30 Mayıs 2012 Çarşamba

WWII Collections and FREE access thru May 31

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World War II Army Enlistment
Explore Two of Our Most Popular Collections, FREE!

OVER 9 MILLION RECORDS 

WORLD WAR II ARMY ENLISTMENT 
AND RECORDS PRISONERS OF WAR RECORDS

For a few days only, our World War II Army Enlistment and World War II Prisoners of War 1941-1946 collections are FREE for all to discover their ancestors among the 9 million names.
Act Fast! These records will be free only until May 31, 2012!  Try it Free

Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, & Mississippi, 1850 Census Microfilm Records

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Approximately 337,000 heads of household listed in the 1850 federal census from four southern states. It includes 123,322 individuals from Alabama, 40,238 individuals from Arkansas, 96,813 individuals from Louisiana, and 76,709 individuals from Mississippi. This database is especially valuable because it includes not only an index to these four states' portions of the 1850 census in their entirety but also images of the actual census pages - in the census taker's own handwriting.Often referred to as the first modern census, the 1850 census employed improved techniques for collecting information. For the first time, enumerators were provided printed instructions that explained their responsibilities, census procedures, and the intent behind census questions. These instructions accounted for a greater degree of accuracy in the census record. If you find evidence of your ancestors in this database, you may be able to determine their property value, marital status, education, location of residence, occupation, and the names of other household residents...

Request a Free Lookup From This Database.

Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, 1850 Census Microfilm Records

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With images of the actual census pages (in the census taker's actual handwriting) linked to a heads-of-household index, this database provides unprecedented access to the Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont portions of the 1850 federal census. Approximately 369,000 heads of households are included in the index and approximately 1.2 million individuals can be found within images of the actual census pages.The 1850 census is an especially valuable one for genealogical research because it enumerates every member of a household rather than just the head of it. So, once you find a member of your family, you'll find information about that person and their entire household...

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Immigrants to Pennsylvania, 1600s-1800s

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Pennsylvania's most influential early settlement was organized by a Quaker, William Penn. Chartered in 1681 by King Charles II, Penn's colony was primarily made up of English Quakers but also included German, Dutch, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish. Over the next century, Penn's "Holy Experiment" attracted huge groups of immigrants to Pennsylvania. 

Taken from passenger lists, records of indenture, oaths of allegiance, and studies of Quaker immigration from Germany, Holland, and Ireland (including the travels of William Penn), the records compiled here are comprehensive. Included among the ten volumes is the most important work on the mass immigration of Germans to Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania German Pioneers...

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Massachusetts Probate, Town, and Vital Records, 1600s-1900s

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Between 1630 and 1642, approximately 30,000 people left England for Massachusetts. By the time of the American Revolution, nearly everyone still in Massachusetts could trace their ancestry to one of those 30,000 people. This database lists more than 160,000 individuals in probate records, town histories, and vital records. This variety of records allows you to piece together quite a comprehensive record of your Massachusetts ancestors.
Each of the following towns or counties has at least one volume dedicated to it in this Family Archive: Barnstable, Bristol, Duxbury, Eastham, Fairhaven, Haverhill, Middleborough, Orleans, Plymouth, Sandwich, Scituate, Stoneham, and Suffolk. This material may also be of interest to those with early Rhode Island ancestors since Massachusetts' Bristol County included the Rhode Island towns or areas of Bristol, Warren, Barrington, Little Compton, and Tiverton until 1747.
Since its early settlement, Massachusetts has been collecting vital records (births, marriages, and deaths) at the town level. Because these records have been kept locally, however, accessing them today for your research can sometimes be inconvenient. Six of the volumes included here deal specifically with vital records. Some of the titles, such as Vital Records of the Town of Plymouth, are collections of the work of renowned Mayflower scholar George Bowman who methodically transcribed the official records of Massachusetts' town clerks. Vital records usually contain the full name of the individual involved in the event, the date of the event, and the town in which the event took place.
Request a Free Lookup From This Database.

23 Mayıs 2012 Çarşamba

Word: Reagan's budget guy not impressed by Romney's 'job creation'

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Political Wire - Former Reagan budget director David Stockman went off message on Fox News while commenting about Mitt Romney's business experience. Said Stockman: "I don't think that Mitt Romney can legitimately say that he learned anything about how to create jobs in the LBO business. The LBO business is about how to strip cash out of old, long-in-the-tooth companies and how to make short-term profits...All the jobs that he talks about came from Staples. That was a very early venture stage deal. That, you know they got out of long before it got to its current size."

