Recap

scarface

"Who knows just when it began to unravel? One thinks the drowning of New Orleans may have been the tipping point: "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job!" Then Tom Delay got booked. Scooter Lewis got indicted. Now Patrick Fitzgerald wants a second Grand Jury, and everybody I know thinks he's hot on Dick Cheney's trail. Yanking the carpet out from under poor old Harriet Miers to appease the religious nuts didn't help, either. Whenever it began, it's proceeding ever-downward, ever faster. This bunch is disgraced, done, their will denied. Oh, there'll be some bloodshed before it's over, likely some pardons, some deals, further insults to the Constitution and decency. But read the history books a generation from now. Nixon and Haldeman and Erlichman and John Mitchell will look like model government set against the record of this bunch.

But there's really nothing new here. The President is not more ignorant or selfish, nor Dick Cheney more evil today than when they first stood for election. There has been no metamorphosis, no peeling away of some veneer that had hidden the heart of darkness. Most Americans favored the tax cuts, supported the war, no matter its damage to Iraqi society or however many tens of thousands of civilians we'd bomb and burn en route to hustling Saddam out of his hole and into a cell. (The only question remaining now is whether we'll have to kill Saddam before he tells everything he knows about Poppy Bush and Rumsfeld at trial.)

Hell, the country pretty much took the whole Abu Ghraib torture business without losing faith. "America doesn't torture," said our president. OK. Good. Only Muslims, Communists, Terrorists and Enemies of Freedom torture; we know that. The Geneva Conventions are "quaint", maybe "obsolete", said Attorney General Gonzales. Dick Cheney has dedicated himself to defeating any law that would curtail our ability to torture, if we did, which we don't.

I don't know when faith faltered for a majority of Americans, when it no longer seemed reasonable to trust or believe or finally to like or respect George Bush. But it's happened, it's irreversible. He's become a joke. A dangerous joke, to be sure, but to a typical citizen who pays any attention to current events or who has a conscience and an average allotment of skepticism, President Bush is now no more fit to run our country than the privileged frat boy on spring break he's always been."

What Was That About Red and Blue States?

Bush Approval Poll

LOL

With the shitstorm intensifying in D.C. and across the land, what’s a blogger to do? There is so much to “read, learn and inwardly digest”. Mark Morford writing at sfGate.com makes me laugh out loud, and that’s hard to come by these days. A taste of the President’s Thanksgiving…

"They await the appearance of the bird in the cozy, heavily paneled White House drawing room with the grand chandelier sparkling there since the Truman administration, the rest of the space engorged with stuffy furniture Laura chose herself and which she thinks is manly and presidential but which actually looks like it was bought at a Jersey consignment store run by Ethan Allen's stoned brother

Barbara rules. Owns the house, despite how she hasn't lived here in over 13 years. Laura can only look at her in numb awe, her own stiff skirt pleats appearing humble and small in comparison to Barb's massive teal dress ensemble, so epic and balloon-like it would seem to envelope all it comes near, like a giant ocean algae bloom, a massive amoeba, a cloud of righteous know-it-allness that makes easy mockery of Laura's little beige blouse of meek sexless humility. Barb is a force of nature, commanding the staff and chatting up the various heads of state and smiling at everyone with that glassy omnivorous stare. They all hate her

George Sr. notices this, of course, from his usual place back beside the old bookcase that hasn't been perused in five years, sips his gin fizz and chuckles softly at the scene, thinkin' about golf, thinkin' about how long ago it all seems since his reign of tepid ineptitude, but thinkin', also, about how history will be much kinder to him now that his son has run the country into a blood-drenched wall. He-he-he. He'll drink to that

It's the thing no one mentions, but which hangs over the room like a pall. Junior's current miserable poll numbers now mean that he and his father share the honor of being two of the four most unpopular presidents in modern history, right alongside Carter and Nixon. But Bush 41 does not care. He gets to hang with Clinton now. He is grandfatherly and forgettable and almost invisible. In other words, his stature has improved considerably, in relation to his son. Damn this gin is good. Too bad Junior can't have some. Looks like he could use it

George Jr. is perturbed. He is sulky and pouty and has to force a smirky grin at the guests as they enter the banquet room, pretending as if he really wanted them all there, all these betrayers and backstabbers and people he thought he knew but who turn out, instead, to be involved in whole big bunches of illegal and traitorous stuff he has no clue about. They are all a bunch of goddamn boogerheads, he thinks."

Continuing Cracks: Part 12

In case your don't recall, the cracks I refer to are cracks in the structure of the US Dollar, which, I'm sure you know, is backed only by belief.

Recall that on November 3, 2000 Iraq switched from doing oil business in USD to euros (when they cost 83 cents) and that the first thing the US did after invading Iraq was to switch Iraq back to USD. Hmmmm….

And now, what have we here …. (from Al Jazeera by way of GATA)

By Emilie Rutledge 11/3/05

"Iran's decision to set up an oil and associated derivatives market next year has generated a great deal of interest. This is primarily because of Iran's reported intention to invoice energy contracts in euros rather than dollars.

