Earlier today, Bill Clinton in an interview, in stark contrast to Pelosi's shrill denial of any Democratic complicity in the current Financial Crisis, said the following:
BILL CLINTON:...... I think the responsibility the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was President to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Well said Bill. The MSM won't say much about this, but there have been numerous attempts to tighten up regulation of Fannie and Freddie for many years. But, along strict party lines, the Democrats have blocked any meaningful reforms of the two GSE's. That can't have anything to do with the fact that Senators Dodd and Obama have been the #1 & #2 recipients of campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie? Nah!
Thursday, September 25, 2008
The Media's Bias for Obama is Overboard
Here's a great OpEd from Tony Blankley, Washington Times.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
The mainstream media have gone over the line and are now straight out propagandists for the Obama campaign. While they have been liberal and blinkered in their worldview for decades, in 2007-08 for the first time, the major media are consciously covering for one candidate for president and consciously knifing the other. This is no longer journalism — it is simply propaganda. (The American left-wing version of the Volkischer Beobachter cannot be far behind.) And as a result, we are less than seven weeks away from possibly electing a president who has not been thoroughly and even half way honestly presented to the country by our watchdogs — the press.
The image of Barack Obama that the press has presented is not a fair approximation of the real man. They have consciously ignored whole years in his life, and showed a lack of curiosity about such gaps that bespeaks a lack of journalistic instinct. Thus, the public image of Mr. Obama is of a "Man who never was." I take that phrase from a 1956 movie about a real life WWII British intelligence operation to trick the Germans into thinking the Allies were going to invade Greece, rather than Italy, in 1943. Operation "Mincemeat" involved the acquisition of a human corpse dressed as a Maj. William Martin, R.M. and put into the sea near Spain. Attached to the corpse was a brief-case containing fake letters suggesting that the Allied attack would be against Sardinia and Greece.
To make the operation credible, British intelligence created a fictional life for the corpse — a letter from a lover, tickets to a London theater, all the details of a life — but not the actual life of the dead young man whose corpse was being used. So, too, the man the media has presented to the nation as Mr. Obama is not the real man.
The mainstream media ruthlessly and endlessly repeats any McCain gaffes, while ignoring Obama gaffes. You have to go to weird little Internet sites to see all the stammering and stuttering that Mr. Obama needs before getting out a sentence fragment or two. But all you see on the networks is an eventual one or two clear sentences from Mr. Obama. Nor do you see Mr. Obama's ludicrous gaffe that Iran is a tiny country and no threat to us. Nor his 57 American states gaffe. Nor his forgetting, if he ever knew, that Russia has a veto in the United Nations. Nor his whining and puerile "come on" when he is being challenged. This is the kind of editing one would expect from Goebbels' disciples, not Cronkite's.
More appalling, NBC's "Saturday Night Live" suggested that Gov. Sarah Palin's husband had sex with his own daughters. That scene was written with the assistance of Al Franken, Democratic Party candidate for Senate in Minnesota. Talk about incest.
But worse than all the unfair and distorted reporting and image projecting, is the shocking gaps in Mr. Obama's life that are not reported at all. The major media simply has not reported on Mr. Obama's two years at Columbia University in New York, where, among other things, he lived a mere quarter mile from former terrorist Bill Ayers— after which they both ended up as neighbors and associates in Chicago. Mr. Obama denies more than a passing relationship with Mr. Ayers. Should the media be curious? In only two weeks the media has focused on all the colleges Mrs. Palin has attended, her husband's driving habits 20 years ago and the close criticism of Mrs. Palin's mayoral political opponents. But in two years they haven't bothered to see how close Mr. Obama was with the terrorist Ayers.
Nor have the media paid any serious attention to Mr. Obama's rise in Chicago politics — how did honest Obama rise in the famously sordid Chicago political machine with the full support of Boss Daley? Despite the great — and unflattering details on Mr. Obama's Chicago years presented in David Freddoso's new book, the mainstream media continues to ignore both the facts and the book. It took a British publication, the Economist, to give Mr. Freddoso's book a review with fair comment.
