Hi Everyone, The BBC WHYS team is in Belfast and getting ready to go on the road, again. I loaded a page for us to discuss what world issues are on our minds today. Please try to keep comments concise and short. Several moderators are tag teaming today as host to keep the conversation moving. Please email the BBC WHYS Team if you would like host a page.
What world issues would you like to discuss? Ideas? World Have Your Say…
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BBC World Have Your Say 
@ WHYS Team, Today’s WHYS show was an excellent.
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@ “Recovering” Market
Anyone else suspect of the increase? Does this prove the market can “fix” its self?
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@ VP debate tomorrow
I’m so excited, I just can’t hide it. Here’s an article from Ruters: An unusual VP debate — it actually matters
Tomorrow’s Ocober 1 st, Nigeria’s Independence day. 😀
@ Bail Out…
Something is going on that we just don’t understand. Yesterday every talking head from Suzi Orman to Paul Klugman… Obama… McCain everyone is saying “we” (politicians) MUST act! They did nothing… And what is the result of “doing nothing?” The market goes up… 406 points!!!
Jessica
Don’t think it means the market has fixed itself. The traders panicked yesterday and sold off everything they had. Today they figured out that the real economy although hurt, is not dead. Companies that function in the real world (as opposed to purely based on Wall street) are still making profits and those companies have real value left in them. This is a correction to the overselling yesterday, not a long term trend.
Banks however will not “fix themselves” until they are more open and admit that they are to blame for there own troubles. (Steve, as per your earlier post, I’m not saying that Joe Blogs hasn’t caused part of the overall problem by living beyond they’re means, but as for an individual bank’s performance, they choose to lend their monies to suspect borrowers.Both sides are to blame)
Oh, goody! Colonial pipelines are back up to full capacity. Too bad it takes eleven days for gas to Atlanta from Texas. Looks like we’ll still be walking to work.
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/17590218/detail.html
@ jess,
hell i did not realize i had to debate tomorrow, better brush up on some forgein policy then.
Yeah the matket is going up. i start to get the feeling that we are being manuplated like a bunch of lemmings onto of a norwegian fjord
@Jens,
Just read the outline I sent to you. If you need to ad lib, please consultant your beauty pageant manual.
Hi gang ! ;-)… Today I have seen a very interesting ad on the Iraqi TV… It showed occupayion soldiers of different nationalities, but the vast majority of them were either American or British… All of their faces were handsome and likable, and each one of them was saying one phrase ”Eid Saeed”… The phrase means in English : Happy Eid…
Anyway, here’s an Iraqi story for you guys :
Iraq media in ‘business of death’
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7641056
Also here’s the link to the ‘Iraqi doctors to be allowed guns’ story :
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7643766
With my love… Yours forever, Lubna in Baghdad…
The notion seems to be forming that America doesn’t really have the financial means, one way and another, to offer any sort of bailout package. The US is flat bankrupt, in hock internationally to the tune of 36 times its GDP, and leaking money out all over Iraq. If this is true, a global plan to save America will have to be worked out (or so Merckel and Sarkozy seem to think). What role, I wonder, will China play in all this? And, if the ‘world’ has to bail America out, shouldn’t the world think about setting some conditions for coming to the aid of the States? Conditions such as: pull out of Iraq (and everywhere else where you’re not wanted), sign up to Kyoto and the war crimes tribunal, respect UN decisions and the human rights charter and Geneva Convention etc. etc.
What I find hard to believe right now is that there are actually two people who want to be president of the United States.
Lubna
Happy Eid
roebert
I’m not sure it’s that simply. The Chinese economy is driven by its ability to supply America with cheap goods. Remove the demand for cheap goods and the Chinese economy may falter as well. Another problem is that other countries use dollars or Euro as a currency to save in. If either devalues then those savings also devalue.
Why can’t the Brits hold onto important information. I’m never gonna trust a Brit with my Camera, Laptop, or Flash Drive, lol!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080930/wl_nm/us_britain_mi6
-Anthony, LA, CA
RE “” The US is flat bankrupt, in hock internationally to the tune of 36 times its GDP””
—————————————————————————————————-
——— Don’t know where you got your figures, but they’re popcorn.
The national debt is generally accorded to be in the 9 trillion range, perhaps 11 trillion or so after these bailouts by the end of the year. GDP is 13-14 trillion, so you are only off by a factor of 50x or so..
I can’t wait to see the VP’s go at it. Palin is gonna get rocked like Cheney annihilated Edwards back in 04′
Biden VS Palin = a Pit Bull VS a Chihuahua (with lipstick)
-Anthony, LA, CA
Somali Pirates vs Ukraine ship
172 Jens September 30, 2008 at 4:59 pm
the weapons were destined for kenya if i am not mistaken
The stated end was Kenya; but the final destination of the military equipment was the rebel South Sudan government. It would make sense for the Somali government to have an interest in stopping the ship, assuming htat they blindly support any Muslim or Arab government, regardless of how maniacally genocidal it may be.
Anthony ~
I just got done watching the Katie Couric interviews with Palin online and I’m still trying to figure out what just took place. Then I watched the SNL skit and it all made sense! Wow, I am looking forward to the debate!
Thanks a million my Precious Robert in the UK for your very kind ‘Happy Eid’ wishes… With my love… Yours forever, Lubna in Baghdad…
Roberto: I got the figures from a friend who’d been listening in to some global financial debate or other. So, yes, I can’t vouch for them. Don’t trust information from yer buddies, eh? That’s really annoying. Happy to be put right, though.
Lubna,
Eid Mubarak
Steve,
Not sure if you wish someone a “happy” rosh hashanah but have a reflective time.
Halloween comes early to Cincinnati as woman gets arrested while wearing cow costume.
http://www.wlwt.com/cnn-news/17589970/detail.html
Jessica,
Oh, how I wish I could watch the VP debate with you! Unfortunately I’m on the other coast and I have a Parent/Teacher Council meeting on Thursday night. Thank goodness for TiVo. Enjoy yourself
Checked out the US debt on google, and the 9 trillion is correct vs 11-14 trillion GDP. Never again will I take it on hearsay!! Especially from a bluddy friend!!!
@Lubna
Happy Eid 🙂
@Robert
I find intersting your phrase: Companies that function in the real world (as opposed to purely based on Wall street) are still making profits and those companies have real value left in them.
Do you think the speculative market is going to change after this crisis?
@VP Jens
If you need some help with foreign policy, just let me know… 😉
@Amy
Can you get online in MSN? I received an answer from Kate about the topic we proposed.
I just signed in Luz Ma!
Okay, it’s been awhile since it’s been brought up….what’s the verdict on a WHYS congress?
Luz
Fundamental change, no I don’t. The whole point of market trading is guessing what a company profits will be over the next 10-15 years and summarizing that as the share price. Different models for the future produce different share prices. As traders all use different models and different assumptions they will value shares differently. That difference in valuation is what the market is based on (shares in one company are worth more to one traders assumptions than other, that’s what generates the conditions for a sale).
What will change is the assumptions that the model is based on. They will become less aggressive. A trader may run many different models and average the results. This should reduce the spread of valuations predicted by different traders. The market will slow and the returns decrease, but it will still happen.
@Venessa,
I suggested to Brett yesterday that he pay for all of us to meet in Tahiti for a month at an all inclusive resort at his exspense. Waiting on response.
Julie ~
I’m all for the proposal! I haven’t been to Tahiti yet.
Obviously most of the contents of my earlier post was blown out of the water (deservedly) by Roberto. If anyone can, I’d like to be correctly informed: how bad is US international debt, especially in regard to China. Is it green, orange or red level? How endangered is the US by irresponsible spending, including defense spending? How long will it take to clear up this mess? If Roberto projects something like 2 trillion for the banking bailout ( around 18% of GDP ), how will this affect the picture? How strong is the US financially? Will it be able to ride out these storms? Will it need international aid? If anyone has the time and inclination to help me out with accurate info, I’d be much obliged.
@Venessa,
Since you’re the Director of the CIA and he is your assistant, please contact him asap, so we can go pearl diving soon.
Vanessa,
I’ll second the motion… WHYS congress, WHYS congress! We want a WHYS congress.
Julie ~ I’ll be making arrangements right away!
Amy ~ I was hoping the appeal wasn’t dying down. Now how do we actually get this thing planned and are the WHYS staff on board for this?
julie p,
pearl diving, that is rather sissy for the president. i thing we should do shark harpouning or something similarly cruel…..what would all the other nations think if we come home with a bunch of frigging pearls….it has to be a shark jaw or something equivalent.
hell what did we give vaness to look after, i must 72 years old since i cannot remember….
remembered it, director of cia, how could i forget.
Kucinich explains why he voted against the bailout: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/29/is_this_the_united_states_congress
a repost from the bailout thread, with my apologies:
I have read House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s speech from yesterday prior to the failed vote on the emergency economic bailout package as hosted on the Guardian.
Her speech did not at all seem to be partisan. Instead, I saw several statements encouraging immediate action and bipartisan co-operation. Are others having different impressions of this same speech? (Please do not tell me that I have read the wrong speech?)
@Jens,
You’re supposed to be studying your beauty pageant manual for Thursday’s debate.
I think a pearl studded shark jaw would look lovely mounted and hung over the fireplace in the Oval Office.
FDR’s Fear speech: “[T]he only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
He made a statement that seems to imply the becessity of regulation: “[I]n our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people’s money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.”
FDR seemed also not to be afraid of expanding executive power in order to accomplish his own bailout of the U.S. economy. He said, “But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses….I shall ask the Congress for…broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.”
To what extent should our government go to restore the security of our economy?
Pink
It’s all in the opening paragraph. Put a republican senators hat on and reread it. She opened with an attack on Bush, saying that this problem is a result of his policies. She then lists the problems in more detail and how it will filter through to main street. Although the remainder of the speech clearly points figure at the problem with the system, the opening paragraph states the system is out of hand because of Bush.
If the first paragraph was not there, then it would be reasonable neutral assessment. But the opening paragraph is there and sets a stage that it all Bushes fault, and so would come across as playing party politics.
RE 2008 American economy:
—————————————————————————————————–
———– Locally, Alcoa has shut down it’s plant…..http://kut.org/items/show/14193
They say they cannot get a reliable price for fuel to operate the plant. Alcoa is the largest American producer of Aluminum which has spiked so high as to almost
become a precious metal. Unfortunately the price of fuel to produce this precious commodity has gotten too precious given the current instability.
Wall Street has beat down Main Street and now has beat down My Street. Guess the bread lines to be next to be beat down.
Good evening Jessica:
Thanks for posting the page on TP on 1st of October…..
Re: WHYS CONGRESS
I am proposing that it starts in the next 2 weeks, because i am looking for a
vacation, and i am looking for someone to pay for it…..My proposed place of choice is a warm climate…..
Re: THE CONTINUING FINANCIAL CRISIS
Another day, more money has disappear…
Dennis
@ Vanessa and Amy [bullets points]
Send me a email, and i will come up
with the right way to get the WORLD HAVE YOUR SAY
team in London, regarding the CONGRESS.
warning: give me a couple of days…
I think that the BBC WHYS staff, should hosted
the event for all of us, the contributors as a get-together.
Dennis
Jamily, I think that I have had an epiphany: http://revertmuslims.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=3501&st=0&gopid=21601&#entry21601
:).
Re: Julie P comments at 10.04pm
about Jens comments
I love the idea, but here is the problem, who is going to have the time–to clean the pearls…..
Dennis
Robert (September 30, 2008 at 10:16 pm),
I live with a very conservative family. Some in my family have views that border on pro-theocracy. Others are Republicans as a result of a single-issue focus. I have learned to hear past jargon that is typically used by Rush Limbaugh (God save us all) and address issues that are more common to us as a family.
They hate to admit it, but their hearts are more liberal than their ballot pens.
What I do not udnerstand is how someone who has been steeped in Congressional politics has not yet learned to let partisan speech go in one ear and out the other in order to focus on issues that are truly important.
Pink
You forget what is truly important to these people is that some are up for reelection soon. The only jobs in the US they care about are their own at the moment. Many would feel that the speech given would imply that the republican policies failed. Such an admission this close to to an election is suicide. However they can use the speech to point figures at the democrats and say “they’re playing politics at a time of crisis, how un-american”. And to be non biased, the democrats could have easily worded that speech a little better to avoid this to start with so they are no angles in this matter.
Yes it is childish, but that is the way politics works today.
@Pink,
Yes, indeed.
I liked your posts on the other page. I wonder if Wallstreet realizes that they are “””asking for Welfare to bail them out of irresponsible decisions.”””
It does seem that the hearts of republicans are more liberal than their pens.
Rush??? wasn’t he addicted to Oxycontin?
