Free energy is for real.

http://www.taiwanheadlines.gov.tw/ct....

TAIWAN TO EMBARK ON OCEAN CURRENT POWER GENERATION
07/02/2007 (CNA)
Taipei, July 2 (CNA) The government is now discussing the possibility of large-scale ocean current power generation, using the strong Kuroshio current off the east coast of Taiwan to generate up to 1.68 trillion kilowatt-hours per year, officials at cabinet-level Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said Monday.

The project task force, led by Chen Fa-lin -- director of Energy and Environment Research Laboratory under Hsinchu-based Industrial Technology Research Institute, is currently working on fine-tuning the guidelines, which will be presented to CEPD senior officials in August or September.

After the project is green-lighted, the possible first step should be setting up a five-megawatt marine turbine off Taiwan's east coast on a trial basis, with the goal of testing both related technologies and power-generating efficiency, CEPD officials, adding that hopefully, the project can enter the next stage in three years.

"Current power generation is not a new idea, " officials noted. "Countries like Britain, Canada, Norway, and Australia all have experience in deploying offshore marine turbines with capacities ranging from one megawatt to eight megawatts to support the electricity demand of hundreds to thousands of households."

"The problem is not the technology itself but how to locate a suitable site -- with a current strong enough, an undersea shelf not too deep, and a distance short enough to achieve power supply efficiency," they added.

However, they explained that based on the surveys done by National Taiwan University (NTU) , the sea area of some 6,000 square kilometers between the eastern county of Taitung and the outlying Green Island in the Pacific Ocean appears to meet all the requirements, and that the maximum potential capacity there exceeds 1.68 trillion kilowatt- hours per year -- while Taiwan's current annual demand of electricity is only about 98 billion kilowatt-hours.

According to the estimates of the project task force, a given site of 25 square kilometers located in the "shallow, high-speed zone" could support the deployment of 1,000 one-megawatt marine turbines, which would have a peak capacity of 1,000 megawatts: equal to the output of Taiwan's second nuclear power plant.

Chen, the project leader, noted that once the turbines enter commercial operation, Taiwan's existing coal power plants could be retired, while the nuclear power generators could be used as a backup system -- thereby resulting in a great reduction in Taiwan's total carbon dioxide emissions. (By Zep Hu)



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http://www.dreamofpassamaquoddy.com/

“Man needs only to exercise his engineering ingenuity to convert the ocean’s surge into a great national asset.”
—John F. Kennedy, July 16th, 1963

President John F. Kennedy, Remarks in Response to a Report on the Passamaquoddy Tidal Power Project, July 16th, 1963:
I AM pleased to meet today with Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives from New England to discuss the report on the International Passamaquoddy Tidal Project submitted by Secretary Udall. Two years ago, I asked Secretary Udall, in cooperation with the Corps of Engineers, to restudy the proposed project, and the hydroelectric potential of the St. John River in Maine to determine whether recent developments in electric power technology had enhanced the economic feasibility of these projects.
This report has been presented to me this morning, and its major conclusions are most encouraging. The report reveals that this unique international power complex can provide American and Canadian markets with over a million kilowatts for the daily peak period in addition to 250,000 kilowatts of firm power. Electric power rates in the New England region are among the highest in the United States, and the survey indicates that a massive block of power can be produced and delivered at a cost of about 4 mills, approximately 25 percent below the current wholesale cost of power in the region.
I am pleased to note also that the development plan proposed would preserve the superb recreational areas of the Allagash River from flooding, and that an area suitable for a new national park would be preserved in this scenic part of Maine.
Any proposed resource development project must, of course, meet the national interest test. It must strengthen the economy of the whole country and enable America to compete better in the market places of the world. I understand that, measured by the customary feasibility standards, the Passamaquoddy-St. John project now meets the national interest test.
During the last three decades American taxpayers, through their Federal Government, have invested vast sums of money in developing the water resources of the great rivers of this country–the Columbia, the Missouri, the Colorado, the Tennessee, and others. These investments are producing daily dividends for our country, and it is reasonable to assume that a similar investment in conserving the resources of New England will also benefit the Nation. It is also reasonable to assume that a New England development will stimulate more diversified industry, increase commerce, and provide more jobs.
Our experience in other regions and river valleys shows that private utility customers as well as public agency power users benefit from lowering the basic cost of electric energy.
Harnessing the energy of the tides is an exciting technological undertaking. France and the Soviet Union are already doing pioneering work in this field. Each day, over a million kilowatts of power surge in and out of the Passamaquoddy Bay. Man needs only to exercise his engineering ingenuity to convert the ocean’s surge into a great national asset. It is clear, however, that any development of this magnitude and new approach must also be considered in the context of the National Energy Study currently being undertaken by an interdepartmental committee under the chairmanship of the Director of the Office of Science and Technology, Dr. Wiesner.
These projects involve international waters, and equitable agreements must therefore be reached with the Canadian Government. Therefore, I am requesting the Secretary of State to initiate negotiations immediately with the Government of Canada looking toward a satisfactory arrangement for the sharing of the benefits of these two projects. Also, to insure full consideration of these proposals, I am directing that the Interior Department and the Corps of Engineers accelerate their work on the remaining studies of details.
The power-producing utilities of the United States are second to none in the world. The combined effort of science, private industry, and Government will surely keep this Nation in the forefront of technological progress in energy and electric power.
I think that this can be one of the most astonishing and beneficial joint enterprises that the people of the United States have ever undertaken and, therefore, I want to commend the Department of the Interior for its initiative in working on this matter the past 2 years, the congressional delegation from Maine which has been interested in this for many years, and the Members of Congress from New England who have supported this great effort. I think it will mean a good deal to New England and a good deal to the country.
Note: The President spoke at 10 a.m. in the Flower Garden at the White House. The text of brief remarks by Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall and Senators Margaret Chase Smith and Edmund S. Muskie of Maine was also released.
The report (93 pp.) is dated July 1963 and entitled “The International Passamaquoddy Tidal Power Project and Upper Saint John River Hydroelectric Power Development.” A 24-page “Summary Report” was also released.
For the President’s request for a restudy of the project, see 1961 volume, this series, Item 197.

RON PAUL OUTRANKS ALL OTHERS IN MILITARY DONATIONS

Ron Paul was #1 in contributions from military personnel.

read about it here.

This support from active duty personnel is an early indicator that Dr. Paul's campaign shouldn't allow them selves to be marginalized. Keep up the good fight, good things are coming.

Found some more info here. Apparently this data was compiled for every donation over $200, that's the limit where the law requires you to report your employer.

NAME: TOTAL [ARMY] [NAVY] [AIRFORCE] [VETERAN] [USMC**]

RON PAUL: 24,965 [6,975] [6,765] [4,650] [5,075] [1,500]
MoneyMcCain: 17,475 [6925] [6305] [1795] [800] [1600]
Romney: 3,551 [2,051] [0] [1500] [0]
Giuliani: 2,320 [1,450] [370] [250] [250]
Hunter: 1000 [0] [1000] [0]
Huckabee: 750 [250] [0] [500]
Tancredo: 350 [350] [0] [0]
Brownback: 71 [71] [0] [0]
Thompson: 0 [0] [0] [0]

Units are contributions in dollars by employees of the respective military organizations.

Rave sports!!

Wow, this sounds like fun!

Make way for the greatest sport ever invented

Blackminton - in all its Day-Glo shuttlecocks-in-the-dark glory - is the first time the spheres of cool and sport have collided.

Steven Wells

July 19, 2007 1:50 PM

Some sports are so patently in need of improvement, and those improvements are so ridiculously obvious, that one suspects the status quo is only maintained by some vast and sinister conspiracy.

Rugby union, for instance, would obviously be massively improved if it became rugby league. And who wouldn't much rather see Tiger Woods weave his way through an insanely imaginative miniature/crazy golf course - as opposed to the tedious every-hole-the-bloody-same borathons he slogs through at present?

Basketball would be way cooler if it got rid of all the breaks and time-outs. Baseball could learn from all the crazy innovations that have recently made cricket watchable for the first time in 300+ years. And American football would be way cooler if the squads were halved so the same players had to play attack and defence and weren't allowed to trot off for oxygen, massages, Gatorade and a nice long sit down every time it looked like the precious lambs might be about to break into a bit of a sweat.

And, of course, as anyone who tried to sit though the arse-aching slogfest of this year's men's tournament at Wimbledon can testify, tennis should be first to 21 - inna old skool ping pong stylee.

And then there's badminton, which is much more fun than tennis. In fact - as Lee Calvert pointed out on this very site - badminton kicks tennis's ass.

But can badminton be improved? Hell yes.

There's speedminton - faster than badminton with a bigger, harder shuttlecock. With speedminton you can say goodbye to boring old net misery and play across rooftops, on mountains and in deserted swimming pools and shit. It's todally sick.

And then there's Blackminton - invented by the same crazy Germans who invented speedminton.