The public image of Mr. Obama as an idealistic, post-race, post-partisan, well-spoken and honest young man with the wisdom and courage befitting a great national leader is a confection spun by a willing conspiracy of Mr. Obama, his publicist David Axelrod and most of the senior editors, producers and reporters of the national media.
Perhaps that is why the National Journal's respected correspondent Stuart Taylor has written that "the media can no longer be trusted to provide accurate and fair campaign reporting and analysis." That conspiracy has not only photo-shopped out all of Mr. Obama's imperfections (and dirtied up his opponent Mr. McCain's image), but it has put most of his questionable history down the memory hole.
The public will be voting based on the idealized image of the man who never was. If he wins, however, we will be governed by the sunken, cynical man Mr. Obama really is. One can only hope that the senior journalists will be judged as harshly for their professional misconduct as Wall Street's leaders currently are for their failings.
Tony Blankley is a syndicated columnist.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
The mainstream media have gone over the line and are now straight out propagandists for the Obama campaign. While they have been liberal and blinkered in their worldview for decades, in 2007-08 for the first time, the major media are consciously covering for one candidate for president and consciously knifing the other. This is no longer journalism — it is simply propaganda. (The American left-wing version of the Volkischer Beobachter cannot be far behind.) And as a result, we are less than seven weeks away from possibly electing a president who has not been thoroughly and even half way honestly presented to the country by our watchdogs — the press.
The image of Barack Obama that the press has presented is not a fair approximation of the real man. They have consciously ignored whole years in his life, and showed a lack of curiosity about such gaps that bespeaks a lack of journalistic instinct. Thus, the public image of Mr. Obama is of a "Man who never was." I take that phrase from a 1956 movie about a real life WWII British intelligence operation to trick the Germans into thinking the Allies were going to invade Greece, rather than Italy, in 1943. Operation "Mincemeat" involved the acquisition of a human corpse dressed as a Maj. William Martin, R.M. and put into the sea near Spain. Attached to the corpse was a brief-case containing fake letters suggesting that the Allied attack would be against Sardinia and Greece.
To make the operation credible, British intelligence created a fictional life for the corpse — a letter from a lover, tickets to a London theater, all the details of a life — but not the actual life of the dead young man whose corpse was being used. So, too, the man the media has presented to the nation as Mr. Obama is not the real man.
The mainstream media ruthlessly and endlessly repeats any McCain gaffes, while ignoring Obama gaffes. You have to go to weird little Internet sites to see all the stammering and stuttering that Mr. Obama needs before getting out a sentence fragment or two. But all you see on the networks is an eventual one or two clear sentences from Mr. Obama. Nor do you see Mr. Obama's ludicrous gaffe that Iran is a tiny country and no threat to us. Nor his 57 American states gaffe. Nor his forgetting, if he ever knew, that Russia has a veto in the United Nations. Nor his whining and puerile "come on" when he is being challenged. This is the kind of editing one would expect from Goebbels' disciples, not Cronkite's.
More appalling, NBC's "Saturday Night Live" suggested that Gov. Sarah Palin's husband had sex with his own daughters. That scene was written with the assistance of Al Franken, Democratic Party candidate for Senate in Minnesota. Talk about incest.
But worse than all the unfair and distorted reporting and image projecting, is the shocking gaps in Mr. Obama's life that are not reported at all. The major media simply has not reported on Mr. Obama's two years at Columbia University in New York, where, among other things, he lived a mere quarter mile from former terrorist Bill Ayers— after which they both ended up as neighbors and associates in Chicago. Mr. Obama denies more than a passing relationship with Mr. Ayers. Should the media be curious? In only two weeks the media has focused on all the colleges Mrs. Palin has attended, her husband's driving habits 20 years ago and the close criticism of Mrs. Palin's mayoral political opponents. But in two years they haven't bothered to see how close Mr. Obama was with the terrorist Ayers.
