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Late Night Comics: Rate the Jokes - November 19 2008

2008-11-20T13:25:03Z

Rating the Late Night Comics
On Balance in Political Jokes
November 19, 2008

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

It’s reported that Barack Obama’s new attorney general is going to be Eric Holder. Here is what we know about him: His name is Eric Holder.

It’s being reported that Hillary Clinton will accept the position of secretary of state. Actually this works out great for the Clintons. While Hillary is concentrating on foreign affairs, Bill can get back to concentrating on domestic affairs.

Barack Obama says one of his top priorities once he becomes president is closing down Guantanamo Bay. And to make sure it closes, he’s going to turn it into a bank.

According to the New York Post, Sarah Palin may appear on the season finale of “Desperate Housewives.” In a related story, John McCain just got a big Flomax commercial.

RATING: +4

Late Show Top Ten

Top Ten Things Overheard During Obama’a Meeting With McCain

10. “Oh, just preparing to be president. What have you been up to?”
9. “I know a guy who would be a perfect secretary of plumbing”
8. “What is the deal with that Alaskan babe?”
7. “Let’s wrap this up; Wheel of Fortune’s on”
6. “Seriously, what was the deal with that Alaskan babe?”
5. “Actually, it’s now the ‘Straight Talk Express and Girls Gone Wild’ bus”
4. “Uh John, this isn’t another debate”
3. “Where’s the soup? Someone said there’d be soup!”
2. “I know I’m trailing by 192 electoral votes two weeks after the election, but I’ve got you right where I want you!”
1. “Maybe you’d be president-elect if you hadn’t crossed Letterman”

RATING: Even

Late Show with David Letterman

Cold in New York City. So cold, today Sarah Palin spent $150,000 on mittens.

Sarah Palin has landed a $7 million book deal. She got it through a guy named Joe the publisher.

When she was asked about writing a book, she said, “You bethcha! As long as I don’t have to read it.”

Wow — $7 million. Maybe now she can buy her own clothing.

RATING -4

Late Night with Conan O’Brien

Yesterday in Chicago, President-elect Obama met with former political rival John McCain. Both men said it was a relief to put their differences aside, sit down, and really make fun of Sarah Palin.

Yesterday, President Bush awarded a National Medal of the Arts to Stan Lee, the comic book artist who created “Spider-Man.” Afterwards, Bush said it was the first thing he’s done as president that “felt right.”

Political experts say Hillary Clinton may not be given the position secretary of state because of Bill Clinton’s activities. When he heard this, Bill said, “It’s only fair — she denies me positions all the time.”

RATING: Even

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson

Happy birthday to the Alaska senator, and convicted felon, Ted Stevens. Today he turns 85 to life.

Everyone wants to know Barack Obama’s plans for the White house. They already know his economic plan to help small businesses that make under $250,000 a year — like General Motors.

Michael Jackson is in trouble again. He is supposed to testify in a lawsuit, but his lawyer says he’s too sick to travel. He can only travel in an emergency — like a Jonas Brothers concert.

RATING: +1

Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Raging fires in California. So far, 32,000 acres have burned. It seems ironic that the flamingest state in the Union voted against gay marriage.

It looks like Hillary Clinton might be Barack Obama’s secretary of state. She went from almost being president to a secretary.

Sounds like somebody needs to watch “Working Girl” — that’s not how it’s supposed to work.

The secretary of state travels all over the world meeting with foreign leaders sometimes spending months away from his or her husband. But that’s just the sacrifice Bill is willing to make.

RATING: Even

by Mondo
image: dbkp file

Chinese SpaceWalk: Real Deal or Video Hoax?

2008-11-20T12:50:20Z

Wag the Chinese SpaceWalk?
Does the CCP Shenzhou VII Spacecraft video indicate a hoax?
Bloggers Debate

Rhonda Roland Shearer,
StinkyJournalism.org

[ABOVE: Ian O'Neill, Astroengine.com, did an analysis of the Shenzhou VII spacewalk video that bloggers have questioned. He wrote,"If you have a look at the image above, I decided to trace the paths taken by our 'bubbles' in an attempt to see where they originated."]

Controversy about a Chinese space mission video has gone out of this world. Epoch Times presents arguments that support that it’s fake, whereas, Astroengine.com. has declared it legit. Both sites have done an impressive, detailed analysis .

Shu Yu reported, “The Epoch Times contacted Chinese expert Dr. Qu Zheng, who worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to scientifically analyze the video discrepancies” of the CCP Shenzhou VII Spacecraft “spacewalk” broadcast.

Dr. Zheng said, “In addition to the air bubble problem pointed out by bloggers, they also includes technical pre-launch concerns, a lack of atmosphere around the Earth, abrupt large scale changes in the clouds, and no background noise heard in the space-talk.”

