Quite obviously I have stepped into the twilight zone.
Suddenly, or so it seems, the entire world economy is tittering on the brink of meltdown.
And while I have been screaming for years about how the Bush Economy is an economy based upon fraud - doesn't it just seem odd? That I was right - well, that is, that those I've chosen to believe were right?
Damn it folks what in the hell is going on?
Let's see how this whole scam was operated.
First comes - Deregulation - which means that the people who are supposed to keep this from happening are removed, or corrupted, or actually just don't care. The foxes are put in charge of the hen houses.
Deregulation - which floats the economy far higher than it should have since it was based upon a mountain of bad (unregulated debt).
Then as the Bush Clown and his merry band of thieves leave office the house of cards comes crashing down.
And everything is hitting the dirt.
We are in effect being asked to bail out nearly every major sector of the U.S. economy - except big oil, and big pharma - which are perfectly fine since they've been allowed to ream out the entire population for eight long years.
Is anyone going to jail over this?
It's as if all those millionaires and billionaires who profited off of this did so in fact with tax payer money - just in a delayed fashion.
These ultra well paid CEOs, and their henchmen who ran their companies into the ground, who would claim to be Republicans and Conservatives and Freemarketers, and Capitalist are in fact stealing from the U.S. Taxpayer like no other group of scum in the history of this nation.
And no one is talking about impeachment, or about anyone being rounded up and tarred and feathered, or lynched? Or stuck in some jail cell to rot. No one is talking about this at all.
Instead many of the main culprits will find themselves hired as consultants to help in the "bail out".
It's just really really odd.
And while it thankfully has led to a new administration it speaks loudly of why it is that people like GWB go into public office in the first place.
People who hate government go into it for the profit, not the service. They go into government to ruin government and to sac the treasury, and steal from the people.
The Bail Out List - So Far (From CNN)Folks This is CRAZY!!!!!!!
SAVING WALL STREET
The government has taken these steps to aid financial institutions.
Term-auction facility: $1.4 trillion in loans to banks so far in exchange for otherwise unwanted collateral. The Fed increased its monthly auction limit to $300 billion in October, up from $20 billion when the Fed began the program.
Dollar swap lines:Unlimited dollars to 13 foreign central banks to provide liquidity to foreign financial institutions. The Fed lifted its cap after raising it to $620 billion in October from $24 billion in December.
Bear Stearns: $29 billion in a special lending facility to guarantee potential losses on its portfolio. With the lending facility, JPMorgan was able to step in to save Bear from bankruptcy.
Lending to banks: $77 billion lent on average every day to investment banks, after facility opened to non-commercial banks for first time in March.
Cash injections: $250 billion to banks in exchange for equity stake in the financial institutions in the form of senior preferred shares.
Mortgage-backed securities purchases: Up to $450 billion allotted to purchase troubled assets from banks.
Fed rate cuts:Down to 1% in October 2008, from 5.25% in September 2007.
SAVING MAIN STREET
Consumers are benefiting from the government's actions in recent months.
Stimulus checks: $100 billion in stimulus checks made their way to 140 million tax filers to boost consumer spending and help grow the economy.
Unemployment benefits: $8 billion toward an expansion of unemployment benefits, to 39 weeks from 26 weeks.
Bank takeovers: $11.4 billion drawn down so far from the FDIC's deposit insurance fund after 19 bank failures in 2008.
Rehab foreclosed homes: $4 billion to states and municipalities in assistance to buy up and rehabilitate foreclosed properties.
Student loan guarantees: $9 billion so far in government purchases of student loans from private lenders. Higher borrowing costs made student loans unprofitable for a number of lenders, many of whom stopped issuing the loans.
Money-market guarantees: $50 billion in insurance for money-market funds. The Fed then began to lend an unlimited amount of money to finance banks' purchases of debt from money-market funds. The Fed then agreed to purchase up to $69 billion in money-market debt directly. In October, the Fed said it would loan up to $600 billion directly to money-market funds.
Housing rescue: $300 billion approved for insurance of new 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages for at-risk borrowers. The bill includes $16 billion in tax credits for first-time home buyers. But lenders have been slow to sign on.
Deposit insurance: $250,000 in insurance for interest-bearing accounts, up from $100,000. The FDIC also issued unlimited guarantees on non-interest- bearing accounts and newly issued unsecured bank debt.
SAVING CORPORATE AMERICA
Uncle Sam has intervened to help companies in the following ways.
Business stimulus: $68 billion in tax breaks to corporations to help loosen the stranglehold on businesses trying to finance daily operating expenses.
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac: $200 billion to bail out the mortgage finance giants. Federal officials assumed control of the firms and the $5 trillion in home loans they back.
AIG: $152 billion bailout, including initial $85 billion through a direct loan and a $38 billion lending facility. On Nov. 10, new deal announced that includes a direct investment through preferred shares, easier terms on a $60 billion loan, and new facilities meant to take on the companies exposure to credit-default swaps.
Automakers: $25 billion in low-interest loans to speed the industry's transition to more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Commercial paper facility: $243 billion in corporate debt purchased so far by the Fed since its so-called Commercial Paper Funding Facility openned.
The Cars - Let's Go 1979 - I bought this on vinyl right when it first came out
This song has me betwixt.
Dave of The11thhour wrote a post about The Fixx, which has me thinking about the late 1970s, and early 1980s. Damn you Dave! Just joking buddy. Man the 1980s were weird - but in a nice way. By the way Dave and I were into New Wave much earlier than most here in Springfield, Illinois. Early enough to catch some flak about it. Ha. Remember Apple Tree Records?
This song could now be about my teenage daughter, which I find amazing.
