The Science Deliberately Excluded and/or Misrepresented From IPCC Report on Climate Change

The United Nations environmental program, established in 1972 and the Intergovernmental Panel on  Climate Change (IPCC), established in 1988, created one of the greatest deceptions--of which there are many--in modern history.  All of the mainstream media outlets, including NPR (or maybe especially NPR) are on board.

What's the deception?  The U.N. asserts that anthropogenic carbon dioxide influences atmospheric CO2 levels which in turn raises global temperatures, however, evidence from ice cores clearly shows the opposite: that increased CO2 levels follow increased temperatures by a few centuries, approximately 400 years. In other words, CO2 levels respond to changes in temperature, and not the way the IPCC summary --for policy makers and press--on  climate change claims.

Links

The Great Man Made Global Warming Swindle May Finally Come to an End.

Will Anthropogenic Global Warming Change to Anthropogenic Chilling?

Climate Change Reconsidered II Biological Impacts

The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science

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$46 Trillion Mostly Held by the Top One-Tenth of One Percent of Americans

“The American oligarchy spares no pains in promoting the belief that it does not exist, but the success of its disappearing act depends on equally strenuous efforts on the part of an American public anxious to believe in egalitarian fictions and unwilling to see what is hidden in plain sight.”– Michael Lind

In total, US millionaire households have at least $45.9 trillion in wealth, the majority of this wealth is held within the upper 0.1% of the 1% population according to the report by David DeGraw, Analysis of Financial Terror. Meanwhile an astounding 62 million Americans have a zero net worth, and 68.3 million Americans struggle to put food on their table. That's right, the very same people, the top one-tenth of one percenters, 300,000 out of 300 million people, essentially responsible for the devastating economic damage to the US,whilst benefiting greatly, have almost $46 trillion in wealth. Remember, $1 trillion is equal to $1000 billion! Imagine, what $46 trillion can do for you.

And unlike those in the lower half of the top 1%, the top 0.1%--not to mention, the 99.9%--can often borrow as much as they want at very nearly 0% interest, keep profits and production offshore, store personal assets in tax havens, ride out down markets and economies, and greatly influence legislation in the US. They have access to the best of the best in accounting firms, attorneys, consultants, private wealth managers, and access to a network of other wealthy and powerful friends, lucrative business opportunities, and on and on and on...

However, thanks to the absence of reporting and/or the reporting of outright lies on this issue by the mainstream media--despite growing financial hardship--most of us are left to believe the rest of the nation is coming out of this financial crisis and getting back on their feet. Add to that, statistics based on rather primitive and outdated poverty/unemployment measures. Although, all one has to do is drive around and see  the empty storefronts that line the streets of the wealthiest nation in the world.

The following excerpts come from  Michiganjf and Jon who commented on the show The End Of Middle Class Neighborhoods? on On Point with Tom Ashbrook. 

"Well, 30 years of Reaganomics and the Republican Revolution has allowed the super-wealthy to "trickle down" on the heads of the middle class and the poor in America... allow the wealthiest 1% to squeeze every penny they can out of the middle-class (those who actually spread money throughout the economy and kept it thriving for so long), and of course it eventually leads to the demise of once healthy middle-class neighborhoods!

Just check out On Points recent show on "Dirty Politics and Big Money" for an idea of the ways in which "The Club for the Rich" rigs the game for their own private and exclusive benefit, bestowing temporary Visas into the Land of the Wealthy unto politicians who "play ball" by the Club Rules.

The wealth, savings, and homes of the middle-class are fodder for the super-wealthy to milk at will:

• The market goes down, the wealthy make a bundle while the rest of America gets wiped out
• The market goes up, the wealthy make 99% of the profit
• The middle class saves money, the wealthy use institutionalized gambling to leverage those savings at absurd risk for their own gain, hedging their leverage for their own gain if the poor suckers' savings get wiped out
• Got a good job? Wait a while... the wealthy will see that your employer is liquidated for a nice tax write-off; or maybe they'll restructure and send your job off to China to improve the value of their executive preferred stock options
• Need cheap gas or food to make ends meet? Well, a nicely cornered commodity and some specualtive maneuvering will see to it that oil gets a $30 jump to makes someone billions almost overnight; or perhaps wheat, or corn, or pork
• You'd like to see that decaying bridge fixed so you don't end up having to add an hour to your commute? Well, Government's broke because the wealthy needed another tax cut... or perhaps a few million tossed by industry lobbyists saw to it that those infrastructure dollars were spent on corporate subsidies instead.
• Start a brilliant business and now want to take it public? Well, you'll get in on the IPO, of course... but the rest of the IPO stock needs to be reserved for the bank's "more deserving clients..." we don't want just anybody in on this money-maker, do we?

