Mover Mike

During his recent visit to Ankara, CIA Director Porter Goss reportedly brought three dossiers on Iran to Ankara. Goss is said to have asked for Turkey’s support for Washington’s policy against Iran’s nuclear activities, charging that Tehran had supported terrorism and taken part in activities against Turkey.

Goss also asked Ankara to be ready for a possible US air operation against Iran and Syria.

Gold will go to $750 per ounce. It closed on Friday at $516.60.

Silver will go to $13 per ounce. It closed on Friday at $8.80.

Oil will trade at $75 per barrel or higher. It closed on Friday at $61.

The Dow Jones Average will hit 9000. It closed the year at 10,717.50.

Israel will attack Iran's nuclear facilities.

Munich will be named best picture at Academy Awards.

Thank you for visting Mover Mike in 2005. May your 2006 be filled with health, good family memories and a pet that loves you unconditionally.

Predictions 2006 Iran gold Mover Mike

My friend Rob Kirby has an interesting observation: March 20,

Iran is planning to open an Iranian Oil Bourse (exchange) for the express purpose of trading oil priced exclusively in Euros a PetroEuro. This will establish a Euro based pricing mechanism, or 'oil marker' as it is called by traders. The three current oil markers are US dollar denominated, which include the West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI), Norway Brent Crude, and the UAE Dubai Crude. In 2003, Iran started trading with its European and Asian partners using the Euro. The Iranian Oil Bourse, however, will also establish a fourth 'oil marker', dominated by the Euro.

that this is precisely where you would expect to find the ‘capture’ of any large scale monetization effort that the Fed would embark upon – should the need occur.

Kirby wonders why on the 2,110,500 ounces of a total 6.5 million ounces of gold ‘housed’ at COMEX warehouses have recently changed hands. Is someone preparing to own a lot of gold as the USD comes under pressure in preparation for the PetroEuro?

PetroEuro Rob Kirby gold Mover Mike

was lucky enough to get mobilized with the Army National Guard to help in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and he and some friends started a blog, Camp Katrina, that highlights stories about the humanitarian efforts of the U.S. Military.

(She) today ruled that Catholic parishes and schools in Western Oregon are not separate from the Archdiocese of Portland.

The decision by Judge Elizabeth Perris was largely a victory for plaintiffs who are seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in priest sex-abuse claims.

There is no constitutional requirement that internal church law be considered in determining a purely secular dispute.

Catholic bankruptcy Mover Mike

Every year one in three pregnancies worldwide ends in an abortion. A total of 40 million abortions are performed each year, which means that since 1980 one billion children have not been allowed to be born.

A European Union advisory panel has issued a statement saying that medical professionals are not allowed to refuse to participate in abortions. According to the EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights doctors should be forced to perform abortions, even if they have conscientious objections, because the right to abort a child is an “international human right”.

abortion EU Mover Mike

(reports) the Financial Times, "a year after the Indian Ocean tsunami, up to a third of the $590-million so far spent under the United Nations’ $1.1-billion disaster flash appeal appears to have gone on administration, staff and related costs."

Members of Gov. Kathleen Blanco's staff are scheduled to move into the newly renovated offices on Tuesday. Some members of the governor's staff will return from the three-day holiday on Tuesday to newly renovated offices at the State Capitol. Shortly after the two hurricanes, Gov. Kathleen Blanco decided to renovate some of her staff's offices. At the time of her decision, Blanco also was hinting at deep budget cuts to state programs and the possibility of laying off 20 percent of the state workforce.

The project cost $564,838.

Gov. BlancoKatrina Mover Mike

Update: Betsy's Page gets to the story on Jan 2nd

On the other hand, and with economists isn't there always "another hand", it pays to read Bill Cara Wednesday as he wrote about the yield curve.

...due to the size of the bond market, neither the Treasury nor the Fed can manage the long-term bond yield as well as they can and do the short-term rates. In fact, in just five years, the bond market has grown so huge, and the percentage of U.S. Treasury debt in the control of foreign traders (now over 50 pct versus one-third in 2000) that I believe U.S. monetary policy is out of control, i.e., it can no longer be used as an effective control mechanism.

So, with respect to the yield curve, I now believe that international financial and capital markets are in control.

What does that imply? For one, the occupant of the White House is no longer the master of his domain. From this point forward, whenever financial and capital market risks, and opportunities for creating wealth, warrant the re-investment of foreign capital into their own domestic economies, foreigners will sell their holdings of U.S. debt. And the moment that begins to happen, the U.S. bond market will fall, and rates will rise.

[...]

...the flatter the curve, the more attractive bonds will be relative to equities. The higher the level of rates, the less attractive bonds become, but the more risky equities become (average PE multiples will fall). In both cases, gold will out-perform.

Update: I just received my Weekly Chart of the Day and here is a chart that supports the position that Cara and I make:

Almost three months after the earthquake that killed 73,000 people in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, half of them children, a second tragedy is unfolding in the mountains. The winter disaster that the relief agencies had feared is now a reality.

The arrival of the snow has triggered a migration south by those fit enough. A few feet deep at present, the snow will soon be drifting up to 20ft. Very soon, the mountain roads will be impassable. Major snowfalls and even colder temperatures are forecast for this weekend.

(The way it works is that the production loans are secured by a sale of gold in over-the-counter derivatives either by the producer or by a third party on behalf of the loan with the short sales of gold built into the loan agreement and therefore secreted from general view.)

Now why do I bring this up? Well, I see that Barrick and Placer Dome have been given the go-ahead for their merger. Both companies have used all the tricks to finance development and have used derivatives to hedge their production against price declines. The combined companies will have about 15% of the annual production presold at prices much lower than current market prices and have sold short 21,000,000 ounces of gold over the next ten years. A mark to the market on Barrick would show them to be $3 Billion off sides, meaning the asset has gone $3 Billion against them; their shareholders will never realize the benefits of rising gold prices on 21,000,000 ounces. That is 525 tons of gold. That 525 tons is how much Russia wants to add to their FOREX reserves and that is one fourth the amount that China wants to add to its reserves. Add to that, the central banks and bullion banks are short 12,000 to 16,000 tons and you have quite a bit of pent up demand!

