Laser printers are an exceptional investment into productivity and overall operating costs. But when the time comes to replace the toner, you have an important decision to make: save money by purchasing compatible or remanufactured toner, or buy a genuine toner cartridge from your printer manufacturer.

State fines agents in investment scam. The World newspaper provides local and regional news coverage for Coos Bay, Bandon, Reedsport and other southern oregon cities.

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Obama takes heat for skipping Berlin Wall anniversary « - Blogs from CNN.com

In New Jersey, incumbent Democrat John Corzine was wildly unpopular for raising taxes, so that even with Democrats holding an almost 2:1 registration advantage in the state (half of all voters are unaffiliated), he too had no enthusiastic backing from his former base. No amount of money poured in by the former Goldman Sachs chief executive could overcome the negative views of his record as governor. But despite the lackluster candidates in both Virginia and New Jersey, I think it’s safe to say that there was also clear evidence that the losses, and the margins of the losses—huge in Virginia’s case, and significant in normally safely Democratic New Jersey—provide evidence that the Obama presidency, and the prevailing Democratic strategy of minimalist legislative initiatives on health care reform, global warming etc., expanded and unending war in Afghanistan, support for Wall Street and neglect of the one-in-five Americans who are unemployed or underemployed, are a political disaster in the making for Democrats in general and Obama in particular. The president came into office on a wave of populist enthusiasm and high expectations for the “change” candidate Obama promised. No change has been forthcoming now for over nine months, and with the president now past the first-year anniversary of his historic election victory, the latest election results suggest that his presidency could already be headed for the rocks.

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Tea Party activists hit the Hill, arrested outside Pelosi’s office « - Blogs from CNN.com

This is what Time Magazine pulled from the Huffington Post article about Ron and me. 'The only thing that happens is a check mark in a box in a courthouse.' MARY MCCURNIN, a Rancho Cordova, Calif., woman, on her decision to file for a divorce in order to reap financial benefits. By getting the divorce, McCurnin, who is happily married to husband Ron Bednar, becomes eligible to receive the Social Security payments owed to her deceased first husband They will be hearing from me!!!!!!! Fuckery. God damn it. Nothing about our four illnesses. Nothing about our loses due to those illnesses. Just me wanting money. For those of you who do not know, my husband and I had two major illnesses each that lead to our filing for bankruptcy which ruined our credit which decreased our chances of employment. So we decided that we would get divorced so I could receive social security widow's benefits from my first husband. Shit. I can hardly speak/write.

Interest only (IO) loans seemed like a viable mortgage option when home prices were appreciating on a double-digit basis every year. The interest only loan allowed borrowers the option of making no principal payments for 5, 7, or even 10 years. Now why would someone not make any principal payment for such a long time? The way these mortgages were pitched, people would buy a home for 3, 5, or 7 years and would sell their home before the reset period. Yet the housing bubble has burst and home prices are now below the average balance of these mortgage in many areas. Recent data has the median U.S. home price at $178,000 while the average loan amount of an interest only loan is $324,000. How many of these loans are out there? Try 2.8 million. Many in overpriced states that have taken the brunt of the housing downturn. [Note: Biggest swindle besides the other ARMS and other rates that were based on getting the mortgage payment down so that a person could just get into a home they potentially could not afford if done correctly.]

The Air Force’s geek squad wants the technology to monitor government employees’ deviant online behavior. And they want you to build it. Today, the Air Force issued a call for proposals from small businesses, with this objective: “Define, develop, and demonstrate innovative approaches for determining ‘good’ (approved) versus ‘bad’ (disallowed/subversive) activities, including insiders and/or malware.”

Anniversaries can be important. This Friday marks the 22nd anniversary of the U.N. Convention against Torture, ratified and signed under President Reagan. Last Friday marked the 150th day of the presidency of Barack Obama, who is trying to put a definitive end to the torture approved by the Bush-Cheney administration. That Obama has not been able to do so is our collective shame. Worse still, the president has apparently concluded that he lacks the support to deter future abominations of this sort by launching a proper investigation and holding to account those responsible. Something evil has seeped into the soul of our nation. Those many years when we looked the other way, choosing to ignore the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody, eroded our morality. Americans who claim to believe in human dignity and the law do not seem scandalized by this inhumane and illegal activity. Many people of faith appear willing to tolerate unspeakable cruelty. Christians who follow one who himself was tortured by the powers of his time evidently are now ready to justify our own government's use of torture. It is reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s, when — with very few exceptions — neither Catholic nor Lutheran pastors found their voice. A more recent example: in April 2008 when the pope visited the U.S., the involvement of our most senior government leaders in approving torture dominated the headlines. He ignored the issue entirely.

