ha ha ha hah

God I love a crisis. This shit is great. You can't make it up. Thinking of protesting? Don't. GO see a movie, hang out with friends, listen to some music. There is nothing you can do now, but grab some popcorn and hoard some spam.

yup, start really panicking like right now

EYKJAVIK, Iceland – This volcanic island near the Arctic Circle is on the brink of becoming the first "national bankruptcy" of the global financial meltdown.

Home to just 320,000 people on a territory the size of Kentucky, Iceland has formidable international reach because of an outsized banking sector that set out with Viking confidence to conquer swaths of the British economy — from fashion retailers to top soccer teams.

The strategy gave Icelanders one of the world's highest per capita incomes. But now they are watching helplessly as their economy implodes — their currency losing almost half its value, and their heavily exposed banks collapsing under the weight of debts incurred by lending in the boom times.

"Everything is closed. We couldn't sell our stock or take money from the bank," said Johann Sigurdsson as he left a branch of Landsbanki in downtown Reykjavik.

The government had earlier announced it had nationalized the bank under emergency laws enacted to deal with the crisis.

"We have been forced to take decisive action to save the country," Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde said of those sweeping new powers that allow the government to take over companies, limit the authority of boards, and call shareholder meetings.

A full-blown collapse of Iceland's financial system would send shock waves across Europe, given the heavy investment by Icelandic banks and companies across the continent.

Chemical irritant empties Islamic Society of Greater Dayton's mosque

Chemical irritant empties Islamic Society of Greater Dayton's mosque: "DAYTON — Baboucarr Njie was preparing for his prayer session Friday night, Sept. 26, when he heard children in the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton coughing. Soon, Njie himself was overcome with fits of coughing and, like the rest of those in the building, headed for the doors.

'I would stay outside for a minute, then go back in, there were a lot of kids,' Njie said. 'My throat is still itchy, I need to get some milk.'

Njie was one of several affected when a suspected chemical irritant was sprayed into the mosque at 26 Josie St., bringing Dayton police, fire and hazardous material personnel to the building at 9:48 p.m."

Being aware in the present moment

I spent a lot of time trying to employ the principles layed out in Jon Kabat-Zinn's Wherever You Go, There You Are in hopes of handling a stressful period in my life in a more productive way. It was very effective and I continue to strive to be aware in my daily life.

That is until this shit started raining down like a fucking deluge. I would like to go back to the world inside my head. It's much more pleasant there.thanks.

God I love DailyKos

So for those of you trying to understand how this happened, their is a brilliant post walking though the history on DailyKos. Here are the numbers. Tell me the bastards haven't known far ages this shit was going to explode and make everyone really really smelly.

How big did this market become? Here's business correspondent Bob Moon and host Kai Ryssdal on American Public Media's Marketplace from back in the spring.

BOB MOON: OK, I'm about to unload some numbers on you here, so I'll speak slowly so you can follow this.

The value of the entire U.S. Treasuries market: $4.5 trillion.

The value of the entire mortgage market: $7 trillion.

The size of the U.S. stock market: $22 trillion.

OK, you ready?

The size of the credit default swap market last year: $45 trillion.

KAI RYSSDAL: That's a lot of money, Bob.

Thievery explained

"Paulson, Bernanke, and Congress are conspiring to make the US taxpayer the fall guy for financial stupidity by banks and brokers. Congress is now willing to ram through legislation at the last moment, even though Senate Majority Leader Reid Says 'No One Knows What to Do'.

Please consider Paulson, Bernanke Push New Proposal to Cleanse Balance Sheets (at taxpayer expense)."

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke proposed moving troubled assets from the balance sheets of American financial companies into a new institution.

Options under consideration include establishing an $800 billion fund to purchase so-called failed assets and a separate $400 billion pool at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to insure investors in money-market funds, said two people briefed by congressional staff who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans may change.

Mish's Comment: I too would want to be anonymous for forever and a day if I was sponsoring a $1.2 trillion bailout of US corporations at taxpayer expense.

Another possibility is using Fannie and Freddie, the federally chartered mortgage-finance companies seized by the government last week, to buy assets, one of the people said.

"We will try to put a bill together and do it fairly quickly," House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, said after the meeting. "We are not in a position to give you any specifics right now" on the proposals, he said when asked about the potential cost.

Mish's Comment: Now there's "good thinking"! There is no time to act, so let's act quickly by passing a $1.2 trillion bailout quick enough so Congressional recess can happen on schedule.

Regardless of your party affiliation, and with the exception of Ron Paul, I urge everyone to vote against the incumbent in every race.

Professor Bennet Sedacca

The Pain Trade

The Federal Government just declared war on short sellers.
Will it help the real economy? No sir.
Will it help the value of my house? Nope.
Will it blow up hedge funds? Yep.
Is it a selling opportunity? You betcha.
Will the rally last ? No.
Will earnings increase? Actually I think they will fall.

My conclusion? The pain trade, after this burst, is a crash in October. Yes, a crash. I am not talking my book as my firm is delta neutral.

What makes me ill is that folks in the media are the mouth pieces of irresponsible Government officials.

I am sick to my stomach watching Socialism take over. And with that, I head to the Ryder Cup.

They say Village Idiots, I say Crooks who should be shot

Don't let them tell you this economic meltdown is a complicated mess. It's not. Our national financial crisis is readily understood by anyone who has seen greed and hypocrisy. But we are now witnessing them on a profound, monumental scale.

Conservative Republicans always want the government to stay out of business and avoid regulation as long as they are making lots of money. When their greed, however, gets them into a fix, they are the first to cry out for rules and laws and taxpayer money to bail out their businesses. Obviously, Republicans are socialists. The Bush administration has decided to socialize the debt of the big Wall Street Firms. Taxpayers didn't get to enjoy any of the big money profits on the phony financial instruments like derivatives or bundled sub-prime paper, but we get the privilege of paying for their debt and failures.

Let's just consider the money. The public bailout of insurance giant (becoming a dwarf) AIG is estimated at $85 billion. According to one report, that's more than the Bush administration spent on Aid to Families with Dependent Children during his entire time in office. That amount of money would also pay for health care for every man, woman, and child in America for at least six months.

a couch and its meaning in life

So I had notions of a time in my life where I would have a great job, a great apartment and I would get to create my own space in the world. Well in January 2007, I got the job and a loft apartment with 18 ft windows, dry cleaning, gym and 24 hr front desk coverage. Now here it is September 2008 and it looks like I have to sell my awesome couch to people who will not appreciate it because the notion was not what made me happy. I would like to think of this as a learning experience. A relatively painless way to discover that what makes a person happy can be far different than that person might have envisioned. Instead, I sit here staring at the couch deeply confused as to what the next notion/vision is supposed to be. I spent a lot of time getting to that apartment. Now I am supposed to create a new vision with no confidence that a new vision won't result in a similar result? Life is a pain in my ass. And Oprah doesn't know the goddamn answer either. That is all

We are so fucked

Now, I have been predicting this economic collapse along with others for awhile, but I am completely flabbergasted with the absolute lack of sanity and that is going along with it. These people are nuts. Oh and so much for their free market principles. assholes.

3 Hours a FCUKING day?

Grasping Reality with Both Hands: The Semi-Daily Journal Economist Brad DeLong:

"Somehow I Think I Knew This Already...

From Gordon's Notes:

Exercise cannot control obesity gene associated weight gain: The title on this SciAm summary is silly...

Do I look fat in these genes? Exercise can cancel out effects of 'heavy-weight' DNA: Scientific American Blog: ... Physically active people who carry gene mutations linked to obesity are no more likely to be overweight than those without the variants -- as long as they exercise at least three hours a day...

