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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Global Cooling Alert: Thirty years of warmer temperatures go poof
In early September, I began noticing a string of news stories about scientists rejecting the orthodoxy on global warming. Actually, it was more like a string of guest columns and long letters to the editor since it is hard for skeptical scientists to get published in the cabal of climate journals now controlled by the Great Sanhedrin of the environmental movement.

Still, the number of climate change skeptics is growing rapidly. Because a funny thing is happening to global temperatures -- they're going down, not up.

On the same day (Sept. 5) that areas of southern Brazil were recording one of their latest winter snowfalls ever and entering what turned out to be their coldest September in a century, Brazilian meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart explained that extreme cold or snowfall events in his country have always been tied to "a negative PDO" or Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Positive PDOs -- El Ninos -- produce above-average temperatures in South America while negative ones -- La Ninas -- produce below average ones.

Dr. Hackbart also pointed out that periods of solar inactivity known as "solar minimums" magnify cold spells on his continent. So, given that August was the first month since 1913 in which no sunspot activity was recorded -- none -- and during which solar winds were at a 50-year low, he was not surprised that Brazilians were suffering (for them) a brutal cold snap. "This is no coincidence," he said as he scoffed at the notion that manmade carbon emissions had more impact than the sun and oceans on global climate.

Also in September, American Craig Loehle, a scientist who conducts computer modelling on global climate change, confirmed his earlier findings that the so-called Medieval Warm Period (MWP) of about 1,000 years ago did in fact exist and was even warmer than 20th-century temperatures.

Prior to the past decade of climate hysteria and Kyoto hype, the MWP was a given in the scientific community. Several hundred studies of tree rings, lake and ocean floor sediment, ice cores and early written records of weather -- even harvest totals and censuses --confirmed that the period from 800 AD to 1300 AD was unusually warm, particularly in Northern Europe.

But in order to prove the climate scaremongers' claim that 20th-century warming had been dangerous and unprecedented -- a result of human, not natural factors -- the MWP had to be made to disappear. So studies such as Michael Mann's "hockey stick," in which there is no MWP and global temperatures rise gradually until they jump up in the industrial age, have been adopted by the UN as proof that recent climate change necessitates a reordering of human economies and societies.

Dr. Loehle's work helps end this deception.

Don Easterbrook, a geologist at Western Washington University, says, "It's practically a slam dunk that we are in for about 30 years of global cooling," as the sun enters a particularly inactive phase. His examination of warming and cooling trends over the past four centuries shows an "almost exact correlation" between climate fluctuations and solar energy received on Earth, while showing almost "no correlation at all with CO2."

An analytical chemist who works in spectroscopy and atmospheric sensing, Michael J. Myers of Hilton Head, S. C., declared, "Man-made global warming is junk science," explaining that worldwide manmade CO2 emission each year "equals about 0.0168% of the atmosphere's CO2 concentration ... This results in a 0.00064% increase in the absorption of the sun's radiation. This is an insignificantly small number."

Other international scientists have called the manmade warming theory a "hoax," a "fraud" and simply "not credible."

While not stooping to such name-calling, weather-satellite scientists David Douglass of the University of Rochester and John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville nonetheless dealt the True Believers a devastating blow last month.

For nearly 30 years, Professor Christy has been in charge of NASA's eight weather satellites that take more than 300,000 temperature readings daily around the globe. In a paper co-written with Dr. Douglass, he concludes that while manmade emissions may be having a slight impact, "variations in global temperatures since 1978 ... cannot be attributed to carbon dioxide."

Moreover, while the chart below was not produced by Douglass and Christy, it was produced using their data and it clearly shows that in the past four years -- the period corresponding to reduced solar activity -- all of the rise in global temperatures since 1979 has disappeared.

It may be that more global warming doubters are surfacing because there just isn't any global warming.

Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 10/21/2008 10:29 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  When they are screaming that it is cooling and we need to wear propeller caps, warm it up again.
Posted by: newc || 10/21/2008 10:52 Comments || Top||

#2  When it's cooling they'll be screaming that we need to do exactly the same thing to combat "warming".

You see it's not about climate, it's about control.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 10/21/2008 11:02 Comments || Top||

#3  Exactly, it has never been about warming. It was about transferring our industry to the 3rd world and controlling how much energy, living space, and eventually, how much and what kind of food we get.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 10/21/2008 11:35 Comments || Top||

#4  I don't believe 20th century warming was due to CO2, BUT the trend line on that graph is speculative at best. The last thing I need is another climate bogon emitter.
Posted by: Minister of funny walks || 10/21/2008 14:40 Comments || Top||

#5  Don't blame me. My carbon footprint has at least doubled in the last ten years.
Posted by: Iblis || 10/21/2008 15:53 Comments || Top||

#6  I remember back in the early 70's prognostications of the coming Ice age. Week after week for years the predicted the coming ice age and every cold front that passed was further proof of impending doom. I wonder how long it will be before we cycle back to worrying about an ice age? If you want to worry, think about Killer asteroids. Now that will ruin your day!
Posted by: darrylq || 10/21/2008 21:40 Comments || Top||

#7  I don't know much about mideval history but I am curious if there are any theories out there...did the mideval warming period improve crop yields and generally improved life for Northern Europeans? Did it permit them to spend less effort on mere survival and free up time for advancements? Was this a contributing factor in allowing the Renaissance to occur? Was it important in advancing Western society?
Posted by: Chemist || 10/21/2008 22:03 Comments || Top||

#8  Track down a copy of the History Channel's 'Little Ice Age, Big Chill' documentary. Pretty decent [though they felt compelled to do the GW angle towards the end, de rigeur for 2005]. Some of your questions are answered there.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/21/2008 22:19 Comments || Top||

#9  The warming period in the 12th and 13th century was a blessing to Central and Northern Europe
Posted by: European Conservative || 10/21/2008 23:00 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Rather: If Palin Had Said What Biden Said
Dan Rather admits the TRUTH.

So far, the MSM has failed to respond. Instead, MSLSD.com currently has the following headlines posted front and center:

Obama widens lead over McCain

Newsweek: Will bin Laden drop another video before Nov. 4?

