For some reason I thought the pig read something about unions when I first saw it...

kcoop you suck rock!!!!!!

You seem to be implying that government intervention unexpectedly causes distortions and doesn't really change anything.

Well the huge wave of layoffs hit lucasarts today!

headlines from today:

STOCKS SOAR IN SEPTEMBER OPEN...
Auto sales: Worst August since 1983...

things are so good i just wanna shit

I'm sure the down bankruptcy number was because August is vacation month, even for the destitute.

i can't do strikethrough. but, people... it's strikethrough. we haven't witnessed the invention of cold fusion here.

RockyR wrote:

i can't do strikethrough. but, people... it's strikethrough. we haven't witnessed the invention of cold fusion here.

<strike>strike</strike>

MLM wrote:

∋-

What do call a with one ?

A vegitarian. ∋-

What do call a with ∋-? A rancher!

RockyR wrote:

i can't do strikethrough. but, people... it's strikethrough. we haven't witnessed the invention of cold fusion here.

If I couldn't do it, I'd probably surely say the same thing....

MLM wrote:

The possibilities really seem endless...

Nice one, MLM!

Oh, I see the slash tells it to stop striking.

Poor choice of headlines over at Yahoo

* Police kill gunman who held 3 at Discovery Channel- AP

A man who railed against the Discovery Channel's environmental programming for years burst into the company's headquarters with at least one explosive device strapped to his body Wednesday and took three people hostage at gunpoint before police shot him to death, officials said.

* Markets start September with a bang; Dow up 255- AP

See, the thing is I have to be told one very small thing at a time. I've tried to read a page or 2, but my eyeballs roll up in my head.

lawyerliz wrote:

Not just what the initials stand for.

Took My Lefse?

HTML=Hate My Life (i own SRS!)

LawyerLiz , I was down in your area last week(kinda...). My buddy inherited a house on Sanibel Island years ago. I have been tracking the # of houses for sale on his 40 house street since November, 2008. With the exception of my buddy's "tear down", houses on that block are priced from about 1.8 to 4 million dollars. For the past two years, I've counted for sale signs about every three months . The number of houses and lots for sale have fluctuated between 7 and 10, with 7 for sale signs counted last week. But during the entire two year period, only one closing was reported in the real estate section in the Fort Myers NewsPress (that one closed around Christmas, 2008.) These are mostly vacation homes of the rich obviously, and they are not selling.

I meant to post this last night when CR was discussing housing inventories.

snip...never mind

lawyerliz wrote:

Not just what the initials stand for.

Hyper text mark-up language. It is a method for displaying more complex textual information by using a plain text, flat file format. Kind of like when you viewed the old Word Perfect files using the "show hidden tags" view. with [b] for bold or [u] for underline [i] for italics, etc.

If you really want to see what it looks like crtl-U to see HCN's source HTML.

Helluva a hatchet job. Luckily she's making FU money and knew the consequences when she chose this path.
Sarah Palin the Sound and the Fury | Politics | Vanity Fair

I never understood the show hidden tags thing. I click on b for bold on the tool bar.

I clicked on the wrong thing once and all this mystery stuff appeared. Hub I wailed and he fixed it and it went away.

What are tags?

And I missed all that evolution.

Which is not to say it didn't happen.

glimmerman wrote:

his will really stick in your craw, then...
Food Stamps Create Jobs… in India - ABC News

we deserve whatever pain is dealt to us. what a crock.

lawyerliz wrote:

What are tags?

You just used one.

a code, surrounded by angle brackets ( < and > ), to define a format change, or hypertext link

So they are the words inside the brackets that cause bold or whatever to happen?

A format change is bold to non bold I gather?

It's amazing to me that (virtually) nobody is upset that the government is subcontracting things it should be doing itself, assuming we actually give a rats a$$ about jobs in this country. I'm becoming more and more convinced that only the unemployed care about keeping jobs in the country. And probably half of them or more watch Glenn Beck and think he's on their side.

lawyerliz wrote:

So they are the words inside the brackets that cause bold or whatever to happen?

Yes just like the interpreter KCoop uses to limit pure HTML, < b > for bold < strike > etc. Otherwise you'd get s and spammers pasting images and ads into the comments.

aClem wrote:

I'm becoming more and more convinced that only the unemployed care about keeping jobs in the country. And probably half of them or more watch Glenn Beck and think he's on their side.