Sinclair goes on to discuss Refco and he says still we have no reason for the sudden bankruptcy. After all, there was no money missing. Bennett, when it was foundt that he had been secretly juggling a personal debt to Refco of $425 Million, he paid the debt off. We are told it was a loss of confidence. Sinclair talks about derivatives and points out that when you have a buyer and a seller of derivatives and the price of the asset moves, then one side is an immediate winner and the other is an immediate and equal loser.

The greatest fear in this so called market for derivatives is the forced unlocking of the positions from total offset - one side a profit and the other a loss - to one account with the profit and another with the loss and both segmented from each other.

That in bankruptcy would leave the loss totally exposed to someone and that someone need not be Refco. The reason for that is one account, maybe the house, held the profit and another cooperative party may have held the loss. If an account is frozen when called an asset the house is trying to protect itself for some complex reason. The OTC derivative game in both unregulated, non-transparent and down right dicey.

In a bankruptcy, the judge should secure all assets away from all liabilities which inherently means the disaster of all OTC derivative culprit's worst nightmare.

Refco's securities unit -- in a filing that seeks court permission to amend the process for closing accounts -- argued that the costs and expenses of a SIPC proceeding would be damaging and potentially hurt its debtors by eating into the existing net equity value in Refco Securities of more than $50 million.

Refco derivatives Mover Mike

The first, is The Book of Daniel premiering on NBC on January 6.

The Book of Daniel is a serious drama about Christian people and the Christian faith. The main character is Daniel Webster, a drug-addicted Episcopal priest whose wife depends heavily on her mid-day martinis.

Webster regularly sees and talks with a very unconventional white-robed, bearded Jesus. The Webster family is rounded out by a 23-year-old homosexual Republican son, a 16-year-old daughter who is a drug dealer, and a 16-year-old adopted son who is having sex with the bishop's daughter. At the office, his lesbian secretary is sleeping with his sister-in-law.

Hollywood is likely suggesting that Americans ought to get over their hangups about family structure and recognize that families should be anything we want them to be. Even polygamists can be “virtually normal.” As series co-creator Mark Olsen says in the Newsweek piece, “It’s everything that every family faces, just times three....The yuck factor disappears and you just see human faces. We found it to be a mother lode.” So this would seem to confirm the link between same-sex marriage and polygamy, except that here same-sex marriage is not being used to legitimate polygamy. No, polygamy is being used to legitimate same-sex marriage! In other words, gay marriage and group marriage are mutually reinforcing, and both depend upon the larger view that families ought to be whatever people want them to be.

20 ounces = 1 pound
2000 Pounds = 1 Ton
therefore 1 Ton = 40,000 ounces
therefore 1 Ton @$505 per ounce = $20,200,000
1 Gold bar = 400 ouces
1 Gold bar @$505 per ounce = $202,000

China has 600 tons of gold in FOREX reserves and wants to increase that to 2,500 tons. That means China wants to go from $12 Billion in gold reserves to about $50 Billion. As an aside, we are told that the US has 8,000 tons of gold in Ft. Knox (although no one knows for sure since the last audit was in 1955). The trade deficit for October, 2005 was $68.9 Billion. Converted to gold that is 3,411 tons of gold. If foreigners wanted gold instead of USDs, we would go through our gold hoard, our national treasury, in less than 3 (THREE) months!

My wife and I saw Brokeback Mountain last night at the Fox. We had a choice of seeing it at 5:30, 6:45, 7:15 or 7:45. Our choice was 6:45 and while the theater was small, the showing was well attended. Half the couples seemed to be heterosexual. The same sex couples were predominately female. (Is there some attraction for females of both persuasions to watch gay men?)

The cinamatography was stunning. The mountains in Wyoming were very tall, rugged, untamed, exactly like the men you would expect to inhabit such grandeur. Only these two rugged men, living isolated watching over a flock of sheep, decided to make the sheep safe, and fell in love with each other. Then after the tryst, with Jack Twist, Ennis went off and married a beutiful woman and had kids and Jack went off and married a beautiful woman, had a kid and snuck off to Mexico for male prostitutes. Sure, the poor boys pined for each other, enough to recall every lost love you've ever had. Every other month or so over the next ten years, Jack and Ennis, would leave all family responsibilities behind and get together for manly love.

Needless to say, my wife enjoyed the movie more than I did. I have a few "nits" with the film. It seemed that Jack Twist was experienced sexually and Ennis Dalman was a virgin. I base this conclusion on a conversation the two had around a camp fire. Ennis was talking about sin and going to hell. Jack thought both would go to hell, since we are all sinners. Ennis disagreed since he was without sin, unlike Jack. Now, I am inexperienced in the nuances of gay love, but the two's first sex is anal sex performed by Ennis on Jack. Wouldn't you just play around the first time. If you are horney, living out in the mountains with sheep, wouldn't you predict that the sheep would be first to be tried.

Now I read all the critics praising this movie, the first gay cowboy movie, but no one is talking about the damage done to two women and the kids. What does it do to a woman's self esteem to waste years of your life in a marriage with a man pretending to be straight, then be thrown over for a man! There's a scene in the movie with Ennis's daughter and a woman trying to get Ennis's affections. She asks the daughter, "Is it me or is Ennis not the marrying kind?" The daughter answers, "I suspect you could hold your own." Why do some women fall for gay men who are "passing"? Is it an ego thing? Maybe, we all think, to borrow a phrase, that we could get them to join our team.

The film will get all sorts of awards and the actors may win oscars. Did we really need this movie? Why does Hollywood glorify its values that are opposite those of most people in the country, then worry about declining attendance at the movies?

Last year one of the movies up for an Oscar was the sympathetic portrayal of a woman performing abortions. One year we had Bridges of Madison County, about adultery and pining over a lost love. What's next?

