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Update, 10/10/08 – Thanks to subscribing contributor RB, whose $10 payment this morning bring our running total to $2714.63 against our goal of $5,000! Repeating the Knapp plan for ending this fundraiser before the election: Reach $3,000 by this coming Monday morning (we’re less than $300 away!), then $1,000 more each week for two weeks. Sweetener: Get this fundraiser over by Election Day, and we’ll postpone the next one, and/or find ways to make it less intrusive - TLK —– Dear readers, Earlier this year, I told you that RRND/FND would be moving to a “twice-a-year” fundraising schedule — and we’re keeping our word. We’ve even waited almost a month past mid-year to start our first 2008 drive. But now it’s time. The goal is $5,000, and we’ll keep plugging until we reach it (even if that means extending into our year-end fundraiser, which we’d certainly prefer not to do!). You can support “the freedom movement’s daily newspaper” (and our offshoot publications — 2nd Amendment News Digest, Liberty Action News Digest and Progressive News Digest) in any of several ways: One-Time Payments Online
Become a Subscribing Contributor! [Note: All subscription payments received during the fundraiser will be credited toward its total]
Other Options If you prefer to support RRND/FND through the International Society for Individual Liberty, to target your contribution to this project. Please drop me a line so that I can thank you and add your contribution to our total (ISIL doesn’t send us a daily report). If you’d like to send a check, money order, cash or other valuable thing via US Snail, again, write me so I can send you the address and instructions.
And Now For Something Completely Different Would you like to see NO MORE RRND/FND fundraisers for nearly a year? So would we … so here’s a “side bet.” Up-front disclaimer: This mid-year fundraiser WILL continue until the goal is met, even if that’s some time next year (hopefully it will be some time next month!). But, we’re running a simultaneous “contingent pledge drive” through Fundable.Com to raise ANOTHER $5k … and if we make it, our next fundraiser won’t be until at least mid-2009. It’s a simple concept: You pledge the amount of money you’re willing to contribute to that second $5k. If we raise $5k in pledges like yours, you pay. If we don’t, you don’t. That simple. Click here to make your pledge. We didn’t make the Fundable.Com goal … but we’ll set a new project of this type up Real Soon Now. Yours in liberty, | | Report Bad Link |
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“Stock prices are swinging sharply on Wall Street, with investors still selling heavily but also scooping up stocks that have been decimated by more than a week of huge losses. The Dow Jones industrials are showing the market’s volatility. They fell nearly 700 points soon after trading began, regained all of that deficit to show an advance — and then turned lower again. … At the start of today’s session, losses for the year totaled a staggering $8.3 trillion, as measured by the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Composite Index, which tracks 5,000 U.S.-based companies representing almost all stocks traded in the United States.” (10/10/08) http://www.freep.com/article/20081010/BUSINESS07/81010019/1020 | | Report Bad Link |
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“President Bush on Friday encouraged the American people to have confidence in the economy during a ‘deeply unsettling period.’ ‘We can solve this crisis — and we will,’ said Bush, in a speech at the White House. … Bush said that the government’s ‘wide range of tools’ included the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, which he said is ‘big enough to work.’” [editor’s note: Hey, Bush, want to help? Try drinking a nice hot cup of STFU. Every time you flap your lips, the Dow heads south - TLK] (10/10/08) http://tinyurl.com/4sy3fz | | Report Bad Link |
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“A car bomb in Baghdad has killed at least 12 people and injured more than 20, say local police. The blast struck a market in Abu Dshir, a mainly Shia enclave in the predominantly Sunni district of Dora, in the south of the Iraqi capital. Several shops were reported to have been destroyed by the explosion and vehicles set on fire.” (10/10/08) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7664057.stm | | Report Bad Link |
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“A suicide bomber drove his car into an anti-Taliban tribal council meeting in northwest Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 30 people, officials said, the second suicide bombing in as many days. Nearly 100 people were wounded in the attack in Orakzai region which comes a day after a suicide blast inside the heavily guarded police headquarters in the Pakistani capital in which 8 policemen were wounded.” (10/10/08) http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SP138782.htm | | Report Bad Link |
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“In just four months the average price of a gallon of gas nationwide has plummeted 78 cents to $3.39. In some places, it’s even lower: In New Jersey, gas is $2.90 a gallon. In Texas, it’s $2.88, and in Kansas it’s a mere $2.83. It’s the flip side of global financial turmoil.” (10/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/3th7fu | | Report Bad Link |
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“Spending by independent political groups in congressional races is surging in the final weeks before Election Day, in some cases surpassing what candidates themselves are pumping into close contests. Since Sept. 1, nine groups have spent more than $1 million each in House and Senate races, including $11.3 million by an organization bankrolled by drug companies that is running ads featuring 26 members of Congress from both major parties.” (10/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/3oswfv | | Report Bad Link |
