Danger Will Robinson! Danger Will Robinson!

We're not even going to try and interpret this little news bit for you, just read along with the following instructions from our government regarding how to handle our new required compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs). (See this link if you don't believe us.)

CLEANUP AND DISPOSAL OVERVIEW

The most important steps to reduce exposure to mercury vapor from a broken bulb are:

1. Before cleanup

a. Have people and pets leave the room.

b. Air out the room for 5-10 minutes by opening a window or door to the outdoor

environment.

c. Shut off the central forced air heating/air conditioning (HVAC) system, if you have one.

d. Collect materials needed to clean up broken bulb.

2. During cleanup

a. Be thorough in collecting broken glass and visible powder.

b. Place cleanup materials in a sealable container.

3. After cleanup

a. Promptly place all bulb debris and cleanup materials outdoors in a trash container or protected area until materials can be disposed of properly. Avoid leaving any bulb fragments or cleanup materials indoors.

b. For several hours, continue to air out the room where the bulb was broken and leave the HVAC system shut off.

Hmm.... Firstly, we don't like the kind of light that those compact fluorescents put out and are thinking about stocking up our supplies of the old edison versions, but that aside, we like the environment and want to do our part. But we didn't know we were introducing toxic mercury vapors into our homes. If you're clumsy (and perhaps illiterate, or don't have access to these internet-based government guidelines) you're pretty much going to poison yourself soon. 

On to the main point, our interpretation of the suggested cleanup process:

"Everyone leave the room! I know it's snowing outside but I have to shut the heat off for a few hours! I just tripped over the lamp, and the bulb broke! I have 5 pairs of rubber gloves, some blankets, and a recycling center nearby.  Don't worry, hypothermia is way more curable than mercury poisoning!"

Nevermind the fish from the Pacific people, eat your tuna like there's no tomorrow.... and start loving mercury. 

LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET SNOW!!!

What would the world be like if we didn't have drug cartels and Wachovia bank to keep our fiat currency alive?  In July 2007 Mexican drug cartels, under pressure by the US attorney generals office, removed $378,000,000,000 (30% of Mexico's GDP) from the London banks to protect their cash and protest their investigation.  Soon after, Wachovia (found guilty of laundering said money, also by the way, owned by Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway) paid a mere $110,000,000 fine. For all you math geeks out there, that's about 0.0029%. And for all you money geeks, that's not a lot of dough (only about 2% of what Wachovia earns every year). Snowy business pays off!

So what happened in August 2007? Say it with us kiddies, The World Credit Crunch!
And what have we learned from this little exercise?

DON'T SAY NO TO DRUGS!

Not unless you like your fiat currency, want to keep your house, want to be employed, etc... 

Max Keiser and Stacey Herbert explain it in more detail below. Watch and learn:

S.O.S. CALLING ALL CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYERS! Quick Question: What's the point of voting?

(it didn't really say reinvert, it used to say reinvent, shooter just made it look that way...)

Our "oh shucks, he's so geeky" gubernatorial CEO of the State of Michigan, Ricky Snyder is trying not only to turn our state around fiscally, he is f**king flipping democracy on its head! You all were busy watching Governor Walker rock Wisconsin's world, while Snyder was in his Lansing office quietly putting his sheep's clothing on.

Here we go, from the Michigan Messenger: 

"According to the law, which has already been approved in the House, the governor will be able to declare "financial emergency" in towns or school districts and appoint someone to fire local elected officials, break contracts, seize and sell assets, and eliminate services.

Under the law whole cities or school districts could be eliminated without any public participation or oversight, and amendments designed to provide minimal safeguards and public involvement were voted down."

Remember when you used to cast a vote, and elect someone to office? At the local level, it's the only time you really feel that your vote makes a difference, right? Many people know, or have met their mayors or city council members, personally. What's the point of voting when you know that the Governor can give anything (your city, your school system, etc...) to anyone he wants?

Look mom, cartoons! Do you think POPEYE will help us?

While reading an Alternet.org story on the "Anonymous" release of Bank of America emails regarding their participation in fraudulent foreclosures, we came across this gem of a short film/video. If you have trouble understanding why in the last five years you:

1) Lost your humble abode

2) Found 10+ credit cards in your wallet (Average interest rate: 29.99%)

3) Developed an irrational fear of Ben Bernanke 

4) Can no longer feed your dog

5) Regretted voting for "HOPE" in 2008

Then eat some spinach (organic), watch the video, forward to your friends and loved ones, and leave a comment. The next post will surely make your blood boil, even if this one doesn't.

