Free Learner

Flu update

Three things have caused me to get a bit concerned about this flu thing.

First, I've been comparing local reports to the national news, and it's clear that many suspected and probable flu cases are not being reported at the national level.  I think the major media made a decision not to report any cases until they are officially confirmed by the CDC.  That's understandable, because if they overstate the dangers, they may be ignored by the public when the "real thing" comes down the pike.  For instance, the second (more lethal) wave of the pandemic.

That said, the news is currently understating the situation, and there are dangers on that side, too.  It's currently taking about a week to get a case confirmed, and a week in pandemic time is an eon.  When they say "probable case" this almost always means it's swine flu.  Usually it means the person has been in Mexico, came down with flu symptoms inside the correct incubation period (4-10 days), and tests positive for influenza A and/or a non-human flu strain.  Virtually all of these will eventually be confirmed, according to geneticist / virologist Dr. Henry Niman (see below).  But you and I won't hear about them, except in local news, until days later. 

"Suspected" cases involve people who took a trip to Mexico or had close exposure to someone who has been to Mexico, plus flu symptoms inside the correct time frame.  The trouble is, "flu symptoms" can include almost anything-- vomiting, wheezing, joint pain, coughing, depression, diarrhea, you name it.  That said, the primary symptom of influenza seems to be a high fever for multiple days.  I had a flu in 2003 which was, given the flu strains circulating in my area, almost certainly an H1N1.  For four days I was unable to get my temperature below 102 degrees despite taking both Tylenol and ibuprofen simultaneously.  (During this time I was pregnant and was told "Don't let your temperature go above 102 degrees.")

There are at least 4 Michigan counties with suspected, probable, or confirmed swine flu cases (Livingston, Wayne, Ottawa, and Washtenaw).  The Livingston County case was in the local news two days ago, but Michigan only made "the list" in the national news as of today.  In Wayne County, it's a student at Woodhaven High School who has come down with what appears to be swine flu, though that's pending confirmation.  In his case the incubation period was long (10 days) and we will have to see how many classmates may have become infected during that time.

The second thing was, I came across this Flu News page, which paints a considerably more dire picture than you get from the New York Times et al.  Did you know Texas has cancelled all high school sports until May 11?  Or that 4 schools are closed in Milwaukee?  Check it out.

Third, I watched this video by Henry Niman, who flu-watchers will know and respect as an expert in flu viruses and their epidemiology.  He feels this flu parellels the 1918 flu in multiple ways.  He thinks we haven't had as many fatalities in the US only because we lag behind Mexico, time-wise... but the American deaths are coming.  And the real deaths are coming in the fall, if things continue to progress in 1918 fashion.

I can't really imagine a death toll in developed nations that would be quite as high as in 1918.  Philadelphia, which I've mentioned before because they were hit hard by the 1918 flu, was stupid enough to have parades in spite of the clearly burgeoning flu epidemic.  We're unlikely to be that stupid again.  In Ann Arbor in 1918, the university was shut down, all public venues were closed, church services were suspended, and students were quarantined in their dorms.  The death toll was very low.

In the third world... whew.  I hope it doesn't happen.

Pentagon buzzes lower Manhattan just for kicks

This was not an accident, poor judgment, or lack of sensitivity.  Nobody's that stupid.  It was deliberate.

On Monday morning, one of the 747s used to ferry around the U.S. president was dispatched to the Statue of Liberty, escorted by a fighter jet. Assignment: Get some fresh glamour shots of the plane.

The Air Force said the flight needed to remain confidential. So while New York police knew about it, as did at least one person in the mayor's office, regular New Yorkers remained in the dark.

