Cloudy and overcast again.
Damp. Maybe rain? But, I don’t think so. It’s bright but overcast.
Tourists “evacuated” ysterday; most of the regulars are leaving today.
Yeah! “I vant to be alone.” And, have it all to myself.
I can hear the surf. No announcement about the “paid beach”.
reporting from seaside heights new jersey
grumpy
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Leave a Comment » | 
FUN | 
Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
guardian.co.uk
28 days that shook the world
How the collapse of Lehman Brothers pushed capitalism to the brink
The Wall Street titan’s bankruptcy triggered a system-wide crisis of confidence in banks across the globe
Andrew Clark in New York
Friday 4 September 2009 12.14 BST
*** begin quote ***
Barclays picked up parts of Lehman from the bankruptcy courts, salvaging about 10,000 of the bank’s 25,000 jobs. But many still question the wisdom of the US government’s decision to stand by and allow a vast investment bank to go bust, given the intertwined nature of Lehman’s trading relationships around the globe. Larry McDonald, a former Lehman vice-president, says the Bush administration could easily have offered the guarantee needed to help Barclays buy Lehman outright: “They put Lehman Brothers to sleep. They executed her. They put a pillow over her face.”
Researching a recently published book on Lehman’s failure, “a colossal failure of common sense”, McDonald interviewed more than 45 Lehman executives. They insisted that they warned both Bush’s treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, and the then chairman of the New York Fed, Timothy Geithner, of the consequences of inaction: “They were begging Geithner and begging Paulson. They were saying to Geithner ‘you’re going to unleash the forces of evil on the global markets – you don’t understand what you’re doing!'”
That is not to say that Lehman can shirk blame for its predicament. With $18bn of core equity on its balance sheet, the bank had taken positions of an astonishing $780bn in mortgages, stocks, bonds, oil, gold, derivatives and other investments. It had leveraged its books by an astonishing factor of 44 and it had opted to take a particularly huge punt on America’s teetering home loans market.
*** end quote ***
This writer hits the 64k$ question, but doesn’t or can’t answer it.
Why does Lehman go under but everyone else gets rescued?
Perhaps the reason is Geithner and Paulson close relationship with Goldman?
Goldman makes out like a bandit in the chaos.
Not hard to leap to a conclusion there.
Bottom line: the taxpayer got screwed.
And, it began a series of actions to compromise “capitalism” and our liberty.
Misquoting Churchill: “the the American Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their worst hour.'”
Will this single event, the 2008 financial crisis, and the Bush administration’s response to it, be the single event that marks the beginning of the end of the American Republic?
Like the The Reichstag Fire, that allowed Hitler to accelerate the banning of the Communist Party, is Bush’s TARP1 the “October surprise” event that allows Obama to come to power and dismantle the American experiment.
Sad to think. Sadder still to think an old injineer see something that the political elite choose to ignore.
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Leave a Comment » | LIBERTY | Tagged: economic, economic freedom, Economics, LIBERTY | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/135908.html
Guess Who’s an Official UN Hero?
Michael C. Moynihan | September 4, 2009, 11:30pm
*** begin quote ***
Rev. Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, the president of the United Nations General Assembly, bestows official hero status on Bolivian President Evo Morales, the first president of Tanzania Julius Nyerere, and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
*** end quote ***
And why are we still in the UN?
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Leave a Comment » | GOVEROTRAGEOUS | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
RE: SNOW LEOPARD
Mine went smooth. Don’t believe the estimates it spouts. I got the PACK with Snow, iwork09, and ilife09. Took about an hour each. Only surprise was TextExpander and Scrivner needed a refresh. Only grip is that it left iwork08 and iwork09 behind. Other that that it was a non-event.
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Leave a Comment » | SOFTWARE | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
Cloudy and overcast.
Damp. Maybe rain? But, I don’t think so.
Tourists will “evacuate”. Yeah! “I vant to be alone.” And, have it all to myself.
Clouds moving quickly to the east.
Maybe the sun will come out … … tomorrow!
ROFL!
reporting from seaside heights new jersey
grumpy
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http://blogs.abcnews.com/johnstossel/2009/09/27-billion-for-captain-morgan.html
John Stossel’s Take
Commentary from Co-Anchor of ABC News’ “20/20”
$2.7 Billion for Captain Morgan?
