It appears they've killed our ability to comment on readers blogs even though we can still post 'em. It is over as of 12:00 noon EST September 15, 2010.
We have officially fallen into the void. Good night and good luck friends...
Well since I do have the ability to blog here still I might as well make one that is about politics.
According to this New York Times article it seems many manufacturing CEO's want to see our government more involved the manufacturing industry "along the lines of China, Germany or Japan". It seems these CEO's cannot raise capital to expand their US manufacturing operations because potential financiers want to know what their "China Strategy" is, or how they plan to create jobs abroad instead of the US. The CEO's would like the US government to step in and provide them the capital to expand the US based manufacturing operations since the marketplace refuses to do so. So what was the administration's response to this?
Well since I am one of the few left with the ability to blog I've been asked by wendy davis to do one about the One Nation Working Together event scheduled for October 2nd, 2010 (my b-day btw).
I don't know much about it but it sounds like a very good thing...so I turn the floor over to wendy for more details on this one.
This may be my last blog post I make here. So I take this opportunity to look back while looking forward.
One of my latest comments was on a blog by TheraP. It was in response to oleeb asking if I was gonna still be hanging around these parts. My answer was;
Thanks bro and I'll still be around, just not as often.
Back in the old days the front page of TPM Cafe was content rich. Over time the front page content has dropped off, though we still have Reich, Baker, Rotwang, Clemons and MJ, but it was made up for with the rise of the reader blogs. Remove the reader blogs and there is much less of a reason for me to be here since there will be much less good content for me to comment on. I think this is a very risky gamble for Josh because with no reader blogs, and weaker front page content, visitors will go down resulting in less ad revenue. But he seems to think the way to go is the corporate model and not by having us "amateurs" provide content. His call...
I still will have things to say, for now I'll just be saying them over at my personal blog. Including my latest political post.
Like I said I am not leaving but conditions here will mean I will have fewer things to say here...
I just want to take this opportunity, in what will in all probabilty be my final blog, to comment on where we have been here and where we are going...
It seems reader blogging is still alive for me, so I might as well do a post...which I was inspired to do by a favorite movie line of mine;
I've come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass................and I'm all out of bubblegum.
As Ruta would say...HAR HAR HAR. They Live...and we (still) live.
That's all...g'night.
Krugman, as he is wont to do, nails it again.
I'm starting to have a sick feeling about prospects for American workers -- but not, or not entirely, for the reasons you might think.
Yes, growth is slowing, and the odds are that unemployment will rise, not fall, in the months ahead. That's bad. But what's worse is the growing evidence that our governing elite just doesn't care -- that a once-unthinkable level of economic distress is in the process of becoming the new normal.
And I worry that those in power, rather than taking responsibility for job creation, will soon declare that high unemployment is "structural," a permanent part of the economic landscape -- and that by condemning large numbers of Americans to long-term joblessness, they'll turn that excuse into dismal reality.
That is right. Permanent and persistent unemployment in the 8.5%-10% range. And why is this happening? Well we all know how the Republicans feel. They heart the upper 1% of wage earners, the rest be damned. But what about the Democrats? The ones who are supposedly for the working man, the little guy, the champions of the lower rungs of the wage earners. Well it seems they heart the upper 1% of the wage earners too. Nothing is being done to prevent the looting of America's wealth by the upper 1%. To quote (or paraphrase) President Obama when talking to the CEO's of America's largest banks "My administration is the only thing standing between you and the pitchforks". The pitchforks? Are those the people who feel that continuing down the path we're on will doom our country? People who are trying to change our fetid system before it rots away from the inside and collapses under its own untenable weight?
Right...
Now...
HAHAHAHAHAHA...
Anarchy in the U.K.? Not quite. Or at least not yet. More like Greece.
The anarchist group Sect of Revolutionaries made the following statement;
"Tourists should learn that Greece is no longer a safe haven of capitalism," its declaration said.
"We intend to turn it into a war zone of revolutionary activity with arson, sabotage, violent demonstrations, bombings and assassinations, and not a country that is a destination for holidays and pleasure."
Why? Well, the article goes on to state;
The surge in violence comes amid rising social tensions over the austerity measures enforced by the government in exchange for €110bn in emergency aid, the biggest bailout in history.
It is about to start getting ugly people. It doesn't have to be this way but the urban guerillas have been given reason to make their return...
For now it is wise if you stay out of Greece for the foreseeable future. Keep your eyes on Spain and Italy. They have histories of this kinda stuff too. So hopefully we won't have the same economic austerity programs enacted here in the US. Because this thing could spread. There are a lot of people who have nothing so they feel they have nothing to lose. And they won't be looking to further a cause. They are pissed and only intend to bring mayhem, destruction, violence and death...and let it burn.
Ever wonder how and why the tea party movement came to be?
Well, click here, to find out about its origins. You should note that the founders of the movement share the same level of intellect, integrity and logic as the current bunch of nuts.
Just sayin'...
"Coma"
Hey you caught me in a coma
And I don't think I wanna
Ever come back to this...world again
Kinda like it in a coma
'Cause no one's ever gonna
Oh, make me come back to this...
world again
Now I feel as if I'm floating away
I can't feel all the pressure
And I like it this way
But my body's callin'
My body's callin'
Won't ya come back to this...
world again
Suspended deep in a sea of black
I've got the light at the end
I've got the bones on the mast
Well I've gone sailin',
I've gone sailin'
I could leave so easily
While friends are calling back to me
I said they're
They're leaving it all up to me
When all I needed was clarity
And someone to tell me
WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON
GODDAMN IT!
