SmithBits Magazine

2010-09-01T12:15:00.000-07:00

Glenn Beck - I Had A Dream or Did I Have a Night Mare

LIMON CO (IFS) Well Mr. Beck, I guess you had a great meeting and so many of your friends did show-up to give you a wonderful rally and you did change American history for yourself. I hope that you sold a lot of books and t-shirts, and helped your television show gain so many more new viewers.

What's this about a "bullet proof vest" at a prayer meeting? Well, well, you created this night mare and you had the vest on the wrong part of your body, it should have been on your foot, because that's where the bullets did land.

We tried to tell you along time ago, what was going to happen to you. We told you that you had better put on the brakes, and repent and change your direction, but you did not listen to us. You had your television show to rely on, and of course you were the only one listening to your own voice, plus the left overs from the election who were going to take back our country. What I could not understand, where were you going to take our country back too?

Every few years, a person like you comes along and has a vision that the masses are going to follow, and you believed in your own publicity!! Fox News and their organization shows how much influence they have on the American public - not much would you say?

The real Americans are the silent majority. They let the "squeaky wheel" get the grease, they sit back and observe and make up their minds in the most heated battles of the talking heads. They very seldom call into a radio show or even participate in a television show -- but they watch with both eyes and they are all ears. When they make a decision, it's usually a very quick decision and they are usually right. The real Americans are not just sitting on the fence, they have an agenda. And when they vote, they shake up the country.

2010-08-28T15:22:00.001-07:00

Google's GMail to Video

By Kenneth Howard Smith,
(IFS) SDCOG News-Gazette

LIMON CO (IFS) - Skype is going to take a large hit when Google's GMail goes to Video in the next few months. Google's telephone service that has been operating for the past several years teaming with the video conferencing features will put Google over the top and drive Skype to the back seat of the online video/telephone services. What the future will bring for both Google and Skype is only speculation, but the videoing-phone writing is on the wall with Skype being pushed to the side lines.

2010-08-28T15:21:00.001-07:00

MYSPACE IS GREAT RECORDING COMPANY, LITTLE ELSE

By Kenneth Howard Smith,
(IFS) SDCOG News-Gazette

LIMON CO (IFS) - It's just a matter of time that Myspace will only be used by musicians, as it continues to loose 20,000 subscribers a week. The lure of Myspace in the early days was just a social networking site, then came the music industry that really makes Myspace the great digital recording label designed by the earlier poineer J-Bird Records that invented the digital online recording label concept.

When its comes to the art of social networking, Facebook is adding news users and former Myspace members at approximately 1,000,000 new subscribers per week worldwide. This not so suttle expandion by Facebook is causing Rupert Murdock alot of heart burn, as the Fox News subsidairy continues to crash and burn.

One could blame it on the practices of Mr. Murdock's News Corporation's parent company and Fox News producers that has lead to it's loosing ground and causing users to abandon their accounts and go to someone else that is not so political with their hands and fingers in everything from degrading the president - to it's partners with Arabic sheiks.

At the present rate of subscriptions, Mysapce will only be a recording label for new music, other then that, it's useless as a networking site.

2010-08-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

Dr. Laura's Rant on Race Begs the Question:
Just Who Needs a Doctor?

by Dr. Mary C. Curtis
National Correspondent

What kind of doctor is this woman, and why is she still on the radio?

After scrubbing her show's website of the foul rant that prompted outrage -- and lives on in audio and transcript form on Media Matters for America -- Laura Schlessinger apologized. "I articulated the N-word all the way out -- more than one time," she said. "And that was wrong."

Show's over; time to move on? I don't think so.

Professional to professional, Dr. Laura, let Dr. Mary explain why, as offensive as it was, saying the N-word is the least of your problems.

A young black woman calls into your show to get some actual advice about a specific problem: her white husband's family and friends insult her using racist terms and epithets. "My husband ignores those comments, and it hurts my feelings," the caller says.

So, of course, Dr. Laura, you start talking about -- President Barack Obama.

Dr. Laura"Without giving much thought, a lot of blacks voted for Obama simply 'cause he was half-black," she said. "Didn't matter what he was gonna do in office, it was a black thing. You gotta know that."

Not only do you ignore the caller and change the subject to get to something that's obviously on your mind and in your heart, Dr. Laura, but you also insist you know the motivation of millions of black voters.

It's not the first time I've heard this ridiculous canard that black people voted for the president based simply on skin color. It assumes that only voters who aren't African-American use logic, reasoning and rational thought before reaching a conclusion. Maybe, just maybe, most African-American voters preferred the policies in the Democratic Party's platform. Did they vote overwhelmingly for Bill Clinton because they liked his smile? Did Al Gore -- another popular candidate with black voters -- wave shiny beads before their faces to mesmerize them? And, of course, Dr. Laura fails to mention that others might have voted against Obama for the same reason.

"We've got a black man as president, and we have more complaining about racism than ever. I mean, I think that's hilarious."

Yes, Dr. Laura. A black man is in the White House, so black folks should just stop complaining when people call them names, ridicule them and discriminate against them. Like you, I just can't stop laughing.

Once you get that out of your system, you return to the young woman, who asks what you, as an advice maven, think about the N-word.

"Black guys use it all the time. Turn on HBO, listen to a black comic, and all you hear is..." And you don't stop there, Dr. Laura. As everyone knows by now, you then launch into an N-word litany, using the word often, leisurely, lovingly, without hesitation. Judging how trippingly it rolls off your tongue, I don't think it's the first time you've said it. Most people I know of every race can't say the word out loud -- it sticks in their throats. You, on the other hand, take a commercial break, come back and say it some more.

You don't seem to understand why people are shocked and disgusted by your behavior. Perhaps it's time for a history lesson.

This is the word that people with ropes used as they lynched men and women for an afternoon's entertainment. This is the word craven politicians shouted to stoke racial fear. This word has been used as background music to terror, which someone of your age and education must know.

Yet, you, Dr. Laura, are upset that this is one word that you cannot utter. For more reasons why, I recommend you listen to the anti-racist writer and activist Tim Wise, who says in response to that very question that "as a white person I will not bear the consequences of whatever decision black folks make about when, if and how to use the word."

"The history of that word in the mouths of white people is not a mixed history." Wise asks, is there a double standard, before answering yes. "History has been a double standard," he says, so you better get over it.

Most black people I know hate the word and never use it. The NAACP, which you managed to turn into a derogatory verb during your rant (nice trick, that) symbolically buried the N-word several years ago, so corrosive is its power. The late, great Richard Pryor, an early practitioner in his comedy routines, stopped using it after a trip to Africa. "To this day I wish I'd never said the word," he said. "I felt its lameness. It was misunderstood by people. They didn't get what I was talking about. Neither did I. . . . So I vowed never to say it again."

In the face of all this evidence, I wonder, Dr. Laura, how you've come to the conclusion that comedians on R-rated cable television shows set the tone for polite interaction between the races. How many doctors and lawyers -- of any color -- grocery clerks, teachers and nurses have you heard using the words you just used on the radio? Just who are you hanging out with? On second thought, Dr. Laura, I don't think I want to know.

By this time, the young woman who called you must be pretty sorry she turned to Dr. Laura for advice. (Remind me never to come to you when I have a problem.)

When you get back to her and her specific issue of dealing with her husband's white friends and family members' use of racial insults in her presence, your solution is -- to make it her fault.

"You know what? If you're that hypersensitive about color and don't have a sense of humor, don't marry out of your race. If you're going to marry out of your race, people are going to say, 'OK, what do blacks think? What do whites think? What do Jews think? What do Catholics think?'"

Now Dr. Laura, I am an African-American woman married to an American of Norwegian, English and Irish descent. When our large and diverse families get together on, for example, Thanksgiving, we eat turkey, watch football and tell jokes, though never the ones that ridicule or single out blacks, whites, Italians, Jews, Catholics, Poles, homosexuals or any other group. And you know what, Dr. Laura? We have a lot of fun.

But then, that's just us.

2010-08-19T09:21:00.000-07:00

Rachel Maddow: Fake mosque controversy erodes GOP support
- Watch more Politics Videos at Vodpod.

2010-08-18T19:43:00.001-07:00

2010-08-16T18:53:00.000-07:00

LIMON CO (IFS)- Gee Dr. Laura, I used to listen to you every night, and I did like your short lived television show. What has happened to you? Forgot your meds, did we? Well, I'm not going to beat you up or anything like that, but it is time that you hang up your radio microphone and call it a career.

Dr. Laura and the N-Word: No, It's Not Okay for You to Say It!
By Jam Donaldson on Aug 13th 2010 12:52PM

I'm starting to believe there is a condition called the "N-word meltdown," where white folks just go crazy and start repeating it over and over for no reason.

Well-known conservative talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger (pictured) went all Michael Richards on a caller who reached out to her for help regarding her interracial marriage.

The caller wanted the good doctor's advice on whether to confront her husband's friends, whom she believed were making racist comments about her.

During the exchange on Tuesday's show, Schlessinger said the woman, who called herself Jade, was being too sensitive for complaining about her husband's friends. When the woman asked if the N-word was offensive, Schlessinger said, "Black guys say it all the time," then went on to repeat it several times.

"I articulated the N-word all the way out -- more than one time," Schlessinger said in comments from the opening of her radio show that she posted on her site.

Translation: she put the dreaded "er" on the end instead of the "ga."

When will white people just accept the fact that black folks can use the N-word, but they cannot. Why is this such a complicated life rule for them?

It's actually quite simple. Jews can say things about other Jews that non-Jews can't say. Gays can say things about gays that straights can't say. Latinos can say things about Latinos that non-Latinos can't say. I have an Asian friend who referred to new Asian immigrants as FOBs (fresh-off-the-boats). But she probably would have kicked my ass if I had referred to them that way. And I respect that. You can talk about your own mama, but no one else can. It's really easy, white people.

Schlessinger said on her Website on Wednesday that she was wrong in using the word for what she called an attempt to make a philosophical point.

Why are white folks so intent on rationalizing their use of the word? You can't use it, period. Get over it.

When the caller objected, Schlessinger replied:

"Oh, then I guess you don't watch HBO or listen to any black comedians."

I don't know what black comedians Dr. Laura listens to but I can't remember any using "nigger" in their acts. Moreover, should a woman tolerate a bunch of people in her house using the N-word in a way she finds offensive because they do it on 'Def Comedy Jam'?

Look, white folks, I'll break it down for you: Black folks don't call each other "nigger"; we say "nigga." And whether you accept it or not, there is a huge distinction.

As an African American woman, I can't ever remember using "nigger" in my life in referring to another black person. Though, on a bad day at my DMV, I may say "nigga" in my head several times.

Dr. Laura and other white folks who put forth this "well, black people use it, why can't I" argument seem so tied to their own supremacy that they just can't accept that there are things we can do that they can't -- and it bugs the hell out of them.

In all fairness, Schlessinger did not direct the epithet at the woman but said she used it to suggest how often she hears it, and that it should not automatically be a cause for offense, which is also the stupidest thing I've ever heard. It's about context, Dr. Laura. Who's saying it, why, how and in what environment? Who are you to say what should offend this woman?

This is not a debate on the infamous N-word. Some people say no one should use it; others say it's fine. Frankly, I couldn't care less. Either way, this is not about that.

It's about respecting a culture's right to its own intracultural norms. If your use of the word offends me, that's really all you need to know.

We don't have to explain why you can't say it, we don't have to defend our use of it and we don't have to tolerate you saying it. You just can't. It's like family. You can talk about each other, but no one else can. And as long as everyone remembers that, we should get along just fine.

2010-08-16T18:41:00.000-07:00

How Maxine Waters and Charlie Rangel Played Themselves

by R.L. Nave Posted Aug 16th 2010 1:00PM

With all of the problems facing America, congressional Democrats need a couple of high-profile ethics probes like Rihanna needs another misspelled -- or not? -- tattoo. But U.S. Representatives Maxine Waters and Charles Rangel are still sitting in ethical hot water and here's why.

Washington's latest political drama involves U.S. Reps. Maxine Waters and Charles Rangel Democrats representing Los Angeles and Harlem, respectively. To put their situation in cinematic terms (and give a shameless BVX link, sue us), like Ice Cube's character Craig in the classic 'Friday,' longtime legislators must go up against a powerful thug (Debo = the U.S. House Office of Congressional Ethics) and risk losing their street cred (manhood x a shot at Nia Long = Democratic control of the House).
In July, a U.S. House investigative committee filed 13 charges of wrongdoing against Harlem's Rangel. The most serious accusations were that Rangel, a 20-term congressman, failed to pay taxes on a home in the Dominican Republican, neglected to report hundreds of thousands of dollars of income, got several apartments in New York City for far less than market rate, and used official letterhead to solicit money for a school that bears his name.

The Office of Congressional Ethics also charged U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters of Los Angeles in August with three counts of unfairly using her influence, including helping a bank where her husband held stock get a $12 million government bailout.
Both lawmakers have denied doing anything wrong -- Rangel during an ill-advised 30-minute soliloquy on the House floor. They have both also asked that their hearings take place before the November election despite reports that high-ranking House Democrats are more than happy to put them off until later this year.
Their punishments could range from censure, which is essentially a very public slap on the wrist, which is all that happened to Bill Clinton for his ethical abuses of Monica Lewinsky's blue dress, to removal from office, in which case each of their seats will wind up going to another African American.

From looking at the facts, it seems less a clear-cut case of shady politicians run amok than a pair of lawmakers -- with 60 years of public service between them -- who got careless and broke the rules at a time when the public's sensitivity to anything with so much as a whiff of corruption is heightened.

Take Rangel's situation: Does anybody really think that at 80 years old, he sits down every April with all his receipts and a copy of the House Rules for Conduct and does his own taxes? Waters' case gets even fuzzier. Yes, it's true that she and her husband owned stock in the minority-owned bank that received bailout funds, but as chairwoman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity, it could be argued that she was simply doing her job. After all, how many black banks could there be?

But we might not even be here had Rangel not himself asked the the House Ethics Committee in 2008 to determine whether his use of congressional stationary for a fundraiser was improper or if public outrage over bank bailouts hadn't prompted such close scrutiny of Waters' involvement with OneUnited.

Even if we chalk Waters and Rangel's faux pas up to political senility, there's a real danger in letting ethics violations slide. All public officials, at some point in their careers, will feel themselves crossing a line that they never intended to cross. When they do, to paraphrase a line, that line vanishes and then they're nothing but another dirty politician joke.

This is the very moment that people start to grown distrustful, or even worse, apathetic, about the idea of a government that works for its citizens.

2010-08-10T06:38:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin Confronted By Alaskan: “When Cash Was Waved In Front Of Your Face You Quit”

Sarah Palin was taping her television special for TLC, the one she’s doing with Kate Gosselin, where she was “thousands of miles away from DC out on a commercial fishing boat, working my butt off for my own business, merely asking the Democrat politicos and their liberal friends in the media: ‘What’s the plan, man’?” according to Shannyn Moore who reported on the incident.

…one Homer woman made a sign in her shed. She then took the 30-foot-by-3-foot banner out to the boat harbor. It said “WORST GOVERNOR EVER”. Kathleen Gustafson is a teacher married to a local commercial fisherman. She felt like Sarah Palin had let the state down by becoming a dollar-chasing celebrity and ignoring the oath of office she’d sworn on a Bible.

Billy Sullivan, who has a business there, helped Kathleen put up the sign, and used his phone to photograph what ensued. Gustafson didn’t anticipate an actual conversation with the former governor.

At one point, a Palin daughter chanted, “You’re just jealous.” Kathleen told Sarah she was disappointed that she dropped her responsibility to the state to became a celebrity. Palin said incredulously, “I’m honored. No, she thinks I’m a celebrity!”…

[Sullivan] was even told by one of the Palin daughters, “You’re an A-hole”. Charming family values.
The exchange included one of the Palin daughters.
Gustafson: You swore on your precious Bible that you would uphold the interest of this state, and then when cash was waved in front of your face, you quit.
Palin: Oh you wanted me to be your governor! I’m honored!
Gustafson: I wanted you to honor your responsibilities. That is what I wanted, and to be part of the political process instead of becoming a celebrity.
Palin: That’s what I’m out there fightin’ for America to be able to have a Constitution protectin’ us so we can have free speech…
Gustafson: In what way are you fighting for that? In what way?
Palin: Oh my goodness! To elect candidates who understand the Constitution to protect our military interests so that we can keep on fightin’ for our Constitution that will protect your freedoms…
Gustafson: By using your celebrity status.
Palin: How am I a celebrity? I’m honored that you think I’m a celebrity.
Gustafson: You’re certainly not representing the state of Alaska any longer.
Palin daughter: She’s representing the United States.
Gustafson: Yes, I know, you belong to America now, and that suits you just fine.
Palin: What do you do?
Gustafson: I’m a teacher…
Palin: (eye roll)
Gustafson:…married to a commercial fisherman.
Palin: So am I. We probably have a lot in common…I’m honored to meet you, I really am, and we both agree on the freedom of speech
Gustafson: Yes we do.
Shortly after that Gustafson’s sign was ripped down by someone in the Palin party.

2010-08-07T09:53:00.000-07:00

LIMON CO (IFS) - It was only this month in 1992, that American History rings out like a shot in the dark. Remembering the "Siege at Ruby Ridge" where the Government went crazy and very wrong. But it didn't stop there, it went on to Waco, TX and to Miami, FL with the Gonzales issue. It's not that I think or believe that these acts of violence against American Citizens are justified with use of extremely deadly force, but these examples of the government going after people with a hammer attempting to kill a fly on a window glass pane was a little over the top and very extreme.

RANDY WEAVER: SIEGE AT RUBY RIDGE

By David Lohr

Government Gone Wrong

Ruby Ridge cabin, aerial view (AP)

In August of 1992 Americans tensely watched as events began to unfold on a remote ridge in Northern Idaho, involving a white separatist family and the FBI. Eleven days after it had begun, a 14-year-old boy, a 42-year-old mother, a federal marshal, and one yellow Labrador retriever had all been shot dead.

The incident ultimately led to one of the most intensive and controversial investigations in recent history. The FBI faced widespread resentment and Attorney General Janet Reno established a Justice Department task force to investigate what had happened. National debates on the case were said to have fueled anti-government sentiments, which eventually played a role in the Waco, Oklahoma City, and the Freemen conflict. Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the government building in Oklahoma City is said to be at least partially motivated by revenge for what happened at Ruby Ridge.

Prior to the incident, the Weaver family had moved to the remote mountaintop to escape what they viewed as a sinful world. Randy Weaver lived with his wife and four children in a cabin he himself built on Ruby Ridge, just 40 miles south of the Canadian border. The cabin had no electricity or running water. According to friends, the Weavers simply wanted to be left alone as they awaited Armageddon. While many may have viewed their intent as unusual, it appeared to be quite harmless to most who knew them.

Almost a decade later many questions remain: What went wrong at Ruby Ridge? Why did over 400 members of the FBI, military and local law enforcement converge on the mountain? Why did so many have to die? These and similar such questions are not easily answered, however; some answers may lay hidden within the details provided.

2010-08-06T05:51:00.000-07:00

KIT CARSON CO (IFS) - If you were really hungry and wanted something to eat while you traveled in the Kit Carson area, the "Trading Post Restaurant" was the place to go. The food was great and the service exciting and quick. As we made another stop there as we have for many months while researching our subject matter for publication, August 5, 2010, was a very sad day in the short history of the eating establishment.
The place was just in chaos.
The food which we loved was terrible and the kitchen help just stopped preparing food. The food that did come out to the customers was over cooked, no seasonings, the food was cold, and the service just fell in the toilet.
As for me, this will be my last stop there. I'll drive the extra 50 miles to Hugo or Limon. It's not worth your time or money to stop at this place anymore.

2010-07-12T08:09:00.000-07:00

LIMON CO (IFS) - As a youngster in the music business in the Antelope Valley of California, I would spent much of my time hanging out in Palmdale at Glenn Records, where I would learn the trade of making records. I loved my training. Glen MacArthur, a proven record producer who worked with Merrell Fankhauser, George Weston, Sandy Nelson, James Burton, Red Foley, Farron Young, Merle Haggard, Buck and Bonnie Owens and the Tally Records artists in nearby Bakersfield. This particular day, I decided to play hooky from school and headed off to the studio just to hang around and bother Glen. But this day was a special day, upon arriving at the studio that early morning, I was to find two artists, one by the name of Porter Wagoner and a young Dolly Parton setting up in the studio to work on a couple of songs as a demo. One of those songs, I remember was "A Coat Of Many Colors". Glenn was eager enough to kick me out of the studio, but this young sweet lady, asked Glenn to let me stay, as it would be later on in a conversation, then she remembered me from the early days at Cousin's Herb Henson's television show in the barn in Bakersfield, California. So if you every wondered why I love these artists so very much, it's because, they first loved me.

2010-07-11T14:21:00.001-07:00

LIMON CO (IFS) - Smithbits Magazine and Telvision since 1967 at Antelope Valley College, Lancaster, CA. It been along time -- Ken Smith

2010-07-11T13:51:00.000-07:00

2010-07-11T10:35:00.000-07:00

LIMON CO (IFS) - On July 17, 2010, A celebration of love for Dad and Mom Gilchrist will be held at the Lions Club House, 417 Lincoln Avenue, Woodland, CA 95695, starting at 2:00 pm in the afternoon. You are invited to a celebration of love for our parents, the Reverends Roosevelt and Louise Gilchrist, as of June 15, 2010, our dad will celebrate 90 years and on July 22, 1010, our mother will be 88 years young. We are blessed to have them in our lives and we just want to celebrate their contributions to our families, our church families, our extended families and the communities that they have served faithfully for many years. Our parents are still active in the ministry and look forward to teaching and ministering the word of God every opportunity they get. Because they have helped so many in their lifetime, we know that money of you would like to be at this celebration. Please RSVP by July 4th as space is limited. Please send a love note and please include a picture. You may also a video or DVD message to our parents for their scrapbook. We will have a money tree for those of you who would like to share with them. There are several hotels in the surrounding areas that can be accessed by looking on line for Woodland, CA. We are looking forward to this time of celebration and hope to see you there. Send all correspondence, check and RSVP to Sandra L. Williams, 884 Ruth Drive, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523 or email twosisterschat@yahoo.com.

2010-07-11T08:58:00.000-07:00

LIMON CO (IFS) - I just had to revisit why some women hate Gov. Palin. Then I remembered this post from a couple of years ago. After shooting wild live from helicopters, and saying that the white grizzle bear IS NOT endangered as the glacier packs retreat and these animals are dying because of their hunting grounds being melted away, Palin now wants to be remembered as a "Mama Grizzle?" because she is going to run for the presidency in 2012?? As Dana Carey would say -- "Ain't that special". I do not like Former President Dick Cheney, and he's not even backing Palin. Maybe Palin and Cheney should go hunting together and shoot elk and bears from their helicopter as they talk about an endorsement party for the Mama Grizzle. I don't want a bear in office. Do You? One thing for sure, it will keep Tina Fey in a job.

Thursday, Oct. 02, 2008

Why Some Women Hate Sarah Palin

By Belinda Luscombe

Some polls are suggesting that after gaining an initial bump, McCain's campaign is being hobbled by Sarah Palin's vice-presidential candidacy. The voters who are deserting her fastest, some of whom are even calling on her to withdraw, are mostly women.

Ah, women, the consistently, tragically underestimated constituency. What the Democrats learned during the primaries and the Republicans might now be finding out the hard way, I learned at my very academic, well-regarded all-girls high school: that is never to discount the ability of women to open a robust, committed, well-thought-out vat of hatred for another girl.

Women are weapons-grade haters. Hillary Clinton knows it. Palin knows it too. When women get their hate on, they don't just dislike, or find disfavor with, or sort of not really appreciate. They loathe — deeply, richly, sustainingly. I do not say this to disparage my gender; women also love in more or less the same way.
When men disagree, the steps to resolution are reasonably clear and unsophisticated. Acts of physical violence are visited upon one another's person or property, and the whole thing blows over. Women? Nu-unh. We savor the discord. We draw it out. We share our contempt with our friends, like a useful stock tip, or really good salsa. And then we all go hate together: a mutually encouraging group activity for when the book group gets quiet.

The hatred women have for Sarah Palin, and others had for Hillary before her, is not necessarily about politics. Anybody can run the numbers on how many people Palin's pro-life, pro-gun, socially conservative policies will seduce and how many they will alienate. Rather, the test that the McCain campaign failed to put her through was the Abbotsleigh Ladies College test. (Named after my high school. Go, green and gold!). It's a simple three-point pass-fail exam: Will the other girls like her?
Here's why Palin doesn't make the grade:

1. She's too pretty. This is very bad news. At school, pretty girls tend to be liked only by other pretty girls. The rest of us, whose looks hover somewhere around underwhelming, resent them and whisper archly of their "unearned attention." So, if everyone calls your candidate "hot," you're in a whole mess of trouble. If the Pakistani head-of-state more or less hits on her, well, yes, she'll get a sympathy vote, but we're in Dukakis-in-the-tank territory. It's an admiration vaporizer. (Of course a candidate can't be too ugly, or it will scare the men, who are clearly shallow as a gender.)

2. She's too confident. This also bodes ill. Women have self-esteem issues. But they also have other-women's-esteem issues. As almost any woman — from the head of the Budgerigar Breeders association to Queen Elizabeth — can attest, it's almost impossible to get confidence right. Too timid and you're a pushover. Too self-aggrandizing and you're a bad word unless it's about a dog, or Project Runway's Kenley. Or Michelle, my best friend until 9th grade, after she won that debating prize and got cocky.

3. She could embarrass us. History is not on Palin's side. Every time a woman gets a plum job, be she Hewlett-Packard's ex-boss, Carly Fiorina, or CBS's Katie Couric, there's always that whispery fear that people will think she got the job just because she's a woman. So if things don't go well — and a couple of YouTube clips have suggested that they're certainly not going well for Palin — women are the first to turn on her for making it harder for the rest of us to louse up at work.

The fact of the matter is once a female decides it's over with another female, it's like an end-stage marriage. No matter how seemingly benign, every attribute becomes an affront: the hair, the voice, the husband, the moose-shooting, the glasses, the big family, the making rape victims pay for their own rape test kits.
I know, I know. With all this extra baggage a female candidate has to bear, the chances of finding a woman whom other women won't hate seem skinnier than last year's jeans. But don't despair, if all else fails, we could just do what we always do and just vote in some guy. It's worked so well for us in the past.

See photos of Sarah Palin on the campaign trail here.
Click here to see Sarah Palin's rise to power.
Watch Sarah Palin, queen of YouTube here.

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Find this article at:
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1846832,00.html

Arvada Fireworks - July 4 2010

2010-07-07T11:09:00.001-07:00

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July 4, 2010, fireworks by the City of Arvada, Colorado in the rain. ; Very few duds, and lots of people to observed the festivities, including Kenny and Chaya Finton of the international renown singing group - the Fintons.

2010-06-30T10:28:00.001-07:00

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2010-06-29T17:51:00.000-07:00

LIMON CO - (IFS) I could not resist. It had to be done. Going to my Facebook page, I get this posting from Gov. Sarah Palin. It appears that the Palinites have been working overtime to drum up support for the governor. I believe all of the links are live, and if you care to, you can use this form of her's to make a decision as to her running in 2012 or not? Again, I could not resist the urge. -- KHS

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The Ties That Bind - Railroads of the Colorado Eastern Plains with Barbara Louise Holmes

2010-06-29T11:41:00.001-07:00

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A treaty had been signed in Washington and a reservation set up at Sand Creek. ; Water was an issue then and water is an issue now.

2010-06-28T08:32:00.000-07:00

LIMON CO (IFS) - Robert Byrd -1917-2010, the last of the "Old Bulls" that controlled the US Senate for decades and third inline to become the president at one time. Byrd leaves a great legacy in the Senate that will take many years to match up with. This writer really was not a 'Byrd" fan, but was very interested in his tacit approaches to solving problems on the Senate floor. Byrd will be remembered for several outstanding "quotes" in history. And as the Senate prepared to debate authorization for war in Iraq in early 2003, Byrd thrilled antiwar activists with his lament — "Today, I weep for my country" — and gave a speech that would be reprinted in several languages and posted on many websites — no small achievement for a man who did not use a computer. "We stand passively mute in the United States Senate, paralyzed by our own uncertainty, seemingly stunned by the sheer turmoil of events," he admonished. "We are truly sleepwalking through history."

