So, We Are Getting Close To The End Of This Series. This One Starts Out With About The Only Good Thing That Religion Ever Backed.
After The Next Installment I Have Found An Excellent Piece From NPR On How Our Economy Tanked. It's A Great Listen, Yet It's An Hour Long As Well.
I Just Found This Video And Watched The Whole Thing. It's 47 minutes long so it's a little hard to take in all at once, so I'm going to post this in a 5 part series.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. In fact, it's hardened my resolve to get off credit as fast as possible. I guess I'm already in the process of it albeit unwillingly, at first. The upside of a recession/depression is that it makes you take long looks at your lifestyle and spending habits.
Paul Grignon's 47-minute animated presentation of "Money as Debt" tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it is being created. It is an entertaining way to get the message out. The Cowichan Citizens Coalition and its "Duncan Initiative" received high praise from those who previewed it. I recommend it as a painless but hard-hitting educational tool and encourage the widest distribution and use by all groups concerned with the present unsustainable monetary system in Canada and the United States.
Subprime mortgages (and all mortgages, really) are a fraction of the current problem. The bailout would have been enough to buy out every subprime mortgage in foreclosure across the country. In fact, it was enough to do that several times over. So why not do that?
The reason is that the purpose of the bailout (at least as Treasury Secretary Paulson sees it) isn't to stop mortgage foreclosures, but to save the banks. And the banks have some self-inflicted problems that make those mortgages an afterthought.
For example, the wonderful credit default swap. In essence, credit default swaps are (or were) nothing but insurance policies for loans. And yet in 2007 the total number of credit default swaps traded far exceeded the value of all loans. In fact, it may have touched $70 trillion dollars, which puts it above the gross domestic product of the entire planet.
How Nice Is It To Have Someone In Office That Understands Technology And Is Not An Anti-Intellectual? It's Refreshing To To Think That We Will Not Have People Proud Of Ignorance In Charge Anymore.
I went to sleep last night
Tired from the fight
I've been fighting for tomorrow
All my life
Yea I woke up this morning
Feeling brand new
'Cause the dreams that I've been dreaming
Have finally came true
It's a new day 5x
It's been a long time coming
Up the mountain kept runnin'
Songs of freedom kept hummin'
Channeling Harriet Tubman
Kennedy, Lincoln, and King
We gotta manifest that dream
It feels like we're swimming upstream
It feels like we're stuck in between
A rock and a hard place,
We've been through the heartaches
And lived through the darkest days
If you and I made it this far,
Well then hey, we can make it all the way
And they said no we can't
And we said yes we can
Remember it's you and me together
I woke up this morning
Feeling alright
I've been fightin' for tomorrow
All my life
Yea, I woke up this morning
Feeling brand new
Cause the dreams that I've been dreaming
Have finally came true
It's a new day 5x
It's been a long time waitin'
Waiting for this moment
Been a long time praying
Praying for this moment
We hope for this moment
And now that we own it
For life I will hold it
And I ain't gonna let it go
It's for fathers, our brothers,
Our friends who fought for freedom
Our sisters, our mothers,
Who died for us to be in this moment
Stop and cherish this moment
Stop and cherish this time
It's time for U-nity
For us and we
That's you and me together
I woke up this morning
Feeling brand new
Cause the dreams that I've been dreaming
Finally came true
Yea, I woke up this morning
Feeling alright
'Cause we weren't fighting for nothing
And the soldiers weren't fighting
For nothing
No, Martin was dreaming for nothing
And Lincoln didn't change it for nothing
And children weren't crying for nothing
It's a new day
It's a new day
A new day
It's a new day
It's a new day!
According to Government Technology, engineers at the University of Washington have developed contact lenses with integrated circuitry. Although the lenses have only been tested on animals, researchers are working on having electronic lenses overlay a display over a person's visual field without impairing sight. Researchers hope that the lenses, once completed, will allow users to zoom in on distant objects and see useful facts. Future applications might allow drivers and pilots to see their direction and speed projected across their view or to surf the Web without a monitor. The circuit components would be powered by integrated solar cells and a wireless radio-frequency receiver.
So Now I Have Nothing To Research Anymore. I Do However Look Forward To All Of The Backbiting Stories Coming Out Of The Republican Party Now.
My Problem With Reading The New Stories Is, How Frighteningly Close We Were To Having A Complete Disaster On Our Hands With A VP Palin.
Don't Know What Countries Are A Part Of NAFTA! Doesn't Know That Africa Is A Continent! Are You Fucking Kidding Me! I've Heard Of Low-Information Voters But Low-Information Candidates Is Too Much!
Country First My Ass, The Assholes That Picked Her Should Be Tried For Treason!
It Boils Down To This; The Republican Party Isn't About "Small Government": It's About Socialism For Corporations And Rich White People.
And As Lincoln Said, "Republicans Are For Both The Man And The Dollar, But In Case Of Conflict The Man Before The Dollar." I Think They Need To Go To Remedial Conservatism Classes.
Gotta Love This Country!!!!!!!!!
P.S. After Watching More Of The Coverage, I Now Realize That I Have The Same Personality And Emotional Make-Up As Obama.
Details If Needed.
Thanks www.DailyKos.com
I'm Sorry Obama's Tax/Economic Plan Is What? Oh Yeah, It's What You Used To Believe In Before You Sold Your Soul To Karl Rove.
That's Right, Abandon All Your Beliefs And Go Against Everything You Stood For Just To Win This Office. After All, Your Only Doing "Not To Make Any Changes But Because It's Been A Long Time Ambition Of Yours."
It's Time To Retire.
I Think He's Freaking Out A Little.
Al-Qaeda is watching the U.S. stock market's downward slide with something akin to jubilation, with its leaders hailing the financial crisis as a vindication of its strategy of crippling America's economy through endless, costly foreign wars against Islamist insurgents.
And at least some of its supporters think Sen. John McCain is the presidential candidate best suited to continue that trend.
"Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election," said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the "failing march of his predecessor," President Bush.
The Web commentary was one of several posted by Taliban or al-Qaeda-allied groups in recent days that trumpeted the global financial crisis and predicted further decline for the United States and other Western powers. In language that was by turns mocking and ominous, the newest posting credited al-Qaeda with having lured Washington into a trap that had "exhausted its resources and bankrupted its economy." It further suggested that a terrorist strike might swing the election to McCain and guarantee an expansion of U.S. military commitments in the Islamic world.
"It will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaeda," said the posting, attributed to Muhammad Haafid, a longtime contributor to the password-protected site. "Al-Qaeda then will succeed in exhausting America."
A Re-post From My DailyKos.com Diary.
Friday I came home to an empty yard. I had a sign for 3 of the Democrats that I was going to vote for this year.
