Mr. David Corn,

GOOD ONE!

Thanks for all of your work!

Kirk

Last throes of laughter...

DEN, I posted this on the Seeger thread, right before the new one, as usual! But here it is again. no one will refute it because they can't.

MECHANICAL ENGINEER: WTC 'PANCAKE COLLAPSE' WOULD HAVE TAKEN 96 SECONDS, NOT 10

Analysis by Judy Wood, Phd

In this article the following theories are presented:

Case 1: Free-fall time of a billiard ball dropped from the roof of WTC1, in a vacuum

the "Pancake Theory"
Case 2: Progressive Collapse in ten-floor intervals.

Case 3: Progressive Collapse in one-floor intervals.

Case 4: Progressive Collapse at near free-fall speed.

No matter how they spin this "official" story, in the physical reality of planet earth it will never add up. Gravity is a bitch, and refuses to cooperate with this pathetic application of a well known science. Wanting to believe does not make it real. Impossible is impossible, dogma won't ever change that fact. The charts tell the story.

It's hard work being a "man of your word" when you don't know what the f**k the word IS! David's post reminded me of this...

bush said about an Amnesty International report, "It seemed to me they based some of their decisions on the word of - and the allegations - by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble - that means not to tell the truth."

#4 of course he meant dissemble, a word Mr. Corn used frequently in his book to describe the Bush campaign and presidency.

A politician that doesn't lie? One would have to be a retard to believe that, and to continue to support bush.

VEEP DOO-DOO

But Cheney is an order of magnitude different. For a number of reasons—his bureaucratic ruthlessness, his domineering influence over a feckless President who seems fated to remain forever inexperienced, his will to power combined with an alleged lack of ambition to succeed his nominal boss—he is universally agreed to be one of the two most powerful officials in the executive branch of the federal government, though it is not universally agreed which one. Truly, this is the Bush-Cheney Administration, in alphabetical order. The hyphen looks like a coy equal sign—not the towhook it was for Clinton-Gore, Reagan-Bush, Carter-Mondale, and Nixon-Agnew, to say nothing of Hoover-Curtis and Roosevelt-Garner.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Good piece!

capt

Rummy's Alternate Universe On Display Again

After General Peter Pace told us over the weekend that things were going well in Iraq, Rummy followed up today by telling us that Al Qaeda is influencing the media to report bad stories from Iraq. What an embarrassment this man is. He should check his comments with the family of Maj. Gen. Mubdar Hatim Hazya al-Dulaimi.

Rummy should also check with our ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who gave a sober assessment of the situation in Iraq amidst all this alternate universe pap from the Pentagon.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

This whole misadministration is losing it!

capt

Mr. Cheney,don't pee down my back aqnd tell me it's raining!!!!

French Journal Says New Crustacean Found

PARIS (AP) -- Divers have discovered a new crustacean in the South Pacific that resembles a lobster and is covered with what looks like silky, blonde fur, French researchers said Tuesday.

Scientists said the animal, which they named Kiwa hirsuta, was so distinct from other species that they created a new genus and new family for it.

A team of American-led divers found the animal in waters 7,540 feet deep at a site 900 miles south of Easter Island last year, according to Michel Segonzac of the French Institute for Sea Exploration, or IFREMER.

The new crustacean is described in the journal of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. The animal is white and 5.9 inches long, about the size of a salad plate.

In what Segonzac described as a "surprising characteristic," the animal's pincers are covered with sinuous, hair-like strands. The diving expedition was organized by Robert Vrijenhoek of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California.

*****end of clip*****

"About the size of a salad plate" you would think they could come up with a size comparison that was not gastronomic?

capt

"You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier...So long as I'm the dictator."

So far, i cannot disagree with Cheney...GW IS a man of his word!!!

TABOO TOPICS by Carol Brouillet

The latest encounter between activist Carol Brouillet, and Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, highlighting the resistance to "information" that many people don't want to acknowledge.

carolforcongress.org

Senate Intelligence Committee Votes Down NSA Spying Investigation

Legislators Instead Reassert Congressional Oversight

SSDD

Cheney is a CHAMPEEN LIAR. How can he say that with a straight face? I'm watching a Rumsfeld press conference and he's saying that there is not a civil war going on in Iraq - he's a very good liar too.