In contrast, Ian O’Neill, Astroengine.com, concludes, after doing a careful review of the blogger challenges, that the space video is fine. He wrote, “So, we are presented with two options. Either, China went into space and performed a flawless 15-minute EVA, or the mother of all space hoaxes has just been carried out.

Remember the impressive Beijing Olympic fireworks display, part of which turned out to be masterful computer enhancement”? Was the SpaceWalk just another example?

Continue reading: Wag the Chinese SpaceWalk?

by Rhonda R Shearer
image/source: Wag the Chinese SpaceWalk?

REAL Environmentalists: Shut Up and Get Your Hands Dirty

2008-11-20T12:09:43Z

Modern Environmentalists:
* Do-Nothings
* Global Warmists
* Everyday Environmentalists

REAL Environmentalism

Two recent articles got us thinking about modern environmentalism here at DBKP.
One, in the New York Times ,A Seafood Snob Ponders the Future of Fish, discusses a depressing topic: depletion of first class fisheries.

Tuna, Cod, Atlantic Salmon stocks are all being destroyed or are virtually nonexistent. Indeed except for the Hawaii Tuna Fishery, called the Western Pacific fishery, and the Alaskan fishery, all major fisheries in the world are threatened. Both these fisheries are strictly managed by the American government, but both are subject to extreme poaching by the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Russians, and everyone else.

Which brings to mind that there are three types of modern environmentalists.

The Do-nothings

These are the folks that not only want a stand still on everything, but they want to punish anyone that tries to help. This was the Federal Governments policy for years.

No one could develop land that had an endangered species. No one could possess an endangered species. The result was that species died because the law was economically inimical to people–and fatal to species which were slowly dying off because of improper habitat or no breeding.

The fallacy of this law was dramatically demonstrated when after years of pressure, the State of Hawaii received an exemption for endangered plants, allowing them to be sold, as long as the same were from seed. All of a sudden endangered plants were being sold everywhere. And some, by no means many, started appearing in the wild. Whether the Girl Scouts or by seed dispersion, whatever, an improvement occurred. And some citizens could be found on weekends replanting forests and beaches, proudly, with native species.

ABOVE: Desert to desert, dust to dust]

The Global Warmists.The Gorebots, Greenpeace, etc.

These people want to destroy the world as we know it.

Many are suicidal, hoping for the death of mankind.

Many are despots making dollars off the imbeciles that pay their exorbitant speaking fees, salaries and meaningless carbon credits.

Those that are not scamming are too stupid to realize it is a scam.

The rest are filled with irrational hatred.

Everyday Environmentalists

These people take many forms:

The people involved in road and stream cleanup as volunteers;
Those who hand out free trees on Arbor Day that are rare or offer food to wild fauna;
The hunters who not only pay for wildlife stamps, but through programs such as Ducks Unlimited, have preserved more wetlands and game bird habitat in America than all other efforts–including the Federal Government–put together;
Fishermen and hikers who clear the wood of trash and plant habitat that encourages animal and diversified indigenous plant growth.

Which brings us to the next article.

Virtually gone, giant clams make comeback

There really is only one way fisheries will make a come back. Like forests, rare plants, and wolves, sometimes you just got to get in there and do what has to be done. If you want to increase something in nature, then do it. Some will live, some will die. But if you are persistent, and can correct the elements that caused the destruction in the first place, then you are on your way.

Two people can make a difference if someone cares, if government can assist rather than be the enemy.

The world’s largest shell fish weighing up to 230 kilos (507 pounds) and measuring up to 1.4 meters (4.5 feet) in length, the Tridacna gigas was once a common sight in waters around Philippine islands.

Highly prized for its meat and decorative shell, the giant clam had virtually disappeared from the Philippines, fished out by local and foreign fishermen.

Shocked by the depletion of giant clam stocks, marine biologist Edgardo Gomez decided to do something about it.
In 1985, when he was head of what is now the Marine Science Institute of the University of the Philippines, he began an ambitious program to breed and restock the bays and inlets around the Philippines, a Southeast Asian archipelago of more than 7,000 islands.

…

“Saving the giant clam has been a long process that has involved not only breeding and restocking but educating local fishermen that they are worth saving,” she added.

“Clams form an integral part of a coral reef’s ecosystem. At the same time, they can also be farmed as a sustainable livelihood,” Licuanan [a graduate student in Australia when she got hooked on the program in 1986] said. Already reefs and bays in many parts of the Philippines are being restocked with mature giant clams from the project’s protected ocean nursery areas off Bolinao in the Lingayen Gulf… “During the last clam-spawning in May, we managed to get 12 million fertilized eggs [and] from that we now have 200,000 clams in tanks in the hatchery measuring one centimeter in length,” she added.

“How many of them will survive the transfer to the ocean nursery where they will be put in cages suspended off the ocean bed, we don’t know. It’s just up to nature.”

And there it is.

Get rid of the Do Nothings, The Global Warmists, and these other worthless loons. Get your hands dirty and plant the right habitat. Breed the right animals and let them loose. Restock the oyster beds, the sponge beds, the clam beds, the fisheries, the snake dens, the gopher and prairie dog towns.

