Wednesday, April 16, 2008
A Quote for the Day
The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrong-doer. - Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Another sign about the condition of our economy
The New York Times ran an article about businesses declaring bankruptcies. Read the entire article at this link:
Retailing Chains Caught in a Wave of Bankruptcies
The consumer spending slump and tightening credit markets are unleashing a widening wave of bankruptcies in American retailing, prompting thousands of store closings that are expected to remake suburban malls and downtown shopping districts across the country.
Since last fall, eight mostly midsize chains — as diverse as the furniture store Levitz and the electronics seller Sharper Image — have filed for bankruptcy protection as they staggered under mounting debt and declining sales.
But the troubles are quickly spreading to bigger national companies, like Linens ‘n Things, the bedding and furniture retailer with 500 stores in 47 states. It may file for bankruptcy as early as this week, according to people briefed on the matter.
Even retailers that can avoid bankruptcy are shutting down stores to preserve cash through what could be a long economic downturn. Over the next year, Foot Locker said it would close 140 stores, Ann Taylor will start to shutter 117, and the jeweler Zales will close 100.
The surging cost of necessities has led to a national belt-tightening among consumers. Figures released on Monday showed that spending on food and gasoline is crowding out other purchases, leaving people with less to spend on furniture, clothing and electronics. Consequently, chains specializing in those goods are proving vulnerable.
Retailing is a business with big ups and downs during the year, and retailers rely heavily on borrowed money to finance their purchases of merchandise and even to meet payrolls during slow periods. Yet the nation’s banks, struggling with the growing mortgage crisis, have started to balk at extending new loans, effectively cutting up the retail industry’s collective credit cards.
“You have the makings of a wave of significant bankruptcies,” said Al Koch, who helped bring Kmart out of bankruptcy in 2003 as the company’s interim chief financial officer and works at a corporate turnaround firm called AlixPartners.
Oil in the News
Another CNN article, this one about the price of oil. As always, full article at the link.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Crude oil prices rose to a new record high above $113 a barrel Tuesday as the U.S. dollar weakened further against the euro.
Light, sweet crude for May delivery rose to a new trading high of $113.93 a barrel in early morning electronic trading. The previous high of $112.21 was set April 9.
Oil settled at a record closing high of $111.76 a barrel on Monday.
"The path to $115 is cleared," said Stephen Schork, publisher of the oil trading newsletter The Schork Report.
The latest surge in crude prices is partly due to weakness in the U.S. dollar, analysts said. As the dollar has dropped versus the euro, many investors have flocked to commodities such as oil and gold to preserve the value of their assets.
"Those Pavlovian dogs are barking. Until someone breaks them out of that paradigm, they're going to keep trading that way," said Schork.
The euro bought $1.5865 early Tuesday, up from $1.5808 the previous session. The euro hit an all-time high against the dollar last Thursday.
Traders are also trying to get ahead of rising demand for crude as refineries finish their maintenance cycles and begin gearing up for fuel production over the next few months, Schork said.
Glad to know we've had 1000 visitors
Hope you enjoy this blog (even in areas of disagreement). We don't always agree with each other but we do respect others views. We try to refrain from people who just rant though. There is so much going on with the world and in the world. Please take time to think.
McCain and the Media
He seems to be liked across the board by the media - liberal and conservative. (I actually get tired of those labels). Anyway an MSNBC article had more, click the link for full story:
McCain: Speaking to his base, the media
Posted: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 9:14 AM by Mark Murray
This piece by the Washington Post’s Milbank might generate some discussion today. “So much for the liberal media. John McCain and Barack Obama both appeared before the nation's newspaper editors yesterday. The putative Republican presidential nominee was given a box of doughnuts and a standing ovation. The likely Democratic nominee was likened to a terrorist.” More: “McCain got a standing ovation -- an honor Obama did not receive when his turn came two hours later.”
