Tom Hayden reminds us of Hillary's radical roots

Former Michigander Tom Hayden, an author of the Port Huron Statement of the Sixties, writes in The Nation about how disingenuous Hillary is being by piling on in attempts to tie Barack Obama to Sixties' radicals.

As Obama noted, he was only eight years old when the Weathermen were active. But he did not point out, as some think he should, that Hillary Clinton was a radical back then -- something that the "right-wing attack machine" is holding in reserve if she gets the nod for the fall election.

After leaving Yale, newly minted lawyer Hillary went to work for a left-wing San Francisco firm that specialized in defending the Black Panthers and labor leaders tied to Communist causes. Those facts may make me wish Hillary were more like she once was. But they also show that people change and that you cannot be judged by the actions of every friend or family member. (Though I am not sure I can forgive Hillary for sticking with Bill, especially now.)

As Hayden writes:

. . . doesn't she see how the Hillary of today would accuse the Hillary of the sixties of associating with black revolutionaries who fought gun battles with police officers, and defending pro-communist lawyers who backed communists? Doesn't the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whom Hillary attacks today, represent the very essence of the black radicals Hillary was associating with in those days? And isn't the Hillary of today becoming the same kind of guilt-by-association insinuator as the Richard Nixon she worked to impeach?

I am glad to see Obama remaining above the fray, but I hope that Hayden's comments get a wide play. The argument that the right has thrown everything at Hillary belies the fact that they haven't even started.

First sign that the Dem establishment will give it to Hillary?

I just watched in horror as Howard Dean told the "Meet the Press" audience this morning that the Dem race is a virtual tie. A tie?

As Politico et al have explained, there is simply no way under the prevailing rules that Hillary Clinton can catch and then overtake Barack Obama in the remaining primaries. Tie? A tie where superdelegates should break the tie by choosing the person on the basis of who is perceived as most electable? Is that code for the black man cannot win, so give it to Hillary?

Rep. James Clyburn notes that many African Americans are worried that this is the "graybeards" of the party finding a way to rob the upstart black man of the nomination. Hillary is the mainstream candidate, arm twisting the superdelegates with promises of favors and threats of retribution - made all the more credible by years of doing just that. All Obama is offering is hope of a better society.

So is this a sign that the party elders are going to do whatever it takes to give Hillary a shot, even though her negatives are so high that they give John McCain a real shot in the fall? And will mainstream media collude because they love to keep the race going?

As Clyburn rightly noted, the idea that whites are the swing vote that should decide the race treats black voters as irrelevant. Why isn't anyone asking why Hillary no longer does as well with black voters as she once did?

No Democrat can win in the fall without the black vote. So why doesn't it matter that Hillary is threatening to bring the party down with the divisive tactics her campaign has been using, especially husband Bill?

If Howard Dean and his pals end up giving the nod to Hillary, then I will wonder why I ever returned to the fold after going to the Green Party in 2000.

Home price drop worst ever - check yours

Check your home's current value at Cyberhomes.com

Home prices in the United States fell 11.4% last month, the worst drop since Standard & Poors began tracking them in 1987. A broader composite of cities shows home prices falling 10.7%, the first time both indices have ever fallen by double digits.

I checked my home on Cyberhomes and found it has dropped $22,770 just last month. I don't know about you, but I can't make that up by turning down the thermostat to the point where I turn blue.

Cyberhomes says my home would sell today for between $179,091 - $228,838, so the drop reflects what Standard & Poor's is reporting. Since I am 63 and have hopes of retiring someday without being forced to dine exclusively on dog food, losing more than a tenth of the value of my major asset is disconcerting, to say the least.

Pocketbook politics means me even more upset with the Clinton's continuing ego quest to win the nomination for Hillary at any cost.

David Brook's column in the New York Times today says that Hillary's 10% chance of winning the nomination is now down to 5%. Given the choice between McCain, who admits he's no good on the economy, and Barack Obama, Hillary and Bill apparently have no qualms about conducting a scorched-earth campaign that risks handing McCain a victory in the fall.

On "Morning Joe" on MSNBC this morning, Chris Matthews proposes that the Clintons would prefer a one-term McCain presidency to a possible two-term Obama presidency, if Hillary cannot get the nomination this time. Matthews is suggesting that the Clintons are so ruthless that they will do whatever they can to set up Hillary for the next time, if she cannot win this time, even if it means electing a Republican in the fall.

Now that's Hardball.