Nor have the media paid any serious attention to Mr. Obama's rise in Chicago politics — how did honest Obama rise in the famously sordid Chicago political machine with the full support of Boss Daley? Despite the great — and unflattering details on Mr. Obama's Chicago years presented in David Freddoso's new book, the mainstream media continues to ignore both the facts and the book. It took a British publication, the Economist, to give Mr. Freddoso's book a review with fair comment.
The public image of Mr. Obama as an idealistic, post-race, post-partisan, well-spoken and honest young man with the wisdom and courage befitting a great national leader is a confection spun by a willing conspiracy of Mr. Obama, his publicist David Axelrod and most of the senior editors, producers and reporters of the national media.
Perhaps that is why the National Journal's respected correspondent Stuart Taylor has written that "the media can no longer be trusted to provide accurate and fair campaign reporting and analysis." That conspiracy has not only photo-shopped out all of Mr. Obama's imperfections (and dirtied up his opponent Mr. McCain's image), but it has put most of his questionable history down the memory hole.
The public will be voting based on the idealized image of the man who never was. If he wins, however, we will be governed by the sunken, cynical man Mr. Obama really is. One can only hope that the senior journalists will be judged as harshly for their professional misconduct as Wall Street's leaders currently are for their failings.
Tony Blankley is a syndicated columnist.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Not much to say......
Not really sure what to say right now. The massive bailout by the Treasury isn't a great thing, but it's the only thing they can do right now. It's going to be so politicized by the Dems that it may not get done fast enough and may have so many add-ons that it'll end up not doing enough.
The real issue out there are the Credit Default Swaps. They are the big unknown that could really bring down the house of cards. There are Trillions of $ in swaps just sitting out there waiting to explode. It's crazy. It's crazy that supposedly sane, professional, wise businessmen let it get this crazy and so close to collapse. As I've done more reading on the situation I'm even more flabbergasted. Companies were using the Swaps as insurance against bad credit decisions, and the Swaps are nothing more than some unregulated company saying they'll pay you if your credit decision goes bad. But they don't have, never had, didn't think they'd ever have, enough money to pay off the Swap. What a scam.
Well anyway, let's hope the Treasury bailout will come through fast enough and with enough teeth to settle the markets down, or else we're in for a rough ride.
The real issue out there are the Credit Default Swaps. They are the big unknown that could really bring down the house of cards. There are Trillions of $ in swaps just sitting out there waiting to explode. It's crazy. It's crazy that supposedly sane, professional, wise businessmen let it get this crazy and so close to collapse. As I've done more reading on the situation I'm even more flabbergasted. Companies were using the Swaps as insurance against bad credit decisions, and the Swaps are nothing more than some unregulated company saying they'll pay you if your credit decision goes bad. But they don't have, never had, didn't think they'd ever have, enough money to pay off the Swap. What a scam.
Well anyway, let's hope the Treasury bailout will come through fast enough and with enough teeth to settle the markets down, or else we're in for a rough ride.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
This Is Insanity! Again!
Boy, what a ride! America's financial markets are reeling from unprecedented events that just won't stop.
- Bear Sterns is propped up by the Fed.
- Fannie and Freddie are taken over by the Feds.
- Lehman Bros is allowed to fail and go bankrupt. Barclays buys up the pieces.
- Merrill Lynch is sold to Bank of America.
- AIG, the worlds largest insurer is given a bridge loan by the Feds for $85 billion to keep it open.
- The Russian stock market is closed for 2 days due to panic in their market.
- The Fed has had to inject 10's, maybe 100's of billions into the system to keep banks afloat due to liquidity issues as all of the financial institutions are hoarding cash. Same with other foreign central banks throughout the world.
- The two remaining US Investment Banks, Morgan Stanley and Goldmans, despite positive earnings reports and very positive overall positions, see their stock continue to tumble and are looking to merge with someone to help make it through this.
- Gold goes over $850 and Treasury's are flooded as investors seek safe havens.
What does this mean? What's going to happen and when is the bleeding going to stop?
Looks like everyone in the financial markets are running scared right now, with no confidence that the problems, whatever they may be, will be corrected soon. The markets totally depend on confidence and trust and perceptions. Right now the perception is that the popcorn is about to hit the fan.