We all have millions in assets and income properties, and/or own large businesses, so work is rather irrelevant. Well, okay, we don't, but the people who make, influence and determine policy decisions do.

RE wrote:

The following tables list the Open XML file formats and their extensions that are used by Microsoft Word 2010, Microsoft Excel 2010, and Microsoft PowerPoint 2010. For a list of all file formats and extensions that are supported by Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

Only the ones they've disclosed. There is quite a bit of suspicion that there are tags and hooks that allow Word, Excell, and PP to inter-operate a bit more efficiently than any competitor's product will.

Nothing will happen to house values until bk (or other) cramdowns are allowed.

Nothing will happen to jobs and how much employees are paid until we do a Smoot Hawley.

In other words nothing will happen until things get more awfuller than they are now. And that's pretty damned awful.

lawyerliz wrote:

In other words nothing will happen until things get more awfuller than they are now. And that's pretty damned awful.

Except the stock market will go up

You know, people like me don't have the faintest idea what you said.

And people not like me already know whatever it was you said.

All I got was things got complicated-er.

I don't know what an object is in the context. I don't know what a back end server is. I barely understand what a browser is.

Blackhalo wrote:

Only the ones they've disclosed. There is quite a bit of suspicion that there are tags and hooks that allow Word, Excell, and PP to inter-operate a bit more efficiently than any competitor's product will.

I haven't played in that arena in the last ten years so I don't know the details. Might very well be the case as they did the same thing with the Windows API. However, I believe that was one of the things they were slapped around on during the DOJ lawsuit.

seriously? why should i give a shit the direction this country takes when the people who are supposedly running it CLEARLY do not?

we need new leadership... at ALL levels of our society.

That's funny! sad.

lawyerliz wrote:

I barely understand what a browser is.

Don't worry, you know all you need to know to use the web effectively.

Mr Slippery wrote:

Don't worry, you know all you need to know to use the web effectively.

Assuming she is not still on AOL dial-up...

It amazes me that self-styled patriots use 'protectionism' as if it were equal to 'pedophilia.' How can you love your country and hate (so many of) it's people? I guess I can ask Beck or O'Reilly.

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

sneak into her lover's home by sliding down the chimney.

Rajesh wrote:

Whatever happened to knocking on the front door?

or breaking a small window and letting yourself in?

Is everybody else getting the bankruptcy attorney ad at the bottom of HCN?

Nope, mine is for AARP.

Must have data-mined the old lawyer thing.

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

Woman dies stuck in lover's chimney after she tried to break into home | Mail Online

She died of complications from the flue.

lawyerliz wrote:

Must have data-mined the old lawyer thing.

I'm not going to keep it for ever, but for now even without a weird old tip I have a flat belly.

What a horrible way to go.

aClem wrote:

I'm not getting that ad... these computers know how to shift stuff around, like the magic 8 ball.

It's always ads for Precious for me... maybe I should have taken the hint a few years ago...

Lots of precious ads for me, but other stuff too.

lawyerliz wrote:

I click on the big E.

Do they have Ad-Block or No-Script for Internet Explorer? I would discourage anyone from going out on the web without them. But carry on Liz... probably not the best place to explain what a host file, white list, or black list, is.

Naughty Pavel.

I know, I am sorry. But the pun was one of the best I've read in a long time.

aClem wrote:

I'm not getting that [bankruptcy attorney] ad... these computers know how to shift stuff around, like the magic 8 ball.

Maybe Google's been reading my bank statements closer than I have.

OH! Now I know how they do it! They know I own SRS!

You may explain one of those things. If you use English words, not computer words to do so.

In the immortal words of Willy Wonka; "Strike that. reverse it."

What is IE9?
Safari 2.

Don't mind dawg, he is just playing around.
It is microsoft's next web browser version.

Liz, very little of our economy actually operates on market principles at this point (i.e., profit = good).

this is how it feels to watch this market:

YouTube - Dog loves the pool slide!

Americans and guns:

Does this photo make you feel lucky, punk?

Photographer Zed Nelson's best shot | Art and design | The Guardian

John Wayne trivia.

Who did he base his character on in the Westerns he played?

Wyatt Earp who he met when he first came to Hollywood.

Well, it hasn't SOLD for that much. Anybody can ask for anything.

"...anybody else have any idea, other than they are crazy? "

In futures trading in the past, a broker would bucket a trade. If the broker had a bid of, say, 4 for 1000 shares of stock, he wouldn't disclose it. If someone offered to sell 1000 shares of that same stock for 3 1/2, he would buy it and fill the undisclosed buy order "in his pocket" at 4 and pocket 1/2 point for himself. Doing this was, and still is illegal. I don't know if this applies to your example or not, LL .

The political system is captured by the elites and subverted by their lobbyist system. The monetary system is in the hands of private international banking syndicates. The vast majority of the wealth is in the hands of members of one or both of these classes.

These are perennial developments. It's how human societies evolve. The only difference now is that the resources are so much greater.

deleted

I heard the roar of an explosion at, I think, about 4pm today, perhaps when the gunman in Silver Spring exploded. We're about a mile from the scene.

OT: say what you may about Apple, my laptop is currently streaming a baseball game, running this web browser with multiple tabs, running several client apps (email, vpn, ftp), and transferring a 4GB file to a windows server vm running sql and iis. and it's still usable

RockyR wrote:

and transferring a 4GB file to a windows server vm running sql and iis. and it's still usable

the windows server? impressive!

All I can think of is how many hours she spent in there, still alive but trapped. I am slightly clautriphobic.

YouTube - Chim Chim Cher-ee Sing Along

aClem wrote:

What will eventually halt the human infestation of the planet will be it's own products

probably

Today was a MASSIVE GOOSE JOB.

I couldn't resist and got heavily long SPY PUTs., several strikes unhedged.

Not my style lately, but the screen looked like ceasar's palace.

aClem wrote:

On the other hand, I am NOT crazy enough to think I could change things by taking hostages at the Discovery Network.

Whew, that's a relief!

What about at CNBC?

aClem wrote:

What will eventually halt the human infestation of the planet will be it's own products: Mankind will expand until it can't anymore and a die back will occur.

It's like a grossly obese person who just continues eating. Eventually, something will happen that stops them.

But wouldn't it be better if the obese person learned to eat moderately and stay healthy? Self-management is possible. That's true for each person, and it's true for the over-numerous global human population.

People are unique and each one has value. You start thinking of people as bugs or the obese as subhuman then you are halway to the wrong place in your head.

patientrenter wrote:

But wouldn't it be better if the obese person learned to eat moderately and stay healthy? Self-management is possible.

Yeah, but we're way past that point. After die-off (or hopefully something less catastrophic, like a few decades of depression), we might have a chance at reinstating more survivable behavioral norms. I think the elites are banking on it, so to speak, for at least a few self-selected segments of humanity and whoever else manages to survive.

nova wrote:

You start thinking of people as bugs or the obese as subhuman then you are halway to the wrong place in your head.

Isn't that what social Darwinism is all about? Giving an excuse for the privileged to denigrate those less fortunate?

Well, it's good to see the UK is completely clueless regarding reining in of the banksters. Or perhaps they just didnt try hard enough.

FT.com / UK / Politics & policy - Supertax on bankers failed, says Darling

patientrenter wrote:

It's like a grossly obese person who just continues eating. Eventually, something will happen that stops them.

The grossly obese are not reproducing at replacement levels. It's those skinny poor people in hot and dirty foreign countries that are doing the mass of the birthing these days.

Reducing the planet's population means telling third world countries they're not allowed to have as many kids as they're having now.

lawyerliz wrote:

Anecdote of the day. Talking to a realtor. She was trying to help an old lady get a reverse mtg. The bank would have cleared 67k. They refused. They let someone else bid and let it go for 30k LESS than what the would have gotten from the lady. She watched the bidding on the internet.

She thinks that they made up the money from some sort of Tarp aspect, namely from us the taxpayer. anybody else have any idea, other than they are crazy? Any people who are aware of Tarp doing this.

Think loss sharing under the DIF. You know the part that lets Shelia claim taxpayers are unhurt.

ResistanceIsFeudal wrote:

visited by lady luck.

That's not luck, it's good genes! Bill Gates is not rich, because his family could afford to send him to Harvard, and he did not have to worry about starvation in the event he failed. It's because of his innate talents!

Blackhalo wrote:

That's not luck, it's good genes! Bill Gates is not rich, because his family could afford to send him to Harvard, and he did not have to worry about starvation in the event he failed. It's because of his innate talents!

The new competing mythology is that he's a better gambler than countless other gamblers all born into a giant casino you only leave in a box...

yes, hence my point, they knew they had to construct this in a way to make a few political points with the proles, and then when the news comes out waaaaaaay later, that it was a total joke, it gets buried where no one will ever know.

TPTB really have no intention to restrain TPTB.

GDD9000 wrote:

TPTB really have no intention on restraining TPTB.

FIRE enables the real economy, then FIRE exploits the real economy, then FIRE overtakes the real economy, then there is no real economy.

Reducing the planet's population means telling third world countries they're not allowed to have as many kids as they're having now.

why not just sterilize them?

Basel Too wrote:

why not just sterilize them?

we are. always part of the elite's plans. century doesn't matter.

The 'elite' like lots of people. Cheap labor to make them richer than they already are. Sterilization is usually promoted for ethnocentric reasons, not economic.

ResistanceIsFeudal wrote:

The new competing mythology is that he's a better gambler than countless other gamblers all born into a giant casino you only leave in a box...

We encourage the lottery aspect of wealth allocation. For examples, asset bubbles don't create real wealth. They merely transfer it from one party to another. For each winning seller of an overpriced asset, there is an equal and opposite first-time, or move-up, loser of a buyer. No economic value is created.

Yet we love asset bubbles, and do all we can to nourish them. We give them tax breaks, through incredibly generous tax treatment for capital gains and tax deductions for mortgage interest on the upside, and non-recourse treatment, and no-prepayment penalty refis, on the downside. We magnify them by arranging for maximum leverage through GSE supports and loose monetary policy.

We complain about asset bubbles and all their consequences. But we love them, and are utterly addicted to them.

aClem wrote:

The 'elite' like lots of people. Cheap labor to make them richer than they already are.

It is true that a rapidly growing population, especially if that growth is fed by immigration from much poorer countries, is best for the top few. For workers at the bottom and middle of the economic pyramid, a rapidly growing population creates more competition, holding wages down. For the person at the top, adding more people below them makes the pyramid bigger, and they get wealthier, since they live off the pyramid below.

ResistanceIsFeudal wrote:

... we have to assume the market has priced it all in

.....until it doesn't.

aClem,

I realize you were not promoting extermination. I was just using your comment to get on my soapbox. Anything that promotes division rather than unity amony the workers of the world is too often a wedge that the elite, or wannabee elites use to further their agendas.

Nova, I don't promote division, I am totally a rainbow kind of guy. The problem, in my eyes, isn't THEM, it is US, all of us. I like your book, btw, wish I could write that well.

Just ordered the HCN t-shirt. Was it made in China ?

But bubbles are not an increase in real wealth.

When Joe Homeowner gets a huge check at closing when he sells, he feels wealthy.

And the lenders weren't feeling any pain.

Mortgage brokers were absolutely raking it in.

Realtors were riding high, 6% commission on twice the price at no additional work.

Technically there is no real money in the vault, just a bunch of IOUs, but they don't feel that.

nova wrote:

Anything that promotes division rather than unity amony the workers of the world

Human overpopulation is probably the biggest single unmet challenge facing humanity. Just as our appetite evolved to avoid the ever-present danger of starvation, so our procreation habits evolved to outrun the constant threat of premature death. In the modern world, we have to make a conscious effort to avoid obesity. And we must eventually learn to manage our total population to a healthy, sustainable level.

What if we thought that each possible fat cell in our bodies had a right to be born and grow? What right do those smart-ass brain cells have to deprive a fat cell in our belly of the right to double in size?

Well, I am off my soapbox now. People will never agree on this issue.

....I can't believe they're actually floating the 'idea' this early. I had thought a long while back that the next logical step would be Uncle Same & China being the major landlords here in the US.........

“Redevelopment strategies” for neighborhoods with high foreclosure rates should include “lease-purchase and even converting owners to renters to avoid vacancies,” Duke said.

Fed's Duke Backs Rental Option to Reduce Foreclosures (Update1) - Bloomberg.com

(Sorry if it's been posted, this is the first time I've seen it.)

Obesity is a symptom of a sick society. Environmental damage on the scale we have committed is a crime against humanity and should be punished as one.

sporkfed wrote:

Was it made in China ?

Haiti. No, seriously... I just checked the tag.

Mine was made in El Salvador.

BSR,

If I was king the CEO of BP would have been dropped in a leaky dingy somewhere off the trade routes with a bag of salted peanuts and a Tom Clancy novel.

nova wrote:

Obesity is a symptom of a sick society. Environmental damage on the scale we have committed is a crime against humanity and should be punished as one.

Obesity is also an outmoded concept in many ways. As a heavy boned, muscular person I am according to the charts obese. With 43" chest, 33" waist, 24" thighs and 16" calves there ain't no way I'm ever gonna be anything less than overweight according to the charts.

The environmental damage is nothing. All would be undetectable a century after cessation. Heck, most are already mitigated as we learn. You don't kill children for mistakes.

Outsider wrote:

When Joe Homeowner gets a huge check at closing when he sells, he feels wealthy.

He is wealthy. Follow the money. The seller received a high price. Who ultimately paid for that? That's a wealth transfer: Someone gains, and other people lose an equal amount.

Every extra dollar received by the seller was paid by someone else. If the buyer doesn't default or get a mod, then the buyer paid the higher price. If they were making a parallel move, then they presumably sold at a higher price themselves. It's first-time buyers and move-up buyers who, in the aggregate, paid for bubble seller gains.

Who else paid for the gain made by bubble sellers? Well, if the buyer borrowed lots, and walked away, then it's the lenders who lost the money. I am not talking about the banks we call "lenders". Most of them just underwrite the loans (badly). I am talking about the real lenders, the people who provide the money at risk, by ultimately guaranteeing or buying the loans from the bankers, and holding them. That's the GSEs (i.e. taxpayers), some banks, and lots of pension funds and insurance companies, who in turn are holding savings for the benefit of real people. These are the losers in the RRE bubble. Savers holding money directly in banks are losers, too, since the Fed has pushed down rates paid to them in order to allow banks to make up for all the losses on their RRE loans.

If high inflation takes hold, inflation losses will send the bill for bubble seller gains to yet another group of people.

Black Star Ranch wrote:

“Redevelopment strategies” for neighborhoods with high foreclosure rates should include “lease-purchase and even converting owners to renters to avoid vacancies,” Duke said.

Redevelopment. Hey, this urban form failed. Let's subsidize it!

nova wrote:

This weekend I stopped for gas at a WaWa in Petersberg, VA. We filled up the tank and went it to get something to drink. The drink ordering was almost completely automated BTW. The WaWa is a popular place and I must have seen 25 people come in and out. At least 20 of them were obese. Not muscular. Fat.

I share your concern. At Disneyland on Sunday I was a top 5%er for my age/gender. Cripes, if we ever have an external threat we'll likely turn on each other before they land.

nova wrote:

Not muscular. Fat.

.....keep in mind, my youngest, an offensive guard last year in HS football, almost 6', 215 pounds, built like a brick sh**house, is too heavy for any of the armed forces - considered too obese.........he though I understand is the token exception, whereas, most of us are disgusting fat-pigs.......myself specifically. (6'+ 240#).........I'm just a social eater though. I can quit any time I want. :jetsnarkthingee:

Yeah. Well I'm no poster child for physical or mental health. I started smoking again which ranks me right up there with the obese as a loser.

yagij wrote:

nova wrote:

Not muscular. Fat.

I aspire to be able to bench press whatever my weight is. That way I should at least be strong no matter how fat I am.
.
(FD: I'm ~60% of the way there. Puzzled)

 1979. A grad student/teacher of mine was a friend and great mentor. We would rock climb. I was varsity swim team and off season we'd Nautilus together. He was maybe 5' 4" and could scratch his kneecap without bending. The apes on the football team would be grunting the big iron and he'd walk up to the same settings and do 20 reps. 2x his 160lbs was trivial. He would be considered fat by the charts.

Kauai_Kahuna wrote:

Should I pull out my old Tshirt that said "Save our Beaches, harpoon fat chicks" again?

Trust me. There are enough soldiers around at Last Call to handle that patrol for the rest of us.

prairiedog wrote:

Great to see another thread including the overpopulation problem.

What problem?

Black Star Ranch wrote:

most of us are disgusting fat-pigs.

We bear a terrible burden to pull the rest of the world up by our over-consumption. We are the fatted calf and the dinner bell has rung.

kcoop wrote:

Oh, and did I mention we still have t-shirts available?

