COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Here is the Problem!


Here's the problem,

In 1934 the displaced farm worker had the skills to go to work for the TVA,

but, today's permanently "laid off" don't have the skills to go to work for Microsoft, or Boeing.
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74 comments:

  1. Some people just don’t get the sheer genius of Field-Marshal Netanyahu.

    JERUSALEM — Israel’s state comptroller, the government’s watchdog, issued a report on Wednesday harshly criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his handling of a commando raid on a Gaza-bound Turkish ship in 2010. The raid, meant to halt a flotilla challenging Israel’s naval blockade of the territory, turned deadly, with severe diplomatic consequences for Israel.

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    In the report, the state comptroller — Micha Lindenstrauss, a retired judge — concluded that the decision-making process before the raid, under the leadership and responsibility of Mr. Netanyahu, was flawed and had “substantive and significant shortcomings.” Among them, the comptroller wrote, were a lack of orderly preparation, proper coordination or documentation. He also said warnings that the commandos could meet violent resistance on the ship went largely unheeded.


    Just imagine if this military genius dragged us into a war with Iran.

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    Replies
    1. Agree, the raid was flawed. Should have just used a torpedo.

      And if one were really lucky, Bill Ayers would be on the ship.

      b

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    2. .

      Looks like Bob's got his silly on again.

      One would hope they had improved. As I recall, they shot 6 or 8 at the Liberty and only managed to hit it once. This at a ship that, for all intents and purposes, was dead in the water.

      .

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    3. we are already at war with iran sparky... if you are too dense to understand that? your problem

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    4. You may be at war with Iran and you may wish that the US was. If you weren’t so patently stupid, you would comment on what Israel’s state comptroller had to say, but anything beyond dealing with your hurt feelings is above your pay-grade.

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    5. Iran is at war with the USA regardless of how many insults you throw at me...

      There are none so blind as those who care not to see....

      My "feelings" aint hurt, I just see that you are so myopic on BIBI and his "dragging" the USA into a war with iran that the USA has been actively involved with for DECADES.

      Delete
    6. nice nazi likening comment

      Field-Marshal Netanyahu?

      deuce your comments are getting quite anti-semetic

      Delete
  2. What could be worse, following Bibi into war or Obama into his vision of the economy?

    President Barack Obama will use his campaign policy speech in Cleveland on Thursday to present a fresh economic argument that his team hopes will cement their efforts to frame the election as a choice between two starkly different visions for the future, not a referendum on an incumbent overseeing a still-sluggish economy.

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    1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    3. That was not why I deleted your comment. You will learn what goes and what does not or I will dump all your comments.

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    4. so you make slurs and it's fine...
      what a prick you are.

      Delete
  3. Very unlikely I think. The American people are just flat-out "war weary."

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    Replies
    1. War Weary?

      nonsense, at no time in American history have so few had to pay the price of war.

      If you could go back in time and talk to our ancestors? vietnam, ww2 and the civil war were wars to be weary about.

      when was the last time you read a headline about actual WAR that the USA was conducting in the newpapers?

      No more Americans are pissed that Facebook didnt make them a fortune.