AP: Palin children traveled on state funds

Obama's grandmother has broken hip, relative says


Posted by: eltoroverde || 10/21/2008 19:06 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Could 'Palin factor' save McCain?
Posted by: tipper || 10/21/2008 14:21 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Uhm...no.
Posted by: remoteman || 10/21/2008 15:11 Comments || Top||

#2  Maybe. Palin is turning out crowds we haven't seen since Reagan. The polls are counting on Democrats being 10% more numerous than Republicans at the ballot box. That's a difference we haven't seen in a while, at least not since Reagan. I expect Republican turnout to reach record levels. It wouldn't surprise me if McCain won the election. I wouldn't count on it, but it's not a long shot at all despite the media's premature coronation of Obama.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 10/21/2008 16:14 Comments || Top||

#3  Obama is raising a lot of money from small donors. I suspect, however, that most of these donations are unlawful payments either from foreigners or large donors that have been reprocessed to make them look like small-time domestic donors.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 10/21/2008 16:17 Comments || Top||

#4  I agree ZF. It will be very interesting to see if and when the full story behind this election comes out. Regardless of the result, Obama's team did a masterful job on the nomination. Whether they can keep it going for the general will be a lose run.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 10/21/2008 16:36 Comments || Top||

#5  "Could 'Palin factor' save McCain?"

In a word: Yes.

In fact, it's the only chance McCain has to win. Without Palin, McCain gets his ass handed to him.

Conservatives are voting for Palin, against Obama. I know very people voting FOR Mac. I know alot of people voting FOR Sarah.

Indeed, people I drink coffee with pray Sarah will show Mac the correct path, lead him back "right" instead of Mac's desire to be liked by the MSM which causes him to lean "left".
Posted by: MarkZ || 10/21/2008 16:57 Comments || Top||

#6  There's also the fact that Palin has gotten a lot of McCain-haters motivated to vote for him - people who weren't unduly fazed by the prospect of an Obama presidency. That is quite a feat. The turnout at McCain-Palin rallies is one indication of conservative fervor, but bloggers who viewed McCain as belonging in a spectrum ranging from RINO to Satan incarnate did a 180-degree flip because of Palin.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 10/21/2008 16:57 Comments || Top||

#7  I have never, and would never vote for McCain for anything. I have certainly always planned to vote against Obama, but there are several NO!bama options.

That said, I have a Palin sign in my yard (home made, and which does not mention McCain), and I'll be casting my vote for the R ticket this year -- something I would not have done if Palin were not on the ticket.

So there you have one anecdotal account of the Palin factor. FWIW.
Posted by: Iblis || 10/21/2008 17:00 Comments || Top||

#8  I almost want McCain to lose after seeing his performance on Letterman. When Letterman said he could put everything behind him, McCain nearly perfomed proskineses to him, bowing down and holding his hands together saying "oh thank you, thank you" like Letterman was some superpower. I wanted to puke and lost the last respect for him. I wish Palin was in the drivers seat.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 10/21/2008 17:25 Comments || Top||

#9  #7 I have never, and would never vote for McCain for anything. I have certainly always planned to vote against Obama, but there are several NO!bama options

I feel your pain, but exercising your right to vote for an alternative to McCain simply reinforces Obama's chances. Please give it some thought.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/21/2008 17:28 Comments || Top||

#10  Do NOT underestimate the Palin factor.

I had a VIP ticket to see Mac introduce Palin at the Nutter Center in Greene County (just outside Dayton, Ohio). Got there late due to accident on SR 35. By "late", I mean I arrived an hour before Palin took the stage. I couldn't get in.

Nutter Center holds 12,000 people seated. 15,000 SRO. The Center was full. And rockin'. The MSM did not show you the 5,000 people outside the Center who did not get in.

Saw Palin in Wilmington, Ohio. The place was rockin'. Don't go by what you see on the MSM. When I saw the clips of the Palin Rally on television I laughed. They ONLY showed parts of her speech where/when the crowd was at best, subdued. Palin ROCKED Wilimington.

Was in Westchester, Ohio last Friday. Saw Palin. Palin ROCKED the crowds.

I HAVE seen something like it but ONLY once before in my life. October, 1988. South Bend, Indiana. Friday night pep rally. The night before Notre Dame defeated Miami. Maybe I saw something like it on another Friday night in 1980 when the USA beat the USSR in hockey. But the bar was small. The FEELING was not. I get chills up my leg thinking of it, just like Chris Mattehews when he thinks of The One. Except my thoughts are pure whereas Chris wants to have Barry's baby. (Spit).

I've got a ticket to Hobart Arena in Miami County to see Palin this week. I know now to be there at least 3 hours before she is schedule to arrive or I won't see her.

Palin factor? You beat your ass, baby, you beat your ass.

Vote Palin. Against Obama.

We can still win this.
Posted by: MarkZ || 10/21/2008 17:50 Comments || Top||

#11  FWIF:

Just got off the phone with someone who is well connected with Trunk politics in Montgomery County, Ohio. Montgomery County is a "Dem" county in the State of Ohio.

Four weeks ago a poll was taken in Montgomery County. Mac over Obama by 2 points.

On this past Sunday another poll was completed: Mac over Obama by 5 points.

My source tells me that as of today (Tuesday) Obama's "ground troops" are being shifted out of Ohio from Montgomery County as well as northeast Ohio to the State of Michigan.

Obama will continue to hit the airwaves in Ohio, but without ground troops. Obama has so much money at his disposal they don't know how to spend it, but will continue to spend it nonetheless.

(Hey Mac...how is that McCain-Feingold thing working?)

Draw your own conclusions. My source tells me they did not believe the poll from 4 weeks ago. Now they have a poll for Mac even stronger. and they see Obama's people leaving Ohio.

I report. You decide.
Posted by: MarkZ || 10/21/2008 18:37 Comments || Top||

#12  ZF and Iblis are dead on. If it wasn't for Palin I'd have to be holding my nose to vote for McCain. He's orders of magnitude better than Obama but I've got a lot of problems with voting for him.

PALIN is what made me excited about seeing McCain win. I haven't seen a politician so inspiring since Ronald Reagan. Without Sarah Johnny Mac is down 20 points. ONLY the fact that she's his running mate has kept this race as close as it is.

It's clear that she's doing something very good, too, simply judging from the amount of unhinged Dem vitriol she's generating. The fact that McCain was smart enough to choose her as a running mate is the strongest piece of evidence I've seen that he's actually got the brains to be POTUS.

I'm cautiously optimistic about this race. The Dems might win but at this point I think we've still got a fighting chance. My estimate is that we'll see the largest turnout ever in an American election and that election day you'll be hearing about hundreds of places that ran out of ballots or had to extend hours to accommodate all the people who wanted to vote.