Exercising 3+ hours a day is not compatible with life in a post-industrial world. If these results turned out be generalizable to a reasonable portion of the obese population (big if), then we'd know that exercise won't control our expanding (sorry) obesity problem. We already know diet doesn't work, so here's hoping for great drugs ...

Either that, or we get rid of our cars ..."

BBC NEWS | Africa | Sudan 'kills refugees in Darfur'

BBC NEWS | Africa | Sudan 'kills refugees in Darfur': "Sudanese troops have opened fire inside a Darfur refugee camp, leaving 27 people dead, a rebel group has said.

Some 100 government trucks surrounded the Kalma camp, home to some 90,000 people who have fled their homes in Darfur, a rebel spokesman told the BBC.

There is no independent confirmation of the reports but international sources have been told that Sudan wants to disarm the camp's residents.

More than two million people have fled five years of conflict in Darfur.

Ahmed Abdel Shafie, who heads a faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army, told the BBC that the government wants to force people to leave the camp."

Another rebel leader puts the number of those killed higher. Abdel Wahed Mohamed al-Nur, said that 50 people had been killed.

"This really is a catastrophe. People are being killed while the world just watches," he said.

Seriously, maybe we are little less stupid?

CHURCH AND STATE.... About a week ago, at the candidate forum at Saddleback Church, the Rev. Rick Warren kicked off the event with a fairly straightforward message: "We believe in the separation of church and state, but we do not believe in the separation of faith and politics."

As it turns out, a growing number of Americans disagree.

For the first time in more than a decade, a narrow majority of Americans say churches should stay out of politics, according to a poll released today by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. The results suggest a potentially significant shift among conservative voters in particular. In 2004, 30% of conservatives said the church should stay out of politics while today 50% of conservatives today express that view.

Conservatives are now more in line with moderates and liberals when it comes to their views on mixing religion and politics. "Similarly, the sharp divisions between Republicans and Democrats that previously existed on this issue have disappeared," Pew reports.

The results are encouraging, and more than a little surprising. In the decade between 1996 and 2006, Pew Forum surveys showed a stable trend -- a narrow majority of Americans wanted houses of worship to be publicly engaged in policy debates. Now, the numbers have reversed, and a narrow majority wants ministries to "stay out."

There's bound to be debate as to how this trend developed, but my best guess would be a combination of public disgust for the religious right movement and the unpopularity of George W. Bush, who has been enthusiastic in mixing religion and politics.

That said, I suppose the next politically salient question is how this might affect the 2008 race. The conventional wisdom suggests Barack Obama has been more proactive in adding a religious component to his campaign than John McCain, which might help the Democrat connect with the faithful.

But what if, after eight years of Bush, voters are moving in the other direction?

Hell yes we need this!

Friends with benefits

They're there for you in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad -- and yet where the law is concerned, your friends don't mean squat. According to The Boston Globe, however, some scholars think this should change: They think that friendship should be granted legal recognition, with some of the rights and privileges restricted to family expanded to include designated friends.

"These could be invoked on a case-by-case basis," explains the Globe, "eligibility to take time off to care for a sick friend under an equivalent of the Family and Medical Leave Act, for example. Or they could take the form of an official legal arrangement between two friends, designating a bundle of mutual rights and privileges ... One scholar even suggests giving friends standing in the tax code, allowing taxpayers to write off certain 'friend expenditures.'" The result would be, as Laura Rosenbury, a law professor at Washington University, put it, legally recognized "friends with benefits."

I think some aspects of the idea would be more of a bureaucratic hassle than they'd be worth, like the idea of adapting the tax code to allow for "friend expenditures." But others make good sense; as Jane Gross points out in a related article in the New York Times, having a legal arrangement with a friend would be very beneficial for single, childless people worried about who might care for them in old age. As the Globe points out, "If a person is incapacitated and has no functional familial relationships, friends are not typically permitted to make medical decisions, unless designated in advance. Hospitals often restrict visitors to kin, or allow family members to vet visitors, which can cause anguish when friends and families come into conflict."

That's why David Chambers, a law professor at the University of Michigan, suggests "permitting people to register as 'designated friends' with mutual benefits and obligations. The friends would have the right (and duty) to make financial and medical decisions on each other's behalf in case of incapacitation; they'd have the same medical leave and testimonial privileges as spouses; and if one died without a will, the other would be entitled to a share of the estate."

So what do you think? In an age where more and more Americans are single and childless, does it make sense to grant legal rights to their friends? Or are there certain rights and privileges that should be reserved for family members and spouses?

― Catherine Price

55 men netted in 8-month Calif. child porn probe - Yahoo! News

55 men netted in 8-month Calif. child porn probe - Yahoo! News: "LOS ANGELES - Authorities say a California sheriff's deputy and an attorney were among 55 men charged with possessing child pornography after an eight-month investigation.
ADVERTISEMENT

The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles says the suspects used peer-to-peer networks to exchange graphic images and videos, then stored the files.

U.S. attorney's office spokesman Thom Mrozek (tom MROH'-zek) says San Luis Obispo County Deputy Bryan Jon Goossens and attorney Thomas Merdzinski of San Bernardino are among those charged."

NC man dies after waiting 22 hours at hospital - Yahoo! News

"RALEIGH, N.C. - A mental patient died after workers at a North Carolina hospital left him in a chair for 22 hours without feeding him or helping him use the bathroom, said federal officials who have threatened to cut off the facility's funding.


The state sent a team Tuesday to help Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro draft new procedures to ensure patients receive proper care."

Career women are their own worst enemies: study - Yahoo! News

"Women did not create the glass ceiling, the invisible barrier blamed for limiting their ability to earn what they're worth, but they help maintain it," Goodson said.

"Being able to draw attention to your contributions and competencies at work has become an important part of modern career management, and it is something most women are still unwilling or unable to do as consistently as their male counterparts," she added.

Goodson's research found that while most men had no qualms about touting their contributions, and even sometimes lying about them, women still cling to the myth that self-promotion is "socially unacceptable," "unlady-like" and "morally suspect."

The world might suck, but Boston rocks!

Daily Kos: Two Boston Sheet Metal Workers Put Selves In Harm's Way to Rescue Commuter: "The story of the Labor Movement is filled with millions of stories, many of which are never reported.

This week, one of those stories was.

Yesterday, two members of Sheet Metal Workers Local 17 in Boston were honored for rescuing a commuter who had fallen onto the train tracks at Boston's North Station.


The commuter, a man in his mid 50's, had stumbled off the platform and fallen five feet onto the tracks with his arms resting inches away from the 600 volt third rail.

The two sheet metal workers, A.J. Pugliese, Jr. and Robert Johnson, Jr. heard the shouts for help from several commuters standing on the platform. In a video released by the MBTA, the two men are seen springing into action while risking their own safety by crossing the electrified third rail and dragging the unconscious commuter to safety."

The world continues to suck....

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - A man barged into the Arkansas Democratic headquarters and opened fire Wednesday, fatally shooting the state party chairman before speeding off in his pickup. Police later shot and killed the suspect after a 30-mile chase

LAVONIA, Ga. - When police finally searched the squat white mobile home where they say a man held his family captive for three years, the place was so filthy and bug-infested that one officer had to wear a gas mask and another refused to continue.

Finally, a real time thought: Beyond credit card loans, when you are raising senior debt at 6.5%, as Citigroup (C) did yesterday with it's $3 billion senior debt issue, I am not sure what you can finance with a positive spread in today's market. Regrettably, the days of capital destructive debt issuance have begun.

Bastards

Intel Shows You How a QSERP Works

In just one year (2005) Intel Corp. moved $200 million of deferred IOU obligations from their high-income executives’ non-qualified deferred compensation pension into the rank-and-file’s pension plan through a QSERP. And then turned right around and "contributed" $187 million back in cash to the plan – which they then claimed as a tax deduction.