NYC cops can't tell diffrence between art and a bomb so arrest the artist

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Side Show - An artist who installed illuminated plastic shopping bags emblazoned with the "I  ? NY" logo on lampposts in Brooklyn was arrested over the weekend, charged with "planting false bombs" and ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation.

Takeshi Miyakawa, the 50-year-old Tokyo-born artist, was arrested at 2 a.m. in Brooklyn while he was hanging one of the bags from a tree, according to his website. The NYPD bomb squad was alerted after a passerby noticed one of Miyakawa's installations on Friday morning and called to report "a suspicious package attached to a tree."

Police cleared the area for two hours, according to the Daily News.

The installation project was intended to be part of NY Design Week 2012.

On Sunday, a judge ordered Miyakawa held for a mental evaluation, "extending his detainment for an additional 30 days," his lawyer said.

A Facebook group called "Free Takeshi Miyakawa" launched within hours of the judge's ruling. It was more than 1,200 members. [now 3,400]

"Takeshi loves New York, he loves this city," Louis Lim, Miyakawa's friend, told Gothamist.com. "All his installations are nonevasive. He doesn't drill into things ... We had no idea that his designs were being misinterpreted at this level. And if anything he does offends or bothers anyone, Takeshi always apologizes profusely. He's very traditional that way."

Stupid school principal tricks

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Mlive - Sabrena Hall and more than 60 other Kenowa Hills High School seniors are upset that a bike ride to school this morning got them suspended on the last day of school, and banned from the traditional senior walk.

Students say more than 100 classmates participated in a 3-mile bike ride to school that included escorts by a Walker Police cruiser and the mayor. It was supposed to be a fun twist on the types of things that typically happen on senior prank day.

But Principal Katie Pennington was not consulted and not happy about the organized event, suspending 64 of the students for the day.

“She was very upset,” said Hall, 17. “We did not consider this a prank at all, but an opportunity to celebrate our last day at school. We were singing the school fight song (while biking).

Hawaii verifies Obama birth info

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Talking Points Memo - A Hawaii official announced  that the state gave Arizona’s top elections official the verification he wanted showing President Barack Obama was indeed born there in 1961.

The announcement came just hours after Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett backed away from his threats to keep Obama off the November ballot and apologized for embarrassing his own state with a conspiracy theory-fueled investigation into whether the president was really a natural born U.S. citizen.

It also followed weeks of back and forth between Hawaii and Arizona, with Hawaii officials saying they weren’t sure Bennett was qualified to be investigating the matter.

Note: What remains a mystery is why the Obamites handled this so badly. Obama could have approved the release of the information long ago and saved himself a lot of misery. Possible explanations: political campaign cleverness run a muck; information other than birthplace on form that Obama didn't want revealed; bureaucratic obstinacy by Hawaiian officials; Hawaiian officials couldn't find the document.

Clinton still on the take

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Naked Capitalism - On December 21, 2000, as President, Bill Clinton signed a bill known as the Commodities Futures Modernization Act. This law ensured that derivatives could not be regulated, setting the stage for the financial crisis.  Just two months later, on February 5, 2001, Clinton received  $125,000 from Morgan Stanley, in the form of a payment for a speech Clinton gave for the company in New York City.  A few weeks later, Credit Suisse also hired Clinton for a speech, at a $125,000 speaking fee, also in New York.  It turns out, Bill Clinton could make a lot of money, for not very much work.

Today, Clinton is worth something on the order of $80 million (probably much more, but we don’t really know), and these speeches have become a lucrative and consistent revenue stream for his family...

