Mover Mike

One of my favorite poets, Stanley Kunitz, turned 100 today the 29th of July. Never will I forget the sting of that slap or the pain he still feels years after the event:

The Portrait

My mother never forgave my father
for killing himself,
especially at such an awkward time
and in a public park,
that spring
when I was waiting to be born.
She locked his name
in her deepest cabinet
and would not let him out,
though I could hear him thumping.
When I came down from the attic
with the pastel portrait in my hand
of a long-lipped stranger
with a brave moustache
and deep brown level eyes,
she ripped it into shreds
without a single word
and slapped me hard.
In my sixty-fourth year
I can feel my cheek
still burning.

Stanley Kunitz

Happy 100th birthday, Mr. Kunitz. You prove that poetry doesn't have to be obscure to be good. And just because the ordinary guy or girl can understand it, doesn't make it bad.

Interesting posts at Homespun Bloggers:

Mr. Minority - MSM vs Christians

Those Secular Humanist and Moral Relativists hate the thought that Christians believe in absolute truths and absolute Right and Wrong, Good and Evil which lead to moral values that they cannot nor will not accept.

Pawigoview - Political Correctness

We do not want any racial profiling, in fact, we would be so politically correct and afraid of offending a group that we almost avoid them when doing random searches.

The Pink Flamingo Bar and Grill - Hugh Hewitt takes the Norquist definition of Islam hook line and sinker...

Without a valid opposition party this country is in extreme danger due to the lack of debate regarding exactly who we are fighting.

Release the Hounds - Profiling: It's Time Has Come

If the KKK was going through a resurgence in the deep South and began setting off bombs carried in backpacks onto buses and trains in Montgomery, Alabama, who should the law enforcement authorities "randomly" search? Black males? Asian females? Old Jewish grandmothers?

Eric Grumbles Before the Grave - Can You Imagine?

Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, What should be the reward of such sacrifices? Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plow, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom — go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen! — Samuel Adams

THOUGHTS BY SEAWITCH - Trouble on the Horizon

Iran now has solid-fuel capability for its missiles.

Ace of Trump - Where did all the moderate Muslims go?

The truth is there does not exist an identifiable body of Muslims, substantive in number or an outright majority, who could be described as "moderate" by their repudiation of Muslim extremists.

Nickie Goomba - Biggest American Disappointment: John McCain

In the upcoming presidential contest, McCain will end up wearing the fool’s cap while blaming everybody but himself. In his attempt to take the “middle ground”, John McCain is destined to slide into the big cosmic butt crack.

hubs and spokes - Jaw. Dropping.

Just as Senate approaches the final vote on the gay 'marriage' bill, C-38, Canada's national public radio CBC Radio has aired a commentary by a retired professor from the Royal Military College calling for state control over religion, specifically Catholicism.

the bad hair blog - What do terrorists want? asks Daniel Pipes

In nearly all cases, the jihadi terrorists have a patently self-evident ambition: to establish a world dominated by Muslims, Islam, and Islamic law, the Shari'a. Or, again to cite the Daily Telegraph, their "real project is the extension of the Islamic territory across the globe, and the establishment of a worldwide ‘caliphate' founded on Shari'a law."

Dr. Sanity - Anticipation

An alternative method of coping with with a threatening event is Denial. As a psychological defense mechanism, Denial is one of the most primitive (sometimes called "psychotic") and immature mechanisms available to the psyche. Its goal is identical to Anticipation, which is to attenuate anxiety and depression about a future event

I hope you have enjoyed this tour of Homespun Bloggers. I have enjoyed reading each of the most recently updated blogs.

Update:

Sen. Salmon Portland Chase, born in 1808, ran for President against Sen. Rep. Abraham Lincoln (R-IL) and lost. After his defeat, the Ohio legislature decided to return Chase to the U. S. Senate in 1861, where he served but two days before resigning to become Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury.

During the Civil War, he faced the daunting task of financing the Union war effort and maintaining the nation’s solvency.

Chase brought to the office his fear of monopolies, distrust of bankers, a preference for revenue tariffs and a belief in hard money. His principles would be tested by an empty treasury coffer and a long civil war that would cost the nation more than twenty billion dollars.

...Lincoln placed the entire problem of financing the Civil War to Salmon Chase. Against his beliefs, and believing that issuing greenbacks to be unconstitutional, but with the debts from the war mounting and not being paid, Chase lobbied the congress to pass the Legal Tender Acts of 1862 and 1863. This enabled the printing of paper money as a legal substitute for gold and silver for pre-existing debts including taxes, internal duties, personal debts, and excise taxes. debts.

'In God We Trust' was printed on every piece of U.S. currency for the first time in 1864 by order of the Secretary of the Treasury. The face of the Treasury Secretary graced the one dollar dominations. The most common of the bills, it was the one the public was most like to possess. Thereby keeping Mr. Chase's image in the mind of the potential voters in the next presidential elections. He was nick named 'Old Mr. Greenbacks.' Chase was a constant critic of Lincoln’s policies, inundating the President with unsolicited advice and proffering his resignation four times in fits of pique. In October 1864, Lincoln finally accepted the Secretary’s resignation, but in December appointed him as the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a position he held until his death in 1873.

Five days after the Legal Tender Act was passed Susan P. Hepburn tried to settle a debt she owed to Henry Griswold of over $11,000 with governmental notes, notes which had depreciated more than fifty percent against gold and silver. She was sued by Griswold for payment in Gold and the suit made its way to the Supreme court. In 1870, Hepburn v. Griswold was decided in a 5-3 decision. Now Chief Justice Chase would disown his own offspring and declare the Legal Tender Acts unconstitutional. The Court until this time had rarely found an act of Congress unconstitutional. Chase wrote:

that such laws were inconsistent with the spirit of the Constitution, which prohibited the states from passing "any ... law impairing the obligation of contracts." Further, an act compelling holders of contracts that called for payment in gold or silver to accept as legal tender "mere promises to pay dollars" was unconstitutional because it deprived "such persons of property without due process of law" under the Fifth Amendment

In 1871, the Court, with two new justices on the bench, reversed itself with the legal tender cases, Knox v. Lee and Parker v. Davis, and declared the Legal Tender Acts constitutional. It said Congress had the power "to coin money and regulate its value" with the objects of self-preservation and the achievement of a more perfect union. As to the argument that the acts indirectly impaired the obligation of contracts, the Court said that "no obligation of a contract can extend to the defeat of legitimate government authority." Since the acts were within the spirit of the Constitution, Congress had not exceeded its authority.

The two cases decided by the Supreme Court in 1871 upheld the constitutionality of paper money issued by the U.S. Treasury. The Legal Tender Acts of 1862 and 1863 made paper money a legal substitute for gold and silver, including for the payment of preexisting debts.

Stephen J. Field, was the most eloquent of the new dissenters:

... The power to commit violence, perpetrate injustice, take private property by force without compensation to the owner, and compel the receipt of promises to pay in place of money, may be exercised, as it often has been, by irresponsible authority, but it cannot be considered as belonging to a government founded upon law.... From the decision of the Court I see only evil likely to follow."

It is amazing to me that Salmon P Chase would go against his principles and urge passing of the Legal Tender Act by Congress. The ends justify the means! Then have the courage to find the same law unconstitutional. It is amazing to me that the Fifth Amendment has been eroded even further in Kelo V New London.

I don't blame Susan P. Hepburn for taking advantage of the depreciating currency, we all do it today. We go into debt and pay the lender off in cheaper dollars. Since 1973, when Nixon severed the last Gold connection, our currency has depreciated 95%! I don't blame the Chinese for floating the Yuan. The dollar has fallen from 122 to 80 before this last small rally. In 1913, Congress passed a law establishing the Federal Resrve System, essentially our money system is now run by a cartel of banks. By passing the Federal Reserve Act, Congress gave up its power "to coin money and regulate its value"!

