Hell Bound Falwell

There is a new guest in hell today, Jerry Falwell.

Being the self appointed pal of God (c) (tm) (inc)f or lo these many years ,little could he guess where he was going, or perhaps he did, at that moment when he had his fatal heart attack.

In 1976, Falwell said, "The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the devil to keep Christians from running their own country."

Seen to the left Jerry with a portrait of his god.

After all Jerry did more for Satan, by declaring so many Americans sinners, then almost any other right wing evangelical with the exception of that other guy God (c) (tm) (inc) talks to; Pat Robertson.

Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and 24 other Christian leaders this year tried to pressure the National Association of Evangelicals to silence its Washington director, the Rev. Rich Cizik, because Cizik is trying to convince evangelicals that global warming is real. In a February sermon, Falwell warned worshippers at his Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, that environmental activism by evangelicals "is Satan's attempt to redirect the church's primary focus" away from spreading the Gospel.

Over the years, Falwell waged a landmark libel case against Hustler magazine founder Larry Flynt over a raunchy parody ad, and created a furor in 1999 when one of his publications suggested that the purse-carrying "Teletubbies" character Tinky Winky was gay.

In recent years, Falwell had become a problematic figure for the GOP. His remarks a few days after Sept. 11, 2001, essentially blaming feminists, gays and liberals for bringing on the terrorist attacks, drew a rebuke from the White House, and he apologized.

Prior to the election, Dr. Jerry Falwell wrote in a newsletter and on his Web site: "I believe it is the responsibility of every political conservative, every evangelical Christian, every pro-life Catholic, and every traditional Jew, every Reagan Democrat, and everyone in between to get serious about re-electing President Bush."

Reverend Falwell, national chairman of the Faith and Values Coalition and Moral Majority founder, also labeled the National Organization for Women (NOW) the "National Order of Witches," and called Americans United for Separation of Church and State "an anti-Christ" group.

And at one point on Meet the Press, Dr. Falwell asked James Wallis of Sojourners how, as an ordained minister he could vote for Mr. Kerry, who supports abortion rights.

Since Jerry entered Hell there has been no official comment from those close to him. Those in the know say that Satan however was downplaying his newest guests importance saying the reception wasn't quite the same as when the Pope arrives.

Many had already been looking beyond Falwell and his allies for new leaders when the pastor died. A 2004 poll for PBS's "Religion & Ethics Newsweekly" found that U.S. evangelicals had a lower regard for Falwell than for Pope John Paul II. Falwell became such a polarizing figure that his role in the 2004 Republican National Convention was limited to appearing at a closed-door rally for religious activists.

---

Evangelicals Prefer Satan to Hillary Clinton

Enjoying a comfortable lead over her GOP punching-bag opponent in her Senate re-election bid, New York's own Hillary Clinton was cast by evangelist Jerry Falwell as a favorite candidate for the 2008 presidential election:

"I certainly hope that Hillary is the candidate," Falwell said at a breakfast session Friday in Washington. "I hope she's the candidate, because nothing will energize my (constituency) like Hillary Clinton," he said. "If Lucifer ran, he wouldn't."

Clinton's spokesman decried this "demonizing" maneuver, though no one would speculate on evangelicals' potential reaction to a Clinton versus Satan race. The Prince of Darkness declined to comment, saying he has every confidence in GOP Senate majority leader Bill Frist.

My Son, the Antichrist - By Alex Heard - Slate Magazine

The Anti-Defamation League is hopping mad at Jerry Falwell for his speech lastweekend in Kingsport, Tenn., where he told a gathering of prophecy-heeding Christians that the Antichrist is "probably" alive and, as a "full-grown counterfeit of Christ," is without a doubt a Jewish male. The ADL said the remarks were typical of "an especially vicious tradition of Christian theological anti-Judaism."

The Antichrist is Jewish? It does sound bad, especially given the 2,000 year history of Jewish persecution by cranky Christians. The speech was also confusing to longtime Falwell buffs and those of us who have watery knowledge of the Book of Revelation, the New Testament text that causes all this prophecy hubbub. Isn't Falwell a longtime "friend of Israel"? Then why is he making anti-Semitic comments? And does Revelation really say the Antichrist must be a Jew?

When Tammy Faye Messner (formely Tammy Faye Bakker) cries for you through the pancake make up you know you are in hell, or else featured on Larry King.

Even Tammy Faye Messner appeared by phone in an interview with CNN’s Larry King, telling him that she “broke into tears” upon hearing the news of Falwell’s death, despite years of animosity between them that began when Falwell stole the ministry founded by Tammy and Jim Bakker.

The rise of the Moral Majority coincided with the Reagan presidency, and Falwell rose to national prominence as well.

But his fortunes changed in the late 1980s when televangelists took a hit from the bad publicity surrounding the financial scandal involving Jim and Tammy Bakker.

Falwell and his ministries faced some tough financial challenges as well in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and he withdrew somewhat from the national limelight as he worked to get Liberty University and his other ministries on a sounder financial footing.

See:

Prince of Peace?

Pat Robertson Bev Oda

Secularism Vs. Fundamentalism

Gnostic Easter

Pauline Origins of Social Conservatism

Pat Robertson Anti-Christ

An Antidote to Bush

Crusader for the Pope

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Our Pal Ed

Lame duck Premier Ed Stelmach is our pal says the Biggest Landlord in Canada....

"We are extremely pleased," whooped Boardwalk president Roberto Geremia.

"Though confronted with intense pressure from the media and opposition parties," he continued, "the provincial government has remained steadfast in its stand against legislated rent controls."