2010-06-23T11:48:00.000-07:00

LIMON CO (IFS) - Speaking with Novelist Barbara Louise Holmes about General Stanley McChrystal's Situation, she had this to say, ". . .McChrystal's no fool, and there has to be a good reason for his name calling, and I would not be a bit surprised if there would be a political agenda to his words. Holmes places him among one of the "brightest" generals in the history of the United States, and as such, this error in judgement was done for a reason. Holmes, whose father was a naval officer during World War II, who saw duty in the Pacific theater of operations, gives her an understanding of the military mindset, as with her own years of service in the military, especially in the legal departments, she understands the responsibility of command of what can and can not be said between the civilian and the military side."

Holmes, starts off the conversation, like this . . ." A Hole of His Own Making - is the cry among the military leaders. McChrystal wanted away out of the box, and to establish himself as 2012 elections as a true leader, as he has worked for the administration, and they did not listen. So Tea Partiers, this is your moment in history, a handsome young white man, four star general, with a voice of defiance for authority, and a true leader for the party, I give you 2012 Presidential Candidate Stanley McChrystal" - this June 23, 2010, Barbara Louise Holmes.

By Steve Clemons - June 22, 2010, 9:40AM

Barack Obama has an easy choice to make: fire a general who has established a culture of insubordination and indifference toward civilian leaders and partners in government or defer yet again to a general who acquires power like medals every time he outwits or outmaneuvers the White House.
General Stanley McChrystal went over clear lines in the debate about the surge into Afghanistan with freelance comments he made in London. Recently, McChrystal stated that the move into Kandahar would slow and threw into doubt confidence in a July 2011 drawdown start date. He didn't consult with anyone before a public redesign of US strategy.
And now in this Rolling Stone report, "The Runaway General" (pdf), McChrystal and his team are reported ridiculing Joe Biden, Richard Holbrooke, Jim Jones, just about everyone not in their groove on strategy.
McChrystal has gone over too many lines.
Obama needs to fire him. If he doesn't, McChrystal's brand will be validated and the environment of insubordination and unprofessional conduct will be reinforced.
If McChrystal survives his White House encounter, then Obama will be diminished.
That is what this has come to.
-- Steve Clemons directs the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note, and is editor-at-large at Talking Points Memo

2010-06-22T06:00:00.001-07:00

SDC RadioMIXX One

2010-06-17T05:58:00.000-07:00

Limon CO (IFS) - We apologize for the misstatements of British Petroleum's Mr Svanberg, he just fell out of an oil carrier to earth a couple of days ago. Oh those wee little people who his company is built upon and the gasoline gun he places to our wee little heads and charges us insane amounts of money to buy his products. Well this writer has stopped all purchases of any BP products. They will never get another cent out of me wee little pockets. On Wednesday, BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg told reporters in Washington: "I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don't care, but that is not the case with BP. We care about the small people." Is BP chairman Carl-Henrik Svanberg out of his depth as the firm fights the Deepwater Horizon disaster, or is his lack of comment tactical? How is Svanberg, now inextricably shackled to the Deepwater Horizon disaster going to spend the remainder of his career defending the court cases, and will be otherwise unemployable.
BP will have to restructure, to contain all of the losses and find a totally new image. The oil industry business models are now being rewritten. It would be a great change of heart if all of the oil companies would ban together to help in this issue and change their image as well. But they are a greedy bunch and will fall on the sword one by one as if like maggots on a corpse, they scramble to pick over the bones of BP's falling market shares. Svanberg, who is going to have to act on these issues, is doing well to distance himself while he can for he will be among the members of the little people in a very short time.

2010-06-01T10:28:00.001-07:00

Danish Company Sells U.K. Supermarket Unit to Wal-Mart’s Asda

June 01, 2010

American-owned U.K. retailer Asda Group Ltd. announced Thursday that it had reached an agreement with Dansk Supermarked A/S to purchase its subsidiary, Netto Foodstores Ltd., for $1.1 billion. The deal is subject to regulatory approval in Britain, but Asda said it expects to finalize the transaction later this summer and to complete the transition of the Netto stores by the middle of 2011. The transaction will enable Asda to convert Netto’s U.K. locations into Asda stores and integrate them into its new supermarkets division for units with fewer than 25,000 sq. ft. Averaging 8,000 sq. ft., the 193 Netto stores in the United Kingdom will continue operations under existing management until Asda receives official approval.

2010-05-28T09:24:00.000-07:00

LIMON CO (IFS) - Well Mr. President, this writer wants to thank you for taking the fall for the oil disaster. Heck, we all know who is the blame for this terrible "Drill Baby Drill" chaos and it's not you.

With the "Buck Stops Here" policy, we know that the oil corporations are in charge of this country and your hands are tied in knots, and you have no powers. We also know that the Bush Administration gave all of its power to these tyrants and they all should go to jail.

It is over the top, that since the Supreme Court has declared corporations as "people", then British Petroleum should be in prison; as they have violated many states three strikes laws.

Please place these crooks in prison.

2010-05-24T08:19:00.000-07:00

LIMON CO(IFS) - This is totally a HATE CRIME by Superior Court Judge David Yaffe. If only the tables were turned around and Yaffe was placed in jail for a long time, his treatment would be very different. Los Angeles County and City judges are not the best people to work with. Along with their counter-parts in Ventura County, I'd pray that the Department of Justice would take them over and place all of them in prison. I always pray for the down fall of these two counties, when the day comes that the San Andreas Fault will wash them to the bottom of the ocean.

Ex-lawyer jailed 14 months, but not charged with a crime
By Abbie Boudreau, Emily Probst and Dana Rosenblatt,
CNN Special Investigations Unit

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Former Beverly Hills lawyer has been in solitary confinement for 14 months
Richard Fine, 70, is not charged with a crime; he's being held in contempt
Supreme Court decides Monday it won't hear the case

Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- Once a dapper Beverly Hills attorney known for his bow tie, Richard Fine has been held in solitary confinement at Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail for 14 months, even though he's never been charged with a crime.

Fine, a 70-year- old taxpayer's advocate who once worked for the Department of Justice, is being held for contempt of court.

Superior Court Judge David Yaffe found Fine in contempt after he refused to turn over financial documents and answer questions when ordered to pay an opposing party's attorney's fees, according to court documents.

Fine says his contempt order masks the real reason why he's in jail. He claims he's a political prisoner.

"I ended up here because I did the one thing no other lawyer in California is willing to do. I took on the corruption of the courts," Fine said in a jailhouse interview with CNN.

More details on the Special Investigations Unit's blog

For the last decade, Fine has filed appeal after appeal against Los Angeles County's Superior Court judges. He says the judges each accept what he calls yearly "bribes" from the county worth $57,000. That's on top of a $178,789 annual salary, paid by the state. The county calls the extra payments "supplemental benefits" -- a way to attract and retain quality judges in a high-cost city.

While the practice of paying supplemental benefits is common in California, most high-cost cities elsewhere don't hand out these kinds of benefits. Judges in Miami, Chicago and Boston receive no extra county dollars.

Judges in Los Angeles County not only have the highest state salaries in the nation, they also get tens of thousands of dollars in county benefits. These payments, Fine says, mean judges are unlikely to rule against the county when it is involved in a lawsuit.

In the last two fiscal years, Los Angeles County won all but one of the nine trials that went before a judge, according to Steven Estabrook, the county's litigation cost manager.

"The reason I'm here is the retaliation of the judges," Fine says. "They figured they're going to throw me in jail and that way they feel that they can stop me."

Fine's decade-long crusade against the judges eventually led to his disbarment last year. Joe Carlucci was the lead prosecutor for the California State Bar. Carlucci says whenever Fine lost a case, he would appeal and argue the judges were corrupt.

"What he ultimately did was to delay proceedings, to level false accusations against judges," Carlucci says. "All of those lawsuits were found to have been frivolous and meritless."

Judge Yaffe and county officials refused to comment on Fine's case while it's still pending.

"Fine holds the key to his jail cell," Kevin McCormick, one of the court's attorneys, pointed out in a court filing. In other words, Fine will go free once he hands over the documents the court seeks and answers the judge's questions.

The technical term is "coercive confinement" -- jail-time until a person follows a judge's order.

"He's probably done more time than most burglars, robbers and dope dealers," says Sterling Norris of the public-interest group Judicial Watch.

Norris says Fine's confinement has gone on too long.

Norris won a case in 2008 that found county payments to judges unconstitutional. The California Legislature swiftly passed a bill that enabled counties to continue paying the extra benefits.

"I think it's a lack of judicial integrity to say enough is enough," Norris says. "We've got a man, 70-year-old attorney, in jail for over a year on coercive confinement and that is way beyond the pale. No matter what else he may have done, that is improper."

Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, calls the length of Fine's contempt confinement an "anomaly."

Fine's jail cell could be used for a more violent offender, Whitmore added. In fact, Los Angeles County's jails have in recent months released hundreds of inmates before their terms were up due to budget constraints.

Fine took his pencil-and-paper fight from solitary confinement to the U.S Supreme Court, which ruled Monday it would not hear the case. The court offered no explanation.

Meanwhile, Fine's family stands behind him -- even in the face of home foreclosure.

"My husband has always been the straightest arrow, hardworking, very successful attorney, and for this to happen to him is unbelievable," says Maryellen Fine, his wife of 27 years.

"I'll look back with tears with all the time I might have missed with the family," Fine says tearfully just before he is handcuffed and walked back to his cell.

"We don't know what is going to be next," says Fine's daughter, Victoria. "Every day is just one more day where I think maybe I'm going to get a phone call that says dad's coming home."

I guess Mr Fine really pissed Yaffe off; and there must be an element of truth to his accusations. This kind of vindictive and hateful treatment by those within by US legal system hierarchy is generally reserved for those without money, and whose complexions are darker than Mr Fines.

Posted: 09:57 PM ET
When I hear the term “contempt of court,” I right away imagine one of those courtroom dramas on TV, where some guy is yelling at a judge, the judge gets mad, and screams out from behind the bench, “I find you in contempt of court!” The belligerent person screams some kind of obscenity back, and is then handcuffed and hauled away by a bailiff. On TV, he’s let out of jail a day or two later when tempers have calmed down and egos have been set aside. But that’s TV. It’s a much different scenario for Richard Fine who has been held in contempt of court for 14 months now.

Fine is not a criminal – he’s a 70-year-old former Beverly Hills attorney, once known for his bow-tie.
I met him at the L.A. County Jail. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit and was handcuffed.

He considers himself a “political prisoner.” He’s been held in solitary confinement for more than one year (jail officials say that’s because other inmates could harm him), and he says he’s only been outside for about nine hours since he’s been locked up.

According to court documents, Fine is in jail because he refused to produce financial documents and answer questions when ordered to pay the other side’s attorney’s fees. That’s when Judge Yaffe put Fine in contempt of court, until Fine decided he wanted to give the court what it requested.

Well, so far, Fine is not in the mood to cooperate. Fine believes he is being held in contempt for a very different reason. He says Judge Yaffe, and other L.A. County Superior Court judges, have accepted what he calls “bribes” from the county. Fine argues the “bribes” create a conflict of interest for judges in cases where the county is a party to the lawsuit. He feels the judges should be disqualified from those cases.

L.A. County judges really do receive extra benefits from the county on top of their six-figure state salary. It’s a practice common in California that was retroactively made legal, after a 2008 case against L.A. County found the payments unconstitutional.

The county says the extra cash is a type of “supplemental benefit” that helps to attract and retain quality judges in a high-cost city. Fine doesn’t buy that argument, so for the past decade, he’s been going after judges and has tried to expose what he considers a “corrupt judicial system.”

But for the purpose of this blog, let’s put the details of his history aside for a moment, and just focus on why court officials say he’s in jail. It’s because he doesn’t want to hand over his financial records or answer questions. He is being held in what is called “coercive confinement.”

That means, unless he does what the judge wants him to do, he will remain in jail – in his case, indefinitely. It’s like the world’s longest timeout. Fine does not want to cooperate because he says he will lose his chance to appeal his case against Judge Yaffe, if he ever gets out of jail. But when does this stop being productive and start becoming a waste of everyone’s time?

Of course, we tried contacting Judge Yaffe. And of course, he said he did not want to talk to us about this case since it’s ongoing.

What will happen if Fine refuses to cooperate, and Judge Yaffe doesn’t put an end to this? Could this go on for another year, or maybe even more? At what point does “coercive confinement” become nothing more than an indefinite jail sentence.

Oh, and one more thing. In the last couple of months, L.A. County Jail released about 200 inmates before their terms were up because of budget shortages. A spokesman for the jail told me they sure could use Fine’s cell for real criminals.
Connect with CNN Special Investigations Unit on Facebook

Filed under: Abbie Boudreau • Special Investigations Unit

2010-05-22T10:25:00.001-07:00

2010-05-21T05:01:00.000-07:00

LIMON CO (IFS) - So the GOP's new leader is Dr. Rand Paul, and he doesn't like people with disabilities. He's against the 1965 civil rights act, that was passed for the future minorities, yet he's a doctor that practices medicine and many of his patiences are on Social Security, and they vote for this guy in the Tea Party Movement "taking back their country"! Can we say "mixed messages?" One comment from an ABC News member. . . "What Rand Paul calls "taking back America" is really stepping back to the days when angry men shot it out on main street at high noon and anyone who wasn't a bonified-white-person would have to walk in the street and eat only at selected restaurants. Also, in their drive to cut taxes, the Tea Party seems to forget that the police, firemen, military, teachers, and so on, are all paid by taxes. Cutting taxes means dumbing down our children and their children, watching your house burn down because no-one is around to drive the truck, streets full of criminals, and no way to protect ourselves from fifth world countries like North Korea."
--------------------------

Rand Paul Says He's Being 'Trashed Up and Down' by 'Democratic Talking Points'
Kentucky GOP Senate Nominee Responds to Critics After Civil Rights Act Comments

By JONATHAN KARL and DEVIN DWYER
WASHINGTON, May 21, 2010—

Rand Paul, the Tea Party's rising star from Kentucky who won the state's GOP Senate primary this week, says criticism of his views on the Civil Rights Act and other pieces of anti-discrimination legislation are "red herrings" and Democrats' attempt to "trash" his campaign.

"When does my honeymoon period start?" Paul asked George Stephanopoulos on "Good Morning America" today. "I've been trashed up and down. ... This is a lot about politics."

Paul's comments came amid a firestorm of criticism sparked earlier this week when he appeared to question the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which he said went too far in banning discrimination by private companies.

In an interview Wednesday with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, Paul was asked whether he believed private businesses should have the right to refuse service to African-Americans.

"Yes," Paul said. "I'm not in favor of any discrimination of any form. & But I think what's important about this debate is not written into any specific 'gotcha' on this, but asking the question: what about freedom of speech? Should we limit speech from people we find abhorrent? Should we limit racists from speaking?"

Paul's comments drew a rebuke from the White House Thursday, with press secretary Robert Gibbs telling reporters, "a discussion about whether or not you support those I don't think has a real, shouldn't have a place in our political dialogue in 2010."

Republicans also seemed to distance themselves from Paul's views. Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele made it clear the GOP supports the Civil Rights Act, whatever its Senate nominee in Kentucky says.

The controversy has revived suggestions by Tea Party critics that there are racists in the movement, an allegation Paul says is dead wrong.

He says he abhors racial discrimination but he doesn't believe the government has the right to tell a private business who they have to serve.

Paul clarified his views in a statement Thursday, saying whatever concerns he may have had about parts of the Civil Rights Act, he has not -- and has never -- called for repealing it.

"Even though this matter was settled when I was 2, and no serious people are seeking to revisit it except to score cheap political points, I unequivocally state that I will not support any efforts to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964," Paul, 47, said.

Paul Supports Civil Rights Act

"Let me be clear: I support the Civil Rights Act because I overwhelmingly agree with the intent of the legislation, which was to stop discrimination in the public sphere and halt the abhorrent practice of segregation and Jim Crow laws," he said.

Copyright © 2010 ABC News Internet Ventures

2010-05-12T09:01:00.000-07:00

LIMON CO (IFS) - The governor has signed a new bill that bans enthic studies in K thru 12 grades from public high schools. Well, I believe Arizona has not gone far enough. Why you ask? For one thing, it brings all of the Nation's ills to the forefront and forces us to really examined them in great detail. This writer believes that there should be no celebrated months of Black, Brown, Yellow, Red, and any other can of history months. It should be all American history months every month all year long.

2010-05-10T09:20:00.000-07:00

LIMON CO (IFS) - This description is from Wikipedia and it tells what this office holders duties are. One thing is for sure, General Kagan is the first woman solictor ever appointed to this position in the history of the United States. The United States Solicitor General is the person appointed to represent the Government of the United States before the Supreme Court of the United States. Currently, the Solicitor General is Elena Kagan, who was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 19, 2009.

The Solicitor General determines the legal position that the United States will take in the Supreme Court. In addition to supervising and conducting cases in which the government is a party, the Solicitor General's office also files amicus curiae briefs in cases in which the federal government has a significant interest in the legal issue. The Solicitor General's office argues on behalf of the government in virtually every case in which the United States is a party, and also argues in most of the cases in which the government has filed an amicus brief. In the federal courts of appeals, the Office of the Solicitor General reviews cases decided against the United States and determines whether the government will seek review in the Supreme Court. The Solicitor General's office also reviews cases decided against the United States in the federal district courts and approves every case in which the government files an appeal.

The Solicitor General is assisted by four deputies and seventeen attorney assistants. Three of the deputies are career attorneys in the Department of Justice. The remaining deputy is known as the "Principal Deputy," sometimes called the "political deputy" and, like the Solicitor General, typically leaves at the end of an administration. The Principal Deputy currently is Neal Katyal. The other deputies currently are Michael Dreeben, Edwin Kneedler, and Malcolm L. Stewart.

The Solicitor General or one of the deputies typically argues the most important cases in the Supreme Court. Each of the attorney assistants also typically argues cases each year.

The Solicitor General, who has offices in the Supreme Court Building as well as the Department of Justice Headquarters, has been called the "tenth justice"[1] as a result of the relationship of mutual respect that inevitably develops between the justices and the Solicitor General (and their respective staffs of clerks and deputies). As the most frequent advocate before the Court, the Office of the Solicitor General generally argues dozens of times each term. As a result, the Solicitor General tends to remain particularly comfortable during oral arguments that other advocates would find intimidating. Furthermore, when the Solicitor General's office endorses a petition for certiorari, review is frequently granted, which is remarkable given that only 75–125 of the over 7,500 petitions submitted each term are granted review by the Court.[2]

Other than the justices themselves, the Solicitor General is among the most influential and knowledgeable members of the legal community with regard to Supreme Court litigation. Four Solicitors General have later served on the Supreme Court: Robert H. Jackson, Stanley Forman Reed, Thurgood Marshall, and William Howard Taft (who was Chief Justice of the United States). Some who have had other positions in the office of the Solicitor General have also later been appointed to the Supreme Court. For example, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. was the Principal Deputy Solicitor General during the Reagan administration and Associate Justice Samuel Alito was an Assistant to the Solicitor General. Only one former Solicitor General has been nominated to the Supreme Court unsuccessfully, that being Robert Bork; however, no sitting Solicitor General has ever been denied such an appointment. Eight other Solicitors General have served on the United States Courts of Appeal.

Within the Justice Department, the Solicitor General exerts significant influence on all appeals brought by the department. Whenever the DOJ wins at the trial stage and the losing party appeals, the concerned division of the DOJ responds automatically and proceeds to defend the ruling in the appellate process. However, if the DOJ is the losing party at the trial stage, an appeal can only be brought with the permission of the Solicitor General. For example, should the tort division lose a jury trial in federal district court, that ruling cannot be appealed by the Appellate Office without the approval of the Solicitor General.

Several traditions have developed since the Office of Solicitor General was established in 1870. Most obviously to spectators at oral argument before the Court, the Solicitor General and his or her deputies traditionally appear in formal morning coats, although Elena Kagan, the first woman to hold the office, has elected to forego the practice. More significantly, the Solicitor General is permitted to "lodge" in the appellate record new evidence that would ordinarily not be considered by the justices. Another tradition, possibly unique to the United States, is the Solicitor General's right and practice of confession of judgment: the Solicitor General can simply drop a case if he or she considers the government's prior official position to be unjust, even if the government has already won in lower court.

2010-05-03T10:36:00.000-07:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

LIMON CO (IFS) - Beyond Prosecution, the oil company from Britain has final done what the British Army could not do in 1814 - they have destroyed the Gulf of Mexico and inflicted great economic damages on the Southern states and destroyed our environment all in the name of not having the proper equipment to seal a blown well. This writer must also gives great thanks to the George W. Bush Administration for opening the doors and helping in the destruction.

British Petroleum is without a doubt one of the most incompetent business units working in the United States. Why is there no "Three (3) strikes" with corporations? This leaking well has went from "not leaking" to "leaking very little" to "we don't know how much oil is leaking" to "we can't stop the leaking", can the US Government help us?"

One thing we do know - there's a lot of oil washing up on the beaches and it will be there for the next 50 years. I know this for a fact, because I was at school at the University of California at Santa Barbara when all that oil came ashore. Now it's over forty years later, and I still see oil on the beaches from those days.

Will BP still receive their "clean environmental awards"?

2010-04-29T13:15:00.000-07:00

LIMON CO(IFS)- When I found out about the Arizona Immigration Law that was passed by the legislators and signed by the governor. I just new the state of Arizona must have billions of dollars in the treasury to give away to the lawyers.

This Arizona Bill is just a lawyer's bill for work!! A shovel ready employment law written for lawyers. You pick the most "tender spot" also known as the "hot button" of the electorate and exploit it and make those "concerned citizens" who love to be "excited about nothing" and make them everything with one issue, the same one from California Initiative #187, is alive and well and living in Arizona's leaders.

Do they realizes that they are going to go flat line in the wallet and bankrupt the state!!

Are they that nuts? Now other states is looking to bring this law into their states as voting issues. The problem is, it's going to work. It's going to be to many fires of immigration lawyers starting across the states. Congress better act on this one now!

I believed that we only heard "Show Me Your Papers". . . were only in the movies and not in Arizona."

The real passions are with the conservatives who want their country back. It's just a shot across the bow of President Obama's desk.

It's going to grow like wild fire in the dry grass and a gentle sweeping breeze - then it's going to sink ships of state.

This is the backlash of people with an attitude. Remember Thomas Pains' "Common Sense"? The news is instant and so is reactionaries. This is a great time for Congress to ready get on the ball and crack down on the invasion of 12 Million people in this country without papers.

It's at this time, I suggest again that we purchase Mexico.

Pay off their representatives and retire their government and let's just take over. The cost to purchase the government of Mexico and retire it's representatives is cheaper, then the cost of building a fence and the impending bankruptcy of the Great State of Arizona.

So I did a small random search and this is what I came up with as follows:

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Law firm specializes in personal injury and car accident cases.
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Results 1-10 of about 10,200,000 for Arizona immigration law (0.56 seconds)
Arizona Immigration Law Sparks National Uproar
Apr 20, 2010 ... In late April, Arizona passed a sweeping and controversial immigration bill
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Arizona Immigration Law Lawyers | USImmigrationlawyers.com
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Now, I'm not giving these guys any publicity, but it goes to show you that the law bill was written by lawyers for lawyers. It's like a banking bailout, or better yet; ". . . a shovel ready project for lawyers". They get to represent everyone from "FOR" and "AGAINST" to everyone and anything in between. It's a bonanza for Arizona lawyers.

2010-04-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

"I've only made three mistakes in my life," the 74-year-old orator said to scattered laughter across the room. His biggest being his underestimation of President Barack Obama.

"I told Barack that everything had a season and that this was not his season. Boy, was I wrong." Vernon said, whose backing of then presidential hopeful and long time friend Sen. Hillary Clinton over Sen. Obama became controversial.

"I had been friends with the Clintons for years and in politics, all you have is your integrity. I refused to trade friendship for race," Jordan said.

Like many other black icons, Nov. 4 (Election Day) proved to be a momentous point in Jordan's life that validated what he had spent decades tirelessly fighting for.

"When the networks announced that Barack Hussein Obama was the president-elect of the United States, I did the only thing I could do: I cried." Vernon said to applause. "And the tears were not just my tears, they were the tears of my mother and father, of my grandparents, of generations of blacks."

Make it Plain tells Jordan's life story through his speeches, a story of fortitude and bravery that has been repeated throughout black history.

2010-03-19T11:38:00.000-07:00

LIMON CO (IFS) - It's about time that Mr Hannity fall on his sword. This is called the "Right Syndrome". You are always on the side of "right", until it comes home to you - then you are proven wrong. Mr Hannity what will you do? Gagging on a twinkie you righteous bastard, and falling to your knees will not be enough to satisfy the people you have hurt over the years. I was always told, to make your words "soft and sweet", because you will never know which ones you may have to eat." Mr. Hannity you have loose face and is a disgrace again to the media community! Please Mr. Hannity -- Don't go away mad - - - just go away!!- KHS

March 18, 2010, - 5:46 am

Sean Hannity’s Freedom CONcert Scam: Almost None of Charity’s $ Went to Injured Troops, Kids of Fallen Troops; G5s for Vannity?
By Debbie Schlussel

For the last several years, Sean Hannity and the Freedom Alliance “charity” have conducted “Freedom Concerts” across America. They’ve told you that they are raising money to pay for the college tuition of the children of fallen soldiers and to pay severely wounded war vets. And on Friday Night, Hannity will be honored with an award for this “Outstanding Community Service by a Radio Talk Show Host” at Talkers Magazine’s convention.

But it’s all a huge scam.

In fact, less than 20%–and in two recent years, less than 7% and 4%, respectively–of the money raised by Freedom Alliance went to these causes, while millions of dollars went to expenses, including consultants and apparently to ferry the Hannity posse of family and friends in high style. And, despite Hannity’s statements to the contrary on his nationally syndicated radio show, few of the children of fallen soldiers got more than $1,000-$2,000, with apparently none getting more than $6,000, while Freedom Alliance appears to have spent tens of thousands of dollars for private planes. Moreover, despite written assurances to donors that all money raised would go directly to scholarships for kids of the fallen heroes and not to expenses, has begun charging expenses of nearly $500,000 to give out just over $800,000 in scholarships.

In February 2009, a well-known conservative writer sent me this, about a friend at FOX News:

The guy went on to tell me about Hannity’s “Freedom Concerts,” which are staged across the country with the proceeds going to children of slain soldiers. Of course, as the guy tells it, there’d be a lot more money every concert to go to the cause if Hannity didn’t demand–and get–use of a Gulfstream 5 plane to fly him and his family/entourage to the concerts; a “fleet” (that’s the word the guy used) of either Cadillac or Lincoln SUVs for him and his family/entourage; and several suites at really expensive hotels for him and his family/entourage. The promoter apparently values Hannity’s star demands at well over $200,000 per event. The source says he heard that Oliver North pulled Hannity aside at one of the concerts and told him that this had to stop. But that may mean that, from now on, Hannity has to fly on a G4 instead of a G5, gets only a few luxury SUVs, and two or three suites.

North is the founder and honorary chairman of Freedom Alliance.

I began investigating these claims, and lo and behold, I discovered that Freedom Alliance gives very little money to the children of slain troops to pay for college and even less to wounded troops. The stories of injuries to troops and how much Freedom Alliance gives them–$200 for a soldier from a poor neighborhood who lost three limbs–is heartbreaking. Soldiers with traumatic brain injuries, severe wounds to the face from disfiguring burns and explosions, and multiple amputations got $1,000 or less, with only a handful of exceptions.

The tax forms available to the public for the Freedom Alliance–for the years 2006-2008–paint a tragic story, a story of a charity that makes gazillions and spends very little for the purposes it claims, a charity that spends millions more on its small staff and crony consultants than it ever gives in scholarships to the children of the fallen or severely injured troops or in aid to the injured troops themselves. While Hannity’s Freedom Concerts take in millions, only a few hundred thousand go to the claimed intended recipients.

Over a year ago, when I began looking into this story, I contacted both Sean Hannity and the Freedom Alliance seeking comment and an accounting for where the money went. Both declined to answer any of my questions. Hannity refused to respond to an inquiry I sent to his personal private e-mail address asking him about the lavish expenses described in the e-mail above.

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/6938/sean-hannitys-freedom-concert-scam-only-7-of-charitys-money-went-to-injured-troops-kids-of-fallen-troops-g5s-g6s-for-vannity/

2010-03-18T18:42:00.000-07:00

Bret Baier is the anchor of "Special Report with Bret Baier." He formerly served as Chief White House Correspondent for FOX News Channel. In this capacity, Baier reported on presidential activities on a national and international level.

