Scientists Unveil Missing Link In Evolution

BREAKING NEWS

3:30pm UK, Tuesday May 19, 2009

Alex Watts, Sky News Online

Scientists have unveiled a 47-million-year-old fossilised skeleton of a monkey hailed as the missing link in human evolution.

This 95%-complete 'lemur monkey' is described as the "eighth wonder of the world"

The search for a direct connection between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom has taken 200 years - but it was presented to the world today at a special news conference in New York.

The discovery of the 95%-complete 'lemur monkey' - dubbed Ida - is described by experts as the "eighth wonder of the world".

They say its impact on the world of palaeontology will be "somewhat like an asteroid falling down to Earth".

Researchers say proof of this transitional species finally confirms Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, and the then radical, outlandish ideas he came up with during his time aboard the Beagle.

Sir David Attenborough said Darwin "would have been thrilled" to have seen the fossil - and says it tells us who we are andwhere we came from.

Darwin caused storm with his theory

"This little creature is going to show us our connection with the rest of the mammals. This is the one that connects us directly with them," he said.

"Now people can say 'okay we are primates, show us the link'. The link they would have said up to now is missing - well it's no longer missing."

A team of the world's leading fossil experts, led by Professor Jorn Hurum, of Norway's National History Museum, have beensecretly researching the 1ft 9in-tall young female monkey for the past two years.

And now it has been transported to New York under high security, and unveiled to the world during the bicentenary of Darwin's birth.

Later this month, it will be exhibited for one day only at the Natural History Museum in London before being returned to Oslo.

Scientists say Ida - squashed to the thickness of a beer mat by the immense passage of time - is the most complete primate fossil ever found.

This fossil is really a part of our history; this is part of our evolution, deep, deep back into the aeons of time, 47 million years ago.

Fossil expert Professor Jorn Hurum

With her human-like nails instead of claws, and opposable big toes, she is placed at the very root of human evolution when early primates first developed features that would eventually develop into our own.

Another important discovery is the shape of the talus bone in her foot, which humans still have in their feet an incredible 70 million lifetimes later.

Ida was unearthed by an amateur fossil-hunter some 25 years ago in Messel pit, an ancient crater lake near Frankfurt, Germany, famous for its fossils.

She was cleaned and set in polyester resin - and incredibly, was hung on a mystery German collector's wall for 20 years.

Sky News sources say the owner had no idea of the unique fossil's significance, and simply admired it like a cherished Van Gogh or Picasso painting.

X-ray of Ida's badly fractured left wrist

But in 2006, Ida came into the hands of private dealer Thomas Perner, who presented her to Prof Hurum at the annual Hamburg Fossil and Mineral Fair in Germany - a centre for themurky world of fossil-trading.

Prof Hurum said when he first saw the blueprint for evolution - the "most beautiful fossil worldwide" - he could not sleep for two days.

A home movie records the dramatic moment. "This is really something that the world has never seen before, this is a unique specimen, totally unique," he says, clearly emotional.

He knew she should be saved for science rather than end up hidden from the world in a wealthy private collector's vault.

But the dealer's asking price was more than $1 million (£660,000) - ten times the amount even the rarest of fossils fetch on the black market.

Eventually, after six months of negotiations, he managed to raise the cash in Norway and brought Ida to Oslo.

Prof Hurum - who last summer dug up the fossil remains of a 50ft marine monster called Predator X from the permafrost on Svalbard, a Norwegian island close to the North Pole - then assembled a "dream team" of experts who worked in secret for two years.

This little creature is going to show us our connection with the rest of the mammals. This is the one that connects us directly with them.

Sir David Attenborough

They included palaeontologist Dr Jens Franzen, Dr Holly Smith, of the University of Michigan, and Philip Gingerich, president-elect of the US Paleontological Society.

Researchers could prove the fossil was genuine through X-rays, knowing it is impossible to fake the inner structure of a bone.

Through radiometric dating of Messel's volcanic rocks, they discovered Ida lived 47 million years ago in the Eocene period, when tropical forests stretched right to the poles, and South America was still drifting and had yet to make contact with North America.

During that period, the first whales, horses, bats and monkeys emerged, and the early primates branched into two groups - one group lived on mainly as lemurs, and the second developed into monkeys, apes and humans.

The experts concluded Ida was not simply a lemur but a 'lemur monkey', displaying a mixture of both groups, and therefore putting her at the very branch of the human line.

"When Darwin published his On the Origin of Species in 1859, he said a lot about transitional species...and he said that will never be found, a transitional species, and his whole theory will be wrong, so he would be really happy to live today when we publish Ida," said Prof Hurum.

"This fossil is really a part of our history; this is part of our evolution, deep, deep back into the aeons of time, 47 million years ago.