As a result, to onlookers Monday all across downtown Manhattan -- where the World Trade Center once stood -- the photo shoot looked like a terrorist attack. People watched in horror as a massive aircraft, trailed closely by an F-16 fighter jet, banked and roared low near the city, in a frightening echo of the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

Fearing the worst, thousands of people streamed out of the skyscrapers and into the streets. Some buildings ordered evacuations. (Wall Street Journal)

If you want a photo of Air Force One in front of the Statue of Liberty, you use Photoshop.  If, for some unimaginable reason, you actually need to fly this plane at low altitude over Manhattan, you let everybody know in advance and you do it at 7am Sunday morning.  You DO NOT do THIS (courtesy HuffPo and CNN) during business hours:

One comment on this post read:

Normally, if there are going to be any planes flying down here at all the building sends out memo's to all offices DAYS in advance. Seems a bit fishy to me. The plane was within a few hundred feet of my building - you'd think they would have warned us if it was planned. People were running out of the buildings down here.

If it was a photo-op then there is no reason not to notify the public... unless, of course, the whole point was to scare people, and measure public reaction as part of ongoing psyops research.

Take a look at this short (< 40 seconds) YouTube video to get an idea just how low this plane was, and how upset people became.

I'm not sure what this is all about, but it's obviously disturbing when the Pentagon deliberately tests the public's reaction to impending acts of terrorism.  What is it they were trying to find out?

ADDENDUM:  This news story includes a letter from a NYC council member to the FAA demanding to know why the FAA approved the low-altitude flyover.  Quote:

We understand that there is a need to conduct military activity and even, under some circumstances, near lower Manhattan. However, this does not appear to have been a serious military exercise that would have required a "need to know" classification. Additionally, if this was indeed an aerial photo mission, why you would approve such an exercise for a Monday morning defies reason.

We ask that you urgently advise New Yorkers of the purpose of this exercise, why it needed to be undertaken in New York, and without any public notice.

Who's flu?

There's been a nasty flu outbreak in Mexico, with a few scattered cases in Texas, California, Kansas, and New York.

If you don't have two weeks' worth of food in your house, as the US government advises, now might be a good time to lay in the necessary supplies.  This virus, similar to pandemic flu viruses in previous decades, appears to be most lethal in young adults (20's and 30's), but is less dangerous in the young or elderly.  Mexico City has closed all schools, museums, theaters, etc.

It could be... y'know... the real thing.

I say this as a person who got obsessed with H5N1 news and read flu forums for months, before finally tiring of the always-impending avian flu pandemic.  So I'm not trying to freak anyone out... we've been on the verge of flu pandemic for years now.  I'm just saying: hey, man-- dried beans are cheap, and don't forget the coffee and vodka.  Just in case.

I read Gina Kolata's book Flu and various articles on the 1918 flu (here's an example) some years back.  The story of the 1918 flu and how it got into humans (killing between 2 and 4 percent of all humans alive on Earth in less than a year) is a bit foggy.  For one thing, Establishment Science did not like the little army pathologist who first began genotyping the 1918 flu, so they refused to publish his work-- humankind be damned!!  He wasn't in the club!  Hell, he wasn't even in academia!!  [More details at this old 2005 post.]

Once we got past that hurdle, it turned out that the 1918 flu wasn't quite what most people had thought.  Pandemic flus tend to contain avian flu genes, but the thinking had been that avian flu would have a hard time jumping straight into humans.  Pigs, however, can be a breeding ground for both bird flus and human flus.  And if a pig happens to be infected with both sorts of flu at the same time, it's singles night at the Roman bathhouse-- the viruses swap genes and the genes get mixed.  And then emerges a nasty bird/swine/human flu, one that humans don't have immunities against, and we're screwed.

The problem was, there wasn't so much evidence of swine flu genes.  Possibly the 1918 flu went straight from birds to humans, which no one can exactly explain (after all, it hasn't happened very successfully with the H5N1 bird flu that's been around since 1997).  Maybe it made a brief stop in pigs, but... there isn't too much swine influence, so it wasn't percolating in pigs for very long, if at all.

Secondly, nobody to this day seems to be able to understand why it was quite so virulent, quite so contagious, quite so deadly-- and especially in young, healthy adults.

