Eeyores news and view

Patriots wage war on Obama socialism
States line up to 'opt out' of government health care
Citizen protest movements against taxes, deficit spending and wildly escalating federal social welfare programs under President Obama are gaining momentum, despite attempts by the administration and their supporters to ridicule such movements, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports.
With a new round of tea party tax protests held during the Independence Day holiday, Arizona has added a new dimension to the revolt against Obama's policies by passing a law designed to opt the state out of any universal health care insurance plan the administration manages to get passed through Congress.
Republican Nancy Barto, state representative in Arizona, has been responsible for advancing though the Arizona legislature a bill that would amend the state constitution so that no resident would be required to participate in any public health care program.
"HCR2014 is proactive and will protect patients' fundamental rights," Barto told the Examiner. "We are a front-line battle state to stop momentum of this powerful government takeover of your health care decisions. Health care by lobbyists thwarts your rights and can be stopped here."
Known as "Arizona's Heath Care Freedom Act," the initiative will be on the 2010 Arizona ballot.
Indiana, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota and Wyoming are all considering similar legislation to opt out of "Obamacare," the current effort by the administration to pass a government-funded universal health care insurance bill.
Meanwhile, tea party organizers are fighting back against Obama administration supporters who derisively used "tea bagging" in reference to certain homosexual practices.
Organizers of the Texas Tea Party invited actress Janeane Garofolo to join them in Texas on July 4 and posted a video of their invitation on YouTube.
Garofalo, an actress on Fox television's drama "24," called tea partiers "a bunch of tea-bagging rednecks," adding "this is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up."
According to the Tenth Amendment Center, at least 70 percent of the states have launched provisions to exert state sovereignty based on the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which stipulates that "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
"What we are trying to do is to get the U.S. Congress out of the state's businesses," said Oklahoma Republican State Sen. Randy Brogdon, lead sponsor of the Oklahoma version of the sovereignty bill.
Brogdon is currently running for governor in Oklahoma in 2010.
WND's June 2009 issue of the Whistleblower magazine, entitled "Don't Tread on Me: Rebellion in America's Heartland," also covers the move by several states to exempt guns from federal regulation.
The state of Montana has drawn a land in the sand, challenging the federal government to decide whether guns and ammo made, sold and used in Montana require federal registration.
Following Montana's lead, Utah Rep. Carl Wimmer has prepared a bill that would gain new protections for gun owners by asserting the state's sovereignty under the Ninth and 10th amendments.
WND has reported that Wimmer intends his legislation to exempt from federal gun regulations any Utah resident seeking to own a firearm made in Utah.
"What is clear is that millions of Americans are getting increasingly turned off by the Obama administration's move to increase dramatically the size and control of the federal government," Corsi wrote. "With no end of trillion dollar deficits anywhere in sight under President Obama, average Americans are saying 'no more' to escalating taxes and programs such as 'Obamacare.'"
In writing "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," Corsi predicted that Barack Obama was a Saul Alinsky radical who would rule from the far left, not from the political center.
"With President Obama's rating dropping and the global recession deepening, this is the time we need to fight back by returning to the principles of limited government espoused by our founders," Corsi wrote. "Now is the time to defeat the Obama administration cap-and-trade bill in the Senate and to fight the Obama health care plan in the House."
Before 2009 is over, the Obama administration plans to introduce to Congress yet another version of the "shamnesty" bill, euphemistically packaged as "comprehensive immigration reform," says Corsi.
Having twice defeated the Kennedy-McCain version of that bill, Red Alert believes American patriots will once again reject "guest worker programs" and "pathways to citizenship" on the call to secure U.S. borders and enforce our existing immigration laws.
"The time to save America from Obama socialism is running short," Corsi noted, "but the battle has only just begun."
Red Alert's author, whose books "The Obama Nation" and "Unfit for Command" have topped the New York Times best-sellers list, received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972. For nearly 25 years, beginning in 1981, he worked with banks throughout the U.S. and around the world to develop financial services marketing companies to assist banks in establishing broker/dealers and insurance subsidiaries to provide financial planning products and services to their retail customers. In this career, Corsi developed three different third-party financial services marketing firms that reached gross sales levels of $1 billion in annuities and equal volume in mutual funds. In 1999, he began developing Internet-based financial marketing firms, also adapted to work in conjunction with banks.
In his 25-year financial services career, Corsi has been a noted financial services speaker and writer, publishing three books and numerous articles in professional financial services journals and magazines.
For financial guidance during difficult times, read Jerome Corsi's Red Alert, the premium, online intelligence news source by the WND staff writer, columnist and author of the New York Times No. 1 best-seller, "The Obama Nation."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=103208

Social Security number code cracked, study claims
WASHINGTON (AP) — For all the concern about identity theft, researchers say there's a surprisingly easy way for the technology-savvy to figure out the precious nine digits of Americans' Social Security numbers.
"It's good that we found it before the bad guys," Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh said of the method for predicting the numbers.
Acquisti and Ralph Gross report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they were able to make the predictions using data available in public records as well as information such as birthdates cheerfully provided on social networks such as Facebook.
For people born after 1988 — when the government began issuing numbers at birth — the researchers were able to identify, in a single attempt, the first five Social Security digits for 44 percent of individuals. And they got all nine digits for 8.5 percent of those people in fewer than 1,000 attempts.
For smaller states their accuracy was considerably higher than in larger ones.
Acquisti said in a telephone interview that he has sent the findings to the Social Security Administration and other government agencies with a suggestion they adopt a more random system for assigning numbers.
Social Security spokesman Mark Lassiter said the public should not be alarmed by the report "because there is no foolproof method for predicting a person's Social Security number."
"The suggestion that Mr. Acquisti has cracked a code for predicting an SSN is a dramatic exaggeration," Lassiter said via e-mail.
However, he added: "For reasons unrelated to this report, the agency has been developing a system to randomly assign SSNs. This system will be in place next year."
The researchers say their report omits some details to make sure they aren't providing criminals a blueprint for obtaining the numbers.
The predictability of the numbers increases the risk of identity theft, which cost Americans almost $50 billion in 2007 alone, Acquisti said.
A problem in the battle against identity thieves is that many businesses use Social Security numbers as passwords or for other forms of authentication, something that was not anticipated when Social Security was devised in the 1930s. The Social Security Administration has long cautioned educational, financial and health care institutions against using the numbers as personal identifiers.
"In a world of wired consumers, it is possible to combine information from multiple sources to infer data that is more personal and sensitive than any single piece of original information alone," he said, warning against providing too much data on social network sites.
Acquisti, who researches the economics of privacy, said he got interested in what could be learned from easily available by looking at social networks, which he termed "a great experiment in self-revelation."
People were willing to include their date of birth and hometown, he said, and he already knew that was part of the information used in issuing Social Security numbers.
So the researchers turned to the SSA's "Death Master File," which lists the numbers of people who have died. The purpose of making that file public is to prevent impostors from assuming the Social Security numbers of deceased people.
But by plotting the data for people listed on the file between 1973 and 2003 the researchers were able to develop patterns for number issuance.
"I was surprised by the accuracy of certain predictions," Acquisti said.
The system can produce a range of possibilities for the last four numbers, making it easier for a computer to test the possibilities until the correct number is found for an individual, Acquisti explained.
In addition, "attackers can exploit various public- and private-sector online services, such as online "instant" credit approval sites, to test subsets of variations to verify which number corresponds to an individual with a given birth date.
While it was well known that the numbers have a geographic component, past studies have used the patterns plus other data to estimate when and where a specific number may have been issued.
"Our work focuses on the inverse, harder, and much more consequential inference: it shows that it is possible to exploit the presumptive time and location of SSN issuance to estimate, quite reliably, unknown SSNs," Acquisti said.
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Army Research Office, Carnegie-Mellon University and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.
___
On the Net:
PNAS: http://www.pnas.org
http://newsok.com/social-security-number-code-cracked-study-claims/article/feed/55257?custom_click=rss

