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Election 2006

Bonds
Treasury Yield Sinks To A 5-Month Low As Bernanke Speech Holds No Surprises

BY REUTERS

Posted 8/25/2006

U.S. Treasury debt prices rose on Friday as investors breathed a sigh of relief that a speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke made no mention of inflation, pushing yields on 10-year notes below 4.80%.

Treasury prices posted their a second straight week of gains as yields reached five-month lows on signs economic growth is slowing.

While most analysts had not believed Bernanke would comment on monetary policy, there was some concern that hawkish remarks by Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Michael Moskow on Tuesday signaled the Fed might be priming markets for an interest rate hike.

Bernanke, speaking at a Kansas City Fed conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., stuck to the conference topic of globalization.

Benchmark 10-year Treasury notes were up 5/32 in price for a yield of 4.79% compared with 4.81% late on Thursday. Yields briefly dipped to 4.78% after Bernanke's speech. Bond prices and yields move inversely.

The 10-year's yield broke the 200-day moving average, on a closing basis, of 4.795% to hit 4.783%. Traders said while there was scope for yields to dip to 4.75%, a move back up was likely.

Slowing economic growth and expected interest rate cuts in 2007 were expected to continue supporting government bonds. The central bank left the federal funds rate unchanged at 5.25% this month after raising it 17 times since June 2004.

Two-year Treasury notes were up 1/32 in price to yield 4.86% compared with 4.89% late on Thursday. Shorter-term securities may be pressured by this week's $22 billion two-year note auction.

The inversion between two- and 10-year notes reached 8 basis points, the widest since early March, as investors bet that the Fed would need to cut rates as the economy slowed.

U.S. yields have been pushed down in recent weeks following surprisingly weak economic growth figures and signs the once-booming housing market is cooling rapidly. Five-year yields rose 3/32 in price to yield 4.75% vs. 4.78% late on Thursday.

The 30-year bond rose 7/32 in price to yield 4.93% compared with 4.94% late on Thursday.

Why we don't believe you
By Mary Katharine Ham
Monday, August 28, 2006
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Does the mainstream press ever wonder why conservatives distrust them so much?

If so, they need look no further than the “fauxtography” scandals of the last couple of weeks. Conservative bloggers have been hard at work sniffing out suspected fakery and staging in the photos sent back on the newswires from the Israel/Hezbollah conflict, and the investigation got pretty smelly.

First, there was Reutersgate, in which the international news organization had to pull a photo and fire a freelance photographer because he clumsily Photoshopped thicker smoke into the skyline of Beirut.

This incident got bloggers wondering what other photographic evidence of Israeli aggression had been Photoshopped or staged into existence, and just how complicit the news media was in the fakery. They came up with a photo by the same Reuters photographer, in which he had added flares to a photograph of an Israeli plane, and called them missiles.

But that was just the beginning. There was Green Helmet Guy, who seemed to be ever-present at the sites of Israeli “atrocities,” always making the most of the evidence of civilian casualties. He even played director to international news crews and photographers, showing them how to get the best shots of Lebanese casualties.

Then there was the “Passion of the Toys,” in which brand-new toys—poignant symbols of childhood innocence—seemed to keep popping up, perfectly framed by the destruction of war, yet strangely unscathed by it.

Oh, but it doesn’t stop there. Later came the “unluckiest multiple home owner in Lebanon,” photographed on several occasions, weeping in front of her several homes, bombed by several Israeli airstrikes. Then, we have the New York Times’ pieta, in which a rescue worker was carelessly identified as a victim of an airstrike when, in fact, he had been injured while working in the area. And, the flaming tire atrocity. And, the time Hezbollah bombed an Israeli ship in Australia.

Finally, this week, there was the ambulance attack that maybe wasn’t. There’s strong evidence to suggest that the two ambulances allegedly hit by Israeli airstrikes on July 23 were not exactly pulverized by missiles, as we were led to believe.

Reuters fired its fake photographer, which was the correct response to such deception. But, beyond that, there has not been much comeuppance for photographers and reporters involved in airbrushed, faked, and staged news.

The mainstream media’s response to the allegations from blogs has been more along the lines of Greg Mitchell’s, editor of Editor & Publisher, a trade magazine whose mission it is to cover “all aspects of the North American newspaper industry, including business, newsroom, advertising, circulation, marketing, technology, online and syndicates.”