Over the course of the next ten years after his Presidency, Clinton brought in roughly $8-10 million a year in speaking fees.  In 2004, Clinton got $250,000 from Citigroup and $150,000 from Deutsche Bank.  Goldman paid him $300,000 for two speeches, one in Paris.  As the bubble peaked, in 2006, Clinton got $150,000 paydays each from Citigroup (twice), Lehman Brothers, the Mortgage Bankers Association, and the National Association of Realtors.  In 2007, it was Goldman again, twice, Lehman, Citigroup, and Merrill Lynch.  He didn’t just reap speaking fee cash from the financial services sector – corporate titans like Oracle and outsourcing specialist Cisco paid up, as did many Israel-focused groups, Middle Eastern interests, and universities.  Does this explain the finance-friendly, oil-friendly and Israel First-friendly policies pursued by the State Department under Hillary Clinton?  Who knows?  But if you could legally deliver millions in cash to the husband of a high-level political official, it wouldn’t hurt your policy goals._______________________________________________________

17 Mayıs 2012 Perşembe

The Eleventh Day: Pulitzer Prize Finalist

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I thought all along that it was a terrific book based on my knowledge of the subject matter.  But it's a bit humbling to realize that everybody else has caught on.

Congrats to Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan.  As I said when I read it originally: "Overall The Eleventh Day strikes me as belonging on the top shelf of the 9-11 books, right up there with The Looming Tower and Perfect Soldiers."

A Pulitzer would put it right next to the Looming Tower.

Some Real Hilarity...

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In this very long thread over at Troof Action.  It starts with Ronnie Bushnell:

I’m not sure I understand correctly the problem some of the people on this forum are having with CD (controlled demolition}. I wish someone would volunteer to explain it to me. Either I don’t understand what I’m looking at in the videos of the WTC being ripped apart by explosions or I’m just plain stupid, which I guess is not an entirely an unlikely possibility.
Heh, you can say that again.  Ronnie for the most part has confined himself to one thread over at TA, and it's a doozy.  It just goes on and on for 25 pages, and after the first page or two, I'd guess that 95% of the posts are from Ronnie himself.

But he has a question for the TA folks:
If there is some doubt about CD (not music), then that seems to me to indicate that someone may have made all this crap up. Is Richard Gage lying? Is Dr. Jones lying? Does it mean that they all lied about the supper nano thermite being found in the dust? If they did, we are all in deep, deep, deep, deep, deep dodo, and I personally don’t care to be in any kind of dodo.
 Well, the good news is that the dodo has been extinct for centuries, so I don't think you have to worry about it.  The bad news?  Brian tried to reassure Ronnie about Box Boy Gage and Mr Perpetual Motion.  Regarding Gage:

He has an unfortunate tendency to play to his conspiracist fan-base, and certainly he is wrong at times (as we all are), but I don't think he lies.

I've always been skeptical of the nanothermite claims and I felt that the Jones team did not take sufficient pains to distinguish their chips from ordinary paint, but though Dr. Jones may prove to have been wrong I see no reason to think he was lying. The kind of public adulation Dr. Jones got from his admirers when he first started lecturing on 9/11 is very bad for a scientist's objectivity.
 Brian's always been skeptical of the nanothermite claims? And as for the question of whether Gage lies, Oystein points out the ridiculous dissembling that he did about the results of the Millette study, when he failed to mention that it proved that there was no nanothermite in the WTC dust.

AE911T is at least mistaken, if not adding a second lie, when they imply with the expression "the primer paint used on the WTC steel" that there was only one such formula. There wasn't just one. There were at least two, and neither Millette nor Harrit e.al. have ever test any of the other WTC primers, and thus ruling out the chips are WTC primer has been fallacious.
 Anyway, the thread goes on for pages and pages, and eventually a Truther named Kat Dorman comes along and starts cleaning Petgoat's clock:

The first is that steel columns failing in axial compression afford the same resistance (capacity) over the entire range of compaction travel as they do over the linear response range. They do not. A rough rule of thumb is an average capacity of 10-15% of peak capacity. If a column has a maximum capacity of three times the imposed load, it then would have an average capacity of 0.30 - 0.45x the load. Thus a load which already possesses sufficient momentum to overcome the peak capacity will experience a large drop in resistive force as that peak is passed, with the average resistive force giving a resulting average acceleration over the interval of between 0.55 and 0.7g.

Pretty much what was measured for the early descent of WTC1!

But that's only the early descent... and that's all Chandler measured. Other higher resolution measurements extending slightly further indicated a rapid decrease of acceleration magnitude immediately after that period, and later measurements of the WTC1 leading ejection front showed minor variation about a quasi-terminal velocity. Extrapolating a constant velocity from the measured region to ground level gives a collapse time of between 14 and 15 seconds. Therefore, there is strong reason to believe the overall collapse dynamics converged rapidly on dynamic equilibrium of the opposing forces and so zero acceleration.