Well, there you go. It seems that many republicans (at least the ones that I know) have one standard as to how they want our country run, but personally advocate for something different.
Nelson,
Happy Independence Day. Do you have any special celebration planned?
I’m a servant. I’ll clean and polish.
Hi Lubna, So how are your studies going?
And, how is your Eid?
You told us about some of the games and happenings during Ramadan.
Are there certain fun things that you, as Iraqis, do for Eid? I mean, things that may not be done by other muslims around the world.
@ Roebert
I’m answering your request from 9:42 p.m. for economic info. Just to be clear, the current crisis isn’t a problem of US deficits or national debt at all. I could tell you about the debt–it’s not out of line relative to our GDP–but the distinction is important. (The US will never need “international aid,” if only because if and when we get in trouble, the rest of the world will be in worse trouble.)
The problem–it’s a global problem–is a “seizing up” of credit markets, which of course is the lifeblood of business everywhere. (Better indicators of this than the Dow stock average are things like the LIBOR, and bond spreads.)
The solution, interestingly, now and generally in times of recession and impending recession, is to INCREASE the national debt. Specifically, to pump more money (also called “liquidity”) into the system, even if it’s borrowed money. Possibly counterintuitive, but so much of economics is.
Recession and especially this huge scary credit crunch is the last time to worry about deficit, national debt, or balancing the budget. That was the mistake made in the 1930s that turned an ordinary business cycle into “The Great Depression.” The then-new Federal Reserve actually SHRANK the amount of money in circulation. What an economy needs to fight recession is MORE money–even if it increases the national debt, which it will. (So would a depression, and that’s a whole lot less fun.) The best thing to do for the debt is to grow, grow, grow–the economy I mean.
Does that help at all?
Senate plans on voting on the $700 billion bill on Wednesday night.
@Pink~
FDR was “not afraid” to increase executive power–LOL! That’s an understatement. He makes Dick Cheney look like a pussycat. Like a wallflower. He even tried to take over the Supreme Court. The part about wanting as much executive power as if we were at war sounds familiar though, doesn’t it. Funny to think Cheney is following FDR’s template.
FDR expanded executive power, AND got us into a war, but he didn’t end the Great Depression; it got worse during most of his term, and your helpful excerpts from his speeches help illustrate why. “Sound currency” was the last thing to worry about; the currency was getting more sound every year of the Depression as deflation snowballed.
Your question “To what extent should government go to restore the security of the economy?” is a good one, but it presumes that the government will do the right thing, which isn’t exactly a reliable assumption, historically.
(Incidentally, we’re still paying the bills, or more properly not paying them, for FDR’s grand ambitions, and the precedent he set for irresponsible action and concentrated power. Social Security has many trillions in unfunded liabilities that don’t show up in the deficit or even the debt. Medicare is even worse. That dwarfs everything we’re talking about now. Nobody has any idea of how to deal with it. We just keep kicking the can down the road.)
More on the Senate’s decision.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/30/news/economy/bailout_tuesday/index.htm?cnn=yes
The orginial deal, i would have voted NO on it….I have not seen the newly revised deal, but….i will be keeping my eyes on it……
Dennis
Back in the “used to be” days, a dish and pan washer at a diner was called a pearl diver.
RE 2008 Global economy:
——————————————————————————————————-
———— There’s excellent news for the rest of the world.
The number of billionaires continues to increase even as American billionaires continue to decrease. Thus the outstanding success of the Monaco Yacht Show held every year.
Premium yacht makers display their latest creations which are being snapped up like 200-300 million dollar hotcakes. From glass elevators, indoor swimming pools, gold, platinum, diamond encrusted fixtures, gym, racket…..errrr racquet ball court, massage parlour, plasma tv screens and high tech accessaries at every corner and the newest accessary, a submarine equipped in the manner of a Rolls for those spur of the moment dashes to the bottom of the ocean with your latest guests.
After all this bad news, it sure is great to get a whiff off some top shelf news while we, the unwashed masses, struggle to choke down our cake.
Finally, an inspiration…..
On the VP debate:
I expect Biden to show up strong and very knowledgeable and stumble over his tongue a few times and I expect Palin to show up with her skirts hiked up above her knees, wearing that push-up bra showing plenty of bare chest for the Booby Bubbas, and looking and acting ditzy clueless in front of that very intelligent, powerful, and appropriately stylish woman, Gwen Ifill.
Hey, I wonder if McCain will just walk out and ask Gwen Ifill to replace Sarah Palin during the debate? A far better choice for sure, a woman, and black too, he could play both of those cards. Though I very much doubt that Ifill would sign onto that dance card.
Any bailout plan I have heard of amounts to a trade of US government funds for fictional assets.
The reason those companies can’t sell those mortgages on the open market is that everyone has realized that each represents an individual property combined with occupants. Any offsite valuation is purely fictional. A lottery ticket scrawled in crayon by the lemonade stand kid.
Fictional money traded for fictional assets. Appropriate.
@ Roebert,
“What I find hard to believe right now is that there are actually two people who want to be president of the United States.”
I wonder if there’d be a constitutional crisis if both Obama and McCain decide to opt out of the election race and no other candidates are brave/insane enough to take their place!
RE “”Palin to show up with her skirts hiked up above her knees, wearing that push-up bra showing plenty of bare chest for the Booby Bubbas, and looking and acting ditzy clueless “”
———————————————————————————————————
——– You’ve neglected to tell us what activities that you’ll be engaged in during this period.
Don’t be shy now.
55 Jonathan October 1, 2008 at 1:25 am
I remember the part about trying to take over the supreme Court. It was on one of the PBS documentaries recently. I had forgot who it was that tried it, though. I have also heard that Abraham Lincoln also expanded executive power, either to do the Civil War or to end slavery.
If you were in FDR’s position, what might you have done? How would that be different or similar to what you might do if you were President today?
@Pangolin
Not to get technical, but those mortgages are only on the property, not the occupants–it’s illegal to buy and sell people here for the last 150 years or so, one of the few market restrictions that even I agree with.
The securities in question don’t represent individual properties; they represent “traunches” made of thousands of individual mortgages, some of which will go bad, but nobody quite knows how many will go bad. (It’s not quite fair to thrash the banks who bought them; they were rated AAA–the very safest–and insured.)
I like the image of a “lottery ticket scrawled in crayon” (“MORGIDGEZ 25 sents”), but I don’t quite get what you mean by an “offsite valuation.”
Does the Senate plan go over the heads of the House? Do you all think that it is better than the House version? Worse?
@Pink:
Not really…it still has to go back to the House. The FDIC stipulations will not affect most Americans, nor will they prevent those who will be affected from sustaining large losses in the meantime, but it is perhaps a step in the correct direction. I am bothered by the tax breaks for businesses, unless they are absolutely necessary to help jump-start the economy…
@Robert Davison in the U.K.:
(your comments are in the moderation queue–hopefully they’ll appear soon).
🙂 I sympathize, and I’m American…in general, though, I think the BBC’s world-wise outlook is good in the long run; I can count on one hand the number of my colleagues who recognize the name, “Morgan Tsvangirai,” for example–in the U.S., the BBC was largely the only agency giving the issues in Zimbabwe strong treatment. I shifted my news habits to the BBC because of its world outlook…
World Service is funded by a “grant-in aid,” not by your licence fees (if that’s any consolation…)
In the present moment, unfortunately, the American economy is setting the pace for the rest of the world–so it’s not really a strictly “American” story. What’s happening is having a global-circling effect; the tunnel vision of many American news agencies, predominately focused as they are almost solely on the effects the current economic crisis is having on the fortunes of our presidential candidates, is not preferable, either.
I understand your complaint, though, and on that note, I do wish as a foreigner, the BBC was able to make available their coverage of the U.K. Conservative Party’s conference in Birmingham to those of us overseas–I think that is very interesting.
Hey Robert……..
There have been some inneffectual barroom swings at the practice of short selling. Do you see any fallout for middlemen and speculators? Who’s going to get dragged to the guilotine if only to appease and distact the crowd?
With the Depression we were able to jump into WWII and right now we have that kind of backwards. Any chance this has an upside? What if we let the cart roll all the way down the hill? We didn’t spend any 700 billion on Japan after the war. Aren’t there some lean and hungry turks who can step into the vacuum and look for newer more dynamic opportunities? Alternative energy that works? More responsive technologies that create jobs here and products the rest of the world wants to buy?
My sky isn’t falling so I don’t get the stampede for the lifeboats. I do like a cool head even if it’s not my pinch we’re in. Still, I’m guessing somebody is going to get thrown out of the boat and I’m just waiting to see who has that short straw.
lol,
Couric: And when it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?
Palin: I’ve read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.
Couric: What, specifically?
Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.
Couric: Can you name a few?
Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn’t a foreign country, where it’s kind of suggested, “Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?” Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.
“I read all of them!!” Ahh ha ha ha Boy Tina Fey has some competition.
To everyone in Nigeria, regarding your holidays! Please have a joyous holiday.
Dennis
Morning all!
Re: Palin Magazines
Remind me to ask her how she liked the last issue of “Canal and Riverboat”, one of my favourite British magazines.
Regarding the bailout:
It will probably died out ….
Dennis
I do not know why anybody has not brought up that she didn’t even know the difference between “the morning after pill” which is an ECP and basically a high dosage of a contraceptive pill, and RU486 a.k.a “the abortion pill. For somebody who hopes to stand ground and might even be called to vote on the abortion issue, you might like to think that she would know the difference. I thought it immediately.
By being “mavericks”, do they mean those old junky Ford cars that used to break down often and start rusting the day you bought them?
@ Jonathan~ By ‘offsite valuation’ I mean that a mortgage on a property, particularly a defaulted property is only of any worth as a note attached to THAT property. Googling the sales prices of every house in a half mile circle tells you nothing about what’s inside the house, the state of the roof, the well, termites and the septic tank. I can find abandoned houses in my town that are a substantial discount on value of the lot without leaving the curb. The paper lien on that property can’t be sold for a fair value without a property inspection.
Likewise a mortgage one bank is selling some other financial institution means nothing without understanding the circumstances of the persons pledged to pay that mortgage. A paid-up mortgage lent to a GM worker in Michigan could be worth nothing. He could lose his job and walk away tomorrow leaving a building you could not sell.
The whole idea of selling ‘trauches’ that are slices of mortgage to spread risk makes sense until there is a recession and/or a deflation of property values. Then the collection of traunches becomes an unwieldy paperwork problem as one resident cannot possibly negotiate a mortgage with 30 pension managers. The transaction costs quickly exceed the value of any individual ‘traunch’ and they become worthless.
The government is being asked to buy $700 billion of worthless paper.
I was discussing the mortgage problem with a friend. I think the government aught to offer a house trade down. If they take on all of these bad mortgages they should say, “we see you bout this house that was way too expensive for you in the nice side of town. Here is a list of houses in the projects that have been vacant for some time. You are more then welcome to take a week to pick one out and move there. Your new mortgage will be more comparable to what you should have been paying in the first place.”
In the end the only house left standing open will be the high end ones that used to belong to the CEOs of the financial companies.
@Pink
Hmmm, what would I have done as president in FDR’s time? Hard to say. In retrospect, it’s easy (for informed people) to see that he was flailing around, and that the Fed was making a bad situation vastly worse, but I don’t know how much of what we know now was known then. I know that the Smoot-Hawley trade restrictions were stupid, and that Adam Smith had explained those principles about 150 years before, but most people even today don’t understand them–the populist nonsense against trade is as loud as ever. I honestly don’t know if free market principles and especially monetary mechanisms were well understood back then.
I’d like to think I wouldn’t be as arrogant and reckless as FDR, just casually trying out one bonehead idea after another, but a moment of reflection suggests that arrogance is a trap I might not have been entirely safe from.
It’s easier to sit back and criticize, so that’s what I do. 🙂
Here in the U.S. programmes: like, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, Public Education, Roads [and etc.], The electric system here are all over-due for a major over-haul…..
Dennis
@ Palin magazines~ Thank you Bob!! I’ve been biting my cheek and trying not to dump that into the mix but since YOU started it………
I would have started with New Scientist, WoodenBoat, Fine Homebuilding of course I read Grist online as well as the BBC website. Then we get to the Sun Magazine, Utne Reader, Tricycle (it’s a Buddhist magazine ya nit), the odd Harpers and Newsweek. Every few months I go to the library and scan Scientific American, Science, Popular Science and Popular Mechanics (still no flying car dang it) along with Smithsonian and things of a like nature. Of course I’m a laid up handyman so my reading list is constrained.
