Made from 100% soy! Amazingly comfortable and soft. Durable too. The Tofutech Tee is now marked down to $19.99 from $34.00. I don’t often plug products but these are fast becoming my favorite Tee shirts. Available in long-sleeves too.

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There will be numerically less failures than during the S&L crisis. But banks are much larger now.  So the damage may well be worse. So, how do you protect yourself? Bank with a huge institution like BofA assuming it is too large to be allowed to fail, buy gold and guns, do something else?

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From Larry Holmes at Workers World.

The masses did not launch Obama’s presidential campaign—a section of the U.S. ruling class and its political operatives did. Some in the ruling class got behind Obama merely to advance their faction fight against the Clintons inside the Democratic Party.

But other forces in the U.S. ruling class have rallied behind Obama because they view him as better suited than Clinton or McCain to deal with a central crisis of U.S. imperialism. They need to find a way to halt the rapid deterioration of its position as the world’s dominant economic and military power.

All true, even if he does go on, as do many doctrinaire Marxists, to say this foreshadows the coming collapse of capitalism (”Marxists have predicted eleven of the past seven crisises”).  Actually, it probably doesn’t. Capitalism got through the Great Depression and thrived. The current times are a blip compared to that. ( And Marxist glee in possible coming economic collapses hardly seems a good recruiting tool.)

His stated beliefs that the ruling class might be setting up a Black man to take the heat for the coming crisis seem paranoid. As does his view that the Rev. Wright affair was secretly a loyalty test by mainstream media for Obama. (Huh?) Marxists too often seem to believe that capitalists control and manipulate everything, when in reality they seem more like the Keystone Cops, hardly in control at all. Do you think that a secret cabal currently runs the world economy? If so, they’re doing a dismal job of manipulating events, aren’t they?

But Holmes’ basic point is quite valid. A part of the US ruling class has backed Obama from the start, quite rightfully concluding that war and the insanities of the Bush Administration are bad for the economy, the people, and for long-term good of the US. Now Obama may well be the next president. That would be a sea change indeed.

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“Dad” is slang for Baghdad.

Out in the desert there’s a soldier lying dead
Vultures pecking the eyes out of his head
Another day that could have been me there instead

You hit the booby trap and you’re in pieces
With every bullet your risk increases
Old Ali Baba, he’s a different species

I’m dead meat in my HumV Frankenstein
I hit the road block, God knows I never hit the mine
The dice rolled and I got lucky this time

I’ve got a wife, a kid, another on the way
I might get home if I can live through today
Before I came out here I never used to pray
Nobody loves me here
Nobody loves me here

Dad’s in a bad mood, Dad’s got the blues
It’s someone else’s mess that I didn’t choose
At least we’re winning on the Fox Evening News
Nobody loves me here

Dad’s Gonna Kill Me
Dad’s Gonna Kill Me

Full lyrics.

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The Algal Biomass Organization promotes the development of viable commercial markets for renewable and sustainable commodities derived from microalgae.

There’s no need to use cropland for biofuel when algae can do the job!

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The money machine is closing. Banks are shutting down home equity lines of credit completely, or lowering the amount that can be borrowed to 85% of the current (reduced) value of the house. This will cause a ripple effect of reduced spending throughout the economy.

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Demand from developing countries, biofuel grown on croplands, and rising costs in general are among the primary reasons why.

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