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US economy logs better but still subpar growth

By Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer
US economy logs 1 percent growth in first quarter, better but still subpar

WASHINGTON (AP)—The economy turned in a better—but still subpar—performance in the first three months of this year, mostly spurred by stronger sales of U.S. products overseas.

The 1 percent annualized increase in gross domestic product, announced by the Commerce Department on Thursday, marked a slight improvement from the government’s previous estimate of 0.9 percent growth for the January-to-March quarter. And, it showed the economy logging stronger growth than the feeble 0.6 percent pace registered in the final three months of last year.

Still, the first quarter’s performance pointed to a fragile economy, shaken by housing, credit and financial debacles. That has made people and businesses more cautious in their spending and investment, restraining overall economic activity. More normal growth would be along the lines of a 2.5 percent to 3 percent pace, analysts said.

Gross domestic product, or GDP, measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States and is the best barometer of the nation’s economic fitness. The latest GDP reading matched economists’ forecasts.

In other reports, sales of previously owned homes nudged up in May, although prices continued to drop, the National Association of Realtors said. Sales rose 2 percent to a pace of 4.99 million units. The median sales price, however, fell to $208,600, down 6.3 percent from a year ago. That was the fifth biggest year-over-year price decline in records that go back to 1999. Many analysts think housing prices need to stop falling or start rising for the ailing housing market to get back its health.

The Labor Department, meanwhile, said the number of new applications filed for unemployment benefits held steady over the last week at 384,000. The figure, higher than analysts were expecting, pointed to a struggling jobs market.

[...]

Aversa is the propagandist for the lefties who generally downplays any economic good news, so this positive article probably represents much better news than she lets on.

Supremes let concealed carry back into America.  I’m strapping on my 45. 

Thank you sirs.  (the madam voted against it)

I feel better already.

Let’s not forget about Edith Macefield. She was the Ballard woman who made national news when she was offered $1 million to leave. She turned it down flat.

Edith lived in the same house on NW 46th St. for the last 56 years. She made national news in 2006 when she refused to sell her home for $1 million to developers. Construction crews then proceeded to build the development around her. “I went through World War II, the noise doesn’t bother me,” Macefield told the Seattle P-I. “I liked the old Ballard. The new one—you can have it.”

Edith Macefield passed away on Sunday of natural causes, according to the medical examiner’s office. She was 86 years old.

The story reminds me of the children’s book, The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton. It’s about progress and a sweet little house being nearly swallowed up by the city that encroaches it.

The beginning construction of the five-story building around her house

Here’s the side view. You can’t even see Macefield’s house. Her blue car is parked in between the Honey Buckets and orange cones. And right across the street is a land use sign that says a four-story office building will be under construction soon.

Macefield has no known surviving family, so we’ll have to wait and see what will happen next with her property and house.
Meanwhile, Ledcor Construction said it designed the structure to absorb the property if it became available. “Spots have been left so steel beams could be inserted into the concrete to complete the upper floor, assuming Edith’s home is sold and torn down,” said a Ledcor construction manager

Update: The local media is now on the story. Seattle PI and Seattle Times

Kind of sad, but with time… there is always change.
RIP ~ Miss Edith

I know this will be blogged on a lot.  My $.02 worth is that this action on North Korea is the result of a resolute firm policy and one we won’t have again soon no matter who wins in November.

We will rue the day that George W Bush leaves office. 

Thank you Mr President for standing firm. 

Good News.

The Grand Forks Herald, WDAZ and a certain sports writer in Fargo that writes for he Forum couldn’t rush fast enough to get the news out that Fighting Sioux forward T.J. Oshie and Mike Radja from UNH were cited for disorderly conduct on the weekend of December 30th 2007. The media was falling all over themselves trying to get this story out in the news paper and on the evening news. It was disgusting how these young men were tarred and feathered before this case ever went to trial. One could say that the media has egg on their face.

Fast forward to present day. I will be the first to admit that it’s a legitimate news story when one the area’s sports star is caught doing something wrong, however, it’s also a news story when the charges against the accused are dropped. Seriously folks why did the press take it’s time finally getting the news out? I knew about this story a month ago and the paper is just deciding to let us know one month later that the charges against T.J. Oshie were dismissed. Oh yeah; the charges against UNH star Mike Radja were dismissed as well on June 9th, 2008. To add injury to insult the Grand Forks Herald buried the story on page 6 of section A, I guess they felt it wasn’t worthy of being a front page news story. Disgusting!

Disorderly conduct charge against Oshie dismissed
Herald Staff Report
Published Tuesday, June 24, 2008
A misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct against former UND hockey player T.J. Oshie was dismissed last month, according to court documents.