One distraught conservative who seemed to be taking Obama's victory hard shared with me her desire for the world to come to an end via - The Rapture.
That's right, this rather sensitive woman, who I both like and respect a great deal is hoping for the end of the world now that Barack Obama has been elected as President.
I wanted to suggest that maybe in the meantime she could move to Idaho or Alaska, two states that are like Heaven right here on Earth, and are in the solid Red category, but I decided not to suggest that, as I fear she might take my advice - and friends aren't so easily replaced.
Waiting For The Great Depression With Determination
This afternoon I spoke with a real live conservative over some Fox News. He was sharing with me his concern that the economy was on the brink of collapse, but that he didn't feel that the Government should prevent it - for philosophical reasons.
Here he was explaining how he himself is on the brink of financial disaster and that the company he works for is just a shadow of what it was when he started with it years ago, yet he was committed to the idea that the entire U.S. economy should crash - based upon his conservative philosophical convictions.
I smiled, and listened, but I knew I was in the presence of a madman - yet, there are tens of millions of Republicans who are just like him in the U.S.
Thank god they lost the election.
This gentleman thought it was perfectly o.k. that the U.S. auto industry completely crash and burn, and be replaced by the Chinese auto industry, etc.
I thought this was ironic as we were at a local auto dealership at the time - watching Fox News, and sipping on complimentary drinks - with absolutely no one buying any cars.
First of all - vote - if you are an Obama supporter. If you support McCain, or are undecided then it is perfectly o.k. for you to stay home this time around.
Here's my prediction: Election goes to Obama with 311 electoral votes.
I won't review the solid red or blue states here - just the contentious states.
Obama takes: PA, VA, CO, NV, and OH (just taking PA will win it for Obama).
McCain takes: FL, GA, NC, MO, IN, ND, and MT (although I predict these states will be close).
Essentially, McCain will fail to take the states Bush won with, and Obama will have helped to move several Red states in the Blue state category (possibly for years to come).
I based my decision on the following: Using www.pollster.com (I find this the best source) I gave 3/4 of undecided votes to McCain which tosses all tossup states back into the Red category. However, in PA, and OH, the small portion of undecideds who chose not to vote on racial lines, and who will vote for Obama are critically important to my scenario working out.
I simply accepted the argument that most undecideds are white, and will vote along racial lines - which is what the McCain camp is hoping for. McCain, however, has failed to take any of Obama's already decided votes away, and his dirty campaign has failed in this regard.
There you have it. McCain's attempt to scare people away from Obama fails, and not all undecideds vote along racial lines - which ends McCain's long nightmarish bid for the presidency.
My prediction for the future
Also, due to the slow and inexorable changes in the demographic makeup of the nation we will see how the states I listed above as tossups will shift Blue over the next decade. The all while Republican party is in grave trouble unless it becomes more inclusive, and less anti good government.
Where I Might Be Wrong
Florida might just go for Obama, and Ohio might go for McCain. These states are very close, although Obama could still lose both, and handily win the election anyway.
An interesting article in the New York Times illustrates just how critical racism is the the McCain campaign. Promoting, and using racism is critical to John McCain's chance of winning in the 2008 Presidential Election.
Read how a McCain staffer refers to lower class elderly white Catholics who live in all white neighborhoods:
“I’m spending a lot of time in Philadelphia,” said Robert Gleason, the chairman of the state Republican Party.
“We’re working the Northeast,” he said, referring to a largely white part of the city. “We’ve got values voters up there, Catholics. My people up there say they can carry four to six wards this year, and four years ago, they carried none.”
Presumably that would mean that the wealthier whites in Central Philadelphia who back Barack Obama, and the black voters in Philadelphia too - have no values. I doubt that is what is being said. No, the phrase is code for white racist voters.
Again, from the NYT Article:
“Hillary won some of those white wards by 10 to 1,” said Shanin Specter, son of Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, and a lawyer who is steeped in local politics. “Obama is likely to significantly underperform Kerry and Gore in those white row-house wards.”
The state Republican Party has begun running advertisements highlighting Mr. Obama’s ties to the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., his former pastor, which could tap into concerns among white voters.
The Obama campaign is fully aware of the challenge.
“This is a tough ward,” said Paul Rossi, 61, a data processor who lives in the neighborhood and is helping out at an Obama office that opened Saturday not far from Marconi Park. “It’s a matter of convincing people culturally that they won’t be harmed by Obama.”
Getting kind of nervous. We're up in the polls in all the key states, and even some no one would have imagined. Still I've seen what happened in 2000, and 2004.
Which is why I keep donating.
Go to www.barackobama.com to donate, and it's not too late to do some volunteering.
Fully one in four registered voters, those who will vote for John McCain, and support George W. Bush, are so willfully uninformed, and so corrupt at heart that they hope and pray for things to stay the same as they have these last eight years.
These folk know they are the real Americans, and the rest of us are supporters of a Muslim terrorist socialist.
Think.
This is the state of America today, this November 2nd, 2008.
The rest of McCain's supporters, about half, no longer support Bush, and actually believe that McCain is a better alternative than Obama.
Think.
This is the state of America today, this November 2nd, 2008.
The fate of the world hangs in the balance, and it depends upon just a little more than half the electorate in the U.S. to stop the other half from ruining the nation, and harming the world any more than they have already.
If you haven't voted yet - do so. If you haven't contributed to the Barack Obama campaign - go to www.barackobama.com and donate now as even a small donation can help. You can also sign up to volunteer for the campaign in a variety of ways.
As the US presidential campaign enters its final weeks, both the Republican and Democratic candidates are hitting the swing states.
But misconceptions and rumours abound and many voters have their facts about the candidates all wrong. Some believe that Democrat Barack Obama is a Muslim, for instance.
