Monday, October 13, 2008

The Market is Surging this Morning.

The markets are up this morning after the weekend news that governments around the world had acted to "rescue" their banking systems. Let us hope that the market bottom was hit last Friday because its no secret, to work properly, socialism needs lots and lots of money. One populist tendency we're seeing recently is the political pandering to class warfare. We must be careful not to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

stolen from Rush Limbaugh.

According to Barack Obama, 95% of the American Taxpayers will get a tax cut under his plan. He says that no one making under $250,000 per year will see their taxes increase.

It seems to me that those numbers, like much else about Obama, have been very "fluid" lately. I don't believe that I have ever seen a Presidential candidate get away with so much obfuscation about his past or his political agenda. Getting a straight answer about his past political and religious associations with the likes of Ayres, and Wright has been an exercise in frustation. For nearly two years, the media has reported that Obama was a community organizer. Until recently, there was no explanation of what a community organizer did or who Obama worked for. Even now, in regard to the subprime meltdown, you hear very little about Obama's efforts on behalf of ACORN. Obama says that he may be the most scrutinized candidate in US history. If that is the case, the MSM has been constitutionally negligent in their Obama whitewash. What about Obama's ties to the socialist New Party? The MSM won't go near it nor have they published one investigative story on the education reform which Obama and Ayres were carrying out in Chicago. But why would the media tells us the truth about that, when they neglect to report on Obama's prevarications and contradictions regarding his past? Maybe it's because the MSM fear that if Main Stream America learns the truth about Obama, there's no way in hell they will elect him to be the next President.

Remember, the most important things this election are "hope and change." Keep hope alive!

150 comments:

  1. How does the FICA tax spread, across Federal revenues and the population base?

    It is also an income tax, it is not progressive, a flat tax.

    About 15% of the income of 95% of the citizenry.

    There is no lock box, those tax reciepts are part of the General Fund. Lets not skew the bookkeeping, with the Federal's marketing semantics.

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  2. Rick Davis, he doesn't work for a salary, so he's amongst those exempt from paying that 15%.

    He and the other unemployeed.

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  3. I dont want change...

    I want DOLLARS....

    Now let me get this straight...

    the world's stock markets have all "corrected"

    much of the run up in the market in the last 10 years was the reinvestment of american money sent back from china and opec into our (and other) markets


    so did not our parasite like enemies just LOOSE a ton of cash?

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  4. Success of US policies in Iraq Lead to Homeland Solutions

    25Jan2009 - The success of the payoff has become evident, it has become an accepted tool of the US Government, at home and abroad.

    To keep radical militants calm and off the streets Federal operatives are spreading that universal lubricant - the bakeesh.

    Citing success stories from Iraq and his home town of Chicago, President Obama signed the $150 Billion USD "Stimulous Package" aimed at shoring up minority homeowners and their communities.

    This on top of the $700 billion USD Bank Nationalization Fund, set up by Mr Bush and Mr Paulson.

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  5. No, wi"o" they have not lost a dime, not if they did not sell.

    Now they will buying, at depressed prices. The Chinese do have nearly $11 trillion in foreign exchange they could invest, at bargain basement prices.
    In collusion with corporate media, GE, Sony, Mickey Mouse.

    Average unit pricing, if the Sauds and the Chinese step in, they'll profit quite well, on US workers, in a global enviorment.

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  6. Sell those US Treasuries and buy US equities. Or leverage them @ 30:1 at the Federal Reserve.

    A debt for asset swap.

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  7. The Chinese and the Sauds, they do not have to mark their assets to market.

    They have not booked a loss.

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  8. Treasury is doing a news conference now on the new plan to rescue us. You will be relieved that they are paying special attention to make sure that companies that contract with the government to administer the program must have an affirmative action plan for sub-contractors that are woman owned and minority owned.

    I kid you not.

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  9. If that does not tank the market, there really will be a rebound.

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  10. We are watching the creation of the financial equivalence of the TSA.

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  11. What did you expect, duece?

    I mean, really ...

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  12. I must admit, I did not expect on the morning of the announcement, when the entire world is looking at what the US will be doing to stop the financial meltdown, created by the US Government, that the official statement would include a statement on affirmative action compliance.

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  13. They all need to be out against the wall.

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  14. the new face of America. Where the majority becomes the down-trodden.

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  15. There's a lot of grain, and other stuff sitting on docks in the U.S. and Canada with nowhere to go. The shippers don't trust the Bank "Lines of Credit" of the Receivers, and won't let it get on ships.

    Even if we shore up the G-7 Banks the banks in the "Stans," S. America, and SE Asia going down could still be a hell of a mess.

    European exchanges are "screaming," and all the drifting dollars are heading over there. Rallying here, off of that surge, without driving up the dollar would be great. We want to get that stuff off the docks, folks. It's really important that we keep trade "flowing." Really Important.

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  16. I don't have to scratch my head about the numbers. I know under Obama I'll be paying more, like a good patriot.

    One way or another.

    Probably both.

    ------

    What I want to see about this financial crisis is whether reduced home values are reflected in the taxes on my home. As they are supposed to be under the Idaho code.

    It just never seems to happen.

