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Monday, March 2, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
sup bitches
wus good world. another blast from the balck rider. the brooding auteur, the wrider's writer. is america's 'defense' trying to sabotage the american president by leaking helicopter imformation to iran? is this rfk, siran siran and reagan/hinkley all over again. a covert coup from the inside. only time will tell. the budget-treaury busting stimulus plan has only just begun. got your green car yet? didn't think so. not unless your a latte sucking pill popping medical marijuana smoking elitist getting one of those brand spanking new tesla sports cars. that make the prius eat dust. what an electric car should be. just make sure you have the two hundred grand and electrical automobile charger to boot. if there ain't one at every corner, what the @#$% are we talking about. more words for you l8r young world. the black wrider is now signing off. come back for more comics and the likes.
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The Black Rider
Saturday, February 28, 2009
CNN - Rush Limbaugh calls on conservatives to take back nation
Sent from bombastic4000@yahoo.com's mobile device from http://www.cnn.com.
Rush Limbaugh calls on conservatives to take back nation
Rush Limbaugh brought a cheering crowd to its feet several times Saturday in Washington as he called on fellow conservatives to take back the country in the keynote speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
"We conservatives have not done a good enough job of just laying out basically who we are because we make the mistake of assuming that people know. What they know is largely incorrect, based on the way we're portrayed in pop culture, in the drive-by media, by the Democrat party," the conservative talk show host told a mostly-young crowd of energized supporters.
"We want every American to be the best he or she chooses to be. We recognize that we are all individuals. We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independent. We believe that the preamble of the Constitution contains an inarguable truth, that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, freedom. And the pursuit of happiness," he said, pausing several times for enthusiastic applause.
Looking ahead to the 2012 election, Limbaugh said conservatives will have to choose the right candidate to take the country back.
Limbaugh's impassioned remarks, punctuated by chest-thumping, fist-pumping and chants of "USA" from the crowd, capped off three days of talk at CPAC focusing on rebuilding the Republican Party.
"He played to his crowd here," CNN Political Editor Mark Preston said. "And this crowd is now energized, something we haven't seen from Republicans, certainly not conservatives, since the November election."
Limbaugh used his self-described "first national address," which ran more than hour longer than his allotted 20 minutes, to criticize President Barack Obama for inspiring fear in Americans in order to push a liberal agenda of "big government."
"He wants people in fear, angst and crisis, fearing the worst each and every day because that clears the decks for President Obama and his pals to come in with the answers which are abject failures, historically shown and demonstrated. Doesn't matter. They'll have control of it when it's all over. And that's what they want," Limbaugh said.
"They see these inequalities, these inequities that capitalism produces. How do they try to fix it? Do they try to elevate those at the bottom? No, they try to tear down the people at the top. "
Limbaugh praised Obama as one of the most gifted politicians he has seen, but said, "It just breaks my heart that he does not use these extraordinary talents and gifts to motivate and inspire the American people to be the best they can be. He's doing just the opposite."
Limbaugh also dismissed the notion of bipartianship as a "false premise" given the diverging views of the Democrat and Republican parties on a variety issues, among them, the recent $787 stimulus package signed by Obama.
"Bipartisanship occurs only after one other result. And that is victory," he said. Watch Limbaugh discuss bipartisanship
"What they mean is we check our core principles at the door, come in, let them run the show, and then agree with them," he said.
Limbaugh's rollicking speech came the day after Obama supporters put out a political ad implying that the conservative radio host has become the de facto head of the Republican Party in the absence of a clear GOP leader.
The ad argues that the Republican leadership in Congress is following Limbaugh's lead in opposing the Obama administration's $787 billion stimulus package.
"So who are Republican leaders listening to?," the announcer asks before the 30-second ad cuts abruptly to footage of Limbaugh saying, "I want him [Obama] to fail."
It was paid for by Americans United for Change and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union, two groups that supported Obama during the election and are advocating for his agenda.
Limbaugh doesn't speak for all Republicans or conservatives. Copies of the American Conservative magazine with the headline, "How radio wrecks the right," were distributed to CPAC attendees, Preston said.
"There is some criticism of Rush Limbaugh. Some people think he is a reactionary," Preston said.