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“Afghanistan appealed Thursday for more NATO help to attack heroin dealers whose thriving trade is blamed for bankrolling the widening insurgency against the pro-Western government and international forces. Afghan Defense Minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak made the appeal at a meeting with his NATO counterparts against the backdrop of spreading violence that has sparked doubt about whether Western forces can win the war against the Taliban.” (10/09/08) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27103659/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“A federal appeals court and Ohio’s high court have rejected a death row inmate’s argument that he is too fat to die by lethal injection. A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati and the Ohio Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Richard Cooey’s execution could go ahead as planned.” (10/09/08) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27107186/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“Libya has started making payments into a nearly $2 billion fund to compensate the families of American victims of Libyan-linked terror attacks in the 1980s, another step in the full normalization of long-strained ties between Washington and Tripoli, the State Department said Thursday. The ’substantial amount’ deposited overnight into a U.S. government account is not the full amount needed to fulfill a compensation agreement reached earlier this year, but officials said it demonstrated Libya’s willingness to resolve outstanding claims over the 1988 Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland and the 1986 bombing of a German disco.” (10/09/08) http://www.miamiherald.com/news/top-AP-stories/story/719425.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Officials in Missouri, a hard-fought jewel in the presidential race, are sifting through possibly hundreds of questionable or duplicate voter-registration forms submitted by an advocacy group that has been accused of election fraud in other states. Charlene Davis, co-director of the election board in Jackson County, said many of the forms came from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.” (10/09/08) http://www.thonline.com/article.cfm?id=218706 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Congress is looking into allegations that National Security Agency linguists have been eavesdropping on Americans abroad. The congressional oversight committees said Thursday that the Americans targeted included military officers in Iraq who called friends and family in the United States.” (10/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/4f7zqv | | Report Bad Link |
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“The Bush administration is nearing a decision to remove North Korea from a terrorism blacklist and may do so as early as Friday in a bid to salvage faltering nuclear disarmament talks, The Associated Press has learned. U.S. officials said Thursday that no final decision had been made but diplomats briefed on the matter told the AP that they believe an announcement that North Korea will be tentatively taken off the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism is imminent.” (10/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/4cdw8w | | Report Bad Link |
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“The Energy Department moved ahead Thursday on further restricting the nation’s most dangerous nuclear material, part of a plan to scale back and modernize management of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. The department gave preliminary approval to an environmental impact study on the consolidation program, which includes limiting plutonium and highly enriched uranium to just five sites, compared with seven today.” (10/09/08) http://www.abqjournal.com/news/ap10-09-08.htm | | Report Bad Link |
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“A fed-up Polish priest has gone on strike because his parishioners don’t leave enough on the collection plate. Father Piotr Lenart, parish priest at Deszkowice in south east Poland, refuses to talk during mass. Instead he stands in silence in front of the congregation for 15 minutes. ‘At first we thought there was something wrong with him. It was only after a while we worked out that he had gone quiet because he was angry with us,’ said one elderly parishioner.” (10/09/08) http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_3042641.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Tennessee prison officials have charged a Chattanooga woman with smuggling two loaded handguns into a state prison at Wartburg. The guns were hidden in a box filled with board games and books. Twenty-seven-year-old Tiara Monique Ward is being held at the Morgan County Jail. Ward’s bond was reduced from $100,000 to $25,000 at a Thursday hearing where a public defender was appointed to represent her. A Department of Correction news release issued Thursday says investigators discovered the two weapons in a package delivered to the Morgan County Correctional Complex on Sept. 17.” [editor’s note: OK, let’s review … We already know the “authorities” cannot keep “illegal drugs” out of prisons (and thus should cease and desist trying to keep them out of general society?); now they can barely even keep GUNS out of the hands of incarcerated criminals? - SAT] (10/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/42542k | | Report Bad Link |
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“A gardener who fenced off his allotment with barbed wire after being targeted by thieves has been ordered to take it down — in case intruders scratch themselves. Bill Malcolm erected the 3-foot fence after thieves struck three times in just four months, stealing tools worth around £300 from his shed and ransacking his vegetable patch. But Bromsgrove district council has ordered the 61-year-old to remove the waist-high fence on health and safety grounds. Mr Malcolm … said: ‘It’s an absolutely ridiculous situation. All I wanted was to protect my property, but the wire had to go in case a thief scratched himself. The fence was just a single strand and ringing my property … [I]t wasn’t as though I’d dug a moat filled with piranha fish and erected 6-foot iron railings. … ‘They shouldn’t be trespassing in the first place but the council apologized and said they didn’t want to be sued by a wounded thief.” (10/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/4bufva | | Report Bad Link |