The Wall Street Journal previews McCain’s economic speech. "Mixing austerity and tax cuts, Sen. John McCain is laying out an economic plan that includes increased Medicare premiums for wealthy seniors and a one-year freeze on spending along with a proposal to review a vast swath of federal programs. In a major economic speech Tuesday, the likely Republican presidential nominee also acknowledges economic distress among students and families.”
“He plans to aid students caught in the credit crunch who may have trouble obtaining college loans and to call for another big tax cut -- this one helping families with children. The proposals, combined with those he has already put on the table, show the Arizona senator's mixed approach to economics. He pushes tax cuts, a traditional Republican favorite; government reforms, such as an end to pork-barrel projects; and new spending for those he sees as deserving, such as students looking for loans and homeowners who need to refinance their troubled mortgages."
Bloomberg News also previews the McCain speech: "To ease gasoline prices, which average $3.37 a gallon nationally, McCain will propose a ‘gas-tax holiday,’ scrapping the 18.4 cents-per-gallon federal levy from Memorial Day to Labor Day this year. ‘Because the cost of gas affects the price of food, packaging, and just about everything else, these immediate steps will help to spread relief across the American economy,' McCain will say in the speech."
US responds to the food shortage
I admit that anything these various food shortages are a bit scary to me. I find myself looking for as much news about the shortages and the various responses. I am glad that President Bush is not ignoring what is happening. The entire link for this particular article can be found at the CNN website at this link - AnIntelligentMind
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. President George W. Bush has ordered the release of $200 million in emergency aid to help countries where the soaring cost of basic food has spurred riots and instability.
The money, to be drawn down from a food reserve, will address food needs in Africa and elsewhere, the White House said.
The announcement follows an appeal to the international community by World Bank President Robert Zoellick.
"The international community must fill the at least a $500 million food gap identified by the U.N.'s World Food Programme to meet emergency needs," he said. "Governments should be able to come up with this assistance and come up with it now."
The United States is the world's largest provider of food aid, delivering more than $2.1 billion in food aid to 78 countries last year, the White House said in a statement.
Riots from Haiti to Bangladesh to Egypt over surging food prices have brought the issue to a boiling point and catapulted it to the forefront of the world's attention.
"This is the world's big story," said Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute
Quote for the day
Your problems will be large or small according to whether your thinking and faith are large or small.
Monday, April 14, 2008
I can actually believe this
I never really saw Condoleezza Rice as trying to be a VP - at least at this time. I think it was just a lot of talk or she might have had a fleeting interest. You never know but I would be extremely surprised if she was offered or accept running as a VP. I don't get that she is just giving lip service to not running either. Anyway, via ABCNews, which has the complete article:
Rice Shoots Down VP Rumors
April 14, 2008 7:26 PM
ABC News Kirit Radia Reports: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice poured cold water on rumors that she was angling for the vice presidential spot on presumptive Republican nominee John McCain's White House bid.
"I do not want to be, don't intend to be, won't be on his ticket," she told the Associated Press in an interview in Alabama today where she received an honorary degree from Air University at Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base.
"It's time for me to do something else," she added, saying she would return to Stanford University after the Bush administration leaves office next January.
Rice praised Sen. McCain, of Arizonia, as "an amazing man" with "great intellect" but said the last time she spoke with him was last month after his passport file had been breached.
Speculation that Rice was lobbying for the VP job swirled after Republican strategist Dan Senor said on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos that "Condi Rice has been actively, actually in recent weeks, campaigning for this."
It was later revealed that Rice delivered a speech to an influential conservative group and separately addressed other issues such as race that are typically beyond her foreign policy portfolio as Secretary of State. Her spokesman consistently denied she would do anything other than return to teaching.