Oshie and Mike Radja, a hockey player from New Hampshire, were arrested in the early morning hours of Dec. 30 and charged with disorderly conduct after allegedly urinating in an elevator in a building at 100 N. Third St. in downtown Grand Forks, according to court documents. The two were part of a group of people trapped in the elevator.

The charge against Oshie was dismissed May 23, as part of a “compromise,” according to the court file. According to the North Dakota Century Code, a misdemeanor charge can be resolved through compromise if the injured person — in this case, the property owner — has legal remedy through a civil action, or if they say they’ve been compensated for whatever injury was incurred. A compromise isn’t possible under statute if the offense was against a judge or a law

enforcement officer, if it was committed with the intent to commit a felony or if it’s a case of domestic violence.

The charge against Radja was dismissed June 9, according to court records.

Oshie, who signed a three-year deal with the St. Louis Blues in May, was one of 10 Hobey Baker Memorial Award finalists as a UND junior and was named a first-team All-American by the American Hockey Coaches Association.

Cross Posted @ Goon’s World.

This couldn’t be more true.

Cross posted @ Goon’s ND Red Neck

Bad Economy Kills Pet Dogs, Cats, Pigs, Goats...and People Too

By Brent Baker

Going to extraordinary lengths to pull at the heartstrings of viewers, Wednesday’s NBC Nightly News focused on, in the words of anchor Brian Williams, “the innocent victims of the foreclosure crisis”—that would be dogs, pigs, goats and horses. Meanwhile, ABC discovered people are more likely to get murdered at work in these “hard economic times,” though they really haven’t been. At the end of a story on a workplace shooting in which five were murdered, reporter Eric Horng acknowledged “workplace violence is down in recent years,” but he nonetheless ominously warned: “For smaller companies it remains tough to prevent, because security is costly. And in today’s economic environment, disgruntled workers can be reluctant to discuss problems.”

NBC put “TOUGH TIMES” on screen with a picture of a puppy as Williams introduced the story reported by Chris Jansing who, back in May, centered a piece on an elderly couple forced to live in their van. This time, Jansing again delivered anecdotes, starting with a Seattle woman who “has never experienced anything like this—not just dogs and cats, but horses, pigs, goats—so many, she has to turn away three out of four animals.” Going south, she asserted that “in May, the number of animals turned into Los Angeles City shelters jumped 30 percent,” which hardly seems like a crisis, and a local official fretted: “Pets seem to be the silent victims of this whole economic downturn.” Jansing next conveyed the deadly consequences:

The harsh reality is, as more animals come in, more animals have to be put down....[A]t shelters across the country, euthanasia rates are going up.

[...]

JANSING: With 261,000 homes in foreclosure in May alone, a dog’s life is suddenly much more tenuous. Chris Jansing, NBC News, Los Angeles.

Why should anyone be surprised. It doesn’t matter as long as he went to church. I guess that is those San Fransicko values coming out again. Just proves the DLC/DNC is so far out out of the main stream.

Pelosi Defends Obama Over Rev. Wright Ties
By: Jim Meyers

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has come out in defense of Barack Obama over his ties to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, saying the controversial pastor won’t affect voters’ decisions in November.

“Look, I am just glad [Obama] went to church,” Pelosi told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren on Tuesday night.

Pelosi, a Catholic, said she doesn’t believe that politicians “should be held accountable for everything that their pastors say in their church.

“I have disagreements with some of … my own pastors and churches that I go to and if I had to walk out every time I had an area of disagreement, then I would be hard put. It’s a disagreement.”

Referring to two recent Democratic wins in special elections in conservative-leaning Congressional districts, Pelosi said: “I do not think that the judgment that will be made by the American people will be about Rev. Wright. It didn’t work in Mississippi and it didn’t work in Louisiana. That’s where the Republicans tried to pin that on our Democratic candidates.”

Obama’s relationship with Wright came under fire after videos were made public earlier this year in which Wright claimed that the United States brought 9/11 on itself and people should say “God damn America” instead of “God bless America.”

Obama finally broke with Wright on April 29, calling his remarks “divisive and destructive.”

I was thinking and…

Wrestling is a performance art. It is blatantly fake, often incorporating adolescent soap opera-esque narratives involving love and betrayal and folding chairs being smashed over someone’s head. Wrestling is marketed to ‘Marks’ and ‘Smarks’ by ‘Insiders’. Marks are the young, the ones who believe its real, who watch it all the time on cable. The Smarks are the ones who know its fake, who used to wake up early on Saturday to watch it before there was cable; but enjoy it for the aesthetic qualities nonetheless, much like attending a play and knowing its not King Lear on stage. Most Smarks are former-Marks and former-Insiders, but some began watching as Smarks and continue to enjoy the drama as Smarks. The Insiders are the wrestlers, the script writers, the announcers, the CEOs, and so on. Many could be double categorized as Smarks.

