Friday, January 25, 2013

Windows is not a "Luxury Good" nor "supports the Government" in North Korea


"Facilitating North Korean procurement of luxury goods, or engaging in illicit activities that involve or support the Government of North Korea" These are the words of the Department of the Treasury's overview of sanctions against the government of the People's Democratic Republic of Korea, meaning in short that any goods that are deemed luxury goods, or any goods that support the North Korean government are banned from export to them. So, of course when North Korea released the photos of the control room for the satellite launch last month, it came as a surprise to see the desktop background of Windows peeking out from behind a window on one of the computer screens! As you can see in these photos,released by North Korea's government, the computer in the right bottom corner has the familiar green field and blue sky desktop background of windows. Windows, as any computer system, is both a luxury good - and by the looks of it is supporting the North Korean government. Perhaps it is slips like this that leads North Korea to disregard the sanctions we place against them.


Monday, January 7, 2013

First McMillan then American Spirit: Bank of America's War on Guns

You would think that a company that gets bailed out by the government of the United States of America would have enough dignity to at least respect its constitution... Think again. In April 2012 Kelly McMillan, owner of McMillan arms reported that Bank of America began terminating business with them even though they were in good standing. According to bank representative Ray Fox, it was purely political.

One time occurance? No. Just today Bank of America has frozen the account of American Spirit Arms, a company that legally sells gun parts online. Owner Joe Sirochman says Bank of America froze his account and later told him they did not believe he should be selling gun parts on the internet. It is very obvious that Bank of America has no respect for our right to bear arms, and has no respect for equality, though they were bailed out by the very taxpayers those firearms protect. Shame on them.

(check out our new financial app at https://apps.facebook.com/quickerticker)

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Coup Attemp Against Boehner!

As you will soon see on www.drudgereport.com there was a coup attempt against John Boehner's speakership this week that was called off at the last minute. This is what news sources say:

Tea Partiers and many conservatives were determined that John Boehner not be re-elected Speaker. Reports circulated that 20 members were ready to vote against John Boehner which would have been enough to prevent a first ballot election as Speaker and if they held firm, it may have forced a replacement. Instead, the coup broke up. They were unable to agree on an alternative to Speaker Boehner, with all twelve members who voted against Boehner scattering.

New York Republicans representative Peter King almost led a coup this week when Boehner refused to allow debate on aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy, and outside the chamber, he joined New Jersey governor Chris Christie and New York's Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo is lambasting Boehner and other Republicans for standing in the way of relief to their constituents.


A group of dissident Republicans failed on Thursday to push Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) to a second ballot in his election as Speaker and potentially replace him as leader of the House.
Twelve House Republicans broke from Boehner in a tense public roll-call vote, either by voting for someone else or deliberately not voting at all — five short of what would have been needed to force a second ballot.