Let the weasels and ferrets loose!

by pat
images:
* The global education project
* npr
* reef daytripper

Obama Health Care Plan: Why Aren’t Illegal Immigrants Included?

2008-11-20T12:10:32Z

Americans are in the grip of a health care crisis: health insurance premiums, if you qualify, are spiraling out of control, plus the unisured who face bankruptcy over medical bills, while the true cost of treating illegal immigrants are ignored by the Federal government, in some cases, causing hospitals to close their doors. We looked at two “innovative” health care plans: The Obama Health Care Plan, and the Oregon Health Fund Board.

The Oregon Health Fund Board, or OHFB, has come up with a plan to provide health insurance to everyone in the state by 2019. But does the plan include the population of illegal immigrants?

According to the Kaiser Health Policy Report, recommendations by OHFB include:

* Extending coverage to the state’s 100,000 unisured children

* Adding the current 100,000 unisured adults to insurance coverage by 2013

* Taxes would used to raise an estimated $700 million over the next two years which would used to “draw down” more than $1 billion in Federal funds

* Regulating hospital prices and insurance company administrative costs

* Increase taxes on alcohol and cigarettes

* Require all Oregonians to have health insurance

Looking at the final draft presented by the OHFB, one does not find where illegal immigrants, and their costs to the health care system, are mentioned. Were the number of illegal immigrants folded in with the final tally of the “unisured”?

Who are the unisured?

According to Dianne Rowland, Executive Vice President of the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Executive Director of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, by 2006 there were 46.5 million Americans without health insurance. Those over 65 were not counted as they “tend” to have medical coverage under the Medicare program. Twelve percent of the 46.5 million uninsured are children. No where in Rowland’s report was mention of illegal immigrants, and their numbers. It must be up to us to guess how many of the 46.5 million unisured are here illegally. If they weren’t counted, then there’s an additional number, estimated to be as much as 30 million, whose cost to the health care system has yet to be addressed.

The Oregon Health Fund Board proposes to bring “everyone under the tent” in order to provide coverage for unisured children by “leveraging federal funds with provider-based taxes”.

The OHFB also proposes bringing in uninsured adults by using “some form of provider tax” and “possibly other tax programs” in order to “leverage federal funds”. OHFB also stressed that these “costs” should not be “passed on to the public” in the form of “higher health care costs” or insurance premiums. This begs the question: if providers, such as hospitals and insurance companies, are to be taxed in order to help pay for the cost of providing health insurance to every individual in Oregon, won’t providers eventually need to raise the cost of health care and/or insurance premiums to offset the taxes they now will be required to pay?

Upon review of the OHFB proposals there wasn’t a single mention of the cost of providing care to the “invisible” illegal immigrants who reside in Oregon.

The term, illegal immigrants has fallen by the wayside, instead, those who live here in the United States illegally, are now referred to as “undocumented workers”. Whatever the current label, the numbers are now a staggering estimate of 12-30 million. For every “undocumented worker” there is also a family, many who are not “workers” but utilize most of the public services such as public schools, medical clinics, and hospitals.

According to USA Today, the cost of illegal immigrants is impossible to ascertain: in most cases, there is a “don’t ask” policy regarding immigration status. The areas that suffer the most from illegal immigration are the states that border Mexico: in 2000, counties which line the border between the U.S. and Mexico “lost” $800 million in “unpaid” health care services, with an estimated 25% of those costs that covered health care provided to illegal immigrants.

As the influx of illegal immigrants continues to grow–Texas has an estimated 1.5 illegal immigrants–other states further from the border counties will eventually have grapple with the same problems faced in our border states. Providers of health care, i.e., hospitals, bore the brunt of those costs. The Oregon Health Fund Board believes it can rely on “taxing” hospitals in order to offset the cost of insuring every “uninsured” person in their state.

USA Today noted that the “sweeping health care proposals” proposed by Hillary Clinton and President-Elect Barack Obama “would not provide coverage” for illegal immigrants. We believe it’s counterproductive to propose a health care plan that doesn’t address the growing numbers and rising costs to our health care systems due to the cost of providing health care to illegal immigrants.

Jim Ludwick at Oregon Catalyst.com recently pointed out that Oregon is the only state that openly allows illegal immigrants to get a driver’s license.

According to FAIR, or Federation For American Immigration Reform, the number of illegal immigrants residing in Oregon is currently estimated at 139,000. FAIR cited a study done by the PEW Hispanic Center whose estimates of illegal immigrants range from 125,000 to 175,000 illegal immigrants.

If any of those numbers are correct, then the OFHB’s number of “unisured” needs closer inspection: OFHB claimed the number of “unisured” in Oregon is 100,000 children, and 100,000 adults bringing the total of unisured to 200,000. If Oregon counted illegal immigrants as those who are “unisured”, 136,000, this would mean only 64,000 of those who have no health insurance are legal American citizens. This is stunning.