With the interview with the President, Mr. Baier, you suck. Sir, you are the worst interviewer I've every seen and heard. I hope Fox get their money back, you racist piece of fecal matter.

2010-03-12T07:13:00.001-08:00

2010-03-11T05:07:00.000-08:00

Chief Justice John Roberts must have a long fuse, because it has taken him over two months to say anything about the blast that President Obama gave them during the State of the Union in January. Let's face it, the Supremes gave away the farm to the corporate world by letting them give unlimited money to elected officials, and silencing the average American voter. The outside influences with bales of money to the senators and congressmen from every foreign government will be welcomed and all citizens that vote will have their voices muted. So if the Chief Justice is appalled by their decision, it's because he engineered it and got the results he wanted. This all started with the Hillary Clinton presidential run with the local Virginia corporate putting up money to make a smear video against Clinton. So the Supremes wanted to expand its scope into the future and opened the flood gates of real corporate greed. Now, the Court does not want to be talked about in a negative way. They are apart of the government, and are not gods. We will hold their little feet to the fires of wrath and remind them of the terrible decisions they have made in the past. Remember the Dred Scott Decision? The one that caused the Civil War and the lost of millions of lives.

2010-03-05T13:10:00.000-08:00

By TRACIE CONE and BROOKE DONALD

32 mins ago

HOLLISTER, Calif. – The man who opened fire in front of the Pentagon had a history of mental illness and had become so erratic that his parents reached out to local authorities weeks ago and warned them that their son was unstable and might have a gun, authorities said Friday.

It's still unclear why John Patrick Bedell opened fire Thursday at the Pentagon entrance and shot and wounded two police officers before he was fatally shot in an exchange of gunfire. The two officers were hospitalized briefly with minor injuries.

But a blog connected to Bedell via the social networking site LinkedIn outlines his growing distrust of the federal government and gives credence to the idea that a criminal enterprise run out of the government could have staged the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

San Benito County Sheriff Curtis Hill told The Associated Press that Bedell, 36, had been at in-patient mental health institutions at least four times. Court records showed he was diagnosed as bipolar, or manic depressive.

His parents reported him missing on Jan. 4, one day after a Texas Highway Patrol officer stopped him for speeding in Amarillo, according to the missing person's report. Bedell told the highway patrolman he was heading for the East Coast, and the officer used Bedell's phone to call his mother, Kaye Bedell, because he seemed disheveled and out of sorts.

Kaye Bedell told the highway patrol officer in Texas that her son was fine, and the patrolman let him go with a warning. But the next day, Kaye told deputies in California that her son didn't have any reason to travel to the East Coast because he had no friends or family there and she and her husband were worried about his mental state, Hill said.

Hill also said Bedell's parents found an e-mail from their son that indicated he had purchased a gun. They asked Hill to help them find Bedell and get him help.

The 36-year-old Bedell returned to his parent's home on January 18, telling them "not to ask any questions" about where he had been. But he left after that, and his parents didn't know where he had gone.

The family put out a statement Friday saying they were "devastated as a family by the news from yesterday."

"We may never know why he made this terrible decision," it said. "One thing is clear though — his actions were caused by an illness and not a defective character."

Investigators were still trying to determine a motive for the brazen shooting and began trying to unravel a bizarre series of Internet postings that suggested Bedell was fascinated with conspiracy theories, computer programming, libertarian economics and the science of warfare.

Curiously, Bedell also proposed in 2004 that the Pentagon fund his own research on smart weapons. The 28-page proposal outlined his idea for DNA nanotechnology research that might "provide significant new capabilities for the Department of Defense and the individual warfighter."

That document is the first tangible link to surface connecting Bedell and the Pentagon.

On the day of the attack, Bedell left his car — a green, 12-year-old Toyota — in a nearby mall parking garage.

The six-foot tall, blue-eyed software devotee approached the Pentagon entrance Thursday evening wearing a jacket, dress shirt and pants, seeming like any other end-of-the-day commuter.

Law enforcement officials speaking on condition of anonymity described what happened next as a chaotic, fast-paced confrontation in which so many bullets were flying from four different guns that even a day later investigators are still trying to determine exactly whose rounds went where.

Bedell, the officials say, opened fire with a 9 millimeter handgun just five feet from the nearest officer, Marvin Carraway. Fellow officer Jeffrey Amos ran out of a nearby guard booth to confront Bedell, as did a third, unidentified officer. All three officers gave chase and fire at Bedell, who was struck in the head and left arm.

Washoe County Sheriff Mike Haley said Bedell was arrested in Reno on Feb. 1 after a deputy stopped him in a green Toyota sedan on the south end of town and found 2 ounces of marijuana but no weapons.

Haley told reporters in Reno on Friday that Bedell believed "the currency of the United States should be marijuana."

The assault at the very threshold of the Pentagon — the U.S. capital's ground zero on Sept. 11, 2001 — came four months after a deadly attack on the Army's Fort Hood, Texas, post allegedly by a U.S. Army psychiatrist with radical Islamic leanings.

Hatred of the government motivated a man in Texas last month to fly a small plane into a building housing Internal Revenue Service offices, killing an IRS employee and himself.

The shooting resembled one in January in which a gunman walked up to the security entrance of a Las Vegas courthouse and opened fire with a shotgun, killing one officer and wounding another before being gunned down in return fire.

___

Associated Press writers Matt Apuzzo, Devlin Barrett, Eileen Sullivan, Christine Simmons, Pauline Jelinek, Anne Gearan, Mike Gracia, Nafeesa Syeed, Philip Elliott and Kasey Jones contributed to this report from Washington, D.C. Juliana Barbassa and Marcus Wohlsen contributed from San Francisco

2010-03-05T06:56:00.000-08:00

LIMON CO (IFS) - Freedom of Choice, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and the "Others" you are getting exactly what you preach and want - Scorched Earth. If you preach hate and fear enough, it's only a matter of time that you will find someone that's willing to sacrifice him or herself for the "cause". I learned that first hand in Vietnam. And as usual, "if its bleeds - it leads "-- in the news, and we still teach our children that a gun and blood is more respected, than a lovely woman's breast and body.

One year ago, the Homeland Security Report predicated these attacks against the US Government by "educated, financially independent white men" in the matter of several weeks proves that the hate messages are getting through - LOUD and CLEAR.

There are more Timothy McVeigh's out there. They did not all go away. They just went "invisible" working siliencely in the background and just waiting for the optimum time to ponce on a "cause" that will ignite the the spirit of Scorched Earth. I can't have it and neither can you!!
". . .America will NOT be destroyed from the outside, but from the INSIDE. . . by its' own citizens. The outside will just walk in and take what they want without firing one single shot. It will be theirs for the taking."

These groups got lots of money. Lots of money. And a 50 caliber machine gun mounted on the front of a station wagon, and a chance to show that you're a "man" and carry your gun on your hip into the Starbucks and other establishments, which proves what? That you can carry a gun on your person? Hell, it America, every body's got a gun, two or three of them. The only problem is, eventually, you run out of bullets - then what?? You are swallowed up by the masses and your gun taken away and you are stoned on the streets.

So Rush and Glenn's answer is not to be good citizens, but reminds me of the ex-boyfriend who kills his ex-girlfriend, because he does not want anyone else to have her. She's better off dead and then he kills himself.

So the Army of God have in its eye sights everyone, anything, everything that is not like them. Different is Different. Different is not good or bad. It's just different. The fire of hate has been fanned by the flames of Limbaugh, Beck and others, and the only problem is --when they turn and come after you Rush and Glenn, there will be no place to hide, for you have created your own firestorm and has gotten trapped within its walls. Belize really looks good about now. It's time to clear the masses from this country, because it's only going to get uglier if these groups do not stop spreading hate and fear. - KHS
====================================

Repent, Amarillo!
Category: Politics • Religion
Posted on: March 2, 2010 8:53 PM, by PZ Myers

Notice: This site is not designed for non-Christians, It is designed as a recruitment tool to call certain Christians to spiritual warfare, If you are not a Christian and you want to know more about becoming a Christian consider the following Links as resources. While some of them support our efforts, and some may not, it is not about us and it is not about them. It is about Jesus Christ.

Repent Amarillo is a repentance-based ministry dedicated to reaching out to the mission field of 67,000+ people in the Amarillo area who profess no faith in Jesus Christ. It is a ministry committed to the fulfillment of Christ’s commandment of the great commission. As Christians, we cannot stand by and watch 67,000 of our neighbors walking through the gates of hell. To all who have an ear to hear, we must speak out boldly. We must speak the truth. With that in our hearts, herein is our mission statement:

This mission statement is borrowed from a Christian martyr of unknown identity. He was a young African Christian who penned these words in his prison cell before his death. May God bless him for his inspiration.

" I'm part of the fellowship of the unashamed, the die has been cast, I have stepped over the line, the decision has been made- I am a disciple of Jesus Christ- I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still.

My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, my future is secure- I'm finished and done with low living, sight walking, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, worldly talking, cheap giving, and dwarfed goals.

My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions are few, my guide is reliable, my mission is clear. I won't give up, shut up, let up until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up for the cause of Jesus Christ.

I must go till He comes, give till I drop, preach till everyone knows, work till He stops me and when He comes for His own, He will have no trouble recognizing me because my banner will have been clear."

Repent Amarillo is comprised of two groups blended together, working together, to compliment and support one another for the purpose of spiritual warfare. They are;

1. Intercessory prayer group. This group will be a group of warriors called to intercessory prayer. They will at times be visible to the public and at other times ( depending upon the individual mission) they will be inconspicuous. They will provide prayer covering to the soldier group and will do battle within the spiritual realm to prepare the ground for the planting of God’s seeds, tear down demonic strongholds, and cast out demonic spirits that harass our efforts. Sometimes the intercessory prayer group will operate independently of the soldier group and at other times will work around them.

2. The Soldier group. The soldier group will consist of warriors dedicated to witnessing to groups of unbelievers or one-on-one witnessing. This group will be more visible to the public and will be comprised of bold believers willing to confront the world. This group will be schooled in the “Way of the Master” method of witnessing to the lost. This group will be the ones who plant God’s seeds in the ground that has been prepared by the intercessory prayer group. Believers who participate in this group will have to be bold but loving. Confrontational but composed. The individual members of these two groups are allowed and highly encouraged to move between the two groups based on the individual’s calling and the unique mission involved. In other words, no one is stuck to only one group. Soldiers can pray and intercessory members can witness.

Or you will be exterminated! You know, Texas has a reputation of being a nasty place full of particularly ignorant rednecks, which I don't blindly agree with — I know too many smart Texans, and it does have many good organizations, like the Texas Freedom Network — but this is a blight that smirches even that already sooty name. I am speaking of a vicious vigilante organization called Repent Amarillo. Look upon that link and quiver with disgust.

It's saturated with military imagery: men in uniform, humvees, helicopters, helmets; they compare themselves to special forces; they call themselves the Army of God, and sport Bible quotes glorifying warfare. They aren't military, but they pretend they are, and bring shame to both our soldiers and their faith. They're actually just cowardly busybodies who snoop and whine at their neighbors, and harass their employers until they get fired. They are not nice people. They're actually some of the worst kind of people.

They are a "rabid group of religious nuts" who object to the usual targets of fundie hatred — gays — but also harrass people who visit sex shops, engage in consensual heterosexual activity outside the bounds of traditional marriage, and…well, here's a list of their targets.

1. Gay pride events.
2. Earth worship events such as "Earth Day"
3. Pro-abortion events or places such as Planned Parenthood
4. Breast cancer events such as "Race for the Cure" to illuminate the link between abortion and breast cancer.
5. Opening day of public schools to reach out to students.
6. Spring break events.
7. Demonically based concerts.
8. Halloween events.
9. Other events that may arise that the ministry feels called to confront.
They also plan to hit:

1. Sexually oriented businesses such as pornography shops, strip joints, and XXX-rated theaters.
2. Idolatry locations such as palm readers, false religions, and witchcraft. Many of the smaller missions listed above may be just prayer oriented missions for tearing down demonic strongholds or they may involve more aggressive use of soldiers and prayer warriors. Some other missions occasionally employed may be "undercover operations" where the groups show up together but are not publicly visible together to effect the outcome of a public meeting such as city commissioners meetings, etc.

Check out their Warfare Map. It includes local Buddhist churches ("False god"), the Islamic center ("Allah is a false god and Muhammad is a false prophet"), the Masonic Lodge ("Masonic rituals and teachings in the upper ranks is based on Egyptian paganism. Full of secrecy. Only evil hides in the dark"), the Universalist Church ("Teaches that everyone is going to heaven. This calls Christ a liar. You cannot be a Christian if you call Christ a liar"), the Unitarian Universalist Church ("Pagan and witchcraft headquarters for Amarillo. Pagan and witchcraft celebrations and rites are performed here"), St Andrew's Episcopal Church ("Referred to an OUTstanding Amarillo's (Homosexual activists) website as a 'gay friendly' church. In other words, they do not tell homosexuals who attend this church that they must repent of the sin of homosexuality. This is a serious violation of scripture"), and Beavers Gentleman Club ("Total nude strip club"), among many others.

"Repent or perish" is their message. They show up dressed in army fatigues, carrying bullhorns, with ghetto blasters blaring Christian music, and they write down license plate numbers and photograph people doing anything they disapprove of. They are our American Mutawwa'in, petty tyrants of propriety with a bloated sense of their own importance. They are our self-righteous wanna-be oppressors.

Keep this in mind. This is the future the Pat Robertsons, the James Dobsons, the Sarah Palins want for us — a kind of Saudi Arabia that differs only in the name we give our prophet.

Meanwhile in Texas: "American Taliban" Isn't Hyperbole Anymore
Posted by Dan Savage on Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 1:31 PM

Some very scary shit is going down in Texas. Scarier than usual. "Repent Amarillo" is a rabid group of religious nuts—homegrown religious extremists of the conservative Christian variety—and they're not just going after the gays.

At first, the swinger community was mystified by the attention. On the 60-some hours of surveillance footage the Meads have, a swinger can be heard telling a Repent member that the swingers haven’t done anything to bother them.“You’re going to hell, and it bothers me,” Grisham responds. “What bothers me is you’re going to hell.”

Perhaps the most insidious tactic Repent uses is trying to destroy the reputation of the swingers. In Amarillo, people can be ostracized over a whiff of impropriety. On one tape, Grisham directs followers to get the license-plate numbers in the Route 66 parking lot. “A new couple can be here three or four hours,” says Mac. “Whenever they leave, the Repent Amarillo group will call them by first and last name, know where they live, know where they work, just within a very few hours.”

Randall Sammons says he was fired from his job of 13 years in August after his boss learned Sammons was a swinger from another employee, a Repent member. He believes he’s now as good as blacklisted in Amarillo. “I’m screwed at finding a job,” Sammons says. Russell Grisham, David’s 20-year-old son who has a conviction on his record for hacking the computer system at his high school, has posted the names, photos and workplaces of swingers on the Internet, including one man whose wife works for a school district. (“Family-wise, it will kill both of us,” the man says.) In at least two instances, Repent members called swingers’ employers.

2010-03-04T18:31:00.000-08:00


Exclusive: RNC document mocks donors, plays on 'fear' By: Ben Smith March 3, 2010 04:23 PM EST
The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to "save the country from trending toward socialism." The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.” The presentation was delivered by RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart to top donors and fundraisers at a party retreat in Boca Grande, Florida on February 18, a source at the gathering said. In neat PowerPoint pages, it lifts the curtain on the often-cynical terms of political marketing, displaying an air of disdain for the party’s donors that is usually confined to the barroom conversations of political operatives. The presentation explains the Republican fundraising in simple terms. "What can you sell when you do not have the White House, the House, or the Senate...?" it asks. The answer: "Save the country from trending toward Socialism!” Manipulating donors with crude caricatures and playing on their fears is hardly unique to Republicans or to the RNC – Democrats raised millions off George W. Bush in similar terms – but rarely is it practiced in such cartoonish terms. One page, headed “The Evil Empire,” pictures Obama as the Joker from Batman, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leaders Harry Reid are depicted as Cruella DeVille and Scooby Doo, respectively. The document, which two Republican sources said was prepared by the party’s finance staff, comes as Chairman Michael Steele struggles to retain the trust and allegiance of major donors, who can give as much as $30,400 a year to the party. Under Steele, the RNC has shifted toward a reliance on small donors, but the document reveals extensive, confidential details of the strategy for luring wealthy checkwriters, which range from luxury retreats in California wine country to tickets to a professional fight in Las Vegas. The 72-page document was provided to POLITICO by a Democrat, who said a hard copy had been left in the hotel hosting the $2,500-a-head retreat, the Gasparilla Inn & Club. Sources at the event said the presentation was delivered by Bickhart and by the RNC Finance Chairman, Peter Terpeluk, a former ambassador to Luxembourg under President George W. Bush. The RNC reacted with alarm to a question about it Wednesday, emailing major donors to warn them of a reporter’s question, and distancing Steele from its contents. “The document was used for a fundraising presentation Chairman Steele did not attend, nor had he seen the document,” RNC Communications Director Doug Heye said in an email. “Fundraising documents are often controversial. “Obviously, the Chairman disagrees with the language and finds the use of such imagery to be unacceptable. It will not be used by the Republican National Committee – in any capacity – in the future,” Heye said. The most unusual section of the presentation is a set of six slides headed “RNC Marketing 101.” The presentation divides fundraising into two traditional categories, direct marketing and major donors, and lays out the details of how to approach each group. The small donors who are the targets of direct marketing are described under the heading “Visceral Giving.” Their motivations are listed as “fear;” “Extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration;” and “Reactionary.” Major donors, by contrast, are treated in a column headed “Calculated Giving.” Their motivations include: “Peer to Peer Pressure”; “access”; and “Ego-Driven.” The slide also allows that donors may have more honorable motives, including “Patriotic Duty.” A major Republican donor described the state of the RNC’s relationship with major donors as “disastrous,” with veteran givers beginning to abandon the committee, which is becoming increasingly reliant on small donors. The party’s average contribution in 2009, according to the document, was just $40, and the shift toward a financial reliance on the grassroots may help explain Steele’s increasingly strident tone toward the Obama Administration. While the crude portrayal of Obama may be - as Steele ‘s spokesman put it - “unacceptable,” other elements of the presentation may be of equal interest to close political observers. The RNC plans to raise $8.6 million from major donors alone in 2010, less than 10% of its total 2009 fundraising take, which was primarily from small donors." The center of that plan is an extensive, and colorful, schedule of events. Along with traditional fundraisers with conservative luminaries including Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes, the party plans to raise $80,000 for a trip to London to meet David Cameron, the British Conservative Party leader, on September 17. The RNC’s “Young Eagles” – younger major donors and the only group, according to a major donor, continuing to pull its weight financially – are invited to a “professional bull riding event” in October, expected to raise $50,000, and to a no-holds-barred Ultimate Fighting Championship fight in Las Vegas the same month, expected to raise $60,000. The RNC’s aim, according to one section of the document: “Putting the Fun Back in FUNdraising.” CORRECTION: The RNC raised a total of $81 million in 2009. An earlier version of this story understated that figure.

2010-02-28T09:55:00.001-08:00

http://www.radionomy.com/EN/Cust/ProfileHome.aspx?CntUID=2b2e42e7-a270-4a43-b323-588c194cc815

LIMON CO (IFS) - SmithBit Magazine goes vocal. After years and years of writing about "nothing" and "everything", I get a voice on the web at the address above. It's just to long to memorize, but just copy the thing and put it in your favorites. I don't know what the first thing I will talk about, but I'm sure it will be of some interest to at least one person.

2010-02-26T09:13:00.000-08:00

LIMON, CO (IFS) - I have a products bar code. Now What? First you have to get your products registered into the retail system. You can do it right here. Place your products barcode label, your product discription, the manufacturer's name and location, the written barcode number in a #10 envelope with your CHECK IN THE AMOUNT OF $10.00 FOR EACH PRODUCT made payable and MAILED to: Ken Smith, 1880 Circle Lane, Limon, CO 80828-9114. You will receive by return mail a certificate of product registration for each of your products. It's that easy. No fuss and no hassels. Ken Smith's SmithBits Magazine, has been around since 1967, when his journalism professor gave him the column in the college newspaper. Smith has continued the tradition for over 40 years.

In retail, there’s no bigger asset than the products you sell. And for manufacturers and retailers, the increased prevalence and organization of theft and fraud is making it increasingly difficult to protect them. And getting the upper hand on protecting those assets and reducing those losses can make significant difference to your bottom line.

According to the National Retail Federation, losses from retail theft are estimated at more than $30 billion.

Retail theft can be categorized in many ways. It can be as simple as someone pocketing a single product and walking out of the store, to gangs that have become extremely proficient in stealing large quantities of products, to the theft of products that are still in shipment. Often times, these products end up on Internet auction sites where the criminals turn those products into cash. Or the theft can be more “creative,” such as in the case of Claude Allen, former aide to President Bush, who was arrested in 2006 for attempting to “return” more than $5,000 worth of merchandise that he’d taken from the display shelf directly to the returns counter, using receipts from earlier purchases of those items. There are a host of products and technologies that work to prevent, or at least reduce, products from being stolen off the showroom floor. And some loss is inevitable. But there are those significant losses associated with other kinds of theft – theft coming from habitual criminals, as well as normally law-abiding people who think nothing of coming up with creative ways to “bypass the system.” And one thing they all have in common is that they involve the fraudulent return of products to the same or a different store. In fact, The National Retail Foundation reports that fraudulently returned products cost the industry more than $9.6 billion dollars a year.

2010-02-02T10:40:00.000-08:00

Obama Surrendering Internet to Foreign Powers

By: Bradley A. Blakeman

Without the ingenuity of America’s brightest minds and the investment of U.S. taxpayer dollars, there would be no Internet, as we now know it today.

Now, the Obama administration has moved quietly to cede control of the Web from the United States to foreign powers.

Some background: The Internet came into being because of the genius work of Americans Dr.Robert E. Kahn and Dr. Vinton G. Cerf. These men, while working for the Department of Defense in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the early 1970s, conceived, designed, and implemented the idea of "open-architecture networking."

This breakthrough in connectivity and networking was the birth of the Internet.

These two gentlemen had the vision and the brainpower to create a worldwide computer Internet communications network that forever changed the world and how we communicate in it.

They discovered that providing a person with a unique identifier (TCP/IP)that was able to be recognized and interact through a network of servers would allow users to communicate with others.

The servers woulduse a series of giant receivers to recognize the identifier and connect networks to networks, passing on information from computer to computer in a seamless real-time exchange of information. This new process of communication became know as the "information super highway," aka, the Internet.

Now for the bad news: In an effort to show the world how inclusive, sharing, cooperative, and international America can be, the Obama administration set off on a plan to surrender control and key management of the Internet by the U.S. Department of Commerce and its agents.

The key to the control America has over the Internet is through the management of the Domain Name System (DNS) and the giant servers that service the Internet.

Domain names are managed through an entity named IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. The IANA, which operates on behalf of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is responsible for the global coordination of the DNS, IP addressing, and other Internet protocol resources.

In short, without an IP Address or other essential Internet protocols, a person or entity would not have access to the Internet.

For years, the international community has been pressuring the United States
to surrender its control and management of the Internet. They want an international body such as the United Nations or even the International Telecommunications Union, (an entity that coordinates international telephone communications), to manage all aspects of the Internet in behalf of all nations.

The argument advanced for those seeking international control of the Internet is that the Internet has become such a powerful, pervasive, and a dependent form of international communications, that it would be dangerous and inequitable for any one nation to control and manage it.

Just this past spring, within months of Obama's taking office, his administration, through the Department of Commerce, agreed to relinquish some control over IANA and their governance. The Obama administration has agreed to give greater representation to foreign companies and countries on IANA.

This amounts to one small step for internationalism and one giant leap for surrendering America's control over an invention we have every right and responsibility to control and manage.

It is in America's economic and national security interests not to relinquish any control. We are responsible for the control, operation, and functionality of one of the modern world's greatest inventions and most powerful communications network.

What better country to protect the Internet than the United States?

We invented it, and we paid for the research and implementation that made it
possible. We are the freest, most tolerant nation on earth, we believe in the
fundamental right of free speech, and we practice a free market of commerce and ideas.

America has always been against censorship and has shared its invention with the world without fee or unreasonable or arbitrary restriction. The user fee to operate on the Internet is not one paid to the U.S. government; a consumer pays it to private Internet companies, who provide access to the Internet through servers for their subscribers.

Look no further than China's recent move against Google to censor the
Internet, and you can envision what can happen when other nations less free
than the United States seek to control the Internet beyond even their own borders.

America needs to wake up. If we lose control over the management of the
Internet, we have given away one of our nation's greatest assets with nothing
in return to show for it.

The Obama administration's actions will set in motion a slow and complete takeover of the Internet by the United Nations or some other equally U.S.-hostile and unfriendly international body. And once it is gone, it will be gone forever.

The surrender of the Internet will spell disaster for our nation, financially, as well as for safety, security and our standing as a great power that values freedom and the free exchange of ideas and information.

As far as I am concerned, America is still the last best hope for a more
peaceful and prosperous world and our president should not be looking for
ways to weaken us. Rather, his job is to work to strengthen us and protect our nation's greatest asset our people's creativity and ingenuity.

Bradley A. Blakeman, who was a deputy assistant to President George W. Bush from 2001-2004, teaches public policy and politics and international affairs at Georgetown University.

2010-02-01T20:03:00.000-08:00

2010-01-28T19:17:00.001-08:00

Newsmax.com

Breaking from Newsmax.com
Hillary Clinton Says She Won't Serve Eight Years

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said she would not serve a full eight years if President Barack Obama wins another term, hoping eventually to retire to writing and teaching.

Clinton, who has spent two decades in the national spotlight and narrowly lost her own bid to be president in 2008, said she enjoyed her job as the top US diplomat but found it physically grueling.

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Asked by talk-show host Tavis Smiley if she would serve eight years, she replied: "No, I really can't."

"The whole eight -- that would be very challenging," she said in the interview broadcast Wednesday on public television.

"It's a 24-7 job and I think at some point, I will be very happy to pass it on to someone else," Clinton said.

Clinton repeated that she would not run again for president, saying she wanted a private life after a career in which she has served as first lady and a US senator.

"There are so many things I'm interested in, really going back to private life and spending time reading and writing and maybe teaching. Maybe some personal travel -- not the kind of travel where you bring a couple of hundred people with you," she said.

Clinton said she also hoped throughout her life to be a strong advocate for the rights of women and girls.

Clinton, who has often faced critical media coverage, said that she found it "a joy" to work with reporters covering the State Department.

"They are very substantive. They live and breathe the difficult issues that we cope with every day," she said.

She said she learned long ago to take press coverage "seriously but not personally" -- but acknowledged her concerns during her campaign to be the first female president.

"What I was not prepared for was a lot of the criticism that I thought had less to do with me and more to do with attitudes about women," she said.

"That was surprising to me -- it was 2007 and 2008. But that's something we still have to work on in this country."

Secretaries of state in recent times have rarely served more than one presidential term, although George Shultz was in office for six and a half years under Ronald Reagan.

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved

2010-01-18T17:16:00.001-08:00

United States occupation of Haiti - The first United States occupation of Haiti began on July 28, 1915 and ended in mid-August, 1934.

From 1911 to 1915 there were six different Presidents of Haiti, each of whom was killed or forced into exile.[1] The revolutionary armies were formed by cacos, peasant brigands from the mountains of the north, along the porous Dominican border, who were enlisted by rival political factions with promises of money to be paid after a successful revolution and an opportunity to plunder.

The United States was particularly apprehensive about the role of the small German community in Haiti (approximately 200 in 1910), who wielded a disproportionate amount of economic power. German nationals controlled about 80 percent of the country's international commerce. They also owned and operated utilities in Cap Haïtien and Port-au-Prince, the main wharf and a tramway in the capital, and a railroad serving the Plaine de Cul-du-Sac.

The German community proved more willing to integrate into Haitian society than any other group of white foreigners, including the more numerous French. Some Germans married into the nation's most prominent mulatto families, thus bypassing the constitutional prohibition against foreign land-ownership. They also served as the principal financiers of the nation's innumerable revolutions, floating innumerable loans-at high interest rates-to competing political factions.

In an effort to limit German influence, in 1910-11 the State Department backed a consortium of American investors, assembled by the National City Bank of New York, in acquiring control of the Banque National d'Haïti, the nation's only commercial bank and the government treasury.

In February 1915 Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam established a dictatorship, but in July, facing a new revolt, he massacred 167 political prisoners, all of whom were from elite families. Sam was then lynched by a mob in Port-au-Prince.