Casey Kauffman talked to some Republican supporters after a rally by Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, in Ohio.
This article is worth thinking about if you're still undecided about which approach would be best for bringing the U.S. economy out of it's downward spiral.
Many Republican voters are under the false impression that Republicanism means greater economic opportunities, and growth, but nothing could be farther from the truth.
Trickle down economics is nothing more than a lie. Trickle down economics is another code word employed as a substitute for "You're on your own".
Check out the table below, and read the follow article which recently appeared in the New York Times.
The truth is under Democratic rule the vast majority of the nation's population experiences double the income growth than under Republican administration.
And even the very well off do just as well whether under Republican rule, or Democratic leadership.
Simply put, trickle up economics is much more effective at building an economy.
Economic View
Would Obama’s Plan Be Faster, Fairer, Stronger?
By ALAN S. BLINDER
Published: August 30, 2008
CLEARLY, there are major differences between the economic policies of Senators Barack Obama and John McCain. Mr. McCain wants more tax cuts for the rich; Mr. Obama wants tax cuts for the poor and middle class. The two men also disagree on health care, energy and many other topics.
Such differences are hardly surprising. Democrats and Republicans have followed different approaches to the economy for as long as there have been Democrats and Republicans. Longer, actually. Remember Hamilton versus Jefferson?
Many Americans know that there are characteristic policy differences between the two parties. But few are aware of two important facts about the post-World War II era, both of which are brilliantly delineated in a new book, “Unequal Democracy,” by Larry M. Bartels, a professor of political science at Princeton. Understanding them might help voters see what could be at stake, economically speaking, in November.
I call the first fact the Great Partisan Growth Divide. Simply put, the United States economy has grown faster, on average, under Democratic presidents than under Republicans.
The stark contrast between the whiz-bang Clinton years and the dreary Bush years is familiar because it is so recent. But while it is extreme, it is not atypical. Data for the whole period from 1948 to 2007, during which Republicans occupied the White House for 34 years and Democrats for 26, show average annual growth of real gross national product of 1.64 percent per capita under Republican presidents versus 2.78 percent under Democrats.
That 1.14-point difference, if maintained for eight years, would yield 9.33 percent more income per person, which is a lot more than almost anyone can expect from a tax cut.
Such a large historical gap in economic performance between the two parties is rather surprising, because presidents have limited leverage over the nation’s economy. Most economists will tell you that Federal Reserve policy and oil prices, to name just two influences, are far more powerful than fiscal policy. Furthermore, as those mutual fund prospectuses constantly warn us, past results are no guarantee of future performance. But statistical regularities, like facts, are stubborn things. You bet against them at your peril.
The second big historical fact, which might be called the Great Partisan Inequality Divide, is the focus of Professor Bartels’s work.
It is well known that income inequality in the United States has been on the rise for about 30 years now — an unsettling development that has finally touched the public consciousness. But Professor Bartels unearths a stunning statistical regularity: Over the entire 60-year period, income inequality trended substantially upward under Republican presidents but slightly downward under Democrats, thus accounting for the widening income gaps over all. And the bad news for America’s poor is that Republicans have won five of the seven elections going back to 1980.
The Great Partisan Inequality Divide is not limited to the poor. To get a more granular look, Professor Bartels studied the postwar history of income gains at five different places in the income distribution.
The 20th percentile is the income level at which 20 percent of all families have less income and 80 percent have more. It is thus a plausible dividing line between the poor and the nonpoor. Similarly, the 40th percentile is the income level at which 40 percent of the families are poorer and 60 percent are richer. And similarly for the 60th, 80th, and 95th percentiles. The 95th percentile is the best dividing line between the rich and the nonrich that the data permitted Professor Bartels to study. (That dividing line, by the way, is well below the $5 million threshold John McCain has jokingly used for defining the rich. It’s closer to $180,000.)
The accompanying table, which is adapted from the book, tells a remarkably consistent story. It shows that when Democrats were in the White House, lower-income families experienced slightly faster income growth than higher-income families — which means that incomes were equalizing. In stark contrast, it also shows much faster income growth for the better-off when Republicans were in the White House — thus widening the gap in income.
The table also shows that families at the 95th percentile fared almost as well under Republican presidents as under Democrats (1.90 percent growth per year, versus 2.12 percent), giving them little stake, economically, in election outcomes. But the stakes were enormous for the less well-to-do. Families at the 20th percentile fared much worse under Republicans than under Democrats (0.43 percent versus 2.64 percent). Eight years of growth at an annual rate of 0.43 percent increases a family’s income by just 3.5 percent, while eight years of growth at 2.64 percent raises it by 23.2 percent.
The sources of such large differences make for a slightly complicated story. In the early part of the period — say, the pre-Reagan years — the Great Partisan Growth Divide accounted for most of the Great Partisan Inequality divide, because the poor do relatively better in a high-growth economy.
Beginning with the Reagan presidency, however, growth differences are smaller and tax and transfer policies have played a larger role. We know, for example, that Republicans have typically favored large tax cuts for upper-income groups while Democrats have opposed them. In addition, Democrats have been more willing to raise the minimum wage, and Republicans have been more hostile toward unions.
The two Great Partisan Divides combine to suggest that, if history is a guide, an Obama victory in November would lead to faster economic growth with less inequality, while a McCain victory would lead to slower economic growth with more inequality. Which part of the Obama menu don’t you like?
Alan S. Blinder is a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve. He has advised many Democratic politicians.
A coworker told me a few months ago that some WMAY conservative talk show hosts were referring to me on air as "paranoid" because I had predicted in one of my blog post that gasoline prices would fall below $3.00 per gallon before the election.
Ha!