If the OFHB did not fold in the illegal immigration population numbers, of a possible 136,000 “unisured”, then the “cost” of treating this hidden population was not added into their plan.

Mandatory Health Care

The OHFB proposed that it be “mandatory” that every individual in Oregon sign up for health care coverage but didn’t address the “hidden” subculture of illegal immigrants. Will illegal immigrants, like the legal citizens, be forced by the state government into getting health care insurance? Will legal citizens, who refuse to get health insurance, be penalized?

One cannot truly calculate the cost of providing health care to illegal immigrants if the numbers are unknown but still continue to rise: the United States hasn’t effectively “closed the barn door” to those entering the country illegally. California is one such example.

California, Aquí Venimos (Here We Come)

A study by FAIR, Federation for American Immigration Reform, released in 2004, concluded that the annual cost of illegal immigration to the state of California was a whopping $10.5 billion, just for that year. These costs include education, health care, and incarceration. The annual cost to the health care system: $1.4 billion.

In April, 2008, Diana Hull, Ph.D., pointed out that there may be connection between the rising cost of illegal immigration and California’s current budget crisis.

“Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) says that a 2004 study indicated that California’s illegal alien population imposed a net cost of $9 billion per year on the state’s taxpayers just for education, medical care and incarceration. “After adjusting the figure for current costs and increases in the number of illegal aliens, it would exceed the state’s projected deficit,” according to Diana Hull, the organization’s president, “and this is a very conservative estimate.”"

While Governor Arnold Schwarenegger denied illegal immigration impacted the state, Hull cited FAIR research that found that 60% of illegal immigrants live in six states, with California’s estimated illegal immigration population at 3,470,000. This means that there are more illegals living in the state of California than our third largest city, Chicago, whose population in 2005 was 2,896,016.

In September, the Los Angeles Times reported that the employment rate in California had risen to 7.7% and that California “tied” with Mississippi for the third highest jobless rate in the United States.

Governor Schwarznegger proposed to “solve” the budget crisis by raising the state sales tax and “cuts” in services to offset the $11.2 billion deficit. He also denied that illegal immigration had any impact on the state.

The study found that the annual cost to states with higher illegal immigration populations have reached $27 billion for public school education, health care, and criminal incarceration, with California’s share, $11 billion and growing.

A study by Phillip J. Romero found that illegal immigrants living in California in 2007 received an estimated $9.6 to $38.2 billion in state services versus the amount of state taxes they paid. Those services included health care.

By law, hospitals are not allowed to deny service to anyone needing care. In 2005, the federal government paid California $70 million to help reimburse hospitals for providing treatment to illegal immigrants. This fell far short, as the cost to San Diego County hospitals treating illegal immigrants reached $100 million. The cost to Los Angeles County Hospitals, $140 million, a net loss of $170 million. Someone has to pay those costs or else hospitals will be forced to close their doors. In California, 84 hospitals went “out of business”.

The massive influx of illegal immigrants has yet to affect the state of Oregon. If and when it does, hospitals, as providers, will not be able continue to operate if they are required by law to both “pay a provider tax” to help insure “everyone” in the state and also absorb the high cost of treating the illegal immigrants . As in the case of the state of California, health care providers in just San Diego and Los Angeles Counties had an annual net loss of $170 million in providing treatment to illegal immigrants, even after receiving funds from the Federal government. In Oregon, hospitals, as providers, will have to pay a tax in order to guarantee everyone has health insurance, while the state mandates that hospitals cannot pass on those costs to patients.

Advocates of illegal immigrants claim those who inhabit the subculture of millions who reside “hidden” in the United States, utilize less health services than those who are here legally. The two counties in California prove otherwise: illegal immigrants do use health care services to the tune of billions annually while paying less in taxes for those services. While many believe only states that lie along the southern border are having trouble paying for the cost of health care to illegal immigrants, other states are now seeing the same effects, such as North Carolina.

According to a study done by the University of North Carolina, one in four new residents in the state of North Carolina between 1990 and 2004 were illegal immigrants. The Pew Hispanic Center found that North Carolina ranks 9th in the nation in illegal immigrant population, with 300,000.

Viva Mayberry

With an estimated 300,000 “hidden” population of illegal immigrants in North Carolina, hospitals are asked to bear the brunt of health care costs. According to Jeff Spade, Vice President of the North Carolina Hospital Association, “the burden of the unisured immigrant is huge” and that it has “exploded the amount of work they (hospitals) have to do”.

Which leaves us with this thought: any efforts to bring “change” to our crumbling health care system and help bring down the “cost” of health care coverage to individuals and families that are affordable, cannot be effective, unless the cost of covering and treating illegal immigrants by providers is also addressed. In some states, the burden of treating illegal immigrants has exploded while hospitals are being forced to close. The state of Oregon is to be lauded for attempting to bring health care coverage to “everyone”. Yet they believe by simply “taxing” the provider, i.e., hospitals, and health insurance companies, while “leveraging” federal funds is the part of the answer.