It is alleged that a popular uprising against Sam threatened American business interests in the country (such as HASCO). Because of these competing interests and the possibility of the cacos-supported anti-American Rosalvo Bobo emerging as the next President of Haiti, the American government decided to act quickly to preserve their economic dominance over Haiti.[2]

American President Woodrow Wilson sent 330 U.S. Marines to Port-au-Prince on July 28, 1915. The specific order from the Secretary of the Navy to the invasion commander, Admiral William Deville Bundy, was to "protect American and foreign" interests. However, to avoid public criticism the occupation was labelled as a mission to “re-establish peace and order...[and] has nothing to do with any diplomatic negotiations of the past or the future” as disclosed by Rear Admiral Caperton.[3]

The Haitian government had been receiving large loans from both American and French banks over the past few decades and were growing increasingly incapable in fulfilling their debt repayment. If an anti-American government prevailed under the leadership of Rosalvo Bobo, there would be no promise of any debt repayment, and the refusal of American investments would have been assured. Within six weeks of the occupation, representatives from the United States controlled Haitian customs houses and administrative institutions such as banks and the national treasury. Through American manipulation, 40% of the national income was used to alleviate the debt repayment to both American and French banks.[4]Despite the large sums due to overseas banks, this economic decision ignored the interests of the majority of the Haitian population and froze the economic growth the country needed. For the next nineteen years, advisors of the United States governed the country, enforced by the United States Marine Corps.[citation needed]

Government and opposition

Representatives from the United States wielded veto power over all governmental decisions in Haiti, and Marine Corps commanders served as administrators in the provinces. Local institutions, however, continued to be run by Haitians, as was required under policies put in place during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson.

Opposition to the Occupation began immediately after the Marines entered Haiti in 1915. The rebels (called "cacos" by the U.S. Marines) vehemently tried to resist American control of Haiti. In response, the Haitian and American governments began a vigorous campaign to disband the rebel armies. Perhaps the best-known account of this skirmishing came from Marine Major Smedley Butler, awarded a Medal of Honor for his exploits, and went on to serve as commanding officer of the Haitian Gendarmerie. (He later expressed his disapproval of the U.S. intervention in his book War Is a Racket.)

Philippe Sudré Dartiguenave, the mulatto president of the Senate, agreed to accept the presidency of Haiti after several other candidates had refused on principle. In 1917, President Dartiguenave dissolved the legislature after its members refused to approve a constitution written by Franklin D. Roosevelt (then Assistant Secretary of the Navy)[5] However, a referendum subsequently approved the new constitution in 1918 (by a vote of 98,225 to 768). It was a generally a liberal document. The constitution allowed foreigners to purchase land. Jean-Jacques Dessalines had forbidden land ownership by foreigners, and since 1804, some Haitians had viewed foreign ownership as anathema.[citation needed]

The occupation of Haiti continued after World War I, despite the embarrassment that it caused Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and the scrutiny of a congressional inquiry in 1922.

In 1922, Dartiguenave was replaced by Louis Borno, who ruled without a legislature until 1930. That same year, General John H. Russell, Jr. was appointed High Commissioner. The Borno-Russel dictatorship oversaw the expansion of the economy, building over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of road, establishing an automatic telephone exchange, modernizing the nation's port facilities, and establishing a public health service. Sisal was introduced to Haiti, and sugar and cotton became significant exports.[6]

However, efforts to develop commercial agriculture met with limited success, in part because much of Haiti's labor force was employed as seasonal workers in the more-established sugar industries of Cuba and the Dominican Republic. An estimated 30,000-40,000 Haitian laborers, known as braceros, went annually to the Oriente Province of Cuba between 1913 and 1931.[7] Most Haitians continued to resent the loss of sovereignty. At the forefront of opposition among the educated elite was L'Union Patriotique, which established ties with opponents of the occupation in the U.S. itself, in particular the NAACP.[citation needed]

The Great Depression decimated the prices of Haiti's exports, and destroyed the tenuous gains of the previous decade. In December 1929, Marines in Les Cayes killed ten Haitian peasants during a march to protest local economic conditions.[citation needed] This led Herbert Hoover to appoint two commissions, including one headed by a former U.S. governor of the Philippines William Cameron Forbes, which criticized the exclusion of Haitians from positions of authority in the government and constabulary, now known as the Garde d'Haïti.

Transition to fully Haitian government

In 1930, Sténio Vincent, a long-time critic of the occupation, was elected President.

By 1930, President Herbert Hoover had become concerned about the effects of the occupation, particularly after a December 1929 incident in Les Cayes. Hoover appointed two commissions to study the situation. A former governor general of the Philippines, William Cameron Forbes, headed the more prominent of the two.

The Forbes Commission praised the material improvements that the U.S. administration had wrought, but it criticized the exclusion of Haitians from positions of real authority in the government and the constabulary, which had come to be known as the Garde d'Haïti. In more general terms, the commission further asserted that "the social forces that created [instability] still remain — poverty, ignorance, and the lack of a tradition or desire for orderly free government."

The Hoover administration did not fully implement the recommendations of the Forbes Commission; but United States withdrawal was under way by 1932, when Hoover lost the presidency to Franklin Roosevelt, the presumed author of the most recent Haitian constitution and the proponent of "Good Neighbor policy". On a visit to Cap-Haïtien in July 1934, Roosevelt reaffirmed an August 1933 disengagement agreement. The last contingent of U.S. Marines departed on August 15, 1934 after a formal transfer of authority to the Garde. [8] The U.S. retained influence on Haiti's external finances until 1947.[9]

Effects of the occupation on Haiti

This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2008)

The occupation by the United States had several significant effects on Haiti. An early period of unrest culminated in a 1918 rebellion by up to 40,000 former cacos and other disgruntled people. The scale of the uprising overwhelmed the Gendarmerie, but Marine reinforcements helped put down the revolt at an estimated cost of 2,000 Haitian lives.[citation needed]

Thereafter, order prevailed to a degree that most Haitians had never witnessed.[citation needed] Infrastructure improvements were particularly impressive: 1700 km of roads were made usable, 189 bridges were built, many irrigation canals were rehabilitated, hospitals, schools, and public buildings were constructed, and drinking water was brought to the main cities. Port au-Prince became the first city of Latin America to have phone service available with automatic dialing. Agricultural education was organized with a central school of agriculture and 69 farms in the country.

When it came to living conditions, the Americans inhabited the neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince in houses that the majority of Haitians would only dream of. Consequently the neighborhood in which the Americans lived was called the “millionaire's row.”[10] Hans Schmidt accounted an officer's opinion on the matter of segregation: “I can't see why they wouldn't have a better time with their crowd, just as I do with mine."[11]American intolerance provoked indignation and resentment — and eventually a racial pride that was reflected in the work of a new generation of Haitian historians, ethnologists, writers, artists, and others, many of whom later became active in politics and government. The mulatto elite managed to dominate the country's bureaucracy and to strengthen its role in national affairs.

The occupation greatly improved some of Haiti's infrastructure. By doing so, the centralized power in Port-au-Prince was solidified. Roads were improved and expanded through the use of Haitian labor.[citation needed]

The education system was re-designed from the ground up; however, this involved the destruction of the existing system of "Liberal Arts" education inherited (and adapted) from the French. Due to its emphasis on vocational training, the American system that replaced the French was despised by the elite.[citation needed]

All three rulers during the occupation came from the country's small mulatto minority. At the same time, many in the growing black professional classes departed from the traditional veneration of Haiti's French cultural heritage and emphasized the nation's African roots, most notably ethnologist Jean Price-Mars and the journal Les Griots, edited by Dr. François Duvalier.[citation needed]

See also History of Haiti Banana Wars

Further reading
Renda, Mary A. (2001). Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915-1940. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-4938-3.
Schmidt, Hans (1995). United States occupation of Haiti (1915-1934). Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-2203-X.
Harper's Magazine advertisement: Why Should You Worry About Haiti? by the Haiti-Santo Domingo Independence Society
Boot, Max. The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power. New York, Basic Books: 2002. ISBN 0-465-00721-X

Weston, Rubin Francis (1972). Racism in U.S. Imperialism: The Influence of Racial Assumptions on American Foreign Policy, 1893-1946. University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 0-87294-219-2.
Marvin, George (February 1916). "Assassination And Intervention In Haiti: Why The United States Government Landed Marines On The Island And Why It Keeps Them There". The World's Work: A History of Our Time XXXI: 404–410. http://books.google.com/books?id=09_Sr9emceQC&pg=PA404. Retrieved 2009-08-04.

Notes

1.^ Robert Heinl, Pg. 791
2.^ Weinstein, Segal 1984, p.28.
3.^ Weston 1972, p.217.
4.^ Weinstein, Segal 1984, p.29.
5.^ Roosevelt assereted his authorship of the Haitian Constitution in several speeches during his 1920 campaign for Vice President - which was at best a politically awkward overstatement and caused some controversy in the campaign. (Arthur Schlesinger, The Crisis of the Old Order, 364, citing 1920 Roosevelt Papers for speeches in Spokane, San Francisco, and Centralia.)
6.^ Henl, Pg. 454-455
7.^ Bridget Woodling, Richard Moseley-Williams Needed but unwanted: Haitian Immigrants and their Descendants in the Dominican Republict (Catholic Institute for International Relations: London, 2004) Pg. 24
8.'^ p 223 - Benjamin Beede (in ENGLISH). The War of 1898 and U.S. Interventions, 1898-1934: An Encyclopedia (May 1, 1994 ed.). Routledge; 1 edition. pp. 784. ISBN 0824056248.
The Haitian and U.S. governments reached a mutually satisfactory agreement in the Executive Accord of 7 Aug 1933, and on 15 August, the last marines departed.
9.^ Schmidt, Hans. The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934 New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1995. (232)
10.^ Schmidt 1995, p.152.
11.^ Schmidt 1995, p.137-38.

References

Schmidt, Hans. The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1995.
Weinstein, Brian and Aaron Segal (in ENGLISH). Haiti; Political Failures. Cultural Successes (February 15, 1984 ed.). Praeger Publishers. pp. 175. ISBN 0275912914.
Weston, Rubin Francis. Racism in U.S. Imperialism: The Influence of Racial Assumptions on American Foreign Policy, 1893-1946. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press. 1972
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Related articles List of conflicts in the US · List of wars involving the US · Timeline of US military operations · Length of U.S. participation in major wars · Overseas expansion · Military history · Covert regime-change actions · Casualties of war

2010-01-16T19:44:00.000-08:00

LIMON CO (IFS) - US Navy Recon video dated January 15, 2010, of destruction of Haiti. At the time of this writing, it is estimated that 100,000 persons are dead. Top scientists from around the world had predicted this earthquake over a year ago, and told the Haitian president what the model had laid out. Yet, the government had nothing in place, and as usual, they took the money and spent it on themselves and did nothing for the people.

2010-01-12T17:37:00.000-08:00

LIMON CO (IFS) - Google should pull out of China, like nine of the major electronic companies around the world have. Their hacking themselves is "cutting ouf your nose, to spit your face". China's computer people are very savy, but a little to much for their own good. Get out while you can, and forget about redacting their web search engines to keep their people blind. Let them go down the path to self destruction. It will be easier for us in the long run.

Check out this great MSN Video: New LED TV less than a half-inch wide

2010-01-09T18:17:00.000-08:00

Check out this great MSN Video: New LED TV less than a half-inch wide

2010-01-08T16:03:00.001-08:00

LIMON CO (IFS) - Krystle Lynn Smith - An Open Letter to a longtime missing daughter! It's very sad when one parent keeps another parent at bay, and that child grows up with only one side of story, and that one sided story becomes total fact and fiction. When it is very sad and apparent that you have taken the one side as fact or fiction, and have refuse at this time to listening to the other side. This too is understandable, do to the situation that you had no input or contribution to the outcome. It's a good thing that you did not enter the law business, because you would be loosing all of your cases, as a great attorney must argue both sides of the question in order to come to a just conclusion to formulate his or her case. It is also a testament as to how one parent can keep a child hidden for so many years without every letting the other parent know the health, welfare and physical condition of the offspring, and only if that offspring did something against the law, only then would that parent be notified when that child was in trouble with the law - then it's your problem! If your child is never in trouble, you would have no way of tracing him or her. It has been over 23 years since the last time I saw my daughter, as her mother went to great lengths to keep the police and district attorneys in my life, and hiding my child. It has taken all these years to find my daughter. She was very confused when she asked, why now did my side of the family attempt to contact her, and she was not ready to speak to me. I understood all of that argument, as over the years in was a complete struggle with the law enforcement agencies who believed it was in the child's best interest to keep me away from my daughter. Krystle Lynn Smith grew up with three of her siblings, Sean M Shields, Kristi Shields and Ryan Shields. Krystle also have two sister on her father's side of the family, Kristine and Sara. Yet with malice and deliberate forethought, Karen kept you hidden from us. What she did not realize that one day, we would be making contact with you. It may have taken us some time, but we were as determine to find you, as Karen was determine to hide you. And yes, you would be placed in a position to make a decision to either contact us or not. But at least you have a choice. That's more than we had when you were growing up.
This is a story of revenge and how one parent uses the child as a shield to advance her own agenda against the other parent. It comes down to the child being pulled apart in between two parents and causing great confusion in the child's mind. Even when one parent, just pulls back, so that the child will not be confused and not being used as a pond in the middle of two childish adults, the child is still confused. Yet, Karen Linda McCray Shields Smith managed to hide Krystle with great success, and I commend her for her great efforts. and keeping you 23 years in hiding. But in the end, instant karma still plays its' hand. One can not do ugly and get away with it. You always pay in the end. Which comes to Krystle's oldest brother Sean, who was full of life and was going to be a surgeon, that was his dream since he was a little boy.
It broke my heart to find out that Sean died on April 26, 1994, a child, and his death was never listed in any newspaper, no country, no ocean, no space, no continent, nowhere on this earth. Sean died according to his sister when she was Seven years old, and her mother and grandmother took in real hard. That was about as much information, one can get from a young woman, who is talking to her father's oldest daughter for the first time, and asking why are you now attempting to find me?
It is with great difficultly to answer that question, when one has been attempting to search for her all the time, with the law standing in the way because her mother made the situation that way. When you don't want the other side to have a chance or to hide the true and create total chaos, because you did not get it your way.
I see the news where mother's tell their husband's and boyfriends that they have killed their kids, and or gave them away -- anything so that it will inflict the greatest amount of mental pain upon the other. And then there are the mothers who just kill their kids by drowning them, burning them up in houses, shooting them and leaving them with total strangers. One can only fight for so long, when you know what the outcome is going to be time after time.
The best deal that I could offer Mrs. McCray-Shields-Smith, was that she could have stayed married, and all I wanted was access to my child. Her response was to give me and my family no access at all, because she was "Mad" not angry; not even a picture, a word, with all Christmas cards, presents, birthday cards, being returned back to the child welfare department, and a warning from these people that I would be put in jail for harassment. Karen, God does not like ugly! Karen wanted to be very selfish and keep you all to herself. Knowing that you have sisters on your father's side of the family, with grandparents, cousins, always asking about you, wanting to know if the private detectives had found anything about you. Karen did hide you well, as many parents do, when they are in a tog-of-war for the child. And Karen, I'm so sorry that Sean had to pay for your sins, when he had nothing to with it, even when he lied in court on me, and the lies you coached him to say. I told you, that your lying was going to get you in a lot of hot water and that one day you were going to pay for it. You can not perpetuate a lie and believe that you can get away with it -- that's ghetto thinking -- as it comes back to bite you in the ass every time. Sean was going to be somebody, he was a contender.

2010-01-05T11:47:00.000-08:00

Reuters - Workers protest after attending a union campaign launch at the Cadbury factory in Bournville, central England, December 15, ...
By Jessica Wohl

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc (NYSE:BRK-A - News) issued a stern warning to Kraft Foods (NYSE:KFT - News) Chief Executive Irene Rosenfeld, saying it opposed the food maker's plan to float new shares in pursuit of Cadbury Plc (LSE:CBRY.L - News).

It was the strongest statement yet by Berkshire questioning Kraft's hostile 10 billion pound cash and stock offer for the UK confectioner. Berkshire is Kraft's single largest shareholder, with a 9.4 percent stake in its own holdings and its pension funds.

Kraft shares rose 3.5 percent after the Berkshire statement, while Cadbury fell 3.3 percent on concerns opposition by Buffett would severely constrain a deal.

Berkshire said it voted against Kraft's proposal to issue up to 370 million shares to help the food maker buy Cadbury, but could reverse to a "yes" vote, depending on the final offer's details. Berkshire declined to elaborate further about the statement.

It said the proposal, if carried out, would give Kraft a "blank check" allowing it to change its offer for Cadbury.

Earlier on Tuesday, Kraft raised the cash portion of its offer to Cadbury shareholders, helped by a $3.7 billion deal to sell its North American frozen pizza business to Nestle. Kraft cited in part concern by its own investors over using undervalued company shares as currency.

"We worry very much that, indeed, there will be an additional change from the revision announced this morning," Berkshire said in its statement.

Buffett had already warned Kraft against paying too much for Cadbury, and investors said the new statement was a clear signal to Rosenfeld to tread carefully.

"If Buffett votes against something -- that carries a great deal of weight with other shareholders," said Jerry Bruni, CEO and portfolio manager of J.V. Bruni and Co, which holds Berkshire shares. "When he says no, no is what he says and means."

KRAFT'S ROOM TO MANEUVER

But some shareholders said the statement leaves Rosenfeld with room to maneuver.

"I don't think he's throwing a monkey wrench in the deal. This is Warren Buffett 101," said Frank Betz, a principal at Carret Zane Capital Management LLP and an owner of Berkshire shares who has played bridge with Buffett.

"He's often used the representation that one certainty is that people are going to continue to want to eat Dilly Bars," Betz said, referring to Dairy Queen ice cream bars. "By golly, if they are going to want to be eating dilly bars far into the future they are sure going to want to be eating Cadbury milk chocolate."

A Kraft spokeswoman said the company agrees its shares are "deeply undervalued," would remain disciplined and would not do anything that hurts shareholder value.

"He is our largest investor and one of the most respected investors in the world so of course we take his opinion seriously," she said of Buffett.

Berkshire said it does not believe any Kraft shareholder should vote "yes" to the proposal without knowing what they are voting for. However, it said that it would change its own vote from "no" to "yes" if, after seeing the final offer Kraft is expected to present later this month, it concludes that the offer does not destroy value for Kraft shareholders.

Back in September, Buffett warned Kraft not to overpay for Cadbury, saying: "Any time you're in a takeover, animal spirits run high and all of that. But Kraft has the disadvantage of using an undervalued stock."

"Using undervalued shares does make the deal more expensive," said Morningstar analyst Erin Swanson. "So while we agree with that, Berkshire's vote may not be enough to block a deal for Cadbury. It is definitely a pointed message about the unfavorable position that Berkshire holds regarding Kraft's pursuit of the confectionary firm."

(Additional reporting by Michael Erman and Lilla Zuill in New York, Jessica Hall in Philadelphia and Aaron Pressman in Boston; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Tim Dobbyn)

2010-01-04T12:44:00.000-08:00

LIMON, CO (IFS) - Having been a good customer for over 30 years, I find that Wells Fargo Bank has out lived its usefulness as a viable servant to the needs of the people of the United States. It has become a parasite that has overtaken the financial soul of its' consumers and is now poisoning it's host. Once a consumer oriented business, it is now a wolf that preys on it's on customers without mercy and regards to their financial well-being. Wells Fargo Bank should be reduced to the foot notes of history in the banking industry and have its doors bolted shut. How can we kill off Wells Fargo Bank? By pulling your money out of their bank and go to anyone else but them. -KHS

What if Wal-Mart Entered Banking?

The big banks can try to pass on the tax to customers, but that provides an opening for their competitors, including credit unions, community banks, independent banks, and some online banks. For instance, Arianna Huffington and Rob Johnson of the Huffington Post recently launched a Move Your Money campaign urging Americans to do business with smaller community banks. These smaller institutions won't have to pay the levy, and they can pass on that savings to customers.

For just a moment, however, let's take industry lobbyists at face value. The banks will pass on the cost of this unfair, punitive, vindictive tax to customers. In that case, Washington should call the bankers' bluff by changing the competitive environment. Several years ago Wal-Mart (WMT) wanted to get into the banking business, and the industry opposed the retailing giant's move. But the world is quite a different place now, and opening up the market to more competition for basic banking services, such as checking, savings, and debit cards, could benefit consumers. Wal-Mart, in particular, could bring its monolithic drive for everyday low prices into the basic banking business. All of a sudden people may well ask themselves, "Why should I bank with big, high-fee banks when I can get good service at a cheap price at Wal-Mart?" Why indeed?

While consumers may fantasize about a customer-focused bank featuring smiley faces and low fees, the present reality remains ugly. Here's the real problem with Obama's proposed tax: It's a highly indirect and inefficient way to get at the issue of bank size, leverage, and risk-taking. There are other, far more important and dramatic regulatory initiatives to address the too-systemic-to-fail risk. The industry won't like them, but these changes include everything from higher mandated capital requirements to lower leverage ratios to off-the-shelf bankruptcy filings to contain financial contagion. As Raghuram Rajan, economist at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, recently put it: "You want a bank to face the full costs of any stupid thing it does on its own."

Simply put, the tax doesn't really amount to much. It's O.K. if it brings in some revenue to repay taxpayers. Under ideal circumstances, it would be a down payment on a much bigger reform package.

Farrell is contributing economics editor for BusinessWeek. You can also hear him on American Public Media's nationally syndicated finance program, Marketplace Money, as well as on public radio's business program Marketplace. His Sound Money column appears on BusinessWeek.com.

http://nowscape.com/suck/WellsFargo_2.htm

Wells Fargo ‘Chooses To Cheat Us’
by Guest Writers

Last week, I wrote about workers who were fighting back against Wells Fargo after the bank cut off credit to Quad City Die Casting factory on Moline, Ill., causing the factory to close. This week Wells Fargo has cut off health care benefits to the workers, which the workers say violates federal labor laws.

The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1174, which represents the workers, has responded by filing charges today with the National Labor Relations Board. The company also informed employees that Wells Fargo would not approve the expenditure of owed vacation pay, and the company has refused to pay a 2 percent wage increase due the employees under their legally binding collective bargaining agreement.

As Wells Fargo cuts off credit to Quad City and forces it to break its collective bargaining agreement with its workers, the bank has $25 billion in federal bailout funds that were intended in part to make credit more available to businesses.

“Wells Fargo first ends financing, forcing our company to close, and now they won’t pay us what we are owed by law. To us, our vacation, insurance and wages mean everything to our families. But to Wells Fargo it’s pennies, not even a blip in their billions. Yet they choose to cheat us out of what we have earned.” said Deb Johann, a union member employed at the factory.

According to management officials, Wells Fargo approves all expenditures by the company on a weekly basis. Workers are calling upon federal officials to investigate the practices of Wells Fargo.

The UE that represents workers at the plant is the same union that occupied Republic Windows and Doors last summer. Its members are engaging in direct action against Wells Fargo, calling on the bank to keep the plant open. Workers continue to demand that Wells Fargo do what is necessary to keep the company in business until a sale of the company is finalized. According to parties familiar with the discussions, there are currently several interested parties looking to make a bid to purchase Quad City Die Casting.

The union says that after having received $25 billion in bailout money, Wells Fargo has an obligation to promote economic recovery by keeping the plant open. UE Director of Organization Bob Kingsley said, “We can’t let this giant bank default on its obligation to the American people and the people of the Quad Cities. Wells Fargo is a roadblock to economic recovery.”

Growing up the son of a union organizer in Pittsburgh, PA, Mike Elk has been a part of the labor movement for nearly his entire life. Currently, he works on the health care reform team at Campaign for America’s Future. He has worked as a union organizer for the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE) and the Obama-Biden Campaign. Mike served as a research fellow at the Instituto Marques de Salamanca in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil helping to set up worker run cooperatives. When Mike is not scanning a twenty blogs at a time, he enjoys jazz, golden retrievers, and making friends of stranger. He blogs at Yinzer Solidarity.

Former Wells Fargo Subprime Loan Officer: Bank Targeted Black Churches as Part of Predatory Subprime Lending Scheme
Jacobson-web

Up until two years ago, Elizabeth Jacobson was the top producing loan officer in the subprime division at Wells Fargo. Today she is speaking out against the practices of her former company. Earlier this summer, she filed a sworn affidavit with a federal court in support of the city of Baltimore’s lawsuit against Wells Fargo for pushing high-interest, subprime loans onto African Americans in Baltimore and the Maryland suburbs, leading hundreds into foreclosure.

Elizabeth Jacobson, Former loan officer at a Maryland branch of Wells Fargo. In June of this year, she submitted an affidavit in support of a federal lawsuit by the city of Baltimore against Wells Fargo. She now works in foreclosure defense.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Wells Fargo was one of the top ten subprime lenders in the country and is among the top recipients of taxpayer-funded bailout money under the Home Affordable Modification Program. But it’s also at the receiving end of lawsuits accusing the bank of unfair and misleading lending practices to minority communities and what’s often known as “reverse red-lining.”

In January of 2008, the city of Baltimore sued Wells Fargo for a range of deceptive practices to push high-interest, subprime loans onto African Americans in Baltimore and in Maryland suburbs, leading hundreds into foreclosure.

This July, the Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan sued Wells Fargo for having, quote, “transformed our cities’ predominantly African-American and Latino neighborhoods, into ground zero for subprime lending.” In her statement, Madigan says, quote, “The dreams of many hardworking families have ended in foreclosure due to Wells Fargo’s illegal and unfair conduct.”

AMY GOODMAN: In June of this year, two former Wells Fargo employees filed sworn affidavits with a federal court in support of the city of Baltimore’s lawsuit. They allege Wells Fargo targeted African Americans for subprime loans and routinely steered customers qualified for prime loans toward subprime loans.

We’re joined now from Washington, DC by one of the whistleblowers, Elizabeth Jacobson, a former loan officer turned sales manager at Wells Fargo from 1998 to 2007. She now works in foreclosure defense.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Elizabeth Jacobson. Tell us your story. What did you do exactly at Wells Fargo, and when did you decide to blow the whistle?

ELIZABETH JACOBSON: I was at Wells Fargo for nine years, and I originated loans. Wells Fargo had two separate divisions: the prime division and the subprime division. And you could not originate prime loans if you were in the subprime division. So that’s what I did for nine years at Wells Fargo, is originate the subprime loans.

In the beginning years at Wells Fargo when I started, there was no filter system. So, if you had somebody come into your office and you could sell them a subprime loan, even if they qualified for a prime loan, that’s what you did. The compensation worked out that you had a huge incentive to put people into a subprime loan. Even the prime loan officers would make as much money on a prime loan—or on a subprime loan, referring it over to the subprime division, that they would make doing a prime loan. So there was an incentive for the prime loan officers to refer the business to the subprime side.

And as a company, Wells Fargo pushed the subprime loans, because it was their goal to have the subprime division pay for the fixed costs of the whole company. So there were quotas to be met. People—Wells Fargo puts out this projection that when somebody walked into a Wells Fargo office, they got put in the loan that was best suited for them. What happened was, whoever happened to be the loan officer at that time would put them in the loan they felt was best for them, and usually that meant how much money they could make off of the loan.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And what were the differences in the incentives for employees, in terms of putting someone in a subprime versus a prime loan?

ELIZABETH JACOBSON: Well, just based on the commission, you would make sometimes three to four times as much in commission if you put somebody into a subprime loan. And you’d probably be thinking, well, why would somebody that perhaps had a really good credit score that could go prime end up in subprime?

So, when you looked at the initial rate, the teaser rate, on a 228 on a two-year arm, at that point the going rate may have been six, six-and-a-half percent, and that would be comparable to what was on the prime side. So when you got into the subprime loan, you’d have a similar rate, a similar payment. But in two years, that rate was going to adjust, and the first adjustment, it could increase by three percent up to nine percent, and then it could adjust by another three percent in another six months. So you’ve gone from six percent to 12 percent.

In addition, there was points on the loan. There could be two origination and two discount points. Generally, on a prime loan, the only reason you’d pay points is if you’re going to buy your rate down. But they were just selling payment. You just talked about what the payment was. And there were some loan officers out there that were just selling principal and interest payment, because on these subprime loans you did not have to escrow for taxes and insurance. Obviously, those payments had to be made, but the loan officer would get away with saying, “OK, this is your payment.”

