gmane.comp.finance.gold-silver-crypto

[gsc] CafePress Understands How Government Works (Was RE:Amazon.com Fails...)

fm1234 — 2008-07-06T02:39:11

http://forums.cafepress.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/12410351/m/114100442 I've seen reports at marketing related forums which suggest that many smaller companies are also dropping NY affiliates rather than bothering trying to comply with or fight this law. Frank

[gsc] Inflation

2008-07-05T21:25:58

Bolivia es el país más inflacionario después de Venezuela --------------------------------------------------------- Bolivia is the most inflationary country after Venezuela Empresarios: la inflación ya ha llegado al 18 por ciento y el INE miente ---------------------------------------------------------- Businessmen: inflation has reached to 18% and the INE [gov't statistics organ] is lying http://www.hoybolivia.com/Noticia.php?IdEdicion=61&IdSeccion=3&IdNoticia=366 1 [Spanish] ... ********************************************************** And the Boliviano has gained over 10% on the dollar in the last year. So that would put the dollar inflation rate at about 30%. This is causing a lot of pain for Bolivians who habitually keep their savings in dollars. So now there is a new, fast growing, Credit Union http://www.cooperativajerusalen.com/ which is advertising http://www.eldeberservices.com/adsx/www/delivery/ai.php?filename=jerusalen.g if&contenttype=gif special Euro and UFV [stands for: Finacial Unit of Value] accounts to help people avoid losses due to inflation. UFV is their proprietary anti-inflation financial basket. Best, CCS ------------------------------------------------------ - Virtual Phonecards - Instant Pin by Email - - Large Selection - Great Rates - - http://speedypin.com/?aff=743&co_branded=1 - ------------------------------------------------------ ************************************** * * * Craig Spencer * * ccspencer-tORamrTw2pXk1uMJSBkQmQ< at >public.gmane.org * * * **************************************

[gsc] Libertarians Favor Obama

R.A.Hettinga — 2008-07-05T18:11:38

Rasmussen Reports™: The most comprehensive public opinion coverage ever provided for a presidential election. Libertarians Favor Obama and Other Looks at Election 2008 Saturday, July 05, 2008 Libertarian voters make up 4% of the nation’s likely voters and they favor Barack Obama over John McCain by a 53% to 38% margin. Three percent (3%) would vote for some other candidate and 5% are not sure. These results, from an analysis of 15,000 Likely Voter interviews conducted by Rasmussen Reports, challenges the conventional wisdom which assumes that strong support for a Libertarian candidate would hurt John McCain. In June, Rasmussen Reports asked 15,000 Likely Voters if they were fiscally conservative, moderate, or liberal and if they were socially conservative, moderate, or liberal. This created a total of 16 possible combinations (not sure was a fourth option for both questions). However, 87% of voters fit into one of seven combinations. Libertarians, defined as fiscally conservative and socially liberal, are the smallest of these seven combinations. The largest group, representing 24% of the nation’s voters, are both fiscally and socially conservative. Demographically, these voters generally reflect the population at large except that 85% are White and just 5% African-American. Sixty-seven percent (67%) are Republicans and McCain leads Obama 82% to 13% among these voters. The next biggest block of voters, representing 20% of all voters, are both fiscally and socially moderate. Forty-nine percent (49%) of these voters are Democrats and 33% are not affiliated with either major party. They are a bit less likely than the population at large to have completed college but demographically reflect the nation in most ways. Obama leads among these voters 59% to 30%. Fifteen percent (15%) of all voters are fiscally moderate and socially liberal. Fifty-nine percent (59%) of these voters are women and they are more likely than most voters to have completed college and to have attended graduate school. They favor Obama by an 80% to 13% margin. Two groups of voters each include 10% of the voting population—those who are fiscally conservative and socially moderate along with those who are fiscally moderate and socially conservative. Among the first group, McCain leads 67% to 25%. Among the latter, McCain’s advantage is smaller, 51% to 40%. Nine percent (9%) of voters are both socially and fiscally liberal. Not surprisingly, Obama dominates among this segment of the electorate and leads McCain by a 91% to 6% margin. These voters tend to have somewhat higher incomes (25% earn at least $100,000 a year) and are a bit younger than the population at large. Fifty-seven percent (57%) are women. Looked at from a different perspective, 25% of Obama’s support comes from voters who are fiscally moderate and socially liberal. Twenty- four percent (24%) are both fiscally and socially moderate while 17% are fiscally and socially liberal. No other group provides more than 8% of Obama’s support. Forty-five percent (45%) of McCain supporters are both fiscally and socially conservative, 15% are fiscally conservative and socially moderate, 14% are both fiscally and socially moderate, and 12% are fiscally moderate and socially conservative. All data in this survey is based upon interviews with 15,000 Likely Voters as part of the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. Premium Members can review crosstabs for the Obama-McCain numbers results. Additional crosstabs are available here and here. Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information. The Rasmussen Reports ElectionEdge™ Premium Service for Election 2008 offers the most comprehensive public opinion coverage ever provided for a Presidential election. Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, has been an independent pollster for more than a decade. The survey was conducted from June 1-15, 2008 and the overall sample showed Obama leading 49% to 44% (with leaners). The theoretical margin of sampling error is smaller than +/- one percentage point for the full sample. Subsets have larger measures of sampling error. For the smallest group mentioned in the article, Libertarian voters, the margin of sampling error is +/- four percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Fiscal Social Obama McCain Con-Con 62% 67% 13% 82% Mod-Mod 43% 62% 59% 30% Mod-Lib 33% 51% 80% 13% Con-Mod 26% 30% 25% 67% Mod-Con 22% 28% 40% 51% Lib-Lib 79% 30% 91% 6%

