1 April 2008
News and Comments - 04/01/08
Posted by Joy Bischoff under: What's News .
18 Comments so far...
Jesse Says:
1 April 2008 at 12:54 am.
It kind of shocked me to see this headline on the Drudge Report from a British newspaper:
USA 2008: The Great Depression
Food stamps are the symbol of poverty in the US. In the era of the credit crunch, a record 28 million Americans are now relying on them to survive – a sure sign the world’s richest country faces economic crisis
By David Usborne in New York
Tuesday, 1 April 2008
We knew things were bad on Wall Street, but on Main Street it may be worse. Startling official statistics show that as a new economic recession stalks the United States, a record number of Americans will shortly be depending on food stamps just to feed themselves and their families.
Dismal projections by the Congressional Budget Office in Washington suggest that in the fiscal year starting in October, 28 million people in the US will be using government food stamps to buy essential groceries, the highest level since the food assistance programme was introduced in the 1960s.
The increase – from 26.5 million in 2007 – is due partly to recent efforts to increase public awareness of the programme and also a switch from paper coupons to electronic debit cards. But above all it is the pressures being exerted on ordinary Americans by an economy that is suddenly beset by troubles. Housing foreclosures, accelerating jobs losses and fast-rising prices all add to the squeeze.
Emblematic of the downturn until now has been the parades of houses seized in foreclosure all across the country, and myriad families separated from their homes. But now the crisis is starting to hit the country in its gut. Getting food on the table is a challenge many Americans are finding harder to meet. As a barometer of the country’s economic health, food stamp usage may not be perfect, but can certainly tell a story.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/usa-2008-the-great-depression-803095.html
Cameron Says:
1 April 2008 at 6:46 am.
Clinton-Obama race spurs party switches
By JULIA SILVERMAN, Associated Press Writer Tue Apr 1, 3:06 AM ET
PORTLAND, Ore. - Matthew Buckingham, a stay-at-home father in Portland’s suburbs and lifelong Republican, is fired up about voting for Sen. John McCain in November.
But on May 20, the date of Oregon’s unexpectedly consequential presidential primary, Buckingham’s choice for the primary is still up in the air: Should it be Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, or Sen. Barack Obama?
Like nearly 10,000 Oregonians — and thousands more voters in other late-primary states — Buckingham has temporarily switched his party affiliation in order to be able to vote in the red-hot Democratic primary.
“The bottom line is, this is the first Oregon presidential primary I have ever voted in my life that actually could matter, and I am not going to pass up that chance just because I am registered with the wrong party,” said the 45-year-old Buckingham. “I want to make sure whoever gets in there, it is someone I can live with.”
Many voters say they have made the switch to grab the chance to have a voice they never thought they’d have, in a historic race that conventional wisdom had predicted would be decided on Super Tuesday in February.
Some renegade conservatives, though, will admit to switching in order to drag out the Democratic primary as long as possible in the hope of bruising both candidates along the way.
Talk radio hostess Victoria Taft, a familiar Republican voice in the Democratic-leaning Pacific Northwest, said that even in her wildest dreams, she never imagined urging her listeners to vote for Clinton.
But these days, Taft is firmly on the New York senator’s bandwagon, along with national conservative talk radio heavyweights like Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080401/ap_on_el_pr/vote_switching;_ylt=Aml5jveUk8R42J5FEIAtecKyFz4D
Sharon Anderson Says:
1 April 2008 at 9:11 am.
We can’t change most of the worrisome things that are happening in our country and the world, but while we stay informed, there is something we CAN do. I have a sign by my computer that says, “Do what you can, for those you can, where you are, with what you have.” We can make a difference in our families and with our neighbors and the people we meet and spread some light. We can seek divine guidance for the best way to love and lift others. I’d love to hear a few comments on ways we have made a difference in another’s life, including for example, how we have been successful in sharing the things we read on this great site.
Sharon Anderson Says:
1 April 2008 at 9:21 am.
I guess I will take my own challenge. Last night I spoke to my brother who after hauling food storage around for 30 years did not take it with him when they made their last move. He and his wife still haven’t replaced it either, so I told him about some of the articles we have been reading here and encouraged him to share this information with their five married children. He said he was convinced he needed to take immediate action and invited me to check back with him in one or two weeks to check on their progess. Spread the word!
SGS Says:
1 April 2008 at 9:33 am.
Here are a couple of good articles (long! But worth your time) from Hillsdale University’s monthly publication. The subscription is free, by the way.
“Limited Government: Are the Good Times Really Over?”