'The report I wrote for, and last month presented at, the Cato Institute on the success of full-scale drug decriminalization in Portugal spawned a fair amount of media discussion -- in places such as Scientific American, The Wall St. Journal, The Vancouver Sun and many others -- but now, rather amazingly, Time Magazine has published a new article, by Maia Szalavitz, that substantively and impressively examines the report and its implications.'

Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC) (TWC) is testing a new way of charging for Internet use - by the amount of traffic rather than solely based on download speed. But now that it's expanding its trial into Rochester, N.Y., it's run into a problem: The local phone company refuses to play ball. Frontier Communications Co., whose DSL broadband service competes with Time Warner Cable's modems, has shelved its own plans to introduce metered billing... ...We have gotten hundreds of calls from Time Warner customers into our call centers," said Ann Burr, the head of Frontier's Rochester unit, in an interview with The Associated Press. "I guess it's been a public relations crisis for Time Warner." That move bodes poorly for the future of metered Internet billing. Because the idea is unpopular with consumers, cable and phone companies need to match each other's moves in introducing it, or one of them gains a competitive advantage by offering the standard all-you-can-eat service.

In this important show, Bill Moyers talks to a union organizer who fought the Democratic Party Machine in Chicago and a WaPo (demonize away on the WaPo - they deserve it) columnist, who discusses the death grip of the financial elite on DC.

As sectarian violence and accompanying religious fanaticism began to gain ground and peaked in 2006-07, the sculptor had to stop sculpting, lest he be branded sectarian. That accusation in Iraq can be life threatening. The situation today is somewhat different, but still not conducive to artistic expression. All artists in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq are surviving in harsh conditions, “There are so many works, but nobody cares to see them or buy them. Only our friends attend our exhibitions, and nobody is in a position to buy any of the pieces. The government doesn’t care and does nothing at all to help us. These are bad days for us.” Artists in Iraq cannot afford to rent studios now, and most of them live in their parental homes. “My wife, our children and I are living in one room in my father’s house. In one corner of that room is my studio,” says Alawchi, “This obviously affects my concentration and limits the size and substance of my work.”

"We had it down to a science in 1992: my wife would pick stocks that technically looked ready to go up, or she would keep track of merchandise to see what was down to tag ends. She would then generate a list of stocks that could move quickly on good news. Jeff would then go to work calling the companies to try to find anything good we could say about them. I would call the analysts to see I they were hearing anything. When we found a stock that looked ready technically to break out, or where the supply had been mopped up, and Jeff found something positive at the company, and I knew the analyst community didn’t know anything positive, we would load up with call options and common stock and then give the good news to our favorite analysts who liked the stock so they could go do their promotion. That would get the buzz going and we would then be able to liquidate the position into the buzz for a handsome profit." (Confessions of a Street Addict, page 61). Note: Above video per WRH.

“We’ve seen money go out the back door of this government unlike any time in the history of our country,” Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, said on the Senate floor Feb. 3. “Nobody knows what went out of the Federal Reserve Board, to whom and for what purpose. How much from the FDIC? How much from TARP? When? Why?” @@@ and we're supposed to back a nearly 1 Trillion package???@@@@

TIME takes a "gamble" naming George Bush 'Person of the Year' (2004). Also on this date (2006), it took the threat of a court order but the Interior Dept agrees to consider polar bears as endangered. Yet, they just can't bring themselves to say why! It's not that difficult really, just 2 words: "global warming". Why is that so hard to say? Also, a related Bushism.

The change in policy means funerals for enlisted soldiers now will also include the horse-drawn caisson and other honors previously given only to certain soldiers such as officers and Medal of Honor recipients.

The Huffington Post ran a good article on how colleges and universities abuse most of their faculty by having two separate and unequal classes: one paid far less per class to do the same job and usually given no job security or health benefits. Will the Obama administration allow this abuse to continue since critical thinking skills and knowledge of history are the strongest antidotes to the fear-mongering and know-nothing propaganda of the right?

Dow Chemical Co. said Monday it will slash 5,000 full-time jobs — about 11 percent of its total work force — close 20 plants and sell several businesses to control costs amid the economic recession. NOTE: So why is the DOW up +350 on a day when all the economic news is negative?

On November 7, the government said the U.S. unemployment rate rose to 6.5 percent in October, the highest rate since March 1994. But, more worrying for economists, the number of people working part-time for economic reasons jumped 645,000 in October to 6.7 million. That has convinced some economists that the United States is staring at a recession at least as deep as the 1980s contraction. "No higher figure has been seen since the 1982 recession, when a record 6.86 million people were working part-time for economic reasons," said Tony Crescenzi, chief bond market strategist at Miller Tabak & Co in New York. "The surge is of course a sign of the times: people are working part-time to make ends meet."