... But Hey, let's protect those tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% who milk the rest... even if not compromising means giving up the 4 trillion in deficit reduction the Dems and the Prez offered up in exchange,
[...]
Then you wouldn't be an industry lobbyist looking for corporate subsidies at the expense of infrastructure development! Good, successful programs start to suffer at the hands of the Mismanagement Kings who would rather see taxpayer dollars go to corporate welfare, tax breaks for those who don't need them, and the military-industrial complex... after all, why spend the money on Government programs that work well for 99% of Americans."

and from Jon:

"I'm an Electrical Engineer with a Masters Degree in Biomedical Engineering. I'm 57 and was layed off two years ago when the business I was associated with went under. At my age (ageism is accepted in our sociaty) I've given up after 100+ resumes. Luckly my wife is a tenured academinc, otherwise our situation would have been quite serious. Yes we are still middle class, however if the situation was a little different we would have been catapolted into the growing ranks of the distressed. I'm now doing furniture and cabinet work that grew out of what was a hobby. I've gone from being saleried to hourly and although I own my own buisness, my revenue is joined to the hip of the failing economy. Our income was cut by more than half and I feel like the very fabric of what made this country great is being torn apart.

Not only have our values been turned upside down, exalting greed and technology to the level of god, we no longer create value. Manufacturing and even services are increasingly chase cheap labor all over the world. At the same time institutionalized gambling--the stock/bond/derivative markets--has taken over, creating nothing, or counterfeit "value". The jobs have been shipped overseas, or "in-sourced", leaving us with a feudal system of lords and serfs. A perpetual underclass and permanent overclass.

This did not happen overnight. Rising home equity and easy credit masked the ever-increasing deficit in wages and purchasing power. But now that they've crashed the housing sector and tightened credit, the veil is beginning to rise, revealing the ugly reality. Moreover, the predator class is cashing in and increasing our burden tenfold, ensuring that the next generation faces a third world society, a reality they are not prepared for, given they've been dumbed down and distracted by glitzy celebrities and super shiny technology.

Links:

Full Report: The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the United States of America

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It's Like Interviewing Nazis About the Falling Crime Rate.

"Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. "- George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

Today, after listening to Talk of the Nation (TOTN), on the decline of crime rates, any doubts I had about NPR being as much an inaccurate, misleading and run of the mill propaganda outlet as Fox News, are gone.  

None other than the chairman of the murky criminal corporation that is Kroll - the privatized CIA Inc., who profited massively from the horror that took place on 9/11, who merged with the secretive industry giant, Marsh McLennan (World Trade Center tenant with 1,700 employees where plane impacted), who made a killing on pre-9/11 inside trading, and who capitalized on the heightened corporate fears of terrorism created by 9/11 - explained this apparent decline in crime to TOTN host, Neal Conan.

It is, in fact, security firms like Kroll Associates, Burns Security, Teg, Wackenhut, and their ilk that should garner our interest at least as much as the web of conservative think tanks that have welded in place the parameters of "mainstream" debate - for it is through these very firms that the former stars of law enforcement have gone through the revolving door into the lucrative private sector. It is a world where former military types mix with various operatives of the CIA, FBI, DEA and any number of alphabet soup agencies charged with the security of our nation.

Could it be that this "decline" in crime may have something to do with the fact that the thugs are now in charge?  And isn't it funny how NPR covers the so-called declining crime rate; however, totally failed to cover  the NYPD police thugs, including the pepper spraying of several young women standing on the sidewalk while penned in by orange netting, during Occupy Wall Street.  You see how that works.  The thugs are the law.

So, with the exception of "Fresh Air" and a few local broadcasts, NPR is now just another conformist militaristic propaganda machine. Oh sure, they claim they are "listener-sponsored", but in reality, NPR/PBS is in large part financed by grants from corporate donors. Bland, politically-correct, and totally compromised by their sponsors, that's about all you'll get tuning into public radio. So, what's the difference between this and commercial broadcasting? Nothing. All news is now bought and paid for by corporate-think.

Everything in Nazi Germany was clean and orderly; there were no slums; the trains ran on time. By 1938, the crime rate was at an all-time low because repeat offenders were being sent to a concentration camp after they had completed their second sentence. Anyone who did not have a permanent address and some visible means of support was hauled off the Dachau and put to work.

Once again, we can thank Ronald Reagan for it is he who repealed the Fairness Doctrine.

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Poverty Traps Set By the Rich to Ensnare More and More.

North Philadelphia

Today, I was listening to Marty Moss-Coane, host of NPR's Radio Times revisit the discussion on the culture of poverty. Towards the end of the show, a hospice nurse, who used to work in North Philadelphia called in and relayed his experience working in the second hungriest congressional district in the nation, according to Gallup Healthways Index.

He said, that oftentimes when attending to the dying elderly people in this area, he noticed the feeding tubes ran dry earlier than usual. Much to his dismay, he found out the reason.  The children were drinking the predigested food straight from the tubes they were so hungry.  Personally, I can't even imagine that kind of hunger, but it's much more common than any of us think.