[gsc] TrueCrypt 6

George Hara — 2008-07-05T17:50:03

truecrypt.org Many new features in TrueCrypt 6: * Parallelized encryption/decryption on multi-core processors (or multi-processor systems). Increase in encryption/decryption speed is directly proportional to the number of cores and/or processors. For example, if your computer has a quad-core processor, encryption and decryption will be four times faster than on a single-core processor with equivalent specifications (likewise, it will be twice faster on dual-core processors, etc.) [View benchmark results] * Ability to create and run an encrypted hidden operating system whose existence is impossible to prove (provided that certain guidelines are followed). For more information, see the section Hidden Operating System. (Windows Vista/XP/2008/2003) For security reasons, when a hidden operating system is running, TrueCrypt ensures that all local unencrypted filesystems and non-hidden TrueCrypt volumes are read-only. (Data is allowed to be written to filesystems within hidden TrueCrypt volumes.) Note: We recommend that hidden volumes are mounted only when a hidden operating system is running. For more information, see the subsection Security Precautions Pertaining to Hidden Volumes. * On Windows Vista and Windows 2008, it is now possible to encrypt an entire system drive even if it contains extended/logical partitions. (Note that this is not supported on Windows XP.) * New volume format that increases reliability, performance and expandability: o Each volume created by this or later versions of TrueCrypt will contain an embedded backup header (located at the end of the volume). Note that it is impossible to mount a volume when its header is damaged (the header contains an encrypted master key). Therefore, embedded backup headers significantly reduce this risk. For more information, see the subsection Tools > Restore Volume Header. Note: If the user fails to supply the correct password (and/or keyfiles) twice in a row when trying to mount a volume, TrueCrypt will automatically try to mount the volume using the embedded backup header (in addition to trying to mount it using the primary header) each subsequent time that the user attempts to mount the volume (until he or she clicks Cancel). If TrueCrypt fails to decrypt the primary header and then decrypts the embedded backup header successfully (with the same password and/or keyfiles), the volume is mounted and the user is warned that the volume header is damaged (and informed as to how to repair it). o The size of the volume header area has been increased to 128 KB. This will allow implementation of new features and improvements in future versions and ensures that performance will not be impaired when a TrueCrypt volume is stored on a file system or device that uses a sector size greater than 512 bytes (the start of the data area will always be aligned with the start of a host-filesystem/physical sector). For more information about the new volume format, see the section TrueCrypt Volume Format Specification. Note: Volumes created by previous versions of TrueCrypt can be mounted using this version of TrueCrypt. * Parallelized header key derivation on multi-core processors (one algorithm per core/thread). As a result, mounting is several times faster on multi-core processors. (Windows) * Ability to create hidden volumes under Mac OS X and Linux. * On Linux, TrueCrypt now uses native kernel cryptographic services (by default) for volumes encrypted in XTS mode. This increases read/write speed in most cases. However, the FUSE driver must still be used when the volume is encrypted in a deprecated mode of operation (LRW or CBC), or when mounting an outer volume with hidden-volume protection, or when using an old version of the Linux kernel that does not support XTS mode. (Linux)

