Here is the chain of events as it has played out over and over again, throughout history, because people just don’t pay attention.
A country incurs an expense it cannot fund organically
A country borrows from a source other than it’s own government to acquire the funds necessary to complete or continue whatever that thing is.
After much more borrowing, the country no longer has the ability to borrow
A country decides to print more currency (or make currency available based on a theoretical expectation) to further support the thing, whatever that is
The amount of money (or the promise of more money) increases, the amount of goods and services do not
Demand increases with the advent of more money, the costs associated with suppling the new demand increase incrementally
Prices go up – goods and services progressively become less affordable – money is devalued
A country sets price limits on goods and services
Suppliers and manufacturers can no longer afford materials or the labor to produce materials – supplies diminish – people starve (or fling themselves from buildings and bridges)
Rationing rears it’s ugly head – unemployment and crime grow like bacteria on roadkill
Over-dramatic?
Maybe…, well actually no, events similar to this have been recorded as early as 218 A.D. in Rome. If interested look up Diocletian, John Law, Germany (1920-1923) or just google “Hyperinflation”. This is not a new thing, and yet the powers that be insist on reliving the past, as in:
“My foot is still bleeding from the last time I shot a hole in it”.
What do we do?
The housing market needs to hit bottom (estimates; late 2009 to mid 2010)
Financial derivative bundling needs to vanish
Companies that operate poorly need to fail
Banks that participated in funky practices need to take the hit.
Executives that commandeered a failed business and/or presided over questionable practices need to be compensated on bottom-line performance
Politicians need to leave the party behind and start working for the people and the country (instead of their buddies)
Oil companies should disburse profit-sharing checks – TO THE WORLD POPULATION
Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, admitted on Saturday (10/11/2008) in Johnstown, Pa. that Republican presidential candidate John McCain is IN FAVOR OF ABORTION in cases where the pregnancy threatens the woman’s life. Additionally, In an interview on “Meet the Press”, McCain stated that cases of rape and incest are legitimate exceptions to anti-abortion views, which is in direct opposition to The National Right to Life stance. John McCain also told associated press reporter Ron Fournier that he would not support the repeal of Roe vs. Wade. McCain has got this voter thinking, What is going on? When it came to so-called legitimate exceptions, Dan Quayle correctly answered yes to the cheap-shot attempt by a savvy 11 year-old girl (obviously a democrat) in 1988. When asked if she should bring a baby to term that was conceived by paternal incestuous rape, the illustrious Mr. Quayle responded:
“You’re a very strong woman… Though this would be a traumatic experience that you would never forget, I think that you would be very successful in life. ” —-
Of course at the time, the girl was 11 years old, and not technically a woman. Quayle’s sharp sense of character assessment aside, telling a complete unknown prepubescent she’ll be successful post excruciating traumatic event is simultaneous artificial encouragement and deep ignorance. Which brings us back to McCain. Flip through some of his documented quotes sorted by presidential race and you’ll find a variety of different answers pending on the year, which makes sorting by relevance that much more difficult. Cut back to abortion, what determines a threat to a woman’s life? A physical condition exclusively? What if the expectant mom is a sociopathic convicted felon for child sexual abuse? How will she take to the child she was forced to birth? Or as in the example brought before VP Quayle, can you say with complete confidence that an 11 year-old girl’s life would not be threatened by a pregnancy and subsequent birth? Who are YOU to determine someone else’s fate? Pro-lifers call abortion murder, yet they can justify murder when the expectant mothers life is threatened. Why…? If pro-lifers believe as they say and life begins at conception, then why are there any exceptions? Murder is murder.
The abortion issue is too complex for a one-size-fits-all ruling. The decisions need to be made by the individual families involved. Diversity is one of our country’s greatest assets. The over zealous religious right believe that their way is best and continue to impose themselves on those who do not believe as they do. Some call that lack of respect. The republican spin-doctors are using the highly charged emotional juice from this issue to further their agenda. Freedom and the right to choose is called Democracy. What’s it called when the government chooses for you?
(the statements above are all true, although some may appear out of context, the author accepts no responsibility for the enlightenment of others through manipulation.)
Americans are obviously stupid. A character attack from Gov. Palin? Shards of fallen glass from what was once your roof surround you.
Excerpt from Branchflower Report: (Oct. 11th, 2008)
Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired. She had the authority and power to require Mr. Palin to cease contacting subordinates, but she failed to act.
