I love the classics.

I am not sure what to think about this:

Obama’s next effort: a Children’s Crusade?

Drudge featured the breaking news story that Barack Obama would hold a nationwide speech for elementary-school children a week from today, touching off a flurry of e-mails wondering what Obama had in mind.  Will this be just an opportunity to learn more about government?  Or will Obama try pitching ObamaCare to the Sesame Street set?

The teaching guidelines don’t really give much of a hint:

President Obama’s Address to Students Across America September 8, 2009 -

Presidents often visit classrooms and talk to students. It usually makes a good photo op to put the President with children who obviously enjoy the attention, and there’s no harm in it. It can be a good teaching moment for civics instruction, which this nation does poorly at delivering. The timing can even be explained as the first week in which all children will return to school, and since for many of them it will be their first day, it won’t interrupt their normal curriculum.

Not too terribly long ago, the Democrats were up in arms over Bush, the war and all manner of side issues, and back then, people like Nancy Pelosi were pretty sure Dissent was good:

My how times have changed.  Now, dissent is fascist and unamerican.

What the Liberals once hailed as the most pure form of patriotism is now the most hated and reviled.

Pelosi and Hoyer in a an op ed at USA Today were clear that they (now) consider this to be an unthinkable pass time.

Even SoS Hillary Clinton has been on record contradicting that belief:

We hear tale of how the conservatives are planting paid operatives, how they are astroturfing, and are not “real”.  And yet it is the democrats that are advertising in Craigslist for people to work for health care reform.  See for yourself.  Here are a couple samples:

There are thousands of these ads making me wonder who is paying?   I wish I was getting paid that much to protest.  Heck I am not getting paid anything.

I took a trip last weekend to unwind and perhaps to unload some pressure in myself that had been building.  The separation, the stresses at work, general money and living stresses, all combined to set me a bit on edge, to put it gently.

I left here on Saturday morning headed south on I5 to Oregon.  My route was kind of up in the air till the last minute but eventually chose to go to Kelso, cross the Columbia into Oregon and head to Astoria, where I would pick up Hwy 101 south.  The trip was very relaxing, and the LSU mobile was in fine form with a fresh oil change.

I ate a quick lunch in Longview and crossed over, stopping to admire the Columbia river.

Hwy 30 to Astoria was a lovely trip, and I wish I had more time, as I saw some fascinating photo ops that I want to revisit soon.

I also found Astoria to be a lovely town, and next time I plan to find the Goonies house, just to say I did.

My trip was a welcome resting time, but I am back home and getting my backlog of email and such caught up.

I will post a full trip report tomorrow with a few pictures, as well as my reaction round up to a lot of the recent news stories.

Till then, thanks for being here.

LSU

I am upgrading the Wordpress software and making a few modifications, please stand by.

SHE IS WATCHING YOU…

This was the headline form the Drudge Report today.

The story concerns another report from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that warnings about right wing extremists.

Now…no one who remembers Timothy McVeigh cannot help but agree that any kind of extremists are dangerous and bad.  But the definitions proposed and the warning signs presented by DHS are scary in that they take pretty much include any reasonable position of disagreement with the present administration.  They start by blaming the recession:

Recession fueling right-wing extremism, U.S. says

Right-wing extremists in the United States are gaining new recruits by exploiting fears about the economy and the election of the first black U.S. president, the Department of Homeland Security warned in a report to law enforcement officials.

The April 7 report, which Reuters and other news media obtained on Tuesday, said such fears were driving a resurgence in “recruitment and radicalization activity” by white supremacist groups, antigovernment extremists and militia movements. It did not identify any by name.

DHS had no specific information about pending violence and said threats had so far been “largely rhetorical.”

A moderately serious conflict of interest here, one fairly untouched by the media.  Chris Dodd who has taken more in campaign donations from AIG than any other Congressman also has a slightly more personal connection:

Dodd’s Wife a Former Director of Bermuda-Based IPC Holdings, an AIG Controlled Company

No wonder Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn) went wobbly last week when asked about his February amendment ratifying hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to executives at insurance giant AIG. Dodd has been one of the company’s favorite recipients of campaign contributions. But it turns out that Senator Dodd’s wife has also benefited from past connections to AIG as well.

From 2001-2004, Jackie Clegg Dodd served as an “outside” director of IPC Holdings, Ltd., a Bermuda-based company controlled by AIG. IPC, which provides property casualty catastrophe insurance coverage, was formed in 1993 and currently has a market cap of $1.4 billion and trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol IPCR. In 2001, in addition to a public offering of 15 million shares of stock that raised $380 million, IPC raised more than $109 million through a simultaneous private placement sale of 5.6 million shares of stock to AIG - giving AIG a 20% stake in IPC. (AIG sold its 13.397 million shares in IPC in August, 2006.)

LSU meaning me of course.

I have been sidelined with a sprained wrist and pulled tendons, leftover from my ATV accident, and aggravated recently.

It makes typing hard, so I have to type a paragraph…wait….type another…rest…etc ad naseum.

I am feeling somewhat better and hope to return to normal blogging tomorrow.  My hand cramps easily so I have to watch it.

But while I am here, I just have to make a few comments about the theater in DC over the AIG bonuses.  You know what I mean, how AIG got a bailout, signed a bunch of employees to a contract for the retention bonuses, and then got not one but two more bailouts, finally paying out 165 million in retention bonuses.

And hoe congress knew about them at the final bailout, but removed any restriction on the bonuses at Geitner’s request.

And then how they turned on the moral outrage and went ballistic on AIG, and now are intent on taxing those who got the bonuses at a whopping 90% rate.

It is disgusting…no, not the bonuses, congress.  Congress intends to use legislation and the IRS to target citizens who engaged in a legal contract for employment.

A good friend of mine is much more attuned to the financial world than I have and he has been increasingly more and more alarmist in the last couple years.

While I think some of his pessimism is extreme, he has also been right enough time that I pay attention.

So today he sent me this gem, that I present for your consideration.  With all the outrage being staged over the AIG bonuses, he thinks far more dangerous activities are happening, hidden in plain sight:

Federal Reserve Press Release

To provide greater support to mortgage lending and housing markets, the Committee decided today to increase the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet further by purchasing up to an additional $750 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities, bringing its total purchases of these securities to up to $1.25 trillion this year, and to increase its purchases of agency debt this year by up to $100 billion to a total of up to $200 billion.

Moreover, to help improve conditions in private credit markets, the Committee decided to purchase up to $300 billion of longer-term Treasury securities over the next six months.