My favorites, of the ones I've seen, for 2005 (in no particular order):

"Syriana"
"Yes" (because of the use of iambic pentameter)
"Cinderella Man"
"Downfall"
"Good Night, and Good Luck"
"North Country"
"Batman Begins"
"Serenity"
"Capote"
"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"
"A History of Violence"
"Hustle and Flow"
"Lord of War"
"Sin City"
"The Squid and the Whale"
"The Upside of Anger"
"Walk the Line"
"March of the Penguins"
"Murderball"
"Off the Map"
"The Weather Man"

There may be more that I've forgotten I've seen. I notice that three of these films starred Joan Allen. A fine actress, like John Cusack, I never miss their films.

Every year, the Jewish holiday falls in November or December, its date determined by a different calendar than the Gregorian that rules the timing of Christmas, along with our secular lives. It's not rare for one of Hanukkah's eight days to fall on Christmas, but to have both holidays start on the same day is.

The last time they did so was in 1959; the next will be in 2024. (Another instance of spiritual synchronicity: Hanukkah began on Christmas Eve in 1940 and in 1978, and will do so again in 2016.)

You can view brief excerpts from the DVD, a real Hollywood-style movie trailer, here:

http://www.goldrush21.com/

The DVD contains a 25-minute summary of the conference proceedings, outlining the gold price suppression scheme of the central banks and their accomplices, the bullion banks. The DVD also contains a complete archive of all the major presentations at Gold Rush 21. The only thing missing from the DVD is Charlize Theron, but it's so good that we don't really need her.

The DVD will go on sale via the Internet immediately after the premiere in Vancouver.

I will let you know when and where it can be purchased and the price.

The other day I wrote that Sen Ron Wyden, along with Senators Dick Durbin and Jay Rockefeller was being investigated for revealing information about leaking details about a secret "black ops" CIA satellite program in Democratic Senators Dick Durbin, Jay Rockefeller and Ron Wyden - Shame!. Now we learn that Sen. Ron Wyden was the one who objected to some language in a resolution condemning the remarks of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad

called the Holocaust a "myth" and suggested Israel be relocated to Europe, Canada, or Alaska.

condemned the remarks, demanded an apology, and supported efforts by "the people of Iran to exercise self-determination" and hold a national referendum with oversight by international observers.

Whereas Christmas is a national holiday celebrated on December 25; and

Whereas the Framers intended that the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States would prohibit the establishment of religion, not prohibit any mention of religion or reference to God in civic dialog: Now, therefore be it resolved, that the House of Representatives –

(1) Recognizes the importance of the symbols and traditions of Christmas;
(2) Strongly disapproves of attempts to ban references to Christmas; and
(3) Expresses support for the use of these symbols and traditions, for those who celebrate Christmas.

Congressman, Party-State, District

Ackerman D-NY 5th
Blumenauer D-OR 3rd
Capps D-CA 23rd
Cleaver D-MO 5th
DeGette D-CO 1st
Harman D-CA 36th
Hastings D-FL 23rd
Honda D-CA 15th
Lee D-CA 9th
Lewis D-GA 5th
McDermott D-WA 7th
Miller, George D-CA 7th
Moore D-WI 4th
Moran D-VA 8th
Payne D-NJ 10th
Rush D-IL 1st
Schakowsky D-IL 9th
Scott D-VA 3rd
Stark D-CA 13th
Wasserman Schultz D-FL 20th
Wexler D-FL 19th
Woolsey D-CA 6th

What is with Democrats? Do you think these kind of votes will get back control of the House, Senate or Presidency? This is lunacy on your part. You are so out of touch!

A Florida restaurant says it has been blessed just before Christmas.
Workers claim a holy image has appeared in one of their cooking pans.
At the Stadium Club in Jacksonville workers have found what they believe is an image of Jesus in a nacho warming tray.
The pan is used to heat water which then heats the food.
The image was created from mineral deposits in the water.
One of the cooks says he went to empty the pan last night and saw Jesus looking back at him.
A spokesman for the Stadium Club says they will not continue to use the pan.

50 (or so) companies which I believe are having an impact on the content industry, which are demonstrating innovation either technological, sales & marketing, business model or otherwise.

The list may include “traditional” media companies, e-business/e-commerce content companies, enabling technologies and others impacting the way that content providers deliver and content users consume information. It may include both b2b and b2c content, although due to my focus areas it is likely to emphasize the b2b world.

Google

Yahoo

Wikipedia

Consumer Reports

Sirius Satellite and XM Satellite Radio

Research in Motion Ltd (RIM)

Factiva

Six Apart

Alacra

Del.icio.us

Endeca

The Public Library of Science (PLoS)

LinkedIn

Jigsaw

Flickr

There is a lot of meat for the tasting here and I plan to study this menu of Graubert over the holidays.

The article says that Kooser, the US Poet Laureate, has started a weekly column called American Life in Poetry, whose purpose is

to promote poetry: America Life in Poetry seeks to create a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture.

The Wind Chimes

Two wind chimes,
one brass and prone to anger,
one with the throat of an angel,
swing from my porch eave,
sing with the storm.
Last year I lived five months
under that shrill choir,
boxing your house, crowding books
into crates, from some pages
your own voice crying.
Some days the chimes raged.
Some days they hung still.
They fretted when I dug up
the lily I gave you in April,
blooming, strangely, in fall.
Together, they scolded me
when I counted pennies you left
in each can, cup, and drawer,
when I rechecked the closets
for remnants of you.
The last day, the house empty,
resonant with space, the two chimes
had nothing to toll for.
I walked out, took them down,
carried our mute spirits home.

From "Thorns," published by Juniper Press, 1995. Copyright © 1995 by Shirley Buettner, and reprinted with permission of the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

UPDATE: Ted Kooser has a new book out: THE POETRY HOME REPAIR MANUAL: PRACTICAL ADVICE FOR BEGINNING POETS

In an astounding return to judicial interpretation of the actual text of the United States Constitution, a unanimous panel of the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Tuesday issued an historic decision declaring that “the First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state.”

