The above was extracted from the end of a Post quite some time back from mGf everybody calls Mindful Mariner. I soemtimes get prompted by him to learn some usefool Latin? ... Irish?? ... Martian???... phrases.
The titled one is translated thus:
General welfare. Literally, common good of the community
So to promote that spirit, hear's the COMMUNITY SERVICE MESSAGE -- belated as Desi went away to meet Santarina and she went MIA! -- to promote READING...BTW, I aweways get my 30%:) That's a socialist man -- Reading maketh a full man.
_________________________________________________________
Gerakbudaya Year End Book Sale 2008
Date : 26th December - 30th December 2008
Time : 10am - 7pm
Are you unable to spend money on books due to the credit crunch?
No worries! Gerakbudaya continues its annual sale of quality books at great discounts. Discounts are not limited to old titles. New titles will also be discounted.
Grab this opportunity to look for books on politics, economics, gender, Asian and Malaysian Studies, global issues and more… Youth fiction and books from Indonesia are also available.
Come one, come all to our Office-cum-Book Gallery at 11, Lorong 11/4E, 46200 Petaling Jaya. We are nearby University Hospital but nearer to Grand City and Sri Pandi Restaurants.
If you fail to locate us, please do not hesitate to call us at 03-7957 8342/8343 or call Zulhabri at 019-389 3804 or Pak Chong at 016-379 7231.
HURRY, LETS GET TO GERAKBUDAYA!
Tidak mampu berbelanja buku kerana dihimpit kesusahan atas krisis kewangan dan ekonomi global?
Jangan bimbang kerana kami di Gerakbudaya akan meneruskan tradisi saban tahun kami dengan menawarkan buku-buku bermutu terbitan dan edaran kami dengan harga diskaun. Diskaun tidak terhad hanya pada buku-buku lama, malah buku-buku terbaru juga tidak terlepas dari dimurahkan.
Jika anda mencari buku-buku berkaitan sains sosial yang meliputi subjek politik, ekonomi, gender, pengajian Malaysia & Asia, isu-isu global dsb, inilah masa terbaik. Selain itu, karya-karya fiksyen anak muda dan buku-buku dari Indonesia juga ada dijual serta banyak lagi.
Jom beramai-ramai ke pejabat merangkap galeri buku kami di Seksyen 11 Petaling Jaya berdekatan dengan Hospital Universiti dan sangat hampir dengan Restoran Grand City dan Sri Pandi. Jika gagal menemui lokasi kami, jangan segan hubungi 03-7957 8342/8343 atau 019-389 3804 untuk bercakap dengan Zulhabri atau 016-379 7231 dengan Pak Chong.
Ayuh bergerak ke Gerakbudaya!
Diskaun sehingga 90% = Discounts up to 90%
Marilah mendapatkan beraneka jenis buku yang bermutu = Seize the opportunity, come get quality books at great discounts
Membaca membuat anda lebih hidup! = Perk up your life..R E A D!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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banner book sale 3 des 4 english.jpg
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(Invite From)
Yours sincerely.
Mr ***Chong Ton Sin
Executive Director, SIRD
DESIDERATA: *** To be fully upfrontDANtransparent, this ChongTS is knot related to YL Chong! :) or :(?
Monday, December 29, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Some catchingUP, and AP to my dear ER...
For being "reclacitrant". Let Desi explain.Bear with Desi -- yes, it's reminding all you rich esteemedreaders it's steal a Bear Market, and expected to remain so for quite a while. BTW, quite can mean 1. some 2. a bit 3. long; take your pick, for MBH is a prettyNdemocratic abode!
Lately, I have been suffering a strange disease -- it's the culmination arising from faigue, mind block, cyber-hibernation or any symptom approximating Jurassickness! -- minus DDC, maybe you can call it a case of "the flesh is willing, but the spirit is weak". Hence, many of my Posts were left "hanging", and I ended wit' "To be c'untinued...", like with one of my fave Beatles, Yesterday's. Errata 10 minutes later: Oh no, not Yesterday's but December 22's ttiled "2 anecdotes at suppertime". I often teased with "InsyaAllah", and I truly meant it. I stand liable to be prosecuted for using this Word -- using God's name in vain, pain or sain'?Your pick, not the AG's please! I don't trust the ****ard:), which rimes wit' mustard -- on thy face!:(
Today may I take a short cut by posting up TWO items by Cut&Paste, courtesy of a newly found mGf Jacq Ho (Ho-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum...?) plus a subject related to Noel laureatte I had meant to pick up on relted to a series on the State of The World Arising from Global Recession our learned DPM's assurance that "all's well in Malaysia, unlikely we will run into recession in the near future". I retorted at that time wit' a remark ala "Yes, we are a damned blardy lucky country!"
(Last FYE March 2008, Petronas reported a NET PROFIT, ie after-tax!, of RM61BLLLION. I also thought alou, still allowed!, that Desi wondered how much under-reporting of Revenues and Profits were creatively carried out. Oouch, oouch! -- I got a pinch on the side by one aweOFhelen that "that's knotty, Desi, but I think it's 50%!".
Okay, back from detour, digression and depression:
***************************************************
CatchUP1:
Andrew Leonard
Monday, Dec. 8, 2008 03:45 PST
Paul Krugman's depression economics
Reuters/Tim Shaffer
(Desi to ER: Visualise, using thy unique God's gifted mind!)
Paul Krugman at a news conference Oct. 13 at Princeton University, during his introduction as the 2008 Nobel Prize winner in economics.
On his way to Stockholm, the Nobel Prize winner and New York Times columnist takes time to explain the "awful" economy that looms ahead of us.
The revised and expanded edition of Paul Krugman's "The Return of Depression Economics," originally published in 1999 but back in bookstores last week, features, in a reasonably large font on the front cover, the mini-bio: "Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics." The choice of the (re)publication date couldn't be better. Not only are Krugman's predictions of economic doom, first made in the wake of the Asian financial crisis of 1997, even more relevant as 2008 comes to a close, but he is also accepting his award in Stockholm, Sweden, this week. When I reviewed "The Conscience of a Liberal" a year ago, I wrote, "Now is a good time to be Paul Krugman." I spoke too soon. Now is an even better time to be Paul Krugman.
The words "depression economics" don't necessarily mean that we are in a depression or inevitably headed toward one. A more accurate definition would be that we are witnessing economic problems reminiscent of the Great Depression, long after many economists concluded that the question of how to avoid depressions had been permanently solved. Not true, says Krugman. If we don't watch out, we could steer the current recession right into depression territory.
The Asian financial crisis was a dress rehearsal for the massive financial crisis now shaking the global economy, Krugman writes, and the echoes of the Great Depression are not hard to hear. Krugman believes we are in a "liquidity trap": No one wants to lend money, and no matter how hard the Federal Reserve pushes its various monetary policy levers, it can't seem to get credit flowing again. Worst of all, we are witnessing what happens when too much leverage -- too much money borrowed on risky bets -- becomes a cascade of deleverage, when everyone starts selling assets to raise cash at the same time, forcing financial markets into a downward spiral.
As I write these words on Friday morning, the news is breaking that the U.S. economy shed 533,000 jobs in November and that one in 10 U.S. homeowners is delinquent on mortgage payments or is already in foreclosure. It underlines, once again, the appropriateness of putting a book with the title "The Return of Depression Economics" back in bookstores.
As he was preparing for his trip to Sweden, Krugman graciously made time to answer my e-mailed questions. He explained he was writing while traveling by train from New Jersey to New York.
In 1999, when the first version of "The Return of Depression Economics" was published, the title seemed provocative and its thesis was cavalierly dismissed by conservative economists. But today, fear rules the markets, John Maynard Keynes is back in fashion, and the stars of Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan are fading. What's it been like to live through this, while, in effect, live-blogging the transition via the New York Times? Is republishing (and revising) the book a big "I told you so" to your critics?
First of all, it apparently isn't that obvious that we're experiencing depression economics. Some economists, including some of the prominent econo-bloggers, are still insisting, despite everything that's going on, that there's no such thing as a liquidity trap and that the Fed can easily get the economy moving again. But anyway, yes, there's a part of me that's enjoying the vindication -- and there's probably a bit of "told ya so" in the book. On the other hand, this is really, really scary. I lead a pretty sheltered life financially, yet even so I have friends who've lost their jobs and/or much of their retirement savings, so this isn't abstract.
The one thing I guess I can say is that, right now, I'm doing the job the Times originally envisioned me doing, instead of the more political role I felt I had to take during the Bush years.
You cover a lot of ground in 200 pages -- Mexico's "tequila" crisis in the early 1990s, the Asian financial crisis, the collapse of the Long Term Capital Management, the dot-com and housing bubbles, and, of course, the great financial crisis of the past year. What do you think is the one thread that links all these crises together?
Two threads, I think: leverage and the economic fragility it creates, on one side, and the limits to monetary policy on the other. The collapse of Indonesia or Argentina was all about leverage, and we've seen that replayed in the collapse of securitization in the United States. Japan showed us that central bankers can't always save the day, and Ben Bernanke is seeing that truth right now.
You write that some economists (and this certainly goes for many Salon readers) believe that recessions and even depressions are necessary mechanisms for purging economies that have gotten out of control. There's even a moralistic aspect to it: In the U.S., all those greedy investment bankers and housing speculators and overconsuming Americans are getting their comeuppance. But you seem to be suggesting something different: that the government can kick-start the economic machine back into motion, that we don't have to be subjected to the torture of a severe recession. What do you say to those critics who claim that stimulating the economy out of this recession will just lead to bigger problems down the road?
My favorite Keynes essay is "The Great Slump of 1930," in which he says "We have magneto [alternator] trouble." If you've got electrical problems with your engine, that doesn't mean you should junk the whole car. If part of your financial system has gone haywire, that doesn't mean that millions of workers have to be unemployed.
There's kind of a weird double-think involved in arguments that the slump should be allowed to follow its natural course. It's true that classical economics says that we should let market forces do their work; but classical economics also says that severe recessions can't happen. This idea that we must not intervene is based on a worldview that is refuted by the very fact that the economy is in the mess it's in.
We learned with Enron that a lack of confidence can take down a mighty public company in a couple of days or weeks, and now we're seeing the same crisis of faith shake the entire global economy. As you write, even the rumor of a bank run can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. What practical steps can we take to immunize ourselves from debilitating panics?
Well, we had about 60 years of financial stability, basically because we had an effectively regulated banking system. Then we fell prey to a combination of excessive optimism and excessive literalism. We started believing that financial markets always work, and we also believed that everything was OK as long as things we call banks were guaranteed, not realizing that lots of things we don't call banks are nonetheless subject to bank runs.
So the answer is to relearn our grandfathers' lessons: Highly leveraged financial institutions have to be regulated and insured.
In detailing the response that the IMF and U.S. Treasury took to the international economic crises of the 1990s, you write that "international economic policy became ... a kind of amateur psychology, not economics." Every action taken was motivated by a desire to increase market "confidence" and not necessarily by whether it was appropriate for the specific economy in question. Do you think that the same dynamic has played out in how Paulson and Bernanke have responded to the financial crisis this year? They wanted to bolster confidence, but the failure of each discrete action only made things worse.
Yeah, the "confidence game" goes bad pretty quickly if there aren't genuine substantive reasons for confidence. I wrote early in 2008 that Fed/Treasury policy was based on the "slap in the face" theory; the late, much-lamented Tanta at Calculated Risk even worked it into one of her Mortgage Pig entries. The answer, again, is institutions and regulations to secure that confidence. And if necessary, you deal with the problem of market panic by restricting the market: temporary capital controls, temporary nationalization of banks.
You conclude with a pretty straightforward prescription: Anything that acts like a bank, or that plays a role so significant in the financial system that its failure would require government help, should be regulated like a bank. There should be limits on leverage, capital requirements, and close scrutiny from regulators. Why is this so hard to understand? What explains the growth of the unregulated shadow banking industry to a point where it could imperil the living standards of everyone on the globe? Was it simply the triumph of deregulatory ideology?
Ideology played a big role -- but we should also bear in mind that the shadow banking system was making a few people incredibly rich. And that much wealth distorts policy, not just through campaign contributions and the revolving door, but because people who make that much money come across as masters of the universe who know what they're doing. [Economist] Willem Buiter apparently got in trouble at Jackson Hole for saying that central bankers are subject to "cognitive regulatory capture," but it's totally true.
There's been a lot of grumbling on the left about the return to the White House of Lawrence Summers and other Clinton-era economists. In the view of many, Summers and Robert Rubin were just as guilty of pushing "Washington consensus"-style privatization and deregulation on the rest of the world, and ensuring that new credit derivatives such as credit swaps were unregulated, as were Alan Greenspan and Phil Gramm. Why should we believe they won't make the same mistakes all over again?
Well, they're smart and relatively open-minded, so they're the kind of people who can learn from their mistakes. And you do want people who know a lot about the mechanics of finance and central banking, which is why some of the people being proposed by the left would be problematic.
Still, I'd like to see some "people of the left" given roles in the administration, simply to provide a variety of voices. And those of us on the outside should not shy away from being critical; I don't expect to go after the Obamanites the way I went after the Bushies, but I'm sure it won't be all sweets and flowers.
How bad do you think this is going to get?
Awful. Without a major stimulus package -- sorry, I guess the politically correct term is now "economic recovery plan" -- I'd say that we were definitely headed for double-digit unemployment. Right now the economy is clearly falling as fast as, or faster than, it was in 1981-82, which was a terrifying slump. If Obama doesn't come up with a massive plan, and possibly even if he does, this is going to be a slump that pushes 10 million-plus Americans below the poverty line, and more.
And how soon do you think it will be before Republican ideologues start blaming Obama for making it worse? Grover Norquist is already making the claim that the bear market is a result of the 2006 election -- he says investors started dumping stocks because they were afraid of the inevitable tax hikes coming down the road. How do you fight that?
To some extent you can't fight it -- people will believe what they want to believe. If they can make FDR the cause of the Great Depression, they can do anything. But one thing progressives can do is make sure that the story of the Bush administration is told, in all respects. There's going to be huge pressure from the usual suspects to let bygones be bygones, to forget about everything from torture to reckless disregard of financial warnings. But I want truth and reconciliation across the board, and progressives have to make it clear that it was an ideology, not an act of God, that made this crisis possible.
― Andrew Leonard
Posted in: Economy
(Desi again, Dear ER: You just have to Google this wan out!)
The Obama stimulus: Bigger and better than ever
First $500 billion. Now $850 billion. Do we hear a trillion? Forget about everything else: The economic recovery plan is the only thing that matters
Thursday, Dec 18, 2008 22:25 EST
Wednesday, Dec 17, 2008 23:02 EST
*********************************************
CatchUP2:
Obama Helped Stranger 20 Years Ago
Oct 05, 2008
The Norwegian newspaper VG has reported a truly amazing story about a newly-wed trying to get to Norway to be with her husband, and the stranger who helped pay an unexpected luggage surcharge.
The blog 'Leisha's Random Thoughts' has translated the story:
It was 1988, and Mary Andersen was in line at the Miami airport checking in for a long flight to Norway to be with her husband.
When it was finally Mary's turn, she got the message that would crush her bubbling feeling of happiness.
"You'll have to pay a 103 dollar surcharge if you want to bring both those suitcases to Norway," the man behind the counter said.
Mary had no money.
Her new husband had travelled ahead of her to Norway, and she had no one else to call.
"I was completely desperate and tried to think which of my things I could manage without.
But I had already made such a careful selection of my most prized possessions," says Mary.
As tears streamed down her face, she heard a 'gentle and friendly voice' behind her saying,"That's okay, I'll pay for her."
Mary turned around to see a tall man whom she had never seen before.
He had a gentle and kind voice that was still firm and decisive.
"The first thing I thought was, Who is this man?"
Although this happened 20 years ago, Mary still remembers the authority that radiated from the man.
He was nicely dressed, with brown leather shoes, a cotton shirt open at the throat and khaki pants, says Mary.
She was thrilled to be able to bring both her suitcases to Norway and assured the stranger that he would get his money back.
The man wrote his name and address on a piece of paper that he gave to Mary.
She thanked him repeatedly.
When she finally walked off towards the security checkpoint, he waved goodbye to her.
Who was the man?
Barack Obama.
Twenty years later, she is thrilled that the friendly stranger at the airport may be the next President and has voted for him already and
donated 100 dollars to his campaign:
"He was my knight in shining armor," says Mary, smiling.
She paid the 103 dollars back to Obama the day after she arrived in Norway.
At that time he had just finished his job as a poorly paid community worker in Chicago, and had started his law studies at prestigious Harvard university.
Mary even convinced her parents to vote for him:
In the spring of 2006 Mary's parents had heard that Obama was considering a run for president, but that he had still not decided.
They chose to write a letter in which they told him that he would receive their votes.
At the same time, they thanked Obama for helping their daughter 18 years earlier.
And Obama replied.
In a letter to Mary's parents dated May 4th 2006 and stamped "United States
Senate, Washington DC' Barack Obama writes:
'I want to thank you for the lovely things you wrote about me and for reminding me of what happened at Miami airport.
I'm happy I could help back then, and I'm delighted to hear that your daughter is happy in Norway.
Please send her my best wishes.
Sincerely, Barack Obama, United States Senator'.
The parents sent the letter on to Mary.
Mary says that when her friends and associates talk about the election, especially when race relations is the heated subject, she relates the
story of the kind man who helped out a stranger-in-need over twenty years ago, years before he had even thought about running for high office.
UPDATE:
Also, remember this was 1988, when 100 dollars was quite a bit of money, compared to today's value.
Truly a wonderful story, and something that needs to be passed along in the maelstorm of fear-and-smear politics we are being subjected to right now.