"It's part of our evolution that's been hidden so far, it's been hidden because all the other specimens are so incomplete.

"They are so broken there's almost nothing to study and now this wonderful fossil appears and it makes the story so much easier to tell, so it's really a dream come true."

Up until now, the most famous fossil primate in the world has been Lucy, a 3.18-million-year-old hominid found in Ethiopia in 1974. She was then our earliest known ancestor, and only 40% complete.

Descended from the apes! My dear, let us hope that it is not true, but if it is, let us pray that it will not become generally known.

Bishop of Worcester's wife to Charles Darwin

But at 95% complete, Ida was so well preserved in the mud at the bottom of the volcanic lake, there is even evidence of her fur shadow and remains of her last meal.

From this they concluded she was a leaf and fruit eater, and probably lived in the trees around the lake.

The absence of a bacculum (penis bone) confirmed she was female, and her milk teeth put her age at about nine-months-old - in maturity, equivalent to a six-year-old human child.

This was the same age as Prof Hurum's daughter Ida, and he named the fossil after her.

The study is being published and put online today by the Public Library of Science, a leading academic journal with offices in Britain and the US.

Dr Hurum also found Predator X

Co-author of the scientific paper, Prof Gingerich, likens its importance to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, an ancient Egyptian artifact found in 1799, which allowed us to decipher hieroglyphic writing.

One clue to Ida's fate - and her remarkable preservation as our oldest ancestor - was her badly fractured left wrist.

The team believes this stopped her from climbing and she had to emerge from the trees to drink water from the 250-metre-deep lake.

They think she was overcome by carbon dioxide gas from the crater, and sunk to the bottom where she was preserved in the mud as a time capsule - and a snapshot of evolution.

But amazingly this final piece of Darwin's jigsaw was almost lost to science when German authorities tried to turn Messel into a massive landfill rubbish dump.

Eventually, after campaigning by Dr Franzen, the plans were rejected and the fossil-rich lake was designated a World Heritage Site.

But no doubt there would have been one person happy for the missing link to have remained hidden.

When Darwin famously told the Bishop of Worcester's wife about his theory of evolution, she remarked: "Descended from the apes! My dear, let us hope that it is not true, but if it is, let us pray that it will not become generally known."

Now, it certainly is.

:: Ida's discovery has been made into an Atlantic Productions' documentary, presented by Sir David Attenborough.

Original article: [here]

Top Ten Ways to Spot Financial Fraud

I just re-read Harry Markopolis’ 2005 submission to the SEC. With a fisherman’s precision, he guts Bernie Madoff. He slits the Ponzi scheme down the center and lays bare the innards.

Blecch.

His language is crisp. The numbers are easy to follow. And as Markopolis fillets “split-strike conversion” strategies, there are no metaphorical references to scales, roe, or other kinds of fish gak. There’s only the damning evidence of his exposé.

Few of us share Markopolis’ expertise. With his special skills—an insider’s knowledge of puts, calls, and OTC derivatives—he first smelled the Madoff rot in 1999. It makes me wonder:

How can the rest of us avoid con artists? 

[READ MORE]

An invention that could change the internet for ever

Revolutionary new web software could put giants such as Google in the shade when it comes out later this month. The biggest internet revolution for a generation will be unveiled this month with the launch of software that will understand questions and give specific, tailored answers in a way that the web has never managed before.

[READ MORE]

Figures on government spending and debt

Scientists a step closer to ‘reading minds’

A machine to read the mind came a step closer on Thursday, when scientists at University College London released the results of an experiment in which brain scans revealed the location of people moving around a virtual reality environment.

Demis Hassabis, co-author of the study, said it was “a small step towards the idea of mind reading, because just by looking at neural activity we were able to say what someone was thinking”.

The experiment, published in the journal Current Biology, is significant for neuroscience as it shows for the first time that memories are laid down in specific structures or patterns in the hippocampus, a brain region that is crucial for navigation, memory recall and imagining future events. [READ MORE]

Artificial life 'could be created within five years'

Artificial life could be created "within five years", researchers from the USA have claimed.

Test tubes in a lab: Artificial life 'could be created within five years'
Prof David Dreamer believes building a new lifeform from scratch is a daunting task but is confident it could happen in five to 10 years Photo: GETTY

Laboratories across the world are closing in on a "second genesis" - an achievement that would be one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time.

Prof David Deamer, from California University, said although building a new lifeform from scratch is a daunting task he is confident it can happen in five to 10 years.

