S & P downgrade

Oh wait -  aren't those the very same people who rated  A++ all those toxic, bundled,  should never-have-had- a-mortgage- mortgage backed securities that  (nearly) BROUGHT DOWN OUR ECONOMY in the first frelling place ??  IAFAYCCI    (new acronym - "it's all fixed and you can't change it")

And just a side funny:  Wells Fargo paid some billion (BILLION) dollar settlement because of (Wacovia's) their falsely favorable rating of some toxic securities.   Paid to some Hedge fund people - also to blame in said economic break down-  who were foolish enough to believe them, even though they were doing the same frelling thing out the other side of their mouths - .  Not to any small guys on Main street, whose wealth (house values, 401k's, college funds) was REALLY  looted. 

The Economic Collapse

The Economic Collapse

Just thought I'd share.

Happening now, in future coming to you fast

 thanks to TruthOut for the regular news letter.  this is today's edition.

Tuesday 26 July 2011 William Rivers Pitt | So This Is Despair William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: "It is difficult to describe this emotion. I'm used to disappointment, fairly comfortable with heartbreak, and am well acquainted with rage. Over the course of my lifetime, my presidents have been Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and now Obama ... and each, in his own way, has been worse than the last." Read the Article Chris Hedges | Fundamentalism Kills Chris Hedges, Truthdig: "The gravest threat we face from terrorism, as the killings in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik underscore, comes not from the Islamic world but the radical Christian right and the secular fundamentalists who propagate the bigoted, hateful caricatures of observant Muslims and those defined as our internal enemies. The caricature and fear are spread as diligently by the Christian right as they are by atheists such as Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. Our religious and secular fundamentalists all peddle the same racist filth and intolerance that infected Breivik." Read the Article Coercive Religion Misplaced in US Armed Forces Mike Farrell, Truthout: "Raised in the Catholic Church, I was a pretty confused kid. Father O'Reilly, one of the priests at St. Peter's, the church our family attended most of the time, spoke with such a pronounced brogue that I couldn't follow him. But I didn't understand the Mass either, so I smiled and pretended he made sense, just accepted him on faith along with the rest of it." Read the Article On the News With Thom Hartmann: If Boehner's Plan Passed, Standard and Poor's Will Immediately Downgrade US Credit Rating, and More In today's On the News segment: Standard and Poor's warned that if Boehner's plan is passed to avoid an immediate default next week - the agency will STILL downgrade our debt because the Boehner plan is nothing more than a gimmick; Wisconsin Governor Walker closing DMV offices in Democratic areas, making it harder to get photos IDs required to vote; rich Americans paying fewer taxes than at any time in last 50 years; with austerity measures, the British economy has tanked; and more. Watch the Video and Read the Transcript Speaker Boehner's Disgrace Robert Borosage, Campaign for America's Future: "Seldom have we witnessed a more dishonest speech in prime time than that delivered by House Speaker John Boehner last night on the debt ceiling crisis." Read the Article FAA in Partial Shutdown; Air Traffic Unaffected Christine Mai-Duc, The Los Angeles Times: "The Federal Aviation Administration was forced into a partial shutdown Monday after Congress failed to temporarily extend its funding. The agency was ordered to furlough thousands of employees and freeze $2.5 billion in airport construction money." Read the Article In Court, Suggestions of Hacking Beyond the News of the World Jo Becker and Ravi Somaiya, The New York Times: "Front pages across Britain featured pictures of Rupert Murdoch apologizing for phone hacking at The News of the World. But further suggestions that the practice spread beyond his newspaper emerged in a small, nondescript courtroom on Wednesday, even as Prime Minister David Cameron broadened an inquiry into the conduct of the British press." Read the Article Paul Krugman | A Prognosis for Greece Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.: "Someday, one way or another, Greece will exit from its current state of indentured servitude. But what will it do for a living? I often hear assertions that the answer is 'nothing.' 'What can the Greeks export?' the critics ask. In general, my response to such claims is that those commentators suffer from the fallacy of misplaced concreteness: An economy, even that of a small nation, is a very complex thing, with more possibilities than a casual top-down overview can reveal." Read the Article Unequal Protection: Protecting Corporate Liars Thom Hartmann, Berrett-Koehler Publishers: "The first direct shot across the bow of the doctrine of a corporation's 'right to lie' by using its 'personhood' to claim First Amendment 'free speech' rights came in April 1998, when Mark Kasky, a California political activist, noticed that Nike was engaged in what he considered to be a deceptive greenwashing campaign." Read the Article Republican Mike Lee: I Want America's "House to Come Down" Unless Congress Votes to Rewrite Constitution Ian Millhiser, ThinkProgress: "In an interview on MSNBC's Hardball Monday evening, tenther Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) admitted that he is using the threat of a catastrophic default to extort the nation into rewriting the Constitution