Mover Mike

I puzzle at these kind of things:

In the last three days California has experienced over 250 earthquakes from 0.2 to 4.6, many seem to be located in the Obsidian Butte area.

By contrast the New Madrid fault usually experiences 1 to 2 earthquakes a day, at least since June, 2005. There have been none since 8-25-05???

The great thing about something like this: it may mean something or it may mean nothing. Just have to wait and see! (Hat tip to Rayelan and Disclosure)

According to the Taipei Times, Typoon Talim has been battering Taipei since yesterday afternoon.

It is expected that rainfall in the mountainous areas in southern counties such as Kaohsiung and Pingtung, will exceed 1,000mm. In the north, accumulative rainfall exceeding 700mm is expected.

If my calculations are correct 1000mm is equal to 39.37 inches of rain. Officials are concerned that rainfall could trigger

potentially devastating disasters, such as floods and mudflows, in not only the northern parts of the nation but also the south.

Bloomberg says maximum sustained winds near the center of Talim are 144 kph.

In preparation for landfall in Fuzhou, China The provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters have relocated 286,000 people...

While this a powerful typhoon and knocked out power to 1.2 million homes and cut off water supplies to 620,000, it doesn't appear to have caused the destruction to homes that Katrina has. It is, however, the 13th typhoon to strike Taiwan in the last year. Maybe there is nothing left to destroy!

I can't begin to imagine the suffering of over 1,000,000 people caught in the way of hurricane KATRINA. Wizbang brings up some interesting points that can challenge us here in Portland. If there were a natural disaster in Portland, one of the first things people need is information about their neighborhood and the family and friends who live there.

Somebody try to find and compile (reliable) damage reports from specific neighborhoods.

How does FEMA work?

Somebody read the news reports on what FEMA is doing and what it is not... Somebody read their site and distill it for those of us who don't have time for red tape.

How do you get money from the Red Cross? Is it a grant or loan?

What happens to my utilities? How do I cancel my auto-pays?

How do I get new glasses? How do I get prescriptions refilled?

Portland has Neighborhood Emergency Teams (NETs)

In the event of a citywide or regional emergency such as a severe winter storm, flood or major earthquake, households need to be prepared to be on their own for the first 72 hours. Neighborhoods need to be prepared for self-sufficiency, too. Volunteers will naturally be the first on-the-scene emergency responders in their own neighborhood, especially when firefighters and police are overwhelmed with requests for help and could be slowed down by impassable streets and other damage.

You can volunteer for the 26 hours of training. The training includes:
Disaster Awareness—Earthquakes and Other Disasters
Utility Control
Disaster Medicine - Treating Life-Threatening Injuries/Medical Triage
Disaster Medicine - Treating Common Injuries
Light Search & Rescue - Visual Assessment of Damaged Buildings
Light Search & Rescue - Rescue Techniques
Disaster Psychology and Trauma Intervention

The American Red Cross offers Family Disaster Planning. Take some time and learn their Four Steps to Safety

My new motto is WWMD! What would a man do - to protect his family, help his neighbors, and save lives. Looking at the scenes from the south, it is apparent that when the government is overwhelmed, civilization is not made of solid wood, but a thin veneer. It is incumbant upon all of us to be prepared.

Update:

Concerned with dumping by China, the US imposed some small anti-dumping duties on Chinese furniture imports. According to FURNITURE Today, there were some unintended consequences. China outsourced to Vietnam where labor costs are lower than in China and exports of U.S. hardwoods, including red and white oak, ash, maple, yellow poplar, cherry and walnut from to Vietnam has increased from $926,640 in 1999 to $11.3 million in 2003 to $22.9 Million in 2004. Right now, a lot of the hardwoods are being used in furniture produced for customers in Europe. Vietnam now hopes to expand their furniture imports to the US.

look for Europe, hurt by competition from furniture manaufacturers in Vietnam, to impose anti-dumping duties. Look for more stress on US manufacturers as Vietnamese imports surge, leading to more anti-dumping duties. And so it goes, as nations strive to protect their own.

At FreeRepublic, My Favorite Headache is reporting a conversation with his best friend, a paramedic. The paramedic said

Thousands of bodies have been discovered throughout Mississippi in Gulf Port, Waveland,Hancock County,Bay of St.Louis.

They are hanging in trees and they are pulling them out 30 at a time. Entire families found drowned in their homes and washing up on shore.

I haven't seen confirmation from MSM. I pray it is not true.

You Can Help Storm Victims

American Red Cross: 1-800-HELP-NOW | FEMA | Catholic Charities | Salvation Army | Cash Donations Sought for Katrina Victims |

I'm getting sick of the sort of pablum Wall Street feeds us particularly Larry Kudlow. I've taken after Kudlow before, here for example. Get this from a recent post of his:

Other inflation-sensitive market price indicators continue to show broad-based domestic price stability. Gold prices have slipped back toward their $431 average range that has prevailed year to date. The 10-year Treasury continues to hover around its 4.25 percent range that has been in place since last October. The CRB spot commodity index has dropped slightly below its average 295 zone, in effect since last July.

In other words, outside of oil and energy, domestic prices in the aggregate look to be stabilizing in the wake of Federal Reserve money-tightening and rate-hiking moves dating back to June 30, 1994.

...snip...

Domestic price stability and relatively low tax-rates are key policy indicators for continued non-inflationary prosperity. Add in the world economic boom, high domestic productivity and profits, a shrinking budget gap, and a new CAFTA free trade agreement, and you have a solidly bullish stock market and economic outlook for the next couple of years.

You know that gasoline at the pump is up 50% or so. My car uses premium and holds 17 gallons. Before taking off this weekend for Bend and a wedding, I filled the tank; $36! Now, we just called 1st Call to fill the oil tank for the winter. I know we paid about $300 for 263 gallons last year in November for oil. This year the price of heating oil is up 44% 152% to $2.88 a gallon. We will be paying over $400 $586.08 for 203 gallons for oil this year, but Kudlow says,

...In other words, outside of oil and energy, domestic prices in the aggregate look to be stabilizing...

Larry, the CRB hit 334 today! And you can't say anymore, as you did, that adjusted for inflation Oil is well below its highs of the 70's.

Update:

Carnival of Liberty X, on September 6th, will be hosted by Mover Mike.

Send your contributions to the Carnival of Liberty e-mail address:

carnivalofliberty(AT)gmail(DOT)com

or, use the Carnival Submit Form from Conservative Cat.
www.conservativecat.com

Be sure to check back here next Tuesday (night time!) for the Carnival of Liberty.