And that's reprehensible.

And it must be stopped before the bottom completely falls out of my home's value.

It's time for Howard Dean et al in the Democratic Party to find a way to put a stake through the heart of the Clinton candidacy at the end of the primary season in June, at the latest. Waiting until the convention in August is a surefire way to weaken the Democratic candidate to the point of unelectability.

Guiding the U.S. economy through the dangerous shoals of a falling dollar, a ballooning trade deficit, continuing losses in manufacturing jobs and dramatic rises in energy and food prices, on top of the crisis in housing, requires focusing on what the candidates propose to do about the economy.

Yes, I know Hillary embellished the dangers she faced in Tuzla a dozen years ago. But, as Dick Cheney would say, So? It's time for the media to stop trafficking in trivia, even when today's news benefits my guy.

Before the housing market collapses completely, let's get back on track and start talking about what government can do to turn this around, other than bailing out the big boys on Wall Street, while fobbing me off with $600 I will have to wait months to collect.

Economic predictions sound familiar - meanwhile BBC shows us the new Hoovervilles

CNBC superstars Erin Burnett ("Street Signs") and Maria Baritromo ("Closing Bell with Maria Bartiromo) just appeared on "Meet the Press" where they (mostly) assured everyone that the economy looks good in the long run and how much better off you will be if you put your money in stocks.

Money Honey Bartiromo said that the Federal Reserve and international banks have made it clear they will do whatever it takes to avert disaster. Up-and-comer Burnett hinted that there are some who fear that doing everything may not be enough to stave off nasty surprises.

An editorial in Gold Eagle by Colin Seymour in 2001 saved me the trouble of looking up reassuring predictions from the past. Here are a few of the 20 entries Seymour gathered:

- "There will be no interruption of our permanent prosperity." - Myron E. Forbes, President, Pierce Arrow Motor Car Co., January 12, 1928

- "We feel that fundamentally Wall Street is sound, and that for people who can afford to pay for them outright, good stocks are cheap at these prices." - Goodbody and Company market-letter quoted in The New York Times, Friday, October 25, 1929

- "I am convinced that through these measures we have reestablished confidence." - Herbert Hoover, December 1929

- "There is nothing in the situation to be disturbed about." - Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, Feb 1930

- "... the present depression has about spent its force..." - Harvard Economic Society, Aug 30, 1930

- "All safe deposit boxes in banks or financial institutions have been sealed... and may only be opened in the presence of an agent of the I.R.S." - President F.D. Roosevelt, 1933

- - - - - -

My goal is not to foment panic. After all, economic prosperity depends on everyone maintaining faith in the system, and I have a retirement account to protect.

But I, for one, am weary of having my security threatened by a two-party system with one position on the economy, which is to allow corporate America to call the shots without any real regulation.

Remember the Savings and Loan scandal? Weren't we supposed to learn some lessons from that?

Republicans and Democrats colluded in passing NAFTA without requiring other countries to meet our environmental and labor standards, guaranteeing the playing field for manufacturing jobs would tilt elsewhere. Then there was the Internet bubble, the Enron energy bubble and now the housing bubble.

Remember the old song called "I'm forever blowing bubbles - pretty bubbles in the air"?

When the bubbles burst, tax dollars are used to mop up the fallout on corporations, but not on citizens. And our corporate media colludes in offering reassurances rather than analysis.

Congratulations to the BBC for showing us the tent cities springing up in our country. And thanks to the Internet for allowing us a way to see real reporting again.

A break from politics - or maybe not?

Click on the little doggie, and she will take you to a place where you can give her commands. (Don't forget to ask for a "kiss.")

The first time I asked her to vote for Obama, and she told me to "Please put that in dog-friendly language." The second time, she said, "That is beyond my abilities.

I wonder what she would say about Hillary? Recognize another b----? (As Barbara Bush would say, "Rhymes with rich.")

Gotcha! Federal Reserve HAS been bailing out the banks without telling us!

Reuters now has a report from The Financial Times explaining that banks have quietly borrowed roughly $50 billion from the Federal Reserve the past few weeks.

Please note that on February 7, this blogger noted that the report on the Federal Reserve website showed that more than $40 billion had disappeared from the books in just the past few weeks. (Thanks again to all my paranoid (but eagle-eyed) buddies at the Godlike Productions forum for spotting the strange goings on.)