The second misconception is that the capacity derived from perfect axial alignment is available during collapse. The statements above concerning the load displacement relation for steel columns in axial compression apply to the ideal case of perfect end alignment. The capacity of a column is proportional to its cross sectional area. Lateral displacement of the upper block in the amount of only a few inches will in itself reduce capacity to a fraction of design maximum.

While Kat is a Truther he or she does not believe in Controlled Demolition, and obviously is orders of magnitude smarter than Brian, but of course Brian cannot admit this and so he starts engaging in the sort of hostile behavior that Carol Brouillet and Willie Rodriguez can recall.  But what's really funny is that Brian thinks he's winning the argument (and yes, somebody quickly mentions the Dunning-Kruger effect, where the more incompetent a person is, the more competent they think they are).  It just goes on and on from there, and Brian starts pissing off the rest of the TA gang, particularly Snowcrash:

You're one miserable troll Brian.

You are STILL pimping that "circular argument" reproach while it has been debunked pages ago. A domino falls because a domino falls. Is that a circular argument? No, it isn't. Of course not. It's a simple cause and effect chain where each element is physically and positionally distinct from the element causing its demise. You pretend you haven't read or haven't been made aware of this rebuttal of your ridiculous fallacy allegation, because you mean to irritate. Because you're butthurt. Because this is your disruption strategy, because you're so "polite". How utterly pathetic. You're not polite, you're a cunning troll who has optimized his survival tactics.

You've been repeatedly asked to back up your ignorant assertions and the AE911Truth talking points you parrot. You simply don't. You think you'll be just fine trolling. I asked a couple of additional questions two times now and you've ignored them too. You claim not to believe CD but you've made a laundry list of declarative statements which match the description of a Controlled Demolition believer to a T. Your sole reason for non-committal is plausible deniability should any of your spurious claims be proven unequivocally false, but you might as well let go of that tactic, because, as you've demonstrated in this thread, you'd lie about visual observations even as they stand facing you when you quote them in reply. A shameless liar of your caliber needs no additional insurance policies.
 Very entertaining.

What Do They Want?

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The September 11th Advocates (essentially the Jersey Girls minus Kristen Breitweiser plus Monica Gabrielle) release a statement on the upcoming tribunal of KSM and four others:

It would seem that the U.S. Government found itself in a conundrum when they allowed prisoners, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), to be tortured in secret prisons around the world. Once tortured, any confession or testimony from KSM, or others, could not be deemed reliable. Furthermore, the focus of the eventual proceedings would become a trial about the practice of torture, instead of being a trial about alleged terrorist crimes. That would have been untenable for the U.S. Government, which wants to avoid any and all accountability for their own crimes of torture.

In order to bypass potential discussion of torture, the latest Chief Prosecutor for the Military Commissions, Brig. General Mark Martins, found a willing witness in Majid Khan, a fellow GITMO inmate to KSM. Khan himself was not involved in the 9/11 plot. He supposedly got his information from time spent behind bars at GITMO with KSM. Kahn (sic) will be allowed to give this hearsay evidence against KSM in return for a reduced sentence. However, Khan’s sentencing won’t take place for four years. It seems the Prosecution is pinning their hopes and dreams on Khan’s upcoming performance. None of this lends credibility to an already suspect system.

Additionally, with campaigning for the upcoming Presidential elections heating up, the timing of this latest attempt at justice for 9/11 is exploitive (sic) at best.

First of all, why the focus on the supposed torture of KSM and others? KSM admitted his role in the 9-11 attacks before he was captured. Second, Casazza, Kleinberg, et.al., appear not to understand the meaning of the term "hearsay evidence". Admissions made to a fellow prisoner are not hearsay. It is when the admissions discuss third parties that it becomes inadmissible as evidence. If, for example, KSM confessed his part in the 9-11 attacks to Khan, that would be perfectly acceptable as evidence. On the other hand, if KSM told Khan that Ramzi bin-al-Shibh was the paymaster for the attacks, that would not be admissible.

More important is the third issue. Are the September 11th Advocates so wedded to the idea that KSM and his co-conspirators should be tried in a US court that they would be willing to accept the possibility of him being set free? I certainly am not.

