Skype and Freedom

Skype, the free and easy to use internet telephone, has announced that calling to non-Skype numbers (called SkypeOut) will also be free (for the US and Canada) until the end of 2006. This is amazing news. Download Skype from www.skype.com . You’ll need a headset with a microphone (cost about $30) to prevent feedback and give you excellent quality. Then start calling with your free long-distance internet phone. Whoopeeee!

My question: Are these calls also being monitored by the NSA? I don’t think so.

Another workaround: instead of using email, which is searched automatically by NSA for keywords, use your mic and headset to record mp3 (audio) files and attach these files to an email. They would have to be played to be searched for keywords. I don’t think the NSA has gotten to that yet either.

Google Echelon for your own edification. And please comment if you have any additional information.

Gold and Silver: Dips and Corrections

Another kind of dip!

This is some of the best advice I've seen. If you are not in the market, buy now. If you are already in, read on...

Corrections
By: Jason Hommel, Silver Stock Report

My portfolio of mostly silver stocks is down about 17% from its high last week on May 11th. And in that time, gold has dropped back from a high of about $720-$725 down to a high of $719 earlier today, and loads of so-called analysts are calling for a correction, or trying to describe this week's price action as a correction. Sigh. I've not been doing this for very long, only about 7 years now, and I've seen my own portfolio of silver stocks lose just about 50% three times now, on the way up to over 1000% gains. I never use stop losses--that's just a way to get kicked out at the bottom--which is a fool's game. I stay fully invested in the sector, rarely trade more than 10% of my portfolio in a month, and keep my cash to generally between 1-5% of my overall holdings. So, be patient, take heart, and stick with it; especially you newer investors.

Continue reading

NSA Phone Phlap

In all of the blognostication over the illegal NSA surveillance of our phones, I have yet to see one mention of the infamous NSA Echelon, which has been known about for years. This latest “revelation” is nothing more than part of what has been stardard operating procedure in the NSA Echelon project since the ‘70s. What gives?

See also CALEA.

Dollar in Meltdown Mode - IMF to Act?

Something big is coming this week. Maybe a whole bunch of big things: Rove indicted, dollar plummets, gold, silver, gold and silver, Iran, full NSA Echelon exposed, Bush's head explodes, who knows. But I feel it in my bones. Be alert - the world needs more lerts.

By way of GATA:

We are in meltdown mode,' said David Brown, chief European economist at Bear Stearns. 'It's all being whipped up into a bit of a selling frenzy. The dollar has a massive portfolio of negatives against it: it's the long-term problems of the trade deficit, and the government's budget deficit.'

Bloom warned that 'phase two' of a sell-off would cause turmoil in the equity markets, as on Friday, when both the Dow Jones and FTSE saw sharp losses. 'I'm expecting an increase in volatility and uncertainty across the board,' he said.

Brown added that the dollar's woes were likely to be exacerbated by central banks shifting their reserves towards other currencies, including the euro. 'Asian central banks have been buying fistfuls of dollars as the flipside of their massive current account surpluses. They're long dollars.'

He added that with the US current account deficit with the rest of the world worth 7 per cent (ed. note: 5% in any other country would be melting point) of its GDP in 2005, the White House and the Federal Reserve would probably be happy to watch the dollar decline. 'I don't think Washington's going to be concerned,' he said.

How High Will Gold and Silver Go?

As has happened in the past, when I do the research for a particular blog, I find material containing the information that I had planned to present that is better than I would have been written myself.

For example, read The Gold Price – A “Spike” Or Something Else? By: Julian D. W. Phillips, Gold Forecaster for extensive coverage of the question.

And then listen to this interview.

One of my main points is to compare the 1980 "spike" at $850 to today's $715 for gold. Remember, you have to adjust for the shrinking dollar.

From another analysis:

"Now let’s take a look at where we are with gold and its previous historic high. The high reached in gold was $850 an ounce seen in January 1980. Adjusted for inflation, that would correspond to $2088.90 for an ounce of gold today!

Gold in 1980 $850.00
In 2006 Dollars $2088.90

Let’s look at it from a reverse perspective. The recent (05/11/06) price of gold is $715.10 an ounce, which would correspond to $290.98 an ounce in 1980 adjusted dollars, nearly 66% below its previous peak.

Gold on 05/11/06 $715.10
In 1980 Dollars $290.98

If you listen to the interview, you'll might want to follow the advice given there... JUMP IN WITH BOTH FEET!!

Cheney Retires for "Health Reasons".

Oh wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. That hasn't happened - yet. What has happened is this report by Reuters that Fitzpatrick is going after Dick (Stentman) Cheney. Cheney's recent inability to stay awake may be related to the hardening of the arteries in his brain. That's not a joke. Really, see for yourself.

SLV, GLD, CEF or Physical Possession

Ok, you have finally started paying attention to the rising price of gold and silver. You didn’t listen (or if you did, please leave me a comment) a year ago when I was gently suggesting that you might consider these archaic metals as investment opportunities. Now your TV is telling you that gold and silver are hot. You are wondering if you have missed the boat.

My answer: No, not yet. You missed the first boat, but more are leaving daily. There is still time. But what should you do?

Before I get to that, let me make my usual disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. I have no special expertise. But I have spent the last two years reading what the experts were saying and researching investment opportunities they have suggested. You can search this site for references to gold and silver to review what I’ve reported. And, most importantly, I have followed my own advice and made money. You, of course, should do your own research and due diligence before you make any investment. I’m just reporting what I’ve found and what I’ve done. Perhaps you can benefit from reviewing this information.

I am not going to document everything I say in these articles. You know how to use Google.

First, understand the difference between money and currency. Gold and silver have served as real money for thousands of years. Currency is the paper we currently use. In the past, our currency has been based on gold and/or silver (as mandated in our Consitution). That is no longer true. Our paper is “fiat” currency, based on nothing more than belief. Its value is determined by 1) how many dollars are in existence, and 2) how much the world believes that the US of A is the best place to invest.

Currently, #1 is going way up, and #2 is going way down. The result is that the value of the dollar is decreasing, and we call this inflation.

Second, you should understand that all of the government data; CPI, inflation rate, employment rate, jobless claims, etc. is juiced data. All of the formulae from which these numbers are derived have been tinkered with by the government to the point that their relationship to reality is severely strained. We are currently being told that the inflation rate is around 3%. Real-world estimates are closer to 10%.

Sooo…the price of everything isn’t really going up as it seems, your dollars are just getting littler. Gold, silver, copper, platinum, palladium, and all other commodities seem to be going up in price because of these little dollars. To counter this effect, you must buy something that it not losing its value with your shrinking dollars. Real estate used to be a hedge against inflation, but it has been jacked too high at this point to be of use right now. (Unless you can sell it and convert the dollars.)

Another choice is to buy gold and/or silver. This is fairly easy to do these days. The popular choices are electronic trading funds (ETF), gold mining shares, CEF (a Canadian gold and silver holding company), or actual bullion (coins or bars).

Two ETFs are GLD (share price fixed at 1/10 an ounce of gold) and the newly-minted SLV (share price fixed at 10 ouces of silver). I've owned neither. I've heard it said that they are "not for the little investor". I don't see why.

I do not buy gold or silver mining company shares because there are too many confounding variables; are they hedged, do they have good management, are they located in dangerous countries, subject to dangerous environmental concerns, etc. You can make a lot of money here when junior companies are bought up by larger companies, but you have to be very knowledgeable, which I am not.

CEF is a Canadian company that baby-sits gold and silver. They seem tightly regulated. Sometimes you can see that the price of CEF lags the action in GLD and SLV.

Open yourself an online stock trading account (I use eTrade), transfer some money from your home bank account, and buy some shares. You’ll learn how to keep track of things, so you can buy and sell when it is advantageous to you. Or just leave it there, and don’t worry about it for a while.

