Conversion Diary: Could I have stopped the war? - The diary of a former atheist

Conversion Diary: Could I have stopped the war? - The diary of a former atheist:
"'If you are what you should be,
you will set your whole world on fire.'
~ St. Catherine of Siena"


Dedication for Seven Storey Mountain
"I seek to speak to you, in some way, as your own self. Who can tell what this may mean? I myself do not know, but if you listen, things will be said that are perhaps not written in this book. And this will be due not to me but to the One who lives and speaks in both."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A couple weeks ago I was reading Seven Storey Mountain and came across a passage where Thomas Merton talks about the beginning of World War II, and says in passing:

If I had accepted the gift of sanctity that had been put in my hands when I stood by the [baptismal] font in November 1938, what might have happened in the world?

In the context of that section of the book, it's clear that he was basically asking, Could I have stopped the war? At first I hardly noticed it, thinking of it as a poetic hyperbole to drive home the point that we should all try to be holy. A few pages later, however, that sentence still nagged at me. I went back and re-read it, as well as the paragraph that followed:

People have no idea what one saint can do: for sanctity is stronger than the whole of hell. The saints are full of Christ in the plenitude of His Kingly and Divine power: and they are conscious of it, and give themselves to Him, that He may exercise His power through their smallest and seemingly most insignificant acts, for the salvation of the world.

Those thoughts have continued to nag at me over the past couple of weeks. When I see distressing stories on the news or think of the issues that most disturb me, an inconvenient thought keeps popping into mind: Could I have stopped this?

What I mean, of course, is not that there's any chance I could have done much at all through my own efforts; it's a shorthand way of saying, "If I had really died to myself, if I had fully stepped out of the way to let God's love and strength flow through me like a firehose instead of the feeble drip that the world sees now, what could he have done through me?"

Though it seems unlikely that God would use me to effect worldwide change on a major issue, it's certainly not impossible. Also, as Amy points out so well, one thing that is certain is that people who truly surrender their lives to God will have a huge impact on the world in some way or another, even if nobody ever knows their names.

Later in the book Merton describes a Russian Catholic woman who moved into the slums of Harlem to help the people there. After observing the amazing things that God had done through her, he writes:

It is a tremendous thing, the economy of the Holy Ghost! When the Spirit of God finds a soul in which He can work, He uses that soul for any number of purposes: opens out before its eyes a hundred new directions, multiplying its works and its opportunities for the apostolate almost beyond belief and certainly far beyond the ordinary strength of a human being.

So could I have prevented any of those horrible things I hear about on the news each night had I been a saint? The weight of my sins starts to feel awfully heavy when I realize that the answer is, "Maybe."

Kitco Commentator's Corner

Kitco Commentator's Corner

Resurrection Of Economic Idiocy

Lyndon Johnson’s Un-Great Society and Roosevelt’s depression era social programs did not solve the problems they purported to address. Rather, they extended the pain and suffering of their programs’ victims and worst of all taught them to belly-up to the taxpayer trough forever. We are saddled with generations of uneducated losers, who have sunk their collective psyche into a myriad of social problems passed down repeatedly from indigent lazy parents who learned from their parents.

The latest version of this socialism-destruction designed and being implemented by the Obama team of adult children, will in our view multiply the current criminally inspired disaster, extending it for years.

Greenspan and those congressmen-bankers formed a union of free money to avoid a simple and normal recession in 2000. Now nine years later, its economic payback time for violation of standard economic principles that made our nation great. Unfolding tragedies will be legendary.

This Time It Really Is Different

The strength and foundation of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights have served our nation well since 1776. Our current disasters, however, threaten the very existence of America.

The rule of law, which is the glue for domestic and global commerce, is being openly questioned. Our political leaders, in their frustration of dealing with their own instigated messes, threaten to abrogate legality of contract rules operating our country. This over-reaction is extremely dangerous.

When that pack of congressional hyenas were screaming at AIG’s leader yesterday they crossed the line into illegal, open warfare attacks on AIG’s derivative bonus babies. AIG’s new CEO-leader incidentally, basically volunteered to clean-up AIG’s problems and had nothing to do with these current challenges instigated and installed by Hank Greenberg who wisely got himself tossed-out in 2005. Greenberg made the mess not the current innocent CEO.

Test Values and Treatment for Vitamin D Deficiency - articles -

Test Values and Treatment for Vitamin D Deficiency - articles -: "Test Values and Treatment for Vitamin D Deficiency"

DEBUNKING THE OBAMATOIDS � Count Us Out

DEBUNKING THE OBAMATOIDS � Count Us Out

3/19 Obama citizenship !!!

Cooking with the Sun | Energy Bulletin

Cooking with the Sun | Energy Bulletin: "Cooking with the Sun
by Carl Etnier

The sun is getting stronger every day, and I've started cooking with a solar oven again. Friday I cooked up a pot of potatoes in my oven from the Solar Oven Society. Yesterday it was a black bean stew--there wasn't quite enough heat from the day in the sun to cook the beans completely, but half an hour on low heat on the range finished their cooking. Today a pot of beets cooked in the sun."

CLICK

Justified - “Just As If I’d Always Obeyed” � Already Not Yet

Justified - “Just As If I’d Always Obeyed” � Already Not Yet

“For He has made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Cor 5:21

Picture a moral ledger sheet with every word, thought, deed and motive of yours entered on that sheet. Most hope the good will outweigh the bad. The problem is that all of our deeds are stained, all are unclean and impure. There is no such thing as a positive ledger sheet - except in the case of Christ. His ledger sheet was perfect. So at the cross, our ledger sheet was charged to Christ, all our sin; and so His ledger sheet is credited to us.

“Justified” is not “Just as if I’d never sinned.” That is a great truth. But it is actually better than that: “Just as if I’d always obeyed.” God has credited the very righteousness of Jesus Christ to every believer.

Keep Foods Fresh - How to Keep Foods Fresh Longer

Keep Foods Fresh - How to Keep Foods Fresh Longer: "How to Keep Foods Fresh Longer"

Glenn Thrush's Blog: Ten happiest, saddest House districts - POLITICO.com

Glenn Thrush's Blog: Ten happiest, saddest House districts - POLITICO.com

March 14, 2009
Categories: Green

Ten happiest, saddest House districts

Gallup has set up a very cool site that breaks down data from its "well-being index" by congressional district -- and you can browse by map or in list form. So, I decided to take it out for a spin.

The Oil Drum | Mexico: A Collapse Update

The Oil Drum | Mexico: A Collapse Update: "As the downside of nitrogen injection in the Cantarell field becomes apparent, it is difficult to see the nitrogen injection ramp up in he KMZ field having any medium or long range benefits to the Mexican economy. As Cantarell has fallen from 905 million barrels in 2004 to 430 million barrels in 2008, the decline in the next two years is very clear. Even Pemex has recently predicted 255.5 million barrels in 09. Propping up oil production with nitrogen injection leads to a cataclysmic decline in only a few years as the experience of the Cantarell field shows."

Why watching CNBC could destroy your life

Why watching CNBC could destroy your life

Oath Keepers: Oath Keepers: Orders We Will Not Obey

Oath Keepers: Oath Keepers: Orders We Will Not Obey

List of orders these folks will not obey!

The Rise of the American Patriot � td blog

The Rise of the American Patriot � td blog: "The Soetoro-Obama Game Plan"


!!!!!!!!

Gods of the Copybook Headings

Gods of the Copybook Headings: "A copybook was an exercise book used to practice one's handwriting in. The pages were blank except for horizontal rulings and a printed specimen of perfect handwriting at the top. You were supposed to copy this specimen all down the page. The specimens were often proverbs or other quotations from the bible, or brief admonitory sayings—the ones in the poem illustrate the kind of thing. These were the copybook headings."