Update:

Update:

Maxedoutmama with her post, Short But Definite, really brought me up short when she links to Dr. Sanity

We, the nations of the world, are in a strange war. It is strange because its outcome hinges primarily on whether the side being attacked will admit that war has been declared against it and decides to fight back.

In A Crescent Over Europe? by Peter Grier

Europe today is about five percent Muslim (excluding Turkey), but the Islamic population is growing rapidly. Moreover, Europe’s 23 million Muslims are concentrated in a handful of nations and in a few urban areas within those nations. The number of European Muslims might double by 2015. (Map by Zaur Eylanbekov)

Maxedoutmama goes on to post about "the trend of mass rapes committed by immigrant Muslims in several Western countries." In Norway, where it seems politicians have tried to keep many rapes quiet

Put simply: it is OK to rape a Scandinavian girl, but not a Muslim girl. The Scandinavian girl does not have full value as a human being, because she is not a Muslim.

Pytheas Online says

Recent polls in Britain indicate that at least six percent of British Muslims feel that the recent London bombings were "fully justified" and at least twenty four percent feel some level of sympathy with the bombers. If these results reflect the actual views of British Muslims, then more than 100,000 Muslims living in Britain support terrorist attacks on the nation in which they live and roughly 400,000 sympathize with the terrorists. Given that it only takes a handful of fanatics to kill hundreds of people, these results should truly frighten non-Muslim Britons.

Neal Boortz says

We have a new name for the war on terror. It seems that the Bush Administration wants to call it "a global struggle against violent extremism."

Let's call it what it is: A war on Islam, the Crusades never ended. Until we do call it by its rightful name, our civilization will be extremely vulnerable. We may lose this war because, as TF Stern pointed out,

In our pride and our abandoning of Christian values, once an integral part of the fabric of our everyday lives, we have abandoned the sure footing that was intended to guide our society through all times, good and bad.

You know that the Chinese floated the Yuan, and from now on, the Yuan will float against a basket of currencies. The odd thing is that our major financial institutions think they know what's in the bag, but judging by their answers, they don't!

In Why is "BASKET" of currency for Chinese a mystery? at CONTRARIAN ADVISOR MARKET COMMENTARY, here are some of the possible answers courtesy of Reuters:

DRESDNER KLEINWORT WASSERSTEIN - 70 percent dollar share and 15 percent each for euro and Japanese yen

UBS - 70 percent share, the Japanese yen a 20 percent share and the euro a 10 percent share

BANK OF NEW YORK - the euro, yen and the dollar would be given an equal weighting of 20 percent each and the Korean won and Taiwan dollar would have 10 percent each.

There are many more estimates, but you get the drift.

The question again is why the mystery?

Once again I'm seeing a lot of interest in the interview of Julian Robertson and Ron Insana. I posted about the lies that were told about the interview in Ron Insana/Julian Robertson vs Al Martin/Julian Robertson.

Let me repeat. The things attributed to Julian Robertson and utter collapse are not true.

Robertson said he was more disturbed than at any time in his life. He said the American consumer is out of gas and involved in the housing bubble that puts his dwelling at risk. He doesn't see any way out, when dollar weakens. He expects the Fed to inflate way out of the problem. It's possible we could have a soft landing like in Japan, where their market went from 40,000 to 7,000. There was no hard landing in Japan. That is about all he said. Any other comments about the economy were not in the interview!

PS: Kenlet has a great post about what happens when a housing bubble bursts and he correctly capsules the Robertson interview!

Update:

I am reading Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity by Nancy R. Pearcey.

I am not finished, but Pearcy argues that many of us may be Christian on Sunday, but are not taught how to apply our Christianity to our everyday life for the other six days.

TF Stern posts Saturday in A line drawn in the sand

In our pride and our abandoning of Christian values, once an integral part of the fabric of our everyday lives, we have abandoned the sure footing that was intended to guide our society through all times, good and bad.

Which leads me to Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) questioning Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr.:

Roberts was asked what he would do if the law required a ruling that his church considers immoral. Roberts is a devout Catholic and is married to an ardent pro-life activist.

Roberts didn't have a prepared answer and said something about recusing himself. - Jonathan Turley in the Los Angeles Times, 7/25/05

Last year, Scalia chastised Catholic judges who balk at imposing the death penalty - another immoral act according to the church: 'The choice for a judge who believes the death penalty to be immoral is resignation, rather than simply ignoring duly enacted constitutional laws and sabotaging the death penalty.

Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn says Roberts wasn't comfortable talking about how his Catholic faith influences his life and work.

Seems TF Stern has pretty well nailed it!

Update:

The Carnival of the Capitalists is up hosted by Political Calculations. Both Mover Mike and Landfair Furniture are represented.

Carnival of Liberty IV is up hosted by Eric Grumbles Before the Grave

Bev and I took some time off from work and blogging to visit friends in Tumalo and together visit Crater Lake, about a two hour car ride to the south from Bend, now 65,000 people. We had lunch at the newly remodeled lodge and then a drive around the rim stopping where tickets are sold for the boat rides. Unfortunately, tickets were sold out for the day. It has been at least 20 years since I visited this scenic wonder. The water in the crater, six miles across, is still the most intense blue. We all marveled at how tall the mountain must have been before it blew its top some 7000 years ago.

At about 3:30 we made out way out of the park and east through some of the most beautiful country to the little town of Silver Lake for dinner. Silver Lake sits about 100 miles from Crater Lake and 115 miles from Bend. The town is out in the desert and the restaurant, Cowboy Dining Tree, is about four miles outside of town. When we arrived, we saw a full parking lot, a prominent Tepee, and a collection of one story buildings looking like they had been pushed together to house the cowboy dining. It's rustic! Electricity is supplied by generator and all cooking is done outside on some large barbeques. Paul and Shelly Strong bought the restaurant about two years ago and are now expanding on the restaurant's attractiveness by adding accomodations and camping and soon a sheepherders wagon ride.

Why do people come from far-off to Silver Lake? The Cowboy Dining Tree provides some of the largest meals I have witnessed. We started out with lemonade or ice tea served in mason jars and a big bowl of chilled tossed salad for the four of us. You can have your salad with their ranch dressing or honey mustard. Next comes homemade rolls and a big bowl of cowboy beans. The bowl is the size of the salad bowl and you are expected to ladle it out to your party. These Cowboy Beans have a bit of fire to them and are cooked with pieces of steak meat that melts in your mouth. Then your waitress serves you a baked potato and a tenderloin that weighs somewhere between 25 and 35 ounces. The steak was done perfectly with the just faintest pinkish hue. It had been well aged and a slightly hot rub had been applied to the meat. Your wait staff keeps your mason jars full as you attempt to wrestle this steer on your plate (if you are not a steak eater, you can call ahead and Paul will put a whole chicken on the fire for you.

Rachel Wilson was our waitress, bubbling over with a joy for life, inspired by the likes of Hank Williams and Patsy Kline, she regaled us with songs from that era, when I was a kid, when my mother listened to the Grand Ole Opry. This young lady has been noticed. Soon there will be a recording party at the Cowboy Dining Tree introducing her first CD.

When you have the remaining steak tucked away for the trip home, (and I do mean tucked away. Most diners leave carrying leftovers, enough for two more dinners) out comes the Marionberry shortcake; heavy cream is available. What's the bill for this fantastic meal and the reason there were people from New Zealand there that evening? About $20 per person!

