If an enemy wanted to defeat the most powerful nation on earth they wouldn't attempt a frontal attack. They would work and worry at your weak point.
The U.S. response to Bin Laden, "radical Islam, "The War on Terrorism", whatever you want to call it... appears, when combined with impossible entitlement spending, to be leading the U.S. to the brink of disaster. While we cannot know if Bin Laden understood that the impacts of Peak Oil and a huge military/regulatory/law enforcement/security apparatus buildup would then be "traded", within the American Body Politic, for massive social spending. The result is the massive debt now placed upon the backs of the American taxpayer at the same time that said taxpayer is being slowly (for now) starved of Oil.
Perhaps Bin Laden, et al are not that smart... but its an awfully disconcerting possibility to consider... because even if it was just plain dumb luck, that doesn't change anything... now does it? Worse, those within the American political leadership are all too blind and all to willing to do anything to get reelected.
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I wonder how many of the men that signed the Declaration of Independence could pass today's sexual background check... not a one, I suspect. For every philandering husband there is a philandering woman/wife/female on the other side of the trade... the one thing that should not even be remotely considered in policy is an individual's sexual history... yet it seems to be the only thing that matters for a significant portion of the electorate, an electorate that philander's with great aplomb... This piece is as artful a piece of propaganda as has ever been written: Mom, Home, Apple Pie, Baseball have ALL been violated by John Roberts (and believe me, I am NO FAN of John Roberts the policy maker), it seems... When somebody dies, they are re-cast in the angelic light of the heavens... I have no idea what kind of husband John Roberts was, nor any idea of what kind of wife Elizabeth Roberts was (or how much rutting around was done by whom) - BUT, I am ABSOLUTELY SURE that it is none of my g-- damn business - still, it seems the American electorate is absolutely willing to pass on the next Ben Franklin Martin Luther King, Thomas Jefferson, or John F. Kennedy (all outrageous philanderers) should he or she show up.
Ms. Carlson speaks of Roberts' love child like it was the Anti-Christ. It never occurred to Ms. Carlson that maybe, just maybe, this child was meant to be for reasons that I am not capable of understanding (and men are not uniquely guilty here... 4 to 5% of American's are sending their father's day cards to the wrong guy... should we wipe these people from the face of the earth?) Life is a funny thing, and it really is a "funny ol' world"... we all want and understand the need for forgiveness... but it seems not a single one of us is willing to give it.
We need a leader that can sort this mess out far more than we need a Saint.
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Oil prices fell with the inventory report... now they have turned positive on the day... Its all about the price. Time will tell.
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To all you old men with your guns and your gold and your stockpiled food ... waiting, hoping, praying for the world to end, I have a reminder of the thing you should really be watching carefully .. the 10-year yield on the traded Treasury note.
While I stand to make a nice buck off of rising 10-year yields, that figure more than anything (Dow Jones, S&P 500, oil, current events, gold, etc.) will tell you that the United States is about to come apart. As it rises, and it will rise, it becomes more impossible for the U.S. to service (pay for) its debt. The foreign bondholders will start "wondering" and start dumping their bonds. It is a "Libertarian Orgasm" all wrapped up into one. :)
Watch it. marketwatch.com or cnnmoney.com
The dollar is rising with treasury yields on anticipation of higher deficits, and gold, silver and oil made technical reversals yesterday. Whether this is the beginning of a new bear market in commodities due to a rising dollar remains to be seen. It depends on the next Fed meeting and employment situation. As soon as the employment picks up the fed will stop their quantitative easing and the dollar will rise even more. Next month's employment report will probably be better than expected based on monster.com job openings and lower weekly unemployment claims plus strong seasonal hiring.Plus look for another rate hike from China this week as food prices are skyrocketing there and causing food riots and hunger. This will slow down their entire economy and the Asian demand for oil.