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“Sedona’s character and identity may hinge on something as mundane as a low-pressure sodium lightbulb. That is why the Great Lamppost Debate of 2008 is raging. At issue is whether the Arizona Department of Transportation should illuminate Arizona 89A as it winds through town. Opponents of the lightbulbs say they would mean the destruction of Sedona’s stunning night sky, hurt the city’s identity as a place that embraces beauty and could possibly eliminate Sedona as a character that has stayed true to itself. Proponents of the lightbulbs think they would be a good way to light the road and keep pedestrians safe. They both may be right.” (10/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/48fxjn | | Report Bad Link |
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“Perhaps the most memorable question came at the end of Tuesday night’s presidential debate, when Tom Brokaw asked what he described as a ‘Zen-like’ query submitted online by Peggy in Amherst, N.H. The question — ‘What don’t you know and how will you learn it?’ — did not, however, come from a Zen master, a Buddhist monk, or a student of Confucius. It was the brainchild of Peggy Silva, a 60-year-old high school teacher who has been lobbing the question at presidential candidates for the last 18 years. ‘I’m the least Zen-like person on the planet,’ Silva said with a laugh in a telephone interview yesterday. ‘I’m chaotic, I’m disorganized, and I giggle.’ Living in New Hampshire has given the writing coordinator and literacy coach at Souhegan High School ample opportunity to grill presidential hopefuls.” (10/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/4au74e | | Report Bad Link |
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“Gordon Brown has called on other governments to follow Britain’s lead by supporting their struggling banks. Writing in the Times, he said the crisis needed a ‘global solution’ and wants world leaders to meet and plan a restructuring of financial markets. It comes as the UK chancellor, Alistair Darling, is in Washington to meet finance ministers from the G7 group of richest nations. The UK’s FTSE 100 share index closed lower than any time since August 2004. The fall comes despite Wednesday’s historic bail-out package for ailing banks, totalling £500bn.” (10/09/08) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7662586.stm | | Report Bad Link |
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“A newspaper report Thursday said tens of thousands of eligible voters have been removed from rolls or blocked from registering in at least six swing states, but election officials quickly lined up to defend their registration procedures and said they had done nothing wrong. The New York Times based its findings on reviews of state records and Social Security data, and said it had identified apparent problems in Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina. The Times said voters appear to have been purged by mistake and not because of any intentional violations by election officials or coordinated efforts by any party.” (10/09/08) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081009/ap_on_el_ge/voter_purges | | Report Bad Link |
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“Is Hong Kong really a financial rival to New York? In 2006, it surpassed Wall Street in initial public offerings (IPOs). And one morning last June, Hong Kong’s Financial Services Secretary K.C. Chan made a rare trip to Moscow. Addressing an audience of Russian government officials and businessmen, he made a blunt pitch: ‘Hong Kong is your best partner in reaching out to the international market,’ he insisted. ‘Hong Kong possesses strong credentials to provide quality services.’ That Mr. Chan believes he can lure Russian investors away from London or New York is an indication of how Wall Street’s Asian rivals have been gaining ground for some time now.” [editor’s note: If we are truly headed for a “global economy” (or actually already in one), let it be one based on true “free trade” … not veiled military threats and government sanctions - SAT] (10/09/08) http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1010/p06s02-woap.htmlc | | Report Bad Link |
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“Council tax payers are facing increased bills or cuts in services to pay for a £1bn black hole in Britain’s town hall finances caused by the sudden collapse of Iceland’s banks. One by one, 127 public bodies owned up yesterday to having multimillion-pound sums frozen with Icelandic financial institutions that have gone bust. Gordon Brown, threatened to retaliate against Iceland’s ‘unacceptable behaviour’ by taking legal action to seize its assets in the UK.” (10/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/5xgqmw | | Report Bad Link |
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“Hours after guns-rights activists marched on City Hall to demand police leave them alone, they said one was charged after refusing an order to leave Waterside because he was openly carrying a weapon. Danladi Moore — whom the city paid $10,000 in July to avoid litigation after being stopped by police for suspected weapons violations — was charged with trespassing at the downtown entertainment complex Tuesday night. The 24-year-old Hampton resident said police told him to leave because he had a gun. Moore said he refused because the law allows him to display a weapon in public places. He said he was handcuffed, charged and led out of the building. Norfolk police … confirmed that a summons was issued.” (10/09/08) http://hamptonroads.com/node/483422 | | Report Bad Link |
