What The Iraq War Is About
- more -
Remember the recent report about a medicinal marijuana vending machine opening in Los Angeles? If not, read MSNBCs article here. Well, I live around the block from the cannabis dispensary that was home to that beautiful machine. The HNC is clean, quiet, and everyone who works there is really nice. This evening, as I was taking my Friday night constitutional down to the 7-11 for beer, a horrible sight sprang into view:
Guess who came calling? The DEA. The dispensary's manager, who was walking around outside when I strolled by, told me that a group of federal thugs agents smashed not only the ten-foot window you see above, but also over twenty glass display cases inside. They then proceeded to steal all the medicine (Super Silver Haze and OG Kush going the fastest.) This isnt the first raid, either. The HNC was smashed to pieces last year by the DEA, on suspicion of carrying too much medicine, but were quickly cleared of any wrongdoing. The Feds just wanted to rattle them up a bit. However, the first DEA raid led the HNC owner to install that headline-grabbing vending machine in lieu of another break-in. He figured they would just take the machine and leave the interior of the dispensary intact. Nope!
Remember, this is a state certified business. It is legally entitled to operate in every way under California law and was doing absolutely nothing wrong. Dont think were living under the thumb of soft fascism? Even if you dont use cannabis, or for some reason have a problem with others using it, you should be disturbed by your federal governments continued abuse of states rights.
- more -
- Half the world nearly three billion people live on less than two dollars a day.
- The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the worlds 7 richest people combined.
- Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
- Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didnt happen.
- 1 billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the world). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).
Poverty is the state for the majority of the worlds people and nations. Why is this? Is it enough to blame poor people for their own predicament? Have they been lazy, made poor decisions, and been solely responsible for their plight? What about their governments? Have they pursued policies that actually harm successful development? Such causes of poverty and inequality are no doubt real. But deeper and more global causes of poverty are often less discussed.
Behind the increasing interconnectedness promised by globalization are global decisions, policies, and practices. These are typically influenced, driven, or formulated by the rich and powerful. These can be leaders of rich countries or other global actors such as multinational corporations, institutions, and influential people.
In the face of such enormous external influence, the governments of poor nations and their people are often powerless. As a result, in the global context, a few get wealthy while the majority struggle.
- more -
Even today modern wonders of engineering like the Eiffel Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge inspire awe (and songs and works of art). A quick look at their origins, however, can turn awe to amazement and astonishment. Each of the five projects listed here took their toll financially and were paid for in part with human lives. Some cost more than the GDP of a small country to construct and others were completed with tens of thousands of people lost in the process. A few were predicted centuries before their time and others were attempted multiple times and faced numerous setbacks before they could be completed.
- more -
send someone to hell today
It is now possible to send yourself or someone you know deep into the pits of Hell to live a terrible life after death, but how?
Reserve A Spot In Hell is here for the sole purpose of allowing you the opportunity to secure yourself (or someone else) a spot within the depths of Hell. We understand that some people would rather live a life of crime and trickery and Heaven just doesnt sound too appealing. Maybe the idea of floating around in Heaven, holding hands and singing songs doesnt sound like your thing and you would rather be indulging yourself in hardcore drugs, consuming massive quantities of alcohol and committing all sorts of random acts of violence and crime. Or maybe you have someone that you dont like and you want to make sure they suffer for the rest of their life. Either way, we are here to help.
Finally, here's your chance to reserve and guarantee
How would you feel if the end of your days came, and you were told that you needed to report in to the pearly gates. You had been waiting your entire life for this. Every moment was spent doing good deeds and loving those around you with the hopes of one day getting into Heaven. You finally make it through the gates and you realize you want to grab a drink with some old friends, but you find out they dont have any alcohol. You then begin a search to find some good porn movies, but those arent anywhere to be found either. Hell, you cant even find a TV set. You then realize the things you enjoyed in your earthly life arent anywhere to be found. If only you had reserved your spot in Hell, this wouldnt of been a problem. Now you are forced to spend the rest of eternity being happy and smiling. Or let's look at it from another angle. Maybe you have an ex-wife or mother in law who did you wrong during your time on earth but you figured they were on a one way path to Heaven, and you want them to suffer in Hell. Rest assured, they can, and will. We can fulfill these wishes and we guarantee it.