Is There An End To Hatian Women Suffering?

FAVILEK (the Creole acronym stands for Women Victims Get Up Stand UP) is an organization that was  founded in 1991 by Haitian rape victims during the coup that overthrew President Jean Bertrand.
Before the 7.0 earthquake in 2010, it was estimated that at least 50 rapes occured in Port-au-Prince
daily. Since the quake, 1,300 camps are home to a million people, many attacked by rape gangs.  The majority of the victims are women.  US aid, previously promised to Haiti, is caught up in bureaucratic red tape, offering little hope of security.

According to Mother Jones Magazine, French military policemen (soldiers of MINUSTAH, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti),  were quoted as saying  "Every day it is like this: fighting, a lot of violence, murder, a lot of rape," they say, shaking their heads. "A lot of rape." 
A full view of the article can be viewed at: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/haiti-rape-earthquake-mac-mcclelland

The US dollar...now you see it, now you don't!

Get ready to ride the money wheel my friends...it should be a good one!  Yes, I've been called crazy for telling people that our undisputed world reserve currency is ready to take a back seat to other currencies.  It is a slow and gentle process, but it's happening as we speak.  You see, other countries (primarily China) are getting pissed off paying for two wars and that wonderful bubble Wall Street created (none of which they wanted)... so put on your seat belts and hold on tight!

On Monday, World Bank President Robert Zoellick stunned governments and central bankers by proposing that the G20 consider a radical revamping of the world currency system. He suggested that the role of the dollar as the supreme reserve and trading currency be ended and that it be supplanted by a new system involving the dollar, the euro, the yen and the Chinese renminbi. He further proposed that the new structure use gold as an indicator of currency values. This was a tacit acknowledgement that the system that has prevailed for the past 65 years is no longer viable and that there is no national currency that can replace the dollar as a world reserve currency. The near-zero interest rate policy of the US Federal Reserve has flooded financial markets with cheap dollars, resulting in a staggering decline in the value of the dollar on world currency markets. The dollar has fallen by 13 percent against the Japanese yen so far this year. Just since last June, it has dropped 18 percent versus the euro. Weighed against a basket of currencies, the dollar is down 8 percent since late August.

The starkest expression of the erosion of confidence in the dollar and the existing currency system is the explosive rise in the price of gold. This week, gold futures hit an all-time high of over $1,420 an ounce. The precious metal has risen 28 percent this year. The precipitous fall in the dollar is fueling a general surge in commodity prices, including copper, oil, corn and other foodstuffs.


The Bank of China, one of the country’s main state owned lenders, is allowing American customers to open accounts and trade US dollars for the Chinese Yuan each year. Account holders can exchange up to $20,000 annually. Experts say China’s currency is likely to go up, as the country remains a manufacturing powerhouse. China, the world’s largest exporter, has been coasting with an enormous trade and budget surplus.This, as the US is barely treading, down by a crushing 14-trillion dollar national debt. "The Chinese have been saving and investing over ercent of their income and the United States has been saving and investing two percent of our income. We've been borrowing and consuming. They've been saving and investing,” said Jim Rogers, Quantum Fund Co-Founder & Author.

Please be sure to keep us informed of your future currency...
we are still undecided...

Links:
http://rt.com/usa/news/usa-china-dollar-yuan-banking/
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/econ-n11.shtml

Who grows your food?

Thanks in part to my vote (Shooter abstains from online voting) Monsanto was voted to the top of the 2010 Corporate Hall of Shame. Why? They grow GMO food and now they own the patents to your food.

Monsanto is far-reaching into the very agencies and branches of government that should be protecting our food supply and protecting the farmers that grow our food.

Obama's Monsanto pick: Michael Taylor as Senior Advisor to the FDA on food safety....

Michael Taylor is a lawyer who has spent the last few decades moving through the revolving door between the employ of GMO-seed giant Monsanto and the FDA and USDA. Taylor is widely credited with ushering Monsanto’s recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) through the FDA regulatory process and into the milk supply — unlabeled. A Government Accounting Office (GAO) investigated whether Taylor had a conflict of interest and or had engaged in ethical misconduct in the approval of rBGH. The report’s conclusion that there was no wrongdoing conflicted with the 30 pages of evidence that Vermont Congressman Bernie Sanders (I-VT) described as proof that “the FDA allowed corporate influence to run rampant in its approval” of the drug.