Which leads us to the health care plan being proposed by President-Elect Obama.

Obama’s plan is “affordable insurance” and “accessible health coverage for all”. Does “all” also include the estimated 14-30 million who reside here illegally? Will it cover, in the future, the even larger numbers of those who entered here illegally? Currently there’s been little done by the Bush adminstration to address the illegal immigrant issue, forcing states to grapple with spiraling costs to their health care, education, and prison systems with little relief from the Federal government.

The Obama Health Care Plan does not cite the problem, nor costs, of providing health care to illegal immigrants. There’s no mention in the Obama Health Care Plan of illegal immigrants, yet there are estimates of up to 30 million who reside here who fit into this category.

Of the 46.5 million who are currently “uninsured” there’s no way to decipher whether illegal immigrants were included. Will the Obama administation strive to “fix” the problem of health care insurance premiums and coverage for legal citizens while shunting aside the very real problem that exists regarding providing health care to illegal immigrants?

After looking over all the statistics it’s surprising that our politicians still refuse to address the very real problem facing our country regarding illegal immigrants. President-elect Obama’s Health Care Plan omits any mention of illegal immigrants, as does the OFHB plan. Governor Schwarzenegger, with a population of illegal immigrants larger than the city of Chicago, denies there’s been any impact to the soaring deficit in his budget.

Putting the immigration issue into perspective, there are no other countries in the world which allow illegal immigration. Try stealing over the border into Mexico and see how far you’d get. Most likely you’d end up in a Mexican jail and then the boot. Yet Americans are constantly castigated for showing concern over the mass influx of illegal immigrants who continue to flow across our border. True, our country was founded by immigrants, but those immigrants were legal. Ellis Island didn’t have an open turnstile, many immigrants were turned away. Once here, they assimilated into our culture, where they entered into a pact of becoming responsible American citizens. This new crop of “immigrants” do not have to follow the rules, in fact, by the very nature of their entrance, they do not have to follow the laws. As their numbers continue to rise, as does the cost to educate, and provide health care, just some of the services used by illegal immigrants, American taxpayers have the right to question how much of the burden we should have to pay. American taxpayors were asked by Congress to bail out our banks, Wall Street, the mortgage industry, and now the auto industry. At some point, we’ll have to bail out ourselves.

Every other country in the world has the right to limit the amount of immigrants into their country. How did America reach this juncture, where an estimated 30 million people have managed to illegally cross the border to take up residence, with our politicians looking the other way? How long will we be able to afford to be “compassionate” when our schools are overcrowded and our hospitals are closing their doors? When we can’t afford something as basic as health care but are asked to pay for the health care of those who are here illegally and refuse to follow our laws? This has nothing to with compassion but the realization that unless some action is taken our country faces an even larger burden in the future, one that we may not be able to solve.

By LBG

Source - Kaiseredu.org - Expanding Health Coverage
Image - Hourglass

Winter, Global Warming Pictures: Man-Made Climate Change Comes Early

2008-11-20T02:10:38Z

Pixelaneous #59
Climate Change Comes Early
To Ohio-Pennsylvania-West Virginia

Click images to enlarge.

Mid-November and the livin’ is easy.

Man-made climate change showed up a bit early last week. We were there to document it.

MORE Pixelaneous at DBKP: Pixelaneous Photo Essays Library.

* 58: November 18, 2008
–Heart Attack Grill: Lard, Luckies, Naughty Nurses and Politically Incorrect Food
* 57: September 19, 2008
–Air Show Pictures: Surprising Pictures
* 55 & 56: September 8, 16, 2008
–Car and Bike Show: Labor Day 2008 in Wheeling, WV Pictures
–More Labor Day Car and Bike Show Pictures
* 54: August 29, 2008
Cool Cat Photos: Pixelaneous 54
* 53: August 23, 2008
Denver, Dem Nat’l. Convention: Photos Two Days Before the Convention
* 52: August 12, 2008
Beijing Olympics: China’s Language Barrier
* 51: August 8, 2008
John Edwards Scandal: The Many Faces of Contrition
* 50: July 22, 2008
Candy Cigarettes: The Most Politically-Incorrect Candy

ALSO at DBKP:
James Hansen: Cooking the NASA Books for Climate Change

More Pixelaneous!
Library of DBKP Pixelaneous Photo Essays

This has us wondering, “Isn’t anyone going to save the Earth from this?”

by Mondo Frazier
images: dbkp

Stock Market Crashes: Five Stock Market Downturns Since 1929

2008-11-19T21:23:38Z

Famous Stock Market Crashes:
Black Thursday
Black Monday
Dot Com Bubble
Friday the 13th Mini-Crash
The Financial Crisis of 2008

For many, the Financial Crisis of 2008 is the first stock market crash to which they’ve paid attention.