to force a permanent era of conservative governance." Read the Article Crash Club: What Happens When Three Sputtering Economies Collide? Mike Davis, TomDispatch: "Even if debt-limit doomsday is averted, Obama has already hocked the farm and sold the kids. With breathtaking contempt for the liberal wing of his own party, he's offered to put the sacrosanct remnant of the New Deal safety net on the auction bloc to appease a hypothetical 'center' and win reelection at any price. (Dick Nixon, old socialist, where are you now that we need you?)" Read the Article Detroit: A New American Frontier Aaron M. Renn, YES! Magazine: "Detroit has become a byword for extreme urban contraction. Yet as the population, industry, and built environment of the city of Detroit have collapsed, Detroit's urban footprint has continued to expand. In Detroit, even the dead are sprawling, as families disinter bodies from urban cemeteries to rebury them in the suburbs. Is there any greater sign of both the physical and psychological abandonment of the city?" Read the Article Glenn Greenwald: Norway Attacks Expose US Media's Double Standard on "Terrorism" Amy Goodman, Democracy NOW!: "Numerous news outlets and commentators initially blamed the attacks in Norway on Islamic militants. Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper, The Sun, ran a front-page headline that read, 'Al-Qaeda Massacre: Norway's 9/11.' In the United States, Murdoch's Wall Street Journal also initially blamed 'jihadists,' reporting that 'Norway is targeted for being true to Western norms.' Meanwhile, on the Washington Post's website, Jennifer Rubin wrote, 'This is a sobering reminder for those who think it's too expensive to wage a war against jihadists.' To discuss the media coverage of the attacks, we're joined by Glenn Greenwald, constitutional law attorney and political and legal blogger who has written about the media coverage of the attacks in Norway for Salon.com." Read the Article Click here for more Truthout articles TRUTHOUT'S BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES There's a simple reason that President Obama will not invoke the 14th Amendment to resolve the debt-ceiling crisis: the Supreme Court. Yes, there is speculation that Obama is too risk averse to assert that the Constitution gives him the power to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling - and that may be true. But Obama and his advisers know that if he bypasses Congress by using the 14th Amendment, it will immediately be challenged in the federal courts - which are loaded with partisan Republican judges - and fast tracked to the Supreme Court. With Scalia having led a partisan majority time and time again - including his stopping of the State Supreme Court-ordered presidential recount in Florida in 2004 so as not to harm the reputation of the presumed winner, George W. Bush, (Scalia wrote in justification of his infamous opinion) - it is a given that five members of the Supreme Court have no compunction about leaving the Constitution in the dust. As BuzzFlash has argued before, despite calling themselves "strict constructionists," the five majority votes on the Supreme Court are anything but. In fact, they often interpret the Constitution to justify their political outlook as they did in Bush v. Gore and Citizens United, and a host of other rulings that have dramatically affected the direction of this nation. Thom Hartmann views the 5-4 majority record as being so significant that they have become a de facto arm of the Republicans in Congress. Hartmann calls the GOP majority on the court the "Five Kings." The 14th Amendment is pretty clear when it comes to the debt ceiling: "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned." That's about as strict constructionist as you can get in prohibiting Congress from limiting the debt ceiling, even though it has been their tradition to vote on increasing it - as they frequently have done under Republican and Democratic presidents alike. But the "Supreme Court Five" aren't going to really enforce the Constitution as it is written, should Obama invoke the 14th Amendment. They will rule against presidential authority and side with the Republicans in Congress. Because their motivation in high-stakes partisan issues like this is not the law as it is written; it is scoring a victory for their political beliefs and sponsors. That is why President Obama will ultimately not assert the 14th Amendment to resolve the debt-ceiling crisis. The "Five Kings" won't allow him, in the end, to do so. Mark Karlin Editor, BuzzFlash at Truthout Wealth Gaps Widens Between Whites and Minorities Read the Article at The Associated Press The Damage Done to America by Global Warming Would Be Cause for War if Done by Terrorists Read the Article at BuzzFlash Debt-Lock at the DC Corral Read the Article at MSNBC How Boehner's Debt Plan Produces "the Greatest Increase in Poverty and Hardship" in American History Read the Article at ThinkProgress More Loss of American Jobs: GE Moving X-Ray Leadership Team From US to China Read the Article at the Associated Press IMF's Chief Urges Quick US Resolution of Debt Crisis Read the Article at the Voice of America Hoyer: After Default Crisis, Look Forward to Another Government Shutdown Fight Read the Article at Talking Points Memo Click here for more BuzzFlash headlines ---------- Support Truthout with a tax-deductible donation by clicking here. To ensure you receive our messages please add the following address to your email address book: messenger@truthout.org Truthout is a proud member of the Newspaper Guild/CWA, Local 36047 Click here to Subscribe Our Privacy Policy Click here to Unsubscribe

