Robalini's Note: Putting conditions on multi-million dollar bonuses to Wall Street executives? Ridiculous. Oh, but we do need random drug-testing of the poor who receive government help...
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090326/D975MFE80.html
States consider drug tests for welfare recipients
Mar 26, 2009
By TOM BREEN
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Want government assistance? Just say no to drugs.
Lawmakers in at least eight states want recipients of food stamps, unemployment benefits or welfare to submit to random drug testing.
The effort comes as more Americans turn to these safety nets to ride out the recession. Poverty and civil liberties advocates fear the strategy could backfire, discouraging some people from seeking financial aid and making already desperate situations worse.
Those in favor of the drug tests say they are motivated out of a concern for their constituents' health and ability to put themselves on more solid financial footing once the economy rebounds. But proponents concede they also want to send a message: you don't get something for nothing.
"Nobody's being forced into these assistance programs," said Craig Blair, a Republican in the West Viginia Legislature who has created a Web site - notwithmytaxdollars.com - that bears a bobble-headed likeness of himself advocating this position. "If so many jobs require random drug tests these days, why not these benefits?"
Blair is proposing the most comprehensive measure in the country, as it would apply to anyone applying for food stamps, unemployment compensation or the federal programs usually known as "welfare": Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Women, Infants and Children.
Lawmakers in other states are offering similar, but more modest proposals.
On Wednesday, the Kansas House of Representatives approved a measure mandating drug testing for the 14,000 or so people getting cash assistance from the state, which now goes before the state senate. In February, the Oklahoma Senate unanimously passed a measure that would require drug testing as a condition of receiving TANF benefits, and similar bills have been introduced in Missouri and Hawaii. A Florida senator has proposed a bill linking unemployment compensation to drug testing, and a member of Minnesota's House of Representatives has a bill requiring drug tests of people who get public assistance under a state program there.
A January attempt in the Arizona Senate to establish such a law failed.
In the past, such efforts have been stymied by legal and cost concerns, said Christine Nelson, a program manager with the National Conference of State Legislatures. But states' bigger fiscal crises, and the surging demand for public assistance, could change that.
"It's an example of where you could cut costs at the expense of a segment of society that's least able to defend themselves," said Frank Crabtree, executive director of the West Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Drug testing is not the only restriction envisioned for people receiving public assistance: a bill in the Tennessee Legislature would cap lottery winnings for recipients at $600.
There seems to be no coordinated move around the country to push these bills, and similar proposals have arisen periodically since federal welfare reform in the 1990s. But the appearance of a cluster of such proposals in the midst of the recession shows lawmakers are newly engaged about who is getting public assistance.
Particularly troubling to some policy analysts is the drive to drug test people collecting unemployment insurance, whose numbers nationwide now exceed 5.4 million, the highest total on records dating back to 1967.
"It doesn't seem like the kind of thing to bring up during a recession," said Ron Haskins, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "People who are unemployed, who have lost their job, that's a sympathetic group. Americans are tuned into that, because they're worried they'll be next."
Indeed, these proposals are coming at a time when more Americans find themselves in need of public assistance.
Although the number of TANF recipients has stayed relatively stable at 3.8 million in the last year, claims for unemployment benefits and food stamps have soared.
In December, more than 31.7 million Americans were receiving food stamp benefits, compared with 27.5 million the year before.
The link between public assistance and drug testing stems from the Congressional overhaul of welfare in the 1990s, which allowed states to implement drug testing as a condition of receiving help.
But a federal court struck down a Michigan law that would have allowed for "random, suspicionless" testing, saying it violated the 4th Amendment's protections against unreasonable search and seizure, said Liz Schott, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
At least six states - Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Wisconsin and Virginia - tie eligibility for some public assistance to drug testing for convicted felons or parolees, according to the NCSL.
Nelson said programs that screen welfare applicants by assigning them to case workers for interviews have shown some success without the need for drug tests. These alternative measures offer treatment, but can also threaten future benefits if drug problems persist, she said.
They also cost less than the $400 or so needed for tests that can catch a sufficient range of illegal drugs, and rule out false positive results with a follow-up test, she said.
---
Associated Press Writer Lawrence Messina in Charleston contributed to this report.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Stocks slide after weak government debt auction
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Stocks-slide-after-weak-apf-14744876.html
Stocks slide after weak government debt auction
Stocks slide after lackluster demand for US debt stirs worries about economic recovery plans
Tim Paradis, AP Business Writer
Wednesday March 25, 2009
NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks lost ground Wednesday after a weak auction of U.S. government debt stirred worries about how easily Washington will be able to raise money to fund its economic rescue program.
Investors gave an unexpectedly cool response to a $24 billion auction of 5-year Treasury notes Wednesday, just a day after a $40 billion auction of 2-year notes suggested strong demand. Treasury prices also declined following the auction.
The government is running up record deficits in order to fund an array of plans to provide stimulus to the economy and support to the ailing financial system. Any suggestion that demand for U.S. government debt is weakening would be negative for stocks.
The market had been higher earlier in the day on enthusiasm over economic reports showing increased demand for big-ticket manufactured goods and higher sales of new homes. Both readings came in better than forecast.
In late afternoon trading, the Dow fell 108.08, or 1.4 percent, to 7,551.89. The Dow had been up about 200 points at its high of the day. The blue chips fell nearly 116 points on Tuesday and surged almost 500 on Monday.
Broader stock indicators also turned lower. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 14.83, or 1.8 percent, to 791.42, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 27.98, or 1.9 percent, to 1,488.54.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 6.86, or 1.7 percent, to 409.92.
About two stocks fell for every one that rose on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 1.15 billion shares.
Bond prices fell after the auction. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, jumped to 2.77 percent from 2.71 percent late Tuesday. The yield on the three-month T-bill rose to 0.19 percent from 0.17 percent Tuesday.
The dollar fell against other major currencies, while gold prices rose.
Jim King, chief investment officer at National Penn Investors Trust Co. in Reading, Pa., said investors are concerned about how well the government's plan to help banks remove bad assets from their books will work.
Stocks had jumped Monday as the plan was announced but then fell back on Tuesday. Now, the weak auction results are only adding to fears that an economic recovery could be more difficult.
"It's kind of feeding into the overall malaise that the market is experiencing following the big pop we got a couple of days ago," King said.
Stocks slide after weak government debt auction
Stocks slide after lackluster demand for US debt stirs worries about economic recovery plans
Tim Paradis, AP Business Writer
Wednesday March 25, 2009
NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks lost ground Wednesday after a weak auction of U.S. government debt stirred worries about how easily Washington will be able to raise money to fund its economic rescue program.
Investors gave an unexpectedly cool response to a $24 billion auction of 5-year Treasury notes Wednesday, just a day after a $40 billion auction of 2-year notes suggested strong demand. Treasury prices also declined following the auction.
The government is running up record deficits in order to fund an array of plans to provide stimulus to the economy and support to the ailing financial system. Any suggestion that demand for U.S. government debt is weakening would be negative for stocks.
The market had been higher earlier in the day on enthusiasm over economic reports showing increased demand for big-ticket manufactured goods and higher sales of new homes. Both readings came in better than forecast.
In late afternoon trading, the Dow fell 108.08, or 1.4 percent, to 7,551.89. The Dow had been up about 200 points at its high of the day. The blue chips fell nearly 116 points on Tuesday and surged almost 500 on Monday.
Broader stock indicators also turned lower. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 14.83, or 1.8 percent, to 791.42, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 27.98, or 1.9 percent, to 1,488.54.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 6.86, or 1.7 percent, to 409.92.
About two stocks fell for every one that rose on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 1.15 billion shares.
Bond prices fell after the auction. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, jumped to 2.77 percent from 2.71 percent late Tuesday. The yield on the three-month T-bill rose to 0.19 percent from 0.17 percent Tuesday.
The dollar fell against other major currencies, while gold prices rose.
Jim King, chief investment officer at National Penn Investors Trust Co. in Reading, Pa., said investors are concerned about how well the government's plan to help banks remove bad assets from their books will work.
Stocks had jumped Monday as the plan was announced but then fell back on Tuesday. Now, the weak auction results are only adding to fears that an economic recovery could be more difficult.
"It's kind of feeding into the overall malaise that the market is experiencing following the big pop we got a couple of days ago," King said.
China calls for new reserve currency
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7851925a-17a2-11de-8c9d-0000779fd2ac.html
China calls for new reserve currency
By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing
March 23 2009
China’s central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund.
In an essay posted on the People’s Bank of China’s website, Zhou Xiaochuan, the central bank’s governor, said the goal would be to create a reserve currency “that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies”.
Analysts said the proposal was an indication of Beijing’s fears that actions being taken to save the domestic US economy would have a negative impact on China.
“This is a clear sign that China, as the largest holder of US dollar financial assets, is concerned about the potential inflationary risk of the US Federal Reserve printing money,” said Qu Hongbin, chief China economist for HSBC.
Although Mr Zhou did not mention the US dollar, the essay gave a pointed critique of the current dollar-dominated monetary system.
“The outbreak of the [current] crisis and its spillover to the entire world reflected the inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system,” Mr Zhou wrote.
China has little choice but to hold the bulk of its $2,000bn of foreign exchange reserves in US dollars, and this is unlikely to change in the near future.
To replace the current system, Mr Zhou suggested expanding the role of special drawing rights, which were introduced by the IMF in 1969 to support the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate regime but became less relevant once that collapsed in the 1970s.
Today, the value of SDRs is based on a basket of four currencies – the US dollar, yen, euro and sterling – and they are used largely as a unit of account by the IMF and some other international organisations.
China’s proposal would expand the basket of currencies forming the basis of SDR valuation to all major economies and set up a settlement system between SDRs and other currencies so they could be used in international trade and financial transactions.
Countries would entrust a portion of their SDR reserves to the IMF to manage collectively on their behalf and SDRs would gradually replace existing reserve currencies.
Mr Zhou said the proposal would require “extraordinary political vision and courage” and acknowledged a debt to John Maynard Keynes, who made a similar suggestion in the 1940s.
China calls for new reserve currency
By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing
March 23 2009
China’s central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund.
In an essay posted on the People’s Bank of China’s website, Zhou Xiaochuan, the central bank’s governor, said the goal would be to create a reserve currency “that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies”.
Analysts said the proposal was an indication of Beijing’s fears that actions being taken to save the domestic US economy would have a negative impact on China.
“This is a clear sign that China, as the largest holder of US dollar financial assets, is concerned about the potential inflationary risk of the US Federal Reserve printing money,” said Qu Hongbin, chief China economist for HSBC.
Although Mr Zhou did not mention the US dollar, the essay gave a pointed critique of the current dollar-dominated monetary system.
“The outbreak of the [current] crisis and its spillover to the entire world reflected the inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system,” Mr Zhou wrote.
China has little choice but to hold the bulk of its $2,000bn of foreign exchange reserves in US dollars, and this is unlikely to change in the near future.
To replace the current system, Mr Zhou suggested expanding the role of special drawing rights, which were introduced by the IMF in 1969 to support the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate regime but became less relevant once that collapsed in the 1970s.
Today, the value of SDRs is based on a basket of four currencies – the US dollar, yen, euro and sterling – and they are used largely as a unit of account by the IMF and some other international organisations.
China’s proposal would expand the basket of currencies forming the basis of SDR valuation to all major economies and set up a settlement system between SDRs and other currencies so they could be used in international trade and financial transactions.
Countries would entrust a portion of their SDR reserves to the IMF to manage collectively on their behalf and SDRs would gradually replace existing reserve currencies.
Mr Zhou said the proposal would require “extraordinary political vision and courage” and acknowledged a debt to John Maynard Keynes, who made a similar suggestion in the 1940s.
Starbucks, Costco and Whole Foods team up
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE52L03920090322
Starbucks, Costco and Whole Foods team up on labor bill
Sat Mar 21, 2009
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Starbucks, Costco Wholesale Corp and Whole Foods Market are joining forces to propose alternatives to a bill that makes it easier for workers to unionize but is strongly opposed by U.S. corporations.
The three retail giants said on Saturday they sought a "third way" as big business and labor unions face off over the Employee Free Choice Act, backed by President Barack Obama.
The "card check" legislation would let workers form a union when a majority of employees sign authorization cards. That would change the current practice in which workers usually vote on unionizing, although the bill would leave the election option open for workers to choose.
Passing the bill is a top priority of labor unions, which in November helped Obama win the White House and the Democrats increase their hold on Congress. Unions, which suffered decades of declining membership, argue that elections allow anti-union managers to intimidate and harass employees.
U.S. businesses and investors oppose the legislation, with analysts saying retail names from Wal-Mart to Target would face higher labor costs and greater unionization risks. Wal-Mart said last week it was confident the legislation would be defeated in Congress.
Starbucks, Costco and Whole Foods, which invited other corporations, unions and public interest groups to join them, proposed instead that unions be given more access to meet with workers, stricter penalties for labor violations and a guaranteed right to request secret ballots in all circumstances.
"We believe in and trust our employees, which is neither anti-union nor pro-status quo," said Costco CEO James Sinegal.
The three companies will provide more details of their proposals on Sunday.
"Given the severe economic crisis facing America, it is time to avoid the polarization that has occurred on both sides of this issue, and instead, come together to find a productive approach," said Lanny Davis, an attorney with Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, who was cited in the statement.
(Reporting by Edwin Chan; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Starbucks, Costco and Whole Foods team up on labor bill
Sat Mar 21, 2009
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Starbucks, Costco Wholesale Corp and Whole Foods Market are joining forces to propose alternatives to a bill that makes it easier for workers to unionize but is strongly opposed by U.S. corporations.
The three retail giants said on Saturday they sought a "third way" as big business and labor unions face off over the Employee Free Choice Act, backed by President Barack Obama.
The "card check" legislation would let workers form a union when a majority of employees sign authorization cards. That would change the current practice in which workers usually vote on unionizing, although the bill would leave the election option open for workers to choose.
Passing the bill is a top priority of labor unions, which in November helped Obama win the White House and the Democrats increase their hold on Congress. Unions, which suffered decades of declining membership, argue that elections allow anti-union managers to intimidate and harass employees.
U.S. businesses and investors oppose the legislation, with analysts saying retail names from Wal-Mart to Target would face higher labor costs and greater unionization risks. Wal-Mart said last week it was confident the legislation would be defeated in Congress.
Starbucks, Costco and Whole Foods, which invited other corporations, unions and public interest groups to join them, proposed instead that unions be given more access to meet with workers, stricter penalties for labor violations and a guaranteed right to request secret ballots in all circumstances.
"We believe in and trust our employees, which is neither anti-union nor pro-status quo," said Costco CEO James Sinegal.
The three companies will provide more details of their proposals on Sunday.
"Given the severe economic crisis facing America, it is time to avoid the polarization that has occurred on both sides of this issue, and instead, come together to find a productive approach," said Lanny Davis, an attorney with Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, who was cited in the statement.
(Reporting by Edwin Chan; Editing by Peter Cooney)
So President Obama Is Finally Pissed Off?
http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/so-president-obama-finally-pissed-so-what
So President Obama Is Finally Pissed Off? So What?
Wed, 03/18/2009
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
The President's public display of anger at AIG is a cover for well-deserved political embarrassment. He and his bankster advisors have dedicated trillions to rescuing the criminal corporations of Wall Street from the consequences of their actions. He acts disappointed that they're still gangsters. "The logic of bankster capitalist enterprise, which AIG was created to protect and serve, is take the money and run - every chance you get."
Obama is Finally Pissed Off. So What?
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
"Did Obama think these guys became financial gangsters as a public service?"
President Obama wants everybody to know that he's angry, really angry, at the zombie insurance giant AIG. Obama gave the impression that AIG pulled a fast one when it awarded its employees $165 million in bonuses for consummating derivative deals that have wrecked the global financial system. The President theatrically pounded the podium in righteous indignation. "How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?" said the usually super-cool chief executive.
Obama's question is misdirected. He should instead be asking himself and his own economic advisors how he and they allowed the racketeers at AIG to divvy up the people's bailout money among themselves. By the time Obama staged his big public blowout over the bonuses, most of the money was already gone, paid out to the foot soldiers of the AIG financial mafia. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner didn't stop the checks from going out. Neither did Larry Summers, head of the National Economic Council at the White House. Robert Rubin, who is guru to Summers and Geithner and to Obama himself, didn't alert his protégés to the likelihood that AIG would reserve a big cut of the bailout for distribution among its own gang. Did Obama think these guys became financial gangsters as a public service?
And why shouldn't they get a cut? The logic of bankster capitalist enterprise, which AIG was created to protect and serve, is take the money and run - every chance you get. AIG covered hundreds of billions - maybe trillions - of dollars in bets placed by the Wall Street mafia in the derivatives casino. But that was a scam, since AIG didn't really have the cash. If AIG went down, then many of the gamblers on Wall Street would go down with it. Therefore, in a bipartisan, help out your favorite gangster agreement, Bush Republicans and Obama Democrats gave AIG $170 billion dollars of the people's money to rescue AIG's clients, the gambling banksters of Wall Street. And why shouldn't the guys who covered the bets in the first place get a piece of the public bailout, themselves? The logic of criminal financial enterprise dictates that they are no more morally reprehensible than their clients.
"It is the public that should be angry with Obama."
The biggest client was none other than Goldman Sachs. AIG's bailout included cash to cover at least $12.9 billion in Goldman Sach's casino bets. As it turns out, the two Godfathers of the Wall Street bailout are Robert Rubin, Obama's personal economics guru, and Henry Paulson, George Bush's Treasury Secretary - both former CEOs of Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs had a consigliere in both administrations, ensuring that the logic of bankster capitalism prevailed across party lines.
Barack Obama has no right to be angry at AIG's diversion of bailout money. It is the public that should be angry with Obama, for keeping the zombies of AIG and Goldman Sachs alive, so they can steal again. As of last month, according to the New York Times, Washington has committed around $9 trillion to the bankster bailout. Obama pretends to be angry about a measly $165 million ripoff by AIG's employees. Actually, he's politically embarrassed. That's what happens when you run with gangsters.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
So President Obama Is Finally Pissed Off? So What?
Wed, 03/18/2009
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
The President's public display of anger at AIG is a cover for well-deserved political embarrassment. He and his bankster advisors have dedicated trillions to rescuing the criminal corporations of Wall Street from the consequences of their actions. He acts disappointed that they're still gangsters. "The logic of bankster capitalist enterprise, which AIG was created to protect and serve, is take the money and run - every chance you get."
Obama is Finally Pissed Off. So What?
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
"Did Obama think these guys became financial gangsters as a public service?"
President Obama wants everybody to know that he's angry, really angry, at the zombie insurance giant AIG. Obama gave the impression that AIG pulled a fast one when it awarded its employees $165 million in bonuses for consummating derivative deals that have wrecked the global financial system. The President theatrically pounded the podium in righteous indignation. "How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?" said the usually super-cool chief executive.
Obama's question is misdirected. He should instead be asking himself and his own economic advisors how he and they allowed the racketeers at AIG to divvy up the people's bailout money among themselves. By the time Obama staged his big public blowout over the bonuses, most of the money was already gone, paid out to the foot soldiers of the AIG financial mafia. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner didn't stop the checks from going out. Neither did Larry Summers, head of the National Economic Council at the White House. Robert Rubin, who is guru to Summers and Geithner and to Obama himself, didn't alert his protégés to the likelihood that AIG would reserve a big cut of the bailout for distribution among its own gang. Did Obama think these guys became financial gangsters as a public service?
And why shouldn't they get a cut? The logic of bankster capitalist enterprise, which AIG was created to protect and serve, is take the money and run - every chance you get. AIG covered hundreds of billions - maybe trillions - of dollars in bets placed by the Wall Street mafia in the derivatives casino. But that was a scam, since AIG didn't really have the cash. If AIG went down, then many of the gamblers on Wall Street would go down with it. Therefore, in a bipartisan, help out your favorite gangster agreement, Bush Republicans and Obama Democrats gave AIG $170 billion dollars of the people's money to rescue AIG's clients, the gambling banksters of Wall Street. And why shouldn't the guys who covered the bets in the first place get a piece of the public bailout, themselves? The logic of criminal financial enterprise dictates that they are no more morally reprehensible than their clients.
"It is the public that should be angry with Obama."
The biggest client was none other than Goldman Sachs. AIG's bailout included cash to cover at least $12.9 billion in Goldman Sach's casino bets. As it turns out, the two Godfathers of the Wall Street bailout are Robert Rubin, Obama's personal economics guru, and Henry Paulson, George Bush's Treasury Secretary - both former CEOs of Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs had a consigliere in both administrations, ensuring that the logic of bankster capitalism prevailed across party lines.
Barack Obama has no right to be angry at AIG's diversion of bailout money. It is the public that should be angry with Obama, for keeping the zombies of AIG and Goldman Sachs alive, so they can steal again. As of last month, according to the New York Times, Washington has committed around $9 trillion to the bankster bailout. Obama pretends to be angry about a measly $165 million ripoff by AIG's employees. Actually, he's politically embarrassed. That's what happens when you run with gangsters.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Welcome to double-standard America
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/03/21/sirota/
Welcome to double-standard America
The AIG scandal has made it apparent that we are ruled by a government of men, not laws.
By David Sirota
Mar. 21, 2009
United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard likes to say that Washington policymakers "treat the people who take a shower after work much differently than they treat the people who shower before they go to work." In the 21st century Gilded Age, the blue-collar shower-after-work crowd is given the tough, while the white-collar shower-before-work gang gets the love, and never before this week was that doctrine made so clear.
Following news that government-owned American International Group devoted $165 million of its $170 billion taxpayer bailout to employee bonuses, the White House insisted nothing could be done to halt the robbery. On ABC's Sunday chat show, Obama advisor Larry Summers couched his passive-aggressive defense of AIG's thieves in the saccharine argot of jurisprudence. "We are a country of law -- there are contracts (and) the government cannot just abrogate contracts," he said.
The rhetoric echoed John Adams' two-century-old fairy tale about an impartial "government of laws, and not of men." Only now, the reassuring platitudes can't hide the uncomfortable truth.
Last month, the same government that says it "cannot just abrogate" executives' bonus contracts used its leverage to cancel unions' wage contracts. As the Wall Street Journal reported, federal loans to G.M. and Chrysler were made contingent on those manufacturers shredding their existing labor pacts and "extract[ing] financial concessions from workers." In other words, our government asks us to believe that it possesses total authority to adjust contracts at car companies it lends to, and yet has zero power to modify contracts at financial firms it owns. This, even though the latter set of covenants might be easily abolished.
According to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, these allegedly inviolate AIG agreements promised bonus money the company didn't have and were crafted by executives who knew the firm was collapsing, meaning there is a decent chance these pacts could be invalidated under "fraudulent conveyance" statutes. They also might be canceled via "force majeure" clauses allowing one party to rescind a pact in the event of extraordinary circumstances -- like, perhaps, the collapse of the world economy. (Note: BusinessWeek reports that corporations are already citing the recession as reason to invoke such clauses and nix their business-to-business contracts.)
But, then, those legal cases require a government that treats AIG's shower-before-work employees with the same firmness that it treats the auto industry's shower-after-work employees, not the government we currently have -- the one that believes "the supreme sanctity of employment contracts applies only to some types of employees but not others," as Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald says.
Mind you, this double standard works the other way, too.
Congressional Republicans have long supported the laws letting bankruptcy courts annul mortgage contracts for vacation homes. Those statutes help the shower-before-work clique at least retain their beachside villas, no matter how many of their speculative Ponzi schemes go bad. But for those who shower after work, it's Adams-esque bromides against "absolving borrowers of their personal responsibility," as the GOP announced it will oppose legislation permitting bankruptcy judges to revise mortgage contracts for primary residences.
Certainly, for all the connotations of fairness inherent in American politics' "country of law" catchphrases, most of us know that the selective application of legal principles is as old as the Republic. However, lots of us are only now discovering that inequality is so pronounced that the time of day we bathe determines the enforcement and reliability (or lack thereof) of even the most basic contracts.
We are just realizing that for all the parroting of America's second president, we are ruled by a government of men, and not of laws.
Welcome to double-standard America
The AIG scandal has made it apparent that we are ruled by a government of men, not laws.
By David Sirota
Mar. 21, 2009
United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard likes to say that Washington policymakers "treat the people who take a shower after work much differently than they treat the people who shower before they go to work." In the 21st century Gilded Age, the blue-collar shower-after-work crowd is given the tough, while the white-collar shower-before-work gang gets the love, and never before this week was that doctrine made so clear.
Following news that government-owned American International Group devoted $165 million of its $170 billion taxpayer bailout to employee bonuses, the White House insisted nothing could be done to halt the robbery. On ABC's Sunday chat show, Obama advisor Larry Summers couched his passive-aggressive defense of AIG's thieves in the saccharine argot of jurisprudence. "We are a country of law -- there are contracts (and) the government cannot just abrogate contracts," he said.
The rhetoric echoed John Adams' two-century-old fairy tale about an impartial "government of laws, and not of men." Only now, the reassuring platitudes can't hide the uncomfortable truth.
Last month, the same government that says it "cannot just abrogate" executives' bonus contracts used its leverage to cancel unions' wage contracts. As the Wall Street Journal reported, federal loans to G.M. and Chrysler were made contingent on those manufacturers shredding their existing labor pacts and "extract[ing] financial concessions from workers." In other words, our government asks us to believe that it possesses total authority to adjust contracts at car companies it lends to, and yet has zero power to modify contracts at financial firms it owns. This, even though the latter set of covenants might be easily abolished.
According to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, these allegedly inviolate AIG agreements promised bonus money the company didn't have and were crafted by executives who knew the firm was collapsing, meaning there is a decent chance these pacts could be invalidated under "fraudulent conveyance" statutes. They also might be canceled via "force majeure" clauses allowing one party to rescind a pact in the event of extraordinary circumstances -- like, perhaps, the collapse of the world economy. (Note: BusinessWeek reports that corporations are already citing the recession as reason to invoke such clauses and nix their business-to-business contracts.)
But, then, those legal cases require a government that treats AIG's shower-before-work employees with the same firmness that it treats the auto industry's shower-after-work employees, not the government we currently have -- the one that believes "the supreme sanctity of employment contracts applies only to some types of employees but not others," as Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald says.
Mind you, this double standard works the other way, too.
Congressional Republicans have long supported the laws letting bankruptcy courts annul mortgage contracts for vacation homes. Those statutes help the shower-before-work clique at least retain their beachside villas, no matter how many of their speculative Ponzi schemes go bad. But for those who shower after work, it's Adams-esque bromides against "absolving borrowers of their personal responsibility," as the GOP announced it will oppose legislation permitting bankruptcy judges to revise mortgage contracts for primary residences.
Certainly, for all the connotations of fairness inherent in American politics' "country of law" catchphrases, most of us know that the selective application of legal principles is as old as the Republic. However, lots of us are only now discovering that inequality is so pronounced that the time of day we bathe determines the enforcement and reliability (or lack thereof) of even the most basic contracts.
We are just realizing that for all the parroting of America's second president, we are ruled by a government of men, and not of laws.
LET IT DIE: Rushkoff on the economy
http://www.arthurmag.com/2009/03/16/let-it-die-rushkoff-on-the-economy/
LET IT DIE: Rushkoff on the economy
by Douglas Rushkoff
March 15, 2009
With any luck, the economy will never recover.
In a perfect world, the stock market would decline another 70 or 80 percent along with the shuttering of about that fraction of our nation’s banks. Yes, unemployment would rise as hundreds of thousands of formerly well-paid brokers and bankers lost their jobs; but at least they would no longer be extracting wealth at our expense. They would need to be fed, but that would be a lot cheaper than keeping them in the luxurious conditions they’re enjoying now. Even Bernie Madoff costs us less in jail than he does on Park Avenue.
Alas, I’m not being sarcastic. If you had spent the last decade, as I have, reviewing the way a centralized economic plan ravaged the real world over the past 500 years, you would appreciate the current financial meltdown for what it is: a comeuppance. This is the sound of the other shoe dropping; it’s what happens when the chickens come home to roost; it’s justice, equilibrium reasserting itself, and ultimately a good thing.
I started writing a book three years ago through which I hoped to help people see the artificial and ultimately dehumanizing landscape of corporatism on which we conduct so much of our lives. It’s not just that I saw the downturn coming—it’s that I feared it wouldn’t come quickly or clearly enough to help us wake up from the self-destructive fantasy of an eternally expanding economic frontier. The planet, and its people, were being taxed beyond their capacity to produce. Try arguing that to a banker whose livelihood is based on perpetuating that illusion, or to people whose retirement incomes depend on just one more generation falling for the scam. It’s like arguing to Brooklyn’s latest crop of brownstone buyers that they’ve invested in real estate at the very moment the whole market is about to tank. (I did; it wasn’t pretty.)
Now that the scheme we have mistaken for the real economy is collapsing under its own weight, however, it’s a whole lot easier to make these arguments. And, if anything, it’s even more important for us to come to grips with the fact that the system in peril is not a natural one, or even one that we should be attempting to revive and restore. The thing that is dying—the corporatized model of commerce—has not, nor has it ever been, supportive of the real economy. It wasn’t meant to be. And before we start lamenting its demise or, worse, spending good money after bad to resuscitate it, we had better understand what it was for, how it nearly sucked us all dry, and why we should put it out of our misery.
Chartered Corporations
Back in the good ol’ days—I mean as far back as the late middle ages—people just did business with each other. As traveling got easier and people got access to new resources and markets, a middle class of merchants and small businesspeople started to get wealthy. So wealthy that they threatened the power of the aristocracy. Monarchs needed to come up with a way to stabilize their own wealth before the free market unseated them.
They invented the corporate charter. By granting an exclusive charter, a king could give one of his friends in the merchant class monopoly control over a region or sector. In exchange, he’d get shares in the company. So the businessperson no longer had to worry about competition—his position at the top of the business hierarchy was locked in place, by law. And the monarch never had to worry about losing his authority; businesses with crown-guaranteed charters tend to support the crown.
But this changed the shape of business fundamentally. Instead of thriving on innovation and progress, corporate monopolies simply sought to extract wealth from the regions they controlled. They didn’t need to compete, anymore, so they just sucked resources from places and people. Meanwhile, people living and working in the real world lost the ability to generate value by or for themselves.
For example: In the 1700s, American colonists were allowed to grow corn but they weren’t allowed to do anything with it–except sell it at fixed prices to the British East India Trading Company, the corporation sanctioned by England to do business in the colonies. Colonists weren’t allowed to sell their cotton to each other or, worse, make clothes out of it. They were mandated, by law, to ship it back to England where clothes were fabricated by another chartered monopoly, then shipped back to America where they could be purchased. The American war for independence was less a revolt against England than a revolt against her chartered corporations.
The other big innovation of the early corporate era was monopoly currency. There used to be lots of different kinds of money. Local currencies, which helped regions reinvest in their own activities, and centralized currencies, for long distance transactions. Local currencies were earned into existence. A farmer would grow a bunch of grain, bring it to the grain store, and get receipts for how much grain he had deposited. The receipts could be used as money—even by people who didn’t need grain at that particular moment. Everyone knew what it was worth.
The interesting thing about local, grain-based currencies was that they lost value over time. The people at the grain store had to be paid, and a certain amount of grain was lost to rain or rodents. So every year, the money would be worth less. This encouraged people to spend it rather than save it. And they did. Late Middle Ages workers were paid more for less work time than at any point in history. Women were taller in England in that era than they are today—an indication of their relative health. People did preventative maintenance on their equipment, and invested in innovation. There was so much extra money looking for productive investment, that people built cathedrals. The great cathedrals of Europe were not paid for with money from the Vatican; they were local investments, made by small towns looking for ways to share their prosperity with future generations by creating tourist attractions.
Local currencies favored local transactions, and worked against the interests of large corporations working from far away. In order to secure their own position as well as that of their chartered monopolies, monarchs began to make local currencies illegal, and force locals to instead use “coin of the realm.” These centralized currencies worked the opposite way. They were not earned into existence, they were lent into existence by a central bank. This meant any money issued to a person or business had to be paid back to the central bank, with interest.
What does that do to an economy? It bankrupts it. Think of it this way: A business borrows 1000 dollars from the bank to get started. In ten years, say, it is supposed to pay back 2000 to the bank. Where does the other 1000 come from? Some other business that has borrowed 1000 from the bank. For one business to pay back what it owes, another must go bankrupt. That, or borrow yet another 1000, and so on.
An economy based on an interest-bearing centralized currency must grow to survive, and this means extracting more, producing more and consuming more. Interest-bearing currency favors the redistribution of wealth from the periphery (the people) to the center (the corporations and their owners). Just sitting on money—capital—is the most assured way of increasing wealth. By the very mechanics of the system, the rich get richer on an absolute and relative basis.
The biggest wealth generator of all was banking itself. By lending money at interest to people and businesses who had no other way to conduct transactions or make investments, banks put themselves at the center of the extraction equation. The longer the economy survived, the more money would have to be borrowed, and the more interest earned by the bank.
Financial Meltdown
Which is pretty much how things have worked over the past 500 years to today. So what went wrong? Nothing. The system worked exactly as it was supposed to. The problem was that after America’s post WWII expansion, there was really no longer any real growth area in the economy from which to extract wealth. We were producing and consuming about as much as we could. Almost no commercial activity was occurring outside the corporate system. There was no room left to grow. Sure, outsourcing, lay-offs, and technology created some efficiencies, but wars, rising costs of health care, and exchange rates essentially offset any gains.
Making matters worse, all that capital that the wealthy had accumulated needed markets—even fake markets—in which to be invested. There was a ton of money out there—just nowhere to put it. Nothing on which to speculate.
The dot.com boom seemed to offer the promise of a new market, but it fizzled almost as quickly as it rose. So speculators turned instead to real assets, like corn, oil, even real estate. They started investing speculatively on the things that real people need to stay alive. What real people didn’t understand was that there is no way to compete against speculators. Speculators aren’t buying homes in which to live—they are buying houses to flip. Speculators aren’t buying corn to eat or oil to burn, but bushels to hoard and tankers to park off shore until prices rise. The fact that the speculative economy for cash and commodities accounts for over 95% of economic transactions, while people actually using money and consuming commodities constitute less than 5% tells us something important. Real supply and demand have almost nothing to do with prices. We do not live in an economy, we live in a Ponzi scheme.
Luckily for us, the banks, and the speculators depending on them, made a bad wager: they bet on our continuing capacity to provide a reality on which to base their highly leveraged schemes. We just couldn’t do it. They put us between a rock and a hard place. With George W’s help, they sold us on the notion of home ownership as a prerequisite to the American dream. And they created a number of loan products which made it look as if we could actually afford over-priced homes. The banking industry spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying for laws making bankruptcy difficult or impossible for average people to accomplish—while simultaneously selling average people loans that they would never be able to pay back.
The banks didn’t really care, anyway, since they never meant to keep these loans. They simply provided the cash to mortgage companies, who then packaged the loans. In return for putting up the original cash, the banks also won the right to underwrite the sale of those mortgage packages to investors—investors like pension funds, retirement funds, or you and me. Get it? The banks get all the interest, but we put up all the money. Our retirement accounts and pension funds invest in the very mortgages that we can’t pay back. The bank collects any interest, playing both sides of the equation but responsible for neither.
And when the whole scheme begins to break down, what do we do? We try to bail out the very banks that created the mess, under the premise that we need these banks in order for business to come back, since only banks can lend the capital required for businesses to flourish.
Yes, It is Wrong
President Obama may be smarter than most of us, but he’s still attempting to rescue the very institutions that robbed us in the first place. He’s not a socialist, as conservatives may be arguing, but he is a corporatist. Using future tax dollars to fund government job programs is one thing. Using future tax dollars to give banks more money to lend out at interest is robbing from the poor to pay the rich to rob from the poor.
As painful as it might be to watch, and as irritating as it might be to those with shrinking retirement savings, the collapse of the centralized corporate economy is ultimately a good thing. It makes room for a real economy to rise up in its place. And while it may be temporarily uncomfortable for the rich, and even temporarily devastating for the poor, it may be the fastest and least violent way to dismantle a system set in place for the benefit of 14th Century monarchs who have long since left this earth.
If the corporate supermarket chain’s debt structure renders it incapable of stocking its shelves this spring, this may be the wake-up call that consumers need to finally subscribe to a Community Supported Agriculture farmer. If the former associate fund analyst at Lehman realizes that he is unable to get a job not just because his industry is contracting but because his work day creates no real value for anyone at all, he will be forced to learn how to do something that does. If an urban elite parent realizes he can no longer pay private school tuition for his kids, maybe he’ll consider donating to public school the time he would have spent earning that tuition.
In short, the less we are able to depend on business-as-usual to provide for our basic needs, the more we will be forced to provide them for ourselves and one another. Sometimes we’ll do this for free, because we like each other, or live in the same community. Sometimes we’ll exchange services or favors. Sometimes we’ll use one of the alternative, local currencies coming into use across the country as Central bank-issued currencies become too hard to get without a corporate job.
Deprived of centralized banks and corporations, we’ll be forced to do things again. And in the process, we’ll find out that these institutions were not our benefactors at all. They were never meant to be. They were invented to mediate transactions between people, and extract the value that would have passed between us. Far from making commerce or industry more efficient, they served to turn the real world into a set of speculative assets, and real people into debtors.
The current financial crisis is the best opportunity we have had in a very long time for a bloodless revolution against the faceless fascism under which we have been living, unaware, for much too long. Let us seize the day.
Longtime Arthur columnist Douglas Rushkoff has just finished his life’s work, “Life Inc: How the world became a corporation and how to take it back,” to be published June 2, 2009 by Random House. His live talk radio show, Media Squat Radio, airs Mondays 7-8pm EDT on WFMU. Streams at www.wfmu.org and iTunes.
LET IT DIE: Rushkoff on the economy
by Douglas Rushkoff
March 15, 2009
With any luck, the economy will never recover.
In a perfect world, the stock market would decline another 70 or 80 percent along with the shuttering of about that fraction of our nation’s banks. Yes, unemployment would rise as hundreds of thousands of formerly well-paid brokers and bankers lost their jobs; but at least they would no longer be extracting wealth at our expense. They would need to be fed, but that would be a lot cheaper than keeping them in the luxurious conditions they’re enjoying now. Even Bernie Madoff costs us less in jail than he does on Park Avenue.
Alas, I’m not being sarcastic. If you had spent the last decade, as I have, reviewing the way a centralized economic plan ravaged the real world over the past 500 years, you would appreciate the current financial meltdown for what it is: a comeuppance. This is the sound of the other shoe dropping; it’s what happens when the chickens come home to roost; it’s justice, equilibrium reasserting itself, and ultimately a good thing.
I started writing a book three years ago through which I hoped to help people see the artificial and ultimately dehumanizing landscape of corporatism on which we conduct so much of our lives. It’s not just that I saw the downturn coming—it’s that I feared it wouldn’t come quickly or clearly enough to help us wake up from the self-destructive fantasy of an eternally expanding economic frontier. The planet, and its people, were being taxed beyond their capacity to produce. Try arguing that to a banker whose livelihood is based on perpetuating that illusion, or to people whose retirement incomes depend on just one more generation falling for the scam. It’s like arguing to Brooklyn’s latest crop of brownstone buyers that they’ve invested in real estate at the very moment the whole market is about to tank. (I did; it wasn’t pretty.)
Now that the scheme we have mistaken for the real economy is collapsing under its own weight, however, it’s a whole lot easier to make these arguments. And, if anything, it’s even more important for us to come to grips with the fact that the system in peril is not a natural one, or even one that we should be attempting to revive and restore. The thing that is dying—the corporatized model of commerce—has not, nor has it ever been, supportive of the real economy. It wasn’t meant to be. And before we start lamenting its demise or, worse, spending good money after bad to resuscitate it, we had better understand what it was for, how it nearly sucked us all dry, and why we should put it out of our misery.
Chartered Corporations
Back in the good ol’ days—I mean as far back as the late middle ages—people just did business with each other. As traveling got easier and people got access to new resources and markets, a middle class of merchants and small businesspeople started to get wealthy. So wealthy that they threatened the power of the aristocracy. Monarchs needed to come up with a way to stabilize their own wealth before the free market unseated them.
They invented the corporate charter. By granting an exclusive charter, a king could give one of his friends in the merchant class monopoly control over a region or sector. In exchange, he’d get shares in the company. So the businessperson no longer had to worry about competition—his position at the top of the business hierarchy was locked in place, by law. And the monarch never had to worry about losing his authority; businesses with crown-guaranteed charters tend to support the crown.
But this changed the shape of business fundamentally. Instead of thriving on innovation and progress, corporate monopolies simply sought to extract wealth from the regions they controlled. They didn’t need to compete, anymore, so they just sucked resources from places and people. Meanwhile, people living and working in the real world lost the ability to generate value by or for themselves.
For example: In the 1700s, American colonists were allowed to grow corn but they weren’t allowed to do anything with it–except sell it at fixed prices to the British East India Trading Company, the corporation sanctioned by England to do business in the colonies. Colonists weren’t allowed to sell their cotton to each other or, worse, make clothes out of it. They were mandated, by law, to ship it back to England where clothes were fabricated by another chartered monopoly, then shipped back to America where they could be purchased. The American war for independence was less a revolt against England than a revolt against her chartered corporations.
The other big innovation of the early corporate era was monopoly currency. There used to be lots of different kinds of money. Local currencies, which helped regions reinvest in their own activities, and centralized currencies, for long distance transactions. Local currencies were earned into existence. A farmer would grow a bunch of grain, bring it to the grain store, and get receipts for how much grain he had deposited. The receipts could be used as money—even by people who didn’t need grain at that particular moment. Everyone knew what it was worth.
The interesting thing about local, grain-based currencies was that they lost value over time. The people at the grain store had to be paid, and a certain amount of grain was lost to rain or rodents. So every year, the money would be worth less. This encouraged people to spend it rather than save it. And they did. Late Middle Ages workers were paid more for less work time than at any point in history. Women were taller in England in that era than they are today—an indication of their relative health. People did preventative maintenance on their equipment, and invested in innovation. There was so much extra money looking for productive investment, that people built cathedrals. The great cathedrals of Europe were not paid for with money from the Vatican; they were local investments, made by small towns looking for ways to share their prosperity with future generations by creating tourist attractions.
Local currencies favored local transactions, and worked against the interests of large corporations working from far away. In order to secure their own position as well as that of their chartered monopolies, monarchs began to make local currencies illegal, and force locals to instead use “coin of the realm.” These centralized currencies worked the opposite way. They were not earned into existence, they were lent into existence by a central bank. This meant any money issued to a person or business had to be paid back to the central bank, with interest.
What does that do to an economy? It bankrupts it. Think of it this way: A business borrows 1000 dollars from the bank to get started. In ten years, say, it is supposed to pay back 2000 to the bank. Where does the other 1000 come from? Some other business that has borrowed 1000 from the bank. For one business to pay back what it owes, another must go bankrupt. That, or borrow yet another 1000, and so on.
An economy based on an interest-bearing centralized currency must grow to survive, and this means extracting more, producing more and consuming more. Interest-bearing currency favors the redistribution of wealth from the periphery (the people) to the center (the corporations and their owners). Just sitting on money—capital—is the most assured way of increasing wealth. By the very mechanics of the system, the rich get richer on an absolute and relative basis.
The biggest wealth generator of all was banking itself. By lending money at interest to people and businesses who had no other way to conduct transactions or make investments, banks put themselves at the center of the extraction equation. The longer the economy survived, the more money would have to be borrowed, and the more interest earned by the bank.
Financial Meltdown
Which is pretty much how things have worked over the past 500 years to today. So what went wrong? Nothing. The system worked exactly as it was supposed to. The problem was that after America’s post WWII expansion, there was really no longer any real growth area in the economy from which to extract wealth. We were producing and consuming about as much as we could. Almost no commercial activity was occurring outside the corporate system. There was no room left to grow. Sure, outsourcing, lay-offs, and technology created some efficiencies, but wars, rising costs of health care, and exchange rates essentially offset any gains.
Making matters worse, all that capital that the wealthy had accumulated needed markets—even fake markets—in which to be invested. There was a ton of money out there—just nowhere to put it. Nothing on which to speculate.
The dot.com boom seemed to offer the promise of a new market, but it fizzled almost as quickly as it rose. So speculators turned instead to real assets, like corn, oil, even real estate. They started investing speculatively on the things that real people need to stay alive. What real people didn’t understand was that there is no way to compete against speculators. Speculators aren’t buying homes in which to live—they are buying houses to flip. Speculators aren’t buying corn to eat or oil to burn, but bushels to hoard and tankers to park off shore until prices rise. The fact that the speculative economy for cash and commodities accounts for over 95% of economic transactions, while people actually using money and consuming commodities constitute less than 5% tells us something important. Real supply and demand have almost nothing to do with prices. We do not live in an economy, we live in a Ponzi scheme.
Luckily for us, the banks, and the speculators depending on them, made a bad wager: they bet on our continuing capacity to provide a reality on which to base their highly leveraged schemes. We just couldn’t do it. They put us between a rock and a hard place. With George W’s help, they sold us on the notion of home ownership as a prerequisite to the American dream. And they created a number of loan products which made it look as if we could actually afford over-priced homes. The banking industry spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying for laws making bankruptcy difficult or impossible for average people to accomplish—while simultaneously selling average people loans that they would never be able to pay back.
The banks didn’t really care, anyway, since they never meant to keep these loans. They simply provided the cash to mortgage companies, who then packaged the loans. In return for putting up the original cash, the banks also won the right to underwrite the sale of those mortgage packages to investors—investors like pension funds, retirement funds, or you and me. Get it? The banks get all the interest, but we put up all the money. Our retirement accounts and pension funds invest in the very mortgages that we can’t pay back. The bank collects any interest, playing both sides of the equation but responsible for neither.
And when the whole scheme begins to break down, what do we do? We try to bail out the very banks that created the mess, under the premise that we need these banks in order for business to come back, since only banks can lend the capital required for businesses to flourish.
Yes, It is Wrong
President Obama may be smarter than most of us, but he’s still attempting to rescue the very institutions that robbed us in the first place. He’s not a socialist, as conservatives may be arguing, but he is a corporatist. Using future tax dollars to fund government job programs is one thing. Using future tax dollars to give banks more money to lend out at interest is robbing from the poor to pay the rich to rob from the poor.
As painful as it might be to watch, and as irritating as it might be to those with shrinking retirement savings, the collapse of the centralized corporate economy is ultimately a good thing. It makes room for a real economy to rise up in its place. And while it may be temporarily uncomfortable for the rich, and even temporarily devastating for the poor, it may be the fastest and least violent way to dismantle a system set in place for the benefit of 14th Century monarchs who have long since left this earth.
If the corporate supermarket chain’s debt structure renders it incapable of stocking its shelves this spring, this may be the wake-up call that consumers need to finally subscribe to a Community Supported Agriculture farmer. If the former associate fund analyst at Lehman realizes that he is unable to get a job not just because his industry is contracting but because his work day creates no real value for anyone at all, he will be forced to learn how to do something that does. If an urban elite parent realizes he can no longer pay private school tuition for his kids, maybe he’ll consider donating to public school the time he would have spent earning that tuition.
In short, the less we are able to depend on business-as-usual to provide for our basic needs, the more we will be forced to provide them for ourselves and one another. Sometimes we’ll do this for free, because we like each other, or live in the same community. Sometimes we’ll exchange services or favors. Sometimes we’ll use one of the alternative, local currencies coming into use across the country as Central bank-issued currencies become too hard to get without a corporate job.
Deprived of centralized banks and corporations, we’ll be forced to do things again. And in the process, we’ll find out that these institutions were not our benefactors at all. They were never meant to be. They were invented to mediate transactions between people, and extract the value that would have passed between us. Far from making commerce or industry more efficient, they served to turn the real world into a set of speculative assets, and real people into debtors.
The current financial crisis is the best opportunity we have had in a very long time for a bloodless revolution against the faceless fascism under which we have been living, unaware, for much too long. Let us seize the day.
Longtime Arthur columnist Douglas Rushkoff has just finished his life’s work, “Life Inc: How the world became a corporation and how to take it back,” to be published June 2, 2009 by Random House. His live talk radio show, Media Squat Radio, airs Mondays 7-8pm EDT on WFMU. Streams at www.wfmu.org and iTunes.
Wall Street celebrates government windfall
http://wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/toxi-m24.shtml
Wall Street celebrates government windfall for banks and big investors
By Barry Grey
24 March 2009
Wall Street erupted in a demonstration of euphoria and greed Monday as the Obama administration announced a plan to offload bankers' bad debts that amounts to an unprecedented looting of taxpayer funds to benefit the financial elite.
All of the major stock indexes soared as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner laid out details of the administration's so-called Public-Private Investment Program—a euphemism for a scheme to bankroll private investment firms and guarantee them huge profits in return for buying failed home loans and securities from the banks at vastly inflated prices.
The masters of Wall Street, who have been driving up share prices in recent days—especially bank stocks—in anticipation of the roll-out of the program, were delighted to find that it not only met, but exceeded their expectations.
Hedge funds and private equity firms that participate in the scheme will put up as little as 5 percent of the capital to buy between $500 billion and $1 trillion of the banks' junk assets, with the government providing the rest in the form of $75-$100 billion in Treasury funds and low-cost loans from the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The loans will be guaranteed by the government, which will assume the overwhelming bulk of any losses.
Even though the bulk of the capital and financing will come from the government, the public-private investment funds set up under the scheme will be run by private investment firms, which will receive lucrative fees for dividing up the booty.
The banks cheered the deal because it will allow them, at their own discretion, to palm off their bad debts at prices many multiples of what they could currently fetch on the market. Since the government will bankroll the big investors and assume virtually all of the risk, the investors will be willing to pay inflated prices for the illiquid loans and securities in government-supervised auctions. They calculate that they can hold the assets until the housing market recovers and then sell them back to the financial markets at a return of 20 percent or more.
For their part, the banks will be able, at little cost, to cleanse their balance sheets of what is routinely referred to as "toxic waste," laying the basis for a big rise in their stock.
The entire scheme is voluntary. No one on Wall Street is required to do anything—unless he judges there is a substantial profit to be made. There is no requirement that the banks increase their lending. They can choose to continue to hoard their government windfalls—as they have done thus far with the billions they've received in cash injections and government loans—in order to pressure the state for even more favorable terms.
Stocks opened sharply higher after Geithner's presentation of the plan to reporters Monday morning. They continued to rise throughout the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed with a gain of 497 points, or 6.8 percent. It was the Dow's biggest one-day rise since October 28, bringing it 18.8 percent higher than its low earlier this month. The other major indexes—the Standard & Poor's 500 and the Nasdaq—registered similar gains.
It was, above all, a banner day for bank stocks. Citigroup finished up 19 percent, Bank of America rose 26 percent, JPMorgan Chase closed 25 percent higher and Wells Fargo ended with a gain of 24 percent.
There was a political as well as an economic component to the jubilation on Wall Street. The plan and the related statements of top administration officials, beginning with Obama, were rightly taken to demonstrate that the Obama administration is nothing more than a direct instrument of the most powerful sections of the financial aristocracy.
Top administration economic officials and Obama himself spent the weekend reassuring Wall Street, which responded with fury to a bill passed by the House of Representatives taxing the bonuses of wealthy executives and traders at AIG and other bailed-out firms, that they did not support the measure and would impose no executive pay limits on firms that participated in the new bank bailout measure.
With Wall Street executives threatening to boycott the program unless they were given ironclad assurances that their fortunes would not be touched and there would be no "change in the rules" down the road, Geithner gave an interview that was published by the Wall Street Journal Monday morning pleading for hedge funds and banks to participate. "The Obama administration believes those provisions shouldn't apply to such broad programs [as the Public-Private Investment Plan] and an exception was made last month for participants in the Federal Reserve's consumer-lending facility," the newspaper reported.
The same issue carried a column by Geithner entitled "My Plan for Bad Bank Assets" which declared that "we need to be very careful not to discourage those investments the economy needs to recover from recession." It went on to equate protecting the million-dollar bonuses awarded by firms that have bilked the public for billions of dollars with defending "the rule of law." Geithner solemnly wrote that "when our government gives its word" to "responsible entrepreneurs and investors... we mean it."
In his press briefing Monday morning, he rejected any suggestion that the government might temporarily nationalize failing banks and declared, "We're going to do what's necessary to protect the system."
Obama, in remarks to the press on the toxic asset plan following a meeting with his top economic advisers, affirmed that it "will involve market participants who have every interest in making a profit."
In fact, the plan was drawn up in the closest consultation with the billionaire bankers and hedge fund managers who stand to profit from it. The Financial Times reported Monday:
"People close to the situation said the plan was the result of detailed talks between Treasury, banks, private equity groups and other investors over the past few weeks. Senior private equity executives said the key terms of the initiative unveiled on Monday went beyond their own wish-lists.
"Some investors had asked Treasury to provide debt equal to around three to four times the value of the equity to be injected in the public-private partnerships, but the authorities decided to grant leverage of up to six times for the purchase of toxic loans, making it even more attractive for private equity groups to participate in the plan...
"‘As it stands, there is very limited downside for us,' a senior Wall Street banker said. ‘If we like the price offered, we will sell the assets and record an accounting gain and if we don't, we will stay as we are.'"
Among the big Wall Street investors who praised the scheme and announced their intention to get in on the action was Bill Gross, the founder and head of Pacific Investment Management Co. (PIMCO), the world's biggest bond fund. Gross, along with billionaire investor Warren Buffett and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, first broached the idea of creating public-private investment funds to buy toxic bank assets with Treasury officials last fall.
The noted economist Jeffrey Sachs provided an accurate characterization of the plan in a commentary published Monday by the Huffington Post.
He wrote: "Geithner and Summers [Lawrence Summers, director of the White House's National Economic Council] have now announced their plan to raid the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Federal Reserve (Fed) to subsidize investors to buy toxic assets from the banks at inflated prices. If carried out, the result will be a massive transfer of wealth—of perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars—to bank shareholders from the taxpayers (who will absorb losses at the FDIC and Fed)...
"The investment funds will have the following balance sheet. For every $1 of toxic assets that they buy from the banks, the FDIC will lend up to 85.7 cents (six-sevenths of $1), and the Treasury and private investors will each put in 7.15 cents in equity to cover the remaining balance. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation loans will be non-recourse, meaning that if the toxic assets purchased by private investors fall in value below the amount of the FDIC loans, the investment funds will default on the loans and the FDIC will end up holding the toxic assets...
"The FDIC is giving a ‘heads you win, tails the taxpayer loses' offer to the private investors."
Princeton University economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman offered a similar assessment, writing, "But the Geithner scheme would offer a one-way bet: if asset values go up, the investors profit, but if they go down, the investors can walk away from their debt. This isn't really about letting markets work. It's just an indirect, disguised way to subsidize purchases of bad assets."
Mournfully, he noted, "It's as if the president were determined to confirm the growing perception that he and his economic team are out of touch, that their economic vision is clouded by excessively close ties to Wall Street."
It is not, however, a matter of Obama's "clouded vision," but rather an administration that embodies the reality of class relations in America and the dictatorship of finance capital which is exercised through a political system dominated by two parties of the capitalist ruling elite. The wholesale theft of the social wealth embodied in the latest bailout scheme is a continuation of a policy that has, from day one, been driven by horror not at the impoverishment of tens of millions of workers, but rather the prospect that the crisis of their own making could cut into the vast wealth of the financial oligarchs.
On Monday, Wall Street celebrated the fact that it has in Washington a bunch of lackeys who can be counted on to do its bidding.
Wall Street celebrates government windfall for banks and big investors
By Barry Grey
24 March 2009
Wall Street erupted in a demonstration of euphoria and greed Monday as the Obama administration announced a plan to offload bankers' bad debts that amounts to an unprecedented looting of taxpayer funds to benefit the financial elite.
All of the major stock indexes soared as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner laid out details of the administration's so-called Public-Private Investment Program—a euphemism for a scheme to bankroll private investment firms and guarantee them huge profits in return for buying failed home loans and securities from the banks at vastly inflated prices.
The masters of Wall Street, who have been driving up share prices in recent days—especially bank stocks—in anticipation of the roll-out of the program, were delighted to find that it not only met, but exceeded their expectations.
Hedge funds and private equity firms that participate in the scheme will put up as little as 5 percent of the capital to buy between $500 billion and $1 trillion of the banks' junk assets, with the government providing the rest in the form of $75-$100 billion in Treasury funds and low-cost loans from the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The loans will be guaranteed by the government, which will assume the overwhelming bulk of any losses.
Even though the bulk of the capital and financing will come from the government, the public-private investment funds set up under the scheme will be run by private investment firms, which will receive lucrative fees for dividing up the booty.
The banks cheered the deal because it will allow them, at their own discretion, to palm off their bad debts at prices many multiples of what they could currently fetch on the market. Since the government will bankroll the big investors and assume virtually all of the risk, the investors will be willing to pay inflated prices for the illiquid loans and securities in government-supervised auctions. They calculate that they can hold the assets until the housing market recovers and then sell them back to the financial markets at a return of 20 percent or more.
For their part, the banks will be able, at little cost, to cleanse their balance sheets of what is routinely referred to as "toxic waste," laying the basis for a big rise in their stock.
The entire scheme is voluntary. No one on Wall Street is required to do anything—unless he judges there is a substantial profit to be made. There is no requirement that the banks increase their lending. They can choose to continue to hoard their government windfalls—as they have done thus far with the billions they've received in cash injections and government loans—in order to pressure the state for even more favorable terms.
Stocks opened sharply higher after Geithner's presentation of the plan to reporters Monday morning. They continued to rise throughout the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed with a gain of 497 points, or 6.8 percent. It was the Dow's biggest one-day rise since October 28, bringing it 18.8 percent higher than its low earlier this month. The other major indexes—the Standard & Poor's 500 and the Nasdaq—registered similar gains.
It was, above all, a banner day for bank stocks. Citigroup finished up 19 percent, Bank of America rose 26 percent, JPMorgan Chase closed 25 percent higher and Wells Fargo ended with a gain of 24 percent.