The Fed site shows that its reserves had tumbled from $42,281 billion in the black during November to -$8749 billion in the red by February 7. As of February 13, they are now down to -$18,009 billion. According to the records on the Fed site, nothing like this has ever happened before.

Aren't these the reserves designed to protect us against bank runs and insolvency? Does this mean we're broke but nobody has bothered to tell us yet?

I do want to thank the vigilant citizen journalist watchdogs who are keeping on eye on the big boys for us. But I also want to know how a meltdown of these proportions could go unnoticed by the mainstream financial press.

Even now, with word of the bailout beginning to leak out, where is the analysis telling us what it means?

The Financial Times fails to answer my bottom-line question - is it time to put my money in gold -- or in my mattress?

Marrying John didn't make Yoko a great singer and marrying Bill . . .

Erica Jong argues in the Huffington Post that the Hillary-Haters are ruining the chances for us to have the first woman president in the United States. She views women for Obama as turncoats. "Ok folks, stick your heads in the sand like Maureen Dowd who thinks we're not against women but just against Clinton 'baggage.'"

What Jong and many other old-line feminists ignore is that believing that a woman should have an equal shot at being president does not mean that every woman is the right choice for the job. Again, marrying John didn't make Yoko a Beatle or a great singer. And marrying Bill didn't make Hillary a great politician or a potentially great president either.

The problem with the Clintons is baggage. Pointing out the failures of the Clinton co-presidency is not evidence of Hillary-hating, it's proof of a good memory, coupled with an overwhelming desire not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

On January 31, the New York Times ran an article about how Bill Clinton took Canadian mining exec Frank Giustra with him to Kazakhstan, where two days later Giustra walked off with three spectacular contracts for uranium. Shortly thereafter, Giustra donated $31 million to the Clinton Library (or patronage slush fund, if you prefer), with a promise of $100 million more.

Barack Obama may not need to use this ammo to derail Hillary's presidential aspirations. He seems to be doing just fine rolling along above the fray. But can you imagine what the Republicans could do with that in a fall campaign? Even today's Hillary-lovers might recover from their current amnesia and remember why she's ultimately unelectable no matter which gender she is.

Some of Hillary's high negatives stem from misogyny, which remains a sad reality. There are also white folks who will never vote for Barack Obama no matter how qualified and talented he is, and that is equally sad.

But sympathy for discrimination is not a good enough reason to vote for a woman who is not the right choice for the job. The worst thing in the world would be for women to push Hillary over the top now only to have her fail in the fall and elect President McCain.

A trend whose time has not come

I am old enough to remember the beehives of the Fifties. Maybe someone as hot/cool at Amy Winehouse can wear her hair piled high, but Cindy McCain has been looking a little odd lately, with that French twist thingie creeping up the back of her head. And we all remember those painful years when Hillary's hair shaped-shifted from one dorky 'do to another. Let's nip this new trend in the bud before it spreads any further.

A new future for Michigan

Note to Michigan Future: If you want credibility in talking about high-tech jobs, invest in a better-looking Web site.

A new study by Michigan Future Inc. finds that Detroit, Grand Rapids and Lansing are falling behind the rest of the country in creating high-level jobs. The report argues that recent MIchigan government policies, such as cutting corporate taxes and dis-investing in higher education, are the wrong medicine for what ails us.

It is sad that The Detroit News, the Republican business paper, embraces the know-nothing strategies that actually drive good jobs from Michigan. There's the cut-taxes mantra. Equally as short-sighted is the rigid orthodoxy that lowering CAFE standards is bad for the car business.

Sorry, Henry, but the lesson of the Seventies was that smart car companies should focus on building fuel-efficient, reliable cars. Detroit's Big Three instead invested in manufacturing pickup trucks on steroids they sold to insecure males desperate to flaunt something big. Or SUVs/Hummers for soccer moms who mistakenly think they're safer. These gas-guzzling monsters are simply this era's equivalent of the fin-tailed, chrome-clotted land-monsters that put Detroit and Flint into the economic dumper the first time that gas prices spiked as a result of Middle East misadventures.

The first time is tragedy, the second time farce. So why aren't we laughing?

Edwards' withdrawal could boost Obama

A real surprise - John Edwards will end his campaign in New Orleans today. He has decided that he will no longer serve as the port where frightened Democratic white male voters can safely shelter their vote. Even though these guys knew Edwards couldn't win, his candidacy was a way for them to reject Hillary without having to take a gamble on Obama.