Comparing the remark to his desire to see the Arizona Cardinals "fail" in this year's Super Bowl game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Limbaugh defended his comment without denying it. Watch Limbaugh explain failure remark
"This notion that I want the president to fail, folks, this shows you a sign of the problem we've got," he said.
"What is so strange about being honest and saying, I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation? Why would I want that to succeed?" he said, bringing the crowd once again to its feet.
"Did the Democrats want the war in Iraq to fail? Well, they certainly did. And they not only wanted the war in Iraq to fail, they proclaimed it a failure."
Reuters - U.S. charges Stanford with massive Ponzi scheme
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U.S. charges Stanford with massive Ponzi scheme
Saturday, Feb 28, 2009 1:38AM UTC
By Anna Driver
HOUSTON (Reuters) - U.S. securities regulators on Friday accused Texas billionaire Allen Stanford, his college roommate and three of their companies of carrying out a "massive Ponzi scheme" over at least a decade and misappropriating at least $1.6 billion of investors' money.
Meanwhile, a Houston judge ruled on Friday that Laura Pendergest-Holt, the only person arrested in the $8 billion Allen Stanford fraud investigation, could walk free after she posted a $300,000 bond.
In an amended complaint filed in a federal court in Dallas, the Securities and Exchange Commission increased its civil charges against Stanford to include a Ponzi scheme where early investors are paid with the money of new clients.
Along with his former Baylor University roommate James Davis, the 58-year-old golf, cricket and polo promoter "misappropriated billions of dollars of investor funds and falsified" financial statements issued by Antigua-based Stanford International Bank, the SEC charged.
Stanford and Davis could not be reached immediately for comment and have yet to name their legal representatives in the case. The company is directing all inquiries to the SEC.
It was the second high-profile alleged Ponzi scheme revealed by U.S. regulators, after charges that Wall Street veteran Bernard Madoff carried out a $50 billion fraud that allegedly involved a giant Ponzi scheme.
In the amended complaint, the SEC alleged that by February, Stanford and Davis - who have not been charged with criminal wrongdoing - had misappropriated at least $1.6 billion in investor money through "bogus personal loans" to Stanford. The funds were invested in "speculative, unprofitable private businesses controlled by Stanford," it said.
Every month, Stanford and Davis set a predetermined rate of return for certificates of deposit issued by their Antigua bank, then bank accountants reverse-engineered financial statements to "report investment income that the bank did not actually earn," the SEC charged.
The $1.6 billion in loans first came to light in a criminal complaint filed by the Justice Department against Pendergest-Holt, the 35-year-old chief investment officer for the Stanford Financial Group who was arrested by the FBI on Thursday.
The criminal complaint referenced a $1.6 billion loan from a Stanford account labeled "Loan to Shareholder," which was the focus of the SEC's questions to Pendergest-Holt.
After spending a night in a Houston detention center Pendergest-Holt faced U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Milloy in court on Friday.
U.S. prosecutors had asked the judge to set bond at $1 million, an amount that Pendergest-Holt's attorney, Dan Cogdell, called "outrageous."
While agreeing it was a serious case, Milloy lowered the amount to $300,000 and ordered Pendergest-Holt, who appeared in court dressed in a dark pants suit and heels, to wear an electronic tracking device after her release.
The tall, slender brunette appeared grim for most of the hearing but occasionally turned in her chair to smile at her husband, equity fund manager Jim Holt.
FBI agents had arrested her at Stanford's Houston-based headquarters and accused her of obstructing a probe into what the SEC called "massive ongoing fraud" by Stanford and his companies.
Under questioning from Pendergest-Holt's lawyer, FBI agent Vanessa Walther said there is no arrest warrant for Stanford, who was served with the SEC's earlier civil complaint last week.
Meanwhile, Stanford's assets are under the control of a court-appointed receiver -- Dallas attorney Ralph Janvey -- who must sort out dozens of claims by Stanford account holders who have seen their funds frozen indefinitely.
A Dallas judge is expected to rule on Monday on whether to extend a temporary restraining order that gives Janvey control of Stanford's assets -- pegged by the company at $50 billion.
Pendergest-Holt's criminal case also moves to U.S. District Court in Dallas, where the charges were filed, lawyers said.
