The supreme court has struck down a century-old Montana law limiting corporate campaign spending, dashing hopes of a rethink over a controversial 2010 decision by the justices that allows for vast amounts of private cash being used to influence national elections.

Campaigners had hoped the court would look again at the so-called Citizens United ruling, which paved the way for an unprecedented rise in the money flowing into congressional and presidential campaigns from corporate sources.

But in a 5-4 vote, split along the same conservative-liberal lines as the earlier case, the court's conservative justices said the 2010 judgement also applies to state campaign finance laws.

"The question presented in this case is whether the holding of Citizens United applies to the Montana state law. There can be no serious doubt that it does," the justices ruled.

The Guardian.UK  

  Each of these chess set pieces are carved out of either Orange Onyx or Black Onyx.  Today, I looked up the meanings of each of these powerful and unique stones...here is what I found.

 Orange Onyx is said to stabilize and heal the root chakra, and to increase grounding and productiveness; while Black Onyx is commonly referred to as "The Stone of Self Mastery and Self Control."

This amazing chess set was a gift from my wife, Alice, for this year's Father's Day.  Each piece within the set is handmade by the world renowned stone scupltors of Tehuacan, Mexico's indigenious people.

These photos were collected with a cell phone yesterday while celebrating my son's 7th birthday and the summer solstice at an alpine lake resting at 6550 feet above sea level...fortunately, it's located only a few miles from our home; and where we receive nourishment in the forms of rainbow trout for dinner and father eagle for nature spirit blessings.

j.a. knolls

Tumalo Waters of Creation 

In End This Depression Now! Paul Krugman argues “Nations rich in resources, talent, and knowledge—all the ingredients for prosperity and a decent standard of living for all—remain in a state of intense pain.” He shows how the failure of regulation to keep pace with an increasingly out-of-control financial system positioned the world for the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s. Decrying the tepid response so far, he lays out the steps that must be taken to free ourselves and turn around a stagnating world economy. His is a powerful message: a strong recovery is only one step away, if our leaders find the intellectual clarity and political will to see it through.

Krugman states that only one government is “engaging in unforced austerity because it believed in the confidence fairy: David Cameron’s government in Britain.” However, “business confidence fell to levels not seen since the worst of the crisis and consumer confidence fell even below the levels of 2008-9… Yet Cameron and Osborne remain adamant that they will not change course.” He praises the Bank of England, which continues to do what it can to mitigate the slump.

Krugman looks at whether the economic collapse in Europe would have happened regardless of the US crash, what the causes of the European crisis were and why it came as such a shock. He discusses how long the euro will be seen as a unifying currency when there are such stark differences between the economic situations of countries that have adopted it.

This is Krugman at his best—direct, clear, never afraid to apportion blame at any level. A plea for common sense, dedicated “to the unemployed, who deserve better”, End This Depression Now! will become the cornerstone in the debate over how to respond to the crisis.
“...lively and readable... Krugman’s book may persuade governments to limit further austerity and that would be a fine thing.” Robin Harding, Financial Times

Report: Firms of 18 Fed Directors Received $4 Trillion in Bailout Money

A new report shows 18 former and current directors of the Federal Reserve worked for financial companies that collectively received more than $4 trillion dollars in the Fed-overseen Wall Street bailout. In a statement, independent Senator Bernie Sanders, whose office released the report, said*: "At a time when small businesses could not get affordable loans to create jobs, the Fed was providing trillions in secret loans to some of the largest banks and corporations in America that were well represented on the boards of the Federal Reserve Banks. These conflicts must end."

Writing found on Democracy Now !

Technology

Facebook flotation may have cost UBS $350m

Swiss bank resubmitted order multiple times after receiving no confirmation and got more shares than it wanted, CNBC claims

The UBS offices in New York. The Swiss bank is said to be considering legal action against Nasdaq over the Facebook IPO. Photograph: Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters

The Swiss investment bank UBS may have lost as much as $350m (£226m) during Facebook's flawed flotation last month, according to reports.

In a statement the bank acknowledged making losses on the initial public offering (IPO) but declined to specify how much. The reported figure is 10 times higher than earlier estimates.

According to the financial news channel CNBC, UBS is now considering legal action against Nasdaq, the stock market that handled the IPO.

Nasdaq and Facebook are involved in a series of lawsuits over the flotation on 18 May. Problems with Nasdaq's trading systems led to delays and widespread confusion among buyers and sellers as to how many shares they held.

According to CNBC, UBS wanted 1m Facebook shares but did not receive confirmation that its order had been taken. The bank resubmitted the order multiple times and all those orders were eventually fulfilled, leaving it with far more shares than it wanted.

In the days before the IPO, Facebook raised its share price to $38 and increased the number of shares it was selling by 25%. The share price soared to $45 in early trading but ended the first day where it had begun, and has since slumped to $27.10.

Last week Nasdaq sought to calm the escalating row by proposing a $40m compensation fund for firms that lost money on ill-fated trades. Critics including the broker Knight Capital, which said it lost $30m on the IPO, said the fund was insufficient.