Unfortunately you can't just forget about it, because if the dollar really crashes, as many predict it will, you will want to cash out of your stock account and convert to physical gold or silver. If you wait too long there may not be much available at a reasonable price.

Which brings us to the end game, physical gold or silver. There are many considerations but here are a few.

Gold coins (Eagles, Krugerrands, and Maple Leafs) are called bullion. The difference in price disappears when you sell as does the condition (mint or not), so buy the cheapest. Gold coins are a very compact medium for value, easily stored and protected. Today 14 one ounce coins are worth about $10,000.

In silver this would be about 577 coins, much bulkier and harder to store. But silver is up 61% this year compared to gold’s increase of 36%. Some of both?

There are other forms of physical to be considered: junk silver (1964 and older silver US coins), rounds (like coins but not stamped), and bars.

They are all really cool. The form they are in might become important if you were to actually use them as a medium of exchange.

Next article: How High Will They Go?

So Much for Holding Off on Silver

Yes, apparently the Buffet news did have an effect yesterday, but by this morning it had worn off and both silver and gold jumped out of bed with great enthusiasm. Although this is old news now, you can find further analysis here.

Hold Off on Buying Silver

My guess is that this news will send the price of silver down - temporarily.

Warren Buffett Sells the Family Silver
By Jon A. Nones07 May 2006 at 12:57 PM EDT

St. LOUIS (ResourceInvestor.com) -- With the market abuzz with anticipation of what Wall Street legend Warren Buffett intends to do with Berkshire Hathaway’s $40 billion in cash, a small, but perhaps very significant little bit of news may have been overshadowed.
At the company’s shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska on Saturday, Chairman Warren Buffett announced that the company has divested its silver holdings.

David Morgan, author of “The Morgan Report,” sent a note to clients quoting an anonymous source at the Berkshire meeting who confirmed the sale.

According to the source, no sell price, date or addition data were given other than the announcement that the company not longer owned any silver.

The source said Buffett didn't really talk about silver other than he sold it, but said he would rather hold businesses that have earnings.

According to news sources today, Buffett told shareholders, “We had a lot of silver at one time but we don't have it now.”

In 1997, Buffett purchased an estimated 130 million ounces for delivery in 1998. In February 1998, the silver price jumped to a high of $7.81/oz, rallying 50% since mid-1997.

The CPM Group estimated earlier this year that Buffett still held somewhere between 100 and 129 million ounces.

Buffett said that Berkshire had not benefited from the particularly steep rise in silver prices.
“I bought it very early, I sold it very early. Other than that it was perfect,” he joked.

Silver hit a 23-year peak of $14.68 two weeks ago. On Friday, July silver futures closed at $13.89 an ounce.

Buffett said he detected speculative participation in the recent run up in prices, particularly metals.

“What the wise man does at beginning, the fool does in the end... any asset that has a big move based on fundamentals will attract speculators...,” he said, according to sources.

“Something like copper is speculative on both sides of the market, and responding more to speculative than fundamental forces,” he added.

However, it might important to note the timing of Barclays’ silver ETF iShares Silver Trust [AMEX:SLV], which just launched on April 28.Jason Hommel, Editor of “Silver Stock Report” previously told Resource Investor that “we just don’t know” where the silver will come from to back the ETF, and it is possible that Warren Buffett could be the supplier, which isn’t causing a shortage in the market.

Furthermore, the SEC seemed to easily dismiss the opposition by the Silver Users Association and comments from sources about the illiquidity of the silver market in its 32-page order.

Many analysts estimated that the ETF would need perhaps as much as 130 million ounces of silver to cover investment demand - the same amount Buffet originally bought in 1997.

Barclays’ Christine Hudacko could not be reached for comment.

Million Dollar Bash

I hear my friends talking incessantly about how prices are going up. And of course, they are. Despite the “Fed” talking about low “core” inflation at 2% - 3%, anyone who goes shopping on a regular basis knows that prices are up, up, up. Anything that had to travel to get to the store where you are buying it (everything) is being impacted by the double-whammy of increased fuel costs and “reality-based” inflation, which does include food and energy. Some estimates I’ve seen are as high as 12%. Is hyper-inflation next in our growing list of things you can’t stop worrying about? ‘Fraid so.

Because, you see, the dollar is going down. I don’t think people get it. Our dollar is not worth a “dollar” – some fixed amount of something somewhere – anywhere! Not gold, not silver, not anything. Its value is determined by 1. How many of them there are, and 2. How much everyone believes in their value, i.e., believes in the worth of the US of A. #1 is going way up and #2 way down.

BTW – this is something that is being done to us by predetermined policy – not by accident or force of nature.

An Indian friend told me a story his people have been telling for many years: a white man comes to the village and offers to pay $100 for a loaf of bread. No one is willing to sell.


Asia Is Getting Ready to Dump the Dollar Peg
By Andy Mukherjee, Columnist
Bloomberg News Service
Monday, May 8, 2006

Li Yong, China's vice minister for finance, said he had heard
a "rumor" that the U.S. dollar was headed for a 25 percent drop. If
the gossip was true, the consequences would be "shocking," he said.

Li's comment, which he made at a discussion on global financial
imbalances last week at the annual meeting of the Asian Development
Bank in the Indian city of Hyderabad, was aimed directly at fellow
panelist Tim Adams, the U.S. Treasury undersecretary of
international affairs.

The unspoken message was: "Don't try to talk the dollar down." And
Adams knew better than to ask, "Well, what are you going to do about
it?" The answer to that question has already begun taking shape:
Asia may be getting ready to fix its currencies to a local anchor,
dumping the region's unofficial dollar peg.

Even as they continue to pile up U.S. debt in their foreign-exchange
reserves to keep their currencies stable against the dollar, Asian
nations, China among them, are preparing for a scenario where the
dollar does indeed collapse under the weight of a record U.S.
current account deficit. (click title to read on ...)

Maybe...Maybe Not

So we have conflicting reports on not only whether Iran will open its oil bourse, but if they do, what the effect will be. My guess is that they will, but that the effect will be just another crack in the foundation of the USD, slowly adding to its continuing decline. After all, this is the only way the US can attempt to manage its massive debt position, all at the expense of the US middle class, of course.

By The Associated Press
via the Globe and Mail, Toronto
Friday, May 5, 2006

Iran -- Iran took a step on Friday toward establishing an oil market denominated in euros, a plan analysts described as highly unlikely to materialize but which in theory could have serious consequences for the U.S. economy.Iranian state-run television said the country's oil ministry granted a license for the euro-denominated market, an idea first floated back in 2004, though just who would trade on it remains unclear.If the market were to succeed, or if Iran simply demanded payment for its oil in euros, commodities experts said, it could lead central bankers around the world to convert some dollar reserves into euros, possibly causing a decline in the dollar's value.

Oil is currently denominated in dollars around the globe, whether through direct sales between producers and consumers or in trades made on markets in New York and London. But if one day the world's largest oil producers allowed, or, worse, demanded euros for their barrels, "it would be the financial equivalent of a nuclear strike," said A.G. Edwards commodities analyst Bill O'Grady. Click title to continue reading...

What Hyper-inflation Looks Like

"How Bad Is Inflation in Zimbabwe?

By MICHAEL WINES
Published: May 2, 2006

HARARE, Zimbabwe, April 25 — How bad is inflation in Zimbabwe? Well, consider this: at a supermarket near the center of this tatterdemalion capital, toilet paper costs $417.

No, not per roll. Four hundred seventeen Zimbabwean dollars is the value of a single two-ply sheet. A roll costs $145,750 — in American currency, about 69 cents.

The price of toilet paper, like everything else here, soars almost daily, spawning jokes about an impending better use for Zimbabwe's $500 bill, now the smallest in circulation.

But what is happening is no laughing matter. For untold numbers of Zimbabweans, toilet paper — and bread, margarine, meat, even the once ubiquitous morning cup of tea — have become unimaginable luxuries. All are casualties of the hyperinflation that is roaring toward 1,000 percent a year, a rate usually seen only in war zones."