As sick as speedminton is, blackminton is way sicker, deffer and phatter. It's speedminton played in black light with a luminous shuttlecock while wearing crazy Day-Glo fluorescent rave slap. And is therefore the best sport ever invented ever by anyone.

In the words of New York based cultural critic Tom Cowell: "It's less about exercise and more about dressing up like a cyberpunk-rocker and pretending to be in the movie Tron. Rules take a back seat to sprinting about like an electrified lunatic and looking really cool doing it. For a helpful image, think of the street gangs from The Warriors playing laser tag with squash rackets while recreating the video for Pop Will Eat Itself's Ich Bin Ein Auslander as directed by Steven Wells and Nick Small of Gob TV. This is the answer to America's obesity crisis."

So blackminton is an improvement on speedminton which is an improvement on badminton which is an improvement on tennis which isn't quite as good as ping pong.

But blackminton is also a massive improvement on the disco dancing phenomenon known as raving. At a rave young people who have taken a drug that makes them twitch to simple music designed to be twitched to by people who've taken the aforementioned drug, twitch. While covered in crazy Day-Glo fluorescent rave slap and waving glo-sticks.

Well blackminton is exactly like that but without the drugs and with someone keeping score. In short, it's the first ever cool sport. Meaning two spheres that have been kept entirely separate for millennia - cool shit that bad teenagers like doing and sport - have been joined to create a sexy Siamese new thing.

This collision of cool and anti-cool might result in an explosion that destroys the universe. Or it might not. My bet is the innate German-ness of blackminton will act as a safety valve, rendering the sport just uncool enough to avert any potential matter-meets-antimatter style meltdown. Praise be.

Marx Cafe tonight!

Yes, you heard it right. Belgian beer night rolls on! $4 Chimay and $5 Bolleke, both on tap! I'll be playing records from 10pm until whenever, UKG, 4/4 Bassline and 2-step. Seeya there!

3203 Mt. Pleasant St. NW

Burning women alive, life in prison??!!

Why does this article mention life in prison for this shitbag? This happened in texas, get ol' sparky ready to go!

Police: Texas Man Accused of Burning Girlfriend Alive During Fight Has Shown 'Little Remorse'

Murder charges were filed Monday in the burning death of Texas child-welfare caseworker Terry Leigh Lee, allegedly at the hands of her new boyfriend — who has shown "little remorse," police told FOXNews.com.

John Marshall Dodd, 42, is behind bars, accused of pouring gasoline on his girlfriend of just a few months after striking her during an ugly fight, then setting her on fire. Dodd initially lied to neighbors and investigators about what happened, saying Lee had been burned in a kitchen accident, according to authorities.

He faces life in prison if convicted and is currently in the Montgomery County Jail on $250,000 bail.

More than 90 percent of Lee's body and face were scorched in the attack late Saturday night at her home in Conroe, Texas, a suburban community about 30 miles outside of Houston. The 44-year-old caseworker of the state's Child Protective Services died Sunday night of her injuries at an area hospital.

Conroe Police Sgt. Mike Tindall told FOXNews.com in a phone interview that authorities pieced together what happened based on a statement Dodd gave them, as well as evidence they gathered from the scene — but said the suspect hasn't expressed regret at what he allegedly did to Lee.

Read the rest here.

Oil may hit $95 a barrel

Good news for the Oil sector and their investors! bad news for everybody else.

U.S. oil may hit $95 if OPEC does not hike output: Goldman NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. crude price could top $90 a barrel this autumn and hit $95 by the end of the year if OPEC keeps oil production capped at current levels, Goldman Sachs said in a report issued on Monday.

U.S. oil prices have risen to near $74 per barrel, driven this month by higher demand and lower supplies, the report said, pointed out that such fundamentals could tighten further unless key OPEC members hike output.

"We believe an increase in Saudi Arabian, Kuwaiti and UAE (United Arab Emirate) production by the end of the summer is critical to avoid prices spiking above $90 a barrel this autumn," the report stated.

OPEC agreed last year to lower output by 1.7 million barrels per day (bpd), and Goldman said global oil production is down about 1 million bpd from last summer's levels.

Disappointing output growth from non-OPEC producers also helped tighten supplies, Goldman said, adding global demand was up by 1 million bpd from year-ago levels.

"Our estimates show that keeping OPEC production at current levels and assuming normal weather this coming winter, total petroleum inventories would fall by over 150 million barrels or 6.5 percent by the end of the year, which would push prices to $95 a barrel without a demand response," the report forecast.

Bush is a crass buffon

WTF?? When someone mentioned to me that commander cookoo bananas had openly mocked the reporters assembled for a presidential press conference, I found it a little hard to believe. What was he drunk??!! File under things you don't want to actually be heard saying in public.

"Let me cut the ribbon ... and then why don't you all yell simultaneously -- really loudly -- and that way you might get noticed. I'll listen, internalize, play like I'm going to answer the question and then smile at you and just say God, thanks, thanks for such a solid, sound question," Bush said at the end of his remarks.

Marx Cafe tonight!

Hey all, I'm going to be at Marx Cafe tonight playing my signature set of 2-step and modern garage classics, music starts at ten. Beer speicials - $5 DeKonneke and $4 Chimay. Seeya there!

3203 Mount Pleasant St. NW

Arms Control event

I think I might stop by and hear this talk tommorow nite.

Bomb Scare
The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons

Wednesday, July 11, 2007
5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
(Light Refreshments Served)

Busboys and Poets
Langston Room
2021 14th Street, NW
Washington, DC

Featured Speakers
Joseph Cirincione
Senior Fellow and Director for Nuclear Policy, Center for American Progress
Author, Bomb Scare

Jeffrey G. Lewis
Director, Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative
New America Foundation

Joseph Cirincione is one of America’s best known weapons experts. His new book, Bomb Scare, begins with the first atomic discoveries of the 1930s and covers the history of their growth all the way to the current crisis with Iran. Cirincione unravels the science, strategy, and politics that have fueled the development of nuclear stockpiles and increased the chance of a nuclear attack. He also explains why many nations choose not to pursue nuclear weapons and pulls from this a corrective to the current failed policies: a balance of force and diplomacy, enforcement, and engagement that yields a steady decrease in these deadly arsenals.

Joseph Cirincione is Senior Fellow and Director for Nuclear Policy at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. He is the author of the new book, Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons (Columbia University Press, 2007). Cirincione also teaches at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and served for eight years as director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He worked for over nine years on the professional staff of the Armed Services Committee and the Government Operations Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Join the New America Foundation for an engaging discussion of nuclear weapons with Joseph Cirincione and Jeffrey Lewis.

The New York Review of Books says, “Cirincione writes as a seasoned Washington observer…his invaluable new book…ought to be read by everyone as a matter of life and death.”

Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, says that Bomb Scare is “Succinct and smart, informed by insight drawn from long experience, Bomb Scare is the best one-volume examination of the history and challenges of the nuclear arms race yet written.”

Robert Gallucci, Dean of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, says Bomb Scare is “a compact, balanced, and wise treatment of an issue that is of critical importance to our security.”

To RSVP for this event, reply to this email: communications [AT] newamerica.net with name, affiliation, and contact information.

Aziz Ganni speaks out

Finally someone who gets it! The sectarian violence wracking Baghdad and the whole of Iraq isn't between warring religious sects; it's amongst those opposed to the occupation and those collaborating with the coalition forces. By all means, let's go ahead and have Arab states send troops into Iraq to secure the peace so that our boys can come home. We didn't find the WMDs and as such there's no reason to stick around any longer.

‘Let Iraqis kill each other,’ Catholic bishop says, calling for U.S. withdrawal

By Robert Delaney
6/27/2007

Catholic News Service (www.catholicnews.com)

DETROIT, Mich. (CNS) – U.S. troops should withdraw and let Iraqi factions fight it out, the bishop for most Iraqi Catholics in the United States said June 19.

CHALDEAN BISHOP CALLS FOR U.S. WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ – Bishop Ibrahim N. Ibrahim of the Chaldean Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle, based in Southfield, Mich., calls for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq during his June 19 sermon at Mother of God (Chaldean) Cathedral in Southfield. The eparchy serves Chaldean Catholics in the eastern United States. (CNS/Michigan Catholic)

"Let the Iraqis kill each other, but let the occupying power get out, because they are not killing each other because they are Sunni or Shiite, but because they are with the Americans or against the Americans," said Chaldean Catholic Bishop Ibrahim N. Ibrahim.

The head of the Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle made the comments in an impassioned sermon at a special Mass at Mother of God (Chaldean) Cathedral in the Detroit suburb of Southfield, where the eparchy has its headquarters.

The Mass, which drew close to 1,000 people, was celebrated to memorialize recently slain Chaldean Father Ragheed Aziz Ganni and the three subdeacons who were killed with him, as well as to pray for all those who have died in the fighting in Iraq, including U.S. troops, and for the safety of Iraq's remaining Christians.