Now Democratic voters must choose between Hillary or Obama -- and they will have their first chance to see them go head to head in the upcoming debate.

Perhaps there is still time for Obama to win. Voters who think Hillary is the safe choice may realize that there's a good reason that the Republicans are salivating at the thought of running against her. She has the highest negatives of any presidential candidate in recent memory.

If McCain gets the Republican nod, the race will pit a Nixonian Evita against a shorter, older John Wayne. But if the race comes down to Obama versus McCain, it will be the past versus the future, peace versus war, jobs versus guns.

The challenge for Obama is that there is not much time for voters to digest all this before next week's SuperDuper Tuesday. Thank God for the 24-hour news cycle and the Internet.

STATE OF THE UNION - A voter ID boondoggle that would make the KGB proud

Why aren't Republicans whining about voter fraud during the primaries? Down deep, do they know that there is actually little or no real problem with people showing up to vote who shouldn't be?

JURIST reported last year that a federal panel found the only voter fraud occurs with absentee ballots. (The fact that the report was completed in May but wasn't released until October also suggests the Republican administration didn't like the findings.)

Yet voter ID will undoubtedly be a big issue for Republicans this fall. (Karl Rove can be counted on to perpetuate the hoax.) Note that part of Bush's desultory State of the Union message last night talked about giving employers "the tools" they need to ensure their workers are not illegal immigrants. As BBC reporter Greg Palast blogs, that's code for a kajillion-dollar government giveaway to cronies to build a citizen ID database, preferably one that tracks our fingerprints, DNA and retinal scans (maybe even some face recognition?).

This bill of goods that will shred our Bill of Rights will be sold as a way to ensure none of those pesky illegal immigrants steal our jobs or dilute our votes. Right-wing radio will whip listeners into a frenzy at the thought that hordes of "illegals" will spill across the border straight into the polls to pull the lever for the (female or black) Democratic nominee this fall. The horror. The horror.

What the citizen ID program will really do, of course, is make it easier for the federal government to spy on us. And if you think the Dems will save us from such evils, keep an eye this Friday to see if the Democrats cave to Bush's demands that Congress pass legislation to indemnify the big telcos against lawsuits for the illegal spying on us that they have already done.

At least in Iraq, people who care get to vote. They even get the day off work to do so. Our system instead puts every possible obstacle in the way of people at the bottom of the economic pile. Applying for a new federal ID card is just the latest version of the old-fashioned poll test. Makes you wonder when and if democracy will ever become a priority here, too.

DTRT MYR SCNDL - 1 dwn - 1 2 go?

The text-messaging mayor remains hunkered down in his mansion, planning how to avoid facing the music. As always, it is the woman who steps down. (The persistence of the glass ceiling keeps women in the lesser-ranked jobs -- so there's no question that a Monica would go, not a Bill.)

At some point, Mayor Kilpatrick will emerge and hiphop his way through a press conference, arguing that the official investigation precludes him from commenting. So unless Prosecutor Kym Worthy can get the goods on him, don't buy any wolf tickets that promise Hizzoner will go away anytime soon.

Will a corrupt delegates system give the Clintons an undeserved win?

As both the Democratic and Republican primaries tighten, political junkies like me will start tallying up how many delegates each candidate has. (After last night, the interactive MSNBC toteboard shows Obama with 63 delegates to Clinton's 48. Meanwhile Romney has 59 delegates, compared to Huckabee's 40. "Frontrunner" McCain has only 36.)

But don't bother paying too much attention to those running totals. It's the "superdelegates" (for the Dems) and the "unpledged delegates" (for the Republicans) who may well decide both races. (To learn more about how the two parties choose and allocate delegates, consult the SFgate.com article that tries to make these murky rules comprehensible.)

Awarding someone superdelegate or unpledged status is a way to reward party bigshots, at the same time it also means that they could swing the outcome. When Governor Janet Napolitano endorsed Barack Obama, not only did that win him a few positive headlines when the announcement was made, but she's also a superdelegate whose vote therefore can be counted in his column if there's a convention showdown.

According to the Minnesota Monitor,the Dems have assigned 796 (19%) of the 4,090 primary delegates "superdelegate" status. The Republicans have 463 unpledged delegates (19%) out of 2,380 total (and of those unpledged, 123 are members of the Republican National Committee). Bottom line is that one out of every five votes at the convention will be cast by people who have no requirement to reflect the will of the voters.