As an Alaskan governor she should have kept up on back issues of Backwoods Home, Mother Earth News and Quilt magazine so she could advise her citizens on moose canning techniques and home birthing. As the nations premier energy expert she should be read up on Oil & Gas Journal, The International Journal on Hydropower & Dams, and Home Power Magazine (crucial to Alaskans). I forgot North American Journal of Fisheries Management which would have lots to say about Alaska’s second most important industry.
She’s an idiot.
@ Dwight~ My thinking is that mortgages that were chopped into ‘traunches’ or sold on interest only or zero-down terms or anything other than a fixed interest rate for a defined period should be declared void and replaced with a fixed rate, 20 year mortgage for the current value of either the house or the outstanding mortgage whichever was less.
If your institutional investor was stupid enough to buy traunches of some idiot mortgage or even worse, shares in an asset-backed-securities fund well then tough cookies.
Somebody has to get out the sword and cut this Gordian knot of bitty pieces of debt sold back and forth. Making sure that all the suckers get their nickel back before we let somebody back into the house isn’t working.
@ Jonathan~ The important thing FDR did was put people to work. He got them leaving the house, going and doing something and returning at the end of the day with a paycheck capable of minimally supporting families. That would be four or more people supported on ONE paycheck.
Social Security and Medicare got old people to stay home and quit working freeing jobs up for younger people. The GI bill did the same thing in reverse; it kept young guys out of the workplace for a few years by sending them to school.
The reason the WWII finally broke the depression is that the wealthy, like Prescott Bush, were taxed at rates high enough that they had to share some of the nation’s wealth with everybody else. The tax rates of the 40’s and 50’s would be considered ruinous today. We’re ruined; they prospered.
@Pangolin
Ah, yes, I see your point. But it’s not quite THAT bad. For one thing, the bonds are risk-rated according to the qualifications of the borrowers, so we have a clue. More importantly, most of the loans won’t default, so the paper isn’t literally worthless; it’s just not worth as much as it was thought to be. To be worthless, all, or nearly all, would have to default.
I think anomalies like individual house conditions, individual layoffs, etc. are exactly why it makes more sense to invest in slivers of a hundred mortgages than four individual ones. They even out.
The hardest part for investors is uncertainty. You’d rather mark down the bonds to a reliable level than not know what the level will be. The government has such a long time horizon that it can wait until the decline in house prices finally ends, and then price the bonds and the risk accordingly. That’s the theory as I understand it, anyway.
@ Jonathon~ So what happens to the house while the government is waiting for house prices to climb back up? I can tell you for a fact that an empty building starts to degrade very quickly once vacated. Damage happens in months, sometimes days.
Another point. if these packages of traunches were performing we wouldn’t be having this discussion. If the risk ratings weren’t so much fiction ditto. If the mortgage insurance wasn’t bogus likewise. It’s because they were bogus that banks are failing.
@ Credit financing~ Since when did every small business in the US start behaving like a spendthrift kid dependent upon paycheck loans? What happened to build a cushion and guard it like a junkyard dog? Was I home sick the day they handed out the kool-aid?
@ Pakistan
“RAGHAGAN, PAKISTAN // Intensive Pakistani military action in the border areas has emboldened several tribes to turn against Taliban militants.”
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080930/FOREIGN/879772817/1103/NEWS
…………………………
KABUL, Afghanistan — United Nations officials said Monday that fighting arising from a Pakistani military crackdown in one of the semi autonomous tribal districts on Pakistan’s tense border with Afghanistan had driven 20,000 Pakistanis to flee as refugees into Afghanistan.
……………………………
@ Roberto October 1, 2008 at 2:51 am
“RE “”Palin to show up with her skirts hiked up above her knees, wearing that push-up bra showing plenty of bare chest for the Booby Bubbas, and looking and acting ditzy clueless “”
———————————————————————————————————
——– You’ve neglected to tell us what activities that you’ll be engaged in during this period.
Don’t be shy now.”
I have no objection to a woman tarting herself up to use sex to sell her ideas or products, I just recognize what she is doing.
Let’s note that Gwen Ifill won’t stoop to the level of Sarah Palin and use her sexuality to perform her duties as a moderator, no, Gwen Ifill will present herself as the magnificent human being she is and talk about ideas that matter. I don’t always agree with Gwen Ifill but I have always respected her and the way she represents women in general and black women in particular.
Hmm, Gwen Ifill, an outstanding intelligent woman in a position of power, dealing straight from the top of the deck; yeah, that is sexy!
Okay…
THIS is mainly a local story but it’s one I care about because, at the time of the explosion, I lived about 20 miles away from the blast. Even at that range it was loud enough to wake my wife and I in the early hours of a Sunday morning and the shockwave caused our bedroom curtains to blow inwards.
Basically, there was a huge explosion and fire at an oil storage depot. The companies involved have admitted negligence but, through some legal footwork that only a lawyer could appreciate (how many angels can you get on the head of a pin?) they say that this does not amount to conceding civil liability. Also, because there are several different companies involved, they are using this to tie up any claims.
Now, three years after the explosion, the residents who were left homeless and the business that were shut down are all still waiting for compensation. They’re being forced to go to court to get any settlement.
Now, I’m not a great fan of the “compensation culture” but I’d say a case where corporate negligence causes an explosion almost as big as a nuclear blast that it’s fairly clear cut. What’s in it for the companies to fight the claims–except a bucketload of bad publicity? Should there be some sort of method to fasttrack compensation claims in situations like this? Should the companies be penalised additional amounts for their needless prevarication?
Pangolin
Re mortgages, what is your fascination with 20-year mortgages? You do realize that payments would be much higher, so if people struggle with their 30-year mortgage payments, your 20-year mortgages would put them out on the street, right?
Re FDR, by your theory, the fewer people are in the workforce, the better? That’s self-evidently impossible. People who don’t work are obviously less productive than people who do work, even wihen the former are not getting government money. WPA “work” was mostly useless, unproductive. WWII ended the depression by occasioning massive government borrowing, just as we’re going to do now. Wealth is more effectively shared by investment and capital formation than by taxation. And I can’t think by what measure the standard of living in the 1940s or 50s could be thought more prosperous than now; it simply wasn’t.
Dwight from Cleveland October 1, 2008 at 4:07 am
I do not know why anybody has not brought up that she didn’t even know the difference between “the morning after pill” which is an ECP and basically a high dosage of a contraceptive pill, and RU486 a.k.a “the abortion pill.
I also didn’t know the difference. But then I am as unlikely as Sarah Palin is to ever want an abortion. My goodness you guys are biased. Do you ever acknowledge Biden’s gaffes and ignorance, or is that automatically swept under the carpet?
Dwight from Cleveland October 1, 2008 at 4:17 am
Dwiight, please excuse me for being compelled to point this out, but you should also stop being biased against that very useful little word than. It objects to being continually and unjustly replaced by then:
You are more than welcome…. is the correct usage.
Pangolin-California October 1, 2008 at 4:38 am
She’s an idiot but she can fly a plane and successfully govern a state. Some “idiot.”
On magazines:
If you want a course on Wall Street, I subscribed to and intensively read mags like Forbes, Fortune, and Worth for three or four years to get a idea of how they think about it.
You can do the same with stuff like The Economist, the IHT, International Herald Tribune, and nowadays, probably the financial rags of India and China.
There is a saying among model airplane builders, “there are no secrets”, and if you’re willing to make the efforts you can certainly learn about how politics and the world economy works.
Well, OK, if you want to understand politics, you have to learn history and how to read between the lines, how to ask yourself what is being left out, what is missing from the discussion, and who benefits
By God it sure is fun!
Sometimes.
@Bob
Does Australia have the concept of “class action” for torts like that? If so, it should be a piece of cake. And, yes, sure there are extra penlaties for prevarication. In fact, I think that is criminal, if you can interest your government is prosecuting for it.
” Why has McCain Blocked Info On MIAs?”
“John McCain, who has risen to political prominence on his image as a Vietnam POW war hero, has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn’t return home.”
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/schanberg
@ Bryan
RE: Dwight comment that Palin doesn’t know what EC is (!)
“I also didn’t know the difference. But then I am as unlikely as Sarah Palin is to ever want an abortion. My goodness you guys are biased.”
Dwight’s comment clearly states the EC (emergency contraception) is like a high dosage of a contraceptive pill or RU486. It’s NOT an abortion. You cannot abort something that has not been conceived. Just as a condom and birth-control prevent a pregnancy, EC is a high dosage of a contraceptive pill. It is often used when a condom fails or after a rape, etc, and before sperm has had a chance to inseminate the egg. If a pregnancy has occurred, EC does not harm the fetus nor does it cause an abortion. For someone who claims to be independent, but you clearly attack anything progressive or democrat. You should consider you own bias before point the finger at others.
@ Bryan October 1, 2008 at 7:11 am
Wow! You’re really grasping at straws! Correcting grammar now are we? What is your next attack, spelling from foreigners posting here? Is there no beginning to your logic and rationality in debating actual topics?
@Bryan~
That’s great that Sarah Palin can fly a plane.
But because she can’t construct a coherent sentence, and because she cannot name a single Supreme Court case in all of history, and because she cannot name a single magazine or newspaper she reads, and she cannot manage to ansswer the most whiffleball of questions by the most lightweight of interviewers, and for so very many other reasons, we can reasonably construe that she cannot run the country. Surely anyone who respects language and logic–say, someone of such refined sensibilities that the mere confusion of “then” and “than” occasions a rant–should recognize that.
Have you seen and heard her in any of the TV interviews? If you’ve been paying any attention, you know me to be anything but left-wing, but good heavens, she is about as dumb as anyone with a pulse could conceivably be. I would say the same irrespective of her party or her ideology or her sex. Idiot is idiot. Come on now. Right-wingers acknowledge it. Her own campaign staff acknowledges it. Do you just do this to make mischief?
Is George W Bush is wising up in his last days in the office.
US ‘rejected’ Israeli Iran strike – read the link below
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7637550.stm
Don’t under estimate the Iranians, Saddam thought the war will last max 2 years, and would be all over in 6 months, only lasted 8 years.
Go on Israel attack Iran and create more crisis as we don’t have enough at the moment.
Is George W Bush is wising up in his last days in the office.
US ‘rejected’ Israeli Iran strike – read the link below
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7637550.stm
Don’t under estimate the Iranians, Saddam thought the war will last max 2 years, and would be all over in 6 months, only lasted 8 years.
Go on Israel attack Iran and create more crisis as we don’t have enough at the moment.
@ Jonathan~ It’s my opinion that longer mortgages lead to higher home prices simply due to the fact that people can borrow more that way. In essence that last ten years of mortgage is a big gift to the banks. Since most mortgages pay the interest up front a house that sells in the normal five to ten years has paid very little principal.
The banks win, real estate agents win, everybody else loses.
Since banks and real estate agents are basically parasites off the people who build houses and the people who live in them they should be choked back to a reasonable size; frequently.
@ Robert [September 30, 2008 at 7:38 pm]
RE the economy: I sure hope you’re right.
—
@ Jens
It does!
—
@ Lubna
Happy EID
—
@Julie P
Jens better make us proud in the debate or I’m jumping ship. LOL
—
@ Tom D Ford [October 1, 2008 at 1:52 am]
I bought popcorn for Thursday.
@Pangolin
Um, what happens to WHAT “house” while home prices recover? Once more, slowly: We’re not talking about a “house.” We’re talking about BONDS. Securities. Pieces of paper as you yourself put it. Remember? They’re backed by mortgages, paid for by people who pay on them, and in turn by the houses they bought with them. The only person talking about booting millions of people out of their houses is you, by threatening to impose “20-year mortgages” upon them, which obviously they cannot pay for.
Once more slowly, they are “performing,” they just aren’t worth as much as everybody, including insurers and raters, thought they were.
You ask, Since when did business run on credit? I guess since the day after we stopped using bones and shells for money. Certainly long before we adopted currency, before Byzantine bonds and even Byzantine coins. Thousands of years ago.
“Build a cushion” of WHAT and “guard it like a junkyard dog?” Money? That would be silly. It would withdraw money from circulation and thus from productive use in investment and capital formation and weath creation.
Given that financial systems are like interconnecting water buckets, one person’s losses are – except for a small amount of evaporation – another person’s gains. If the losses in the current financial crisis amount to $ 500 bn., in whose pockets has all that money landed up? Anybody know?
Jessica in NYC October 1, 2008 at 7:29 am
This is the bit I quoted from Dwight at 7:11 am:
I do not know why anybody has not brought up that she didn’t even know the difference between “the morning after pill” which is an ECP and basically a high dosage of a contraceptive pill, and RU486 a.k.a “the abortion pill.
You have ignored half the quote – about the abortion pill – thereby taking my point out of context. If you read my comment again, you’ll notice that I did not claim that the morning after pill was an abortion.
For someone who claims to be independent, but you clearly attack anything progressive or democrat.
