Beautiful is a change of pace 21 September 2008
Posted by marisacat in Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.trackback
Acacia vittata (Leguminosae) – Lake Logue wattle; native to south-western Australia – fruit
Picture: WOLFGANG STUPPY / ROB KESSELER
I was leafing thru the photographs at the UK Telegraph, where I often have luck… and landed on this. The gallery was said to be fruit [under the electronmicroscope), but the code on the photograph says “magnified seed”, which makes more sense…
Anyway, I did not bother to google the legend, just grabbed it and ran with it…
Beautiful pic!
Capitalizing on Crisis: Insurance Profiteers Demand Deregulation
Aren’t we past this deregulation madness yet?
Is Obama even paying attention? According to his “plan”:
Hello? Thursday
When Refusing to Kill Has a Higher Sentence Than Murder
New book: Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan by Aaron Glantz Reviewed by Dahr Jamail
3
paying attention… hmm not sure if he is. I caught as much of the 60 Minutes interview as I could take (of each). Did nto see the CNBC of them both. I think he really liked the elderly black lady who called him back to the rope line in … think he and Kroft were in Charlotte… she told him her husband of 70 years had died trying to live long enough to vote for him.
Catching MTP repeat… So much slobbery praise around for Paulson, and he is clearly such a worried, sweating errand boy. Brokaw raises what I heard Greenberg who started AIG say more than twice on Charlie Rose, to explore having the company raise as much as they could. He said 20 billion could come itnernally from solvent parts of AIG, 30 billion from somewhere else (forget where he said), 15 billion from sales of assets.. and he felt it could reach close to 80 billion without this big intervention.
Oh well……………….. since AIG is now jsut a smallish part of a Big Movable Horror Show.
UKTelegraph has an article up on US tent cities appearing…
Well alrighty then! Two limp fingers UP!
NYT FP
Nouriel Roubini in FT
More joy, via Roubini:
So want to see Pres Obama lecture Europe, old or new, about not pungling up enough troops for Afghanistan.
Giant sucking sound as investors retreat from the market this morning…
Too late, the government will realize it should have upped the FDIC insurance limit beyond $100,000 per account, rather than bailing out a couple of investment banks. Instead of looking out for the average investor, they looked out for the bloated, failed super-rich. Way to go.
Funny you should mention that… This is what I have been busy organizing the last month. We should find out in the next day or two whether or not we have a very special guest headlining.
13. That’s excellent, lucid.
12. Speaking of the FDIC, after I wondered aloud last week about what would happen if it ran out of money I saw Suzie Orman(sp?) on Larry King’s show answer that question. I guess its solvency is guaranteed via congress/the Treasury dept. which would bail it out with taxpayer’s money, if necessary.
One good thing about this bail out plan: even if people know absolutely nothing about how the financial system works, they’ve gotten the message ie. “my money is gong to bail out private companies”. And that’s all they need to know to rebel against these financiers and politicians. Now, if they’d only learn that both of the big 2 parties are to blame.
As the netroots implode. I expect a few GBCW diaries after this post by kos, judging by some of the comments.
Morgan Stanley Sells 20% Stake to Mitsubishi
Chris Hedges: Fleecing What’s Left of the Treasury
Long excerpt:
I see Roubini expects unemployment to go to 8%
IOZ lol
moiv popped me thisw diary from Dkos… (she appears in the thread)
Pro-choice Group Removed From Obama Website
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the hypocrisy is astounding. look what’s up on the front page as of this moment.
Did we miss this? Palin was a clinic blocker?
by Kagro X
Mon Sep 22, 2008 at 12:00:24 PM PDT
this is a good example of when the democraticks get concerned about reproductive rights, when they can use it as an opportunistic political weapon. as the link at 21 proves the party liners from the head cheese on down really don’t give a rat’s ass.
they stand for nothing.
21. Wow, what an ugly discussion. So-called progressives strike again.
Dow Jones -375; oil jumped $25/barrel (CNN)
The TSX is down -274
I thought this bail out plan was supposed to add “confidence” to the markets.
Every time I heard that word used this weekend what popped into my head was “confidence game”.
It’s never too late for justice: After 55 years, sisters confront a childhood demon
uhg I cannot bear to go read the loose sphincter that is Kagro X… The hard news is that they are INCAPABLE of hating McC… a big bad whitey male as much as they hate Palin for being a woman.
I was not going to post this here as I am sort of a liberal site (whatever that means) and I don’t like anybody! in this run … but hey go for it.
