representatives. You have sat there in safety and plenty while I and mine have gone out and willingly risked our lives in the name of service to America. What are you willing to risk?.# 6716:27, Feb 02, Ms. Cate Long, NY
The concept of "corporate personhood" has no basis in the Constitution. Extending the rights of individuals to "legal fictions" has caused the assumption of massive power by companies. This is weakening our nation and has corrupted the political process..

Constantine's Sword - Another Heartwarming Christmas Movie

2011-12-19T08:10:00.000-08:00

wow, this film should be a holiday tradition along with 'It's a Wonderful Life', maybe then America's creeping towards theocratic military christian fascism might be slowed down a little.

This review is from: Constantine's Sword (DVD)

51 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars A Man's Struggle with His Father, September 4, 2008
By
HoustonReviewer

"Constantine's Sword," the movie version of John Carroll's book, is now available on DVD; it can also be watched on-line if you have Netflix.

There's a great deal of autobiography in the film. Carroll's father, Joseph Carroll was an important Air Force general; an FBI agent, Joseph Carroll was then sent to the new Air Force, commissioned a colonel, and within two years was a major general. He was the founding director of the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations, and then the founding director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; it was he who brought the photos of Russian missles in Cuba to Kennedy's attention.

The younger Carroll grew up on military bases, met John XXIII with his family as a teenager, and in the wake of the nuclear uncertainty of the Cold War, opted to pursue those things that would last. His first mass was celebrated at a chapel on an Air Force base; growing disillusioned with the war in Vietnam, and feeling called to follow the Prince of Peace, he slipped in just a tiny allusion in that first homily. He preached on Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones; he mentioned they had been burned by the sun. More than that, burned by napalm. Such a tiny rebellion-such a miniscule insult to the military-but enough to drive a wedge between James and Joseph.

Carroll was a priest from 1969-1974, increasingly active in opposing the war, which destroyed his faith in both governmental and churchly authority. In an interview from those days he notes the silence of the US Catholic hierarchy to the bombing of civilians in Vietnam and opines, "Were US bombers dropping contraceptives on the Vietnamese, the American Catholic hierarchy would have condemned it quickly; but we were dropping napalm, and they said nothing."

These personal stories are sketched throughout the movie, which begins at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, and the issue of aggressive evangelization of non-Christians, especially Jewish students, by evangelical churches in the area and by evangelical faculty, staff and students of the Academy. He interviews Academy graduate Mikey Weinstein, who was shocked when one of his two sons then at the Academy told him of anti-Jewish slurs he had been subjected to, and of the aggressive promotion of "The Passion of the Christ" by the Academy.

Carroll uses this incident to launch into a discussion of two issues: the history of Christian hostility to Jews, and of the linkage of Christianity with military power. He visits Milvian Bridge outside Rome, and Constantine's vision of a cross with the motto, "In hoc signo vinces," becomes the guiding metaphor for the book-"Cross and sword become one. Christianity turns violent."

He surveys how this baptized violence spread across Europe, and became a means to unite feuding Christian kingdoms in a war against a common enemy, the Muslim "infidel"-and against closer enemies, against whom Christians had a long-standing grudge.

Carroll relates how he grew up in a typical Irish-Catholic family, trusting in a holy church with holy saints, priests and bishops. Now he saw those "holy" priests and bishops calling for bloody conquest, even leading pogroms against Jews in the name of Christ.

He travels to Spain, where Jews were first forced to convert to Christianity; then, when Christians became suspicious of the integrity of those they had forcibly converted, the Spanish Inquisition was created to investigate and to punish. When Jews were expelled from Spain, many were welcome in Rome, until 1555, when chief Roman inquisitor Giovanni Cardinal Caraffa became Pope Paul IV, who restricted Jewish intercourse with Christians and created a ghetto in which they must live.

Though recent popes, especially John Paul II, have taken great strides to repair relations with Jews, Carroll doesn't think they've gone far enough. John Paul denounced Nazi antisemitism, but blamed it on neo-paganism, refusing to acknowledge that another part of its foundation was the legacy of Christian anti-Judaism, of accusations of "Christ-killer" and the blood libel. Only this can explain the collusion of many Catholic prelates with Nazism. He goes to Trier, where one of the supposed relics brought back from the Holy Land by Helena, the Robe of Christ, has been kept since the time of Constantine. The Bishop of Trier supported the National Socialists in the election of 1933, and to celebrate their victory, arranged for the Robe to be displayed. Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen represented Hitler, and, with the bishop, sent a telegram to Hitler pledging their mutual cooperation. While it was on display, Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) signed the concordat with Hitler-protecting the institutional church while accepting Nazi rule. Pacelli might not have been "Hitler's Pope," says Carroll, but he was certainly "Hitler's Cardinal."

That same year Edith Stein wrote to the pope to warn of Nazi antisemitism and of the dark future that would face Europe's Jews; five years later, now known as Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, she lamented in her diary that the pope had never bothered to respond ... and that all she had predicted had come true. This wasn't mentioned in her canonization in 1998; she was canonized as a martyr, despite the fact that she went to Auschwitz not because of her Catholic faith, but for her Jewish blood.

In Rome, the anti-Jewish legislation of Paul IV was rescinded when Italy unified and the pope was banished to the Vatican; it was revived by Mussolini, however, and when in 1943 Mussolini rounded up the Jews of Rome to deport to Auschwitz, the pope said nothing. A survivor says in the film, "If the pope had only taken the trouble to go outside the gate-and not say anything, just do as he did when Rome was bombed-just go outside the gate and stand in silence, with his arms raised in the form of a cross, there might never have been a deportation. Italians and German Catholics would not have gone along with it." But he never appeared.

Carroll affirms the strides taken forward by the Catholic Church in the latter part of the 20th century, especially the "change that mattered most" at Vatican 2, the decree, Nostra Aetate. But he wonders how much it has sunk in. He speaks with Fr. Stanislaw Obirek, a Polish Jesuit, suspended by his order because, Carroll says, he wanted a fuller accounting for the Catholic Church's role in Polish antisemitism.

Returning to the US, Carroll listens to the rhetoric of George Bush's "war on terror"-language of "crusade," "good vs. evil," "God is not neutral"-and hears echoes of past attempts to fuse cross and sword That's what frightens him about what he saw happening at the Air Force Academy; it appears to be a case of religion and military power coming together, with young evangelicals in the military inspired by their religious zeal to fight Middle East enemies. This isn't the spirit of Jesus, but the spirit of Constantine, which is still alive after 1700 years.

The movie can be faulted for its disparagement of Scripture (Carroll accepts uncritically whatever Elaine Pagels tells him), but it remains a powerful testimony to the experiences of those who have been cut by Constantine's sword.
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Constantine's Sword Constantine's Sword B00181XY6M Philip Bosco FIRST RUN FEATURES Constantine's Sword Movies & TV A Man's Struggle with His Father
"Constantine's Sword," the movie version of John Carroll's book, is now available on DVD; it can also be watched on-line if you have Netflix.

There's a great deal of autobiography in the film. Carroll's father, Joseph Carroll was an important Air Force general; an FBI agent, Joseph Carroll was then sent to the new Air Force, commissioned a colonel, and within two years was a major general. He was the founding director of the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations, and then the founding director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; it was he who brought the photos of Russian missles in Cuba to Kennedy's attention.

The younger Carroll grew up on military bases, met John XXIII with his family as a teenager, and in the wake of the nuclear uncertainty of the Cold War, opted to pursue those things that would last. His first mass was celebrated at a chapel on an Air Force base; growing disillusioned with the war in Vietnam, and feeling called to follow the Prince of Peace, he slipped in just a tiny allusion in that first homily. He preached on Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones; he mentioned they had been burned by the sun. More than that, burned by napalm. Such a tiny rebellion-such a miniscule insult to the military-but enough to drive a wedge between James and Joseph.

Carroll was a priest from 1969-1974, increasingly active in opposing the war, which destroyed his faith in both governmental and churchly authority. In an interview from those days he notes the silence of the US Catholic hierarchy to the bombing of civilians in Vietnam and opines, "Were US bombers dropping contraceptives on the Vietnamese, the American Catholic hierarchy would have condemned it quickly; but we were dropping napalm, and they said nothing."

These personal stories are sketched throughout the movie, which begins at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, and the issue of aggressive evangelization of non-Christians, especially Jewish students, by evangelical churches in the area and by evangelical faculty, staff and students of the Academy. He interviews Academy graduate Mikey Weinstein, who was shocked when one of his two sons then at the Academy told him of anti-Jewish slurs he had been subjected to, and of the aggressive promotion of "The Passion of the Christ" by the Academy.

Carroll uses this incident to launch into a discussion of two issues: the history of Christian hostility to Jews, and of the linkage of Christianity with military power. He visits Milvian Bridge outside Rome, and Constantine's vision of a cross with the motto, "In hoc signo vinces," becomes the guiding metaphor for the book-"Cross and sword become one. Christianity turns violent."

He surveys how this baptized violence spread across Europe, and became a means to unite feuding Christian kingdoms in a war against a common enemy, the Muslim "infidel"-and against closer enemies, against whom Christians had a long-standing grudge.

Carroll relates how he grew up in a typical Irish-Catholic family, trusting in a holy church with holy saints, priests and bishops. Now he saw those "holy" priests and bishops calling for bloody conquest, even leading pogroms against Jews in the name of Christ.

He travels to Spain, where Jews were first forced to convert to Christianity; then, when Christians became suspicious of the integrity of those they had forcibly converted, the Spanish Inquisition was created to investigate and to punish. When Jews were expelled from Spain, many were welcome in Rome, until 1555, when chief Roman inquisitor Giovanni Cardinal Caraffa became Pope Paul IV, who restricted Jewish intercourse with Christians and created a ghetto in which they must live.

Though recent popes, especially John Paul II, have taken great strides to repair relations with Jews, Carroll doesn't think they've gone far enough. John Paul denounced Nazi antisemitism, but blamed it on neo-paganism, refusing to acknowledge that another part of its foundation was the legacy of Christian anti-Judaism, of accusations of "Christ-killer" and the blood libel. Only this can explain the collusion of many Catholic prelates with Nazism. He goes to Trier, where one of the supposed relics brought back from the Holy Land by Helena, the Robe of Christ, has been kept since the time of Constantine. The Bishop of Trier supported the National Socialists in the election of 1933, and to celebrate their victory, arranged for the Robe to be displayed. Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen represented Hitler, and, with the bishop, sent a telegram to Hitler pledging their mutual cooperation. While it was on display, Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) signed the concordat with Hitler-protecting the institutional church while accepting Nazi rule. Pacelli might not have been "Hitler's Pope," says Carroll, but he was certainly "Hitler's Cardinal."

That same year Edith Stein wrote to the pope to warn of Nazi antisemitism and of the dark future that would face Europe's Jews; five years later, now known as Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, she lamented in her diary that the pope had never bothered to respond ... and that all she had predicted had come true. This wasn't mentioned in her canonization in 1998; she was canonized as a martyr, despite the fact that she went to Auschwitz not because of her Catholic faith, but for her Jewish blood.

In Rome, the anti-Jewish legislation of Paul IV was rescinded when Italy unified and the pope was banished to the Vatican; it was revived by Mussolini, however, and when in 1943 Mussolini rounded up the Jews of Rome to deport to Auschwitz, the pope said nothing. A survivor says in the film, "If the pope had only taken the trouble to go outside the gate-and not say anything, just do as he did when Rome was bombed-just go outside the gate and stand in silence, with his arms raised in the form of a cross, there might never have been a deportation. Italians and German Catholics would not have gone along with it." But he never appeared.

Carroll affirms the strides taken forward by the Catholic Church in the latter part of the 20th century, especially the "change that mattered most" at Vatican 2, the decree, Nostra Aetate. But he wonders how much it has sunk in. He speaks with Fr. Stanislaw Obirek, a Polish Jesuit, suspended by his order because, Carroll says, he wanted a fuller accounting for the Catholic Church's role in Polish antisemitism.

Returning to the US, Carroll listens to the rhetoric of George Bush's "war on terror"-language of "crusade," "good vs. evil," "God is not neutral"-and hears echoes of past attempts to fuse cross and sword That's what frightens him about what he saw happening at the Air Force Academy; it appears to be a case of religion and military power coming together, with young evangelicals in the military inspired by their religious zeal to fight Middle East enemies. This isn't the spirit of Jesus, but the spirit of Constantine, which is still alive after 1700 years.

The movie can be faulted for its disparagement of Scripture (Carroll accepts uncritically whatever Elaine Pagels tells him), but it remains a powerful testimony to the experiences of those who have been cut by Constantine's sword. HoustonReviewer September 4, 2008

* Overall: 3.0 out of 5 stars5

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Showing 1-3 of 3 posts in this discussion
Initial post: Dec 25, 2008 1:14:51 PM PST
MD says:
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Truh in action is hard to swallow! Denial over the centuries is quite characteristic of human nature and political entities when wrong is committed. This is a 5 star presentation of anti-Semitism at its zenith. GNW, Colorado
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Posted on Jul 23, 2010 12:48:22 PM PDT
Jerren Gould says:
thanks for mentioning it was on Netflix.
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Posted on Sep 5, 2011 11:18:43 AM PDT
Last edited by the author on Sep 5, 2011 11:21:31 AM PDT
Desertwriter says:
It was a close accounting of the film, rather than a 'review' ...until nearly the end of it where he definitely editorialized by claiming that Scripture was the holy word of God. For those grown ups who continue to believe that that collection of parables and myths over hundreds of years was dictated as if each transcriber/stenographer was Mohammed being dictated to, I hate to shake your world but there were no records of exactly what anyone said or did, (no burning bush photoshop then, red seas parting, water to wine, etc). The entire book was written and re-written according to Church decree hundreds of years LATER. It is manmade and created accounting/explanation of human origins as people moved from paganism, idol worshipping to monotheism. The Bible is largely a book of fiction with tiny amounts of history here and there. For example, as Shlomo Sand points out in his book, though hundreds of thousands if not millions of so called Israelites fled Egypt and wandered the desert for 40 years in all archaeological exploration's history not one trace of ANY civilization has been found anywhere in the region....nothing...that from globally respected archaelogists from Israel who have tried to prove the "exodus" but none have done so. Other than this criticism of previous 'review' he did an admirable job of summing of this most excellent film...though it is NOT about Carroll's opposition to his father whom he loved. It was about Carroll finding his "heavenly Father" voice...Carroll had wanted originally to become an Air Force Pilot but found his spiritual path/calling, which took precedence in his life, fortunately.
An excellent film.

Father Daniel Berrigan - last of the True Christians

2011-12-19T07:53:00.000-08:00

This review is from: The Kings and Their Gods: The Pathology of Power

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MOST RECENT THUS MOST URGENT CRY FROM OUR MOST CATHOLIC PROPHET OF PEACE IN THIS CORONATION YEAR OF COMMANDER IN CHIEF, May 6, 2008
By
C. Scanlon "least helpful reviewer" (among us humans) - See all my reviews

As this most recent installment of the Reverend Father Daniel Berrigan's exegetical Old Testament series falls upon this current year of presidential appointment (dare we yet nor ever again write election?) in direct response to such anointments this millennium and their bloody, bitter fruit, we must not avoid its careful contemplation as lectio divina, as reading the writing upon the wall, as warning and as holy prophecy. Other essential readings from this great series include Isaiah: Spirit of Courage, Gift of Tears, Jeremiah: The World, the Wound of God, Job: And Death No Dominion and Ezekiel: Vision in the Dust.

Indeed we read upon the cover the words of the great Jim Wallis (author of Faith Works: How to Live Your Beliefs and Ignite Positive Social Change and Living God's Politics: A Guide to Putting Your Faith into Action): "Part biblical commentary, part poetry, and part prophecy - this is Berrigan at his best."

Again, upon its book this sacred text bears these blazing and true words of the Reverend Father Andrew Greeley (author of A Stupid, Unjust, and Criminal War: Iraq, 2001-2007): "In this powerful and disturbing meditation on the books of Kings, Father Daniel Berrigan, with all his usual prophetic fervor and scalding wit, compares Israel in the time between David and Isaiah with the United States today."

Our beloved and revered Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister (author most recently of The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully) joins this holy chorus with these instructive words: The Reverend Father "Daniel Berrigan's Kings and Their Gods is not one book but three. The first book in question is scripture's two books of Kings, which most people ignore. The second book is Berrigan's own poetic, piercing interpretation of the books of Kings. The third book is about us - our country, our times, ourselves. In each case, the language is elegant and the narrative is dramatic and chilling. Most of all, Berrigan's interpretation is disturbingly real, frighteningly true. My advice is to read this book with the scripture in one hand and the newspaper in the other. But whatever you do, read it. Once you do, you'll never think of the books of Kings as useless history again. On the contrary, you may think of them all the time."

Like the great and grim Samuel Beckett curled seriously in a corner of a gay Parisian cocktail party when invited to join the fun responded he was drearily thinking about Dante, you might arouse from your deep meditations with the weary wail, you think only of Berrigan's Kings and their prophetic revelations within today's newspaper.

We have an octogenarian papacy in Rome continuing weakly to emit encyclicals which oddly fail to resonate, such as Spe Salvi Salvados En La Esperanza, Benedicto XVI which paints as grim and despairing a picture of human efforts as anything in Jean Paul Sartre. At least Camus granted Sisyphus the dignity of his existential efforts.

Here in Berrigan's Kings we find our Roman Catholic octogenarian prophet and priest of peace inscribing with the same profound clarity and concision, elegant grace and unsparing, courageous truth as when he wrote over forty years ago his monumental ode to peace and universal compassion Night Flight To Hanoi - War Diary With 11 Poems or his own chronicle from the court records The Trial of the Catonsville Nine.

This book calls us forth to individual repentance. This book encourages us bravely as Virgil along our way from darkness unto God's peace, stability and unity. This book calls us forth like Lazarus from the busy groaning grave of avarice and lust, of bloodletting and war, unto the fulfillment of the commandments of Love and of the blessings of Peace. The Reverend Father Berrigan speaks with authority and with truth, with courage and wisdom, with guidance as wise counselor, as merciful and compassionate father seeing us all so lost, and scattered, and eagerly pursuing that which leads to no peace.

To quote the great Catholic nun, Sister Joan, "But whatever you do, read it." You must read this book. Even if you have not seen the rest of his great and holy and prophetic opus, we must all now today, and forever, read this book, if we are to discover once more peace, and real hope.

Near the end of this great and holy book, the Reverend Father Dan Berrigan writes: "There came an interruption. A stick was driven in the chariot spokes of empire. The impediment was thrust in place by the hands of prophets, the great disequilabrists of self-interest and murder. They denounced the old order as inept, intolerable. They defended and cherished the poor, challenged and rebuked the oppressors. To Isaiah and his like, all praise (p. 201)."

Father Dan then soon recalls the first words of public ministry of Jesus, read from the scroll of Isaiah: "What we find in the Gospels is hardly reassuring: a strict repudiation of the wars of the Hebrew Bible. No word indicates admiration or empathy for the violence of Saul, David, Solomon, Hezekiah, and the others. Jesus never draws on them, even by way of rebuttal, to enlarge or illustrate his teachings. The contempt, the silence are deafening. In place of the kings, images of the prophets loom large. In the synagogue of Nazareth, through the words of Isaiah, Christ conveys the substance of his vocation. Works of mercy and mitigation will mark his days: 'Good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, liberty for the oppressed . . . (pp. 201-202)"

"Blessed - and lonely and powerless and intent on the Master - and, if must be, despised and scorned, locked up - blessed are the makers of peace."

Read this book; whatever you do, read it.

Ray Dalio - Transcendental Ponzi Meditation on Radical Truthiness

2011-12-18T02:32:00.000-08:00

Psych 101 - whoever professes to be passionately dedicated to radical honesty and truth is a liar and a fraud.

You dont have to know anything about finance to smell something fishy about Bridgewater Associates, a passing familiarity with human psychology of the cult leader and the culture of conformity of the cult followers is all that is needed. Just listen to a Ray Dalio speech, and the alarm bells warning of con artist alert should be ringing loudly.

For a 120 billion $ company, Bridgewater Associates has a pretty small website, but it is quite revealing in some ways, they certainly want you to believe how passionate they are about truth, and they evidently need lots and lots of fresh new MBA grads to presumably replace all the ones who quit once they find out what a pack of lies they got hired to perpetuate.

http://www.bwater.com/home/our-company/company.aspx

"Bridgewater’s unique results are a product of its unique culture. Truth and excellence are valued above all else. In order to be excellent we need to know what’s true, especially those things that we would rather not be true, so that we can decide how best to deal with them. We want logic and reason to be the basis for making decisions. It is through this striving to be excellent by being radically truthful and transparent that we build meaningful work and meaningful relationships."

Does TM Transcendental Meditation have anything to do with it, hmm? That was a systematic program of lying and deception, excellent training for anyone in finance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgewater_Associates

No surprise that for the last year, the Bridgewater wikipedia page has been edited hundreds of times by one user who also happens to be a TM'er.

It should be interesting to see how long they can go on with the Madoff deception.

I used to be a little doubtful if Ray Dalio was a real Ponzi schemer, and then I saw the Bridgewater YouTube video where Ray Dalio drones on in platitudes about values and truth and sounds a little too stupid. His body language definitely has the air of hiding something. Plus there are only two videos on the Bridgewater youtube channel, both are Dalio being given an award from a hedge fund association, and you can see the archetype of the follower of the con-artist in the introductory speech.

How such a dimwitted guy like Dalio bamboozled so many rich rubes is a pretty amazing story that hopefully some Harry Markopolis investigator willl reveal to us all in the not too distant future.

Diotima - the Mother of Philosophy

2011-12-09T06:15:00.000-08:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diotima_of_Mantinea

Teachers of Socrates were women. They are named in the Dialogues of Plato.

Yes, it is true. Socrates may have been the teacher of Plato but Socrates himself acknowledged THREE teachers.... and all three of them are women.

Who are these Teachers of Socrates? Why have we not heard more about them - especially since they all figures in the Dialogues? Let's begin with the first question, Who are they?

1.Pythia, the oracle at Delphi. This woman who played a role in Greek religious rites taught Socrates in what was later known as a Socratic manner. She did not tell him anything. Rather her words presented him with a puzzle and as he spent his life trying to unravel the meaning of her words, Socrates became the philosopher we know him to be.

Socrates tell us in the Apology that a friend of his named Chaerephon went to the Pythina Oracle at Delphi and asked. 'Is anyone wiser than Socrates?' And the Pythian priestess answered, 'No one.' When Socrates heard this he was puzzled since he knew that her KNEW nothing.

So he assumed it was his duty to either figure out what the Oracle meant...or to prove the Oracle wrong - thus showing up a religious figure as a sham. Socrates tell us that this is how he started out searching for a wise person...asking questions to find out who was wise and who thought he was wise but really was not wise at all.

Socrates tell us he devoted his life to this quest and in the end her realized the truth of the Oracle's saying because others thought themselves to be wise but were not, while Socrates knew he was not wise....and thus had a sort of wisdom...the kind possible forhuman beings to hold.

This Teachers of Socrates story is told in Lives of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius

See also: Broad, William The Oracle: Ancient Delphi and the Science Behind Its Lost Secrets. New York: Penguin Press, 2007 p.63.

2.Asphasia of Miletus

Socrates states that Asphasia of Miletus was his teacher of rhetoric. To learn more about her, click on Asphasia, one of the Teachers of Socrates

3.

4.Teachers of Socrates: Diotima of Mantinea:

The dialogue called the Symposium offers a long discussion of the meaning of love. Several friends, Agathon, Alcibiades, Aristophanes, , Eryximachus,Pausanias, Phaedrus, Plato and Socrates gathered at Agathon's house, probably to celebrate his winning Agathon's first prize for a tragedy. Aristodemus, the deme of Cydathenaeum was also there since it was he who related what happend that night to Apolodorus and Phoenix. Apolodorous, who was not at the banquet, says that hehad checked with Socrates about the story he heard and Socrates confirmed that the events did happen as Aristodemus described.

After they had eaten and were about to start drinking, they decided not to make drinking their main object but concentrate instead on good conversation. Eryximachus says, "for I mean to propose that each of us in turn, going from left to right, shall make a speech in honour of Love

. Let him give us the best which he can; and Phaedrus, because he is sitting first on the left hand, and because he is the father of the thought, shall begin." [ Symposium translated by Benjamin Jowett. ]

The dialogue continues and each person speaks of love. Towards the very end it is Agathon's turn and when he finishes Socratessays :

"You made a very good speech, Agathon, replied Socrates; but there is yet one small question which I would fain ask:-Is not the good also the beautiful?

Yes.

Then in wanting the beautiful, love wants also the good?

I cannot refute you, Socrates, said Agathon:-Let us assume that what you say is true.

Say rather, beloved Agathon, that you cannot refute the truth; for Socrates is easily refuted." Symposium translated byBenjamin Jowett.