While we were waiting for dinner, a number of guests would practice calf roping on a wooden calf. After it quieted down, my friend Bill, who is a cowboy and a noted horseman, practised some on his own. You could see he had been around a lasso. He finished and we were standing there watching, when a young lady, confidently walked up to him, stuck out her chest, batted her eyes and said, "Mister, I've been watching you. Can you show me how to rope?" It's nice to know my "old" friend still has it!

For Reservation at the Cowboy Dining Tree in Silver Lake call 541-576-2426.

Update:

WALB-TV reports Wendal Nason. Jr. of Albany, NY, called 911 requesting an ambulance for a severed leg. He admitted he had cut off his leg with a Skil Saw. He had never wanted his legs and now his right matched his left leg, which "she" had cut off in 2000. That's right!

The neighbors and subsequently police refer to Nason as "she." That's because Wendal Nason is a transvestite who prefers to be called Sandra.

Wonder if "she" cut that off, too?

Wonder if Skil has any liability?

Wonder if "she" voted for Hillary?

Mayor Tom Potter going for two defeats early in his first term, seeks permanent fix to school funding problem by floating the proposal of a regional tax for metro-area schools. According to The Oregonian, spending for the next two years is expected to be be between $5.22 Billion and $5.27 Billion statewide, $300 million more than the last two years.

Multnomah County has a little problem beginning in 2006-2007. A special tax expires at the end of 2005, leaving a $50 Million hole in the state's largest school district budget. I am sure officials are working on bringing the tax up for a vote to extend. However, the tax on a home valued at $300,000, will go down approximately $850 at expiration! How many in Multnomah County will reinstate that amount of tax? The state's largest school district sure could use the $100 Million raised in the county, but shipped to the less fortunate and smaller counties in the state. Where do we get these socialistic ideas:

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!" - Karl Marx

There is even some concern and a question, can you imagine, of exploring whether this regional tax to benefit the metro-area schools, can be assured that all or most of the money stays within the district! How selfish!

No where in the discussion is there an answer to one big question. I understand why Beaverton and Hillsboro need more money for schools. Their school population is exploding. But the population of the state's largest school district has been flat to declining for years. Why do you need more money when the state's largest school district's school board keeps consolidating local schools.

Good luck, Mayor Potter. This is number two for you. What have you got up your sleeve for number three?

Looking like he had been "bitch" slapped, Portland City Commissioner Erik Sten, on the front page of The Oregonian, concedes defeat in trying to get the City of Portland to take over Portland General Electric (PGE) from Enron, "unless something very material changes..."

Portland officials Sten and Mayor Tom Potter wanted to spend almost $3 Billion to publicly own a utility serving the area for much of the last century. After Enron settles with creditors, stock in PGE will once again be publicly traded.

Business was starting to organize opposition to the takeover and always questioned the city's ability to run the utility and cut rates by $100 Million. Government owning and running and "saving" us money don't generally get mentioned in the same breath.

When Enron called a halt to the negotiations over the $2.65 Billion bid, Mayor Potter stopped short of calling for condemnation, which would use the city's powers of eminent domain to take over PGE's assets against its will. The city floated the option in the past but has always seen condemnation as a legally complex and politically volatile route. One lesson to be learned in this: in the case of eminent domain, to fight, make it legally complex and politically volatile!

Update:

Here's a hoot! Early, early this morning I posted on Mover Mike about the growth of blogs in 9,000,000 Blogs! In the post I paid homage to Hugh Hewitt and his book Blog and shared my discovery of an update to his book, an article titled Small Biz Blogging Joins The Marketing Mix. The article points out

...the majority of these (9,000,000 blogs) are personal, not business-related, but blogging is beginning to catch on in businesses large and small as well. A survey of small business owners by HP earlier this year found that 10 percent have included blogs as part of their marketing plans, with an additional 16 percent planning to invest in blogs over the next three years.

In addition, I said

This article covers a number of areas:

# Business Blogs: Getting More Visitor Traffic
# Small Business Blogging
# 5 Key Questions (You’ve Been Dying) To Ask About Business Blogs
# directory of small business blogs

The directory of small business blogs was so interesting that after I published the post, I clicked on the link for further research. I found that the mission of Blogs: Small Business was "This blog directory is dedicated to serving small business." I thought this would be perfect for our blog Landfair Furniture which serves the interior designer and the retail public, by promoting individual designers, help them keep current with trends, educate them about marketing, promote a web presence, and for the retail offers insight into the variety of interior designers, but also educates them on how furniture is made, how to save money, etc..

Our marketing plan was to offer value, that would translate into loyalty and foot or web traffic. Our unique proposition was not duplicated in our local area by anyone and we had garnered media attention with our plan. I applied for membership to Denise O'Berry Founder, Blogs: Small Business. It wasn't easy to find the right catagory from the ones O'berry listed:

Accounting & Cash Flow(12)
Advertising & Sales(15)
Affiliate Marketing(11)
Business Networking(8)
Email Marketing(6)
Entrepreneurship(22)
Hiring & Outsourcing(4)
Home-Based Biz Tips(17)
How To Blog(16)
Internet Marketing(36)
Legal Issues(6)
Local Marketing(10)
News & Notes(10)
Operations & Management(19)
Publicity & Media Relations(7)
Search Engine Optimization(6)
Security & Fraud(3)
Tools(5)

I chose News & Notes. It seemed the best fit for Landfair Furniture. I was told in the instructions that I would need to wait 36 48 hours for approval. They needed to make sure we were legitimate. Well, within an hour, I received an email from O'Berry, rejecting Landfair Furniture. No reason, just a note that our application had been rejected.

I wrote back asking for an explanation. She emailed me saying that talking about wightloss (sic) and promoting our furniture were not acceptable qualifications.

I have now emailed her a response:

Your mission says "This blog directory is dedicated to serving small business."

You don't even have a catagory for me.

We cater primarily to the interior designer. She or he knows about designing, but is not good at marketing. Few have a web site. We have urged them to get web sites, failing that, to start a blog about their business. We established a Top 20 Designers for 2004 and then we publish interviews of these designers on our blog to promote their business. In addition we are open to retail. Look at some of the subjects about which we have posted:

Can Your Accent Tables Do Tricks?
Rowe: Change Can Be Painful!
"More" from Decker Marketing
Christopher Bates of fauxcade
16 Master Bedroom Mistakes to Avoid!
What's "Room in a Bag"?
More About "Green Design"
The Phillips Collection at Highpoint
What are Performance Fabrics?
FURNITURE 101: A CONSUMER'S GUIDE TO SMART SHOPPING

THE INSIDE STORY: HOW UPHOLSTERED FURNITURE IS BUILT
A to Z Buyers Guide
Do you sell on eBay?
Who Be You?
MarketingSherpa's 10 Best Blogs for 2005
Designers Need A Web Presence!
Top Designers of 2004: Interview with Marcie Harris
Values of Designmaster
Get a Blog!

Top 10 Home Decor Trends for 2005
Gillian Drummond, Comfort and Convenience
10 steps to creating a successful business blog.
The Business Journal is Out and Talks with the Landfairs
Top Designers of 2004: Interview with Lisa Seung
Why Hire an Interior Designer?
Top Designers of 2004: Interview with Nancy Zieg
Interior Design Event with Darryl Ware

Top Designers of 2004: Interview with Carol Cornwell
Lip-Sticking and Smart Couple Online
10 Furniture Shopping Tips that Will Help You Save
Lip-Sticking and Diva Marketing
Woman's-Net
Good article in the Clarion-Ledger Take furniture on test drive before making final decision

(O'Berry)You say:

"What kind of blogs belong in this directory? Any blog that provides tips, tactics, strategies, or ideas to help small business owners and entrepreneurs, and solo professionals. Topics can be marketing ideas, customer service, operations and management, leadership -- any category that we have listed in the directory."

