from the New York Times
Over the last several years, America’s imbalances in trade and other global transactions have worsened dramatically, requiring the United States to borrow billions of dollars a day from abroad just to balance its books.
The only lasting way to fix the imbalances — and reduce that borrowing — is to increase America’s savings. But the administration has steadfastly rejected that responsible approach since it would require rolling back excessive tax cuts and engaging in government-led health care reform to rein in looming crushing costs — both, anathema to President Bush. It would also require revamping the nation’s tax incentives so that they create new savings by typical families, instead of new shelters for the existing wealth of affluent families — another nonstarter for this White House.
Stymied by what it won’t do, the administration has gone for a quicker fix — letting the dollar slide. A weaker dollar helps to ease the nation’s imbalances by making American exports more affordable, thus narrowing the trade deficit.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
More Republican "Boys Will Be Boys" in the News
Breaking News: Glenn Murphy Faces Criminal Deviate Conduct Investigation
Get the graphic stuff here ...
Ya gotta love his candor in his letter explaining why he's resigning his position as GOP Chair and YRNF Chair.
Here's Wonkette's take on it ... funny read. I should categorize this as humor.
Clark County GOP Chair and newly elected Young Republican National Federation Chair Glenn Murphy is under investigation for criminal deviate conduct, a Class B felony, for allegedly engaging in oral sex with a sleeping victim. This is not his first run-in with the law for this kind of offense.
Get the graphic stuff here ...
Ya gotta love his candor in his letter explaining why he's resigning his position as GOP Chair and YRNF Chair.
Here's Wonkette's take on it ... funny read. I should categorize this as humor.
(Kansas) State GOP forms loyalty committee
Tue, Jul. 31, 2007
Associated Press
Frankly, I like where the article goes on to compare the Republican party to Communist Party ... thought, I think the Nazi loyalty oaths and party membership rules and regulations would be a better analogy.
Associated Press
TOPEKA - The state Republican Party is forming a loyalty committee so that it can punish officers who endorse or contribute to Democrats.
The GOP's conservative-dominated state committee also is accusing a prominent moderate of trying to undermine the party's fundraising. It has adopted a resolution criticizing Steve Cloud, a Lenexa businessman and former legislator who represents Kansas on the Republican National Committee.
The state committee's anti-Cloud resolution and its decision to form the loyalty committee came as Republicans continue to feel the sting of election losses last year. Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius easily won a second term; Paul Morrison switched parties to win the attorney general's office as a Democrat; and Democrat Nancy Boyda ousted five-term Republican Rep. Jim Ryun in the 2nd Congressional District.
Before taking office in January, chairman Kris Kobach promised to reorganize and reinvigorate the Kansas GOP. He and other Republicans have said GOP activists need to show unity in elections so that Democrats don't take advantage of their disagreements.
"The motive behind this is, 'Let's make sure Republicans are supporting Republicans,' " said Christian Morgan, the state GOP's executive director. "If you want to hold a party post, you should at least be supporting Republican candidates."
Frankly, I like where the article goes on to compare the Republican party to Communist Party ... thought, I think the Nazi loyalty oaths and party membership rules and regulations would be a better analogy.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Calling in the markers
China threatens 'nuclear option' of dollar sales
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph
More to the story in the Telegraph ... a British paper, because you won't get the full story from a reliable source in domestic papers. You won't hear much about it on Fox Noise, either!
The Chinese have been buying our debt for some time now. That debt has financed the housing bubble and it has financed our elective war in Iraq.
Recently, I had questions about the situation and I expressed them in this blog. I commented on it here as well.
Now it appears we are faced with the prospect of the chickens coming home to roost. The so called conservatives, with their concern for flag burning amendments and gay marriage have not kept their eye on the ball. Things are getting economically dangerous. For twelve years they had control of Congress. It's not like this "perfect storm" was not foreseeable ... many people have been talking about it for several years now. The so called conservatives who had the power of the purse for twelve years, ending in the 2006 mid-term elections either didn't see it coming - which means they were incompetent or saw it coming and willfully did nothing ... which is worse. It's tantamount to treason.