$2.85 per gallon, and dropping - due to the "recession in China".
Lower gasoline prices are used by big oil to sedate the masses, which results in a lower voter turnout. Low turnouts result in conservative turnouts.
This won't work this election because too many people hate the GOP, and I expect a VERY HIGH turnout.
Dumb ass Republicans will have to employ other methods to steal this election this time around.
You see folks they weren't counting on the stock market crashing. If only the market hadn't of crashed things would have been so much closer, and then the rigged gasoline prices would have helped steal the 2008 election.
I approached the game SPORE much as I did Civilization. I have slowly expanded my empire by building trading relationships, and alliances with neighboring empires. I have slowly acquired nearby solar systems though military conquest, exploration, and purchase.
And I have become better at playing the game.
Thinking each step along the way that I would build a huge empire, and then, and only then begin a star trek toward the galactic center - where the Grox hold a secret which is the key to "winning" the game.
But as I expand my empire I have come to believe that I could in fact spend years, yes you read it right, years expanding my interstellar empire.
There are that many solar systems, and planets in SPORE.
Sometimes when I move from one scale to another as I zoom in toward my empire, and then outbound away from the galactic spiral which my empire is located within I notice how very exceeding small of an area my empire makes up.
All of my conquest, all of my allies, all of my enemies, all of those stars which I have yet to visit, but which I have seen on the fringes are in fact just a drop in the swimming pool of SPORE's galaxy of solar systems.
I have been fooling myself.
I keep telling myself that eventually when I have expanded my empire to such a size that my home world is no longer subject to random attacks that I will focus on some headlong trek toward the galactic center, but this could take weeks.
And then I what?
I could see how it could take quite awhile to move toward the center.
I have recently acquired the ability to move through wormholes, but I have yet to see one, so I am guessing that may solve the problem, but I am not sure.
I accidentally launched a weapon which destroyed the entire biosphere of a planet.
The entire biosphere was left ablaze, and soon enough nearby empires, which I had never even known existed, declared war on me.
Luckily I chose not to save my play action, and reloaded the program, and was more careful about not launching such a destructive weapon.
After 9-11 a large percentage of investors moved their money out of the market, or at least out of equity investments into bonds, money market funds, and guaranteed interest options.
The financial services industry was seen as a victim of terrorism, and it was the patriotic, and sophisticated thing to stay in the market.
This time, this bear market, is much different.
Questions of solvency, of the very nature of the market, and of the financial sector are at the very heart of the meltdown.
People no longer trust, no longer have confidence in banks, insurance companies, brokerage firms, the market itself, or their government - even real estate for god sake!!!
Every day I come home feeling worn out from having given it my all.
The non stop panic of investors selling, selling, selling, selling, selling, selling, selling, selling, selling, selling, selling, selling, selling, selling, selling, selling
and the questions, and the doubts, and pain, and the fear.
People are losing large portions of their nest eggs in days, and they are genuinely scared.
I've seen bear markets before, but this one is laced with a level of distrust that I have never seen before.
I come home and walk to the bedroom, and crash.
Like the market itself, I need a bailout.
I've been considering looking for work elsewhere, and I'm quite serious.
I think maybe I'm too old for my position. Just too old.
Let the twenty somethings burn in the crucible of human madness, and arise from the ashes each and every day anew to fight what comes their way.
In the meantime I went back on my blood pressure pills as I was feeling scared of stroking out.
Don't know how many regular readers I have. Just a few I gather. Thought I'd say "Hi".
I've been rather busy playing SPORE. Spore is EA Games latest foray into virtual reality worlds. Everyone knows about The SIMS, and SIM City, Etc., well, SPORE takes the idea of running a virtual reality to a whole new - let's say, Galactic, level.
Spore - Space Stage
I purchased the game, and have been playing it since it's opening weekend last month. I've evolved to the point where I have an space faring empire.
I hold maybe twenty star systems, and plan on eradicating some pesky and aggressive interstellar neighbors which I have been raided by once too often.
I could go totally genocidal since I have been methodically amassing a large arsenal of planet busting weapons, but I rather like leaving the planets I find in a good ecological state for future colonization.
Spore - Some Background
I'm probably playing the game all wrong, but I guess with 50,000 planets to explore I could dedicate the rest of my life to this game. I won't.
Eventually I plan to turn my sights on the galactic center, and the GROX which I've been hearing about for quite awhile now, both within the game, and in game reviews.
I assume that eventually when I move along my galactic spiral toward the galactic center, and encounter the GROX I will be feeling rather vulnerable again. I've read that they are protecting some type of secret at the galactic core, and it is associated with a black hole - the massive black hole at the center of our galaxy.
Spore - Procedural Animation
I've also read that in some way they've assembled some kind of device around a black hole that is virtually indestructible, and that one must use weapons and a black hole together to destroy their defenses?
And all this is to defend the number 42? O.K. that might be totally wrong, or a real spoiler, but it may have something to do with Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe - or maybe I'm completely off base, and just misunderstood.
Just bits and pieces I've read about on Youtube, but for now I'm just beginning to grow outside of my local area, and have built around 150 colonies on planets in twenty star systems.
This all goes to say that I've become obsessed with this game, and that's why I haven't been blogging so much.
Spore - Creative Overview
I've spent hours designing homes, entertainment facilities, and factories, and terra-forming planets that I could have just colonized, and left for other exploits, but it is funner for me to fully participate in the various ways to play the game.
I've even used some of the features which allow me to supersize creatures which is fun to do as it can cause havoc on an enemies planet.
Yes I do like to play god.
I'm waiting until I work my way across the galaxy and eventually encounter Earth. I've heard it is one of the planets in the game. I wonder if the creatures there will speak English, or what?