Conspiracy Con 2012

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The 2012 version of this event is coming this summer, and it looks to be another humdinger of fruitcakery.  Jim Fetzer continues his descent into no-planes:

Jim Fetzer9/11, PLANES OR NO PLANESShocking Evidence Of Video FakeryAnd I have to say, it sounds like he will fit right in.  Check out some of the other speakers:  Deborah Tavares &Gary Richard ArnoldSMART METERS OR MURDER METERSThe Grid That Can KillJay WeidnerFROM HOLLYWOOD TO THE MOONHow Director Stanly Kubrick Faked ApolloI particularly like that smart meter bit; anything new is an attempt by the Illuminati to kill us all. The Truthers will of course snort about nobody in the movement respecting Uncle Fetzer anymore, but at last year's Conspiracy Con, Steven Jones was a featured speaker and Richard Gage was a "special guest".

Permanent Top Post--Scroll Down for Newer Posts

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(Note: The date on this post is intentional; it keeps this post pinned to the top. Thanks for asking!).

11/11/07 Update: Loose Change Final Cut has just been released and so we have not prepared a full debunking. Both James and I have many comments about the movie below and I started a thread over at JREF with some examples of mistakes in the film. Much of the rest of the information in this particular post concerns the earlier versions of Loose Change.

Because this blog is getting so much traffic from Google searches and referrals from various forums and Wikipedia, we decided to put one post up top to link to information our newest visitors are apparently looking for.

First, if you have not seen the film and want to watch it, be sure to watch the annotated version, which was named after this blog, Screw Loose Change. The creator did a terrific job on this, and we strongly recommend watching this version rather than Dylan Avery's cut.

James has put together a list of major lies in Loose Change. Here's Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4.

I compiled three very easily refuted lies in the movie. I also showed three tricks and distortions that are used throughout the film.

A friend of the blog named Mark Roberts (aka Gravy at the JREF forums) compiled this amazing Viewer's Guide to Loose Change, (now HTML) which includes a complete transcript of the movie, pictures and links that refute many of the claims, and which highlights the changes between Version 1 and Version 2.

The hot new film in 9-11 Denial is called 9-11 Mysteries. One of our JREF buddies, The Doc, has put together a rebuttal video called (you guessed it!) Screw 9-11 Mysteries, and assembled a viewers' guide to 9-11 Mysteries.

Many 9-11 Deniers focus on the collapse of World Trade Center 7, which fell at 5:20 PM on September 11, almost seven hours after the North Tower. If you want a really detailed analysis of WTC 7, I recommend Mark Robert's WTC 7 and the Lies of the 9/11 Truth Movement. I also recommend the BBC's terrific video on The Third Tower.

If you'd like to discuss the ideas about 9-11 you've encountered here or elsewhere, another friend of the blog started a Screw Loose Change Forum. It's a very lively place with lots of opinion back and forth between both sides. There's also a Screw Loose Change MySpace page, with some animated commentary. Of course, we also welcome comments on our posts.

If you're looking for detailed rebuttals of other aspects of 9-11 Denial, I heartily recommend 9-11 Myths, Debunking 9-11 and Internet Detectives.

Markyx has also put together a video (note: graphic images and strong language) called 9-11 Deniers Speak. If you think Dylan Avery and Jim Fetzer have any respect for the victims of 9-11, just watch this film. There are five parts. Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V.
There's also a Google Video which is all in one part.

This should be enough to get you started debunking Loose Change to your friends. We have a lot more content below this post.

Notes on unusual terms/abbreviations: Looser (not a misspelling of Loser)=Believer in Loose Change. CT=Conspiracy Theory, Conspiracy Theorist. Truther=9-11 Conspiracy Theorist (all Loosers are Truthers, not all Truthers are Loosers). OS=Official Story. CD= Controlled Demoliton. LIHOP: Let It Happen On Purpose; theory that the government knew the 9-11 attacks were coming but allowed them to happen to further other goals of theirs. MIHOP: Made It Happen On Purpose; theory that the government planned and orchestrated the attacks. Most Truthers are MIHOP.

Update: Comments closed on this post, which is intended solely as a pointer. Because Haloscan will not let us close comments on a particular post, be forewarned: Don't leave a comment in this post or it will be deleted.

Update II: Note on comments: Because some of our commenters have chosen to act like children, we are no longer allowing comments.