Slippin' farther an farther away
It's a miracle how long we can stay
In a world our minds created
In a world that's full of shit
HELP ME
HELP ME
HELP ME
HELP ME
BASTARD
Please understand me
I'm climbin' through the wreackage
Of all my twisted dreams
But this cheap investigation just
Can't stifle all my screams
And I'm waitin' at the crossroads
Waiting for you
Waiting for you
WHERE ARE YOU
No one's gonna bother me anymore
No one's gonna mess with my head no more
I can't understand what all the fightin's for
But it's so nice here down off the shore
I wish you could see this
'Cause there's nothing to see
It's peaceful here and it's fine with me
Not like the world where I used to live
I NEVER REALLY WANTED TO LIVE
ZAP HIM AGAIN
ZAP THE SON OF A BITCH AGAIN
Ya live your life like it's a coma
So won't you tell me why we'd wanna
With all the reasons you give it's
It's kinda hard to believe
But who am I to tell you that I've
Seen any reason why you should stay
Maybe we'd be better off
Without you anyway
You got a one way ticket
On your last chance ride
Gotta one way ticket
To your suicide
Gotta one way ticket
And there's no way out alive
And all this crass communication
That has left you in the cold
Isn't much for consolation
When you feel so weak and old
But is home is where the heart is
Then there's stories to be told
No you don't need a doctor
No one else can heal your soul
Got your mind in submission
Got your (political*) life on the line
But nobody pulled the trigger
They just stepped aside
They'll be down by the water
While you watch 'em waving goodbye
They'll be callin' in the morning
They'll be hangin' on the phone
They'll be waiting for an answer
When you know nobody's home
And when the bell's stopped ringing
It was nobody's fault but your own
There were always ample warnings
There were always subtle signs
And you would have seen it comin'
But we gave you too much time
And when you said
That no one's listening
Why'd your best friend drop a dime
Sometimes we get so tired of waiting
For a way to spend our time
And "It's so easy" to be social
"It's so easy" to be cool
Yeah it's easy to be hungry
When you ain't got shit to lose
And I wish that I could help you
With what you hope to find
But I'm still out here waiting
Watching reruns of my life
When you reach the point of breaking
Know it's gonna take some time
To heal the broken memories
That another man would need
Just to survive* added by the author of this blog
Since I turned 18, now 30 years ago, I have always supported the Democratic Party even though I have always been an unaffiliated voter.
Sorry to say that support is coming to an end. By the end of the year I will register with the Green Party and they will get my complete and unequivocable support from here on. I have been patient for 30 years for the D's to come back to the left where our triumphs have been civil rights, the championing of workers and union rights, protecting the environment and battling for the little guy.
It seems the Pentagon and their American geologists (the Pentagon employs geologists?) have identified mineral deposits in Afghanistan, specifically "iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium", valued in the trillions of dollars.
So the plan to turn Afghanistan around is to strip mine and pollute the place for the profit of western corporations and the corrupt ruling class in Afghanistan who have no intention on sharing the wealth with the people of that country?
We have a funny way of trying to improve things...
Earlier today TheraP did a post about how BP in concert with the US government is limiting access to and information about the Gulf oil spill. For some reason Thera's blog post is unfortunately gone so I wanted to touch on it.
This article in the NYT highlights how the media and scientists have been denied access to this disaster. The government and BP say it is for safety reasons. But if you read the article BP is calling the shots and when confronted with numerous examples of agents of our government denying access to the spill the officials claim that it isn't the government's position and the incidents are isolated. A CBS news crew was threatened with arrest. Sen. Bill Nelson (D) of Florida, a vociferous critic of offshore drilling, was not allowed to bring journalists with him on a fact finding tour of the Gulf being told "They said it was the Department of Homeland Security's response-wide policy not to allow elected officials and media on the same 'federal asset' ". A ban on politicians and the media being together on the same federal asset? What the hell does that mean? DHS did not elaborate and Sen. Nelson has asked DHS secretary Napolitano for an official explanation.
This sucks people. As bad as the spill is it is worse when a corporation, for purely selfish profit reasons, is allowed to censor the flow of information about an incident on publicly held land with an assist from our government. I am stunned that this is being done not by a President Bush but by a President Obama.
This is unacceptable, reprehensible and blatantly un-American.
Although the Coast Guard had trained for the possibility of cleaning up a disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, it had never anticipated that oil would spread across such a broad area and break up into hundreds of thousands of patches as the current spill has done, the commander heading the federal response to the spill said Monday.
Anybody with working knowledge of oil spills realize that it takes years, or even decades, if ever, to fully clean up oil when it washes ashore. That point seems to be lost on the person Obama chose to lead the government's response to the spill. He also said;
The operation, Admiral Allen said, was "taxing our resources."
Well it just might be but then again when the resources that the government allocated are of such a small scale when compared to the full scope of this disaster it is no wonder they are being taxed. So instead of allocating as many resources as possible to prevent as much of this oil as possible from reaching shore we get to hear "We had no idea" as the ecology, and the way of life of the people, in the region is destroyed for generations if not forever. That is right admiral you and the Obama administration have proven to be clueless time and time again when it comes to dealing with this disaster...and collectively you guys made an unmitigated disaster even worse.
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