CEO Sam Kolias said Boardwalk was now "poised to generate significant gains," and reminded unitholders that "today's most exciting investment story surrounds our Alberta portfolio," which he described as "really hot."

And Edmonton in particular, where 32% of Boardwalk's apartment units are concentrated and the vacancy rate is running under 1%, is "poised to generate significant gains over the next coming months."

Then Kolias rolled out the happy numbers for the cheerleading stockies listening on the conference call.

Funds from operations were up 25% over the same three months in 2006. Distributable income per unit was up 27%. Rental revenues were up 15%, while net operating income of $51 million was up 19%.

Happy days are here again. And probably the most important stat of all was Boardwalk's "outlook and guidance" prediction that distributable income will climb from $1.87 to as high as $2.04 per unit in 2007.

"We're being thoughtful in the amount we are increasing rents," he continued.

"Although the market can bear more," Kolias sighed, "we do realize that our customers are the most important thing that we have."

H/T to West of the Fourth who discovered Neil Waugh is as Socialist.

Something I have pointed out over the past couple of years about Neil.

After you suffer thirty five years of an incompetent One Party State, socialism actually looks good.

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Animal Crimes

Despite the fact that Canada does not have capital punishment it does when it comes to animals. Unfortunately the same law does not apply to the animals owners.

Let the Punishment fit the crime,

My object all sublime I shall achieve in time — To let the punishment fit the crime — The punishment fit the crime; And make each prisoner pent Unwillingly represent A source of innocent merriment! Of innocent merriment!

In this case the dog owner could well do without his ears....

Owner of dog with ears cut off may face cruelty charges but could still reclaim canine

CanWest News Service

Published: Monday, May 14, 2007

The owner of a dog that was found with its ears cut off could face animal cruelty charges, but under the law he can reclaim the dog if he pays its medical bills and other fees. The Windsor-Essex County Humane Society received a call from an anonymous concerned neighbour after the five- or six-month-old dog, a German Shepherd-Rottweiler mix, was spotted in an apartment building on Friday. "Both his ears were severely injured," said Nancy McCabe, the manager of field operations for the humane society. "We believe he [the owner] either took a kitchen knife or a hand saw and cut the dog's ears off." Ms. McCabe met with the owner yesterday. "He said he had nothing to do with the injuries and that he bought the dog from some guy named Jay and that it was already like that," she said. "He said it got attacked by another dog."

In the case of the Tiger mauling, the tiger was like any cat, playing with a loose piece of clothe, attached as it was to the body of a woman, whom it clawed. The cat was summarily executed for this crime. Perhaps its macho hillbilly owner should also share its fate, since the cat was only doing what comes natural and the stupid humans were at fault.

Woman killed by tiger routinely petted wild animals good night

VANCOUVER - A woman killed by a tiger last week had a routine of petting the family's wild animals good night under spotlights turned on to illuminate the animal pens. Over the weekend, more details emerged on last week's death of Tania Dumstrey- Soos, including her relationship with the wild animals who lived at her fiance Kim Carlton's privately owned Siberian Magic Zoo in Bridge Lake, B.C. "Kim told me yesterday that at night, he'd turn the lights on -- the spotlights on -- so that Tania could go down and pet them," Williams Lake Mayor Scott Nelson said yesterday. "She loved those animals dearly." Mr. Nelson, who employed Ms. Dumstrey-Soos at the 100 Mile House Advisor paper, said she always carried around photos of the tigers with her at work. No one knows why the three-year-old tiger, Gangus, lashed out through the cage. Mr. Nelson said six-year-old Nicholas Dumstrey-Soos witnessed the attack and ran to get his mother help. An RCMP media report released on Saturday said the tiger was humanely euthanized and will undergo a forensic examination. Police are investigating the incident. B.C. Agriculture Minister Pat Bell said he will meet with Environment Minister Barry Penner, the SPCA and the Humane Society this week to discuss new laws.

And since clubbing a dog to death after running over it with a car results in a less than satisfactory sentence, perhaps the thoughtless dweebs who did this should be run over by a car and then have their heads wrapped in plastic and bashed in with a shovel to understand that this is not the proper medical procedure for dealing with injuries.

House arrest in Didsbury animal cruelty case

A central Alberta man who pleaded guilty in a horrific case of animal abuse involving a pet dog has been sentenced to three months of house arrest followed by two years of probation.

The young man from Didsbury, Alta., was less than three weeks away from his 18th birthday when he became involved in what his defence lawyer told court was a "poorly thought-out euthanasia attempt."

A young Alberta man was sentenced Thursday to house arrest and probation after he pleaded guilty to animal cruelty towards Daisy Duke, above, a lab-border collie cross.
(CBC)

Court heard the accused accidentally backed over a lab-border collie cross belonging to his best friend's mother. The teen helped try to kill the dog, named Daisy Duke, by taping a plastic bag over its head, dragging it behind a car and hitting it over the head with a shovel.

The dog was found still alive in the middle of an intersection, but had to be put down by a veterinarian.

The young man will also have to abide by a curfew for nine months after his house arrest is up and do 240 hours of community service.

Another male accused, Daniel Charles Haskett, 19, has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go on trial May 23.

Poor Bruiser. He regularly patrolled the auto body shop company where he was kept as a guard dog. As usual when dogs are kept as guard dogs around here they have little to keep them company, are treated badly, often lack a dog house or any shade, may go days without water or food, etc.

In this case the owner abandoned the dog to its fate, with little regard for the fact that it was his fault the dog somehow got out of the compound. As for his biting, it is a natural reaction for a 'guard' dog, who only sees others as possible invaders of his space. Confused, lost and wandering around, he is a threat, but not one deserving of being executed.