I think this election is going to be like the anti-amnesty campaign. Lots of people don't like and don't want Obama; they just don't want to catch all the flak for saying so publicly.
Posted by: Jolutch Mussolini7800 || 10/21/2008 19:17 Comments || Top||

#13  I think the fact that the MSM - otherwise known as the PR Wing of the DemocRatic party - is trying to convince Americans that Obama has already won (so no need to bother yourself wasting time voting for McCain) says volumes about what the Dems' real polls are telling them.

My ass will be in a voting booth come election day, voting FOR Palin and AGAINST Nobama.

Y'all get yours there too. Early in the day if you can, to avoid the lines and the problems that will inevitably crop up in Dem-controlled precincts where they think too many people might have voted for Palin.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 10/21/2008 19:55 Comments || Top||

#14  My a** and Blondie's were already in the voting booth - Texas started early voting yesterday. Blondie swung around from 'anybody but Clinton' to firmly for McCain/Palin almost 100% becase of the vitriol that rained down on Sarah Palin after the first few days. That, according to my daughter, was just unseemly. It just pissed her off no end, seeing the Palin children dragged into the much. The last few weeks have put my daughter very much off the sort of Dems that the Obama camp seems to be made of.
Posted by: Sgt. Mom || 10/21/2008 20:43 Comments || Top||

#15  Mccain could've put lieberman on the ticket and I would still vote against obama - I personally hoped for a mccain defeat in the Repub primaries and still can't fathom how this rino made it in. I like Palin, do I have some questions about her experience - sure, I do, but none the less I think the lady is tough, has a good heart & will give the assholes in congress fits. I'd love to see her put palosi in her place.
Posted by: Daffy Phash5086 aka Broadhead6 || 10/21/2008 21:36 Comments || Top||

#16  It wouldn't surprise me if McCain won the election.

I believe that McCain will win the election. The polls are, and have been cooked. The constant bleating by the media and the presenting of all these cooked polls are nothing more than a psy-ops campaign.

I voted early today here in Texas, polls opened at 8AM, I was there at 7:30AM and there was a line already. BarryO and his campaign insiders are in a panic, their internal numbers show them in deep trouble.

Trouble they just keep compounding with things like:
* "...spread the wealth around".
* ACORN
* Attacks on Joe the Plumber.
* Attacks on Gov. Palin.
* Biden opening his BIG mouth!
* etc...

Also, don't forget the PUMA's, not much is heard about their activities by most conservative blog readers. However, they are well organized and going after Obambi with a vengeance.

I could be wrong (I doubt it!), but McCain has a much better than 50/50 chance. Stay calm, AND VOTE!
Posted by: Bertie Ebbeaque1285 || 10/21/2008 22:43 Comments || Top||

#17  Buddy of mine says, "you want Palin to succeed like you want the slipper to fit Cinderella". I guess that puts Peggy Noonan in the ugly stepsister camp.
Posted by: Classical_Liberal || 10/21/2008 22:48 Comments || Top||

#18  Saw a car today - one bumper sticker said "Pro-women / Anti-Palin" and the other was like a McCain/Palin sticker but said "Old Fart/Bimbo".

Ok so she's Pro-women but calls another woman 'Bimbo'..... I think we know who the bimbo is don't we?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/21/2008 23:19 Comments || Top||


The Manifesto of the Silenced Majority
Posted by: tipper || 10/21/2008 13:42 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  • We believe that a man who could not otherwise receive a security clearance should not serve as Commander-in-Chief.

On your SF-86 you admitted cocain use or was it dealing? er huh, hmm, well sir... that was at Harvard when I was 8 years old. Ok, lets move on to the questions of citizenship/duel citizenship, foreign activities, associations, medical records, etc.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/21/2008 19:25 Comments || Top||

#2  From the comments:

Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign the read "Vote Obama, I need the money." I laughed.

Once in the restaurant my server had on a "Obama 08" tie, again I laughed--just imagine the coincidence.

When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need--the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.

I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.

At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more.

I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.
Posted by: no mo uro || 10/21/2008 20:13 Comments || Top||

#3  ROFL, nmu.

Wonder if the waiter is still wearing his Nobama tie. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 10/21/2008 20:17 Comments || Top||


Powell's Lame Case For Obama
Colin Powell is to Meet the Press what Alec Baldwin is to Saturday Night Live -- a frequent guest who embodies the very spirit of the show. The former secretary of state epitomizes the Washington establishment. His thinking couldn't be any more crashingly conventional if he convened a committee of the Harvard School of Government, the Council on Foreign Relations and David Broder before making any move.

It should have surprised no one, then, that Powell marked his 30th appearance on Meet the Press with an endorsement of Barack Obama. Powell's other favored means of communication -- confiding in Bob Woodward and leaking anonymously to newspapers -- weren't suited to the task. Only half an hour with a docile Tom Brokaw would do.

Powell's reasons for swinging to Obama were a watery stew of all the regnant clichés about the campaign.

Powell argued that John McCain "was a little unsure as to [how to] deal with the economic problems that we were having," in contrast to Obama's "steadiness" and "intellectual vigor." It's true that McCain flailed around early in the crisis, but he was desperately trying to find something that worked as his poll numbers tanked. If voters had been inclined to mindlessly blame Democrats rather than Republicans for the meltdown, Obama might not have looked so imperturbable.

As for Obama's vigor, perhaps the Illinois senator has regaled Powell with detailed explanations of how the market for commercial paper has been disrupted by the credit crunch and other nuances. In public, he's just been blasting eight years of Bush economic policy and deregulation -- easy, partisan lines. He hasn't yet taken a position on the AIG bailout and avoided any leadership role on the Henry Paulson plan one way or another.

Powell decried McCain's emphasis on Obama's past with former terrorist Bill Ayers as "inappropriate." This is part of the fable that McCain is running the nastiest campaign in recorded history. It depends on ignoring all Obama's attacks.

McCain is borderline senile? McCain and his buddy Rush Limbaugh hate Latinos? McCain is going to raise your taxes? Well, you've got to break some eggs to make hope and change.

Imagine if a Republican presidential candidate had pledged to take public financing, but instead dealt the post-Watergate campaign-financing system a blow from which it will never recover. If he raised $600 million and out-advertised his opponent nationwide by 4-1. This candidate's campaign would be pronounced "an obscene effort to buy the election." Powell, no doubt, would be "troubled." But Barack Obama does it and everyone stands back in admiration.

Regardless, mere campaign tactics should be beneath an eminence such as Powell. On Meet the Press, he regretted that the Republican Party "has moved even further to the right." Even if this is true -- the Bush administration that Powell served piled up massive spending even before semi-nationalizing banks -- it's an odd brief against John McCain.