What sounds better, singing songs and reading books in Heaven, or taking shots with strippers in Hell?
We'll let you decide
- more -
Lilly Ledbetter was nearing 60 and on the verge of retirement when someone sent her an anonymous letter telling her that for the preceding 19 years, she'd been earning less than her male counterparts at Goodyear Tire and Rubber. On the day she started work as a supervisor in 1979, she was paid the same as men in the same job. But by 1998, when that letter arrived and Lilly consulted a lawyer, she was making $15,000 a year less than a man with the same experience doing the same job.
So she sued.
A federal jury found that over the course of her career, she lost out on upward of a quarter of a million dollars in pay because of discrimination, and the jury awarded her interest and penalties that brought the award to almost $4 million. The judge reduced the award to $360,000. The Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, got rid of it entirely.
Lilly's failing, in their mind, was that she should have sued back in 1980, when her pay started falling behind that of her male counterpart. According to the law as read by the Court, she had only 180 days to complain about discriminatory pay or she was stuck with it. By the time she filed suit in 1998, the first 18 years of being shafted didn't count anymore, and the last 180 days the only time period the five men on the Court who voted against her thought could be counted was just the residue of the way things had been done all those years, not some new and intentional effort to pay her less. Business as usual. No recovery.
This week, the Senate failed in its effort to overrule that particular decision of the Supreme Court.At a time when women, no matter what their education, job classification, experience or ability, still earn on average 77 cents for every dollar men earn, Republican presidential candidate John McCain skipped the vote. But he took time to make clear that he opposes the bill because he thinks government has no business telling employers they will be held responsible for underpaying women unless those women complain about it in the first 180 days. By a 56-42 vote (60 votes are required by Senate rules to cut off debate), the Republican minority voted to protect business at the expense of working women.
- more -
Poor Al he's all resume, no job. Sort of a yuppyfied version of "All hat, no cattle."
And what a resum he has: graduate of Harvard law school; a Republican political prodigy in Texas; state supreme court justice at an early age; chief lawyer for the President of the United States; and then to put the cherry on the political banana split he became U.S. attorney general, America's top lawyer. Yet, now, the guy is reduced to carrying a hand-written cardboard sign at the intersection saying, "Will work for $600 an hour."
Alberto Gonzales can't get a job. While junior staffers from his own department are being snagged for high-paying influence-peddling jobs in Washington, Al can't get a bite. Having been forced to resign as attorney general, the Texan who flowered in the manure of George W's corporate-financed rise to power has been putting out feelers to the very corporate law firms that fueled his rise to the legal heights. But, alas, no takers. As one principal of a powerhouse Washington law firm gently said of Gonzales's failed application, "I wouldn't say rebuffed. I would say not taken up."
- more -
After several decades celebrating Earth Day each April (though Tucson's been officially at it only 14 years), it seems we're more interested in festivals than taking on the challenge of cleaning up the mess we created after deciding fossil derivatives were the answer to everything: increased food production with fertilizers! Better living through hi-tech warfare! Fuel engines replacing manual labor for every imaginable task!
Though a few Cassandras issued warnings almost no one cared to hear, for a couple of hundred years, we were led down the merry path of "progress" fueled by coal and oil: visions of endless bounty and improving "living standards," and parents buying into the notion of children having it "better" than they did without stopping to ask what, exactly, was meant by better, or why better seemed always linked to "more" and "newest."
Our cultural narrative is a fiction based on the worst characteristics of human nature combined with an exploitive economic system only cynics (or fools) could embrace. Part of this narrative tells us "we can't go back." But what was left behind when the first oil well was drilled, and Earth's black blood sucked from its subterranean life, are the very things humans need in order to sustain meaningful life.