In upholding a Kentucky county’s right to display the Ten Commandments, the panel called the American Civil Liberties Union’s repeated claims to the contrary “extra-constitutional” and “tiresome.”

The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into whether Democratic Senators Dick Durbin, Jay Rockefeller and Ron Wyden leaked details about a secret "black ops" CIA satellite program last December in a move that may have seriously compromised national security, former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Jed Babbin said on Saturday.

[...]

Rockefeller is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Durbin is the No. 2-ranking Democrat in the Senate.

"The fact of the matter is that [Durbin, Rockefeller and Wyden] divulged something that was above and beyond top secret and frankly, they probably blew the strategy and the hundreds of millions of dollars that were being spent to pursue it," Babbin told (WABC Radio host Monica) Crowley.

"The acknowledgement of [the "black ops" program's] existence is not even proper and the acknowledgement of them and the details of them can very well damage national security," Babbin added.

Asked if he thought the three Senate Democrats should have their security clearances revoked for the duration of the leak probe, the former Defense Department official said: "Absolutely and forthwith. I mean, they should have been revoked at the time of the leak."

"I took a trip by myself in January of 2002 to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, and I told each of the heads of state that it was my view that George Bush had already made up his mind to go to war against Iraq — that that was a predetermined set course which had taken shape shortly after 9/11."

So spoke Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) on “Fox Sunday” on November 14, 2005, who at the time of his trip was chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and is now its vice chairman.

On the way back we were lucky. After we passed the lower Detroit dam, I skirted a bit of rock on the roadway that had fallen off the cliff. All of a sudden there was an explosion! Bev was leaning forward at the time and was instantly sprayed with glass, the coke she was drinking went flying, and glass was everywhere. The sun roof had a big hole in it. At the first big wide spot in the road I pulled over. I stood on the door rail and looked at the sun roof. It appeared we had been hit by a rock. I could see where it had hit in the glass right above my head. The rock was not in the car, so I assumed it must have ricocheted.

We were lucky! How do you stop a car from the passenger seat, in traffic with on-coming cars, if the driver is disabled by a falling rock?

Richebächer point was How do you explain big growth in GDP and no growth in employment? He believes inflation is understated.

Well, the fact is, you have the biggest cheating activity going on to determine the numbers for GDP and so, in consequence, the understatement of the inflation rate. It makes all the difference, whether you say, the inflation rate is 1 % or 2 % or 3 %.

Jim Boles, a UCSB professor who has made multiple trips to the slide, theorized

that a chemical reaction in the shale is creating the heat, fueled by oxygen in the air and in the water seeping through the rocks. He notes that the slide is hottest on the side where the wind blows through, stoking a kind of blast furnace.

At the same time, Scott Minor, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, does not discount the possibility that underground pathways or fractures deep in the landslide are bringing hot gas and water up from the Earth's magma, or molten rock.

"The door is open for this hypothesis," Mr. Minor said.

Neither explanation has been conclusively proven, but scientists hope that the data from last week's trip will provide some answers.

The hot spot is actually a series of clusters of hot cracks or holes within three acres of the 17-acre slide. Near the rising steam, it can be uncomfortably warm to sit on the ground, and the smell of sulphur fills the air. Mr. Boles' dogs, Billy and Rosie, would sit still for awhile and then move to get away from the heat.

[...]

In all, Mr. (Alan) King (the trip organizer and a geologist with the Los Padres National Forest) took the temperature of the landslide at 15 spots on Monday and Tuesday. The hottest spot registered 508 degrees, 10 inches under the surface. Paper and wood burn at 451 degrees. No. 2 was the only spot that had increased in heat. All of the others had cooled down since they were first monitored in the summer of 2004 — but two-thirds were still showing temperatures above 150 degrees.

Working at the hottest spot on Monday, the scientists took turns dropping a heavy weight down a pole to drive two sections of pipe into the ground, half an inch at a time. They tried to drive a third section in, but it broke off. Next, they dangled a temperature probe down the pipe: it was 493 degrees, 12 feet down, about the same as near the surface. Finally, the scientists inserted a vacuum tube, an instrument used at volcanoes, to capture the underground gases.

No one knows exactly when the slide occurred. Scientists think it may have happened six years ago during the El Ni–o storms of 1998. Mr. Boles believes the slide may have started slowly creeping, allowing a little oxygen in. At some point, he thinks, it all gave way, opening up the jumbled rock to a lot of oxygen and fueling the heat that caused the brush to catch fire. The shale contains iron sulfides called pyrite and marcasite that give off heat under oxidation.

[...]

The conundrum for scientists is that rock samples taken near the surface of the hot spot show only minute quantities of pyrite and marcasite — seemingly not enough to ignite the dry chaparral and cause a forest fire. And if a chemical reaction is the source of the heat, why haven't there been forest fires on hundreds of other, similar landslides in Los Padres?

[...]

...Mr. Boles returned to an area downhill where he had spotted a rich zone of red-colored rock full of hematite, a type of iron oxide that may at one time have been pyrite or marcasite. The red rocks stood out on the face of the slide, and Mr. Boles said a similar zone could be lying under the hot spots further up the slope.

"This is really significant," he said. "It looks like one place where almost certainly there was a lot of iron sulfide. I'm very happy to see it. It's kind of what we were looking for. And maybe it was getting hot before the slide occurred.

Update:

One cowboy is quite the poet. His name is Steve Payer, who, when he is not working with horses, is a broker with RE/MAX, specializing in ranches. Here's his poem which I thought was quite good:

"Billy Two Hawks"

A Horseman he, beyond compare, I know not of another,
Perhaps amidst his DNA, An Equus is his brother.
With focus true and passion strong, his life he's dedicated
To the mastery of and the skills therein
A Vaquero, predicated
On one clear goal, on one clear choice,
To find the Harmony
'Tween horse and man he lives his life
For the Horseback Symphony.
I've known this man nigh even years,
And never has he faltered,
To give a hand, a word or spur,
To help with horses haltered,
Or saddled up, or trotting out,
But needing his firm hand,
To help a fellow horseman
Ride out across the Land.
He suffers not the foolish ones
Who want but will not master,
Those age old skills that come with Time
and Patience, not the faster,
Quicker, less enduring way
Using Fear and sometimes Force,
He is a man beyond compare,
This Brother of the Horse. Steve Payer 12/20/05

Feeling better?
No.
You should get some sleep.
I'm gonna.
I look at my Mom. She can't look back. I breathe.
I just.
I look away.
I just, you know.
I look away. I can't look at them.
I just wanted to say thanks. For picking me up.