Bush IS a man of his word....which is not a comforting thought, when you realize that he is also a moron who cannot speak in complete sentences without a teleprompter.

Bob

Just got back from the Strawberry Festival down the road in Plant City, Florida:

Corn dogs,
Strawberry shortcake,
Roast corn,
and taking my little girls (5 and 1) to their first real concert: Willie freakin' Nelson.

Rick

Half of us already knew but now the rest are finally noticing his tailor does not use cloth. Still 34% are apparently blind.

#15
Dang Bob, you beat me to it. I think that quote was Cheney's idea of a joke. Yeah, dick, we're all laughing.

I went to my caucus tonight. I'm a delegate to the regional convention on April 1. April Fools Day. Oh oh.

We had good resolutions on health care, transportation, education, affordable wages, and we tried to write one committing to impeaching the president but people want to put the energy into electing democrats instead.

Our state senator gave us a pep talk. He was good. He said our precinct can make a difference this time around. If we elect a democrat in our district we will bring the state house to even democrat-republican. If we do that he said it will have an impact throughtout the country. My little old precinct can make a difference. We have to win.

Criminal Records, Bogus Licenses Among Truckers at Key U.S. Port

In Washington today, House Republicans vowed to defy President Bush's effort to have a Dubai company take over six major U.S. ports. But ABC News has learned about a port threat from within —†a major security breach at the ports of New York and New Jersey.

The two ports handle millions of tons of cargo, with scores of cruise ships passing through each year. Truckers who transport much of the cargo are issued ID cards, which give them access to all areas of the port.

ABC News has learned that the cards, given to thousands of truckers by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, were issued with virtually no background checks. The Department of Homeland Security recently investigated the New York and New Jersey ports, and found stunning gaps in security.

The new DHS report, obtained by ABC News, shows that of the 9,000 truckers checked, nearly half had evidence of criminal records. More than 500 held bogus driver's licenses, leaving officials unsure of their real identities.

"We have no idea who's in the ports. And many of the folks who come in to service the ports, that drive the trucks back and forth, are people who don't have very distinguished backgrounds. May have criminal backgrounds," said Stephen Flynn, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank.

The intelligence report found truck drivers had been convicted of homicide, assault, weapons charges, sex offenses, arson, drug dealing, identity theft and cargo theft.

According to the report, a review of incident logs involving truck drivers at the Newark Seaport in late 2005 revealed one who was identified as an MS-13 gang member. MS-13 has been described as one of the most dangerous gangs in the United States. The logs also highlighted an incident involving "four cabs without containers [which] exited the terminal without stopping at the red light and ignored verbal commands to stop."

Truckers Involved in Drugs and Money Laundering

The report also says 33 ID cardholders were identified in narcotics-related offenses, including people arrested for the possession of cocaine and heroin. Others were involved in drug smuggling. In one incident, according to the report, authorities found 13 pounds of cocaine concealed under a truck's sleeper cab....
------------------
Yesterday I posted an article about the lack of security at the Homeland Security Building. Today I see this on ABC news. This country is being taken for a ride. We are paying for what? We are paying for our citizens to be spied on. We are paying for our congress to pass bills that benefit the rich and to take more of our rights away. We are paying for the congress and white house to shred our constitution.

Just when I think we've hit bottom there's a new bottom.

Saladin, James Ha Ha, Den, etc. Thanks for all the laughs. I find it utterly fascinating that there are people such as yourselves who are willing to swallow the absolute garbage floating in the cesspool of 9/11 conspiracy theories on the 'net! But... I have to remember the truly scary levels of paranoia I observe here. Then it starts to make sense.

Congress Renews Patriot Act; Bush to Sign

WASHINGTON - The House renewed the USA Patriot Act in a cliffhanger vote Tuesday night, extending a centerpiece of the war on terrorism at President Bush's urging after months of political combat over the balance between privacy rights and the pursuit of potential terrorists.

Bush, forced by filibuster to accept new curbs on law enforcement investigations, is expected to sign the legislation before 16 provisions of the 2001 law expire on Friday.

The vote was 280-138, just two more than needed under special rules that required a two-thirds majority. The close vote caught senior Republican aides in both chambers by surprise.