13 Mayıs 2012 Pazar

Tennessee declares holding hands a "gateway sexual activity"

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Addicting Info -Republican Tennessee Governor Bill Haslem has signed the ‘Gateway Sexual Activity’ bill into law. The law is so vague that it could define kissing and holding hands as ‘gateways to sexual activity’ and make it difficult for sex education teachers to address such activity in class. The law also may prevent sex education teachers from discussing contraception.

The new law allows teachers who do encourage the use of contraception to promote safe sex to be punished, which could scare teachers from even mentioning contraception at all, meaning sex education courses would consist of just abstinence-only programs, which are proven to not work in preventing teen pregnancy.

The law also levies a fine of up to $500 to guest speakers who promote safe sex or “gateway sexual activity.” So if a speaker from Planned Parenthood or another organization visits the sex education class to speak, talking about anything that isn’t abstinence-only would be punished._______________________________________________________

Mormons spent $30 million to block California gay marriages

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Mother Jones - When gay-rights activist Fred Karger started following the money behind the 2008 ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage in California, he discovered that the campaign was overwhelmingly funded and overseen by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Karger estimates that Mormons contributed $30 million of the $42 million total raised in support of Proposition 8, which passed in November 2008. "They completely altered the landscape," he says. "They took over every aspect of the campaign." This wasn't the Mormons' first foray into the fight over same-sex equality. The church has long frowned upon homosexuality; more recently, it has focused on opposing gay-marriage initiatives across the nation._______________________________________________________

Stats: student debt

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NY Times - Ninety-four percent of students who earn a bachelor’s degree borrow to pay for higher education — up from 45 percent in 1993, according to an analysis by The New York Times of the latest data from the Department of Education. This includes loans from the federal government, private lenders and relatives.


For all borrowers, the average debt in 2011 was $23,300, with 10 percent owing more than $54,000 and 3 percent more than $100,000, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reports. Average debt for bachelor degree graduates who took out loans ranges from under $10,000 at elite schools like Princeton and Williams College, which have plenty of wealthy students and enormous endowments, to nearly $50,000 at some private colleges with less affluent students and less financial aid._______________________________________________________

Obama's bio claims attempted bribe to keep Rev. Wright quiet during election

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Edward Klein -  ‘Man, the media ate me alive,” Wright told me when we met in his office at Chicago’s Kwame Nkrumah Academy. “After the media went ballistic on me, I received an e-mail offering me money not to preach at all until the November presidential election.”

“Who sent the e-mail?” I asked Wright.

“It was from one of Barack’s closest friends.”

“He offered you money?”

“Not directly,” Wright said. “He sent the offer to one of the members of the church, who sent it to me.”

“How much money did he offer you?”

“One hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” Wright said.

“Did Obama himself ever make an effort to see you?”

“Yes,” Wright said. “Barack said he wanted to meet me in secret, in a secure place. And I said, ‘You’re used to coming to my home, you’ve been here countless times, so what’s wrong with coming to my home?’ So we met in the living room of the parsonage of Trinity United Church of Christ, at South Pleasant Avenue right off 95th Street, just Barack and me. I don’t know if he had a wire on him. His security was outside somewhere.

“And one of the first things Barack said was, ‘I really wish you wouldn’t do any more public speaking until after the November election.’ He knew I had some speaking engagements lined up, and he said, ‘I wish you wouldn’t speak. It’s gonna hurt the campaign if you do that.’

“And what did you say?” I asked. “I said, ‘I don’t see it that way. And anyway, how am I supposed to support my family?’ And he said, ‘Well, I wish you wouldn’t speak in public. The press is gonna eat you alive.’

“Barack said, ‘I’m sorry you don’t see it the way I do. Do you know what your problem is?’ And I said, ‘No, what’s my problem?’ And he said, ‘You have to tell the truth.’ I said, ‘That’s a good problem to have. That’s a good problem for all preachers to have. That’s why I could never be a politician.’

“And he said, ‘It’s going to get worse if you go out there and speak. It’s really going to get worse.’

“And he was so right.”_______________________________________________________
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Mitt Romney: Always the Bully:
The Rude Pundit didn't think he'd spend so much of his time writing about dressage, the "sport" in which horses are "trained" (read that as, "have the shit beaten out of them") to prance around like they're walking through fields of, well, horseshit for the delight of people who like that sort of thing.