I have asked the following question before here without a response:
Why is the destruction of the unfolding life of the unborn considered progressive while the protection and nurturing of that life is considered reactionary?
@ Palin’s medical ignorance~ Alas people are unable to understand the Google.
Emergency Contraception- Emergency contraception is a very high dose of normal birth control pill hormones. It’s the equivalent of taking some number of days worth of pills at once. What it does is prevents implantation of a fertilized ovum on the uterine wall. By religious whacko standards this constitutes an abortion.
Smoking pictures
The ultimate in puke? A horrible old lung, a corpse, it is all fun new stuff that the UK Labour dictatorship, sorry government of fiscal excellence is putting on cigarette packets, the taxes from which build several hospitals per decade and keep others open as patients die from lung cancer and what not before they get pricey conditions like Alzheimer’s.
Lets for a moment take this idea one step further. Using awful pictures to shock people into changing their behaviour.
OK, starting with chocolate bars. Pics of really obese people on each wrapper and while we are at it, why not a Big Mac? Of course, it will help!
Your car, well, obviously a nasty car crash image is called for, just to remind you about the dangers, of course…
Large pictures in airports of various crashes and accidents. Smashed up faces on lamposts, etc, etc. It is simply madness and a total breach of visual rights.
Really, it is a silly idea and only one a daft government like the one currently attempting to run the UK would bring in.
Ditto on bans on smoking in public places, usually from people who waste fuel in their cars which melt glaciers and get us all into trouble. If indeed, all these anti-smoking Nazis put their efforts into campaigning about important stuff like climate change and high levels of industrial pollution, then the world would still have smokers, though perhaps be more fun and less visiually-repulsive place to be.
@Chrisopher
My guess is all the small banks and mortgage brokers who offered mortgages to anybody without doing any personal financial checks,ex a prisoner who just left prison had £250K mortgage based on signing a self certified forms.
These bad mortgages, where the lenders knew for fact that there is noway the borrowrs could pay the loan back, sold along side good mortgages to big mrortgage lenders banks / building society without any checks.
@Pangolin again
Home prices are falling. That is causing a huge recession. Home prices fell by 12% last MONTH, and you think this is an appropriate time to indulge your theory that “long mortgages lead to higher home prices” by making everyone’s mortgage 20 years instead of 30? But, um, the problem at the moment is not high home prices, but LOW home prices, as you must have heard. So even assuming your theory is right, it would just make the problem worse, and also it would force more homeowners out of their houses, because you’d stick them with higher payments. You sure you’re the friend of the little homeowner guys?
Banks are “parasites?” Hmmm. Pretty hard to buy a house without them. Of course, a case could be made that mortgages themselves drive up home prices by enabling people to buy houses, right?
You’ve also got amortization backwards and inside out: It would be the first, not the last, ten years that’s “a gift to the bank,” by your terms. Also, if you own a house for just five or ten years, you’re better off with a variable rate than a fixed one. Except, oh right, Pangolin says you can’t get one.
Pat
There will be fall out. Yes. People brought shares at high prices first half of this year and will be either have to sell at low prices next year or hold them for years, they will be losses and penalities for these people.
As for short sellers. They do not own the shares. Normally the person who owns the shares lent them on the basis the commission from the short selling makes up for the decline in share price which they are betting against. The owners are often more interested in dividends then the share price to start with so a small short term drop is not an issue. However now share owners will concerned that short sellers have the power to actually destroy all value in the share and the company itself. They are less likely to lend shares to the short sellers, thereby destroying the very business model they work with. But that change in outlook takes time. It will take at least until 2010 to see who has really been hurt long term by this year.
Hello all,
Happy Eid Lubna, Shirley, Abdi, Abduallah from morroco, Jamily… plz forgive me if i forget anyone … Happy Eid to all muslims and to all WHYS bloggers. may Allah all your life will be Eid and full of happiness.
– Major roads of Sadr city are blocked from yesterday. I think this is the eidia (Eidia means a gift (usually money) is given to the sons and daughters in the first day of Eid). People are unable to go out or in the city. How can we visit our relitives in this eid??
Any way HAPPY EID to all.
yours truly,
Zainab from Iraq
@ NELSON
Please stop editing the word busy out of my post.
Tom D Ford October 1, 2008 at 7:33 am,
Even if my English were perfect, which it isn’t, I would try to steer clear of correcting people’s grammar and in any event I certainly would never dream of correcting a person whose first language is not English unless it was in the context of a lesson they had agreed to attend.
But that poor, innocent little word than is in serious danger of being unjustly replaced in many instances on the Internet and elsewhere by then.
But you are right, I’ll shut up about it. Funny, though, that you attack my logic and rationality in debating actual topics based on one mild comment about two little words. Do you have any actual evidence to bring to the forum?
Jonathan October 1, 2008 at 7:56 am
That’s great that Sarah Palin can fly a plane. And it’s also great that she can successfully manage a state. (I’m only repeating myself since you decided to chop that bit out of my original sentence to bolster your point.) Therefore, she’s not an idiot.
@ Jonathan~ We seem to have come to the heart of the problem. I go up to an abandoned house in my town and I see disaster foisted on the rest of us by TPTB. Empty house rotting while distant financial entities dicker over who gets paid. Meanwhile real people I can walk up and touch are without housing, neighbors live with fire hazards and lose value on their houses due to dilapidation next door. House doesn’t get sold because it is owned by 35 truanches.
You, taking the financiers case, appear to give a rat’s ass about the real people. Something has to be done to protect the bond traders from a loss they most obviously deserve due to daisy chains of crony capitalism. The bonds are “bad” but still worth some non-zero value that nobody can sort out. This is crashing the banks due to a loss of trust. We are supposed to care about the poor bond traders because Joe at the bagel shop can’t borrow money to make payroll.
So if I have this straight, your average small business is operated off a credit card? Since when is this a good idea? Model this on a simulation and you quickly find that the bank skims a good chunk of the businesses profits that could be avoided if they operated on cash. Unless the business can rapidly choke down the credit draws Mr. Small Businessman becomes nothing more than cattle milked by the bank.
We all know what happens to cows when the milk runs dry don’t we? Looks like a situation for Cows With Guns!!
@Bryan~
News flash: One need not quote a whole post in one’s response to it. “Chopping” is not some nefarious sneaky thing I just invented to make you look bad. It’s normal practice.
Read my comment again. You may ignore the airplane part that so confuses you, since I only mentioned it in a vain attempt to show you how utterly irrelevant airplane-flying is to being an intelligent person. I made an excellent, compelling case that Palin is an idiot. (Do you seriously contend that attaining elective office means that one is not an idiot? Really?) Then respond to it honestly, or not at all.
Nofal Elias October 1, 2008 at 8:01 am,
You raise an important issue. I don’t think we should automatically assume that what gets reported in the press always faithfully represents what happens between leaders behind closed doors. Yes, it’s likely that Bush would have told Olmert he would not support an Israeli strike on Iran if Olmert had in fact raised the issue, but who knows what the US position would be if it really came to the crunch.
Regarding the objection to Israel attacking Iran, it is high time people stopped hiding the fact that Iran has been attacking Israel for decades via the terrorist proxies of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Iran finances, arms and trains these groups whose main purpose in life is to murder Israeli civilians. Some years back the Karine A, a ship bristling with Iranian weapons, was intercepted by the Israelis on the way to Gaza for the express purpose of arming terrorists for their murderous attacks on Israeli civilians.
The BBC article you linked to is yet another in a long line of such articles that completely ignores Iran’s ongoing terror attacks against Israel though its proxies. To the best of my knowledge, the BBC has never mentioned this fact. It is high time the BBC rectified this glaring deficiency in its reporting on the conflict between Israel and Iran.
@ Mortgage rates~ I seem to be of the odd position of thinking that most houses are places that people purchase to live in rather than purchasing for speculation. If you understand that housing prices go down as well as up then buying a house for a short period with an adjustable rate mortgage is a bad gamble.
Home prices falling is no skin off my back or anyone in my family except my millionaire sister. I was thrown under the bus by the ownership society along with the rest of the people without medical insurance. If this bothers you well; tough noogies. It’s capitalism bud. That’s what TPTB tell me.
If people are underwater in their mortgages they should simply stop paying and contest the foreclosure. It gives them time to save money for moving costs. Then they should demand that the lender PROVE ownership of the note.
The banks can go hang; what do you owe them? Nothing.
Jonathan October 1, 2008 at 9:09 am
You may ignore the airplane part …. since I only mentioned it in a vain attempt to show you how utterly irrelevant airplane-flying is to being an intelligent person.
It is? Better hope that the pilot on your next flight has enough intelligence to get you safely to your destination. But this argument is ridiculous. The anti-Palin people are running around like jackals in the bush that have identified their prey and are trying to bring her down. Frankly, I don’t see anything close to this kind of venom directed against Biden from the Republican side. Do You?
Nobody has demonstrated why Palin would be incompetent as VP or P. That’s my honest opinion.
Cometh the moment, cometh the man (or woman).
@Pangolin still
Um, it was YOU who said that most people sell their houses in five or ten years. I didn’t even check it or verity it, so great is my respect for you and your accuracy. Nothing that you buy that costs six figures can NOT be an investment, whether or not you live in it. It’s the biggest thing most people will ever buy.
There’s no reason to have expected that “housing prices go down as well as up.” Before this moment, they hadn’t gone down in America by a significant amount over a sustained period for 70 years. But that’s not really relevant to the calculation that if you sell a house after five years, as you posited, an adjustable rate mortgage is not a “gamble” but bound to be cheaper than a fixed rate mortgage. Look it up. Ask anyone. Or just think about it. Likewise, the payments are lower on a 30 year mortgage than a 20 year mortgage. Enactment of your proposals would mean that a whole lot of those noble peasants you care about could no longer buy houses.
What the heck is “TPTB?”
@ Bryan~ Nobody has to try and bring Sara Palin down. All they have to do is let her open her mouth in range of a video camera. C’mon she can’t even manage to LIE about what magazines or newspapers she reads. The reason nobody makes the same deal about Biden’s gaffes is that they understand that Biden otherwise speaks at length with knowledge and understanding of issues. Palin can read a teleprompter but left to her own voice she appears to know nothing.
She was on the cover of Time for dog’s sakes and she couldn’t remember that. How do you not remember the magazine with your own face on the cover.
She’s George W. Bush with a bra on; she’s that stupid.
@Bryan
I am not saying whether or not Israel have the right to attack Iran or not, what I am saying if Israel attacks Iran, it means Israel has entered a war directly with Iran. Hoping US will support them, with current Economic crisis, and US involvment in Iraq and Afghanistan and now Packstain, would be foolish step.
Don’t forget if Iraq had WMD, America would thought twice before attacking Iraq, but US knew for facts that Iraq doesn’t have any weapons to defend themselves. But Iran has enough weapons to defend their country, and they have the Russians backing directly and indirectly.
@Bryan~
You have chosen again not to respond to any of the several specific, accurate, factual points in my comment demonstrating that Palin is an idiot. Fine.
You ask, “I don’t see anything close to this kind of venomdirected against Biden from the Republican side. Do you?”
Gosh, no, Bryan, I don’t. But then, Biden isn’t an idiot.
I’ve seen “venom” (that is, clear, emphatic statements of the unfortunate but obvious fact that Palin is an idiot) from prominent, respectable right-wing Republicans. They resent her being foisted upon the country as a representative of their ideas and principles, because she’s an idiot. Self-respecting, intelligent people on the right are properly insulted, and they properly think it was offensive and cynical that McCain chose an idiot in an attempt to mend fences with them. (This was presaged recently when McCain ham-handedly tried to make nice with the religious right by hugging the first preachers he came across, only to disavow them later when they proved to be outside the acceptable range of opinion prevailing among that crowd, which is saying something.)
I’m impressed by your zeal, but being right-wing does not require defending the indefensible. Independent thought is permitted.
@ Bryan
“Nobody has demonstrated why Palin would be incompetent as VP or P. That’s my honest opinion.”
… Because I believe you believe this and all the other [interesting] comments, I think you and I live in different worlds fiction and non-fiction. I don’t travel to never-never land.
Let’s note that Gwen Ifill won’t stoop to the level of Sarah Palin and use her sexuality to perform her duties as a moderator,
————————————————————————————————————
———- My dear Tom, there is no bigger fan of Gwen’s formidable abilities as a reporter and moderator than I, but if she did stoop she might get arrested by the body beautiful police.
Fortunately Palin isn’t a blonde, or otherwise the blog would be subjected to a 1001 blonde reasons why Palin is a stoopid, dum, glueless, poof of powder and pound of lipstick from the piffle brigade.
