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Quote from : Wikipedia : Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers.
It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
The other Central Powers on the German side of World War I were dealt with in separate treaties.
Although the armistice signed on 11 November 1918 ended the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty.
The treaty was registered by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on October 21, 1919, and was printed in The League of Nations Treaty Series.
Of the many provisions in the treaty, one of the most important and controversial required Germany to accept sole responsibility for causing the war and, under the terms of articles 231–248 (later known as the War Guilt clauses), to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions and pay reparations to certain countries that had formed the Entente powers.
The total cost of these reparations was assessed at 132 billion Marks (then $31.4 billion, £6,600 million) in 1921 which is roughly equivalent to US$ 382 billion in 2010, a sum that many economists at the time deemed to be excessive.
This was a sum that many economists deemed to be excessive because it would have taken Germany until 1988 to pay.
The Treaty was undermined by subsequent events starting as early as 1932 and was widely flouted by the mid-1930s.
The result of these competing and sometimes conflicting goals among the victors was compromise that left none contented: Germany was not pacified or conciliated, nor permanently weakened.
This would prove to be a factor leading to later conflicts, notably and directly the Second World War.
Amazon Review :
The Bush years have given rise to fears of a resurgent Imperial Presidency.
Those fears are justified, but the problem cannot be solved simply by bringing a new administration to power. In his provocative new book, The Cult of the Presidency, Gene Healy argues that the fault lies not in our leaders but in ourselves.
When our scholars lionize presidents who break free from constitutional restraints, when our columnists and talking heads repeatedly call upon the "commander in chief " to dream great dreams and seek the power to achieve them--when voters look to the president for salvation from all problems great and small--should we really be surprised that the presidency has burst its constitutional bonds and grown powerful enough to threaten American liberty?
The Cult of the Presidency takes a step back from the ongoing red team/blue team combat and shows that, at bottom, conservatives and liberals agree on the boundless nature of presidential responsibility.
For both camps, it is the president's job to grow the economy, teach our children well, provide seamless protection from terrorist threats, and rescue Americans from spiritual malaise.
Very few Americans seem to think it odd, says Healy, "when presidential candidates talk as if they're running for a job that's a combination of guardian angel, shaman, and supreme warlord of the earth."
Healy takes aim at that unconfined conception of presidential responsibility, identifying it as the source of much of our political woe and some of the gravest threats to our liberties.
If the public expects the president to heal everything that ails us, the president is going to demand--or seize--the power necessary to handle that responsibility.
Interweaving historical scholarship, legal analysis, and trenchant cultural commentary, The Cult of the Presidency traces America's decades-long drift from the Framers' vision for the presidency: a constitutionally constrained chief magistrate charged with faithful execution of the laws.
Restoring that vision will require a Congress and a Court willing to check executive power, but Healy emphasizes that there is no simple legislative or judicial "fix" to the problems of the presidency.
Unless Americans change what we ask of the office--no longer demanding what we should not want and cannot have--we'll get what, in a sense, we deserve.
Quote from : Wikipedia : List of World Trade Center Tenants
This is a list of the major tenants of the New York World Trade Center at the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
One World Trade Center included the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Marsh USA, Cantor Fitzgerald Securities, and Windows on the World.
Two World Trade Center included Verizon, the New York Stock Exchange, Morgan Stanley, and Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, and Aon Corporation.
Four World Trade Center included Deutsche Bank and the New York Board of Trade.
Five World Trade Center included Credit Suisse First Boston and Morgan Stanley.
Six World Trade Center included the United States Department of Commerce and the United States Department of Labor.
Seven World Trade Center included Salomon Smith Barney, the Securities & Exchange Commission, and the U.S. Secret Service.
Amazon Review :
Was IBM, "The Solutions Company," partly responsible for the Final Solution?
That's the question raised by Edwin Black's IBM and the Holocaust, the most controversial book on the subject since Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners.
Black, a son of Holocaust survivors, is less tendentiously simplistic than Goldhagen, but his thesis is no less provocative: he argues that IBM founder Thomas Watson deserved the Merit Cross (Germany's second-highest honor) awarded him by Hitler, his second-biggest customer on earth.
"IBM, primarily through its German subsidiary, made Hitler's program of Jewish destruction a technologic mission the company pursued with chilling success," writes Black.
"IBM had almost single-handedly brought modern warfare into the information age [and] virtually put the 'blitz' in the krieg."
The crucial technology was a precursor to the computer, the IBM Hollerith punch card machine, which Black glimpsed on exhibit at the U.S. Holocaust Museum, inspiring his five-year, top-secret book project.
The Hollerith was used to tabulate and alphabetize census data.
