Country of Cretins

Argentina and Antarctica

2012-01-19T10:17:00.003-06:00

Taking a much-needed break from planting trees to set foot on my seventh and final continent. There will be camping, penguins and kayaking. As well as a polar plunge in a swimsuit.

All the idiots who wished death on me during countless diving trips should be far more excited about me being trapped for 10 nights on an ice-breaker heading through the Drake Passage. Twice. What could possibly go wrong??

Itinerary

Tour the Argentinian side of Iguazu Falls

Two nights in Buenos Aires

Depart from Ushuaia with Quark Expeditions on the Ocean Nova.

Argentian peso US$1 = $4.21ARS

Green Bay Shits Bed.

2012-01-16T08:55:00.002-06:00

Well, that was fast. Hard to win a game when you can't catch a pass and turn the ball over four times. That's why they call it gambling.

It figures that they are the one home-field favorite who hasn't covered during the entire playoffs.

I think I'll stick to farming.

Mop. The. Floor.

2012-01-14T22:54:00.004-06:00

The fraud is over. Reality bites. Tebow gets down on one knee...and sucks some cock. Again.

Beautiful nights like tonight make me wonder what goes through his tiny head when he's down by 5 touchdowns. Did god watch this game? Is he testing me? Did he forget I was playing? Do I understand the impossibility of him being omnipotent and omniscient at the same time? Who invented liquid soap...and why?

Predictions:

Baltimore wins easily tomorrow, goes to New England as a 4.5 point dog and wins the game outright.

Green Bay trounces Eli Manning tomorrow and then hosts San Fran, where they will be 7.5 point favorites and win a close game.

That leaves Baltimore to play Green Bay in the Superbowl. Green Bay favored by 7. Green Bay wins and covers 31-20.

College Football Bowl Results - 2011/2012

2012-01-09T08:23:00.003-06:00

The college bowl season ended tonight with Alabama's crushing victory over LSU (Bama favored -1.5)

Results:

21 favorites (60%)
14 dogs (40%)

15 overs (42.9%)
20 unders (57.1%)

That Did Not Just Happen

2012-01-08T19:10:00.003-06:00

Great. I have to listen to another week of Tebow miracle god talk before the Patriots wipe the floor with that cocksucker. Pats will be 14 point faves and cover. End of story.

On the plus side, the Steelers are done for the season. Fuck them too.

Fear

2012-01-08T10:10:00.002-06:00

A reprint before I head back out into the south Texas farmlands....

Moving to the proverbial 50,000-foot view, we humans have an innate capacity to experience the "unpleasant emotion" of fear in myriad ways. While fear is an intensely personal emotion, it can sweep through entire populations, much the same as a herd of gazelles are sent into fearful flight by the scent of a lion.

Unlike a few dozen gazelles foraging on the plains of the Serengeti, however, the technological advancements made by the human ape can result in a population numbering in the hundreds of millions, or even billions, becoming almost simultaneously "afraid of something or someone." While the flash-fire of fear usually won't result in wholesale scampering for cover, á la the always graceful gazelle, it can absolutely result in quick modifications in human behavior on even a global scale.

For example, an economic crisis can cause billions to clamp their wallets tightly shut and refuse to open them until the scent of danger passes.

That said, while fear can be experienced more or less simultaneously by the multitude, per my remarks just above, by definition the emotion is intensely personal and individualized. Simply, the level of fear experienced by each of us, and our response to that fear, will largely depend on the nature of the fear-evoking stimulus and our individual psychology. The aurophobic, for example, is frightened by the presence of gold whereas I suspect most dear readers will experience exactly the opposite emotion. (Think you know how many different phobias there are? You'll think again after reviewing this list.)

With that bit of stage-setting, I will now proceed in what I hope will be a mostly methodical fashion on to the ways that these unpleasant emotions can affect us as a society and, more to the point, on an individual basis.

Institutional Fear

It is no secret to any thinking person that the institutions we humans allow to grow up above us on the societal org chart - governments and religions, to name two of the most prominent - long ago made the calculation that fear equals control.

It is not an accident, in my view, that in the history of most nations, there are no prolonged periods where there isn't some sort of big threat dangling over the populace like the proverbial blade of Damocles.

And if, by some oversight, a government had allowed a lapse in its drumming up of mass fear, the gap is invariably filled by the "always there" threat of fire and brimstone, or its equivalents in the world's many religions.

While it may seem cynical to accuse governments and religions of deliberately unleashing fearful scents into the herd, the historical record is clear on the matter. In fact, the record is so well documented that it must be taken as a standard operating policy. And it has only gotten worse in modernity as the fear-spreading operations of these institutions are made easy in the extreme by a combination of massively improved communications and a media without any ethical reservations when it comes to enthusiastically exaggerating the things we fear in order to gain eyeballs on their pathetic offerings.

But even if you were to take a kinder view toward the PIPs (Ponzis in Power) and assume that their constant concerns are sincerely felt as opposed to callously calculated, the net effect on society is the same. Case in point, Lyndon Johnson was, apparently, completely convinced that victory in Vietnam was the only thing standing between the free world and global communist domination. In his own words, following the end of his presidency:

"I was as sure as a man can could be that if we didn't live up to our commitments in Southeast Asia and elsewhere, [the communists] would exploit the disarray in the United States and in the allies of the Free World."