And so, they’d be comparing it with other good-faith estimates of perhaps a prime loan, and they would actually think they were getting a better deal. In reality, they were not. And what would happen, as soon as they got to the table, things would switch. They might have thought they were in a thirty-year fixed, then all of a sudden they found out they were in a two-year arm.

AMY GOODMAN: Elizabeth, talk about what changed you.

ELIZABETH JACOBSON: Well, when I was hired by Wells Fargo, I had never worked in the mortgage industry at all. I had been a paralegal. So I took everything that Wells Fargo was telling me, that this is the way things were done. I didn’t question the fact that we were putting people in a 55 percent debt-to-income ratio and that we were only qualifying them based on the two years at the lower interest rate. The whole goal was, every two years you’re going to refinance that loan. So, it was sold as a two-year loan. These people were never intended to be in the loan for thirty years.

And as things started to happen in the economy, some time around in ’06, I could see that the guidelines were tightening up. And so, you’d question, well, why would they tighten up the guidelines if they said that they were doing responsible lending? They would—got rid of stated income loans at the lower credit scores. When I first started, you could get a stated income loan with a 520 credit score. So as things started to tighten up, and the response would always be, this is what the investors require. The investors are having trouble selling this loan, or people are defaulting on this loan, so they would internally tighten up the guidelines.

And then I just started to see, well, wait a minute, you know, we’re putting—we’re setting people up for failure, basically. And what really—the point that really made my decision that I was going to leave the company was third quarter of ’07. Wells Fargo was actually the number one subprime lender in the country. So, internally, we’re getting all these emails and all this information about “great job, we achieved our goal, we’re number one subprime lender in the country.”

And I happened to see a news report with the CFO of Wells Fargo, and he was questioned about the subprime division and denied at that point that Wells Fargo even had a subprime division. So here he is, the chief financial officer, where the subprime loans were supposed to be paying for the fixed costs of the company, and he’s denying that Wells Fargo even did subprime loans. That was just the final straw of total disillusionment, and then I put my resignation in.

AMY GOODMAN: You were the head of the subprime division that he was denying existed?

ELIZABETH JACOBSON: Right. Well, I was the top producer. I was originating approximately $55 million a year in subprime loans.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And what about this whole issue that the city of Baltimore is raising about the targeting of minority communities, especially African American communities, by Wells Fargo? What was your experience in the question of who you were told to try to target for loans?

ELIZABETH JACOBSON: A lot of this was information that I would receive on conference calls as a sales manager. And people on the call, the management there, would encourage the loan officers, the subprime loan officers, to go into Baltimore city and target the churches, the African American churches, to get a relationship going with the minister or the reverend at the church and try to get that person to schedule some sort of meeting. They would call it a “wealth-building seminar” to get the parishioners of the church to attend. And any loan that was funded by Wells Fargo, whether a purchase or a refinance, $350 would then be donated to the church. And so, that was the incentive for the church to want to have these seminars there.

But what would happen is the only loan officers that would attend these seminars were generally the subprime loan officers. And on these conference calls, at one point, somebody made a joke who happened to be a white loan officer and said, “Well, will I be able to go to these seminars?” And they were told right there on the conference call, unless you were of color, you could not attend these conferences, these wealth-building conferences. So it seemed me—Wells Fargo didn’t come right out and say this; this is just what I saw—is that they wanted the African American Wells Fargo loan officers to sell loans to the African American community.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And you’re saying that the churches were getting, in essence, a finder’s fee for $350 for every one of their church members who ended up getting a loan?

ELIZABETH JACOBSON: Correct. Wells Fargo did this under a program where they would donate for any homeowner $350 to the nonprofit of their choice. So I don’t want to—for this to imply that it was only the churches. So, anybody that got a loan at Wells Fargo could ask that the $350 be donated to any nonprofit. But the way that it was sold to these churches was, well, that money then will go back to your church. Have the parishioner decide, as the church is a nonprofit, that they want that $350 to go right back to that church.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to a clip from a new documentary about the subprime crisis that opens in New York next week. It’s called American Casino. It’s directed by Andrew and Leslie Cockburn. This clip shows the Baltimore-based Reverend Almalene “Emily” Wade, who lost her home.

REV. ALMALENE “EMILY” WADE: I’m homeless. And it’s just hard. It’s a struggle. It’s devastating. It’s upsetting. It’s unbelievable. But it’s real. I don’t have a home anymore, and I’ll never forget this as long as I live.

This is a house that I grew up in most of my life. I came here in 1961 with my mother and my father. I’ve been here a lifetime. And I went to school here. I went to junior high school, went to high school, went to college. And we used to have a church next door, and the neighborhood was just home. This was just home.

I wanted to do a assisted living here. I wanted to help people. And the property wasn’t in the proper condition that it needed to be, so I was advised to take the equity out of the property, some of the equity, and do a loan and start my project that way.

The loan was for $28,000. It’s really sad that all of this was lost over $28,000. The monthly payments was close to like $300 a month, but I was on a fixed income, and it was just—it just got to be too much. Wells Fargo was the mortgage servicer, and that’s who serviced my loan and who I got the loan through. I really, at that particular time, didn’t know all the ins and out of a mortgage loan. I just took it by faith that I was going to be OK.

Settlement was really fast. You just don’t know. You know, you’re trusting your mortgage broker. You’re trusting the settlement people. You’re trusting the bank. And what else can you do? You really don’t have a clue. You’re just happy to have someone say, “Yes, we will finance you. Yes, you are approved. Yes, you can go to settlement.”

AMY GOODMAN: That’s an excerpt of American Casino, the story of the people who are foreclosed on.

Finally, Elizabeth, you talk about the joke in the office being that selling these, pushing these subprime loans as being “riding the stagecoach to hell.” Well, now you’re off that stagecoach, and you’re doing foreclosure defense?

ELIZABETH JACOBSON: Correct. I’m working with several attorneys in the state of Maryland. And most of these people that we’re seeing come in were put into predatory loans, and these loans were sold as mortgage-backed securities. Most people have no idea who actually owns their loan. Wells Fargo could service it, Chase could service it, Bank of America could service the loan, and people tend to think that that’s who owns their loan. So they get the foreclosure filing, and what we do is ask them to produce the note to prove that they actually own the loan, because there’s—most cases, there is no chain of custody of the note. And in Maryland, there’s no requirement to produce the original note.

So we’re trying to put up that defense. We’re trying to get the word out there. Very few people realize they could possibly have a defense. And there’s some defenses out there that are just rather technical. The plaintiff that’s filing the foreclosure doesn’t follow the law. They’ll put one entity down on the notice of intent to foreclose as a secured party. Then, when they file the order to docket, which is the instrument that’s filed in the circuit court, it will list a totally different company.

And what happens is, unless the homeowner puts up some sort of defense, these are all rubber-stamped. Maryland is a non-judicial state. It just goes through the system. So these plaintiffs’ attorneys can basically put whatever they want in these documents, and the judge isn’t going to look at it, unless the homeowner says, “Wait a minute, let’s put up some sort of defense.”

And I’m also finding, in helping people doing these defenses, and actually through loan modifications, part of HAMP is that you are to stop all foreclosure proceedings, including, of course, the sale of the house, if a homeowner has applied for HAMP. They don’t even have to be approved for HAMP. Just the application for HAMP. And that’s not known out there. So there’s a lot of benefits, obviously, going with the HAMP program, but the lenders will still move forward with a foreclosure, even if you’ve applied under HAMP, which is prohibited.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to leave it there. Elizabeth Jacobson, thank you very much for joining us and for coming out.

ELIZABETH JACOBSON: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: As being a top loan officer, subprime loan officer, at Wells Fargo. In June of this year, she submitted an affidavit in support of a federal lawsuit in the city of Baltimore against Wells Fargo. She now works in foreclosure defense.

WILLIAM wrote:
Wells Fargo has shitty customer service, they are incompetent, ignorant and are obviously trained that way because their supervisors are the same way. Their security is unbelievable ridiculous and overwhelmingly difficult to identify yourself even if you are the true primary account holder.

they force us to be that way! think those shock collars are comfortable? No way. Here's how to get back at them....it doesn't do much good, but it may give you some satisfaction. each call that goes through to a rep costs them around $14...so keep calling, and keep the rep on the phone. If you can't get a fee reversed, ALWAYS ask to speak to a supervisor. Request a Bank-By-Mail kit. it costs them a lot and it's free to you. ALWAYS ask to have credit cards or debit cards "rushed"...you have to provide extra ID, but it costs WF about $35 dollars to process, so go for it. And don't be too harsh on the employees, most of them didn't start out as morons...
Wells fargo financial is even worse. never open an account with them or let them even take an application.

they are whats wrong with this country. i'll take a politician and a lawyer any day!

I ABSOLUTELY HATE WELLS FARGO. ALL of their customer service reps are rude and incompetent. I finally had enough and shut down my account with them. They hold your deposited checks for a long time so that they can bounce your checks and charge you outrageous fees. Every single customer service rep I ever spoke to was very rude and did not know what they were talking and I am always being constantly transferred to another wrong department.

I closed my account with them and I am never going back. When I went in to close my account and the bank rep tried to talk me into keeping and asked me if there was a problem. I just smiled and said nope, just close my account so I can be on my way. I will not waste another minute or another breath dealing with this incompetent bank and their incompetent staff.
OK - I'm DONE with Wells fargo... This was the last straw. Two weeks ago I tried to DEPOSIT a large check from Charter One Bank ($25,000)- and was told it would take (get this) 6 to 8 weeks to clear!? And I have an account with WF. I was actually told "in this economic environment...that's now our policy." Went to my husband's credit union the next day and it took 5 DAYS to clear! And they gave me a ton of attitude when I guestioned the 6 to 8 week hold. THEY HATE THEIR CUSTOMERS. JOINN A CREDIT UNION - they are so much better!

I completely agree with William. I have posted these comments a few other places, but they sum up why I hate Wells Fargo:

I recently used Wells Fargo Jewelry Advantage to purchase an engagement ring. So far, it has been the worst experience of my life financing anything. Their statements are misleading (the pay stub and due date are in the back of a booklet of information they send you), their online payment system is difficult to use and does not show you any pending payments or even an account balance, and their customer service on the phone is absolutely the worst I have ever experienced.

They called after I had tried to post a payment and told me that it did not go through and that I needed to pay over the phone immediately. I refused to pay over the phone, and after being assured my first payment had not gone through, paid online. Now both payments have posted, and they refuse to put the second payment back into my bank account that they had withdrawn it from.

They never once apologized and told me it was my fault for posting the payment twice (even though they told me the first one had not gone through). They acknowledged that their collections department had talked to me, and that I had expressed concern that the payment would post twice, but the person I talked to conveniently didn't record the part when she told me that the first payment would not go through and that I needed to try again. So suddenly its my fault and there isn't anything they can do.

I am incredibly frustrated and had to remove money from investments to be able to cover the second payment until I can get my bank involved (at the suggestion of the unfriendly women at Wells Fargo) to beg Wells Fargo to reimburse me for double payment.

Wells Fargo history> 1800's; based on gold rush era! Henry Wells & Livington, & Company.Current> Director "Richard M "Dick" Kovacevich=another midas!Remember midas story,greed! turned all into gold> downfall>regrets.bad investments!housing meltdown! blame?> their 'financial game/gain', world network; real question>,are we 'slaves'? who's controlling who? 1. banks & investors[worldwide], or 2. Govt. & govt. interst[worldwide]?...and we the people.., get...***!!!
I think it is a good time to purchase WFC stock. At $15+ per share, it's a real bargain. Of all the US banks, it is the best managed and in the best shape. The stock is down because investors have lost confidence in the banking industry. I have too, except I believe WFC will come back strong and prove to be a good investment.

Wells Fargo has shitty customer service, they are incompetent, ignorant and are obviously trained that way because their supervisors are the same way. Their security is unbelievable ridiculous and overwhelmingly difficult to identify yourself even if you are the true primary account holder.

If you have any life change that causes you to go 15 days past due hold on to your hat. They will tear your head off. Be so rude and make you feel like you are the scum of the earth. I have never been late on a payment and have been with them for 10 years also. Life happend and my wife got laid off. Now with all of the fees they have they managed to make my account go negitive (it would not have with out the fee)Now it is snowballing on me and we just don't have extra money right now. Will they work with us NOPE. They want to banter back and forth. We have told them honestly when a payment will be there and they insist on calling us daily, calling work, and next it will be neighbors. You can't pay them what you don't have and I have excellent credit score 775 and have proven that I pay bills. They don't care and are beyond rude! Never due business with them.

Donna Rodgers wrote:
I have been a customer with Wells Fargo for 10 years and they have always been gracious, helpful and polite. They have given me credits for bounced checks which were as much my fault as someone elses. If it was their fault, they cleared it up immediately. My son worked for Wells Fargo and really appreciated the people there. He made friends with everyone. I'm sorry that you all have had a bad experience, but we have not. My husband's company (a small business) has been doing business with them for ten years too. All of us--the five long term employees and the company are happy with their service.
Just thought readers might want to know.
PS. We make 50,000.00 per year and have our 120,000.00 house loan with them. No problems at all.

It cost banks money to roll coins and strap cash. If you buy enough cash/coin from any bank they are going to charge you to pass on the labor cost. Think about it, someone has to roll the coin, some underpaid security guard has to bring it to the bank, some poor teller has to deal with you, and you expect the bank to pick up the tab because you have a measley $4000 in your free checking account. You don't want to pay for coin or cash? put enough money in your account to offset the cost. Banks aren't soup kitchens, they aren't the post office. It costs $22 to get a box of quarters to my branch. Someone's got to pay that cost, why not the people that actually use the quarters. They are the ones that are using it.

michael wrote:
Immediately after Wells Fargo bought out MFC bank, they tried to charge for the paper rolls of coins, all the businesses were very very pissed and they lost about $8 million in business deposits, which was why Wells Fargo did it to get rid of more expensive accounts to service.
Several businesses myself included filed complaints against Wells Fargo trying to charge more for US currency than the face value, and Wells Fargo backed down.
But they did try it.

I hate Wells Fargo Auto Finance. What a backwards, ensiloed, incompetent, unfriendly,inefficent organization. How many, many, many, many, many hours I have wasted on the phone with them JUST TO SIGN UP FOR AUTOPAY is unbelievable. They have NEVER gotten it to work for me in the past 4 years. No two people tell you the same thing. You finally get online payment to work, because autopay won't, then they shut down the online payment one month later. Losers.

one of my workers brothers deposited $400 in Wells Fargo in Marquette Michigan, he then went to Wells Fargo in Houghton Michigan to get some money.

Well Fargo said THEY WERE NOT THE SAME WELLS FARGO as was the Marquette Michigan bank. And he would have to wait 7 days for funds to be transferred from Marquette Wells Fargo to Houghton Wells Fargo.

Wells Fargo has STOLEN BILLIONS from the Taxpayers to cover their CORRUPT asses. They should be broken up into small locally owned banks, etc.. so that they are not TOO BIG TO FAIL.

I think this requires a complaint to the comptroller of the currency.

Wells Fargo is a nationwide bank, any deposit made in any Wells Fargo branch is available to every branch.

the last time i checked real people keeped check books to know how much money you had in their account i am sure if your wife would have done that she would see she did not have enough money to take out of the atm or even use her card to take out money so stop blaming wf for your wifes mistake everyone that is in business is out to make money if you or any other business out there knows that fees you would still have if it would have been another bank and not wf if she had done the same thing there hello.

BRYAN wrote:
I hate wells fargo becuase they charged my wife 35.00 each time she used her atm over a couple of days. the atm even gave written proof of money in the account but WF said this is not in real time. So using the bank for your balance is a lie. I personally have hated WF for years. What really upsets me is not being able to protect my wife. she used her card for a .70 iten and was charged 35.00. I have a home loan and a car loan with WF any buyers, HA HA. but I will be looking for a new lender.

Evelyn wrote:
I LOVE WELLS FARGO! THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE IS VERY FRIENDLY AND HELPFUL. THERE WERE COUPLE TIMES I WAS IN FINANCIAL TROUBLE AND THEY WERE THE FIRST ONE TO HELP ME. MY BANKER STILL PERSONALLY CALLS ME FROM TIME TO TIME JUST TO CHECK ON HOW EVERYTHING IS GOING. GO TO WELLS FARGO!=)

Evelyn..... are you serious, do you think we are ALL stupid ? You either work for WF or you belong to another planet. Either way, have fun, dear ! Write us back when you'll visit us again !

James wrote:
I think it is a good time to purchase WFC stock. At $15+ per share, it's a real bargain. Of all the US banks, it is the best managed and in the best shape. The stock is down because investors have lost confidence in the banking industry. I have too, except I believe WFC will come back strong and prove to be a good investment.

Hey, James, on what planet is this Wells Fargo stock that you're talking about ? Can you tell me how to get there, fast ?
I must write in on this topic. I recently went through a period of unemployment - 18 months of it. This was from a job of $90k to no income. During that time, I pretty much emptied my 401K to pay my mortgage. I was NEVER 30 days late - I was a few days late a couple of times and was charged the obligatory $150 late fee. Once I started working again - out of state - away from my family - but working, I called WF and asked if they could assist me. We have a $450k loan with them - never late mind you - I had a credit card that I had quit paying on because I couldn't while unemployed. I asked WF if they could set up a LOC so that I could consolidate my debt and recover from the 18 months of no work. They led me along for a month and set up an appt. The day before my appt the girl called to say that my credit score was too low (that one credit card apparently made it too low) for them to help. I asked her how I was supposed to dig out of this hole - I'm not asking for MORE debt - just cheaper debt. She said to me "well - that's not my problem. It's above my pay grade! Have a nice day." Oh my gosh! I was unemployed! I wasn't in jail! Because I made a couple of payments past the 16th of the month (3 to be exact) I now get a phone call from WF daily to 2 different phone numbers to remind me to pay my bill starting on the 3rd of the month until it's paid. I have never paid before the 10th just based on paydays. The rude agent told me "it's already late. You're just lucky." Today I found out that a check from July didn't clear (due to the credit card company taking out 2 payments instead of one!). Did WF call me? Nope. Let it go. I made my August payment. Guy at the branch says thank you - you're all up to date. Today I find out that July's payment still isn't cleared and they put it out on the credit report. I never believed the horror stories from people until now. Until I was unemployed my credit was SPOTLESS. Now I'm treated like the lowest of lows. As soon as possible, that loan is out of WF. Even the credit card company has been nicer. I finally called them out of desparation - told her my situation. They reset the interest rate to 8% and automatically take out the payments (okay - there were some technical issues in July that pretty much killed me) but at least they're polite and willing to work with me!

The people in my branch are nice. But they have their hands tied. They have no way of even knowing your account has a problem. They apologized a bunch when they found out what happened. Too bad they can't put back the fees. Take back the hit on my credit report.

I LOVE WELLS FARGO! THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE IS VERY FRIENDLY AND HELPFUL. THERE WERE COUPLE TIMES I WAS IN FINANCIAL TROUBLE AND THEY WERE THE FIRST ONE TO HELP ME. MY BANKER STILL PERSONALLY CALLS ME FROM TIME TO TIME JUST TO CHECK ON HOW EVERYTHING IS GOING. GO TO WELLS FARGO!=)

Getting a home mortgage through WF was absolutely the WORST experience of our lives. I have had childbirth that was less painful!! We closed nearly a month ago and are STILL finding little details that were not disclosed or things that our "consultant" lied to us about. We were also guaranteed to close on time...well, after 4 closing dates went by, you'd think we'd qualify. NOT so much. They cleverly put that guarantee out there, knowing they cannot honor it on FHA loans. I am telling every single person who will listen that they're FAR better off to steer clear of this conglomeration of assholes, especially the WFHM office in Bedford, NH.

Wells fargo has gone down since joining with wachovia.They wanted to hold my husbands check for over 10 days because we overdawn.This bank is now putting large items thur first so that you end up with alot of fee.

About 10 years ago we opened an account for our son while at college. He was very responsible with the account, because of a mistake that was not his fault, we ended up having quite a bit of charges. This actually happened several times during a two year period. As stated before EVERY single rep I spoke with had the crappiest attitude! Most would NOT transfer to a supervisor, but rather cut you off before you are finished and each time you call you have to wait close to 10 minutes. BTW, I was VERY nice each time talking to them.I finally closed that account and vowed to NEVER use wells fargo again.

2 years ago I bought a metal building which was financed by .... wells fargo!! AGAIN, i have had so so so much trouble with these people. I HATE THEM!! No matter what, a person can at LEAST act decent. NOT THESE PEOPLE. They don't know the meaning of nice.

AND i completely agree with the post about their website. This is nearly 2010, their site looks like the 80's. You can't even tell your balance, your amount owed OR your due date. Totally Ridiculous. I can't wait to get these monkeys off my back!!

2009-12-11T12:47:00.000-08:00

CORRECTED: Detroit house auction flops for urban wasteland

Sun Oct 25, 2:52 PM

(Corrects to show properties for sale were about the area of Central Park, while total vacant land is nearly the size of Boston)

By Kevin Krolicki

DETROIT (Reuters) - In a crowded ballroom next to a bankrupt casino, what remains of the Detroit property market was being picked over by speculators and mostly discarded.

After five hours of calling out a drumbeat of "no bid" for properties listed in an auction book as thick as a city phone directory, the energy of the county auctioneer began to flag.

"OK," he said. "We only have 300 more pages to go."

There was tired laughter from investors ready to roll the dice on a city that has become a symbol of the collapse of the U.S. auto industry, pressures on the industrial middle-class and intractable problems for the urban poor.

On the auction block in Detroit: almost 9,000 homes and lots in various states of abandonment and decay from the tidy owner-occupied to the burned-out shell claimed by squatters.

Taken together, the properties seized by tax collectors for arrears and put up for sale last week represented an area the size of New York's Central Park. Total vacant land in Detroit now occupies an area almost the size of Boston, according to a Detroit Free Press estimate.

The tax foreclosure auction by Wayne County authorities also stood as one of the most ambitious one-stop attempts to sell off urban property since the real-estate market collapse.

Despite a minimum bid of $500, less than a fifth of the Detroit land was sold after four days.

The county had no estimate of how much was raised by the auction, a second attempt to sell property that had failed to find buyers for the full amount of back taxes in September.

The unsold parcels add to an expanding ghost town within the once-vibrant town known worldwide as the Motor City.

Critics say the poor showing at the auction underscores the limits of using a market-based system to clean up property tax problems. They say the system has enriched a few but failed to deliver a way for Detroit to staunch its dwindling population and could worsen the vacancy crisis.

One proposed alternative would have officials take control of the tax foreclosure process through a land bank program of the kind being used to revitalize the nearby city of Flint.

The stakes in the debate are rising.

The number of Detroit properties in tax foreclosure has more than tripled since 2007 and seems certain to rise further. The lots for sale last week represented arrears from only 2006, well before the worst of the downturn for U.S. automakers.

"We have to keep in mind that GM and Chrysler filed for bankruptcy this year," said Terrance Keith, chief deputy treasurer of Wayne County. "Some people are going to be totally tapped out next year."

Detroit, already stuck with a $300 million budget deficit, is responsible in the meantime for cutting the weeds and responding to fire calls for thousands more abandoned lots.

'WHY AM I COMPETING AGAINST A BANK?'

Many potential homeowners that Detroit desperately needs said they felt penalized by the auction process.

They mostly found themselves outbid by deeper-pocketed investors from California and New York who were in a race to claim the auction book's relatively few livable properties.

Dozens of potential bidders, mostly local residents, were turned away on the first day of the auction by deputies after they failed to meet the morning deadline for registration.

Ross Wallace, a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, turned in his check for $500 and waited on the auction floor in full dress uniform for a chance to buy a Detroit house on the cheap.

Wallace, 27, said he did not want to leave his fiancee and two children with a mortgage before shipping out to Iraq later this year.

"I still have student loans and I'm trying to be responsible. I don't want to leave debt," he said.

Wallace waited for the auction to roll around to Detroit's Boston-Edison district, a once stately area that was home to boxing legend Joe Louis and Motown founder Berry Gordy.

But he was quickly outbid. An unidentified investor at the front of the room who had scooped up several dozen properties took the home Wallace wanted for about $15,000.

"Why am I competing against a bank?" he said later. "It would be common sense to have a separate process for people who want to move back to the city or it's going to stay empty."

Nearby, a Dutch-born local woman, Riet Schumack, 54, knitted patiently through the auction for a chance to bid on a lot in Brightmoor, one of the most blighted neighborhoods.

Schumack, who runs a community garden near her home that employs 14 neighborhood children, said she had been battling through a maze of bureaucracy for years to try to buy an abandoned lot nearby to expand and plant fruit trees.

She learned the lot had been taken back from its previous owner -- an absentee investor with more than 100 abandoned lots in Brightmoor -- only because of her constant calls to city and county officials, she said.

When officials told her she would have to wait for a fourth day to bid on the property, Schumack broke down into tears.

"Anybody with a job is not able to sit here for days. So you are left with the sharks," she said.

Opinions were divided on whether the investors buying lots and homes by the dozen were a sign of better times ahead.

"They weren't here two years ago. So why are they here now? Unless, as speculators, they believe this is the bottom," said Keith of the Wayne County treasurer's office.

Bill Frank, a Detroit realtor trying to buy a small house for a just-married friend, found himself repeatedly outbid.

"Speculators are often not good for a city and, from my experience, they are going to lose a fortune," he said. "But there are no easy answers. It's a declining city."

(Editing by Peter Bohan and John O'Callaghan)

2009-12-06T16:03:00.000-08:00

LIMON,CO(IFS)- The Documentary Channel for the past several nights have been reviewing the Congressional Investigation of the Branch Davidian Massacre. Minute after minute, you find the ATF Directors, along with Janet Reno saying one thing, and the video evidence shows something else completely different. These people then lied to Congress under oath, and what we find, nothing was done to these agents.

Ruby Ridge is another hot point of contention, as we see that certain people are above the law.

For 51 days, the ATF and the FBI held these people hostage, and then lied to Congress. I just want to let everyone know that I too, remember these Americans, these little children and old people that Janet Reno had gunned down, mutilated and burnt in the name of justice. I remember that one male report, who would come to the microphone and TV camera, and report that - there was no food for the children, or the next time, the kids were being molested, or the very next time, the kids were being held as hostages, etc. I wonder how his career is during these days. America will never forget Janet Reno and her friends that kill children, mothers and old people. I know she will live a long fruitful life. After all one day she will meet each and everyone of those victims again. And at that time, there are no laws, police and anything thing else that will save her from the raft of hell.

God Bless you Janet Reno - you Child killer!!

