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In a recent written opinion, Texas Bankruptcy Court Judge Frank Monroe took congress and the president to task over provisions of the recent changes in Federal bankruptcy law.
In his ruling, Monroe said the new federal bankruptcy law is full of traps for consumers, calling some of its provisions "inane," "absurd" and incomprehensible to "any rational human being."
He stopped just short of accusing Congress of being bought and paid for, dryly noting, "Apparently, it is not the individual consumers of this country that make the donations to the members of Congress that allow them to be elected and re-elected and re-elected and re-elected."
We can muster scarcely any sympathy for the schmuck whose case Monroe was pronouncing on, since he appears to be exactly the kind of sad-sack that any rational bankruptcy law would target. But Monroe isn't alone in criticizing the effects of the new law as tending to grossly favor one class of citizens (creditors) at the expense of another (debtors) - we wrote about this months ago. And other judges and lawyers are speaking out too;
Judge Robert Mark, the chief bankruptcy judge for the Southern District of Florida, said in an October opinion that reading "several hundred pages" of the new act brought him to one "inescapable" conclusion: "The new law is not a model of clarity."
Houston-based Judge Marvin Isgur last fall called the act "particularly difficult to parse and, at worst, virtually incoherent."
Left unspoken are two issues. Business law used to be a state function, with the state legislatures deciding what rules should apply to contracts in the event one of the parties could not meet terms. This function has been usurped by the feds, who passed a bill crafted by the credit-card industry, not a model of fair dealing.
Second, the law is being used not only to punish and humiliate debtors, but to redeem and protect the foolish decisions of credit-card companies under the phony excuse that this will result in lower rates for "good" debtors. This is evil and underhanded.
If you still are unconvinced of the evilness of the big credit-card companies, watch your credit-card statements for a few months. Every so often, a document will be included (or mailed seperately) that spells out changes to your credit-card account agreement. Uh, excuse me - last time I looked, according to traditional contract law, changes in a contract can only occur by mutual agreement!
The document will, of course, state that if you find the terms unacceptable, you have the option of canceling your account and paying off your balance in full. Not an option if you, by reason of bad financial planning or misfortune are not in a position to do so. And canceling a credit card, even with a sterling payment history, will lower your credit rating!
Bottom line? Swear off all credit, except a fixed-rate mortgage. Pay off all credit balances (get an additional job if necessary), and shred the cards. When the new ones come in, shred those too. Use a traditional American Express Card (the one you have to pay off every month) and a Visa check card.
Doing these things will decrease the likelihood of ending up caught in this abominable law, and you will no longer be dealing with companies that treat their customers with contempt, and contract law as so much toilet paper.
(link from FARK; poster from auctionads.com)
Britain's coastal waters and streams have apparently been invaded by the Chinese Mitten Crab, Eriocheir sinensis. Scientists there are worried about the effects of this non-native species on the ecosystem;
The mitten crab is now rampant throughout Britain's coast and rivers and could cause devastating environmental problems if populations are not monitored and controlled, the university's scientists say. Able to walk for miles overland, the crab has taken over the Thames and Medway estuaries and colonised rivers as far north as the Tyne and west into Devon.
Government scientists have recommended a policy of fiddler-ing while Rome burns, pardon the pun;
The study recommends that a nationwide monitoring and trapping system for the crab should be introduced before it is too late to control the population.
Entirely predictable. But could it be that capitalism, and not the British government's reflexive socialism might provide a real answer?;
Scientists from the Natural History Museum recommend the more radical solution of eating the crab. It is a delicacy in the Far East, commanding high prices in restaurants in Japan and Hong Kong. It is flown to London by the crate-load for the capital's Chinese restaurants, which pay importers £6 ($10.44 US) a pound.
(link from FARK)
Is it just me, or is anyone else disgusted by the gaggle of politicians who were on teevee yesterday at Coretta Scott King's funeral using her casket as their own personal soapbox?