The rival exchange NYSE Euronext criticised Nasdaq's plan to compensate brokers in part through discounted trading costs. "This is tantamount to forcing the industry to subsidise Nasdaq's missteps and would establish a harmful precedent," it said. "We intend to strongly press our views that Nasdaq's proposal cannot be allowed to permit an unjust and anti-competitive situation."

Suing the exchange over losses may prove difficult. Nasdaq's chief executive, Robert Greifeld, has admitted the exchange has been embarrassed by the saga but said it had no direct responsibility to individual investors. Nasdaq is protected against legal action over trading losses by its membership agreements exchange rules.

 

The Geologic History of the Columbia River Gorge

-- From: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District, and the U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, The Geologic History of the Columbia River Gorge: Information Brochure.

---

You arrive home to see feathers and seed scattered on the floor, a plant next to the cage tipped over, a shaken bird, and the cat is hiding. Even though you did not witness the event, you can tell the cat went after the bird. It seems you would make a good geologist. Geologists can look at formations in the Gorge and piece together the story of how it was created. You can too! Read this sheet as you travel and see if you can spot clues to how the Gorge formed. KA-BOOM! 40-20 million years ago ( Eocene to Miocene) Thousands of volcanic eruptions piled layers of volcanic ash, lava, and mudflows over the region, creating the Ohanapecosh Formation. These rocks weathered into slippery red clay and greenish rocks visible near Stevenson, Washington. Millions of years later, mudflows poured off volcanoes, covering the land with hundreds of feet of ash, boulders, and cobbles, creating the Eagle Creek Formation. You can see this beige formation on cliffs north of Bonneville Dam and along I-84 near exit 41. Beacon Rock, just downstream from the dam, is the ancient core of one of these volcanoes. Trees buried in the Eagle Creek Formation petrified and their leaves fossilized. If you have a sharp eye, you might spot an ancient trunk in a rock outcropping along a trail. A petrified log from this formation lies in from of the Bradford Island Visitor Center. Lava, lava everywhere! 17-12 million years ago (Miocene) During this period, unusual volcanoes, called basalt floods, erupted in eastern Washington and Oregon. These volcanoes were cracks in the earth's crust, several miles long, which poured out floods of liquid molten rock. 41,000 cubic miles (170,000 cubic kilometers) of this lava spread to cover large parts of Oregon and Washington. Out of 270 lava flows that spread across the region, 21 poured through the Gorge forming layers of rock up to 2,000 feet (600 meters) deep. Look at the cliffs in the Gorge. Can you see these layers? As the lava cooled it formed a dark gray rock called basalt. Many of these lava flows cooled into columnar basalt; the lava cracks, forming six-sided columns. As you look for lava layers, notice that some contain columnar basalt. If you look closely at a columnar layer, you might notice it is divided into two parts. At the bottom, the lava cooled slowly forming regular, widely spaced columns. Higher up, it cooled rapidly creating a jumbled looking mass of irregular, closely spaced columns. The Birth of the Gorge 2 million to 700,000 years ago (Pleistocene) Hundreds of volcanoes erupted in the Cascade mountain range. You can still see the 14 major peaks and hundreds of smaller peaks and cinder cones that form the range. Near Hood River, Oregon, you see dramatic views of Mount Adams and Mount Hood. Both are dormant volcanoes that could erupt within the next 50 years. During this period, the Cascades began to uplift. As the mountains rose, the Columbia River carved out a deep gorge. This is the only near sea-level passage through the Cascades. The Missoula Floods 16,000-14,000 years ago (Pleistocene) Did you know that the largest floods to occur on the planet happened here? During the last ice age, ice sheets covered much of Canada. One lobe of ice grew southward, blocking the Clark Fork Valley in Idaho. This 2,000 foot (600 meters) high ice dam blocked the river, creating a lake that stretched for hundreds of miles. When the lake was full, it contained 600 cubic miles (2,500 cubic kilometers) of water. How much is that? Imagine a block of water a mile high (as high as the mountains around Bonneville Dam), a miles wide, and stretching from Bonneville Dam to San Francisco! Eventually, water traveled under the ice dam. The water drained out of the lake in two or three days, flooding eastern Washington. The flood, moving up to sixty miles per hour, scoured out hundreds of miles of canyons called coulees, created the largest waterfall to ever exist, and left 300 foot (90 meter) high gravel bars. At Bonneville, the water crested at 650 feet (200 meters). If you look on the cliffs southeast of the dam, you will see a transmission tower (the one with three poles) that is 200 feet (60 meters) above the high water mark. During a period of 2,500 years as many as 100 of these floods scoured the Gorge. Sliding into History 500 years ago Near Bonneville, the lava layers making up Table Mountain slid into the Gorge. This series of four landslides, covering five square miles, blocked the Columbia River. The Second Powerhouse butts against this landslide. If you look north of the dam, you can see cliffs exposed after the mountain gave way. Original inhabitants of the area may have marveled at the 200 foot (60 meters) high landslide blocking the Columbia. They could have crossed on foot, possibly giving rise to a story about "The Bridge of the Gods". This natural dam created a lake that stretched almost seventy miles (up to the present day John Day Dam). After a few months, the Columbia rose high enough to wash through the southern side of the landslide creating a flood of water that was 100 feet (30 meters) deep at Troutdale. Things returned to normal, except the river was displaced a mile to the south and a set of rapids, the Cascades, had formed. In 1938, the rapids disappeared under water rising behind Bonneville Dam. The only hints of their existence are the remnants of a navigation lock at Cascades Locks built in 1896 to allow boats around the rapids. The Gorge is still changing. In the winter of 1996, landslides similar to the Bridge of the Gods landslide destroyed homes in Warrendale. At milepost 35 on I-84 you can see this damage.