Zimbabwe's solution to the problem? The same as ours - print more money.

Iranian Bourse Back from "Poof"

By way of GATA...

From Islamic Republic News Agency
via Payvand.com
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
http://www.payvand.com/news/06/apr/1231.html

TEHRAN -- Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh said on Wednesday that the establishment of an oil stock exchange is in its final stage and the bourse will be launched in Iran in the next week. He told reporters, upon arrival from Qatar, where he attended the 10th General Assembly of the International Energy Agency and consultations with OPEC member states, that registration of the oil stock exchange is under way and the entity will operate after being approved by by Council of Stock Exchanges.

He rejected a statement attributed to him that the oil stock exchange will bring to the U.S. economy down, and said, "I don't know who has speculated that. I've not talked about the U.S. economy."

Asked about the conference on energy in Doha, he said that more than 60 countries and 30 oil companies and consultants took part. Vaziri Hamaneh said that serious discussions of various issues were held, including the security of supply and demand, the security of investment in energy, and environmental issues.

"The best method for security of demand in the oil sector is that consumers should be given the opportunity to enter into partnership with the suppliers in investment in the oil industry," he said. He said that the conference called for diversifying energy resources and cooperation of the developed states with the countries possessing oil and gas resources.

Asked about the oil price rise, Vaziri-Hamaneh said that the oil price is being influenced by political situations, whereas it should be freed from political impacts, and economic and technical fundamentals should determine the oil price. "As long as political impacts dominate the oil market, price hikes will continue," he concluded.

----------------------------------------------------

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THIS JUST IN

I wish I had seen this before the close today.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
silverstockreport.com Newsletter
Silver ETF Approved!
April 27th, 2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Silver set to explode in price
-- SEC clears Barclays iShares Silver Trust
-- Launch of Barclays' Silver ETF Imminent
-- Hundred-Year Long Trend of Low Silver Prices is Ending

Valued Subcriber!

The SEC has Cleared the Barclays Silver ETF (Exchange Traded Fund). The ETF will allow investors to buy silver as easily as they buy stocks, and the trading symbol on the AMEX should be SLV, and could start trading as early as tomorrow, or by the end of next week.

Interestingly, Barclays has only deposited 1.5 million ounces of silver with their bullion custodian, not the 130 million ounces that was anticipated. Thus, the significant silver buying has not yet started, and is still to come, especially as the large pension funds with hundreds of billions of dollars start buying. Most of the large funds cannot buy silver unless it is in the form of an ETF, and the ETF was built to enable these funds to buy silver. If even 1% of just one of the largest funds is invested into the Silver ETF, it would be over $2 billion, which, at $13/oz., is over 153 million ounces of silver, which is far more silver than is available at the NYMEX, the large commodity exchange in New York.


SEC clears Barclays iShares Silver Trust
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WASHINGTON, April 27 (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday that the registration statement for Barclays Global Investors' iShares Silver Trust was declared effective, removing the final regulatory obstacle to trading in the innovative fund.
"The registration statement for the iShares Silver Trust was declared effective at 10 a.m.," SEC spokesman John Nester said.

News: SEC clears Barclays iShares Silver Trust


Launch of Barclays' Silver ETF Imminent
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By Jon A. Nones 25 Apr 2006 at 07:07 PM EDT St. LOUIS (ResourceInvestor.com) -- It’s been more than a month since Barclays’ silver ETF iShares Silver Trust “cleared the last regulatory hurdle” at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) prior to final approval. But with yesterday’s public statement by the SEC, it now appears the announcement of a launch date is imminent. According to a regulatory filing yesterday, Barclays has deposited 1.5 million ounces of silver with JPMorgan Chase Bank in London to back 150,000 shares of its ETF with each representing 10 ounces of silver.
Barclays intends to offer to the public these 150,000 iShares at a per-iShare offering price that will vary depending on the price of silver and the trading price of the iShares on the AMEX at the time of the offer. The ETF is slated to trade on the American Stock Exchange under the ticker “SLV.” According to the SEC, the approximate date of the ETF’s “sale to the public” will be “as soon as practicable after this Registration Statement becomes effective.”

Article: Launch of Barclays' Silver ETF Imminent


Hundred-Year Long Trend of Low Silver Prices is Ending
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SilverStockReport.com says that the silver market is not driven by day to day news, but rather, by a trend that is over 100 years long, the trend of demonitization, which started with the introduction of the gold standard, and the end of the use of silver as money. With renewed investor demand through the ETF, silver is being saved as a store of wealth again.
The other long term trend is silver's use in the age of electronics, which is a 60 year long trend that started around the end of World War II. This trend, with the industrilization of China and India, is only accelerating. Silver has been consumed by industry, and there is very little silver left over for any investment demand. Silver prices are sure to go up, up and up some more, probably for decades to come.

Subscribe now to the Silver Stock Report!



Jason Hommel
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
email: j@silverstockreport.com
web: http://silverstockreport.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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Ha Ha Ha America (Click here for movie)

Remember when China was called Communist China? Well, its still Communist, but we just call it China now.

They won the war when we weren't looking. That's why we call it China now.

"Dear Mr. President" by Pink & the Indigo Girls (Click to listen)

Can't Wait

Neil Young has completed a CD entitled "Living with War". Written in 3 days, and recorded in 9, it appears to be poised to rally the anti-war folks to a new level when it is released.

Remember "Ohio" (4 dead in O-hi-O)? I can't wait to hear "Impeach the President" on this new CD. I'll be sure to let you know when it comes out.

And BTW, Neil has a blog.

This is a Dip

Buy more now.

Hu Knew?

I'll just pretend to be listening.

I'm not listening to you either.
I don't have to.

Note to self: Quit buying Treasury Notes from these fools.

No Longer Astounded

I hate to admit it, but I can’t find anything Astounding to bring you today. However, this is really good, even if it’s not Astounding (or true). From Martin Random at somethingawful.com

"These are some facts I have witnessed and learned through my employment. Take it at face value, believe it or don't believe it, because I'm not providing corroborating pictures, details, or evidence beyond my own testimony.

Homeland security buys in bulk and at great premium millions of dollars of useless personal appliances from China, such as rice cookers, nose hair trimmers, massage wands, and heating pads, boxes them up, and buries them in railroad shipping containers in the Arizona desert for no reason whatsoever other than to spend its budget and prevent sub-agencies from getting the funds. I suspect that the money goes to a middleman in order to secretly siphon funds into foreign organizations which we can't support over the table, but this is just me trying to find a justification for this massive and intentional government waste.

Donald Rumsfeld needs to wear iced underwear because of some medical condition, and he has his secret service detail hold his spares. He was recently getting uncontrollable long-term erections and had to change up his medical treatments. The underwear and the erections is why he uses a standing desk, not because he is some super-man. He also wears nylon stockings, not because he's gay, but to control some vascular problem with his legs which causes him intense pain.

President Bush uses anti-depressant medication, a lot of it, at a stupendous dosage, and he is hiding it from the American public. This is the real reason he stopped drinking. Because of the dosage, he is also impotent.

Tom Ridge carries 20 credit cards with him at all times, each one with a very low limit. I have never heard of him using one, ever, but he has them. He also wears his socks inside-out, and will flip the fuck out and walk strangely if he is forced to wear them properly, because it drives him crazy. All of his socks must be laundered right side in and then turned inside out before they are returned to him. He gave specific instructions about handling his food, and not allowing his vegetables to touch any other food item on the plate. His utensils must be steamed over boiling water. He will not eat soup which hasn't been boiled within the past 20 minutes or which he has not prepared himself. If any of these rules are violated, he flies into a rage, turns beet red, and will not eat a single thing. He has his personal attendants confirm over and over that the food is as he likes it. He also shaves his forearms and hands because he can't stand the idea of body hair on his arms. He demands that his bedsheets are bleach white and changed fresh every night and he sleeps in a separate bed in a big, tight, body-length nylon sleeve, with a fan blowing over him at full power. He is terrified of animals which have fur or hair longer than one inch, and will not go near curly hair of any kind, even on people. At one time he ran from his office and demanded that someone look under everything for a rodent which did not and could not exist, then he had the entire place wiped down with disinfectant and vacuumed twice. While this was done he couldn't even bear to look at the door, or come within 20 feet of his office. He was in hysterics.