There's an explanation, but it simply MUST be wrong because it has definitely not been endorsed by NPR and it qualifies as tinfoil hat.  The theory goes:

1. In 1918 we were inoculating army soldiers against typhoid.
2. In 1918 we didn't know what in the hell we were doing, re: viruses.
3. We incubated the vaccine in chicken eggs.
4. We had no ability to test for avian viruses in the finished vaccine.
5. We inoculated thousands of soldiers while they were living near a hog farm in Kansas.
6. The virus began in soldiers.
7. Conclusion: the virus came from avian-flu-infected typhoid vaccine.  We gave it to ourselves.

The first wave of the flu, in the spring of 1918, was not nearly so deadly.  But it provided ample opportunity for mutation of the virus to become more contagious and lethal in humans.  Rather than assuming that the flu mutated inside pigs, one has to wonder whether soldiers in Fort Riley, Kansas contracted both low-pathogenic swine flu (which most livestock veterinarians and hog farmers have antibodies against) and avian flu from infected typhoid vaccine.  Quite possibly, humans were the 'swinging singles bar' of flu viruses which led to the pandemic flu strain-- not pigs.

The worst hit city in the US was probably Philadelphia, where they were unable even to bury their dead for some time due to massive fatalities.  The Philadelphia outbreak, though it was spread by a war fundraising parade (at which, one can assume, soldiers were present), actually originated in a Navy shipyard.

Fast-forward to today, Mexico City.  Keep in mind that outbreaks of polio, chicken pox, flu, and foot-and-mouth disease in livestock have all been traced to vaccination or accidental releases of materials used in making vaccines.

The Mexico City H1N1 flu strain has elements of North American swine flu, Europe / Asian swine flu, North American avian flu, and North American human flu (New York Times).  The assumption, as with the 1918 pandemic, is that these viruses mingled together and mutated inside pigs.  Overcrowded hog farms near Mexico City have been blamed over at HuffPo, and certainly this is one reason not to have insanely contagious and horribly unhealthy pig farms (beyond the obvious moral reasons, as pigs are likely as intelligent as dogs).

That being said, this four-viruses-in-one combination, never seen before, and found in 19 Americans in 4 states, none of whom have had contact with pigs, suggests that perhaps the viruses had a bit of help in recombining.  Consider, as a bit of context, the article "Baxter: Product contained live bird flu virus":

The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses....

The contaminated product, a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabelled H5N1 viruses, was supplied to an Austrian research company. The Austrian firm, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then sent portions of it to sub-contractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany.

The contamination incident, which is being investigated by the four European countries, came to light when the subcontractor in the Czech Republic inoculated ferrets with the product and they died. Ferrets shouldn’t die from exposure to human H3N2 flu viruses.

Public health authorities concerned about what has been described as a “serious error” on Baxter’s part have assumed the death of the ferrets meant the H5N1 virus in the product was live....

On Friday, the company’s director of global bioscience communications confirmed what scientists have suspected.

“It was live,” Christopher Bona said in an email....

Baxter makes its flu vaccine — including a human H5N1 vaccine for which a licence is expected shortly — at a facility in the Czech Republic.

To recap: a European vaccine manufacturer contaminated materials (to be used to make human flu vaccine) with live H5N1 avian flu.  Whooops!

And then there's this debacle:

Homeless people die after bird flu vaccine trial in Poland

Three Polish doctors and six nurses are facing criminal prosecution after a number of homeless people died following medical trials for a vaccine to the H5N1 bird-flu virus.

The medical staff, from the northern town of Grudziadz, are being investigated over medical trials on as many as 350 homeless and poor people last year, which prosecutors say involved an untried vaccine to the highly-contagious virus.

Had any of these homeless people had human flu at the same time they were injected (apparently) with live avian flu virus, the necessary mutations to cause pandemic could have occurred.  What in the hell are they doing injecting live H5N1 into people?  Trying to give the pandemic bug a leg up?