In contrast, less than five miles away, the  Philadelphia Main Line ranks as one of the nation's highest concentration of millionaires, or highest per capita income in the U.S.  The contradiction between the juxtaposing areas within a span of a few miles is truly amazing.

Years ago, while still in college, I visited a friend who resides on the Main Line, in a mansion similar to the mansion pictured below.  I convinced him to go into Philadelphia with me, not realizing how sheltered he was.  As we were walking along a well traveled street near University of Penn, we passed a homeless man, propped up by  a bulging pillowcase with all  his belongings, and huddled over a steam vent to keep warm,  unfortunately something I'd seen many times before. However, much to my amazement, my friend was in shock. Not only had he never seen the homeless, he had never heard of the homeless.  Just a blatant example of the segregation that allows us to blind ourselves to the poverty in America.

Formerly known as “Rathalla” “home of the chieftain upon the highest hill” in Gaelic, summer home of Joseph Francis Sinnott who immigrated to the US from County Donegal in Ireland in 1854. Now, the centerpiece of Rosemont University on the Main Line.

The twenty-first century ushers in an unprecedented level of inequality in our "rags-to-riches" nation. However, here's the truth: The child born to poor parents is almost 30 times more likely to stay poor. The child born to wealthy parents is more than 10 times more likely to stay wealthy.

Poverty traps.

Since the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, opportunities for escaping poverty grow fewer while constraints continue to increase, condemned millions of poor women and children to downward mobility. The patchwork of scattered assistance programs do not work together, and are not well-known.  Therefore, navigating the welfare system becomes a full time job in and of itself, leaving those with the least amount of resources, the least amount of time to get on the ladder. Forget about climbing it.

Poverty in America is a family of four making $22,000 or below; 15% of all Americans live in poverty. One in five American children live in poverty, and 30% of all African-American and Hispanic children live in poverty.  These numbers are increasing, leaving far too many people, in a country as wealthy as ours, who are just about surviving, let alone, thriving.

The Well-Being Index composite result is an average of six domains: life
0 (bottom) -100 (top) Scale evaluation, emotional health, physical health, healthy behaviors, work
environment and basic access.

Links:

City, State, Congressional District Well-Being Reports

Stretched Thin: Poor Families, Welfare Work, and Welfare Reform -

“I feel like poverty just … it’s a vicious cycle, I mean if you get your head above that water, then they’re going to drop you. …You know they are going to let the air out of your lifejacket, and you go back down to the bottom rung again.” -- an Oregon hospice worker with three teen-aged children.

Culture of poverty

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The Case for Hatred and the Power of Forgiveness.

Hatred exists; therefore, it must have a purpose, right? Maybe, even if its only purpose is to make love possible, since everything requires its opposite in order to function ...yin/yang sort of thing.

However, more than likely, hatred exists in order to protect us from harm as we've evolved through time. It's hard to distinguish between anger and hatred; except to say that anger is usually a reaction to a situation, an individual/ group of people, or frustration, whereas hatred could be defined, not so much as a reaction, but as a result of not allowing our angry reaction to die. Hatred is more calculating, conscious, and long-term.

Hate occurs when we refuse to let go of our anger that was aroused by a feeling of being wronged in some way. Instead of forgetting our angry experience(s), we engage our mental capacity to retain and revive facts, events, impressions, etc., and recall previous situations that triggered those angry feelings. Hatred, therefore, serves a very important purpose because at certain times/situations, self-preservation requires that we passionately remember our anger.

The bottom line: there is no avoiding this overwhelming feeling. We must, as sentient creatures, decide if and when hatred is appropriate, and if not, we must figure out how to transcend these strong feelings that are hard-wired into our brains from birth. It's not an easy task.

Not to long ago, sitting in traffic, I was thinking about a "friend" who had double-crossed me. The more I thought about it, the angrier I became. As my anger and "hatred" (or what I thought was hatred) of this person increased, I was all set to do something I should have done a long time ago to protect myself from financial hardship.

Then, as I listened to Hector's story, A Father Finds Peace in Forgiving Daughter's Killer on NPR's StoryCorps on the radio, all of my anger and hatred dissipated. After all, Hector, who had every reason in the world to hate ended up forgiving the man who murdered his daughter. What right did I have to my hatred and anger? By the time, I reached my destination, my desire to act provoked by my malevolent feelings had evaporated, for better or worse, and I did not act. In this specific situation with this specific person, I think it worked out for the best, but in different circumstances, with different "actors" letting go of the hatred that provoked me to act may have sealed an unfortunate ending.

Anger, all by itself, may not be enough in some cases, because anger has its limits and once the angry reaction wears off, what then?

Extreme situations, when life becomes almost impossible, such as when a person or a group of people is literally smothering under oppressive circumstances; hatred could serve as indispensable, motivating people to do what is necessary to either save their lives or escape the crushing conditions they are experiencing.