If you are not reading Regime Change Iran, you are missing some of the best information about this nation that's out there. Monday, in A Clash of Civilizations Amir Taheri, of Newsweek International says

The stage is thus set for a confrontation with the United States. Iran is confident it can win, and history hasn't given it much reason to fear otherwise. Student radicals like Ahmadinejad watched in 1980 as the United States did nothing but issue feeble diplomatic protests over the seizure of its embassy. They saw Ronald Reagan fulfill Ayatollah Khomeini's notorious dictum—"America cannot do a damned thing!"—when Lebanese suicide bombers recruited by Tehran killed 241 Marines near Beirut in 1982. Bill Clinton talked sanctions but then apologized for unspecified "past wrongs."

Even George W. Bush's war on terror, which initially worried the mullahs, has turned to their strategic advantage. Enemies on either side—the Baathists in Baghdad and the Taliban in Kabul—are now gone. The expulsion of Syria from Lebanon under U.S. pressure has left Iran as the major foreign influence in the country. Bush's advocacy of democracy has undermined Washington's traditional allies—and Iran's rivals—like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. "The Americans have their so-called Greater Middle East plan," Supreme Leader Ali Hoseini Khamenei said in a speech recently. "We, too, have our plan for the region."

Iran can wait us out, collect at least $200 Million a day from oil sales, bleed us with casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, continue work on nuclear weapons and hope that a new president in 2008, influenced by a growing anti-war movement will in this country, will turn tail and run as has been our practice.

We have a car dealer in Portland whose motto is, "If you don't see me today, I can't save you any money!" In the case of Iran, I'd say, "if you don't deal forcefully with the problem today, it's going to cost us a lot of money (and boys and girls lives)!"

Looks like Witnit will be blogging from Typhoon Talim in Taiwan. A catagory 5 SuperTyphoon is taking direct aim at Taiwan.

Winds are expected to strengthen to 250 kph later today with gusts as high as 304 kph, the center said. That would make Talim, which means sharp, or cutting edge, in Tagalog, the language of the Philippines, a Category 5 storm under the Saffir-Simpson scale, or a supertyphoon under Pacific rankings.

On August 12th, I posted Who is Jamie Gorelick? I quoted a piece from ChronWatch,

What is becoming increasingly obvious is that the Gorelick Memo itself was perhaps part of a much larger effort by the Clinton Administration to shield itself from investigations that would imply its complicity in the passing of sensitive military and nuclear intelligence to the Chinese in return for millions in illegal campaign donations in the run-up to the 1996 election.

Now, Captain's Quarters, in an awesome piece of reporting, titled Dafydd: the Great Wall of FISA, has this to say about the Chinese connection:

It is now generally conceded that the People's Republic of China...established a spy network of stunning breadth during the Clinton administration, primarily focusing on obtaining our most up-to-date nuclear technology and strategy. Of more controversy is why: (emphasis added) the Right asserts, and the Left hotly denies that Clinton himself turned a blind eye to Chinese espionage because of the very large campaign contributions funneled into the Clinton war chest by the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) and various intelligence agencies of Red China; the last estimate I saw indicated that the PLA eventually donated as much as $4 million to Clinton's campaign and library funds and to the Democratic National Committee, channeled through various cutouts, including Maria Hsia, Johnny Chung, John Huang, and Charlie Trie.

Do you remember Dr. Wen Ho Lee? The FBI wanted a FISA warrant on Lee's personal computer for evidence he was passing om nuclear secrets to China. The warrant was denied. Lee was charged with 59 counts of espionage, all but one was dropped, and the penalty was time served! Is it possible this failure to okay a FISA warrant was quid pro quo? The evidence that Captain's Quarter presents sure points that way.

While I was "down" last week, WND carried an update on the fraud lawsuit brought by Peter Paul, involving David Rosen and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The Clintons with Peter and Andrea Paul (photo: hillcap.org)

David Rosen, the former national finance director of Sen. Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign

was acquitted of making false statements to the federal government, but the trial established that Paul contributed more than $1.2 million of his personal funds to Clinton's campaign in an attempt to persuade President Clinton to become a spokesman for his businesses when he left office.

Paul charges in a civil suit that Sen. Clinton not only knew of the actions taken by her finance director, which she denies, but she directed those actions and others in violation of federal campaign statutes and regulations.

Paul expects the case to proceed at the beginning of the year, just as Hillary Clinton prepares to defend her Senate seat.

Update:

You remember the NYT wrote

(Lt. Col. Anthony) Shaffer said he had provided information about Able Danger and its identification of Mr. Atta in a private meeting in October 2003 with members of the Sept. 11 commission staff when they visited Afghanistan, where he was then serving. Commission members have disputed that, saying that they do not recall hearing Mr. Atta's name during the briefing and that the name did not appear in documents about Able Danger that were later turned over by the Pentagon.

The Pentagon says it has no record of those documents even though some say a portion of the documents were delivered in a briefcase. Now Captain's Quarters posts about a chart the Curt Weldon showed at an Heritage Foundation event on May, 2002, that is derivative of the classified documents.

(Weldon) tells the audience that the classified version, designed for a special briefing for the Joint Chiefs, contained the complete look at al-Qaeda and their connections, one year prior to 9/11.

Captain's Quarters concludes

we knew what and where Al-Qaeda was far before 9/11 and had opportunities to destroy or disrupt them.

The real question is why we didn't do anything!

From ISN, US demands on UN draft prompt criticism, John Bolton has issued a letter to the UN delegates, that has swiftly brought criticism from the Democrats.

At issue was the 38-page draft being readied for the 14 September conference, prepared under Jean Ping of Gabon, the president of the UN General Assembly. The US wants more than 400 pages of this document scrapped though it was cobbled together by international consensus after nearly a year of negotiations.

...snip...

Most of the US objections to the draft are over topics Washington has traditionally taken issue with: development aid, the Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming, the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

The Ping draft was also considering other issues such as a Human Rights Commission with more teeth, a universal definition of terrorism, and power to the international community to intervene in nations with genocide or ethnic cleaning is occurring. The US has traditionally backed these changes.

The Dems dumped on Bolton, saying it didn't take long for his corrosive presence to be felt, then some women's groups called our tactics "tiring", so they must not have originated with Bolton. Business as usual!

Interesting! Byron York has uncovered key support for Cindy Sheehan and it's Lisa Fithian. Who's Lisa Fithan?

Fithian is a legendary organizer who operates in the world of anti-globalism anarchists, antiwar protesters, and union activists; an advocate of aggressive "direct action" demonstrations, she protested the first Gulf war, played an important role in the violent shutdown of Seattle during the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting, was a key planner in protests at the Republican and Democratic national conventions in 2000 and 2004, and organized demonstrations at trade meetings in Washington, D.C., Prague, and Genoa.

You are known by the company you keep. It appears that Cindy Sheehan's vigil is not as innocent as it first appeared.