There was a political as well as an economic component to the jubilation on Wall Street. The plan and the related statements of top administration officials, beginning with Obama, were rightly taken to demonstrate that the Obama administration is nothing more than a direct instrument of the most powerful sections of the financial aristocracy.
Top administration economic officials and Obama himself spent the weekend reassuring Wall Street, which responded with fury to a bill passed by the House of Representatives taxing the bonuses of wealthy executives and traders at AIG and other bailed-out firms, that they did not support the measure and would impose no executive pay limits on firms that participated in the new bank bailout measure.
With Wall Street executives threatening to boycott the program unless they were given ironclad assurances that their fortunes would not be touched and there would be no "change in the rules" down the road, Geithner gave an interview that was published by the Wall Street Journal Monday morning pleading for hedge funds and banks to participate. "The Obama administration believes those provisions shouldn't apply to such broad programs [as the Public-Private Investment Plan] and an exception was made last month for participants in the Federal Reserve's consumer-lending facility," the newspaper reported.
The same issue carried a column by Geithner entitled "My Plan for Bad Bank Assets" which declared that "we need to be very careful not to discourage those investments the economy needs to recover from recession." It went on to equate protecting the million-dollar bonuses awarded by firms that have bilked the public for billions of dollars with defending "the rule of law." Geithner solemnly wrote that "when our government gives its word" to "responsible entrepreneurs and investors... we mean it."
In his press briefing Monday morning, he rejected any suggestion that the government might temporarily nationalize failing banks and declared, "We're going to do what's necessary to protect the system."
Obama, in remarks to the press on the toxic asset plan following a meeting with his top economic advisers, affirmed that it "will involve market participants who have every interest in making a profit."
In fact, the plan was drawn up in the closest consultation with the billionaire bankers and hedge fund managers who stand to profit from it. The Financial Times reported Monday:
"People close to the situation said the plan was the result of detailed talks between Treasury, banks, private equity groups and other investors over the past few weeks. Senior private equity executives said the key terms of the initiative unveiled on Monday went beyond their own wish-lists.
"Some investors had asked Treasury to provide debt equal to around three to four times the value of the equity to be injected in the public-private partnerships, but the authorities decided to grant leverage of up to six times for the purchase of toxic loans, making it even more attractive for private equity groups to participate in the plan...
"‘As it stands, there is very limited downside for us,' a senior Wall Street banker said. ‘If we like the price offered, we will sell the assets and record an accounting gain and if we don't, we will stay as we are.'"
Among the big Wall Street investors who praised the scheme and announced their intention to get in on the action was Bill Gross, the founder and head of Pacific Investment Management Co. (PIMCO), the world's biggest bond fund. Gross, along with billionaire investor Warren Buffett and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, first broached the idea of creating public-private investment funds to buy toxic bank assets with Treasury officials last fall.
The noted economist Jeffrey Sachs provided an accurate characterization of the plan in a commentary published Monday by the Huffington Post.
He wrote: "Geithner and Summers [Lawrence Summers, director of the White House's National Economic Council] have now announced their plan to raid the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Federal Reserve (Fed) to subsidize investors to buy toxic assets from the banks at inflated prices. If carried out, the result will be a massive transfer of wealth—of perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars—to bank shareholders from the taxpayers (who will absorb losses at the FDIC and Fed)...
"The investment funds will have the following balance sheet. For every $1 of toxic assets that they buy from the banks, the FDIC will lend up to 85.7 cents (six-sevenths of $1), and the Treasury and private investors will each put in 7.15 cents in equity to cover the remaining balance. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation loans will be non-recourse, meaning that if the toxic assets purchased by private investors fall in value below the amount of the FDIC loans, the investment funds will default on the loans and the FDIC will end up holding the toxic assets...
"The FDIC is giving a ‘heads you win, tails the taxpayer loses' offer to the private investors."
Princeton University economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman offered a similar assessment, writing, "But the Geithner scheme would offer a one-way bet: if asset values go up, the investors profit, but if they go down, the investors can walk away from their debt. This isn't really about letting markets work. It's just an indirect, disguised way to subsidize purchases of bad assets."
Mournfully, he noted, "It's as if the president were determined to confirm the growing perception that he and his economic team are out of touch, that their economic vision is clouded by excessively close ties to Wall Street."
It is not, however, a matter of Obama's "clouded vision," but rather an administration that embodies the reality of class relations in America and the dictatorship of finance capital which is exercised through a political system dominated by two parties of the capitalist ruling elite. The wholesale theft of the social wealth embodied in the latest bailout scheme is a continuation of a policy that has, from day one, been driven by horror not at the impoverishment of tens of millions of workers, but rather the prospect that the crisis of their own making could cut into the vast wealth of the financial oligarchs.
On Monday, Wall Street celebrated the fact that it has in Washington a bunch of lackeys who can be counted on to do its bidding.
U.S. bill seeks to rescue faltering newspapers
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE52N67F20090324
U.S. bill seeks to rescue faltering newspapers
Tue Mar 24, 2009
By Thomas Ferraro
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, a Democratic senator on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks.
"This may not be the optimal choice for some major newspapers or corporate media chains but it should be an option for many newspapers that are struggling to stay afloat," said Senator Benjamin Cardin.
A Cardin spokesman said the bill had yet to attract any co-sponsors, but had sparked plenty of interest within the media, which has seen plunging revenues and many journalist layoffs.
Cardin's Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the U.S. tax code, giving them a similar status to public broadcasting companies.
Under this arrangement, newspapers would still be free to report on all issues, including political campaigns. But they would be prohibited from making political endorsements.
Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax exempt, and contributions to support news coverage or operations could be tax deductible.
Because newspaper profits have been falling in recent years, "no substantial loss of federal revenue" was expected under the legislation, Cardin's office said in a statement.
Cardin's office said his bill was aimed at preserving local and community newspapers, not conglomerates which may also own radio and TV stations. His bill would also let a non-profit buy newspapers owned by a conglomerate.
"We are losing our newspaper industry," Cardin said. "The economy has caused an immediate problem, but the business model for newspapers, based on circulation and advertising revenue, is broken, and that is a real tragedy for communities across the nation and for our democracy.
Newspaper subscriptions and advertising have shrunk dramatically in the past few years as Americans have turned more and more to the Internet or television for information.
In recent months, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Rocky Mountain News, the Baltimore Examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle have ceased daily publication or announced that they may have to stop publishing.
In December the Tribune Company, which owns a number of newspapers including The Baltimore Sun, The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times filed for bankruptcy protection.
Two newspaper chains, Gannett Co Inc and Advance Publications, on Monday announced employee furloughs. It will be the second furlough this year at Gannett.
(Additional reporting by Chuck Abbott)
(Editing by David Storey)
U.S. bill seeks to rescue faltering newspapers
Tue Mar 24, 2009
By Thomas Ferraro
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, a Democratic senator on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks.
"This may not be the optimal choice for some major newspapers or corporate media chains but it should be an option for many newspapers that are struggling to stay afloat," said Senator Benjamin Cardin.
A Cardin spokesman said the bill had yet to attract any co-sponsors, but had sparked plenty of interest within the media, which has seen plunging revenues and many journalist layoffs.
Cardin's Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the U.S. tax code, giving them a similar status to public broadcasting companies.
Under this arrangement, newspapers would still be free to report on all issues, including political campaigns. But they would be prohibited from making political endorsements.
Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax exempt, and contributions to support news coverage or operations could be tax deductible.
Because newspaper profits have been falling in recent years, "no substantial loss of federal revenue" was expected under the legislation, Cardin's office said in a statement.
Cardin's office said his bill was aimed at preserving local and community newspapers, not conglomerates which may also own radio and TV stations. His bill would also let a non-profit buy newspapers owned by a conglomerate.
"We are losing our newspaper industry," Cardin said. "The economy has caused an immediate problem, but the business model for newspapers, based on circulation and advertising revenue, is broken, and that is a real tragedy for communities across the nation and for our democracy.
Newspaper subscriptions and advertising have shrunk dramatically in the past few years as Americans have turned more and more to the Internet or television for information.
In recent months, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Rocky Mountain News, the Baltimore Examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle have ceased daily publication or announced that they may have to stop publishing.
In December the Tribune Company, which owns a number of newspapers including The Baltimore Sun, The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times filed for bankruptcy protection.
Two newspaper chains, Gannett Co Inc and Advance Publications, on Monday announced employee furloughs. It will be the second furlough this year at Gannett.
(Additional reporting by Chuck Abbott)
(Editing by David Storey)
Anne Hathaway could contend at Oscars
http://goldderby.latimes.com/awards_goldderby/2009/03/anne-hathaway-c.htmlGold Derby by Tom O'Neil
Anne Hathaway could contend at Oscars and Tonys for playing Judy Garland
March 23, 2009
If you thought Anne Hathaway was brave for singing and dancing with Hugh Jackman on the recent Oscarcast, that was a walk in the park compared with her next performance — playing Judy Garland on both stage and screen. The Oscar-nominated actress ("Rachel Getting Married") is to star in upcoming film and legit adaptations of Gerald Clarke's 2000 biography "Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland."
With the Weinstein Co. producing both these properties, Anne Hathaway is in good hands. While there is no word as to any of the other creatives involved in these projects, the source material is rich with possibilities, including as it does material in Judy Garland's own words. Gerald Clarke's biography of the late, great writer Truman Capote was the basis for "Capote," which was nominated for five awards at the 2005 Oscars including best picture and won lead actor for Philip Seymour Hoffman.
If Hathaway can pull this part off, she would be a leading contender at both the Oscars and the Tonys. Seven of the last 10 women to win lead actress at the Academy Awards did so by playing real-life roles. The irony of course is that Judy Garland never won a competitive Oscar. In 1939, she was awarded an honorary one for her timeless performance in "The Wizard of Oz."
However, she lost both of her Oscar races. In 1954, Judy Garland made one of the all-time great screen comebacks, proving herself a triple threat with her acting, singing and dancing in the musical remake of "A Star Is Born." So sure was the academy that she would win the lead actress Oscar that they set up a television camera in Judy's hospital room where she was resting after having given birth to son Joey just days before. However, it was Grace Kelly's name that was announced, for her role as the dutiful wife to an alcoholic actor (Bing Crosby) in "The Country Girl." And while Judy Garland was nominated for her 1961 supporting performance as a witness in "Judgment at Nuremberg," she lost to Rita Moreno for "West Side Story."
Judy Garland never appeared in a Broadway musical in her all-too-short life. In 1967, she was so eager to take over from Tony winner Angela Lansbury in "Mame" that she watched the show from the wings for nights on end. However, the producers could not get the insurance to cover the costs should Garland not appear. She did win an honorary Tony Award in 1952 for "for an important contribution to the revival of vaudeville through her recent stint at the Palace Theatre."
Broadway usually favors the fanciful over the fact-driven, though the last two Tonys for lead actress in a musical went to hopefully heightened portrayals of real-life women — Christine Ebersole ("Grey Gardens") and Patti Lupone ("Gypsy"). While Hathaway has never appeared on Broadway, in 2002 she tackled a Tony-winning role for five performances of a concert version of the 1961 musical "Carnival." As the orphaned Lili (a part that earned Anna Maria Alberghetti the lead actress award), Hathaway shone opposite Tony winner Brian Stokes Mitchell ("Kiss Me Kate"). This summer, Hathway is to star in a production of "Twelfth Night" as part of the Public Theatre's celebrated Shakespeare in the Park series in New York's Central Park.
The big question is whether Anne Hathaway will sing the songs so associated with Judy Garland or mime along to recordings. In 2001, both Tammy Blanchard and Judy Davis won Emmy Awards for playing Judy Garland in the mini-series "Me and My Shadows." They both lip synced to Judy's unique song stylings. In 2004 Isabel Keating earned a Tony nomination as featured actress in a musical for her portrayal of Garland in "The Boy From Oz." She lost to Anika Noni Rose for "Caroline or Change."
While Isabel Keating performed musical numbers as Judy, she was not singing Garland songs. Rather, as the musical told the story of one-time Garland son-in-law Peter Allen, she sang some of his tunes. And bringing this item full circle, Hugh Jackman won the lead actor in a musical Tony Award for playing the singer-songwriter once married to Liza Minnelli.
Curt Schilling announces his retirement
http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=530642
Curt Schilling announces his retirement
March 23, 2009
Sporting News staff reports
Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling is retiring after 20 years in the majors, he announced on his blog today.
"After being blessed to experience 23 years of playing professional baseball in front of the world's best fans in so many different places, it is with zero regrets that I am making my retirement official," Schilling wrote at 38pitches.com, his official blog.
Schilling, 42, had shoulder surgery and did not pitch in 2008.
The six-time All Star and 2001 co-World Series MVP finishes his career with a 216-140 record, a 3.46 ERA and 3,116 strikeouts. He pitched in the World Series four times, winning with the Diamondbacks in 2001 and the Red Sox in 2004 and 2007.
"That there are men with plaques in Cooperstown who never experienced one, and I was able to be on three teams over seven years that won it all is another 'beyond my wildest dreams' set of memories I'll be allowed to take with me," Schilling wrote.
Originally drafted by the Red Sox in 1986, Schilling pitched for the Orioles, Astros, Phillies, Diamondbacks and Red Sox. He twice led his league in wins and strikeouts.
Schilling was the Sporting News NL Pitcher of the Year in 2001 and 2002.
Curt Schilling announces his retirement
March 23, 2009
Sporting News staff reports
Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling is retiring after 20 years in the majors, he announced on his blog today.
"After being blessed to experience 23 years of playing professional baseball in front of the world's best fans in so many different places, it is with zero regrets that I am making my retirement official," Schilling wrote at 38pitches.com, his official blog.
Schilling, 42, had shoulder surgery and did not pitch in 2008.
The six-time All Star and 2001 co-World Series MVP finishes his career with a 216-140 record, a 3.46 ERA and 3,116 strikeouts. He pitched in the World Series four times, winning with the Diamondbacks in 2001 and the Red Sox in 2004 and 2007.
"That there are men with plaques in Cooperstown who never experienced one, and I was able to be on three teams over seven years that won it all is another 'beyond my wildest dreams' set of memories I'll be allowed to take with me," Schilling wrote.
Originally drafted by the Red Sox in 1986, Schilling pitched for the Orioles, Astros, Phillies, Diamondbacks and Red Sox. He twice led his league in wins and strikeouts.
Schilling was the Sporting News NL Pitcher of the Year in 2001 and 2002.
BEWARE: Yelp.com is a fraud!
http://scottworldblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/beware-yelpcom-is-fraud.html
Monday, March 23, 2009
BEWARE: Yelp.com is a fraud!
Scott Rose
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to call your attention to a very nefarious website called yelp.com, which you should avoid at all costs.
Yelp.com has gained sort of a cult following as some sort of a reputable site where you can supposedly see how people in your community have rated local businesses. Well, I can tell you from firsthand experience that yelp.com is NOT reputable and they are NOT honest. In fact, Yelp even has the nerve to give themselves the slogan "Real People, Real Reviews", when it is anything but real people & real reviews on their site.
I wrote 6 reviews on the yelp.com site about 6 local businesses that I did business with: 3 of them were positive reviews and 3 of them were negative reviews. My negative reviews were very thoughtfully & carefully written and did not violate any of Yelp's terms of services. One of my negative reviews, for example, was for a taxicab company which never showed up to pick me up from my apartment, even though I waited 60 extra minutes past the arrival time for them to come, and after calling the taxicab company 5 times to check on where they were. ("Just 5 more minutes, Mr. Rose.")
Within 60 days of posting my 3 negative reviews (for 3 different companies) to Yelp's website, all 3 of my negative reviews had been removed from the respective companies' profiles on the Yelp site. Interestingly enough, the negative reviews still show up FOR MY EYES ONLY in my personal & private profile when I log into the Yelp website, but they have miraculously been HIDDEN on the companies' pages themselves.
So I started asking around, and lo and behold, many of my friends who had written negative reviews for businesses started noticing the same thing: their negative reviews were still in their own personal profiles (for their eyes only), but their negative reviews were NOWHERE TO BE FOUND on the company pages in question.
This phenomenon is starting to get some national press, too, but not nearly enough of an outcry as there should be over this potentially criminal activity. Check out these 3 articles for starters:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/technology/chi-0309-yelpmar09,0,3536868.story
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20090322/D9736TQG1.html
http://tinyurl.com/dfqazw
Yet people are still just sort of shrugging this off, as if this is something that we should be okay turning our back on.
The Chicago Tribune article is particularly interesting, because it highlights that Yelp is blackmailing companies for BOTH removing negative reviews AND for posting positive reviews. EVERYBODY is getting FUCKED HERE -- the businesses AND the consumers! The only people not getting fucked are Yelp themselves!
So I emailed yelp.com and asked them about my reviews being removed... they only replied to my emails with a form letter directing me to the FAQ's on the site. I replied back several times, asking to have a conversation with a supervisor about this issue, and they continually replied with form letters directing me to the FAQ's on their site. After trying to make live human contact with yelp.com on 5 separate occasions, I finally gave up.
I started bitching about this enough that a friend of mine told me that his business is on yelp.com. He told me that shortly after signing up for yelp.com, he got a call from the folks at yelp who offered him a deal that he just couldn't refuse. If he paid yelp.com a reasonable sum to advertise his company on their website, then yelp.com would suppress all negative reviews about his business. Sounds like Yelp has figured out a good little moneymaking business on the side, huh? And this explains why some negative reviews appear on the site for SOME companies, but not for other companies. Those companies who allow the negative reviews to show up about their own business are the ones who are truly the more honest & upstanding companies... because they didn't pay to have them suppressed. My friend also told me that he is allowed by yelp.com to write an unlimited number of positive reviews about his own company, under multiple identities, without suppression.
Pretty shady stuff, huh?
So, folks, I urge you to NEVER go to yelp.com and NEVER support this fraudulent, criminal website which pretends to be something that it is not.
Instead, I encourage you to use Citysearch.com instead, where I have not encountered these same problems. Citysearch.com actually DOES seem to have "real reviews by real people."
Monday, March 23, 2009
BEWARE: Yelp.com is a fraud!
Scott Rose
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to call your attention to a very nefarious website called yelp.com, which you should avoid at all costs.
Yelp.com has gained sort of a cult following as some sort of a reputable site where you can supposedly see how people in your community have rated local businesses. Well, I can tell you from firsthand experience that yelp.com is NOT reputable and they are NOT honest. In fact, Yelp even has the nerve to give themselves the slogan "Real People, Real Reviews", when it is anything but real people & real reviews on their site.
I wrote 6 reviews on the yelp.com site about 6 local businesses that I did business with: 3 of them were positive reviews and 3 of them were negative reviews. My negative reviews were very thoughtfully & carefully written and did not violate any of Yelp's terms of services. One of my negative reviews, for example, was for a taxicab company which never showed up to pick me up from my apartment, even though I waited 60 extra minutes past the arrival time for them to come, and after calling the taxicab company 5 times to check on where they were. ("Just 5 more minutes, Mr. Rose.")
Within 60 days of posting my 3 negative reviews (for 3 different companies) to Yelp's website, all 3 of my negative reviews had been removed from the respective companies' profiles on the Yelp site. Interestingly enough, the negative reviews still show up FOR MY EYES ONLY in my personal & private profile when I log into the Yelp website, but they have miraculously been HIDDEN on the companies' pages themselves.
So I started asking around, and lo and behold, many of my friends who had written negative reviews for businesses started noticing the same thing: their negative reviews were still in their own personal profiles (for their eyes only), but their negative reviews were NOWHERE TO BE FOUND on the company pages in question.
This phenomenon is starting to get some national press, too, but not nearly enough of an outcry as there should be over this potentially criminal activity. Check out these 3 articles for starters:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/technology/chi-0309-yelpmar09,0,3536868.story
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20090322/D9736TQG1.html
http://tinyurl.com/dfqazw
Yet people are still just sort of shrugging this off, as if this is something that we should be okay turning our back on.
The Chicago Tribune article is particularly interesting, because it highlights that Yelp is blackmailing companies for BOTH removing negative reviews AND for posting positive reviews. EVERYBODY is getting FUCKED HERE -- the businesses AND the consumers! The only people not getting fucked are Yelp themselves!
So I emailed yelp.com and asked them about my reviews being removed... they only replied to my emails with a form letter directing me to the FAQ's on the site. I replied back several times, asking to have a conversation with a supervisor about this issue, and they continually replied with form letters directing me to the FAQ's on their site. After trying to make live human contact with yelp.com on 5 separate occasions, I finally gave up.
I started bitching about this enough that a friend of mine told me that his business is on yelp.com. He told me that shortly after signing up for yelp.com, he got a call from the folks at yelp who offered him a deal that he just couldn't refuse. If he paid yelp.com a reasonable sum to advertise his company on their website, then yelp.com would suppress all negative reviews about his business. Sounds like Yelp has figured out a good little moneymaking business on the side, huh? And this explains why some negative reviews appear on the site for SOME companies, but not for other companies. Those companies who allow the negative reviews to show up about their own business are the ones who are truly the more honest & upstanding companies... because they didn't pay to have them suppressed. My friend also told me that he is allowed by yelp.com to write an unlimited number of positive reviews about his own company, under multiple identities, without suppression.
Pretty shady stuff, huh?
So, folks, I urge you to NEVER go to yelp.com and NEVER support this fraudulent, criminal website which pretends to be something that it is not.
Instead, I encourage you to use Citysearch.com instead, where I have not encountered these same problems. Citysearch.com actually DOES seem to have "real reviews by real people."
STICK YOUR DAMN HAND IN IT
STICK YOUR DAMN HAND IN IT
20th Birthday of the Exxon Valdez Lie
by Greg Palast
March 23, 2009
"Gail, Please! Stick your hand in it!"
The petite Eskimo-Chugach woman gave me that you-dumb-ass-white-boy look.
"Gail, Gail. STICK YOUR DAMN HAND IN IT!"
She stuck it in, under the gravel of the beach at Sleepy Bay, her village's fishing ground. Gail's hand came up dripping with black, sickening goo. It could make you vomit. Oil from the Exxon Valdez.
It was already two years after the spill and Exxon had crowed that Mother Nature had happily cleaned up their stinking oil mess for them. It was a lie. But the media wouldn't question the bald-faced bullshit. And who the hell was going to investigate Exxon's claim way out in some godforsaken Native village in the Prince William Sound?
So I convinced the Natives to fly the lazy-ass reporters out to Sleepy Bay on rented float planes to see the oil that Exxon said wasn't there.
The reporters looked, but didn't see it, because it was three inches under their feet, under the shingle rock of the icy beach. Gail pulled out her hand and now the whole place smelled like a gas station. The network crews wanted to puke.
And now, with their eyes open, they saw the oil, the vile feces-colored smear across the glaciated ridge faces, the poisonous "bathtub ring" that ran for miles and miles at the high tide level. And it's still there. Less for sure. But twenty years later, IT'S STILL THERE, GODDAMNIT. And I want YOU, dear reader, to stick your hand in it. I want YOU, President Obama, to stick your hand in it before you blithely fulfill your Palin-esque campaign promise for a little more offshore drilling.
***
Tuesday marks the 20th Anniversary of the Exxon Valdez grounding and the smearing of 1,200 miles of Alaska's coastline with its oil.
It also marks the 20th Anniversary of a lie. Lots of lies: catalogued in a four-volume investigation of the disaster; four volumes you'll never see. I wrote that report, with my team of investigators working with the Natives preparing fraud and racketeering charges against Exxon. You'll never see the report because Exxon lawyers threatened the Natives, "Mention the f-word [fraud] and you'll never get a dime" of compensation to clean up the villages. The Natives agreed to drop the fraud charge -- and Exxon stiffed them on the money. You're surprised, right?
***
Doubtless, for the 20th Anniversary of the Great Spill, the media will schlep out that old story that the tanker ran aground because its captain was drunk at the wheel. Bullshit. Yes, the captain was "three sheets to the wind" -- but sleeping it off below-decks. The ship was in the hands of the third mate who was driving blind. That is, the Exxon Valdez' Raycas radar system was turned off; turned off because it was busted and had been busted since its maiden voyage. Exxon didn't want to spend the cash to fix it. So the man at the helm, electronically blindfolded, drove it up onto the reef.
So why the story of the drunken skipper? Because it lets Exxon off the hook: Calling it a case of "drunk driving" turns the disaster into a case of human error, not corporate penny-pinching
Indeed, the "human error" tale was the hook used by the Bush-stacked Supreme Court to slash the punitive damages awarded against Exxon by 90%, from $5 billion, to half a billion for 30,000 Natives and fishermen. Chief Justice John Roberts erased almost all of the payment due with the la-dee-dah comment, "What more can a corporation do?"
Well, here's what they could have done: Besides fix the radar, Exxon could have set out equipment to contain the spill. Containing a spill is actually quite simple. Stick a rubber skirt around the oil slick and suck it back up. The law requires it and Exxon promised it.
So, when the tanker hit, where was the rubber skirt and where was the sucker? Answer: The rubber skirt, called "boom" -- was a fiction. Exxon promised to have it sitting right there near the Native village at Bligh Reef. The oil company fulfilled that promised the cheap way: they lied.
And the lie was engineered at the very top. After the spill, we got our hands on a series of memos describing a secret meeting of chief executives of Exxon and its oil company partners, including ARCO, a unit of British Petroleum. In a meeting of these oil chieftains held in April 1988, ten months before the spill, Exxon rejected a plea from T.L. Polasek, the Vice-President of its Alaska shipping operations, to provide the oil spill containment equipment required by law. Polasek warned the CEOs it was "not possible" to contain a spill in the mid-Sound without the emergency set-up.
Exxon angrily vetoed ARCO's suggestion that the oil companies supply the rubber skirts and other materiel that would have prevented the spill from spreading, virtually eliminating the spill's damage.
Regulations state that no tanker may leave the Alaska port of Valdez without the "sucker" equipment, called a "containment barge," at the ready. Exxon signed off on the barge's readiness. But, that night twenty years ago, the barge was in dry-dock with its pumps locked up under arctic ice. By the time it arrived at the tanker, half a day after the spill, the oil was well along its thousand-mile killing path.
Natives watched as the now-unstoppable oil overwhelmed their islands. Eyak Native elder Henry Makarka saw an otter rip out its own eyes burning from oil residue. Henry, pointing down a waterside dead-zone, told me, in a mix of Alutiiq and English, "If I had a machine gun, I'd shoot every one of those white sons-of-bitches."
***
Exxon promised -- promised -- to pay the Natives and other fisherman for all their losses. The Chief of the Natives at Nanwalek lost his boat to bankruptcy. His village, like other villages, Native and non-Native, decayed into alcoholism. The Mayor of fishing port Cordova killed himself, citing Exxon in his suicide note.
On the island village of Chenega, Gail Evanoff's uncle Paul Kompkoff was hungry. Until the spill, he had lived on seal meat, razor clams and salmon Chenegans would catch, and on deer they hunted. The clams and salmon were declared deadly and the deer, not able to read the government warning signs, ate the poisoned vegetation and died.
The President of Exxon, Lee Raymond, helicoptered into Chenega for a photo op. He promised to compensate the Natives and all fishermen for their losses, and Exxon would thoroughly clean the beaches.
Uncle Paul told the Exxon chief of his hunger. The oil company, sensing PR disaster, shipped in seal meat to the isolated village. The cans were marked, "NOT FIT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION." Uncle Paul said, "Zoo food."
Paul didn't want a seal in a can. He wanted a boat to go fishing, to bring the village back to life.
Two years after the spill, Otto Harrison, General Manager of Exxon USA, told Evanoff and me to forget about a fishing boat for Uncle Paul. Exxon was immortal and Natives were not. The company would litigate for 20 years.
They did. Only now, two decades on, Exxon has finally begun its payout of the court award -- but only ten cents on the dollar. And Uncle Paul's boat? No matter. Paul's dead. So are a third of the fishermen owed the money.
***
Lee Raymond, President of Exxon at the time of the spill -- and its President when the company made the secret decision to do without oil spill equipment, retired in April 2006. The company awarded him a $400 million retirement bonus, more than double the bonuses received by all AIG executives combined.
***
Gail's oily hand never made it to national television. The networks were distracted with another oil story.
After sailing back to Chenega from Sleepy Bay, I sat with Uncle Paul, watching the smart bombs explode over Baghdad. Gulf War I had begun.
Uncle Paul was silent a long time. The generals on CNN pointed to the burning oil fields near Basra. Paul said, "I guess were all some kind of Native now."
************
For SuicideGirls.com
Greg Palast investigated fraud and racketeering claims for the Chugach Natives of Alaska. Now a journalist whose work appears on BBC Television Newsnight, Palast is the author of the New York Times bestselling books The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Armed Madhouse. Visit GregPalast.com for more.
Check out the YouTube clip of Greg Palast on Air America's 'Ring of Fire' with Mike Papantonio on the Exxon Valdez and on the death of investigative reporting in America. Listen in this weekend on your Air America station.
And get ready: This Friday - the launch of GREG PALAST INVESTIGATES - On the Trail with investigative reporter Palast - with three of his latest ass-kicking BBC Television reports.
Palast is looking for co-producers for the film's DVD release. Support the team behind the work that the Chicago Tribune calls, "Stories so relevant, they threaten to alter history." Pre-order the DVD today.
Palast is a Nation Institute/Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow for investigative reporting.
20th Birthday of the Exxon Valdez Lie
by Greg Palast
March 23, 2009
"Gail, Please! Stick your hand in it!"
The petite Eskimo-Chugach woman gave me that you-dumb-ass-white-boy look.
"Gail, Gail. STICK YOUR DAMN HAND IN IT!"
She stuck it in, under the gravel of the beach at Sleepy Bay, her village's fishing ground. Gail's hand came up dripping with black, sickening goo. It could make you vomit. Oil from the Exxon Valdez.
It was already two years after the spill and Exxon had crowed that Mother Nature had happily cleaned up their stinking oil mess for them. It was a lie. But the media wouldn't question the bald-faced bullshit. And who the hell was going to investigate Exxon's claim way out in some godforsaken Native village in the Prince William Sound?
So I convinced the Natives to fly the lazy-ass reporters out to Sleepy Bay on rented float planes to see the oil that Exxon said wasn't there.
The reporters looked, but didn't see it, because it was three inches under their feet, under the shingle rock of the icy beach. Gail pulled out her hand and now the whole place smelled like a gas station. The network crews wanted to puke.
And now, with their eyes open, they saw the oil, the vile feces-colored smear across the glaciated ridge faces, the poisonous "bathtub ring" that ran for miles and miles at the high tide level. And it's still there. Less for sure. But twenty years later, IT'S STILL THERE, GODDAMNIT. And I want YOU, dear reader, to stick your hand in it. I want YOU, President Obama, to stick your hand in it before you blithely fulfill your Palin-esque campaign promise for a little more offshore drilling.
***
Tuesday marks the 20th Anniversary of the Exxon Valdez grounding and the smearing of 1,200 miles of Alaska's coastline with its oil.
It also marks the 20th Anniversary of a lie. Lots of lies: catalogued in a four-volume investigation of the disaster; four volumes you'll never see. I wrote that report, with my team of investigators working with the Natives preparing fraud and racketeering charges against Exxon. You'll never see the report because Exxon lawyers threatened the Natives, "Mention the f-word [fraud] and you'll never get a dime" of compensation to clean up the villages. The Natives agreed to drop the fraud charge -- and Exxon stiffed them on the money. You're surprised, right?
***
Doubtless, for the 20th Anniversary of the Great Spill, the media will schlep out that old story that the tanker ran aground because its captain was drunk at the wheel. Bullshit. Yes, the captain was "three sheets to the wind" -- but sleeping it off below-decks. The ship was in the hands of the third mate who was driving blind. That is, the Exxon Valdez' Raycas radar system was turned off; turned off because it was busted and had been busted since its maiden voyage. Exxon didn't want to spend the cash to fix it. So the man at the helm, electronically blindfolded, drove it up onto the reef.
So why the story of the drunken skipper? Because it lets Exxon off the hook: Calling it a case of "drunk driving" turns the disaster into a case of human error, not corporate penny-pinching
Indeed, the "human error" tale was the hook used by the Bush-stacked Supreme Court to slash the punitive damages awarded against Exxon by 90%, from $5 billion, to half a billion for 30,000 Natives and fishermen. Chief Justice John Roberts erased almost all of the payment due with the la-dee-dah comment, "What more can a corporation do?"
Well, here's what they could have done: Besides fix the radar, Exxon could have set out equipment to contain the spill. Containing a spill is actually quite simple. Stick a rubber skirt around the oil slick and suck it back up. The law requires it and Exxon promised it.
So, when the tanker hit, where was the rubber skirt and where was the sucker? Answer: The rubber skirt, called "boom" -- was a fiction. Exxon promised to have it sitting right there near the Native village at Bligh Reef. The oil company fulfilled that promised the cheap way: they lied.
And the lie was engineered at the very top. After the spill, we got our hands on a series of memos describing a secret meeting of chief executives of Exxon and its oil company partners, including ARCO, a unit of British Petroleum. In a meeting of these oil chieftains held in April 1988, ten months before the spill, Exxon rejected a plea from T.L. Polasek, the Vice-President of its Alaska shipping operations, to provide the oil spill containment equipment required by law. Polasek warned the CEOs it was "not possible" to contain a spill in the mid-Sound without the emergency set-up.
Exxon angrily vetoed ARCO's suggestion that the oil companies supply the rubber skirts and other materiel that would have prevented the spill from spreading, virtually eliminating the spill's damage.
Regulations state that no tanker may leave the Alaska port of Valdez without the "sucker" equipment, called a "containment barge," at the ready. Exxon signed off on the barge's readiness. But, that night twenty years ago, the barge was in dry-dock with its pumps locked up under arctic ice. By the time it arrived at the tanker, half a day after the spill, the oil was well along its thousand-mile killing path.
Natives watched as the now-unstoppable oil overwhelmed their islands. Eyak Native elder Henry Makarka saw an otter rip out its own eyes burning from oil residue. Henry, pointing down a waterside dead-zone, told me, in a mix of Alutiiq and English, "If I had a machine gun, I'd shoot every one of those white sons-of-bitches."
***
Exxon promised -- promised -- to pay the Natives and other fisherman for all their losses. The Chief of the Natives at Nanwalek lost his boat to bankruptcy. His village, like other villages, Native and non-Native, decayed into alcoholism. The Mayor of fishing port Cordova killed himself, citing Exxon in his suicide note.
On the island village of Chenega, Gail Evanoff's uncle Paul Kompkoff was hungry. Until the spill, he had lived on seal meat, razor clams and salmon Chenegans would catch, and on deer they hunted. The clams and salmon were declared deadly and the deer, not able to read the government warning signs, ate the poisoned vegetation and died.
The President of Exxon, Lee Raymond, helicoptered into Chenega for a photo op. He promised to compensate the Natives and all fishermen for their losses, and Exxon would thoroughly clean the beaches.
Uncle Paul told the Exxon chief of his hunger. The oil company, sensing PR disaster, shipped in seal meat to the isolated village. The cans were marked, "NOT FIT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION." Uncle Paul said, "Zoo food."
Paul didn't want a seal in a can. He wanted a boat to go fishing, to bring the village back to life.
Two years after the spill, Otto Harrison, General Manager of Exxon USA, told Evanoff and me to forget about a fishing boat for Uncle Paul. Exxon was immortal and Natives were not. The company would litigate for 20 years.
They did. Only now, two decades on, Exxon has finally begun its payout of the court award -- but only ten cents on the dollar. And Uncle Paul's boat? No matter. Paul's dead. So are a third of the fishermen owed the money.
***
Lee Raymond, President of Exxon at the time of the spill -- and its President when the company made the secret decision to do without oil spill equipment, retired in April 2006. The company awarded him a $400 million retirement bonus, more than double the bonuses received by all AIG executives combined.
***
Gail's oily hand never made it to national television. The networks were distracted with another oil story.
After sailing back to Chenega from Sleepy Bay, I sat with Uncle Paul, watching the smart bombs explode over Baghdad. Gulf War I had begun.
Uncle Paul was silent a long time. The generals on CNN pointed to the burning oil fields near Basra. Paul said, "I guess were all some kind of Native now."
************
For SuicideGirls.com
Greg Palast investigated fraud and racketeering claims for the Chugach Natives of Alaska. Now a journalist whose work appears on BBC Television Newsnight, Palast is the author of the New York Times bestselling books The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Armed Madhouse. Visit GregPalast.com for more.
Check out the YouTube clip of Greg Palast on Air America's 'Ring of Fire' with Mike Papantonio on the Exxon Valdez and on the death of investigative reporting in America. Listen in this weekend on your Air America station.
And get ready: This Friday - the launch of GREG PALAST INVESTIGATES - On the Trail with investigative reporter Palast - with three of his latest ass-kicking BBC Television reports.
Palast is looking for co-producers for the film's DVD release. Support the team behind the work that the Chicago Tribune calls, "Stories so relevant, they threaten to alter history." Pre-order the DVD today.
Palast is a Nation Institute/Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow for investigative reporting.
Autobiography of a Monarch Butterfly
http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/autobiography-of-a-monarch-butterfly/6524497Autobiography of a Monarch Butterfly
by Jaye Beldo
Download $6.00 (23306 kb)
Description:
In this autobiographical offering by writer, musician and artist Jaye Beldo, his life as an experimental subject in CIA MKULTRA and Biowarfare experiments is described. The author shows how meditation, yoga, holistic health, art, music, creative visualization, body work and other healing modalities have healed and unified his fragmented psyche and helped him over come mind control. Inspirational, disturbing, provocative, visionary and at times entertaining, this book is sure to encourage those who read it to realize that they can heal themselves and become free.
Keywords:
meditation mind control Conspiracy Jaye Beldo
Listed in:
Biographies & Memoirs
Copyright: © 2009 Jaye Beldo
Standard Copyright License
Language: English
Country: United States
Edition: First Edition
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Bill to tax bonuses an 'outrage' and unconstitutional
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Paul_Bill_to_tax_bonuses_unconstitutional_0319.html
Paul: Bill to tax bonuses an 'outrage' and unconstitutional
David Edwards and Rachel Oswald
Thursday March 19, 2009
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) yet again went against the grain in Congress when he stood up in the House and argued against a proposal that would tax 90 percent of AIG executive bonuses, saying that it was a "disgrace," a "distraction" and an "outrage" that undermined the Constitution.
"I rise in opposition to this rule and the bill because of the problem -- because of the lack of need for this and the disgrace that this has brought upon us," Paul said. "Yesterday, for instance, the Federal Reserve met and they came out and they announced that they would create new money to the tune of $1.25 trillion."
Paul, a dark horse Republican candidate for president in 2008 who still enjoys considerable popularity with a base of hardcore supporters, noted that the value of the dollar went down significantly after that announcement by the Fed.
"Today...on emergency legislation, we're going to deal with $165 million of bonuses, which obviously shouldn't have never been given, but who's responsible for this?" Paul said. "It's the Congress and the president who signed this [$787 billion stimulus bill that allowed the bonuses to go forward]. So this is a distraction, this is an outrage."
He chided his fellow House members who were considering supporting the new tax legislation for only caring about the millions in bonuses when they should be concerned with the trillions in deficits the country is facing.
"So everybody can go home that voted for this bill, say, 'Look, I'm clamping [down] on this $165 million but I don't care about the previous $5 trillion the Fed created and the $1.25 trillion they created yesterday,'" he said. "Think of the loss of purchasing power in less than 24 hours."
Paul urged his House members to support his bill, H.R. 1207, which would change the way the Federal Reserve is audited.
"Let's quit appropriating funds in an unconstitutional manner. Let's quit bankrupting this country," Paul said. "The Fed is not even required to answer any questions. So it's about time we have an open book about the Federal Reserve and solve some of these problems."
House passes tax bill Thursday afternoon
Despite the protestations of Paul and a few others, the House voted overwhelmingly to pass the bonus tax legislation Thursday afternoon.
Roll Call reports the vote was 328-93 to impose a 90 percent tax on employee bonuses at companies that received federal bailout funds.
"While the vote was bipartisan, the GOP was split on the bill, with Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) voting against it and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) voting in favor of it," reported Roll Call.
CNN notes that the measure, which now heads to the Senate for consideration, would tax individuals on any bonuses received in 2009 from companies getting $5 billion or more in money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Those with incomes more than $250,000 would see their bonuses taxed at the 90 percent rate.
"We can't have any concept of we're getting even, but we must have a concept that we're trying to show that Congress ... cannot tolerate that," said Charlie Rangel (D-NY), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday.
Said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "We must also protect the American taxpayer from executives who would use their companies' second chances as opportunities for private gain. Because they could not use sound judgment in the use of taxpayer funds, these AIG executives will pay the Treasury in the form of this tax."
Speaking before the House on Thursday, Boehner questioned why they were only taxing 90 percent of the bonuses.
"Why 90 percent?... We can get 100 percent back because the Treasury Secretary has the ability to get it all back. The Administration has the ability to get it all back," Boehner said. "Why don’t we just get it all back? Why are we bringing this bill to the floor today to give members political cover when in fact the Treasury Secretary has the authority, the Administration has the authority to get all of it back?"
Paul: Bill to tax bonuses an 'outrage' and unconstitutional
David Edwards and Rachel Oswald
Thursday March 19, 2009
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) yet again went against the grain in Congress when he stood up in the House and argued against a proposal that would tax 90 percent of AIG executive bonuses, saying that it was a "disgrace," a "distraction" and an "outrage" that undermined the Constitution.
"I rise in opposition to this rule and the bill because of the problem -- because of the lack of need for this and the disgrace that this has brought upon us," Paul said. "Yesterday, for instance, the Federal Reserve met and they came out and they announced that they would create new money to the tune of $1.25 trillion."
Paul, a dark horse Republican candidate for president in 2008 who still enjoys considerable popularity with a base of hardcore supporters, noted that the value of the dollar went down significantly after that announcement by the Fed.
"Today...on emergency legislation, we're going to deal with $165 million of bonuses, which obviously shouldn't have never been given, but who's responsible for this?" Paul said. "It's the Congress and the president who signed this [$787 billion stimulus bill that allowed the bonuses to go forward]. So this is a distraction, this is an outrage."
He chided his fellow House members who were considering supporting the new tax legislation for only caring about the millions in bonuses when they should be concerned with the trillions in deficits the country is facing.
"So everybody can go home that voted for this bill, say, 'Look, I'm clamping [down] on this $165 million but I don't care about the previous $5 trillion the Fed created and the $1.25 trillion they created yesterday,'" he said. "Think of the loss of purchasing power in less than 24 hours."
Paul urged his House members to support his bill, H.R. 1207, which would change the way the Federal Reserve is audited.
"Let's quit appropriating funds in an unconstitutional manner. Let's quit bankrupting this country," Paul said. "The Fed is not even required to answer any questions. So it's about time we have an open book about the Federal Reserve and solve some of these problems."
House passes tax bill Thursday afternoon
Despite the protestations of Paul and a few others, the House voted overwhelmingly to pass the bonus tax legislation Thursday afternoon.
Roll Call reports the vote was 328-93 to impose a 90 percent tax on employee bonuses at companies that received federal bailout funds.
"While the vote was bipartisan, the GOP was split on the bill, with Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) voting against it and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) voting in favor of it," reported Roll Call.
CNN notes that the measure, which now heads to the Senate for consideration, would tax individuals on any bonuses received in 2009 from companies getting $5 billion or more in money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Those with incomes more than $250,000 would see their bonuses taxed at the 90 percent rate.
"We can't have any concept of we're getting even, but we must have a concept that we're trying to show that Congress ... cannot tolerate that," said Charlie Rangel (D-NY), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday.
Said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "We must also protect the American taxpayer from executives who would use their companies' second chances as opportunities for private gain. Because they could not use sound judgment in the use of taxpayer funds, these AIG executives will pay the Treasury in the form of this tax."
Speaking before the House on Thursday, Boehner questioned why they were only taxing 90 percent of the bonuses.
"Why 90 percent?... We can get 100 percent back because the Treasury Secretary has the ability to get it all back. The Administration has the ability to get it all back," Boehner said. "Why don’t we just get it all back? Why are we bringing this bill to the floor today to give members political cover when in fact the Treasury Secretary has the authority, the Administration has the authority to get all of it back?"
The Real AIG Scandal
http://www.slate.com/id/2213942/
The Real AIG Scandal
It's not the bonuses. It's that AIG's counterparties are getting paid back in full.
By Eliot Spitzer
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Everybody is rushing to condemn AIG's bonuses, but this simple scandal is obscuring the real disgrace at the insurance giant: Why are AIG's counterparties getting paid back in full, to the tune of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars?
For the answer to this question, we need to go back to the very first decision to bail out AIG, made, we are told, by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, then-New York Fed official Timothy Geithner, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last fall. Post-Lehman's collapse, they feared a systemic failure could be triggered by AIG's inability to pay the counterparties to all the sophisticated instruments AIG had sold. And who were AIG's trading partners? No shock here: Goldman, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and on it goes. So now we know for sure what we already surmised: The AIG bailout has been a way to hide an enormous second round of cash to the same group that had received TARP money already.
It all appears, once again, to be the same insiders protecting themselves against sharing the pain and risk of their own bad adventure. The payments to AIG's counterparties are justified with an appeal to the sanctity of contract. If AIG's contracts turned out to be shaky, the theory goes, then the whole edifice of the financial system would collapse.
But wait a moment, aren't we in the midst of reopening contracts all over the place to share the burden of this crisis? From raising taxes—income taxes to sales taxes—to properly reopening labor contracts, we are all being asked to pitch in and carry our share of the burden. Workers around the country are being asked to take pay cuts and accept shorter work weeks so that colleagues won't be laid off. Why can't Wall Street royalty shoulder some of the burden? Why did Goldman have to get back 100 cents on the dollar? Didn't we already give Goldman a $25 billion capital infusion, and aren't they sitting on more than $100 billion in cash? Haven't we been told recently that they are beginning to come back to fiscal stability? If that is so, couldn't they have accepted a discount, and couldn't they have agreed to certain conditions before the AIG dollars—that is, our dollars—flowed?
The appearance that this was all an inside job is overwhelming. AIG was nothing more than a conduit for huge capital flows to the same old suspects, with no reason or explanation.
So here are several questions that should be answered, in public, under oath, to clear the air:
What was the precise conversation among Bernanke, Geithner, Paulson, and Blankfein that preceded the initial $80 billion grant?
Was it already known who the counterparties were and what the exposure was for each of the counterparties?
What did Goldman, and all the other counterparties, know about AIG's financial condition at the time they executed the swaps or other contracts? Had they done adequate due diligence to see whether they were buying real protection? And why shouldn't they bear a percentage of the risk of failure of their own counterparty?
What is the deeper relationship between Goldman and AIG? Didn't they almost merge a few years ago but did not because Goldman couldn't get its arms around the black box that is AIG? If that is true, why should Goldman get bailed out? After all, they should have known as well as anybody that a big part of AIG's business model was not to pay on insurance it had issued.
Why weren't the counterparties immediately and fully disclosed?
Failure to answer these questions will feed the populist rage that is metastasizing very quickly. And it will raise basic questions about the competence of those who are supposedly guiding this economic policy.
The Real AIG Scandal
It's not the bonuses. It's that AIG's counterparties are getting paid back in full.
By Eliot Spitzer
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Everybody is rushing to condemn AIG's bonuses, but this simple scandal is obscuring the real disgrace at the insurance giant: Why are AIG's counterparties getting paid back in full, to the tune of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars?
For the answer to this question, we need to go back to the very first decision to bail out AIG, made, we are told, by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, then-New York Fed official Timothy Geithner, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last fall. Post-Lehman's collapse, they feared a systemic failure could be triggered by AIG's inability to pay the counterparties to all the sophisticated instruments AIG had sold. And who were AIG's trading partners? No shock here: Goldman, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and on it goes. So now we know for sure what we already surmised: The AIG bailout has been a way to hide an enormous second round of cash to the same group that had received TARP money already.
It all appears, once again, to be the same insiders protecting themselves against sharing the pain and risk of their own bad adventure. The payments to AIG's counterparties are justified with an appeal to the sanctity of contract. If AIG's contracts turned out to be shaky, the theory goes, then the whole edifice of the financial system would collapse.
But wait a moment, aren't we in the midst of reopening contracts all over the place to share the burden of this crisis? From raising taxes—income taxes to sales taxes—to properly reopening labor contracts, we are all being asked to pitch in and carry our share of the burden. Workers around the country are being asked to take pay cuts and accept shorter work weeks so that colleagues won't be laid off. Why can't Wall Street royalty shoulder some of the burden? Why did Goldman have to get back 100 cents on the dollar? Didn't we already give Goldman a $25 billion capital infusion, and aren't they sitting on more than $100 billion in cash? Haven't we been told recently that they are beginning to come back to fiscal stability? If that is so, couldn't they have accepted a discount, and couldn't they have agreed to certain conditions before the AIG dollars—that is, our dollars—flowed?
The appearance that this was all an inside job is overwhelming. AIG was nothing more than a conduit for huge capital flows to the same old suspects, with no reason or explanation.
So here are several questions that should be answered, in public, under oath, to clear the air:
What was the precise conversation among Bernanke, Geithner, Paulson, and Blankfein that preceded the initial $80 billion grant?
Was it already known who the counterparties were and what the exposure was for each of the counterparties?
What did Goldman, and all the other counterparties, know about AIG's financial condition at the time they executed the swaps or other contracts? Had they done adequate due diligence to see whether they were buying real protection? And why shouldn't they bear a percentage of the risk of failure of their own counterparty?
What is the deeper relationship between Goldman and AIG? Didn't they almost merge a few years ago but did not because Goldman couldn't get its arms around the black box that is AIG? If that is true, why should Goldman get bailed out? After all, they should have known as well as anybody that a big part of AIG's business model was not to pay on insurance it had issued.
Why weren't the counterparties immediately and fully disclosed?
Failure to answer these questions will feed the populist rage that is metastasizing very quickly. And it will raise basic questions about the competence of those who are supposedly guiding this economic policy.
Dodd Blames Obama Administration
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aT_tMXRy2vDs
Dodd Blames Obama Administration for Bonus Amendment
By Ryan J. Donmoyer
March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said the Obama administration asked him to insert a provision in last month’s $787 billion economic-stimulus legislation that had the effect of authorizing American International Group Inc.’s bonuses.
Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, said yesterday he agreed to modify restrictions on executive pay at companies receiving taxpayer assistance to exempt bonuses already agreed upon in contracts. He said he did so without realizing the change would benefit AIG, whose recent $165 million payment to employees has sparked a public furor.
Dodd said he had wanted to limit executive compensation at companies that got money from the government’s financial-rescue fund. AIG has received $173 billion in bailout money. His provision was changed as the stimulus legislation was negotiated between the House and Senate.
“I did not want to make any changes to my original Senate-passed amendment” to the stimulus bill, “but I did so at the request of administration officials, who gave us no indication that this was in any way related to AIG,” Dodd said in a statement released last night. “Let me be clear -- I was completely unaware of these AIG bonuses until I learned of them last week.” He didn’t name the administration officials who made the request.
No Insistence
An administration official said last night that representatives of President Barack Obama didn’t insist on the change, though they did contend that the language in Dodd’s amendment could be legally challenged because it would apply retroactively to bonus agreements. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity.
That provision in the stimulus bill may undercut complaints by congressional Democrats about the AIG bonuses because most of them voted for the legislation. No Republicans in the House and only three in the Senate supported the stimulus measure.
“Taxpayers deserve better than this from their government, and this is just the latest reason why legislation must be transparent for all Americans to see before it is recklessly signed into law,” said Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House.
The new law, approved by Congress Feb. 13 and signed into law by Obama the next week, effectively authorized bonus arrangements at companies receiving taxpayer bailouts as long as they were in place before Feb. 11. The AIG bonuses qualified under that provision.
Obama and many lawmakers who voted for the legislation, such as Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, are demanding AIG employees surrender their bonuses.
Schumer Letter
Schumer yesterday sent a letter to AIG Chief Executive Officer Edward Liddy warning him to return bonuses or face confiscatory taxes on them. The letter was signed by Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and seven other senators.
Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Schumer, said the senator “supported a provision on the Senate floor that would have prevented these types of bonuses, but he was not on the conference committee that negotiated the final language.”
A House vote is planned for today on a bill to impose a 90 percent tax on executive bonuses paid by AIG and other companies getting more than $5 billion in federal bailout funds.
“I expect it to pass in overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, told reporters yesterday in Washington.
Republican Attacks
Republicans seized on the provision in the stimulus bill to paint Democrats as hypocrites.
“The fact is that the bill the president signed, which protected the AIG bonuses and others, was written behind closed doors by Democratic leaders of the House and Senate,” Iowa Senator Charles Grassley said in a statement.
AIG donated a total of $854,905 to political campaigns in 2008, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group. AIG employees as a group represent Dodd’s fourth-biggest donor during his career, the group’s research shows. The company’s political action committee, employees and immediate family members have given Dodd more than $280,000, the group said.
Dodd said the provision was written to give the Treasury Department enough discretion to reclaim bonuses as necessary.
“Fortunately, we wrote this amendment in a way that allows the Treasury Department to go back and review these bonus contracts and seek to recover the money for taxpayers,” he said.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told lawmakers in a letter this week that department lawyers believe it would be “legally difficult” to prevent AIG from paying bonuses.
Other Democrats who voted for the stimulus bill have ramped up criticism of AIG’s bonuses, including Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who told reporters, “I think the time has come to exercise our ownership rights.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan J. Donmoyer in Washington at rdonmoyer@bloomberg.net
Dodd Blames Obama Administration for Bonus Amendment
By Ryan J. Donmoyer
March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said the Obama administration asked him to insert a provision in last month’s $787 billion economic-stimulus legislation that had the effect of authorizing American International Group Inc.’s bonuses.
Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, said yesterday he agreed to modify restrictions on executive pay at companies receiving taxpayer assistance to exempt bonuses already agreed upon in contracts. He said he did so without realizing the change would benefit AIG, whose recent $165 million payment to employees has sparked a public furor.
Dodd said he had wanted to limit executive compensation at companies that got money from the government’s financial-rescue fund. AIG has received $173 billion in bailout money. His provision was changed as the stimulus legislation was negotiated between the House and Senate.
“I did not want to make any changes to my original Senate-passed amendment” to the stimulus bill, “but I did so at the request of administration officials, who gave us no indication that this was in any way related to AIG,” Dodd said in a statement released last night. “Let me be clear -- I was completely unaware of these AIG bonuses until I learned of them last week.” He didn’t name the administration officials who made the request.
No Insistence
An administration official said last night that representatives of President Barack Obama didn’t insist on the change, though they did contend that the language in Dodd’s amendment could be legally challenged because it would apply retroactively to bonus agreements. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity.
That provision in the stimulus bill may undercut complaints by congressional Democrats about the AIG bonuses because most of them voted for the legislation. No Republicans in the House and only three in the Senate supported the stimulus measure.
“Taxpayers deserve better than this from their government, and this is just the latest reason why legislation must be transparent for all Americans to see before it is recklessly signed into law,” said Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House.
The new law, approved by Congress Feb. 13 and signed into law by Obama the next week, effectively authorized bonus arrangements at companies receiving taxpayer bailouts as long as they were in place before Feb. 11. The AIG bonuses qualified under that provision.
Obama and many lawmakers who voted for the legislation, such as Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, are demanding AIG employees surrender their bonuses.
Schumer Letter
Schumer yesterday sent a letter to AIG Chief Executive Officer Edward Liddy warning him to return bonuses or face confiscatory taxes on them. The letter was signed by Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and seven other senators.
Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Schumer, said the senator “supported a provision on the Senate floor that would have prevented these types of bonuses, but he was not on the conference committee that negotiated the final language.”
A House vote is planned for today on a bill to impose a 90 percent tax on executive bonuses paid by AIG and other companies getting more than $5 billion in federal bailout funds.
“I expect it to pass in overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, told reporters yesterday in Washington.
Republican Attacks
Republicans seized on the provision in the stimulus bill to paint Democrats as hypocrites.
“The fact is that the bill the president signed, which protected the AIG bonuses and others, was written behind closed doors by Democratic leaders of the House and Senate,” Iowa Senator Charles Grassley said in a statement.
AIG donated a total of $854,905 to political campaigns in 2008, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group. AIG employees as a group represent Dodd’s fourth-biggest donor during his career, the group’s research shows. The company’s political action committee, employees and immediate family members have given Dodd more than $280,000, the group said.
Dodd said the provision was written to give the Treasury Department enough discretion to reclaim bonuses as necessary.
“Fortunately, we wrote this amendment in a way that allows the Treasury Department to go back and review these bonus contracts and seek to recover the money for taxpayers,” he said.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told lawmakers in a letter this week that department lawyers believe it would be “legally difficult” to prevent AIG from paying bonuses.
Other Democrats who voted for the stimulus bill have ramped up criticism of AIG’s bonuses, including Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who told reporters, “I think the time has come to exercise our ownership rights.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan J. Donmoyer in Washington at rdonmoyer@bloomberg.net
Outcry Builds in Washington
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/business/19bailout.html
March 19, 2009
Outcry Builds in Washington for Recovery of A.I.G. Bonuses
By JACKIE CALMES and LOUISE STORY
WASHINGTON — The bonuses that the American International Group awarded last week were paid to 418 employees and included $33.6 million for 52 people who have left the failed insurance conglomerate, according to the office of the New York attorney general.
Those payouts are expected to come under intense scrutiny Wednesday as Edward Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G, testifies before Congress amid mounting public outrage about the bonuses, which were paid out after nearly $200 billion in taxpayer funds were pumped into the company.
The company paid the bonuses, including more than $1 million each to 73 people, to almost all of the employees in the financial products unit responsible for creating the exotic derivatives that caused A.I.G.’s near collapse and started the government rescue to avoid a global financial crisis.
The information adds to the firestorm confronting the Obama administration and Congress since the weekend disclosure that A.I.G., almost 80 percent owned by the government, paid out $165 million in bonuses.
Even before the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, divulged the new data on bonus payments in a letter to Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the Financial Services Committee, the White House and Congress separately were rushing to get out in front of the mounting public furor. Officials and lawmakers condemned A.I.G., pointed fingers at each other and promised speedy action to recoup the taxpayers’ money.
