Free Republic

I know we're rife with vanities right now. This is "news" because it is an eyewitness account. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is in one of the SAFEST districts in the nation for Demon-rats, is out campaigning at local precincts today. NO JOKE. Saw her hope out of an SUV today (didn't look like it was a hybrid, either)...and, with my "anti-Obama" sign, I told her it was nice seeing her having to get out and campaign. She is in a contest with a lady named Karen Harrington, whose signs are ALL OVER this part of Broward. Debbie says to me...

It's been two years since Lehman Brothers failed (Sept. 15, 2008), and we still can't conclusively answer this question: What if the government had saved Lehman? Its bankruptcy was pivotal. Until then, deteriorating housing and mortgage markets had triggered what seemed a serious -- but not unprecedented -- recession. Once Lehman failed, the economy went into a frenzied free fall. It's hard not to wonder whether some of the ensuing turmoil could have been avoided. Consider what happened after Lehman: -- Credit tightened. Banks wouldn't lend to each other, except at exorbitant interest rates. Rates on high-quality corporate bonds went...

It's been two years since Lehman Bros. failed (Sept. 15, 2008) and we still can't conclusively answer this question: What if the government had saved Lehman? Its bankruptcy was pivotal. Until then, deteriorating housing and mortgage markets had triggered what seemed a serious — but not unprecedented — recession. Once Lehman failed, the economy went into a frenzied free fall. It's hard not to wonder whether some of the ensuing turmoil could have been avoided. Consider what happened after Lehman: • Credit tightened. Banks wouldn't lend to each other, except at exorbitant interest rates. Rates on high-quality corporate bonds went...

Last week, on the very day that the World Health Organisation officially declared the swine flu pandemic over, microbiologists launched a new alert – over multi-drug resistant bacteria. Professor Tim Walsh, co-author of a report in the Lancet Infectious Diseases, strikes the now-familiar note of impending doom: ‘In many ways, this is it. This is potentially the end. There are no antibiotics in the pipeline that have activity against NDM 1-producing Enterobacteriaceae.’ (1) Here we go again. Only 12 months since the great summer alarum of 2009, when England’s chief medical officer Liam Donaldson raised the spectre of 65,000 deaths...

LABOR'S polling nightmare has materialised. After being seen to be the easy frontrunner in national polls for most of the campaign there is a shift in voter sentiment and the danger that a "protest vote" will unseat the Gillard government. Now, within 48 hours of the only poll that counts, Labor is panicking and desperately trying to frighten Labor voters away from protesting about the Rudd government's record of broken promises and misadventures, and the removal of Kevin Rudd himself. The real possibility of the election of Tony Abbott is now central to Labor's last-minute scare campaign to summon up...

NEW YORK (WABC) -- You've probably heard the slogan "See Something, Say Something." Now it appears potential terrorists hope that you do, just to see the response. Suspicious bags, some provoking a cautious response, were checked out in large numbers in the weeks after the failed Times Square bombing attempt. Bomb expert Kevin Barry with 20 years experience in the NYPD says the bags could be filled not with bombs, but with innocuous items like water bottles or socks. The potential terrorists would be watching the response. "After every major incident there will be a spike in calls because people...

/begin my translation N. Korea's Defense Commission Held Unprecedented News Conference over Cheonan's Sinking 05/29/10 (Korea Central News Agency, Pyongyang = Yonhap News) On May 28, at People's Cultural Palace in Pyongyang, Maj. Gen. Pak Rim Su, director of the department of policy at the National Defense Commission, gave news conference to invited diplomatic corps. /end my translation

The euro was weak again early Thursday and, predictably, global stocks followed suit. Japan's Nikkei fell 1.5% overnight, major European bourses were down 1.85% to 3% in recent trading, while U.S. proxies were down 2.5% to 3%. In recent trading, the Dow was below its 200-day moving average of 10,250, while the S&P 500, Dow Transports, Nasdaq and Russell 2000 were each more than 10% below recent highs, or in official "correction" territory. Traders watch such technical indicators closely, and concerns about moving averages and the like can become self-fulfilling and generate more selling. At the same time, the selloff...