At that point Socrates continues:

"And now, taking my leave of you, I would rehearse a tale of love which I heard from

Diotima of Mantineia, a woman wise in this and in many other kinds of knowledge, who in the days of old, when the Athenians offered sacrifice before the coming of the plague, delayed the disease ten years. She was my instructress in the art of love, and I shall repeat to you what she said to me...." You can read the rest of the in the Symposium by Plato
To read more about this philosopher Diotima of Mantinea one of the Teachers of Socrates

Go to Articles about Women philosophers

Saint Thomas Aquinas - I Cannot Go On, All That I Have Written Seems Like so Much Straw to Me

2011-12-09T05:50:00.000-08:00

the story of Thomas Aquinas hanging up his pen after his epiphany should be the first topic of any class in religion, Christian or Buddhist.

"Of the Making of Many Books there is No End, and Much Study is a Weariness of the Flesh" - Ecclesiastes

"One glimpse is worth a thousand books"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas#Final_days_and_.22Straw.22_.281272.E2.80.931274.29

Final days and "Straw" (1272–1274)

In 1272 Thomas took leave from the University of Paris when the Dominicans from his home province called upon him to establish a studium generale wherever he liked and staff it as he pleased. He chose to establish the institution in Naples, and moved there to take his post as regent master.[28] He took his time at Naples to work on the third part of the Summa while giving lectures on various religious topics. On 6 December 1273 Thomas was celebrating the Mass of St. Nicholas when, according to some, he heard Christ speak to him. Christ asked him what he desired, being pleased with his meritorious life. Thomas replied "Only you Lord. Only you."[34] After this exchange something happened, but Thomas never spoke of it or wrote it down. Because of what he saw, he abandoned his routine and refused to dictate to his socius Reginald of Piperno. When Reginald begged him to get back to work, Thomas replied: "Reginald, I cannot, because all that I have written seems like straw to me."[35] (mihi videtur ut palea).[36] What exactly triggered Thomas's change in behavior is believed to be some kind of supernatural experience of God.[37] After taking to his bed, he did recover some strength.[38]

Looking to find a way to reunite the Eastern Orthodox churches with the Catholic Church (the Eastern Orthodox were excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church, and vice versa, in A.D. 1054 over doctrinal disputes) Pope Gregory X convened the Second Council of Lyon to be held on 1 May 1274 and summoned Thomas to attend.[39] At the meeting, Thomas's work for Pope Urban IV concerning the Greeks, Contra errores graecorum, was to be presented.[40] On his way to the Council, riding on a donkey along the Appian Way,[39] he struck his head on the branch of a fallen tree and became seriously ill again. He was then quickly escorted to Monte Cassino to convalesce.[38] After resting for a while, he set out again, but stopped at the Cistercian Fossanova Abbey after again falling ill.[41] The monks nursed him for several days, and as he received his last rites he prayed: "I receive Thee, ransom of my soul. For love of Thee have I studied and kept vigil, toiled, preached and taught..."[42] He died on 7 March 1274[41] while giving commentary on the Song of Songs.[43]

Philosophy Professor Erling Skorpen - The Ideal of Humanitas

2011-12-09T05:10:00.000-08:00

Professor of philosophy Erling Skorpen taught the freshman introduction to philosophy class at UMO circa 1975, the class title was 'The Ideal of Humanitas', it was a medium size lecture hall, maybe 100 students. The reading list covered a wide range, starting off with the classic 'Apology of Socrates' the three small essays describing Socrates trial and death, and included 'Black Elk Speaks' and Vasari's 'Lives of the Artists', the classic of life during the Renaissance.

Class discussions focused on the author's ideal exemplar of humanity from Socrates to Michelangelo to Black Elk. Professor Skorpen was a fairly cheerful person for being a philosopher, and there were supposed stories that he worked as a lumberjack prior to being a philosophy professor, but maybe that was just a legend befitting a professor in the Maine woods, at the campus next to the Old Town canoe factory.

Obituary - ERLING SKORPEN

Posted Sept. 25, 2008, at 11:17 p.m. ERLING SKORPEN VERONA – Erling Skorpen died on Jan. 8, 2004, of complications of Alzheimer’s Disease. Erling, the son of John and Gyda Skorpen, was born into a Norwegian community in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Nov. 20, 1929. He earned a B.A. from the College of Idaho, an M.A. from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale. He taught at Yale, the University of Nevada in Reno, and the University of Maine, where he was recognized as a Distinguished Professor. While at Oxford, Erling volunteered for work camps in Sicily and Lebanon with The American Friends Service Committee. He was very active in the civil rights movement and the peace movement during the Vietnam war. Erling was a devoted husband, father and teacher. A memorial service will be held 10 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2004, at St. John’s Episcopal Church, French St., Bangor, with the Rev. Kevin Holsapple, rector, officiating. Those who wish to remember Erling in a special way may make gifts in his memory to the American Friends Service Committee, 1501 Cherry St., Philadelphia, PA 19102 or AFSC.org. A service of Brookings-Smith, Bangor.

Works by Erling Skorpen

Erling Skorpen (1991). Images of the Environment in Corporate America. Journal of Business Ethics 10 (9).

Three nature images influence the environmental policies of major American corporations. Successively they are images of the (1) unfouled nest, (2) protected habitat, and (3) uncontaminated environment. Each contains unexpected surprises for its corporation, however. Polaroid, for example, does not foul its company precincts, but is now a Superfund Potentially Responsible Party for its deposited wastes in its home and neighboring states. This anomaly thus extends its unfouled-nest image to its dumpsites and beyond, but also implodes upon its workplace. Parallel (...) extensions and inversions affect Martin Marietta's favored image of the protected habitat and Union Carbide's of the uncontaminated environment. These are shown with references to Kant and to Aristotle, but a concluding moral compares further neglect of the full consequences of such images to Dante's allegorical Circles 4 and 5 of Hell. (shrink)

Erling Skorpen (1989). Are Journalistic Ethics Self-Generated? Journal of Mass Media Ethics 4 (2):157 – 173.
Media Ethics in Applied Ethics

Erling Skorpen (1973). Pin-Pricks to the Body and Pains to the Mind: A Natural History and Philosophy. Philosophy Forum 14 (September):53-79.
Other Psychophysical Relations, Misc in Philosophy of Mind

Erling Skorpen (1971). The Philosophy of Renunciation East and West. Philosophy East and West 21 (3):283-302.

Erling Skorpen (1968). Kant's Refutation of Idealism. Journal of the History of Philosophy 6 (1).
Immanuel Kant in 17th/18th Century Philosophy

Erling Skorpen (1966). Goodness is Non-Natural and Simple. Southern Journal of Philosophy 4 (1):14-26.

Professor Skorpen Memorial

Senator Michael Howard read a memorial in honor of the recently deceased Philosophy Professor Erling Skorpen. The memorial was written by Professor Jeff White.

“As many of you know, Erling Skorpen, died Thursday, January 8. He was a great friend and esteemed colleague of many on this faculty. He came here in 1968 after remarkable careers at Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, at Yale, and at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He was born with an excess of talent and charm to which he gave bountiful public expression in scholarship, teaching and civic life. A special scholarly interest was in what he called in one of his papers, ‘symbols of condensation’. These are linguistic and behavioral expressions which contain multiple levels of meaning and significance. Erling’s award as Distinguished University of Maine Professor for 1975 is a symbol of this sort. Other symbols of his achievements abound, however, and in closing I want to mention, briefly, one of these.

A few days after announcement of Erling’s death, I received an unexpected e-mail from Houston, Texas, written by a former student of Erling’s. So far as I know no member of our Department – including Erling – had been in contact with this student since his graduation. How he learned of Erling’s death I don’t know, but here, in part, is how the message read:

“I had several classes in philosophy before graduating in 1993. Ethics, with Erling Skorpen, was one of the best. I found him engaging, utterly charming and enthusiastic beyond measure. I will remember him fondly…Life has turned out quite well for me, and I attribute a great deal of any small success I have had to my experience at Maine. Erling Skorpen was a part of that, and I guess I simply wanted to share this with someone.”

It is impossible to make teaching like Erling’s register in ‘Outcome Assessments‘ and the like. It is impossible, in part, because often the deepest effects of classroom work pass virtually without notice — until, sometimes through loss, they are momentarily recovered and find expression. There have been, and will continue to be, such recoveries and expressions in Professor Skorpen’s case. He occupies a unique and lasting presence in the collective, long-term memory of the Faculty of the University of Maine.”

Andrew Perry Skorpen, 43

PORTLAND -- Andrew Perry Skorpen passed over on March 7, 2011, apparently in his sleep, one week shy of his 44th birthday. Andy was born on March 14, 1967, in Reno, Nev. He was proud of his indigenous American roots and our family lore was that he was, by blood, in line for a chiefdom had he remained with his biological family. At the age of one Andy moved to Maine with his adoptive parents, Erling Skorpen and Elizabeth Moak Skorpen, along with five older siblings, and settled in Hampden.
From kindergarten and into high school Andy attended Skitikuk School, in Orono. He also attended Hampden Academy for a brief period.

In lieu of flowers memorial
contributions may be made to:
The Animal Refuge League
Attn.: Gayle Dunnigan
P.O. Box 336
Westbrook, Maine 04098

Obama on the Couch - Yet Another President with Daddy Issues

2011-12-07T04:12:00.000-08:00

Bush then Obama, just imagine if Newt is next! My god Newt would make both Bush and Obama look like the epitomes of mental health.

Dr Frank's prediction: "Bush is on the brink of his greatest business failure ever." is all too true, let us remember Bush's last words "This sucker could go down".

Obama on the Couch: Understanding The President

Author of "Obama On The Couch" on GDLA: MyFoxLA.com

Ted talks -TiltingAgainst the Global Windmill of Willfull Ignorance

2011-12-04T07:13:00.000-08:00

Ted talks – Nic Marks and Johan Rockstrom Aug 29 31 2010

Will ignorance or enlightenment prevail in the next 50 years? When we hit the peak population in the year 2050 will it be a holocaust unimaginable in one hemisphere with the other hemisphere living fat dumb and happy? Are we now in a dark age and it is getting darker? Where are the signs of encouragement for the future? Is science breeding even more atheistic idiot savants with no inkling of the true feelings behind the awe of a Newton or an Einstein? Is religion breeding even more fundamentalist literalists with no inkling of the real message of the world behind the veil, of the world outside the cave of shadows that we live in? When we go outside at night, can we not even see any stars anymore? Wouldn’t even one bright star be enough to cause wonder in anyone living in front of liquid crystal screens all day long? Are we not at the terminus culture of the Time Machine of Morlocks toiling all night in the subterranean semiconductor fabs and ipod assembly lines and the blonde Eloi living in blissful ignorance of what it takes to deliver the electronic toys and the fast food to their tastefully decorated condominiums.

Son: I don’t want to watch another TED talk! One more story of the dying oceans or extinct wildlife or idiot obsessive-compulsive dilettante scientists and I will kill myself! I know the Earth is dying already! So what! I didn’t ask to be born! Don’t tell me about 2050 and 9 billion ignorant dumbfounded dipshits all suffering in the same soup, I have a good enough imagination to know it aint going to be pretty.

Dad: Ok, ok, just these two, I promise. I’m sorry I’m so negative all the time, I just cant stop thinking of how if not for like one person, just one person like Karl Rove, the future of the entire planet might not be so bleak.

Son: Karl Rove? Yeah, right. What was he, Hitler’s grandchild? How could one person have tilted the future of the earth so much?

Dad: Just imagine if Al Gore’s election wasn’t voided by the activist radical Republicans on the Supreme Court. 2000 was a watershed moment, a time for an example to be set for the future, the future of how countries could get along as resources became more scarce and dictatorships became more unstable, and coordinated global action to avert climate catastrophe became more necessary. And one guy, Karl Rove, swung the vote just enough, just a few percentage points, by dirty tricks of voter turnout suppression, vote caging, voter intimidation, ballot confusion, to throw the Florida vote into a confusing recount allowing the Supreme Court to dictate the outcome according to their political ideology, stealing the vote from the electorate.

Son: I know I know, leading to a total retreat on climate action, to setting the worst example for international relations, to the Third Great Republican Depression as deregulation set the stage for the near collapse of the entire world’s financial ‘system’ such as it is.

The Apostle Paul - the First Closeted Conservative Fundamentalist Christian?

2011-12-03T04:17:00.000-08:00

Was St. Paul Gay? Claim Stirs Fury
By ARI L. GOLDMAN
Published: February 02, 1991

Throughout his ministry as an Episcopal priest and bishop, John S. Spong has been surrounded by controversy as he has labored on the leading edge of movements to bring blacks, women and homosexuals into the full life of his church.

But now that he has written that St. Paul, the apostle and first great teacher of Christianity, was a "self-loathing and repressed gay male," even his defenders are expressing shock. Many are saying that this maverick voice of mainstream Christianity is fast losing credibility and may soon be regarded as little more than a street corner prophet whom everyone sees but no one hears. Bishop Spong, the 59-year-old head of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, has managed to keep a loyal and attentive following despite a swirl of Spong-centered disputes both nationally and in his home diocese. Understanding Paul

Conservative bishops, for example, asked that Bishop Spong be censured for ordaining a sexually active gay man, but the House of Bishops refused, deciding instead to merely "disassociate" itself from his actions. And, in his own diocese, at least one priest has sued Bishop Spong in court, charging that he illegally withheld parish funds. Most of his priests, however, have stood by him, either out of genuine admiration or, some suggest, fear.

Bishop Spong, married and the father of three grown daughters, makes his argument about Paul's sexuality in a new book, "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism," published yesterday by Harper Collins.

In an interview held before he left on a cross-country book tour, Bishop Spong said that seeing St. Paul as a homosexual has helped him understand the apostle's anguished cries ("Wretched man that I am!"), his apparent hostility toward women ("wives submit to your husbands") and the fact that he never married.

But criticism of his thesis on Paul has come from all quarters, friends and foes, liberals and conservatives, Protestants and Catholics.

"I think that rescuing the Bible from fundamentalism is a good thing," said Pheme Perkins, professor of New Testament at Boston College and a specialist in St. Paul. "But I think Jack Spong has gone too far."

In Bishop Spong's previous theological works, she said, she has found him to be "fun, interesting and intelligent." But his new work, she said, is part of "a tendency to attribute to Paul all the neuroses of later Christianity."

"The danger is that whenever we want to psychoanalyze any figure from antiquity, we simply project our own psychological complexities," said Dr. Perkins, the author of 14 books on the New Testament.

Others are not so kind. "This is not only shocking, it's one of the craziest things I've heard so far," said Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark.

Archbishop McCarrick's remark came just a few days after he broke a long silence on Bishop Spong by writing in a newspaper column of the Bishop's "strange journey" and suggesting that he has created a "church without morals."

Conservatives in Bishop Spong's own denomination were no happier.

"I think Spong is self-destructing," said the Rev. Todd Wetzel, the executive director of Episcopalians United, a conservative group based in Cleveland. "Much of his thinking will soon be dismissed. It no longer represents constructive theological thinking nor responsible thinking."

Bishop Spong sees his latest thesis as consistent with his career in the ministry. As a young priest in his native North Carolina in the 1960's, he fought for the equality of blacks both inside and outside the church. In the 1970's, he became an early champion of the ordination of women in the Episcopal Church. In the 1980's, he called on the priests in his diocese to "bless" homosexual unions and later ordained a sexually active homosexual man against the rules of his own denomination. 'Self-Judging Rhetoric'

By viewing St. Paul as a gay man, he said, he hopes to make homosexuals more comfortable in the Episcopal church and to attract people who left the church feeling that it was a moribund institution wedded to ancient ways of thinking.

In his book, the Bishop writes that he does not mean to be "salacious or titillating" by suggesting St. Paul was gay. But, he adds, "Nothing else, in my opinion, could account for Paul's self-judging rhetoric, his negative feeling toward his own body and his sense of being controlled by something he had no power to change."

In the interview, Bishop Spong said that he sees himself as playing an important role challenging accepted notions within the church and society.

He believes he stands in the tradition of such free-thinking 1960's bishops as John A. T. Robinson, of England, who questioned the virgin birth and other accepted notions, and this country's James Pike, who believed he could commune with spirits.

"By today's standards, Robinson and Pike seem very tame," he said.

Bishop Spong said his conclusions about St. Paul come from serious Bible study and from time he spends in libraries at Yale and Harvard and at Oxford and Cambridgeduring his annual monthlong study sabbaticals.

If he did not eke out this time for study, he said, he would be overwhelmed by the administrative tasks of running his diocese, which has 125 churches in northern New Jersey. He has been in the post for 15 years. 'A Religious Experience'

Re-reading the Bible with that notion in mind was "a religious experience," Bishop Spong said. Nearly half of the books in the New Testament are attributed to St. Paul or his disciples.

Other Bible authorities, however, said that it would be wrong to draw conclusions from the text that St. Paul was either a mysogynist or someone filled with self-loathing.

Father Wetzel, of Episcopalians United, said that St. Paul's attitudes toward women were merely a reflection of the dominant Jewish culture of his time. "In the context of his day, St. Paul was rather liberal," he said.

Spockosbrain and Mike Stark - Crusaders against Clearchannel/Cumulus Right Wing Hate Talk Radio

2011-12-02T18:59:00.000-08:00

http://www.dailykos.com/user/Mike%20Stark

http://www.dailykos.com/news/Rush%20Limbaugh

http://www.starkreports.com/

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/01/03/286790/-Spocko-Rocks-ABC!-Micky-Mouse-blinks!-Updated:-Spocko-jumps-in

Sociobiology of Penis Size and Sperm Wars

2011-12-01T23:02:00.001-08:00

a perennialy fascinating question - why is there a racial difference in penis size? is there some evolutionary selection pressure going on?

theory A: selection pressure due to sperm wars effect in cultures where where promiscuity is greater

theory B: selection pressure due to display selection in unclad climates

theory C: there is no significant difference on average (yeah, right)

spidergoat
punchamonkeyintheeye (39,945 posts)
09-15-06, 12:33 PM
#12

Yes, there is an advantage in situations where a female has multiple partners. The larger organ would drive out a rival's sperm. There is also the possibility of sexual selection by females, which wouldn't happen so much where mates are selected for women by her parents, or in places where clothing is commonly worn.

Angry Man
Nov 22, 2006

Judged:
7
5
2

no use for a name wrote:
Angry Man, so you tell me what is your opinion about sizes please. Iï¿½d really like to know.. My opinion is my opinion. And for some strange reason I have a penis size I'm VERY much satisfied with. I never slip out hittin' it from the back and only the blessed can hit it standing up carrying the booty. You know what I'm saying? Wait..........maybe you don't.
Registered Nurse
Dallas, TX

Nov 22, 2006

Judged:
9
8
8

I am in health care and have seen many, many different penis' at the hospital I work at. The smallest penis I ever saw was on a black man. It was smaller than my little finger. And the largest was on a white man whom I later dated for several years. (I ain't crazy):)

S.A.M.

John99
Banned (22,063 posts)
09-15-06, 05:23 AM
#6

Well i have seen hundreds of penis'\Peni, years or so ago i was employed in a position i would rather not discuss....anyway, we took showers together almost daily and from new guys comin in and location changes and the fact it was very intigrated i am able to levy an informal assessment throughout the 6 years or so i looked...so what i admit it....who wouldnt and whats the big deal anyway?The point is there was not real distinction, there were big ones and little ones,the funny thing is the the two smallest ones were on one black and one white, to give an idea think of a mushroom cap with no stalk. I felt so bad i gave one my old car instead of selling it.But the most startling sight and tbh quite shocking was the biggest one was on this short Italian dude, when he stood there it was like everyone just went whoa.Well i'm no longer employed in that position because i chose to spend one long weekend with two women (not hookers) in a hotel and well lets just say i came up dirty and i said "see you" ...true story.also, one of the women claimed to be a witch and told me there was a curse on me, i think she was too.

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Angry Man
Detroit, MI

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#5
Nov 22, 2006

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kiki wrote:
no not true iam tired of black men having an ego about a myth. the ones that are packing give the little dick black men credit to. Kiki, sweetheart, you may not want to believe this "myth" but its rare you'll run into a black MAN that won't blow your back out. Not a young boy, a MAN!Plus we know how to use it, so that makes it more of a advantage. Sorry, but its the truth.
michael exarkun
Santa Maria, CA

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#6
Nov 22, 2006

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no use for a name wrote:
So, do they all have bigger ***** than white guys? There have actually been studies( surveys) done on penis size among men.Black men were slightly longer on average- fractions of an inch.And not necessarily thicker, however other studies might not support those results.80% to 90% of men have lengths between 5-7 inches.
no use for a name
Kuopio, Finland

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#8
Nov 22, 2006

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So i will never know does black men have bigger than white men. So i know there is differences and it depends on a person but mostlikely they are all the same (meaning white men).I cannot belive that black men have 5-7 inches long... Must be bigger or where does the myth about bigger **** comes???
no use for a name
Kuopio, Finland

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#9
Nov 22, 2006

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Angry Man, so you tell me what is your opinion about sizes please. I´d really like to know..
MrDarryl
New York, NY

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#10
Nov 22, 2006

GeneMachine wrote:
Yes, they all have 14 inch dongs, soft, in the cold. LMAO!
Angry Man
Detroit, MI

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#11
Nov 22, 2006

Judged:
7
5
2

no use for a name wrote:
Angry Man, so you tell me what is your opinion about sizes please. Iï¿½d really like to know.. My opinion is my opinion. And for some strange reason I have a penis size I'm VERY much satisfied with. I never slip out hittin' it from the back and only the blessed can hit it standing up carrying the booty. You know what I'm saying? Wait..........maybe you don't.
Registered Nurse
Dallas, TX

Reply »
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Judge it!
#12
Nov 22, 2006

Judged:
9
8
8

I am in health care and have seen many, many different penis' at the hospital I work at. The smallest penis I ever saw was on a black man. It was smaller than my little finger. And the largest was on a white man whom I later dated for several years. (I ain't crazy):)
Angry Man
Detroit, MI

Reply »
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Judge it!
#13
Nov 22, 2006

Judged:
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2

Registered Nurse wrote:
I am in health care and have seen many, many different penis' at the hospital I work at. The smallest penis I ever saw was on a black man. It was smaller than my little finger. And the largest was on a white man whom I later dated for several years.(I ain't crazy):) Ok If you say so, dude.

GeneMachine
AOL

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#14
Nov 22, 2006

michael exarkun wrote:

There have actually been studies( surveys) done on penis size among men.Black men were slightly longer on average- fractions of an inch.And not necessarily thicker, however other studies might not support those results.80% to 90% of men have lengths between 5-7 inches. Kinsey,then Masters and Johnson .. over 8000 measured.Apparently doctors who do urological operations often get spontanious erections happening while doing the procedure and their measuements have added to the volume of stats. Also, various online surveys of over 10,000 respondants. Just to name a few.What is important is that the several different surveys come up with consistent results.They all confirm the same -- less than 1/2 inch between whites and blacks on average. ALso , l;ess than 1/2 difference to asians from whites (whites being bigger).The bell curve for all men is that 75% of penises fall within the 5-7 inch range with the peak right at 6 inches. 12% are smaller, and 13% are larger. For blacks, move the curve left 1/2 inch, for asians move it left 1/2 inch.SO, it IS a myth that EVERY black man packs a whopper.I knew two different women who told me that they had several black BF's, and while some of them had 7-9 inches, so did some of their white BF's. ALso, some of the average sized black guys had claimed to have 1-2 inches more than they really had.They also reported no more stamina, multipe orgasm, or other capability than any white man.ALso, Pfizer reported in their studies that a similar proportion of black men need Viagra as white men.MYTH.

The Republican Plan for America - Newt Gingrich's Wet Dream

2011-11-30T05:21:00.000-08:00

What Happens If They Win Next Year
By Conceptual Guerilla July 1st, 2011

I've been trying to write this for days, including a big long drawn out explanation. I've decided to take my own advice to other diarists, and get right to the point. If Republicans control the White House and Congress: 1. They're going to privatize Social Security and Medicare. 2. They're going to repeal the minimum wage. 3. They're going to undermine if not outright destroy, public education. 4. They're going to repeal the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 5. Once that is accomplished, Republican controlled state legislatures are going to bring back literacy tests.

For those of you who doubt this agenda, they're already doing it.

Conceptual Guerilla's blog • 11 comments • Read more • 1797 reads

http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/

George Carlin - Prophet of Occupy Wall Street - a Concise Statement of the Problem

2011-11-30T04:47:00.000-08:00

everyone whining about lack of message from Occupy Wall Street should play this clip from George Carlin, he summarizes the feudal plutocractic situation in America about as clearly as possible.

"now they're coming for your social security money, they want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on wall street, and they'll get it too."

Newt Gingrich Smarter Than Most Congress Critters? The horror the horror!

2011-11-29T10:29:00.000-08:00

who was it who said that Newt Gingrich is what dumb people think a smart person sounds like?

..Gingrich and the Destruction of Congressional Expertise

By BRUCE BARTLETT | New York Times – 6 hours ago
....

Bruce Bartlett held senior policy roles in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul. He is the author of the coming book "The Benefit and the Burden."

On Nov. 21, Newt Gingrich, who is leading the race for the Republican presidential nomination in some polls, attacked the Congressional Budget Office. In a speech in New Hampshire, Mr. Gingrich said the C.B.O. "is a reactionary socialist institution which does not believe in economic growth, does not believe in innovation and does not believe in data that it has not internally generated."