They rock...

Could any of you fit in this car today ?
YouTube - Subaru of America First US Market Commercials

dryfly wrote:

They rock...

We earists are special.

patientrenter wrote:

SW New Mexico must be really, really remote.

It will be more remote when the Southwest Sahara comes to the US. Cities will be buried in sand, (like Pompei, in ash), to be rediscovered by the ants when they take control of the planet after human-kind proves it can self-destroy.

I know, Rob Dawg, that you don't think it's a problem. We'll agree to disagree.

Unemployment still on the rise -
Irish, Business - Independent.ie

The number of people signing on for dole payments continued to rise slightly last month, giving an unemployment rate of almost 14pc.
Official figures showed a total of 466,923 people seeking benefits - an increase of about 30,000 in the last year.

Actually, in this portion of SW New Mexico we have a really good and reliable water supply (from the Gila watershed).

dryfly wrote:

BTW - Did I mention my son & dil moved in with us and has a two year old boy?

Poor bastard. How fortunate for you and your family!

Here's another take--

YouTube - RSA Animate - The Empathic Civilisation

Seems we are hard wired for empathy.

Though in good times we are riven with phony divisions. In bad times, stress itself may awaken still other "imperatives". But remember, we are wired for empathy, and all men are brothers.

I'm convinced that no political or economic solution will "put things right".

I'm unconvinced we will muster the necessary breakthroughs in consciousness needed, only that such a breakthrough will be literally vital.

Still missing broward.

Slogan for the month: Join the American Revolution.

The American Revolution began not in state houses
but in the parlours of the landowners and tradesmen.
It spread to the streets, taverns and coffeehouses.
It was debated in the newspapers.
It simmered in resentment.
It boiled over when injustice became too great.

The American Revolution is more than independence from an Empire.
The American Revolution is more than the creation of a new country.
The American Revolution is the birth of a new way of looking at the relationship between government and the governed.
As Lincoln put it:
"government of the people, by the people and for the people"
The American Revolution is people taking ownership of government.

We need to worry less about home ownership and more about country ownership.
Join the American Revolution.

Democrats unlikely to repeal tax cuts for the rich | McClatchy

"However, a small but growing number of moderate Democrats are balking at boosting taxes on the rich"

Lordsburg north.

JBR wrote:

sporkfed wrote:

Was it made in China ?

Haiti. No, seriously... I just checked the tag.

And if it's of any interest, the yarn used to knit the shirt probably came from the US, of US cotton, thanks to the CBI.

edit:
CBI Apparel Outlook The shape of Things to Come - Interview | Bobbin | Find Articles at BNET

prairiedog wrote:

Lordsburg north.

I stopped into a town called Quemado once to do a little sightseeing - west of Pietown?.....Pretty little place......

Markets are rallying all around the world. Even NIKKI is rallying!!! How can the US and Japan both rally on the Yen? Europe up 3.5%!

One has to ask where all the money for this is coming from. Bonds held up in the US. Who is taking it the shorts. Retail - that's an outflow.

We all know where the money is coming from. Really damn scary when you think about. Is the end game nigh?

JP wrote:

I know that has to have all sorts of tough psychological issues for your son & dil, but really, it's a very nice thing.

Hell, if my son's grandfather were dryfly, I'd be teaching him to start taking notes.

prairiedog wrote:

Look at graphs of the human population curve (shaped like a backwards L); then look at the graphs of the reindeer population on some such island (don't remember). Anything population with an L-shaped curve (perhaps misnamed a curve???) does a dive shortly thereafter. Labeling it a "problem" is another issue.

Human wealth distribution is also shaped like a backwards 'L'. Is it any more sustainable?

Basel Too, don't know if you're interested in California's Three Strikes Law, but here's an interesting twist:

Man accused of fraud may get life in prison under California's three-strikes law - latimes.com

What was sold to the voters to pass the Proposition is of course nothing like what it has become in practice.

(unrelated? BTW, wasn't Countrywide doing business in California?)

I'm ready. Who do I shoot at?

I just posted a book recommendation: The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis

prairiedog wrote:

Labeling it a "problem" is another issue.

Ecology fixes itself - we just might not like the fix.

Yeah, we shouldn't be laughing at all the companies in China copying stuff. Look at how Subaru started, and where they are now.

