Boycott the Mail!!!

Didn't Cosmo Kramer try this? If I remember correctly it did not end well in that case, Wilfred Brimley came down on him like a ton of bricks. good luck.

Efforts to Block Junk Mail Slowed
Postal Service Argues Against Registries to State Lawmakers

By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 19, 2008; Page A13

Chris Pearson, a state legislator in Vermont, had a sense that the people were with him when he proposed a bill last November to allow residents to block junk mail.

He got media attention, radio interview requests and e-mails from constituents eager to stop the credit card offers, furniture catalogues and store fliers that increasingly clog their mailboxes.

Then came the pushback from the postmasters, who told Pearson and other lawmakers that "standard" mail, the post office's name for junk mail, has become the lifeblood of the U.S. Postal Service and that jobs depend on it.

"The post office and the business groups are pretty well-organized," said Pearson, whose bill remains in a committee and has not been scheduled for a vote.

Barred by law from lobbying, the Postal Service is nonetheless trying to make its case before a growing number of state legislatures that are weighing bills to create Do Not Mail registries, which are similar to the popular National Do Not Call Registry.

The agency has printed 3,000 "information packets" about the economic value of standard mail, with specific data for each of the 18 states that have considered a Do Not Mail Registry. It has dispatched postmasters to testify before legislative committees around the country.

"The Postal Service has come in and clobbered legislators," said Todd Paglia, executive director of ForestEthics, an environmental group that has collected 289,000 signatures on an online petition to Congress that calls for a National Do Not Mail Registry. "It's really a people-versus-special interest kind of battle."

The Postal Service is working closely with the Direct Marketing Association, the trade group that represents retailers and the printing industry, in its new campaign -- Mail Moves America -- which is designed to quash the Do Not Mail initiatives.

So far, their efforts appear effective. None of the states where Do Not Mail legislation has been introduced since 2007 has approved a law. And no similar legislation is pending in Congress.

Sean Sheehan of the Center for a New American Dream, a progressive group based in Takoma Park, said state efforts may precede national action, just as they did with the Do Not Call Registry.

"Federal legislators are more sensitive to the heavy lobbying of the paper industry, as well as the impact on the postal service, whereas a lot of state legislators are really more in tune with local needs," Sheehan said. "It's local governments that have to pay millions to truck that trash out to landfills."

So far in the 2008 campaign cycle, the Direct Marketing Association has made $141,877 in contributions to federal candidates, including $6,610 to Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), who chairs the subcommittee that oversees the Postal Service and does not face reelection until 2012.

Perhaps surprisingly, environmental groups -- whose members say they are concerned about junk mail -- are cool to the idea of a registry that prohibits marketers from sending mail to those enrolled and that fines violators.

One reason may be that most environmental groups are themselves junk mailers. They use standard mail for their solicitation letters.

A national registry "would affect anybody who mails," said Laura Hickey, senior director of global warming education at the National Wildlife Foundation, which belongs to the Direct Marketing Association. "I don't think it would be any different whether you were for-profit or nonprofit.'' As an alternative, the National Wildlife Foundation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups have created Catalogue Choice, a program that asks retailers to voluntarily stop sending catalogues to anyone who signs up for the free online service at http://www.catalogchoice.org.

"If people participate in a voluntary system, then I don't see the need for a legislative strategy," Hickey said. When Catalogue Choice was launched in October, the foundation expected about 150,000 people to sign up in the first year. Six months into the project, more than 642,000 people have joined. "It obviously filled a void," Hickey said.

Still, it is unclear how many marketers are voluntarily heeding requests to stop mailing.

The Direct Marketing Association operates its own registry ( http://www.dmachoice.org) and in an e-mail sent last November, instructed its members to ignore Catalogue Choice.

Postal officials say they are aware of the environmental concerns related to junk mail. In testimony on Capitol Hill last week, Postmaster General John E. Potter told lawmakers that the Postal Service has one answer: Recycling bins positioned beneath personal mailboxes at post offices, to catch junk mail as it tumbles out.

GW coming unhinged!?

Great column, she's got his number: plumb loco! HW should whup his ass good.

Op-Ed Columnist
Soft Shoe in Hard Times

By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: March 16, 2008

WASHINGTON

Everyone here is flummoxed about why the president is in such a fine mood.

The dollar’s crumpling, the recession’s thundering, the Dow’s bungee-jumping and the world’s disapproving, yet George Bush has turned into Gene Kelly, tap dancing and singing in a one-man review called “The Most Happy Fella.”

