Nadeau

Mortgage/market meltdown

We've said it before. We say it again. Money out of US. Put it in some safer location.

As stock markets from Paris to Tokyo declined for a second day in response to an international credit crunch that started in the U.S. mortgage industry, European leaders scrutinized the cause of the fall. They paid special interest to an oversight system that failed to provide adequate warning to financial institutions and investors on the weaknesses in the subprime mortgage lending business

"We have had a long period of greed," said Marc Ostwald, a strategist at Insinger de Beaufort in London. "Now there's a realization that people should have been a lot more careful, and the chickens are coming home to roost."

Trouble Tracks Far and Wide
Washington Post
8/17/07

John Denver

"Hey, it’s good to be Back Home Again."

Who’d a thunk it?

Eleven years of the average American's life span is spent watching TV.

Deploying 250 million televisions which absorb 11 years of the average America's lifespan, the hologram regulates the nation's neurological seasons. Football season is delivered with its competitive passions, political election seasons, Christmas shopping season, but especially marketing seasons. It regulates the national mood, stirring our patriotic passions during wars and anxious vigilance against the threat of unseen terrorists who look absolutely normal.

Together, we live within a media-generated belief system that functions as the operating instructions for society. It shows us how successful people supposedly behave, invest, and relate to each other. Through crime shows, it demonstrates what happens to us if we don't behave. It shows us who we should hate (Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, for starters). Anything outside of its parameters represents fear and psychological freefall.
Joe Bageant
The Great American Mind Warp
8/17/07

Steve Frobert

"Any Old Time you want to come back home. Just drop me a line...."

Carol Leigh, Climax Jazz Band …

“Oh, Careless Love.”

Rove lacks ruth, i.e., he's ‘ruthless’

Here’s a look into Rove that should have been done in 2000.

I don’t know what happens in a childhood to produce a figure like Karl Rove, but it can’t have been good. Like a serial killer with ice-water running through his veins, for whom the idea of compassion or remorse is a foreign concept, Rove is the quintessential amoral man - the very definition of a sociopath. Don’t take the way he treats you personally - it’s not that he doesn’t like you. He just utterly couldn’t give a shit one way or the other, dude. But woe unto you if you possess something that he wants, like money, a vote, cannon fodder capability, or shock troop potential. He will simply say or do whatever is necessary to liberate you from your dollars, your common sense or your life in order to achieve his goals. There are myriad examples, but one which is highly illustrative is Rove’s response to Hurricane Katrina. While you and I looked at our television screens and saw there a disaster in which compassion and immediate action were the watchwords of the day, Rove - the guy Bush put in charge of the crisis - was at that exact same moment spinning the gears in his head, literally thinking instead about the partisan political implications of relocating a quarter-million black (and therefore likely Democratic) voters out of the state, thus perhaps putting Louisiana back in the Republican column in future elections.

It’s no wonder that a guy with such empathy defects could spot George W. Bush coming from miles away, like freight train rolling down the mountain. Bush was the perfect partner for the exploits of someone like Rove, who once trained under both Donald Segretti and Lee Atwater. Jim Hightower (himself one of the many unfortunate members of the Rovian Wreckage Club) once mused that Bush père - infinitely more sane and humane than his son, though still borderline on both fronts - was born on third base, thinking he hit a triple. If that’s so, the mind strains to find the appropriate metaphor for the Boy King. Perhaps we could say that he was handed ownership of the entire ball club based on his family name, only to think he had earned it on his own, pulling himself up by his bootstraps. Trouble is, that’s no metaphor at all - it was quite literally true. Sigh
David Michael Green
Karl Rove and the Damage Done
CommonDreams
8/17/07

Shostakovich 7th Symphony

"So, he counted: how many violins are left? Half have died. There is one oboe, the other died. There is one bassoon.”