Monkeyfister

Labels: American Dreamblogging, Organic Gardening, Raised Bed Gardening

Labels: Blah3, Demeur, Is It Now, Maru, Pygalgia, Russ B Lib, Shayera, WTF

After years of honing a blogging persona, I’ve come to embody much of what I’ve advocated. I’ve become willing to speak truth to power and gotten involved in the politics of my city, county, and district. I’ve volunteered on campaigns, written opinion pieces for the Citizen-Times, appeared on the radio and television. I’ve helped to found the excellent BlogAsheville community and helped to make Drinking Liberally an Asheville institution. I’m no longer intimidated by those who feel entitled to the power they’re given by the people, be they politicians or journalists. I’m no longer cynical about what one person can do to make the world a better place. I’m hopeful and ready to move forward.

I’m Gordon Smith, and I’m here to retire Screwy Hoolie’s number.

Don’t worry. This doesn’t mean an end to the snark or to the scrutiny. It simply means that I’m coming out from behind the pseudonym and owning my words. Scrutiny Hooligans has been an important catalyst in my life, leading me from frustration and anger to empowerment and hope.

This is likely the longest post I’ve ever written and certainly the most personal. I write it to let you all know what has been accomplished and what is yet to come. Thanks to everyone who has helped me along this political journey, especially my friends at BlogAsheville. You’ve empowered me to step into arenas I wouldn’t have attempted on my own. I’m supporting Elaine Lite and Brownie Newman in their candidacies for City Council. There’s a referendum on partisan elections I’d like to see go a certain direction. There’s a District 11 Democratic Party that will need a lot of massaging before they see the light and invite progressives to the table in a meaningful way. The 2008 election cycle is just around the corner as well, and there will be a lot of work to do.

Labels: Scrutiny Hooligans

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve on Friday said it cut the primary discount rate by a half point as the downside risks to growth have increased "appreciably", a surprise move aimed at calming jittery global markets.

"Financial market conditions have deteriorated, and tighter credit conditions and increased uncertainty have the potential to restrain economic growth going forward," the Fed's Federal Open Markets Committee said in a unanimous statement.

The Fed cut its primary discount rate, which governs direct loans from the central bank to commercial banks, to 5.75 percent from 6.25 to "narrow the spread between the primary credit rate and the Federal Open Market Committee's target federal funds rate to 50 basis points."

Aug. 17 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar fell versus the euro and pound after the Federal Reserve reduced its discount lending rate to prevent credit market losses from slowing the economy.

The dollar declined against 15 of 16 major currencies as a reduction in borrowing costs dims the allure of U.S. assets. The decline today trimmed the dollar's weekly advance as investors had sought safety in the currency after a global rout of credit markets.

``The Fed has taken the first step to calm down the market and restore investors' confidence,'' said Tom Fitzpatrick, global head of currency strategy at Citigroup Global Markets Inc. in New York. ``The dollar is getting a double-whammy. A reduction in interest rates makes it less attractive. And the safe-haven flow into the dollar also flooded out.''

The dollar fell 0.5 percent to $1.3497 per euro at 9:26 a.m. in New York, from $1.3426 yesterday. The U.S. currency also declined 0.4 percent to $1.9896 per pound.

Brazil's real and the Canadian dollar led the advance against the dollar among the major currencies today, rising 4.1 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively.

Labels: Credit Crisis, Wall Street Fairy

Labels: My Life As It Is

Labels: Nature

Labels: Science

Aug. 16 (Bloomberg) -- A global manhunt launched by Johnson & Johnson has tracked to China counterfeit versions of an at- home diabetes test used by 10 million Americans to take sensitive measurements of blood-sugar levels.

Potentially dangerous copies of the OneTouch Test Strip sold by J&J;'s LifeScan unit surfaced in American and Canadian pharmacies last year, according to federal court documents unsealed in June. New Brunswick, New Jersey-based J&J;, the world's largest consumer-health products maker, learned of the counterfeit tests after 15 patients complained of faulty results last September.