[READ MORE]

Obama's Rhetoric Is the Real 'Catastrophe'

By BRADLEY R. SCHILLER (WSJ)

President Barack Obama has turned fearmongering into an art form. He has repeatedly raised the specter of another Great Depression. First, he did so to win votes in the November election. He has done so again recently to sway congressional votes for his stimulus package. [READ MORE]

Galaxy has 'billions of Earths'

There could be one hundred billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy, a US conference has heard.

Dr Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Science said many of these worlds could be inhabited by simple lifeforms.

He was speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago.

So far, telescopes have been able to detect just over 300 planets outside our Solar System. [READ MORE]

No health insurance? Get help here

(CNN) -- Dr. John Di Saia was playing baseball with his son a few weeks ago, and just as he rounded second base, he tumbled to the ground, breaking his fall with his elbow.
Dr. John Di Saia was between health insurance plans when he ruptured his triceps tendon.

Dr. John Di Saia was between health insurance plans when he ruptured his triceps tendon.

"Guess I shouldn't have been running in flip-flops," says Di Saia. At first he didn't think much of the injury, but as it became more painful, he showed it to a colleague, who told him he'd ruptured his triceps tendon. "He said I needed surgery immediately."

One problem: Di Saia, a plastic surgeon in San Clemente, California, didn't have health insurance; he'd ended one policy a few weeks before and was about to start a new one. "It's pretty embarrasing when you're a physician and you say you don't have health insurance. They think you're some kind of an idiot," he says.

Once he got over the embarrassment, Di Saia buckled down and negotiated with doctors and the outpatient clinic to get the price for his surgery cut in half, from $4,800 to $2,400. While he says he was clearly at an advantage being a doctor, he thinks everyone can -- and should -- negotiate health care costs if they don't have insurance.

"You should always ask. Why wouldn't you try?" he says. [READ MORE]

Research on mice links fast food to Alzheimer's

LONDON (Reuters) - Mice fed junk food for nine months showed signs of developing the abnormal brain tangles strongly associated with Alzheimer's disease, a Swedish researcher said on Friday.

The findings, which come from a series of published papers by a researcher at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet, show how a diet rich in fat, sugar and cholesterol could increase the risk of the most common type of dementia.

"On examining the brains of these mice, we found a chemical change not unlike that found in the Alzheimer brain," Susanne Akterin, a researcher at the Karolinska Institutet's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, who led the study, said in a statement. [READ MORE]

Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes

Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.

The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground. [READ MORE]

Road to Globalism - Talk of a Global Currency

The former Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has been saying for some time that the world should abandon the US dollar as a global reserve currency since its fluctuations tend to harm everyone who uses it for trade or as store of value. OPEC calls the US dollar a worthless piece of paper. Argentina, Cuba, Iran, Iraq and Venezuela have already said “no” to the dollar. [READ MORE]

Stupid is as Stupid Does

A lot of Americans have become so insulated from reality that they imagine that America can suffer defeat without any inconvenience to themselves.

Pause a moment, reflect back.

These events are actual events from history..

They really happened!!!

Do you remember?

1. 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by a Muslim male extremist.

2. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by Muslim male extremists.

3. In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by Muslim male extremists.

4. During the 1980's a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by Muslim male extremists.

5. In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by Muslim male extremists.

6. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a 70 year old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by Muslim male extremists.

7. In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a US Navy diver trying to rescue passengers was murdered by Muslim male extremists.

8. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by Muslim male extremists.

9. In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by Muslim male extremists.

10. In 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by Muslim male extremists.

11. On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles to take down the World Trade Centers and of the remaining two, one crashed into the US Pentagon and the other was diverted and crashed by the passengers. Thousands of people were killed by Muslim male extremists.

12. In 2002 the United States fought a war in Afghanistan against Muslim male extremists.

13. In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by-- you guessed it-- Muslim male extremists.

No, I really don't see a pattern here to justify profiling, do you? So, to ensure we Americans never offend anyone, particularly fanatics intent on killing us, airport security screeners will no longer be allowed to profile certain people... Absolutely No Profiling!

They must conduct random searches of 80-year-old women, little kids, airline pilots with proper identification, secret agents who are members of the President's security detail, 85-year old Congressmen with metal hips, and Medal of Honor winner and former Governor Joe Foss, but leave Muslim Males alone lest they be guilty of profiling.

According to The Book of Revelations:

The Anti-Christ will be a man, in his 40s, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with persuasive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal....the prophecy says that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power, he will destroy everything.

And Now:
For the award winning Act of Stupidity Of all times the People of America want to elect, to the most Powerful position on the face of the Planet -- The Presidency of the United states of America .. . A Male of Muslim descent who is the most extremely liberal Senator in Congress (in other words an extremist) and in his 40s.

Have the American People completely lost their Minds, or just their Power of Reason ???

I'm sorry but I refuse to take a chance on the 'unknown' candidate Obama...
Oh and I love the Jesse Jackson approach, we don't like him because he's Black..!!