Among them are the knowledge and skills required to feed ourselves. Hunting, once a necessity, is now considered by some an atavistic endeavor; gathering is these days largely the purview of elites sniffing out mushrooms (or recent immigrants not hip to things dclass), and there's not enough room on the page to discuss the transformation of farming from something Thomas Jefferson would recognize into the agro-industrial, Wall Street-driven, corporate-culture imbued, earth-poisoning monster it is today.
We've also largely lost the ability to shelter or heal ourselves. While farmhouses from Italy to Ireland built centuries ago still stand, today's construction will, left unattended for not too many years, deteriorate into a toxic stew. Once able to heal ourselves with herbs, potions and salves (and when that failed, to die with less struggle and angst than we do now) and live in community for the duration of our lives, today, avoiding death is an industry, and the sick, old and damaged are fodder for some pharmaceutical company's stock rating.
But there is good news regarding the efforts to allay some of the harm we've done. A growing number of people are defying the "you can't go back" mantra by doing just that. The locavore movement is creating a need for more small-scale farms, which in turn is generating a return to more sustainable food-production methods.
- more -
| Our critics present a selection of history's most notable cult writing. Some is classic. Some is catastrophic. All of it had the power to inspire What is a cult book? We tried and failed to arrive at a definition: books often found in the pockets of murderers; books that you take very seriously when you are 17; books whose readers can be identified to all with the formula " Some things crop up often: drugs, travel, philosophy, an implied two fingers to conventional wisdom, titanic self-absorption, a tendency to date fast and a paperback jacket everyone recognises with a faint wince. But these don’t begin to cover it. Cult books include some of the most cringemaking collections of bilge ever collected between hard covers. But they also include many of the key texts of modern feminism; some of the best journalism and memoirs; some of the most entrancing and original novels in the canon. Cult books are somehow, intangibly, different from simple bestsellers – though many of them are that. The Carpetbaggers was a bestseller; Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was a cult. They are different from books that have big new ideas – though many of them are that. On The Origin of Species changed history; but Thus Spoke Zarathustra was a cult. They are different from How-To books – though many of them are that. The Highway Code is a How-To book; Baby and Child Care was a cult. These are books that became personally important to their readers: that changed the way they lived, or the way they thought about how they lived. The Bible, the Koran and the Communist Manifesto, of course, changed lives – but, in the first instance, they changed the life of the tribe, not of the individual. In compiling our list, we were looking for the sort of book that people wear like a leather jacket or carry around like a totem. The book that rewires your head: that turns you on to psychedelics; makes you want to move to Greece; makes you a pacifist; gives you a way of thinking about yourself as a woman, or a voice in your head that makes it feel okay to be a teenager; conjures into being a character who becomes a permanent inhabitant of your mental flophouse. We were able to agree, finally, on one thing: you know a cult book when you see one. And people have passionate feelings on both sides: our appeal for suggestions yielded enough for a list at least three times as long as this one. So if you’ve loved or hated or grown out of or grown into one of these books – or another book we’ve omitted – please visit our website and tell us about it. Sam Leith 
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969) Sideways fantasy from the Diogenes of American letters, a comic sage who survived the firebombing of Dresden and various familial tragedies to work out his own unique brand of science-fictional satire. Like much of Vonnegut's stuff, this is savage anger barely masked by urbane anthropological sarcasm. Very much the place to start. - more - |
We're not sure if anyone under the age of 50 would get it if we described Steven Wright as "the Pat Paulsen of his generation," but, trust us, it's true. Wright's pretty much the poster boy for deadpan comedy, having burst onto the scene -- albeit very solemnly -- with his 1985 debut album, I Have A Pony. Given his quiet, contemplative style, it shouldn't come as any surprise that it's taken 22 years for him to get around to releasing a sequel, but 2007 has finally brought us the long-awaited I Still Have A Pony, on Comedy Central Records. It's not like Wright's been just chilling out since '85, though...well, not entirely, anyway. Bullz-Eye had a chance to speak with him recently, and we asked him about his stand-up career, his famous film roles (I think we can all agree that the Academy really dropped the ball by not awarding him Best Supporting Actor for his role as Guy on the Couch in "Half Baked"), and, most importantly, if he ever gets tired of people asking him if he's stoned.