On that basis we qualify, but I need to make it (our blog) interesting. I want people to come back every day. I can't keep hammering on an issue, like get a web presence. I can do research for them, expose them to the latest trends in color and furniture.

I put that weight loss article in because I thought our audience would find it interesting, and you know what, our traffic to our business blog jumped 10 fold! So I followed it up with a couple more testing the appeal. I am always testing to see what our audience is interested in.

We are also giving local artists, designers, and related businesses free exposure by listing them in our blogroll. Nobody in our market is doing what we are doing and bottom line, you could learn from us, by adding another catagory for businesses that are using the web, technology and blogs.

Ok, Denise O'Berry, I have made my case why Landfair Furniture (the blog) should be included in Blogs: SmallBusiness. I added Blogs: Small Business to my blogroll. Now I would like to hear from you why I should want to be included in Blogs: Small Business. How will our customers and designers working with Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery be better off if we are included in Blogs: Small Business?

I suspect this is the typical reaction to today's news that China is floating the Yuan higher.

Furniture importers had mixed reaction to news the Chinese government no longer will link the value of its currency, the yuan, to the U.S. dollar.

Ultimately, the change could mean price increases on furniture and other goods imported from China. But industry experts don’t expect any immediate price hikes.

The National Association of Manufacturers', President John Engler said

"China's new currency system offers the possibility for continued upward movement of the yuan in the coming weeks and months, and that is what we will be looking for."

...snip...

"But for now, we are pleased that the fixed peg is gone and that a new system has been created. We hope everyone will join us in urging China to use it in a manner that truly reflects market pressures.(all emphasis added)"

These are not stupid people! However, we have just started down a road that initially feels good, but will turn rocky. We still need to import $2 Billion a day to buy our treasuries. If the world won't do it at this interest rate, there will be a higher interest rate that will attract capital.

The Chinese have just started to float their currency, so far just 2%, and you can hear in the pink cloud speech, "that this will barely hurt. If we manage our end well, you won't feel anything." How is this going to work if most experts agree that the Yuan was undervalued by 27% to 40%.

Jim Sinclair of Mineset said in a special email bulletin,

This is an undeniable move away from the US dollar and will impact the thinking of those central banks who have already or are preparing to diversify out of complete reliance on the US dollar as a reserve currency. This is what gave the markets the smell of a bottom in gold and a top in the dollar yesterday.

In a special evening update the Wall street Journal said,

But market forces should eventually push China to revalue more; as hot money pours into China, the yuan will need to rise in order to avoid inflation. "Speculators have their foot in the door now, and they're going to push it open as far as they can," (Alan) Ruskin, (research director at market research firm 4CAST Inc) said. U.S. politicians will also not be satisfied with a mere 2% increase. David Gilmore, partner at Foreign Exchange Analytics, said China might let the currency appreciate another 3% by mid-October, to keep the Treasury Department from officially labeling it a currency manipulator and slapping it with penalties. And China's move could have echo effects. Malaysia immediately cut its dollar peg, and other Asian nations could follow suit. The worst-case scenario is that U.S. Treasury bond prices would fall as Asian economies unloaded their holdings, pushing interest rates higher and hurting the U.S. economy. "Far from being the panacea that American politicians proclaim, China's decision to alter its peg could be the pin that finally pricks America's bubble economy," Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital, said in a note. That's not the most likely scenario — but it highlights the long-term risks.(emphasis added)

God deliver us from politicians and fools!

Update:

Back in November I posted in Porter Goss and the Rogue Weasels. I quoted Dr. Jack Wheeler.

He (Wheeler) believes there are leftists, "Rogue Weasels", in the CIA who believe, like the State Department, that the way to manage disputes between countries is to talk, accomodate, and appease. These "Rogue Weasels" are not happy with the war on terrorism, and want Kerry elected.

In The American Thinker, on July 20th, there is an article About that 500 tons of yellow cake... written by Rick Moran who is the proprietor of the blog Rightwing Nuthouse

All of this is important to remember when thinking about that 500 tons of yellow cake uranium sitting under seal at Al-Tuwaitha. How worried was the CIA that Saddam would someday be able to use that material to construct a bomb? That question goes to the heart of the current controversy over not just who may have “outed” a covert CIA operative, but whether the Administration was trying to discredit Mr. Wilson so that his charge that the White House manipulated intelligence to fool the American people into support for war would also be disbelieved.

Why would the White House want to discredit Mr. Wilson? Given that the Mr. Bush was in the midst of tight Presidential campaign, it’s obvious that politics had something to do with it. But the effort by the White House to push back against who Mr. Wilson was running interference for – the CIA - was at bottom what this conflict has been about from the start.

The Moran writes about how hyper sensitive the CIA was to criticism that there were no WMD's as they stated. According to the WSJ, what the CIA was doing, with their leaks and insubordination, was engaging in a policy debate. Connecting the dots, it reads like the work of the "Rogue Weasels"!

Update:

From the WSJ,

China said it will no longer peg its currency to the U.S. dollar but instead will let the yuan float in a tight band against a basket of foreign currencies. The yuan has been strengthened, effective immediately, to a rate of 8.11 yuan to the U.S. dollar -- compared to the 8.28 yuan it has been set at for more than a decade. (emphasis added)

At 8:45AM PDT, DJIA is down 63 and interest rates are up 10 ticks to 4.25% on the 10 Year Treasury.

My life changed dramatically after I read Hugh Hewitt's book, Blog as I wrote back in January, 2005 in I'm buzzing...After Reading "BLOG"

I am amazed at the metaphor Hewitt uses, comparing the blog explosion and its effect on the MSM to Martin Luther challenging the supremacy of the Catholic Church with the aid of the Guttenberg press. Imagine in the space of a few short years almost 5,000,000 "newspapers" have been started and we decide, each of us, what story gets top billing each moment.

Today I came across the article Small Biz Blogging Joins The Marketing Mix

Blogging is growing so fast it's hard to get a handle on the numbers. Recently, BusinessWeek estimated that there were nearly 9 million blogs out there, a number that is growing at the rate of a whopping 40,000 per day. Of course, the majority of these are personal, not business-related, but blogging is beginning to catch on in businesses large and small as well. A survey of small business owners by HP earlier this year found that 10 percent have included blogs as part of their marketing plans, with an additional 16 percent planning to invest in blogs over the next three years. Those are interesting stats.

Man, have the numbers changed since Hewitt's book. This article covers a number of areas:
# Business Blogs: Getting More Visitor Traffic
# Small Business Blogging
# 5 Key Questions (You’ve Been Dying) To Ask About Business Blogs
# directory of small business blogs

We use our blogs to promote our business and our customers' businesses, and hopefully give you more, when you surf away, than you surfed in with.

That Jack! Earlier this month Jack Bog's Blog had a new ribbon to focus attention on obesity. Tonight he has a new international symbol for marriage:

"Oh come on sweetie. It's not for you. See it's denominated in Euro's!"

I haven't said much about the price action of Gold for awhile. I caught Richard Russell of his Dow Theory Letters Inc. (by subscription only) write this today:

Each time the (Rate of Change) ROC drops to around minus 4 or 5, gold seems to bottom. On the latest decline of ROC to about minus 4, the price of gold was higher than it was at the last oversold spot. This is a plus. The suggestion is that gold is oversold at a higher level than when it was last oversold, and as I said, this is a plus. As a result, gold should now be ready to move higher.