The disgraceful Ted Kennedy, glomming onto Mrs. King's husband's legacy, despite the fact that his brothers allowed the FBI to spy on him. The excrable Billary. Even Jimmy Carter, our best ex-president, got some partisan tap-dancing in. And the mere presence of Bushes 41 and 43 should have been enough to get the long-suffering Mrs. King spinning at top RPM.
The press, which would have reacted in unified outrage to such a sordid spectacle in the dim, distant past looked on approvingly, providing the requisite photo-ops for the vermin that dare to claim sovreignty over our lives.
Look, even though, to his credit he was against the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King was far from a saint. There is ample evidence that he was a plagiarist, a Clinton-class philanderer , and at least sympathetic to Communism. But his wife at least tried to further King's rhetorical goals of equality and justice, despite the constant predations of wannabes and hangers-on like Jesse Jackson and the like. She deserved a dignified memorial, and all she got was crapped on.
Shameful.
We do not wish to be painted with the pejorative "Conspiracy Theorists". Murray Rothbard's expose aside, we don't have much trouble with the "official" explanation of the Kennedy asassination, for example. The various 9/11 websites that purport to prove that the WTC towers were brought down by planted explosive charges (though #7 might be a different case), or that the Pentagon was actually hit by a missile and not an airplane are easily shown to be riddled with fuzzy research and unsound scientific and engineering assertions.
The case, however, that the Bush Administration is making far-reaching plans for total war with Iran need not be framed as a "conspiracy", but can be simply understood as a clever manipulation of the already massive control that the Federal government has amassed over our lives, as well as those in countries under the imperial ambit (i.e., most of them). There need not be a secret conspiracy at all, but simply pull the correct government levers for what appear to be innoccuous reasons, and the desired results start to appear.
Two cases in point. BoingBoing reported yesterday that the has just started requiring internet jobs sites like Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com permanently save a snapshot of every resume submitted. This applies as well to internal internet jobs sites at companies that do business with the government (i.e., most of them).
Boingboing accepts the official explanation that this is just a technical requirement to help show whether there is a disparate impact on blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada (boring technical govenmentese creating a new welfare or racial constituency here). Not to belittle their analysis, but what other reason can you think of that the federal government would want to create permanent electronic databases of tens of millions of resumes? It is no stretch to understand that these databases could be nationalized in the event of war, making it simple to reimpose conscription without needing to rely solely on Selective Service databases, which only cover male citizens between 18 and 25, or so they say.
Second, we have already predicted that there is a great likelihood of both an invasion of Iran, and terrorist attacks here at home because the levers of power are being manipulated that way. Bill Sardi today reinforces that notion by pointing out the unusual intensity of the fanatical Muslim reaction to the Danish newspaper's publication of cartoons critically depicting Mohammed;
Somehow a vast cache of Danish flags have appeared in Muslim countries, to be publicly burned, while green and black Islamic flags were waved by demonstrators worldwide. The outrage is being well orchestrated.
We have already seen, for instance, the transparent manipulation of "pro-democracy" movements in the Ukraine and Lebanon by US institutions affiliated with the current administration. It's quite easy to do, and the strings are all but invisible, particularly so because of the co-opted, blindered media.
Are there any innocent inferences that can be drawn from these events? Sure. It is easy to explain away each little piece of the puzzle with a facile explanation that sounds good when not held up to too much critical scrutiny. But this administration is much smarter than the man who ostensibly heads it, and they have learned from each PR mistake they have made (though, sadly, not their strategic ones). They are very, very good, and, polls aside, still very much in charge, and making their plans happen. The average American is too busy trying to feed both his family and the Federal Moloch to go beyond these facile explanations. Most of America mistrusts the entire government apparatus, but is simply too tired and whipped to be bothered to do much about it.