Steven Wright: Hello?
Bullz-Eye: Hi, may I speak to Steven?
SW: How are ya?
BE: I'm pretty good.
BE: Virginia. Chesapeake, Virginia.
SW: Oh. (Pauses) Is this for a website?
BE: Oh, yeah, sorry: it's for Bullz-Eye.com.
SW: Oh, good.
- more -
BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the JOURNAL. Barack Obama's pastor was in the news again this week. North Carolina Republicans are preparing to run an ad tying Obama to some controversial sound bites lifted from Reverend Jeremiah Wright's sermons. And CBS and MSNBC led their broadcasts with reports about the ad.
DEAN REYNOLDS: In North Carolina the Republicans put their ad on the internet and say they're going to broadcast it as well.
KEITH OLBERMANN: Republican hit job the North Carolina GOP plans a Willie Horton style TV ad against Obama.
BILL MOYERS: Jeremiah Wright will be in Washington Monday for a news conference at the National Press Club -- his first since the controversy erupted over those incendiary sound bites. You've heard them; who hasn't heard them: Wright suggesting the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were payback for American policy; Wright repeating the canard heard often in black communities that the u.s. government spread HIV in those communities; Wright seemingly calling on God to damn America.
But just who is this man? That's the question I asked when those sound bites began popping up. I'd heard the name Jeremiah Wright -- his church in Chicago belongs to the fellowship of the United Church of Christ. I joined a UCC church on Long Island 40 years ago and attend Riverside Church in New York City, which is affiliated with American Baptists and the UCC. But I couldn't remember ever having met Reverend Wright. So I wanted to know more about the man, the ministry, and the church.
BILL MOYERS: In 1972, Jeremiah Wright became pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. He inherited a struggling congregation of just 9887 members.
REVEREND WRIGHT: I have a friend who every time you greet him, every time you ask him how you doing, he answers, just trying to make it man, just trying to make it.
BILL MOYERS: But by the mid 1980s, when PBS' Frontline shot this film about Wright, he'd grown the congregation to several thousand.
- more -
One of the great things about open source is that you know the software you’re using is made by real people, who understand real needs. In financial software, we see a great application of this “real people” effect, offering high levels of customization and ease of use. In this software collection, you’ll find tools that were made with you in mind, and are often completely free to boot.
Finance Managers
With these finance management packages, you can stay on top of all of your accounts in one convenient place.
- My Money: Use this financial software that works with online bank statements to stay on top of your accounts.
- PyCheckbook: This simple finance manager offers easy to use checkbook registering.
- jGnash: JGnash offers a lot of the same features as commercial finance management software, such as reports, account reconciliation, and transaction entry, but in a free, open source format.
- NetWorth: This program offers functions similar to MS Money, with a checkbook register, bill scheduling, forecasting, and more.
- Chump Change: Manage your personal finances with this budget-oriented tool.
- KMyMoney: This manager is very reminiscent of Quicken, with a similar user interface and exporting.
- GPF: Get reports, data, and more from this personal finance manager.
- Money Manager Ex: With this personal finance manager, you can track your income, net worth, and more.
- GnuCash: This popular financial accounting software is great for personal and small business finance management.
- RQ Money: Use this household finance manager for reports, data, and more.
Liberal Men ... The Forbidden Fruit?
Despite the fact that it's politically incorrect, the lure of the liberal lives on. Hey, girl.
Yeah, you. Right over there. How YOU doin? It’s okay, you can come closer. I know I’m a liberal and all, but I won’t bite… unless you think it’s naughty to bite. Because it turns out I’m one of the bad boys your mama/pastor/delusional right-wing website warned you about, and I just wanted to draw you in close so I could force-feed you drugs, materialism, and an aversion to handguns. Confused? Well, just sit here on my lap, girl, and let me show you what I’m talking about.
Thanks to Jill, I now know just how wild and wicked I really am. The interview on dating she found with 6 rockin’ conservative chicks has taught me a lot about myself and just want makes me so damn cool. Turns out it’s all about liberalism, baby.