However, there have been much worse financial market setbacks over the last 80 years.

It might be pointed out that downturns in the stock market are often corrections in overpriced stocks.

DBKP takes a look at five of the stock market crashes during that time and their impact.

From Wikipedia:

A stock market crash is often defined as a sharp dip in share prices of equities listed on the stock exchanges. In parallel with various economic factors, a reason for stock market crashes is also due to panic. Often, stock market crashes end speculative economic bubbles.

Famous stock market crashes

Black Thursday - October 24, 1929

The Dow Jones Industrials lost 50% of their value on Black Thursday.

Black Thursday kicked off the Great Depression, from which the USA didn’t emerge for 10 years–until World World II put the country back to work.

The Crash of 1973-74

From January 11 1973 to December 6 1974,

the Dow lost over 45% of its value.
The London Exchange lost 73%
The stock markets of the G7 lost an average of 43% over the period

It took the US stock market–as well as other markets around the world–as long as 10 years before they recovered its pre-crash value.

The Dom Com Bubble of 2000

“The Dot-com bubble crash wiped out $5 trillion in market value of technology companies from March 2000 to October 2002.”

Although many Internet companies went bankrupt in the Dot Com Crash of 2000, many others survived, including Amazon.com, Ebay and Yahoo.

Black Monday - October 19, 1987

The Dow fell by almost 23% on Black Monday. Within a few weeks, other exchanges around the world also fell by the following amounts.

The Dow Jones fell by 22.6%
Australia lost 41.8%
Canada lost 22.5%
Hong Kong lost 45.8%
Great Britain lost 26.4%

Automatic sell orders and selling short automatic orders were blamed, in part, for the crisis on Black Monday.

Friday the 13th Mini-Crash - October 13 1989

“…the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 190.58 points, or 6.91 percent, to 2,569.26. The NASDAQ Composite shed 14.90 points, or 3.09 percent, to 467.30, and the S&P 500 Index fell 21.74 points, or 6.12 percent, to 333.65.”

The US stock market recovered from the blip of the Friday the 13th Mini-Crash relatively quickly.

The Financial Crisis of 2008

“Beginning October 6, 2008, the Dow Jones industrial average fell over 1,874 points, or 18%, in its worst weekly decline ever on both a point and percentage basis.”

The market rallied before the election on November 4 2008, then resumed its steady movement downward following the election of Barack H. Obama.

The final verdict on the Financial Crisis of 2008 is yet to be rendered.

There you have it: Stock Market Crashes for Dummies.

by Mondo Frazier
image: dbkp file
Source:
* 1973–1974 stock market crash
* Dot-com bubble
* Stock Market Crash

Idiots of the Week Winners: November 19 2008

2008-11-19T17:27:23Z

Top Idiots Of The Week
Nancy Morgan
RightBias.com
November 19, 2008

Statue-tory Rape?

And The Winner Is:

In a historic first, the winner of this week’s Top Idiot Award is an animal. In a clear case of statue-tory rape, this moose obviously confused life and art. He got away with this indiscretion after issuing a public apology and agreeing to attend sensitivity training. Personally, I think he got off easy because he was a FOB. (friend of Bill:)

Runner-Up:

13 year-old German schoolboy, Dennis Bueller comes in a close second. He learned the hard way that one should never play with a cigarette ligher on the toilet - especially after spraying the room with air freshener.

Honorable Mention:

A husband and wife had a suicide pact. The husband backed out. His wife didn’t. Her body was then left hanging in their house for eight weeks. I guess he just got used to her hanging around.

Two drunk drivers crashed into each other. Who says there’s no justice?

PETA makes our list once again. They’re planning to stage a nude protest to discourage locals from attending an upcoming Ringling Brothers Circus show at the Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center. Hey, it would discourage me…

Caution: Idiots are not just stupid - they’re dangerous too. A father was drinking double shots of vodka while cleaning his gun. Oops, he accidentaly shot to death his 6 year-old daughter.

Most Idiotic Statements:

Chris Matthews on Obama: “You can’t make fun of this guy. He’s clean as a whistle”

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger actually blamed California’s wildfires on global warming. Huh?

NBC’s Meredith Viera helped kick off Green Week by stating that “oceans could rise by 200 feet.”

Fox News anchor Shepard Smith actually called suggestions of bias towards Obama in the mainstream media “preposterous”. Ah, Shep…

Group Idiots:

First place, hands down, goes to the idiotic bureaucrats in Attleboro, Mass. In a letter they paid 42 cents to mail, city officials warned they’ll place a lien on a blind 74-year-old’s house unless she coughs up a penny by Dec. 10. Aargh.

Tied for first place are these 12 Obama voters. They actually allowed themselves to be videotaped after the election. Their scary, absolute ignorance of our political system is now captured for all eternity.

In a close second are the 7 out of 10 people who actually believe Obama can fix the economy.