Amusing how easily some on this blog have provided links for obviously fake video and insipidly bogus news and pass this off as valid commentary. Next thing you know these “smarter than sarahs” will be telling us they are qualified to vote and will be voting.
Palin has made few public appearances since her veep selection and unless one of you dears can provide a link showing her in anything but conservative business woman attire or modest street clothing, me thinks we may have a little glee club of prurient Victorian types masking their own insecurities and shortcomings when compared to Ms Palin.
It’s quite humorous to see McCain’s plan working. Kneejerks go frothy rabid over Palin which allows him more time to carefully craft his campaign and hone in on Obama’s own much more public gaffes.
That some cannot see behind the roles that politicians play for public theatre reminds me of deluded trekkies thinking Leonard Nimoy could actually read their minds or various citizens fleeing for their lives when glimpsing Linda Blair in public. Watch them go ditzy-doozie when Sarah pulls a warmed up moose burger from under her blouse. Classic!
@ Jessica~
“…fiction and non-fiction.”
That’s unfair. Everyone knows that reality has a strong liberal bias! 🙂
@ Jonathan~ TBTB= ‘the powers that be’ as in those people who’ve brought us to the brink of TEOTWAWKI or ‘the end of the world as we know it.’
@ Housing prices~ Past performance does not indicate future returns. Isn’t a phrase like that tagged onto every mutual fund prospectus? I’ve seen lots of arguments about how long term stock prices always go up also.
How’s that working out for ya?
An adjustable rate mortgage has to be a gamble. The rate can adjust up, house prices can go down or the market turnover could slow down and prevent the buyer from selling out. New loans could dry up. If you can’t pay the maximum rate of an adjustable mortgage you can’t afford the loan AND the bank shouldn’t lend you the money.
Jessica, must be a bit late (or very early) in NYC. But maybe you would like to answer my question posed at 8:32 am?
(I propose to emerge from never-never land long enough to reply if you do.)
@ Jessica~ Thank YOU!! xoxo You brought up my favorite topic of philosophy which is the hazard of living in a fictional reality.
Obviously a fictional world view is preferable to flat physical reality since it’s far easier to get other people’s agreement as to the operating manual. You just get a majority to agree to emphasize certain observations and ignore others. This is the foundation of all religions except possibly Buddhism and there I have my doubts.
The tricky part is when the physical reality intervenes with a condition that is very difficult to ignore. Like, say, the concept that a slim woman in her eighth month of pregnancy could go completely unnoticed by the people around her. Reality says this is extremely unlikely and the realists are accused of being liberal.
Another problem that the consensual world-view is having is that energy supplies do not seem to be consistent with models of exponential economic growth. The financial system is dependent upon the second premise but there are problems from an unknown quarter gumming the works.
@Pangolin
No, you aren’t at “the heart of the problem.” I can’t comment on your silly little abbreviation “TPTB,” since you haven’t told me what it means, but it’s irrelevant. No “house doesn’t get sold because it is owned by 35 truanches [sic])” Nobody buying or selling a house either knows or cares about the details of the securitization of its mortgage. Why would they? No houses stand empty, no huddled masses unhoused, because of those details.
What continues to elude you is that “financiers” and real estate agents and home buyers are all on the same side: they all want buyers to buy houses.
Most businesses both small and large operate on credit, yes, of course. Not “credit cards,” but bank loans, and bonds, and preferred stock, and lines of credit, and commercial paper, etc. Can this really come as news to you? Have you never heard these terms before? It’s been a “good idea” for thousands of years. Few people have the cash to buy the sometimes very expensive machinery, licenses, etc. that comprise the initial outlay to start a business. Surely you wouldn’t want a world where only the rich can start businesses, would you? You don’t like the rich; I remember this clearly. Yet just this evening, your proposals would lock out everyone except the rich from either buying a house or starting a business. Strange stuff.
Nofal Elias October 1, 2008 at 10:09 am,
I agree with your assessment. Iran could do Israel serious damage indeed even without the Bomb. But like almost everyone else on this forum you are avoiding the crux of the matter – and that is Iran’s continual terror attacks through its proxies on Israel and its stated intention to destroy Israel. And I should note here that Israel has done nothing to deserve this onslaught. Does Israel not have the right to defend herself? And what will happen, for example, if Iran gives Hezbollah a couple of nukes to send Israel’s way. Try to put yourself in Israel’s shoes. What would you do under actual attack and threat of even greater attack from Iran? Just sit there and take it?
@Pangolin
Take a look at the news sometime and you’ll notice that many of “the powers that be” don’t exist anymore. They are bankrupt or have been acquired. Their owners have lost everything, which should cheer you up.
Yes, stock prices and home prices reliably rise over the long term. It’s not an argument; it’s a fact. It works out quite nicely for me and everyone else who understands it and acts intelligently. Thanks for asking.
Adjustable rate mortgages are preferable for the short-term owner who is the average owner according to you, because (a) the rate is lower, (b) the rate is frozen for a period of time that can be up to seven years or so, and (c) they are easier to qualify for. Just another helpful innovation for the little guy that you would remove because you don’t understand it.
Pangolin and Jonathan and Jessica, if you’re around,
If Sarah Palin is an idiot, what is Biden, who:-
*Had to plagiarise another’s speech rather than come up with his own
*Thinks TV was in every American household in 1929
*Invites handicapped people to stand up and be seen
*Apparently doesn’t understand the threat from Iran.
If Sarah Palin is an idiot, what is Obama, who:-
*Thinks there are 57 states in the US
*Had a decades-long, intimate relationship with a racist anti-white preacher
*Had another relationship with an unrepentant terrorist
*Wont visit US troops.
I think I prefer the first idiot out of the three, thanks.
RE wall street bailout:
————————————————————————————————————
———— Obama and McCain are reportedly both set to vote for the package.
Both recommended FDIC insurance be upgraded to $250,000 from the older than dirt 100grand previous limit. In fact, I daresay if one bothered to do the calculations, Obama and McCain’s senate votes would have a probable 90% matching overlap.
A veritable Mutt and Jeff pair of buddies, yet there are actually emotional voter types who will be making one or the other into the future anti-Christ.
Nutin’ like a good rabble rousing political brouhaha to flush ’em out every couple of years.
@ Jonathan~ TPTB do indeed still exist. I am not referring to the institutions but the 10,000 or so individuals that have the connections and money to exploit the financial markets. To quote poster Chris-in-Paris on Americablog…….
It’s good to be a failed bank CEO
Kinda like being a failed CEO of Merrill Lynch ($161 million O’Neal and 9-months-for-$200 million Thain) or Citi ($40 million for Chuck Prince) or Bear Stearns (James Cayne for $61 million) or Countrywide (Angelo Mozilo for $110 million) or Lehman Brothers ($2.5 BILLION bonus fund after failing) or AIG (Maurice Greenberg selling $1 BILLION in AIG stock after the bailout). The latest prime example of Washington Mutual (WaMu) CEO who worked a whopping THREE WEEKS who is entitled to $18 million. Since when did being a failure become a recipe for financial success in America? This is what the Republicans have done to our system that used to reward hard work and success but now only rewards failures at the top. Some kind of message we’re sending to everyone.
Yeah, these guys are suffering. I mean $40 million hardly leaves you money for lunch at Arby’s after you’ve purchased a few congressmen that you have to buy to keep your taxes low. You can’t tell me they were getting paid for performance.
If this video on the Democrat’s responsibility for the crash is accurate, and there is no reason to assume that it isn’t, then Obama and the Democrats went way beyond idiocy while McCain tried to rein them in:
Nice sound track too.
@ Jonathan
Belatedly (I’ve had a busy day building a trapeze believe it or not!)….
That explosion story I quoted was actually in the UK, not Australia. I happened before I moved!
I’m not 100% sure on this but I don’t think the UK has an exact equivalent to a “class action”. However, it’s certainly possible for claimants to band together in a single court case for multiple claims. I don’t think there’s any real doubt that the suit(s) will be successful–I was just having a rant about the way the companies are delaying the inevitable to the great detriment of those who will eventually win but who need the money now…well actually 3 years ago…rather than when the lawyers stop earning their huge fees creating the fiction of negligence not meaning civil liability.
@Bryan,
So what do you suggest ?
Go ahead and declare war on Iran, is that a wise move.
If US thought it would be as easy as attacking Iraq, they would have done it by now as well as North Korea.
As I said the only reason US attacked Iraq because they were defenseless. This how strong America is.
The only solution is to declare Palastian as an independant state asap and not in 10 years time, or what is so called roadmap crap. Just do it now.
@Bryan~
You’re intelligent. You’re right wing. Why not be part of the intelligent right wing, instead of the bozo/bubba/populist right wing of cheap demagogues and dumb slogans and bumper-sticker thinking and silly rumors and distortions and bottom-feeders?
You’re too smart for that. Really.
@Bryan,
So what do you suggest ?
Go ahead and declare war on Iran, is that a wise move.
If US thought it would be as easy as attacking Iraq, they would have done it by now as well as North Korea.
As I said the only reason US attacked Iraq because they were defenseless. This how strong America is.
The only solution is to declare Palastian as an independant state asap and not in 10 years time, or what is so called roadmap. Just do it now.
Bob
Oh, of course I believe you . No home should be without a trapeze. Or two–one for the kids. 🙂
I don’t know much about tort law in other countries–well, I don’t know MUCH about it anywhere. There’s a general impression that it’s gone hog-wild over here, though. I guess the grass always looks greener on the other side.
@Speech plagiarism:
Happens to both sides: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7645593.stm
On Obama’s “refusal” to visit troops.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/afghanistan.asp
@Pangolin
I didn’t say the executives didn’t get paid. I said the owners lost everything. Sorry if that’s not enough for you.
The shiny object of your blood lust distracted you from the other lessons of the day: About business credit (boon to the non-rich), asset prices over the long term, ARMs (boon to the non-rich), the fact that houses do not go empty, unsold, abandoned, or foreclosed because of the CDOs that may or may not be associated with them. And my curiosity about how it is that you, purported friend of the non-rich, have all these whimsical ideas that would prevent anyone but the rich from starting businesses, buying houses, etc.
Oh, well.
@ Bob~ There were a number of similar incidents at a refinery in Richmond California across the bay from San Francisco. Here’s a
link to a list. It appears that pollute now prevaricate later is the SOP. When I was living near San Francisco these refineries in Richmond were notorious for spewing toxins so foul they would eat the paint off of new cars. The oil business is nasty all around.
@Kelsie
Whew! Oh good! You meant “both sides” of the border with Canada.
Cuz I was thinking, Sarah Palin plagiarized someone? Who copyrighted “duh?”
The amazing part of Kelsie’s story is that somebody plagiarised Johnny Howard.
Howard was not a man known for his eloquence. Brusque colloquial style and the occasional expletive, yes. Eloquence no.
Nofal Elias October 1, 2008 at 12:59 pm,
The idea that an independent Palestine will somehow make Iran forget its intention to destroy Israel shows a fundamental misconception of the conflict in the Middle East. The objection is not that Israel has not given away enough land for a Palestinian state, the objection is to Israel’s existence as a predominantly Jewish state.
The solution? We could start by putting real pressure on Iranian and Arab terrorists. Why is it always up to Israel to find the solution here? Why can’t those who are causing the problem put aside their genocidal intentions against the Jews for once and contribute instead to a solution?
Jonathan for goodness sake stop moaning and have a look at my video link at 12:27 pm.
That should keep you out of mischief for a while.
@Bryan~
Not being a pedant by nature, I don’t normally pick nits. But lacking a substantive response after three or four attempts, and in view of your cheerful eagerness to correct someone over a misplaced letter instead of seriously engaging him, or me, or anyone, I read your comments again.
On the second reading, wow, a LOT of mistakes. Grammatical, I mean. So many mistakes that if I had made them, I might want to avoid correcting others’ mistakes. Again, I mean grammatical ones.
Bryan, October 1, 2008 at 7:11 am
It is Psych 101 to try to point out in other that which we hate about ourselves. You sure point out a lot of people’s “biases”.
First, it is my assumption that you are not a voting member of congress or the senate, which is something that can not be said about Sarah Palin. Of the few things she has stated clearly, being opposed to abortions is one of them. If you are going to have issues that you champion, than a politician should know them inside in out. There is a huge difference between these two drugs. I am anti-abortion. As such, I am enlightened by the subject. I have WHJ as well as the AMA journals to draw my conclusion. (See I know where I got my info from.) However I would never vote to ban a drug where estrogens, progestins, or mifepristone were its active ingredients. I would think, “oh, it’s a morning after pill”. The same can not be said of Miss Congeniality Alaska.
