Prepare for Change

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2008-03-04-local-differences_N.htm and here's a scary CNN video about our soon-to-be depression: http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/144747/US-Depression-Coming.html Why Greenspan, Congress, the President, economists and others blissfully drove us here, I'll never understand. Since we're in deb a gajillion dollars instead of having a surplus to fall back on, we're screwed.

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2008/01/29/news/top/doc479f33ff2dd14661593082.txt And in my beloved Black Hills! Ethanol is made from waste wood rather than corn. A much better idea, since corn is a FOOD and wood waste is, well, waste.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7164898.stm This is a very well written article where even I could understand how the banking industry fudged the rules and caused the housing collapse. The author says that since the actual value of the collapse is about $200 billion, the effect will be equivalent to a $2 trillion loss in the marketplace. That's quite a wallop. Happy New Year!

officials in scandal: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004951.php scandals (293! Is that a record?): http://www.netrootsmass.net/Hugh/Bush_list.html Let's just zip through 2008 so we can get a new president and congress that much sooner.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=448717 If it's not torture, then why do they use it? For enjoyment?

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/17/europe/food.php "Diouf blamed a confluence of recent supply and demand factors for the crisis, and he predicted that those factors were here to stay. On the supply side, these include the early effects of global warming, which has decreased crop yields in some crucial places, and a shift away from farming for human consumption toward crops for biofuels and cattle feed. Demand for grain is increasing with the world population, and more is diverted to feed cattle as the population of upwardly mobile meat-eaters grows." * * * * There's a strange confluence of things working against each other; rising oil prices, global warming, rising population, more wealth (meaning more who can pay for food), etc. This is going to take some smart people to figure out.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/12/14/bashmilah/print.html?source=whitelist We torture people now. The president supports it. Congress is too wimpy to stop it. When I was growing up all the movies made it clear that it was the Enemy who tortured. Never us. That was one way you could tell we were the Good Guys. Then my step father told a few things about his work as in intelligence specialist in the Green Berets in Vietnam and Laos. This was definitely torture. In fact, I'd say it was sadistic torture. So, maybe what the movies were showing was what we wanted to appear to be, not what we really were. It was at least our policy not to torture. But now even our elected officials, and those running for office, support torture. They might not call it that, maybe they call it "enhanced interrogation methods" or something, but it's torture. Things are changing for the worse in my country. I don't like it. I've gone to the streets to protest. An...