Mr. Gingrich's charge is complete nonsense. The former C.B.O. director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, now a Republican policy adviser, labeled the description "ludicrous." Most policy analysts from both sides of the aisle would say the C.B.O. is one of the very few analytical institutions left in government that one can trust implicitly.

It's precisely its deep reservoir of respect that makes Mr. Gingrich hate the C.B.O., because it has long stood in the way of allowing Republicans to make up numbers to justify whatever they feel like doing.

For example, Republicans frequently assert that tax cuts, especially for the rich, generate so much economic growth that they lose no revenue. This theory has been thoroughly debunked, most recently by the tax cuts of the George W. Bush administration, which, according to C.B.O., reduced revenues by $3 trillion. Nevertheless, conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation (where I worked in the 1980s) still peddle the snake oil that the Bush tax cuts paid for themselves.

Mr. Gingrich has long had special ire for the C.B.O. because it has consistently thrown cold water on his pet health schemes, from which he enriched himself after being forced out as speaker of the House in 1998. In 2005, he wrote an op-ed article in The Washington Times berating the C.B.O., then under the direction of Mr. Holtz-Eakin, saying it had improperly scored some Gingrich-backed proposals. At a debate on Nov. 5, Mr. Gingrich said, "If you are serious about real health reform, you must abolish the Congressional Budget Office because it lies."

This is typical of Mr. Gingrich's modus operandi. He has always considered himself to be the smartest guy in the room and long chaffed at being corrected by experts when he cooked up some new plan, over which he may have expended 30 seconds of thought, to completely upend and remake the health, tax or education systems.

Because Mr. Gingrich does know more than most politicians, the main obstacles to his grandiose schemes have always been Congress's professional staff members, many among the leading authorities anywhere in their areas of expertise.

To remove this obstacle, Mr. Gingrich did everything in his power to dismantle Congressional institutions that employed people with the knowledge, training and experience to know a harebrained idea when they saw it. When he became speaker in 1995, Mr. Gingrich moved quickly to slash the budgets and staff of the House committees, which employed thousands of professionals with long and deep institutional memories.

Of course, when party control in Congress changes, many of those employed by the previous majority party expect to lose their jobs. But the Democratic committee staff members that Mr. Gingrich fired in 1995 weren't replaced by Republicans. In essence, the positions were simply abolished, permanently crippling the committee system and depriving members of Congress of competent and informed advice on issues that they are responsible for overseeing.

Mr. Gingrich sold his committee-neutering as a money-saving measure. How could Congress cut the budgets of federal agencies if it wasn't willing to cut its own budget, he asked. In the heady days of the first Republican House since 1954, Mr. Gingrich pretty much got whatever he asked for.

In addition to decimating committee budgets, he also abolished two really useful Congressional agencies, the Office of Technology Assessment and the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. The former brought high-level scientific expertise to bear on legislative issues and the latter gave state and local governments an important voice in Congressional deliberations.

William James on the Destruction of America by Murdoch and Limbaugh

2011-11-26T11:48:00.000-08:00

“A great nation is not saved by wars, it is saved by acts without external picturesqueness; by speaking, writing, voting reasonably; by smiting corruption swiftly; by good temper between parties; by the people knowing true men when they see them, and preferring them as leaders to rabid partisans and empty quacks.”
― William James

Steve Jobs Intolerance of Imperfection and the Zen Aesthetic

2011-11-25T09:21:00.000-08:00

It seems Steve Jobs' notorious intolerance of imperfection may have had something to do with his appreciation of the supposed perfection in the Zen gardens of Kyoto he visited and his zen study under Kobun Chino roshi, yet the core zen teaching really is that perfection is a disease, only the dead are perfect, existence and life requires and presupposes imperfection, just like the insight of physics into the broken symmetry of the big bang's 10^-4oth second, as symbolized by the statue in front of fermilab and the zen paintings of the coffee stain enso symbol, which is never fully closed.

A gardener asked the opinion of a zen master abouth the garden he had painstakingly worked on for years until it acheived his ideal of perfection, and the zen master said it lacked only one thing, and shook the garden tree to drop leaves on the ground, 'now it is perfect'.

Last of the Great Wall Street Pump and Dump Scams? - Groupon IPO tanks

2011-11-22T10:54:00.000-08:00

how much longer can Wall Street get away with these pump and dump scams?

By Alistair Barr

(Reuters) - Groupon Inc stock slumped as much as 14 percent on Monday on concern about increased competition, leaving shares of the largest daily deal company close to their $20 initial public offering price.
Groupon shares fell to as low as $20.03 in late morning action. The company was the third-largest decliner on the Nasdaq.
Groupon raised more than $700 million in an IPO in early November.
LivingSocial, Groupon's closest rival, announced plans on Monday to offer 20 deals with national merchants on the crucial Black Friday shopping period.
Daily deal companies often subsidize national deals, making them less profitable than offers run with local merchants. The national deals usually bring in lots of new customers, but pressure profit margins.
"In the last few days we've been hearing about LivingSocial stepping up promotions," said Edward Woo, an analyst at Wedbush Securities. "The concern is that there will be much more competition for Groupon going forward."
LivingSocial's move to offer so many national deals on Black Friday shows competition in the daily deal business will be particularly intense this holiday, he added.
"Groupon is not doing much for Back Friday, so LivingSocial may take customer attention and business away from Groupon," Woo said.

Just how big is the deficit gap? Is the govt just another Enron?

2011-11-20T12:24:00.000-08:00

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/archive/148.html

America is in "worst fiscal shape than Greece, Ireland, Portugal" or just about any other developed economy, he says. "The unofficial debts are staggering. Our implicit debts, the ones hidden off the books by Enron accounting show a much worse picture than the official debt."
To close the federal budget deficit, the professor and author of Jimmy Stewart Is Dead, says the government could take the following steps:
-- A) Immediately and permanently raise all taxes by 77%
-- B) Immediately and permanently cut all government spending by 40%
-- C) Some Combination of A & B
Kotlikoff also recommends the government adopt the Ryan-Rivlin health-care plan for all Americans, not just seniors, as we discuss in a forthcoming segment.
Unless and until D.C. politicians are willing to adopt such dramatic, controversial and (some say) draconian measures, "they might as well go home and tell us to leave the country or just print money out the wazoo to pay these bills and leave us with hyperinflation," he laments. "That seems to be the game plan."

Jimmy Wales begs for money for Wikipedia servers

2011-11-18T04:30:00.000-08:00

Can anyone imagine the internet with an ad-cluttered Wikipedia or Craigslist?
What if Wikipedia or Craigslist were as polluted with flash trash and in-your-face viagra ads like Yahoo or any other commercial website? the horror the horror ...

May text-only true html non-flash websites live long and prosper!

From Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales

Google might have close to a million servers. Yahoo has something like 13,000 staff. We have 400 servers and 95 staff.
Wikipedia is the #5 site on the web and serves 454 million different people every month – with billions of page views.

Commerce is fine. Advertising is not evil. But it doesn't belong here. Not in Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to learn, to share our knowledge with others.

When I founded Wikipedia, I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising banners, but I decided to do something different. We’ve worked hard over the years to keep it lean and tight. We fulfill our mission, and leave waste to others.

If everyone reading this donated $20, we would only have to fundraise for one day a year. But not everyone can or will donate. And that's fine. Each year just enough people decide to give.

This year, please consider making a donation of $5, $20, $50 or whatever you can to protect and sustain Wikipedia.

Thanks,

Jimmy Wales

Wikipedia Founder

Book Confidence Men by Ron Suskind - Geithner and Summers sabotage of Obama

2011-11-16T14:01:00.000-08:00

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Explains a disappointing president without veering into wingnut territory, November 5, 2011
By

Sagar Jethani (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President (Hardcover) Ron Suskind's "Confidence Men" is one of the most comprehensive portraits of the Obama administration to emerge in the past two years. Suskind, a former senior national affairs reporter for the Wall Street Journal whose work has earned him a Pulitzer Prize, describes an administration held hostage by corporate advocates: a dysfunctional White House and a president whose penchant for intellectual analysis is manipulated by those around him into endless relitigation instead of bold action. Suskind's account is based on interviews with over 200 people, including current and former administration members, as well as Obama himself. Most comments are attributed by name to senior administration officials like Larry Summers, Rahm Emmanuel, and Timothy Geithner, and unnamed sources are mainly used to buttress comments and recollections from named sources.Suskind's narrative begins in 2007 on the campaign trail. He describes how candidate Obama had begun receiving advanced intelligence from Wall Street bankers about an impending financial disaster based on the buying and selling of mortgage securities. A quick study, Obama was soon fluent in the language of finance, of collateralized debt obligations, credit default-swaps, and a host of other terms which by now have sunk into the public vernacular. Alone among the presidential contenders, Obama had caught a glimpse of the storm ahead. When Lehman Brothers crashed in September 2008, Camp Obama was ready. Its narrative switched from being Obama, the anti-war candidate, to Obama, the economic justice candidate. The fact that the crisis had been precipitated by lax regulatory structures and legislation which favored the wealthy tied neatly into Obama's image as a transformational figure. Here, at the very point of turmoil, when the country was threatened by the consequences of Wall Street's greed, was a historical personage-- a combination of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr.--ready to set matters right.Obama, himself, recognized that expectations had grown so high about his ability to fix the economy that anything less than a miraculous turnaround would lead to disappointment. He warned of this during his inaugural address in January 2009, yet did not mention how much of this outsized expectation had been the result of his own soaring rhetoric--'[T]his was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment--this was the time--when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals.

'The thesis of 'Confidence Men' is that an idealistic, young president with little leadership experience found himself quickly out of his depth once he occupied the White House. For support, he turned to a cabal of seemingly capable insiders who gave lip-service to his ideals while deftly ensuring that his more sweeping calls for change died a slow death by committee. These insiders-- Larry Summers, Rahm Emmanuel, and Timothy Geithner --ensured that financial reform and health care proceeded in ways which would provide minimal disruption to powerful interests to the frustration of the reformers who accompanied Barack Obama to the White House.Larry Summers, who was tapped by Obama to head his economic advisory council, had been a leading voice in killing New Deal-era regulation in the late 1990's which prevented derivatives like CDOs from being examined by the Commodity Futures Trading Board-- the same derivatives which had plunged the global economy into crisis. Suskind provides numerous examples of how Summers openly manipulated Obama, instructing other members of staff not to carry out the president's specific instructions, while mocking him as being intellectually incapable of leading the country.Timothy Geithner, head of the New York Fed, was chosen to become Secretary of Treasury. Suskind shows a devastating series of examples in which Geithner elevates the interests of Wall Street bankers above those of the American people. Obama needed little prodding to go easy on the banks. Whereas Roosevelt famously quipped the he welcomed the bankers' hatred, Obama made it clear to Wall Street that his tough talk against corporate greed would be cosmetic. During his first meeting with the banks as president, he explained--"My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks. You guys have an acute public relations problem that's turning into a political problem. And I want to help. I'm not out there to go after you. I'm protecting you. But if I'm going to shield you from public and congressional anger, you have to give me something to work with..." (p. 234)The bankers understood that, far from needing to worry about the president actually standing by his campaign promises to reform Wall Street, he was a person they could do business with. And they recognized Timothy Geithner as their chief spokesperson within the administration.As one of the bankers who met with Obama later recalled--"The president had us at a moment of real vulnerability. At that point, he could have ordered us to do just about anything, and we would have rolled over. But he didn't--he mostly wanted to help us out, to quell the mob. And the guy we figured we had to thank for that was Tim. He was our man in Washington." (p. 242)Another banker observed--"If Tim were fired, we'd be in trouble; we knew that." (p.242)Obama had been warned against Summers and Geithner as far back as December 2008, when Byron Dorgan, North Dakota's Democratic senator sternly told him: "You've picked the wrong people. I don't understand how you could do this. You've picked the wrong people!" (p. 164)The third member of the troika was Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Guided less by outright concern for Wall Street, Emanuel's compass remained fixed on what he felt was politically possible. This led him to stage manage-- and sometimes, directly contradict --the president's will on a variety of issues.One of these was health care. Bruised from his failure to help pass health care reform during the Clinton administration, Emanuel quickly decided that the provision for the public option-- the main instrument by which health care costs would be reduced --was politically untenable. Obama himself had said that a public option would be an important way "to keep health insurers honest." (p. 318) Despite this, Emanuel had internally explained that a public option was a nonstarter. To keep health providers onboard, Emanuel, not Obama, decided it would have to go.Nor did Emanuel limit himself to whisper campaigns.In 2009, Obama told his economic advisors that restructuring a large, insolvent bank would help government "strike a blow for prudence." It would "begin to change the reckless behavior of Wall Street and show millions of unemployed Americans that accountability flows in both directions." (p. 218) The obvious candidate was Citigroup, which had taken a combined $45 billion in handouts from the government, along with federal guarantees on $306 billion of its assets.Alarmed at the prospect of going after one of the major banks, Larry Summers proceeded to turn the conversation into a convoluted debate designed to blunt the president's intention.'"Look," Obama said, with evident frustration. "I'm going to get a haircut and have dinner with my family. You've heard me. When I come back I want this issue resolved." And with that, he walked out.' (p. 218)At the very moment when the president needed to assert his will, Barack Obama left the room to get a haircut. The power vacuum did not remain unfilled for long:'Rahm Emanuel waited until the president was fully out of the room and then seized the floor. "Everyone shut the **** up. Let me be clear--taking down the banking system in a program that could cost $700 billion is a fantasy. With all the money that already went to TARP, no one is getting that kind of money through Congress, especially with this AIG bonus disaster." He threw a hard glance at Geithner. "Listen, it's not going to **** happen. We have no **** credibility. So give it up. The job of everyone in this room is to move the president, when he gets back, toward a solution that works."' (p. 218)The other two members of the troika needed little prodding to fall in line: Summers had no wish to go after the banks, and Geithner had recently told TARP's inspector general that "Government would never let Citi fail." (p. 209)The reformers in the room were crushed. They felt that Obama's directive to demonstrate bold action had been overruled by the cabal. When Obama returned, Emanuel, Geithner, and Summers explained that the group had determined that a more incremental approach would prove more effective in dialing-back Wall Street risk taking. Obama, often finding discussions on policy going over his head, required consensus from those around him. The group had spoken. He managed to get a commitment from Geithner to produce a plan for an orderly unwinding of Citi (a commitment Geithner never fulfilled) and thanked everyone for their hard work.The cabal effectively led policy for the first half of Obama's first term, circumscribing his actions and defining the landscape of what it deemed to be both politically possible and desireable. Emanuel used his position as Chief of Staff to shut out voices he knew would push Obama in directions with which he disagreed.When North Dakota senator Byron Dorgan demanded a meeting with the president after several failed attempts, Emanuel re-routed him to Larry Summers. Dorgan and a group of senate Democrats issued an angry letter to Emanuel in March 2009:"I am reiterating our request to meet with the President so we may have some meaningful and timely input into the formulation of that program . . . We know the President will get plenty of advice from Larry Summers and Secretary Geithner on this subject. We want him to have the benefit of our advice on these matters as well." (p. 238)Senator Tom Daschle, a one-time mentor to Obama, also found that he could not get an audience with the president. OMB Director Peter Orszag was intimidated by Emanuel in meetings not to suggest policy directions he knew Emanuel disagreed with. Elizabeth Warren, whose work had led to the formation of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, observed: "I don't know what the president is thinking. I don't see the president. He meets with bankers. He doesn't meet with me." (p. 482) Former Fed chairman and economic adviser Paul Volker quipped: "He seems to feel he has all he needs in the clever Mr. Summers. Together they're both so very confident. He's self-confident, too self-confident." (p. 482)One long-time Washington manager noted that Emanuel had convinced Obama that `all Rahm, all the time' was all he needed. Obama didn't know how things were supposed to work, and Emanuel, running in every direction, wasn't going to tell him." (p. 271)Suskind has presented damning evidence from a wide range of named sources attesting to the hostile atmosphere which exists for women in the Obama administration. Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, Christine Roemer, Valerie Jarrett, Nancy-Ann DeParle, and Anita Dunn all describe how tough, accomplished women were regularly ignored by Obama, who appeared to be much more comfortable in the company of men.The issue had been brought to Obama's attention many times, but it was only after The New York Times ran an October 2010 piece entitled "Man's World at the White House?" that he decided to take action. A dinner was held for the president to hear from the senior women on his staff. One by one, they presented concise examples of how their contributions were marginalized, and how Obama had allowed a hostile atmosphere to take root by only empowering the men within his administration. At the end, he thanked them for speaking with him, but attempted to dismiss their concerns. Said one attendee:"After the dinner we [the women] all decided we'd rather have had dinner just by ourselves." (p. 353)Only after the disastrous 2010 midterm elections did Obama finally heed the advice of his B-team and do a housecleaning: Summers and Emanuel were both out. (The latter, in a moment of good timing, went on to run for and win the mayoral race in Chicago.) The president who required uniformity of opinion from his counselors seemed to have finally understood that they had led him into a series of bad decisions during his first two years. Why did he allow this to happen? Suskind argues that Obama has a mortal fear of appearing unknowledgeable about policy. In one instructive example, Obama confided to an aide that he could never let others see him uncertain about what to do next. This insecurity, resting as it does upon a real lack of basic leadership experience, made Obama overly-dependent upon self-proclaimed authorities like Summers, Geithner, and Emanuel. That these "experts" sharply restricted the president's option in framing a debate did not dawn on him. OMB Director Peter Orszag observed:"The president thought those morning briefings were the best of the best, the finest economic minds that could be assembled. He'd say it all the time, how he's consulted with the best experts. But it wasn't the case." (p. 348)Suskind's narrative stops at this housecleaning in 2010, and ends on a false note. The president is starting to understand how he was managed by his handlers-- how the soaring rhetoric of his campaign was reduced into a series of incremental policy steps which would pose no threats to the powerful interests which depended upon preferential treatment.The problem, however, is that Obama only partially understood the lessons of the past two years. He confessed that his penchant for being a policy wonk made him lose sight of his real role as chief storyteller. His takeaway is that a more effective use of the bully pulpit of the presidency would revitalize his administration. An important part of this role as Storyteller-in-Chief? Showing that Democrats and Republicans could work in a bipartisan manner.Although the story stops here, it is easy to see how this newfound determination to play nice with the other side led to a series of cave-ins in 2011, including the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and cutbacks on social services, and the infamous debt ceiling capitulation. The president believes he must make good on his campaign rhetoric of bringing the country together by compromising more with Republicans.But it is these same Republicans who announced their prime objective in 2009 of making Obama a one-term president at whatever cost to the nation. As the GOP veered even further to the right, Obama's new mission required him to follow along or risk failing on this key self-appointed bipartisan mandate. This pattern was not lost on Republicans, who enjoyed the rewards of intransigence.As of this writing (November 2011), Obama has rediscovered the populist rhetoric of his campaign trail, and is making greater use of the bully pulpit to sharpen his attacks on Republicans. But the measures he is fighting for-- most notably the Jobs bill --are halfhearted measures that even liberal observers agree will fail to make a dent in the worsening economic landscape. It is as if the troika, though largely disbanded, continues to narrowly define the possibilities available to Obama. Progressives who criticize these measures are attacked by the administration as "congenitally seeing the glass as half-empty", according to the president. At this point, disappointment with the president as resulted in major schisms from groups normally considered safely Democratic: AFL-CIO and the Congressional Black Caucus.Despite this disappointment from the left, Obama's re-election seems somewhat assured due to the procession of cartoon characters vying for the Republican nomination. Some liberals still hold the naive belief that the "true" Obama will emerge in a second term, despite overwhelming evidence from Ron Suskind and others that what we have seen to date accurately represents the political philosophy of Barack Obama: center-right policies designed primarily to support the wealthiest members of society while providing verbal support for the rest.

Book "Throw Them All Out" by Peter Schweizer describes Bachus trading on insider information

2011-11-16T13:54:00.000-08:00

According to a new book called Throw Them All Out by Peter Schweizer, as relayed by Dave Weigel at Slate, Rep. Bachus made more than 40 trades in his personal account in the summer and fall of 2008, in the early months of the financial crisis.
The fact that Bachus personally traded on private information he received as a result of his job is bad enough. The fact that he was the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee at the time is simply outrageous.
In one case, the day after getting a private briefing on the collapsing economy and financial system from Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson, Rep. Bachus effectively shorted the market (by buying options that would rise if the market tanked.)
A few days later, after the market tanked, Bachus sold his position and nearly doubled his money.
If a corporate executive or Wall Street trader did this--cashed in personally after getting private, non-public information from his work--Rep. Bachus and every other member of Congress would be screaming from the rooftops about how the financial system is deeply corrupt and how the executive should be charged with insider trading.
And they would be right.
Rep. Bachus should return whatever money he made by betting on the direction of the markets (or anything else) in the fall of 2008. He should apologize for his behavior and jaw-dropping lack of judgement. He should urge his fellow members of Congress to immediately enact legislation that defends the fairness of the markets by holding Congress to the same insider trading laws as everyone else. He should then resign in disgrace.
Here's the passage from Throw Them All Out, as relayed by Slate's Dave Weigel. According to Weigel, it is only one of many examples of Bachus's insider trading:
On the evening of September 18, at 7 p.m., Bachus received [a] private briefing for congressional leaders by Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke about the current state of the economy. They sat around a long table in the office of Nancy Pelosi, then the Speaker of the House. These briefings were secretive. Often, cell phones and Blackberrys had to be surrendered outside the room to avoid leaks.
What Bachus and his colleagues heard behind closed doors was stunning. As Paulson recounts, "Ben [Bernanke] emphasized how the financial crisis could spill into the real economy. As stocks dropped perhaps a further 20 percent, General Motors would go bankrupt, and unemployment would rise . . . if we did nothing." The members of Congress around the table were, in Paulson's words, "ashen-faced."
Bernanke continued, "It is a matter of days before there is a meltdown in the global financial system." Bachus was among those who spoke. According to Paulson, he suggested recapitalizing the banks by buying shares.
The meeting broke up. The next day, September 19, Congressman Bachus bought contract options on Proshares Ultra-Short QQQ, an index fund that seeks results that are 200% of the inverse of the Nasdaq 100 index. In other words, he was shorting the market. It was an inexpensive way to bet that the market would fall. He bought options for $7,846 on a day when the Dow Jones Industrial Average opened at 8,604. A few days later, on September 23, after the market had indeed fallen, he sold the options for over $13,000 and nearly doubled his money.
187 commentsPopular NowNewest
nonamespecified Comment
the real story, the elephant in the room, that no one wants to acknowledge, is the bitter truth is that congress is underpaid, a 170k salary for an executive with responsibility of managing spending in the 100s of billions is way out of line relative to the private sector, so they are forced to use alternate means of 'compensation', i.e. graft.�If you want a noncorrupt police force you gotta pay them more, same with congress critters. but personally I think we should take their checkbook away from them, and make our IRS tax forms a means of direct taxpayer directed funding for the government, let the people directly allocate the budget, and make the congress critters mere administrators and not the royalty they are now.
comment Rolando about a minute ago
While I would normally side with anyone seeking reform of Congress, this particular incident was not, without more information, worthy of much attention. The prior weekend Lehman had been allowed to die, and AIG, the nation's largest insurance company, was in full collapse, with its price down something like 85% in the prior two weeks, so the public knew the economy was at huge risk. What Bachus had access to was not unique information about how bad things were, but rather about the plans to deal with the crisis. Also, the bet was incredibly small, more likely a hedge to protect a few of his other investments without having to sell them, rather than a full on bet against the economy. Once again, we have journalists writing about things they don't understand. Even the fact that he made 40 trades in the prior quarter doesnt provide useful information, as many people at that income level make similar numbers of trades with thout the benefit if inside information, though it might be worth a further look.
Henry should know better, as he comes from the banking world. Congress should not have immunity from prosecution for trading on inside information related to specific companies, or news not already out there, such as advance notice of employment or economic numbers or major new regulations, but here we have the economy in full freefall, known to all, and this guy makes a minor bet against the market as a whole. You didnt need inside information to make that trade. Let s be clear, I'm no fan of Bachus. He is Gop , I'm a Demo. He was a prominent member ot the House Financial Services Committee during the years when banks were deregulated and Fannie and Freddie ran amok, so shares responsibility for that mess. Lets do better than this guys. Reply . 0users liked this comment
comment Fashion Queen 14 minutes ago
Yah they make alot of money and i dont know how they do it. Mitt ROmey as a 12 million dollar home in ca. plus 2 other homes wother combined 8 million dollars. hes was the governorr or RI i believe. How the heck did he get all that off his salary Reply . 0users liked this comment
comment JustAnotherBrickIntheWall 2 hours ago
I'm surprised that anyone is surprised by this. Why do you think they pay millions to get elected for a job that pays around $168,000/year. 2 Replies 0users liked this comment
comment Stephen 4 hours ago
Don't you love it when our government complains about how corrupt Afghanistan is or how corrupt country XYZ is. No wonder they hate us.

Rich Mexican on the Beach Laughs at American Police State Slaves

2011-11-15T19:15:00.000-08:00

jeff - You all say the same thing and you will all vote for the same jerks so you deserve this. The rest of the world watches and laughs at how stupid you are. I love to watch american news here its better than the old saturday night lives shows and they were real funny!