How deep will this go?
I'm just an uneducated observer, but it looks to me that while there is plenty of cash in the system, with a lot of strong companies and fundamentals that in normal times would bolster the economies, it looks like the market is going to go further downward until they perceive the bottom has been reached. And it ain't going to be pretty.
I don't think there will be runs on banks and the like. But I do think the real estate crisis in America will deepen and will cause a lot of job losses, a lot of homes lost and the accompanying problems.
We'll come out of this, we always will, but now is the time to be a little more cautious and to watch things just a little closer.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
This is Insanity!
My daughter, a second grade teacher at a wonderful elementary school in Atlanta, GA called me the other day on her way home from school. She was really upset and needed to vent her anger and frustration.
She had just heard in a teacher's meeting with the school's administration that her school was being sued by a civil rights group, via the ACLU, for not providing enough bilingual assistance to the Hispanic speaking parents of children at her school.
In other words, they were being sued to force them to go to the expense and trouble of bringing in translators to better communicate with the parents who don't speak English!
When is this insanity going to stop? My daughter was correct in being incensed and upset. Here are illegal immigrants, whose children our tax dollars are used to educate, suing us so that we have to pay to accommodate their unwillingness or inability to learn the language of the country they are living in illegally!
I'm sorry, but this accommodating attitude by our do-good liberal friends, who see no bottom to the barrel of taxpayer money to fund their plans and schemes to make sure NO ONE is ever left out, is going too far. When are we in America going to stand up and shout "Enough is Enough"? When are our politicians going to get the backbone to stand up to the liberals and their supportive media to demand some common sense?
I'll tell you when. When enough of us support and help elect at the grassroots level the type of government servants that understand this and are willing to take the punches necessary to start making change. Change that's truly common sense and for the better. So start learning about you local politicians, especially the ones on the school boards and commissions. That post is as important as the President in both making the change needed to get our country back on the right track and in really teaching our children properly. Choose your representatives well!
She had just heard in a teacher's meeting with the school's administration that her school was being sued by a civil rights group, via the ACLU, for not providing enough bilingual assistance to the Hispanic speaking parents of children at her school.
In other words, they were being sued to force them to go to the expense and trouble of bringing in translators to better communicate with the parents who don't speak English!
When is this insanity going to stop? My daughter was correct in being incensed and upset. Here are illegal immigrants, whose children our tax dollars are used to educate, suing us so that we have to pay to accommodate their unwillingness or inability to learn the language of the country they are living in illegally!
I'm sorry, but this accommodating attitude by our do-good liberal friends, who see no bottom to the barrel of taxpayer money to fund their plans and schemes to make sure NO ONE is ever left out, is going too far. When are we in America going to stand up and shout "Enough is Enough"? When are our politicians going to get the backbone to stand up to the liberals and their supportive media to demand some common sense?
I'll tell you when. When enough of us support and help elect at the grassroots level the type of government servants that understand this and are willing to take the punches necessary to start making change. Change that's truly common sense and for the better. So start learning about you local politicians, especially the ones on the school boards and commissions. That post is as important as the President in both making the change needed to get our country back on the right track and in really teaching our children properly. Choose your representatives well!
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
A Different take on Woodward's "A War Within"
Bob Woodward's new book, his fourth on the Bush presidency, is titled "A War Within", and has as a central premise that Bush didn't lead the Iraqi war effort well, even the Surge. So even though the Surge is seen as a success, Bush is not given any credit for it. Not unusual for the Bush-hating media.
To put the book into perspective, here's a nice opinion piece by William McGurn in the Wall Street Journal. It's nice to see another angle to the story. As always, there are two sides to an argument. Unfortunately, our media generally sees only one side to Bush.
Another thing. You have to wonder why Bush keeps allowing Woodward access to him and the White House after all those things he's written about Bush. Maybe Bush really doesn't have anything to hide and wants to get the information out there, even if it is in the form of a hit piece.