The receiver thus far has identified only about $90 million in actual assets, the FBI's Walther told the judge on Friday. That does not include a Credit Suisse account containing about $160 million that Pendergest-Holt had access to and signed over to the receiver shortly before her arrest.
"There are billions missing in this case," Justice Department attorney Paul Pelletier told Judge Milloy on Friday.
Meanwhile the Antigua and Barbuda's Senate on Friday approved a government takeover of more than 250 acres of Stanford-owned land before Janvey moves to seize it.
Pendergest-Holt's lawyer Cogdell said his client was innocent of the charges, and will "fight these accusations with every ounce of energy she has."
"They set her up like a bowling pin," Cogdell told reporters after the court hearing, "My suspicion is by Mr. Stanford and Davis." He was referring to James Davis, Stanford's one-time roommate at Baylor University who serves as the company's chief financial officer.
"I see a billionaire who has not been charged," said Cogdell. "I see a semi-millionaire who has not been charged. I see a multi-thousandaire who is being charged. That's just wrong."
The FBI's Walther said Pendergest-Holt's salary in 2007 and 2008 was near $1 million, including bonuses.
(Additional reporting by Eileen O'Grady, writing by Chris Baltimore; Editing by Gary Hill and Carol Bishopric)
Reuters - Combative Obama vows to fight for his budget
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Combative Obama vows to fight for his budget
Saturday, Feb 28, 2009 11:2AM UTC
By David Alexander
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A combative President Barack Obama warned on Saturday he was bracing for a fight against powerful lobbyists and special interests who sought to pick apart the $3.55 trillion budget he wants to advance his agenda of reform.
Obama's spending blueprint, with its massive $1.17 trillion deficit and tax hikes on the wealthy, seeks to squeeze billions of dollars in savings out of current spending through competitive bidding among health insurers and ending subsidies and tax breaks for banks, agribusiness and oil companies.
"These steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business," the president said in his weekly radio address.
"I know they're gearing up for a fight as we speak," he said. "My message to them is this: So am I."
Republicans, in their radio response, warned that Democratic spending priorities threaten to destroy the American dream that hard work can build a better life for each successive generation of citizens.
"This week, the president submitted to Congress the single largest increase in federal spending in the history of the United States, while driving the deficit to levels that were once thought impossible," said Senator Richard Burr.
He said Obama's budget commits the government to a billion dollars a day in interest on the debt over the next decade.
"Now, instead of working hard so our children can have a better life tomorrow, we are asking our children to work hard so that we don't have to make tough choices today," Burr said.
Obama said his budget blueprint delivered on the changes he promised in his election campaign: tax cuts for 95 percent of working Americans, a rollback in tax breaks for people making over $250,000, lower healthcare costs, education reform and an expansion in the use of clean, renewable energy.
The president said his budget also reflected the fact the United States faces a financial crisis, a costly recession and a trillion dollar deficit.
"Given this reality, we'll have to be more vigilant than ever in eliminating the programs we don't need in order to make room for the investments we do need," he said.
He said a page-by-page examination of the federal budget had already identified $2 trillion in potential savings over 10 years.
"I realize that passing this budget won't be easy," Obama said. "Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington."
The insurance industry would not like having to bid competitively to participate in the Medicare coverage program for the elderly, but it is needed to protect the program and reduce costs, Obama said.
He said banks and big student lenders would not like losing their taxpayer subsidies, but it would save nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable.
And he said oil and gas companies wouldn't like losing $30 billion in tax breaks, but it was needed to fund renewable energy research.
"The system we have now might work for the powerful and well-connected interests that have run Washington for far too long, but I don't. I work for the American people," Obama said.
"I didn't come here to do the same thing we've been doing or to take small steps forward, I came to provide the sweeping change that this country demanded when it went to the polls in November."
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Portfolio Mobile - The Astonishing Budget Deficit
The Astonishing Budget Deficit
Now I see what he was talking about. I was worried about Barack Obama's plans to cut the budget deficit in half by the end of his first term: I thought they implied undue optimism about the economic future of this country. As it turns out, they just implied an almost unimaginably-large deficit at the beginning of his first term: $1.75 trillion. I should hope that's cut in half by 2013. If it isn't, then no politician will be able to save us.Related Links
Will Obama Really Raise Taxes?
