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California sisters sentenced in drug money scheme: Sandusky tr...

Added 02/01/12
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TWC9: Snowpocalypse, VS Achievements, 101 Async samples, & more

Added 01/21/12
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TWC9: Snowpocalypse, VS Achievements, 101 Async samples, & more

Added 01/21/12
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Notable Death of the Year: RIP Austerity Economics, 1921-2011

Added 12/28/11
5 Views

Notable Death of the Year: RIP Austerity Economics, 1921-2011

[LESS INFO] 5 VIEWS | ADDED 19:00:30 12/28/11
"Smokestack Lightnin'," with Hubert Sumlin backing Howlin' Wolf in 1964 This is the time of year when we're reminded of all the famous people who died over the last twelve months, a list which includes two of my favorite guitar players ( Hubert Sumlin and Cornell Dupree ). But there were also some notable non-human deaths in 2011, especially in the world of economic policy. One of those deaths should have completely altered the political debate in Washington. The name of the deceased was "Austerity Economics," and it was first glimpsed in a 1921 paper by conservative economist Frank Wright. Austerity died of natural causes brought on by prolonged exposure to reality. But the debate in Washington didn't change nearly enough after its passing. In the nation's capital, dead things still rule the night. Why Austerity? "Austerity economics" backers claim that today's economic woes can only be fixed by dramatic reductions in government spending, which will lead to increased private-sector confidence and therefore to greater investment and growth. But it's never worked. And if investors have lost confidence in the U.S. government's fiscal stability, they're sure not acting that way. There hasn't been this much demand for Treasury bonds since the government began tracking it twenty years ago, and they haven't performed as well since the go-go 1990s. It's easy to understand austerity's attraction for power elites inside and outside of government. The people who suffer from austerity budgets aren't the kinds of people they know personally, since they're typically public employees like teachers, police, firefighters and the administrators of social programs; people who need government assistance, like the poor; and middle-class people with the temerity to either grow old or become disabled. Austerity's attraction became even greater in the U.S. because once it became conventional wisdom that tax increases on the wealthy was "politically infeasible." That made it a program whose sole purpose was to cut government spending, lowering the pressure to increase taxes on the wealthy from today's historically low levels. For a one-percenter, what's not to love? Austerity Comes of Age The idea's been around in one form or another since that 1921 paper, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had been imposing it on Third World nations for decades. But 2009 was the year that austerity really came of age. That was the year that a wealthy stockbroker's son named David Cameron began campaigning for Prime Minister of Great Britain on an explicitly pro-austerity platform. It was also the year that Cameron helped to form a group named European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) dedicated to electing like-minded politicians across Europe and helping them collaborate on ways to slash government spending. It was also the year that right-leaning Angela Merkel won reelection as the Chancellor of Germany with a stronger mandate than she'd been given in her first term. With Nicolas Sarkozy as President of France, Great Britain was the only major European power not yet in the hands of the corporate-backed austerity crowd. The Global Sado-Erotic Thrill Machine That changed with Cameron's election as Prime Minister in May 2010, an event that threw pro-austerity Americans into throes of near-erotic ecstasy. And if that sounds like hyperbole, consider conservative Anne Appelbaum's reaction to Cameron's budget in September of 2010: > Vicious cuts." "Savage cuts." "Swingeing (sic) cuts." The language that the British use to describe their new government's spending-reduction policy is apocalyptic in the extreme. The ministers in charge of the country's finances are known as "axe-wielders" who will be "hacking" away at the budget. Articles about the nation's finances are filled with talk of blood, knives, and amputation. And the British love it. What can I say? There are people who collect serial-killer memorabilia, too. But Appelbaum wasn't just speaking for herself. It became unacceptable for any politician in Washington, Democrat or Republican, to advocate anything other than an austerity budget for the United States. And it was more than an economic strategy to its backers. Austerity became a way to demonize those who had suffered most from the banking abuses and self-indulgences of the wealthy, a totemic "blame the victim" response that turned the political debate into a grotesque inversion of morality. Again, Appelbaum: > "Not only is austerity being touted as the solution to Britain's economic woes; it is also being described as the answer to the country's moral failings." Bad Metaphors vs. Good Economists The Democratic President of the United States, Barack Obama, jumped onto the bandwagon with both feet by repeatedly lecturing Americans on the need for government to stop "spending beyond its means." Obama recycled the popular conservative metaphor of a family that has to sit around the kitchen table and decide how much money it has to spend. That's one of the worst metaphors in modern politics. Does a family establish its own currency -- especially one that has the unique position of the dollar? Can a family borrow money at rates so low they're effectively less than zero? Would a family let Grandma go hungry because Junior bought too many Porsches out of the family kitty and then gambled it away on lousy mortgage investments? The world's top economists, those who had successfully predicted the crisis of 2008, tried telling the rest of the world what was wrong with the idea: Joblessness and consumer fears were killing any chance of real recovery. More short-term spending was needed to get the economy moving again. Austerity would make things worse, not better. But nobody listened. Austerity's S%M-like attraction had the world's elites in its grip. Death of a Delusion And then something else came into the picture: Reality. Cameron's austerity budget had a shattering effect on the already-struggling British economy. His government's financial stability was downgraded five times during his first year in power and retail sales had fallen 2.5 percent. Household income was projected to fall an additional 2 percent if his austerity plans were carried forward. Britain's modest employment gains were reversed, youth unemployment reached record levels, and income inequality was the worst it had been in more than half a century. Anne Appelbaum's erotic dreams had become Great Britain's nightmare. As Europe's ruling austerity class pushed forward with their plans, even the IMF tried to dissuade them. It was clear to anyone who wasn't blinded by ideology or political cynicism that austerity economics was a failed program. Even in countries like Greece, where government was far graver than elsewhere, the austerity programs imposed from outside threatened to destabilize society while other reasonable measures like improved tax collection were still not taken seriously enough. And now the entire Eurozone hangs in the balance. Bankers became wealthy by treating governments as if they were mortgages, lending recklessly and pocketing their fees without considering the long-term reliability of their loans. European leaders insisted for months they were take the kind of sensible steps that should've been taken in the United States by requiring bankers to accept at least part of the losses for the bad loans they had issed. That plan was quietly dropped last month. "Austerity economics" never calls for austerity from those who have gotten rich by being irresponsible, only from those who didn't benefit from it at all. The Afterlife President Obama has dropped his austerity rhetoric, at least for the time being, but the Republicans have not. Listening to Mitt Romney discuss economics is like having a doctor wave a dead chicken over your head and saying he's decided to cast a spell on you rather than operate on that thing they found in your X-rays. Aside from the bill introduced this month by the House Progressive Caucus to almost no media attention, there's no comprehensive plan for dropping this country's ineffective austerity strategy and replacing it with an agenda that works. Rational solutions to our economic problems are being ignored. There won't be a real debate about alternatives to austerity until an entire political party, not just part of it, adopts this kind of program. Until then there will be chaos. And where there is chaos, austerity's powerful advocates can step in and take charge. Austerity economics died in 2011 and is survived by the British, German, and French governments as well as the GOP and large portions of the Democratic Party. Instead of sending flowers, the family has asked the public to abandon all hopes of future economic growth.