[gsc] 4 July

Darren Rhodes — 2008-07-05T09:35:26

http://blog.geeklawyer.org/2008/07/04/4th-of-july-a-brit-sucks-up-to-the-evil-empire/ Vid to enjoy. Darren.

[gsc] Rescue Video

2008-07-05T02:31:38

For some reason the Betancourt rescue video does not seem to be available from US media. http://tiny.cc/WONsb Best, CCS ------------------------------------------------------ - Virtual Phonecards - Instant Pin by Email - - Large Selection - Great Rates - - http://speedypin.com/?aff=743&co_branded=1 - ------------------------------------------------------ ************************************** * * * Craig Spencer * * ccspencer-tORamrTw2pXk1uMJSBkQmQ< at >public.gmane.org * * * **************************************

[gsc] ECB + 1 day

JP May — 2008-07-04T20:33:57

http://www.reuters.com/article/gc04/idUSL044171220080704 they seem to now be making a little more anti-inflation noise, no ?

[gsc] eBay backs down on PayPal changes

R.A. Hettinga — 2008-07-04T17:38:18

Sydney Morning Herald eBay backs down on PayPal changes Asher Moses July 3, 2008 - 3:11PM eBay has backed down on plans to force all of its users on to PayPal just as the competition regulator looked set to scuttle the move. The policy would have locked out all payment methods - direct bank deposits, cheques and money orders - except PayPal, which eBay owns, and cash on delivery/pick-up. eBay's proposals inspired a massive backlash among sellers, who would have been slugged with extra fees because PayPal charges them for each transaction. Sellers complained eBay users should be given the choice of which payment method to use, rejecting eBay's claims that the decision was purely to protect users from fraud. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which held a conference in Sydney this week to help it decide whether to allow the policy, looked set to scuttle the plan on the grounds it would lessen competition in the online payments market and deny consumers choice. But today, before the ACCC could announce its final decision, eBay said it would not go ahead with the plans. "While we disagree with the ACCC's draft notice, we have decided to withdraw the notification to stop any further confusion and disruption among the eBay community," said eBay vice president Simon Smith. "eBay regrets any uncertainty that this process has caused among the Community and believe that today's decision will remove further doubt." However, eBay has refused to roll back the first stage of its proposed changes, which required all sellers to at least offer PayPal as one of the payment options. "Forcing sellers to accept PayPal payments will harm competition by making it more difficult for PayPal's competitors to compete," said Dale Clapperton, chair of the online users lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia. "eBay should allow sellers the choice of whether or not to deal with PayPal. Many sellers choose not to use PayPal because of higher fees or past bad experiences. "If PayPal is truly the best payment option, why does eBay need to force people to do business with them?"

[gsc] bullion in Europe

William — 2008-07-04T14:07:49

Hello Everyone, I'm interested in buying gold and silver bullion coins in the U.K. , Europe, and Eastern Europe. I've heard that it can be purchased from banks in various countries but I have no confirmation on this. If anyone has knowledge or experience with this please contact me offlist. Happy 4th of July! William Maderas

[gsc] The ECB ...