Tipped off by J&J;, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a nationwide consumer alert in October without disclosing the link to China. While no injuries were reported, inaccurate test readings may lead a diabetic to inject the wrong amount of insulin, causing harm or death, the agency said. Fake medicines are a $32 billion global business, says the World Health Organization, and the FDA says it ran 54 counterfeit investigations in 2006, almost double the year before.

``Growth in counterfeit medicines and devices is probably the biggest health threat besides infectious disease,'' says Peter Pitts, director of the Center for Medicines in the Public Interest in New York and formerly an FDA official investigating knockoff drugs.

The court filings disclose, for the first time, that China is the source of about one million phony test strips that have turned up in at least 35 states and in Canada, Greece, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.

---

The case is Johnson & Johnson v. Champion Sales Inc, 06-cv- 05451, U.S. District court for the Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn).

To contact the reporter on this story: Allan Dodds Frank in New York at allanfrank@bloomberg.net ; and Lisa Rapaport in New York at lrapaport@bloomberg.net

Labels: China, Fucked-up Chinese Shit, Tainted Medicines

08-16-2007, 14h11 WASHINGTON (AFP) The Federal Reserve flexed its financial muscle again Thursday, injecting 17 billion dollars into the US banking system to ease a credit crunch triggered by fears over the ailing mortgage market.

The central bank has pumped a total 88 billion dollars into the financial markets in the past week to stop the country's banking system from gumming up.

The Fed injected the 17 billion dollars in two separate operations consisting of an initial tranche of five billion dollars rapidly followed by a much larger infusion of 12 billion dollars.

The Fed has been forced to act as banks, mortgage lenders and other financing firms have tightened lending standards amid what some mortgage executives have called a credit crisis.

Labels: Credit Crisis, Global Economy, Plunge Protection Team, US Economy, Wall Street Fairy

From a friend in the National Guard
On Hurricane emergency duty in the Gulf of Mexico:
They're bringing Dean up to CAT 4 south of Cancun by Monday and it will slide into the GoM. Sometime before the end of the week the price of gas is going to go nuts.

Then, as it slides/body checks Cancun and gets into the pool of gasoline-like hot water in the Gulf it's probably going to ramp up really good again, maintaining CAT 4 or perhaps even going higher. And then perhaps a recurve north towards Houston/New Orleans.

Perhaps Katrina V 2.0...but with people heeding evac warnings this time. Houston could prove a real bad scene if the surge gets up anywhere like K did. If those refineries flood bad enough, between that and the markets, we could have a real deal national economic crisis on our hands...

Best case scenario is that it keeps on rolling WNW and beats down Brownsville. Worst case is a high CAT 4 to CAT 5 just south of Houston. In either case, there's going to be some boys scrambling to batten down the hatches on those Gulf drilling rigs.

Labels: Hurricanes, James Kunstler

Labels: Bush Family Values

Max Roach was the hottest drummer in New York by the time he was 20 years old. By the time he died at age 83, he was truly one of the giants of jazz.

Roach died early this morning in hospice care in New York after a long illness.

In addition to being a drummer, he also was a composer, a bandleader, an activist and a teacher.

Roach redefined what it meant to be a drummer. Before he arrived, the drum functioned basically as a timepiece. Roach says he made his drums sing solos.

"I felt that the instrument itself could be just as vital as any of the others I could think of," Roach said. "And by virtue of the fact that you deal with that instrument with all four limbs, you have four voices you deal with when you think like that."

WASHINGTON DC –– By deciding to ante up $38 billion for a hopeless bailout of predatory Wall Street hedge funds and the banks that stand behind them, Federal Reserve Chairman Helicopter Ben Bernanke has placed the bankrupt US dollar on a direct course towards the precipice of hyperinflation. In so doing, he has given new momentum to the backers and controllers of Dick Cheney, who favor an insane flight forward into general war with Iran, deluding themselves that they can thus escape from both military defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan, and from the death agony of the dollar.