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“The Second Amendment Foundation has reached an agreement with the City of New Orleans in a 2005 federal lawsuit that stopped the city from seizing firearms in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The landmark lawsuit, a joint effort by SAF and the National Rifle Association, was filed in September 2005 after police and National Guardsmen began confiscating firearms without warrant or probable cause from citizens who were not suspected of committing any crimes. Under terms of the settlement, which now awaits a judge’s signature, the city must try to return all firearms that were seized. Gun owners will be notified by mail within 30 days of the court’s approval that they can retrieve their guns.” (10/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/3pzd9y | | Report Bad Link |
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“A man who broke into an east Orange County home overnight is in the hospital this morning after the homeowner shot him in the chest, deputies said. Investigators said the man, Jeffrey Scott Conway, may have thought the residence was his home. Orange County Sheriff’s Office records show that shortly before 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, deputies arrived at Berky Deguzman’s home at 12246 Huntsman Lane. Deguzman told them that he shot Conway because he was burglarizing the home. Sheriff’s deputies found Conway inside the home with a single gunshot wound to the torso. Rescue crews airlifted Conway to Orlando Regional Medical Center, where he underwent surgery. ‘Initial investigation by detectives has determined that Conway may have entered the residence thinking it was his home and that Deguzman shot in self-defense,’ the sheriff’s report shows. Records show Conway lives at 12256 Huntsman Lane.” (10/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/4tjdgk | | Report Bad Link |
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“A Battle Creek man who allegedly shot and killed his stepson Monday night has been released from custody as the police investigation continues. Gary Prado, 49, was questioned and then released after Battle Creek police said he shot James L. Keck, 30, of Scotts. Detectives said it appears Keck broke into the house at 51 S. Mason St. and was shot as he was attempting to force his way into a bedroom where Prado, Darlene Prado, 48 — his wife and Keck’s mother — and Gary Prado’s 11-year-old daughter had taken refuge.An autopsy Tuesday showed Keck was shot four times, including once in the center of the chest, and he was pronounced dead at the scene.” (10/01/08) http://tinyurl.com/3grefq | | Report Bad Link |
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“The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged yesterday. Police Superintendent Terrence B. Sheridan revealed at a legislative hearing that the surveillance operation, which targeted opponents of the death penalty and the Iraq war, was far more extensive than was known when its existence was disclosed in July. The department started sending letters of notification Saturday to the activists, inviting them to review their files before they are purged from the databases, Sheridan said.” (10/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/3vsrrh | | Report Bad Link |
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“The latest generation of adults in the United States may be the first since World War II, and possibly before that, not to attain higher levels of education than the previous generations. While white and Asian American young people are outpacing previous generations, the gaps for other minority groups are large enough that the current generation is, on average, heading toward being less educated than its predecessor.” (10/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/3gfq8y | | Report Bad Link |
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“Facing a free-speech uproar, the University of Texas backed down Thursday from punishing two students who refused to remove political signs from their dormitory window. Connor Kincaid and his cousin and roommate, Blake Kincaid, said they were barred from registering for spring classes after refusing Wednesday to take down their signs supporting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.” (10/09/08) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27103141/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“If you’re applying for the 2009 e-Rate, the $2.25 billion-a-year federal program that provides discounts on telecommunications services to eligible schools and libraries, you won’t find many new additions to this year’s program, e-Rate officials say. Instead, you’ll find live training sessions, online videos, and other web-based resources designed to help you become more comfortable with the e-Rate application process. Mel Blackwell, vice president of the Schools and Libraries Division (SLD) of the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), the agency that administers the e-Rate, said the SLD is ‘trying to show, as much as we possibly can, how to do everything, because when the application is successful, that’s what the program is all about.’” (10/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/53vhjq | | Report Bad Link |
COMMENTARY
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“I don’t mind saying that I can work with conservatives on common causes. I don’t mind saying that I have met, gotten to know, and worked with some racists. I am exceedingly uncomfortable with people who are racist, sexist, religious bigots, anti-immigrant, xenophobic, or homophobic. But I can work while uncomfortable, whether it is sawing a tree branch while forty feet in the air, eating goat eyeball stew because I was in Yemen and it was ‘what’s for dinner,’ or finishing a writing project on time with a 54-hour ‘all nighter.’ I can be uncomfortable and get the job done. And if finding extremely bizarre people and working with them is the only way to obtain smaller government and more freedom, now, I’m willing to do it. But I won’t ever make the mistake of considering conservatives to be libertarians.” (10/09/08) http://bostontea.us/node/315 | | Report Bad Link |
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“My message is simple: Vote Republican, because whatever you may say against McCain (and it will probably be true), Obama is much worse. I’m not going to list all the debits and credits of either McCain or Obama — or Barr, the Libertarian Party nominee. Readers of Liberty have covered this territory already. My major purpose is to examine the fallacies that lead good people either to vote only for candidates who express their highest moral aspirations or to refuse to vote at all.” (for publication 11/08) http://libertyunbound.com/article.php?id=25 | | Report Bad Link |
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“On his post-bailout vote show, Lou Dobbs, the jowly arbiter of middle-American anger, called it ’stunning setback for voters who believed the House would stand up for the American people and refuse to be bought out by the Bush administration, political elites, and Wall Street.’ True, he always talks like that. But this time he was actually expressing what voters thought. A Tuesday CNN poll pegged the proportion of Americans who thought the bailout was ‘for Wall Street’ at 53 percent. Only 40 percent thought it was passed to ‘help ordinary taxpayers.’ Obama and McCain are stuck in another trap. They voted for the bailout. They can’t run against it. They went all in, literally, and now they’re stuck selling its merits while frowning and promising that it was the only choice they had.” (10/09/08) http://reason.com/news/show/129357.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Questions about the Great Depression may be usefully framed as pertaining to three distinct issues: the Great Contraction, the extraordinarily severe economic decline from 1929 to 1933; the Great Duration, the persistence of sub par economic performance for more than a decade; and the Great Escape, the ultimate recovery from this uniquely deep and long depression. Although economists continue to debate the causes of the Great Contraction and the Great Duration, a rough consensus has emerged that major policy blunders of various sorts deserve most of the blame for these calamities. With regard to the Great Escape, economists have also reached substantial agreement, but unfortunately they have come to agree on an interpretation that is almost completely wrong.” (10/08/08) http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2337 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Guess who contributed $5,000 to John McCain? Hint: Try Googling the phrase ‘he did everything we asked of him, including arming the KLA.’” (10/09/08) http://knappster.blogspot.com/2008/10/terror-firmer.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“On Monday evening I was lucky enough to hear Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York, address a meeting organized by the City of London Corporation. His speech was primarily focused on the financial crisis [obviously] and its impact on both New York and London, discussing how these cities could recover. A key point he made was that, ‘free trade is most important’ to aid the recovery and that the actions during the Depression are in no way a provision of guidance for the future.” (10/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/4uyowa | | Report Bad Link |
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“Before proceeding, I would like to clearly establish the definition of hierarchy to be referenced in whatever discussion follows my ramblings. It is the first one at dictionary.com: any system of persons or things ranked one above another. And I would like to ask participants to expand the focus beyond workplace hierarchies — because, if it is accurate to cast all human hierarchical structures as immoral or evil, it needs to be shown in other hierarchies.” (10/09/08) http://www.sunnimaravillosa.com/node/1472 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Frost quite frankly concedes that you can’t have both creative destruction and cultural preservation. So where’s the false choice? The point seems to be that conservatives should retard creative destruction to ‘keep capitalism from choking on its own excesses.’ Well, what market progressives like me want to see from ‘free-market traditionalists’ like Frost, but never get, is actual evidence that the world in which the brake has been appplied tends to be a world in which people are doing better than in the world in which the throttle was left open.” (10/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/4bdn7b | | Report Bad Link |
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“Huntington denies that military spending is a drain on the economy, and blames ‘consumerism, not militarism,’ for America’s status as the world’s number one debtor. Yet how does he imagine we financed the biggest military build-up in world history? How did we manage to bloat our military budget until it grew larger than the defense expenditures of all the rest of the world combined? We rang it up on our national credit card. We built an empire on a mountain of debt, and now it’s all come tumbling down. Yet it’s more than an economic debacle: the Greenspan Bubble was made possible by a certain kind of psychology, a cultural ethos that gave little thought to the long-term consequences of US monetary and military policy, and lived only in the here-and-now. The Bubble pumped up not just the stock market, but also our pretensions, our hubris, our sense of entitlement — not only to big overpriced homes and a dozen different credit cards, but also to our global preeminence as world policeman. If pride really does cometh before a fall, then one can only observe that we had plenty of warning.” (10/10/08) http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13573 | | Report Bad Link |
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“In Newark, Ohio a 15-year-old girl has been arrested by police on charges of child pornography. Both the girl and her victim have not been identified but they are one in same person. Yes, police arrested the girl for sexually exploiting herself because she took a nude photograph of herself.” (10/10/08) http://tinyurl.com/47o6o4 | | Report Bad Link |
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“What is the nature of the Carousel? Bill Bonner tells of a friend who, twenty years ago, saw his mortgage loan held up because one single, forgotten late payment of $36 was on his credit record. The friend continued, ‘Then, when my daughter bought a house about 3 years ago, they didn’t ask any questions at all. All they wanted to know was whether she had a pulse.’ What was different in recent years from decades ago is that interest rates are much lower. They enticed more people to borrow, and enticed (along with other government inducements) more banks to lend, even at greater risk. If ten people will borrow at 10% interest, but thirty people will borrow at 5% interest, wouldn’t banks prefer the latter, even if some people default? Definitely. But did the bankers, did any of us for that matter, except the despised and neglected, ever ask where the money came from?” (10/09/08) http://partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=3080 | | Report Bad Link |
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“[I]n a recent interview with the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, after Goldberg had written an article entitled ‘Is Israel Finished?’, Obama — incredibly, while trying to sound like a pro-Israel stalwart — trafficked in the same, tired finger-pointing so often seen among Western liberal elites, characterizing the Israeli-Arab conflict as ‘this constant wound … this constant sore, [that] infect[s] all of our foreign policy.’ This attitude suggests that the United States is abhorred by the Muslim world because of our support for Israel rather than because Islamic extremists detest our values and our way of life.” [editor’s note: That might be because the United States is abhorred by the Muslim world um, because of our support for Israel rather than because Islamic extremists detest our values and our way of life - TLK] (10/09/08) http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=100908A | | Report Bad Link |
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“Treasury Secretary Henry ‘Lenin’ Paulson is sending up a test balloon about ‘plans for the U.S. government to invest in banks as the next step in trying to resolve the deepening credit crisis.’ The report adds, ‘The Treasury’s program would be voluntary and officials may begin injecting capital through purchases of shares starting as soon as the end of the month.’ OK, here’s the deal: as voluntary as the purchase of stock in heavily regulated banks by their regulators may be (they’re free to say ‘no!’ Honest!), the process of government acquisition of private businesses belongs to an ideology called socialism.” [editor’s note: Well, actually, no — or at least not necessarily. Socialism is “worker ownership of the means of production.” In theory, that might be done through a state, but it would have to be a “workers” state. All government ownership is bad, but not all government ownership is “socialist.” Words mean things - TLK] (10/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/3wsttc | | Report Bad Link |
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“Here’s my definition of a really bad movie. It’s a movie you had all intentions of liking when you sat down. It’s a movie whose fundamental message and values you agreed with before the movie began — faithfulness to one’s word, the value of a supportive family, bravery, honesty, and openness to the possibility of self-improvement — and when the movie ends you walk out of the theater wondering how God could allow such a narrow, cultish, dogmatic, self-righteous, dumbed-down, propagandistic, smug, trite, and anti-rational presentation of one of His major religions to have been made by people who claim to love Him.” (10/10/08) http://www.rationalreview.com/content/53012 | | Report Bad Link |
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“As Rothbard documents in his 1963 study, the financial bubble of the 1920s was caused by the Federal Reserve’s easy money policy that pumped up real estate and stock market prices. When the bubble burst in 1929, Hoover did all he could to prop up prices in the name of stability and recovery. All his efforts failed. The economy continued to spiral downward. Hoover’s legacy was sealed. However, court historians and mainstream economists have been blaming Hoover’s ‘inaction’ for nearly eight decades instead of his big government policies that turned a much needed correction into a full-scale panic and massive depression.” (10/10/08) http://www.lewrockwell.com/sabrin/sabrin11.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Self-confidence is good. Self-confidence after honest self-inventory is even better. Alas for America, Sarah Palin, the first-ever female Republican vice-presidential candidate, seems to possess plenty of the former after having done precious little of the latter. There’s a fine line between self-confidence and hubris, but Palin appears to have not merely located and crossed that line, but convinced herself that having done so is a praiseworthy virtue. Indeed, although she would likely disagree, without her hubris, Palin’s increasingly sad media moments would be utterly without substance.” (10/01/08) http://tinyurl.com/4tsb9k | | Report Bad Link |