This is part of the why the NAACP whats to declare martial law
15-year-old girl becomes fifth victim
GAFFNEY — A teenage girl on Saturday became the fifth victim of a suspected serial killer terrorizing this small S.C. town, further darkening a day planned for celebrations.
Abby Tyler, 15, died about 11:15 a.m. at a Spartanburg hospital after fighting for her life for two days, Cherokee County Coroner Dennis Fowler said.
She was wounded and her father was killed Thursday as they worked to close the family’s furniture and appliance store near downtown Gaffney.
Abby Tyler, 15, died about 11:15 a.m. at a Spartanburg hospital after fighting for her life for two days, Cherokee County Coroner Dennis Fowler said. Photo provided by the Gaffney Ledger.
Gallery: Gaffney memorial services 07.05.09
“A lot of (people) are bad scared. They’re keeping their doors locked,” said Ed Bolton, who sells fireworks from a trailer on S.C. 11 near Gaffney.
He said customers are subdued and more consumed with talk of the killings — and the killer at-large — than they were with July 4th festivities.
Investigators released few new details about the case Saturday, readying for a long night of responding to calls from people who mistake fireworks for the sound of gunshots.
Authorities told The Associated Press they can’t afford to let any lead in the case slip by.
“Every tip that comes in, we are sending out investigators and following any lead,” Gaffney Police Chief Rick Turner said at a news conference Saturday.
In addition to the Tylers, an 83-year-old mother and her daughter were shot to death Wednesday, and a 63-year-old peach farmer was found dead at his home a week ago.
County Sheriff Bill Blanton said investigators believe the killings are linked, and the search is on for a man is in his 40s, with salt and pepper hair, about 6-foot-2, and roughly 200 pounds.
Blanton said all the victims were shot, but he would not say how the deaths were linked. The shootings all occurred within about 10 miles of each other.
On Saturday, police cruisers filled the streets, as officers from across the state descended on the rural county of 54,000 people set amid peach orchards and farms.
Police set up checkpoints throughout the county and stopped any vehicle that looked remotely like the silver 1991 to 1994 model Ford Explorer that authorities believe the killer is driving.
Hundreds of officers are on the case, working as hard as they can even though they are physically drained, Turner told the AP.
"Some have been out here for well over 24, 48 hours, maybe even longer than that, with very little cat naps here and there,” Turner said.
Some residents canceled Independence Day holiday plans, and some were arming themselves. The sheriff has warned door-to-door salesmen to stop knocking and anyone who breaks down on the county’s rural roads to wait instead of walking to a house for help because he worries “people are going to start shooting at shadows.”
Wendy Phillips was afraid to go to work Saturday at Hardees, where she works the counter. When she got there, she was greeted by a poster on the door with a sketch of the killer, offering a reward.
“When I came to work I was a nervous wreck. I was shaking,” said Phillips, 33, who had been an elementary school student of Gena Parker, one of the killer’s victim.
Phillips wondered if she had served the man food — and worried that she still might.
The killings began a week ago Saturday when the wife of 63-year-old peach farmer Kline Cash found him dead in their home. Then last Wednesday, relatives found 83-year-old Hazel Linder and her 50-year-old daughter, Gena Linder Parker, bound and shot to death in a separate shooting at Linder’s home.
Dozens of local, state and federal investigators were assigned to the case. But a day later, the killer struck again, less than a half-mile from the sheriff’s office serving as the headquarters for the investigation, killing 48-year-old Stephen Tyler and mortally wounding his daughter.
Abby Tyler’s death heightened the mourning in Cherokee County. She would have been a junior at Gaffney High School.
Friends and relatives gathered Saturday at the Tylers’ home, a brick ranch in an affluent section east of Gaffney.
“The family is hurting,” said Ashley Wilson, 20, an acquaintance of Abby’s.
She described Abby as a nice girl: “She went to church and everything. She had a good life.”
The killings have also sparked anger. One man said he had a surprise for the killer: “It’s got a bang but it’s not a firecracker.”
Mostly though, people just want the killer caught.
“We’re knee-deep in the investigation,” Blanton said. “There’s fear and concern here and there should be concern.”
http://www.thestate.com/local/story/852063.html

Residents say Internet down in Xinjiang riot city
BEIJING, July 6 (Reuters) - Internet users have not been able to go online in Urumqi, the northwestern Chinese city hit by ethnic violence that killed at least 140 people, residents said on Monday.
Locals took to the streets on Sunday, some burning and smashing vehicles and confronting ranks of anti-riot police. Over 800 people were injured and police have arrested "several hundred" participants, the official Xinhua news agency said. [ID:nSP491283]
"Since yesterday evening I haven't been able to get online," store owner Han Zhenyu told Reuters by telephone.
"No Internet here, friends said they cannot log on, either," said a mobile phone seller who gave only his surname, Zhang.
News of the apparent outage was also spread by messages on social networking services like Twitter and its Chinese competitors.
"The incident has largely subsided, but armoured cars were still in town this morning. Internet in Urumqi is still down, someone said it would last for 48 hours," one user, who said he was in Urumqi, wrote on domestic site fanfou.com.
China has previously shut down communications in parts of Tibet where ethnic unrest had erupted or was feared.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PEK335819.htm

Eeyore's News and View

I know i have been saying this and we see others admitting it now.

Credit cards to ‘implode:' analyst JOHN PARTRIDGE Globe and Mail UpdateSeptember 29, 2008 at 4:51 PM EDTA hurricane of bad credit card debt will start crashing ashore in the United States in the first quarter of next year, even as the mortgage crisis continues, analysts at New York research firm Innovest Strategic Value Advisors warned Monday.“A combination of a 10-year steady drip of deteriorating personal finances and a tidal wave . . . brought on by the mortgage and credit crisis leads us to believe that credit cards are going to implode in the near term,” Gregory Larkin, Innovest's senior banking analysts said during an online seminar on the topic.So far, credit-card “charge-offs” – debts declared irrecoverable by card issuers – have been “defying gravity,” with losses lower than in both 2001 and 2005, Mr. Larkin said.But, historically, after a time lag, irrecoverable credit-card debt has followed mortgage charge-offs up or down, and U.S. mortgage charge-offs have rocketed up eight-fold since the last quarter of 2007.Solvency Street is paved with pain DEBT: All borrowed out Margaret Atwood's old-fashioned approach to debt “If history is any indicator, there should be an equivalent surge in credit-card charge-offs very soon,” he said. “We forecast first quarter credit-card charge-offs will be $18.6-billion (U.S.) and that the total 2009 charge-off bill will add up to $96-billion.” Laura Nishikawa, Innovest's consumer finance analyst, said the credit card issuers that will be hurt least in the coming crunch will be those who had the “foresight” to improve their risk management performance during the bull market, even if they sacrificed some growth in the process.“On the other hand, companies that have pursued aggressive portfolio growth and higher yields at the cost of prudent risk management will struggle to manage rising loan losses, which will definitely cut into earnings or even worse, as the last few weeks have shown,” Ms. Ishikawa said.As well, companies that have a business model that is based on consumers actually repaying their credit-card loans, will be more resilient, although, “in reality, in the consumer finance business, we usually find the opposite of this,” she said.She cited American Express Co., with its charge-card model, as a prime example, calling it “best in class,” in the business by this measure.JPMorgan Chase also earned “best in class” among broad-based commercial banks by this and other yard-sticks, she said.The flip side of the coin, is credit card issuers that base their business model on consumers not paying off their card balances. Higher balances mean higher revenues along with penalty fees and jumps to higher interest rates in the event of missed payments.“In this model,” Ms. Nishikawa said, “delinquent borrowers become cash-flow generators, and at the extreme end, the goal becomes: ‘How do we get borrowers into delinquent status as soon as possible, in order to maximize returns?'”Even in good times, this strategy is a “tight-rope walk” between high fees and high charge-offs. “But when the economy turns bad, as it has, this strategy clearly cannot be sustained.”She cited Capital One Financial Corp. as “worst in class.”In response to a query during an e-mail question and answer period, Ms. Nishikawa said that the three Canadian banks most active in U.S. consumer banking, Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank and Bank of Montreal, are still “very small players” in the U.S. card business.Still, Innovest's preliminary findings, she said, suggest that the three banks' default rates on their U.S. credit card lending are “much lower” than the much larger issuers the firm has been concentrating on, although she emphasized that she is not “100 per cent confident” of this data.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080929.wcreditcards0929/BNStory/Front