So when an executive retires, Intel won’t have to pay him/her – the tax-deferred workers’ pension plan will. And that $187 million Intel "contribution" generated an immediate tax break of $65 million for Intel.

That means that you, as a taxpayer, not only just helped compensate Intel’s already wealthy executives retirement, but also got stuck covering the lost revenue resulting from Intel’s $65 million tax write-off. And that was just for one year.

Additionally bothersome is the fact that Intel manipulated the IRS rules so that well over 50% of the tax-deferred money in their rank-and-file pension plan (which is supposed to be designated for worker-bees) is now dedicated to compensating just 4% - that’s right, just 4% of Intel’s entire work force ... the high-income executives.

Plus those rich executives, rather than being required by the law to pay taxes on what they would have withdrawn from their own non-tax deferred pension plans, are now able to roll their wealth over into an IRA – thus further sheltering their money. And that cost you, the taxpayer, even more lost revenues.

Of course they knew...

S&P emails slammed mortgage debt products: report - Yahoo! News: "CHICAGO (Reuters) - Analysts at Standard & Poor's Rating Services warned against mortgage-related debt products in internal e-mails that, in one case, called the complex financial deals 'ridiculous,' the Wall Street Journal reported in its weekend edition."

In one email message, an S&P analyst called a mortgage or structured finance deal "ridiculous" and wrote "we should not be rating it."

In another email, an S&P manager said ratings agencies were helping to create an "even bigger monster -- the CDO (collateralized debt obligation) market. Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of card falters."

The nearly unbearable speed of things

It has seemed to me that ones life has a cadence to it and mine has the unfortunate quality of going along an enjoyable rhythm for awhile and then dashing into an unpleasant mix of Mozart, Slayer & the angry Sinead O'Connor.

And since I am trying to be both present in the moment and approach life with compassion, this most recent bout of dissonance seems only more frustrating. The meditation and change in philosophy is forcing me to reckon with trains of thought long since discarded.

I struggle much more concretely on a daily basis to decide how I want to operate in the world and while I understand its necessary, I get frustrated because I thought a lot of this work was done, but it is not and maybe it is never really done and that is the essence of this thing we call life. and well goody fucking who. It is demotivating to think that anytime you feel like you are doing it right its really just a brief pause on that particular plateau and there is no apex of the mountain. I am tired.

and fucking continues unabated

FT.com / Companies / Property - Real estate sector fears huge increase in CMBS defaults: "Defaults on commercial mortgage-backed securities issued at the height of the credit bubble will more than quadruple from their current levels under conditions in the US economy expected by the commercial real estate industry, according to a report from Fitch Ratings.

Borrowers would default on an average of 17.2 per cent of securitised commercial mortgages over 10 years if the US economy dips into a recession with 0.2 per cent contraction in growth, compared with current very low default rates of 4 per cent, a rise of 330 per cent.

Such a scenario corresponds 'to the negative predictions currently offered by commercial real estate experts', analysts at Fitch wrote. This would happen if the economy suffered a similar downturn to 1991, and assumes that the value of properties covered by the deals falls by 25 per cent, and cash flow from rents by 15 per cent."

in case you were in a cave and unaware

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: "The world's largest economy contracted at a 0.2 percent annual pace in the fourth quarter of last year compared with a previously reported 0.6 percent gain, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Growth for the period from 2005 through 2007 was also trimmed.

'We're in a recession,' Allen Sinai, chief economist at Decision Economics Inc. in New York, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. 'It's going to widen, it's going to deepen.'

Nine of the 13 quarters under review were revised down, three increased and one was unchanged.

The largest downward revision was for the last three months of 2007, as the previously reported 2.3 percent gain in consumer spending was reduced by more than half, to 1 percent. Americans cut back on the use of electricity and gas as fuel bills soared."

you are getting screwed

PCBE: Transcripts (June 26, 2008): Session 3: Ethical Questions in the Reform of Health and Medical Care: "And the US is already spending -- these are figures from a couple of years ago -- by far the most of any nation on earth on healthcare. The US is on the bottom. On the top I've listed total health expenditures in other developed nations. For the US at the bottom I've listed total per capita health expenditures divided into the publicly funded and the privately funded share.

And in publicly funded I've included not just Medicare, Medicaid, VA, but also the benefit cost of public employees like schoolteachers and FBI agents, also, so-called tax subsidy to private health insurance. And when defined in that way, I want you to just look and see where that yellow bar ends. Look where the yellow bar ends.

That is, we are already through our taxes paying the full price of national health insurance in this country, and then we take an additional $2,500 out of our pockets and pay privately, and we still have the circumstance of 47,000,000 uninsured people, millions more forced into medical bankruptcy.

Now, what do we get for the extra money? And in this set of slides I've got the US in yellow, the other countries in green. What do we get? We do not get longer life expectancy compared to other nations.

We do not get lower infant mortality than other nations. In fact, our infant mortality is twice that of the world leaders.

We don't get more days in the hospital. We send patients out of the hospital quicker and sicker. We don't even get more innovation, more science. And I know one of the speakers brought that up earlier.

When you look at medical journal articles on a per-capita basis (and you get the same results if you look at total scientific output on a per-capita basis_, the United States is not a world leader. So our extra spending is not generating more in the way of science when we look at it on a per-capita basis. That is a myth.

Even for certain high-technology treatments such as bone-marrow transplants, the United States is just in the middle of the pack. Where we do lead the world is in our insurance overhead and our administrative costs. And this is expressed on a per-capita basis for every man, woman, and child in the United States .

We lead the world in insurance overhead. We lead the world in difficulties getting care. This is people are asked, percent, finding it extremely, very, or somewhat difficult to get needed care. We lead the world. This is just the English-speaking world.

Safe banks?

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: "Many are depending on Bankrate.com for 'Safe & Sound ratings'. My advice is don't. Please consider the following.

Safe & Sound Rating For First Heritage



The above chart is from Saturday, July 26, 2008.

FDIC Information for First Heritage Bank, N.A., Newport Beach, CA

On July 25, 2008, First Heritage Bank, N.A., Newport Beach, California was closed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Subsequently the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was named Receiver. No advance notice is given to the public when a financial institution is closed."

Seriously, get your moeny to a safe bank or to your backyard

Rising costs of financial turmoil - Yahoo! News: "'To say we could just walk away from Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac without having some severe consequences is really questionable,' says Tim Duy, an economist at the University of Oregon in Eugene. 'The government does have to make that balancing act.'

That balancing act, however, is becoming a fiscal tightrope.

And to the degree that a credit-crunched economy weakens the federal ledger – either through lost tax revenue or direct bank bailouts – one result could be a higher cost of borrowing for the government – a burden that would fall on all taxpayers.

'The credibility of the sovereign is now at risk,' Mr. Morici says. 'It is no accident that we're starting to see articles about the credit rating of the United States.'"

Three US women priests to be ordained, excommunicated - Yahoo! News

Three US women priests to be ordained, excommunicated - Yahoo! News: "BOSTON, Massachusetts (AFP) - Three women are to be ordained as priests Sunday here in one of American's most Catholic cities, but they will face automatic excommunication by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese.

The trio is to be ordained in a ceremony performed by a woman at a Protestant church affiliated to the US Presbyterian Church and the United Church of Christ, in Boston's first female ordination.

The move has angered the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, which has sent out an email to local priests reminding them of Vatican law that women are allowed to have key roles within the church, but cannot become priests."

Daily Kos: Rove Tried to Fire Fitzgerald During CIA Leak Investigation

Daily Kos: Rove Tried to Fire Fitzgerald During CIA Leak Investigation: "In a supplement to his responses to the House Judiciary Committee, Patrick Fitzgerald confirms what we've always suspected: Karl Rove was trying to have Patrick Fitzgerald fired while Fitzgerald was still investigating Rove for his role in leaking Valerie Wilson's identity--and the timing lines up perfectly with the Administration's efforts to fire a bunch of US Attorneys."