The owners callous disregard for his dog, shows he thought of it as just another piece of property. He abandoned the dog to its fate, and abdicating his responsibility. Certainly euthanasia of the owner is warranted since he is responsible for his dog loosing its life.

Bruiser the pit bull put down

Bruiser the biting pit bull is dead.

The city's animal control department put the animal to sleep yesterday morning. The dog's rampage last month saw it seized and quarantined at the city pound.

In the April 23 attack, near 101 Street and 81 Avenue, two victims were sent to hospital with bite wounds. A third person was nipped, but not injured.

The city's investigation concluded Bruiser got out of the fenced property he guarded, Extreme Velocity Custom Autoworks & Detailing Ltd., through a weak spot in the fence.

Bruiser’s owner skipped the first two meetings scheduled with the city, but finally gave permission to have the dog euthanized this week.

Bruiser had been involved in another incident, and the city's legal department is considering charges.

SEE:

Tigers As Commodities

Tiger Tiger Burning Bright

Criminal Capitalism: Pet Food Scandal

Not In The Dog House

One Child One Dog

Cat Carol

Chinese Fat Cat

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Gold Bugs

The Financial Post has an excellent article on the Gold Bugs and their doom saying about the economy.

Gold Bugs along with the Austrian School of Economics are the main economic pillars behind the anarcho-capitalism of the Libertarian Right. The Gold Bug phenomena arose after Nixon took the U.S. dollar off the gold standard, and it made author Harry Browne a tidy profit as he promoted the Gold Standard.

America's No. 1 economic problem and the No. 1 issue
of the 1980 campaign is the Federal Reserve's continued expansion
of the money supply. They also know that the only cure for this is
to stop the Fed, in short to abolish it and return to a market
commodity money like gold.

As any "Freedomista, anarcho-capitalist, Austrian economist, gun nut, Federal Reserve conspiracy-theorist, gold bug, secessionist, political monkeywrencher, dope-smoking marijuana-reform activist, civil libertarian or other amateur or professional contrarian possessed of even the most rudimentary understanding of his beliefs will tell you: the fundamental human right is the right to be left alone." Indeed, the right to be left alone implies the right to form voluntary associations and oppose and repel those who forcefully prevent you from exercising that right.

Ironically Gold Bugs share a common view with Vulgar Marxists and Technocracy Inc.'s theories of Peak Oil, that capitalism as now constituted will collapse.

Gold bug

Gold bugs, in the traditional sense, believe in, fear, or even hope for another Great Depression or Armageddon, and believe that by holding gold they will survive and prosper.

Leon Trotsky was not only a Monetarist, but
a "hard" Monetarist and gold bug, who
thought that commercial calculation would
be devastated unless gold was employed as
money. He called for the Soviet Union to go
onto a gold standard, and predicted dire
consequences if it did not. (Although a gold
standard does guarantee that the money
supply cannot be increased beyond a point, it
is purely the regulation of the quantity which
matters, and gold is not essential for that).

"I don't know exactly what the Federal Reserve Board is except that Wikipedia says it has something to do with our fiat money. I must protect our fiat money at all costs. I must protect the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board at all costs. I must protect him from Marxists and Maoists and socialists and Third Worlders and especially those wild-eyed anarcho-Austrian free-market libertarian gold-bug economists. If someone picks up a gold standard and tries to strike the chairman with it, I will throw my body in front of him.

"The Daily Reckoning is a freewheeling Web site for libertarians,
gold bugs and doom enthusiasts of every stripe."

Published: June 5, 2005
The New York Times

Nor do people have any reason to think that the world's financial system is in danger. "Hasn't it always been this way?" they ask.

The answer is "no." The present international financial system is an experiment. It has only existed since 1971, when the United States cut the umbilical cord between the dollar and gold. Before that, gold almost always stood behind the dollar, and other paper currencies. Why? You might just as well ask us "Why do fools fall in love?" or "Why is there air?"

If central bankers could create "money" simply by printing paper currency on a printing press, the world would soon be full of paper currency. And everywhere and always, the price of a thing varies with its availability.

The more there is, the cheaper it is. Generally, as the volume of paper money increases, its unit price falls. Always has; always will.

This is not the first time central bankers have tried a system of purely faith-based currency. Every previous experiment ended in the predictable way: the bankers created more and more "money." And as the quantity increased, the quality decreased. Eventually, the "money" was of such poor quality that people would no longer accept it. In recent history, the Argentine currency lost 90% of its value in a single year. In less-recent history, the German currency lost 999% of its value in a matter of weeks.

Another irony is that Gold Bugs were originally Democrats.

What is a Gold Bug?

"Gold Bug" was the popular name given to Democrats who split with their party over the silver issue in 1896 and supported the gold standard as the basis of U.S. monetary policy. The Gold Bugs, or Gold Democrats, called themselves the National Democratic party, held their own convention, and nominated their own presidential candidate in 1896, John M. Palmer, a 79-year-old Kentuckian. In their platform, the Gold Democrats criticized William Jennings Bryan and the regular Democrats as being reckless radicals. "They advocate a reckless attempt to increase the price of silver by legislation to the debasement of our monetary standard, and threaten unlimited issues of paper money by Government."

At the Democratic Convention of 1896, William Jennings Bryan, a 36-year-old former congressman from Nebraska, electrified the convention when he gave a powerful speech attacking some members of his party for failing to rally behind the silver issue. Bryan thought the gold standard was so detrimental to the welfare of the working people of the nation that he compared the burden to the crucifixion of Christ. "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns," Bryan thundered, "you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."

I am reprinting this whole article in the public interest, since it will soon disappear behind a subscription wall.

How to spoil a good party

These bears see financial Armageddon around every corner. What would happen if they are right?

