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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.

If you are stuck in the credit trap you should take a look at this article if you are considering applying for an unsecured personal loan.

"No force on Earth can stop Sarah Palin from becoming our very own "lite" version of Eva Perón -- a glamorous and tragic legend, minus the tragedy. Eventually, some clever composer will write a blockbuster musical about her life and times. Stage directions will include: "SARAH fires gun. MOOSE dies." It's futile to try to ignore Palin, however noble the effort may be. She's a phenomenon, and it hardly matters that so many people believe she augurs the final dissolution of American politics into a big, frothy bowl of mush. The republic will survive even her."

Unemployment has hit migrant communities in the United States so hard that a startling new phenomenon has been detected: instead of receiving remittances from relatives in the richest country on earth, some down-and-out Mexican families are scraping together what they can to support their unemployed loved ones in the United States.

International travel by world leaders is mainly about making symbolic gestures. But let’s hope that when the cameras aren’t rolling Mr. Obama and his hosts engage in some frank talk about currency policy. For the problem of international trade imbalances is about to get substantially worse. And there’s a potentially ugly confrontation looming unless China mends its ways. Despite huge trade surpluses and the desire of many investors to buy into this fast-growing economy, Chinese authorities have kept that currency persistently weak. China’s weak-currency policy exacerbates the problem [of the depressed state of the world economy], in effect siphoning much-needed demand away from the rest of the world into the pockets of artificially competitive Chinese exporters. This problem is about to get much worse. Because for the past year the true scale of the China problem has been masked by temporary factors. Looking forward, we can expect to see both China’s trade surplus and America’s trade deficit surge. Unfortunately, the Chinese don’t seem to get it: rather than face up to the need to change their currency policy, they’ve taken to telling us to raise interest rates and curb fiscal deficits. And I’m not sure the Obama administration gets it, either. The administration’s statements on Chinese currency policy seem pro forma, lacking any sense of urgency. That needs to change. I don’t begrudge Mr. Obama the banquets and the photo ops; they’re part of his job. But behind the scenes he better be warning the Chinese that they’re playing a dangerous game.

"Here's my simple and semi-obvious idea: what if Washington D.C. had taken the same $30 million, and instead of killing a single remorseless criminal, created upwards of 600 full-ride college scholarships for lower-income or minority students, at 50 grand each. In other words, for every criminal a given state is seeking to execute -- like, for example, the Fort Hood killer, who they say might well be eligible for the death penalty -- we take the same tens of millions in taxpayer dollars and send hundreds of kids through college instead, kids who otherwise would never have been able to afford it and in fact might've ended up on the streets or in prison."

"Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials. ... American and Iraqi investigators had already concluded that the shootings were unjustified, top Iraqi officials were calling for Blackwater’s ouster from the country, and company officials feared that Blackwater might be refused an operating license it would need to retain its contracts with the State Department and private clients, worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Four former executives said in interviews that Gary Jackson, who was then Blackwater’s president, had approved the bribes and that the money was sent from Amman, Jordan, where the company maintains an operations hub, to a top manager in Iraq. The executives, though, said they did not know whether the cash was delivered to Iraqi officials or the identities of the potential recipients. Blackwater’s strategy of buying off the government officials, which would have been illegal under American law, created a deep rift inside the company, according to the former executives."

The Philadelphia Inquirer tackles the issue of allowing big special interest money to flow into elections and suggests the Fair Elections Now Act as the solution.

Following a statement on the Floor of the House of Representative, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the following statement: "Why is it we have finite resources for health care but unlimited money for war? "The inequities in our economy are piling up: trillions for war, trillions for Wall Street and tens of billions for the insurance companies. Banks and other corporations are sitting on piles of cash of taxpayer's money while firing workers, cutting pay and denying small businesses money to survive. "People are losing their homes, their jobs, their health, their investments, their retirement security; yet there is unlimited money for war, Wall Street and insurance companies, but very little money for jobs on Main Street. "Unlimited money to blow up things in Iraq and Afghanistan, and relatively little money to build things in the US. "The Administration may soon bring to Congress a request for an additional $50 billion for war. I can tell you that a Democratic version of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is no more acceptable than a Republican version of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Trillions for war and Wall Street, billions for insurance companies... When we were promised change, we weren't thinking that we give a dollar and get back two cents."