Branch Davidian Victims

Died February 28, 1993 in initial BATF assault on Mount Carmel
Winston Blake 28 British
Peter Gent 24 Australian
Peter Hipsman 28 American
Perry Jones 64 American
Michael Schroeder 29 American
Jaydean Wendell 34 Hawaiian American

Died April 19, 1993
burnt or shot to death during FBI assault

Katherine Andrade 24 American
Chanel Andrade 1 American
Jennifer Andrade 19 American
George Bennett 35 British
Susan Benta 31 British
Mary Jean Borst 49 American
Pablo Cohen 38 Israeli
Abedowalo Davies 30 British
Shari Doyle 18 American
Beverly Elliot 30 British
Yvette Fagan 32 British
Doris Fagan 51 British
Lisa Marie Farris 24 American
Raymond Friesen 76 Canadian
Sandra Hardial 27 British
Zilla Henry 55 British
Vanessa Henry 19 British
Phillip Henry 22 British
Paulina Henry 24 British
Stephen Henry 26 British
Diana Henry 28 British
Novellette Hipsman 36 Canadian
Floyd Houtman 61 American
Sherri Jewell 43 Asian American
David M. Jones 38 American
David Koresh 33 American
Rachel Koresh 24 American
Cyrus Koresh 8 American
Star Koresh 6 American
Bobbie Lane Koresh 2 American
Jeffery Little 32 American
Nicole Gent Little
and unborn child 24 Australian
Dayland Gent 3 American
Page Gent 1 American
Livingston Malcolm 26 British
Diane Martin 41 British
Wayne Martin, Sr. 42 American
Lisa Martin 13 American
Sheila Martin, Jr. 15 American
Anita Martin 18 American
Wayne Martin, Jr. 20 American
Julliete Martinez 30 Mexican American
Crystal Martinez 3 Mexican American
Isaiah Martinez 4 Mexican American
Joseph Martinez 8 Mexican American
Abigail Martinez 11 Mexican American
Audrey Martinez 13 Mexican American
John-Mark McBean 27 British
Bernadette Monbelly 31 British
Rosemary Morrison 29 British
Melissa Morrison 6 British
Sonia Murray 29 American
Theresa Nobrega 48 British
James Riddle 32 American
Rebecca Saipaia 24 Asian British
Steve Schneider 43 American
Judy Schneider 41 American
Mayanah Schneider 2 American
Clifford Sellors 33 British
Scott Kojiro Sonobe 35 Asian American
Floracita Sonobe 34 Philipino
Gregory Summers 28 American
Aisha Gyrfas Summers
and unborn child 17 Australian
Startle Summers 1 American
Lorraine Sylvia 40 American
Rachel Sylvia 12 American
Hollywood Sylvia 1 American
Michelle Jones Thibodeau 18 American
Serenity Jones 4 American
Chica Jones 2 American
Little One Jones 2 American
Neal Vaega 38 Asian New Zealander
Margarida Vaega 47 Asian New Zealander
Mark H. Wendell 40 Asian American

Imprisoned
Renos Avraam 31 British 40 years
Brad Branch 35 American 40 years
Jaime Castillo 24 American 40 years
Graeme Craddock 31 Australian 20 years
Livingstone Fagan 35 British 40 years
Paul Fatta 35 American 15 years
Ruth Riddle 31 Canadian 5 years
Kathryn Schroeder 35 American 3 years
Kevin Whitecliff 33 American 40 years

2009-12-04T15:26:00.000-08:00

LIMON (IFS) - Well what does one expect from a country that joined Hitler, and believed he was right. It's not hard to believe that a person can be convicted on all counts of very bad police investigations and mishandling of this case. It is sad for the victim, but even worst for justice. A very weak case, very bad ruling by the Judges, and contaminated evidence by the police. The justice in Italy convicted Ms. Knox on personal effects, like her life style, condoms, she smoked weed, her sex life, etc. This would not have been an issue in any country. The Justice system in Italy is very corrupt and double faced. They changed the course of the trial from many angles, and never proved anything -- to just get a conviction. They had it in for Ms. Knox from the beginning. She was never going to get a fair trial. When you are threaten by the police that keep you in jail and beat you up, heck I would say anything to keep them off me. None of this had nothing to do with the case. I totally endorse the boycotting of all Italian products, but justice must be done. Justice was not served at all.

2009-11-28T22:28:00.000-08:00

I believe that Mrs. Woods heard about the affair from the papers, and she and Mr. Woods had a difference of opinions, as she was beating him with a golf club during the argument. Tiger made a break for the car, with Mrs. Woods in hot pursuit behind him with club in hand. He drove off in the SUV with Mrs. Woods chasing him on foot. She smashed out his window and he lost control of car trying to drive to fast in a small area. The glass in the driveway always tell a story. Those little pieces always show up, even years later. The computer generation says something very different. Mrs. Woods is not telling the truth. She could be charged with domestic violence and abuse. It's to bad -- but it’s to late now.

2009-11-21T15:27:00.000-08:00

2009-11-20T06:50:00.000-08:00

11/18/2009

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2009-11-16T14:34:00.000-08:00

LIMON, CO (IFS) - As one of the many first cousins to Shirley Ann Ward, the unanswered questions in regards to her untimely death raises more questions from this officer's handling of her case, as to the many many other cases that have began to arise in Madera County, California. This is a pattern of abuse and neglect from this county and it gives rise to a United States Attorney General's investigation of this officer and his department.

Sheriff John is not telling the true, and his department is covering up vital information. How come it took over three (3) months to notify the next of kind, and they had performed an autopsy without any permission from any family member. Sheriff John you suck!! And there are many more of us in Shirley's family then you have cops in your control. Our family have US Marshalls, US Judges, US Attorneys, police and sheriffs in our own family members. You are not untouchable, Sir. We are going to bring you down -- KHS.

Begin letter regarding the death of Shirley Ward and cruel treatment to family members.

Dear Rev. Bird:

My sister, Shirley Ward, W-65118 an inmate at Chowchilla Prison allegedly died of "natural causes" while in the custody of this institution. A Chief Deputy of Madera Sheriff´s Dept notified me the day after Christmas, December 26, 2008. His words were unemotional and right to the point, "Your sister, Shirley died."

He went on to say that he was also the Coroner who had performed an autopsy on her and that she had passed away on the 16th of December of a "seizure" and what he considered "natural causes".

Why did he perform an autopsy before we were notified? Why the long time span? The prison warden Mary Laptimore, administrators, doctors or other employees did not contact us at all to notify us that Shirley had died or that she was even sick. My family members and I were all given conflicting stories surrounding my sister´s alleged "natural" death. The people at the Neptune Society were putting a rush on us to have the body cremated.

When I called the prison no one seemed to know anything. Most of those idiots were arrogant and sarcastic or maybe it was downright ignorance. I just wanted to know what happened to my sister and they all acted like I was accusing him or her of murder. (I have a list of all the characters I had contact with and details on their cruel remarks and indifference).

My sister was supposed to be released the following month, January 20, 2009. I was receiving telephone calls and letters from her and last spoke to her in the week of her alleged "natural" death. She had had some dental work done in November (dentures). She was excited and looking forward to getting out of there. She did not have a history of seizures.

I spoke with the medical team who reacted very strangely to my questions by telling me they would call me back or have someone else return my call. That never happened. I kept calling the prison until one day in the middle of January I received a phone call from the warden, Mary Latpimore, and a few other characters telling me the same rehearsed story that my sister refused medical help the first time and later was taken to the Madera Hospital where she allegedly died a "natural death".

They will not release a copy of her medical records or a copy of the autopsy. I would like a copy of them both.

My family and I would also like the people (doctors/dentists) whomever to take responsibility and be held accountable for whatever triggered my sister´s death. I fear for the safety of other prisoners if these monsters are allowed to exercise their above-the-law practices at the expense of others. If this is a case of negligence, these people involved are the real criminals and should be punished for the crimes that they commit and have committed in the past in the name of Law and Justice and even the name of God. This entire establishment needs to be investigated not only for the sake of my sister but also for all humanity.

Shirley Ann Ward, my baby sister, had a lot of personal issues. She was an addict but she never killed anyone and she did not deserve to die such a terrible death. She and I were both coming to terms with our mother´s death. I love my sister and I pray that justice will be served.

Anyone with information, please contact the UNION Director, Rev. B. Cayenne Bird, P.O. Box 340371, Sacramento, Ca. 95834, email: rightor1@yahoo.com web: www.1union1.com/Join_the_UNION.html

Madera County Sheriff's Headquarters
14143 Rd 28
Madera, CA 93638
Emergencies - 24 Hours: Call 911
Non-Emergency Services: (559) 675-7770
Map this location for me
sheriff@madera-county.com

2009-11-11T03:28:00.000-08:00

http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/tampa-police-marine-r...

Tampa police: Marine reservist attacked Greek priest he mistook for
terrorist
By Jamal Thalji, Times Staff Writer
Published Tuesday, November 10, 2009

TAMPA - A Marine reservist armed with a tire iron beat and chased a man
he thought was an Arab terrorist and even called 911 to say he was
detaining the man, police said.

But the man he assaulted was actually a Greek Orthodox priest visiting
from overseas who spoke limited English, police said.

That's why police arrested reservist Jasen D. Bruce on a charge of
aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

Police said they're also investigating whether Bruce, 28, committed a
hate crime.

The incident took place around 6:35 p.m. Monday, police said. The
priest, Alexios Marakis, 29, is from Crete, Greece. He is visiting St.
Nicholas Greek Cathedral at 17 E Tarpon Ave. but police said he was in
the Westshore area to bless another retired Greek priest.

But Marakis apparently got lost and exited northbound Interstate 275
into downtown Tampa, police said.

The priest followed several cars into the Seaport Channelside Apartments
on Twiggs Street. He got out of his car and asked Bruce for help.

Instead of offering help, Bruce struck the priest on the head with a
tire iron, police said.

He then chased the priest for three blocks to the Madison Avenue and
Meridian Avenue, police said, and even called 911 to say that an Arabic
man tried to rob him.

Bruce said he was going to take the Arab into custody. When police
arrived, Bruce told them the victim was a terrorist.

The priest was taken to Tampa General Hospital. There, a translator
helped Marakis speak to police.

Then officers went to Bruce's apartment to speak to the reservist again.
But he already had an attorney with him and refused to speak, police
said.

The priest was treated and released from the hospital.

Records show Bruce was released from the Hillsborough County jail at 8
a.m. Tuesday on $7,500 bond. His occupation is listed as sales manager
of a Palm Harbor pharmacy.

© 2009 . All Rights Reserved . St. Petersburg Times

2009-10-13T18:15:00.001-07:00

2009-09-18T06:35:00.000-07:00

The Columbia Broadcasting System - The Early years

CBS can trace its origins to the creation, on January 27, 1927, of the "United Independent Broadcasters" network. Established by New York talent agent Arthur Judson, United soon looked for additional investors; the Columbia Phonographic Manufacturing Company (also owners of Columbia Records), rescued the company in April 1927, and as a result, the network was renamed "Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System." Columbia Phonographic went on the air on September 18, 1927, from flagship station WOR in Newark, New Jersey, and 15 affiliates.

Unable to sell enough air time to advertisers, on September 25, 1927, Columbia sold the network for $500,000 to William S. Paley, son of a Philadelphia cigar manufacturer. With Columbia Phonographic's removal, Paley streamlined the corporate name to "Columbia Broadcasting System". Paley believed in the power of radio advertising; his family's company had seen their "La Palina" cigar become a best-seller after young William convinced his elders to advertise it on Philadelphia station WCAU.

In November 1927, Columbia paid $410,000 to A.H. Grebe's Atlantic Broadcasting Company for a small Brooklyn station, WABC, which would become the network's flagship station.WCBS WABC was quickly upgraded, and the signal relocated to a stronger frequency, 860kHz. (In 1946, WABC was re-named WCBS; the station moved to a new frequency, 880 kHz, in the FCC's 1941 reassignment of stations.) It was where much of CBS's programming originated; other owned-and-operated stations were KNX Los Angeles, KCBS San Francisco (originally KQW), WBBM Chicago, WJSV Washington, DC (later WTOP, which moved to the FM dial in 2005; the AM facility today is WTWP, also a CBS Radio affiliate), KMOX St. Louis, and WCCO Minneapolis. These remain the core affiliates of the CBS Radio Network today, with WCBS still the flagship, and all but WTOP/WTWP (both Bonneville Broadcasting properties) owned by CBS Radio.

Later in 1928, another investor, Paramount Pictures (who ironically would eventually be co-owned with CBS, see below), bought Columbia stock, and for a time it was thought the network would be renamed "Paramount Radio". Any chance of further Paramount involvement ended with the 1929 stock market crash; the near-bankrupt studio sold its shares back to CBS in 1932.

As the third national network, CBS soon had more affiliates than either of NBC's two, in part because of a more generous rate of payment to affiliates. NBC's owner and founder of RCA, David Sarnoff, believed in technology, so NBC's affiliates had the latest RCA equipment, and were often the best-established stations, or were on "clear channel" frequencies. Paley believed in the power of programming, and CBS quickly established itself as the home of many popular musical and comedy stars, among them Bing Crosby, Al Jolson, George Burns & Gracie Allen, and Kate Smith. In 1938, NBC and CBS each opened studios in Hollywood to attract movieland's top talent to their networks — NBC at Radio City on Sunset and Vine, CBS two blocks away at Columbia Square.

In the hard times of the early 1930s, CBS radio broadened its offerings; having refused an AP franchise for news, Paley launched an independent news division, shaped in its first years by Paley's vice-president, former New York Times man Ed Klauber, and news director Paul White. Another early hire, in 1935, was Edward R. Murrow, brought in as "Director of Talks." It was Murrow's reports, particularly during the dark days of the London Blitz, which contributed to CBS News' image for on-the-spot coverage. As European news chief and later head of the news division, Murrow assembled a team of reporters and editors that propelled CBS News to the forefront of the industry.

On October 30, 1938, CBS gained a taste of infamy when Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre broadcast an adaptation of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. Its unique format, a contemporary version of the story in the form of faux news broadcasts, had many CBS listeners panicked into believing invaders from Mars were actually devastating Grovers Mill, New Jersey, despite three disclaimers during the broadcast it was a work of fiction. CBS would later revive the format for television in the 1990s for Without Warning, which told the story of asteroids crashing to Earth, but the television format allowed for disclaimers to air at every commercial break, avoiding a replay of what happened in 1938.

Also in 1938, CBS bought American Record Corporation, the parent of its former investor Columbia Records.

Prior to the onset of World War II, CBS recruited Edmund A. Chester from his position as Bureau Chief for Latin America at Associated Press to serve as Director of Latin American Relations and Director of Short Wave Broadcasts for the CBS radio network (1940). In this capacity, Mr. Chester coordinated the development of the Network of the Americas (La Cadena de las Americas) with the Department of State, the Office for Inter-American Affairs (as chaired by Nelson Rockefeller) and Voice of America. This network provided vital news and cultural programming throughout South America and Central America during the crucial World War II era and fostered benevolent diplomatic relations between the United States of America and the less developed nations of the continent. It featured such popular radio broadcasts as Viva America [1] which showcased leading musical talent from both North and South America.

As long as radio was the dominant advertising medium, CBS dominated broadcasting. All through the 1950s and 1960s, CBS programs were often the highest-rated. A much-publicized "talent raid" on NBC in the mid-1940s brought Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen and Amos 'n' Andy into the CBS fold. Paley also was an innovator in creating original programming; since broadcasting's earliest days, time had been sold to advertising agencies in half- or full-hour blocks. The ad agencies, not the networks, would then create the program to fill the time, thus it was " 'The Johnson's Wax Program', with Fibber McGee & Molly", or " 'The Pepsodent Show', with Bob Hope." At Paley's urging, beginning in the mid-1940s, CBS began creating its own programs; among the long-running shows that came from this project were You Are There (born as CBS Was There), My Favorite Husband (starring Lucille Ball; the show proved a kind of blueprint for her big CBS television hit I Love Lucy), Our Miss Brooks (whose star, Eve Arden, was encouraged personally by Paley to try out for the title role), Gunsmoke and The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet. In time this idea was carried further, selling ad time by the minute, so ad agencies no longer had complete control over what went out over "Paley's air".

CBS moved at a deliberate pace into television; as late as 1950 it owned only one station; radio continued to be the backbone of the company. Gradually, as the television network took shape, big radio stars began to drift to television. The radio soap opera The Guiding Light moved to television in 1952 and still airs today; Burns & Allen made the move in 1950; Lucille Ball a year later; Our Miss Brooks in 1952 (though it continued simultaneously on radio for its full television life). The high-rated Jack Benny radio show ended in 1955, and Edgar Bergen's Sunday-night show went off the air in 1957. When CBS announced in 1956 that its radio operations had lost money, while the television network had made money, it was clear where the future lie. When the soap opera Ma Perkins went off the air November 25, 1960 only eight, relatively minor series remained. Prime-time radio ended on September 30, 1962 when, the legendary Suspense, aired for the final time.

After the retirement of talk-show pioneer Arthur Godfrey in 1972, CBS radio programming consisted of hourly news broadcast and an extensive schedule of news features, known in the 1970s as Dimension, and commentaries, including the well received Spectrum series of commentaries which evolved into the Point/Counterpoint feature on the television network's 60 Minutes and First Line Report, a well-regarded news and analysis feature delivered by CBS correspondents and offered to the CBS radio stations. The network also continued to offer traditional radio programming through its nightly "CBS Mystery Theater", the lone holdout of old-style programming. The CBS Radio Network continues to this day, but offers primarily its well-regarded newscasts, including its centerpiece World News Roundup in the morning and evening and news-related features like "The Osgood File" and "Harry Smith Reporting" as well as other talk properties like "Opie and Anthony"
The television years: expansion and growth
CBS's first television broadcasts were experimental, often only for one hour a day, and reaching a limited area in and around New York City (over station W2XAB channel 2, later called WCBW and finally WCBS-TV). To catch up with rival RCA, CBS bought Hytron Laboratories in 1939, and immediately moved into set production and color broadcasting. Though there were many competing patents and systems, RCA dictated the content of the FCC's technical standards, and grabbed the spotlight from CBS, DuMont and others by introducing television to the general public at the 1939 New York World's Fair. The FCC began licensing commercial television stations on July 1, 1941; the first license went to RCA and NBC's WNBT (now WNBC); the second license, issued that same day, was to WCBW, (now WCBS). CBS-Hytron offered a practical color system in 1941, but it was not compatible with the black-and-white standards set down by RCA. In time, and after considerable dithering, the FCC rejected CBS's technology in favor of that backed by RCA.

During the World War II years, commercial television broadcasting was reduced dramatically. Toward the end of the war, commercial television began to ramp up again, with an increased level of programming evident in the 1945-1947 period on the three New York television stations which operated in those years (the local stations of NBC, CBS and DuMont) But as RCA and DuMont raced to establish networks and offer upgraded programming, CBS lagged, advocating an industry-wide shift and re-start to UHF for their incompatible (with black and white) color system. Only in 1950, when NBC was dominant in television and black and white transmission was widespread, did CBS begin to buy or build their own stations (outside of New York) in Los Angeles, Chicago and other major cities. Up to that point, CBS programming was seen on such stations as KTTV Channel 11 in Los Angeles, which CBS--as a bit of insurance and to guarantee program clearance in Los Angeles--quickly purchased a 50% interest in. CBS then sold their interest in KTTV and purchased outright Los Angeles pioneer station KTSL (Channel 2) in 1950, renaming it KNXT (after sister CBS radio station KNX), later to become KCBS. The "talent raid" on NBC of the mid-forties had brought over established radio stars; they now became stars of CBS television as well. One reluctant CBS star refused to bring her radio show, "My Favorite Husband," to television unless the network would re-cast the show with her real-life husband in the lead. Paley and network president Frank Stanton had so little faith in the future of Lucille Ball's series, re-dubbed I Love Lucy, that they granted her wish and allowed the husband, Desi Arnaz, to take financial control of the production. This was the making of the Ball-Arnaz Desilu empire, and became the template for series production to this day.

In the late 1940s, CBS offered imaginative and historic live television coverage of the proceedings United Nations General Assembly(1949). This journalist tour-de-force was under the direction of Edmund A. Chester, who was appointed to the post of Director for News, Special Events and Sports at CBS Television in 1948. The broadcast clearly underscored CBS's long term commitment to excellence in broadcast journalism in the post World War II era.

As television came to the forefront of American entertainment and information, CBS dominated television as it once had radio. By the late 1950s, the network often controlled seven or eight of the slots on the "top ten" ratings list. This would continue for many years, with CBS bumped from first place only by the rise of ABC in the mid-1970s. Perhaps because of its status as the top-rated network, during the late 1960s and early 1970s CBS felt freer to gamble with controversial properties like the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and All in the Family and its many spinoffs during this period.

CBS "Eye" Logo in 1966.William Paley was a buyer of art, and a backer of New York's Museum of Modern Art. CBS offices were filled with original works. Paley shared this interest with Frank Stanton (1908-2006), CBS President (1946-1971), who carried this belief over into the design elements surrounding the network. When CBS bought Los Angeles station KNX in 1936 for a west-coast production headquarters, Frank Stanton demanded that architect William Lescaze be hired to create Columbia Square, a distinctive, modern broadcasting center on Sunset Boulevard. Similarly, when CBS commissioned Eero Saarinen to design a new corporate center in New York in the 1960s, Stanton supervised every aspect of the project, even dictating what could be displayed in employee offices and on desktops. This belief in art, graphics and branding carried over to such things as the CBS Television's logo, the unblinking eye logo (designed by William Golden and introduced in 1951). An example of CBS's graphic-design particularity: on all official CBS letterhead, a tiny dot (at most a point in diameter) was pre-printed to indicate to a secretary where the typewriter carriage should be positioned for the salutation of a letter.
Color Telecasts
Although CBS-TV was the first with a working color television system, they lost out to RCA in 1953, due in part because the CBS color system was incompatible with existing black-and-white sets. Although RCA made its color system available to the CBS, the network only televised a few specials in color for the rest of the decade. The specials included such their 1957 telecast of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, Cole Porter's Aladdin, their annual telecasts of The Wizard of Oz, and Playhouse 90's only color broadcast, the 1958 production of The Nutcracker.

By the early 1960s, CBS-TV was void of transmitting anything in color - save for a few specials and only if the sponsor would pay for it. Red Skelton was the first CBS host to telecast his weekly programs in color, using a converted movie studio, in the early 1960s; he tried unusuccessfully to persuade the network to use his facility for other programs, then was forced to sell it. Color was being pushed hard by rival NBC. Even ABC-TV had several color programs in 1962. One famous CBS-TV special made during this era was the tour of the White House with First Lady Jackie Kennedy. It was, however, shown in black-and-white. This would all change by the mid-1960s, when market pressure forced CBS-TV to add color programs to the regular schedule for the 1965-66 season. By 1969, all of CBS's TV programs were being shown in color, as they were on NBC and ABC.
The conglomerate
During the 1960s, CBS began an effort to diversify, and looked for suitable investments. In 1965 it acquired electric guitar maker Fender from Leo Fender, who agreed to sell his company due to health problems (The purchase also included that of Rhodes electric pianos, which had already been acquired by Fender). This and other acquisitions led to a restructuring of the corporation into various operating groups and divisions.

In other diversification attempts, CBS would buy (and later sell) sports teams (especially the New York Yankees baseball club), book and magazine publishers (Fawcett Publications including Woman's Day, and Holt, Rinehart and Winston), map-makers, toy manufacturers (Gabriel Toys, Child Guidance, Wonder Products), and other properties.

As William Paley aged, he tried to find the one person who could follow in his footsteps. Over the years any number of accomplished, successful businessmen were recruited, loudly praised to the press, only later to be summarily dismissed.

By the mid-1980s, the investor Laurence Tisch had begun to acquire substantial holdings in CBS. Eventually he gained Paley's confidence, and then his blessing, taking control of CBS in 1986. But Tisch had no dreams of quality or of "Tiffany" networks; he expected a return on his investment.

When CBS faltered, under-performing units were given the axe. Among the first properties to go, and among the most prestigious, was the CBS Records group, which had been part of the company since 1938. Tisch also shut down in 1986 the CBS Technology Center in Stamford, CT, which had started in New York City in the 1930s as CBS Laboratories and evolved to be the company's technology R&D unit.
CBS Records group
CBS Records was a record label group (as Columbia Records in the US and Canada) owned by CBS since 1938. CBS sold CBS Records to Sony in 1988 and the record label company was re-christened Sony Music Entertainment in 1991, as Sony had a short term license on the CBS name. Eventually the entity known as Sony Music Entertainment would become Sony BMG Music Entertainment when Sony and BMG merged in 2004.

Sony purchased from EMI its rights to the Columbia Records name outside the US, Canada and Japan. Sony BMG now uses Columbia Records as a label name in all countries except Japan.

CBS Corporation revived CBS Records in 2006.
CBS Musical Instruments division
Forming the CBS Musical Instruments division, the company also acquired Steinway pianos, Gemeinhardt flutes, Lyon & Healy harps, Rodgers (institutional) organs, Gulbransen home organs, Electro-Music Inc. (Leslie speakers), and Rogers drums. The last musical purchase was the 1981 acquisition of the assets of then-bankrupt Arp Instruments, developer of electronic synthesizers.

Between 1965 and 1985 the quality of Fender guitars and amplifiers declined significantly. Encouraged by outraged Fender fans, CBS Musical Instruments division executives executed a leveraged buyout in 1985 and created FMIC, the Fender Musical Instrument Corporation. At the same time, CBS divested itself of Rodgers, along with Steinway and Gemeinhardt, all of which were purchased by Steinway Musical Properties. The other musical instruments properties were also liquidated.
Film production
It made a brief, unsuccessful move into film production in the late 1960s, creating Cinema Center Films. This profit-free unit was shut down in 1972, today the distribution rights to the Cinema Center library rest with Paramount Pictures for home video (via CBS DVD) and theatrical release, and with CBS Paramount Television for TV distribution (most other ancillary rights remain with CBS).

Yet ten years later, CBS was talked into another try at Hollywood, in a joint venture with Columbia Pictures and HBO called Tri-Star Pictures.
Home video
CBS entered into the home video market, when joined with MGM to form MGM/CBS Home Video in 1978, but the joint venture was broken by 1983. CBS joined another studio: 20th Century Fox, to form CBS/Fox Video. CBS's duty was to release some of the movies by Tri-Star under the CBS-FOX Home Video label.
Gabriel Toys
CBS entered the video game market briefly, through its acquisition of Gabriel Toys (renamed CBS Toys), publishing several arcade adaptations and original titles under the name CBS Electronics for the Atari 2600 and other consoles and computers. CBS Electronics also distributed all Coleco-related video game products in Canada, including the ColecoVision. CBS later sold Gabriel Toys to View-Master.
New owners
By the early 1990s, profits had fallen as a result of competition from cable companies, video rentals, and the high cost of programming. CBS ratings were acceptable, but the network struggled with an image of stodginess. Laurence Tisch lost interest and sought a new buyer.
CBS's Ed Sullivan Theater in Manhattan, home to the Late Show with David Letterman.Westinghouse Electric Corporation
In 1995, Westinghouse Electric Corporation acquired CBS for $5.4 billion. As one of the major broadcasting group owners of commercial radio and television stations (as Group W) since 1920, Westinghouse sought to transition from a station operator into a major media company with its purchase of CBS. This was followed in 1997 with the $4.9-billion purchase of Infinity Broadcasting Corporation, owner of more than 150 radio stations. Also that year, Westinghouse acquired two cable channels, Gaylord's The Nashville Network (TNN), (now Spike TV), and Country Music Television (CMT). Following the Infinity purchase, the remains of the CBS Radio network was handed to Infinity 's Westwood One subsidiary. CBS also owned CBS Telenoticias, a Spanish-language news network.

Still more activity in the busy year of 1997: Westinghouse changed its name to CBS Corporation, and corporate headquarters were moved from Pittsburgh to New York. And to underline the change in emphasis, all non-entertainment assets were put up for sale. Another 90 radio stations were added to Infinity's portfolio in 1998 with the acquisition of American Radio Systems Corporation for $2.6 billion.

A year later CBS paid $2.5 billion to acquire King World Productions, a television syndication company whose programs include The Oprah Winfrey Show and Wheel of Fortune. By 1999, all pre-CBS elements of Westinghouse's industrial past were gone.
Viacom
CBS had become a broadcasting giant and in 1999, entertainment conglomerate Viacom, a company long-before created to syndicate old CBS series, announced its was taking over CBS in a deal valued at $37 billion. Following completion of this effort in 2000, Viacom was ranked as the second-largest entertainment company in the world.
CBS Corporation and CBS Studios
Having assembled all the elements of a communications empire, Viacom found that the promised synergy was not there, and at the end of 2005 it split itself in two. CBS became the center of a new company, CBS Corporation, which included the broadcasting elements, Paramount Television's production operations (renamed CBS Paramount Television), Viacom Outdoor advertising (renamed CBS Outdoor), Showtime, Simon & Schuster, and Paramount Parks, which the company sold in May 2006.

The second company, keeping the Viacom name, kept Paramount Pictures (ironically a former share holder in CBS, see above, also owned a stake in the DuMont Television Network, whose Pittsburgh O&O is now CBS-owned KDKA-TV), assorted MTV Networks, BET, and, until May 2007, Famous Music, which was sold to Sony-ATV Music Publishing.

As a result of the aforementioned Viacom/CBS corporate split, as well as other acquisitions over recent years, CBS (under the moniker CBS Studios) owns a massive television library spanning over six decades, including I Love Lucy, The Twilight Zone, The Honeymooners, Hawaii Five-O, Gunsmoke, The Fugitive, Little House on the Prairie, Star Trek, The Brady Bunch, and , among others.

Both CBS Corporation and the new Viacom are still owned by Sumner Redstone's company, National Amusements. Corporate tidbitsA.C. Nielsen estimated in 2003 that CBS can be seen in 96.98% of all American households, reaching 103,421,270 homes in the United States. CBS has 204 VHF and UHF affiliated stations in the U.S. and U.S. possessions. CBS is currently the most watched television network in the United States, with the prime draws being the and Survivor franchises. Logos

CBS unveiled its Eye Device logo on October 17, 1951. Prior to that, from the 1940s through 1951, CBS Television used an oval spotlight on the block letters C-B-S. See an illustration of this early logo at [2] The Eye device was conceived by William Golden based on a Pennsylvania Dutch hex sign as well as a Shaker drawing. Possibly designed by Graphic Designer Georg Olden it made its broadcasting debut on October 20, 1951. The following season, as Golden prepared a new ident, CBS President Frank Stanton insisted on keeping the Eye device and using it as much as possible.