There is so much information available about KATRINA from Michell Malkin and Instapundit to bloggers on the scene. I have never seen such coverage of an event in my life. Instapundit points to a list of bloggers who are live blogging the storm from the area. Many will lose power and their voices will be silenced. There are webcams! There is Wizbang riding out the storm in the Superdome with 40,000 15,000 to 20,000 people and Storm Digest asking if the Dome which was designed to withstand 130 mph winds, can ride out a storm like KATRINA with winds of 160 mph.

Update:

Update:

Katrina, a storm no one will forget!

Our prayers go out to all those in the storm's way. May you find high ground and may you have the strength to go on.

We are up and running from home once again. From Regime Change Iran, Iran rejects negotiations with Europe

Iran on Sunday rejected what it termed conditional negotiations with Europe over Tehran's nuclear program and said it wanted instead to have talks with the U.N.'s international nuclear watchdog agency.

...snip...

Earlier this week Britain's Foreign Office said there was "no basis for negotiations with Iran until they respond" to an IAEA resolution adopted earlier this month that calls on Iran to suspend uranium reprocessing activities at its Isfahan plant.

There is one other alternative to war with Iran or appeasement. That is overthrow of the existing government in Iran.

From FreeRepublic via financialwire.net, StockGate: Is All Heck About To Break Loose? The NY Fed has called a special meeting for 14 companies who dominate the credit-derivatives market. The 14 companies include JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE: DB), Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley (NYSE: WMD) and Merrill Lynch & Co. (NYSE: MER). There have been allegations of illegal naked short selling, and regulators are smarting over allegations that they gave super hedge funds a free pass because regarding "fails to deliver" (FTD). Regulation SHO included a "grandfather clause" to fix the FTD problem, but the FTDs are so massive a problem that even with a six months notice it has not been cleaned up.

The hedge funds, (TheStreet.com's Kevin)Kelleher said, say that "most of the positions created by failed deliveries are related to options trading and not a concerted effort to drive stocks down.

"That may be the case. But without better data on stocks that failed to deliver, the rest of us will never know for sure.

FTDs are a growing problem anmounting to about 1.5% of daily trading or $6 Billion daily.

(CrossCurrents editor Alan) Newman explains naked short-selling in eye-opening clarity, he notes: "Selling unborrowed shares means the buyer doesn't get delivery of the shares he bought. "There are now two actual owners of the same shares. The exact same shares now show up long in both accounts," Newman says. "Every 100 shares of a naked short is a duplication of real shares, just as if the shares had been photocopied and distributed."

The buyer of the naked short expects to receive his shares and the clearing corporation registers a FTD, when that doesn't happen.

"After Regulation SHO was passed, the delivery failures rose, averaging 205 million shares a day in December and rising as high as 259 million on Dec. 22 alone. Since the law went into effect on Jan. 3, the delivery failures have declined, but are still only about 20% below their levels of last summer.

"The SEC, wanting to avoid short-squeezes in dozens of stocks caused by the closing out of naked short positions, opted to 'grandfather in' any failed deliveries before Jan. 3.

...snip...

"Among other things, by not having to deliver securities, naked short-sellers can take on larger short positions than would otherwise be permissible, which can facilitate manipulative activity.

We have suspected for a long time that the price of Gold was manipulated and even the shares of gold mining companies. How easy would it be to sell shares you don't own to keep manipulate the price of shares? How many times does it have to happen; Gold goes up $6 then the next day it goes up again, but the mining shares go down? The third day the price of gold goes down. It is a giant scheme to keep gold at low levels so that you don't have an alarm that says inflation is picking up.

From The Prudent Investor, Killing the dollar in Iran, Toni Straka writes that oil is traded in USDs in London and New York. Iran will start an Oil Bourse beginning early 2006 that will trade oil for Euros or assets.

it can strike barter deals with oil-hungry giants like China and India who have a lot of products and commodities to offer.

Non US dollar thinkers (sic) are the victim (sic) of a transaction cost in the oil trade. The necessary conversion of local currencies into greenbacks can be considered a hidden tax, charged and enjoyed by the banking sector.

Straka argues that steering customers away from the USD can have a bigger effect on the US than a nuclear strike!

BTW, The Prudent Investor is a Slithering Reptile in the TTLB system and deserves a wider readership,

Well, this has been quite a down week. Monday morning I sat down with my cup of coffee in front of the computer and the computer is dead! I have been having some problems with it being unstable and shutting down, but it happened infrequently so I didn't stress too much. However, Monday it was dead! I finally found someone to come out, but not until Wednesday. He opened my clamshell Gateway and the power supply was inert. Unfortunately, the power supply is a special shape made for the clamshell and needed to be overnighted from Gateway. Thursday, I got a call saying that part had been outsourced to an eastcoast company and it would be in Portland on Friday. A whole week without my computer.

So, I went to the store and used my wife's computer, but the bookmarks aren't the same and the passwords and usernames are not known by this computer. I couldn't vote for my favorite RockstarINXS!

While I've been shelved, there is new news on Hillary Clinton, Bush gave a tremendous speech, a hurricane is hitting Florida, and there is interesting economic news. I'll try to catch up and thanks for visiting Mover Mike.

From Kitco, Gold/Oil Ratio Extremes 3 by Adam Hamilton, an excellent article analyzing the relationship between the price of Gold and the price of Oil (GOR)

Five times since 1975, the GOR has been below 10 since 1975. Each time the GOR went back to at least 15.2, it's average. Now for the sixth time we are below 10, currently at 6.6. With Oil at $65, a GOR of 15.2 puts gold at $988. If I were selling oil for USDs, I would take the USDs and buy Gold. If things work out for the sixth time, it would be like selling Oil for $130. It may be the best trade in the last 35 years!

The Office of Intelligence Policy and Review

...serves as adviser to the Attorney General and various client agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Defense and State Departments, concerning questions of law, regulation, and guidelines as well as the legality of domestic and overseas intelligence operations.

Captain's Quarters tells us that "the memo" written by Jamie Gorelick went to Richard Scruggs, Chief Counsel, Office of Intelligence Policy and Review along with Mary Jo last addresWhite, Louis Freeh, and Jo Ann Harris, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division (DoJ). Why is Scruggs important?

Scruggs is the connection to the Department of Defense that the Gorelick defenders claim didn't exist. With the wall up Scruggs would have kept the DoD from pursuing the Able/Danger FBI information about Atta and the three others who were involved in 9-11. Gorelick is culpable and should not sit on the 9-11 Commission investigating 9-11!

The exiled opposition National Council for Resistance in Iran (NCRI) said

"In several secret locations, including several sites around Tehran, the regime is working round-the-clock to build centrifuges," Hossein Abedini, a member of the NCRI's Foreign Affairs Committee, told reporters. "Thousands of these machines have already been built and are ready for use," in work that has been "non-stop throughout the past few months."

...snip...