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  17. The American thing to do is to figure out a way to make money from other's misery. I'm thinking.

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  18. Duece, it takes a deviant mind to think in those terms. One that wakes up every morning scheming to put the royal screw to someone while profiting at the same time.

    I don't think you have it in you.

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  19. Try this one, deuce---


    One thing that happened around here lately, on homes, was an idea to tax the concrete on your driveway.

    Yes, and your sidewalk, and patio too.

    If this sounds absurd, it is.

    The idea is that rains falls on the concrete, runs off into the sewage system, to the treatment plant. Where they need money.

    So, a tax on square feet of concrete around your home has been conjured out of the thin air.

    This raised much hell in the paper, of course. Because the people here aren't rich. And don't much like the idea.

    What I'm trying to figure out is whether the rain water that goes into the storm system ends up at the same place as your turds, in the sanitary system.

    As of yet, I am uncertain of the answer. It didn't in Moscow, where the storm water went into the creek.

    Though things have been changed since those days, so it may.

    This at a time when a political flyer I have in front on me shows how much more money some of the people in 'government' are getting, than a year or so ago.

    I'm going to vote for the guy whose name is on this flyer.

    Though my wife won't, cause she is voting back in Ohio.

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  20. Begala:
    Bringing up Ayers is “incindiary”
    …partnering with an unrepentent Domestic Terrorist who murdered US Citizens is just fine, thank, you.

    …as is indoctrinating students to Hate America.

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  21. For the last 85 years or so, ever since concrete came to Idaho, we have never had a tax on the square footage of concrete around your home, as a rain water adder, polluter, whatever.

    Around here, we don't even have any rain, Lewiston is very dry, unlike up in the higher country around Moscow.

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  22. Whoever 'brought up' Ayers must have been an '
    incendiary', Doug, cause he blew stuff up.

    His mama must have brought him up that way.

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  23. Ayers is a 'professor', Doug.

    You got to talk about him with respect.

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  24. Yes, the markets are surging and all it took was several trillions of dollars, the nationalization of the British Banking System, nationalization of Wall Street, etc.

    This is the parental equivalent of, “Mommy come wipe me, I'm done"

    It has also done just about all the groundwork and heavy earthmoving work Obama would have had to do to socialize the USA.

    Now corporations and individuals alike know that profits will remain privatized though much more heavily taxed, (I’m talking16 percent inflation, 22 percent interest rates, and 70 percent marginal tax rates, except this time they will go even higher) and that failures will be covered by the socialist redistribution of assets. It's every bit as good a David Copperfield Vegas Magic show.

    But what could be sweeter for the uneducated. Dump the US Constitution because it is old and their excuse they’ve never read it, nor know anything about it, just that it’s old. AND dump capitalism because they are arrested adolescence who similarly don’t know that socialism vis a vis capitalism has failed everywhere on Earth it has been tried.

    Dylan said it years ago, “And don’t criticize what you can’t understand”

    It should also be noted that this is a secular bear market. Just give that a read.

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  25. I'm Professor Bob, and I demand you talk about me with respect.

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  26. Habu, what in the hell is an 'Obama Supreme Court' going to look like?

    I'm going back to bed, because I'm starting to have a waking nightmare.

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  27. Funny, LaBob:
    I wrote a paper about concrete and pavement re: runoff, for my Environmental Science, or whatever it was called, for Norman Sanders, SI's front covered "New Breed of Environmentalis" ...and future Member of Parliment in Aussieland.

    ...Also wrote about the SST (Supersonic Transport)
    "causing Global Warming."

    IN NINETEEN SEVENTY!

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  28. "Environmentalist"

    Mentalists Against Global Warming.

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  29. Mayor Daly says you should all buy Catchment Barrels for your home's runoff, LaBob.

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  30. Krugman Wins Economics Nobel

    Paul Krugman, a professor at Princeton and a columnist for The Times, won for his work on global trade patterns.
    ---
    My Favorite (unread) Communist, er, Columnist.

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  31. Nate Hagens, at the Oil Drum:

    “ The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”

    -- Cicero , 55 B.C.

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  32. No comparison whatsoever, Rufus:
    That was before the
    End of History.

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  33. Traditional lightbulbs banned by EU

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  34. Wish some economists would examine the carburbia economic model.

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  35. "The main fresh impression I had amidst all this is how over it is. The glowing smear of auto-oriented commerce along I-94 (visible from space, no doubt) had the look of being finished twenty minutes ago. Beyond the glowing logos lay the brand new residential subdivisions full of houses that now may never be sold, put up by a home-building industry in such awful trouble that it may soon cease to exist. If suburbia was the Great Work of the American ethos, then our work is done. We perfected it, we completed it, and, like a brand new car five minutes after delivery, it has already lost much of its value."

    .
    .
    http://www.kunstler.com/mags_diary19.html
    .
    .

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  36. The EU has essentially usurped the lead on the financial restructuring. The US has to follow or exceed in terms and policy or arbitragers will force US banks to match policy or die.

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  37. Interesting thing another commenter mentioned: They didn't heed Cicero's advice, and had another 500 years of Brilliance.

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  38. Or 3 or 4 hundred, or whatever it was.