Long time no post

So I am at Netroots Nation in Austin TX after 4 days in Alaska. There was ATV'ing, white water rafting and lots of interesting people. Now I am going from room to room listening to people have conversations about the stuff I obsess about like its normal:) Already I have several nes sites to follow and more films to watch. It's a great vacation and desparately needed. Hopefully I will have the energy and focus to post again now.

US-EU private data sharing agreement at hand: report - Yahoo! News

US-EU private data sharing agreement at hand: report - Yahoo! News: "WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States and European Union are close to an agreement to share private data of their citizens, including credit card information, travel history and internet browsing information, The New York Times said Saturday.


Negotiations that begun in February 2007 however have to yet address whether Europeans can sue the US government for mishandling information, according to an internal report on the potential agreement obtained by the daily."

Catholic charity helped teen get abortion - Giving- msnbc.com

Catholic charity helped teen get abortion - Giving- msnbc.com: "RICHMOND, Va. - Authorities are investigating whether a Catholic charity violated state and federal law by helping a 16-year-old illegal immigrant who was in the organization's care get an abortion.

Workers with Commonwealth Catholic Charities helped the girl travel to and from the procedure in January and signed a consent form for the abortion, Joanne Nattrass, the charity's executive director, said in a statement Thursday. She declined further comment.

Four of the Richmond-based charity's workers were fired, according to a letter by David Siegel, head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' refugee resettlement program."

Om mani padme hum

So Tuesday night I went into Anaphylaxis and could not breathe whilst walking on a trail with neither m cell phone or wallet. I was given epinephrine, rushed to the hospital and treated with steroids. That was two days ago. I was wildly unprepared for the terror that being suddenly unable to breathe would cause. I have been trying really hard to make the world feel normal again. I am back in my place. I am on steroids still so will not have another reaction in the next couple of days.

but still I am sitting here, listening to music, drinking beer, chatting with people online supposedly reconnected and alive....but that terror, the total helpless vulnerability is rocking me to the core. i feel terribly, horribly awfully mortal, frail, breakable. I keep thinking this is where you are, embrace, accept, compassion but I am not sure its working. I kind of feel like i am losing my shit and just totally freaking out. lets hope that this too shall pass.

So not out of the woods yet

Do not believe them when they tell you its getting better, it's not.

Strange, Stranger, Opaque

I recently received an Email from John Hempton at the Bronte Capital Blog. John is writing Barclays - strange, stranger and truly opaque. I have not had time to go through all of his analysis but these snips caught my eye.
In four years our derivative exposure (total face) has gone from 5.9 trillion pounds to 29.2 trillion pounds. Our credit derivative exposures have gone from 43 billion pounds to 2.4 trillion pounds.

It is not just the derivatives that they grew. The on balance sheet exposures grew to astronomical size too.

All beginings are hard

I sometimes wonder how the world would look to me had I never learned to read. There are drawbacks to absorbing so much of your perspective of the world based on reading rather than doing. That said, my reading took me far afield from what I knew far before I had the ability to do so with experience.

As a result, I know that all beginnings are hard. Just because they are beginnings. So as I sit here in this latest beginning and try to be mindful and aware I attempt to embrace that it is difficult by nature of what it is rather than by caprice of events.

Still, while I may get better at being where I am when I am there, the desire to know, to understand, to be peaceful about what is....continues to be the deep throbbing incessant driver of my wanderings.

Amazing and will make you cry

so cool

Things you begin to understand

Over to the right on my bloglist is a link to XKCD.org. I found this comic whilst stumbling I believe and have since become an ardent fan. Thus it should be cool to see it in the Nytimes, instead its somehow disappointing. There is clearly this attempt to understand what is referred to as niche markets. There is the book the Long Tail as well as theories such as crowdsourcing, viral marketing etc. Which is great and fascinating, but is it just me or does it take away some of the fun of liking something once it becomes an explainable theory? Is that just me?

Buffy

Great story on NPR about an Iraq war reporter who watched Buffy to help her deal with the stress of being in a war zone.

Sen. Edward Kennedy has malignant brain tumor - Yahoo! News

Sen. Edward Kennedy has malignant brain tumor - Yahoo! News: "BOSTON - A cancerous brain tumor caused the seizure Sen. Edward M. Kennedy suffered over the weekend, doctors said Tuesday in a grim diagnosis for one of American politics' most enduring figures. 'He remains in good spirits and full of energy,' the doctors for the 76-year-old Massachusetts Democrat said in a statement."

Paranoia isn't always paranoia, sometimes they really are watching you

Daily Kos: Police State 2.0: It's Here: "Klein says that the latest unrest in Tibet was a test for the ever-expanding system, called the 'Golden Shield.' And the oppressive infrastructure earned at least an A-. Dissident cell phones were jammed. Information favorable to the protestors was blocked on the Internet. Photos of the participants, especially the leaders, were rapidly disseminated on 'Most Wanted' posters on the Internet and the protests were 'spun' through Chinese media to make the Tibetans look like violent thugs.

While some in the West were protesting the crackdown on dissent, companies like Yahoo, Google, Cisco and a mysterious company called L-1 Identity Solutions have been cooperating with the Chinese government and hoping to profit greatly from helping construct Police State 2.0. Yahoo came under mild Congressional criticism in 2006 for turning over email data belonging to dissidents who had (unwisely) used their free email service. Google custom tailors searches in China to censor out results offensive to the government. Cisco provides the routers for the Great Firewall of China that not only blocks out websites like the BBC but also allows deep packet surveillance on Chinese surfers.

And L-1 may be the lynchpin of the whole system. Some say their facial recognition sofware is the best in the world. Despite American laws prohibiting the export of technology that could aid the Chinese govenment in oppressing its citizens, L-1 is stealthily working with Chinese companies to compete for the contract to make the facial recognition software that will tie China's rapdily growing high resolution camera phalanx into a integrated system that can identify everyone on the street at any time and tie their face to their national ID and the vast amount of data kept there.

Save your money

Calculated Risk: "There seems to be sentiment developing that the U.S. has weathered the worst of the current cyclical economic storm and blue skies are ahead. We disagree. Any blue skies you see are likely to be short lived. The economy is in the relative calm of the eye of the business-cycle hurricane. The mortgage credit problems are not over. And credit problems in other sectors are just beginning as the housing recession spreads to the rest of the economy."

I have been somewhat obsessed with financial news the past couple of years. As a result I regularly read Businessweek, Financial Times, WSJ, NYTimes, Economist (although I really hate them) etc. I also read several economic blogs, several who are very good at taking hard to understand finance talk and break it down into understandable scenarios.

And I am officially terrified of the coming storm.

I wish I had more money in the bank. I wish I believed that what I do for a job was actually useful and necessary and thus harder to layoff. I wish I knew how to grow food or even cook from ingredients, because I think this is a new era. I suspected that they screwed the pooch.

Now I think I begin to grasp the sheer amount of money that was lost and understand that a lot of that money was people's retirement, government's savings and generally speaking the bedrock of the world financial system as we don't understand it, and it's gone. It's really, really gone. Never to return.

And people get angry when their money is gone and government's sure as fuck get angry when their money is gone and just for fun we have had an asshole of president who has been handing out the treasury to his cronies for eight years and he will get to waltz off into the Texas sunset while we idiots think hiring Barack Obama will matter. It won't matter, because they stole the country and a lot of the rest of the world's money and they and us are going to be pissed and there may not be a way out of this. Just saying.