I employed a total war approach with some of the planets who adhere to the fanatical religion of Spode. They come off as totally insane, and I paid them off for a long time, until I built up enough experience, planets, and weapons. Then I decided to wipe them out.
I've use enormously powerful weapons to wipe out their cities, and I then take over their star systems. It's actually kind of fun when you're flying at high altitudes away from a city you just drop an antimatter bomb on, and suddenly the sky turns white, and the shock wave hits your craft, and your craft experiences the shock wave.
It's also neat to get into a dog fight. I find spiraling around, and around, and around until you can lock on wither with a missile, or laser weapon, to be the best method for taking out multiple interceptors. Kind of reminds me of some of the flying aces documentaries.
There are some things I hate about the game, mainly having to run back to your home planets, and colonies to defend them against attacks, which is probably why I haven't made it too far in the game yet.
Sorry for embracing a conservative-greed based philosophy which allowed him to sleep at night while major financial institutions broke every rule in the book - hey, they wrote their own book.
Sorry for helping to ruin the economy during his time in office.
No, the Monkey King Bush just acts like it's a force of nature - like a hurricane or something.
Now I'm going to try and sleep, and dream about the land of the Monkey King Bush, and how he is just one big victim of his own stupidity, and greed.
Although ya try to discredit Ya still never edit The needle, I'll thread it Radically poetic Standin' with the fury that they had in '66 And like E-Double, I'm mad Still knee-deep in the system's shit Hoover, he was a body remover I'll give ya a dose But it'll never come close To the rage built up inside of me Fist in the air, in the land of hypocrisy . . In America We Kill Our Prophets
Movements come and movements go Leaders speak, movements cease When theirheads are flown 'Cause all these punks Got bullets in their heads Department of police, the judge, the feds Networks at work, keepin' people calm
You know they went after King When he spoke out on Vietnam He turned the power to the have-nots And then came the shot
In America We Kill Our Prophets
Wit' poetry, my mind I flex Flip like Wilson, vocals never lackin' dat fitnesse Whadda I have to do to wake you up To shake you up, to break the structure up 'Cause this blood still floods in the gutter I'm like talkin' photos Mad boy kicks open the shutter Set the groove Then I stick and move like I was Cassius Rep the stutter step Then bomb a left upon the facists Yea, the several federal men Who pulled schemes on the dream And put it to an end
In America We Kill Our Prophets
Ya better beware Of retribution with mind war 20/20 visions and murals with metaphors
The networks at work, keepin' people calm Ya know they murdered X And tried to blame it on Islam He turned the power to the have-nots And then came the shot
Conservative Philosophy Of Greed And Corruption Has Damaged U.S. Economy
And now they want another four years in power?
The sad, and utterly frightening fact is that nearly half the U.S. electorate is bending over and begging for more.
I honestly wish there were blue, and red states so that we could divide into two nations. One (Blue) a prosperous rationally ruled nation of equality, the other (Red) a bankrupt and corrupt nation ruled by a small powerful elite in which all the dumbass trailer trash who supported such shit live as white slaves.
The more I listen, and learn about the current state of the U.S. economy the more convinced I am that the people running the show haven't a clue how to save us.
There's no certainty that a trillion dollar bail out of the financial industry will keep hundreds of banks, insurance companies, brokerage firms, and mortgage companies from crashing into insolvency.
Nor is there any convincing evidence that a bail out will restart a failed real estate sector, or save the failed U.S. auto industry.
There are in fact so many companies in trouble that one trillion dollars may only be a start.
The simple fact is that the Bush Administration deliberately, as a matter of philosophy and greed, sabotaged the regulatory bodies which would have prevented the current economic meltdown.
And now that same administration is attempting to ramrod a swindle of historic proportion which would allow that morally bankrupt administration to dispense a trillion dollars of the taxpayer's money without any kind oversight.
We my fellow Americans are in a lot of trouble.
The American economy is like the Titanic, with those in the first class sending their gang of enforcers down into the lower decks to shake down the impoverished for all they are worth just prior to abandoning ship.
We've seen it before, all those who have profited from the sham Bush economy will keep their spoils, and will even profit again as consultants in phase two of the sham, and tax payers will be stuck paying interest for treasury bills sold to Arabia, and China for generations to come.
The Bush Administration is the most corrupt administration in the history of America, and anyone who continues to support it are unpatriotic.
This is a song I listened to, and liked when I was four years old. The Beatles' song, "I Want To Hold Your Hand", had just crossed the Atlantic, and was very popular, and getting much airtime. My memories take me back to the summer of 1964. I had not yet begun to attend Kindergarten, and I had a great deal of time to play and play and play, and this was one of the songs I used to sing to myself while I played.
I have a very strong memory of listening to, and singing this song in my front yard on Lincoln Street in Springfield, Illinois. I sort of knew the words because they were very simple (i.e., "I want to hold your hand"). A little child prefers simple songs, and perhaps that is what made the song so easy for me to learn, to like, and to remember.
One benefit of having older female siblings was that as a child I was exposed to Rock and Roll, and the British Invasion.
Oh yes, I have memories all the way back to infancy.
How do I know my age then? I reviewed my early childhood memories with my mother, and she confirmed where, and what year it would have had to have been in order to have experienced those events.
Years later while doing genealogical and family history research I confirmed what my mother had told me. I very clearly have memories of infancy, age one, age two, age three, age four, age five, and every year after that.
Studies show that most people don't have accessible memories from that early in life, but for some like myself such memories are very precious indeed.