Nonetheless, the vote marked a political victory for Bush and will allow congressional Republicans facing midterm elections this year to continue touting a tough-on-terror stance. Bush's approval ratings have suffered in recent months after revelations that he had authorized secret, warrantless wiretapping of Americans.

That issue helped fuel a two-month Senate filibuster that forced the White House to accept some new restrictions on information gathered in terrorism probes.

Republicans on Tuesday declared the legislative war won, saying the renewal of the act's 16 provisions along with new curbs on government investigatory power will help law enforcement prevent terrorists from striking.
----------------------
"Nonetheless, the vote marked a political victory for Bush and will allow congressional Republicans facing midterm elections this year to continue touting a tough-on-terror stance."

So now all they have to do is go back to the citizens and tell them that the civil rights in this country were less important than giving Bush his patriot act. These guys live in such a bubble they think the American people want the patriot act. WE WANT OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES. WE DON'T WNAT TO BE SPIED ON.

Tim, you and I are being told the truth about everything our government is involved in.

For example, there was a magic bullett in the JFK assassination. How do I know? The Warren Commission.

WTC1 and WTC2 collapsed becuase the heat of the fires (800F) from plane fuel caused concrete to be pulverized and steal to melt (2000F). How do I know? The FEMA report.

People on flight 93 stormed yelled "Let's Roll" and stormed the cockpit causing the plane to crash. How do I know? The script from the made-for-TV movie. If the government shot that flight down, do you think they'd admit it?

Take this back to your constituents, Republicans. This is what it's really about.

Senate Republicans Choose Bush Over Country on Domestic Spying

The GOP-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday voted against a formal Congressional investigation of George W. Bush's domestic spying program, despite almost-certain knowledge that the White House has violated key provisions of Foreign Intelligence Security Act (FISA) laws over the last four years.

The vote, held in a closed session, was strictly on party lines with all seven Democrats voting for an investigation and the committee's eight Republicans voting to let Bush off the hook.

"The committee -to put it bluntly - basically is in the control of the White House," said a visibly angry Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), the ranking Democrat on the committee. "Today was an important day. There was a lot at stake for our country and all Americans, but my Republican colleagues would prefer to operate in the dark."

Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), also an Intelligence Committee member, cited this as just another example of the Republican Congress bowing to Bush and losing sight of their Constitutional duty to provide oversight on the executive branch of government.

"The Intelligence Committee's failure to authorize an investigation into warrantless surveillance is yet another abdication of Congress's responsibility to provide oversight and ensure accountability for this illegal program," said Feingold in a statement.

Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS), said he asked the committee to reject confrontation and accommodate an agreement with the White House to create a subcommittee of seven senators with broad oversight of the National Security Agency's terrorist monitoring.

"We should fight the enemy. We should not fight each other," Roberts said.

A bill proposed by Senator Mike DeWine (R-OH) would temporarily exempt the president's eavesdropping program from the 1978 FISA law aimed at governing electronic intelligence collection inside the United States. The legislation would require the administration to obtain warrants to eavesdrop on U.S. residents unless the attorney general certified to House and Senate intelligence subcommittees that seeking court approval would hurt intelligence gathering.

But Rockefeller was steadfast in his opinion that none of this is about getting to the truth.

"It is apparent to me that the White House has applied heavy pressure in recent weeks to prevent the committee from doing its job," he said. "Although some members of this committee indicate they need more time to decide on what action to take, I believe this is another stalling tactic."

And you can't say that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid didn't see this coming a mile away, issuing a statement last Friday in which he strongly implied that the Intelligence Committee was merely a cooperative arm of the White House.

"When faced with strong evidence that the Bush Administration has misused intelligence, misuses that have made America less secure, time and again the Senate Intelligence Committee has ducked its responsibilities and refused to hold the Administration accountable," said Reid. "The recent record of the Republican-controlled committee is most notable for its abdication of authority and responsibility."

Sadly, that shoddy record continues.
----------------------
I hope the Democrats remember this moment and remind the American people of it on a minute to minute basis. The Republican party are servents of King George.

open your eyes Tim - it will be ok

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
Could save a wretch like me,
I once was lost but now I'm found,
Was blind but now I see.

see what I'm saying?