Lately, I have been suffering a strange disease -- it's the culmination arising from faigue, mind block, cyber-hibernation or any symptom approximating Jurassickness! -- minus DDC, maybe you can call it a case of "the flesh is willing, but the spirit is weak". Hence, many of my Posts were left "hanging", and I ended wit' "To be c'untinued...", like with one of my fave Beatles, Yesterday's. Errata 10 minutes later: Oh no, not Yesterday's but December 22's ttiled "2 anecdotes at suppertime". I often teased with "InsyaAllah", and I truly meant it. I stand liable to be prosecuted for using this Word -- using God's name in vain, pain or sain'?Your pick, not the AG's please! I don't trust the ****ard:), which rimes wit' mustard -- on thy face!:(
Today may I take a short cut by posting up TWO items by Cut&Paste, courtesy of a newly found mGf Jacq Ho (Ho-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum...?) plus a subject related to Noel laureatte I had meant to pick up on relted to a series on the State of The World Arising from Global Recession our learned DPM's assurance that "all's well in Malaysia, unlikely we will run into recession in the near future". I retorted at that time wit' a remark ala "Yes, we are a damned blardy lucky country!"
(Last FYE March 2008, Petronas reported a NET PROFIT, ie after-tax!, of RM61BLLLION. I also thought alou, still allowed!, that Desi wondered how much under-reporting of Revenues and Profits were creatively carried out. Oouch, oouch! -- I got a pinch on the side by one aweOFhelen that "that's knotty, Desi, but I think it's 50%!".
Okay, back from detour, digression and depression:
***************************************************
CatchUP1:
Andrew Leonard
Monday, Dec. 8, 2008 03:45 PST
Paul Krugman's depression economics
Reuters/Tim Shaffer
(Desi to ER: Visualise, using thy unique God's gifted mind!)
Paul Krugman at a news conference Oct. 13 at Princeton University, during his introduction as the 2008 Nobel Prize winner in economics.
On his way to Stockholm, the Nobel Prize winner and New York Times columnist takes time to explain the "awful" economy that looms ahead of us.
The revised and expanded edition of Paul Krugman's "The Return of Depression Economics," originally published in 1999 but back in bookstores last week, features, in a reasonably large font on the front cover, the mini-bio: "Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics." The choice of the (re)publication date couldn't be better. Not only are Krugman's predictions of economic doom, first made in the wake of the Asian financial crisis of 1997, even more relevant as 2008 comes to a close, but he is also accepting his award in Stockholm, Sweden, this week. When I reviewed "The Conscience of a Liberal" a year ago, I wrote, "Now is a good time to be Paul Krugman." I spoke too soon. Now is an even better time to be Paul Krugman.
The words "depression economics" don't necessarily mean that we are in a depression or inevitably headed toward one. A more accurate definition would be that we are witnessing economic problems reminiscent of the Great Depression, long after many economists concluded that the question of how to avoid depressions had been permanently solved. Not true, says Krugman. If we don't watch out, we could steer the current recession right into depression territory.
The Asian financial crisis was a dress rehearsal for the massive financial crisis now shaking the global economy, Krugman writes, and the echoes of the Great Depression are not hard to hear. Krugman believes we are in a "liquidity trap": No one wants to lend money, and no matter how hard the Federal Reserve pushes its various monetary policy levers, it can't seem to get credit flowing again. Worst of all, we are witnessing what happens when too much leverage -- too much money borrowed on risky bets -- becomes a cascade of deleverage, when everyone starts selling assets to raise cash at the same time, forcing financial markets into a downward spiral.
As I write these words on Friday morning, the news is breaking that the U.S. economy shed 533,000 jobs in November and that one in 10 U.S. homeowners is delinquent on mortgage payments or is already in foreclosure. It underlines, once again, the appropriateness of putting a book with the title "The Return of Depression Economics" back in bookstores.
As he was preparing for his trip to Sweden, Krugman graciously made time to answer my e-mailed questions. He explained he was writing while traveling by train from New Jersey to New York.
In 1999, when the first version of "The Return of Depression Economics" was published, the title seemed provocative and its thesis was cavalierly dismissed by conservative economists. But today, fear rules the markets, John Maynard Keynes is back in fashion, and the stars of Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan are fading. What's it been like to live through this, while, in effect, live-blogging the transition via the New York Times? Is republishing (and revising) the book a big "I told you so" to your critics?
First of all, it apparently isn't that obvious that we're experiencing depression economics. Some economists, including some of the prominent econo-bloggers, are still insisting, despite everything that's going on, that there's no such thing as a liquidity trap and that the Fed can easily get the economy moving again. But anyway, yes, there's a part of me that's enjoying the vindication -- and there's probably a bit of "told ya so" in the book. On the other hand, this is really, really scary. I lead a pretty sheltered life financially, yet even so I have friends who've lost their jobs and/or much of their retirement savings, so this isn't abstract.
The one thing I guess I can say is that, right now, I'm doing the job the Times originally envisioned me doing, instead of the more political role I felt I had to take during the Bush years.
You cover a lot of ground in 200 pages -- Mexico's "tequila" crisis in the early 1990s, the Asian financial crisis, the collapse of the Long Term Capital Management, the dot-com and housing bubbles, and, of course, the great financial crisis of the past year. What do you think is the one thread that links all these crises together?
Two threads, I think: leverage and the economic fragility it creates, on one side, and the limits to monetary policy on the other. The collapse of Indonesia or Argentina was all about leverage, and we've seen that replayed in the collapse of securitization in the United States. Japan showed us that central bankers can't always save the day, and Ben Bernanke is seeing that truth right now.
You write that some economists (and this certainly goes for many Salon readers) believe that recessions and even depressions are necessary mechanisms for purging economies that have gotten out of control. There's even a moralistic aspect to it: In the U.S., all those greedy investment bankers and housing speculators and overconsuming Americans are getting their comeuppance. But you seem to be suggesting something different: that the government can kick-start the economic machine back into motion, that we don't have to be subjected to the torture of a severe recession. What do you say to those critics who claim that stimulating the economy out of this recession will just lead to bigger problems down the road?
My favorite Keynes essay is "The Great Slump of 1930," in which he says "We have magneto [alternator] trouble." If you've got electrical problems with your engine, that doesn't mean you should junk the whole car. If part of your financial system has gone haywire, that doesn't mean that millions of workers have to be unemployed.
There's kind of a weird double-think involved in arguments that the slump should be allowed to follow its natural course. It's true that classical economics says that we should let market forces do their work; but classical economics also says that severe recessions can't happen. This idea that we must not intervene is based on a worldview that is refuted by the very fact that the economy is in the mess it's in.
We learned with Enron that a lack of confidence can take down a mighty public company in a couple of days or weeks, and now we're seeing the same crisis of faith shake the entire global economy. As you write, even the rumor of a bank run can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. What practical steps can we take to immunize ourselves from debilitating panics?
Well, we had about 60 years of financial stability, basically because we had an effectively regulated banking system. Then we fell prey to a combination of excessive optimism and excessive literalism. We started believing that financial markets always work, and we also believed that everything was OK as long as things we call banks were guaranteed, not realizing that lots of things we don't call banks are nonetheless subject to bank runs.
So the answer is to relearn our grandfathers' lessons: Highly leveraged financial institutions have to be regulated and insured.
In detailing the response that the IMF and U.S. Treasury took to the international economic crises of the 1990s, you write that "international economic policy became ... a kind of amateur psychology, not economics." Every action taken was motivated by a desire to increase market "confidence" and not necessarily by whether it was appropriate for the specific economy in question. Do you think that the same dynamic has played out in how Paulson and Bernanke have responded to the financial crisis this year? They wanted to bolster confidence, but the failure of each discrete action only made things worse.
Yeah, the "confidence game" goes bad pretty quickly if there aren't genuine substantive reasons for confidence. I wrote early in 2008 that Fed/Treasury policy was based on the "slap in the face" theory; the late, much-lamented Tanta at Calculated Risk even worked it into one of her Mortgage Pig entries. The answer, again, is institutions and regulations to secure that confidence. And if necessary, you deal with the problem of market panic by restricting the market: temporary capital controls, temporary nationalization of banks.
You conclude with a pretty straightforward prescription: Anything that acts like a bank, or that plays a role so significant in the financial system that its failure would require government help, should be regulated like a bank. There should be limits on leverage, capital requirements, and close scrutiny from regulators. Why is this so hard to understand? What explains the growth of the unregulated shadow banking industry to a point where it could imperil the living standards of everyone on the globe? Was it simply the triumph of deregulatory ideology?
Ideology played a big role -- but we should also bear in mind that the shadow banking system was making a few people incredibly rich. And that much wealth distorts policy, not just through campaign contributions and the revolving door, but because people who make that much money come across as masters of the universe who know what they're doing. [Economist] Willem Buiter apparently got in trouble at Jackson Hole for saying that central bankers are subject to "cognitive regulatory capture," but it's totally true.
There's been a lot of grumbling on the left about the return to the White House of Lawrence Summers and other Clinton-era economists. In the view of many, Summers and Robert Rubin were just as guilty of pushing "Washington consensus"-style privatization and deregulation on the rest of the world, and ensuring that new credit derivatives such as credit swaps were unregulated, as were Alan Greenspan and Phil Gramm. Why should we believe they won't make the same mistakes all over again?
Well, they're smart and relatively open-minded, so they're the kind of people who can learn from their mistakes. And you do want people who know a lot about the mechanics of finance and central banking, which is why some of the people being proposed by the left would be problematic.
Still, I'd like to see some "people of the left" given roles in the administration, simply to provide a variety of voices. And those of us on the outside should not shy away from being critical; I don't expect to go after the Obamanites the way I went after the Bushies, but I'm sure it won't be all sweets and flowers.
How bad do you think this is going to get?
Awful. Without a major stimulus package -- sorry, I guess the politically correct term is now "economic recovery plan" -- I'd say that we were definitely headed for double-digit unemployment. Right now the economy is clearly falling as fast as, or faster than, it was in 1981-82, which was a terrifying slump. If Obama doesn't come up with a massive plan, and possibly even if he does, this is going to be a slump that pushes 10 million-plus Americans below the poverty line, and more.
And how soon do you think it will be before Republican ideologues start blaming Obama for making it worse? Grover Norquist is already making the claim that the bear market is a result of the 2006 election -- he says investors started dumping stocks because they were afraid of the inevitable tax hikes coming down the road. How do you fight that?
To some extent you can't fight it -- people will believe what they want to believe. If they can make FDR the cause of the Great Depression, they can do anything. But one thing progressives can do is make sure that the story of the Bush administration is told, in all respects. There's going to be huge pressure from the usual suspects to let bygones be bygones, to forget about everything from torture to reckless disregard of financial warnings. But I want truth and reconciliation across the board, and progressives have to make it clear that it was an ideology, not an act of God, that made this crisis possible.
― Andrew Leonard
Posted in: Economy
(Desi again, Dear ER: You just have to Google this wan out!)
The Obama stimulus: Bigger and better than ever
First $500 billion. Now $850 billion. Do we hear a trillion? Forget about everything else: The economic recovery plan is the only thing that matters
Thursday, Dec 18, 2008 22:25 EST
Wednesday, Dec 17, 2008 23:02 EST
*********************************************
CatchUP2:
Obama Helped Stranger 20 Years Ago
Oct 05, 2008
The Norwegian newspaper VG has reported a truly amazing story about a newly-wed trying to get to Norway to be with her husband, and the stranger who helped pay an unexpected luggage surcharge.
The blog 'Leisha's Random Thoughts' has translated the story:
It was 1988, and Mary Andersen was in line at the Miami airport checking in for a long flight to Norway to be with her husband.
When it was finally Mary's turn, she got the message that would crush her bubbling feeling of happiness.
"You'll have to pay a 103 dollar surcharge if you want to bring both those suitcases to Norway," the man behind the counter said.
Mary had no money.
Her new husband had travelled ahead of her to Norway, and she had no one else to call.
"I was completely desperate and tried to think which of my things I could manage without.
But I had already made such a careful selection of my most prized possessions," says Mary.
As tears streamed down her face, she heard a 'gentle and friendly voice' behind her saying,"That's okay, I'll pay for her."
Mary turned around to see a tall man whom she had never seen before.
He had a gentle and kind voice that was still firm and decisive.
"The first thing I thought was, Who is this man?"
Although this happened 20 years ago, Mary still remembers the authority that radiated from the man.
He was nicely dressed, with brown leather shoes, a cotton shirt open at the throat and khaki pants, says Mary.
She was thrilled to be able to bring both her suitcases to Norway and assured the stranger that he would get his money back.
The man wrote his name and address on a piece of paper that he gave to Mary.
She thanked him repeatedly.
When she finally walked off towards the security checkpoint, he waved goodbye to her.
Who was the man?
Barack Obama.
Twenty years later, she is thrilled that the friendly stranger at the airport may be the next President and has voted for him already and
donated 100 dollars to his campaign:
"He was my knight in shining armor," says Mary, smiling.
She paid the 103 dollars back to Obama the day after she arrived in Norway.
At that time he had just finished his job as a poorly paid community worker in Chicago, and had started his law studies at prestigious Harvard university.
Mary even convinced her parents to vote for him:
In the spring of 2006 Mary's parents had heard that Obama was considering a run for president, but that he had still not decided.
They chose to write a letter in which they told him that he would receive their votes.
At the same time, they thanked Obama for helping their daughter 18 years earlier.
And Obama replied.
In a letter to Mary's parents dated May 4th 2006 and stamped "United States
Senate, Washington DC' Barack Obama writes:
'I want to thank you for the lovely things you wrote about me and for reminding me of what happened at Miami airport.
I'm happy I could help back then, and I'm delighted to hear that your daughter is happy in Norway.
Please send her my best wishes.
Sincerely, Barack Obama, United States Senator'.
The parents sent the letter on to Mary.
Mary says that when her friends and associates talk about the election, especially when race relations is the heated subject, she relates the
story of the kind man who helped out a stranger-in-need over twenty years ago, years before he had even thought about running for high office.
UPDATE:
Also, remember this was 1988, when 100 dollars was quite a bit of money, compared to today's value.
Truly a wonderful story, and something that needs to be passed along in the maelstorm of fear-and-smear politics we are being subjected to right now.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Some black comedic rites...
This Post can offend certain types of readers, which BTW in DDC (by the ways in non-Da Desi Code), and MBH rakes in millions of voyeurs lust night to see what this 5th estater was up to, but were disAP to obly see Black. It was a moonless night and all the candles were used up on Christmas DayNnight, and the Furong power station gave up because all the residents lighted up their Christmass tress at the same time -- that stroke to deem midnight's clear and hear! So like the H*** Angels, be forewarned some ****words may offend. If the sext paragraph onwards gives ye a repulsive reaction, please ST*P DARE! And **** words are all I have To take your heART away!Yes, I sang many BeeJees, cos we were letting Oh Geeze! many times throughout those rounds. When I was small, and Christmas trees were tall...,
Do you remember, even 'tis not September?
As I was saying, there will be a lot of asterisks, represented by this * symbol -- if you don'tknow, it's second row 9th positioned UPPER CASE on your keyboard. I jest SIRvived 12 rounds on Boxing Day, and we exchanged lots of 4-letter F***-words which is not a traditional habit in this Season of GOoDwill, GOD forbid! (One example of potentially offensive word, it means "screw" and rimes with Jurassic Park:) But InsyaAllah, my conversationists and I may yet make it to HEAven as I was told early that if I behaved myself under the mistletoe tree on Christmas day, I won't go straight to HELLa! That "a"is added to rime with the sext word, it's wellA!
1st round: wit' a new groupie -- or izzit gropie? -- named jack ho-ho-ho, plus a genteel PKR bud called NOr I; yes, you add an R but take out that Dr from James Bond's act which had one ob-scene of Urusula Undressong herself as she emerges from the sea. That I represents a threesum -- as Desi had to pay the bill, as George Sorrows did not make the AP, some barbarians stopped him at the Gates, another Bill? You miss'd it -- our 3-in-1 randywoo? Poor sod! Go back into thy mum's womb and re-emerge 40 years back to the fture if you can -- ask Harrison who can af-ford it for a tic.
1st round ended in a DRAW: we each had three rgasmic highs.
Round 2: wit' C, my Counsellor, who provides YL -- which stands for Young Listener, BTW -- and BTW means "by the wayside"for once; normaly it's for BY THE WAY, like stating an afterthought. Now, it's a forethought, a li'l like that act they knottily call foreplay on the bed, and they diplomatically call forehand in the tennis court. Whta's the difference? Ah, one uses more anatomical parts than the hand/s. Many idiotic reporters and editors spell it Councillor and they get blardy 6months' bonuses a few adys ago, and puritannical English purists like Desi get pee-nuts for my 'rites.
C advised me to avoid using any F***word wit' him during our annual pow-wow which vve promised to c'untinu'e in our best birthday suits the day after surving the tsunamic attack on Boxing die. Yes, we were passing by Tanjong Bungah that faithfull day in spirit, as the body -- two bodies -- could not make it dare. Ah, the reporters had 2 less bodies to tote up, or down, that fateful day,how many years ago, ah?
C and I survived three rounds each, peppering our con wit' deep thoughts about H'aven, HellA and that place in-between where Desi thinks he's presently positioned. It rimes with "LAVAtory" but it smells 1k times worse. small k stand for 1,000, BIG K stands for Kingdom come which C and YL are trying to avoid arriving at for as long as possible, living p to one third of my NAMA, which I am vely de prod off. Somewhere a u said goodbye and an f arrived on the scene as we prepared for Round3. Again,Round2 ended in a Draw because a pupil which is YL cannot under any circumcisedses beat his/her mentor in a game, OK!
Round3: Be Ms patience eh! We are waiting for Richard Roundtree to get off the stage.
Do you remember, even 'tis not September?
As I was saying, there will be a lot of asterisks, represented by this * symbol -- if you don'tknow, it's second row 9th positioned UPPER CASE on your keyboard. I jest SIRvived 12 rounds on Boxing Day, and we exchanged lots of 4-letter F***-words which is not a traditional habit in this Season of GOoDwill, GOD forbid! (One example of potentially offensive word, it means "screw" and rimes with Jurassic Park:) But InsyaAllah, my conversationists and I may yet make it to HEAven as I was told early that if I behaved myself under the mistletoe tree on Christmas day, I won't go straight to HELLa! That "a"is added to rime with the sext word, it's wellA!
1st round: wit' a new groupie -- or izzit gropie? -- named jack ho-ho-ho, plus a genteel PKR bud called NOr I; yes, you add an R but take out that Dr from James Bond's act which had one ob-scene of Urusula Undressong herself as she emerges from the sea. That I represents a threesum -- as Desi had to pay the bill, as George Sorrows did not make the AP, some barbarians stopped him at the Gates, another Bill? You miss'd it -- our 3-in-1 randywoo? Poor sod! Go back into thy mum's womb and re-emerge 40 years back to the fture if you can -- ask Harrison who can af-ford it for a tic.