But there, at the end of the Washington Post article about Mitt Romney's jolly sadism towards prep school classmates, is the tale of John Lauber, the boy who Romney tortured most by cutting off his long hair. Turns out that Lauber was gay, that the long hair did mean what Romney and his fellow savages probably thought it meant. And then there's this: Lauber ended up "taking dressage lessons in England and touring with the Royal Lipizzaner Stallion riders." Let that hang in your brain for a moment or two.

As with many things about Mitt Romney, it's hardly a surprise to learn that he was one of those pampered nancy boys who, because he wouldn't drink or ball like crazy because he'd get raped by the ghost of Brigham Young or however the fuck they threaten Mormon kids, took out his young adult hormonal rage on others around him through "pranks." So he treated a nearly blind teacher like the man was Mr. Magoo, tricking him into walking into a door for the giggling approval of the other prep school bitch boys. Romney was a joker, don't you know?

Sure, sure, there's shit that Romney did that can be chalked up to stupid teenager behavior. But at least two of the acts detailed by the Post would be considered felonies. There's the hair-cutting incident, where scared, closeted, hippie-haired John Lauber, "his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help" as he was tackled and held down by a group of classmates, while "Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors." Romney can't even claim he was drunk or on drugs. He just did it.

Then there's when Romney disguised himself as a cop to harass some fellow students: "Romney flashed a police siren and, bearing a fake badge and cap, approached two friends and their dates parked on a dark country road...Candy Porter, a Kingswood boarder from a small town in Ohio, had a strict 11 p.m. curfew. As Romney and his Cranbrook pals played out the joke, pretending to be shocked over empty bourbon bottles in the trunk, Porter thought of the dorm mothers waiting at the door and the threat of expulsion. 'I just remember being like a deer in headlights,' she said. 'I just remember being terrified.'" Ha-ha. Too bad they didn't have YouTube in the 1960s.

You gotta wonder, though. There's a kind of omerta among boarding school students, like a frat not talking about hazing, so if the multiple sources for the Post article were willing to talk so freely about what a bucket of shit Romney was in school, they must hate him, like on a personal, visceral level. Maybe it's because Romney was, even then, an out of touch elitist who judged those around him by their wealth, as several of the former students note.

The Rude Pundit spoke to his Cheater and the Rude co-host, Jeff Kreisler, who attended Exeter. He said about Romney, "I'm a prep school Ivy League prick and that guy pisses me off...He's the guy who would be home for a break and crashes Dad's car and instead of getting in trouble, he gets a new car. He's the guy that everybody would wish had a horrible tragedy that money and power couldn't save him from just so he could struggle." Romney did have a bad car accident in France when he was 19 where he nearly died. Probably he wanted to buy Citroen and put it out of business in revenge.

As far as "pranks" went at Exeter, Jeff continued,  "There was this one kid. He was in my dorm. He was an entitled prick. We cut out magazine letters and made a fake ransom note and put it on the bulletin board saying, 'You're going down.' We had a dorm meeting about it. This other rich asshole, he had like 400 CDs. So we rearranged his CDs and cases. It was a dick move. But we gave him shit,  and then we helped him put all of it back in order."

See, for Jeff, "The things that we did showed that the entitled ones could be brought off their high horse. I was never involved in picking on anyone for a weakness." And if someone did go too far? They got expelled. Of course, at Cranbrook, just outside Detroit, what was the chance they were going to boot out the governor's son?

So what does this have to do with the current Mitt Romney? Would you want to be judged by the idiotic things you did in high school? Of course not. But if the right can bring up President Obama's youth in Indonesia as something that makes him un-American, then the left gets to bring up Romney's cruelty as proof that he's a sociopathic dickhead. And, for that matter, it does matter because Mitt Romney has skated through his life with a fake veneer of compassion when he's always been a heartless son of bitch who didn't care about picking on the weak and the isolated. Someone show us a story where Romney stood up to someone more powerful than he was. No, the bullying continued, at Bain Capital, as governor. Fuck that guy. If the Rude Pundit had a time machine, he'd jump in and head over to Cranbrook, 1965, and kick Romney's pussy ass all over the well-manicured grounds of the joint. The best revenge against him is to deny him what he desires most in the world, the presidency.

