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Censorship

All through the ages, the first thing the great dictators did when they got into power was to burn the books. There hasn’t been a time throughout history when a dictator hasn’t burned or banned books. Whether it be Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung, Napoleon, Brezhnev, George Bush or Sarah Palin. Even now countries such as China, Saudia Arabia, Iraq, Iran, North Korea and Cuba just to name a few have strong censorship laws.

I came up through the sixties and seventies working for Collins Book Sellers who were battling the Henry Bolte/Aurthur Rylar government’s arcane censorship laws. Books like The Little Red School Book, Portnoy’s Complaint, The Outcasts of Foolgarah, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, were books that we were able to use to challenge the law; along with various editions of Playboy. Gough Whitlam came along and there was a new dawn with books. Most of the old rules were overturned and in Victoria there was very little trouble any more because Bolte was gone. Although in Queensland they still had Joh Bjelke-Petersen.

Labor governments in Australia through the ages have been on the progressive side of censorship. The Howard Government was doing it’s best to bring in strong censorship laws. Once even getting a law that would have had anyone arrest and charged for loading any sort of porn onto the Internet inside or outside the country, that is, if you were uploading porn to the USA you would be charged. It was stopped on the way to getting governors’ approval. Whose definition of porn was it?

I was most relieved when Kevin Rudd was elected. No more trouble with censorship laws. The ALP had more sense. The ALP would have much smarter people working in that department. No more trouble. Imagine my horror when I received an email from my son about the Great Firewall of Australia. You cannot imagine the anger and swear words that came from my mouth. The thing that really disappoints me the most is the amount of talent in the ALP that has not stood up against this law. One person in particular who is my hero, Maxine McKew, for beating John Howard in Bennelong. I have my own personal desktop background of the Bennelong result, she has not been stood up on this issue. Maxine is not the highest person in the ALP but she comes from a very strong media background. I expected that she would have taken a stand on this issue. But Maxine is not alone. There are many others in the ALP who remain silent.

Why won’t the firewall work? First of all, you could never make it a word based program. There are two many words that cross over, for instance the first and most obvious word is sex. If you ban the word sex, you also ban communicating with Middlesex and Sussex, you could never mention the word sextant. You would stop any email with a job application asking the persons sex or any document asking for your sex. That would just about grind the Internet to a halt in Australia. What about Virgin? Well there goes Virgin Airlines, Virginia and West Virginia for a start, then the online bible. Most of the words to do with women’s sexual health would be out. To show how effective a word based censorship firewall is to try blocking the word Viagra in your email. Ads by using the word Viagra will still get through. It cannot be done, because I still get V!agra Vi*gra and Viagr* coming through.

Senator Conroy says he only wants to ban child porn sites. Well I can tell why it won’t stop the child porn sites. Even if he blocked every site it would still get into Australia very, very easily. How? Every laptop coming into the country. Every portable USB hard drive on a key ring. Has anyone mentioned to Senator Conroy that the new portable hard drives can hold over 1Terabyte of information? Then there is Peer to Peer networks. His system won’t be able to block those at all. The record companies have been unsuccessful in stopping them, how is he going to stop them? Anybody with a little bit of computer knowledge can do that. Just ask your kids to show you how. Ask them about Limewire. Peer to Peer networks are a giant whole in Senator Conroy’s firewall, so big you could drive a truck through it.

Point inhibitor, is the first treatment generated in the viagra going to buy cialis daily pills. Doit, on viagra 100mg acheter prix donner des suppléments de racine.

Senator Conroy’s intention is to block illegal websites. He has a budget allocated for that. It will be very difficult to do that for the present standard of the Internet without blocking a lot of innocent sites. But what Senator Conroy has not taken into account the huge explosion of the Internet in the USA that’s about to happen under Barrack Obama. Free up restrictions on the Internet, introducing broadband to large amounts of untouched area’s in the USA. Senator Conroy’s system will slow the Australian Internet down under today’s system. It will be worse when Obama’s Internet kicks in.

Let’s say Senator Conroy is 100% successful in the sites he blocks. All are correct none that shouldn’t be are blocked. The ALP is tossed out at the next election. The Liberals win in a landslide and Tony Abbott is the new Minister for communications. Not a nice thought is it? That would be senator Conroy’s fault.

Senator Conroy’s 40 million dollars would be much better spent and far more effective on extra police to crack down on child pornography. Oh I forgot, he can’t give that to another department can he?

Obama’s Internet Revolution Begins.

http://www.toptechnews.com/news/Obama-Brings-Cyber-Sensibility/story.xhtml?story_id=0320013Q3J4W&full_skip=1

1,645 replies on “Censorship”

Obama speaks out in his first newspaper interview.

Have you ever spoken to [Illinois] Gov. [Rod R.] Blagojevich about the Senate seat?

I have not discussed the Senate seat with the governor at any time. My strong belief is that it needed to be filled by somebody who is going to represent the people of Illinois and fight for them. And beyond that, I was focused on the transition.