On August 9-10, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, the Federal Reserve, plus the central banks of Australia, Norway, Switzerland, and other countries “injected” the equivalent about a third of a trillion dollars ($325 billion) into the money systems of the world. The Bank of Japan handed out a dramatic ¥1 trillion, about $8.5 billion. The European Central Bank showed signs of panic, or of realism, by spewing out about €160 billion over two days. Their goal was to stave off a spreading panic at bond trading desks and in the capital markets of the world about junk bonds, collateralized debt obligations (CDOS), mortgage backed securities, and other paper debt instruments.

At about 9 AM on Friday August 10, the Chicago futures markets suggested that the Dow Jones Industrial average would open down about 190 points. That meant the potential for spreading stock market panic, with the DJIA closing down 1,000 to 2,000 points or more by the end of the day, quite possibly pitching more banks and hedge funds into bankruptcy. Such an event would also tend to awaken the US middle class to the fact that their 401 (K) and IRA pension plans were being liquidated. This would make the financial crisis a political crisis as well, and perhaps stoke the fires of impeachment. Helicopter Ben therefore followed his predecessor, Bubbles Greenspan, on the path of bailout, although on a larger scale than what Greenspan had ever attempted in public. Bernanke and the New York Fed bought up $38 billion of toxic mortgage-backed securities from the principal hyenas of Wall Street -- led, we can be sure, by Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, J.P. Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, and Citibank. For bailout purposes, the banks were given a sweetheart interest rate, just 4 percent, less than the 5.25 percent target Fed funds rate used for interbank lending, and much less than the 6.25 percent the Fed requires from banks coming to its own discount window under normal circumstances. The $38 billion, injected in three doses during the course of the day, in addition to other Fed measures, was almost enough to prop the market up for eight hours -- the Dow closed with a loss of 31 points. So the central banks will need to provide more fixes, sooner rather than later.

As Alan Greenspan instructed Bill Clinton when the latter took office, the bond market, also referred to as the capital or credit market, is much more important than the stock market in the current US-UK financial system. Right now not just dubious junk bonds and mortgage-backed securities, but even the classic triple A investment grade corporate bonds, are in great distress. Indeed, the bond market has partially shut down in response to the crisis. This is far more serious than a mere stock market crash, such as the one of October 1987.

The Bank of England has said nothing about injections, and is poised to raise its interest rates once again, putting additional pressure on the dollar by tempting hot money to flee out of Wall Street to London. The British may well figure that when the battered US greenback goes under, the British pound sterling will remain afloat, and benefit from the US shipwreck. London has in any case already replaced New York as the real financial capital of the world; this has been a strategic priority for Gordon Brown for some years.

Wall Street derivatives monsters -- too big to bail out

It would take more than $38 billion to bail out Goldman, Bear, Merrill, and the rest. The bonds of the firms just mentioned are already rated as high-risk junk. The Wall Street banks and investment banks represent a black hole into which literally trillions of dollars could disappear without a trace -- it is enough to cite the derivatives holdings of JP Morgan Chase and Citibank, who are listed in the spring 2007 report of the Controller of the Currency as having $105 trillion in derivatives between them, and the reality is a multiple of that. In addition, there is fear of the unknown. This past week traders from Rick Santelli in Chicago to London stock touts have reported that a large financial entity -- something probably bigger than Goldman Sachs -- has been selling off a portfolio of some $10 to $15 billion in value. No one has said publicly what this entity is, or what this “unprecedented event” might represent. A few days ago, oil hit an all-time high of $78 per barrel. It then fell back 10 percent, because so much of the price of oil -- at least $30 at present levels -- is pure hedge fund speculation. And these hedge funds, as they near bankruptcy, massively sell off oil futures. Gold has taken some nasty dips for the same reason.

Dow 36,000 in sight, thanks to hyperinflation

In 1998, neocon economic commentator James Glassman got some attention by predicting a steady rise in the Dow to 36,000. Now, Glassman may get his wish -- THANKS TO hyperinflation. If the central banks continue to “inject” tens of billions of dollars every day, while secretly buying masses of worthless kited paper from banks and investment banks, we may soon experience a fool’s paradise interlude which to some will look like recovery -- after all, the stock market may appear to be rising. But watch the prices for milk, other food items, gasoline, and other staples. If they begin to levitate upward, we will know that the fan and bellows of hyperinflation are indeed at work.