Jacqueline Thorpe, Financial Post

Published: Monday, May 14, 2007

NEW YORK - On a sultry spring day in Manhattan, the contrarians -- bears and goldbugs -- are in on the prowl.

The 100 or so bankers, money managers and investors gathered at the Union League Club in New York City last week to hear how today's highly leveraged, derivatives-entangled global financial system is about to come crashing down about their ears. Organized by the Committee for Monetary Research & Education, a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the public about markets and "sound money," the evening would not be for the faint of heart.

The theme: "A time of Financial Fragility and Latent Instability."

Some may write off such a collection of downbeats as the financial equivalent of a loopy off-the-grid movement, preparing to work the land and create their own power when the oil runs out.

Many in the dark-panelled dining room see financial Armageddon around every corner. Many believe the financial system started on the road to ruin when the world went off the gold standard once and for all in 1970s, switched to fiat-based currencies and started to inflate its way out of its problems.

They believe escalating debt will cause the U.S. dollar to crash and they probably keep gold bars under their beds. Heck, some, such as Chris Powell of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, believe central banks have been actively colluding to keep the gold price down.

And yet with every tick higher in global stock markets, with every newfangled CDO, CDS or ABS that offloads risk ever further, their warnings about the folly of spiralling debt, paper money and inflation provide a sobering view.

They are certainly well-educated and experienced money men. At the risk of spoiling a perfectly good party, here's what they have to say, beginning with the official historian for the Bank of England, Forrest Capie.

FORREST CAPIE

Official historian of the Bank of England, speaking in his own capacity

Mr. Capie is currently on secondment from the bank, writing the next installment of its commissioned history. History has shown that when asset-backed money is abandoned for fiat-based money, inflation invariably follows, he says.

For close to two centuries and until the 19th century, gold was the basis of the world monetary system.

"The gold standard in its classical form provided price stability and allowed the economy to do what it could with uncertainty reduced to a minimum," Mr. Capie says.

By the 20th century, as the world abandoned the gold standard, inflation reared its ugly head. In the 1920s there were five cases of hyperinflation: Russia, Hungary, Austria, Poland, and in Germany prices rose a billion-fold across 1923-24. In the 1940s, there was hyperinflation in China, Greece and Hungary.

"Stories circulate of how in some department stores in Budapest a bell would ring and that would indicate as of that moment, prices had doubled." he says. "In all these experiences, it was unbacked paper money of the kind we now have everywhere. A vast expansion of paper money preceded or accompanied all these inflations. What's also common to these inflations is there's large and growing fiscal deficits. Deficits of these kinds ultimately require monetizing."

In the second half of the 20th century, controlling the supply of money to control inflation fell out of favour. The trendy idea became wage and price controls. Inflation soared, peaking in the U.K. at 30% in the mid-1970s.

With the current targeting of inflation, price stability does seem to prevail Mr. Capie concedes.

"But it does allow considerable discretion in monetary policy ?and the use of discretion has come unstuck in the past," he says. "The great danger then is, if inflation should begin to edge up and if inflation expectations were to change, it may be difficult to contain the new inflation and take some time to alter expectations. Surely it's better at least to keep an eye on the monetary aggregates and prepare to see them as useful indicators of underlying inflationary pressures."

JAMES TURK

Founder and chairman of GoldMoney, a payment system where gold can be used as online currency, author of The Coming Collapse of the Dollar

No explanation required as to where Mr. Turk thinks the dollar is headed.

"When we talk about money, we talk about the supply of money," he says. "What we don't talk about and what in my mind is even more important is the demand for money. Currency crises start with a collapse in demand, he says. If people lose faith in the currency for whatever reasons --either they don't trust the backing or there's not enough gold backing the currency, or they don't trust the government and its policy to maintain a stable purchasing power or to keep the currency strong so it can be used as an effective means for communicating value in everyday commerce-- they move away into other alternatives."

Mr. Turk says central banks almost daily talk about diversifying away from the dollar or creating their own currency zones. In a recent interview with a Russian journalist, the journalist said even Russians, which have long coveted greenbacks, are now beginning to question the supremacy of the U.S. dollar.

Investors, too, are beginning to shun it, with none other than Warren Buffett leading the pack.

"Look, too, at the stock market," he says. "The stock market is not going up because of economic fundamentals. People would rather own a million dollars of Exxon than have a million dollars in the bank. It's also true people would own a million dollars of copper than have a million dollars sitting in the bank. All these things cumulatively are suggesting to me we are probably on the final slippery slope for the dollar. I do think the next several months are going to be very, very tumultuous."

"We're buying from China," he says. "They're lending us back the money. It's unsustainable. It cannot go on forever because we're eroding our net worth. Just like individuals can have too much debt, companies can have too much debt, nations can have too much debt."

PETER WARBURTON

'Director of Rhombus Research, author of Debt and Delusion

"You could say the central banks, particularly the Fed, have been killing us with kindness," Mr. Warburton says. "They've wanted to prevent bad things happening to us, but in the process they have made assurances and taken steps to help us misprice the risks in the system and emboldened us to take bigger risks."

As far back as the Mexican peso crisis of 1994, an asymmetrical bias began to creep into U.S. monetary policy allowing equity rises to go uncorrected but sharp falls to be cushioned, he says.

There were powerful indications the decade-long credit cycle was close to exhaustion in 2000-01 with bond yields rising back up to their late-1990s peaks.

But it was arrested in 2002 by the U.S. Fed slashing rates and making policy statements that it had numerous tools at its disposal to fend off any deflation risk.

"The opportunity was missed for the system to correct," he says.