- I think what you're missing is that we all like to laugh too. 5users liked this comment

- keep laughing. when we go, everybody goes.. 2users liked this comment

- Sean 10 hours ago hey Jeff, no one cares about your opinion. If you don't like America....get out or if you aren't in America......stay out.....no one wants you here.

- jeff 10 hours ago sean I am not there i live in mexico where everybody pays taxes and welfare and unemployment dont exist. I love it here people here work. You stay there and be happy with your welfare check..

- Sean 9 hours ago jeff stay in Mexico, thanks.......I guess all those working people has made Mexico so great......with an average wage of just over 200 pesos a day, you must be loving it there!!!! I don't collect welfare, but I do pay more in taxes to board up and provide healthcare for illegal Mexican immigrants than 10 average Mexicans make in one year......viva la mexicoo....arrrriiiibbbbbaaaaaa. 2users liked this comment

- jeff 9 hours ago Sean you get the poor mexicans. The Mexicans with money would never ever move there you live in a police state. There are parts of Mexico that make beverly hills look like a slum. Thats the problem with you Americans you know everything the rest of the world is stupid. Travel and education go a long way in correcting this problem try it..

- Sean 9 hours ago OK.....you were the one who started by calling Americans stupid........A Mexican calling Americans stupid...that's just funny to me. As far as education goes.....try me. I am extremely well educated. And sure.....being a Mexican I'm sure you know more about living in America than I do. Please don't go barking up the wrong tree.....some may be American apologists but I am not one of them. And yea, where in Mexico makes Beverly Hills look like a slum? I'm looking for an investment property, and I could probably buy waterfront down there for what I pay in taxes each year to make sure your illegal countrymen are comfortable in this police state..

- jeff 9 hours ago Sean I am writing this from a nice place on the beach thanks to the money I earned while in the states. I sold a computer company and a bottled water company and never have to work again for the rest of my life. I owe this to American I like many others love the people of the U.S. but not your Goverment. Only you Americans can fix your problems we can not vote for you. As far as nice places go to vivastreet.com.mx type in houses for 1,000,000 dollars not pesos and you can buy into a nice area not the best but very nice. Also Sean just a tidbit we can see a doctor here for about 2 dollars so a 200 peso day goes a lot father here than you think. No Mexican wants to see America fail or their people suffer but your socialistic goverment has failed its people and needs to be changed...

On Sale! Buy Congress for Only 14 Billion $ and Save!!!

2011-11-09T16:25:00.000-08:00

Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds

How Much Would It Cost To Buy Congress Back From Special Interests?

Here's a thought: let's buy our Congress back from the special interests who now own it.

We all know special interests own the U.S. Congress and the Federal machinery of governance (i.e. regulatory capture). How much would it cost the American citizenry to buy back their Congress? The goal in buying our Congress back from the banking cartel et al. would not be to compete with the special interests for congressional favors--it would be to elect a Congress which would eradicate their power and influence altogether.

A tall order, perhaps, but certainly not impossible, if we're willing to spend the money to not just match special interest contributions to campaigns but steamroll them.

A seat in the U.S. Senate is a pricey little lever of power, so we better be ready to spend $50 million per seat. Seats in smaller states will be less, but seats in the big states will cost more, but this is a pretty good average.

That's $5 billion to buy the Senate.

A seat in the House of Representatives is a lot cheaper to buy: $10 million is still considered a lot of money in this playground of power. But the special interests-- you know the usual suspects, the banks, Wall Street, Big Pharma, Big Insurance, Big Tobacco, the military-industrial complex, Big Ag, public unions, the educrat complex, trial lawyers, foreign governments, and so on--will fight tooth and nail to maintain their control of the Federal machinery, so we better double that to $20 million per seat. Let's see, $20 million times 435....

That's $8.7 billion to buy the House of Representatives.

It seems we're stuck with the corporate toadies on the Supreme Court, but the President could scotch the people's plans to regain control of their government, so we better buy the office of the President, too.

It seems Obama's purchase price was about $100 million, but the special interests will be desperate to have "their man or woman" with the veto power, so we better triple this to $300 million.

Add these up and it looks like we could buy back our government for the paltry sum of $14 billion. This is roughly .0037% of the Federal budget of $3.8 trillion, i.e. one-third of one percent. That is incredible leverage: $1 in campaign bribes controls $300 in annual spending--and a global empire.

Once we bought back our government, what would be the first items on the agenda? The first item would be to eradicate private bribes, a.k.a. private campaign contributions and lobbying.

Boycott Koch Brothers Industries Products - Lycra Stainmaster Teflon Brawny Georgia Pacific

2011-11-09T12:41:00.000-08:00

Koch Products & Companies Include:
- Angel Soft
- Angel Soft Ultra
- Brawny paper towels
- Dixie cups (& napkins & plates)
- Insulair cups
- Perfect Touch cups, paper products
- Quilted Northern
- Sparkle paper towels
- Stainmaster
- Vanity Fair napkins & paper towels
- Mardis Gras napkins
- Zee Napkins
- Georgia Pacific products

Home/Office papers:
- Advantage
- Image Plus
- Spectrum

Other:
- Stainmaster
- Lycra
- Teflon

Building supplies:
- Georgia Pacific

- Holiday Companies
- Gander Mountain

Much of the Kochs' (David and Charles) comes from industrial operations:

Koch Pipeline Company LP:; owns and operates 4,000 miles of pipeline used to transport oil, natural gas liquids and chemicals
Flint Hill Resources LP, that operates oil refineries in six states.
Koch Fertilizer, LLC, owns or has interests in fertilizer plants the United States, Canada, Trinidad and Tobago and Italy.
Matador Ranch in Texas

Obama's Seduce and Abandon Pattern with Elizabeth Warren

2011-11-08T05:48:00.000-08:00

Obama's habit of seducing followers with smiling speeches and then abandoning them in favor of the opposition seems to be illustrated in the case of Elizabeth Warren where he seduced her to set up the agency then abandoned her by not appointing her, which is also a case of the classic mode of regulatory capture that led to the meltdown excesses - ensure no one of competence is allowed to run the regulatory agency and then proceed to defund them slowly.

A Brief History of Republican Treason - from Nixon to Boehner

2011-11-07T19:14:00.000-08:00

The GOP’s History of ‘Hostage-Taking’
November 6, 2011

Special Report: For more than four decades, Democrats have tolerated Republican abuses, claiming accountability wouldn’t be “good for the country.” But this softness has only encouraged the kind of hardball behavior that has now taken the U.S. economy “hostage,” writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

Since the 1960s, the Republican and Democratic parties have diverged in behavior – as well as over issues such as war and social programs – with the Republicans sometimes called the “daddy party” and the Democrats the “mommy party.” But if that analogy is followed, you would be talking about a very dysfunctional marriage.

More often than not in recent years, the Republicans have played the role of “abusive husband,” arriving home angry, busting up furniture and slapping around the wife and kids – before passing out on the couch – after which the Democratic “abused wife” tidies things up and tries to conceal bruises from the neighbors. Then, hubby arouses and the process begins again.

One might find this analogy unsettling, even unfair, but there is truth in it. Indeed, you could argue that the metaphor has sometimes moved beyond an abusive marriage to hostage-taking, as the Republican-daddy essentially takes the kids (America) hostage and demands capitulation from the Democratic-mommy.

Recently, the hostage metaphor has become popular in discussing how Republicans have dealt with Democrats during the Obama administration – for instance, last summer’s debt ceiling showdown used to extract concessions on spending and the past month’s obstruction of jobs bills with an eye toward a weakened President Barack Obama in the 2012 race. The h-word has even been uttered on the Senate floor by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
But Republican political “hostage-taking” is nothing new. The GOP has been playing this game since the days of Richard Nixon, who may have felt justified in adopting more ruthless tactics after losing a very narrow election to John F. Kennedy in 1960 amid allegations that Kennedy benefited from voter fraud in Illinois and Texas.

Though many historians dispute the significance of alleged fraud in the 1960 election, the notion that Nixon was robbed became an article of faith inside the GOP. Nixon grew even angrier after losing the California gubernatorial race in 1962, when he felt “kicked around” by the national press.

So, in 1968, facing another close presidential race, Nixon’s campaign escalated “hardball” tactics to a new level – by essentially taking the half million U.S. soldiers in Vietnam hostage. The historical evidence is now clear that Nixon sabotaged President Lyndon Johnson’s Paris peace talks to block a settlement and deny Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey a last-minute bump in the polls.

Nixon’s emissaries pulled off this scheme by promising South Vietnamese President Nguyen van Thieu a better deal than Johnson was prepared to offer, thus getting Thieu to boycott the Paris peace talks and killing prospects for bringing the divisive war to a quick end.

Johnson’s Lament

Based on documents and audiotapes from that era, we now know that Johnson was personally aware of Nixon’s “treason” – Johnson’s term for it. Having bugged the South Vietnamese Embassy’s cable traffic and other communications, Johnson knew that Nixon’s campaign had dispatched Anna Chennault, a fiercely anti-communist Chinese-American, to carry Nixon’s proposal to Thieu.

Beginning in late October 1968, Johnson can be heard on the tapes complaining about this Republican gambit. However, his frustration builds as he learns more from intercepts about the back-channel contacts between Nixon’s operatives and South Vietnamese officials.

On Nov. 2 – just three days before the election – Thieu recanted on his tentative agreement to meet with the Viet Cong in Paris, putting the peace talks in jeopardy. On the same day, Johnson telephoned Senate Republican leader Everett Dirksen to lay out some of the evidence and ask Dirksen to intervene with the Nixon campaign.

“The agent [Chennault] says she’s just talked to the boss in New Mexico and that he said that you must hold out, just hold on until after the election,” Johnson said in an apparent reference to a Nixon campaign plane that carried some of his top aides to New Mexico. “We know what Thieu is saying to them out there. We’re pretty well informed at both ends.”

Johnson then made a thinly veiled threat about going public with the information. “I don’t want to get this in the campaign,” Johnson said, adding: “They oughtn’t be doing this. This is treason.”

Dirksen responded, “I know.”

Johnson continued: “I think it would shock America if a principal candidate was playing with a source like this on a matter of this importance. I don’t want to do that [go public]. They ought to know that we know what they’re doing. I know who they’re talking to. I know what they’re saying.”

The President also stressed the stakes involved, noting that the movement toward negotiations in Paris had contributed to a lull in the violence.

“We’ve had 24 hours of relative peace,” Johnson said. “If Nixon keeps the South Vietnamese away from the [peace] conference, well, that’s going to be his responsibility. Up to this point, that’s why they’re not there. I had them signed onboard until this happened.”

Dirksen: “I better get in touch with him, I think.”

“They’re contacting a foreign power in the middle of a war,” Johnson said. “It’s a damn bad mistake. And I don’t want to say so. … You just tell them that their people are messing around in this thing, and if they don’t want it on the front pages, they better quit it.”

Nixon’s Protestation

The next day, Nixon spoke directly to Johnson and professed his innocence.

“I didn’t say with your knowledge,” Johnson responded. “I hope it wasn’t.”

“Huh, no,” Nixon responded. “My God, I would never do anything to encourage … Saigon not to come to the table. … Good God, we want them over to Paris, we got to get them to Paris or you can’t have a peace.”

Nixon also insisted that he would do whatever President Johnson and Secretary of State Dean Rusk wanted.

“I’m not trying to interfere with your conduct of it. I’ll only do what you and Rusk want me to do. We’ve got to get this goddamn war off the plate,” Nixon said, recognizing how tantalizingly close Johnson was to a peace deal. “The war apparently now is about where it could be brought to an end. … The quicker the better. To hell with the political credit, believe me.”

However, the South Vietnamese boycott continued, and Johnson concluded that Nixon was playing a double game. Johnson also became aware that Christian Science Monitor reporter Saville Davis had gotten wind of the story. The President was tempted to confirm it.

Before doing so, however, Johnson consulted with Rusk and Defense Secretary Clark Clifford on Nov. 4, 1968. Both these pillars of the Washington Establishment advised against going public out of fear that it might reflect badly on the U.S. government.

“Some elements of the story are so shocking in their nature that I’m wondering whether it would be good for the country to disclose the story and then possibly have a certain individual [Nixon] elected,” Clifford said in a conference call. “It could cast his whole administration under such doubt that I think it would be inimical to our country’s interests.”

Instead of helping Davis confirm his information, Clifford and Rusk argued that the Johnson administration should make no comment, advice that Johnson accepted. He maintained his public silence on what Nixon was doing.

The next day, with Johnson unable to cite any clear progress toward ending the war, Nixon narrowly prevailed over Humphrey by about 500,000 votes or less than one percent of the ballots cast.

No Way Out

In the aftermath of the election, Johnson continued to privately confront Nixon with the evidence of Republican treachery, trying to get him to pressure the South Vietnamese leaders to reverse themselves and join the Paris peace talks.

On Nov. 8, Johnson recounted the evidence to Nixon and described the Republican motivation to disrupt the talks, speaking of himself in the third person.

“Johnson was going to have a bombing pause to try to elect Humphrey. They [the South Vietnamese] ought to hold out because Nixon will not sell you out like the Democrats sold out China,” Johnson said.

“I think they’ve been talking to [Vice President-elect Spiro] Agnew,” Johnson continued. “They’ve been quoting you [Nixon] indirectly, that the thing they ought to do is to just not show up at any [peace] conference and wait until you come into office.

“Now they’ve started that [boycott] and that’s bad. They’re killing Americans every day. I have that [story of the sabotage] documented. There’s not any question but that’s happening. … That’s the story, Dick, and it’s a sordid story. … I don’t want to say that to the country, because that’s not good.”

Faced with Johnson’s implied threat, Nixon promised to tell the South Vietnamese officials to reverse themselves and join the peace talks. However, the deal was done. There was no turning back because Thieu could then expose the secret arrangement with Nixon’s people. Nixon had to understand that it was more likely that Johnson would stay silent than that Thieu would.

Nixon bet right. Johnson failed to achieve the peace breakthrough he had hoped for before leaving office, but remained silent in his retirement. Following the advice of Rusk and Clifford, the Democrats were already playing the part of the “abused wife,” hiding the ugly truth from “outsiders.”

The U.S. participation in the Vietnam War continued for more than four years at a horrendous cost to both the United States and the people of Vietnam. Before the conflict was finally brought to an end, a million or more Vietnamese were estimated to have died along with an additional 20,763 U.S. dead and 111,230 wounded.

The war also divided the United States, turning parents against their own children. But Nixon continued searching for violent new ways to get Thieu the better deal that had been promised, including the invasion of Cambodia and heavier bombing of targets in North Vietnam.

Onward to Watergate

Meanwhile, to tamp down dissent in the United States, Nixon turned to a political spying operation against his enemies, targeting anti-war figures such as Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and later his Democratic rivals.

In May 1972, Nixon’s “plumbers” planted bugs in the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee, apparently gleaning information about the last-minute strategies of the Democratic establishment to block the nomination of Sen. George McGovern, whom Nixon viewed as the easiest Democrat to beat. [For details on what Nixon got from the bugs, see Secrecy & Privilege.]

On June 17, 1972, when the “plumbers” returned to plant more listening devices, they were caught by Washington police. Nixon immediately took charge of the cover-up: issuing orders, brainstorming P.R. strategies and trying to blackmail Democrats with threats of embarrassing disclosures, including that President Johnson had bugged the Nixon campaign in 1968.

According to his own White House tapes, Nixon said he was told by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover that Johnson had ordered the bugging of a Nixon campaign plane to ascertain who was undermining the Paris talks.

On July 1, 1972, White House aide Charles Colson touched off Nixon’s musings by noting that a newspaper column claimed that the Democrats had bugged Chennault’s telephones in 1968. Nixon pounced on Colson’s remark.

“Oh,” Nixon responded, “in ’68, they bugged our phones too.”

Colson: “And that this was ordered by Johnson.”

Nixon: “That’s right”

Colson: “And done through the FBI. My God, if we ever did anything like that you’d have the …”

Nixon: “Yes. For example, why didn’t we bug [the Democrats’ 1972 presidential nominee George] McGovern, because after all he’s affecting the peace negotiations?”

Colson: “Sure.”

Nixon: “That would be exactly the same thing.”

A Nixon Leak

Nixon’s complaint about Johnson bugging “our phones” in 1968 became a refrain as the Watergate scandal unfolded. Nixon wanted to use that information to pressure Johnson and Humphrey into twisting Democratic arms so the Watergate investigations would be stopped.

On Jan. 8, 1973, Nixon urged Haldeman to plant a story about the 1968 bugging in the Washington Star. “You don’t really have to have hard evidence, Bob,” Nixon told Haldeman. “You’re not trying to take this to court. All you have to do is to have it out, just put it out as authority, and the press will write the Goddamn story, and the Star will run it now.”

Haldeman, however, insisted on checking the facts. In The Haldeman Diaries, published in 1994, Haldeman included an entry dated Jan. 12, 1973, which contains his book’s only deletion for national security reasons.

“I talked to [former Attorney General John] Mitchell on the phone,” Haldeman wrote, “and he said [FBI official Cartha] DeLoach had told him he was up to date on the thing. … A Star reporter was making an inquiry in the last week or so, and LBJ got very hot and called Deke [DeLoach's nickname], and said to him that if the Nixon people are going to play with this, that he would release [deleted material -- national security], saying that our side was asking that certain things be done. …

“DeLoach took this as a direct threat from Johnson. … As he [DeLoach] recalls it, bugging was requested on the [Nixon campaign] planes, but was turned down, and all they did was check the phone calls, and put a tap on the Dragon Lady [Anna Chennault].”

In other words, a furious Johnson appeared finally prepared to disclose Nixon’s “treason.” However, ten days later, on Jan. 22, 1973, Johnson died of a heart attack. Haldeman apparently shelved Nixon’s 1968 bugging complaint as a non-starter.

On Jan. 27, 1973, Nixon agreed to Vietnam peace terms in Paris. The agreement was along the lines of what President Johnson had negotiated more than four years earlier. The U.S. military withdrew from South Vietnam but continued supplying Theiu’s forces, which proved incapable of standing on their own, finally collapsing in 1975.

The Watergate scandal of 1972-74 was the one time when the Democrats truly stood up to Republican bullying.

Although some leading Democrats, such as Democratic National Chairman Robert Strauss, opposed pursuing the scandal, enough courageous Democrats and responsible Republicans were shocked enough by Nixon’s abuses to keep the investigation pressing forward.

Finally, after the Washington Post exposed Nixon’s financial ties to the cover-up and after Democratic members of Congress elicited devastating testimony from White House insiders, the U.S. Supreme Court forced Nixon to relinquish some of his White House tapes containing more damning evidence. Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974.

However, what the Republicans learned from Watergate was not “don’t do it” but “cover it up more effectively.” Aided by right-wing financiers, the Republicans began building a media infrastructure to put out their own message to the public – and funding attack groups that would target troublesome journalists and political figures.

October Surprise Case

The next round of Republican political hostage-taking centered on a case of actual hostage-taking. The evidence is now overwhelming that in 1980 – as President Jimmy Carter was seeking reelection and was trying to free 52 American hostages who had been seized in Iran – Republican operatives from Ronald Reagan’s campaign went behind Carter’s back to make contact with Iran’s leaders.

Reagan’s brain trust, especially campaign chief William Casey, saw the long-running crisis with Iran over the hostages as a powerful vulnerability for Carter but also a potential game-changer if Carter succeeded in engineering their release shortly before the election, as an “October Surprise.”

Over the past three decades, some two dozen witnesses – including senior Iranian officials, top French intelligence officers, U.S. and Israeli intelligence operatives, the Russian government and even Palestine leader Yasir Arafat – have confirmed the existence of a Republican initiative to interfere with Carter’s efforts to free the hostages.

In 1996, for instance, during a meeting in Gaza, Arafat personally told former President Carter that senior Republican emissaries approached the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1980 with a request that Arafat help broker a delay in the hostage release.

“You should know that in 1980 the Republicans approached me with an arms deal if I could arrange to keep the hostages in Iran until after the elections,” Arafat told Carter, according to historian Douglas Brinkley who was present. [Diplomatic History, Fall 1996]

Arafat’s spokesman Bassam Abu Sharif said the GOP gambit pursued other channels, too. In an interview with me in Tunis in 1990, Bassam indicated that Arafat learned upon reaching Iran in 1980 that the Republicans and the Iranians had made other arrangements for a delay in the hostage release.

“The offer [to Arafat] was, ‘if you block the release of hostages, then the White House would be open for the PLO’,” Bassam said. “I guess the same offer was given to others, and I believe that some accepted to do it and managed to block the release of hostages.”

In a little-noticed letter to the U.S. Congress, dated Dec. 17, 1992, former Iranian President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr said he first learned of the Republican hostage initiative in July 1980.

Bani-Sadr said a nephew of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran’s supreme leader, returned from a meeting with an Iranian banker and CIA asset, Cyrus Hashemi, who had close ties to Casey and to Casey’s business associate, John Shaheen.

Bani-Sadr said the message from the Khomeini emissary was clear: Republicans were in league with elements of the CIA in an effort to undermine Carter and were demanding Iran’s help.

Bani-Sadr said the emissary “told me that if I do not accept this proposal they [the Republicans] would make the same offer to my rivals.” The emissary added that the Republicans “have enormous influence in the CIA,” Bani-Sadr wrote. “Lastly, he told me my refusal of their offer would result in my elimination.”

Bani-Sadr said he resisted the GOP scheme, but the plan was accepted by the hard-line Khomeini faction. The American hostages remained captive through the Nov. 4, 1980, election which Reagan won handily. They were released immediately after Reagan was sworn in on Jan. 20, 1981. [For more details, see Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.]

Though some Carter advisers suspected Republican manipulation of the hostage crisis, the Democrats again kept silent. Only after the Iran-Contra scandal broke in 1986 – and witnesses began talking about its origins – did the 1980 story get fleshed out enough to compel Congress to take a closer look in 1991-92.

Again, however the Democrats feared that the evidence could endanger the fragile political relationships in Washington that enable governing to go forward. Once more, they chose to ignore the GOP machinations and, in some cases, literally hid the evidence. [For instance, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Key October Surprise Evidence Hidden.”]

The Bush Years

Aggressive Nixon-style strategies carried over into the campaigns mounted by George H.W. Bush in 1988 and 1992. The elder Bush’s dark side would come out most glaringly when he was in what he called “campaign mode.”

The general election campaign against Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1988 stands as one of the nastiest in U.S. history, with Bush questioning Dukakis’s patriotism and playing the race card by exploiting Willie Horton, a black inmate who raped a white woman while he was on a Massachusetts prison furlough.

Bush charted a similar course in 1992, with the goal of destroying Bill Clinton’s reputation and winning reelection by political default. The strategy, managed by then-White House chief of staff James Baker, involved searching Clinton’s passport files looking for dirt to use against the Democratic candidate.

President Bush was personally involved in this “silver bullet” strategy aimed at portraying Clinton as disloyal to his country, possibly having collaborated with Soviet bloc intelligence.

In a later interview with federal prosecutors, Bush acknowledged that he was “nagging” his aides to push an investigation into Clinton’s student travels to the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. Bush also expressed strong interest in rumors that Clinton had sought to renounce his U.S. citizenship.

Bush described himself as “indignant” that his aides failed to discover more about Clinton’s student activities. But Bush stopped short of taking responsibility for the apparently illegal searches of Clinton’s passport records.

“Hypothetically speaking, President Bush advised that he would not have directed anyone to investigate the possibility that Clinton had renounced his citizenship because he would have relied on others to make this decision,” the FBI interview report read. “He [Bush] would have said something like, ‘Let’s get it out’ or ‘Hope the truth gets out’.”

The passport caper backfired in early October 1992 with disclosure of the State Department’s improper search of Clinton’s passport files, creating a scandal called “Passport-gate.” However, after Clinton defeated Bush, the Democrats chose not to press for a thorough examination.

When a special prosecutor was named to investigate “Passport-gate,” the outgoing Bush administration was lucky because right-wing judges had taken over the selection panel and picked Republican stalwart, Joseph diGenova, who proceeded to clear Bush and his top aides despite evidence of their guilt.

Bush-v-Gore

The largely unchecked Republican brazenness expanded into the actual counting of votes in Election 2000.

Though Democrat Al Gore won the national popular vote and stood to gain the presidency if a full recount of legally cast votes in Florida had been allowed, five Republican justices on the U.S. Supreme Court sided with George W. Bush and stopped the Florida recount, effectively handing Bush the presidency.

The Democrats again shied away from a full investigation of how Bush engineered his undemocratic selection as president, as did the national news media. The thinking was that a serious fact-finding effort would undercut Bush’s “legitimacy” and be harmful to the country.

Almost a year later, in November 2001, a group of eight large news organizations reached a similar conclusion after finishing a study of the uncounted Florida ballots and discovering that under any standard used for the notorious ballot chads – dimpled, hanging or fully punched through – Gore would have won if all ballots considered legal under Florida law were counted.

However, in the post 9/11 climate, the news organizations twisted their own findings to ratify Bush’s electoral victory rather than reveal that the electoral loser was in the White House. The Democrats stayed silent, too. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Gore’s Victory” or the book, Neck Deep.]