44, Day Three
The Clock is Ticking
(c) 2007 Portfolio. Powered by mLogic Media, Crisp Wireless, Inc.
CNN - Growing hate groups blame Obama, economy
Sent from bombastic4000@yahoo.com's mobile device from http://www.cnn.com.
Growing hate groups blame Obama, economy
Don Black says he despises Barack Obama. And he says he believes illegal aliens undermine the economic fabric of our country.
Black, a 55-year-old former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard, isn't the only person who holds such firm beliefs, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which today released its annual hate group report.
The center's report, "The Year in Hate," found the number of hate groups grew by 54 percent since 2000. The study identified 926 hate groups -- defined as groups with beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people -- active in 2008. That's a 4 percent jump, adding 38 more than the year before.
What makes this year's report different is that hate groups have found two more things to be angry about -- the nation's first African-American president and an economy that is hemorrhaging jobs. For the past decade, Latino immigration has fueled the growth of hate groups.
"We fear these conditions will favor the growth of these groups in the future," said Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. "In the long arch of history, we are definitely moving forward, but these kinds of events can produce backlashes."
Black claims the number of registered members and readers on his white nationalist Web site surged to unprecedented levels in recent months.
On the day after Obama's historic election, more than 2,000 people joined his Web site, a remarkable increase from the approximately 80 new members a day he was getting, Black said. His Web site, which was started in 1995, is one of the oldest and largest hate group sites. The site received so many hits that it crashed after election results were announced. The site boasts 110,000 registered members today, Black said.
"People who had been a little more complacent and kind of upset became more motivated to do something," said Black, who also said he joined his first hate group at age 15.
Hate groups cited by the law center include white nationalists as well as neo-Confederates, neo-Nazis, skinheads, Klansman and black separatists. Skinheads and Klansman saw an increase in membership, while neo-Nazi groups saw a slight decline, according to the law center's report.
Most of the hate groups are located in the South, but the state with the highest number of documented hate groups is California with 84.
Obama serves as a "visual aid" that is helping respark a sense of purpose in current supporters and lure new members, said neo-Nazi David Duke, the former Klan leader who was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives in the 1980s. Duke said he fears "the white European-American" heritage will soon be destroyed. He added that his Web site sees around 40,000 unique visitors a day, up from 15,000 a day before Obama won the election.
Racist anger toward Obama was evident even before he became president. Two weeks before Obama won, authorities said they foiled a skinhead plot to assassinate him. The two suspects, based in Tennessee, also apparently planned to shoot and decapitate dozens of African-Americans, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said.
Police say a man in Brockton, Massachusetts, allegedly targeted minorities after President Obama's inauguration. They say the man raped a woman, killed her sister and another man after several months of researching white supremacist groups on the Internet.
White supremacist groups have gained traction, a reversal from the decline the groups experienced since 2000, according to the law center report. One of the smaller Ku Klux Klan groups, the United Northern and Southern Knights, more than doubled its chapters, widening its geographic reach from eight to 24 states, according to the report.
The image of a black man in the White House angers white racists, who fear nonwhites gaining too much power, said Jack Glaser, associate professor of public policy at the University of California-Berkeley.
But racist fears can also be more mundane and personal: Nonwhites in the White House could lead to nonwhites in their neighborhoods, which could lead to interracial dating, a great taboo among hate groups.
"Obama poses a large cultural threat to white racists," Glaser said. "This may explain some of the uptick in hate groups."
Immigrants are another target of hate groups, according to the report. In a deteriorating economy, illegal immigrants have been blamed by hate groups for allegedly taking subprime loans, according to the report.
Scapegoating occurs most often in times of economic distress, according to experts studying hate crimes. From the Holocaust in Europe to abuses against Irish Catholic immigrants in the 1830s in the United States, people are most likely to lash out against others when they feel vulnerable or need to displace their economic frustrations on others, psychologists say. In the city of Detroit, Michigan, where the weak economy has taken a particularly devastating toll, Jeff Schoep serves as the commander for the National Socialist Movement, one of the largest neo-Nazi groups in the United States.
Schoep said he has seen membership grow by 40 percent in recent months, mostly because of the dire economic circumstances. It is the "most dramatic growth" he has seen since he joined the movement in the mid-1990s. The group does not reveal membership numbers to the media, he said.