Politics, I offer, is not so different from wrestling. The only problem is that there are no Insiders, as this is a people’s government. That leaves us with hordes of Marks and Smarks. Now, the problem I see is that most of our politicians think that we are all Marks. How does it feel to be treated like a Mark? To be marketed to? To have the drama foisted on and be enticed into buying a t-shirt or donning a bumper sticker? To have emotional puff fluffed around for you to become mentally lazy in, to get caught up in the little narrative the Smark in the back room is writing?

Perhaps the country has some sort of schizophrenia where large portions of us switch back and forth from being Marks to being Smarks to being Marks again. That is my current favored theory. What do you think? It strikes me that if you feel I should include Insiders in my schema, you are just a lowly Mark. Is there a difference between Mark pride and Smark pride? Patriotism?

What do you think?

A blast from the past, courtesy Matthew Yglesias, as Fareed Zakaria recalls the horror that was Ronald Reagan’s “appeasement” of the Soviet Union. Gnash your teeth along with Newt as he denounces Reagan’s visit to Moscow as

“The most dangerous summit for the West since Adolph Hitler met with Chamberlain.”

Consistency in thought and action is the hallmark of the true conservative IMO.

Ithaca, NY (AP) - While attempting to create the world’s largest peace sign, festival-goers in Ithaca, NY, created the world’s largest Mercedes sign by mistake.
5814 participants gathered to form the familiar symbol of pacifist activism, but - through either oversight or stupidity - only formed three of the four radii required to create a traditional peace sign. Since the missing radius was the lower center line, the symbol they formed was actually the trademark hood ornament of the Mercedes-Benz automobile - a quality German luxury car since 1926 - rather than the anti-war symbol created by a British nuclear disarmament protestor in 1958.

Bwahahaha err.. I mean, gosh darn that’s a shame

“Dude, this totally sucks!” observed participant Summer Sunshine Rainbow Rabinowitz. “We were, like, trying to tell Bush McChimpyhitler that his war totally blows, but somehow he managed to get his Haliburton oil buddies in here to screw us over with some sort of totally covert inside job. Just like 9/11!”

Other participants, such as Moonglow Moonbeam Johnson suspected less conspiratorial causes. “‘Twas the weed, my man. The Acapulco Fire-Bud has a way of rendering one incapable of creating complex geometric figures. Heck, we’re lucky we didn’t end up with a swastika, or - even worse - the Windows logo.”

Summer Sunshine Rainbow and Moonglow Moonbeam?
Whoa… like totally cool earthly sad-ass hippy names

Ithaca High School sophomore Trevor Dougherty, the organizer of the attempt, claimed they were still successful. “Maybe it’s wasn’t a peace sign, but Mercedes isn’t all gas-guzzling & global warming. After all, the high priestess of high people, Janis Joplin, used it as an icon of war resistance in her song, ‘Oh Lord, Won’t You Run Over George Bush With a Mercedes Benz’, which I once saw on YouTube or maybe somebody’s MySpace page.”

“Anyway,” Dougherty concluded, “we all got super-mega-stoned, and that’s what REALLY matters.”

Yes… yes, as long as the real motive of getting super-mega-stone was accomplished, that’s all that really matters
Far out dude.. that’s totally awesome

H/T SondraK

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Legal challenge is in line with plans to disrupt GOP convention

By KATHERINE KERSTEN, Star Tribune

Elaborate plans are underway to encircle and “shut down” the Republican National Convention at St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center in September. The strategies and tactics involved could come straight from a guerrilla warfare manual.

Anarchist groups with ominous names—the RNC Welcoming Committee, Unconventional Action—have announced a “three-tier strategy” to cut off the Xcel Center. The steps include “blockading” streets and freeways, “immobilizing” delegates’ transportation and “blocking” bridges to impede delegates’ access to the center.

The plan also features a “swarm, seize, stay” strategy. After dividing the city into “sectors,” protesters propose to “seize space” through both “hard technical blockades” and “softer, more mobile blockades” such as congestion, according to anarchist websites.

Some demonstrators may chain themselves together in public thoroughfares, while others operate in “waves” designed to “spread out police both geographically and tactically.”

Last week, St. Paul city attorneys described these threats in documents filed in a federal lawsuit involving a permit for a march planned for Sept. 1, the convention’s first day. Between 50,000 and 100,000 demonstrators are expected to participate.

[...]

Read the whole thing.  This is just another example of lefties braying about “rights”, while actually using violence and intimidation to deprive other citizens of their actual rights.
It’s violent censorship in the guise of “protest”.
You don’t see Repbulicans doing this kind of crap.

FBI: 300 Child Prostitution Suspects Arrested, 433 Victims Recovered

WASHINGTON — The FBI said Wednesday that 300 people were arrested and 433 young victims recovered in a round-up of child prostitution suspects.

“The mission of the ‘Innocence Lost’ national initiative is to combat the growing problem of sexual exploitation of children through prostitution,” said Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller in making the announcement at headquarters.

Among those arrested are pimps and prostitutes — some of whom are in their 20s but are said to have admitted selling sex since their early teens, federal law enforcement sources told FOX News.

The raids took place in run-down neighborhoods and interstate truck stops in cities across the country, the sources said. The vast majority of those arrested will be charged under state and local statutes.

The FBI was touting the fifth year of its child protection program with the news of the multitude of arrests that stemmed from “Operation Cross Country” — launched late last week in 16 large and medium-sized cities including Dallas, Boston and Rockville, Md., among others.

Mueller was joined by Ernie Allen of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in speaking about the program and the round-up at Wednesday’s press conference in Washington

I just watched, for the first time believe it or not, “Human Trafficking,” with Mira Sorvino and then I find this story. My question is this: Why are we shocked? We have made our children, even very small children into sex objects in our advertizing, our movies, books and well, every form of media. We dress them like sexy adults, have them in sexual poses and behaving like prostitutes. Then we look at our schools, where young girls dress and act like cheap hookers. I have a 6-year old Special Needs girl in my class that insists on wearing her “thin jeans,” with holes all over them to look sexy and no matter how we try and discourage it, parents seem unable any longer to say no to these insane demands by their children.

So, when we see these horrible things happening, maybe we need to accuse ourselves first for permitting the sexualization of children in our country. We need to take a stand for our children now before it is too late!

I heard this commercial might be withdrawn, but even so, what could Heinz have been thinking to sign off on this gay kiss commercial?

“I believe there needs to be a thorough and complete investigation of speculators to find out whether speculation has been going on and, if so, how much it has affected the price of a barrel of oil. There’s a lot of things out there that need a lot more transparency and, consequently, oversight.”

Those are the words of presidential candidate John McCain. This man is the Republican?

There’s more.

“I am very angry, frankly, at the oil companies not only because of the obscene profits they’ve made but at their failure to invest in alternate energy to help us eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. They’re making huge profits and that happens, but not to say, ‘We’re in this so we can over time eliminate America’s dependence on foreign oil,’ I think is an abrogation of their responsibilities as citizens.”

Let me get this straight. A potential president of a putatively free country scolds companies for “obscene profits,” failure to invest in competing products, and therefore irresponsible citizenship. Why? Is McCain running for national economic commissar?

This is not the first time McCain has displayed what I would call an anti-capitalist mentality. In an early presidential debate he countered former businessman Mitt Romney’s claim to superior executive experience by saying, “I led the largest squadron in the U.S. Navy, not for profit but for patriotism”.

Why the put down of profit?

It’s clear McCain does not understand how markets work or why they are good. He certainly doesn’t understand the role of speculators and other middlemen. He’s not alone. Speculators are among the most reviled people in history. When they were members of ethnic minorities, they have been easy targets for economically illiterate people who were jealous of their success.

McCain wonders “whether speculation has been going on.” He needn’t wonder. Speculation always goes on. Speculation means to take a risk on what the future holds in hopes of making a profit. The world’s stock and commodities markets are based on this principle. Sen. McCain must have meant it when he said, “I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues”.

I doubt that speculators are responsible for much of the run-up of oil prices. Why didn’t they run them up sooner? Besides, there are too many other explanations: increased demand from China and India, the declining dollar and Middle East tensions.

Even if speculators did play a role, what McCain apparently doesn’t understand is that speculators perform a valuable service. Most people don’t realize this because on the surface speculators don’t seem productive. They buy what already exists and resell it. How does that help society?

[...]

The prices of commodities often change unexpectedly, making business risky. The speculator brings a degree of certainty to otherwise risky ventures. When supplies of a commodity are plentiful and prices low—but speculators expect the price to rise later—they buy—cushioning the collapse of prices. When supplies become scarcer and prices rise, they sell—easing the shortage and lowering the price. Also, speculators may agree to buy a commodity in the future for a price locked in today. This reduces the risk for an oil producer or farmer who fears investing because he doesn’t know what price his product will sell for next year.

As a result of these activities, volatile supplies and prices are evened out over time. Occasionally, speculators increase volatility. Markets are never perfect. (Although they are better than government regulation.) But in general, speculators increase liquidity and keep the market on a more even keel. This makes long-term planning easier for everyone.

It would be nice if McCain would finally learn some economics.