Notable Death of the Year: RIP Austerity Economics, 1921-2011

Added 12/28/11
1 Views

Notable Death of the Year: RIP Austerity Economics, 1921-2011

[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 19:00:30 12/28/11
"Smokestack Lightnin'," with Hubert Sumlin backing Howlin' Wolf in 1964 This is the time of year when we're reminded of all the famous people who died over the last twelve months, a list which includes two of my favorite guitar players ( Hubert Sumlin and Cornell Dupree ). But there were also some notable non-human deaths in 2011, especially in the world of economic policy. One of those deaths should have completely altered the political debate in Washington. The name of the deceased was "Austerity Economics," and it was first glimpsed in a 1921 paper by conservative economist Frank Wright. Austerity died of natural causes brought on by prolonged exposure to reality. But the debate in Washington didn't change nearly enough after its passing. In the nation's capital, dead things still rule the night. Why Austerity? "Austerity economics" backers claim that today's economic woes can only be fixed by dramatic reductions in government spending, which will lead to increased private-sector confidence and therefore to greater investment and growth. But it's never worked. And if investors have lost confidence in the U.S. government's fiscal stability, they're sure not acting that way. There hasn't been this much demand for Treasury bonds since the government began tracking it twenty years ago, and they haven't performed as well since the go-go 1990s. It's easy to understand austerity's attraction for power elites inside and outside of government. The people who suffer from austerity budgets aren't the kinds of people they know personally, since they're typically public employees like teachers, police, firefighters and the administrators of social programs; people who need government assistance, like the poor; and middle-class people with the temerity to either grow old or become disabled. Austerity's attraction became even greater in the U.S. because once it became conventional wisdom that tax increases on the wealthy was "politically infeasible." That made it a program whose sole purpose was to cut government spending, lowering the pressure to increase taxes on the wealthy from today's historically low levels. For a one-percenter, what's not to love? Austerity Comes of Age The idea's been around in one form or another since that 1921 paper, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had been imposing it on Third World nations for decades. But 2009 was the year that austerity really came of age. That was the year that a wealthy stockbroker's son named David Cameron began campaigning for Prime Minister of Great Britain on an explicitly pro-austerity platform. It was also the year that Cameron helped to form a group named European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) dedicated to electing like-minded politicians across Europe and helping them collaborate on ways to slash government spending. It was also the year that right-leaning Angela Merkel won reelection as the Chancellor of Germany with a stronger mandate than she'd been given in her first term. With Nicolas Sarkozy as President of France, Great Britain was the only major European power not yet in the hands of the corporate-backed austerity crowd. The Global Sado-Erotic Thrill Machine That changed with Cameron's election as Prime Minister in May 2010, an event that threw pro-austerity Americans into throes of near-erotic ecstasy. And if that sounds like hyperbole, consider conservative Anne Appelbaum's reaction to Cameron's budget in September of 2010: > Vicious cuts." "Savage cuts." "Swingeing (sic) cuts." The language that the British use to describe their new government's spending-reduction policy is apocalyptic in the extreme. The ministers in charge of the country's finances are known as "axe-wielders" who will be "hacking" away at the budget. Articles about the nation's finances are filled with talk of blood, knives, and amputation. And the British love it. What can I say? There are people who collect serial-killer memorabilia, too. But Appelbaum wasn't just speaking for herself. It became unacceptable for any politician in Washington, Democrat or Republican, to advocate anything other than an austerity budget for the United States. And it was more than an economic strategy to its backers. Austerity became a way to demonize those who had suffered most from the banking abuses and self-indulgences of the wealthy, a totemic "blame the victim" response that turned the political debate into a grotesque inversion of morality. Again, Appelbaum: > "Not only is austerity being touted as the solution to Britain's economic woes; it is also being described as the answer to the country's moral failings." Bad Metaphors vs. Good Economists The Democratic President of the United States, Barack Obama, jumped onto the bandwagon with both feet by repeatedly lecturing Americans on the need for government to stop "spending beyond its means." Obama recycled the popular conservative metaphor of a family that has to sit around the kitchen table and decide how much money it has to spend. That's one of the worst metaphors in modern politics. Does a family establish its own currency -- especially one that has the unique position of the dollar? Can a family borrow money at rates so low they're effectively less than zero? Would a family let Grandma go hungry because Junior bought too many Porsches out of the family kitty and then gambled it away on lousy mortgage investments? The world's top economists, those who had successfully predicted the crisis of 2008, tried telling the rest of the world what was wrong with the idea: Joblessness and consumer fears were killing any chance of real recovery. More short-term spending was needed to get the economy moving again. Austerity would make things worse, not better. But nobody listened. Austerity's S%M-like attraction had the world's elites in its grip. Death of a Delusion And then something else came into the picture: Reality. Cameron's austerity budget had a shattering effect on the already-struggling British economy. His government's financial stability was downgraded five times during his first year in power and retail sales had fallen 2.5 percent. Household income was projected to fall an additional 2 percent if his austerity plans were carried forward. Britain's modest employment gains were reversed, youth unemployment reached record levels, and income inequality was the worst it had been in more than half a century. Anne Appelbaum's erotic dreams had become Great Britain's nightmare. As Europe's ruling austerity class pushed forward with their plans, even the IMF tried to dissuade them. It was clear to anyone who wasn't blinded by ideology or political cynicism that austerity economics was a failed program. Even in countries like Greece, where government was far graver than elsewhere, the austerity programs imposed from outside threatened to destabilize society while other reasonable measures like improved tax collection were still not taken seriously enough. And now the entire Eurozone hangs in the balance. Bankers became wealthy by treating governments as if they were mortgages, lending recklessly and pocketing their fees without considering the long-term reliability of their loans. European leaders insisted for months they were take the kind of sensible steps that should've been taken in the United States by requiring bankers to accept at least part of the losses for the bad loans they had issed. That plan was quietly dropped last month. "Austerity economics" never calls for austerity from those who have gotten rich by being irresponsible, only from those who didn't benefit from it at all. The Afterlife President Obama has dropped his austerity rhetoric, at least for the time being, but the Republicans have not. Listening to Mitt Romney discuss economics is like having a doctor wave a dead chicken over your head and saying he's decided to cast a spell on you rather than operate on that thing they found in your X-rays. Aside from the bill introduced this month by the House Progressive Caucus to almost no media attention, there's no comprehensive plan for dropping this country's ineffective austerity strategy and replacing it with an agenda that works. Rational solutions to our economic problems are being ignored. There won't be a real debate about alternatives to austerity until an entire political party, not just part of it, adopts this kind of program. Until then there will be chaos. And where there is chaos, austerity's powerful advocates can step in and take charge. Austerity economics died in 2011 and is survived by the British, German, and French governments as well as the GOP and large portions of the Democratic Party. Instead of sending flowers, the family has asked the public to abandon all hopes of future economic growth.