McCain has never been a conservative crusader, certainly not since his 2000 presidential run. Powell has endorsed two other presidential candidates in his post-military career, Bob Dole and George W. Bush. McCain is certainly less conservative than Bush, and it's a jump ball with Dole.

While Republicans tolerate the non-ideological McCain, Democrats nominated a presidential candidate who catered to the party's base in the primaries and whose election would vastly empower the relentlessly partisan congressional duo of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. The moderate, sensible Powell is willing to take a flier on a unified Democratic government that will represent a drastic leftward lurch.

This is why his purported reasons for endorsing Obama sound more like excuses. Does Powell want to be with the front-runner? Is he hoping to cleanse his reputation after the WMD fiasco? His ultimate motives are known only to him. We must do Powell the courtesy of taking his case at face value and note only how unconvincing it is, if thoroughly conventional. He'll be back on Meet the Press.
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 10/21/2008 13:41 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Powell could have been the first black President but he chose not to run but if everyone remembers nobody was 100% certain he was a Republican back then. Odds are he straddled the line a lot.

I think he also feels dishonored by the WMD situation. Bad intel or cherry picked intel, either way he was the one that got stuck convincing the UN with data that turned out bad.

Lastly being labeled a war criminal for that same thing has got to be troubling and a desire to actually have a black president seems to have tremndous pull for African Americans.

I think those are the real reasons and the nonsense he spouted this weekends are the rationalizations he convinced himself to justify things.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/21/2008 14:13 Comments || Top||

#2  Zelig.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 10/21/2008 14:26 Comments || Top||

#3  The data was firmly believed by the intelligence agencies of Britain, France and Germany, as well as the CIA, and by the Clinton administration as well. General Powell wasn't keen on the work required to run for president, which is exhausting and involves seducing all those people who insist on voting.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/21/2008 14:32 Comments || Top||

#4  Interesting indeed. General Powell announces his endorsement of The One. The One smiles and announces a position for Powell in his administraition. A day later this is all swept away when Senator Biden announces a super crisis that will "test" The One as president within six months of his taking office. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in the Obama campaign inncer circle. Too late to throw Joe under the bus. Can't smear Joe like they did the plumber. Too late to link McCain to the pending "crisis." And to top this off, Brainache announces the need for yet another bailout package, "W" nods yes, and Barney Fags announces new taxes are needed, patriots step forward! Not looking good for The One.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/21/2008 17:21 Comments || Top||

#5  As I recall, the General's wife was especially unhappy with the thought of him running for President. That matters a lot in a political household.
Posted by: Steve White || 10/21/2008 17:28 Comments || Top||

#6  Mrs. Bosoeker had the pleasure of meeting the General's wife years ago at an OWC luncheon at Fort Belvoir. Feel free to add painfully dull to the 'unhappy' descriptor.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/21/2008 17:33 Comments || Top||

#7  When I saw his interview, he seemed to be saying that he was endorsing Obama because electing a Black president would be a historic event for America. He also said that we needed a "generational change in leadership".

He never addressed why we need this black president, or this member of the new generation. Given that there are dozens of ethnic/religious/geographic groups in America that are still waiting their turn to be president, I fail to see why Barak should be elected unless he is spectacularly qualified.

To put it mildly, I am disappointed in Colin Powell.
Posted by: Frozen Al || 10/21/2008 17:57 Comments || Top||

#8  The data was firmly believed by the intelligence agencies of Britain, France and Germany, as well as the CIA, and by the Clinton administration as well. Trailing Wife, that is all true, but there was a lot of hatred aimed at Powell by those that doubted reality. To make matters worse the administration did little to defend itself from some pretty crazy charges. All of which probably left Powell feeling as if he was left hanging.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/21/2008 18:19 Comments || Top||

#9  I could be wrong but If I remember correctly Armitrage worked for Powell and was the accidental source of the Valery Plame leak which caused a lot of pain to the Administration. A conspiracy minded person might think somehow that was intentional.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/21/2008 18:20 Comments || Top||

#10  #8 The data was firmly believed by the intelligence agencies of Britain, France and Germany, as well as the CIA, and by the Clinton administration as well.

The United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) destroyed a significant amount of WMD in Iraq and there was little doubt among Brits, Russians, Finns, Swedes, US, and even the French that Saddam had more of the stuff. I suspect Powell was, and remains butt-hurt over the Iraqi "WMD trailers" (one of which was found at the Al Kindi Research facility). Powell presented photographs of to the UN Security Council with the DCID sitting directly behind him. As everyone now knows, and some within the intelligence community actually knew THEN....., the trailers turned out NOT to be a mobile WMD bio labs. Secretaries of State and former General officers don't enjoying being fed bad intelligence.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/21/2008 18:54 Comments || Top||

#11  According to Belmont Club, Powell---who's a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers has a very good reason to promote Obama.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/21/2008 19:10 Comments || Top||

#12  Didn't we watch tractor-trailor trucks hauling money and ... stuff... from Iraq to the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon just before the 2003 invasion?
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/21/2008 19:45 Comments || Top||


Hedge Funds, Politics, and the Market Crash
Posted by: tipper || 10/21/2008 10:51 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The problem with the hedge funds is they didn't hedge. Hedge funds are allowed to take extreme risks on individual investments because (in theory) each position is balanced by another investment that behaves the opposite way (e.g. a purchase of Ford stock is balanced by a short sale of GM). By carefully adjusting the amount of money on each side they can make a consistent and stable amount of money.

The problem is this requires alot of high powered math and patience that many "financial geniuses" don't have. And since hedge funds are not publicly traded, there is no requirement for hedge funds to balance their positions. The upshot is that anything goes, and anything went.

One thing about Mark to Market: The problem is that is requires a MARKET. There was a segment recently on NPR with some interbank brokers: They had 45 banks looking for money and NO offers. At any price. And there had not been and offer in 3 weeks.

According to Mark to Market, all CDs, Commercial Paper and other money market instruments from these banks should be valued at $0. This creates problems for all money market funds that hold bank paper, making the financial panic much worse than it needs to be.
Posted by: Frozen Al || 10/21/2008 11:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Hedge funds are so called because they started out exploiting market inefficiencies and hedging between them. Today, there are no requirements that hedge funds 'hedge' and they may do so in innovative ways. For example, a fund looking to exploit the trend to drinking less alcohol may go long on Coca Cola and hedge by shorting Budweiser.

The point of the article is that hedge funds may have gamed the system. Highly likely IMO, but at most that was just a trigger for what already unstable.