http://www.truth-out.org/speaker-boehners-disgrace/1311689770

A prediction I'll second

Article at Aljazeera in English.  (I've been lazy/appathetic for so long I've forgotten how to do links up there )
CIA veteran: Israel to attack Iran in fall   


And all I can say, is wow, it rings so true, what with all the stupidity about the Gaza blockade, etc.  But if we want the "Rapture" we gotta make sure Israel rules the Middle East.    I'm back to "mindless belief in invisible beings."  If there is a God, She is obviously a population nazi just like me, cus more people have been killed in the name of God than any other thing.  Water and food will be striving to take over that title in the near future, though.


The comments on this article are very thoughtful and seem informed.  Here is just one small quote:

"However, I think there are OTHER forces at play here; I think Netanyahu is no longer merely pandering to the apocalytic Revelations-believing Christians like John Hagee and Pat Robertson, but has become ONE OF THEM.  He has drunk the Koolaide, and is on a Mission From God! "

Hot damn a new cell. Which might give me more possible characters than that POS LG phone. But I do need to find a way to actually read it on the mobile device!

What's in a name?

The first time I saw the name of the North Korean pres/dictator's son:  "Kim Jong Un"  I was sure it was a joke - a bit of snark by whoever (don't remember) wrote the piece I was reading.   But NO! that's really his name.  How wonderful that reality imitates the Onion.

Well, this is bogus. Only about 50 chracters. bah <Marian>

(2/2) `contacts ~ one @ a time!! But won`t send Martina`s pic or JamesBrown I Feel Good!<Marian>

(1/2) Trying the new phone for a blog entry. Can`t seem to send any pics ~ the very 1st one! Or ring tones from the old phone to the new. Sent all my

.......reality is an illusion — in some cases, a dangerous one.

I am not sure why we are so obsessed with the idea of free will. We exist in a dense plenum of realities and histories, all acting at different times, speeds, intensity, motivations, etc., from inside us and from outside. The mind sits and sees some of it, probably very little of it, really. And yet we presume that we are making choices to do this or that or say this or that and that we have all of the knowledge necessary to make this or that decision. That can't be true. Most of what we do and say and think occurs in a massive continuum of contingent realities, so that the notion of "free will" seems really irrelevant to understanding how humans "are" in the real world. Looking forward from a decision, say to eat a piece of toast or not. So many variables involved in the decision, which may come down to the dog needing to be walked and so no toast for me, even though, had contingent reality not intruded, I would have been able to assess whether I really wanted, needed, would enjoy, etc., etc. that piece of toast. That kind of decision, writ large across a life, such as say choosing a career, or choosing a mate, or just about any forward looking "decision" clearly is subject to vastly greater forces than some pipsqueak "free will" allowing me to choose one path over another.

Bottom line: immediately snatching from science an outcome of an experiment, without knowing much about the experiment at all, and leaping into tortured elucubrations is interesting, perhaps, but not particularly illuminating of the human condition. Grock the full dimensions of the science before gluing it to some quickly made kite.

All this began with the NYT and. . .

"Freedom and Reality: A Response

By WILLIAM EGGINTON

The idea that we can fully comprehend reality is an illusion — in some cases, a dangerous one."

The italicized above is from a comment on the post that precedes the one I'm noting above,

from : (re: re: re: like, heh heh)

Christina Forbes, Alexandria VA

Sounds like someone with whom to sit down for toast.

It's all fixed and you can't change it - still

An article in (on?) today's SF Gate, about bio fuels etc. My comment:

Bio-fuel harvests are destroying rain forests and critical habitat all over the Third World. Here, as some one already said, corn is a subsidy pretending to be a fuel solution. There is no such thing (italics!) as clean coal - a life destroying endeavor from start to power release phase. Hemp would be good, but. . .
However - all of these solutions involve burning something, at some point, with by-products. . .
Hydrogen (combustion by-product - water) is the cleanest, but maybe a new form of pollution to consider.