And that was before and after the election?

Yes.

lots more..
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-obama-excerpts10-2008dec10,0,7083663.story

Votemaster.
Minnesota Gives Up on the 133 Lost Ballots

The fourth Senate seat in play is the close race in Minnesota. In one Minneapolis precinct, 133 votes have vanished, that is, the total number of votes in the recount is 133 less than in the original count. The precinct went heavily for Democrat Al Franken and he is complaining loudly about the missing votes. The state has looked high and low for the missing envelope and can’t find it anywhere. It will be up to the canvassing board to determine what to do. One option is to forget the recount for this precinct and use the original count. Franken would like that but his opponent, Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), will surely complain. The Minneapolis Star Tribune currently puts Coleman’s’ lead at 192 votes, but there are thousands of challenged ballots and absentee ballots yet to be dealt with.

more…
http://www.electoral-vote.com

Gotta hit the sack soon and a couple of nominees havn’t voted. kerneels, Ferny and jen (just in from Broome) has another preference.
So stewards have decided to wait until tomorrow morning before declaring “correct weight”. Tight finish that’s for sure.

I assumed my book suggestions were my votes, but if not, here goes..
1. the Justice game
2. deer hunters
3. tales of a female nomad

Oh well i guess when his family loses its home to the banks and he also loses his job, a man has to put food on the table best way he is able. What easier way than turning himself in to a scrap metal dealer.

Wholesale prices for copper hit $8,900 per metric ton this summer, according to John Mothersole, principal with IHS Global Insight’s pricing and purchasing service. “When prices reach those levels, scrap yards become more aggressive in their collections,” he says, and less concerned about the, ahem, provenance of such metals.

http://www.builderonline.com/building-materials/fbi-investigates-copper-theft.aspx

Financial Crises for Dummies

If, like most people, you don’t exactly understand how the financial crisis came about, this piece by Nobel-Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz explains a lot in detail. In a nutshell, Stiglitz sees five crucial errors that led to the crisis:

1. Pres. Reagan replaced pro-regulation fed chairman Paul Volcker with anti-regulation Alan Greenspan
2. The Glass-Steagall act was repealed, eliminating banking safeguards
3. Tax cuts and low interest rates masked all the warning signs
4. The rating agencies gave good grades to companies in deep trouble
5. The administration’s “cash for trash” bailout plan was a disaster

more…
http://www.electoral-vote.com

North Carolina Senate 2010

Attorney General Roy Cooper leads Richard Burr 39-34 in a
hypothetical match up for the 2010 North Carolina Senate race, the newest survey from
Public Policy Polling finds.
44% of the state’s voters approve of Cooper’s job performance with just 23%
disapproving. Burr gets a 32% approval mark with 31% unhappy with his work as a
Senator.
In their potential head to head, Burr and Cooper perform almost equally well within their
own parties. Any time a Democrat can do that in North Carolina, he or she is going to
win a statewide race due to the state’s significant Democratic identification advantage.
“This poll confirms what many people already thought: Roy Cooper is the strongest
potential Democratic opponent for Richard Burr in 2010,” said Dean Debnam, President
of Public Policy Polling. “He is just as well known statewide as the incumbent Senator,
and better liked. He would be quite a formidable candidate.”
Burr leads Cooper by just six points among white voters.

more…
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_NC_1210.pdf

Re the book choice – I’ll just go with the flow. I’d have to do some research on thew other books to vote intelligently, but work is crazy so won’t have time. Apologies for slackness.

Mornin’ All,
Thanks for your responses everyone. Looks like we have at least ten starters if our crusty old sea-dog decides to join in.

KR at 1236:
(c) 3
(l) 2
(g) 1

megan 1245:
(c) 3
(f) 2
(l) 1

paddy at 1265:
(n) 3
(f) 2
(c) 1

flaneur at 1267:
(m) 3
(c) 2
(j) 1

jen at 1280:
(n) 3
(c) 2

Grace at 1288:
(d) 3
(a) 2
(g) 1

kerneels at 1308:
(k) 3
(c) 2
(j) 1

Checked twice, hope I didn’t miss anyone.
And our winner is:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=xzWzKVbURCA

Deer Hunting with Jesus by Joe Bageant.

Most libraries have DHw/J where it can be reservered online for ~ a buck .
http://sunshinecoast.spydus.com/

Suggest one keeps “yuppie paper” handy at all times—those oblong, yellow, unilaterally adhesive peel-off petals of layered paper—for marking pages and for quick notes/thoughts. An exercise/notebook with leashed pen/pencil are similarly recommended.
That’s right folks, take it from Sammy Coleridge, commit your cerebral Catherine wheels to paper because if they drain through your cranial colander, those ideas pass into a time-space continuum (“caverns measureless to man”, woman or your garden variety goof-off artist) from which they are almost always irretrievable.

