CBC Censorship

Why should CBC publish a story for all to see, then, in its sole opinion, decide to prevent comment? Are we not capable? Are we not smart enough? Either don't publish, or open all stories for comment. No more censoring public opinion.

Palin wants Obama to keep working, no vacation.

I can understand that. Palin and like thinking Republicans need Obama to keep working. Good news, he is. To produce, small people need to be in their office, Obama is the office.

S&P Preemptive Strike

Did S&P downgrade U.S. debt rating because it knew it was a target of investigation?

Wall Street Turds

The similarity in these two word is rather telling, don't you think, in that they both rather neatly describe what Wall Street bankers have done to us.

Usage: Wall Street bankers have defalcated with the country's money, and become filthy rich while defecating on we, the people. 

defalcate: To misuse funds; to embezzle. 

defecate:

 to void excrement from the bowels through the anus; have a bowel movement

Thanks to Dictionary.com for the definitions.

Investment Bank Collusion?

Will investment banks collude to drive up the cost of U.S. government debt? Why might they do that? 1. To improve returns for their clients. 2. To bet against lower rates. Remember, when they foresaw collapse of mortgage markets, they bet against their clients, and remember too, that investment banks caused a large part of our current sad state of affairs. None are in jail. All are rich beyond rich.

Buy a Vowel.

If investment banks were able to pay ratings agencies for Triple A ratings on mountains of garbage euphemistically called Collateralized Debt Obligations, surely the United States Government can purchase a Triple A rating for its debt obligations. 

U.S. Credit Rating

Can't the government simply pay the ratings services for a triple A rating, the same way that the investment banks paid for a triple A rating on their mortgage securities?

Coincidence?

Congress and constipation start with the same three letters. Coincidence? I think not.

Breaking News!

Washington Breaks Wind.

Really Bad Joke: John Edwards for President?

Now that he's officially a lying scuzzball, did we dodge a bullet, or what? How many firsts did we avoid? First unwed mother? First bastard child, although I hardly think it fair to call the child the bastard. What would he have done to his love child had he been elected? Remember the movie: Absolute Power? Scary, isn't it? He lied to us, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, not politician lies, but real people-to-people lies. He should be banned from ever holding public office at any level ever again.

World Population Density

According to Delanceyplace.com, six hundred years ago, somewhere around 1400, the population of the earth was 350 million, or slightly more than the current population of the United States. Most lived on just 4.25 million square miles, or barely 7 percent of the  earth's dry land, that portion being the most suitable for agriculture. Those densely populated regions of earth corresponded to just fifteen highly developed civilizations, the most notable being (from east to west) Japan, Korea, China, Indonesia, Indonesia, Indochina, the Islamic West Asia, Europe, Aztec, and Inca.Today, 70 percent of the world's six billion people live on those same 4.25 million square miles.

According to my calculations, that results in 82 people per square mile in 1400 and 988  people per square mile today. By comparison, today New York City has about 400 people per square mile. In 1400, my guess is New York City (though it hadn't yet been so named) had about 40 (probably of the Lenape persuasion) people per square mile, and who knows how many when the Europeans started poking around with some vigor two hundred years later.

Question for today.

Who owns your vote?

Quote of the Week

Hell is war. W. Allan McLeod, March 2005

News Item 05/18/07 – The White House and a bipartisan group of Senators reached a deal on immigration reform...

...part of which involves a 700 mile fence along the Mexico – United States border. So now we have George W. Bush, 43^rd President of the United States as much as saying Mr. Chertoff, build that fence, almost ten years to the day, on 06/12/87, when Ronald W. Regan, 40^th President of the United States admonished those pesky Communists by saying, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Ironic, ain't it?

News Item 05/17/07 – With Whitehouse support (and that’s surprising because?) Wolfowitz wants to negotiate the terms of World Bank misconduct!

Wolfowitz wants to negotiate the terms of his World Bank misconduct (like I’ll quit if you give me a big severance package and say I’m a really good guy and didn’t do anything wrong—I mean who does he think he is, a CEO of an American company?).