“I’m coming to you as an optimistic fellow,” he told the Economic Club of New York on Friday. His manner — chortling and joshing — was in odd juxtaposition to the Fed’s bailing out the imploding Bear Stearns and his own acknowledgment that “our economy obviously is going through a tough time,” that gas prices are spiking, and that folks “are concerned about making their bills.”

He began by laughingly calling the latest news on the economic meltdown “a interesting moment” and ended by saying that “our energy policy has not been very wise” and that there was “no quick fix” on gasp-inducing gas prices.

“You know, I guess the best way to describe government policy is like a person trying to drive a car in a rough patch,” he said. “If you ever get stuck in a situation like that, you know full well it’s important not to overcorrect, because when you overcorrect you end up in the ditch.”

Dude, you’re already in the ditch.

Boy George crashed the family station wagon into the globe and now the global economy. Yet the more terrified Americans get, the more bizarrely carefree he seems. The former oilman reacted with cocky ignorance a couple of weeks ago when a reporter informed him that gas was barreling toward $4 a gallon.

In on-the-record sessions with reporters — and more candid off-the-record ones — he has seemed goofily happy in recent weeks, prickly no more but strangely liberated and ebullient.

Even though he ordinarily hates being kept waiting, he made light of it while cooling his heels for John McCain, and did a soft shoe for the White House press. Wearing a cowboy hat, he warbled a comic Western ditty at the Gridiron Dinner a week ago — alluding to Scooter Libby’s conviction, Saudis getting richer from our oil-guzzling, Brownie’s dismal Katrina performance, and Dick Cheney’s winsome habit of withholding documents.

At a dinner on Wednesday, the man who is persona non grata on the campaign trail (except for closed fund-raisers) told morose Republican members of Congress that he was totally confident that “we can retake the House” and “hold the White House.”

“I think 2008 is going to be a fabulous year for the Republican Party!” he said, sounding like Rachael Ray sprinkling paprika on goulash. That must have been news to House Republicans, who have no money, just lost the seat held by their former speaker, and are hemorrhaging incumbents as they head into a campaign marked by an incipient recession and an unpopular war.

If only they could see things as the president does. Bush, who used his family connections to avoid Vietnam, told troops serving in Afghanistan on Thursday that he is “a little envious” of their adventure there, saying it was “in some ways romantic.”

Afghanistan is still roiling, as is Iraq, but W. is serene. “Removing Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency, it is the right decision now, and it will be the right decision ever,” he said, echoing that great American philosopher Dan Quayle, who once told Samoans, “Happy campers you are, happy campers you have been and, as far as I am concerned, happy campers you will always be.”

W. bragged to Republicans about his “considered judgment” in sending more troops to Iraq and again presented himself as an untroubled instrument of divine will. “I believe there’s an Almighty,” he said, “and I believe a gift of that Almighty to every man, woman and child is freedom.”

Although the president belittled the Democrats for their policy of “retreat,” his surge has been a temporary and expensive place-holder for what Americans want: a policy to get us out of Iraq.

“Has it allowed us to reduce troop levels to below where they were when it started?” Michael Kinsley wrote recently. “The answer is no.” Gen. David Petraeus told The Washington Post last week that no one in the U.S. and Iraqi governments “feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation.”

Maybe the president is just putting on a good face to keep up American morale, the way Herbert Hoover did after the crash of ’29, when he continued to dress in a tuxedo for dinner.

Or maybe the old Andover cheerleader really believes his own cheers, and that prosperity will turn up any time now, just like the W.M.D. in Iraq.

Or perhaps it’s a Freudian trip. Now that he’s mucked up the world and the country, he can finally stop rebelling against his dad and relax in the certainty that the Bush name will forever be associated with crash-and-burn presidencies.

Whatever the explanation, it’s plumb loco.

marx Cafe tonight!!

I'll be at Marx tonight, 10-12 spinnin' some ill tunez. Seeya there!

3203 Mount Pleasant St NW

Copper theft closses schools.

Wow, those kids should count their blessings, a day off from school due to a spike in commodity prices and an unscrupulus smelter!

Copper theft forces school to cancel classes

Elias C. Arnold
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 17, 2008 03:20 PM

Hurley Ranch Elementary School was closed Monday after thieves stole a series of copper pipes that deliver water to the school.

Principal Melanie Block said she learned of the problem Sunday morning and opted to cancel classes, only to discover the next day that thieves had returned.

"Last night, they came in and finished the job and took the remaining three pipes that were out there," Block said Monday.

The initial theft was discovered about 8 a.m. Sunday when a church group noticed there was no running water. The group rents space at the school, near 91st Avenue and Broadway Road in Phoenix.

