Free Republic

Fox says Satellite and cable stations will not be affected.Says scores of homes in the Auburn area have burned.

KFI AM 640 announcer says cable stations would indeed be affected, as they obtain their feed from transmitted data download at the towers. Lots of conflicting info.

Drudge just picked this up, in red color font. Hopefully the American MSM will be forced to cover it now.

They have an in at the Federal Reserve like you wouldn’t believe.

Indeed. Also, I forgot to mention Goldman's link to all the new Treasury Bond debt Turbo Timmy/Obama has been issuing (4 times last year's sum, likely 3 Trillion by September). They are a main dealer of these bonds, and are making windfall profits from selling them.

For those with a short memory, a few months back AIG settled it's junk Credit Default Swaps with major counterparties at 100 cents on the dollar, to the tune of over 100 billion dollars. Goldman Sachs was one of the biggest beneficiaries, pulling in 12.9 billion. Goldman and the other large banks (including outrageously foreign) should at very least have received a large haircut on this junk debt, but instead received full value courtesy of taxpayer supported AIG.

Who was in charge of AIG at the time? Mr "$1 dollar a year" Edward Liddy, ex-Goldman board member.

This was in essence a bypass around TARP, looting of the treasury, money laundering of EPIC proportions.

Now, Goldman is claiming "record profits" and is preparing to pay themselves half a billion in bonuses - all with taxpayer dollars derived from selling billions of new new bond debt to the Chinese, which of course in the end our children will have to pay.

In a just world, where bankruptcies are actually allowed to happen, Goldman would be first in line - but instead this.

Who will finally stand up to this madness? Regional banks? The Taxpayer? The Chinese by not buying anymore debt?

What is truly sad that there is not even a peep from the American media on this yet today. Had to link to the Observer.

Is this something brand new or were they already talking about this in the news on Thursday?

Talking heads have been discussing it as a possible "next step", but this is the first confirmation that the US government is seriously considering it.

Keep your accounts under the FDIC limit and you’ll be okay.

FLASH:

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. is weighing two dramatic steps to repair ailing financial markets: guaranteeing billions of dollars in bank debt and temporarily insuring all U.S. bank deposits.

If the two moves come to fruition they would mark the government's most extensive intervention yet in the financial system, as officials ponder increasingly far-reaching measures to stem the sprawling crisis.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122360336021121827.html

and brought up the implication that only the House can originate revenue bills

Jackson Lee just brought up in the Rules Committee the revenue generating aspect of the House bill that was hacked by the Senate, originated in the Senate.

-- The reason I ask is that this is a spending bill that originated in the Senate, and the usual House reaction to such things is to sit on their Constitutional prerogative to originate all bills to raise revenue, and send it back with a note saying return to sender, addressee unknown. --

This bill is H.R.1424. Where did it originate?

A: It originated in the House. The Senate just amended it, and is sending it back to the House. If the House agrees with the amendment, then the amended, House-originated bill goes to the president. President Bush signs it Saturday (maybe Friday afternoon).

The original H.R.1424 House bill that the Senate gutted and amended with the bailout, was not a spending bill when it passed the house back in March, it was the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act.

As such, the Senate is seemingly going against the intent of the Founding Fathers, who stated in Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution "All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives", by gutting what was a non-revenue/appropriation House bill, amending it with the bailout, and sending it back claiming it "originated in the House".

This is at best mischievous, and at worst unconstitutional.

Likely both, here is a bit more info from an even fresher article an hour ago:

UPDATE 1-China banks cut back lending to foreign banks

Thu Sep 25, 2008 2:19am EDT

By Lu Jianxin and George Chen

SHANGHAI, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Some Chinese banks have cut lending to foreign banks in China’s interbank money market because of the global financial crisis, but trade continues and foreign banks remain able to operate, traders said on Thursday.

Dealers at over half a dozen Chinese and foreign institutions, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, said U.S. and some other foreign banks were finding it harder to borrow from the market.

[SNIP]

The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) on Thursday denied a report in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post that the CBRC had told Chinese banks to stop lending to U.S. banks in the interbank market. It called the report wrong and irresponsible.

“If they are not willing to lend, this is the normal practice of risk control,” CBRC vice chairman Wang Zhaoxing told Reuters.