Bishop Ibrahim said the situation of Christians in Baghdad, Iraq's capital, "is very, very bad," with Islamic terrorists threatening that they must convert to Islam or pay a special tax as protection money.

Even if they choose to leave, they are being threatened to leave any unmarried daughters behind so they can be taken as wives by Muslims and forced to convert to Islam, the bishop said.

But Bishop Ibrahim said he does not believe the Muslims killing and threatening Christians are from either of Iraq's two Muslim groupings – Shiites or Sunnis – but rather al-Qaida terrorists from outside Iraq.

The bishop spoke in Arabic at the Mass, but later provided an English translation of his major points.

"For a Christian to be killed in the Middle East is nothing new – it often happened in the second, third and fourth centuries that Christians were martyred for their faith – but for Christians to be killed in the 21st century, when the world's major superpower has 150,000 troops in that country, is a terrible thing," he said. "Why are they there if they cannot defend human life and human rights?"

Bishop Ibrahim said U.S. troops should at least withdraw from the cities, and he believes the warring factions would eventually reach some sort of power-sharing arrangement.

The current situation puts Christians in the hazardous position of being perceived as being allied with the foreign occupiers, but the Americans provide no special protection for them, the bishop continued.

"We do not have weapons, we do not have a militia, and nobody is supporting us," he said.

And even with some of the additional troops from the planned surge in U.S. forces already in place, there is no security in Baghdad, he noted.

"Things are worse and worse and worse every single day, even for the Americans. The best thing is to withdraw, and then let the brothers attack each other," Bishop Ibrahim said.

When Father Ganni and the three subdeacons were killed June 3 by men wearing masks after leaving a church in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul following Mass, the police did not even come to investigate, Bishop Ibrahim said. "Their bodies lay on the streets for two hours after they were killed."

The bishop said he was about 30 miles from Mosul when the four men were slain.

The best hope for improving the situation in Iraq would probably be for troops from other Arab countries under the auspices of the United Nations to be sent in to replace withdrawing U.S. forces, in Bishop Ibrahim's view.

Remon Samir Jiddou, parish council vice president at Mother of God, said there is not much fellow Chaldeans back in Iraq can do about the dangers they now face. "It's out of our hands; that's why we pray to God. All we have is our faith in God, that he will protect us."

Parishioner Ferial Kishmesh said, "I'm praying for all Iraqis – whether Christian or Muslim. We're all brothers and sisters."

Most Iraqi Christians – both in Iraq and in the United States – are Chaldean Catholics, ethnic Assyrians whose church has been in union with Rome since the 16th century. Smaller groupings of Iraqi Christians include members of the Ancient Assyrian Church of the East, from which the Chaldeans split, and Syriac Catholics.

The Southfield-based Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle is the diocese for Chaldean Catholics living in approximately the eastern half of the United States. Of about 160,000 Chaldeans in the U.S., about 120,000 are in the eparchy, with some 110,000 of them living in metropolitan Detroit.

Bishop Ibrahim said about 120,000 Chaldeans still live in their traditional villages in the north of Iraq or in northern cities such as Mosul, while perhaps 250,000 live in Baghdad. Chaldeans have been leaving Iraq for years, and even more would like to, he said.

"If they have money and the means and a passport, they want to get out," the bishop added.

- - -

Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

White House ignores security procedures

EOP staff bringing cell phones and Blackberries into a SCIF? That's a big no-no. How could they get away with that? Who is the FSO at the white house so derelict in thier responsibilities that this would be allowed to happen? From http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=517.

Another area of concern involves the management of the White House Security Office itself. The current and former security officials reported that James Knodell, who until recently was the Director of the White House Security Office, and Ken Greeson, the Deputy Director, routinely violated basic security guidelines. They also said that these officials were poor managers who were loath to assert authority over White House security practices or to take actions that could embarrass White House officials.

One example cited by the officials involved security procedures in the White House sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF). The security officers said that Mr. Knodell and Mr. Greeson habitually brought their Blackberry devices and cell phones into the SCIF in the White House Security Office in violation of the rules. The officials said that Mr. Knodell and Mr. Greeson also allowed others, such as visiting White House personnel, to bring their Blackberries and cell phones into the SCIF. According to the officials, these improper practices were allowed to continue even after security officers repeatedly informed Mr. Knodell and Mr. Greeson that the practices violated security rules and set a poor example.

According to the security officers, the poor management and bad examples set by Mr. Knodell and Mr. Greeson caused extreme frustration and plummeting morale among White House security officers, resulting in the departure of more than half of the White House security officers within the last year.

Oh, that's how it happened, the Security Officers don't care enough to do the job properly. I mean who would want to be the guy to say to Dick Cheney, "I'm sorry Sir, your going to have to leave that document with me, it can't leave this room" he'd turn and sneer, the security officer would most likely turn to stone on the spot once fixed in that death glare. This is really pathetic. The individuals tasked with maintaining security at the White House are the very ones flagrantly flouting good security practices. It gets worse though.

In a third example, a security officer reported that a White House official left classified material behind in a hotel room during a foreign trip with the President. Although the CIA recovered the material and reported the incident, the White House Security Office did not investigate, seek remedial action, or discipline the responsible official.

LOL, this is too funny. Could you imagine being the guy at the CIA tasked to rescue classified documents that some Executive branch dipshit managed to leave in a hotel room? I hope whomever made that mistake was fired. Um, well no, because there was no investigation by the White House security office. Ummm, WHAT??!! So not only did someone from EOP leave classified material at a hotel room in a foreign country but no investigation of the security breach was undertaken. That's astounding. It's in fact extremely criminal, a felony.

In another example described to my staff, a junior White House aide reported that a senior assistant to the President improperly disclosed “Sensitive Compartmented Information” to the junior aide, even though the aide had no security clearance. Although SCI is the highest level of security classification, the White House Security Office took no steps to investigate or take corrective action.

As these are the violations that Henry Waxman was informed about, or just the ones he chose to use as examples here, it's safe to assume that nothing has changed over there and there's likely many, many instances like these where White House security officers have chosen not to enforce the rules meant to safeguard classified information. Surely they identified the bad apples and were able to repair the damage, right?

According to the security officers, the poor management and bad examples set by Mr. Knodell and Mr. Greeson caused extreme frustration and plummeting morale among White House security officers, resulting in the departure of more than half of the White House security officers within the last year.

Nope, it's just gotten worse.

The next great depression, it's here.

All the signs are there, time to head for the hills!

BIS warns of Great Depression dangers from credit spree

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 9:02am BST 25/06/2007

The Bank for International Settlements, the world's most prestigious financial body, has warned that years of loose monetary policy has fuelled a dangerous credit bubble, leaving the global economy more vulnerable to another 1930s-style slump than generally understood.

Construction in Shanghai: BIS warns of Great Depression dangers from credit spree
The BIS said China may have repeated the disastrous errors made by Japan in the 1980s

"Virtually nobody foresaw the Great Depression of the 1930s, or the crises which affected Japan and southeast Asia in the early and late 1990s. In fact, each downturn was preceded by a period of non-inflationary growth exuberant enough to lead many commentators to suggest that a 'new era' had arrived", said the bank.

The BIS, the ultimate bank of central bankers, pointed to a confluence a worrying signs, citing mass issuance of new-fangled credit instruments, soaring levels of household debt, extreme appetite for risk shown by investors, and entrenched imbalances in the world currency system.

"Behind each set of concerns lurks the common factor of highly accommodating financial conditions. Tail events affecting the global economy might at some point have much higher costs than is commonly supposed," it said.

The BIS said China may have repeated the disastrous errors made by Japan in the 1980s when Tokyo let rip with excess liquidity.
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"The Chinese economy seems to be demonstrating very similar, disquieting symptoms," it said, citing ballooning credit, an asset boom, and "massive investments" in heavy industry.

Some 40pc of China's state-owned enterprises are loss-making, exposing the banking system to likely stress in a downturn.

It said China's growth was "unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable", borrowing a line from Chinese premier Wen Jiabao

In a thinly-veiled rebuke to the US Federal Reserve, the BIS said central banks were starting to doubt the wisdom of letting asset bubbles build up on the assumption that they could safely be "cleaned up" afterwards - which was more or less the strategy pursued by former Fed chief Alan Greenspan after the dotcom bust.

It said this approach had failed in the US in 1930 and in Japan in 1991 because excess debt and investment built up in the boom years had suffocating effects.

While cutting interest rates in such a crisis may help, it has the effect of transferring wealth from creditors to debtors and "sowing the seeds for more serious problems further ahead."

The bank said it was far from clear whether the US would be able to shrug off the consequences of its latest imbalances, citing a current account deficit running at 6.5pc of GDP, a rise in US external liabilities by over $4 trillion from 2001 to 2005, and an unpredented drop in the savings rate. "The dollar clearly remains vulnerable to a sudden loss of private sector confidence," it said.