Helicopter Ben earned his name some years ago by giving a speech in which he said that he could stop a panic from becoming a depression by dumping bales of dollars out of helicopters to provide stimulus. He has thus always had a hyperinflationary overtone. On Tuesday, August 7, Bernanke presided over a Fed meeting that refused to cut interest rates, and also failed to offer the bankrupt speculators words of assurance that they would be assisted. This was followed two days later by a panicked selloff, with the DJIA down 387 points.

Death agony of the US dollar

These events represent a new phase of the death agony of the US dollar, which has been in decline since about the start of the Iraq war, and has gone from 80 cents to buy a euro to almost $1.40. Knowing that the dollar is a wasting asset, and also because of widespread hatred for Bush, everyone in the world has been attempting to dump the dollar in any way possible. Russia has set up a ruble-based trading system where oil, gold, and grain can be bought; they don’t take American Express. Iran tried to set up a euro-denominated oil market, but has been prevented from starting it because of US-ordered UN sanctions and related economic warfare. But Iran has asked Japan to pay for its oil with yen, not with dollars. Brazil and Argentina have eliminated the dollar in their bilateral trade. Many European oil companies have eliminated the dollar from their international operations. Every time the dollar is cut out of a lucrative commodity flow, Wall Street and the London Eurodollar market lose the ability to skim 5 percent to 10 percent off the top of these transactions in the form of financing, banking services, and fees.

No more zero interest loans from Tokyo

For the past five years, the dollar has enjoyed massive support from the Bank of Japan’s zero interest rate policy. This allowed hedge funds to load up with free money in Tokyo and transform those yen into dollars to use in speculating in US markets. This created a constant demand for dollars, and also tempted hot money away from Tokyo into high-risk, high-yield investments elsewhere, a practice known as the yen carry trade. But this so-called yen carry trade is ending: the Bank of Japan has now raised its rate to 0.5 percent, and is set to hike it again this month. This has played havoc with so-called emerging markets for more than a year. The main advocate for the weak yen, my college classmate Hiroshi Watanabe, was ousted from the Bank of Japan some weeks ago. As the yen gets stronger, meaning as it goes from 118 to 117 to 115 to 110 on the television screen, the huge mass of kited loans becomes harder and harder for the US borrowers to pay back, since the yen has become more expensive. Therefore any fall in the dollar in relation to the yen will result in chain reaction bankruptcies among the US firms which went overboard with yen carry trade loans.

This danger is very real. The dollar has been very weak against the yen lately. In fact, the dollar has been very weak in general, falling to an all-time low of almost $1.40 to a euro, and a 26-year low of about $2.05 to a British pound. There has also been a long-term low against the Canadian dollar. Given that the US trade deficit is approaching $1 trillion, this cannot come as a surprise.

ABC News has learned that Pentagon officials are considering a major strategic shift in Iraq, to move U.S. forces out of the dangerous Sunni-dominated al-Anbar province and join the fight to secure Baghdad.

The news comes as President Bush prepares to meet with Iraq's prime minster to discuss the growing sectarian violence. The two will meet in Jordan, where they are expected to focus on hammering out a plan to increase the strength and numbers of Iraqi forces.

There are now 30,000 U.S. troops in al-Anbar, mainly Marines, braving some of the fiercest fighting in Iraq. At least 1,055 Americans have been killed in this region, making al-Anbar the deadliest province for American troops.

The region is a Sunni stronghold and the main base of operations for al Qaeda in Iraq and has been a place of increasing frustration to U.S. commanders.

In a recent intelligence assessment, senior Marine Intelligence Officer in al-Anbar, Col. Peter Devlin, concluded that without a massive infusement of more troops, the battle in al-Anbar is unwinnable.

Labels: Iraq, Iraq Civil War, Surge

Labels: Tom Waits

The U.S.'s top intelligence official has greatly expanded the range of federal and local authorities who can get access to information from the nation's vast network of spy satellites in the U.S.