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  39. Congratulations to Paul Krugman. You can read all about it at marginalrevolution.com.

    The economic downturn *is* sweeping my daughter into grad school in Chicago. Keeping my son from enlisting right out of high school is now the big challenge.

    The McCain campaign is in full disarray. The Obama presidency: Live it, love it, learn it.

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  40. BUT, not as a "Republic," another commentor pointed out. Turns out Cicero did a LOT of talking, and changing sides, and politicking, and what-not. Anyhoo, along about 49 BC they cut off his head, and over the next few years Rome slipped back into an "Imperial" Government.

    Turns out Rome never had a "written" Constitution. Kind of a "living" constitution, if you will. hmmm

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  41. (Actually, the *immediate* challenge is interposing between him and any number of young Colombian ladies until we can have him safely packed off to the States again. Whoever said girls are the bigger worry?)

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  42. Yeah congratulations Paul Krugman, you're right up there with Jimmy Carter and Yassir Arafat and Al Gore now.

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  43. Re US and neoimperialism:

    We're never gonna be Luxembourg.

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  44. Find him a nice, well-built girl from a wealthy, land-owning family and get him married off, Trish. When that big Iceberg comes sliding down from the North Colombia will be some of, if not the, prime real estate in the world.

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  45. I believe you're referring to the Peace Prize.

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  46. Find him a nice, well-built girl from a wealthy, land-owning family and get him married off, Trish.

    - rufus

    That would be just about all of them in our neighborhood. Now you can appreciate the nature of the challenge.

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  47. Interesting questions I have that I don't think anyone can answer.

    Before the huge government dollar influx into private companies to "save" them from their own bad judgment we had a quasi capitalist economy. Brokers, Certified Financial Managers (CFA's) and Certified Financial Managers (CFM's) learned their profession and made their predictions predicated on hundreds of years of capitalist data and operation. The "free" markets produced that data.
    Now I sit here listening to the "experts" make their predictions based on that data and that history. But the paradigm has change, and not in an insignificant way. It is akin to driving the mountain road you did a thousand times as a kid, you moved away, returned home and suddenly missed the new curve in the road and suddenly you're over the cliff.

    So how relevant is the old data to the new paradigm?
    How good will it be when the auto industry and the entire medical delivery system is nationalized from the time you sign in for your five month wait to the pill you take, should you survive the process?

    Under the "capitalist system" at least we had data relating to that system. We no longer have that data to fall back on, consequently anything you here from the "experts" is simply, more than at any time, a guess.

    This coupled with what use to be defined as a secular bear market (now moving into guessing territory) means that we truly have no idea what to expect, how to plan, or operate in the new paradigm.

    Usually significant changes in the sociology or economics of a nation take decades to take hold......unless they are accelerated by the removal of those who do not “see” the new way. Lenin and Stalin being prime examples of men who attempted to accelerate the process. Most historians place their murderous ways in the tens of millions.

    I wonder, with our demographics will the acceleration come at the expense of an ever increasingly aged and feeble Boomer generation? Will it come by reducing them and increasing immigration from the Islamic and third world with it’s youth and vigor? Forget about the fact they couldn’t be a hundredth as productive as the Boomer, we’re in a socialist environment so productivity is measured differently.

    I feel quite certain of one thing. Bad has already been here, worst is about to arrive.

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  48. bobal,

    Obama’s Supreme Court.

    13 or 19 judges, all socialists and communists under 30 years old.

    2 new Chief Justices.

    All US Attorney's fired and replaced with the same cookie cutter socialist/communist resume.

    All Appellate Courts ditto.

    They will go after the US Constitution, rewriting it from the bench via cases brought by the Solicitor General. After two years it will not contain the safeguards it does now nor the trenchant thought given to it at its inception. It will be the "Communist Manifesto"

    In order to do this he will have to go after private ownership of guns first and that is where the shooting revolution begins anew.

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  49. History and the Market


    http://online.wsj.com/article/
    SB122368241652024977.html

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  50. (Smile.) I know what you're thinking.

    But he's just seventeen, for crying out loud.

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  51. Ah yes, 17, that Difficult age.

    Old enough to go to war - but, not old enough for Colombian girls.

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  52. He's still just a boy, rufus. Among an awful lot of natively talented, phenomenally well-heeled salsa dancers. Who are themselves just girls.

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  53. I get yer point.

    Needless to say, I will not share it with him.

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  54. Yeah, I see what you mean. It's just hard to imagine a worse situation than that.

    jes horrible


    horrible

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  55. Trish: I believe you're referring to the Peace Prize.

    It is naive to believe that the Nobel Prize folks compartmentalize their politics to just the Peace Prize side of the house. Dictators, dictator-lovers, redistributionist economists and priests of the global warming religion get equal recognition.

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  56. Thanks for the lecture.

    You might be interested in Krugman's work on location theory and economic geography. Again, I refer you to marginalrevolition.com.

    Might get a tentative handle on his academic work that way.

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  57. No, Ayn Rand would agree.

    But that's why Ayn Rand chose to focus on fundamental principles.

