time*treat's Blog

Read it. Again.

www.netcharles.com/orwell/books/animalfarm-01.htm

It parallels to more than the Russian Revolution, which someone made a good comparison to, here...

http://barney.gonzaga.edu/~sbennet3/mead/lessonplans/animalfarm.htm

You may soon change the names in the right column to more contemporary 'characters'.

Like "1984", some take these books as instruction manuals instead of warnings.

Saw my first Xmas shopping ad on t.v. Nov 1. Major retailer.

I haven't seen a lay-away offer in don't know how long.

Interesting times ahead.

DBM.IVRP.

Two ways ... well only one really gets your house built, the other just aggravates you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuL8teeuJD8

What Malik Raheem says at 6:17 ...

I wonder how many station affiliates refused to carry this.

8 most feared words in America - "I'm from the gov't, I'm here to help."

When Right and Left Meet, by Southern Avenger

Conservative Glenn Beck on 'Situation Room'

This is satire... sort of

youtube.com/watch?v=NIfH0vY2ANA

(unless you've watched our current Fed Chair in action. In that case, these answers are actually more direct & honest than the ones he gives.)

youtube.com/watch?v=gqpFm7zAK90 (6mins:40secs)

This is the kind of thing we used to find on parody sites. Now, you can just look at the news from no-longer-so-Great Britain.

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A gardener who fenced off his allotment with barbed wire after being targeted by thieves has been ordered to take it down – in case intruders scratch themselves.

Bill Malcolm erected the 3ft fence after thieves struck three times in just four months, stealing tools worth around £300 from his shed and ransacking his vegetable patch.

But Bromsgrove district council has ordered the 61-year-old to remove the waist-high fence on health and safety grounds.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1075809/No-barbed-wire--hurt-thieves-allotment-holders-told.html

____________________________

You are free to bust your hump, but no guns or other means to protect your life and property. The elected criminals know that if you can defend yourself against their unelected counterparts, you can come after them, too. They have done this in Britain, Australia, and Canada. Americans think they are exempt; except the ones who stayed in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. Youtube.com/watch?v=-taU9d26wT4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVM-W48r20I

(Don't scare the old people, just let 'em wonder.)  I call this the "mushroom treatment" - keep people in the dark and feed 'em a bunch of $#!^. My observation, especially over the last few years, is that many people actually prefer this, so I won't criticize it much.

(off the wires) Iceland suspends stock trading, creates new bank
(...same as the old bank... sorry)

Iceland suspended trading on its stock exchange for two days and took control of the country's largest bank — the third to be placed under its protective umbrella — on Thursday as it grappled with a banking crisis that is threatening to engulf the entire country.

The Nordic nation's government also used sweeping new emergency powers to create a new bank that will take over the bulk of the domestic operations of another one of its collapsed banks.

The country is struggling to get a grip on the collapse of its top-heavy banking system, a situation that Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde has warned is putting Iceland at risk of "national bankruptcy."

The crisis is also causing ripples throughout Europe, where tens of thousands of people have accounts with subsidiaries of the Icelandic banks.

The OMX Nordic Exchange Iceland said Thursday that equity trading would remain halted until Monday because of "unusual market conditions."

The government's decision to take control of Kaupthing, the country's leading bank that has assets and debts across the continent, means that the Financial Services Authority now has control of all three of the country's major banks. The other two, Landsbanki and Glitnir, are in receivership.

The authority said the action was necessary to ensure the "continued orderly operation of domestic banking and the safety of domestic deposits."

It also used emergency powers, rushed in by parliament earlier this week, to hive off most of the domestic assets of Landsbanki into a separate entity to be called "New Landsbanki" that is fully owned by the government.

"The decision means that the new bank takes over all the bank's deposits in Iceland, and also the bulk of the banks assets that relate to its Icelandic operations, such as loans and other claims," it said in a statement.

"The decision ensures continued banking operations for Icelandic families and businesses," it added.

In an attempt to curb any panic, the regulator stressed that both Kaupthing and Landsbanki were open for business as usual on Thursday and that all domestic deposits of the bank were guaranteed under Icelandic law. However, the move leaves the international operations of Landsbanki, which have already caused a diplomatic spat with Britain, open to question.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has threatened to sue Iceland to recover the lost deposits of some 300,000 Britons who hold accounts with IceSave, the online arm of Landsbanki.

With local governments also holding accounts worth tens of millions of pounds (dollars) in Icelandic banks, the British government has also used powers under terrorism laws to freeze Landsbanki's assets until the status of the deposits is resolved. [Edit: "Terrorism" laws? Interesting. Was this a terrorist attack?]