Tod Deveyt
Jay Nixon
Obama/Biden
I thought that it was kinda strange, but I was not that surprised. So, I walked into my house, my wife was at her Mom's, and I see the only paper sign (Deveyt) ripped and in the trash. Couldn't find the others immediately. I looked out front again and saw the metal pegs by the front porch.
By this time I am quietly seething, nobody else home so no since in getting loud. I have some suspicions as to what happened but no evidence...yet.
You see, a week or so ago I had a fairly opinionated argument with my in-laws where I explained the issues as I understood them and not what they see on the ONLY news channel they watch, Faux. Their main opinion is that Liberals do what ever feels good, never mind that the Repubs are willingly/happily raping the American people. The statement was also made that if there was ANY increase to their business they would pass it along to their employees. It must be said that they only have 4-5 full time employees, 1 part time, and have a co-owner with them. So needless to say, they don't fall into the over 250k category by any stretch of the imagination.
I should also add that my Father-in-law was mad at my wife for 2 weeks shortly after we started dating because he had a DREAM that she had started dating a black guy.
Well, Thursday my Mother-in-law called late and was relating a story to my wife about a fight she "heard" about in my town. According to her, some guy went into a local restaurant/store and was running his mouth about Obama, apparently in favor of him, and ended up getting into a fight. I don't know who won or what actually caused it but, after hearing her over the phone I loudly opined that this is just more hate mongering and fear spreading. Her Mom and Dad told her that night that had half a mind to come up and rip my signs down. My wife went upstairs and I didn't hear the rest of the conversation.
I come home and see the signs missing. I wait till my wife calls and asked her if she knew anything about my signs, thinking they may have been vandalized. She said that she took them down and that I shouldn't have put them up. I asked why she took them down. Her response was that she didn't want our children being put at risk of someone attacking our house or them.
I know that this is not logical but the fact that there are a ton of McCain signs in our neighborhood and I can't put up an Obama sign for fear of my family is more than a little disconcerting. Is this not the very definition of Terrorism? Can I quote Bush? "If my signs come down then the Terrorists win!"
I asked her what of the Obama sign and she has it hidden. I am currently in the process of getting it back. I was told that I am not allowed to put them in the yard. So I said that I'm going to tape them to my car. The side windows of my Cherokee, not the paint like she thought. "That's stupid to ruin your paint over a sign."
I am also in the process of reversing the brainwashing that she has received from her parents. It was an interesting conversation Friday night. She said that she didn't know who to vote for since I only told her good stuff about Barack, better for us economically, I'm a Union Ironworker, and some of the bad stuff about McCain. When she asked why I don't tell her about the bad stuff from Obama, I reply that it's not pertinent to the election and that the hateful remarks have been debunked before.
I knew that it was going to be an uphill battle when she said some things that I heard from Hannity on the radio and knew was being broadcast on Faux. Oh yeah, she also said that I was "in the tank for Obama." Lovely statement from the wife so I knew her parents had a lot to do with this insane garbage she was spewing.(We don't have TV right now, cut off DTV due to lack of funds, so she has to rely on others for the news.)
We went to the wikipedia site for Ayers and several others and compared records of the Candidates backgrounds. I'm not sure how else to get her to see that her family is wrong on McCain. She won't take the time to research it and since her family only watches Faux and does not research anything and take it at face value, she doesn't realize that I do the research so that I'm NOT blindly voting for a candidate.
News Flash From FOX. What a bunch Of No-Talent Hacks!
LA JEUNESSE: Tonight as those candidates debate, an army of internet fact checkers will be trying to separate fact from fiction, acting as judge and jury as to which candidate is telling the truth or a tall tale. While most of these sites are non-partisan, timely and useful, like Factcheck.org and Politifact, remember, they are uh...well, their facts are -- no one is checking the fact checkers. And their facts...unlike science...the facts are not irrefutable. And now to Washington.
Full Story Here
By John Gray Cincinnati, Ohio
Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.
All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some liberal didn’t think he should loose his home because of his temporary misfortune.
Its noon time, Joe needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the depression.
Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten Mortgage and his below market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his life-time.
Joe is home from work, he plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to dads; his car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electric until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification. (Those rural Republican’s would still be sitting in the dark)
He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to. After his visit with dad he gets back in his car for the ride home.
He turns on a radio talk show, the host’s keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. (He doesn’t tell Joe that his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day) Joe agrees, “We don’t need those big government liberals ruining our lives; after all, I’m a self made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have”.
Thom Hartmann - I Wish He Was On The Radio Here.
Or Get Ready For A Pap Smear
Just A Word Of Warning. If You Think The Smear Campaign Was Bad Before, Wait Till You See The Final 30 Days.
McCain Is On The Brink Of Launching The Lowest Campaign In History. His Negative Ads Are The Prime Focus Of The Race And He Is Spending All Of His Ad Revenue On Them.
Keep In Mind When Viewing These, He Has No Plan On How To Get Through Any Of This! He Has Plenty Bad To Say About Obama, But Nothing Good To Say To Us.
Sneak Peek To The Future.
As We All Keep Reading About Failures In The Markets, I Have Decide To Put Together A List Of Dropouts/Buyouts/Rescues And Failures.
This Is Only What I Have Cobbled Together In A Short Amount Of Time. Further Input Is Welcomed Especially From Those In Overseas Markets.
I Have A Large Blank Area, Please Scroll Down.Failed Lender Method New Holder Countywide Mandated Rescue Bank Of America Freddie Mac Takeover Government Fannie Mae Takeover Government Merrill Lynch Sold Bank Of America Bear Stearns Bailout/Sale JP Morgan Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy AIG Bailout -80% Government Shares WaMu Takeover/Sale JP Morgan Overseas Bradford & Bingley Nationalized Government UK Glitnir HF Takeover -75% Government Iceland Hypo Real Estate Bailout German Institutions Fortis Rescue Belgium Netherlands Luxembourg
So The Question Is, "What/Who Is Next?"
Well, You've Got Goldman Sachs And Morgan Stanley Who Have Changed Status To "Holding Banks." The Latter Has Already Sold A 5 Billion Stake To A China Firm While Also Devaluing It's Holdings By 9.4 Billion.
JP Morgan Is Busying Itself Buying All The Crap It Can. They May Be Betting On A Bailout, However, They Came Out Good After The Great Depression. Due To Following Ethical Practices And Not Just "Staying Within The Law." If They Have The Same Mindset Now, It'd Be A Good Investment If, If You Have Any To Invest.
Wachovia Is Currently Prettying Itself Up For Citigroup.
I Would Say That Falls Under The Heading Of Pwnd.
Pwnd = Owned = Handed McCain's Ass To Him On A Platter.
Can You Believe It? 26,000 Show Up To An Obama Rally, IN THE RAIN!!! In Virginia, No Less! For A Predominately Red State The Numbers Show It Still Too Close To Call At This Point.
The Local Media Even Interviewed Some Vets. Guess What. They Like And Respect Obama!
YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!!