Your not Paranoid

Media Matters - Military analysts named in Times exposé appeared or were quoted more than 4,500 times on broadcast nets, cables, NPR: "Military analysts named in Times exposé appeared or were quoted more than 4,500 times on broadcast nets, cables, NPR

Summary: A New York Times article detailed the connection between numerous media military analysts and the Pentagon and defense industries, reporting that 'the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform' media military analysts 'into a kind of media Trojan horse -- an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.' A Media Matters review found that since January 1, 2002, the analysts named in the Times article -- many identified as having ties to the defense industry -- collectively appeared or were quoted as experts more than 4,500 times on ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and NPR."

Thanks Ann!

Indian village proud after double "honor killing" - Yahoo! News

Indian village proud after double "honor killing" - Yahoo! News:
"THE POWER OF UPPER CASTE MEN

The relatively prosperous northern state of Haryana is one of India's most conservative when it comes to caste, marriage and the role of women. Deeply patriarchal, caste purity is paramount and marriages are arranged to sustain the status quo.

Men and women are still murdered across the villages of northern India for daring to marry outside their caste, but in Haryana the practice is widespread, and widely supported.

Here, women veil their faces with scarves in public. The illegal abortion of female fetuses is common, the ratio of women to men in Haryana just 861 to 1,000, the lowest in the country.

Anyone who transgresses social codes, by marrying across caste boundaries or within the same village, is liable to meet the same fate as Sunita and Jasbir.

Many such murders are never reported, hardly any result in prosecution, says Professor Javeed Alam, chairman of the Indian Council of Social Science Research."

Just interesting

He was a carefree Italian with a recent law degree from a Roman university. She was “a totally Virginia girl,” as she puts it, raised across the road from George Washington’s home. Their romance, sparked by a 2006 meeting in a supermarket in Rome, soon brought the Italian, Domenico Salerno, on frequent visits to Alexandria, Va., where he was welcomed like a favorite son by the parents and neighbors of his girlfriend, Caitlin Cooper.

But on April 29, when Mr. Salerno, 35, presented his passport at Washington Dulles International Airport, a Customs and Border Protection agent refused to let him into the United States. And after hours of questioning, agents would not let him travel back to Rome, either; over his protests in fractured English, he said, they insisted that he had expressed a fear of returning to Italy and had asked for asylum.

Ms. Cooper, 23, who had promised to show her boyfriend another side of her country on this visit — meaning Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon — eventually learned that he had been sent in shackles to a rural Virginia jail. And there he remained for more than 10 days, locked up without charges or legal recourse while Ms. Cooper, her parents and their well-connected neighbors tried everything to get him out.

and also...

"I was from a poor, white family from the south, and I did badly in school," the now 24-year-old told AFP.

"I was 'filet mignon' for recruiters. They started phoning me when I was in 10th grade," or around 16 years old, he added.

Chiroux joined the US army straight out of high school nearly six years ago, and worked his way up from private to sergeant.

He served in Afghanistan, Germany, Japan, and the Philippines and was due to be deployed next month in Iraq.

On Thursday, he refused to go, saying he considers Iraq an illegal war.

The Corporation as Sociopath

Multinationals make billions in profit out of growing global food crisis - Green Living, Environment - The Independent: "Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. And speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry.

The prices of wheat, corn and rice have soared over the past year driving the world's poor – who already spend about 80 per cent of their income on food – into hunger and destitution."

Cargill's net earnings soared by 86 per cent from $553m to $1.030bn over the same three months. And Archer Daniels Midland, one of the world's largest agricultural processors of soy, corn and wheat, increased its net earnings by 42 per cent in the first three months of this year from $363m to $517m. The operating profit of its grains merchandising and handling operations jumped 16-fold from $21m to $341m.

Similarly, the Mosaic Company, one of the world's largest fertiliser companies, saw its income for the three months ending 29 February rise more than 12-fold, from $42.2m to $520.8m, on the back of a shortage of fertiliser. The prices of some kinds of fertiliser have more than tripled over the past year as demand has outstripped supply. As a result, plans to increase harvests in developing countries have been hit hard.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation reports that 37 developing countries are in urgent need of food. And food riots are breaking out across the globe from Bangladesh to Burkina Faso, from China to Cameroon, and from Uzbekistan to the United Arab Emirates.

Oh this isn't going to make anyone happy

Iran dumps U.S. dollar for oil trades - CNN.com: "TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran, OPEC's second-largest producer, has stopped conducting oil transactions in U.S. dollars, a top Oil Ministry official said Wednesday, in a concerted attempt to reduce reliance on Washington at a time of tension over Tehran's nuclear program and suspected involvement in Iraq."

It's my birthday

so I woke up and danced it out to Prince's Let's Go Crazy. An awesome way to start the day if I do say so myslef!

Violence is never the answer....

and yet sometimes.....

NORRISTOWN, Pa. - A woman pleaded guilty Friday to third-degree murder for killing her bigamist husband just hours before he was to leave for Morocco to visit his second wife.

Myra Morton, 48, was upset about the new marriage and her husband's plans to have children with the younger woman, authorities have said. She shot her 47-year-old husband, Jereleigh Morton, twice in the head in August while he slept, and initially blamed an intruder.

of fer the love of Jesus...or not

JERUSALEM - Dozens of Greek and Armenian priests and worshippers exchanged blows at one of Christianity's holiest shrines on Orthodox Palm Sunday, and used palm fronds to pummel police who tried to break up the brawl.

Sometimes the jokes just write themselves...

Seriously?

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The U.S. government paid more than $1.7 million in defense contracts over the last decade to companies owned by leaders of Warren Jeffs' polygamous sect, with tens of thousands allegedly winding its way back to Jeffs and his church.

The Pentagon had contracts with three companies with ties to Warren Jeffs' polygamous sect.

In fact, some of the deals were made after Jeffs was named to the FBI's "Most-Wanted List" and remained in place while he was on the run.

CNN has learned that between 1998 and 2007, the United States Air Force and Defense Logistics Agency purchased more than $1.7 million worth of airplane parts from three companies owned by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which practices polygamy.

Those companies are Utah Tool and Die, Western Precision and NewEra Manufacturing. Today, the companies all operate under the name NewEra Manufacturing, a company based in Las Vegas, Nevada, that says it supplies precision components "for the aerospace, military, medical, recreational and other commercial entities."

"It was my understanding that Western Precision was paying roughly $50,000 a week into the coffers of the church," former sect member Richard Holm said. "It would have been close to $200,000 a month."

Men who explain things - Los Angeles Times

Men who explain things - Los Angeles Times: "He cut me off soon after I mentioned Muybridge. 'And have you heard about the very important Muybridge book that came out this year?'

So caught up was I in my assigned role as ingenue that I was perfectly willing to entertain the possibility that another book on the same subject had come out simultaneously and I'd somehow missed it. He was already telling me about the very important book -- with that smug look I know so well in a man holding forth, eyes fixed on the fuzzy far horizon of his own authority.

Here, let me just say that my life is well-sprinkled with lovely men, including a long succession of editors who have, since I was young, listened and encouraged and published me; with my infinitely generous younger brother; with splendid male friends. Still, there are these other men too.

So, Mr. Very Important was going on smugly about this book I should have known when Sallie interrupted him to say, 'That's her book.' Or tried to interrupt him anyway"

Random particularly offensive Misogny

I am not sure how much readership Harper's Magazine has, but the consider themselves the preeminent liberal policy magazine in the US. I have been reading them since high school and subscribing since college. It's generally speaking a good magazine. Nonetheless, there has been either a recent or only recently noticed trend of "women are less than human (male)" in both them and Atlantic Monthly. I don't know if the editors have changed or if it was there all along and I am only recently noticing it, but it's awful. That Rush Limbagh, Laura Ingram, Bill O'Reilly and their ilk are misogynists is expected, annoying, but expected. When supposedly liberal humanists writing about society at large are, it's depressing.

