Blog Mess Up

For some reason my blog has messed up big time and even though I have gone back and tried to rearrange my elements, it still has them all down the left of the page. Does anyone have a clue how to get the page back the way I had it with the page elements on the right?

I went to the layout area and redid it in hopes of getting it back the way it was with the pictures and the page elements on the right side instead of below the posts on the blog. But even though I saved it correctly, it still only shows up correctly when I hit "search blog"

Does anyone know what I am doing wrong?

Scott and His Friend

Last night, Scott and his new girl friend came to visit. She is really a nice woman. We both like her a lot but he is ready for a permanent relationship and she is very cautious. She wants him to slow down and take some time. He, on the other hand is tired of being alone and wants more.

They stayed up late with us last night and visited and visited. I fixed breakfast for all of us this morning and later, fixed lunch. Now they have gone out to see his sister, Leslie, and will have dinner at John's Kitchen in Independence this evening with them. Bob and I have Bob's 60th class reunion this evening so this will give John and Leslie a chance to see what they think of her.

She lives three hours from Scott so he is concerned that constant travel every weekend to date will ruin both their cars. I told him that months ago...that he needed to find girls to date nearer to where he lives. But although these young people want your advice, they seldom take it.

This will be interesting.

Brooksley Born was Right

"More than a decade ago, a woman you're likely never to have heard of, Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission-- a federal agency that regulates options and futures trading--was the oracle whose warnings about the dangerous boom in derivatives trading just might have averted the calamitous bust now engulfing the US and global markets. Instead she was met with scorn, condescension and outright anger by former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and his deputy Lawrence Summers. In fact, Greenspan, the man some affectionately called "The Oracle," spent his political capital cheerleading these disastrous financial instruments."

I had always been a fan of Greenspan before this catastrophe happened. I even bought and read his book. But it has become apparent now that Greenspan, Summers and Rubin, whom I also admired, embraced the policies that got us into this present mess.

Read the complete story here.

Brookley Born a woman whose wisdom was derided and scorned seemed to be right on all along.

As The Nation said," "Break the Glass" was the code-name high-level Treasury Department figures gave the $700 billion bailout; it was to be used only as a last- resort measure.

Now millions have been sprayed and damaged by broken glass."

Another New Deal

How about "health security"--free health care for all, administered by the government, paid for from our Treasury, bypassing the insurance companies and the other privateers of the health industry. All that will take more than $700 billion. But the money is there: in the $600 billion for the military budget, once we decide we will not be a war making nation anymore, and in the bloated bank accounts of the super rich, once we bring them down to ordinary-rich size by taxing vigorously their income and their wealth. Other Nations do it. In fact, all other first world nations have free health care for their citizens. All but us.

As far as big government helping with these huge projects is concerned...government has helped out big business for years. Thank of the Saving and Loan bailout. Now think of Chrysler's huge bailout. Those are just two of dozens and dozens that we taxpayers have had to bail out over the years. If you want more examples, I can give them. Let's face a historical truth: we have never had a free market. We have always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that intervention has been welcomed by the captains of finance and industry.

What we need now is another New Deal jobs program to get our roads, bridges and infrastructure back in first rate condition again. Now that jobs are dropping like flies, why not start up another WPA and CCC and let those who want to work go back to work. Then they can make their mortgage payments.

The Debate..Two Days Later

I don't believe McCain did well with the town hall debate. He was full of platitudes and misinformation. FactCheck will be sending out lots of e-mails to correct his claims. The only thing he came up with that was new and interesting was the refinancing of mortgages for ordinary folks and that idea came from two or three Republican economists this week.

Obama , on the other hand, had some well thought out answers with very few platitudes. The balance in the past five days has tipped to Senator Obama and this debate cinched it. Unless the country's unspoken but still very present racism manages to defeat him, he has this election won.

As far as the $700,000,000,000 that we spend on foreign oil is concerned that McCain insists funds terrorism, that is baloney. Canada and Mexico are our major sources of oil and neither of those countries are terrorist countries. McCain tries to play the fear card every chance he gets. He probably thinks it worked for Bush so in desperation he will give it the last ditch try.

On the question about the fastest way out of our economic mess is concerned, Obama put his finger right on the problem...deregulation, deregulation, deregulation. And, unfortunately for McCain, he has called himself the deregulator. The only way the country will get back on track economically is for some regulation to be re instituted. Capitalism is greed driven and this economic crisis has proven that for sure. The recent investigations this week have proven that if there was any doubt beforehand. As soon as AIG was bailed out with that $85,000,000,000,000 bailout, their CEO's took a $400,000 junket vacation. Talk about irresponsibility! We should demand the money be returned!

