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Random Thoughts of Mine...

From a Really Sober Guy :D

Posts tagged with "news"

Bailout

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A flurry of Web activism is channelling misgivings about the proposed $700 billion Wall Street bailout into political action.

There is NoWallStreetBailout.com, which asks visitors to sign a petition to Congress. It features a quote from Allan Meltzer, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University's business school, saying: "This is scare tactics to try to do something that's in the private but not the public interest. It's terrible."

The cross-town competition comes from VoteNoBailout.org, which says: "We are witnessing a bankers' coup d'etat. In the name of saving the economy from a crisis created by their own greed and immense profits, the biggest bankers have taken a country and a people hostage."

There's also FinancialPetition.org, plus a humorous, off-color Web site that encourages people to "list" items they want the government to buy.

Public pressure in opposition to the bailout, from these sites and from unexpected sources like the AFL-CIO and Republican Newt Gingrich, may have helped to slam the brakes on what had been an unusually fast-moving process in Washington.

By midday Thursday, news articles began appearing saying a "tentative bailout agreement" had been struck between congressional leaders and the White House. But the day ended with the talks in tatters, an intra-party rebellion by House Republicans, and a promise to continue the meetings on Friday.

Read the rest of the article here.

As many of you know, there is an attempt by the Bush Administration to coerce Congress into passing a $700,000,000,000 bailout of Wall Street firms. There has been lots of opposition to the plan which they are no longer calling a "bailout." Instead, they are now calling it a "rescue" plan. No matter what you call it, it is still a plan to protect the profits of big banks while screwing the average American over. The chart at the beginning of the article shows that this proposed bailout will cost every American houshold at least $17,064! :yikes: The adminisitration claims that it will only cost $700 Billion, but we all know that the actual price tag will be a lot more than that. Congress is working over the weekend to pass this bill despite the massive opposition by average Americans, economists over it. One of the major reasons to oppose this bill is the following quote:
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

If that is not outrageous, then I don't know what is! This would give the Secretary of the Tresury authority to do what he wants with no way to stop him! :mad: If the Bush Administration is so quick to bailout the big banks, why they don't just bailout the average American instead? There are many Americans that are struggling to make ends meet, but you don't see the governement trying to help them out now, do you? The government has done enough damage already by bailing out certain companies so far. We don't need them to bailout the big banks that were doing things that they should not have been doing in the first place. Now that their profits are in jeopardy, they come to the government asking for the taxpayers to foot the bill so that those profits remain intact. This is wrong. The Bush Administration claims that if this bailout is not passed, then the economy will experience another Great Depression. We are already in a recession and heading towards a depression regardless. Congressman Ron Paul gives the real resons for the financial crisis. There is also a link to a video interview of Congressman Ron Paul on the main article too. Constitution Party Presidential Candidate, Chuck Baldwin also wrote an article opposing the bailout entitled, No Amnesty for Wall Street. Paul Proctor has a good article to read here. Devvy Kidd has an excellent 2-part article you can read here.

Last night, I went over to a friend's house to watch the Presidential Debate between Republican Senator John McCain & Democratic Senator Barack Obama. As you know both of these main from the 2 major parties are running against each other for President of the United States. My friend had invited some people over for the debate between these 2 candidates. Both candidates were for the bailout instead of being against it. :irked: America is heading for more financial trouble, as was predicted back in 2004.

As I stated earlier, Congress is working over the weekend to pass this bailout. I have sent emails to my representatives in the House and the Senate opposing the bailout. I even called the local office of my Congressman to let them know of my opposition. I urge all Americans to keep up the pressure on your representatives in Congress. You can look up your Congressman here, and your Senators here. We need to send the message to Congress that we don't want to be hoodwinked by the Bush Administration and their banker cronies.


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Report from cop who slammed bicyclist posted online

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Clarification: I mistakenly dropped a word when commenting on whether the officer made any hand gestures to signal the bicyclist to stop. The sentence should have read that the officer made no hand gestures.

Kudos to The Smoking Gun for posting a copy of the arrest report filed by New York City policeman Patrick Pogan.

He's the officer who a tourist videotaped body slamming a bicyclist in what appears to be an unprovoked attack last Friday. The case is rapidly playing out on YouTube, where the clip has been watched nearly 900,000 times since Sunday night, when it was posted.

This is why I love the Web and I respect The Smoking Gun. They get paper. Thesmokinggun.com is famous for posting copies of important documents before anybody. They let readers decide for themselves what people say by publishing court filings, e-mails and memos.
Read the rest of the story here.

I saw the video earlier on YouTube and could hardly believe it. Some members of the NYPD are bad apples that give the rest of the cops on the force a bad name. There have been reports in the past of cops abusing their power. A co-worker of mine had several runins with NY cops. He calls them arrogant SOBs. When you read the police report filed by the cop who body slammed the bicyclist, he lies more than once on the report. He claims the bicyclist hit him, knocking him down and giving him lacerations. That clearly did not happen on the video. The cop even claimed that he saw the bicyclist weaving in and out of traffic almost causing some wrecks. The traffic looked stopped to me in the video also. The cop never tried to gesture, or voice, anything to the bicyclist about stopping for him. This looks like a clear case of police brutality, which does not surprise me about hometown cops. The cop is currently suspended while the NYPD investigates. He needs to be fired for assaulting the bicyclist and for lying multiple times on the police report he filed. If he did these things once, he will do it again unless he is fired. :irked:



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Tree almost crushes car Nelson, New Zealand, funny dog and hilarious news and Comercial moments......videos

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I was looking at news stories online when I happened upon a site with these following 3 videos:

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Man throws away winning $65 million lottery ticket

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LOSER'S $65M WIN
COLLECTS 1 YR. AFTER TOSSING JACKPOT TIX


Here's a guy who figured out how to be both the luckiest and unluckiest man on the face of the earth at the same time.

One crazy afternoon in June of last year, maintenance man Degli Martinez learned he had won a $65 million Lotto jackpot - the largest single prize in the 30-year history of the state Lotto game.

He then promptly lost the ticket.

That began a yearlong odyssey of hand-wringing and heartburn before Lottery officials were finally able to hand Martinez his check yesterday.

"It was a lot of pain waiting," said the 55-year-old Paraguayan immigrant at a lower Manhattan press conference.

Martinez's wild tale began on June 29, 2007, when he bought a handful of tickets at a minimart in Sunnyside.

He returned the following day and had store clerk Supriyo Bhattacharjee scan the ticket bar codes to check for winners.

Bhattacharjee found a $2 winner and a couple of losers and then his eyes widened with surprise.

Read the rest of the story here.



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Homeless woman lived in man's closet for year

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Homeless woman lived in man's closet for year
Japanese man became aware of her presence when food began vanishing


TOKYO - A homeless woman who sneaked into a man’s house and lived undetected in his closet for a year was arrested in Japan after he became suspicious when food mysteriously began disappearing.

Police found the 58-year-old woman Thursday hiding in the top compartment of the man’s closet and arrested her for trespassing, police spokesman Hiroki Itakura from southern Kasuya town said Friday.

The resident of the home installed security cameras that transmitted images to his mobile phone after becoming puzzled by food disappearing from his kitchen over the past several months.

Read the rest of the story here.



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Nude maid accused of really cleaning up

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Nude maid accused of really cleaning up
Jewelry worth $40,000 discovered missing from Fla. home


TAMPA - A nude maid is accused of really cleaning up at a Florida man's home. The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office said a 50-year-old man hired the maid from the Internet on Friday to clean his Tampa home.

Authorities said the woman arrived at the home in a one-piece, light colored dress. She took off the dress and cleaned the house for $100-per-hour. Sheriff's office spokeswoman Debbie Carter said the man told deputies he left the maid alone in the bedroom to clean.

When the man's wife came home from vacation, she discovered $40,000 in jewelry missing from their bedroom.

Read the rest of the story here.



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'Duct tape bandit' sentenced to 10 years

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This is a continuation of an earlier post I had done on the duct tape bandit.

‘Duct tape bandit’ stuck with 10-year sentence
Man fashioned unorthodox mask for Kentucky liquor store heist in 2007


CATLETTSBURG, Ky. - A man who wrapped his head in duct tape and tried to rob an eastern Kentucky liquor store was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison for the bizarre caper, which spawned mocking videos on YouTube.

Judge David Hagerman sentenced 25-year-old Kasey G. Kazee in Boyd Circuit Court, said deputy circuit clerk Cathy Alley.

Kazee pleaded guilty last month to second-degree robbery.

Police said Kazee entered an Ashland liquor store on Aug. 10 with his entire head, except for openings at his eyes and mouth, wrapped in duct tape.

Read the rest of the story here.


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Two wives get wise, snare shared hubby & Man's wife No. 3 comes forward

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I was surfing the Internet when I found this story online:

Two wives get wise, snare shared hubby
They orchestrate his arrest on bigamy charge

CARY - Two women married to the same man teamed up this week to turn him over to police, one of the wives said Wednesday.

Police charged Keron Lamont Wilkins, 30, of 104 Home Trace Circle in Clayton with one felony count of bigamy, according to an arrest warrant filed at the Wake County Magistrate's Office early Tuesday morning.

Bigamy is a Class 1 felony, punishable by four to 10 months in prison.

Police accused Wilkins of marrying Shannetta Dawn Stone, 32, of Richmond, Va., on March 20 while he was married to Chaka Miles Wilkins, his wife of eight years and the mother of his children, ages 4 and 8 months.

Stone first learned of the suspected bigamy April 19, when she talked with Keron Wilkins' mother, Cynthia Moody, a teacher's aide in Emporia, Va.

Stone said Moody told her that her son was married to someone else.

Stone confronted Wilkins, but he lied, saying he was not married. Stone gave him a week to produce divorce papers or she would call the police.

More than a week passed.

Read the rest of the story here.
Now this is not the end of the story, folks. There is a little bit more as you can see next:

Man's wife No. 3 comes forward

A third woman came forward today to say that she, too, is married to a Clayton man who already is charged with being married to two women at the same time.

Jenean Baker, 34, of Atlanta said she and Keron Wilkins wed Nov. 25, 2005, in Miami. She said Wilkins had her name tattooed on his chest.

Wilkins, 30, is in jail on a bigamy charge. He is accused of marrying Shannetta Dawn Stone, 32, of Richmond, Va., on March 20 while he was also married to Chaka Miles Wilkins, his wife of eight years and the mother of his children, ages 4 and 8 months.

Stone said he shared an apartment with her in Cary while he also was living with Chaka Wilkins in Clayton.

In an interview this morning, Baker said that she knew Keron Wilkins had been married to Chaka Wilkins. But she said her husband gave her the impression the relationship was over.

"About four months after we were married, Chaka called me and told me he was already married," Baker said.

Baker said she was shocked at the phone call. She said she was shocked again to learn via news accounts this week about his marriage to Stone.

Read the rest of the story here.

Now I want to know what in the world was this guy thinking? How could he think that he could get away with being married to 3 different women without them finding out about each other? :confused: This idiot is extremely lucky that none of his wives went Lorena Bobbit :ninja: on him! :yikes: What a bloody idiot this guy is! Homer: Doh!


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Woman, 19, becomes youngest college professor

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World’s youngest professor can’t legally drink
Alia Sabur, a prodigy in many ways, says she wants to share her knowledge

Perhaps in Alia Sabur’s wildly advanced studies she came across a famous quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

“Knowing is not enough. We must apply,” the German writer once observed.

That could serve as explanation for what prompted the 19-year-old to become the youngest college professor in history.

Armed with prodigious wisdom, Sabur told TODAY’s Ann Curry on Wednesday that knowledge is power — especially when sharing it.

“I really enjoy teaching,” said Sabur. “It’s something where you can make a difference. It’s not just what you can do, but you can enable a lot of other people to make their changes.”

Sabur, from Northport, N.Y., has clearly been ahead of the learning curve since an early age.

Read the rest of the story & watch the video here.



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Man's dog "steals" truck, Man drives stolen car to police station & Bank accidentally gives man $5 million

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‘Stolen’ truck taken by dog in California
Police say Boxer knocked pickup out of gear; animal wasn't injured

AZUSA, California - Doggone it, my truck's gone!

Police said Charles McCowan parked his pickup in front of a mini-mart Wednesday, leaving his 80-pound Boxer Max in the passenger seat. When he came out, the truck and Max were gone.

McCowan called police, assuming the truck had been stolen. When officers arrived, they found the pickup across the street in a fast-food parking lot but had no idea how it got there.


Read the rest of the story here.

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