The BIS said last year's record issuance of $470bn in collateralized debt obligations (CDO), and a further $524bn in "synthetic" CDOs had effectively opened the lending taps even further. "Mortgage credit has become more available and on easier terms to borrowers almost everywhere. Only in recent months has the downside become more apparent," it said.

CDO's are bond-like packages of mortgages and other forms of debt. The BIS said banks transfer the exposure to buyers of the securities, giving them little incentive to assess risk or carry out due diligence.

Mergers and takeovers reached $4.1 trillion worldwide last year.

Leveraged buy-outs touched $753bn, with an average debt/cash flow ratio hitting a record 5:4.

"Sooner or later the credit cycle will turn and default rates will begin to rise," said the bank.

"The levels of leverage employed in private equity transactions have raised questions about their longer-term sustainability. The strategy depends on the availability of cheap funding," it said.

That may not last much longer.

Marx Cafe tonight!

It's on.

10PM

3203 Mt. Pleasant St. NW

yeah.

US waking to Saudi threat?

Cutting off any US paid for handouts to the House of Saud seems like a good idea, considering that's where the 9/11 hijackers came from, and the likely hiding place of Osama bin Laden, if he's even still alive. The fact that it's taken this long for some people to draw the connection is really maddening, this should have been the headlines a week after 9/11 instead of coming 6 years after the fact. Bush's blind spot is right!

U.S. House votes to ban aid to Saudi Arabia

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON, June 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Friday to prohibit any aid to Saudi Arabia as lawmakers accused the close ally of religious intolerance and bankrolling terrorist organizations.

The prohibition, reflecting persistent tensions with the kingdom after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, was attached to a foreign aid funding bill for next year that has not yet been debated by the Senate.

It also faces a veto threat from the White House because of an unrelated provision.

A spokesman for the Saudi embassy in Washington declined to comment on the legislation.

In the past three years, Congress has passed bills to stop the relatively small amount of U.S. aid to Saudi Arabia, only to see the Bush administration circumvent the prohibitions.

Read the rest of the story here.

And then this... http://www.radarmagazine.co... US intelligence has finally figured out it's possible that Osama is in Saudi Arabia. Bush’s connections to Saudi Royalty have been well documented, what we know little about is the back channel connection between the House of Saud and senior Al-Qaeda leadership operating in Iraq. There has been evidence for some time, however you'll rarely see this mentioned in the western press, of the flow of arms and supplies coming across Iraq's southern border in support of the Sunni insurgency. Its possible there's more going on here than meets the eye. Coalition forces may in time find that the Iraqi Army they have trained actually works for Iran, we'll be pinched between these two forces and left with little options. Those Iraqi security forces we have been training could very well turn on us.

Beating Around the Bush
HIDE AND SHEIKH

Did President George W. Bush seal Osama Bin Laden’s fate with a kiss? Ever since CIA chief Porter Goss admitted to Time magazine three weeks ago that he has “an excellent idea” where the top terrorist is hiding, the chatter among Capitol Hill democrats has been that Bin Laden remains at large because he’s hiding in Bush’s blind spot—Saudi Arabia. “There is a lot of evidence from what Goss has said publicly, and our President’s relationship with the Saudi Royal family, that warrants an investigation,” one Democratic congressman tells Radar. “But the Democrats don’t want to appear too hysterical with this, so they’re taking their time to find out the facts.”

If the man responsible for killing 3,000 Americans is in Saudi Arabia it presents a unique problem for the petrol-rich president, the congressman said. “Who can forget the kiss between Bush and [Saudi Crown] Prince Abdullah two months ago when they sat down to talk about ‘oil prices?’ Well, since then, oil prices have skyrocketed to 60 bucks a barrel! The Saudis literally have the President by the balls.” Since one of Bin Laden’s stated goals is the overthrow of the House of Saud, it’s unlikely the royal family is sheltering him, but the glut of radical Wahabbists in the country who would happily take the terrorist in makes the scenario a distinct possibility, the congressman said. Moreover, Bush knows that going into Saudi Arabia for Bin Laden would most certainly spark a civil war and oil crisis. “The bottom line is any truly sovereign nation will give him up, but there aren’t many of those in the Middle East.”

Upcoming Ron Paul media apperances

This is great news!

June 21, 2007
Ron Paul, Reaching out to Gen-Yers
Posted by Nick Bradley at June 21, 2007 09:56 AM

Rep. Ron Paul will be on G4TV's Attack of the Show next Tuesday, June 26th at 7PM, to talk one-on-one with host Kevin Pereira, one of my former high school classmates, on The Loop.


I think it's a good forum for Ron Paul. First, AOTS caters to the tech-saavy, 18-29 demographic, where much of Ron Paul's support is coming from. Second, Paul's ardent opposition to internet regulation meshes quite well with the show's tecnolibertarian slant; they do disagree on Net Neutrality, however.


Ron Paul will also be on nationally-syndicated morning talk show "ManCow in the Morning" on the 26th at 8:30 (ET).

Harold Giuliani a.k.a. Joseph Starrett

Great article about Rudy's father, such an honest hard working individual inspired his son to achieve great things. It's plain to see where he gets the courage to face each day. Here's some excerpts.

The crime occurred on April 2, 1934, at 12:05 p.m. in the unlit first-floor corridor of a 10-family residential building at 130 East 96th Street in Manhattan. Shortly before noon, Harold Giuliani and an accomplice positioned themselves in shadowy recesses near the stairwell. Within 10 or 15 minutes Harold Hall, a milkman for Borden's Farms, entered the building to make routine payment collections. As he began to make his way up the stairs, Giuliani emerged from the shadows and, according to the indictment, pressed the muzzle of a pistol against Hall's stomach. "You know what it is," he reportedly said. He forced the man into a nook behind the stairwell, where his counterpart was waiting. The other man plunged his hand into Hall's pants pocket and fished out $128.82 in cash.

As Giuliani's accomplice frantically stuffed the money into his own pockets, either he or Giuliani—or both—commanded Hall to "pull down your pants."

Hall refused.

Giuliani grabbed Hall's pants and yanked them down to his ankles. He told Hall to sit down. He grabbed the man's hands, pulled them behind his back and bound them with cord. Squatting, his back to the wall, Giuliani leaned over his victim and began tying his feet together. Before he was finished, a police officer, Edward Schmitt, burst in the front door of the building.

"Throw them up!" yelled Schmitt. Giuliani obeyed.

His accomplice, who, at this point, had the gun and the money, fled down the stairs to the basement and escaped onto the street.

So not only did he get pinched, his partner got away with the loot. Classic!

Two weeks before he was committed to Sing Sing, Giuliani underwent a psychiatric exam. Benjamin Apfelberg, a psychiatrist with the city's Department of Hospitals, sent his report to Judge Bohan on May 18. Although Apfelberg found that Giuliani was "not mentally defective" and displayed "no psychotic symptoms at the present time," the report painted a troubling mental portrait.

"A study of this individual's makeup," wrote Apfelberg, "reveals that he is a personality deviate of the aggressive, egocentric type. This aggressivity is pathological in nature and has shown itself from time to time even as far back as his childhood. He is egocentric to an extent where he has failed to consider the feelings and rights of others."

Noting Harold's "nearsightedness," Apfelberg continued: "As a result of this physical handicap, especially because of taunts in his boyhood years, he has developed a sense of inferiority which, in recent years, has become accentuated on account of his prolonged idleness and dependence on his parents. . . . His school life was marked by retardation on account of the mischievous and unruly conduct. Due to his aggressive traits and through his excessive aimless idleness, he has been attracted to haphazard associations which apparently were the direct precipitating factors in bringing about the present offense. He is anxious about his predicament on account of a feeling of guilt. He rationalizes the motives of his offense in a self-pitying way in order to obtain sympathy."

Apfelberg concluded his report with this recommendation and caveat: "From a purely and strictly psychiatric standpoint, without considering the social, environmental and other factors in this case, the findings indicate that the social rehabilitation possibilities are favorable for eventual readjustment but are rather dubious as to the prognosis in regard to improvement in personality."

So the man was, according to the opinion of a professional, a violent sociopath with little hope of reform. Hmm.. What traits do you think young Rudi picked up from his papa? Oh, wait it gets better.

But bar tabs weren't the only debts Harold collected. He had come a long way since the spring day more than 14 years ago when he mugged a milkman. Now the crimes he committed were part of an organized criminal enterprise. Known as the "muscle" behind the loan-sharking operation, Harold was Leo's collection agent, recouping money that had been loaned out and was now overdue.

Most debtors would pay at the bar, slipping an envelope to Harold across the counter. In the mid to late '50s, Harold collected as much as $15,000 a week, tapping dozens of debtors. The "vig" usually began at a stifling 150 percent and rose with the passing of each week. Many people borrowed money to pay rent or foot a business expense and would pay back four or five times the amount they borrowed. There were no excuses for being late.