--Former President Lyndon Johnson

Apparently, he was so convinced in his fears that he used a false report of an attack on US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam as an excuse to ramp the Vietnam conflict into a full-blown war.

Whether Johnson was a part of the falsification of the report might be debatable, but what is not debatable is that on the very night he purported to have received the report, without waiting for any details, he went on national television and announced in terms evoking comparison with FDR following Pearl Harbor that "Aggression by terror against the peaceful villagers of South Vietnam has now been joined by open aggression on the high seas against the United States of America."

The film of his televised speech is available on YouTube, and worth a watch in that he goes into some detail about the attack that never happened. And then, having secured his rationale, Johnson never looks back as he revs up the military-industrial complex to unleash near total war on the backward country, ultimately causing the death of 58,000 young US men, about 30% of whom were drafted against their will and made to serve, and another 300,000 wounded. Then there's the death toll on the other side, which, while the data is debatable, almost certainly runs into the seven figures.

Coincidentally, this morning I received an email from an ex-military officer friend of mine on the topic of Vietnam. I am going to excerpt it here because (a) I found it interesting, and (b) hopefully it will help head off angry emails from those Vietnam vets who still think the cost and the carnage of the war was justified.

I replied to Doug on his Conversations with Casey interview on the new Kim in Korea this week. As it turns out, about twenty years ago, I had dinner with Aaron Bank, the founder of modern Special Forces.

Pretty tough dude, even though he probably weighed no more than 150 lbs soaking wet in his prime. He had jumped into France during WWII to train the resistance and later went to Indochina to fight the Japanese. It was there that he met Ho Chi Minh, whom he got to know well and apparently found him to be agreeable and very intelligent.

While a communist philosophically, Ho Chi Minh seemed more an anti-colonialist than anything else. He shared with Aaron Bank that more than Marx and Lenin, his true idol was Thomas Jefferson. Furthermore, it was his hope that once the Japanese were drummed out of Indochina, the Americans would support him in getting the French to take their leave as well. Bank reported back to his American superiors that Minh was the likely leader of the inevitable insurgency that would be waged against the French by the Vietnamese, and given the diminishing viability for colonialism, Americans would do well to reach out to Ho Chi Minh and perhaps broker a deal.

Well, they didn't, and the rest is history, as the saying goes. For their arrogance, the French were rightfully rewarded with a bad case of Dien Bien Flu, and America went on to make every idiotic choice possible in dealing with that region. Watching Colonel Bank look at us (we were about 12 seated at the table) wistfully was a very powerful experience for me as a young officer starting his career with Special Forces. Those were eyes that said "what could have been and what could have been avoided."

But my purpose is not to dwell on the past - because as unfortunate as Vietnam may have been, it is but a speck of dust in the historical record - but rather simply to make the point that not only are governments capable of deliberately propagating fear for their own purposes, they are susceptible to fears of their own... some warranted and some not. In either case, the result can lead to catastrophic miscalculations.

Given more time, we could go on and on evaluating the motives of those people in position to instill fear in the PIPs - for instance, foreign governments looking to hide under the US military umbrella or to protect steady streams of money and other concessions reserved for regional allies. Likewise, the people in the military-industrial complex - which is to say official military and the private concerns that profit so mightily from military operations - have a clear interest in protecting their turf and stirring the pot should they think it necessary to do so.

The fact remains, however, that each of us - including members of government, as hard as it is to believe sometimes - is a member of the same species, and that species is never more than an instant removed from a fear reaction. In other words, we are completely susceptible to becoming fearful at any time, and for a multitude of reasons. This condition does not fade away when a person assumes power. In fact, if anything, it is heightened.

Imagine, if you will, what sort of preparation the military now provides a newly elected president and senior members of his incoming administration, and the sort of fear that preparation might evoke.

On that point, following is an excerpt from the excellent Top Secret America by Dana Priest and William Arkin, describing a mock crisis meeting held for Obama's national security team just before his inauguration.

As they all sat around a large conference table, Obama's national security advisers during the campaign, Richard Clarke and Rand Beers, laid out the scenario: Israel was about to bomb Iran. Discuss.

While they debated next steps, Clarke announced some more bad news: al-Qaeda was carrying a nuclear bomb on a freighter headed for Manhattan. Discuss.

The team forgot about Israel and Iran, and called upon a clandestine U.S. rapid-response team to interdict the ship. But the scenario shifted again: the terrorists had slipped off the freighter and onto a boat. Al-Qaeda was now headed to Boston. Discuss.

Before the team could identify which boat carried the deadly device, they were informed it had been offloaded and detonated. Cities along the eastern seaboard were evacuating. Discuss."

Far be it from me to rationalize the steady missteps of the PIPs, but after going through such an exercise, I'm surprised that the Obama administration's first collective act upon assuming power wasn't to just turn most of the Middle East into a glass-topped parking lot. Is it any wonder the US has a trillion-plus-dollar defense budget?