Re-iterating:
Take one (1) waterproof knapsack.
Insert:
* One (1) copy of text under review
* Several (3) wads of yuppie paper
* One (1) notebook (legal pads work well)
* Two (2) writing implements
* One (1) Concise OxCon dictionary or equivalent.

Secure knapsack contents, where you go, it goes, kit and caboodle.

Welcome to TBC, you’re a player.

On Jan. 2 we’ll open a dedicated thread for an ongoing DHw/J pow-wow.
Gaffy, are you gonna “buy the ticket, take the ride”?

1313
Sweet mother o’ Gawd Ecky!

You make book readin’ sound like exam preperation – or major surgery!

Anyhoos – as an avid reader I already have a stack lined up and waiting for my holiday perusal – sans yuppie paper and legal pads. Though I may use the latter for those related to my PhD research.

So I will forego deerhunting with Jehovah’s lad and bid you all a fond and bon voyage.

Jesse Jackson Jnr. possibly involved in the scandal, although it does not appear as though he will be charged with anything at this time. He will be speaking to the prosecution team.

Ferny, regarding the “book readin'”, seems I’m doubly cursed. First, with a photograhic memory that refuses to develop at will (hence papyrus yup); secondly, by an ongoing vulnerability to the oppobrium of peers as an unappreciated satirist.
😥

What’s the topic of your thesis?

David I think that is about 40 Republicans to 5 Democrats in the poo. Lets hope they clean them all up.

Another curious turn in the Minn. Senate race.

Things just keep getting weirder in the Minnesota Senate recount.

Last week, 133 ballots vanished in the still-unsettled contest between Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken. This week, 171 absentee ballots are suddenly back in the mix after they were discovered to have been improperly rejected by election officials.

more…
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16460.html

There may be more improperly rejected absentee ballots out there, but only 56 of Minnesota’s 87 counties agreed to send their rejected absentee ballots to Minneapolis to be counted.

FBI investigating Coleman ally

The Pioneer Press is reporting that Norm Coleman, narrowly ahead of Al Franken in the Minny recount, is facing what seems like a preliminary FBI probe into his connections to businessman-benefactor Nasser Kazeminy.

PP’s Dave Orrick:
Federal investigators are looking into allegations that a longtime friend and benefactor tried to steer money to U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, the Pioneer Press has learned.
Agents with the FBI have talked to or made efforts to talk to people in Texas familiar with the allegations, according to a source familiar with the situation.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/1208/FBI_investigating_Coleman_paper_reports.html

Obama Calls on Blagojevich To Resign as Jesse Jackson Jr. Denies Wrongdoing.

President-elect Barack Obama called on Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich to resign over allegations that he tried to auction Obama’s Senate seat, as Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. denied any involvement in the governor’s alleged pay-to-play scheme.

The veteran Democratic congressman denied any wrongdoing at a late afternoon news conference Wednesday, saying neither he nor anyone acting on his behalf had offered Blagojevich anything in return for a possible appointment to Obama’s Senate seat.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000002995755

Chris B,

The big issue is the fact that Obama is a member of the Chicago politicians club, one of the the most corrupt group of politicians – Republican and Democrat – in the country. Obama is not corrupt. But a heck of a lot of the people he worked with and did deals with to get where he is today are. Corruption does not like purity. Corrupt cops will always try to corrupt the new guy; corrupt politicians likewise. And if you do not play along, you are unlikely to get anywhere. Where does that put Obama?

The only concerns that I have had about Obama have been to do with his associations. This scandal reinforces that concern.

Off topic completely, but I heard some comments pro and con about the BBC screening a doco about a guy who went to Switzerland for assisted suicide. He was dying of motor neuron disease and decided to take his leave in the presence of his loving wife.

The question was should a suicide (they show the whole gig) be shown on TV. I nearly choked on my weeties, as I thought of how many violent and hideous deaths get shown on TV, both fictional and otherwise, and that showing one peaceful death of choice could hardly be considered controversial.

The usual parade of moral preachers have decried this event, but I wonder how many would make the same choice if they were ever in the same predicament. Polling in most countries show a broad agreement that one has the right to terminate one’s own life in such circumstances, but no, the holy happy clappers who worship the big Sky Daddy say it would displease him. So suffer in ways we wouldn’t consider humane to inflict on a dog, ‘coz Big Sky Daddy is ALWAYS watching!

All the other arguments about it being ‘slippery slope’ can be checked with some easy pre-requisities: a provable terminal disease, a person being mentally intact, and a body of medical specialists who concur.

But outrage about an elective peaceful suicide? Give me a break.

Here endeth the rant.

I agree Kirri. The TV is full of visions of death and it doesn’t make sense to me to claim outrage over a peaceful voluntary suicide of a terminally ill man.

Myself, I think terminally ill people should be allowed to choose to die peacefully, with the checks you suggest. Watching my mother die from cancer with doctors being unable to manage her pain has reinforced my opinion.