One afternoon, a man reluctantly entered the bar to apologize to Harold, saying that he didn't have the money—could he have just one more week? Frowning, Harold reached under the bar, out of sight, and gripped his baseball bat. As the man before him continued pleading for an extension, Harold swung the bat, cracking him flat across the face, sending him back a few feet. "Don't be late again," Harold said, according to an eyewitness.

That was the gist of Harold's job: enforce Leo's law through threats or violence. He shoved people against walls, broke legs, smashed kneecaps, crunched noses. He gave nearby Kings County Hospital a lot of business.

"People in the neighborhood were terrified of him," said a frequent customer at Vincent's, who was one of Leo's son Lewis's best friends and whose family borrowed money from Leo.*

Read the whole article here.

Ron Paul locked out, call to action!

Call the numbers below and express your outrage. Let Paul debate!!!

Ron Paul Excluded in Iowa
Posted by Lew Rockwell at June 19, 2007 02:24 PM

On Saturday, June 30th, in Des Moines, Iowans for Tax Relief and the Iowa Christian Alliance will hold a presidential candidates forum. Present will be Messrs. Romney, Brownback, Gilmore, Huckabee, Thompson, and Tancredo. Ron Paul will not be there because he has been barred.

The heads of the two organizations refuse to say why. If can find out, let me know.

Edward Failor
Iowans for Tax Relief
2610 Park Avenue
Muscatine, Iowa 52761
Phone: 563-288-3600 or 877-913-3600
Fax: 563-264-2413
E-mail.

Steve Sheffler, President
Iowa Christian Alliance
939 Office Park Road, Suite 115
West Des Moines, Iowa 50265
Phone: 515-225-1515
Fax: 515-225-1826
E-mail.

Marx Cafe tonight!

Another round of beats and eats! The specials haven't changed, $4 Dekoneke and $5 Chimay draft beers. Music starts at 10pm.

3203 Mt. Pleasant St. NW

Copper thefts! Copper thefts!

From Hawaii - http://www.khnl.com/Glob... How did these cops manage to interrupt the thieves while in the act and still not arrest or able to identify them? Sounds fishy!

Lieutenant Daniel Ford emerges from an evidence storage unit at the Kapolei police station, and shows us the 353 pounds of insulated copper wire recovered Wednesday. Investigators say two men are seen behind the Hawaiian Cement plant at Campbell Industrial Park, loading the copper wire into an SUV. But the thieves are forced to leave everything behind, including the get-away car, when officers converge. "According to HECO, this is underground cable," Ford said. "So with all the new subdivisions that are coming up, once you lay the cable, unless you tie into the system, you wouldn't even know the cable was gone."
"Copper thefts are up all over the island," Ford said. "Any public assistance we can get would be greatly appreciated." Investigators say the registered owner of the SUV has become unreachable.

And in Alamance County, North Carolina - http://www.thetimesnews.com/artic... Sounds like a job for Danger Dog! just kidding.. he'd likely be of no reasonable assistance. But what is good is seeing LE starting to go after the recyclers who allow these criminals to fence their stolen wire.

The high cost of salvage copper has led thieves to steal electrical wire picking from constructions site, junk yards and anywhere else they can find it.
Alamance County Sheriff’s spokesman Randy Jones said that copper theft is an ongoing problem. Battery Warehouse and Recycling Center in Greensboro sees an average of about 75 customers each day, an employee said.
“It’s hard to pinpoint when a legitimate plumber sells his leftover copper between someone crawling under a basement and bringing it in,” he said.
Many recycling centers work with police daily to catch people who are selling stolen copper. They require sellers to show a driver’s license or other type of government identification, and sometimes they videotape every transaction.
Allen Baucom, a Union County commissioner who farms near the Carmichaels, said his farm near the Scotland-Robeson county line has been hit four times by copper thieves.
The scrap yards need to be monitored where they’re not accepting products from individuals who have no reason to have (copper),” he said. “If these idiots couldn’t sell it, they wouldn’t steal it.

In the fine city of Detriot as well - http://www.dailytribune.com/sto... Sounds like China is to blame!

"The theft of copper is a booming business in Detroit and our area," Celletti said. "Copper is in great demand from China and other fast-growing Asian countries, and this has cause the price of copper to skyrocket way up."Fraser police arrested two suspected copper thieves because a neighbor living across the street from a construction site at Eisenhower Elementary School called police when she them loading the material into a truck.
The woman called police, but the suspects left before police arrived.When the pair returned at 8:35 p.m., officers were called again, and found the suspects filling a pickup truck with copper.

This scourge strikes in Germiston, South Africa - http://www.int.iol.co.za/ind... Unsurprisingly they blame China as well, I'm starting to see a pattern here.

Business Against Crime (BAC) investigators have uncovered links between Cape Town crime syndicates and scrap wholesalers in Gauteng, who pass the stolen copper onto international buyers from countries such as China. Recently, copper cable theft has been blamed for a number of high-profile blackouts, the latest of which plunged 16 suburbs in Ekurhuleni into darkness last week. The cause of the power outage was a fire, allegedly caused by an attempted cable theft at the Witkoppie substation in Boksburg. In some rural areas, sometimes as much as 8km of cable can be stolen at a time. It has been reported that the recent surge in copper theft is a result of higher copper prices and the demand for the metal by rapidly industrialising countries like China and India.

Bush sports the crocs??!

Oh, hell no... that's it, impeach him NOW!

Ah ha! I knew there had to be an explanation for such ugly footwear being worn by Commander Cooko-Bananas; the owner of the company is a campaign donor. Found this little tid-bit here.

That's when I saw this Forbes article about how Bush's May 18 fundraiser for the Republican Party was held at the estate of Rick and Sherry Sharp. Guess which company Rick Sharp is chairman of? Well, there are two, but the first one is Crocs, Inc. (NASDAQ: CROX). (The other one is Carmax, Inc. (NYSE: KMX).)

Could it be a coincidence that the country's president is shot sporting the iconic Crocs beach shoes at about the same time his buddy Rick helped raise $630k? Sure, that's chump change when it comes to party fundraising, but I'd be willing to bet the buzz surrounding Bush's fashion choices could have an equal effect to the price of Crocs' stock, which is (of course) very near its all-time high as it is, at $91.01, up 11 cents as of this writing. It's not quite dirty politics, but it is curious and curiouser.

But of course, it all makes perfect sense now!

Additionally, I can't believe he's actually wearing those socks. Those socks look as if they were purchased on 16th street from the vendors hawking camo print XXL sweatshirts with FBI or CIA stitched across the chest. Or the ultimate DC souvenir for anyone visiting from a flyover state; a shirt that says 'Federal Witness Protection Program, You don't know me'.

What a disgrace.

58 Million For 9/11 memorial?

What a waste of taxpayer money, certainly there must be a better use for this money than depriving this man of his property and livelihood. His donation box sounds hilarious!

Donation box or not, Flight 93 Memorial is wrong

BY J.H. HUEBERT

Controversy rages in Somerset County as a local property owner, Mike Svonavec, refuses to sell his land to organizers of a forthcoming federal memorial to the victims of Flight 93, a hijacked airliner that crashed there on Sept. 11, 2001.

Congress has authorized up to $10 million to purchase land for the memorial. On top of that, the National Park Service will be responsible for building the project once the land is acquired. The total price tag? At least $58 million.

Svonavec insists that his land is worth $50 million, but he would be willing to part with it for $10 million. That would put the project well over its land budget limit, since it has already paid for adjoining parcels from other owners and has a lot more left to buy.

Thus the parties are locked in a standoff.

Read the rest of the story here.

Comedy Central hit squad called in on Ron Paul

I noticed from the get-go what was being done by having Ron Paul appear on the Daily Show and Colbert Report, helping to poison the liberal leaning audience typical of these show’s viewers against Paul's message of small government. Both John Stewart and Colbert made a point of mentioning all the govt agencies that he would like to do away with, to the detriment of substantive discussion of monetary policy and how it effects the average American’s pocketbook; the issue that I would like to see Paul stress, as I feel it forms a potent message and has the potential to sweep him into the white house. When someone says, “Let’s do away with the dept of education” and isn’t afforded the opportunity to explain why, it’s hard for Middle America to take that message seriously. How can this guy be against education?

This free market news network writer is on to it here, and recommends Paul switch up his strategy when he finds himself baited in such a way. Both John and Stephen seemed to be working from the same talking points during their interviews. Small talk, a little campaign banter, “So how’s Iowa” etc... Then launch right in to the list of seemingly well intentioned government agencies this kook would have us go without. Then as soon as that occurs, a handshake and a “Thanks for coming on the show”. Paul should have brought one of his books as a gift to these hosts, say “A foreign Policy of Freedom” and then used that intro as a way to introduce substantive discourse into the appearance. Instead the hosts of these shows do all the talking and the viewer is left wondering exactly what if anything the guest had to say. Contrast this with Al Gore’s recent appearance on the daily show, he was allowed to do all the talking, set the tone and pace of the discussion and wasn’t led into making statements lacking sufficient justification and detail.