Let’s see. He was one of the leading proponents of going to war in Iraq. Now he’s further besmirched the world’s view of all things American by skirting ethics rules of the World Bank by giving his girlfriend a raise in pay and a promotion and generally bullying his way around amongst his peers. What’s next? Surely a Presidential Medal of Freedom—at least that’s what Bush seems to do when his aides royally screw up. Remember Bremer and Tenet? And can a professorship at a leading Republican university be far behind? Wolfowitz is surely the type of person we need at the helm of an institution of higher learning, even a notorious neo-con one. Say, do you suppose if he converts to Christianity, he can fill in for dearly departed Jerry at that misnomer known as Liberty University. Allan McLeod, May 2007– posted Extra Wry 5-17-07

News Item 05/16/07 – Bush Appoints WAR CZAR.

Wouldn’t we be better off with a PEACE CZAR? Allan McLeod, May 2007

News Item 05/15/07 – Jerry Falwell dies.

God’s going to catch hell now. Allan McLeod, May 2007– posted Extra Wry 5-15-07

Quote of the Week

I am but a minor player in a field dominated by mediocrity. Allan McLeod, Apr 2007

Quote of the Week

Until we squish them underfoot, faceless theomaniacs like cockroaches will scurry from the cracks and shadows of anonymity to gobble up democratic freedoms tossed aside by feckless leaders. Allan McLeod, Mar5, 2007

State Farm Isn’t There Mississippi, that is. The insurance company, the state’s largest, will stop writing home-owner policies there because of post-Katrina claim problems, including a ‘flood’ of settlement lawsuits. Yet another legal tussle looms for State Farm as Mississippi’s Attorney General gears up to force the insurer to continue writing policies. Note to homeowners: KNOW YOUR COVERAGE.

363 Tons of Cash! That’s right, CASH, $12 billion, bundled up by the Federal Reserve Bank in New York and loaded on pallets and flown to Baghdad where L. Paul Bremer III commenced to throw it around like a drunken sailor on shore leave ostensibly to kick-start a broken economy. (Gee, I wonder who broke it.) Meanwhile, Louisiana and other Gulf States (our gulf, not the Mid-East’s), particularly the beloved Big Easy, haven’t found it easy to get FEMA and other government assistance to kick-start its broken economy. Naturally the politicians - federal, state, and local - are throwing around blame like politicians throw around blame when what they should be doing is lobbying for a big cash swashbuckler like L. Paul Bremer III.

A Pear of Pears PEAR, the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory has, since 1979, being trying to prove that thoughts can alter the course of events. Well, this week it finally succeeded; it got shut down due to lack of funding (it spent $10 million over twenty-five years, money largely provided by private donors, some of them crackpots with money, others leading industrialists) and broad skepticism that seemed as much as anything to be the dagger through its ESP heart. Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne, the movers and shakers since PEAR’s inccption, and founding members of the highly secretive PEAR Society (ooooooooh) are packing everything away and leaving their years of research to a fresh batch of paranormalists whose identities and expected time of emergence are known, I’m certain, only to them.

Putin Put In His Two Cents Remember the good old days when all we had to do was hide under our desks and blame the Russians for everything. Well, now it’s the Russian kids turn. This week, Vladimir V. Putin, Steely VV to those who know him well, accused the US of provoking a new nuclear arms race by developing ballistic missile defenses geez, haven’t the Russians got any yet), undermining international institutions (would that be the USSR) and making the Middle Ease more unstable through its clumsy handling of the Iraq war. OK, we’ll give you the last one but come on, Vlad, haven’t we got enough problems without this type of piling on?

Hale Yale Tale No, not the former Taliban diplomat attending Yale, not the Yale a capella Baker’s Dozen getting gay-slurred in San Francisco, but two students using showers for other than their intended purpose rendering bathrooms unusable for ninety minutes. Conservative Elis, pointing the penis at the moral vacuum created by Yale intellectuals, are screaming for a tableau of basic guidelines for proper and decent behavior. Hey, unless they were taking a dump, I say leave the sanctity of shower sex, hetero, homo, or multi, alone.

Score Card – Progress Iraq Non-binding Congressional resolution to not support the President’s Iraqi troop surge. The Senate votes tomorrow amid bluster and talk of filibustering. Meanwhile, Bush marches on with his head firmly stuck in the sands of fantasy land. BRING OUR TROOPS HOME. CONTINUING THIS WAR IS THE DISASTER.

Truth lasts but a moment…lies, forever. . Allan McLeod, Oct 2006

That’s all for this week, my friends