Rep. Barney Frank Makes A Compelling Case For The Liberal Visi...

Added 12/18/11
3 Views

Rep. Barney Frank Makes A Compelling Case For The Liberal Vision Of Big Government

[LESS INFO] 3 VIEWS | ADDED 22:00:02 12/18/11
video platform video management video solutions video player I'd love to see Barney Frank get his own TV show (are you listening, Al Gore?) because he has such a knack for powerful, straightforward arguments in favor of liberalism. Today he took part in what This Week with Christiane Amanpour headlines as "The Great American Debate: There's Too Much Government In My Life," along with Robert Reich and Republican intellectual "heavyweights" (of course, I use the term ironically) George Will and Rep. Paul Ryan. This is from Barney's intro: > AMANPOUR: Congressman Ryan, thank you very much. And Congressman Barney Frank, your opening minute and a half. FRANK: Yes, we have too much government, and yes, we have too little government. There is this mistaken view that says, you know, we have a fight between the people's money and the government's money. It's all the people's money. The question is, as people, intelligently, we have two sets of needs. We have needs that we best pursue individually, with money for ourselves and our families. And we can make personal choices. But then there are things that we have to do together. I understand the appeal of tax cuts, but in all my years of government, I have never seen a tax cut put out a fire. I have never seen a tax cut build a bridge or clean up toxic atmosphere. The point is that there are some things where we are inevitably together. We are interlocked in the economy. We're all subject to the same environment, we all have the same public safety needs. And there, I think, we have sometimes had too little government. On the other hand, and my conservative friends who claim that they are for small government are the ones who tell us that an adult shouldn't be able to gamble on the Internet. We have the leading judicial conservative, Antonin Scalia, absolutely in a snit because you can't be sent to jail if you have personal sexual relations of which he does not approve. We have a series of interventions by the conservatives in those choices that should be left to individuals. So my conservative friends have it absolutely backwards. I do want there to be regulation so that you don't have the kind of manipulation in the financial area that leads to crises. And I do want to be able to clean up the environment. No matter how rich you are, you can't get your own air to breathe. On the other hand, as I said, there are overreaches by the conservatives. And by the way, they include militarily. I think we have a wonderful military, full of able young people, very well equipped, and they can stop bad things from happening. But they're not really good at making good things happen in foreign societies. And it's on the whole my conservative friends who want us to be rebuilding other societies where we're not very good at it. So the answer is yes, we should have more government where we need in an interactive way to protect ourselves against abuses, but there should be more personal choice. And so that's the -- that's the current situation. And so my answer is yes, I want more government involved in economic regulation and environmental cleanup and for reasons of public safety. I want less government telling me what personal choices to make as an individual .

Rep. Barney Frank Makes A Compelling Case For The Liberal Visi...