Not to disparage the 360. That is a fantastic looking little car. I've always dreamed about owning one of the baby Abarths...

JP wrote:

I know that has to have all sorts of tough psychological issues for your son & dil, but really, it's a very nice thing.

It sucks for them - no doubt about it. But what else are we all going to do? We have always taken care of our own - its what people should do.

Some experts said the case would be one of the first times a person charged with a white-collar crime was prosecuted under the state's three-strikes law. If convicted, Barnett could face life in prison.

"I've never heard of such a case," said Stan Goldman, a Loyola Law School professor and outspoken three-strikes opponent. "This law was intended to deal with serious and violent felons and lock them up forever. If this guy's guilty, he's a pretty despicable and dangerous character. But he hasn't killed anybody."

I vaguely remember a case from Criminal Law where one of the strikes had been felony, that could have been treated as a misdemeanor. I think the crime was like stealing a chicken, or something similarly ridiculous, definitely not a "serious and violent" felony, but of course, not a white color collar crime.

thankfully, prosecutorial discretion exists to prevent these injustices. /snark

Basel Too wrote:

I think the crime was like stealing a chicken, or something similarly ridiculous, definitely not a "serious and violent" felony, but of course, not a white color [sic] crime.

The one I remember was taking a piece of pizza out of a sitting person's hand and eating it while walking down the boardwalk.

It was prosecuted as a felony and resulted in a conviction, one that was later characterized as 'serious and violent.' (Well, it was a little uncouth of the rascal.)

The prison industrial complex is one powerful entity collaboration..

So what goosed the markets today? I missed it.

dryfly wrote:

So what goosed the markets today? I missed it.

The ISM? It beat consensus by a bunch.

Edit: And sent mp back to his desk to sniff out the discrepancy between the regionals and the national.

sdtfs wrote:

The ISM? It beat consensus by a bunch.

I saw that - wasn't surprised by it one bit. Understand I think ISM & the PMI are both some of the weakest 'surveys' around - like asking people on the street if it is going to rain or not. Unless it changes something like 5% its pretty much insignificant.

dryfly wrote:

I saw that - wasn't surprised by it one bit.

The headline number looked great, but the components not so hot. Drink the and ignore the details!

greenchutes wrote:

Because the Boston Celtics lost a draft pick, we've had a system for the past 25 years where crack is an automatic term while literally 100x the amount in powder can plead out.

Yeah, I read this article earlier:

The Associated Press: Some states haven't changed coke-crack disparity

Somehow, I think more than just the memory of Len Bias is involved, but then I can be a little cynical, too.

TJ and The Bear wrote:

The headline number looked great, but the components not so hot. Drink the and ignore the details!

The whole thing is bogus - both up and down. It is a survey and not really 'solid' one bit.

Rajesh wrote:
The American Revolution began not in state houses
but in the parlours of the landowners and tradesmen.

Wrong. It began with the aristocracy of new America.

OK, the top is personal bankruptcies, this is sovereign: International Monetary Fund Warns G-7 on Debt Levels - NY Times

Despite the stark warning and the prospect that the wealthiest nations face years of belt-tightening, the fund also said that the risk of default by heavily indebted European countries like Greece, Ireland and Portugal had been significantly overestimated.

FRED has the slows tonight. Damn.

mp wrote:

FRED has the slows tonight. Damn.

Find a different drink that pours more easily?

sportsfan wrote:

Find a different drink that pours more easily?

</strike

dryfly wrote:

So what goosed the markets today? I missed it.

hmmm... i'm not sure, but i think it involved a lot of ink and a considerable amount of electricity.

Nope, the damage a prosecutor can do is nothing compared to a posturing congressman. Prosecutors can really only damage a few thousand lives, and, in most cases, the targets of their posturing aren't the best citizens. A lawmaker (like the ones that signed off on things like the patriot act, tarp, etc etc) can play a key role in ruining a nation of hundreds of millions.

Only in America could a paper founded by an asian cult make it a goal to foment hatred against immigrants.

greenchutes wrote:

Only in America could a paper founded by an asian cult make it a goal to foment hatred against immigrants.

It's really more than a little funny when you put it that way.

greenchutes wrote:

Only in America could a paper founded by an asian cult make it a goal to foment hatred against immigrants.

The Washington Times, a much greater threat than the Discovery Channel . . . to be fought with wiser, better words and deeds.