With this as background, it is hard to disagree with the general opinion that "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" is a clinging to old-fashioned common sense by a man deeply in need of something to cling to. Certainly there is cause for us to feel the same way in these troubled times.
--------------------------------------------------

The Gods of the Copybook Headings
Rudyard Kipling-1919

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place;
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four—
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man—
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:—
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will bum,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Read more >> Options >>

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Deception at Core of Obama Plans

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Deception at Core of Obama Plans Krauthamer

t the heart of Obama's radically transformative economic plan, a rhetorical sleight of hand so smoothly offered that few noticed.

The logic of Obama's address to Congress went like this:

"Our economy did not fall into decline overnight," he averred. Indeed, it all began before the housing crisis. What did we do wrong? We are paying for past sins in three principal areas: energy, health care, and education -- importing too much oil and not finding new sources of energy (as in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Outer Continental Shelf?), not reforming health care, and tolerating too many bad schools.

The "day of reckoning" has now arrived. And because "it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we'll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament," Obama has come to redeem us with his far-seeing program of universal, heavily nationalized health care; a cap-and-trade tax on energy; and a major federalization of education with universal access to college as the goal.

Amazing. As an explanation of our current economic difficulties, this is total fantasy. As a cure for rapidly growing joblessness, a massive destruction of wealth, a deepening worldwide recession, this is perhaps the greatest non sequitur ever foisted upon the American people.

At the very center of our economic near-depression is a credit bubble, a housing collapse and a systemic failure of the entire banking system. One can come up with a host of causes: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pushed by Washington (and greed) into improvident loans, corrupted bond-ratings agencies, insufficient regulation of new and exotic debt instruments, the easy money policy of Alan Greenspan's Fed, irresponsible bankers pushing (and then unloading in packaged loan instruments) highly dubious mortgages, greedy house-flippers, deceitful homebuyers.

The list is long. But the list of causes of the collapse of the financial system

Never waste a good crisis, Clinton says on climate | Reuters

Never waste a good crisis, Clinton says on climate | Reuters: "Hillary Clinton told an audience on Friday 'never waste a good crisis,' as she highlighted the opportunity of rebuilding economies in a greener, less energy intensive model."

Michael Boskin Says Barack Obama Is Moving Us Toward a European-Style Social Welfare State and Long-Run Economic Stagnation - WSJ.com

Michael Boskin Says Barack Obama Is Moving Us Toward a European-Style Social Welfare State and Long-Run Economic Stagnation - WSJ.com

Twelve Year Lows ? | The Big Picture

Twelve Year Lows ? | The Big Picture: "Twelve Year Lows Are Extremely Rare"

SEE THE GRAPH

321energy :: Tumbling in the East :: Scott B. MacDonald

321energy :: Tumbling in the East :: Scott B. MacDonald

Tumbling in the East

by Scott B. MacDonald
KWR International
February 27th, 2009

The broad swath of land from the Baltic to the Black Sea and into the Russian heartland constitutes what is often called Emerging Europe. Over the last few weeks, this area caught the attention of the financial press due to rising concerns that the earlier build-up of external debt is beyond the region’s means of repayment -- a factor that could have a wider ripple effect into Western European banks and through them into those economies and the world at large.

Since the end of the Soviet Union in 1992 and the movement of most Eastern European countries into the European Union, a considerable amount of capital was pumped into the region. That process accelerated at the beginning of this decade as there was a race to converge between countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia and Lithuania with their counterparts in the rest of Europe. Money flowed into these economies from both public and private sources. However, the private sector, led by Austrian, Italian, Greek and Swedish banks, led the way, investing capital in infrastructure, human capital, and housing. By 2008, Austrian banks had lent an estimated 70% of their country’s GDP in countries to the East, including Hungary, Ukraine and Russia. The problem is that the large spurt of growth, the race to economic convergence and the overall improvement in living standards came on borrowed money, reflected by sizeable current account imbalances throughout the region. Now with global export markets faltering and capital markets choking, Emerging Europe sits on an estimated $1.7 trillion in debt, including some $400 billion coming due this year.

The reduction in capital flows is something shared by most Emerging Markets, but it is the most pronounced in Eastern Europe. According to the Washington-based Institute of International Finance (IIF), private flows fell from a massive $392 billion in 2007 to $254.2 billion in 2008 and are projected to plunge to $30 billion this year. This is a massive shortfall for a region that has become addicted to cheap money and presents a number of dangers.

First and foremost, the drying up of cheap credit will be reflected by a more pronounced economic downturn in 2009. Last year, Ukraine, Hungary, Belarus, and Latvia went to the IMF for help (along with Iceland and Pakistan). This year, Ukraine, still struggling with the collapse of international steel prices, could end up going back to the IMF for a second time. Other potential candidates include Turkey, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria. Russia still has over $300 billion in foreign exchange reserves, but that buffer is falling and the country’s banks are increasingly turning to the state for assistance. Indeed, Russia is forecast to make net repayments of about $49 billion to commercial banks. As long as commodities are down – which many expect through 2009 and into 2010 – Russia will be challenged due its heavy dependence on natural gas and oil exports. The bottom line is that "Emerging Europe" has become "submerging Europe".

A second danger is to Europe’s banks. While U.S. banks have traditionally been major players in Latin America and Asia, Eastern Europe has been the domain of German, French, Italian, and other Western European banks. While German and French banks have been a little more prudent this round, that is not the case of their counterparts in Austria, Sweden (lending to the Baltics), Italy, Greece, and the Netherlands. A series of bank loan and bond defaults throughout Eastern Europe could have a strong negative impact on many struggling Western European banks, raising difficult questions for government authorities in Vienna, Stockholm, and Athens. And the reaction thus far from Western European capitals has been to stop the flow of credit, making matters worse, penalizinf good borrowers alongside bad.

The third danger is the impact of a major financial/economic crisis within the European Union. Can the EU withstand an even deeper economic crisis than the current one, complete with collapsing banking systems and sovereign defaults? This is a very significant question – would the Germans, French and Dutch be willing to bail out their fellow EU neighbors in Latvia, Hungary and Bulgaria? What kind of support can be given to Austria if its banks start to default?

The European Central Bank has limited powers and the decision for a massive, coordinated bailout would require something that has not yet occurred – a rapid, coherent decision-making process emerging from the EU’s headquarters in Brussels. This is not likely. As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard noted in The Telegraph on February 15, 2009, "Berlin is not going to rescue Ireland, Spain, Greece, and Portugal as the collapse of their credit bubbles leads to rising defaults, or rescue Italy by accepting plans for EU ‘union bonds’ should the debt markets take fright at the rocketing trajectory of Italy’s public debt (hitting 112% of GDP next year), just revised up from 101% - big change), or rescue Austria from its Habsburg adventurism." While many developed countries can survive large public sector debt burdens (like Japan, Italy and Belgium), the current environment makes the rapid absorption of a large amount of debt, which would have to be financed by bonds or loans, potentially more difficult than usual.

The global economy is in a precarious state. The most recent IMF economic forecast, updated at the end of January 2009, projects that world growth will fall to 0.5% this year, its lowest rate since World War II. According to the Fund: "Despite wide-ranging policy actions, financial strains remain acute, pulling down the real economy. A sustained economic recovery will not be possible until the financial sector’s functionality is restored and credit markets are unclogged." The IMF is already forecasting the Euro area’s real GDP will contract by 2% in 2009, with 0.2% growth in 2010. Our concern is that the ripples from a series of corporate and possibly sovereign defaults in the East roll into Western banks. This may initiate another round of upheaval that could tip over already strained credit systems – beyond what national governments can handle and what the EU is willing to deal with. This could set in motion more significant power shifts, with the Euro being a possible victim, parts of Eastern Europe falling into socio-economic turmoil -- with perhaps a slide in governments toward more authoritarian forms of rule -- and weakening the appeal of Western institutions and capitalism. If nothing else this is an old-fashioned crisis in capitalism and its impac

The Wisdom of Crowds and Obamanomics

The Wisdom of Crowds and Obamanomics: "A 2007 study by Arnerich & Messina illustrated the stock market's efficiency in stark terms. Since 1994 there have been only two years in which more than 50% of professional money managers were able to beat the S&P 500 index. In 1997 only 11% of managers beat the index."