Here's some information from Wikipedia on the Song
"I Want to Hold Your Hand" is a song by the English pop and rock band The Beatles. Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and recorded in October 1963, it was the first Beatles record to be made using four-track equipment. McCartney and Lennon did not have any particular inspiration for the song. Instead, they had received specific instructions from manager Brian Epstein to write a song with the American market in mind.[2]
"I Want to Hold Your Hand" was the band's first number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, starting the British Invasion of the United States music charts. It also held the top spot in the United Kingdom charts. A million copies of the single had already been ordered on its release. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" became The Beatles' best-selling single worldwide.[3]
Background and composition
Epstein was worried about The Beatles' lack of commercial success in America—their earlier singles had flopped there—and so he encouraged Lennon and McCartney to write a song that would appeal to American listeners.[2] McCartney had recently moved into 57 Wimpole Street, where he was living as a guest of Dr. Richard and Margaret Asher. Their daughter, actress Jane Asher, had become McCartney’s steady girlfriend since first meeting earlier in the year. This location briefly became Lennon and McCartney’s new writing base, taking over from McCartney’s Forthlin Road home in Liverpool.[4] Margaret Asher taught music in a "small, rather stuffy music room" in the basement[4] and it was here that Lennon and McCartney sat at the piano and composed 'I Want to Hold Your Hand'. In September 1980, Lennon told Playboy magazine:
“
We wrote a lot of stuff together, one on one, eyeball to eyeball. Like in 'I Want to Hold Your Hand,' I remember when we got the chord that made the song. We were in Jane Asher's house, downstairs in the cellar playing on the piano at the same time. And we had, 'Oh you-u-u/ got that something...' And Paul hits this chord [E minor] and I turn to him and say, 'That's it!' I said, 'Do that again!' In those days, we really used to absolutely write like that—both playing into each other's noses.[5]
”
In 1994, McCartney agreed with Lennon's description of the circumstances surrounding the composition of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" saying:
“
'Eyeball to eyeball' is a very good description of it. That's exactly how it was. 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' was very co-written. It was our big number one; the one that would eventually break us in America.[6]
”
In the studio
The Beatles started recording "I Want to Hold Your Hand" at Abbey Road Studios in Studio 2 on 17 October1963. Notably, this marked the end of the Beatles using two-track recording; from then until 1968, all Beatles releases were recorded on four-track machines. Curiously, the song’s intro has an extra half a beat leading into the vocal. As it is unlikely to have been recorded in this way (the Beatles never played it like this live, although they did have to mime to it) it is therefore probably the result of an imperfect edit - the whole intro section from an earlier take spliced onto take 17. A studio montage in The Beatles Anthology includes an audio clip of McCartney instructing Ringo Starr on the dynamics of the drums in the song's intro.
"I Want to Hold Your Hand" was one of the few Beatles songs (along with "She Loves You") to be recorded in German, entitled, "Komm, gib mir deine Hand". Odeon, the German arm of EMI (the parent company of the Beatles' record label, Parlophone Records) was convinced that the Beatles' records would not sell in Germany unless they were sung in German. The Beatles detested the idea, and when they were due to record the German version on 27 January1964 at EMI's Pathe Marconi Studios in Paris (where the Beatles were performing 18 days of concerts at the Olympia Theatre) they did not arrive for the session. Their record producer, George Martin, was outraged, and insisted they give it a try. Two days later, the Beatles recorded "Komm, gib mir deine Hand", one of the few times in their career that they recorded outside of London. However, Martin later conceded “They were right, actually, it wasn’t necessary for them to record in German, but they weren’t graceless, they did a good job”.[7]
"Komm, gib mir deine Hand" appeared in full stereo on the US Capitol LP 'Something New' and currently on the new Capitol CD compilation called "The Capitol Albums Vol. I".
Launching the invasion
In the UK, "She Loves You" (released in August) had shot back to the number one position in November following blanket media coverage of the Beatles (described as Beatlemania). Mark Lewisohn later wrote: “'She Loves You' had already sold an industry-boggling three quarters of a million before these fresh converts were pushing it into seven figures. And at this very moment, just four weeks before Christmas, with everyone connected to the music and relevant retail industries already lying prone in paroxysms of unimaginable delight, EMI pulled the trigger and released 'I Want To Hold Your Hand'. And then it was bloody pandemonium".[8]
On 29 November1963, Parlophone Records released "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in the United Kingdom, with "This Boy" joining it on the single's B-side. Demand had been building for quite a while, as evidenced by the one million advance orders for the single. When it was finally released, the response was phenomenal. A week after it entered the British charts, on 14 December1963, it knocked "She Loves You", another Beatles song, off the top spot, the first such instance of the same act taking over from itself at number one in British history, clinging to the top spot for five full weeks. It stayed in the charts for another fifteen weeks afterwards, and incredibly made a one-week return to the charts on 16 May1964. Beatlemania was peaking at that time; during the same period, the Beatles set a record by occupying the top two positions on both the album and single charts in the United Kingdom.