In this article, the person giving this lecture, Charles R Kesler, listed 7 propositions of what constitutes a “limited government” and whether it still is appropriate for our time. For example, the first proposition is:
Proposition one: Limited government can be distinguished from small government. The two concepts are easily confused because they usually overlap. We are in the habit of invoking, for example, the percentage of Gross Domestic Product that is consumed by government as a sort of criterion. If that percentage goes up, we become alarmed for our liberties. If it goes down, we breathe a sigh of relief. And there is something to this: It is illuminating, for instance, that in 1930, before the New Deal, federal spending was 3.4 percent of GDP, whereas today it’s about seven times that. But there are other instances, perhaps more instances, where that figure can be misleading. At the height of World War Two, for example, the federal government spent 43.6 percent of GDP. But was this big government in the pejorative sense? Was it a violation of our liberties? Necessary spending on the legitimate purposes of government, such as national defense, doesn’t impinge on limited government, even if the costs of these purposes may loom large in terms of a percentage of GDP. There are instances in which government can be big and expensive and yet its purposes remain limited.
SGS Says:
1 April 2008 at 9:39 am.
Another from Hillsdale College (note this name, not University. Sorry about my mistake).
The Case for Terrestrial (a.k.a. Nuclear) Energy
Here, William Tucker, a reporter who have been following the energy issues closely over the years, talked about why nuclear power really is a wonderful thing. Here are a couple of paragraphs I like:
Another objection to nuclear power is the supposed waste it produces. But this is a mischaracterization. A spent fuel rod is 95 percent U-238. This is the same material we can find in a shovel full of dirt from our back yards. Of the remaining five percent, most is useful, but small amounts should probably be placed in a repository such as Yucca Mountain. The useful parts—uranium-235 and plutonium (a manmade element produced from U-238)—can be recycled as fuel. In fact, we are currently recycling plutonium from Russian nuclear missiles. Of the 20 percent of our power that comes from nuclear sources, half is produced from recycled Russian bombs. Many of the remaining isotopes are useful in industry or radiological medicine—now used in 40 percent of all medical procedures. It is only cesium-137 and strontium-90, which have half-lives of 28 and 30 years, respectively, that need to be stored in protective areas. … France has produced 80 percent of its electricity with nuclear power for the last 25 years. It stores all its high-level “nuclear waste” in a single room at Le Havre.
We are forbidded to recycle the nuclear materials because President Carter signed into law that we must store 100% of the waste.
Consider: At an average 1,000 megawatt coal plant, a train with 110 railroad cars, each loaded with 20 tons of coal, arrives every five days. Each carload will provide 20 minutes of electricity. When burned, one ton of coal will throw three tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We now burn 1 billion tons of coal a year—up from 500 million tons in 1976. This coal produces 40 percent of our greenhouse gases and 20 percent of the world’s carbon emissions.
By contrast, consider a 1000 megawatt nuclear reactor. Every two years a fleet of flatbed trucks pulls up to the reactor to deliver a load of fuel rods. These rods are only mildly radio-active and can be handled with gloves. They will be loaded into the reactor, where they will remain for six years (only one-third of the rods are replaced at each refueling).
SGS Says:
1 April 2008 at 9:46 am.
Oh yes, William Tucker also covered the misinformations of the nuclear disaters of Three Mile Island nuclear plant and the Chernobyl accident.
SGS Says:
1 April 2008 at 9:59 am.
Umm… Sounds like we are at the financial door already! Here from my daily Idaho Values Alliance email…
Things with Social Security and Medicare are much worse than most people believe. Medicare will start spending more money this year than it takes in, and is likely to be completely busted by 2017. That’s the same year that Social Security payments will begin to exceed income, and it will be flat broke by 2041 at the latest. The reality is that there simply is no surplus in these programs - the revenue has long ago been spent to fund government programs. All that remains are government IOUs, which will require the government to borrow money, thus deepening the deficit, and both cut benefits and raise taxes. With one baby boomer now retiring every 8 seconds, we are headed for a social train wreck of staggering proportions.
Let me repeat… “Medicare will start spending more money this year than it takes in.” What this means is that sometimes this year, the Federal government will start to borrow to pay for the Medicare program. Yes, this means the huge percentage take-away we see in our paycheck every 2 weeks or so won’t be big enough to cover this program. Yes, it means with all of the economic troubles we are seeing, like resucing the mortgage industry using the money out of thin air, we will see more money coming out of thin air. Yes, this means our dollar value will sink ever faster during the year. Fun, huh?
But despire not, as Sharon said here, we need to remember that there is always one source we could look toward for our safety, for our guidance and blessings, and the Federal Government is not it. Rather, it is the Being our nation increasingly fails to acknowledge. Let us remember Him always in our lives!
SGS Says:
1 April 2008 at 10:12 am.
Another one from IVA…
Unfortunately for global warming hystericists, and all three presidential candidates, global warming actually stopped in 1998, based on data from the NASA Aqua satellite. This while carbon dioxide has continued to accumulate in the atmosphere over the last decade, thus challenging the utterly unproven thesis among environmentalists that human-produced CO2 emissions are driving global temperatures up at all, let alone to catastrophic levels.