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  58. For a while I was all about Sarah but that was just a fleeting crush ;-) not like bobal's abiding flame. When McCain went back to the Senate and layered $140 billion dollars of frosting on that $700 billion dollar taxpayer cake, that was the last straw. I ain't helping any socialists replace Comrade Bush. So it's Bob Barr. Sure he ain't gonna win, Obama is, but I won't support my own destroyer.

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  59. Trish,

    Thank you for the reference to the WSJ article on the history of the market. It was as good as the others I have read over the past fifteen years.

    It did not however touch on my questions.

    That was a history of what was, we are entering a history whose entire substructure will be different from that which has preceded it. The old data is useless for forecasting, in the manner that is done today, what will happen. Advice given today and in the future of an ever increasing socialist US government controlling the major industries does not serve us; given its predicate was built on another system entirely.

    Perhaps you can refer me to an article that outlines what the almost immediate transition from a market economy to a socialist economy might look and perform like. I would certainly appreciate it.

    Perhaps the most illuminating paragraph is that of Professor Shiller's:

    "The professor's reluctance to make a formal forecast should steer us all away from what we cannot possibly know for certain -- the future -- and toward the few things investors can be confident about at this very moment."

    That would be a wonderful idea if time stopped and we knew “at this very moment” what would happen when time starts again. But time is as relentless as gravity and doesn’t allow us the pleasure of stopping it so that we can know “the moment”, for the moment is gone and immediately becomes “the history”

    Well what we know is that the 1932 laments of the markets were caused by the attempted socialization of many aspects of our market by FDR. Few economists argue that today. FDR prolonged the Depression by at least a decade.

    But we are still left with the question of an entirely new economic paradigm thrust upon us within a matter of months. The professor's today truly don't even have a light to guide their feet to the experience of the past since it is not relevant anyway.

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  60. "It did not however touch on my questions."

    It wasn't meant to.

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  61. Trish,

    Then somehow I missed the point of you sending it to me.

    If it didn't touch on my questions what relevence did it have to addressing them?

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  62. Doug

    Runoff---all the new projects around here having have small settling ponds now for the runoff.

    Some of them quite pretty, with cattails, flowers,etc

    Nothing wrong with it.

    This new tax though that is mentioned makes no sense.

    Most of the runoff in town comes from the streets, and a few of the big parking lots, not the homes, and their driveways.

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  63. Here is an example of British immediacy in turning the govenrment loose: WSJ

    Prime Minister Gordon Brown pulled few punches. In return for recapitalizing much of the British banking industry, he took control of a few leading institutions. Royal Bank of Scotland's chairman and chief executive are out. And U.K. banks are about to increase Tier-1 capital to 9% or higher, a level not seen in many years.

    Crucially, the government, by virtue of its significant stakes in Royal Bank of Scotland and in the new Lloyds TSB-HBOS combination, will control future capital allocation at two of the country's biggest lenders. The government has made it clear the banks' priorities will be lending to British households and small business rather than investment banking and overseas expansion

    That was just a part of the article but I believe one can easily see how quickly a maximum leader with the socialist tools can reorder the entire way business are run. Paulson now has that ability.

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  64. Trish,

    Pardon my intrusion and comment.

    I hope you can see how easily I might have erred since it followed by only two minutes my comment and as far as I can see had no relation to any of your other conversations given that you had been taking about a young lad and his prospects with certain women. But perhaps those go together.

    I guess it was just a coincidence.

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  65. Lying: Deception in Human Affairs by Bernard N. ...

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  66. A week or so after the Pope pronounced money 'worthless'
    the Vatican announces that money in It's Bank is safe.

    The opportunities for a little fun at these two statements are so obvious, I'll pass.

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  67. An Obama Panic?

    That's what I was thinking, but they have gained a lot back.

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  68. Habu,

    Your question reside upon mistaken assumptions - that we have experienced free markets to date and that the US has not intervened in the past.

    Stratfor had an article on just this topic not long ago titled:

    U.S.: Market Intervention -- A Far From Unprecedented Move

    http://www.stratfor.com/memberships/124028/analysis/20080919_u_s_market_intervention_far_unprecedented_move

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  69. Bob,
    The problem, as you're no doubt aware, stems from the old practice of constructing combined sewerage facilities, storm runoff dumped into sanitary sewers. The problem and the solutions have been recognized for fifty years or more, e.g., Doug's enviro-science project paper.

    I suspect your town's engineers pled their case to the city fathers decades ago, and were overruled during the budget hearings. I can hear them now, muttering as they left the chambers, "...pay for it now, or pay for it later..."

    Later is now, and who's got the deep pockets? You're not alone in Lewiston. Look up Chicago's "Deep Tunnel" solution. That one boggles the mind. But then, it's in Chicago.

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  70. Bob, you and I are paying for that hole in Chicago. Same as we're paying for the hole in Boston.

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  71. Udall, Begich andd Shaheen seem to be ahead in their Senate races. A disappointment.

    I'm not believing that Obama is up 7 or even 10 points in some of the presidentials polls.

    Can't trust the MSM, can't trust the polls, can't trust the banks, who can you trust.