1st round ended in a DRAW: we each had three rgasmic highs.
Round 2: wit' C, my Counsellor, who provides YL -- which stands for Young Listener, BTW -- and BTW means "by the wayside"for once; normaly it's for BY THE WAY, like stating an afterthought. Now, it's a forethought, a li'l like that act they knottily call foreplay on the bed, and they diplomatically call forehand in the tennis court. Whta's the difference? Ah, one uses more anatomical parts than the hand/s. Many idiotic reporters and editors spell it Councillor and they get blardy 6months' bonuses a few adys ago, and puritannical English purists like Desi get pee-nuts for my 'rites.
C advised me to avoid using any F***word wit' him during our annual pow-wow which vve promised to c'untinu'e in our best birthday suits the day after surving the tsunamic attack on Boxing die. Yes, we were passing by Tanjong Bungah that faithfull day in spirit, as the body -- two bodies -- could not make it dare. Ah, the reporters had 2 less bodies to tote up, or down, that fateful day,how many years ago, ah?
C and I survived three rounds each, peppering our con wit' deep thoughts about H'aven, HellA and that place in-between where Desi thinks he's presently positioned. It rimes with "LAVAtory" but it smells 1k times worse. small k stand for 1,000, BIG K stands for Kingdom come which C and YL are trying to avoid arriving at for as long as possible, living p to one third of my NAMA, which I am vely de prod off. Somewhere a u said goodbye and an f arrived on the scene as we prepared for Round3. Again,Round2 ended in a Draw because a pupil which is YL cannot under any circumcisedses beat his/her mentor in a game, OK!
Round3: Be Ms patience eh! We are waiting for Richard Roundtree to get off the stage.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
It's Christmas Eve...lighting UP!
And I am still sober.
I should become drunk like most light hearted Malaysians in the way drunkenness is in a haelthy sort of way. You let your har down -- whatever is left -- you let your chin -- if it's not drooping because of coagilated fats -- and you put your foot on the table -- if the four-legged oakish looking holder that serves you at BF, lunch and dinner through supper -- has not given up bearing y=with your table manners, or lack of.
I remain sober whilst most buddies down a last six beers tfrom the night beofre. I am saintly -- I can't down more than 1/2-glass-fullORempty before I turn lobster red.
Apparently it runs in one's genes. I asked my two kids -- yeah, Dad still thinks of 24-yo and 28-yo as children! -- if they have acquired the ART of holding a beer. They retort I did not bestow on them the right genes. Yeah, Dad is a leftist.
I look at the bright side of things, or thongs, or thangs. leave out the other two vowels for others to have fun_D with Words, and yes, my Bee Gees gurus have taught me wellA -- and Words all I have to take your heart away! By not being a real drinker -- vve fall back on rut bir! -- vve save enough at RM6.50 for small, and RM9.50 for BIG! so they have have enough savings to pad up the dowry should they marry a Minangkabau bride. I hear that's the MNKB style to have the male ditch out HUGE dowries. Of course, the reverse is true of Dindu brides -- their parents would become pauper should they have more than two daughters, I hear.Now I stand corrected if I factually MISsrepresent the female gender standing, or sitting,or lying down.
Just dont let Desi catch you kissing Santa Claus tonight beneath the MISERYtoeTree. It's not niCe to be a spoilsport. Kiss your gf or Gf underneath the pale moon light. Something tells me poets are isconceived to think romance builds up in crescendo as the light pales. Some Jeans tell me the brighter the moon, the louder the desibelles and the aMore the belles feel like doing it. On top of the banana tree if you can't find mistletoe. I can't even tell a missTHEtoe from the ruleOFthumb Christmas tree. If Desi writes silly things, blame it on aweOFhelennic DDC:(
Here's here's wishing ALL MY DEAR ESTEEMED READERS, especially PAVLOVA who remembers Desi fondly I believe, and Primroses, who guessed spiriteDEStination I dream of, and a sweetspirit from Down Under always waiting by Redhead beach to do a duet masterpiece... A MERRY and BLESSED CHRISTMAS. Join Desi if you now Furong vale enought at the Butterfly Valley and we'll belt out:
First of May, OK!
to outshine the Bee Gees :):)
When I was small, and Christmas trees were tall,
we used to love while others used to play.
Don't ask me why, but time has passed us by,
some one else moved in from far away.
chorus:
Now we are tall, and Christmas trees are small,
and you don't ask the time of day.
But you and I, our love will never die,
but guess we'll cry come first of May.
The apple tree that grew for you and me,
I watched the apples falling one by one.
And I recall the moment of them all,
the day I kissed your cheek and you were gone.
>>> chorus
When I was small, and Christmas trees were tall,
do do do do do do do do do...
Don't ask me why, but time has passed us by,
some one else moved in from far away.
I should become drunk like most light hearted Malaysians in the way drunkenness is in a haelthy sort of way. You let your har down -- whatever is left -- you let your chin -- if it's not drooping because of coagilated fats -- and you put your foot on the table -- if the four-legged oakish looking holder that serves you at BF, lunch and dinner through supper -- has not given up bearing y=with your table manners, or lack of.
I remain sober whilst most buddies down a last six beers tfrom the night beofre. I am saintly -- I can't down more than 1/2-glass-fullORempty before I turn lobster red.
Apparently it runs in one's genes. I asked my two kids -- yeah, Dad still thinks of 24-yo and 28-yo as children! -- if they have acquired the ART of holding a beer. They retort I did not bestow on them the right genes. Yeah, Dad is a leftist.
I look at the bright side of things, or thongs, or thangs. leave out the other two vowels for others to have fun_D with Words, and yes, my Bee Gees gurus have taught me wellA -- and Words all I have to take your heart away! By not being a real drinker -- vve fall back on rut bir! -- vve save enough at RM6.50 for small, and RM9.50 for BIG! so they have have enough savings to pad up the dowry should they marry a Minangkabau bride. I hear that's the MNKB style to have the male ditch out HUGE dowries. Of course, the reverse is true of Dindu brides -- their parents would become pauper should they have more than two daughters, I hear.Now I stand corrected if I factually MISsrepresent the female gender standing, or sitting,or lying down.
Just dont let Desi catch you kissing Santa Claus tonight beneath the MISERYtoeTree. It's not niCe to be a spoilsport. Kiss your gf or Gf underneath the pale moon light. Something tells me poets are isconceived to think romance builds up in crescendo as the light pales. Some Jeans tell me the brighter the moon, the louder the desibelles and the aMore the belles feel like doing it. On top of the banana tree if you can't find mistletoe. I can't even tell a missTHEtoe from the ruleOFthumb Christmas tree. If Desi writes silly things, blame it on aweOFhelennic DDC:(
Here's here's wishing ALL MY DEAR ESTEEMED READERS, especially PAVLOVA who remembers Desi fondly I believe, and Primroses, who guessed spiriteDEStination I dream of, and a sweetspirit from Down Under always waiting by Redhead beach to do a duet masterpiece... A MERRY and BLESSED CHRISTMAS. Join Desi if you now Furong vale enought at the Butterfly Valley and we'll belt out:
First of May, OK!
to outshine the Bee Gees :):)
When I was small, and Christmas trees were tall,
we used to love while others used to play.
Don't ask me why, but time has passed us by,
some one else moved in from far away.
chorus:
Now we are tall, and Christmas trees are small,
and you don't ask the time of day.
But you and I, our love will never die,
but guess we'll cry come first of May.
The apple tree that grew for you and me,
I watched the apples falling one by one.
And I recall the moment of them all,
the day I kissed your cheek and you were gone.
>>> chorus
When I was small, and Christmas trees were tall,
do do do do do do do do do...
Don't ask me why, but time has passed us by,
some one else moved in from far away.
Monday, December 22, 2008
2 anecdotes at suppertime
A man-of-the-world turned counsellor - let's call him C -- was recollecting his youthfool days to yung listener, call him YL:
C: my Boss had punted BIG for 4 consecutive times at the roulette table at genting; the outcomes were small all 4 times. I had an hunch the next draw would be a Zelo (we like imitating chinamen replacing "r" with "l" when speaking crassik engrish...
YL:but you didn't...?
C: Yes, I didn't. About to place two 25bets on Zelo when my Boss placed all his remaining chips on small. Now, how dare I bet on Zelo against him? So I stayed my itching fingers...
The dice was thrown...
C: I gasped, and cursed silently, beneath my bated breaths so my Boss didn;t hear.
The dice stopped at zelo -- paying 35 times! -- and I missed my around RM800 win!
******************************************************
DESI: Ah, ces la vie!; "Such is life!" in French -- Am I correct? Throw me a french cap if Desi is wlong!:(
******************************************************
Sext Change: Cime back for aMore at 10! I have toleave for Dinner!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Super stretched into BF the following die, so it's 8.45AM now, the sun steaming into my Furong window to egg me on and not be the trademarked procrastinator...
The setting for this epicsode is at the Race Course --if you haven't visited any,DON'T! Okay, for educational purposes, view My Fair Lady or should it read as Pygmalion? (...followed by YOU male chauvinist .I.!)
C: I got 20% as a runner for bets on the horses -- I'm to remember the names of horses, sums betted on each odd-numbered horse e.g RM10 on #1; RM800 on #3 (obviously a favourite, no, not the number, the HORSE!:(; RM70on #7. etc, et cetera wit' occasional errata! Even that momentic erotica, here follows!
Over the PA came announcements on Payments on a win, place etc on the just ended race. Then the expert would update on the next race, with emphasis on the FORMS (condition, readiness to winetc...) of the horses to run in the sext -- oops, next -- race.
YL: Yeah, I've gone to the RC with a special matey Journo who covered such beats. We call specialised assignments "beats", ala mata-mata going round collecting makan suap called COLLECTION -- not Corruption K! -- BEAT...
C: Aiyah,please DON'T DIGRESS, can or not? I can't remember those figures in my small head-lah!
To cuntinue, there was this special race I remember.
I have been attracted by the BIG odds against this Horse -- let's call it H! -- I think it was somethinglike 40 to 1, which means, to ignoramuses, if HI wins, those who have punted on him/her will get paid in that ration of 40:1 e.g RM200 for a RM5 bet! That's durian runtuh.
C (cuntinuing in LO-er desibelles):
So I secretly placed my RM20 commission paid in advance on H, as I have followed closely its form from previous races, and H seemed capable of surprises (which means UPSETTING THE FAVES...) and the odds have climbed to 45 to 1!
The Race is on! The Announcer's voice gets higherpitched as the Horses went round the bends; his voice almost broke nearing the finishing line, and it indeed cracked when H flew past the line, in what's described as a PHOTO FINISH!
C: But in my excitement, I literally jumped for Joy. Yes, the pretty lass seated on the sext bench came over to tapme on the shoulder -- "Hey, short, please restrain yourself! H can get frightened wan, by your HI-desibelles!"
YL: Must be a kiasu from sinLAND -- Ooops,SINland, wlong emphasis! -- can't see the neighbours celebrating any success stories!
C: My Boss looked at me, and reprimanded: 'You mean, you betted against the Banker, ME?' THat was a deafening roar of a question. The RULE -- Platinum,not Au -- IS NOT TO PLACE BETS AGAINST YOUR BOSS AND WIN! Esp at such gargantuan odds like paying 45times for ever ringgit! So mine at RM20 earned 900 BIG BUCKS... which in the 80s was a medium sized fortune. BIG fortunes only for the daylight bank robbers ... you know, from UMNO, oh no! (C still had a SENse of humour although what followed was tragic...)
(To be cuntinued after BF -- my HP just rang; buddy waiting to be picked up in 10!:(
C: my Boss had punted BIG for 4 consecutive times at the roulette table at genting; the outcomes were small all 4 times. I had an hunch the next draw would be a Zelo (we like imitating chinamen replacing "r" with "l" when speaking crassik engrish...
YL:but you didn't...?
C: Yes, I didn't. About to place two 25bets on Zelo when my Boss placed all his remaining chips on small. Now, how dare I bet on Zelo against him? So I stayed my itching fingers...
The dice was thrown...
C: I gasped, and cursed silently, beneath my bated breaths so my Boss didn;t hear.
The dice stopped at zelo -- paying 35 times! -- and I missed my around RM800 win!
******************************************************
DESI: Ah, ces la vie!; "Such is life!" in French -- Am I correct? Throw me a french cap if Desi is wlong!:(
******************************************************
Sext Change: Cime back for aMore at 10! I have toleave for Dinner!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Super stretched into BF the following die, so it's 8.45AM now, the sun steaming into my Furong window to egg me on and not be the trademarked procrastinator...
The setting for this epicsode is at the Race Course --if you haven't visited any,DON'T! Okay, for educational purposes, view My Fair Lady or should it read as Pygmalion? (...followed by YOU male chauvinist .I.!)
C: I got 20% as a runner for bets on the horses -- I'm to remember the names of horses, sums betted on each odd-numbered horse e.g RM10 on #1; RM800 on #3 (obviously a favourite, no, not the number, the HORSE!:(; RM70on #7. etc, et cetera wit' occasional errata! Even that momentic erotica, here follows!
Over the PA came announcements on Payments on a win, place etc on the just ended race. Then the expert would update on the next race, with emphasis on the FORMS (condition, readiness to winetc...) of the horses to run in the sext -- oops, next -- race.
YL: Yeah, I've gone to the RC with a special matey Journo who covered such beats. We call specialised assignments "beats", ala mata-mata going round collecting makan suap called COLLECTION -- not Corruption K! -- BEAT...
C: Aiyah,please DON'T DIGRESS, can or not? I can't remember those figures in my small head-lah!
To cuntinue, there was this special race I remember.
I have been attracted by the BIG odds against this Horse -- let's call it H! -- I think it was somethinglike 40 to 1, which means, to ignoramuses, if HI wins, those who have punted on him/her will get paid in that ration of 40:1 e.g RM200 for a RM5 bet! That's durian runtuh.
C (cuntinuing in LO-er desibelles):
So I secretly placed my RM20 commission paid in advance on H, as I have followed closely its form from previous races, and H seemed capable of surprises (which means UPSETTING THE FAVES...) and the odds have climbed to 45 to 1!
The Race is on! The Announcer's voice gets higherpitched as the Horses went round the bends; his voice almost broke nearing the finishing line, and it indeed cracked when H flew past the line, in what's described as a PHOTO FINISH!
C: But in my excitement, I literally jumped for Joy. Yes, the pretty lass seated on the sext bench came over to tapme on the shoulder -- "Hey, short, please restrain yourself! H can get frightened wan, by your HI-desibelles!"
YL: Must be a kiasu from sinLAND -- Ooops,SINland, wlong emphasis! -- can't see the neighbours celebrating any success stories!
C: My Boss looked at me, and reprimanded: 'You mean, you betted against the Banker, ME?' THat was a deafening roar of a question. The RULE -- Platinum,not Au -- IS NOT TO PLACE BETS AGAINST YOUR BOSS AND WIN! Esp at such gargantuan odds like paying 45times for ever ringgit! So mine at RM20 earned 900 BIG BUCKS... which in the 80s was a medium sized fortune. BIG fortunes only for the daylight bank robbers ... you know, from UMNO, oh no! (C still had a SENse of humour although what followed was tragic...)
(To be cuntinued after BF -- my HP just rang; buddy waiting to be picked up in 10!:(
Sunday, December 21, 2008
can YOU fly without wings?
YES, I can.
WIT' SOME IMAGINE-nation that lives in minds like the Beatles.
I wished I had composed this number, and if I had to use Eastlife to make it pop, why not. Not everything great needs to hail from the west.
If Desi could fly without wings, I could have retired a decade ago instead of wiorking 9-to-12 earning B&B wit' some kaya thrown in if I do some OT after 12.
And IF I did one extra hour of OT, how many hours would I have worked, mGf?
Solve this puzzle and I will send you a tattered copy of Midnight V'ices ...The O was drowned out in the flood waters.
IF I spoke in tongue, blame it on an Ipoh Chic' -- I traced her footsteps hoping to taste Ipoh Hoh Fun-D. RThye said it beats Furong's anytime 1,001 times over. I take one scoop on each tale from the Arabian nights - would last me 1,000 divided by 365 years,less than 3.
It's worth it because that would be like Frying Wit'out wInks:(
Flying Without Wings
~ Westlife
Ev'rybody's looking for that something
One thing that makes it all complete
You'll find it in strange places
Places you never knew it could be
Some find it in the face of their children
Some find it in their lover's eyes
Who can deny the joy it brings
When you find that special thing?
You're flying without wings
Some find it sharing ev'ry morning
Some, in their solitary lives
You find it in the works of others
A simple line can make you laugh or cry
You find it in the deepest friendships
The kind you cherish all your life
And, when you know how much that means
You've found that special thing
You're flying without wings
So, impossible as it may seem
You've got to fight for every dream
'Cause who's to know
Which one you let go
Would have made you complete?
Well, for me, it's waking up beside you
To watch the sun rise on your face
To know that I can say I love you
At any given time or place
It's little things that only I know
Those are the things that make you mine
And it's like flying without wings
'Cause you're my special thing
I'm flying without wings
And you're the place my life begins
And you'll be where it ends
I'm flying without wings
And that's the joy you bring
I'm flying without wings
DESIDERATA: I will continue wit' my nonsensical sharing if my mood carries me yonder;
you be patient while I look for her -- her is Miss Moody always carrying a "Y"...
wink:) winks:):) winks:):):)
WIT' SOME IMAGINE-nation that lives in minds like the Beatles.
I wished I had composed this number, and if I had to use Eastlife to make it pop, why not. Not everything great needs to hail from the west.
If Desi could fly without wings, I could have retired a decade ago instead of wiorking 9-to-12 earning B&B wit' some kaya thrown in if I do some OT after 12.
And IF I did one extra hour of OT, how many hours would I have worked, mGf?
Solve this puzzle and I will send you a tattered copy of Midnight V'ices ...The O was drowned out in the flood waters.
