ARC did an interesting post about the extra coverage that Obama is getting .

according to the Herald tribune the reason he is getting all the extra cover is:

The extraordinary coverage of Obama’s trip reflects how the candidate remains an object of fascination in the news media, a built-in feature of being the first African-American presidential nominee for a major political party and a relative newcomer to the national stage.

Arc thinks on the other hand that it is probably because of the fact that he is a Democrat.

The difference in the amount of coverage time is Major:

The imbalance has appeared in various analyses of the news coverage. The Tyndall Report, a news coverage monitoring service that has the broadcast networks as clients, reports that three newscasts by the traditional networks which have a combined audience of more than 20 million people spent 114 minutes covering Obama since June; they spent 48 minutes covering McCain.
[…]

the difference in the amount of time each of the candidates has been given is so obvious that in itself has become a news item…

ARCs point is that the medias explanations for all the extra time Obama is getting is all a big cover up for the fact that most of the media are left and would much rather see Obama president than McCain.

Chuck Todd, the political director for NBC news says:

The large news media contingent that will travel with Obama will be a help if the trip goes wonderfully. But any gaffes will take place before a larger megaphone.

to which ARC’s response is

Based on all of the tingling that the media is feeling in various parts of their bodies, I doubt that any gaffes will be covered at all.

What do you think - I must say I would rather see Obama President than McCain but I am not sure I would go as far as to say that the media are co conspirator’s in such an obvious way…

Could Senator Chuck Schumer have been a Hedge Fund Tool?

Donald Luskin summed up the whole sad story with an article from the Wall street Journal, and some interesting thoughts of “Mike Danger”
For those of you who have not followed the federal take over of IndyMac Bank - Schumer is the person who publicized a letter to the banks regulator last month,claiming the bank could face collapse, which in the end probably caused enough panic with the depositors to indeed collaps the bank.

Schumer Claims he was just doing his job.
The Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) begs to differ.

” the immediate cause of the closing was a deposit run that began and continued after the public release of a June 26 Letter to the OTS and Te FDIC from Senator Charles Schumer of New York…. Int the following 11 business days, depositors withdrew more than $1.3 billion from their accounts”

Said the OTS in a press release.

Donald Luskin quotes Mike Danger saying:

The SEC is investigating hedge funds to see if they circulate rumors, knowing they are false, and trade on them, manipulating the market. Now, did the brave writers at the WSJ miss something?

Someone — with an interest — brought Schumer information on IndyMac. Who? When? Why? What are the chances that Schumer was looking into irregularities into IndyMac because some hedgie with a big short position turned him onto it?

Well, they ain’t zero.

What are the chances Schumer was “investigating” IndyMac because the Senate Banking Committee assigned that case to him? Zero.

What are the chances the SEC enforcement guys will get very shy, very fast if they pick up a trail leading up the Hill? Close to 100%. (Note, Senators have a constitutional shield against certain prosecutions of actions taken in the course of their work as Members of Congress.)

Most likely result? The SEC staff will pluck a few hapless hedgies out of the middle ranks and shoot them in the public square.

Is Schumer correct? Or did Schumer break a law by leaking his letter? What if he were a research director at a hedge fund and told people what he suspected? Would that be the kind of rumor the SEC is hunting?

Think there might be a clever hedge fund which might use Schumer to leak info so they can trade on it without fear of prosecution? Uh, yeah.

That is pretty scary, if you take into account that hedge funds bet not only on growth but on market falls….

This is in now way news, in fact, at the rate things are moving today this is already history, I was reading Jodi from I cite and in a post from march she quoted Greg Palast 

This week, Bernanke’s Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer.

Who are they kidding? Spitzer’s lynching and the bankers’ enriching are intimately tied.

How? Follow the money.

The press has swallowed Wall Street’s line that millions of US families are about to lose their homes because they bought homes they couldn’t afford or took loans too big for their wallets. Ba-LON-ey. That’s blaming the victim.

Here’s what happened. Since the Bush regime came to power, a new species of loan became the norm, the ‘sub-prime’ mortgage and its variants including loans with teeny “introductory” interest rates. From out of nowhere, a company called ‘Countrywide’ became America’s top mortgage lender, accounting for one in five home loans, a large chunk of these ‘sub-prime.’