Officials soon found a pipe that delivers water to the school had been cut off and stolen. They decided to cancel classes when maintenance workers were unable to repair the damage.

Teachers were on campus until about 10 p.m. Sunday calling parents of the school's nearly 950 students about the closure. Only about 50 parents had to be turned away Monday morning, Block said.

But officials arrived by 6 a.m. Monday to learn the remaining water delivery pipes had been cut.

A cage protects the pipes, which stick out of the ground. The thieves apparently used bolt cutters to open the cages, Block said.

She said the repairs should be completed Monday, though students could be sent to other Union Elementary School District schools for classes if the thieves strike again.

"I'm running with the positive intention school will be up and running tomorrow (Tuesday), " she said.

Bear Sterns buy-out a "low ball" offer.

no way, no way at all this deal goes through at 2$ a share. Not going to happen, the notional value alone is priced above this offer.

Bear Stock Triples JPMorgan Bid as Traders Seek More (Update2)

By Zachary R. Mider and Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam

March 18 (Bloomberg) -- Bear Stearns Cos.' stock rose 44 percent to more than three times the current $275 million value of JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s acquisition as traders increased bets that investors will push for a higher offer.

JPMorgan, with backing from the Federal Reserve, agreed two days ago to buy the New York-based securities firm for about $2 a share in stock to prevent a collapse. The value of the transaction has climbed to $2.31 a share as the bank's stock price has rallied. Bear gained $2.12 to $6.93 at 1:30 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

Yesterday, billionaire Joseph Lewis, Bear's second-biggest shareholder, called the price ``derisory,'' according to a phone interview cited by CNBC. Other investors may share that opinion. During a conference call the day the deal was announced, an individual investor said he would vote against the sale.

``It's perfectly possible that the deal you see right now is not the deal you're going to get,'' said Nancy Havens, president and founder of Havens Advisors LLC, which invests in takeover targets. ``There's every incentive for shareholders to vote `no' the first time.''

Havens said she didn't buy Bear yesterday because she wasn't convinced the offer would rise any more.

Opposition

``Certainly, it looks like a significant number of shareholders are deciding to vote against the deal,'' James Ellman, who oversees $200 million as the president of San Francisco-based SeaCliff Capital. Investors are saying ``Bear Stearns can survive on its own, JPMorgan will have to up the price, or that another bidder is about to emerge,'' he added.

Ellman, whose hedge-fund firm specializes in financial stocks, sold his Bear stock about a year ago.

Bear climbed to $171.51 last year and closed at $30 on March 14, the last trading day before New York-based JPMorgan stepped in. The book value was $84 a share as recently as November.

``It's a race between the bondholders and shareholders to buy as much stock as they can,'' said Brian Shapiro, managing director of Source Capital NY. ``They have divergent interests at this point.''

Bondholders could be buying stock because they want the deal done, while shareholders are trying to amass a larger stake because they want to vote the deal down, Shapiro said.

Bear spokesman Russell Sherman didn't immediately return a call seeking comment. Douglas McMahon, a spokesman for Lewis, didn't return a call seeking comment.

JPMorgan, based in New York, will pay 0.05473 share for each of Bear's 118 million shares outstanding. The bank rose $1.81, or 4.5 percent, to $42.12, after increasing 10 percent yesterday.

To contact the reporters on this story: Zachary R. Mider in New York at zmider1@bloomberg.net; Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam in Boston at sbhaktavatsa@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: March 18, 2008 13:43 EDT

Marx Cafe tonight!

Hey all, I'll be playing at Marx Cafe tonight, 10pm-12. Join me for half priced Belgian beers and some of the freshest UKG tunez on the scene today. See you there!

3203 Mount Pleasant St NW

Derivatives market set to implode

I had thought these markets had all ready imploded, but apparently Warren Buffet is convinced there is yet still more wealth destruction to happen before this whole nightmare scenario is wrapped up. Yikes.

Derivatives the new 'ticking bomb'
Buffett and Gross warn: $516 trillion bubble is a disaster waiting to happen

By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
Last update: 7:31 p.m. EDT March 10, 2008

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- "Charlie and I believe Berkshire should be a fortress of financial strength" wrote Warren Buffett. That was five years before the subprime-credit meltdown.
"We try to be alert to any sort of mega-catastrophe risk, and that posture may make us unduly appreciative about the burgeoning quantities of long-term derivatives contracts and the massive amount of uncollateralized receivables that are growing alongside. In our view, however, derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are potentially lethal."