In my opinion, which will come as no surprise to regular readers, the way to greatly reduce these sorts of institutional fears is to stop running around the world taking sides with petty despots and starting wars. Isolationism? Maybe, maybe not - but it seems like things couldn't get a whole lot more screwed up than they have by following the current policy of widespread meddling.

Pulling sharply back onto the tracks, the point I am trying to make is that fear as both a policy and a policy driver is of no small consequence. Continuing with the US-centric commentary that is an understandable consequence of the geographic accident of my birth, fear has rarely been as big a factor in US policy as it is today.

In addition to the massive military budget that provides funding to huge new entrenched bureaucracies that will resist every attempt at real cuts, I'll also mention:

The trashing of the Constitution. I have written enough on this topic - you and I both know the situation, so it doesn't need to be repeated.

Economic uncertainty. The policy of constant meddling in the Middle East is only causing things to get more uncertain and unstable.

Sure, some of the ruling thugs in the area are being chased out - but only to be replaced by a new group of ruling thugs.

Much of this is happening in and around the world's fuel station, and the situation has the potential to get much, much worse if any one of the sparks now floating in the air of the Middle East - especially those around Iran - touches one of the many piles of powder that have been allowed to build up. At that point the price of oil is going to go ballistic - and if there is one thing a struggling economy can't handle, it is another surge in oil prices. (You can click on the interactive graphic to get some sense of the relationship between oil prices and GDP growth.)

A steady increase in the public's reliance on the government to protect it. A culture of fear inevitably leads to public support for government policies ostensibly designed to protect the citizenry from every possible bogeyman. One result of the ramp-up of fear following September 2001 has been the proliferation of massive new bureaucracies, as well as huge new bodies of regulation that hamper the free movement of people, materials and technology so essential to economic growth. At this point, things have gotten to the point where they are as ridiculous as they are concerning.

Case in point, we now have TSA "VIPR" squads setting up security check points here, there and everywhere. This video shows such a checkpoint set up to screen people getting off a train in Savannah, Georgia. Which makes me wonder what they would do to a citizen who refuses to play along? Force them back onto the train? And how is this different, I ask, from the iconic line associated with fascists the world over, namely, "Your papers, please!"? Ultimately, not only is 99% of this dangerous nonsense ineffective, but it is also emasculating to the character of the people. Hey, did you see the latest?

The spread of mandates and discussion of ignition interlocks will "prime the public" for the day when the government requires auto manufacturers to install even more sophisticated alcohol-detection devices as original equipment, Longwell said.

The Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety, funded in part by automakers and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, says it is working on "potential technologies that could detect alcohol from air samples in the vehicle passenger compartment, through the driver's skin using tissue spectroscopy, from emissions through the skin, from eye movements, and from driving performance."

It matters not that drunken-driving fatalities have fallen by half over the last twenty years, the nanny-state meddling will continue apace. And while you could argue that a car that senses when you should drive based on what has been shown to be a largely artificial and dubious standard (a topic for another day) is a good idea, when you look to the government to provide total security in a world that is inherently insecure, you multiply the meddling to the point where you might as well just have the state plug you into the Matrix and be done with it.

As you know, I could go on, but chances are good I'd just be telling you things you already know. The point, though, is that the build-up of fear-driven policies has been so extreme since September 11, 2001 that we now face the very real potential of a police state-caliber crackdown on the citizenry should another 9/11 occur. And, given the amount of meddling the USG does around the world, such an event could happen anytime.

At least that is my personal fear. Which, conveniently, brings me to the next segment of these musings.

Personal Fears

There is, of course, a feedback loop to the societal fears discussed above. For example, the stampede caused by self-serving NGOs' over-inflated environmental concerns that resulted in a fearful public demanding that governments spend yet more money they don't have on wasteful and often counterproductive subsidies, such as those involved with ethanol and Finland-built electric super cars. However, as mentioned, the need to assess threats and deal with fear is something that each of us have to deal with on a very personal level.

While there is literally no end to the fears that might torment the human mind, I'd like to tackle just a couple of the big ones that I know - from your letters and from your comments when we meet at our events - weigh heavily on the minds of many.

Fear of Government. In his client communications, libertarian defense attorney Marc Victor likens the government to a crazed ape, explaining that job number one for anyone who comes into contact with the crazed ape is to get out of its grasp as quickly as possible. This advice, Mark will tell you, applies to every interaction with the ape - including something as mundane as a routine traffic stop that, should you decide to be confrontational or think it a dandy time to lecture the officer on your constitutional rights, could end with you bleeding out on the pavement.

Given the wanton trashing of the Constitution in recent years - and the trashing has been done by all three branches of government - you are entirely justified in fearing your government. The question, then, comes down to, "So, what can I do about it?"

Following Marc Victor's advice, the decision tree is fairly simple.

Stay within the easy reach of the crazed ape, but quietly tip-toe through daily life in the hopes of avoiding attention. Should a hairy hand be laid on your shoulder - or, in the case of a TSA pat-down, your groin - make appropriately supplicating sounds (thanking them for protecting you, or even a slight whimper may suffice) and hope they will let you go. Try your hardest to comply cheerfully with all the latest taxes and regulations (I say "try" because at this point, no one can even know what all the regulations say, let alone afford the bevy of legal counsel required for complete compliance) and get on with your life.