JP May — 2008-07-04T15:52:46

it looks like the ECB did raise 1/4 point BUT then issued "soft language" .. so, that's a little help for the USD.

[gsc] Ripley

2008-07-04T03:08:52

Chilena Ripley planea colocar bonos hasta 150 mlns dlrs en Perú --------------------------------------------------------------- Chilean company Ripley plans to issue up to 150 million dollars in bonds in Peru. http://espanol.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/080704/negocios/negocios_minoristas_ chile_ripley_sol [Spanish] Wednesday the Chilean retailer Ripley Corp. said that it applied to the Peruvian regulatory agencies for permission to issue bonds in that country for up to an equivalent of 150 million dollars, to refinance loans and finance its investment plans. Ripley Corp. with a strong presence in department stores, business finance and real estate, has operations in Chile, Peru and soon in Mexico. ... The announcement of the listing of the Ripley bonds occured at a time when other Chilean retailers have also begun the search for financing in the booming Peruvian financial market. ... ******************************************* Best, CCS ------------------------------------------------------ - Virtual Phonecards - Instant Pin by Email - - Large Selection - Great Rates - - http://speedypin.com/?aff=743&co_branded=1 - ------------------------------------------------------ ************************************** * * * Craig Spencer * * ccspencer-tORamrTw2pXk1uMJSBkQmQ< at >public.gmane.org * * * **************************************

[gsc] Warning, the next biggest SCAM!

Lee — 2008-07-03T23:48:37

Police are warning all men who frequent clubs, parties & local pubs to be alert and stay cautious when offered a drink from any woman. Many females use a date rape drug on the market called 'Beer'. The drug is found in liquid form and is available anywhere. It comes bottles, cans, or from taps and in large kegs. Beer is used by female sexual predators at parties and bars to persuade their male victims to go home and sleep with them. A woman needs only to get a guy to consume a few units of Beer and then simply ask him home for no strings attached sex. Men are rendered helpless against this approach.. After several beers, men will often succumb to the desires to sleep with horrific looking women whom they would never normally be attracted. After drinking beer, men often awaken with only hazy memories of exactly what happened to them the night before, often with just a vague feeling that 'something bad' occurred. At other times these unfortunate men are swindled out of their life's savings, in a familiar scam known as 'a relationship'. In extreme cases, the female may even be shrewd enough to entrap the unsuspecting male into a longer term form of servitude and punishment referred to as 'marriage'. Men are much more susceptible to this scam after beer is administered and sex is offered by the predatory females. Please! Forward this warning to every male you know. If you fall victim to this 'Beer' scam and the women administering it, there are male support groups where you can discuss the details of your shocking encounter with similarly victimized men. For the support group nearest you, just look up 'Golf Courses' in the phone book.

[gsc] A polar sift in coffee-nomics for the average being. was [gsc] So much for the "$4 latte period" of US economic history

Ian Green — 2008-07-03T13:11:31

I can't help but imagine a polar bear sifting coffee on an ice floe, but that would not be the "average" being! ROFL A significant polar shift could not be quite so comic. ;) On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 2:35 PM, The Phoenix Dollar - Net public.gmane.org> wrote: ...

[gsc] Met(ropolitan Police) Agent Provocateur, was: Met Argent Provocateur

Ian Green — 2008-07-03T13:04:03

At first I thought this would be a clever play on words, with an agent provocateur that had something to do with the silver market (argent = silver)! (Or at least an Argentine agent provocateur!) Then when I saw reference to a fellow called Dreyfus, the French connection made me think this story would be something connected to the new "Dreyfus affair" going on with the recent court case finding that a French TV station had faked / staged the (illusion of the) killing of a child by Israeli soldiers, which had given rise to the Palestinian Intifadeh several years ago! I was mistaken again! At least I can contribute by correcting the typo in and clarifying the subject line. :o On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 5:06 PM, Darren Rhodes public.gmane.org> wrote:

[gsc] trend

rc — 2008-07-03T12:48:30

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-terror-profiling,0,3408434.story WASHINGTON - The Justice Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing,

[gsc] John H. Kautsky

JP May — 2008-07-03T09:41:26

Has anyone read any of John H. Kautsky's books? jp

[gsc] Met Argent Provocateur

Darren Rhodes — 2008-07-03T07:06:22

Fascinating story in Blighty. The Metropolitan Police (the force that polices London) have been rumbled fielding an argent provocateur. http://postmanpatel.blogspot.com/2008/07/laffair-dreyfus-gorgeous-george-doesnt.html Links also within the above. Darren.

