Post Scripts

by Jack Lee

Last week the market took a heavy plunge and now it looks like it was an error…a computer error…and it wiped out hundreds of billions of investor dollars in one day…again.

Because of the fast paced trading we have today, it’s been thought absolutely necessary for the major players with billions to invest (we call them market makers) to use computer algorithms to spot trends and react to them, kicking in buy or sell orders as the case may be. More often, this is used as a “stop loss” tool, to bailout before any major damage is done. However, when it’s done in mass, and one computer causes another to sell and so on down the line, then it can be the cause of major damage, it’s not a stop loss – its a cause for loss. The computers start a run on the market and the rest is history as we saw last week.

The Obama Administration has reacted quickly to Thursday’s snafu that sent the market plunging nearly a 1000 points before it recovered and eventually closed down 342 points. Obama’s financial regulators have summoned the heads of major exchanges including the New York Stock Exchange Euro next and NASDAQ OMX Group to Washington on Monday to discuss how some of the conflicting trading rules may have contributed to Thursday’s historic stock market plunge. In other words somebody has lit a fire under the regulators and now Wall Street is going to get a spanking…and it’s about time, unfortunately it took a run on the market to do it.

At the beginning of the stock market’s downturn, when AIG was at high risk due it’s over-indulgence in bundled CDO’s, no less that 400 regulators were supposed to be keeping them in check. In the final analysis, none were. I applaude Washington’s actions that should lead to rules, long in place, finally being enforced and a new look at computerized trading.

“I believe God has a reason for everything. I hold on to that.”

On one horrible night in September, Kay Jemsek discovered a strength within herself, inherited from her mother, to do whatever it takes to protect her child.

She was still grieving over her mother’s death from cancer six weeks earlier, still feeling lonely and tearful. Then she learned that she had breast cancer. As devastated as she was, three days later none of that mattered.

Her 5-year-old daughter, Jordan, was diagnosed with leukemia.

Kay cried for hours and hours and on through the night. Not for her mother. Not for herself. But for her little girl. Jordan was all she could think about…

Click on the link below to finish reading this heartwarming salute to a brave, loving mom:

“A mother’s test of faith,” by Elizabeth Leland – Charlotte Observer

I sure had to chuckle over that quote from one of the many women across America involved in the Tea Party movement. I lifted it from an article by Michael Graham in the Wall Street Journal where I also discovered this happy news:

…a recent Quinnipiac poll of voters found a majority of tea party supporters–55%–are women.

Hmmm, so much for theories that the Tea Party movement is just for a bunch of angry balding white guys! Seems there are plenty of women who don’t like where this administration and our Congress are taking the country. These women, many of them moms and grandmas, are working hard to see that the bums are held accountable and get tossed ASAP. Isn’t that just like a mom! Well done ladies; well done moms!!

Wishing all of the moms and grandmoms out there a very Happy Mother’s Day from Jack, Steve and Tina at your favorite, Post Scripts.

Posted by Tina

Carbon trading has become one big money making scam and it’s rife with corruption and fraud. Investor’s Business Daily reports on the raids and arrests going on across Europe and the potential dangers for America that high flying players, pushing a similar scheme in America, might visit upon us:

“Europe’s Carbon Mafia, And Ours” – IBD

Twenty-five people have been arrested in raids by British and German authorities as part of a pan-European crackdown on carbon credit VAT tax fraud.

This is troubling news for America. The President is very much interested in Cap and Trade and a VAT tax is being considered in Congress as well. I’m particularly troubled to discover that President Obama sat on the board of the Joyce Foundation when it granted start-up capital for Chicago’s Carbon Trading Exchange (CCX). His involvement in creating the exchange in Chicago places him in a compromised position regarding cap and trade and vat tax legislation. The entire idea is as stinky as the scheme Democtrats created to put poor people in houses. That scheme later played a prominent role in the housing crash and banking meltdown. This one has the potential to cost the average Joe a whole lot more:

Now President Obama would make such carbon trading mandatory, limit total emissions and make carbon as valuable a commodity as booze during Prohibition. ** The Joyce Foundation’s two grants totaled just over $1 million. CCX has proved very lucrative for (CCX founder) Sandor, whose 8 million shares in the exchange has grown to more than $260 million even before a national cap-and-trade system like Europe’s is established. ** Al Gore, who recently increased his carbon footprint by spending $8.9 million on an oceanview villa near Santa Barbara, Calif., sitting on 1.5 acres with a swimming pool, spa, fountains, five bedrooms, nine bathrooms and no fewer than six fireplaces, is co-founder of Generation Investment Management LLP, the fifth largest shareholder in CCX. ** The largest shareholder is, uh, Goldman Sachs. Other CCX founders include former Goldman Sachs partner David Blood, as well as Mark Ferguson and Peter Harris, also of Goldman Sachs. Presumably they know a lot about playing shell games with other people’s money.

