Even though the Labor Department is known to massage its statistics, the numbers are so bad that its latest report registers an increase in the Producer Price Index of 1.2% in July and 9.8% in the last year. CNN carries the story. Even with a dip in oil prices over the last month, CNN says that this is the highest rate of increase in the past 27 years.

The Dow is sinking and should dip below 11,000 once again. It well may test new lows in the next couple of days.

I got this through my adventures on stumble. It is a very interesting site. The guy who runs it is a top animater. animater His web site is called Bushflash. I think the site is just coming up. Anyway some of the buttons didn't seem to work but the video that should come up with this was tops.

Here's another fabulous link from stumble. The site is called Bird brains. It's a comic strip,

In the interest of providing a more rounded account please do not overlook additions to this story, including McCain campaign's reply.

Seems like there is good reason to suspect that John McCain either listened to Barack Obama and Rick Warren during the first hour of the Saddlebrook debate, despite assurances to the audience that he had been isolated in a "cone of silence," on the premises of the church.

It now turns out that ceasfire negotiations for Russian pullback from Georgia were stalled because of the refusal of Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili to sign the six-point ceasefire plan brokered by French President Nicholas Sarkozy. According the Guardian-UK, Sarkozy finally agreed to sign opening the way for Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, to also ratify the pact.

Both have now signed on.

Posted with permission from Nicholas Benton, owner/editor of the Falls Church News Press,

McCain's Neo-Con Rant on Georgia

It must be appreciated that the current Russian military operation in Georgia comes in the context of eight years of a profoundly-destructive Bush administration thuggish, unilateralist foreign policy. The reckless Bush policy, including its unprovoked invasion and occupation of Iraq, has heightened tensions throughout the world and driven angry wedges where bridges could have been built.
Now, Russia is reacting to a perceived threat on its border much as it was accustomed to doing in the old Cold War days. They're not the good guys in this, but it is clear that the U.S. has been the bad guys for way too long.

I received the following communication from MoveOn warning about Bush's plan toward to restrict access to contraceptive methods deemed to be "abortificants" by the Right-To-Lifers. The letter includes a link to sign on to a letter protesting Bush's planned moves to circumvent the Congress to install new rules in the guise of "regulations."

Click here to sign an emergency message to the Department of Health and Human Services: "Contraception is NOT abortion.

Posted with permission by Nicholas Benton, Owner/Editor of the Falls Church News Press

"We're trying to come to grips with the end of a 20-year secular credit expansion that went parabolic in the last six years," the chief North American economist for Merrill Lynch said on national TV yesterday.

"The U.S. economy is at the outset of the first consumer recession since the early 1990s, and it's facing headwinds comparable to the six-quarter recession that pushed the Standard & Poors Index down 40 percent in the 1970s," David Rosenberg said in a live interview on CNBC.

"We've gone from housing to credit to employment, and now I think we're going to start to see some negative consumer spending numbers now that we're past this fiscal stimulus program," he went on.

map fromGlobal Guerillas

The American stance, condemning Russia for “aggression” against Georgia, is dominating the American news media, but it is useful to look at some more nuanced views of the situation not excluding the placement of missiles on Polish territory despite Russian objections and not excluding the role of American military trainers in building up Ossetian military capabilities. Whatever blame does or does not rightly fall upon the Russian government, it is clear that a renewal of enmity between the U.S. and Russia falls within the Bush/McCain permanent-warfare geopolitical gameplan. Several recent commentaries raise what I consider to be important reasons not to succumb to the Bush/McCain propaganda machine and the U.S. media barrage, both of which seek to demonize Putin.

Popular Mechanics magazine as put together a comprehensive six page review on how to implement a massive infrastructure development program: Rebuilding America Special Report: How to Fix U.S. Infrastructure Erik Sofge.