So Bill & Hilary being Bill & Hilary have selective memory
When people like to blow things up into something that it isn't, at least be consistent. I found the NewsBusters article pretty relevant to the show that Mrs. Clinton is putting on now. I do believe Mrs. Clinton is a hard worker but she stoops to a level I can't respect. Too often she is playing this "Big Boys are ganging up on me" routine when it doesn't hold water since she has a lot of "Big Boys" in her corner working in front of and behind the scenes. Bottom line, when Bill's term was over everyone "knew" Hilary would get her turn and she is now doing whatever it takes to get that chance no matter what dirt it involves. - AThinker
Will Media Remember Gov. Clinton's 'Insecure White People' Remarks?
By now you've likely heard about Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama's recent gaffe concerning high unemployment in small towns making Americans "cling to guns, or religion, or antipathy to people who aren't like them."
With this in mind, if media really are in the tank for Obama, and want to help him navigate this minefield he's created for himself, maybe they should look at some speeches Gov. Bill Clinton made in 1991 and 1992 that typically involved some form of the phrase "economically insecure white people."
Although Clinton was typically talking about how, in his view, Republicans tried to use race to gin up votes amongst financially struggling Caucasians, the similarities would certainly be enough to deflect attention away from Obama, assuming this was the press's modus operandi.
For instance, the Los Angeles Times reported on September 17, 1991 (emphasis added, h/t Huffington Post):
In complaining that President Bush has been exploiting the race issue to divide the Democrats, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, a probable presidential contender, said: "The reason (Bush's tactic) works so well now is that you have all these economically insecure white people who are scared to death."
As Clinton sees it, Bush has been telling worried white workers: You're right. I won't do anything for you. Government can't do anything for you. But at least I won't do anything to you.
In fact, if media did a little digging, they'd find this to be quite a common theme of Clinton's back then:
- Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, trying to convince Alabama Democrats to support his presidential bid, accused Republicans of trying to woo white voters by preying on unfounded racial fears.
Clinton told a meeting of the Alabama Democratic Party black caucus that Republicans "find the most economically insecure white folks and go scare the living daylights out of them." -- AP, October 13, 1991
- Why does the President refuse to let a civil rights bill pass? Because he knows that the people he is dependent on for his electoral majority -- white working class men and women, mostly men, have had their incomes decline in the 1980s and they may return to their natural home, someone who offers them real economic opportunity. And so he is dredging up the same old tactic that the hard right has employed in my part of the country, in the South, since I was a child. When everything gets (hyped ?) and you think you're going to lose those people, you find the most economically insecure white people and you scare the living daylights out of them. -- Georgetown University, October 23, 1991
- 1,000 Illinois Democrats had gathered in Chicago for their annual fund-raising dinner. Clinton, 45, was determined to give them his best shot. And he did, vigorously attacking George Bush: ''You know, he wants to divide us over race. I'm from the South. I understand this,'' Clinton croaked. ''This quota deal they're gonna pull in the next election is the same old scam they've been pulling on us for decade after decade after decade. When their economic policies fail, when the country's coming apart rather than coming together, what do they do? They find the most economically insecure white men and scare the living daylights out of them.'' -- Sunday Times, November 3, 1991
- "If you were in the do-nothing faction and you were about to get voted out, you just found the most economically insecure white people and scared the living hell out of them. We were raised on his. . . What did it do for us? Nothing. Kept us down. Kept us flat. All the progress we've made in the South, we've made since we started working together again.'' -- Houston Chronicle, June 7, 1992
Quote for the Day
Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Please don't try to justify this mess
Glad he did some good things in his life but it does not take away from what is wrong nor the impact on the life of his daughter. Truly sad to read this on MYVOICEDC today. Please click the link for more information. - ATHINKER
Civil Rights Leader Convicted of Incest
April 11th, 2008
By MATTHEW BARAKAT
Associated Press Writer
LEESBURG, Va. – A jury convicted an iconic civil-rights figure of incest Thursday after concluding that he had sex with his teenage daughter 15 years ago. The Rev. James L. Bevel, 71, a top lieutenant to Martin Luther King Jr. who also helped organize the Million Man March, faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced.