IF I spoke in tongue, blame it on an Ipoh Chic' -- I traced her footsteps hoping to taste Ipoh Hoh Fun-D. RThye said it beats Furong's anytime 1,001 times over. I take one scoop on each tale from the Arabian nights - would last me 1,000 divided by 365 years,less than 3.
It's worth it because that would be like Frying Wit'out wInks:(
Flying Without Wings
~ Westlife
Ev'rybody's looking for that something
One thing that makes it all complete
You'll find it in strange places
Places you never knew it could be
Some find it in the face of their children
Some find it in their lover's eyes
Who can deny the joy it brings
When you find that special thing?
You're flying without wings
Some find it sharing ev'ry morning
Some, in their solitary lives
You find it in the works of others
A simple line can make you laugh or cry
You find it in the deepest friendships
The kind you cherish all your life
And, when you know how much that means
You've found that special thing
You're flying without wings
So, impossible as it may seem
You've got to fight for every dream
'Cause who's to know
Which one you let go
Would have made you complete?
Well, for me, it's waking up beside you
To watch the sun rise on your face
To know that I can say I love you
At any given time or place
It's little things that only I know
Those are the things that make you mine
And it's like flying without wings
'Cause you're my special thing
I'm flying without wings
And you're the place my life begins
And you'll be where it ends
I'm flying without wings
And that's the joy you bring
I'm flying without wings
DESIDERATA: I will continue wit' my nonsensical sharing if my mood carries me yonder;
you be patient while I look for her -- her is Miss Moody always carrying a "Y"...
wink:) winks:):) winks:):):)
Saturday, December 20, 2008
poetry in notion
My dear readers -- esteemed or non-steamed -- by now would know that this cyber home estate owner is a sucker for poetry, poets and poetics, although I can't tell you the exact definition of the third. Anyway,this is a FUN-d post, so just cite one example of what poetic occasion I would like to create as Desi's notion number one:
Watching Cybil Shepherd, or Ursula Undressed -- oops, Andress! -- fully clothed -- what were you thinking, matey? -- walking by Port Dickson or Redherd beach; the wind a howling and the cats a meowing -- if they don't meowing, what do they do a a cold wind-swept night? -- and suddenly the storm -- topical, not digressive! -- breaks. The ocean rises in crescendo -- both in wavelengths and Cybil's and/or Ursula's skirts... -- and the salty sea and sky juice wraps around their/her heavenly bodies like seamless glue so that the flimsy dress from neck to knee hugs Go'd gifted contours so tightly the human form moves like a silhouette or a wayang kulit image teasingly across the vast canvas that's RH or PD bitch -- Oops, beach -- and Desi, peeping from afar, reaches a voyeuristic climax tasting those Mother Nature's contours so heavenly crafted that only Michaelangelo's brush and colours can approximate to the notion of Truth, Beauty and Nature at its murderous best.
And bloody mates, don't get Desi wrong -- those are the contours of the roaring wavesand windswept Ursula's?Cybil's wind swept tresses and the tightly hugged dress clinging for dear life to cover the wearer's warmed bodice -- to visualise, look up at Marilyn Monro plus a tonne of H2O drowsing her wilde and childe like to fire up the voyeuar's bloody head in Thee -- yes, my steamed readers! -- and now you've got a notion of what bloody poetics I was engaged in as a 13-year-old, pimply-faced and a shock of hair that even the greatest scientist on earth would envy -- Einstein, you hear Desi(belles)?--grasing "Lady Chatterley's Lover" while DH Lawrence was transfixed at that silhouette of a couple coupling as one in the Garden of Eden qyite far from those pirates in the Gulf of Aden and away from the hands of femme fatale killer Johnny Depp as he waits with groping eyes as Jacqueline Bisset rises from The Deep.
Another notion of what poetic climax Desi asSpires too is to be at the InAUgural.
Au is scientific name for GOLD, and a prefix for anything that is bestA!
So it I can' be in Washington, DC, I will be in RH or PD beach for the poetry in motion. See you, Ursula and/or Cyber sweets!
Inauguration 2009 January 20, 2009 - Washington, D.C.
Latest: News and Updates from InAUguration Central
The Inaugural Poet
Selection Provides Civil Rights Symmetry
Poet Elizabeth Alexander was 1 when her parents took her to the March on Washington. On Jan. 20, she will read at the swearing-in of the first African American U.S. president.
By Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 18, 2008; Page A01
On Aug. 28, 1963, a young government lawyer and his wife pushed their 1-year-old daughter in a stroller from their home in Southwest Washington to the vast civil rights march on the Mall, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stood at the Lincoln Memorial and gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.
______________________________
(DESI: Use thy God-gited unique mind to visualise the pictorials in the Story; othervice Search-lah Washington Post, I ain't carry lazy BUMmers to the inAUgural!)
______________________________
Next month, the little girl, Elizabeth Alexander, now 46, a prize-winning poet and professor of African American studies at Yale University, is scheduled to stand at the other end of the Mall before what will probably be an even bigger throng and read a poem at the inauguration of the nation's first African American president.
They are two moments in Washington history, more than four decades and about two miles apart, that on Jan. 20 will bracket a part of one poet's life, along with a chapter in the country's narrative.
"It was one of the iconic stories of my childhood," Alexander said yesterday of her attendance at the March on Washington. She said of her duty next month: "It will be hard, but it will be a privilege."
Alexander, who grew up in Washington and attended Sidwell Friends School, was named by the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies as the poet to read at the swearing-in.
It is the first time that "poetry's old-fashioned praise," as Robert Frost called it, will be featured at the swearing-in since 1997.
"I am obviously profoundly honored and thrilled," she said. "Not only to have a chance to have some small part of this extraordinary moment in American history. . . . This incoming president of ours has shown in every act that words matter, that words carry meaning, that words carry power, that words are the medium with which we communicate across difference and that words have tremendous possibilities, and those possibilities are not empty."
Alexander will join soul singer Aretha Franklin, civil rights figure Joseph E. Lowery and classical musicians Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Gabriela Montero and Anthony McGill on the program.
She will be only the fourth poet to read at a swearing-in, after Frost, who read at John F. Kennedy's in 1961, Maya Angelou, who read at Bill Clinton's in 1993, and Miller Williams, who read at Clinton's second inauguration in 1997, according to government officials.
And her connections to the city go back to that day in 1963.
"That's certainly been an important part of my own sense of what it means for all of us to be standing at various moments in history and taking into account what is possible, what is hopeful, what can be worked for," she said.
At the time, her father, Clifford, who later served as a presidential civil rights counsel and secretary of the Army and was a 1974 District mayoral candidate, was a lawyer in the Kennedy administration. He and his wife, Adele, decided they had to take their daughter to the march.
Page 2 of 3 < Back Next >
Selection Provides Civil Rights Symmetry
Poet Elizabeth Alexander was 1 when her parents took her to the March on Washington. On Jan. 20, she will read at the swearing-in of the first African American U.S. president. (By C.j. Gunther For The Washington Post)
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Who's Blogging» Links to this article
"She was there in the stroller," her father said.
This Story
Star-Gazing Foreseen at the Inaugural Balls
Transcript: Inaugural Balls: A City Full of Celebrities
The Inaugural Poet: Selection Provides Civil Rights Symmetry
Inauguration? Follow All the Bouncing Balls
Inauguration Central
View All Items in This Story
View Only Top Items in This Story
Her mother, Adele Alexander, a professor of African American women's history at George Washington University, said: "There would absolutely be no way that we couldn't take her. It was important. It was monumental."
Her daughter's task next month at the opposite end of the Mall is "thrilling," she said. "The parallelism is fabulous there."
Her father said: "It could not be more wonderful. She is an absolutely superb poet, a superb daughter and a superb person."
Elizabeth Alexander was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2005 and winner of the Jackson Poetry Prize last year. She is also a friend and former neighbor of Obama's in Chicago, and her younger brother Mark, whom she introduced to Obama, was a senior adviser during the campaign and is helping with the presidential transition.
She is the author of four books of poems, "The Venus Hottentot," "Body of Life," "Antebellum Dream Book" and "American Sublime," which was the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Several of her poems can be found on her Web site at http://www.elizabethalexander.net/poems.html.
"I'm deeply, deeply, deeply honored, not just to be part of it but to be part of it for this president at this moment," she said.
She said she will have to write a special poem.
"I have to write something to commemorate this occasion. I have to find a way to ask the best of myself," she said.
"Surely the world expected that someone like Barack Obama would want to have poetry at his inaugural," she said. "His care with language and his sense of vision would make us think that he's that kind of person."
The poetry and literary community had been abuzz for weeks over whether a poet might read and, if so, whom it would be, said Tree Swenson of the Academy of American Poets in New York City.
Derek Walcott, a West Indies poet who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1992, wrote a poem about Obama after his election. And the president-elect, who reportedly wrote poetry in high school and college, was recently photographed carrying a book of what looked like Walcott's poetry.
Page 3 of 3 < Back
Selection Provides Civil Rights Symmetry
Poet Elizabeth Alexander was 1 when her parents took her to the March on Washington. On Jan. 20, she will read at the swearing-in of the first African American U.S. president. (By C.j. Gunther For The Washington Post)
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Who's Blogging» Links to this article
Walcott said last week that there is a tradition of poets speaking for their country.
This Story
Star-Gazing Foreseen at the Inaugural Balls
Transcript: Inaugural Balls: A City Full of Celebrities
The Inaugural Poet: Selection Provides Civil Rights Symmetry
Inauguration? Follow All the Bouncing Balls
Inauguration Central
View All Items in This Story
View Only Top Items in This Story
"There have been great occasional poets -- poets who write on occasion," he said. "Tennyson was one. I think Pope was another. Frost also."
"I think it's a good idea," he said. "Every nation and every tribe should celebrate at least one poet who is the voice of the tribe. And I don't think poets mind doing that. . . . There are great things that in times of national grief can console, and in times of national joy they can elevate."
Former U.S. poet laureate Rita Dove, informed about Alexander's inaugural assignment, said: "I can only say, 'Yay!' She's a wonderful poet. . . . This is going to be a wonderful match."
The Chicago-based Poetry Foundation also applauded the choice.
"Her selection affirms poetry's central place in the soul of our country," said John Barr, foundation president. "She is a perfect choice . . . one of the seminal voices in contemporary American poetry. Like Whitman before her, [she] has always sought in her poetry to celebrate America's tremendous common spirit and endurance by acknowledging our differences and triumphs."
In a poem titled "Ars Poetica #100: I Believe," Alexander wrote that "Poetry is what you find in the dirt in the corner, overhear on the bus, God in the details. . . .
"Poetry (here I hear myself loudest) is the human voice, and are we not of interest to each other?"
Watching Cybil Shepherd, or Ursula Undressed -- oops, Andress! -- fully clothed -- what were you thinking, matey? -- walking by Port Dickson or Redherd beach; the wind a howling and the cats a meowing -- if they don't meowing, what do they do a a cold wind-swept night? -- and suddenly the storm -- topical, not digressive! -- breaks. The ocean rises in crescendo -- both in wavelengths and Cybil's and/or Ursula's skirts... -- and the salty sea and sky juice wraps around their/her heavenly bodies like seamless glue so that the flimsy dress from neck to knee hugs Go'd gifted contours so tightly the human form moves like a silhouette or a wayang kulit image teasingly across the vast canvas that's RH or PD bitch -- Oops, beach -- and Desi, peeping from afar, reaches a voyeuristic climax tasting those Mother Nature's contours so heavenly crafted that only Michaelangelo's brush and colours can approximate to the notion of Truth, Beauty and Nature at its murderous best.
And bloody mates, don't get Desi wrong -- those are the contours of the roaring wavesand windswept Ursula's?Cybil's wind swept tresses and the tightly hugged dress clinging for dear life to cover the wearer's warmed bodice -- to visualise, look up at Marilyn Monro plus a tonne of H2O drowsing her wilde and childe like to fire up the voyeuar's bloody head in Thee -- yes, my steamed readers! -- and now you've got a notion of what bloody poetics I was engaged in as a 13-year-old, pimply-faced and a shock of hair that even the greatest scientist on earth would envy -- Einstein, you hear Desi(belles)?--grasing "Lady Chatterley's Lover" while DH Lawrence was transfixed at that silhouette of a couple coupling as one in the Garden of Eden qyite far from those pirates in the Gulf of Aden and away from the hands of femme fatale killer Johnny Depp as he waits with groping eyes as Jacqueline Bisset rises from The Deep.
Another notion of what poetic climax Desi asSpires too is to be at the InAUgural.
Au is scientific name for GOLD, and a prefix for anything that is bestA!
So it I can' be in Washington, DC, I will be in RH or PD beach for the poetry in motion. See you, Ursula and/or Cyber sweets!
Inauguration 2009 January 20, 2009 - Washington, D.C.
Latest: News and Updates from InAUguration Central
The Inaugural Poet
Selection Provides Civil Rights Symmetry
Poet Elizabeth Alexander was 1 when her parents took her to the March on Washington. On Jan. 20, she will read at the swearing-in of the first African American U.S. president.
By Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 18, 2008; Page A01
On Aug. 28, 1963, a young government lawyer and his wife pushed their 1-year-old daughter in a stroller from their home in Southwest Washington to the vast civil rights march on the Mall, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stood at the Lincoln Memorial and gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.
______________________________
(DESI: Use thy God-gited unique mind to visualise the pictorials in the Story; othervice Search-lah Washington Post, I ain't carry lazy BUMmers to the inAUgural!)
______________________________
Next month, the little girl, Elizabeth Alexander, now 46, a prize-winning poet and professor of African American studies at Yale University, is scheduled to stand at the other end of the Mall before what will probably be an even bigger throng and read a poem at the inauguration of the nation's first African American president.
They are two moments in Washington history, more than four decades and about two miles apart, that on Jan. 20 will bracket a part of one poet's life, along with a chapter in the country's narrative.
"It was one of the iconic stories of my childhood," Alexander said yesterday of her attendance at the March on Washington. She said of her duty next month: "It will be hard, but it will be a privilege."
Alexander, who grew up in Washington and attended Sidwell Friends School, was named by the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies as the poet to read at the swearing-in.
It is the first time that "poetry's old-fashioned praise," as Robert Frost called it, will be featured at the swearing-in since 1997.
"I am obviously profoundly honored and thrilled," she said. "Not only to have a chance to have some small part of this extraordinary moment in American history. . . . This incoming president of ours has shown in every act that words matter, that words carry meaning, that words carry power, that words are the medium with which we communicate across difference and that words have tremendous possibilities, and those possibilities are not empty."
Alexander will join soul singer Aretha Franklin, civil rights figure Joseph E. Lowery and classical musicians Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Gabriela Montero and Anthony McGill on the program.
She will be only the fourth poet to read at a swearing-in, after Frost, who read at John F. Kennedy's in 1961, Maya Angelou, who read at Bill Clinton's in 1993, and Miller Williams, who read at Clinton's second inauguration in 1997, according to government officials.
And her connections to the city go back to that day in 1963.
"That's certainly been an important part of my own sense of what it means for all of us to be standing at various moments in history and taking into account what is possible, what is hopeful, what can be worked for," she said.
At the time, her father, Clifford, who later served as a presidential civil rights counsel and secretary of the Army and was a 1974 District mayoral candidate, was a lawyer in the Kennedy administration. He and his wife, Adele, decided they had to take their daughter to the march.
Page 2 of 3 < Back Next >
Selection Provides Civil Rights Symmetry
Poet Elizabeth Alexander was 1 when her parents took her to the March on Washington. On Jan. 20, she will read at the swearing-in of the first African American U.S. president. (By C.j. Gunther For The Washington Post)
» Top 35 Politics Articles
» Most Popular on washingtonpost.com
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Discussion Policy CLOSEComments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging» Links to this article
"She was there in the stroller," her father said.
This Story
Star-Gazing Foreseen at the Inaugural Balls
Transcript: Inaugural Balls: A City Full of Celebrities
The Inaugural Poet: Selection Provides Civil Rights Symmetry
Inauguration? Follow All the Bouncing Balls
Inauguration Central
View All Items in This Story
View Only Top Items in This Story
Her mother, Adele Alexander, a professor of African American women's history at George Washington University, said: "There would absolutely be no way that we couldn't take her. It was important. It was monumental."
Her daughter's task next month at the opposite end of the Mall is "thrilling," she said. "The parallelism is fabulous there."
Her father said: "It could not be more wonderful. She is an absolutely superb poet, a superb daughter and a superb person."
Elizabeth Alexander was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2005 and winner of the Jackson Poetry Prize last year. She is also a friend and former neighbor of Obama's in Chicago, and her younger brother Mark, whom she introduced to Obama, was a senior adviser during the campaign and is helping with the presidential transition.
She is the author of four books of poems, "The Venus Hottentot," "Body of Life," "Antebellum Dream Book" and "American Sublime," which was the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Several of her poems can be found on her Web site at http://www.elizabethalexander.net/poems.html.
"I'm deeply, deeply, deeply honored, not just to be part of it but to be part of it for this president at this moment," she said.
She said she will have to write a special poem.
"I have to write something to commemorate this occasion. I have to find a way to ask the best of myself," she said.
"Surely the world expected that someone like Barack Obama would want to have poetry at his inaugural," she said. "His care with language and his sense of vision would make us think that he's that kind of person."
The poetry and literary community had been abuzz for weeks over whether a poet might read and, if so, whom it would be, said Tree Swenson of the Academy of American Poets in New York City.
Derek Walcott, a West Indies poet who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1992, wrote a poem about Obama after his election. And the president-elect, who reportedly wrote poetry in high school and college, was recently photographed carrying a book of what looked like Walcott's poetry.
Page 3 of 3 < Back
Selection Provides Civil Rights Symmetry
Poet Elizabeth Alexander was 1 when her parents took her to the March on Washington. On Jan. 20, she will read at the swearing-in of the first African American U.S. president. (By C.j. Gunther For The Washington Post)
» Top 35 Politics Articles
» Most Popular on washingtonpost.com
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Discussion PolicyYour browser's settings may be preventing you from commenting on and viewing comments about this item. See instructions for fixing the problem.
Discussion Policy CLOSEComments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging» Links to this article
Walcott said last week that there is a tradition of poets speaking for their country.