Instead the Fed helped create an ever-expanding risk universe, with derivatives, asset-backed instruments, insurance markets, credit protection securities and catastrophe bonds all pushing out the outer front of risk.

"This all works wonderfully well," he says. The risk universe expands by 20% per annum, credit by say 10%, the economy by 6% or 7%." But it all relies upon the credit staying good."

He sees an unwinding in any number of usual ways: a natural or man-made disaster; a spill-over of inflation from asset markets into CPI which would prevent interest rate cuts; a grass roots credit tightening due to lower collection of debt, late settlements or a postponement of capital expenditures.

Eventually, you could see foreclosures, capital losses or break in the hedge fund or derivatives market, as with LTCM in 1998.

"My concern is we have already entered the latter stages of this process," he says. "The price we may yet pay for the fix in 2002 is to have an extended period of underperformance."

HENRY C.K. LIU

Visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin and Asia Times online commentator, has provided unofficial advice to several Chinese governments

"Today, the dollar is the world's prime reserve currency. While depreciating against most assets, it continues to be really overvalued in terms of gold," he says.

To give an idea of how indebted the United States is, Mr. Liu outlines what the U.S. Treasury would require if the dollar was still backed by gold.

The U.S. treasury now owns 261 million ounces of gold. At its peak in in December, 1941, it owned 650 million ounces.

As of March 12, 2007, the price of gold required to pay back the national debt was US$33,864 per ounce. The rise in the price of gold needed to keep up with the rise in U.S. national debt would be US$8.15 per ounce per day.

To back the U.S. monetary base with gold, which was about US$800-billion in February, the price of gold would have to be US$3,763 per ounce.

Unlike many at the dinner, Mr. Liu says gold does not have enough elasticity for a modern global economy.

[With that kind of debt, there may not be enough gold in the ground!]

He believes global financial markets have become completely detached from underlying economic fundamentals. "The old concerns of industrial capitalism, which is production, employment and so on have become byproducts," he says.

With trade becoming an increasingly key engine of the global economy, other aspects such as domestic development have been overlooked.

In a recent column, he said virtual money created by structured finance has reduced central bankers to the status of mere players rather than key conductors of financial markets.

As inflation picks up, the liquidity boom and asset inflation will draw to a close, leaving a hollowed out economy devoid of substance.

Mr. Liu says with financial crises seeming to occur in a regular 10-year pattern-- the October, 1987 crash, the Asian financial crisis starting in July, 1997 -- the world is due a slump.

KEVIN DUFFY

Principal of Bearing Asset Management, which runs the Bearing Fund, a long-short macro hedge fund currently long gold, short financial stocks and Japanese government bonds

"We had the late-1980s bubble in Japan, the biotechnology bubble in 1991, we had the first LBO bubble of '89, of course the technology bubble of 2000 and more recently the housing bubble," Mr. Duffy says. "As you get these asset bubbles, it takes greater and greater doses of credit just to keep the game going. In doing so, you invite more and more borrowers or you extend greater credit to existing borrowers. This is what happened recently with the subprime problem."

Mr. Duffy likes to look for contrarian indicators in popular culture. In June 2005, one month from the top in homebuilding stocks, Time ran a cover about the real estate bonanza.

Another great contrarian indicator is stadium names. In 2000, tech companies had 12 stadium names; 10 of those companies are now bankrupt. Today, 14 stadiums have bank names.

Beneath each bubble is a gargantuan credit bubble.

"What is making this credit cycle so terrifying is the amount of leverage that's being deployed, and Wall Street is applying a lot of that," he says.

Since 2001, the U.S. Federal Reserve's balance sheet has expanded US$300- billion, or 50%, the money supply has grown by 60% while the balance sheets of the top five banks on Wall Street have expanded 160%.

Money in venture capital peaked at US$90-billion in 2000. Some US$160- billion poured into private equity last year and that amount will probably double this year, he says.

The housing bubble has now been replaced by a professional speculator bubble: commercial real estate, hedge funds and private equity, Mr. Duffy says.

But he says the same exotic mortgages are starting to be found in commercial real estate.

"All indicators of a massive top," he says.

Quoting James Stack, editor of InvestTech Research, he says: "Never confuse an economic miracle with a liquidity bubble."

© National Post 2007

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Rex, Greg and Jeff

Compare and contrast. I am including both columns on Jeff the Anarchist Civil Servant arrest. Rex Murphy's from the Globe and Mail is behind a subscription wall, and Greg Westons from the Sun, will disappear eventually into the Canoe Archives.

What is interesting is that they take two polar opposite positions, which reflects the conflict between opposing view's of what the political arrest of Jeff means.

As the Globe and Mail online Poll of its readers show;

Globe poll: Is it acceptable to leak?

Is it acceptable for a bureaucrat or employee to leak sensitive internal documents?

Always

(2%) 405 votes

Only if it's in the public interest

(23%) 4246 votes

Never

(75%) 13810 votes

Total votes: 18461

Rex joins the Blogging Tories in supporting Statism, and Greg joins the Progressive Bloggers in denouncing the arrest as the actions of an authoritarian regime in Ottawa and a political police force that is up to its neck in its own scandals. See: Busted

Rex works for CBC that creature the Blogging Tories hate with a passion only to be matched with their hatred for the CRTC and Wheat Board.

Greg was their boy for many years when he wrote about the Liberal government, and the Sun Chain is the right wings original newspaper voice before the creation of the National Post.

How times have changed, Rex of course is Latin for King, and so his sympathies lie with King Harper and his autocracy.

Greg is consistent in his criticism of the powers that be, whether Liberals or Conservatives, the government must be scrutinized by the fourth estate, especially when it is as secretive and autocratic as the Harpocrites.