Added 12/18/11
4 Views

Rep. Barney Frank Makes A Compelling Case For The Liberal Vision Of Big Government

[LESS INFO] 4 VIEWS | ADDED 22:00:02 12/18/11
video platform video management video solutions video player I'd love to see Barney Frank get his own TV show (are you listening, Al Gore?) because he has such a knack for powerful, straightforward arguments in favor of liberalism. Today he took part in what This Week with Christiane Amanpour headlines as "The Great American Debate: There's Too Much Government In My Life," along with Robert Reich and Republican intellectual "heavyweights" (of course, I use the term ironically) George Will and Rep. Paul Ryan. This is from Barney's intro: > AMANPOUR: Congressman Ryan, thank you very much. And Congressman Barney Frank, your opening minute and a half. FRANK: Yes, we have too much government, and yes, we have too little government. There is this mistaken view that says, you know, we have a fight between the people's money and the government's money. It's all the people's money. The question is, as people, intelligently, we have two sets of needs. We have needs that we best pursue individually, with money for ourselves and our families. And we can make personal choices. But then there are things that we have to do together. I understand the appeal of tax cuts, but in all my years of government, I have never seen a tax cut put out a fire. I have never seen a tax cut build a bridge or clean up toxic atmosphere. The point is that there are some things where we are inevitably together. We are interlocked in the economy. We're all subject to the same environment, we all have the same public safety needs. And there, I think, we have sometimes had too little government. On the other hand, and my conservative friends who claim that they are for small government are the ones who tell us that an adult shouldn't be able to gamble on the Internet. We have the leading judicial conservative, Antonin Scalia, absolutely in a snit because you can't be sent to jail if you have personal sexual relations of which he does not approve. We have a series of interventions by the conservatives in those choices that should be left to individuals. So my conservative friends have it absolutely backwards. I do want there to be regulation so that you don't have the kind of manipulation in the financial area that leads to crises. And I do want to be able to clean up the environment. No matter how rich you are, you can't get your own air to breathe. On the other hand, as I said, there are overreaches by the conservatives. And by the way, they include militarily. I think we have a wonderful military, full of able young people, very well equipped, and they can stop bad things from happening. But they're not really good at making good things happen in foreign societies. And it's on the whole my conservative friends who want us to be rebuilding other societies where we're not very good at it. So the answer is yes, we should have more government where we need in an interactive way to protect ourselves against abuses, but there should be more personal choice. And so that's the -- that's the current situation. And so my answer is yes, I want more government involved in economic regulation and environmental cleanup and for reasons of public safety. I want less government telling me what personal choices to make as an individual .

What 'Occupy Our Homes' Could Change

Added 12/06/11
0 Views

What 'Occupy Our Homes' Could Change

[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 15:00:01 12/06/11
Amy Goodman reports on "Occupy Our Homes" for Democracy Now This week 60 Minutes gave viewers a good look at some of the widespread criminality that created the Wall Street mortgage boom and led to our ongoing financial crisis. They also saw some of the overwhelming evidence of illegal activity on the part of big banks, and were reminded that none of those banks' executives have been prosecuted. As ugly as the situation is, there is some logic behind the government's actions - and its inactions. They're acting on a tragically incorrect (but internally coherent) set of assumptions that can be summed up in one sentence. It goes something like this: "To preserve the health of the American economy, banks must be allowed to keep preying on their consumers." That's it. That's the logic. But there are two exciting "Occupy" developments this week that could change the equation - "Take Back the Capitol" in the District of Columbia, and Tuesday's "Occupy Our Homes" events around the country. Think of them as complementary actions: One is taking place at the site of our greatest government power. The other is bringing the action to homes where people have been victimized by bankers. People may not realize it, but there's power in those homes, too. The Logic of Injustice Despite their destructive behavior, the people who bailed bankers out and are giving them a free pass for their crimes aren't necessarily evil or corrupt. Well, okay, people like this guy are. But others have merely been so infected by misguided economic thinking that they really believe that the only way to save the economy is to keep shafting consumers and pampering mega-bankers. The thinking goes something like this: Our largest banks are too big to fail, and since we lack the will or the motivation to break them up or regulate them we must protect them at all costs. We've propped them up with TARP, quantitative easing, and $7.7 trillion in secret Federal Reserve loans, but they're still shaky as hell. If we prosecute any of their executives, their stock prices will fall and they'll collapse again. And they'll take the entire economic system with them. That leads to some grotesque miscarriages of justice. Nobody at Wells Fargo has been indicted for money laundering, for example, despite the fact that the bank has paid millions to settle charges of laundering cash for the Mexican drug cartels that have murdered more than 35,000 people. As an experienced bank investigator working for the Senate observed, "There’s no capacity to