Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
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"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. |
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Sept. 30, 2008 Jump by Leon Fisher, Unknown News Excerpt: Jump, you rotten bastards in your three-piece suits, your wingtip shoes, your Rolex watches and your damned suspenders, you who threw good hard-working men with dirt under their fingernails out of work. Who owns your mortgage? by Marie K., Unknown News Excerpt: On Oct. 31, 2007 there was an important ruling by a US District Court judge in Cleveland, Ohio. He tossed out 14 foreclosure cases. A German bank was suing to repossess the properties, but the judge declared that they didn't actually own them. Sept. 29, 2008 'Conservative' is a synonym for criminal by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News Excerpt: Real conservatives have become an endangered species because of their ideological commitment to actual law and order. The best and kindest thing we can do to honor the memory of real conservatives is to stop using their word -- conservative -- to describe the cabal of criminals that usurped the title by stealth and deceit. Sept. 27, 2008 No kidding, no exaggeration: Gangsters control the economy by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News Excerpt: The gangsters got their first opportunity to get inside with the prohibition scam in the US in the early 20th century. They got further inside by "offering" their services to intelligence agencies during WWII. Then the over-hyped Cold War "crisis" began the process of gangsters being invited wholesale and secretly into the backstage operations of government, especially running drugs and weapons to bankroll black operations (briefly and slightly exposed during Iran-Contra). Once they had their feet firmly in the door, it was only a matter of time before they took over completely. Derivatives + tons of leveraged money = tons of risky loans for nothing and a devalued dollar by Marie K., Unknown News Excerpt: How about that ban on short selling? That's a way of stopping speculators from selling off their contracts at a time when prices are going down which may also increase the downward pressure. The profit here comes from borrowing a security (e.g. stock) and then selling it. Then, at a later date when the price is lower re-buying it and pocketing the profit. The same thing can be done with future commodity contracts. Of course, this is now banned -- which should keep both stock and commodity prices HIGH. This hurts EVERYONE and will also hurt all of those speculators and the companies that do lots of short selling -- putting those companies at risk. Hmmmmm. Sounds like the FED is doing it's own "short selling" ... Sept. 26, 2008 McCain heroically dives onto bailout grenade by Mahdi Abdul Finkelstein, Unknown News Excerpt: If it is true that McCain flew into D.C. and managed to break up the unholy alliance of the Democrats and the Oval Office then he actually did a good thing. A large majority of voters are against bailing out Wall Street, and by "against" I mean bitterly angry. It is hard to imagine what the Democrats are thinking -- if their deliberative process can be dignified with words implying human cognition rather than the herding behavior of cattle. Nationalize the banks by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News Excerpt: The financial system did not work the way we have a right to expect it to, and therefore a major overhaul is indicated with entirely new management. That's what they would do in a heartbeat if it was a professional sport team. What's happening instead is as if a team lost every game and the answer was thought to be to increase all the players' and coaches' salaries for next season. Sept. 24, 2008 Pirates of America by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News Excerpt: Pirates of antiquity were the rock stars of Europe -- Blackbeard, Sir Henry Morgan and their brood relished notoriety, all the better to terrorize their prey into ready submission to their distinctive pirate flags. But today's pirates tend to hide their identities, and if they do have a public persona, it's a mask of grave probity and aristocratic pretension. But if we had to put a poster child's face on the pirate enemy Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson would do nicely. Sept. 23, 2008 The future is now by Sherri B., Unknown News Excerpt: It's game on time. If you cannot protect yourself physically get close to someone who can. This is no longer a drill. You must make the choice now as to how to protect your friends and family should a violent situation come knocking at your door. The Alaskan gas pipeline, Sarah Palin, & We the People by Marie K., Unknown News Excerpt: It seems that the royalty payment system is more like an "honor system." The reports submitted by companies are NOT verified, the system "continues to lack the ability to automatically detect missing royalty reports," and the manpower needed to check that the volumes of oil and gas paid in kind are accurately measured is inadequate. Also, companies can legally make changes to their data for up to 6 years after the reporting month. What a system! They're lucky they collect anything. Drive us crazy, then rob us blind by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News Excerpt: Let's see if I have this straight. Corrupt politicians provided cover, by