Mr. Liddy, who took over as A.I.G. chief executive after the bailout for a salary of $1 a year, is scheduled to testify Wednesday morning before a subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee.
New York’s efforts against A.I.G. have overshadowed those of the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, the official who is responsible for the financial bailout, along with the Federal Reserve. The White House and Treasury have been besieged by questions about why Mr. Geithner did not know sooner about the bonus payments due this month, and whether he could have done more to stop them, prompting White House officials to assert President Obama’s continued confidence in Mr. Geithner.
“He more than has the president’s complete confidence,” said Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff. As angry as the president is at the news about A.I.G., which he learned Thursday, Mr. Emanuel said, “his main priority is getting the financial system stabilized, and he believes this is a big distraction in that effort.”
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, on Tuesday asked three committee chairmen, including Mr. Frank, to come up with legislation to recoup the bonus money, and suggested the House might pass a measure as early as this week.
But the reaction of another of the chairmen, Representative Charles B. Rangel of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, underscored the legal and political complexities facing Democrats as they scramble for a solution. Mr. Rangel, a Democrat from New York, objected to one of the most popular ideas being floated — a confiscatory income tax on the recipients. The tax code is not “a political weapon,” he told reporters.
A.I.G. has refused to identify the current and former employees on privacy grounds, including one who received $6.4 million, but Mr. Cuomo is seeking to obtain and publicize their names.
The employees took salaries of $1 in exchange for receiving the bonuses, which were supposed to keep them from leaving A.I.G., according to Mr. Cuomo’s office. That, he suggested, undercuts A.I.G.’s claims that it could not renegotiate the bonus contracts agreed to early in 2008, and that the payments were “retention” bonuses.
“The only justification they had for this was, well, we needed to keep these people, but there are 50 people who left anyway or who they decided they didn’t need to keep,” Mr. Cuomo said in an interview.
A spokeswoman for A.I.G., Christina Pretto, declined to confirm the number of people reported to have received retention bonuses before leaving the financial products unit. She said it was common knowledge that A.I.G. was eliminating jobs in that division.
Late Tuesday, Mr. Geithner and White House officials sent a letter to Congress seeking quick action on legislation to give the government more power to intervene and wind down companies like A.I.G., which are huge players in the financial system, but are not regulated the way banks are.
The administration had planned to seek such regulatory powers as part of a broad revamping of financial regulations, but it is expediting this piece in response to the A.I.G. uproar.
In the letter, Mr. Geithner confirmed that the government would subtract $165 million — the amount of the bonuses — from the latest $30 billion loan to A.I.G. that would bring the total loans to $200 billion, from the original $85 billion.
Mr. Geithner reiterated the Treasury position that lawyers inside and out of government had agreed that “it would be legally difficult to prevent these contractually mandated payments.”
That position was being questioned at the Capitol. Congressional Republicans, eager to implicate Democrats, initially blamed Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who heads the banking committee, for adding to the economic recovery package an amendment that cracked down on bonuses at companies getting bailout money, but that exempted bonuses protected by contracts, like A.I.G.’s.
Mr. Dodd, in turn, responded Tuesday with a statement saying that the exemption actually had been inserted at the insistence of Treasury during Congress’s final legislative negotiations.
While the administration has been mostly on the defensive, the competing expressions of outrage in Congress throughout Tuesday belied the fact that a few less-prominent Democrats had tried to draw attention to the A.I.G. retention bonuses since last November. Except for their condemnations last December, response has been sparse on A.I.G.’s disbursement of an initial $55 million in retention payments.
While House leaders were calling for immediate legislation to recoup payments, Senate Democrats sent a letter to Mr. Liddy demanding that A.I.G. renegotiate the employees’ compensation contracts and return the bonuses. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, and other Democratic leaders proposed new taxes, some as high as 91 percent, on the bonuses. But some of the A.I.G. employees are thought to be foreigners based in offices abroad, and not liable for United States taxes.
Congressional Republicans, despite the Bush administration’s role in setting the terms of the A.I.G. bailout six months ago, blamed the Obama administration for lax oversight. Senator Richard Shelby, a Republican of Alabama, seemed to hint that Mr. Geithner should resign.
“This is just another example of where he seems to be out of the loop,” Mr. Shelby said. “Treasury should have let the American people know about this."
David Axelrod, senior adviser to the president, dismissed such talk, citing the financial mess that Mr. Geithner had inherited. “He has been confronted with a situation and challenges that are unparalleled in modern history, and to put it all on his shoulders is not fair and not right,” Mr. Axelrod said. “He’s a brilliant and committed guy with a great deal of experience in this area, and we’re standing with him.”
Jackie Calmes reported from Washington, and Louise Story from New York. Edmund L. Andrews and David M. Herszenhorn contributed reporting from Washington.
March 19, 2009
Outcry Builds in Washington for Recovery of A.I.G. Bonuses
By JACKIE CALMES and LOUISE STORY
WASHINGTON — The bonuses that the American International Group awarded last week were paid to 418 employees and included $33.6 million for 52 people who have left the failed insurance conglomerate, according to the office of the New York attorney general.
Those payouts are expected to come under intense scrutiny Wednesday as Edward Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G, testifies before Congress amid mounting public outrage about the bonuses, which were paid out after nearly $200 billion in taxpayer funds were pumped into the company.
The company paid the bonuses, including more than $1 million each to 73 people, to almost all of the employees in the financial products unit responsible for creating the exotic derivatives that caused A.I.G.’s near collapse and started the government rescue to avoid a global financial crisis.
The information adds to the firestorm confronting the Obama administration and Congress since the weekend disclosure that A.I.G., almost 80 percent owned by the government, paid out $165 million in bonuses.
Even before the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, divulged the new data on bonus payments in a letter to Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the Financial Services Committee, the White House and Congress separately were rushing to get out in front of the mounting public furor. Officials and lawmakers condemned A.I.G., pointed fingers at each other and promised speedy action to recoup the taxpayers’ money.
Mr. Liddy, who took over as A.I.G. chief executive after the bailout for a salary of $1 a year, is scheduled to testify Wednesday morning before a subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee.
New York’s efforts against A.I.G. have overshadowed those of the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, the official who is responsible for the financial bailout, along with the Federal Reserve. The White House and Treasury have been besieged by questions about why Mr. Geithner did not know sooner about the bonus payments due this month, and whether he could have done more to stop them, prompting White House officials to assert President Obama’s continued confidence in Mr. Geithner.
“He more than has the president’s complete confidence,” said Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff. As angry as the president is at the news about A.I.G., which he learned Thursday, Mr. Emanuel said, “his main priority is getting the financial system stabilized, and he believes this is a big distraction in that effort.”
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, on Tuesday asked three committee chairmen, including Mr. Frank, to come up with legislation to recoup the bonus money, and suggested the House might pass a measure as early as this week.
But the reaction of another of the chairmen, Representative Charles B. Rangel of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, underscored the legal and political complexities facing Democrats as they scramble for a solution. Mr. Rangel, a Democrat from New York, objected to one of the most popular ideas being floated — a confiscatory income tax on the recipients. The tax code is not “a political weapon,” he told reporters.
A.I.G. has refused to identify the current and former employees on privacy grounds, including one who received $6.4 million, but Mr. Cuomo is seeking to obtain and publicize their names.
The employees took salaries of $1 in exchange for receiving the bonuses, which were supposed to keep them from leaving A.I.G., according to Mr. Cuomo’s office. That, he suggested, undercuts A.I.G.’s claims that it could not renegotiate the bonus contracts agreed to early in 2008, and that the payments were “retention” bonuses.
“The only justification they had for this was, well, we needed to keep these people, but there are 50 people who left anyway or who they decided they didn’t need to keep,” Mr. Cuomo said in an interview.
A spokeswoman for A.I.G., Christina Pretto, declined to confirm the number of people reported to have received retention bonuses before leaving the financial products unit. She said it was common knowledge that A.I.G. was eliminating jobs in that division.
Late Tuesday, Mr. Geithner and White House officials sent a letter to Congress seeking quick action on legislation to give the government more power to intervene and wind down companies like A.I.G., which are huge players in the financial system, but are not regulated the way banks are.
The administration had planned to seek such regulatory powers as part of a broad revamping of financial regulations, but it is expediting this piece in response to the A.I.G. uproar.
In the letter, Mr. Geithner confirmed that the government would subtract $165 million — the amount of the bonuses — from the latest $30 billion loan to A.I.G. that would bring the total loans to $200 billion, from the original $85 billion.
Mr. Geithner reiterated the Treasury position that lawyers inside and out of government had agreed that “it would be legally difficult to prevent these contractually mandated payments.”
That position was being questioned at the Capitol. Congressional Republicans, eager to implicate Democrats, initially blamed Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who heads the banking committee, for adding to the economic recovery package an amendment that cracked down on bonuses at companies getting bailout money, but that exempted bonuses protected by contracts, like A.I.G.’s.
Mr. Dodd, in turn, responded Tuesday with a statement saying that the exemption actually had been inserted at the insistence of Treasury during Congress’s final legislative negotiations.
While the administration has been mostly on the defensive, the competing expressions of outrage in Congress throughout Tuesday belied the fact that a few less-prominent Democrats had tried to draw attention to the A.I.G. retention bonuses since last November. Except for their condemnations last December, response has been sparse on A.I.G.’s disbursement of an initial $55 million in retention payments.
While House leaders were calling for immediate legislation to recoup payments, Senate Democrats sent a letter to Mr. Liddy demanding that A.I.G. renegotiate the employees’ compensation contracts and return the bonuses. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, and other Democratic leaders proposed new taxes, some as high as 91 percent, on the bonuses. But some of the A.I.G. employees are thought to be foreigners based in offices abroad, and not liable for United States taxes.
Congressional Republicans, despite the Bush administration’s role in setting the terms of the A.I.G. bailout six months ago, blamed the Obama administration for lax oversight. Senator Richard Shelby, a Republican of Alabama, seemed to hint that Mr. Geithner should resign.
“This is just another example of where he seems to be out of the loop,” Mr. Shelby said. “Treasury should have let the American people know about this."
David Axelrod, senior adviser to the president, dismissed such talk, citing the financial mess that Mr. Geithner had inherited. “He has been confronted with a situation and challenges that are unparalleled in modern history, and to put it all on his shoulders is not fair and not right,” Mr. Axelrod said. “He’s a brilliant and committed guy with a great deal of experience in this area, and we’re standing with him.”
Jackie Calmes reported from Washington, and Louise Story from New York. Edmund L. Andrews and David M. Herszenhorn contributed reporting from Washington.
California unemployment hits 10.5% in February
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-caljobs21-2009mar21,1,7712508.story
California unemployment hits 10.5% in February
After 116,000 jobs are lost for the month, the state's unemployment rate is the highest since April 1983.
By Marc Lifsher
March 21, 2009
Reporting from Sacramento -- California employers led the nation in mass layoffs in February as the state's unemployment rate hit 10.5%, the highest level since April 1983, state and federal labor agencies reported Friday.
The reductions cascaded across all areas of the Golden State's economy, hitting major corporations that included Circuit City Stores Inc., Yahoo Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. bank, Ralphs Grocery Co. and the Los Angeles law firm of Latham & Watkins, among others.
Big companies, which must file mandatory government reports every time they lay off at least 50 employees, gave pink slips to 45,557 Californians last month.
Nationally, mass layoff events reached a record high in February, affecting 295,477 jobs in all industries tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The biggest portion, about a third, were in manufacturing, followed by retail trade and transportation and warehousing.
California jobless rate
California's losses were far higher than Illinois', with 19,469 jobs lost. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were third and fourth.
But the mass layoffs were only a modest portion of the damage done to the Golden State's economy because the bulk of jobs are at small and medium-size businesses.
In all, California lost 116,000 jobs in February, bringing the 12-month total to 605,900.
Layoffs began 18 months ago in residential construction and moved to finance and wholesale and retail trade. Now, the state numbers show that cutbacks are hitting the once-secure bastions of healthcare, education and government services, sending new waves of unemployed workers to job-hunting centers.
"The job losses are intensifying and becoming more broad-based," said Esmael Adibi, an economist at Chapman University in Orange.
Construction, which continues to weaken, suffered the most in February, shedding 30,900 jobs. All other industries reported declines, with the exception of information, which includes television and movie production.
"Even the sectors that were considered recession-proof are losing steam," Adibi said.
California's jobless rate rose four-tenths of a percentage point in February, from 10.1% in January. A year earlier the rate was 6.2%. Unemployment in Los Angeles County increased by a slightly larger margin, to 10.9% in February from a revised 10.4% in January and 6.1% a year earlier.
Last month's national rate was 8.1%.
Both federal and California laws require employers to report large layoffs, though details of the mandates differ.
The tempo of layoffs is speeding up, state government officials warn.
"Since October, we've been getting these increasingly larger losses of jobs," said Howard Roth, chief economist for the California Department of Finance. He noted that February job losses were the heaviest in a single month since at least 1990.
What's more, the pace of disappearing jobs is hitting California disproportionately hard, compared with the other 49 states. California, which accounts for 11% of the national workforce, has suffered 18% of U.S. job losses.
California in recent years has been plagued by average job growth, a reversal from the superheated dot-com boom of the late 1990s, said Stephen Levy, director and senior economist at the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto.
Levy attributes the state's high unemployment rate to a combination of sharp job losses and a workforce that's ballooned by 350,000 people.
Growth, he said, "obviously depends on the success of national policies to boost employment and stabilize the housing and banking sectors."
That's what California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who met with President Obama on Friday at the White House, is counting on.
"My administration is working tirelessly with the federal government to pump federal economic stimulus funding into our economy to create jobs as quickly as possible," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. But, he cautioned, "the road to economic recovery will not be short."
The good economic news, meager as it might seem, is the assurance of federal aid from the Obama stimulus package and the Federal Reserve's move this week to ease credit, said Sung Won Sohn, an economist and Asian trade expert at Cal State Channel Islands.
"The federal help will not turn the economy around," he said, "but it will prevent the economy from getting worse."
marc.lifsher@latimes.com
California unemployment hits 10.5% in February
After 116,000 jobs are lost for the month, the state's unemployment rate is the highest since April 1983.
By Marc Lifsher
March 21, 2009
Reporting from Sacramento -- California employers led the nation in mass layoffs in February as the state's unemployment rate hit 10.5%, the highest level since April 1983, state and federal labor agencies reported Friday.
The reductions cascaded across all areas of the Golden State's economy, hitting major corporations that included Circuit City Stores Inc., Yahoo Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. bank, Ralphs Grocery Co. and the Los Angeles law firm of Latham & Watkins, among others.
Big companies, which must file mandatory government reports every time they lay off at least 50 employees, gave pink slips to 45,557 Californians last month.
Nationally, mass layoff events reached a record high in February, affecting 295,477 jobs in all industries tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The biggest portion, about a third, were in manufacturing, followed by retail trade and transportation and warehousing.
California jobless rate
California's losses were far higher than Illinois', with 19,469 jobs lost. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were third and fourth.
But the mass layoffs were only a modest portion of the damage done to the Golden State's economy because the bulk of jobs are at small and medium-size businesses.
In all, California lost 116,000 jobs in February, bringing the 12-month total to 605,900.
Layoffs began 18 months ago in residential construction and moved to finance and wholesale and retail trade. Now, the state numbers show that cutbacks are hitting the once-secure bastions of healthcare, education and government services, sending new waves of unemployed workers to job-hunting centers.
"The job losses are intensifying and becoming more broad-based," said Esmael Adibi, an economist at Chapman University in Orange.
Construction, which continues to weaken, suffered the most in February, shedding 30,900 jobs. All other industries reported declines, with the exception of information, which includes television and movie production.
"Even the sectors that were considered recession-proof are losing steam," Adibi said.
California's jobless rate rose four-tenths of a percentage point in February, from 10.1% in January. A year earlier the rate was 6.2%. Unemployment in Los Angeles County increased by a slightly larger margin, to 10.9% in February from a revised 10.4% in January and 6.1% a year earlier.
Last month's national rate was 8.1%.
Both federal and California laws require employers to report large layoffs, though details of the mandates differ.
The tempo of layoffs is speeding up, state government officials warn.
"Since October, we've been getting these increasingly larger losses of jobs," said Howard Roth, chief economist for the California Department of Finance. He noted that February job losses were the heaviest in a single month since at least 1990.
What's more, the pace of disappearing jobs is hitting California disproportionately hard, compared with the other 49 states. California, which accounts for 11% of the national workforce, has suffered 18% of U.S. job losses.
California in recent years has been plagued by average job growth, a reversal from the superheated dot-com boom of the late 1990s, said Stephen Levy, director and senior economist at the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto.
Levy attributes the state's high unemployment rate to a combination of sharp job losses and a workforce that's ballooned by 350,000 people.
Growth, he said, "obviously depends on the success of national policies to boost employment and stabilize the housing and banking sectors."
That's what California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who met with President Obama on Friday at the White House, is counting on.
"My administration is working tirelessly with the federal government to pump federal economic stimulus funding into our economy to create jobs as quickly as possible," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. But, he cautioned, "the road to economic recovery will not be short."
The good economic news, meager as it might seem, is the assurance of federal aid from the Obama stimulus package and the Federal Reserve's move this week to ease credit, said Sung Won Sohn, an economist and Asian trade expert at Cal State Channel Islands.
"The federal help will not turn the economy around," he said, "but it will prevent the economy from getting worse."
marc.lifsher@latimes.com
Religions Are Dead
Arhata Osho
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Religions Are Dead
Man's bottle to suck on is an illusion that has been made to be real. There's a new attitude floating around that more and more are beginning to listen to and, it's 'life and love' without the crutches of male dominated control in the name of some religion which is filled with good and, useless dictums to entrap the minds of humanity through FEAR.
There is no God but love and life, free of all scriptures that human corpses so cling to on their way to the grave. Very few have the intelligence to see the truth free of all races, creeds and belief systems. So be it! Life and love are not the major concerns of those caught up in defending what others have devised long ago to sustain their lives of fear.
Religions are capsules for soldiers to fight other religions or, offshoots of the same religion. People who haven't figured things out in the harmony of life and love, unconsciously fill their life with the illusion of what's referred to as a religion or a follower of some 'manmade' messiah. These people are 'living corpses' alive and in fear and ignorance regardless of education.
The 'Battle of the Religions' will never end with anything but dead losers. In a miracle of life, mass waking up to consciousness is like a far off star that moves closer and closer into sight. The 'explosion of consciousness' is the real freedom and path of all aspects of authentic love.
Men with high intellects can out talk the masses with their 'do gooder' images of saving the planet with out connecting properly to the 'emotional selves'. The result is an endless stream over the ages of fearful, innocent people allowing an emotional attachment to nothing but illusions about illusions.
Good old fashioned harmony with love and life is always there waiting for the waking up of individuals....and, just maybe, the planet. Realization only takes a moment! There seems to be a very deep imprint in the masses of humanity to clamor to that which feels like the others are gathering around, even though it's just an illusion perpetrated by male intellectuals who seem to survive by convincing themselves that the 'holy books' are some God's version of salvation and eternal life somewhere up in the sky.
With the advent of the printed word, man started reproducing the holy books for mass distribution, incarcerating billions in ancient systems of thought which are bits and pieces of information by 100's of men to basically 'give them a job' rather than do old fashion work. All religious leaders with any brains know the game. Few reading this will get out of their programming to seek the harmony in life and love where all answer are hidden in plain sight. Religion is a peep hole into the wonders of a reality that awaits the seekers with their heads on straight. Life's waiting to begin!
Yesss Self Love Center
Port Townsend, Washington USA
ArhataFreeSpeech@yahoo.com
http://www.freedomofspeech.netfirms.com/
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Religions Are Dead
Man's bottle to suck on is an illusion that has been made to be real. There's a new attitude floating around that more and more are beginning to listen to and, it's 'life and love' without the crutches of male dominated control in the name of some religion which is filled with good and, useless dictums to entrap the minds of humanity through FEAR.
There is no God but love and life, free of all scriptures that human corpses so cling to on their way to the grave. Very few have the intelligence to see the truth free of all races, creeds and belief systems. So be it! Life and love are not the major concerns of those caught up in defending what others have devised long ago to sustain their lives of fear.
Religions are capsules for soldiers to fight other religions or, offshoots of the same religion. People who haven't figured things out in the harmony of life and love, unconsciously fill their life with the illusion of what's referred to as a religion or a follower of some 'manmade' messiah. These people are 'living corpses' alive and in fear and ignorance regardless of education.
The 'Battle of the Religions' will never end with anything but dead losers. In a miracle of life, mass waking up to consciousness is like a far off star that moves closer and closer into sight. The 'explosion of consciousness' is the real freedom and path of all aspects of authentic love.
Men with high intellects can out talk the masses with their 'do gooder' images of saving the planet with out connecting properly to the 'emotional selves'. The result is an endless stream over the ages of fearful, innocent people allowing an emotional attachment to nothing but illusions about illusions.
Good old fashioned harmony with love and life is always there waiting for the waking up of individuals....and, just maybe, the planet. Realization only takes a moment! There seems to be a very deep imprint in the masses of humanity to clamor to that which feels like the others are gathering around, even though it's just an illusion perpetrated by male intellectuals who seem to survive by convincing themselves that the 'holy books' are some God's version of salvation and eternal life somewhere up in the sky.
With the advent of the printed word, man started reproducing the holy books for mass distribution, incarcerating billions in ancient systems of thought which are bits and pieces of information by 100's of men to basically 'give them a job' rather than do old fashion work. All religious leaders with any brains know the game. Few reading this will get out of their programming to seek the harmony in life and love where all answer are hidden in plain sight. Religion is a peep hole into the wonders of a reality that awaits the seekers with their heads on straight. Life's waiting to begin!
Yesss Self Love Center
Port Townsend, Washington USA
ArhataFreeSpeech@yahoo.com
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Uproar over challenge to Dead Sea Scrolls
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5927336.ece
March 18, 2009
Scholars in uproar over challenge to Dead Sea Scrolls
James Hider in Jerusalem
For more than 60 years scholars have believed that the Dead Sea Scrolls were the work of an ascetic Jewish sect called the Essenes, who lived in the 1st century in the mountains and recorded their religious observances on parchments.
Now a new theory challenging the broadly accepted history is sending shockwaves through the archaeological community, even leading to the arrest of one prominent scrolls scholar’s son in the United States.
Rachel Elior, a professor of Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, claims in a forthcoming study that not only were the 930 scrolls written by Jewish priests living in Jerusalem but that the Essenes as a sect did not exist.
In her new book Memory and Oblivion, Professor Elior says that the scrolls were written by the Sadducees, a class of Jewish priests dating back to the time of King Solomon.
The scrolls were found by a shepherd in a cave at Qumran, on the edge of the Dead Sea, in 1947. One of the most important archaeological finds of the century, their significance was enhanced by the discovery of an untouched version of the Hebrew Bible dating back to 300BC.
Some scholars believe that the obscure sect may have had an impact on early Christianity, positing that John the Baptist or even Jesus may have spent time with them. Professor Elior argues, however, that an analysis of the scrolls shows that the authors were recording the routines and practises of the cohanim, or priests, descended from Zadok, the first high priest in Jerusalem after the conquest of the city by the Israelites hundreds of years before.
She believes they were taken to Qumran some time during the 2nd century BC after the Sadducees turned their backs on the Temple of Jerusalem, which they said had been defiled by the conquest of the Seleucid Greeks, the descendants of one of the generals of Alexander the Great, in 175BC.
“I believe any serious scholar truly can’t but admit that the law reflected in the scrolls is a Sadducee law,” she said, pointing out that there were no corroborating historical records, either in Jewish or early Christian literature, to indicate that a large sect of celibate men lived in the area over a long period of time.
“The Essenes are only a literary invention of a Utopian society that lived a most benevolent and chaste life,” she told The Times.
The confusion arose from scholars using other, later texts as their sources, she said, noting that the Jewish-Roman scholar Josephus mentioned them, but that he was writing hundreds of years later.
The professor also noted that when the texts were unearthed in 1947, the area around Jerusalem was caught up in the war that created the Jewish state, and that early hurried assessment of their origin set scholars on the wrong track for decades. The theory has stirred controversy in academic circles, with established scrolls experts vehemently rejecting the new interpretation.
“Almost seventy scholars accept the statement that one of the Essenes’ groups lived in Qumran, and some say we’re all morons and only they understand,” Hanan Eshel, a professor at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, told the Haaretz newspaper.
The debate has even led to the arrest of the son of one proponent of the theory that the Essenes did not write the ancient scriptures. Raphael Golb, the son of Norman Golb, a professor at Chicago University, was arrested in New York this month for allegedly creating online aliases and conducting a campaign of harassment against academic opponents of his father’s theories.
Father and son claimed that members of mainstream academia were trying to silence the professor. The younger Mr Golb reportedly accused his father’s critics of being anti-Semites trying to deny the link between the scrolls and established Jewish institutions.
Monastic mystery
— The Essenes are believed to have been a religious sect in Palestine from about the 2nd century BC to the end of the 1st century AD
— The New Testament makes no mention of them, and accounts by Pliny the Elder, Philo of Alexandria and Josephus differ in significant details
— Pliny, in his day, fixed their number at 4,000. They are thought to have moved to the desert in opposition to the powers in Jerusalem and lived in secluded monastic communities
— It is believed that they considered themselves to be a chosen elect and that messianic figures would appear to them and usher in a new age, and that they spent their days engaged in manual work or study of Scripture
— After a year’s probation, converts received emblems but were banned from common meals for two years
— Those who qualified then swore piety to God, justice towards men, hatred of falsehood and faithful observance of the tenets
Source: www.britannica.com
March 18, 2009
Scholars in uproar over challenge to Dead Sea Scrolls
James Hider in Jerusalem
For more than 60 years scholars have believed that the Dead Sea Scrolls were the work of an ascetic Jewish sect called the Essenes, who lived in the 1st century in the mountains and recorded their religious observances on parchments.
Now a new theory challenging the broadly accepted history is sending shockwaves through the archaeological community, even leading to the arrest of one prominent scrolls scholar’s son in the United States.
Rachel Elior, a professor of Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, claims in a forthcoming study that not only were the 930 scrolls written by Jewish priests living in Jerusalem but that the Essenes as a sect did not exist.
In her new book Memory and Oblivion, Professor Elior says that the scrolls were written by the Sadducees, a class of Jewish priests dating back to the time of King Solomon.
The scrolls were found by a shepherd in a cave at Qumran, on the edge of the Dead Sea, in 1947. One of the most important archaeological finds of the century, their significance was enhanced by the discovery of an untouched version of the Hebrew Bible dating back to 300BC.
Some scholars believe that the obscure sect may have had an impact on early Christianity, positing that John the Baptist or even Jesus may have spent time with them. Professor Elior argues, however, that an analysis of the scrolls shows that the authors were recording the routines and practises of the cohanim, or priests, descended from Zadok, the first high priest in Jerusalem after the conquest of the city by the Israelites hundreds of years before.
She believes they were taken to Qumran some time during the 2nd century BC after the Sadducees turned their backs on the Temple of Jerusalem, which they said had been defiled by the conquest of the Seleucid Greeks, the descendants of one of the generals of Alexander the Great, in 175BC.
“I believe any serious scholar truly can’t but admit that the law reflected in the scrolls is a Sadducee law,” she said, pointing out that there were no corroborating historical records, either in Jewish or early Christian literature, to indicate that a large sect of celibate men lived in the area over a long period of time.
“The Essenes are only a literary invention of a Utopian society that lived a most benevolent and chaste life,” she told The Times.
The confusion arose from scholars using other, later texts as their sources, she said, noting that the Jewish-Roman scholar Josephus mentioned them, but that he was writing hundreds of years later.
The professor also noted that when the texts were unearthed in 1947, the area around Jerusalem was caught up in the war that created the Jewish state, and that early hurried assessment of their origin set scholars on the wrong track for decades. The theory has stirred controversy in academic circles, with established scrolls experts vehemently rejecting the new interpretation.
“Almost seventy scholars accept the statement that one of the Essenes’ groups lived in Qumran, and some say we’re all morons and only they understand,” Hanan Eshel, a professor at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, told the Haaretz newspaper.
The debate has even led to the arrest of the son of one proponent of the theory that the Essenes did not write the ancient scriptures. Raphael Golb, the son of Norman Golb, a professor at Chicago University, was arrested in New York this month for allegedly creating online aliases and conducting a campaign of harassment against academic opponents of his father’s theories.
Father and son claimed that members of mainstream academia were trying to silence the professor. The younger Mr Golb reportedly accused his father’s critics of being anti-Semites trying to deny the link between the scrolls and established Jewish institutions.
Monastic mystery
— The Essenes are believed to have been a religious sect in Palestine from about the 2nd century BC to the end of the 1st century AD
— The New Testament makes no mention of them, and accounts by Pliny the Elder, Philo of Alexandria and Josephus differ in significant details
— Pliny, in his day, fixed their number at 4,000. They are thought to have moved to the desert in opposition to the powers in Jerusalem and lived in secluded monastic communities
— It is believed that they considered themselves to be a chosen elect and that messianic figures would appear to them and usher in a new age, and that they spent their days engaged in manual work or study of Scripture
— After a year’s probation, converts received emblems but were banned from common meals for two years
— Those who qualified then swore piety to God, justice towards men, hatred of falsehood and faithful observance of the tenets
Source: www.britannica.com
Harry S. Truman is rolling over in his grave
From Conspiracy Nation ( http://www.shout.net/~bigred/cn.html ):
(Melchizedek Communique, MC031609) Harry S. Truman is rolling over in his grave due to the latest antics of George W. Bush. And a special division of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, charged with response to former presidents rolling over in their graves, is on high alert.
It was Fitzgerald, the mighty U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois, who had responded earlier when, here in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln had been rolling over in his grave. But this latest restlessness of the deceased Harry S. Truman has stunned even the case-hardened Fitzgerald.
When Harry S. Truman left the White House in 1953, "he had to take out a bank loan to tide him over in private life. He had no official government income or support except for his Army pension of $112.56 a month." But Truman had too much honor to accept any money for "endorsements" and "consultings". Said Truman, "I could never lend myself to any transaction, however respectable, that would commercialize on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency." [1]
It was beneath the personal honor of Truman to trade off the presidency for "speaking fees" and such.
Gerald Ford was the first to decide, "What is honor, compared with speaking fees?" Ford cashed in by giving paid speeches and by joining some 20 corporate boards. [1]
Then good old Ronald Reagan soared past Ford in income by trading the prestige of the U.S. presidency for $2 million annually. [1]
Along came George H.W. Bush, father of "Dubya" Bush. "Poppy" Bush raked in $$$ millions on the lecture circuit, after he left office in 1993. [1]
"Bill Clinton, though," notices The Week magazine, "has taken the moneymaking ability of ex-presidents to a new level." Today (Nov. 2008), "thanks to thousands of speeches, lucrative consulting jobs, and book advances and royalties, he and Hillary are worth more than $100 million." [1]
Who says the U.S. presidency isn't for sale?
Asked in November 2008 about his plans, Dubya Bush replied, "I'll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol' coffers." [1] Now, in an update ironically titled, "Replenishing the ol' coffers", The Week magazine reveals that George W. Bush "announced he was launching an international speaking tour." The Dubya Bush Replenishing The Ol' Coffers International Speaking Tour is scheduled to begin tomorrow, March 17th (St. Patrick's Day), in Canada. [2]
It is not known if Dubya Bush will be guzzling Jim Beam whisky during the tour. It has been rumored ol' Dubya has been hitting the sauce pretty hard. [3]
The special division of Patrick Fitzgerald's Rolling Over In Their Graves department is on high alert. Harry S. Truman could not be reached for comment.
------- Sources -------
[1] "Briefing: Life after the White House", The Week magazine, Nov. 21, 2008, p. 15
[2] "Replenishing the ol' coffers", from "Good Week For" section of The Week magazine, March 20, 2009, p. 6
[3] Melchizedek Communique MC022809
http://www.shout.net/~bigred/mc022809.html
(Melchizedek Communique, MC031609) Harry S. Truman is rolling over in his grave due to the latest antics of George W. Bush. And a special division of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, charged with response to former presidents rolling over in their graves, is on high alert.
It was Fitzgerald, the mighty U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois, who had responded earlier when, here in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln had been rolling over in his grave. But this latest restlessness of the deceased Harry S. Truman has stunned even the case-hardened Fitzgerald.
When Harry S. Truman left the White House in 1953, "he had to take out a bank loan to tide him over in private life. He had no official government income or support except for his Army pension of $112.56 a month." But Truman had too much honor to accept any money for "endorsements" and "consultings". Said Truman, "I could never lend myself to any transaction, however respectable, that would commercialize on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency." [1]
It was beneath the personal honor of Truman to trade off the presidency for "speaking fees" and such.
Gerald Ford was the first to decide, "What is honor, compared with speaking fees?" Ford cashed in by giving paid speeches and by joining some 20 corporate boards. [1]
Then good old Ronald Reagan soared past Ford in income by trading the prestige of the U.S. presidency for $2 million annually. [1]
Along came George H.W. Bush, father of "Dubya" Bush. "Poppy" Bush raked in $$$ millions on the lecture circuit, after he left office in 1993. [1]
"Bill Clinton, though," notices The Week magazine, "has taken the moneymaking ability of ex-presidents to a new level." Today (Nov. 2008), "thanks to thousands of speeches, lucrative consulting jobs, and book advances and royalties, he and Hillary are worth more than $100 million." [1]
Who says the U.S. presidency isn't for sale?
Asked in November 2008 about his plans, Dubya Bush replied, "I'll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol' coffers." [1] Now, in an update ironically titled, "Replenishing the ol' coffers", The Week magazine reveals that George W. Bush "announced he was launching an international speaking tour." The Dubya Bush Replenishing The Ol' Coffers International Speaking Tour is scheduled to begin tomorrow, March 17th (St. Patrick's Day), in Canada. [2]
It is not known if Dubya Bush will be guzzling Jim Beam whisky during the tour. It has been rumored ol' Dubya has been hitting the sauce pretty hard. [3]
The special division of Patrick Fitzgerald's Rolling Over In Their Graves department is on high alert. Harry S. Truman could not be reached for comment.
------- Sources -------
[1] "Briefing: Life after the White House", The Week magazine, Nov. 21, 2008, p. 15
[2] "Replenishing the ol' coffers", from "Good Week For" section of The Week magazine, March 20, 2009, p. 6
[3] Melchizedek Communique MC022809
http://www.shout.net/~bigred/mc022809.html
Ten Ways to Improve Western Foreign Policy
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Ten Ways to Improve Western Foreign Policy Toward Islam
On the anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and with a new administration focused on confrontation with Afghanistan, Jürgen Todenhöfer has an idea: Propose 10 ways to fundamentally change Western policy toward Islam.
His theses are contained in his book WHY DO YOU KILL? (with a Foreword by Anthony Arnove) to be released in April.
Todenhöfer recently returned from a solo trip to Iraq where he visited Falluja, Ramadi, Baghdad and Sadr City meeting with residents, resistance fighters and key officials in the Iraqi government. And, prior to that he spent time in and near Afghanistan. He met with the people whose tale he tells in WHY DO YOU KILL? — a book that takes readers inside the impact of the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the Islamic resistance they have spawned. In Iraq, resistance fighters fend off U.S. occupiers and Al Qaeda. Todenhöfer warns that the U.S. will repeat its Iraq mistakes if it blindly dives into Afghanistan as President Barack Obama proposes with a buildup of troop strength. Todenhöfer was an unofficial unembedded reporter during the Iraq invasion — and roamed without the consent of the U.S. military or Iraq government — interviewing resistance fighters firsthand and proves that might doesn't make right.
In addition, Todenhöfer has crafted his Ten Theses (see below) that each political and cultural leader of the world must ask to subvert the past century's war paradigm and forge a peaceful path in this century. He recently spoke in Tehran where he outlined his ten theses to an Iranian audience. To avoid the pitfalls as his predecessor in Iraq, President Obama must adopt these ten simple prescriptions for peace.
Todenhöfer's explosive book takes U.S. readers on a never-before-seen tour behind "enemy" lines in Iraq where they meet resistance fighters who want American troops, as well as Al Qaeda terrorists and the foreign-backed private militias of Iraqi politicians, out of their country. Troops in Afghanistan will face the same resistance fighters, unless President Obama takes the necessary steps to reach out more broadly to the Muslim world and not simply follow the military path of occupation and destruction blazed by the past administration.
"My recent travels and talks with Afghan and Pakistani leaders, including several ex-Taliban leaders and with hundreds of ordinary Afghan and Pakistani citizens, lead me to this conclusion: the West has bombed itself from the role of the liberator into the role of the occupier. Afghanistan no longer matters when it comes to global, anti-Western terrorism," said Todenhöfer.
Todenhöfer was a genuine unembedded Westerner reporting from behind the frontlines without knowledge or approval of the Iraqi government or occupying forces. His dramatic firsthand account explains the fundamental differences between resistance fighters and terrorists. Freed from the worldview of Pentagon press officers, Todenhöfer gives voice to those who truly fight for justice and freedom in the face of empire building through its main agents — war and occupation.
Just as in Algeria in the 1960s, in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and in Iraq in 2009, these fighters are not the occupying troops, but the resistance fighters. "History is always written by the occupiers, not the occupied and the victim. To end the cycle of violence, inhumanity and war, the stories of the victims must be told," said Todenhöfer.
The Ten Theses excerpted from WHY DO YOU KILL? by Jürgen Todenhöfer (Note: Each of the following theses is fully examined in the book's Afterword)
The West is much more violent than the Muslim world. Millions of Muslim civilians have been killed since colonialism began
In view of the warmongering of the West, it is not surprising that support for Muslim extremists continues to grow.
Terrorists in Islamic disguise are murderers. The same holds true for the ringleaders disguised as Christians who wage illegal wars.
Muslims were and are at least as tolerant as Jews and Christians. They have made major contributions to Western civilization.
Love of God and love of one's neighbor are the central commandments not only in the Bible but also in the Qur'an.
Western policies towards the Muslim world suffer from a shocking ignorance of even the simplest facts.
The West must treat the Muslim world just as fairly and as generously as it treats Israel. Muslims are worth as much as Jews and Christians.
Muslims must champion a progressive and tolerant Islam, as did their prophet Muhammad. They must strip terrorism of its religious mask.
Nothing fosters terrorism more than the West's "war on terror." Wars of aggression are not only the most immoral, but also the least intelligent way to combat terrorism.
What is needed now is the art of statesmanship, not the art of war — in the Iran conflict, in the Iraq conflict and in the Palestine conflict.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dr. Jürgen Todenhöfer
Dr. Jürgen Todenhöfer has been an executive at a major European media group for more than 20 years. Before that he was a member of the German parliament for 18 years and spokesman for the CDU/CSU on development aid and arms control. He has written two bestsellers about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and has traveled extensively in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Palestine and is considered an international expert on the tensions between the Muslim world and the West. The author will donate all royalties from sales of this book to finance medical aid for Iraqi refugee children and an Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation project in the Middle East.
ABOUT THE BOOK: Why Do You Kill?
Why Do You Kill? The Untold Story of the Iraqi Resistance
Author: Jürgen Todenhöfer Foreword by Anthony Arnove
Category: Political Science / Current Affairs
ISBN: 978-1-934708-14-9
5.5 in. x 8.25 in. 216 pages + 15 color photos $14.95 (U.S.)
Trade Paperback
PUB DATE: April 2009
Publisher: The Disinformation Company (www.disinfo.com)
Ten Ways to Improve Western Foreign Policy Toward Islam
On the anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and with a new administration focused on confrontation with Afghanistan, Jürgen Todenhöfer has an idea: Propose 10 ways to fundamentally change Western policy toward Islam.
His theses are contained in his book WHY DO YOU KILL? (with a Foreword by Anthony Arnove) to be released in April.
Todenhöfer recently returned from a solo trip to Iraq where he visited Falluja, Ramadi, Baghdad and Sadr City meeting with residents, resistance fighters and key officials in the Iraqi government. And, prior to that he spent time in and near Afghanistan. He met with the people whose tale he tells in WHY DO YOU KILL? — a book that takes readers inside the impact of the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the Islamic resistance they have spawned. In Iraq, resistance fighters fend off U.S. occupiers and Al Qaeda. Todenhöfer warns that the U.S. will repeat its Iraq mistakes if it blindly dives into Afghanistan as President Barack Obama proposes with a buildup of troop strength. Todenhöfer was an unofficial unembedded reporter during the Iraq invasion — and roamed without the consent of the U.S. military or Iraq government — interviewing resistance fighters firsthand and proves that might doesn't make right.
In addition, Todenhöfer has crafted his Ten Theses (see below) that each political and cultural leader of the world must ask to subvert the past century's war paradigm and forge a peaceful path in this century. He recently spoke in Tehran where he outlined his ten theses to an Iranian audience. To avoid the pitfalls as his predecessor in Iraq, President Obama must adopt these ten simple prescriptions for peace.
Todenhöfer's explosive book takes U.S. readers on a never-before-seen tour behind "enemy" lines in Iraq where they meet resistance fighters who want American troops, as well as Al Qaeda terrorists and the foreign-backed private militias of Iraqi politicians, out of their country. Troops in Afghanistan will face the same resistance fighters, unless President Obama takes the necessary steps to reach out more broadly to the Muslim world and not simply follow the military path of occupation and destruction blazed by the past administration.
"My recent travels and talks with Afghan and Pakistani leaders, including several ex-Taliban leaders and with hundreds of ordinary Afghan and Pakistani citizens, lead me to this conclusion: the West has bombed itself from the role of the liberator into the role of the occupier. Afghanistan no longer matters when it comes to global, anti-Western terrorism," said Todenhöfer.
Todenhöfer was a genuine unembedded Westerner reporting from behind the frontlines without knowledge or approval of the Iraqi government or occupying forces. His dramatic firsthand account explains the fundamental differences between resistance fighters and terrorists. Freed from the worldview of Pentagon press officers, Todenhöfer gives voice to those who truly fight for justice and freedom in the face of empire building through its main agents — war and occupation.
Just as in Algeria in the 1960s, in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and in Iraq in 2009, these fighters are not the occupying troops, but the resistance fighters. "History is always written by the occupiers, not the occupied and the victim. To end the cycle of violence, inhumanity and war, the stories of the victims must be told," said Todenhöfer.
The Ten Theses excerpted from WHY DO YOU KILL? by Jürgen Todenhöfer (Note: Each of the following theses is fully examined in the book's Afterword)
The West is much more violent than the Muslim world. Millions of Muslim civilians have been killed since colonialism began
In view of the warmongering of the West, it is not surprising that support for Muslim extremists continues to grow.
Terrorists in Islamic disguise are murderers. The same holds true for the ringleaders disguised as Christians who wage illegal wars.
Muslims were and are at least as tolerant as Jews and Christians. They have made major contributions to Western civilization.
Love of God and love of one's neighbor are the central commandments not only in the Bible but also in the Qur'an.
Western policies towards the Muslim world suffer from a shocking ignorance of even the simplest facts.
The West must treat the Muslim world just as fairly and as generously as it treats Israel. Muslims are worth as much as Jews and Christians.
Muslims must champion a progressive and tolerant Islam, as did their prophet Muhammad. They must strip terrorism of its religious mask.
Nothing fosters terrorism more than the West's "war on terror." Wars of aggression are not only the most immoral, but also the least intelligent way to combat terrorism.
What is needed now is the art of statesmanship, not the art of war — in the Iran conflict, in the Iraq conflict and in the Palestine conflict.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dr. Jürgen Todenhöfer
Dr. Jürgen Todenhöfer has been an executive at a major European media group for more than 20 years. Before that he was a member of the German parliament for 18 years and spokesman for the CDU/CSU on development aid and arms control. He has written two bestsellers about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and has traveled extensively in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Palestine and is considered an international expert on the tensions between the Muslim world and the West. The author will donate all royalties from sales of this book to finance medical aid for Iraqi refugee children and an Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation project in the Middle East.
ABOUT THE BOOK: Why Do You Kill?
Why Do You Kill? The Untold Story of the Iraqi Resistance
Author: Jürgen Todenhöfer Foreword by Anthony Arnove
Category: Political Science / Current Affairs
ISBN: 978-1-934708-14-9
5.5 in. x 8.25 in. 216 pages + 15 color photos $14.95 (U.S.)
Trade Paperback
PUB DATE: April 2009
Publisher: The Disinformation Company (www.disinfo.com)
Sarkozy warned of ‘class war’
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1e3dfd20-1401-11de-9e32-0000779fd2ac.html
Sarkozy warned of ‘class war’
By Peggy Hollinger in Paris
March 18 2009
France faces a “class war” that could undermine President Nicolas Sarkozy’s reform efforts and spark a period of damaging labour unrest, one of the country’s most prominent business leaders has warned.
In an interview with the Financial Times as France braced for its second national strike in less than two months, Maurice Lévy, head of Publicis, said “people are really angry” over the country’s growing economic hardship and costly bank rescues.
Mr Lévy criticised the government for fanning the discontent. The boss of the advertising group said ministers had failed to explain adequately why the state had bailed out banks while refusing to help consumers with new tax breaks or wage rises.
Unions have promised another record turnout for Thursday’s general strike, with more protests planned across the country than in January when up to 2.5m people came out on to the streets.
The public mood has worsened, with protests becoming militant amid factory closures and as the government struggles to revive the economy.
“No one understood that the vast majority [of bank support] was in guarantees and in reality the money was not yet spent. People were told the country was bankrupt and suddenly there was €340bn available for these greedy people. On top of that they are distributing bonuses. We have another class war,” said Mr Lévy.
Claude Bébéar, the honorary chairman of insurance group Axa and seen as the elder statesman of French capitalism, warned in a separate FT interview that the country risked becoming engaged in “a struggle, with each side seeking to take advantage of the other to strengthen its position”.
He urged the government, unions and employers “to play a collective game”.
Many business leaders fear that, as militancy grows, the government will make concessions on its reform programme. Mr Sarkozy has already backed down in a long-running dispute with academics and students over university reform. Medef, the employers’ group, is worried that concessions made after the January strike could impose new constraints on companies.
Mr Lévy said further compromises could encourage more protests. “Each compromise, even if reasonable, is misinterpreted as a grand victory by the strikers and the opposition,” he said.
“We have always known that reform has to be done very, very quickly. If it is not done quickly it ends in conflict,” he said.
Sarkozy warned of ‘class war’
By Peggy Hollinger in Paris
March 18 2009
France faces a “class war” that could undermine President Nicolas Sarkozy’s reform efforts and spark a period of damaging labour unrest, one of the country’s most prominent business leaders has warned.
In an interview with the Financial Times as France braced for its second national strike in less than two months, Maurice Lévy, head of Publicis, said “people are really angry” over the country’s growing economic hardship and costly bank rescues.
Mr Lévy criticised the government for fanning the discontent. The boss of the advertising group said ministers had failed to explain adequately why the state had bailed out banks while refusing to help consumers with new tax breaks or wage rises.
Unions have promised another record turnout for Thursday’s general strike, with more protests planned across the country than in January when up to 2.5m people came out on to the streets.
The public mood has worsened, with protests becoming militant amid factory closures and as the government struggles to revive the economy.
“No one understood that the vast majority [of bank support] was in guarantees and in reality the money was not yet spent. People were told the country was bankrupt and suddenly there was €340bn available for these greedy people. On top of that they are distributing bonuses. We have another class war,” said Mr Lévy.
Claude Bébéar, the honorary chairman of insurance group Axa and seen as the elder statesman of French capitalism, warned in a separate FT interview that the country risked becoming engaged in “a struggle, with each side seeking to take advantage of the other to strengthen its position”.
He urged the government, unions and employers “to play a collective game”.
Many business leaders fear that, as militancy grows, the government will make concessions on its reform programme. Mr Sarkozy has already backed down in a long-running dispute with academics and students over university reform. Medef, the employers’ group, is worried that concessions made after the January strike could impose new constraints on companies.
Mr Lévy said further compromises could encourage more protests. “Each compromise, even if reasonable, is misinterpreted as a grand victory by the strikers and the opposition,” he said.
“We have always known that reform has to be done very, very quickly. If it is not done quickly it ends in conflict,” he said.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Obama's Poll Numbers Are Falling to Earth
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123690358175013837.html
MARCH 13, 2009
Obama's Poll Numbers Are Falling to Earth
By DOUGLAS E. SCHOEN and SCOTT RASMUSSEN
It is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on President Barack Obama's high levels of popularity, and to conclude that these are indicative of high levels of public confidence in the work of his administration. Indeed, a detailed look at recent survey data shows that the opposite is most likely true. The American people are coming to express increasingly significant doubts about his initiatives, and most likely support a different agenda and different policies from those that the Obama administration has advanced.
Polling data show that Mr. Obama's approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001. Rasmussen Reports data shows that Mr. Obama's net presidential approval rating -- which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve -- is just six, his lowest rating to date.
Overall, Rasmussen Reports shows a 56%-43% approval, with a third strongly disapproving of the president's performance. This is a substantial degree of polarization so early in the administration. Mr. Obama has lost virtually all of his Republican support and a good part of his Independent support, and the trend is decidedly negative.
A detailed examination of presidential popularity after 50 days on the job similarly demonstrates a substantial drop in presidential approval relative to other elected presidents in the 20th and 21st centuries. The reason for this decline most likely has to do with doubts about the administration's policies and their impact on peoples' lives.
There is also a clear sense in the polling that taxes will increase for all Americans because of the stimulus, notwithstanding what the president has said about taxes going down for 95% of Americans. Close to three-quarters expect that government spending will grow under this administration.
Recent Gallup data echo these concerns. That polling shows that there are deep-seated, underlying economic concerns. Eighty-three percent say they are worried that the steps Mr. Obama is taking to fix the economy may not work and the economy will get worse. Eighty-two percent say they are worried about the amount of money being added to the deficit. Seventy-eight percent are worried about inflation growing, and 69% say they are worried about the increasing role of the government in the U.S. economy.
When Gallup asked whether we should be spending more or less in the economic stimulus, by close to 3-to-1 margin voters said it is better to have spent less than to have spent more. When asked whether we are adding too much to the deficit or spending too little to improve the economy, by close to a 3-to-2 margin voters said that we are adding too much to the deficit.
Support for the stimulus package is dropping from narrow majority support to below that. There is no sense that the stimulus package itself will work quickly, and according to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, close to 60% said it would make only a marginal difference in the next two to four years. Rasmussen data shows that people now actually oppose Mr. Obama's budget, 46% to 41%. Three-quarters take this position because it will lead to too much spending. And by 2-to-1, voters reject House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's call for a second stimulus package.
While over two-thirds support the plan to help homeowners refinance their mortgage, a 48%-36% plurality said that it will unfairly benefit those who have been irresponsible, echoing Rick Santelli's call to arms on CNBC.
And although a narrow majority remains confident in Mr. Obama's goals and overall direction, 45% say they do not have confidence, a number that has been growing since the inauguration less than two months ago. With three-quarters saying that they expect the economy to get worse, it is hard to see these numbers improving substantially.
There is no real appetite for increasing taxes to pay for an expanded health-insurance program. Less than half would support such an idea, which is 17% less than the percentage that supported government health insurance when Bill Clinton first considered it in March of 1993.
While voters blame Republicans for the lack of bipartisanship in Washington, the fact is that they do not believe Mr. Obama has made any progress in improving the impulse towards cooperation between the two parties. Further, nearly half of voters say that politics in Washington will be more partisan over the next year.
Fifty-six percent of Americans oppose giving bankers any additional government money or any guarantees backed by the government. Two-thirds say Wall Street will benefit more than the average taxpayer from the new bank bailout plan. This represents a jump in opposition to the first plan passed last October. At that time, 45% opposed the bailout and 30% supported it. Now a solid majority opposes the bank bailout, and 20% think it was a good idea. A majority believes that Mr. Obama will not be able to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term.
Only less than a quarter of Americans believe that the federal government truly reflects the will of the people. Almost half disagree with the idea that no one can earn a living or live "an American life" without protection and empowerment by the government, while only one-third agree.
Despite the economic stimulus that Congress just passed and the budget and financial and mortgage bailouts that Congress is now debating, just 19% of voters believe that Congress has passed any significant legislation to improve their lives. While Congress's approval has increased, it still stands at only 18%. Over two-thirds of voters believe members of Congress are more interested in helping their own careers than in helping the American people. When it comes to the nation's economic issues, two-thirds of voters have more confidence in their own judgment than they do in the average member of Congress.
Finally, what probably accounts for a good measure of the confidence and support the Obama administration has enjoyed is the fact that they are not Republicans. Virtually all Americans, more than eight in 10, blame Republicans for the current economic woes, and the only two leaders with lower approval ratings than Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.
All of this is not just a subject for pollsters and analysts to debate. It shows fundamentally that public confidence in government remains low and is slipping. We face the possibility of substantial gridlock along with an absolute absence of public confidence that could come to mirror the lack of confidence in the American economy that the Dow and the S&P are currently showing.
Mr. Schoen, formerly a pollster for President Bill Clinton, is the author of "Declaring Independence: The Beginning of the End of the Two Party System" (Random House, 2008). Mr. Rasmussen is president of Rasmussen Reports, an independent national polling company.
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A11
MARCH 13, 2009
Obama's Poll Numbers Are Falling to Earth
By DOUGLAS E. SCHOEN and SCOTT RASMUSSEN
It is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on President Barack Obama's high levels of popularity, and to conclude that these are indicative of high levels of public confidence in the work of his administration. Indeed, a detailed look at recent survey data shows that the opposite is most likely true. The American people are coming to express increasingly significant doubts about his initiatives, and most likely support a different agenda and different policies from those that the Obama administration has advanced.
Polling data show that Mr. Obama's approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001. Rasmussen Reports data shows that Mr. Obama's net presidential approval rating -- which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve -- is just six, his lowest rating to date.
Overall, Rasmussen Reports shows a 56%-43% approval, with a third strongly disapproving of the president's performance. This is a substantial degree of polarization so early in the administration. Mr. Obama has lost virtually all of his Republican support and a good part of his Independent support, and the trend is decidedly negative.
A detailed examination of presidential popularity after 50 days on the job similarly demonstrates a substantial drop in presidential approval relative to other elected presidents in the 20th and 21st centuries. The reason for this decline most likely has to do with doubts about the administration's policies and their impact on peoples' lives.
There is also a clear sense in the polling that taxes will increase for all Americans because of the stimulus, notwithstanding what the president has said about taxes going down for 95% of Americans. Close to three-quarters expect that government spending will grow under this administration.
Recent Gallup data echo these concerns. That polling shows that there are deep-seated, underlying economic concerns. Eighty-three percent say they are worried that the steps Mr. Obama is taking to fix the economy may not work and the economy will get worse. Eighty-two percent say they are worried about the amount of money being added to the deficit. Seventy-eight percent are worried about inflation growing, and 69% say they are worried about the increasing role of the government in the U.S. economy.
When Gallup asked whether we should be spending more or less in the economic stimulus, by close to 3-to-1 margin voters said it is better to have spent less than to have spent more. When asked whether we are adding too much to the deficit or spending too little to improve the economy, by close to a 3-to-2 margin voters said that we are adding too much to the deficit.
Support for the stimulus package is dropping from narrow majority support to below that. There is no sense that the stimulus package itself will work quickly, and according to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, close to 60% said it would make only a marginal difference in the next two to four years. Rasmussen data shows that people now actually oppose Mr. Obama's budget, 46% to 41%. Three-quarters take this position because it will lead to too much spending. And by 2-to-1, voters reject House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's call for a second stimulus package.
While over two-thirds support the plan to help homeowners refinance their mortgage, a 48%-36% plurality said that it will unfairly benefit those who have been irresponsible, echoing Rick Santelli's call to arms on CNBC.
And although a narrow majority remains confident in Mr. Obama's goals and overall direction, 45% say they do not have confidence, a number that has been growing since the inauguration less than two months ago. With three-quarters saying that they expect the economy to get worse, it is hard to see these numbers improving substantially.
There is no real appetite for increasing taxes to pay for an expanded health-insurance program. Less than half would support such an idea, which is 17% less than the percentage that supported government health insurance when Bill Clinton first considered it in March of 1993.
While voters blame Republicans for the lack of bipartisanship in Washington, the fact is that they do not believe Mr. Obama has made any progress in improving the impulse towards cooperation between the two parties. Further, nearly half of voters say that politics in Washington will be more partisan over the next year.
Fifty-six percent of Americans oppose giving bankers any additional government money or any guarantees backed by the government. Two-thirds say Wall Street will benefit more than the average taxpayer from the new bank bailout plan. This represents a jump in opposition to the first plan passed last October. At that time, 45% opposed the bailout and 30% supported it. Now a solid majority opposes the bank bailout, and 20% think it was a good idea. A majority believes that Mr. Obama will not be able to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term.
Only less than a quarter of Americans believe that the federal government truly reflects the will of the people. Almost half disagree with the idea that no one can earn a living or live "an American life" without protection and empowerment by the government, while only one-third agree.
Despite the economic stimulus that Congress just passed and the budget and financial and mortgage bailouts that Congress is now debating, just 19% of voters believe that Congress has passed any significant legislation to improve their lives. While Congress's approval has increased, it still stands at only 18%. Over two-thirds of voters believe members of Congress are more interested in helping their own careers than in helping the American people. When it comes to the nation's economic issues, two-thirds of voters have more confidence in their own judgment than they do in the average member of Congress.
Finally, what probably accounts for a good measure of the confidence and support the Obama administration has enjoyed is the fact that they are not Republicans. Virtually all Americans, more than eight in 10, blame Republicans for the current economic woes, and the only two leaders with lower approval ratings than Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.
All of this is not just a subject for pollsters and analysts to debate. It shows fundamentally that public confidence in government remains low and is slipping. We face the possibility of substantial gridlock along with an absolute absence of public confidence that could come to mirror the lack of confidence in the American economy that the Dow and the S&P are currently showing.
Mr. Schoen, formerly a pollster for President Bill Clinton, is the author of "Declaring Independence: The Beginning of the End of the Two Party System" (Random House, 2008). Mr. Rasmussen is president of Rasmussen Reports, an independent national polling company.
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A11
Savage: Obama appointees the Nazi Party
http://www.prisonplanet.com/savage-%e2%80%9cobama-appointees-actually-have-almost-the-same-exact-policies-as-the-nazi-party-did%e2%80%9d.html
Savage: “Obama appointees actually have almost the same exact policies as the Nazi Party did”
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
March 13, 2009
Michael “Savage” Weiner, corporate media talk show host and former beatnik, has told his audience that Obama’s appointees are following the policies of the Nazis. Savage, a former Bush supporter and notorious carnival barker for the false right-left paradigm (and neocon Muslim-hater), does not bother to call out a single Obama appointee by name. Instead, in the audio clip here, Weiner concentrates on Obama’s “green shirts,” an allusion to Hitler’s SA brown shirts.
Savage is correct about the fascistic character of Obama’s mass movement, but he has conveniently omitted an important part of the larger picture.
Hitler was a creation of Wall Street financiers and the international bankers, a historical fact documented by British economist, historian, and writer Antony C. Sutton. Sutton documents the roles played by J.P. Morgan, T. W. Lamont, the Rockefeller interests, General Electric Company, Standard Oil, National City Bank, Chase and Manhattan banks, Kuhn, Loeb and Company, and other elitists in the rise of Hitler and Nazism.
“Wall Street financed the German cartels in the mid-1920s which in turn proceeded to bring Hitler to power,” writes Sutton in the final chapter of his book, Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler. “Hitler and his S.S. street thugs came in part from affiliates or subsidiaries of U.S. firms, including Henry Ford in 1922, payments by I.G. Farben and General Electric in 1933, followed by the Standard Oil of New Jersey and I.T.T. subsidiary payments to Heinrich Himmler up to 1944.” Hitler’s mass movement was a creation of bankers and industrialists.
In Adam Lebor’s Hitler’s Secret Bankers (see also Charles Higham’s Trading With the Enemy), we learn how the Basel-based Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and its American president, Thomas McKittrick, continued trading and money laundering on behalf of the Nazis throughout the Second World War.
BIS is an international organization of central banks established under the globalist Bretton-Woods International Financial scheme. BIS is closely associated with the Bilderberg Group, the elitist organization established by the Nazi collaborator Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands (see Alden Hatch’s H. R. H. Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands for more on Bernhard’s SS connections).
It should be noted that Timothy F. Geithner, Obama’s point man on the economy and former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, sits on the board of directors of BIS (Fed mob boss Ben Bernanke also sits on the board of this one-time Nazi front group that now controls the IMF and World Bank).
It is no mistake Bilderberg and Rockefeller stooge Henry Kissinger came out early in favor of Obama, as did Rockefeller minion and co-founder of the Trilateral Commission, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Obama’s appointees are overwhelmingly of the globalist and bankster persuasion — a preponderant number are members of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Group, and the Trilateral Commission.
Financial support for the Obama campaign flowed in from Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and others.
Michael “Savage” Weiner would have us believe Obama is a “neo-marxist fascist dictator” and his hand-picked appointees “actually have almost the same exact policies as the Nazi Party did,” when in fact Obama’s policies are those of the bankers, not Hitler or Ernst Röhm, co-founder of the Sturmabteilung or SA. In fact, Obama is a puppet for the global elite and it is completely irrelevant if he subscribes to Marxism, Nazism, or anything else.
Savage and the neocons are fond of conflating Nazism with “progressive” Democrat liberalism — which is yet another artificially generated flavor of bankster dominated statism — a tactic they employed in the days following the false flag attacks of September 11, 2001, when neocons absurdly attempted to demonize Muslims as “Islamofascists.”
In a call to Savage’s radio show, activist Mark Dice was able to get the former beatnik turned talk show host to admit he believes any mention of the Bilderbergers is too “esoteric” for his largely neocon wannabe audience. It is not the Bilderbergers (and by way of extension the CFR and the Trilateralists) we need to worry about, but rather the “Democrat socialist group run by Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Ann Feinstein, and the others.”
Weiner further admits he has known about the Bilderberg Group since 1990, and yet he refuses to discuss the organization’s objectives and the indisputable fact members are at the highest levels of government, including the Obama administration. It is the Democrats we need to worry about, declares Savage, not the international banking elite.
“The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers,” wrote the historian of the elite, Carroll Quigley, in his book Tragedy and Hope. “Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can throw the rascals out at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.”
Michael “Savage” Weiner understands this all too well. His role — along with Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and other corporate media “conservatives” — is to foment a carefully orchestrated and controlled opposition to the current regime so that in four or eight years, after Obama has accomplished the tasks assigned to him by the global elite, the American people “can throw the rascals out… without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.”
Savage: “Obama appointees actually have almost the same exact policies as the Nazi Party did”
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
March 13, 2009
Michael “Savage” Weiner, corporate media talk show host and former beatnik, has told his audience that Obama’s appointees are following the policies of the Nazis. Savage, a former Bush supporter and notorious carnival barker for the false right-left paradigm (and neocon Muslim-hater), does not bother to call out a single Obama appointee by name. Instead, in the audio clip here, Weiner concentrates on Obama’s “green shirts,” an allusion to Hitler’s SA brown shirts.
Savage is correct about the fascistic character of Obama’s mass movement, but he has conveniently omitted an important part of the larger picture.
Hitler was a creation of Wall Street financiers and the international bankers, a historical fact documented by British economist, historian, and writer Antony C. Sutton. Sutton documents the roles played by J.P. Morgan, T. W. Lamont, the Rockefeller interests, General Electric Company, Standard Oil, National City Bank, Chase and Manhattan banks, Kuhn, Loeb and Company, and other elitists in the rise of Hitler and Nazism.
“Wall Street financed the German cartels in the mid-1920s which in turn proceeded to bring Hitler to power,” writes Sutton in the final chapter of his book, Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler. “Hitler and his S.S. street thugs came in part from affiliates or subsidiaries of U.S. firms, including Henry Ford in 1922, payments by I.G. Farben and General Electric in 1933, followed by the Standard Oil of New Jersey and I.T.T. subsidiary payments to Heinrich Himmler up to 1944.” Hitler’s mass movement was a creation of bankers and industrialists.
In Adam Lebor’s Hitler’s Secret Bankers (see also Charles Higham’s Trading With the Enemy), we learn how the Basel-based Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and its American president, Thomas McKittrick, continued trading and money laundering on behalf of the Nazis throughout the Second World War.
BIS is an international organization of central banks established under the globalist Bretton-Woods International Financial scheme. BIS is closely associated with the Bilderberg Group, the elitist organization established by the Nazi collaborator Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands (see Alden Hatch’s H. R. H. Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands for more on Bernhard’s SS connections).
It should be noted that Timothy F. Geithner, Obama’s point man on the economy and former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, sits on the board of directors of BIS (Fed mob boss Ben Bernanke also sits on the board of this one-time Nazi front group that now controls the IMF and World Bank).
It is no mistake Bilderberg and Rockefeller stooge Henry Kissinger came out early in favor of Obama, as did Rockefeller minion and co-founder of the Trilateral Commission, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Obama’s appointees are overwhelmingly of the globalist and bankster persuasion — a preponderant number are members of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Group, and the Trilateral Commission.
Financial support for the Obama campaign flowed in from Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and others.
Michael “Savage” Weiner would have us believe Obama is a “neo-marxist fascist dictator” and his hand-picked appointees “actually have almost the same exact policies as the Nazi Party did,” when in fact Obama’s policies are those of the bankers, not Hitler or Ernst Röhm, co-founder of the Sturmabteilung or SA. In fact, Obama is a puppet for the global elite and it is completely irrelevant if he subscribes to Marxism, Nazism, or anything else.
Savage and the neocons are fond of conflating Nazism with “progressive” Democrat liberalism — which is yet another artificially generated flavor of bankster dominated statism — a tactic they employed in the days following the false flag attacks of September 11, 2001, when neocons absurdly attempted to demonize Muslims as “Islamofascists.”
In a call to Savage’s radio show, activist Mark Dice was able to get the former beatnik turned talk show host to admit he believes any mention of the Bilderbergers is too “esoteric” for his largely neocon wannabe audience. It is not the Bilderbergers (and by way of extension the CFR and the Trilateralists) we need to worry about, but rather the “Democrat socialist group run by Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Ann Feinstein, and the others.”
Weiner further admits he has known about the Bilderberg Group since 1990, and yet he refuses to discuss the organization’s objectives and the indisputable fact members are at the highest levels of government, including the Obama administration. It is the Democrats we need to worry about, declares Savage, not the international banking elite.
“The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers,” wrote the historian of the elite, Carroll Quigley, in his book Tragedy and Hope. “Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can throw the rascals out at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.”
Michael “Savage” Weiner understands this all too well. His role — along with Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and other corporate media “conservatives” — is to foment a carefully orchestrated and controlled opposition to the current regime so that in four or eight years, after Obama has accomplished the tasks assigned to him by the global elite, the American people “can throw the rascals out… without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.”
Barack 'Hoover' Obama
http://rense.com/general85/hoov.htm
Barack 'Hoover' Obama
Bruce Marshall
3-11-9
The American people must quickly understand this one reality: that the economic policies of Barack H. Obama are essentially identical to those of Herbert Hoover's ill-starred Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which bailed out bankrupt banks in a totally futile exercise between 1931 and 1933.. Obama is doing the same thing as Hoover ; bailing out a hopelessly bankrupt zombie banking system, this time with trillions of dollars, while further destroying the productive economy of the United States in this insane giveaway to those who caused the crisis. Unlike Hoover, Obama has put some popular programs up as camouflage for the massive giveaway to the derivatives mafia that is going on in the background under the auspices of Geithner, Summers, Bernanke, and Volcker.
The present problem is that Obama is more dangerous than Hoover . This is because Obama has people fooled into thinking that he will initiate New Deal policies and leadership akin to FDR to deal with the present financial meltdown crisis and depression. Consider that the stimulus package offers a measly $45 billion towards infrastructure projects with very limited $20 billion increase in food stamps and a microscopic $18 billion of welfare benefits needed in this crisis. These crumbs allow Obama to continue to present the image that he is some sort of populist from the left, while Obama provides massive welfare for the 'Zombie banks" on Wall Street to the tune of 10 Trillion, no questions asked.
Here is the breakdown of the giveaway: Federal Reserve $8 trillion, $5.5 trillion, Bush-Paulson TARP- $.7 trillion, Obama-Geithner derivatives bailout $.75 trillion, carbon cap and trade tax scam $.65 trillion - the next bubble. Geithner's undisclosed phase 2 will be at least at least $750 billion, but will soon spiral into the trillions. Thus the beginning of Obama's era of his 'responsibility' to the derivatives speculators first.
To keep the charade going Obama has launched into an attack on the reactionary Rush Limbaugh, Wall Street's right wing enforcer, who is all to eager to continue to mislead people about the true nature of the present crisis. Obama and Rush are working together, in a false polemic that divides people and prevents real solutions from being discussed and implemented. Rush provides Obama with the left label and cover that he needs to implement policies that Rush and the right could never deliver for their same Wall Street masters. Yes, both are creatures of Wall Street, Obama the Keynsian Malthusian, and Rush the Austrian School free market Malthusian. Rush will freak out about increases for food stamps and the paltry help that Obama will give to a fraction of the foreclosed, but not a word about the real problem: the $ 1.8 quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble black hole which Obama is feeding with the U.S taxpayer and economy as collateral. Why is Rush not freaking out about this real tax increase and enslavement? The answer is that he really approves of it.
Derivatives are at the center of this financial meltdown and economic depression. Derivatives are financial instruments that are based upon a fictitious reality that does not correspond with activities that yield tangible wealth and economic progress. Derivatives are essentially exotic betting practices that involve real money, thrown into a huge pool. We are talking quadrillions of dollars, sums of money that can never be repaid, even by the combined GDP of the world. Obama is giving the "Zombie banks" trillions, where nothing will satiate the speculative derivatives black hole, while at the same time it is estimated that trillions are needed to keep people in homes and factories producing. The fact already seen is that the trillions from the Fed, the TARP's have done nothing to stop the economic depression. That money will never be recovered as it is already lost to derivatives speculation.
The only solution is to outlaw all derivatives once again. They were once illegal, until 1982 when options trading in commodities was introduced and later in the 1990's when Fed Chair Alan Greenspan created and fed the fictitious derivatives racket.
Along with outlawing derivatives, the responsible approach to this crisis is to force the derivatives investment houses, the Wall Street banks and hedge funds, into bankruptcy organization, wiping out the bad dept with one stroke of the pen. Instead of doing this as he could and should have, Obama has instead rewarded these criminals with more trillions of taxpayer money, money that should be invested in infrastructure, by the trillions.
The fact of the matter is that Obama has proven that he is no FDR, but a Hoover money vacuum for Wall Street derivatives 'zombie' banks, to which he blows the nation's wad, and thus the chance for a real economic recovery.
Barack 'Hoover' Obama
Bruce Marshall
3-11-9
The American people must quickly understand this one reality: that the economic policies of Barack H. Obama are essentially identical to those of Herbert Hoover's ill-starred Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which bailed out bankrupt banks in a totally futile exercise between 1931 and 1933.. Obama is doing the same thing as Hoover ; bailing out a hopelessly bankrupt zombie banking system, this time with trillions of dollars, while further destroying the productive economy of the United States in this insane giveaway to those who caused the crisis. Unlike Hoover, Obama has put some popular programs up as camouflage for the massive giveaway to the derivatives mafia that is going on in the background under the auspices of Geithner, Summers, Bernanke, and Volcker.
The present problem is that Obama is more dangerous than Hoover . This is because Obama has people fooled into thinking that he will initiate New Deal policies and leadership akin to FDR to deal with the present financial meltdown crisis and depression. Consider that the stimulus package offers a measly $45 billion towards infrastructure projects with very limited $20 billion increase in food stamps and a microscopic $18 billion of welfare benefits needed in this crisis. These crumbs allow Obama to continue to present the image that he is some sort of populist from the left, while Obama provides massive welfare for the 'Zombie banks" on Wall Street to the tune of 10 Trillion, no questions asked.
Here is the breakdown of the giveaway: Federal Reserve $8 trillion, $5.5 trillion, Bush-Paulson TARP- $.7 trillion, Obama-Geithner derivatives bailout $.75 trillion, carbon cap and trade tax scam $.65 trillion - the next bubble. Geithner's undisclosed phase 2 will be at least at least $750 billion, but will soon spiral into the trillions. Thus the beginning of Obama's era of his 'responsibility' to the derivatives speculators first.
To keep the charade going Obama has launched into an attack on the reactionary Rush Limbaugh, Wall Street's right wing enforcer, who is all to eager to continue to mislead people about the true nature of the present crisis. Obama and Rush are working together, in a false polemic that divides people and prevents real solutions from being discussed and implemented. Rush provides Obama with the left label and cover that he needs to implement policies that Rush and the right could never deliver for their same Wall Street masters. Yes, both are creatures of Wall Street, Obama the Keynsian Malthusian, and Rush the Austrian School free market Malthusian. Rush will freak out about increases for food stamps and the paltry help that Obama will give to a fraction of the foreclosed, but not a word about the real problem: the $ 1.8 quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble black hole which Obama is feeding with the U.S taxpayer and economy as collateral. Why is Rush not freaking out about this real tax increase and enslavement? The answer is that he really approves of it.
Derivatives are at the center of this financial meltdown and economic depression. Derivatives are financial instruments that are based upon a fictitious reality that does not correspond with activities that yield tangible wealth and economic progress. Derivatives are essentially exotic betting practices that involve real money, thrown into a huge pool. We are talking quadrillions of dollars, sums of money that can never be repaid, even by the combined GDP of the world. Obama is giving the "Zombie banks" trillions, where nothing will satiate the speculative derivatives black hole, while at the same time it is estimated that trillions are needed to keep people in homes and factories producing. The fact already seen is that the trillions from the Fed, the TARP's have done nothing to stop the economic depression. That money will never be recovered as it is already lost to derivatives speculation.
The only solution is to outlaw all derivatives once again. They were once illegal, until 1982 when options trading in commodities was introduced and later in the 1990's when Fed Chair Alan Greenspan created and fed the fictitious derivatives racket.
Along with outlawing derivatives, the responsible approach to this crisis is to force the derivatives investment houses, the Wall Street banks and hedge funds, into bankruptcy organization, wiping out the bad dept with one stroke of the pen. Instead of doing this as he could and should have, Obama has instead rewarded these criminals with more trillions of taxpayer money, money that should be invested in infrastructure, by the trillions.
The fact of the matter is that Obama has proven that he is no FDR, but a Hoover money vacuum for Wall Street derivatives 'zombie' banks, to which he blows the nation's wad, and thus the chance for a real economic recovery.
Hope, Change, Progress & The Obama Deception
http://www.prisonplanet.com/hope-change-progress-the-obama-deception.htmlHope, Change, Progress & The Obama Deception
New documentary highlights social pacification tactics behind the constructed phenomenon of the 44th President
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Alex Jones’ latest edifying documentary, The Obama Deception, is without doubt his most timely work to date.
As we teeter on the brink of a full blown economic depression fueled by the excessive inflationary monetary policies of governments and the international banking cartels they operate under, the American people have turned to a man who has been masterfully presented to them as their last HOPE.
As we stare over the precipice into a cultural, moral and spiritual abyss that has been shifted ever closer by decades of interventionist foreign policy and the growth of a political agenda dominated by an unfettered military industrial complex, the masses have identified with a carefully staged call for CHANGE.
As we peer across the ever receding divide between unconstrained freedom and a system of authoritative control empowered by the continual subversion of basic liberties, the public has chosen to invest their fragile confidence in a figure they have been astuciously persuaded to associate with PROGRESS.
He is Obama.
This is THE OBAMA DECPTION.
The Obama Deception lays bare the cynical fraud behind the spell binding image of the new president, a slick front man for the corporate oligarchs who have seized control of the country from the shadows.
The film is not about left or right politics, but instead seeks to shine a light on a deep-rooted agenda to use America and its largely unwitting population as the engine for global dominance, while feigning to represent the best interests of the nation.
The documentary, perhaps most importantly, outlines the fact that even if Barack Obama had the best intentions in the world, they would not come to pass because he is firmly rooted within a perennial and clandestine power structure that spans beyond presidents, borders and economies.
The Obama Deception emphasizes that only by facing up to and challenging this overriding architecture, the modus operandi that has come to shape our way of life and the world around us, can we actually achieve any palpable and effective change.
Those who supported Obama’s election will undoubtedly reassess their reasoning when they see how he continues to expand the machinery of warfare, how he has purposefully and meticulously left in place the framework of torture & renditions, how he has personally pushed through banker-bailouts, advanced the elitist North American Union agenda and much more.
Featuring interviews with leading economic analysts, politicians, business professionals, journalists, authors, social commentators and entertainers, in addition to empirical research and analysis by Alex Jones and the Infowars team, The Obama Deception is part political investigation, part cultural exploration of the pivotal and decisive times we live in.
Stock your arsenal of truth with this DVD. Simply purchase a copy at the Infowars store on the web or call 1-888-253-3139 toll free.
Alternatively, a subscription to Prisonplanet.tv, for just $5.95 per month will enable you to watch the film immediately in super hi-res quality. You may also download the film, burn copies and get the word out. In addition you will receive access to ALL previous Alex Jones films, countless other documentaries and video reports, as well as 4+ hours of streaming video added every day.
What people are saying about The Obama Deception:
Excellent movie. I can’t see how any Obama supporter can honestly look at this movie and the facts it presents and not conclude that Obama’s administration is a giant bait-and-switch fraud.
I love this movie, I feel so much more awake. This is an excellent first movie to show a family member of mine who is finally ready to listen.
This really was the first time I am viewing an AJ documentary and seeing the events occurring in real time all around. The footage is completely on time, ahead of time. I mean these things are happening right now. The whole thing could be titled: BREAKING NEWS: EMERGENCY BROADCAST
This seems to be Alex’s most refined, effective, and well put together film yet.. great balance and use of credible voices like Gerald Celente and Webster Tarpley, and “people’s people” like Willie Nelson, KRS-One, and Ventura.. I was a bit fearful that Alex might use somewhat divisive tactics in the film like referring to Obama as ‘Barack Hussein Obama’ or going after his citizenship etc.. but this is really looking like a very powerful, well balanced, explosive indictment against the left/ right paradigm.
Just finished watching, and I gotta say there was a lot of eye-opening information within that documentary. I initially voted for the guy, but after all of the reversed decisions and shady legislation being passed, I’ll probably be voting for someone of Ron Paul’s stature in 2012.
Bob Dylan's toilet smell blows in the wind
Chemical smell from bathroom used by singer's guards disturbs neighbors
Reuters
3-17-9
LOS ANGELES - Bob Dylan has sung about wind many times -- winds of change, the "Idiot Wind," and the winds that hit heavy on the borderline.
But some of his California neighbors Tuesday were singing a new tune about what is blowin' in the wind from his Malibu toilet.
A family living near the 67-year-old folk and rock icon's house in the posh California beachside community of Malibu have complained to city officials about an outdoor portable toilet, which is apparently used by guards on Dylan's compound.
Cindy and David Emminger say the toilet wafts fumes from waste treatment chemicals, and that the smell carried by breezes from the Pacific Ocean makes their family feel ill.
"It's a scandal — 'Mr Civil Rights' is killing our civil rights," David Emminger told the Los Angeles Times.
A helicopter from a local television station hovered over Dylan's property this week, capturing video of the offending toilet.
But Malibu Mayor Andy Stern said other neighbors report smelling nothing from the toilet, and that he has left the matter to the enforcers of the city's code on objectionable odors.
"I really have not involved myself in Bob Dylan's toilet, and by the way I haven't involved myself in anyone else's toilet in Malibu," Stern told Reuters.
A spokesman for Dylan did not return calls.
Dylan, whose latest album "Together Through Life" is due out April 28, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. His hit songs include "Like a Rolling Stone," "All Along the Watchtower" and "Blowin' In the Wind."
Reuters
3-17-9
LOS ANGELES - Bob Dylan has sung about wind many times -- winds of change, the "Idiot Wind," and the winds that hit heavy on the borderline.
But some of his California neighbors Tuesday were singing a new tune about what is blowin' in the wind from his Malibu toilet.
A family living near the 67-year-old folk and rock icon's house in the posh California beachside community of Malibu have complained to city officials about an outdoor portable toilet, which is apparently used by guards on Dylan's compound.
Cindy and David Emminger say the toilet wafts fumes from waste treatment chemicals, and that the smell carried by breezes from the Pacific Ocean makes their family feel ill.
"It's a scandal — 'Mr Civil Rights' is killing our civil rights," David Emminger told the Los Angeles Times.
A helicopter from a local television station hovered over Dylan's property this week, capturing video of the offending toilet.
But Malibu Mayor Andy Stern said other neighbors report smelling nothing from the toilet, and that he has left the matter to the enforcers of the city's code on objectionable odors.
"I really have not involved myself in Bob Dylan's toilet, and by the way I haven't involved myself in anyone else's toilet in Malibu," Stern told Reuters.
A spokesman for Dylan did not return calls.
Dylan, whose latest album "Together Through Life" is due out April 28, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. His hit songs include "Like a Rolling Stone," "All Along the Watchtower" and "Blowin' In the Wind."
Bankruptcy possibility looms for Six Flags
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20090313/FREE/903139987
March 13, 2009
Bankruptcy possibility looms for Six Flags
In its annual report on Wednesday, the New York-based theme park operator company said a Chapter 11 filing is possible if it cannot reach a deal to restructure its debt.
(AP) - Shares of Six Flags Inc. fell Friday on growing speculation that the theme park operator may be forced to file for bankruptcy protection after the company said it could not meet a looming financing obligation.
Six Flags shares, which have traded under $1 since last September, lost 3 cents, or 16.8%, to 16 cents in morning trading. The stock has traded between 16 cents and $2.50 during the past 52 weeks.
In its annual report on Wednesday, the company said a Chapter 11 filing is possible if the New York-based company cannot reach a deal to restructure its debt. Chapter 11 bankruptcy frees a company from the threat of creditors' lawsuits while it reorganizes its finances.
In its fourth-quarter earnings report on Tuesday, Six Flags said it does not expect to have enough cash to redeem its preferred income redeemable shares, or PIERS, when they mature on Aug. 15. The shares, known as PIERS, must be redeemed for $287.5 million plus accrued and unpaid dividends, which may total up to $31.3 million.
If the company defaults on its PIERS maturity, it would constitute a default that would allow its lenders to demand payment on other financial obligations.
Six Flags said a Chapter 11 filing could occur "well in advance" of the PIERS's maturity in August, if the company decides an out-of-court agreement is not possible or to its advantage.
The upcoming PIERS obligation has been an ongoing concern for Six Flags investors. The company has skipped making its PIERS dividend payments since last May, noting that unpaid dividends accrue without interest.
Last September, Moody's Investors Services downgraded Six Flags' corporate family and probability of default ratings to a "Caa2" junk grade, saying it did not expect the company to have enough free cash flow or credit capacity to redeem the shares.
Moody's also expressed concern about Six Flags' $131 million senior unsecured notes, which mature in February 2010.
A Six Flags representative was not immediately available for comment on Friday. The company has scheduled a conference call with its investors before the market opens on Monday to discuss its fourth-quarter results.
On Tuesday, the company reported that its losses widened in the fourth quarter to $206.6 million, or $2.12 per share, as the company's income tax expense spiked.
Six Flags is the world's largest regional theme park company with 20 parks across the United States, Mexico and Canada. It plans to expand beyond North America with destinations in Dubai and Qatar, according to the company's web site.
March 13, 2009
Bankruptcy possibility looms for Six Flags
In its annual report on Wednesday, the New York-based theme park operator company said a Chapter 11 filing is possible if it cannot reach a deal to restructure its debt.
(AP) - Shares of Six Flags Inc. fell Friday on growing speculation that the theme park operator may be forced to file for bankruptcy protection after the company said it could not meet a looming financing obligation.
Six Flags shares, which have traded under $1 since last September, lost 3 cents, or 16.8%, to 16 cents in morning trading. The stock has traded between 16 cents and $2.50 during the past 52 weeks.
In its annual report on Wednesday, the company said a Chapter 11 filing is possible if the New York-based company cannot reach a deal to restructure its debt. Chapter 11 bankruptcy frees a company from the threat of creditors' lawsuits while it reorganizes its finances.
In its fourth-quarter earnings report on Tuesday, Six Flags said it does not expect to have enough cash to redeem its preferred income redeemable shares, or PIERS, when they mature on Aug. 15. The shares, known as PIERS, must be redeemed for $287.5 million plus accrued and unpaid dividends, which may total up to $31.3 million.
If the company defaults on its PIERS maturity, it would constitute a default that would allow its lenders to demand payment on other financial obligations.
Six Flags said a Chapter 11 filing could occur "well in advance" of the PIERS's maturity in August, if the company decides an out-of-court agreement is not possible or to its advantage.
The upcoming PIERS obligation has been an ongoing concern for Six Flags investors. The company has skipped making its PIERS dividend payments since last May, noting that unpaid dividends accrue without interest.
Last September, Moody's Investors Services downgraded Six Flags' corporate family and probability of default ratings to a "Caa2" junk grade, saying it did not expect the company to have enough free cash flow or credit capacity to redeem the shares.
Moody's also expressed concern about Six Flags' $131 million senior unsecured notes, which mature in February 2010.
A Six Flags representative was not immediately available for comment on Friday. The company has scheduled a conference call with its investors before the market opens on Monday to discuss its fourth-quarter results.
On Tuesday, the company reported that its losses widened in the fourth quarter to $206.6 million, or $2.12 per share, as the company's income tax expense spiked.
Six Flags is the world's largest regional theme park company with 20 parks across the United States, Mexico and Canada. It plans to expand beyond North America with destinations in Dubai and Qatar, according to the company's web site.
Charles Barkley and Sheriff Joe's Special Treatment
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090330/zirin
Charles Barkley and Sheriff Joe's Special Treatment
Southpaw
By Dave Zirin
March 12, 2009
If you tuned into CNN last weekend, you may have seen a press conference with NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley and a plump, hatchet-faced lawman who calls himself "the toughest sheriff in America," Joe Arpaio. You may have caught Sheriff Joe making clear with a feral smile that no, Barkley would not be required to "wear the pink underwear." It was American law enforcement at its ugliest.
Barkley, the fast-living, big-drinking, loud-talking NBA player turned commentator, was pulled over on December 31 for driving while intoxicated. The former hoops superstar was fined $2,000, sentenced to an alcohol treatment program and ordered to install an ignition interlock device on his cars. He also had to spend three days at Sheriff Joe's notorious Tent City prison. Barkley's experience was hardly typical for Tent City. He was given his own tent, where he could eat meals in privacy. He wasn't served food surplus like the prison's infamous green bologna for meals. He didn't have to listen to the prison radio station, KJOE, which plays all of Sheriff Joe's favorite hits. He could wear a red Nike tracksuit instead of the prison jumpsuit. He also participated in the press conference where Arpaio plugged his book, America's Toughest Sheriff: How We Can Win the War Against Crime.
And, as mentioned, he didn't have to wear the pink underwear Sheriff Joe favors for those under his thumb. But there was even more "Chuck" didn't have to do as a resident of Tent City.
Sheriff Joe doesn't only enjoy the thrill of knowing that his prisoners are pretty in pink. He has been known to parade the undocumented immigrants among them in shackles, wearing only their state-supplied pink underwear in front of a bevy of armed guards and a gaggle of television cameras. The mainstream media didn't travel into the dry desert heat to expose Sheriff Joe's tactics. They came because they received the press release, written by Sheriff Joe himself. In one of Sheriff Joe's "advisories," he made note of the state-of-the-art electric fence, promising that it would give "quite a shock--literally" to any escapees.
The Tent City also subjects the underwear-clad prisoners to the crushing Arizona heat, something Barkley, who was on "work release" from 8 am to 8 pm, was able to avoid. It can get blisteringly hot. Sheriff Joe's response to safety concerns was to say, "It's 120 degrees in Iraq and the soldiers are living in tents, and they didn't commit any crimes, so shut your mouths." This attitude is the reason why Maricopa County has had to pay out $43 million under Sheriff Joe's leadership in wrongful death and injury cases.
But not everyone has the resources to issue lawsuits. Sheriff Joe, a man with his own reality program and his own "civilian posse," has made a national name for himself by being on the front lines of attacks on undocumented immigrants. Sheriff Joe's methods have led the Justice Department to announce on Wednesday that it is investigating his department for "patterns or practices of discriminatory police practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures." The Arizona Republic reports that David Harris, a University of Pittsburgh law professor, believes it is the department's first civil rights probe related to immigration enforcement.
Not surprisingly, Sheriff Joe justifies his treatment of immigrants on the most racist and intellectually specious grounds. He says that the Tent City is "a financially responsible alternative to taxpayers already overburdened by the economic drain imposed by a growing number of illegal aliens on social services like education and healthcare." This blithely ignores the fact that undocumented workers actually put more back into the economy than they extract, since they pay into Social Security and payroll taxes without getting anything back.
Barkley was shielded from the true ugliness of Sheriff Joe. But now that he is out of prison, the Arizona resident should do what he does best and speak his mind. Make no mistake, Barkley would have something to say.
There was a time when Barkley was a proud Republican and entertained the idea of running for governor of Alabama. In fact, when Sheriff Joe's book came out in 1996, the blurbs on the back cover included praise from Rush Limbaugh, John McCain and, yes, Charles Barkley. But since those days, Barkley has undergone a transformation. He now says Republicans have "lost their minds." Last summer Barkley said, "What do the Republicans run on? Against gay marriage and for a war that makes no sense. A war that was based on faulty intelligence. That's all they ever talk about. That and immigration. Another discriminatory argument for political gain."
Barkley most likely understands that anti-immigrant policies are discriminatory nonsense, that the politics of poverty are critical in the United States and that there is more to life than material gain. Now that he is away from the watchful eye of Sheriff Joe, it's time for Barkley to apply those principles and call for the closing of Tent City, the removal of Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the end of criminalizing the undocumented as a spectator sport.
About Dave Zirin
Dave Zirin is the author of Welcome to the Terrordome: the Pain Politics and Promise of Sports (Haymarket) and the forthcoming A People's History of Sports in the United States (The New Press). and his writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Sports Illustrated.com, New York Newsday and The Progressive. He is the host of XM Radio's Edge of Sports Radio.
Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.
Charles Barkley and Sheriff Joe's Special Treatment
Southpaw
By Dave Zirin
March 12, 2009
If you tuned into CNN last weekend, you may have seen a press conference with NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley and a plump, hatchet-faced lawman who calls himself "the toughest sheriff in America," Joe Arpaio. You may have caught Sheriff Joe making clear with a feral smile that no, Barkley would not be required to "wear the pink underwear." It was American law enforcement at its ugliest.
Barkley, the fast-living, big-drinking, loud-talking NBA player turned commentator, was pulled over on December 31 for driving while intoxicated. The former hoops superstar was fined $2,000, sentenced to an alcohol treatment program and ordered to install an ignition interlock device on his cars. He also had to spend three days at Sheriff Joe's notorious Tent City prison. Barkley's experience was hardly typical for Tent City. He was given his own tent, where he could eat meals in privacy. He wasn't served food surplus like the prison's infamous green bologna for meals. He didn't have to listen to the prison radio station, KJOE, which plays all of Sheriff Joe's favorite hits. He could wear a red Nike tracksuit instead of the prison jumpsuit. He also participated in the press conference where Arpaio plugged his book, America's Toughest Sheriff: How We Can Win the War Against Crime.
And, as mentioned, he didn't have to wear the pink underwear Sheriff Joe favors for those under his thumb. But there was even more "Chuck" didn't have to do as a resident of Tent City.
Sheriff Joe doesn't only enjoy the thrill of knowing that his prisoners are pretty in pink. He has been known to parade the undocumented immigrants among them in shackles, wearing only their state-supplied pink underwear in front of a bevy of armed guards and a gaggle of television cameras. The mainstream media didn't travel into the dry desert heat to expose Sheriff Joe's tactics. They came because they received the press release, written by Sheriff Joe himself. In one of Sheriff Joe's "advisories," he made note of the state-of-the-art electric fence, promising that it would give "quite a shock--literally" to any escapees.
The Tent City also subjects the underwear-clad prisoners to the crushing Arizona heat, something Barkley, who was on "work release" from 8 am to 8 pm, was able to avoid. It can get blisteringly hot. Sheriff Joe's response to safety concerns was to say, "It's 120 degrees in Iraq and the soldiers are living in tents, and they didn't commit any crimes, so shut your mouths." This attitude is the reason why Maricopa County has had to pay out $43 million under Sheriff Joe's leadership in wrongful death and injury cases.
But not everyone has the resources to issue lawsuits. Sheriff Joe, a man with his own reality program and his own "civilian posse," has made a national name for himself by being on the front lines of attacks on undocumented immigrants. Sheriff Joe's methods have led the Justice Department to announce on Wednesday that it is investigating his department for "patterns or practices of discriminatory police practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures." The Arizona Republic reports that David Harris, a University of Pittsburgh law professor, believes it is the department's first civil rights probe related to immigration enforcement.
Not surprisingly, Sheriff Joe justifies his treatment of immigrants on the most racist and intellectually specious grounds. He says that the Tent City is "a financially responsible alternative to taxpayers already overburdened by the economic drain imposed by a growing number of illegal aliens on social services like education and healthcare." This blithely ignores the fact that undocumented workers actually put more back into the economy than they extract, since they pay into Social Security and payroll taxes without getting anything back.
Barkley was shielded from the true ugliness of Sheriff Joe. But now that he is out of prison, the Arizona resident should do what he does best and speak his mind. Make no mistake, Barkley would have something to say.
There was a time when Barkley was a proud Republican and entertained the idea of running for governor of Alabama. In fact, when Sheriff Joe's book came out in 1996, the blurbs on the back cover included praise from Rush Limbaugh, John McCain and, yes, Charles Barkley. But since those days, Barkley has undergone a transformation. He now says Republicans have "lost their minds." Last summer Barkley said, "What do the Republicans run on? Against gay marriage and for a war that makes no sense. A war that was based on faulty intelligence. That's all they ever talk about. That and immigration. Another discriminatory argument for political gain."
Barkley most likely understands that anti-immigrant policies are discriminatory nonsense, that the politics of poverty are critical in the United States and that there is more to life than material gain. Now that he is away from the watchful eye of Sheriff Joe, it's time for Barkley to apply those principles and call for the closing of Tent City, the removal of Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the end of criminalizing the undocumented as a spectator sport.
About Dave Zirin
Dave Zirin is the author of Welcome to the Terrordome: the Pain Politics and Promise of Sports (Haymarket) and the forthcoming A People's History of Sports in the United States (The New Press). and his writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Sports Illustrated.com, New York Newsday and The Progressive. He is the host of XM Radio's Edge of Sports Radio.
Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.
Ode to GoBots
http://retroland.com/pages/retropedia/toys/item/2416/Manufacturer:
Tonka
With the emergence of every great toy comes the inevitable pretenders that try to weasel in on the original’s superiority. Most of these come and go with a whimper but every now and then, a challenger rises to give the champion a worthy go at it. Among these were the GoBots, the red ribbon winners to The Transformers in the robot/vehicle combo toy wars of the 1980s.
Released in 1984, were actually a re-release by popular Japanese toymaker Tonk of their Machine Robo series. Like The Transformers that quickly followed them, GoBots were divided into two classes, “Friendly” and “Enemy.” With the launch of the animated series Challenge Of The Gobots shortly after the release of the toys, the designations were changed to “Guardians” and “Renegades.” The story began on the war torn planet of Gobotron. A disgruntled Guardian named Cy-Kill rebelled with a group of followers and formed the domination-bent Renegades to usurp power and threaten the freedom of the planet. But quick to thwart the Renegades were the leftover Guardians, led by the gallant Leader-1. The show picks up the story in the midst of this great conflict as the GoBots have taken the fight to planet Earth.
GoBots predated the show, largely to build its hype. The sheer number of GoBots that hit the market was staggering. Each robot was typically three to four inches tall and made of die-cast metal and plastic. And of course, just like The Transformers, GoBots alternated between robot and vehicle form. Hoods buckled, trunks split apart and flipped over themselves, heads emerged from exposed consoles, all to make machine into metallic man.
Unlike Transformers, GoBots came with no distinction – no heat sensitive decal – to help discern who fought for which side. The packaging was labeled, but once the toy was out of the box, you either had to wing it or tune in to the show and become an authority. Among the more recognizable GoBots were the aforementioned Leader-1, a jet fighter, and the despotic Cy-Kill, who, as his name suggests, turned into a vicious looking motorcycle. Aiding Leader-1 was the crimson sports car Turbo, while helicopter menace Kop-Tur did Cy-Kill’s bidding. Eventually, GoBots began to change in size and function. The Renegades brought forth Zod, the rolling, rearing, roaring robot dinosaur. Soon enough, Power Warriors also joined the Renegade ranks, foot high robots built out of smaller ones. Various spin-off merchandise came out such as books, toy guns, bedsheets, and the popular GoBots transformable walkie-talkies. New toy lines came out such as Power Suits and Secret Raiders. Because of their compact size and affordability, GoBots experienced noteworthy success until 1986 when they gambled on GoBots: Battle Of The Rock Lords, an animated feature whose box office and merchandise (robots that transformed into rocks) bombed.
While the show only lasted three years, GoBots made an admirable run at the Transformers throne with a deft combination of affordability and accessibility. Fans today still collect them, for while GoBots may not have been the champion, they were still a winner.
Corned Beef and Cabbage Pizza
http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/Recipes/story?id=7094559
Corned Beef and Cabbage Pizza
Celebrate St. Patrick's Day With Irish Pizza
March 17, 2009
Ireland isn't known for its fine cuisine, but perhaps if you indulge in enough Guinness this St. Patrick's Day, you'll be more inclined to try this Irish-themed pizza.
The Corned Beef and Cabbage Pizza is a holiday favorite at Boston's Penguin Pizza restaurant.
Corned Beef and Cabbage Pizza
Prep Time: 35 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Serves: 2 medium (14-inch) pies
Ingredients
For the dough:
2 teaspoons sugar
1 package active dry yeast
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for the bowl
3 cups all-purpose flour, or 2¾ cups plus ¼ cup whole-wheat flour, plus more for dusting
1 teaspoon fine salt
For the toppings:
5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for the pan
3 cups sliced green cabbage
Kosher salt
1 teaspoon pickling spices, tied securely in cheesecloth
1 large potato, peeled and thinly sliced
Freshly ground pepper
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
¾ cup shredded monterey jack cheese
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
6 ounces sliced corned beef
Directions
Make the dough:
Whisk 1 cup warm water (105 degrees) with the sugar in a bowl; scatter the yeast over the top and set aside until foamy, about 10 minutes. Stir in the olive oil.
Whisk the flour and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center and pour in the yeast mixture. Gradually stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients to make a rough, shaggy dough.
Turn out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. (Add more flour to prevent sticking, if necessary.) Form the dough into a ball; place in a large oiled bowl, turning to coat with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside at room temperature until the dough has doubled in size, about 90 minutes.
Meanwhile, prepare the toppings:
Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the cabbage, season with salt and cook until just soft, about 5 minutes. Add the pickling spices and just enough water to cover. Simmer over low heat, covered, until the cabbage is tender, about 20 minutes. Drain the cabbage and set aside (discard spices).
Place a pizza stone in the oven, if you have one, and preheat to 500 degrees.
Toss the potato with 2 tablespoons olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast in a single layer on a baking sheet until golden, about 15 minutes.
Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces. Roll one into a 14-inch round (keep the remaining dough covered). Place the round on a floured pizza peel (if baking on a stone) or a large oiled pizza pan; drizzle with 2 tablespoons olive oil.
Scatter half of each of the cheeses, corned beef, cabbage and potatoes on top. Season with salt and pepper. Carefully slip the pizza onto the hot stone, if using one, or place the pan in the oven. Cook until golden and crispy, 10 to 15 minutes. Repeat with the remaining dough and toppings.
Recipe adapted from Penguin Pizza, Boston, for Food Network Magazine.
Corned Beef and Cabbage Pizza
Celebrate St. Patrick's Day With Irish Pizza
March 17, 2009
Ireland isn't known for its fine cuisine, but perhaps if you indulge in enough Guinness this St. Patrick's Day, you'll be more inclined to try this Irish-themed pizza.
The Corned Beef and Cabbage Pizza is a holiday favorite at Boston's Penguin Pizza restaurant.
Corned Beef and Cabbage Pizza
Prep Time: 35 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Serves: 2 medium (14-inch) pies
Ingredients
For the dough:
2 teaspoons sugar
1 package active dry yeast
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for the bowl
3 cups all-purpose flour, or 2¾ cups plus ¼ cup whole-wheat flour, plus more for dusting
1 teaspoon fine salt
For the toppings:
5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for the pan
3 cups sliced green cabbage
Kosher salt
1 teaspoon pickling spices, tied securely in cheesecloth
1 large potato, peeled and thinly sliced
Freshly ground pepper
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
¾ cup shredded monterey jack cheese
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
6 ounces sliced corned beef
Directions
Make the dough:
Whisk 1 cup warm water (105 degrees) with the sugar in a bowl; scatter the yeast over the top and set aside until foamy, about 10 minutes. Stir in the olive oil.
Whisk the flour and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center and pour in the yeast mixture. Gradually stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients to make a rough, shaggy dough.
Turn out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. (Add more flour to prevent sticking, if necessary.) Form the dough into a ball; place in a large oiled bowl, turning to coat with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside at room temperature until the dough has doubled in size, about 90 minutes.
Meanwhile, prepare the toppings:
Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the cabbage, season with salt and cook until just soft, about 5 minutes. Add the pickling spices and just enough water to cover. Simmer over low heat, covered, until the cabbage is tender, about 20 minutes. Drain the cabbage and set aside (discard spices).
Place a pizza stone in the oven, if you have one, and preheat to 500 degrees.
Toss the potato with 2 tablespoons olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast in a single layer on a baking sheet until golden, about 15 minutes.
Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces. Roll one into a 14-inch round (keep the remaining dough covered). Place the round on a floured pizza peel (if baking on a stone) or a large oiled pizza pan; drizzle with 2 tablespoons olive oil.
Scatter half of each of the cheeses, corned beef, cabbage and potatoes on top. Season with salt and pepper. Carefully slip the pizza onto the hot stone, if using one, or place the pan in the oven. Cook until golden and crispy, 10 to 15 minutes. Repeat with the remaining dough and toppings.
Recipe adapted from Penguin Pizza, Boston, for Food Network Magazine.
Cheney is guilty of 'murder' if Hersh claims are true
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/John_Dean_Bush_and_Cheney_neutered_0313.html
John Dean: Cheney is guilty of 'murder' if Hersh claims are true
David Edwards and Rachel Oswald
Friday March 13, 2009
Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh’s bombshell earlier this week that Vice President Dick Cheney controlled an “executive assassination ring” continues to reverberate throughout Washington, with Nixon aide John Dean going so far as to accuse the former VP of murder if the charges are true.
MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann visited the issue on his show Countdown Thursday night where he discussed the legal implications of Hersh's allegations with Dean, who was White House legal counsel under President Richard Nixon.
“It’s potentially a war crime,” Dean said of the reported assassination ring. “It’s potentially just outright murder and it’s clearly in violation of the Ford Executive Order.”
Hersh told the students at the University of Minnesota on Tuesday that the assassination squad was “a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. In the Bush-Cheney Days, they reported directly to the Cheney, Cheney office. They do not report to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or to Mr. Gates, the secretary of defense. They report directly to him. Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring, essentially.”
“If this is true you have to prosecute this. There is no way around this,” said Olbermann, noting the 1976 executive order of President Gerald Ford which explicitly outlawed the engagement of political employees in political assassination. Cheney was Ford’s chief of staff at the time the order was issued.
“By the time Cheney was back in the West Wing it appears that Cheney had forgotten his own boss’s executive order, or worse, he had decided to ignore it,” Olbermann said.
Dean told Olbermann that “the President’s the only one you can argue who may have the authority to engage in assassinations.
Newsweek editor Howard Fineman shared with Olbermann his own investigation into the veracity of Hersh's claims. Fineman said his talks Thursday with sources in the intelligence community had revealed that while they are skeptical of the existence of any assassination ring, they had too much respect in Hersh's reporting to dismiss the allegations outright and that they warranted further study.
However, not everyone is buying the claims made by Hersh. The Weekly Standard's Bill Roggio writes, "Hersh has made a living of making fantastic claims that don't quite live up to the hype. Chalk this one up as another Hersh fantasy."
Claims by the CIA that the Hersh allegations were “utter nonsense,” are not surprising, said Fineman.
“If there is in fact such a thing... and the CIA was kept in the dark about it, the last thing they would want to do right now is to admit it,” Fineman said.
Fineman said he has been told by aides to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee who has proposed forming an independent ‘Truth Commission’ to investigate abuses of the Bush administration, that not many members of the Senate have signed on to the proposal as of yet.
However, the new allegations by Hersh may be shocking enough to push more senators over to Leahy’s side, Fineman said.
“This could be that thing, depending on how much it pans out,” Fineman said. “One more really serious allegation…I think you’re going to see a lot of senators wanting to join Sen. Leahy’s side on this.”
John Dean: Cheney is guilty of 'murder' if Hersh claims are true
David Edwards and Rachel Oswald
Friday March 13, 2009
Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh’s bombshell earlier this week that Vice President Dick Cheney controlled an “executive assassination ring” continues to reverberate throughout Washington, with Nixon aide John Dean going so far as to accuse the former VP of murder if the charges are true.
MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann visited the issue on his show Countdown Thursday night where he discussed the legal implications of Hersh's allegations with Dean, who was White House legal counsel under President Richard Nixon.
“It’s potentially a war crime,” Dean said of the reported assassination ring. “It’s potentially just outright murder and it’s clearly in violation of the Ford Executive Order.”
Hersh told the students at the University of Minnesota on Tuesday that the assassination squad was “a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. In the Bush-Cheney Days, they reported directly to the Cheney, Cheney office. They do not report to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or to Mr. Gates, the secretary of defense. They report directly to him. Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring, essentially.”
“If this is true you have to prosecute this. There is no way around this,” said Olbermann, noting the 1976 executive order of President Gerald Ford which explicitly outlawed the engagement of political employees in political assassination. Cheney was Ford’s chief of staff at the time the order was issued.
“By the time Cheney was back in the West Wing it appears that Cheney had forgotten his own boss’s executive order, or worse, he had decided to ignore it,” Olbermann said.
Dean told Olbermann that “the President’s the only one you can argue who may have the authority to engage in assassinations.
Newsweek editor Howard Fineman shared with Olbermann his own investigation into the veracity of Hersh's claims. Fineman said his talks Thursday with sources in the intelligence community had revealed that while they are skeptical of the existence of any assassination ring, they had too much respect in Hersh's reporting to dismiss the allegations outright and that they warranted further study.
However, not everyone is buying the claims made by Hersh. The Weekly Standard's Bill Roggio writes, "Hersh has made a living of making fantastic claims that don't quite live up to the hype. Chalk this one up as another Hersh fantasy."
Claims by the CIA that the Hersh allegations were “utter nonsense,” are not surprising, said Fineman.
“If there is in fact such a thing... and the CIA was kept in the dark about it, the last thing they would want to do right now is to admit it,” Fineman said.
Fineman said he has been told by aides to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee who has proposed forming an independent ‘Truth Commission’ to investigate abuses of the Bush administration, that not many members of the Senate have signed on to the proposal as of yet.
However, the new allegations by Hersh may be shocking enough to push more senators over to Leahy’s side, Fineman said.
“This could be that thing, depending on how much it pans out,” Fineman said. “One more really serious allegation…I think you’re going to see a lot of senators wanting to join Sen. Leahy’s side on this.”
US drops 'enemy combatant' term
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7943114.stm
Friday, 13 March 2009
US drops 'enemy combatant' term
President Obama has ordered the closure of Guantanamo Bay
The US is abandoning its use of the term "enemy combatants" to describe terror suspects - ending a key policy of the Bush administration.
It is the latest shift on Guantanamo Bay by President Barack Obama, who has announced the camp is to be closed.
The decision to drop the term is deeply symbolic, correspondents say.
President George W Bush argued that his status as commander-in-chief allowed him to hold "enemy combatants" indefinitely and without trial.
Announcing the end of the term's use, the Justice Department said suspects would in future be held according to legal standards set by the international laws of war.
Under the new definition, only those who provided "substantial" support to al-Qaeda or the Taleban will be considered detainable, officials said.
'Values'
By using the term "enemy combatants", the Bush administration argued that they were not prisoners of war, the BBC's Jonathan Beale in Washington says. International laws - like the Geneva Conventions - therefore did not automatically apply.
The Obama administration will, by contrast, hold prisoners under the authority granted by Congress, when it approved the Authorisation for the Use of Military Force "against nations, organizations, or persons the president determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the September 11 attacks, or harboured such organizations or persons" in September 2001.
"The government's new standard relies on the international laws of war to inform the scope of the president's authority under this statute," according to the Justice Department.
"As we work towards developing a new policy to govern detainees, it is essential that we operate in a manner that strengthens our national security, is consistent with our values, and is governed by law," said US Attorney General Eric Holder in a statement.
Around 250 detainees are still being held in Guantanamo, our correspondent says.
The Obama administration is currently reviewing each case before making a decision as to who should stand trial, he adds.
Harsh techniques
The detention centre was set up in January 2002 by the Bush administration to hold men captured in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taleban after the 2001 attacks on the US.
It later became notorious because of the harsh interrogation techniques used there, which many said amounted to torture, and because the detainees there were being held without trial and without many of the protections of international law.
During the presidential election, Mr Obama pledged to close the camp if elected, and in his first week in the White House, he issued the order to do so.
Some of the detainees are expected to stand trial in US courts, while others will be returned to their home countries.
But the Obama administration is likely to face difficulties prosecuting some inmates, because evidence against them may have been obtained using inadmissible techniques.
Other prisoners cannot be sent back to their home countries because they may face torture or execution if they return.
Mr Obama this week appointed diplomat Dan Fried to serve as a special envoy to persuade third countries to accept detainees who cannot be extradited to their home countries.
Friday, 13 March 2009
US drops 'enemy combatant' term
President Obama has ordered the closure of Guantanamo Bay
The US is abandoning its use of the term "enemy combatants" to describe terror suspects - ending a key policy of the Bush administration.
It is the latest shift on Guantanamo Bay by President Barack Obama, who has announced the camp is to be closed.
The decision to drop the term is deeply symbolic, correspondents say.
President George W Bush argued that his status as commander-in-chief allowed him to hold "enemy combatants" indefinitely and without trial.
Announcing the end of the term's use, the Justice Department said suspects would in future be held according to legal standards set by the international laws of war.
Under the new definition, only those who provided "substantial" support to al-Qaeda or the Taleban will be considered detainable, officials said.
'Values'
By using the term "enemy combatants", the Bush administration argued that they were not prisoners of war, the BBC's Jonathan Beale in Washington says. International laws - like the Geneva Conventions - therefore did not automatically apply.
The Obama administration will, by contrast, hold prisoners under the authority granted by Congress, when it approved the Authorisation for the Use of Military Force "against nations, organizations, or persons the president determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the September 11 attacks, or harboured such organizations or persons" in September 2001.
"The government's new standard relies on the international laws of war to inform the scope of the president's authority under this statute," according to the Justice Department.
"As we work towards developing a new policy to govern detainees, it is essential that we operate in a manner that strengthens our national security, is consistent with our values, and is governed by law," said US Attorney General Eric Holder in a statement.
Around 250 detainees are still being held in Guantanamo, our correspondent says.
The Obama administration is currently reviewing each case before making a decision as to who should stand trial, he adds.
Harsh techniques
The detention centre was set up in January 2002 by the Bush administration to hold men captured in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taleban after the 2001 attacks on the US.
It later became notorious because of the harsh interrogation techniques used there, which many said amounted to torture, and because the detainees there were being held without trial and without many of the protections of international law.
During the presidential election, Mr Obama pledged to close the camp if elected, and in his first week in the White House, he issued the order to do so.
Some of the detainees are expected to stand trial in US courts, while others will be returned to their home countries.
But the Obama administration is likely to face difficulties prosecuting some inmates, because evidence against them may have been obtained using inadmissible techniques.
Other prisoners cannot be sent back to their home countries because they may face torture or execution if they return.
Mr Obama this week appointed diplomat Dan Fried to serve as a special envoy to persuade third countries to accept detainees who cannot be extradited to their home countries.
Mystery of Madoff's rapid confession
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/13/bernard-madoff-usa
Mystery of Madoff's rapid confession
Legal experts were flummoxed by the fraudster's willingness to admit every criminal charge laid before him, but was he trying to protect others who may have been implicated?
Andrew Clark in New York
Friday 13 March 2009
It was a brutally casual way to inform a man of his fate. After listening to a lengthy monologue by Bernard Madoff's defence lawyer on why the fraudster should remain on bail in his Manhattan penthouse, Judge Denny Chin waved away the prosecution.
"I don't need to hear from you because it is my intention to remand Mr Madoff," said the judge. He spoke almost as an aside, as if Madoff wasn't in the room.
There was a collective intake of breath. In the overflow room at New York's federal courthouse, full of hard-bitten hacks watching proceedings on a video link, a few people started clapping. The old man was finally going behind bars.
If the 70-year-old fraudster himself was surprised at being sent directly to jail, he didn't show it. He would have been warned by his defence team that he ran the risk of instant incarceration by pleading guilty to 11 counts of fraud, perjury and money laundering.
In fact, throughout the 90-minute hearing, Madoff looked as if he had been drugged. He stared fixedly at some point in the middle distance, slouched slightly forward with his arms resting on a table. His speech of "apology" was delivered in a flat monotone.
The only time he showed any tangible reaction was when one of his victims, George Nierenberg, aggressively demanded that Madoff meet his eye, moving towards him and saying: "I don't know whether you've had a chance to turn around and look at your victims."
Madoff, rather reluctantly, swivelled round and briefly eyeballed his former client before Judge Chin ordered Nierenberg to cool off.
Being Bernie Madoff's defence counsel is a job from hell, even by the standards of white-collar litigation. Madoff seems to have been intent on self-immolation from the moment his $65bn (£47bn) fraudulent scheme came to light in December.
Many legal experts were flummoxed by Madoff's decision to confess to every criminal count on the table this week without any sniff of a deal with prosecutors. If he had gone with "not guilty", he could have bought himself another year of bail. Or by co-operating with the feds and by talking them through the paperwork, he might have won a delay and a shorter term. Instead, he's probably in jail until he dies.
The probable explanation is that Madoff hopes to take the bullet for his family and colleagues. Peter Henning, a former fraud prosecutor turned law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, says: "I think he's protecting his family. Any plea deal would definitely have required him to implicate others."
During his words of penance to the court, Madoff was at pains to emphasise that while his investment advisory outfit was a fraudulent hole, his company's proprietary trading and market-making operations were "legitimately and honestly run businesses". His sons, Andrew and Mark, were senior executives on this "honest" side of the Chinese wall. Madoff's 63-year-old brother, Peter, was in charge of trading.
It is almost inconceivable that Madoff could have spent 20 years squirreling away clients' money in a Chase Manhattan bank account, conducting virtually no legitimate transactions, without anybody at Madoff Investment Securities smelling a rat – even if, as he asserts, he was deliberately employing under-qualified staff with no expertise in the securities industry.
For the feds, catching the kingpin before they get to any henchmen poses an unusual difficulty – because of his reputation as America's biggest liar, Madoff is a radioactive witness. Any evidence he gives in future trials can be easily and quickly discredited.
"He's the king of this fraud. That's not someone you'd ever want to use as a witness," says Sam Buell, professor of law at Washington University in St Louis. "You could never use him in court – a jury would be outraged at having this guy testify against somebody who's less culpable."
So there are virtually no grounds for clemency towards Madoff – he clearly isn't being very helpful and, even if he was, his aid is of dubious utility.
The record sentence for a white-collar crime in the US is the 24-year term handed to Enron's Jeffrey Skilling in 2006 (although an appeals court ruled this was too harsh and that it should be recalculated). Madoff could find himself exceeding that.
Some argue Madoff's crime is worse than those of the bosses of corrupt companies such as Enron, WorldCom and Tyco. After all, many of Madoff's victims lost their life savings. In the case of, say, Enron shareholders, the damage is spread relatively thinly among a larger number of people.
"In some ways, this is a worse kind of fraud – it's preying on individuals rather than a fraud on the market," says Buell. "The victims here run the gamut from the very, very wealthy to the not-all-that-affluent."
Federal inmates in the US have to serve at least 85% of their sentences before they qualify for early release on grounds of good behaviour. If Madoff, 70, gets a relatively lenient 20 years and lives beyond the age of 87, he could conceivably see daylight again. But it's not very likely.
To his victims, it's hard to extend forgiveness or compassion to somebody who won't help prosecutors unravel the details of his crime, irrespective of Madoff's claim that he is "deeply sorry and ashamed".
One investor, 71-year-old Judith Welling, raised her arm in a victory salute as she exited the courthouse on Thursday. She put $1.5m into Madoff's fund and thought her nest egg had grown to $2.5m until she learned that the financier's empire was based on a pack of lies.
"Frankly, in my book, he's the lowest of the low," she said.
Mystery of Madoff's rapid confession
Legal experts were flummoxed by the fraudster's willingness to admit every criminal charge laid before him, but was he trying to protect others who may have been implicated?
Andrew Clark in New York
Friday 13 March 2009
It was a brutally casual way to inform a man of his fate. After listening to a lengthy monologue by Bernard Madoff's defence lawyer on why the fraudster should remain on bail in his Manhattan penthouse, Judge Denny Chin waved away the prosecution.
"I don't need to hear from you because it is my intention to remand Mr Madoff," said the judge. He spoke almost as an aside, as if Madoff wasn't in the room.
There was a collective intake of breath. In the overflow room at New York's federal courthouse, full of hard-bitten hacks watching proceedings on a video link, a few people started clapping. The old man was finally going behind bars.
If the 70-year-old fraudster himself was surprised at being sent directly to jail, he didn't show it. He would have been warned by his defence team that he ran the risk of instant incarceration by pleading guilty to 11 counts of fraud, perjury and money laundering.
In fact, throughout the 90-minute hearing, Madoff looked as if he had been drugged. He stared fixedly at some point in the middle distance, slouched slightly forward with his arms resting on a table. His speech of "apology" was delivered in a flat monotone.
The only time he showed any tangible reaction was when one of his victims, George Nierenberg, aggressively demanded that Madoff meet his eye, moving towards him and saying: "I don't know whether you've had a chance to turn around and look at your victims."
Madoff, rather reluctantly, swivelled round and briefly eyeballed his former client before Judge Chin ordered Nierenberg to cool off.
Being Bernie Madoff's defence counsel is a job from hell, even by the standards of white-collar litigation. Madoff seems to have been intent on self-immolation from the moment his $65bn (£47bn) fraudulent scheme came to light in December.
Many legal experts were flummoxed by Madoff's decision to confess to every criminal count on the table this week without any sniff of a deal with prosecutors. If he had gone with "not guilty", he could have bought himself another year of bail. Or by co-operating with the feds and by talking them through the paperwork, he might have won a delay and a shorter term. Instead, he's probably in jail until he dies.
The probable explanation is that Madoff hopes to take the bullet for his family and colleagues. Peter Henning, a former fraud prosecutor turned law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, says: "I think he's protecting his family. Any plea deal would definitely have required him to implicate others."
During his words of penance to the court, Madoff was at pains to emphasise that while his investment advisory outfit was a fraudulent hole, his company's proprietary trading and market-making operations were "legitimately and honestly run businesses". His sons, Andrew and Mark, were senior executives on this "honest" side of the Chinese wall. Madoff's 63-year-old brother, Peter, was in charge of trading.
It is almost inconceivable that Madoff could have spent 20 years squirreling away clients' money in a Chase Manhattan bank account, conducting virtually no legitimate transactions, without anybody at Madoff Investment Securities smelling a rat – even if, as he asserts, he was deliberately employing under-qualified staff with no expertise in the securities industry.
For the feds, catching the kingpin before they get to any henchmen poses an unusual difficulty – because of his reputation as America's biggest liar, Madoff is a radioactive witness. Any evidence he gives in future trials can be easily and quickly discredited.
"He's the king of this fraud. That's not someone you'd ever want to use as a witness," says Sam Buell, professor of law at Washington University in St Louis. "You could never use him in court – a jury would be outraged at having this guy testify against somebody who's less culpable."
So there are virtually no grounds for clemency towards Madoff – he clearly isn't being very helpful and, even if he was, his aid is of dubious utility.
The record sentence for a white-collar crime in the US is the 24-year term handed to Enron's Jeffrey Skilling in 2006 (although an appeals court ruled this was too harsh and that it should be recalculated). Madoff could find himself exceeding that.
Some argue Madoff's crime is worse than those of the bosses of corrupt companies such as Enron, WorldCom and Tyco. After all, many of Madoff's victims lost their life savings. In the case of, say, Enron shareholders, the damage is spread relatively thinly among a larger number of people.
"In some ways, this is a worse kind of fraud – it's preying on individuals rather than a fraud on the market," says Buell. "The victims here run the gamut from the very, very wealthy to the not-all-that-affluent."
Federal inmates in the US have to serve at least 85% of their sentences before they qualify for early release on grounds of good behaviour. If Madoff, 70, gets a relatively lenient 20 years and lives beyond the age of 87, he could conceivably see daylight again. But it's not very likely.
To his victims, it's hard to extend forgiveness or compassion to somebody who won't help prosecutors unravel the details of his crime, irrespective of Madoff's claim that he is "deeply sorry and ashamed".
One investor, 71-year-old Judith Welling, raised her arm in a victory salute as she exited the courthouse on Thursday. She put $1.5m into Madoff's fund and thought her nest egg had grown to $2.5m until she learned that the financier's empire was based on a pack of lies.
"Frankly, in my book, he's the lowest of the low," she said.
Republicans Split on Need to Offer Rival for Budget
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/us/politics/14budget.html
Republicans Split on Need to Offer Rival for Budget
By CARL HULSE
March 13, 2009
WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans are engaged in a highly coordinated political assault on President Obama’s budget, but they are not so united when it comes to offering an alternative to the spending plan they have been shredding as irresponsible.
Breaking with the House, Senate Republicans say they do not intend to offer a full counterproposal to Mr. Obama’s sweeping $3.6 trillion spending blueprint, a decision that will spare them from outlining potentially painful decisions required to bring federal books more in line with their call to hold down spending, cut taxes and reduce the deficit.
“The responsibility of the majority is to produce the budget,” said Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, senior Republican on the Budget Committee, “and we think it is more constructive to point out how we would improve their budget.”
With a month to go before Congress is supposed to pass a budget resolution, Democrats say the absence of a competing Senate Republican plan makes Republican complaints about the Obama approach ring hollow. Would Republicans, they ask, continue to keep the costs of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan off the books? Account for the costly annual change to protect middle-class taxpayers from the alternative minimum tax? Set up a disaster fund to prepare for emergencies?
“They are long on criticism and short on a plan,” said Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff. “They have a communications strategy instead of an economic one.”
House Republicans said they intended to deliver a comprehensive alternative to the Obama plan to show how they would respond to the federal government’s deepening fiscal difficulties but were not ready to provide details.
As they try to reassert themselves as guardians of fiscal discipline after their own years of deficit spending, Republicans have been providing a steady stream of complaints depicting Mr. Obama’s plan as spending too much, taxing too much and borrowing too much.
The effort is being made with more than the usual level of cooperation between House and Senate Republicans, with Republican leaders of the two chambers appearing in tandem and lawmakers repeating their antibudget criticism almost as a mantra.
In contrast to the first weeks of the Obama presidency, the attacks are aimed squarely at Mr. Obama, whose popularity initially shielded him from Republican criticism.
“Republicans in the House and Senate, with some degree of cooperation and collaboration, are going to attempt to both challenge the assumptions and the content of the president’s budget,” said Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, the No. 3 Republican in the House.
Democrats are trying to exploit the absence of a Republican alternative, creating a Web page with a clock counting the hours since the Obama budget was introduced on Feb. 26 with no Republican alternative put forth. It lampoons Republicans as the “Party of No.”
Some Republicans acknowledge that the constant repetition of their budget message could turn it stale in Washington, but they say such persistence is required to break through with the general public.
With their majorities in the House and Senate lost, Republican leaders say that an effective communications strategy is their best hope. They say they have little ability to influence the legislative debate, particularly in the House, if Democrats are determined to press ahead with Mr. Obama’s plan to take on health care, climate change, education, transportation and other major issues.
“As I told my colleagues, we don’t have enough votes to legislate,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader. “We are not in the majority. We are not kind-of in the minority; we are in a hole. They ought to get the idea out of their minds that they are legislators. But what they can be is communicators.”
The House has a history in which the minority party and other coalitions have often proposed their own budgets to draw distinctions with the party in power. Senate Democrats have offered alternative budgets in the past, including one in 2001, the first year of the George W. Bush’s presidency.
Compared to Republicans in the Senate, it will be easier for those in the House to push forward a competing spending plan because so many of them represent conservative areas where cuts in federal spending are less of a political liability.
Senators have broader constituencies and a budget that meets Republican fiscal goals could be a difficult vote for some Republicans.
House Republicans offered an alternative to Mr. Obama’s economic stimulus that they said was less costly and created more jobs, though economists and others challenged the Republican economic assumptions and claims. Mr. Pence and Mr. Boehner said House Republicans believed they needed to propose their own budget to bolster the credibility of their criticisms of the Obama plan.
“It is incumbent for us to get out there and make sure people understand we have a better solution,” Mr. Boehner said.
Republicans are taking a political risk in offering such relentless resistance to Mr. Obama’s agenda, given his popularity and the gains Democrats made in Congress last year.
But they say they believe the public is becoming alarmed at the level of spending being pursued by Democrats. They intend to use the next month of budget debate to reinforce that impression.
“The question before the American people is whether the American family can afford the Democrats’ spending, the Democrats’ taxing and the Democrats’ borrowing,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate. “We have four weeks to make that case.”
A version of this article appeared in print on March 14, 2009, on page A9 of the New York edition
Republicans Split on Need to Offer Rival for Budget
By CARL HULSE
March 13, 2009
WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans are engaged in a highly coordinated political assault on President Obama’s budget, but they are not so united when it comes to offering an alternative to the spending plan they have been shredding as irresponsible.
Breaking with the House, Senate Republicans say they do not intend to offer a full counterproposal to Mr. Obama’s sweeping $3.6 trillion spending blueprint, a decision that will spare them from outlining potentially painful decisions required to bring federal books more in line with their call to hold down spending, cut taxes and reduce the deficit.
“The responsibility of the majority is to produce the budget,” said Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, senior Republican on the Budget Committee, “and we think it is more constructive to point out how we would improve their budget.”
With a month to go before Congress is supposed to pass a budget resolution, Democrats say the absence of a competing Senate Republican plan makes Republican complaints about the Obama approach ring hollow. Would Republicans, they ask, continue to keep the costs of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan off the books? Account for the costly annual change to protect middle-class taxpayers from the alternative minimum tax? Set up a disaster fund to prepare for emergencies?
“They are long on criticism and short on a plan,” said Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff. “They have a communications strategy instead of an economic one.”
House Republicans said they intended to deliver a comprehensive alternative to the Obama plan to show how they would respond to the federal government’s deepening fiscal difficulties but were not ready to provide details.
As they try to reassert themselves as guardians of fiscal discipline after their own years of deficit spending, Republicans have been providing a steady stream of complaints depicting Mr. Obama’s plan as spending too much, taxing too much and borrowing too much.
The effort is being made with more than the usual level of cooperation between House and Senate Republicans, with Republican leaders of the two chambers appearing in tandem and lawmakers repeating their antibudget criticism almost as a mantra.
In contrast to the first weeks of the Obama presidency, the attacks are aimed squarely at Mr. Obama, whose popularity initially shielded him from Republican criticism.
“Republicans in the House and Senate, with some degree of cooperation and collaboration, are going to attempt to both challenge the assumptions and the content of the president’s budget,” said Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, the No. 3 Republican in the House.
Democrats are trying to exploit the absence of a Republican alternative, creating a Web page with a clock counting the hours since the Obama budget was introduced on Feb. 26 with no Republican alternative put forth. It lampoons Republicans as the “Party of No.”
Some Republicans acknowledge that the constant repetition of their budget message could turn it stale in Washington, but they say such persistence is required to break through with the general public.
With their majorities in the House and Senate lost, Republican leaders say that an effective communications strategy is their best hope. They say they have little ability to influence the legislative debate, particularly in the House, if Democrats are determined to press ahead with Mr. Obama’s plan to take on health care, climate change, education, transportation and other major issues.
“As I told my colleagues, we don’t have enough votes to legislate,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader. “We are not in the majority. We are not kind-of in the minority; we are in a hole. They ought to get the idea out of their minds that they are legislators. But what they can be is communicators.”
The House has a history in which the minority party and other coalitions have often proposed their own budgets to draw distinctions with the party in power. Senate Democrats have offered alternative budgets in the past, including one in 2001, the first year of the George W. Bush’s presidency.
Compared to Republicans in the Senate, it will be easier for those in the House to push forward a competing spending plan because so many of them represent conservative areas where cuts in federal spending are less of a political liability.
Senators have broader constituencies and a budget that meets Republican fiscal goals could be a difficult vote for some Republicans.
House Republicans offered an alternative to Mr. Obama’s economic stimulus that they said was less costly and created more jobs, though economists and others challenged the Republican economic assumptions and claims. Mr. Pence and Mr. Boehner said House Republicans believed they needed to propose their own budget to bolster the credibility of their criticisms of the Obama plan.
“It is incumbent for us to get out there and make sure people understand we have a better solution,” Mr. Boehner said.
Republicans are taking a political risk in offering such relentless resistance to Mr. Obama’s agenda, given his popularity and the gains Democrats made in Congress last year.
But they say they believe the public is becoming alarmed at the level of spending being pursued by Democrats. They intend to use the next month of budget debate to reinforce that impression.
“The question before the American people is whether the American family can afford the Democrats’ spending, the Democrats’ taxing and the Democrats’ borrowing,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate. “We have four weeks to make that case.”
A version of this article appeared in print on March 14, 2009, on page A9 of the New York edition
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Miracle Noodle Really Is Zero Carbs, Zero Calories
http://www.naturalnews.com/Review_400032_Miracle_Noodle_glucomannan_Konjac.html
Review: Miracle Noodle Really Is Zero Carbs, Zero Calories
By Mike Adams, January 28, 2009
Key concepts: Miracle Noodle, Glucomannan and Konjac
We've received quite a few questions about the Miracle Noodle product (http://www.miraclenoodle.com/), mostly from readers wondering if the noodles are any good, and if they're really zero calories.
Good news on both counts: The noodles are good, and they really are zero calories! How is this accomplished?
We asked the Miracle Noodle company to send us a few samples so I can try the product myself, and they promptly sent over a few bags of their noodles in various sizes. I then used the noodles in a few recipes, including a soup recipe and an Italian pasta recipe. My verdict? They're great!
But you have to understand the context here: They don't taste like wheat noodles or grain pasta. In fact, they have virtually no taste at all. They're made out of konjac root, the source for glucomannan, which is used as a natural fiber in some nutritional supplements. This root has traditionally been used throughout Asia as part of a healthy diet, so it's not new to the food supply.
What's new is turning it into the shape of various noodles and using them as a replacement for traditional pasta. In that context, the noodles look like pasta and even have a similar texture as pasta, but they contain zero calories and no carbs.
For some, the lack of taste might be a problem. If you're expecting Miracle Noodles to taste like spaghetti, you'll be disappointed. Rather, the key about working with Miracle Noodles is to let the sauce carry the taste and recognize that the noodles themselves are basically there as placeholders.
That's actually a good strategy for dieting, by the way: Eating more glucomannan causes you to feel full (physically) before you've eaten very many calories. So your brain is somewhat tricked into thinking you ate a huge meal, but in reality the caloric energy in that meal is dramatically reduced compared to a traditional pasta meal.
Eating a noodle meal with Miracle Noodles in place of traditional pasta could easily reduce the total calorie count of the meal by 500, and possibly more. Just as importantly, it will also reduce the glycemic index of the meal considerably, and that's great news for anyone working on controlling their blood sugar levels (diabetics in particular).
In all, the Miracle Noodle product gets a thumbs up from me. The only downside is that it's packed in plastic bags, and there is a legitimate concern for bisphenol-A contamination in plastic packaging these days, so I hope to see the company introduce a BPA-free plastic container in the future.
Miracle Noodles are available in various physical formats: Angel Hair, Fettucini, Orzo Pasta, Linguini and several others. See their website for details: http://www.miraclenoodle.com/
Disclaimer: I have no financial ties to the Miracle Noodle company and earn nothing from the sale of this product.
View the source:
http://www.miraclenoodle.com/
Review: Miracle Noodle Really Is Zero Carbs, Zero Calories
By Mike Adams, January 28, 2009
Key concepts: Miracle Noodle, Glucomannan and Konjac
We've received quite a few questions about the Miracle Noodle product (http://www.miraclenoodle.com/), mostly from readers wondering if the noodles are any good, and if they're really zero calories.
Good news on both counts: The noodles are good, and they really are zero calories! How is this accomplished?
We asked the Miracle Noodle company to send us a few samples so I can try the product myself, and they promptly sent over a few bags of their noodles in various sizes. I then used the noodles in a few recipes, including a soup recipe and an Italian pasta recipe. My verdict? They're great!
But you have to understand the context here: They don't taste like wheat noodles or grain pasta. In fact, they have virtually no taste at all. They're made out of konjac root, the source for glucomannan, which is used as a natural fiber in some nutritional supplements. This root has traditionally been used throughout Asia as part of a healthy diet, so it's not new to the food supply.
What's new is turning it into the shape of various noodles and using them as a replacement for traditional pasta. In that context, the noodles look like pasta and even have a similar texture as pasta, but they contain zero calories and no carbs.
For some, the lack of taste might be a problem. If you're expecting Miracle Noodles to taste like spaghetti, you'll be disappointed. Rather, the key about working with Miracle Noodles is to let the sauce carry the taste and recognize that the noodles themselves are basically there as placeholders.
That's actually a good strategy for dieting, by the way: Eating more glucomannan causes you to feel full (physically) before you've eaten very many calories. So your brain is somewhat tricked into thinking you ate a huge meal, but in reality the caloric energy in that meal is dramatically reduced compared to a traditional pasta meal.
Eating a noodle meal with Miracle Noodles in place of traditional pasta could easily reduce the total calorie count of the meal by 500, and possibly more. Just as importantly, it will also reduce the glycemic index of the meal considerably, and that's great news for anyone working on controlling their blood sugar levels (diabetics in particular).
In all, the Miracle Noodle product gets a thumbs up from me. The only downside is that it's packed in plastic bags, and there is a legitimate concern for bisphenol-A contamination in plastic packaging these days, so I hope to see the company introduce a BPA-free plastic container in the future.
Miracle Noodles are available in various physical formats: Angel Hair, Fettucini, Orzo Pasta, Linguini and several others. See their website for details: http://www.miraclenoodle.com/
Disclaimer: I have no financial ties to the Miracle Noodle company and earn nothing from the sale of this product.
View the source:
http://www.miraclenoodle.com/
Artificial life could be created "within five years"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/4974917/Artificial-life-could-be-created-within-five-years.html
Artificial life could be created "within five years", researchers from the USA have claimed.
12 Mar 2009
Prof David Dreamer believes building a new lifeform from scratch is a daunting task but is confident it could happen in five to 10 years
Laboratories across the world are closing in on a "second genesis" - an achievement that would be one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time.
Prof David Deamer, from California University, said although building a new lifeform from scratch is a daunting task he is confident it can happen in five to 10 years.
He said: "The momentum is building - we're knocking at the door."
A synthetic, made-to-order living system could produce everything from new drugs to biofuels and greenhouse gas absorbers.
Opponents of the controversial research claim the technology could lead to machines becoming "almost human".
But there would be no safety issues for a long time as any initial organisms would be very primitive and need large-scale life support in the lab, reports New Scientist.
The finishing line could be in sight after geneticists Professor George Church and Dr Michael Jewett, of Harvard Medical School, told a synthetic biology conference in Hong Kong that they had synthetically created part of a cell, called a ribosome.
The breakthrough offers hope that they could create an entire cell; something Prof Church believes would be a relatively minor challenge.
He said: "There's nothing you'd expect to go wrong - the way we expected things to go wrong with the assembly."
However, according to Dr Anthony Forster, of Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, who is also creating a synthetic living cell in a test tube with Prof Church, "until you actually try this you won't know".
"Having said that we know cells can do it so we should be able to do it sooner or later."
Artificial life could be created "within five years", researchers from the USA have claimed.
12 Mar 2009
Prof David Dreamer believes building a new lifeform from scratch is a daunting task but is confident it could happen in five to 10 years
Laboratories across the world are closing in on a "second genesis" - an achievement that would be one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time.
Prof David Deamer, from California University, said although building a new lifeform from scratch is a daunting task he is confident it can happen in five to 10 years.
He said: "The momentum is building - we're knocking at the door."
A synthetic, made-to-order living system could produce everything from new drugs to biofuels and greenhouse gas absorbers.
Opponents of the controversial research claim the technology could lead to machines becoming "almost human".
But there would be no safety issues for a long time as any initial organisms would be very primitive and need large-scale life support in the lab, reports New Scientist.
The finishing line could be in sight after geneticists Professor George Church and Dr Michael Jewett, of Harvard Medical School, told a synthetic biology conference in Hong Kong that they had synthetically created part of a cell, called a ribosome.
The breakthrough offers hope that they could create an entire cell; something Prof Church believes would be a relatively minor challenge.
He said: "There's nothing you'd expect to go wrong - the way we expected things to go wrong with the assembly."
However, according to Dr Anthony Forster, of Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, who is also creating a synthetic living cell in a test tube with Prof Church, "until you actually try this you won't know".
"Having said that we know cells can do it so we should be able to do it sooner or later."
INTRODUCING VERITOCRACY
For more information please email Shawn Hoffman: shawn@veri.com.
Disinformation alumnus Lee Hoffman has launched Veritocracy (www.veri.com) — here's a message from Lee on this exciting news service.
INTRODUCING VERITOCRACY: Let Better Information Find YOU
We started Veritocracy (www.veri.com) based on a simple idea: to create a personalized news site that really worked. There were and are a lot of social content sites and news aggregators, but we believed it was possible to build a site that wasn't just finding popular stuff — it was finding the highest quality and most relevant content, specifically for you.
It took a lot of testing, tweaking, designing, and building, and quite honestly it proved a lot more complex than we originally expected. But today, we're really thrilled to allow everyone in to see what we've been working on.
Simply put, Veritocracy gives you a personalized view of the topics and news stories that interest you. The system brings together articles from the blogosphere, mainstream media, and readers, and then helps group them into specific and narrow topics (like a news story, a stock or a movie). As a reader, you simply vote up on the articles you like and down on the ones you don't, and Veritocracy automatically learns to feed you the best articles on the topics that interest you most.
Instead of searching for information and hoping that what you read is credible and complete, Veritocracy creates a rich and full picture of each story you read about. And of course, since Veritocracy is a social content site, if you have a better perspective on any topic, you can always submit your own. In fact, for bloggers and publishers, Veritocracy automatically helps build organic traffic by connecting you with other publishers and readers interested in the topics you're writing about.
At the end of the day, we believe that if you create a site that can deliver the best information on a personalized basis, you create a true meritocracy of content distribution as well.
We have a lot more in store in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned and definitely let us know what you think.
Best,
Lee
Lee Hoffman
Chief Executive Officer
Veritocracy, LLC.
www.veri.com
Disinformation alumnus Lee Hoffman has launched Veritocracy (www.veri.com) — here's a message from Lee on this exciting news service.
INTRODUCING VERITOCRACY: Let Better Information Find YOU
We started Veritocracy (www.veri.com) based on a simple idea: to create a personalized news site that really worked. There were and are a lot of social content sites and news aggregators, but we believed it was possible to build a site that wasn't just finding popular stuff — it was finding the highest quality and most relevant content, specifically for you.
It took a lot of testing, tweaking, designing, and building, and quite honestly it proved a lot more complex than we originally expected. But today, we're really thrilled to allow everyone in to see what we've been working on.
Simply put, Veritocracy gives you a personalized view of the topics and news stories that interest you. The system brings together articles from the blogosphere, mainstream media, and readers, and then helps group them into specific and narrow topics (like a news story, a stock or a movie). As a reader, you simply vote up on the articles you like and down on the ones you don't, and Veritocracy automatically learns to feed you the best articles on the topics that interest you most.
Instead of searching for information and hoping that what you read is credible and complete, Veritocracy creates a rich and full picture of each story you read about. And of course, since Veritocracy is a social content site, if you have a better perspective on any topic, you can always submit your own. In fact, for bloggers and publishers, Veritocracy automatically helps build organic traffic by connecting you with other publishers and readers interested in the topics you're writing about.
At the end of the day, we believe that if you create a site that can deliver the best information on a personalized basis, you create a true meritocracy of content distribution as well.
We have a lot more in store in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned and definitely let us know what you think.
Best,
Lee
Lee Hoffman
Chief Executive Officer
Veritocracy, LLC.
www.veri.com
'Executive assassination ring' reported to Cheney
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Hersh_US_has_been_running_executive_0311.html
Hersh: 'Executive assassination ring' reported directly to Cheney
Muriel Kane
Wednesday March 11, 2009
Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh dropped a bombshell on Tuesday when he told an audience at the University of Minnesota that the military was running an "executive assassination ring" throughout the Bush years which reported directly to former Vice President Dick Cheney.
The remark came out seemingly inadvertently when Hersh was asked by the moderator of a public discussion of "America's Constitutional Crisis" whether abuses of executive power, like those which occurred under Richard Nixon, continue to this day.
Hersh replied, "After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet."
Hersh then went on to describe a second area of extra-legal operations: the Joint Special Operations Command. "It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently," he explained. "They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. ... Congress has no oversight of it."
"It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on," Hersh stated. "Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us."
Hersh told MinnPost.com blogger Eric Black in an email exchange after the event that the subject was "not something I wanted to dwell about in public." He is looking into it for a book, but he believes it may be a year or two before he has enough evidence "for even the most skeptical."
Stories have been coming out about covert Pentagon assassination squads for the last several years. In 2003, Hersh himself reported on Task Force 121, which operated chiefly out of the Joint Special Operations Command. Others stories spoke of a proposed Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group.
As Hersh noted in Minnesota, the New York Times on Monday described the Joint Special Operations Command as overseeing the secret commando units in Afghanistan whose missions were temporarily ordered halted last month because of growing concerns over excessive civilian deaths.
However, it appears that Hersh is now on the trail of some fresh revelation about these squads and their connection to Vice-President Cheney that goes well beyond anything that has previously been reported.
Hersh: 'Executive assassination ring' reported directly to Cheney
Muriel Kane
Wednesday March 11, 2009
Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh dropped a bombshell on Tuesday when he told an audience at the University of Minnesota that the military was running an "executive assassination ring" throughout the Bush years which reported directly to former Vice President Dick Cheney.
The remark came out seemingly inadvertently when Hersh was asked by the moderator of a public discussion of "America's Constitutional Crisis" whether abuses of executive power, like those which occurred under Richard Nixon, continue to this day.
Hersh replied, "After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet."
Hersh then went on to describe a second area of extra-legal operations: the Joint Special Operations Command. "It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently," he explained. "They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. ... Congress has no oversight of it."
"It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on," Hersh stated. "Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us."
Hersh told MinnPost.com blogger Eric Black in an email exchange after the event that the subject was "not something I wanted to dwell about in public." He is looking into it for a book, but he believes it may be a year or two before he has enough evidence "for even the most skeptical."
Stories have been coming out about covert Pentagon assassination squads for the last several years. In 2003, Hersh himself reported on Task Force 121, which operated chiefly out of the Joint Special Operations Command. Others stories spoke of a proposed Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group.
As Hersh noted in Minnesota, the New York Times on Monday described the Joint Special Operations Command as overseeing the secret commando units in Afghanistan whose missions were temporarily ordered halted last month because of growing concerns over excessive civilian deaths.
However, it appears that Hersh is now on the trail of some fresh revelation about these squads and their connection to Vice-President Cheney that goes well beyond anything that has previously been reported.
The World's Billionaires
http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/11/worlds-richest-people-billionaires-2009-billionaires_land.html
The World's Billionaires
Edited by Luisa Kroll, Matthew Miller and Tatiana Serafin
03.11.09
The richest people in the world have gotten poorer, just like the rest of us. This year the world's billionaires have an average net worth of $3 billion, down 23% in 12 months. The world now has 793 billionaires, down from 1,125 a year ago.
After slipping in recent years, the U.S. is regaining its dominance as a repository of wealth. Americans account for 44% of the money and 45% of the list's slots, up seven and three percentage points from last year, respectively. Bill Gates lost $18 billion but regained his title as the world's richest man. Warren Buffett, last year's No. 1, saw his fortune decline $25 billion as shares of Berkshire Hathaway fell nearly 50% in 12 months. Mexican telecom titan Carlos Slim Helú maintains his spot in the top three but lost $25 billion.
THE BILLIONAIRES
William Gates III
Warren Buffett
Carlos Slim Helú
Lawrence Ellison
Ingvar Kamprad
Karl Albrecht
Mukesh Ambani
Lakshmi Mittal
Theo Albrecht
Amancio Ortega
Jim Walton
Alice Walton
Christy Walton
S Robson Walton
Bernard Arnault
Li Ka-shing
Michael Bloomberg
Stefan Persson
Charles Koch
David Koch
The World's Billionaires
Edited by Luisa Kroll, Matthew Miller and Tatiana Serafin
03.11.09
The richest people in the world have gotten poorer, just like the rest of us. This year the world's billionaires have an average net worth of $3 billion, down 23% in 12 months. The world now has 793 billionaires, down from 1,125 a year ago.
After slipping in recent years, the U.S. is regaining its dominance as a repository of wealth. Americans account for 44% of the money and 45% of the list's slots, up seven and three percentage points from last year, respectively. Bill Gates lost $18 billion but regained his title as the world's richest man. Warren Buffett, last year's No. 1, saw his fortune decline $25 billion as shares of Berkshire Hathaway fell nearly 50% in 12 months. Mexican telecom titan Carlos Slim Helú maintains his spot in the top three but lost $25 billion.
THE BILLIONAIRES
William Gates III
Warren Buffett
Carlos Slim Helú
Lawrence Ellison
Ingvar Kamprad
Karl Albrecht
Mukesh Ambani
Lakshmi Mittal
Theo Albrecht
Amancio Ortega
Jim Walton
Alice Walton
Christy Walton
S Robson Walton
Bernard Arnault
Li Ka-shing
Michael Bloomberg
Stefan Persson
Charles Koch
David Koch
Crowds protest around world for freedom in Tibet
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j7cV8KRfDpcE1792bvS9XMvLbGqQD96RCEJG2
Crowds protest around world for freedom in Tibet
By JENNIFER PELTZ
3-10-9
NEW YORK (AP) — Hundreds of pro-Tibetan protesters marched in New York City on Tuesday, the 50th anniversary of the failed uprising that sent the Dalai Lama into exile.
The protest was mirrored by similar demonstrations in Europe and Asia as Tibetan exiles and their supporters urged an end to Chinese rule in the region.
Demonstrators marched to the United Nations wearing T-shirts saying "Tibet — 50 years of resistance." They planned to move on to the Chinese Consulate and other locales.
A consulate spokesman said officials have taken security precautions but have no other response to the protests.
Tuesday marks a half-century since the March 10, 1959, riots inside Tibet that led to a Chinese crackdown and, later that month, the Dalai Lama's dramatic flight across the Himalayas and into exile.
There has been a widening rift between those still in Tibet and their Chinese rulers since new violence engulfed the region last year.
In India, thousands of young Tibetans marched through the streets Tuesday in Dharmsala, the town where the Dalai Lama set up his base after fleeing Tibet.
The spiritual leader, now 73, told followers there that Chinese rulers were treating his people "like criminals deserving to be put to death." In unusually harsh language, he said they have pushed Tibetan culture and identity almost to extinction and "brought untold suffering to the land and people of Tibet."
In London, more than 100 protesters marched near the Houses of Parliament, some dressed in monk outfits or bright traditional Tibetan dresses.
"I can hold this flag here, but a Tibetan person couldn't hold their flag in their country," said Julie Speechley, one of the protesters in London. "I could say `freedom for Tibet' here, but a Tibetan person could be imprisoned and tortured for that."
Similar protests were held Tuesday across Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
In Germany, Green Party lawmaker Volker Beck called on world leaders to encourage China to resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama. A small group of demonstrators gathered outside the Chinese Embassy in Berlin.
Some 80 people lit white candles in front of the Chinese Embassy in Warsaw, Poland.
In Canberra, the Australian capital, a handful of protesters scuffled with police outside the Chinese Embassy after about 300 had marched from Parliament House.
Police arrested four people after they broke through temporary fencing bordering a designated protest area, police said. The phone at the press office in the Chinese Embassy in Canberra rang unanswered Tuesday.
In Nepal, home to thousands of Tibetan exiles, police blocked about 100 Tibetans who demonstrated on the outskirts of the capital Katmandu chanting "Stop killing in Tibet! Free Tibet!"
Associated Press writers Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia; Gavin Rabinowitz in Dharmsala, India; and Laura Nichols in London contributed to this report.
Crowds protest around world for freedom in Tibet
By JENNIFER PELTZ
3-10-9
NEW YORK (AP) — Hundreds of pro-Tibetan protesters marched in New York City on Tuesday, the 50th anniversary of the failed uprising that sent the Dalai Lama into exile.
The protest was mirrored by similar demonstrations in Europe and Asia as Tibetan exiles and their supporters urged an end to Chinese rule in the region.
Demonstrators marched to the United Nations wearing T-shirts saying "Tibet — 50 years of resistance." They planned to move on to the Chinese Consulate and other locales.
A consulate spokesman said officials have taken security precautions but have no other response to the protests.
Tuesday marks a half-century since the March 10, 1959, riots inside Tibet that led to a Chinese crackdown and, later that month, the Dalai Lama's dramatic flight across the Himalayas and into exile.
There has been a widening rift between those still in Tibet and their Chinese rulers since new violence engulfed the region last year.
In India, thousands of young Tibetans marched through the streets Tuesday in Dharmsala, the town where the Dalai Lama set up his base after fleeing Tibet.
The spiritual leader, now 73, told followers there that Chinese rulers were treating his people "like criminals deserving to be put to death." In unusually harsh language, he said they have pushed Tibetan culture and identity almost to extinction and "brought untold suffering to the land and people of Tibet."
In London, more than 100 protesters marched near the Houses of Parliament, some dressed in monk outfits or bright traditional Tibetan dresses.
"I can hold this flag here, but a Tibetan person couldn't hold their flag in their country," said Julie Speechley, one of the protesters in London. "I could say `freedom for Tibet' here, but a Tibetan person could be imprisoned and tortured for that."
Similar protests were held Tuesday across Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
In Germany, Green Party lawmaker Volker Beck called on world leaders to encourage China to resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama. A small group of demonstrators gathered outside the Chinese Embassy in Berlin.
Some 80 people lit white candles in front of the Chinese Embassy in Warsaw, Poland.
In Canberra, the Australian capital, a handful of protesters scuffled with police outside the Chinese Embassy after about 300 had marched from Parliament House.
Police arrested four people after they broke through temporary fencing bordering a designated protest area, police said. The phone at the press office in the Chinese Embassy in Canberra rang unanswered Tuesday.
In Nepal, home to thousands of Tibetan exiles, police blocked about 100 Tibetans who demonstrated on the outskirts of the capital Katmandu chanting "Stop killing in Tibet! Free Tibet!"
Associated Press writers Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia; Gavin Rabinowitz in Dharmsala, India; and Laura Nichols in London contributed to this report.
Pepsi Products Get a Sweet Makeover
http://food.aol.com/new-pepsiPepsi Products Get a Sweet Makeover with Real Sugar
Pepsi announces a trio of additions to their product lines
by Kat Kinsman
Members of the original Pepsi Generation are about to get a sweet trip down memory lane. The company announced on Thursday that three new "retro" sodas will be hitting beverage aisles beginning in March and April.
Frank Cooper, a VP for Pepsi-Cola North America Beverages announced via the company's website, "Pepsi Natural and the Throwback duo (Pepsi and Mountain Dew) give consumers the opportunity to refresh how they experience soft drinks."
The big difference? Packaging and sweetener. Pepsi Natural, touted as a "premium" cola, replaces the brand's standard sweetener -- high fructose corn syrup -- with natural cane and beet sugar, shaving four grams of sugar per 12-ounce serving. Pepsi's website also touted lightly sparkling water, natural caramel, kola nut extract, natural apple extract and a light, amber color as hallmarks of its revamped formula.
Two more brand extensions, Pepsi Throwback and Mountain Dew Throwback, will be available for a limited time only. These soft drinks are also sugar-sweetened and packaged with an old school design, inspired by the '60s and '70s. Both will be nationally available beginning April 20th, for a limited run of eight weeks.
High fructose corn syrup has come under fire from opponents who claim that the substance -- chemically identical to sugar -- promotes obesity, though no scientific causality has been found. HFCS became popular with manufacturers in the 1980s as an alternative to cane sugar, which generally costs twice as much. Sugar sweetened Pepsi products, indicated by a white cap, are available in the United States during Passover, as the consumption of corn is forbidden under Kosher law during that time period.
California raw almonds must be treated, judge rules
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/63610.html
Monday, March 9, 2009
California raw almonds must be treated, judge rules
By Michael Doyle McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — A federal judge Monday upheld requirements that raw California almonds be treated to protect consumers from salmonella poisoning.
In a blow to organic almond producers and handlers, the Washington, D.C.-based judge rejected challenges to pasteurization requirements designed by the Almond Board of California. The Agriculture Department formally imposed the rules in March 2007, setting off sparks.
The ruling issued by U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvell did not directly address the merits of the almond pasteurization standards. Instead, Huvell dismissed largely on technical grounds the complaint filed by Fresno-based farmer Nick Koretoff, Livington-based farmer Cynthia Lashbrook and others.
Huvell determined the farmers had failed to exhaust potential administrative remedies. Moreover, the judge said farmers might not have legal recourse even if they could prove the safety rules would cause economic injury.
"Their fundamental concern is with the impact of the treatment regulation on their ability to sell their almonds in a niche organic market at a premium," Huvelle noted, adding that "the Supreme Court (has) specifically recognized that not every loss would qualify as a deprivation of a definite personal right of the producer."
Almond Board and Agriculture Department officials were unfamiliar with the judge's decision and offered no comment on it.
But while rather technical in nature, the 11-page ruling promises real-world consequences in the San Joaquin Valley, which dominates U.S. almond production. Among other things, the Agriculture Department estimates anti-salmonella treatments will add somewhere between two cents and seven cents per pound to the cost of almonds.
The 10-member almond board, based in Modesto, administers the federal marketing order by which the $2.5 billion-a-year industry regulates quality control, research and advertising. The board recommended new safety rules in 2006 following incidents of salmonella contamination in 2001 and 2004, and the Agriculture Department subsequently put them in place.
The new rules required almond handlers to achieve a stricter reduction in salmonella bacteria count, by pasteurizing the nuts before shipping. Pasteurization methods range from blanching and steam treatments to use of chemicals.
"While contamination in almonds is not common, the industry determined that aggressive measures were necessary to prevent any other occurrences," the almond board stated at the time the rules were imposed.
Organic almond growers, though, claimed in their lawsuit filed in September that the new requirements "functionally shut them out of the organic market." The growers stated that "substantial amounts" of their almonds could not be sold in the last two years.
"(Organic almond) handlers have built their businesses, in part, by marketing raw almonds to customers interested in buying food that is minimally processed, free from the use of chemicals, and not exposed to heat treatments, roasting, or other processes," the lawsuit stated.
Raw almonds could be sold for up to 40 percent more than treated almonds, the unhappy growers noted.
The 2001 salmonella outbreak first identified in Canada was traced back to bulk raw almonds. A second salmonella outbreak in 2004 resulted in the recall of 15 million pounds of almonds. Consumer confidence falls with every food scare, industry leaders note.
Monday, March 9, 2009
California raw almonds must be treated, judge rules
By Michael Doyle McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — A federal judge Monday upheld requirements that raw California almonds be treated to protect consumers from salmonella poisoning.
In a blow to organic almond producers and handlers, the Washington, D.C.-based judge rejected challenges to pasteurization requirements designed by the Almond Board of California. The Agriculture Department formally imposed the rules in March 2007, setting off sparks.
The ruling issued by U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvell did not directly address the merits of the almond pasteurization standards. Instead, Huvell dismissed largely on technical grounds the complaint filed by Fresno-based farmer Nick Koretoff, Livington-based farmer Cynthia Lashbrook and others.
Huvell determined the farmers had failed to exhaust potential administrative remedies. Moreover, the judge said farmers might not have legal recourse even if they could prove the safety rules would cause economic injury.
"Their fundamental concern is with the impact of the treatment regulation on their ability to sell their almonds in a niche organic market at a premium," Huvelle noted, adding that "the Supreme Court (has) specifically recognized that not every loss would qualify as a deprivation of a definite personal right of the producer."
Almond Board and Agriculture Department officials were unfamiliar with the judge's decision and offered no comment on it.
But while rather technical in nature, the 11-page ruling promises real-world consequences in the San Joaquin Valley, which dominates U.S. almond production. Among other things, the Agriculture Department estimates anti-salmonella treatments will add somewhere between two cents and seven cents per pound to the cost of almonds.
The 10-member almond board, based in Modesto, administers the federal marketing order by which the $2.5 billion-a-year industry regulates quality control, research and advertising. The board recommended new safety rules in 2006 following incidents of salmonella contamination in 2001 and 2004, and the Agriculture Department subsequently put them in place.
The new rules required almond handlers to achieve a stricter reduction in salmonella bacteria count, by pasteurizing the nuts before shipping. Pasteurization methods range from blanching and steam treatments to use of chemicals.
"While contamination in almonds is not common, the industry determined that aggressive measures were necessary to prevent any other occurrences," the almond board stated at the time the rules were imposed.
Organic almond growers, though, claimed in their lawsuit filed in September that the new requirements "functionally shut them out of the organic market." The growers stated that "substantial amounts" of their almonds could not be sold in the last two years.
"(Organic almond) handlers have built their businesses, in part, by marketing raw almonds to customers interested in buying food that is minimally processed, free from the use of chemicals, and not exposed to heat treatments, roasting, or other processes," the lawsuit stated.
Raw almonds could be sold for up to 40 percent more than treated almonds, the unhappy growers noted.
The 2001 salmonella outbreak first identified in Canada was traced back to bulk raw almonds. A second salmonella outbreak in 2004 resulted in the recall of 15 million pounds of almonds. Consumer confidence falls with every food scare, industry leaders note.
US Recession Could Last Up to 36 Months: Roubini
http://www.cnbc.com/id/29598949
US Recession Could Last Up to 36 Months: Roubini
Jane Wells, Correspondent
09 Mar 2009
The man who predicted the current financial crisis said the US recession could drag on for years without drastic action.
Among his solutions: fix the housing market by breaking "every mortgage contract."
"We are in the 15th month of a recession," said Nouriel Roubini, a professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, told CNBC in a live interview. "Growth is going to be close to zero and unemployment rate well above 10 percent into next year."
Echoing a speech he made earlier in the day, Roubini said he sees "no hope for the recession ending in 2009 and will more than likely last into 2010."
Roubini, who is also known as "Dr. Doom," told CNBC that the risk of a total meltdown has been reversed for now but that the economy is going through "a death by a thousand cuts." He also said that "most of the U.S. financial institutions are entirely insolvent."
"The market friendly view for the banks is nationalization," said Roubini. "Temporarily take over the banks, clean them up and get them working again."
As for the claim that the Treasury Department can't legally take over the banks, Roubini said that most of the banks are already owned by the government and that the government could "put them in receivership" if it had to.
Earlier in the day, Roubini spoke to the CBOE Risk Management Conference and said he believes total losses could peak at $3.6 trillion in the financial system, with half of that being borne by banks and bank dealers and the other half borne by hedge funds and pension funds, among others.
He said that while U.S. GDP next year could be zero, global GDP could dip into negative territory.
"We could end up ... with a 36-month recession, that could be "L-shaped stagnation, or near depression," Roubini said. He puts the chance of a severe U-shaped recession at 66.7 percent, and a more severe L-shaped recession at 33.3 percent.
Roubini listed a litany of negative omens: Capex spending down 20-30 percent for investment grade companies, self-perpetuating deflation, all making a bad situation worse.
"If you expect prices to be lower tomorrow, why would you buy today?", asked Roubini. He says it's easier to break out of am inflationary cycle than a deflationary one, and while a year of deflation "is okay," longer would be "a disaster."
So what can the government do? The easy part is lowering interest rates and buying toxic assets. The hard part, he says, will be tackling housing. Roubini says that the housing market, like a company restructuring in bankruptcy, needs to have "face value reduction of the debt." Rather than go through mortgages one by one, he says reduction has to be "across the board...break every mortgage contract."
Roubini also took issue with the $800 billion stimulus package, saying it's not enough. For one thing, there's only $200 billion upfront, and half of that is a tax cut, which Roubini calls "a waste of money" that is not going to make a difference.
Finally, while he says there will be "a light at the end of the tunnel", it'll probably get worse before it gets better. Those who believe in a second half recovery this year "are delusional" he says.
In fact, based on Roubini's calculations, we could conceivably see the S&P 500 at 500, the Dow at 5000.
US Recession Could Last Up to 36 Months: Roubini
Jane Wells, Correspondent
09 Mar 2009
The man who predicted the current financial crisis said the US recession could drag on for years without drastic action.
Among his solutions: fix the housing market by breaking "every mortgage contract."
"We are in the 15th month of a recession," said Nouriel Roubini, a professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, told CNBC in a live interview. "Growth is going to be close to zero and unemployment rate well above 10 percent into next year."
Echoing a speech he made earlier in the day, Roubini said he sees "no hope for the recession ending in 2009 and will more than likely last into 2010."
Roubini, who is also known as "Dr. Doom," told CNBC that the risk of a total meltdown has been reversed for now but that the economy is going through "a death by a thousand cuts." He also said that "most of the U.S. financial institutions are entirely insolvent."
"The market friendly view for the banks is nationalization," said Roubini. "Temporarily take over the banks, clean them up and get them working again."
As for the claim that the Treasury Department can't legally take over the banks, Roubini said that most of the banks are already owned by the government and that the government could "put them in receivership" if it had to.
Earlier in the day, Roubini spoke to the CBOE Risk Management Conference and said he believes total losses could peak at $3.6 trillion in the financial system, with half of that being borne by banks and bank dealers and the other half borne by hedge funds and pension funds, among others.
He said that while U.S. GDP next year could be zero, global GDP could dip into negative territory.
"We could end up ... with a 36-month recession, that could be "L-shaped stagnation, or near depression," Roubini said. He puts the chance of a severe U-shaped recession at 66.7 percent, and a more severe L-shaped recession at 33.3 percent.
Roubini listed a litany of negative omens: Capex spending down 20-30 percent for investment grade companies, self-perpetuating deflation, all making a bad situation worse.
"If you expect prices to be lower tomorrow, why would you buy today?", asked Roubini. He says it's easier to break out of am inflationary cycle than a deflationary one, and while a year of deflation "is okay," longer would be "a disaster."
So what can the government do? The easy part is lowering interest rates and buying toxic assets. The hard part, he says, will be tackling housing. Roubini says that the housing market, like a company restructuring in bankruptcy, needs to have "face value reduction of the debt." Rather than go through mortgages one by one, he says reduction has to be "across the board...break every mortgage contract."
Roubini also took issue with the $800 billion stimulus package, saying it's not enough. For one thing, there's only $200 billion upfront, and half of that is a tax cut, which Roubini calls "a waste of money" that is not going to make a difference.
Finally, while he says there will be "a light at the end of the tunnel", it'll probably get worse before it gets better. Those who believe in a second half recovery this year "are delusional" he says.
In fact, based on Roubini's calculations, we could conceivably see the S&P 500 at 500, the Dow at 5000.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The Leprechaun & The Pot of Gold
Humor Break
On St. Patrick's day, a guy gets drunk at a bar and goes to the bathroom to take a piss. When he's done, he looks to his left and sees a tiny man with red hair all dressed in green. Slurring his words, he asks: "Are you a leprechaun?"
The tiny man smiles and says: "Of course I am!"
The drunk smiles and asks: "Do I get your pot of gold, then?"
The leprechaun replies: "Of course you do. But first, you must meet my three challenges."
"Okay. What's the first?"
Pointing to one of the open stalls (they are the only two in the bathroom) the leprechaun explains: "Well, like all leprechauns, I have a huge magical penis. You need to go with me into the bathroom stall and suck on my magic penis until my magical fairy juice erupts from it, which you must swallow."
Excited about getting the pot of gold, the drunk goes into the stall, bends down below the tiny man, unzips his pants, then sucks on his huge penis. After a few minutes of this, the leprechaun shoots a massive amout of white fairy juice in his face. The leprechaun adds: "Be sure to lap it all up."
The drunk does as told, then asks excitedly: "Okay, what's next?"
"Well, like all leprechauns, my magical penis recovers quickly. I need you to pull down your pants so I can stick my huge magical penis into your asshole and fuck it."
The drunk excitedly pulls down his pants and bends over, while the leprechaun jumps on the toilet seat and pulls down his pants. The leprechaun shoves his penis in the drunk's asshole, making him groan, and soon develops a humping motion. The leprechaun smiles, then says: "You're very good at this! Now all you have to do is one little thing."
"What is it?"
"You just need to come up with the answer to my riddle."
"Okay, I'm ready. What's the riddle?"
The tiny man, still humping the drunk, bends over so his lips are next to the drunk's ear, and whispers: "You aren't really dumb enough to believe leprechaun's exist, are you?"
On St. Patrick's day, a guy gets drunk at a bar and goes to the bathroom to take a piss. When he's done, he looks to his left and sees a tiny man with red hair all dressed in green. Slurring his words, he asks: "Are you a leprechaun?"
The tiny man smiles and says: "Of course I am!"
The drunk smiles and asks: "Do I get your pot of gold, then?"
The leprechaun replies: "Of course you do. But first, you must meet my three challenges."
"Okay. What's the first?"
Pointing to one of the open stalls (they are the only two in the bathroom) the leprechaun explains: "Well, like all leprechauns, I have a huge magical penis. You need to go with me into the bathroom stall and suck on my magic penis until my magical fairy juice erupts from it, which you must swallow."
Excited about getting the pot of gold, the drunk goes into the stall, bends down below the tiny man, unzips his pants, then sucks on his huge penis. After a few minutes of this, the leprechaun shoots a massive amout of white fairy juice in his face. The leprechaun adds: "Be sure to lap it all up."
The drunk does as told, then asks excitedly: "Okay, what's next?"
"Well, like all leprechauns, my magical penis recovers quickly. I need you to pull down your pants so I can stick my huge magical penis into your asshole and fuck it."
The drunk excitedly pulls down his pants and bends over, while the leprechaun jumps on the toilet seat and pulls down his pants. The leprechaun shoves his penis in the drunk's asshole, making him groan, and soon develops a humping motion. The leprechaun smiles, then says: "You're very good at this! Now all you have to do is one little thing."
"What is it?"
"You just need to come up with the answer to my riddle."
"Okay, I'm ready. What's the riddle?"
The tiny man, still humping the drunk, bends over so his lips are next to the drunk's ear, and whispers: "You aren't really dumb enough to believe leprechaun's exist, are you?"
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Canceled: Life on Mars Is Dead
http://broadcatching.wordpress.com/2009/03/03/canceled-life-on-mars-is-dead/Canceled: Life on Mars Is Dead
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
By MICKEY O’CONNOR
TV GUIDE
ABC has canceled Life on Mars, but will allow the cop drama to complete its full one-season run. The network has opted not to extend the series beyond 17 episodes, according to Variety.
It’s not all bad news, though. Rather than wait until May when on-the-bubble shows are typically told whether or not they’ll be renewed or canceled, ABC told the producers now, so that they can plan for a proper series finale — a courtesy not extended to the recently unplugged ABC shows Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money and Eli Stone. “We felt it was the right thing to do for the producers and the fans and creatively,” ABC Entertainment Group President Steve McPherson told TelevisionWeek. Calls to ABC were not yet returned.
This is particularly important for Mars, as its mysterious premise — an NYPD cop is hit by a car and spontaneously time-travels back to 1973 — requires some explaining. Is Sam Tyler (Jason O’Mara) in a coma, at the mercy of supernatural forces or something else entirely?
For now, it seems, the fans will get that answer.
Did Life on Mars deserve the ax? Is ABC getting an itchy trigger finger on the cancellation front? And how would you like to see the series end?
Phish dusts off deep cuts in return to stage
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j3AhzqTQnjIL0RJ3BMqUhpd4RgDQD96P7AK00Phish dusts off deep cuts in return to stage
By JOSH L. DICKEY
3-7-9
HAMPTON, Va. (AP) — The Phish has landed.
The Vermont jamband ignited the second stage of its career as a touring juggernaut Friday night at the Hampton Coliseum, rocketing deep into their past to sate fans who've been waiting years to see them play live again.
With deep cuts like "Fluffhead," "Divided Sky" and "Chalkdust Torture," the foursome built the backbone of its first set on old-school material, expertly navigating hairpin changes and showing as much spunk as they ever have in this millenium.
Fans began to materialize around the spacecraft-styled hockey arena in Virginia by early afternoon, then swelled to a hollering mob by nightfall -- a scene the band's fiercely devoted following has longed to see since Phish called it quits in 2004.
Guitarist Trey Anastasio, brisk and energetic, snapped into the crisp form he was feeling around the time of their New Years Eve show in 1999, a widely accepted zenith for the band (except the moment ABC's coverage of Y2K cut to Peter Jennings introducing them to their largest TV audience ever as "The Phish").
While the band's detail-oriented crowd has never let Jennings live that one down, they were forgiving of Phish's five-year absence, crowding the Hampton area with rental cars, "no vacancy" signs and ticket-seekers, who patrolled highway exit ramps Friday evening, offering to trade cash or tickets for stops along the band's sold-out summer tour.
Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, keyboardist Page McConnell and drummer Jon Fishman are playing three shows in Hampton, their first since an amicable split that turned out to be more burnout therapy than the end to their 20-year run on the road.
Fans responded. When the reunion concerts were announced last fall, seats for the opening show were being resold for as high as $1,000 — and even more nefarious tactics than scalping were at play: Inside the venue on Friday, 29-year-old Rod Stewart said he bought a fake with a happy ending.
"We bought three tickets in the parking lot for $100 each, and when the lady scanned them, they came up 'counterfeit,'" said Stewart, of Chesapeake, Va., "but she let us in anyway."
Ryan Lafata, a spokesman with the Hampton Convention and Visitors Bureau, said it's possible to have upwards of 75,000 people come to the area for the three shows at the Coliseum, which holds about 13,000 for general-admission events.
Many of those fans included those who didn't have concert tickets, but traveled to congregate outside the coliseum to take in the scene and reunite with old friends.
Brett Hinckley of Greenville, S.C., said the coliseum is a favorite venue for Phish and its fans, who call the building "the mother ship" because of its resemblance to a giant UFO.
"The energy in the building is second to none," Hinckley said before the show. "Once you experience it, you just kind of need to be back."
Phish, which formed at the University of Vermont in 1983, is known for its amorphous blend of rock, jazz, bluegrass and other styles, which often launch into intense improvisations. Often likened to the Grateful Dead, they are a moderate commercial success in terms of sales, but remain a lucrative touring act.
Associated Press Writer Zinie Chen Sampson contributed to this report.
By JOSH L. DICKEY
3-7-9
HAMPTON, Va. (AP) — The Phish has landed.
The Vermont jamband ignited the second stage of its career as a touring juggernaut Friday night at the Hampton Coliseum, rocketing deep into their past to sate fans who've been waiting years to see them play live again.
With deep cuts like "Fluffhead," "Divided Sky" and "Chalkdust Torture," the foursome built the backbone of its first set on old-school material, expertly navigating hairpin changes and showing as much spunk as they ever have in this millenium.
Fans began to materialize around the spacecraft-styled hockey arena in Virginia by early afternoon, then swelled to a hollering mob by nightfall -- a scene the band's fiercely devoted following has longed to see since Phish called it quits in 2004.
Guitarist Trey Anastasio, brisk and energetic, snapped into the crisp form he was feeling around the time of their New Years Eve show in 1999, a widely accepted zenith for the band (except the moment ABC's coverage of Y2K cut to Peter Jennings introducing them to their largest TV audience ever as "The Phish").
While the band's detail-oriented crowd has never let Jennings live that one down, they were forgiving of Phish's five-year absence, crowding the Hampton area with rental cars, "no vacancy" signs and ticket-seekers, who patrolled highway exit ramps Friday evening, offering to trade cash or tickets for stops along the band's sold-out summer tour.
Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, keyboardist Page McConnell and drummer Jon Fishman are playing three shows in Hampton, their first since an amicable split that turned out to be more burnout therapy than the end to their 20-year run on the road.
Fans responded. When the reunion concerts were announced last fall, seats for the opening show were being resold for as high as $1,000 — and even more nefarious tactics than scalping were at play: Inside the venue on Friday, 29-year-old Rod Stewart said he bought a fake with a happy ending.
"We bought three tickets in the parking lot for $100 each, and when the lady scanned them, they came up 'counterfeit,'" said Stewart, of Chesapeake, Va., "but she let us in anyway."
Ryan Lafata, a spokesman with the Hampton Convention and Visitors Bureau, said it's possible to have upwards of 75,000 people come to the area for the three shows at the Coliseum, which holds about 13,000 for general-admission events.
Many of those fans included those who didn't have concert tickets, but traveled to congregate outside the coliseum to take in the scene and reunite with old friends.
Brett Hinckley of Greenville, S.C., said the coliseum is a favorite venue for Phish and its fans, who call the building "the mother ship" because of its resemblance to a giant UFO.
"The energy in the building is second to none," Hinckley said before the show. "Once you experience it, you just kind of need to be back."
Phish, which formed at the University of Vermont in 1983, is known for its amorphous blend of rock, jazz, bluegrass and other styles, which often launch into intense improvisations. Often likened to the Grateful Dead, they are a moderate commercial success in terms of sales, but remain a lucrative touring act.
Associated Press Writer Zinie Chen Sampson contributed to this report.
'Watchmen': Behind The Masks, By Kurt Loder
http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1606439/story.jhtml
Mar 6 2009
'Watchmen': Behind The Masks, By Kurt Loder
Hollywood finally does right by Alan Moore.
So did they leave stuff out? How could they not? "Watchmen" adepts will note a significant amount of narrative surgery in the long-awaited movie version of this revered comic-book classic. The lengthy "Black Freighter" pirate segments and the "Under the Hood" back story? Gone. (Both have understandably been shooed off onto a DVD that's due out on March 24.) Likewise elided are a mysterious island, a press-clip mosaic and a rambling "Nova Express" interview. And the grumbly homicide detectives and the two Bernies at the corner newsstand are only glancingly represented. In addition, as more fanatical fans have feared all along, the ending has been tinkered with — but only in its central, pulpy detail (which was always the weakest part of the story); its enigmatic impact remains undefiled.
None of this much matters. In fact, Zack Snyder's film translation of "Watchmen" (directed from a script by Alex Tse that incorporates elements of an earlier screenplay by David Hayter) irresistibly calls to mind one of the more heavily frayed critical clichés: It's a monumental accomplishment. The comic books on which the picture is based — a 12-issue run written by Alan Moore, illustrated by Dave Gibbons and published in 1986 and '87 (and then quickly collected into a celebrated "graphic novel") — are of course a monument themselves in the comics field. The story — essentially a murder mystery set among a group of colorfully flawed costumed crimebusters — is a narrative collage so intricately constructed that it has defeated repeated attempts to bring it to the screen. That Snyder has managed to streamline this sprawling material into a terrific action movie without trivializing its psychological penetration, philosophical resonance and powerful emotional charge is something of a miracle.
The director has a flair for narrative shorthand. He has compressed the "Under the Hood" history of the Minutemen — an early fraternity of masked adventurers inspired by the comic-book debut of Superman in 1938 — into a splendid montage that runs through the opening credits, accompanied by Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin' " (an inspired touch). And he has a witty way of signaling absent elements of the book to knowing fans: For instance, rather than tarry over the speculation in the novel (as I think we can call it) about the true identity of Hooded Justice, the first freelance vigilante, Snyder simply uses the hulking brute's brief appearance in a key scene to demonstrate that he speaks with a German accent. What non-scholars will make of such oblique flourishes is hard to guess. They may be baffled, bored, whatever. Still, the movie stands on its own. (Well, with an occasional twitch: The elimination of that mysterious island throws another scene — a drunken confrontation with an arch-villain named Moloch — slightly out of whack.)
The year is 1985, heavily reimagined. We're in an America that won the Vietnam War, and in which Richard Nixon — in reality forced out of office by the Watergate scandal in 1974 — is still president, having overridden constitutional term limits. The successors to the Minutemen are a group (not actually called the Watchmen) who have been driven into exile by congressional edict. The serenely blond and hyper-intelligent Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode) discarded his alter-identity of Ozymandias before the ban went into effect, and has since become an enormously wealthy industrial entrepreneur. But Dan Dreiberg (Patrick Wilson), the former Nite Owl, has settled into mild-mannered, flabby idleness; and Laurie Jupiter (Malin Akerman), although happily rid of the skimpy outfit she wore as the Silk Spectre, is restless and unfulfilled in her current role of girlfriend to the blue-skinned, usually nude and deeply inscrutable Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), the only one of the disbanded group with actual superpowers. Manhattan is still employed by the government as an ultimate weapon in enforcing America's will throughout the world — although even he may not be powerful enough to stop a Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union that's building toward nuclear doomsday.
Two other group members also remain active. The savage Edward Blake (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who operates as the Comedian (life is a big ugly joke to him), also works for the government, in its dirty-tricks department. (It was he, we're shown, who shot JFK from the grassy knoll in Dallas.) And the borderline-psychotic Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), whose true identity is still unknown, conducts an ongoing one-man war, outside the law, against the criminal scum of an extra-grubby New York City.
As the movie opens, the Comedian has been murdered (in a pulverizing fight scene) and the paranoid Rorschach is instantly suspicious — could this be the beginning of a vendetta against members of the mask-wearing community? Turns out that it is, and as further attacks and suspicious coincidences continue to occur — and Rorschach himself takes a serious fall — Dan and Laurie begin to share his apprehension.
The movie is packed with wild violence (all of it present in the novel), and Snyder stages it with unflagging intensity. The many set-piece sequences — Rorschach's furious battle against an encircling army of cops, a prison chow-line assault involving a pan full of hot frying fat, an alley brawl in which Dan and Laurie rediscover their butt-kicking skills in beating down a herd of malevolent street thugs — are memorably rousing (and bloody — the shattered bones and chainsawed limbs are startlingly graphic). Two scenes — one depicting a brutal attempted rape, another the barroom shooting of a pregnant woman — are naturally more shocking in a kinetic medium than they were in Gibbons' original illustrations (on which they're closely modeled). They're intended to shine an unsparing light on one character's shriveled soul, and they do; but it's difficult to imagine who wouldn't find them hard to watch.
What elevated Moore's story above the traditional run of comic-book cartoonery was its concern with damaged humanity, with the characters' fears of a darkening future and longings for a brighter past, and their feelings of obsolescence and irrelevance. The movie retains a surprising amount of this soul-plumbing spirit, although inevitably, even in a picture that runs more than two hours and 40 minutes, it's unable to attain the full emotional richness of Moore's great waves of brilliant writing. Still, we feel the perplexity of aging adventurers wondering whatever possessed them to dress up in preposterous costumes and sally forth to fight crime with little more than fists and gadgets. And we understand the bleakness of their marginalization by Dr. Manhattan, a physicist transformed by a laboratory accident into a genuine super-being capable of viewing time as an ever-present continuum and of teleporting himself to Mars — an empty planet he finds more congenial than their own. (The sequence on Mars in which Manhattan brings Laurie to view the spectacular glass structure he has raised up out of the pink sand, and to debate the value of human life in the face of the mute indifference of the universe, has a resonant beauty beyond the customary reach of computer-generation. So does the dream scene in which Laurie and Dan, both naked, embrace on a vast twilit plain as a nuclear cloud flares up enormously in the distance — another of the many images taken directly from Gibbons' original artwork.)
It's hard to imagine a better cast for this movie. Even obscured throughout most of the film by a head-hugging spotted mask, Haley brings just the right combination of seething hostility and emotional torment to the tricky role of Rorschach, the story's most mesmerizing character. And Crudup gives a virtuoso performance as Dr. Manhattan, imbuing this remote, post-emotional character with a sweet, pensive warmth. Goode exudes precisely the sort of sinister elegance that makes Adrian Veidt such an ambiguous character in the novel; Wilson deploys Dreiberg's mildness as an anchoring presence amid all the action; and Morgan, with his burly swagger and cigar-chewing leer, is a Comedian that even the famously cantankerous Moore might applaud. Akerman seems somewhat bland amid all this vibrance; but then the character of Laurie is less complexly conceived than the others. (The actress seemed more appealing the second time I watched the film. Farther down in the cast, though, the actor playing Nixon has been equipped with a prosthetic nose of Pinocchio proportions — a bizarre miscalculation that ruins the scenes he's in, which are fortunately few.)
"Watchmen" is unlike other comic-book movies because its source material, even to this day, is unlike other comic books. Behind the picture's many masks are recognizably human personalities — twisted exaggerations, of course, but not cartoons. And behind the camera is a director whose love of the original comics shines through in every scene, every detail; his determination to do them justice has finally brought this story to the screen in a rich, stirring form for which even the pickiest fan should be thankful.
("Watchmen" is a co-production of Paramount Pictures. Paramount and MTV are both subsidiaries of Viacom.)
Mar 6 2009
'Watchmen': Behind The Masks, By Kurt Loder
Hollywood finally does right by Alan Moore.
So did they leave stuff out? How could they not? "Watchmen" adepts will note a significant amount of narrative surgery in the long-awaited movie version of this revered comic-book classic. The lengthy "Black Freighter" pirate segments and the "Under the Hood" back story? Gone. (Both have understandably been shooed off onto a DVD that's due out on March 24.) Likewise elided are a mysterious island, a press-clip mosaic and a rambling "Nova Express" interview. And the grumbly homicide detectives and the two Bernies at the corner newsstand are only glancingly represented. In addition, as more fanatical fans have feared all along, the ending has been tinkered with — but only in its central, pulpy detail (which was always the weakest part of the story); its enigmatic impact remains undefiled.
None of this much matters. In fact, Zack Snyder's film translation of "Watchmen" (directed from a script by Alex Tse that incorporates elements of an earlier screenplay by David Hayter) irresistibly calls to mind one of the more heavily frayed critical clichés: It's a monumental accomplishment. The comic books on which the picture is based — a 12-issue run written by Alan Moore, illustrated by Dave Gibbons and published in 1986 and '87 (and then quickly collected into a celebrated "graphic novel") — are of course a monument themselves in the comics field. The story — essentially a murder mystery set among a group of colorfully flawed costumed crimebusters — is a narrative collage so intricately constructed that it has defeated repeated attempts to bring it to the screen. That Snyder has managed to streamline this sprawling material into a terrific action movie without trivializing its psychological penetration, philosophical resonance and powerful emotional charge is something of a miracle.
The director has a flair for narrative shorthand. He has compressed the "Under the Hood" history of the Minutemen — an early fraternity of masked adventurers inspired by the comic-book debut of Superman in 1938 — into a splendid montage that runs through the opening credits, accompanied by Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin' " (an inspired touch). And he has a witty way of signaling absent elements of the book to knowing fans: For instance, rather than tarry over the speculation in the novel (as I think we can call it) about the true identity of Hooded Justice, the first freelance vigilante, Snyder simply uses the hulking brute's brief appearance in a key scene to demonstrate that he speaks with a German accent. What non-scholars will make of such oblique flourishes is hard to guess. They may be baffled, bored, whatever. Still, the movie stands on its own. (Well, with an occasional twitch: The elimination of that mysterious island throws another scene — a drunken confrontation with an arch-villain named Moloch — slightly out of whack.)
The year is 1985, heavily reimagined. We're in an America that won the Vietnam War, and in which Richard Nixon — in reality forced out of office by the Watergate scandal in 1974 — is still president, having overridden constitutional term limits. The successors to the Minutemen are a group (not actually called the Watchmen) who have been driven into exile by congressional edict. The serenely blond and hyper-intelligent Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode) discarded his alter-identity of Ozymandias before the ban went into effect, and has since become an enormously wealthy industrial entrepreneur. But Dan Dreiberg (Patrick Wilson), the former Nite Owl, has settled into mild-mannered, flabby idleness; and Laurie Jupiter (Malin Akerman), although happily rid of the skimpy outfit she wore as the Silk Spectre, is restless and unfulfilled in her current role of girlfriend to the blue-skinned, usually nude and deeply inscrutable Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), the only one of the disbanded group with actual superpowers. Manhattan is still employed by the government as an ultimate weapon in enforcing America's will throughout the world — although even he may not be powerful enough to stop a Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union that's building toward nuclear doomsday.
Two other group members also remain active. The savage Edward Blake (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who operates as the Comedian (life is a big ugly joke to him), also works for the government, in its dirty-tricks department. (It was he, we're shown, who shot JFK from the grassy knoll in Dallas.) And the borderline-psychotic Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), whose true identity is still unknown, conducts an ongoing one-man war, outside the law, against the criminal scum of an extra-grubby New York City.
As the movie opens, the Comedian has been murdered (in a pulverizing fight scene) and the paranoid Rorschach is instantly suspicious — could this be the beginning of a vendetta against members of the mask-wearing community? Turns out that it is, and as further attacks and suspicious coincidences continue to occur — and Rorschach himself takes a serious fall — Dan and Laurie begin to share his apprehension.
The movie is packed with wild violence (all of it present in the novel), and Snyder stages it with unflagging intensity. The many set-piece sequences — Rorschach's furious battle against an encircling army of cops, a prison chow-line assault involving a pan full of hot frying fat, an alley brawl in which Dan and Laurie rediscover their butt-kicking skills in beating down a herd of malevolent street thugs — are memorably rousing (and bloody — the shattered bones and chainsawed limbs are startlingly graphic). Two scenes — one depicting a brutal attempted rape, another the barroom shooting of a pregnant woman — are naturally more shocking in a kinetic medium than they were in Gibbons' original illustrations (on which they're closely modeled). They're intended to shine an unsparing light on one character's shriveled soul, and they do; but it's difficult to imagine who wouldn't find them hard to watch.
What elevated Moore's story above the traditional run of comic-book cartoonery was its concern with damaged humanity, with the characters' fears of a darkening future and longings for a brighter past, and their feelings of obsolescence and irrelevance. The movie retains a surprising amount of this soul-plumbing spirit, although inevitably, even in a picture that runs more than two hours and 40 minutes, it's unable to attain the full emotional richness of Moore's great waves of brilliant writing. Still, we feel the perplexity of aging adventurers wondering whatever possessed them to dress up in preposterous costumes and sally forth to fight crime with little more than fists and gadgets. And we understand the bleakness of their marginalization by Dr. Manhattan, a physicist transformed by a laboratory accident into a genuine super-being capable of viewing time as an ever-present continuum and of teleporting himself to Mars — an empty planet he finds more congenial than their own. (The sequence on Mars in which Manhattan brings Laurie to view the spectacular glass structure he has raised up out of the pink sand, and to debate the value of human life in the face of the mute indifference of the universe, has a resonant beauty beyond the customary reach of computer-generation. So does the dream scene in which Laurie and Dan, both naked, embrace on a vast twilit plain as a nuclear cloud flares up enormously in the distance — another of the many images taken directly from Gibbons' original artwork.)
It's hard to imagine a better cast for this movie. Even obscured throughout most of the film by a head-hugging spotted mask, Haley brings just the right combination of seething hostility and emotional torment to the tricky role of Rorschach, the story's most mesmerizing character. And Crudup gives a virtuoso performance as Dr. Manhattan, imbuing this remote, post-emotional character with a sweet, pensive warmth. Goode exudes precisely the sort of sinister elegance that makes Adrian Veidt such an ambiguous character in the novel; Wilson deploys Dreiberg's mildness as an anchoring presence amid all the action; and Morgan, with his burly swagger and cigar-chewing leer, is a Comedian that even the famously cantankerous Moore might applaud. Akerman seems somewhat bland amid all this vibrance; but then the character of Laurie is less complexly conceived than the others. (The actress seemed more appealing the second time I watched the film. Farther down in the cast, though, the actor playing Nixon has been equipped with a prosthetic nose of Pinocchio proportions — a bizarre miscalculation that ruins the scenes he's in, which are fortunately few.)
"Watchmen" is unlike other comic-book movies because its source material, even to this day, is unlike other comic books. Behind the picture's many masks are recognizably human personalities — twisted exaggerations, of course, but not cartoons. And behind the camera is a director whose love of the original comics shines through in every scene, every detail; his determination to do them justice has finally brought this story to the screen in a rich, stirring form for which even the pickiest fan should be thankful.
("Watchmen" is a co-production of Paramount Pictures. Paramount and MTV are both subsidiaries of Viacom.)
'Seinfeld' Cast Set to Curb Their Enthusiasm
http://www.imdb.com/news/ni0700302/'Seinfeld' Cast Set to Curb Their Enthusiasm
5 March 2009
The cast of Seinfeld is to reunite on quirky comedy show Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander and Michael Richards will all appear on the upcoming season of the show, which was created by and stars Larry David - one of the brains behind Seinfeld.
The cameo appearances will mark the first time all four Seinfeld stars have appeared together in a scripted TV show since Seinfeld went off the air nearly 11 years ago.
COMBOS(R) Brand Releases Manliest Cities
http://sev.prnewswire.com/food-beverages/20090305/CG7842305032009-1.html
COMBOS(R) Brand Releases Manliest Cities in America Rankings With Nashville at Top and New York at Bottom
To Launch Its Ultimate Man Zone Sweepstakes, COMBOS(R) - Man's Favorite Cheese-Filled Snack - Partners with the Expert Behind Multiple Best Places Rankings to Reveal 'America's Manliest Cities'
HACKETTSTOWN, N.J., March 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Step aside men of Motown, Sin City and the Big Apple. Nashville now ranks as the manliest city in America. Mars Snackfood US announced today the release of "America's Manliest Cities" - a study commissioned by COMBOS(R) Brand in partnership with Bert Sperling, the research expert behind the popular "Best Places to Live" studies.
Via the "America's Manliest Cities" study, COMBOS(R) - the hearty, pretzel and cracker snack made with real cheese - examines what makes a city manly and then ranks 50 major metropolitan areas using criteria such as number of professional major league sports teams, popularity of tools and hardware and frequency of monster truck rallies. Cities also lose ranking points for emasculating characteristics like the abundance of home furnishing stores, high minivan sales and subscription rates to beauty magazines.
The manliest ranking comes as COMBOS(R) launches its Ultimate Man Zone Sweepstakes, an opportunity for guys to improve their favorite hangouts and win prize packages to upgrade their tailgating, grilling, home theater or gaming "zones." And also thanks to COMBOS(R), women now know where to find the manliest men around.
"As the ultimate hearty snack, COMBOS(R) created the Ultimate Man Zone Sweepstakes to give guys the opportunities to improve their favorite hangouts," said Craig Hall, general manager, Mars Snackfood US. "Through our COMBOS(R) 'America's Manliest Cities' study, we want to let guys know where their hometowns stack up against their brethren coast-to-coast when it comes to manliest."
Manly Study Highlights
Nashville is the Mecca of manliness. With its high number of NASCAR enthusiasts, popularity of hunting and fishing and concentration of BBQ restaurants, the Music City stands alone atop the mountain of manliness.
Despite high ratings in the "bowling" category, New York City ranks 50th out of 50 in the study due to low scores in manly indicators such as "fishing," "home improvement" and "drag racing."
If you're in the Midwest and looking to enjoy a game with a cold beverage, look no farther than St. Louis, which has the highest concentration of sports bars in the country.
Grand Rapids, Mich. has more monster truck rallies, per capita, than any other U.S. city.
Philadelphia and Chicago, with low scores in the "hunting" category fail to crack the top 25 (ranked 30th and 46th respectively).
The men of Oklahoma City know how to snack with gusto. Their city owns the highest purchase rate of salty snacks, such as COMBOS(R).
Got chainsaws? What about hammers and power drills? The men of New Orleans do. The "Big Easy" boasts more hardware stores per capita than any other U.S. city.
The Manly Methodology*
The rankings were determined using 50 of the largest metropolitan areas as defined by the United States Census Bureau, which includes a central city and the surrounding county (or counties).
Each metro area received a manliness rating between 0 and 100 based on how well it performed in each of the study's manly categories. Factors used to determine the manliest city rankings included the number of U.S.-made cars driven in the city, number of sports bars and BBQ restaurants, number of home improvement and hardware stores as well as manly salty snacks consumption. All data was adjusted by the current population of the cities to arrive at "per capita" figures, providing an accurate comparison between cities of varying sizes.
"America's Manliest Cities"
Nashville, Tenn.
Charlotte, N.C.
Oklahoma City, Okla.
Cincinnati, Ohio
Denver, Colo.
St. Louis, Mo.
Columbus, Ohio
Kansas City, Mo.
Indianapolis, Ind.
Toledo, Ohio
Memphis, Tenn.
Richmond, Va.
Columbia, S.C.
Orlando, Fla.
Dayton, Ohio
Salt Lake City, Utah
Milwaukee, Wis.
Minneapolis, Minn.
Cleveland, Ohio
Detroit, Mich.
Jacksonville, Fla.
Phoenix, Ariz.
Birmingham, Ala.
Grand Rapids, Mich.
Tampa, Fla.
Harrisburg, Pa.
New Orleans, La.
Las Vegas, Nev.
Pittsburgh, Pa.
Philadelphia, Pa.
Louisville, Ky.
Atlanta, Ga.
Providence, R.I.
Dallas, Texas
Buffalo, N.Y.
Rochester, N.Y.
Baltimore, Md.
Boston, Mass.
Houston, Texas
Seattle, Wash.
Sacramento, Calif.
Miami, Fla.
San Diego, Calif.
Oakland, Calif.
Washington, District of Columbia
Chicago, Ill.
Portland, Ore.
San Francisco, Calif.
Los Angeles, Calif.
New York, N.Y.
The Ultimate Man Zone Sweepstakes
While it's too late for men to raise their city's manliness ranking this year, men from every city still have the chance to raise the level of their man gear by entering the COMBOS(R) Ultimate Man Zone Sweepstakes at www.COMBOS.com. The entry deadline is May 31, 2009.
Fueling American Manliness Across the Country
COMBOS(R) - the "Official Cheese-Filled Snack of NASCAR" - is road tripping around the U.S., stopping at NASCAR races and other man-friendly sporting events encouraging men to enter for a chance to win one of the Ultimate Man Zone packages.
The Ultimate Man Zone mobile tour makes stops in Daytona, Fla.; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Orlando, Fla.; Atlanta, Ga.; Bristol, Conn.; Martinsville, Va.; Baltimore, Md.; Talladega, Ala.; Richmond, Va.; Darlington, S.C.; Concord, N.C.; Charlotte, N.C.; and Dover, Del.
A complete schedule of the Ultimate Man Zone tour can be found at www.COMBOS.com, as well as additional info on COMBOS(R) and the Ultimate Man Zone Sweepstakes.
About Mars Snackfood US:
Mars Snackfood US is the United States snack operations of Mars North America. With more than $7 billion in annual sales in the United States, Mars North America includes food, snack and pet care segments, which are a symbol of excellence for quality brands. Headquartered in Mount Olive, N.J., Mars North America employs more than 12,000 associates in the United States, with 54 facilities nationwide. Mars Snackfood US, headquartered in Hackettstown, N.J., includes some of the world's favorite brands such as DOVE(R) Brand Chocolate, M&M'S(R) Brand, MILKY WAY(R) Brand , SNICKERS(R) Brand, 3 MUSKETEERS(R) Brand, TWIX(R) Brand and more. Additional popular brands in the petcare and food segments for Mars North America include UNCLE BEN'S(R) Brand, PEDIGREE(R) Brand Food for Dogs, and WHISKAS(R) Brand Food for Cats. Please visit www.mars.com.
* For detailed methodology and rankings on each of the factors in the Combos(R) "America's Manliest Cities" study, please request a copy of the extended "Manliest Cities" rankings broken down by factor.
Website: http://www.mars.com/
COMBOS(R) Brand Releases Manliest Cities in America Rankings With Nashville at Top and New York at Bottom
To Launch Its Ultimate Man Zone Sweepstakes, COMBOS(R) - Man's Favorite Cheese-Filled Snack - Partners with the Expert Behind Multiple Best Places Rankings to Reveal 'America's Manliest Cities'
HACKETTSTOWN, N.J., March 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Step aside men of Motown, Sin City and the Big Apple. Nashville now ranks as the manliest city in America. Mars Snackfood US announced today the release of "America's Manliest Cities" - a study commissioned by COMBOS(R) Brand in partnership with Bert Sperling, the research expert behind the popular "Best Places to Live" studies.
Via the "America's Manliest Cities" study, COMBOS(R) - the hearty, pretzel and cracker snack made with real cheese - examines what makes a city manly and then ranks 50 major metropolitan areas using criteria such as number of professional major league sports teams, popularity of tools and hardware and frequency of monster truck rallies. Cities also lose ranking points for emasculating characteristics like the abundance of home furnishing stores, high minivan sales and subscription rates to beauty magazines.
The manliest ranking comes as COMBOS(R) launches its Ultimate Man Zone Sweepstakes, an opportunity for guys to improve their favorite hangouts and win prize packages to upgrade their tailgating, grilling, home theater or gaming "zones." And also thanks to COMBOS(R), women now know where to find the manliest men around.
"As the ultimate hearty snack, COMBOS(R) created the Ultimate Man Zone Sweepstakes to give guys the opportunities to improve their favorite hangouts," said Craig Hall, general manager, Mars Snackfood US. "Through our COMBOS(R) 'America's Manliest Cities' study, we want to let guys know where their hometowns stack up against their brethren coast-to-coast when it comes to manliest."
Manly Study Highlights
Nashville is the Mecca of manliness. With its high number of NASCAR enthusiasts, popularity of hunting and fishing and concentration of BBQ restaurants, the Music City stands alone atop the mountain of manliness.
Despite high ratings in the "bowling" category, New York City ranks 50th out of 50 in the study due to low scores in manly indicators such as "fishing," "home improvement" and "drag racing."
If you're in the Midwest and looking to enjoy a game with a cold beverage, look no farther than St. Louis, which has the highest concentration of sports bars in the country.
Grand Rapids, Mich. has more monster truck rallies, per capita, than any other U.S. city.
Philadelphia and Chicago, with low scores in the "hunting" category fail to crack the top 25 (ranked 30th and 46th respectively).
The men of Oklahoma City know how to snack with gusto. Their city owns the highest purchase rate of salty snacks, such as COMBOS(R).
Got chainsaws? What about hammers and power drills? The men of New Orleans do. The "Big Easy" boasts more hardware stores per capita than any other U.S. city.
The Manly Methodology*
The rankings were determined using 50 of the largest metropolitan areas as defined by the United States Census Bureau, which includes a central city and the surrounding county (or counties).
Each metro area received a manliness rating between 0 and 100 based on how well it performed in each of the study's manly categories. Factors used to determine the manliest city rankings included the number of U.S.-made cars driven in the city, number of sports bars and BBQ restaurants, number of home improvement and hardware stores as well as manly salty snacks consumption. All data was adjusted by the current population of the cities to arrive at "per capita" figures, providing an accurate comparison between cities of varying sizes.
"America's Manliest Cities"
Nashville, Tenn.
Charlotte, N.C.
Oklahoma City, Okla.
Cincinnati, Ohio
Denver, Colo.
St. Louis, Mo.
Columbus, Ohio
Kansas City, Mo.
Indianapolis, Ind.
Toledo, Ohio
Memphis, Tenn.
Richmond, Va.
Columbia, S.C.
Orlando, Fla.
Dayton, Ohio
Salt Lake City, Utah
Milwaukee, Wis.
Minneapolis, Minn.
Cleveland, Ohio
Detroit, Mich.
Jacksonville, Fla.
Phoenix, Ariz.
Birmingham, Ala.
Grand Rapids, Mich.
Tampa, Fla.
Harrisburg, Pa.
New Orleans, La.
Las Vegas, Nev.
Pittsburgh, Pa.
Philadelphia, Pa.
Louisville, Ky.
Atlanta, Ga.
Providence, R.I.
Dallas, Texas
Buffalo, N.Y.
Rochester, N.Y.
Baltimore, Md.
Boston, Mass.
Houston, Texas
Seattle, Wash.
Sacramento, Calif.
Miami, Fla.
San Diego, Calif.
Oakland, Calif.
Washington, District of Columbia
Chicago, Ill.
Portland, Ore.
San Francisco, Calif.
Los Angeles, Calif.
New York, N.Y.
The Ultimate Man Zone Sweepstakes
While it's too late for men to raise their city's manliness ranking this year, men from every city still have the chance to raise the level of their man gear by entering the COMBOS(R) Ultimate Man Zone Sweepstakes at www.COMBOS.com. The entry deadline is May 31, 2009.
Fueling American Manliness Across the Country
COMBOS(R) - the "Official Cheese-Filled Snack of NASCAR" - is road tripping around the U.S., stopping at NASCAR races and other man-friendly sporting events encouraging men to enter for a chance to win one of the Ultimate Man Zone packages.
The Ultimate Man Zone mobile tour makes stops in Daytona, Fla.; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Orlando, Fla.; Atlanta, Ga.; Bristol, Conn.; Martinsville, Va.; Baltimore, Md.; Talladega, Ala.; Richmond, Va.; Darlington, S.C.; Concord, N.C.; Charlotte, N.C.; and Dover, Del.
A complete schedule of the Ultimate Man Zone tour can be found at www.COMBOS.com, as well as additional info on COMBOS(R) and the Ultimate Man Zone Sweepstakes.
About Mars Snackfood US:
Mars Snackfood US is the United States snack operations of Mars North America. With more than $7 billion in annual sales in the United States, Mars North America includes food, snack and pet care segments, which are a symbol of excellence for quality brands. Headquartered in Mount Olive, N.J., Mars North America employs more than 12,000 associates in the United States, with 54 facilities nationwide. Mars Snackfood US, headquartered in Hackettstown, N.J., includes some of the world's favorite brands such as DOVE(R) Brand Chocolate, M&M'S(R) Brand, MILKY WAY(R) Brand , SNICKERS(R) Brand, 3 MUSKETEERS(R) Brand, TWIX(R) Brand and more. Additional popular brands in the petcare and food segments for Mars North America include UNCLE BEN'S(R) Brand, PEDIGREE(R) Brand Food for Dogs, and WHISKAS(R) Brand Food for Cats. Please visit www.mars.com.
* For detailed methodology and rankings on each of the factors in the Combos(R) "America's Manliest Cities" study, please request a copy of the extended "Manliest Cities" rankings broken down by factor.
Website: http://www.mars.com/
Christopher Columbus was actually a Scotsman
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/4959361/Christopher-Columbus-was-actually-a-Scotsman-called-Pedro-Scotto-historian-says.html
Christopher Columbus was actually a Scotsman called Pedro Scotto, historian says
The 15th century explorer who opened up the American continents to Europe was actually called Pedro Scotto - not Christopher Columbus - and his family originally hailed from Scotland, a Spanish historian has claimed.
08 Mar 2009
Alfonso Ensenat de Villalonga has disputed conventionally-accepted narratives on the explorer's origins - that he was the son of a weaver in Genoa, Italy, or that he was from Catalonia or Galicia in Spain.
In fact, he was from Genoa, but he was "the son of shopkeepers not weavers and he was baptised Pedro not Christopher," Mr Villalonga told Spain's ABC newspaper on Sunday.
And his family name was Scotto, and was not Italian but of Scottish origin.
"He had light-coloured eyes and freckles. He also had blond hair even though it quickly turned white. That's how his contemporaries described him. Nothing like the traditional images (of him), which are totally invented," the historian said.
Mr Villalonga cited a chronicle of Catholic kings written by Lucio Marineo Siculo, who referred in his writings to "Pedro Columbus", not Christopher.
The historian has also claimed that the navigator once worked for a pirate called Vincenzo Columbus, and adopted that family name in order not to "expose" his relations.
Mr Villalonga said his research involved combing the archives in the Genoa region along with those in the Spanish history academy and national library.
Christopher Columbus was actually a Scotsman called Pedro Scotto, historian says
The 15th century explorer who opened up the American continents to Europe was actually called Pedro Scotto - not Christopher Columbus - and his family originally hailed from Scotland, a Spanish historian has claimed.
08 Mar 2009
Alfonso Ensenat de Villalonga has disputed conventionally-accepted narratives on the explorer's origins - that he was the son of a weaver in Genoa, Italy, or that he was from Catalonia or Galicia in Spain.
In fact, he was from Genoa, but he was "the son of shopkeepers not weavers and he was baptised Pedro not Christopher," Mr Villalonga told Spain's ABC newspaper on Sunday.
And his family name was Scotto, and was not Italian but of Scottish origin.
"He had light-coloured eyes and freckles. He also had blond hair even though it quickly turned white. That's how his contemporaries described him. Nothing like the traditional images (of him), which are totally invented," the historian said.
Mr Villalonga cited a chronicle of Catholic kings written by Lucio Marineo Siculo, who referred in his writings to "Pedro Columbus", not Christopher.
The historian has also claimed that the navigator once worked for a pirate called Vincenzo Columbus, and adopted that family name in order not to "expose" his relations.
Mr Villalonga said his research involved combing the archives in the Genoa region along with those in the Spanish history academy and national library.
Obama Reverses Bush's Stem Cell Research Ban
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/obama/2009/03/09/president-obama-reverses-bushs-stem-cell-research-ban.html
President Obama Reverses Bush's Stem Cell Research Ban
Posted March 9, 2009
By Kenneth R. Bazinet
Daily News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON – President Obama reversed a Bush administration order and vowed Monday to "vigorously support" stem cell research that scientists hope will lead to cures for deadly ailments like diabetes and Parkinson's disease.
"We will bring the change that so many scientists and researchers, doctors and innovators, patients and loved ones have hoped for and fought for these past eight years. We will lift the ban on federal funding for promising embryonic stem cell research," Obama said to cheers at the White House.
Fulfilling a campaign pledge, Obama signed an executive order ending President Bush’s ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
"At this moment the full promise of stem cell research remains unknown, and it should not be overstated. But scientist believe these tiny cells may have the potential to help us understand and possibly cure some of our most devastating diseases and conditions," Obama told scientists and supporters.
Pro-life advocates oppose the research because it involves the use of human embryos, and they fear it could ultimately lead to human cloning. They, along with Bush, instead support the study of pluripotent stem cells, which does not use or destroy human embryos.
"There are exciting and numerous advances with adult stem cell research, including peer-reviewed successful human patient treatments for conditions including type-1 diabetes, spinal cord injury and Parkinson’s disease,” said Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), who opposes embryonic stem cell research. "It only makes sense to think of the patients first and focus federal dollars in these more promising areas, which do not cause serious moral concerns for many Americans."
President Obama Reverses Bush's Stem Cell Research Ban
Posted March 9, 2009
By Kenneth R. Bazinet
Daily News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON – President Obama reversed a Bush administration order and vowed Monday to "vigorously support" stem cell research that scientists hope will lead to cures for deadly ailments like diabetes and Parkinson's disease.
"We will bring the change that so many scientists and researchers, doctors and innovators, patients and loved ones have hoped for and fought for these past eight years. We will lift the ban on federal funding for promising embryonic stem cell research," Obama said to cheers at the White House.
Fulfilling a campaign pledge, Obama signed an executive order ending President Bush’s ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
"At this moment the full promise of stem cell research remains unknown, and it should not be overstated. But scientist believe these tiny cells may have the potential to help us understand and possibly cure some of our most devastating diseases and conditions," Obama told scientists and supporters.
Pro-life advocates oppose the research because it involves the use of human embryos, and they fear it could ultimately lead to human cloning. They, along with Bush, instead support the study of pluripotent stem cells, which does not use or destroy human embryos.
"There are exciting and numerous advances with adult stem cell research, including peer-reviewed successful human patient treatments for conditions including type-1 diabetes, spinal cord injury and Parkinson’s disease,” said Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), who opposes embryonic stem cell research. "It only makes sense to think of the patients first and focus federal dollars in these more promising areas, which do not cause serious moral concerns for many Americans."
'She lives! Let's go find planets!'
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/keplercountdown.html
'She lives! Let's go find planets!': Telescope Launch Successful
By Alexis Madrigal
March 06, 2009
A new telescope that will be able to detect earth-like planets around other stars successfully launched Friday night from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida at 10:49 p.m. Eastern time.
The Kepler Space Telescope is the first human tool that will be able to find planets capable of supporting life as we know it.
Its trip into orbit went exactly as planned, with the @NASA twitter feed declaring it, "A perfect launch!"
NASA Headquarters sent out a release at 1:00 am in which Kepler's project manager drew attention not just to the launch, but the telescope's ultimate mission.
"It was a stunning launch," said Kepler Project Manager James Fanson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Our team is thrilled to be a part of something so meaningful to the human race — Kepler will help us understand if our Earth is unique or if others like it are out there."
Excitement about the launch had been running high both because of the special nature of Kepler's science program — what one NASA scientist called trying to find "E.T.'s home" — and the failure of NASA's last satellite launch.
"It's not just another science mission. This one has historical significance built into it," Ed Weiler of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters said at a press conference Thursday.
After sad drama of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, which failed to reach orbit aboard a Taurus rocket, the Kepler launch was all sunshine and sparkles.
The final separation of the spacecraft and its rocket occurred right on schedule, with the voice of the NASA launch saying, with barely contained excitement, "At 64 minutes 30 seconds into the flight, we've just received positive confirmation of spacecraft separation."
After that, there was only one step left: making contact with her handlers at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado. The signal came through right on time and NASA folks finally began to celebrate.
"She lives! Let's go find planets!" tweeted S. Pete Worden, head of NASA Ames, which co-managed the project.
'She lives! Let's go find planets!': Telescope Launch Successful
By Alexis Madrigal
March 06, 2009
A new telescope that will be able to detect earth-like planets around other stars successfully launched Friday night from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida at 10:49 p.m. Eastern time.
The Kepler Space Telescope is the first human tool that will be able to find planets capable of supporting life as we know it.
Its trip into orbit went exactly as planned, with the @NASA twitter feed declaring it, "A perfect launch!"
NASA Headquarters sent out a release at 1:00 am in which Kepler's project manager drew attention not just to the launch, but the telescope's ultimate mission.
"It was a stunning launch," said Kepler Project Manager James Fanson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Our team is thrilled to be a part of something so meaningful to the human race — Kepler will help us understand if our Earth is unique or if others like it are out there."
Excitement about the launch had been running high both because of the special nature of Kepler's science program — what one NASA scientist called trying to find "E.T.'s home" — and the failure of NASA's last satellite launch.
"It's not just another science mission. This one has historical significance built into it," Ed Weiler of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters said at a press conference Thursday.
After sad drama of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, which failed to reach orbit aboard a Taurus rocket, the Kepler launch was all sunshine and sparkles.
The final separation of the spacecraft and its rocket occurred right on schedule, with the voice of the NASA launch saying, with barely contained excitement, "At 64 minutes 30 seconds into the flight, we've just received positive confirmation of spacecraft separation."
After that, there was only one step left: making contact with her handlers at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado. The signal came through right on time and NASA folks finally began to celebrate.
"She lives! Let's go find planets!" tweeted S. Pete Worden, head of NASA Ames, which co-managed the project.
Scientists Allege Fraud in 1984 HIV/AIDS Papers
http://www.naturalnews.com/025787.html
Scientists Allege Fraud in 1984 HIV/AIDS Papers
Friday, March 06, 2009
David Gutierrez, staff writer
(NaturalNews) Thirty-seven legal, medical and research professionals have sent a letter to the journal Science, asking it to officially retract the original four papers making the case for HIV as the cause of AIDS. According to the letter's authors, widespread evidence has now emerged that the studies were not only poorly carried out, but that their results were falsified.
In 1984, Robert Gallo published four articles in Science, claiming that he had isolated the HIV virus and concluding that it was the "probable cause of AIDS." Investigative journalist Janine Roberts has discovered, however, that Gallo made last-minute alterations to the paper and its results.
"I was shocked when I read the original draft of the key scientific paper now widely cited as proving HIV causes AIDS," said Roberts, author of Fear of the Invisible.
"Gallo's handwritten last-minute changes had reversed what the scientists in his lab had originally concluded. This demonstrates a stunning disregard for the scientific process and a very disturbing breach of public trust."
Along with a copy of the handwritten changes, the letter from the 37 experts includes a letter from Gallo himself, admitting to another researcher that HIV could not be isolated from human samples alone; and a letter from an electron microscopy expert saying that there was no HIV virus contained in Gallo's 1984 samples.
Gallo's research has come under fire before, with U.S. government investigations in the 1990s concluding that the lead paper was "fraught with false and erroneous statements" and that "the careless and unacceptable keeping of research records ... reflects irresponsible laboratory management that has permanently impaired the ability to retrace the important steps taken."
"With new findings that undermine the scientific integrity and veracity of Gallo's four papers, the entire basis of the theory that HIV causes AIDS may now be questioned," said David Crowe, president of the international organization Rethinking AIDS.
Sources for this story include: www.rethinkingaids.com.
Scientists Allege Fraud in 1984 HIV/AIDS Papers
Friday, March 06, 2009
David Gutierrez, staff writer
(NaturalNews) Thirty-seven legal, medical and research professionals have sent a letter to the journal Science, asking it to officially retract the original four papers making the case for HIV as the cause of AIDS. According to the letter's authors, widespread evidence has now emerged that the studies were not only poorly carried out, but that their results were falsified.
In 1984, Robert Gallo published four articles in Science, claiming that he had isolated the HIV virus and concluding that it was the "probable cause of AIDS." Investigative journalist Janine Roberts has discovered, however, that Gallo made last-minute alterations to the paper and its results.
"I was shocked when I read the original draft of the key scientific paper now widely cited as proving HIV causes AIDS," said Roberts, author of Fear of the Invisible.
"Gallo's handwritten last-minute changes had reversed what the scientists in his lab had originally concluded. This demonstrates a stunning disregard for the scientific process and a very disturbing breach of public trust."
Along with a copy of the handwritten changes, the letter from the 37 experts includes a letter from Gallo himself, admitting to another researcher that HIV could not be isolated from human samples alone; and a letter from an electron microscopy expert saying that there was no HIV virus contained in Gallo's 1984 samples.
Gallo's research has come under fire before, with U.S. government investigations in the 1990s concluding that the lead paper was "fraught with false and erroneous statements" and that "the careless and unacceptable keeping of research records ... reflects irresponsible laboratory management that has permanently impaired the ability to retrace the important steps taken."
"With new findings that undermine the scientific integrity and veracity of Gallo's four papers, the entire basis of the theory that HIV causes AIDS may now be questioned," said David Crowe, president of the international organization Rethinking AIDS.
Sources for this story include: www.rethinkingaids.com.
Colbert mocks 'crazy eyes' Beck
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Colbert_mocks_Glenn_Beck_with_doom_0305.html
Colbert mocks 'crazy eyes' Beck with 'Doom Bunker' segment
David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
Thursday March 5, 2009
It's the end of the world as we know it, maybe, according to Glenn Beck. But, at least one fake pundit feels fine cracking wise.
Among media pundits ripe for parody, Beck must seem an easy target, especially for a weathered comedian. After Beck once asked his audience to look into his eyes and see how serious he is, Colbert underwent an on-air anal exam to jokingly one-up the Fox editorialist, finding plenty of red comedic meat in his "crazy eyes."
Colbert's words then -- "Glenn climbed into his genius cannon and lit the fuse" -- hold especially true today, especially if you're a satirist.
Recently, Beck's recurring jibe on the coming Obama-fueled apocalypse was enough to scare a fellow Fox host under a table. The effects on Colbert, however, were slightly more hilarious.
Riffing on Beck's newest addition to his show -- a segment he's titled "The War Room," in which so-called experts discuss end-of-the-world scenarios -- Colbert examined Beck's first suggested endgame.
"It's the year 2014," said Beck. "All the US banks have been nationalized, Unemployment is at about 12 percent. DOW is trading at 2,800. The real estate market has collapsed."
"That," injected Colbert, "is the most terrifying future I have ever heard yanked out of someone's ass."
One of Beck's guests suggested that at this point, major cities will begin to "look like Calcutta." He specifically pointed to "people who are ignorant, functionally illiterate and whacked-out on drugs, hillbilly heroin and you name it, meth, go down the line, and they have nothing to lose."
In other words, he pre-blamed the "ignorant, illiterate, whacked-out hillbillies with nothing to lose," summarized Colbert. "Terrifying! But, more viewers for Fox News!"
To prepare for Beck's forecasts of turmoil and desperation, Colbert took it upon himself to introduce a new segment: Stephen Colbert's Doom Bunker.
"I am not saying that these things are going to happen," said Colbert, his on-screen graphics a pitch-perfect mockery of Beck's. (Except for the fornicating lions.) "I'm saying, they are going to happen, I think?"
As eerily post-apocalyptic stage smoke billowed across the set, Colbert pinged his guests with preposterous doomsday scenarios including werewolves and the discovery that all cars in America are actually Decepticons.
Colbert mocks 'crazy eyes' Beck with 'Doom Bunker' segment
David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
Thursday March 5, 2009
It's the end of the world as we know it, maybe, according to Glenn Beck. But, at least one fake pundit feels fine cracking wise.
Among media pundits ripe for parody, Beck must seem an easy target, especially for a weathered comedian. After Beck once asked his audience to look into his eyes and see how serious he is, Colbert underwent an on-air anal exam to jokingly one-up the Fox editorialist, finding plenty of red comedic meat in his "crazy eyes."
Colbert's words then -- "Glenn climbed into his genius cannon and lit the fuse" -- hold especially true today, especially if you're a satirist.
Recently, Beck's recurring jibe on the coming Obama-fueled apocalypse was enough to scare a fellow Fox host under a table. The effects on Colbert, however, were slightly more hilarious.
Riffing on Beck's newest addition to his show -- a segment he's titled "The War Room," in which so-called experts discuss end-of-the-world scenarios -- Colbert examined Beck's first suggested endgame.
"It's the year 2014," said Beck. "All the US banks have been nationalized, Unemployment is at about 12 percent. DOW is trading at 2,800. The real estate market has collapsed."
"That," injected Colbert, "is the most terrifying future I have ever heard yanked out of someone's ass."
One of Beck's guests suggested that at this point, major cities will begin to "look like Calcutta." He specifically pointed to "people who are ignorant, functionally illiterate and whacked-out on drugs, hillbilly heroin and you name it, meth, go down the line, and they have nothing to lose."
In other words, he pre-blamed the "ignorant, illiterate, whacked-out hillbillies with nothing to lose," summarized Colbert. "Terrifying! But, more viewers for Fox News!"
To prepare for Beck's forecasts of turmoil and desperation, Colbert took it upon himself to introduce a new segment: Stephen Colbert's Doom Bunker.
"I am not saying that these things are going to happen," said Colbert, his on-screen graphics a pitch-perfect mockery of Beck's. (Except for the fornicating lions.) "I'm saying, they are going to happen, I think?"
As eerily post-apocalyptic stage smoke billowed across the set, Colbert pinged his guests with preposterous doomsday scenarios including werewolves and the discovery that all cars in America are actually Decepticons.
VICTORY GLOAT
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/05/jon-stewart-eviscerates-c_n_172057.html
Gloats / Santelli Watch
VICTORY GLOAT: AMES & LEVINE SERVE UP SANTELLI’S HEAD TO THE DAILY SHOW
By Mark Ames and Yasha Levine
3-5-9
Thanks to the slam dunk investigative piece by your humble correspondents, Rick Santelli was forced to cancel his appearance on the Daily Show last night, leading to this massively-blogged segment ripping Santelli and CNBC a gigantic bleeding asshole. If words could be giant foam hands with pointing index fingers, then these words would be jabbing annoyingly into the ears of every Michelle Malkin/Freedomworks/rightwing tool who tried to cover up their half-baked “grassroots tea party” flop. As the stadiums of foam index finger-waggers chant, “You! You! You!” As in “the whole fucking country is laughing at you idiots!” Ah-ha-ha-hahahahahahaha!!!
So, who else wants some? Huh? You? You want a little?
All of America is laughing at “tea party” mascot Rick Santelli and the sloppy Freedomworks-led rightwing machine that tried to push his protest movement. Do you hear that? Huh, Megan McArdle? Watch this video and weep, every time the audience laughs, multiply it by 300 million laughing Americans, and that’s what’s going on: they’re laughing at you! You tried to shill for the super-wealthy, but you’re all a bunch of fuckin’ amateurs.
Still, thanks for the memories. And for the material. You all played your role of evil corporate-preppy goons like perfect foils, as perfectly as Dean Wormer and Niedermayer to our Belushi. And seriously, you know, there’s a place in the order of things for slapstick goons like you–for, without you, how would the rest of us laugh? As Robert Plant wistfully sang, “Does anybody remember laughter?” And he meant it. So to you rightwing goon amateurs, we say this: Just as there is a place on God’s planet for the guinea worm or the hydatid cyst, there is a place for you slapstick goons too. After all, laughter is a beautiful thing. When we’re doing the laughing, that is. Guess it’s not so funny when you’re laughed at. Ah well, sucks for you.
Gloats / Santelli Watch
VICTORY GLOAT: AMES & LEVINE SERVE UP SANTELLI’S HEAD TO THE DAILY SHOW
By Mark Ames and Yasha Levine
3-5-9
Thanks to the slam dunk investigative piece by your humble correspondents, Rick Santelli was forced to cancel his appearance on the Daily Show last night, leading to this massively-blogged segment ripping Santelli and CNBC a gigantic bleeding asshole. If words could be giant foam hands with pointing index fingers, then these words would be jabbing annoyingly into the ears of every Michelle Malkin/Freedomworks/rightwing tool who tried to cover up their half-baked “grassroots tea party” flop. As the stadiums of foam index finger-waggers chant, “You! You! You!” As in “the whole fucking country is laughing at you idiots!” Ah-ha-ha-hahahahahahaha!!!
So, who else wants some? Huh? You? You want a little?
All of America is laughing at “tea party” mascot Rick Santelli and the sloppy Freedomworks-led rightwing machine that tried to push his protest movement. Do you hear that? Huh, Megan McArdle? Watch this video and weep, every time the audience laughs, multiply it by 300 million laughing Americans, and that’s what’s going on: they’re laughing at you! You tried to shill for the super-wealthy, but you’re all a bunch of fuckin’ amateurs.
Still, thanks for the memories. And for the material. You all played your role of evil corporate-preppy goons like perfect foils, as perfectly as Dean Wormer and Niedermayer to our Belushi. And seriously, you know, there’s a place in the order of things for slapstick goons like you–for, without you, how would the rest of us laugh? As Robert Plant wistfully sang, “Does anybody remember laughter?” And he meant it. So to you rightwing goon amateurs, we say this: Just as there is a place on God’s planet for the guinea worm or the hydatid cyst, there is a place for you slapstick goons too. After all, laughter is a beautiful thing. When we’re doing the laughing, that is. Guess it’s not so funny when you’re laughed at. Ah well, sucks for you.
“When Is A Burger Not A Burger?”
http://www.avclub.com/articles/arbys-answers-the-question-when-is-a-burger-not-a,24734/
Arby’s Answers The Question: “When Is A Burger Not A Burger?”
by Noel Murray
March 5, 2009
In the early days of The A.V. Club blog, I used to write an occasional series called “Noel Tries The New Foods,” in which I’d check out the latest in fast food and junk food and dutifully report my findings. Then “Taste Test” came along, and new foods turned into weird and gross foods, and since I haven’t the stomach to compete with Internet Eating Sensation Dave Chang (and since I don’t live in Chicago), I put my food critic days behind me.
And yet, sometimes there’s a new flavor of chips or a new fast-food sandwich that calls for the kind of knee-jerk analysis only a dumpy Red Stater can provide. For example, in the past week I’ve ventured out twice to try this odd concoction:
According to Arby’s own description, their new “roastburgers” are “made with thinly sliced oven-roasted beef, char-grill seasonings and burger-style toppings.” I've tried the Bacon Cheddar and the All-American, and if I were asked to come up with a more accurate description, it would be something like this: “Heaps of processed beef-loaf, shaken with some granular form of liquid smoke, and tossed onto a soft bun with LTO.” But you know what? That LTO (or “burger-style toppings,” as Arby’s would have it) makes a difference. The first week the roastburgers were available, I had a lovingly prepared Bacon Cheddar that had a nice charred taste to the meat, then a week later I had a sloppily prepared All-American which had what appeared to be a spoonful of “char-grill seasonings” in the middle of the meat-heap and nowhere else. And in both cases, the star of the show was the bun and the fresh veggies, which honestly made the sandwiches taste like a burger.
Now I’ve gone on record as being skeptical of foods engineered to taste like other foods. Let X = X, I’ve always said. But as I was consuming these non-burger burgers from Arby’s, I began to think that I’ve had the wrong attitude all these years. If Top Chef has taught me anything, it’s that “molecular gastronomy” is where it’s at. Take the essence of one food’s flavor and inject it into a different consumable substance. Create “an impression” of a grilled cheese sandwich. Do “your take” on the traditional nacho. Make jellybeans taste like sea urchin roe. That’s the TC way.
(Long aside: Speaking of Top Chef, I enjoyed this past season by and large, but the way it ended left a bad taste in my mouth, so to speak. It's not just that the consistently unexciting Hosea snuck past more colorful and imaginative chefs, but I was also bummed out by reports the finale’s editing was less than fair to visiting TC veteran Casey. In an interview with the SideDish blog, Casey said that all of TC loser Carla’s blunders were made to seem like Casey’s fault, when in fact they were the contestant’s ideas, poorly executed. I expect a certain amount of editing chicanery on reality TV, but if Casey’s right and she took the rap for something that wasn’t her fault… well, that’s just not cool.)
Anyway, I’m going to go on record and say that Arby’s is onto something here. They’ve taken the pretentions of fine-dining and injected them into the fast-food realm. Soon we will have French fries that taste like hot apple pies, and soft tacos that taste like spicy chicken sandwiches. Grabbing a bite at the drive-thru will be like entering some kind of carnival funhouse. In order to do that, the fast-food chemists have to master the basics. I’d say that finding a way to make Arby-meat palatable is a step in the right direction.
Arby’s Answers The Question: “When Is A Burger Not A Burger?”
by Noel Murray
March 5, 2009
In the early days of The A.V. Club blog, I used to write an occasional series called “Noel Tries The New Foods,” in which I’d check out the latest in fast food and junk food and dutifully report my findings. Then “Taste Test” came along, and new foods turned into weird and gross foods, and since I haven’t the stomach to compete with Internet Eating Sensation Dave Chang (and since I don’t live in Chicago), I put my food critic days behind me.
And yet, sometimes there’s a new flavor of chips or a new fast-food sandwich that calls for the kind of knee-jerk analysis only a dumpy Red Stater can provide. For example, in the past week I’ve ventured out twice to try this odd concoction:
According to Arby’s own description, their new “roastburgers” are “made with thinly sliced oven-roasted beef, char-grill seasonings and burger-style toppings.” I've tried the Bacon Cheddar and the All-American, and if I were asked to come up with a more accurate description, it would be something like this: “Heaps of processed beef-loaf, shaken with some granular form of liquid smoke, and tossed onto a soft bun with LTO.” But you know what? That LTO (or “burger-style toppings,” as Arby’s would have it) makes a difference. The first week the roastburgers were available, I had a lovingly prepared Bacon Cheddar that had a nice charred taste to the meat, then a week later I had a sloppily prepared All-American which had what appeared to be a spoonful of “char-grill seasonings” in the middle of the meat-heap and nowhere else. And in both cases, the star of the show was the bun and the fresh veggies, which honestly made the sandwiches taste like a burger.
Now I’ve gone on record as being skeptical of foods engineered to taste like other foods. Let X = X, I’ve always said. But as I was consuming these non-burger burgers from Arby’s, I began to think that I’ve had the wrong attitude all these years. If Top Chef has taught me anything, it’s that “molecular gastronomy” is where it’s at. Take the essence of one food’s flavor and inject it into a different consumable substance. Create “an impression” of a grilled cheese sandwich. Do “your take” on the traditional nacho. Make jellybeans taste like sea urchin roe. That’s the TC way.
(Long aside: Speaking of Top Chef, I enjoyed this past season by and large, but the way it ended left a bad taste in my mouth, so to speak. It's not just that the consistently unexciting Hosea snuck past more colorful and imaginative chefs, but I was also bummed out by reports the finale’s editing was less than fair to visiting TC veteran Casey. In an interview with the SideDish blog, Casey said that all of TC loser Carla’s blunders were made to seem like Casey’s fault, when in fact they were the contestant’s ideas, poorly executed. I expect a certain amount of editing chicanery on reality TV, but if Casey’s right and she took the rap for something that wasn’t her fault… well, that’s just not cool.)
Anyway, I’m going to go on record and say that Arby’s is onto something here. They’ve taken the pretentions of fine-dining and injected them into the fast-food realm. Soon we will have French fries that taste like hot apple pies, and soft tacos that taste like spicy chicken sandwiches. Grabbing a bite at the drive-thru will be like entering some kind of carnival funhouse. In order to do that, the fast-food chemists have to master the basics. I’d say that finding a way to make Arby-meat palatable is a step in the right direction.
New Web links
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CureBum.com - Natural & Alternative remedies health blog
http://www.berkeywater.com
Berkey® Water Filters
*
http://www.21stcenturyhgh.com
HGH Human Growth Hormone
Gentle, Homeopathic, HGH product gets real results!
See for yourself...
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http://www.cancertruth.net
KILL CANCER!
"You’re about to discover the Most Potent, Non-Toxic, Alternative Cancer Treatments that 94% Of Doctors don’t even know exist… and that Greedy Drug Companies keep ‘Hushed Up’ to protect their profits…"
*
http://beverlysdietblog.com
Beverly’s Diet Journal
How I lost 27 Pounds In One Month…
*
http://www.best-teeth-whitening.com
Best Teeth Whitening Product Reviews
*
http://kitchensofindia.com
Presenting the Kitchens of India range of authentic Indian cuisine. Kitchens Of India recreates the forgotten delicacies of a bygone era, when Maharajas ruled the land and cooking was an art perfected by few. Every Kitchens of India recipe has been developed and perfected by the Master Chefs of ITC's award-winning gourmet restaurants, renowned for their delectable and authentic Indian cuisine.
*
http://www.roberts.com
Roberts Road to Riches
How I started making $7,500 a month by following these 2 easy steps...
*
http://www.purerainusa.com
Texas Pure Rain is dedicated to helping you change the world by providing the healthiest and most natural drinking water possible, and by giving back to your local community. We use a portion of Pure Rain's net profits to build solar energy installations right here in Texas.
Our water is captured from the sky before it ever touches the ground. Then it's purified using ultraviolet light, ozonation, and reverse osmosis.
*
http://scienceformulas.com
Science Formulas® products are available directly to the consumer and through reputable practitioners nationwide: Consumers can conveniently purchase online and receive FREE SHIPPING† (we recommend using a qualified health care practitioner to monitor any chelation process).
*
http://www.curebum.com
CureBum.com - Natural & Alternative remedies health blog
February Payrolls Fall 651,000
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2009/03/06/afx6135137.html
US ECON: February Payrolls Fall 651,000; Unemployment At 8.1%
03.06.09
Washington, March 6 - US unemployment rate surged to 8.1% in February, a 25 year high, as the US shed another 651,000 and December's job losses were revised to largest decline in fifty years, the Labor Department said today.
The 651,000 job loss in February came in slightly above the 648,000 lost jobs economists were expecting. But this came after the economy lost 655,000 jobs in January and 681,000 jobs in December; December saw the largest job loss since October 1949. The December/January revisions added another 161,000 lost jobs to the two months for a cumulative 1.3 mln jobs lost.
The economy has now lost 4.168 mln jobs over the last twelve months and a total 4.384 mln since January 2008, when the economy began shedding jobs. More than half of the total losses have occured in the last four months.
Economists have said the economy needs to create about 100,000 jobs each month to keep up with new workers, but with February's numbers, the economy has averaged a loss of about 345,000 jobs per month over the last 12 months.
The unemployment rate, taken from a separate survey of households, rose to 8.1% in February, the highest rate since December 1983. Economists were expecting unemployment to rise to 7.9% from the 7.6% reported in January.
The labor force participation rate, which includes the number of working-aged people with jobs, rose slightly to 65.6%.
Services jobs are usually a major factor in job gains, but 375,000 jobs were lost in this sector in February. Service-sector jobs have declined for the last 14 months.
Construction jobs fell once again, by 104,000, and manufacturing jobs lost 168,000. Manufacturing jobs have not increased in 32 months. Retail jobs fell by 39,500, and February was the 15th straight month of job losses in this sector.
Government added 9,000 jobs in the month and education/health services added 26,000 jobs.
Average hourly wages rose by 0.2% in February as expected. That translated to a gain of 3 cents, putting the average hourly wage at $18.47.
The average workweek was unchanged at 33.3 as expected.
tessa.moran@thomsonreuters.com
US ECON: February Payrolls Fall 651,000; Unemployment At 8.1%
03.06.09
Washington, March 6 - US unemployment rate surged to 8.1% in February, a 25 year high, as the US shed another 651,000 and December's job losses were revised to largest decline in fifty years, the Labor Department said today.
The 651,000 job loss in February came in slightly above the 648,000 lost jobs economists were expecting. But this came after the economy lost 655,000 jobs in January and 681,000 jobs in December; December saw the largest job loss since October 1949. The December/January revisions added another 161,000 lost jobs to the two months for a cumulative 1.3 mln jobs lost.
The economy has now lost 4.168 mln jobs over the last twelve months and a total 4.384 mln since January 2008, when the economy began shedding jobs. More than half of the total losses have occured in the last four months.
Economists have said the economy needs to create about 100,000 jobs each month to keep up with new workers, but with February's numbers, the economy has averaged a loss of about 345,000 jobs per month over the last 12 months.
The unemployment rate, taken from a separate survey of households, rose to 8.1% in February, the highest rate since December 1983. Economists were expecting unemployment to rise to 7.9% from the 7.6% reported in January.
The labor force participation rate, which includes the number of working-aged people with jobs, rose slightly to 65.6%.
Services jobs are usually a major factor in job gains, but 375,000 jobs were lost in this sector in February. Service-sector jobs have declined for the last 14 months.
Construction jobs fell once again, by 104,000, and manufacturing jobs lost 168,000. Manufacturing jobs have not increased in 32 months. Retail jobs fell by 39,500, and February was the 15th straight month of job losses in this sector.
Government added 9,000 jobs in the month and education/health services added 26,000 jobs.
Average hourly wages rose by 0.2% in February as expected. That translated to a gain of 3 cents, putting the average hourly wage at $18.47.
The average workweek was unchanged at 33.3 as expected.
tessa.moran@thomsonreuters.com
Courage Campaign & Prop 8
Today is a turning point. And, as Harvey Milk used to say so often, we're "here to recruit you."A few minutes ago, the California Supreme Court heard the final oral arguments in the case to overturn Proposition 8. Within 90 days, we will know whether the court will restore equal rights or uphold injustice.
No matter what the state Supreme Court decides, the fight for equality will continue in California and across the country.
If we win, the same people who backed Prop 8 will find another way to undermine equal rights. If we lose, we will need to take our case to the people of California again. No matter what, we'll eventually need to win full equality under federal law.
At nearly 700,000 members and growing, the Courage Campaign is building an army to prepare for this fight -- the kind of people-powered movement that Harvey Milk would lead. A movement that proudly portrays -- and tells the stories of -- the people victimized by the discrimination of Prop 8, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act.
We're here to recruit you. Will you help the Courage Campaign build this movement? Please contribute what you can today to restore marriage equality to California and bring equal rights to America:
http://www.couragecampaign.org/BuildTheMovement
Harvey Milk understood the need to organize communities from the bottom-up, the need for gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender people to be out and proud as leaders in this movement, and the need for straight allies to join them in solidarity.
That's why we worked so hard to get the film "Milk" to movie screens across America. We wanted to show a new generation of Americans how Harvey organized to win landmark victories in the fight for equal rights.
Just like Harvey did in 1978 when he led the movement to defeat the "Briggs Initiative," the Courage Campaign is organizing across California to repeal Prop 8 -- training marriage equality activists at "Camp Courage" events, launching Equality Teams county-by-county, and producing online videos like the heartbreaking "Fidelity," viewed by more than 1 million people.
The only way we will win true equality in California and across the country is by giving people the power to do it themselves. And that's what the Courage Campaign is doing. Please contribute what you can afford today to help the Courage Campaign build this people-powered army from the ground up:
http://www.couragecampaign.org/BuildTheMovement
Thank you for joining us in supporting the Courage Campaign.
Sean Penn, Gus Van Sant, Dustin Lance Black, Cleve Jones, Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks
"Milk" Actor, Director, Screenwriter, Historical Consultant and Producers
..............
Courage Campaign Issues is part of the Courage Campaign's online organizing network that empowers nearly 700,000 grassroots and netroots activists to push for progressive change in California.
Beast of the Month - February 2009
Beast of the Month - February 2009
Bernie Madoff
Ponzi Scheme Con Artist
"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
Let's hand it to the good ol' USA, even now with the economic crisis, we're still number one in one major economic category: business fraud. (Sorry, Nigeria.) Yes, because America is the center of the economic universe, it still leads Planet Earth in swindles. And in America, the most famous form of fraud is the good old-fashion Ponzi scheme.
Like many great American traditions, the Ponzi scheme wasn't actually invented in the US: indeed, in the 1844 Charles Dickens novel Martin Chuzzlewitt, one is perfectly described. In fact, the man who the Ponzi scheme is named after, Charles Ponzi, was, like many great American trailblazers, an immigrant to this country. But in Chuck Ponzi, the swindle was perfected and popularized, so it is rightfully named in his deserved honor, and thus the Ponzi is as American as General Tso's chicken or nachos.
At the age of 21, Ponzi came to America in 1903 with only $2.50 in his pocket. Like another Italian-born American folk legend who immigrated to the East Coast two years later, Angelo Siciliano AKA Charles Atlas, he was a man short of money but strong of will and dreams to make it in the New Atlantis. But unlike Atlas - who made his fortune on marketing bodybuilding, thus paving the way for future American immigrant folk legend Governor Arnold - Ponzi earned his wealth in Boston on an investment scheme in 1920.
Ponzi's plan was a simple one as presented: exchanging international reply coupons bought in Italy for postage stamps in the US, he could make enormous profits. He formed a business, the Securities Exchange Company, to use foreign agents to make such mass transactions. Investors were offered a 50 percent return after 45 days, or double the investment in ninety. Incredibly, he was able to make the payouts, and quickly amassed $15 million dollars in investments. It appeared almost too good to be true.
It WAS too good to be true. The whole coupon exchange plan was a hoax, something the Boston Post had pretty much uncovered by late July. The real way Ponzi was able to meet his enormous payouts was by rapidly increasing his investor base by both reinvestment of "returns" and finding more suckers. He was arrested by the Feds in August, charged with mail fraud in using postcards to his "investors" in the scam (his only apparent actual business with the postal service.) He became the first business villain of the roaring twenties, and even with his quick rise and fall, the influence of Ponzi on the public's confidence in business investments is vast: no doubt in 1934, when FDR formed the Securities and Exchange Commission as part of the New Deal, the name and initials were used to replace the bad name to security trades given thanks to Chucky P.
Today, $15 million is chump's change when it comes to investments. Still, no Ponzi con since Ponzi has managed to match him in infamy. At least not until last year, when the curious case of Bernie Madoff, The Konformist Beast of the Month, came to light.
The aptly named Madoff ran a brazen Ponzi scheme which was unique in two ways. One was in how respectable the mastermind of the fraud was. The other was in its sheer amount: at $50 billion, it's the largest Ponzi scheme in history, even if you include MLM pyramid schemes like Amway.
Unlike the scrappy and streetwise Ponzi, Madoff was as inside the Wall Street establishment as you could get, having been a former chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange. Indeed, it is arguable that the NASDAQ wouldn't exist without him, as the technology behind it was developed by his firm. This is what makes his story so strange: the reason respectable folks like Madoff don't form Ponzi schemes is because they don't have to.
Not having to didn't stop Madoff. And he managed to long avoid some of the key pratfalls of most Ponzis, which he is believed to have started in the 1970s. To begin with, he targeted charities, which are unlikely to make sudden withdrawals of their cash, actions that usually lead to Ponzi black holes being unmasked. He further promised modest but consistent returns of around 10 percent annually, enough to keep charities afloat, but not too high to arouse suspicion. The ten percent number also allowed him 10 years of time for every dollar taken before any investment became completely worthless, thus also making it unnecessary to desperately seek more and more capital. Meanwhile, by being an insider schmoozer who hung with the rich and famous in Long Island and Palm Beach, he managed to obtain large amounts of investment painlessly from well-to-do who had little reason to suspect he was a con artist. Indeed, though it became the world's largest hedge fund, he would turn down would-be-investors who sometimes literally begged to become his clients, which only added to his fund's appeal.
But a con artist he was, with a rather famous list of victims: Jeffrey Katzenberg, John Malkovich, Sandy Koufax, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Yeshiva University, the Elie Wiesel Foundation, and charities set up by the publisher Mortimer Zuckerman and Hollywood film director Steven Spielberg. (For those playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon at home, the actor and his wife Kyra Sedgwick were indeed investors as well.) The list of Jewish investors bilked by fellow Jew Madoff left some anti-Semites on the Internet confused about the whole enterprise: didn't Madoff read the Protocols and realize he was supposed to screw the goy?
Though the SEC investigated Madoff at least eight times since 1992, they apparently did a sloth-filled job, as no evidence of a scam was ever uncovered. This despite being warned this was so by financial analyst Harry Markopolos, who in 2005 would send the SEC a report with the subtle title The World's Largest Hedge Fund is a Fraud. The Markopolos report itemized 29 red flags that the Madoff fund was a Ponzi con. Markopolos also sent the information to the Wall Street Journal the same year, who decided not to pursue the story. A 2001 article in MARHedge magazine shined suspicion of his track record of 72 straight months without a loss, a streak it deemed practically implausible. Charles Gradante, co-founder of the hedge-fund research firm Hennessee Group, agreed with this assessment, telling the L.A. Times in 2008: "You cannot go 10 or 15 years with only three or four down months. It's just impossible." After the hoax was uncovered, financial software company RiskData analyzed Madoff fund returns and discovered it was similar to those in previously uncovered fraudulent funds, something that should have raised warning signs in its own right.
Even with all these suspicious facts, there was apparently little interest among authorities to do detective work on such an esteemed Wall Street investor. Indeed, the only person in power who seemed to have any real interest in investigating Madoff was Eliot Spitzer, who did so in 2006 as New York's Attorney General. Spitzer, who also had investments in the Madoff fund, would become Governor the following year before being destroyed in a conveniently timed sex scandal expose early last year.
How he got away with it for so long may be the least of the remaining mysteries surrounding the Madoff scam. Two claims are repeatedly made in the mainstream press about the fraud: that Madoff did the whole thing by his lone gunman self, and that nearly all of the $50 billion is gone for good. Considering the main source for both these claims is Madoff himself, perhaps they shouldn't be taken on faith. Is it possible Madoff is just a fall guy for a larger money looting operation, and the money is now hidden in some offshore bank accounts?
Whether there is a larger conspiracy or not, in some ways, Madoff is a rather convenient scapegoat for the recent crime spree by Wall Street. After all, $50 billion is nothing compared to the money lost so far in the economic crisis. Meanwhile, the $700 billion bailout, widely opposed by the public from the start, has been pretty much been unmasked as the fraud and dollar black hole The Konformist warned it was last October. With unemployment at the end of January at 7.6 percent (with over 3.5 million jobs lost since December 2007) the masses need a face to attach their rage to, before they focus their rage against the system. Then again, considering Madoff was a swindler who targeted charities to the tune of billions, he is probably a more deserving scapegoat for the crimes of humanity than Britney Spears.
And perhaps the Madoff con is just the tip of the iceberg. Already, the SEC has busted two more Ponzi schemes in the post-Madoff era, worth $50 and $17 million each. Another hedge-fund scam, which may have bilked investors of up to $350 million in Florida, was discovered last month when the manager suddenly disappeared. None match the scope of the Madoff enterprise yet, but anything is possible at this point. In any case, if enough of these Ponzis posing as respectable funds start popping up, perhaps Madoff, like Ponzi before him, will enter the lexicon as an adjective in its own right.
In any case, we salute Bernie Madoff as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Bernie!!!
Bernie Madoff
Ponzi Scheme Con Artist
"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
Let's hand it to the good ol' USA, even now with the economic crisis, we're still number one in one major economic category: business fraud. (Sorry, Nigeria.) Yes, because America is the center of the economic universe, it still leads Planet Earth in swindles. And in America, the most famous form of fraud is the good old-fashion Ponzi scheme.
Like many great American traditions, the Ponzi scheme wasn't actually invented in the US: indeed, in the 1844 Charles Dickens novel Martin Chuzzlewitt, one is perfectly described. In fact, the man who the Ponzi scheme is named after, Charles Ponzi, was, like many great American trailblazers, an immigrant to this country. But in Chuck Ponzi, the swindle was perfected and popularized, so it is rightfully named in his deserved honor, and thus the Ponzi is as American as General Tso's chicken or nachos.
At the age of 21, Ponzi came to America in 1903 with only $2.50 in his pocket. Like another Italian-born American folk legend who immigrated to the East Coast two years later, Angelo Siciliano AKA Charles Atlas, he was a man short of money but strong of will and dreams to make it in the New Atlantis. But unlike Atlas - who made his fortune on marketing bodybuilding, thus paving the way for future American immigrant folk legend Governor Arnold - Ponzi earned his wealth in Boston on an investment scheme in 1920.
Ponzi's plan was a simple one as presented: exchanging international reply coupons bought in Italy for postage stamps in the US, he could make enormous profits. He formed a business, the Securities Exchange Company, to use foreign agents to make such mass transactions. Investors were offered a 50 percent return after 45 days, or double the investment in ninety. Incredibly, he was able to make the payouts, and quickly amassed $15 million dollars in investments. It appeared almost too good to be true.
It WAS too good to be true. The whole coupon exchange plan was a hoax, something the Boston Post had pretty much uncovered by late July. The real way Ponzi was able to meet his enormous payouts was by rapidly increasing his investor base by both reinvestment of "returns" and finding more suckers. He was arrested by the Feds in August, charged with mail fraud in using postcards to his "investors" in the scam (his only apparent actual business with the postal service.) He became the first business villain of the roaring twenties, and even with his quick rise and fall, the influence of Ponzi on the public's confidence in business investments is vast: no doubt in 1934, when FDR formed the Securities and Exchange Commission as part of the New Deal, the name and initials were used to replace the bad name to security trades given thanks to Chucky P.
Today, $15 million is chump's change when it comes to investments. Still, no Ponzi con since Ponzi has managed to match him in infamy. At least not until last year, when the curious case of Bernie Madoff, The Konformist Beast of the Month, came to light.
The aptly named Madoff ran a brazen Ponzi scheme which was unique in two ways. One was in how respectable the mastermind of the fraud was. The other was in its sheer amount: at $50 billion, it's the largest Ponzi scheme in history, even if you include MLM pyramid schemes like Amway.
Unlike the scrappy and streetwise Ponzi, Madoff was as inside the Wall Street establishment as you could get, having been a former chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange. Indeed, it is arguable that the NASDAQ wouldn't exist without him, as the technology behind it was developed by his firm. This is what makes his story so strange: the reason respectable folks like Madoff don't form Ponzi schemes is because they don't have to.
Not having to didn't stop Madoff. And he managed to long avoid some of the key pratfalls of most Ponzis, which he is believed to have started in the 1970s. To begin with, he targeted charities, which are unlikely to make sudden withdrawals of their cash, actions that usually lead to Ponzi black holes being unmasked. He further promised modest but consistent returns of around 10 percent annually, enough to keep charities afloat, but not too high to arouse suspicion. The ten percent number also allowed him 10 years of time for every dollar taken before any investment became completely worthless, thus also making it unnecessary to desperately seek more and more capital. Meanwhile, by being an insider schmoozer who hung with the rich and famous in Long Island and Palm Beach, he managed to obtain large amounts of investment painlessly from well-to-do who had little reason to suspect he was a con artist. Indeed, though it became the world's largest hedge fund, he would turn down would-be-investors who sometimes literally begged to become his clients, which only added to his fund's appeal.
But a con artist he was, with a rather famous list of victims: Jeffrey Katzenberg, John Malkovich, Sandy Koufax, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Yeshiva University, the Elie Wiesel Foundation, and charities set up by the publisher Mortimer Zuckerman and Hollywood film director Steven Spielberg. (For those playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon at home, the actor and his wife Kyra Sedgwick were indeed investors as well.) The list of Jewish investors bilked by fellow Jew Madoff left some anti-Semites on the Internet confused about the whole enterprise: didn't Madoff read the Protocols and realize he was supposed to screw the goy?
Though the SEC investigated Madoff at least eight times since 1992, they apparently did a sloth-filled job, as no evidence of a scam was ever uncovered. This despite being warned this was so by financial analyst Harry Markopolos, who in 2005 would send the SEC a report with the subtle title The World's Largest Hedge Fund is a Fraud. The Markopolos report itemized 29 red flags that the Madoff fund was a Ponzi con. Markopolos also sent the information to the Wall Street Journal the same year, who decided not to pursue the story. A 2001 article in MARHedge magazine shined suspicion of his track record of 72 straight months without a loss, a streak it deemed practically implausible. Charles Gradante, co-founder of the hedge-fund research firm Hennessee Group, agreed with this assessment, telling the L.A. Times in 2008: "You cannot go 10 or 15 years with only three or four down months. It's just impossible." After the hoax was uncovered, financial software company RiskData analyzed Madoff fund returns and discovered it was similar to those in previously uncovered fraudulent funds, something that should have raised warning signs in its own right.
Even with all these suspicious facts, there was apparently little interest among authorities to do detective work on such an esteemed Wall Street investor. Indeed, the only person in power who seemed to have any real interest in investigating Madoff was Eliot Spitzer, who did so in 2006 as New York's Attorney General. Spitzer, who also had investments in the Madoff fund, would become Governor the following year before being destroyed in a conveniently timed sex scandal expose early last year.
How he got away with it for so long may be the least of the remaining mysteries surrounding the Madoff scam. Two claims are repeatedly made in the mainstream press about the fraud: that Madoff did the whole thing by his lone gunman self, and that nearly all of the $50 billion is gone for good. Considering the main source for both these claims is Madoff himself, perhaps they shouldn't be taken on faith. Is it possible Madoff is just a fall guy for a larger money looting operation, and the money is now hidden in some offshore bank accounts?
Whether there is a larger conspiracy or not, in some ways, Madoff is a rather convenient scapegoat for the recent crime spree by Wall Street. After all, $50 billion is nothing compared to the money lost so far in the economic crisis. Meanwhile, the $700 billion bailout, widely opposed by the public from the start, has been pretty much been unmasked as the fraud and dollar black hole The Konformist warned it was last October. With unemployment at the end of January at 7.6 percent (with over 3.5 million jobs lost since December 2007) the masses need a face to attach their rage to, before they focus their rage against the system. Then again, considering Madoff was a swindler who targeted charities to the tune of billions, he is probably a more deserving scapegoat for the crimes of humanity than Britney Spears.
And perhaps the Madoff con is just the tip of the iceberg. Already, the SEC has busted two more Ponzi schemes in the post-Madoff era, worth $50 and $17 million each. Another hedge-fund scam, which may have bilked investors of up to $350 million in Florida, was discovered last month when the manager suddenly disappeared. None match the scope of the Madoff enterprise yet, but anything is possible at this point. In any case, if enough of these Ponzis posing as respectable funds start popping up, perhaps Madoff, like Ponzi before him, will enter the lexicon as an adjective in its own right.
In any case, we salute Bernie Madoff as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Bernie!!!
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Inside The LC: Part VIII
http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr100.html
Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation
Part VIII
July 24, 2008
“No one here gets out alive”
Jim Morrison
My apologies to readers for the long delay in getting this post up. These past several weeks have not been easy ones for your fearless host. Things started going south near the end of June, when our beloved family cat was taken ill and died upon arrival at the local vet’s office. To many readers, this may seem a rather insignificant loss, but I have to say, in all honesty, that Thomas just may have been the coolest cat to ever prowl the streets of Los Angeles. His presence in our home is surely missed.
Not too long after Thomas’ passing, my computer became quite ill as well. At first, it looked as though there was little hope of saving her. My tech buddy had all but pronounced her DOA when he unexpectedly detected a faint spark of life and a will to live. She could be saved, he proclaimed, but it would take some time and money. Given her advanced age (2 in human years, which is about 137 in computer years), he suggested I might be better off buying a new model. But then, of course, I would find myself face-to-face with the dreaded abomination known as Windows Vista. Also, I didn’t really need the headache and tedium of setting up a new machine, transferring everything over, etc.
So I decided to wait it out, and for several days I found myself completely lost in the world. My computer and my cat, you see, were my two very best non-human friends. They were also, more importantly, my research assistants. I am a night-owl by nature and it is in the wee hours of the morning, when the wife and kids are fast asleep, that I create literary masterpieces (like the one you are reading right now). My two trusted and loyal companions in those endeavors have long been my computer and my cat. And now they were both gone. Fuck.
The computer ultimately made a full recovery and returned home ready for action. Thomas, unfortunately, would not be coming back, so we would have to soldier on without him. But then, alas, came news of a far greater tragedy: a friend of 20+ years had succumbed to injuries sustained in a rock-climbing accident near his home in Superior, Colorado. Just 47 years old and an avid outdoorsman, rock climber, mountain biker and hockey player, he leaves behind that which he cherished most in his life – three young kids, the oldest of whom is just 14. He was a good man and a good friend who touched many lives during his relatively short stay here on planet Earth, and he will not soon be forgotten.
It is, therefore, with a heavy heart that I return now to my position as self-appointed Laurel Canyon tour guide.
* * * * * * * * * *
Sometimes pieces of the puzzle just seem to fall from the heavens. I don’t really know why that happens – and to be honest, I find it somewhat disconcerting at times. On Sunday, July 6, the venerable Washington Post, in a most timely manner, generously provided a new piece of the puzzle that even I, your jaded host, find rather remarkable. It seems that a former reporter and novelist by the name of Alex Abella “has written a history of RAND, which was founded more than 60 years ago by the Air Force as a font of ideas on how that service might fight and win a nuclear war with the USSR … Abella focuses on Albert Wohlstetter, a mathematical logician turned nuclear strategist who was the dominant figure at Rand starting in the early 1950s and whose influence has extended beyond his death in 1997 into the current Bush administration … Wohlstetter epitomized what became known as the ‘RAND approach’ -- a relentlessly reductive, determinedly quantitative analysis of whatever problem the independent, non-profit think tank was assigned, whether the design of a new bomber or improving public education in inner-city schools.”
Let me interrupt here for just a brief moment to note that the RAND corporation is a lot of things, but “independent” has never been one of them. Anyway, getting back to the Post’s timely book review, we find that “it was not so much Wohlstetter himself as his acolytes … who had a major impact in Washington.” Most of those acolytes need no introduction, as the names should be instantly recognizable to just about everyone: Richard Perle (who once dated Wohlstetter’s daughter), Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Andrew Marshall (“formerly a RAND economist, who, as promoter of the high-tech ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ in Donald Rumsfeld’s Defense Department, was dubbed the Pentagon’s ‘Yoda.’”)
In the latter half of the 1950s and the early 1960s, while Wohlstetter was with the RAND corporation and also a professor at UCLA (and while his wife Roberta also worked as an analyst for RAND), Albert and his followers – the men who now serve as the apparent architects of US foreign policy – regularly met in a heavily wooded neighborhood in Los Angeles known as … actually, I think I’m going to defer back to the Washington Post’s book review and let journalist Gregg Herken tell you how “those bright, eager and ambitious young men … had sat cross-legged on the floor with their mentor at his stylish house in (drum roll, please!) Laurel Canyon.”
The title of the Post’s book review is “Dr. Strangelove’s Workplace,” which presumably is a reference to the notorious RAND corporation. But I think that we can all agree that the title could just as easily apply to Wohlstetter’s stylish Laurel Canyon home. In fact, as the pieces of this puzzle continue to fall into place, it is beginning to seem as though “Dr. Strangelove’s Workplace” might be a good title for the entire damn canyon. We now know that, in addition to hosting both a secret military/intelligence facility and a call-boy/kiddy-porn operation servicing prominent public figures, Laurel Canyon was also the birthplace and meeting place of what we now know as the ‘neocon’/PNAC crowd, as well as the home base of the guiding light of the Rand corporation.
Thus far in our journey, we have encountered Masons, the FBI, the OSS, the CIA, the secret society known as Skull and Bones, the Rothschild family, military intelligence of every conceivable stripe, the OTO, the RAND corporation, the ‘neocon’ cabal, and just about every other nefarious group that regularly pops up in the ‘conspiracy’ literature – with one very obvious exception: we have not yet met up with any member of the legendary Rockefeller clan. Luckily though, we’re about to remedy that oversight.
This next contribution comes from deep within the archives of Time magazine, from an article entitled “The Bride Wore Pink,” published six decades ago on February 23, 1948: “One morning last week, bespectacled Bryant Bowden, editor of the weekly Okeechobee (Fla.) News, sauntered into the Okeechobee courthouse and stopped to eye the bulletin board in the main hall. Among the marriage-license applications, which, by Florida law, must be publicly posted for three days before a ceremony, he saw something which made him goggle. Winthrop Rockefeller, 35, of New York – the fourth of John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s five sons and one of the most eligible bachelors in the world – had stated his intention of marrying one Eva Sears, also of New York.”
“Editor Bowden had a bitter moment – his paper would not be published for two days. Then he remembered that he was the Okeechobee correspondent for the Associated Press. He telephoned the AP office in Jacksonville. A few hours later, the whole U.S. journalistic horizon glowed a bright pink with the fireworks he had touched off.”
“While the first headlines blazed (and while Manhattan gossip columnists scrambled to assure their readers that they had known all about the romance for months), herds of reporters were dispatched to find an answer to the question: Who is Eva Sears? Hearst’s Cholly Knickerbocker (Ghighi Cassini) haughtily announced that she was Mrs. Barbara Paul Sears of the fine old Philadelphia Pauls and thus a society girl of impeccable pedigree. He was wrong.”
Indeed he was. So who was this mystery woman – this woman who had once had a brief career in Hollywood before moving to Paris and taking a job as a secretary at the U.S. embassy? She appears to have gone by many names at different times in her life, including Eva Paul, Eva Paul Sears, Barbara Paul, Barbara Paul Sears, and “Bobo” Rockefeller. None of them, however, was the name she was given at the time of her birth. As Time magazine noted so many years ago, “Her parents were Lithuanian immigrants and she was born Jievute Paulekiute in a coal patch near Noblestown, Pa.” Even that, however, was not her real name – at least not by American custom and tradition.
In her parents’ homeland, I am told, “Paulekiute” is the feminine version of a surname we have previously encountered: “Paulekas,” which was her parents’ surname. Eva Paul’s father, as it turns out, just happened to be the brother of Vito Paulekas’ father (a fact verified by – and brought to my attention by – a member of the Paulekas family.) I’m no genealogist, but I’m pretty sure that that means that the self-styled "King of the Hippies" was a first cousin of "Bobo" Rockefeller, and a cousin-in-law (or something like that) of Winthrop Rockefeller himself. Vito was also a cousin of the couple’s only child, Winthrop Paul Rockefeller, who would later serve as the Lieutenant Governor of the state of Arkansas.
The Paulekas family, alas, missed the couple’s day of celebration. According to Time, “Bobo’s mother and stepfather … were unable to attend the ceremony because they were making a batch of Lithuanian cheese on their Indiana farm.” I guess we all have our priorities. Truth be told though, the Paulekas clan has a somewhat different explanation: they were deliberately excluded from the ceremony as it was felt they were a bit too uncultured to break bread with the likes of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and the Marquess of Blandford.
We will be revisiting Vito Paulekas in an upcoming edition, to review other new information that has come my way. For now, we will just note that we can add the Rockefellers to the list of folks connected to the Laurel Canyon scene. And that, of course, made Laurel Canyon the ideal place for all the rock musicians and hippies and flower children to hang out in the 1960s and 1970s, even with the stench from all the dead bodies that kept piling up. Speaking of which, let’s check in and see what names have been added to the Laurel Canyon Death List since we last took a peek.
The first new name I see is Mr. Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, who purportedly drowned without assistance in his home swimming pool on July 3, 1969, at the age of 27 (Jim Morrison would allegedly die precisely two years later, also at the age of 27). Just three days after Jones’ tragic death, the Stones, with the Hells Angels providing security, played a previously-scheduled concert in Hyde Park, footage of which appears in Kenneth Anger’s Invocation of My Demon Brother. Despite his (disputed) claims of being the founder of the Stones, Jones had been unceremoniously dumped by the group on June 9, less than a month before his death. He was replaced just four days later by Mick Taylor (who would later leave the group and be replaced by Ron Wood). It would later be claimed that Jones was booted from the band due to his grossly inflated ego and his chronic substance abuse problems.
Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation
Part VIII
July 24, 2008
“No one here gets out alive”
Jim Morrison
My apologies to readers for the long delay in getting this post up. These past several weeks have not been easy ones for your fearless host. Things started going south near the end of June, when our beloved family cat was taken ill and died upon arrival at the local vet’s office. To many readers, this may seem a rather insignificant loss, but I have to say, in all honesty, that Thomas just may have been the coolest cat to ever prowl the streets of Los Angeles. His presence in our home is surely missed.
Not too long after Thomas’ passing, my computer became quite ill as well. At first, it looked as though there was little hope of saving her. My tech buddy had all but pronounced her DOA when he unexpectedly detected a faint spark of life and a will to live. She could be saved, he proclaimed, but it would take some time and money. Given her advanced age (2 in human years, which is about 137 in computer years), he suggested I might be better off buying a new model. But then, of course, I would find myself face-to-face with the dreaded abomination known as Windows Vista. Also, I didn’t really need the headache and tedium of setting up a new machine, transferring everything over, etc.
So I decided to wait it out, and for several days I found myself completely lost in the world. My computer and my cat, you see, were my two very best non-human friends. They were also, more importantly, my research assistants. I am a night-owl by nature and it is in the wee hours of the morning, when the wife and kids are fast asleep, that I create literary masterpieces (like the one you are reading right now). My two trusted and loyal companions in those endeavors have long been my computer and my cat. And now they were both gone. Fuck.
The computer ultimately made a full recovery and returned home ready for action. Thomas, unfortunately, would not be coming back, so we would have to soldier on without him. But then, alas, came news of a far greater tragedy: a friend of 20+ years had succumbed to injuries sustained in a rock-climbing accident near his home in Superior, Colorado. Just 47 years old and an avid outdoorsman, rock climber, mountain biker and hockey player, he leaves behind that which he cherished most in his life – three young kids, the oldest of whom is just 14. He was a good man and a good friend who touched many lives during his relatively short stay here on planet Earth, and he will not soon be forgotten.
It is, therefore, with a heavy heart that I return now to my position as self-appointed Laurel Canyon tour guide.
* * * * * * * * * *
Sometimes pieces of the puzzle just seem to fall from the heavens. I don’t really know why that happens – and to be honest, I find it somewhat disconcerting at times. On Sunday, July 6, the venerable Washington Post, in a most timely manner, generously provided a new piece of the puzzle that even I, your jaded host, find rather remarkable. It seems that a former reporter and novelist by the name of Alex Abella “has written a history of RAND, which was founded more than 60 years ago by the Air Force as a font of ideas on how that service might fight and win a nuclear war with the USSR … Abella focuses on Albert Wohlstetter, a mathematical logician turned nuclear strategist who was the dominant figure at Rand starting in the early 1950s and whose influence has extended beyond his death in 1997 into the current Bush administration … Wohlstetter epitomized what became known as the ‘RAND approach’ -- a relentlessly reductive, determinedly quantitative analysis of whatever problem the independent, non-profit think tank was assigned, whether the design of a new bomber or improving public education in inner-city schools.”
Let me interrupt here for just a brief moment to note that the RAND corporation is a lot of things, but “independent” has never been one of them. Anyway, getting back to the Post’s timely book review, we find that “it was not so much Wohlstetter himself as his acolytes … who had a major impact in Washington.” Most of those acolytes need no introduction, as the names should be instantly recognizable to just about everyone: Richard Perle (who once dated Wohlstetter’s daughter), Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Andrew Marshall (“formerly a RAND economist, who, as promoter of the high-tech ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ in Donald Rumsfeld’s Defense Department, was dubbed the Pentagon’s ‘Yoda.’”)
In the latter half of the 1950s and the early 1960s, while Wohlstetter was with the RAND corporation and also a professor at UCLA (and while his wife Roberta also worked as an analyst for RAND), Albert and his followers – the men who now serve as the apparent architects of US foreign policy – regularly met in a heavily wooded neighborhood in Los Angeles known as … actually, I think I’m going to defer back to the Washington Post’s book review and let journalist Gregg Herken tell you how “those bright, eager and ambitious young men … had sat cross-legged on the floor with their mentor at his stylish house in (drum roll, please!) Laurel Canyon.”
The title of the Post’s book review is “Dr. Strangelove’s Workplace,” which presumably is a reference to the notorious RAND corporation. But I think that we can all agree that the title could just as easily apply to Wohlstetter’s stylish Laurel Canyon home. In fact, as the pieces of this puzzle continue to fall into place, it is beginning to seem as though “Dr. Strangelove’s Workplace” might be a good title for the entire damn canyon. We now know that, in addition to hosting both a secret military/intelligence facility and a call-boy/kiddy-porn operation servicing prominent public figures, Laurel Canyon was also the birthplace and meeting place of what we now know as the ‘neocon’/PNAC crowd, as well as the home base of the guiding light of the Rand corporation.
Thus far in our journey, we have encountered Masons, the FBI, the OSS, the CIA, the secret society known as Skull and Bones, the Rothschild family, military intelligence of every conceivable stripe, the OTO, the RAND corporation, the ‘neocon’ cabal, and just about every other nefarious group that regularly pops up in the ‘conspiracy’ literature – with one very obvious exception: we have not yet met up with any member of the legendary Rockefeller clan. Luckily though, we’re about to remedy that oversight.
This next contribution comes from deep within the archives of Time magazine, from an article entitled “The Bride Wore Pink,” published six decades ago on February 23, 1948: “One morning last week, bespectacled Bryant Bowden, editor of the weekly Okeechobee (Fla.) News, sauntered into the Okeechobee courthouse and stopped to eye the bulletin board in the main hall. Among the marriage-license applications, which, by Florida law, must be publicly posted for three days before a ceremony, he saw something which made him goggle. Winthrop Rockefeller, 35, of New York – the fourth of John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s five sons and one of the most eligible bachelors in the world – had stated his intention of marrying one Eva Sears, also of New York.”
“Editor Bowden had a bitter moment – his paper would not be published for two days. Then he remembered that he was the Okeechobee correspondent for the Associated Press. He telephoned the AP office in Jacksonville. A few hours later, the whole U.S. journalistic horizon glowed a bright pink with the fireworks he had touched off.”
“While the first headlines blazed (and while Manhattan gossip columnists scrambled to assure their readers that they had known all about the romance for months), herds of reporters were dispatched to find an answer to the question: Who is Eva Sears? Hearst’s Cholly Knickerbocker (Ghighi Cassini) haughtily announced that she was Mrs. Barbara Paul Sears of the fine old Philadelphia Pauls and thus a society girl of impeccable pedigree. He was wrong.”
Indeed he was. So who was this mystery woman – this woman who had once had a brief career in Hollywood before moving to Paris and taking a job as a secretary at the U.S. embassy? She appears to have gone by many names at different times in her life, including Eva Paul, Eva Paul Sears, Barbara Paul, Barbara Paul Sears, and “Bobo” Rockefeller. None of them, however, was the name she was given at the time of her birth. As Time magazine noted so many years ago, “Her parents were Lithuanian immigrants and she was born Jievute Paulekiute in a coal patch near Noblestown, Pa.” Even that, however, was not her real name – at least not by American custom and tradition.
In her parents’ homeland, I am told, “Paulekiute” is the feminine version of a surname we have previously encountered: “Paulekas,” which was her parents’ surname. Eva Paul’s father, as it turns out, just happened to be the brother of Vito Paulekas’ father (a fact verified by – and brought to my attention by – a member of the Paulekas family.) I’m no genealogist, but I’m pretty sure that that means that the self-styled "King of the Hippies" was a first cousin of "Bobo" Rockefeller, and a cousin-in-law (or something like that) of Winthrop Rockefeller himself. Vito was also a cousin of the couple’s only child, Winthrop Paul Rockefeller, who would later serve as the Lieutenant Governor of the state of Arkansas.
The Paulekas family, alas, missed the couple’s day of celebration. According to Time, “Bobo’s mother and stepfather … were unable to attend the ceremony because they were making a batch of Lithuanian cheese on their Indiana farm.” I guess we all have our priorities. Truth be told though, the Paulekas clan has a somewhat different explanation: they were deliberately excluded from the ceremony as it was felt they were a bit too uncultured to break bread with the likes of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and the Marquess of Blandford.
We will be revisiting Vito Paulekas in an upcoming edition, to review other new information that has come my way. For now, we will just note that we can add the Rockefellers to the list of folks connected to the Laurel Canyon scene. And that, of course, made Laurel Canyon the ideal place for all the rock musicians and hippies and flower children to hang out in the 1960s and 1970s, even with the stench from all the dead bodies that kept piling up. Speaking of which, let’s check in and see what names have been added to the Laurel Canyon Death List since we last took a peek.
The first new name I see is Mr. Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, who purportedly drowned without assistance in his home swimming pool on July 3, 1969, at the age of 27 (Jim Morrison would allegedly die precisely two years later, also at the age of 27). Just three days after Jones’ tragic death, the Stones, with the Hells Angels providing security, played a previously-scheduled concert in Hyde Park, footage of which appears in Kenneth Anger’s Invocation of My Demon Brother. Despite his (disputed) claims of being the founder of the Stones, Jones had been unceremoniously dumped by the group on June 9, less than a month before his death. He was replaced just four days later by Mick Taylor (who would later leave the group and be replaced by Ron Wood). It would later be claimed that Jones was booted from the band due to his grossly inflated ego and his chronic substance abuse problems.
Anton LaVey of the Church of Satan, from Invocation of My Demon Brother“Fair enough,” you say, “but what does any of that have to do with Laurel Canyon? Clearly the Stones were not a Laurel Canyon band.” True enough, but as Barney Hoskyns has written (in Hotel California), “In the summer of 1968 the English band was flirting heavily with Satanism and the occult … and spending a lot of time in Los Angeles.” A lot of time, that is, in and around Laurel Canyon – and during that time, Mick Jagger was involved in two occult-drenched film projects: Kenneth Anger’s Lucifer Rising and Donald Cammell’s Performance.
Jagger was the first musical superstar tapped by Anger to compose a soundtrack for his Lucifer Rising project, which at the time was to star Mansonite Bobby Beausoleil (who had, as we all remember, replaced Godo Paulekas). Anger would later solicit a soundtrack for the long-delayed film project from Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, the proud owner of one of the world’s largest collections of Aleister Crowley memorabilia, including Crowley’s notorious Boleskine estate on the shores of Scotland’s Loch Ness. When ultimately released, however, the film featured a soundtrack by neither Jagger nor Page, but rather one that was composed, recorded and arranged inside a prison cell by convicted murderer Bobby Beausoleil. The pre-prison footage that Anger had shot of Beausoleil, meanwhile, ended up in a different film: the aforementioned Invocation of My Demon Brother. Starring in Lucifer Rising, as Osiris, was Performance writer and co-director Donald Seaton Cammell.
Jagger was the first musical superstar tapped by Anger to compose a soundtrack for his Lucifer Rising project, which at the time was to star Mansonite Bobby Beausoleil (who had, as we all remember, replaced Godo Paulekas). Anger would later solicit a soundtrack for the long-delayed film project from Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, the proud owner of one of the world’s largest collections of Aleister Crowley memorabilia, including Crowley’s notorious Boleskine estate on the shores of Scotland’s Loch Ness. When ultimately released, however, the film featured a soundtrack by neither Jagger nor Page, but rather one that was composed, recorded and arranged inside a prison cell by convicted murderer Bobby Beausoleil. The pre-prison footage that Anger had shot of Beausoleil, meanwhile, ended up in a different film: the aforementioned Invocation of My Demon Brother. Starring in Lucifer Rising, as Osiris, was Performance writer and co-director Donald Seaton Cammell.
Donald Cammell as Osiris, from Lucifer RisingDonald Cammell was the son of Charles Richard Cammell, who happened to be a close friend and biographer of notorious occultist and British intelligence asset Aleister Crowley. Donald himself was the godson of the Great Beast. Cammell’s decidedly Crowleyian film was originally to star his good friend Marlon Brando, but the role ultimately went to actor James Fox. Brando and Cammell, by the way, once wrote a novel together – a novel so horrifyingly bad that I dare not mention its title here for fear that some of you may purchase it out of curiosity and then blame me for any trauma you endure while attempting to actually read it.
Speaking of Brando, by the way, have I mentioned yet the curious string of deaths that began eighteen years ago, on May 16, 1990, when Marlon’s son Christian gunned down Dag Drollet, the father of his sister Cheyenne’s unborn child, in Marlon’s Laurel Canyon-adjacent home? Though convicted, Christian got off with a rather light sentence, thanks primarily to Marlon having had his own daughter, the prosecution’s potential star witness, locked away in a mental institution in Tahiti, safe from subpoena. A few years later, on April 14, 1995, 25-year-old Cheyenne was found swinging from the end of a rope, her death unsurprisingly ruled a suicide. The next year, Christian Brando was released from prison and promptly became involved with a woman by the name of Bonnie Lee Bakley, who caught a bullet to the head on May 4, 2001 while in the company of new hubby Robert Blake (her tenth husband). Marlon dropped dead next, on July 1, 2004 (though his death wasn’t particularly suspicious, given that he was getting on in years). His home was promptly purchased by good friend and neighbor Jack Nicholson, who immediately announced plans to bulldoze it, declaring the structure to be decrepit. He never did though explain why a man wealthy enough to own his own chain of Polynesian islands was purportedly living in a derelict abode. A few years later, on January 26 of 2008, Christian Brando dropped dead at the relatively young age of 49.
Returning now, after that brief digression, to our discussion of Donald Cammell’s Performance, we find that Mick Jagger was cast to play the role of ‘Turner,’ a debauched rock star (which, obviously, was a real stretch for Mick). Fox played ‘Chas,’ a violent organized-crime figure. He was trained for the role by David Litvinoff, a real-life crime figure and associate of the notoriously sadistic Kray brothers. Litvinoff reportedly sent Fox to the south of London for a couple of months to hang out with his gangster buddies; when he returned, according to various accounts, Fox had literally become the violent character he portrayed in the film.
Bobby Beausoleil, from Invocation of My Demon BrotherRecruited to create the film’s soundtrack was Bernard Alfred “Jack” Nitzsche, an occultist and the son of a supposed ‘medium.’ Nitzsche, along with Sonny Bono, had begun his music career as a lieutenant for gun-brandishing producer Phil Spector (Nitzsche was one of the architects of Spector’s famed “wall of sound”). Nitzsche was also a familiar presence on the Laurel Canyon scene, collaborating with such noted bands and artists as Buffalo Springfield, Neil Young, Crazy Horse, Randy Newman, Michelle Phillips, The Turtles, Captain Beefheart and Carole King. Nitzsche also worked with several of the people we will be adding today to the Laurel Canyon Death List, including David Blue, Ricky Nelson and Sonny Bono. And one guy who was already added to the list: Tim Buckley.
Nitzsche’s Performance soundtrack was composed, according to author Michael Walker, “in a witch’s cottage in the canyon” (I’m not exactly sure what a “witch’s cottage” is, but it’s nice to know that Laurel Canyon had one). One of the musicians hired by Nitzsche to play on that soundtrack was Lowell George, who we will also be adding to the Laurel Canyon Death List. For now, let’s add Donald Cammell to the list, since on April 24, 1996, he became yet another of the characters in this story to catch a bullet to the head (need I add here that the wound was reportedly self-inflicted?) Nitzsche died five years later of a heart attack, on August 25, 2000. A few years earlier, he had made an appearance on primetime television – as a gun-brandishing drunkard arrested on the streets of Hollywood on Cops.
Before moving on, there is one other thing I need to mention about Cammell’s film: John Phillips once stated that Performance was about estranging one’s self from society in order to create a new, better social order. “With really intelligent people,” according to Phillips, “it’s almost a matter of inbreeding at this point.” I don’t know about all of you readers out there, but when I first stumbled upon that quote, it suddenly dawned on me that one element that was previously missing from this story was a pro-eugenics comment from one of our flower-power icons, so I’m glad that we were able to squeeze that in.
Since we now seem to have segued onto the topic of John Phillips, let’s go ahead and add his good friend Steve Brandt to the Death List. Brandt, who was also a close friend of the victims at 10050 Cielo Drive, allegedly overdosed on barbiturates in late November of 1969, some three-and-a-half months after the Manson murders. In the days and weeks following those murders, Brandt had placed numerous phone calls to the LAPD. Those calls became increasingly frantic in nature, and Brandt became increasingly fearful that his own life might be in jeopardy. He soon decided to put some distance between himself and LA, so he headed for New York City. On the night of his death, according to Phillips’ autobiography, Brandt attended a Rolling Stones concert at Madison Square Gardens, where he attempted to run on stage but was repelled and beaten by a security guard. He then went home and, according to official mythology, overdosed.
It seems obvious that if someone had information that desperately needed to be made public, and if it was the kind of information that authorities had, say, willfully failed to act upon, and if the information was of the type that could not, needless to say, be taken to the mainstream media, and if the year was 1969 and the mass communication technology that we now take for granted did not yet exist, then grabbing the mike at a Stones concert at Madison Square Gardens might just be one of the most effective means of disseminating that information. Brandt failed in what may have been an attempt to do just that, and he turned up dead just hours later. Shit happens, I guess.
Moving on, I couldn’t help noticing that when I mentioned David Blue a few paragraphs back, a lot of you scratched your heads and asked, “David Who?” Allow me then to quickly introduce you to another of the forgotten talents of Laurel Canyon. Blue was born Stuart David Cohen on February 18, 1941; shortly thereafter, his father was deployed overseas. According to David, his dad “came hobbling home on crutches and stayed depressed all his life” (not unlike, it seems fair to say, the family situation of our old friend Phil Ochs). David and his slightly older half-sister, Suzanne, endured a hellish existence consisting of alternating periods of rages and silences. Suzanne got out first, only to end up busted for prostitution in New York City in 1963. Suzanne’s next stop, just a few months later, was at the county morgue.
David, meanwhile, had gotten out of the house as well, by dropping out of school and joining the US Navy at the age of seventeen – just as Lenny Bruce had done. Like Jimi Hendrix, Blue was purportedly booted out of the service, after which he decided to become a folk singer. His first album was released in 1966; a later effort was produced by Graham Nash, who also, as everyone surely recalls, produced a record for Judee Sill, with whom Blue had much in common (you people had better be paying attention because – I’m warning you! – there will, at some point, be a quiz on all this shit, and if you miss too many questions on that quiz, you will be locked out from further access to these articles!)
… … … … Just kidding!! I don’t even know how to set that shit up! But if I did, I would totally fucking do it! Anyway, let’s get back to our story …
Like Judee Sill, David Blue was one of the Laurel Canyon stars who never quite shone as brightly as they should have. And also like Sill, Blue was one of the first few acts signed by David Geffen’s fledgling Asylum label. Finally, as with Judee, David was long forgotten by the time of his death, on December 2, 1982, when the forty-one-year-old Blue dropped dead while jogging in New York’s Washington Square Park. The former rising star (and occasional actor) lay in the morgue for three days before anyone noticed that he was missing.
To be continued …
* * * * * * * * * *
One final note to readers: early on in this series, when I urged readers to pick up a copy of Programmed to Kill, I neglected to add that there is an older post on this website that you should read as well. If you haven’t done so already, or haven’t done so lately, pull up a chair and work your way through “Celluloid Heroes, Part II: The Tangled Web of Charlie Manson” at: http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/wtc13.html.
No Bailout For You
http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/04/obama-plan-mortgage-business-washington_mortgage.html
Business In The Beltway
No Bailout For You
Joshua Zumbrun and Maurna Desmond
03.04.09
Who's not eligible for a new mortgage under Obama's modification and refinancing plan.
WASHINGTON, D.C.--The Obama administration released more details Wednesday on its $275 billion foreclosure prevention plan. The administration hopes 9 million homeowners will have the opportunity to refinance or modify their mortgages, helping to dam the flood of foreclosures currently drowning real estate markets.
But there are 112 million households in the U.S. What about the other 103 million?
For most of those people, the modification plan has only indirect benefits: fewer foreclosures in their towns and, if all goes well, stabilizing housing markets. Those are hardly trivial benefits, but some taxpayers might feel sore about footing the bill for everybody else.
A look at who's left out:
Jumbo mortgage holders: Anyone with a mortgage on a single-family residence over $729,750 is ineligible for modification. In most parts of the country, $729,750 will buy you a huge house, but back in 2007 it was the median home price in places like San Francisco and San Jose, Calif.
Investors and speculators: Remember when it seemed like a great idea to buy and flip as many homes as possible? Oops. The foreclosure prevention programs are only for owner-occupied homes, as verified by a tax return, credit report and other documentation such as a utility bill.
Some people were, no doubt, essentially speculating on their primary residence, hoping to flip the home they lived in. These people would be eligible for these programs. People who bought multiple-unit condos and currently live in one of the units are eligible too. But by and large, investors, speculators and vacationers will be unable to come up with documentation proving the home is owner-occupied.
People who can't document their income: Borrowers who took out so-called "liar loans" are going to have trouble fibbing their way through this round of underwriting. The government is requiring servicers to run a credit check and verify income before modifying loans. This means that a dog walker who bought a McMansion during the bubble will have a much harder time proving he or she can afford a discounted mortgage now.
Renters: Obviously, a mortgage modification plan wouldn't help people without mortgages. Still, the more than 37 million households in the U.S. that rent (some of whom were priced out of owning a home during the bubble) can't be too happy about subsidizing belly-up borrowers. Renters looking to own their own homes have a particularly difficult pill to swallow: The plan is aimed at stopping home prices from correcting to affordable levels, pricing out many would-be buyers. Obama's stimulus plan does, however, have an $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit.
But imagine the plight of renters who live in a four-unit condo they share with their landlord. The landlord is eligible for a modification (for four-unit properties, the cap is $1.4 million), potentially saving thousands a month, but he's under no obligation to reduce the rent for his tenants.
Recent borrowers without Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans: The biggest part of the government's plan allows people with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac mortgages to refinance to a better rate, even if their mortgage is as much as 5% underwater--for example, if you owed $105,000 but your house was only worth $100,000. Under the old rules, a homeowner needed 20% equity to refinance. Thus, many recent buyers who have seen their homes lose value have been unable to refinance at today's low rates.
The government is quick to point out that this program is for responsible home buyers who haven't missed payments. OK, but what about responsible buyers who haven't missed payments but have little or slightly negative home equity and just happen not to have a Fannie or Freddie loan? Tough luck.
Holders of older mortgages: If you bought your house years ago and have been quietly paying your mortgage on time ever since, there's nothing here for you. Even the government's efforts to keep mortgage rates low are possibly of little benefit to these homeowners, many of whom refinanced into similarly low rates in 2003 and 2004. People with great credit scores who already have a large stake of equity in their homes can refinance under conventional programs.
Second-mortgage holders: Many borrowers might still be in trouble if they took out second mortgages (they were usually called home equity loans at the time--something of a misnomer as most of that equity from the boom years is gone now). But there's no modification plan for people in trouble on second mortgages unless they're also eligible for modification with their first mortgage.
For second-mortgage holders also in trouble on their first mortgage, the Treasury says it will eventually unveil some incentives to extinguish that second mortgage.
Business In The Beltway
No Bailout For You
Joshua Zumbrun and Maurna Desmond
03.04.09
Who's not eligible for a new mortgage under Obama's modification and refinancing plan.
WASHINGTON, D.C.--The Obama administration released more details Wednesday on its $275 billion foreclosure prevention plan. The administration hopes 9 million homeowners will have the opportunity to refinance or modify their mortgages, helping to dam the flood of foreclosures currently drowning real estate markets.
But there are 112 million households in the U.S. What about the other 103 million?
For most of those people, the modification plan has only indirect benefits: fewer foreclosures in their towns and, if all goes well, stabilizing housing markets. Those are hardly trivial benefits, but some taxpayers might feel sore about footing the bill for everybody else.
A look at who's left out:
Jumbo mortgage holders: Anyone with a mortgage on a single-family residence over $729,750 is ineligible for modification. In most parts of the country, $729,750 will buy you a huge house, but back in 2007 it was the median home price in places like San Francisco and San Jose, Calif.
Investors and speculators: Remember when it seemed like a great idea to buy and flip as many homes as possible? Oops. The foreclosure prevention programs are only for owner-occupied homes, as verified by a tax return, credit report and other documentation such as a utility bill.
Some people were, no doubt, essentially speculating on their primary residence, hoping to flip the home they lived in. These people would be eligible for these programs. People who bought multiple-unit condos and currently live in one of the units are eligible too. But by and large, investors, speculators and vacationers will be unable to come up with documentation proving the home is owner-occupied.
People who can't document their income: Borrowers who took out so-called "liar loans" are going to have trouble fibbing their way through this round of underwriting. The government is requiring servicers to run a credit check and verify income before modifying loans. This means that a dog walker who bought a McMansion during the bubble will have a much harder time proving he or she can afford a discounted mortgage now.
Renters: Obviously, a mortgage modification plan wouldn't help people without mortgages. Still, the more than 37 million households in the U.S. that rent (some of whom were priced out of owning a home during the bubble) can't be too happy about subsidizing belly-up borrowers. Renters looking to own their own homes have a particularly difficult pill to swallow: The plan is aimed at stopping home prices from correcting to affordable levels, pricing out many would-be buyers. Obama's stimulus plan does, however, have an $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit.
But imagine the plight of renters who live in a four-unit condo they share with their landlord. The landlord is eligible for a modification (for four-unit properties, the cap is $1.4 million), potentially saving thousands a month, but he's under no obligation to reduce the rent for his tenants.
Recent borrowers without Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans: The biggest part of the government's plan allows people with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac mortgages to refinance to a better rate, even if their mortgage is as much as 5% underwater--for example, if you owed $105,000 but your house was only worth $100,000. Under the old rules, a homeowner needed 20% equity to refinance. Thus, many recent buyers who have seen their homes lose value have been unable to refinance at today's low rates.
The government is quick to point out that this program is for responsible home buyers who haven't missed payments. OK, but what about responsible buyers who haven't missed payments but have little or slightly negative home equity and just happen not to have a Fannie or Freddie loan? Tough luck.
Holders of older mortgages: If you bought your house years ago and have been quietly paying your mortgage on time ever since, there's nothing here for you. Even the government's efforts to keep mortgage rates low are possibly of little benefit to these homeowners, many of whom refinanced into similarly low rates in 2003 and 2004. People with great credit scores who already have a large stake of equity in their homes can refinance under conventional programs.
Second-mortgage holders: Many borrowers might still be in trouble if they took out second mortgages (they were usually called home equity loans at the time--something of a misnomer as most of that equity from the boom years is gone now). But there's no modification plan for people in trouble on second mortgages unless they're also eligible for modification with their first mortgage.
For second-mortgage holders also in trouble on their first mortgage, the Treasury says it will eventually unveil some incentives to extinguish that second mortgage.
“Slick Rick” Santelli Is A Bailout Queen
http://exiledonline.com/%E2%80%9Cslick-rick%E2%80%9D-santelli-is-a-bailout-queen-tea-party-mascot%E2%80%99s-company-took-139-billion-in-bailout-funds-ge-uses-taxpayer-money-to-censor-its-critics-destroy-bailout-program-f/
Santelli Watch / eXiled Alert!
“Slick Rick” Santelli Is A Bailout Queen
By Mark Ames and Yasha Levine
March 3rd, 2009
If you’re wondering why disgraced pseudo-rebel Rick Santelli and his pals at CNBC kept strangely quiet about the hundreds of billions in bailouts right up until a couple weeks ago, when the government finally extended its bailout program beyond the corporate world and to regular American citizens, there’s a simple explanation. Rick and his coworkers at CNBC have been living high on the government bailout hog. Yup, “Slick Rick” Santelli and his fair-weather free-market comrades are nuthin’ but old-fashioned welfare queens pimping a newfangled libertarian hustle to cover it all up.
Since last October, CNBC’s parent company General Electric has taken at least $139 billion in government-backed loan guarantees to keep GE Capital Corp from going belly-up and taking the whole company, including Rick Santelli, with it.
No wonder Rick signed that confession on CNBC’s site, professing his love for Obama and the government stimulus package. To quote Tray’s father in Don’t Be A Menace In South Central: “Ain’t nuttin wrong with welfare checks, that’s somethin called ‘free money’!”
We repeat: Rick Santelli, along with Lawrence Kudlow and all the other free-marketeer hustlers at CNBC are nothing but bailout queens posing as angry, principled anti-bailout crusaders. Repeat again, to get it into your thick heads: Rick Santelli’s salary is underwritten by government bailout money… YOU, PROTESTERS AGAINST BAILOUTS, PAY RICK’S SALARY! And yet, gosh, he’s just soooo angry about his taxdollars going to bail you out, because as he said in his famous “rant,” he doesn’t want to bail out “losers” like you. He just wants losers like you to bail out winners like him and Kudlow. And you know, in a way, he’s right–you really are losers if you don’t demand that Rick pays you back the money he took from you and all of us.
This is just too fucking funny, and perfectly captures the off-the-scale hypocrisy, corruption and laughing-in-your-peasant-fucking-face culture that defines America’s ruling elite. Not that it’s helping the company much–GE is up to its sweaty bald-spot in credit default swap instruments, in such deep shit that there might not even be a GE to shovel American taxpayer billions to come summertime, reports Bloomberg.
As for you regular folks out there, all we can say is that anyone who took Santelli seriously (and granted, there are few who really did, most of you were paid to pretend you supported him, right Megan McArdle?) will go down as the biggest jackass suckers that our sucker-infested country has produced since… well, yeah, suckers are born and born-again every nanosecond here, so skip that. I mean let’s face it, you people give “sucker” a bad name. You’re not even Tootsie fucking Pops.
Meanwhile, those of us who are genuinely pissed off about funding ungrateful bailout queens like Santelli–welfare queens who want to deny us our day at the feeding trough, that is– need to take action. We need to demand that “Slick” Rick Santelli returns his bailout money-which is OUR fucking money–money he’s not even gracious enough to say “thank you” for. Give it back, Rick!
HEY RICK, GIVE ME MY FUCKING TAX DOLLARS BACK!
Santelli Watch / eXiled Alert!
“Slick Rick” Santelli Is A Bailout Queen
By Mark Ames and Yasha Levine
March 3rd, 2009
If you’re wondering why disgraced pseudo-rebel Rick Santelli and his pals at CNBC kept strangely quiet about the hundreds of billions in bailouts right up until a couple weeks ago, when the government finally extended its bailout program beyond the corporate world and to regular American citizens, there’s a simple explanation. Rick and his coworkers at CNBC have been living high on the government bailout hog. Yup, “Slick Rick” Santelli and his fair-weather free-market comrades are nuthin’ but old-fashioned welfare queens pimping a newfangled libertarian hustle to cover it all up.
Since last October, CNBC’s parent company General Electric has taken at least $139 billion in government-backed loan guarantees to keep GE Capital Corp from going belly-up and taking the whole company, including Rick Santelli, with it.
No wonder Rick signed that confession on CNBC’s site, professing his love for Obama and the government stimulus package. To quote Tray’s father in Don’t Be A Menace In South Central: “Ain’t nuttin wrong with welfare checks, that’s somethin called ‘free money’!”
We repeat: Rick Santelli, along with Lawrence Kudlow and all the other free-marketeer hustlers at CNBC are nothing but bailout queens posing as angry, principled anti-bailout crusaders. Repeat again, to get it into your thick heads: Rick Santelli’s salary is underwritten by government bailout money… YOU, PROTESTERS AGAINST BAILOUTS, PAY RICK’S SALARY! And yet, gosh, he’s just soooo angry about his taxdollars going to bail you out, because as he said in his famous “rant,” he doesn’t want to bail out “losers” like you. He just wants losers like you to bail out winners like him and Kudlow. And you know, in a way, he’s right–you really are losers if you don’t demand that Rick pays you back the money he took from you and all of us.
This is just too fucking funny, and perfectly captures the off-the-scale hypocrisy, corruption and laughing-in-your-peasant-fucking-face culture that defines America’s ruling elite. Not that it’s helping the company much–GE is up to its sweaty bald-spot in credit default swap instruments, in such deep shit that there might not even be a GE to shovel American taxpayer billions to come summertime, reports Bloomberg.
As for you regular folks out there, all we can say is that anyone who took Santelli seriously (and granted, there are few who really did, most of you were paid to pretend you supported him, right Megan McArdle?) will go down as the biggest jackass suckers that our sucker-infested country has produced since… well, yeah, suckers are born and born-again every nanosecond here, so skip that. I mean let’s face it, you people give “sucker” a bad name. You’re not even Tootsie fucking Pops.
Meanwhile, those of us who are genuinely pissed off about funding ungrateful bailout queens like Santelli–welfare queens who want to deny us our day at the feeding trough, that is– need to take action. We need to demand that “Slick” Rick Santelli returns his bailout money-which is OUR fucking money–money he’s not even gracious enough to say “thank you” for. Give it back, Rick!
HEY RICK, GIVE ME MY FUCKING TAX DOLLARS BACK!
"The Greatest Depression" Under Way
KINGSTON, NY, 2, March 2009 — “The Greatest Depression” that The Trends Research Institute forecast, well before Wall Street or Washington would acknowledge recession, is upon us.
The global financial markets are collapsing.
All the pundit’s cautious predictions and business media’s hopeful expectations at the New Year for an economic turn around and imminent market bottom were dead wrong. There will be no turn around in the second quarter of 2009 or 2010 or 2011 … America and much of the world has entered “The Greatest Depression.”
The global financial system, built on endless supplies of cheap money, rampant speculation, fraud, greed, and delusion is terminally ill and will not be coaxed into remission by stimulus packages nor restored to health by government buyouts and bailouts.
Today, the MSCI World Index of stocks in 23 developed nations fell 4.9 percent to 713.75, the lowest closing level since March 2003, and its Emerging Markets Index slid 5 percent. The Dow followed, plunging 300 points, closing below 7,000 for the first time since 1997.
There is no stock market bottom in sight. The only figure that can be forecast with confidence is that the Dow won’t reach zero!
As the crisis worsens, governments will take draconian measures to prevent total economic collapse and public panic. We have cautioned the likelihood of such measures before. But the rapidity and severity of the economic unraveling now demands immediate attention.
Expect massive bank failures, runs on banks, and bank holidays. Even if deposits are FDIC insured, quick access to money is by no means assured. At minimum, have reserves on hand for emergencies.
Trendpost: When the ship is sinking there are very few options: Life boats, life rafts, life preservers … and for the late to act, possibly a few pieces of floating debris to cling to.
We are trend forecasters, not certified financial advisors legally empowered to provide such advice. Although gold prices declined today some $15 to $925 per ounce, we forecast that gold will be one of the few life saving investments that will continue to increase in value, reaching $2,000 per ounce and beyond.
To schedule an interview with Trends Research Institute Director, Gerald Celente, please contact:
Laura Martin
Media Relations
The Trends Research Institute
lmartin@trendsresearch.com
www.trendsresearch.com
845.331.3500 Ext. 1
© MMIX The Trends Research Institute®
Trends Research P.O. Box 660 Rhinebeck, NY 12572
The global financial markets are collapsing.
All the pundit’s cautious predictions and business media’s hopeful expectations at the New Year for an economic turn around and imminent market bottom were dead wrong. There will be no turn around in the second quarter of 2009 or 2010 or 2011 … America and much of the world has entered “The Greatest Depression.”
The global financial system, built on endless supplies of cheap money, rampant speculation, fraud, greed, and delusion is terminally ill and will not be coaxed into remission by stimulus packages nor restored to health by government buyouts and bailouts.
Today, the MSCI World Index of stocks in 23 developed nations fell 4.9 percent to 713.75, the lowest closing level since March 2003, and its Emerging Markets Index slid 5 percent. The Dow followed, plunging 300 points, closing below 7,000 for the first time since 1997.
There is no stock market bottom in sight. The only figure that can be forecast with confidence is that the Dow won’t reach zero!
As the crisis worsens, governments will take draconian measures to prevent total economic collapse and public panic. We have cautioned the likelihood of such measures before. But the rapidity and severity of the economic unraveling now demands immediate attention.
Expect massive bank failures, runs on banks, and bank holidays. Even if deposits are FDIC insured, quick access to money is by no means assured. At minimum, have reserves on hand for emergencies.
Trendpost: When the ship is sinking there are very few options: Life boats, life rafts, life preservers … and for the late to act, possibly a few pieces of floating debris to cling to.
We are trend forecasters, not certified financial advisors legally empowered to provide such advice. Although gold prices declined today some $15 to $925 per ounce, we forecast that gold will be one of the few life saving investments that will continue to increase in value, reaching $2,000 per ounce and beyond.
To schedule an interview with Trends Research Institute Director, Gerald Celente, please contact:
Laura Martin
Media Relations
The Trends Research Institute
lmartin@trendsresearch.com
www.trendsresearch.com
845.331.3500 Ext. 1
© MMIX The Trends Research Institute®
Trends Research P.O. Box 660 Rhinebeck, NY 12572
The Dow's Bearing — 6,000 and Under
http://www.cnbc.com/id/29474077
The Dow's Bearing — 6,000 and Under
Daryl Guppy
3-2-9
February was a chilly month for U.S. equities. And March is looking even worse. It looks like a recession is the only thing roaring this month.
On Monday, U.S. stocks plunged with the major indexes closing at their lowest levels in more than a decade as more government intervention in the financial sector was interpreted as an ominous sign for shareholders of Citigroup.
General Electric, a major manufacturer and lender, continued its decline as the stock, once a stalwart for even the most conservative of portfolios, sold off to levels associated with distressed "fallen angels."
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 299.64 points, or 4.24% percent, to 6763.29, its lowest close since April 25, 1997, and the first close below 7,000 since May 1, 1997. We feel this warrants another look at the DJIA chart.
The most dangerous chart pattern in a bear market is the down sloping triangle triangle. This pattern is seen in the Dow Jones Index and it sets a downside target near 5,600. The rapid fall below 7,000 confirms this target objective.
This chart pattern includes a well defined support level near 7,800. Over the last five months the rally rebounds from support near 7,800 have developed a pattern of declining highs. The failure of the early 2009 January rally near 9,000 established a second calculation point for a new down sloping trend line. The first calculation point for the trend line was set by the rally peak near 9,600 in 2008 November.
A new downtrend line is drawn and this creates a down sloping triangle. In a bear market the strength of the pattern is increased. The first feature to measure with this pattern is the height of the triangle. The four day triangle base starts on 2008, October 7, with the drop from near 10,000 to 7,800. The triangle height is around 2,200 points.
Chart pattern analysis provides the most reliable analysis method in this type of market situation. Technical oscillators which measure sentiment in the market are stuck on extreme readings and provide little guidance about trend continuation.
Using chart pattern analysis, the downside target for the Dow Jones Index is near 5,600. This target is verified against historical support levels for the Dow. Historically there is a support level near 7,500 but this has been decisively broken.
The long term historical support level is a narrow trading band between 5,500 and 5,600. In a bear market it is the bottom of the trading band that is tested for support.
This combination of factors suggests there is a high probability the market will quickly fall towards support between 5,500 and 5,600. This is a fall of more than 50 percent from the peak of the Index in 2007, October at 14,198. This degree of fall is similar to the degree of fall in 1929 when the America market collapsed and developed the world depression.
The end of this triangle pattern develops near the end of 2009, April. There is a high probability the America market will develop a continuation of the downtrend with a slow move towards support near 5,600. The key feature will be the nature of any consolidation pattern that develops near 5,500 to 5,600.
Failure of genuine support, consolidation and rebound behavior near 5,500 to 5,600 will focus attention in the next support level between 3,700 and 4,000. These remain theoretical targets until the nature of consolidation activity near 5,500 and 5,600 is confirmed. After falls of this degree markets do not develop V-shaped recoveries. They lay down and rest in L-shaped trading consolidation band patterns. Typically these patterns prevail for between four to eight months and offer limited trading opportunities. They are accumulation patterns and investors watch the volume behavior associated with the rallies.
If you would like Daryl to chart a specific stock, commodity or currency, please write to us at ChartingAsia@cnbc.com. We welcome all questions, comments and requests.
The Dow's Bearing — 6,000 and Under
Daryl Guppy
3-2-9
February was a chilly month for U.S. equities. And March is looking even worse. It looks like a recession is the only thing roaring this month.
On Monday, U.S. stocks plunged with the major indexes closing at their lowest levels in more than a decade as more government intervention in the financial sector was interpreted as an ominous sign for shareholders of Citigroup.
General Electric, a major manufacturer and lender, continued its decline as the stock, once a stalwart for even the most conservative of portfolios, sold off to levels associated with distressed "fallen angels."
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 299.64 points, or 4.24% percent, to 6763.29, its lowest close since April 25, 1997, and the first close below 7,000 since May 1, 1997. We feel this warrants another look at the DJIA chart.
The most dangerous chart pattern in a bear market is the down sloping triangle triangle. This pattern is seen in the Dow Jones Index and it sets a downside target near 5,600. The rapid fall below 7,000 confirms this target objective.
This chart pattern includes a well defined support level near 7,800. Over the last five months the rally rebounds from support near 7,800 have developed a pattern of declining highs. The failure of the early 2009 January rally near 9,000 established a second calculation point for a new down sloping trend line. The first calculation point for the trend line was set by the rally peak near 9,600 in 2008 November.
A new downtrend line is drawn and this creates a down sloping triangle. In a bear market the strength of the pattern is increased. The first feature to measure with this pattern is the height of the triangle. The four day triangle base starts on 2008, October 7, with the drop from near 10,000 to 7,800. The triangle height is around 2,200 points.
Chart pattern analysis provides the most reliable analysis method in this type of market situation. Technical oscillators which measure sentiment in the market are stuck on extreme readings and provide little guidance about trend continuation.
Using chart pattern analysis, the downside target for the Dow Jones Index is near 5,600. This target is verified against historical support levels for the Dow. Historically there is a support level near 7,500 but this has been decisively broken.
The long term historical support level is a narrow trading band between 5,500 and 5,600. In a bear market it is the bottom of the trading band that is tested for support.
This combination of factors suggests there is a high probability the market will quickly fall towards support between 5,500 and 5,600. This is a fall of more than 50 percent from the peak of the Index in 2007, October at 14,198. This degree of fall is similar to the degree of fall in 1929 when the America market collapsed and developed the world depression.
The end of this triangle pattern develops near the end of 2009, April. There is a high probability the America market will develop a continuation of the downtrend with a slow move towards support near 5,600. The key feature will be the nature of any consolidation pattern that develops near 5,500 to 5,600.
Failure of genuine support, consolidation and rebound behavior near 5,500 to 5,600 will focus attention in the next support level between 3,700 and 4,000. These remain theoretical targets until the nature of consolidation activity near 5,500 and 5,600 is confirmed. After falls of this degree markets do not develop V-shaped recoveries. They lay down and rest in L-shaped trading consolidation band patterns. Typically these patterns prevail for between four to eight months and offer limited trading opportunities. They are accumulation patterns and investors watch the volume behavior associated with the rallies.
If you would like Daryl to chart a specific stock, commodity or currency, please write to us at ChartingAsia@cnbc.com. We welcome all questions, comments and requests.
Dow Jones closes under 7,000
http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2009/03/02/daily27.html
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Dow Jones closes under 7,000
Washington Business Journal
by Tucker Echols Staff Reporter
The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 4 percent Monday, closing under 7,000 for the first time since 1997.
The stock benchmark's 299 point slide to a finish of 6763.29 was fueled by concern that the U.S. government yet again had to rework its bailout of American International Group on a day when the insurance giant announced a record quarterly loss of $61.7 billion. Investor confidence was also shaken by billionaire investor Warren Buffett's assertion that the economy would remain in "a shambles" for the remainder of 2009.
The Dow's last sub-7,000 close was on May 1, 1997 in the midst of the 1990s bull market surge that lifted the average to 11,750 in January 2000 before the bursting of the tech bubble and the ensuing correction back to 7,850 by October 2002.
The S&P500 Index ended Monday's session down 34.27 points, or 4.6 percent. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost 54.99 points, or 4 percent.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Dow Jones closes under 7,000
Washington Business Journal
by Tucker Echols Staff Reporter
The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 4 percent Monday, closing under 7,000 for the first time since 1997.
The stock benchmark's 299 point slide to a finish of 6763.29 was fueled by concern that the U.S. government yet again had to rework its bailout of American International Group on a day when the insurance giant announced a record quarterly loss of $61.7 billion. Investor confidence was also shaken by billionaire investor Warren Buffett's assertion that the economy would remain in "a shambles" for the remainder of 2009.
The Dow's last sub-7,000 close was on May 1, 1997 in the midst of the 1990s bull market surge that lifted the average to 11,750 in January 2000 before the bursting of the tech bubble and the ensuing correction back to 7,850 by October 2002.
The S&P500 Index ended Monday's session down 34.27 points, or 4.6 percent. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost 54.99 points, or 4 percent.
Barry Bonds in Context
Folks – there is a shakeup at MSNBC and they are adding new programming at the 10 PM hour. If you think MSNBC could use a left wing sports commentator, please drop a quick note to letters@msnbc.com and tell them that a little Dave Z could go a long way.
In struggle and sports,
Dave Z
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090316/zirin
Barry Bonds in Context
Southpaw
By Dave Zirin
March 4, 2009
As he has done with countless pitchers over the last quarter-century, Barry Bonds made the Justice Department sweat, cower and blink. Faced with entering a court of law with a losing hand, the US Attorney's office in San Francisco has delayed the case of The US v. Barry Bonds indefinitely. Efforts to prove that the home-run king lied in grand jury testimony about his anabolic intake have for now been benched.
The prosecution will now start a lengthy appeal of Judge Susan Ilston's devastating pretrial dismissal of most of their case. It had wanted to submit reams of evidence seized from Bonds's trainer Greg Anderson, without having Anderson testify to its authenticity. Ilston refused to let them. This left the prosecution with nothing but scatological testimony from Bonds's ex-mistress that dwelled more on testicles than test results, so they chose to retreat and regroup.
The Justice Department wins 95 percent of the cases it brings to trial, and make no mistake: this case was about to become part of the other 5 percent. The only thing the Justice Department had in its favor is what it always has, unlimited time and funds, so it's rolling the dice in hopes that a three-judge panel rules against Ilston. It wants the wiretaps, the illegal search and seizures and the acts of intimidation against Anderson's family all to stand legally. This is frightening, but prosecutors will likely find themselves very disappointed. The page appears to be turning on the entire Bush era of outlaw justice, and Barry Bonds will likely benefit.
The case started when Attorney General John Ashcroft, the great champion of the Patriot Act, held a press conference in 2004 to announce that the investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative was officially underway. Having the Attorney General convene a grand jury to look into steroid use was extreme overkill, but as commentators remarked at the time, it was a shot across the bow at Bonds. Most sports fans were very comfortable with seeing the despoiler of the national pastime get crushed. Bonds has had notoriously difficult relationships with the press, fans, teammates and management throughout his career. He is also black, which makes him an easier target. But the desire to see Bonds punished came at a terrible collective cost.
The Bonds case has always been about more than the sports media have chosen to dwell on. It's not about the scourge of anabolic steroids, or a surly, arrogant athlete getting his comeuppance. It isn't even about perjury. It's about how the Justice Department under Bush became untethered from the Bill of Rights.
This week, Obama Attorney General Eric Holder has released a series of post-9/11 memos that chill the spine. As the Washington Post reported:
Justice Department appointee John Yoo argued that constitutional provisions ensuring free speech and barring warrantless searches could be disregarded by the president in wartime, allowing troops to storm a building if they suspected terrorists might be inside. In another, the department asserted that detainees could be transferred to countries known to commit human rights abuses so long as US officials did not intentionally seek their torture.
And as Michael Isikoff wrote in Newsweek:
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Justice Department secretly gave the green light for the US military to attack apartment buildings and office complexes inside the United States, deploy high-tech surveillance against US citizens and potentially suspend First Amendment freedom-of-the-press rights in order to combat the terror threat, according to a memo released Monday.
Bonds has been the most public victim of this frightening approach to law and justice. But while Americans followed the Bonds saga, and many cheered his professional demise, the real damage to civil liberties was being done. Shamefully underreported throughout the last decade were the stories of hundreds of Arabs and Muslims imprisoned and harassed through the Patriot Act, or the persecution of Sami Al Arian, or the hundreds of Maryland activists, who were spied upon for being environmentalists or anti-death penalty. They were all caught in the same net.
It is a very good thing that Holder is releasing these memos. But it's not enough. Repealing the Patriot Act is the best way to truly turn the page on a shameful era in the history of US law.
Still, the ruling of Judge Ilston and the backstepping of the San Francisco US Attorney's office is a good start. If they want to prove Bonds perjured himself, let's see if they can do it without torching the Bill of Rights in the process.
About Dave Zirin
Dave Zirin is the author of Welcome to the Terrordome: the Pain Politics and Promise of Sports (Haymarket) and the forthcoming A People's History of Sports in the United States (The New Press). and his writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Sports Illustrated.com, New York Newsday and The Progressive. He is the host of XM Radio's Edge of Sports Radio.
Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.
In struggle and sports,
Dave Z
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090316/zirin
Barry Bonds in Context
Southpaw
By Dave Zirin
March 4, 2009
As he has done with countless pitchers over the last quarter-century, Barry Bonds made the Justice Department sweat, cower and blink. Faced with entering a court of law with a losing hand, the US Attorney's office in San Francisco has delayed the case of The US v. Barry Bonds indefinitely. Efforts to prove that the home-run king lied in grand jury testimony about his anabolic intake have for now been benched.
The prosecution will now start a lengthy appeal of Judge Susan Ilston's devastating pretrial dismissal of most of their case. It had wanted to submit reams of evidence seized from Bonds's trainer Greg Anderson, without having Anderson testify to its authenticity. Ilston refused to let them. This left the prosecution with nothing but scatological testimony from Bonds's ex-mistress that dwelled more on testicles than test results, so they chose to retreat and regroup.
The Justice Department wins 95 percent of the cases it brings to trial, and make no mistake: this case was about to become part of the other 5 percent. The only thing the Justice Department had in its favor is what it always has, unlimited time and funds, so it's rolling the dice in hopes that a three-judge panel rules against Ilston. It wants the wiretaps, the illegal search and seizures and the acts of intimidation against Anderson's family all to stand legally. This is frightening, but prosecutors will likely find themselves very disappointed. The page appears to be turning on the entire Bush era of outlaw justice, and Barry Bonds will likely benefit.
The case started when Attorney General John Ashcroft, the great champion of the Patriot Act, held a press conference in 2004 to announce that the investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative was officially underway. Having the Attorney General convene a grand jury to look into steroid use was extreme overkill, but as commentators remarked at the time, it was a shot across the bow at Bonds. Most sports fans were very comfortable with seeing the despoiler of the national pastime get crushed. Bonds has had notoriously difficult relationships with the press, fans, teammates and management throughout his career. He is also black, which makes him an easier target. But the desire to see Bonds punished came at a terrible collective cost.
The Bonds case has always been about more than the sports media have chosen to dwell on. It's not about the scourge of anabolic steroids, or a surly, arrogant athlete getting his comeuppance. It isn't even about perjury. It's about how the Justice Department under Bush became untethered from the Bill of Rights.
This week, Obama Attorney General Eric Holder has released a series of post-9/11 memos that chill the spine. As the Washington Post reported:
Justice Department appointee John Yoo argued that constitutional provisions ensuring free speech and barring warrantless searches could be disregarded by the president in wartime, allowing troops to storm a building if they suspected terrorists might be inside. In another, the department asserted that detainees could be transferred to countries known to commit human rights abuses so long as US officials did not intentionally seek their torture.
And as Michael Isikoff wrote in Newsweek:
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Justice Department secretly gave the green light for the US military to attack apartment buildings and office complexes inside the United States, deploy high-tech surveillance against US citizens and potentially suspend First Amendment freedom-of-the-press rights in order to combat the terror threat, according to a memo released Monday.
Bonds has been the most public victim of this frightening approach to law and justice. But while Americans followed the Bonds saga, and many cheered his professional demise, the real damage to civil liberties was being done. Shamefully underreported throughout the last decade were the stories of hundreds of Arabs and Muslims imprisoned and harassed through the Patriot Act, or the persecution of Sami Al Arian, or the hundreds of Maryland activists, who were spied upon for being environmentalists or anti-death penalty. They were all caught in the same net.
It is a very good thing that Holder is releasing these memos. But it's not enough. Repealing the Patriot Act is the best way to truly turn the page on a shameful era in the history of US law.
Still, the ruling of Judge Ilston and the backstepping of the San Francisco US Attorney's office is a good start. If they want to prove Bonds perjured himself, let's see if they can do it without torching the Bill of Rights in the process.
About Dave Zirin
Dave Zirin is the author of Welcome to the Terrordome: the Pain Politics and Promise of Sports (Haymarket) and the forthcoming A People's History of Sports in the United States (The New Press). and his writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Sports Illustrated.com, New York Newsday and The Progressive. He is the host of XM Radio's Edge of Sports Radio.
Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.
The headset that will mimic all five senses
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1159206/The-headset-mimic-senses-make-virtual-world-convincing-real-life.htmlRevealed: The headset that will mimic all five senses and make the virtual world as convincing as real life
By David Derbyshire
05th March 2009
A virtual reality helmet that recreates the sights, smells, sounds and even tastes of far-flung destinations has been devised by British scientists.The device will allow users a life-like experience of places such as Kenya's Masai Mara while sitting on their sofa.
They can also enjoy the smell of flowers in an Alpine meadow or feel the heat of the Caribbean sun on their face.
Scientists say the device will also enable users to greet friends and family on the other side of the world as though they were in the same room.
And students will even be able to find out what it was like to live in ancient Egypt, Rome or Greece.
Previously, scientists have only been able to use virtual reality technology to recreate sound and vision.
Now a team of British academics from York and Warwick universities are creating a virtual reality helmet they are calling the Virtual Cocoon.
They say it stimulates the senses so convincingly they have called the experience Real Virtuality.
The prototype helmet connects wirelessly to a computer which feeds it information about a virtual world or another part of the real world.
It features a high-definition high dynamic screen - which produces pictures ten times darker, or 30 times brighter than conventional television.
A tube connected to a box of chemicals releases smells under the wearer's nose, while a similar device can spray flavours directly into the mouth and provide a texture sensation.
The heat and humidity can be changed using a fan and heater, while surround-sound speakers recreate ambient noise.
Professor Alan Chalmers, of Warwick University, said the headset should be ready within five years.
He believes it will be used in long-distance business meetings, in schools to allow students to revisit history, or by families wanting to get a taste of exotic destinations.
It is also likely to be popular among computer gamers, particularly those who enjoy virtual roleplay games such as Second Life.
'The idea is not to replace reality but to complement it,' Professor Chalmers said at an event organised by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
He believes it will be possible too to explore other parts of the world in real time.
For example, a device attached to a car on safari could record the sights, smells, sounds and heat and transmit the sensations over the internet to a Virtual Cocoon on the other side of the world.
Professor David Howard of the University of York said: 'VR projects have typically only focused on one or two of the five senses - usually sight and hearing.
'We're not aware of any other research group anywhere else in the world doing what we plan to do.'
The helmet could also be used in training soldiers, police officers, medical staff or firemen.
Initial estimates suggest the helmet will cost around £1,500.
Surprise Asteroid Just Buzzed Earth
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/03/090302-asteroid-earth.html
Surprise Asteroid Just Buzzed Earth
Victoria Jaggard
National Geographic News
March 2, 2009
Sky-watchers in Asia, Australia, and the Pacific islands welcomed a surprise guest earlier today: an asteroid that passed just 41,010 miles (66,000 kilometers) above Earth.
Discovered only days ago, asteroid 2009 DD45 zipped between our planet and the moon at 13:44 universal time (8:44 a.m. ET). The asteroid was moving at about 12 miles (20 kilometers) a second when it was closest to Earth.
"We get objects passing fairly close, or closer than this, every few months," Timothy Spahr, director of the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center in Massachusetts, said in an email.
"Also, though, note these are only the ones that are discovered. Many more pass this close undetected"—as asteroid 2009 DD45 nearly did.
Astronomers didn't notice the oncoming asteroid until February 28, when it showed up as a faint dot in pictures taken at the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia.
At that point the asteroid was already a mere 1.5 million miles (2.4 million kilometers) from Earth, and closing in fast.
Asteroids are rocks that generally range from a few feet to several miles in diameter. In our solar system most asteroids orbit the sun in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Asteroid to Buzz Earth Again?
At just 65 to 164 feet (20 to 50 meters) wide, the asteroid "was much fainter than anything visible to the naked eye" even during close approach, Spahr said.
But today observers using backyard telescopes were able to track the asteroid speeding through the constellation Virgo for at least a few hours after the object's closest approach.
According to Spahr, amateur astronomers contributed to the center's monitoring efforts by sending in measurements, which are helping to refine calculations of the asteroid's orbit.
Surprise Asteroid Just Buzzed Earth
Victoria Jaggard
National Geographic News
March 2, 2009
Sky-watchers in Asia, Australia, and the Pacific islands welcomed a surprise guest earlier today: an asteroid that passed just 41,010 miles (66,000 kilometers) above Earth.
Discovered only days ago, asteroid 2009 DD45 zipped between our planet and the moon at 13:44 universal time (8:44 a.m. ET). The asteroid was moving at about 12 miles (20 kilometers) a second when it was closest to Earth.
"We get objects passing fairly close, or closer than this, every few months," Timothy Spahr, director of the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center in Massachusetts, said in an email.
"Also, though, note these are only the ones that are discovered. Many more pass this close undetected"—as asteroid 2009 DD45 nearly did.
Astronomers didn't notice the oncoming asteroid until February 28, when it showed up as a faint dot in pictures taken at the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia.
At that point the asteroid was already a mere 1.5 million miles (2.4 million kilometers) from Earth, and closing in fast.
Asteroids are rocks that generally range from a few feet to several miles in diameter. In our solar system most asteroids orbit the sun in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Asteroid to Buzz Earth Again?
At just 65 to 164 feet (20 to 50 meters) wide, the asteroid "was much fainter than anything visible to the naked eye" even during close approach, Spahr said.
But today observers using backyard telescopes were able to track the asteroid speeding through the constellation Virgo for at least a few hours after the object's closest approach.
According to Spahr, amateur astronomers contributed to the center's monitoring efforts by sending in measurements, which are helping to refine calculations of the asteroid's orbit.
Lee Iacocca Is Alive And Well
http://splashpage.mtv.com/2009/03/02/lee-iacocca-is-alive-and-well-and-not-looking-forward-to-watchmen-movie/
Lee Iacocca Is Alive And Well — And Not Looking Forward To ‘Watchmen’ Movie
Larry Carroll
Monday, March 2, 2009
American businessman Lee Iacocca gained fame and fortune rescuing the automotive industry from the same sort of problems they currently find themselves in. He is now 83 years old, rarely gives interviews, and spends his days running a foundation searching for a cure to type 1 diabetes — the disease that took his wife Mary from him. According to the new comic-book blockbuster “Watchmen,” however, Lee Iacocca was brutally murdered in 1985.
Confused? So is Lee Iacocca.
In director Zack Snyder’s “Watchmen,” historical figures are depicted as existing in an alternate reality in which we won Vietnam, Richard Nixon was elected for five terms, and superheroes walk amongst us. And as much as I personally loved the movie, I’m also a huge film buff — so when I saw a very-alive American icon getting murdered 24 years ago on screen, I found myself struggling to comprehend the “Why?” “How?” and “Has this ever been done before?” of what was unfolding before my eyes.
“It’s nothing against Lee; I think Lee’s awesome,” Snyder told me when I asked him about the scene, in which an actor playing Iacocca meets with superhero industrialist Ozymandias, only to be caught in the crossfire as an assassin tries to kill the crimefighting CEO. “But he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The fact of the matter, however, is that the former Chrysler CEO and Ford President never met the fictional Adrian Veidt — and when I reached out to Iacocca for comment, he wasn’t exactly thrilled about the details of his big-screen debut.
A spokesman confirmed that Iacocca had never heard of “Watchmen” until I called. The news of his depiction came as a surprise, and his office confirmed that they had never been approached by Snyder, Warner Brothers, or anyone else associated with the film — either to ask permission or to simply give him a heads-up.
When I explained that Iacocca is shown on-screen being shot between the eyes and killed, the phone went quiet for what felt like forever. The automotive pioneer’s office has since attempted to contact the studio to secure a screening, DVD or even an explanation, but as of press time had yet to receive a return phone call.
It looks as though Iacocca will have to fork over $10 for a ticket on March 6, just like the rest of us. And for those wondering, he did not appear in Alan Moore’s original “Watchmen” graphic novel.
Asked about the legality of the situation, Snyder told me: “I think we got away with it because the movie has a satirical quality to it. And there were so many other famous people [in the film], lookalikes of Nixon, Annie Leibovitz, or [President] Kennedy. These are the people that we need in the movie to try and create this ’80s vibe.”
“And so, when we had the scene where Adrian was meeting with the captains of industry,” Snyder continued, “Lee just kinda jumped out as a famous [person]; someone you identify with the ’80s, but also with being in the automotive industry.”
Throughout the decade, Iacocca was a fixture on television thanks to commercials that painted him as a down-to-earth company chairman with a knack for business and an affection for working stiffs.
Although the initial reaction of Iacocca’s spokesman was to point out that his name and likeness are trademarked, further exploration into the legality of the “Watchmen” situation had her agreeing that since Iacocca isn’t being used to “sell or make profit” on something, there was little that could be done.
Mr. Iacocca, who insisted that he would not comment until after viewing Snyder’s “Watchmen,” did say that he had seen a publicity photo of lookalike Walter Addison dressed as him in the mid-’80s.
“The actor looked good,” he commented.
Legal or not, Iacocca’s spokesman did express some level of dismay over his on-screen “murder,” and the notion of an 83-year-old man answering questions about it once “Watchmen” is seen by millions of people all over the world.
“He’s fine; I think he’s fine,” Snyder said of Iacocca in the real world. “But you shouldn’t hang out with Adrian, because it’s dangerous.”
Lee Iacocca Is Alive And Well — And Not Looking Forward To ‘Watchmen’ Movie
Larry Carroll
Monday, March 2, 2009
American businessman Lee Iacocca gained fame and fortune rescuing the automotive industry from the same sort of problems they currently find themselves in. He is now 83 years old, rarely gives interviews, and spends his days running a foundation searching for a cure to type 1 diabetes — the disease that took his wife Mary from him. According to the new comic-book blockbuster “Watchmen,” however, Lee Iacocca was brutally murdered in 1985.
Confused? So is Lee Iacocca.
In director Zack Snyder’s “Watchmen,” historical figures are depicted as existing in an alternate reality in which we won Vietnam, Richard Nixon was elected for five terms, and superheroes walk amongst us. And as much as I personally loved the movie, I’m also a huge film buff — so when I saw a very-alive American icon getting murdered 24 years ago on screen, I found myself struggling to comprehend the “Why?” “How?” and “Has this ever been done before?” of what was unfolding before my eyes.
“It’s nothing against Lee; I think Lee’s awesome,” Snyder told me when I asked him about the scene, in which an actor playing Iacocca meets with superhero industrialist Ozymandias, only to be caught in the crossfire as an assassin tries to kill the crimefighting CEO. “But he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The fact of the matter, however, is that the former Chrysler CEO and Ford President never met the fictional Adrian Veidt — and when I reached out to Iacocca for comment, he wasn’t exactly thrilled about the details of his big-screen debut.
A spokesman confirmed that Iacocca had never heard of “Watchmen” until I called. The news of his depiction came as a surprise, and his office confirmed that they had never been approached by Snyder, Warner Brothers, or anyone else associated with the film — either to ask permission or to simply give him a heads-up.
When I explained that Iacocca is shown on-screen being shot between the eyes and killed, the phone went quiet for what felt like forever. The automotive pioneer’s office has since attempted to contact the studio to secure a screening, DVD or even an explanation, but as of press time had yet to receive a return phone call.
It looks as though Iacocca will have to fork over $10 for a ticket on March 6, just like the rest of us. And for those wondering, he did not appear in Alan Moore’s original “Watchmen” graphic novel.
Asked about the legality of the situation, Snyder told me: “I think we got away with it because the movie has a satirical quality to it. And there were so many other famous people [in the film], lookalikes of Nixon, Annie Leibovitz, or [President] Kennedy. These are the people that we need in the movie to try and create this ’80s vibe.”
“And so, when we had the scene where Adrian was meeting with the captains of industry,” Snyder continued, “Lee just kinda jumped out as a famous [person]; someone you identify with the ’80s, but also with being in the automotive industry.”
Throughout the decade, Iacocca was a fixture on television thanks to commercials that painted him as a down-to-earth company chairman with a knack for business and an affection for working stiffs.
Although the initial reaction of Iacocca’s spokesman was to point out that his name and likeness are trademarked, further exploration into the legality of the “Watchmen” situation had her agreeing that since Iacocca isn’t being used to “sell or make profit” on something, there was little that could be done.
Mr. Iacocca, who insisted that he would not comment until after viewing Snyder’s “Watchmen,” did say that he had seen a publicity photo of lookalike Walter Addison dressed as him in the mid-’80s.
“The actor looked good,” he commented.
Legal or not, Iacocca’s spokesman did express some level of dismay over his on-screen “murder,” and the notion of an 83-year-old man answering questions about it once “Watchmen” is seen by millions of people all over the world.
“He’s fine; I think he’s fine,” Snyder said of Iacocca in the real world. “But you shouldn’t hang out with Adrian, because it’s dangerous.”
Verizon and the iPhone
http://scottworldblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/verizon-and-iphone.html
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Verizon and the iPhone
Scott Rose
As you already know, the iPhone has an exclusive deal with AT&T in the U.S. Nobody in the public knows when this exclusivity deal ends, at which point Apple would be able to bring the iPhone to other U.S. carriers such as Verizon or Sprint.
There is absolutely NO DOUBT in my mind that the iPhone will someday be available on both Verizon's and Sprint's networks, because if you go to Apple's Job Opportunities website and search for "CDMA" (which is the cellular technology that Sprint & Verizon use), you will see an increasing list of engineering job openings at Apple that are currently available.
But here's the interesting thing that most people DON'T know: Apple approached Verizon *FIRST* when creating the iPhone and asked Verizon if THEY wanted to be the exclusive U.S. carrier for the iPhone. And are you ready for this? Verizon turned Apple down. They scoffed at Apple. Their bull-headed executives refused to see the value in the iPhone, because they had a problem with two things that Apple wanted: (1) Apple wanted a small percentage of the subscribers' monthly fees in exchange for Apple putting all of their marketing muscle behind the iPhone, and (2) Apple wanted Verizon to make some small changes to their network so that "visual voicemail" would be available to their customers. "Visual voicemail" is the #1 best invention to come to phones since the invention of voicemail itself! It lets you visually see your voicemails like email messages, choose whichever voicemail you want to play in any order, and fast forward/rewind your messages like a song on your iPod. Verizon, showing that it doesn't care about ease-of-use for its customers either, said that they'd rather not provide this to their customers.
So now that the iPhone is the #1 selling smartphone in the U.S., what is Verizon's competitive strategy until they finally get the iPhone for themselves?
Check out this quote from Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg on how he plans on competing with Apple:
"Steve Jobs eventually will get old . . . I like our chances."
This guy's strategy is waiting for -- and wishing for -- the old age of Steve Jobs?
What an ungrateful, disrespectful, and ineffective ass.
Not only did Steve Jobs approach him FIRST and he said NO, but without Steve Jobs, the ENTIRE technology world -- including cell phones -- would be in the complete dark ages right now. Seidenberg should be kissing the ground that Steve Jobs walks on, to thank him for pushing technology ahead so boldly for so many years. We saw practically NO innovation (or ease-of-use) in the cell phone industry until the iPhone hit the market, and now suddenly, everybody has a copycat touchscreen device that they're hawking to unsuspecting customers. Buyer, beware, however... these other products are pieces of crap, to put it kindly. For example, check out these reviews & news stories about the Blackberry Storm, Blackberry's first foray into touchscreen devices and Verizon's current answer to the iPhone.
But this is nothing new for Apple. Apple has always been the innovation leader in the technology world. Everybody else always tries -- and fails -- to copy Apple.
In fact, during the time from 1985 to 1998 when Steve Jobs was unceremoniously kicked out of Apple, we humans entered the darkest time ever in technology history, when there were practically no new technological inventions on computers outside of CD burning and zip drives. In fact, if you look closely at the history of computers, every important technological invention that made a difference in the world has originated at or been popularized first by Apple... then everyone else in the industry scrambled to catch up to Apple. These include:
- The first graphical user interface
- The mouse
- the first trackpad
- Wireless Internet access! Apple was first with this, by over 2 years before any PC's got this!
- the all-in-one iMac
- USB (USB was a floundering technology destined for the dustbin until Apple decided to make it the one & only port type on the first iMac).
- FireWire: created & invented by Apple
- Mac OS X (rock solid stable, no viruses, no crashes, easy to use, built on UNIX)
- Bluetooth (again, this didn't become the de facto standard until Apple brought it to all of their Macs)
- the iPod
- the iPhone
- MULTITOUCH capability (on the iPhone and all of Apple's laptops) - this is different then regular "touch" capability, which doesn't recognize multiple fingers simultaneously.
- I could go on & on for pages.
And most of all, Apple still has the one thing that competitors have never been able to copy: EASE OF USE. Apple's products JUST WORK. And they're EASY TO USE. I feel that Apple is the only U.S. company that delivers on its promise to consumers: to deliver the greatest & easiest-to-use technology products in the world.
Labels: Apple, iPhone, Steve Jobs, Verizon
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Verizon and the iPhone
Scott Rose
As you already know, the iPhone has an exclusive deal with AT&T in the U.S. Nobody in the public knows when this exclusivity deal ends, at which point Apple would be able to bring the iPhone to other U.S. carriers such as Verizon or Sprint.
There is absolutely NO DOUBT in my mind that the iPhone will someday be available on both Verizon's and Sprint's networks, because if you go to Apple's Job Opportunities website and search for "CDMA" (which is the cellular technology that Sprint & Verizon use), you will see an increasing list of engineering job openings at Apple that are currently available.
But here's the interesting thing that most people DON'T know: Apple approached Verizon *FIRST* when creating the iPhone and asked Verizon if THEY wanted to be the exclusive U.S. carrier for the iPhone. And are you ready for this? Verizon turned Apple down. They scoffed at Apple. Their bull-headed executives refused to see the value in the iPhone, because they had a problem with two things that Apple wanted: (1) Apple wanted a small percentage of the subscribers' monthly fees in exchange for Apple putting all of their marketing muscle behind the iPhone, and (2) Apple wanted Verizon to make some small changes to their network so that "visual voicemail" would be available to their customers. "Visual voicemail" is the #1 best invention to come to phones since the invention of voicemail itself! It lets you visually see your voicemails like email messages, choose whichever voicemail you want to play in any order, and fast forward/rewind your messages like a song on your iPod. Verizon, showing that it doesn't care about ease-of-use for its customers either, said that they'd rather not provide this to their customers.
So now that the iPhone is the #1 selling smartphone in the U.S., what is Verizon's competitive strategy until they finally get the iPhone for themselves?
Check out this quote from Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg on how he plans on competing with Apple:
"Steve Jobs eventually will get old . . . I like our chances."
This guy's strategy is waiting for -- and wishing for -- the old age of Steve Jobs?
What an ungrateful, disrespectful, and ineffective ass.
Not only did Steve Jobs approach him FIRST and he said NO, but without Steve Jobs, the ENTIRE technology world -- including cell phones -- would be in the complete dark ages right now. Seidenberg should be kissing the ground that Steve Jobs walks on, to thank him for pushing technology ahead so boldly for so many years. We saw practically NO innovation (or ease-of-use) in the cell phone industry until the iPhone hit the market, and now suddenly, everybody has a copycat touchscreen device that they're hawking to unsuspecting customers. Buyer, beware, however... these other products are pieces of crap, to put it kindly. For example, check out these reviews & news stories about the Blackberry Storm, Blackberry's first foray into touchscreen devices and Verizon's current answer to the iPhone.
But this is nothing new for Apple. Apple has always been the innovation leader in the technology world. Everybody else always tries -- and fails -- to copy Apple.
In fact, during the time from 1985 to 1998 when Steve Jobs was unceremoniously kicked out of Apple, we humans entered the darkest time ever in technology history, when there were practically no new technological inventions on computers outside of CD burning and zip drives. In fact, if you look closely at the history of computers, every important technological invention that made a difference in the world has originated at or been popularized first by Apple... then everyone else in the industry scrambled to catch up to Apple. These include:
- The first graphical user interface
- The mouse
- the first trackpad
- Wireless Internet access! Apple was first with this, by over 2 years before any PC's got this!
- the all-in-one iMac
- USB (USB was a floundering technology destined for the dustbin until Apple decided to make it the one & only port type on the first iMac).
- FireWire: created & invented by Apple
- Mac OS X (rock solid stable, no viruses, no crashes, easy to use, built on UNIX)
- Bluetooth (again, this didn't become the de facto standard until Apple brought it to all of their Macs)
- the iPod
- the iPhone
- MULTITOUCH capability (on the iPhone and all of Apple's laptops) - this is different then regular "touch" capability, which doesn't recognize multiple fingers simultaneously.
- I could go on & on for pages.
And most of all, Apple still has the one thing that competitors have never been able to copy: EASE OF USE. Apple's products JUST WORK. And they're EASY TO USE. I feel that Apple is the only U.S. company that delivers on its promise to consumers: to deliver the greatest & easiest-to-use technology products in the world.
Labels: Apple, iPhone, Steve Jobs, Verizon
THE MINDSCAPE OF ALAN MOORE
THE MINDSCAPE OF ALAN MOORE: A disinformation® DVD ExclusiveFor more (dis)info, including interview requests with MINDSCAPE director DeZ Vylenz, please contact Ralph Bernardo at dvd@disinfo.com.
"When it comes to comic book legends, few loom as large as Alan Moore." —Publisher's Weekly Comics Week
"Alan Moore is universally acknowledged as the most important mainstream comics writer of the last three decades." —Slate.com
ALAN MOORE is likely best known among the uninitiated for Hollywood adaptations of his beloved works, which include From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Constantine, V for Vendetta, and the now ubiquitous Watchmen. The Disinformation Company now offers a chance to enter Alan Moore's innovative world through this special 2-disc collector's set featuring the riveting documentary THE MINDSCAPE OF ALAN MOORE and over three hours of bonus footage.
THE MINDSCAPE OF ALAN MOORE will answer those questions you'll have in mind after seeing the most anticipated film of the year. For a sneak preview, Disinformation proudly presents a rare, extended interview with this grand author of our modern mythology — ALAN MOORE — freely available on:
Disinformation: The Podcast hosts Raymond Wiley and Joe McFall spend an hour talking to Alan about his background, the upcoming League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic release, and the acclaimed disinformation® documentary THE MINDSCAPE OF ALAN MOORE: the only feature film production in which Alan Moore collaborated on, and personally granted permission to use his work. Raymond and Joe also interview a true visionary — DEZ VYLENZ — producer and director of THE MINDSCAPE OF ALAN MOORE.
NEW YORK, NY — As recent Comic-Cons have set records for attendance, much of the "buzz" centers on Zack Snyder's eagerly anticipated, big screen adaptation of the Hugo Award-winning cult classic graphic novel Watchmen, authored by legendary comic book writer Alan Moore. Now, in the first and only documentary in which the reclusive, visionary and innovative Moore participates, his hugely-devoted fan base and the soon-to-be-indoctrinated can enter the mind of this modern-day philosopher, artist and magician.
This exclusive 2-disc collector's set, features over three hours of extras that further illuminate the masterful mind of Moore, including:
Interviews with Melinda Gebbie (Lost Girls), Dave Gibbons (Watchmen), David Lloyd (V For Vendetta), Kevin O'Neill (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) and Jose Villarubia (Promethia and Mirror of Love)
Making of featurette
Introduction to Alan Moore's work by Paul Gravett
Selected scene analysis with director DeZ Vylenz's commentary
The award-winning film, from director DeZ Vylenz, leads the audience through Alan Moore's world with the writer himself as guide, beginning with his childhood background, following the evolution of his career as he transformed the comics medium, through to his immersion in a magical worldview where science, spirituality and society are part of the same universe.
As excitement builds for Watchmen, get an inside glimpse inside the psychedelic worldview of one of the world's most visionary and creative minds with THE MINDSCAPE OF ALAN MOORE.
About disinformation®: The Disinformation Company Ltd. is active in TV production, book publishing and home entertainment. It is most widely recognized for its distribution of products on subjects not usually covered by the traditional media. Recent DVD exclusives from The Disinformation Company include Michael Moore's Slacker Uprising, the Sean Penn-narrated War Made Easy, Robert Greenwald's documentaries Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, and Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers, and Robert Baer's The Cult of the Suicide Bomber. For more (dis)info please visit www.disinfo.com.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Bloggers and unions form group to push Democrats
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/26/america/27webliberals.php
Bloggers and unions form group to push Democrats to the left
By Jim Rutenberg
February 26, 2009
WASHINGTON: A group of liberal bloggers said it is teaming up with organized labor and MoveOn to form a political action committee that will seek to push the Democratic Party farther to the left.
Soliciting donations from their readers, the bloggers said they are planning to recruit liberal candidates for challenges against more centrist Democrats currently in Congress.
The formation of the group marks another step in the evolution of the blogosphere, which has proved effective at motivating party activists to give money and time to political campaigns, especially in local races.
But it also illuminates a deepening wrinkle for President Barack Obama, whose attempt to build a broad governing coalition — often by tempering some of his more liberal previous positions — has already angered some of his supporters on the left.
The new organization is in many ways the liberal equivalent of the Club for Growth, a conservative group that has financed primary challenges against Republicans it deems insufficiently dedicated to tax cuts and small government.
Organizers of the new group, to be called Accountability Now, said their intention is to enable Obama to seek more liberal policies without fear of losing support from the more conservative members of his party serving in Congress. But they did not rule out occasional friction with Obama, as well.
"We're going to be about targeting incumbents to make space for Obama to be more progressive," said Glen Greenwald, a liberal blogger with Salon who is part of the effort. "There may be other times when the Democratic Party, as led by Obama, is being unresponsive, so yeah, we have the potential to push back against that, as well."
Another founder of the group, Jane Hamsher, of Firedog Lake, said the group may also involve itself in Republican primary contests, though the focus for now seems to be primarily on the Democratic side.
Left-leaning bloggers have already proven themselves influential in congressional races, most notably providing muscle for the movement that helped Ned Lamont defeat Senator Joseph Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic primary in 2006. ( Lieberman went on to retain his seat after running in the general election as an independent.)
But organizers of the new effort said the new political action committee will mark the start of a more organized and concentrated approach.
Hamsher said Accountability Now — which will also have support from the Service Employees International Union and DailyKos — would concentrate more fully on candidate recruitment in the states.
"We've gone out to the state blogs asking them to put together research on people who they think are good candidates who should be on our radar," she said. "We're not just parachuting in."
She added that the group had not yet settled on specific races.
The political action committee will formally start up on Friday. Organizers said they already had a bank account of $500,000, which they raised over a short period in September when several blogs solicited donations. Organizers said they expected to collect far more than that when they start fundraising in earnest this month.
Bloggers and unions form group to push Democrats to the left
By Jim Rutenberg
February 26, 2009
WASHINGTON: A group of liberal bloggers said it is teaming up with organized labor and MoveOn to form a political action committee that will seek to push the Democratic Party farther to the left.
Soliciting donations from their readers, the bloggers said they are planning to recruit liberal candidates for challenges against more centrist Democrats currently in Congress.
The formation of the group marks another step in the evolution of the blogosphere, which has proved effective at motivating party activists to give money and time to political campaigns, especially in local races.
But it also illuminates a deepening wrinkle for President Barack Obama, whose attempt to build a broad governing coalition — often by tempering some of his more liberal previous positions — has already angered some of his supporters on the left.
The new organization is in many ways the liberal equivalent of the Club for Growth, a conservative group that has financed primary challenges against Republicans it deems insufficiently dedicated to tax cuts and small government.
Organizers of the new group, to be called Accountability Now, said their intention is to enable Obama to seek more liberal policies without fear of losing support from the more conservative members of his party serving in Congress. But they did not rule out occasional friction with Obama, as well.
"We're going to be about targeting incumbents to make space for Obama to be more progressive," said Glen Greenwald, a liberal blogger with Salon who is part of the effort. "There may be other times when the Democratic Party, as led by Obama, is being unresponsive, so yeah, we have the potential to push back against that, as well."
Another founder of the group, Jane Hamsher, of Firedog Lake, said the group may also involve itself in Republican primary contests, though the focus for now seems to be primarily on the Democratic side.
Left-leaning bloggers have already proven themselves influential in congressional races, most notably providing muscle for the movement that helped Ned Lamont defeat Senator Joseph Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic primary in 2006. ( Lieberman went on to retain his seat after running in the general election as an independent.)
But organizers of the new effort said the new political action committee will mark the start of a more organized and concentrated approach.
Hamsher said Accountability Now — which will also have support from the Service Employees International Union and DailyKos — would concentrate more fully on candidate recruitment in the states.
"We've gone out to the state blogs asking them to put together research on people who they think are good candidates who should be on our radar," she said. "We're not just parachuting in."
She added that the group had not yet settled on specific races.
The political action committee will formally start up on Friday. Organizers said they already had a bank account of $500,000, which they raised over a short period in September when several blogs solicited donations. Organizers said they expected to collect far more than that when they start fundraising in earnest this month.
Buffett Says Economy Will Be ‘In Shambles’
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a1L50vuf_HiM
Buffett Says Economy Will Be ‘In Shambles’ for 2009
By Rick Levinson
Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Warren Buffett said the economy will be “in shambles” for the rest of this year as financial firms take losses tied to reckless loans made during the housing boom.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will probably gain in three-quarters of the next 44 years, just as it did in the period since Buffett took over Berkshire Hathaway Inc. in 1965, he said today in his annual letter to the company’s shareholders.
While Buffett and business partner Charlie Munger can’t predict how stocks will perform in 2009, they’re certain “that the economy will be in shambles throughout 2009 -- and, for that matter, probably well beyond,” he wrote.
Gross domestic product shrank at a 6.2 percent annual pace from October through December, the most since 1982, the Commerce Department said yesterday in Washington. Buffett said the consequences of the U.S. housing bubble are now “reverberating through every corner of our economy.”
Home purchases should involve an “honest-to-God down payment of at least 10 percent,” Buffett said. “Putting people into homes, though a desirable goal, shouldn’t be our country’s primary objective.”
Buffett endorsed efforts by the U.S. government to prevent the failure of financial firms including Bear Stearns Cos., which was sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co.
‘Immediate Action’
“Whatever the downsides may be, strong and immediate action by government was essential last year if the financial system was to avoid a total breakdown,” Buffett said. “Had that occurred, the consequences for every area of our economy would have been cataclysmic. Like it or not, the inhabitants of Wall Street, Main Street and the various Side Streets of America were all in the same boat.”
Buffett’s letter accompanied the release of Berkshire’s fourth-quarter results, in which net income fell 96 percent to $117 million on losses from derivative bets tied to stock markets. Berkshire shares have fallen 44 percent in the past year as the value of the firm’s top stock holdings dropped and losses increased on the derivatives.
By the fourth quarter of last year, “the credit crisis, coupled with tumbling home and stock prices, had produced a paralyzing fear that engulfed the country,” Buffett said. “A freefall in business activity ensued, accelerating at a pace that I have never before witnessed. The U.S. - and much of the world - became trapped in a vicious negative-feedback cycle. Fear led to business contraction, and that in turn led to even greater fear.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Rick Levinson in New York at rlevinson2@bloomberg.net.
Buffett Says Economy Will Be ‘In Shambles’ for 2009
By Rick Levinson
Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Warren Buffett said the economy will be “in shambles” for the rest of this year as financial firms take losses tied to reckless loans made during the housing boom.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will probably gain in three-quarters of the next 44 years, just as it did in the period since Buffett took over Berkshire Hathaway Inc. in 1965, he said today in his annual letter to the company’s shareholders.
While Buffett and business partner Charlie Munger can’t predict how stocks will perform in 2009, they’re certain “that the economy will be in shambles throughout 2009 -- and, for that matter, probably well beyond,” he wrote.
Gross domestic product shrank at a 6.2 percent annual pace from October through December, the most since 1982, the Commerce Department said yesterday in Washington. Buffett said the consequences of the U.S. housing bubble are now “reverberating through every corner of our economy.”
Home purchases should involve an “honest-to-God down payment of at least 10 percent,” Buffett said. “Putting people into homes, though a desirable goal, shouldn’t be our country’s primary objective.”
Buffett endorsed efforts by the U.S. government to prevent the failure of financial firms including Bear Stearns Cos., which was sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co.
‘Immediate Action’
“Whatever the downsides may be, strong and immediate action by government was essential last year if the financial system was to avoid a total breakdown,” Buffett said. “Had that occurred, the consequences for every area of our economy would have been cataclysmic. Like it or not, the inhabitants of Wall Street, Main Street and the various Side Streets of America were all in the same boat.”
Buffett’s letter accompanied the release of Berkshire’s fourth-quarter results, in which net income fell 96 percent to $117 million on losses from derivative bets tied to stock markets. Berkshire shares have fallen 44 percent in the past year as the value of the firm’s top stock holdings dropped and losses increased on the derivatives.
By the fourth quarter of last year, “the credit crisis, coupled with tumbling home and stock prices, had produced a paralyzing fear that engulfed the country,” Buffett said. “A freefall in business activity ensued, accelerating at a pace that I have never before witnessed. The U.S. - and much of the world - became trapped in a vicious negative-feedback cycle. Fear led to business contraction, and that in turn led to even greater fear.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Rick Levinson in New York at rlevinson2@bloomberg.net.