regulate or punish them because they’re too big to be threatened with failure." The Bailout Nobody Knows And banks don't just need protection from their own criminality. They also need protection from their own lousy management. Their balance sheets are filled with toxic risks from their long run of incompetence, negligence, and greed. That's where you and I come in. Some powerful folks are afraid the banks will fail if they're forced to write off the bad loans on their books, or to stop profiting from loans sold deceptively or irresponsibly. TARP may be over, but there's another massive bank rescue going on. Who's funding it? We are. Every time we pay a usurious interest fee on a credit card, we're propping up the banks. Every time we make another month's payment on an underwater mortgage, we're propping them up too. Every time we pay an overpriced consumer loan of any kind, we're making another payment into the consumer-funded bailout that's keeping the big banks afloat. It would be great if politicians in Washington stopped using American consumers to subsidize banks that shouldn't even exist. But they haven't. That's where "Occupy Our Homes" comes in. Occupy Our Homes Tuesday, December 6, has been declared a National Day of Action to Occupy Our Homes . Its goal is to focus attention on the corrupt banking practices that led to the mortgage boom and today's ongoing economic misery for most of the 99 percent. It's also a day for helping people in our communities who have been victimized by predatory lending, criminal bank forgery, unfair or illegal foreclosure practices, and other bank abuses that victimize the public. Occupy Minnesota has already occupied an illegally-foreclosed home, and plans to do the same thing with another home tomorrow. Here in Los Angeles, where an inspiring victory has already taken place, OccupyLA will help two brave families re-occupy their illegally foreclosed homes . One of those homes belongs to a three-earner family that includes a gainfully employed woman with cerebral palsy named Ana Wison. Ana's household clearly seems capable of making its mortgage payments, but her bank's foreclosing anyway. And in one of ironies that have become all too common, the bank in quesion is none other than that Mexican drug cartel money-laundering outfit, Wells Fargo. The Occupy movement hopes to focus the public's attention on people like Ana Wison. In the words of the Dylan song : "Things should start to get interesting right around now." Demonizing the Victim Resisting illegal foreclosures is a good first step. It brings attention to Wall Street's criminality, venality, and plain old inhumanity toward the people they call their"customers" - but treat like serfs. It does something else important: It counteracts the brainwashing, driven by Wall Street and dutifully echoed by the media, which has demonized the victims of bank misbehavior. (We were trying to fight that brainwashing back in 2008, without much luck.) The Occupy movement has already won several battles in that war. If the public's attention can now be focused on people like Ana Wison, that can be a powerful blow against the Wall Street/corporate media "they deserve it" hype. What about the millions of people who have suffered because of the banks' predatory mortgage lending but aren't behind in payments or in the foreclosure process? We need to re-open the debate about the fairness of forcing any underwater homeowners to pay underwater principal on homes that their banks knew, or should have known, were going to decrease in value. After all, the same conglomeration of banks and corporate media that demonize homeowners as "greedy" and "irresponsible" spent most of the last twenty years convincing people that real estate was a sure-fire investment. Banks made an extraordinary amount of money off the bubble they created. The total mortgage amount outstanding in this country went from $6.2 trillion in 2002 to $11.9 trillion in 2009, a meteoric rise. And while banks feed off the Federal Reserve's unusually low rates, they've renegotiating very few home loans. Consumers also owe nearly three quarter of a trillion dollars in credit card debt, much of it being paid at unconscionable rates of 12 percent to 29 percent - while their banks enjoy rates from 0 percent to 3 percent, thanks to the government institutions created by those same consumers. Occupy Our Homes. Occupy Our Credit Cards. Occupy Our Payday Lending ... What will happen if consumers stopped blaming themselves? What if they demanded that the banks take responsibility for their irresponsible and/or predatory lending? What if they refused to stop this country's perverse economic role reversal, where customers have become the ATMs while banks keep making the withdrawals? If 10% of America's homeowners declared a mortgage strike it would rock the banking world. If everybody paying exorbitant credit card interest declared a moratorium on payments all at once, Wall Street would change forever. Think about it: "Occupy ALL Our Homes." "Occupy Our Credit Cards ... Our Payday Loans ... Our Buy-and-Drive Loans ..." I'm not saying these are necessarily the right tactics, although they very well may be. But what's most important is that we understand that consumers have far more power than we usually realize - provided we act together. Many of Washington's leaders will cringe at the thought, of course. "That could hurt our biggest banks," they say. It would be tempting to reply, You say that like it's a bad thing. Here's a better response: Then start planning to break them up in an orderly fashion. We're done living a life of indentured servitude just so we can subsidize their greed. Those are the discussions that we should be having. If powerful people on Wall Street and in Washington aren't worried about Occupy Our Homes , they're not paying attention. But with any luck, they soon will. ______________________ (If you've been a victim of mortgage abuse you can tell your story here . If you want to find an Occupy Our Homes event near you, you can look for one here .)

