Atlanta Falcons QB Vick Pleads Not Guilty

Michael Vick, Atlanta Falcons' star quarterback,(seen here as he enters the federal courthouse in Richmond, Virginia),

made an appearance in federal court in Richmond, Virginia today and pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from an alleged dog fighting operation. Vick was released without bond. The trial date is set for Monday, November 26, 2007

Vick was in court along with 3 co-defendants who also pleaded not guilty. They are are Purnell A. Peace, 35, of Virginia Beach; Quanis L. Phillips, 28, of Atlanta; and Tony Taylor, 34, of Hampton.

If convicted they face up to six years in prison, $350,000 in fines and restitution for conspiracy charges involving competitive dogfighting, procuring and training pit bulls for fighting, and conducting the enterprise across state lines. Federal prosecutors charge the illegal operation— known as Bad Newz Kennels — was run on Vick's property in Surry County, Va.

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Global Economy: IS IT ON THE SKIDS? Part 2

The Dow Jones industrials fell more than 430 points. Treasury yields plunged as investors moved money into bonds.

The Dow Jones industrials final closing numbers for Thursday, July 26, 2007:

Down more than 310 points after earlier skidding nearly 450.

Investors who had been able to ward off discomfort associated with subprime mortgage issues and the distressing environment for corporate borrowing seem to finally have capitulate to those matters. The Dow exceeded the 416 points lost on February 27, 2007 after a nearly 10 percent decline in Chinese stock markets.

The declines triggered a global selloff in stocks, causing minor losses in Europe to accelerate rapidly along with the Dow's demise. In Europe, Britain's FTSE 100 closed down 3.15 percent, Germany's DAX index dropped 2.39 percent, and France's CAC-40 fell 2.78 percent.


Today's trading was the latest and most extreme in a series of delirious meetings over the past month — several also accompanied by triple-digit variations in the Dow — as investors worries about the subprime fallout began to sell or bought based on the optimism any widespread problems caused by mortgage failures would never happen. Financial analysts have described the back-and-forth, swing trading as neurotic, emotional, and based more on franatic, freaked out concern than careful contemplation of market and economic basics.

In late afternoon trading, the Dow plunged 434.97, or 3.16 percent, to 13,350. This is its largest one-day point drop since it lost 684.81 on September 17, 2001, the first day of trading after the September 11, 2001 alleged terror attacks.

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Cheney, Rove, Gonzales, Bush: How Many More Lives Will Be Lost?

Our guest writer, Dr. C. von Blum asks the question:

HOW MANY?
Some on the left have offered comparisons and similarities between this current conflict and others in the past.

I maintain that ultimately there will be little basis for such comparisons.

In Nam, we suffered, I’m not sure, but my sense is, around 50,000. US dead and probably three times that wounded.

In World WarII probably at least 10 million lost their lives.

This conflict is far from over and our losses have been nearly 7000 including 911.

It seems a small number by comparison, but it ain’t over. By the time these sociopaths have run out our string, billions more may be incinerated in a global thermo-nuclear conflict that will be the almost certain result of the confrontation with Iran, that Cheney and the other sociopathic neo-cons are so desperate to promote. So who is the greater mass murderer, Hitler, Nixon/Johnson, or Cheney/Rove? 600,000 dead Iraqis will be a drop in the GOP bucket. My money is on the current batch, because they are far crazier than their predecessors.

Why? This is a reasonable question, since they will very likely be among the casualties.

Firstly I think you must concede they are quite mad. Megalomania precludes reason

They are all making piles of money from this war, They must because they are aware, but they certainly won’t admit, how unstable the global monetary system is.

Even people as out of touch with reality as Cheney are aware of their own mortality; they are desperate to amass so much wealth that a complete meltdown of the global economy will not effect their progeny. I think they are probably pretty close.
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Global Economy: IS IT ON THE SKIDS?

Clark Dark here, to introduce one of our favorite guest writers, Dr. C. von Blum, who offers his opinion on the economy. Dr. von Blum:

One day earlier this month the Dow Jones Industrial Average took a 150 point bath. A 150 point loss in one day!Is this the first bic flic of the long anticipated melt down of the global economy?

I’d say yes. There is currently more global debt than currency. The Chinese credit card that the administration has been madly swiping to the tune of $12 trillion has turned dollars into toilet paper. It is at an all time low against the Euro.

The hedge-fund fantasy took it’s first of many hits last week when S&P took the first crack at the phony sub-prime mortgage ruse. Defaults are at a historic high, and hedge-funds based on these instruments are wildly over-valued. The global banking industry has been avidly propping up the dollar to forestall the reality of the deep global depression which is well underway. As soon as some financial entity takes any action that affixes the value of dollars in a real world sense by devaluing derivatives to reflect something approaching their value with regard to the market value of the underlying assets, sub-prime real estate mortgages.

We are at the onset of a global depression that will make the thirties appear like a romp in the park. When the real costs of goods and services are rising at an unsustainable rate and the government cooks the books by omitting food and fuel from the calculation of the gross domestic product, so they can report inflation of 3 percent rather tan the double digit reality.

One should remember that the Wars in the mideast, are also off budget, and handled by special authorizations. That’s a Half Trillion Dollars so far that we ignore as a cost of doing business. The tactic is to simply have the fed print and circulate more worthless scrip. That’s why they stopped publishing the money supply data M-12, or whatever. Not being an economist, I, do, however shop, daily and expertise in economics is not essential when the reality is so obvious.



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