"Bottom-line mentality" has become and remained the root cause of modern U.S. society's apathy for well too long, which greatly lack both in philanthropy and happiness.

Is it based in greed, narcissism, or selfish expanse that leads to the 1 % considering that it is only they who are capable to distribute monies accordingly....?  What a bad joke, obviously, one that folks are fed up with to say the very least.

ALL WORKING ESTABLISHMENTS in the land of the not-so-free (U.S.A.) would suit an authentic democracy by being structured so to reflect the proportionate gains of a company throughout its entire work force.

Those who are helping the business to thrive (not merely upper management fermenting-sacks either) need be rewarded and shared with appropriately.

  Once individuals within a community prosper, as does their own community, allowing them to become better participates of the democratic process.

  I suggest this be a true profit sharing structure, stating clearly that the CFO must cut bonus checks to all employees post-periods of financial growth, quarterly profits, and quality sales.

 The amount paid need be based upon an agreeable percentage that helps all to gain and prosper, not just a few prats...like is the commonplace case of today.

Why would this stance be called of a wrongful thinking by anyone in their right mind, who desires to promote well-being and the greater creativity of a sense towards one's positive contribution?

It would seem clear to me that the 1% has become saturated in false aspirations depicted by war pigs, banking thugs, and prime ministers desiring to be a king of austerity while fortifying the walls of inequality.

Observed by

j.a. knolls

The High Cascades are such as suggested...we are humbled by the natural beauty found thriving beneath the Three Sisters, and to play into the heart of them is pure magic.

THE VENUS EFFECT - VENUS IN GEMINI

You are so sharp that sometimes, you cut yourself! That’s the downside of being born with Venus in Gemini but given the numerous creative talents that this allows you to develop, it is hardly a side effect worth worrying about. Even if you do end up with the occasional self inflicted psychological wound, you are blessed with an impressive capacity for rapid recovery.  There’s never yet been a problem that you have failed to see a solution to.

The transit of Venus has taken place in your Venus sign - and the next one too, in 2012, falls in the same sector of the sky. That’s a clear sign that it’s time to think again about the way you conduct some of your ‘emotional business’.

It’s also a suggestion that you are growing tired of ‘thinking your way through life’ and would like to feel your way to a future in which you are free to be less logical, more intuitive. There’s nothing stopping this, other than a long established tendency to see yourself in a particular light, compounded by a reputation that you have spend a long time cultivating. Others think of you as someone with an answer to every question.

There may be some resistance as you now start asking questions to which there are seemingly no answers. But as you now finally dare to face up to personal issues which, prior to now you have denied the very existence of, there’s going to be amazing movement and magic. Next, we’ll look at the new life of love and the new love of life, which you will soon have.

Last week’s rare transit of Venus took place in your own Venus sign. That, all on its own, is a clear sign from the sky that you’re going through something exceedingly special. As the second rare Transit, in 2012, will also be in Gemini, we can safely conclude that you’re entering a long, exciting phase of positive, personal growth. Er.. hang a minute. Personal growth? Isn’t that a sort of 'new-age, psychobabble euphemism for inner conflict and awkward experience?'

Well, yes, it is... and no, I won’t pretend that your journey through the next eight years is due to be entirely free of challenge. But grow, you will. And as you acquire greater psychological height, so you will easily start to rise above emotional problems that currently seem to loom dauntingly over your head. You’ll go far past the limitations that currently confine you. You’ll become much more of the person you were always destined to be. And that will make it much easier to recognise and respond appropriately to the person you were always destined to be WITH.

The learning curves you encounter on your journey towards a happier future may be steep at times but they’ll never cause you to slide back down the slippery slope towards ignorance. The changes may take a bit of getting used to but once you do adapt, you’ll never look back.

All the events you encounter will have but one simple purpose...

To help you fulfill your potential. So prepare to develop more of your talent. To release the gift you were born blessed with. To learn who you really are and what you’re capable of. To impress yourself and others in the process. To win friends and influence people. To become more creative, more inspired, more attractive and more able to weave spells of enchantment. Oh, and one more thing. To enjoy yourself.

By Jonathan Cainer (written in 2004)