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Facing a cascade of bank failures depleting the deposit insurance fund, federal regulators on Friday raised the fees paid by U.S. financial institutions and levied a hefty emergency premium in a bid to collect $27 billion this year. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. now expects that bank failures will cost the insurance fund around $65 billion through 2013, up from an earlier estimate of $40 billion. The bank failures, 16 already this year following 25 last year, reflect the ravages of rising unemployment and falling home prices that have sent loan defaults soaring. The industry's biggest trade group said the...

Asian stocks tumbled early Monday on the back of Wall Street's losing streak as gloom deepened over the global economy and the health of major banks. Tokyo was down 3.2 percent by lunch and Sydney lost 3.0 percent by midday. Hong Kong opened 2.3 percent lower and Chinese shares were down 1.0 percent. Asian shares started the week on the downbeat note amid worries about the health of large US banks and broader fears over the global economy. In New York last week, the Dow Jones slid 4.1 percent to end Friday at its lowest level since 1997, while the...

We need to slow America down. Slow down, America, and slow down the President and the Congress. Everyone knows that speed kills and haste makes waste. Wonder if the talk shows would be interested in a drive time story? The Tea Party was a good idea, and a massive April 15th showing on the Mall is good too, but how about a wide spread, simple plan to involve everyone with a wish to get active and create an impact without permits, plans, police, out of pocket expense and driving 1,000 miles. And something that could be done right away. Maybe...

Now, if you know what Rule 5 is, you know this is all I can write as the lead-in. If you don't, you will when you click over.

March 2, 2009                                     Monday of the First Week of Lent   Reading 1Responsorial PsalmGospel Reading 1Lv 19:1-2, 11-18 The LORD said to Moses,"Speak to the whole assembly of the children of Israel and tell them:Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy. "You shall not steal.You shall not lie or speak falsely to one another.You shall not swear falsely by my name,thus profaning the name of your God.I am the LORD."You shall not defraud or rob your neighbor.You shall not withhold overnight the wages of your day laborer.You shall...

March 1, 2009 (KHARTOUM) — The Joint Special Representative of the African-Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), Rodolphe Adada, met today in Khartoum with Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Mutrif Siddiq, to discuss "rising tensions on the Chadian-Sudanese border." Sudan-backed rebels and militias have launched attacks on Chad in each of the last three dry seasons, including assaults on the Chadian capital in 2006 and 2008. Currently up to 5,000 rebels are gathering on the Sudan side of the border, an Irish commandant with the Chad-based EUFOR peacekeeping mission disclosed last week. The Irish officer expected the invasion could follow the International...

Dear President Obama, I am writing this letter to explain my concerns about the direction you are leading our nation. Last November, you were elected President of all Americans, not those who voted for you. Now, you are accountable to all of us. When you took the oath of office, you swore to "faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." While I am not a legal scholar, I have read the Constitution many times. The Founders wrote it in...

Britain's former prime minister Tony Blair paid a brief visit to a UN school in the Gaza Strip on Sunday on his first trip to the Hamas-run enclave since being appointed Middle East Quartet envoy. "I wanted to come to hear for myself first-hand from people in Gaza, whose lives have been so badly impacted by the recent conflict," Blair said at the school in the northern town of Beit Hanun. "These are the people who need to be the focus of all our efforts for peace and progress from now on," he said, adding that he would relay what...

Is Barack Obama "A Face in the Crowd"? By Mark Stuart ELLISON On Saturday, June 14, I watched the 1957 Elia Kazan film "A Face in the Crowd" on Turner Classic Movies. I had seen most of it before but was strangely drawn to it again. Instinct told me that the movie had special relevance to the 2008 presidential election, although I didn't know exactly how. After a second viewing, I understood. "A Face in the Crowd" is eerily similar to Barack Obama's candidacy. Although I came to this conclusion on my own, I am not the first person to...

BARACK Obama yesterday declared his vast schedule of higher taxes and massive spending was a fundamental reordering of federal priorities that would deliver "the sweeping change that this country demanded when it went to the polls in November", underscoring a budget plan that marks the biggest ideological shift in Washington since the Reagan administration.

Speaking to a packed room at the opening day of CPAC in Washington D.C. yesterday, former UN Ambassador John Bolton warned convention attendees of something he believes "goes to the heart of the Obama administration" and that will affect not only us but our children and grandchildren. No, not the stimulus bill (although that’s a good guess) - it's what he termed "the coming war on American sovereignty." The problem, he said, is that liberals believe differences in policies that affect Americans shouldn't be debated here at home, but on the international stage - and we can expect it to...