The decision, made three months ago by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, places for the first time some of the U.S.'s most powerful intelligence-gathering tools at the disposal of domestic security officials. The move was authorized in a May 25 memo sent to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff asking his department to facilitate access to the spy network on behalf of civilian agencies and law enforcement.

Until now, only a handful of federal civilian agencies, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey, have had access to the most basic spy-satellite imagery, and only for the purpose of scientific and environmental study.

According to officials, one of the department's first objectives will be to use the network to enhance border security, determine how best to secure critical infrastructure and help emergency responders after natural disasters. Sometime next year, officials will examine how the satellites can aid federal and local law-enforcement agencies, covering both criminal and civil law. The department is still working on determining how it will engage law enforcement officials and what kind of support it will give them.

Access to the high-tech surveillance tools would, for the first time, allow Homeland Security and law-enforcement officials to see real-time, high-resolution images and data, which would allow them, for example, to identify smuggler staging areas, a gang safehouse, or possibly even a building being used by would-be terrorists to manufacture chemical weapons.

Labels: American Fascism, Police State

Labels: Credit Crisis, Federal Reserve System, Global Economy, US Dollar, US Economy, Wall Street Fairy

Aug. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Countrywide Financial Corp., the biggest U.S. mortgage lender, was downgraded to ``sell'' by Merrill Lynch & Co., which raised the possibility of bankruptcy if the company loses access to short-term financing.

``We cannot understate the importance of liquidity,'' Kenneth Bruce, a Merrill analyst in San Francisco, said in a research note today. ``Effective insolvency'' would result should creditors force Countrywide to sell assets at depressed prices or investors lose confidence in its ability to raise cash, he wrote.

``If liquidations occur in a weak market, then it is possible for CFC to go bankrupt,'' said Bruce, who had rated Countrywide a ``buy'' since April 2005, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Countrywide trades under the ticker CFC.

Countrywide's shares have lost almost half their value this year on concern a credit crunch in the mortgage industry will erode profit at the Calabasas, California-based company. Bankers have curtailed lending to mortgage providers and demanded more collateral, forcing more than 70 companies to seek buyers or shut since the start of last year.

Countrywide dropped 5.6 percent to $23.09, the lowest in almost four years, at 10:15 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

Labels: Credit Crisis

Way back in the late 1990s into the early 2000s, a previously well regarded group -- stock analysts -- subtly shifted the objectives of their work. Previously, they plied their skills looking for stocks their clients and trading desks could make money buying and selling.

But things change, commissions shrunk from 10 cents per share to 6 to 3 to mere half pennies today. The old business model no longer applied. What rose in its place was a new model that emphasized not the trading of equities, but the investment banking fees that accompanied IPOs. Many analysts compromised their objectivity on the alter of banking fees. This was especially true in the Internet/Technology/Telecom space.

Thus, they went from being somewhat valued allies of the investor class to the guys helping to dump the dogs into an unknowing public's portfolios. Since then, many of this crowd has been vilified (Jack Grubman, Henry Blodgett, etc.), and the securities industry got Spitzerized to the tune of some $1,387.5 Billion dollars in fines (a deal I suspect they would do all over again if they could).

Fast forward to the early 2000s. Interest rates are at 46 year lows, and this time around, another group of shameless whores analysts are following the same playbook: The ratings agencies that gave their AAA blessings to the now defaulting alphabet soup of RMBS, CDOs, CLOs, ABX structured products that has so recently seized up the credit markets.

Labels: Barry Ritholtz, Wall Street Fairy, Wall Street Scam

Aug. 15 (Bloomberg) -- A depression in the Gulf of Mexico is forecast to intensify into a tropical storm and hit the South Texas coast tomorrow.

Tropical Depression 5 was centered about 275 miles (450 kilometers) east-southeast of Brownsville, Texas, and was moving toward the northwest at 13 miles per hour (21 kilometers an hour) as of 8 a.m. New York time, the National Hurricane Center said. The system's maximum sustained winds were 30 mph.