[gsc] Snow in July? A Mixed Blessing in the Northern Rockies

R.A. Hettinga — 2008-07-02T22:33:45

Interesting to note that the floods in the American are actually from last winter's snow, and not this summer's rain. Which is only just starting to fall. In the meantime, the "disappearing" glaciers in Glacier National Park seem to be returning, at the moment. Cheers, RAH Of course, it's all because of "global warming" Sheesh. "Freeze or fry, the problem is always global capitalism, and the solution is always international socialism." --------- The New York Times July 2, 2008 Snow in July? A Mixed Blessing in the Rockies By JIM ROBBINS ST. MARY, Mont. — With diesel smoke and white powder flying, heavy equipment operators worked furiously to remove enough snow to open the Going-to-the-Sun road, which connects the two sides of Glacier National Park and is usually open by the first week of June. But huge amounts of snow still blanket the Northern Rockies high country, in part because of record snowfalls in Montana this year, so the opening will not take place until Wednesday, the latest on record by a day, except for World War II when the road was not plowed at all. The delayed opening has been a blow to this town, at the east entrance to the park, and to West Glacier, the opposite gateway. Both depend on gasoline sales, restaurant checks and other income from tourists who drive Going-to-the-Sun, the 52-mile scenic road that winds through the heart of these glacier-etched mountains. “A day’s worth of work for us is a million dollars worth of commerce for the gateway communities,” said Jim Foster, deputy facilities manager at the park, as a bighorn sheep scampered across the road. “We’re aware of that.” But what is tough news for the workers and business owners is a relief to other parts of the Northern Rockies, a region that has suffered through record high temperatures and a withering drought the last eight years, as well as low snowpack, low stream flows and large forest fires that clouded the sky with smoke. “Snow in the mountains is money in the bank,” Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana said. “The snow will melt and run into the streams through September. It’s good for the fisheries and good for irrigation.” Mr. Schweitzer cited more good news from the state climatologist, who, he said, has forecast a cooler and wetter July than normal. Still, the governor said, even though things are better, “no matter what the weather is, we’re never more than two weeks from a drought.” For now, residents feel they have some breathing room. “We got so much moisture in June, it released a pressure valve,” said Lisa Bay, a rancher near Wolf Creek, Mont. “It was a grand sense of relief.” The situation is similar in Wyoming. Snowpack in the Bighorn Mountains, in the north central part of the state, is 79 percent higher than the 30-year average, and 112 percent above the average in the area drained by the Powder and Tongue Rivers. “Everything is up from average,” said Leanne Stevenson, manager of natural resources and policy for the Wyoming Department of Agriculture. “A lot of what makes a difference is not how much, but how long it stays cool, and we actually had spring this year.” Because of the drought, she said, the 30-year snowpack average has dropped 20 percent over the last eight years. The heavy snows and elevated water levels have thrown an economy dependent on recreation into confusion. In Glacier National Park, some high-country hiking trails will not be open for weeks. In Yellowstone National Park, some backcountry areas are blocked by snow and some rivers are high and muddy. “Our ongoing challenge is backcountry access,” Al Nash, a park spokesman, said. “We have high flowing water, mud and, in shady areas, snow. It just isn’t accessible right now. It could easily be another month before we have access.” But the snows will help the park recover from a drought that has caused ponds and wetlands to dry up, killed fish, reduced vegetation and even lengthened the period between eruptions of the famous geysers. “One good year doesn’t overcome a drought,” Mr. Nash said. “But it’s sure welcome and helpful.” Rivers that in the last eight years usually retreated to their normal levels in May or early June are still running up to their banks. Many people who came to the Northern Rockies to fly fish in June found their favorite rivers the color of chocolate milk. “We were fishing most all the rivers in the past at this time, but this year that’s not the case,” said Dan Lohmiller, an owner of the River’s Edge fly-fishing shop in Bozeman, Mont. Just 3 of 15 rivers are fishable now, he said, and the rest are not expected to be open until at least mid-July, prompting some people to cancel fishing trips. On the Yellowstone River near Livingston, Mont., record high flows forced local officials to close a bridge that appeared to be collapsing because of high waters, stranding 24 people on an island for a few days until a temporary one was installed. Farmers and ranchers, though, are happy. “We were way behind in moisture, and we caught up and got an extra five or six inches” of rain in June, said Mr. Schweitzer, a farmer and a soil scientist. “Every extra inch of rain above average means seven more bushels per acre, and we got six inches,” he said. “We’ll get 40 more bushels per acre this year. That makes it a billion-dollar storm.” While farmers will be earning more, the Park Service here is stretched financially because of rising overtime and fuel costs. Crews have been working on the Big Drift near the top of Going-to-the- Sun Road. At 70 feet deep, the drift was the plowers’ biggest obstacle. It was also next to a cliff, making snow even more challenging to remove. A storm in mid-June — the one that brought rain to lower elevations, helping wheat farmers — dumped three to four feet of snow in the mountains here. Avalanches, which carried snow, trees, rocks and other debris, closed sections of the road that had been plowed. One section, known as Triple Arches, had to be plowed five times because of avalanches. So much snow still remains that the Park Service had to move the 75th anniversary celebration of the highway, held last Friday, off the pass to lower elevations. “The sense of impending doom is gone,” said Ms. Bay, the rancher. “But there are long-term changes, such as springs drying up, and that shows we have a ways to go.”