Act Today To Save The Internet - Oppose SOPA

Added 11/17/11
10 Views

Act Today To Save The Internet - Oppose SOPA

[LESS INFO] 10 VIEWS | ADDED 22:00:00 11/17/11
The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing today on the "Stop Internet Piracy Act" (aka SOPA). In typical Republican fashion, it was not broadcast on CSPAN and many interested parties were excluded from the proceedings. In fact, the only technology company allowed to testify was Google , who opposes the proposed law along with a coalition of companies which includes Facebook, eBay and Zynga , along with others. If ever there were a law designed to fatten the pockets of intellectual property attorneys, it is this proposed law. It has the potential to change the Internet, and not for the better. Written by and for large media companies like Comcast, it places full responsibility for intellectual property piracy on the shoulders of site owners rather than users. As currently written, any website that quoted another site's content, or linked to a site that quoted another site's content could be declared a rogue site by the content owner, whether or not that content is subject to fair use rules. Once declared "rogue", companies like Paypal and Visa could then cut off payments immediately without the benefit of a hearing or due process of law. Fair use? Free speech? Forget about it. Here is the official summary from the House Judiciary Committee site. > This bill focuses not on technology but on preventing those who engage in criminal behavior from reaching directly into the U.S. market to harm American consumers. We cannot continue a system that allows criminals to disregard our laws and import counterfeit and pirated goods across our physical borders. Nor can we fail to take effective and meaningful action when criminals misuse the Internet. The problem of rogue websites is real, immediate and wide-spread. It harms all sectors of the economy. And its scope is staggering. One recent survey found that nearly one quarter of global Internet traffic infringes on copyrights. A second study found that 43 sites classified as ‘digital piracy’ generated 53 billion visits per year and that 26 sites selling just counterfeit prescription drugs generated 51 million hits annually. Since the United States produces the most intellectual property, our country has the most to lose if we fail to address the problem of these rogue websites. Responsible companies and public officials have taken note of the corrosive and damaging effects of rogue sites. That last line is dripping with finger-pointing, as the announcement goes on to extol the virtuous Mastercard company while excoriating Google. Mastercard, of course, supports this wholeheartedly, while Google opposes it, along with Facebook and other websites. The Electronic Frontier Foundation points out that s ites like Vimeo, Flickr and Etsy would likely die as a result of this legislation. Rebecca MacKinnon, former CNN reporter and senior fellow at the New America Foundation, had this to say : > The bills would empower the attorney general to create a blacklist of sites to be blocked by Internet service providers, search engines, payment providers and advertising networks, all without a court hearing or a trial. The House version goes further, allowing private companies to sue service providers for even briefly and unknowingly hosting content that infringes on copyright — a sharp change from current law, which protects the service providers from civil liability if they remove the problematic content immediately upon notification. The intention is not the same as China’s Great Firewall, a nationwide system of Web censorship, but the practical effect could be similar. Abuses under existing American law serve as troubling predictors for the kinds of abuse by private actors that the House bill would make possible. Take, for example, the cease-and-desist letters that Diebold, a maker of voting machines, sent in 2003, demanding that Internet service providers shut down Web sites that had published internal company e-mails about problems with the company’s voting machines. The letter cited copyright violations, and most of the service providers took down the content without question, despite the strong case to be made that the material was speech protected under the First Amendment. Indeed. MacKinnon goes on to point out that this bill goes far beyond intellectual property protection. In particular, the House bill is set up to hold companies liable for users' actions. That would kill YouTube forever, but more importantly, it sets up an environment where power is freely wielded by those with the resources to shut down those without resources. Imagine Fox News declaring this site "rogue", for example. Search engines would block all traffic and results, and our right to speak freely (and criticize them freely) would be infringed upon. The same is true of Media Matters. Those with the lawyers and the money would win by default. The Occupy movement? Dead. They'd shut down the Facebook and Twitter accounts along with the live stream without cause. Simply call it "rogue" and be done. That's how totalitarian societies operate and it's anathema to anyone who understands the Internet. BusinessWeek : > As Brad Burnham of Union Square Ventures says in a blog post, what these bills do is expose a fundamental disconnect between proponents of an open Internet and companies and legislators who would rather create their own kind of Internet: a version of the Web that’s less chaotic, more respectful, and most importantly, a lot easier to control. As Burnham notes, that kind of Internet would make things a lot easier for content producers and entertainment conglomerates, but it would remove or imperil a lot of the things that make the Internet so valuable: “The Internet is not just a series of pipes. Its core architecture embeds an assumption about human nature. > The Internet is designed to empower individuals, not control them. It assumes that the if individuals are empowered, they will do the right thing the vast majority of the time. ” Over the past few days, I've seen reports that this bill is dead and other reports that it's alive and kicking. There are many who are raising their voices against it, including Oregon Senator Wyden, who has placed a hold on it. Unfortunately, it's a bipartisan bill. It shouldn't be. No Democrat should support this kind of suppression online. None. No conservative with true respect for the Constitution should support this kind of suppression, and indeed, one of those who oppose it is Ron Paul, to his credit. As much as it pains me to admit this, I find myself on the same side as Darrell Issa. Via The Hill : > Issa said the rush to hold the hearing was based on the flawed assumption that the bipartisan bill would quickly become law and said the sponsors didn’t want to hear from opponents, but must now accept that there is real opposition to their bill. “What they’re realizing is there are so many unintended consequences that they can’t just use Google as a piñata and bash on it here,” he said, citing the broad coalition of opposition encompassing the tech industry, the left and the right. “I don’t believe this bill has any chance on the House floor,” Issa added when asked about the odds of the bill moving forward after passing the Judiciary Committee. “I think it’s way too extreme, it infringes on too many areas that our leadership will know is simply too dangerous to do in its current form.” The bottom line here? Many of these lawmakers don't know enough about the Internet to understand the issues at stake. Further, as companies like Amazon, Apple, Spotify, Hulu and others develop ways to stream their content at affordable prices to users, piracy will likely decline. Dropping a nuclear bomb on the Internet is unnecessary to prevent piracy. This is really about control. Comcast wants control of what users can see and stream on their pipes, something I predicted back when they first proposed merging with NBC-Universal. This attempt by mega-corporations to take control of the Internet needs to be stopped cold. There has been a huge online response expressing opposition, but it needs to continue. Please sign the EFF petition here , or call your representatives to register your opposition to a law which is unnecessarily draconian and serves only the interests of corporations who do not serve yours.