Take Sharon Soon’s story when asked if she’s ever dated liberal men:
I have always had a policy of not dating liberals, but once, after a bad break-up, I dated a couple of liberal guys…
Yeah, baby! We’re that sinister rebound guy lurking in the corner, and you know that totally ups our hotness factor. You need a break from those stuffy conservatives, you come see us for a dose of Teh Fun. She continues:
First of all, they don’t have the same values and I find that to be a fundamental problem. I know a lot of people are willing to accept that, but I’m not. Their whole world view is different from someone who has conservative values and traditional values as a way of life.
Being focused on yourself, and your rights, and materialism, and no ultimate sense of morality — because I guess when you believe in a more secular way of life, a more liberal viewpoint, it’s all about what you can do for yourself and how you can be happy…and you don’t have any belief in absolute truth or religious principles to guide how you live. You get guys who are selfish and into themselves and don’t care so much about humanity, other people, or me — that just leads to a lot of problems.
What can I say, she’s got us all figured out.
- more -
So rotund sex tourist Rush Limbaugh, in his ongoing effort to make the Democratic nomination process as bloody as possible, has stated what one of his goals is for his "Operation Chaos," involving people (the zomboid "Dittoheads" listening to him) registering as Democrats or voting in open primaries in order to sow internecine warfare in the Democratic party. That goal is to so infect the process that there are riots at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. And, no, that's not an exaggeration or taking this fat fuck out of context. Here he is on Wednesday on his show (quoted extensively before it goes up behind his wallet-sucking wall):
"This is about chaos. This is why it's called Operation Chaos! It's not called Operation Save Hillary. It's not called Operation Nominate Obama. It's called Operation Chaos! The dream end... I mean, if people say what's your exit strategy, the dream end of this is that this keeps up to the convention and that we have a replay of Chicago 1968, with burning cars, protests, fires, literal riots, and all of that. That's the objective here."
A bit later, talking to a caller, Limbaugh confirms this, comparing Republican behavior to Democratic behavior:
"We don't burn our cars. We don't burn down our houses. We don't kill our children. We don't do half the things the American left does. We need the American left -- and this is another great thing about Operation Chaos; nothing to do with my ego. We need as many ignorant Americans to wake up and find out exactly who the modern-day Democrat Party is as dominated by the far left in this country. We need that to be seen. Now, I am not inspiring or inciting riots. I'm dreaming. (singing to the tune of 'White Christmas') 'I'm dreaming of riots in Denver.' Remember 1968? And which party did that? It was the radicals in that party, the anti-war radicals, the same bunch of clowns that are running around defining the Democrat Party today."
Limbaugh claims that Al Sharpton and Democratic Party "members" have already said "'There will be riots' or something to that effect."
Now, it's pathetically useless to argue facts with Limbaugh and his hordes of over-carbed, Bush-beaten-down, scapegoat-huntin' listeners. You could point out that it was a bunch of white Republicans who more or less rioted in 2000 in Broward County, Florida and shut down the recount there. You could point out that what Al Sharpton actually said was that if the superdelegates overturn the will of the majority of voters and pledged delegates, there could be "demonstrating" at the convention. Of course, Limbaugh says that "demonstrating" is just code for "riot." Perhaps he thinks that it's some kind of hip-hop lingo to the porcine pundit. (Actual Limbaugh quote: "Okay, what does demonstrating mean? The Reverend Sharpton is the one who put this notion out there.")
- more -
Some folks celebrate their last home mortgage payment by setting fire to their loan agreement. Lately, people be hind on their mortgages are setting fire to their homes.
In what appears to the latest symptom of the U.S. mortgage meltdown and credit crisis, insurers, law enforcement and state agencies nationwide have reported a jump in home and automobile fires in the past year set by owners unable to pay their debts. The numbers are small, but they're leading the insurance industry to scrutinize more closely what seem to be routine blazes.
"We've seen a dramatic increase in this kind of fraud," said Dan Bales, director of fraud investigations at Mercury Insurance. "People upside down on their house with variable interest-rate loans, or upside down on their cars, are pretty quick to burn their property right now."