Also Bryan, Please give examples of her governing. She raised taxes on the oil companies on a year where they made record profits, then she sent 3 grand to everybody in her state. Good job. She is, for a politician, “hot” in a state where the concentration of men is the most dense in the nation. Plus the 3 grand and stimulus package thing? Yah she is well liked.
According to your criteria, Hitler, Hussein, and even bill Clinton are not an idiot. Did you read the interview? She is dumb.
@ It’s funny how the people who control corporations get paid and the people who own stock lose all their value. You would think there was something wrong with the structure of the things that promotes boardroom fraud.
Asset prices over the long term only apply to stock prices since 1940. To claim that period can be extended into the future is just crazy. For most of that period the per capita energy use was growing. Now it must decline. Infinite growth on a finite planet is a fictional construct.
Adjustable rate mortgage frauds and rotting foreclosed houses are just too well documented to comment further on. The freaking FBI has a page on mortgage fraud.
Free market fundamentalism is just whacked. It doesn’t work. It’s a dead parrot. Corporations need to be put on shorter leashes.
Bryan~
I’m not moaning, and I’m not in mischief.
I am noticing your complete inability to even attempt to respond to even one of the points I made.
I have zero interest in some video that caught your eye.
Oh well; I didn’t expect you to go mano a mano, after your past humiliations and total lack of success. You’re still reliable for objections to imaginary insults, though, I trust, and taking umbrage at invented references by me to comedians I’ve never heard of, and the rest of the stuff you confect. What I’m saying is, I hope the voices haven’t deserted you.
If Sarah could pull off just one coherent moment like this one, Biden on his game. , then maybe we can assign some credit. But, don’t hold your breath.
It isn’t the fact that she has had a few moments of ignorance, (yes I am very bias against ignorance and hate it in myself.) But she has only had moments of ignorance. Give me one thing that she has done, said, that I said, “really, let me fact check that? Wow she is right. I didn’t know that.” Or a youtube link like that above to a debate where she was on fire.
@ Bryan~ Short clue. Not everyone shares your obsession with the security of Israel. If the Israeli’s can’t come to a peace agreement with their neighbors on their own steam then the consequences are their’s to deal with.
That means if Iran or it’s proxies shell Israel into the kind of rubble pile that Beruit ended up as there will be many good, loyal Americans which will express sentiments that equate with “oh, too bad.” And that will be the end of their concern.
We’ll send some ships to evacuate and maybe give them a red state to settle in. Nebraska seems appropriate or Idaho.
If Israel is a real nation they can stand for themselves and not go running behind america’s skirts after throwing rocks at the other kids. People are tired of dealing with the constant Israeli pollution of US politics.
@Bryan
You know for fact if Iran managed to destroy Israel, the west simply will wipe Iran of the map, if Iran used one Nuclear misile, 100s will be used against them, Iran is not that stupid.
Please don’t buy what you are told, Israel-Arab coflict will always be locked in a circle where there is no exit.
The roadmap put together after the first gulf war, what happened so far, nothing.
Isral kept attacking and killing civilians and guerrilla fighters, and the palastainians fighters retaliate by attacking what ever means Israel civilians and army targets.
Two Israelies soliders were kiddnaped , you destroyed the infrastructure of a country. You hold 1000s of Palestinians and Lebanese for years in your jails without any charges.
Israel needs to show their true intension for peace by releasing all arab prisoners who haven’t committed any crimes, return the Golan Heights to Sysria. and that will be a good step
@Pangolin
No, asset prices over the long term does not just mean stock prices since 1940. It means asset prices over the long term. Like I said.
We weren’t talking about “mortgage fraud.” We were talking about ARMs and how they’re good for people who aren’t rich–the people you were talking about, who usually sell within five or ten years.
I didn’t say abandoned hosues don’t rot. Of course they do. Nobody wants you to “comment further” on that. I said that houses don’t get foreclosed, or stay empty, because of he CDOs associated with their mortgages. The homeowner pays (or in your very responsible scenario, per your very subversive, revolutionary suggestion, doesn’t pay) every month, just as if he were paying good ole Jimmy Stewart at the Bumpkin Savings and Loan. When he wants to sell, he sells. If he can’t pay, he loses the hosue. None of that is any different because of the mortgage backed debt instruments.
I’ll accept your learned verdict on free market capitalism, and by “learned,” I mean you just today learned that it runs on capital and debt. I’m eager to learn what you suggest in its place, since all of your suggestions thus far favor the rich at the expense of the poor, as I’ve pointed out. I’m sure there’s some system that you know even better than you know capitalism, right?
@ Nofal
You think Israel just locks up Arabs for the fun of it?
Israel returned someone that murdered a child by smashing it’s head in with a rifle butt after killing the parents as well, and he got a heroes welcome in Lebanon.
@ the incomparable idiocy of Sarah Palin
I don’t think anyone has mentioned Mrs. Palin’s signal accomplishment as mayor of the town she ran: Building a sports arena on land that it turned out the town didn’t even own! She never bothered to check. She left that little town in debt and litigation. That qualifies her for higher office.
Said higher office being governor of Alaska, from which position she lobbied for the notorious “Bridge to Nowhere,” failed to get it built, succeeded in getting the money, spent the money on something else, and now lies about it, claiming it had somehow been thrust upon her and she had nobly refused it with a hearty, if grating, squawk of “Thanks but no thanks.”
To be fair, she may be an idiot, but at least she’s a thoroughly unscrupulous bold-faced liar, if not an especially adroit one. Or original. Or creative. She will, if elected, perhaps be a boon to the knitting-needle industry, as untold numbers of Americans buy them to ram into their ears, preferring deafness to hearing her voice for four or eight years. There’s that.
@Steve,
Yes, that is war for you, innocent civilians got murdered by crazy fighters in the name of war, how many Iraqi civilians got killed by US army in close range? do you want me to google it for you?
You welcomed your soliders as heros and none of them were charged.
@ Nofal
That’s not what I asked you. I asked you if Israelis lock up arabs just for the fun of it, then I told you about a heroes welcome for someone who murdered a child and her parents, and you respond by talking about the US and iraq.
@Steve
When Israel stops killing civilians (children and women), I think the response would be similiar
@ Nofal
Please name me ONE conflict on earth where civilians don’t get killed. Now then tell me why you expect Israel (or the US) to somehow be different. Thanks!
hello guys,
EID MUBARAK TO EVERYONE ON WHYS………….Hope this year brings in more success in your life……………Enjoy
Pangolin-California October 1, 2008 at 2:01 pm,
I’m not asking anyone to share my concerns. Israel has made numerous moves towards peace with the Arabs including withdrawal from Lebanon and Gaza. It’s about time the Arabs reciprocated with their own peace proposals rather than terror.
How was Israel hiding behind America in the 2006 war in Lebanon? And where in the 60-year history of murderous Arab aggression against Israel has America been in the front lines with the Israelis hiding behind them? You don’t know what you are talking about. In the 1948 War of Independence, the US did not even give Israel a single weapon. In fact, the US did its best to thwart the arming of Israel by Czechoslovakia. Yes, things are a little different now, but the Israelis will always be in the front lines. And that is as it should be.
Beirut did not end up in rubble. Parts of South Beirut that were Hezbollah headquarters did. Fair enough, one would think, since Hezbollah started the war. But you are right about one thing. Many Americans would not give a damn if Israel were reduced to rubble. So what? What does that prove?
Julie P October 1, 2008 at 1:08 pm
You got me there on Afghanistan. But re the wounded troops in Germany, it’s a little less clear from this in depth exploration of the issue:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200807300011
However, I’m prepared to concede that it’s almost certainly a question of making mountains out of molehills. This is one of the best things about the internet. If information is incorrect (mine), someone (Julie) is likely to fact check my posterior and we’ll progress from there to get the facts straightened out. So thanks for that, Julie. And thanks for the lack of venom in your response.
@Steve,
To start with I don’t call US war on Iraq is a war, is just simply bullying, using their extrem power on a defenceless country just like Russia bullyed Gerogia, no difference.
So the word WAR doesn’t come in the equation.
@ Nofal
If the US were bullying Iraq, you’d think they US would have put in a government that wasn’t friendly with Iran, and the oil contracts would go to US companies, don’t you think?
You still haven’t answered my question.
@Steve
So you just said it, US would put in a goverment, and not democratically elected.
The Malikie’s goverment have no say and can’t make any decision without the approval of US, they are just puppets.
@ Roberto
Re: Sarah Palin postings
I admire your willingness to discuss the many many postings that seek to discredit her by whatever means possible: her interviews (which most see in small parts- not whole conversations), her clothing, family, and anything else they can to discredit her. Even if she walked around with wings on her back and a halo; there will still be those who will find fault with her for some reason.
As an ex-Hillary supporter, I can see that McCain made a smart move by choosing Sarah Palin because she is, liberal choices aside, a woman. Many women will relate to her on that level. Those who don’t or can’t seem to, may be facing those insecurities you talked about. As for men, I think they will relate to her because she is a good mother, has done great things for AK, and she hunts. Everyone is expecting perfection from these people (both McCain and Obama as well as Palin and Biden). They are humans in a fishbowl right now-they are liable to make some mistakes when they speak and the media will be right there to make sure they have it on tape to feed the raw meat eating frenzy. That allows everyone with their biases to feed whatever ones they have.
I think that if elected VP, SP would place a different spin on our political game here and with other countries. Maybe in their culture, women are viewed as not having a place in politics but would there be improvements in the way women are regarded and the way we are dealt with. It would create a situations where women were regarded in the same manner as men. I consider that a positive.
I am very eager to see the debate! 😀
Thank you for your posts! 🙂
@ Nofal
That’ snot what I said. I said if the US were bullying Iraq like you said they are, they would have done that. They haven’t. Hence the US is not bullying Iraq nor is it trying, otherwise it would have done that. If the government has no say, why are they dealing with Iran, against the wishes of the US? Why would they grant China contracts when they US would want them??
Dwight From Cleveland October 1, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Bryan, October 1, 2008 at 7:11 am
It is Psych 101 to try to point out in other that which we hate about ourselves. You sure point out a lot of people’s “biases”.
And it’s Psych 201 that you can’t assume things about people you don’t know.
You guys are getting ants in your pants about Sarah Palin apparently not being fit to be a VP. Meanwhile I’ve posted a video link at 12:27 pm that appears to show that Obama and the Democrats were up to their necks in preparing the ground for the banking crash for many years and that McCain foresaw the crisis and tried to rein them in. But OK, let’s ignore all that and go on and on about Sarah Palin.
But I agree with you that politicians who campaign about a particular issue should be well-versed on the issue. So she’s not perfect?
Sorry I brought up the then and than thing. Than should be used for comparisons. Then would have been correct instead of than here:
If you are going to have issues that you champion, than a politician should know them inside in out.
Please accept my apologies.
@ Jonathan~ The problem with your dismissive, oh I’m so smart, line of patter is that the captains or the free-market fleet have run the whole economic works up on the rocks. The biggest banks in the world are flaming out at a rate faster than we can effectively follow. To top it off the wealthy of Wall Street and Washington are doing a chicken little dance that makes Al Gore look like Lenin’s frozen corpse in comparison.
Your team was put in charge and they mucked it up. Epic fail.
No results, no validity. Just like every other science experiment.
I never said that nothing should be financed by debt. I’m damn sure that everything shouldn’t be financed by debt. Banks and bankers need to be put back on the leashes Roosevelt put them on after the LAST disaster.
@Steve,
Do you think a real democratic election can happen under military occupation by foreign troops who filtered the candidates, unheared of.
Dismatiled the army and the police force weeks after invading the country.
If you think the Maliki is behaving against the wishes of the US adminstration, how long do you think he will last?
Now, think about the reason that the Maliki met the Iraninan officials with the aproval of US adminstration so that might presuade Iran to stop supporting the fighters in Iraq, and he failed.
US can not enter in direct talk with Iran, so they sent their puppet.
@ Nofal
Maliki pisses off the US government constantly. If the US controlled him like you claimed, things would be very different now.
You ask how can a country have a democratic election under military occupation? Ask Germans. The US did not filter candidates. If they did, why would radical candidates be running?
RE “”The roadmap put together after the first gulf war, what happened so far, nothing.””
———————————————————————————————————–
———- My dear nof, apparently the wave of suicide bombers launched by Palestinians that blew up the nascent state of Palestine on the eve of international recognition in the UN in 2000 has wiped your memory banks clean.
The “Road Map” was not formulated until after those 2000 suicide attacks by the GWhacked administration. Exactly zer0 progress has been made since then.
Now pay attention and do study up. The Geneva peace accords started in 1993 led to increasing peace, cooperation, and even security operations between Israelis and Palestinians. This led to relaxed borders, travel within Israel, and great prosperity for both sides as tourism and trade flourished.