Ironically this is what happens when you contract out public sector jobs, you lose control over whom you hire, and how the official secrets act affects them as a third party. But the media has paid less attention to the fact that this temporary worker had spent five years on the job, with no union protection, no rights, and yet is expected to abide by the rules applied to full time, permanent employees of the state.

Instead the media and folks like Rex and others focus on the fact Jeff is in an anarchist punk band called the Suicide Pilots and their DIY CD depicts a plane crashing into parliament. Now punk bands will be next on the Governments new anti-terrorism campaign list, look out Warren Kinsella.

Rex in many ways echo's the Globe editorial published the same day. The Globe Editors seem to equate the faxing of the Conservatives Kyoto musings as the equivalent of leaking the Budget or plans on Income Trusts, which of course it was not.

Globe editorial

It's not overkill to seek the culprit

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

May 12, 2007 at 11:03 AM EDT

Jeffrey Monaghan thinks the authorities went too far when they slapped handcuffs on him in front of his co-workers, on allegations he had leaked the federal government's green plan to the media. Maybe he has a point. But so does the government.

To be sure, the dramatic and highly visible arrest of the 27-year-old contract worker at Environment Canada smacked of grandstanding. Perhaps they did want to make a very public example of Mr. Monaghan, as a warning to any other low-level civil servants who might have loose lips.

But Mr. Monaghan's protestations in his own public show Thursday - he held a press conference on Parliament Hill - had a hollow ring to them.

Though he admitted to nothing, he took the government to task for developing an environmental plan that undermines Canada's commitments under the Kyoto accord, and insinuated that the green plan is a deceitful public-relations ploy. His statement suggested that - in the abstract - anyone who might have leaked this document was doing so as a public service and an act of conscience, and that a government pursuing legal recourse against such a leak was engaging in partisan bullying.

Hogwash.

Certainly there is a problem with any government using strong-arm tactics to prevent potential whistleblowers from going public with discoveries of improprieties on the part of government officials. But despite Mr. Monaghan's arguments regarding Canada's Kyoto commitments, this was hardly a case of blowing any whistles. The government had made it clear that Canada wouldn't be able to live up to the letter of Kyoto long before the green plan was released.

What the leak did was put potentially financial-market-sensitive information in the hands of a select group of recipients ahead of its broader public dissemination, and that's a serious act. The plan could potentially have a significant impact on the future profits of companies in several industries, and it could have been controversial enough to potentially bring down the government, something that would have shaken the Canadian stock and bond markets and the country's currency. The government has an obligation to ensure that such market-sensitive policy documents be disseminated in a timely, fair and appropriate manner to all potential market participants. The leak seriously undermined this.

It is not overkill to investigate and arrest people allegedly involved in such an illegal leak. Regardless of whether they felt their acts served a greater good, there are consequences to such acts of conscience, and anyone committing them should be prepared to pay the price. Mr. Monaghan said in his statement that he believes "very strongly" in Canada's founding principles of peace, order and good governance. If so, he must also understand that potentially criminal acts must be investigated and, as appropriate, punished regardless of the motivation of the perpetrators.

Blow the whistle on this punk

REX MURPHY

May 12, 2007

Jeff Monaghan. Anarchist or civil servant? At work, he's Clark Kent, a white-shirt and tie-wearing, clean-shaven civil servant.

Off-hours he's Superman, an anarchist drummer in a punk band that's known by the delightfully endearing name of The Suicide Pilots. The white shirt is forsaken, and I dare say wearing a tie in any venue likely to showcase the Suicide Pilots might be grounds for ostracism or worse.

You can see from the website of his band a cartoon of a small plane hovering above the Parliament buildings -- an image that, in these post-9/11 days, attached to a band called Suicide Pilots, loses any Disneyesque flavour it might otherwise be said to claim.

The guy who showed up at the press conference Thursday, raging against the Harper machine, and sputtering on about the vengeful government, a witch hunt, intimidation and centralization (this last a bit of a puzzle) could have walked out of a Canadian Tire commercial (the pen-in-a-shirt-pocket nine-to-fiver who cheers the busy customers on their way). He could have been what the Clark Kent guise was meant to suggest, just another bland, innocuous, politically neutral civil servant -- who had been set upon most outrageously by the stern fascists of the Harper government.

But, as his remarks and tone at the press conference emphatically declared, he was anything but. He may have been a temp civil servant but, very plainly, he was not neutral or non-political as, so many seem to have forgotten, all civil servants are supposed to be. Mr. Monaghan was the very cliché of that dreary type -- the self-appointed angry activist.

He seemed under the delusion that his views on the Kyoto accord, for example, carry the same -- or rather, superior -- weight to those of the minister and the government he is presumed, civilly, to serve. And, by implication at least, that he as the temporary employee of the government clipping service, has both the qualifications to make judgments on the judgments of his elected masters.

I'd make a guess too because the subject of the leak was Kyoto, and because Kyoto is the very blessed Eucharist of all that is politically correct these days, he probably feels the issue would give him moral leverage for the deed he is alleged to have performed.

Well, it doesn't. Gushy feelings about the planet confer no moral authority whatsoever. It's the elected crowd who get to decide things. It's voters who decide who's elected. The civil service is there to administer what is decided. Confound these roles and you have . . . well, anarchy.

The press conference showed him offended, outraged and angry at the Harper government because of their environmental policies. Well, so what? Is there a new code in play in the public service? Do civil servants get to choose which policies to serve or confound based on their emotional temperature each day they show up at work?