It's a story about a young man of twenty three who drank for 10 years and took drugs of all kinds for three years. When he was put on the plane for his home town, to be picked up by his parents, he had fallen off a fire escape, broke out four front teeth and put a large hole through his cheek. He was covered in blood and vomit and hadn't had a bath in days.

It's the story of a young man and the horror he went through before arriving at an alcohol and drug treatment center. It's the story of getting sober. It's the story of his parents facing the truth about their son and the son taking responsibility for his actions. The writing is honest and comes from the heart. The story may make you scream at a society that loses so many to drugs and alcohol.

My major concern about James Frey's method of recovery is that he disregards the advice and suggestions of his counselors. His counselors tell him that even using the 12 Steps of AA, only about 15% actually get and stay sober. He is able to accept Step 1 easily, but many of the steps are rejected. I have seen people come in to AA that are know-it-alls. They don't usually last long. My advice, if you read this book and think he's telling your story or you can seeing where your "running and gunning" might be leading you, take the advice of those who have been where you are now and have stayed sober. And sobriety is not just holding on by your finger nails, but a way to live. A way to live where you never wonder what I did last night, or where did I park the car. The only person who tells you to keep coming back is the bartender.

The 12 Suggested Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

1 We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable.

2 Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3 Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4 Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5 Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6 Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7 Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8 Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9 Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10 Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11 Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12 Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

I first came across this chart from John Williams' Shadow Government Statistics showing reported inflation and actual:

I then went looking for the adjustments that government makes to make inflation look better than it is. I found this paper written by Jarret Wollstein titled 2% INFLATION AND OTHER OFFICIAL LIES Woolstein says

There are in fact many ways in which the government manipulates economic information to keep the CPI artificially low:

1. Geometric Weighing: Elimination of good and services that are going up rapidly from the CPI. Goods and services that are increasing most rapidly – such as housing and energy costs – are given a lower weight in calculating the CPI, or even eliminated from it entirely!

2. Hedonic Adjustment: Explaining away price increases as quality improvements.For instance, if the price of a computer goes up by $100 this price increase will not be included in the CPI if (as is usually the case) there is also some improvement in the capabilities of the computer.

3. Ignoring quality decreases.Sixty years ago, gas stations had attendants who pumped your gas for you, checked your oil, and cleaned your car windshield at no additional charge. And movie theaters had ushers who took you to your seats.

4. Assuming consumers will simply turn to less-expensive alternatives.

5. Exclusion of goods and services whose price is reduced by government subsidies.For instance, the actual cost of a subway ride in New York City is anywhere from $3.50 to $6.00, but riders only pay $1.25. The rest is subsidized by taxes.

Another lie we are told concerns the Federal deficit. We are told

"the official, accounting-gimmicked 2005 deficit of $318.5 declined by 22.8% from $412.3 billion in 2004."

reported a $760.0 billion net deficit in U.S. government operations for fiscal 2005, based on generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), but excluding ongoing liabilities to Social Security, Medicare and similar programs. The $760.0 billion was up 23.2% from 2004's $615.6 billion GAAP-based deficit

CPI Federal Deficit Mover Mike

A Chesapeake natural gas drilling rig experienced an unusually large flow of gas last week and OCC and emergency management officials are investigating whether gas from the well moved to the creek area.

Only the foundation remains of the Johnson's Shut-In State Park Superintendent's house along State Highway N in Lesterville. A breach at the Taum Sauk Lake Hydroelectric Plant sent a wall of water into the surrounding area. (Andrew Cutraro/P-D)

Gary Rainwater, AmerenUE president, said this afternoon that a preliminary review suggests an “instrumentation failure” caused the automatic system to continue pumping water into the upper reservoir, even though it already was full. Under the theory, he said, water splashing over the reservoir wall eroded its crushed-rock structure, causing a “fairly massive breach” of about 600 feet in width.

[...]

Rainwater said the system that fills the upper reservoir operates on its own and is monitored by AmerenUE’s hydro-power station at Lake of the Ozarks. Thomas R. Voss, company executive vice-president, said there are back-up systems as well as a safety that should shut off the pumps when the reservoir is filled.

“We don’t know why they wouldn’t have operated,” Voss said. “We’ll be doing some thorough investigation into this.”

[...]

...a monitor at the company’s station at the Lake of the Ozarks, where the company generates electricity through Bagnell Dam, indicated that the upper reservoir had been refilled by 5:12 a.m., but had fallen back to low level by 5:24 a.m.

So was the 1.9 quake a coincidence or a result of all the water crashing down the mountain. Also, the upper reservoir that failed is 50 acres and the lower reservoir is 300 acres. The failure caused water to top the lower dam by a foot. If the lower lake ever failed, the town of Lesterville would be under water.

We humans sure choose to live in danger zones.

A man from Glen Cove agreed yesterday with federal prosecutors that he and his then-partner, a prominent Washington lobbyist (Abramoff), had defrauded lenders of $60 million in the latest act in the growing scandal that threatens to engulf members of Congress on Capitol Hill.

The man, Adam Kidan, a disbarred lawyer, did so in pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy and wire fraud in the takeover in 2000 of SunCruz, a Florida-based fleet of floating casinos, according to federal prosecutors.

The lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, was indicted in the SunCruz case and is also being investigated for allegedly buying influence from congressmen to support his various ventures, from SunCruz to aiding Indian tribes in obtaining gambling licenses or blocking rival tribes from doing so.

