time*treat's Blog

ALL using the same talking point phrases.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/93205.html

Got your day of infamy right here.

Arguably, this song may come back into vogue over the next year ...

Senate panel reviewing S&P downgrade -- Mon Aug 8, 2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/08/us-usa-debt-congress-idUSTRE7775UO20110808
(Reuters) - The Senate Banking committee has begun looking into last week's decision by Standard and Poor's to downgrade the U.S. credit rating, a committee aide told Reuters on Monday.
(Wouldn't you like to be able to do that in the private sector? Got a bad review? Hint that you might haul 'em in front of the Senate)

SEC Reviews S&P Math, Possible Leak of Rating -- Sat Aug 12, 2011
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-13/sec-reviews-s-p-math-possible-leak-of-rating.html
The Securities and Exchange Commission is reviewing the method Standard & Poor’s used to cut the U.S.’s credit rating and whether the firm properly protected the confidential decision, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.
(Since when does the SEC know how to check someone else's math?)

Warren Buffett also criticized the rating company’s decision, saying the U.S. merits a “quadruple A” rating, but how seriously can that be taken when his company owns over 10% of the competition?
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=MCO+Major+Holders

The story ends before we find out what happened to the boy who pointed out the emperor was naked.
Apparently, he's given a sound flogging.

From all the hand-wringing I've seen, some folks must have missed the 2004 memo.

Dates get pushed back, budgets get overrun, design plans get changed -- as always.

Still, the trend is forward.

http://history.nasa.gov/SEP%20Press%20Release.htm

who wound up with something very different than what they thought they were getting ...

 

^{* Teasing the dems should not be misconstrued as supporting the pubs. That faction chokes, too.}

No Liability for Beetles in Baby Food

"[Plaintiff] does not allege that a formula containing beetles or beetle larvae fails to contain a balanced blend of nutrients." -- Judge

 

But you'd better not dabble in raw milk; lest you want your store raided, inventory destroyed, and your cash stolen.

Rawesome Foods videos

 

There just... might... be... a reason people don't want "democracy" spread into their countries.

Many fake tapes (various external sources at link)
http://www.prisonplanet.com/former-cia-officials-admit-to-faking-bin-laden-video.html

Saving Private Lynch story flawed.
Perhaps it is hard to get writers both skilled and secretive enough. People tend to want credit for their work.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/correspondent/3028585.stm

A few more dead witnesses ... er ... "heroes" to eliminate the main problem with the Lynch story, namely pesky survivors screwing up the narrative.
You'd think "cave dwellers" would have run out of quality ammo after a decade of battle with the "superpower".
http://www.prisonplanet.com/sources-seal-team-6-was-murdered.html

 

Maybe they just need to set it to the right music ...

http://www.rttnews.com/Content/PoliticalNews.aspx?Id=1651940

6/22/2011
(RTTNews) - Reflecting the difficult financial situation facing the U.S. Postal Service, the agency announced Wednesday that it is suspending its employer contribution to the Federal Employee Retirement System.

The Postal Service said it pays approximately $115 million into the system every other week and said suspension of the payments would save about $800 million in the current fiscal year.

Chief human resources officer Anthony Vegliante noted that the Postal Service would continue to transmit employee contributions to the system as well as employee and employee contributions to the Thrift Savings Plan.

The Postal Service estimated that it has a FERS account surplus of $6.9 billion and has called on Congress to allow the agency to access Civil Service Retirement System and FERS overpayments.

The agency has also asked Congress to eliminate the mandates requiring retiree health benefit pre-payments and to give the Postal Service the authority to determine the frequency of mail delivery.

The Postal Service said that the reforms, in combination with its significant cost reduction initiatives, would help return the agency to financial stability.

(Given what they charge for stamps nowdays, not only should they be able to fund the pension program, they should have enough left over to trick out those mail trucks with spinning rims & underbody lights. )

Been warning you about these paper promises, for a minute.

The write-ups are different, but the video is the same.

Pension Fund Ultimatum: A Haircut Looks Better Than a Beheading
http://lewrockwell.com/slavo/slavo48.1.html

So, there we have it, gold isn't money (at least according to Ben Shyster Bernanke*) and soon your retirement fund won't be money, either.

*BTW, didn't Shyster Bernanke say the subprime problem wouldn't spread into the rest of the housing market?

ATF official apologises over Mexico gun probe

A US official has apologised and told Congress he shares responsibility for a botched operation to track the illegal movement of guns to Mexico. (If he's "responsible" then he needs to be in effing jail, like you would be had you done the same thing.)