Let Risk-Taking Financial Institutions Fail The Administration and Congress have felt compelled to do something about the "financial meltdown," so an inefficient and inequitable "bailout plan" has been rushed through the legislature despite harsh criticism from the right and left. That's unfortunate. Both presidential candidates were stalling by qualifying the plan. Whichever candidate had had the courage to reject outright this proposal would have had the better claim to be President. At this point, such claims have no bearing on the mortgage or housing crisis; they have bearing only on the holders of these securities themselves. These are ridiculously risky claims with little value for society. It is as if many financial institutions sold "earthquake insurance" on the same house: when the quake hits, all these claims become close to worthless — but the claims are simply bets disconnected from reality. Follow the money. Average Joes and Janes are not the holders of the other side of complicated, over-the-counter derivatives contracts. Rather, hedge funds are the main holders. The bailout will involve a transfer of wealth — from the American people to financial institutions engaging in reckless speculation — that will be the greatest in history. Rescuing financial institutions is not the best solution. Yes, banks are needed to provide capital to businesses. But it is not necessary to spend $1 trillion to maintain liquidity. If the government is to intervene, it should pick and choose which claims to purchase; claims that are directly tied to mortgages would be a good start. Let financial institutions fail, merge or be bought out. The faltering institutions will see their shares devalued and will be likely to be taken over by stronger institutions — as has already started happening. This consolidation of the financial sector is both efficient and inevitable; government action can only delay the adjustment. The government should not intervene. It should leave overleveraged financial institutions to default on their derivatives obligations and, if necessary, file for bankruptcy. Much of the crisis has arisen from miscalculating the risks involved in a large book of positions in these derivatives. It is only logical that these institutions pay for their poor management. Rather than bailing out Wall Street, we propose that the government should buy up the actual mortgages in question and do nothing else. The government should not touch any derivatives; that is, claims that do not directly tie into the actual mortgages. If money becomes too tight, then the Fed can certainly increase its loans to financial institutions. Let the poorly managed, overly risk-taking financial institutions fail! Always remember that Wall Street and the real economy are not the same thing. — Ari J. Officer has completed his master of science degree in financial mathematics at Stanford University. Lawrence H. Officer is a professor of economics at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

http://www.time.com/time/business/artic ... ml?cnn=yes

How China has created a new slave empire in Africa
By PETER HITCHENSLast updated at 12:00 PM on 28th September 2008

I think I am probably going to die any minute now. An inflamed, deceived mob of about 50 desperate men are crowding round the car, some trying to turn it over, others beating at it with large rocks, all yelling insults and curses.
They have just started to smash the windows. Next, they will pull us out and, well, let's not think about that ...
I am trying not to meet their eyes, but they are staring at me and my companions with rage and hatred such as I haven't seen in a human face before. Those companions, Barbara Jones and Richard van Ryneveld, are - like me - quite helpless in the back seats.
If we get out, we will certainly be beaten to death. If we stay where we are, we will probably be beaten to death.
Our two African companions have - crazily in our view - got out of the car to try to reason with the crowd. It is clear to us that you might as well preach non-violence to a tornado.
At last, after what must have been about 40 seconds but that felt like half an hour, one of the pair saw sense, leapt back into the car and reversed wildly down the rocky, dusty path - leaving his friend behind.
By the grace of God we did not slither into the ditch, roll over or burst a tyre. Through the dust we churned up as we fled, we could see our would-be killers running with appalling speed to catch up. There was just time to make a crazy two-point turn which allowed us to go forwards and so out-distance them.
We had pretty much abandoned our other guide to whatever his fate might be (this was surprisingly easy to justify to myself at the time) when we saw that he had broken free and was running with Olympic swiftness, just ahead of pursuers half hidden by the dust.
We flung open a rear door so he could scramble in and, engine grinding, we veered off, bouncing painfully over the ruts and rocks.
We feared there would be another barricade to stop our escape, and it would all begin again. But there wasn't, and we eventually realised we had got away, even the man whose idiocy nearly got us killed.
He told us it was us they wanted, not him, or he would never have escaped. We ought to be dead. We are not. It is an interesting feeling, not wholly unpleasant.
Why did they want to kill us? What was the reason for their fury? They thought that if I reported on their way of life they might lose their livings.
Livings? Dyings, more likely.

These poor, hopeless, angry people exist by grubbing for scraps of cobalt and copper ore in the filth and dust of abandoned copper mines in Congo, sinking perilous 80ft shafts by hand, washing their finds in cholera-infected streams full of human filth, then pushing enormous two-hundredweight loads uphill on ancient bicycles to the nearby town of Likasi where middlemen buy them to sell on, mainly to Chinese businessmen hungry for these vital metals.
To see them, as they plod miserably past, is to be reminded of pictures of unemployed miners in Thirties Britain, stumbling home in the drizzle with sacks of coal scraps gleaned from spoil heaps.
Except that here the unsparing heat makes the labour five times as hard, and the conditions of work and life are worse by far than any known in England since the 18th Century.
Many perish as their primitive mines collapse on them, or are horribly injured without hope of medical treatment. Many are little more than children. On a good day they may earn $3, which just supports a meagre existence in diseased, malarial slums.
We had been earlier to this awful pit, which looked like a penal colony in an ancient slave empire.
Defeated, bowed figures toiled endlessly in dozens of hand-dug pits. Their faces, when visible, were blank and without hope.
We had been turned away by a fat, corrupt policeman who pretended our papers weren't in order, but who was really taking instructions from a dead-eyed, one-eared gangmaster who sat next to him.
By the time we returned with more official permits, the gangmasters had readied the ambush.
The diggers feared - and their evil, sinister bosses had worked hard on that fear - that if people like me publicised their filthy way of life, then the mine might be closed and the $3 a day might be taken away.
I can give you no better explanation in miniature of the wicked thing that I believe is now happening in Africa.
Out of desperation, much of the continent is selling itself into a new era of corruption and virtual slavery as China seeks to buy up all the metals, minerals and oil she can lay her hands on: copper for electric and telephone cables, cobalt for mobile phones and jet engines - the basic raw materials of modern life.
It is crude rapacity, but to Africans and many of their leaders it is better than the alternative, which is slow starvation.

It is my view - and not just because I was so nearly killed - that China's cynical new version of imperialism in Africa is a wicked enterprise.
China offers both rulers and the ruled in Africa the simple, squalid advantages of shameless exploitation.
For the governments, there are gargantuan loans, promises of new roads, railways, hospitals and schools - in return for giving Peking a free and tax-free run at Africa's rich resources of oil, minerals and metals.
For the people, there are these wretched leavings, which, miserable as they are, must be better than the near-starvation they otherwise face.
Persuasive academics advised me before I set off on this journey that China's scramble for Africa had much to be said for it. They pointed out China needs African markets for its goods, and has an interest in real economic advance in that broken continent.
For once, they argued, a foreign intervention in Africa might work precisely because it is so cynical and self-interested. They said Western aid, with all its conditions, did little to create real advances in Africa, laughing as they declared: 'The only country that ever got rich through donations is the Vatican.'
Why get so het up about African corruption anyway? Is it really so much worse than corruption in Russia or India?
Is it really our business to try to act as missionaries of purity? Isn't what we call 'corruption' another name for what Africans view as looking after their families?
And what about China herself? Despite the country's convulsive growth and new wealth, it still suffers gravely from poverty and backwardness, as I have seen for myself in its dingy sweatshops, the primitive electricity-free villages of Canton, the dark and squalid mining city of Datong and the cave-dwelling settlements that still rely on wells for their water.
After the murderous disaster of Mao, and the long chaos that went before, China longs above all for stable prosperity. And, as one genial and open-minded Chinese businessman said to me in Congo as we sat over a beer in the decayed colonial majesty of Lubumbashi's Belgian-built Park Hotel: 'Africa is China's last hope.'
I find this argument quite appealing, in theory. Britain's own adventures in Africa were not specially benevolent, although many decent men did what they could to enforce fairness and justice amid the bigotry and exploitation.

It is noticeable that in much former British territory we have left behind plenty of good things and habits that are absent in the lands once ruled by rival empires.
Even so, with Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Uganda on our conscience, who are we to lecture others?
I chose to look at China's intervention in two countries, Zambia and the 'Democratic Republic of the Congo', because they lie side by side; because one was once British and the other Belgian.
Also, in Zambia's imperfect but functioning democracy, there is actual opposition to the Chinese presence, while in the despotic Congo, opposition to President Joseph Kabila is unwise, to put it mildly.
Congo is barely a state at all, and still hosts plenty of fighting not all that far from here.
Statues and images of Joseph's murdered father Laurent are everywhere in an obvious attempt to create a cult of personality on which stability may one day be based. Portraits of Joseph himself scowl from every wall.
I have decided not to name most of the people who spoke to me, even though some of them gave me permission to do so, because I am not sure they know just how much of a risk they may be running by criticising the Chinese in Africa.
I know from personal experience with Chinese authority that Peking regards anything short of deep respect as insulting, and it does not forget a slight.
I also know that this over-sensitive vigilance is present in Africa.
The Mail on Sunday team was reported to the authorities in Zambia's Copper Belt by Chinese managers who had seen us taking photographs of a graveyard at Chambishi where 54 victims of a disaster in a Chinese-run explosives factory are buried. Within an hour, local 'security' officials were buzzing round us trying to find out what we were up to.
This is why I have some time for the Zambian opposition politician Michael Sata, known as 'King Cobra' because of his fearless combative nature (but also, say his opponents, because he is so slippery).
Sata has challenged China's plans to invest in Zambia, and is publicly suspicious of them. At elections two years ago, the Chinese were widely believed to have privately threatened to pull out of the country if he won, and to have helped the government parties win.
Peking regards Zambia as a great prize, alongside its other favoured nations of Sudan (oil), Angola (oil) and Congo (metals).