"All this was inspired by the principle that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because they (public) more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation:"

~~Adolph Hitler / Mein Kampf

Scientists find bacteria that eats material, turns it into usable plastic
_____________
Kevin O’Connor of University College Dublin and his colleagues heated polystyrene foam, the generic name for Styrofoam plastic, to convert it to styrene oil. The natural form of styrene is in real peanuts, strawberries and a good steak. A synthetic form is used in car parts and electronic components.

Anyway, the scientists fed this styrene oil to the soil bacteria Pseudomonas putida, which converted it into biodegradable plastic known as PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoates).

PHA can be used to make plastic forks and packaging film. It is resistant to heat, grease and oil. It also lasts a long time. But unlike Styrofoam plastic, PHA biodegrades in soil and water.
________________
Uhm....what ELSE does this bacteria like to eat?

-T

Oh, lookee, good "conservative" Timmee has reared his little head...

how quaint...

oh ya, Tim the conservative :: click my name to watch the video ::
'LOOSE CHANGE 2nd edition'
it's all about how bushco did not engineer 911 and then did not blame it on arabs and then did not lie and cover it up

What else does it eat? How about Diebold machines?
Election official hammered for telling the truth

Ion Sancho may be a hero in California, where grateful election officials have verified the ''serious security vulnerabilities'' in Diebold voting machines that the Leon County election supervisor uncovered last year.
Sancho is regarded a little differently in Florida.
Florida's secretary of state's office disparaged Sancho's finding, demonstrating considerably more interest in propping up vendors than protecting elections.
California, alarmed by Sancho's report, dispatched its independent, expert-laden Voting Systems Technology Assessment Advisory Board to conduct its own investigation.

Florida, meanwhile, threatened to sue Sancho.

"Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience." -- John Locke, 1690

=
"When the representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their hands, then indeed their continuing in office becomes dangerous to the state": by Thomas Jefferson

=
"Let us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance. Let us remember that 'if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom.' It is a very serious consideration...that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event." : Samuel Adams, speech in Boston, 1771

=
"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." : Winston Churchill

===
Thanks ICH Newsletter!

california's attorney general has committed a full on skode action and authorized the use of diebold machines behind the legislator's backs despite the proven ease of tampering of said machines.

Who needs choice when South Dakota senator Bill Napoli is around to decide for us?

Whatever Happened to Courage?

Why do we tolerate the kind of government we now have? Why do we allow it to rape and plunder the earth that provides the sweet gift of life, and divvy up the profits among the rich? Why do we sit by quietly and allow the invasion and occupation of sovereign nations by the armed forces? Why do we allow our government to fleece the poor by providing eternal welfare to the rich? Why do we allow this government to represent the interest of the wealthy by neglecting the needs of the many? Why do we allow those in power to stealthily pilfer our civil rights, our hard won liberties with hardly a whimper of indignation or protest? How do we allow our government to cripple and assassinate democratic governments all over the world and call it democracy? How do we allow those in power to steal our elections without filling the streets with massive and unrelenting protests? How do we allow the practice of extraordinary rendition to occur under our watch? Why do we tolerate the intolerable while keeping a smile on our bright faces? Why do we allow the charade of the neocon agenda to continue and offer little more than token resistance? What does it take to make us angry and indignant to the point of rebellion? I could go on indefinitely.

More HERE

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People are catching on, slowly. Will it be too little too late? I hope not.

capt

I guess now that the troll has come to realize Bush lied all he has left is the mock troll!

Bummer because the "Bush never lied" has gotten far funnier as the mountain of lies grows and grows!

HA!

capt

IRAQ: Women attacked for removing headscarves, NGO says

BAGHDAD, 7 March (IRIN) - Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in early 2003, the number of women attacked for choosing not to wear head scarves and veils has more than tripled, according to the Women's Rights Association (WRA), a local NGO in the capital, Baghdad.

"Women are being killed because they don't wear headscarves and veils," said WRA spokeswoman Mayada Zuhair. "A life is being taken because of a simple piece of cloth, and someone should prevent more women from being killed by these ignorant people who that believe honour depends on what you're wearing."

According to WRA, there have been 80 attacks to date against women and reports of four women being killed by their families in 2005. This is compared too 22 attacks between 1999 and March 2003 and one death.