What the Republicans learned from this recurring dynamic was that bullying pays – and that no one of significance in the U.S. political/media system is likely to stand up to you.

So, again, in 2004, Republicans and their right-wing allies smeared Democrat John Kerry, a Vietnam War hero, for his supposed cowardice. A well-funded right-wing group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth questioned Kerry’s medals, and at the GOP convention, Republican activists highlighted skepticism about the severity of Kerry’s war wounds by passing out “Purple Heart Band-Aids.”

The War on Obama

In 2008, Barack Obama got a taste of these Republican tactics with accusations about him “palling around with terrorists” and depicting him as an anti-American Muslim possibly born in Kenya. However, given the collapsing U.S. economy, Obama defeated Republican John McCain.

Still, Obama’s victory didn’t spare him a continuation of the smear tactics reverberating through the right-wing media echo chamber from talk radio to Fox News to corporate-funded Tea Party activists who brandished weapons at rallies and vowed to disrupt Obama’s efforts at governing.

Whereas the Democrats rallied behind Republican presidents at a time of national crisis – as occurred with George W. Bush after 9/11 – Republicans refused to do the same for Obama even in the face of the worst U.S. economic crisis since the Great Depression. The bad economy was simply an opportunity to regain power.

Congressional Republicans also detected a vulnerability in Obama’s vow to change the poisonous climate of Washington. GOP leaders understood that if they simply voted en bloc against pretty much whatever Obama proposed, the noxious gridlock would continue and the media would frame it as a “failure” by Obama to live up to a campaign pledge.

But the economy would remain Obama’s biggest threat. Though it went into freefall on George W. Bush’s watch with the Wall Street meltdown in September 2008, Republicans knew that if they could water down or sink Obama’s plans for putting Americans back to work, high unemployment would erode his support and likely mean a quick Republican resurgence.

Their strategy of angry and consistent disruption worked wonders. In Election 2010, the Republicans regained the House and narrowed the Democratic majority in the Senate. Excited Republicans looked to a continuation of obstructionism as the key to regaining the White House in 2012.

After Election 2010, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky brazenly explained the strategy: the GOP would make it “our top political priority over the next two years … to deny President Obama a second term in office.”

Over the past year, McConnell’s declaration became a battle cry for the Republicans as they engaged in brinksmanship that repeatedly shook the fragile economy. When economic indicators began to perk up last spring, the Republicans forced a showdown over the debt ceiling that slowed down the recovery even more and led to a downgrading of U.S. government securities.

As stubborn joblessness remained a severe crisis, the Republicans marched in lockstep this fall against any Obama plan for putting Americans back to work.

Democrats began to recognize the obvious: the Republicans understood that a lousy economy was their best route back to full power in Washington, although Senate Majority Leader Reid tried to put most of the blame on Tea Party extremists. “That faction of the Republican Party is holding our economy hostage,” Reid declared.

But this hostage-taking is nothing new. It has been a successful Republican tactic dating back to 1968 when Nixon took the Vietnam War and half a million U.S. soldiers hostage, through 1980 when Reagan took the Iran hostage crisis hostage, through George W. Bush taking the electoral process hostage in 2000, through today as the 14 million unemployed Americans and the millions more who are barely holding on have become the latest hostages.

Yet, Democrats still do not seem to have learned the dangers of tolerating this kind of behavior. Trying to hide the historical truth “for the good of the country” has not truly been good for the country, any more than a battered wife really helps her family by covering up the acts of an abusive husband.

Indeed, making excuses and looking the other way only encourages more of the dangerous behavior. Some Americans even gravitate to the tough-guy bully when the alternative is a weak-kneed appeaser.

Though it appears that President Obama and progressive activists may have finally begun to stand up and speak out against what the Republicans and their policies have wrought, there remains much more to be done, both in explaining what’s at stakes now and understanding what has happened over the past 43 years.

[For more on related topics, see Robert Parry’s Lost History, Secrecy & Privilege and Neck Deep, now available in a three-book set for the discount price of only $29. For details, click here.]

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’ are also available there.

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Tags: Al Gore, Barack Obama, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Harry Reid, Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson, Mitch McConnell, Richard Nixon, Robert Parry, Ronald Reagan
11 Responses to The GOP’s History of ‘Hostage-Taking’
W.W. Berster on November 6, 2011 at 10:57 pm
“.. stand up and speak out..” Really? You are either deluded or profoundly cynical. The Democratic party is nothing but Republican Lite. Obama is no more a Democrat than Tony Blair was a Labourite. His filthy record of working for banksters and gangsters speaks for itself. In both cases, both men were spooks inserted into opposition parties by the corrupted intelligence agencies of both states in order first to spy then to destroy from within by leading both parties into the insane hell of Thatcherite/Reaganite neoliberal pseudo-economics.

So, dream on if you will.. but don’t suppose we all are fooled.. because we are not.

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Freedom on November 7, 2011 at 2:08 am
The military is a government-run institution, so why do Republicans approve the defense budget? BECAUSE THEY’RE HYPOCRITES.

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Sam T Winklebrough on November 7, 2011 at 7:18 am
Why am I not surprised there is no mention of Clinton and things like the repeal of Glass-Steagall.

What a bunch of regurgitated partisan drivel.

The author obviously believes more in Divide than Unite, much like the liar in chief. But the Liar claims he’s gonna have a billion dollar$ on his side, no doubt we will be told that will mostly come from everyday people.

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bobzz on November 7, 2011 at 4:25 pm
Parry’s piece was not about Clinton and Glass-Steagall. An author gets to set the limits on his/her subject; the reader cannot tell him/her to write about what we want to hear. To address your interest, I agree with you. Clinton allowed himself to be persuaded by his advisors, Rubin and Greenspan. Clinton bailed out banks and S & L’s quite a few times (See Kevin Philips’ Bad Money). That said, it is irrelevant to the piece Parry wrote.

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Diane Benjamin on November 7, 2011 at 10:59 am
Sounds to me like the TEA Party scares you to death. You should be scared! 2012 is coming.

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Gregory L Kruse on November 7, 2011 at 12:24 pm
I’m a little put off by the heterosexual marriage analogy. Maybe a gay marriage where the one spouse is a soldier, and the other a peace activist would work better, since it is difficult for me to imagine myself as a woman, at least more difficult than imagining myself as gay. This difference in political mentality has been validated for some years now, and the solution is as Parry suggests, whichever of the two is being abused must stand up for themselves and return tit for tat, or tat for tit, as the case may be. It is the easist thing in the world for intelligent people to believe that anyone can see reason if carefully taught. It’s not true. I have always been prepared to spank my children if they should run into the street against my express orders and superior judgement. When “freedom” only means having enough money to do anything you want to do or have whatever you want, then somebody needs a good spanking.

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Jeff Golin on November 7, 2011 at 1:08 pm
The trolls blogging above have missed the entire point of the article, probably having been raised in the Reagan eras. They are mixing up cause and effect, claiming there is little or no difference between the parties.

The article documents how the Democrats for all practical purposes were bullied, for all practical purposes, to some, into a complicit party whose actions became indistinguishable from the Republicans, in the last 50 years. Conflating the two is a great mistake. Our principles remain intact, however, and returning to our core mission by standing up to these bullies is paramount now, with the middle classes marching in the streets.

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Jeff Golin on November 7, 2011 at 1:22 pm
…and their arguments are mute on the fact that these were all instances proven in the historical record where Republicans committed brazen acts of open treason, by consorting with foreign powers to subvert the government and peace processes, and spread civil repression, and can cite no comparable instances of Democratic behavior of that sort. There is no symmetry as asserted.

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Bill on November 7, 2011 at 1:54 pm
With more jail cells per capita, it’s a pity they’re not filled with these republican traitors. Instead America builds monuments and names airports after these traitors.

The democrats continue behave like enablers. This must stop. Lessons must be learned. And integrated into actions. Here is what should have been done back then in looking at just one of these Crimes Against Democracy:

The 2000 Supreme Courtesan’s “decision” should have been set aside, and the president should have ordered a state wide recount in Florida while insisting that “All votes must be counted correctly as cast or we simply do not have democracy. The government, including the Supreme Court, derives its legitimacy and power only from the people, who exercise their power via elections. Furthermore, the Constitution does not grant the Supreme Court powers to interfere or stop the vote counting process.”

…The lesson must be extended further – much further, so as to keep the vote counting process out of the hands of politicians of any branch of government. We’ve struggled and stumbled through 2+ centuries of a shabby, slip-shod voting processes that have allowed political interference to control the outcomes. This must end. And this will only and ultimately be achieved by a fully voter-verifiable vote tabulation process where each and every voter has proof that their vote was counted correctly in the final tabulation. Such a process is entirely technically feasible: Thousands of American businesses do something similar everyday in reconciling their books to the penny, and this is done day after week after month of every year. We certainly can do this one day every four years to make sure that the people’s choice for president is the one who moves into the White House.

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exomike on November 7, 2011 at 1:59 pm
Hmmmm. Well Bob, you must be doing something right. Analysis indicates you have been assigned your own professional trolls.

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TNflash on November 7, 2011 at 3:51 pm
I believe the historical records of the article are correct. The question remains “Are the silent majority going to stand up and demand justice and fairness or or they going to continue being sheep herded by crooks telling lines innuendos, and gossip?” It looks like the sheep are about to wake up as evidenced by the demonstrations of the 99%.

Seduce and Abandon - Obama on the Couch - Why Obama needs Boehner for Therapy

2011-11-07T17:21:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama might actually learn how to fight back against Republicans if he faced the repressed anger he feels toward his parents for abandoning him, according to a controversial new book by nationally known psychiatrist Dr. Justin Frank.

In his latest book, "Obama on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President," Frank, a clinical professor of psychiatry at George Washington University Medical Center, offers his armchair analysis in attempting to answer one of the most common questions about Obama's transformation over the past three years: What happened to that idealistic, inspiring guy from 2008 who ended up compromising so much as president?

The answer is that he became deeply anxious when he assumed the responsibilities of the presidency, Frank told The Huffington Post in an interview, and instead of facing it, he retreated to the most familiar place of his psyche, which is a place desperately rooted in the need to accommodate others.

Frank, who previously authored The New York Times bestseller "Bush On the Couch," spent nearly two years studying Obama's memoirs, speeches and general public demeanor as part of his effort to give insight into who the president really is, something he said many people want to know. He acknowledged he has been accused by some of being unethical for analyzing a sitting public official, but he made the case that people analyze public figures all the time and that his analysis is sound.

"I'm not doing some crackpot thing of filling out a questionnaire and saying he's not stable," he said. "It's in-depth."

Unlike what he concluded in his previous book -- that former President George W. Bush is a "disturbed" megalomaniac -- Frank says he found Obama to be highly functioning and mentally sound.

But he also says Obama struggles with what he calls "obsessive bipartisan disorder": a deep-seated need to unify the people around him, which stems from a childhood marred by broken families, men who were not fathers and his need to make sense of being biracial while being raised by white grandparents. The effect of those experiences plays out right before our eyes, Frank said, in the way Obama has tried to avoid conflict with Republicans while coming down hard on his own party.

At the heart of who Obama is today is a boy still dealing with unresolved rage toward his mother, who he simultaneously depended on and felt abandoned by as she frequently left him with his grandparents while she traveled, Frank says. On top of that, he continues, Obama was increasingly angry with himself for relying on his mother while also being incredibly critical of her.

"What do you do with rage at your primary caregiver?" Frank asked. "Being angry at the person you not only love but the person you need to depend on is very hard."

Frank maintains that dynamic has played itself out time and time again during Obama's presidency, when he has directed anger at people who are not a threat. For example, he said, take the comments Obama made last month at an event hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus, arguably the president's most loyal base. Obama told the group to "quit complaining" and "take off your bedroom slippers" and instead get behind him in his push for congressional action on jobs.

His words angered CBC members, namely Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who called Obama's language "a bit curious" and said he never spoke to other groups in such a blunt manner.

"He was essentially doing what his mother did to the little Barry part of him," Frank said, referring to Obama's mother frequently telling him not to complain. "He is taking his anger out on anybody who's weak because it reminds him of his own weaknesses that he's disavowing, which is the weakness of a little boy who needs their mommy. So he gets angry at them for needing him and he confuses their needing him with their attacking him."

Frank points to a scene in Obama's book, "Dreams From My Father," to further illustrate this dynamic. A 9-year-old Obama discovers a disturbing picture in a magazine that shows a black man trying to change his skin color. Obama describes his skin getting hot as he feels angry over what he is seeing, and in this moment Frank said Obama starts to learn about the concept of someone hating their own skin color. But instead of acting on his initial impulse, which he said was to run to tell his mother about it, he put the magazines back in place and acted as if nothing happened when he saw her.

"Why? He wants to be calm but has been told over and over and over again to be a big boy, which is what he's telling the CBC," Frank said. "It is his rage at the needy part of himself, which he then attacks, like the CBC."

Frank said the other source of Obama's subconscious rage is related to his father, who Obama only met for one month when he was 10 years old. Frank said Obama plays out the anger he feels toward his father in the way he approaches conflict with Republicans: by accommodating the people who he sees as the most dangerous.

"The abandoner is John Boehner," Frank said of the GOP House Speaker. "Republicans are these people who are saying, 'We're Americans too but to hell with you. We're not going to work with you.' So that's all about his father."

Ironically, Frank said he believes Obama can overcome his demons by continuing to try to work with Republicans who won't work with him.

"John Boehner is Obama's ideal therapist," Frank said. "Republicans can knock some sense into him by making it clear they're not really interested in working with him. They've been saying it for years but he refuses to accept it. That has to do with his inner wish to heal."

Frank said Obama has even shown signs that he is already starting to deal with his old anger. During a recent trip to Texas, he called out House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) by name and demanded that the GOP leader explain to the public why he refuses to bring Obama's jobs package to a House vote.

"Naming the negative forces instead of a speaking in general terms is a way to begin to define who is against you," Frank added. "I do think he's capable of learning from his experiences. I never thought Bush was."

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Quotes - Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them

2011-11-05T16:13:00.001-07:00

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Quotes

The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.

The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin quotes:
I don’t care what becomes of Russia. To hell with it. All this is only the road to a World Revolution.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin quotes:
The aim of socialism is not only to abolish the present division of mankind into small states and all-national isolation, not only to bring the nations closer to each other, but also to merge them.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin quotes:
The surest way to destroy a nation is to debauch its currency.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin quotes:
No amount of political freedom will satisfy the hungry masses.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin quotes:
Destroy the family, you destroy the country.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin quotes:
...the concentration of capital and the growth of their turnover is radically challenging the significance of the banks. Scattered capitalists are transformed into a single collective capitalist. When carrying the current accounts of a few capitalists, the banks, as it were, transact a purely technical and exclusively auxiliary operation. When, however, these operations grow to enormous dimensions we find that a handful of monopolists control all the operations, both commercial and industrial, of capitalist society. They can, by means of their banking connections.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin quotes (Questionable):
A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin quotes:
Only an armed people can be the real bulwark of popular liberty.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin quotes:
All our lives we fought against exalting the individual, against the elevation of the single person, and long ago we were over and done with the business of a hero, and here it comes up again: the glorification of one personality. This is not good at all.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin quotes:
Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin quotes:
It would be the greatest mistake, certainly, to think that concessions mean peace. Nothing of the kind. Concessions are nothing but a new form of war.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin quotes:
While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin quotes:
One of the basic conditions for the victory of socialism is the arming of the workers (Communist) and the disarming of the bourgeoisie (the middle class).
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin quotes:
...first ascertain exactly the position of the various capitalists, then control them, influence them by restricting or enlarging, facilitating or hindering their credits, and finally they can entirely determine their fate.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin quotes:
Ideological talk and phrase mongering about political liberties should be disposed with; all that is just mere chatter and phrase mongering. We should get away from those phrases.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin quotes:
We do not have time to play at “oppositions” at “conferences.” We will keep our political opponents... whether open or disguised as “nonparty,” in prison.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin quotes:
The bourgeoisie is many times stronger than we. To give it the weapon of freedom of the press is to ease the enemy’s cause, to help the class enemy. We do not desire to end in suicide, so we will not do this.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin quotes:
Behind the October Revolution there are more influential personalities than the thinkers and executors of Marxism.

Steve Jobs and Foxconn Chinese Slave Labor Camps: "Arbeit Macht Frei"

2011-11-05T08:37:00.001-07:00

it is an interesting question - is the world as a whole better off to outsource labor to China? Is it better for the Chinese people? Or does it just prop up a failed Communist regime? Does it lead to slave labor camps run by Foxconn where the slogan might as well be the Nazi slave labor camp slogan 'Arbeit Macht Frei"?

A case could be made either way, I think. No doubt being a Foxconn slave is better than starving out in the countryside eating bugs. But where is the competition to Foxconn to serve to correct the abuses, when they are protected by an authoritarian communist regime that crushes dissent with an iron fist?

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/darker-side-apple-human-cost-iproducts-164412176.html

....The Darker Side of Apple: The Human Cost of Your iProducts
..By Stacy Curtin

China's Foxconn: Workers Worked to Death

It was back in the spring of 2010 when at least 10 suicides were reported at Foxconn's manufacturing plant in Shenzhen China. Foxconn is the world's largest electronic manufacturer making product for Hewlett-Packard, Nokia and Apple's iPad.

With nearly one million employees throughout China, the suicides raised many questions about the safety and working conditions for the people working in those plants.

As research for his show, Daisey visited Foxconn—a place many journalists and Americans have never visited—and what he found surprised him beyond belief.

"What I was really shocked by was institutionalized dehumanization," he says. "The systems that are put in place are working and the objective of them working is to work people, basically, to death."

He's talking about "massive production lines" where people work "endlessly." Workers are never rotated and end up doing the same task hundreds of thousand of times. "I met many workers whose joints in their hands have disintegrated from doing that work…. [Hands] literally swollen, literally deformed [and] permanently warped," he explains.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Most Americans don't give a second thought to how our toys and gadgets are made or how they make it onto store shelves. Daisey hopes his story will open a few eyes.

But without a question, he believes Steve Jobs, knew what the conditions where on the ground at Foxconn. And the same goes today for Apple's new CEO Tim Cook. "Apple is a company that believes in micromanagement. They pay attention to details," says Daisey. "There is not question in my mind that they know what conditions are like on the ground."

As said above, Apple is not the only company to do business with Foxconn. Over the last two decades Western companies have shipped hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs overseas to not only China's Foxconn, but other manufactures in third world countries, in a hunt for cheap labor. Unfortunately in doing so, Corporate America chose to ignore its Western values and high labor standards, says Daisey.

What You Can Do
If you are at all moved by these details discussed in this interview, Daisey has a couple tips on how you can try to make a difference.

#1 — Stop upgrading your technology all the time. By doing so you'd prevent pumping money back into the electronic industry so often, which signals demand to tech companies that then rush to satisfy that demand and produce new products. On top of that, it will save you money, save the environment and lessen the human costs to make these techonologies.

#2 — Email Apple CEO Tim Cook and tell him how you feel. His email address is tcook@apple.com. But Daisey asks that you please don't abuse this email address.

Dear Apple: The Daily Ticker would like to extend an open invitation to CEO Tim Cook to appear on the show and respond to the allegations laid out in this segment.

673 commentsPopular NowNewestOldestMost Replied

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Stephen 20 hours ago

Steve Jobs simply took corporate greed to the next level. Outsource everything to China. Offshore profits to avoid taxation. Suck billions out of the US economy and give back nothing. He even screws the developers who create apps for his platform; charging 30% gross of every app sold. For this he... More 21 Replies .

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nonamespecified 20 hours ago

Without regulation, capitalism naturally evolves into a system of exploitation and slave labor, as slave labor is the most competitive form of labor when it comes to menial labor like assembly lines. How ironic that a country founded on the communist ideal of labor rights is now the world's #1 source of slave labor for the capitalist west. Soon, however even we in the west will be reduced to slave labor standards if we are to 'compete' with the global Wal-martization and communist China. Support Chinese Communism! Shop at Walmart! 16 Replies .

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familyman05 18 hours ago

Had Jobs kept Apple Manufacturing in the U.S. he would have died with a Droid, or a Blackberry.
Why is US Labor better? If we kept everything here our standard of living would be less than half what it currently is and there would be millions of jobless folks starving in third world countries.
It's not perfect, but outsourcing is the best method around to drive parity in the world's population ... the jobs inherently end up in the locations where labor is cheapest, making them net exporters and driving up the standard of living. ...the downside of outsourcing is that there is so much cheap labor outside the U.S. that the U.S. is forgetting how to make things and we have driven our standard of living to unsustainable levels on the backs of cheap labor.
Ultimately it will all correct itself, but it may be very painful, and it may take several generations..

db00001 18 hours ago

Finally!! Someone gets it.. 1users liked this comment

MsBW 18 hours ago

Bravo, Familyman05, bravo. Well said.. 1users liked this comment

blackbottom 17 hours ago

Guys you gotta remember one basic capitalist fundamental, make the most money for your shareholders. Corporations are not in business to provide JOBS! JOBs are only a byproduct of the system. Jobs are going to the cheapest place that can manufacture the product. If they could build all rebots to do the work, they would and will. Eventually, the Chinese workforce will rebel to these working conditions and low wages and we will have to find another 3rd world country as our cheap labor workforce.. 2users liked this comment

Dora 15 hours ago

All I know is had I been an individual blessed with the brains and talent such as Steve Jobs I would have thought of my country fellow men and provided occupations right here in the good ole US of A!
People forget they can't take it with them. Greed and who is the best the top of the hill!
Dead is Dead!..

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Barney77 20 hours ago

Gee, I would have thought Job's comittment to Budhism and his quest for the perfect zen and whirled peas would have superceded his pursuits of materialistic profits in the Western World! 9 Replies .

db00001 17 hours ago

This is such a stupid conversation. These people are NOT being forced to work in an Apple factory (and if they are, then we actually have a problem). They can leave any time the work gets too tough or the conditions become unbearable. There are NO slaves in the Apple factory. If six dollars a day... More 8 Replies .

SteliosT 20 hours ago

I'm sure the Chinese will be so much better off starving to death. It's not like anyone has a gun to their head. They work for Apple because they find it the best alternative. And western manufacturers go to China because their customers demand the cheapest product. Do you want to pay $595 for your... More 6 Replies .

Joe 20 hours ago

This article is perfect. It was a disgrace how the media made Jobs into a god. He was a dead beat dad who got credit for others inventions and ran sweat shops. These free trade deals just help China and multinationals by using sweatshops and importing without tariffs. I don't buy a new phone until... More 6 Replies .

cannonka 20 hours ago

You people bashing Jobs- what have YOU done to contribute to the world? He wasnt perfect, but he WAS a true visionary. He created very important things from nothing. And Apple has created many jobs over the years, and if you have a retirement plan, chances are your money is invested in Apple. So if... More 6 Replies

As Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy and he is us". Business outsources to CHina and other countries because labor costs are lower. They do not do this because they are un-American, they do this because Americans demand lower prices. Check your mirror. 6 Replies .

NoToLobbying! 18 hours ago

Proud not to own any Apple products! I pay extra $$ to buy anything I can find that is made in USA. 6 Replies .

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Tommy 19 hours ago

To the Peoples party in China, human life means little. Multinationals exploit the slave labor. Many American companies, include Apple, encourage the arbitrage labor. The globalist elite are forcing Americans to become more Foxconn-like. Multi-nationals own Washington DC. 6 Replies .

Guess all you occupy folks need to turn in your ipads and iphones...... well???? 5 Replies ..

Niall Ferguson - America is the Empire of Attention Deficit Disorder

2011-11-04T17:43:00.000-07:00

189 of 196 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars America's Global Role Explained, October 8, 2005
By Kirk H Sowell (Washington D.C.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire (Paperback)

Ferguson's thesis is basically as follows: the world is a very dangerous place because it contains menacing terrorist and criminal organizations along with numerous states which are either (a) unstable or failed states and thus breeding grounds for the aforementioned (e.g. Afghanistan), or (b) all-too-stable states which give support to the same. Given that (1) the UN's membership is made up of tyrants (e.g. Zimbabwe), dysfunctional governments (e.g. Congo) and states which are simply irresponsible (e.g. Russia), and that (2) Europe is too weak both militarily and morally to keep order, the United States has to do it. Yet the U.S. itself may be unable to fill this role due to its financial imbalances and the unwillingness of individual Americans to serve abroad or even pay attention to what is happening.

Overall evaluation: The fact that I give this book a "five star" rating should not imply that agree with it entirely. Ferguson sets forth several main theses, with which I agree entirely, and along the way makes numerous judgments on ancillary issues, several with which I disagree. I am a specialist in Middle East affairs, and I think Ferguson's understanding of the region is basically sound and much better than most who write about these things. I disagree with a few factual evaluations, but I only noticed one blatant factual error: the Abu Nidal Organization (formed in 1973) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (formed in 1967) did not arise in the 1980s with Hizbullah and Hamas, and furthermore they were (the ANO doesn't exist now) and are not Islamist or identified with Islam in any significant way (as misstated on pages 123-124).