Honorable Mention:

More bureaucrats, this time in England: School bureaucrats decided that children as young as five will now have the legal right to tell teachers how they should be taught and disciplined for bad behavior.

Speaking of schools: School officials in a tiny Vermont elementary school win honorable mention. They have blocked the pledge of allegiance from classrooms amid concerns that it holds nonparticipating children up to scorn.

So many idiots, so little space.

by Nancy Morgan
Right Bias.com

RightBias Idiot Awards may be reprinted, with attribution to RightBias.com

Suicide Pact Stories: The Man who Left His Wife Hanging from the Doorway and the Desire to Die Together

2008-11-19T17:36:46Z

It must have been like a macabre scene from a horror film: a man in the U.K. reported to police that his wife had committed suicide by hanging. The circumstances surrounding his wife’s death were unusual: police claim that the man stated that he and his wife had entered a suicide pact and that after his wife hanged herself the husband “changed” his mind. He then left his wife’s body hanging from a frame above an upstairs doorway for a period of “eight weeks”.

Neighbors hardly knew the couple, who purportedly lived in a “tidy-detached house” for the past ten years. The couple were painted by neighbors as “quiet” and “very private”. So for two months, the husband left his dead wife hanging in the hallway while he apparently vacillated contacting the authorities.

An investigation by the police has yet to reveal whether the woman, did indeed, commit suicide.

There are other stories of suicide pacts and the “desire to die together”.

The Japanese are having a spate of “detergent” related suicides: three men were the latest to “off” themselves in an apparent suicide pact. The three men were found in their car, their deaths caused by mixing detergent and “other chemicals” then inhaling the resulting hydrogen peroxide fumes. According to CNN, even before the recent suicides of over 60 people in the last month, Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world.

Rocker Ozzy Osbourne and his wife Sharon have publicly announced that they have a suicide pact plan in case a “mentally degenerative disease” should affect either of the two. They purportedly told their children of their plans, and also instructed their attorney to make sure “their wishes are respected”. Rather than a “let’s hang ourselves from a doorway in our home”, the couple plan to fly to Switzerland and rent out an “assisted suicide flat” where suicides are, apparently, an industry which draws foreign tourists from around the globe who wish to end their lives.

According to the Calicut Medical Journal, a world health report estimated that worldwide one million people commit suicide in pacts while another 10-20 million attempt suicide. Most suicide pacts are made between people who know each other while a new phenomenon has emerged related to the internet: strangers who met on the web at a “suicide pact” site.

In 2005, British police claim two people, a 25-yr-old man and a 42-yr-old woman, “met” on a suicide-pact website. They then killed themselves in a car by inhaling carbon monoxide fumes from a tray of burning charcoal. Their deaths were purportedly the first such incidence of internet related suicide pacts while in 2004, seven Japanese young people apparently “met” online at a suicide-pact website. They died by inhaling carbon monoxide fumes while inside a van.

Two lesbians, who were highlighted on the series, America’s Most Wanted, allegedly decided to carry out a suicide pact inside a Dodge Durango northwest of Tucson on November 16th.

The two women were suspects in the death of a Spokane, Washington, area woman who was murdered in her hot tub ten years ago. Police believe Tina R. Loesch, 37, and Skye M. Hanson, 41, carried out a suicide pact, shooting themselves less than three hours after the show aired. A “multi-page” suicide note was found at the scene. The murder victim was the mother of Tina Loesch, who died when hitman Bradley Steckman testified that Tina Loesch paid him $10,000 to murder her mother. Steckman stated he tossed a TV, still plugged in, into a hot tub occupied by Loesch’s mother.

Perhaps one of the strangest incidents of a suicide pact involved the comet, Halle-Bopp, and aliens from outer space, occurred in 1997 in Rancho Sante Fe, California.

Thirty-nine members of the cult, Heaven’s Gate, purportedly killed themselves over a period of several days “in shifts”. They consumed a “lethal cocktail” mixture of phenobarbital and vodka in attempt to reach a “higher plane of existence”. Halle-Bopp was the sign they had waited for, they believed a spaceship traveled just beyond the comet and that they needed to shed their “container” (bodies).

What was even more bizarre is that many of the male members of the group, including their leader, Marshall Applewhite, had undergone voluntary castrations. Ironically, the news article we linked to regarding this story reported that the group’s suicide-pact raised the issue of the internet being used to recruit new members to cults. No mention was made regarding the ability to meet online to find others willing to get together for the sole purpose of ending their lives. These types of suicide pacts give new meaning to the old adage, misery loves company.

Two psychiatrists in Turkey wrote a paper on a suicide pact involving three young sisters. Studies found that suicide pacts are infrequent, occurring in less than .6% of suicides. Suicide pacts are generally made up of married couples, aged 50-60, who are “socially isolated” and suffer from “mental or medical illness”. The two psychiatrists interviewed two of the sisters who survived their brush with death.