Contrary to Mr. Monaghan, the public service isn't a freelance association of self-proclaimed Gandhi's, who get to go all-crusader, when one of their pet peeves doesn't show up formulated as they would like to see it in cabinet papers. If Mr. Monaghan leaked -- let's not call it whistle-blowing -- it is callow self-indulgence of the political kind.

The cops had come earlier in the week and walked him out in handcuffs. A very punk thing, in this context, it strikes me for the cops to do. Cops have humour too. Perhaps it was more irony than an attempt to intimidate. But if intimidation was the goal, it surely had a short shelf life, because in 24 hours Mr. Monaghan had the mother of all press conferences on Parliament Hill.

We have civil servants who are NDP, Tory, Liberal, Green and, yes, anarchist. In the life of every government it is axiomatic that there will be thousands and thousands of civil servants who disagree, as intensely as Mr. Monaghan, with the policies they are called upon to execute. Their disagreement with those policies, in our system, is precisely irrelevant. They may vote how they wish. But they cannot, should not, must not assume their disagreement, their judgments on policy, give them any authority whatsoever to contest those policies -- as civil servants.

There are many options for civil servants who find themselves, however insignificantly, serving the interest of government policies they dislike. Quit and run against the government. Join the Greens. Canvass in the next election. Write a protest song.

But as long as you're wearing the drab white shirt and tie, getting paid to clip newspapers, clip newspapers. That's your pay grade. That's your job. That's your duty.

The moral of this story, if it has one, is simple: Play punk in your own band.

REX MURPHY

Commentator with The National and host of CBC Radio's Cross-Country Checkup

Greg Weston

Sun, May 13, 2007

Civil servant put on parade

n the latest chapter of Stevie in Wonderland, the Conservative promise of open and accountable government is fulfilled by RCMP goons slapping handcuffs on a young federal temp and hauling him off in front of his co-workers, all over a leaked piece of Tory propaganda.

If nothing else, the incident befitting any friendly police state should certainly help Stephen Harper convince voters that the Conservatives have no hidden agenda.

The supposed crime that demanded the use of police restraints on 27-year-old Jeffrey Monaghan was faxing a reporter a couple pages of draft bumpf from the Conservatives’ latest environmental plan several weeks before the official announcement.

At worst, this had the effect of lessening the incredible national suspense that had been mounting in anticipation of the all-important government press release and ministerial photo op, in case you missed them.

So odious was this alleged act of felonious faxing, so damaging was it to the state, Monaghan was questioned and released without being charged.

All of which is almost funny: For months, we have been hearing horror stories involving the highest levels of the RCMP, revelations of lies, coverups and missing millions from the Mounties’ pension fund.

Did any of the country’s top cops responsible get yanked off their high horses in handcuffs? No way. They all got promoted with performance bonuses.

Sponsorship scandal

And how about all those great Canadians responsible for the sponsorship scandal? Did the RCMP march into their government offices and slap the cuffs on even one of them? Nope. For a long time, the Mounties wouldn’t even investigate.

So why all the handcuffs and Hollywood high drama over a media leak of some public relations poop, little more than a sneak peek at the Harper government’s environmental plan to save the planet and Conservative votes?

Monaghan is certainly no dark operative out to subvert Harper’s government and spousal cat collection.

By his own account, he comes into work at 5 a.m. every day to assemble a package of press clippings for the bosses at Environment Canada, a job he describes as “the lowest ranking temp employee in the department, possibly in the entire government.”

The information that got leaked was hardly spilling national security secrets to the terrorists, nor even the stuff of insider-trading on the stock markets.

In effect, the story was that the Conservatives’ new plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions would be tougher than their first kick at the smokestack last fall, but not as stringent as environmental groups would like. Stop the presses.

For his part, Monaghan has no doubt why he was led off in handcuffs: “The spectacle of my arrest, the subsequent RCMP press release and the prepared statements from Environment Canada, including minister (John) Baird, have been crafted to bully public servants whom they, in a paranoid fit, believe are partisan and embittered.”

It other words, the Harper government is engaging in good old-fashioned intimidation of public servants — open your mouth to the media, and the Mounties will haul you off to jail.

This type of attempted message control, of course, is everything the prime minister and his press office have been striving for, save perhaps one additional detail — they would really like if the Mounties would throw the cuffs on reporters, too.

It is also possible Monaghan was bitten by environment minister Baird, who may well be one of the government’s most rabid anti-leak freaks.

Last year, when Baird was still in charge of Treasury Board, we gave our readers an advance preview of a federal report to parliament that he was scheduled to release a few days later. It’s what we do.

The report had next to nothing to do with Baird or his department, but he went ballistic about the apparent leak anyway.

The day after our story ran, the minister buttonholed me at a social function, and told me he had already torn a strip off the official Baird was (wrongly) convinced had been the leaker. “I told him he would pay.”

The whole episode struck me as inappropriate at the time, all the more so when the official he had supposedly berated on the phone denied even talking to Baird.

Whatever the reasons the government and RCMP went beyond reason this week, whoever leaked bits of Baird’s beloved green plan was asking for trouble.

Was it worth internal discipline? Definitely. A firing offence? Perhaps.

But an RCMP raid, handcuffs, and the threat of prison time are, as Monghan said, “without precedent in their disproportionality; they are vengeful; and they are an extension of a government-wide communications strategy pinned on secrecy, intimidation and centralization.”