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  72. "The government has made it clear the banks' priorities will be lending to British households and small business rather than investment banking and overseas expansion

    That has to be music to the ears of nations who have aggressive oversees investment banking and expansionist ideas...China...India...there lining up as Gordon Brown dictator opens the door for them to become even more dynamic in the global economy….oh they'll still be quasi capitalist but world vacuums don't languish on the shelf very long.

    Now if we happen to follow, and it's likely we will, then in five years or less we will be a second rate power, on the order of France. We'll have nukes we'll never use, a much smaller armed force and smiling homeowners watching plasma TV's bought with money they didn't earn. Soon no one will produce at any level worth mentioning because all incentive to do so will be gone.
    The trillions we've printed and printed will come back at us with Zimbabwe like ferocity and inflation will drive us to being a third world country. Billion dollar Big Macs.

    Buy the bright side is we'll be a third world country with nukes that we can sell to terrorists who won't hate us anymore because their guys in the WH and we've been taken down. But the coup de grace is always....come on people...is....you have to kill off those who once held the reigns of power....the white folks which coincides nicely with Farrakhan’s philosophy he can discuss at the WH dinners with the Big "O".

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  73. Quess I ought to call city hall and find out so I know what I'm talking about. That always helps. You'd think they'd be togeher now, with the EPA and all. What I don't understand is why the issue of adding a charge to the monthyly water bill comes along now.

    Back in the day, some of the smaller towns around, St. Maries comes to mind, just dumped everything into the river. The St. Maries River in that case.

    Finally cleaned it up, with some Federal help no doubt.

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  74. http://www.youtube.com/
    watch?v=rTbu9OUddE4

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  75. You'd think they'd be togeher now, with the EPA and all. What I don't understand is why the issue of adding a charge to the monthyly water bill comes along now.

    You answered your own question. EPA's enforcing the Clean Water Act. It will only get better. Trust them.

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  76. If the economy really tanks under Obama, and it's hard to see how it is going to prosper, who will be blamed? It will be hard in a year or two to blame Bush. But maybe a new term will be invented, like 'lingering malaise' or something.

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  77. Ash,
    I'd read the article but nothing is "free" and I'm not signing uo for another free trial that takes an eternity to get out of.

    Copy it to the blog and I'll read it. Other wise I'm staying with my knowledge because I know we've never been here before. The closest we might have come was during FDR's administrations but they do not fit the para digm we are in now...no one has ever had Paulson power to dictate our markets or whatever we end up calling them. They certainly aren't free markets in the sense ,say just last year, where you took a risk and you either won or lost or perhaps broke even.

    Nope not now.

    PS. Don't copy it to here you'll be in violation of copywrite and intellectualproperty laws and I don't thing that would be much help to you.

    Somehow I'll geyt to it. Thanks

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  78. EPA's enforcing the Clean Water Act.

    That's probably it, though they might do better watching Potlatch Corporation closer, instead of my driveway.

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  79. Can't trust the MSM, can't trust the polls, can't trust the banks, who can you trust.

    Ask rat.

    Or seek the answer along your favorite trout stream, miles off the beaten path. As I would like to do. When the going gets tough, the tough go fishin'. owtte

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  80. Obama wants to have the women sign up with Selective Service. I wonder if this is well known to the younger women.

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  81. bobal,

    There use to be an old question about taking all the money in the US and distributing it equally among the population. What would the money distribution look like afer one year, or two years?

    The answer was universally always the same. The smart people would have the most money and so on down the line.

    What is being instituted is a system whereby that can never happen. If you are really smart, say a Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, you will not be able to keep but a fraction of your money. It just wouldn't be fair to Sando and Lucille. It would be the crime of economic injustice.

    With the incentive erased to work hard to make capital and use it to make other capital no one will work hard except those forced to do so under penalty of the gulag.

    Me, I'm going to become a deperado. I'm not cut out for being pushed around without a say in who's doing the pushing. But believe me we now have plenty of people willing to die on their knees.

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  82. ...though they might do better watching Potlatch Corporation closer, instead of my driveway.

    Yes. I've seen it play out in NW Arkansas. Mom's water bill carries a huge burden for wastewater treatment, same as they're going after you for, although I don't think they're going after concrete yet. Your leaders in Idaho must be more progressive. My suspicion is the treatment costs subsidize Tyson for the cleanup of the chicken guts from his operations. BTW, there are few smells worse than those eminating from an STP overloaded with chicken guts in 100degree-99% humidity weather.

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  83. Trish,

    That smiles not for me is it?

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  84. ...we now have plenty of people willing to die on their knees.

    That's the way it's going. Not with a bang, but with a whimper...

    Thanks for your commentary, Habu.

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  85. Now I've got myself curious. I'll go down to the city engineers office tomorrow and ask.

    On my trip to Ohio and back, the worst air, apart from some big cities, was right here, thanks to Potlatch. I wish we could replace the mill with a nuclear power plant. Perfect site for it, really.

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  86. linearthinker,

    Thanks for the compliment.

    There goes the Chicken Cordon Bleu for dinner.

    I'll just have the week old beef tongue. I can just scrap off the green stuff on the underside.

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  87. Other than vote, I'm not sure how else to fight it.

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  88. News says one in three Atlanta Police Academy Graduates have a criminal record.

    Can't trust them either.