The girls were ages 17, 19, and 22, and had ingested a pesticide. They were taken to a hospital by their two brothers where the youngest girl died.

The circumstances surrounding the girl’s attempted suicide and the subsequent death of the youngest girl were investigated. There were seven siblings raised in a family where the parents frequently fought. Purportedly the father shot at the mother but missed his mark during one dispute. The parents divorced and the sisters were forced to live with their father, who was described as “suspicious”, “distrustful”, and “cold” by the two sisters who survived the suicide pact. He also frequently beat his wife and children and enjoyed humiliating the girls. The father, apparently “heartbroken” over the death of one his daughters, tried to commit suicide three months later by jumping into a well.

It was the youngest sister who wanted to commit suicide and who purportedly “instigated” the suicide-pact. She had been “depressed”, “nervous”, “irritable”, and had impaired sleep one month prior to her suicide. The 19-yr-old had a history of severe depressive episodes and had previously attempted to kill herself. Not surprisingly, she was diagnosed as severely depressed. The third sister suffered from bouts of depression, diminished appetite, and impaired sleep for a few months before she entered into the suicide pact. She was diagnosed with borderline personality and depression. She also performed self-mutilation and once tried to kill herself by cutting her wrist with broken glass.

The psychiatrists cited several studies which found mental disorders in 61% of members of 18 suicide pacts. Another study found a “lifetime history of depression in 40 pact members of 20 consecutive pacts” which occurred between 1957 and 1981. The psychiatrists found several risk factors pertaining to the girl’s suicide-pact: the violence in the family and the inability to move away from their father. They also shared “genetic” factors: all three had a history of depression, two had previously attempted suicide, and the father attempted suicide after the girls attempted to take their lives.

In an individual suicide, loved ones left behind are “lucky” if the now deceased leave a note which may yield “clues”, while suicide pact participants might actually share with one another their death wish secrets and then take them to their collective graves.

I’ve posted a few “last words” from famous people who took their own lives. It’s up to the reader to see if the notes “yield” any clues:

I must end it. There’s no hope left. I’ll be at peace. No one had anything to do with this. My decision totally.
Freddie Prinze, American actor, 1977

Dear World, I am leaving you because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool - good luck.
George Sanders, British Actor, 1972

I don’t believe that people should take their own lives without deep and thoughtful reflection over a considerable period of time.
Wendy O Williams, punk rock performer, 1998

By LBG

Source - Corsinet.com
Source - Daily Mail
Image - Suicide poster

Chuck Hagel Attacks Rush Limbaugh: Senator WHO Retires Gracelessly

2008-11-18T23:09:53Z

Chuck Hagel:
Best Known For Thin Resume, Skin

Attacking Rush Limbaugh
Those Who Disagree With Hagel

Chuck Who?

Chuck Hagel celebrated the end of a Washington career by attacking Rush Limbaugh and others in Congress who disagreed with him.

“We are educated by the great entertainers like Rush Limbaugh,” Hagel said Tuesday during a speech in Washington, according to the Huffington Post.

“You know, I wish Rush Limbaugh and others like that would run for office,” a sarcastic Hagel continued. “They have so much to contribute and so much leadership and they have an answer for everything. And they would be elected overwhelmingly. [The truth is] they try to rip everyone down and make fools of everybody but they don’t have any answers.”

“The American people don’t like what is going on… they want us to start doing what leaders are expected to do, address the problems, find some consensus to governing. Get along. There will be disagreements, sure… but in the end we can’t hold ourselves captives to this raw, partisan, political paralysis.”

The Wit and Wisdom of Chuck Hagel

Hagel has compiled quite a record during his 12-year tenure in the U.S. Senate.

Hagel was initially elected in 1996 in a stunning upset that might be called “ethically-challenged”.

[Hagel] also served as a Chairman and was CEO of American Information Systems Inc. (AIS), a voting machine manufacturer, this same company electronically counted 80% of the votes in the state in the very same election that he had his stunning upset. He did not disclose his position as CEO of the company in his mandated disclosures, until its name-change to Election Systems & Software (ES&S) in 1997. He had ownership interest in ES&S through its parent company The McCarthy Group as of January 29, 2003, when The Hill reported that, due to his ownership interest, “Hagel’s ethics filings pose disclosure issue”.

Hagel has been mentioned–most notably by his staff–as a cabinet possibility in the upcoming Obama administration. Failing that, he may return to lobbying.

Hagel will most be remembered for

Friends of the Senator, who wished to remain off-the-record, did say that “he works and plays well with others”.

by Mondo Frazier
image: CNN-Getty

New Orleans: Big Easy Sponge Bob

2008-11-18T18:30:33Z

New Orleans:
Summertime in the Big Easy
–and the Livin’ is Easy

Spotted in New Orleans:

Sponge Bob?

Hope this doesn’t make us “insensitive”.

by Mondo
hat tip: Scott & Vickie
image: S&V