1317 Ecky
It will probably come as no surpirse that I’m looking at (in short) “The Virtue of Conduct Rules” in the legal profession – that is, a virtue ethics approach to lawyers rules involving a comparative study of rules in Australia, UK and USA and an analysis of why rules will always be a poor expression of the ethics necessary to practice.

1324
It is just another beat up. At this point i believe he is being charged with attempted corruption.
Google “corrupt US politicians” if you want to make some comparisons. There are only 344000 pages about them. LOL
There are plenty of them in jail and there are plenty who should be in jail but are not.
It is not even a scratch on the AWB bullshit here in Oz.

How is it a beat up?

The Governor of a state was looking to charge money for handing out a Senate seat, for pete’s sake.

I would have thought that someone who was so strong on electoral fraud would be screaming bloody murder about this. Selling seats in the parliament has to be at least as bad as trying to rig an election.

This is a level of corruption that has, according to media reports, shocked even opponents of the governor – and these people are used to corruption in Illinois.

On second thought, considering our thread is headed by an argument about censorship, my post on euthanasia is definitely NOT off topic! In fact it’s right in there, dead centre, (so to speak! LOL) of the target area for our ‘betters’ to ‘protect’ us from such ideas as a personal right to terminate our own lives under certain extreme circumstances.

KL, your experience is hardly unique unfortunately, and when I was first diagnosed with the Jimmy Dancer I had an opportunity to examine my own choices and decided the state did NOT have the right to stop me if that was the outcome. (I’m happy to say I’m not in that position after treatment, but since there are NO guarantees in life, it was something that had to be thought about).

1331
David Gould

As Jon Stewart said, he’s going to need to pay a BIG bribe to get out of this one! LOL

Yeah, it shocked a lot of people who are used to watching some pretty shocking stuff go down. This clown’s problem was his mouth, but I’d bet similar things or worse aren’t infrequent events…just more subtly conducted.

Kirri
Looks like more interesting times just ahead.

I have just gotten a series of large, unabashed sell signals in every single U.S. stock that has anything to do with real estate, housing and construction. And I’m going to take ACTION on these signals before the market closes TOMORROW. Here are the signals in a nutshell……………….

The evidence: Yesterday alone, the volume of trading on this ETF surged to 20.28 million shares, its largest in history.

http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/warning-big-blatant-sell-signal-in-these-stocks-28657

Kirri, you raise some valid points at 1335.

In order to maintain their Establishment Power and Privileges (eg. 100% tax exemption and govt. hand outs for madrassas), churches need to hold as much control over the behaviour of their flocks as possible, lest they lose market share.

From the moment we are born we are deemed filthy sinners who must be branded (baptised) publically at the first opportunity.
“You belong to us now, sucker!”
Infants have no intellectual awareness and no volition in this institutionalised abuse.

Then the pie in the sky when you die merchants systematically programme individual infants’ limbic systems (snake-brains) with irrational fear, guilt and shame. Then, like spiritual dairy farmers, they systematically milk adherents who herd and queue on demand for the rest of the ungulates’ liturgical lives.

But, oh no, that’s not good enough for them. They then want to dictate how not just their own devotees, but how the rest of us die. It’s high time we told them to sod off.
The government and the churches don’t own our bodies.

P.S. the Swiss de-perching option is for the rich and good luck to them.
There are lots of folk who have ordered Nebutals(strong barbiturates)online from Mexico. When human dignity is done health or agewise, 30 dolls and a bottle of spirits with which to wash them down will do the trick for the less wealthy.

Ferny, at least you don’t have to chisel it on stone tablets.
If you’d like a hand proof-reading before submitting, happy to assist. Even supply my own yuppie paper.
🙂

The SMH on-line poll has 63% approving the actions of the doco subject, and only 28% disapproving.

So how does ‘democracy’ handle the majority opinion?

How true Ecky, how sad and true that these poor deluded sods inflict their toxic Big Sky Daddy mumbo jumbo on their kids and then expect all of us to follow their dictates.

Aaargh, they give me the creeps!

[quote]
Obama’s advisers made the decision on Tuesday essentially to remain silent and ignored criticism for doing so from Republicans, a strategy reminiscent of how the Bush administration reacted to the last high-profile case of Fitzgerald, who was the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case. Still, David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Obama, issued a statement late Tuesday saying he had misspoken in comments he made in November that now seemed to contradict Obama’s assertions that he had no contact with Blagojevich in the conversations over a replacement.

“I know he’s talked to the governor,” Axelrod said in an interview with “Fox News Sunday” on Nov. 23. “And there are a whole range of names, many of which have surfaced.”

On Tuesday, Axelrod said he had been wrong. “They did not then or at any time discuss the subject,” according to his statement.

[/quote]
from:
http://iht.com/articles/2008/12/11/america/11illinois.php?page=1

Hmmm. Axelrod changes his story now this has come out. A little … odd.