It has cancelled Zambia's debts, eased Zambian exports to China, established a 'special economic zone' in the Copper Belt, offered to build a sports stadium, schools, a hospital and an anti-malaria centre as well as providing scholarships and dispatching experts to help with agriculture. Zambia-China trade is growing rapidly, mainly in the form of copper.
All this has aroused the suspicions of Mr Sata, a populist politician famous for his blunt, combative manner and his harsh, biting attacks on opponents, and who was once a porter who swept the platforms at Victoria Station in London.
Now the leader of the Patriotic Front, with a respectable chance of winning a presidential election set for the end of October, Sata says: 'The Chinese are not here as investors, they are here as invaders.
'They bring Chinese to come and push wheelbarrows, they bring Chinese bricklayers, they bring Chinese carpenters, Chinese plumbers. We have plenty of those in Zambia.'
This is true. In Lusaka and in the Copper Belt, poor and lowly Chinese workers, in broad-brimmed straw hats from another era, are a common sight at mines and on building sites, as are better-dressed Chinese supervisors and technicians.
There are Chinese restaurants and Chinese clinics and Chinese housing compounds - and a growing number of Chinese flags flapping over factories and smelters.
'We don't need to import labourers from China,' Sata says. 'We need to import people with skills we don't have in Zambia. The Chinese are not going to train our people in how to push wheelbarrows.'
He meets me in the garden of his not specially grand house in the old-established and verdant Rhodes Park section of Lusaka. It is guarded by uniformed security men, its walls protected by barbed wire and broken glass.
'Wherever our Chinese "brothers" are they don't care about the local workers,' he complains, alleging that Chinese companies have lax safety procedures and treat their African workers like dirt.
In language which seems exaggerated, but which will later turn out to be at least partly true, he claims: 'They employ people in slave conditions.'
He also accuses Chinese overseers of frequently beating up Zambians. His claim is given force by a story in that morning's Lusaka newspapers about how a Zambian building worker in Ndola, in the Copper Belt, was allegedly beaten unconscious by four Chinese co-workers angry that he had gone to sleep on the job.
I later checked this account with the victim's relatives in an Ndola shanty town and found it to be true.

Recently, a government minister, Alice Simago, was shown weeping on TV after she saw at first hand the working conditions at a Chinese-owned coal mine in the Southern Province.
When I contacted her, she declined to speak to me about this - possibly because criticism of the Chinese is not welcome among most of the Zambian elite.
Denis Lukwesa, deputy general secretary of the Zambian Mineworkers' Union, also backed up Sata's view, saying: 'They just don't understand about safety. They are more interested in profit.'
As for their general treatment of African workers, Lukwesa says he knows of cases where Chinese supervisors have kicked Zambians. He summed up their attitude like this: 'They are harsh to Zambians, and they don't get on well with them.'
Sata warns against the enormous loans and offers of help with transport, schools and health care with which Peking now sweetens its attempts to buy up Africa's mineral reserves.
'China's deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo is, in my opinion, corruption,' he says, comparing this with Western loans which require strong measures against corruption.
Everyone in Africa knows China's Congo deal - worth almost £5billion in loans, roads, railways, hospitals and schools - was offered after Western experts demanded tougher anti-corruption measures in return for more aid.
Sata knows the Chinese are unpopular in his country. Zambians use a mocking word - 'choncholi' - to describe the way the Chinese speak. Zambian businessmen gossip about the way the Chinese live in separate compounds, where - they claim - dogs are kept for food.
There are persistent rumours, which cropped up in almost every conversation I had in Zambia, that many of the imported Chinese workforce are convicted criminals whom China wants to offload in Africa. I was unable to confirm this but, given China's enormous gulag and the harshness of life for many migrant workers, it is certainly not impossible.
Sata warns that 'sticks and stones' may one day fly if China does not treat Zambians better. He now promises a completely new approach: 'I used to sweep up at your Victoria Station, and I never got any complaints about my work. I want to sweep my country even cleaner than I swept your stations.'
Some Africa experts tend to portray Sata as a troublemaker. His detractors whisper that he is a mouthpiece for Taiwan, which used to be recognised by many African states but which faces almost total isolation thanks to Peking's new Africa policy.
But his claims were confirmed by a senior worker in Chambishi, scene of the 2005 explosion. This man, whom I will call Thomas, is serious, experienced and responsible. His verdict on the Chinese is devastating.
He recalls the aftermath of the blast, when he had the ghastly task of collecting together what remained of the men who died: 'Zambia, a country of 11million people, went into official mourning for this disaster.
'A Chinese supervisor said to me in broken English, "In China, 5,000 people die, and there is nothing. In Zambia, 50 people die and everyone is weeping." To them, 50 people are nothing.'
This sort of thing creates resentment. Earlier this year African workers at the new Chinese smelter at Chambishi rioted over low wages and what they thought were unsafe working conditions.
When Chinese President Hu Jintao came to Zambia in 2006, he had to cancel a visit to the Copper Belt for fear of hostile demonstrations. Thomas says: 'The people who advised Hu Jintao not to come were right.'
He suspects Chinese arrogance and brutality towards Africans is not racial bigotry, but a fear of being seen to be weak. 'They are trying to prove they are not inferior to the West. They are trying too hard.
'If they ask you to do something and you don't do it, they think you're not doing it because they aren't white. People put up with the kicks and blows because they need work to survive.'
Many in Africa also accuse the Chinese of unconcealed corruption. This is specially obvious in the 'Democratic Republic of the Congo', currently listed as the most corrupt nation on Earth.
A North-American businessman who runs a copper smelting business in Katanga Province told me how his firm tried to obey safety laws.
They are constantly targeted by official safety inspectors because they refuse to bribe them. Meanwhile, Chinese enterprises nearby get away with huge breaches of the law - because they paid bribes.
'We never pay,' he said, 'because once you pay you become their bitch; you will pay for ever and ever.'
Another businessman shrugged over the way he is forced to wait weeks to get his products out of the country, while the Chinese have no such problems.
'I'm not sure the Chinese even know there are customs regulations,' he said. 'They don't fill in the forms, they just pay. I try to be philosophical about it, but it is not easy.'
Unlike orderly Zambia, Congo is a place of chaos, obvious privation, tyranny dressed up as democracy for public-relations purposes, and fear.
This is Katanga, the mineral-rich slice of land fought over furiously in the early Sixties in post-colonial Africa's first civil war. Brooding over its capital, Lubumbashi, is a 400ft black hill: the accumulated slag and waste of 80 years of copper mining and smelting.
Now, thanks to a crazy rise in the price of copper and cobalt, the looming, sinister mound is being quarried - by Western business, by the Chinese and by bands of Congolese who grub and scramble around it searching for scraps of copper or traces of cobalt, smashing lumps of slag with great hammers as they hunt for any way of paying for that night's supper.
As dusk falls and the shadows lengthen, the scene looks like the blasted land of Mordor in Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings: a pre-medieval prospect of hopeless, condemned toil in pits surrounded by stony desolation.
Behind them tower the leaning ruins of colossal abandoned factories: monuments to the wars and chaos that have repeatedly passed this way.
There is something strange and unsettling about industrial scenes in Africa, pithead winding gear and gaunt chimneys rising out of tawny grasslands dotted with anthills and banana palms. It looks as if someone has made a grave mistake.
And there is a lesson for colonial pride and ambition in the streets of Lubumbashi - 80 years ago an orderly Art Deco city full of French influence and supervised by crisply starched gendarmes, now a genial but volatile chaos of scruffy, bribe-hunting traffic cops where it is not wise to venture out at night.
The once-graceful Belgian buildings, gradually crumbling under thick layers of paint, long ago lost their original purpose.
Outsiders come and go in Africa, some greedy, some idealistic, some halfway between. Time after time, they fail or are defeated, leaving behind scars, slag-heaps, ruins and graveyards, disillusion and disappointment.
We have come a long way from Cecil Rhodes to Bob Geldof, but we still have not brought much happiness with us, and even Nelson Mandela's vaunted 'Rainbow Nation' in South Africa is careering rapidly towards banana republic status.
Now a new great power, China, is scrambling for wealth, power and influence in this sad continent, without a single illusion or pretence.
Perhaps, after two centuries of humbug, this method will work where all other interventions have failed.
But after seeing the bitter, violent desperation unleashed in the mines of Likasi, I find it hard to believe any good will come of it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1063198/PETER-HITCHENS-How-China-created-new-slave-empire-Africa.html

Credit crunch banker leaps to his death in front of express train
By Christopher LeakeLast updated at 11:06 PM on 27th September 2008

The City was in shock last night after the apparent suicide of a millionaire financier haunted by the pressures of dealing with the credit crunch.
Kirk Stephenson, who was married with an eight-year-old son, died in the path of a 100mph express train at Taplow railway station, Berkshire.
Mr Stephenson is believed to have taken his own life after succumbing to mounting personal pressures as the world’s financial markets went into meltdown.
The death of the respected 47-year-old City figure evokes memories of the 1929 Wall Street crash in America and comes as:
• Bradford & Bingley teeters on the brink of nationalisation after a dramatic share price slump.
• David Cameron faced embarrassment on the eve of the Tory conference after members of a secretive club of Conservative donors were linked to the ‘short-selling’ of Bradford & Bingley.
• Gordon Brown was wrongfooted by Shadow Chancellor George Osborne, who announced plans to set up an independent watchdog to police the Treasury and strip it of key powers if the Conservatives win the next Election.
New Zealand-born Mr Stephenson, who owned a £3.6million, five-storey house in Chelsea and a retreat in the West Country, was chief operating officer of Olivant Advisers.
Last year, the private equity firm tried to buy a 15 per cent stake worth almost £1billion in Northern Rock before the bank was nationalised, bidding against Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson.