That warning was in Buffett's 2002 letter to Berkshire shareholders. He saw a future that many others chose to ignore. The Iraq war build-up was at a fever-pitch. The imagery of WMDs and a mushroom cloud fresh in his mind.
Also fresh on Buffett's mind: His acquisition of General Re four years earlier, about the time the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund almost killed the global monetary system. How? This is crucial: LTCM nearly killed the system with a relatively small $5 billion trading loss. Peanuts compared with the hundreds of billions of dollars of subprime-credit write-offs now making Wall Street's big shots look like amateurs.
Buffett tried to sell off Gen Re's derivatives group. No buyers. Unwinding it was costly, but led to his warning that derivatives are a "financial weapon of mass destruction." That was 2002.
Derivatives bubble explodes five times bigger in five years
Wall Street didn't listen to Buffett. Derivatives grew into a massive bubble, from about $100 trillion to $516 trillion by 2007. The new derivatives bubble was fueled by five key economic and political trends:

1.
Sarbanes-Oxley increased corporate disclosures and government oversight
2.
Federal Reserve's cheap money policies created the subprime-housing boom
3.
War budgets burdened the U.S. Treasury and future entitlements programs
4.
Trade deficits with China and others destroyed the value of the U.S. dollar
5.
Oil and commodity rich nations demanding equity payments rather than debt

In short, despite Buffett's clear warnings, a massive new derivatives bubble is driving the domestic and global economies, a bubble that continues growing today parallel with the subprime-credit meltdown triggering a bear-recession.
Data on the five-fold growth of derivatives to $516 trillion in five years comes from the most recent survey by the Bank of International Settlements, the world's clearinghouse for central banks in Basel, Switzerland. The BIS is like the cashier's window at a racetrack or casino, where you'd place a bet or cash in chips, except on a massive scale: BIS is where the U.S. settles trade imbalances with Saudi Arabia for all that oil we guzzle and gives China IOUs for the tainted drugs and lead-based toys we buy.
To grasp how significant this five-fold bubble increase is, let's put that $516 trillion in the context of some other domestic and international monetary data:

*
U.S. annual gross domestic product is about $15 trillion
*
U.S. money supply is also about $15 trillion
*
Current proposed U.S. federal budget is $3 trillion
*
U.S. government's maximum legal debt is $9 trillion
*
U.S. mutual fund companies manage about $12 trillion
*
World's GDPs for all nations is approximately $50 trillion
*
Unfunded Social Security and Medicare benefits $50 trillion to $65 trillion
*
Total value of the world's real estate is estimated at about $75 trillion
*
Total value of world's stock and bond markets is more than $100 trillion
*
BIS valuation of world's derivatives back in 2002 was about $100 trillion
*
BIS 2007 valuation of the world's derivatives is now a whopping $516 trillion

Moreover, the folks at BIS tell me their estimate of $516 trillion only includes "transactions in which a major private dealer (bank) is involved on at least one side of the transaction," but doesn't include private deals between two "non-reporting entities." They did, however, add that their reporting central banks estimate that the coverage of the survey is around 95% on average.
Also, keep in mind that while the $516 trillion "notional" value (maximum in case of a meltdown) of the deals is a good measure of the market's size, the 2007 BIS study notes that the $11 trillion "gross market values provides a more accurate measure of the scale of financial risk transfer taking place in derivatives markets."
Bubbles, domino effects and the 'bad 2%'
However, while that may be true as far as the parties to an individual deal, there are broader risks to the world's economies. Remember back in 1998 when LTCM's little $5 billion loss nearly brought down the world's banking system. That "domino effect" is now repeating many times over, straining the world's monetary, economic and political system as the subprime housing mess metastasizes, taking the U.S. stock market and the world economy down with it.
This cascading "domino effect" was brilliantly described in "The $300 Trillion Time Bomb: If Buffett can't figure out derivatives, can anybody?" published early last year in Portfolio magazine, a couple months before the subprime meltdown. Columnist Jesse Eisinger's $300 trillion figure came from an earlier study of the derivatives market as it was growing from $100 trillion to $516 trillion over five years. Eisinger concluded:
"There's nothing intrinsically scary about derivatives, except when the bad 2% blow up." Unfortunately, that "bad 2%" did blow up a few months afterwards, even as Bernanke and Paulson were assuring America that the subprime mess was "contained."
Bottom line: Little things leverage a heck of a big wallop. It only takes a little spark from a "bad 2% deal" to ignite this $516 trillion weapon of mass destruction. Think of this entire unregulated derivatives market like an unsecured, unpredictable nuclear bomb in a Pakistan stockpile. It's only a matter of time.
World's newest and biggest 'black market'
The fact is, derivatives have become the world's biggest "black market," exceeding the illicit traffic in stuff like arms, drugs, alcohol, gambling, cigarettes, stolen art and pirated movies. Why? Because like all black markets, derivatives are a perfect way of getting rich while avoiding taxes and government regulations. And in today's slowdown, plus a volatile global market, Wall Street knows derivatives remain a lucrative business.
Recently Pimco's bond fund king Bill Gross said "What we are witnessing is essentially the breakdown of our modern-day banking system, a complex of leveraged lending so hard to understand that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke required a face-to-face refresher course from hedge fund managers in mid-August." In short, not only Warren Buffett, but Bond King Bill Gross, our Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the rest of America's leaders can't "figure out" the world's $516 trillion derivatives.
Why? Gross says we are creating a new "shadow banking system." Derivatives are now not just risk management tools. As Gross and others see it, the real problem is that derivatives are now a new way of creating money outside the normal central bank liquidity rules. How? Because they're private contracts between two companies or institutions.
BIS is primarily a records-keeper, a toothless tiger that merely collects data giving a legitimacy and false sense of security to this chaotic "shadow banking system" that has become the world's biggest "black market."
That's crucial, folks. Why? Because central banks require reserves like stock brokers require margins, something backing up the transaction. Derivatives don't. They're not "real money." They're paper promises closer to "Monopoly" money than real U.S. dollars.
And it takes place outside normal business channels, out there in the "free market." That's the wonderful world of derivatives, and it's creating a massive bubble that could soon implode.
Comments? Yes, we want to hear your thoughts. Tell us what you think about derivatives: as "financial weapons of mass destruction;" as a "shadow banking system;" as a "black market;" as the next big bubble dangerously exposing us to that unpredictable "bad 2%."