We need a new government funded Skunk Works to take on this problem. Total conversion of matter to energy. But they'd have to fund it through black-ops or some other 'secret' source, cuz the folk in D.C. remain in deep pockets and Big Oil wouldn't like that.

The Future is Here! (again)

omg! Touchable holograms. The ripple effect. No more spreading germs - in medical settings, particularly. No need to buy the actual switch - a manufactured item, just a new holo. Not "outsourcing" but "upsourcing" mmmm spell checker no like :)

And the future of the Gulf Coast (day 100, now) remains unclear, but clearly troubled. The news heads are saying that visable oil is much diminished, and isn't that swell. But wait. . . oil is still heavier than water in their universe, no? Much of the oil was 'dispersed' with yet another toxic chemical. The critters who don't just toes up will be whelping two headed -and other freakish young pups for generations. The epa, or someone, will declare Gulf Coast fauna perfectly safe to eat, so the toxicity spreads up the food chain. I've read this scenario in multiple "future history" books. The queerly malformed descendants of the last technological civilization.

Seems as tho the Brits (PM) are pushing hard on Pakistan's (nuclear) buttons. Cameron tweaks their nose on "exporting terrorism" prior to a visit to India. ("the former jewel in the crown of the BE" thx to BBC News) Expecting imminent attack from India is a Pakistani national passtime/paranoia. India has, for pete'sake, enough of its own troubles, and is stupid for not making this more clear to P. For that matter, MOST countries have enough of their own problems, (US US US!!) and need to stay the heck within their own borders.

And the highlight of my week: 92,000 leaked documents showing everything you always really suspected about the War in Afghanistan. If you are truly a revolutionary* - in the very best sense of the word - you've just got to send them some money.

*like George Washington, Thomas, Jefferson, Thomas Paine - those Revolutionaries.

"We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves"*

Ever wondered exactly how powerful the biggest corporate lobbies are? In Washington, note that Republicans support suspected terrorists' "right" to purchase guns, even while maintaining that no other part of the U.S. Constitution or the Geneva Conventions apply to them. And in Sacramento, a pesticide so cancer-causing that it's often used specifically to create cancer in rats for medical experiments was just proposed for use on the state's strawberry crop.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/green/detail?entry_id=62991#ixzz0nJKvP9On

*George Orwell, 1984

Maybe it IS a curse

Poor Gulf Coast. Place to be hit worst: NO LA. BP America offshore oil rig still spewing. Three - count 'em 3! fail safes built into the rig to shut down pumping, seal off flow - - FAILED. There have to be viral conspiracy theories oozing across the Web. Already worse than Exxon Valdez. Day 10 (yesterday) wind was so strong they couldn't deploy booms. Way to go La. - Day TEN?? Where the hell were the frelling booms on day 2? Seafood and aqua tourist biz - totaled.

All this coming not even a month after Obama announced opening up vast swaths of the Atlantic Coast to drilling.

I just do not believe in coincidence this vast. I might believe the Goddess reached down, except for the creatures who will die from the oil - and the remedies employed to staunch it.

Fundys who have not yet proved to the world's satisfaction that N. O. sins must be smote?
Environuts?
Real terrorists?

CNN already asking if we think Obama's response has been good, bad or indifferent. I'm pretty sure he has no authority in La. waters. OTH, where was the frelling Coast Guard? They have the necessary technology to investigate, at least. Why do we not just assume that the corporate entity at the heart of the disaster is gonna LIE their teeth off for as long as they can maintain the lie. (Just like the guy at the mine that killed 129 or so guys last month) "Two thousand gallons only." oh wait, I meant 20 thousand, no, 20 million, now it is the size of a small state. Exactly like the Cosco Busan, which fouled up SF bay a couple of months back. If we'd known the extent of the leak from the first, it could have been contained. Coast Guard and a slew of volunteers were standing by, but the corporate rats lied like rugs for three days, til visually they could no long get away with it.

The punditm say it won't affect gas prices - lots of replacement oil - Katrina's affect on oil prices related to refinery capacity. So we won't really care. . . except those who care for The Mother

Here's hoping the techno folks have some mighty microbe tucked away, just waiting for its opportunity to show the world that it can transform an oil slick into something beneficial, or at least neutral. If there was such a microbe - one that could total devour/destroy/convert crude into something non-toxic - the OPEC guys would have buried it so deep it'd be sharing "core" (of the earth) space with Edgar Rice Burroughs characters.