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  89. There goes the Chicken Cordon Bleu for dinner.

    LOL

    Most memorable Cordon Bleu for me was at a sidewalk cafe in the Latin Quarter. A place Playboy told me was favored by Sartre and his crowd. Tired and hungry after taking the Playboy walking tour, I plunked down and picked up a menu. Ahhh, good! Cordon Bleu! And cheap too! So when the snotty waiter finally came around, I ordered a bier and cordon blue. He liked to turn green, and all the intellectuals' heads swiveled my direction on their pencil necks. Finally my feast arrived. A little snifter of liquor and a cold brew, delivered with an exaggerated gesture by the snotty waiter. Well, I chugged it all down, paid up, and went across the street to Le Drugstore, where I had some delicious fries, a coke, and a raw hamburger. That would have been August of '67.

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  90. If the polls are to be believed, it appears that a lot of people want Obama's brand of nanny-state semi-socialism. They want government to come to their assistance. They want universal health care. The want free college tuition. They want their mortgages renegotiated. They want the rich to pay.

    This is the change that they want, but do they want what they might wind up getting? More government control, nationalized industries, rationed health care, more well fare, fees on everything and a Constitution which means whatever the Elites want it to mean.

    Whatever the government gives, it can take away...Do the Obamanoids understand this? They will.

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  91. whit,
    Quite simply the man on the street is too stupid, yes thats an absoluely arrogant but totally true, TOO STUPID, to understand more than chewing gum.

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  92. If that's not a patriotic service, I really don't know what is.

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  93. The McCain campaign has been given two gifts lately and has yet to capitalize on them.

    1. The Democratic Disaster in California.
    2. Bill Clinton's 1995 decision to pressure lenders to make loans to unqualified applicants.

    California is the prime example of the disastrous consequences of unrestrained Democrat social spending run amok. The Community Reinvestment Act is the seed of our current meltdown.

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  94. Whit,
    A perfect example is the poster here, matliesthes or what ever his name is who knows nothing about the US Constitution (I doubt if he's ever read it, much less studied it)but wants to toss it because it's OLD.

    Now I'll admit after 233 years it bears little resemblance to the original meaning or intent buy throw it out because it's OLD.

    I just find it impossible to take people like that seriously buy we are now in a state where you must because there are so many who are truly hopelessly ignorant.

    This year the US withdrew from the international scholarship competition prior to it’s start, because the US sponsors didn’t want to suffer the embarrassment

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  95. Trish,

    By golly girl you've thrown out nothing but a website again.

    Could you possibly help us along by at least mentioning who those orphan website address's are meant for?

    I wouldn't want to commit two posting faux pas' in one day. I'm sure you can understand.
    Many thanks,
    Habu

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  96. Oh, that was meant for Linear.

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  97. I'll look for Calico County Cafe in Amarillo. Give it a test.

    I'm outta here for a mission taking me past Bass Lake, Doug's old hangout, and over the hump into Yosemite Valley.

    Y'all's discourse won't suffer my inane distractions until I return.
    But, as the Terminator said, "I'll be back!"

    We now return this channel to the regular programming.

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  98. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  99. Trish,

    In the future do you think it would be possible for you to do us the coutesy of identifying who you are addressing when you post simply an internet site?

    I'm sure yo can appreciate how it can be confusing when you mention one in the middle of a collequy between two others but mean it for only one of the participants.

    In your latest you push out an address in the niddle of a food conversation beteen myself and linearthinker with the only other remotely tangential person being Whit, who was not talking about food.

    So if you would be so kind as to address the recepient it would help us all.

    Thx

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  100. John McCain:
    "We've got them exactly where we want them."

    Ahh, OK!

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  101. Not to be obstreperous but I understood Trish's reference and comment perfectly well. In the EB, you learn to follow multiple conversations simultaneously.

    It's the typical loud talking, free-for-all of a watering hole.

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  102. whit,

    Not to be obstreperous

    Well you missed the mark. I've been here before. Her comment was right in the middle of a conversaion about food betwwen L and myself...tell me, how were you able so deftly to acertain who that post was directed to since your comments had nothing to do with food?

    Please school me I'm all eyes on wanting to how one does that.

    I'll be eternally greatful

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  103. The typical business spends more on labor than anything else. And in a downturn, labor is the one cost employers can control. So, the marginal worker could soon find himself with no money…no credit…and no job. Go back to work? Where?

    *** We're working up to a big thought…

    It begins with this item - barely reported in the mainstream press:

    A Morgan Stanley economist says the U.S. federal deficit for 2009 could go as high as $2 trillion.

    Let's see…there are the on-going wars in Iraq and Afghanistan…a $700 billion bailout plan…this year's $500 billion deficit…falling tax receipts…more bank 'recapitalizations'…

    …and a simple, but irresistible humbug of modern political economy: if consumers can't spend…and businesses don't spend…and banks won't lend…it's all up to the government.

    Every economist trained during the last 50 years believes it is government's responsibility to 'save' an economy…to give it the juice it needs to keep operating…and to provide the demand necessary to keep it expanding.

    It is a theory that goes something like this: usually markets of private businessmen, consumers and investors are all-knowing; sometimes they are just dopes.

