We watched the tragedy unfold
We did as we were told
We bought and sold It was the greatest show on earth
But then it was over
We ohhed and aahed We drove our racing cars
We ate our last few jars of caviar
And somewhere out there in the stars
A keen-eyed look-out
Spied a flickering light
Our last hurrah Our last hurrah
And when they found our shadows
Grouped ’round the TV sets They ran down every lead
They repeated every test
They checked out all the data on their lists
And then, the alien anthropologists
Admitted they were still perplexed But on eliminating every other reason
For our sad demise
They logged the only explanation left
This species has amused itself to death
No tears to cry, no feelings left
This species has amused itself to death
Nights in White Satin epilogue, Late Lament: spoken by Graeme Edge of the Moody Blues in their amazing 1967 album, Days of Future Passed
Breath deep
The gathering gloom
Watch lights fade
From every room
Bedsitter people
Look back and lament
Another day’s useless
Energy spent
…
Cold hearted orb
That rules the night
Removes the colours
From our sight
Red is gray and
Yellow white
But we decide
Which is right
And
Which is an Illusion
Texas Congressman Ron Paul has slammed Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke for his decision to skip Congressional Financial Services hearings in favor of secretive meetings with European central bankers.
The hearings, which took place yesterday, incorporated discussions on the TARP funds, the additional $350 billion being requested by the Treasury from Congress.
“At the very last minute, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Bernanke has cancelled, as well as Sheila Bear, who is the chairwoman of the FDIC, she will not show up either.” Paul told viewers of his video blog on the Campaign for Liberty website.
“But here I find out that they have a much more important meeting,” the Congressman added with a degree of irony.
“They are going to Basel Switzerland to attend the meeting at the Bank of International Settlements, with other international bankers.” Paul explained.
The meetings in Basel, chaired by the European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet, have been ongoing this week, yet very little details over what has been discussed have emerged in the media.
“But here it is, an emergency meeting for them to run off to Europe and talk about monetary policy and who knows what. One thing for sure is that the people will never hear. As a matter of fact the people in the Congress won’t hear either.” Paul asserted.
“Who knows what they are planning?” The Congressman said. “I will do my darndest to find out what really went on at these meetings that they are holding over in Switzerland right now with all the central bankers.”
“All we do know is that at the very last minute Congress meant nothing to them for them to meet their commitment.” Paul added, pointing out that the pair also skipped meetings with the Financial Services Committee last Wednesday.
The Congressman explained that there is now an ongoing debate, over what should be done with the remaining bailout money, that has completely overshadowed the core issue of why the taxpayer is being asked to give up the money in the first instance.
I’ve been hoping for this. Dr. Stanley Monteith is a war historian, par excellence, who sleuths out the story behind the story, and gets to the bottom of this very telling event with passionate, investigative author, Robert Wilcox in this one-hour interview.
Knowing the answer, Dr. Stan asks Robert why this book isn’t getting more national exposure.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;
If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings — nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run —
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son!
In this latest installment of CBS News Assignment America, Steve Hartman visits an animal sanctuary where a dog and an elephant have formed a very lasting, and unusual, friendship.
“The FDA admits that probably only 1% of all the adverse drug effects are actually reported by patients or physicians.”
- Dr. Gary Kohls
Part 1
Psychotropic drugs. It’s the story of big money–drugs that fuel a $330
billion psychiatric industry, without a single cure. The cost in human
terms is even greater–these drugs now kill an estimated 42,000 people
every year. And the death count keeps rising. Containing more than
175 interviews with lawyers, mental health experts, the families of victims
and the survivors themselves, this riveting documentary rips the mask
off psychotropic drugging and exposes a brutal but well-entrenched
money-making machine. (more…)
Professor Peter Morici, a former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission, has become one of the first senior economists to admit that the U.S. is facing a 1930’s style depression.
Noting that 2.6 million payroll jobs have been lost since December 2007, Morici told financial publication Kiplinger that a 5 per cent contraction in the fourth quarter made the crisis “worse than a recession”.
“The economy will not recover without fundamental changes in banking and trade policy,” said Morici, an economics professor at Maryland University, “A large stimulus package, though necessary, will only give the economy a temporary lift,” he added. “The economy is in a depression, not a recession.”
A trickle of prominent analysts are now saying what people like Alex Jones and Peter Schiff were being called doomsayers for predicting over a year ago, that the U.S. faces a crisis on the scale of the 1930’s if not worse.
Morici’s summation dovetails the analysis of renowned financial publication The Economist, which reported earlier this month that, based on the characteristics of the current financial crisis, the U.S. is in a depression, not a recession.
On December 23rd, the IMF’s top economist, Olivier Blanchard, warned that falling confidence could turn a recession into a depression if market sentiment continued to dwindle.
Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday that he sees no reason for President George W. Bush to pre-emptively pardon anyone at the CIA involved in harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists. “I don’t have any reason to believe that anybody in the agency did anything illegal,” he said.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Cheney also said that Bush has no need to apologize for not foreseeing the economic crisis.
“I don’t think he needs to apologize. I think what he needed to do is take bold, aggressive action and he has,” Cheney said.
Oddly enough, in today’s White House press briefing, Deputy Press Secretary Scott Stanzel insisted that the Bush administration “saw those [financial] problems on the horizon,” but it was Congress’s fault for taking “a long time…to act.”
The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents.