Obama made a good point when he said when Bush came into the presidency eight years ago, the country had a balanced budget with a huge surplus. Now we have a ten trillion dollar deficit for the next president and our grandchildren to face.

McCain sounded very ignorant when he said he could tackle all three other huge problems the country is facing now at the same time....the entitlements (social security and Medicare) and the energy crisis, as well as health insurance. McCain said it would not be that hard to fix social security. He didn't say how he would do that easy task. He did admit that fixing Medicare would be harder.

Obama sounded very cool when he said he would tackle the energy crisis first, then health care and last of all the entitlement programs. He admitted he could not get it all done in his first term.

When both candidates were asked what sacrifices they would ask of the American people, McCain dropped the ball altogether. He suggested he would freeze all unnecessary government spending, (except veterans affairs) eliminate earmarks and cut unnecessary defense spending. Is that asking for sacrifices from the American people? Doesn't the man know what sacrifice is? During the second world war, we were rationed for gasoline, sugar, rubber of all kinds, ...we actually did sacrifice for the war effort. The American people anymore just want everything they see advertised and are not interested in personal sacrifice. They'd rather let others do the sacrificing. ..like those young men and women in the flag covered caskets that the Bush administration won't allow to be filmed.

Obama , on the other hand, said we would all have to watch how we used energy and stop being wasteful. He would provide incentives for folks to use green efficient energy, buy battery driven autos, use wind, solar and clean coal for energy. I felt neither really rose to the occasion. Possibly they remembered what happened when Jimmy Carter suggested that we should become a more frugal people and make personal sacrifices.

McCain often repeats the Reagan philosophy in stating that the government is the problem, not the solution. He ignores the fact that Reagan increased the size of the federal government more than any of his predecessors and instituted the largest tax increase in history.

McCain was snapish and rude and referred to Obama as "that one" on one occasion. Probably he couldn't remember Obama's name. I am 72 and I certainly know how that feels. But people don't like McCain, don't trust him, and when the guy no one likes attacks, they like him even less. The snap polls prove Obama came out way ahead with this debate.

Wednesday-Another of Those Days

This has been another of those days. This morning I went to Independence and got my hair done then went to eat breakfast with my friend, Juanita (the one who recently lost her daughter). After that, I went to the Hallmark Shop and got her a birthday card. She will be 87 on Saturday. I went to Nanny La Rose (a local clothing store ) and bought a gift certificate to put in her card.

After that, I went to Ministerial Association meeting at the Mercy Hospital conference room. I got out at 1:00 and drove back to Coffeyville where I attended a class reunion planning meeting. I left there at 3:30 and came home to type up my notes and make some calls to arrange for some tours for my classmates who will be here October 17 - 18. After that, we drove over to Caney, Kansas to eat dinner. I was too tired to cook.

After dinner I came home and proceeded to do my "we missed you at church on Sunday" notes. It's 7:30 and I just finished those. Now I am blogging and after I finish here, I will go take my bath and put my PJs on.

I have nothing on the schedule tomorrow.

Friday, our son and his girlfriend will be coming in and we will meet this latest one. He thinks she may become "Mrs. Miller" soon. We will see. Saturday evening we have a class reunion banquet for my husband's class and our son and his friend will go visit his sister that evening.

Sunday, we will all go to church and later that evening all of us will go to the "Living the Questions" group They are having a dinner that night before the group meeting.

Next week will be a zoo so I had better enjoy a quiet day or two while I can.

Update:

Instead of watching "nothing" TV, I stayed up until 11:00 and worked on my sermon for this Sunday. My daughter traded Sunday sermon dates with me. She will take the 19th, the weekend of my class reunion.

I just heard from a friend of mine whose husband is in the military and with the Northern Command in Alaska. She told me something new is going on in the country concerning the situation:

"Right now there is a combat ready unit that can be deployed WITHIN the USA. The military families have been told to start stocking up on grains, canned goods, water, dried foods, firewood and household items.

Times are getting quite scary and our government and media are not telling us the truth.

And if the military is telling its own to do that, but is not telling the general public then I think I would be calling my congressman and asking what is going on?

It is not the National Guard. It is a new combat unit that was created by the Army under orders Northern Command."

I did a search and found that she is correct. The story is on Alternet here:

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

The Town Hall Debate

I don't believe McCain did well tonight. He was full of platitudes and misinformation. FactCheck will be sending out lots of e-mails tonight and tomorrow. The only thing he came up with that was new and interesting was the refinancing of mortgages for ordinary folks and that idea came from two or three Republican economists.

Obama , on the other hand, had some real well thought out answers with very few platitudes. The balance in the past five days has tipped to Senator Obama and tonight cinched it. Unless the country's racism manages to defeat him, he has this election won.