CBS' older logo, with Times New Roman-like font letteringAn example of CBS Television Network's imaging (and the distinction between the television and radio networks) may be seen in a video of the Jack Benny Program (undated) which aired on the television network. The video appears to be converted from kinescope, and "unscoped" or unedited. One sees the program as very nearly one would have seen it on live television. Don Wilson is the program announcer, but also voices a promo for "Private Secretary", which alternated weekly with Jack Benny on the television network schedule. Benny continued to appear on CBS radio and television at that time, and Wilson makes a promo announcement at the end of the broadcast for Benny's radio program on the CBS Radio Network. The program closes with the "CBS Television Network" ID slide (the "CBS eye" over a field of clouds with the words "CBS Television Network" superimposed over the eye). There is, however, no voiceover accompanying the ID slide. It is unclear whether it was simply absent from the recording or never originally broadcast. See the video at The Jack Benny Program

The CBS eye is now an American icon. While the symbol's settings have changed, the Eye device itself has not been redesigned in its entire history. It has frequently been copied or borrowed by television networks around the world, notable examples being the Austrian Broadcasting System (Österreichischer Rundfunk) which uses a red version of the eye logo and Associated TeleVision in the United Kingdom. The logo is alternately known as the Eyemark, which was also the name of CBS's domestic and international syndication divisions in the mid to late 90s before the King World acquisition and Viacom merger. ProgrammingCBS presently operates on an 87½-hour regular network programming schedule. It provides 22 hours of prime time programming to affiliated stations: 8-11pm Monday to Saturday (all times ET/PT) and 7-11pm on Sundays. Programming will also be provided 11am-4pm weekdays (The Price Is Right and soaps The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, As the World Turns and Guiding Light); 7-9am weekdays and Saturdays (The Early Show); CBS News Sunday Morning, nightly editions of the CBS Evening News, the Sunday political talk show Face the Nation, a 2½-hour early morning news program Up to the Minute and CBS Morning News; the late night talk shows Late Show with David Letterman and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson; and a three-hour Saturday morning live-action/animation block under the name KOL Secret Slumber Party on CBS.

In addition, sports programming routinely appears on the weekends, although with a somewhat unpredictable schedule (mostly between noon and 7 p.m. ET).
Prime time
Further information: List of programs broadcast by CBS

2009-09-18T03:54:00.000-07:00

Taking showers 'can make you ill'
Showering may be bad for your health, say US scientists, who have shown that dirty shower heads can deliver a face full of harmful bacteria.

Tests revealed nearly a third of devices harbour significant levels of a bug that causes lung disease.

Levels of Mycobacterium avium were 100 times higher than those found in typical household water supplies.

M. avium forms a biofilm that clings to the inside of the shower head, reports the National Academy of Science.

“ If you are getting a face full of water when you first turn your shower on, that means you are probably getting a particularly high load of Mycobacterium avium, which may not be too healthy ”
Researcher Professor Norman Pace
In the Proceedings journal, the study authors say their findings might explain why there have been more cases of these lung infections in recent years, linked with people tending to take more showers and fewer baths.

Water spurting from shower heads can distribute bacteria-filled droplets that suspend themselves in the air and can easily be inhaled into the deepest parts of the lungs, say the scientists from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Potential threat

Lead researcher Professor Norman Pace, said: "If you are getting a face full of water when you first turn your shower on, that means you are probably getting a particularly high load of Mycobacterium avium, which may not be too healthy."

While it is rarely a problem for most healthy people, those with weakened immune systems, like the elderly, pregnant women or those who are fighting off other diseases, can be susceptible to infection.

They may develop lung infection with M. avium and experience symptoms including tiredness, a persistent, dry cough, shortness of breath and weakness, and generally feel unwell.

When the researchers swabbed and tested 50 shower heads from nine cities in seven different states in the US, including New York City and Denver, they found 30% of the devices posed a potential risk.

Since plastic shower heads appear to "load up" with more bacteria-rich biofilms, metal shower heads may be a good alternative, said Professor Pace.

Showers have also been identified as a route for spreading other infectious diseases, including a type of pneumonia called Legionnaires' disease and chest infections with a bacterium called Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Hot tubs and spa pools carry a similar infection risk, according to the Health Protection Agency.

A HPA spokesperson said: "This is an interesting paper which provides further information about the occurrence of opportunist organisms - germs which do not usually cause infections in humans - in the environment.

"These bacteria, which belong to the same family as TB, can be found in the environment and occasionally in water supplies but rarely cause disease in healthy people.

"Further work will need to look at whether finding these organisms is associated with any increased risk of infection."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/8254206.stm

Published: 2009/09/14 23:06:26 GMT

© BBC MMIX

2009-08-13T09:48:00.000-07:00

Denver (IFS) - Gov. Palin, I love you too. But you still can't have my beer!!" - KHS

Palin doubles down on 'death panels'

Andy Barr Andy Barr Thu Aug 13, 8:05 am ET

Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin defended her claim that the Democratic health care proposal would create “death panels” in a statement Wednesday night slamming President Barack Obama.

“Yesterday President Obama responded to my statement that Democratic health care proposals would lead to rationed care; that the sick, the elderly and the disabled would suffer the most under such rationing; and that under such a system, these ‘unproductive’ members of society could face the prospect of government bureaucrats determining whether they deserve health care,” Palin wrote in a note on her Facebook page.

“The provision that President Obama refers to is Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled ‘Advance Care Planning Consultation.’ With all due respect, it’s misleading for the president to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients,” she continued.

“Section 1233 authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often ‘if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual ... or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility... or a hospice program.’"

The White House and Democratic lawmakers have blasted Palin in recent days for suggesting that her own son, Trig, would have had to face a bureaucratic panel to get access to health care under the provision in the House health care proposal because he was born with Down syndrome.

“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil,” Palin wrote last week.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs identified Palin on Wednesday as one of the GOP leaders he says is spreading “wrong” information about the health care debate.

Additionally, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is using Palin’s “death panels” claim in a fundraising plea to supporters, calling the former governor’s statement “disgusting” and “outrageous.”

But Palin seemed undeterred in her latest statement, pointing to columns by The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson and others to support her suggestion last week that the Democratic proposal is “Orwellian.”

“President Obama can try to gloss over the effects of government authorized end-of-life consultations, but the views of one of his top health care advisers are clear enough,” Palin wrote. “It’s all just more evidence that the Democratic legislative proposals will lead to health care rationing, and more evidence that the top-down plans of government bureaucrats will never result in real health care reform.”

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2009-08-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

Char Brozovich - The taking of a child in the name of CPS

LAKEWOOD, CO - (IFS) The year was 2004, when then Child Protective Services agent Charmaine Brozovich decided that it was in the best interest of Jefferson County to take the twin daughters of Donna Demok, because alledgedly the children were being abused and neglected by the mother. After the twins were taken away, more lies by Agent Brozovich to the little children that their mother had committed a bank robbery and was in prison for fifteen years.

This was the story that the children got from Jefferson County. In 2007, after several years, the twins were offically adopted by a family called Smith in Conifer, Colorado. The mother was never charged with anything that the Agent Brozovich claimed that Ms. Demok did. She legally kidnapped the twins.

Now that it's 2009, the kids wants to get back with their real family members, and they have very negative feelings for Jefferson County CPS units along with Agent Brozovich who instigated this action.

The twins, in the hands of Jeffco County have been arrested three times, got lots of tattooes, piercings, takes a variety of drugs and have dropped out of school. Brozovich managed to turn two lovely young women into whores and sweet walkers--all in the name of Jefferson County CPS units.

The kids are now having contact with their real family members and they have tails of horrible stories at the hands of Jeffco CPS. They now want to come back home -- but they are still at the ages of 17 years old, legally adopted to another family, but one of the twins is talking and have little if any good words for the CPS and Agent Brozovich who lied right from the start to take the kids.

And the kids played right into their hands with lies and false stories that were transplanted into their little heads by CPS. As for Charmaine Brozovich, I pray that she will burn in hell. She currently works for Creative Adoptive Services in Littleton, Colorado. I wonder why she left CPS in Jefferson County?

It will be very hard for these young ladies to ever believe in authority again, and they have little trust in the system. These kids will be rebels with a cause for the rest of their lives, thanks to Charmaine Brozovich --- how many childrens' lives have you ruined this year?

2009-06-25T10:51:00.000-07:00

'Charlie's Angel' Farrah Fawcett dies at 62

By BOB THOMAS, AP

Thu Jun 25, 1:29 PM EDT

Farrah Fawcett, the "Charlie's Angels" star whose feathered blond hair and dazzling smile made her one of the biggest sex symbols of the 1970s, died Thursday after battling cancer. She was 62.
The pop icon, who in the 1980s set aside the fantasy girl image to tackle serious roles, died shortly before 9:30 a.m. in a Santa Monica hospital, spokesman Paul Bloch said.
Ryan O'Neal, the longtime companion who had reunited with Fawcett as she fought anal cancer, was at her side, along with close friend Alana Stewart, Bloch said.
"After a long and brave battle with cancer, our beloved Farrah has passed away," O'Neal said. "Although this is an extremely difficult time for her family and friends, we take comfort in the beautiful times that we shared with Farrah over the years and the knowledge that her life brought joy to so many people around the world."
She burst on the scene in 1976 as one-third of the crime-fighting trio in TV's "Charlie's Angels." A poster of her in a clingy swimsuit sold in the millions.
She left the show after one season but had a flop on the big screen with "Somebody Killed Her Husband." She turned to more serious roles in the 1980s and 1990s, winning praise playing an abused wife in "The Burning Bed."
She had been diagnosed with cancer in 2006. As she underwent treatment, she enlisted the help of O'Neal, who was the father of her now 24-year-old son, Redmond.
This month, O'Neal said he asked Fawcett to marry him and she agreed. They would wed "as soon as she can say yes," he said.
Her struggle with painful treatments and dispiriting setbacks was recorded in the television documentary "Farrah's Story." Fawcett sought cures in Germany as well as the United States, battling the disease with iron determination even as her body weakened.
"Her big message to people is don't give up, no matter what they say to you, keep fighting," her friend Stewart said. NBC estimated the May 15, 2009, broadcast drew nearly 9 million viewers.
In the documentary, Fawcett was seen shaving off most of her trademark locks before chemotherapy could claim them. Toward the end, she's seen huddled in bed, barely responding to a visit from her son.
Fawcett, Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith made up the original "Angels," the sexy, police-trained trio of martial arts experts who took their assignments from a rich, mysterious boss named Charlie (John Forsythe, who was never seen on camera but whose distinctive voice was heard on speaker phone.)
The program debuted in September 1976, the height of what some critics derisively referred to as television's "jiggle show" era, and it gave each of the actresses ample opportunity to show off their figures as they disguised themselves in bathing suits and as hookers and strippers to solve crimes.
Backed by a clever publicity campaign, Fawcett — then billed as Farrah Fawcett-Majors because of her marriage to "The Six Million Dollar Man" star Lee Majors — quickly became the most popular Angel of all.
Her face helped sell T-shirts, lunch boxes, shampoo, wigs and even a novelty plumbing device called Farrah's faucet. Her flowing blond hair, pearly white smile and trim, shapely body made her a favorite with male viewers in particular.
A poster of her in a dampened red swimsuit sold millions of copies and became a ubiquitous wall decoration in teenagers' rooms.
Thus the public and the show's producer, Spelling-Goldberg, were shocked when she announced after the series' first season that she was leaving television's No. 5-rated series to star in feature films. (Cheryl Ladd became the new "Angel" on the series.)
But the movies turned out to be a platform where Fawcett was never able to duplicate her TV success. Her first star vehicle, the comedy-mystery "Somebody Killed Her Husband," flopped and Hollywood cynics cracked that it should have been titled "Somebody Killed Her Career."
The actress had also been in line to star in "Foul Play" for Columbia Pictures. But the studio opted for Goldie Hawn instead. "Spelling-Goldberg warned all the studios that that they would be sued for damages if they employed me," Fawcett told The Associated Press in 1979. "The studios wouldn't touch me."
She finally reached an agreement to appear in three episodes of "Charlie's Angels" a season, an experience she called "painful."
She returned to making movies, including the futuristic thriller "Logan's Run," the comedy-thriller "Sunburn" and the strange sci-fi tale "Saturn 3," but none clicked with the public.
Fawcett fared better with television movies such as "Murder in Texas," "Poor Little Rich Girl" and especially as an abused wife in 1984's "The Burning Bed." The last earned her an Emmy nomination and the long-denied admission from critics that she really could act.
As further proof of her acting credentials, Fawcett appeared off-Broadway in "Extremities" as a woman who is raped in her own home. She repeated the role in the 1986 film version.
Not content to continue playing victims, she switched type. She played a murderous mother in the 1989 true-crime story "Small Sacrifices" and a tough lawyer on the trail of a thief in 1992's "Criminal Behavior."
She also starred in biographies of Nazi-hunter Beate Klarsfeld and photographer Margaret Bourke-White.
"I felt that I was doing a disservice to ourselves by portraying only women as victims," she commented in a 1992 interview.
In 1995, at age 50, Fawcett posed partly nude for Playboy magazine. The following year, she starred in a Playboy video, "All of Me," in which she was equally unclothed while she sculpted and painted.
She told an interviewer she considered the experience "a renaissance," adding, "I no longer feel ... restrictions emotionally, artistically, creatively or in my everyday life. I don't feel those borders anymore."
Fawcett's most unfortunate career moment may have been a 1997 appearance on David Letterman's show, when her disjointed, rambling answers led many to speculate that she was on drugs. She denied that, blaming her strange behavior on questionable advice from her mother to be playful and have a good time.
In September 2006, Fawcett, who at 59 still maintained a strict regimen of tennis and paddleball, began to feel strangely exhausted. She underwent two weeks of tests and was told the devastating news: She had anal cancer.
O'Neal, with whom she had a 17-year relationship, again became her constant companion, escorting her to the hospital for chemotherapy.
"She's so strong," the actor told a reporter. "I love her. I love her all over again."
She struggled to maintain her privacy, but a UCLA Medical Center employee pleaded guilty in late 2008 to violating federal medical privacy law for commercial purposes for selling records of Fawcett and other celebrities to the National Enquirer.
"It's much easier to go through something and deal with it without being under a microscope," she told the Los Angeles Times in an interview in which she also revealed that she helped set up a sting that led to the hospital worker's arrest.
Her decision to tell her own story through the NBC documentary was meant as an inspiration to others, friends said. The segments showing her cancer treatment, including a trip to Germany for procedures there, were originally shot for a personal, family record, they said. And although weak, she continued to show flashes of grit and good humor in the documentary.
"I do not want to die of this disease. So I say to God, `It is seriously time for a miracle,'" she said at one point.
Born Feb. 2, 1947, in Corpus Christi, Texas, she was named Mary Farrah Leni Fawcett by her mother, who said she added the Farrah because it sounded good with Fawcett. She was less than a month old when she underwent surgery to remove a digestive tract tumor with which she was born.
After attending Roman Catholic grade school and W.B. Ray High School, Fawcett enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin. Fellow students voted her one of the 10 most beautiful people on the campus and her photos were eventually spotted by movie publicist David Mirisch, who suggested she pursue a film career. After overcoming her parents' objections, she agreed.
Soon she was appearing in such TV shows as "That Girl," "The Flying Nun," "I Dream of Jeannie" and "The Partridge Family."
Majors became both her boyfriend and her adviser on career matters, and they married in 1973. She dropped his last name from hers after they divorced in 1982.
By then she had already begun her long relationship with O'Neal. Both Redmond and Ryan O'Neal have grappled with drug and legal problems in recent years.

2009-06-22T06:14:00.000-07:00

Discount Laptop Batteries: The "Refurbished" Laptop Battery Myth

DENVER (IFS) - If you have to purchase a battery for any of your devices, please read this. - KHS

Some laptop battery vendors offer refurbished discount laptop batteries for sale, claiming that most or all of the useful life of the laptop battery has been restored. Why would customers take the risk? Price. Refurbished items are generally cheap laptop batteries that are sold at a fraction of the cost of a new laptop battery.Unfortunately, their true worth is essentially zero. The reality is that refurbished, cheap laptop batteries don't exist. Though technically possible, the process of refurbishing a laptop battery costs more than manufacturing a new one. The internal impedance of each lithium ion cell in a laptop battery pack must be matched precisely, and there are only a few manufacturers (mostly in Japan) who have the technical expertise required. By the time a skilled technician disassembles, tests, and reassembles a laptop battery, the cost is prohibitive - and that's before the laptop battery is shipped across the Pacific and back.So what are these so-called "refurbished" discount laptop batteries? They're simply used laptop batteries that have been pulled from older laptops. The problem with old, cheap laptop batteries is that you don't know how much life they have left. All Lithium ion cells offer a maximum of 600 to 800 charge/discharge cycles over 1½ to 3 years of useful life. It's impossible to know how many cycles - and months - have passed since a particular used laptop battery was built, but one should probably assume the worst. In fact, that's just what the sellers of refurbished, cheap laptop batteries do - they generally warranty their discount laptop batteries for just three months.Sadly, we've heard stories from customers who don't even get that level of warranty protection. It seems that some refurbished laptop battery vendors have such low margins and order volumes that they can't afford to handle warranty replacements. For that reason, we strongly advise all consumers to buy new discount laptop batteries - even if it's not from us!If you do choose to buy a used laptop battery, at the very least make sure that your vendor is a member of the Better Business Bureau or some other organization that enforces honest business practices among its members. If you're thinking of buying a laptop battery from a private party on an online auction site such as eBay, make sure you review any available feedback to see how other customers fared.Over time, we expect that consumer awareness will grow to the point that the market for "refurbished", cheap laptop batteries will die off.

2009-06-12T05:51:00.000-07:00

Denver (IFS) - Karen Parker, Pine Hill School District's high school counselor, was so excited when she got a call from AJ's mother telling her that AJ was drafted by MLB again. The look in Ms. Parker's face was worth more than words could ever say, as one of her students made that "big league". It's as if, only yesterday that I saw several of my high school friends drafted to the majors when I was a kid. I remember Mike Bergen, then a Senior getting drafted number #1 by the New York Mets and his contract for for $100,000 (big money in the 1960's). Or Jimmy Johnson and Reggie Graves from Rosamond High School in California to the Houston Astros and better yet, Jim Slaton from Antelope Valley College in Lancaster, California who played for many years with the Brewers, or Dwight and Dewayne Murphy to the Oakland A's and the Detroit Tigers. As for myself, I only got a chance to tryout for the Denver Broncos as a special teams player and I didn't even make the team -- only for nine weeks -- that was my career in pro sports, and it was very exciting back in those days. Oh well those were my days as a kid. But these days, the talent is spread across many areas and schools. Karen Parker, school counselor at Overbrook Senior High School in Pine Hill, New Jersey who was AJ's biggest fan and his counselor -- just got the news from AJ's mother by phone, that AJ was drafted to the Chicago White Sox from the University of Maryland. This is the second time that AJ has been picked by the majors, and this time, he's headed to MLB camp with the pros. Talking to Ms. Parker, she was so excited for AJ as he was a very good student and a very hard worker over the years to get to this point. AJ sacrificed many hours -- right along with his parents that got him to many try-outs and contests over the years. Ms. Parker would tell me of the times that she would run "administrative roadblocks" to help AJ and his family get to these important events, when know one else believed he even had a chance. He is a great inspiration to his old high school for kids to follow for years to come. More than that AJ is a wonderful, warm and caring person and a good citizen. I am so glad that I got a chance to witness this wonderful day for him and see him in several games his first year at Maryland, as I would drive Ms. Parker to Maryland to see his home games there. Way to go AJ. - KHS

Baseball: Casario to White Sox
Posted By Kevin Minnick On June 11, 2009 @ 2:44 pm

A.J. Casario, an Overbrook graduate who just wrapped up his junior year at the University of Maryland, was taken by the Chicago White Sox in the 38th round of Major League Baseball’s First-Year Player Draft. He was the 1,153rd overall pick. Casario, who was drafted in the 27th round by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2006 draft our of high school.

The spring, the outfielder batted .319 for the Terps with 10 doubles, one triple, 10 home runs and a team-leading 45 RBIs. He posted a .522 slugging percentage, a .409 on-base percentage and stole 12 of 15 bases.

2009-05-29T08:59:00.000-07:00

Cover Story May 28, 2009, 5:00PM EST

Ursula Burns: An Historic Succession at Xerox

One female CEO will hand over the reins to another—a first for a major company. But Burns has her work cut out for her

By Nanette Byrnes and Roger O. Crockett

Ursula M. Burns isn't one to savor victory—even if it's being the first African American woman to lead a major U.S. corporation and the first female CEO to take the reins from another woman. Within days of being named chief executive of Xerox (XRX) she was on a plane to Europe. The mission: a 30-day tour to meet with staff outside the U.S., where Xerox has almost half its sales, and discuss ways to get customers buying again. "I think the celebration of her announcement ended about 60 seconds after the e-mail went out," says Clarke Murphy, a recruiter at Russell Reynolds.

Burns, 50, has a war to fight. Xerox, a brand so synonymous with copying that its name long ago became a verb, faces a brutal business outlook. Customers are buying less equipment. Prices keep dropping. Managers are curbing paper use for cost-saving and environmental reasons. While departing CEO Anne M. Mulcahy, 56, pulled the $17.6 billion-a-year copier giant from the brink of bankruptcy and restored profitability, her successor has much to do. Burns will find herself battling competitors with stronger balance sheets and more heft as the industry consolidates. The Norwalk (Conn.) company's sales dropped 18% in the first quarter, to $3.6 billion, producing a profit of only $49 million. The stock, trading at more than 14 a share in September, is now less than half that.

And yet expectations are high as Burns ascends to the CEO post. Executives inside and outside the company speak of her deep industry knowledge and technical prowess, as well as her frankness, sharp humor, and willingness to take risks. For many working mothers, it's inspiring to see Mulcahy, a mother of two grown sons, step down in favor of a woman who has a 16-year-old daughter and 20-year-old stepson—and was herself raised by a single mother in a New York City housing project. "This is a bases-loaded home run," says Noel M. Tichy, a professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. "We now have something to share with our MBA females that we've never had." Adds Robert A. McDonald, chief operating officer of Procter & Gamble (PG) and a Xerox board member since 2005: "Ursula is a strong leader who has an unusual ability to understand the power of technology and innovation."

The excitement is understandable. Three decades after women flooded into professional jobs, the C-suite continues to be dominated by men. While women now make up 59.6% of the U.S. labor force, fewer than 16% of top corporate officers are female, according to Catalyst, an advocacy group that tracks women's advancement in the workplace. For minorities, the figures are even worse. Avon (AVP) CEO Andrea Jung became the first nonwhite woman to lead a major company in 1999. Frank D. Raines, former chief of Fannie Mae (FNM), became the first African American CEO of a top company the same year, though he later left amid an accounting scandal. By 2007, there were seven black men running major corporations. Since then, three have left. While other black women have run major divisions, Burns is the first to lead a large public company.

"CLASSIC NEW YORKER"

A mechanical engineer by training, Burns has a strong understanding of the business and its challenges. Like Mulcahy, she's a Xerox veteran. She came to the company as a summer intern in 1980, joining full-time a year later after completing her master's degree in engineering at Columbia University. Xerox was drifting at the time, having largely ignored the threat posed by Japanese copiers and new office printers, while failing to get innovative products to market. She took on roles of increasing responsibility, distinguishing herself as a quick study who could handle multiple tasks at once and wasn't afraid to flag a problem. "Ursula is your classic New Yorker," says Christa Carone, Xerox's vice-president for marketing and communications. "She's known for being very frank."

Reginald L. Brown Jr., CEO of consultancy Brown Technology Group, says many colleagues saw her as CEO material almost two decades ago. Brown began working with Burns in the late 1980s in Xerox's custom systems division, which helped clients switch from standard copier machines to ones that could be integrated with computer networks. When Burns was appointed special assistant to Wayland Hicks, then president of marketing and customer operations, in 1990, everyone knew she was on the fast track. "These were jobs in the company that division presidents put their best people in," says Brown. "Most of them were white males, so to have an African American female in such a position of power, you knew early on she had great potential." She later took on a similar role with then-CEO Paul A. Allaire. Appointed general manager in 1997 and vice-president for worldwide manufacturing two years later, Burns helped lead a push into color copying.

But the overall business continued to struggle. By the time Mulcahy took over as CEO in 2001, Xerox was in deep trouble. Customers had migrated from Xerox's stand-alone copiers to using cheaper desktop printers to get multiple copies of documents. Rivals such as Canon and Hewlett-Packard had stolen the lead in key product areas, and the company had pulled down almost its entire credit line as the business hemorrhaged money.

Early in Mulcahy's tenure, she forged a partnership with Burns. Over time, she entrusted her lieutenant with much of the day-to-day operations while she focused on improving customer service and Xerox's financial health. Mulcahy oversaw major moves such as shedding the desktop printer business while trying to get the balance sheet in shape.

All the while, Tichy observes, Burns was the one who was "clearly running the majority of the business." With the company in crisis, she helped downsize the workforce by close to 40%, to 57,100 from 94,600. She spearheaded Xerox's move out of manufacturing, with Flextronics (FLEX) now making most of the actual copiers. Burns, who was named president in 2007, also identified some gaps in its offerings, filling them with lower-end products from Xerox or partners. That has given the company its largest product portfolio in history and allowed it to be more competitive in selling to small and midsize businesses. And she has proven adept at garnering the support of the board. "She understands the technology and can communicate it in a way that a director can understand it," says P&G's McDonald.

Another factor in Burns' rise has been the strength and depth of Xerox's commitment to diversity. One-third of Xerox's 3,819 executives are women and 22% are minorities. Employee affinity networks first sprang up in the late 1960s, and senior executives have long had responsibility for sponsoring them. Burns was a liaison to the Hispanic employees' caucus. "It was a system that allowed you to be recognized" at a time when women and minorities often weren't, notes Nina Smith, who moved up the ranks at Xerox at much the same time as Burns, eventually becoming chief marketing officer. She's now a senior vice-president at IT consultant Mitchell International.

Much of what Xerox does is now replicated in other companies: an Executive Diversity Council, leadership programs, and performance reviews that rate managers on their ability to recruit, mentor, and promote underrepresented groups. (If they don't hit the mark, their review, pay, and chances at promotion get dinged.) What has distinguished Xerox is less the outline of its programs than the actual makeup of its senior ranks. As Harvard Business School professor David A. Thomas observes: "You have a culture where having women and people of color as candidates for powerful jobs has been going on for two decades."

Now, Burns' toughest job will be restoring the company's top-line growth. Equipment sales were down 30% in the first quarter. And once fast-growing developing markets, which make up 15% of sales, have slowed to a crawl with demand in countries such as Russia off 33%. While analyst Richard Gardner of Citigroup Global Markets argues that the company's strength in color printing and recent acquisitions should help it rebuild, he expects a steep dip in sales this year, to $14.7 billion.

Xerox says its investment in innovative products will help it emerge from the recession stronger. But Gartner Group says it expects corporate purchases of copiers, printers, and other hardware to remain flat through 2012 while prices will continue to slide. And Fitch Ratings put Xerox's $9 billion in BBB-rated debt on a negative outlook after the first-quarter numbers came in. "Will they be able to make acquisitions?" asks Fitch analyst Nick N. Nilarp. "Or will they just continue very slow growth, if at all?"

In the short term, analysts hope Burns will focus on reviving sales in emerging markets while continuing to expand into higher-margin services at home. And Xerox needs to be more efficient to compete against aggressive and deep-pocketed competitors.

While Burns has much to do to rebuild Xerox's strength, she's aware of the significance of what she has already achieved. As president, she once told an audience at the YWCA in Cleveland: "I'm in this job because I believe I earned it through hard work and high performance. Did I get some opportunities early in my career because of my race and gender? Probably. ... I went to work for a company that was openly seeking to diversify its workforce. So, I imagine race and gender got the hiring guys' attention. And then the rest was really up to me."

With Jena McGregor

Business Exchange: Read, save, and add content on BW's new Web 2.0 topic network

More Equal, Less Happy?

A new gender gap is emerging. Despite considerable progress in areas such as educational attainment, career opportunities, and pay, American women report declining levels of happiness, while men say their well-being has improved. That's the surprising finding of a pair of Wharton School economists who combed through three decades' worth of studies on the subject.

To view their research paper, go to bx.businessweek.com/work-life-balance/reference/

Byrnes is a senior writer for BusinessWeek in New York. Crockett is deputy manager of BusinessWeek's Chicago bureau.