.....But to do so, I believe he should continue to position himself not just as "Dr. No" - someone against the $3 trillion obscenity that is the US Federal government, but also as Dr. Yes - as in 'Yes, I am an American,' and "Yes, here's what doing away with these wasteful programs means to you."

In watching him on the Colbert Report, I could not help but see how far he had come in terms of a humorous and warm public persona. But his message still relied on negatives - programs he would do away with. I could almost hear the average American wincing as Ron Paul ticked off program after program that he would "disappear" - as the media often seems to be doing to the good doctor's appearances themselves.

Instead of just talking about what would "go" - Dr. Paul should be emphasizing what the disappearance of so many government "services" would mean to the individual American. How much more money he or she would have in his or her own pocket - the freedom of choice such a return of capital would entail.

He defined himself on the Colbert Report at one point as a "constitutionalist" - but I would much rather hear him define himself as an "American."

Ron Paul is an Amercian - the best kind of American. He believes in the resilience of the American spirit, in Yankee Ingenuity, in the private enterprise that made America great. He believes that the America that once was - the America of free-markets and limited government - can arise again. With the help of the Internet, that is occurring even now. So Ron Paul is not wrong about it, and his candidacy is not a hopeless case at all.

But from what I saw - and I know a bit about marketing - Ron Paul has got to go on a "charm offensive" if he is truly "break through." When he's asked a question, he has to be positive, put it into terms that the voter can understand from a "what's in it for me" perspective.

If he can push his message in that direction, he'll be even more effective. Instead of "sending a message" he may well win enough votes to send a real "shot across the bow" of the monetary and power elite that are hoping both the Internet and pols like Ron Paul go away. Not a chance. Now all the good doctor has to do is "make 'em believe."

School's out. Give 'em red meat and they'll line up at the door. The message is right. It just needs a bit more in the way of vitamins. Go to it, doctor! -Anthony Wile

Read the rest of the story here.

Bush's wristwatch; stolen in Albania!

Whoops! I doubt it'll turn up on Ebay, but I'm sure whomever ripped it off is a hero in a neighborhood someplace. Did I ever tell you about that time I stole the US president's Timex? No, and I wont. Because i didn't steal it. But this guy, he'll be getting free drinks for a long time to come. Or all of his friends will get tired of hearing the story 10 times in a night, and just let it be. Wacky!

Mystery of President Bush's Watch in Alabania
Richard Owen in Rome and Times Online

Now you see it. Now you don't.

George W Bush was visibly cheered when he received a hero's welcome in Albania at the weekend, with Albanians draped in the Stars and Stripes reaching out to hug him and shake his hand.

But perhaps the leader of the Western world should have exercised a little more caution and followed the standard advice to travellers in the Balkans to keep an eye on their belongings.

Film footage of the President being mobbed taken by the Albanian TV station News24 was broadcast today on Italian TV news bulletins and watched by thousands on YouTube - and it looks like Mr Bush may have had his watch stolen.

read the rest of the story here.

Marx Cafe tonight!

Hey All. Back for more UKG, dirty two-step and solid 4/4 bassline house. great beer specials, $5 Chimay and $4 De Konike on tap! Seeya tonight, music starts at 10pm.

3203 Mt. Pleasant St. NW

Putin speaks out

Wow, Bush has managed to rudely discard the progress made by his father and Ronald Reagan, bringing the Russians into the global cooperative of democracy and freedom loving nations. He's actually managed to out maneuver the good will upon which a generation who lived through the missile scares of the cold war had placed undying hope for the future and the prosperity of man. Be sure and read Pat's thoughts as well.

Putin’s Censored Press Conference:

The transcript you weren’t supposed to see

By Mike Whitney

06/10/07 "ICH" --- - On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave an hour and a half-long press conference which was attended by many members of the world media. The contents of that meeting---in which Putin answered all questions concerning nuclear proliferation, human rights, Kosovo, democracy and the present confrontation with the United States over missile defense in Europe---have been completely censored by the press. Apart from one brief excerpt which appeared in a Washington Post editorial, (and which was used to criticize Putin) the press conference has been scrubbed from the public record. It never happened. (Read the entire press conference archived here )

Putin’s performance was a tour de force. He fielded all of the questions however misleading or insulting. He was candid and statesmanlike and demonstrated a good understanding of all the main issues.

The meeting gave Putin a chance to give his side of the story in the growing debate over missile defense in Eastern Europe. He offered a brief account of the deteriorating state of US-Russian relations since the end of the Cold War, and particularly from 9-11 to present. Since September 11, the Bush administration has carried out an aggressive strategy to surround Russia with military bases, install missiles on its borders, topple allied regimes in Central Asia, and incite political upheaval in Moscow through US-backed “pro-democracy” groups. These openly hostile actions have convinced many Russian hard-liners that the administration is going forward with the neocon plan for “regime change” in Moscow and fragmentation of the Russian Federation. Putin’s testimony suggests that the hardliners are probably right.

The Bush administration’s belligerent foreign policy has backed the Kremlin into a corner and forced Putin to take retaliatory measures. He has no other choice.

If we want to understand why relations between Russia are quickly reaching the boiling-point; we only need to review the main developments since the end of the Cold War. Political analyst Pat Buchanan gives a good rundown of these in his article “Doesn’t Putin Have a Point?”

read the rest of this article here.

Ron Paul Supporters Gather At NH Debate Rally

Ron Paul; $5 Million?!?!

WOW!! 5, 6, maybe 10 Million dollars?!?! Damnn... that's serious fund raising. That's not the war chest of a "third tier" candidate, that's front runner bank. Ron might have to hire more people, expand from his current six full time national campaign staff. Ruddiiee come out and playea! (Cue warrior’s soundtrack) I can't wait until I get to see a Ron Paul add on TV for the first time, I will flip my shit! Long live freedom, perhaps our nation isn't as fuct as we thought.

Ron Paul - Five Million Dollar Man?
Thursday, June 07, 2007 - FreeMarketNews.com

Congressman Ron Paul’s donations have moved up - not by hundreds of thousands - but by millions as a result of his debate performances and groundswell of support on the Internet and in New Hampshire, observers close to the campaign say.

The move is especially impressive since as of March 31, 2007, he had perhaps $500,000 on hand (see candidate estimates below).

FMNN had previously reported – after the GOP presidential debate in South Carolina - that candidate Ron Paul’s (R-Tex) donations, large and small, had nearly doubled.

http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=42336

Now observers close to the campaign are revealing – with some astonishment – that donations to the campaign in recent weeks have pushed the total up to perhaps $4 or $5 million.

“That’s a huge number at this stage,” says one observer. “That starts to put him in a position where he can compete – state by state, anyway – with the major candidates.”

And this source added, “Of course, it’s hard to tell because the numbers keep changing – and thus nobody at the campaign has a firm count, at least not hour to hour. But the numbers are big. It’s definitely over three, probably over four, and if it hasn’t hit five yet, it will soon.”

At this rate, say observers, Ron Paul could have something like $10 million in his coffers inside of several months, and the total could keep growing – so long as he continues to hit on themes that Americans support – how to return the country to a true, small government, constitutional republic and how to end the war in Iraq.

To be sure such amounts are somewhat speculative. But to put the amount of money Ron Paul is said to have raised recently in perspective, here are the figures of cash on hand for GOP candidates as of March 31, 2007:

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/money/gop.html

Sam Brownback
cash-on-hand: $806,626

Jim Gilmore
cash-on-hand: $90,107

Rudy Giuliani
cash-on-hand: $11,949,735

Mike Huckabee
cash-on-hand: $373,918

Duncan Hunter
cash-on-hand: $272,552

John McCain
cash-on-hand: $5,180,799

Ron Paul
cash-on-hand: $524,919

Mitt Romney
cash-on-hand: $11,863,653

Tom Tancredo
cash-on-hand: $575,078

Tommy Thompson
cash-on-hand: $139,723

Source: CNN


Staff Reports - Free-Market News Network

Ron Paul on MSNBC

Previously I may have spoken ill of MSNBC host Tucker Carlson, I think the words I used may have been something like, "...this tweed clad twit should be working the front desk at a country club". Or something similar. He's had Ron on his show before, about a month ago I think, and now he's been invited back. Tucker even said that he voted for Ron in the '88 election. So thank you Mr. Carlson for having the man on your show. You al'ight by me.

Update: This interview actually happened yesterday, here's the youtube clip. http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Ron Paul Sets MSNBC Interview, Questions Debate Format
Thursday, June 07, 2007 - FreeMarketNews.com

Congressman Ron Paul’s (R-Tex) s strong showing at the most recent GOP debate in New Hampshire has apparently led to another national media booking.