Abramoff Adam Kidan Mover Mike

A senior fellow at the Cato Institute resigned from the libertarian think tank on Dec. 15 after admitting that he had accepted payments from indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff for writing op-ed articles favorable to the positions of some of Abramoff's clients. Doug Bandow, who writes a syndicated column for Copley News Service, told BusinessWeek Online that he had accepted money from Abramoff for writing between 12 and 24 articles over a period of years, beginning in the mid '90s.

Peter Ferrara, a senior policy adviser at the conservative Institute for Policy Innovation, says he, too, took money from Abramoff to write op-ed pieces boosting the lobbyist's clients. "I do that all the time," Ferrara says. "I've done that in the past, and I'll do it in the future."

Abramoff Doug Bandow Mover Mike

Update: Peter Ferrara apparently was misquoted or his comments were misconstrued. He says at the IPI site:

I am glad to ask people to contribute to my work if they agree with what I have been writing for years now and want to support it. That is what I was referring to in the quote in this regard in the BusinessWeek Online article.

...The amendment is very simple: it proposes to redirect the ridiculous $220 million earmarked for the Alaskan "bridge to nowhere" to Hurricane Katrina relief; specifically, reconstruction of the Twin Spans Bridge that connects New Orleans with Slidell, Louisiana.

Red State says that the "Bridge to Nowhere" will cost enough to buy every one of the 50 residents of Gravina Island a Lear Jet. It's hard to see how anyone will justify voting against Coburn's amendment, so the forces of reaction are reported to be fighting to keep it from coming to a vote.

Congress recently dropped its funding provisos for the bridges in Ketchikan and Anchorage, but let the state keep the money and left it up to state officials to figure out how to spend it.

Gov. Frank Murkowski in a budget proposal Thursday said he wants to use $91 million for the Ketchikan project (The Bridge to Nowhere!) in the fiscal year beginning in July.

From TBO.com News

Inspectors were shocked to discover that the collapsed portion of a mountaintop reservoir was made of rocky "fill" instead of the granite that was assumed for decades to be the main material, the state's chief reservoir inspector said Thursday.

James Alexander, director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources' Dam and Reservoir Safety Program, said the broken portion of retaining wall - 70 to 80 feet high and about two football fields wide - appeared to consist entirely of soil and smaller rock.

"We were shocked," he said, to see the "rubble material."

The geysers are taking place 20 to 30 miles north of Oklahoma City, and the Meers Fault (which appears to have a connection to the New Madrid area) goes NW to SW to Lawton southwest of Oklahoma City. The slippage along the Meers Fault is classified as Aseismic Tectonic Creep, basically slow creep without earthquakes.

Here's the piece that suggests a connection:

In this model in the Early Cambrian, the southern Oklahoma and Reelfoot rifts are failed arms and the Ouachita rift and Alabama-Oklahoma transform are active boundaries. Hildenbrand & Hendricks (1995) have detected the relic AL-OK transform fault in gravity and magnetic data and identify it as the southern boundary of the Reelfoot rift. Its interpreted location is 150 km southwest of the southwestern tip of the Blytheville arch.

Precambrian and Cambrian Basins:

* OA - Ouachita Aulacogen
* RCG - Rough Creek Graben
* RFR - Reelfoot Rift
* RT - Rome Trough
* BT - Birmingham Trough
* OB - Olin Basin
* FWR - Fort Wayne Rift
* ECRB - East Continent Rift Basin
* LPCM - Late Paleozoic continental margin

Bottom line: what I am watching for is some activity that indicates the whole area is getting active that results in a pulling apart of the North American Continent. Edgar Cayce predicted it. Will this kind of thing happen in my lifetime or at all? I don't know but geology iis fascinating!

The Chicago school district plans to open an all-boys high school primarily for black teenagers.

[...]

Mayor Richard Daley plans to open 100 schools in the city in the next five years. Plans for the next two years include a virtual elementary school, a high school operated by the University of Chicago and a high school stressing business entrepreneurship.

There is an idea among certain young blacks that if their black peers are focused on academic pursuits, excelling in school, and speaking proper English, they’re “acting” like white people, which is a bad thing.

I noticed the trend toward same-sex and same-race schools. I have no problem with these schools as long as they’re private and not supported with my taxes. In fact, I hope to see more entrepreneurs creating academically competitive same-race schools, especially if there’s strong evidence to suggest that black kids perform better when surrounded by their black peers and whites are not castigated as racists for creating similar schools.

From CBS News

Water poured through a breach at a hydroelectric plant's rural reservoir in southeast Missouri on Wednesday morning, at 5:30 AM, washing away homes and vehicles, authorities said.

Now the reservoir that broke sits along the New Madrid Fault Line but experts have ruled out seismic activity and high waters as cause for the breach.

We are bringing in experts, geologists from Chicago to look at the situation and tell us exactly what happened, what caused the failure but we really can't tell you at this time why the failure of the reservoir occurred," said Gary Rainwater, President & CEO of Ameren UE.

Water pouring out of the reservoir hours after the breach.

Stan Deyo, however, says there was a 1.9 earthquake:

A micro earthquake occurred at 05:40:04 (UTC) on Wednesday, December 14, 2005. The magnitude 1.9 event has been located in SOUTHEASTERN MISSOURI. The hypocentral depth was estimated to be 16 km (10 miles).

earthquake New Madrid Lesterville

Carnival of Dogs is up at Mickey's Musings, a new one to me, and has MoverMike's post about laughing dogs.

samaBlog has Carnival of the Capitalists.

Homespun Bloggers has the best of Homespun Bloggers for the Week

So far this year, the deficit is running at an annual rate of $718 billion, far surpassing last year's $617.6 billion imbalance.

Trade deficit USD Mover Mike

The IEA said world oil demand will climb 2.2 percent next year, compared with 2 percent forecast a month ago, as high prices do little to slow the U.S. economy.

[...]

"Underlying the rise in prices is a strong world economy," said Eugene X. Hodge, a managing director at John Hancock Financial Services Inc. in Boston, who manages a $4.3 billion oil and gas company bond portfolio. "The IEA is showing that demand continues to grow. We haven't seen the demand destruction that was expected to occur after prices jumped."

