News and Current Events - 2012

[doodler]

Speaking of flipflops... and this is a BIG one... the earliest Mayan calendar ever found does not predict the world ending in 2012. According to a yahoo story...

...
"For the first time we get to see what may be actual records kept by a scribe, whose job was to be official record keeper of a Maya community," Saturno said.

"The ancient Maya predicted the world would continue, that 7,000 years from now, things would be exactly like this," he added.

"We keep looking for endings. The Maya were looking for a guarantee that nothing would change. It's an entirely different mindset."
...

[Lyle (Mooska)]

-Why waste time & money on extradition proceedings when the Hit Man In Chief could
simply declare her a "terrorist" and order her to be terminated..?

You can have all the opinion you want on AAA and what happened to him and if you think it's
right or wrong and you can be dismissive of any other opinions out there that don't fit your meme
(anonymous or otherwise) but what I don't get is what is the purpose you have inserting the idea
in almost anything else that comes up? You never ask a question about it or ask to discuss it. You
just throw it in like a grenade for what purpose? To stir things up? To make uis stop discussing anything?
What is the purpose of your grenades?  Why do you do it?  You don't seem to agree with any action
that any government on any level takes from municipal to national and because of that your posts just
start to come off as so much noise.  Which is why, I expect, most people don't reply to them.  So, I
won't any more , either, unless they contain some question you might want to discuss.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

Apparently, with the blow-back, she's giving it up.

Ah, Ms. Bachmann, a woman of covictions.
Or maybe God told her to do this and then
told her not to.

[garyd]

They weren't Italian?

Yeah, they were, are , whatever.
At some point in the late sixties/early seventies they applied for and were granted French citizenship. 
Dunno why....probably perceived tax advantages. 
(Ponti, as some point was accused and convicted of illegally smuggling money and art out of Italy but I think the conviction was overturned).
Loren, I think, lives in Switzerland and also has a couple of homes in Italy. She also had a home near Thousand Oaks but I think it has been sold.
She is quite wealthy, intelligent, and manages her money astutely. 
How dare she.

[garyd]

Ah, Ms. Bachmann, a woman of covictions.
Or maybe God told her to do this and then
told her not to.

LOL. 
Ah, a Divine Intervention Flip/Flop. 

[doodler]

/\   

[doodler]

Yeah, they were, are , whatever.
At some point in the late sixties/early seventies they applied for and were granted French citizenship. 
Dunno why....probably perceived tax advantages. 
(Ponti, as some point was accused and convicted of illegally smuggling money and art out of Italy but I think the conviction was overturned).
Loren, I think, lives in Switzerland and also has a couple of homes in Italy. She also had a home near Thousand Oaks but I think it has been sold.
She is quite wealthy, intelligent, and manages her money astutely. 
How dare she.

Didn't they have to leave Italy because of the bigamy situation?

[AZ.bbm]

You can have all the opinion you want on AAA and what happened to him and if you think it's
right or wrong ...

Thanks, Your Highness, for allowing me to have an opinion that differs from yours.   

[Lyle (Mooska)]

That wasn't the point.

[huntinbuddy]

Ok, just got home and have the ability to research this a bit better than while at work.   Late yesterday it was reported that JPMorgan/Chase was going to announce today they had a $2B loss since the end of March (just six weeks).

And announce, they did!   Apparently, they have been playing the derivatives markets with their own (investors) money and in a trade that went wrong, they lost $2B in the past six weeks!   Well hello?  Isn't this an institution that is suppose to manage risk, and manage it properly, especially when it's not really their money, but money of their investors?

Here is a link to just one of many articles about the whole mess.....

http://apnews.myway.com//article/20120511/D9UMJHGO2.html

First these big banks get their tits in the wringer on bad (mortgage) investments, and they get bailed out by the government, and now they gamble with their investors money in the derivatives markets and get their ass handed to them.

Yet, amidst it all Chairman Jamie Dimon is whining that they can't be regulated more by the government because it will be bad for business.  Hmmmmm, wasn't it the government who bailed his bank out,  and not to mention the TARP money?  But to be fair, Chase did repay the TARP money they received, most of the other big banks have not.