President Bush, when dining at the white-house, does not eat any item of food which has not been first sniffed by a trained dog before being prepared. Think about that.

Word among the staff is that Cheney was drunk when he shot that lawyer, and secluded himself for a day to sober up and avoid felony firearms charges. I don't have any direct information on this because the guys with him at the time are not talking. This is totally unconfirmed, but I think it is plausible.

Dick Cheney has chronic gum problems and his breath smells like shit as a result. He is also a CLOSE TALKER. He keeps a small bottle of diluted hydrogen peroxide which he rinses with every hour on the hour, and he swallows it instead of spitting. He also picks his nose vigorously (violently) and hums loudly and tunelessly to himself while taking shits.

There is a sealed room in the whitehouse which once held a half-ton block of cheese for about 30 years.

The White house is planting its own men among the press agents at press conferences.

The white house lawn is mowed every other day by the same man humming the same tune.

Despite all of this craziness, there is nothing strange whatsoever about Condoleeza Rice. She is completely balanced and normal, if slightly robotic in her personal demeanor. She smells very nice at all times. She does, however, constantly check her investments online from her office when she thinks that nobody is looking, and she has slept at her desk on multiple occasions.

There is an administrative law judge who sits in an office in a building near the white-house, earns around 200k per year and has a secretary, and he does nothing except sit, read, and listen to classical music all day. His secretary likewise does nothing. He gets meals taken to him from the White-house kitchen, and is so lonely that he latches on to whoever gets sent and talks to them for hours about the korean war. His family is all dead and his secretary hates him. In a drawer in his desk he has an old revolver, which he got in there somehow despite that he shouldn't have been able to bring it in. I think he will shoot himself one day.

The "undisclosed location" is usually a local police officer training ground or state trooper college. Shh."

How Soon We Forget

Click on picture to see video

Deception Reaches New Heights – Troops Being Pulled Back To Feign Success

Excerpt from:

The Tethered Goat Strategy

Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday April 6, 2006
The Guardian

....

"The Bush administration's preferred response to increasing disintegration is to act as if it has a strategy that is succeeding. "More delusion as a solution in the absence of a solution," said a senior state department official. Under the pretence that Iraq is being pacified, the military is partially withdrawing from hostile towns in the countryside and parts of Baghdad. By reducing the number of soldiers, the administration can claim its policy is working going into the midterm elections. But the jobs the military doesn't want to perform are being sloughed off on state department "provisional reconstruction teams" (PRTs) led by foreign service officers. The rationale is that they will win Iraqi hearts-and-minds by organising civil functions.

The Pentagon has informed the state department it will not provide security for these officials and that mercenaries should be hired for protection instead. Internal state department documents listing the PRT jobs, dated March 30, reveal that the vast majority of them remain unfilled by volunteers. So the professionals are being forced to take the assignments in which "they can't do what they are being asked to do", as a senior department official told me.

Foreign service officers, as a rule, are self-abnegating in serving any administration. The state department's Intelligence and Research Bureau was correct in its scepticism before the war about Saddam Hussein's possession of WMDs, but was ignored. The department was correct in its assessment in its 17-volume Future of Iraq project about the immense effort required for reconstruction after the war, but it was disregarded. Now its reports from Iraq are correct, but their authors are being punished. Foreign service officers are to be sent out like tethered goats to the killing fields. When these misbegotten projects inevitably fail, the department will be blamed. Passive resistance to these assignments reflects anticipation of impending disaster, including the likely murder of diplomats."

Read the entire article...

Iran's Oil Bourse Goes Poof

Iranian Oil Bourse Is History...But Oil's Still Dangerous For Dollar
by Kathy Lien & Boris Schlossberg, editors of The Money Trader.


"On March 21st Iran was scheduled to launch the world's first oil trading exchange that would have set prices in euros rather than dollars. Many analysts feared this would have spelled disaster for the greenback since oil is the world's most popular commodity and requires most nations to hold vast reserves of dollars in order to purchase it. If oil were to be suddenly settled in euros, the global need to hoard dollars would diminish considerably, eliminating one of the key supports for the US dollar in the currency market.

The doomsday scenario did not come to pass, as Iran failed to construct the necessary infrastructure for a successful launch of the exchange. It is still insisting on opening a Persian Gulf oil bourse with the southern Iranian island Kish as its base of operations according to a report by Iranian state- television on Saturday.

'The issue has already been agreed upon and the oil ministry has been instructed to open this bourse in the Persian Gulf island of Kish,' Economic and Finance Minister Davoud Danesh-Jafari said. However, at this point, the issue of an Iranian oil exchange to challenge the New York and London markets appears to be more of a P.R. stunt rather than a viable competitive threat.

Even if the Iranians managed to open up for trading, the key question remains: who would trade with them? Given the recent antagonistic rhetoric of the country's political leaders, many investors would likely shun the bourse for fear of not having their trades honored. Successful financial markets require trust and cooperation and Iran's antagonistic actions over the past several months (especially their insistence on developing nuclear capabilities) have engendered little goodwill in the world community. But dollar bulls should not be so quick to breathe a sigh of relief.... "

Now Here's a Clever Idea

Kill 90% of the world's population with the Ebola virus, and then we have a sustainable planet.

"Professor Pianka said the Earth as we know it will not survive without drastic measures. Then, and without presenting any data to justify this number, he asserted that the only feasible solution to saving the Earth is to reduce the population to 10 percent of the present number.

He then showed solutions for reducing the world's population in the form of a slide depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. War and famine would not do, he explained. Instead, disease offered the most efficient and fastest way to kill the billions that must soon die if the population crisis is to be solved.

Pianka then displayed a slide showing rows of human skulls, one of which had red lights flashing from its eye sockets.

AIDS is not an efficient killer, he explained, because it is too slow. His favorite candidate for eliminating 90 percent of the world's population is airborne Ebola ( Ebola Reston ), because it is both highly lethal and it kills in days, instead of years. However, Professor Pianka did not mention that Ebola victims die a slow and torturous death as the virus initiates a cascade of biological calamities inside the victim that eventually liquefy the internal organs.

After praising the Ebola virus for its efficiency at killing, Pianka paused, leaned over the lectern, looked at us and carefully said, “We've got airborne 90 percent mortality in humans. Killing humans. Think about that.”

Read more...

Even Better

A while back I insisted that you watch "9/11 Revisited" which was the best I had seen. Now there is an even better one. I know you've had enough, and with the current flood of information about our Imperial President and his crew, you propably have a barf bag near your TV.

But to understand where we are now, you must go back, back to the stolen election of 2000, the coup that empowered the current warmongers, and back to 9/11, their kickoff for the whole "One Superpower" takeover of the world.

There is now no lingering doubt...

Watch This Movie

Hitting Home

Unfortunately, I'm old enough to have been a "protester" during the Vietnam War. One of the popular ways we protested was to refuse to pay the then newly-instituted telephone tax, created expressly to "help pay for the Vietnam War". This amounted to about 86 cents per month on my family's bill.

Each month the unpaid balance would be carried forward to the next month. After a few months it might be $2.86 (all numbers approximate). Eventually I got a notice saying that if I didn't pay the tax, they would take measures. They wouldn't turn off your phone, because then you wouldn't have to pay the tax. But they would take measures.

Eventually, two agents showed up at my door who wanted to discuss this with me. We sat in my living room while they tried to get me to pay the $12.72 now due. I explained that I saw a direct connection between my paying .... and napalm burning the bodies of innocents. My dollars were buying the napalm which was frying the bodies of little children and I couldn't go along with that. I did not want their blood on my hands.