"We don't have any room for error," said Sarah Emerson, managing director of Energy Security Analysis Inc., a consulting firm in Wakefield, Massachusetts. "Concern about supply and demand makes it very hard for the market to move down. It appears that the floor for prices is in the mid $50s."

oil energy Mover Mike

The chart Gold vs. U.S. Dollar Index courtesy of by Ron Griess, proprietor of The Chartstore

To me it says that the USD is set for another decline that would take it down to the 65 area at the present price of gold. That's a big drop from its current 90!

Not only does the USD look like it put in a top yesterday, but it also appears to have broken a trendline that can be drawn from the September low.

Here's one more chart, gold vs the Dow Jones Industrial Average. I have said that before we are done, gold and the DJIA will trade at the same level. I have indicated $5000 per ounce of gold is a good level. This chart courtesy of www.sharelynx.com show the relationship between the two going back to 1900.

gold USD Mover Mike

Update:

“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

FMNN writes about their credibility in reporting Thompson story.

In a separate piece Doug Thompson, lays out the facts of his reporting and the thought that many presidents bristle at legal reins on their agenda. It is interesting to learn how the President respnds to criticism and how "disloyalty" is treated. A president needs men and women who will say, "No, Mr. President, you are wrong!" That's different than the person who is negative and says, "That can't be done!" We never would have gone to the moon with negative people.

I have had some mighty arguments with people who say, You are wrong!" And in the heat of the argument a lot of vile things can be said. if you believe in something passionately.

Bush Constitution Mover Mike

NewsOK.com reports

(Oklahoma) State and local officials Monday were trying to determine the source of natural gas geysers that have erupted in recent days in Kingfisher County.

Hunters first noticed the leak, which includes geysers that blow water and mud 10 feet in the air, on Friday and told a game warden who notified the (Oklahoma Corporation) Commission, (which regulates utilities). Investigators at first thought that a natural gas pipeline had broken in the rural area. One of the leaks is about a mile west of Kingfisher.

"The only pipeline in the area was brought to zero pressure and it got worse, so it's not that," Skinner said Monday.

*One of the major factors in the gold market today is the gold short position ... more than 10,000 tonnes in a market with a 1500 tonne yearly supply/demand deficit and only 2500 tonnes per year coming out of the mines. The shorts are trapped. Cannot get out. There are mega-derivatives tied to those shorts. GATA knows this because of the Bank For International Settlement derivatives numbers.

*A Gold derivatives neutron bomb will go off. Could happen at any time.

Former Sen. Eugene McCarthy, 89, and Richard Pryor, 65.

Both were integral parts of my young adulthood. When McCarthy ran for President, I considered him a far-out Liberal. Today he might make a good Republican and had achieved a certain gravitas.

Pryor was one of my favorite comedians

One of the first black entertainers, he gave us humor that hit close to the bone. Peace and love to their families!

With the notable exception of Barry Ritholtz over at The Big Picture, it doesn't seem that many others are asking too many questions about what's behind the GDP.

In the lecture Dr. Richebächer talks about how the government skews our statistics. Clinton wanted to show lower unemployment, so they changed the way it is calculated.

Did you know for instance that they measure unemployment by asking 50.000 people every month about: "Have you lost your job?" "Are you unemployed?" And so on. Now, interestingly enough, they have added another question to the tableau which asks: "Have you been active in looking for a job?" Translation: "Have you written a letter for a new job – or have you been to a company asking for a new job?" And if the person says "Yes", guess what …, he is no longer unemployed. The sad fact of course is that there are many people who have been unemployed for so long, that they have just plain given up. Translation: By giving up, they are no longer unemployed. The Federal Reserve in Boston has made calculations and has published them. These so-called ‘discouraged workers’ count for more than 5 million people. If you count these folks in, the real American unemployment rate is at about 8 % to 9 % rather than the touted rate of 5 %.

The fact now is that business investment has never quite recovered. Business investment today is barely at the level of 2000. On the other hand,...Consumption has taken an ever growing larger share of GDP. Measured again(st), GDP growth reached 81 % compared to the long term number of 67 %.

Well, the fact is, you have the biggest cheating activity going on to determine the numbers for GDP and so, in consequence, the understatement of the inflation rate. It makes all the difference, whether you say, the inflation rate is 1 % or 2 % or 3 %.

Dr. Richebächer concludes

The beginning of recovery and economic growth is where there are businessmen who spend and where there are consumers who receive the money. But even these simple things are not understandable to the American economists. Basically, I would say that economic theory and macro-economic knowledge are completely absent. To make matters worse, is that the economic discussion in the United States today is dominated by Wall Street Economists. They know nothing about macro-economics because they are trained to look at a single economy as a micro-economy. With this view, mergers and acquisitions are the best substitute for investment, but that of course is micro-economics; it destroys the macro-economics. I would also say that Wall Street economists are corrupt; corrupt in the sense they are not allowed to say critical things. I know that some of the macro-economists write about this but it is very subdued. One economist even wrote that production is much weaker than GDP. They noticed that but they would never say what this statistic is for.

It began with a large earthquake on the 14th of the month and continued with a swarm of moderate tremors.

"About a week into the sequence, there was a volcanic eruption," explained Dr (Cindy) Ebinger.

"A lot of ash was thrown up in the air, and a lot of cracks appeared in the ground; some of which were more than a metre wide.

"Using satellite techniques we can see ground deformation, and about a month after the sequence, we could see a 60km long section had opened up, and it opened up about 8m in its central part.

"It appears that we've seen the birth of an ocean basin."

It's "rift" country!

Ethiopia Afar Desert Mover Mike

Refco, the bankrupt futures broker, said Thursday that it had transferred $170 million in securities from customer accounts in one subsidiary to another (Refco Capital Markets shifted the securities to Refco Securities), and later sold more than 68 percent of the securities, breaking an agreement to bar such transactions.

[...]

The New York-based company had agreed not to make any such transfers from Refco Capital Markets.

