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Asking freepers for advice: 1970s & cars... what's it mean? I'm researching for an article that will be the final of a series of four on "Motoring in Tough Times," on automobiles and economic trouble. We started with WWI and the 1920 depression, went from there to the 1930s, on to WWII & its aftermath, and now heading into the 1970s. The articles are being published by the best automotive and automotive history magazine out there, a hard-bound quarterly, which you will know if you know it. I go to Freepers for advice because the 1970s marks such a complicated,...

While many people this month are focused on the controversy surrounding the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, I have another civil-rights-related 40th anniversary on my mind. On Aug. 11, 1965, the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles broke out in flames on the nation's television screens. Many cherish the memory as the moment when the militant became mainstream in a "fed-up" black America, replacing the nonviolent, gradualist efforts of old-guard civil rights leaders. The Watts riot indeed shaped modern black American history more decisively than the Voting Rights Act. The question is whether it was in a...

Joseph Spear has not spent much time in Washington, but the man who will design one of the most important additions to the city's skyline -- a baseball stadium -- has learned quickly that the city is hard to define. "It depends on who you ask," Spear said. "There's a federal city and a local city. We are 100 percent committed to a ballpark that represents D.C. What does that mean? Our answer is both. We'll do something symbolic of both." So on a recent day at the corner of South Capitol Street and Potomac Avenue in Southeast Washington, Spear...

OMAHA, Neb. (Reuters) - Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK-A - News; NYSE:BRK-B - News) lost $310 million in the first quarter from betting against the U.S. dollar, but has nevertheless maintained its roughly $21 billion stake against the greenback, the billionaire said on Saturday. ... Omaha-based Berkshire's stake in foreign currency contracts total "a little more than $21 billion," compared with $21.4 billion spread among 12 currencies at year end, Buffett said. That bet backfired in the first quarter, and even now it costs about 5 percent fewer dollars to buy euros than on Dec. 31. Berkshire's currency bets...

NEW YORK, Mar 28 (Reuters) - Economists surprised by the failure of the dollar's three-year slide to narrow the U.S. trade deficit are increasingly focusing on the growing presence of multinationals in global commerce. With globalization spurring trade between multinational firms and their foreign-owned affiliates or subsidiaries in recent years, the traditional relationship between trade flows and the dollar may be eroding, some analysts say. A depreciating currency usually takes about 18 months to start to impact the trade deficit, an economic theory known as the "J-curve", but the dollar has been weakening for about three years now with little...

Dollar jumps on hawkish Fed but can gains last? Tue Mar 22, 2005 05:01 PM ET NEW YORK, March 22 (Reuters) - The dollar rallied sharply on Tuesday after the Federal Reserve raised U.S. interest rates and dropped heavy hints it will act against building inflation pressures, but the currency's rally may be short-lived. Persistent concern over the record U.S. current account deficit and suspicions that central banks around the world are reluctant to add dollar assets to their international reserves will soon return to investors' minds, analysts say. The cyclical boost to the dollar from relative U.S. economic outperformance...

HEADLIGHT THEFT: A man reported an attempt to steal headlights from his car while it was parked at his home on Short Beach Road in Stratford. The man told police Wednesday morning his 2004 Nissan Maxima had been damaged in the area of its headlights the previous night. Officers reported seeing pry marks and scratches on the car from an effort to remove the lights. The left headlight had been removed but the right one was still in place, police said. The man estimated the damage at about $2,000.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Prudential Financial Inc. (NYSE:PRU News, the second-largest U.S. life insurer, said on Tuesday quarterly earnings fell, in part because of losses related to hedges it made in foreign currencies. The insurer said net income fell to $317 million, or 64 cents a share, in the fourth quarter from $481 million, or 92 cents per share, a year earlier. The Newark, N.J.-based insurer posted gains in business units like insurance and asset management, but profits were hurt by the U.S. dollar weakening against the Japanese yen in the fourth quarter of last year. "The dollar lost value...

Euro the Indomitable Wednesday February 2, 6:26 am ET By Boris Schlossberg strategist@dailyfx.com Despite registering the worst unemployment rate in Germany since World War II, despite suffering sharply lower German Retail Sales than expected, despite breaking the psychologically important barrier of 5 Million Germans without a job, the euro, like the Terminator, continued its relentless rise against the greenback, shrugging off the latest gloomy economic news. During most of the early European session, the euro held near the highs set in Tokyo as most FX dealers ignored the poor German data. Granted, the news was well known ahead of...