"You have an American work force facing massive unemployment," Schoep said. "And you have presidents and politicians flinging open the borders telling them to take the few jobs left while our men are in soup kitchens."
Experts studying hate crimes say there is no reliable way to link the growing number of hate groups with an increase in hate crimes, since many of the attacks go unreported.
The FBI's uniform crime report found 7,163 hate crime incidents in 2005. However, a special report by the government that same year said the number could be 10 times higher because many of the crimes aren't reported.
The most recent FBI statistics in 2007 saw a slight uptick in hate crimes to 7,624.
Some hate groups such as the National Socialist Movement do not publicly condone violence or terrorist acts."Violence is absolutely counterproductive," said Duke, the former Louisiana legislator and neo-Nazi.
But experts say there is a link between joining a hate group and committing violent crimes. Last week in New Orleans, Louisiana, a grand jury indicted four people in the alleged shooting of a woman who tried to leave a Ku Klux Klan initiation, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported. More commonly, members of hate groups engage in vandalism such as an incident in Los Angeles, California, this month where vandals slashed tires and sprayed the word "Nazi" on two cars and a house, according to the center. The attack occurred in a neighborhood with signs displaying support for Obama.
Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School who studied the issue of hate crimes, said people in hate groups can feel paranoid about a specific group of people. This panic leads them to feel threatened, and they may react with violence, he said.
Alternately, individuals in a hate group may sometimes transplant their own personal rage onto a particular group that has no real connection to the cause of that rage, he said.
"Their thinking is very distorted," Poussaint said.
Reuters - Nokia considering entering laptop industry: CEO
This article was sent to you from bombastic4000@yahoo.com, who uses Reuters Mobile Site to get news and information on the go. To access Reuters on your mobile phone, go to:
http://mobile.reuters.com
Nokia considering entering laptop industry: CEO
Thursday, Feb 26, 2009 5:39AM UTC
By Tarmo Virki
HELSINKI (Reuters) - The world's top cellphone maker Nokia is eyeing entering the laptop business, its Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said in an interview to Finnish national broadcaster YLE on Wednesday.
"We are looking very actively also at this opportunity," Kallasvuo said, when asked whether Nokia plans to make laptops.
Industry has rumored about Nokia's possible plan to enter the PC industry since late last year, but Kallasvuo's comment was the first official admittance of such plans.
"We don't have to look even for five years from now to see that what we know as a cellphone and what we know as a PC are in many ways converging," Kallasvuo said.
"Today we have hundreds of millions of people who are having their first Internet experience on the phone. This is a good indication," he said.
Nokia's comments come a week after No 3 PC brand Acer launched a foray into the phone business with eight cellphone models, joining leader Hewlett-Packard and No. 4 Lenovo in the high-growth space.
While strong profit margins in the smartphone industry attract PC brands, the attraction of the low-margin computer industry is less obvious.
"Nokia maybe nervous about entering a market segment that is already heavily commoditized, but it would be in a position to exploit its enormous scale in manufacturing, supply chain and distribution," said Ben Wood, research director at CCS Insight.
"All leading mobile network operators and retailers are adding connected notebooks and netbooks to their portfolios alongside mobile phones. On this basis it comes as no surprise that Nokia is evaluating this segment," he said.
The global PC industry was resilient for most of last year when other technology sectors were ailing, but it too has now been caught up in the deepening economic downturn that has hit demand from consumers and corporate buyers.
(Reporting by Tarmo Virki; Editing by Brian Moss, Bernard Orr)
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
obama speech to congress
this vp smiles a lot. dick cheney never smiled. not really. cure for cancer? really? healthcare reform this year? hillary you been trumped. education! you go boy. dropping out of high school is no longer quiting on yourself, but quiting on your country. amen. 2 trillion in savings. damn. cuttin no bid contracts, cold war defense going down. cuttin education and tax breaks. wow. long road. iraq. afghanistan. go away. leon addess. what a guy! that 8th grade young lady from north carolina. you go girl. we are not quitters indeed. God bless you. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
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- The Black Rider
- If you know me then you know my name. I am The Black Rider and the world is my Flame. The rider writes, observes, creates, produces, and learns the world around him. Ride on. Ride on!
