Jim

I hear ya and agree. But I think regulating it as a futures market would have taken off the edge

Great show on Frontline last night. Another indictment of Greenspans hands off policy, via Ayn Rand. What a friggin moron - he's quoted as saying that he doesn't think it's necessary to even have regulations aganist fraud because the market will take care of it! Brooksley Born gets beat up and shut by by the financial wizards when she tries to regulate the black box of derivatives. Later, after the tumble - Greenspan admits he was wrong and that markets need regulation - Thanks! Unfortunately a couple of these Masters of the Universe - Summers and Geitgner - are in the current adminstration. How can these guys be so wrong and have any credence? "We didn't truly know the dangers of the market, because it was a dark market," says Brooksley Born, the head of an obscure federal regulatory agency -- the Commodity Futures Trading Commission [CFTC] -- who not only warned of the potential for economic meltdown in the late 1990s, but also tried to convince the country's key economic powerbrokers to take actions that could have helped avert the crisis. "They were totally opposed to it," Born says. "That puzzled me. What was it that was in this market that had to be hidden?"

where was that taken? Forbidden WR?

In the book The Shipping News Quoyle's boss is trying to explain the news business to him out on the warf. "Now look at those black clouds on the horizon - what headline can you imagine?". Quoyle stares blankly. His boss continues "Dangerous Storm Threatens Life and Limb". -- "But what if the storm never makes landfall?" asks Quoyle. "DISASTER AVERTED"

“The Nobel gang just suicide-bombed themselves. Gore, Carter, Obama, soon Bill Clinton. See a pattern here? They are all leftist sell-outs. George Bush liberates 50 million Muslims in Iraq, Reagan liberates hundreds of millions of Europeans and saves parts of Latin America. Any awards?” Limbaugh says “Obama gives speeches trashing his own country and for that gets a prize, which is now worth as much as whatever prizes they are putting in Cracker Jacks these days.” “This fully exposes the illusion that is Barack Obama. It is a greater embarrassment than losing the Olympics bid. And with this "award" the elites of the world are urging Obama, THE MAN OF PEACE, to not do the surge in Afghanistan, not take action against Iran and its nuclear program and to basically continue his intentions to emasculate the United States. They love a weakened, neutered U.S. and this is their way of promoting that concept. I think God has a great sense of humor, too.” ----Whoa there Rush, don't pop a vein.

You just preempted the next 18 posts!

There are likely a dozen other worthy candidates, but I think here in the US we underestimate the breath of fresh air felt by he rest of the world after moving form the tiny minds of the last admistration. The right has turned into a continual mantra of negativity. Naive, maybe a bit - but Obama and his efforts are a inspiration to many folks, and given that, I'll choose optimism and inspiration over the basement level cynicism offered by the right. I'm parapharasing Chompsky but - You can choose to be cynical and do nothing or you can do your part to make the world a better place. The choice is up to you.

Oh yea. There's a non-controversial pick !

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Barack Obama will donate the roughly $1.4 million award from his 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to charity, a White House spokesman said Friday. ----Any competent, thinking person would have been a change worthy of note given the previous Idiot who went through world diplomacy like a deaf, dumb, and blind bull in a china shop. Hey, who was the last right-wing nutjob who won this prize?

Don't you outgrow twitter by what, 13?

Good job guys! It's getting cold up there at night. Our unplanned bivy was in the summer!

.....about 10 minutes after the "incident".

How about bought and paid for as an excuse: Among the 61 recipients of these joint contributions are 11 senators who sit on the 23-member Senate Finance Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.). Baucus ranked as the third highest recipients of such contributions, accepting about $201,000 from 109 lobbyists representing 11 health-related organizations, plus an additional $252,750 from the lobbying clients' employees or PACs. Four other Democratic senators on the Finance committee also received such contributions: Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Deborah Stabenow (D-Mich.). These lawmakers combined received roughly one-sixth of Baucus' haul -- averaging about $19,800 in contributions per person from these clients and their external lobbyists during the two-and-a-half year period studied. On the other side of the aisle, 60 percent of the Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee were found to have accepted campaign contributions from these major health-related organizations and their outside lobbyists. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) received the most in such contributions, with $130,620 from these lobbyists and their clients, followed by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who received $78,450. Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) round out the list of GOP recipients.

So true. What's the saying? I don't belong to any organized political group - I'm a Democrat.

Yea, I don't understand why the adults can't fix things in 8 months when it took them 8 years of sophomoric (soph-moronic?)fiscal policy to screw up things so badly! Jeesh.