Flu vaccination in general contains serious risks, even when it's only for human flu, because the genes contained in the vaccine itself may provide genetic material to other circulating flu viruses, accelerating the rate of mutation.  It may also provide for an emptier "playing field" for flu strains that would have had competition... except that the competition was kept down by vaccination.  In short, flu vaccination may result in more dangerous flu strains over time.

The Mexican government is rushing forward with a mass swine flu vaccination program, which is likely to exacerbate the problem.  [UPDATE: It isn't a swine flu vaccine, it's the regular seasonal flu vaccine-- utterly pointless.]  The vaccine they have does not match the flu virus currently infecting Mexicans and is unlikely to be effective.  To create a vaccine that matches would take months, and that's the whole issue with the flu-- months from now, it's always a very different virus, because influenza mutates quickly.  This is also why the regular flu vaccine usually does not work (it totally fails, most years).  The swine flu vaccine will, however, provide interesting new genes which may or may not be picked up by the current flu virus.  Mind you, the vaccine necessarily contains genes that make swine flu contagious in humans.  That should be obvious, since they would hardly bother with a vaccine against a variety of swine flu that was not contagious in humans, now would they?  Therefore, quite possibly, this flu is about to get a whole lot more contagious, after a helpful boost from a futile swine flu vaccine campaign.

On the other hand, perhaps flu-infected pigs in Europe spread the virus to migrating birds, who combined the swine and avian flu genes and then infected pigs in North America, who then passed along all three kinds of flu genes to humans in North America.  Yeah, it's possible.  But if this thing goes pandemic, my money is on human intervention as a major cause.

Mexico has shut down schools, libraries, and other public places.  Of roughly 1,000 people infected (surely an underestimate) about 60 have died, which suggests a 6% fatality rate.  That's unlikely, in my opinion.  Lots of people caught this who did not know they had this particular flu, or have not been recorded among the infected.  The real fatality rate is more likely 1-2% or less, in keeping with the 1918 flu and considering improved nutrition and medical science.

All the same, some boxed spaghetti and N95 masks wouldn't go amiss.

Connections in high places

I just found out that the department within the Ford Foundation where Obama's mother worked, the Asia department, was headed by Timothy Geithner's father.  The two met in person at least once, according to Wiki.  All I can do is roll my eyes, heave a sigh, and say "Typical."

Mind you, when Tiny Tim Geithner pulled the plug on Lehman Brothers and cast the world of finance into turmoil, insuring terrible economic headlines for weeks on end, he cemented Obama's win.  It was gentlemanly quid pro quo for Obama to make Tiny Tim head of the Treasury.

The dirty mechanics to one side, the larger point is that the American aristocrats run the country via their "philanthropic" institutes.  It's not so much that the Geithners and the Obamas colluded.  It's that the Geithners and the Obamas had the same boss.

Obama was doubly blessed, also being the favorite of Zbigniew Brzezinski, who's a Rockefeller man.  It's like being related to not only a Duke in England but a Duc in France to boot.

An artist named Mark Lombardi used to make drawings illustrating the numerous connections between the elites [until he was suicided in his New York apartment-- much like the CFO of Freddie Mac, who apparently shot himself after having hung himself first].  I remember that one of Lombardi's drawings centered on Texan James R. Bath, one of those men who run the world even though no one's heard of them (well, unless you are a conspiracy theorist).  Bath was especially connected with the Bushes.  You remember the Bushes?  Prescott, the Nazi banker photographed with Presidents Truman and Eisenhower?  Or his son, who was involved in assassinating JFK (heck, maybe ran the whole thing, especially the earlier Miami attempt)?  Or his son Neil, who apparently played a role in the Reagan assassination attempt?

The Bushes, of course, are in with the Harrimans, another important family, from way back.  They funded the Nazis together.  Averell Harriman was, needless to say, a fellow Bonesman, plus he gave the Bush family the money to start Zapata Petroleum, which was a front company for the CIA and was used in the Bay of Pigs fiasco....

Sigh.