Here's is a point and figure chart of the continuous contract:

It appears that there is real strong support here at $415-420 (column of 0's) and a breakout would be at $445 (the last high-column of x's was at $440). The current Stockcharts.com target is $480!

From Cnn, Quake sounds reveal Earth 'ripping apart'

"It's really quite an eerie sound to hear the Earth ripping apart like that. We hear it on smaller earthquakes quite frequently but something of this scale that goes on for eight minutes is very much unprecedented," said Maya Tolstoy, a marine geophysicist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

Oceanographer: Noise 'gave me the chills'. CNN online has a video with sound of the quake>

From Hyscience,

I received this by email from a friend that spent time in Indonesia as a project manager for tsunami relief. This little girl is at the PHUKET HOSPITAL and does not remember her own name or anything about herself. She has lost her parents. She was a victim of the tidal wave disaster in Phuket, Thailand and no one has come forward to identify her. The hospital is hoping that if her picture and the message gets distributed around the world, someone will recognize her.

Bloggers, please re-post this and help to pass it on throughout the Internet. Your contribution could be the one that solves this little girl's problem. Even if you are one of the people who believes that it is always someone else's obligation to help the misfortunate, please know that forwarding this will cost you nothing. Let's help!! Please also forward this information by email to everyone you can. The contact information for the little girl is: Alana Alcock St Paul’s Administrator 28 Symonds Street, Auckland PO Box 6349, Wellesley Street, Auckland Phone: +64 9 373 3268 Fax: +64 9 379 8869 Email: alana@stpauls.org.nz Web: www.stpauls.org.nz

From the SF Chronicle, Inmate on Death Row suspected of taking lethal injection of heroin

A convicted murderer awaiting execution at San Quentin State Prison has died of an apparent heroin overdose — making him California's first inmate to OD on Death Row.

Nicholas Rodriguez, a 27-year-old Los Angeles gang member, was sentenced to die in 2001 for shooting two teenagers to death while fleeing a robbery and for strangling a fellow gang member and gouging out his eyes before dumping the body in a canyon.

Gracias, Nicholas, for saving the state of California some money! Muy Bien!

Oh, by the way, if you can't keep drugs out of prison, how the hell are you going to keep drugs out of the US?

I wrote yesterday, that since the Alliance for Justice was against John Roberts as Supreme Court nominee, at first glance Roberts suits me just fine. My knee jerk reaction is now being tested. Ann Coulter is against him. Complaining that while he has written articles and argued against Roe v Wade, those are not necessarily his views, but the views of his client. Now, I am confused!

With that said, you must read Iowahawk. He has a form you can fill out, He or She Is The Wrong Man or Woman For The Court. In a neat bit of tongue in cheek, it goes well with the Alliance for Justice. Here's an excerpt:

The Progressive Action Network For American Progress is extremely concerned by today's news that President Bush has selected ___JOHN ROBERTS___ as his nominee for the vacancy on the United States Supreme Court. Unlike outgoing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the widely respected and admired moderate consensus-building sensible mainstream compromisist, ___JOHN ROBERTS___ has a shocking record of extremely extreme fringe legal positions that fill us with grave concerns about ___HIS___ fitness for this critically crucial office.

Rockstar INXS, my votes:

Heather

J.D.

Deanna

Jordis

and MIG

Rock On!

Pres. George Bush selects John G. Roberts Jr. for the Supreme court.

The Alliance for Justice said

At this time, Alliance for Justice cannot support Judge Roberts’ elevation to the Supreme Court. While we will be conducting a complete analysis of his record on and off the bench, an initial review has led to serious concerns about whether he will be fair, independent and will protect the rights and freedoms of all Americans.

Who is the AFJ?

The Alliance for Justice is a national association of environmental, civil rights, mental health, women's, children's and consumer advocacy organizations. Since its inception in 1979, the Alliance has worked to advance the cause of justice for all Americans, strengthen the public interest community's ability to influence public policy, and foster the next generation of advocates.

At first glance, it looks like Pres. Bush has picked the right guy for me!

Update:

Should the government require us to do something when it is for our own good? I remember when seatbelts came out in cars. My first wife and I had seat belts installed in our Ford before taking off to the beach on our honeymoon. I don't know if they were required in 1966, but we had survived a collision just prior to being married.

We had entered an intersection in our Ford and were immediately hit on the passenger side by a Lincoln Continental driven by a drunk going 60 mph. We both were wearing seat belts and the custom at the time was for her to sit in the middle on the bench seat next to me (the driver). She was knocked unconscious and the car was hurled across the intersection into a rock wall.

I have always worn my seat belt. It is a routine. Get seated, buckle up, and start the car. The law is, "Click it or ticket!" I remember the stink when laws were passed to make helmets required for motorcycles and then bicyclists started wearing helmets.

I was reminded of all of this by Steve Duin's column in The Oregonian, Trauma nurses unveil the end of the road. On a Tuesday night 120 people gather at Legacy Emanuel Hospital. Ticketed for not wearing a seat belt, they were a pretty belligerent lot. They were there just to save $59 on a $94 ticket asking all sorts of dumb questions and complaining about the law. That's when Shelly Campbell, trauma room nurse, said, "We get tired of seeing people die," and proceeded to show the attendees graphic pictures of accidents involving people who did not wear seat belts.

"I'm going to show you slides that aren't nice to look at, and I'm not going to apologize," she says. "You like to take risks. Welcome to the consequences."

Fatal head wounds. Scalp lacerations. A car full of Centennial High School kids, or what's left of them, wrapped around the telephone pole the car hit at 75 mph. Broken necks. Drunken drivers. Yellow tarps on the pavement. Guys who killed their friends.

Seat belts save lives. I don't think there are many who would argue that fact. Is it right that they are required? Is it right that helmets are required? We have many laws that are designed to protect us from ourselves and every day our paternalistic society conjures up more. Where do we draw the line? Where do we say, we can't protect people from their own stupidity? What have we gained if we take away the responsibility for one's actions? Some laws like requiring that we drive on the right, contibute to the proper functioning of society. Do seat belt laws? How do we evaluate the need for more laws that are designed to protect us from ourselves? I don't have the answers, but I will be looking at these issues from time to time. Hopefully Steve Duin will chip in.

The Treasury International Capital (TIC) System reported a $60.0 Billion net foreign purchase of long-term securities in May. April's data was revised from $47.4 Billion to $47.8 Billion. This was the strongest net purchase since February ($79.6 Billion). Meanwhile, around $55 Billion per month of capital inflow is needed to offset US trade deficit.

The downside for investors though was that the Treasury International Capital (TIC) report showed foreigners sold a net $72 million of equities in May after they bought a net $4.67 billion in the previous month. It was the first time foreigners were net sellers of U.S. shares since September 2004. (emphasis added)

Saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory yesterday. I was not in favor of seeing it, but Bev and her best friend Marsha talked Darryl and me into seeing it at the new theater at Bridgeport. One of the reasons I didn't put up much of a fuss, Johnny Depp. How many bad Depp movies are there? Not one that I know of. Bottom line, it is edgy, not sure young kids would get it, parts might be scarey, BUT...Depp is great and I clapped at the movie's end.

For all you Gold Bugs, like me, Charlie Bucket wins the Gold Certificate that gets him into the factory with Willy Wonka for a day. Charlie is very poor and he contemplates selling the certificate for, say, $5000. His grandfather says to him, dollars are printed every day. Why would you exchange a gold certificate, of which there are only five in the world, for paper which gets printed in large amounts every day? Seems like sound advice to anyone!