    Now is one of the dopey times - at least, that's the theory. Investors, consumers, and businesses - they're all running scared. But there stands The Government…immoveable in its wisdom…unshakeable in its determination…and unflappable in a crisis. And now the feds must step in…checkbook in hand…truth and justice underfoot….bankruptcy ahead.

    The feds must save the day. Everyone is counting on them. But what can they do - other than throw money around? And whence cometh this 'money'? They can borrow it. But here's the funny part. If they borrow money, they do not increase the world's supply of money by a single dime. They are merely taking it from one place - where, presumably, it performed some useful function - and transferring it elsewhere. Where? A banker's vault perhaps. An insurance company's reserves, maybe. Today's news, for example, tells us that giant insurer AIG is back. After getting an $85 billion loan from the feds, AIG is looking for $38 billion more.

    In effect, the feds put the U.S. government's full faith and credit on the line so they can borrow in order to lend…or spend. And the more they borrow…lend…and spend, the less the faith lenders should have in its credit. As faith declines, interest rates should rise. And rising rates will further depress the economy.

    Borrowing - in a macro-economic sense - doesn't really help anyway. It merely moves money around. What the world really needs is more purchasing power. More inflation, in other words. That is the 'funny' part that lies ahead. The 'funny money' part, to be more precise.

    *** You will recall, dear reader, that an old Louie lost his head after the debt of France's monarch topped 80% of France's GDP. Seymour Durst put up a 'debt clock' in New York to keep track of the U.S. debt. When he put it up, the U.S. national debt was only $2.7 trillion. That was in 1989. Not even 20 years later and the debt has topped $10 trillion - forcing the owners of the debt scoreboard to add another digit. U.S. gross domestic output is about $13 trillion - and falling. This puts the national debt at 77% of GDP…and rising fast.

    Whose head will roll this time?

    *** Yes, dear reader, Shareholder Nation took it on the chin last week.

    And now, many are wondering whether America will be able to get up from the mat…

    "Debt saps U.S. power," says David Leonhardt in the New York Times. In effect, the U.S. has spent money it hasn't yet earned. Now, it must avoid spending so as to repay what it has already spent. This puts the nation at a huge competitive disadvantage, since it lacks the resources to fund new projects.

    Our favorite columnist, Thomas L. Friedman, calls this the "post-binge world." We read Friedman to get insights: not as to what is really going on; Friedman has no idea. But Friedman gives voice to popular prejudices; he tells us what the unthinking masses are yearning for.

    And here it is:

    "This workout promises to be painful, complicated and protracted," he explains. No cause for panic, in other words. It will all be worked out. Then, he offers more reassurance, quoting the calming words of the world's richest man:

    "I have no idea what the stock market is going to do next month or six months from now," said Warren Buffett on Friday. "I do know that the American economy, over a period of time, will do very well, and people who own a piece of it will do well."

    "The Sage of the Plains did not reveal how he knows these things. Maybe he is right; maybe he isn't. But here at The Daily Reckoning we've urged readers to panic out of U.S. assets for a long time. And now, readers are advised to stay in panic mode…and sell into the coming rally"

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  104. No need to address any particular reader, if iy makes sense to you fine, if not, even better.

    Want to check out a blind link, based upon the poster, have at it.
    Don't want to be part of that portion of the thread, more power to ya.

    No Rules, just right.

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  105. Habu, after about two years nobody in the Elephant Bar goes around looking for trouble anymore, so when you learn that you'll fit right in.

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  106. Ol' mat, habu, is not citizen of the United States, but of the World.

    He has lived in Eastern Europe, spent some time in Israel, before heading to Canada, in an attempt to enrich himself.

    He is a Russia loving collectivist, that has fascist tendencies. Fits right in with Pootie and Rick Davis.

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  107. dr
    ou be rite, ijus mus be inza bad place but it be oh tah wif Obama and Burma Shave

    sorry whit
    sorry nancy
    sorry other readers

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  108. miz T,

    you can see i be a new me already

    i vot'n fo smoove and groove

    ones thand in da wurl..be lit on yas feet

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  109. Obama is talking about bringing back the old bankruptcy law where you could just walk away from credit card debt.

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  110. Hey, I like the Burma Shave style of writing.

    Damn sight easier that writing an entire comprehensive missive.

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  111. There you go, bob.
    Back to the future, a true conservative.

    Wanting to return to the old ways.

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  112. whys if'in yuz look at BIG MAN HABU_BU you see he don't adresz no body lasted time he done writ above.

    what a two face liar he be

    smoove un groove baby

    this here is a gen u ine fur sure good song..no hook or crap these guys are good and the song is very good. wait until the sax riff...very kool

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  113. not too bright ...tou need the song.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG0Yz-wgSaE

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  114. Mark Styen was on Lars Larsen today talking about the Canadian election, but mostly about voting precedures, not who would win.

    All of Canada votes at the same time, with the same ballot, with the same requirements, he said. Whereas here we have this patchwork.

    Both gentlemen agreed, disaster is in the offing. One lady called in asking why the McCain campaign isn't using the g-damn America tapes. McCain being the gentlemen, seemed to be the answer.

