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Month: July 2009


Bernanke Testimony from Today – Stonewall Jackson

As it was said on the Naked Capitalism blog entry pertaining to this testimony, “Bernanke basically stonewalls and refuses to offer reasonable explanations. Not sure if he is treating the Congress as stupid or not entitled to know, but he backs himself into a real whopper with his non-defense defense (see 2:55 to 3:20).”

In answer to the Congressman’s question about who gave the Federal Reserve the authority to lend a half a trillion dollars to foreigners, Bernanke responds that it was enacted in the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Basically what he’s saying is we can do what we want, lend money to whomever we please, and all this without any true approval from the Senate, which is exactly what has been happening since the fall and even before that.

Basically, when you get down to it, if you are of the persuasion that we’ve just recently lost our economic rights, you’re mistaken. We lost those rights almost a century ago through the groundwork that was laid in the Federal Reserve Act. It gave power to this super bank, or Bank of banks, who could then later use that power in any way it deemed fit. Bernanke’s rebuttals make that clear. They are acting without the authority of the people, in contradiction of the Constitution.

Peter Schiff was Right and Saw it All Coming

Quite keen insight. He was laughed at by most of the people on these shows … “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.” No one wanted to hear it. And articles like this really should make you take a step back and listen: Fiscal ruin of the Western world beckons … I’m starting to wonder if people really understand how bad off things really are.

Update 8.1.2009: and this prophetic warning from a proven trends forecaster does not bode well for the US … The Collapse of `09.

6 Years of AT&T DSL Connection Woes Resolved in 1 Second

Background: over the years, I have had a fluctuating issue with a weak DSL connection from my ADSL modem to AT&T’s CO (central office) in my area. This resulted in continual errors on my modem and at times the service would just drop off and then come back up. My speed would change often and was never consistent.

So recently, my DSL connection totally dropped for four days. Apparently an AT&T tech messed with things a little too much and knocked out my DSL service attempting to “fix” someone else’s phone line that another tech had messed up (a sort of domino effect). Of course this all happened right before the Fourth of July holiday weekend and so another tech finally came out the Monday after. He got me back online, but the connection speed was the most degraded it has ever been. But he made the decision to switch me over to a “digital line” (update – AT&T tech terminology, not mine, that is simply what he told me – A.K.A. an RT line, digital port, whatever) to get me a much more solid connection.

Anonymizing Squid Proxy Traffic

For anyone using the Squid proxy server, either on Linux or Windows, these parameters will anonymize enough traffic so that websites you attempt to access will still work (such as ajax-heavy sites like Facebook), but your source IP information will still be concealed.

via off
forwarded_for off

header_access Cache-Control deny all
header_access Forwarded-For deny all
header_access From deny all
header_access Keep-Alive deny all
header_access Link deny all
header_access Pragma deny all
header_access Proxy-Connection deny all
header_access Server deny all
header_access Via deny all
header_access WWW-Authenticate deny all
header_access X-Cache deny all
header_access X-Cache-Lookup deny all
header_access X-Forwarded-For deny all

Change We Can All Believe In … In the Middle of a Recession

Email with more information from Kay Granger on the Climate Bill that passed the House two Friday’s ago. Unbelievable.


Dear Friends,

I heard your concerns loud and clear about the “cap and trade” bill.  The overwhelming majority of you who shared your thoughts with me voiced your opposition and frustration, and I am proud to say I voted against this misguided bill.  Although this 1,400-page bill narrowly passed the House, we are still learning what’s in it because parts of the bill were hidden from Members of Congress until less than a day before the vote.

Many of you told me you are worried about the job losses and economic impact we can expect from this bill.  What you may not know is that the Democrats who wrote this legislation know it is going to cost American jobs, so they included incredible new benefits for workers who lose their jobs because of this bill.  These benefits include 156 weeks’ worth of payments that are equal to 70 percent of the worker’s average weekly wage; 80 percent of their monthly health care premium; up to $1,500 for job search assistance; up to $1,500 for moving expenses; and job counseling, training, and other assistance.  Rather than instituting an expensive new welfare program that will cost untold millions in tax dollars, wouldn’t it make more sense to stop those jobs from being lost in the first place?

Why Isn’t the Stimulus Working? It Doesn’t Get at the $40-$70 Trillion of Leveraged Debt – Taleb

http://www.cnbc.com/id/31706523

Interesting Links on The Ramifications of the Economic Crisis

Use the phrase New World Order around people and immediately you will get responses ranging from, “I know! The world government is coming upon us,” to “You’re a nut.” The phrase is often associated with conspiracy theories, some of which are out there. But nowadays, the term is being thrown around very freely in the press.

When I saw these news article titles below, I was kind of shocked, just because it was strange to see a term, associated mostly with many fanatics out there, being used as a normal term for, well, nothing short of some form of global governance. But what I find really interesting about these links below is that they are all from major media sources endorsing the concept of a world economy, which also calls for and implies a world governing body to govern that world economy with (hopefully) just laws. Check ’em out.

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