The Australian: Climate Facts to Warm to
The sad fact with this article is that it is from the Australian newspaper. It published the data that was gathered by our own agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, otherwise known as NASA. Yes, it is the same agency that are being paid with money from US taxpayers. It is the agency charged with the studies of Earth and its climate. The agency has gathered data since 1992 with some of its climate satellites, and those satellites showed that the temperature of Earth has NOT INCREASED since 1998, even with all of those carbon dioxide blenching out of all of our cars on the freeways, with all of the fartings from our meat cows, with all of the coal plants. The JunkScience.com covered this as well. It’s great to know we can trust our own agencies and our own media to tell us the truths.
Cameron Says:
1 April 2008 at 10:24 am.
SGS, thanks for all the help. This is some fascinating stuff. I’m sure learning a lot being a part of this.
Cameron Says:
1 April 2008 at 10:26 am.
btw, I guess my above comment was also for Sharon. This place has opened my eyes and it also feels good to be a part of a community. A lot of our like minded but I think almost all of us at least have the goal of trying to save the constitution and that makes us a team.
Mac Says:
1 April 2008 at 10:58 am.
Sharon and SGS, inspiring statements. We need more of that as we read about reality.
I’d read a few things about medicare and the mess we are in. It’s this attitude that we have to make sure life is perfect for everybody. This life wasn’t meant to be perfect. It’s a trial to bring us back go God.
Good info about nuclear energy. Speaking of waste products, what a waste to not use this kind of technology.
Jesse Says:
1 April 2008 at 11:17 am.
Between Medicare and food stamps we are going to be digging quite a hole this year. We need to bring back manufacturing to this nation and put back some protective tariffs like the founding fathers did or we will find ourselves living in the dark ages when things break down. The part in the Book of Revelation about not being able to use the oceans for awhile shows that things won’t always continue the way they are now.
Jesse Says:
1 April 2008 at 11:41 am.
Some Truckers Plan Strike Over Diesel Costs
Drivers Hope To Send Message To U.S. Oil Companies, Feds
Reported By Jonathan Martin
Diesel fuel has reached another milestone; it has surpassed the $4 mark across much of the nation, according to AAA.
Because of this, many independent truckers are organizing a nationwide strike starting April 1 through April 3. After paying their monthly truck note, then having to deal with soaring diesel prices, independent truckers said they don’t have any money to support their families or pay bills.
“Make a stand, we’re going to unite. It’s something we’ve needed to do,” said truck driver Carla Skipworth.
http://www.wsmv.com/money/15749952/detail.html?rss=nash&psp=news
E.E. Says:
1 April 2008 at 11:50 am.
This made me laugh. If McCain is as bad as he is now, I can’t imagine what a scary teenager he must have been.
“Rambunctious” McCain says he had chip on shoulder
After having his education regularly disrupted by his father’s naval career, McCain ended up at Episcopal as a rebel. He credited his English teacher, William Ravenel, a World War Two veteran, for helping repair the flaws in his personality.
“I arrived here a pretty rambunctious boy, with a little bit of a chip on my shoulder. I was always the new kid, and was accustomed to proving myself quickly at each new school as someone not to be challenged lightly,” McCain will say, according to speech excerpts.
“The Nightingale’s Song,” a 1995 book by journalist Robert Timberg, said McCain cultivated a bad boy image in high school, was defiant and flouted the rules.
“As a young man, I would respond aggressively and sometimes irresponsibly to anyone whom I perceived to have questioned my sense of honor and self-respect,” McCain will admit. “Those responses often got me in a fair amount of trouble earlier in life.”
As an Arizona senator, McCain has been known to sometimes display his temper on Capitol Hill.
“In all candor, as an adult I’ve been known to forget occasionally the discretion expected of a person of my years and station when I believe I’ve been accorded a lack of respect I did not deserve,” he will say.
If his detractors had known him at Episcopal, he will say, “they might marvel at the self-restraint and mellowness I developed as an adult.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080401/pl_nm/usa_politics_mccain_dc_7;_ylt=AvtJxIXVaYcBCxA9yCcM_UIE1vAI
E.E. Says:
1 April 2008 at 3:57 pm.
Wow, good news for people with the right stocks:
Bank news, economic data boosts stocks
NEW YORK - Wall Street began the second quarter with a big rally Tuesday as investors rushed back into stocks, optimistic that the worst of the credit crisis has passed and that the economy is faring better than expected. The Dow Jones industrials surged nearly 400 points, and all the major indexes were up more than 3 percent.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080401/ap_on_bi_st_ma_re/wall_street
Cavetrollhead Says:
2 April 2008 at 12:02 am.
Just wanted to post a great Reagan quote: (there were so many)
“And as an ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao-tzu, said: “Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish; do not overdo it.’ ”
Joy Bischoff Says:
2 April 2008 at 12:31 am.
Cave, I took a Chinese philosophy class and Lao-tzu was my very favorite Taoist. Great quote, thanks.
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