He will be interviewed by Tucker Carlson on MSNBC today at 4:00pm ET. Tucker Carlson is the host of MSNBC’s Tucker. The MSNBC website describes the program as “a fast paced, no-holds-barred conversation about the day’s developments in news, politics, world issues and pop culture.” It airs at both 4 and 6 pm Eastern, weekdays.

The interview seems to have been spontaneously scheduled and may have come about because Ron Paul is again the clear winner in the MSNBC poll on the most recent presidential debate - just as he was after the first debate.

Additionally, a brief overview of some of the 357 pages (June 7, 9am ET) of comments left by viewers indicate that Ron Paul has once again received a remarkable amount of feedback. Indeed, it could be said, discussion of his message virtually dominates all 357 pages and is remarkably positive – while being fairly disparaging of other candidates, especially the “mainstream” republican frontrunners.

http://boards.msn.com/MSNBCboards/thr..

The amount of commentary alone would seem to indicate that those participating in the polling are not “spamming” – but that the support is genuine and seemingly widespread.

Some of the feedback indicates dissatisfaction with the seating arrangements and time allotted to the candidates – with the so-called “first-tier” candidates being placed in the middle of the debate platform and the “second tier” candidates placed on the out edges.

Observers close to the campaign who timed the various candidates’ contribution claim that second tier candidates such as Ron Paul received only half as much time to speak as the “first tier” candidates.

These observers claim that Ron Paul’s campaign staff spoke to CNN executives - CNN presented the debates - immediately after the debates to register their dissatisfaction with the format.

“If they are going to give some candidates more air time than others, then they should say so,” one source pointed out. “But to maintain that these debates are intended to provide an across-the-board exchange of ideas fairly and openly, and then to take steps to minimize some viewpoints and candidates – that’s morally wrong.”

What seems to have many Internet supporters of Ron Paul even more upset than the lack of air time is CNN’s treatment of candidate feedback after the debate. CNN put up a “visual’ after the debate but then promptly pulled it, viewers have claimed. At the time it was pulled, viewers say that it showed Ron Paul winning the debate by a significant majority.

Later, CNN put up a web-based comments page about the debate but took that down, as well. The “vanished” comment page has been posted at various alternative news websites including FMNN (via a link to alternative news site WhatReallyHappened).

http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.as..

As the debates continue, Ron Paul’s clearly stated small-government message - focusing on free-markets, aggressive reduction of the federal government, and a military strategy that emphasizes defense over offense - receives more and more attention.

It is certainly not because of Ron Paul’s delivery, his “presidential appearance” or even “personal charm,” observers say. While Ron Paul, may or may not possess these qualities, other candidates do – and are not receiving the attention he gets on the Internet, and increasingly in portions of the mainstream media. It is the message that Ron Paul is enunciating that is obviously striking a chord with viewers.

As the debates continue, and Ron Paul continues to make points about how America’s leadership has drifted far away from the moorings of a “constitutional republic,” the divide between mainstream media’s coverage and his reception on the Internet may well continue to deepen. If so, it will likely also raise, once again, grave questions about mainstream “media bias” against conservatives – and libertarian conservatives such as Ron Paul – and why such bias apparently exists and has perpetuated itself.

These are profound and troubling questions. Yet Ron Paul’s candidacy and debate participation is bringing them into focus in a way that has not happened for decades. His journey through the presidential campaign is already evolving into the most significant political event of the season, whether or not mainstream coverage of the popularity of his message remains limited.

Hometown Baghdad

If you haven't seen Hometown Baghdad yet, do. It provides an interesting window into the daily lives of Iraqi's trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy as the world goes crazy around them. This is one of the clips I found interesting, there's many more at their site here.

Axis of evil show down

Two entered, only one walked away. Now that Uday isn't there to de-limb athletes who don't win. How are they going to be competitive, where will they find the motivation?

Baghdad Buzz
Goooooal: Iraq Beats North Korea in Big Game
Too Dangerous to Play in Iraq, Olympic Qualifer Soccer Match Played in Amman
Posted 1 hr. 35 min. ago
In a rare cause for celebration among all Iraqis, the Iraqi national soccer team triumphed 1-0 over North Korea in an Olympic qualifer soccer match tonight in King Abdullah II Stadium in Amman.

The stadium rocked with chants and cheers from thousands of Iraqi fans.

While the game was played in Jordan because Iraq was deemed too dangerous to host the match, Amman provided de facto home field advantage for the Iraqi team since roughly one million Iraqis -- mostly refugees -- now live in Jordan.

The highly-regarded Iraqi team has already qualified for the 2008 Olympics but is hoping for a top seed.

Casting call in DC!

Got this from another board. Got a mullet? Come on down!

Casting Announcements

Posted Date: 6/1/2007
End Date: 6/9/2007
Job Type: NON-UNION
Agency: Fincannon & Associates

People with mullets needed for HBO pilot
HBO TELEVISION PILOT "EAST BOUND AND DOWN" SEEKS PEOPLE WHO SPORT THE MULLET

Fincannon & Associates, Inc., an Emmy Award Winning, Wilmington, NC based motion picture casting company is seeking men and women of all ages and ethnicities to be background extras in a HBO Television Pilot "East Bound and Down." This is a unique opportunity for people to be extras that have the MULLET hairstyle or would not mind having their hair cut into a MULLET. (Short hair in the front & Long hair in the back, like Billy Ray Cyrus in "Achy Breaky Heart")

The premise of the pilot includes a burnout Major League Baseball player who takes a teaching job at the local Middle School.

"We are looking to hire about 100 people with wonderful, authentic mullets to be in the crowd at a baseball game." Said Tara Feldstein of Fincannon and Associates. "We are very excited to be working on this HBO project and look forward to the amount of mullets that will
walk through the door."

If you are interested in working as a background extra for this HBO television pilot you should come to:

Fincannon & Associates
1235 N. 23rd Street,
Wilmington, NC 28405

June 8th between 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

Applicants should come prepared with a recent snap-shot or Polaroid photograph. If photograph is not handy, we will take one for a nominal $2.00 fee.

Marx Cafe tonight!

Another Tuesday is upon us! Come one come all, hear the UKG and drink the beer specials, $5 Chimay and $4 Bolleke. Those are good prices on great beers! Music starts at 10pm. There's a GOP republican debate on tonight, GO RON PAUL, but sadly not at Marx, I think the baseball crowd has the screens on lock tonight. I have the debate set on the Tivo and will check it out to see how our boy did once I'm back home. Seeya tonight!

3203 Mt. Pleasant St. NW

My new favorite TV show

Conservatives shouldn't accept fraudulent Fred

That's right; Fred Thompson is a phony! Don't let the media tell you this guy is the real deal, cause he's a poser, big time. He's got a tacky whife and a cheap face lift to boot. He's possibly gravely ill with Non Hodgkins Lymphoma. bad news this guy, bad news.

Conservatives shouldn't accept fraudulent Fred
Thursday, May 31, 2007
By Paul Mulshine

The race for the Republican presidential nomination has just begun, yet the so-called "top tier" candidates have all been shown to have deep flaws.

John McCain is a nice guy, but he's clearly off his rocker. Mitt Romney needs to change all of his positions 180 degrees. Oh, wait. He's already done that. And as for Rudy Giuliani, he's already bored the public to tears with his self-appointed Sept. 11 sainthood. The next time he mentions "911," it had better be because he's getting mugged.

This creates a great opportunity for a good, old-fashioned conservative to enter the race. And right on cue, advisers to actor Fred Thomp son are saying that he will enter the race over the July 4 weekend.

There's just one problem: Fred Thompson is not a conservative. He just plays one on TV.

Read the rest here.

Our money; it's no solidus.

Great article articulating the sensibility of the gold standard.

Kuwait split raises questions over longevity of the dollar

By Jim Grant

Published: May 31 2007 03:00 | Last updated: May 31 2007 03:00

When the Roman emperor Constantine struck off a new gold coin, he expected it to give good, durable service. And the extra-durable solidus did - about 700 years' worth. Modern monetary systems have a somewhat shorter shelf life.

That the current monetary system may not last for the ages was underscored the other day by Kuwait's decision to uncouple its dinar from the US dollar. For years, the two had been lashed together as a preliminary to the projected creation of a common Persian Gulf currency.

But the more the dollar's value sagged, the more dollars the members of the Gulf Co-operation Council have had to absorb just to maintain the desired exchange rates. Naturally, the central banks of the participating countries did not acquire their dollars with nothing. They printed the local currencies with which to buy them and the more they printed, the more that inflation welled up. Now Kuwait has chosen to go its own way, leaving Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to ponder their tolerance for open-ended dollar-buying. Little Kuwait just might be the herald of big change, both in the dollar's fortunes and the world's monetary organisation. To a degree, the world turns on open-ended dollar buying and the muscular feats of money-printing it calls forth.