[gsc] So much for the "$4 latte period" of US economic history

JP May — 2008-07-02T07:00:03

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080701/starbucks_closings.html http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080701/auto_sales.html

[gsc] Shut up Evo

2008-07-01T21:35:08

President García asks Evo Morales not to meddle in Perus domestic politics http://www.andina.com.pe/Ingles/Noticia.aspx?id=mEBn1yLDi1c= [English] President Alan García asked his Bolivian counterpart Evo Morales not to interfere in Perus domestic politics and expressed it was a coarse lie to say there is a US military base in Peru. We would have to say as Spains Juan Carlos (the king said to Hugo Chávez): Why dont you shut up. Be concern about your country and not about mine, you are being annoying, so be careful with the consequences of what you are doing, he said to the press. ... **************************************** Peru has recalled its ambassador to Bolivia. Best, CCS ------------------------------------------------------ - Virtual Phonecards - Instant Pin by Email - - Large Selection - Great Rates - - http://speedypin.com/?aff=743&co_branded=1 - ------------------------------------------------------ ************************************** * * * Craig Spencer * * ccspencer-tORamrTw2pXk1uMJSBkQmQ< at >public.gmane.org * * * **************************************

[gsc] Obama’s Boys of Summer

R.A. Hettinga — 2008-07-01T21:19:36

City Journal Obama’s Boys of Summer A Who’s Who of 1968 radicals supports the candidate. Daniel Flynn 29 June 2008 Backing a major-party candidate for president would have been anathema to Michael Klonsky 40 summers ago, when the organization he led, Students for a Democratic Society, urged young people to spurn elections. “By ’68, our line was ‘Vote in the Streets,’” Klonsky told me last spring. “We thought we had to fight with Eugene McCarthy and those people.” In August 1968, protesters clashed with police outside the Democratic Party’s national convention in Chicago—but far from being political innocents who took to the streets to protest Vietnam War hawks’ capture of the Democratic presidential nomination, many of them never supported antiwar candidates McCarthy and Robert Kennedy. “Those of us who have been in the streets for the past five days didn’t give a flying fuck whether McCarthy would win or lose,” SDS declared in posters around Chicago, “and now that he’s lost, still don’t.” On the eve of the general election of that year—in which less than 1 percentage point would separate the popular-vote totals of Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey—Klonsky’s SDS bluntly proclaimed: “The elections don’t mean shit.” Klonsky, whose disgust for mainstream politics led him to launch a new, Maoist Communist Party in the 1970s, today supports Barack Obama so enthusiastically that until recently he was blogging on the Illinois senator’s campaign website. And boycotting this November’s election, Klonsky maintains, would be a “tragic mistake.” He notes that Barack Obama isn’t Hubert Humphrey, 2008 isn’t 1968, and the strong movement he served back then is “relatively weak” now. “My own support for Obama is not a reflection of a radically changed attitude toward the Democratic Party,” Klonsky recently explained to me. “Rather, it’s a recognition that the Obama campaign has become a rallying point for young activists and offers hope for rebuilding the civil rights and antiwar coalitions that have potential to become a real critical force in society.” Michael Klonsky is hardly the only ’68 radical supporting Obama this year. In 1968, when Mark Rudd organized the student strike that shut down Columbia University, the SDS chapter that he chaired ridiculed Kennedy and McCarthy as “McKennedy,” claimed that “neither peace candidate offers an alternative