In June, the company secured a 2.5 per cent stake in Swiss banking giant UBS. There has been persistent speculation in the financial world that UBS has written off billions after being exposed to the US mortgage market.
Since June, the bank has dropped in value by about 20 per cent, which means the value of Olivant’s stake in UBS has fallen from £950million to £770million.
Before his death at 9am on Thursday, Mr Stephenson appeared to have everything to live for.
A glittering 20-year City career had made him a hugely wealthy man and he was said to have been happy in his marriage to Karina Robinson, a successful financial writer.
Sources stressed that neither Mr Stephenson nor his company had financial problems that would have led him to take his own life.
But they said the financier had ‘succumbed’ to the stress and responsibilities of his taxing role, adding that Mr Stephenson had overreacted to the continuing financial turmoil.

After eating breakfast on Thursday with his wife and their young son Lucas, Mr Stephenson drove to Taplow station, left his car in the car park and crossed a footbridge over the main First Great Western Plymouth to Paddington line.
Out of view of passengers on the platform, he is then said by witnesses to have leapt in front of a high-speed train.
The driver sounded his horn and slammed on the brakes but was unable to stop in time. The train came to a standstill a mile down the track.
Mr Stephenson left no note, but the incident is being treated by police, train operator First Great Western and his own firm as a suicide.
In due course a coroner will examine the death and record an official verdict.
Mr Stephenson’s colleagues and family were unable to explain why had he had gone to Taplow.
Last night, his devastated widow released a statement saying: ‘Kirk was a life-enhancer – not with a showy, life-and-soul-of-the-party sort of charisma, but as a planner who quietly ensured everyone around him had a marvellous time.
‘A dedicated father and a devoted husband, he valued his family above all else.
'He had a gift for friendship and was a generous and exceptional host, gathering his wide circle in summer villas all over Europe, as well as for parties, dinners and opera.
‘Any occasion with Kirk was a wonderful experience. He spent many a fine – and less than fine – summer evening listening to opera at Garsington, Glyndebourne and The Grange with friends.
'He also loved board games and tennis, passions he shared with his treasured son, Lucas.
‘He arrived in London in 1983 as an SG Warburg trainee. After his stint in the City he went on to work at several large organisations. Latterly, he was a director for Olivant.
‘Always a keen traveller, in 1999 he married his cherished wife Karina. Together they travelled from Bhutan to Burgundy, Buenos Aires to Tripoli.
‘He will be sorely missed by his wife, his son, his mother Bet Stephenson, and his many friends.’
Until two months ago, former merchant banker Karina was a columnist on The Banker magazine.
One of her former colleagues said: ‘It is shocking news. I know Kirk had been under pressure, but I am not aware that his own money was at stake.
'He was very hard-working. He did a 24-hour-a-day job.’
A family friend added: ‘Kirk was always troubled because of his work. He was always so busy, working late and travelling a lot.
'But he didn’t seem any different on Thursday. He ate breakfast with the family, kissed them and said goodbye. No one can believe what happened.’
Mr Stephenson’s previous jobs include chief operating officer of City lawyers Freshfield Bruckhaus Deringer, group finance director of Coats Viyella and Amersham International and an investment banker at Warburg and Morgan Stanley.
At Olivant Advisers he was paid £333,000 last year, but is thought to have made millions more from the core Olivant business, based in Guernsey.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1063356/Credit-crunch-banker-leaps-death-express-train.html

Jury selection begins in Fort Dix plot case September 29, 2008 - 2:59pm
By GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press Writer
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) - Jury selection began under tight security Monday in the federal trial of five men accused of planning an attack on Fort Dix.
Lawyers were expected to take three weeks or more to seat 12 jurors and six alternates. The trial will likely last several months.
U.S. District Judge Robert Kugler has taken the relatively rare step of keeping the jury anonymous, so even lawyers in the case won't know their names.
Prospective jurors on Monday were filling out their forms in an assembly room, detailing any knowledge of the case and their own biases.
Outside Kugler's courtroom, workers were installing a new metal detector. Already, people entering the courthouse must pass through one. To get to the trial, they'll go through a second.
Lanes of the street in front of the courthouse were also closed as a security precaution.
The government says five men were moving forward with a plan to shoot soldiers on the New Jersey Army installation when they were arrested in May 2007. No attack was carried out and lawyers for the men say there was no plot.
The men _ all foreign-born Muslims in their 20s who spent several years in southern New Jersey _ are charged with conspiracy to murder soldiers and attempted murder. They'll face life in prison if they are convicted.
Kugler said opening arguments were expected to begin in late October.
Letters were sent to some 1,500 New Jersey residents weeks ago to summon them as potential jurors. Hundreds have already been excused because of schedule conflicts and other hardships.
The suspects are due in court later this week for a hearing over whether prosecutors can introduce evidence that includes one of the men allegedly discussing attacking other sites such as the White House and Philadelphia International Airport.
Fort Dix is used mostly to train reservists for duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.
http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=251&sid=1135346

Eeyores news and views

Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue; or in any manner affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change and can trace its consequences; a harvest reared not by themselves but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the few not for the many.” —James Madison

PATRIOT PERSPECTIVE

Bailout Basics

By Mark Alexander

“For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac... and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market... If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.” —John McCain arguing for passage of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act (S. 190) which he co-sponsored in 2005.

While Sen. McCain is being pilloried by his opponent, Barack Hussein Obama, for asserting (correctly) last week that the fundamentals of most U.S. economic sectors are sound, clearly, Sen. McCain has understood for years that irresponsible lending practices for U.S. housing posed “enormous risk... to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.”

While Obama was out politicking this week, ostensibly itching for a debate that he’d been avoiding all summer, McCain suspended his campaign to work with Republicans in Congress, outlining conditions for an agreement that would both protect the American taxpayer and thwart a meltdown of the U.S. economy. So, “Country First” is not just a campaign slogan...

The enormous risk that Sen. McCain warned of in 2005 has now become a financial crisis of staggering proportions. That crisis can trace its roots to Bill Clinton’s signature on legislation making it easier for minority constituents with bad credit to obtain mortgages. In 1995, he had his Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin, rewrite the lending rules for the Community Reinvestment Act, opening the flood gates of mortgage lending to unqualified borrowers.

This legislation, in effect, applied affirmative action to the lending industry, which is to say that the current crisis is NOT a “free market failure” but the result of socially engineered financial policy by the central government. The financial markets welcomed their new customers with open arms, fueling a real estate boom across the board.

These so-called “subprime mortgages,” which were offered at variable interest rates, were widely perceived as good investments. Investors used the high-risk instruments to secure assets in other markets fueling profits for investment banks and mortgage lenders. The subprime market thus expanded rapidly and the mortgage instruments were used by other firms as collateral for investments in stocks, commodities and the like.

Unfortunately, no one questioned the pell-mell regulatory system of oversight for these transactions until large cracks appeared in our economy’s foundation, the first being the collapse of Countrywide, the nation’s largest subprime lender. Then banks and mortgage lenders large and small began downsizing, dumping assets and closing their doors. Bear Stearns filed for bankruptcy. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, holders of trillions of dollars in mortgages, were bailed out with 200 billion taxpayer dollars. Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, and insurance giant AIG was given an $85-billion taxpayer prop to keep it solvent.

This morning, as Congress is debating whether to implement the Democrat-backed “bailout plan” or the Republican-backed “workout plan,” Washington Mutual Inc. has been seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) after collapsing under the weight of reams of bad mortgages. WaMu, listing $307 billion in assets, becomes the largest bank failure in U.S. history. The FDIC sold WaMu’s assets for $1.9 billion to JPMorgan Chase & Co., which bought Bear Stearns Cos. earlier this year.