As the writer of the award winning novel 'Forrest Gump' so aptly put it,
'Stupid Is As Stupid Does'

Author unknown...

Change is not always good...

Remember the election in 2006?

Thought you might like to read the following:

A little over one year ago:
1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;
2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;
3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%.
Since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006 we have seen:
1) Consumer confidence plummet;
2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $4.10 a gallon;
3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);
4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses);
5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars;
6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.
7) Food prices skyrocketing over 30% in 1 year.

America voted for change in 2006, and we got it!

Remember, it is Congress that makes the laws and spends our money -not the President. He has to work with what's handed to him.

Part 2:
Taxes...Whether Democrat or a Republican you will find these statistics enlightening and amazing.
www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.HTML

Taxes under CLINTON-1999 Taxes under BUSH-2008
Single earning: Single earning:
30K - taxed- $ 8,400 30K - taxed $ 4,500
50K - taxed $ 14,000 50K - taxed $ 12,500
75K - taxed $ 23,250 75K - taxed $ 18,750
Married earning: Married earning:
60K - taxed $ 16,800 60K - taxed $ 9,000
75K - taxed $ 21,000 75K - taxed $ 18,750
125K - taxed $ 38,750 125K - taxed $ 31,250

Barack Obama promises to return to the higher tax rates if elected. It is amazing how many people who fall into the categories above think Bush is screwing them and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever.

If elected, Barack Obama has already promised that he will repeal the Bush tax cuts, and amazingly, a good portion of the people who fall into the categories above can't wait for it to happen.

PART 3:
You think the war in Iraq is costing us too much? Read this: Boy, am I confused. I have been hammered with the propaganda that it is the Iraq war and the war on terror that is bankrupting us. I now find that to be RIDICULOUS. Read on...

I hope the following 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them. I have included the URL's for verification of all the following facts.

1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments.
Verify at: http://tinyurl.com/zob77
2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://www.cis..org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://wwwcis..org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!
Verify at: http://transcripts.CNN.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.HTML
5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
Verify at: http://transcripts..cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.
Verify at: http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html
9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html
11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and
marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border.
Verify at: Homeland Security Report: http://tinyurl..com/t9sht
12. The National Policy Institute, 'estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.'
Verify at: http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf
13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin.
Verify at: http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm
14. 'The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States.'
Verify at: http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml
The total cost is a whopping $338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.

Are we THAT stupid?

Rush Limbaugh: The man who's always Right

Although Rush Limbaugh doesn't actually work from a bunker, he does have a bunker mentality. His studio is on the third floor of a (purposefully) anonymous building 100 yards off the white sands of Palm Beach, Florida, and about a mile from his gated mansion (the one next to Chuck Norris's). Along with the Gulfstream jet (cost: $54 million), fleet of sports cars and eight-year contract, worth $400 million, this mansion is his reward for being the most listened-to talk-radio host in America, a title he has held for 20 years. [READ MORE]

Government computers used to find information on Joe the Plumber

Investigators trying to determine whether access was illegal
Friday, October 24, 2008 8:57 PM
By Randy Ludlow
The Columbus Dispatch
"State and local officials are investigating if state and law-enforcement computer systems were illegally accessed when they were tapped for personal information about "Joe the Plumber."

Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher became part of the national political lexicon Oct. 15 when Republican presidential candidate John McCain mentioned him frequently during his final debate with Democrat Barack Obama.

The 34-year-old from the Toledo suburb of Holland is held out by McCain as an example of an American who would be harmed by Obama's tax proposals.

Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher's driver's license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate.

Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.

It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why. Direct access to driver's license and vehicle registration information from BMV computers is restricted to legitimate law enforcement and government business.

Paul Lindsay, Ohio spokesman for the McCain campaign, attempted to portray the inquiries as politically motivated. "It's outrageous to see how quickly Barack Obama's allies would abuse government power in an attempt to smear a private citizen who dared to ask a legitimate question," he said.

Isaac Baker, Obama's Ohio spokesman, denounced Lindsay's statement as charges of desperation from a campaign running out of time. "Invasions of privacy should not be tolerated. If these records were accessed inappropriately, it had nothing to do with our campaign and should be investigated fully," he said.

The attorney general's office is investigating if the access of Wuzelbacher's BMV information through the office's Ohio Law Enforcement Gateway computer system was unauthorized, said spokeswoman Jennifer Brindisi.

"We're trying to pinpoint where it came from," she said. The investigation could become "criminal in nature," she said. Brindisi would not identify the account that pulled the information on Oct. 16.

Records show it was a "test account" assigned to the information technology section of the attorney general's office, said Department of Public Safety spokesman Thomas Hunter.