Taylor is also responsible for the FDA’s decision to treat genetically modified organisms as “substantially equivalent” to natural foods and therefore not require any safety studies. The “substantially equivalent” rule allowed the FDA to ignore evidence that genetically engineered foods, including soy, are in fact very different from natural foods and pose specific health risks.

George W. Bush also had a number of former Monsanto execs and lawyers to gift jobs to, among them:

	Prior to being the Supreme Court Judge who put GW Bush in office, Clarence Thomas was Monsanto's lawyer from 1976 to 1979. He refused to recuse himself from "Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, no. 09-475.
	The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (Ann Veneman) was on the Board of Directors of Monsanto's Calgene Corporation.
	The Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld) was on the Board of Directors of Monsanto's Searle pharmaceuticals. He reportedly received a $12 million bonus when Searle was sold to Monsanto.
	It's your turn to vote, keep an eye on Monsanto, they're sure to be a candidate again in 2011. Just ask France.

Obama pulls a Clinton

Obama and his new Chase Chief of banker staffer

If you're unfamiliar with Robert Scheer, it's time to catch up! His truthdig website is a goldmine of alternative news and reporting. Recently he posted a column in the Huffington Post and it's a doozy. Responding to Obama's op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal (I'm not kidding, the Wall Street Journal), Scheer takes Obama to task for being a little bit too Clinton.

He employed the same "creating a 21st-century regulatory system" rationalization used by Clinton when he signed off on the sweeping deregulation legislation that unleashed the Wall Street greed that ended up being the biggest job-killer since the Great Depression. "Over the (past) seven years, we have tried to modernize the economy," Clinton enthused as he signed the Financial Services Modernization Act that repealed key New Deal legislation, adding, "And today what we are doing is modernizing the financial services industry, tearing down those antiquated laws and granting banks significant new authority." Modernizing was the propaganda constant, as in the Commodity Futures Modernization Act that Clinton signed, thus shielding financial derivatives from any government regulation.

Is there a gun to his head? Otherwise Obama would not be shutting down all the regulations that keep us safe (from poison and greedy bankers, same diff) or appointing millionaires to his staff (Chase bank on your resume at $5 million a year, you're in!)

Here's a link to the column:
Robert Scheer's column in the Huffington Post

Here's the original op-ed piece:

Obama's op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal

So I says to the guy... RECESS TIME! To the Playground! Hold please...

I don't want you all to think that I'm just going to be blogging about politics here. Shooter and I are still figuring out how to make this blog work. Occasionally we'll take a break for the lighter things in life (just like Spitzer!). Mae will be your cue. For now, I leave you with a one-liner, courtesy of Ms. M and yours truly...

"Don't retreat, reload... just not on my face."

I'm responsible. Bring back Spitzer please!

Earlier today, NPR interviewed the filmmaker behind Client 9/. Everyone should see this film to get a taste of reality. This was clearly a hit job on the one person who might have made a difference on wall street, only he was going after them, not helping them. Spitzer is interviewed extensively in the film, and admits to his indiscretions openly. The interesting parts of the film are the money men who had a reason to take him down. Keep an eye on the names people, the names... and, keep an eye out for them in the future. Look up the Mann Act. Typically reserved for illegal human trafficking, the government somehow found Spitzer a likely target...

An excerpt from NPR.org:

"Known as the "The Sheriff of Wall Street" when he was New York's attorney general, Eliot Spitzer aimed his fire at some of America's largest financial institutions and their most powerful executives in the country.

"At the height of his power, he was the one-man wrecking crew," says Alex Gibney, director of the new documentary Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. "He took the job of attorney general, which very often would go after crooked car dealers, and turned it into a national phenomenon; somebody who was trying to legislate."

Spitzer's roster of business targets included Richard Grasso, onetime head of the New York Stock Exchange; Ken Langone, once an NYSE director; and Hank Greenberg, CEO of AIG.

Eliot Spitzer made a lot of enemies."

Rent it people, rent it... now.

For Real?

read the article here: glenn beck emails sarah palin... WTF!

Who are they kidding? Do we really care what they're emailing to each other? It's all a show for 2012. Be patient bug, here's one for you....

What is Up with America?

read article here: goldman sachs and facebook

• Why do we have 3 branches of government, when we have  Facebook and Goldman Sachs?