Eyc Eyc esp effect of Obama popularity and stock market

"The United States of America Does Not Torture"

"The United States of America Does Not Torture"

My concern with President Obama is his speeches seem to be written to sound profound while leaving out substance.

His plans to manage the deficit do not reflect anything like reality. He announces a plan to halve the deficit in the same year he increased it by $1 trillion dollars. His foreign policy so far is more notable in it's absence than in it's accomplishments. Given posturing and threats from North Korea, Sec State Clinton announced that she personally did not believe North Korea could enrich urianium (in apparent disagreement with virtually everyone else).

Russia is signing weapons supply agreements with Iran and expanding security arrangements and we say nary a word about it.
They also announced that they will build a naval base in Abkhazia, an province in another country which is in rebellion, and who's government is recognized by nobody.

Russia "in self defense" moves mobile missiles to the border of Poland after we deployed an ABM battery there. People do not understand the technology involved. An ABM has no offensive power. If you set off an ABM next to a T72 tank, it wold likely not disable the tank. If you set off a nuke on an Iskander missile, you would destroy an entire city. Our response? "well really we made no response. however we have announced that defence spending will be reduced...
To me, this feels like ... 1935... pacifist posturing, defense cuts, inward looking policies bordering on socialism, while potential opponents gain in strength and confidence.

Russians turn off the gas in Ukraine, Obama's response, silence. Russias message? to Ukraine, "none of your friends in the west will help you" to the West "we can turn off your heat whenever we want, remember this when you set your foreign policy".

In Iraq, Obama set a timetable to leave. I hope he is right. Bush handed him a victory in Iraq. It isn't too late for him to turn it into a defeat.

Pakistan's new government is showing itself to be weak and indecisive. I hope a stronger role in Afghanistan helps resolve this situation... I hope Obama can stay the course and that the military has decisive leadership on the battlefield.

And on Torture Michael, I have followed your articles for years. I think we need to define what torture is and work within that framework.

Michael thankyou for being a voice of reason that helps filter out the shrill political rhetoric.

Getting My Eat On - The Dax Files

Getting My Eat On - The Dax Files
southern favorite, Country Fried Steak with Milk Gravy and Garlic Mashed Potatoes.

Country Fried Steak
INGREDIENTS:
4 (4 ounce) cube steaks
1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
1 3/4 teaspoons ground black pepper, divided
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup lard
1 cup milk
DIRECTIONS:
1. Season meat with 1/4 teaspoon of the salt and 1/4 teaspoon of the pepper; set aside. In a shallow dish, mix flour with 1 teaspoon of the pepper. Dredge each steak in flour. Dip in beaten egg, then dredge in flour again.
2. Heat lard in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Fry steaks 3 to 4 minutes on each side, or until golden brown. Drain on paper towels.
3. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the fat. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the dredging flour into oil. Cook over medium heat for 1 minute, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of skillet. Gradually whisk in milk. Cook, stirring frequently, 3 to 4 minutes, or until thickened and bubbly. Add 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoons pepper; gravy should be quite peppery.

Garlic Mashed Potatoes
INGREDIENTS
• 5 pounds unpeeled red potatoes, quartered
• 13 ounces butter, room temperature
• 5 ounces Romano cheese, grated
• 1/4 cup and 2 teaspoons chopped garlic
• 2-1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2-1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
DIRECTIONS
1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add potatoes and cook until tender but still firm, about 45 minutes; drain. Stir in butter, cheese, garlic, salt and oregano. Mash with a potato masher or with an electric mixer
Talk about putting the pounds on…Damn!

Acne | ArthurDeVany.com

Acne | ArthurDeVany.com

Acne

I have had several questions about acne lately. There is an easy answer: its the carbs. Not the good carbs in fruit and vegetables, but the bad, starchy, sugary carbs in bread, pizza, pasta, chocolate, rice, beans, potatoes, french fries, and sugar- or fructose-laden drinks. It is not the fat in your diet, though trans-fats are implicated. Milk may contribute to the problem.

Loren Cordain just released a book on acne. He has done the most impressive research on the subject. You can find his book at AcneCure. In the book he quotes a doctor who studied the problem with his many patients who concluded:

“The internal treatment of acne vulgaris must depend on the symptoms presented by each individual patient. . . As regards the diet, it is usually important to restrict the amount of carbohydrate and fat, and sweets, cakes, pastries, puddings, jam and marmalade, pig-fat, chocolate . . . Plenty of fresh fruits and green vegetables and lean meat, fish and poultry should be taken.”

Loren agrees with that assessment and adds,

“As you will see in later chapters most of this nearly 70 year old advice is right on target. However, 70 years later it can now be supported from clinical dietary trials that have shown how sugary foods and high glycemic load carbohydrates like those listed above can adversely influence the hormones that are directly involved in causing acne. The recommendation to eat fresh fruits, green vegetables, lean meat, fish and poultry now makes perfect sense with our
new understanding of how diet can influence the hormonal, cellular and molecular underpinnings of acne.”

The rest of his book backs that up and advises how to cure acne. You will also reduce your general level of inflammation and lose weight, almost all fat, on this diet. It is the diet I follow and recommend too.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 at 10:11 am and is filed under EvolutionaryFitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

confabulation

confabulation

CHILDS

interpretation of the bible

In the beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God, darkness, and some gas. The Bible says, ‘The Lord thy God is one, but I think He must be a lot older than that.

Anyway, God said, ‘Give me a light!’ and someone did.

Then God made the world..

He split the Adam and made Eve. Adam and Eve were naked, but they weren’t embarrassed because mirrors hadn’t been invented yet.

Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven from the Garden of Aden.

Not sure what they were driven in though, because they didn’t have cars.

Adam and Eve had a son, Cain, who hated his brother as long as he was Abel.

Pretty soon all of the early people died off, except for Methuselah, who lived to be like a million or something.

One of the next important people was Noah, who was a good guy, but one of his kids was kind of a Ham. Noah built a large boat and put his family and some animals on it. He asked some other people to join him, but they said they would have to take a rain check.

After Noah came Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob was more famous than his brother, Esau, because Esau sold Jacob his birthmark in exchange for some pot roast. Jacob had a son named Joseph who wore a really loud sports coat.

Another important Bible guy is Moses, whose real name was Charlton Heston. Moses led the Israel Lights out of Egypt and away from the evil Pharaoh after God sent ten plagues on Pharaoh’s people. These plagues included frogs, mice, lice, bowels, english food and no cable.

God fed the Israel Lights every day with manicotti. Then he gave them His Top Ten Commandments.

These include: don’t lie, cheat, smoke, drink, dance, or covet your neighbor’s stuff.

Oh, yeah, I just thought of one more: Humor thy father and thy mother.

One of Moses’ best helpers was Joshua who was the first Bible guy to use spies. Joshua fought the battle of Geritol and the fence fell over on the town.

After Joshua came David.. He got to be king by killing a giant with a slingshot. He had a son named Solomon who had about 300 wives and 500 porcupines. My teacher says he was wise, but that doesn’t sound very wise to me.

After Solomon there were a bunch of major league prophets.

One of these was Jonah, who was swallowed by a big whale and then barfed up on the shore.

There were also some minor league prophets, but I guess we don’t have to worry about them.