      Delete
  4. One less Goodfella

    Henry Hill, a former member of the Lucchese family of mobsters, died Tuesday in a Los Angeles hospital, according to a statement on his website.
    Hill passed away one day after his 69th birthday. The cause of Hill's death has not yet been released.
    The self-proclaimed mobster first came onto the media scene in the nonfiction book "Wiseguy," by journalist Nicholas Pileggi, detailing the "never-before-revealed day-to-day life of a working mobster -- his violence, his wild spending sprees, his wife, his mistresses, his code of honor," according to the book's back cover.
    The 1990 film, "Goodfellas," depicted the rock-n-roll lifestyle of New York City mobsters -- everything from wealth and women to drugs and death.
    "You never rat on your friends and you always keep your mouth shut," Hill's character, played by Ray Liotta, proclaimed in one scene.
    However, when Hill became worried his mob associates were out to kill him he became a police informant and "ratted out" scores of other gangsters.
    As the New York Times reported, the largest crime in which Hill participated was a theft at New York's Kennedy International Airport, when the clan stole $5 million in cash and another $1 million in jewels from a Lufthansa cargo terminal.
    Hill testified against his compatriots and was not persecuted for the crime.
    He lived in relative obscurity until the film's success drew him out of hiding.
    Later in life, Hill became somewhat of a media magnet, appearing frequently in mafia documentaries and as a guest on "The Howard Stern Show.”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I grew up in the same area of East New York, Brooklyn as Hill (but I am half-a-dozen years older). Watching Goodfellas I was fascinated to see a reproduction of the old neighborhood. Have to admit that my friends and I were complete innocents and knew nothing of mobsters and their goings-on at that time.

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    2. Cosa Nostra are nothing more than thugs in suits. Nothing glamorous or inspiring, just hideous people leeching off society.

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    3. Morons, one and all.

      b

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  5. BOT, BTW, Rufus, great point. Only we could spend one thousand gazzilion on an education system that left so many so ill-prepared for our new reality.

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  6. If you want to work hard and get something out of your life, you will not make excuses and just do it.

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  7. There are something like three million job openings for CNC/Robotics-type jobs that the big manufacturers can't fill. Many of these jobs don't really require all that much training, and most of your high school graduates could learn them fairly quickly.

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  8. In fact, they could very easily be taught in high school.

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  9. It's been a long day, and I'm whupped. Hafta discuss it in the morning. Nite all.

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  10. What do you mean they don't have skills? They spent some damn good money at Uni taking Wymyn's Studies 101 and the History of Minority Oppression in America.

    Cosa Nostra are nothing more than thugs in suits. Nothing glamorous or inspiring, just hideous people leeching off society.

    That wasn't the point of the Godfather series. It was an epic contrast between a man who believed that family was everything, and died happily playing with his grandson in a tomato garden, and his son who could not forgive the smallest slight, and died alone. The Mafia stuff was ancillary.

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    Replies
    1. .

      Cosa Nostra and The Godfather are two seperate things. Once you get past Puzo and Coppolo's 'art' and their 'messages', you are left with Duece's 'reality'.

      The only good parts are that starting out you don't have to worry about having a college education and while you are active in the trade, because of attrition and 'early retirement', you have a certain amount of job security. On the other side, for most, the pay isn't that good and health benefits are minimal.

      .

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  11. The most common way that U.S. servicemembers die outside of combat is by their own hand, according to an analysis released by the Pentagon on Wednesday.


    By Rafiq Maqbool, AP

    Since 2010, suicide has outpaced traffic accidents, heart disease, cancer, homicide and all other forms of death in the military besides combat, the report says. One in four non-combat deaths last year were servicemembers killing themselves.
    This year, suicides among troops occur on average once a day, according to Pentagon figures obtained by USA TODAY. The data, first reported by the Associated Press, show that after the end of the Iraq War, suicides may become more common than combat deaths.
    There were 154 confirmed or suspected suicides this year through June 3, while 127 troops died in the Afghanistan War, Pentagon data show.

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    Replies
    1. We get the implications to your post: Since suicide rates are high among US troops, a few more killed fighting your hoped for wars is of little significance.

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    2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  12. Nancy Pelosi's father is Thomas D'Alessandro, mayor of Baltimore in the 1940's during the reign of the Genovese family, largest of the five Cosa Nostra families, all of which is common knowledge.

    From The Goodfellas movie:

    What business are you in?

    Construction.

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  13. Everybody gets lost when the paradigm shifts. My daughter mentioned, yesterday, that the majority of the electric lines in the country were strung up in a very short (2 yr?) period of time. I've posted before that 5,000 Electric Power Plants went up in the year following Edison's discovery of the carbon filament (something like 100,000 in the following 5 yrs.) The whole world was just waiting for Thomas to get his work done.