I am SICK TO DEATH of Demcratic whining. And Mrs B and Mrs O made a poor showing of being stand up, strong women last Friday on GMA. Except I have turned my back on Democrats, of all stirpes I would ahve been ashamed. Out of touch panderers is what they were.
So stick it where the sun does nto shine.
Appeals Court Orders Defense Department To Release Detainee Abuse Photos In ACLU Lawsuit
Too funny:
http://www.buymyshitpile.com
Hmmm… do you think Americans are starting to regret charging all that shit to their credit cards? We could be in for a cultural sea-change.
29. We could be in for a cultural sea-change.
I think we’re going to see longer lines on Antiques Roadshow.
Merkel Says Washington Helped Drag Europe into the Credit Crisis
Personally, I think she’s still pissed off about that impromptu massage.
America, the Gift Shop
That thread that moiv sent you is appalling, of course. The spirit of Pie lives on in that shithole.
US war resister granted last minute deportation reprieve in Canada
Prosecuting High-level Americans for War Crimes
29 – think I can auction off my credit card debt? How about my beautiful Nagra 4 STC reel to reel I bought 8 years ago for $4,500 but now sells for $2,000…
Unger Report — Bailout: Making The Most Of A Bad Business
hmm tracking the schnauzers over at The Corner, CLub for Growth is opposed to The Bail Out.
FWIW: http://corner.nationalreview.com/
LOL And… anything more to add… ? via The Page
AFL-CIO opposes the bail out.
Could be very bitter unhappy year next year with people clinging to guns and religion.
LOL
Cavuto suggests Congress should have warned that “[l]oaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster”
Bailout Satire
Damned Nigerian email scammers:
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LOL, Madman, that’s the best laugh I’ve had in who knows when, and after today’s ill-advised venture into the tangerine dreamland of progressivism, it was just what I needed.
I’ve been vegetating for a while now, and probably should not have wasted the energy I expended in that stupid thread. But once in a while they still get a rise out of me.
Bay, I’m so glad to see you weren’t squashed by a falling pin oak. My dad and brother in Liberty County got their electricity back yesterday, but my Houston cousin in the Heights is still in the dark, so it’s lucky he has an electrified office where he can camp out for the duration.
42
we is so scammed!
— hi moiv! —-
Hi moiv!
The Sunlight Foundation has put up a site w/ the various legislative proposals about the Great Robbery (and other frauds), and offers the public a chance to “markup” the legislation themselves: PublicMarkup dot org:
Via BoingBoing (where I found the Nigerian email scam, too).
Hi back, I’ve missed y’all. 🙂
OK, we can mark it up, but does anybody (who “matters”) read it?
You couldn’t make this up if you tried, so help me God and Mammon.
With Wall Street in turmoil, some turn to religion
And lest we forget … 9/11!!!!
Just in case we missed the importance of this the first time, the nearby St. Peter’s Church has also seen “a slight uptick in attendance among people in suits” … and it “displays a cross found in the rubble of September 11.”
47. Well, I guess those “faith-based initiatives” will have to help them out if the government won’t. Good thing Bush set that up! He must be clairvoyant.
While I don’t have much respect for the Big Four Accounting firms, I have to say I agree with the accounting analysts defending the “disclosures” in the following article, I just have to wonder why there didn’t appear to be earlier alarms going off in the financial reports: a href=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/22/AR2008092202688.html>Wall St. Points to Disclosure As Issue – Accounting Rule Cited in Turmoil
”….At issue is a provision that requires companies to disclose more information about the value of their assets, including how much they could fetch on the open market. The accounting standard, known as fair value or mark to market, has been cited as a contributing factor in the collapses of American International Group, Freddie Mac and Lehman Brothers.
….”
I take it this is one reason why the SEC is so busy attempting to change the US accounting rules to the International Accounting Standards….
sorry, screwed up the link: Wall St. Points to Disclosure As Issue – Accounting Rule Cited in Turmoil
Naomi Klein: Now is the Time to Resist Wall Street’s Shock Doctrine
moiv said
glad to hear your dad and bro are running the air. last week was cool, relatively speaking, but this week isn’t, so tell your cousin to hang in there. thursday for a lot of folks is what i hear.
Read the handwriting, for years to come…
One of the most distasteful displays around is that of Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and others, in place for decades, begging for their naked asses to be covered by the American people.
53 – Gee, the drowning man wonders why nobody wants to jump into the whirlpool with him. Hard to fathom why …
LOL This is like the day 9/11 hit, I was almost relieved, no more waiting for it. It had arrived.