Brindisi later said investigators have confirmed that Wurzelbacher's information was not accessed within the attorney general's office. She declined to provide details. The office's test accounts are shared with and used by other law enforcement-related agencies, she said.

On Oct. 17, BMV information on Wurzelbacher was obtained through an account used by the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency in Cleveland, records show.

Mary Denihan, spokeswoman for the county agency, said the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services contacted the agency today and requested an investigation of the access to Wurzelbacher's information. Cuyahoga County court records do not show any child-support cases involving Wurzelbacher.

The State Highway Patrol, which administers the Law Enforcement Automated Data System in Ohio, asked Toledo police to explain why it pulled BMV information on Wurzelbacher within 48 hours of the debate, Hunter said.

The LEADS system also can be used to check for warrants and criminal histories, but such checks would not be reflected on the records obtained by The Dispatch.

Sgt. Tim Campbell, a Toledo police spokesman, said he could not provide any information because the department only had learned of the State Highway Patrol inquiry today.

Presidential Tax Calculators

Barack Obama’s campaign Web site has posted a calculator that tells you how much you would be paying in taxes under his plan. The point, of course, is to demonstrate that Senator Obama’s plan “will cut taxes for 95 percent of working families.” If you select an income level of “$250,000 and up,” though, it does not tell you what your tax increase would be; it says only, “You will probably not get a tax cut under the Obama-Biden plan.” Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative group, has also criticized the calculator’s methodology.

John McCain’s Web site does not appear to have a similar device. But there are a few other calculators on the Web that can give you more details, as well as a side-by-side comparison of how Senator Obama’s and Senator McCain’s proposals would affect you if passed.

This user-friendly site calculates the total taxes you would probably pay under both plans, although it does not show you how the figures compare with what you would pay under current law.

This site, run by an apparent Obama supporter, does give you a side-by-side comparison of the change in your tax liability. If you choose an income level at which you will likely see a tax increase under Senator Obama’s plan, it initially soft-pedals the result (”You probably will not get an Obama tax cut. This calculation is not perfect, and Obama has recently promised not to raise taxes for anyone making less than $250,000 per year.”) But at least it gives you the numbers. The calculations appear to be derived from an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank run jointly by Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute.

[Originally at: New York Times]

Obama reminds me of Castro

Obama reminds me of Castro

I just woke up and couldn’t help but think that in about a month from today we Americans, will be deciding the future of our country. I would be betraying myself if I don’t call the spade a spade, straight up from the way I see it.

The Democratic Party candidates, Barrack Obama and Joseph Biden are presenting and offering, in my personal opinion, the most liberal/socialist/communistic platform every offered to the voters of the United States of America.

Believe me, I know what I’m writing about because I am referring to something I heard before, a long, long time ago. As a matter of fact it was almost 50 years ago, in January of 1959, when a then young Cuban revolutionary leader offered similar ideas to us, the people of the country where I was born and raised.

“We are going to change this and we are going to change that!”

“We are going to change and eliminate all government corruptions...

“We are going to change the whole government and help you poor and middle class people improve your standard of living and go up with your lives....We will change everything and tap into and raid the coffers of the rich bastards to help you, the poorer and oppressed...”

This is more or less the condensed version of the speech Fidel Castro gave upon his arrival in Havana, to the many like myself, the middle class Cubans. That speech lasted more than four hours and I can’t help but see that the ticket Obama/Biden is proclaiming is the same theme.

Yes, definitely, we need changes in the way our federal government handles our affairs. Yes someone needs to stop the corruption in Washington, D.C. As a fact, when elected and sworn in, our congressmen/women and senators men/women are supposed to handle the problems facing the United States of American and all its citizens. They are not supposed to follow the platform any particular political party.

Wake up people before it is too late. Believe me, those guys will get everyone to one level — down!

Cesar Guerra

Lake Wales

Where pros are putting their cash

Money magazine asked several financial experts: What are you doing with your own portfolio in the wake of the financial crisis?

Karen Altfest, financial planner, Altfest and Co, New York, N.Y.

"I'm not looking at the market every 20 minutes, not listening to every talking head on TV. I'm not making many changes [to my portfolio] because I've been well positioned for some time. But I recently bought some additional bonds because I found some good opportunities in bonds with very high yields." [READ MORE][ORIGINAL ARTICLE]

Planting Seeds of Disaster

October 7, 2008 7:00 AM

Planting Seeds of Disaster
ACORN, Barack Obama, and the Democratic party.