1331
Sorry DG i may have put that a bit better by saying it is Trivia not a beat up as such. I am probably more shocked at the thought that he got caught.
I say it is trivia because this type of shit has been going on since time imemorial.
Give him his day in court and if he is guilty lock him up like the rest of them before him and get on with it.
All the HooHaa going on about it is as if it has not been done before and this is all new. Well there have been at least 79 elected officials convicted in Illinois since 1972. And thats only Illinois. I have not found a statistic for USA in total but Alaska is another State that comes to mind.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28141995/

Its just the same shit but a different bucket if you get what i mean.

Kirri @ 1332

I’m pleased you were not in that position also! And yes, sadly, it’s all too common that people have to deal with needless suffering from disease.

KR
I totally agree with your views on assisted suicide. After my C diagnosis I gave the matter considerable thought and decided that it is a viable course of action.

We did have Right to Die Legislation in the NT, before the Howard Govt. and the god-bothering Kevin Andrews over-rode the will of the NT population.

Marshall Perron (CLP) Chief Minister was the architect after witnessing his Mother’s painful cancer death -something that I for one am keen to avoid.

1343
Grace

We’re not alone Grace, apparently the Brits are in favour by 80%, which just shows how insidious the religious minority’s grip on power really is!

KR @ 1344
It has been our misfortune to live in an era dominated by fundamentalists of all religious persuasions and I don’t think they are done yet.

And neither are we, Grace.

Hi, Twinkle-Toes, good to see you. Are you gonna have a lash at our inaugural TBC too?
And Gaffy, wanna play orwot?

Even more talent in the Obama team.

President-elect Obama expected to select Nobel physicist Steven Chu as Energy secretary.

Obama is also poised to pick Lisa Jackson as head of the EPA, and Carol Browner, a former EPA official, as a high-level coordinator on energy issues. Environmental groups praise the appointments.

President-elect Barack Obama will tap Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu as his Energy secretary and former New Jersey environmental protection commissioner Lisa Jackson as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, a senior Democrat said Wednesday.

In addition, Carol Browner, a former EPA administrator, will serve as a high-level coordinator on energy issues, reporting to the president.

more..
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-obama-epa11-2008dec11,0,3390641.story

Norm Coleman Under Investigation.

To recap:

A few days before the election, a lawsuit filed in a Texas district court alleged that one of Coleman’s biggest donors and closest friends, Nasser Kazeminy, had routed $75,000 to Coleman’s wife, Laurie. The suit was filed against Kazeminy by Paul McKim, a self-described diehard Republican and CEO of Deep Marine Technologies, a deep sea energy exploration company in Houston in which Kazeminy is controlling shareholder.

lots more here…
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/state_of_change/389157/norm_coleman_under_investigation?rel=hp_blogs_box

Cat, twice I’ve tried to foster Ticster interest in authorship of a brand spanking new thread. Bubkes on the first tout, nada on the second. Bout as much luck as a Bad Avenue pimp on a slow lust day.
As you’re buzzin’ nearby, maybe we could get something happening. There’s someone we know whose sobriquet begins with “p” who may be press-gangable. You lean with so much more authority than moi, last time I asked, he brushed me.
🙁
Anyway, Govereror Palin may well be able to field-dress a moose, the sizzle around the tubes says you are the only Ticster with the techs to thread-dress an essay.

But first, the “kill”.
🙂

Obama’s recovery plan seen lifting stocks in 2009: poll.

U.S. share prices, on track for their worst year in more than 70 years, are expected to rise by about 10 percent next year if President-elect Barack Obama’s huge proposed spending plan helps avert a much deeper economic slump, a Reuters poll showed.

The benchmark S&P 500 is seen ending 2009 at 1,000 or up 9.9 percent from its December 8 close of 909.70, according to the median forecast given in a poll of 23 analysts and strategists.

They forecast a gain of 7.2 percent for the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI

“You’ve got Obama constantly coming out day after day, saying he’s going to be ready on day one,” said Marc Pado, U.S. market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. in San Francisco. “That’s a positive.”

Gee’s they’re fast in Indiana. This is straight off Google News.

The historic Indiana Democratic presidential primary race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama could well be decided by … Republicans. According to the Howey-Gauge Poll conducted April 23-24, entirely after the Clinton Pennsylvania primary victory, Hoosier Democrats are evenly split at 46-46 percent. U.S. Sen. Barack Obama is in a fierce battle in Indiana with U.S. Hillary Clinton, leading in the Howey-Gauge Poll 47-45. The two have been battling for the blue collar vote. (HPI Photo by Brian A. Howey)The fascinating wrinkle comes when the poll reveals that the race could be determined by the 9 percent of independent voters expected to participate, and 10 percent Republican crossover.

more..
http://www.howeypolitics.com/2008/04/29/howey-gauge-poll-clinton-obama-tossup-jlt-forges-big-lead/

Club Fed is really packing on the cash:

The U.S. Federal Reserve is expanding our monetary base by more than $11 billion a day since September to nearly $1.5 trillion, which represents an increase of 79.02% since October 2007.