Anyone who uses the term "conspiracy theorist" in a derogative way should check out the work of Mark Lombardi-- such an extraordinary number of connections strongly suggests the presence of a de facto American (and global) aristocracy.  Or, try out another name: the secret government.  When you start researching this stuff you discover connection after connection after connection.  Sometimes I am actually nauseated and sometimes I just laugh in sheer disbelief.  E.g. I also just found out that Michael Moore's agent is the brother of the fascist Rahm Emanuel-- that is, Michael is represented by "Ari" [Emanuel] of HBO's Entourage.  Blech!!!

Perhaps I will try and post a "Connection of the Day" for a while.

No bottom in sight

The happy-happy spin on all things economic never ceases to amaze me.  Check this out:

April 22 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. home prices rose 0.7 percent in February from January, the first consecutive monthly gain in two years, a sign that low interest rates may be moderating declines in real estate values.

Interest rates will save us?  What bunk!  What actually happened was that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Citigroup and other major players agreed to a moratorium on foreclosures during the first quarter.  It wasn't a strict moratorium, more like a patchwork of delays and emergency refinancing deals and who knows what, but it did reduce foreclosures in the early part of the year.  Fewer foreclosures = fewer fire sales = higher average prices.  0.7% higher in February, to be precise.

Hallelujah! screams the media.  Foreclosures are down!  Prices are recovering!

Uh-huh.  And look at what RealtyTrac has to say now:

March had the greatest foreclosure activity RealtyTrac has seen since it started keeping track in 2005, and "we think, in fact, the foreclosure moratoria that we'd seen, and some of the legislative delays, actually contributed to the March numbers being as high as they are," says RealtyTrac's Rick Sharga, who describes the efforts as "like trying to dam up a waterfall with bubblegum."

Journalist Mike Whitney cites even worse data from RealtyTrac:

“We believe there are in the neighborhood of 600,000 properties nationwide that banks have repossessed but not put on the market," said Rick Sharga, vice president of RealtyTrac, which compiles nationwide statistics on foreclosures. "California probably represents 80,000 of those homes. It could be disastrous if the banks suddenly flooded the market with those distressed properties. You’d have further depreciation and carnage."

In a recent study, RealtyTrac compared its database of bank-repossessed homes to MLS listings of for-sale homes in four states, including California. It found a significant disparity - only 30 percent of the foreclosures were listed for sale in the Multiple Listing Service. The remainder is known in the industry as “shadow inventory"....

If regulators were deployed to the banks that are keeping foreclosed homes off the market, they would probably find that the banks are actually servicing the mortgages on a monthly basis to conceal the extent of their losses. They’d also find that the banks are trying to keep housing prices artificially high to avoid heftier losses that would put them out of business. One thing is certain, 600,000 “disappeared” homes means that housing prices have a lot further to fall and that an even larger segment of the banking system is underwater.

It means that any time the housing market raises its head and makes a stab at recovery, onto the market will flood some more foreclosure sales.  Meanwhile, foreclosures caused by sudden unemployment will continue for another year or more, unabated.  And then, there's the "option ARM" foreclosure wave.  A slew of option ARMs began resetting in March, meaning that many homeowners saw their mortgage payments skyrocket last month.  90 days later, many of those homes will be in foreclosure.

But hey, if you're feeling down, turn on CNBC and bask in the sunny rhetoric about "green shoots of prosperity" and "recovery beginning later this year" and how we've "turned the corner" and "seen the bottom".

As far as the stock market goes, we're at about April 1930, that first rally after the crash:

US stock markets have a long way to fall.  The Dow will probably fall for another couple of years, to something below 4,000.  (It's important to consider inflation adjusted numbers, because if we have runaway inflation the Dow could hit 50,000, but by that time bread may cost $35 a loaf.)

But hey, I could be wrong.  Bernanke thinks we're seeing the first little seedlings / green shoots / [insert spring metaphor] of recovery, and he has a PhD in economics.  We have to respect the sagacity of professional economists at a time like this, especially those with impeccable Ivy League credentials.