Hard-working Asians (and oil-blessed Arabs) consume much less than they produce. Americans, on the other hand, produce much less than they consume. But the savers and spenders do have something in common. The workers are happy to receive dollars, and the consumers are more than happy to print them. Unlike the solidus, a greenback has no intrinsic value. It is faith-based. Here is a new idea in the world. Certainly, the unsystematic world monetary system is a new arrangement. Up until 1971, the dollar was collateralised by gold. If you were a central bank, $35 would get you an ounce on demand. The system gave good, durable service until the US started to run out of bullion. On August 15 1971, the dollar became uncollateralised. Exchange rates started to float - or to sink or be pegged. Governments made it up as they went along.

That the paper dollar finds favour the world over must be counted as one of the greatest achievements in the annals of money. To be sure, the central banks of the Middle East and Asia have had their own reasons for stockpiling the greenback and US securities. But their self-interest doesn't detract from the rarity of the historical moment. To paraphrase Richard Nixon, the president who closed the US gold window, we are all dollar bulls now.

Or rather, we are up to a point of saturation, a point that Kuwait seems to have finally reached. Its neighbours, too, appear to be on the edge of dollar surfeit. Broad money growth in the Gulf region is running at 20 per cent, in no small part a consequence of rampant dollar absorption.

"Inflation is a hot topic in the kingdom," the Financial Times reported from Riyadh recently, "as city residents feel the pinch of rental and price increases suddenly feeding into an economy that has grown used to inflation of around 1 per cent a year since the 1970s." The Saudi statistics gatherers today acknowledge a current rate of 3 per cent.

Since the international gold standard perished in 1914, successive global monetary systems have been brought down by external shocks or internal contradictions. Inflation is the bane of our non-system system. Inflation is a disease of one main cause but varied symptoms. A surfeit of money can cause derangement at the checkout counter (India), in the real-estate market (Russia) or on the stock exchange (China).

By upsetting the integrity of prices, it can disturb the architecture of production. In most of the dollar-buying states, monetary growth is fast enough to upset the eternal rest of Milton Friedman. In all cases, a slower pace of dollar absorption is an integral part of a monetary cure. It will be said that only some members of the dollar-buying bloc want to be cured. The rest - notably, China - are happy to keep on cranking the monetary presses. But the upward track of US interest rates and the downward path of the dollar exchange rate tell a different story. One thing's for sure, the greenback ain't the solidus.

Jim Grant is the founder and editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

excellent Ron Paul article!!!

This guy deserves a damn pulitzer, or something like that fo sure!

How Will They Destroy Ron Paul?
Written by Mike Whitney
Tuesday, 29 May 2007

How will the media destroy Ron Paul?

We all know the drill by now. Whenever a politician with character and principles throws his hat in the ring the media descends on him like feral hounds on a pork chop. It’ll be no different with Paul. The only difference this time is that we should all be aware of what’s really going on.

Did you see the Republican debates?

Paul won hands-down. He stood out in a crowd of colorless toadies and became an overnight internet-sensation. In fact, an ABC survey showed that Paul won the first debate with an 85% majority; while C-SPAN showed him at 70%. Maybe the stats are just a fluke of internet voting, but it’s sure made the boys in the boardrooms nervous.

You see, it doesn’t matter if Paul wins or not. What matters is that his anti-government message is a hammer-blow to America’s biggest powerbrokers – and they don’t like it. They'd rather he just shut up and go away. They’ve heard enough about the Military Commissions Act, martial law, and the fraudulent war on terror. They’ve put a lot of money and energy into the new American police state and they aren’t about to let some libertarian party-pooper destroy all their hard work.

That's why the right wing think tanks are buzzing like a hornets nest right now. The sleeves are rolled up, the ash trays are full, and America’s best propagandists are putting the finishing touches on a plan to topedo the Paul campaign. They want to take him down now, before he causes any more trouble.

read the rest here.

Ron Paul on Daily Show!! and Colbert!!

YES! Finally! This is going to make for some serious campaign traction, two major media appearances sandwiched around the upcoming GOP debate. Long live freedom!

June 4th: Ron Paul is scheduled to appear on The Daily Show, with John Stewart

June 5th : CNN GOP Presidential Debate @ 7 p.m. ET

June 13th: Ron Paul to appear on the Colbert Report.

Marx Cafe tonight!

Come one, come all! I'm going to attempt to make up for not actually playing last week by doing exactly that tonight; getting jiggy w/ it! All joking aside it should be a fun outing, probably have a Yankee’s game on the screens along w/ "dancing with the stars" which I watch only in the vain hope that a wardrobe malfunction occurs.

3203 Mt. Pleasant St. NW

can you hax0r hillary's webspace??

Has anyone else noticed this? This link here is to the MS small business server backend at hillaryclinton.com. I stayed up very late last nite trying to guess her password, I tried billhitsme, socialist4eva, diemonica, biggovrules, Abzugfan, taxdarich, turninyourguns, roboteyes, roselawfirm, obamasmells, minwageaok, loveAlinsky, statehealthcare, NWFchair, yalerox, flowersishot, uglykenstar, communitarianism, and finally thunderthighs. Wow, i freakin' give up, it must be real hard to guess, she made it something tricky for sure. So somebody out there must have the skills to hack into her campaign website and take it down, you know; score one for the gipper! get too it.

Israel annexes Palestinian natural resources

Nothing like kicking people while they are down!

May 23, 2007
BG Group at centre of $4bn deal to supply Gaza gas to Israel

Steve Hawkes and Sonia Verma in Jerusalem


BG Group is poised to agree the terms of an historic $4 billion (£2 billion) deal to supply Palestinian gas to Israel from a discovery off the Gaza coastline, The Times has learnt.

Representatives from the British energy company are scheduled next week to meet a team of negotiators chosen by the Israeli Cabinet to thrash out a 15-year contract. Despite the violence in Gaza, the Israeli Foreign Ministry has insisted that it wants to conclude a deal “as soon as possible”.

It would enable BG Group, the former owner of British Gas, to begin to develop an offshore field that is the Palestine Authority’s only natural resource. The move would mark an unprecedented milestone in Middle East relations. There would be enough gas to provide 10 per cent of Israel’s annual energy requirement, and the Palestinians would receive total royalties of $1 billion. Sources in the Middle East note that the sensitive talks could be derailed at any time by the acute political tension that surrounds the deal.

However, Nigel Shaw, the BG Group vice-president in the region, said: “We are making progress. There are commercial issues to be completed and we also require bilateral agreement between the two governments to get this project across the line. But this is a chance for greater economic prosperity in Palestine and that is only good for peace.”

The signing of heads of terms would mark an amazing turnaround, given the political and legal disputes that have dogged the project since BG Group discovered the Gaza Marine field in 2000. It holds one trillion cubic feet of gas, the equivalent of 150 million barrels of oil, equivalent to a large North Sea field.

Six years ago Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister at the time, vowed that Israel would never buy gas from its neighbour. The project also was held up by a legal challenge in the Israeli Supreme Court to establish whether the Palestinians had any right to the discovery. Last year BG Group was close to signing a deal to pump the gas to Egypt before Tony Blair intervened and asked the company to give Israel a second chance. Three weeks ago the Israeli Cabinet approved a proposal by Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, to buy gas from the Palestinian Authority. The Cabinet recognised the need for new energy sources to feed Israel’s rapidly growing economy.

Under BG Group’s plans, gas from the field would be transported by an undersea pipeline to the seaport of Ashkelon. Although Israeli insiders are confident of a deal,significant questions remain, not least how payments to the Palestinian Authority will be made. Israeli defence authorities want the Palestinians to be paid in goods and services and insist that no money go to the Hamas-controlled Government.

Starving Congressmen

This should have been a reality show. Call up that guy from "30 Days" and make it happen!

FOOD STAMP CHALLENGE
Pangs of Hunger -- and Bit of Guilt

By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 22, 2007; Page A13

A pork chop and a bag of peanuts proved too tempting for Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), one of four members of Congress who has struggled for the past week to subsist on $21 worth of food -- the equivalent of benefits received by the average food stamp recipient.

Last Friday night, in New Hampshire to deliver a commencement speech, Ryan succumbed to a pork chop in the hotel restaurant because he feared he would otherwise be too weak to give the address.

Afterward, as he rushed to catch a flight back to Washington, airport security officials confiscated jars of peanut butter and jelly from his carry-on luggage, leaving him with nothing but a small bag of cornmeal to eat in the final days of the "Food Stamp Challenge," which ends today.

Continue to read...

...another story from the Boston Globe. nice to know a congressional staffer has a sense of humor when it comes to the homeless, that's an important thing to maintain in this day and age.

Walking home from his office at 9:30, he ran into several colleagues sitting out at sidewalk cafes. Would he join them, several asked. He wanted to, but declined. One friend jokingly inquired whether he would be sleeping on a grate that night.

Marx Cafe tonight!

Join me at the Marx Cafe for philosophical, political and sarcastic discourse followed by smooth UKG, 2step and some killer lamb chops. Seeya there!

3203 Mount Pleasant St. NW