The following are snippets from Lewis Lapham's Notebook which is his opening soliloquy for each issue. Two times in this article women are mentioned in lists of things. Things for sale or things in a place, but things nonetheless. I see this stuff and I don't know how its going to change. I don't know how or where progress will happen and it's really frustrating.

Women dominate Spanish cabinet

BBC NEWS | Europe | Women dominate Spanish cabinet: "Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has unveiled his new cabinet, which for the first time includes more women than men.

The former housing minister, Carme Chacon, one of the rising stars of Spain's Socialist party, becomes its first ever female defence minister."

Nine of the ministers are women, and eight are men; when the prime minister is included, the cabinet is equally divided by gender.

BBC NEWS | Europe | 'World peace' hitcher is murdered

"An Italian woman artist who was hitch-hiking to the Middle East dressed as a bride to promote world peace has been found murdered in Turkey.

The naked body of Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo, 33, known as Pippa Bacca, was found in bushes near the city of Gebze on Friday.

She had said she wanted to show that she could put her trust in the kindness of local people."

Daily Kos: Food Riots Breaking Out Across the Planet

Daily Kos: Food Riots Breaking Out Across the Planet: "Is the U.S.immune to the conditions that cause food riots? In March, Kossak bink documented soaring wheat prices, which are now showing up in price hikes at bakeries in Michigan, pizzerias in New York, and beer just about everywhere. Milk prices are up 26 percent and egg prices are up 40 percent.

But Americans are a tough lot. We swallowed $2 and $3 per gallon gas prices with nary a blink or change in our driving habitat (until very recently). But is something about to change? Nearly one in 10 Ohioans now receive food stamps. Middle class Long Islanders are turning to food pantries. In Windsor, CT, 350 households now visit the food bank, compared to 120 in 2006. While I don't believe food riots are in our immediate future, it appears our ability to feed ourselves is becoming increasing difficult, and a day of reckoning may now be on the horizon."

On Prisons, Borders, Safety, and Privilege: An Open Letter to White Feminists | Reproductive Justice and Gender | AlterNet

On Prisons, Borders, Safety, and Privilege: An Open Letter to White Feminists | Reproductive Justice and Gender | AlterNet: "Around the same time, I read and heard a whole lot of white feminist media makers explaining that 'we' need to show young women 'why feminism matters.' Sometimes I asked them why, in the face of a series of egregious, in some cases highly publicized examples of state violence against marginalized people (e.g., Jena 6 and the New Jersey 4), prominent white feminists are MIA in and largely ignorant of the work and analyses of major, often feminist-of-color-led movements against state violence? And, I wondered, what is your feminism for, and why does it matter? Because feminists of color don't seem to need convincing on that point -- they're engaged in profound, intergenerational, cross-cultural grassroots work that is transforming not only feminist movement but all social-change movements.[5]"

A Possible Thread

Following my watching of old BSG in preparation for the new season I ordered The Darjeeling Limited from OnDemand and watched it while having my last bit of Glenlivet. I have loved Wes Anderson movies but most specifically Rushmore. It surprised to me that he had surpassed that movie. The portrayal of sibling but also family dynamics in this move is shocking and comforting.

As I age, I find that the family dynamic is in fact an amazing mystery that embodies the conundrum described in kill the buddha. I thought for so long that my goal was to get to a place of 'peace' with my family. I now realize how utterly naive and pointless a goal that was and is. I struggle, and likely due to my disposition have always struggled, with the idea of process being the point, not the destination. So as I gamely try to embrace the concept of the importance of process I am awed by how much I love those who have become my family, how willing I am to exist within their sphere, how profoundly my youthful notions of independence as strength have been torn asunder and finally how obvious, enjoyable and satisfying that conclusion is.

At some point all i asked was that it never be boring and it never, not even for a moment has been. Slainte.

BSG

Battlestar Gallactica starts its final season this Friday and my excitement about this is embarrassing.

Starbuck: You know that the President says that we're saving humanity for a bright, shiny future, on Earth--that you and I are never gonna see. We're not, because we go out, over and over, again, until someday, some metal motherfrakker is gonna catch us on a bad day and just blow us away.
Lee: Bright and shiny futures are overrated anyway.
Kara: That's why we gotta get what we can, right now.
Lee: I'll drink to that. To right now

Daily Kos: Bank nationalization and you're not paying attention.

Daily Kos: Bank nationalization and you're not paying attention.: "There are $750 trillion in derivatives, or synthetic financial instruments, floating around out there today. Putting this in perspective there is about $75 trillion in global real estate and our global GDP is about $50 trillion. Measure it any way you like; what started out as a sensible, money saving risk management method started mutating about the time Bush got into office, and now it is fraud of biblical proportion.

What can we do to save ourselves from this?

Nothing. The loss has already occurred.

Read it and weep. That junk paper, six times the combined value of all human real estate and all human commerce, is everywhere. Think it doesn't effect you? Got a parent with a pension? Do you hold a life insurance policy? Do you work for an enterprise that is publicly held? That has funded part of its operation with a bond sale?

The unwinding of this mess must come and it will be the financial equivalent of a neutron bomb; the buildings will be standing, but they'll be emptied of people and the associated commerce."

Pentagon: Inventory ordered of all U.S. nukes - CNN.com

Pentagon: Inventory ordered of all U.S. nukes - CNN.com: "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates has formally ordered the Air Force, Navy and Defense Logistics Agency to conduct an inventory of all U.S. nuclear weapons and nuclear weapon-related materials to make sure all items are accounted for, according to a Pentagon memo released Thursday.


Defense Secretary Robert Gates orders an inventory of all U.S. nuclear weapons and related materials.

The order comes in the wake of the discovery last week that four nuclear warhead fuses were accidentally shipped to Taiwan in 2006."

Labor of Love | First Person | Advocate.com

Labor of Love | First Person | Advocate.com: "To our neighbors, my wife, Nancy, and I don’t appear in the least unusual. To those in the quiet Oregon community where we live, we are viewed just as we are -- a happy couple deeply in love. Our desire to work hard, buy our first home, and start a family was nothing out of the ordinary. That is, until we decided that I would carry our child.

I am transgender, legally male, and legally married to Nancy. Unlike those in same-sex marriages, domestic partnerships, or civil unions, Nancy and I are afforded the more than 1,100 federal rights of marriage. Sterilization is not a requirement for sex reassignment, so I decided to have chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy but kept my reproductive rights. Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire."

Mental Physical

I find internal explorations exhausting.


Mental-Physical Personality Description

Interpersonal Relationships

reliable
consistent
rarely expressive of feelings
feelings subordinate to tasks
use words carefully
may need help connecting with others personally.

Factors Causing Stress

insufficient time alone
too many tasks at once
insufficient time for careful consideration of issues and for task completion
conflict with personal values

Eyes

focused
objective
observing

Hands

used with restraint
used to make points

Body Movements

restrained
often in the vertical plane (up and down)
upright posture

Mental-Physical behavioral style makes up only 5% of the Western population. It is the most of all the Mentally Centered Principle.

The Wretched Life of the Insomniac - Well - Tara Parker-Pope - Health - New York Times Blog

The Wretched Life of the Insomniac - Well - Tara Parker-Pope - Health - New York Times Blog: "Friends and family weigh in with advice. “A little warm milk — puts you right out.’’ Or, “A shot of whiskey does the trick.’’ “A hot bath…” “A big plate of pasta…” “Have you tried melatonin?”