The fact there were no offers for overnight interbank loans has nothing to do with mark-to-market.
Posted by: phil_b || 10/21/2008 13:47 Comments || Top||

#3  The fact there were no offers for overnight interbank loans has nothing to do with mark-to-market.

Who wants to lend unsecured to a bank that may be insolvent tomorrow and unable to raise capital?
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 10/21/2008 14:03 Comments || Top||

#4  Phil_b,
"For example, a fund looking to exploit the trend to drinking less alcohol may go long on Coca Cola and hedge by shorting Budweiser."

This is an excellent example of how hedge funds can go wrong. Both positions will make money if people drink less alcohol and lose money if they drink more. Your example looks like a hedge, but it isn't. (Instead it is a double down)

Hedge funds are filled with "financial geniuses" making exactly these kinds of mistakes. They then go out and leverage their position (i.e. borrow other people's money) and tell lenders: "Don't worry, we're hedged against losses". Then they lose billions of dollars in a very short period of time (hours), and this is because they DIDN'T HEDGE.

As far as gaming the system. It is clear that the hedge funds are not/can not done that, otherwise they would not be losing money like water. The real problem is they are much more leveraged than other investers are allowed to be and they are losing money on hare-brained investments BECAUSE THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING.

As for Mark to Market, I spent months at GMAC marking their securities to market every day. If there are no bids in the marketplace, the value of that class of security is $0.

Phil_b thank you for providing an example of why professional investors have lost tons of money in the last several weeks.

Posted by: Frozen Al || 10/21/2008 18:39 Comments || Top||


Stealing the Presidency: An Obama/ACORN Primer
Posted by: tipper || 10/21/2008 01:37 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Please clarify for me. We have a bunch of ACORN folks doing their best to ensure the Marxist Massiah is elected, by submitting many fraudulent voter registration forms. Obviously these folks have gone over to the dark side of the force. However, I don't understand how these fraudulent registrations are turned into actual votes, and hence into their preferred spokesbat being given the keys to the whitehouse. There must be a way, or their efforts seem pointless. Can anyone enlighten me?
Posted by: Bunyip || 10/21/2008 3:13 Comments || Top||

#2  I suppose one could ask King Richard the First (the original Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago), who is reported to have had a large number of dead folks vote for JFK. If you're going to have dead folks voting, you'd certainly want them registered!
Posted by: Bobby || 10/21/2008 5:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Mail-in absentee ballots.
Posted by: Ptah || 10/21/2008 6:53 Comments || Top||

#4  Mail-in absentee ballots. And early voting other than mail-in. That's how he won several states in the primaries.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 10/21/2008 7:09 Comments || Top||

#5  There's an American football term - flood the zone. You put enough receivers into a location and someone is going to come up with the ball. In this case you stuff enough fake vote registrations through you'll get some to count. When you get the assistance of a key official, like the Secty of State in Ohio who refuses to perform a verification, you're able to do a Daley. For all his faults, when Richard Nixon was presented evidence of the fraud in Illinois and the opportunity to contest it, he declined because he considered the office too important to be compromised by the act. Times are different now and the Donks don't care if its tainted or not, for them it's POWER.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/21/2008 7:37 Comments || Top||

#6  John McCain MUST jump all over this second BAILOUT proposal and Barney Franks statement that "new taxes" are needed.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/21/2008 9:06 Comments || Top||

#7  Besoeker,

Couldn't agree with you more. I just heard a tape of the interview with Barney frank. My jaw dropped. This is a HUGE gift. If McCain's people can't get this into a campaign spot on television and radio within the next 24-48 hours, and if both Palin and Mac don't work this into their stump speeches and then hammer it home for the next 14 days...then we are truly screwed.
Posted by: MarkZ || 10/21/2008 10:38 Comments || Top||

#8  Do you really think it would matter? Poor people hate rich people and blame them for all of society's woes. They are poor for a reason, not just bad luck, they are uneducated and make bad decisions.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 10/21/2008 12:47 Comments || Top||

#9  Nearly half of the American people classified as 'poor' are middle class by most countries and cultures in this world. It's a arbitrary line drawn by bureaucrats who need to justify their existence. When you get to the traditional poor in this country, you find that the vast bulk of them are there because of human free will. Others in their same circumstances have made different choices and have risen above the situation. Substance abuse, creating families before acquiring the skills to feed, clothing, and shelter them, blowing off their education opportunities, and keeping to the 'old ways' all are choices. They have to be part of the solution as no program will solve those problems they create for themselves.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/21/2008 15:38 Comments || Top||

#10  "When you get to the traditional poor in this country, you find that the vast bulk of them are there because of human free will.

I would not be so categorical.

Also, most of the America's so called "middle class" are actually poor by the Old Europe's standards.
Posted by: General_Comment || 10/21/2008 15:43 Comments || Top||

#11  So,... GC are you ready for our "Duel to the Death" with noodles and red-sauce at 10 paces?

visit your earlier post mister I am better than you lawyer scum.
Posted by: 3dc || 10/21/2008 15:46 Comments || Top||

#12  3dc, I don't want to dual with you.

If you still want to duel I choose 12.7 mm sniper rifle with a 2 mile range and an optical scope.

Your weapon?
Posted by: General_Comment || 10/21/2008 15:54 Comments || Top||

#13  You don't get the choice.

There were two insults.
So I choose as a weapon Pasta with Red Sauce.
Nobody gets physically hurt.
Posted by: 3dc || 10/21/2008 16:07 Comments || Top||

#14  I choose an Apple Pie with Cream Topping as a point defense weapon, and a huge bowl of Borsch as an area denial weapon.
Posted by: General_Comment || 10/21/2008 16:17 Comments || Top||

#15 
I am allergic to milk and cream.
Soy I can do.
If you want something cheaper than apples - I have a pear tree going to the squirrels... I could deny the rodents a few pears...
Posted by: 3dc || 10/21/2008 16:19 Comments || Top||

#16  Is this you?
Posted by: General_Comment || 10/21/2008 16:22 Comments || Top||

#17  Food fight! Food fight!!!
Posted by: Sgt. Mom || 10/21/2008 16:29 Comments || Top||

#18  Also, I am throwing a 3-gallon-soy-milk-filled canister bomb . . . .
Posted by: General_Comment || 10/21/2008 16:37 Comments || Top||

#19  3dc is a very good cook so I want to be there to eat the leftovers.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 10/21/2008 16:38 Comments || Top||

#20  What a waste of bandwidth. Diverting attention from "Stealing the Presidency: An Obama/ACORN Primer" makes G_C happy, so ignore him!
Posted by: Darrell || 10/21/2008 16:40 Comments || Top||

#21  2004 Study: "The EU vs. USA," by Fredrik Bergstrom and Robert Gidehag for the Swedish think tank Timbro.