What they are doing is unprecedented in recorded history.

On an annualized basis, the run rate in just the last few months alone works out to more than 369.92% per year – which means the monetary base is accelerating dramatically.

http://www.moneymorning.com/2008/12/08/inflation-not-deflation/

…the graphs are alarming, and lead one to assume that at some point, when the punters least expect it, inflation will come back with a vengeance.

I like to think of this deflationary period as the tide receding way beyond the usual low tide mark, and everyone being utterly astonished. Of course the next event is a giant wave, a tsunami that overwhelms everyone who went down to take a look.

You have been warned! Head for higher ground (and NOW!) and ignore the rubber neckers shouting that we are headed for endless deflation, because their corpses will be washing up to you soon enough.

1347
EC
No mate i just can’t get in to books let alone do the yuppie paper bits as well.
I will enjoy the after parse or whatever comments you all write about the books later.
I must admit though that i do have a copy (plastic coated pages) of Grants guide to fishes which i may look at a few times in the very soon to be Xmas hols.

I suppose a round of applause is in order for the plods rounding up quite a few kiddie pawn freaks over the last couple of days.
Well done Plods.
Would they catch more if they had more staff?
Looks like it was peer to peer stuff so Conrods filters would have been meaningless.

For the record I am now unemployed – but I did the right thing – I mediated the technical meeting, and yes, I put out some difficult questions, and yes, I knew the answers ahead of time, and I knew the answers were non revisable, and I knew the consequence of the questions. In the second meeting I was asked to summarise the first – I did that, with a smile on my face and two hours later I handed in my credentials, signed a secret service non-disclosure agreements, following which I was escorted from the building.

Thing is – I was in a dark place – and I walked away feeling good.
I did the right thing.
And it’s so good to be back.

🙂

#1347

Are you gonna have a lash at our inaugural TBC too0?

Ok – I admit – I haven’t been reading every message – in fact I was obliged to skip several hundred (sorry guys). So – what the hell is a TBC?

G’day Cat, good to see ya, and we won’t ask you to sign the official secrets act, ok?

This should make every sentient being’s heart sing. We are about to pass from the dull shadow of political cronies and incompetent fools that GWBush foistered upon his nation and the world:

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama has selected his top energy and environmental advisers, including a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, presidential transition officials said Wednesday.

…yipeeeeeeeee, we have people of scientific credibility and a President who wants to listen to them.

The Dark Ages are about to get the Light shone down them!

Catrina at the end of the day the decision was yours and if you are comfortable with it nothing else really matters.
I am sure you will find employment again when you so desire.

TBC is a creation by EC where you read lotsa things and it is not related to the AB friggin C.
I am sure EC will bring you up to speed or else you will just have to read several hundred posts.

Catrina, that’s a wonderful story.
Got away clean on your own terms, will be poorer for a while but you didn’t sell the bastards your soul.
To thine own self you were true.
Salue!

TBC is Ticster Book Club. A bunch of us are going to read Joe Bageant’s “Deer Hunting w/Jesus” over the hols and have ongoing dicussions about the book in early January.

Stiglitz, who was there at the time, fingers the culprits who failed to stop the frenzy of derivatives growth, and some familiar names are there:

In 1998 the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Brooksley Born, had called for such regulation—a concern that took on urgency after the Fed, in that same year, engineered the bailout of Long-Term Capital Management, a hedge fund whose trillion-dollar-plus failure threatened global financial markets. But Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin, his deputy, Larry Summers, and Greenspan were adamant—and successful—in their opposition. Nothing was done.

http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2009/01/stiglitz200901

An insiders view of what what wrong, and who looked the other way.

Just saw an advert for Frost/Nixon movie. Looked intriguing. Anyone know anything other than the standard stuff or is there more?

Specter seeks to slow down Holder confirmation .

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, wants to slow down the process of confirming Eric Holder attorney general, citing lingering concerns about the nominee’s role in the 2001 pardon of Marc Rich.

Specter said his concerns do not suggest he would oppose Holder, but said starting the hearings before Jan. 26 is “not realistic or fair.”

Earlier this week Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) set a Jan. 8 confirmation hearing date for Holder and said he would like the nominee confirmed by the time President-elect Obama takes office on Jan. 20.

“There are questions which have to be inquired,” Specter, a former Philadelphia district attorney, said.

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/specter-seeks-to-slow-down-holder-confirmation-2008-12-10.html

And now for the news:

“Black hole confirmed in Milky Way

By Pallab Ghosh
Science correspondent, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7774287.stm

There is a giant black hole at the centre of our galaxy, a 16-year study by German astronomers has confirmed. They tracked the movement of 28 stars circling the centre of the Milky Way, using two telescopes in Chile. The black hole, said to be 27,000 light years from Earth, is four million times bigger than the Sun, according to the paper in The Astrophysical Journal.”