An African American writer about prisoners:

‘It’s easy for folks who have enough to eat, homes, land, work, to preach about forgiveness. But is it fair to preach it to people living in hellholes, jobless, starving? Are they to forgive the fat well-fed millions who voted for their starvation? Who voted for war? Who voted for prisons? Who voted for a people’s repression? Who wish, in their heart of hearts, that those people had never been born? Should the starving forgive the repression to come, the genocide to come?’

Lance Morrow, on September 12, 2001 wrote a piece in Time Magazine called The Case for Rage and Retribution making the case for the purpose of hatred.

“A day cannot live in infamy without the nourishment of rage. Let's have rage. What's needed is a unified, unifying, Pearl Harbor sort of purple American fury'a ruthless indignation that doesn't leak away in a week or two, wandering off into Prozac-induced forgetfulness or into the next media sensation.
[...]
Let America explore the rich reciprocal possibilities of the fatwa. A policy of focused brutality does not come easily to a self-conscious, self-indulgent, contradictory, diverse, humane nation with a short attention span. America needs to relearn a lost discipline, self-confident relentlessness' and to relearn why human nature has equipped us all with a weapon (abhorred in decent peacetime societies) called hatred.”

Justified or not, Mr. Morrow certainly has a way with words. Hatred is the most dangerous weapon  in our emotional arsenal and must be handled with extreme care. We need to monitor our hatred constantly, asking ourselves if it is serving any purpose, and if so, we must be extremely cautious that any action it may provoke helps the situation at hand and does not exacerbate the problem.

As much as I admire Mr. Morrow's literary composition, I don't agree with his call for hatred after 9/11, as I believe hatred serves no purpose in a nation as powerful as ours. Hatred should be reserved for the weak and powerless, the underdog, as sometimes its their only hope, and even then, hatred can spiral out of control and drain the humanity of the souls it consumes.

If everyone followed Hector's example and transformed the powerful emotion of hatred, once it served its purpose, to the even more powerful emotion of forgiveness, as he did, hatred could assume its proper place in the complex intricately woven tapestry of emotion that makes us who we are.

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Only the Good Die Young?

With the massive amounts of unemployment, underemployment, and job insecurity today, it would be no surprise to find out suicide rates have increased or are increasing, especially amongst young men, who identify so closely with what they do. Many of these men are good, caring men, with a strong conscience, who want to make/leave the world a better place. Unfortunately, it is also these men, who will blame themselves and succumb to despair when not given the chance.

Michel Martin, host of Tell Me More on NPR lost her brother, Norman McQueen, Jr., a former New York City firefighter who aided relief efforts at ground zero in the aftermath on 9/11, to suicide, two weeks ago, today.

Rather than hide this tragedy, as many people often choose to do after the suicide of a loved one, Ms. Martin decided to share just how proud she was of her brother, a very good man, offering a commentary on the death of her only brother, Can I Just Tell You? Maybe Someday Love Will Cure Despair.

Now, I know some people think taking your own life is a selfish act, but I cannot bring myself to see it that way. I see it as self-less, in the sense that you come to believe your self has no value; that everyone would be better off without you.

I think my brother thought he was a failure, that with his long bout of unemployment he could not live up to what was expected of him as a man, and that we'd all be better off without him.

He was so wrong.

My brother was a good man. He was the first to offer to carry a bag of heavy groceries, to push a wheelchair up a steep ramp, to change a stranger's tire on a rainy night.

Years ago, when I was a newspaper reporter and working on a story in New York, he insisted on driving me to all my interviews because he thought I had been out of the 'hood too long and might not be able to handle myself. (I didn't have the heart to tell him that I had just had my car windows bashed in on the assignment I had just finished, and lived to tell about it. And I tried to remember not to mention it when I climbed up into an office building that had just been bombed.)

I am telling you all this because I refuse to be ashamed.

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Tea Party Demonstrations and the States’ Rights Challenge. Why Now?

I listened to The States’ Rights Challenge on the NPR radio show, On Point with Tom Ashbrook, my favorite radio broadcaster and he invited guests, Neil Siegel, professor of law and political science at Duke University and Thomas E. Woods, senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, with very different viewpoints on the states' rights issue with respect to the health care reform package, in particular. As Ashbrook said, he wanted to discern whether the reemergence of this issue, at this time, points to the "proof of a vigorous democracy or fraying of national unity and authority.

Before health care reform even passed, two states, Virginia and Idaho had already voted to challenge its authority. Now, attorneys general from 13 states are challenging the constitutionality of the health care reform bill and in total, 36 states are considering legislation to limit certain portions or reject the bill, outright.

The first major tea party march, April 15, 2009, in response to President Obama's federal stimulus bill, was the first time this issue of "states' rights" materialized to the point of national recognition, especially with Texas Gov. Rick Perry threatening to secede from the union, which although he may deny it now, was clearly his message at the time.