To put the book into perspective, here's a nice opinion piece by William McGurn in the Wall Street Journal. It's nice to see another angle to the story. As always, there are two sides to an argument. Unfortunately, our media generally sees only one side to Bush.
Another thing. You have to wonder why Bush keeps allowing Woodward access to him and the White House after all those things he's written about Bush. Maybe Bush really doesn't have anything to hide and wants to get the information out there, even if it is in the form of a hit piece.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Mortgage Mess
The mortgage mess is getting deeper and messier. I'm really not sure where the bottom is and how long before we hit it. The take-over of Fannie and Freddie could be a turning point for the better, but I'm afraid it's really just a short reprieve before we experience a lot more pain. I hate to be pessimistic, it's really not my nature, but it really looks serious.
For those of you trying to get your hands around exactly why we're in this mess, what happened or didn't happen that caused this, here is the best synopsis of the mortgage mess I've seen to date. It's courtesy of a great blog - Trusted Advisor by Charles Green. It was written in Oct 07
We are still in a financial pickle triggered by the subprime mortgage meltdown.
The mess is becoming clearer. What isn't clear is—what the hell happened, and how did we get here in the first place?
First, the present.
Two excellent articles describe the situation as of 2007.
The Wall Street Journal follows the sorry path of a single mortgage, from a truckdriver in Denver who loses his job and condo and turns suicidal, to his mortgage's eventual home in the mutual fund portfolio of a Tennessee financial hotshot gone cold (though probably not suicidal).
Fortune dissects just one of those subprime funds—Goldman Sachs’ GSAMP Trust 2006-S3, a fund of second mortgages—tranche by tranche, detailing the infectious rot of loans gone bad (and defining “tranche” on the way).
At every step these articles read like the Wild West. No controls; no principles; no overview. You can’t help but ask: how did things get this way?
Set the wayback machine to 1995, Sherman.
To a Harvard Business School Press book, The Global Financial System: a Functional Perspective. It is a functional analysis of the financial system by a Who’s Who of financial academia, including Dwight Crane, Kenneth Froot and Robert Merton.
Crane’s Chapter (“The Transfer of Economic Resources”) describes the history of mortgage securitization. Mortgage loans in most countries were historically made by local institutions. This system encouraged risk management—the local S&L knew its borrowers, and owned its loans. It also meant high loan cost, and immobile funds. A low risk, but high cost, system. A classic cottage industry.
Securitization aimed to reduce cost by increasing efficiency—the classic Western formula for economic development. Interestingly, the government—via Fannie Mae and Ginnie Mae—led the way to securitizing mortgages; they set product standards and made guarantees, and became models for private-sector securitization.
Securitization made mortgage lending a national, even global, market. It made more money available, at lower rates, with greater accessibility. It did what it set out to do.
The shift was dramatic. Local savings institutions held 58% of outstanding US mortgages in 1950—that dropped to 15% in 1993. And by 1993, 63% of mortgages were securitized.
But what about risk?
The local model kept risk low through long-term relationships. Lenders knew borrowers personally, over a long time; lenders kept loans for the long-term; and borrowers owned houses for the long-term.
Here is Crane in 1995, explaining why risk management was under control in a securitized world:
In the modern market a) the criteria for loan approval are easily spelled out in terms of appropriate loan-to-value ratios and other variables; b) criteria used for mortgages to be put in the pool are also clearly specified, and c) there is an audit process that checks for compliance. In addition, the issuer of the securities has an incentive to manage the quality of mortgages put into the pool because d) a good reputation allows future deals to be done…[and] e) the buyers have an incentive to maintain the property since they retain ownership.
Fast forward to 2007.
For those of you trying to get your hands around exactly why we're in this mess, what happened or didn't happen that caused this, here is the best synopsis of the mortgage mess I've seen to date. It's courtesy of a great blog - Trusted Advisor by Charles Green. It was written in Oct 07
We are still in a financial pickle triggered by the subprime mortgage meltdown.
The mess is becoming clearer. What isn't clear is—what the hell happened, and how did we get here in the first place?
First, the present.
Two excellent articles describe the situation as of 2007.