This book is valuable and worth reading for two reasons. First, Ferguson lays out why it is that some global hegemon is necessary and beneficial to the world, and why the U.S. can and should fill that role. He notes that regions of the world where U.S. military hegemony is lacking tend to be violent, poor and unstable. Not merely Europe but the other more developed regions of the world have benefited from this military umbrella. He also discusses how the British empire, despite the brutality and exploitation which often came with it, also held many economic and security benefits for nations under British rule. Ferguson's argument is not that the U.S. should try to copy what the British did, but that they should learn from their predecessors in hegemony, keep the good, get rid of the bad, and do better for themselves and the world today.

Second, Ferguson argues that despite the ability of the United States to be a force for good in the world, its foreign policy, or "empire," as he puts it, has serious weaknesses due to its three "deficits" - its financial deficit, its manpower deficit, and its attention deficit. The financial deficit comes not from military spending, but from the estimated $45 trillion in unfunded liabilities from Medicare/Medicaid and, to a lesser extent, Social Security. The manpower deficit comes not from a lack of population, but from an unwillingness of Americans to serve abroad, either in the military or in civilian positions. The attention deficit comes from the paucity of interest most Americans have in the details of what goes on in the world. These are the deficits which could cripple U.S. foreign policy in the future.

My primary question about Ferguson's approach is more semantic than substantive. Although empires of the past have often done good as well as bad, the term has been so demagogued that it is difficult to have a rational discussion once you use the word "empire." Moreover, because the U.S. has no settlers, only expats and professionals who do relatively short overseas tours and then come home, America today is really quite different from Britain in its imperial heyday. I would use the word "hegemon" because, while still offensive to some of the illiterati, it is fully accurate, and it describes the kind of role that the United States needs to play to fulfill the role set out for it by this Scottish historian.

Comments (9)

The PreSocratic View of God as a Child at Play is More Sophisticated than the Judeo Christian?

2011-11-03T03:56:00.000-07:00

it seems to me that the preSocratic view of Heraclitus et al that God is a child playing dice with the Universe, has a lot of explanatory power and could be a nearer approximation to the truth than the omnipotent old man theory of the Judeo Christians.

For example, it explains the problem of evil quite nicely, just as a child makes a mess without intending it, so the evil that is present is not an intentional part of the play of God, and that we take so much offense and judge this evil so harshly is evidently why God chooses to distance itself from us so as not to further perceive our offense at its play, i.e. it would rather play in secret if we are not willing to enjoy its play along with all the side effects of its play, like evil.

Heraclitus 52: "Time is a child playing a game of draughts; the kingship is in the hands of a child."

Are the Rich Good for Anything Besides Collecting Art?

2011-11-03T03:39:00.000-07:00

Watching Antiques Roadshow, I start to think about the puzzle of why painted pictures that hang on a wall can be so apparently valuable, and it is only because they are desired by those who have lots of spare money, and have to compete with each other to acquire these objects since there are not a lot of them compared to how many each rich person desires to acquire.

It is a window into the world of the funny kind of competition among the rich, that tells us a lot, that they are really pretty stupid as a class in general, that they need to compete among themselves for the longest yacht, the biggest house, the house with the best view of all the other houses, the house that looks down upon all the other houses but is not itself looked down upon, and the most painted canvases to hang upon the many walls of their many houses in order to give them something to talk about with whatever guest is visiting to facilitate their acquiring more wealth.

I guess it boils down to wanting to appear to have other interests besides money, and one is willing to spend outrageous amounts so that one can appear so more than one's peers who are also competing to acquire these conversation pieces.

And so we quickly get to millions of dollars in order to acquire a painted canvas that no one else has and that has a convenient story attached which we can recite to any guest in order to have something ready-made to say, that will guarantee their admiration of our interests in something other than money, that just coincidentally also proves just exactly how much of it we have.

Funniest Expose of Glenn Beck's Radio DJ Schtick Playbook

2011-11-03T03:21:00.000-07:00

some funny cartoons of Glenn Beck as the Nutty Professor, he really fits the bill:

http://www.urantiansojourn.com/2011/04/the-nutty-professor-the-rise-fall-of-glenn-beck/

its pretty funny how far Glenn Beck got peddling the top 40 radio DJ schtick that he perfected over many years of yanking around the top 40 audience to one promo event after another with over the top hyperbole, if it works on the teens and twentysomethings to get them to actually pay attention to what you're selling, then it surely will work on the geriatric fox news fascists, and yep it sure did, for a while, until the schtick became just a little too transparent, and the host started to scratch a little too hard at the parasitic infection of Glenn Beck, so the master of the parasites, Rupert Murdoch, decided it was time for his parasites to tone it down a little to let the host recover.

We now have proof that wealth inequality creates Great Depressions

2011-11-03T03:10:00.000-07:00

It's pretty amazing when you think about it, America has repeated the prerequisites of a Great Depression at least 3 times, and it worked to create a Great Depression each time, and we still are puzzled on why Great Depressions happen. Or, at least, the people who really know are not allowed a voice in the media to explain it to us.

Anyway, so now we know from 3 Great Depressions since 1870 all started by Republicans exactly how to create a Great Depression:

First you reduce taxation on the wealthy so their wealth goes into speculation i.e. Wall Street rather than productive activity, this creates wage stagnation and increasing indebtedness among the proles since the wealth is redirected from employment to speculation, whereas with high tax rates there is more incentive to direct the wealth to job creation than speculation, then just wait 30 years and Viola! Another Republican Great Depression!!! Who could possibly have seen it coming? (in 1870 1929 2008)

Bill Moyers Patron Saint of the Occupy Wall Street 99%

2011-11-03T02:54:00.000-07:00

http://a1b5jj.blogspot.com/2010/05/bill-moyers-signs-off-with-powerful.html

interesting to read the above sign-off of Bill Moyers from a year or two ago, his focus on the growing inequality created by the Reagan Bush tax cuts really sounds prescient now that we are back to the 1929 levels of economic royalists and plutocracy.

Steve Jobs Memorial Bumper Sticker - Oh Wow Oh Wow Oh Wow

2011-11-03T02:39:00.000-07:00

Are the Rich Good for Anything at All?

2011-10-30T19:28:00.000-07:00

'job creators', yeah right. why 'create jobs' when there is no consumer demand from the 99% and besides you're too stupid and lazy and rich to bother thinking about creating jobs for the 99% of peons when wall street ponzi hedge funds will pay you 15% to park your wealth and even bump your rate if you get too nervous and threaten to pull out and topple the ponzi scheme. How much would you get from 'creating jobs'? Definitely not as much as the ponzi hedge funds. QED. Madoff was just the first. Somebody better short Bridgewater quick before it all deflatuates.

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General Ironknee 2 days ago

Want to know how this plays out? Go ask older South and Central Americans. They know how life is when a small elite own and control everything. I don't think you're going to like what they tell you.
How do you turn America into a Banana Republic?

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nonamespecified 2 days ago

exactamundo. You can either have democracy or great economic disparity, not both. The natural tendency of wealth to accumulate and corrupt politics and society must be moderated with high marginal tax rates. That is the essence of the New Deal, long ago repealed by Reagan, and gee, look at that, we are back to 1929, why how in the world did that happen? Surely no one could have foreseen that if you repealed the Depression era regulations that another Great Depression would occur 30 years later?..

News Flash!!! Washington DC is more Gay than San Francisco

2011-10-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

the Closeted Conservative is alive and well in Washington DC apparently, keeping alive the grand old tradition of Roy Cohn and J Edgar Hoover.

The documentary DVD 'Outrage' makes the interesting point that Washington DC is probably more gay than San Francisco, especially so if you count all the closeted conservatives like Mitch McConnell, Larry Craig, Eric Cantor, Lyndsey Graham, Karl Rove and on and on and on.

What is it about politics and closeted conservatives? It must have a primal attraction just like Broadway for the uncloseted, it's just another form of theater where you get to be as vicious and backstabbing as you want while raking in the lobbyist cash and partying all night after screwing the opposition during the day. And the closeted Rush Limbaugh has given them all a free ride to get in office with his poisonous brainwashing of the low-information electorate.

http://www.amazon.com/Outrage-Jim-McGreevey/dp/B0027BOL4Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1319240788&sr=1-1

Conservative Steve Jobs Lectures Obama about being Business Friendly

2011-10-21T10:44:00.000-07:00

yeah, why cant we assemble Ipods for 90 cents an hour?

pretty funny for Jobs to lecture Obama about bad teachers, the best teacher Jobs had actually paid him out of her own pocket to do homework.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/steve-jobs-biography-jobs-warned-obama-hed-term/story?id=14786074

Isaacson writes that Jobs was irritated when his wife, Laurene Powell, helped arrange the meeting with Obama at a hotel at the San Francisco airport. The president, she said, was "really psyched to meet you." Then he should personally ask, replied an angry Jobs. The standoff lasted five days before the meeting was set.

When Jobs finally relented, he did not hold back. He told Obama that the United States needed to become more business-friendly if it did not want to lose its edge. He talked about how much easier it was to build a factory in China than in the U.S., where there were too many regulations and needless costs. And he complained about the U.S. education system, saying unions protected bad teachers and kept principals from hiring good ones.

Do the Wealthy 1% Really Pay Their Fair Share of Taxes?

2011-10-20T06:19:00.000-07:00

It would be nice if the occcupy wall street brouhaha at least got some dialog going about what really is a fair tax code for the extreme wealthy and the middle class, but it seems to be going the way of the wasted health care 'debate', absolutely no real information, just propaganda and spin 24/7.

Fox News - the more you watch the less you know.

Anyway, methinks the OWS protesters should really be protesting the 0.1% not the 1%.

so the top 10% or whatever pay 70% of the taxes, BFD. guess what? they OWN 90% of the wealth!!! Is a 20% discount fair? and just think about it, how could it be fair? We all know the congress is run by and for the rich, so why wouldnt they have long ago lobbied the tax code in their favor? it takes a lot of gullibility to believe that an institution run by and for the rich is going to make a tax code that is unfair to the very ones writing it.

But the fascist Murdoch's Fox News 24/7 propaganda machine has convinced the joe-the-plumbers otherwise.

-----------------------------------

Take, for example, this guy, is he really one of the 1%?

BusOwnerJim:

Get a clue 99%! Ok I'm in the 1%, have business which has 12 employee's, they pay into the tax system, I add to the GDP of our nation, I pay over $140,000 in fedreal taxes a year myself, I owe hundreds of thousands to keep my business alive, have a reasonable home maybe worth $400,000 but owe three hundred on mortgage. Owe more overall than I have so no I'm not rich. I have sleepless nights worry about keeping twelve people employed and myself. You want more and I say no! I pay more as a percent, I pay more overall, I create, I donate, I make a living. What have you done? Should have a absolute free ride if things feel apart? You or I? Fifteen years I had nothing and I've worked most likley hader than you and should not have your hand in my face asking for more. Bottom line is is I pay $1.00 more than you I pay more than my fair share and I'm sure most if not all the 1% most likely pays more than a fair share.

7 Replies 5users liked this comment

Allen

If you are that worried you can't be part of the 1 percent.. 0users liked this comment

john oakley

top 1% earn 50 mill+ a year, would wouldnt be in any debt if you were the 1%. 7users liked this comment

Santiago

I am not the 1%, but likely the 10%. I don't pay a lobbyist. I employ 9 people. I would like to add a 10th and maybe an 11th, but I will wait until the economy finds footing. For now, I will just work 55 hours a week, and I will take home more profits because of that. I give 10% of my pre-tax profit to my church and 5% to other organizations. I pay an average tax rate of 31% (Fed + State) on my profits. So that means I am taking home about 55% of my profit.

Tell me this, you 99%ers (read 12%ers). Am I paying my fair share?.

Bull_Moose

BusOwnerJim - You are part of the 99%! What you are describing is what we are all experiencing. They system is NOT set up for small business owners to thrive. We need change so your business can flourish, and you can pay your employees a wage that can sustain them.. 1users liked this comment

john hunter

What has this got to do with goldman sachs stealing 13 billion through derivative fraud in 2008 (illegal naked short cds bet against subprime mortgages with aig ie aig bankruptcy)? Are you happy working hard for money that they are destroying?

End the illegal private federal reserve (JFK executive order 11110 or Ron Paul). End fractional reserve banking in private hands (30 to 1 in 2008). End derivatives (gambling with your money ie property and labour)...

Top 3 Buddhism Books on Amazon - Hesse and Nietzsche?

2011-10-16T00:53:00.000-07:00

Orwellian Update Needed for Norman Rockwell's FDR Four Freedoms Paintings

2011-10-15T11:11:00.001-07:00

It is maybe time to revise the paintings symbolic of America done by Norman Rockwell to illustrate FDR's 'Four Freedoms' speech

Freedom of Speech - could show Rupert Murdoch Roger Ailes and Rush Limbaugh - perhaps a view into Limbaugh's broadcasting cubbyhole strewn with piles of old newspapers and pill bottles as he yells red faced into the gold plated microphone about the FDR liberals ruining the country

Freedom from Want - that would be too easy, 45 million on food stamps, 40000 dying every year from lack of health care, poverty rate over 12%, wages declining, real unemployment 20%

Freedom of Religion - ground zero mosque farce, right wing christian theocratic fascism imposing biblical law

Freedom from Fear - George W Bush's trillion dollar homeland security surveillance state empire protecting us from muslims with boxcutters with color coded perpetual fear campaigns

The speech delivered by President Roosevelt incorporated the following
In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.—Franklin D. Roosevelt, excerpted from the State of the Union Address to the Congress, January 6, 1941

Theme for the Obama Presidency

2011-10-15T10:55:00.000-07:00

theme or epitaph?

it's about as symbolic of Obama's half hearted or stymied attempts at reform as George W Bush's final words summing up his own term in office: "THIS SUCKER COULD GO DOWN!" Sept 18 2008 (without 750 BILLION in three days or less, based on a three page bill)

"In order to make it happen, I'm going to need ordinary Americans to stand up and say now's the time! If Congress thinks that the American people don't want to see change, frankly the lobbyists and the special interests will end up winning the day."

Barack Obama at a town hall meeting at Northern Virginia Community College in the Washington suburb of Annandale, Va.
- Los Angeles Times Jul 02 2009

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-health2-2009jul02,0,4970571.story

Fall of Rome - What Wall Street and the Health Insurance Industry Have in Common

2011-10-15T10:32:00.001-07:00

It strikes me that Wall Street has something in common with the Health Insurance industry - they are both two very large sectors of the economy that are much more profitable than other sectors yet both of them have in essence a business model built on deceptive business practices - i.e. they rely on their customers not really knowing what they are doing, which if they did know, they would realize that neither wall street nor the health insurance industry provide any real services that contribute to society, they are almost purely parasitical, so have a huge incentive to invest in media PR and propaganda to ensure that their customers remain in the dark.

The ordinary person who does not pay close attention might think Wall Street still finances productive enterprise, and that the Health Insurance industry provides health care. When in fact Wall Street now finances the destructive activities of manufacturing toxic debt instruments, and the Health Insurance industry makes profits off of denying health care and obstructing the medical profession.

What a country!

Surely this must be one of the clearest signs of the Fall of Rome Syndrome, when two of the largest economic sectors have a completely failed and deceptive business model which is allowed to continue since the lawmakers are for sale, and the public is easily deceived by Rupert Murdoch's twisted media empire and the public
would really rather not know what is going on.

Gold and Mattresses - Are All AM Talk Radio Advertisers Scams??

2011-10-15T02:39:00.000-07:00

There is one thing that liberal and conservative AM talk radio have in common - 90% or more of their advertisers are scams or ripoffs. Gold and Mattresses being at the top of the list. Selling gold and $3000 sleep number mattresses to the blue collar trucker working class is laughable and shameful. Too bad the few good AM talk radio hosts like Thom Hartman and Randi Rhodes cant survive without hawking these scams. Limbaugh, I can understand, as he has no shame about lying and deceiving his audience every second he is on the air.

joeanderssen's Full Review:

Sleep Number Bed - Its A Scam
Written: Oct 04 '09
Pros: None
Cons: It's a scam

The Bottom Line: its a scam. go to Bed Bath & Beyond, buy an AirBed and foam cover for $200 and you have the same effect.

Yes - its a scam and here is why:The Innovation lie: The advertising for this system suggests some kind of innovation in sleep systems. It suggest that the traditional inner spring system has been replaced with a sophisticated system that used air to adjust to your body. That is a lie: The sleep number bed is a simple plastic blow up mattress identical in concept to any blow up mattress like the AirBed sold at $100-$200. The sleep Number Lie: At the heart lies the electric pump that inflates or deflates the air in your single chamber blow up mattress to your desired firmness. That is identical to the function of a cheap blow up mattress except that this system is supposed to remember your setting and associate a number with it. The problem though is that the number (firmness) you choose will change throughout the night by itself up to 3 settings down or up - depending on your body heat, the room temperature and of course due to the most common complain - leaks. yes the manufacturer tells you that you sleep number will change throughout the night - so what is the point?The Comfort Lie: Comfort is a subjective issue. We all have different expectations and likes. If you like sleeping on a blow up mattress than this bed is comfortable. If you don't than this is the worst bed you can buy. Incidentally every doctor and chiropractor I have asked vehemently opposes this bed.The Price Lie: The components of a medium priced Sleep number bed ($2000) have a combined retail value of $200-350. Its a cheap blow up mattress in a fancy slip cover - you can buy this as individual components at Bed Bath & Beyond for a couple of hundred bucks and achieve the same results - that is if you like sleeping on a blow up mattress.

Recommended:
No

America RIP: More Signs of Broken Government

2011-10-13T11:59:00.000-07:00

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/u-politics-took-world-edge-armageddon-martin-wolf-131324094.html?sec=topStories&pos=9&asset=&ccode=

OldMcDonald:
77users liked this comment

To everybody out there blaming Obama, Bush or any other singular government official as the cause for America's prosperity getting flushed down the toilet. You're missing the big picture. The situation is simple: The near entirety of the US government is corrupt and run by political Bribe-takers bought and paid for by people who have amassed the most wealth overall in this country (Top 1% of the U............S Population). These politicians, now solely representing their funders and not the voters turn around and pass legislation that gives the Super Rich here every advantage possible, including free money (Quantitative Easing/Bailouts), lower taxes and zero accountability for their actions. In order to prevent revolts from the increased burden to the unrepresented in this country, the Super Rich have set up a bogus political party to siphon off and redirect the anger of the masses (The Republicans) and an ineffectual party (The Democrats) to cave to “republican pressure” while pretending to care about the masses. In addition, they have co-opted and bought out nearly all of the mainstream media in order to filter out any info that would lay the blame on the true culprit, instead leaving the majority of America divided and focusing their energies on decoy scapegoats and partisan nonsense. The super rich and those they pay for care not one bit about jobs or the welfare of the country they grew from. They merely care about having as many digits as possible for their bank statement balance. And if that means the middle/working class will eventually need to vanish, then so be it. The entire system is broken.

12 Replies 3users liked this comment
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Dark side 3 hours ago Report AbusePlease to meet you, can you guess my name beacuse deceiving you is the nature of my game?
CRIMINAL Syndicate occupies DC.. 4users liked this comment
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kees d 3 hours ago Report AbuseFlat tax and term limits are the answer. 2users liked this comment
Thumbs UpThumbs Down1users disliked this commentdarthvader 3 hours ago Report AbuseWell said man if WB wants to pay taxes who are the others that are being unpatriotic and those that oppose this ???. 8users liked this comment
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Dickie Cee 3 hours ago Report AbuseThe 1 percent basically wants to bring the US back to the late 1800, early 1900. And the brain dead masses are falling for their spin/drivel how it helps the middle class. The 1 percent complains about how much spending the Fed does. Guess what, majority of the spending goes into their pockets: corporate and farm subsidies, 'special appropriation for the wars', the defense budget, servicing the debt. Don't think their fat sticky fingers aren't in any of it! Even majority medicare/aid, perscription drug go to them. You don't think the 1 percent are not collecting from the insurance company they control? You don't think they don't collect from the HMO's and big pharma? But that's not enough! Social security they can't figure how to get their finger on it. Food stamps, unemployment benefit have to route thru too many channels before they get their share! Their net worth and real earnings have increased thousand fold, the bottom 89% have stagnated or fallen. Yeah, 'transfer of wealth' to them is CAPITALISTIC, 'transfer of wealth' to the 89% is SOCIALISTIC!!! What a beautiful spin!. 1users liked this comment
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YOUBETCHA 3 hours ago Report AbuseWell,DarthVapid, nothing is stopping YOU, or WarrenB,or anyone else from writing a check RIGHT NOW, which will only FEED,not FIX a broken system! To grab at a simple (false) panacea, and brand everyone who wants a true (not oversimplified but useless) solution as "unpatriotic", cements your status... More. 1users liked this comment
Thumbs UpThumbs Down1users disliked this commentLots of acronyms 2 hours ago Report Abuse

Well stated Dickie Cee - it's only 'socialism' if it benefits the middle class, or so right wing hacks would say.. 0users liked this comment
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DAVID 2 hours ago Report AbuseI agree totally OldMcDonald... Now how do we bring the people together to fight this corrupt system?.. It seems their plan to divide us by every means possible... party, race, religion, class has worked so well that all we can do is fight among ourselves.

I'm so sick of the,"party of NO"... More. 1users liked this comment
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94now 2 hours ago Report AbuseIt has always been like that. Super Rich allowed New Deal and Great Society because of Communist and/or Nazi pressure. While sertainly evil, those had undeliable appeal in masses and posed a danger to Super Rich. Now when Communism is defeted economically and ideologically they are moving the... More. 1users liked this comment
Thumbs UpThumbs Down4users disliked this commentDan Karnes 2 hours ago Report AbuseWhen half of the people get the idea that they do not
have to work because the other half is going to take care
of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does... More. 0users liked this comment
Thumbs UpThumbs Down0users disliked this comment

vet 47 minutes ago Report Abuseyou cant fool us anymore.. 0users liked this comment
Thumbs UpThumbs Down3users disliked this commentMatt 44 minutes ago Report Abuse

Dude, please do some research. Even if you tax the rich at 100%, it wouldn't close the ENORMOUS budget deficits created by these liberal programs. This is basic math, NOT an opinion.. 0users liked this comment
Thumbs UpThumbs Down0users disliked this commentSilver051811 28 minutes ago Report AbuseWatch "The Money Masters" and "The Secret of Oz".

The entire system is broken because the money system is broken...

Paul Krugman - Panic of the Plutocrats

2011-10-12T19:39:00.000-07:00

Karl Marx would say:

"I Told You So!!! Unregulated Capitalism will always self-destruct in an orgy of financialization"

Financialization - where finance becomes a casino disconnected from real productive activity and is devoted to parasitical predatory practices like pushing bad debt and deceptive loans on the poor and selling derived toxic 'instruments' based on those deceptive loans, sold to foreigners."

http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/opinion/panic-of-the-plutocrats.html

420.HIGHLIGHT (What's this?) L.R.Upstate New YorkOctober 10th, 20112:17 pmAnyone who got to see Jesse LaGreca on This Week taking on Christiane Amanpour's round table had to be impressed by the plain spoken man who refused to be stampeded by George Will or backed into a talking point corner when discussing what Occupy Wall Street was about. As he said:

"I think the matter at hand is that the working class people in America, you know, the 99% of Americans who aren’t wealthy, and aren’t prospering in this economy have been entirely ignored by the media. Our political leaders pander to us, but they don’t take action. They stand in the way of change. They filibuster on behalf of the wealthiest 1%; they fold on behalf of the wealthiest 1%. So, the conversation we need to have is about the future, about what type of country we really want to be, and I think the most important thing we can do in our occupation is to continue to push the narrative that’s been ignored by so many pundits and political leaders. I mean, the reality is, I’m the only working class person you’re going to see on Sunday news, political news, maybe ever; and I think that’s very indicative of the failures of our media to report on the news that matters most to our working class people."

The reaction to these words was telling. Of the four people at the round table, Peggy Noonan, Matthew Dowd, George Will, and Donna Brazile, none of them quite had an answer to that. As LaGreca summed it up at the end:

"You know, right now, working class people are being told to sacrifice. We’re being told that our future is going to have to be put on hold in the name of austerity, and I can’t name a single country that has succeeded in solving their economic problems with austerity. So, I think the more important thing to do, is to come out and speak to us. The town halls that you see are very top heavy. Our political leaders come and try to sell us a message. (Christiane Amanpour: OK.) They should be listening to us."

Real democracy terrifies plutocrats. So does the truth.
Recommend Recommended by 792 Readers

Bridgewater Hedge Fund Manager Calls it a Great Depression in 2009

2011-10-07T21:55:00.000-07:00

yep, its obvious to anyone paying attention that the crash of 2008 did not cause merely a 'recession', but instead a 'depression'. This will have been Obama's biggest mistake, to not have told the country the truth that America was 24 hours away from martial law in Sept 2008, and that we we are now dealing with is very very different than a 'recession'. Instead, they wanted to lie and blow smoke, so now everyone is mad that the 'recession' isnt over yet. They will never learn. There have been 3 Republican Great Depressions so far, and no doubt there will be more, and everyone will be just as surprised as they were in Sept 2008 when another alcoholic Republican ideologue drives the country off the cliff yet again, assuming of course that America can survive the 100 year flood catastrophe that was the alcoholic George W Cheney Bush regime. Two alcoholics in the White House for 8 years, yep, that's all it took.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/18/news/economy/okeefe_bridgewater.fortune/index2.htm

"Although Dalio says he is not a particularly big reader, these days his desk is piled high with some 20-odd books on economic debacles, such as "Essays on the Great Depression" by Ben Bernanke and "The Great Crash of 1929" by John Kenneth Galbraith. Inside each are Post-it notes and hand-scribbled thoughts in the margins. He also keeps close at hand a binder he's put together with detailed, 100-page timelines of the four major deleveraging episodes of the past century - the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic in the 1920s, the worldwide crash during the Great Depression in the 1930s, the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, and Japan's lost decade of the 1990s. He says the timelines provide "a virtual experience of what it would be like to trade through each scenario."