When we last visited the Nikkei average April 22, I posted that the Nikkei and the US bond yield have been moving in tandem for most of the last decade. The correlation of daily movements in these two markets has been 90% since 1990 and 92% since 1996. I said

My guess, the bottom of the Nikkei holds and we go back to the top of the range, and US interest rates go back up. Long term, where we go will depend on which way the Nikkei goes.

I see today that the Nikkei is back to 11800 and the 30 year treasury appears to have put in a double top. Today it broke through the low set in the second week of June.

According to observations in the past, a breakout through 12,000 would signal much higher Nikkei prices and much higher yields on tresuries.

The other day I posted about Deflation Discounting. Today Bev at Landfair Furniture posts about price increases that are likely coming in upholstered furniture. She writes that manufacturers are unable to absorb any longer the worst price hikes in 35 years!

Carnival of Liberty III is up at Life, Liberty and Property Group. Blog

CARNIVAL OF THE CAPITALISTS - JULY 18, 2005, is up hosted by The Club for Growth

a non-profit group whose members support the Reagan vision of economic growth through limited government and lower taxes.

We do several things at the Club, but two of them are really big. First, our PAC endorses candidates to Congress who believe in what we do - namely limited government and lower taxes. We usually support these candidates in open House seats in heavily Republican districts, sometimes where a liberal Republican (RINO) is trying to promote themselves to Congress on a horrible track record of higher taxes and more government intervention.

The Club also seeks to educate the public on pro-growth policies. In fact, we recently just announced a new TV ad campaign educating voters about the possible repeal of the Death Tax, which could be scheduled for a vote in the Senate later this month.

TF Stern, in an update to his post about proposed legislation in Texas to stop the use of eminent domain, finds that an an amendment has been proposed to exempt the Freeport City land grab.

"we're well into the process."

You can say that again! Eminent Domain

The Sadler's Ultra Challenge has been referred to as the "holy grail" of wheelchair and handcycle racing. It is the longest wheelchair and handcycle race in the world. Athletes travel from around the globe to participate in this six day 267 mile test of athleticism.

Our daughter Erica is a driver assisting the handcyclers in the race and in particular one Joe Dowling, who is 66 and lives in Connecticut. Erica has agreed to blog from on the road about the race and her experiences

First Dad, I will ask that you do a spell check for me and adjust anything that needs adjusting. It can be tough to type on my blackberry. Second, don't feel obligated to reprint any of this.

Well I arrived in Anchorage yesterday afternoon and was so impressed by how beautiful Alaska is. I went in not knowing anything about Anchorage, I was surprised to see that nearly all the trees are deciduous. In the hills there are definitely evergreens, but I was reminded in several ways of the high desert area of Oregon.

It was so warm and sunny when I arrived, and I was told by my cab driver that Anchorage desperately needs rain. Well, he got his wish and a short but powerful thunderstorm rolled in late that night. Unfortunately it didn't help that much, because this morning I woke to find a very smokey city. I was told that 11,000 acres of trees to our south were on fire and they were trying to contain it.

Today around 2:00 I met the people I will be spending the next 8 days with. We had a volunteer meeting, and a few racers joined us as well. The volunteers came from all over; Germany, Texas, Chicago, Washington, New York, Atlanta and even Japan. The majority of them are young, I think we barely had enough people over 25 that were eligible to drive the rental cars. There were a few people that were driving cars for friends or family, but the majority of the volunteers were like me, just here to help out and see Alaska. The nicest surprise is that everyone seems to be low key, for lack of a better word.

Tomorrow morning we have to be out of here by 7 am. We finally get to meet the racers. I did get to meet mine already, and he seemed like a nice man. He invited me and the passenger in our group over to hang out with him. He wanted to make sure we really wanted to do this. I guess it is a little too late to turn back now, but I doubt anyone would want to.

Tomorrow we also drive the 6+ hours to Fairbanks, and it will be my first taste of rural Alaska. I was comforted? to learn that one of the returning volunteers has agreed to shoo away any bears that come too close to us, just as he had to do for one of the racers last year. The idea of actually seeing a bear seems so unreal.

Well, I am off to finish my book, and make myself comfey in my sleeping bag on the floor of the Methodist Church.

Update:

Update:

From CNSNews.com, another look at Kelo v New London and how it might relate to church property.

"religious institutions that are, by nature, non-commercial and, by law, tax exempt, would be the first to be targeted by the bulldozers because of their alleged lack of economic contribution to the community,"

What will elected officials do if a religious institution wants to purchase property in a high growth area? Combine that desire to purchase with the church's moral stand against revenue raising gambling and you have another threat to the institution's plans, but also its tax exempt status.

It seems foolish in light of Kelo negating parts of the Fifth Amendment, to rely any longer on the First Amendment or on the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA)

Sekulow noted that the federal law most often used to fight encroachment on a church's property rights — the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) — has not been contested in the Supreme Court ... yet.

The major plus for America or any civilized society is the "Rule of Law". How quickly our foundation shifts, if we swap rock for sand. Eminent Domain

Since we are spending as much on defense as the next 10 countries combined, we deserve to get some hot stuff, especially with the Chinese saying they will nuke us if we interfere in the takeover of Taiwan or just to kill or stun bad guys.

From Wired News, Beam It Right There, Scotty

For years, the U.S. military has explored a new kind of firepower that is instantaneous, precise and almost inexhaustible: beams of electromagnetic energy. "Directed-energy" pulses can be throttled up or down depending on the situation, much like the phasers on Star Trek could be set to kill or merely stun.

Such weapons are now nearing fruition.

...snip

The hallmark of all directed-energy weapons is that the target -- whether a human or a mechanical object -- has no chance to avoid the shot because it moves at the speed of light. At some frequencies, it can penetrate walls.

Among other things these weapons can:

* fill people's field of vision, inducing a temporary blindness
* sabotage the electronics of landmines, shoulder-fired missiles or automobiles
* obliterate with lasers, targets that could be tens of miles away from ships or planes
* repel intruders from nuclear facilities

Hot Damn! Now we are getting somewhere!

Kathy Good of the Los Padres National Forest emailed to me the following article that appeared on 7/11/05 written by Melinda Burns in the Santa Barbara News-Press

Los Padres land melts thermometer

It was a sunny day in the middle of August, void of thunder or lightning. What had started the fire? As the firefighters walked around they noticed something strange.

"They saw fissures in the ground where they could feel a lot of heat coming out," Padres geologist Allen King said. "It was not characteristic of a normal fire."

...snip...

The scientists stuck long wire probes into the cracks and drove pipes into the ground to measure the hot temperatures. With the help of an air reconnaissance flight and thermal infrared imaging, they found that the hot spot patchily covered three acres, most of it overlapping the fire area.

The hottest spot of all was 11 feet underground, at 584 degrees — a temperature that is hot enough to melt solder, an alloy of tin and lead. At just 4 inches down, the scientists found temperatures of up to 493 degrees. Paper and wood burn at 451 degrees.

They wore hard hats and were careful where they stepped. Mr. King nearly lost the sole of one hiking boot because it came unglued on the hot rocks. He re-attached it with duct tape for the rough hike back.

The landslide itself was risky, too. It had probably occurred during El Ni–o(sic) rains of 1998 and was still active. New fractures recently opened around the top of the slide.

"It is still potentially dangerous to be walking on," Mr. King said. "And we think it could be a danger again in terms of forest fire. The grasses have grown back, and there still remains a potential for reignition."

The teams took the temperature of the hot spot in 22 locations, returning every couple of months to sample them all over again.

Surprisingly, they found that the rocks did not get significantly hotter, deeper down. During the past 10 months, the hot spot has cooled only slightly: The hottest sample has dropped from 584 degrees to 565 degrees.