The Wall Street Journal follows the sorry path of a single mortgage, from a truckdriver in Denver who loses his job and condo and turns suicidal, to his mortgage's eventual home in the mutual fund portfolio of a Tennessee financial hotshot gone cold (though probably not suicidal).
Fortune dissects just one of those subprime funds—Goldman Sachs’ GSAMP Trust 2006-S3, a fund of second mortgages—tranche by tranche, detailing the infectious rot of loans gone bad (and defining “tranche” on the way).
At every step these articles read like the Wild West. No controls; no principles; no overview. You can’t help but ask: how did things get this way?
Set the wayback machine to 1995, Sherman.
To a Harvard Business School Press book, The Global Financial System: a Functional Perspective. It is a functional analysis of the financial system by a Who’s Who of financial academia, including Dwight Crane, Kenneth Froot and Robert Merton.
Crane’s Chapter (“The Transfer of Economic Resources”) describes the history of mortgage securitization. Mortgage loans in most countries were historically made by local institutions. This system encouraged risk management—the local S&L knew its borrowers, and owned its loans. It also meant high loan cost, and immobile funds. A low risk, but high cost, system. A classic cottage industry.
Securitization aimed to reduce cost by increasing efficiency—the classic Western formula for economic development. Interestingly, the government—via Fannie Mae and Ginnie Mae—led the way to securitizing mortgages; they set product standards and made guarantees, and became models for private-sector securitization.
Securitization made mortgage lending a national, even global, market. It made more money available, at lower rates, with greater accessibility. It did what it set out to do.
The shift was dramatic. Local savings institutions held 58% of outstanding US mortgages in 1950—that dropped to 15% in 1993. And by 1993, 63% of mortgages were securitized.
But what about risk?
The local model kept risk low through long-term relationships. Lenders knew borrowers personally, over a long time; lenders kept loans for the long-term; and borrowers owned houses for the long-term.
Here is Crane in 1995, explaining why risk management was under control in a securitized world:
In the modern market a) the criteria for loan approval are easily spelled out in terms of appropriate loan-to-value ratios and other variables; b) criteria used for mortgages to be put in the pool are also clearly specified, and c) there is an audit process that checks for compliance. In addition, the issuer of the securities has an incentive to manage the quality of mortgages put into the pool because d) a good reputation allows future deals to be done…[and] e) the buyers have an incentive to maintain the property since they retain ownership.
Fast forward to 2007.
- Loan-to-value ratios may have been spelled out, but no one cared—Goldman's GSAMP trust had an average loan-to-value ratios of 99%;
- Criteria for loans to be put in the pool is anything but clear;
- 58% of the mortgages in the GSAMP product were no-doc mortgages. The “audit” process had defaulted to S&P and Moody’s, both of whom were either wildly deluded or denied their responsibility for the role—or both;
- If Goldman’s incentive to manage portfolio quality was its reputation, then its reputation was being priced awfully low. On the other hand, the short-sale bets Goldman (successfully) made against the very sort of subprime mortgage pools it was peddling looks like pretty powerful incentive. Why invest in managing a reputation when you can lay off the risk just by placing a bet against your own team?
- Rather than “maintaining” an owned property, many buyers were in it to flip it.
How far apart had things fallen? The average equity held by the borrowers in Goldman’s GSAMP Trust 2006-S3 was 0.71%. That’s right—the ratio of the loan to the value of the underlying property was 99.29%. Picture you taking out a 99.29% mortgage.
As Fortune puts it:
A total of 93% [of GSAMP] was rated investment grade. That's despite the fact that this issue is backed by second mortgages of dubious quality on homes in which the borrowers (most of whose income and financial assertions weren't vetted by anyone) had less than 1% equity and on which GSAMP couldn't effectively foreclose.
Very possibly so, even given the dislocations; remember the S&L crisis? Mortgage securitization helped replace that mess.
But good grief, couldn’t we have done better? Yes. In retrospect, the system assumed that better information flow would enable trust.
It didn’t happen.