As far as the $700,000,000,000 that we spend on foreign oil is concerned that McCain insists funds terrorism, that is baloney. Canada and Mexico are our major sources of oil and neither of those countries are terrorist countries. McCain tries to play the fear card every chance he gets. He probably thinks it worked for Bush so in desperation he will give it the last ditch try.

On the question about the fastest way out of our economic mess is concerned, Obama put his finger right on the problem...deregulation, deregulation, deregulation. And, unfortunately for McCain, he has called himself the deregulator. The only way the country will get back on track economically is for some regulation to be re instituted. Capitalism is greed driven and this crisis has proven that for sure. The recent investigations this week have proven that if there was any doubt beforehand. As soon as AIG was bailed out with that $85,000,000,000,000 bailout, their CEO's took a $400,000 junket vacation. Talk about irresponsibility! We should demand the money be returned!

Obama made a good point when he said when Bush came into the presidency eight years ago, the country had a balanced budget with a huge surplus. Now we have a ten trillion dollar deficit for the next president and our grandchildren to face. That's double what it was.

McCain sounded very ignorant when he said he could tackle all three other huge problems the country is facing now at the same time....the entitlements (social security and Medicare) and the energy crisis, as well as health insurance. McCain said it would not be that hard to fix social security. He didn't say how he would do that easy task. He did admit that fixing Medicare would be harder.

Obama sounded very cool when he said he would tackle the energy crisis first, then health care and last of all the entitlement programs. He admitted he could not get it all done in his first term.

When both candidates were asked what sacrifices they would ask of the American people, McCain dropped the ball altogether. He suggested he would freeze all unnecessary government spending, (except veterans affairs) eliminate earmarks and cut unnecessary defense spending. Is that asking for sacrifices from the American people? Doesn't the man know what sacrifice is? During the second world war, we were rationed for gasoline, sugar, rubber of all kinds, ...we actually did sacrifice for the war effort. The American people anymore just want everything they see advertised and are not interested in personal sacrifice. They'd rather let others do the sacrificing. ..like those young men and women in the flag covered caskets that the Bush administration won't allow to be filmed.

Obama , on the other hand, said we would all have to watch how we used energy and stop being wasteful. He would provide incentives for folks to use green efficient energy, buy battery driven autos, use wind, solar and clean coal for energy. I felt neither really rose to the occasion. Possibly they remembered what happened when Jimmy Carter suggested that we should become a more frugal people and make personal sacrifices.

McCain often repeats the Reagan philosophy in stating that the government is the problem, not the solution. He ignores the fact that Reagan increased the size of the federal government more than any of his predecessors and instituted the largest tax increase in history.

McCain was snapish and rude and referred to Obama as "that one" on one occasion. People don't like McCain, don't trust him, and when the guy no one likes attacks, they like him even less. The snap polls prove Obama came out way ahead tonight.

Prior to the Town Hall Debates

I have read too much bad about McCain. Not only the Keating Five scandal of the 80's but the way he treated his first wife, Carol, his history of philandering, his terrible temper and bad language against colleagues in the Senate. He had to be separated from a fight he started on the Senate floor.

I read a twenty four page profile about him from the Rolling Stone magazine. He graduated fifth from the bottom of his class. He himself said he operates from his emotions and not his head. And he has started doing the negative ads out of his desperation.

He is running as a hero from 40 years ago. He was not a hero. He was a POW who broke under torture and made videos confessing his wrongs. Now, I don't think I could stand torture like that either so I don't fault him for that. But he's the one that lets everyone call him a hero. He wasn't a hero. He was a POW.

I don't want someone with his hair trigger temper to have that red button under his finger. I want a cool headed person who is willing to use diplomacy. Someone who wants to see peace in the world and who will help rebuild our reputation in the world. I don't want someone who cannot admit error. We've had enough of that from W.

I don't want anyone as president who thinks the economy is just fine until it collapses.

I'm no economist but two years ago I saw this coming and took what little I had left out of the stock market and put it in a CD at 4% interest. I did not trust the market even then and I am not a highly educated person.

Again..From The Nation

I am becoming more and more alarmed by the tone of this election campaign. As McCain gets more desperate and as the time becomes shorter until the election, we are finding more lies spread about Obama. For example, I read this article in The Nation this morning. This only a part of the article.

"I don't normally listen to Sean Hannity, nor did I watch his Fox News special on Sunday, "Obama and Friends: The History of Radicalism." But I did read the transcript. To make their case against Obama, conservatives like Hannity are relying on a highly discredited cast of characters.