The storm is forecast to make landfall tomorrow morning south of Corpus Christi, Texas. It may drop as much as 8 inches (20 centimeters) of rain along the coast by tomorrow; a tropical storm watch was posted from Freeport, Texas, to Rio San Fernando, Mexico, meaning winds of at least 39 mph and heavy rain are possible are possible within 36 hours.

Labels: Hurricanes

Labels: The Blogohood

Summary
Over the next few years, as the price of oil increases and its availability declines dramatically on a global scale, there will be profound and far-reaching effects across society. This report collates information on what has been termed Peak Oil’ both globally and for rural communities and centres on a discussion of the principal areas that will be affected by escalating oil prices.

Although Cornwall has been taken as the focal point, the recommended responses can, and should, be applied to any rural community. Indeed, many of the recommendations have been influenced by the case of Cuba where the country experienced a Peak Oil situation for political rather than geological reasons. A study of the Cuban example can be found at the end of this report.

This report reveals the far-reaching and dramatic impact of Peak Oil on the life and economies of rural settlements. The government will find it increasingly difficult to alleviate the numerous and worsening stresses within local communities from Whitehall. By necessity local communities will have to take greater responsibility themselves for their own future, designing and implementing solutions fashioned by local conditions. This is the time for us to prepare for a uncertain future.

Labels: Collapse, Peak Energy, Peak Oil

Cecilia Sarkozy's decision to bow out of a picnic with the president of the United States this weekend is the latest proof of the French first lady's unpredictable, even rebellious take on her new role.
President Nicolas Sarkozy travelled alone to meet George W. Bush and his family at their Atlantic holiday home after Cecilia -- staying just an hour away at a US lakeside resort -- bowed out due to a throat ailment.
The US leader said he was "disappointed" but understanding after Cecilia called Laura Bush at the last minute to excuse herself, but the change of plan sounded a false note in what was billed as a rare personal get-together.

Labels: Cecilia Sarkozy, George W. Bush, Sarkozy

HONOLULU — Public schools closed and Hawaiians were warned to stock up on food and water as Hurricane Flossie roared toward the state early Tuesday. As if the storm wasn't enough, an 5.3 magnitude earthquake jolted the Big Island of Hawaii overnight.

The eye of the Category 3 storm, with maximum sustained wind down slightly at 110 mph, was expected to pass less than 100 miles from the islands, lashing the shores with strong wind and up to 15 inches of rain, meteorologists said.

The National Weather Service placed the Big Island under a hurricane watch and a tropical storm warning. A flash flood watch was also issued for the island through Wednesday, with possible flash flooding in areas.

Gov. Linda Lingle signed an emergency disaster proclamation, which activates the National Guard. Island Mayor Harry Kim also declared a state of emergency Monday as a precaution. All 56 public schools, as well as private schools, on the Big Island also were closed for Tuesday.

Labels: Hurricanes

Labels: Space

This is going to be a long post, and I think a very necessary one. This essay was inspired, in part, by Sharon of Casaubon’s Book, http://casaubonsbook.blogspot.com/ . Now I love Sharon and what she has to say. Most of it I agree with wholeheartedly. But there is one thing that I don’t think she, and most of the other members of the Riot for Austerity, really take into account. And that is the sheer economic reality facing most Americans today. Most of those Rioting are fairly comfortable, and so they can afford to make most of the changes necessary to lower their impact. It’s no real surprise then, that they blithely assume most people can go out and buy rain barrels whenever they want. But that’s not the case. The vast majority of American families are struggling just to make ends meet.

I’m unemployed right now and a graduate student, so I’m one of them. I also know a thing or two about poverty –I grew up grindingly poor, to the point where my childhood was spent on and off the streets. So I know and understand the hard battle for economic survival many people –including myself –are facing right now. Economic collapse in this country didn’t begin with Peak Oil last year, or last month, and it won’t begin tomorrow or last year. It began in the 1980s and has only gotten worse. More and more people get knocked down, or off, the economic ladder all the time. I want nothing more than to save the planet. That’s the honest truth. And so do many others among the working poor. But when the rubber meets the road, reality has to be faced and some hard choices made. If I have to choose between being eco friendly and eating dinner, I’m going to eat dinner. And so are a whole lot of other folks.