Act Today To Save The Internet - Oppose SOPA

Added 11/17/11
22 Views

Act Today To Save The Internet - Oppose SOPA

[LESS INFO] 22 VIEWS | ADDED 22:00:00 11/17/11
The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing today on the "Stop Internet Piracy Act" (aka SOPA). In typical Republican fashion, it was not broadcast on CSPAN and many interested parties were excluded from the proceedings. In fact, the only technology company allowed to testify was Google , who opposes the proposed law along with a coalition of companies which includes Facebook, eBay and Zynga , along with others. If ever there were a law designed to fatten the pockets of intellectual property attorneys, it is this proposed law. It has the potential to change the Internet, and not for the better. Written by and for large media companies like Comcast, it places full responsibility for intellectual property piracy on the shoulders of site owners rather than users. As currently written, any website that quoted another site's content, or linked to a site that quoted another site's content could be declared a rogue site by the content owner, whether or not that content is subject to fair use rules. Once declared "rogue", companies like Paypal and Visa could then cut off payments immediately without the benefit of a hearing or due process of law. Fair use? Free speech? Forget about it. Here is the official summary from the House Judiciary Committee site. > This bill focuses not on technology but on preventing those who engage in criminal behavior from reaching directly into the U.S. market to harm American consumers. We cannot continue a system that allows criminals to disregard our laws and import counterfeit and pirated goods across our physical borders. Nor can we fail to take effective and meaningful action when criminals misuse the Internet. The problem of rogue websites is real, immediate and wide-spread. It harms all sectors of the economy. And its scope is staggering. One recent survey found that nearly one quarter of global Internet traffic infringes on copyrights. A second study found that 43 sites classified as ‘digital piracy’ generated 53 billion visits per year and that 26 sites selling just counterfeit prescription drugs generated 51 million hits annually. Since the United States produces the most intellectual property, our country has the most to lose if we fail to address the problem of these rogue websites. Responsible companies and public officials have taken note of the corrosive and damaging effects of rogue sites. That last line is dripping with finger-pointing, as the announcement goes on to extol the virtuous Mastercard company while excoriating Google. Mastercard, of course, supports this wholeheartedly, while Google opposes it, along with Facebook and other websites. The Electronic Frontier Foundation points out that s ites like Vimeo, Flickr and Etsy would likely die as a result of this legislation. Rebecca MacKinnon, former CNN reporter and senior fellow at the New America Foundation, had this to say : > The bills would empower the attorney general to create a blacklist of sites to be blocked by Internet service providers, search engines, payment providers and advertising networks, all without a court hearing or a trial. The House version goes further, allowing private companies to sue service providers for even briefly and unknowingly hosting content that infringes on copyright — a sharp change from current law, which protects the service providers from civil liability if they remove the problematic content immediately upon notification. The intention is not the same as China’s Great Firewall, a nationwide system of Web censorship, but the practical effect could be similar. Abuses under existing American law serve as troubling predictors for the kinds of abuse by private actors that the House bill would make possible. Take, for example, the cease-and-desist letters that Diebold, a maker of voting machines, sent in 2003, demanding that Internet service providers shut down Web sites that had published internal company e-mails about problems with the company’s voting machines. The letter cited copyright violations, and most of the service providers took down the content without question, despite the strong case to be made that the material was speech protected under the First Amendment. Indeed. MacKinnon goes on to point out that this bill goes far beyond intellectual property protection. In particular, the House bill is set up to hold companies liable for users' actions. That would kill YouTube forever, but more importantly, it sets up an environment where power is freely wielded by those with the resources to shut down those without resources. Imagine Fox News declaring this site "rogue", for example. Search engines would block all traffic and results, and our right to speak freely (and criticize them freely) would be infringed upon. The same is true of Media Matters. Those with the lawyers and the money would win by default. The Occupy movement? Dead. They'd shut down the Facebook and Twitter accounts along with the live stream without cause. Simply call it "rogue" and be done. That's how totalitarian societies operate and it's anathema to anyone who understands the Internet. BusinessWeek : > As Brad Burnham of Union Square Ventures says in a blog post, what these bills do is expose a fundamental disconnect between proponents of an open Internet and companies and legislators who would rather create their own kind of Internet: a version of the Web that’s less chaotic, more respectful, and most importantly, a lot easier to control. As Burnham notes, that kind of Internet would make things a lot easier for content producers and entertainment conglomerates, but it would remove or imperil a lot of the things that make the Internet so valuable: “The Internet is not just a series of pipes. Its core architecture embeds an assumption about human nature. > The Internet is designed to empower individuals, not control them. It assumes that the if individuals are empowered, they will do the right thing the vast majority of the time. ” Over the past few days, I've seen reports that this bill is dead and other reports that it's alive and kicking. There are many who are raising their voices against it, including Oregon Senator Wyden, who has placed a hold on it. Unfortunately, it's a bipartisan bill. It shouldn't be. No Democrat should support this kind of suppression online. None. No conservative with true respect for the Constitution should support this kind of suppression, and indeed, one of those who oppose it is Ron Paul, to his credit. As much as it pains me to admit this, I find myself on the same side as Darrell Issa. Via The Hill : > Issa said the rush to hold the hearing was based on the flawed assumption that the bipartisan bill would quickly become law and said the sponsors didn’t want to hear from opponents, but must now accept that there is real opposition to their bill. “What they’re realizing is there are so many unintended consequences that they can’t just use Google as a piñata and bash on it here,” he said, citing the broad coalition of opposition encompassing the tech industry, the left and the right. “I don’t believe this bill has any chance on the House floor,” Issa added when asked about the odds of the bill moving forward after passing the Judiciary Committee. “I think it’s way too extreme, it infringes on too many areas that our leadership will know is simply too dangerous to do in its current form.” The bottom line here? Many of these lawmakers don't know enough about the Internet to understand the issues at stake. Further, as companies like Amazon, Apple, Spotify, Hulu and others develop ways to stream their content at affordable prices to users, piracy will likely decline. Dropping a nuclear bomb on the Internet is unnecessary to prevent piracy. This is really about control. Comcast wants control of what users can see and stream on their pipes, something I predicted back when they first proposed merging with NBC-Universal. This attempt by mega-corporations to take control of the Internet needs to be stopped cold. There has been a huge online response expressing opposition, but it needs to continue. Please sign the EFF petition here , or call your representatives to register your opposition to a law which is unnecessarily draconian and serves only the interests of corporations who do not serve yours.

Obama Halloween Report; Lindsay Lohan and Canada:US Swap! - NT...

Added 11/09/11
13 Views

Obama Halloween Report; Lindsay Lohan and Canada:US Swap! - NTN #088

[LESS INFO] 13 VIEWS | ADDED 20:05:20 11/09/11
OBAMA TO HALLOWEEN: NO YOU SHOULDN’T Cap news is reporting that President Barack Obama asked parents to be extra vigilant with their children to ensure healthier, more environmentally-sound pranks were pulled this Halloween. "As a former child myself, I understand the need and desire for a touch of tomfoolery on All Hallows' Eve," said Obama. "But we can't lose sight of what it means to be a healthy prankster, a safe prankster, a conscientious prankster.” The president then laid out a set of guidelines that include ditching toilet paper for more environmentally-friendly flushable wipes, smashing pumpkins and then bringing the pieces to the local food pantry, and exchanging regular eggs for the healthier alternative of Egg Beaters. http://www.crystalair.com/story.php?id=200910014 LINDSAY: I SEE DEAD PEOPLE, AND THAT GUY I USED TO BUY FROM Troubled actress Lindsay Lohan is getting a glimpse of her future this week as she starts her court ordered community service at the LA county morgue. Officials tell NTN Lohan will be surrounded by other drug abusers, both living and dead, and will get first hand knowledge of just how her end will come. “She’s great to have here,” said an official at the morgue. “Although she took a nap once and nearly ended up in a body bag.” Careful Lindsay, don’t want to lose you yet. TAKE MY STATE, PLEASE! Cap News was on hand when officials from the United States and Canada gathered to sign an historic agreement whereby the countries would exchange the province of Quebec for the state of Texas. "For both governments, this was an easy play," said the US ambassador to Canada. "Our feeling is, if you don't like being part of this country, maybe you'll like being part of theirs better." And they’re pretty thrilled north of the border as well. "The people of Canada could not be more happy," said Canada's Ambassador to the US, Gary Doer. "Quebec's been weighing us down for quite a while, so this is great news.” http://www.crystalair.com/story.php?id=200710013