Spread the risk. Having all of your assets, and all your personal support systems, within the boundaries of one political regime leaves you and all you own as so much chattel. Diversifying your assets and your life across jurisdictions, if you can afford to do so, will open up new intellectual and lifestyle horizons, as well as provide you with the peace of mind that should the crazed apes in one country become especially frenzied, you can more readily step out of reach.

Raise My Debt Limit

2012-01-03T12:23:00.001-06:00

NFL - Week Seventeen St. Tebow Collapse and Choke Edition

2012-01-01T18:13:00.004-06:00

Week ending January 1st:

Faves: 9 (121) [47%]
Dogs: 7 (133) [52%]
Push: 0 (2) [1%]

Overs: 9 (126) [49.2%]
Under: 7 (130) [50.8%]

Home field favorites went 8-3 (82-88-2) against the spread and 8-3 (115-52) straight up [68.9% win rate]

Fave/over: 5 (58) [22.7%]
Fave/undr: 4 (63) [24.6%]
Dog/over: 4 (67) [26.2%]
Dog/undr: 3 (66) [25.8%]

Push/over: 0 (1) [0.4%]
Push/undr: 0 (1) [0.4%]

One overtime game this week (SEA/AZ)...12 occurrences in 256 games (4.7% rate)

What an absolute shame that Saint Timothy got no help from Jesus the final three games of the season. Not only that, but the horrific manner in which he did it means he was exposed as the fraud he is.

Nice job Tim! Your team scored all of THREE points at home in the big game. Yes, you are certainly a marquee player at the same level as a Brady or a Manning. Keep telling yourself that, cum stain.

Passer rating of 20 with a fumble and an interception (on top of four INTs last week). That's true performance in the clutch. Guess your kicker couldn't save your ass again today.

Doug Casey - Getting Out of Dodge

2011-12-28T11:55:00.000-06:00

L: Doug, a lot of readers have been asking for guidance on how to know when it's time to exit center stage and hunker down in some safe place. Few people want to hide from the world in a cabin in the woods while life goes on in the mainstream, but nobody wants to get caught once the gates clang shut on the police state the US is becoming. How do you know when it's time to go?

Doug: Well, the first thing to keep in mind is that it's better to be a year too early than a minute too late. David Galland recently read They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45, by Milton Mayer. He quoted a passage in his column of last Friday. It goes a long way in explaining why Americans appear to be such whipped dogs today. They're no different from the Germans of recent memory. For those who missed it, let me quote it:

"You see," my colleague went on, "one doesn't see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even talk, alone; you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' ... In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, 'It's not so bad' or 'You're seeing things' or 'You're an alarmist.'

"These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don't know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic... the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That's the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked... But of course this isn't the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C?"

The fact is that the US has been on a slippery slope for decades, and it's about to go over a cliff. However, our standard of living, while declining, is still very high, both relatively and absolutely. But an American can enjoy a much higher standard of living abroad.

On the other hand, if I were some poor guy in a poverty-wracked country with few opportunities, I'd want to go where the action is, where the money is, now. Today, that means trying to get into the United States. The US is headed the wrong direction, but it's still a land of opportunity and a whole lot better than some flea-bitten village in Niger.

L: By the time things get worse than some Third-World dictatorship in the US, such a person could have remitted a whole lot of cash back home.

Doug: And you'd have a whole lot of experiences that would give you a competitive edge back where you came from, or in the next place you go to. The one-eyed man is king in the valley of the blind. People have to lose that backward, peasant mentality that ties them to the land of their birth. Sad to say, although the average American has somewhat more knowledge of the world - mainly due to television - his psychology is just as constrained as that of some serf from central Asia or some primitive village in Africa. It's all a matter of psychology.

But if you're not poor, you want to go someplace that is safe, nice - whatever that means to you - and with a lower cost of living. As most readers know, for me that's Cafayate, Argentina, but one size does not fit all. It needs to be a place you actually enjoy spending some time, with people whose company you enjoy.

L: Fair enough. But our readers want to know if your guru-sense is tingling yet, or how close you think we are to it being too late to leave - or at least too late to leave with any meaningful assets.

Doug: I'm a trend observer. This is one of the advantages of studying history, because it shows you that things like this rarely happen overnight. They are usually the result of trends that build over years and years, sometimes over generations. In the case of the US, I think the trend has been downhill, in many ways, for many years. Pick a time. You could make an argument, from a moral point of view, that things started heading downhill at the time of the Spanish-American War. That was when a previously peaceful and open country first started conquering overseas lands and staking colonies. America was still in the ascent towards its peak economically, but the seeds of its own demise were already sewn, and a libertarian watching the scene might have concluded that it was time to get out of Dodge -

L: [Laughs] That would have been a bit early...

Doug: [Chuckles] Yes, that would have been way too soon. As Adam Smith observed, there's a lot of ruin in a country.

L: On the other paw, it would have gotten you out before the War between the States, a disaster well worth avoiding.

Doug: No, the Spanish-American War was in 1898.