After the Old Testament came the New Testament. Jesus is the star of The New. He was born in Bethlehem in a barn. (I wish I had been born in a barn too, because my mom is always saying to me, ‘Close the door! Were you born in a barn?’ It would be nice to say, ‘As a matter of fact, I was.’)

During His life, Jesus had many arguments with sinners like the Pharisees and the Democrats.

Jesus also had twelve opossums.

The worst one was Judas Asparagus. Judas was so evil that they named a terrible vegetable after him.

Jesus was a great man. He healed many leopards and even preached to some Germans on the Mount.

But the Democrats and all those guys put Jesus on trial before Pontius the Pilot. Pilot didn’t stick up for Jesus. He just washed his hands instead.

Anyways, Jesus died for our sins, then came back to life again.

He went up to Heaven but will be back at the end of the Aluminum.

His return is foretold in the book of Revolution.


Stolen without remorse from… The Children’s Bible in a Nutshell

While Rome Burns | The Big Picture

While Rome Burns | The Big Picture

READ THIS:
et me make a few people upset. When someone comes to you and starts showing you charts that tell you to invest for the long run, look at their assumptions. Usually they are simplistic. And misleading. I agree that if the long run for you is 70 years, you can afford to ride out the ups and downs. But for those of us in the Baby Boomer world, the long term may be buying green bananas. If you start in a period of high valuations, you are NOT going to get 8-9-10% a year for the next 30 years;

New service unmasks blocked telephone calls

New service unmasks blocked telephone calls: "A basic version of TrapCall is available for free.

Premium versions of the service can record mobile telephone calls, transcribe voice messages into text messages, and reveal names and addresses of callers along with their telephone numbers.

Premium versions are available for monthly fees of 10 dollars or 25 dollars."

Kitco - Commentaries - Ned W. Schmidt

Kitco - Commentaries - Ned W. Schmidt: "Schmidt's Gold Thoughts"

Why did Congress frantically pass the PorkPlan, despite Republican pleas for more time, only to have the law sit on Obama’s desk through a long leisurely weekend?? � td blog

"“Denver Airport Murals”. REALLY weird"

Bad Example

Bad Example Jokes

LITTLE RALPHY ON MATH

A teacher asks her class, 'If there are 5 birds sitting on a fence and you shoot one of them, how many will be left?'

She calls on little Ralphy.

He replies, 'None, they will all fly away with the first gunshot.'

The teacher replies, 'The correct answer is 4, but I like your thinking.'

Then little Ralphy says, 'I have a question for YOU. There are 3 women sitting on a bench having ice cream:

One is delicately licking the sides of the triple scoop of ice cream. The second is gobbling down the top and sucking the cone. The third is biting off the top of the ice cream. Which one is married?'

The teacher, blushing a great deal, replied, 'Well, I suppose the one that's gobbled down the top and sucked the cone.'

To which Little Ralphy replied, 'The correct answer is 'the one with the wedding ring on,' but I like your thinking.'

LITTLE RALPHY ON MATH

Little Ralphy returns from school and says he got an F in arithmetic.

'Why?' asks the father?

'The teacher asked 'How much is 2x3,'' I said '6', replies Ralphy.

'But that's right!' says his dad.

'Yeah, but then she asked me 'How much is 3x2?''

'What's the f*cking difference?' asks the father.

'That's what I said!'

LITTLE RALPHY ON ENGLISH

Little Ralphy goes to school, and the teacher says, 'Today we are going to learn multi-syllable words, class. Does anybody have an example of a multi-syllable word?'

Ralphy says 'Mas-tur-bate.'

Miss Rogers smiles and says, 'Wow, little Ralphy, that's a mouthful.'

Little Ralphy says, 'No, Miss Rogers, you're thinking of a blowjob.'

LITTLE RALPHY ON GRAMMAR

Little Ralphy was sitting in class one day. All of a sudden, he needed to go to the toilet. He yelled out, 'Miss Jones, I need to take a piss!'

The teacher replied, 'Now, Ralphy, that is NOT the proper word to use in this situation. The correct word you want to use is 'urinate.' Please use the word 'ur-i-nate' in a sentence correctly, and I will allow you to go.'

Little Ralphy, thinks for a bit, and then says, 'You're an eight, but if you had bigger tits, you'd be a TEN!'

LITTLE RALPHY ON GRAMMAR

One day, during lessons on proper grammar, the teacher asked for a show of hands from those who could use the word 'beautiful' in the same sentence twice.

First, she called on little Suzie, who responded with, 'My father bought my mother a beautiful dress and she looked beautiful in it.'

'Very good, Suzie,' replied the teacher. She then called on little Michael.

'My mommy planned a beautiful banquet and it turned out beautifully.'

She said, 'Excellent, Michael!' Then the teacher reluctantly called on little Ralphy.

'Last night at the dinner table, my sister told my father that she was pregnant, and he said 'Beautiful, just f*cking beautiful!''

[Yeah, Michael f*cked up his answer, but he's an ass-kisser, so teacher gave him a pass]

LITTLE RALPHY ON GETTING OLDER

Little Ralphy was sitting on a park bench munching on one candy bar after another. After the 6th one a man on the bench across from him said, 'Son, you know eating all that candy isn't good for you. It will give you acne, rot your teeth, and make you fat.'

Little Ralphy replied, 'My grandfather lived to be 107 years old.'

The man asked, 'Did your grandfather eat 6 candy bars at a time?'

Little Ralphy answered, 'No, he minded his own f*cking business.

Sept. 08: Someone tried to orchestrate the collapse of US/world financial & political systems � td blog

Sept. 08: Someone tried to orchestrate the collapse of US/world financial & political systems � td blog

One of the smartest women in the world is Catherine Fitts who was a Federal Government insider and Assistant Secretary of HUD years ago. She disclosed all the details concerning the Black Budget which flows through the US banking system to hold it up and $trillions are being parked at all times from one bank to the other.

It is my theory that those in control of the Black Budget wanted to move the funds elsewhere for whatever the reason, and the FED pulled the plug.

The Oil Drum | USA Gulf of Mexico Oil Production Forecast Update

The Oil Drum | USA Gulf of Mexico Oil Production Forecast Update

USA Gulf of Mexico Oil Production Forecast Update

Posted by ace on February 9, 2009 - 3:49pm
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: deepwater, gulf of mexico, oil production, original [list all tags]

Here's an update of USA Gulf of Mexico (GoM) oil production using the most recent EIA data. GoM production peaked in June 2002 at 1.73 mbd and is forecast to continue declining.

Graphs

The Oil Drum | Discussions about Energy and Our Future

The Oil Drum | Discussions about Energy and Our Future: "A Visit to Chevron's Kern River Heavy Oil Facility"

R-Squared Energy Blog

R-Squared Energy Blog: "Countries with the highest per capita energy consumption in 2005* (in kilograms of oil equivalent per person)

Based on International Energy Agency data for 2005, the most recent year for which IEA has data. Note: Numbers have been rounded off

Source: World Resources Institute

Qatar 19,466
Iceland 12,209
Bahrain 11,180
Kuwait 11,102
United Arab Emirates 10,354
Luxembourg 10,138
Trinidad and Tobago 9,736
Netherlands Antilles 9,057
Canada 8,473
U.S. 7,886"

InsideCatholic.com - Eight Responses to the Pro-Choice Mindset

InsideCatholic.com - Eight Responses to the Pro-Choice Mindset

Obama's Posse o' Change

Obama's Posse o' Change: "Obama's Posse o' Change"

The list of thugs!

Vinegar and Honey: To Everything There Is A Season

Vinegar and Honey: To Everything There Is A Season

To Everything There Is a Season

To everything there is a season,a time for every purpose under the sun.
A time to be born and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill and a time to heal ...a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance ...a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to lose and a time to seek;
a time to rend and a time to sew;
a time to keep silent and a time to speak;
a time to love and a time to hate;
a time for war and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding: He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.
Daniel 2:21-22 KJV

The Big Picture

The Big Picture: "Agnotology: Culturally constructed ignorance, purposefully created by special interest groups working hard to create confusion and suppress the truth."