Financial theorists tend to describe capital markets in terms of information. If you can package information, subject it to standards and audits and controls, then you can “trust” it.
That emperor is looking naked. Trust is not about information alone. It is about people, and in particular about people’s relationships to other people.
That’s what made the old system work. For those who think trust is scalable through information alone, the subprime crisis should be sobering food for thought.
Data won't kill trust. But a steady diet of data alone will starve trust soon enough.
The Issue Obama Wishes Would Go Away!
Here's an Ad that Obama doesn't want you to see. And this is one of the crucial pivot points about Obama and what he really believes. If you're serious about voting for Obama, you need to see this first.
End of the World? Or Much Ado about Nothing?
The Large Hadron Collider in Bern, Switzerland is going to be tested this week. There's a lot of noise out there about their tests causing the End of the World because they are going to try to produce mini Black Holes as part of their testing. Could happen, but probably won't. But it makes for nice doomsday fodder for the media. Nothing quite like a nice Mankind is Doomed story!
For those of you not familiar with the LHC and just exactly what it does and what the fuss is all about, here's a cute rap video made by a young lady researcher at the LHC. If science was taught like this in school we'd probably have a few less dropouts!
For those of you not familiar with the LHC and just exactly what it does and what the fuss is all about, here's a cute rap video made by a young lady researcher at the LHC. If science was taught like this in school we'd probably have a few less dropouts!
I couldn't load the video, so here's the link to the Large Hadron Rap!
The Attack Blows up in their Face
Watching the RNC last week and the wonderful story about Sarah Palin, I could only watch in amazement and sometimes anger at the pillaging she was receiving by the liberal bloggers, media and pundits. Their attacks were totally over the top and I didn't think it was just me feeling that way.
Well, today I found a very illuminating article from 'over the pond' about the left's attack and why it's blown up in their face. It's a short read, but one that should be read by any student of politics or human nature. Enjoy it!
Well, today I found a very illuminating article from 'over the pond' about the left's attack and why it's blown up in their face. It's a short read, but one that should be read by any student of politics or human nature. Enjoy it!
Saturday, September 6, 2008
An 'aaah!' Moment
Here's a photo that's sure to bring out the "aaaah's". It was taken by a man in Pennsylvania who noticed the baby fawn on the couch by his dog. Apparently there are a lot of deer in the area and for some reason this deer followed the dog into the house through the doggie door. After he took the photo the man escorted the fawn back outside.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Obama: I Was for Mayors Before I was Against Them
An excerpt from Barack Obama's address to the U.S. Conference of Mayors from June of this year:
You see, back in those days, we weren't just focused on changing federal policies in Washington. And we weren't just focused on changing state policies in Springfield. No, we were focused on the place we knew could actually do the most, the fastest, to make a difference in our community — and that was the Mayor's Office.
It was the Mayor's Office we turned to when we wanted to open a job training center to put people back to work. It was the Mayor's Office we turned to when we wanted to make sure city housing was safe to live in. And it's the Mayors Office that Americans across this country rely on every day.
You may get more than your fair share of the blame sometimes. You may not always be appreciated. But when a disaster strikes — a Katrina, a shooting, or a six-alarm blaze — it's City Hall we lean on, it's City Hall we call first, and City Hall we depend on to get us through tough times. Because whether it's a small town or a big city, the government that people count on most is the one that's closest to the people.
And it's precisely because you're on the front lines in our communities that you know what happens when Washington fails to do its job. It may be easy for some in Washington to remain out of touch with the consequences of the decisions that are made there — but not you.
You know what happens when Washington puts out economic policies that work for Wall Street but not Main Street — because it's your towns and cities that get hit when factories close their doors, and workers lose their jobs, and families lose their homes because of an unscrupulous lender. That's why you need a partner in the White House.
You know what happens when Washington makes promises it doesn't keep and fails to fully fund No Child Left Behind — because it's your teachers who are overburdened, your teachers who aren't getting the support they need, and your teachers who are forced to teach to the test, instead of giving students the skills to compete in our global economy. That's why you need a partner in the White House.