Such impermissible and repeated contacts create conflicts of interests for subordinate employees who must choose to either please a superior or run the risk of facing that superioor run the risk of facing that superior’s displeasure and the possible consequences of such displeasure. This was one of the very reasons the Ethics Act was promulgated by the Legislature.
***
Governor Palin has stated publicly that she and her family feared Trooper Wooten. Yet the evidence presented has been inconsistent with such claims of fear. The testimony from Trooper Wheeler, who was part of her security detail from the start, was that shortly after elected to office, she ordered a substantial reduction in manpower in her personal protection detail … an act that is inconsistent with a desire to avoid harm from Trooper Wooten or others.
…It is noteworthy that in almost every contact with the subordinate employees, Mr. Palin’s comments were couched in terms of his desire to see Trooper Wooten fired for reasons that had nothing to do with fear. His comments were always couched in terms that he was a bad Trooper, that he was not a good recruiting image for the AST, that his discipline amounted to nothing more than a slap on the wrist, that nothing had happened to him following the administrative investigation, and so forth…
I conclude that such claims of fear were not bona fide and were offered to provide cover for the Palins’ real motivation: to get Trooper Wooten fired for personal family related reasons.
~~~~~
IFILL: Governor, please if you want to respond to what he said about Senator McCain’s comments about health care?
PALIN: I would like to respond about the tax increases.
~~~~~
IFILL: Would you like to have an opportunity to answer that before we move on?
PALIN: I’m still on the tax thing … I may not answer the questions the way that either the moderator or you want to hear…
~~~~~
Of course this is ridiculous. I hope he has had many conversations with Bill Ayers. Prof Ayers is a leader in school improvement. Read his bio. He is a distinguished professor at a major University and has contributed a lot to the field of education. The Woods Fund is a foundation that supports grassroots change efforts. Its an admirable foundation. This and the plagarism charge demonstrate who is acting like politics as usual. Can it get anymore stupid? I am afraid so.
~~~~~
Yet Chryson maintains that his party remains committed to full independence. “The Alaskan Independence Party has got links to almost every independence-minded movement in the world,” Chryson exclaimed. “And Alaska is not the only place that’s about separation. There’s at least 30 different states that are talking about some type of separation from the United States.”
~~~~~
According to Governor Sarah Palin’s former staff member Larry Persily, the Governor thought it was a good idea and planned to make an appearance on G.Gordon Liddy’s program.When suggested that a Watergate operative may not be a smart choice, Arctic Power co-chair, Mike Navarre, suggested most people didn’t know of Liddy’s background and his role in President Nixon’s administration and demise.
~~~~~
Sarah Palin attacking Barack Obama’s relationship with William Ayers is ironic. She’s playing a pit bull, but it’s not the Palin we know.The Palin we know wouldn’t have known who William Ayers was.
Barak is a traditional Hebrew name (and existed in Jesus time, as opposed to the name Jesus, which did not)
The Old Testament was written in Hebrew primarily, and Aramaic
The English translation of the bible is an interpretation of a interpretive translation.
The first amendment of the U.S. Constitution establishes your right as a citizen of the United States of America to believe what you want and say what you want.
When 33 pastors participated in “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” in September 2008, they complained that their 1st amendment rights were being violated. In truth, only their tax-exempt status was at risk, however literature distributed by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) stated that in most cases, nothing would actually happen. So far, nothing has. So why the big deal? Churches are not obligated to file a return with the IRS. In a 2006 article on psalm145.blogspot.com it was reported that the average church income is close to $5 Million per year. Imagine having to suddenly pay taxes on that. It’s not about free speech, it’s about the money. But it gets worse.
Every church that participated in this event supported the 2008 Republican candidate from Arizona. Coincidentally, the Alliance Defense Fund is based in Arizona. Pastors reasons for swaying voters are mainly issues concerning abortion, same-sex marriage and stem-cell research. With the exception of Roe v Wade, neither candidate would change the laws regarding these issues on a federal level. So why would you support one or the other based on religious conviction.
Some Christians falsely believe that our country was founded on Christianity. In the 16th Century, Queen Elizabeth punished those who would not conform to the Church of England. For that reason, the United States of America was specifically designed to seperate church from state.
Devout Christians including Thomas Jefferson and James Madison believed strongly that religion should be separate from government. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights apply to each and every person regardless of race, creed or sex. So why do these pastors feel the need to mix their churches back in with the government?
Who is actually behind these actions?