“If there’s any illness for which people offer many remedies,’’ says a character in Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard,” “you may be sure that particular illness is incurable.’’…

In one of his stand-up routines, British comedian David Baddiel asks why, when people hear he’s an insomniac, they say, “Really? ‘Cos I fall asleep the second my head hits the pillow.” He adds, “When I see someone in a wheelchair, I don’t say, “Really? ‘Cos I can do this…” and he hops around the stage on one leg. …"

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide: "U.S. home foreclosure filings jumped 60 percent and bank seizures more than doubled in February as rates on adjustable mortgages rose and property owners couldn't sell or refinance as prices fall, Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac Inc., a seller of foreclosure data, said March 13.

Mortgage Resets

About $460 billion of adjustable-rate mortgages are scheduled to reset this year, according to analysts at Citigroup Inc.

Financial sector losses and job cuts have been mounting since August, when subprime mortgage defaults began escalating, undermining the value of bonds backed by those loans.

Citigroup Inc. will cut 2,000 more trading and investment- banking jobs than previously announced, a person familiar with the plan said last week. That's on top of about 4,000 disclosed in January.

``This year we will have a larger number of reductions as we continue to strengthen the business and lower our expense base,'' the bank said in an emailed statement."

Bats Perish, and No One Knows Why - New York Times

Bats Perish, and No One Knows Why - New York Times: "They have plenty of company. In what is one of the worst calamities to hit bat populations in the United States, on average 90 percent of the hibernating bats in four caves and mines in New York have died since last winter.

Wildlife biologists fear a significant die-off in about 15 caves and mines in New York, as well as at sites in Massachusetts and Vermont. Whatever is killing the bats leaves them unusually thin and, in some cases, dotted with a white fungus. Bat experts fear that what they call White Nose Syndrome may spell doom for several species that keep insect pests under control.

Researchers have yet to determine whether the bats are being killed by a virus, bacteria, toxin, environmental hazard, metabolic disorder or fungus. Some have been found with pneumonia, but that and the fungus are believed to be secondary symptoms.

“This is probably one of the strangest and most puzzling problems we have had with bats,” said Paul Cryan, a bat ecologist with the United States Geological Survey. “It’s really startling that we’ve not come up with a smoking gun yet.”"

Build a Bunker because these assholes just came up with their excuse for an attack on Iran

The most senior US general in Iraq has said he has evidence that Iran was behind Sunday's bombardment of Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.

Gen David Petraeus told the BBC he thought Tehran had trained, equipped and funded insurgents who fired the barrage of mortars and rockets.

He said Iran was adding what he described as "lethal accelerants" to a very combustible mix.

There has as yet been no response from Iran to the accusations.

Go Obama

Check out this Barack Obama supporter and an interviewer he did. This interviewer picked the wrong one to prove his point that all people supporting Obama are emotional and illogical. See it below.

Your Story:Different Plans

Your Story:Different Plans:

"I don't know how long I can do this, he said. I think the universe has different plans for me & we sat there in silence & I thought to myself that this is the thing we all come to & this is the thing we all fight & if we are lucky enough to lose, our lives become beautiful with mystery again & I sat there silent because that is not something that can be said."

May you live in interesting times

Can I screw up so much the Fed decides its best for everyone to lend me money?

Those large firms averaged $13.4 billion in daily borrowing over the past week from the new lending facility. The report does not identify the borrowers.

The Fed, in a bold move Sunday, agreed for the first time to let big investment houses get emergency loans directly from the central bank. This mechanism, similar to one available for commercial banks for years, got under way Monday and will continue for at least six months. It was the broadest use of the Fed's lending authority since the 1930s.

Is there power in optimism?

There are times when I very much want to give up on the world. I watched I am Legend (awesome, scary movie) on the plane ride home from Birmingham, AL and wanted to be depressed that an actor who I have enjoyed and respected as much as Will Smith is apparently getting sucked up into Scientology, but then I re-read the speech from Barack Obama and decided I would at least wait until the Democratic convention before I give up all hope on humanity.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

I hate people

Here’s how it worked: The Grinning Family, with US average household income, gets a $200,000 mortgage at 4% for two years. Their $955 monthly payment is 25% of their income. No problem. Their banker promises them a new mortgage, again at the cheap rate, in two years. But in two years, the promise ain’t worth a can of spam and the Grinnings are told to scram - because their house is now worth less than the mortgage. Now, the mortgage hits 9% or $1,609 plus fees to recover the “discount” they had for two years. Suddenly, payments equal 42% to 50% of pre-tax income. The Grinnings move into their Toyota.

Now, what kind of American is ‘sub-prime.’ Guess. No peeking. Here’s a hint: 73% of HIGH INCOME Black and Hispanic borrowers were given sub-prime loans versus 17% of similar-income Whites. Dark-skinned borrowers aren’t stupid – they had no choice. They were ‘steered’ as it’s called in the mortgage sharking business.

‘Steering,’ sub-prime loans with usurious kickers, fake inducements to over-borrow, called ‘fraudulent conveyance’ or ‘predatory lending’ under US law, were almost completely forbidden in the olden days (Clinton Administration and earlier) by federal regulators and state laws as nothing more than fancy loan-sharking.

But when the Bush regime took over, Countrywide and its banking brethren were told to party hearty – it was OK now to steer’m, fake’m, charge’m and take’m.

But there was this annoying party-pooper. The Attorney General of New York, Eliot Spitzer, who sued these guys to a fare-thee-well. Or tried to.

Instead of regulating the banks that had run amok, Bush’s regulators went on the warpath against Spitzer and states attempting to stop predatory practices. Making an unprecedented use of the legal power of “federal pre-emption,” Bush-bots ordered the states to NOT enforce their consumer protection laws.

Indeed, the feds actually filed a lawsuit to block Spitzer’s investigation of ugly racial mortgage steering. Bush’s banking buddies were especially steamed that Spitzer hammered bank practices across the nation using New York State laws.

thoughts

I was watching Colbert tonight at 8pm so it was actually yesterday's show but he had George McGovern on as a guest. They were drawing parallels between this year's presidential convention and the one where McGovern lost to Hubert Humphrey.

It sometimes seems that my incessant thoughts go in waves or cadences. Sometimes the cadence is good and sometimes it is painful and chaotic. All beginnings are painful. So said Chaim Potok at the start of a good book. The problem with this concept is that things are always beginning. I am a devotee of vistas and where water meets land. I watch our world and try to be an actor in it to the best of my capabilities.

The world continues to, in my opinion, keep choosing pessimism, judgment and false walls. I still believe that their is power in conscience and living according to one's deepest held beliefs, but it is a fight and I wish it weren't so.

Prairie Populist

In the 1972 election, McGovern ran on a platform that advocated withdrawal from the Vietnam War in exchange for the return of American prisoners of war^[8] and amnesty for draft evaders who had left the country,^[9] an anti-war platform that was presaged, in 1970, by McGovern's sponsorship of the McGovern-Hatfield amendment, seeking to end U.S. participation in the war by Congressional action. However, during a meeting with Democratic Governors conference, Nevada Governor Mike O'Callaghan asked McGovern what he would do if the North Vietnamese refused to release American POW's after a withdrawal. McGovern responded, "Under such circumstances, we'd have to take action," although he did not say what action.^[10]

Tom Eagleton and George McGovern on July 24, 1972 cover of Time Magazine

McGovern's platform also included an across-the-board, 37% reduction in defense spending over three years;^[11] and a "demogrant" program giving $1,000 to every citizen in America ^[12] that was later changed to creating a $6,500 guaranteed minimum income for Americans, and was later dropped from the platform.^[13] In addition, McGovern supported ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. An infamous incident took place late in the campaign. McGovern was giving a speech and a Nixon admirer kept heckling him. McGovern called the young man over and said "Listen you son of a bitch, why don't you kiss my ass!" Mississippi Senator James Eastland later asked the Senator if that was what he had said. When McGovern said yes, Eastand replied that was the best thing he had ever said in the whole campaign.