(Congressional Republicans might also consider repeal of Sarbox, the Sarbanes-Oxley Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002, which has maintained a choke hold on financial institutions and is high on the list of proximate causes for the failure of Countrywide and Bear Stearns.)

The serious economic calamity confronting our nation, and the world, is being labeled a “credit crisis.” But we are on the verge of a crisis of cascading confidence in the U.S. economy, which, in the absence of aggressive intervention, could, no, will result in a dramatic recession affecting every sector of the U.S. and, eventually, world economy.

The catastrophe looming just over the horizon is indeed that big, and we must all hope that the solution is big enough to interrupt the domino effect already underway.

The question that must be asked, however, is whether the people’s confidence in their government is sufficient to thwart this cascading effect. Far more often than not, in the inimitable words of Ronald Reagan, “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” Of course, the only institution big enough to address a problem of this magnitude is the government.

Perception v. Reality

Essentially, perception defines value, and the shared confidence in our perception of the value of one major sector of our economy, the housing market, has eroded dramatically.

To understand the notion of perceived value, consider all that paper we call currency. If I walk into a store and pull out one of these pieces of paper with Ben Franklin’s picture handsomely printed upon it, the store proprietor will accept that paper in trade for some of his products or services because he believes it to have intrinsic value (which it once did, when it was backed by hard assets—gold and silver). But make no mistake: The value of that piece of paper is nothing more than it is perceived to be. Thus, if the proprietor’s confidence in that perception becomes diminished, he may begin to think such a piece of paper is worth only half its face value, or perhaps nothing at all.

And if my paper is perceived to have no value, I will not be able to do commerce in this or any other store.

For two decades, our confidence in the perceived value of pieces of paper called mortgages has been growing rapidly, and because the prevailing perception has been that a house will be worth more tomorrow than it is today, financial institutions have aggressively enabled buyers to assume mortgages to purchase houses. (Actually, mortgages are now traded electronically as binary data—value that!)

However, in recent years, confidence in the perceived value of real estate has outpaced reality, as mortgage defaults have trended upward. That realization has resulted in what now has become a precipitous erosion of confidence in the value of real estate, and consequently, housing market values have collapsed in many areas of the country where they were unduly inflated.

While perception can be shaped and molded, reality is finite. The reality, in this case, is that a house and its outstanding mortgage are worth not a nickel more than a buyer is willing to and capable of paying for it.

Thus, the devaluation of mortgages has had an enormous financial impact on institutions that trade in “packaged mortgages,” and consequently, on other institutions that trade with them, and, well you get the picture. The dominos have begun to fall.

Moreover, in an effort to keep their domino standing, because of the potential that any new lending would result in additional foreclosure exposure if the housing market continues to decline, banks have tightened lending in order to preserve the capital necessary to cover the cost of a growing number of foreclosures. This constriction of the money supply extends far beyond the housing markets, as loans for business development and expansion are also drying up.

This combination of events creates the perfect economic storm, and it has dire consequences for all Americans.

Consequences of cascading confidence

Confidence in the perceived value of financial instruments, which are the foundation of our economy, is calculated minute by minute by indices such as Dow Jones, Standard and Poor’s, and other measures of financial markets. These measurements amount to investor confidence indices, polls of investor perception about the strength and stability of the economy. The stability and direction of these indices are a good indication of investor confidence.

If the indices indicate significant instability of investor confidence, that instability can cause the financial markets to collapse in a single day. (See: “Great Depression.”)

Here, it’s important to note that the vast majority of Americans are among the “investor class.” This isn’t just about “the rich.” Whether you trade millions of dollars in securities daily or like cream in your coffee, you are a shareholder in our economy.

Thus, the plan proposed by President George W. Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson—waiting for majorities in Congress to determine the details—is an effort to stabilize investor confidence by authorizing up to $700 billion in guarantees for institutions holding mortgages. In effect, this will relieve lenders of liability for mortgages considered to be at risk of default—about five percent of all mortgages.

It is hoped that Republicans can succeed in crafting legislation that is more workout than bailout, the former requiring much more market accountability, as proposed by Sen. McCain and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

President Bush addressed the nation Wednesday evening with a concise explanation of the current crisis:

“This is an extraordinary period for America’s economy. Over the past few weeks, many Americans have felt anxiety about their finances and their future. I understand their worry and their frustration. We’ve seen triple-digit swings in the stock market. Major financial institutions have teetered on the edge of collapse, and some have failed. As uncertainty has grown, many banks have restricted lending. Credit markets have frozen. And families and businesses have found it harder to borrow money. We’re in the midst of a serious financial crisis... So I’ve proposed that the federal government reduce the risk posed by these troubled assets, and supply urgently needed money so banks and other financial institutions can avoid collapse and resume lending. This rescue effort is not aimed at preserving any individual company or industry—it is aimed at preserving America’s overall economy. It will help American consumers and businesses get credit to meet their daily needs and create jobs. And it will help send a signal to markets around the world that America’s financial system is back on track.”

What about a free-market solution?

I concur, of course, with the principled objections from free-market advocates and hope that free-market solutions will be re-implemented in conjunction with the necessary mortgage backup. If not, the cure may be worse than the disease. After all, it was the suspension of free-market principles that got us into this mess.

But I agree with President Bush’s comments regarding the necessity of intervention: “I’m a strong believer in free enterprise. So my natural instinct is to oppose government intervention. I believe companies that make bad decisions should be allowed to go out of business. Under normal circumstances, I would have followed this course. But these are not normal circumstances. The market is not functioning properly. There’s been a widespread loss of confidence. And major sectors of America’s financial system are at risk of shutting down.”

Further, he is correct in this assessment: “More banks could fail, including some in your community. The stock market would drop even more, which would reduce the value of your retirement account. The value of your home could plummet. Foreclosures would rise dramatically. And if you own a business or a farm, you would find it harder and more expensive to get credit. More businesses would close their doors, and millions of Americans could lose their jobs. Even if you have good credit history, it would be more difficult for you to get the loans you need to buy a car or send your children to college. And ultimately, our country could experience a long and painful recession.”

It is worth noting that $700 billion is a bargain compared to the implications for taxpayers if the economy spirals into a severe recession—or worse.

Can any of this colossal expense be recovered?

Fortunately, there are real assets backing up these mortgages—bricks and mortar, and the land upon which the foundations rest—but this is no “deal for taxpayers.”

While much of this mortgage backing may be recovered, as was the case with the savings and loan bailout of 1989, to suggest that the “taxpayers will be paid back” is ludicrous.

Congress is going to serve as the “watchdog” over the dispensing and recovery of these funds? Can you say, “fox in the henhouse”?

Even if Congress sets up a “trust fund” in order to use recovered funds to pay down the debt incurred to back financial institutions, we should consider that “lockbox” to be as safe as the Social Security Trust Fund lockbox. Every dime paid into Social Security has been spent on government programs, leaving that fund with a bunch of IOUs.

No doubt, every dime recovered from the private sector will be treated as revenue to expand government programs, and the debt will be left on the books.

To pay for the bailout, Democrats are sure to demand higher taxes from “the rich Wall Street fat cats who got us into this mess.” While this mess clearly ended on Wall Street, it didn’t start there, but, undeterred, the Democrats will always bank on this observation from George Bernard Shaw: “A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”

And, of course, if the current plan to restore economic confidence does not succeed, you know the Demos have “Plan B.” Don’t ask...

What role have politicians played?

One staple of the Democrats’ political playbook is the use of scare tactics to rally constituencies. Indeed, Obama and other Demos have been dishing out a steady stream of dire economic rhetoric in order to keep their constituents in line. Undoubtedly, all that economic hyperbole has influenced public perception of our economy and confidence in our economy. High on the list of issues President Bush discussed with candidates McCain and Obama Thursday was a request that they (read: “Obama”) cease and desist using the economic problems as political fodder.

It is our hope that the candidates will, indeed, arrive for debate in Oxford, Mississippi, this evening and begin the debate with a unified statement on economic recovery; then Sen. McCain can proceed to eviscerate Obama on foreign policy.

Footnote: There are significant, albeit unspoken, national security implications of a precipitous economic decline in the U.S. Where our economy goes, the world economy follows, and there will be significant national security consequences. For example, if China’s economy contracts more rapidly than at present, keeping pace with U.S. economic decline, the consequences will likely be some significant internal and external “mischief” scripted by the Communist Party. As for India and Pakistan...you get the picture.

http://archive.patriotpost.us/pub/08-39_Digest/index.php#continued

Judge slams government tactics in Stevens case

September 29, 2008 - 12:35pm

By MATT APUZZO and TOM HAYS
Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal judge angrily rebuked the Justice Department on Monday for mishandling a witness against Sen. Ted Stevens, a dispute that delayed and initially threatened to derail the case against the Alaska senator.