to the war policies of Lyndon Johnson,” and suggested “sabotage” as an alternative to voting. Rudd succeeded Klonsky as national SDS leader, presiding over the organization’s metamorphosis into Weatherman and performing “a liaison function” for the plot to bomb a Fort Dix soldiers’ dance that instead killed three Weathermen, including two of Rudd’s Columbia SDS colleagues. Today, Rudd renounces bombs, embraces ballots—and supports Obama. “Probably the biggest difference between Columbia SDS people in 1968 and in 2008 is forty years,” Rudd explained in an e-mail. “Most of us have lived with compromise our whole lives. As kids we were raving idealists who thought that ‘The elections don’t mean shit’ was a slogan that meant something to somebody. It didn’t.” Then there’s Carl Davidson, who was one of SDS’s three elected national officers in 1968, when the organization first urged young people to refrain from voting. His disillusionment with traditional politics became so pronounced that, in the post-sixties hangover that followed, Davidson joined Klonsky in rejecting traditional politics for fringe Marxist movements. More recently, he helped organize the 2002 rally in which Obama first spoke out against the Iraq War and now serves as the webmaster of Progressives for Obama. “The last thing we need is a simple repeat of 1968, which saw Nixon and the new Right as an outcome, as well as the defeat of [Humphrey],” Davidson contends. “One thing I’ve learned. Social change is not made by elections, but it certainly proceeds through them, not by ignoring them or chasing the illusion of end runs around them.” Former SDS president Tom Hayden is also in the Obama camp. Hayden organized the made-for-TV protest outside the 1968 Chicago convention. But the catharsis of throwing debris at the Chicago police, the purer- than-thou sanctimony that tolerated no distinction between Lyndon Johnson and Eugene McCarthy, and the exhilaration of “voting in the streets” instead of in election booths combined to ensure liberal defeats. Hayden’s orchestrated anarchy proved more damaging to Humphrey’s presidential aspirations than any dirty trick Nixon’s henchmen could have dreamed up. Klonsky remembers Hayden plotting to spread nails on a highway; another SDS leader recalls Hayden encouraging activists to firebomb police cars. If the Democrats couldn’t run a convention, many Americans wondered, how could they run the country? “Did the radicalism of Chicago elect Richard Nixon?” Hayden asked, clearly pained, in his 1988 memoir. “Having struggled with that question for twenty years, I find there is no ‘neat’ answer.” Now Hayden is one of the organizers of Progressives for Obama. “The difference is that back then the Democratic Party was directly carrying out the Vietnam War, which meant there was no anti-war critic to vote for after Kennedy was assassinated and McCarthy defeated by the establishment,” he offered in an e-mail last month. “Today the Republican Party is directly carrying out the war, which obviously will make a lot of people favor changing the presidency despite the uncertainty of what the Democratic candidate will do when in office.” Progressives for Obama resembles a Who’s Who of SDS luminaries. In addition to Hayden, Rudd, and Davidson, the group includes Bob Pardun, SDS’s education secretary during the 1966–67 school year; Paul Buhle, a radical professor who has recently attempted to revive SDS; Mickey and Dick Flacks, red-diaper babies who helped craft 1962’s Port Huron Statement, a seminal New Left document; and SDS’s third president, Todd Gitlin. Age and experience have mellowed some of the SDSers in Obama’s camp. Gitlin, for instance, has evolved into a respected Ivy League professor and milquetoast liberal. But others still glory in a past that can only damage Obama’s future. The aging New