2009-05-24T19:19:00.001-07:00

Joke Of The Day:

Get a glimpse into life far into the future, in the year 2056...
Ozone created by electric cars now killing millions in the seventh largest country in the world, Mexifornia, formally known as California.
Couple petitions court to reinstate heterosexual marriage.
Last remaining Fundamentalist Muslim dies in the American Territory of the Middle East (formerly known as Iran, Afghanistan, Syria and Lebanon).
Iran still closed off; physicists estimate it will take at least 10 more years before radioactivity decreases to safe levels.
George Z. Bush says he will run for President in 2058.
Postal Service raises price of first class stamp to $17.89 and reduces mail delivery to Wednesdays only.
85-year, $75.8 billion study: Diet and Exercise are the keys to weight loss.
Average weight of Americans drops to 250 lbs.
Japanese scientists have created a camera with such a fast shutter speed, they now can photograph a woman with her mouth shut.
Massachusetts executes last remaining conservative.
Supreme Court rules punishment of criminals violates their civil rights.
Average height of NBA players now nine feet, seven inches.
New federal law requires that all nail clippers, screwdrivers, fly swatters and rolled-up newspapers must be registered by January 2057.
Congress authorizes direct deposit of formerly illegal political contributions to campaign accounts.
IRS sets lowest tax rate at 75 percent.
Spotted Owl plague threatens northwestern United States crops and livestock.
Baby conceived naturally . . . scientists stumped!
Florida voters still don't know how to use a voting machine

2009-03-18T10:36:00.000-07:00

DENVER (IFS) - Black Hills Energy purchased all the rights to Aquila Energy. Their name should be called "Back Hills" Energy. At present they rob Elbert County of $1.7 Million a month for their natural gas products. An average cost of natural gas is more than $4.20 per cubic gallon here. If one has a 60 gallon water heating tank that's on the "vacation" sitting, and a forced air unit that is set at 66 Degrees, this should not cost anymore than $66.00 per month. But in Elbert County, this company charges $113.21 per month. What if one really used their natural gas for cooking, heating the house and the hot water heater set to normal? The average cost would be $273.00 per month according to "Back Hills".

As gas prices has gone down lately, "Back Hills" unfortunately still keeps it's prices at the higher level for the consumer. They say, "we are working toward a "gradual" adjustment of the costs to each of our customers.

What this really means, is that we will slowly screw you into the dirt and will not push for any saving for you. "Back Hills" really enjoy the high prices and they know they are the only game in the county and enjoy putting the screws to each of it's customers.

They end their pitiful consumer letter by saying, "Thank you for taking the time to consider what we know can be a complicated issue."

2009-03-16T17:46:00.000-07:00

DENVER, Colo. - If you have ever been caught up in the California legal system, you will find that they are far behind the times in updating their information systems. These people are totally incompenate and lie between their teeth when they are wrong. The California legal departments attitude is always blame the other guy, even when they break into your house illegally -- taking lives and property. In was not that long ago, when the FBI took over the Police Deparmtnet in Hollywood 's West divison, because the cops were stealing. So when it comes to the Los Angeles Policeand the Judges that ran this corrupt place -- their best defense for causing hell -- is blame the other guy. So Lindsay darling. -- You are it!! Even thought you were right and obeyed their stupid little rules. You are still guilty, no matter what. So if your were arrested and tossed into jail, but later they find that you were not wanted and a mistake had been made -- it doesn't matter. The judicial system in Los Angeles County sucks and needs to be destroyed. - KHS

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Lindsay Lohan 's next appearance won't be in jail garb.
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge on Monday quashed an arrest warrant for the 22-year-old " Mean Girls " star.
Judge Marsha N. Revel told Lohan's attorney that the actress has been complying with the terms of her probation but needs to show her treatment program better documentation to avoid future court problems. The judge also noted that Lohan has not failed any drug or alcohol tests.
The warrant was issued on Friday for Lohan's arrest, although the actress' attorney says it stems from a misunderstanding.
Lohan pleaded guilty in August 2007 to two misdemeanor counts of being under the influence of cocaine; no contest to two counts of driving with a blood-alcohol level above 0.08 percent and one count of reckless driving .
Lohan spent 84 minutes in jail and had to perform community service and undergo drug-rehabilitation treatment.

2009-02-17T08:34:00.000-08:00

Acclaimed jazz drummer Louis Bellson dies at 84

LOS ANGELES – Big band and jazz drummer Louie Bellson, a master musician who performed with such greats as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman and his late wife, Pearl Bailey, has died. He was 84.

Bellson died Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications of Parkinson's disease following a broken hip in November, according to his wife, Francine.
Bellson's career spanned more than six decades, performing on more than 200 albums with jazz greats including Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Oscar Peterson, Woody Herman, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong.

It was through Ellington that he met Bailey, the great singer and Broadway performer. They married in 1952, and when she died in 1990 at age 72, he told the Philadelphia Daily News that "I just lost my best friend."

He was designated as a "master of jazz" in 1994 by the National Endowment for the Arts, which said he "ranks among the foremost big-band drummers of the swing and post-swing eras and is best known for his precise technique and the invention of two pedal-operated bass drums."
Bellson wrote more than 1,000 compositions and arrangements in several genres, including jazz, swing, orchestral suites, symphonic works and ballets. As an author, he published more than a dozen books on drums and percussion.

His final recording, "Louie & Clark Expedition 2" with trumpeter Clark Terry, was released last year.

Bellson was born in 1924 in Rock Falls, Ill., son of Italian immigrants whose family name was originally Balassoni. He told Jazz Connection, an Internet magazine, that he was entranced by the sound of drums when his father took him to a parade when he was 3. His father, who eventually opened a music store, taught his son to play drums and other instruments.
Bellson was still in his teens when he pioneered the double bass drum set-up, and two years later he went on to win the Slingerland National Gene Krupa drumming contest.

"I've been of the opinion that all a drummer really needs is one bass drum, a snare drum, some tom-toms, a ride cymbal, a crash cymbal, sticks and brushes," Bellson told Jazz Connection. "If you can't do it with that, you better go back to the drawing board. The extra bass drum is frosting on the cake. It doesn't mean that every drummer needs to play two bass drums. For me, it works."

There are tentative plans for a Los Angeles-area memorial service, followed by a funeral and burial in his boyhood home of Moline, Ill., according to his Web site.
___
On the Net:
http://www.louiebellson.info

2009-02-05T11:10:00.000-08:00

Bernie Madoff's Victims: The List
Henry Blodget Dec 23, 08 2:59 PM

UPDATE: On Feb 4, 2009, the bankruptcy court published an official list of Madoff "customers." You can read it here >

EARLIER: Word on the identities of Bernie Madoff's clients / victimes continues to emerge. The total losses reported so far add up to about $30 billion. Please add new names to comments (or via email to hblodget@alleyinsider.com).

Text list below. ALSO SEE THE SLIDESHOW >

Bernie Madoff's Victims (So Far)

HSBC "has emerged as one the largest victims of Bernard Madoff’s alleged fraud with potential exposure of about $1bn...HSBC’s exposure stemmed from loans it provided to institutional clients, mainly hedge funds of funds, that wanted to invest with Mr Madoff. HSBC’s direct exposure is believed to be about $1bn in loans provided to clients who invested some $500m of their own funds in Mr Madoff’s venture. Under the typical terms of these deals, if the US authorities recover any funds from Mr Madoff, HSBC will be paid first, with its clients suffering the first tranche of losses." (FT:)

Access International. $1.4 billion
Fortis Bank. $1.4 billion
Man Group’s RMF division has about $350m invested in funds which outsourced their management to Madoff securities, although this is a tiny fraction of the division’s $25bn of assets. (FT)

Tremont Capital. Fund of funds. $3.3 billion invested. (FT)

Pioneer Investments, an arm of Italy’s UniCredit, had “substantially all” of $835m invested with Madoff. (FT)

Union Bancaire Privet: $1.1 billion
Benbasset & Cie: $935 million
BBVA: $404 million
Maxam Capital Management LLC. Combined loss of $280 million. "I'm wiped out," said Sandra Manzke, Maxam's founder and chairman. The Darien, Conn., fund of hedge funds will have to close as a result of the losses, she said. (WSJ)

Fairfield Greenwich Group. Bloomberg: The biggest loser may be Walter Noel’s Fairfield Greenwich Group, whose $7.3 billion Fairfield Sentry Ltd. invested with Madoff’s eponymous firm, three people familiar with the matter said... Fairfield Sentry has a record of more than 15 years with an annual return of 4 to 6 percentage points above benchmark interest rates, according to a marketing document dated this month that was prepared by Zurich-based NPB New Private Bank Ltd. On an absolute basis, returns exceeded 10 percent every year from 1991 through 2000. Since then, they ranged from 6.4 percent to 9.8 percent...The strategy is a “split-strike conversion,” where the investment manager buys shares of large U.S. companies and enters into options contracts to limit the risk, the document says.

Fix Asset Management. Bloomberg: Fix Asset Management, which had an account worth at least $400 million with Madoff Investments. The firm said it’s checking with lawyers about the holdings. “We are very shocked,” John Fix, the son of founder Charles Fix, said by phone from Greece. “We put in redemptions in the past few months and got our money back no problem. We are just so surprised about all this.”

Kingate Management Ltd. Bloomberg says $2.8 billion Kingate Global Fund Ltd. invested with Madoff.

Santander. WSJ: The eurozone's largest bank by market value, said its clients had an exposure of €2.33 billion ($3.1 billion) to Madoff's investment funds, mainly through its Optimal Strategic US Equity fund. More than €2 billion belongs to institutional investors and international clients of its private-banking business, which provides services to wealthy individuals, it said. The remaining €320 million belongs to private-banking customers in Spain, where Santander is based.

Thyssen Family. Source sends the following: Thybo Investments grew out of a family office for Thyssen. They have been in fund of funds it seems since 1989. Thybo International is a "proper" fund of fund but it's newer share class G invests only in one manager - and i'm 99% sure it's Madoff as the returns are almost the same. Some more info. The fund started in Jan 2007. Ernst & Young. Luxembourg are the auditors. UBS Luxembourg is the administrator. Thybo states on their webpage: "Our track record incorporates audited financial statements at both a composite firm-wide and individual portfolios level."

Ira Roth's family. WSJ: Ira Roth, a New Jersey resident, who says his family has about $1 million invested through Mr. Madoff's firm, is "in a state of panic." He said his 86-year-old mother-in-law has been living on the investments' returns, and he has been using the funds to pay college tuition.

Sterling Equities. Fund controlled by Fred Wilpon, co-owner of the NY Mets, confirms it had money with Madoff.

Stephen Abbott, a San Francisco lawyer. WSJ: [Abbott] and two siblings had several hundred thousand dollars invested with Mr. Madoff. They inherited the trust from their father, who had befriended Mr. Madoff years ago. Performance remained steady through the current bear market, he said. "People were floored," he says. "We were making money in this lousy market." He says he is concerned about recovering the money but "you have to get philosophical about this stuff. It could be worse; we still have our health."

Palm Beach Country Club. Source: CNBC's David Faber Lawrence Velvel, "69, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, said he and a friend may have lost millions of dollars between them (AP). "This is a major disaster for a lot of people," Velvel said in a telephone interview from his Andover, Mass., office. "You work all your life, you finally manage to save up something, and somebody who's entrusted with it, it turns out suddenly he's a crook. Lots of people are getting fully or partially wiped out." Velvel said he wants to know where government regulators, as well as accountants and others at Madoff's company, were when the money was being lost." (AP)
Loeb Family. Source: CNBC's David Faber J. Ezra Merkin. GMAC LLC Chairman. WSJ: Mr. Merkin, the chairman of former General Motors Corp. financing arm GMAC, is also a money manager at Ascot Partners LLC in New York. Ascot, which had $1.8 billion under management as of Sept. 30, had substantially all of its assets invested with Mr. Madoff, according to a letter to Mr. Merkin sent to clients Thursday night. Mr. Merkin said as one of the largest investors in Ascot, he believed he had personally "suffered major losses from this catastrophe."
Norman Braman. Former Philadelphia Eagles owner Leonard Feinstein, co-founder of retailer Bed Bath & Beyond. (WSJ)

Mort Zuckerman. Mr. Zuckerman, the chairman of real-estate firm Boston Properties and owner of the New York Daily News and U.S. News & World Report, had significant exposure through a fund that invested substantially all of its assets with Mr. Madoff (WSJ)

Richard Spring. WSJ: A Boca Raton resident and former securities analyst, says he had about $11 million -- or 95% of his net worth -- invested with Mr. Madoff. "That's how much I believed in him," Mr. Spring said. Elie Wiesel's Foundation For Humanity. Lost $37 million.
Members of half-a-dozen country clubs: WSJ:

"Mr. Madoff tapped social networks in Dallas, Chicago, Boston and Minneapolis. In Minnesota, he attracted investors from Hillcrest Golf Club of St. Paul and Oak Ridge Country Club in Hopkins, investors say. One of them estimated that investors from the two clubs may have invested more than $100 million combined. One of the largest clusters of Madoff investors was in Florida, where losses could be substantial. Mr. Madoff relied on a network of friends, family and business colleagues to attract investors. According to investors and agents, some of these agents were paid commissions for harvesting investors. Others had separate, lucrative business relationships with Mr. Madoff. "If you were eating lunch at the club or golfing, everyone was always talking about how Madoff was making them all this money," one investor says. "Everyone wanted to sign up." Jeff Fischer, a top divorce attorney in Palm Beach, says many of his clients were also Mr. Madoff's clients. "Every big divorce that came through my office had portfolio positions with Madoff," he says. Two of his investors said that among his clients, Mr. Madoff was considered a money-management legend; they would joke that if Mr. Madoff was a fraud, he'd take down half the world with him."

Bramdean Alternatives in the U.K. 9% of portfolio.

Banque Benedict Hentsch, Geneva-based private bank, $47.5 million.

Nomura and Neue Privat Bank.
"Marketed access to Fairfield Sentry Ltd., a fund overseen by Mr. Madoff and sold through Fairfield Greenwich. The shares offered by Neue Privat and Nomura were leveraged three times -- meaning $3 of borrowed money was added to every $1 of capital invested in order to magnify returns, greatly increasing the potential losses for those investors." (WSJ)

Unicredit. The Italian firm had unspecified amount with Madoff via its Dublin-based Pioneer alt-asset group. (MarketWatch)

Sen. Frank Lautenberg. Unspecified (Newsday).

Robert Lappin Foundation in Massachusetts closed its doors today and is citing relationship to Maddoff fund. $8MM foundation plus personal holdings. Foundation supported Jewish organizations throughout North Shore of Massachusetts. (source: Jewish Journal)
Wunderkinder Foundation, a Steven Spielberg charity. In the past the foundation "appears to have invested a significant portion of its assets with Mr. Madoff, based on regulatory filings. In 2006, the Madoff firm accounted for roughly 70% of the foundation's interest and dividend income, according to regulatory filings. A representative of Mr. Spielberg confirmed that the foundation has suffered losses on its investments with the Madoff firm. He said he didn't know the size of the losses and couldn't comment further, including on whether Mr. Spielberg had any of his own money invested with the Madoff firm." WSJ

BNP Paribas. "BNP Paribas's exposure, the extent of which is not clear, may stem from BNP's lending relationship with a fund of funds that was a big Madoff client, said people familiar with the matter. A BNP spokeswoman declined to comment."

WSJ: BNP, France's largest bank by market value, said it could lose as much as 350 million euros as a result of the alleged fraud. The bank said it has no investment of its own in the hedge funds managed by Bernard Madoff Investment Services. BNP Paribas, however, said it is exposed to these funds through its trading business and lending to hedge funds that had invested in Madoff's funds.

Ira Rennert. Vicky Ward of Vanity Fair, said on CNBC."Heavily, heavily invested."

Englebardt family of Los Angeles. (Reader)

Swiss private bank Reichmuth & Co. "said its clients had an exposure of some 385 million Swiss francs to Madoff funds. The bank said Reichmuth Matterhorn, a fund that invests in other hedge funds, faced a potential loss of about 8.6% on its exposure to Madoff. That amount represented about 3.5% of the 11 billion Swiss Francs Reichmuth & Co. has under management, the bank said." (WSJ)

Union Bancaire Privee. UBP spokesman said the bank's clients have "limited" losses related to Madoff, but wouldn't be more specific or comment further. (WSJ)

EIM Group, the European investment manager with about $11 billion in assets, had a number of non-U.S. investors into funds overseen by Mr. Madoff, according to people familiar with the matter. Overall, EIM assets at risk are less than 2% of what it manages, which means losses could top $200 million. (WSJ).

UBS: ""Very limited" direct exposure to the Madoff funds...But the Zurich-based bank's wealth-management arm helped clients in Europe and possibly elsewhere invest with Mr. Madoff, according to investment professionals in Europe who spoke with some of these clients. UBS is currently reviewing its clients' exposure to Mr. Madoff's funds, according to the person familiar with the matter. The person said the funds weren't on UBS's list of "recommended" investments for its U.S. clients, but that they may have been among the firm's suggested investments for overseas clients." (WSJ)

Stephen A. Fine, president of Biltrite Corp. (Reader)

Avram and Carol Goldberg, former owners of the Stop & Shop supermarket chain (Reader)

Helfman family of Miami. (Reader)

Saul Katz, co-owner of the New York Mets.

Irwin Kellner, of Port Washington. (Reader)

Carl and Ruth Shapiro, donors to Brandeis University, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The Boston Globe reported on Saturday that the Shapiro family foundation lost almost half its money, or about $145 million.

Fairfield County, Connecticut.

Bloomberg: First Selectman Ken Flatto and other elected officials in Fairfield, Connecticut, thought the 58,000- person town’s pension fund was holding up well amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The 18 percent decline in total assets since the end of June looked smart compared with the 31 percent plunge in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, and total assets of $286 million left a cushion over the $270 million of estimated liabilities. Flatto’s mood darkened yesterday when he heard Bernard Madoff, a Wall Street executive who oversaw $42 million of the assets, had been arrested and charged with fraud. “We classified this on our portfolio as one of the more conservative investments,” Flatto said in an interview. “You rely on your experts and your managers to be honest.”

Royal Bank of Scotland: $330 million

Nomura: $302 million

Aozora Bank: $137 million

Various Boston families: The Boston Globe.

Jeff Katzenberg. Dreamworks CEO has "millions" in Madoff losses. (WSJ)

Gerald Breslauer. Jeff Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg's financial advisor. WSJ:

According to people familiar with the matter, Mr. Breslauer himself has likely sustained heavy losses in the Madoff affair. He customarily invests alongside his clients, say these people, and has sometimes been a larger investor than the people he represented. People familiar with the matter said Mr. Breslauer was known to be a Madoff investor.

Yeshiva University lost $100 million to $110 million. (NYT)

Jewish Federation of Greater Washington said it had $10 million invested with Mr. Madoff, about 8 percent of its endowment as of Nov. 30. The organization said it would work to recover the money. (NYT)

North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System: $5.7 million exposure to Madoff Securities in the form of a gift from a donor who insisted that it be invested that way. “The donor who contributed the funds has graciously agreed to reimburse the health system for any financial loss,” the organization said in a statement. (NYT)

Ramaz School lost some $6 million invested with Mr. Madoff, according to a letter sent to board members and two parents whose children attend the school. (NYT)

SAR Academy, a Jewish school in the Bronx, had roughly a third of its $3.7 million in assets invested with Mr. Madoff, according to an e-mail message it sent to donors and parents. (NYT)

Chais Family Foundation in Encino, Calif., announced over the weekend that its losses had forced it to stop operating, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The foundation had $178 million in assets in May 2007, according to its tax form. (NYT)

JEHT Foundation. May have lost hundreds of millions. Will cease operations. (NYT)

Arpad Busson. Uma Thurman's billionaire fiance runs hedge fund, EIM, which was reportedly exposed to roughly $270 million of products sold by Madoff (Mail on Sunday)

Accountants Scott Sosnik & Larry Bell. Accountants who worked for many of Madoff victims claim that they too lost money.

Swiss insurer Baloise. $13 million. (Reuters)

Swiss Re: Less than $3 million (Reuters)

Burt Ross. Former Ft. Lee, NJ mayor lost $5 million.

Maimonides School. Boston school lost $3 million. (Boston.com)

Charles & Cindi Nadler Foundation. $10 million.

Tufts University $20 million (Boston.com)

Alexandra Penney. Artist and author lost bulk of her life savings. (Daily Beast)

Robert Chew. Colorado-based investor. (TIME)

Fair Food Foundation. Detroit-based urban farming group. (NYMag)

Pasha S. Anwar and Julia Anwar. Investors first to sue Fairfield Greenwich. (DealBook)

Pedro Almodovar. Famed Spanish film director has $240,000 "at risk" (Bloomberg)

More as we get them...

2008-09-12T11:29:00.000-07:00

DENVER, C0 (IFS) Why is it so hard to get a simple answer to a simple question for this governor? Charles Gibson asked Gov. Palin, just to give a simple answer to the question, if she endorsed President Bush's policies on Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan? She never answered the question. However, she is good at tap dancing on a razor blade and killing time. God, that "whinning voice" just gets to me! I now just turn her off, when ever she is on the tube repeating those same old tired lines from the GOP convention.

2008-08-11T08:54:00.000-07:00

Soaring Over Poverty and Prejudice
by Kenny Smith

KITTY HAWK, NC (IFS) At the Wright Brothers Air museum, on the east wall of fame, is the first lady pilot of color to take to the skies. At age 29, Bessie Coleman was the first black woman to receive her pilot's license and the first woman to receive an international pilot's license. Bessie learned French as she had to go to France for lessons because no one would teach her in the US. Wanting to share her success and help other women and African Americans overcome poverty, prejudice and injustice she had faced she worked to open a flight school for African Americans. She believed they needed to take their place in the skies, too.

The doll comes dressed in her flight uniform designed by her when she got her license. The uniform has leather trim on her jacket, a hat with an embroidered eagle and leather boots.

Bessie comes with a small "Pilot's Log" journal for you to record your dreams and her biography. The biography is suitable for 8 years and up. The book is 119 pages with black and white photos.

2008-05-02T07:25:00.000-07:00

Upon leaving Elizabeth, Colorado on Monday afternoon, the gasoline prices skyrocketed. It took me $256 in gas to travel 589 miles in twelve hours. And this is only one third of the way, stopping in Salt Lake City to visit the brothers.

At this rate, it's going to cost $750 plus to go to Long Beach from Salt Lake City. Then return to Elizabeth. CO. The roads are very empty. I've driven these roads for over twenty-five years now. On a major interstate, this is very rare indeed.

Had Clyde and Ted look over my vehicle. They both agree that it's time to get small in care size and trade up and out.

While researching the city of Salt Lake City, I had a chance to visit many of the neighborhoods. One day a year, the city allows its citizens to place their spring cleaning castoffs in a pile in front of their homes, and the garage cleaning is a treasure hunters paradise. You can fine anything and everything. You really need a truck and a place to store all of the "things" you happen upon.

Do to my total mis-calculations in the gas price and mechanical difficulties, Keith, I just want to let you know, what a wonderful life you will have with the one you have chosen. Your parents are very proud of you as the other family members are.

So now, I going out to find me a vehicle to return back home. There is news of a large car pile up in Watkins, Colorado and it's very bad. That's on my route returning home.

2008-04-23T18:17:00.000-07:00

Panic over rice prices hits home in capital
Fearing shortages, Asian market shoppers in south area buy up supplies.
By Jim Downing - jdowning@sacbee.com

Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, April 19, 2008
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A1

As word of food riots and export shutdowns in Asia reached California in recent weeks, worried shoppers have been buying up hundreds of pounds of rice at a time from the Asian supermarkets that line Stockton Boulevard, looking for security against rising prices.

"When people saw the price jump $2 or $3, they started buying like crazy – 10 bags, 15 bags," said Cu Van, a floor manager at Goldstar Supermarket. Each bag weighs 50 pounds.

In recent weeks, the retail price for a 50-pound sack of Thai jasmine rice, the prized variety served steamed in Chinese and Southeast Asian cuisine, has risen from roughly $20 to $40, straining budgets for families and restaurants.

The spike in the cost of Thai rice is one of the most extreme examples of a trend that is pushing up prices for all the major globally traded food commodities – rice, wheat, corn, soy and dairy products. Experts say the increases largely have been driven by demand from booming Asian economies combined with poor harvests in key export countries like Australia. The demand for corn and soy to make ethanol and biodiesel also has boosted food prices, though economists disagree on how much.

Rice markets in particular have been jolted as a number of rice-exporting countries have restricted international sales in order to reduce prices for their own citizens.

State rice farmers thriving

For California rice farmers, though, the high rice prices are a boon. Even though the short- and medium-grain varieties grown here are sold into different markets than Thai jasmine rice, which has seen the steepest increases, spot-market prices for bulk California rice are up 50 percent since February, to about $20 for 100 pounds.

"We're kind of riding the coattails," said Pat Daddow, who runs the California Rice Exchange in Yuba City.

Domestic varieties of rice – long-grain from Texas, for instance – sell in some of the Stockton Boulevard markets for less than half the price of Thai jasmine rice. But grocers, shoppers and restaurateurs said the cheaper domestic long-grain varieties are suitable only for fried rice: Only Thai jasmine delivers the softness and aroma for proper steamed rice.

Still, Van said, some of her customers have begun to try other varieties. One morning last week,she pointed to a single bag of California medium-grain rice – typically used for sushi – lying askew on a pallet. It was all that was left of a one-ton shipment that arrived two days earlier.

But Paula Duong, manager at King Palace Seafood Restaurant on Stockton Boulevard, which goes through more than 300 pounds of dry rice a week, is still buying Thai rice. Her customers would notice any change, she said. She hasn't stockpiled, but is instead buying sacks as needed and hoping the cost will drop within a few months. She hasn't raised menu prices, citing the need to stay competitive.

Duong said that as soon as prices of Thai rice began to climb, she bought 10 sacks for her home. That 500-pound order will last her extended family of seven about eight months, she said.

"Every meal, there's rice," she said.

Importers in bidding wars

Nathan Childs, an expert on global rice markets with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, tied the jump in the price of Thai rice to a cascade of events touched off by attempts by several rice-growing nations to combat food inflation within their own borders.

Last fall India and Vietnam, both of which typically export several million tons of rice annually, announced they would be reducing rice exports in order to drive down domestic prices. China, Egypt and Cambodia followed suit, further restricting the amount of rice on the global market.

Rice-importing nations around the world then began scrambling to secure supplies, driving up the price for what rice remained available on global markets.

Thailand, the world's largest rice exporter, is reporting record harvests this year. But the increase in supply hasn't been nearly enough to offset global demand, Childs said, and the price of bulk Thai jasmine rice has nearly doubled since December.

With California rice prices at the highest levels since 1980, Sacramento Valley farmers are expanding planting this year – but only by about 3 percent, according to USDA surveys. Rice needs certain clay soils, which limits expansion. In addition, the cost to grow it has been especially impacted by the high price of oil, so some farmers are choosing to switch some of their land to other crops.

"They can make as much, if not more, on wheat or corn," said Don Bransford, a prominent rice grower in Colusa.

Tight global supplies and the run on Thai rice in specialty supermarkets have forced U.S. importers into bidding wars to fill their orders, said Pete Lee, who owns Southern California-based Sun Lee Inc., a major rice distributor.

Lee said he sold nearly his entire inventory of Thai rice in the last two weeks – but he worries that a big slowdown is in store for the summer.

"The panic just drained our stocks so quick," he said. "The thing is, everyone's buying future inventory. And if they buy everything now, we won't have anything to do two or three months from now."

Prices may have stabilized

Lee said he's guessing prices will stay at their current levels, or rise a bit, until at least the next Thai jasmine harvest, which begins in October. But there are too many variables in global rice trade to know for sure, he said.

"Whoever can predict that would be quite rich," he said.

Ronnie Duong (no relation to Paula Duong), who owns New Asia Supermarket on Stockton Boulevard, worries that high rice prices will eat into his profits. He makes the same margin on a sack of Thai rice whether it's priced at $20 or $40, he said – but his customers have a limited food budget.

"If they spend so much on rice, they don't have money to spend on other items in my store," he said.

Van, the Goldstar Supermarket manager, said as far as she can tell, the peak of the local rice panic has passed. Prices have stabilized, at least for now, and those customers who do buy rice get only a bag or two. Plenty, she reckons, won't need to restock for quite some time.

"Everybody's home has so much rice already," she said.