R-Squared Energy Blog: Renewable Diesel Primer

R-Squared Energy Blog: Renewable Diesel Primer

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical�

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical�: "Today's Consumer Report

Today's Consumer Report

Verizon bundle internet. Blazing fast!!
Verizon"

BizzyBlog

BizzyBlog: "Timothy Geithner, pictured at right in an AP photo, is Barack Obama’s nominee for Treasury Secretary.
Timothy Geithner, pictured at right in an AP photo, is Barack Obama’s nominee for Treasury Secretary.

Mr. Geithner will, among many other duties, oversee the Internal Revenue Service.

How odd, to say the least, that Mr. Geithner has had tax filing and payment problems going back over 15 years involving self-employment taxes for both himself and his paid help, as well as with the employment of someone who for a time did not have proper legal status to remain in the country.

You would think that such things might place a cabinet nominee, especially to head Treasury, in jeopardy, and to cause the president who nominated him to have second thoughts.

Mr. Geithner will, among many other duties, oversee the Internal Revenue Service.

How odd, to say the least, that Mr. Geithner has had tax filing and payment problems going back over 15 years involving self-employment taxes for both himself and his paid help, as well as with the employment of someone who for a time did not have proper legal status to remain in the country.

You would think that such things might place a cabinet nominee, especially to head Treasury, in jeopardy, and to cause the president who nominated him to have second thoughts."

The hundred years' war in Palestine | The hundred years' war | The Economist

The hundred years' war in Palestine | The hundred years' war | The Economist

Why they fight

And Gaza, remember, is only one item in a mighty catalogue of misery, whose entries are inscribed in tears. The Jews and Arabs of Palestine have been fighting off and on for 100 years. In 1909 the mostly Russian socialist idealists of the Zionist movement set up an armed group, Hashomer, to protect their new farms and villages in Palestine from Arab marauders. Since then has come the dismal march of wars—1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, 2006 and now 2009—each seared by blood and fire into the conflicting myths and memories of the two sides. The intervals between the wars have not been filled by peace but by bombs, raids, uprisings and atrocities. Israeli settlers in Hebron today still cite, as if it were yesterday, the massacre of Hebron’s Jews in 1929. The Arabs of Palestine still remember their desperate revolt in the 1930s against the British mandate and Jewish immigration from Europe, and the massacres of 1948.

RGE - Let’s “hope and pray that Hirsch is wrong” about our oil supply

RGE - Let’s “hope and pray that Hirsch is wrong” about our oil supply
But analysts also agree on something else: When the recessionary tide finally recedes, all of the factors that drove oil to its record high last summer will once again be exposed, and crude will again soar to record highs.

Environmental Capital - WSJ.com

Environmental Capital - WSJ.com: "Cushing is apparently getting close to storage capacity; Platt’s figures it can hold another 2 million or so barrels. But Cushing’s bulging tanks mean that U.S. oil prices are losing touch with reality, argued the FT’s Alphaville blog:

Essentially that means once Cushing storage nears capacity WTI will become increasingly depressed versus other crude grades and therefore disconnected from real oil supply/demand fundamentals. As a result it will no longer be a good indicator of US crude prices."

Square Foot Garden Update and Lessons Learned | Frugal Dad

Square Foot Garden Update and Lessons Learned | Frugal Dad

Square Foot Gardening, a How To | Frugal Dad

Square Foot Gardening, a How To | Frugal Dad

Language of the Perpetual Poor | Frugal Dad

Language of the Perpetual Poor | Frugal Dad: "How to identify members of this group:

* Can recite the last five winners of American Idle (that’s not a typo) from memory
* Haven’ t picked up a book since high school
* Never stretched to learn a new skill at work, but complain about being passed over for promotions"

Do You Suffer from Destination Addiction? | Frugal Dad

Do You Suffer from Destination Addiction? | Frugal Dad

Midas Letter - 5 New Forces to Drive Gold Higher

Midas Letter - 5 New Forces to Drive Gold Higher: "5 New Forces to Drive Gold Higher
By James West
Thursday, January 8, 2009"

Big Hollywood � Blog Archive � Video Exclusive: A Revealing Morning With Sarah Palin

Big Hollywood � Blog Archive � Video Exclusive: A Revealing Morning With Sarah Palin

321energy :: Where We Are Headed: Gold, USD, Oil :: Daniel Smolski

321energy :: Where We Are Headed: Gold, USD, Oil :: Daniel Smolski

The Oil Drum | Discussions about Energy and Our Future

The Oil Drum | Discussions about Energy and Our Future

Midas Letter-Gold, Silver, Commodities, Economics, Investment

Midas Letter-Gold, Silver, Commodities, Economics, Investment

Asia needs to fully wake up to the scale of the West's economic crisis - Telegraph

Asia needs to fully wake up to the scale of the West's economic crisis - Telegraph

The fall-out in Japan has already shattered the authority of premier Taro Aso. His approval rating has dropped to 21pc. The cabinet is in revolt. The world's second biggest economy no longer has a functioning government.

Credit Suisse warns that Japan could slide into deflation of minus 2pc by the autumn. Since interest rates are already near zero, which means that real rates will rise as the slump deepens – the surest path to a liquidity trap.

Kyohei Morita from Barclays Capital estimates that Japan's GDP shrank at an annual rate of 12.2pc in the fourth quarter. "It's shocking," he says. Singapore has already reported. Fourth-quarter GDP contracted at an 12.5pc annual rate.

Taiwan's exports fell 28pc in November. Shipments to China dropped 45pc. Korea's exports dropped 18pc in November and 17pc in December.

Financial Armageddon: Hard Times Call for Creative Solutions

Financial Armageddon: Hard Times Call for Creative Solutions
Most posts on Financial Armageddon are meant to raise awareness about what is really going on nowadays and what I believe lies ahead. Even so, I'm sure many visitors are also interested in learning what they can do to protect themselves. While a great deal of useful information can be found by reading through the blogs and other resources featured in the right hand column, I occasionally take the opportunity to highlight strategies and insights that could prove especially usefull to individuals (and families), investors, and businesses. etc

Obama is hit by 'affair' smears following claims that attractive aide was banned by his wife | Mail Online

Obama is hit by 'affair' smears following claims that attractive aide was banned by his wife | Mail Online

Carville predicts scandals to overshadow Democrats, Obama | Republican Liberty Caucus of Illinois

Carville predicts scandals to overshadow Democrats, Obama | Republican Liberty Caucus of Illinois

There are several burgeoning scandals right now in Democratic circles:

* Blagojevich is accused by federal prosecutors of conspiring to sell Barack Hussein Obama Jr.’s former Senate seat to the highest bidder.

* Former low-rated talk show host Al Franken is being accused of stealing an election — with the help of Obama’s ACORN organization — in Minnesota.

* Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) is alleged to have not paid his taxes.

* Former Rep. Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s White House chief of staff, is accused of shenanigans regarding his property taxes in Chicago.

* Obama himself was alleged in the U.K. press to have had an ongoing affair, which, just like the John Edwards scandal, has not yet been covered by the U.S. media.

Barack Obama The Naked Emperor | Pakistan Daily

Barack Obama The Naked Emperor | Pakistan Daily

I HOPE we make it!!!!!

GraphOilogy: Chart of the Day

GraphOilogy: Chart of the Day

Information Warfare: Why Arabs Believe In Force Fields

Information Warfare: Why Arabs Believe In Force Fields
This easy acceptance of fantasies is exploited by leaders throughout the Middle East, and the Moslem world in general. Leaders who know better, build on these fantasies as a way to maintain their control over the population. The problem is a dirty little secret in the Moslem world, that leaders and academics don't even like to discuss it openly, much less with infidels. But it is real, and you can read all about it in the local media, or overhear it in the coffee shops.

