WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush expressed regret Monday that the global financial crisis has cost jobs and shrinking retirement accounts and said he will support more government intervention if needed to ease the recession.
"I’m sorry it’s happening, of course," Bush said in a wide-ranging interview with ABC’s World News, which was airing Monday. "Obviously I don’t like the idea of people losing jobs, or being worried about their 401(k)s. On the other hand, the American people got to know that we will safeguard the system. I mean, we’re in. And if we need to be in more, we will."
The retirement account known as 401(k) is a government-approved system that allows workers to save before-tax dollars in stock or other accounts, with tax to be paid only after retirement when the retiree can expect his income to be smaller and thus be taxed at a lower rate under the U.S. progressive income tax system.
The U.S. economy fell into a recession in December 2007, the National Bureau of Economic Research reported on Monday. Many economists believe the current downturn will last until the middle of 2009 and will be the most severe slump since the 1981-82 recession.
Bush said he felt responsible for the economic downturn because it is occurring on his watch, but he added: "I think when the history of this period is written, people will realize a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so" before he became president. Via USA TODAY.
When future historians argue over the legacy of George W. Bush, the question they confront may be just which bracket of presidential failure he belongs in. Nixon and Johnson? Or Herbert Hoover? President Bush earned his place in the pantheon of disgrace even before he presided over an epochal financial crisis. Absent the atrocities of 9/11, he might have been a mediocrity: a big spender too prone to trust his shallow instincts but able to clear the competence threshold and lacking the sophistication to be truly dangerous.
Then came that epic morning, which Bush answered by giving the hijackers far more than they could accomplish with four planes. His grand democratization plan reduced Iraq to rubble, drove Iran to arm, and provided terrorists with the ultimate recruiting tool. America, once renowned for her decency, became the aggressor her foes alleged.
At home, our failed attempt at global liberation has left us less free than ever before. Ancient liberties, cultural imperatives, even basic solvency were subsumed by the war effort. And the conservative movement that gave Bush his margin sanitized his radicalism at the cost of its soul. All he touched turned to dross. Yet he departs unbowed, still a Churchill in his own mind.
This is journalism at its best, I feel we should give her a medal and use her as an example to 24 hour news networks.
Is the US already at war with Iran? In "America’s Secret War", Vanguard correspondent Mariana van Zeller travels to the Iraq-Iran border to investigate claims that the United States is supporting militant groups that are attacking Iran. In the rugged Qandil mountains, she meets with up with anti-Iranian guerillas who have been launching deadly raids against the Islamic Republic. A good percentage of the fighters are women, and Mariana accompanies a small group of them through what many believe has become the frontline of the US’s secret war with Iran.
The story continues. Another proxy war led by the American government. This happened so many times before under Reagan’s administration and we had George H.W. Bush and his war in Nicaragua against the Sandanistas. Remember the Contras and Ollie North? Remember the illegal funding of the Contras and the selling of weapons to Iran for money to finance the Contras? But no one remember the thousands that died under this war. Things haven’t changed. Bush Sr. = Bush Jr.? You Betcha, this should have been predictable.
And btw, who can say they knew this much about IRAN, Kurds, PKK, PJAK and Hezbollah before?
The British Library is going to put what remains of the world’s oldest Bible online for all to see and study.
The world’s oldest Bible, the Codex Sinaiticus, was written in Greek more than 1,600 years ago. It’s always been a controversial book, containing pieces not in the “standard” Bible, like the Epistle of Barnabas and definitely not containing the resurrection of Jesus. It was discovered in 1844 in St. Catherine’s Monastery close to Mt. Sinai, and parts of it are still there.
The other remaining fragments are in Russia, Germany, and in Britain - at the British Library. [LINK]
“Everyone has assumed we age by rust. But how do you explain animals that don’t age? Some tortoises
lay eggs at the age of 100, there are whales that live to be 200 and clams that make it past 400 years.”
Stuart Kim, PhD, Stanford University professor of developmental biology and genetics
Prevailing theory of aging challenged by Stanford University Medical School researchers. Their discovery contradicts the prevailing theory that aging is a buildup of tissue damage similar to rust. The Stanford findings suggest specific genetic instructions drive the process. If they are right, science might one day find ways of switching the signals off and halting or even reversing aging. [LINK]
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