Mr. (Robert) Mariner ( a U.S.Geological Survey hydrologist who studies volcanic gas vents at Mt. Shasta, Mt. Hood and Mt. Rainier.) visited the slide four times to study the composition of the gases coming out of the hot spot. He found carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, the by-products of combustion.

"I keep expecting it to change suddenly, as the source of whatever we're burning is consumed, but it's changing slowly," Mr. Mariner said. "We're getting more oxygen in there."

Gradually, the scientists started narrowing down the possible causes. They found no oil and gas deposits or vents in the vicinity and no significant deposits of coal. The Geiger counter readings were normal for radioactivity, and there was no evidence of explosions or volcanic activity. Hot springs, a sign of geothermal activity, exist elsewhere in Los Padres, but nothing like that was happening here.

One possible explanation still under study is that an earthquake fault may be the source of the heat, Mr. King said, adding, "We can't rule out anything definitely yet."

But the likeliest theory, though still unproven, Mr. King said, is that when the landslide occurred, the slide broke apart the rock, creating a chemical reaction between oxygen in the air and minerals in the rock.

The rock, a type of shale, contains iron sulfides called pyrite and marcasite. When they are oxidized, the scientists theorize, the sulfides give off heat, burning the organic material in the shale — the remains of dead plants and animals that were deposited into the mud on the ocean floor, 45 million years ago.

"Oxidation is combustion, but it's burning without the flame," said Mr. Boles, the UCSB geologist.

Perhaps it has something to do with the way the air is circulating through the landslide, he said. One thing that is puzzling, Mr. Boles said, is that there seem to be only small amounts of pyrite and marcasite in the rock.

He said that elsewhere in the world, waste piles in mining areas have been known to heat up and cause fires, but that is only where the rock contains high concentrations of sulfides.

"If we had found a coal bed in the landslide or a huge mass of marcasite or pyrite, we would have been a lot happier." Mr. Boles said. "But we don't see anything obvious. It's hard to explain."

In August, the hot rocks ignited the roots of plants growing in the slide area, causing forest fire. But scientists are at a loss to explain why no fires have occurred on hundreds of other shale landslides in Los Padres.On their last trip to the Dick Smith Wilderness, the geologists dug up some of the hot rock, let it cool for an hour and stuffed it in their backpacks to send to U.S.Geological Survey labs in Denver. There, it will be analyzed with an electron microscope.

"We'll be able to determine whether there's enough sulfide mineral to support our theory," Mr. King said. "For a geologist, this is a very exciting find. We're not aware of any other features of this nature, where a landslide has started a fire."

As I may have indicated early on, this sort of thing just fascinates me. I am a curious amateur geologist. My late Uncle Albert would be proud that I still have an interest. He was the one that shined a "black light" on ordinary rocks and they floresced with beautiful colors. I was in grade school and have been interested ever since.

Update:

I spoke with Kathy Good, public affairs officer at Los Padres National Forest. She is sticking with the explanation that the hot spot is a chemical reaction of minerals in the soil with oxygen igniting some organic material in the shale. It could have been caused by a landslide or a landslide resulted from the hotspot. It's a chicken-egg sort of thing.

I asked if this hot spot developed a year ago, why is the information just getting out. Kathy said that apparently a geologist mentioned it to a reporter last week and it went national. They weren't trying to be secretive, she said, just concerned for the safety of any people who may go into the area, it is quite rugged. She also said they were concerned about preserving any evidence of the cause.

Not only is her agency involved but geologists from UCSB and USGS.

I asked of the geologists had ruled out the hot spot as part of a volcano. She said the geologists hadn't ruled anything out, but they are leaning to a chemical reaction. Kathy Good is emailing to me the original story written by Melinda Burns.

I spoke with a ranger at the Mt. Pinos ranger station about a more exact location of the hot spot in the Dick Smith Wilderness of the Los Padres Nation Forest. He tells me that the hot spot has cooled slightly from 580 degrees a year ago to 530 degees or so. I asked why now is the information just made public. He said that it has not been a secret that the media just picked it up. He still believes it is a chemical reaction possibly sulpher burning. It is in a steep slide area, again supporting Prof. Scott Burns suggestion that a slide could cause high temperatures capable of melting rock. The Melting point of Sulphur is 239.38 °F, the Boiling point is 832.5 °F

The Lonewacko Blog has this to say

Scientists have discovered a three acre "hotspot" in Los Padres National Forest in Southern California. Ground temperatures in that area run as high as 400 degrees, with one spot 11 feet underground at an unbelievable 584 degrees. The hotspot is located in the Dick Smith Wilderness (map) and was discovered after it started a forest fire last year.

Most volcanic vents run at about 200 degrees, so top scientists who have been called in are stumped. So far they've eliminated oil, gas, or coal deposits, and there have been no loud bangs or earthquakes in that area. However, they have not ruled out it being related to seismic activity in some way.

Update:

Related Posts (on one page):

1. Mt. Pinos at Los Padres
2. Los Padres Landslides???

My friend TF Stern is off on a great rant, Eminent domain added to agenda in Texas. It's about an arrogant official, Freeport City Manager Ron Bottoms, when confronted by possible changes to the way Texas handles "eminent domain", that could interrupt the city of Freeport's plans to seize the property of two seafood companies to make way for an $8 million private marina”, said he isn't sure whether Janek's (Sen. Kyle Janek, R-Houston) bill would halt the city's plans, noting that "we're well into the process." Eminent Domain

Strange case of Thin Sandar, she had prayed for a long time to be a man and on June 21st, the day of the full moon, she awoke to find she had grown a penis in place of her clitoris and her breasts had disappeared. Thin Sandar, who now goes by the male name Than Sein,

said he firmly believed he had been transformed, and would enter the monkhood for a period of time and seek spiritual contemplation and guidance before deciding whether to marry and raise a family.

Come on! Suddenly you are a 21 year old man and you are going to enter the monkhood for a period of time. That's like looking for the owners manual before trying out a new toy. That's like reading the assembly instructions of your new John Deere riding mower before turning the key.

CROW EATEN HERE: This is a horror. In a column written June 28, I asserted that more Iraqis (civilians) had now been killed in this war than had been killed by Saddam Hussein over his 24-year rule. WRONG. Really, really wrong.

The only problem is figuring out by how large a factor I was wrong. I had been keeping an eye on civilian deaths in Iraq for a couple of months, waiting for the most conservative estimates to creep over 20,000, which I had fixed in my mind as the number of Iraqi civilians Saddam had killed. The high-end estimate of Iraqi civilian deaths in this war is 100,000, according to a Johns Hopkins University study published in the British medical journal The Lancet last October, but I was sticking to the low-end, most conservative estimates because I didn't want to be accused of exaggeration. Ha! I could hardly have been more wrong, no matter how you count Saddam's killing of civilians. According to Human Rights Watch, Hussein killed several hundred thousand of his fellow citizens. The massacre of the Kurdish Barzani tribe in 1983 killed at least 8,000; the infamous gas attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja killed 5,000 in 1988; and seized documents from Iraqi security organizations show 182,000 were murdered during the Anfal ethnic cleansing campaign against Kurds, also in 1988. In 1991, following the first Gulf War, both the Kurds and the Shiites rebelled. The allied forces did not intervene, and Saddam brutally suppressed both uprisings and drained the southern marshes that had been home to a local population for more than 5,000 years. Saddam's regime left 271 mass graves, with more still being discovered. That figure alone was the source for my original mistaken estimate of 20,000. Saddam's widespread use of systematic torture, including rape, has been verified by the U.N. Committee on Human Rights and other human rights groups over the years. There are wildly varying estimates of the number of civilians, especially babies and young children, who died as a result of the sanctions that followed the Gulf War. While it is true that the ill-advised sanctions were put in place by the United Nations, I do not see that that lessens Hussein's moral culpability, whatever blame attaches to the sanctions themselves — particularly since Saddam promptly corrupted the Oil for Food Program put in place to mitigate the effects of the sanctions, and used the proceeds to build more palaces, etc. There have been estimates as high as 1 million civilians killed by Saddam, though most agree on the 300,000 to 400,000 range, making my comparison to 20,000 civilian dead in this war pathetically wrong. I was certainly under no illusions regarding Saddam Hussein, whom I have opposed through human rights work for decades. My sincere apologies. It is unforgivable of me not have checked. I am so sorry.

