Bush To Allow Rocket Fuel In American Water Supplies!

Bush’s exit strategy: Do as much damage on the way out as possible

By C&L

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MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer yesterday was discussing George W. Bush’s plan to let the EPA rule against cleaning up perchlorate from Americans’ drinking water, even though its toxic effects are well documented.

Even John Feehery, the “Republican strategist” brought on to explain this last-minute ugliness, admitted:

Once again, I don’t know the specifics of this particular one, but it doesn’t really sound good, does it, Contessa?

Brewer later returns to Feehery and asks:

Brewer: John, do you think there should be some shame in a president doing something like this? It reminds me of the big scandal that erupted when Clinton was leaving office with all the pardons. You know, why are you gonna do something in your — the very last few weeks that just … makes you look bad?

Simple answer: Because George W. Bush doesn’t care what you think. He never has.

If you want more information on Bush’s vandalism of the American political landscape on his way out the door, check out the Pro Publica site with a complete rundown.

Its first entry is on perchlorate:

At Issue: Perchlorate is a chemical component of rocket fuel that can contaminate water both naturally and, more frequently, through improper disposal at rocket test sites, military bases and chemical plants. Cleaning it up would cost billions of dollars. But the contaminant has been linked to thyroid problems in young children, pregnant woman and newborns, leaving critics concerned for the developmental health of those most vulnerable to the chemical’s effects.

Here’s the EPA’s official justification:

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Warning….Nationalism Ahead for US Auto Industry!

White House, Congress hammer out auto bailout

The White House Tuesday demanded that Detroit automakers prove their “long-term viability” in return for a 15-billion-dollar rescue bailout but said a deal with Congress was in sight.

President George W. Bush’s administration is making “good progress” in its talks with congressional leaders over legislation to shore up General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters.

“We are still working through a number of issues, some of them just small and technical, and other ones a little bit more meaty in scope, but, all in all, making sure we’re headed in the right direction,” she said.

But Perino stressed: “Our insistence that long-term viability be reflected in the legislation is something that we have held very strong feelings about, and that has not changed.

“There will not be long-term financing if they cannot prove long-term viability.”

Short-term loans of 15 billion dollars are meant to sustain the car giants through March, allowing president-elect Barack Obama time to address their crisis after he takes office on January 20.

GM and Chrysler are first in line after warning they are fast running out of cash. Ford, though equally hampered by slumping sales, says it faces no immediate liquidity crisis but wants a nine-billion-dollar line of credit.

While the Democratic-led Congress was ready to extend a larger amount of aid, the Bush administration has balked at giving any more than 15 billion and insists — like Obama — that the automakers must retool for the long haul.

White House and congressional negotiators held talks late into Monday and the emerging total proposed is less than half of the 34 billion dollars the auto giants say they would need to stave off a “catastrophic collapse.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said late Tuesday morning: “I’m confident that those matters can be resolved within the next hour or so.”

But Perino said that “while we’re working fast, we want to get it right.”

“So I wouldn’t read into anything if we don’t get it all finalized today.”

The proposed legislation calls for a presidential appointee, or “car czar,” to oversee the overhaul of the Big Three US automakers, which have been losing ground for years to their Japanese rivals.

In return for the loans, the government would get an equity stake and the automakers would have to improve their fleets’ fuel-efficiency and also examine using their excess capacity to build bus and rail cars for public transit.

The bill also requires the automakers to sell their private jets and places strict limits on executive compensation, similar to a recent bailout for financial firms buffeted by the global credit crunch and toxic mortgage loans.

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday Congress expects stakeholders in the industry — including bosses, union members, shareholders, car dealers and suppliers — to make sacrifices for the bailout.

“We call this the barbershop,” Pelosi said. “Everybody’s getting a haircut here, in terms of the conditions of the bill,” she said, adding: “The management itself has to take a big haircut on all of this.”

Obama has called a collapse of the auto industry “unacceptable,” and said Sunday he wanted a supervisory process that would hold the companies’ “feet to the fire.”