Tax cuts for the rich and borrow, borrow, borrow to make up the difference. Now we're all going to be paying a price. Tax cuts and borrow for the war. Tax cuts and give away the budget surplus.
They've killed themselves as a political force for a generation or more into the future. All the years they struggled to gain the upper hand ... the power they had in the 1950s under Eisenhower and into the Nixon era ... and the best they could give us was Bush and their policy of spend and borrow!
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph
The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.
Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress. Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.
Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.
More to the story in the Telegraph ... a British paper, because you won't get the full story from a reliable source in domestic papers. You won't hear much about it on Fox Noise, either!
The Chinese have been buying our debt for some time now. That debt has financed the housing bubble and it has financed our elective war in Iraq.
Recently, I had questions about the situation and I expressed them in this blog. I commented on it here as well.
Now it appears we are faced with the prospect of the chickens coming home to roost. The so called conservatives, with their concern for flag burning amendments and gay marriage have not kept their eye on the ball. Things are getting economically dangerous. For twelve years they had control of Congress. It's not like this "perfect storm" was not foreseeable ... many people have been talking about it for several years now. The so called conservatives who had the power of the purse for twelve years, ending in the 2006 mid-term elections either didn't see it coming - which means they were incompetent or saw it coming and willfully did nothing ... which is worse. It's tantamount to treason.
Tax cuts for the rich and borrow, borrow, borrow to make up the difference. Now we're all going to be paying a price. Tax cuts and borrow for the war. Tax cuts and give away the budget surplus.
They've killed themselves as a political force for a generation or more into the future. All the years they struggled to gain the upper hand ... the power they had in the 1950s under Eisenhower and into the Nixon era ... and the best they could give us was Bush and their policy of spend and borrow!
Christian Right wants to scrap the American constitution
TV preacher Robertson targets Obama
Find Obama's good advice is here ... and so is Pat Robertson's thought that his imaginary friend is more real than anyone else's imaginary friend.
About a year ago, in a speech before a left-leaning religious group, Barack Obama delivered a fairly provocative speech urging progressives to do more to “acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people.” Last week, Obama chatted with TV preacher Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network and had some advice for the other side of the ideological spectrum.
Find Obama's good advice is here ... and so is Pat Robertson's thought that his imaginary friend is more real than anyone else's imaginary friend.
FOX News - Probing questions
Like - would a liberal rather burn the American flag or urinate on it?
Find out more here.
Read about the right wing's favorite forms of argument including the the faulty dilemma, right here.
"The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Sampson's time."
--- Richard Nixon
Another General who hates American and wants to see America loose
A veteran general hears echoes from Vietnam in Iraq
By Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers Mon Aug 6, 10:08 AM ET
Read more of this defeatist tripe here ...
What he says echoes what those dirty, pinko-commie hippies have been saying since this war began! That it looks like, smells like, walks like and talks like Viet Nam ... that the strategy won't work ... and that there's no military substitute for the required political solution. Traitorous clap-trap!
Besides, how can he possibly know what he's talking about compared the wealth of military experience our great leadership has accumulated at the top? Just compare the military records of a G.W.Bush or Dick Cheney or Carl Rove or Donald Rumsfeld! They've seen it all!
By Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers Mon Aug 6, 10:08 AM ET
WASHINGTON — Volney Warner thinks big. A retired Army four-star general who helped craft counterinsurgency doctrine during the Vietnam War, he's made a career out of thinking about how U.S. military strategy should advance America's global interests.
How does domestic politics shape military tactics? How and why did U.S. civilian and military leaders fail in Vietnam and Iraq ? What has Iraq taught the U.S. military about unconventional war?
Warner is more than a detached student of America's current conflicts: Seven of his immediate family members have served in the military, five of them in Iraq or Afghanistan . They include his two sons, one a retired brigadier general and the other a retired colonel; a son-in-law who trained local troops in Iraq as a brigadier general; a granddaughter who's a captain in the Army Reserve ; a grandson serving in Iraq and another grandson at West Point who'll be commissioned as an officer in June and probably ordered to a war zone immediately.