Iran's religious regime, led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is "bent on" acquiring nuclear weapons, and continues to produce plutonium in Arak, as well as working on projects to build nuclear warheads, casings and a neutron initiator, Abedini said.

While we have to be careful with information from exiled groups from Iran, as we found out in Iraq, it appears that Iran is set on becoming a nuclear weapons power. If that is not acceptable, and there is no compromise, what are concerned nations going to do about it and are the American people behind the consequences of acting? IMO, we have been at war since the very first attack on the WTC, only it has not gotten through to most Americans. I sense a real complacency about oil availability, the USD, inflation and our total debt. A wider war would initiate a whole host of laws to fight foreign enemies at home.

Update:

From International Relations and Security Network (ISN), Unprecedented war games

As Russia and China kick off massive war games they say are aimed at boosting anti-terrorism cooperation, analysts say the military exercises are really intended as a message to the US that there are new powers in the Asia-Pacific and Central Asian regions.

There is serious manuvering by Russia and China in the Middle East and Central Asia area to maintain influence and to be ready to support Iran.

From MehrNews.com, Iran, China discuss defense cooperation

...a Chinese military delegation that has come to Iran to hold negotiations on developing military relations between Iran and China, deepening bilateral ties between the two countries, and paving the way for military cooperation.

This is exactly what J R Nyquist was writing about.

"If you were prez" By SayUncle on August 19th, 2005

Oddball thought experiment:

By some bizarre set of circumstances, you are the president as of now. Name the first 5 things you’d do. Level of difficulty: it must actually be stuff the president is constitutionally allowed to do. My list:

1. End the Drug War. Legalize all drugs and make money off them by selling them at liquor stores. If you can't keep drugs out of prison, you can't have a drug war!

2. Abolish the present tax system and institute a simple sales tax. You spend a lot, you pay a lot. You save a lot you don't pay as much tax.

3. Appoint high school kids to the Supreme Court. If they can't find it in the Constitution, it ain't in there.

4, Determine that the only job of Federal Government is to protect us from outside enemies and protect our borders. All other activities are now subject to sunset laws of ten years.

5. Require all government employees in the nation to read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and write a book review about how their particular department does not conform to her teachings. As part of #5, require all children from pre-school on to be tested on their knowledge and ability to argue Ayn Rands Objectivist philosophy.

Can't be any worse than the way it is now!

From J.R Nyquist in the THE IRAQ DIVERSION at Financial Sense Online, says Iran has employed 46 Brigades on or near the Iraqi border.

An Army Brigade is a collection of different Regiments and supporting units that have been grouped together for a specific purpose. A fighting Brigade will traditionally contain Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery Regiments together with many supporting cap badges. The composition of each Brigade will differ depending on its responsibility but could often contain 5,000 soldiers.

That's 230,000 men!

In addition he says 100 Saudi military officers per month are joining the insurgency and 6000 existing Saudis who have already joined the anti-American side.

Surviving fragments of Saddam’s army continue to fight the coalition (with Syrian support). It now appears that President Bush’s plan for Iraq cannot succeed unless Syria and Iran are overrun and pacified.

Behind the scenes are Russia and China, supporting Iran with nuclear materials (Russia) and economic oil deals (China).

Last week Iran recommenced its nuclear weapons program. France and Germany offered Iran a tray of economic goodies – but Tehran wasn’t tempted. The Iranian leaders want bombs that can level entire countries (especially Israel). Their dream is destructive and their beliefs are fixed. It’s not about economics.

Do we abandon the Middle East and Israel or do we continue down this road to a wider war? I am not optimistic. The anti-war forces are building in this country, appeasement seems to be de rigueur, and President Bush's numbers are falling. Rush Limbaugh believes Bush's numbers are falling because the majority of the American people want us to go in and win this thing and believe Bush is too timid. IMHO, we are at war and we need to act decisively and do those things necessary to win it. There is no turning back anymore. You can argue we shouldn't be there all you want, but we are there. Now win it or lose!

From WorldNetDaily, we avoided the courts where the judges decide, in the case of Carl Basham, the good ole boy of 27 from Texas, who served two tours in Iraq only to come home and find he was ajudged no longer a "Texan" and did not qualify for in-state college tuition.

But today the college said Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, himself a former U.S. Marine, identified a state waiver provision for which Basham qualifies, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

See all you need, when the authorities are challenged, is a face saving method to give what everyone wants. We have so many rules and regulations to cover every conceivable circumstance that there must be one in there that we can use to get the outcome we all want.

From Comstock Partners on Aug 11th, 2005, The Potential Crisis at Fannie Mae Fannie Mae has indicated they have overstated earnings by $11 Billion (about 22 times the overstated earnings of Enron). In a press release from Fannie Mae on Tuesday the 9th they said:

...in order to accomplish the restatements, “we have to obtain and validate market values for a large volume of transactions including all of our derivatives, commitments and securities at multiple points in time over the restatement period. To illustrate the breadth of this undertaking, we estimate we will need to record over one million lines of journal entries, determine hundreds of thousands of commitment prices and securities values, and verify some 20,000 derivative prices…”

“…This year we expect that over 30 percent of our employees will spend over half their time on it, and many more are involved. In addition we are bringing some 1,500 consultants on board by year’s end to help with the restatement…Altogether, we project devoting six to eight million labor hours to the restatement. We are also investing over $100 million in technology projects to enhance or create new systems related to accounting and reporting…we do not believe the restatement will be completed until sometime during the second half of 2006…”

About 18 months ago Fed Chairman Greenspan stated that problems at both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had the potential to bring down the financial system. Now we find the financial controls have been so weak that we won't know for another year what we will find! Jamie Gorelick was Vice Chairman of Fannie Mae —from 1997 to 2003.

From the NY Times???,

2 Illegal Immigrants Win Arizona Ranch in Court

Now, in a turnabout, a 70-acre property, Camp Thunderbird Ranch, about two miles from the US/Mexico is being given to two immigrants whom a "paramilitary" group caught trying to enter the United States illegally. One claims he was pistol whipped, which was denied, both claim suffering post-traumatic stress, they thought they were going to be killed.

The immigrants also said the group gave them cookies, water and a blanket and let them go after an hour or so

Of course it ended up in court and the judges decided! The Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., represented the immigrants in their lawsuit.

From WFTV, Judge Rules Daytona Boardwalk Property Can Be Taken From Owners

Late Friday afternoon, a judge ruled that the city had the right to take away property from three business owners. They were holding out from a developer that wants to turn the area into condos and hotels.

However, the judge also decided that the developer will have to pay two or three times the amount he originally offered for the properties.

The judge believes tearing down the old properties and redeveloping falls under the area of "public use."(emphasis added)

What's changed? It is still taking from one private owner and selling in to another!