Black says the Hollerith and its punch card data ("hole 3 signified homosexual ... hole 8 designated a Jew") was indispensable in rounding up prisoners, keeping the trains fully packed and on time, tallying the deaths, and organizing the entire war effort.
Hitler's regime was fantastically, suicidally chaotic; could IBM have been the cause of its sole competence: mass-murdering civilians?
Better scholars than I must sift through and appraise Black's mountainous evidence, but clearly the assessment is overdue.
The moral argument turns on one question: How much did IBM New York know about IBM Germany's work, and when?
Black documents a scary game of brinksmanship orchestrated by IBM chief Watson, who walked a fine line between enraging U.S. officials and infuriating Hitler.
He shamefully delayed returning the Nazi medal until forced to--and when he did return it, the Nazis almost kicked IBM and its crucial machines out of Germany.
(Hitler was prone to self-defeating decisions, as demonstrated in How Hitler Could Have Won World War II.)
Black has created a must-read work of history.
But it's also a fascinating business book examining the colliding influences of personality, morality, and cold strategic calculation.
Originally posted by chiponbothshoulders
It takes years for things to take effect when they are changed.
I would say that Obama would be somewhat correct in blaming the Clinton administration,since it was that administration which rescinded Glass-Steagall,which set up a legal barrier between investment and commercial banks.
Glass-Steagall was enacted to prevent another depression,or economic crisis like the first one.
Originally posted by adifferentbreed
S&F, very good thought out post. I know who he won't be scapegoating.......so it only leaves a couple of options, unfortunately, it won't be the ones truely at fault.
Quote from : Wikipedia : Secret Service Code Names : Presidents of the United States and Their Families
Barack Obama - Renegade
Originally posted by Jamjar
Really great post.
Shame this is going to be such a short reply, You ask who will Obama use as scapegoat being an outsider looking in I have a strange opinion.....
I yhink everyone is aware that both Obama and Clinton attended the Bilderberg meeting pre election, so you had the option of a black guy or a woman in office when TSHTF.
Now I know you guys over there are just as dumb as us Brits and the majority will be led by the MSM so whos going to vote for a black guy again? We had it with Thatcher - Probably me just spouting BS but you never know lol
Originally posted by chiponbothshoulders
I would say that Obama would be somewhat correct in blaming the Clinton administration,since it was that administration which rescinded Glass-Steagall,which set up a legal barrier between investment and commercial banks.
Glass-Steagall was enacted to prevent another depression,or economic crisis like the first one.
Originally posted by Misoir
So who other than conspiracy theorists will be targeted? Militias, they will be demonized by the government for being radical and reactionary and a threat to public safety. Who won't be demonized? Secret societies, Government Agencies and other backers of the state.
Originally posted by SpartanKingLeonidas
Even if jest this is disconcerting to hear the joke of killing anyone when we're in the midst of two wars.
Another stretch of the Canada-U.S. border is now being patrolled by an unmanned Predator B drone, another step in Homeland Security’s plan to have the planes eventually flying over the longest undefended border in the world. Read more: www.nationalpost.com...
The plane is being deployed to conduct surveillance operations along the maritime border between Ontario and New York state in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence Seaway and the border at the Niagara River. Under Operation Empire Shield, the entire Canada-U.S. border will be eventually be subject to such flights by Predator drone planes. Read more: www.nationalpost.com...
They explicitly declare their independence from, and frequent opposition to, President Obama, Democratic congressional leaders, or the entire District of Columbia. While their issues or characters to associate with—or disassociate from—differ, they all make the same point: I’m one of you, not a “Washington liberal,” so don’t treat me like just another Democrat.
Quote from : Wikipedia : Missouri Information Analysis Center
The Missouri Information Analysis Center, or MIAC is a "fusion center," combining resources from the federal Department of Homeland Security and other agencies, in particular local agencies.
It collects intelligence from both the local agencies and the Department of Homeland Security and uses these combined sources to analyze threats and better combat terrorism and other criminal activity.
The center opened in 2005 and is located in Jefferson City, Missouri.
But the types of borrowers who where actually put into these loans were completely unqualified, as mentioned in the NBC piece.
People like Delores Parker Jackson, who took out multiple loans on four condos totaling over $1.3 million with a negative (-$6000) shown on her tax returns.
Mrs. Jackson, who claims to have run a profitable daycare, and says that she is not to blame, but is actually the victim of predatory lending.
REALLY? She took out multiple mortgages on four different properties totaling over a million dollars with a payment of more than $10k a month, and she claims she had no idea that she could not afford the terms. Now she wants to pretend that she is not culpable, and that the mortgage company committed fraud?
Come on, do seem we that stupid?