The four-day trial in Loudoun County Circuit Court included bizarre testimony about Bevel’s philosophies for eradicating lust, and parents’ duty to “sexually orient” their children.
Bevel’s daughter testified that she was repeatedly molested by Bevel beginning when she was just 6 years old, culminating in an act of sexual intercourse in 1993 or 1994 that formed the basis of the incest charge.
The jury reached its verdict after about three hours of deliberations.
Before the verdict, the jury had heard only passing reference to Bevel’s role in the civil rights movement. But during the sentencing phase of the trial Thursday afternoon, the jury saw a documentary that spelled out Bevel’s key role in organizing the 1963 Birmingham Children’s Crusade. Bevel and King were leading organizers of the marches, in which police turned fire hoses and dogs on child protesters, drawing international attention to the brutality that was keeping segregation in place in the South.
Bevel was also a leading organizer at other iconic events in the civil rights movement, including the 1965 march at Selma, Ala.
Prosecutor Nicole Wittmann acknowledged Bevel’s accomplishments but said the jury shouldn’t be swayed by them.
“There’s nothing I can say to take away what this man has accomplished, but there are two Jim Bevels,” Wittmann told the jury. “We’re talking about the one who had sex with his child.”
Jurors heard a phone call between Bevel and his daughter in which he never explicitly admits to sexual intercourse but seems to take for granted that it occurred. During the call he explains the importance of teaching his daughter “the science of marriage” and admits that he did not want her to get pregnant after the incident.
Family members who confronted Bevel in 2004 testified that Bevel read a written accusation by his daughter and replied that he did not contest the facts she laid out.
But Bevel denied the charge on the witness stand. He testified that his family mistakenly perceived his refusal to deny the specific allegations against him as an admission of guilt.
Public defender Bonnie Hoffman urged the jury to ignore evidence that Bevel led an unconventional, communal lifestyle in which he taught that it was parents’ duty to “sexually orient” their children.
Instead, she told the jury to focus on the single incident for which Bevel was charged: an act of sexual intercourse that occurred in 1993 or 1994 while the daughter was a teenager and was living with her father in Leesburg.
Hoffman said there were questions about the timeline — the daughter said she could not recall exactly what year the act occurred, and her recollection of when she lived in Virginia did not fully mesh with school records and other testimony.
Hoffman also questioned why the daughter returned to voluntarily live with her father after the alleged incest. The daughter testified that she went back because she had nowhere else to go.
Prosecutor Nicole Wittmann warned the jury against getting confused by Bevel’s sometimes convoluted explanations of his philosophies and his justifications for his actions.
“There’s no excuse for his philosophy in the law, or whether he’s eccentric, or whether he’s an historical figure. … There’s no exception” Wittmann said.
The Associated Press generally does not identify the victims of sexual abuse. The daughter is one of 16 children Bevel said he has had with several different women.
The trial divided members of Bevel’s large family, with relatives testifying for both the prosecutor and defense.
Even the daughter expressed mixed emotions. As she waited Thursday for a verdict, she was occasionally joined by her father as the two smiled and cooed over the daughter’s new baby girl — Bevel’s granddaughter.
“The hardest part is I love my father, and I wish he loved me as much as I love him,” The daughter told jurors during the sentencing phase.
I've never watched Dave Chapelle
so can someone tell me what his skit was about. I'm trying to figure out the tie in to this CNN news article, which I've partially posted. Please check out link for original article.
Ohio state troopers disciplined for Ku Klux Klan photo
SANDUSKY, Ohio (AP) -- A highway patrolman who was photographed in a handmade Ku Klux Klan costume while on duty the day before the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday has been suspended without pay, authorities said.A fellow trooper who transmitted the cell-phone photo of white-masked lawman has been demoted.
Craig Franklin, a 12-year veteran of the Ohio Highway Patrol, is pictured in the January 20 photo with a white cone on his head, white paper mask and a white cloth covering his shoulders, according to a highway patrol report.