Quick question

Official: Cash triggered Spitzer probe - Yahoo! News: "NEW YORK - Gov. Eliot Spitzer's role in a prostitution scandal grew out of a public corruption inquiry triggered by his movement of large amounts of cash from several bank accounts to one that operated by a call-girl ring, a law enforcement official said Tuesday."


Anyone else find it convenient that the man who went after wall street was having his bank accounts watched?

Trust, can't measure it, but wow are we screwwed without it

I'm sure that most of us are watching the economic news with varying levels of horror. Of course the news is hardly where one goes for optimism and a sense of warm fuzzy. Ok we get that. We are modern people living in a complicated, industrialized, modern world. My concern is that, not only are we in a situation with no Dumbledore (although this guy and this guy do give me warm fuzzies on occasion) but we are in fact without any critical mass of individuals who can work within the system and "do the right thing" without having to pay severe personal penalties. So now we have a situation where, not only are we not investing in the future, we are squandering our current fortune on foibles whilst not maintaining the investments previous generations made for us. It's the perfect storm and we all saw how that ended, even with George Clooney in charge.

Yippee, free pharmaceuticals

How do the drugs get into the water?
People take pills. Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet. The wastewater is treated before it is discharged into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. Then, some of the water is cleansed again at drinking water treatment plants and piped to consumers. But most treatments do not remove all drug residue.
And while researchers do not yet understand the exact risks from decades of persistent exposure to random combinations of low levels of pharmaceuticals, recent studies — which have gone virtually unnoticed by the general public — have found alarming effects on human cells and wildlife.
"We recognize it is a growing concern and we're taking it very seriously," said Benjamin H. Grumbles, assistant administrator for water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Members of the AP National Investigative Team reviewed hundreds of scientific reports, analyzed federal drinking water databases, visited environmental study sites and treatment plants and interviewed more than 230 officials, academics and scientists. They also surveyed the nation's 50 largest cities and a dozen other major water providers, as well as smaller community water providers in all 50 states.
Here are some of the key test results obtained by the AP:
_Officials in Philadelphia said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city's watersheds.

We have a problem

Is it just me or is our problem with guns increasing?

Burnt Orange Report::: Thousands of Prairie View Students March 7.3 Miles to Vote

Burnt Orange Report::: Thousands of Prairie View Students March 7.3 Miles to Vote: "Early voting starts today in Texas. In Waller County, a primarily rural county about 60 miles outside Houston, the county made the decision to offer only one early voting location: at the County Courthouse in Hempstead, TX, the county seat.

Prairie View A&M students organized to protest the decision, because they felt it hindered their ability to vote. For background, Prairie View A&M is one of Texas' historically Black universities. It has a very different demographic feel than the rest of the county. There has been a long history of dispute over what the students feel is disenfranchisement. There was a lot of outrage in 2006, when students felt they were unfairly denied the right to vote when their registrations somehow did not get processed."

wow

Katrina Vanden Heuvel | Where Did the Water Come in?

"Officials at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) point out that there is no uniformity in how loan documents spell out the terms of loans, and some are woefully inadequate. The Times also reported that 'many lenders peddled the most abusive and costly loans to unsophisticated, first-time home buyers. Known as 'affordability products,' the mortgages generated big commissions up front and were designed to require refinancing later on - which included yet another round of luscious fees for lenders. With refinancing no longer an option, it is becoming obvious that these loans were designed to fail.' Madigan told NPR, 'I have had hundreds of people come to our office once they realized that they were in one of these high-cost subprime loans… telling us that they did, in fact, ask 'Is this a fixed-rate loan?' They were told yes, only to find out two or three years later it was an adjustable rate loan. I've had people tell us, you know, 'we told them that our income was only $2,000 a month…' [But] we find when we look at the documents it was written down [by the lender] as $7,000, $9,000 a month. So people were being put into loans in spite of the fact that they were… giving the correct information. And it is all because of the fact that the brokers and the lenders were receiving incentives, in large part because there was just this demand on Wall Street for these mortgage-backed securities."

"Nobody seemed to care because of who was profiting, on the one hand, and who was being exploited on the other," Jackson said. "But now the water is - like the Titanic - the water is up around the deck where the big people hang out. But where did the water come in? The water came in at the bottom of the ship. The poor always pay more for less - for cars, goods and services, insurance, food, banking money. This time, however, it's affecting the whole economy, that's what is different about this. Again, if the government had not allowed the rich to get richer at the expense of the vulnerable you wouldn't have this crisis."

It is now estimated that 2.2 million subprime home loans have already failed or will end in foreclosure - the highest foreclosure rate since the Depression - with a total equity loss of $164 billion. Moreover, neighboring homes to foreclosed properties will see a decline in value of $200 billion. A US Conference of Mayors Report estimates that the foreclosure crisis will reduce home values by an additional $519 billion in 2008, bringing the total forecast of lost equity for the nation's homeowners to $1.2 trillion.

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

"Speculators have also flooded into the credit insurance market recently because these securities make it easier to bet on the health of a company than using corporate bonds.

Both factors have resulted in a market of credit swaps that now far exceeds the face value of corporate bonds underlying it. Commercial banks are among the biggest participants — at the end of the third quarter of 2007, the top 25 banks held credit default swaps, both as insurers and insured, worth $14 trillion, the currency office said, up $2 trillion from the previous quarter.

JPMorgan Chase, with $7.8 trillion, is the largest player; Citibank and Bank of America are behind it with $3 trillion and $1.6 trillion respectively.

In 2000, $900 billion of credit insurance contracts changed hands. Since then, the face value of the contracts outstanding has doubled every year as new contracts have been written. In the first six months of 2007, the figure rose 75 percent; the market now dwarfs the value of United States Treasuries outstanding."

US credit crisis escalates as defaults spread - Telegraph

"Arrears on 'prime' mortgages have reached a record 4pc, confounding expectations that middle-class Americans with good credit records would be able to weather the storm.

While sub-prime and close kin 'Alt A' total $2,000bn (£1,019bn) of debt, the prime market in all its forms is roughly $8,000bn. If prime default rates rise on their current trajectory, they could ultimately cause huge financial damage."

Nazi's

Hope for us akward types

As someone who attempts to embrace her bull in a china shop self, I have to say I find this article comforting.

By self-monitoring, people assess how their actions affect others and adjust to fit the appropriateness of the situation. They screen their words and behavior to suit the people around them.

"High self-monitors are social chameleons," said Northwestern University professor of communication studies Michael E. Roloff."And, because they're quick to pick up on social cues, are socially adept and unlikely to say things upsetting to others, they are generally well-liked and sought after."

but wait......

High self-monitors seem to avoid face-threatening interactions and honest self-disclosure. Thus partners of these people may be completely in the dark about the extent of their significant other’s degree of commitment and regard.

"It's not that high self-monitors are intentionally deceptive or evil," Roloff said. "They appear to have an outlook and way of achieving their goals that makes them attractive to us socially but that prevents them from being particularly happy or loyal in their romantic relationships."

Debt Slavery-Or not?

Are moral obligations an issue?

Avalon writes: 'Mish, I'm very disappointed that you don't think people are morally obligated to try to honor their agreements. Just because it's legal doesn't make it right.'

Let's explore the issue of moral obligation with a series of questions.

• Where was the moral obligation of those willing to lend money to someone who they knew could not possibly afford the house?
• Where was the moral obligation of those willing to lend money to someone when the lender did not care how overpriced the home was?
• Where was the moral obligation of those willing to lend money to someone when the lender explicitly knew how overpriced the home was?
• What are the moral obligations homeowners to provide for their family the best legal means they can?
• Suppose someone could "afford" to make payments but at the expense of say health insurance or better schools? What's the moral obligation on that person?
  
• Does moral obligation only run in one direction?
• Should someone have a moral obligation if he signs a contract with a thief?