Update:

I spoke with Scott Burns, Professor of Geology specializing in landslides at Portland State University. I brought the events of Dick Smith Wilderness in Los Padres to his attention, specifically about "a landslide may have triggered a chemical reaction between the oxygen in the air and the minerals in the rock". He said landslides have occurred in prehistoric times in which a large mass of sedimentary rock is accelerated to 100 miles per hour. The landslide has produced obsidian or Frictionite as it was named by Dr. T.H. Erismann, along its sliding surfaces.

From the Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, Ore mineralization causing slope failure in a high altitude mountain crest-on the collapse of an 8000 meter peak in Nepal, Frictionite was created in the landslide that has been dated 40,000 years ago. Another instance of frictionite occurred in a landslide in the Oetz Valley of Austria. Professor Burns indicates rock melts at about 1200+ degress fahrenheit. That would mean if it were insulated by the slide it could still be in the 400 to 600 degrees fahrenheit when uncovered by perhaps another slide. However, exposing minerals that would trigger a chemical reaction with oxygen to create the heat, cited here, is more of a puzzle to Burns.

I received a response to my email from Dr. Wayne Ahr of Texas A & M University Department of Geology and Geophysics who specializes in petroleum geology with special interest in carbonate reservoir description and evaluation, carbonate sedimentology and stratigraphy with special interest in Paleozoic reefs and mounds, and paleoecology. Regarding a mineral that would react with oxygen,
Dr Ahr says:

Beat's me Mike. Can't think of any ordinary mineral that would generate that volume and magnitude of heat under relatively low pressure - low compared to being buried under 1000's of feet of overburden

...as in bottom hole temperatures in ordinary oil wells at 12,000 feet!

Call me crazy, but I like the reality show Rockstar: INXS to find the new front person for INXS. I am voting for Heather Luttrell!

Something about a girl with red hair and tattoos!

Interesting story in FURNITUREToday, Deflation, discounting: A tough combination In her blog, Retail Ideas, Loreen Epp is mindful that in todays economy, we have both deflation and inflation. She posts

It’s hard not to be concerned about deflation these days. By creating lower and lower retail prices, we have to sell either a lot more customers or a lot more items just to match last year’s sales. And even as we buy at lower prices overseas, the profits we thought we’d make are quickly disappearing through our natural tendency to offer sales and discounts to generate traffic.

Al Bates, founder of the Profit Planning Group in Boulder, Colo., and Retail Ideas workshop speaker shows how much of an increase in dollar sales you need to offset a decrease in price.

A 10% decrease in price requires a whopping 25% more in sales. And of course, if you discount more, the number gets exponentially steeper.

Epp goes into the math, in this example of a sofa at $500 Cost and $999 Retail. If you mark down retail 25%, you need to sell 20 sofas, or 100% more to equal the same gross profit (33%) as you would if you did not mark the retail down (50% gross profit).

So, if you don't discount, are you still going to sell that item at $999, or are you going to lose the sale to the guy down the street at $750. Isn't that "retail" price a guess at the market price? Aren't you really saying that you can clear the market at $750, but not at $999, therefore the real price of the item is $750 and the $999 is an artificial price not justified by feedback from the market.

It's a nice exercise, but the retailer should really be trying to find the correct price that will clear his inventory. Then the question becomes am I profitable at a 33% gpm? Do I need to negotiate lower prices from my wholesaler? What expenses can I cut if 33% is not good enough? A real problem with our economy, is that we have both deflation and inflation, and businesses are being squeezed by rising energy costs, rising taxes, rising health care and by rising labor costs.

BTW, as an old stockbroker, if I buy something at $500 and sell it at $1000, I made 100% on my money. In the retail business that is a 50% profit margin. You can not exceed 100% profit margin. With stocks, buying at $500 and selling at 10,000 is a 1900% profit. It took me awhile to get used to their crazy accounting.

Unexplained Hot Spot Heats Up Ground in SoCal

USGS hydrologist Dr. Robert Mariner hiked out to the hot spot, and found temperatures of 583 degrees Fahrenheit in fumerals -- or steam vents -- about ten or eleven feet down. That's hot enough to ignite wood, and it defied common knowledge.

"There's just no reason to have temperatures in fumerals that hot, unless you are dealing with a volcano," said Mariner.

Mariner says it's definitely not a volcano. But one theory is that a recent landslide exposed a unique combination of rocks to the air, triggering a chemical reaction.

From KSBY,

A team of scientists studying the hot spot speculate that the landslide may have triggered a chemical reaction between the oxygen in the air and the minerals in the rock. The landslide is more than three miles from the nearest hiking trail. Forest officials declined to be more specific, in order to discourage people from hiking in to get a closer look.

The late Tom Dibblee, the expert on Santa Barbara County, wrote,

"Santa Barbara County is sedimentary geology,"..."The mountains are a very thick series of layers, mostly formed under the ocean, uplifted by crustal movements into mountains that tilt towards the south and dip under the channel."

So, this area is sedimentary. What substance found in sedimentary rock can combine with oxygen in the air and can creat temperatures of 400 to 500 degrees fahrenheit? Could be lightning and natural gas, but someone would have mentioned that, seems to me.

Scientists are puzzled by a mysterious Los Padres National Forest hot spot where 400-degree ground ignited a wildfire.

The hot spot was discovered by fire crews putting out a three-acre fire last summer in the forest's Dick Smith Wilderness.

"They saw fissures in the ground where they could feel a lot of heat coming out," Los Padres geologist Allen King said. "It was not characteristic of a normal fire."

Fire investigators went back to the canyon days later and stuck a candy thermometer into the ground. It hit the top of the scale, at 400 degrees.

Seems pretty far from active volcanoes! Why is this just being reported now, if it was discovered last summer?

Update:

I'm catching up on my reading, and I came across an article written by Bill Bonner at The Daily Reckoning about The Blitz of London

The British declared war on the Germans in September of 1939. In the summer of 1940 the air raids began. A typical raid was 100-200 German planes with hundreds of bombs that fell on London. In May of 1941, 550 planes attacked London with 700 tons of bombs, killing 1500 people. By the end of the raids, a quarter of a million people were homeless and thousands had been killed. Bonner says

In military terms, yesterday's terrorist attack was pathetic and piddling - nothing like the Blitz.

I think what makes an attack like London's or Madrid's so frightening or upsetting, is that it comes out of the blue. Most of us are unprepared for war, have never been in a war, and life goes on around us as if there is no war. And our government, fights a war in far off places that seem no threat to us, yet leaves our back door unguarded. According to WorldNetDaily, in Al-Qaida nukes already in U.S, we may pay for that dereliction!

Carnival of Liberty II is up at the Life, Liberty and Property Group Blog

The Carnival of Liberty's goal is to promote blogging and thinking about liberty and freedom. How to advance the cause, where there are problems, what we can do, who's saying what, historical trends and ideas, liberty in the news, and more.

Update:

Carnival of the Capitalists is up and Landfair Furniture is proud to be included. It is hosted by Multiple Mentality.

Update: