In the end this may be the Bush administration's most damning and lasting action.- Wednesday, April 22, 2009 -
So why not put it to music?
Now back to the previously scheduled TCS(less) hiatus....
- rob 4:31 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Yep I think it is safe to say this site is on a bit of a... hiatus.- Wednesday, March 11, 2009 -
But who knows, we may come back again in the future. In November, 2007 we pronounced this site dead, but by April of 2008 we were posting like mad again.
The site is just a little bit over 6 years old now (which is really old in blog years) and pre-dates the Iraq War.
That seems like so long ago.
This is post number 6,043. At the rate we are going this year post number 6,050 will be out when this site is 7 years old.
Take care and take it easy.
(yeah my other sites have been quiet to, but Static Sky will be updated shortly... no really)
- rob 2:05 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Conservative nut writer makes edits to Obama's Wiki page over and over and gets suspended.
Writer uses this as proof of Wiki bias.
Fox News picks up story.
Neither bother to report that the writer never admitted that he was the one got suspended, but identified the suspended person by his Wiki editing pseudonym.
Wired notices: Fox Claims Wikipedia Whitewashes Obama's Past
- rob 6:20 PM - [PermaLink] -
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A Timothy McVeigh wannabe.
America does have home grown terrorists too.
But they are white and conservative and for some reason the media likes to keep quite about them.
Report: Slain US Nazi hated Obama, had parts for "dirty bomb"Claim: Depleted uranium purchased over the Internet from an American companyTrust fund millionaire James G. Cummings, an American Nazi sympathizer from Maine who was slain by his wife Amber in December, allegedly had the radioactive components necessary to construct a "dirty bomb," a newly released threat analysis report states.
...
"Amber (Cummings) indicated James was very upset with Barack Obama being elected President," reported the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center (PDF link). "She indicated James had been in contact with 'white supremacist group(s).' Amber also indicated James mixed chemicals in the kitchen sink at their residence and had mentioned 'dirty bombs.'"
"Also found was literature on how to build 'dirty bombs' and information about cesium-137, strontium-90 and cobalt-60, radioactive materials," said the Bangor Daily. "The FBI report also stated there was evidence linking James Cummings to white supremacist groups. This would seem to confirm observations by local tradesmen who worked at the Cummings home that he was an ardent admirer of Adolf Hitler and had a collection of Nazi memorabilia around the house, including a prominently displayed flag with swastika. Cummings claimed to have pieces of Hitler’s personal silverware and place settings, painter Mike Robbins said a few days after the shooting."
- rob 6:16 PM - [PermaLink] -
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So when the insurance company asks you to pay their premium just say "well you are doing strong, why should I pay." So you don't pay and yet you are still covered.- Tuesday, March 10, 2009 -
Sounds stupid when you say it out loud.
And yet that is how the banks treated the FDIC, which is insurance. Why pay? I mean the FDIC is just the government of the American people, supported by the American tax payer, who cares about their required premium payments.
This is the danger of giving the banks our tax dollars. They think of that money as instantly theirs. And you, the taxpayer, do not factor into their thinking. Ever.
If they are insolvent nationalize them. Fire the board and wipe out the share holders.
Not nice I know... but it is just business.
The banks haven't shown mercy. Why does the government.
Now-needy FDIC collected little in premiums
With fund going strong, banks didn't pay for decadeThe Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures deposits up to $250,000, tried for years to get congressional authority to collect the premiums in case of a looming crisis. But Congress believed that the fund was so well-capitalized - and that bank failures were so infrequent - that there was no need to collect the premiums for a decade, according to banking officials and analysts.And yet again we find out that a Congress that only listens to the lobbiests and not common sense is patently worthless.
- rob 6:12 PM - [PermaLink] -
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How about a strategy of working to make America safer, strong, healthier, and more prosperous?
Or would that actually mean coming up with ideas?
Bah, let's just pout instead.
GOP Rep: “Our Goal Is To Bring Down Approval Numbers” For Dems
- rob 5:41 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Obama backs teacher merit pay, charter schoolsWASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama called for tying teachers' pay to students' performance and expanding innovative charter schools Tuesday, embracing ideas that have provoked hostility from members of teachers unions. He also suggested longer school days - and years - to help America's kids compete in the world.Good for Obama.
In his first big speech on education, Obama said the United States must drastically improve student achievement to regain lost international standing.
...
His solutions include teacher pay and charter school proposals that have met resistance among members of teachers unions, which constitute an important segment of the Democratic Party.
The status quo is no good. Throwing more money at school systems that don't work doesn't mean that they will suddenly work. Look at Washington D.C.'s public schools and you'll see some of the most money per kid being spent with little to show for it.
And the teachers are part of the problem. And, yes, their unions too. We have to improve school budgets and school management. But that won't to any good if we don't improve the teachers.
Here are some great presentations that you have to watch.
- rob 5:38 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Congressman: We’re Living in ‘Atlas Shrugged’Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.), who gives his departing interns copies of Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged,” told me today that the response to President Obama’s economic policies reminded him of what happened in the 52-year-old novel.Hedge funds, greedy banks, and "creative" financial firms do not create jobs.
“People are starting to feel like we’re living through the scenario that happened in ‘Atlas Shrugged,’” said Campbell. “The achievers, the people who create all the things that benefit the rest of us, are going on strike. I’m seeing, at a small level, a kind of protest from the people who create jobs, the people who create wealth, who are pulling back from their ambitions because they see how they’ll be punished for them.”
In Rand’s novel, creative people (the “Atlases” of the title) are hounded and punished for their labor by an oppressive, socialistic state. In response, they retreat from society to a hidden enclave where they watch civilization’s slow collapse.
They create paper. The wealth they made disappeared because nothing was there.
And bringing back taxes to the levels of the nineties is not some war against the wealthy, but rather a way to make a stable economy that allows more Americans to create and generate wealth. Real wealth.
Wealth from jobs, goods, and services. Not wealth made from a "insured derivative short" or whatever the "creative" financier is calling his new method of pushing paper.
Small business creates jobs. Entrepreneurs create jobs. Wall Street loans to the creative job generating folks. That is it.
The GOP seems to think Spielberg's agent directs his movies.
Oh and when we last had these outrageous taxes that stifled business? More businesses were created:
Maybe Campbell and his ilk should do us the favor of going into a cave.
- rob 5:26 PM - [PermaLink] -
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What we should be voting with:
Computer scientists deploy first practical, Web-based, secure, verifiable voting system
- rob 5:14 PM - [PermaLink] -
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‘Manchurian Candidate’ Starts War on Business: Kevin HassettMarch 9 (Bloomberg) -- Back in the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson gave us the War on Poverty. In the 1970s, Richard Nixon launched the War on Drugs. Now that we have seen President Barack Obama’s first-year legislative agenda, we know what kind of a war he intends to wage.Now you may ask how Obama could make the market begin to implode a year before he even became President (the recession started in December, 2007... Bear Sterns collapsed in March, 2008).
It is no wonder that markets are imploding around us. Obama is giving us the War on Business.
You may wonder how even though Obama didn't become President until January, 2009 he was able to effect the market so dramatically that Global Financial Assets Lost $50 Trillion in 2008.
But you'd wonder those things because you just don't get it. You just don't understand the business world like Kevin Hassett does.
He knows business. He knows the market.
Why his NYTimes bestseller explains it all:
Ahh yes the book that understood that markets always go up. Published in 1999 the book predicted the DOW would hit 36,000 in a few years.
Man. I don't know how he called it so well. Truly he is a financial genius, and if you don't understand how Obama made all of Bush's poor business decisions happen then you are a financial moron.
- rob 12:04 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Good: Obama Looks to Limit Impact of Tactic Bush Used to Sidestep New Laws- Friday, March 06, 2009 -WASHINGTON — Calling into question the legitimacy of all the signing statements that former President George W. Bush used to challenge new laws, President Obama ordered executive officials on Monday to consult with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. before relying on any of them to bypass a statute.Yesterday Obama also basically said that the US government likes and supports science.
It is the beginning of a new era indeed. Sad that the new era has to start at the bottom of the pit Bush put us in.
- rob 11:48 AM - [PermaLink] -
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Eeek!
Teh Awesome Depression is green.
BAD NEWS MARCHES ON.8.1 percent unemployment in February, the highest in 25 years. We're now at 4.4 million jobs lost.If you factor in the huge number of under-employed folks (recently laid off workers who are now doing temp work or any odd job they can find even if it pays a fraction of their previous salary) you realize what a truly scary we are living in.
It looks like 8 years of bad management really does have consequences.
- rob 5:50 PM - [PermaLink] -
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We constantly are hearing about the economy, and what Obama is doing and isn't doing (i.e. avoiding saying out load what everyone should know: AIG, the banks, and basically the entire financial sector is busted).- Thursday, March 05, 2009 -
But there are many things Obama is doing that will make the world a better place.
And he's been doing them everyday.
He'll do another one on Monday:
Obama to Lift Ban on Funding for Embryonic Stem Cell ResearchPresident Obama is planning to sign an executive order on Monday rolling back restrictions on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research, according to sources close to the issue.
Although the exact wording of the order has not been revealed, the White House plans an 11 a.m. ceremony to sign the order repealing one of the most controversial steps taken by his predecessor, fulfilling one of Obama's eagerly anticipated campaign promises.
- rob 5:43 PM - [PermaLink] -
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More of last night's teh awesome Stewart:
The storyline is beginning.
CNBC, Fox, and the Wall Street Journal (which is owned by the same company that owns Fox by the way) already are complaining. Obama chooses Main Street over Wall Street.
"You can't help Main Street unless you help Wall Street," they scream.
Ummm, here's the thing. Wall Street can't survive without Main Street, but Main Street can survive without Wall Street. The economy will hurt and growth will be slow, but businesses will survive and consumers will return.
Wall Street can't survive without Main Street. America's economy is driven by consumers and small business. Wall Street only exists to supply funds to allow for growth, and is not an end in itself. Main Street is.
Wall Street traders and financiers actually had begun to believe Wall Street was an end to itself. That market prices were entities that were not connected to physical companies. That moods on the floor had more importance then feet in the mall. That tooth faeries were real and over paid.
They lived and still live in a fantasy world where the believe they are all that matters.
And the millions out of work are sob stories for the nightly news and don't effect the economy.
They are the economy. And when they start doing better Wall Street will start doing better.
And only then.
Now Jim Cramer espouses caution. Too late guy, everyone who listed to you already is broke.
And how a recession that started in December, 2007 is now the fault of Obama who has been in the office for just a month is a mystery. A mystery only the high paid pundits of CNBC and Fox News can unravel for you.
- rob 10:20 PM - [PermaLink] -
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To sum up.
The banks are broke.
They have to be seized or we're just going to keep bleeding the treasury trying to prop them up.
Wells Fargo, BofA Loan Values Are a Scary SightMarch 5 (Bloomberg) -- The more the big banks lift their skirts, the scarier their dwindling capital starts to look.
Perhaps never before have so many banks’ balance sheets been so patently full of hot air. Bank of America Corp. last week disclosed that its loans at the end of 2008 were worth $44.6 billion less than what its balance sheet said. Wells Fargo & Co. said its loans were worth $14.2 billion less than their book value. The spread at SunTrust Banks Inc. was $13.7 billion.
Keep in mind: These are the banks’ own numbers. If there’s any bias in them, it’s bound to be on the side of optimism.
- rob 5:23 PM - [PermaLink] -
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How do you know when the TV is just broadcasting lies?
When it is tuned to Fox News.
oh, and on, yeah, it has to be on.
- rob 2:30 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Further proof that Obama just doesn't know what he is doing.
Obama picks Florida's Fugate to head FEMAWASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Wednesday tapped Florida emergency manager Craig Fugate to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency, turning to a Republican appointee who has steered the Southern state through numerous hurricanes since 2001.Sure it proves he's interested in working with the best no matter what the political affiliation.
But Fugate? Seriously.
"Heck of a job Fugaty"
Just doesn't sound right.
- rob 2:28 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Watch... it is teh awesome:- Wednesday, March 04, 2009 -
CNBC Gives Financial Advice | The Daily Show | Comedy Central
My favorite piece of that video is where Jim Cramer explains that even if the companies themselves are no good, buy the stocks cause the market goes up. That's what it does. It goes up. Seriously, he said that.
Here's a true story: A couple does a lot of financial consulting, etc. Small company, but does quite well. A few years ago they developed some risk assessment programs that they were selling to the likes of Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae didn't buy because the program didn't asses risk correctly. You see the program included the risk that housing prices may fall. The Fannie Mae executive pointed out that fallacy. "You see," he explained to the couple "home prices do not fall, so your program obviously doesn't understand risk." I know the couple. They are still amazed at that conversation, years later. But that executive at Fannie Mae wasn't alone in being idiotic and deluded. The entire market was.
When everyone is being stupid and making money, do you want to be the smart one? Well if you were the smart one you'd think you were sitting pretty right now, but if you were smart and worked in Wall Street your bonuses were probably smaller, so the dumb ones still are holding the cash. Pretty smart way of doing business there, Wall Street.
Now here's a tin foil hat moment. Rick Santelli is in his rant against helping out mortgage consumers called for a "Tea party in Chicago." Well the right wing picked up on that and last week had "tea parties" all over America. Of course the turn out was pathetic, but that is okay because since right wingers have better things to do that the act of getting even a few off the couch is equal to literally hundreds of liberals protesting. Because let's face it, liberals protest red lights on the way to work.
Well this spontaneous uprising by the angry tax mob may not have been so spontaneous: Rick Santelli Rant a Fraud?
- rob 1:48 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Watch to the end for the best coverage of CPAC 2009:
CPAC After Party | The Daily Show | Comedy Central
- rob 2:42 PM - [PermaLink] -
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More from Krugman: Failing the test - Paul Krugman BlogIt’s a depressing spectacle: on both sides of the Atlantic, policy-makers just keep falling short — and the odds that this slump really will turn into Great Depression II keep rising.Another prediction from me: Geithner will step down on May 12th to become a spokesperson for Intuit.
In Europe, leaders rejected pleas for a comprehensive rescue plan for troubled East European economies, promising instead to provide “case-by-case” support. That means a slow dribble of funds, with no chance of reversing the downward spiral.
...
On this side of the Atlantic, Tim Geithner seems committed to the view that banks should stay private even if they’re bankrupt, because — well, just because.
- rob 1:10 PM - [PermaLink] -
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The news and financial channels (not really the same thing are they) are filled with talking heads about how Obama is going about this the wrong way. How he is starting class warfare.
They are even pretending he started this somehow. By magic. Because he is so powerful that as soon as he won Iowa the world economy was under his spell.
These are the same people that cheered on the decisions that made this collapse happen.
They cheered on an obviously out of control market. They espoused the idea that home prices never fall.
And now we are supposed to be listening to them.
Heck you might as well listen to me.
1) The Dow Jones industrial average (please why not just say the Dow Jones Antiquated Industrial Age Average) will hit bottom on April 7, 2009.
2) Citibank and BofA will be seized and the share holders will be wiped out. All the bad assets will be put int a "bad bank" that the government will own while the other businesses will be split apart and sold separately. In the end there will be over a dozen publicly traded companies along with the bad bank owned by the government.
3) When the economy up ticks the assets in the bad bank will be sold at auction. Because the economic climate has improved the assets should net the government billions, and yet somehow all the monies will be paid to the auction house in administrative costs. The auction house will be a division of The Carlyle Group created just for this auction.
How do I know this? I don't. I just made it up.
So can I appear on CNBC yet?
Now for someone who actually knows of what he speaks:
Zombie financial ideas - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com
- rob 1:07 PM - [PermaLink] -
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When it comes to the Anthrax investigation, no tin foil is needed: Something is amiss.
Atrios over at Eschaton has pointed this out many times. The anthrax attacks are what really freaked America after the 9/11 attacks. It came right on the heels of the attack, and suddenly people in the rest of the nation felt unsafe (NYC and DC are far away in mind and body for much of America).
Yet now we hear that there have been no attacks since 9/11. But at the time the anthrax attacks were just another sign that terror and terrorists were everywhere and now a part of our every day life.
It was reported at first that they were weaponized anthrax spores from Iraq. Then from our own labs. Then after a few years the FBI said that they were definitely of amateur creation. And then they say a professional army research did it and killed himself. The FBI was happy to say "all done" even though I doubt anyone thinks they are.
Remembering the anthrax attackOne of the best and smartest members in the U.S. Congress, Rep. Rush Holt, has rejected the "look to the future - not the past" Orwellian mantra, at least when it comes to the highly consequential though still unresolved anthrax attack:Good.HOLT INTRODUCES ANTHRAX COMMISSION LEGISLATION
Bill Would Create 9/11 Commission-Style Panel to Investigate
Rep. Rush Holt (NJ-12) today introduced the Anthrax Attacks Investigation Act of 2009, legislation that would establish a Congressional commission to investigate the 2001 anthrax attacks and the federal government’s response to and investigation of the attacks. . . . Holt has consistently raised questions about the federal investigation into the attacks.
Make it happen. We need to know what happened. America deserves answers, we've just lived through 8 years of lies.
Wait, something is missing from this post....
Ahhh, there... now the post is done.
- rob 11:51 AM - [PermaLink] -
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You know, when you haven't posted to a blog for a while it is hard to get back in the rhythm of posting again.
So a friend suggested I start posting again with a video of a sleep-walking dog:
And now I'll pretend that video has some type of relevance to this site:
The sleeping dog represents the Washington media and today's GOP. They are asleep to the reality of the world situation so they just respond the way they always have.
And they end up looking like idiots with a sore head.
There. I posted something.
Happy now?
FYI, TCS(less) is almost 6 years old. I'll try to remember to post some type of "happy birthday" message when we get there.
- rob 11:35 AM - [PermaLink] -
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"To announce that there must be no criticism of the
president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is
not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the
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- Teddy Roosevelt
"Government has a final responsibility for the well-being of
its citizenship. If private cooperative endeavor fails to provide work
for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering
hardship from no fault of their own have a right to call upon the
Government for aid; and a government worthy of its name must make
fitting response."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions, but laws must and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
- Thomas Jefferson
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"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain
degree."
- James Madison
"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves."
- John F. Kennedy
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
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