Dimon should resign over this, if not the shareholders need to demand it.   Hopefully, he has invested some of the $42 million he is on track to receive for compensation in just this year alone, and should be able to still afford to buy milk and bread.

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2012/12/ceo-compensation-12_James-Dimon_ZDFJ.html

[AZ.bbm]

The cynics always like to say that politicians never do anything for them, even when, as detailed [in Chuck's post] above, it isn't true.

I would like to believe that Pres. Obama is for the most part operating from his basic sense of fairness & justice, the same sense that compelled him to become a constitutional professor/expert.

Which is in part why it is so baffling to me how someone such as the President, who knows the Constitution so very well and believes in it so fervently, could bear to step outside of it, to fly in the face of the spirit of that Document.
Ergo, I'm forced to believe that Obama is beholden to some outside corrupting influence, and is doing what is politically expedient on behalf of that influence.

-Az

[garyd]

Ok, just got home and have the ability to research this a bit better than while at work.   Late yesterday it was reported that JPMorgan/Chase was going to announce today they had a $2B loss since the end of March (just six weeks).

I highly recommend watching the PBS Frontline Documentaries on this issue.  There are four.  It will take the investment of some time and attention but it is worth it.  The fourth episode just aired and it is centered on Wall Street's involvement with the current European debt crisis. 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/money-power-wall-street/

[huntinbuddy]

I highly recommend watching the PBS Frontline Documentaries on this issue.  There are four.  It will take the investment of some time and attention but it is worth it.  The fourth episode just aired and it is centered on Wall Street's involvement with the current European debt crisis. 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/money-power-wall-street/

Oh wow, thanks so much!   I have the weekend off, and will be able to watch all four of these hour segments with plenty of time to spare.   My area has not had PBS coverage ever since the TV signal thing went to digital only.   This appears to be a series that was just recently made.  I bet it's a real eye opener!

[Tony_]

  Haven't read the full Washington Post story about Romney's prep school bullying, but will try, tomorrow.  Why no comments, here?

 IMO, if you get a gang of preppie punks and force a guy to the ground, who was alleged to be gay, and cut off his hair, it is a hate crime.  One of Romney's friends who witnessed it still can't shake the memory of that day.  It happened.  But, Romney doesn't remember it, says he did a lot of pranks, and he regrets them.
 Where is the victim these decades later, or his family?  How was his life affected?  And, is there more to come, with good ole boy Mitt having gone into Law and Order/SVU territory?
 This really goes to a character issue.  And the sad part is that the media will drop it, and by November, outside the memory of most.

Unless, of course, protester's follow him from here on chanting:
 "Hey, hey, Romney's way;
  How many gays did you bash today?"
 

[killersmom]

The victim of this incident (and I use the term loosely) died of liver cancer in 2004. I am not sure about the family. The older sister says she was not aware of the incident.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/sister-of-alleged-romney-target-has-no-knowledge-of-any-bullying-incident/

From the Washington Post article:

The incident was recalled similarly by five students, who gave their accounts independently of one another. Four of them — Friedemann, now a dentist; Phillip Maxwell, a lawyer; Thomas Buford, a retired prosecutor; and David Seed, a retired principal — spoke on the record. Another former student who witnessed the incident asked not to be identified. The men have differing political affiliations, although they mostly lean Democratic. Buford volunteered for Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008. Seed, a registered independent, has served as a Republican county chairman in Michigan. All of them said that politics in no way colored their recollections.

Sometime in the mid-1990s, David Seed noticed a familiar face at the end of a bar at Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

“Hey, you’re John Lauber,” Seed recalled saying at the start of a brief conversation. Seed, also among those who witnessed the Romney-led incident, had gone on to a career as a teacher and principal. Now he had something to get off his chest.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t do more to help in the situation,” he said.

Lauber paused, then responded, “It was horrible.” He went on to explain how frightened he was during the incident, and acknowledged to Seed, “It’s something I have thought about a lot since then.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romneys-prep-school-classmates-recall-pranks-but-also-troubling-incidents/2012/05/10/gIQA3WOKFU_story.html?hpid=z2