Higher GDP per capita allows the average American to spend about $9,700 more on consumption every year than the average European. So Yanks have by far more cars, TVs, computers and other modern goods. "Most Americans have a standard of living which the majority of Europeans will never come anywhere near," the Swedish study says.
Posted by: Ulusoling Hatfield4645 || 10/21/2008 16:57 Comments || Top||

#22  GC wants to change the subject and seem "chummy" here on his very own assigned-by-the-left website. He has a job to do. Try to manipulate conservatives, undecideds . . .

link here for a REAL food fight

In contrast, on Page 293 of "Dreams for My Father," Obama recounts Wright's "The Audacity of Hope" sermon, and Obama quotes this passage:

"It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere…That’s the world! On which hope sits!"

How motivating. But the Obama's spent almost $500 on dinner. Is it okay if they ate it all?

Here's a quote from OBAMA's HERO:

"A People's Organization is dedicated to an eternal war...A war is not an intellectual debate, and in the war against social evils there are no rules of fair play."
  - Saul Alinsky; Reveille for Radicals; p. 133

Clearly, Alinsky's acolytes take him at his word.  When one is fighting a war "against social evils," one is above the law.  Rules and laws are for the other people.

So voter fraud? Heck yeah, if it gets Obama elected. Do whatever works. The rule of law doesn't matter. Obots are above the law.

from the linked article: "Should legal, registered, qualified voters be concerned that their votes will be negated by fraudulent votes?  Yes, we all should be. 

A lifelong Democrat from D.C., Dr. Lynette Long, has spent the past 6 months investigating and tallying results from the Democratic Party nominating contests.  Her conclusion:

"As I write this, the Democratic Party is poised to formally nominate Barack Obama as its candidate for President of the United States.

"It's the triumph of fraud.

"I've spent the past two months immersed in data from the 2008 Democratic caucuses. After studying the procedures and results from all fourteen caucus states, interviewing dozens of witnesses, and reviewing hundreds of personal stories, my conclusion is that the Obama campaign willfully and intentionally defrauded the American public by systematically undermining the caucus process." (emphasis in original)


So Obama is a cheater, a fraud, a thief.

Obama has been sued regarding his lack of production of an actual birth certificate. Doubtful he has an American birth certificate. It would be easy enough to produce it. The one floated on the net is a fraud.

If Obama was white, his whole campaign would be a joke, a nothing.

So it IS ABOUT RACE, and stealing the presidency. That's not racist. That's just the facts.


Posted by: ex-lib || 10/21/2008 17:38 Comments || Top||

#23  It's not about race -- they just use that as a convenient tool from time to time. It's about the left seizing power any way they can, legal or not, ethical or not.
Posted by: Darrell || 10/21/2008 17:43 Comments || Top||

#24  The Specter of Poverty in America
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
By Robert Rector

Last month, the Census Bureau released annual poverty figures showing that the percentage of Americans who are poor rose from 12.1 percent in 2002 to 12.5 percent in 2003.
It's important to recognize that these figures are a year old. They cover 2003, not the current year. Given current economic conditions, it is extremely likely that poverty fell during 2004, although the official figures won't be available until the fall of next year.
Poverty is a lagging economic indicator. Formal recessions (when the whole economy is shrinking) usually last less than a year. But the poverty rate almost always continues to rise for several years after the recession ends. The last recession officially ended in November 2001, but the poverty rate continued to rise in 2002 and 2003. This is a normal economic pattern that has occurred in most prior recessions.
Compared to prior recessions, the recent recession was mild and had a limited impact on poverty. Overall, the increase in poverty resulting from the recent downturn has been half the increase that occurred in the two last recessions that hit the economy in the early 1980s and early 1990s.
Still, the Census Bureau reports that 35.9 million persons "lived in poverty" in 2003, a number that should cause concern to all. But to really understand poverty in America, it's important to look behind these numbers — to the actual living conditions of the individuals the government deems poor.
For most Americans, the word "poverty" suggests destitution: an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing and reasonable shelter. But only a small number of the million persons classified as "poor" by the Census Bureau fit that description. Real material hardship certainly does occur, but it's limited in scope and severity. Most of America's "poor" live in material conditions that would be judged as comfortable or well-off just a few generations ago.
The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:
— Forty-six percent of all poor households own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and porch or patio.
— Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
— Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
— The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens and other European cities. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
— Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
— Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television. Over half own two or more color televisions.
— Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
— Seventy-three percent own a microwave oven, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.
Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family isn't hungry, and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family's essential needs. While this individual's life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, activists and politicians.
Even better news is that remaining poverty can readily be reduced, especially among children. Child poverty in the U.S. is caused largely by low levels of parental work and by the absence of fathers from the home. While work and two-parent families are the surest ladders out of poverty, the welfare system continues to reward idleness while failing to provide support to keep families in tact.
To further reduce poverty, welfare should be overhauled: All able-bodied welfare recipients should be required to work or prepare for work in exchange for the aid they receive. Also, new parents in low-income communities who express interest in marriage (and research tells us there are many) should be equipped with the skills they need to create a healthy marriage, rather than be penalized when they do get married.
Robert Rector is a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation.

Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/21/2008 17:54 Comments || Top||

#25  Way back in #1, Bunyip wrote:
However, I don't understand how these fraudulent registrations are turned into actual votes, and hence into their preferred spokesbat being given the keys to the whitehouse. There must be a way, or their efforts seem pointless. Can anyone enlighten me?

Here's how it worked in the midwest. (Milwaukee specifically, but it was almost certainly the same in Chicago.) Back when all you would need to show is a letter addressed to "you" at an address in the precinct to vote there, the organization--and I don't know it was specifically ACORN--would start by mailing envelopes to all the abandoned buildings they could find.
2) collect the letters that were delivered
3) pass the letters out to volunteers who would go vote under the name on the envelope in that precinct... then ride the bus to another and vote with another envelope as proof of residency... and lather rinse and repeat all day long.