You know what happens when Washington succumbs to petty partisanship and fails to pass comprehensive immigration reform — because it's your communities that are forced to take immigration enforcement into their own hands, your cities' services that are stretched, and your neighborhoods that are seeing rising cultural and economic tensions. That's why you need a partner in the White House.
You know what happens when Washington listens to big oil and gas companies and blocks real energy reform — because it's your budgets that are being pinched by high energy costs, and your schools that are cutting back on textbooks to keep their buses running; it's the lots in your towns and cities that are brownfields. That's why you need a partner in the White House.
And that partner is John McCain and Govenor Palin!
You see, back in those days, we weren't just focused on changing federal policies in Washington. And we weren't just focused on changing state policies in Springfield. No, we were focused on the place we knew could actually do the most, the fastest, to make a difference in our community — and that was the Mayor's Office.
It was the Mayor's Office we turned to when we wanted to open a job training center to put people back to work. It was the Mayor's Office we turned to when we wanted to make sure city housing was safe to live in. And it's the Mayors Office that Americans across this country rely on every day.
You may get more than your fair share of the blame sometimes. You may not always be appreciated. But when a disaster strikes — a Katrina, a shooting, or a six-alarm blaze — it's City Hall we lean on, it's City Hall we call first, and City Hall we depend on to get us through tough times. Because whether it's a small town or a big city, the government that people count on most is the one that's closest to the people.
And it's precisely because you're on the front lines in our communities that you know what happens when Washington fails to do its job. It may be easy for some in Washington to remain out of touch with the consequences of the decisions that are made there — but not you.
You know what happens when Washington puts out economic policies that work for Wall Street but not Main Street — because it's your towns and cities that get hit when factories close their doors, and workers lose their jobs, and families lose their homes because of an unscrupulous lender. That's why you need a partner in the White House.
You know what happens when Washington makes promises it doesn't keep and fails to fully fund No Child Left Behind — because it's your teachers who are overburdened, your teachers who aren't getting the support they need, and your teachers who are forced to teach to the test, instead of giving students the skills to compete in our global economy. That's why you need a partner in the White House.
You know what happens when Washington succumbs to petty partisanship and fails to pass comprehensive immigration reform — because it's your communities that are forced to take immigration enforcement into their own hands, your cities' services that are stretched, and your neighborhoods that are seeing rising cultural and economic tensions. That's why you need a partner in the White House.
You know what happens when Washington listens to big oil and gas companies and blocks real energy reform — because it's your budgets that are being pinched by high energy costs, and your schools that are cutting back on textbooks to keep their buses running; it's the lots in your towns and cities that are brownfields. That's why you need a partner in the White House.
And that partner is John McCain and Govenor Palin!
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
We've Got Ourselves Boxed In!
I came across an insightful but disturbing article on the situation we've gotten ourselves into regarding the resurging Russians and our military focus on the Islamic-extremists. This is from Stratfor, an intelligence gathering organization that spits out analysis of Geo-political issues and events. If you're interested, you can subscribe to a weekly email analysis from them like I did. So far, they're analysis has been pretty right on.
If you don't want to spend the time reading the full article, the Cliff-notes version is that Russia is taking advantage of our stretched military resources to reassert influence over some of their former Soviet Union countries, such as Georgia. They know that we won't/can't pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan to confront them and make them pull back. So we're going to have to sit back and watch the ol' Russian bear start to rumble again and become a thorn in our side for decades.
The article didn't mention this, but I'm saying that this is just one more of a million reasons why we cannot elect that lightweight Obama as President. The Russians would eat his lunch!
If you don't want to spend the time reading the full article, the Cliff-notes version is that Russia is taking advantage of our stretched military resources to reassert influence over some of their former Soviet Union countries, such as Georgia. They know that we won't/can't pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan to confront them and make them pull back. So we're going to have to sit back and watch the ol' Russian bear start to rumble again and become a thorn in our side for decades.
The article didn't mention this, but I'm saying that this is just one more of a million reasons why we cannot elect that lightweight Obama as President. The Russians would eat his lunch!
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