L: Oops! Sorry, I was thinking of what Americans call the Mexican-American War, but which Mexicans call the "American Invasion" -

Doug: [Laughs]

L: I'm not joking. That's what they called it in the history books I was given in Mexican schools when I lived there in the '70s. It has long seemed to me that that was an ominous turn for the worse for the US and a clear example of conquering a weaker neighbor purely for pillage - not just Texas, but everything from there all the way to California.

Doug: That's right. Davey Crockett and the boys, we love them, but in many ways they were the equivalent of today's Mexicans who want to recolonize the southwest and turn it back into part of Mexico, in what they call the Reconquista.

L: Indeed, but this is ancient history to most US taxpayers today - I'm reminded that it's not correct in many cases to call them Americans.

Doug: Yes, just as it was a misnomer to call the people who lived in the Roman Empire after Diocletian Romans - because Roman citizens were once free men. After about 300 AD most of them were bound to the land or their occupations as serfs. But the slide for Rome started at least 120 years earlier, after the death of Marcus Aurelius. Politically, the decline started with the accession of Julius Caesar 240 years before that. So, when did the slide - politically, economically, and socially - really start for the US? When were there no more trends going up?

L: FDR? The New Deal was really a moral, economic, and political turning point.

Doug: You could make that argument, but the US still grew economically, despite the roadblocks FDR threw in its path. US military power and global prestige continued growing from that point, although, paradoxically, the accelerating growth of the US military was directly responsible for the decline of the US economically and in terms of personal freedom. One reason for the ascendancy of the US after World War II was that we were the only major country in the world not physically devastated by the war.

L: Ah. Right.

Doug: So it seems to me that the peak of American civilization was in the 1960s. As for evidence, well, I like to put my finger on the 1959 Cadillac. Those twin bullet taillights, the opulence of it... In terms of then-current technology, things couldn't get much better.

L: "Opulence. I has it."

Doug: [Laughs - a real belly laugh] That's my favorite TV commercial! Anyway, that was the peak, in my mind. Though things continued getting better for a while, the US started to live out of capital.

L: Had to pay for guns and butter.

Doug: That's right. The Johnson administration's so-called Great Society created vast new federal bureaucracies that promised Americans free food, shelter, medical care, education, and what-have-you. Americans became true wards of the state. But the real, final nail in the coffin for America was in 1971 -

L: Nixon taking the US off the gold standard.

Doug: Nixon taking the US off the gold standard - open devaluation of the dollar, combined with wage and price controls for some months. And that was not long after the so-called Bank Secrecy Act, which abolished bank secrecy, and required the reporting of all foreign financial accounts. Nixon was, in many ways, even more of a disaster than Johnson. Republicans are usually worse than Democrats when it comes to freedom, partly because they like to couch their depredations in the rhetoric of defending the free market. While everyone understands that Democrats are socialists just under the surface, Republicans actually give capitalism a bad name. Baby Bush is a perfect, recent example.

L: But don't you worry your pretty little head about devaluation - it's just a "bugaboo" - and as long as you're not one of those unpatriotic people wanting to buy imports or vacation abroad, your dollar will be worth just as much tomorrow as it is today. The scary thing is that the Belarusian dictator Lukashenko said almost the same thing when the Belarusian ruble lost two thirds of its forex value earlier this year, asking his countrymen why they need to go on vacation in Germany or buy German cars...

Doug: You see why I like to study history? It doesn't repeat, but it sure does rhyme...

L: With a vengeance.

Doug: So, anyway, since 1971, some things have improved largely due to technological advances, but the America That Was has been fading into the past. It was a decisive turning point. You can see that in the accelerated proliferation of undeclared wars we've had since then. I don't just mean the penny-ante invasions of Granada and Panama - the US has always lorded it over Caribbean and Central American banana republics; those are just sport wars. But Iraq and Afghanistan are alien cultures on the other side of the world - apart from never posing any threat to the US. Now it looks like Iran and Pakistan are on the dance card, and they're big game. The War Against Islam has started in earnest, and it's going to end badly for the US. I explained all this at great length in the white paper, Learn to Make Terror Your Friend, that I wrote for The Casey Report last month.

Domestically, saying that the US is turning into a police state when you started this conversation was quite accurate. You can see more and more videos spreading over the Internet, not just of police brutality, but demonstrating the militarization and federalization of police, who are being inculcated with both disdain for and paranoia about ordinary citizens.

In the old days, if you were stopped for speeding, the peace officer was polite - you could get out of your car, meet the cop on neutral ground, and chat with him. You didn't have a serious problem unless you were obviously drunk or combative. Now, you don't dare make a move. You better keep your hands in plain sight on the steering wheel and be ready for a Breathalyzer test without probable cause. The law enforcement officer will stand behind you with his hand on his gun. And you're the one who'd better be polite.

L: There has been a polar reversal. The cops used to address citizens as "sir" or "ma'am." Now, the correct response in a traffic stop is: "Yes, sir! I would love to inspect the bottom of your boot, sir!"

Doug: [Laughs] That's right. My friend Marc Victor gives out magnetized business cards. People ask, "Why?" He answers that it's so clients can put them on the bottom of their cars or refrigerators, so they can see it when the cops throw them to the ground.

L: Marc's a good man. There's a handy video on Marc's website, offering advice on what to do if you're pulled over by the police in a traffic stop.