Republicans claim big government is the monster in the closet when they don't like what's being legislated, and it appears - since President Obama has taken office - to include who is doing the legislating. This becomes apparent when you compare the lack of response to the huge expansion of federal power under former President Bush (prescription drug legislation, no child left behind, Iraq and cost of a war based on lies, ect.) So, one has to ask, why, now that we have our first black president, is there a push for state’s rights... talk of invoking the 10th amendment, nullification and secession, when article 6 clearly states federal authority outranks state’s authority?

Neil Siegel said it's important to distinguish the difference between challenging federalism and "couching" opposition to legislation in terms of 10th amendment, nullification and secession.

It’s important to make a distinction between Federalism – appropriate balance of power between the federal government and the states and “state’s rights”, nullification and secession which either intentionally or unwittingly invokes very powerful historical and cultural memories. Memories of southern opposition of federal regulation of slavery before the civil war; memories opposition of Brown v. Board of Education in school desegregation during what legal scholars call the second reconstruction.

Why is talk about the limits of federal power and the appropriate ways in which states should be pushing back against federal power when state officials think it’s being used in ways which are misguided…why is that being couched in terms of 10th amendment, nullification and secession and why is it being couched in those terms now?

It’s entirely legitimate for people to oppose health care reform, but what’s more questionable is whether it’s appropriate to couch those concerns in language of state’s rights. Is your substantive political opposition to health care reform or is it principled commitment to decentralization? It seems there are not very many principled people out there when it comes to state’s rights. Favorable to robust federal power when it suits them but then couch their concerns against a particular exercise of federal power in the deceptive procedural address of federalism. What specific constitutional principles of federalism render this legislation unconstitutional, in particular because it seems that individual states find it almost impossible to tackle health care?

One of the biggest complaints is about the portion of health care reform that would mandate individuals to purchase health insurance. However, isn't it true that citizens are mandated to purchase auto insurance? How is this "mandate" any different? Siegal explained it this way:

In the summer of 1787, when the Constitutional convention meets in Philadelphia, the convention instructs the Mid Summer committee of detail which is charged with drafting Congress’ powers in article 1 section 8, that congress should have the power to legislate when the states are separately incompetent. When the states face problems they can’t adequately handle on their own. Health insurance and an individual mandate to possess health insurance is a textbook example in economics which is a problem states can’t handle on their own.

Imagine some states have it and other don’t. Then you have people who are sick and unhealthy going to the states who have it and all the premiums of people in that state increase, and all health people in those states go to other states. Insurers only want to do business with those that don’t have the mandate. The states on their own can’t handle this.

Does the state has power to nullify federal law?

The 10th amendment says, "the powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved to the states respectively or to the people..."

13 states: Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington. Alaska and Oklahoma reviewing legislation might file law suit.

Issues that involve states' rights:
Gay rights
Medical marijuana
Health care
Guns
Environmental
Continuous call up of the National Guard

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Unconditional Life: Learning From the Heart

In the midst of hopelessness, where life is approximately 400 years behind the United States (ironically, Haiti was the first nation to emulate the United States in 1804 when they broke away from France and tried their hand at democracy), and people suffer from the worst kind of poverty, it's unthinkable that more tragedy could possibly inflict itself on a nation, who, if anything, deserves relief from their dire conditions.

Unbelievable, as it may seem to many of us, the Haitians make up for what they do not have in material goods and fundamental staples, by retaining their faith and spiritual connections. Despite that faith, their hard work, immense suffering, and their efforts to try and take care of one another, something always interferes and sets them back even further.

Back in 2004, that something was Hurricane Jeanne, which left 1,500 dead. In an article, Facing Haiti's Hopelessness, She Helps, Ernest Cooper of the St. Petersburg Times, highlights the missions of one surgeon, Sylvia Campbell, who said at the time, "It's so much sadder than it was before. The Haitians are so much poorer, so much hungrier," and that she is "awed by the Haitian struggle -- and their unyielding humanity". One example amongst so many is when neighbors walked five hours with one woman who need emergency surgery.

"They're such gentle kind people. It's so horrible that they have to go through more tragedy. You wonder how could people survive, yet they have incredible faith, an incredible gentleness to their spirit." -- Sylvia Campbell

Today, once again, it's so much sadder than it was before. Yet, there is no doubt the Haitians will continue to go on, living and loving. These afflicted people exemplify what Dr. Dan Gottleib, host of Voices in the Family on NPR means when he talks about the "gift of hopelessness" in his book, Learning From the Heart

Dr. Gottlieb has experienced his fair share of tragedy. At age 33-years old, he suffered through a car accident that left him a quadriplegic. A couple of years after the accident, he came to a deliberate crossroads in his life. This was the point at which he decided he was going to choose life or death. Taking himself off to his bedroom where he could be alone, he confronted something...a spiritual being, an image of God, the "heart" as he refers to in his book; he's not sure what or who it was that responded to him, only that something did.