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“Anyone telling you that American capitalism is an economic system is dead wrong. American capitalism is only the economic face of a value system of morals and ethics, traditionally underpinned by religion. … Undercut these values and the final result is Lehman Brothers and AIG, the twisted faces of Representative Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd, of Fannie and Freddie pursuing give-a-way socialism with a capitalist face, and at last, a value vacuum so large that the Treasury Department is welcomed with applause (and votes) as it mounts a bloodless economic coup d’etat for which the American middle classes will be paying for generations. … The people could tumble this rotten edifice any time at the ballot box, but based on the ‘what-have-you-done-for-me-lately?’ nature of some questions at last night’s debate, it’s not likely that we will.” [editor’s note: The other aspect of “greatest days” has to do with a return(?) to the trade-based republic focused on individual sovereignty our founders had in mind … instead of the oppressive, nation-building, corporatist global empire we’re now saddled with! - SAT] (10/08/08) http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/10/08/rmiller_1008/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“‘Is my money safe?’ That’s question No. 1 for many Americans today. And it goes to the moral heart of the global financial crisis: lack of trust. But some of this trust can be restored simply and inexpensively. My idea? What the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did for food-product labeling must be done for financial institutions. … Thanks to FDA guidelines, whether we’re buying vanilla yogurt or meat lasagna, we can look at the label and know what we’re getting. How much fat? How much sugar? How many calories? These questions are answered before we ever buy. We may choose to ignore them for a Ben & Jerry’s binge, but that’s our own business. We don’t need to be nutritionists to make an informed decision.” [editor’s note: This fellow’s inadvertently stumbled onto something here; the only error is the analogy. He should be comparing with Underwriters Laboratories CERTIFYING electrical appliances, not an FDA-clone (more likely to collude with those it’s sworn to “protect us from”)! - SAT] (10/09/08) http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1010/p09s03-coop.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“If you prefer irony to panic, you might consider the peculiar spectacle of the current administration, a bitter opponent of the New Deal, deploying the full force of the New Deal’s legacy to stave off the financial crisis. We’ve been bailing like it’s 1933, with the Exchange Stabilization Fund joining the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee in an effort to stop credit from vanishing. And now Congress has provided an emergency-relief program of the kind that made the New Deal work. But can New Deal programs succeed without New Dealers running them? Judging by the last time Americans tried it, during Herbert Hoover’s last year of office, the answer is, sadly, no.” [editor’s note: Which is (at least for now) our only hope, since a “new New Deal” requires a “new WWII[I]” to obscure out of the mess it creates - SAT] (10/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/49uqdj | | Report Bad Link |
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“Why is $700,000,000,000 (looks bigger that way, doesn’t it?) the particular number that’s needed to restore investor confidence and fix the mess that investment banks and mortgage brokers have gotten us into? Good luck finding a convincing explanation. The number, to quote Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, needed to be ‘bold,’ big enough to ‘unclog the financial markets’ but not unduly spook legislators who have felt the wrath of Main Street. Why do we often find such numbers so convincing, even while recognizing, if only tacitly, how arbitrary they are?” [editor’s note: The real questions should be: (1) why do we let people get away with this kind of deception? and (2) why does this number NOT “unduly spook legislators” (the late Sen. Dirksen’s quote also comes to mind here) - SAT] (10/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/46rtw3 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Almost unnoticed, Imam W.D. Mohammed died of heart disease and diabetes on Sept. 9 in his modest home in a Chicago suburb. His death received scant attention, which may have reflected Mohammed’s aversion to the spotlight, but it was hardly commensurate with his significance. Mohammed was one of the nation’s most influential Islamic clerics and strongest advocates of ecumenical unity, urging stronger links between Christians, Jews and Muslims. … What’s more, he was a potent influence on the African-American freedom movement, challenging the racial essentialism that rose during the Black Power era and transforming a black nationalist cult into a group advocating racial unity. Mohammed offered a model of reconciliation on two important fronts: Islamic piety with Western pluralism and U.S. patriotism with black activism.” (10/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/4zjkeq | | Report Bad Link |
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“It is sad to see both major parties agree to spend $700 billion of taxpayer money to bail out huge financial institutions that are notable for two characteristics: incompetence and greed. There is a much better solution to the financial crisis. But it would require discarding what has been conventional wisdom for too long: that government intervention in the economy (’big government’) must be avoided like the plague, because the ‘free market’ can be depended on to guide the economy toward growth and justice. Surely the sight of Wall Street begging for government aid is almost comic in light of its long devotion to a ‘free market’ unregulated by government.” [editor’s note: Sigh … Don’t ANY of these folks ever consider saying, “don’t SPEND the [alleged] money at all … just leave it in our own hands, or don’t print up more of it in the first place!”? - SAT] (10/08/08) http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081027/zinn | | Report Bad Link |