Three weeks ago, police arrested a woman in Easley, S.C., and accused her of deliberately setting fire to her home just three days after the bank hung a foreclosure notice on her door. In January, an Omaha, Neb., man was charged with arranging to have his three-bedroom house burned down to avoid losing it to the bank.
- more -
In May 2007, WorldNetDaily's book division published WND founder and editor Joseph Farah's book "Stop the Presses!" described in subtitle as "The Inside Story of the New Media Revolution." It purports to describe, according the the dust jacket copy, "how Farah created one of America's most important news organizations, and provides a first-hand account of his interaction with other key figures, including Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge. ... Farah leaves no stone unturned in examining the media revolution and predicting what comes next."
In reality, though, the book is largely a hagiography of Farah's career in journalism, puffing up his importance as a leader of the "new media," downplaying his failures, and repeating numerous misleading or outright false claims along the way. Even more surprisingly, the overall tone of the book is how Farah hides behind his Christian beliefs -- of the reconstructionist/dominionist bent, as ConWebWatch has previously noted -- to justify bad journalism.
Farah's hagiography starts with the very first chapter, in which he recounts his time as editor of the Sacramento Union. He declared:
You want to know what was different about the Sacramento Union than any daily newspaper you've ever read? That was it. It was edited, from the top, by a Christian executive who wasn't ashamed or bashful or timid about using his Christian worldview and his Christian convictions as the guideposts for doing his job as a newspaperman.
Which is a convoluted way of saying that he infused the paper with a heavy conservative bias, even heavier than it was under a previous owner, conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife -- though he's not honest enough to come out and actually say the C-word. As ConWebWatch detailed, a former employee of the Union under Farah told the Columbia Journalism Review: "If I didn't find a story the way (Farah) wanted, I was told he wouldn't give it time or space. He was telling anybody who disagreed with him that they were bad reporters." Another, Kathleen Salamon, said: "I had seen the news tampered with at even the most basic of levels to reflect the owners' and editors' religious and political biases." Salamon continued:
One of the first things Farah did was to issue memos prohibiting reporters from using the words "gay," assault rifles," and "women's health center." These were replaced by "homosexual," semi-automatic rifles," and "abortion clinics." He edited a story by one of the paper's state bureau reporters so that the National Organization for Women was defined as a "radical feminist group" and former Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., was described as having "consistently struck down all legal protections of the unborn."
A May 16, 1991, Los Angeles Times article reported that the editor of the paper's book review section quit after Farah sharply criticized her for running a favorable review of a book about Jane Fonda: "He said Jane Fonda was a traitor to our country and we shouldn't have reviewed the book." Farah responded that he objected to the review because "it was a defense of Jane Fonda and Jane Fonda's politics. It would be suicidal for this newspaper to run exclusively that kind of material over a long period of time. We've got a readership that's totally at odds with that point of view."
- more -
John McCain's spiritual adviser, John Hagee, has apparently gotten the word from on high and has now recanted his assertions that Katrina was God's curse on New Orleans because it hosted an annual gay event: "As a believing Christian, I see the hand of God in everything that happens here on earth, both the blessings and the curses. But ultimately neither I nor any other person can know the mind of God concerning Hurricane Katrina. I should not have suggested otherwise. No matter what the cause of the storm, my heart goes out to all who suffered in this terrible tragedy. There but for the grace of God go any one of us."
- more -
Not so fast. If we've learned any new rule in the 2008 campaign, its this: Once our news culture sets a story in stone, chances are it will crumble. But first it must be recycled louder and louder 24/7, as if sheer repetition will transmute conventional wisdom into reality.
When the Pennsylvania returns rained down Tuesday night, the narrative became clear fast. The Democrats exit polls spelled disaster: Some 25 percent of the primary voters said they would defect to Mr. McCain or not vote at all if Barack Obama were the nominee. How could the party possibly survive this bitter, perhaps race-based civil war?