Out of those four historical examples, Dalio says that our current situation most closely resembles the Great Depression because of the global breadth of the problems. But he doesn't like to use the term "depression." He thinks it's too scary, evoking as it does images of hobos and Hoovervilles, and distracts people from focusing on the mechanics of what is going on. He prefers to use a term he coined: "D-process."

Most people, says Dalio, think that a depression is simply a really, really bad recession. But in reality, the two are distinct, naturally occurring events. A recession is a contraction in real GDP brought on by a central bank tightening monetary policy, usually to control inflation, and ends when the central bank eases. But a D-process occurs when an economy has an unsustainably high debt burden and monetary policy ceases to be effective, usually because interest rates are close to zero, and the central bank has no way to stimulate the economy. To compensate, the value of debt must be written down (risking deflation) or the central bank must print money (a trigger of inflation), or some combination of both.

In recent years the level of debt as a percentage of GDP in the U.S. has skyrocketed past previous highs last seen in the early 1930s. And the Federal Reserve's benchmark rate is now hovering just above zero. To Dalio, therefore, it's clear that a D-process is under way. "It seems very likely that stocks will get materially cheaper," he says. "We have to go through an important debt restructuring process, and a lot of assets are going to be for sale, huge numbers of assets. And there's going to be a shortage of buyers."

Even investors in most hedge funds won't be immune. According to research by Bridgewater, the hedge fund industry in aggregate is 75% correlated to the S&P 500, an issue on which Dalio has been sounding an alarm for a couple of years now. "Too many people have a systematic bias toward positive economic growth," he says. "I think that what we're going to probably have is an economy that's going to get worse, with most people positioned for it to be better." By the end of the D-process, he expects that the reverse may well be the case.

Is Bridgewater Hedge Fund Performance a little too Madoff-Ponzi-ish?

2011-10-07T20:23:00.001-07:00

I like the gushing tone of this article about the Bridgewater Hedge Fund, yes 15% return for 18 years and 38 billion in assets, hmmmm, lemme see, wasnt there someone else with those kinds of numbers, wait, wasnt it Bernie Madoff????

It really shows the fluff nature of some media when they dont even question the methods of the supposed genius behind such unusual performance.

I kept thinking after Madoff went under, there's gotta be other cockroaches in the cupboard, there cant be just one cockroach like Madoff.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/18/news/economy/okeefe_bridgewater.fortune/index.htm

"for the past 18 years his flagship hedge fund, Pure Alpha, which now holds more than $38 billion, has averaged an annual return of 15% before fees - gliding through the Asian flu of the 1990s, the dotcom implosion, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the current worldwide financial crisis without ever suffering an annual loss greater than 2%. Last year, when 70% of hedge funds lost money and the average fund fell 18%, Pure Alpha generated a gross return of 14%.

But these are not normal times. And what makes Dalio compelling is not just his track record but the way he goes about making money, and the rigorous analysis he applies to understanding markets, organizations, the economy, and life.

Does Dalio think of himself as one of the world's great investors? "No," he says, shaking his head, visibly agitated. "First of all, I don't know what the definition is of 'one of the great investors.' It's a totally irrelevant question. I have the fear of messing up. And that fear drives me to ask, 'Well, could this thing happen? Could that thing happen? If it happened in Japan, how do I know it won't happen to me?'"

http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/forums/sell-hedge-funds-short-why-you-should-and-how-to-do-it-vt38.html

schong719
Site Admin

Joined: 17 Jul 2006
Posts: 115

Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2006 9:30 pm Post subject: Sell hedge funds short, why you should and how to do it

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hedging Your Hedge-Fund Bet
By JONATHAN REISS

HEDGE FUNDS ARE SUSPICIOUSLY popular these days among financial cognoscenti. The Institute for Private Investors' survey of extremely wealthy investors indicated that about 80% have some investment in hedge funds and nearly a third have more than 25% of their assets in them. Private and public pension funds are increasing their stakes in hedge funds in the hopes of scoring double-digit returns on investments. This raises public policy concerns as poor performance will not affect just rich investors but also put employee pensions and taxpayers at risk.

Undoubtedly, some of the 8,219 hedge funds will produce excellent returns for the $1.2 trillion in assets entrusted. Yet it is almost certain that in aggregate, hedge fund returns will be disappointing. It just isn't possible for every manager -- like Lake Wobegon's children -- to be above average. Indeed, their proliferation suggests a much more interesting investment opportunity: selling hedge funds short.

Think like a hedge fund manager for a moment. Is it possible that large classes of these funds with similar strategies will actually beat the market, especially net of their hefty fees? If all the funds "exploit market inefficiencies," as they claim to, will there be enough inefficiencies to go around? Or will the enormous growth of the industry cannibalize those fleeting opportunities? Because of their size, number, leverage and active strategies, hedge funds now represent more than half of the trading in many markets. If they all make the same market bets, can anyone make money? And if they take opposing sides of the same trade, half are assured of losing. Either way, it will be very hard to add value and cover fees, commissions and other costs.

While this critique can also be applied to mutual funds and other active managers, the scale of fees and expenses incurred by hedge funds puts them in a category of their own. Because of their leverage and turnover, hedge funds' costs per unit of capital are many times those of mutual funds -- and so are their fees. Their performance fee structure is a "heads we win, tails we don't lose" proposition for the managers (at the investor's cost).

So, why do people still throw money at them? Largely because of wishful thinking and behavioral quirks. Most people recognize that stocks and bonds will not continue to produce the double-digit returns they have in the past three decades. However, some don't want to accept that those returns are unavailable anywhere. So, these people irrationally wish for a new type of investment - hedge funds - that can produce these kinds of gains. This is paradoxical, considering that the funds invest primarily in the very same securities that they are expected to outperform-namely stocks and bonds. Any individual investor may be right to think that his hedge funds -- like his children -- are exceptional. But, if everyone believes it, that's collective folly.

This folly persists because hedge funds benefit from several well-documented anomalies (more formally called cognitive biases) in the way people make decisions.

The first is the "winner's curse," named for the tendency of people to overbid in auctions (therefore the winner ultimately feels cursed). The hiring of hedge funds is like an auction. Investors are guessing at the future performance of these enterprises. Some guesses will be high, others low. Those most bullish about a fund's prospects will invest. The result is that each fund is valued by those who are most optimistic about its prospects.
[drawing]

Overconfidence, the second peculiarity, aggravates this problem. In Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman's words, decision-making involves a combination of "high confidence and low accuracy." Kahneman notes that "hindsight bias" worsens overconfidence. We do not learn from experience. Even when we get feedback such as investment returns, we tend to attribute the bad outcomes to luck or other people's failings and the good outcomes to skill.

A behavioral aberration called "base rate neglect" also contributes. The Lake Wobegon effect is real. Studies have found that almost all of us believe we are safer-than-average drivers. Similarly, all hedge-fund investors believe their fund is above average. When we make assessments, we tend to focus on the particulars of the situation and ignore the larger context. In assessing hedge funds, that means we put too much weight on the fund itself and not enough on the fact that these vehicles collectively fail to achieve returns that compensate for their very high fees.

Of course, there's another reason people overvalue hedge funds that is not a behavioral quirk. Millions (perhaps billions) of dollars are being spent convincing us that they are good investments. Much, much less is spent arguing the contrary. It would be unusual if this marketing did not affect our judgment.

What's a rational person to do? Not investing in hedge funds is a good start. But, ideally, you would like to invest less than zero -- in other words, to sell them short. While logical, this is difficult to do. But nothing is out of the reach of Wall Street financial engineers. One of their tools is called a "swap" -- a basic financial agreement between two parties. Jane, for example, could agree to pay Fred the return on a hedge fund in exchange for a payment from Fred of a short-term interest rate. Fred benefits if the hedge fund's returns are good while Jane benefits if returns are poor. Effectively, Jane has sold the hedge fund short.

Swaps could be an effective way for investors hankering to be part of hedge funds closed to new investors. In effect, they could bet on continued good returns from the fund while bearish investors would be happy to bet on faltering returns. Now, it must be mentioned that swaps entail significant risk and require very substantial capital. They should be engaged in only by very sophisticated investors. Of course, that is supposed to be true of hedge funds, too.

What would happen if investors could short hedge funds? Very likely, sellers would zero in on funds of hedge funds to sell short. They have two layers of fees, which reduces their performance. In addition, they diversify, which reduces the risk -- for both investing and shorting. Making this short interest visible would provide a valuable signal to investors currently funneling billions of dollars into these outfits.

Last month the European Central Bank cited hedge funds as a "major risk" to financial stability and further noted that the industry "warrants close monitoring despite the essential lack of any possible remedies." The Securities and Exchange Commission's effort to monitor them has been frustrated by a court ruling. While such monitoring is desirable, the ability to short hedge funds would also help maintain rationality. There have also been a number of frauds exposed recently. Short sellers have been effective in sniffing out fraud in other venues and could play a useful role here too.

The creation of a short interest in hedge funds would also offer a new opportunity: The funds could short each other, and new entrants could spring up to short all the existing players. It's just the sort of game hedge funds love to play.

JONATHAN REISS, former head trader in international bonds for Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., is founder of Analytical Synthesis, a research firm focused on financial innovations in the public interest. He says he is both a safer-than-average driver and a better-than-average investor.

Is it Rational to Keep Renting at Twice the Mortgage Value?

2011-09-29T17:25:00.000-07:00

The perennial question: rent or buy? Has the 'who's the sucker?' equation changed at all lately?:

RICK 6 hours ago

I moved to Cabo San Lucas Mexico in 2005..., bought a new 1600 sq.ft.home up in the hills for $83,000 with a partial ocean view..., remodeled it from top to bottom..., NICE STUFF..., for under $15,000. I work under 40 hours a week, home by 2 - 3 PM, and surf, ride my Harley, and enjoy great Mexican food...., and a beautiful Mexcian girlfriend. Best decision I have ever made. 10 Replies 11users liked this comment

YAHOO_USER 6 hours ago That's a boring life. I do that for 2 weeks and I want to come back keep myself busy. What a waste of human life!. 1users liked this comment

Interesting times 5 hours ago

Good for you...All of us wish we could get away from the craziness of running on this broken treadmill.I've always been happy for people who are enjoying life and what they're doing. Life's too short and enjoy every moment of it.... 1users liked this comment

George 5 hours ago Well played sir. Well played..

Thereisnohopeforus 5 hours ago

Excellent. Costa Rica is great too. If you have some cash get it out of the US. The expat lifestyle is nice!!!.

Boubou 5 hours ago

Most people are afraid to make a move like that. it worked out great for me - in Antigua . i paid 300k for a house on a hill at the entrance to Falmouth harbor with panoramic views of the Atlantic, neighboring islands and a harbor with mega-yachts and local fishing boats. I was lucky to have a skill that is needed in a place like this..

jmoney1978 5 hours ago

This guy is an idiot. If you are paying $1000 per month for rent but you qualify to purchase a bigger home with a mortgage payment of only $500 per month than that is a no brainer. If the American Consumer wasn't stupid they wouldn't have bought when real estate was at its peak they would be buying now. Warren Buffet doesn't buy stock when its valued high he buys when its valued low. The same principal applies to real estate - now is a great time to buy!

Allen 5 hours ago $500 for the mortgage is not the end of it. How about insurance, maintenance, utilities, etc..

Chrystal 5 hours ago

Yea, but that house has about $500 a month in taxes and insurance, not to mention upkeep/maintenance, which is a material cost of homeownership. And the prospects for future appreciation, at least in the near term, are very limited - more like DEPRECIATION.

Not such a no-brainer now, is it?.

MyDaughtersBill 5 hours ago

you lose your down payment when you stick the key in the door, $10k-$15k. just for a little lower monthly payment?, and wait 'til Obama takes away your interest credit. do the math, its not worth it!.

Jake 5 hours ago

Renting for twice the mortgage rate can be extremely rational once all factors are considered.. 2users liked this comment

Chris 5 hours ago

You can buy my place for $1,100 a month or less (depending on interest rate), taxes and association fees included or I can rent it to you for $1,400 and you still pay all utilities. The choice is yours..

Northeastern 5 hours ago

I agree the freedom of home ownership is great if you can afford it and are able to stay in the same area for a while. After 30 years if you make all your payments there is some equity regardless if its less than you paid. After 30 years your rent would have gone up a lot and you would have zero equity. I know people who bought homes 15 years ago and pay less on a nice single family with a yard than I do on rent

DoingMyBest 3 hours ago

I don't think HE is the idiot! His point is that it's stupid to take out a loan on a depreciating asset. Residential homes are depreciating. And Americans (in general) aren't stupid. (Except that they keep taking loans for cars and that's stupid).

Jmoney - you're example is flawed. You say you'll get twice the home for half the price. But you get something else as well: the debt that goes with it. And even if you're house goes down in value (which is exactly what's happening), you're stuck with the loan...

America: Of the 1% By the 1% For the 1% - Joseph Stiglitz

2011-09-25T12:23:00.000-07:00

http://youtu.be/cZC1HVRz450

woohoo, economic disparity worse than the Middle Ages! And Fox News says it is not enough and the rich should get even more share of GDP!

Dreams of Obama - Ron Suskind book reveals a naive financial illiterate

2011-09-25T08:13:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/review/RMB2NL7LNJ51L

the only consolation is that McCain would have been worse, it was a choice between two financial illiterates in the pocket of Goldman Sachs

review:

Ignores Obama's long standing connections to Wall Street's Hedge Funds,private Equity firms and Goldman Sachs, September 25, 2011

By Michael Emmett Brady "mandmbrady" (Bellflower, California ,United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President (Hardcover)

This book attempts to explain away the close and long standing connections that have existed between Obama and Wall Street.It presents a very incomplete picture of the long and close connections that have existed between Obama and Wall Street that predate the 2008 election.

The interesting thing is that the Wall Street-Obama connection has been available for anyone to discover who is a regular reader of mainstream newspapers and magazines.Obama's voting record in the Senate in the 2004-2008 period demonstrates time after time a voting pattern supporting Big Oil,the insurance industry,the HMO's,etc.The connection between Obama and British Petroleum had been established by his Senate voting record.The same holds for his long association with Goldman Sachs and his reliance on many libertarian academics associated/connected with the University of Chicago's economics department and Booth School of Business .The author attempts to submerge the long lived Obama- Goldman Sachs connection.

In general,the voting public has been ignorant of who they have been voting for.

(duh)

Consider the following information that was available in late 2007-early 2008:For example,one could simply read the July 9,2007 issue of FORTUNE magazine to discover who the major backers of John McCain,Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were.One could also have read Business Week(2-25-2008) or the Los Angeles Times of 3-21-2008.Through February, 2008 the major donors to the McCain campaign were 1)Merrill Lynch,2) Citigroup,3)Goldman Sachs,4)J P Morgan Chase and 5)Credit Suisse.The major donors to the Hillary Clinton campaign were 1)Goldman Sachs ,2)Morgan Stanley,3)Citigroup,4)Lehman Brothers and 5)J P Morgan Chase.

Guess who were the major donors to the Obama campaign ? If you guessed 1)Goldman Sachs,2)UBS Ag,3)J P Morgan Chase ,4)Lehman Brothers and 5)Citigroup,then you are correct. Obama's reliance on Martin Feldstein,Alan Goolsbe,Summers, Geithner,Bernanke,etc.,is explained by the above connections.

The American public has been hoodwinked, bamboozled and befuddled by Obama.

Consider that the two cochairs of the Obama appointed commission to study Social Security,Erskine Bowles and Wayne Simpson,are both Wall Street connected politicians.Similarly,consider that Obama's appointments mirror those of his Democratic predecessor,Bill Clinton,in terms of his reliance on Wall Street fiancier manipulators dedicated to the continued off shoring ,downsizing and hollowing out of our remaining industrial manufacturing capacity and outsourcing of American jobs . Clinton's appointment of F D Raines,a Wall Street operator-speculator-manipulator,to run Fannie Mae,created serious problems for this company.Raines simply looted Fannie Mae.Fannie Mae was in financial trouble long before 2007. The likes of Geithner,Rubin, Summers, Bernanke,etc., all have been known to represent the finacial speculator views of Wall Street.

There is a possible solution if an independent candidate ,someone like Ross Perot, will step up to the plate and offer a serious alternative by creating a third party.

(the problem is without ranked choice voting, a third party vote is a wasted vote, we DESPERATELY need election reform to enable third party votes to count)

The Republican Party is being set up by the heavily connected Wall Street financiers of the " Tea Party" to run a libertarian candidate like Alf Kandon,Wendell Wilkie or Barry Goldwater.This candidate is guaranteed to lose.This will guarantee Wall Street four more years of control through Obama.

Obama could have appointed people like Felix Rohatyn,"Adam Smith",Michael Lewis,Warren Buffett,George Soros or even a Paul Volcker or Ralph Nader (woohoo).The author of this book offers a series of poor excuses designed to deflect attention away from the fact that Obama went out of his way to avoid putting such people in positions of power in his administration.

The very simple answer is that appointing such individuals would have not been approved by his long standing Wall Street supporters.

Joys of Police Scanner Radios

2011-09-25T01:44:00.000-07:00

oaklander05-28-2009, 11:18 PM
The amount of crime in Alameda County is insane. 99 percent of it does not make the papers. After listening to my police scanner for the last week, I am convinced that it is a battle zone out there!

And not just Oakland - but also San Leandro, Hayward, etc..

The most disturbing calls are when the dispatcher reports something like "RP reports gunshots then screaming and yelling at XXX and XXX."

:eek:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TheBundo05-28-2009, 11:19 PM
Wow, I'd better stay away from XXX and XXX

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

dwtt05-31-2009, 12:48 AM
I had a scanner when I was in grad school and living in north oakland near the Berkeley border. It was an AOR scanner that was able to pick up cell phones. I sent the thing back to the mail order company because it was depressing to hear all the phone calls between couples arguing about one of them having sex with a bartender at the local bar, or some crack addicted kid in middle school yelling at his nonresident father for only buying $50 in groceries for him and his single mother and leaving no money to buy drugs, or some drug dealer on 51st Street offering a teenage girl some weed for a blow job, or the father of a high school foot ball player scheming with an athletic agent how to get the boy to pass drug tests after he took some performance enhancing drugs,... the list goes on. Like someone else said, ignorance is bliss.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

oaklander05-31-2009, 1:22 AM
:)

Not sure yet - still figuring out how to program! The RS dealer did initial programming, but I need to tweak.

Interestingly, I get the local BUS LINE too, and some sort of maintenance channel for public housing - those are funny!

Some bus driver was complaining that someone stole her purse during a bathroom break, and the dispatcher suggested not leaving it in the bus!!!

Then there's the calls for toilet clearing and the like. . .

Are you able to pick up any milcom up by you?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

nobody3305-31-2009, 1:28 AM
I forget who says it, but a LEO here says that 95% of the calls they go to are BS.

About 90% of my hot calls as BS. Pretty accurate. The good stuff usually I happen upon or comes out as nothing on the air.

I had a day last week where I went from a carjacking, to a robbery, to a child abduction in progress, and finally to a murder suspect sighting. All right in a row. Not a single one was legitimate. Two were drug rip offs, and the others were cases of watching too many CBS cop shows.

As a kid I got a scanner for christmas (best gift ever). I turned it on and the first call I heard was the sheriff going to "keep the peace" at a house while the divorced parents watched their kids open gifts. Apparently without the police they would fight...

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Economic Disparity - Has Anything Changed since the Medieval or Feudal Ages?

2011-09-18T09:19:00.000-07:00

well, slavery is now outsourced to China, but other than that the economic disparity is not much different from 1000 years ago

the following post is an edited version from the blogger PsychedelicDragon:

http://www.interfaith.org/forum/capitalism-is-just-a-slight-12983.html

07-19-2010, 08:24 AM PsychedelicDragon Master Psychonaut
Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 43

"History has been a struggle between the different classes and groups of people. There is a social and economic component to these struggles. I will be using western civilization as the main example of this. In ancient times, such as in the Greek and Roman societies, the inequality was the worst among the different classes. The lowest class was of course the slave. The slave owned nothing, they were themselves owned by a master. The slave class made up 25% or 1/4 of the entire population of Rome for instance! Slaves were an important part of the economy back then.

Then we move to the next stage, that of feudalism. Now in the medieval european world, absolute chattel slavery became abolished and was replaced by the new servitude class: serfs. Serfs had some rights granted to them by their lord, but ultimately they were a lot like slaves and while they could own property, they could not leave their land and had to give most of their bounty to their feudal lords. In such a system, the upper classes (lords and kings) controlled 95-99% of the wealth of the nation, while the rest of the vast majority of the 95-99% controlled less than 1%.

The next social and economic stage is the birth of capitalism which started sometime during the european age of exploration. In this more evolved yet flawed system, serfs and common men were not forced to remain at the bottom of the social ladder anymore. Social class was now determined by economic status. Slavery did make a come back at this point, but usually only the richest could afford slaves.

The underclass however still remained. The serfs were no longer individuals bound to a lord. Now they were workers fighting for their existence to live. Indeed, from the birth of capitalism having basics no longer became something guaranteed by the community....if you could not make enough money by working for the new overlord, the capitalist boss, you would starve without the assistance from society. Beginning at the 20th century, social movements among the working class sprung up, demanding that the new industrial elite pay for the money they got from exploiting workers. As time went on, entitlements programs such as social security and welfare came into existence, but only after much working class revolt and riots.

So here we are. In the modern age of capitalism with a few elements of protectionism. And how is economic inequality today? Well let's take a look....according to a study done by the World Institute for Development Economics Research at United Nations University, that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. Ain't that a shocker?! 85% of everything is controlled by a ruling class of 10% (- The World Distribution of Household Wealth. James B. Davies, Susanna Sandstrom, Anthony Shorrocks, and Edward N. Wolff. 5 December 2006)! The same study goes on to say 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global asset and that bottom half of the world adult population owned 1% of global wealth.

So this means since the time of feudalism, we have only improved by 10-15%. We have people who are starving, and yet this top 10% has this 85% surplus of wealth that is going to nothing useful, and is in fact destabilising to the economy since it fuels speculative investment bubbles as Wall Street tries to figure out what to do with it all.

Those surplus global assets are fueling destructive speculative bubbles, that only enrich the elites and do nothing to decrease the poverty rates of the population.
And yes you read it right - 40% of the wealth is in the hands of less than 1%. That is huge inequality. Another study goes on to point out that the richest 2% own more than half of the global household assets (article - "The rich really do own the world" - theglobeandmail.com). 2% own half of the worlds households, and yet we have such a large homeless population globally. How is this so much an improvement to feudalism? So much for the glory of capitalism.

Now ok, I did give a global figure, and previously I was discussing the history of wealth distribution within the framework of western civilization. So let's take a look at a western country like the United States. 10% of the population owns 71% of the wealth and the top 1% owned 38%! On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation's wealth! (Phillips, Peter (2006). Censored 2007:The Top 25 Censored Stories. Seven Stories Press. p. 207. ISBN 1583227385). And yet, who owns all the DEBT? Yep, you guessed it, the poor! The housing crash of 2008 really demonstrated how the transfer of wealth from poor to rich occurs via debt pushing by the rich. The poor are suckered into heavy debt burdens by aggressive loan sharking via brokers who deal with the middle layer of suckers - the banks - and then when it all collapses, the rich are bailed out by the taxpayers and the poor go bankrupt and homeless! It is really a breathtakingly genius strategy.

The sad fact is that economic neo-liberalism is widely being pushed as the only mode of economic organization around the world. Even traditionally more socialist countries like India is giving way to these economic "reforms" but while it might provide some short term growth, the nation now faces the problem of having an even bigger gap between rich and poor.

Neo-liberalist policies usually lead towards more economic inequality. Look no further than the United States. Thanks to Reaganomics, wages have been declining for working class people and the gap of inequality has gone up. There has been growth, but the growth has been going to the hands of the few, not to the population as a whole. No president since Reagan has tried to reverse these policies. It seem like Clinton was responsible for taking the economics of the democrat party far more right. No surprise there as the democratic party seems to be little more than a slightly more left republican party.

If we want a safer and more equitable world, we need to stop this massive monopolization of wealth by the ruling elite. It should be noted that regions with far more wealth re-distribution, like Scandinavia, have the highest living standards. It's only common sense that equality leads to more happiness and security of freedom.

Yet, the tension between freedom and equality - where freedom leads to oppression of the weak by the strong, and equality leads to oppression of the strong by the weak - continues to tilt to the side of more freedom for the wealthy to oppress the poor. A natural development when society is a system of laws and the laws are for sale to the highest bidder, aka lobbyist.