Update:

From NewsMax and Carl Limbacher,

"We had at least eight to 10 chances to capture or kill Osama bin Laden in 1998 and 1999. And the government on all occasions decided that the information was not good enough to act," claimed former Bin Laden desk chief Michael Scheuer.

Because of the Lawyers!

"The lawyers are the bane of the intelligence community," the former CIA man lamented.

Was Jamie Gorelick, Dep. Atty General of the US in the Clinton Administration involved? No she was serving as Vice Chairman of the Federal National Mortgage Association from 1997 to 2003.

Update:

Here's the Austin Community College's position regarding Carl Basham and denying him Texas residency for purposes of school, as reported on by WorldNetDaily

"Any time that a student leaves the state of Texas, moves into another state, resides in that state, enters into the military in that new state, and claims that new state as their permanent home, then they loose their Texas residency," Austin Community College spokesperson Veronica Obregon told Austin's Channel 8 news.

Responded Basham:

"After me being in the military for a year, coming from Louisiana, my parents moved back into Texas, making me an automatic resident, because I'm still their dependent."

I don't know Carl, I may have been hasty. You are 27 years old and married. It is stretching it to think you are still a resident and a dependent of your parents, when they moved back to Texas. Basham was born in Beeville, Texas, registered to vote in Travis County in 1998, holds a Texas driver's license and does his banking in Austin. Guess we'll have to go to court and let the judges sort this thing out!

I've written about "troubled companies" in the past. One of those companies has been Federal National Mortgage Association (FNM). From Free Market Project, Government-Sponsored Enron Billion-Dollar Scandal Not Ready for Prime TimeFrom Oct. 1, 2001, to July 1, 2002, during the time the story was breaking, LexisNexis shows 3,017 comments in the MSM about Enron which had to overstated earnings since 1997 bt $567 Million, Enron paid $320 million to some executives, only 10 months before Enron collapsed and then the company went bankrupt. The media may have had so many stories about Enron because of Enron's ties to George W Bush.

Fannie Mae is a bigger scandal, earnings will have to be restated to the tune of $11 Billion, its 20 top executives were paid $245 million in bonuses, and so far the stock is down from $80 to $50. From June 1, 2004, during the time the story was breaking, to March 1, 2005, the MSM has had 37 stories about FNM. As for political connections, none of the MSM would have needed to search hard for political ties in the Fannie Mae debacle. Former Chief Executive Officer Franklin Raines and former Vice Chairman Jamie Gorelick were both instrumental figures in the Clinton administration.

Franklin Raines was a director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton administration, and his name was mentioned as a possible Treasury Secretary had Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) been elected president.

Jamie Gorelick was Deputy Attorney General under Clinton and rumored to be part of a Hillary Clinton Administration should she run and win.

Fannie Mae board member Jack Quinn was the attorney for pardoned tax evader Marc Rich.

Fannie also has one of the largest lobbying budgets in Washington. A Feb. 24, 2005, article in The Washington Post reported that Fannie “paid its lobbying corps about $5 million in the first six months of last year.”

Does the scandal over Able/Danger and Jamie Gorelick divert attention from Jamie Gorelick the Vice Chairman of Fannie Mae and the bigger scandal there? Or is the cover for the Clinton Administration going to be blown again?

A reminder from Musing Minds, it has been 90 Days since JF Kerry said he signed his SF 180 and yet we still have not seen the actual papers.

90 days ago, John Kerry signed form SF-180 to release his military records. When will we see the records? Will the Globe post the documents? Will Kerry release the 180 so we can see exactly what he authorized for release (and to whom)? Polipundit asks, 'Where are the missing pages?' Mark at USS Neverdock asks, 'Did Kerry sign Part III of the Form 180?'

From Chuck Muth's News Letter: NIMBY SYNDROME "Not a single (oil) refinery has been built (in the United States) in the last 30 years. Why is that? Because the radical environmentalists have made it so hard along with the government to pull the proper permits, that's why. The oil companies figure it's just not worth it. There's also a little bit of the NIMBY syndrome....not in my back yard. People want to drive their gas-guzzling SUV's, but would be jumping up and down screaming if somebody dared to build a new refinery within sniffing distance of their house." - Talk show host Neal Boortz

You know, there are really some idiots in government bureaucracies, and in this case PR is not their strong suit: From WorldNetDaily, Decorated Marine denied in-state tuition

Despite being a Texas native, a registered voter and holder of a state driver's license, a decorated Marine has been denied lower in-state tuition at a community college because he spent too much time out of the state while serving two tours of duty in Iraq.

"[The admissions officer] said, 'It's really your military service that's holding you back.' Carl Basham spent two tours in Iraq of seven months each and the rule says you must live a year in-state prior to being admitted. The difference in tuition jumps from $500 in-state to $2,600 for out of state. Of course the government will pay his tuition, but there is a lag time and Basham, a highly decorated and good ole Texas boy and his wife will have to come up with the money.

Update:

Where is there middle ground for compromise and what would a compromise look like?

From Yahoo, Use of force to resolve Iran nuclear row 'dangerous': Russia

Russia has cautioned the United States against considering the use of force to contain Iran's nuclear programme...

"We consider that it would be counter-productive and dangerous to use force, the serious consequences of which would be barely predictable," the foreign ministry said ...

The statement urged that the crisis over Iran's insistence on producing its own nuclear fuel be resolved "exclusively through expert consultations and diplomatic negotiations."

From TehranTimes, EU pressure on Iran will prove counterproductive: nuclear official

"The rougher and faster these countries (EU) make the game, the more decisive we become to operate the rest of our nuclear facilities," (uranium enrichment needed for nuclear weapons) the deputy director of Iran Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO), Mohammad Saidi, told the student agency ISNA.

Iran ended its voluntary suspension of nuclear activities at Isfahan uranium conversion facility after the European Union states of Britain, France and Germany demanded Tehran to abandon its nuclear fuel cycle program in exchange for some economic incentives.

Tehran has the right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran has so far maintained its suspension of uranium enrichment at its Natanz facility.

Do my eyes deceive me? Is this the NY Times reporting that first, State Dept. Says It Warned About bin Laden in 1996

State Department analysts warned the Clinton administration in July 1996 that Osama bin Laden's move to Afghanistan would give him an even more dangerous haven as he sought to expand radical Islam "well beyond the Middle East," but the government chose not to deter the move, newly declassified documents show.

...snip...

The declassified documents, obtained by the conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch as part of a Freedom of Information Act request and provided to The New York Times (emphasis added), shed light on a murky and controversial chapter in Mr. bin Laden's history: his relocation from Sudan to Afghanistan as the Clinton administration was striving to understand the threat he posed and explore ways of confronting him.

...snip...

Michael F. Scheuer, who from 1996 to 1999 led the Central Intelligence Agency unit that tracked Mr. bin Laden, said the State Department documents reflected a keen awareness of the danger posed by Mr. bin Laden's relocation.

