Day: July 6, 2011

Boy, Is The Media Pissed!

For years I have been bitching about the media and how it has started driving news instead of reporting……the media faces do more editorializing than reporting…..and when they are caught with their drawers down….they get pissed!

And they are pissed now!

First, the news story of the abuse by DSK, you know that French dude that attacked a chamber maid, come to find out after a couple of months the case against him is falling apart….he may not be the pig that the media wanted him to be…I am not saying that he is NOT a pig but that the story driven by the media may be completely wrong….  It seems his accuser may not be telling the truth, the whole truth, so help her God!  The media got it wrong!

And by now everyone has heard the news that Casey Anthony was found Not Guilty of killing her child…..for months and years we were bombarded by the media with every minute detail of the evidence and lastly the long trial…..even to the point that news ceased to exist with the exception of her trial…..media drove this story for years….they had her convicted in the court of public opinion and now they were once again found with crap on their faces…..and the media is pissed!

I am NOT going to say that Anthony did not kill her child, just that in the eyes of the law she is Not Guilty….she may walk but for the rest of her life she will be linked to OJ….comparisons and such will forever dog her…thanx to the media she will FOREVER be guilty of killing her child…….please before everyone starts accusing me of whatever……I am NOT defending her in any way….just pointing out that the media has tried to convict 2 people in the last couple of years and has failed to do so…..the media is pissed!

Regardless of how you feel about Anthony, whether she is guilty or innocent, her life as she knew it is OVER!  Her options are very limited…..she will not be able to live a so-called “normal” life…..she will most likely make a porn tape, get involved with drugs and be dead within 5 years….so I guess that all those that have bought into her guilt will eventually have their revenge or as they call it…..JUSTICE.

Will the media learn from these two failures to control the story outcome?  Doubtful, they are like politicians…they do NOTHING wrong…it is not their responsibility to report news only!  They want to control the news not report it…..and now the media is pissed!

Yet Another Greek Post

Inkwell Institute

European Desk

I know….we all are well aware of the problems that Greece is having……socially, economic and political……….violence, forced austerity and dissension……people having to pay for the problems created by a government…. that is pretty much always the case……

The EU and IMF plan is that Greece needs to cut spending, suspend benefits and to sell off as much as possible of the governments assets….like airports or bridges or toll roads….etc…..but there is a problem…..

As reported in UK’s Guardian……

Up for sale are 39 airports, 850 ports, railways, motorways, sewage works, a couple of energy companies, banks, defence groups, thousands of acres of land for development, casinos and Greece’s national lottery. George Christodoulakis, Greece’s special secretary for asset restructuring and privatisations, said the sell-off would raise €50bn (£44bn) to help pay back the country’s €110bn bailout debt.

The private equity bosses gathered in the hotel’s ballroom for the parade of Greece’s national treasures showed little interest in buying anything.

But why would rock bottom prices for assets not be attractive to speculators and developers?

Aref Lahham, managing director and founding partner of Orion Capital Managers, said most private equity firms would not buy Greek assets because the “risks are too high”. He added: “I think people will not buy those assets, that is the sad truth.”

Lahham said more than half of the assets up for sale comprises land for commercial or residential development, which is unattractive because of the difficulty of securing financing to build in Greece. His firm was attracted by the potential of Greek tourism but legislation made it difficult for foreign companies to develop the country’s islands and beaches. “Greece is a fantastic tourism destination with very undeveloped infrastructure. There isn’t a Four Seasons or a Shangri-La or a Peninsula or any of the major hotel chains in Greece,” he said. “It’s strange, they would love to be there and we would love to build it for them, but somehow regulations don’t allow you to do so.”

To me that sounds like the people with the cash want to eliminate any regulations that would keep them honest…….kinda like the big corporations in the US…….in a recent vote even more austerity measures have been approved by the Greek parliament……and since the first round of austerity was not as productive as anticipated….I ask what happens if this round is not successful?