Doug: A good public service announcement. At any rate, I think there's no question that the US has turned the corner on every basis: politically, socially, morally, and now, economically...

L: Okay, but, Doug, you said that in 1979 too. The question is, how do we know when the door is going to close?

Doug: [Laughs.] Well, sometimes I feel a little like the boy who cried wolf. But Roman writers like Tacitus and Sallust saw where Rome was going before it got completely out of control. Should they have said nothing, for fear of being too early? Here in the US, it should have gone over the edge back in the 1980s, but we got lucky. There was still a lot of forward momentum, which can last for decades when you're speaking of civilizations. There was the computer productivity boom. The Soviet Union collapsed, China liberalized, and Communism was discredited everywhere except on US college campuses. The end of the Cold War opened up vast areas of the world to the global market. And most surprising of all, Volker tightened up the money supply and interest rates went high, causing people to save money and stop borrowing to consume.

L: That's not happening this time.

Doug: No. We got lucky back then. Since the '90s we've had a long and totally phony, debt-driven boom that's now come to an end. I feel very confident that there's no way out this time. There are huge distortions and misallocations of capital that have been cranked into the system for two decades. And not just in the US this time, but in Europe, China, Japan, and elsewhere.

The US is very clearly on the decline. The fact that in spite of bankrupting military expenditures to no gain for the American people, those in power are talking overtly and aggressively about attacking more countries - Iran and Pakistan in particular - is extremely grave. The fact that they attacked Libya - which, incidentally, is going to turn into a total disaster, a civil war that will last for years - shows it's not stopping. Sure, Obama brought troops home from Iraq - another disaster that's going to remain a disaster for years to come - but at the same time he put a company of combat troops in Uganda, of all places and Marines in Australia, to provoke the Chinese.

Back home, I've read reports that people are being stopped for carrying gold coins out of the US, in Houston in particular. Now we have authorization of the military to detain US citizens, on US soil, with no trail, and indefinitely, on the verge of becoming law. And Predator Drones have been used to hunt down farmers on their own ranches.

I could go on and on. This is not like spotting early signs of decay in America's expansionist wars of the 19^th century or things getting worse with FDR. Most people can't see it with all the noise and confusion, but we've reached the edge of the precipice.

L: Don't worry about exactly where the edge is, just assume it's there and take appropriate action?

Doug: Yes. It really is there. It's a clear and present danger. But most Americans are as oblivious as most Germans were in the '30s. In fact, most of them support what's going on, just as most Germans supported their government in the '30s and '40s.

L: So... don't worry about figuring out exactly when the gates will shut. Assume they are shutting now?

Doug: That's right. One should be actively and vigorously looking to expatriate assets, cash, and even one's self. A prudent person will always be diversified politically and internationally.

L: What about people who have jobs they can't continue doing from abroad and who need the income?

Doug: They should still prepare, as best they can, to be ready to go on a vacation when things get hot - a vacation from which they might not return for a long time. All that needs happen, with the hysteria that's building in the US, is for a major terrorist incident - real or imagined - to occur. Homeland Security will lock the country down. I hate to admit it, but I'm almost starting to credit the stories about those FEMA camps.

Look, I know it sounds extreme, and the comparison to pre-WWII Germany has been made many times, but it bears repeating. Germany was the most literate, civilized, and even mellow, in some ways, country in Europe. It was much admired all around the world - a nation of shopkeepers, small farmers, and scholars. But the whole character of the place started changing in 1933, and it just got worse and worse. By the end of 1939, if you weren't out, you were done.

L: [Pauses] Well, not a cheerful thought. Actions to take?

Doug: Things we've said before: Set up foreign bank accounts in places you like to travel, while you can. Set up vault arrangements for physical precious metals outside the US. Buy foreign real estate that you'd like to own, because it can't be forcibly repatriated. Offshore asset protection trusts are a good idea too. Become an International Man. Let me emphasize that US taxpayers should stay within all US laws, because the consequences of breaking them are unbelievably draconian.

Generally, one simply must internationalize one's assets. The biggest danger investors face, by far, is not market risk - huge as that will be - but political risk. The only way to insulate yourself from such risk is to diversify yourself politically and geographically.

L: Right then... words to the wise. Thanks for your insight.

Doug: You're welcome. Most won't, but I just hope readers listen.

NFL - Week Sixteen

2011-12-26T09:54:00.005-06:00

Week ending December 26th:

Faves: 7 (112) [46.6%]
Dogs: 9 (126) [52.5%]
Push: 0 (2) [1%]

Overs: 6 (117) [48.7%]
Under: 10 (123) [51.3%]

Home field favorites went 6-7 (74-85-2) against the spread and 9-4 (107-49) straight up [68.6% win rate]

Fave/over: 3 (53) [22.1%]
Fave/undr: 4 (59) [24.6%]
Dog/over: 3 (63) [26.3%]
Dog/undr: 6 (63) [26.3%]

Push/over: 0 (1) [0.4%]
Push/undr: 0 (1) [0.4%]

One overtime game this week (KC/OAK)...11 occurrences in 240 games (4.6% rate)

Iowa GOP Resident Becky Beach is a Wormy Cunt

2011-12-20T09:24:00.002-06:00

SIOUX CITY, IOWA –The alarms are sounding in Iowa.