The people coordinating this effort would tell the volunteers that the election judges at those places were expecting them to "run some people by" to vote.
--
(as heard on the Chris Plante Show from a woman who had enough details of the operation to sound VERY credible.)
Posted by: eLarson || 10/21/2008 18:05 Comments || Top||

#26  Can the Dems nominate a presidential candidate who is not a criminal? Most voters were too young to vote for the last Dem, Jimmy, who was a bad president but not a criminal. Does it worry anyone else that one of the two political parties only produces criminals a presidential candidates?
Posted by: whatadeal || 10/21/2008 18:22 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Conspiracy theories rife throughout Pakistan
Raheel Raza, Special to the Sun

My annual visit to Pakistan every year is full of surprises. What change will I find this time? I asked myself as I landed at Karachi airport a few weeks ago.

The situation in Pakistan is more complex than I've ever seen. The economy is in crisis with basic food costs so high that one wonders how the ordinary person feeds a family. The elite don't care because most of them have taken dual nationality and siphoned their money out of Pakistan. The poor keep getting poorer and complain that no one in power has ever cared about them, so why should they care this time?

What bothered me most of all was the attitude of educated middle-class Pakistanis. In the past few years I had noticed the rise of religious fervour among previously moderate Pakistanis. This time I was engulfed and bombarded by conspiracy theories everywhere I turned. At times I felt I was an alien in my own land.

From media to mullahs, everyone seems to thrive on their version of who the enemy is. A friend (who by the way is a Canadian citizen and extremely well educated) proceeded to inform me "this is the sixth part of the Zionist conspiracy to wipe out Pakistan."

She was keen to educate me on the "other five," but I excused myself and left -- only to find myself at dinner with a group who were convinced that it's all an Indian plot. The third visit was just as trying because these were my cousins who told me that Pakistan is victim of a triad -- the U.S., India and Israel -- that was conniving to wipe Pakistan off the map. Everyone is to blame except themselves.

By this time I stopped going out and decided to stay home and see what's happening on TV. Well, that was a wrong move.

On mainstream television, a well-educated, smart and eloquent young scholar speaks every evening at prime time about U.S. plans to invade Pakistan, and everyone is glued to their sets, absorbing this garbage. It's on this mainstream network a panel of scholars announced that the killing of Ahmadiyya Muslims is justified.

The alternative, progressive, moderate Muslim voice is relegated to midnight and I was told chillingly that he's a western mole and the TV station that airs his program has been bought by the United States.

It's no surprise then, that a few days later in the midst of this chaos, Pakistanis chose Mr. Ten Per Cent as their president. Asif Ali Zardari, widower of the slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, now sits smilingly, with a complete makeover, as president of Pakistan.

It's an astounding comeback for a man who spent 11 years in jail on corruption and murder charges as one of Pakistan's most disliked figures.

More surprising, the corruption charges against Zardari that were dismissed ranged from allegations that he took $10 million in kickbacks from a gold importing company to allegations that he improperly used government funds to build a polo ground at the prime minister's residence in Islamabad.

Having put this into perspective, let's not discount this individual completely. Zardari is the son of an astute landlord and politician, Hakim Ali Zardari. Like Dennis Thatcher, Asif Ali Zardari has lived and learned from the most vibrant and brilliant of politicians -- Benazir Bhutto. Zardari has cunningly aligned himself with the right people and is making carefully crafted moves.

Furthermore, the alternative to Zardari is the army, which has already ruled for half of Pakistan's existence, destroying civilian and public institutions. So, while Zardari may make diplomatic faux pas like trying to flirt with U.S. vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, he may be the poison Pakistan needs to heal itself.

Painful as it may seem, Pakistan has to go through a process of democracy. Pakistanis must pull themselves out of a deep dark hole of victimization to realize what's hit them, and then make a decision (without foreign intervention, please and thanks) to keep or get rid of Zardari.

Only then will a cycle of true democracy begin, and will there be hope for the future.

Raheel Raza is an intercultural and interfaith diversity consultant and author of Their Jihad ... Not My Jihad.
Posted by: john frum || 10/21/2008 16:45 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A man with cancer is worried about feet fungi.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/21/2008 19:17 Comments || Top||


Home Front Economy
Last drinks at Bigwig Manor
Posted by: tipper || 10/21/2008 13:25 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Looks like they need registration
The searchlight of post-bust outrage is settling on the top executives of insurance giant, American International Group.

But it’s not the fact that AIG led a massive fraud using credit defaults swaps to subvert the rules on bank gearing ratios that’s causing the outrage.

It’s the partridge shooting party that four of the executives, and four guests, went on in rural England two weeks ago that cost more than $100,000, and the $650,000 week-long retreat for the sales team at St Regis Monarch Beach resort near Los Angeles a week after the US Government bailed the company out.

The News of the World newspaper sent some undercover operatives to spy on the AIG “bigwigs” and reported some fabulous details of their tweeded excess (the capital letters are the newspaper’s):

“During their luxury stay at the 17th Century Plumber Manor in Dorset, the four AIG big shots and their four guests blew US taxpayers’ cash on:

* FOUR aristocratic-style shooting parties costing a whopping £25,000 in total.

* A PRIVATE JET for two of them from Germany costing £10,000.

* FLIGHTS to and from Madrid and a fleet of CHAUFFEUR DRIVEN cars at £5,000.

* SUMPTUOUS feasts washed down with bottles of fine wines and liqueurs costing £5,000 – plus giant PICNIC HAMPERS to guzzle in between slaughtering birds.

* LUXURY rooms totalling £5,000.”

One of the reporters managed to engage one of them in conversation at the bar: “One bigwig at the four-day English country manor beano – Dr Sebastian Preil – told our undercover investigators: ‘The recession will go on until about 2011 – but the shooting was great today and we are all relaxing fine.’”

And then there was this about AIG chief Alvaro Mengotti: “Another, AIG chief Alvaro Mengotti, who later repeatedly LIED that he hadn’t been on the trip of shame, slurped fine wine as he kept pace with the world crash on his Blackberry mobile. ‘It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better,’ he sighed, before heading off with the eight-strong AIG party in tweeds to gun down some birds.”

Separately, according to The Times, the junket for the sales team at St Regis cost $US442,000, including $139,000 on hotel rooms, $147,000 on banquets, $23,400 on spa treatments and $6,950 on the golf course. Room service and bar tabs topped $10,000. This was all on September 22, a week after AIG collapsed and the government had to bail the company out.

After it was pinged for this, AIG issued a statement: “This type of gathering is standard practice in the industry and was planned a year in advance of the Federal Reserve’s loan to AIG. We recognise, however, that even activities that have long been considered standard practice may be perceived negatively. As a result, we are re-evaluating various aspects of our operations in light of the new times in which we operate.”