A dealer at a major Chinese state-owned bank in Beijing said: “We are not aware of any official restrictions, but we have halted lending to some foreign banks because of risk controls.” (Additional reporting by Samuel Shen) (Writing by Andrew Torchia; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner)

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSSHA34453320080925

To me, it looks like the CBRC did indeed tell the banks to stop lending, but it wasn’t supposed to be “official”.

Looks like the CBRC is now denying it:

China denies telling banks not to lend to US banks

Thu Sep 25, 2008 12:49am EDT

BEIJING, Sept 25 (Reuters) - The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) on Thursday denied a newspaper report that it had told Chinese banks to stop lending to U.S. banks in the interbank market. A spokesman for the regulator strongly codemned the article in Thursday’s South China Morning Post, calling it irresponsible.

“The CBRC has never, through any channel, issued a statement or told domestic commercial banks not to lend to or borrow from U.S. financial institutions,” the spokesman said in a statement on the agency’s website. (Reporting by Langi Chiang and Zhou Xin; Writing by Alan Wheatley; Editing by Ken Wills)

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSBJC00020520080925

Here is what appears to be a current pic from the site, from the Sky article. Who knows what the men in the boats are doing, the bubble gum squad I guess:

Peter Sharp mentions in the Sky article the most locals are unaware of the threat, and in fact while we were discussing the proximity of this dam to the epicenter yesterday, a local implied that it was “seemingly in control” because no one was talking about it, lol.

Sky News article with a bit more detail:

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1315944,00.html

Quake Town Threatened By Cracking Dam

Updated:16:19, Wednesday May 14, 2008
Chinese troops have rushed to plug “extremely dangerous” cracks in a dam wall, upriver from the earthquake-devastated town of Dujiangyan.

The state-run news agency Xinhua said that 2,000 troops had been sent to work on the Zipingku Dam in Sichuan province.

Speaking from Dujiangyan, Sky’s China correspondent Peter Sharp said many local people seemed unaware of the threat.

“It (the dam) is only five kilometres away, we are downstream of it,” he said.

“We understand that some of the People’s Liberation Army troops that are deployed here helping with the rescue operation... 2,000 of them [have been moved] upriver to seal some serious cracks in the dam wall.”

In a separate report, Xinhua said Dujiangyan would be “swamped” if there was major problems at the dam.

It reported that the water resources ministry had set-up an emergency command centre at the dam “to discharge the reservoir’s rising waters and guarantee that the damage posed no threat to Dujiangyan and the neighbouring Chengdu Plain.”

"Swamped" is a bit of an understatement, in classic "nothing to see here move along" fashion.

Completed in 2006, the highly controversial dam/reservoir at Zipingpu is a massive 50 story hydroelectic facility built just 7km upsteam from the ancient Dujiangyan Irrigation System, which has protected the Chengdu plain from the Min River since 256 BC.

The dam itself is located only 20km (12 miles) from the epicenter of the earthquake. If it were to breach, it would spell disaster for the already heavily damaged city of Dujiangyan and it's irrigation system, which in turn forks water to the major city of Chengdu downsteam. The cascade effect would "swamp" (i.e. wall of water) the entire basin, making the Johnstown flood look like a walk in the park.

Here is a file photo of a view from above the dam looking down towards the basin:

And a zoomable Google Satellite Map with the epicenter marked by a green arrow:

View Larger Map

The dam is located just to the right of the green arrow if you zoom in.

The Zipingpu Dam we were discussing 30 hours ago in this thread is now making headlines on Drudge, Sky News, and Yahoo Front Page. It’s is dangerously close to a breach I feel. Here is a link to the Sky new Breaking article:

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1315944,00.html

Well that answers my question, apparently it did not fare well. Hopefully they contained the problem, but that dam is massive (50 stories tall).

Excuse me if this has been asked before, but I wonder what the status of the new 156 meter tall dam at Zipingpu is.

The dam at Zipingpu is a controversial hydroelectic facility build 9KM upsteam from the ancient Dujiangyan Irrigation System (which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site) on the Min(Jiang) River.

I ask because the dam is literally only 20KM from the quake's epicenter, and right upsteam from the city of Chengdu.

Here is a pic I found from above the dam looking east, down the Min, towards the Chengdu plain:

Here is a Google Map with the green arrow being the epicenter, and the dam being dead center:

View Larger Map

“The Government should also explore the idea of making voting in elections a compulsory ‘civic act’.”

This little gem stands out quite a bit. Mandatory voting would ensure Labour a stranglehold on the government for generations.