Mitchell’s response to accusations from bloggers—instead of answering the charges and refuting evidence—was to get very defensive, claim that “rightwing bloggers” were only attempting to smear photojournalists as a group, and then proceed to smear rightwing bloggers as a group for daring to point out the dishonesty of some photojournalists, and raise questions about how business is conducted in the Middle East.

You can see Mitchell’s response to the accusations, here and here. You can see the deconstruction thereof, here and here. All are worth a read to really understand how the mainstream media deals with accusations of fraud, and how cavalierly it tosses aside some of its most avid consumers’ concerns. Here’s a typical paragraph from one of Mitchell’s pieces:

    Time does not permit a point by point documentation of the dozens of ludicrous, or at least completely unproven, examples of doctored or staged or otherwise manipulated photos on the Web. Have no fear, I will soon return to this subject, but in the meantime, feel free to plunge into the blogosphere. If you go deeply enough, you may feel you are back on the Grassy Knoll. One of the most-linked sites in this controversy, EU Referendum, goes so far as to suggest that a kind of Hollywood "film-set" was improvised at the site of the Qana killings "for the benefit of both Hezbollah and the media."

I would highly recommend you go through the links I’ve listed above and decide for yourself whether the accusations are “ludicrous,” particularly the video of a Hollywood film-set improvised at the site of the Qana killing, “for the benefit of both Hezbollah and the media.”

Instead of addressing concerns and refuting evidence, Mitchell calls bloggers a bunch of Grassy Knoll-ers intent on discrediting “the media as a whole.” This is not the way to win trust with your audience.

Mitchell then went on to discredit himself within the space of just a couple hours.

On Friday, the Confederate Yankee blog brought attention to a column Mitchell had written in 2003, in which he confessed to making up news as a young reporter. He had been sent out to do a story on Niagara Falls, and found himself unable to talk to tourists to get quotes. So, he sat on a bench and made the quotes up. He confessed his journalistic sin in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal.

Many other blogs picked up on the 2003 column, suggesting that Mitchell might be sympathetic to faked news because he himself had been a faker.

Several hours after Confederate Yankee’s post went up, that blogger noticed the text of the 2003 article had been changed. The lede had gone from this:

    Since the press seems to be in full-disclosure mode these days, I want to finally come clean. Back when I worked for the Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Gazette (now the Niagara Gazette), our city editor asked me to find out what tourists thought about an amazing local event: Engineers had literally “turned off” the famous cataracts, diverting water so they could shore up the crumbling rock face. Were visitors disappointed to find a trickle rather than a roar? Or thrilled about witnessing this once-in-a-lifetime stunt?

To this (additions in bold):

    Since the press seems to be in full-disclosure mode these days, I want to finally come clean. Back in 1967, when I was 19 and worked for the Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Gazette (now the Niagara Gazette) as a summer intern, our city editor asked me to find out what tourists thought about an amazing local event: Engineers had literally "turned off" the famous cataracts, diverting water so they could shore up the crumbling rock face. Were visitors disappointed to find a trickle rather than a roar? Or thrilled about witnessing this once-in-a-lifetime stunt?

The column had been edited, without notation, within a couple of hours of bloggers calling attention to it, to emphasize Mitchell’s youth and inexperience at the time of his ethical faux pas. Luckily, several bloggers and the Internet preserved the original piece.

So, it seems someone went back and altered a three-year-old column to reflect more positively on Mitchell, once it got a bit of attention from the “Grassy Knoll,” “rightwing bloggers.” Makes all those “ludicrous” accusations of dishonesty of the mainstream press seem not so ludicrous, doesn’t it?

Mitchell now has not just his industry’s malfeasance to answer for, but his own malfeasance, which he admitted to in a 2003 column, and which was then compounded when someone altered his three-year-old copy to protect him.

Changing copy three years after it has been published, without providing a “correction” or “clarification” note, is entirely unethical by the very standards of the newspaper industry Mitchell is charged with covering. Dan Riehl, another blogger, has evidence that Mitchell may have been altering copy in his latest E&P column, as well.

Rightwing bloggers are predisposed to distrust the media, as are most conservatives. The fauxtographers and defenders like Mitchell are giving us no reason to be encouraged. The mainstream press’ stock is in credibility. The right course is to answer, quickly and thoroughly, any credible charges against them, so as to preserve that stock.