canceling any supervision for speculative finance and our major investment banks, for an astronomical swindle involving, in large part, lying about the true nature of mortgage backed securities that were made up of many fraudulently contracted home mortgages and selling them to gullible investors world wide. Sept. 21, 2008 These are the times that try by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News Excerpt: The best thing one can do to help prevent panic is to TURN OFF THE TV. With the constant drumbeat of putrid propaganda out of your head it will be much easier to clarify your mind. For those willing to make the effort, there are sources of information -- short wave radio, portions of the internet, and some books -- but in these times it is more important to know what your neighbors think than what the news anchor says he thinks (with a gun to his head or a bribe in his pocket). Sept. 20, 2008 Critiquing Obama's campaign by JR Mooneyham, Unknown News Excerpt: Obama is getting crucified on almost every single TV channel here. And if he was just planning to wait until the last moment to do a TV campaign, well, I'm afraid that's stupid as hell. For people are setting their voting decisions into stone at this very moment. Soon, a second chance by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News Excerpt: Any social system that depends on coercion can only succeed as long as it is growing. When it loses steam because it has reached the limit of productive parasitism -- no more people to force into slavery, no more mineral wealth to extract with those slaves, large scale agriculture tended by those slaves fails due to destructive processes, and so forth -- it collapses. Sept. 19, 2008 Economic collapse will come soon, but this is not it by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News Excerpt: The ultimate question before us is how a relatively well educated and economically secure society could have allowed itself to be so thoroughly robbed. Robbery at the point of a gun is no respecter of the maturity of the victim. This robbery, however, was accomplished with the cooperation of the victims in a gigantic confidence swindle, a taking of candy from babies situation. Sept. 18, 2008 Old Testament thinking by SirJ, Unknown News Excerpt: I will take on the challenge of explaining the evangelical right's theological backing for their seemingly contradictory stand on the killing of babies. I'm not one of them, I can't pretend to fully understand the Biblical basis they claim for their rhetoric, nor do I believe it is soundly based in the Bible. The iron fist is hidden by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News Excerpt: The US government's transparent lies are meant for the uneducated and the gullible. The rest of the world must live with the reality that any resistance will be met with massive state terror. America does not own its economy by The Canadian, Unknown News Excerpt: The buy-out of Fannie and Freddie was needed to keep the US dollar from going into freefall. Many nations have large US dollar denominated holdings, and if the US Fed had let Fannie and Freddie die, it would have instantly killed the value of the massive investment in the US by foreign entities (China, Israel, European Union States, Middle East etc...). As such, the value of the US dollar, which is propped up by the paper behind these foreign entity investments, would have collapsed. Sept. 17, 2008 Ban lawyers from political office by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News Excerpt: How can we expect that people presented with such a blatant conflict of interest will resist the temptation to feather their own nests? A simple measure of reform would be to disqualify all lawyers from political office. It might be all we need to begin the process of digging out of the hole the legal profession has buried us in. Dreams of justice for the Bush-Cheney criminals by Jesus Jones, Unknown News Excerpt: It's not like hoping for a miracle -- there's a real chance it could happen. Once Bush and Cheney et al are just citizens again, once there's less of a media reflex to always protect them, once there's no more mass delusional confusion that "going after" any of them means you're going after the American flag and not supporting the troops and all those briar patch lies, or that even investigating their crimes must be politically motivated, once they're out of power and their crimes become just what they are -- crimes -- there's a chance (not a great chance, just a small but reasonable chance) that some of the criminals and killers and collaborators of the Bush-Cheney administration might be brought to justice. Sept. 16, 2008 A predator, liar, cheat and thug by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News Excerpt: Anyone wanting to enter the political arena who is not a creep is marginalized, or worse, by the cooperative action of the creeps who dominate the scene. News from A (Abkhazia) to Z (Zimbabwe), i.e. news from the pillaged lands by Marie K., Unknown News Excerpt: So what will happen to the two regions? Given that both Abkhazia and S. Ossetia sought independence from Georgia in the early 1990s (plus S. Ossetia had its 2nd. independence referendum in 2006) and given that they both have already created their own governmental structures -- Abkhazia has its own president and prime minister and S. Ossetia has a president and its own administrative unit--they are ready for independence. If I could ask Sarah Palin a question by MonkeyMan, Unknown News Excerpt: Why is killing children that feel pain OK, but killing a baby that doesn't feel pain not OK? Sept. 15, 2008 End-game scenarios for America by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News Excerpt: The worst possible exit from the condition of imperial garrison state, and the most common in history, is military overreach and defeat on the field of battle. If, as seems increasingly possible, our rulers make the mistake of provoking a nuclear war with Russia by overplaying their hand (as we just witnessed in Georgia) then our species itself is at risk. There will be no winners in such a war. We will exterminate ourselves. It's just a little piece of history repeated by Leon Fisher, Unknown News Excerpt: Although America still retains a Senate, it is no less a rubber stamp than that of the Roman Senate under the Emperors. All important decisions are made behind closed doors, without any input from the people or their alleged representatives. Elections have become a fraud and any opposition to the status quo will put the average citizen into conflict with any one of the numerous anti-terrorist legislation now on the books. Sept. 14, 2008 It will take trillions to fix Bush's mistakes by Theo Lipschitz, Unknown News Excerpt: At this point the system is going to change ownership. Foreigners will assume control of the majority of America's assets, and you can bet that they will be calling the shots. Sept. 13, 2008 It all hangs on media integrity by Tom W., Unknown News Excerpt: If the media has any integrity at all, reporters will say without ambiguity that John McCain is full of crap. But I really don't expect that. If the media had any integrity, they would have reported somewhere amidst GW Bush's thousands of lies that he's full of crap too, but they never did. The trouble with Obama and why he'll lose by Juan P., Unknown News Excerpt: In some ways it is best that the Democrats lose again now. They deserve to lose. And they've built the road to defeat, one brick at a time, starting way back with the Iraq War authorization in 2002. Since then, they've gone along to get along in every instance. Sept. 12, 2008 Our endorsement: Barack Obama for president by Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown News Excerpt: Politically, he's a middle-of-the-road moderate when this nation rather desperately needs a principled radical and a complete change of direction -- but Dennis Kucinich isn't running and Ralph Nader can't win, so Obama's the best we're going to get. And he's an absolute Gandhi compared to what we've had, or to what the monstrous John McCain offers. Sept. 10, 2008 Lincoln was right, and now the Republic is destroyed by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News Excerpt: Give me demilitarization or give me death, which at my age and state of health is not as dramatic a statement as when Patrick Henry first expressed the underlying idea. We need to declare war on wars of all kinds if we are to earn our freedom. This is not a pacifist approach, just a common sense one. Sept. 8, 2008 Palin and the Cruelian vote by Laurie P., Unknown News Excerpt: On the issues, Sarah Palin is as terrifying as anyone on the far, far, farther right. She's a chip off such blockheads as James Dobson or Mike Huckabee, a public policy Christian who likes her church and state thoroughly mixed. Sept. 6, 2008 Remember, it is always darkest just before dawn by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News Excerpt: Other nations have dealt with this and survived -- Chile, Greece, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Argentina, the former Soviet Union and many others. It is a well-worn path to freedom by perseverance and courage. We will be a better people for having experienced a true struggle to free ourselves from authoritarian oppression. Boxers in a bunch over Georgia, Russia, and bull by Chris D., Unknown News Excerpt: From where I stand Russia's done little if anything wrong, in light of a sudden and violent violation of a decade-long cease-fire forged from a brutal war of independence under the guise of unifying the country. Sept. 3, 2008 Please respect my daughter's right to privacy ... just long enough for me to take it away from the rest of you by Madeline Zane, Unknown News Excerpt: Sarah Palin, as well as a number of humane non-crazy people, has asked that we all respect her daughter's privacy at this difficult time. And normally, I'd be on board with that. But in this case, I'm willing to make an exception. Because here's the thing: the privacy that Palin is requesting for her daughter, is the same privacy she would take away from the rest of us. The whole world is watching by JS Magruder, Unknown News Excerpt: I was going to ask hubby to rent Medium Cool on the way home from work, but I figure we can save the three bucks rental fee and just flip on the telly. Ah, beating down journalists -- there's just something so nostalgic about it! It's so ... third world. Get a few flaming tires in there and you've got a spectacle worthy of the worst regimes. Sept. 2, 2008 Exploiting tragedies that they themselves create by Madeline Zane, Unknown News Excerpt: The Republican reaction to the hurricane is so disgusting on so many levels it is nearly impossible to name them all. ... Sept. 1, 2008 Celebrate Alaska with Sarah Palin by Don Nash, Unknown News |
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