But as the doomsday alarm grew shrill, few noticed that on this same day in Pennsylvania, 27 percent of Republican primary voters didnt just tell pollsters they would defect from their partys standard-bearer; they went to the polls, gas prices be damned, to vote against Mr. McCain. Though ignored by every channel I surfed, there actually was a G.O.P. primary on Tuesday, open only to registered Republicans. And while it was superfluous in determining that partys nominee, 220,000 Pennsylvania Republicans (out of their total turnout of 807,000) were moved to cast ballots for Mike Huckabee or, more numerously, Ron Paul. Thats more voters than the margin (215,000) that separated Hillary Clinton and Mr. Obama.
- more -
When Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson released the government's blueprint for overhauling the nation's financial regulatory structure, he promised to direct more attention toward the front-line people who arrange mortgage loans.
"Simply put, that process was broken," Paulson said.
To protect consumers from predatory lending and deceptive disclosure practices, Paulson proposed the creation of a federal Mortgage Origination Commission that would establish minimum standards for loan officers. It would also evaluate, rate and report on each state's efforts to license and regulate these mortgage salespeople.
Sounds impressive, doesn't it?
But based on my investigation of one mortgage operation, which has continued to arrange loans despite state sanctions, what's needed is more criminal prosecution, not another commission with little power. After all, we're talking about loan officers responsible for explaining mortgage products, some of which have complicated terms and high fees, the types of products that have led this nation into its current economic mudslide.
- more -
Outmaneuvered by raucous Ron Paul supporters, Nevada Republican Party leaders abruptly shut down their state convention and now must resume the event to complete a list of 31 delegates to the GOP national convention.
Outnumbered supporters of expected Republican presidential nominee John McCain faced off Saturday against well-organized Paul supporters. A large share of the more than 1,300 state convention delegates enabled Paul supporters to get a rule change positioning them for more national convention delegate slots than expected.
"I've seen factions walk out. I've never seen a party walk out," said Jeff Greenspan, regional coordinator for the Paul campaign.
- more -
Wow. At first glance, that's all I can say about the comments from Pastor Hayes Wicker of Naples, Florida. Here's what he said at an anti-gay event last week:
This is a tremendous social crisis, greater even than the issue of slavery.
Wow.
For those who don't know, fundamentalist right-wingers in Florida are attempting to pass a constitutional amendment in Florida this year that would ban gay marriage in the Sunshine State. The same gay marriage that is already illegal under four separate parts of state law. And this amendment wouldn't just ban gay marriage, it would also prevent civil unions, cities and corporations from offering benefits to gay couples and anyone from giving benefits to unmarried straight couples. But let's leave aside the practical implications of the proposed gay marriage ban in question, I've talked about that in the past and I'll come back to it over and over again throughout the year, let's look at the hate ingrained in this particular phrase.
This is a tremendous social crisis, greater even than the issue of slavery.
Keep in mind, this isn't about banning gay marriage. Gay marriage is already banned in Florida under four different laws. What this nutjob is actually saying is that the fact that they haven't yet enshrined hatred in the Florida Constitution, despite not one single legal gay marriage ever taking place in Florida, is not only a "tremendous social crisis," but one greater than slavery. That shows an astounding amount of hatred not only for gay people, but for African Americans as well.
- more -
Three people were killed Sunday in the brazen assault, ruining what was supposed to have been a proud moment for Afghan security forces. The ability of the attackers to get so close to Mr. Karzai, who escaped unhurt, suggested they had inside help.
The dead included a tribal chief and a member of Parliament who were in the reviewing stands near Mr. Karzai, and a 10-year-old boy caught in the cross-fire as militants and security forces aimed at each other, officials said. Eleven people were wounded, among them army officers, police officers and civilians, hospital officials said. Several suspects were arrested later.
The attack sent officials and foreign diplomats scrambling for cover in the stands and hundreds of soldiers running off the parade ground in disarray. Mr. Karzai was whisked out the back exit, and the ceremony was abandoned after Afghan security forces had spent weeks preparing and rehearsing.
- more -
Prince performs during his headlining set on the second day of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif., Saturday, April 26, 2008.
Posts