    Styen's point was that McCain isn't coming across as running against the democrats, with any kind of bold program.

    The phrase 'existential danger' was used, in reference to our position in the world with Obama.

    There were also some reports about thug tactics around the country, by Obama folk.

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  115. ok so it was guitar riff, I play the kazoo, period

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  116. Dr,

    Thanks for the heads up on Mat. It sounds like he'll be in Congress before too long.

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  117. i so hapee we no terror no more

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  118. Nothin' much there, unless Maverick had been running against Democrats and Chicago, but he's not been.

    ''I think this strikes fear into the Blagojevich administration and the Statehouse Democrats but not into the Obama campaign,'' says state Sen. Kirk Dillard, R-Westmont, a John McCain delegate to the GOP convention but an old friend of Obama.
    ...
    In addition, attorneys say federal investigators have been questioning Blagojevich contributions around the state using information that only Rezko could have supplied. Finally, courthouse personnel requesting anonymity because grand jury probes are secret said Rezko has been repeatedly brought from his cell to the U.S. attorney's office to talk to prosecutors.

    Rezko could have a lot to tell. He has raised millions of dollars in campaign money for many Illinois politicians and according to federal prosecutors used his clout to control appointments to state boards.

    Obama has sent to charity $159,000 that Rezko raised for his campaigns for the state legislature, the House and the Senate. Rezko raised nothing for Obama's White House run.

    Obama's name came up in testimony at the trial four times, twice in connection with an obscure legislative memo, as a guest at a Rezko party and when defense attorney Joseph Duffy told jurors his client was a friend of the senator.

    None of the witnesses accused the Democratic nominee for president of doing anything improper. In June, Duffy told the Chicago Tribune that prosecutors had not asked him a single question about Obama.


    Then they tell the story of the side yard being transfered.

    Nothing there.

    So the wife records and watches the FOX News bio specials on both Obama and McCain. She who is voting for Sarah Palin and says after watching them both, Obama shows better. Family, friends, and life's mission.

    That there is really so little negative about the guy. Other than where he came up. Given Chi-town, the Obamasan is remarkably clean.

    Whereas with the McCains, the dirt has had to be shoveled out of their living room.

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  119. VOTE OBAMA. HE IS THE MESSIAH. HE CAN MOON WALK. HE DOESN'T PLAY GOLF.

    VOTE OBAMA

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  120. They got habu's picture at that link bob just post. Remember he told us he used to have this job description.
    Man, he's a real famous victim.

    Gainsville, Fla., Democrat David P. McCally was charged with battery after he allegedly barged into a local GOP office, assaulted a cardboard cutout of President Bush, and punched a local Republican chairman in September 2004
    photo credit (Credit: Alachua County Jail.)


    Oh wait, that ain't habu, that's the perp.

    Sorry.

    There is quite a rogues gallery pictured there. Looks like typically dysfunctional weathermen, to me.

    Not a real hardcase amongst 'em.

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  121. OBAMA ON 'SOUL TRAIN' EARLY YEARS

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scHshq7tOWo

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  122. Back stage set up for the Messiah's inauguration.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhdQyuN9ktE&feature=related

    plus a number of new cabinet members

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  123. Actually if you caught McCains campaign rally in Jacksonville,FL , the one without Sarah you saw Habu...if you watch FOX.
    He was three rows behind John and got about 20 seconds of air time. VIP tickets get you there.

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  124. Better get that moment of infamy on youtube, habu, it'd be oh so appreciated by those that care.

    Does Rasmussen have FL right, McCain down by 5?

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  125. I was over at the Tri Delt House sniff'n around.....I mean registering young voters.


    sound

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF0WdIbt0-s

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  126. How did I know that Trish's comment was in response to LinearThinker? Elementary, my dear, Watson.

    LT said:Most memorable Cordon Bleu for me was at a sidewalk cafe in the Latin Quarter.

    The key was "a sidewalk cafe in the Latin Quarter." This indicated LT had been on the road... and Trish responded with the roadfood reference.

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  127. dr,
    you want the truth? i'm so disgusted with how McCain has run his campaign I've quit watching the news etc.

    I just polish the AK, M-16 and make sure the land mines are in place, the zodiac filled and starting.

    If I guessed I'd say McCain will take FL..North Fl has surprisingly been the determining area for the last three out of five Pres elects and it's McCain here..this is really Baja Georgia and the other demographic knows where the line is. However I suspect we'll see some uppity if'n OBAMA SHAVR wins, but they'll have good reason. Word out is it will be ephemeral but they'll still have a celebration.
    You hear a lot of talk, and not just in FL. Just say'n what others are think'n and some are say'n.

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  128. Whit ,
    I didn't know bull shit could be thrown that far, but good job...naw I busted her for the second time. Notice she hasn't responded.
    BTW the Latin Quarter is on the left bank so the road food deal really fails..had you said almost anything else it might have fit but the 5&6 arrondissement isn't known for road food.

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  129. The Latin Quarter, where?

    There are so many, around the world, that to assume you know the one of which he spoke, just a tad presumptuous.

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  130. Though this hint A place Playboy told me was favored by Sartre and his crowd could apply to almost anywhere there is a myth and a Playboy.

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