The dustup didn't yield the mistrial or dismissal that the Republican senator was hoping for but, with Stevens running for re-election during his corruption trial, it reinforces his story line that he is the victim of overzealous prosecutors.

Stevens is charged with lying on Senate financial disclosure forms about more than $250,000 in free home renovations and other gifts he received from VECO Corp., a powerful Alaska oil pipeline contractor.

The witness dispute began this weekend when Robert Williams, the VECO employee who supervised the renovation project, called defense attorneys and said prosecutors had ignored important facts in the case.

Williams said the government's estimates for how much time he spent at the senator's house _ and how much that time was worth _ were overblown, according to court documents.

"That's just ..." defense attorney Robert Cary said in court Monday.

"Problematic," U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said.

"It shocks us," Cary replied.

The value of the renovation is key because Stevens paid $160,000 and says he assumed it covered everything. Prosecutors say the job was so expensive, Stevens must have known his $160,000 wouldn't cover the tab.

Sullivan was livid that prosecutors sent Williams, who was under subpoena to testify in the case, back to Alaska without telling anyone. That raised suspicion among defense attorneys that prosecutors were trying to hide information that could help them.

Williams had been suffering from health problems and prosecutors said they decided they could bring the case without him.

Sullivan was not satisfied.

"Why wasn't I consulted? I'm peeved now. It's a federal subpoena to appear in my court," Sullivan said, his voice rising. "I think the government is treading in some shallow water here. What should the sanction be for that?"

Prosecutor Nicholas Marsh said the government was trying to consider Williams' medical problems, but he struggled to explain why prosecutors didn't tell anyone.

"Certainly looking back on it, we understand where the court's coming from," Marsh said.

Stevens, the longest-serving Senate Republican, is locked in a tight re-election race against Democratic Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. While Begich is campaigning, Stevens is tethered to a Washington courtroom.

Because defense attorneys have new information from Williams, Sullivan gave them a second chance to cross-examine a VECO bookkeeper whose documents suggested Williams worked long weeks on the senator's house.

Back on the stand, bookkeeper Cheryl Boomershine testified she didn't know what Williams was doing for those hours.

Stevens says that if anything was tacked on to the job, VECO founder Bill Allen did so without telling him. Because the senator's wife handles all his finances, Stevens says there's no way he could have known Allen was adding on work.

Prosecutors had planned to put Allen, their star witness, on the stand Monday. Instead, they listed more than a dozen potential witnesses, including VECO employees, former Stevens staffers and a former Federal Election Commission official.

___

On the Net:

Justice Department documents: http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/us-v-stevens/

US circles hijacked ship with Sudan-bound weapons

September 29, 2008 - 10:22am

By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN and BARBARA SURK
Associated Press Writers

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - U.S. warships and helicopters on Monday surrounded a hijacked cargo ship loaded with Sudan-bound tanks and other arms to keep the weapons from falling "into the wrong hands," an American Navy spokesman said.

Lt. Nathan Christensen, a deputy spokesman for the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, said the shipment of 33 Russian-designed tanks, rifles and ammunition on the Ukrainian-operated Faina was headed for Sudan _ not Kenya as previously claimed by Kenyan officials. The U.N. has imposed an embargo on arms destined for the Sudanese region of Darfur, to be observed by the government, allied paramilitary units known as the janjaweed, and the rebels.

A 5th Fleet statement said the ship was headed for the Kenyan port of Mombassa, but that "additional reports state the cargo was intended for Sudan."

The pirates who seized the ship are demanding a $20 million ransom.

The U.S. fears the armaments onboard the Ukrainian vessel may end up with al-Qaida-linked Islamic insurgents who have been fighting the shaky U.N.-backed Somali transitional government since late 2006.

"We maintain a vigilant watch over the ship and we will remain on station while negotiations between the pirates and the shipping company are going on," Christensen told The Associated Press.

Pirates seized the Faina's Ukrainian, Russian and Latvian crew off Somalia's lawless coast on Thursday as it headed to Kenya and anchored the vessel off Somalia's coast near the central town of Hobyo. One crew member has died.

Christensen did not specify whether the arms were intended for the Khartoum-based Sudanese government, or southern Sudan, which was granted a degree of autonomy under a 2005 peace deal that also guaranteed the oil-rich region a referendum on full independence in 2011.

The administration in southern Sudan and the Sudanese government are not covered by the 2005 arms embargo, provided imported weapons do not end up in Darfur.

Kenyan officials on Monday declined to discuss the destination of the weapons. Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Valentyn Mandriyevsky said the ministry was not dealing in weapons trade and didn't know where the cargo was bound.

A spokesman for Ukraine's arms trader, Ukrspetexport, had no immediate comment.

Western intelligence reports a few days ago said the ultimate destination was Sudan and that Kenya was only the transshipment point, said one Western official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing classified material. He said the issue became confused after Kenyan leaders had publicly referred to the tanks as their own.

Christensen said an unspecified number of destroyers and cruisers have joined the San Diego-based USS destroyer Howard within a 10-mile radius of the Faina.

"The safety of the ship's crew and cargo is a paramount concern to us," Christensen said, adding additional warships and helicopters were deployed to prevent the weapons from falling "into the wrong hands."

There have been 24 reported attacks in Somalia this year, according to the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center. Last year, U.S. naval helicopters fired on pirate skiffs tied to a hijacked Japanese tanker carrying 30,000 tons of benzene after they feared that pirates might try to use it as a floating bomb in a middle eastern oil port.

Seizing ships has become an important source of income for pirates in Somalia, which is riven between rival clan-based warlords since they overthrew a socialist dictator in 1991.

___

Associated Press writers Pauline Jelinek in Washington, Yana Sedova in Kiev, Ukraine and Surk in Dubai, United Arab Emirates contributed to this report.

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=105&sid=1486470


ForagingPictures.com

Pictures of edible plants and mushrooms taken on "Wildman" Steve Brill foraging tours in the NYC area. Can also see pictures in walking tour and season order.

They are Categorized in the following category's

Medicinal
Inedible
Poisonous
Mushroom, Edible
Mushroom, Inedible
Unclassified

Markets face major crash if US bail-out plan collapses

London shares could lose a fifth of their value and the money market faces collapse unless US politicians succeed with their financial bail-out plan, it has been warned.

By Edmund Conway and Jamie Dunkley
Last Updated: 11:41PM BST 26 Sep 2008

A leading investor predicted that the FTSE 100 could drop by as much as 1,000 points on Monday if Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s $700bn (£380bn) plan fails. Such a fall would come close to matching the stock market crash of 1987.

The warning came as markets lurched their way to the end of another fraught week amid fears that the White House rescue operation could be derailed in Congress by conservative Republicans.

However, hopes that a deal might be imminent spurred a last-minute rally on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumping 121.07, or 1.1pc, to 11,143.13. Financial stocks led the recovery following an early 158-point fall after news filtered out of Washington late on Thursday night that talks on the Paulson plan had broken down at an emergency White House summit.

The collapse of talks prompted the Bank of England to step forward yesterday with an emergency liquidity injection. The central bank has now effectively taken the place of large swathes of the interbank market, lending medium-term funds to banks that now refuse to lend to each other on anything beyond an overnight basis.

The Bank ordered drastic measures to prevent the City’s money markets collapsing, organising a £40bn auction of medium-term funds for Monday. Experts warned that unless the unusually large offering reignites the interbank markets that underpin the entire financial system, the Government may be forced into a US-style bail-out of its own.

One senior money market trader said: “If the US bail-out fails this weekend, I don’t know if there’s any point coming in on Monday.”

The mood in equity markets was hardly more upbeat. Bryan Johnston, investment director at Bell Lawrie, said: “If Paulson’s plan fails we will see a collapse in the markets and taxpayers will effectively pick up the tab. We could also see 1,000-point falls on the FTSE on Monday and we would be out of a job, while the banking system would freeze up.”

The FTSE dropped 108.55 points to 5088.47. With traders heading for safe haven investments, gold prices rose, with an ounce of the precious metal up $21.1 to $897.10. However, oil prices dropped as traders worried that world economic growth could be under threat. Brent crude dropped $3 before settling $1 down at $103.5. Meanwhile, the dollar slipped lower against other currencies.

George W Bush insisted that despite differences over the plan, “there is no disagreement that something substantial must be done”.

He added: “The legislative process is sometimes not very pretty, but we’re going to get a package passed. Republicans and Democrats will come together and pass a substantial rescue plan. Our proposal is a big proposal because we have a big problem. We need to move quickly.”

Gordon Brown, who was in New York yesterday, said: “In the short term, each country is taking action to deal with the fallout of the credit crunch. America deserves support from the rest of the world as it seeks to agree in detail what all parties have agreed in principle.”