    Governments can't "plan" for such events. The smartest people in the world can't foresee the big paradigm shifts (WWW, anyone?)

    But, governments can keep us busy doing useful stuff (TVA, Hoover Dam, building levees, Roads, Sewers, etc.)

    The problem is, leaving politics aside (yeah, good luck wit dat,) the two parties can't agree on the definition of "useful stuff." The Dems say we should look to the future, and build renewable energies; the Pubs say, "pie in the sky nonsense, let's put a fracking unit, and a pipeline in everyone's back yard."

    So now, about all we can do, until after the election anyway, is look to ol' Hipporates: "first, do no harm."

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  14. The Pubs want their white saviour so much that they are willingly overlooking the fact that 5 yrs ago, on the 3 Major Issues - Healthcare, Renewable Energy, and War - you couldn't have driven a ray of sunshine between the two candidates.

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  15. The Passionate Extremes will always drive the Narrative (in Both parties.)

    Thus, the Republicans are constantly trying to drive us back to the last Century, and the Dems are always wanting to jump straight ahead into the Next Century.

    The poor old voter, of course, is left going, "Wha?"

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    1. Yes, yes, exactly, quite so, precisely, we Tea Party farmers are trying to drive us back to the days of horse farming, yes, that's it, just so.

      b

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    2. I'm voting for whichever candidate will set things up so's I can walk along behind a damned horse all day, I'm voting for the 1880's. I know people wants to take us back behind the 1860's, when that worst President of All, Abe Lincoln, killed all those people and freed the slaves, back when living was done proper.

      b

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    3. It's the tea party that's constantly harping about "gold," and "cutting spending" in the middle of the biggest financial crisis in 80 yrs. If that's not backing up a 100 yrs I don't know what is.

      Delete
  16. Nat Gas Storage number coming up. That should be interesting.

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  17. Egypt parliament to be dissolved after ruling- court official
    Thu Jun 14, 2012 1:51pm GMT

    Print | Single Page
    [-] Text [+]

    CAIRO, June 14 (Reuters) - A constitutional court ruling on Thursday means that the whole of the lower house of Egypt's parliament will be dissolved and a new election will have to be held, the court's head Farouk Soltan told Reuters by telephone after the ruling was issued.

    "The ruling regarding parliament includes the dissolution of the lower house of parliament in its entirety because the law upon which the elections were held is contrary to rules of the constitution," he said, speaking two days before another election to pick a new president.

    Soltan said the ruling was binding on all institutions of state, adding that it would be up to the executive to call for the new election that he said would take place. (Reporting by Tom Perry; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Louise Ireland)


    This is might be good for a few weeks of rioting.

    b

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  18. Ruf, what is your position on the legalization of bath salts synthetics?

    Been some real horror stories in the papers lately, women eating children, that kind of thing. Everyone running around naked, snarling, biting.

    Just askin'.

    b

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  19. Bob, I think it ought to be illegal to sell (or use) anything that causes people to eat babies' faces off.

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    1. Radical extremist nanny state socialist control freak!

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  20. Poll: 80% of Greeks want to stay in the Euro.

    They gotta be crazy.

    It's a good time to be a German.

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  21. The Nat Gas number didn't look that bullish to me, but the futures took off like a rocket. Maybe they were looking at the mild weather last week, and expecting a larger build.

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  22. .

    Another love-fest from Congress.

    Ostensibly, Dimon went to Capitol Hill to be grilled about his bank’s loss of more than $2 billion on an investment strategy that amounted to a glorified game of craps. Members of the Senate banking committee were to determine whether stronger financial regulations would be needed to prevent such gambling. But tougher regulation is unlikely, given Wall Street’s bankrolling of panel members’ campaigns, and lawmakers acted as though they were wholly owned subsidiaries of JPMorgan.