It's going to be sluggy for a while, especially with the other shoe about to drop on the remainder of write-offs of toxic assests coming. I was watching the Ken Burns park segment the other night that highlighted the WPA. I've been thinking for years that this is what the parks need. There's a skill base of folks in timber towns that know how to work in the forest - roads, trails, facilities - and the parks and forests have a huge backlog of work. In addition, the lagging maintenance of infrastructure in the US could use help as well. Friggin' A, getting tired of watching billions flushed down the Pentagon rathole when we could be spending those funds much more productively than the latest weapons system. And the politics are going to get a bit grim - likely more stimulus will be needed (pls, not another cash for clunkers) but there will be no political will and the talking heads and right wing turds will be screaming socialism all the way. Thanks - guess who got us in this money pit.

independent/public media are a "gaggle of leftists"? why do you keep thinking your rhetorical fallacies will go unnoticed? hmm, nope. You'll find that an informed public being essential to democracy is a widely shared concept and definitely not an obsolete, moth-eaten vision despite your irrational hatred of what the 60's brought to western democracies. For all your attempts at appearing as a tolerant, freedom loving type, the vision that emerges from your rhetoric is very bleak. I'm not the one histrionically lamenting the inadequacy of the American public's media preferences here, kemosabe. Listening to you expound on the significance of TV in the internet age is like reading an anarchist manifesto concerning the political implications of the phonograph in the radio age. "Step 1: Seize the phonograph factory and distribute wax cylinders bearing the manifesto to...." The vision that you've been articulating is neither necessary nor sufficient for an informed public. Most of the items passing for news on the itnernet is opinion, talking heads, blogs reguritating wire service stories, and "analysis". There is very little investigative journalism that orginates from these sources. Rather that is still the domain of newspapers, NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, etc.; and some broadcast news - 60 minutes comes to mind. While the information is now more widely dispersed via the internet - it's pulling content from the traditional news sources. And more variations on the same content, rehashed over and over, is not adding any information but spin. Maybe this will change as the medium matures - but my guess is that we'll just get more dancing midgets on things like youtube and an endless succession of 15-minute-moments that continue to find a vast audience of dolts.

Socialist land grabbers promoted by socialist media: http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/

And you advocate the same thing, but have a different message (that few care to listen to). Bugger off. indeed - and who the hell gets their tv through the public airwaves these days anyhow? Hey - I resemble that remark! The only benefit of the converter box is that channel that shows the bicycle races. The downside - 6 Christian channels and limited reception when it's windy.

I agree - I'm not advocating the biggest-wallet-wins, which is the current situation. And when a substantial portion of the population believes in creation vs. evolution, they might vote in the need for more of Oprah and Montel. The alternate is having the government decide what is good for the massess, but I'm open to suggestions.

While I don't like the current situation, limiting the public square to those the majority prefers is not what the first amendment is about either.

Because the media have no respect for rape victims, and because Polanski ran away from justice he gets to get off scott-free for being rapist scum. Don't see how you read that into it.

Once an aspiring actress, Geimer has said she long ago got over what Polanski did to her. She sued him, and a settlement was reached out of court. But the media, prosecutors and the courts in Los Angeles, California, continue to torment her, she has said. Watch what Geimer said in a HBO documentary » Every time the case resurfaces her wounds reopen. She most recently spoke in January, as attempts to resolve the case once again failed. She filed court papers asking a Los Angeles judge to dismiss the charges against the Oscar-winning director. Negotiations ended when the judge insisted that Polanski come to court for a hearing. Prosecutors said he would be subject to arrest on the fugitive warrant the minute he stepped off the plane. He stayed away. Watch how Polanski might face extradition » "Every time this case is brought to the attention of the court, great focus is made of me, my family, my mother and others," Geimer wrote in her affidavit to the court. "That attention is not pleasant to experience and is not worth maintaining over some irrelevant legal nicety, the continuation of the case."

The counterpoint would be the book "Manufacturing Consent" by Chomsky and Herman. I agree that trying to decide who's speech is in the public interest is a slippery slope and one that should be avoided. But corporations have enourmous power in getting out their message these days. I would at least prefer that they pay market rates for the use of the public airways while trying to convince us we're dorks unless we purchase the latest trinket du jour. And I prefer the former practice of requiring stations to provide limited air time to community groups or individuals rather than the current facade of public service by making appereances at the last walk for the (fill in the blank for terminal illness of choice).