William McMahon of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said he failed to properly monitor Operation Fast and Furious.
(No $#!^, Sherlock?)

At least 122 weapons recovered at crime scenes in Mexico have been linked to the sting, a Congressional report said.

The weapons were reportedly obtained by drug-trafficking groups in Mexico.

Operation Fast and Furious saw US agents in Arizona allowing hundreds of guns into Mexico illegally with the hope of tracking them to major arms dealers. (More "hope".)

But the sting did not lead to any arrests and many of the smuggled guns were later found at crime scenes. :-/


Mr McMahon, who heads the agency's western region, said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) had good intentions when it launched the sting in 2009. (Another paver for the road to hell.)

He added that there were things the ATF would have done differently in carrying out the operation, which has sparked outrage across the US and Mexico. (Yeah, like not doing the operation.)

Speaking before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, William Newell, the ATF official formerly in charge of the agency's Phoenix field division said frequent assessments of risky strategies like the one used in Fast and Furious would be "prudent".

Mr Newell made repeated claims that those running the operation had not intended to allow the guns to wind up in Mexico.
(Oh, well that's different because, as we all know, not in-ten-ding it always makes the victims less dead.)

Though the ATF has not revealed how many agents are working on Fast and Furious, 260 agents have participated in similar probes around the US-Mexico border.

The ATF has 4,600 open investigations under Project Gunrunner, an operation aimed at plugging the flow of firearms into Mexico.

Earlier this month, a new government rule was put in place, requiring weapons dealers in the south-west US to contact authorities when more than two semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines are purchased.

The rule will affect dealers in Texas, California, Arizona and New Mexico. (Because gun-runners are notorious for not reading a map and finding other states.)

Operation Fast and Furious saw US agents allowing hundreds of guns into Mexico illegally with the hope of tracking them to major arms dealers. (That's gov't "plugging the flow". They "cut spending" the same way, by doing more of it.)

In January, the Mexican government released figures suggesting that at least 34,612 people had died in drug-related violence in Mexico since December 2006.

There is speculation the figure may now have passed 40,000.

FDA still going after small food, drug, & supplement makers

Jump to the 16 min mark to hear about a guy being prosecuted for transporting raw milk across state lines; even after the product tested as safe.  Meanwhile, drugs known to be dangerous are still on the market.

Oh yeah, teh terr'iztz hate you for your Free-Dumbs.

 

Here's another example, from Tennessee:

High end limo services pushing a Minimum Fare Law. Article at http://ij.org/about/3914

Foreign policy is really domestic policy with its hat on. - Hubert H Humphrey.

"[G]old is always accepted and is the ultimate means of payment and is perceived to be an element of stability in the currency and in the ultimate value of the currency and that historically has always been the reason why governments hold gold."

Extra credit for naming who they said it to. 

We already know who was absent that day and didn't get the memo. 

The thrill of hearing on the news that 100 people in some village in hellholeistan were massacred because there was 1 "suspected" terr'izt there is about to lose its cachet. It's going to be your "village" soon enough. The prospect of letting gawd sort it out won't be quite so appealing.

The rights you were happy to give up to feel safe and be protected from "them, over there" will now be kept from you due to the new (and improved^TM) threat of people that look like "you, right here". Note every few months, a new "suspect" is found, in one of the unfilled demographics slots. Gotta collect 'em all.

Complaining that you're not actually safer with all the extra s'curity in place will be treated as disturbing the peace. Witnesses of the recent mass shooting in Norway have said that the shooting lasted an hour before police arrived at the scene, although police, in their own defense, said they were there 40 minutes after the gunfire started. You should know ahead of time that when seconds count, cops are only minutes away.

Don't like the police-state roll-out? Or immigration policy? You must be one of those right-wing extrimists. Got a report about your kind. Now stand still, boy, for the mobile scanner... well, stand still as soon as the shakes from the tasing wear off. Heh-heh. Meanwhile, we'll just scan your DNA.
How soon before those drones over Texas and Arizona are armed? As I said, it's going to be your "village" soon enough.

Meanwhile, please run your drivers license through the reader so that the cashier can ring up your beer and ciggy purchase.
We promise not to save, sell, or pass the info along ... except, you know, in accordance with the law... or by accident... or something.

It turns out companies are hiring.

http://www.alternet.org/world/151732/21stcentury_slaves_how_corporations_exploit_prison_labor

So are the state & fe(de)ral gub'mint.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25376

Well, ya gotta write that 13th Amendment more carefully, next republic.