The big boys at one of the banks that was “too big to fail” are rubbing elbows with our president who also recently said he was against breaking these “too big to fail” banks up into smaller ones. Cozy, huh?

Ladies and gentlemen the big boys in business and big government have taken enough from our pockets. Big government schemes to manipulate business has got to stop. The fraudsters, no matter who they are, must be deterred, caught, and punished severely!

by Jack Lee

Chico State’s Engineering Dept. in conjunction with the American Society of Civil Engineers hosted the annual “popsicle stick” bridge building competition. Students from the physics classes at both Pleasant Valley and Chico High went head to head to see who could make the strongest bridge design within a certain size and weight limit using only white glue and popsicle sticks.

Shown at top left is Grant Page, age 18, a senior at Pleasant Valley and a soon to be cadet at the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md. Grant plans to continue engineering studies at the naval academy.

Shown at the far right are PV seniors Miles Satterfield and Eric Crawford, ages 17 and 18 respectively,

Their bridge finally failed at 108 pounds. Miles grins as he surveys the damage. Next is, La Lor, 17, (bottom) also from PV. La shows off his fancy arched bridge which was one of the top place finishers. La is also a senior at Pleasant Valley.

We were told the winner of the contest was a classic railroad style bridge that supported a whopping 340 lbs. This bridge broke the previous record of 314 lbs. The competition was held in the Engineering Wing at Chico State today between 0900- 1200. Each contestant received a free tee shirt from the American Society of Civil Engineers.

His wife’s graveside service was just barely finished, when there was a massive clap of thunder, followed by a tremendous bolt of lightning, accompanied by even more thunder rumbling in the distance. The little, old man looked at the pastor and calmly said, ‘Well, she’s there.’
Continue reading “God’s Problem Now” »

The Year of the Black Republican

By Steve Thompson, Chairman of the Butte County Republican Party

A somewhat surprised New York Times recently reported that 32 black Americans are running for Congress this year, as Republicans. Both emboldened by the victory of Barrack Obama, and angered by his actions in office, more black republicans are throwing their hats in the ring for Congress than ever before. Even more to the surprise of the Times and other liberal media is the fact that a lot of Republicans, even TEA Partiers, are endorsing them.

What can I say? It’s always a shock to people when their preconceived notions and prejudices are shattered. Liberals in America had repeated the lie so often they started believing it themselves. So sure were they that the only reason anyone would oppose Barrack Obama was because of his skin color. It had nothing to do with him being the most left of center President the White House had ever seen. Nothing to do with tripling the national deficits in less than a year, and never mind hostile takeovers of General Motors or the health care industry. No, those who call themselves conservatives could only be motivated by racial hatred.

So why are so many new black candidates for Congress running as Republicans? Could it be that they don’t agree with the President? Priscilla Smith (pictured above), a black Republican running for an open seat in Arkansas said “Aside from the fact that I disagree fundamentally with all his views, I am proud of my nation for proving that we have the ability to do something like that.”

Continue reading “Republican Corner” »

By Caroline B. Glick

Source: http://www.JewishWorldReview.com

If safeguarding international security is the chief aim of US President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, then at some point he can be expected to change course in the Middle East. For today, Obama faces the wreckage of every aspect of his Middle East policies. And largely as a consequence of his policies, the region moves ever closer to war.

In Iraq, Obama’s pledge to withdraw all combat forces from the country by the summer has emboldened the various forces vying for control of the country to set it ablaze once more.

In Afghanistan, Obama’s surge and leave policy has left would-be US allies hedging their bets, at best. And it has caused the US’s NATO partners to question the purpose of their deployment in that country.

Then there is Iran. Last week’s report by The New York Times that this January Defense Secretary Robert Gates penned a memo to National Security Advisor James Jones warning that the Obama administration has no effective policy for dealing with Iran’s nuclear weapons program exposed the bitter truth that in the face of the most acute foreign policy problem they face, Obama and his crew are out to lunch.

Gates’ attempt to mitigate the story’s impact by claiming that actually, the White House is weighing all its option only made things worse. Even before the ink on his correction note was dry, his Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy was telling reporters in Singapore that the military option, “is not on the table in the near term.”

Continue reading “Barreling on, regardless” »

She is the author of Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad, (Gefen Publishers, 2008) Caroline B. Glick produced a compendium of remarkable essays that had appeared in publications like the Jerusalem Post, The Jewish Press, the Wall Street Journal, National Review, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Sun Times, the Washington Times, and other leading magazines.

In the words of R. James Woolsey, former director of U.S.Central Intelligence, these essays are “straight-from-the-shoulder prose along the lines of the writings in the 1930s of George Orwell and Winston Churchill, but on today’s manifestations of the issues those men confronted so brilliantly.”

Continue reading “Who Is Caroline Glick? She’s a Woman of Valor and She Has a Lot to Say” »

1. Whose country is it anyway?

2. Will the United States survive to the next century or suffer “Death from a thousand cuts”