Of course, some will not be convinced. There are many who think the nearest blackhole is the Federal Parliamentiary Liberal Party.

This is not news, but is well worth a read:

http://blogs.cfr.org/setser/2008/12/10/global-trade-is-shrinking-fast/

Global trade is down the gurgler. Also, anecdotally, I understand that domestic air-freight movements are down substantially in recent weeks, including, believe it or not, an unheard-of fall in Christmas parcel airmail postings.

So far so fast!

Also, KR will be unsurprised to learn, some big names in the US Treasuries market are now describing the govt debt market as the new bubble. Watch out for the tumbling USD and soaring interest rates if (or when) the appetite for Treasuries starts to abate. Maybe we have a few months before gravity starts to take effect on the bond market.

1378
blindoptimist

You’re so right BlindO, i’m watching it very closely! LOL

Talk about bizarre! One minute you can throw cash at anyone who can mist a mirror, and the next, the banks won’t lend to anyone, even other banks.

So they shovel cash into US Treasuries that effectively have negative yields because they don’t even trust banks not to default.

It’s incredible.

And talking of bizarre BlindO, did you see this gem:

Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) — Goldman Sachs Group Inc., one of the top five U.S. municipal bond underwriters, is angering politicians and public-finance officials in New Jersey, Wisconsin, California and Florida by recommending that investors purchase credit-default swaps to bet against 11 states’ debt.

…so they underwrite the bonds for the states, and then advise their clients to take out CDS contracts against them! LOL

This is just too friggin’ bizarre for words!

The Bear has an interesting take on things, KR. His remedy for the current woes is unfashionable: 5% real official interest rates and balanced budgets. It makes me think we’re damned either way.

The essential point he makes – that US consumption has to and will fall – seems beyond contention. One way or another, this appears inevitable, and likewise here too.

Thanks for the link….:)

Catrina: I’m glad you’re through your dilemma and that you feel good about the outcome, even if it leaves you jobless for the moment. It sounds like the right decision for the sake of your humanity.
Indirectly, you have touched on important issue which is relevant to this thread. (I typed a freudian ‘threat’ before correction, which says something!) That is, increasing corporate attempts at control. The net censorship attempt thing has rightly been sprung just for that. Saving the kiddies from child abuse has about as much credibility as the Howard NT intervention.

To make an odd connection, the attempt to bury the National Academy of Music raises similar concerns. There have never been any concerns about the quality of their graduates, only about their administrative compliance. Nobody denies that some controls are necessary, but there must be easier ways of doing it than shutting down an organisation doing a great deal of public good. Is the ability to meet Canberra guidelines more important than the ability to produce good musicians?

We saw a similar thing a few years back when Aged Care Minister Bronny Bishop got caught with the ‘kerosene baths’ fiasco. The offending aged care providers had conformed with all federal admin requirements – all that was lacking was a commitment to the quality of care, which wasn’t really spelled out in the compliance regulations.

Where I live at this very same time a genuine quality community aged care facility was very nearly closed, despite high esteem throughout the community and among patients/tenants. Their offence was that they hadn’t met federal requirements on building facilities and plant. Only a huge public backlash saved them.

I am a volunteer in a large organisation which not long ago was under threat of losing corporate and government support until a similar public backlash led to its reprieve. The price, however, seems to be to bring us more under public guidelines even as to how we used our unpaid time.

I am going to a meeting today to discuss some of this. I am already a problem because i have not conformed. I’d expect the outcome might be similar to Catrina’s: that after some exchange of views I’ll probably resign.

I might have more to say then. We have our own privacy/confidentiality regulations which, though nothing to do with security, are important.

Kirri and Bo-Bo, your economic exchanges are educational, entertaining and dystopianly preparational. Really appreciate them.

The global economic crisis clearly has a way to go. Seems like this current “cash is king” phase is only as good as the purchasing power of money. If you’ve got a quid in the bank, during deflation one is well-positioned, but when hyperinflation kicks in you’re going to need a sturdy wheel-barrow to schlep your folding to the bakery in order to “put food on your family”.

Kirri, your pre-tsunami beach scene with un-educated combers blithely collecting stranded fish as the big wave builds to a wall of hyperinflation ahead of its deadly surge—-is a powerful analogy. Swarms of “coastal” cockroach capitalists appear primed for extermination.

This side of total anarchy, if a citizen of Oz wants to do the decent thing by his or her family, now seems like a good time to be eyeing-off presently affordable self-sustaining patches to call home: solar panels galore, underground water tanks, permaculture garden and a low maintenance dwelling.

Not much point living in a high-rise or dense suburbia, by Dickens, if supplies of water and electricity are serially dodgy or absent and supermarket shelves are as bare as old mother Hubbard’s cupboard.
The history of Easter Island, Vikingdom in Greenland and the Mayan apocalypse shows us that entrenched religious fundalmentalism, envirnonmental devastation and “economic” collapse were the harbingers of dystopia and extinction.