Nobody has told us WHY Palestinian’s rioted and then launched a wave of suicide bombers that killed the state of Palestine, effectively a self genocide.
Now, study up and then come back and tell us WHY they did that and tell us why Egypt, Jordan, and Israel keep such tight border restrictions on Palestinians.
Bryan,
My grammar has been under great scrutiny lately. deservidly so.
I do not have time now, but McCain voted for every one of the bills that were in line with “the ownership society” policies. Fannie and Freddie and the likewise were not bad ideas in and of themselves. They were dangerous ones. Under the right regulations and with out the inferred backing, they offered credit to people who were mild risks. For years that situation loosened the regulations that helped people who could afford their houses to get into them. “The ownership society” policies removed further risk from credit agencies to offer credit and mortgages to people who were far more then just mild risks.
Well I am being haled. I will get that information and links later. But McCain’s ignorance of effects (or is that affects) of economic policies have helped put us in this situation.
@ Sara Palin~ Jennifer, the concept that you were ever Hillary supporter is beyond the pale. Your posts reek of Christian-Conservative true believer and that doesn’t have any room for Hillary Clinton.
A good mother doesn’t raise high school dropouts and knocked-up teenage daughters. A good mother also breast feeds a newborn for at least six months and preferably a year. A good hunter doesn’t advocate the killing of animals from aircraft. A good governor doesn’t fire public servants in order to attack her brother-in-law. Nor does she lie publicly and repeatedly about her states spending record.
If Sara Palin is such a hotshot she should be able to jump back into the fray and survive an interview without McCain holding her hand. She’s failed on three interviews that were the political equivalent of wiffleball.
The only thing Sara Palin could possibly bring to the White House is the conviction that Americans are insane and not to be trusted. If she treats her own children with such disregard imagine how she’d treat the rest of us.
Nofal Elias October 1, 2008 at 2:05 pm
@Bryan
You know for fact if Iran managed to destroy Israel, the west simply will wipe Iran of the map.
No guarantee of that.
Isral kept attacking and killing civilians and guerrilla fighters, and the palastainians fighters retaliate by attacking what ever means Israel civilians and army targets.
You’re mixing up cause and effect. And those who deliberately kill women and children are not “guerrilla fighters.” They are terrorists.
return the Golan Heights to Sysria. and that will be a good step
A good step for which side? Israel returned Gaza to Hamas and got continued rocket fire in return. Didn’t you ever hear about the principle of a country retaining territory it won in a defensive war? Israel was attacked by the Syrians, defended herself, and won the Golan. Now Israel is supposed to hand it back so Syria can attack again with that height advantage and backed by Iran? Nobody demands such things of any other country, only Israel.
@ Steve~ If the Iraqi’s are independent and we aren’t there to steal the oil can we leave already?
I didn’t think so. Perhaps it’s because our government is lying to us just as they did to get the invasion of Iraq approved in the first place.
@Roberto,
Plastenains must be very very stupid, why would they carry out suicide bombing just before they were given what they were asking for years.
Is like you tell me somebody is fighting for his release from prison for years, and day before he got released he kills the bodyguard trying to esscape.
That doesn’rt make any sense what so ever.
Hammas, or any palstenain organization can never ever defet Israel. all the Arab countries combined can not defet Israel, so why would any body in clear state of mind do such a thing.
@ Nofal
Do you think people who blow themselves up amongst civilians thinking it grants them a pathway to heaven and 72 virgins is in a clear state of mind?
Pangolin-California October 1, 2008 at 4:23 pm,
Listen old chap, it’s not very chivalrous to accuse Jennifer of lying about supporting Hilary Clinton. Have you asked yourself why she would lie about something like that? So Christians “reek” do they? You really have a way with words.
You might like to Google around a bit on this:
A good governor doesn’t fire public servants in order to attack her brother-in-law.
You’ll discover you’ve made an unjust accusation, if that bothers you at all.
I look forward to you ranting about the culling of African elephants. I hate the idea but it has to be done when they become too numerous and start destroying the environment that sustains them. To listen to you you would think Sarah Palin is the only one who ever tried to control wild animals.
@Pangolin
Gosh, I don’t think it’s very nice to dismiss my careful reasoned questions and statements as a “dismissive, I’m so smart line of patter.” I spent some time and energy in reading the things you said, and then answering them. I think it’s honorable to either show me how and where you think anything I said is wrong, or say, OK, you’re right.
To just dismiss me and return to your stumpt speech is a little bit, well, dismissive, and puts you into some unpleasant company. You can usually hold your own, can’t’ you? I don’t usually think of you slinking away like some.
I’m sorry that you don’t like my being right, or can’t effectively show me where I’m not, or don’t wish to try. I guess what you’re saying is, don’t bother me with facts, or logic, I’m going to believe what I believe. Well, why burn yourself out defending the indefinsible. Fair enough. Have a nice day then.
Dwight From Cleveland October 1, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Did you watch the video I linked to at 12:27 pm? It’s only ten minutes worth. If McCain supported the disaster, did he have a change of heart and go against it as the video indicates?
There is very little wrong with your grammar that I can see. But then I’m no expert. And yes, effects is correct.
Hi Lubna
Reyr September 30, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Happy Eid, yes, but Coalition Forces simply cannot stay indefinitely in Iraq.
The Balfour Manifesto led to the establishment of Israel, but here we have a mandate for Iraq.
It is the same story all over again from Washington: “We will freeze your accounts, we will limit travel, we will boycott your trade, we will impose sanctions,” so what! The hysteria in Kurdish,Shi’ite and some some Sunni quarters is quite unwarranted. If the US stays, it is courting trouble.
The Arabs will simply not tolerate it, Iran won’t stand for it, Syria is against it and Egypt is up in arms. Please get them out of there while you can before we have another Vietnam or much worse on our hands.
Why can’t Washington take a hint from Moscow: “You go in, we all go in!”
@Bryan~
No “googling” is required. The record is clear. Palin fired a public servant to retaliate against her brother in law. She is under investigation about it by a bipartisan panel ordered by the state legislature. It has issued a subpeona for her husband, which he has announced he will illegally ignore.
I forgot that in my numerous complaints against Palin, which of course remains entirely unchallenged by you, because you have no answer to them and you have not succeeded in diverting me to irrelevant side issues as you have others.
“Chivalry” is irrelevant, and demeaning to women. I’m sue nobody wants special favored treatment just because she is a woman. None is deserved, and none is needed. Ideas should stand or fall on their merits. Yours have fallen. Enjoy your day.
@ Bryan
I think it’s very hard for some people to accept that especially now alliances to one party are not going to solve any of our problems! I am not going to be so stupid as to limit myself to voting democrat if I don’t feel that it would be in my own best interest.
If only I could get my ballot back I would have tangible proof of my vote for Hillary! 🙂 Of course I “reek” of Conservative Christian true believer. If you look really close at my forehead, you can see an x on it! 😉
________________________
*A good mother loves her children but is not able to be with them 100% of the time. Young adults SHOULD take responsibility for their own actions at some point. It’s easy to say that SP failed at parenting. I guess she should have accompanied her daughter everywhere since there are boys/men everywhere to prevent her from becoming pregnant. A good mother may not agree with the choices of her children but she does support them no matter what. I guess we should start holding all parents accountable for their children’s actions. We wouldn’t want young adults to be responsible for their actions under any circumstances.
*Many good mothers who desire to breastfeed their babies are not able to for various reasons. That is a personal choice and a private matter. Before taking that meat and running with it; a person might want to ensure that they are not just believing a rumor.
*Firing public servant to get back at her brother in law…..that falls into the rumor category. Might want to check that man out a little better.
*As far as I am concerned the reason for hunting is to control animal overpopulation. It is necessary unless we want bears, deer, turkeys, and etc. becoming way too numerous. I’d be interested in hearing more of the opinions of those who view the killing of an animal more important than that of a human baby? That’s more than my conservative christian true believer brain can comprehend.
Nofal Elias October 1, 2008 at 4:34 pm
@Roberto,
Plastenains must be very very stupid, why would they carry out suicide bombing just before they were given what they were asking for years.
Here is how the game is played: The Palestinians get the latest and most generous offer from Israel that they have ever had but they turn it down and go on a major killing spree of Israeli civilians that lasts for four years, namely the Second Intifada.
Why? Two reasons:
*Any Palestinian who makes peace with Israel is a dead man walking and Yasser Arafat was not suicidal. Remember what happened to Anwar Sadat. Besides, he was happily making millions of dollars out of the “liberal” Western left, so why would he disrupt the status quo?
The Palestinians, as the point of the sword held by the Arab world and the Iranians and brandished at Israel, have no intention of living “side by side with Israel in peace and prosperity.” They intend to replace Israel.
Think about it.
Jennifer,
Just curious to know why you’re an ex-Hillary supporter, all of a sudden? If you subscribe to her political philosophy and policies, then just because she’s not running for president at this precise moment, you withdraw all support. If you sincerely believe in a candidate, surely you’re prepared to follow them through “Hell & High Water” now and in the future. Or are you just a fair-weather friend of hers while she’s in the running. When “the going gets tough the tough get going” they say. In your case unless I’m much mistaken, it appears that yours is going away from as as opposed to going into whatever and wherever necessary for the sake of supporting your candidate.
By the way I urge you most strongly to read my post concerning the most wonderful Hillary re. Should we be forced to vote debate.
As for Sarah Palin. Now if you read the post about Hillary, you’ll see that I’m no great fan of hers, and never have been, and after what Bill and NATO did in Yugoslavia, I found out that when you fabricate and lie at whatever level, you fabricate and lie full stop! And his habit of doing this at home (Monica Lewinsky) and abroad was obviously passed on to his wife as well. Do you really think she was going to hand him over to the salivating media wolves and hang her husband out to dry. A president that was one of your most popular, liked and admired on the international stage, and a saxophone player to boot. I don’t think so. But Sarah Palin, give me a break! I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could throw her. If the USA has the ability to make the gross error of ever electing her to high office, (second most powerful politician in the world and a president in waiting with the ever present threat of a President McCain’s demise) then GOD HELP YOU ALL! And by the way that GOD is not exclusive or beholden to America but is the one that belongs to the whole world.
@Steve
I feel sorry for the sucide bombers whom had a brain wash believing in what their masters put in their brains.
One of them is my wife (soon will be my ex-wife), what is so called born again christian (what is that ?) anyway, she believs in haven and we are here temperairly. She follows and believe in Benny Hinn and others like him. She believe blindly in the power of healing he has. Anyway I wont get into that.
I assure you if Benny Hinn told her to commit sucide in the name of Jesus, she would do it.
You need to capture their Master and execute them,
@Bryan~
Arafat’s total take, skimmed/stolen from the poor Palestinians, was estimated at $1 billion, just for himself, personally, with untold millions more for his minions. At least that’s what I heard.
[/agreewithbryan]
Jennifer October 1, 2008 at 5:24 pm,
If you had known you would be accused of lying about Hilary you could have taken a photo of your ballot as it left your hand on the way into the ballot box.
I’d be interested in hearing more of the opinions of those who view the killing of an animal more important than that of a human baby?
Me too. Specifically, I want someone among the many pro-abortion people on this forum to explain why the terminating of the unfolding life of the unborn is regarded as a “progressive” act while the nurturing and protection of such life is regarded as reactionary.
(Don’t all rush to answer at once.)
@Bryan~
It’s not “pro-abortion.” It’s “against abortion prohibition,” because normally it’s considered progressive, or liberal, or libertarian, to feel that private behavior is not properly the business of government.
Likewise, it’s not that “nurturing and protection of unborn life is regarded as reactionary.” It’s that forcing women to become mothers when they don’t wish to, and/or aren’t prepared to, or properly positioned to offer a good life to children, is not the proper business of government. Adult human beings have rights. One of the most profound and private of those rights is intimate and reproductive choice. State intervention in such a private area is more suitable for a totalitarian regime as China than a free country.
This is just a glimpse of the philosophical case; of course there’s an equally compelling pragmatic case. Women still get abortions when they’re illegal, but they are much more dangerous, often sickening and sometimes killing the women. Understandably, this is considered undesirable.
Does that help?
@ Bryan
I should have done that! I have my voter’s id card which does say democrat but I am sure that would be quickly dismissed as “home printed” or something! haha So, it’s all just got to be discounted as it would never be possible for a democrat to vote republican. 😀
I am hoping for some interesting (intelligent?) responses from pro-abortion people on that subject as well. I would like to hear that perspective…….
USA & Money Market bailout process sound like drainout public pocket’s with an initial start of $2,500 per person residing in USA that will cover up 350,000 million’s immediately without US public officer’s approval.
Just Govt is waiting for another 350,000 mil approval from Congress to justify his so-called support to US financial market.
Over all this bailout process will put a burden over average US household $15,000.