By Stanley Kurtz (National Review Online)

‘You’ve got only a couple thousand bucks in the bank. Your job pays you dog-food wages. Your credit history has been bent, stapled, and mutilated. You declared bankruptcy in 1989. Don’t despair: You can still buy a house.” So began an April 1995 article in the Chicago Sun-Times that went on to direct prospective home-buyers fitting this profile to a group of far-left “community organizers” called ACORN, for assistance. In retrospect, of course, encouraging customers like this to buy homes seems little short of madness.

Militant ACORN
At the time, however, that 1995 Chicago newspaper article represented something of a triumph for Barack Obama. That same year, as a director at Chicago’s Woods Fund, Obama was successfully pushing for a major expansion of assistance to ACORN, and sending still more money ACORN’s way from his post as board chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Through both funding and personal-leadership training, Obama supported ACORN. And ACORN, far more than we’ve recognized up to now, had a major role in precipitating the subprime crisis.

I’ve already told the story of Obama’s close ties to ACORN leader Madeline Talbott, who personally led Chicago ACORN’s campaign to intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to low-credit customers. Using provisions of a 1977 law called the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), Chicago ACORN was able to delay and halt the efforts of banks to merge or expand until they had agreed to lower their credit standards — and to fill ACORN’s coffers to finance “counseling” operations like the one touted in that Sun-Times article. This much we’ve known. Yet these local, CRA-based pressure-campaigns fit into a broader, more disturbing, and still under-appreciated national picture. Far more than we’ve recognized, ACORN’s local, CRA-enabled pressure tactics served to entangle the financial system as a whole in the subprime mess. ACORN was no side-show. On the contrary, using CRA and ties to sympathetic congressional Democrats, ACORN succeeded in drawing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into the very policies that led to the current disaster.

In one of the first book-length scholarly studies of ACORN, Organizing Urban America, Rutgers University political scientist Heidi Swarts describes this group, so dear to Barack Obama, as “oppositional outlaws.” Swarts, a strong supporter of ACORN, has no qualms about stating that its members think of themselves as “militants unafraid to confront the powers that be.” “This identity as a uniquely militant organization,” says Swarts, “is reinforced by contentious action.” ACORN protesters will break into private offices, show up at a banker’s home to intimidate his family, or pour protesters into bank lobbies to scare away customers, all in an effort to force a lowering of credit standards for poor and minority customers. According to Swarts, long-term ACORN organizers “tend to see the organization as a solitary vanguard of principled leftists...the only truly radical community organization.”

ACORN’s Inside Strategy
Yet ACORN’s entirely deserved reputation for militance is balanced by its less-well-known “inside strategy.” ACORN has long employed Washington-based lobbyists who understand very well how the legislative game is played. ACORN’s national lobbyists may encourage and benefit from the militant tactics of their base, but in the halls of congress they play the game with smooth sophistication. The untold story of ACORN’s central role in the financial meltdown is about the one-two punch to the banking system administered by this outside/inside strategy.

Critics of the notion that CRA had a major impact on the subprime crisis ask how a law passed in 1977 could have caused a crisis in 2008? The answer has a lot to do with ACORN — and the critical years of 1990-1995. While the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act did call on banks to increase lending in poor and minority neighborhoods, its exact requirements were vague, and therefore open to a good deal of regulatory interpretation. Banks merger or expansion plans were rarely held up under CRA until the late 1980s, when ACORN perfected its technique of filing CRA complaints in tandem with the sort of intimidation tactics perfected by that original “community organizer” (and Obama idol), Saul Alinsky.

At first, ACORN’s anti-bank actions were relatively few in number. However, under a provision of the 1989 savings and loan bailout pushed by liberal Democratic legislators, like Massachusetts Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy, lenders were required to compile public records of mortgage applicants by race, gender, and income. Although the statistics produced by these studies were presented in highly misleading ways, groups like ACORN were able to use them to embarrass banks into lowering credit standards. At the same time, a wave of banking mergers in the early 1990's provided an opening for ACORN to use CRA to force lending changes. Any merger could be blocked under CRA, and once ACORN began systematically filing protests over minority lending, a formerly toothless set of regulations began to bite.

ACORN’s efforts to undermine credit standards in the late 1980s taught it a valuable lesson. However much pressure ACORN put on banks to lower credit standards, tough requirements in the “secondary market” run by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac served as a barrier to change. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy up mortgages en masse, bundle them, and sell them to investors on the world market. Back then, Fannie and Freddie refused to buy loans that failed to meet high credit standards. If, for example, a local bank buckled to ACORN pressure and agreed to offer poor or minority applicants a 5-percent down-payment rate, instead of the normal 10-20 percent, Fannie and Freddie would refuse to buy up those mortgages. That would leave all the risk of these shaky loans with the local bank. So again and again, local banks would tell ACORN that, because of standards imposed by Fannie and Freddie, they could lower their credit standards by only a little.