We're pretty tired and whipped too, having seen our taxes zoom upward over the past few years. But we are not going to accept this quietly, and neither should you. The only effective way to counter this constand drain of individual sovreignty toward Washington is to vote against incumbents every time, at every level. Because the politicians have manipulated away any actual democracy (gerrymandered districts have now rendered 95% of all congressional seats "safe").
As Pennsylvania Clean Sweep founder Russ Diamond says;
They have somehow forgotten the reasons for which the people have sent them there and have tarnished the reputation of an institution originally intended to protect liberties and freedoms which are dear to the people.
Don't be sheep, people. Stand up and fire every politician, every election. Do not fall for their honeyed words. Do not accept their facile explanations. Realize that this is a war between us and them over your life, liberty, and property, and that right now, we are losing. Wake up and take back our freedom and our country before it is too late.
UPDATE: Lew Rockwell linked an article about the new internet job search rules here.
Arlen Specter, one of the two esteemed Republican Senators from Pennsylvania, has come out strongly against President Bush's unconstitutional domestic spying program. We think.
Personally, any time I hear of him or McCain taking what appears to be a principled stand for or against anything, I cynically think it's just positioning.
But maybe after his recent bout with cancer, "Darlin'" Arlen is rethinking his whole life, and trying, in his own sclerotic way to make things better.
I'm reserving my opinion, just in case.
Another icon of an earlier age has passed on - Al Lewis, most famous for his turn as Grandpa on the short-lived, perennially-syndicated show "The Munsters", died over the weekend at 95.
Reading a couple of biographies of the former Alexander Meister, I learned some frankly astonishing things. I had NO idea that he;
-Worked his way up in circuses from age 13 from dung-shoveler to clown, to trapeze artist
-He held a PhD in child psychology from Columbia University, taught school for a number of years, and published several children's books
-Was a labor organizer and an anti-racism radical in the 30's and 40's
- Won over 50,000 votes as the Green Party candidate in the 1988 New York State Gubernatorial contest campaigning against, among other things, the Draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws, even though he was not permitted to put his nickname "Grandpa" on the ballot
These days, do people in Hollywood even pay attention to the world outside their little circle, except to write checks to the morally-bankrupt Democratic party?
Rest in peace, Grandpa.
(bio information from NNDB, pic from BoingBoing)
Julius "Groucho" Marx that is. A beautiful quote on politics;
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Groucho was more right than he knew.
Far from having always been the land of the overbearing, incompetent, corrupt, gladhanding, scheming, criminal politician, Pennsylvania was once, as Murray Rothbard wrote, a full-fledged, benevolent anarchy, and prosperous from it;
Anarchism had returned in triumph to Pennsylvania...The Council, again headed by Thomas Lloyd, met but seldom. When a rare meeting was called it did virtually nothing and told William Penn even less. The Assembly also met but rarely. And when Secretary of the colony William Markham...submitted a petition for the levying of taxes to provide some financial help for poor William Penn, the Council totally ignored his request...
Basically, leading Pennsylvanians were too busy making money in honest commerce to worry about trying to pry it out of the purses of their fellows.
Here, we see principled Quaker opposition to war and militarism;
...when Markham asked for a governmental organization of militia ...against a (non-existent) French and Indian threat, the Council...blandly repl(ied) that any people...interested could provide for their defense at their own expense. With the exception of one year, Pennsylvania thus remained in a quasi-anarchist state of taxlessness from its founding in 1681 until the fall of 1696: fourteen glorious years.
However, the weedy tendrils of government kept creeping back;
Governor Markham was only able to push through a tax bill at the end of 1696 by a naked usurpation of the powers of government: decreeing a new constitution of his own, including an appointed Council. Markham was able to purchase the Assembly's support by granting it the power to initiate legislation and also to raise the property requirement for voting in the towns, thus permitting the Quakers to exclude the largely non-Quaker urban poor from having the vote.