Also standard practice was AIG’s central role in the systemic subversion of Basel II risk asset rules that led to the credit bubble and collapse.

AIG used credit default swaps to insure the high yielding, subprime mortgages that the banks invested in to get to their profits up. The Basel II rules determine how much capital a bank must have, based on the quality of the bank’s loan book – the riskier the loans, the more capital and therefore the less gearing that can be employed.

AIG offered a way around this for a small fee. And it was able to do so because the credit default swap market is unregulated, so that no capital at all was required on the swaps. That’s because AIG had a AAA credit rating, which was effectively being bestowed upon the subprime mortgages via the CDS insurance.

So banks were able to tell their regulators that high yielding subprime mortgages were actually AAA assets requiring minimal capital, even though AIG was insuring them using no capital itself.

And what’s more, using mark-to-market accounting, AIG could book the profit from a five year CDS as soon as it was sold, based on the expected default rate. That is, whatever a computer said AIG was likely to make on a contract, the accountants could book as immediate, actual profit, and the broker that sold the contract could be paid an immediate bonus.

It was all a colossal fraud. The capital did not exist and the profits being booked – both by AIG and the banks – never materialised.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale – the selling of the mortgages themselves – those involved were also engaging in fraud, usually by simply lying on the application. These were mortgages, remember, that would have been subprime had the forms been filled out correctly – but they weren’t. And then the banks pretended they were AAA-rated.

Yesterday’s New York Times has a story that the FBI is now struggling to deal with the explosion of mortgage fraud in the US because its resources were shifted to counter-terrorism.

The FBI is investigating AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Lehman Brothers, and has 1,500 other mortgage-related investigations underway.

State agencies are also busy with mortgage fraud cases and, as previously reported here, the State of California is suing the mortgage originator, Countrywide Financial, for deception and “unfair competition”.

Meanwhile, over the weekend the US President George W Bush concluded his radio address with these words: “America is the best place in the world to start and run a business, the most attractive destination for investors around the globe, and home to the most talented, enterprising, and creative workers in the world. We're a country where all people have the freedom to realise their potential and chase their dreams. This promise has defined our nation since its founding, this promise will guide us through the challenges we face today, and this promise will continue to define our nation for generations to come.”

And pretty soon the most talented, enterprising and creative workers will be behind bars.
Posted by: tipper || 10/21/2008 13:43 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
"You might be unAmerican if . . ."
Instapundit.
Linkage added.

READER HUGH THORNER WRITES: "You might be unAmerican if . . . A Vice Presidential candidate schmoozes a crowd by calling them pro-American and you immediately think you're being called un-American."

The wicked flee when no man pursueth.
Posted by: Mike || 10/21/2008 08:15 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Touchy, arent they?
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 10/21/2008 11:44 Comments || Top||

#2  You know the dog that's been hit, since it's the one that barks.
Posted by: Grenter, Protector of the Geats || 10/21/2008 14:09 Comments || Top||

#3  I wrote a song and made a video about being labeled "Unamerican" during the 04 election. Sad to think it's still as relevant today as it was 4 years ago. Guess I'm "unamerican"

"(Didn't Know I Was) Unamerican" (flash video)
Posted by: ianRhett || 10/21/2008 16:31 Comments || Top||

#4  I wouldn't dream of making that judgement, Ian dear, but you are a bit silly. If you spend all your money on butter, someone nasty who spent his on guns can easily walk up and take your butter away. In the meantime you'll have only a bit of a paunch and hardened arteries to show for it.

You will notice that although I disagree with your proposition, and find both your lyrics and melody oversimple and derivative, I have done nothing to prevent you from displaying your thoughts anywhere you'd like except my living room.

You are correct, though, that it is precisely as relevant as it was four years ago. What have you learnt since then?
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/21/2008 17:01 Comments || Top||

#5  For some people the shoe not only fits, it's a well-worn loafer that they barely even realize they're wearing. And those are the kinds of people Barack Obama has found himself among, even from an early age in Frank Marshall Davis.

It isn't that he shares all the views of all of them, but the fact that he must feel comfortable around them makes one wonder why he'd even WANT to be president over such a nation as he's been hearing about.
Posted by: eLarson || 10/21/2008 17:38 Comments || Top||


Home Front Economy
Any port in a storm
Posted by: tipper || 10/21/2008 01:04 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  We'll have to go back to the old way of getting payment for shipping: a chest of gold doubloons & pieces of eight delivered to the captain before he offloads his cargo, Arrrh!
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 10/21/2008 1:47 Comments || Top||

#2  Global shipping is grinding to a halt because of the refusal of banks to issue letters of credit.

Quick, someone alert the Somali pirates, that deposit in the undisclosed bank account hasn't cleared yet.

If it's grinding to a halt, why are the Somalis still landing so many fresh 'catches'?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/21/2008 7:31 Comments || Top||

#3  Because those shipments were already booked?
Posted by: lotp || 10/21/2008 8:24 Comments || Top||

#4  What will we do without lead painted infant toys from China?
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/21/2008 8:49 Comments || Top||

#5  Between this and the number of $ being created out of this air, look for some nasty inflation in the near future.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 10/21/2008 9:29 Comments || Top||

#6  What will we do without lead painted infant toys from China?

Makes it a real b*tch for US exports too, meneer.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/21/2008 14:22 Comments || Top||



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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
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Two weeks of WOT
Tue 2008-10-21
  Saudi terrorist trials kick off in Riyadh
Mon 2008-10-20
  Sri Lanka claims smashing 'final' Tiger defences
Sun 2008-10-19
  Taliban stop bus- massacre 30
Sat 2008-10-18
  Kidnapped Chinese engineer escapes Pakistani Taliban
Fri 2008-10-17
  Missile Strike Targeting Baitullah Country Kills 6
Thu 2008-10-16
  18 Talibs titzup in attack on Lashkar Gah
Wed 2008-10-15
  Puntland Coasties free Panama ship from pirates
Tue 2008-10-14
  DPRK regrants IAEA inspectors access to its nuclear facilities
Mon 2008-10-13
  12 boomers among 27 zapped in Wazoo
Sun 2008-10-12
  Lankan president asks LTTE to surrender
Sat 2008-10-11
  North Korea taken off US terror list
Fri 2008-10-10
  15 dead in suicide blast at Pakistan tribal meeting
Thu 2008-10-09
  Boom Bitch Kills 10 in Diyala Province
Wed 2008-10-08
  World's Stock Markets Plunge
Tue 2008-10-07
  Iran forces down Corporate Executive ''Fighter Jet''


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