The history of primary voting in the United States has long been a battle between democracy and power politics. Sadly, ever since the "power to the people" Sixties, the pendulum has been swinging back to giving party hacks more power, to the point where the system in place today makes the old Soviet Union look like a bastion of democracy in comparison.

I am old enough to remember seeing Mayor Daley's red-faced machinations to ensure Hubert Humphrey became the Democratic nominee in 1968, even though I was watching him on a black-and-white TV. Revulsion at that kind of politics in the Sixties briefly made us a more democratic country. And, for the most part, primary elections since have not been tight enough for voters to realize how much our people power has eroded since.

This could be the year we will see how much we've lost. On the Republican side, imagine the kinds of games that the Establishment Republicans will play if Mike Huckabee comes anywhere near the number needed to be nominated.

The more dangerous and divisive possibility, however, is that Obama could be robbed of the nomination by the ruthless Clinton machine. Can't you see Terry McAuliffe threatening superdelegates with the political equivalent of homicide to ensure the final votes go Hillary's way?

Does anyone doubt that the Clintons would do this? Would they even flinch?

Is it just me or does today's Democratic race echo 1968?The entry in Wikipedia about that contest decades ago reminds us that we never had the chance to find out whether Bobby Kennedy would have received the nod. Before his assassination in Los Angeles during the California primary, Kennedy had won four primaries to Eugene McCarthy's five. Hubert Humphrey did not compete, instead using "favorite son" surrogates to gain delegates he could count on.

Some historians believe Kennedy's charisma would have carried him to the nomination. More objective observers such as Tom Wicker of the New York Times insisted that Humphrey had enough delegates to win and would not have given up the nomination no matter what.

On many levels, I worry that we could be watching a similar scenario unfold today. My biggest fear is that we will return to the political bloodshed of the past. There is something unnerving about having Caroline Kennedy and (probably) Teddy Kennedy, the remaining icons of the Jack/Bobby legacy, endorse Barack Obama.

My second-biggest fear is that we will again see youthful idealism crushed by politics as usual if the relentless Clinton machine is not derailed in time.

This past week proves that the Clintons have no shame. The next few weeks will show whether women voters can see past their gender loyalty to Hillary Clinton and deny her the delegates needed to make it close enough so that the superdelegates matter.

Anyone who cares about the future knows those young people behind Barack Obama last night are the emerging heart of the Democratic Party. I don't want to play Cassandra and jinx the outcome, but if Hillary Clinton ends up winning the nomination by manipulating the superdelegate count, she and Bill will preside over the death of the Democratic Party.

On the one hand, I am energized at the thought that hope will triumph. On the other hand, however, I can feel my heart in my throat.

Hill-Billy, go home

How can the Dems avert a disaster this fall? Find a way to dump Hill-Billy in the primaries.

When I see our former president, with his W. C. Fields nose, in his shiny gray suit with the neon orange tie, he looks like the kind of guy who would seduce a self-absorbed young intern into playing sexual tricks with him and a cigar.

But I remember feeling guilty when I first had these thoughts about Bill. How could I be so trivial, so superficial? But then Bill became the self-anointed Hillary hatchetman. To help Hillary win, Bill is willing to slime Barack Obama himself himself, no matter how undignified this is for a former president. And now I just want Hill-Billy gone.

There is no doubt in my mind that, if we don't stop them, Bill and Hillary will become the stars of a new low-rent soap opera that we will be forced to watch for four more years, four more years. Bill Clinton has proven himself willing to distort, if not outright lie, about Barack Obama, unleashing the same scorched earth assaults that he levied against the "nuts and sluts" who stood in his way before. According to a new poll on CNN, Bill Clinton's attempts to paint Obama as the black candidate mean that Barack will win South Carolina, but with only 10% of the white vote, far lower than his share in Iowa and New Hampshire.

A pundit this morning (too early for me to remember who) said that the Clintons had gone so far that they must plan on offering Obama the veep slot, because it's the only hope they will have of securing the black vote in the fall.

No mas. Let's end it. Make sure that the Clintons take a drubbing on SuperDuper Tuesday. If they aren't stopped, it will be Washington business as usual for the the foreseeable future. It's time to turn a new page.

Bush and Dems destroy stimulus plan

I should worry that I find myself agreeing with more and more of my Detroit News blogmates. But George Bullard is right that the stimulus/tax rebate plan won't do much good.