The nation’s top military officer said Wednesday that he expected the Pentagon to ask Congress in the next few months for emergency financing to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though President Obama has pledged to end the Bush administration practice of paying for the conflicts with so-called supplemental funds that are outside the normal Defense Department budget. The financing would be on top of the $130 billion that Congress authorized for the wars just last month. The military officer, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not say how much additional money would be needed, but one figure in circulation within the Pentagon and among outside defense budget analysts is $50 billion.

Court ruling forces EPA to enforce clean air act on coal burning electric generators. The most important complaint is mercury from coal. A company has a patented, proven process that removes mercury from coal. Problem is the DOE will not fund this effort nor support it in any way. DOE prefers to fund research to do the same thing - estimated time to potential success five years with a guarantee of raising electricity costs by a minimum of 20 %.

How big can they friggin' get? When's enough, enough?

The United States spends about $3.6 BILLION a MONTH in Afghanistan, according to data provided by the Congressional Research Service.The average cost per month is calculated at an average 51,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but that number likely will go higher with the 68,000 troops the Obama administration already is planning on having in that country, and could double if President Barack Obama backs a reported request from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander in Afghanistan, to send as many as 40,000 more troops to the country.

For people who love golf, the chance to play at the five-star Greenbrier resort in West Virginia is a dream come true. Especially if someone else pays for it. That was the case this summer for two powerful members of Congress, House Republican Minority leader John Boehner of Ohio and Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia. Accompanied by top corporate lobbyists , the two golf-loving Republicans spent a luxurious weekend at the Greenbrier, the kinds of cozy gatherings new ethics reform laws were supposed to curb.

Approved in Japan with same phase III protocol as FDA uses the FDA did not even approve the drug for emergency prevention of deaths from H1N1 until last month. Suddenly the government is funding approval. Could have prevented thousands of deaths if "fast track" of drug by FDA was a reality. Fast track began 2 years ago. FDA has to be overhualed to eliminate lobbying and money influence.

DIAGEO is at the centre of a political row in America after it was revealed it is to receive $2 billion of taxpayers' money to relocate a rum distillery. Congressmen in Washington are outraged the drinks giant is using a 50-year-old law to receive $2.7bn (£1.6bn) in tax credits and other benefits to move production of Captain Morgan rum from Puerto Rico to the Virgin Islands. The news comes amid suggestions the maker of Johnnie Walker is considering accepting an offer of public cash by the Scottish Government to save its Kilmarnock bottling plant.

Take a look at this recent cover of BUSINESS WEEK. Reporters Chad Terhune and Keith Epstein write that the CEO's of the giant insurance companies should be smiling - their lobbyists have already won. Quote: "no matter what specifics emerge in the voluminous bill Congress may send to President Obama this fall, the insurance industry will emerge more profitable."

In the final analysis, the ideological differences between Republicans and the corporate/controlling sector of the Democratic party are relatively narrow and insignificant as compared to the bi-partisan link to corporate wealth and power --- a link both share with the corporate-owned, mainstream media. ... it's imaginary "death panels" and the undereducated, easily manipulated wing-nut mobs sent to shut down one of the oldest forms of American democracy --- the town hall meeting. These provide the perfect cover. They permit the more gifted corporate Democrats, for example Barack Obama, to seduce the great masses of working stiffs who make up the American electorate with soaring, but ultimately deceptive, rhetoric; producing brief euphoria on the eve of the last election, followed by no real substantive change.... ... Perhaps the time has come for Americans, this writer included, to stop accepting the lesser-evil electoral choice and to start paying greater attention to independents like Ralph Nader, beginning with his powerful Aug. 14, 2009 appearance on Democracy Now!. A choice between the crazies and the corrupt is not much of a choice.

Never has the world been subjected to as pure and destructive lunacy as at this time in history. Never have the anti-civilization voices been heard as stridently as in the so-called debate that is going on today. The insane and desperate noise of the single-party political scene in the United States, the deafening roar of the Mafia, is threatening, and seemingly managing quite well, to out-thunder the few reasonable and civilized voices that are attempting to be heard over the din. The civilized debate that might be expected to be going on about health care, tax reforms, regulation of financial speculation, the criminality of imperial wars, improving education and much more, is poisoned while still in the womb, by the formidable power of the one political party that is spelled M O N E Y. Their power tools are the mass media, the ceaseless propaganda machines, the formidable use of hypnotic slogans and, added to that, the severe lack of insight and intellectual curiosity of the U.S. citizens. All this is made possible through the obscene lowering of educational standards and the carefully programmed lack of information that is the normal state of things today in Middle America.