VERMONT -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow's milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk, according to a statement recently released by a PETA spokeswoman.
"PETA's request comes in the wake of news reports that a Swiss restaurant owner will begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 percent of the cow's milk in the food he serves," the statement says.
Read The Article Here!
Seriously, Have These People Lost Their Minds?! They Are Worried About Cattle Suffering?! That Is What They Are Bred For...Food.
What's Next? Are They Going To Say That's It's Cruel For Us To Use Chicken And Pig Excrement To Be Turned Into Fertilizer. We Should Use Our Own Feces To Fertilize Our Crops. Wait, They Do That In Mexico...How's That Working Out For Us? Oh Yeah, Food Recalls, E-Coli Scares And Deaths. Idiots!
Do They Have No Concern For The Human Animals That Will Have To Work In Sweat Shops Pumping That Shit Out? In Addition, Who Oversees The Proper Storing Of "So Called" Edibles? Shouldn't This Restaurant Owner Be Fined For Violating Some Sort Of Health Code?
Here's An Idea PETA. Turn Your Energies To Third World Countries And Save The Humans Who Are Suffering.
From Crackle:
A Letter That I Sent To Both My House Representative And To My Senator. I'm Sure That It Is A Bit Rambling But, I Didn't Have The Time To Really Refine It As This Is An Issue That May Be Pushed Through At A Moments Notice.
I Advise You To Do The Same To Prevent Unfettered Socialism From Getting A Stranglehold On Our Economy.
You May Use Mine If You'd Like, I'd Advise Rereading It And Cutting The Fat.
Senator McCaskill,
I have sent this to my Congressman Hulshoff as well. As my Democratic Senator I hope that you will not let this go through unchallenged.
These monies could be used for so many better things than bailing out a group of people who clearly manipulated the system for their own benefit.
Think of what the average American will be forced to give up no matter who wins the presidential race. Please do not let these criminals ramrod a forced vote on this issue without adding some restrictions that are much needed.
Please, please do not let the bailout proposition pass with section 8 still attached to it. Please consider your constituents in your decision for passing this bill.
Please do not make a rash judgment on this without first considering the ramifications that this bill will provoke.
Is this truly a necessary evil? Is it possible that the investment banks let things get out of hand on purpose? They want all the profits of the good times and none of the responsibility of the impending troubles ahead. Is this fair to the taxpayers? Why should we get to foot the bill for their mistakes while they get a handout and get to go about with business as usual?
They need to pay their act of contrition for the mess that they themselves created. I am expected to and so should they.
I expect that you will provide some guidance and put some provisions of oversight on how the money is distributed.
The deal proposed by Paulson is nothing short of outrageous. It includes no oversight of his own closed-door operations. It merely gives congressional blessing and funding to what he has already been doing, ad hoc. He plans to retain Wall Street firms as advisors to decide just how to cut deals to value and mop up Wall Street's dubious paper. There are to be no limits on executive compensation for the firms that get relief, and no equity share for the government in exchange for this massive infusion of capital. Both Obama and McCain have opposed the provision denying any judicial review of decisions made by Paulson -- a provision that evokes the Bush administration's suspension of normal constitutional safeguards in its conduct of foreign policy and national security. [...]
The differences between this proposed bailout and the three closest historical equivalents are immense. When the Reconstruction Finance Corporation of the 1930s pumped a total of $35 billion into U.S. corporations and financial institutions, there was close government supervision and quid pro quos at every step of the way. Much of the time, the RFC became a preferred shareholder, and often appointed board members. The Home Owners Loan Corporation, which eventually refinanced one in five mortgage loans, did not operate to bail out banks but to save homeowners. And the Resolution Trust Corporation of the 1980s, created to mop up the damage of the first speculative mortgage meltdown, the S&L collapse, did not pump in money to rescue bad investments; it sorted out good assets from bad after the fact, and made sure to purge bad executives as well as bad loans. And all three of these historic cases of public recapitalization were done without suspending judicial review.
Please don't let this pass without proper oversight.
Thank you for your time,
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is Enemy Action."
-- Auric Goldfinger
James Bond's wealthy nemesis may have had an obsession with gold, but he judged, quite correctly, that if people keep putting your plans awry, that was likely their intent.
In 1982, the same year John McCain entered the Senate, a bill was put forward that would substantially deregulate the Savings and Loan industry. The Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act was an initiative of the Reagan administration, and was largely authored by lobbyists for the S&L industry -- including John McCain's warm-up speaker at the convention, Fred Thompson. The official description of the bill was "An act to revitalize the housing industry by strengthening the financial stability of home mortgage lending institutions and ensuring the availability of home mortgage loans." Considering where things stand in 2008, that may sound dubious. It should.
Seven years later, the S&L industry was collapsing. What was the cause? Garn-St. Germain handed the S&Ls a greatly expanded range of capabilities, allowing them to go head to head with full service banks, but it didn't give them the bank's regulations. Left to operate in an anarchistic gray area, S&Ls chased profits, indulged in amazing extravagances, and cranked out enough cheap mortgages to fuel a real estate boom. They also experimented with lots of complex, creative -- and risky -- investments, even though they didn't have the economic models to really determine the worth of the things they were buying. The result was a mountain of bad debts and worthless "assets." Does any of that sound eerily (or nauseatingly) familiar?
My Friend Steve Has A Post About Palin And Her Lack Of Not Only any Actual Scientific Knowledge But Also A Lack Of Critical Thinking. Link To Zarbi's Journal I Get Tired Of Hearing The Continual Stream Of Blatant Lies Coming From The Repuglicans. Seriously, We All Know That Politicians Stretch The Truth And Omit Words From Quotes But It's Getting Outrageous.
The Worst Part Is That Most People Can't Be Bothered To Do A Little Research On Their Own. I Admit That With My Union Ironworker Background In A Strong Union Area That I Was Leaning Towards The Democratic Candidate Anyway But, I Still Feel That It Is My Obligation To Make An Informed Decision Based On My Own Research And Fact Finding.
I Suggest Starting Here.
I Embellish A Little More Here On My Response To Steve.
Why Are People So Damned Proud Of Their Ignorance? Ignorance Is Bliss?
Why Are They So Proud Of Being Intellectually Lazy? They Don't Know It?
The Sad Fact Is That The Ignorant, Lazy, Religious Right Loves To Wallow Around In Their Self Indulgence; Telling Others How To Properly Behave; All Whilst Happily Gobbling Up All The Sound Bytes From The Very Conservative Press And Personal Religious Institution. IE: Fox, Rush, O'Reilly, Etc. It's True, These Simpletons Really Do Stick To Their Guns And Religion.
It's Amazing How Many People Still Believe The Lies About Baracks' Birthplace, Religious Beliefs, Personal Beliefs, Political Policies, Etc. Since They Have Been Proven To Be Lies I Choose To Not Spread The Meme, If You Repeat The Lie People Remember It Even If Told It's False.