Not sure about OBL being a master chess player (or even still alive), but the thought had struck me that The Saudi's might be pretty good at positioning their pieces. They have extremely valuable information and lots of money to play and benefit from that information. The thought goes something like this:
If I was KSA and I had a massive amount of cash and I KNEW, as nobody else really knows, the true state of my reserves, and I knew they were considerably below what other people though, I would start placing more and more of my money into the oil markets, since I would know, with almost certainty that there would be a supply crunch coming, and I would know the timing of it too. This way I would somewhat slow down demand for my oil as it became more expensive, cover the fact that there was less of it left, and I would make a lot of money too.
The amount of money they have could massively tilt the playing field and with the information they have, they are looking at a fairly sure bet. More certain than any other places they could put it anyway.
It seems such an obvious move, but I don't remember seeing anyone mention it anywhere.
Saying Thomas Jefferson was an "outrageous philanderer" is an ignorant statement. Jefferson was one of the most virtuous of all the founders and was rarely heard even allowing a curse word to cross his lips. To say that he was a philanderer is egregious. I'm assuming your referring to his alleged tryst with one of his slaves as your basis for this statement. This was never proven to be true and in fact the book "The Real Thomas Jefferson" speculates that this relationship was actually between a slave and Jefferson’s nephew. Nowhere in all my readings about Jefferson have I ever read that he was a womanizing philanderer. To say this greatly besmirches the character of one of the greatest Americans.
Dear ANON:
DNA doesn't lie. I never said he was a womanizer...I said he was a philanderer.
Crybaby:
Oil made no technical reversal on the day... most of the later months were up... Nat Gas was up BIG... Silver? Due for an ass-kickin' any moment.
But thanks for reminding me.... I forgot JFK and MLK... and RFK... and Ronald Reagan (in his youth) and Bill Clinton (up till last week)...
we are what we are... and "men are as faithful as their options... no more, no less" - Chris Rock.
If OBL or his allies were chess players and wished to break the US they would have already successfully struck again since 911. A move towards other forms of mass transit other than planes would have totally overwhelmed the security budget. An attack on any other form of transit could have easily been done anytime since 2001 simply by coming in through Mexico.
Nah... OBL and friends are after glorious explosions in mid-air with grand fireworks against Westerners. They know little of logistics and economical warfare.
I know little in depth on Jefferson since I have not researched him but Greg is right on a few of our founders. Franklin for one had an illegitimate son (his oldest) and his wife who he courted and then dumped when he went to England later married another man and then moved in with Franklin later still under a common law arrangement. Only to be introduced to the illegitimate son shortly after.
Perhaps it's better to have a leader with a sex drive overall :)
Greg,
I have read Margaret Carlson's acticle. Who is John Roberts?
K:
ROFL!!
PP:
Just more propaganda.... clearly, there is always someone on the other side of these "trades"... how come no articles about them? What, men are cheating solo? I thought that was called something else...
Greg,
Didn't you mean John Edwards?
I'll say this...it matters to me. If a man, or woman, can't be faithful to their vows with their spouse then I automatically assume they can't be faithful to other things in their life that matter.
I don't believe in witch hunts but if it comes out then it does affect how I view the person and their ability to be a leader.
Heh actually I didn't mean it to smear ol' Ben.
He was a great fellow by all accounts and he raised his son and always protected the mothers identity. The common law wife he broke with honorably and then married her later after her husband abandoned her.
I was just agreeing with your theory that at least Franklin would not pass the current moral mustard.
Contradicting me :) (from Agora 5-minute report today) ...
"Chinese oil inventories are plunging, even as demand for fuel hasn’t let up. “Refined oil stocks held by China’s two largest oil companies have fallen for eight consecutive months,” according to former CIBC World Markets chief economist Jeff Rubin, “while diesel stocks in the country fell 14% in October.”
And the tightening oil market won’t just be felt in China. “The 140 million gallons of international oil inventories sloshing around in floating storage on the high seas is also all but gone.