At first Dr. Gottlieb said, "OK, I'll live with this if you can give me hope that one day I will walk again."

The voice responded, "No hope...live or die, choose one."

He tried again and said, "OK, give me hope that I will not continue to be as sick as I have been over the past couple of years."

The being responded exactly the same way, "No hope...live or die, choose one."

Everything Dr. Gottlieb asked for received the same response, and so he chose life, unconditionally, the way life was right at that moment. Today, he has a thriving practice, authored several books and hosts a radio show, but that did not come easily or without more heartache, as he lost his sister and then his wife to divorce and shortly thereafter, to death.

Semantically, faith and hope are very similar, except the word hope places more conditions, and is more specific, whereas faith is more general -- confidently believing in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of something or someone, whether it is life in general, a person, an idea, God, etc.

But placing conditions on love and life automatically limits our potential, eliminates freedom, and guarantees failure because there is no doubt that someone, something, or life in general will not measure up to the terms we've imposed. We can't escape it...life, and/or the people in our life will hurt, betray, and disappoint us repeatedly. Does that mean we should give up? Stop loving? Stop living? The easy answer is yes. However, keep in mind that we have, and we will hurt, betray, and disappoint in life and love as much as life hurts, betrays, and disappoints us.

Instead of abandoning hope altogether, Dr. Gottlieb said he can live with the definition of hope Jerome Groopman the author of "Anatomy of Hope" gives, "the belief that tomorrow can be better than today".

The Haitians who live in the poorest nation in the western hemisphere, in circumstances, incomprehensible to most of us, without an education, have learned from the heart. They know that to give up, is to have given up on the only reason for our existence...to contribute to life, that is, to live, and love. Each time we stop loving someone or choose against life, we truly fail, as we have refused to fulfill the one and only reason we exist. It is as simple as that.

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Devout Laissez-Faire Reagan Appointee Declares Failure of Capitlism.

Aside from greed, stupidity, and corruption, it's clear that today's economic meltdown has much to do with a general lack of transparency, deregulation of the financial system, excessive leverage, the financial engineering of overly complicated and opaque securities, compensation mechanisms that in the words of James Surowiecki, "even when people recognized the possibility of dragons, they decided it was in their short-term interests (even if it wasn't in their company's interests) to run the risk of getting incinerated anyway", and a blindly or naively optimistic view of free market capitalism that ignores the inevitability of market imperfections.

Despite all the evidence, many of the conservatives are trying to market their own version of why our financial system crashed, and that is that the crash is actually the fault of government regulation. However, there are a few "free market" cheerleaders who have reversed their Panglossian ideas about laissez-faire economics. One of those men is Ronald Reagan appointed, Judge Richard Posner, author of A Failure of Capitalism The Crisis of '08 and the Descent into Depression

The conservatives believe the depression is the result of unwise government policies. I believe it is a market failure...Without any government regulation of the financial industry, the economy, would in all likelihood, be in a depression. We are learning from it that we need a more active and intelligent government to keep our model of a capitalist economy from running off the rails. The movement to deregulate the financial industry went too far by exaggerating the resilience—the self-healing powers—of laissez-faire capitalism.

The depression has hit economic libertarians in the solar plexus because it is largely a consequence not of the government’s overregulating the economy, by doing so fettering free enterprise, rather innate limitations of the free market.” -- Judge Richard Posner, appointed to the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, and one of the nation’s most prolific legal defenders of free-market economics.

I greatly admire Judge Posner's willingness to rethink some of his fundamental beliefs about free market capitalism, however, after listening to Robert Reich, who I respect immensely, and the Judge discuss it on Tom Ashbrook's On Point radio show, I'm not sure he (Judge Posner) is fully convinced.

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Caroline the Alaskan Broadcaster Says Palin is Major Disaster and Such an Embarrassment

Who is Caroline the Broadcaster? Well, she is just another "Joe, the Plumber" without the credibility issue. She called into the radio show, On Point: How to Fix the Economy, to comment on the responsibility of all of us, (I totally agree with what she has to say...another reason I'm posting this) but because she lived and worked broadcasting in Alaska for 40 years. host Tom Ashbrook asked her about what she thought of Sarah Palin.

Interpret the following portion of the transcript from that show for what it is, an opinion from someone who sounds as "trustworthy" as anyone can sound from a 2-minute excerpt of conversation.