...
Iraq and Vietnam , he said, are both products of failed civilian and military leadership. Presidents John F. Kennedy and George W. Bush began with flawed aims and assumptions, and in both cases they produced military strategies that were doomed to fail.
"If the strategy is wrong and the policy is wrong, you can't blame the people implementing it. They are trying to implement a political strategy that won't work. It's very difficult to turn the train around," said Warner, who at 81 heads a defense consulting firm in McLean, Va . "I have to believe that military leaders in positions of trust and confidence may have made stupid decisions (in the course of fighting an insurgency), but never with malice aforethought towards the country that spawned them and certainly not with intent to destroy the lives of those soldiers who believed in them, trusted their decisions and carried out their orders to their deaths."
The flawed assumptions of Vietnam and Iraq are nearly mirror images of one another.
(emphasis added)
Read more of this defeatist tripe here ...
What he says echoes what those dirty, pinko-commie hippies have been saying since this war began! That it looks like, smells like, walks like and talks like Viet Nam ... that the strategy won't work ... and that there's no military substitute for the required political solution. Traitorous clap-trap!
Besides, how can he possibly know what he's talking about compared the wealth of military experience our great leadership has accumulated at the top? Just compare the military records of a G.W.Bush or Dick Cheney or Carl Rove or Donald Rumsfeld! They've seen it all!
Getting 'em while they're vulnerable
Scientologists Descend on Minneapolis Collapse Site
Church Says It's There to Help, but Critics See Ulterior Motives
By MARCUS BARAM
MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 3, 2007
They're ubiquitous at almost every disaster zone, assisting the wounded and consoling grieving families, from Ground Zero to Indonesia to New Orleans and now Minneapolis.
The Church of Scientology and its globetrotting team of volunteer ministers have been active over the last several years, arousing the ire of critics who read unholy motives into the group's charitable works.
Related Stories
Soon after Wednesday's bridge collapse, at least 20 Scientology volunteers in Minneapolis and surrounding areas headed to the disaster zone, according to a spokeswoman for the church.
More ...
We're Here to Help You
Spanish Colonial "padres" arrive to offer help
to Native Americans after European diseases
and military might reduce the Native population
by as much as 90%.
Church Says It's There to Help, but Critics See Ulterior Motives
By MARCUS BARAM
MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 3, 2007
They're ubiquitous at almost every disaster zone, assisting the wounded and consoling grieving families, from Ground Zero to Indonesia to New Orleans and now Minneapolis.
The Church of Scientology and its globetrotting team of volunteer ministers have been active over the last several years, arousing the ire of critics who read unholy motives into the group's charitable works.
Related Stories
Soon after Wednesday's bridge collapse, at least 20 Scientology volunteers in Minneapolis and surrounding areas headed to the disaster zone, according to a spokeswoman for the church.
More ...
We're Here to Help You
Spanish Colonial "padres" arrive to offer help
to Native Americans after European diseases
and military might reduce the Native population
by as much as 90%.
Guns, guns and more guns ... the obvious answer
A friend of mine, whom I dearly love, sent me the following (name withheld for the obvious reasons):
"......remember when the bullies ruled in school.... well there are still evil people in our society that will make you a beaten or dead victim in a heartbeat.....read on
Your Friend
By Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)
I responded this morning:
1.) This is not information. It IS opinion.
2.) Lets take it to an extreme. Anyone can have a gun in Iraq and most people do ... most people are armed to the teeth. Quieted the place right down, didn't it? Guns have lead to peace there, right? All those guns in circulation have gone a long way to ensuring a peaceful resolution of problems through reason as the opinion below seems to imply.
Quoting yesterday's Guardian: (British - because you won't hear much about it here) -
Stabilising Iraq! What an ironic title for the article! But the point is that unregulated weapons distribution (or ownership) does not lead in the direction the good Major Caudill (USMC Ret.) seems to think it would. Being a Major does not, in itself, make him right. After all, McClellan was a General who was replaced by Lincoln during the Civil War because he couldn't get anything right - and as a consequence, suffered a series of defeats. Being a General didn't make him right.