09/02/2009 12:52 PM
*** begin quote ***
40-70 jobs for the bargain price of nearly $3 billion?
*** and ***
Turns out Diageo currently makes rum in Puerto Rico, so jobs there will be lost if the company relocates to the Virgin Islands.
“It’s insulting that the money we give is essentially paying for a foreign corporation to move from one U.S. location to another, while cutting jobs”
*** end quote ***
You can’t make this stuff up. The gooferment should just not take our money in the first place. It delivers NOTHING!
Seriously, the guys at Free Talk Live posed the challenge: “Name one government program that works? Bearing in mind that overpaying is not being a success.” I’ve never heard anyone answer that. Can you?
And, you want them to have MORE programs? AND EVEN something as important as Health Care, Health Insurance, or whatever they are calling it today!
Sheeple.
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Leave a Comment » | Ranting | Tagged: economic freedom | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://blogs.abcnews.com/johnstossel/2009/09/your-tax-dollars-at-work.html
Your Tax Dollars at Work
from John Stossel’s Take
by John Stossel
*** begin quote ***
The job of a Connecticut state representative must be grueling work, especially as the politicians have spent the state into financial crisis. The state borrowed a billion dollars and raised taxes to balance its budget. An AP photographer captured Democratic Reps. Barbara Lambert and John Hennessy hard at work.
As Republican Rep. Larry Cafero spoke about the budget, Reps. Lambert and Hennessy played solitaire on their computers. Another watched baseball.
*** end quote ***
Are you surprised?
The gooferment is a joke.
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Leave a Comment » | Ranting | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9AHL8O80&show_article=1
Obama ‘green jobs’ adviser quits amid controversy
Sep 6 02:19 AM US/Eastern
By WILL LESTER
Associated Press Writer
*** begin quote ***
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama’s adviser Van Jones has resigned amid controversy over past inflammatory statements, the White House said early Sunday.
*** and ***
Fox News Channel host Glenn Beck repeatedly denounced Jones after a group the adviser co-founded, ColorofChange.org, led an advertising boycott against Beck’s show to protest his claim that Obama is a racist.
James Rucker, the organization’s executive director, has said Jones had nothing to do with ColorofChange.org now and didn’t even know about the campaign before it started.
Jones, well-known in the environmental movement, was a civil-rights activist in California before shifting his attention to environmental and energy issues. He is known for laying out a broad vision of a green economy.
*** end quote ***
THe AP is playing politics with this report. Beck called him out as a “communist” BEFORE the boycott.
Having followed Glen Beck’s indictment of the “Czars”, this fellow was imho a racist communist.
One down and a slew of Czars to go.
Obama was known to 100% “liberal” before he was elected, why is anyone surprised at the people in his administration?
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Leave a Comment » | LIBERTY, Political | Tagged: LIBERTY | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.reason.com/news/show/135830.html
George Will is Right
It’s time for the U.S. to leave Afghanistan
David Harsanyi | September 2, 2009
*** begin quote ***
Or is victory achieved when we finally usher this primitive tribal culture, with its violent warlords and religious extremism, from the eighth century all the way to modernity? If so, we’re on course for a centuries-long enterprise of nation building and baby-sitting, not a war. The war was won in 2002.
If the goal is to establish a stable government to fill the vacuum created by our ousting of the Taliban and al-Qaida, we’ve done quite a job. Most Americans can accept a Marine’s risking life and limb to safeguard our freedoms. But when that Marine is protector of a corrupt and depraved foreign parliament—one that recently legalized marital rape and demands women ask permission from male relatives to leave their homes—it is not a victory worth celebrating.
*** end quote ***
Put the girls and boys on the next thing coming home.
Why do we have troops in 170 countries?
We can’t afford that any more than we can afford Obamacare.
Let’s finally end the welfare warfare state.
Switzerland is an excellent model!
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Leave a Comment » | GOVEROTRAGEOUS, LIBERTY | Tagged: LIBERTY | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
FROM A POST ABOUT REGULATORS
And, don’t forget the only true purpose of any gooferment program is to make the politicians and their lackeys the bureaucrats look good. Along the way, they feather their own nest, reward their friends, and punish their enemies. On this side of the pond, the politicians rank lower than used car salesmen. At least, the used car salesmen and you both KNOW you are getting screwed — no pretense, no agenda, no HIDDEN gotcha. Argh!