Refco Inc. promised its unsecured creditors it won't use, liquidate or otherwise dispose of customer assets held in its unregulated offshore unit, Refco Capital Markets Ltd.

Refco Mover Mike

Those interested in doing the same can enter Nov. 26, 12:49, 20-mile range, and then click on "start."

You will see every airplane aloft in the Los Angeles area on the map. In about a half minute, "AAL612" appears as a green aircraft crossing the shoreline. If you click on the aircraft, it will turn red, and the flight data will appear in a box to the right. Over the next few minutes, the aircraft turns south. At approximately 6,000 feet and off the coast of Redondo Beach, a new target will appear.

"The unidentified target's altitude does some funny things," observes Glenn Schulze, "from a constant 1,500 feet to suddenly showing 7,500 feet where it remains, which is the same altitude as AA FL 612 at this point in AA FL 612's climb-out."

According to Lahr, AA 612 seems "to split and become TWO! It remains TWO for a while, both targets moving together, then they separate, the mirror target fades, and AA 612 (thank God) is alone again, heading slightly south east."

The unidentified target appears for 12 to 13 sweeps of the FAA LAX TRACON radar rotating at a 4.7-second sweep rate. "This target can not be easily explained away as a radar ghost or artifact or swamp gas," adds Schulze, "as it exists and tracks over the ground for almost 50 seconds as it travels along with AA FL 612. Dynamite evidence!"

AA Flight 612 Lax missile Jack Cashill Mover Mikel

recent paper declaring that the World Trade Towers were brought down, not by the planes crashing into them and burning them down, but by some internally placed explosives.

has weighed in with skepticism, toward the official story of what happened on September 11, 2001.

1. Where was the "National Command Authority"?
2. Who gave the order to try to shoot the planes down?
3. What exactly were all those firefighters doing in the towers?
4. Did anyone think the towers would collapse?
5. Why was Giuliani's command bunker at ground zero?
6. Why did 7 WTC fall?
7. How did the twin towers fall?
8. How dangerous was - and is - the air at ground zero?
9. What exactly did Zacarias Moussaoui plan to do?
10. What's on those blanked-out pages?

Regarding the last point, they note that "'The Joint Inquiry Into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001,' which was released in late 2002, included 28 pages that were blanked out, apparently concerning the possible role of Saudi government officials. Those aren't the only blank spots in the public record. As the Voice reported in October, there are multiple redactions in the FDNY oral histories that in some cases seem to concern the radios or suspicious activity near the WTC site before and during the attacks."

WTC Village Voice Mover Mike

In Missouri,

Under a recent proposal by a special task force for the governor of Missouri, eminent domain would not be used to take land within the state for the sole purpose of increasing tax revenue. However property that is declared blighted would be confiscated according to the Missourian News.

If the judge decides the property is blighted, Missouri doesn’t always require authorities to pay relocation costs to property owners when a property is condemned. How outrageous is that!

WorldNetDaily reports the mayor of Riviera Beach, Fla., wants to relocate as many as 6,000 residents...to rescue and save the remainder of the people of predominantly black Riviera Beach."

Riviera Beach is a growing harbor city located along the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in southeast Florida, USA. The City's municipal beach is one of the finest in the state. Our beautiful sandy beaches make Riviera Beach an appealing place for sporting events.

One state lawmaker has called the situation a "reverse Robin Hood," suggesting the city's poor are being robbed of their possessions to give to the rich. Is this why the officials want Riviera Beach, for properties like this:

eminent+domain Riviera Beach Mover Mike

In West Yellowstone, Montana, a hamlet on the doorstep of Yellowstone National Park and a frequent icebox, the mercury plummeted to 45 below zero, shattering the old record for December 7 of 39 below set in 1927.

----The cold extended south to the Texas Panhandle, where Lubbock had a record low of 6 degrees.

----Elsewhere Wednesday, the weather service said record lows for the date included 28 below zero at Drummond, Montana, 25 below at Laramie, Wyoming, 17 below at Alliance, Nebraska; 19 below at Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and 3 below at Lincoln, Illinois.

Every house on the street is decorated with as many lights as the house will hold in all manner of Christmas displays. The tradition goes back to 1929, when residents decided to decorate their houses as a show of civic pride. All during the evening holiday season, cars are driven slowly past the lighted homes. I am almost 62 and I recall my parents driving us down Peacock Lane, an annual event.

Horse and carriage rides are also available most evenings. Vendors sell hot cider and cocoa, and carolers are often on hand to entertain the crowd.

There is another house that totally surpasses the lights on Peacock Lane. Turn up the sound sit back and watch this piece:

Carson Williams spends nearly two months hooking up the 25,000 lights and programming them to dance — hundreds of cars drive by his house north of Cincinnati every night to see the display.

Update:

On CNBC and MSNBC the pundits like Gartman, Kudlow and Luskin have missed the market in gold. since $250 per ounce. Now at $518 they are cautious, calling for a correction, suggesting that POG shouldn't be at this level. Afterall, inflation is mild, just look at treasuries. There is no inflation scare there. And the USD has been rising. Wall Street will tell you that POG and the USD move in opposite directions. And there is no financial crisis. So don't trust the strength in gold. What they don't tell you is this:

A Gold Cartel suppressed the price of gold for nearly a decade, and did so in surreptitious fashion. This was accomplished by deceitful lending of central bank gold in order to add price-depressing physical supply into the market. The IMF, to accommodate The Gold Cartel, instructed the central banks to account for this gold as gold reserves in the vaults, not as lent/swapped gold they cannot retrieve. As a result, the central banks have less than half the gold they say they have. Since the supply demand deficit exceeds 1500 tonnes per year, they will not be able to get even part of their gold back without driving the price to the moon.

There is a massive gold short position out there with billions of derivatives of short side exposure, enough to send gold stunningly higher at any time when a gold derivatives neutron bomb goes off.

Traditional gold shorts, ones who played along with The Gold Cartel, are running for the hills. It is only a matter of time before we begin to see smoke re a Commercial Signal Failure as some short is forced to cover in fast market panic buy