"The thinking was that he was in Afghanistan, and he was dangerous, but because he was there, we had a better chance to kill him," Mr. Scheuer said. "But at the end of the day, we settled for the worst possibility - he was there and we didn't do anything."

Second the NY Times reports, Officer Says Military Blocked Sharing of Files on Terrorists

Colonel Shaffer said in an interview on Monday night that the small, highly classified intelligence program, known as Able Danger, had identified the terrorist ringleader, Mohamed Atta, and three other future hijackers by name by mid-2000, and tried to arrange a meeting that summer with agents of the Washington field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to share its information.

...snip...

He said he learned later that lawyers associated with the Special Operations Command of the Defense Department had canceled the F.B.I. meetings because they feared controversy if Able Danger was portrayed as a military operation that had violated the privacy of civilians who were legally in the United States.

"It was because of the chain of command saying we're not going to pass on information - if something goes wrong, we'll get blamed," he said.

Not only does this information come from the NY Times, which seems to want to protect the Clinton Administration, but the interview with Colonel Shaffer on Monday was arranged for The New York Times and Fox News (Fox News!!! Not CNN, but Fox News!!!) by Representative Curt Weldon, the Pennsylvania Republican who is vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a champion of data-mining programs like Able Danger. This is not good news for the Clintons and I wonder what changed to bring down this double hit?

My favorite Portland band, Amelia, is back at Mississippi Studios

Wednesday, August 24th
Mississippi Studios
8 pm
3939 N. Mississippi Street
Portland, OR
503.288.3895
www.mississippistudios.com

If you haven't seen them, run to get tickets! If you have seen them or heard their music, it's darn hard to get Teisha Helgerson off your brain. Tickets are $15 apiece. Here's a listen

Hat tip to Chuck Muth's News and Views, From Human Events, Judge Rules: If Feds Won't Enforce Immigration Laws, Locals Must Not by Mac Johnson

In a case well publicized by the national media, Chief Garret Chamberlain, a police officer in the town of New Ipswich, N.H., encountered Mexican citizen Jorge Mora Ramirez broken down on the side of the road. Ramirez, though unable to speak much English, admitted that he was in the country illegally, was in possession of forged Massachusetts identification bearing a fictitious Social Security number, and was illegally employed in a construction project in a nearby town.

Chief Chamberlain called the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Division of the Department of Homeland Security (formerly known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service or INS)thinking that they would order him to apprehend and deport. Chief Chamberlain was told they were not interested in enforcing the immigration laws and Ramirez should be released. However, the Chief decided to charge Ramirez with trespass, figuring if he was in the country illegally, he was illegally in Ipswich and thus trespassing.

Other police departments--frustrated by the federal government’s willful inaction and flagrant failure to enforce immigration law--expressed interest in using the trespass law to protect their towns from the financial and criminal burdens imposed by illegal aliens. In the nearby town of Hudson, N.H., Police Chief Richard Gendron bravely backed up Chamberlain by charging several criminal aliens found in his town with trespassing.

Eventually, as all things seem to do in America, a judge got involved and issued his opinion:

Immigration law, he ruled, is solely the federal government’s to neglect, and claims that the act of illegal entry into the US might be violations of any local laws would be “unconstitutional attempts to regulate in the area of enforcement of immigration violations, an area where Congress must be deemed to have regulated with such civil sanctions and criminal penalties as it feels are sufficient.”

In other words, if an unelected bureaucrat at ICE decides that it is OK for an unidentified foreign national to be in the United States illegally, it is OK for him to be in New Ipswich illegally. The law be damned.

But, for all the hassle, Ramirez's attorney said his client will not be back to Ipswich. If you don't want someone in your city, target them. Charge them with something, but then that would be wrong, too. That would be considered racial profiling. Is it ok to target people in the name of safety without being a bigot?

Carnival of Liberty VII is up. This week celebrates the 25th anniversary of the beginning of Polish Solidarity, and the final struggle to bring an end to the Soviet Empire. Come read Arthur Chrenkoff's post on this topic as well as the 20, or so, other great posts on life, liberty and property; Hosted by Eric's Grumbles Before The Grave

Carnival of the Capitalists is up, hosted by The Weekend Pundit. Mover Mike wonders about oil, the money that goes with it, and where all that money is going. He also quotes from an interview that puts present day oil prices into perspective and how the US has, in effect, created a domestic oil embargo on ourselves.

Last weekend in Dawson City in the Yukon, Goldrush 21 occurred. The overall purpose of this conference was to disclose to the financial world that the precious metals industry has been manipulated and suppressed for years by the Central Banks and the Bullion Banks. Organized by GATA (Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee), the rationale for the suppression of gold and silver was discussed.

While "joined at the hip," central banks and bullion banks both have a vested interest in keeping gold as low as possible. To the government-controlled central banks, gold is a barometer, a lightning rod, or as one top international money manager describes it, "gold is the canary in a coal mine." If or when gold takes off to the upside, the fear is that investors will begin to worry about the general health of the financial system. Since there has been such enormous liquidity created in our system, asset bubbles have developed in stocks, bonds, real estate, and credit. A rise in gold may cause investors to worry and retrench, whereby these assets may deflate like the tech bubble did in 2000. This could do enormous damage to the U.S. and global economies. The bullion banks, on the other hand, are interested in maintaining a low gold price for other reasons. Collectively, they are massively short millions of ounces of gold, going back to the early 1990’s. While prospering enormously for many years from the carry-trade in which they shorted gold and invested the proceeds in higher interest-bearing instruments, today their massive short positions are extremely vulnerable to large losses should gold rise much higher. In addition, since gold competes with traditional asset classes like stocks and bonds, bullion banks stand to lose a lot of revenue should investors become concerned and reduce their exposure to those assets.

This story has not been covered by the MSM and the public is barely aware or interested in suppression of prices of precious metals, why it has been done or what it means to them.

Update:

From the PrudentBear, there is a discussion of the Global Credit Bubble. This bubble has been primarily a US/Asian phenomenom with huge money flows between the US and China/Japan. As I have posted about recently, China's reserves are to top $900 Billion by the end of 2005. Now with the Middle-East stock markets flying, first we read about Saudi Arabia repatriating $360 Billion. Now, Wednesday from the Financial Times (Javier Blas):

Arab Gulf oil producing countries will embark this year and next on a “massive accumulation of foreign assets as they cash in on record oil prices and soaring worldwide petroleum demand… The region will buy about $360bn of foreign assets, from bonds to property in 2005 and 2006 – 50 per cent more than their total purchases of the past five years, according to a study by the Institute for International Finance, the leading association of private banks.

Economists in the US argue that greater growth outside the US will solve our trade balance problem, but greater growth will also put further pressure on oil prices. For now that huge float of billions of USD's seems destined for Europe and Japan.