Take the example of Andy Martin, the "author and journalist" Hannity quotes extensively in his segment. "I think a community organizer in Barack Obama's case was somebody that was in training for a radical overthrow of the government," Martin tells Hannity. In Martin's view, Obama is just a puppet of radicals like Bill Ayers and Louis Farrakhan. "If you love the Cuban revolution and Castro and if you love what's happening in Venezuela with Hugo Chavez, you'll love Barry Obama--Barack Obama, as he calls himself--in the White House," Martin says.

So just who is Andy Martin? Well, for starters, he's the originator of the "Obama is a Muslim" lie circulating around the Internet, as my colleague Chris Hayes first reported last year.

"In his past, Martin also has expressed anti-Semitic views," the Chicago Tribune wrote in 2006. "When he ran for Congress in Connecticut in 1986, the name of his congressional campaign committee included the phrase 'to exterminate Jew power in America,' Federal Election Commission records show."

Martin wrote in a personal bankruptcy case in 1983, "I am able to understand how the Holocaust took place, and with every passing day feel less and less sorry that it did, when Jew survivors are operating as a wolf pack to steal my property."

Martin's had numerous run-ins with the law, in Connecticut, Florida, Illinois and elsewhere.

You can see how the ignorant voter might listen to something said on the Hannity show and take it as gospel even though it is being spread by a hate monger. Too many people do not do any research themselves. They just believe anything said over the airwaves must be true. This is just so scary. I understand they doubled the security on the Obama family this fall.

Peace Colloquy Report

The Peace Colloquy was a great weekend. The Presbyterian friends who went with me really enjoyed it. I haven't heard how the Methodist liked it but she didn't miss a session.

The theme was learning to be signal communities. A signal community tries to be a force in their community and meets need as it becomes apparent to them. The signal community from Alabama, that received the #35,000 peace award was the home of Habitat for Humanity. Two people from their community came to receive the award and lo and behold a couple of dozen other members of their community drove 19 hours to be there to see them receive it too. This community was begun in the 1940's and was integrated by the sixties. They suffered a lot of violence against them for being integrated. But they never struck back. They installed lighting all around their community sensing the Klu Klux Klan would not attack in daylight or when it was all lighted. They never suffered any deaths but had bombings and shootings into their community. This was done by Klan "Christians".

The small groups at the colloquy got together twice a day and discussed what their congregations were doing and could do to build a sense of community and move out into their communities. The most important concept is that we must live our religion every day of the week and not just on Sunday. Too many of us Christians tend to do that.

Then there were two workshops to help us realize exactly what a signal community is. I realized my congregation was already a signal community. We try to live our religion. We contribute to two funds to help low income families pay their utility bills and rent, we contribute toward funding a school in the Domincan Republic, when we had our big flood last year, our church donated $10,000 toward the recovery effort. We have a food basket at the church. We participate in the Christmas Child shoebox project every Christmastime, we worked to keep a city block clean monthly until we built our church in the country. Our people serve on many boards in their communities. We have two that serve as auxillary at the hospitals, I serve on the free clinic board, two of our number serve on the senior citizen's board in their community and do lunches for shutins. We adopt two families at Christmastime and provide gifts for their children and food for their holiday dinners. I'm sure there is a lot more that I am not aware of. Our people do not tend to blow their own horns. I am sure we could do more and we will as soon as we become aware of the need.

P.S. Another Methodist couple called last night to get the dates for next year's colloquy. They want to go too.

Credit Crunch

Anyone who watched Sixty Minutes this evening heard the interviewer interview some very astute financial experts as they explained exactly how the unregulated markets got into the mess they are in right now. This is a shadow market believed to be worth around 50-60 trillion dollars. This is 4 times the national debt.

They bundled the very worst of the sub prime mortgages and tried to sell these risky packages off to buyers. In order to insure the sale, they also sold something called credit default "swap". This was really an insurance but it could not be called insurance because if they called it "insurance" it would be regulated. So they named it "credit default swap". There were no capital reserves to back up these swaps.

Those we know who participated in this unethical behavior were the CEOs of AIG (with their 85 billion dollar rescue), Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, and Morgan Stanley. There may be others who have not surfaced yet.

This Shadow market is hidden from the public, the government and even government regulators. These CEOs were dealing with sums and packages of sub prime loans that they did not even understand and had hired physicists to try to explain them with formulas. These CEOs, who were paid multimillions of dollars were not very good at their jobs and in order to enrich themselves, were taking huge risks without any capital to back them up at all.

Now, we are spending $700,000,000,000 of foreign borrowed, taxpayer money to bail these people out. Does anyone see any sense in this entire bailout mess? I do not think it will work and I believe we will be asked for even more money at a later date and I believe these CEOs, our foreign lenders and foreign banks who bought into this mess , will end up getting the bulk of the money. Mark my words!