Guns don't kill people - unregulated guns in the hands of self-righteous people kill people.
The one time I had a gun shoved in my face (I got mugged), it is my opinion and with a high degree of certainty that if I had a gun and attempted to use it, I'd be dead. He had his pistol out when he approached me from out of my line of vision. He also had two friends with him (who may or may not have been equally well armed). I would have been shot before I could have brought a weapon into any kind of useful firing position. That I didn't have a gun removed my temptation to escalate an already uncontrollable situation from critical to lethal.
However, current interpretations of the Constitution (which completely ignore the "well regulated militia" clause in favor of unregulated personal weapon ownership) have it that you can own your weapons - and, until the laws and/or their interpretation change, you're welcome to it/them. However, if I were you, I would be constantly vigilant - carrying them exposed and in a firing position, pointing them in the direction of anyone who arouses your sense of fear - because, if they get the drop on you first, having a dozen firearms on your person - even of a significantly larger caliber - won't help you. On the other hand, recognizing that you've just lost control of the situation just might. It got me out of the danger I was in at the cost of my wallet ... a small price to pay in light of the fact that it could as easily been my life.
J
"......remember when the bullies ruled in school.... well there are still evil people in our society that will make you a beaten or dead victim in a heartbeat.....read on
Your Friend
By Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat--it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.
Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.
When I carry a gun, I don't do s o because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation...and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.
I responded this morning:
1.) This is not information. It IS opinion.
2.) Lets take it to an extreme. Anyone can have a gun in Iraq and most people do ... most people are armed to the teeth. Quieted the place right down, didn't it? Guns have lead to peace there, right? All those guns in circulation have gone a long way to ensuring a peaceful resolution of problems through reason as the opinion below seems to imply.
Quoting yesterday's Guardian: (British - because you won't hear much about it here) -
The US has lost about 190,000 weapons issued to Iraqi security
forces since the 2003 invasion, according to an official report
published in Washington.
The weapons include AK-47 machine guns, pistols, body armour and
helmets, some of which will have ended up in the hands of insurgents.
The disclosure adds to the picture of the chaotic and clumsy
administration of Iraq that has been emerging over the last four years.
The report, by the Government Accounting Office, which sent its
report to Congress last week, found an alarming 30% gap between the
number of weapons issued to Iraqi forces and records held by US
forces in Iraq. No one in the Bush administration knows what
happened to the weapons or where they are now.
The 20-page report is entitled Stabilising Iraq: department of
defence cannot ensure that US-funded equipment has reached Iraqi
security forces. It says that the Pentagon and the multinational
force in Iraq responsible for training "cannot fully account for
about 110,000 AK-47 rifles, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body
armour and 115,000 helmets reported as issued to Iraqi forces as of
September 22, 2005."
Stabilising Iraq! What an ironic title for the article! But the point is that unregulated weapons distribution (or ownership) does not lead in the direction the good Major Caudill (USMC Ret.) seems to think it would. Being a Major does not, in itself, make him right. After all, McClellan was a General who was replaced by Lincoln during the Civil War because he couldn't get anything right - and as a consequence, suffered a series of defeats. Being a General didn't make him right.
Guns don't kill people - unregulated guns in the hands of self-righteous people kill people.
The one time I had a gun shoved in my face (I got mugged), it is my opinion and with a high degree of certainty that if I had a gun and attempted to use it, I'd be dead. He had his pistol out when he approached me from out of my line of vision. He also had two friends with him (who may or may not have been equally well armed). I would have been shot before I could have brought a weapon into any kind of useful firing position. That I didn't have a gun removed my temptation to escalate an already uncontrollable situation from critical to lethal.