Pro-lifers who supported John McCain also supported a war that was started under false pretense. Pro-lifers that supported McCain supported the killing of men, women, pregnant women and children equally. There is no question that the decision to invade Iraq was based on incomplete information at best, and deceit at worst.
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’neill told “60 Minutes” of the newly elected Bush administration that “From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go”.
Former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, who delivered the knock-out punch that convinced Americans of the threat, calls his dissertation on Sadam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction the lowest point in his life, that the information given him by the White House was anything but an intelligence document, some characterized it as a “sort of Chinese menu from which you could pick and choose”. Secretary Powell was not told that one of the sources had been flagged as a liar and fabricator.
Former CIA director George Tenet stated that VP Cheney had is sights on Iraq as early as late 2001, early 2002 even though they knew Osama Bin Laden was in Afghanistan. To think that we have not been fooled is naive, but to believe that it was “God’s will” in invade Iraq is insane.
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” – The Friends of Voltaire, Evelyn Beatrice Hall – 1906
Our country is a melting pot of cultures that have the freedom to choose their individual religious and philosophical beliefs. Faith is the practice of tolerance, understanding and love. Any law inhibiting ones ability to choose based on religious belief or preference goes against the very principle that our country was founded on and is therefore un-American to the fullest. Government does not belong in your church.
If you’re not fighting to keep it out, you don’t get it.
Telephone rings, an elderly gentleman in a nice suit picks up the phone.
John:
Hello?
George:
Hey John, what the hell’s going on down there?
John:
Things are going really well George.
George:
What the hell are you doing stopping the campaign, are you loco?
John:
Well, Sarah thought people’d think I really care about this wall street thingy if I suspended the campaign, you know, align my priorities …
George:
John, you’re not making any sense, did you clear this through Dick?
John:
You mean Rick?
George:
NO! Dick you idiot, everything goes through Dick!
John:
Well, no, ah..
George:
Oh my god, he’s gonna be pissed…
Look, I’m gonna have to call you back, I gotta call Dick and see what he wants to do.
(10 minutes later)
George:
Hello John,..
John:
Yes
George:
Look, if we’re lucky we can still turn this thing around, Dick said you still have mileage on that “Maverick” spin, so I’m going to invite you and the “boy” down to sort things out, you follow me…
John:
Ah..
George:
…then you’re going to walk in there with this plan that’ll kick the s**t out of the Dems plan and come off looking like, you know, a hero.
John:
But, I don’t have a plan.
George:
Dick will have one ready by the time you land in DC, bring your reading glasses this time.
John:
Okay, what about the debate?
George:
What about the debate?
John:
I don’t want to go.
George:
We’ll talk about that when you get here..
(the above conversation is fictional, any resemblance to actual people is purely coincidental)
San Clemente City Council Candidate Crosby recently stated in the Sun Post News, “The streets of San Clemente today are a police state patrolled by sadists and thugs…”. This remark makes two things very clear.
1. Mr. Crosby has no clue what a police state is, and
2. He is short on aptitude and long on attitude, thereby eliminating himself as a potential candidate for anything, at least in my book.
In online forums people who spew this grade of swill are referred to as trolls. There were no examples supporting the accusations made, nor were there any solutions offered other than re-instituting the city police force which merged with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department in 1993. How well do you think Mr. Crosby considered the fiscal ramifications of that statement? I’m sure there weren’t any complaints against the SCPD in the 68 years they ran police services. Please choose wisely in Novemeber.
(CNN) — A retired CIA official has accused the Bush administration of ignoring intelligence indicating that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and no active nuclear program before the United States-led coalition invaded it, CBS News said Sunday.
President Bush awards a medal to ex-CIA boss George Tenet in 2004.
Tyler Drumheller, the former highest-ranking CIA officer in Europe, told “60 Minutes” that the administration “chose to ignore” good intelligence, the network said in a posting on its Web site.
Drumheller said that, before the U.S.-led attack on Iraq in 2003, the White House “ignored crucial information” from Iraq’s foreign minister, Naji Sabri, that indicated Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.
Drumheller said that, when then-CIA Director George Tenet told President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other high-ranking officials that Sabri was providing information, his comments were met with excitement that proved short-lived.
“[The source] told us that there were no active weapons of mass destruction programs,” Drumheller is quoted as saying. “The [White House] group that was dealing with preparation for the Iraq war came back and said they were no longer interested. And we said ‘Well, what about the intel?’ And they said ‘Well, this isn’t about intel anymore. This is about regime change.’ ”
Drumheller said the administration officials wanted no more information from Sabri because: “The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy.”