GM, which had warned it could run out of cash as early as January, urged swift passage of the bill and vowed it will “abide by the conditions proposed in the bill and will continue our restructuring with great urgency.”

Chrysler made similar noises while Ford, the second-biggest US automaker after GM, said: “Our industry is highly interdependent and a failure of one of our competitors could affect us all.”

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Obama Senate Seat Put On eBay (After Blagojevich Arrest)

Following Blagojevich Arrest, Obama Senate Seat Put On eBay

Huffo Pos- Sam Stein

December 9, 2008 01:51 PM

Various elements of the Rod Blagojevich arrest today are unavoidably humorous — whether it is his completely cynical approach to politics, the idea that he was even considering a possible run for President in 2016, his wife’s disdain for the Chicago Cubs, or the fact that he and his aides contemplated shaking down Warren Buffett for cash (allegedly, of course).

In fact, when authorities rang Blagojevich this morning to let him know that they were coming to arrest him, he responded: “Is this a joke?”

There was an almost cartoonish-aspect to the corruption exhibited by the Illinois Governor. And now, that buffoonery has rubbed off on all aspects surrounding the case. On eBay, a poster from Illinois has put up a listing for the United States Senate Seat, a nod to the auction that Blagojevich was apparently hoping to host from within the confines of his own office.

The current bid is a mere $0.99 cents. And the end time for the bid is December 19, 2008.

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Larry Craig Still Guilty

Court to Larry Craig: You’re still guilty

Think Progress- By Ryan Powers at 2:10 pm

Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) will not be allowed to withdraw his 2007 guilty plea to “disorderly conduct after he was arrested last year in a bathroom at Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport by an undercover policeman.” The court ruled that Craig’s rights had not been violated and that his guilty plea was “accurate, voluntary and intelligent.” Additionally, the “court upheld the government’s power to ban ’sexual solicitations’ in a public restroom, rejecting Craig’s claim that the law violates freedom of expression.” Craig issued a statement of his displeasure in response.

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Afternoon Jukebox- Sleigh Ride

Ella Fitzgerald- Sleigh Ride

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And now for a world government

Gideon Rachman | Financial Times | December 8 2008 19:13

I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US. I have never seen black helicopters hovering in the sky above Montana. But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible.

A “world government” would involve much more than co-operation between nations. It would be an entity with state-like characteristics, backed by a body of laws. The European Union has already set up a continental government for 27 countries, which could be a model. The EU has a supreme court, a currency, thousands of pages of law, a large civil service and the ability to deploy military force.

So could the European model go global? There are three reasons for thinking that it might.

First, it is increasingly clear that the most difficult issues facing national governments are international in nature: there is global warming, a global financial crisis and a “global war on terror”.

Second, it could be done. The transport and communications revolutions have shrunk the world so that, as Geoffrey Blainey, an eminent Australian historian, has written: “For the first time in human history, world government of some sort is now possible.” Mr Blainey foresees an attempt to form a world government at some point in the next two centuries, which is an unusually long time horizon for the average newspaper column.

But – the third point – a change in the political atmosphere suggests that “global governance” could come much sooner than that. The financial crisis and climate change are pushing national governments towards global solutions, even in countries such as China and the US that are traditionally fierce guardians of national sovereignty.

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What Are The People Who Predicted the Financial Crisis Predicting Now?

George Washington’s Blog | Tuesday, Dec 09, 2008

There are only a handful of people who predicted this financial crisis, or at least its severity.

What are they predicting now?

Peter Schiff and Ron Paul

Schiff, the manager of over $1 billion dollars in investments, says the U.S. will enter a long period which could be worse than the Great Depression.

Schiff also thinks that the economic crisis might lead to martial law.

He thinks that Asia and Europe, after a period of economic downturn, will “decouple” from the U.S., eventually enjoying great prosperity long before the U.S. recovers.

Schiff has admitted that he did not foresee the current rally in the dollar, and his investors – long in Asian and European stocks – are way down.