It's Simply That They Want It All Given To Them On A Platter Where They Can Pick And Choose What They Want To Hear. Basically, At The End Of The Day They Are Pleased To Make That Un/Under Informed Decision. That Way, When McCain Gets In And It Goes To Shit, They Can Claim That They Were Misled And Didn't Know That That Was What They Were Voting For.
Just Like Our Current Administration Is Filled With Lies, Half-Truths, Cover-ups And A Flat Out Disregard For The Constitution. I've Seen It Written, "The Way They Campaign Is A Sure Sign To How They Will Govern."
61 Lies So Far, Do We Want That For Four/Eight/Twelve/SIX-TEEN More Years!?
IF YOU'RE UNDECIDED, DON'T LET THE LIES GET IN THE WAY...VOTE DEMOCRAT, VOTE OBAMA!
Oh Yes, The Republican Campaign Does Think The American People Are Blind And Retarded. However, They Are Quick To Forget The Power Of Disenfranchised Computer Geeks.
The internet activist group 'anonymous', famed for its exposure of unethical behavior by the Scientology cult, has now gone after the Alaskan governor and republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
At around midnight last night the group gained access to governor Palin's email account ... and handed over the contents to the government sunshine site Wikileaks.org.
I Just Want To Keep The Meme Of McCain/Palin Being Lairs Active.
NBC Nightly News Fact Checking Palin
The Outside Insider
The Daily Kos
Here is a look at McCain’s back-and-forth on regulation during the last 24 hours:
- Deregulation: McCain issued a statement Monday morning saying that “we cannot tolerate a system that handicaps our markets and our banks.”
- Regulation: McCain’s campaign then put out an ad calling for “tougher rules on Wall Street.”
- Deregulation: This morning, on NBC’s Today Show, McCain said, “Of course, I don’t like excessive and unnecessary government regulation.”
- Regulation: Then, on CBS’s The Early Show, McCain said, “Do I believe in excess government regulation? Yes.”
- Both: On CNBC’s Squawk Box, McCain said, “We don’t want to burden average citizens with over-regulation and government bureaucracy...And I’m proud to be a Teddy Roosevelt Republican, who said, ‘unfettered capitalism leads to corruption,’ and we’ve got to fix this.”
I Cannot Express How Bad This Person Will Be For Our Country. More Of The Same? Not Hardly! It Will Be A Golden Age Of Fascism In The US With No Checks Or Balances.
I'm So Happy She Was "Fully Vetted."
Link To Original
Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes
By JO BECKER, PETER S. GOODMAN AND MICHAEL POWELL
Published: September 13, 2008
WASILLA, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal.
So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.
Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.
When Ms. Palin had to cut her first state budget, she avoided the legion of frustrated legislators and mayors. Instead, she huddled with her budget director and her husband, Todd, an oil field worker who is not a state employee, and vetoed millions of dollars of legislative projects.
And four months ago, a Wasilla blogger, Sherry Whitstine, who chronicles the governor’s career with an astringent eye, answered her phone to hear an assistant to the governor on the line, she said.
“You should be ashamed!” Ivy Frye, the assistant, told her. “Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!”
Ms. Palin walks the national stage as a small-town foe of “good old boy” politics and a champion of ethics reform. The charismatic 44-year-old governor draws enthusiastic audiences and high approval ratings. And as the Republican vice-presidential nominee, she points to her management experience while deriding her Democratic rivals, Senators Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr., as speechmakers who never have run anything.
But an examination of her swift rise and record as mayor of Wasilla and then governor finds that her visceral style and penchant for attacking critics — she sometimes calls local opponents “haters” — contrasts with her carefully crafted public image.
Throughout her political career, she has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievance, according to a review of public records and interviews with 60 Republican and Democratic legislators and local officials.
Still, Ms. Palin has many supporters. As a two-term mayor she paved roads and built an ice rink, and as governor she has pushed through higher taxes on the oil companies that dominate one-third of the state’s economy. She stirs deep emotions. In Wasilla, many residents display unflagging affection, cheering “our Sarah” and hissing at her critics.
“She is bright and has unfailing political instincts,” said Steve Haycox, a history professor at the University of Alaska. “She taps very directly into anxieties about the economic future.”
“But,” he added, “her governing style raises a lot of hard questions.”
Ms. Palin declined to grant an interview for this article. The McCain-Palin campaign responded to some questions on her behalf and that of her husband, while referring others to the governor’s spokespeople, who did not respond.
Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell said Ms. Palin had conducted an accessible and effective administration in the public’s interest. “Everything she does is for the ordinary working people of Alaska,” he said.
In Wasilla, a builder said he complained to Mayor Palin when the city attorney put a stop-work order on his housing project. She responded, he said, by engineering the attorney’s firing.
Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.
Rick Steiner, a University of Alaska professor, sought the e-mail messages of state scientists who had examined the effect of global warming on polar bears. (Ms. Palin said the scientists had found no ill effects, and she has sued the federal government to block the listing of the bears as endangered.) An administration official told Mr. Steiner that his request would cost $468,784 to process.
When Mr. Steiner finally obtained the e-mail messages — through a federal records request — he discovered that state scientists had in fact agreed that the bears were in danger, records show.
“Their secrecy is off the charts,” Mr. Steiner said.
State legislators are investigating accusations that Ms. Palin and her husband pressured officials to fire a state trooper who had gone through a messy divorce with her sister, charges that she denies. But interviews make clear that the Palins draw few distinctions between the personal and the political.
Last summer State Representative John Harris, the Republican speaker of the House, picked up his phone and heard Mr. Palin’s voice. The governor’s husband sounded edgy. He said he was unhappy that Mr. Harris had hired John Bitney as his chief of staff, the speaker recalled. Mr. Bitney was a high school classmate of the Palins and had worked for Ms. Palin. But she fired Mr. Bitney after learning that he had fallen in love with another longtime friend.
“I understood from the call that Todd wasn’t happy with me hiring John and he’d like to see him not there,” Mr. Harris said.
“The Palin family gets upset at personal issues,” he added. “And at our level, they want to strike back.”
Through a campaign spokesman, Mr. Palin said he “did not recall” referring to Mr. Bitney in the conversation.
Hometown Mayor
Laura Chase, the campaign manager during Ms. Palin’s first run for mayor in 1996, recalled the night the two women chatted about her ambitions.
“I said, ‘You know, Sarah, within 10 years you could be governor,’ ” Ms. Chase recalled. “She replied, ‘I want to be president.’ ”
Ms. Palin grew up in Wasilla, an old fur trader’s outpost and now a fast-growing exurb of Anchorage. The town sits in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, edged by jagged mountains and birch forests. In the 1930s, the Roosevelt administration took farmers from the Dust Bowl area and resettled them here; their Democratic allegiances defined the valley for half a century.