Donna Brazile wants to ban ignorant bloggers who “bloviate.” � td blog

Donna Brazile wants to ban ignorant bloggers who “bloviate.” � td blog

John Adams:
Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.

Tom Paine 'Tyranny'

CHARMING, JUST CHARMING: "Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value."

Thomas Paine

South African central bank gold sales dry up_English_Xinhua

South African central bank gold sales dry up_English_Xinhua

Gold Shortage??????

Brutally Honest

Brutally Honest

DDT Environmentalism
Environmentalism kills people and on a massive scale. Remember the ban on DDT? It led to the deaths of millions of people and is still killing millions, mostly children, by allowing Malaria to spread like wildfire, all to “protect” the environment. Do environmentalists regret the millions of deaths that have resulted from the ban? No. They still defend it enthusiastically and their impact is devastating. From Project 21:

But during that global war, dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) was dusted on Allied soldiers and tents to prevent malaria. After the war, it stopped a European typhus epidemic. It then helped virtually eradicate malaria in the United States by 1952 and in Europe by 1961. It was also used - often carelessly and in excess - to protect crops against insects.

However, in the midst of these successes, Rachel Carson and the emerging environmental movement concluded that DDT was building up in wildlife, livestock and humans. They said it would result in devastating consequences. Instead of conducting objective, scientific studies to see if DDT was actually harmful, they mounted a worldwide campaign that ultimately caused DDT to be removed even from the malaria control arsenal.

For these Americans and Europeans, seeking this ban imposed no costs. Malaria was largely gone in their countries. When they visit Africa, they stay in five-star hotels, away from mosquitoes. They have bug sprays and medicines to prevent and treat disease. They rarely visit the hospitals or homes where people are suffering and dying or feel the pain of million of poor people whose cause they claim to champion.

Africa essentially became a sacrifice zone where environmental ideologies demand that only politically-correct tools like bed nets be used to prevent the disease that is still the biggest single killer of our children. It is a crime against humanity to ban DDT and leave over 300 million African mothers, fathers and children to suffer every year from acute malaria.

Even today, 65 years after it was first used in disease control, no other chemical works as well for as long or at a lower cost in stopping malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases than DDT. There is no proof that it is harmful to people or animals when used responsibly. That is why hundreds of physicians, clergy and human rights advocates have demanded that it be put back into the malaria control arsenal.

The people who push the global warming scam today have the same ideology as those who pushed the anti-DDT scam in the 80’s. If the global warming crowd gets its way, not only will Africa be devastated, but the United States will as well because Al Gore and his cronies’ anti-global warming initiatives are business killers.

Killers of capitalism. Killers of the poor.

Socialism, Marxism, Communism & Obama

Socialism, Marxism, Communism & Obama

amazin stuff

The Measure of Our Growth and Decay � Already Not Yet

The Measure of Our Growth and Decay � Already Not Yet: "The Measure of Our Growth and Decay
Posted on December 16, 2008 by Peter Cockrell

“If I have observed anything by experience, it is this: a man may take the measure of his growth and decay in grace according to his thoughts and meditations upon the person of Christ, and the glory of Christ’s Kingdom, and of His love.”

- John Owen, quoted in A Puritan Golden Treasury complied by I. D. E"

Alleged Madoff fraud has worldwide exposure - Yahoo! News

Alleged Madoff fraud has worldwide exposure - Yahoo! News: "'I think now it is very difficult for people to invest in things that are meant to be regulated in America, because they haven fallen down in the job,' Nicola Horlick, the manager of Bramdean Alternatives, which has 9 percent of its funds invested in Madoff's scheme, told the British Broadcasting Corp.

'All through the credit crunch this has been apparent,' Horlick added. 'This is the biggest financial scandal, probably, in the history of the markets.'"

Stand to Reason: The Faith of Our Fathers

Stand to Reason: The Faith of Our Fathers

Benjamin Franklin

Even Franklin the deist is equivocal. He was raised in a Puritan family and later adopted then abandoned deism. Though not an orthodox Christian, it was 81-year-old Franklin's emotional call to humble prayer on June 28, 1787, that was the turning point for a hopelessly stalled Convention. James Madison recorded the event in his collection of notes and debates from the Federal Convention. Franklin's appeal contained no less than four direct references to Scripture.

And have we forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings that 'except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this and I also believe that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.[2]

Three of the four cornerstones of the Constitution--Franklin, Washington, and Madison--were firmly rooted in Christianity. But what about Thomas Jefferson? His signature cannot be found at the end of the Constitution, but his voice permeates the entire document.

(Thomas Jefferson was this kind of man. In Defending the Declaration, legal historian Gary Amos observes, "Jefferson is a notable example of how a man can be influenced by biblical ideas and Christian principles even though he never confessed Jesus Christ as Lord in the evangelical sense.")

Psalm 35:27 Let them shout for joy and rejoice, who favor my

Psalm 35:27 Let them shout for joy and rejoice, who favor my: "Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the LORD be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant."

AP IMPACT: How Freddie Mac halted regulatory drive - Yahoo! News

AP IMPACT: How Freddie Mac halted regulatory drive - Yahoo! News

Internal Freddie Mac budget records show $11.7 million was paid to 52 outside lobbyists and consultants in 2006. Power brokers such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich were recruited with six-figure contracts. Freddie Mac paid the following amounts to the firms of former Republican lawmakers or ex-GOP staffers in 2006:

_Sen. Alfonse D'Amato of New York, at Park Strategies, $240,000.

_Rep. Vin Weber of Minnesota, at Clark & Weinstock, $360,297.

_Rep. Susan Molinari of New York, at Washington Group, $300,062.

_Susan Hirschmann at Williams & Jensen, former chief of staff to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, $240,790.

Freddie Mac's chairman and chief executive, Dick Syron, and McLoughlin, senior vice president for external relations, used Clark and Weinstock extensively, Weber said in an e-mail Friday.

"I personally met with the CEO several times and with Hollis and his team regularly," Weber said in the e-mail. "Clark and Weinstock worked effectively and intensely for Freddie Mac under Dick Syron and Hollis McLoughlin."

Get Rich Slowly

Get Rich Slowly

For some, charitable giving might seem like the easiest (and first) expense to eliminate. But giving is even more important this year, and I believe you should consider increasing your efforts now instead of cutting back. You don’t need to be wealthy to make a big difference in the life of someone who lives in poverty.

People on the “edges” are impacted more
People who are already struggling are impacted more by rising costs or the loss of income. You might feel like you’re barely making ends meet, but chances are that if you’re reading this, you are not sleeping in the back of a van with your kids (like a family I saw here in Seattle last week), or raising children in a part of the world where clean water and electricity are a distant dream and low-wage work represents your only opportunity to put food on the table.

This economic downturn is global. Around the world, the people who will be affected most are the people who are already struggling to provide the basics for their families, and the most effective way to support these families is through charities that help provide the means for them to lift themselves out of poverty. This is truly a time when every dollar counts.

I have written a lot on my own blog about why it’s important to address global poverty, but here is the short version: the world’s best minds cannot grow and lead the next generation if the hunger and ill-health that go hand in hand with poverty stop them in childhood.

is gold still a safe haven?

is gold still a safe haven?
ngots are just another commodity

It would be hard to imagine a worse run of events for paper money. Investment banks such as Lehman Brothers have drowned in a sea of subprime debt. Building societies such as Bradford & Bingley, once so dull and safe they made fun of it in their ads, have had to be nationalised. In the case of Iceland, a whole country suddenly went pop. So you might think it would have been a great year for the world’s oldest form of money: gold. Fleeing a bankrupt monetary system, investors would seek the security of ingots and krugerrands.

