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POPSWhy Would Warren Buffett Stoop So Low?
The market still works! With all due respect to Buffett, nobody has yet made a compelling case to me that there is, in fact, a crisis that extends much beyond overleveraged banks with bad business practices. There's a simple fact lost among all of this fearmongering and jawboning about how bad things could get if the government doesn't throw $700 billion (or more) at failing financial institutions. The stock and vulture-capital markets are still generally working, in spite of the cries from politicians and failing speculators to the contrary. The market also has a really good mechanism to help struggling financial companies get money. It's called "price," and it's still functioning. You can see it in action by looking at the one-year CD rates that various banks are offering to entice people to deposit money with them. When the people lobbying the hardest for a bailout are those who stand to benefit from it, you have to ask whether their motives are altruistic or self-serving.
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POPSBush Gov’t involved in Sex and Drugs and Oil and Roll: UPDATED “Sexual relationships with prohibited sources cannot, by definition, be arms-length,” Devaney said. (hahahahahaha) The reports describe a fraternity house atmosphere inside the Denver Minerals Management Service office responsible for marketing oil and natural gas that energy companies barter to the government in lieu of cash royalty payments for drilling on federal lands. The government received $4.3 billion in such royalty-in-kind payments last year. The oil and gas is then resold to energy companies or put in the nation’s emergency stockpile. …read on
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POPSThe Real Culprits - Part Two The Clinton-era corruption, combined with unprecedented catering to affordable-housing lobbyists, resulted in today's nationalization of both Fannie and Freddie, a move that is expected to cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.
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POPSEthical considerations for biologically uplifting nonhuman animals Through the application of Rawlsian moral frameworks, and in consideration of the acknowledgement of legally recognized nonhuman persons, it can be shown that the presence of uplift biotechnologies will represent a new primary good and will thus necessitate the inclusion of highly sapient nonhumans into what has traditionally been regarded as human society.
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POPSDid Obama"Out-Warn"on the Mortgage Crisis? No! March'07,his warnings only came when the end-user was at risk.He was at the roots of promoting, demanding,and inspiring the drive to swell home"ownership" numbers and promote unnatural preferences for non-creditworthy borrowers - by ANY methods or means. Head of the line taking Fannie $, and being fully aware that the policies being implemented could NOT POSSIBLY be resulting in the "desired" numbers if they were ethical and business-wise, Obama was SILENT. He only spoke up when it was unavoidable that HIS policies would be coming to a REAL BAD END. And since he had no other choice but to speak up, being a candidate.
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POPSPublic Participation GIS This approach to development of the city and surrounding areas is exactly what we need. The people must be empowered with the information that is typically held by the government, development organizations, and those with developed computer skills and high-speed internet access. PPGIS will facilitate the participation of marginalized members of society in the creation of the ecocity. It can be integrated with accessibility software and accessed from libraries, computing centers, and other designated points in the neighborhood, and should be integrated with a user-friendly interface —such as google maps, rather than the more technologically and geographically -oriented interface employed in typical online GIS sites.
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POPSMcCain campaign chief got $15k/Mo from FreddieMac Until just last month , Rick Davis's lobbying firm was on the Freddie Mac payroll, doing little but staying cozy with McCain. McCain "has previously denied Davis's links to Freddie Mac." Davis was also paid nearly $2Million to advocate for Fannie and Freddie. Wait a minute - the head of a presidential campaign owns a company on the payroll of a business taken over by the government during the campaign? Have they no ethical standards at all?
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POPSIn defence of plastic "New plastics that change from liquid to solid on impact are finding applications in protective clothing and plastic products are being developed using the principles of nature - an area of research called biomimetics. So plastic can be valuable and can be used for functions where it needs to last for a considerable length of time. Concepts of green design should now be applied to all new plastics products so that disposable items, such as plastic packaging and throwaway consumer items, biodegrade and do not fill landfill sites or litter the landscape or seas"
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POPSMinority Report is being materialized "The inventors of the technology claim the system can distinguish between people’s memories of events they witnessed and between deeds they committed" “As we enter more fully into the era of mapping and understanding the brain, society will face an increasing number of important ethical, legal and social issues raised by these new technologies,” Mr. Greely, the Stanford bioethicist, and his colleague Judy Illes wrote last year in the American Journal of Law & Medicine." Interesting article. Raises many questions; a) the easiest one is is it valid? why easiest because it can be one day answered, at least i assume so. b) if it is valid, should we use it? where is the line of privacy? should there be a line as such? i find it fundamentally challenging the human conceptual descriptions of what is self, identity, society and its relation. Fascinating. what do you think?