We were all very polite. They said they understood, but that they wanted me to understand that they would take the measure of garnishing my University stipend check. We all agreed that we would "do what we had to do".

When they stood up to leave, I asked what it was costing to collect each dollar . He said that it was about $100 cost per $1 collected, but that THE PRESIDENT (Nixon) was insisting that every dollar be collected, regardless of cost.

My next check listed a $13.66 deduction.

I went to the payroll office the following day and inquired as to who the actual person was who entered the data to deduct the napalm money from my check. I asked if I could speak to that person and they led me to a back desk where an innocuous middle-aged lady asked if she could help me.

I sat down in the chair next to her desk and explained that her last keystroke in the sequence that sent my money to Washington was linked directly to the actual release of the napalm on the children, and she would have to think about that every time she pressed that key ... that the blood would be on her hands. Keystroke = blood on hands.

She freaked and said she would do no such thing and that I should leave. I said I was going to sit there until she agreed to stop napalming the children.

"We'll see about that", as she called security.

Two security guards came and escorted me out of the building.

Each month thereafter (and the tax continues today) 86 cents of my money went to burn little children.

If you have the ability to comprehend, I would strongly recommend that you click on this (flash movie) link to see what your money is buying in this current war. This is strong medicine and, incidentally, the best and most powerful flash movie I have ever seen.

Bad Science and the FCC

I like to try to keep up with the frontiers of "the next big thing". You know the myth that the people own the airwaves and the FCC just regulates it for us, by fining certain broadcasters for violating indecency rules, so "the children" won't see body parts and hear bad language? David Reed explains why all that is unnecessary, and it appears that we don't need an FCC afterall.

Internet architect David Reed explains how bad science created the broadcast industry.

By David Weinberger
March 12, 2003

There's a reason our television sets so outgun us, spraying us with trillions of bits while we respond only with the laughable trickles from our remotes. To enable signals to get through intact, the government has to divide the spectrum of frequencies into bands, which it then licenses to particular broadcasters. NBC has a license and you don't.

Thus, NBC gets to bathe you in "Friends," followed by a very special "Scrubs," and you get to sit passively on your couch. It's an asymmetric bargain that dominates our cultural, economic and political lives -- only the rich and famous can deliver their messages -- and it's all based on the fact that radio waves in their untamed habitat interfere with one another.

Except they don't.

"Interference is a metaphor that paints an old limitation of technology as a fact of nature." So says David P. Reed, electrical engineer, computer scientist, and one of the architects of the Internet. If he's right, then spectrum isn't a resource to be divvied up like gold or parceled out like land. It's not even a set of pipes with their capacity limited by how wide they are or an aerial highway with white lines to maintain order... read more.

In Depth Interview with Bob Chapman, International Forecaster

Apparently only about 1% of Americans have started to take heed of the impending financial upheaval towards which we are headed. This is a good thing. It means that if you haven't taken heed, there is still plenty of time for you to "get in on the ground floor." Don't make the mistake of not investing now because you didn't invest earlier.

I'm starting to use my computer as mp3 player. If frees you from the desk and you can be doing something productive while you listen. Like old-time radio.

Give this guy a listen. I think he knows what he's talking about.

Their Words Say It All - The Dixie Chicks

Click on title to hear the latest song "Not Ready to Make Nice".

Oil Geopolitics, Iraq, Eurasia and the Debt-Bloated US Economy

Your cash ain't nothin' but trash. (Editor's comment)

Thanks to reader Byrne for the following link and comments. If you want to know the history of the current situation re: US and Iran, I join in his recommendation that you listen to the audio (mp3) file.

Byrne adds, "I have listened to it and he mentions the Iranian Oil Bourse within his discussion and the associated US military response. Strange though, that Engdahl does NOT mention what happened to the general trend of the Euro vs US Dollar graph after October 2000. The value of 1 Euro then was 85 US cents. The Euro then continued to strengthen (even past March/April 2003 when the US reverted Iraq's oil sales back to the US Dollar), up to a high in March 04 when 1 euro was worth 124 US cents. Part of the reason for the rise was the sluggish US economy and the use (from Jan 2002) of the Euro in circulation.

I found it interesting that he made no reference to this. Engdahl is correct inasmuch as it is the US military might that supports the dollar, as much as it hegemonic power (the two are obviously related). But the buck must stop somewhere.

Watch for China/Russia to stroll in when the US/Dollar is further weakened after the altercation with Iran. We will not get a chance to see if the Iran Bourse would affect the dollar, because the US/ISRAEL WILL make a military strike, I believe. "

And if You Still Need Convincing ...

From Yahoo!: Finance

Investing: Go for Gold and Silver, Not Green
by Robert Kiyosaki

March 21, 2006
....

Impending Financial Disaster

My concern is that very soon, citizens of the world will tire of America's gross fiscal mismanagement and hesitate to take U.S. dollars. In order to keep the world interested in the greenback, interest rates must rise. When that happens, U.S. assets, especially paper assets such as U.S. stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and savings will drop in value. Some real estate prices will increase because replacement costs are high, but overvalued real estate will drop.

At the risk of sounding like a politician who flip-flops, there will still be paper assets and real estate that will rise in value. The secret to surviving in paper assets and real estate is to be very careful and very selective. People who diversify will lose. People who focus will win.

Americans Are Still Asleep

The secret to surviving the next few years is keeping your wealth in real money, not in the U.S. dollar. Buy things that hold their value and are exchangeable all over the world. Commodities such as gold and silver have a world market that transcends national borders, politics, religions, and race. A person may not like someone else's religion, but he'll accept his gold.

One of the reasons why I'm bullish on gold and silver is because the American public is still sound asleep to this asset class. Most Americans have no idea how or where to buy physical gold and silver. The outlets that sell gold and silver I have visited are already low on inventory.

If and when the American public wakes up to the reality that their dollars are not money, but a currency, the panic and stampede will begin. Should that happen, today's prices for gold and silver will look like bargains.

Read the entire article...

This just in ...

Another step forward for silver ETF
SEC approves rule change
Silver rallies on speculation

By John Spence
CBSMarketWatch
Tuesday, March 21, 2006

BOSTON -- A controversial exchange-traded fund tied to silver prices moved a step closer to reality Tuesday. The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved a rule change for a silver ETF in registration from Barclays Global Investors that would allow the product to list on the American Stock Exchange, although the fund has not yet been cleared to launch by regulators.

Click title for more...

Slippin' and a Slidin' ...

Cano's Castle - Antonito, Colorado

Oh me oh my ... could this be the beginning of the long slow slide?

... this past week saw the greenback's biggest weekly loss in six weeks.

"This is the most serious assault on the dollar since January," said Steven Englander, chief currency strategist for the Americas at Barclays Capital in New York. "This feels different."

Why the decline? First, there was a dramatic downshift in the market expectations of how high interest rates will go. Most in the interest rate futures market believed that the Fed would raise rates to 4.75 percent by the end of the month, with a chance that they would raise to 5.25 percent by the middle of the year.

"Now, however, markets have taken all bets of a hike beyond five percent off the table, and are pricing in only three in four chance the Fed will even reach five percent," reports Reuters.

"This helped compress the spread between two-year U.S. and euro zone government debt to its narrowest level in favor of the dollar in 10 months."

Another factor conspiring against the dollar is the U.S. trade deficit. A U.S. Treasury Department reports shows that foreign purchases of U.S. securities were less than the amount needed to finance the trade deficit for the second month in a row."

Have you bought your gold/silver yet?

Coming Soon to a Reality Near You ...

1. Another “terrorist” attack, brought to you by the same forces of evil that demolished the three buildings of the WTC on 9/11. But don’t look for planes crashing into buildings, and don’t look on the East coast.

2. Another “War on Terror” campaign brought to you by the current administration. Another surge of patriotism by the sheeple: red and orange lights flashing - more warrantless spying, more torture, more rendition.

3. Another pre-emptive attack on a country that had nothing to do with #1. This time around, it’s Iran.

4. Another day, another quagmire

5. Bankrupt America.

How long ….. can this keep goin’ on.

P.S. I thought this might be a little extreme until I read this (from Cannonfire) ...

"Let's face it -- a new terror attack is the only thing that can salvage the neocon experiment.

Such an attack is therefore inevitable. We already know who the perps will be (the neocons) and who the fall guys will be (the Iranians). Afterward will come the great round-up of the "America-haters" -- defined as you and me and anyone else who considers Big Brother doubleplusungood.

There will also be war with Iran. Nuclear war. The signs are unmistakable. Come and see:

1. The far-right continually assails anyone who criticizes Bush as working with the terrorists. This accusation seems inane now, but it will take on quite an ominous tone after Big Wedding II.

2. Official propagandist Jerome Corsi, who is surely on the inside, has warned of an Iranian nuclear terror strike within the United States -- even though (as a moment's thought will tell you) Iran has nothing to gain and everything to lose from such an event.

3. No one doubts that the adminstration is gearing up for war with Iran, even though no political will exists in this country to prosecute such a conflict. Obviously, Cheney and co. know full well that an event will soon take place which will create sufficient backing.

4. Bush himself has repeated the false claim that Iran is arming the insurgency in Iraq. (Why would Shi'ite Iran want to undermine the most Shi'ite-friendly neighboring government they've ever known?)

People get ready, there's a train acomin'...

Do Yourself a Favor

Do you still believe that JFK was killed by a lone gunman? If so, you'll probably never understand that the collapse of the three WTC buildings was a controlled demolition. The scientists are proving it now, and you owe it to yourself to

watch this movie.

Week of March 20 Said to be Arriving Soon

I guess we'll just have to wait and see...


Why Iran's oil bourse can't break the buck

By F William Engdahl

A number of writings have recently appeared with the thesis that the announced plans of the Iranian government to institute a Tehran oil bourse, perhaps as early as this month, is the real hidden reason behind the evident march to war on Iran by the Anglo-American powers.

The thesis is simply wrong for many reasons, not least that war on Iran has been in planning since the 1990s as an integral part of the United States' Greater Middle East strategy.

More significant, the oil-bourse argument is a red herring that diverts attention from the real geopolitical grounds behind the....continue reading.

Civil War Test Kit

Let's see, On the question of Civil War in Iraq, we have the following descriptions:

Teetering on the Brink
Poised On The Precipice
Rumsfeld Sees Potential
Iraq Civil War Likely
Civil War In Iraq?
Civil War Looms
Iraq Edges Toward Civil War
Possibility Of Iraq Civil War Looms Large
Iraq Civil War Brews
Virtually On The Brink Of Civil War In Northern Iraq
General Raises Spectre Of Iraq Civil War ...
Fall Into A Full-Blown "Civil War"
What Civil War Could Look Like
Looking For Signs Of Civil War In Iraq


and then we have George Will: “This Is A Civil War”

Okay, I think we can now conclude that we have a freaking Civil War in Iraq.

And why?

However, from the outset of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the U.S. objective was conspicuous; to destroy Iraq, install a puppet government and pillage the nation's resources.

Class dismissed.

Stentman - The Truly Evil

Vice-President Dick Cheney has so many stents in him, he can hardly sit down. Stentman. He has an ambulance that follows him everywhere, complete with an array of new stents. What do you think that does to his head?

As this Administration has trashed this country over the past 5 years, I began to wonder if mere incompetence could account for the complete fuck-up of everything (FUE) which has been going on unabated since the theft of the first election. This couldn't be by accident, could it? They couldn't be doing the wrong thing 90% of the time without trying really hard, could they?



Once I learned that 9/11 had been a building demolition exercise (if you haven't seen the new evidence, go here), I knew that naked evil was running wild through the halls of power. Knowing that Cheney runs the neo-con cabal inside the government, he seemed the most likely candidate

And then I learned this:

Of greatest concern, the condition of the Vice President's cerebral vasculature is unknown. Small-vessel cerebral atherosclerosis could produce insidious, difficult-to-recognize degradation of mental faculties.

And the truth struck me: this country is being destroyed by a madman....STENTMAN.

This is a Dip

People ask me when to buy, and I always pass on the conventional wisdom "buy on the dips." This is a dip - perhaps not the last dip or the lowest dip, but it is a dip.

From Time to Time ...

you must step out of yourself and take a look. Thanks to Cenk Uygur by way of The Huffington Post for the help.


We are infinitesimally small.

We are miniscule animals on a tiny planet circling a small star in a giant galaxy. There are at least 200 billion stars just like ours in our galaxy alone. And there are anywhere between 10 to 100 billion other galaxies.

When you zoom out from a single person to the Earth to our sun to the 200 billion other stars in our galaxy and to the billions of other galaxies, you realize we are entirely irrelevant.

The Universe is approximately 12 to 15 billion years old. The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. Homo sapiens have been around for roughly 100,000 years. Earliest recorded history of humans dates back to at most 30,000 years ago (counting cave art here).

100,000 years among 15 billion years is a cosmic joke. It doesn't even qualify as a hiccup in time. The average life expectancy for humans is under 80 years. The insignificance of that period time within 15 billion years cannot be overstated. Our lives go by quicker than a cosmic second.

We are so small as to be nearly nonexistent. Yet we are led to believe that we are the center of the damn universe. Everything we do is so important. We lead these careful, guilt-ridden, cautious lives only to die abruptly and disappear into cosmic insignificance.

I don't know where it came from. I don't know what it is or what it means. But we have this incredible gift of life for a very short period of time - and we spend it arguing and worrying and fighting and waiting.

What are we waiting for? What - heaven? Hell? You have got to be kidding me. Please don't tell me that you are wasting the one precious life you have waiting around for the fairytales of our ancestors. Our ancestors thought the stars were holes in the sky. They thought the Earth was flat, that the Sun revolved around us and that there is a man with a gray beard up in the sky.
My guess is that if you brought back anyone who wrote our ancient religions, they would be amazed at what we have found out since the time they lived. But they would be even more amazed that people still believed what they had written in their utter ignorance.

I can see them shaking their heads now, "But why would you believe things we wrote thousands of years ago when you have already proven they are not true? Are you nuts?"

"We wrote that woman came from the rib of man because we had no fucking idea where women came from. You've traced back the origin of life and you're still wondering if we knew something you don't know? We were practically cavemen. We knew less science than your average third grader now. We thought natural disasters happened because God was angry at us. You think we would have written such nonsense if we knew about tectonic plate movements? Please don't tell me you still believe what we wrote when we simply didn't know better."

You are going to die one day and on your deathbed you are going to think, "What have I done with my life?" What will you answer? Have you lived enough? Have you truly tasted life? Will you be able to tell yourself that you gave life your best run?

Look, I'm not telling you to quit your accounting job and run off into fields of flowers. Life might be a flash in the pan in cosmic time, but it lasts quite awhile from our perspective. You have to have balance. Enjoy the short term while planning for the long term. Enjoy yourself without infringing on others. Hedonism is not the answer. But a stodgy, unadventurous life isn't either.

There is something liberating about meaninglessness. We are cosmically insignificant, so who cares what we do? If you conquer the world and a comet runs into our planet three and half million years from now and wipes us out of history, your conquest will mean nothing. If you were a pauper who did nothing particularly grand with your life, history will not record that either. If you are gay or straight, an artist or a banker, a doctor or a patient, a cheater or a victim, a king or a peasant, history will not care. The steamroller of time and space will roll over your existence. No one is keeping a ledger. So, for the love of God, just please live the life you want to live, not the one you think you should live.

There is no cosmic judge of your life. You will not be given extra credit at the end. You will only have what you have lived.

Life is not a pop quiz. You will not graduate on to another life based on your score in this one.
I am reminded of the story of the drowning priest: A priest is on a boat that starts to sink. Everyone gets on a lifeboat and they invite the priest on the boat. He declines, "God will save me, I don't need a lifeboat." As the ship sinks further, another shipping vessel comes by and offers to rescue the priest. The priest again turns down the offer, "God will save me, I don't need your ship." Finally, as the situation becomes precarious, a helicopter is sent in to take the priest to safety. But again he refuses saying, "God will save me ..."

As the water is about to overtake him, the priest shouts out to God in anger, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" God replies, "I sent you a boat, a ship and a helicopter. What else did you want me to do?"

If you believe in God, it is an insult to Him to not cherish the life He has already given you. He has sent you a boat, a ship and a helicopter and you're still wondering when salvation is going to come around. You have been given life so that you may live it.

Our very insignificance is our salvation. If there is no meaning to life, there is also no pressure. Meaninglessness is liberating. The universe is indifferent to your tiny existence, so you might as well live it up. There will be no cosmic retribution or redemption. So, you are free to live as you choose.

Enjoy.

Global Systemic Rupture

Sometimes I think I'm just being paranoid about the world falling apart soon. Especially when my friends tell me to "quit talking like that. Can't you talk about something pleasant for a change?"

And then I run across this:

The Laboratoire européen d’Anticipation Politique Europe 2020 (LEAP/E2020) now estimates to over 80% the probability that the week of March 20-26, 2006 will be the beginning of the most significant political crisis the world has known since the Fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, together with an economic and financial crisis of a scope comparable with that of 1929.

This last week of March 2006 will be the turning-point of a number of critical developments, resulting in an acceleration of all the factors leading to a major crisis, disregard any American or Israeli military intervention against Iran. In case such an intervention is conducted, the probability of a major crisis to start rises up to 100%, according to LEAP/E2020.

Read more....

And then start getting ready.

Cheney was Clearly Inebriated

I'm not sure how this got by me...was it covered in the MSM? Or did it go into the memory hole? For your assessment....





From Capitol Hill Blue

The Rant

Secret Service agents say Cheney was drunk when he shot lawyer

By DOUG THOMPSON

Feb 22, 2006, 07:35

Secret Service agents guarding Vice President Dick Cheney when he shot Texas lawyer Harry Whittington on a hunting outing two weeks ago say Cheney was "clearly inebriated" at the time of the shooting.

Agents observed several members of the hunting party, including the Vice President, consuming alcohol before and during the hunting expedition, the report notes, and Cheney exhibited "visible signs" of impairment, including slurred speech and erratic actions.According to those who have talked with the agents and others present at the outing, Cheney was drunk when he gunned down his friend and the day-and-a-half delay in allowing Texas law enforcement officials on the ranch where the shooting occurred gave all members of the hunting party time to sober up.

We talked with a number of administration officials who are privy to inside information on the Vice President's shooting "accident" and all admit Secret Service agents and others say they saw Cheney consume far more than the "one beer' he claimed he drank at lunch earlier that day.

"This was a South Texas hunt," says one White House aide. "Of course there was drinking. There's always drinking. Lots of it."

One agent at the scene has been placed on administrative leave and another requested reassignment this week.

A memo reportedly written by one agent has been destroyed, sources said Wednesday afternoon.

Cheney has a long history of alcohol abuse, including two convictions of driving under the influence when he was younger. Doctors tell me that someone like Cheney, who is taking blood thinners because of his history of heart attacks, could get legally drunk now after consuming just one drink.

If Cheney was legally drunk at the time of the shooting, he could be guilty of a felony under Texas law and the shooting, ruled an accident by a compliant Kenedy County Sheriff, would be a prosecutable offense.

But we will never know for sure because the owners of the Armstrong Ranch, where the shooting occurred, barred the sheriff's department from the property on the day of the shooting and Kenedy County Sheriff Ramon Salinas III agreed to wait until the next day to send deputies in to talk to those involved.

Sheriff's Captain Charles Kirk says he went to the Armstrong Ranch immediately after the shooting was reported on Saturday, February 11 but both he and a game warden were not allowed on the 50,000-acre property. He called Salinas who told him to forget about it and return to the station.

"I told him don't worry about it. I'll make a call," Salinas said. The sheriff claims he called another deputy who moonlights at the Armstrong ranch, said he was told it was "just an accident" and made the decision to wait until Sunday to investigate."We've known these people for years. They are honest and wouldn't call us, telling us a lie," Salinas said.

Like all elected officials in Kenedy County, Salinas owes his job to the backing and financial support of Katherine Armstrong, owner of the ranch and the county's largest employer."The Armstrongs rule Kenedy County like a fiefdom," says a former employee.

Secret Service officials also took possession of all tests on Whittington's blood at the hospitals where he was treated for his wounds. When asked if a blood alcohol test had been performed on Whittington, the doctors who treated him at Christus Spohn Hospital Memorial in Corpus Christi or the hospital in Kingsville refused to answer. One admits privately he was ordered by the Secret Service to "never discuss the case with the press."

It's a sure bet that is a private doctor who treated the victim of Cheney's reckless and drunken actions can't talk to the public then any evidence that shows the Vice President drunk as a skunk will never see the light of day."

Connecting the Plots ...

Thanks to Jane Stillwater for this interesting post...

Drug smuggling made easy: Why GWB wants to sell America's ports to his friends

Profits from the heroin trade are astronomical. Those of us who work for a living just to keep on top of paying the rent can't even grasp the amount of money involved. It's a lot. In 2004, Prof. Michel Chossudovsky of the University of Ottawa stated that, "The Afghan trade in opiates constitutes a large share of the worldwide annual turnover of narcotics, which was estimated by the United Nations to be of the order of $400-500 billion."

Prof. Chossudovsky goes on to state that, aside from oil production and weapons sales, the sale of opiates is the largest producer of revenue in the world. And everybody who listens to KPFA or even reads the New York Times knows that 85% of the world's heroin supply now comes from American-occupied Afghanistan. Just Google "Heroin/Afghanistan" and see what shows up. This is NOT a closely-guarded secret.

Okay. We now understand that the heroin drug trade represents big bucks. And we also understand that most of the world's heroin supply is coming from American-occupied Afghanistan. But what we don't understand is, with all those drug-sniffing dogs poking around American airports, how can all these billions of dollars worth of heroin sneak their way into our country?Through the ports!

And now George W. Bush is insisting that our ports are to be handed over to his friends. Think about it. Now George and his friends -- the very same people who control the country where the heroin is being produced -- are now in control of the ports where heroin enters America. How convenient for them. Now they have a monopoly on the production AND the distribution of drugs.

This is a perfect example of the free enterprise system at work.Only it's only free for Bush and his friends. We who work for a living -- and our drug-vulnerable children -- still have to pay.

PS: Am I saying that the Bush group will do anything to make a profit, even sell hard drugs to children? Yeah, duh. Never forget that the Bush bureaucracy's motto is, "We will do ANYTHING for cash."

These guys did market research. They found out what sells best: Guns, drugs and oil. These are their products. And they have just been voted "Salesmen of the Year".

You gotta admit that the Bush bureaucracy's sales campaign is brilliant. Their "divide and conquer" jingle is being hummed on every street corner in the world.These super-entrepreneurs have turned red state Americans and blue state Americans against each other. They've turned the American middle-class against the poor. They've turned Jews, Christians and Muslims against each other. They've even turned Muslims against Muslims. And in the resultant confusion, they make trillions of dollars in profit on drugs, guns and oil.

Drugs, guns and oil. Is that what we want our troops to die for? Is that what "Christians" value most? Are "Muslims" willing to soil the words of the Prophet (PBUH) by killing non-Muslims who have done them no harm? And by killing other Muslims? Are the CEOs of Bush Incorporated creating a whole world of avid consumers, zealously killing for drugs, guns and oil?

Is this what the human race has come to?

We are being used.