Except, as it happens, they didn’t. Among the many fascinating sub-plots to the credit crunch has been the way the ‘gold bugs’ — as die-hard enthusiasts for the metal are known in the City — have finally been nailed. Gold turns out not to be the ultimate store of value after all. Nor is it a safe haven in times of turmoil. It’s just another commodity, useful for making jewellery and not much else.

Take a look at the way the metal has performed through these turbulent months. When the crunch started in August last year an ounce of gold would have cost you $667. For a few months, admittedly, the gold bugs had something to get excited about. With the financial system starting to creak, gold steadily climbed all the way up to $1,033 an ounce in mid-March. The bugs started working overtime. Two, maybe three thousand dollars seemed possible. Who knows, perhaps the gold standard would be reimposed. All it would take was a nervous breakdown in the money markets.

It didn’t quite work out. On 15 September Lehman went bust, triggering a wave of bank failures around the world. Then countries started to collapse. And gold? Over the course of that tumultuous week, it pushed up from $770 to $928. Since then, however, it has fallen back to $800 again.

In truth, gold has been a poor investment for a long time. As far back as January 1980 it was trading at $850, but by 1985 it had slumped to $284. It didn’t do much during the 1990s, starting the decade at $399 and finishing at $289. Indeed, so poor was its performance that Gordon Brown famously ordered the Bank of England to sell off 395 tonnes of the stuff, for which it got only an average of $275, close to a three-decade low. This decade was a bit better, with a steady climb back towards the $700-800 range (which means the Brown sale lost the taxpayer a notional £4 billion, by the way). Still, the fact remains that gold today isn’t worth any more than it was 30 years ago. Bear in mind also that your ingot has never paid any dividends or interest, and you’ve had to pay someone to look after it. Compared to just about any alternative, it’s been a rotten investment.

Okay, say the bugs. Thirty years is nothing. Over thousands of years gold has been the world’s most reliable store of value. At some point (as Jonathan Ruffer argues opposite) the conjuring trick of paper money will collapse — and gold may be the only thing worth owning. Larry Edelson, an American financial pundit and über gold bull, predicts, for example, that a return to the gold standard would push the price to $53,000 an ounce.

Which would be nice for small investors who’ve piled into the metal. BullionVault, a website that allows private investors to buy and sell physical gold, has trebled the number of accounts it holds in the last year. The World Gold Council reports that demand from retail investors buying gold bars or gold funds rose 56 per cent in the latest quarter. The trouble is, as they so often do, private investors have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. In fact, gold is steadily losing safe-haven status. After Richard Nixon ended the last formal link between the dollar and gold in 1971, the metal still had some support. In the global recession from November 1973 to March 1975, gold rose by 78 per cent; it spiked again in 1979-80; but in the downturns of the early 1990s and early 2000s it hardly moved at all.

Other safe havens have done much better. Government bonds have gone up — foreigners have been pumping $1.5 trillion a week into US Treasury bills since the start of the crunch. So has the Swiss franc, a traditional financial port in monetary storms. Some new safe havens may be emerging: intriguingly, the Israeli shekel has risen strongly, and Merrill Lynch now describes it as among the world’s safest assets. But not gold. It went up in price during this decade in line with the commodity boom. When that burst, it headed down again. What’s happening on the money markets no longer makes much difference. Gold rises and falls with oil, copper and wheat, and all the other things that get turned into stuff in factories. It is still a useful metal. But it is not money — and after its failure to rally in this crisis, even the most dogmatic gold bug may well have to admit that.

BizzyBlog

BizzyBlog

Unemployment!

Nancy, Barry, and Harry must be so proud. It’s simply amazing what promising to choke off a country’s energy supplies (all three of them did so in June), promising to radically raise taxes (Obama did, and the others have been on board, for at least 18 months before the presidential election), and having a decades-in-the-making wreck of the housing and mortgage-lending industries come to a head (a Democratic Party group effort going back to the late 1970s) can do.

Never forget this: They broke it.

Now let’s see if they can fix it.

Econbrowser: The Employment Situation in Pictures

Econbrowser: The Employment Situation in Pictures: "he Employment Situation in Pictures"

You, too, can arbitrage the premium-midgrade-regular gasoline price spread - Knowledge Problem

You, too, can arbitrage the premium-midgrade-regular gasoline price spread - Knowledge Problem

Atlas Shrugs: HOW COULD STANLEY ANN DUNHAM HAVE DELIVERED BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA JR. IN AUGUST OF 1961 IN HONOLULU, WHEN OFFICIAL UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON RECORDS SHOW HER 2680 MILES AWAY IN SEATTLE ATTENDING CLASSES THAT SAME MONTH?

Atlas Shrugs: HOW COULD STANLEY ANN DUNHAM HAVE DELIVERED BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA JR. IN AUGUST OF 1961 IN HONOLULU, WHEN OFFICIAL UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON RECORDS SHOW HER 2680 MILES AWAY IN SEATTLE ATTENDING CLASSES THAT SAME MONTH?

Hypothetical solution to the delimma

Mega-Bear Comparisons

Mega-Bear Comparisons

http://dshort.com/charts/mega-bear-comparisons.html?mega-bear-quartet-extended

Comparison of curves of crashes of stock market.

Moonbattery: Bailed Out Banks Paid Slick Willie $Millions for Speeches

Moonbattery: Bailed Out Banks Paid Slick Willie $Millions for Speeches

Four major banks, including one that collapsed, two that received federal bailout money and one that filed for bankruptcy this past September, paid former President Clinton $2.1 million for 13 speeches he delivered on their behalf between 2004-2007, according to Senate financial disclosure statements filed by Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.).

Citigroup paid Bill Clinton $700,000; Goldman Sachs paid $950,000; Lehman Brothers paid $300,000 and Merrill Lynch paid $175,000 to the former president for speeches during that time period. Sen. Clinton's 2008 financial disclosure reports are not yet available.

200811222725 | The Great Birth Certificate Scandal-Cover-Up of the 2008 Election | / | Editorial

200811222725 | The Great Birth Certificate Scandal-Cover-Up of the 2008 Election | / | Editorial

An Institution Dies [Updated] � td blog

An Institution Dies [Updated] � td blog

John Quincy Adams, the Sixth President of the United States and one of the founding fathers, states “But the indissoluble link of union between the people of the several States of this confederated nation is, after all, not in the RIGHT, but in the HEART. If the day should ever come (may Heaven avert it !) when the affections of the people of these States shall be alienated from each other, when the fraternal spirit shall give way to cold indifference, or collision of interests shall fester into hatred, the bonds of political association - will not long hold together parties no longer attracted by the magnetism of conciliated interests and kindly sympathies ; and far better will it be for the people of the disunited States to part in friendship with each other than to be held together by constraint. Then will be the time for reverting to the precedents which occurred at the formation and adoption of the Constitution, to form again a more perfect Union, by dissolving that which could no longer bind, and to leave the separated parts to be reunited by the law of political gravitation to the center.”

Samuel Adams, one of the founding fathers of the United States Constitution, states “The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.”

American Thinker: Why the Barack Obama Birth Certificate Issue Is Legitimate

American Thinker: Why the Barack Obama Birth Certificate Issue Is Legitimate

An Institution Dies [Updated] � td blog

An Institution Dies [Updated] � td blog

“Even the Hawaii Department of Home Lands does not accept a certified copy of a birth certificate as conclusive evidence for its homestead program. From its web site: ‘In order to process your application, DHHL utilizes information that is found only on the original Certificate of Live Birth, which is either black or green. This is a more complete record of your birth than the Certification of Live Birth (a computer-generated printout). Submitting the original Certificate of Live Birth will save you time and money since the computer-generated Certification requires additional verification by DHHL.’”