[snip]

It is primarily the United States that stands to lose out from any move away from the petrodollar status quo; it is the world's largest importer of oil, and a move away from invoicing oil in dollars to euros will undoubtedly have a negative effect on its economy. Fewer nations would be willing to hold the dollar in reserve, which would cause a significant devaluation and result in the loss seigniorage revenues. In addition, U.S. energy-related companies stand to lose out as they will be unable to participate in the bourse due to the longstanding American trade embargo on Iran."

The Crushing of Colin

Ann Wright, one of the few to resign before the Bombing of Baghdad, tells her story in an interview at www.tomdispatch.com , well worth reading.

"Tragically, Colin Powell, who was trying to counsel Donald Rumsfeld behind the scenes that there weren't enough troops in Iraq, never stood up to say, "Hold it, guys, I'll resign if we don't get this under control so that logical functions go in logical organizations and you, the Defense Department, don't do post-combat civil reconstruction stuff. That's ours."

He just didn't do it. To me, he was more loyal to the Bush family than he was to the country. His resignation was possibly the one thing that could have deterred the war. Then the people of America would really have looked closely at what was going on.

But tragically he decided loyalty to the administration was more valuable than loyalty to the country. I mean, it breaks my heart to say that, but it's what really happened."

Cascading Evil Can Be So Damn Boring ...

President George and his cronies have suffered a reversal of fortune unlike anything we’ve ever seen. The crush of bad news for the administration seems unending. Even trying to chronicle one debacle proves to be overwhelming.

The “yellow-cake” affair itself leads in a half-dozen directions – an Italian newspaper with its own “Judy”, curiously “obvious” forged documents (and hey, what about Dan Rather and his own "obviously forged documents" – remember the rumor that Rove planted them?), visits to the White House by Italian secret agents, and so on. I can’t keep up, and this is only one of so many. So what’s a blogger to do?

I’ve found an antidote, a writer at SFGate.com – Mark Morford, so jaded and cynical that he can even make me laugh at Tom Delay. I quote …

“I think it was somewhere around my 17th article on "Scooter" Libby's duplicitous vileness or maybe it was the umpteenth piece on Karl Rove's bleak sweatiness or Tom DeLay's toothy mug-shot "I'll be skipping prison" grin, like he'd just swallowed a whole baby seal and two live puppies and was coming for your cat.“

Hook Mr. Morford up to your RSS feed, and enjoy.

silver

Not Financial Advice

As you know, I do not give out financial advice as I am usually too early. So take the following as a starting point in your own research.


FMNN:The Silver User’s Association startled the investment community recently when it came out hard against Barclay’s Bank’s proposal to create a silver-backed Exchange Traded Fund. The Silver Users Association is a lobbyist group for industrial end-users of silver, including Kodak. While the Silver Users’ opposition to any new investment demand for silver was predictable, the reasoning behind that opposition stunned many. Here’s Free-Market News Network commentator Jason Hommel to explain. Jason?

JASON HOMMEL: Yes! Their reason for opposing the Silver ETF was that they said it would cause a shortage of silver, and rising silver prices!

This news is HUGE and EXTREMELY important for people to pay attention to.

The silver shortage has been confirmed, publicly, by people who have a stated goal of keeping silver prices low. They do NOT want investors to buy silver, which is why they oppose the Silver ETF, but here they are, making the case for why investors should buy silver by confirming the silver shortage, and saying that silver prices will rise!

Why would they say that unless they are in a panic?When the silver shortage hits, industrial users will panic, and will buy up silver to crazy high prices, without regard to price--to prevent shutting down their factories!

And given the amounts involved, THAT the Silver ETF needs 130 million ounces that the world may not have… that means it is ALREADY TOO LATE FOR BILLIONAIRES TO JUMP ON BOARD AND BUY SILVER, BECAUSE THERE IS PROBABLY NOT A BILLION DOLLARS OF SILVER AVAILABLE IN THE WORLD TO BUY AT UNDER $10/OZ. SILVER PRICES WOULD PROBABLY HAVE TO RISE TO $25/OZ., JUST FOR THERE TO BE A BILLION DOLLARS WORTH OF SILVER AVAILABLE TO BUY!

Silver is so cheap today, even the silver miners can’t make money mining it at $7.50/oz.

So, if you care at all about the financial security of your loved ones (or readers), you should probably forward this email to them.I have long waited for the tipping point in the silver market, and there is no doubt in my mind that this is it.

For more information on this story, see my article:
Silver Users Fear Silver Shortage
Thursday October 27, 3:49 pm ET

For more information on silver, and especially silver stocks, see my web site, www.silverstockreport.com

or the latest silver stock report #57, from July at http://www.silverstockreport.com/reports/silverstockreport57.html

You can subscribe to this email list by sending a blank email to:subscribe@silverstockreport.com