Conservatives and Republican elites in the state are divided over who to support for the GOP nomination, but they almost uniformly express concern over the prospect that Ron Paul and his army of activist supporters may capture the state’s 2012 nominating contest — an outcome many fear would do irreparable harm to the future role of the first-in-the-nation caucuses.

In spin rooms, bar rooms and online forums, the what-to-do-about-Paul conversation has become pervasive as polls show him at or near the top here just weeks before the January 3rd vote.

Paul poses an existential threat to the state’s cherished kick-off status, say these Republicans, because he has little chance to win the GOP nomination and would offer the best evidence yet that the caucuses reward candidates who are unrepresentative of the broader party.

“It would make the caucuses mostly irrelevant if not entirely irrelevant,” said Becky Beach, a longtime Iowa Republican who helped Presidents Bush 41 and Bush 43 here. “It would have a very damaging effect because I don’t think he could be elected president and both Iowa and national Republicans wouldn’t think he represents the will of voters.”

So if Romney or Gingrich wins, the Iowa vote is representative of the "will of the people" but if Ron Paul wins, it is meaningless. Is there anybody left in the room who still has the balls to say the entire deck isn't stacked against Ron?

When it becomes this obvious that the status quo doesn't want Ron to win, that should be your biggest hint that he is the best choice. It was the status quo that got America into this fucking mess, remember. All you idiot college kids who voted for false "change" three years ago now have a chance to right your wrong and vote for REAL change.

Stupid cunts like Becky Beach would still be standing there yammering about how Ron Paul can't win even if the entire country voted him in. She would still be babbling lies about how Ron Paul is "isolationist" because he's not in favor of sending thousands of Americans to die in the sand in some piss pot country. She'd still sit around her church group with the other bored rich GOP housewives getting drunk on cheap white wine and lamenting that Ron Paul thinks it's an idiotic waste of time, money and human life to lock up people who inhale the smoke from a burning plant.

The entire GOP can suck my wang: there is plenty to go around. I can't wait for Ron to tell them all to fuck off and run as an independent.

NFL - Week Fifteen

2011-12-18T18:06:00.005-06:00

Week ending December 19th:

Faves: 7 (105) [46.9%]
Dogs: 9 (117) [52.1%]
Push: 0 (2) [1%]

Overs: 8 (111) [49.6%]
Under: 8 (113) [50.4%]

Home field favorites went 3-5 (68-78-2) against the spread and 4-4 (98-49) straight up [66.6% win rate]

Fave/over: 4 (50) [22.3%]
Fave/undr: 3 (55) [24.6%]
Dog/over: 4 (60) [26.8%]
Dog/undr: 5 (57) [25.4%]

Push/over: 0 (1) [0.45%]
Push/undr: 0 (1) [0.45%]

One overtime game this week (CLE/AZ)...10 occurrences in 224 games (4.5% rate)

It's the Fourth Quarter...Where is the Tebow Miracle? Oh yeah...On the Ground with Three Fumbles

2011-12-18T17:47:00.002-06:00

New England 34

Denver 16
- 13:56 4th

	New England	34
	Denver	16

Suck it Tebow.

I do believe my prediction in the comments section was NE win 34-17.

The fairy tale ends. Good riddance.

Ron Paul on Leno - Outstanding

2011-12-17T20:53:00.003-06:00

I didn't realize Ron was on Leno, since I think Leno is a hack and a douchebag. I haven't watched the debates as I would put my fist through the screen, so this is the first chance I've had to see him talk at length. A marked improvement over last election. Far more polished and less shrill.

How anyone can watch this and not want him to win is baffling.

The clip runs 20 minutes but worth a watch.

Police State Arrives

2011-12-14T22:02:00.002-06:00

As it's pouring rain on the high Mexican Sierra and the rainwater capture systems are doing all the work...I give you this, via piggybacked desolate border WiFi from Zero Hedge...

Congress just passed the National Defense Authorization Act in a 283-to-136 vote. 190 Republicans and 93 Democrats voted for; 43 Republicans and 93 Democrats voted "against." Prepare to be arrested, without charge, simply because someone "up there" believes you engage in "terroristy" stuff. Good luck proving them wrong.

From Reuters:

The U.S. House of Representatives approved a defense bill on Wednesday requiring the military to handle suspected militants linked to al Qaeda, acting not long after President Barack Obama removed a veto threat from the controversial legislation.

The bill is expected to pass the Senate this week and then go to Obama's desk for his signature into law.

Shortly before the House vote, the White House announced the president's advisers would not recommend a veto, although they said they still had concerns about the measure.

The measure also imposes new sanctions against Iran's central bank and pre-emptively freezes some aid to Pakistan.

And CNN:

The White House lifted a veto threat against a giant $662 billion defense authorization bill on Wednesday after legislators made changes in language involving detainees.

In particular, the legislators added language to make clear that nothing in the bill requiring military custody of al Qaeda suspects would interfere with the ability of civilian law enforcement to carry out terrorism investigations and interrogations in the United States.