This was the beginning of the end - as much trouble as as Democracy is, disenfranchisement is worse;
A libertarian opposition now gathered, led by Arthur Cook ...The opposition gathered a mass petition in March 1697, signed by over a hundred, attacking the imposed constitution, the increase in suffrage requirements in the towns, and particularly the establishment of taxation. ... Robert Turner denounced this threat to "our ancient rights, liberties and freedom." ..But all this was to no avail. Pennsylvania soon slipped into the same archic mould as all the other colonies. The "Holy Experiment" was over.
WOW. We never learned THIS about William Penn's Quaker colony in school!
PS: For those of you who know of Philadelphia and Chester as tax-eating wards of the state (Philadelphia (click the above link, scroll to the bottom of page 13) eats a tidy $1.05 BILLION in state and federal direct revenues per year), the following quote will shock you;
The freemen of Philadelphia and of Chester sent the Assembly petitions strongly protesting the proposed imposition of taxation. They urged the Assembly to keep "their country free from bondage and slavery, and avoiding such ill methods, as may render themselves and posterity liable thereto." Heeding these protests, the Assembly refused to pass a tax law.
GREAT article.
The creepy and spectacularly unprincipled congressman Tom Lantos (D. CA) is behind an investigation of Google for agreeing to provide a censored version of its web browsing and indexing service in China. Apparently Congressman Lantos is concerned about free speech in China. This from a congressman that was an avid supporter of, among many others, that unconstitutional abridgement of the First Amendment known as McCain-Feingold.
Just how creepy and unprincipled Lantos is is illustrated by this golden oldie from Declan McCullaugh's article;
Lantos' (1990) Congressional Human Rights Caucus called as a witness a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, identified only as "Nayirah," who said she saw Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait seize incubators and leave "babies on the cold floor to die." "Nayirah" was lying--she was the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the United States and her appearance was orchestrated by a public relations firm--but her testimony was cited by President George H. W. Bush and used to propel the nation to war against Iraq in 1991.
A quick browse of Lantos' Wikipedia entry shows that even more than his supposed devotion to "open space" (whatever that means), Lantos is a champion of US Imperialism;
Lantos was a supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq as early as September 2002, when, according to a report in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, he told Israeli MP Collette Avital that "You won't have any problem with Saddam, we'll be rid of the bastard soon enough, and in his place we'll install a pro-Western dictator, who will be good for us and for you."
Overall, the image I get of Lantos is not of a dedicated champion of free speech, but rather a portrait of a moral midget who sorely needs to be removed from any position of power.
Not content with targeted policies that kill hundreds of thousands of innocent children, The UN is developing an ever-more grandiose and completely compromised conception of itself - It now believes the solution to all the world's problems lies in global fascism.
Supposedly serious people have signed onto this scheme to socialize the world's resources and transfer them to corporations and other organizations;
PANDEMIC DISEASES
Millions of people across the developing world have died from malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/Aids, as well as from other pandemics. Vaccines needed to avert them require much-needed investment.
SOLUTION: An advance commitment by rich countries to buy $3bn (£1.7bn) worth of vaccines would be enough to encourage pharmaceutical giants to invest in finding medicines that would eliminate these pandemics.
SAVING: $600bn
It's like Donald Rumsfeld (former CEO of Searle Pharmaceuticals) was writing this!
PARIAH STATES
Big business and global money ignore countries where they see the risk of conflict outweighing their potential profit margins.
SOLUTION: Guarantees by international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund to lower the cost of borrowing for poor nations by underwriting investors' loans to conflict-torn states.
SAVING: $22bn
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Sometimes large volumes of cash are needed and this is one. Live8 showed there was huge support among taxpayers for higher aid to countries in distress.
So it's either an internationalized version of Nixon's Overseas Private Investment Corp (OPIC), or else massively increased direct foreign aid. Great, just great. I'd rather Bob Geldof wipe his nose with my money than allow me to use it for something frivolous, like feeding my own children.
There's more, but you get the idea. This is a proposal we ought to stay far, far away from.