CBS said the White House declined to respond to the charge and that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said Sabri was just one source and therefore not reliable.
But Drumheller said it was not unusual for the administration to rely on single-source stories when those stories confirmed what the White House wanted to hear.
He cited a report the CIA received in late 2001 that alleged Iraq had bought 500 tons of uranium-containing compounds from Africa.
“They certainly took information that came from single sources on the yellowcake story and on several other stories with no corroboration at all,” he said.
Bush included the reference, which was attributed to the British and turned out to be false, in his 2003 State of the Union Address.
The CIA in 2002 had sent former ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger to investigate the claims, and he went public in July 2003 criticizing the Bush administration’s case for going to war in Iraq. The subsequent publication of his wife’s identity as a CIA employee spawned an investigation that resulted in the indictment of Cheney’s chief of staff and is still ongoing. (Full story)
“It just sticks in my craw every time I hear them say it’s an intelligence failure,” Drumheller told CBS’ Ed Bradley. “This was a policy failure. I think, over time, people will look back on this and see this is going to be one of the great, I think, policy mistakes of all time.”
The White House earlier this month reacted angrily to a report that Bush had cited trailers suspected as biological weapons labs as proof of the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after intelligence officials knew that the trailers were not part of a WMD program. (Full story)
“I cannot count how many times the president has said the intelligence was wrong,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.
He added that the administration has implemented reforms to make sure that “the executive branch and the Congress have the best possible intelligence as they move forward to deal with the threats that face this country and face this world.”
Another retired CIA official in February said the Bush administration disregarded the expertise of the intelligence community, politicized the intelligence process and used unrepresentative data in making the case for war.
In an article published in the journal Foreign Affairs, Paul R. Pillar, the CIA’s national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, called the relationship between U.S. intelligence and policymaking “broken.” (Full story)
In November 2005, CNN obtained a 2003 CIA report that raised doubts about a claim that al Qaeda sent operatives to Iraq to acquire chemical and biological weapons — assertions that were repeated later by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations in making the case for the invasion of Iraq. (Full story)
A day after that report surfaced, Bush gave a speech on Veteran’s Day in which he accused critics of the Iraq war of distorting the events that led to the U.S. invasion.
Bush said that “intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein” and that a Senate Intelligence Committee report issued in July 2004 “found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community’s judgments.” (Full story)
The Silberman-Robb commission, which was appointed by Bush, also found no evidence that political pressure skewed the intelligence. But neither that commission nor the Senate panel addressed how the administration made its case for war.
Senate Democrats have pressured the Intelligence Committee to complete a second phase of its report that would focus on how the prewar intelligence was used by the administration, rather than how it was produced.
Recently my wife recieved a well intentioned email from a friend who forwarded a message because she was genuinely concerned. Here’s the message:
From:xxxx@xxxxx.com
Sent: July 22nd, 2008
To: xxxx@xxxxx.net
Subject: Virus notification
This is true!
>>>
>>> Hi All, I checked with Norton Anti-Virus, and they are
>>> gearing up for this virus!
>>> I checked Snopes (URL above:), and it is for real!!
>>> Get this E-mail message sent around to your contacts ASAP.
>>> PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG FRIENDS, FAMILY AND
>>> CONTACTS! You should be alert during the next few days. Do
>>> not open any message with an attachment entitled
>>> ‘POSTCARD FROM HALLMARK,’ regardless of who sent it
>>> to you. It is a virus which opens A POSTCARD IMAGE, which
>>> ‘burns’ the whole hard disc C of your computer. This
>>> virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail
>>> address in his/her contact list. This is the reason why you
>>> need to send this e- mail to all your contacts. It is
>>> better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the
>>> virus and open it. If you receive a mail called’
>>> POSTCARD,’ even though sent to you by a friend, do not
>>> open it!< /FONT> Shut down your computer immediately.
>>>
>>> This is the worst virus announced by CNN. It has been
>>> classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever.
>>> This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is
>>> no repair yet for this kind of virus. This virus simply
>>> destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital
>>> information is kept.
>>>
>>> COPY THIS E-MAIL, AND SEND IT TO YOUR FRIENDS. REMEMBER: IF
>>> YOU SEND IT TO THEM, YOU WILL BENEFIT ALL OF US Snopes
>>> lists all the names it could come in.