Jeff Monaghan leaves Parliament Hill following a news conference in Ottawa May 10, 2007. (Chris Wattie/Reuters)

Videos

Alleged green plan leaker holds press conference

CTV Newsnet: Alleged leaker holds press conference

Related Articles

Recent

• Tales of two leakers spark furor in Ottawa
• Public servant arrested in leak of Tory green plan
• Tory minister's aide rebuked for leak

From the archives

• Speech on environment plan accidentally leaked
• Tory emission plan faxed to Liberals

Internet Links

• In his words: Read Jeff Monaghan statement, pdf
• RCMP: Press Release

SEE:

Busting A Green Anarchist

Green Deja Vu

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Celebrate Mothers Day For Peace

Before Hallmark Cards and Fin de siecle 19th century capitalism commercialized Mothers Day it was originally a celebration of Peace and a call to End War.
History of Mother's Day: Julia Ward Howe
The idea of official celebration of Mothers day in US was first suggested by Julia Ward Howe in 1872. An activist, writer and poet Julia shot to fame with her famous Civil War song, "Battle Hymn of the Republic". Julia Ward Howe suggested that June 2 be annually celebrated as Mothers Day and should be dedicated to peace. She wrote a passionate appeal to women and urged them to rise against war in her famous Mothers Day Proclamation, written in Boston in 1870. She also initiated a Mothers' Peace Day observance on the second Sunday in June in Boston and held the meeting for a number of years. Julia tirelessly championed the cause of official celebration of Mothers Day and declaration of official holiday on the day. Her idea spread but was later replaced by the Mothers' Day holiday now celebrated in May.

History of Mother's Day: Anna Jarvis
Anna Jarvis is recognised as the Founder of Mothers Day in US. Though Anna Jarvis never married and never had kids, she is also known as the Mother of Mothers Day, an apt title for the lady who worked hard to bestow honor on all mothers.

Anna Jarvis got the inspiration of celebrating Mothers Day from her own mother Mrs Anna Marie Reeves Jarvis in her childhood. An activist and social worker, Mrs Jarvis used to express her desire that someday someone must honor all mothers, living and dead, and pay tribute to the contributions made by them.

A loving daughter, Anna never forgot her mothers word and when her mother died in 1905, she resolved to fulfill her mothers desire of having a mothers day. Growing negligent attitude of adult Americans towards their mothers and a desire to honor her mothers soared her ambitions.

To begin with Anna, send Carnations in the church service in Grafton, West Virginia to honor her mother. Carnations were her mothers favorite flower and Anna felt that they symbolised a mothers pure love. Later Anna along with her supporters wrote letters to people in positions of power lobbying for the official declaration of Mothers Day holiday. The hard work paid off. By 1911, Mother's Day was celebrated in almost every state in the Union and on May 8, 1914 President Woodrow Wilson signed a Joint Resolution designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.

“...each war carried within itself, the war which will answer it. Each war is answered by another war, until everything is destroyed...That is why I’m so wholeheartedly for a radical end to the madness...Pacifism simply is not a matter of calm looking on; it is work, hard work...those lovely small apples out there...everything could be so beautiful if it were not for the insanity of war...one day, a new idea will arise and there will be an end of all wars...People will have to work hard for that new state of things, but they will achieve it.”

Kathe Kollwitz (1867 - 1945) Germany

A Mother’s Grief: Kathe Kollwitz Descends into the Marginalized

Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945) was a progressive artist who used art as a cathartic means to live through the death of her son in WWI and grandson in WWII.

Trapped in the sexist generation of early 20th century Germany, K¨athe defied
the society in which she lived to create art that served as an empathetic
mouthpiece for society’s marginalized. She created thousands of lithographs and
hundreds of sculptures depicting war, death, and poverty. K¨athe found beauty
in the struggle of the working class and constantly used her physician husband’s
patients as subjects of her work. As she continued into the socialist realm, she
made enemies with German leaders, including Adolph Hitler. Her work fiercely
rejected Germany’s involvement in World War I and condemned Hitler’s Third
Reich near the onset of World War II. K"athe’s use of bleak colors and disturbing
subject matter penetrates the viewer’s comfort zone. The viewer is unable to
turn away from her work without feeling guilt, and is forever haunted by her
prudent recognition of truth.

Compassionate Witnessing and the Transformation of Societal
Violence: How Individuals Can Make a Difference

As I understand it, my mother named me “Kaethe” after the German graphic artist
Kaethe Kollwitz, whose work greatly moved her.(Kollwitz & Kollwitz, 1988) Kollwitz primarily depicted workers, and mothers and children. She combined her professional work with devotion to family, a life choice that was especially meaningful to my mother. Apparently, when my father came to the hospital and she told him that she had chosen “Kaethe” for my name, he asked her to re-consider this choice, telling her that he feared it would be unwise for a post-Holocaust Jewish child to have a German first name.

Persuaded, my mother and he decided to call me “Kathy.” So, I had informed my South
African audience, even a name can bear the imprint of macro-societal traumas. I looked down, searching my notes for the example I had intended to provide.

From the back of the room, a woman shouted at me: “But you are Kaethe.” I remember freezing. This woman’s father had been a leader in the South African Defense
Forces during the Apartheid years. She had chosen a different path, working with
dedication to improve the lives of all South Africans, and working to dismantle her own racism. Her comment stunned me, pointing out something that was obvious to her but hidden to me. I had tried to construct a life that was consistent with the values expressed in the life and work of this fine human being my mother so admired.

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mother, Kathe Kollowitz, Mothers Day, Anit-War, Peace, Mothers

I coulda been A Contender

Duceppe decides against PQ leadership bid

Duceppe's 48 hour run for leader of the PQ and his abandonment of the BQ; From contender to dropout in a day: Duceppe announces withdrawal ... reminded me of a couple of classic lines from On The Waterfront:

Terry: You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it.

Johnny: Where you guys going? Wait a minute! I'll remember this! I'll remember every one of you! I'll be back! Don't you forget that! I'll be back!

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Duceppe,nation, PQ, BQ, ADQ, Quebec,