The Internet Will Save the World! Part . . .

"Governments across the globe are quietly asking tech companies to take down material they do not like, and to provide data about their users. Google took a welcome step toward transparency last week when it unveiled a new tool that reports on both of these kinds of requests." NY Times editorial. So frelling awesome! Should be ported to iPhone/clones any minute now.

So much for mobile blogging

WHY ARE PEDOPHILIA-HIDING, CHILD-ABUSING CHURCH FATHERS ALLOWED TO WRITE LAWS ABOUT WOMEN'S BODIES?  

seems to cover it in a nutshell, but the AlterNet article is behind the link.

I just spent 20 minutes wandering around my house mumbling wow, WOW,
wow!!   Gonzalo and his German girlfriend resurrected my house, so to
speak: cleaned, rearranged do dads and knick nacks, furniture, all the
misc. crap from Carmen/Crystal's room,  etc.!!! Martina and Lilly Rose
are ensconced*   in their usual spots on the bed; Shere Khan is playing
hard to get at the moment, but she will come to the lap as soon as I
'make' one.   (well, the spell checker doesn't seem to know 'esconsed'
so I STILL don't know how to spell it. But WAIT - there's a dictionary
right here on my computer table !!-  but NO again - not in there unless
my spelling is really wildly off - I give up)  *but of course it is - and
Blogger.com was able to come up with the right spelling!  Although it was unable to accept the AlterNet  spelling of women's, offering woman's, w omen's etc. I've told it to add to the dictionary: maybe after a log off it will cope.

As for mobile blogging - just didn't have enough time in between flights to continue it.

Had a wonderful week at Linda's doing no work - , watching those amazing kids, driving - rather, being driven - around SW Florida where everything is 45 min. away from where you are right now. We went to a large predator (mostly big cats) rescue place, where you could begin to feel sorry for the critters in their cages, until you read their stories and discover what hell holes most of them came from.

Went to church where the preacher reminded me that "It's not all about YOU."  Got to hear Robb and associates play and sing a bunch of songs/hymns - the better part of the morning.
Oh yeah. And got myself kicked by the horse - Rainey - who was determined to get at that bucket of feed I was carrying.  Nice bruise on my right thigh.  I was gonna say "upper thigh" but it covers pretty much the whole thing! A humbling experience.

I finally get a chance to blog from the phone! Might need to learn how to use The t9 or whatever they call the auto complete thingy

It's all fixed. . .part 200 or so

Daniel Ellsberg on "Democracy Now. Be sure to note the related headlines at the bottom.

I have to imagine that the MIC (military industrial complex - thanks Ike!) has Obama by the nuts in some kinda way, to cause him to ignore 5,000 years of history in Afghanistan - (sheesh, we're history blind over here). USSR-10 years, no cigar! umpteen invasions over umpteen centuries, nada. The PTB redrawing the map of the world in their image. "History is written by the winners." Imagine, given what we do know, what the real story would be. I hope I come back as an animal (maybe I should chose a non-endangered species) .

and here's a bit more on that subject from the NY Times

It's All Fixed, and You Can't Change It Pt.II. .

or, Change You Can Believe In? redux.

From AlterNet:

"On March 4th, Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman introduced a bill called the "Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010"

Half way down the first page, is this heart-breaker:

"Now, however, as president, Obama has helped pave the way for such radical legislative efforts as the one introduced by McCain and Lieberman, by embracing -- and re-branding -- the military commissions he once opposed."

and concludes:

"A close reading of the bill suggests it would allow the U.S. military to detain U.S. citizens without trial indefinitely in the U.S. based on suspected activity."

This is a defining characteristic of a military dictatorship. Where's the outrage? And will it come before it's too late?

I wish I said that !

Another awesome from top to bottom Mark Morford SF Gate column.

I'm tired. YC's quasi-functional computer / software continues to make me CRAZZZZY ier by the minute. By the end of my 3rd straight day, I'm pounding the table top and hollering a lot. "I used to be so good at this job," is my frequent lament. SW has always been not quite professional (imagine a data base that crashes if more than one user opens the same file - an item that elicits howls of laughter from the cognizant.) but as it has been "updated" incrementally over the years, it now approaches the perfect pie crust.