Caroline: ...great discussion, gentlemen. I want to go back to the discussion about the responsibility of everyone of us. I've been watching all of this since the early 1950s. I remember the one President who asked for sacrifice was Jimmy Carter, and then he got kicked out quickly enough. When peoople are so self-absorbed, when it doesn't hurt them, than they don't care what goes on, they don't care if the blue collar jobs in the textile industry...they care whenever it's their white collar jobs that get exported to very well educated countries like India and so forth, that's when they care. So, until this hurts, and it hurts enough people, we will let it go...we'll have the cheerleaders out there treating us like infantile 2-year olds in the sandbox. We will only care for ourselves.

Tom Ashbrook: Well, it hurts right now, Caroline. Who are you thinking might lead us out this pain?

Caroline from Alaska: I think it will be people who are honest, who will be honest with us, who will go after the people who broke the law (the problem with that is there is no law to break) committed fraud. Now, again fraud is sometimes very hard to prove and if you don't want people punished than you don't put enough regulators and prosecutors in place to do it. It is like a giant pile of spaghetti...trying to find one end that's the cause. It's impossible.

Tom Ashbrook: You're from Alaska. What about your Governor there, Caroline? ...Sarah Palin? What about the cut of her jib on all of this?

Caroline from Alaska: I've lived there for 40-years and I've worked in broadcasting. This person is a major disaster and such an embarrassment to our state.

Tom Ashbrook: Why?

Caroline from Alaska: Take if from there. Do not...Don't even consider her as an expert in...

Tom Ashbrook: Why? She's very popular in Alaska, we read. 80% popularity...that's through the roof.

Caroline from Alaska: That's what's the matter with this nation. If you have enough of a cheering squad and you have enough lobbyists that are buying enough politicians... and they get to write all the rules... and nobody cares until it hits them in the face, then you are going to have people like that riding into prominence. It's marketing. And that's all that we've been driven on for the last 40 to 50 years. We haven't had a major hurt in this country since WWII, and I hate to think that we're going to get to that, but that may be what's necessary before people are going to realize we are all a community. And, the kids who are in schools that are lousy, you better not take an attitude, we need a permanent underclass to fight our wars. You are going to take the attitude, they're geniuses out there...we don't know where they are, we don't know what color or sex they are. We have to give everybody an opportunity and we've not been doing that for a very long time.

Prior to "Caroline the Alaskan Broadcaster", Ed, who identified himself as,"I'm Another Average Working Joe" phoned in to ask about executive accountability. If "Joe" is the average guy, who is the female counterpart?

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Republican Spin: Federal Policy Tried to Change Banks into Charities

Charities? Banks were turned into charities?

That's certainly not my experience!

FDR referred to bankers as "banksters", but the following Republican will try to convince us that CEOs and Wall Street bankers are almost Gandhi-like and portray the CRA and do-gooder policy makers as the guilty parties who paved the well-intended path to Hell.

Russ Roberts, professor of economics at George Mason University is who I am referring, however, he is one of many who actually believe the bank/soupkitchen spin. Here is what he had to say, word for word, in response to guest Danny Schechter, author of Plunder Investigating Our Economic Calamity, on NPR's radio show, On Point,"Investigating the Subprime Scandal."

Roberts: It's true that there were some predatory loans. It's true that some people got rich at other people's expense. There are always people trying to get rich at other people's expense...so, the question is, why did things spiral out of control in the last ten years?

The simple answer is, when housing prices are rising steadily like they did from 1995-2005, it's very easy to buy a house with no money down. It's very easy to securitize that, to bundle up a bunch of those mortgages and sell them in a package with some higher quality loans which is what people did. They found out over time that it worked. The people that bought those houses during the last ten years who put very little down were high risk...most of them made their payments. They got to keep their houses and it was a win, win situation, and everybody celebrated it.

However, it's not true that everybody was asleep on the job. Because a lot of people understood that behind this system was a bunch of structural flaws put in place by public policy...well intended...that were allowing people to spend other people's money at the behest of the government, without the government having to spend anything. Fannie Mae...Freddie Mac, and the Community Reinvestment Act...all well intended. Starting in 1995, they pushed increases in home ownership. It was a relentless beat. It was bipartisan. An increase on Fannie and Freddie who were nominally private but as it turns out implicit and really guaranteed by your money and mine to increase home ownership among Americans. They did it. Home ownership went from 64-69%. Over 12 million people got houses that didnt have them before.

Unfortunately, it was only sustainable in the time of rising housing prices and those rises were due to a large extent, not to speculation and greed, but specific public policies.

Schechter, who really knows what he is talking about, however, did not respond directly to what Roberts had to say. This started to frustrate Tom Ashbrook, host of On Point.

Ashbrook said to Schechter: "But Danny, take on the heart of this. You can hear a kind of Republican interpretation and a Democratic interpretation emerging. The Democratic interpretation says this is about greed. The Republican interpretation say this is about do-gooderism...that it was a do-gooder impulse that pushed everything out of the beauty of the market and into this mess. Speak to that specifically..."

Schechter continued to speak but still did not address what Roberts said.

Ashbrook interrupted: But did government policy lead to that dynamic. That's what Russ Roberts is saying.