>>>
Truth:
No one actually checked with Norton, CNN never broadcast anything about it, and Microsoft never classified it. But that’s not to say that there isn’t some truth in it. In fact, this is partly true. Most of the body of this message emanates from a hoax beginning around the year 2000 (see http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/virtualcard.asp ). As you will see if you follow the link. However, there is a virus that began spreading last year using “You’ve Received a Postcard from a Family Member” as the bait, (see http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/postcard.asp ) Please do follow that link to see the variations of this virus.
If infected it will not “burn” your hard disc, but that’s not to say it’s not harmful. In fact, it wouldn’t need to burn your hard disc if it had complete and total control of your machine. Most likely it would lodge itself someplace where you wouldn’t find it, and call on your machine (again without you noticing anything, other than sluggish performance) to carry out DOS (Denial-of-Service) attacks on unsuspecting websites and ISP’s. Or worse still, install a keylogger on your system to capture every keystroke you make. If that scares you, I apologize, but all is not lost. If you’re worried now, than go to http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ for a FREE online virus scan. Be forewarned, this scan can take anywhere from 20 mins to 2 hours depending on your machine, but it’s totally worth it. Trend Micro has been around for several years, updates constantly and the free online scan doesn’t install any clunky software on your machine. If you do a lot of web-surfing, start getting pop-ups or if you feel like your computer is really slow (this could actually be a number of things we don’t have time to go into) then check in on Trend Micro once a week or so for a cleaning.
If there was any doubt that Gene Simmons was irrelevant, the following article from Afterdawn.com should clear up the confusion. Record companies have been manipulating the public for decades. A recent example includes a scam by Capitol Records. Coldplay will be auditioning bands to open for them via YouTube videos for this summer’s tour (Rolling Stone – June 26th, 2008). Have you heard the phrase “Giving up your first born”? If you sign up and agree to the Contest Rules, you are essentially giving up all rights to your submission (read this). So if you finally wrote that Million dollar song, guess what, it doesn’t belong to you anymore. Of course the onus of this little trick is on you, if you don’t read the fine print, it’s your own damn fault. But there are plenty of other examples where record companies were not so forthright in the practice of their trade. Record companies need to die, maybe not all of them, but there are several that are infected with the virus known as g.W_ep (greed with extreme prejudice). And for an artist(?) like Mr. Simmons to defend that model shows exactly where his priorities lie. Read on:
“Last November Afterdawn.com reported that Gene Simmons, founding member of the rock group KISS, had gone off on Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead and college aged pirates, going as far as to call Radiohead “idiots” and saying “Every little college kid … should have been sued off the face of the earth,” for their unauthorized downloading of course.
He has followed his last tirade with some new comments, this time again blaming NIN and Radiohead but more importantly, the music fans. “The record industry is dead,” Simmons notes “It’s six feet underground and unfortunately the fans have done this. They’ve decided to download and file share.” He then insisted that the aforementioned bands were “contributing to the demise of the record industry” by using new intelligent sales models that apparently he does not approve of.
When asked why KISS had not released a new CD since 1998’s ‘Psycho Circus’, Simmons added that “there is no record industry around so we’re going to wait until everybody settles down and becomes civilized. As soon as the record industry pops its head up we’ll record new material.”
Of course, he neglects to note that at every turn the “dead” music industry continues to push consumers away, using the RIAA watch dog to sue children, grandmothers, and even deceased members of society while failing to confront the real problems the industry faces.
It is also important to note that Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails’ “idiotic” experiments have raked in millions of dollars for the bands, with little overhead and more importantly, no revenue sharing with the labels. They gave the fans what they wanted, and the fans responded. What a crazy model no?”
Lastly,
Music fans have been sharing music since there was music to share. Some marketing analysts might even consider this behavior a form of free advertising. Historically, the RIAA has sued or lobbied against any form of recordable device or media. Why…, g.W_ep, of course. Their stance is that if you buy a record or CD, but want to hear the music you just purchased on a cassette player, than you need to buy the tape as well. Enough is enough.
Downloading songs from the internet has and should change how music is distributed. Imagine this, what if musicians/artists/bands relied on live performance for the majority of their income. As if their talent and ability were the driving force behind their success instead of knowing someone or buying your way into a deal. Don’t get me wrong, awe-inspiring talent exists, but explain Milli Vanilli to me.