Do you think you've hit bottom? Oh, no. There's a bottom below. - Malvina Reynolds To begin with after the end of a house price bubble homeowners feel that they have some sort of entitlement to the previous high value of their homes. If they can't get it, they often won't accept lower offers. So, previously established highs tend to be "sticky". This is exemplified by the trend of sales shown in Berkeley, CA, multiple listing data between the late 1960's and early 1980's. Sales volume went down. Inventory went up. Prices didn't drop. There is also normally a "resistance...

Christopher Hill, whom US President Barack Obama has named as the new ambassador to Iraq, has a reputation as a shrewd career diplomat who has tackled some of the thorniest international problems. Hill, a media-friendly diplomat, has served as the lead negotiator in efforts to scrap North Korea's nuclear programs and as a top negotiator for the Dayton Peace Accords ending the war in Bosnia. In announcing his appointment Friday, which must still be confirmed by the US Senate, Obama said "Ambassador Hill has been tested, and he has shown the pragmatism and skill that we need right now." Unlike...

Hillary Clinton starts her first tour of the Middle East as Secretary of State today with a mandate to reinvigorate collapsed peace talks. She will find, however, that support for a two-state solution – the central plank in US-led efforts to tackle the crisis for almost two decades – is at a record low. Not only is it waning on the Israeli side, which is under the new leadership of the right-wing hawk Binyamin Netanyahu, but it is also collapsing among Palestinians, who increasingly view the Oslo peace process, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) that was formed under it, as...

The battle is on for the future of the Republican party. Will it be a conservative alternative with a pro-American message distinct from the socialism of the Democrats, or will it be Democrat-lite? The White House, unable to let Rush speak without responding, weighed in today. It's disturbing to see the White House singling out any American citizen for criticism... but also quite fascinating. Rush's CPAC speech has Rahmbo telling CBS's Sunday morning mind melt show host Bob Schaeffer how he sure hopes Republicans don't follow the lead of people like Rush Limbaugh... for the country's good, of course. GOPers...

Despite a ban on nonessential travel, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's top administrative officials charged taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars for airfare, hotel stays and meals with virtually no oversight, according to a published report. Expense reports and calendars for 10 high-ranking staff members from Southern California — including three cabinet members — show many of the expenses were incurred after the governor issued an executive order a year ago requiring state agencies to reduce travel costs due to California's budget crisis, the Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site late Friday. ....Carrie Lopez, the director of the Department of...

MAYVILLE — The county’s investment portfolio remains strong in spite of havoc throughout the U.S. financial sector. As of December, the county earned $4.6 million off its investments in 2008, money that offsets property taxes. That was an $866,000 increase over the previous month as the county’s investment portfolio remains relatively shielded from the financial turmoil that has left so many investors with huge losses following Wall Street’s meltdown. The county’s investment insulation is largely thanks to a decision made years ago to invest in a certain type of security, according to Darin Schulz, county finance director. ‘‘One thing that’s...

Making the world 'Judenstaatrein' By IRWIN COTLER Feb 23, 2009 Some 125 parliamentarians gathered together last week for the historic founding conference of the Interparliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism (ICCA), brought together by a new sophisticated, globalizing, virulent and even lethal anti-Semitism reminiscent of the atmospherics of the 1930s, and without parallel or precedent since the end of World War II. The new anti-Jewishness overlaps with classical anti-Semitism but is distinguishable from it. It found early juridical, and even institutional, expression in the UN's "Zionism is racism" resolution - which the late US senator Daniel Moynihan said "gave the abomination...

A Chinese lunar probe has crashed into the moon in what Beijing has called a controlled collision. The Chang'e 1 lunar satellite hit the moon's surface at 1613 local time (0813 GMT) at the end of a 16-month moon-mapping mission. China launched the spacecraft in late October 2007 on a mission to survey the entire surface of the moon. China's ever-more ambitious space programme includes plans for a space station and landing a man on the moon.

"Men losing more jobs than women has been the case in every recession since the early '80s, which was the first time we saw this massive structural switch away from manufacturing," Boushey said. "The losses are much sharper now, and the gap between men and women's unemployment rates has never been as high" in the past quarter-century.