"[T]here are indications that the severest phase of the recession is over..."

            -- Harvard Economic Society, January 18, 1930

"... the outlook continues favorable..."

            -- Harvard Economic Society, March 29, 1930

"... the outlook is favorable..."

            -- Harvard Economic Society, April 19, 1930

"...by May or June the spring recovery forecast in our letters of last December and November should clearly be apparent..."

            -- Harvard Economic Society, May 17, 1930

"... irregular and conflicting movements of business should soon give way to a sustained recovery..."

            -- Harvard Economic Society, June 28, 1930

"... the present depression has about spent its force..."

            -- Harvard Economic Society, August 30, 1930

"We are now near the end of the declining phase of the depression."

            -- Harvard Economic Society, November 15, 1930

[These quotes & the next few, in italics, are from the Chart of Pompous Prognosticators.]

Mr. Geithner is equally upbeat.  Surely the Secretary of the Treasury knows what's what, eh?  We can take some comfort in optimism when it comes from the Treasury Secretary himself!

"I see nothing in the present situation that is either menacing or warrants pessimism... I have every confidence that there will be a revival of activity in the spring, and that during this coming year the country will make steady progress."

            -- Andrew W. Mellon, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, December 31, 1929

"There is nothing in the situation to be disturbed about."

            -- Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, February 1930

If nothing else, we can look to the President.  The Executive of the nation is plugged into everything, and if he says recovery is on its way, the country can breathe a sigh of relief.

"While the crash only took place six months ago, I am convinced we have now passed through the worst....  There has been no significant bank or industrial failure. That danger, too, is safely behind us."

            -- Herbert Hoover, President of the United States, May 1, 1930

"The depression is over."

            -- Herbert Hoover, President of the United States, June 1930 

I'll end with some of Jim Kunstler's observations of last week:

It's a curious symptom of the consensus trance zombifying the American public and its auditors in the media that something like a "recovery" is now deemed to be underway. And, as events compel me to repeat in this space, it begs the question: recovery to what?

To Wall Street booking stupendous profits by laundering "risk" out of bad loans with new issues of tranche-o-matic securitized paper? This I doubt, since there isn't a pension fund left from San Jose to Bratislava that would touch this stuff with a stick, even if it could be turned out in collector's editions of boxed sets.

Does it mean that American "consumers" (so-called) are awaited momentarily in the flat-screen TV sales parlors with their credit cards fanned-out like poker hands, ready for "action?" Not too likely with massive non-performance out in cardholder-land, and half the nation's electronics inventory wending its way onto Craig's List.

Are we expecting more asteroid belts of new suburbs carved in the loamy outlands of Dallas and Minneapolis, complete with new highway strips of Big Box shopping and Chuck E. Cheeses? Go to banking's intensive care unit and inquire (if you can) among the flat-lining production home-builders and the real estate investment trusts on life support when they expect to rev up the heavy equipment.

The idea that we're about to resume the insane behavior that induced the current epochal malaise of economy is so absurd it will only be heard in the faculty dining halls of the Ivy League....

So many forces are arrayed against a return to the previous "normal" that we will be lucky, in another eighteen months, to still find ourselves speaking English and celebrating Christmas.

Susan Boyle sings the blues

A 10-year-old recording of Susan Boyle singing Cry Me a River has surfaced.  She recorded it at a school, for a charity album sponsored by her village newspaper.  Only 1,000 copies were produced, which is a shame, because she does a fantastic job.  I hope she sings it on TV and makes her voice every bit as sultry as it is in the recording; teenaged heads will explode.

And, so I can put this in the "personal politics" category and pretend I've put up an intellectual blog post, check out some of the hand-wringing over Ms. Boyle collected at HuffPo:

There's a Little Susan Boyle in All of Us

Susan Boyle: Talent Without Judgment

What If Susan Boyle Couldn't Sing?