That’s why I decided to write this essay. It’s partly about being eco-friendly on a budget and partly about sheer economic survival. (And about merging the two whenever possible.) I’m going to talk about general ways to cut overall costs, about ways to eat well cheaply, and about low-cost (as opposed to outright low-energy) food preservation methods. Some people may know most of this stuff, but my aim is to provide knowledge to the widest audience possible to help people cope.

Labels: Collapse, Credit Crisis, Global Economy, Peak Energy, Peak Oil, US Economy, Wall Street Fairy

Margin Call

August 13, 2007
The seas were a might choppy off Hedge Fund Island last week after all when the Federal Reserve started tossing life preservers of ready cash to the Big Fund Boyz bobbing and thrashing in the swells. Now, about that "money" -- which is really a bunch of extended lines of credit at the Fed's artificially-low official interest rate -- what actually happens to it? The simple answer is: it disappears into the same ocean of financial woe that the Boyz are drowning in.

The mere $38 billion that the Fed tossed out Friday afternoon, as the Dow was tanking down a few hundred clicks, will be used by banks and investment houses to cover losses in the synthetic securities they themselves created, and have been trading, during this psychotic final blow off of cheap energy capitalism. In essence, the Fed is buying worthless paper. The trouble is, there is so much more worthless paper out there that all the computers at the Federal Reserve could never generate enough pixelated cash to cover them in the life of this universe or several like it.

An additional problem: there is a practically inexhaustible supply of "dead" mortgages and corporate loans washing up on the pebbled beaches of Hedge Fund Island. No matter how bad the mortgage-and-credit-derived racket looks now, it is certain to only get worse as the dead mortgages and loans fester in the sun and the tropical foliage on Hedge Fund Island starts to wilt from the toxic fumes of all that decaying matter. This summer is only the beginning of a cycle of adjustable mortgage interest rate re-sets. The numbers go way up in the fall and are scheduled to continue rising well into the winter of 2008. How long do you think the Big Fund Boys can tread water?

Labels: Credit Crisis, James Kunstler, US Economy, Wall Street Fairy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Karl Rove, one of President George W. Bush's closest aides and a lightning rod for controversy among Democrats, said he will leave the White House at the end of August.

Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff known as "The Architect" for guiding Bush from being the governor of Texas to two terms as president, is the latest in a series of senior aides to quit as the clock ticks toward the end of Bush's presidency.

"I just think it's time," Rove, 56, said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Monday.

"There's always something that can keep you here and, as much as I'd like to be here, I've got to do this for the sake of my family."

Rove's departure could complicate Bush's agenda for his remaining 17 months in office. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, who confirmed Rove's departure to Reuters, called it a "big loss."

Rove has been a key figure throughout Bush's presidency but not without his own controversy, including being investigated by a special prosecutor searching for who leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent. He was never charged.

Labels: Karl Rove

Labels: Permaculture

Charles Flowers, senior pastor at the Faith Outreach Center, an evangelical church in the San Antonio suburb of Schertz, was arrested on Friday along with the camp counselor, Stephanie Bassitt, the Nueces County Sheriff's department said in a statement.

The alleged incident took place in June and was reported to police by the mother of the girl, who was hospitalized for unspecified injuries.

According to a copy of the arrest affidavit obtained by Reuters, the girl was participating in a running exercise at the military style "Love Demonstrated Ministries" camp near Corpus Christi when she tired and refused to continue.

It says Bassitt pinned the girl down while Flowers tied a rope around her, tied the other end to the bumper of a van, and dragged her on her stomach "several times."

The camp's Web site, where Flowers refers to himself as the "commandant," says it "strives to prepare young men and women to positively impact their world with the principles of Christ as their foundation" and is "designed to build character and instill discipline, integrity, unity, and morality back into their lives."

Labels: Christian Values, Christianists