So what is stopping the world from adopting a more egalitarian social model? Well I think it largely has to do with the failure of communist and other regimes claiming to be socialist. In such countries, true socialism was never really tried, so everyone thinks socialism is something like the soviet union or maoist china (some anti-freedom state-worshiping system).

There is however a system of socialism that is far more pragmatic and far more progressive, that has almost never been tried. This is of course libertarian socialism, or socialism with individual freedom.

It doesn't take rocket science to realize that wage slavery is not very different than chattel slavery. The idea that you have to rent yourself to someone, and that you have follow their orders, and you work in a certain place but don't own it, and the conditions of your employment make it very difficult to move among different jobs, is a highly unnatural notion for any person claiming to be for true human rights.

So the age-old balancing act between the contradictory values of freedom and equality continues, with the increasing likelihood that the age-old method of last resort of rebalancing through revolution will happen once again.

The more things change ..."

Where's the Beef? Where's the Jobs? Tax cuts Create Jobs Dont They? So where are the Jobs?

2011-09-15T12:31:00.000-07:00

tax cuts create jobs, tax cuts create jobs, tax cuts create jobs, it must be true, I've heard it a million times from the Cantor-clones and other economic royalists.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/harvard-jeffrey-miron-blames-anti-business-democrats-lack-171746551.html?sec=topStories&pos=8&asset=&ccode=

17users liked this comment
9 users disliked this comment

Bruce about an hour ago

Taxes for the super rich have been dramatically lowered over the last 30 years, easily cut in half. So were are the jobs? Taxes as a percent of GDP were 18% under Bush and are less than 15% now. So were are the jobs? There are more billionaires now than ever. So where are the jobs? Corporations are sitting on about 2 trillion in cash, there is another one trillion in overseas accounts and the banks have another 1.6 trillion on deposit at the Federal Reserve. So where are the jobs? The answer is we sent all the good jobs overseas so we could generate all these trillions of dollars that are owned by guess who? The top 1% owns 35% to 40% of all the wealth in the nation and the top 10% owns 90%. The median wage is only $30,000. That's the problem! People don't have money to spend because wages are so low. Then add in the fact the the average health care plan for a family of four is over $14,000 consuming huge amounts of disposable income. The problem with the economy is demand. No business will hire or expand if they can't sell their products, period. Demand went away because the credit binge blew up. Things are not going to get better until the consumer de-leverages and that will take another 5 years at least. The Perry god, the Romney god or the Obama god can't fix it.

comment Julius about an hour ago

Blah blah blah. The speech is "tax the billionaires" and the bills are "tax people 200k up". The speech is "repeal the bush tax cuts for millionaires" and the reality is "tax hikes for people like me making 200k".

Total US public taxes as a percentage of GDP were 20% under Bush and will be 33% next year. ($5T out of $15T GDP). Make sure to count state and local tax burdens. In my state, California, my state and local taxes equal my federal taxes.

There are only 8200 people making $10 million a year or more in the US.

If you don't think there is an anti-Business sentiment in this administration, ask Boeing and Gibson guitars.. 0users liked this comment

comment Bruce 26 minutes ago

Your figures are wrong. Under Bush federal taxes were 18%. Total taxes with state and local income, property taxes, and sales taxes have been about 40% for decades. I hope they are only 33% next year because would be a huge tax break. My total tax load now is around 35% without counting sales taxes.

The 8200 families making more than 10 million emphasizes my point. The top 0.01% are cleaning up and pay much lower tax rates than you or I do. At 200K a year, you are not the problem getting away with paying low taxes. You are small potatoes.

I own a small business and the feds aren't bothering me at all. I'm doing well. The figures that I originally posted are true. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean that they are false..

Sociobiology - Evolutionary Benefits of Manic Depression for Tribe Leaders / Shamans

2011-09-14T19:16:00.000-07:00

makes sense - there is an altered state of consciousness that conduces to tribal survival that shamans access in times of crisis for the tribe, just look at the story of Abraham and Isaac, and the book Black Elk Speaks, and Shamanism in Siberia. Nowadays manic depressives run for president, like Newt Gingrich, or run corporations, like Larry Ellison.

Friday :: Sep 9, 2011
Book Review: A First-Rate Madness

by paradox
A First-Rate Madness
Uncovering the Links Between leadership and Mental Illness
Nassir Ghaemi
Penguin Press, New York, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59420-295-7

Many brilliant human minds defy the stigma of mental illness and perform quite well, just as an injured NFL player performs through pain. Furthermore, recovering from the often-episodic travails of some forms of mental illness can obviously leave beneficial effects, such as resilience, realism, and empathy, even enhanced creativity.

Psychiatrist Nassir Ghaemi not only shatters the stigma of mental illness in A First Rate Madness, he also makes a convincing case that human leadership usually benefits from mental illness, that as a people in times of crisis it would be much better if we were led by someone who fits the profile of once experiencing manic-depressive illness, or at least has an “abnormal” mental profile that serves crisis leadership very well.

Continue reading "Book Review: A First-Rate Madness"

America R.I.P. - Karl Rove is Still Free, and Jeff Gannon and Roger Stone are still not talking

2011-09-14T18:59:00.000-07:00

The Forgotten Story of Karl Rove's Plot Against America, will it ever be fully told?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2454987#2455061

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/002695.php

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/03/04/96889/-Gannon-Rove-Stone-TANG-Forgeries-Timeline-(must-read!)

Should we date the Fall of America from Bush v Gore, or from Reagan's October Surprise, or from Reagan's Union Busting, or from Karl Rove's enthronement of Bush's second term via a staged war against Iraq and sabotage of a gullible Dan Rather?

Karl Rove ensured Bush's 'election'/selection with the forged Killian memos fed to Rather via the dirty trickster Roger Stone's wife, giving Rather a true story with tainted evidence, guaranteeing the story to be buried by the braindead media.

UTUSN (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-05-04 07:39 PM
Response to Original message
3. It's Totally KKKarl's m.o.
*************QUOTE********
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/238624p-20...
Karl Rove, ambush strategist?

When Dan Rather finally admitted that fake memos might have been used in his "60 Minutes Wednesday" report on President Bush's National Guard Service, political insiders immediately suspected the hand of Karl Rove.

Rove has vehemently denied the speculation. But, as the Atlantic Monthly's Joshua Green points out in the upcoming issue, Bush's political guru has earned quite a reputation for using dirty tricks in the heat of a campaign.

Green reports that:

In the 1996 Alabama Supreme Court race between Democratic incumbent Kenneth Ingram and Republican challenger Harold See, Rove printed anonymous fliers attacking See, his own client. The purpose was "'to create a backlash against the Democrat,' as Joe Perkins, who worked for Ingram, put it to me," Green writes. "Presumably the public would believe that Democrats were spreading terrible rumors about See and his family. ... The ploy left Rove's opponent at a loss. Ingram's staff realized that it would be fruitless to try to persuade the public that the See campaign was attacking its own candidate."

Rumormongering is another tool in Rove's bag, Green writes. In the late 1980s, when political consultant John Weaver - John McCain's top 2000 adviser - hired away one of Rove's employees, "Rove spread a rumor that Weaver had made a pass at a young man at a state Republican function," Green writes. Weaver quickly became persona non grata in the Texas GOP.

Rove's slimiest moment came in 1994, when See first ran for the Supreme Court in Alabama against Democratic incumbent Mark Kennedy, who had just served a term as president of the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect. Kennedy's commercials highlighted his volunteer work - and included one that showed him holding hands with children - so Rove started a whispering campaign that Kennedy was a pedophile, Green writes. "What Rove does is try and make something so bad for a family that the candidate will not subject the family to the hardship," explained Perkins.
The traumatized Kennedy won narrowly, but decided not to run for reelection.

Rove didn't respond to Green's request for an interview.

**********UNQUOTE********

Josh Howard, the program's executive producer, told the Los Angeles Times in an interview Friday. "The White House said they were authentic, and that carried a lot of weight with us."

So Sixty Minutes II went with the story using these documents. The White House released a copy of those documents to the media and Scott McClellan affirmed that the White House believed in the authenticity of those documents.

Yet, only hours later, an anonymous blogger known as Buckhead posted at freerepublic.com that the documents were forgeries and said "this should be pursued aggressively". And so it was. And the right-wing pack of hounds was off baying for Dan Rather's blood.

Buckhead now known to be Atlanta lawyer, Harry W. MacDougald, was revealed to be a right-wing operative, who has been involved in any number of right-wing attacks, including the petition drafted in 1998 to suspend Bill Clinton's law license.

It was the first public allegation that CBS News used forged memos in its report questioning President Bush's National Guard service � a highly technical explanation posted within hours of airtime citing proportional spacing and font styles.

But it did not come from an expert in typography or typewriter history as some first thought. Instead, it was the work of Harry W. MacDougald, an Atlanta lawyer with strong ties to conservative Republican causes who helped draft the petition urging the Arkansas Supreme Court to disbar President Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Times has found.

Mr. MacDougald also has had his dirty little fingers in the controversy over whether the electronic voting machines in Georgia are reliable (via Hullabaloo). As Digby said,

Using the new laws of journalism and truth, this is all that's needed as proof that this was a Rovian operation from the get-go. This guy is no expert on typography, and he's an extremely well connected Republican operative who has worked at the highest level of GOP legal circles. That's good enough for GOP government work.

This was a Republican dirty trick.
I agree with Digby. Just look at the MO.

1996 - According to someone who worked with him, in 1996 Karl Rove created flyers viciously attacking his own candidate, Harold See, running for Alabama State Supreme Court. The resulting backlash against the Democrat allowed See to win the race. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_10.php#003688

2000 - According to James Moore, after losing NH primary, Rove apparently resorts to push-polling on McCain in the SC primary, intimating that McCain was mentally unstable, his wife was a drug addict and he had a black love-child from a prostitute. Bush campaign denies responsibility. http://www.documentaryfilms.net/Reviews/BushsBrain/

2000 - According to Jeffrey Toobin, Miami riot led by Stone, MacDougald also summoned by Baker. Nydia and her mother Olga help recruit Cubans for the Courthouse Riot and march advertised on Radio Mambi. From Dec. 4, 2000, Time Magazine: The organizers in the RV outside, who G.O.P. protesters have told Time were led by hardball Washington strategist Roger Stone, had phone banks churning out calls to Miami Republicans, urging them to storm downtown, while Stone directed the action with a walkie-talkie. (Stone could not be reached for comment.) - Jeffrey Toobin, Too Close to Call
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375761071/103-7025856-3836615?%5Fencoding=UTF8
http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2000/1204/cover_riot.html
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0405,barrett,50745,1.html

Nov. 13, 2000 - Stone starts campaign to recall Democratic FL State Supreme Court Justices hearing the Gore vs. Bush case. Illegal campaign contributions eventually draw the attention of the FEC. http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/03/09/15_recount.html

2001 - According to Toobin, Cheney calls Roger Stone to thank him for Miami Courthouse Riot, asks him what he would like as compensation (Jeffrey Toobin, Too Close to Call).
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0405,barrett,50745,1.html

Feb 13, 2001 - Enquirer article on The Vault sex club in NYC says Roger and Nydia Stone used to be frequent customers. http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/4616/enq0213.html

2002 - Stone given lucrative Indian casino political consulting contracts. Stone allegedly does political dirty trick hit on BIA official standing in way of his casino clients. http://www.indianz.com/News/archive/001861.asp

2002 - According to James Moore, Rove said to be behind GA Senate race ad associating Max Cleland with Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. http://www.documentaryfilms.net/Reviews/BushsBrain/

2003 - Stone calls up Al Sharpton and offers to manage his campaign and help him fundraise. http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0405,barrett,50745,1.html

January 17, 2004 - Michael Moore "Deserter" charge, Wesley Clark supports Moore's right to say it 5 days later. http://www.factcheck.org/article131.html

End of January 2004 - Kerry says Bush's TANG records not important. Terry McAuliffe says Bush was AWOL.

February 10, 2004 - White House does document dump and says it is the full release of Bush's TANG records--but later on many more real docs show up.
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/021004_bushmil.pdf

February 12, 2004 - Bill Burkett appears on Hardball and with James Moore tells the story of how in 1997 he heard Joe Albaugh from Bush's office talk to Adjutant General David James on speaker phone, to tell him that Dan Bartlett and Karen Hughes will be down to "clean up" then-Governor Bush's TANG files. This trip was ostensibly to write a book but really to prepare for his 1998 and 2000 runs and make sure nothing embarrassing was in the records. Chris Matthews asks Burkett to swear that he is telling the truth, as if he were in court. Burkett does. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6055867/

After February 12, 2004 - [MY SPECULATION:] Rove and Bartlett, certainly alarmed at Burkett's appearance on Hardball, presumably hatch phony TANG documents plot and create forgeries with slight mistakes on the wrong typewriter, an electric typewriter. If it was them, they would have used the Olympia Manual memos Mrs. Knox said she originally typed for Killian in 1972 and 1973. They would then have called Stone and asked him to get them to Burkett, the perfect patsy for their scheme.

After February 12, 2004 - Bill Burkett says he starts receiving calls from a lady with a Latin accent named "Lucy Ramirez", who could be Nydia Stone, the Cuban wife of GOP dirty trickster Roger Stone [REGEN MAN'S SPECULATION]. "Lucy" tells Burkett she has previously unknown memos from Col. Killian and that he Burkett should get them and give them to the Kerry campaign. She also convinces him to burn the originals so she can never be identified. Burkett thinks she is trying to keep an old sexual affair with Killian secret. Burkett arranges with "Lucy" to meet her at the huge Houston Livestock Show..
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/23/cbs.documents/

March 3, 2004 - According to Burkett's second story, the Unknown Man asks for him at Livestock Show, finds him and hands him envelope containing the CBS TANG forgeries without saying a word (source: Bill Burkett USA TODAY) USA TODAY confirms that ANOTHER person, an unnamed woman, said Burkett gave her papers that day which she held for him until the event was over in a box. Burkett and USA Today know who this woman is. So the likelihood is that Burkett is telling the truth when he said he was given the envelope by the Unknown Man. Burkett has never been given a photo of Stone to ID.
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/23/cbs.documents/

March to August, 2004 - For whatever reason, Burkett sits on the memos for five months until the Swift Boat ads enrage him and he calls up Max Cleland. Cleland tells him he'll talk to Kerry but no one calls Burkett back on the documents. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6055867/

August 2004 - Mary Mapes, CBS Producer following up on TANG/AWOL, asks Burkett if there is anything new on the TANG story. He tells her of the Killian memos, thinking them real and that CBS News would have them checked by experts.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-09-21-cover-guard_x.htm

August 2004 - Roger and Nydia Stone miss first Republican Convention since 1968, taking a vacation in Spain. Stone says "It's pathetic that we are fighting over John Kerry's war record in Vietnam and George W. Bush's service in the National Guard given that there are a bunch of Islamic maniacs who want to wipe us off the face of the earth. I'll be on a beach in Barcelona." http://www.jewsweek.com/bin/en.jsp?enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enDispWho=Article%5El1391&enZone=Articles&enVersion=0

Sept. 8, 2004 - First CBS report on Killian memos. To protect a lady's honor, Southern Gentleman Burkett intimates that a fellow National Guard officer gave him the TANG memos. CBS reports Dan Bartlett told John Roberts in the morning that "I have no reason to doubt their authenticity" so many times in the same way Roberts notes it in his book. Presumably this was the comment decided upon by he and Rove to make that day. Bartlett also says, "The memorandum in your possession shows that he spoke to the commander who made that order to talk about his personal situation and the fact that he is going to Alabama. So at every step of the way, President Bush was meeting his requirement. Granted permission to meet his requirement. And that's why President Bush was honorably discharged." Because Bartlett had used the forged copies to say that Bush fulfilled his TANG requirements, Roberts told his superiors, the memos are authenticated. Had Roberts been "played"? The trap, whoever forged the documents, was ready to close on Rather and destroy the potency of the TANG/AWOL issue.

September 8, 2004 - Within 18 minutes of the end of the TANG report, posts from "Buckhead" appear on FreeRepublic.com, saying he thinks something is phony. Within a few hours, Buckhead is putting forth forensic analyses of fonts and proportional spacing, claiming the memos are forged and actually word-processed. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/user-posts?more=25054500;name=Buckhead http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/user-posts?more=22146919;name=Buckhead http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/user-posts?more=22029527;name=Buckhead

September 9, 2004 - Media trumpets forgery claim, discrediting Rather and whole TANG issue.

September, 10 2004 - Jeff Gannon receives a "scoop" from unknown person that Mapes was the CBS producer responsible. BEFORE writing his own scoop, Gannon tells Sean Hannity about Mapes. Hannity: HANNITY: "Now, Jeff Gannon, who is a terrific Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent for Talon News, actually shot me an e-mail today, and he's about to break a story in an exclusive about these CBS documents." HANNITY: "And apparently they're also, according to Jeff Gannon, the -- Talon News -- this woman, Mary Mapes, this Dallas producer, is under pressure for the [CBS] network, and now there's doubts about their authenticity has taken place." [The Sean Hannity Show, 9/10/04]

America R.I.P: Gov Chris Chrsitie shows us how Plutocracy works, thanks to Bradblog's Brad Friedman

2011-09-13T16:52:00.000-07:00

Gov Chris Christie has secret meeting with Koch brothers plutocrat convention and gets his marching orders of how to screw the middle class yet again while preserving the historically low tax rates for the plutocrat class, only revealed by the intrepid Brad Friedman of Bradblog, we peons get a peek under the tent of how our futures are determined by the Economic Royalist Plutocracy who now rules America, removing even the pretense of democracy:

NJ gov met with oil exec before gas pact pullout
BETH DeFALCO, Associated Press

Updated 05:05 p.m., Wednesday, September 7, 2011

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Months before New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced the state was withdrawing from a pact aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions among 10 Northeastern states, he met with one of the billionaire oil industry brothers who have fought to end regional greenhouse gas initiatives.

Now environmentalists and liberals are holding up that meeting and a closed-door seminar in June hosted by brothers David and Charles Koch, in which Christie was the keynote speaker, as evidence of their claims that Christie is influenced by big oil.

"This is the smoking gun that shows he's been working with the Koch brothers from the beginning," said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.

On Wednesday, the liberal magazine Mother Jones revealed Christie's contact with the brothers in a report that featured secretly recorded audio from the closed-door conservative conclave in Vail, Colo., on June 26. The audio also revealed that Christie met with David Koch privately this winter.

"Five months ago we met in my New York City office and spoke — just the two of us — for about two hours on his objectives and successes in correcting many of the most serious problems of the New Jersey state government," David Koch said in introducing Christie at the seminar, according to Mother Jones' recording. "At the end of our conversation, I said to myself, 'I'm really impressed and inspired by this man. He is my kind of guy.'"

Christie announced in May he was pulling the state from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative by the end of the year. He said the program was "a failure" at actually reducing such emissions. He said the cap-and-trade pact "does nothing more than tax electricity, tax our citizens, tax our businesses with no discernible or measurable impact upon our environment."

A spokesman for Koch Industries did not return a call and emails sent Wednesday seeking comment on the Mother Jones report.

A spokesman for the governor said that timing of events — both the meeting in New York and the speech in Vail — were "wholly unconnected" to the governor's decision to pull out of RGGI.

"The governor has stated clearly the reasons that make RGGI bad public policy," spokesman Michael Drewniak said.

America R.I.P.: The Fairness Doctrine is DEAD! Long Live Fair and Balanced Fox News Fascism!

2011-09-13T16:50:00.000-07:00

Obama FCC Kills "Fairness Doctrine" Dead, as Requested by Congressional Republicans
Tuesday 23 August 2011

by: Brad Friedman, TheBradBlog | News Analysis

In apparent response to GOP leaders of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee who requested in June that Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Julius Genachowski "strike the Fairness Doctrine from the agency's rulebook," the former corporate media executive has announced exactly that today, striking the rule, and 82 others, from the official FCC rulebook...

As reported by Hollywood Reporter today...

The controversial Fairness Doctrine and 82 other rules governing electronic media were deemed obsolete and, therefore, abandoned by the FCC on Monday.

FCC chairman Julius Genachowski called the rules "outdated" and said they were being removed to lessen the burdens of regulation on media companies. The decision also includes significant reductions in satellite and broadcasting license fees. The FCC said the moves are part of its focus on eliminating rules that are no longer needed and revising others to reflect changes in technology, "thereby clearing the path for greater competition, investment and job creation."

Bound to get the most attention though is ditching the Fairness Doctrine, an idea that was meant to force radio broadcasters into offering as much left wing political content as they offer right wing commentary. Although the doctrine has not been enforced since President Ronald Reagan deemed it unnecessary at best and an infringement of free speech at worst, the rule was still technically on the books.

Liberal commentators and even some lawmakers were agitating for its enforcement again, though Genachowski has resisted and on Monday made its demise official policy.

“The elimination of the obsolete Fairness Doctrine regulations will remove an unnecessary distraction," Genachowski said. "As I have said, striking this from our books ensures there can be no mistake that what has long been a dead letter remains dead. The Fairness Doctrine holds the potential to chill free speech and the free flow of ideas and was properly abandoned over two decades ago. I am pleased we are removing these and other obsolete rules from our books."

As noted by Hollywood Reporter, the Fairness Doctrine has largely been a dead letter since Reagan ordered his FCC to stop enforcing it in 1987. Despite how the legend has it --- and as Hollywood Reporter somewhat misleads in its report --- the doctrine did not ensure balance of political views on the publicly-owned airwaves. It did, however, require that media at least offer the opportunity to air opposing views on controversial issues.

Ending enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine, which had served the nation well since the early days of radio in 1949, paved the way for Rush Limbaugh and other hard right commentators to use the public airwaves as little more than a one-sided propaganda tool. The situation was exacerbated by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, as signed by President Bill Clinton, under the pretense that it would allow for greater competition in the broadcast media market. The act allowed for virtually unrestricted corporate ownership of local radio and television stations and ultimately gave a handful of corporate outlets unfettered control of almost all of the nation's limited broadcast bandwidth.

The result, as Sue Wilson --- a former news producer and director of Broadcast Blues, a documentary about many recent failings of the FCC --- noted at The BRAD BLOG last April, is that Rightwing talk radio now dominates the nation's public airwaves, even dwarfing the reach of Rightwing television cable outlets such as Fox "News".

Homage to Steve Jobs - Selling Sugared Water and Expensive Baubles by the River

2011-09-09T23:04:00.001-07:00

The question we should all ask ourselves on a regular basis, (along with the practice of Memento Mori):

“Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?”

— What Steve Jobs said to Pepsi executive John Sculley to lure him to Apple. Sculley mentions it in the documentary Bloomberg Game Changers: Steve Jobs.

comments:

Hernan 18 Mar 11

Hey Steve, do you want to sell overpriced pretentiously-designed baubles for rich ne’er-do-well’s for the rest of your life, or do you want to change the world?

hasen 19 Mar 11

I love this quote. It embodies the idealistic spirit.
Sorry to all the practical people who don’t get it—you’re just not wired to think that way, and that’s ok, but really you shouldn’t try to belittle it.

Donny V 21 Mar 11

The only way Apple has changed the world is by creating bigger trash piles in China, full of old iPads and iPhones

Adi Da's view of the Buddhist Law of Dukkha - Never Trust a Religion that has no Sense of Humor

2011-08-22T07:33:00.000-07:00

http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/dawnhorsetestament/chapter44.html

To Seek Happiness (Rather Than To Realize It Inherently) Is To Be Possessed By the self-Contraction and To Be Motivated By it. Because Of the self-Contraction, What Is Inherent Ceases To Be Obvious, and, As A Result, the ego-"I" Seeks Among objects and others (and Even In the body-mind itself) For What Can Only Be Found or Realized Inherently, In Place, In The Well Of Transcendental (and Inherently Spiritual, or Love-Blissful) Divine Being. Indeed, the ego-"I" Is Always Stressfully At Effort, In The Absurd Quest For Happiness and Consciousness.

Civilisations only last 200 years? +-

2011-08-17T15:15:00.001-07:00

evidently an old snopes myth

http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/athenian.asp

"1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinborough,
had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.
From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship." "The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years.

News Flash - Lower Taxes Mean Less Jobs!

2011-08-16T05:53:00.000-07:00

.Missing the main point of higher corporate and investment taxes twistedasp — 8/15/11 2:34pm As a small business owner for a "long" time, here's the real story on high corporate, business and investment taxes.

http://twistedasp.com/2011/08/funny-thing-happened-on-way-to-bank-to.html

Simply put, the higher the corporate, business and investment taxes are the higher the incentive to reinvest in a business rather than cashing out and investing in the market.

In my business, when tax rates are high, I always look at how to reinvest the money in my business to reduce the overall tax. Investing in the business means I am hiring new people, buying new equipment, expanding or renovating buildings...all of which add to the overall economy. When the tax rates are lower I just cash out and invest in personal wealth growth.

He's right....raising corporate, business and investments will build the overall economy.

more ▼.Left out the word "tax" in the last sentence. twistedasp — 8/15/11 2:38pm He's right....raising corporate, business and investments taxes will build the overall economy.

more ▼.This is an amazingly good metman — 8/15/11 2:47pm This is an amazingly good point.