Left still practices a therapeutic politics that places a higher value on feelings of personal liberation than on restrained pursuit of political aims. Obama has already taken political hits for his connection to Weathermen Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. In the sixties, Ayers advocated that young people kill their parents, and Dohrn praised the Charles Manson murders. Alongside their Weather Underground cohorts, the pair declared war on the United States and participated in a bombing campaign that hit the Capitol, the Pentagon, and numerous law enforcement agencies. The couple eventually reinvented themselves— first as academics, then as players in Chicago-area Democratic politics. Obama praised Ayers’s book in the Chicago Tribune, sat with him on a foundation’s board, and benefited from a fundraiser held at the couple’s home. Ayers spoke at events organized by Michelle Obama; Barack Obama spoke at events organized by Ayers. With the public revelation of this unseemly relationship—between unrepentant terrorists and the man who now seeks to oversee America’s war on terror—and the impact it’s already had on voter attitudes, one would think that other sixties extremists might be more reserved in proclaiming their support for Obama, knowing the damage such associations can do to his candidacy. As for Obama, he’ll need to do some distancing of his own. He protested that he was only eight when Ayers, Dohrn, Rudd, and company embarked on their bombing campaign, and that’s reasonable enough. But he’ll need to go further. Fortunately for him, the Left has a long history of cold-shouldering predecessors to perpetuate its ideology, cleanse it from past failures, and make it appear fresh. The New Left dissociated itself from the Old Left’s Russophilic dogmatism through the Port Huron Statement and other declarations of independence. Even the phrase “New Left” was adopted to divorce the Left from its history. SDS’s history offers a template for eliminating the embarrassing past. Jack London, Upton Sinclair, and others founded the Intercollegiate Socialist Society (ISS) during the Progressive era, but by World War I the word “socialist” had fallen from favor. So, with the Left seeing labor unions as the agent of societal change, the ISS became the League for Industrial Democracy (LID). Then, by the end of the 1950s, theorists Herbert Marcuse, C. Wright Mills, and Norman O. Brown scoffed at the idea of blue-collar workers—often violently hostile to the Left’s aims—as transformative agents, and the LID’s student arm, the Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID), rechristened itself Students for a Democratic Society. Just as SDS killed SLID as the fifties became the sixties, Weatherman killed SDS as the sixties became the seventies: SDS’s spirit of “participatory democracy” could not peacefully coexist with the vanguardism of Weatherman. And now, completing the circle, the SDS alumni of “progressives” for Obama resurrect a term that would have been more familiar to their distant forebears in the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. On the Left, everything old is eventually new again. In 1968, the Left served as unwitting allies of Republicans, costing the Democrats the White House by rioting at their convention and withholding votes from Hubert Humphrey. In 2008, it is their vocal support that may cost Barack Obama the presidency. Obama can take a page from the early days of the New Left, which—initially, at least— refused to allow discredited radicals to discredit it. Either Obama publicly divorces himself from radical supporters whose association does more for them than it does for him, or he faces the prospect of Bill Ayers as his Willie Horton. Daniel J. Flynn is the author of A Conservative History of the American Left (Crown Forum, 2008).