    “Mr. Dimon,” said Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), it “occurs to me that an enterprise as big and powerful as yours, you’ve got a lot of firepower and you’re — you’re just huge.”

    “You’re obviously renowned, rightfully so, I think,” contributed Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), “as being one of the most, you know, one of the best CEOs in the country.”

    Democrats, perhaps worried that Wall Street has been shifting its campaign largess to Mitt Romney and the Republicans, joined the sycophancy sweepstakes. Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.) called JPMorgan Chase “one of the nation’s finest,” and Sen. Jon Tester (Mont.) told Dimon: “You guys know the industry better than anybody sitting up here.”



    These guys sound more like commentators from CNBC than U.S. senators.


    Diamond is Grilled with a Cushy Pillow [link]

    .

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  23. So there is a poster that believes the US is at war with Iran?

    While the Reagan Administration was trading US arms for Iranian cash, to fund the Contras.
    Even while the Bush administration was financing Saddam's war with Iran.
    Then the war continued while the next Bush administration was financing water treatment plants, in Iran, through the World Bank while occupying Iraq. After taking down Saddam.

    The US is not at war with Iran, it is operating covertly to disable Iranian nuclear ambitions.
    This has been made public by a dripping faucet, either in DC or Tel Aviv.

    While the US overtly strikes at targets in Pakistan, a supposed ally.

    There is no US war with Iran, the war, it is in Pakistan.

    Get your targets right, soggy.

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    1. dear Mr Anon...

      Your post shows once again your level of checker playing.

      But let me inform you of ONE small but telling point of your post...

      You state: " either in DC or Tel Aviv" Newsflash nitwit... Tel Aviv is NOT the Capital of Israel whether YOU like it or not...

      SO thanks for proving you are not capable of understanding anything MORE than "checkers" reading of the middle east and or iran.

      Not to worry there Sparky Jr, you are in good company here!

      Delete
  24. The US has achieved Hitler's goals for Germany.

    The Soviet Union is kaput.
    The Germans dominate Europe through their control of the economic levers.

    The remaining Jews have emigrated from Europe, even from Russia, by the hundreds of thousands. Becoming concentrated in another part of the world that is hostile to their presence. Far from Germany, Poland and the streets of Vienna

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    1. .

      The US has achieved Hitler's goals for Germany.


      Nitwit.

      .

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    2. Ditto that. What a nitwit.

      b

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  25. “If we had done something remotely like Simpson-Bowles,” Dimon said in response to Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) at the end of the hearing, “you would have increased confidence in America. You would have shown a real fix of the long-term fiscal problem. I think you would have had . . . a more effective tax system that is conducive to economic growth.”

    In fact, he said, not enacting such a plan “helped cause a downturn last year.”

    From the Dimon LINK above.

    So who or what killed Simpson-Bowles, besides "the Washington dicks?"

    Over at Wonkblog, Ezra Klein offers an elaborate theory for why President Obama decided not to back the Simpson-Bowles budget plan. Broadly, Ezra argues that it was all Kabuki—the president knew he would kill Simpson-Bowles if he embraced it, so he hung back and hoped that Republicans would box themselves in on the budget and then come to the President desperate for a Simpson-Bowles-like compromise. Obviously this didn’t work, but that doesn’t mean that openly backing Simpson-Bowles would have worked either. The president’s decision to back away was “tactics, not ideology.”

    This is all, I think, too clever by half. The reason Obama didn’t back Simpson-Bowles is much simpler: it’s a big tax hike on the middle class.

    Josh Barro, Forbes

    .....

    I do agree with Ezra that Simpson-Bowles would have failed with or without the President’s support. The reason is simply that the time was not—and still is not—ripe for a fiscal adjustment. Republicans and Democrats will agree on measures that close our long term budget gap only when economic circumstances change such that acting is less painful than not acting.

    More from Larry Summers.

    .....