Why Susan Boyle Makes Us Cry

Ashton Kutcher, Susan Boyle, and the Power of the People

Two Reasons Susan Boyle Means So Much to Us

Susan Boyle: Lessons We Still Haven't Learned

Susan Boyle Energizes the World

The Susan Boyle Bubble

Bullying robs us all

From the LA Times:

[Susan] Boyle's story resembles that of Paul Potts, a shy cellphone salesman turned opera tenor who won the first season of "Britain's Got Talent" in 2007 by belting out a credible rendition of Puccini's aria "Nessun Dorma."

Potts' performance was another online sensation, with more than 43 million views to date. Bullying at school undermined his confidence, he said in interviews. Boyle also told a British newspaper that she was bullied at school for her frizzy hair and for having learning difficulties.

Susan Boyle has been an inspiration to millions in the past several days.  Paul Potts' story is every bit as inspiring, given his downtrodden, miserable demeanor.  In both cases, bullying in their early school years helped to squelch their talents.  Bullying can haunt people for their entire lives-- why on earth do we tolerate it?  What gifts are we collectively throwing into the trash bin by allowing children to be bullied?

For more on Potts try this (his early performances on Britain's Got Talent) and this (the final -- which he won).  Even as a woman who has watched the Susan Boyle YouTube clip approximately 597 times in the past 48 hours, I have to say that Paul Potts is every bit her equal in surprising and wonderful talent.  And unlike Susan Boyle, he seems to wear an expression of pain on his face, even when the judges are exclaiming that they're blown away by his abilities.  This poor guy was seriously damaged by bullying.

Incidentally, Potts didn't go to a music school to learn to sing opera.  He took some prize winnings and went straight to Italy.  As an unschooler, I love that!

Brava

This is my first "random" post.  I thought about dressing it up with some kind of point, such as "Never judge a book by its cover," or "Why did it take this woman 47 years to find appreciation for her talent?"

But really, it's just a wonderful moment on television.  Go watch this uplifting bit on YouTube (and click "more info" for the lyrics).

Addendum, via the San Francisco Gate:

Ms. Boyle cared for her mother until the elder Boyle's passing in 2007 at the age of 91; her father passed away 10 years before. Living alone, Susan attends church each weekend and it was there that her singing talent developed, and where her late mother encouraged her to sing, but Boyle had reportedly stopped singing and did not know how she would do on that Saturday night she shocked the World.

Susan's life has not been one without pain. Sadly, she was abused and starved of oxygen at birth and has a learning disability because of the act. Ms. Boyle says she was teased by classmates, and reportedly the scars of their comments remain to this day.

It's hard not to think of her as the Heroine of the Common People.

What a trillion means

The US Treasury and the Fed have given away or promised a total of almost $13 Trillion in roughly the last year and half, almost entirely for the benefit of banks.

That's a lot of money to give to the banks, the ones who put us in this sorry economic situation in the first place.

Today I read that the poorest half of the world, the poorest 50% of all human beings on Earth, have a combined income of less than $800 billion per year.

I guess that gives us some idea of the level of banker theft.  For not much more money than the infamous $700 billion bailout, the US could have doubled the income of half the world.  For considerably less than the cost of all bank bailouts to date, we could have multiplied the incomes of the poorest half by 10.

Dante didn't envision a circle of hell awful enough for these banking elites.

Bankers and pitchforks

Yesterday's Clusterfuck Nation post is highly recommended.  Kunstler can write!  Here's an excerpt:

One mistake that the banking elite and their lawyer paladins made the past decade was their show of conspicuous acquisition -- of houses especially -- in easy-to-get-to places where anyone can see them, for instance an angry mob in Fairfield County, Connecticut, or Easthampton, New York. Unlike the beleaguered elites of South Africa (where I visited recently), who live behind layers of fortification, the executives of Citibank, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and a long list of hedge funds, will be found cringing in their wine-lockers behind a measly layer of privet hedge when the tattooed minions of Glen Beck come a'calling.

He's always good for a laugh, every Monday.