“That may come as a shock to those who thought the bloated oil inventories that came in the wake of the last recession would provide a buffer against future oil price spikes. Suddenly, that buffer has literally gone up in smoke.
“With no letup in China’s fuel demand,” Rubin concludes, “the world should be looking at triple-digit oil prices again within a quarter.”"
Bill:
I don't think its any of my g0t damned business.
PP:
I meant the Carlson article was propaganda...
I think philandering on the campaign trail says a lot about their judgment. Absolutely everyone running for office knows the score and if they can’t restrain themselves when the whole world is out looking for dirt- they have utterly no self control.
I think the founding fathers coming of age at the peak of the enlightenment has more to do with the quality of their work than their sexual appetites.
Bur:
Regarding that Agora report, or whatever it was.... Are you sure they were talking about 140 million *gallons* of oil on the high seas as they said? 140 million gallons, when converted to barrels, and keeping in mind the world uses about 80 million bbls a day, 140 million gallons is about 57 minutes of world usage. In other words, it's a drop in the world's daily oil bucket.
They may have a correction tomorrow, if they were wrong, but the typical "really big" tanker holds 2 million barrels of oil.
This is the first time I heard all those tankers holding oil off the coasts of UK and Singapore waiting for better prices have been emptied. My contention always was we had lots of oil in storage. Maybe China is indeed burning oil like there is no tomorrow.
I'd love to know what the real costs of 9/11 were, longterm. I know that the ongoing security at airports discouraged me, and a lot of business people I know, doing business with the US - we just couldn't be bothered with all the hassles.
I'd guess a lot of entrepreneurs, students, business-people, and families were discouraged from moving to the US, especially if they were from a country with Islamic links (although the majority of physical attacks after 9/11 were on Sikhs! So much for your education system!!)
Then there's all that oil money that didn't get invested there. And the build up of the military - useless spending by any definition. And of course the actual costs of the wars; not just money and lives ended, but disabilities, maintenence payments, medical costs......
I'd say OBL did a pretty good job!
Greg,
If someone wants to to represent me then their character is my business.
Again, I don't believe in witch hunts and dirt digging but if it comes out it affects how I look at a person. It erodes my trust.
Bill:
Clearly more people see it your way than mine...
Dan:
Of course it shows bad judgment on a campaign trail!
To all:
It just ain't non of my business....
I'd love to do a reality show experiment... temptations are EASY to resist when you don't have any...
I wanna take a holy roller out of the mid-west... move him to New York, get him in great shape, drop $50 million in his bank account, get him some cameos in a couple of cool movies... and then time how long it is before he has sex with someone other than his spouse...
Temptation is a funny thing...
Greg,
Maybe holy-rollers have better sense that to put themselves in those situations. :)
It's not the direct temptation that's the big problem. It's daily putting yourself in those situations.
It's a lifestyle choice. Some decide to get in that high-rolling life and some decide to avoid situations that can lead to that.
Donal:
That was my point. The costs of the security apparatus that was erected in response to 9/11 made a great many politically connected folks rich... and it is destroying America from within... on a great many fronts...
Bill:
Most of the exposure you speak of is fate... one is not a morally better person because of a lack of temptation....
My larger point was that you and I have no idea what goes on between people... how they manage their lives, relationships, issues, and temptations... I could easily assert without much reservation that the portion of the electorate that has made sexuality an issue has caused our more competent people NOT to seek office... and perhaps this has much to do with where we are.
Beside, it ain't none of my g0t damn business.
Greg,
I think a lot of it is not fate. I used to kickbox (in my 20s) and our instructor also did basic self-defense. His number one rule was 'Don't be there'. #2 "If you are there leave".
I'm not a believer in fate myself. Those rules work to keep us out of moral dilemmas as well.
Bill,
You are entitled to your interpretation of the rules of the universe...
As for the love lives of other folks?
It just ain't none of my business.
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