Franklin is otherwise in trooper uniform. A handgun holster, a radio normally issued by the patrol and other police equipment can be seen in the photo, the report said.
Franklin and Trooper Eric Wlodarsky told an investigator that the picture was taken as a joke and was modeled on a television skit by comedian Dave Chappelle.
Highway patrol officials began an investigation after the patrol's Administrative Investigative Unit received an anonymous letter that included two photographs of Franklin in the outfit, an interoffice memo said.
Franklin, Wlodarsky, another trooper and a dispatcher discussed Martin Luther King Jr. Day at their post on the day the photo was taken, the report said. The national holiday was the following day.
None of the 13 troopers assigned to the Sandusky post are black.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Sometimes I just don't get the Democrats
They say they are for the common people all the time but so many things their party do is like some type of "club". I already get a headache with the entire joke of a delegate, superdelegate thing and now this "wanting to get paid" to support? Some of the Philadelphia party members will have to explain this mentality of entitlement to me. I found this on Reuters what are your thoughts? I don't know whether it is politics or food banks. I always have volunteered for "free" so maybe I don't get the entire paying volunteers thing. Again, what are your views? Does this go on everywhere? Here's a bit of the story found online:
Democratic candidate Barack Obama, who has built his candidacy on the promise of a “new kind of politics,” has run up against the old kind of politics in Philadelphia.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Obama’s refusal to pay “street money” to volunteers in Pennsylvania’s largest city may cost him support in the state’s April 22 primary.
Local party leaders in Philadelphia expect candidates to deliver cash to help them get out the vote, the Times says. Teens who hand out leaflets typically get a $10 bill, while more experienced volunteers can get up to $100. The total for America’s sixth-largest city could come to $500,000.
“This is a machine city, and ward leaders have to pay their committee people,” ward leader and Obama supporter Carol Ann Campbell told the Times.
Obama often rails against the influence of money in politics, and his campaign has told Philadelphia officials they should expect no street money.
That could cost him support in an area where he will have to run up large margins to counteract rival Hillary Clinton’s strength elsewhere in the state, the Times said. Local officials expect the Clinton campaign will have no qualms about handing out street money, which is legal and has been a fixture in previous presidential campaigns.
Obama’s stance could also cause resentment among the city’s poor, black voters, who see the black candidate’s well-funded campaign spending lavishly on TV ads but freezing out field workers for whom a $50 bill would be a big payday.
Now I see why the USPS always want rate hikes
Found this goodie via USA Today. Don't forget the next rate increase is coming this May. Too bad I'm still having trouble with getting my packages delivered. I guess when the mail carrier in my area gets tired of delivering they stop and do some bogus "notice left" swipe even when there is no notice or attempt made for trackable packages. Anyway, here is the story:
U.S. Postal Service defends $13,500 dinner charge
The U.S. Postal Service is defending the decision to spend $13,500 at a steakhouse in Orlando, telling the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that this was a reasonable expense designed to "woo corporate clients."
Federal investigators reported earlier this week that postal employees spent about $160 a person for the 2006 meal at Ruth's Chris Steak House in Orlando:
For this occasion, USPS paid for 81 dinners averaging over $160 per person for customers of the Postal Customer Council at an upscale steak restaurant. Further, USPS paid for over 200 appetizers and over $3,000 of alcohol, including more than 40 bottles of wine costing more than $50 each and brand-name liquor such as Courvoisier, Belvedere, and Johnny Walker Gold.
They charged the tab to government purchase cards.
"This is not taxpayer money. What we spend is what we make. The Postal Service is funded solely by our products and services," spokesman Gerry McKiernan tells the paper.
That doesn't assuage the concerns of GAO investigator Gregory Kutz.
"For the most part, my stamps helped pay for the dinner," he tells the Sun-Sentinel. "Every time you lick a stamp, think about Ruth's Chris."
(File photo by Damian Dovarganes, AP.)
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