In a letter to shareholders General Motors’ Chairman and CEO Porter Stansberry says he sees light at the end of the tunnel but it is a GM bankruptcy and that a company cannot suffer 40 years of bad decisions, bad ideas, and bad debts and expect to compete with the rest of the world’s automakers.

He says, “what’s killing us is a legacy of debts and obligations we cannot possibly repay.” Stansberry says, “nor do we have any pleasant way to repudiate our promises. The only answer is bankruptcy.” He likens it to promises made under Social Security saying, “we cannot make enough money selling cars to afford the service on our $33 billion debt load, ” and “or the $11 billion we owe in cash pensions. These debts are killing us.” He thinks, “we’ve finally entered the end stage – the death spiral.”

“Given our current burn rate, I estimate we will declare bankruptcy in a little more than three quarters, “he predicted.

Toyota pays workers $43 an hour to make cars in the U. S. but the United Auto Workers demand $67 an hour from GM, Ford and Chrysler. Plus, they make cars that consumers judge to be inferior. Turn out the lights the party is over in Detroit, and Dearborn.

The Catholic Church was once a blood brother in the warmongering, corrupt triad of eurasian armies with armed monks, the incestuous monarchies and state religion commanded by the city state that became the Vatican and the home of the Pope, the nation state of the Catholic Church. Before the Henry the Eighth sexually motivated break, it battled with the Muslims for control of the Holy Land, winning some battles but ultimately losing the war. Bill Maher belonged in the Catholic Church of that time, but not the evolving one that I hope I see emerging today.

The holy land remained outside of the control of Catholic, Protestant or Jewish authority until the controversial creation of Israel in 1948. I support the right of Israel to exist, acknowledging all of the injustices committed by all sides in that arena from the beginning and in so much of human history. Show me a place anywhere in the world inhabited by human beings, give me a little time and if there is written or oral history to be researched, I will show you a lot of injustice committed in human actions against other humans that will revolt you.

In more modern times the Catholic Church has renounced violence, becoming significantly but not completely pacifist, a goal I support and admire. The Church asserts its transnational rights on the basis of it’s agenda of searching and supporting human dignity first, at least it does so in the US where it can get away with it. It denounces the sovereign rights of the United States to have and enforce immigration laws on the basis that humans are not always accorded the dignity god wants them to have. Today the Pope’s TV surrogates emphasized that his agenda is not nation based, rather that his agenda transcends nations and is based on the search for human dignity. To be sure to distance himself from Bush, he refused a state dinner with the President. I might consider doing that same thing but for different reasons.

Today the Pope says he is deeply ashamed of the sexual abuse committed in America (or is it just exposed in America?) and wanted to assure everyone that it will never happen again in the Catholic Church. I give him credit for such a clear statement. But why no apology?

So many questions bubbling up, but one seems to be particularly jangling given the Pope’s view that the US does not have a right to protect its borders by enforcing its laws due to human considerations which should come before all.

Why then does the Catholic Church hide behind and exploit various US laws and procedures to try to evade or minimize it’s exposure of the than embarrassing sexual abuse of children, which was overlooked by Bishops who retain their positions.

What about that element of human dignity the Catholic Church now hypocritically ignores, even TODAY while the Pope was speaking, to take advantage of US regulations that protect the Church due to the passage of time? Why does it use some laws and feel it has the right to work against other laws. Why not look beyond US laws as it does with immigration laws, to enhance human dignity and accept responsibility for those whose rights have expired because their human dignity was seriously taken away so long ago?

When will the Church make amends to those many who kept silent so long that US laws now protect the Catholic church from prosecution?

Not being an insider, I do not know, but here is an outside clue: The Catholic Church has so far been forced to dispense 2 billion dollars in legal settlements. Yes, they want this embarrassing event to stop, stop the bleeding of their coffers. Hang the dignity of a person who kept quiet too long and has lived for decades with who knows what kind of shame, embarrassment and psychological disruptions.

So the first persons loss of dignity decades ago seems not to be equal in the eyes of the Churck to the loss of dignity experienced by mostly hardworking family men trying to make money to support their family who happens to be a citizen of another country is held accountable for breaking that law. What is the real difference in these two different circumstances of human dignity?

The first deserves for the Church to compensate him and the second is part of a fine group of people who are inclined to give the Church money.

Pay money or get money? A transnational agenda for sure.

The Catholic Church, despite stated good intentions and vast improvements from the embarrassing inquisitions and so on, continues to give hypocrisy a bad name.

Try dancing around today’s Ten Post Round-Up:

1: If sisters are doing it for themselves, how come movies and television are not representing them properly?…

On-Screen Sex Ratios Add Up to One Big Negative–AlterNet

2: Things not so comfy cozy on the housing front between GWB and the GOP?…

Bush throws GOP Senators under the bus on the bi-partisan housing bill–AMERICAblog

3: Those rebate checks might not arrive in time to do the economy any good, but at least the average Jane and Joe can maybe pay off one more bill before finally hitting the skids…

It’s official now: George W. Bush is today’s Herbert Hoover–Brilliant at Breakfast

4: Milestones and reminders on the road to victory in Iraq: Are we there yet?…

Another anniversary!–Bring It On!