Speaking of oil, last week there was an interview at Financial Sense Online with Matthew R. Simmons, President Simmons & Company International who wrote the book Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy. The transcript of that interview is here.

Simmons conducted a survey of the worlds oil wells.

What I came up with was finding that there are about 120 oil fields in the world that still produced over 100,000 bpd, and that they collectively were 49% of the world’s oil supply. What I also found is that the top 14 fields that still produce over 500,000 bpd each, were 20% of the world’s oil supply, and on average they were 53 years old. The next thing I found was that in the Middle East you had basically, somewhere between 3-5 oil fields in each of the major Middle East oil producers that made up about 90% of their supply – and until I did that I had just assumed the Middle East had hundreds of oil fields – and all these oil fields were old.

His Conclusion: “you know I really wonder whether in fact we’re sitting on an illusion that Saudia Arabia has all this vast amount of producible oil.”

Several interesting things came out in the interview:

* Oil at $60 per barrel translates into 36 cents per quart. Compared to milk at $1.30 a quart, oil is awfully cheap.
* We have almost created a domestic embargo for ourselves.

In 1990 the United States was still producing 7.3 million bpd of crude oil, today it’s 5.1; our refineries only needed to run at 13 ½ million bpd; and we only needed to import 5.8 million bpd of crude oil imports to balance our system. Today we have to run our refineries at 100% or we have major product shocks; today, we have to import 10-11 million bpd, or we lose crude oil stocks; we have to basically create almost 3 million bpd of finished product imports; we have to run the system on a 24-7, all Summer long. And we still liquidate stocks.

...snip...

By this Winter of 2005 and 2006, because oil demand globally could easily go to 86-88 million bpd during the Winter, and that could easily exceed supply by 2-5 million bpd.

Simmons says "Oil prices could easily go up 5-10 times."

From Bloomberg, Bush Says Military Reaction to Iran Nuclear Program Possible The U.S has branded Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism. Former Revolutionary guardsman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran on June 24. He is suspected of participating in the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran by some survivors of the incident.

"The United States and Israel are united in our objective to make sure that Iran does not have a" nuclear weapon, Bush said during the Israeli television interview.

From the The Arizona Republic, 'Bizarre' lightning strike to be studiedA lightning bolt caused extensive damage to a home in the 2000 block of East Seventh Avenue, near Broadway and Gilbert roads, as its charge sped to other structures through underground wiring and wet soil.

The force's intense heat exploded underground wires, including television cable, near the home, erupted through the soil and spewed dirt and debris like volcanic ash against homes, trees and parked vehicles. Areas around brass doorknobs and locks were scorched

Scientists believe the bolt of lightning was either many bolts of a negative charged strike or a single, very powerful, but rare, positive charged strike.In a normal or negative lightning strike, the contact point between ground charge and cloud charge rapidly ascends upward at speeds as high as 50,000 miles per second. As many as a billion trillion electrons can transverse this path in less than a millisecond.

Research carried out after the discovery of positive lightning in the 1970s showed that positive lightning bolts are typically six to ten times more powerful than negative bolts, last around ten times longer, and can strike several kilometers or miles distant from the clouds.

The interesting thing is that inorder for there to be thunder and lightning, ionization has to occur and one cause of ionization is galactic cosmic rays (GCR) and/or solar cosmic rays (SCR)! Some have written lately about massive energy blasts hitting the planet. Could this explain any of our freakish weather? Is there another explanation for the apparent global warming?

How's this for a bombshell! From Chronwatch, by Gregory Borse,

The upshot of 1995 “Presidential Decision Directive 24” was that all investigations into espionage activity—including efforts by the CIA, FBI, and the United States Military counter-intelligence operations (like “Able Danger”)—were to be overseen and approved (or not approved) by political appointees that answered directly to a White House...

...snip...

What is becoming increasingly obvious is that the Gorelick Memo itself was perhaps part of a much larger effort by the Clinton Administration to shield itself from investigations that would imply its complicity in the passing of sensitive military and nuclear intelligence to the Chinese in return for millions in illegal campaign donations in the run-up to the 1996 election.

Bottom line, Jamie Gorelick, President Clinton’s number two official in the Justice Department, (alledgedly recommended by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton) may have set up a "wall" to keep secret the truth about espionage in exchange for campaign contributions, and ignored warnings that this "wall" could do us great harm.

From NewsMax, 9/11 Commission Covered-up Gorelick Warning A 1995 memo from a top terrorism prosecutor, U.S. Attorney for New York's Southern District Mary Jo White, warning that a directive by Clinton administration Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick "could cost lives" is being concealed by the 9/11 Commission.

The revelation that the 9/11 Commission covered-up White's full account comes on the heels of news that Gorelick's wall may have prevented the FBI from learning that lead 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi had entered the U.S. and had been identified by military intelligence as terrorist threats a year before the attacks.

Stan Deyo is back with his earthquake warning for California north:

ORANGE ALERT: As I thought might happen and broadcast on several radio programs last week (Coast To Coast AM, Q-Files and The Power Hour), the stresses are starting to grow again in the NE Pacific. Today's map shows stresses on the western ends of both the Mendocino and Murray Fault Zones. But of more pressing urgency is the seismic signal that has appeared in the bottom of the Juan de Fuca Plate (the western Gorda Plate).

John Podhoretz at NRO connects the dots to a conclusion that many of us knew long ago, and that the Democrats would prefer not to acknowledge. The Dems have told the lie so many times: there was no connection between Iraq and the terrorists that attacked us on 9-11. Remember Kerry saying we should be capturing OBL in Afghanistan, not fighting in Iraq? Well, now we have Able Danger:

In a story filed at 7:10 PM, the Associated Press is now confirming all the particulars of what will now forever be called the Able Danger disaster. The 9/11 Commission staff did hear about intelligence-gathering efforts that hit pay dirt on the whereabouts of Mohammed Atta -- in 1999 -- and deliberately chose to omit word of those efforts.

And why? Because to do so might upset the timeline the Commission had established on Atta.

And why is that significant? Because the Mohammed Atta timeline established by the Commission pointedly insisted Atta did not meet with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague.

And why is that significant? Because debunking the Atta-Iraq connection was of vital importance to Democrats, who had become focused almost obsessively on the preposterous notion that there was no relation whatever between Al Qaeda and Iraq -- that Al Qaeda and Iraq might even have been enemies.(emphasis added)

Then Podhoretz asks who was the committe protecting?
a) the Atta timeline or
b) Jamie Gorelick or
c) the Clinton administration or
d) itself, because it got hold of the information relatively late and the staff was lazy?

Is this the same disaster, Jamie Gorelick, that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton would choose for US Attorney General if she were elected President?

