Thursday, August 25, 2011

Points of Interest 08/25/2011

Reads:

Who's really funding these 'SuperPACs'?
According to research by the Center for Responsive Politics, all liberal super PACs have raised a combined $7.61 million during the first half of 2011 -- with more than 80 percent of their money coming from 23 donors. [...]

Meanwhile, conservative super PACs have collected $17.61 million so far -- with more than 80 percent of their money coming from 35 donors.
An alternate perspective on the collapse of Gaddafi's regime.
A veteran of the wars of the former Yugoslavia, he had been hired by the Gaddafi regime to help fight the rebels and, later, NATO. "Discipline was bad, and they were too stupid to learn anything. But things were O.K. until the air strikes commenced. The other side was equally bad, if not worse. [Muammar] Gaddafi would have smashed the rebels had the West not intervened."
"You know, nothing says '21st century global superpower' like schools turning to sheep because they can’t afford lawnmowers."*

"Did the stimulus work? A review of the nine best studies on the subject"

I guess it's a good thing I'm on a diet.

WCBD? (What Could Bernake Do?) Fourteen alternatives to another round of quantitative easing.

There are apparently other ideas under consideration...
...but the refinancing approach, the details of which still need to be worked out, would have the biggest bang for the buck: homeowners, many of whom are currently under water, would stand to save $85 billion. They’d still have a mortgage payment to make, but they’d find it easier to afford and would have more money to spend on other things.
"Now what do you suppose it means that BoA’s surrogates have gotten so angry and panicked and..."
...well, dickish, as Schneiderman continues to insist on actually looking at BoA’s books before making a settlement with them? And do you really think it’s a coinkydink that increasing numbers of Wall Street vultures are raising doubts about what’s in those books at precisely the time Obama’s surrogates are increasing pressure on Schneiderman to drop the legal efforts to do so?
"Braxton County West Virginia (160 miles from Mineral) has experienced a rash of freak earthquakes..."
...(eight in 2010) since fracking operations started there several years ago. According to geologists fracking also caused an outbreak of thousands of minor earthquakes in Arkansas (as many as two dozen in a single day). It's also linked to freak earthquakes in Texas, western New York, Oklahoma and Blackpool, England (which had never recorded an earthquake before).
"This is all about protecting the banks from future enforcement actions on both the civil and criminal sides."
The plan is to provide year-after-year, repeat-offending banks like Bank of America with cost certainty, so that they know exactly how much they’ll have to pay in fines (trust me, it will end up being a tiny fraction of what they made off the fraudulent practices) and will also get to know for sure that there are no more criminal investigations in the pipeline.


*now, it's not a bad idea for environmental reasons, but I agree with the larger point that Americans are not doing right when it comes to emphasizing (and paying for) education.

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