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Leave a Comment » | Political | Tagged: freedom | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
#DEN-45763-514
*** begin quote ***
Unfortunately, your server is still under a DDoS attack and will move extremely slowly (if at all). As soon as the attack discontinues or is otherwise resolved, the server will function normally again. A DDoS attack is essentially a terrorist attack on the server, usually done by a hacker getting viruses in thousands of computers and having them send as many connections as possible, as quickly as possible, to the box.
We are working to reduce the effect of the attack and find out which account is being targeted. At that point we will have to ask that account to find a new host. Unfortunately, we can’t know which account is being attacked without extensive steps, as the IP Address on the server is Shared.
DDoS attacks can last anywhere from hours to days.
Your data is safe. Just currently inaccessible.
If you’d like to learn more about this kind of terrorist attack, check
*** end quote ***
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=108507
Thought you might “enjoy” this. Get your BP up.
One more reason to kill “gooferment education”. As if that is what they are doing.
We know that the model was created to produce cannon fodder for the German Army and compliant workers for the factory.
Parents should be responsible for education. Just like they are responsible for everything else. They had them; not me. Why should I pay for their “fun”? It’s contra survival.
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Leave a Comment » | Political | Tagged: freedom | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
“I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”
— Benjamin Franklin?
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Leave a Comment » | Quotes | Tagged: economic freedom, Quotes | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
Argh!
And, I don’t know where it kept them.
Argh!
And I didn’t keep a list of them.
Argh!
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Leave a Comment » | SOFTWARE | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/30/free-the-h-1bs-free-the-economy/
Free the H-1Bs, Free the Economy
by Vivek Wadhwa on August 30, 2009
*** begin quote ***
This is a guest post by Vivek Wadhwa, an entrepreneur turned academic. He is a Visiting Scholar at UC-Berkeley, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School and Executive in Residence at Duke University. Follow him on Twitter at @vwadhwa.
I have a suggestion for our President on how to boost economic growth without spending a penny: Free the H-1B’s.
*** end quote ***
I know Vivek from our days at First Boston.
He’s absolutely correct. We need to disassemble the “illegal immigration” infrastructure. If we stop putting out milk (i.e., welfare in the form of freebies like education, health care, food stamps), then we will get fewer stray cats (i.e., immigrants who come for the wrong reasons).
Clearly, the H1Bs are valuable additions to the workforce. Let’s keep them rather than, thru ignorance, allow them to slip away.
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Leave a Comment » | Political | Tagged: freedom, Gooferment, Human Factors | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2009/08/31/the-truth-about-taxes/&cp=1/#comment-195287
The Truth About Taxes
Monday, 31st August 2009 (by J.D.)
*** begin quote ***
Note: Although I try to keep GRS a politics-free zone, today’s topic is inherently political. I’ve stayed as neutral as possible in the article, but I know that there’ll be some political discussion in the comments. Please keep conversation civil, as always.
Because I was frustrated with my own ignorance about the U.S. federal budget and our tax system, I recently spent twelve hours researching a variety of tax topics. From my research came two articles: last week’s short guide to the federal budget and today’s post, which answers some of my personal questions about taxes.
*** end quote ***
Welcome to the “tax wars”, by the time we’re finished with you, you too will be a raving loon!
Tactically, you can’t figure out how much “tax” you pay. We need to recognize that ONLY real people pay tax. So, the taxes that companies pay is really a hidden tax on the people who buy their products. BUT you can’t see it. Further, if there are capital goods used by a company, the taxes on that capital good are buried in the product’s price. Also, recognize that “costs”, “user fees”, or any unavoidable expense imposed by or as a result of the gooferment’s actions, laws, regulations, or diktats is a TAX! Try and figure out all of those. Good luck. One quick example, drugs. The FDA has rules, pharmacies have regulations, doctors have laws. Argh! It’s IMPOSSIBLE to figure out exactly what you pay in tax. And, then we can talk about monetary inflation as a gooferment tax. When you sum it all up, it might be greater than your annual income!