Instead, with the notable exceptions of David Perlmutter and Jim Pinkerton, the mainstream media seems content to blame it all on the Grassy Knoll while half of its readers find news coverage is greener on the other side.

This is why we don’t believe you.

Editor's note: In the third paragraph of this story, I goofed and wrote the word "complacent," instead of "complicit." It has been corrected.

Why liberals are crushing dissent
By Kevin McCullough
Sunday, August 27, 2006
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Liberals are actively undermining first amendment rights to free speech by trying to crush opposing views.

Growing ever bolder in their naked grab for power they are leaving scorched earth behind those who disagree with them. This is why private Gephardt, Joe Lieberman, and Zell Miller no longer find themselves included in the modern Democratic Party. What is left over for the Democrats are wildly anti-American, anti-God, and anti-biblical leftists who are now bragging about their use of brute force to crush the voices of those who disagree with them.

Perhaps that's why this week in one of the boldest moves yet by a sitting liberal, Democrat Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez proclaimed, "The real purpose of SB 1437 is to outlaw traditional perspectives on marriage and family in the state school system."

He continued, "The way you correct a wrong (perspective) is by outlawing.’Cause if you don't outlaw it, then people's biases tend to take over and dominate the perspective and the point of view."

Nunez's solution to the people he disagrees with is to outlaw their ability to disagree with him.

And Nunez's viewpoint is one that pervades liberals in his party and in the nation. That is why Nunez and his fellow democrats in the California State Assembly voted in unison to pass four bills that are all designed to punish people who disagree with them. To incarcerate someone for daring to criticize a different point of view - over a purely behavioral issue.

The bills in question have passed both houses and await Governor Schwarzenegger's signature or veto. The bills were unanimously embraced by the Democrats and universally denounced by the Republicans.

But do they say?

These four bills would require that in every classroom from kindergarten through high school that perverse sexual activity be praised and highlighted in a positive light. They would require textbooks many of which would then also be produced for other states beyond the borders of California make positive references to the ideas of men putting on women's under things. They would restrict school districts from being able to bar females from displaying dildos on the outerwear of their prom dress. And in functional sexuality courses from K-12 they would require positive explanation of the merits and instruction of anal intercourse.

These four bills are also dangerous in what they outlaw. No single teacher - not even in science classes - would be allowed to talk about the negative health impact of homosexual behavior. No school counselor would be allowed to confirm to a molested student that they felt wrong about continuing in a homosexual relationship that they were primarily drawn into because of earlier molestation to begin with. No mention of moral aspects of sexual behavior would be permitted unless immoral activity were praised and in fact referred to as moral.

In other words the pushing of the sexual envelope would be unleashed with a nitro-fueled explosion the likes of which has never been seen in America's history.

The liberals in the state assembly knew that the average Californian would never support these radical measures, but they also knew that they will not be up for re-election this year and they are counting on Californians having very short term memories.

But one of the bills goes a step further. Its actual purpose is to cripple any state resources such as fire department or police protection for any religious institution (i.e. a Bible based church) that would in any way demonstrate negative "doctrine" or "propaganda". So if an arsonist (who also just happened to be a radical activist) decided to burn down a church that was in their view teaching the faithful interpretation of scripture as it relates to sexual practice - then the local fire company could be barred from assisting in the recovery and protection of said facility.

So why are liberals going to such extremes to shut down and shut out any opposing view?

Because they are a stubborn and sinful people. People that are bent on reshaping a utopia that God did not design - and one that will never exist.

Just because the entire world claims there is no God - doesn't make Him disappear. Just because a majority of voters might even say that two men hooking up is the moral equivalence of marriage - doesn't mean it IS marriage.

Liberals are racked with guilt because the conscience that God put inside of them has told them again and again that such things are wrong. But instead of choosing to change their view, they have instead chosen to crush anyone and everyone who would give support to the message that their heart already knows.

Without Judeo-Christian morals there would be no society in place today that would've allowed freedom of speech. And as the moral framework of the Judeo-Christian society that America has always been is systematically being targeted for erasure the little power mongers, and dictators are already aligning to rule with absolute say.

Assembly Speaker Nunez's view to "outlaw traditional perspectives" is shocking in its blunt regurgitation. It is also, sadly, not new to the hard left in America. And without the power of debate, ideas, and dissent it is being given a larger and larger place at the table.