LOL Could they hold a stand, any stand, for a day?
FOUR, nto three, blind mice.
I don’t have much sympathy for the shellshocked richies from Wall Street.
They made their (and our) bed, now they can lie in it. They shouldn’t be allowed to run anything ever again. And if they try to stand up on their chairs and make money by writing books about their come-to-Jesus moments, I hope someone slaps them down hard. They need to go away. Forever.
well .. I doubt they get much more than than some soft as velvet glove face slap… election season pantomime…
from what I am hearing lobbyists bankers and Wall St are picking apart the Paulson plan to see what they should fight… and despite Pelosi, Dodd and Barney Frank running around faking being populists for the little guy out there somewhere in the dark, I suspect any fist shaking is to rewrite parts to suit THEIR friends.
There is a pdf of the Dodd plan running around (and Krugman whines for it) if I can find an html will put it up.
The whole farce of it all, is that the people up top really have very little conception of what their decisions actually do to people on the bottom. They think they know, but they don’t know, in a living-color way. They might as well be making these decisions on Mars. Which is why smart people have to stop hanging on their every words, and get smarter about what’s going on on the ground around them.
Surely, McCain and Obama both are as disconnected from the reality of the American economy as any presidential candidates ever have been.
Got this link via e-mail: Dodd’s plan
I don’t even know how Bush can show his face at the UN (live speechifying on CNN right now). 10:15 ET
If you played a drinking game during Bush’s speech this morning and drank every time he used some form of the word “terror”, you’d be dead of alcohol poisoning by now and his speech isn’t even over yet.
On to listening to Paulson justifying the Biggest Power Grab Evah.
Listening to Paulson and Bernanke – I wouldn’t buy a used car from those charlatans.
NYT
He’s right. It was foreseeable and preventable. So why didn’t the Dems do something before now?
Just put the US gov’t up for sale on eBay and be done with it.
I thought the point of eBay was to sell things that might have value…
67. I thought the point of eBay was to sell things that might have value…
Well hey, if people can find a buyer for a piece of toast with an image of Jeebus, there must be some sucker out there who’ll place a bid.
At least you can eat Jeebus toast.
11 dead in Finnish school shooting
68. At least you can eat Jeebus toast.
True. I guess we could expect a lower price for the US gov’t then since it has no nutritional value.
There’s a hostage situation in a school in my homeland going on right now.
Dodd is so much like Biden… and so many others of both parties, they just bluster bust their way thru things.
Love the quotes from Bunning, the Dems ran against him in KY calling him “senile”… I wondered why he held on til I watched the debate between he and Mongiardo…. LOL clear the people would go wtih the mess they knew.
hmmm Public officials just drip and drool their way thru.
73. rofl 🙂
I needed that laugh. Thanks.
Just catching up on stuff – wow, the discussion of that abortion diary over at DKos is truly outrageous. Thanks, moiv, for speaking out.
Obama:
That’s not what Paulson wants. When he asked in committee today about possibly just going with a smaller figure for now ($150 bn) that would be reviewed some time after the new administration was in, he refused because he said that pledging the whole shebang would create more confidence in the markets. And if course it wouldn’t be spent “right away”. The thing is that it would be tied up, regardless. As for the money not being lost, neither Paulson nor Bernanke had any clue whether or how this bailout plan would even work. And who thought Obamalama could fulfill all of his promises right away anyway? That’s just a bizarre response.
more…
and…
Does he even know wtf he’s talking about anymore?
Kos shows his grasp of the economy and reveals his inner CEO:
“What CEOs make is between them and their shareholders. ”
Fortunately, the usual sheeple aren’t buying his scam.
74
yeah in a sit down interview with Couric, not an easy to dismiss “gaffe”. More reminiscent of S Day O’C revealing in a comment she did not know about lend lease, at all, during WW2.
Been on that decades long Senate career which is like some endless dinner cruise to nowhere.
We are so skrewed.
Maybe Biden thinks he’s still running against Obama. (?)
80-
think yyou may be on to something…
I could not bear to follow the link, but the schnauzers over at NRO say gingrich is in ”kill it – kill it now” mode
– 162 fwiw…
Palin sits down with Couric, think it airs tomorrow night. I figure if she manages to know that FDR was nto president in ’29 and there was not a TV in most US homes, she is doing OK.
Although the R side of the game often seems like an ad hoc wagon train, these days… LOL.
Talk about Bonfire of the Vanities with this bunch.