Another Crack in the Wall

Syria Switches To Euro Amid Confrontation With US
Mon Feb 13, 2006 10:31 AM ET

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syria has switched all of the state's foreign currency transactions to euros from dollars amid a political confrontation with the United States, the head of state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria said on Monday.

"This is a precaution. We are talking about billions of dollars," Duraid Durgham told Reuters.

The bank, which still dominates the Syrian market although private banks have been allowed to set up in the last few years, has also stopped dealing with dollars in the international foreign exchange flows of private clients.

The United States has been at the forefront of international pressure on Syria for its alleged role in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri a year ago. Damascus denies involvement in the killing.

"It looks like a kind of pre-emptive action aimed at making their foreign assets safer, preventing them from getting frozen in case of any conflict," said a Middle East economist who requested anonymity.

Keeping Track of Iran Attack

Thanks to reader Byrne for the following:


Petrodollars and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation: Understanding the Planned Assault on Iran
by Michael Keefer

February 10, 2006

Iran has been in the gun-sights of George W. Bush and his entourage from the moment that he was parachuted into the presidency in November 2000 by his father’s Supreme Court.

A year ago there were signs, duly reported by Seymour Hersh and others, that the United States and Israel were working out the targeting details of an aerial attack on Iran that it was anticipated would occur in June 2005 (see Hersh, Gush Shalom, Jensen). But as Michel Chossudovsky wrote in May 2005, widespread reports that George W. Bush had “signed off on” an attack on Iran did not signify that the attack would necessarily occur during the summer of 2005: what the ‘signing off’ suggested was rather “that the US and Israel [were] ‘in a state of readiness’ and [were] prepared to launch an attack by June or at a later date. In other words, the decision to launch the attack [had] not been made” (Chossudovsky: May 2005).

Since December 2005, however, there have been much firmer indications both that the planned attack will go ahead in late March 2006, and also that the Cheney-Bush administration intends it to involve the use of nuclear weapons.

Continue reading ....

Eclipsed by Reality

The above photo shows Vice President Dick Cheney speaking to reporters at the bedside of the man who he "accidentally" shot this weekend while on a hunting trip in Texas (full story).

A spokesman for the vice president identified the shooting victim as Harry Whittington, but sources close to the incident suggest "Harry Whittington" is a Secret Service code name for Cheney's indicted former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

"Honestly, I didn't mean to shoot Scoot-- I mean, Harry Whittington," the vice president told reporters in "Mr. Whittington's" hospital recovery room.

Thanks to Bob Cesca at The HuffingtonPost.com for a hearty laugh!

9-11 (continued)

There seems to be more and more coming out about the "controlled demolition" of the 3 buildings on 9-11. To my mind, these are no longer theories. Thanks to 911Blogger.com


9/11 Videos Available Online

Its never been easier to spread the truth, every bulletin board, blog, and email address on the web can be cheaply and easily infected with 9/11 truth. No better time than now, let it rip:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3498980438587461603&q=eyewitness

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5137581991288263801&q=loose+change

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9124194186333362123&q=9%2F11+reopen

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1336167662031629480&q=painful+deceptions

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8797525979024486145&q=9%2F11+ruppert

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6529813972926262623&q=the+great+conspiracy

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=alex+jones&so=0

9-11

Bush brings up 9-11 so much that we have grown immune to even thinking about the actual facts of that day. Although I’ve frequently been drawn back to the theory sites (I refuse to call these theories conspiracies), I’ve tried to avoid getting sucked into the mire of paranoia swirling at their bottom. As I did when I started a film project about the assassination of John Kennedy many years ago – but that’s a story for another blog.

That said, here’s a new lecture by Dr. Stephen E Jones, a scientist, that states many facts and draws the conclusion, that 9-11 was, and still is, a neo-con sponsored event.

Watch it for yourself (1 ½ hr). It’s worth it. Also, spread the word.

"Zen" Games

I previously recommended GridGame as a computer activity that may soothe your fevered brow. If you liked that one, you may also find this one, Falling Sand Game, to be pleasing.

Rumsfeld Pops Up

As we turn the pages of the "pop-up book" on the impending attack of Iran, who should we find but old Rummy.

February 6, 2006 - 12:56PM
Defiant Iran to ignore West's threats

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says all possibilities are still open in the dispute over Iran's nuclear program, including military action, a German newspaper reports.

"All options - including the military one - are on the table," the daily Handelsblatt quoted Rumsfeld as saying in an interview.

"Any government that says Israel has no right to exist is making a statement about its possible behaviour in the future," added Rumsfeld, who attended a weekend security conference in Munich, Germany.

At that gathering, Rumsfeld accused Tehran of sponsoring terrorism - a point that he underlined in the Handelsblatt interview.

Iran is the "main sponsor of terrorist organisations such as Hizbollah and Hamas," he was quoted as saying.

Special Thanks to Readers

As you may know, site counters such as the one I have installed at the bottom of this page, keep track of where the readers come from. BTW, your names are not included.

Thanks to all of you for your continued interest. Special thanks to the reader(s) in Erie, Colorado and others who keep coming back for more. Leave me a comment now and then to give me some feedback on your thoughts.


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The Tax Man Cometh

This is a partial list of the various ways in which citizens of the U S of A are taxed:

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
Capital Gains Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Court Fines (indirect taxes)
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License TaxFood License Tax
Fuel permit tax
Gasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon)
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Interest expense (tax on the money)
Inventory tax
IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Local Income Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Septic Permit Tax
Service Charge Taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Taxes (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Road Toll Booth Taxes
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone federal excise Tax (started to pay for Vietnam War)
Telephone federal universal service fee Tax
Telephone federal, state and local surcharge Taxes
Telephone minimum usage surcharge Tax
Telephone recurring and non-recurring charges Tax
Telephone state and local Tax
Telephone usage charge Tax
Toll Bridge Taxes
Toll Tunnel Taxes
Traffic Fines (indirect taxation)
Trailer Registration Tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

The Train is Leaving the Station

Back in September of 2005 I recommended taking a look at gold as a hedge against inflation. It is not too late by any means. Read on...

Credit Agricole's Brokerage Declares "Start Hoarding" Gold!
By Jon A. Nones02 Feb 2006 at 06:00 PM EST

St. LOUIS (ResourceInvestor.com) -- Cheuvreux, the equity brokerage house of the French bank Credit Agricole, distributed a 56-page report today endorsing the findings of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) that the price of gold has been surreptitiously suppressed by Western central banks and that those banks do not have the gold they claim to have. The report, written by Cheuvreux's mining sector analyst in London, Paul Mylchreest, is titled "Remonetization of Gold: Start Hoarding." It repeatedly cites GATA by name and foresees an "unprecedented" rise in the gold price. But what is more, the report accuses central banks of “covert selling.”According to the report, Cheuvreux has raised its mid-cycle gold price estimate to $900/oz from $750/oz, and sees the possibility of a spike to $2,000/oz, or higher.
“Covert selling (via central bank lending) has artificially depressed the price for a decade,” wrote Mylchreest.

According to the IMF, the official figure for gold held by central banks in their vaults is 31,000 tonnes, but the reality is much lower, asserts Cheuvreux.“Central banks have 10,000-15,000 tonnes of gold less than their officially reported reserves of 31,000,” Mylchreest wrote.
This gold has been lent to bullion banks and their counterparties and has already been sold for jewellery, etc., according to the report.

Bush: Use Painted Planes to Instigate Attack

(After frying my computer with a large shock of static electricity to the side of the case, I learned, once again, how sensitive our computers and data are to the dry air of winter. Warning - discharge your static before you even touch your computer.)

With scandal and allegations piling up faster than ice balls in a hail storm, Bush and Co continue on with delusional speeches filled with meaningless rhetoric. But the latest “Downing Street Memo Part 2” nails it to the wall.

Even the talking heads are using the word “lie” to describe his squirming can of words. Can a sitting President be indicted?