So the godless have announced their intentions and now it is up to us to speak - while we still have voice. Call Gov. Schwarzenegger today 916.445.2841 and ask him to protect free speech, and perspectives of many sorts.

Moral guilt serves its purpose and the best way to rid one's self of it is to change behavior. To attempt to appease it by stifling those you disagree with will only cause it to grow.

What happens when the opposition is gone and the guilt still pervades?

Common sense has been telling us this for years, will we listen?

Case for transparent government is open and shut
August 24, 2006 | Printer-Friendly Version | Send to a Friend

How good is government at wasting our tax dollars? Consider the Department of Homeland Security.

It's not yet five years old, but it's already experienced at throwing away cash. A recent congressional report found that 32 DHS contracts "experienced significant overcharges, wasteful spending or mismanagement." Federal credit cards were used to buy beer-brewing equipment and iPods. Tax money was squandered on luxury hotels and "training" sessions at golf and tennis resorts.

Altogether, those contracts cost the government -- meaning you and me -- $34 billion. Sadly, a lot of that was wasted.

DHS says it can solve the problems -- if it can hire more inspectors. "We need more," Elaine Duke, the DHS chief procurement officer, told lawmakers. "We have an increase coming in the current '07 budget of about 200 additional [workers], and we are working towards needing even more over time."

But the answer isn't to hire more bureaucrats to supervise what the current bureaucrats are doing. There's a simpler, cheaper and more permanent solution: Allow 300 million Americans to review how government spends our money.

That's the idea behind the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, a measure co-sponsored by an unlikely duo: conservative Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and liberal Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), with strong support from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

The bill would require the Office of Management and Budget to build an easy-to-use Web database containing detailed information about all the grants and contracts the federal government hands out. This database would allow virtually anyone to see how much money a federal program received and how it spent that money. And, to ensure that public oversight is timely, information about spending would, by law, have to be posted within 30 days of when Congress authorized the money.

"It shouldn't matter if you think government ought to spend more money or less money," Obama said. "We can all agree that government ought to spend money efficiently. If government money can't withstand public scrutiny, then it shouldn't be spent."

That makes sense to most people. That's why the bill has 29 co-sponsors, including staunch liberals, determined conservatives and self-professed moderates. Small wonder it has moved through the legislative process at what amounts to lightning speed.

The bill was introduced in early April and already has been passed by a committee (the step in the process where senators usually bottle up controversial bills) and placed on the Senate's legislative calendar. But one senator doesn't like it. And that may be enough to derail it, because he (or she) has put a hold on it. A secret hold. How's that for irony -- a secret hold on an open-government bill?

It may not stay that way for long, though. The watchdog group Porkbusters, http://www.porkbusters.org, is trying to smoke out the offender. It's urging constituents to call their senators and push them to disavow the hold. Senators who go on record against the hold are "removed from the suspect list."

Obama and I disagree on many things. But he's right about this. The United States needs more openness in government, so anyone and everyone can review how Uncle Sam spends our tax money. Good government shouldn't be held hostage by secret holds.

Lawmakers have the right -- indeed, the responsibility -- to block legislation they consider bad. But they should always do so publicly, identifying themselves and explaining their actions.

If senators aren't willing to block a bill publicly, they should allow the bill to move forward. That's how good government works: Everyone should know what it's up to. At the end of the day, that's the best way to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.

Edwin Feulner is president of The Heritage Foundation (heritage.org), a Washington–based public policy research institute and co-author of the new book Getting America Right.

just a refresher to focus on seeing the forest thru the trees:

http://www.stocktiming.com/Tuesday-DailyMarketUpdate.htm

But if you look at 2003 spy bottom and on coming rally, you will see the similar thing.  Botttom after the first attempted rally is usually quite.

come on..... 2003 was after we came out of 1 of the biggest meltdowns in history vs. now we have have had a multi-yr run and volume is lagging on another push to new highs and only a couple month pullback.......not saying we are crashing but i am cautious especially with where the strength is right now(defensives).

no comparison

But we did have a sharp drop, yes, it is definitely not nice to rally to all time high.  Just cannot tell how many traders go to Hawaii.  We are in confirmed rally.  I was bullish two weeks ago, I still honor the trend, but keeping watch the inflection point.  It would be nice to be trend follower 99% of time and trend anticipater 1% of time.  