While studying over all bailout deal only one thing favour to middle class citizens that Govt is enhanceing account’s holder’s security from 100,000 to 250,000, otherwise rest of the deal sound like an sofesticated accomodation to criminal’s of USA.
All these financial crises are bubble bursting & Govt bailout is creating another bubble instead of Fundamental change towards solid foundation of US economy.
This stinks and buildup doubts about maintenance of Super Power Status.
Simulistaniously US Govt need to address three core issues:
(a) Reforms in political agenda & figuorout damages caused with contiminated Global policy.
(b)Economic Structural Changes.
(c) Cooperation of States & Local bodies to encourages Job’s creation project’s on priority basis without any buracratic delay & Banks investment in business projects instead of residential market.
Any way US is in urgent need of reconcilation between political & economic sectors as indicture’s are not favouring USA at all.
May God bless USA & Tax Payers.
Bryan,
There is more, but this is a good reference.
From the horses own mouth. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040809-9.html
In June 2002, President Bush issued America’s Homeownership Challenge to the real estate and mortgage finance industries to encourage them to join the effort to close the gap that exists between the homeownership rates of minorities and non-minorities. The President also announced the goal of increasing the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million families before the end of the decade. Under his leadership, the overall U.S. homeownership rate in the second quarter of 2004 was at an all time high of 69.2 percent. Minority homeownership set a new record of 51 percent in the second quarter, up 0.2 percentage point from the first quarter and up 2.1 percentage points from a year ago.
Guess who was running the show in 2002?
The abortion debate is like beating a dead horse but I think Jonathan points out something very valid above and I think most people would have a hard time arguing with it
Hey, thanks Venessa! Sure looks like you’re right. I was getting lonely with just the crickets…
Venessa October 1, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Jonathan points out something very valid. Are you serious?!?
Jennifer October 1, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Yes, you can’t possibly be a Democrat, you’re a crusading Christian intent on conquering the world at the point of your sword from the lofty height of your stallion. You must be a Republican.
Jonathan October 1, 2008 at 6:01 pm,
Yes, I heard something similar. Sad when you think of that foul old terrorist salting all that money away that could have helped alleviate the plight of his subjects.
I believe his widow had a tug of war with Palestinian leaders over the money. Dunno who won.
Jonathan October 1, 2008 at 6:19 pm,
I’m aware of those arguments but the one I especially disagree with is the notion that this is a private matter. Since abortion literally involves life and death, the issue becomes a societal one and far broader than personal preference on the part of the woman.
@ Jess,
don’t worry about the debate, i will tell the people that watching putins head rear over alaska is really really important, that we need to scrap the supream court, since who cares….hell, all i know is roe vs wade….that the taliban should be followed deep into paksitan to keep those commie terrorist out…….that the economie is due to the one dollar burgermeal and the health insurance that keep the america workes in a weak econmy strong and unheathy to make sure that the labor markets are good and the bailout is a consequence of the medicare that is available in the strongest nation under one god under the provision that the forgein policy is based on the interaction and soley due to the good work of my presidential candidate.
Dwight From Cleveland October 1, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Guess who was running the show in 2002?
Yeah, I remember, but what about McCain sounding a warning in 2005 re the bubble being about to burst and being ignored by the Democrats? Are we going to sweep that inconvenient fact, if it is a fact, under the carpet?
If it’s true that McCain agreed with Bush “90% of the time,” was this included in the other 10%?
@Bryan~
You asked for someone to explain why your position is reactionary and the opposing one progressive. I explained it.
In your view, at what point does an embryo, and by extension the woman carrying it, become the property of “society?”
@ Bryan
You caught me! I am so busted…haha
Valid points do not point out what reasoning is behind a child’s life being less important than a wild animal’s. I’d never argue that there are not risks involved with a woman illegally having an abortion. Of course that is to be considered but it is not the issue at all.
Jens, that doesn’t make any sense! 🙂 I mean, that’s just not makin’ any sense!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7646255.stm
Looks like Reverand Wright was wrong about whites creating HIV to kill blacks. HIV/AIDS is over 100 years old.
Jennifer~
You mean, you actually literally want to hear someone say that the life of a wild animal is worth more than that of a human being? You’ll have a long wait.
I just assumed you were using a colorful metaphor to refer to people who don’t think abortion should be illegal. People who think it shouldn’t be illegal do not believe that wild animals matter more than human beings. Did you really think that’s what we believe?
Nofal Elias October 1, 2008 at 5:40 pm
I have just noticed your comment now.
I assure you if Benny Hinn told her to commit sucide in the name of Jesus, she would do it.
But would she do her best to take innocent people down with her? Somehow I doubt this is part of the teaching of Jesus.
You need to capture their Master and execute them,
This is exactly what the Israelis do. It’s what they did when they killed Hamas “spiritual leader” Yassin, for example, because he would brainwash the youth and send them off as suicide bombers to kill Israeli women and children, making him at least as guilty as the ones he sent.
@ jonathon,
what do you mean this makes no sense. it is as crytal clear as mud. Everything is due to putin rearing his head and you the weak economy based on the strong workers….the dollar meal should not be ignored in this bailout, since the health insurance and medicare are responisble wore the worsening of the bailout. you see my opponet maybe a wise and well served senator, but i am the fresh face, you know the energy bar, or is that the energy bunny, who am i…..well the russians come in you know…huuuhhhhh, of cours over airspace, but we can launch ballons you know so we can see them from my kitchen window. do like my glasses, they were made by honda or was it kawasaki, you know i have a ruger rifle and a stihl chainsaw, but the as i said i am the new beauty queen face and all americans love me, because i know how to deal with asians in eye-rack, they don’t belong there……coz they sell bad milk with you know protein or something in there, but we have to be carefull that the dinosaurs do not come back, you know and trample baby jesus…
Steve,
take this for an argument, he must have been right it was those white guys…..
“The arrival of colonial cities in sub-Saharan Africa at the dawn of the 20th Century may have sparked the spread of HIV.”
@ HIV/AIDS & Rev. Wright
Anything to create that racial divide.
Re the animal lovers, I had a friend who put the value of the life of her cats firmly above those of humans. She was, and probably still is, a believer in abortion. Dunno how many there are like her, but I guess there are a few.
(Will all those present….)
Jonathan October 1, 2008 at 7:13 pm
In your view, at what point does an embryo, and by extension the woman carrying it, become the property of “society?”
I never implied that, so your question is invalid. You’ll have to ask another one.
But if I don’t answer straight away don’t assume that I’m running away from the question. Real life intervenes.
@ Rev. Wright/HIV
I would like to know how a person could attend a church for what was it, 20 years, and not know your pastor’s philosophy? I think it goes to show that it is not only “white people” who discriminate. I think it is important to be aware of different races and cultures but I also don’t believe it’s right to self impose segregation. I don’t want a president who places more value on race and culture than on the fact that we are all Americans.
I have had several friends as me who I was voting for and they are always in shock when I do not instantly reply Obama. I am not electing a black president to make up for discrimination that happened in the past or because in 50 years I want to be able to say I voted for the first black man ever elected President. What Obama lacks will not be made up because of his color.
Jens, that is absolutely amazing! And sppoky. You’re scarin’ me, there!
Bryan, you asked why your position was reactionaary and I told you. I have no “question” for you.
You said, “the issue becomes a societal one and far broader than personal preference on the part of the woman.” That most certainly does imply that the embryo is the property of “society.” You just use obfuscatory language, like squid ink, to conceal what you mean: that you’d have society, by means of the law, force every woman to carry every embryo to term and give birth, against her will, which you call “preference.”
No question for you, no assumption that you’re “running away.” (Why would I ever think that of you?) Just another refutation for your ample collection.
Jennifer,
Let’s be honest, MacCain and Palin are one big hole of missing parts. he is on his way out, i liked him 8 years ago, but he has passed his prime and is everything but mental agile unless you mean changing your position every 2-3 hours is agility. to me it’s sign of senility. then we have palin, who has no point of view at all, she just stammers her way through what amounts trivia questions and goes totaly silent on others. between the two of them obama looks like a harvard gradute……………uhh he is one
jonathon,
you are right I just read my own contributiona and it is way too close to frigging reality……uhhhh, better shut-up………
Jennifer, Obama has never said he “places more value on race than on the fact that we are all Americans,” nor has he done anything to suggest that. He says exactly the opposite at every opportunity. He isn’t running as a black man or a black candidate. He hardly mentions race or civil rights. He always says we are all Americans, and he defines exactly what he means.
If you want to hear, or read, a thoughtful, sensible, reasonable, insightful essay on race in America today, I’d direct you to Obama’s speech in Philadelphia. It’s amazing.
If you’d rather imagine that Obama is something he isn’t, go right ahead.
Jennifer,
Just in case you think I’m having a dig for dig sake against Hillary, and you think it’s just an unwarranted rant. Believe me I’m relaying the actual truth of a situation, that she has tried to twist and turn round into her favour to this day. That is rank dishonesty be it by a woman or a man. You and all her supporters need to take a serious soul searching and heartfelt examination of who she professes to be to her 18 or so million fans. If you lie to such an extent once, then you’re prepared to bend the truth every and which way on another occasion. In a position of high office and in the service of the people you must be accountable for all your words and deeds, lest you be found seriously wanting.
Not just Hillary needs to be singled out, but many of your wayward leaders past and present. But the Dick Cheney’s of this world are by their very nature calculating and just plain vicious in their intentions and Neo Con advocacy and ideologies that he wants to impose upon many nations.
Why’s he not first on the presidential ticket as a prime candidate to follow in Bush’s footsteps? Could it be that he’s universally disliked and distrusted by most clear thinking Americans, and just can’t cut it as a man of the people. But McCain he’s nice, cuddly and wholesome like Ma’s home baked apple pie. Just cut me another slice while you’re there will ya. Mmmmm just like I recall. He’s not you know. But you go on thinking he is and don’t ask to many questions, don’t inform yourself at all, because that’s just the way he likes it.
Sarah Palin is another example of a cunning wolf in sheep’s clothing. She’ll lead you in prayer onward my good and just christian soldiers bleating about God’s plan through Iraaaaq, Iraaaan, Pakistaaaan Afghanistaaaan, Syriaaaa, North Koreaaaaa, Russiaaaa, Chinaaaa, baa baa baa and bla bla bla. Come my fellow sheep to the path of righteousness and salvation. GOD IS AN AMERICAN have no fear, we shall overcome, we shall overcome. Looky at all those mighty fine flyin’ missiles. Will ya just take a look at that oh so pretty MUSHROOM CLOUD there. Oh my, there’s another one, and another, and will ya looky there another I don’t believe it, my goodness there goes another one.
But we won didn’t we? I say didn’t we? Hallo, hallo, HALLO, HALLO, HALLO is there someone out there, please someone. FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, sorry for the Lord our Saviour’s sake and he who died upon the cross to save all our souls. – Heaven be praised a MOOSE! Just as I thinking there wasn’t a God for one second. If this is what they call FALLOUT then it don’t matter because at least I’M GONNA EAT, so who cares.
@ Bryan
Re: Life importance of a human baby vs. a wild animal
It’s interesting how noone provided any intelligent reasons why someone should be more concerned about the life of a wild animal as opposed to that of a human baby. It’s a whole lot easier to switch the subject when something doesn’t fall into one’s misguided perceptions!
Jennifer October 1, 2008 at 9:56 pm,
Too true.
Jennifer & Bryan ~
You should ask this on the TP for today. The only reason I caught this is because I’m a mod. Usually I don’t make it back to previous pages but I’m sure someone might be interested on today’s page.
Bryan,
I know McCain has said it. I can find no proof of it. Economics defiantly came up in there republican nominee debates, yet never once did he point out this disdain for the credit system. It wasn’t in his platform. Many of the bills that were attributed to that policy, foremost was “the American dream act” set the stage for today. McCain voted for it.
What good does it do to speak out against issues and then vote for the policies that bolster it. Or is it that he doesn’t understand the economic connection between giving loans people who are unable to come up with a down payment and the economic ramifications?
Venessa,
People keep on making the argument that it is hypocritical for a pro-lifer to be for the death penalty. Until someone can show me that the unborn are guilty of premeditated murder or child rape I’ll have to disagree.
Dwight,
I know McCain has said it. I can find no proof of it.
Well, maybe you should check the video link I posted.
Just been reading all the comments. I am having a laugh because I saw the Palin debate. You anti Palin people who hoped, expected the lady to crash should now be apologizing. She was brilliant, honest and charming.
That’s more than I can say for you cynical, narrow minded people who only believe what you want to believe.
Oh yes, and Obama is a white man as much as he is black. Get over your racism, he has a white mother, was brought up by white grandparents and benefited from a non racist background.