Greider has a new one up: Goldman Sachs Socialism
Biden on a roll… with vid and links. It’s the coal plant story, in case that is old news to you………………. LOL I did bother to catch the Lauer interview this am. Gah. When L asked Ob what Biden brought to the ticket – as contrasted with Palin, in at least what made it to the broadcast, Ob dodged ti entirely.
Gotta wonder.
Marisa, re your photo: A “fruit” sometimes can be confused with a “seed.” For instance, those “seeds” you see on the surface of a strawberry? Those are actually the strawberry’s fruits (which contain a seed). The part we think of as the “fruit” is technically just the pulpy center of the flower, and not botanically a fruit.
“What CEOs make is between them and their shareholders. ”
Well, actually it’s between them and their Boards. The shareholders often have very little to say about it, ESPECIALLY in the US. There are some companies that are set up so that shareholders have to vote to approve compensation packages, but I believe they are very rare. I’m too lazy to look up a link (sorry, just got home and I’m fried), but compensation is determined by a committee set up by the Board. The committee usually hires a consultant to “determine” what the going rate is that oh-so-rare talent that is a CEO, then they rubber stamp it, then the Board as a whole rubber stamps it. I think the shareholder “approval” happens when they vote proxies for new Board members. Since they approved the Board, they approve the Board’s decisions. The real kick in the head is they all serve on each others’ Boards, and there is a strong social incentive for everybody to scatch everybody else’s back.
Like I said, though, too lazy to look anything up, and typing off the top of my head, so if someone sees something I got wrong please let me know.
80 – it’s funny to watch Biden and Bill Clinton go out of their way to slather praise on their old crony, while Bill can barely get himself to say Obama’s name.
Totally off-topic…but today I was thinking about how twisted, debased, and Orwellian our language has become. The example that struck me today:
Politicians constantly speak of middle-class and working “families”, then in the same breath talk about low-income “households”, completely de-humanizing poor families with the single use of the word “households”.
Gah!…most days I just hate this country.
89
I did not bother to watch the View (those dames are predictable and DULL)… but it was repeated and commented on enough there was no escape. Very adroit avoidance of embrace of Obama. Tho Biden is doing enough of a good job as Veeper that Roger Simon was wondering if he is trying to sabotage Ob.
LOL
Greider is pretty much the only reason to read the Nation anymore.
On to OTHER abuses by our criminal gov’t:
Court: US govt can’t block detainee photos release
Of course, it’s only a federal court, so the Executive will be able to ignore it, by divine right or Cheney’s festering boil, or something.
87
thanks NYCO… think I get it. It was an interesting gallery, under the electronmicroscope… will use a couple more of them later on… 😉
Money, It’s a Gas
Veterans Occupy National Archives
Just heard Paulson from today:
This is all about the American taxpayer, that is who we care about
That is coming from more than a simple forked tongue.
Bruce Fein keeps plugging away.
96 – I heard a long time ago someone promised that eating the apple would lead to good things.
I just get the feeling that no matter what happens, we are screwed.
98
Well fortunately Lilith, off to the side in the garden, knew better.. 😉
***
During th enight, I noticed on the FP of the NYT, what I took to be a “float” about raising NYC property taxes 7%. ugh, whihc is not to say that many cannot pay, many certainly can.. I spared myself opening it as it was related to NY, but ugh ugh ugh.
Saw this on Countdown, thought I’d look it up: Republicans Should Vote Against the Bailout
Too bad more people don’t follow Lilith’s example in general.
Ahmadinejad on Larry King’s show tonite. Praise be to cable.
I can’t make up my mind if this is mesmerizing or annoying. Dull Flame Of Desire by Björk featuring Antony Hegarty
Another Prairie Dog Bites the dust
Freedom At Point Zero
Southern Baptist Bookstore Chain Pulls Magazine Cover for Having Cover Featuring Women Pastors
Hmmmm, shocked that southern Baptists are misogynist pigs? What country has she been living in?
Coming Attractions: War Without End, Amen
Brrrreaking via CNN: FBI investigating Fannie, Freddie, AIG, Lehman execs for fraud
Yeeha. Round ’em up.
(Sorry. I was channeling my inner cowgirl.)
I lassoed a link: FBI probing Fannie, Freddie, Lehman, AIG: report
I see Buffett, or rather Berkshire Hathaway, is putting 5 billion into Goldman Sachs
CNN Poll
Maybe the third party candidates can find a way to steal the election from both of them …
😉
Which works for me, the only way I’d be happy is if they ALL lost… 😉
knew thred
LINK
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