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson082806.html


August 28, 2006
Relearning Lessons in the War on Terror
by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services

From the recent Israel-Hezbollah war in southern Lebanon to the jihadists in Iraq's Sunni Triangle to the repeated efforts by Islamists across the globe to trump Sept. 11, what old lessons about terrorism are we in the West finding ourselves having to relearn?

First, death is the mantra of terrorists. In urban landscapes, they hide among apartment buildings, use human shields and welcome all fatalities — friendly or hostile, combatant or civilian. Death of any kind, they think, makes the liberal West recoil, but allows them to pose as oppressed victims.

Their nihilistic hatred intimidates, rather than repels, third parties — whether "moderate" Arabs, Europeans who back off from peacekeeping in Lebanon, or the Western public at large. Our enemies call Jews "pigs" and "apes" and employ racist caricatures of the U.S.'s African-American secretary of state. Meanwhile, we worry about incurring charges of "Islamophobia," when we should be stressing our liberal values and unabashedly contrasting Western civilization with the 7th-century barbarism of the jihadists.

Second, windfall petrol-dollar profits (now around $500 billion annually) financially fuel radical Islam. Iranian cash allowed Hezbollah to acquire the sophisticated weaponry needed to achieve parity in ambushes with the Israeli Defense Forces. Unless the U.S. can find a way to force oil prices back down below $40 a barrel, Islamists may eventually be better equipped with weapons they buy than we are with munitions we make.

Third, as Israel's experience in Lebanon demonstrated, air power alone can never defeat terrorists. Precision bombing is a tempting option for Westerners since it ensures few if any of our own casualties. But jihadists, through the use of human shields and biased photographers, are able to portray guided weapons as being as indiscriminate as carpet-bombing.

Fourth, the use of old shoot-and-scoot missiles — Katyushas, Qassams and worse to come — is altering the strategic calculus, as they now number in the many thousands. The fear of Hezbollah's near limitless mobile launchers enabled terrorists to put whole Israeli cities in bomb shelters and almost shut down the country's economy.

In the Middle East, neither the new Israeli border wall nor the Golan Heights guarantees security from a sky full of rockets. Israel needs a breakthrough in missile defense and may have to target the conventional assets of terrorist sponsors — the power grid, for example, of Syria — to restore deterrence.

Fifth, intelligence remains lousy. The lapses are not just an American problem but stymie the Israeli Mossad as well. The latter had little idea of the anti-tank weapons and impenetrable bunkers of Hezbollah, located a few miles from the border. Western reliance on drones and satellites yields little on-the-ground information. Meanwhile, free societies broadcast on television much of their own debates and plans.

Under the jihadists' code of vigilante justice, local informants suspected of supplying tips to Westerners are almost instantly and publicly executed. We, on the other hand, flay ourselves over targeted wiretaps.

Sixth, there is little evidence of either the efficacy or morality of the vaunted "multilateral" diplomacy. The French have steadily downsized their proposed contribution to the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon. Cash-hungry Russia sold its best weapons to terrorists. And oil-hungry China supplies Iran with missiles.

And seventh, the reputation of the international media in the Middle East for both accuracy and fairness has been lost. In the recent war in Lebanon, news agencies were accused by bloggers of publishing staged photos, and one agency, Reuters, was embarrassed when it found out — thanks again to the work of bloggers — that one of its freelancers had doctored war-zone photos.

Journalists rarely interviewed or filmed Hezbollah soldiers; we still have no idea how many so-called "civilians" reported killed were, in fact, Hezbollah terrorists. In the Middle East, reporters are scared stiff of Islamic fundamentalists, but not the Israeli or American military.

Despite the enormous advantages of Western militaries, there is no guarantee we can keep ahead of terrorists — especially since they are becoming more adept while we seem tired and unsure about whom, why and how we should fight.

So far, the U.S. has been able to dodge the latest terrorist bullets. So far, Afghanistan and Iraq are clinging to their newfound democracies. So far, Israel has been able to survive Hamas and Hezbollah, and these groups' state sponsors in Iran and Syria.

But unless we in the West adapt more quickly than do canny Islamic terrorists in this constantly evolving war, cease our internecine fighting and stop forgetting what we've learned about our enemies — there will be disasters to come far worse than Sept. 11.

©2006 Tribune Media Services