The claim that “healing” and “renewed growth” will come from the further suppression of wages, deeper government spending cuts and the sell-off of government-owned assets is a contemptible lie as millions of people know through their own bitter experiences. The austerity measures of the past year—also introduced with the promise of “recovery”—have seen a rapid economic contraction and rising unemployment. But rather than bring down the level of debt, the ratio of debt to gross domestic product has continued to rise and is heading to 160 percent.

Who will pay the next round?  Will the people be cut even deeper?  The people have little left to be taken away….or maybe this time they can have the people work for free and to keep working until they drop dead….now that would settle a bunch of costs to the government……Greece is being RAPED!

I swear if I was a hard core conspiracist I would say that this is a world wide plan to eliminate the middle class and to return us back to the days of serfdoms…..(now that sounds like a future post in the making)…….

Do They Have Buyer’s Remorse?

Inkwell Institute

Eastern European Desk

There are great speeches in history like Gettysburg Address, or FDR’s Day of Infamy speech…but the one I want to talk about is the “Tear Down This Wall” speech given by Reagan in Berlin in 1987…in case you are fuzzy…..he stood by the Berlin Wall and ask the Soviet premier to tear down the wall…there was lots more to the speech but that is the part that people, mostly Repubs want to remember…kinda like the “give me liberty” speech by Henry…all that is remembered by most Americans is some slogan fit for a bumper sticker……..

Reagan rambled on and on about the Cold War, the Iron Curtain, missiles, Asia….but the part that I remember most was when he was addressing the USSR and its lack of freedom………

Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.

About two years after his speech the E. German authority opened the wall up and it was truly torn down……a great day…especially for Repubs they could claim their ideology was the cause of the collapse of the USSR………

Meanwhile back to the quote….with the fall of communism the whole region of Eastern Europe opened up to the idea of capitalism, which some equate with freedom……..but after about 20+ years of capitalism what has Eastern Europe learned?

Pick a country….any country…..say ….Hungary….what is happening there with all this freedom and democracy?  A Pew Research poll shows…….

With parliamentary elections approaching, Hungarians are in a funk. Nearly unanimously, they say the economy is in bad shape, and a stunning 72% say most Hungarians are actually worse off now economically than they were under communism. But Hungary’s malaise is not all about economics — most are frustrated with politics too. Overwhelmingly, Hungarians are dissatisfied with the way democracy is working and discontent with political elites, with about three-in-four saying political corruption is a major problem. A fall 2009 survey by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project highlights the degree to which, even in a region where disillusionment is common, Hungarians stand out.

All of this bodes well for the electoral prospects of Fidesz, the right-of-center opposition party, which is expected to soundly defeat the incumbent social democrats in the upcoming elections.1 However, these findings do not mean Hungarians are rejecting democratic values. In fact, as the survey illustrates, they are more likely than other former Eastern bloc publics to say it is very important to live in a country with democratic rights and institutions. But few believe Hungary currently has these democratic freedoms.

In the 2009 poll, more than three-in-four (77%) said they were dissatisfied with the way democracy is working in Hungary, the highest percentage on the survey. In the other former Eastern bloc nations, there were notable generation gaps on this question, with people under age 40 — essentially, the “post-communist” generation — more likely to be satisfied than older respondents. Not so, however, in Hungary, where old and young alike tended to give the current state of democracy a grim assessment.

As with any so-called democratic country, Hungary’s new constitution is in contention……a report in the BBC……

The legal and constitutional experts said the charter was rushed through without proper debate.

They said the governing Fidesz party could use its two-thirds majority in parliament to push through laws which might prove impossible to overturn.

This meant, they said, “the principle of democracy itself is at risk”.

They also said other social issues – including the rights of the unborn child, marriage between a man and a woman, and the definition of life sentences – “should be left to the ethical debates within society” rather than enshrined in the constitution.the new constitution

Hungary has a right of center government…….actually it is more nationalistic…..and we know what that means….right?

There is growing resentment for capitalism in the Eastern bloc (to use an old Cold War term)….it is becoming more and more clear that the people are not better off with capitalism…that they may NOT be freer with capitalism…..and the population may NOT be more prosperous with capitalism…..one problem is that old hatreds are becoming more and more to the forefront of politics……..so some are having a bout with buyer’s remorse…..