Interesting article in News.Telegraph It would seem Israel believes it would be directly threatened if Iran were thought to be nuclear weapon-capable within a year. They attacked Iraq at Osirak, when they calcualted Sadaam would have the weapon within a year. They are watching Iran closely!

They calculate 2008 at the earliest, out as far as 2012, for Iran's nuclear weapon program to be able to have the bomb, and that leaves plenty of time for talking. There is a side benefit. They think Iran will be very cautious, believing that Israel has the bomb. If Iran should attack they know they will be attacked in response with nuclear weapons.

Iran's goal is still destruction of Israel.

Sometimes Iran's stated policy towards Israel is couched in inflammatory rhetoric, like that on a 40ft banner that used to hang outside the entrance of the foreign ministry in Teheran bearing the message: "Israel Must Burn".

Sometimes the language is tamer, such as the "Down With Israel" chants of students who march after Friday prayers in Teheran week in, week out.

All this means to me that Joel Rosenberg's book The Ezekiel Option rings true. How better to neutralize Israel than by forcing her to give up her weapons and bring pressure on her military suppliers to desist?

From the time I read Blog by Hugh Hewitt and figured out how to put ads in my sidebar, I have carried an ad for our furniture store. I thought that if I build up traffic to Mover Mike, some of those people might make it to our store and on-line store. Some were worried that my views expressed in Mover Mike might offend people who shop at with us. I made sure that you could get to our websites from Mover Mike, but you could not get from our web sites to Mover Mike.

Recently, I received feedback that some might have been offended. It seems that 73% of the people who vote in Multnomah County voted for JF Kerry, and some have taken offense at Mover Mike calling him a liar recently. You know where I quoted Kerry saying

The president has the right to make this recess appointment, but it's the wrong decision. It only diminishes John Bolton's validity and leverage to secure America's goals at the U.N. John Bolton has been rejected twice (emphasis added) by the Senate to serve as our Ambassador to the United Nations. This is not the way to fill our most important diplomatic jobs.

You know, the Senate did not reject him twice, they never got to vote thanks to all the delaying tactics!

Or the sidebar for Kerry that says:

83 days ago, John Kerry signed form SF-180 to release his military records. When will we see the records? Will the Globe post the documents? Will Kerry release the 180 so we can see exactly what he authorized for release (and to whom)? Polipundit asks, 'Where are the missing pages?' Mark at USS Neverdock asks, 'Did Kerry sign Part III of the Form 180?'

Or how about the Wilson-Plame affair:

The facts suggest that Plame and her husband were determined to undermine the Administration's Iraq policy and were prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to accomplish that. Together with their media allies, they created such a firestorm over the naming of Plame that the White House panicked into seeking a special prosecutor.

So I am severing my ad relationship.

You know what burns my rear is not one of those lily-livered little twits had the guts to challenge my ideas on my blog in the comment section. Not one would face the challenge to their ideas that I do. They just crept around in the shadows with their little insinuations.

Challenge me with facts and reason and I can move to your side. I love a good argument.

From the Drudge Report,

The Sheehan Family lost our beloved Casey in the Iraq War and we have been silently, respectfully grieving. We do not agree with the political motivations and publicity tactics of Cindy Sheehan. She now appears to be promoting her own personal agenda and notoriety at the the expense of her son's good name and reputation. The rest of the Sheehan Family supports the troops, our country, and our President, silently, with prayer and respect.

Sincerely,

Casey Sheehan's grandparents, aunts, uncles and numerous cousins

I am told the hardest loss is the loss of a child. Part of the grieving process is anger at God, the system, the war, the president. May the family find with time peace and forgiveness.

For over year, since April, 2004, the Nikkei has traded under 12,000 and long term interest rates have have stayed level to down (from a little under 5% to just under 4%). With a high degree of correlation, (The correlation of daily movements in these two markets has been 90% since 1990 and 92% since 1996.) a break out of the Nikkei should signal higher interest rates in the US. That breakout has occured today, with a high on the Nikkei of 12,138!

Update:

Never got into Bowie, Nirvana or INXS, but this song is driving me nuts. For $.99, I downloaded Jordis Unga's version, sung on Rockstar INXS. Written by David Bowie in the 70's, said to be fixated on Hitler, picked up by Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, the song is haunting and if you search for the meaning, written by web surfers, you are apt to come away confused. Here's the Nirvana lyrics, sung by Jordis:

Man Who Sold The World

We passed upon the stairs,
We spoke of was and when
Although I wasn’t there
He said I was his friend
Which came as a surprise
I spoke into his eyes — I thought you died alone
A long long time ago

Oh no, not me,
We never lost control,
You’re face to face,
With the man who sold the world

I laughed and shook his hand,
I made my way back home,
I searched for form and land,
Years and years I roamed,
I gazed a gazely stare,
We walked a million hills — I must have died alone,
A long long time ago.

Who knows, not me,
I never lost control,
You’re face, to face,
With the man who sold the world.

Bowie's version of the last six lines:

I gazed a gazely stare at all the millions here
We must have died along, a long long time ago

Who knows? not me
We never lost control
You’re face to face
With the man who sold the world

Some think "the man who sold the world was Hitler, some say Einstein and the A-bomb and some say it was Jesus. "Bowie is walking up/down some stairs and sees a picture or sculpture of Christ. Through it he starts an (imaginary) conversation with Jesus." Some say it was his mentally ill brother, who he met on the stair. Some thought "the song was an up and coming musician and his chance meeting with a musician who'd been popular, sold out to pop culture and then faded away." or "The person singing the song IS the man who sold the world, and it is about just looking over your life and regreting your actions but still not wanting to admit you've done wrong." Another said "the song's meaning is derived fom a short poem by Hughes Mearns

As I was going up the stair
I met a man who wasn't there!
He wasn't there again today!
I wish, I wish he'd stay away! --- Hughes Mearns

"David Bowie has confirmed this and basically refers to a man who has changed to a point as to where he is unable to even recognise himself...selling, out-selling his world. At the time that Bowie wrote the song, he was going through changes, and not all good, he was not being true to himself."

Somehow, to me, it reminds me of the stories in AA about drinking (or addiction) is a progressive disease. As long as you use, you are on a down escalator. Maybe he met met someone he knew that was getting better, while he was going downhill (wasn't there). He recognized his old friend and said I thought you died a long long time ago. After they parted he searched for many years for a way to control his addiction. You almost have to die, or the person you are has to die (hit bottom) before you can stop using. Who knows! What a great song. I am going to go listen to it for the 53rd time!

Update:

Update:

From the BBC, Iran removes UN's nuclear seals Iran has broken all the remaining UN seals at its nuclear plant at Isfahan, making it fully operational..

The UK representative at the IAEA, Peter Jenkins, told the BBC it was beginning to look as if Iran was not open to persuasion to halt activity.

That's an understatement!

Update:

From the BBC,