This Story
Star-Gazing Foreseen at the Inaugural Balls
Transcript: Inaugural Balls: A City Full of Celebrities
The Inaugural Poet: Selection Provides Civil Rights Symmetry
Inauguration? Follow All the Bouncing Balls
Inauguration Central
View All Items in This Story
View Only Top Items in This Story
"There have been great occasional poets -- poets who write on occasion," he said. "Tennyson was one. I think Pope was another. Frost also."
"I think it's a good idea," he said. "Every nation and every tribe should celebrate at least one poet who is the voice of the tribe. And I don't think poets mind doing that. . . . There are great things that in times of national grief can console, and in times of national joy they can elevate."
Former U.S. poet laureate Rita Dove, informed about Alexander's inaugural assignment, said: "I can only say, 'Yay!' She's a wonderful poet. . . . This is going to be a wonderful match."
The Chicago-based Poetry Foundation also applauded the choice.
"Her selection affirms poetry's central place in the soul of our country," said John Barr, foundation president. "She is a perfect choice . . . one of the seminal voices in contemporary American poetry. Like Whitman before her, [she] has always sought in her poetry to celebrate America's tremendous common spirit and endurance by acknowledging our differences and triumphs."
In a poem titled "Ars Poetica #100: I Believe," Alexander wrote that "Poetry is what you find in the dirt in the corner, overhear on the bus, God in the details. . . .
"Poetry (here I hear myself loudest) is the human voice, and are we not of interest to each other?"
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
I once had an strange encounter ...
which led me to engage a fellow Blogger in good faith; there were a few other companions in this learning experience. It led me on an energy-sapping adventure which resulted in my
* DELETING THE ENTIRE ORIGINAL POST
** SUBSEQUENT POSTS and COMMENTS RELATED TO THIS ENCOUNTER
*** The moral of my recall is that, I believe, "What goes around comes around" in a strange sort of way, so THINK BEFORE YOU LEAP/WRITE.
Today I am reminded as I surfed blogosphere of the saying which is always at the back of my mind as a writer-cum-poet-aSspirant:
“All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.” - Edmund Burke
And indeed, several good men stoodup to be counted, and I reprise these LINKS for yout to have a glance of that "strange" encounter and the main PLAYER, now joined by another of similar ilk. Not my assessment but by many Others.
Reprisal1:
Best my dear EsteemedReaders surf to sjsandteam.wordpress.com to read:
The Might Of The Pen
December 14, 2008
AN OPEN CHALLENGE TO A MALAYSIAN TERRORIST
Filed under: ARTICLES 14/12/2008, reforms — sjsandteam @ 9:27 am
The sjsandteam is throwing an open challenge to this idiot named Zainol Abideen, also known as Mahaguru58. He has thrown an open challenge to all non-Muslims throughout the world. He will pay dearly for the words uttered by him which are displayed at his website. As we do not promote his website, please Google search his website to verify all the words written by him, which we are displaying here. Please note that this person is a Protem President of the Muslim Bloggers Alliance in Malaysia. Who cares! If he transgresses the limit of morality and religious tolerance, he is an enemy of this world!
We have coloured the text for easy reading. The first texts which are coloured in red denote his current issues against another blogger, which we will not interfere with, as this is a dispute involving two individuals on a matter of public interest. But we are displaying this text for the international audience to read the text and dissect the mind of a man leading the Muslim Bloggers Alliance in Malaysia.
As long as this heart keeps on pumping and my soul is still within the confines of this mortal body, Zainol Abideen a.k.a. Mahaguru58 will stand up for Islam or die trying!
We who believe in Allah as our Lord and Muhammad as our beloved Last and Final Messenger of Allah wish to inform you and your likes that you shall reap what you sow!.
Malaysia is our nation that has its laws and rulings in place.
When you publish such offensive articles against us and demand that we do nothing about it in the name of freedom of speech, then you sure are one stupid deluded moron who needs to be taught a lesson!
A lesson that you and others like you will never forget!
The Royal Malaysian Police have received my report against you.
Be ready to answer for your crimes
These texts, coloured in blue, spoken by this idiotic blogger called Mahaguru58 are displayed below for the entire world to read.
I would also like to give notice to all other persons, groups or NGO’s that you will also face official and legal repercussions if you too do as what this Surind has done and expect to get away with your offenses against us, peace loving Malaysian Muslims.
You do not have the right to insult us, our faith and our God Almighty!
We never bother about meddling in your religious affairs.
We expect you to do the same failing which just be ready to face the consequences.
May rationality be with each and every Malaysian, regardless of creed, race or social status!
Ameen!
The sjsandteam wishes to display the following text spoken by Raja Petra Kamarudin, on November 09, 2008. These words are coloured in green, incidentally it is our favourite colour:
The JAKIM ustaz told us that Islam is the true religion and that all other religions are false. We were reminded not to believe in or follow other religions, which are not accepted and recognized by God. Only the Koran is the true Holy Book and was sent to us by God through the Prophet Muhammad.. All other books are false and were created by man and did not come from God.
We must also not copy or ape the non-Muslims as that will lead us astray and we will become an apostate if we act like the kafir. He did not, however, give any examples on what would be considered acting like a kafir.
IN RAJA PETRA’S OWN WORDS…
CHALLENGE BY SJSANDTEAM
You Muslim by the name of Zainol Abideen, trading as Mahaguru58, THE PRESIDENT OF MUSLIM BLOGGERS ALLIANCE, who claims to be a peace loving Malaysian Muslim, please take note that, we accept your NOTICE.
BALLS TO YOU! YOU CALL YOURSELF A PEACE LOVING MALAYSIAN MUSLIM! YOUR INDIVIDUALISTIC WORDS REPRESENTING WHICHEVER COMMUNITY YOU CLAIM TO REPRESENT ARE WORDS THAT CAN ONLY BE CRAFTED AND SPOKEN BY THE TERRORISTS!
You do not throw an open challenge to the world community, when you, the creator of such hate, are now trying to act holy in the eyes of all communities, USING the wrong committed by a non-Muslim blogger. Address your specific concern to that blogger. Do not be a champion of your religion by displaying your message of threats against the world community. YOU ARE NOT AN AUTHORITY ON ISLAM AND DO NOT SPEAK ON BEHALF OF THE MINDS OF RATIONAL MUSLIMS WORLDWIDE.
You never meddle in other religions’ affairs? Go and spin your stories to ignorant rural population. They may uphold you as a terrorist hero, as they do with all other well-known terrorists.
WHO SAID THAT ISLAM IS THE ONLY TRUE RELIGION IN THIS WORLD AND ALL OTHER RELIGIONS ARE FALSE?
WHO SAID THAT THE QURAN IS THE ONLY TRUE HOLY BOOK AND THE REST ARE FALSE AND CREATED BY MEN?
WHO SAID THAT NON-MUSLIMS CULTURE HAS GONE ASTRAY AND ARE BAD EXAMPLES TO MUSLIMS WORLDWIDE?
AND ZAINOL, THE TERRORIST, WHICH NON-MUSLIM FILED A POLICE REPORT AGAINST THAT USTAZ FROM JAKIM?
DO YOU NOW UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE?
DO YOU NOW KNOW THAT ALL RELIGIONS IN THIS WORLD ARE ONE AND THE SAME…THEY ARE ALL RELIGIONS OF LOVE! AND ALL MEN WHO BELONG TO THIS RELIGION HAVE ONLY ONE COMMON ENEMY…AND THAT ENEMY IS…HATE.
DO NOT CREATE THAT HATE AMONGST ALL MUSLIMS IF YOUR HATE IS ONLY AGAINST ONE NON-MUSLIM!
AS THAT USTAZ TOO IS OUR COMMON ENEMY… AND NOT OUR MUSLIM BROTHERS AND SISTERS…
DO NOT TEST OUR PATIENCE WITH YOUR WORDS OF HATE…OTHERWISE THAT FALSE PEACE THAT YOU PREACH, WILL TRANSLATE INTO THAT DEMONIZED HATE…
To all our international readers, this is the same idiot who uttered the following words as regards to how non-Muslims can prevent themselves from being buried as Muslims:
“Those who feel very strongly about it, this is going to offend some people I don’t give a damn, they should have it tattooed on their chest like what Adolf Hitler did, you know, this is a Jew right?, and they had tattoos. So those who are now so adamant on not wanting to be buried as a Muslim, or whatever, for whatever reason, they should have it tattooed on their chest.”
The video is self-explanatory and descriptive of this terrorist mentality terrorizing the nation’s ignorant Muslims.
This is the alternative way to access the video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4474858428888866992
The world Muslim and non-Muslim communities must come together and condemn these extremists that exist in the community for a long period of time, if hope for a new world order is to materialize.
WHEN YOU ARE IN DOUBT ALWAYS
IF YOU ARE STILL IN DOUBT…THEN CHECK WITH THIS
TOK GURU
BUT NEVER ASSOCIATE WITH THIS MY FOOT GURU AS HE IS A MAHA TERRORIST GURU
ALL IMAGES ARE SLOTTED BY THE SJSANDTEAM
THE SJSANDTEAM HAS KEPT MANY OVERSEAS INTELLIGENCE SERVICES FULLY INFORMED OF THE ACTIVITIES OF MANY UNDESIRABLE ELEMENTS IN THIS PART OF THE WORLD. WE ARE IN POSSESSION OF MANY EVIDENCE INCLUDING PHOTOGRAPHS.
AFTER SJSANDTEAM PUBLISHED THE ABOVE ARTICLE, WE NOTICED THIS ARTICLE APPEARING ON MAHAGURU58’S WEBSITE. WE LEAVE IT TO THE READERS TO MAKE THEIR OWN JUDGMENT. WE WILL NOT BE A PARTY TO THE SEDITIOUS STATEMENTS HE MAY HAVE INCORPORATED IN HIS TEXT AGAINST THE RULERS OF MALAYSIA.
Racial and Religious Eternal Quagmire in Malaysia.
To those of us who are Malaysians and are able to figure out that the racial and religious problems amongst us will remain a quagmire eternally here in this land, the best thing to do is to learn the do’s and don’ts of the various religions, faiths and cultures here.
After learning the basics of all the various faiths and cultures here in our country, the best thing to do then would be to live and let live our fellow Malaysians and accord to each their own free space to live out their lives and accord to each other a sense of respect and practice tolerance.
Each community here ought to keep within their space and never infringe upon the rights or customs of the other.
As long as the other community or faith minds their own business and goes about their affairs without infringing on the lives of others, peace and harmony will come to be present in our life’s and we can all focus on improving the quality of our own economies, finances and create opportunities for our mutual benefits.
If we fail to do that and we keep on going after each other by attacking them or their religion, where is this going to lead us all?
Anarchy, religious strife, murder and mayhem!
Is that what we need or crave for?
Is there any sense of rationality left in us who are Malaysians?
Why is our country still in deep shit spiritually and religiously when we have all avenues of learning about each other right before our very eyes?
Are we not capable of exorcising our demons from our hearts and return to the sense of camaraderie that once prevailed in the times of our forefathers?
When one hurts another and starts to insult his or her faith, what is going to stop a tit for tat response from those who have been hurt or offended?
When will all this end?
When everyone has been hurt, injured, bashed and bloodied to death?
Will that appease all these irresponsible people who are now rampaging all over the cyberspace as if they are going to live forever and not be held accountable for their online crimes and distortions of the truth?
I see the present Government of Malaysia not doing what they should be doing which is to enforce all the current laws and regulations which were enacted to keep these emerging racial and religious strife’s nipped right in the bud before they grow out of control and out of hand!
Even those who pride themselves as the Sovereign Keepers of the Islamic Faith @ the Malay Royals fail to take action against those who have attacked and insulted Islam so viciously despite police reports having been lodged against the offenders.
Racial and religious strife amongst Malaysians looks set to remain an eternal quagmire here in Malaysia despite all the official pretexts and pretensions taking place before us.
‘Ketuanan Melayu and Ketuanan Islam’ are just a mirage which seem to disappear when ‘push comes to shove!’.
The Executive and the Monarchy are just coming to be proven to be nothing but self interested parties who just enrich themselves and do not really bother about seeing to it that justice is served and seen to be implemented in this going crazy nation of ours.
Those who appreciate and value peace and harmony best watch out for your own safety and well being for the ones claiming to be in authority are just not interested to live up to their oaths of office.
We have no one to turn to except Almighty Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala in the real sense.
Those whom we thought might be able to look after and care for us are fast turning out to be nothing but fly by night operators who are just bothered to keep themselves well fed, pampered and adulated day and night without even an iota of consideration for the citizens of this nation whose life’s, honor and wellbeing is of no concern to their VVIP self’s.
To me, I really do not give a damn about all the honorifics and self glorifying pompous selfish ones who pretend to be our authorities and rulers.
They are just human beings like the rest of us. When Death comes a calling, it differs not between the titled and the simple folks like us.
All I can advise you, my fellow Malaysian reading this is to watch out and fend for yourselves.
Do not fall victim to the designations and manipulations of the ones who love to create social, religious and racial strife amongst us to appease their demons within them and to take care of your beloved ones.
‘Cari makan!’ and don’t ‘Cari pasal!’
I believe that if we work towards making our lives more meaningful by focusing our resources and energies towards earning our keep by getting involved in entrepreneurial efforts and enterprises, our future will be much more better than the current religious bashing’s taking place here online and in our nation’s political scene.
Will you disagree? I am sure that the rational and decent ones amongst us will be of the same thought as me.
Let’s get our priorities right and work towards earning ourselves a better keep and improving the quality of our lifestyles than descend into unnecessary strife, religious and racial discord amongst us!
Work towards mutual success and a peaceful co-existence amongst us Malaysians.
May you all be safe.
Ameen.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Reprisal2: from bytemuncher.blogspot.com aka shadowfox:
Thursday, January 31, 2008
The lowest Muslim scum bloggers in the blogosphere.
Aiyoyo, all non-muslims should be tattooed like what Hitler did to the Jews.
That's according to MENJ and MAHAGURU58. Have a taste of your own medicine you fuckwits.
Read the full article at this LINK
http://bytemuncher.blogspot.com/2008/01/lowest-muslim-scum-bloggers-in.html
as it contains many pictorials and other links (including significant one to malaysia-today.net);
plus especially an important PRESS STATEMENT FROM PAS!
DESIDERATA: GOoD day to all my ER, have a blessed week ahead.
I am having an HI-atus for some days, may be back for the kambing wickedend,
and if you are up to it, call me for an AO; we will tehtari' at Lingam's, Paul Street, Furong. Just don't bring the Chief Justice! Jest don't let the two Jokers highlighted in todie's post tag along also/arsehole?
* DELETING THE ENTIRE ORIGINAL POST
** SUBSEQUENT POSTS and COMMENTS RELATED TO THIS ENCOUNTER
*** The moral of my recall is that, I believe, "What goes around comes around" in a strange sort of way, so THINK BEFORE YOU LEAP/WRITE.
Today I am reminded as I surfed blogosphere of the saying which is always at the back of my mind as a writer-cum-poet-aSspirant:
“All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.” - Edmund Burke
And indeed, several good men stoodup to be counted, and I reprise these LINKS for yout to have a glance of that "strange" encounter and the main PLAYER, now joined by another of similar ilk. Not my assessment but by many Others.
Reprisal1:
Best my dear EsteemedReaders surf to sjsandteam.wordpress.com to read:
The Might Of The Pen
December 14, 2008
AN OPEN CHALLENGE TO A MALAYSIAN TERRORIST
Filed under: ARTICLES 14/12/2008, reforms — sjsandteam @ 9:27 am
The sjsandteam is throwing an open challenge to this idiot named Zainol Abideen, also known as Mahaguru58. He has thrown an open challenge to all non-Muslims throughout the world. He will pay dearly for the words uttered by him which are displayed at his website. As we do not promote his website, please Google search his website to verify all the words written by him, which we are displaying here. Please note that this person is a Protem President of the Muslim Bloggers Alliance in Malaysia. Who cares! If he transgresses the limit of morality and religious tolerance, he is an enemy of this world!
We have coloured the text for easy reading. The first texts which are coloured in red denote his current issues against another blogger, which we will not interfere with, as this is a dispute involving two individuals on a matter of public interest. But we are displaying this text for the international audience to read the text and dissect the mind of a man leading the Muslim Bloggers Alliance in Malaysia.
As long as this heart keeps on pumping and my soul is still within the confines of this mortal body, Zainol Abideen a.k.a. Mahaguru58 will stand up for Islam or die trying!
We who believe in Allah as our Lord and Muhammad as our beloved Last and Final Messenger of Allah wish to inform you and your likes that you shall reap what you sow!.
Malaysia is our nation that has its laws and rulings in place.
When you publish such offensive articles against us and demand that we do nothing about it in the name of freedom of speech, then you sure are one stupid deluded moron who needs to be taught a lesson!
A lesson that you and others like you will never forget!
The Royal Malaysian Police have received my report against you.
Be ready to answer for your crimes
These texts, coloured in blue, spoken by this idiotic blogger called Mahaguru58 are displayed below for the entire world to read.
I would also like to give notice to all other persons, groups or NGO’s that you will also face official and legal repercussions if you too do as what this Surind has done and expect to get away with your offenses against us, peace loving Malaysian Muslims.
You do not have the right to insult us, our faith and our God Almighty!
We never bother about meddling in your religious affairs.
We expect you to do the same failing which just be ready to face the consequences.
May rationality be with each and every Malaysian, regardless of creed, race or social status!
Ameen!
The sjsandteam wishes to display the following text spoken by Raja Petra Kamarudin, on November 09, 2008. These words are coloured in green, incidentally it is our favourite colour:
The JAKIM ustaz told us that Islam is the true religion and that all other religions are false. We were reminded not to believe in or follow other religions, which are not accepted and recognized by God. Only the Koran is the true Holy Book and was sent to us by God through the Prophet Muhammad.. All other books are false and were created by man and did not come from God.
We must also not copy or ape the non-Muslims as that will lead us astray and we will become an apostate if we act like the kafir. He did not, however, give any examples on what would be considered acting like a kafir.
IN RAJA PETRA’S OWN WORDS…
CHALLENGE BY SJSANDTEAM
You Muslim by the name of Zainol Abideen, trading as Mahaguru58, THE PRESIDENT OF MUSLIM BLOGGERS ALLIANCE, who claims to be a peace loving Malaysian Muslim, please take note that, we accept your NOTICE.
