Am I the only guy in this country who’s fed up with what’s happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We’ve got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we’ve got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can’t even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, “Stay the course.”Stay the course? You’ve got to be kidding.This is America, not the damned Titanic. I’ll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

Lee Iacocca, former CEO of Chrysler, excerpted from his new book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone

Tip: Crooks and Liars

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This weekend, ANSWER L.A. is moving into a much larger office on Virgil, close to the 101 and the Vermont / Beverly Metro stop. It’s three times larger than the current office with room enough to have multiple meetings at the same time.

This new larger office will allow ANSWER to do even more.

Full details on the ANSWER L.A. website where you can contribute to help defray the $10,000 moving expenses.

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The International Monetary Fund says increased use of cropland in the US to grow fuelstock for ethanol is already increasing the price of corn and other food and that, long-term, this is not sustainable.

AltEnergyStocks notes:

The main reasons for pursuing ethanol in the manner in which it is being pursued in the US right now are, in order: (a) placate the farming lobby and earn valuable political support in America’s hinterland; (b) placate the wean-America-off-foreign-oil lobby; (c) placate the soft environmentalist lobby; (d) combat climate change…oh, wait a minute…I guess no one’s settled that thorny energy balance question yet, have they?

Well put. For any number of reasons, dedicating huge amounts of crop land to be used to create ethanol is a bad idea. The best idea of all is - cut consumption. That’s where the answer lies.

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I remember a time when black people couldn’t say “I’d like to vote, please.” Now, white people can’t say “nappy-headed hos.” You’ll survive.

Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post.

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I’d heard the new bankruptcy laws were onerous. Maxed Out, which I’m reading, details just how hideous they are.

If your income is at or above the median income for your state, you are assumed to be defrauding your creditors and thus are not allowed to file bankruptcy. No, I am not making this up.

If you are allowed to file, you must go to credit counseling first. That’s private, not governmental, credit counseling, and it’s unregulated. All manner of jackal and scammer will be lurking in wait for the desperate debtor, no doubt.

And regardless of if you can file or not, you will undoubtedly get offers for new credit cards while the process is going on. Often from the same companies you owe money to.

Another tidbit. If you default on a student loan, they can now take it out of your Social Security payments. If you didn’t know, a student loan is not dischargeable by anything, not bankruptcy, not illness, nothing.

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Two senators have introduced the legislation.

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Peggy Sue and Bandit snooze happily.

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