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“The Wall Street US$810 billion — and counting — bailout is being interpreted by millions of angry Americans as no less than a class struggle weapon of mass destruction. It may cost US taxpayers over $2 trillion after real interest payments are added. Whoever is elected will inherit this toxic mess — which includes the biggest fiscal and foreign deficits in US history and no control of monetary policy. Yes, this bailout is a second Iraq war.” (10/09./08) http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JJ10Ak01.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Both Barack Obama and John McCain are wrong about Afghanistan. It is not a ‘good’ fight against ‘terrorism,’ but a classic, 19th century colonial war to advance western geopolitical power into resource-rich Central Asia. The Pashtun Afghans who live there are ready to fight for another 100 years.” (10/09/08) http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20971.htm | | Report Bad Link |
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“The reviews are in, and the latest U.S. presidential debate, the ‘town hall’ from Nashville, Tenn., was a snore. One problem is that in a debate it is important for the debaters to actually disagree. Yet Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain substantively agree on many issues. That is one major reason that the debates should be open, and that major third-party or independent candidates should be included.” (10/09/08) http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081008_open_the_debates/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“After the bailout bill failed (both candidates voting in favor of it) and before it passed (both again in the affirmative), each candidate proposed his own ’sweetener’ to make it more palatable. Apparently they came up with this brilliant idea independently of each other. This amendment, they said, was designed to do something ‘for families.’ ‘Families,’ it seems, have been worried that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation only guarantees bank deposit accounts up to a hundred thousand dollars. Both candidates advocated raising the cap to a quarter million. … I was unaware that so many of my neighbors had so many accounts in excess of a hundred grand that their money was not adequately protected. But this is not the first time I have misread the public mood. I have foolishly spent my income on food and housing and transportation, rather than squirreling away so many hundreds of thousands of dollars that the banks cannot hold it all. My neighbors have apparently been more prudent, and they will be ‘reassured,’ they will have their ‘confidence restored’ in knowing that they can now receive insurance protection for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per account, thanks to the concern and attention and wisdom of candidates John McCain and Barack Obama.” (10/09/08) http://wiscassetnewspaper.maine.com/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“Our constitutional right to liberty is systematically being attacked by government agencies flanked by anti-competitive forces in the food industry. Nowhere, is this more obvious than on the raw milk issue. California Governor Arnold Swartzenegger [sic] recently vetoed SB201, a bill to preserve consumers rights to access farm fresh milk, while guaranteeing its safety.The Governor, who likely consumed raw dairy in his rise to stardom as a body builder, thwarted the freedoms of the over 40,000 raw milk devotees in his state. He ignored the will of the people in favor of the milk processors and the government regulators bent on crushing the raw dairy producers in their state — two of which are the most successful in the nation.” (10/09/08) http://counterpunch.org/hartke10082008.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“If the actions pursued by the Federal Reserve were being masterminded by Al-Qaeda, they would be denounced as acts of war. In World War II, such actions were deliberate acts of war. Targeting the economy for destruction by flooding the money supply with counterfeit currency is, by any measure, a threat to any nation.” (10/08/08) http://www.naturalnews.com/024432.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Barr left off the Louisiana ballot. Nice double-standard, there. Bob Barr is like Rodney Dangerfield: can’t get no respect. If you recall, I wrote about Mr Barr and his troubles in Texas, where he was the only candidate to meet the filing deadline to be included on the ballot for president.” (10/09/09) http://www.nolanchart.com/article5172.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“With the coming expiration of the Bush tax cuts, federal income taxes are about to increase sharply, and automatically. In fact, they will occur without action by Congress or the president, according to James Carter, an economist for the U.S. Senate, and James Miller, senior advisor at Husch Blackwell Sanders, LLP. Under conventional ‘current law’ accounting, when a tax cut expires, marginal tax rates are forced higher, but budget officials do not see this as a tax increase at all.” (10/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/474z4w | | Report Bad Link |
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“The Securities and Exchange Commission took the very drastic step of outlawing the essential financial practice of short selling in an attempt to galvanize financial markets. (The SEC recently extended at least some portions of its initial ban through October 17.) But short selling provides essential information to market participants and helps us update our expectations accordingly. By outlawing short selling, the SEC has eliminated a crucial element of what makes markets work.” (10/09/08) http://mises.org/story/3139 | | Report Bad Link |
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Fiscal discipline at all levels of society is answer to mortgage crisis
Heartland Institute by Sandy Liddy Bourne “As I write this, I have already lost more than $7,000 in my retirement accounts and $5,000 in my children’s education accounts due to the financial meltdown. It appears the bailout will cost me approximately $6,500 in additional taxes, and there appears to be no end in sight. This is rapidly becoming an extremely costly exercise, and although I am only adequately ed |