So the eighties taught ACORN that a high-pressure, Alinskyite outside strategy wouldn’t be enough. Their Washington lobbyists would have to bring inside pressure on the government to undercut credit standards at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Only then would local banks consider making loans available to customers with bad credit histories, low wages, virtually nothing in the bank, and even bankruptcies on record.

Democrats and ACORN
As early as 1987, ACORN began pressuring Fannie and Freddie to review their standards, with modest results. By 1989, ACORN had lured Fannie Mae into the first of many “pilot projects” designed to help local banks lower credit standards. But it was all small potatoes until the serious pressure began in early 1991. At that point, Democratic Senator Allan Dixon convened a Senate subcommittee hearing at which an ACORN representative gave key testimony. It’s probably not a coincidence that Dixon, like Obama, was an Illinois Democrat, since Chicago has long been a stronghold of ACORN influence.

Dixon gave credibility to ACORN’s accusations of loan bias, although these claims of racism were disputed by Missouri Republican, Christopher Bond. ACORN’s spokesman strenuously complained that his organization’s efforts to relax local credit standards were being blocked by requirements set by the secondary market. Dixon responded by pressing Fannie and Freddie to do more to relax those standards — and by promising to introduce legislation that would ensure it. At this early stage, Fannie and Freddie walked a fine line between promising to do more, while protesting any wholesale reduction of credit requirements.

By July of 1991, ACORN’s legislative campaign began to bear fruit. As the Chicago Tribune put it, “Housing activists have been pushing hard to improve housing for the poor by extracting greater financial support from the country’s two highly profitable secondary mortgage-market companies. Thanks to the help of sympathetic lawmakers, it appeared...that they may succeed.” The Tribune went on to explain that House Democrat Henry Gonzales had announced that Fannie and Freddie had agreed to commit $3.5 billion to low-income housing in 1992 and 1993, in addition to a just-announced $10 billion “affordable housing loan program” by Fannie Mae. The article emphasizes ACORN pressure and notes that Fannie and Freddie had been fighting against the plan as recently as a week before agreement was reached. Fannie and Freddie gave in only to stave off even more restrictive legislation floated by congressional Democrats.

A mere month later, ACORN Housing Corporation president, George Butts made news by complaining to a House Banking subcommittee that ACORN’s efforts to pressure banks using CRA were still being hamstrung by Fannie and Freddie. Butts also demanded still more data on the race, gender, and income of loan applicants. Many news reports over the ensuing months point to ACORN as the key source of pressure on congress for a further reduction of credit standards at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As a result of this pressure, ACORN was eventually permitted to redraft many of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s loan guideline.

Clinton and ACORN
ACORN’s progress through 1992 depended on its Democratic allies. Whatever ACORN managed to squeeze out of the George H. W. Bush administration came under congressional pressure. With the advent of the Clinton administration, however, ACORN’s fortunes took a positive turn. Clinton Housing Secretary Henry Cisnersos pledged to meet monthly with ACORN representatives. For ACORN, those meetings bore fruit.

Another factor working in ACORN’s favor was that its increasing success with local banks turned those banks into allies in the battle with Fannie and Freddie. Precisely because ACORN’s local pressure tactics were working, banks themselves now wanted Fannie and Freddie to loosen their standards still further, so as to buy up still more of the high-risk loans they’d made at ACORN’s insistence. So by the 1993, a grand alliance of ACORN, national Democrats, and local bankers looking for someone to lessen the risks imposed on them by CRA and ACORN were uniting to pressure Fannie and Freddie to loosen credit standards still further.

At this point, both ACORN and the Clinton administration were working together to impose large numerical targets or “set asides” (really a sort of poor and minority loan quota system) on Fannie and Freddie. ACORN called for at least half of Fannie and Freddie loans to go to low-income customers. At first the Clinton administration offered a set-aside of 30 percent. But eventually ACORN got what it wanted. In early 1994, the Clinton administration floated plans for committing $1 trillion in loans to low- and moderate-income home-buyers, which would amount to about half of Fannie Mae’s business by the end of the decade. Wall Street Analysts attributed Fannie Mae’s willingness to go along with the change to the need to protect itself against still more severe “congressional attack.” News reports also highlighted praise for the change from ACORN’s head lobbyist, Deepak Bhargava.

This sweeping debasement of credit standards was touted by Fannie Mae’s chairman, chief executive officer, and now prominent Obama adviser James A. Johnson. This is also the period when Fannie Mae ramped up its pilot programs and local partnerships with ACORN, all of which became precedents and models for the pattern of risky subprime mortgages at the root of today’s crisis. During these years, Obama’s Chicago ACORN ally, Madeline Talbott, was at the forefront of participation in those pilot programs, and her activities were consistently supported by Obama through both foundation funding and personal leadership training for her top organizers.

