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Out of Touch
Author: BobR    Date: 08/13/2008 12:01:33

I am at a loss... literally.

I've been feeling a bit out of touch lately, not really feeling like I have a grasp on the current events. I poked around trying to find something that intrigued me enough to inspire verbosity and eloquence. Instead, I found story after story that made me wonder: what the hell is going in my country?

A town in Arkansas is effectively under martial law (apparently the cops heard McCain's comment that I previously pointed out here):
Mayor James Valley on Thursday called for a lockdown of the roughly 10-block neighborhood northwest of City Hall, in what was formerly West Helena.

No loitering. No walking the streets. "No hanging out."

On Thursday night, 18-20 police officers carrying M-16 rifles, shotguns and night-vision scopes saturated the "cur-1 few zone" for 5/2 hours, arresting about eight people and confiscating drugs and loaded weapons, police said.

"It's something akin to martial law in that particular area," Valley said. "It got to the point where somebody was going to get seriously hurt or killed if we didn't do something."

Police in NYC plan on photgraphing every car that enters the city:
It calls for photographing, and scanning the license plates of, cars and trucks at all bridges and tunnels and using sensors to detect the presence of radioactivity.

Data on each vehicle — its time-stamped image, license plate imprint and radiological signature — would be sent to a command center in Lower Manhattan, where it would be indexed and stored for at least a month as part of a broad security plan that emphasizes protecting the city’s financial district, the spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said.

(as opposed to the residential areas... )

Attorney General Mukasey says not every crime is a crime: :huh:
But, he told delegates to the American Bar Association annual meeting, "not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime. In this instance, the two joint reports found only violations of the civil service laws."

"Only".

Most U.S. Companies pay no income tax:
The Government Accountability Office is set to release a report that says most U.S. corporations pay no federal income taxes.

And most foreign companies that do business in the United States aren't paying corporate taxes.

The study says about two-thirds of American corporations paid zero income taxes to Uncle Sam between 1998 and 2005.

McCain supports tax breaks for oil companies - but not for wind power:
Here's something else that could create political complications for John McCain in key swing states as he continues to defend measures that would maintain tax breaks for the oil industry: He recently opposed extending tax breaks for the wind-power industry.

Making this more difficult for McCain, the fledgling wind-power industry is popular in key upper Midwest and central plains states -- and here you have McCain protecting such tax breaks for Big Oil, but opposing them for Big Wind, or, if you prefer, Little Wind.

The next bubble - credit card debt:
While many eyes are focusing on the housing meltdown and its hugely negative effect on an economy clearly moving into recession, few are paying attention to the next bubble expected to burst: credit cards. You would never know it by watching those slick VISA card ads on the Olympic TV broadcasts.

Combined with the subprime losses, such a credit card nightmare has the potential, experts say, of bringing down the entire financial system and global economy.

You and your credit card have become key players in the highly unstable financial crunch. Mortgage lender cupidity and bank credit card greed wedded to financial institution deregulation supported by both political parties, have been made manifestly worse by Bush administration support-the-rich policies. It has brought us to a brink not seen since just before the Great Depression.

Closing in on $100B spent on war in Iraq - on private contractors:
The United States this year will have spent $100 billion on contractors in Iraq since the invasion in 2003, a milestone that reflects the Bush administration’s unprecedented level of dependence on private firms for help in the war, according to a government report to be released Tuesday.

The report, by the Congressional Budget Office, according to people with knowledge of its contents, will say that one out of every five dollars spent on the war in Iraq has gone to contractors for the United States military and other government agencies, in a war zone where employees of private contractors now outnumber American troops.

You can see why I was flabbergasted. So many things deserving of attention, no wonder I feel out of touch. There doesn't seem to be any way to tie them all together. Hmmm...

One more thing: When asked in an interview (while in Beijing) about America's problems, pResident Bush replied: "First of all, I don’t see America having problems. I see America as a nation that is a world leader that has got great values."

Perhaps I'm not the only one out of touch.

And perhaps I DID find a way to tie this altogether... ;)

 

140 comments (Latest Comment: 08/14/2008 06:22:30 by livingonli)
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