BALLS TO YOU! YOU CALL YOURSELF A PEACE LOVING MALAYSIAN MUSLIM! YOUR INDIVIDUALISTIC WORDS REPRESENTING WHICHEVER COMMUNITY YOU CLAIM TO REPRESENT ARE WORDS THAT CAN ONLY BE CRAFTED AND SPOKEN BY THE TERRORISTS!
You do not throw an open challenge to the world community, when you, the creator of such hate, are now trying to act holy in the eyes of all communities, USING the wrong committed by a non-Muslim blogger. Address your specific concern to that blogger. Do not be a champion of your religion by displaying your message of threats against the world community. YOU ARE NOT AN AUTHORITY ON ISLAM AND DO NOT SPEAK ON BEHALF OF THE MINDS OF RATIONAL MUSLIMS WORLDWIDE.
You never meddle in other religions’ affairs? Go and spin your stories to ignorant rural population. They may uphold you as a terrorist hero, as they do with all other well-known terrorists.
WHO SAID THAT ISLAM IS THE ONLY TRUE RELIGION IN THIS WORLD AND ALL OTHER RELIGIONS ARE FALSE?
WHO SAID THAT THE QURAN IS THE ONLY TRUE HOLY BOOK AND THE REST ARE FALSE AND CREATED BY MEN?
WHO SAID THAT NON-MUSLIMS CULTURE HAS GONE ASTRAY AND ARE BAD EXAMPLES TO MUSLIMS WORLDWIDE?
AND ZAINOL, THE TERRORIST, WHICH NON-MUSLIM FILED A POLICE REPORT AGAINST THAT USTAZ FROM JAKIM?
DO YOU NOW UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE?
DO YOU NOW KNOW THAT ALL RELIGIONS IN THIS WORLD ARE ONE AND THE SAME…THEY ARE ALL RELIGIONS OF LOVE! AND ALL MEN WHO BELONG TO THIS RELIGION HAVE ONLY ONE COMMON ENEMY…AND THAT ENEMY IS…HATE.
DO NOT CREATE THAT HATE AMONGST ALL MUSLIMS IF YOUR HATE IS ONLY AGAINST ONE NON-MUSLIM!
AS THAT USTAZ TOO IS OUR COMMON ENEMY… AND NOT OUR MUSLIM BROTHERS AND SISTERS…
DO NOT TEST OUR PATIENCE WITH YOUR WORDS OF HATE…OTHERWISE THAT FALSE PEACE THAT YOU PREACH, WILL TRANSLATE INTO THAT DEMONIZED HATE…
To all our international readers, this is the same idiot who uttered the following words as regards to how non-Muslims can prevent themselves from being buried as Muslims:
“Those who feel very strongly about it, this is going to offend some people I don’t give a damn, they should have it tattooed on their chest like what Adolf Hitler did, you know, this is a Jew right?, and they had tattoos. So those who are now so adamant on not wanting to be buried as a Muslim, or whatever, for whatever reason, they should have it tattooed on their chest.”
The video is self-explanatory and descriptive of this terrorist mentality terrorizing the nation’s ignorant Muslims.
This is the alternative way to access the video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4474858428888866992
The world Muslim and non-Muslim communities must come together and condemn these extremists that exist in the community for a long period of time, if hope for a new world order is to materialize.
WHEN YOU ARE IN DOUBT ALWAYS
IF YOU ARE STILL IN DOUBT…THEN CHECK WITH THIS
TOK GURU
BUT NEVER ASSOCIATE WITH THIS MY FOOT GURU AS HE IS A MAHA TERRORIST GURU
ALL IMAGES ARE SLOTTED BY THE SJSANDTEAM
THE SJSANDTEAM HAS KEPT MANY OVERSEAS INTELLIGENCE SERVICES FULLY INFORMED OF THE ACTIVITIES OF MANY UNDESIRABLE ELEMENTS IN THIS PART OF THE WORLD. WE ARE IN POSSESSION OF MANY EVIDENCE INCLUDING PHOTOGRAPHS.
AFTER SJSANDTEAM PUBLISHED THE ABOVE ARTICLE, WE NOTICED THIS ARTICLE APPEARING ON MAHAGURU58’S WEBSITE. WE LEAVE IT TO THE READERS TO MAKE THEIR OWN JUDGMENT. WE WILL NOT BE A PARTY TO THE SEDITIOUS STATEMENTS HE MAY HAVE INCORPORATED IN HIS TEXT AGAINST THE RULERS OF MALAYSIA.
Racial and Religious Eternal Quagmire in Malaysia.
To those of us who are Malaysians and are able to figure out that the racial and religious problems amongst us will remain a quagmire eternally here in this land, the best thing to do is to learn the do’s and don’ts of the various religions, faiths and cultures here.
After learning the basics of all the various faiths and cultures here in our country, the best thing to do then would be to live and let live our fellow Malaysians and accord to each their own free space to live out their lives and accord to each other a sense of respect and practice tolerance.
Each community here ought to keep within their space and never infringe upon the rights or customs of the other.
As long as the other community or faith minds their own business and goes about their affairs without infringing on the lives of others, peace and harmony will come to be present in our life’s and we can all focus on improving the quality of our own economies, finances and create opportunities for our mutual benefits.
If we fail to do that and we keep on going after each other by attacking them or their religion, where is this going to lead us all?
Anarchy, religious strife, murder and mayhem!
Is that what we need or crave for?
Is there any sense of rationality left in us who are Malaysians?
Why is our country still in deep shit spiritually and religiously when we have all avenues of learning about each other right before our very eyes?
Are we not capable of exorcising our demons from our hearts and return to the sense of camaraderie that once prevailed in the times of our forefathers?
When one hurts another and starts to insult his or her faith, what is going to stop a tit for tat response from those who have been hurt or offended?
When will all this end?
When everyone has been hurt, injured, bashed and bloodied to death?
Will that appease all these irresponsible people who are now rampaging all over the cyberspace as if they are going to live forever and not be held accountable for their online crimes and distortions of the truth?
I see the present Government of Malaysia not doing what they should be doing which is to enforce all the current laws and regulations which were enacted to keep these emerging racial and religious strife’s nipped right in the bud before they grow out of control and out of hand!
Even those who pride themselves as the Sovereign Keepers of the Islamic Faith @ the Malay Royals fail to take action against those who have attacked and insulted Islam so viciously despite police reports having been lodged against the offenders.
Racial and religious strife amongst Malaysians looks set to remain an eternal quagmire here in Malaysia despite all the official pretexts and pretensions taking place before us.
‘Ketuanan Melayu and Ketuanan Islam’ are just a mirage which seem to disappear when ‘push comes to shove!’.
The Executive and the Monarchy are just coming to be proven to be nothing but self interested parties who just enrich themselves and do not really bother about seeing to it that justice is served and seen to be implemented in this going crazy nation of ours.
Those who appreciate and value peace and harmony best watch out for your own safety and well being for the ones claiming to be in authority are just not interested to live up to their oaths of office.
We have no one to turn to except Almighty Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala in the real sense.
Those whom we thought might be able to look after and care for us are fast turning out to be nothing but fly by night operators who are just bothered to keep themselves well fed, pampered and adulated day and night without even an iota of consideration for the citizens of this nation whose life’s, honor and wellbeing is of no concern to their VVIP self’s.
To me, I really do not give a damn about all the honorifics and self glorifying pompous selfish ones who pretend to be our authorities and rulers.
They are just human beings like the rest of us. When Death comes a calling, it differs not between the titled and the simple folks like us.
All I can advise you, my fellow Malaysian reading this is to watch out and fend for yourselves.
Do not fall victim to the designations and manipulations of the ones who love to create social, religious and racial strife amongst us to appease their demons within them and to take care of your beloved ones.
‘Cari makan!’ and don’t ‘Cari pasal!’
I believe that if we work towards making our lives more meaningful by focusing our resources and energies towards earning our keep by getting involved in entrepreneurial efforts and enterprises, our future will be much more better than the current religious bashing’s taking place here online and in our nation’s political scene.
Will you disagree? I am sure that the rational and decent ones amongst us will be of the same thought as me.
Let’s get our priorities right and work towards earning ourselves a better keep and improving the quality of our lifestyles than descend into unnecessary strife, religious and racial discord amongst us!
Work towards mutual success and a peaceful co-existence amongst us Malaysians.
May you all be safe.
Ameen.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Reprisal2: from bytemuncher.blogspot.com aka shadowfox:
Thursday, January 31, 2008
The lowest Muslim scum bloggers in the blogosphere.
Aiyoyo, all non-muslims should be tattooed like what Hitler did to the Jews.
That's according to MENJ and MAHAGURU58. Have a taste of your own medicine you fuckwits.
Read the full article at this LINK
http://bytemuncher.blogspot.com/2008/01/lowest-muslim-scum-bloggers-in.html
as it contains many pictorials and other links (including significant one to malaysia-today.net);
plus especially an important PRESS STATEMENT FROM PAS!
DESIDERATA: GOoD day to all my ER, have a blessed week ahead.
I am having an HI-atus for some days, may be back for the kambing wickedend,
and if you are up to it, call me for an AO; we will tehtari' at Lingam's, Paul Street, Furong. Just don't bring the Chief Justice! Jest don't let the two Jokers highlighted in todie's post tag along also/arsehole?
Sunday, December 14, 2008
I found some GEMS at...sjsandteam.wordpress.com
The cyber-hOme wit' lots of laughing stocks is aka THE MIGHT OF THE PEN. I fell for it the moment I tasted the first morsel on Sundae. Visit, Desi offers thee tehtari' if you behave yourself. Quote YL as the INTRO man to collect that 30% on the way ou--oouch!:((an ipohLang pinched my bottomUPs!:(
December 11, 2008
MALAYSIA IS IN A STATE OF MOURNING…Filed under: ARTICLES 11/12/2008, jokes and quotes — sjsandteam @ 6:13 pm
Tags: MALAYSIA IS IN A STATE OF MOURNING…
DEATH OF COMMON SENSE
Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.
Common Sense will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in, out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm, life isn’t always fair, and maybe it was my fault.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don’t spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).
Common Sense’s health began to deteriorate rapidly when well intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a Sin Chew journalist arrested for her safety, a Malaysia Today blogger detained as his knowledge on Islam is above the common masses and the weapon called sodomy was used upon the “enemy.”
Common Sense lost ground when justice realized two years later that a political scientist never committed any crime.
Common Sense lost the will to live when Christians cannot use the word Allah and criminals received better treatment than their victims.
Common Sense took a beating when someone couldn’t defend himself from a burglar in his own home and the burglar can sue him for assault.
Common Sense finally gave up the will to live when a husband cannot have sex with his wife under the order of JAKIM.
Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason.
He is survived by three stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, Someone Else is to Blame, and I’m A Victim.
Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.
REST IN PEACE, COMMON SENSE
DESIDERATA: As for the pictorials, exercise your imagine-ATION (besides your common sense! bro dan sisdar. God gave thee a unique brain so use it, OK! (No need say Very or So unique OK!...Yes, yesterday I read one journo writing this is the Intro!)
PS: After sundae CON BF, hear's light dessert:)
December 12, 2008
RAJA PETRA RIPPED OFF SYED HAMID
Filed under: ARTICLES 12/12/2008, jokes and quotes — sjsandteam @ 2:42 pm
Tags: RAJA PETRA RIPPED OFF SYED HAMID
Syed Hamid opened the door of his BMW, when suddenly a car driven by Raja Petra came along and hit the door, ripping it off completely. When the police chief, Ismail Omar arrived at the scene, Syed Hamid was complaining bitterly about the damage to his precious BMW.
“Ismail, look what Raja Petra has done to my BMW!!!”, he whined.
“You ministers are so materialistic, you make me sick!!!” retorted Ismail Omar,
“You’re so worried about your stupid BMW, that you didn’t even notice that your left arm was ripped off!!!”
“Oh my gooood….”, replied Hamid, finally noticing the bloody left shoulder where his arm once was, “Where’s my Rolex???!!!
OTHER HUMOUR FOR THIS WEEK:
SYED HAMID SACKS ABDULLAH BADAWI
MAHATHIR AND ABDULLAH ARE FOOLS…
MALAYSIA IS IN A STATE OF MOURNING…
BAGINDA WAITING FOR ROSMAH’S WET PUSSY
AND DON’T FORGET THESE TOP HITS FOR THIS WEEK:
FUCK YOU AND BALLS FATWAH
ADULTERY IS OK
December 11, 2008
MALAYSIA IS IN A STATE OF MOURNING…Filed under: ARTICLES 11/12/2008, jokes and quotes — sjsandteam @ 6:13 pm
Tags: MALAYSIA IS IN A STATE OF MOURNING…
DEATH OF COMMON SENSE
Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.
Common Sense will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in, out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm, life isn’t always fair, and maybe it was my fault.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don’t spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).
Common Sense’s health began to deteriorate rapidly when well intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a Sin Chew journalist arrested for her safety, a Malaysia Today blogger detained as his knowledge on Islam is above the common masses and the weapon called sodomy was used upon the “enemy.”
Common Sense lost ground when justice realized two years later that a political scientist never committed any crime.
Common Sense lost the will to live when Christians cannot use the word Allah and criminals received better treatment than their victims.
Common Sense took a beating when someone couldn’t defend himself from a burglar in his own home and the burglar can sue him for assault.
Common Sense finally gave up the will to live when a husband cannot have sex with his wife under the order of JAKIM.
Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason.
He is survived by three stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, Someone Else is to Blame, and I’m A Victim.
Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.
REST IN PEACE, COMMON SENSE
DESIDERATA: As for the pictorials, exercise your imagine-ATION (besides your common sense! bro dan sisdar. God gave thee a unique brain so use it, OK! (No need say Very or So unique OK!...Yes, yesterday I read one journo writing this is the Intro!)
PS: After sundae CON BF, hear's light dessert:)
December 12, 2008
RAJA PETRA RIPPED OFF SYED HAMID
Filed under: ARTICLES 12/12/2008, jokes and quotes — sjsandteam @ 2:42 pm
Tags: RAJA PETRA RIPPED OFF SYED HAMID
Syed Hamid opened the door of his BMW, when suddenly a car driven by Raja Petra came along and hit the door, ripping it off completely. When the police chief, Ismail Omar arrived at the scene, Syed Hamid was complaining bitterly about the damage to his precious BMW.
“Ismail, look what Raja Petra has done to my BMW!!!”, he whined.
“You ministers are so materialistic, you make me sick!!!” retorted Ismail Omar,
“You’re so worried about your stupid BMW, that you didn’t even notice that your left arm was ripped off!!!”
“Oh my gooood….”, replied Hamid, finally noticing the bloody left shoulder where his arm once was, “Where’s my Rolex???!!!
OTHER HUMOUR FOR THIS WEEK:
SYED HAMID SACKS ABDULLAH BADAWI
MAHATHIR AND ABDULLAH ARE FOOLS…
MALAYSIA IS IN A STATE OF MOURNING…
BAGINDA WAITING FOR ROSMAH’S WET PUSSY
AND DON’T FORGET THESE TOP HITS FOR THIS WEEK:
FUCK YOU AND BALLS FATWAH
ADULTERY IS OK
just tired
What weighs a person down more than having
LOST
faith?
in a friend...?
in love...?
in Faith iself...?
sometimes it's better not to wonder
sometimes it's better not to know
most times it's better to just believe in one self
because a secong person will only disappoint
humans
full of themselves
he, full of himself
she, full of herself
but a child
always gentle, genteel
a free spirit
so when you're down and out
seek the child in the Self
and maybe, just perhaps,
mayhaps
the tired nurse may go away...
LOST
faith?
in a friend...?
in love...?
in Faith iself...?
sometimes it's better not to wonder
sometimes it's better not to know
most times it's better to just believe in one self
because a secong person will only disappoint
humans
full of themselves
he, full of himself
she, full of herself
but a child
always gentle, genteel
a free spirit
so when you're down and out
seek the child in the Self
and maybe, just perhaps,
mayhaps
the tired nurse may go away...
ignorance is bliss, SOME times
OR should it be SUM times?
The latter means if you add up all the outcomes of knowing, one would have been better off (YES, conclusion with hindsight!) NOT KNOWING FROM THE VERY BEGINNING.
Citing examples, maybe extreme, perhaps not. MAYhaps I don't really know for sure!
I've changed my mind numbering the examples, because Yes, "Ignorace is bliss" appliies.
Maybe I should not have written this post.
Desi sings C&W some times. Hank Williams, Jim Reeves -- maybe myGOoDfriend DJ Blogger Sdr Din Merican, can help me list the Others, then we'll go to San Francisco -- or should it be Tennysee? -- to singAlong wit' my fave duo ...(hint: dare's a Faith hear!:) I'm not telling, Cos I'm sacred (I know I misspelt "scared", but I'm leaving as it is...) you would steal her from Desi!
Now imagine you waltzng with DOLLY PARTON
and Desi belting you!
How many arms have held you
And hated to let you go
How many, how many I wonder
But I really don't want to know
And how many lips have kissed you
And set your soul aglow
How many, how many I wonder
But I really don't want to know
So always make me wonder
And always make me guess
Even if I ask you
Darlin', don't confess
No you just let that remain your secret
'Cause darlin' I do love you so
How many, how many I wonder
But I really don't want to know
How many, how many I wonder
But I really don't want to know
The latter means if you add up all the outcomes of knowing, one would have been better off (YES, conclusion with hindsight!) NOT KNOWING FROM THE VERY BEGINNING.
Citing examples, maybe extreme, perhaps not. MAYhaps I don't really know for sure!
I've changed my mind numbering the examples, because Yes, "Ignorace is bliss" appliies.
Maybe I should not have written this post.
Desi sings C&W some times. Hank Williams, Jim Reeves -- maybe myGOoDfriend DJ Blogger Sdr Din Merican, can help me list the Others, then we'll go to San Francisco -- or should it be Tennysee? -- to singAlong wit' my fave duo ...(hint: dare's a Faith hear!:) I'm not telling, Cos I'm sacred (I know I misspelt "scared", but I'm leaving as it is...) you would steal her from Desi!