"Women's interest in using headscarves/veils in Iraq has decreased, not because they've forgotten their religion, but because, when Saddam's regime was ousted, modernism and development stood before us and everyone wanted to be part of the change," Zuhair maintained. "Not wearing the headscarf/veil is one of the characteristics of modernisation."

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Seems women’s rights are taking a beating here and there.

capt

Fight Looms on Lawmakers' Use of Corporate Jets

Oh hellll yeahh!

How To Start a Civil War in the Republican Party, Part 2:

Watching What You Say

Two months after the New York Times revealed that the Bush Administration ordered the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless surveillance of American citizens, only three corporations--AT&T, Sprint and MCI--have been identified by the media as cooperating. If the reports in the Times and other newspapers are true, these companies have allowed the NSA to intercept thousands of telephone calls, fax messages and e-mails without warrants from a special oversight court established by Congress under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Some companies, according to the same reports, have given the NSA a direct hookup to their huge databases of communications records. The NSA, using the same supercomputers that analyze foreign communications, sifts through this data for key words and phrases that could indicate communication to or from suspected terrorists or terrorist sympathizers and then tracks those individuals and their ever-widening circle of associates. "This is the US version of Echelon," says Albert Gidari, a prominent telecommunications attorney in Seattle, referring to a massive eavesdropping program run by the NSA and its English-speaking counterparts that created a huge controversy in Europe in the late 1990s.
==============
Just the first graf of a 3-pager.

GOP senators refuse eavesdropping inquiry

Say they'll seek curbs on power to spy on citizens

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republicans yesterday rejected a full inquiry of the domestic spying program that was secretly authorized by President Bush, but they said they would push to impose new limits on the administration's ability to eavesdrop on Americans' phone calls and e-mail messages without a warrant.

In a party-line vote, the Republicans who control the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence also created a subcommittee of seven senators who will have access to more details of the wiretapping program in the future.

Republican leaders said they would act soon to limit unauthorized government surveillance of a terrorism suspect to an initial period of 45 days.

Then, the administration would have to get clearance from a special national security court or certify to the new subcommittee that seeking a court warrant would jeopardize national security.

Democrats angrily accused Republicans of bowing to pressure from the Bush administration, which insists that any investigation of the program could jeopardize national security.

''The committee is, to put it bluntly, is basically under the control of the White House," said Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, a West Virginia Democrat and the intelligence committee's vice chairman. ''You can't legislate properly unless you know what's going on."

Rockefeller said the Republicans' bill leaves Congress to ''legislate in darkness and ignorance."

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Odd claim about legislating in darkness and ignorance when bills and laws are passed in the middle of the night and no legislator bothers to actually read any of them. *sigh*

capt

In Bush's case the word is INCOMPETENT. Bush has never failed to be incompetent.

InCheney's case there are many words, Vicious, Arrogant, Ignorant, Irrational, Mendacious, Indifferent.

Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau

NY STOCK EXCHANGE GOES GLOBAL

Welcome to the new world order.
World government is not coming. It is here.

Members of Aipac have been lobbying representatives on the hill hard this week . They have been pushing for military action in Iran and to pass H.R. 4682 which would cut funding even further for the Palestinians.

I have personally talked with numerous representatives who hav been intimidated by this organization and other Jewish organizations when they attempt to honestly address the disproportionate amount of power and influence that these Israel firster groups have over U.S. foreign policy.

Call your reps this week and let them know that you want them to vote against H.R. 4681. An that you want the "alleged" nuclear developments in Iran to be handled by Iaea's Mr. El Baradei. Not Dick "cakewalk" LIAR Cheney , Aipac or any other Jewish Lobbying group.

I have gotten the word that reps are hearing from thousands this week in regard to AIPACS INFLUENCE OVER OUR FOREIGN POLICY...KEEP CALLING

CALL WRITE NOW....NOT TOMORROW..SPREAD THE WORD

21, wow! You blew the gravity theory right out of the water with that eloquent and scientific post! I've seen the light. Those Arabs were truly magical!
James, the NWO has been out of the closet for sometime now, a lot of people will be convinced that it will be the only way to secure peace. Like bushco, whatever they label will in fact be the exact opposite, when they say peace and security, hold on tight, the handbasket will be on it's final approach!

Rice, Lavrov expose widening US-Russia rift
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-03-08 10:07

The top diplomats from Russia and the United States exposed their countries' widening rift on Tuesday, publicly airing disagreements over how to curb Iran's nuclear programs and other issues, such as trade and democracy.

At a news conference, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov departed from their past practice of keeping their differences behind closed doors and exchanged complaints about the other's policies.

After Rice said she had expressed US worries about Russia's democracy, Lavrov retorted that Moscow too had concerns about the United States and complained that Washington was the sole hold-out blocking its entry to the World Trade Organization.
----------
Who the hell made Amerika the demockracy gestapo??? rice better start worrying about the LACK of democracy in her own country, and stop provoking our nuclear capable neighbors!

Contrarian Chronicles
The numbers behind the lies
MSN Money

Economist John Williams says real unemployment and inflation numbers -- figured the old-fashioned way -- may be two or three times what the government admits. Here's why, and what it means for Social Security.

By Bill Fleckenstein

Fun with numbers.

Corporate America likes to play that game, the better to boost stock prices. Folks might be surprised to learn that "Governmental" America also plays the game in its compilation of macroeconomic data. Beneath the surface are undesirable, sobering consequences for us all.

Last weekend, the always-terrific Kate Welling published an interview with an economist named John Williams. It will be available on the free portion of her "pay" site via this link starting March 11. This article is the first one that I have seen in which all the flaws in the government data, pertaining to the Consumer Price Index, unemployment, Gross Domestic Product, etc., are disclosed in one piece by someone who's been following the data for a long time.

Jobs data don't count the down-and-out
Williams starts by discussing the headline economic data: "Real unemployment right now -- figured the way that the average person thinks of unemployment, meaning figured the way it was estimated back during the Great Depression -- is running about 12%. Real CPI right now is running at about 8%. And the real GDP probably is in contraction." (By "real," he means calculating the data the way they used to be calculated, not as inflation-adjusted.)

He then explains how the employment data are compiled, noting that 5 million chronically unemployed people are not included in the statistics. In fact, there are seven or eight different employment statistics. One called U-3 is the official one. The broadest one, U-6, currently shows unemployment as running around 8.4%. As he explains, the one that's the most historically consistent is running around 12%.

Then for the ticking time bomb: Social Security. The proceeds from withholding do not go into a lockbox or trust fund. They are spent, thereby reducing the size of the stated deficit. More importantly, he notes that the government's accounting for the deficit doesn't include any accruals for Social Security or Medicare liability.

In fact, if that were done and the government used GAAP accounting, the deficits for 2003, 2004, and 2005 would each have been around $3.5 trillion. That's a trillion, not billion. In 2004 alone, the deficit on an accrual basis would have been $11.1 trillion, due to a huge one-time spike for setting up the Medicare drug benefits. In essence, as he points out, we're piling up additional liabilities in an amount roughly equivalent to our total GDP every three years.

Lots of these imbalances have existed for some time, and they haven't mattered. Such macro problems only matter when they matter. Once that point in time is reached, events have a way of swiftly getting completely out of control -- which is why one has to understand the nuances and be alert for potential signs of chain reaction, as I mentioned earlier.

In other words, if you really looked at the data and understood them, you'd see that what appears in the headline numbers is nowhere near what the real supporting data show. Our financial condition is a ticking time bomb. What none of us knows is when it implodes.
------------
Certain happy fools out there believe every BS thing they see in the newspaper.

Hi there, Corn-readers and Corn - comment-
posters, I recommend that everyone
please look upon today's "Wall Street Journal " newspaper, PLEASE . I realize not
everyone has easy access to such a beast as that, I myself saw it at my
local public library ...... IT HAS
A OPINION / EdIToRIAL titled " Saddam's
Lidice " and I strongly suggest that
everyone read this vile piece of crud
and distortion cooked up by the ( biased ) Money Speakers working
for the Dow Jones' Wall Street Journal
Inc. thingy.

As a singer from England once noted :

" Money speaks FOR money ,
the Devil for his own . "
( Billy Bragg )

Thank You, Anderson Petition