Website referenced: Applying for Hawaiian Home Lands

http://hawaii.gov/dhhl/applicants/appforms/applyhhl

This site lists the eligibility requirements to apply for a Hawaiian home lands homestead lease. They do not accept a computer generated printout as proof.

American Thinker article posted on FR:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2138710/posts

Four Questions For The Trojan Candidate � td blog

Four Questions For The Trojan Candidate � td blog
renee

TD, Judah, Another note on info. above. IDN Menteng 1 is a public, primary school. Elite, secular, elementary school. Public, but very competative and has exceptionally high standards. Located in one of the most affluent parts of Jakarta, Indonesia. Attracts mostly mid to upper class students, among them, several of the former Dictator Suharto’s grandchildren. Barack Obama was known there as Barry Obama. Very privledged. Classmates were the President Suharto’s grandchildren. Bet you had to have connections to go there.

Four Questions For The Trojan Candidate � td blog

Four Questions For The Trojan Candidate � td blog
Sources for comment

Four Questions For The Trojan Candidate � td blog

FourGrail Guardian : On another post I noted info on the Indonesian President Suharto. Article says more often then not in Indonesia, it was spelled Soeharto.The fact is that family was like a monarchy, and he was the biggest kleptocrat. I also noted the same pronounciation as Lolo Soerto. Lolo worked as a liason to this families’ oil interests and other countries. The names sound the same to me, so I got curious. Could Lolo be part of this Presidential family in Jakarta, Indonesia ? Isnt that where they lived also ? Look at the atmosphere of the photos of them in Indo.Very formal settings. Also,he died with a fortune up to 35 billion. He had 6 children, and over 100 family businesses the grown children still run. Several live in LA, one, 2 doors down from Rod Stewart. He took over Indo in 1965 I think. He then had a post coup massacre of 1/2 million Indonesians. He had little money then. He then spent many years cleaning out Indonesia, and setting up monopolies and questionable businesses there for his children. It is said at leat 73 billion passed through his hands from 1966-1999. This family still owns most luxury resorts in Bali. Isn’t that where Obama went for 3 months to write a book ? Lolo Soerto was a key liason between Mobil Stanvac and this family. I find it too coincidental. Grail guardian, you must be speaking of a different person then this. There was also alot of genocide in this country ( see Papua) story here on Td on an earlier thread. This guy even taxed workers and military for his foundations, which were rip off slush funds. The dynasty got taken down, but his children still own alot of Indonesia. There was alot of Western trade also. The new Indonesian government siezed 134 million from this family August 29.2008. They have been tracing stolen Indonesian money and this family many years, but most long ago hidden all over the world. See past stories online at : Time-Suharto Inc. as well as CNN- Indonesian Elections. There is tons more on this family. I think Lolo was probably a close relative, and the name has been spelled differently. I think this Presidential relationship has been covered up. If this is another “coincidence ” I will be really surprised. Alot of bad things happened in Indonesia while Suharto was the President. Judah and TD, will you see if you think there is some connection here that has been overlooked please ? Questions For The Trojan Candidate � td blog

Knowledge Is Power

Knowledge Is Power

Barack Hussein in Arabic means “the blessing of Hussein.” In Persian, Obama translates as “He [is] with us.” Thus does the name of the presumptive American president-elect, when combined with his physical attributes and geography, suggest that the End of Times is nigh – precisely what Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been predicting..

Boudicca's Voice: Living the Creed

Boudicca's Voice: Living the Creed

“I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed, a democracy in a republic, a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.

I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies.

-William Tyler Page, 1917

–Accepted by the United States House of Representatives on April 3, 1918.

Hog on Ice � � Obummer

Hog on Ice � � Obummer
on the election

What happened last night is a reminder that human beings are less powerful and capable than they think. Civilization is very complicated. There are millions of very slippery and unpredictable factors that influence its function. Although we try, no one–especially not voters–really understands how it works. Voters are incompetent; they always have been. They vote based on things like looks and charm, or because of crazy, discredited ideas they refuse to let go of, or because they make conscious choices to believe proven lies uttered by dishonest candidates. We often talk about the common sense of the American voter and how it will save us, but the truth is, that’s pride talking. We are just as clueless as people in hellholes like India and Haiti, when it comes to choosing leaders. Think about it. SOMEBODY elected Cynthia McKinney and David Duke. If people like that can be elected, Americans are capable of electing the next Hitler or Castro.

We are not prosperous and safe because we’re smarter than Europeans and Africans and Asians. It’s not because we’re a mongrel master race, although we tell ourselves that all the time. We do well because God guides us and watches over us. Last night, we saw how stupid we can be when he withdraws his influence. We elected a nobody with very poor qualifications. A man who was largely sponsored (and openly supported) by our enemies. It was one of the dumbest things ever done by voters in a democratic nation.

Why did this happen? It’s obvious. We begged for it. We are proud and venal and rebellious. We have killed millions of our children in their mother’s wombs. We think sexual morality is obsolete. We are greedy and cruel. We like to go to church, but many of us only feel that way as long as pastors tell us Jesus is more or less like Oprah; a warm, maternal, fawning, obsequious presence who wants us to have tons of self-esteem regardless of our immorality. We are exhausting God’s patience.

Obama’s election is a bad sign. If God can permit us to choose a flashy liar over John McCain, he can also permit us to have an economic depression. He can permit us to be conquered militarily. He can allow Al Qaeda to explode nuclear weapons here. He can take his blessings elsewhere; maybe to Africa and South Korea. We could end up like Greece or Italy. Or Cuba. This may be the beginning of our decline into true socialism and the misery it always brings.

I feel pretty good today, but it has nothing to do with the election. I am not optimistic about America. We may have jumped the shark. This may be our Samson moment. Our divine protection may be gone, and we may be entering into a new age of mediocrity and humiliation.

Obama will get to appoint a large number of federal judges, and they will reinterpret our laws, including the Constitution, to advance Obama’s Marxist notions. Maybe he won’t get to appoint Supreme Court justices. So what? Non-lawyers never seem to realize that the district and appellate judges are much more powerful in the daily lives of Americans. What if he does appoint a couple of justices? Kiss the second amendment goodbye. Forget property rights. And the first amendment will be gutted.

Obama’s underlings will work to bring back the LBJ era. Look forward to higher taxes, more handouts, more damage to our national work ethic, and soaring deficits.

I’m not depressed, because I know my welfare is not directly dependent on the welfare of the nation. I know where the good things in my life come from. But I hate to see America get a spanking like this.

My advice for the next four years is to be astute and zealous in your dissent, but to keep it respectful. Don’t permit the existence of Obama Derangement Syndrome. We have to try to win people over; we’re not going to do it by mimicking Ann Coulter. Pray that God will guide Obama and his administration. Pray for America. Try to be good. Be a witness for God, to increase the number of his people here. And look out for yourself and your family, because very hard times may be right around the corner.

The Winter of Our Discontent

The Winter of Our Discontent

Read all, but:

The Bush administration used the 9/11 attacks as an excuse for the biggest increase in military spending and police power since WWII.

Now it is using the market correction (caused largely by its own interventions in the credit industry) to expand state power in the financial area. Half of all Americans pay their mortgages, directly or indirectly, to the federal government. Most older Americans depend, in whole or in part, on money from the government to live. Now, Americans depend on the government to keep house prices up - by subsidizing demand for mortgage backed securities - and to keep up stock and bond prices too - by buying up Wall Street's mistakes. Homeowners want protection from their own bad judgment. Investors want protection from Mr. Market. The old want free medicine. The young want free schooling. The unemployed want jobs and money. The rich want politicians in their pockets. The poor want the rich's money. Investors, homeowners, pensioners - is there anyone left in America who isn't trying to pick someone else's pocket?