Mr Brown and Bank of England Governor Mervyn King have come under increasing pressure to consider implementing further measures to revive money markets. Money market traders said interbank lending for terms of anything other than a day had effectively ceased, with lenders fearing their counterparties could become insolvent imminently.

The Bank co-ordinated its liquidity package with the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank, offering $30bn in cash for a week against eligible collateral.

The European efforts coincided with growing fears that Fortis, the Belgian-Dutch banking giant, faces a liquidity crisis. In response to a collapsing share price, it pledged to speed up a planned €5bn-€10bn (£4bn-8bn) of asset sales and named a new chief executive.

Expectations are rising that Fortis will be taken over either by France’s BNP Paribas or Dutch rival ING. The Belg-ian and Dutch governments have both convened to discuss the options for Fortis.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/3088241/Markets-face-major-crash-if-US-bail-out-plan-collapses.html

Financial Crisis: The next decade could be our very own Great Depression

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I find myself on George W. Bush's side. It's rather lonely. By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor

Last Updated: 10:59AM BST 29 Sep 2008

The US President has been wrong about so much during his eight years in office that it is tempting to dismiss his warnings of the impending financial apocalypse as yet more hyperbole - the boy crying wolf.

Unfortunately, this time I suspect he's right. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's bail-out is far from perfect, but without it the American and British economies face a crunch the likes of which we can hardly imagine. But how much money would you put on the likelihood of the lamest of lame-duck presidents driving the plan into law?

Not much, if the chaotic negotiations in the White House on Thursday night are anything to go by. As the $700 billion plan to prevent the world's biggest economy slumping into the worst recession in living memory was thrown off the road by a cabal of conservative Republicans, the administration suffered an apparent nervous breakdown. Having survived the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and the terrorist attacks in September 2001, it took a financial crisis to bring true chaos to the heart of the free world.

Is this the way the modern economy ends? In a scene of Beckettian farce? If the bail-out does collapse, the consequences are hideous. We are in the early stages of one of the worst world slumps in living memory.

The financial system on which the economy depends has frozen. In the past few weeks, we have seen some of the world's most venerated names in finance collapse. The US government has in effect nationalised Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG. Lehman Brothers is no more; Merrill Lynch has been eaten by Bank of America, and even Goldman Sachs has had to go cap-in-hand to Warren Buffett.

Bush was half-right: one "sucker" did go down. In the late hours of Thursday, America suffered the biggest bank failure in history, as Washington Mutual was shut down by regulators and the remnants sold to JP Morgan.

History shows that whenever there is a banking crisis, an economic slump, with all that entails - mass redundancies, falling house prices, widespread bankruptcies - invariably follows. The scale of the recession depends on the size of the banking crisis; the past year has brought the biggest systemic financial collapse since the 1930s.

We know this because economists, including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, have spent decades studying the causes and potential solutions for episodes such as the Great Depression. They may not have discovered a vaccine for financial panics. We make the same mistakes over and over again: borrowing too much, convincing ourselves we have minimised our financial risk, forgetting that money must be paid back and that house prices go down as well as up. But the quality of the cure has improved.

The worst thing to do now would be to impose medieval remedies. Back in the 1930s, the depression was cemented not by the Wall Street Crash of 1929, but by the hard-nosed policies of the US politicians, who allowed so many banks to fail that they set off a domino effect that took almost a decade of thrift to recover from. It was the financial equivalent of leeches and blood-letting.

In Britain, we had a comparatively benign 1930s, with not one major bank collapsing and the economy faring far better than the US. This time is different. Two of our biggest mortgage lenders have already had to be rescued. We are as vulnerable as the US - if not more so. Indeed, most likely we are already in recession, and the economy will continue shrinking until at least the latter stages of next year.

Unemployment will rise by almost a million. House prices - already down by a tenth - will fall by the same margin again, probably more. The problem is that the recent lurches in financial markets could make this far worse. In short, unless the Government is prepared for some radical rescue plans, the next decade could quite easily be our very own 1930s.

Which makes it all the more shocking that, so far, the major initiatives announced by the Government and the Bank of England have been tantamount to handing a paracetamol to someone suffering a heart attack. The Bank has pumped billions of liquidity into the market and it injected more cash in yesterday.

However, the lesson from the US is that at some point the Government will probably have to spend a significant chunk of taxpayers' cash to keep the financial system - and hence the wider economy - afloat.

This may involve a similar plan to Paulson's - a toxic waste dump for poisonous investments - or merely an injection of public money into the financial sector. It will be expensive, and the consequence, in the long run, is higher taxes or spending cuts once the economy has recovered. The Government has at least the luxury of learning some snatched lessons from America, though there is no telling how soon our own lifeboat may need to be launched.

In the meantime, the authorities must get the cost of borrowing down, or watch the housing market tumble to new lows. The Bank of England ought to have cut interest rates some months ago, but, better late than never, it should do so at the next possible opportunity. It is time to stop lecturing the patient; it is time to start applying the cure.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/edmundconway/3090601/Financial-Crisis-The-next-decade-could-be-our-very-own-Great-Depression.html

Biggest fear: 'The perfectly hidden WMD'

September 29, 2008 - 5:51am

J.J. Green, WTOP Radio

WASHINGTON - Homeland Security officials say security upgrades have shut down many of the nation's vulnerabilities, making it hard to launch a major terror attack inside the United States. However, the State Department's Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Dell Dailey, says that doesn't mean a well disciplined terror group couldn't do it.

"The perfectly hidden weapon of mass destruction is our biggest fear," Dailey says. "Coming at the United States will probably have to be a spectacular effort, very well controlled."

"We view al-Qaida as always wanting to exercise the WMD option against the United States," Dailey says. "They haven't been able to. We don't see any evidence of them having that capability, but we're always worried about it."

U.S. intelligence officials are worried because al-Qaida has been operating in the ungoverned shadows of the world for 20 years. Those officials fear they've been using that cover to try to acquire weapons of mass destruction to use inside the U.S.

According to State Department documents, there are at least six regional safe havens worldwide, spanning more than 27 countries on four continents. A number of them cross national boundaries. Experts say the most dangerous one is in Pakistan, where al-Qaida's base of operations is believed to be.

Dailey says his teams are not just sitting back waiting for an attack.

"In the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Northwest Province area, the U.S., with the Pakistanis, have a $150 million program per year for five years that lends itself to significant economic development and the rules of law and good governance."

It includes military funding for the Pakistani frontier corps.

"It needs to move along and be successful so that the Pakistani people in the FATA area can see goodness taking place with the Pakistani government helping them out," Dailey says.

That approach is based on a U.S. counterterrorism strategy to try and win over the local people in vulnerable areas of the world before groups like al-Qaida can.

But the problem of ungoverned space is only one problem on a list of several. Another problem for the State Department is promoting the U.S. approach of dealing with terrorism as a multi-faceted problem to other countries. Dailey says that is the most daunting part of the mission.

"The toughest challenge is probably for nations to realize that counterterrorism legislation and counterterrorism financial efforts are critical and important in the counterterrorism effort," Dailey says.

He says nations around the world need to give themselves the "evidentiary capability, prosecution capability, judicial capability and the detainment capability to capture them (terrorists), try them and put them in jail so that the country and the people can see that terrorism doesn't succeed."

The State Department's plan for "Defeating the Terrorist Enemy" is to attack all levels of the "Threat Complex" simultaneously. The three levels consist of the following:

• Leaders - Groups such as al-Qaida and associated networks, which provide leadership, resources, inspiration and guidance to extremists.

• Safe Havens - Spaces that provide a secure base for extremist action, including physical space, cyberspace and ideological space.

• Underlying conditions - Local groups, grievances, communal conflicts and societal structures that provide fertile soil in which extremism flourishes and provides the "fuel" for the enemy to exploit. Many of these grievances and conflicts are pre-existing, and resolving them is related to combating terrorism.

Dailey says the overall U.S. strategy appears to have worked.

"I think the United States has shown post 9/11, with its pretty aggressive and successful counterterrorism activities, that in addition to our physical protections and our friendly nations north and south, we do enjoy a physical advantage."

However, Dailey acknowledges another problem is growing.

"Our secondary fear is the terrorists going after our friends, whether it's the Pakistanis, the Algerians or the Turks," he says.

"The effort to come after the United States through host nations, or go after host nations themselves is a real threat because it de-stabilizes our friends. We don't want other countries to become targets because terrorists can not get to the United States."

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=251&sid=1487257

Cadbury says Chinese-made chocolate have melamine

September 29, 2008 - 9:24am

The spokesman said Monday it was too early to say how much melamine the chocolates contained.

He declined to give his name because of company policy.

Cadbury said earlier the tests "cast doubt" on the safety of its Chinese-made products but didn't elaborate.

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=34&sid=1487265