EMI and Brian Epstein finally convinced American label Capitol Records, a subsidiary of EMI, that the Beatles could make an impact in the United States, leading to the release of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" with "I Saw Her Standing There" on the B-Side as a single on 26 December1963. Capitol had previously resisted issuing Beatle recordings in the U.S. This resulted in the relatively modest Vee-Jay and Swan labels releasing the group's earlier Parlophone counterparts in the U.S. Seizing the opportunity, Epstein demanded US$40,000 from Capitol to promote the single (the most the Beatles had ever previously spent on an advertising campaign was US$5,000). The single had actually been intended for release in mid-January of 1964, coinciding with the planned appearance of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. However, a 15-year old fan of the Beatles, Marsha Albert, was determined to get hold of the single earlier.[9] Later she said:
“
It wasn't so much what I had seen, it's what I had heard. They had a scene where they played a clip of 'She Loves You' and I thought it was a great song ... I wrote that I thought the Beatles would be really popular here, and if [deejay Carroll James] could get one of their records, that would really be great.[10]
”
James was the deejay for WWDC, a radio station in Washington, D.C. Eventually he decided to pursue Albert's suggestion to him and asked the station's promotion director to get British Overseas Airways Corporation to ship in a copy of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" from Britain. Albert related what happened next: "Carroll James called me up the day he got the record and said 'If you can get down here by 5 o'clock, we'll let you introduce it.'" Albert managed to get to the station in time, and introduced the record with: "Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time on the air in the United States, here are the Beatles singing 'I Want to Hold Your Hand.'"[9]
The song proved to be a huge hit, a surprise for the station, as they catered mainly to a more staid audience, which would normally be expecting songs from singers such as Andy Williams or Bobby Vinton instead of rock and roll. James took to playing the song repeatedly on the station, often turning down the song in the middle to make the declaration, "This is a Carroll James exclusive",[10] to avoid theft of the song by other stations.
Capitol threatened to seek a court order banning airplay of "I Want to Hold Your Hand", which was already being spread by James to a couple of deejays in Chicago and St. Louis. James and WWDC ignored the threat, and Capitol came to the conclusion that they could well take advantage of the publicity, releasing the single two weeks ahead of schedule on 26 December.
The demand was insatiable; in the first three days alone, a quarter million copies had already been sold. In New York City, 10,000 copies flew off the shelves every hour. Capitol was so overloaded by the demand, it contracted part of the job of pressing copies off to Columbia Records and RCA. By January 18, the song had started its fifteen-week chart run, and on 1 February, the Beatles finally achieved their first number-one in America, emulating the success of another British group, the Tornados with "Telstar", which was number one on the Billboard charts for three weeks over Christmas and New Year 1962/63. The Beatles finally relinquished the number one spot after seven weeks, passing the baton to the very song they had knocked off the top in Britain: "She Loves You". Hunter Davies's biography of the band states that "I Want to Hold Your Hand" received certification for sales of 5 million copies in the US alone. The replacement of themselves at the summit of the U.S. charts was the first time since Elvis Presley in 1956, with "Love Me Tender" beating out "Don't Be Cruel", that an act had dropped off the top of the American charts only to be replaced by another of their releases.
With that, the "British Invasion" of America had been launched, and the music scene there would never be the same. Throughout the whole of 1964, only British artists were flying high at the top of the American charts; besides the Beatles, other dominant British acts of that period included the Dave Clark Five, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Hollies and Herman's Hermits.
The American single's front and back sleeves featured a photograph of the Beatles with Paul holding a cigarette. In 1984, Capitol Records airbrushed out the cigarette for the re-release of the single.
"I Want to Hold Your Hand" was also released in America on Meet the Beatles!, which groundbreakingly altered the American charts by actually outselling the single. Beforehand, the American markets were more in favour of hit singles instead of whole albums; however, two months after the album's release, it had shipped more than three-and-a-half million copies, a little over a hundred thousand ahead of the "I Want to Hold Your Hand" single.
Aftermath
The song was greeted by raving fans on both sides of the Atlantic but was dismissed by some critics as nothing more than another fad song that would not hold up to the test of time. Cynthia Lowery of the Associated Press expressed her exasperation with Beatlemania by saying of the Beatles: "Heaven knows we've heard them enough. It has been impossible to get a radio weather bulletin or time signal without running into 'I Want to Hold Your Hand'."[11] Another critic declared that the Beatles were "really pretty boring to listen to. Their act is absolutely nothing," and that "[t]heir greatest asset is that they look like rather likable, almost innocent young fellows who have merely hit a lucky thing."[11]
Bob Dylan was impressed by the Beatles' innovation, saying, "They were doing things nobody was doing. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid."[12] For a time Dylan thought the Beatles were singing "I get high" instead of "I can't hide". He was surprised when he met them and found out that none of them had actually smoked marijuana.[13]
"I Want to Hold Your Hand" was not subject to numerous cover versions like other Beatles songs such as "Yesterday" or "Something", although Arthur Fiedler & the Boston Pops Orchestra did attempt an instrumental version in 1964, which actually rose as high as number 55 in the American charts.[specify] Another cover was by the Moving Sidewalks, who made a psychedelic version in the late 1960s. French parodic band Odeurs covered the song as a military march sung with a strong German accent. The pre-"Dirty Water" Standells performed the song in a guest appearance as themselves in the sitcom The Munsters, along with another song called "Do the Ringo." Jennifer Cihi, a Canadian singer of Sailor Moon fame, did a cover of the song for the album Sailor Moon & The Scouts: Lunarock. Most notably, bop-guitarist Grant Green included a stunning jazz recording of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" as the title track of a 1965 album. Interestingly, the other tunes were jazz standards, perhaps validating Green's prescient appreciation of the Beatles' burgeoning musicality. The American band Sparks also delivered an unusual Philadelphia Sound-style cover of the song in the mid-1970s. It was also covered by R&B band Lakeside. The Beatles/Metallica fusion group Beatallica performed an homage to the song, titled "I Want to Choke Your Band", on their 2004 eponymous second album.The song was also covered by Jennifer Cihi (Serena) - Sandy Howell (Raye) from Sailor_Moon_soundtracks_(USA) (contemporary dance).