…

When the housing bubble burst and the paint flaked off, investors were left with the poop and the bankers were left with bonuses. Countrywide’s top man, Angelo Mozilo, will ‘earn’ a $77 million buy-out bonus this year on top of the $656 million - over half a billion dollars - he pulled in from 1998 through 2007.

But there were rumblings that the party would soon be over. Angry regulators, burned investors and the weight of millions of homes about to be boarded up were causing the sharks to sink. Countrywide’s stock was down 50%, and Citigroup was off 38%, not pleasing to the Gulf sheiks who now control its biggest share blocks.

Then, on Wednesday of this week, the unthinkable happened. Carlyle Capital went bankrupt. Who? That’s Carlyle as in Carlyle Group. James Baker, Senior Counsel. Notable partners, former and past: George Bush, the Bin Laden family and more dictators, potentates, pirates and presidents than you can count.

The Fed had to act. Bernanke opened the vault and dumped $200 billion on the poor little suffering bankers. They got the public treasure - and got to keep the Grinning’s house. There was no ‘quid’ of a foreclosure moratorium for the ‘pro quo’ of public bailout. Not one family was saved - but not one banker was left behind.

 

Now how can that happen? Is there no end to the greed and the power lust? it makes one feel as if this country is a dream - not in the good sense of the word, but in the nightmarish - where am I living and what are these stories we have been sold kind of way….

after reading something like this - one feels as if the carpet has been pulled right out from under ones feet…

Nobody is looking out for you, unless you are a banker, (and then you don’t really need it…)

“Sex Crimes and the Vatican” is a BBC Documentry on the possible cover up of Sex Crimes in the catholic church with the help of the vatican and the Pope.

this blogger says

“This BBC documentary explores the idea that Pope Benedict XVI, also known as Cardinal Ratzinger, may have played a leading role in a systematic cover-up of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests.

“In 2001, while he was a cardinal, he allegedly issued a secret Vatican edict to Catholic bishops worldwide. The document recommended that rather than reporting sexual abuse to the relevant legal authorities, bishops should encourage the victim, the witnesses and the perpetrator not to talk about the abuse. Was this done to help the victims and minimize future abuses or was it done in the self interest of those responsible for these grievous sins.”

It never ceases to amaze\astound\enrage me - The calousness of acts like this.

Basicly what this kind of behaviour indicates is that the vatican thinks that what we think of them is more important than the wellbeing of these children, now and in the future.

It is pretty much an open invitation to all pedophilles to join the church and do there dirty deeds in the sanctity of the church.

The well being of these boys should be above all else. How can they not see  that?

American congress for truth suggest we watch the allegedly  controversial film by the Dutch m.p  Geert Wilders 

“Fitna” (civil war or striff in arabic)

It is a beautifully produced short documentary on the threat of Islamofascism that engulfs Europe and the West with hate, murder and mayhem, all directed at terrorizing us. The Dutch establishment, including Church leaders, businessmen, leftist politicians and media pundits, comported themselves as Dhimmis this past weekend by showing solidarity in statements of support and a protest rally with Muslims against “racism” on the Dam-the central square in Amsterdam. With the release of the Wilders film today, they ought to be embarrassed by their abject ignorance. They are the moral equivalent of appeasers and useful idiots abetting the Islamist agenda for dominating the world.

 

The film is a warning to his fellow Dutchmen and to us all. It portrays what the Qu’ran has in store for all unbelievers, whether Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto, Wiccans or atheists.

According to “American Congress for Truth” the film has some pretty grafic footage descrbing islamic fundementalism  with footage from 9/11, the London bombings to blood curling beheadings and female genetal mutilation.

In rapid fire order Wilders shows what has happened in Holland with the mushrooming growth of its truculent Muslim population and attacks on him, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the murder of the late filmmaker, Theo Van Gogh. He shows the blood curdling hate-laced preachings of Imams in Dutch Mosques and their demands to be accommodated in Dutch society.

At the conclusion of this remarkable portrayal there is the sound of a page being torn from a telephone book. Wilders comments that Muslims must define themselves given the Q’uranic imperative to kill, conquer and subjugate us-the infidels.

A terrifying scenario.

Will Islamic Fundumentilism engulf us? What kind of action can be taken against it without it being racist?

Which is the worst of two evils?

Definately food for thought.