However, current interpretations of the Constitution (which completely ignore the "well regulated militia" clause in favor of unregulated personal weapon ownership) have it that you can own your weapons - and, until the laws and/or their interpretation change, you're welcome to it/them. However, if I were you, I would be constantly vigilant - carrying them exposed and in a firing position, pointing them in the direction of anyone who arouses your sense of fear - because, if they get the drop on you first, having a dozen firearms on your person - even of a significantly larger caliber - won't help you. On the other hand, recognizing that you've just lost control of the situation just might. It got me out of the danger I was in at the cost of my wallet ... a small price to pay in light of the fact that it could as easily been my life.
J
Monday, August 06, 2007
Gingrich Becomes an Amarica Hating Hippy
Newt quotes from a recent conference for right-wing, patriotic, all-American college conservatives:
As a mater of fact, weren't they labeled "left-leaning, commie-pinko, Marxist-Leninist, socialist Democrats who hate American and want to see American loose" SPECIFICALLY for saying those things?
I'm confused!
According to Wonkette, "Gingrich also refused to name his favored candidate for the Republican nomination, and continued to pimp his dorkily named Websites, www.winningthefuture.net and www.americansolutions.com. Many observers feel that this more groundwork-laying for a potential presidential campaign, but we suspect that it’s all part of an elaborate play for Dennis Kucinich’s wife."
- “We’ve been engaged in a phony war.”
- “None of you should believe we are winning this war. There is no evidence that we are winning this war.”
- [Republicans] "... were in charge for six years … I don’t think you can look and say that was a great success.”
- “First of all, we have to have a national energy strategy, which basically says to the Saudis, ‘We’re not going to rely on you.’”
As a mater of fact, weren't they labeled "left-leaning, commie-pinko, Marxist-Leninist, socialist Democrats who hate American and want to see American loose" SPECIFICALLY for saying those things?
I'm confused!
According to Wonkette, "Gingrich also refused to name his favored candidate for the Republican nomination, and continued to pimp his dorkily named Websites, www.winningthefuture.net and www.americansolutions.com. Many observers feel that this more groundwork-laying for a potential presidential campaign, but we suspect that it’s all part of an elaborate play for Dennis Kucinich’s wife."
This is the question
The popular question used to be "is it real or is it Memorex". In this protracted political season, the question morphs into "is it real or is it a parody?"
Lying Liberals, Rotten RINOS, and the MSM they support
To my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Christian Republican friends and supporters of this ministry,
Words cannot express how shocked, saddened, and distressed I am right now. The blatant efforts on behalf of RINOS and the MSM to destroy this ministries support of and belief in Sam Brownback is simply beyond belief, I had no idea that people could be so cruel and vindictive. All of my life, I have gone above and beyond to show nothing but love and compassion for my fellow man. In return, I have been treated like a lowlife criminal. If loving the Lord and wanting the best for my country makes me a criminal then I plead guilty.
For a fun time, click here ...
Oh, yeah ... and about that tax exempt status?
Lying Liberals, Rotten RINOS, and the MSM they support
To my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Christian Republican friends and supporters of this ministry,
Words cannot express how shocked, saddened, and distressed I am right now. The blatant efforts on behalf of RINOS and the MSM to destroy this ministries support of and belief in Sam Brownback is simply beyond belief, I had no idea that people could be so cruel and vindictive. All of my life, I have gone above and beyond to show nothing but love and compassion for my fellow man. In return, I have been treated like a lowlife criminal. If loving the Lord and wanting the best for my country makes me a criminal then I plead guilty.
For a fun time, click here ...
Oh, yeah ... and about that tax exempt status?
Immigration Issues and Racism
It's reasonable to want immigration and border traffic to proceed in an orderly, safe, and legal manner, but whatever reasonable points might be made about this have long been lost in the din of anti-immigration hysteria. One might wonder what it is about immigration that would lead to such hysteria, but the reason soon presents itself once we realize that all the attention is directed south rather than north: that's where all the brown people are.
The rest is here ...
The rest is here ...
Today's Quote
"Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read." - Frank Zappa
I'm thinking rock journalism has expanded its horizons since Frank said that. From what I've seen of the media lately, all journalism is now rock journalism.
I'm thinking rock journalism has expanded its horizons since Frank said that. From what I've seen of the media lately, all journalism is now rock journalism.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Albert Einstein
"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)