    None of which changes the fact that the Wall St casino in bundled securities and derivatives trading on indices destroyed middle class wealth ... what was the number again?

    Definition of pornography? I know it when I see it. It's called taking it to the next level.

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  26. I see Summers agrees with me on the importance of controlling health care costs:

    But it is the trajectory of healthcare costs that will be the single most important determinant of the budgetary picture. While almost everyone agrees on the desirability of containing federal spending, achieving this is likely to be more difficult than many suppose.

    .....

    The consequence of not acting, however, will be unacceptable reductions in the availability of care for the clients of federal programmes. And given all the uncertainties associated with new technologies, changing lifestyles and ongoing changes in the private system, healthcare reform will and should be a continuing project.

    I see he agrees with me on tax reform as well.

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  27. These examples, and the many more that could be adduced, are significant not only because of revenue the US Treasury could recoup while also making the tax system fairer. They also point to the power of special interests to shape fundamental aspects of economic policy. Reform could be an important step towards rebuilding confidence in the federal government that is sorely lacking today.

    No comment.

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  28. Big doings in Egypt --

    http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/14/world/meast/egypt-ruling/index.html

    Cairo (CNN) -- Egypt's highest court declared the parliament invalid Thursday, and the country's interim military rulers promptly declared full legislative authority, triggering fresh chaos and confusion about the country's leadership.

    The Supreme Constitutional Court found that all articles making up the law that regulated parliamentary elections are invalid, said Showee Elsayed, a constitutional lawyer.

    The ruling means that parliament must be dissolved, state TV reported.

    Parliament has been in session for just over four months. It is dominated by Islamists, a group long viewed with suspicion by the military.


    The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, in control of the country since Mubarak's ouster, said that it now has full legislative power and that by Friday it will announce a 100-person assembly that will write the country's new constitution.


    Being of the opinion the military is the only semi-sane group in that land I guess it is good news of a sort.

    If you are thinking of a vacation tour in Egypt, now is probably not the time.

    b

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  29. Ooooh, if I only knew what kind of shoes Maxine wears, I could figure 90% of her.

    http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/judge-90-percent-people-personalities-shoes-researchers-192903995.html

    Shoes are the eyes of the soul, who would have thought.

    But what do you do with an Emelda Marcos, who had 500 pairs of shoes? How do you figure her?

    b

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  30. It's not about having shoes, it's about buying shoes. And it was 3000 pairs.

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  31. 3000?!!!!

    Good Lord that's a lot of shoes.

    I can immediately tell that she was frugal, self-effacing, always thinking of the other folks first, and not given to display.

    Do you think he jogged?

    b

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    1. If she jogged a lot, which is hard on shoes, that would account for some of it.

      Still, 3000 pair, that says a lot about a person. I'm getting a reading on a person that is an intellectual, fearfully in tune with her responsibilities to the lower classes, a great athlete, deeply compassionate, definitely not a gossip, and giving of her time.

      b

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  32. Despite the jobs report and declines in other European markets, Greece's ASE index had its biggest percentage gain this year, climbing 10% at 550.10. The rally followed rumors of secret opinion polls showing New Democracy in the lead ahead of Sunday's vote.

    The publication of public-opinion polls in the last two weeks of campaigning is forbidden in Greece.

    Whichever party finishes first on Sunday will win an almost unassailable advantage in forming a government, because under Greek law, the party that wins the most votes is awarded an extra 50 seats in the legislature.

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  33. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  34. Are Americans better off than we were 4 years ago?

    November '08

    Unemployment rate - 6.8%
    Federal deficit - $459 billion
    Median household income - $50,203

    NOW

    Unemployment rate - 8.2%
    Federal deficit - $1.32 trillion
    Median househole income - $49,445

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  35. The scheme would permit private British banks to pledge their existing, illiquid loans as collateral at the Bank of England in exchange for highly liquid UK government bonds, which they could then sell on. In return for this cheap financing, banks would be required to commit to using the proceeds to increase the volume of loans to businesses and households, and to make that lending cheaper than it otherwise would have been.