Savings bank ING Direct UK has agreed to buy more than 3 billion pounds ($5.3 billion) of deposits held by around 180,000 British savers with Kaupthing Edge and Heritable Bank, which is owned by Landsbanki.

Haarde said on Wednesday that discussions between the two countries had begun between the two countries to find a "mutually satisfactory solution."

Iceland's three major banks are being blamed for the financial catastrophe facing the country. A stock market boom in the mid-1990s supported the rapid growth of the country's banking sector, which now dwarfs the rest of the economy with assets at nine times annual gross domestic product of $19 billion.

The newly wealthy banking sector provided financing for a number of business deals across Europe. Kaupthing alone racked up debts of more than $5.25 billion in five years to help fund British deals.

When liquidity markets dried up around the world, they struggled to refinance those heavy debts.

Haarde said on Wednesday that the banking sector had "become too big" as he acknowledged that it will take the tiny Nordic nation of just 320,000 people several years to recover from the current crisis.

Glitnir, the country's third largest bank, said on Thursday that it had received liquidity support from the Norwegian Banks' Guarantee Fund of 5 billion Norwegian crowns ($820,000) for its Norwegian unit. It added that the sale of the unit had begun.

Glitnir's move into receivership on Wednesday was a sign that troubles at the bank were larger than the government thought when it announced less than two weeks ago that it would nationalize the bank — the switch into receivership gives Glitnir temporary protection from its debt obligations.

In urgent moves to downsize the overgrown banking sector, the Financial Services Authority immediately began to restructure the bank, saying it would sell its Finnish and Swedish businesses.

Similarly, Iceland's central bank had already loaned euro500 million ($680 million) to Kaupthing earlier this week while the Swedish central bank had provided a loan of up to 5 billion crowns ($702 million).

Those measures proved not to be enough in a rapidly deteriorating situation. [At least they aren't blaming "Barack"]

Here's an excerpt from an article by Lew Rockwell where he explains how these various bailout plans look to people with an understanding of economics. He uses apples. Tulips would have worked, too.

"You have to understand how ridiculous this whole debate looks to anyone who understands the price system. Let's change the example from houses to apples to see how silly it is to suggest that falling prices can be made to rise. Let's say that the Fed created an apple hysteria that drove the price from $3 per pound to $10. Stores loaded up and even used them as collateral for expansion. Suddenly the price collapsed to $5 and finally to $2.

Now government takes notice. What can government do to deal with the problem? It can try to boost the price of apples by forcing stores to raise their prices. But what about consumers? They won't buy at $10. So the apples sit and rot. Maybe government should buy them all or force consumers to buy them. Also perhaps stores will just not buy any more at all. Government could force them to. But it can't force them to stay in business. People can always walk away. So perhaps government can just buy the stores, all in the interest of keeping the price of apples up. But it will have to buy the apple-leveraged stores at a much higher price than the market would offer, so this is a bad economic deal on the face of it.

The tangles can get ever more complicated and billions and trillions can be spent. You can put everyone in a prison camp and force people at the point of a gun to buy and sell apples at $10. But in the end, the problem is still the same: the price of apples wants to fall. Nothing government does changes that one fact. To attempt to change it is like trying to change gravity. Of course, the government’s central bank can raise all prices through inflation to the point that apples do in fact cost $10, but this is purely cosmetic. In fact, in real terms, the price of apples is still $2. It is a pointless and destructive activity to try changing this. You only cause massive damage in the attempt."

(full article) http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/near-death-of-state.html

Credit should be given to those House members (in both parties) who voted against it, in the first round.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoB4BS7CGAw  (4 mins, from 2006)

Next time someone says "Nobody saw it coming." let 'em know someone did... and lookie, it was even on a "mainstream" network.

Hint: It's not a rock band

(excerpted from) http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/

Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.

Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.

---
They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.

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The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.

So, why didn't I hear about this in the MSM? Oh, because they're part of the problem.
BTW, what's the current deathcount due to those 'non-lethal' weapons?

funny and horrible, all at once

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6H0i1RAdHk

I thinking of getting another pc monitor soon ~ at least a 24". But I'm seeing that for not much more $$$, I can bump up to an LCD TV with pc inputs, instead of just an LCD panel.

Fmr. Sen. Mike Gravel (D, AK) of "Pentagon Papers" fame, tells Dems to mind their own business.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpBXYcgXV8M

(9 mins, radio interview)

Nice smackdown in the last 2 mins.

Didn't learn this in history class....

The history of oil and politics in Iraq and Iran (over a half century in three minutes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTi3MiAZSYE