Strategically, taxes are NOT “the cost of living in civilized society”; they are THEFT. How does what dead old white guys did 233 years ago obligate me? It’s a principle of contract law that there has to be offer and acceptance to have a contract. Where is the offer? Where is my acceptance? What obligates me to pay? The definition of citizen states there is an exchange for the state’s “protection”, yet the courts have repeatedly held that there is no specific enforceable duty of the government to protect me. So why again do I have to pay for “services” that I don’t want, can’t use, and are horribly overpriced? In the case of Federal Abortion funding, it’s also morally offensive to me; yet, I still must pay.
Welcome to the tax wars. This is theft by deception. IMHO!
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Leave a Comment » | Political | Tagged: Tax, Tax Rates, Tax Revolt | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
Interesting. Google, the be all and end all of internet search, does NOT index comments. Very interesting.
Leaves an opening for a competitor.
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Leave a Comment » | Technology | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2009/08/yes-virginia-insurance-companies-do.html
Friday, August 28, 2009
‘Yes, Virginia, the insurance companies do ration’
# – # – #
MY RESPONSE
Two “minor” points.
FIRST!!!
“Health care” is not a “human right”!
Place a human alone in a forest. Where is their “human right” to health care?
If you assert that is a “right” then their is an obligation for some one to provide it. If I have a RIGHT to health care, then my neighbor is FORCED to provide it. If he’s a butcher, baker, or a candlestick maker, then my health care will not be so good!
OH, you’re just going to FORCE him to PAY for my healthcare. Just as I am going to be forced to PAY for his.
Don’t you see the moral hazard in that? Don’t you see the stupidity in that? Don’t you see the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of that?
Argh!
Please go back and revisit the whole history of John Locke and concept of negative rights.
SECOND!!!
No one want to see people treated like in a third world country. Sick and dying, covered in flies, in human misery.
BUT, (there is always a big butt), you have no right to compel “charity”. America is an unbelievably charitable country. You can not “force” it. When you make it a gooferment program, then you have “free loaders”. Part of our current problem is that people want something for nothing. In my childhood, there was charity care in hospitals. My relatives would pass the hat around the family rather than have a relative use “charity”. They were embarrassed to have their neighbors think that they didn’t love their family member enough to care for them. Freeloaders weren’t tolerated; down on your luck, you were given a hand up. That’s the essence of true charity.
Remember the great hospitals in America were created by the Churches and Fraternal Organizations. Only when the gooferment took over, did we create the mess we have now.
SUMMARY
(1) Health care is not a right.
(2) There will be true charity without the gooferment intrusion.
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5 Comments | Ranting | Tagged: Health Care | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2009/08/whole-foods-hit-by-protests.html
MY RESPONSE TO: “Whole Foods hit by protests”
>People like Mackey, soulless wealthy sociopaths
Now I’m not going to assert that capitalists are the Mother Teresa’s of the world. BUT, (there is always a big butt), they are not the Devil Incarnate either.
Mackey feeds the hungry. OK, you’re not going to see it that way. And, he’s well compensated for his modest efforts.
I read his WSJ op ed and I thought the fellow has courage. He could have just as easily said nothing. Like the “Silent Majority”, who don’t have the stones to speak up and give us the benefit of their wisdom or whizdumb!
I think you misread his text and his intention. Creating more gooferment isn’t the solution to ANY problem. Fixing the gooferment’s perverse incentives is almost always the best answer.
>just don’t give a damn that there are tens of millions of Americans without health care in this
For the moment, let’s ASSUME that there are 45 million uninsured. They do GET health care via emergency rooms and hospitals, but there is some modest agreement that: (1) it’s not cost effective to do that; (2) it delays small problems into big ones; and (3) it’s not efficient.
Wouldn’t it be better to give everyone a tax credit to buy insurance? (Certainly better than ‘cash for klunkers!) I’m sure the “greedy” insurance companies would happily “suborn” the premium (i.e., like the tax prep firms, your social security number gets you a ‘refund anticipation loan’. So to your social gets you an ‘insurance anticipation loan for health insurance’.)
So why isn’t this idea debated?
Because the special interests don’t get control! Politicians don’t get to tell people what’s good for them.
And, obtw, those rich youngsters who don’t want to buy insurance don’t have anyone else to blame.