In the past three decades, socially conservative Oklahomans and Texans have flocked north to the oil fields of Alaska. They filled evangelical churches around Wasilla and revived the Republican Party. Many of these working-class residents formed the electoral backbone for Ms. Palin, who ran for mayor on a platform of gun rights, opposition to abortion and the ouster of the “complacent” old guard.
After winning the mayoral election in 1996, Ms. Palin presided over a city rapidly outgrowing itself. Septic tanks had begun to pollute lakes, and residential lots were carved willy-nilly out of the woods. She passed road and sewer bonds, cut property taxes but raised the sales tax.
And, her supporters say, she cleaned out the municipal closet, firing veteran officials to make way for her own team. “She had an agenda for change and for doing things differently,” said Judy Patrick, a City Council member at the time.
But careers were turned upside down. The mayor quickly fired the town’s museum director, John Cooper. Later, she sent an aide to the museum to talk to the three remaining employees. “He told us they only wanted two,” recalled Esther West, one of the three, “and we had to pick who was going to be laid off.” The three quit as one.
Ms. Palin cited budget difficulties for the museum cuts. Mr. Cooper thought differently, saying the museum had become a microcosm of class and cultural conflicts in town. “It represented that the town was becoming more progressive, and they didn’t want that,” he said.
Days later, Mr. Cooper recalled, a vocal conservative, Steve Stoll, sidled up to him. Mr. Stoll had supported Ms. Palin and had a long-running feud with Mr. Cooper. “He said: ‘Gotcha, Cooper,’ ” Mr. Cooper said.
Mr. Stoll did not recall that conversation, although he said he supported Ms. Palin’s campaign and was pleased when she fired Mr. Cooper.
In 1997, Ms. Palin fired the longtime city attorney, Richard Deuser, after he issued the stop-work order on a home being built by Don Showers, another of her campaign supporters.
Your attorney, Mr. Showers told Ms. Palin, is costing me lots of money.
“She told me she’d like to see him fired,” Mr. Showers recalled. “But she couldn’t do it herself because the City Council hires the city attorney.” Ms. Palin told him to write the council members to complain.
Meanwhile, Ms. Palin pushed the issue from the inside. “She started the ball rolling,” said Ms. Patrick, who also favored the firing. Mr. Deuser was soon replaced by Ken Jacobus, then the State Republican Party’s general counsel.
“Professionals were either forced out or fired,” Mr. Deuser said.
Ms. Palin ordered city employees not to talk to the press. And she used city money to buy a white Suburban for the mayor’s use — employees sarcastically called it the mayor-mobile.
The new mayor also tended carefully to her evangelical base. She appointed a pastor to the town planning board. And she began to eye the library. For years, social conservatives had pressed the library director to remove books they considered immoral.
“People would bring books back censored,” recalled former Mayor John Stein, Ms. Palin’s predecessor. “Pages would get marked up or torn out.”
Witnesses and contemporary news accounts say Ms. Palin asked the librarian about removing books from the shelves. The McCain-Palin presidential campaign says Ms. Palin never advocated censorship.
But in 1995, Ms. Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues that she had noticed the book “Daddy’s Roommate” on the shelves and that it did not belong there, according to Ms. Chase and Mr. Stein. Ms. Chase read the book, which helps children understand homosexuality, and said it was inoffensive; she suggested that Ms. Palin read it.
“Sarah said she didn’t need to read that stuff,” Ms. Chase said. “It was disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library and she didn’t even read it.”
“I’m still proud of Sarah,” she added, “but she scares the bejeebers out of me.”
Reform Crucible
Restless ambition defined Ms. Palin in the early years of this decade. She raised money for Senator Ted Stevens, a Republican from the state; finished second in the 2002 Republican primary for lieutenant governor; and sought to fill the seat of Senator Frank H. Murkowski when he ran for governor.
Mr. Murkowski appointed his daughter to the seat, but as a consolation prize, he gave Ms. Palin the $125,000-a-year chairmanship of a state commission overseeing oil and gas drilling.
Ms. Palin discovered that the state Republican leader, Randy Ruedrich, a commission member, was conducting party business on state time and favoring regulated companies. When Mr. Murkowski failed to act on her complaints, she quit and went public.
The Republican establishment shunned her. But her break with the gentlemen’s club of oil producers and political power catapulted her into the public eye.
“She was honest and forthright,” said Jay Kerttula, a former Democratic state senator from Palmer.
Ms. Palin entered the 2006 primary for governor as a formidable candidate.
In the middle of the primary, a conservative columnist in the state, Paul Jenkins, unearthed e-mail messages showing that Ms. Palin had conducted campaign business from the mayor’s office. Ms. Palin handled the crisis with a street fighter’s guile.
“I told her it looks like she did the same thing that Randy Ruedrich did,” Mr. Jenkins recalled. “And she said, ‘Yeah, what I did was wrong.’ ”
Mr. Jenkins hung up and decided to forgo writing about it. His phone rang soon after.
Mr. Jenkins said a reporter from Fairbanks, reading from a Palin news release, demanded to know why he was “smearing” her. “Now I look at her and think: ‘Man, you’re slick,’ ” he said.
Ms. Palin won the primary, and in the general election she faced Tony Knowles, the former two-term Democratic governor, and Andrew Halcro, an independent.
Not deeply versed in policy, Ms. Palin skipped some candidate forums; at others, she flipped through hand-written, color-coded index cards strategically placed behind her nameplate.
Before one forum, Mr. Halcro said he saw aides shovel reports at Ms. Palin as she crammed. Her showman’s instincts rarely failed. She put the pile of reports on the lectern. Asked what she would do about health care policy, she patted the stack and said she would find an answer in the pile of solutions.
“She was fresh, and she was tomorrow,” said Michael Carey, a former editorial page editor for The Anchorage Daily News. “She just floated along like Mary Poppins.”
Government
Half a century after Alaska became a state, Ms. Palin was inaugurated as governor in Fairbanks and took up the reformer’s sword.
As she assembled her cabinet and made other state appointments, those with insider credentials were now on the outs. But a new pattern became clear. She surrounded herself with people she has known since grade school and members of her church.
Mr. Parnell, the lieutenant governor, praised Ms. Palin’s appointments. “The people she hires are competent, qualified, top-notch people,” he said.
Ms. Palin chose Talis Colberg, a borough assemblyman from the Matanuska valley, as her attorney general, provoking a bewildered question from the legal community: “Who?” Mr. Colberg, who did not return calls, moved from a one-room building in the valley to one of the most powerful offices in the state, supervising some 500 people.
“I called him and asked, ‘Do you know how to supervise people?’ ” said a family friend, Kathy Wells. “He said, ‘No, but I think I’ll get some help.’ ”
The Wasilla High School yearbook archive now doubles as a veritable directory of state government. Ms. Palin appointed Mr. Bitney, her former junior high school band-mate, as her legislative director and chose another classmate, Joe Austerman, to manage the economic development office for $82,908 a year. Mr. Austerman had established an Alaska franchise for Mailboxes Etc.
To her supporters — and with an 80 percent approval rating, she has plenty — Ms. Palin has lifted Alaska out of a mire of corruption. She gained the passage of a bill that tightens the rules covering lobbyists. And she rewrote the tax code to capture a greater share of oil and gas sale proceeds.
“Does anybody doubt that she’s a tough negotiator?” said State Representative Carl Gatto, Republican of Palmer.
Yet recent controversy has marred Ms. Palin’s reform credentials. In addition to the trooper investigation, lawmakers in April accused her of improperly culling thousands of e-mail addresses from a state database for a mass mailing to rally support for a policy initiative.
While Ms. Palin took office promising a more open government, her administration has battled to keep information secret. Her inner circle discussed the benefit of using private e-mail addresses. An assistant told her it appeared that such e-mail messages sent to a private address on a “personal device” like a BlackBerry “would be confidential and not subject to subpoena.”
Ms. Palin and aides use their private e-mail addresses for state business. A campaign spokesman said the governor copied e-mail messages to her state account “when there was significant state business.”
On Feb. 7, Frank Bailey, a high-level aide, wrote to Ms. Palin’s state e-mail address to discuss appointments. Another aide fired back: “Frank, this is not the governor’s personal account.”
Mr. Bailey responded: “Whoops~!”
Mr. Bailey, a former midlevel manager at Alaska Airlines who worked on Ms. Palin’s campaign, has been placed on paid leave; he has emerged as a central figure in the trooper investigation.
Another confidante of Ms. Palin’s is Ms. Frye, 27. She worked as a receptionist for State Senator Lyda Green before she joined Ms. Palin’s campaign for governor. Now Ms. Frye earns $68,664 as a special assistant to the governor. Her frequent interactions with Ms. Palin’s children have prompted some lawmakers to refer to her as “the babysitter,” a title that Ms. Frye disavows.
Like Mr. Bailey, she is an effusive cheerleader for her boss.
“YOU ARE SO AWESOME!” Ms. Frye typed in an e-mail message to Ms. Palin in March.
Many lawmakers contend that Ms. Palin is overly reliant on a small inner circle that leaves her isolated. Democrats and Republicans alike describe her as often missing in action. Since taking office in 2007, Ms. Palin has spent 312 nights at her Wasilla home, some 600 miles to the north of the governor’s mansion in Juneau, records show.
During the last legislative session, some lawmakers became so frustrated with her absences that they took to wearing “Where’s Sarah?” pins.
Many politicians say they typically learn of her initiatives — and vetoes — from news releases.
Mayors across the state, from the larger cities to tiny municipalities along the southeastern fiords, are even more frustrated. Often, their letters go unanswered and their pleas ignored, records and interviews show.
Last summer, Mayor Mark Begich of Anchorage, a Democrat, pressed Ms. Palin to meet with him because the state had failed to deliver money needed to operate city traffic lights. At one point, records show, state officials told him to just turn off a dozen of them. Ms. Palin agreed to meet with Mr. Begich when he threatened to go public with his anger, according to city officials.
At an Alaska Municipal League gathering in Juneau in January, mayors across the political spectrum swapped stories of the governor’s remoteness. How many of you, someone asked, have tried to meet with her? Every hand went up, recalled Mayor Fred Shields of Haines Borough. And how many met with her? Just a few hands rose. Ms. Palin soon walked in, delivered a few remarks and left for an anti-abortion rally.
The administration’s e-mail correspondence reveals a siege-like atmosphere. Top aides keep score, demean enemies and gloat over successes. Even some who helped engineer her rise have felt her wrath.
Dan Fagan, a prominent conservative radio host and longtime friend of Ms. Palin, urged his listeners to vote for her in 2006. But when he took her to task for raising taxes on oil companies, he said, he found himself branded a “hater.”
It is part of a pattern, Mr. Fagan said, in which Ms. Palin characterizes critics as “bad people who are anti-Alaska.”
As Ms. Palin’s star ascends, the McCain campaign, as often happens in national races, is controlling the words of those who know her well. Her mother-in-law, Faye Palin, has been asked not to speak to reporters, and aides sit in on interviews with old friends.
At a recent lunch gathering, an official with the Wasilla Chamber of Commerce asked its members to refer all calls from reporters to the governor’s office. Dianne Woodruff, a city councilwoman, shook her head.
“I was thinking, I don’t remember giving up my First Amendment rights,” Ms. Woodruff said. “Just because you’re not going gaga over Sarah doesn’t mean you can’t speak your mind.”
I Am Trying To Get Some Help On This Blog. Please Pardon The Horrendous White Outline Around The Expanded Posts. It Will Be Changed Back To Black As Soon As I Figure Out How To Outline All The Text On The Page In The Same Fashion.
In The Meantime, To Read A Post Just Click The Title Instead Of Expanding It.
It Will Hurt Your Eyes, LOL.
Sorry For The Inconvience.
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It'd Be Nice To Have Your Running Mate On The Same Page Don't You Think?
McCain, "I Am Prepared. I Need No On-The-Job Training. I Wasn't A Mayor For A Short Period Of Time. I Wasn't A Governor For A Short Period Of Time."
Palin, "Charlie, Again, We've Got To Remember What The Desire Is In This Nation At This Time. It Is For No More Politics As Usual And Somebody's Big, Fat Resume Maybe That Shows Decades And Decades In That Washington Establishment, Where, Yes, They've Had Opportunities To Meet Heads Of State. "
All This BS About Wrapping Yourself In The Banner Of Change. It's Amusing To Me That In The 2000 Election McCain Really Was A Person Who Could Wear That Badge. I Might Have Voted For The 2000 McCain. Unfortunately, It Didn't Get Him Anywhere And He Had To Bow Out Early. He Learned His Lesson Then And From There On Towed The Party Line. He Now Fits Squarely Into Picture That Palin Painted. He Is "Politics As Usual." He Is The Fat Cat That Wants To Keep The Status Quo.
Straight Talk Express My Ass!
I Do, However, Agree That He Will Not Be More Of The Same. If His Campaigning Is Any Indication, He Will Be Much Worse. In Fact, He Will Bring About The Finality Of A Fascist America.
Since I Have Been Asked A Few Times About My Expandable Posts I Figure It'll Be Good To Blog It For Easier Access.
http://hackosphere.blogspot.com/2006/11/selective-expandable-posts.html
It's A Great Site For A Newcomer Like Me.
This Is The Fade In.
http://hackosphere.blogspot.com/2007/07/special-effects-for-peekaboo-posts.html
Now I'm Just Trying To Figure Out How To Get All Of My Text Legible. Need A Background Color For The Text.
P.S. Diacanu - Feel Free To Add Me, Permission Not Needed. ;)
So I'm Blowing Through Some Friendly Blogs And Come Across An Interesting Conversation, For Lack Of A Better Term.
Lee Has Been Thinking About How Special We Are. Not Helmet-Short-Bus Special, But I Think He Was Alluding To How Likely Life On Earth Was To Being Carbon Based.
Mark Decided To Tackle The Probability Of Individuals Arising From The Big Bang. I Think That's A Static That May Be Too Hard To Define. Especially When Debating The Finer Points Of Religion.
PZ Meyers Had A Nice Email Full Of Fuzzy Logic From A Creationist He Decided To Refute.
All Great Posts To Wade Through. I Did Save One Quote Months Ago From The Dawkins Site That Can Shorten These Quite Nicely. Sadly, I No Longer Remember Who Posted It.Another tactic is to embrace the "teach the controversy" concept. For example...
The next time somebody springs the old "Tornado/Junkyard/747" argument on you,(or any of the other 'scientific notation' arguments) don't launch into an elaborate defense designed to explain how evolution is not a random process, etc. etc. Talk about the lottery.
Ask them what has the better chance of being a winner, a powerball ticket with the numbers 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06 or one with the numbers 23, 19, 32, 40, 08, 11. Most likely they will pick the second ticket, unless of course they know you are a sneaky, atheist bastard, then they might pick the first one. Either way, of course they are wrong. Both tickets have an equal chance of winning...the first one just seems improbable because it has the appearance of design.
If they then ask what that has to do with tornados, junkyards, and 747's, say "nothing". "It just goes to show how poorly the human mind is at dealing intuitively with probabilities. If they are still with you, ask them this...
which has the better chance of winning between these two powerball tickets? 21, 22, 23, 06, 07, 08, or 13, 16, 37, 11, 13, 25. Of course they will be suspecting a trick (as they should), but if they grasped the first part---that any given set of numbers is just as probable as any other given set of numbers---they should answer that they have an equal probability of winning. Unless, of course, they are familiar with how powerball works and noticed that the number '13' is used twice. This breaks the "natural laws" of powerball, in other words it just doesn't work that way. So ticket 2 is an impossibility.
Now you explain how evolution is not a random process but is actually guided a set of "natural laws". Ever so gently, point out that that is why the 747 analogy is flawed. While it might be mathematically correct, it doesn't take into account the rules of the game, so it is flawed from the outset.
I Think It Sums Up The Probability Question Nicely.
Why Do I Have To Read About This Second Hand? I Don't Have TV, So I Have An Excuse For Having To Hear About This Crap On The Interweb.
The Problem Is Whenever I Mention Stuff Like This To My Relatives Or People At Work Who DO Follow The News It's Unheard Of.
Are The Democrats Dropping The Ball?!
More And More Garbage About Palin Comes Out Every Day. Are They Scared To Pursue It For Fear Of Sexism Allegations? Why Not, They Get Blamed For It When Calling McCain A Pig. Way Too Touchy, Me Thinks.
Have A Gander At These Gems.
Face It The Republicans Are Lying Opportunists And The US Population Who Support Him Are Deluding Themselves.
So Basically, Hank Hill's Wife Found A Grape That Has A Rotten Spot On It.
ARLINGTON, Texas -- An Arlington woman said she has discovered a grape that bears a figure resembling the Virgin Mary.
Becky Ginn, 24, says she is a Baptist.
"I thought this stuff just happened to Catholics?" she said. "Mom and I had a laugh about it at first, seeing as how we're Baptists and all and we generally don't expect to see holy people popping up in our foodstuffs."
Ginn posted a photo of the grape to her LiveJournal page and was urged to contact the media. NBC 5 was her first choice, she said.
"I haven't made a shrine to it, nor prayed to it, nor done much of anything except e-mail the picture to a few friends and roll it around in the bowl in the fridge," Ginn said.
Friends have suggested she "eBay it."
"The logistics involved in shipping it to any buyer would be interesting," Ginn said.
This Is Great. It's A Shame That I Don't Have TV Right Now, Otherwise I Would Have Seen This Before My Last Post.
I Reiterate That She Is A Tool Being Used By A Tool.
You Have Got To Be Kidding Me! This Is The Best That McSame Could Come Up With? There Are A Lot Of Good, Decent Republicans Out There Who DO Have The Experience To Lead This Country.
I Won't Bother Naming Them Since It Doesn't Matter, However, Palin Is Not One Of Them. She Is Nothing But A Tool For A Tool. McCain Saw A Gap That Obama May Have Left In Not Choosing Hillary And He Chose Her For The Votes That She May Bring. What's Irritating Is That She Wasn't Even The Best Female Choice. The Fact Is She Is A Former Beauty Queen, We All Know How Intelligent They Are.
She Was Also A Sports Reporter Before She Became A Mayor Of A Small Podunk Town For 6 Years. Let's Be Honest, A Town With Less Than 6,000 People Is Not That Hard To Manage. But Apparently Warranted 5.5 MILLION Dollars In Federal Funds Through An Earmark System That She Now Criticizes.
It Didn't Stop When She Became Governor, Either. She Requested Almost 198 Million, 100 Million More Than Any Other State. But Apparently 1.5 Years In That Position Is All The Experience You Need To Really Know How To Work Across Party Lines And Across The Table With Negotiators From Some Of The Most Dangerous Countries In The World.
Is This A Person You Want To Be A Heartbeat Away From Being President?
I Think That McCain Has Lost His Mind And Gone Senile. Does McCain Have Such A Low Opinion Of Women Voters That They Would Overlook Education, Abortion, Foreign Policy, Civil Rights, Health Care, Family Leave And More Simply To Vote For A Female Candidate? Or Does This Just Point To His Inability To Make Lucid Choices Under Pressure?
The Final Question - Is She The Right Person for The Job? Does She Have The Qualifications? Would She Be Offered This If Her Name Was Scott And She Didn't Have A Vagina Between Her Legs?
I'm On My Way Home From Work And I Notice That Gas Has Gone Up .25 Since I Went In!
I Think This Is Fucking Ridiculous! I Know That We Don't Have It As Bad As Some Other Countries Or Even As Bad As Other Parts Of This Country, But Dammit It's Crazy When You See That The Jackass Oil Speculators Jack Up The Price Just Cause They Can.
The Price Of Fuel Had Steadily Been Going Down But I Guess that Since It's Labor Day Weekend They Feel The Need To Ejaculate As Much Cash From The Average Person As They Can. After All, Despite Record Profits, Yet AGAIN, Last Quarter The Investors Were Dismayed That It Wasn't Higher.
Here's The Bullshit Part. There Is An Oil Coalition Called ICE. These Are The Main Oil Speculators, They Get To Trade Energy Commodities In The US. The Good Part Is That They Are Also The One's That Get To Set The Price On Fuel. "I Think That The Price Is Going To Go Up Because Of Blah. How About That The Price Went Up Cause I Said Blah!" They Not Only Get The Profits From The Sale Of The Fuel To Shits Like You And Me, They Also Get Profits From The Commodities Trading. Sounds Like Another Enron To Me.
But Hey Look On The Bright Side, The Government Looked Into It And At Least We're Not Being Randomly Gouged By A .25 Raise In One Day. I For One Plan On Parking My Vehicle For The Remainder Of The Weekend.
More Info Can Be Found Here: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/22210615/candidates_for_saleOil speculators provide the perfect microcosm of what happened to the economy under Bush. Back in 2001, investment banks like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan got together and created an online exchange called the ICE for trading energy commodities. The ICE ended up buying the British-regulated International Petroleum Exchange; it then opened trading windows in the U.S., allowing Wall Street investment banks to make oil-futures trades on American soil, on their very own commodities exchange, without any federal regulation whatsoever.
"In financial terms, they were playing blackjack at tables where they themselves were the dealers, in casinos they themselves owned," says Warren Gunnels, a senior policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders. "It was crazy." Trading on the ICE had a massive impact on U.S. gasoline prices, and more than one legislator wondered if energy speculators were manipulating the market, as energy traders like Enron had been before.
My Neighbor Works For Walmart And She Has To Travel A Lot. This Past June She Left For A 3 Month Stint In Hawaii, Lucky Bastard, And Had To Leave Her Garden Untended. She Told Us To Help Ourselves To Whatever Happened To Grow In Her 100 Sqft Plot.
There Hasn't Really Been Much To Choose From, We Don't Weed Or Water The Area So We Didn't Expect Much. She Planted Beans, Corn, And Tomatoes. The Beans, To Me, Are More Of A Hassle Since You Really Have To Have A Lost Of Plants To Get Any Kind Of A Harvest. The Corn, I Think, Was Planted Late And With An Overly Wet Spring And Beginning Of Summer, Was Very Stunted And Only Had 1 Inch Ears.
The Tomatoes, On The Other Hand, Have Been Doing Well. They Have Not Been Huge By Any Means, But Have Been Tasty. It Has Had An Unexpected Effect On My Wife's Aversion To "Home-Grown" Foods. We Have A Decent Size Yard That Would Be Good For Planting While Still Leaving Room For Other Activities, A Must With Two Kids Under 3.
I Had Suggested A Few Times That We Plant Some Things To No Avail. "I Don't Eat Grown Food, *Crinkled Nose*" She Would Say. However The Tastiness Of The Tomatoes Has Made Her Change Her Mind. So This Year I Will Finish My Deck And Start Making Preparations For The 2009 Project. I Have A Lot Of Research To Do And Am Glad That I Saw Her Garden In The State It Is Now. I Would Have Been Disgruntled With My First Attempt In Which I Would Have Probably Done What I Did And Been Pissed At The Lack Of Produce.
Coincidentally, NOT Ironically (I Hate When That Is Misused,) In Wired's Most Recent Issue There Was An Article On Urban Farming. Clive Generally Has Great Articles And I Figured I'd Repost Here.
Clive Thompson on Why Urban Farming Isn't Just for Foodies
This year, Carol Nissen's crops include mesclun, cherry tomatoes, strawberries, and assorted herbs. When she sits down to dine, she's often eating food grown with her own two hands.
But Nissen isn't tilling the soil on a farm. She's a Web designer who lives in Jersey City, New Jersey — one of the most cramped, concrete-laden landscapes in the nation. Nissen's vegetables thrive in pots and boxes crammed into her house and in wee plots in her yard. "I'm a micro-gardener," she says. "It's a pretty small townhouse. But it's amazing what you can do without much space."
The term for this is urban farming — the art of growing vegetables in cities that otherwise resemble the Baltimore of The Wire.It has become increasingly trendy in recent years, led by health-conscious foodies coveting just-picked produce, as well as hipsters who dig the roll-your-own vibe.
But I think it's time to kick it up a notch. Our world faces many food-resource problems, and a massive increase in edible gardening could help solve them. The next president should throw down the gauntlet and demand Americans sow victory gardens once again.
Remember the victory garden? During World Wars I and II, the government urged city dwellers and suburbanites to plant food in their yards. It worked: The effort grew roughly 40 percent of the fresh veggies consumed in the US in 1942 and 1943.
These days, we're fighting different battles. Developing nations are facing wrenching shortages of staples like rice. Here at home, we're struggling with a wave of obesity, fueled by too much crappy fast food and too little fresh produce, particularly in poorer areas. Our globalized food stream poses environmental hazards, too: The blueberries I had for lunch came from halfway around the world, in the process burning tons of CO2.
Urban farming tackles all three issues. It could relieve strain on the worldwide food supply, potentially driving down prices. The influx of fresh vegetables would help combat obesity. And when you "shop" for dinner ingredients in and around your home, the carbon footprint nearly disappears. Screw the 100-mile diet — consuming only what's grown within your immediate foodshed — this is the 100-yard diet.
Want to cool cities cheaply? Plant crops on rooftops. This isn't just liberal hippie fantasy, either. Defense hawks ought to love urban farming, because it would enormously increase our food independence — and achieve it without the market distortions of the benighted farm bill. You don't need tomatoes from Mexico if you can pluck them from containers on your office roof.
Better yet, urban farming is an excuse to geek out with some awesome tech. Innovations from NASA and garage tinkerers have made food-growing radically more efficient and compact than the victory gardens of yore. "Aeroponics" planters grow vegetables using mist, slashing water requirements; hackers are building home-suitable "aquaponics" rigs that use fish to create a cradle-to-grave ecosystem, generating its own fertilizer (and delicious tilapia, too). Experts have found that cultivating a mere half-acre of urban land with such techniques can yield more than $50,000 worth of crops annually.
But what I love most here is the potential for cultural transformation. Growing our own food again would reconnect us to this country's languishing frontier spirit.
Once you realize how easy it is to make the concrete jungle bloom, it changes the way you see the world. Urban environments suddenly appear weirdly dead and wasteful. When I walk around New York City now, I see the usual empty lots and balconies and I think, Wait a minute. Why aren't we growing food here? And here? And here?
In fact, that's precisely what occurred to me when I came home and looked at the window of my apartment. So now it holds three pots balanced on the ledge: One with herbs, one with lettuce, one with tomatoes.
I should have my first crop in about a month. And I expect my victory salad to taste very sweet indeed.
Email clive@clivethompson.net.
I Got Bored With Myspace And Decided To Just Start A Blog. I Intend This To Basically Be A Repository For Everything. I've Got Stuff Spread All Over The Net And Decided To Consolidate It All To here.
We'll See How Long That Lasts.
Oh Yeah, Much To The Chagrin Of My Friends, I've Also Decided To Go Back To My Old Posting Style Of Caps At The Beginning Of Every Word. Those That Hate It Will Continue To Hate It. ;P
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