Neil Innes' the Rutles also memorably pastiched the song with laser-like accuracy as "Hold My Hand" in 1978, while British pop duo Dollar had a UK Top 10 hit with their version in January 1980 (coincidentally charting simultaneously with The Tourists' cover of "I Only Want To Be With You", which had originally been a hit for Dusty Springfield concurrently with the Beatles' version of "I Want To Hold Your Hand"). On Devo's debut album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, the song Uncontrollable Urge opens with a distorted version of I Want to Hold Your Hand's opening riff. In the 2007 filmAcross the Universe, T.V. Carpio sings a slowed-down cover version of the song in character as a young lesbian pining over a seemingly unattainable classmate.
For the 2006 album Love, coinciding with the Cirque Du Soleil production of the same title, George Martin and his son, Giles, melded the original studio recording (truncated) with a live performance at the Hollywood Bowl, complete with screaming hordes of teenage girls and the famous introduction from The Ed Sullivan Show, "Here they are ... The Beatles!!"
The Beatles' recording of this song also appeared as the opening track in the 1997 Time-Life 6-CD boxed set, "Gold And Platinum: The Ultimate Rock Collection", marking one of the very rare times that a Beatles recording was featured in an American-released various artists compilation collection. This set also featured one song each from the solo members of the Beatles: "It Don't Come Easy" (Ringo Starr), "Band On The Run" (Paul McCartney), "(Just Like) Starting Over" (John Lennon) and "All Those Years Ago" (George Harrison).
Melody and lyrics
Reminiscent of Tin Pan Alley and Brill Building techniques and an example of modified thirty-two-bar form,[16] the song is written on a two-bridge model, with only an intervening verse to connect them. The original song has no real "lead" singer or even a clearly defined melody, as Lennon and McCartney sing in harmony with each other. It could be argued that Lennon is leading McCartney, as Lennon's vocals are more prominent on the recording; however, when the Beatles performed the song on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, McCartney's vocals could be heard more clearly (although this may have been due to a poor audio mix).[17]
My nation is the result of hundreds of years of struggle toward equality And within my lifetime I have seen a miracle in which the majority A real majority has grabbed power from a privileged few.
People have given their lives for me. Unrecognized people have been beaten and terrorized for me Taking power from the white man and giving it to everyone Was an act of sacrifice for me Even though I am a white man
My country is very much rife with division Rich versus poor White versus black Hispanic versus Anglo I could go on, and on, and yet Despite these divisions we are one people
In America ghettos have no walls too high to scale And despite what anyone says most Americans Want equality, and prosperity for everyone
It is a nation both coming to grips with, and simultaneously burying its past And in the words of the prophet Zimmerman, America is a nation busy being born.
Unlike many older established nations My nation isn't made up of one ethnic group My nation isn't monopolized by one religion My nation isn't one color
America has a diversity and yet hasn't torn itself apart
We are a unique experiment in the making. And that is why I hope only the best for this land. I may say things critical of an administration But do not confuse my approach as unpatriotic
Because I love my country.
And that love of the nation, and the people is what drives my passion to write of politics.
Most of my regular readers are quite aware of my support for Barack Obama. And my liberal politics. Some who know me best also know I can be quite conservative. I am a mutt of sorts which is only natural since I am an American.
As the election nears. And as the rhetoric on all sides intensifies let us on all sides of various debates continue to remember That after the election we will all still be here together Americans
And while we may disagree we agree upon most things no matter what we are told. And it is in our common interest that lay our strength Yes, we can.
We can put aside our differences and demand that our government act in the best interest of the many, of the people, and not just the few and the powerful.
WASILLA, Alaska (CNN) -- For more than two decades, current Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was a practicing Pentecostal.
Palin - Iraq War Planned By God
Speaking of the troops in Iraq, Palin says on the video, ""Pray for our military men and women who are striving do to what is right. Also for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending them out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for -- that there is a plan, and that plan is God's plan." Watch Palin speak at her former church »
Palin - God Helps "Seal The Deal" In Gas Pipeline Projects
Her campaign says she doesn't mix her faith with government business. But Palin did ask her audience to pray for $30 billion natural gas pipeline she is on a mission to build in Alaska. In the video Palin says, "I think God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas pipeline built. So pray for that ... I can do my job there in developing my natural resources. But all of that doesn't do any good if the people of Alaska's heart is not good with God."
Palin's Current Church - Terrorism Used By God To Punish Jews
Palin now attends the Wasilla Bible Church. She was there on August 17, just days before entering the national spotlight. David Brickner, the founder of Jews for Jesus, was a speaker. He told congregants that terrorist attacks on Israel were God's "judgment" of Jews who haven't embraced Christianity. Brickner said, "Judgment is very real and we see it played out on the pages of the newspapers and on the television. When a Palestinian from East Jerusalem took a bulldozer and went plowing through a score of cars, killing numbers of people. Judgment -- you can't miss it."
The McCain campaign says his comments do not reflect her religious views. Palin's spokeswoman says she is pro-Israel.
Palin's Pastor - Vote Democrat And You'll Go To Hell
Pastor Ed Kalnin, the senior pastor of Palin's former Pentecostal church, has also come under fire for his comments. In 2004, he told church members if they voted for John Kerry for president, they wouldn't get into heaven. He told them, "I question your salvation."
Assembly of God issued a statement online in response which said Kalnin was "joking" when he suggested "Kerry supporters would go to hell," and statement went on to say, "We do acknowledge in hindsight that it was careless, and we do apologize for that. This statement is not written as a defense, but as a clarification."
Palin has done little while in office to advance a social conservative agenda. She told the Associated Press in an interview in 2006 that she would not allow her personal beliefs to dictate public policy.
"I've honestly answered the questions on what my personal views are on things like abortion and a lot of controversial issues," Palin told the Associated Press. "I won't hesitate to answer those questions about what my personal views are, but I am not one to be out there preaching and forcing my views on anyone else."
But in the last week, her religious background and outlook has certainly spurred debate far beyond Alaska.