And, the supposedly “illegal” aliens wouldn’t be a problem if we didn’t have welfare programs. (That is, if there was no “free” education, welfare, and healthcare, then the only folks who came wanting to work would be coming here. Like the old days. Get on the boat and come, we always have room for more workers. Most of us have ancestors who hit the dock with just a smile! Heck, I’d be issuing green cards with tins at the dock and thanking them for coming. That’s the America personified by the Status of Liberty. Come one and come all. We have enough freedom for everyone. That’s Libertarian.)
And, criminals — “illegal” or not — lock them up!
And, obtw, in a Libertarian America, the drug dealers would have to find other work. We’d eliminate all the drug laws. (What would the Columbian Drug Lords do? Go back to farming or cheating widows?) So, we turn Big Pharma loose making the best cleanest drugs possible. (It’s estimated that currently “illegal” street drugs would cost little more than aspirin. And, do you think that WalMart or Walgreens would sell heroin to children? WalMart won’t sell X rated videos because their customers would punish them.) We could empty the prisons of non-violent drug offenders.
America would be supercharged!!!
>He’s filthy rich, he’s covered, his loved ones are covered and beyond that he does not care.
And, how about all those ‘caring’ politicians who say ‘good for thee, but not for me’.
>FDR called them economic royalists.
FDR was the biggest souless empoverisher, next to old “Honest Abe”, in American history. His economic ignorance created Social Security to empower the Democratic Party and set us on the Road to Hell. By eliminating gold currency, he permitted the welfare warfare state to explode.
>
I really hope that some day we can try peace!
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Leave a Comment » | LIBERTY | Tagged: Health Care, LIBERTY | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi117.html
FDIC Walks a Tightrope
by Bill Sardi
*** begin quote ***
Bair’s second assignment is to slowly put small insolvent American banks out of business, over a thousand of them, while fostering public confidence in the FDIC insurance company’s ability to insure the public’s money. The FDIC admits to only 416 on the agency’s “problem bank” list. Frankly, without bailout money, few banks would have adequate reserves. By collapsing small banks, depositors are likely to bank their money at larger institutions. So Bair is really a shill for the large bankers to rub out their smaller competition, though she may have no other option in this instance.
*** end quote ***
So, why if “too big to fail” is bad, does the gooferment limit the size of a single bank to say ONE ONE THOUSANDTH of it’s reserve. And, oh by the way, why doesn’t it have a REAL RESERVE? Not so IOU from the FED or the Treasury.
Argh!
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Leave a Comment » | MONEY | Tagged: Gooferment | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
Sometimes when I reflect on all the beer I drink, I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn’t drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. I think, “It is better to drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver.”
Babe Ruth
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Leave a Comment » | Quotes | Tagged: Quotes | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
FROM DRUDGE
*** begin quote ***
Obama to make unprecedented address to all public school students; September 8…
*** end quote ***
What the …
This is unprecedented all right!
When will folks learn the true purpose of “public education”?
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Leave a Comment » | LIBERTY | Tagged: freedom, LIBERTY | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dailyreckoning/~3/BS0uO_tqS5Q/
*** begin quote ***
From the Bristol Evening Post:
“Outside Bristol Zoo is the car park, with spaces for 150 cars and 8 coaches. It has been manned 6 days a week for 23 years by the same charming and very polite car park attendant with the ticket machine. The charges are £1. per car and £5. per coach.
“On Monday 1 June, he did not turn up for work. Bristol Zoo management phoned Bristol City Council to ask them to send a replacement parking attendant.
“The Council said, ‘That car park is your responsibility.’ The Zoo said, ‘The attendant was employed by the City Council…wasn’t he?’ The Council said, ‘What attendant?’
“Gone missing from his home is a man who has been taking daily the car park fees amounting to about £400. per day for the last 23 years…!
“Total sum just short £2.9 million.”
*** end quote ***
You just have to smile!
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Leave a Comment » | FUN | Tagged: Gooferment | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
You are currently browsing the Reinke Faces Life blog archives for September, 2009.
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FJohn Reinke
Consultant at Technology Legacies LLC
Advisor, Computer Governance Committee at Manhattan College
Editor / Publisher at Jasper Jottings
Greater New York City Area
JJ Positraction JJ Endnotes Downsize DC
Philosophy of Liberty
I have NOT received any gagged governmental information requests
Reinke Faces Life 