Schechter continued on, but never took on Roberts insanity. So, Ashbrook turned back to Roberts.

Roberts: This claim that the special interests structured the financial system to engineer an increase in home ownership is...of course some people profited from it and pushed for deregulation. What's missing from the narrative of Mr. Schechter is the special interest that he's missing, something call members of congress and senators. They pushed Fannie and Freddie systematically to increase or stay the same, year after year the proportion of loans they bought from low income and below average income borrowers, which is a lovely idea, but they were doing it with other people's money. It was irresponsible. It was an increase in regulation that caused that...some deregulation too, not much, by the way....

I want people to remember that part of this problem was caused by the seemingly attractive idea of forcing these groups...Fannie and Freddie and this includes banks, who Mr. Schechter portrays as these greedy money making operations, but unfortunately they and we would have been better off if they stuck to making money. Unfortunately, we didn't let them stick to making money, we tried to turn them into charities..."

At this point, Ashbrook talking over Roberts said: "They made an awful lot of money for charities...Danny Schechter, speak directly to that charge! DIRECTLY TO IT...!"

Danny Schechter and Tom Ashbrook continued on with the interview. Russ Roberts disappeared from the show.

Danny Schechter was very good and well worth listening too.

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Did You Know Eyeglasses Cost $1.25 to Make?

Yep, according to commentator Daniel Pinkwater, it's fairly simple to get really well-made glasses online at a fraction of the cost of over-the-counter ones. All you need is your prescription and your pupillary distance, that is the distance from the center of the pupil (black circle) in one eye to the center of the pupil in the other eye. This is needed to accurately center the lenses in the frame that you have selected. You can measure the distance yourself using a millimeter ruler, however; to ensure accuracy it's better to have the Optometrist measure.

After Mr. Pinkwater's eyeglasses arrived he had them checked out by his Optometrist, who said they were "right on". He then asked his Optometrist, "How does the commercial enterprise justify a 90% markup? "

His Optometrist responded, "The lens cost maybe a quarter to make, the frame, maybe a buck but there is rent, advertising and all that overhead and then there is the issue of patriotism..." I'll let you listen to the rest.

39DollarGlasses.com and Frames Direct are supposed to be very good. Mr. Pinkwater may have bought his eyeglasses at ZenniOptical, but I'm not sure as he did not specify which optical online site he purchased his eyeglasses from... unTECHy posts an unbiased review. of ZeniOptical.

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The Power of Forgivness

Yolanda Young, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., and author of the book and syndicated column, "On Our Way to Beautiful," in her essay, Freeing Myself Through Forgiveness on This I Believe from NPR, eloquently delivers why she believes in the power of forgiveness.

Radio Times, host, Marty Moss-Coane, interviewed Donald Kraybill, author of Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy.Tragedy yesterday. Mr. Kraybill followed the tragedy that occurred in the Amish community last year when a truck driver broke into an Amish Schoolhouse and shot ten schoolgirls, execution style, killing five of them. He points out how forgiveness is part of the "cultural DNA" of the Amish community and how the individual yields to the community giving up any right to retaliate. He discusses why anger is not functional in a communitarian context as it is in an individualistic society such as ours.

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Only 10% of All Charitable Deductions Go to Help Poor.

Lots of charitable dollars — especially from the wealthy, who have the most to donate — are going to culture palaces: to the operas, art museums, symphonies, and theaters where they spend much of their leisure time. And to the universities they once attended and expect their children to attend, perhaps with the help of what's known as affirmative action for "legacies."

These aren't really charitable contributions. They're more like investments in the lifestyles the wealthy already enjoy and want their children to have too. They're also investments in prestige, especially if they result in the family name engraved on the new wing of the art museum or symphony hall.

Now it's their business how they donate their money. But not entirely, because, you see, charitable donations are deductible from income taxes.

This year, the U.S. Treasury will be getting about $40 billion less than it would if the tax code didn't allow charitable deductions. By the way, the government now spends less than $40 billion a year on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which is what's left of welfare.

I can see why a contribution to, say, the Salvation Army should be eligible for a charitable tax deduction. It's helping the poor. But why, exactly, should a contribution to the Guggenheim Museum or Harvard University?

Not long ago, New York City's Lincoln Center had a gala dinner supported by the charitable contributions of the leaders of the hedge fund industry, some of whom will be receiving billion-dollar bonuses in the next few weeks. I may be missing something here, but this doesn't strike me as charity. I mean, poor New Yorkers don't often attend concerts at the Lincoln Center.

It turns out, in fact, that only an estimated 10 percent of all charitable deductions this year will be directed at the poor.

At a time in our nation's history when the number of needy continue to rise, when government doesn't have the money to do what's necessary, and when America's very rich are richer than ever, we should revise the tax code.

Limit the charitable deduction to real charities.

And have a happy holiday.

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