None of that sort of thing could possibly happen to us because we’re different. Clever, classless, free and incredibly well led. Besides, it’s only a matter of time before creative scientists solve all our problems.
Just like Lysenko did for the Russkies under Uncle Joe.

Kirri and BO
So close to home.
I drive past his lovely upmarket designer office every other day but fortunately have never enterred it. LOL
I must say that he owns a very luxurious home on the side of Castle Hill as well.
No doubt there are quite a few cane farmers and others who woke up this morning and thought they still owned their cane farm.
Then they read the local paper.
The greed that thrills!!!!!!!!!!!!!

However, the Storm model of leveraging clients to the hilt has come undone in the big sharemarket collapse of 2008.

http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/article/2008/12/12/27671_hpnews.html

Votemaster
Rundown of Republican-Held Senate Seats in 2010

With so much going on in the Senate, it is perhaps time to take a peek at the Senate seats up for reelection in 2010. Here is a rundown of the Republican-held Senate seats up for reelection in 2010. The Democratic ones will be examined tomorrow.

more…
http://www.electoral-vote.com

Chris B @ 1370

Ron Howard directed the movie. I forget the actual year, but David Frost did a 12 day interview with Nixon after the Watergate scandal. The actual interviews have just been released on DVD – I’m looking forward to getting my hands on that. And then perhaps for people that don’t want to sit through 28 hours of interviews, Ron Howard has done a movie. There have also been books released about the interviews in past years.

For your viewing pleasure, you can watch Jon Stewart interview David Frost here……
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=210519&title=Sir-David-Frost
And you can watch Jon Stewart interview Ron Howard about the movie here….
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=212879&title=Ron-Howard

Mugabe: “We have arrested cholera”

What a choice of words! LOL

(Visions of cholera chained upside down to a wall in some dingy cell)

1391 Katielou Thanks KatieLou. That’s where I saw the David Frost interview. I knew I saw it somewhere.

And i agree with Ecky about enjoying BO and Kirri’s late night financial gems.

Entertaining and informative.

Rudd pumps $4.7b into infrastructure.

The Federal Government is introducing a $4.7 billion nation building plan to combat the effects of the global financial crisis.

The latest injection of funds comes on top of its $10.4 billion economic stimulus package.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the spending would add 0.25% to 0.5% to gross domestic product.

– Total package worth $4.7 billion over three years
– Aimed at creating 32,000 jobs
– $1.2 billion for rail infrastructure
– Black Spots program funding doubled
– $1.6 billion in university and TAFE infrastructure

Mr Rudd said the government was focusing on infrastructure because it was a major driver of economic growth. He said the measures announced today were capable of creating 32,000 jobs.

more…
http://business.theage.com.au/business/rudd-pumps-47b-into-infrastructure-20081212-6x7v.html

Prime Minister announces $4.7 billion nation building plan.

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has announced a $4.7 billion nation building plan in response to the growing economic crisis.

The package includes money for major rail and road infrastructure as well as a major boost in education spending.

Mr Rudd said the package, which builds on the Government’s earlier economic stimulus package, will create up to 32,000 jobs.

The PM also delivered some good news for 1.3 million small business owners, with a 20 per cent cut in the next quarterly Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) tax instalment.

The infrastructure spending includes $1.2 billion for rail infrastructure, the largest ever Commonwealth investment in rail projects.

Mr Rudd said that investment over two years in the Australian Rail Track Corporation was more than the former coalition government invested during its almost 12 years in office.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24789603-661,00.html

Thanks Harry, Ecky and Gaffy for your solidarity.

The meeting I attended went a lot better than I thought. I’m not the only one who has reacted against this gung-ho corporate type of supervision and direction. A number have simply resigned, while others are decidedly grumpy – not a good look for an institution depending on its volunteers.

The offending supervisor (a paid employee) was wisely not included in the meeting. Instead it was conducted by the Director and was entirely conciliatory, while not running away from the need for supervision. It was decided in place of the personal supervision to have monthly supervisory meetings in which issues were discussed round the table. That sounded quite reasonable to me.

I have no problems with accountability for anything I do or say. If anything I’d prefer that more people accepted responsibility for their actions. What I object to is someone trying to tell me that I should be able to say and do all that is necessary in about ten minutes.

We cannot quantify the time needed to interview someone whose life or mental state is in crisis. In these situations you have to rely on your training and skills, your instincts and your experience. These people are ringing us because nobody will listen to them. If we can’t do that we’ve defeated the whole purpose of being there.

I fear that this situation will raise its ugly head again over time. As far as I’m concerned, I won’t be able to reach a compromise on it. The counsellor must be able to exercise his/her discretion.

I shouldn’t really be turning it into a public issue, given what I mentioned before about privacy and confidentiality, albeit the new system provides a lot more safeguards – calls can come from anywhere in Australia, not just your local district as in the past.

So having got that far I’m not giving too much away when I say it is an organisation started by the Rev Alan Walker and often abbreviated to L/L.

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