Schiff was Ron Paul’s chief economic advisor during his campaign. Paul has himself predicted the crisis for many years, and has warned that America is spending more than it can afford. Paul has also repeatedly warned of martial law.

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Gender Benders & the evolution of species

by Geezer Power…10:41 am

Well folks, it’s time to take a deep breath and go sit on the beach somewhere to reflect on what’s happening to life on Planet Earth. According to scientific studies the sex characteristics of vertebrate life are evolving toward a unisex condition. This at a time when science is making breakthroughs in genetic engineering and the human genome has been mapped. We are now eating genetically engineered food, both animal and vegetable, and at the same time ingesting a plethora of chemical compounds that are saturating the environment. I have a feeling that if Charles Darwin were around today, he would be doing a whole lot of documenting, and would probably come up with a new theory. The theory of degeneration.

It’s official: Men really are the weaker sex

Evolution is being distorted by pollution, which damages genitals and the ability to father offspring, says new study.

Geoffrey Lean reports

Sunday, 7 December 2008

The male gender is in danger, with incalculable consequences for both humans and wildlife, startling scientific research from around the world reveals.

The research – to be detailed tomorrow in the most comprehensive report yet published – shows that a host of common chemicals is feminising males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people.

Backed by some of the world’s leading scientists, who say that it “waves a red flag” for humanity and shows that evolution itself is being disrupted, the report comes out at a particularly sensitive time for ministers. On Wednesday, Britain will lead opposition to proposed new European controls on pesticides, many of which have been found to have gender bending effects.

It also follows hard on the heels of new American research which shows that baby boys born to women exposed to widespread chemicals in pregnancy are born with smaller penises and feminised genitals.

“This research shows that the basic male tool kit is under threat,” says Gwynne Lyons, a former government adviser on the health effects of chemicals, who wrote the report.

Wildlife and people have been exposed to more than 100,000 new chemicals in recent years, and the European Commission has admitted that 99 per cent of them are not adequately regulated. There is not even proper safety information on 85 per cent of them.

The rest of the story

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Seasons Greetings

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Wile E. Coyote’s Next Move…Wave Goodbye!

BIS warns of collapse in global lending

The City of London has suffered a dramatic collapse in its core business as global lending falls at the steepest rate since records began, according to new figures from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Last Updated: 8:53AM GMT 09 Dec 2008

Cross-border loans worldwide fell by $1.1 trillion (£740bn) in the first half of the year, reflecting the scramble by the financial industry to cut leverage by pulling credit lines and slashing risky exposure.

Foreign lending by UK banks fell by a staggering $884bn, equal to 81pc of the entire contraction in international lending.

The City is facing a double blow since worldwide issuance of bonds and securities has also gone into freefall, plummeting 77pc from over a trillion dollars to $247bn in the third quarter. The City has been the epicentre of Europe’s structured credit industry.

The collapse in bond issuance reflects the near-total closure of the capital markets in the late summer as credit spreads surged. Bonds issued in euros dropped by 94pc from $466bn to $28bn over the quarter.

The UK banking sector includes branches of US, European, Asian and Mid-East institutions. These banks tend to use London as a base for their global credit and investment operations.

Though foreign, they make up a crucial part of the City nexus and are a mainstay for accounting firms, lawyers and the panoply of financial services that enrich the City.

In its quarterly report, the BIS warned the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and other central banks that near-zero interest rates and emergency monetary stimulus may come at a cost.

By opening the cash spigot, the authorities risk displacing the money markets and may “discourage banks from lending to other banks”.

The money markets are a crucial lubricant for the financial system, but they cannot function if rates fall too low. The sector can wither away, as Japan discovered during its “Lost Decade”.

The BIS also hinted that the European Central Bank and Sweden’s Riksbank may have blundered by raising rates this year to contain the oil shock. It said short-term energy spikes have no lasting effect on inflation or wage deals.

“Evidence suggests an absence of strong second-round effects on inflation. The temporary inflationary impulse will soon drop out,” it said.

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