History Channel show "The Presidents" runing tonight 8pm central, starting with "Cleveland to Taft." Segment includes McKinley and T. Roosevelt. Ole Nicollo is interviewed for the Taft segment. Anyone watching, please let me know how silly the bald guy looks (Bromley)! I'm gonna be out celebrating the new Prez. Hope Taft looks good, meanwhile! It's about 8:30 now, and they're up to McKinley's assassination. They completely shorted McKinley's story. So much more to the man and his presidency!

Naval Surface Warfare Center neighbors, employees question safety A missile launcher that was recently installed on the grounds of the Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division, is concerning some workers at the center and residents who live nearby. But Navy officials say most questions about the weapon can't be answered because of national security. "I was not really pleased to learn about [the missiles]," said Carolyn Summerville, who lives on MacArthur Boulevard near the facility. "No one said anything and there they are." .... Summerville said she understands the need for security around the District, but the idea of...

· European Union Sees 1.8 Percent Expansion In Q3 · Dollar Bears Return On Record Deficit · Market Anticipates Bank Of England Decision EURUSD With European Central Bank policy makers meeting tomorrow to discuss the immediate future of interest rates, investors concentrated on key economic data release in creating market direction. Released in line with estimates, gross domestic product for the third quarter rose slightly by 0.3 percent in the monthly comparison. This makes annualized expansion in the Euro-zone at a 1.8 percent rise, as expected by economists. However, German household consumption and consumer price figures were lower as higher...

Euro bulls received their wish yesterday as the TICS data printed beyond even the worst market expectations at $48.1 Billion versus last month's $63 Billion surplus. However, looking deeper into the data the situation may not be as dire as it appears. Foreign demand for US assets actually remained relatively stable at $60 Billion. What skewed the data downward, was the renewed appetite from Americans for foreign securities with that number swinging from net sales of $3 Billion in September to net purchases of $15 Billion in October. In fact, this was the largest net buying of foreign assets...

If you can make sense of it, here's the article: Stellar encounters as the origin of distant Solar System objects in highly eccentric orbits SCOTT J. KENYON AND BENJAMIN C. BROMLEY The Kuiper belt extends from the orbit of Neptune at 30 AU to an abrupt outer edge about 50 AU from the Sun. Beyond the edge is a sparse population of objects with large orbital eccentricities. Neptune shapes the dynamics of most Kuiper belt objects, but the recently discovered planet 2003 VB12 (Sedna) has an eccentric orbit with a perihelion distance of 70 AU, far beyond Neptune's gravitational influence....

25nov04 1999 – Five-year-old Elian Gonzalez is rescued at sea after a boat capsizes during a voyage from Cuba to the United States, killing his mother and 10 others. Elian is turned over to his Miami relatives.

On the eve of this President's stand for re-election, please allow me to state just a few things about his record of enduring character that you may not have heard of much of late, not even from the President himself: - The Bush doctrine is set national policy and rhetoric. Its logic is unimpeachable, and not even his opponent contests it. - Same goes for the Bush/Reagan tax policy. Those in favor of new or higher taxes are now the insurgents. - The Bush record on court appointees, while lacking in certain publicized cases, is as good as the Washington...

Iraq Power Grid Shows U.S. Flaws BAIJI, Iraq (news - web sites) — During the 1991 Persian Gulf War (news - web sites), two Tomahawk cruise missiles slammed into the hulking power complex here, leaving dumpster-sized transformers crumpled like balls of tissue paper. The strike crippled Iraq's largest source of electricity, cutting off almost 10% of the country's power supply. It took two months and 23 days for Iraqi engineers to get the plant running again. During last year's war, the U.S. military carefully avoided attacks on Iraq's electrical infrastructure, and the plant escaped unscathed. After Baghdad fell, U.S....

Mr. Kerry Goes to the United Nations Senator Kerry Ladies.... and.... Gentlemen. Members of... the... World Community. We.... have.... before us, a..... MO...mentus O...casion, a.... MO...mentus MO...ment that we.... must meet. THE.... world affairs... need... our attention. Iraq.  I... voted... for Iraq. But... I... was in... Viet..nam.  And... I... have a... so...lution. You... will be.... the so...lution... Secretary General Thank you, Senator Kerry, thank you. Very fine. Yes. Yes. French AmbassadorZee solu-see-on, M. Kerree. Oui!. Zee solu-see-ion! C'est Christian Dior, votre parfum, n'est-ce pas? Cuban Ambassador Viva Fidel! Senator Kerry I..... have a... solution... I... was... in... Viet...nam.  I... Secretary...

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Today's Toles cartoon in the Washington (com)Post, entitled The 20th Hijacker Arrives, depicts the U.S. Capitol building being blown apart by "The Deficit," and with a sub-title, "Who Could've Foreseen?"