Rush Limbaugh might have sounded [to some] as though he was in panic mode yesterday. He's not. Rush is bracing us for an important danger. FRiends, this is not the end of peaceful solutions. Seriously. If a few wackos run out and get themselves locked up or worse, they will find themselves alone. Why? There’s too much common sense out there. Three things, and only three things, should trigger panic between from now to November: 1. If a midnight voter block suddenly pops up. If Team 0bama rushes a midnight illegals-to-vote bill that could virtually erase conservative votes in 2010...

Princess Aiko, the eight-year-old granddaughter of the Japanese Emperor, has become unable to go to school after suffering a series of anxiety attacks and stomach aches. Her problems, said the Imperial Household Agency, arose from her “rough behaviour” at the hands of boys in her age group at the ultra-exclusive Gakushuin school she attends in central Tokyo.

Okay, so I just got back from the store...DC is close to a full-blown panic about the storm heading our way. There's an interesting race-to-the-bottom dynamic that overtakes DC when it snows. People hie to the supermarket as if a billion Chinese zombies with frickn' lasers strapped to their heads are about to invade from outer space and nobody knows the correct translation of "Klaatu burada nikto." When I lived in Adam's Morgan (the most New York City-ish DC neighborhood) I was amazed at how people would buy not just canned goods and, say, chili-fixings, but gallons and gallons of...

For decades, American liberty writers have been warning of an inordinate reaction from public servants in time of crisis. We also know that you don't let a good crisis go to waste, because it is an opportunity to do things the electorate would never let you do otherwise. The Founding Fathers warned that a government which does not trust its people itself cannot be trusted. The acting out of public servants for what they mistakenly believe about the electorate is something they elect to back by force, as in gun control. Public servants are this way tragically mistaken about the...

All the US bank runs and panics of the late 19th century — 1857, 1861, 1866, 1873, 1877, 1890, 1893, 1896 and 1907 — are clearly visible in the chart below of the call money rate — the rate for borrowing collateralised against equities. The call money market was the “shadow money” of its day — and lending terms almost always tightened when the underlying collateral was in a bear market, and usually eased remarkably quickly once it was over. The big difference this time round was that we had a wholesale funding run starting in the shadow banking itself,...

Global markets sank sharply at the end of last week on fears that Dubai World, a subsidiary of the government of Dubai, was on the verge of defaulting on approximately $60 billion of the emirate's $80 billion in total debt held by creditors world-wide. The rush of news stories added to the wildfire of panicky speculation, with headlines ranging from "Dubai Default Risk May be Big US Bank Problem," to "Dubai Shows Limits of Government Rescues." The mini-panic, however, has little to do with Dubai and everything to do with the tenuous psychology of global investors still skittish after the...

Stocks down 214 already this morning

Obama bowed to emperor as 'protocol' By: Mike Allen November 14, 2009 11:08 PM EST SINGAPORE – A senior administration official said President Barack Obama was simply observing protocol when he bowed to Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko upon arriving at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on Saturday. “I think that those who try to politicize those things are just way, way, way off base,” the official said. “He observes protocol. But I don’t think anybody who was in Japan – who saw his speech and the reaction to it, certainly those who witnesses his bilateral meetings there –...

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Health Officials in Ukraine say the death toll from a suspected swine flu outbreak has reached 144. Almost a million people are thought to be infected, mostly in the west of the country. ~ Over a hundred have died since the outbreak of the virus last week. But it's still unclear exactly what killed those Ukranians. Only some are confirmed as a result of AH1N1, the rest are blamed on respiratory diseases. Even so, talks over imposing a state of emergency in the country are surfacing from the highest levels. Should that happen, the upcoming presidential vote could be shifted...

On a chilly morning, President Obama came to the Rose Garden Friday morning to try to offer reassurance in the wake of both the Fort Hood shootings and dismal economic news, suggesting -- regarding the latter issue -- that he was considering even more economic stimulus measures. (snip) Turning to this morning's news that unemployment has risen to 10.2%, the president also announced that he signed into law a bill that he said "will help grow our economy, save and create new jobs, and provide relief to struggling families and businesses," the need for which was "made clear by the...

Here is a video, released today by the Washington State DOT, of a computer simulation of what is expected to happen if a magnitude 7.0 quake hits the area near downtown Seattle..... YouTube video This video focuses on the effects such a quake would have on the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the seawall on the waterfront. Make no mistake about it...this video is designed to scare the heck out of anyone who uses the viaduct. Why release it? According the the WSDOT, a private citizen, name withheld, made a public disclosure request through the FOIA.