Time to shine more light on the Federal Reserve

Ben Bernanke wants the Senate Banking Committee to reconfirm him as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. U.S. Representative Alan Grayson wants to see more information about the inner workings of the Fed before Bernanke is reconfirmed, "given how little is known about what he has actually done." In a mass-emailing, Grayson points out that "Ben Bernanke didn't see the crisis coming and has added $1.2 trillion to the Fed's balance sheet through covert bailouts." He points out that there can't be a full debate over Bernanke's "record if nothing is public." That's why Grayson is asking for the release of the following information:

  • Information that Bloomberg reporter Mark Pittman has requested via a Freedom of Information Act Request on the Bear Stearns rescue and that the Federal Reserve is contesting in the courts.
  • Information I requested in February on which institutions received the additional $1.2 trillion, how much each institution received, and what was promised in return.
  • All Federal Reserve documents that went to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office relating to the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch merger in which potentially illegal and coercive activity might have occurred, as well as all Federal Reserve documents relating to the lawsuit pursued by Merrill Lynch shareholders in the U.S. District court for the Southern District of New York.
  • Transcripts of all Federal Open Market Committee meeting minutes up to and including that of September 2009.
  • Full disclosure of all terms and conditions of all off-balance sheet Fed transactions in the past three years.
If this controversy were about ACORN, or any other person or organization without great power, Congress would have turned the organization inside out with subpoenas, and we would have had a real discussion. I agree with Grayson that it's time to shine much more light on the Fed, especially in light of these statistics recently reported by Think Progress.

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Dying in prison

Fascinating photo essay of Louisiana prison hospices. Yes, those are human beings behind bars--there simply must be a better way to deal with most of them than letting them rot behind bars. The essay starts with a mind-blowing statistic: In Louisiana, one out of every 55 residents is behind bars, many of them for life.

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Warning: Gravity is “Only a Theory”

This is a very funny satirical critique of the Theory of Gravity using many of the arguments that people will use to discount evolution. It was written by Ellery Schemp, the noted physicist who is also known as an activist for the separation of church and state. From Wiki:

On November 26, 1956, Ellery staged a protest against the school requirement that each student read 10 Bible passages and the Lord's Prayer each day during homeroom. Instead, Ellery brought a copy of the Qur'an and read from that. For this, he was sent to the Principal's office. With the help of his father, Edward Schempp, and the American Civil Liberties Union, they sued the Abington School district over their policy of mandatory Bible readings.
One of the things I found especially interesting about this article is that I discovered it on an Evangelical Apologetics website in the Philosophy section!
Warning: Gravity is “Only a Theory” The Universal Theory of Gravity is often taught in schools as a “fact,” when in fact it is not even a good theory. First of all, no one has measured gravity for every atom and every star. It is simply a religious belief that it is “universal.” Secondly, school textbooks routinely make false statements. For example, “the moon goes around the earth.” If the theory of gravity were true, it would show that the sun's gravitational force on the moon is much stronger than the earth's gravitational force on the moon, so the moon would go around the sun. Anybody can look up at night and see the obvious gaps in gravity theory.
Read the rest of this article here.

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America’s paranoid irrationality

How paranoid have we become? Here's what Allison Kilkenny of Alternet has to say:

The culture itself is sick, which is why America has a military budget that is almost as much as the rest of the world’s defense spending combined, and is over nine times larger than the military budget of China, and yet Americans feel more afraid, and more paranoid, than ever. Everyone is against us, we're told. Everyone hates our freedom, and our amazing culture. China wants to overtake us. The entire Middle East wants us dead. Europeans laugh at us, and think we’re stupid. Emperor Penguins are plotting something. Canada is about to attack. And then there's Iran. Don't even get us started on Iran. Until Americans decide to break this addiction to "The List," this cycle of irrationality will continue into the foreseeable future.
And see this post, for the best friend of America's politicians: peddling nightmares.

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