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POPSFidel Warns That It Would Be A Disaster If Chávez Was Assassinated
" Venezuelan oil is not sugar cane. It is a product which, although market prices were low at the time, such was the volume and quality that it generated a huge income in a currency that possessed tremendous acquisitive power for decades," read Chávez. "Your country achieved certain levels of industrial development," continued Fidel Castro in the letter that the South American leader said he would read in sections. "On your own merits and with tremendous popular support, you are assuming leadership of a people who received very little for what they produced," noted Fidel in his message, in reference to Chávez’ electoral triumph in 1998. "There was a surplus of workers, there was unemployment, the consumerism of the rich, their Yankee-style stores and services, they forced you to sell the workforce, they subjected it to inflation, they shamelessly sold your hard currency reserves" In contrast, Cuba relied solely on its income from sugar cane.
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POPSThe Real Culprits In The Meltdown The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. Yes, the market was fueled by greed and overleveraging in the secondary market for subprimes, vis-a-vis mortgaged-backed securities traded on Wall Street. But the seed was planted in the ’90s by Clinton and his social engineers. They were the political catalyst behind this slow-motion financial train wreck. As soon as Clinton crony Franklin Delano Raines took the helm in 1999 at Fannie Mae looting it for a total of almost $100 million in compensation by the time he left in early 2005 under an ethical cloud. Other Clinton cronies, including Janet Reno aide Jamie Gorelick "The Wall", padded their pockets to the tune of another $75 million. Raines was accused of overstating earnings and shifting losses so he and other senior executives could earn big bonuses.
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POPSChairman Rangel "...promises of ethical housecleaning." Is that ever really possible in Washington? But I agree he needs to resign the chairmanship based on his hypocrisy and stupidity. Resigning from his Representative position should be required also. He has forfeited the trust of the people he represents.
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POPSSEX, DRUGS and OIL Nothing so unusual, but its good we find out, they are human after all, those poor employees from the mineral department
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POPSOil Drillers and MMS Chicks "During the Bush years, the agency has faced harsh criticism for failing to vigorously pursue millions of dollars in outstanding or potential royalties. One controversial program, called royalty-in-kind, allows energy companies to pay the government in gas and oil, instead of dollars. According to the inspector general's report, the royalty-in-kind office of the MMS was rife with ''substance abuse and promiscuity.'' Certain fun-loving employees were known as the ''MMS Chicks'' by energy firm employees, who would generously invite the women to lively social events. Oil and gas companies named in the reports are Chevron, Hess, Shell Pipeline and Gary-Williams Energy. They paid for MMS workers to attend PGA golf tournaments, Major League Baseball and football games, ski trips, a Toby Keith concert, paintball-shooting events and ''treasure hunts,'' whatever that means."
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POPSTo Follow God's Will? I think all this nonsense really hurts the message of a religious revolutionary who brought transformation and wisdom, not doctrine. There is a wise way and a foolish way; a broad way and a narrow one. Do people really think that one can "pray away gay?" It's so convenient to believe if one's orientation is heterosexual I suppose. Oh well, back to the every day business of the dead burying their own dead.
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POPSOLDS: Preparing for a neuroscience revolution Our challenge is that we don't pay enough attention to such game-changing discoveries as they are happening. And when we don't pay attention, then the societal conversations that need to happen to reach consensus on policy also don't happen - at least in a proactive fashion. We end up reacting instead. In the case of the uncovering the secrets of the human mind, such proactive consideration would be better off earlier than later. The writer is James Olds is the director of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University. This is an important read.
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