Finally, in June of 1995, President Clinton, Vice President Gore, and Secretary Cisneros announced the administration’s comprehensive new strategy for raising home-ownership in America to an all-time high. Representatives from ACORN were guests of honor at the ceremony. In his remarks, Clinton emphasized that: “Out homeownership strategy will not cost the taxpayers one extra cent. It will not require legislation.” Clinton meant that informal partnerships between Fannie and Freddie and groups like ACORN would make mortgages available to customers “who have historically been excluded from homeownership.”

Disaster
In the end of course, Clinton’s plan cost taxpayers an almost unimaginable amount of money. And it was just around the time of his 1995 announcement that the Chicago papers started encouraging bad-credit customers with “dog-food” wages, little money in the bank, and even histories of bankruptcy to apply for home loans with the help of ACORN. At both the local and national levels, then, ACORN served as the critical catalyst, levering pressure created by the Community Reinvestment Act and pull with Democratic politicians to force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into a pattern of high-risk loans.

Up to now, conventional wisdom on the financial meltdown has relegated ACORN and the CRA to bit parts. The real problem, we’ve been told, lay with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In fact, however, ACORN is at the base of the whole mess. ACORN used CRA and Democratic sympathizers to entangle Fannie and Freddie and the entire financial system in a disastrous disregard of the most basic financial standards. And Barack Obama cut his teeth as an organizer and politician backing up ACORN’s economic madness every step of the way.

— Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Institute.

[ORIGINAL ARTICLE]

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After several long months of unsuccessfully posting his resume and applying to jobs online, Alex Ballin, 24, decided to take his job search into his own hands. The 2008 graduate from Radford University planted himself at a busy intersection in downtown Roanoke, Va., sporting a white sign that read, "Talented B.A. Needs Career" along with his business suit.

While Ballin's tactic was a more extreme -- and literal -- way to grab an employer's attention, with such uncertainty surrounding the economy, these intense and creative approaches are a must for today's job seeker. [READ MORE]

Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 Text

Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 Text [PDF][442 Pages][Senate Version]

Full Text of the Bailout Bill [PDF]

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Obama The Liberal Savior

The O-man, Barack Hussein Obama, is an eloquently tailored empty suit. No
resume, no accomplishments, no experience, no original ideas, no
understanding of how the economy works, no understanding of how the world
works, no balls, nothing but abstract empty rhetoric devoid of real
substance.

He has no real identity. He is half-white, which he rejects. The rest of
him is mostly Arab, which he hides but is disclosed by his non-African
Arabic surname and his Arabic first and middle names as a way to triply
proclaim his Arabic parentage to people in Kenya . Only a small part of
him is African Black from his Luo grandmother, which he pretends he is
exclusively.

What he isn't, not a genetic drop of, is 'African-American,' the
descendant of enslaved Africans brought to America chained in slave
ships. He hasn't a single ancestor who was a slave. Instead, his Arab
ancestors were slave owners. Slave-trading was the main Arab business in
East Africa for centuries until theBritish ended it.

Let that sink in: Obama is not the descendant of slaves, he is the
descendant of slave owners. Thus he makes the perfect Liberal Messiah.

It's something Hillary doesn't understand - how some complete neophyte
came out of the blue and stole the Dem nomination from her. Obamamania is
beyond politics and reason. It is a true religious cult, whose adherents
reject Christianity yet still believe in Original Sin, transferring it
from the evil of being human to the evil of being white.

Thus Obama has become the white liberals' Christ, offering absolution
from the Sin of Being White. There is no reason or logic behind it, no
faults or flaws of his can diminish it, no arguments Hillary could make
of any kind can be effective against it. The absurdity of Hypocrisy
Clothed In Human Flesh being their Savior is all the more cause for
liberals to worship him: Credo quia absurdum, I believe it because it is
absurd.

Thank heavens that the voting majority of Americans remain Christian and
are in no desperate need of a phony savior.

His candidacy is ridiculous and should not be taken seriously by any thinking American.

Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler

Jack Wheeler is a brilliant man who was the author of the strategy to break the back of the Soviet Unionwith the star wars race and expose their inner weakness. For years he wrote a weekly intelligenceupdate that was extremely interesting and well structured and informed. He consults(ed) with several mega corporations on global trends and the future, etc. I think he is in semi-retirement now. He is a truepatriot with a no-nonsense approach to everything. He is also a somewhat well-known mountain climber and adventurer.

A Video Portrait Of Barack Hussein Obama

PART (1)

PART (2)

Burning Down The House: What Caused Our Economic Crisis?

Awesome soundtrack dudes...

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