hair loss

How is this guy not in prison yet? Giuseppe Franco's miracle hair thickening treatment, Proede, actually makes hair FALL OUT. Isn't the government tasked with protecting consumers from these snake oil salesmen?

http://www.infomercialratings.com/product/procede_hair_loss

That's messed up.

If these guys don't deserve to be granted citizenship, then none of us have any more right to the honor.

Bush's broken promises hit war vets

February 24, 2008

PressTV

US President George W. Bush sparks an outcry after breaking promises to grant citizenship to the immigrant members of the US military.

According to the New York Times, the Department of Defense and the Citizenship and Immigration Services are refusing to consider pending citizenship applications of more than 7,200 service members.

"If what I have done for this country is not enough for me to be a citizen, then I don't know what is," said former Marine Abdool Habibullah, a Guyanese immigrant who has been waiting for a citizenship since he returned from Iraq in 2005.

“I've pretty much given up on finding out where my paperwork is, what's gone wrong, what happened to it,” he added.

After the September 11 attacks, Bush signed an administrative order which allowed non-citizens on active duty to apply for citizenship. The broken promises have infuriated migratory affairs lawyers and congressional officials.

“These are men and women who are risking their lives for us,” said Democrat Sen. for New York Charles Schumer.

“They've met all the requirements for citizenship, they have certainly proved their commitment to our country, and yet they could lose their lives while waiting for a bureaucratic snafu to untangle,” he concluded.

Iran seeks world ban on nukes

Wow, a shocking turn of events.

From correspodents in Geneva

March 05, 2008 01:52am

IRAN wants to ban all nuclear weapons through an international treaty, the country's foreign minister said at the UN's Conference on Disarmament.

"The time has come to ban and eliminate all nuclear weapons," Manouchehr Mottaki told the conference.

The UN Security Council on Monday slapped another round of sanctions on Iran over its refusal to suspend nuclear enrichment activities, while in Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency attempted to convince Tehran to cooperate.

Western states have accused Tehran of pursuing a nuclear program under cover of energy production, a charge it has firmly denied.

Iran's foreign minister said during Tuesday's meeting in Geneva that it is necessary to "start negotiations to reach a convention on the ban of stocks and the production of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction".

During the conference, he questioned the right of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to possess nuclear arms.

"The winners of the Second World War have claimed this right and imposed it on the international community," he said.

"Today, the right of veto and the right to possess nuclear arms has become a monetary exchange to obtain illegitimate rights," he added.

Iran, which confirmed that it had launched its first rocket to space February 4, also supported a proposal from Russia and China to ban weapons in space.

The project, which was presented on February 12 by Russia during the Conference on Disarmament, suggested banning the deployment of all types of arms in space. The US has opposed such a treaty.

The UN Conference on Disarmament brokered key Cold War accords such as the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, but has made scant progress over the last decade as the 65 members remain at odds on future priorities.