Now imagine you waltzng with DOLLY PARTON
and Desi belting you!
How many arms have held you
And hated to let you go
How many, how many I wonder
But I really don't want to know
And how many lips have kissed you
And set your soul aglow
How many, how many I wonder
But I really don't want to know
So always make me wonder
And always make me guess
Even if I ask you
Darlin', don't confess
No you just let that remain your secret
'Cause darlin' I do love you so
How many, how many I wonder
But I really don't want to know
How many, how many I wonder
But I really don't want to know
Thursday, December 11, 2008
US scene starring a State Chief...
YL wishing that a local scenario of similar ilk will take place in Kuala Lumpur or Putridjaya -- Ooops, Putrajaya! that was an American slip, blame it on the westerns, John Wayne,my pardon! -- so be Miss Patience like Desi, K!
From washingtonpost.com:)
*******
FBI Says Illinois Governor Tried to Sell Senate Seat
Blagojevich Charged With Bribery, Conspiracy
Video
Illinois Governor Arrested on Federal Charges
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been arrested on federal charges. Prosecutors have been investigating Blagojevich's administration for at least three years.
By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 10, 2008; Page A01
Federal prosecutors charged Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) yesterday with engaging in a series of illegal schemes intended to enrich himself, including an attempt to sell the Senate seat recently vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.
This Story
FBI Says Illinois Governor Tried to Sell Senate Seat
A FIVE-YEAR INVESTIGATION: Brazen Words on Tape Left Agents 'Shocked'
Complaint Cites Plan To Silence Journalists
Obama Tries to Stay Above the Hometown Fray
Filling Ill. Senate Seat Gets Trickier
Union Official Allegedly Liaison Between Governor, Obama Team
Official Criminal Complaint
Wednesday, Dec. 10 at Noon ET: Blagojevich, Tribune Both Fail Illinois
In conversations riddled with coarse language and blunt threats that the FBI recorded with telephone wiretaps and listening devices planted in his campaign office, the governor laid bare a "pay for play" culture that, according to prosecutors, began shortly after he took office in 2002 and continued until before sunrise yesterday, when FBI agents arrested him and John Harris, his chief of staff.
Beyond deliberations about filling the Senate seat, Blagojevich and Harris discussed withholding funding for a children's hospital project until its chief executive made campaign donations, investigators said. They allegedly pressured the owner of the Chicago Tribune to fire a critical editorial writer if the newspaper expected substantial state assistance for Wrigley Field, which is owned by the Tribune Co.
"Governor Blagojevich has been arrested in the middle of what we can only describe as a public corruption crime spree," U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said in announcing the charges yesterday. "The conduct would make Lincoln roll over in his grave," he added, referring to the 19th-century president and Illinois politician.
In a state with a notable history of influence peddling, the allegations against the two-term governor and his chief of staff resounded across Chicago's insular political circles and among Washington's newly energized Democratic elites, who are busy planning the Obama inauguration. Obama, who once supported Blagojevich but had distanced himself from the governor in recent years, told reporters that he was "saddened" by the arrests. Fitzgerald emphasized that the case "makes no allegations about the president-elect whatsoever."
FBI agents targeted Blagojevich and Harris after secretly enlisting close associates, placing a bug in the governor's campaign office and wiretapping his home telephone, all with approval from Justice Department officials and a federal judge in the Northern District of Illinois.
Blagojevich, who turns 52 today, and Harris, 46, appeared in a Chicago federal courthouse yesterday afternoon to answer charges of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery. The charges carry maximum combined penalties of 30 years in prison.
Blagojevich was released after paying a $4,500 bond and agreeing to turn over his passport and a card entitling him to own a firearm. Wearing a blue-and-black jacket, pants with a reflective stripe, and sneakers, the former congressman appeared nervous and dejected, keeping his eyes down, stroking his chin and rubbing his face.
Fitzgerald said he had lain "awake at night worrying" that some of the governor's alleged plans would come to life, including the firing of John P. McCormick, a deputy editor of the Chicago Tribune's editorial page, who had angered state officials by advocating the governor's ouster. Tribune Co., in seeking to unload its Cubs baseball team, had been seeking state help to finance the sale of Wrigley Field, a move that could have saved the company more than $100 million in capital gains taxes, prosecutors said.
The court papers unsealed yesterday depict a race by the governor and his allies to collect more than $2.5 million in campaign money before year's end, when a new Illinois law barring contributions from people and companies with significant state contracts will take effect.
Troubled by the "feverish" attempts to accelerate fundraising, authorities intensified Operation Board Games, their five-year investigation of kickbacks and government favor trading in Illinois government. They received permission to listen in on telephone conversations at the governor's campaign office and later at his home.
Investigators say they overheard Blagojevich and his senior advisers scrambling to raise money and dispense favors, especially Obama's coveted Senate seat. The governor has the sole authority to appoint a successor. The men brazenly discussed favors Blagojevich could receive in exchange for naming certain people to the post -- using it to leverage an Obama appointment to an ambassadorship or head of the Department of Health and Human Services or to win a lucrative job heading a charitable organization such as the Red Cross.
Page 2 of 2 < Back
FBI Says Illinois Governor Tried to Sell Senate Seat
Video
Illinois Governor Arrested on Federal Charges
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been arrested on federal charges. Prosecutors have been investigating Blagojevich's administration for at least three years.
» LAUNCH VIDEO PLAYER
This Story
FBI Says Illinois Governor Tried to Sell Senate Seat
A FIVE-YEAR INVESTIGATION: Brazen Words on Tape Left Agents 'Shocked'
Complaint Cites Plan To Silence Journalists
Obama Tries to Stay Above the Hometown Fray
Filling Ill. Senate Seat Gets Trickier
Union Official Allegedly Liaison Between Governor, Obama Team
Official Criminal Complaint
The following day, the two discussed employment options at private foundations that Blagojevich said are "heavily dependent on federal aid" and on which the White House might have the most "influence," investigators said.
"I've got this thing and it's [expletive] golden and uh, uh, I'm just not giving it up for [expletive] nothing," the governor told an unnamed adviser in a Nov. 5 call the government taped. "And I can always use it. I can parachute me there."
Blagojevich operated under mounting financial pressure and sought a way for him and his wife, Patti, to profit by making as much as $300,000 a year, the documents said. The couple have two young daughters.
One candidate for the Senate seat, described in court filings only as Candidate 5, promised through an associate to help the governor raise money for a possible reelection bid, Blagojevich said Dec. 4 on government tapes. "We were approached 'pay to play,' " the governor said of the alleged approach by the associate to Candidate 5. "That, you know, he'd raise me 500 grand. An emissary came. Then the other guy would raise a million, if I made [Candidate 5] a senator."
The court filings indicate that Blagojevich and his political team consulted with at least one unnamed person who advised Obama after the November election. At other times, though, the governor used profanities to describe Obama, who he said would not give him anything more than appreciation for picking a Senate candidate to his liking, according to the criminal complaint.
At another point, Blagojevich and his associates allegedly discussed whether they had the power to make an interim appointment for the House seat that will be vacated by Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D), who will become Obama's White House chief of staff, and whether they could secure fundraising help for themselves as part of the process, according to the court papers.
The charges yesterday came in the form of a criminal complaint, based on a sworn statement from 22-year FBI veteran Daniel W. Cain. By using the technique, law enforcement officials were able to share more details about their investigation and the conversations they captured than would normally appear in a federal grand jury indictment, according to former prosecutors who reviewed the document.
FBI agents were "thoroughly disgusted and revolted by what they heard," Robert D. Grant, the FBI special agent in charge, told reporters.
The new wiretap evidence supplemented a long-running case authorities had been building against top Illinois officials.
The complaint cited testimony by several financiers with Democratic connections at the corruption trial earlier this year of Antoin "Tony" Rezko, who had raised money for Blagojevich and Obama and worked on real estate deals with Blagojevich's wife. Three witnesses told the jury in Rezko's trial that they had crafted lists of political jobs or state contracts they hoped to win in exchange for campaign contributions to Blagojevich. The FBI later obtained a list created by Friends of Blagojevich that itemizes donors and amounts the campaign was seeking.
The case once again thrusts Fitzgerald, Chicago's U.S. attorney, into the spotlight at the intersection of politics and law enforcement. The New York native won the conviction last year of former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby in a case that centered on the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson's identity. President Bush later commuted Libby's prison sentence.
One legal source who has advised the Obama campaign suggested last month that the new president might keep Fitzgerald, a Bush appointee, in the U.S. attorney job. Fitzgerald is a political independent.
_______________________________
Staff writers Peter Slevin and Kari Lydersen in Chicago and Shailagh Murray in Washington and research editor Alice Crites in Washington contributed to this report.
From washingtonpost.com:)
*******
FBI Says Illinois Governor Tried to Sell Senate Seat
Blagojevich Charged With Bribery, Conspiracy
Video
Illinois Governor Arrested on Federal Charges
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been arrested on federal charges. Prosecutors have been investigating Blagojevich's administration for at least three years.
By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 10, 2008; Page A01
Federal prosecutors charged Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) yesterday with engaging in a series of illegal schemes intended to enrich himself, including an attempt to sell the Senate seat recently vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.
This Story
FBI Says Illinois Governor Tried to Sell Senate Seat
A FIVE-YEAR INVESTIGATION: Brazen Words on Tape Left Agents 'Shocked'
Complaint Cites Plan To Silence Journalists
Obama Tries to Stay Above the Hometown Fray
Filling Ill. Senate Seat Gets Trickier
Union Official Allegedly Liaison Between Governor, Obama Team
Official Criminal Complaint
Wednesday, Dec. 10 at Noon ET: Blagojevich, Tribune Both Fail Illinois
In conversations riddled with coarse language and blunt threats that the FBI recorded with telephone wiretaps and listening devices planted in his campaign office, the governor laid bare a "pay for play" culture that, according to prosecutors, began shortly after he took office in 2002 and continued until before sunrise yesterday, when FBI agents arrested him and John Harris, his chief of staff.
Beyond deliberations about filling the Senate seat, Blagojevich and Harris discussed withholding funding for a children's hospital project until its chief executive made campaign donations, investigators said. They allegedly pressured the owner of the Chicago Tribune to fire a critical editorial writer if the newspaper expected substantial state assistance for Wrigley Field, which is owned by the Tribune Co.
"Governor Blagojevich has been arrested in the middle of what we can only describe as a public corruption crime spree," U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said in announcing the charges yesterday. "The conduct would make Lincoln roll over in his grave," he added, referring to the 19th-century president and Illinois politician.
In a state with a notable history of influence peddling, the allegations against the two-term governor and his chief of staff resounded across Chicago's insular political circles and among Washington's newly energized Democratic elites, who are busy planning the Obama inauguration. Obama, who once supported Blagojevich but had distanced himself from the governor in recent years, told reporters that he was "saddened" by the arrests. Fitzgerald emphasized that the case "makes no allegations about the president-elect whatsoever."
FBI agents targeted Blagojevich and Harris after secretly enlisting close associates, placing a bug in the governor's campaign office and wiretapping his home telephone, all with approval from Justice Department officials and a federal judge in the Northern District of Illinois.
Blagojevich, who turns 52 today, and Harris, 46, appeared in a Chicago federal courthouse yesterday afternoon to answer charges of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery. The charges carry maximum combined penalties of 30 years in prison.
Blagojevich was released after paying a $4,500 bond and agreeing to turn over his passport and a card entitling him to own a firearm. Wearing a blue-and-black jacket, pants with a reflective stripe, and sneakers, the former congressman appeared nervous and dejected, keeping his eyes down, stroking his chin and rubbing his face.
Fitzgerald said he had lain "awake at night worrying" that some of the governor's alleged plans would come to life, including the firing of John P. McCormick, a deputy editor of the Chicago Tribune's editorial page, who had angered state officials by advocating the governor's ouster. Tribune Co., in seeking to unload its Cubs baseball team, had been seeking state help to finance the sale of Wrigley Field, a move that could have saved the company more than $100 million in capital gains taxes, prosecutors said.
The court papers unsealed yesterday depict a race by the governor and his allies to collect more than $2.5 million in campaign money before year's end, when a new Illinois law barring contributions from people and companies with significant state contracts will take effect.
Troubled by the "feverish" attempts to accelerate fundraising, authorities intensified Operation Board Games, their five-year investigation of kickbacks and government favor trading in Illinois government. They received permission to listen in on telephone conversations at the governor's campaign office and later at his home.
Investigators say they overheard Blagojevich and his senior advisers scrambling to raise money and dispense favors, especially Obama's coveted Senate seat. The governor has the sole authority to appoint a successor. The men brazenly discussed favors Blagojevich could receive in exchange for naming certain people to the post -- using it to leverage an Obama appointment to an ambassadorship or head of the Department of Health and Human Services or to win a lucrative job heading a charitable organization such as the Red Cross.
Page 2 of 2 < Back
FBI Says Illinois Governor Tried to Sell Senate Seat
Video
Illinois Governor Arrested on Federal Charges
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been arrested on federal charges. Prosecutors have been investigating Blagojevich's administration for at least three years.
» LAUNCH VIDEO PLAYER
This Story
FBI Says Illinois Governor Tried to Sell Senate Seat
A FIVE-YEAR INVESTIGATION: Brazen Words on Tape Left Agents 'Shocked'
Complaint Cites Plan To Silence Journalists
Obama Tries to Stay Above the Hometown Fray
Filling Ill. Senate Seat Gets Trickier
Union Official Allegedly Liaison Between Governor, Obama Team
Official Criminal Complaint
The following day, the two discussed employment options at private foundations that Blagojevich said are "heavily dependent on federal aid" and on which the White House might have the most "influence," investigators said.
"I've got this thing and it's [expletive] golden and uh, uh, I'm just not giving it up for [expletive] nothing," the governor told an unnamed adviser in a Nov. 5 call the government taped. "And I can always use it. I can parachute me there."
Blagojevich operated under mounting financial pressure and sought a way for him and his wife, Patti, to profit by making as much as $300,000 a year, the documents said. The couple have two young daughters.
One candidate for the Senate seat, described in court filings only as Candidate 5, promised through an associate to help the governor raise money for a possible reelection bid, Blagojevich said Dec. 4 on government tapes. "We were approached 'pay to play,' " the governor said of the alleged approach by the associate to Candidate 5. "That, you know, he'd raise me 500 grand. An emissary came. Then the other guy would raise a million, if I made [Candidate 5] a senator."
The court filings indicate that Blagojevich and his political team consulted with at least one unnamed person who advised Obama after the November election. At other times, though, the governor used profanities to describe Obama, who he said would not give him anything more than appreciation for picking a Senate candidate to his liking, according to the criminal complaint.
At another point, Blagojevich and his associates allegedly discussed whether they had the power to make an interim appointment for the House seat that will be vacated by Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D), who will become Obama's White House chief of staff, and whether they could secure fundraising help for themselves as part of the process, according to the court papers.
The charges yesterday came in the form of a criminal complaint, based on a sworn statement from 22-year FBI veteran Daniel W. Cain. By using the technique, law enforcement officials were able to share more details about their investigation and the conversations they captured than would normally appear in a federal grand jury indictment, according to former prosecutors who reviewed the document.
FBI agents were "thoroughly disgusted and revolted by what they heard," Robert D. Grant, the FBI special agent in charge, told reporters.
The new wiretap evidence supplemented a long-running case authorities had been building against top Illinois officials.
The complaint cited testimony by several financiers with Democratic connections at the corruption trial earlier this year of Antoin "Tony" Rezko, who had raised money for Blagojevich and Obama and worked on real estate deals with Blagojevich's wife. Three witnesses told the jury in Rezko's trial that they had crafted lists of political jobs or state contracts they hoped to win in exchange for campaign contributions to Blagojevich. The FBI later obtained a list created by Friends of Blagojevich that itemizes donors and amounts the campaign was seeking.
The case once again thrusts Fitzgerald, Chicago's U.S. attorney, into the spotlight at the intersection of politics and law enforcement. The New York native won the conviction last year of former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby in a case that centered on the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson's identity. President Bush later commuted Libby's prison sentence.
One legal source who has advised the Obama campaign suggested last month that the new president might keep Fitzgerald, a Bush appointee, in the U.S. attorney job. Fitzgerald is a political independent.
_______________________________
Staff writers Peter Slevin and Kari Lydersen in Chicago and Shailagh Murray in Washington and research editor Alice Crites in Washington contributed to this report.
Depression,Personal ... and Recession Raging Worldwide
But if you believe our Finance Ministers, Malaysia is a damned Lucky Country. We are quite immune from this raging recession. So Depression hitting NegaraKu is unthinkable...
Well, it's GOoD we Rakyat pause and ponder. Don't believe a DPM caught up in too many Depressive controversies on his own home front to be clear thinking. Don't depend on a former Bank Negara Malaysia high official, now a Fiance Minister2! and moneybag man who lost BILLIONS -- 10, 20 or is it 30? -- TRADING IN FOREX, AND THE STATED LOSSES SEEMED TO VARY WITH PASSING TIME. Mahaps they took into account Inflation!:(
SO IT'S MAINLY A ROUTINE OF CUT&PASTE FOR CURRENT POSTNGS. This is to record what I feel are significal events to help us, including desi, to see the BIG PICTURE as the world unfolds. Not just unfolding, but changing, rapidly. Yes, the only two constants in life after a human's birth are death and change. I believe this series of C&P started a few days ago is a useful exercise in doing some "catchUP" ON THE ECONOMIC FRONT. Today I'm reprising a Post from an Aussie pressman about the economic landscape of the Other "Lucky Country". It's good for us Malaysians to know what's going on elsewhere -- Globalisation, emember? -- so that we can feel the economic pulses worldwide, and like Boy Scout, always BE PREPARED!
Sunday, October 19, 2008
So China will save us from a recession, right?
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/2008/10/so-china-will-come-to-australias-aid.html
On Saturday the Age's China correspondent John Garnaut took us inside the faltering boom:
"On September 1, after eight boom years, the daughter was told to take an extended "rest" without pay. She knew the factory was in trouble. In March Han's 20-year-old son started work, loading the dust-like iron ore "fines" into compactors so that it doesn't all blow away when dropped into the furnaces. On September 27 he was stood down on a fortnightly roster of unpaid leave. "If the factory closes this whole village will have nothing to eat," Han says.