Gerald: I Molested Mo'Nique On Oprah

Added 08/09/11
10 Views

R.I.P Snorkel the Tiger …

Added 07/24/11
12 Views

R.I.P Snorkel the Tiger …

[LESS INFO] 12 VIEWS | ADDED 11:57:56 07/24/11
"As a cub, Snorkel spent his early years forced to pose as a prop with people for their photos. Then he ended up caged for years at a family circus.Luckily, he found a true safe haven at Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, FL. Watch as he finally enjoys a taste of the wild and, for the first time in his life, was able to run...still much less than he truly deserves. *Snorkel passed away on 3-12-10, we were told that he was born in 1989 not 1996 (typo on the video) making him around 21 years old! Help WWF, The International Tiger Coalition and Big Cat Rescue tighten regulations to protect captive tigers in the U.S and prevent the increased demand for tiger products that put wild populations at risk. Sign WWF's petition to Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack asking them to use their authority to close existing loopholes in the permitting and monitoring of captive tigers in the U.S. SIGN THE PETITION HERE: http://bit.ly/aC1IFN At present, there is currently no way to determine how many captive tigers are in the U.S., where they are, who owns them, or what happens to them when they die. This makes them an easy target for black market sales, stimulating demand for tiger products and threatening wild populations by putting them at increased risk of poaching. Please sign the petition, our goal is to double the number of wild tigers by 2022, the next Year of the Tiger. SIGN THE PETITION HERE: http://bit.ly/aC1IFN For more info about BIG CAT RESCUE visit: http://www.bigcatrescue.org Find us on FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Big-Cat-Rescue-Tampa-FL/122174836956?ref=sgm MYSPACE: http://www.myspace.com/1bigcatrescue TWITTER: http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue DONATE: http://www.bigcatrescue.org/donate.htm THANK YOU! If you text TIGER to 20222 *A one-time donation of $5 will be added to your mobile phone bill or deducted from your prepaid balance. Standard messaging/data rates may apply. All charges are billed by and payable to your mobile service provider. Service is available on most carriers. Donations are collected for the benefit of the Big Cat Rescue by the Mobile Giving Foundation and subject to the terms found at http://www.mobilecommons.com/t/. You can unsubscribe at any time by texting STOP to short code 20222; HELP to 20222 for help."

CIRCUS

Added 07/24/11
16 Views

CIRCUS

[LESS INFO] 16 VIEWS | ADDED 04:22:53 07/24/11
"The CIRCUS is NO FUN for the animals... Big Cat Rescue does something called Operant Conditioning to teach our cats to do things we need them to do for medical reasons, such as lean against the fence to get their shots or open their mouth so we can look at their teeth. We do this with rewards and the cats have fun because they are smart and bored and love the attention. We never punish or withhold food to make them do something, and the cats only do it when they want to -- not on our schedule. But because tigers and lions in circus acts must perform specific acts at precise times and ""the show must go on,"" positive reinforcement is not the only method used by circus trainers or night club magicians. Often the cats are beaten, starved and confined for long periods of time in order to get them to cooperate with what the trainers want. And life on the road means that most of a cat's life is spent in a circus wagon in the back of a semi-truck or in a crowded, stinking box car on a train or barge. The messages the public gets from circus acts couldn't be worse. These acts either show man dominating one of nature's most magnificent creatures, which would never happen on an even playing field, or worse are promoted as illustrations of the ""special bond"" the trainer has with his captive. The latter just fuels the trade in big cats as pets and that never ends well for the cat. Last, but not least, circus acts are transient and often are a way of moving big cats across state lines or even in and out of the country. Because the endangered species protection acts are so poorly enforced, this transience creates a legal cover for the illegal importation and exportation of exotic cats. If a circus act leaves the U.S. with 10 tigers and comes back with 25, they can just say that the 15 additional tigers were born on the road -- there is no way to prove it if they were taken from the wild. No U.S. government agency tracks the ages nor the individual cats in private collections. YOU CAN HELP STOP THE POACHING AND ABUSE BY NOT SUPPORTING THE CIRCUSES THAT FORCE ANIMALS TO PERFORM - http://www.bigcatrescue.org/site/faqs-animal-abuse/1903-circus-is-no-fun-for-... Visit CatLaws.com to find ways to help: http://capwiz.com/bigcatrescue/home/ For more info about BIG CAT RESCUE visit: http://www.bigcatrescue.org Find us on FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Big-Cat-Rescue-Tampa-FL/122174836956?ref=sgm MYSPACE: http://www.myspace.com/1bigcatrescue TWITTER: http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue DONATE: http://www.bigcatrescue.org/donate.htm THANK YOU! If you text TIGER to 20222 *A one-time donation of $10 will be added to your mobile phone bill or deducted from your prepaid balance. Standard messaging/data rates may apply. All charges are billed by and payable to your mobile service provider. Service is available on most carriers. Donations are collected for the benefit of the Big Cat Rescue by the Mobile Giving Foundation and subject to the terms found at http://www.mobilecommons.com/t/. You can unsubscribe at any time by texting STOP to short code 20222; HELP to 20222 for help."