    ...

    The operation would be similar to the £200bn Special Liquidity Scheme, established in April 2008 during the financial crisis, in which the Bank of England (BofE) allowed lenders to swap mortgage-backed securities for UK sovereign bonds in order to ease the flow of lending to households.

    The SLS was wound down this year, but the International Monetary Fund advised the BofE last month to re-establish something similar in order to boost the economy.

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  36. Would a law requiring Americans to eat their fruits and vegetables be constitutional? During Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings in June 2010, Sen. Tom Coburn asked her whether such a law could be justified as an exercise of the federal government’s authority to “regulate commerce…among the several states.”

    ...

    In principle, at least, it does not have to be this way. Precisely because federalism is useful to people with different political agendas, it should be possible to strike a deal: I will not use the federal government to interfere with your local policy choices if you grant me the same leeway.

    ...

    One is the Constitutional Accountability Center, a Washington, D.C., think tank “dedicated to fulfilling the progressive promise of our Constitution’s text and history.” The center is especially interested in Supreme Court decisions that give states freedom to set their own regulatory policies and apply their own tort law.

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  37. On June 14, 1789, Captain William Bligh and 18 loyal members of his crew from the HMS Bounty, cast adrift by mutineers led by Fletcher Christian, reach Timor in the East Indies, after a seven-week, 4,000-mile ordeal in a small, open boat.

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  38. It will be very odd indeed if Obama gets re-elected based on those 'are we better off' stats above. In-explicable even. How on earth can he defend those numbers?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Romney is ahead in Wisconsin and tied in Michigan, according to the latest. RealClearBobbo even has Oregon going to Romney!

      b

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  39. After this election is over, you'll be able to drive from the Pacific to the Atlantic in Red states. But you will have to fly from New York to Chicago to LA or Seattle if you want to stay in Blue states.

    b

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  40. Psychiko is where Athens' old money lives. The streets are quiet and shaded.

    ...

    One of the childhood residences of Prince Philip, the consort to Queen Elizabeth II, is here. This is a rare part of Athens where placards announcing construction projects outnumber "for rent" signs.

    In 2009, New Democracy took nearly 50% of the vote in Psychiko and its equally posh neighbor, Filothei. That plunged to 21% in May.

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  41. Course then I find this on the way to the dormatorio -

    http://news.yahoo.com/spanish-cave-paintings-shown-oldest-world-180821995.html;_ylt=A2KLOzGmY9pPBxgAl2bQtDMD


    From then, to the Indians painting hands on war ponies.

    The Sioux used to chop off some of their fingers, thankful to the Great Spirit, for the buffalo, so that the old ones, at the end, in the Buffalo Hunt, would have only thumb and the first finger to hold the bow and arrow.

    "Hello, happy hands"

    Line from Roethke, in his early stuff, which is about the process of growing up, becoming us.

    Who hasn't felt a little of that? Lo, I have these, these most usable hands! The opposable thumb, o where would we be what would we do without that?

    If really pushed, I think I could find in Joseph Campbell a picture, or a mention, of the early hand prints found in the Old World, missing some fingers, from the time of their Great Hunt.

    For there was a Great Hunt too in Eurasia - lasting damn near forever -of which our High Plains Buffalo Hunt here was a very late and distant and horse enabled echo. From the Pyrenees all the way to the Urals and beyond, back in the long, long ago.

    So my enthusiasm for painting up our horse and marking him with my hand prints has a history.

    All unconsciously.

    It was interesting, that was the first thing my daughter mentioned, when the idea of painting the horse came up, was marking our hand prints on his hindquarters.

    b

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  42. Why a hand print, Sam? Why not a foot print, or a knee print, or a pecker print, or a butt print, or a nose print, or a forehead print, or an ear print? Why a hand print right off, and all the way through?

    b

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