For five years China has been the saviour of the Australian economy. Its massive urbanisation has pumped up the prices of Australian resources and began to fill the economy with cash when it was needed after the housing bubble earlier this decade. Now, with the world rocked by the financial crisis, if China can no longer afford to pay inflated prices for commodities then the Australian economy is in deep trouble."
Also I attempted to sum up how things look at the moment:
"This was the week that fear of a financial meltdown morphed into fear of a global recession.
Believe it not, it’s an improvement. A meltdown of the financial system would have destroyed the needed to recover from a recession...
It has taken massive injections of government funds into formerly private banks in order to shirt back from the brink of a meltdown to do it as well as government guarantees of bank to bank lending and near-global unlimited guarantees of bank deposits.
Australia did its part on Sunday, abandoning an ill-conceived plan to guarantee only the first $20,000 of each Australian bank deposit and declaring that Australian taxpayers would guarantee the overseas borrowings of every Australian bank, building society and credit union without limit, in return for a fee.
Both in Australia and the US the enormous premiums that financial institutions were charging each other just to do normal business have begun to shrink. They have a long way to go until they have shrunk back to where they were, but at least they are no longer inexorably climbing.
A day later the US economist ***Paul Krugman was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics. He has specialised in examining the collapse of trust in Japan at the end of the 1990s. There, no matter how low official interest rates fell (and they got close to zero) Japan’s banks wouldn’t part with whatever money they could get and Japan’s citizens were reluctant to borrow from them and deposit with them because they had lost faith in the system itself.
Japan remained in or near recession for a decade, a situation Krugman described as “a scandal, an outrage, a reproach,” and a human disaster which had “subtracted value from Japan and the world on a truly heroic scale.”
Until the US modified its flawed $US700 billion financial system rescue plan this week to make it more like that introduced in the UK, and until the much of rest of Europe and Australia followed suit Krugman was worried that Japan’s lost decade would be repeated worldwide.
The Washington meetings attended by leaders including Australia’s Wayne Swan on the weekend brought forth a shared determination to do whatever is necessary to ensure that financial institutions lend to each other rather than hold on to their money - even if it means taking them over.
As Krugman put it on Australia’s ABC radio within hours of receiving his Nobel Prize, “if you can’t persuade people to lend to each other, then one way or another the government has to take over the function of getting money moving – it has to do whatever is necessary”.
On Wednesday at the National Press Club Kevin Rudd seemed to revel in the turn of events. “What we have seen is the comprehensive failure of extreme capitalism – extreme capitalism which now turns to government to prevent systemic failure, an institution it spent decades deriding,” the Prime Minister said.
What’s at stake is more serious than a game of blame.
It is well accepted that poor people and poor nations usually find it hard to borrow from banks, even for good projects. Economists call this a market failure. What’s concerning them is that that failure would spread to everyone – that after being too generous with funds, investors and financial institutions will no longer lend them out at all. Nothing was more emblematic of the problem than the failure of the fast food giant McDonalds to extend its loan with the Bank of America last month. “If McDonald’s can’t get a loan using one the best business models on earth, who can?,” the critics asked.
In Australia, even after Sunday’s financial rescue package, funding for potentially worthwhile projects has become to find. Funding for potential duds has dried up. Most of the members of the consortium which was to bid against Telstra for the right to build Australia’s fibre-to-node broadband network are reported to have withdrawn. Telstra itself is said to be finding it hard to find the finance. As the ANZ pithily put it in a note to clients, “investment in Australia cannot be expanded if it cannot be cost-effectively funded”.
It had been thought that Australia would escape the recession set to sweep through the industrialised world. The US, the UK, the European Union and Japan are all on the brink of recession and New Zealand has already slipped into it.
Our strong card was our exports. Huge increases in the prices and volumes of our coal and iron ore shipments gave us our second biggest trade surplus on record in August. Coal export prices have jumped 70% in the past three months after jumping 54% in the three months before that. We are earning 30% more from our exports than we were a year ago, and many of the prices are locked well into the future.
But the future beyond that looks awful. When the current contract prices end they will be replaced by new ones much lower. TD Securities is predicting a drop of around 30% in Australia’s terms of trade. The Baltic Exchange Freight Rate Index, usually a good predictor of commodity prices, is down 75% from its peak and is expected to fall further.
“Having ridden the back of the commodities boom over the past 5 years, the sharp reversal in prices now well and truly unfolding spells huge trouble for Auistralia,” says TD Securities.
“The further commodity prices fall, the more problematic is the outlook. Indeed, it is easy to see why the Reserve Bank is embarking on one of the most aggressive interest rate cutting exercises seen in Australia, and the government is willing to spray money around to the embattled household sector.”
The problem isn’t that the Australian economy has begun to turn down. Employment is continuing to grow. It’s that the psychology of employed Australians has begun to change.
For years now Australian households in have been spending more than they earn – behaviour that seems irrational until you consider what’s been happening to their wealth. As the value of Australian’s houses has soared (along with their ability to get access to that value through refinancing) and the value of their share market and superannuation portfolios have also soared it’s felt rational to spend up.
Now the mechanism has been thrown into reverse. Although Australians are still earning just as much as they were, they are now seeing the value of their savings and their houses shrinking. It feels right to pull in their heads.
Gerry Harvey of Harvey Norman says this week he had “stores out there where sales are up 5% and 10% and lots of stores that are down 5% and 10%, but the sum total is we are down 4.7%… I can't remember when that last happened”.
Tuesday’s $10.4 billion economic security package was designed to turn things around. There is little doubt that it will, at least during the fortnight in December when around $8 billion of the package hits the accounts of pensioners and family benefit recipients. When the US pumped a similar proportion of its income into cheques paid to families in May it managed to avoid a recession. But it’s a trick that only works for a while.
The government’s thinking - or perhaps it’s a hope – is that by the time the effect fades, perhaps in a few months, Australians will have noticed the sharply lower mortgage rates and feel better about spending anyway.
If that doesn’t happen, the Reserve Bank will cut rates again, and then again. And we may just get another economic stimulus package. Australia is blessed compared to its counterparts in that it has begun the process with a very high interest rate so it can do a lot of cutting until it gets to zero. By contrast the US has an official interest rate of 1.5%. There’s not much more it can do. The Australian government is debt-free and has tens of billions awaiting spending in special funds. It can afford many more stimulus packages than the US.
Some observers think that that was one of the reasons it made its package is so big – to show that it could. The actors in the ABC’s Hollow Men noted that “$10 billion” is a figure that gets attention.
The competing theory is that the government is expecting such an economic downturn that only $10 billion can prevent it. By not making public its forecasts until the release of the Mid-Year Economic Review next month the government is fuelling that suspicion.
"This package is bigger than we have ever seen before," said Professor Bob Gregory of the Australian National University this week. "That must mean that their forecasts are worse than anything we've ever seen before."
An unspoken government aim appears to be maintaining Australia’s high house prices. Yeas ago a Howard government Minister Ross Cameron observed that rising house prices “makes for happy voters.” The authorities’ aim right now is to stop voters getting much more unhappy. The government and the Reserve Bank can’t control share prices, but they can influence house prices by doubling and in some cases tripling the First Home Owners Grant and by slashing interest rates.
Having the Treasury’s Official of Financial Management spend another $4 billion funding the mortgages sold by non-bank lenders is another way of keeping downward pressure on mortgage rates.
We have moved a long way from the days when these sorts of measures would be seen as unwelcome signs of government interference in “the market”. The financial market has been barely functioning, and even now no one is certain that it is back on the road to health.
Avoiding recession will need everything that Mr Rudd and his advisors will come up with.
Posted by Peter Martin at 10/19/2008
at petermartin.blogspot.com
******* Peter Martin is the Canberra-based Economics Correspondent for the Melbourne Age newspaper.
He is a former Economics Editor of The Canberra Times and Economics Correspondent for Australia's ABC radio and SBS television.
Labels: china, commonwealth budgets, financial system, gdp, reserve bank
*** I will endeavour to pick up Paul K's pieces on the US scene. If NegaraKu leaders don't want tolisten to us local folks, mayhaps an American economist -- Nobel Prize winner to boot, or to boost, or to boast, whatever -- can do some trick of opening up their eyes. Or is it the Jasin MP Syndrome, ONE EYE CLOSED for Malaysia Boleh?
Well, it's GOoD we Rakyat pause and ponder. Don't believe a DPM caught up in too many Depressive controversies on his own home front to be clear thinking. Don't depend on a former Bank Negara Malaysia high official, now a Fiance Minister2! and moneybag man who lost BILLIONS -- 10, 20 or is it 30? -- TRADING IN FOREX, AND THE STATED LOSSES SEEMED TO VARY WITH PASSING TIME. Mahaps they took into account Inflation!:(
SO IT'S MAINLY A ROUTINE OF CUT&PASTE FOR CURRENT POSTNGS. This is to record what I feel are significal events to help us, including desi, to see the BIG PICTURE as the world unfolds. Not just unfolding, but changing, rapidly. Yes, the only two constants in life after a human's birth are death and change. I believe this series of C&P started a few days ago is a useful exercise in doing some "catchUP" ON THE ECONOMIC FRONT. Today I'm reprising a Post from an Aussie pressman about the economic landscape of the Other "Lucky Country". It's good for us Malaysians to know what's going on elsewhere -- Globalisation, emember? -- so that we can feel the economic pulses worldwide, and like Boy Scout, always BE PREPARED!
Sunday, October 19, 2008
So China will save us from a recession, right?
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/2008/10/so-china-will-come-to-australias-aid.html
On Saturday the Age's China correspondent John Garnaut took us inside the faltering boom:
"On September 1, after eight boom years, the daughter was told to take an extended "rest" without pay. She knew the factory was in trouble. In March Han's 20-year-old son started work, loading the dust-like iron ore "fines" into compactors so that it doesn't all blow away when dropped into the furnaces. On September 27 he was stood down on a fortnightly roster of unpaid leave. "If the factory closes this whole village will have nothing to eat," Han says.
For five years China has been the saviour of the Australian economy. Its massive urbanisation has pumped up the prices of Australian resources and began to fill the economy with cash when it was needed after the housing bubble earlier this decade. Now, with the world rocked by the financial crisis, if China can no longer afford to pay inflated prices for commodities then the Australian economy is in deep trouble."
Also I attempted to sum up how things look at the moment:
"This was the week that fear of a financial meltdown morphed into fear of a global recession.
Believe it not, it’s an improvement. A meltdown of the financial system would have destroyed the needed to recover from a recession...
It has taken massive injections of government funds into formerly private banks in order to shirt back from the brink of a meltdown to do it as well as government guarantees of bank to bank lending and near-global unlimited guarantees of bank deposits.
Australia did its part on Sunday, abandoning an ill-conceived plan to guarantee only the first $20,000 of each Australian bank deposit and declaring that Australian taxpayers would guarantee the overseas borrowings of every Australian bank, building society and credit union without limit, in return for a fee.
Both in Australia and the US the enormous premiums that financial institutions were charging each other just to do normal business have begun to shrink. They have a long way to go until they have shrunk back to where they were, but at least they are no longer inexorably climbing.
A day later the US economist ***Paul Krugman was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics. He has specialised in examining the collapse of trust in Japan at the end of the 1990s. There, no matter how low official interest rates fell (and they got close to zero) Japan’s banks wouldn’t part with whatever money they could get and Japan’s citizens were reluctant to borrow from them and deposit with them because they had lost faith in the system itself.
Japan remained in or near recession for a decade, a situation Krugman described as “a scandal, an outrage, a reproach,” and a human disaster which had “subtracted value from Japan and the world on a truly heroic scale.”
Until the US modified its flawed $US700 billion financial system rescue plan this week to make it more like that introduced in the UK, and until the much of rest of Europe and Australia followed suit Krugman was worried that Japan’s lost decade would be repeated worldwide.
The Washington meetings attended by leaders including Australia’s Wayne Swan on the weekend brought forth a shared determination to do whatever is necessary to ensure that financial institutions lend to each other rather than hold on to their money - even if it means taking them over.
As Krugman put it on Australia’s ABC radio within hours of receiving his Nobel Prize, “if you can’t persuade people to lend to each other, then one way or another the government has to take over the function of getting money moving – it has to do whatever is necessary”.
On Wednesday at the National Press Club Kevin Rudd seemed to revel in the turn of events. “What we have seen is the comprehensive failure of extreme capitalism – extreme capitalism which now turns to government to prevent systemic failure, an institution it spent decades deriding,” the Prime Minister said.
What’s at stake is more serious than a game of blame.
It is well accepted that poor people and poor nations usually find it hard to borrow from banks, even for good projects. Economists call this a market failure. What’s concerning them is that that failure would spread to everyone – that after being too generous with funds, investors and financial institutions will no longer lend them out at all. Nothing was more emblematic of the problem than the failure of the fast food giant McDonalds to extend its loan with the Bank of America last month. “If McDonald’s can’t get a loan using one the best business models on earth, who can?,” the critics asked.
In Australia, even after Sunday’s financial rescue package, funding for potentially worthwhile projects has become to find. Funding for potential duds has dried up. Most of the members of the consortium which was to bid against Telstra for the right to build Australia’s fibre-to-node broadband network are reported to have withdrawn. Telstra itself is said to be finding it hard to find the finance. As the ANZ pithily put it in a note to clients, “investment in Australia cannot be expanded if it cannot be cost-effectively funded”.
It had been thought that Australia would escape the recession set to sweep through the industrialised world. The US, the UK, the European Union and Japan are all on the brink of recession and New Zealand has already slipped into it.
Our strong card was our exports. Huge increases in the prices and volumes of our coal and iron ore shipments gave us our second biggest trade surplus on record in August. Coal export prices have jumped 70% in the past three months after jumping 54% in the three months before that. We are earning 30% more from our exports than we were a year ago, and many of the prices are locked well into the future.
But the future beyond that looks awful. When the current contract prices end they will be replaced by new ones much lower. TD Securities is predicting a drop of around 30% in Australia’s terms of trade. The Baltic Exchange Freight Rate Index, usually a good predictor of commodity prices, is down 75% from its peak and is expected to fall further.
“Having ridden the back of the commodities boom over the past 5 years, the sharp reversal in prices now well and truly unfolding spells huge trouble for Auistralia,” says TD Securities.
“The further commodity prices fall, the more problematic is the outlook. Indeed, it is easy to see why the Reserve Bank is embarking on one of the most aggressive interest rate cutting exercises seen in Australia, and the government is willing to spray money around to the embattled household sector.”
The problem isn’t that the Australian economy has begun to turn down. Employment is continuing to grow. It’s that the psychology of employed Australians has begun to change.
For years now Australian households in have been spending more than they earn – behaviour that seems irrational until you consider what’s been happening to their wealth. As the value of Australian’s houses has soared (along with their ability to get access to that value through refinancing) and the value of their share market and superannuation portfolios have also soared it’s felt rational to spend up.
Now the mechanism has been thrown into reverse. Although Australians are still earning just as much as they were, they are now seeing the value of their savings and their houses shrinking. It feels right to pull in their heads.
Gerry Harvey of Harvey Norman says this week he had “stores out there where sales are up 5% and 10% and lots of stores that are down 5% and 10%, but the sum total is we are down 4.7%… I can't remember when that last happened”.
Tuesday’s $10.4 billion economic security package was designed to turn things around. There is little doubt that it will, at least during the fortnight in December when around $8 billion of the package hits the accounts of pensioners and family benefit recipients. When the US pumped a similar proportion of its income into cheques paid to families in May it managed to avoid a recession. But it’s a trick that only works for a while.
The government’s thinking - or perhaps it’s a hope – is that by the time the effect fades, perhaps in a few months, Australians will have noticed the sharply lower mortgage rates and feel better about spending anyway.
If that doesn’t happen, the Reserve Bank will cut rates again, and then again. And we may just get another economic stimulus package. Australia is blessed compared to its counterparts in that it has begun the process with a very high interest rate so it can do a lot of cutting until it gets to zero. By contrast the US has an official interest rate of 1.5%. There’s not much more it can do. The Australian government is debt-free and has tens of billions awaiting spending in special funds. It can afford many more stimulus packages than the US.
Some observers think that that was one of the reasons it made its package is so big – to show that it could. The actors in the ABC’s Hollow Men noted that “$10 billion” is a figure that gets attention.
The competing theory is that the government is expecting such an economic downturn that only $10 billion can prevent it. By not making public its forecasts until the release of the Mid-Year Economic Review next month the government is fuelling that suspicion.
"This package is bigger than we have ever seen before," said Professor Bob Gregory of the Australian National University this week. "That must mean that their forecasts are worse than anything we've ever seen before."
An unspoken government aim appears to be maintaining Australia’s high house prices. Yeas ago a Howard government Minister Ross Cameron observed that rising house prices “makes for happy voters.” The authorities’ aim right now is to stop voters getting much more unhappy. The government and the Reserve Bank can’t control share prices, but they can influence house prices by doubling and in some cases tripling the First Home Owners Grant and by slashing interest rates.
Having the Treasury’s Official of Financial Management spend another $4 billion funding the mortgages sold by non-bank lenders is another way of keeping downward pressure on mortgage rates.
We have moved a long way from the days when these sorts of measures would be seen as unwelcome signs of government interference in “the market”. The financial market has been barely functioning, and even now no one is certain that it is back on the road to health.
Avoiding recession will need everything that Mr Rudd and his advisors will come up with.
Posted by Peter Martin at 10/19/2008
at petermartin.blogspot.com
******* Peter Martin is the Canberra-based Economics Correspondent for the Melbourne Age newspaper.
He is a former Economics Editor of The Canberra Times and Economics Correspondent for Australia's ABC radio and SBS television.
Labels: china, commonwealth budgets, financial system, gdp, reserve bank
*** I will endeavour to pick up Paul K's pieces on the US scene. If NegaraKu leaders don't want tolisten to us local folks, mayhaps an American economist -- Nobel Prize winner to boot, or to boost, or to boast, whatever -- can do some trick of opening up their eyes. Or is it the Jasin MP Syndrome, ONE EYE CLOSED for Malaysia Boleh?
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