By the way, Lauber died in 2004. The assault in high school had to have had an effect on him. But, man, what a "vagabond life" he had. After he abandoned the Lipizzaners, "he received his embalmer’s license, worked as a chef aboard big freighters and fishing trawlers, and cooked for civilian contractors during the war in Bosnia and then, a decade later, in Iraq." His story sounds amazing, touching, heartbreaking, exciting. Romney's? Not so much.

Well, at least the NRA can take comfort that Romney's always had a thing for guns:

Yes, that is exactly what it looks like. And that's the look a bell tower sniper gives just before opening fire on the school below. Let's not allow America to be that school.

6 Mayıs 2012 Pazar

Markets in Everything: Professional Hitchhikers

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"Jakarta's carpooling laws were meant to ease traffic jams. Instead, they have spawned an industry of professional hitchhikers who help drivers comply with highway rules -- for a fee. Hundreds of men, women and children line the main arteries of the Indonesian capital every weekday, offering to ride in private vehicles during rush hours, when cars are obliged to carry at least three passengers on key stretches.
The "jockeys" -- as they are known -- do not stick out their thumbs like typical hitchhikers around the world. Here, one finger signifies a jockey working solo, while two offers a pair, usually a mother with a child in tow. In a country where millions are struggling to climb out of poverty and into an expanding middle class the jockeys -- who charge about a dollar a ride -- have turned their services into a career."
HT: Matthew Lesich

"If I Wanted America to Fail" Video Goes Viral

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This video from FreeMarketAmerica.org has gone viral with almost 2 million views on YouTube.  The video and one of its creators, Ryan Houck, were featured last night on John Stossel's program:  

Manufacturing Job Gains Continue to Lead

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Here are some highlights from today's BLS employment release:

1. Manufacturing employment increased by 16,000 in April, following gains of 37,000 in March, 31,000 in February and 52,000 in January, for a year-to-date factory job gain of 136,000.

2. More than 17% of U.S. job growth this year has been in manufacturing, even though that sector represents less than 9% of total payrolls. 

3. The jobless rate for the manufacturing sector fell from 7.6% in March to 6.9% in April (not seasonally adjusted - NSA, see Table A-14 in today's report), which was the lowest rate since October 2008, and marked the 11th straight month that the manufacturing jobless rate was below the national average (7.7% in April, NSA).

MP: The chart above displays the percentage employment gains since January 2010 for: a) manufacturing and b) total payroll employment, showing the 4.27% increase in factory jobs compared to the 2.87% increase in overall payrolls.  American manufacturing has made a strong comeback over the last several years, with an increase in factory employment of 489,000 jobs since 2010, and has brought the once-dismissed industrial sector to the forefront of the economic expansion.

Friday Morning Links

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1.  Oregon veneer plant has a significant pickup in hiring. There's a new optimism in the Northwest veneer and plywood industry that hasn't been there for 3 years.
2. Las Vegas-area home sales rose to the highest level for the month of March in 6 years. 
3. Former Walmart Associate: I Worked at Walmart for Two Years and I Actually Really Liked It.

4.  Private Buses Will Now Need a Permit To Drive Into New York City.

5. Hyundai to hire 877 workers and add a third shift at its Montgomery, Alabama plant for Sonata and Elantra production.

6. Some Housing Markets Are Rebounding, Phoenix Home Prices in March Were Up 20% Over Last Year, 6% vs. February.

Energy-Related Prosperity in North Dakota

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FARGO — "Thanks to strong growth in the agriculture and mining industries — particularly oil and gas production — North Dakota’s per-capita personal income has risen more than 78 percent since 2000, according to statistics released Friday by the federal government and the state Department of Commerce. That’s more than double the 37.4 percent increase in per-capita income seen nationally, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reported.
Per-capita personal income in North Dakota in 2011 was $45,747, an increase of $20,155 since 2000, when per-capita personal income was $25,592, the BEA reported.  North Dakota’s average growth in per-capita personal income between 2001 and 2011 was 5.6 percent, while the national average was 2.9 percent."
MP: North Dakota's growth in personal income per capita of 78.75% between 2000 and 2011 was the highest for any U.S. state, but was just behind the 80.6% growth in per-capita income in Washington, D.C.   What's the lesson here?  Maybe that even an abundance of natural resources and oil prosperity in North Dakota can't generate increases in personal income like the federal government in D.C.? 
HT: Kevin Burhart

Update: Here's a post from Rob Port with further details on North Dakota's increase in personal income, including the state map below showing where the largest increases have been by county.