As economist Paul Krugman explains in the New York Times, the Dems caved on a stimulus plan that would have worked, by putting the money into the hands of people who need it and will spend it. A sensible plan would have included extending unemployment benefits, or paying folks good wages to rebuild our infrastructure, or targeting the money to low-income people.

But the Republicans fixation on taxes taxes taxes and the Democrats timidity and lack of vision conspired to produce a plan that risks spending $140 billion on a plan less likely to work than the alternatives that were quickly rejected. When Mitt Romney droned on last night about how our economy sucks because Washington is broken, we all know that he would be yet another MBA without a clue about the lives of real people.

Did you hear Romney talk about how great the stock market plunge was? While the rest of us worried that our retirement money was eroding to the point we could look forward to dining on dog food, Squire Romney looked upon the disaster as a great "buying opportunity."

But no wonder the multimillionaire Romney isn't worried. He has his money tax sheltered in the Cayman Islands, so that he doesn't have to pay income tax on it like the little people.

NYT endorsements (they were wrong on WMD, too)

Arguing that Hillary deserves the nod because she's ready from day one, the New York Times has just endorsed Hillary Clinton as their choice for the Democratic nomination. Equally as non-sensically, the NYT also endorsed John McCain arguing that the fractious senator is a consensus-builder who knows how to work well with others.

A fall election campaign from hell! The battle-axe and the bulldog. Is this really the best the United States can come up with after spending millions on primaries that defy reason? Or is this just another example of the establishment closing ranks?

Kwame, Bill and intellectual consistency

I agree with my Detroit News blogmate Henry Payne that the Free Press should not try to have it both ways. The newspaper's editorial board cannot logically argue that Kwame should go for lying under oath when they previously argued that Bill Clinton deserved pass for similar transgressions. However, it is with no great joy that I am being consistent in saying that both men should go.

Lying under oath about a material issue is lying under oath.
The issue for me is equity. If it were Bonnie Bucqueroux or Lil' Kim fibbing under oath, we would end up doing time (as Lil' Kim did). The argument that either Bill and Kwame somehow deserve to escape punishment just because the issue is adultery fails to move me.

In Bill's case, his sin was compounded when he signed legislation that criminalized the workplace harassment that he then lied about in the Paula Jones' case. Serial lying blended with hypocrisy compounded with sexual harassment means that the case cannot be dismissed as "just about sex."

Last I knew, Kwame has not spent much time pandering to the feminist vote as Bill did, but he made a bad situation worse by putting both his arrogance and his adultery on the taxpayer's tab. Settling the case brought about by his unscrupulous behavior in suppressing information about his private life cost Detroiters $9 million they don't have to waste on his peccadilloes.

If consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, put me down for a tiny hat size. I think both men deserve to be broomed off the stage, the sooner the better. Watching Bill Clinton tarnish his already tainted reputation makes me wish that we had seen the last of him long ago.

We do need a new kind of politics.

Kiss my bottom

Market analysts like Jim Cramer seem elated at the thought that the stock market has "bottomed." Cramer's eyes glistened and gleamed tonight on his CNBC show "Mad Money." Time for the piggies to head back to the greed trough!

But there is another school of thought, the gloom and doomers (of whom I am a charter member) who foresee a different future. Global warming, with its violent weather, emerging diseases, drought, wildfires and economic dislocations. Then there's also Peak Oil - the argument that we are on the downslope of depleting the world's oil supplies, and that our commuter-based suburban lifestyle will soon become untenable.

James Kunstler, the best author in this apocalyptic mini-genre, will follow up his book "The Long Emergency" with a novel at the end of February called World Made by Hand. This new book explores how our world will shrink to the point where we can only know and care about what we can walk to. In a blog about his predictions for 2008, Kunstler argues that we can no longer sustain our wasteful ways. "Has there ever been a society so exquisitely rigged for implosion? The whole listing, creaking, reeking edifice stands like one of those obsolete Las Vegas pleasure palaces awaiting a mere pulse of electrons to ignite a thousand explosive charges perfectly placed to blow away the structural supports."

BBC reporter Greg Palast, author of the rollicking read "Armed Madhouse," recently blogged about the inevitable economic unraveling that is now a question of when, not if. His latest screed explains how the Saudis now own us, lock, stock and barrel (of oil), now that we owe $3 trillion to China, Saudi Arabia and Japan who hold the paper on our national debt.

So before heaving a sigh of relief that the economic meltdown has been averted, take a moment to read these oracles who remind us that the slide is only beginning.