5: They’re gonna git cha, so ya better pay up!…

IRS Hunts Down “Tax Defiers”–The Huffington Post

6: They have all this money, yet, they are still relying on the US for financial help? Excuse me while I beat up my desk with my forehead…

Iraq’s Oil Profits–The J-Walk Blog

7: Just one more thing for the cash-strapped working poor to worry about: Fraudulent rental agreements that leave them out on the streets (after handing their first and last plus security to a complete stranger who disappears into the night)…

Scam Leaves 3 Families Moving Into Same House–NBC10.COM

8: In a “real” free-market system, this makes perfect sense. Everyone is going broke, you gotta be able to make money where you can and if the whole world suddenly is starving, the last thing a hungry fisherman is going to be concerned with is the purple-bellied flying carp and whether or not it’s extinct…

As Prices Rise, Farmers Spurn Conservation–New York Times

9: I miss the old “Dr.” Phil: “You shouldn’t shush a nation when a president decides he’s gonna go to war. If we ever need the First Amendment, we need it then”….

Phil Donohue Stands Up For Free Speech In A Time Of War–News Hounds

10: I’ve said it before, being a friend of GWB and company means never having to say you’re sorry…

Bush Justice in the Department of Just Us–Scatablog

Oh, I definitely need more coffee!

(yes, I suffer from head*desk syndrome)

Alexandre Adler, one of France’s foremost historians and strategic thinkers - often characterized as a French ‘neocon’ - thinks that America is embarked on a path toward a much more ‘Socialist’ future.

Adler implies a watershed will be the 2008 Presidential election and describes Barack Obama’s ideas as an increasingly extensive redistribution by the state including a considerable expansion of government benefits. Adler writes in an article in Le Figaro he expects America’s shift toward socialism to over shadow “Past nationalizations like that under [former French Socialist President Francois] Mitterand [in 1981] will look like small potatoes.”

Adler points to the U. S. takeover and ownership of investment banks as evidence that “the system is finished, given the decline of the dollar and the mistrust of if international fiancial markets, which is what fiancés America’s external budget deficit.”

Adler says factors are emerging and simultaneously coming into play to challenge the way Americans live and produce. Adler is a Francophile and some believe that skews his theory. Nevertheless his point that “Americans, we know, are much less doctrinaire toward themselves than they are toward Latin American, for example” is worth thought.

If he is correct, in even minor measure, you should expect a disorienting swerve left – faster depending upon who occupies the White House next January.Excerpted and edited from a March 29, 2008 article by Alexandre Adler translated by Kate Davis.

Inflationary pressures fueled by rapidly rising consumer prices and a global economic downturn triggered by the U.S. subprime crisis are presenting China with its “most difficult fiscal challenge ever” China’s Premier Wen Jiabao said following the initial session of the country’s National People’s Congress.

He said he is worried by the fall of the dollar; kind of monetary policy will the U.S. take and, what direction will its economy take?” Privately the Chinese and many other world trading partners are worried about a major corruption of U. S. trade as a result of the November elections — some of the isolationist talk is very disturbing to many.

China has purchased advanced anti-ship cruise missiles (SS-27) from Russia, posing a major threat to U.S. aircraft carriers and other warships, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific said last week. It can be fired from submarines and surface ships. It is a very sophisticated piece of hardware and we are currently not as capable of defending against that missile as I would like,” Pacific Commander Admiral Tim Keating said.

China is the ‘largest provider of small arms to Sudan’ and is responsible for worsening the violence in the tragic Darfur region, a U.S.-based rights group charges.

At the same time China is about to stage what it hopes can appears to be a new “opening” by hosting the 2008 Olympics. At the same time western governments are advising tourist not to expect privacy meaning the often paranoid Chinese will snoop.

China and even Persian Gulf countries are building coal fired power plants. China is demanding more coking coal for steel making in addition to thermal coal for power generation. For the first time last year China imported more coal than it exported.

This could be good news for the U. S. with 27% of the world’s coal reserves. But, the coal industry is more of a perceived pariah that oil producers.

Although others are going full tilt into coal and U. S. is roping off much of its deposits from export or use in domestic power production. Coking coal is virtually ignored in the U. S. since its steel industry has almost disappeared since World War II.

OPEC cites the unwillingness to use its own oil and coal reserves when refusing to raise production. Humans have used ONE TRILLION BARRELS of petroleum of TWELVE BILLION known to exist. Coal, tar sands, a oil shale reserves exceed all liquid reserves, and much of those reserves are in North America but it too is roped off by regulations and government policies.

U.S.average retail gasoline prices have reached a new high, and are expected to rise 20 to 30 cents per gallon this summer says MoneyNews.com. According to the nationwide Lundberg survey of about 7,000 gas stations the price has risen 64 cents per gallon in the past 12 months as refiners are more willing to pass along rising crude oil prices. OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) is unwilling to increase production saying the U. S. can not refine more crude because no new refineries have been built in 30-years due to environmental zealots and their Congressional allies who have also bottled up new oil production thereby creating the price problem – so, they say, why should we help when you are helping yourself? So, apparently the “pain-at-the-pump” is not yet enough to provoke protest and revolt although gasoline use declined nationwide in January for the first time ever.