A statement by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the changes mean that President Obama's advisers will not recommend a veto. The measure is expected to come up for votes in the House and Senate this week.

Democrats to offer changes to payroll tax cut proposal

At issue was the president's authority in deciding whether people detained in terrorism investigations would be held in military or civilian custody.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the legislation includes a "national security waiver" that allows the president to transfer a suspect from military to civilian custody if he chooses.

Swell, in other words it won't be a colonel pulling your nails out... it will be some spook in a grey coat.

And now, for an opinion:

Guantánamo Forever? via the NYT

Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar are retired four-star Marine generals.

IN his inaugural address, President Obama called on us to “reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.” We agree. Now, to protect both, he must veto the National Defense Authorization Act that Congress is expected to pass this week.

This budget bill — which can be vetoed without cutting financing for our troops — is both misguided and unnecessary: the president already has the power and flexibility to effectively fight terrorism.

One provision would authorize the military to indefinitely detain without charge people suspected of involvement with terrorism, including United States citizens apprehended on American soil. Due process would be a thing of the past. Some claim that this provision would merely codify existing practice. Current law empowers the military to detain people caught on the battlefield, but this provision would expand the battlefield to include the United States — and hand Osama bin Laden an unearned victory long after his well-earned demise.

A second provision would mandate military custody for most terrorism suspects. It would force on the military responsibilities it hasn’t sought. This would violate not only the spirit of the post-Reconstruction act limiting the use of the armed forces for domestic law enforcement but also our trust with service members, who enlist believing that they will never be asked to turn their weapons on fellow Americans. It would sideline the work of the F.B.I. and local law enforcement agencies in domestic counterterrorism. These agencies have collected invaluable intelligence because the criminal justice system — unlike indefinite military detention — gives suspects incentives to cooperate.

Mandatory military custody would reduce, if not eliminate, the role of federal courts in terrorism cases. Since 9/11, the shaky, untested military commissions have convicted only six people on terror-related charges, compared with more than 400 in the civilian courts.

A third provision would further extend a ban on transfers from Guantánamo, ensuring that this morally and financially expensive symbol of detainee abuse will remain open well into the future. Not only would this bolster Al Qaeda’s recruiting efforts, it also would make it nearly impossible to transfer 88 men (of the 171 held there) who have been cleared for release. We should be moving to shut Guantánamo, not extend it.

NFL - Week Fourteen

2011-12-11T19:17:00.007-06:00

Week ending December 12th:

Faves: 6 (98) [47.1%]
Dogs: 10 (108) [51.9%]
Push: 0 (2) [1%]

Overs: 10 (103) [49.5%]
Under: 6 (105) [50.5%]

Home field favorites went 4-7 (65-73-2) against the spread and 8-3 (94-45) straight up [67.6% win rate]

Fave/over: 4 (46) [22.1%]
Fave/undr: 2 (52) [25%]
Dog/over: 6 (56) [26.9%]
Dog/undr: 4 (52) [25%]

Push/over: 0 (1) [0.5%]
Push/undr: 0 (1) [0.5%]

One overtime game this week (CHI/DEN)...9 occurrences in 208 games (4.3%)

Oh, Fuck You and Your Dead Baby, You Insane Famewhore

2011-12-09T13:41:00.003-06:00

The recent announcement that "19 Kids & Counting" star Michelle Duggar, 45, suffered a miscarriage inspired waves of sadness and sympathy. The miscarriage occurred during the second trimester of her pregnancy. The baby, who was due in April, would have been Michelle and husband Jim Bob's 20th.

The family had been discussing baby names the night before they learned the news. The Duggars have said they plan to choose a name for the baby after they learn if it was to be a boy or a girl. They also plan to hold a funeral.

Michelle says Jim Bob and the children are taking good care of her. "The kids are mothering me now," she said. "Jill brought me some food and they are taking good care of me." Daughter Jill is 20 and studying to be a midwife.

According to People magazine, Michelle is resting and recovering at home. Michelle and Jim Bob learned that she'd miscarried while at a routine doctor's appointment. They'd gone in to see if the doctor could determine the sex of the baby. Instead, the doctor gave them the terrible news that the baby had no heartbeat.

Having a couple kids is a normal (if incomprehensible to me) urge for most couples. Having 19 of them and then continuing to try way past your babymaking expiration date is a sign of mental illness. I'm supposed to feel sorry for this lunatic? Fuck her. I feel about as sorry as I would for a morbidly obese pig when he dropped his 19th milkshake on the floor. Fuck you - you didn't need another.

Crazy fucking assholes. Go adopt some nice little brown babies if you want to piss your money and sanity away. I'd be surprised if they even had to go to a doctor anymore to look up her hole searching for dead babies. Jim Bob can probably stick his hand in his wife's cunt and flip a coin at this point.

Oh...and all their names start with J! Adorable! I guess this latest child will be Jar Baby. You can keep his tiny little corpse on the mantle in formaldehyde.

Christmas Comes Early as Chicago Scumbag Fuckwit Blagojevich Gets 14 Years in the Slammer

2011-12-08T15:01:00.004-06:00

Rod Blagojevich starts his Thursday facing a bleak countdown — 71 days before the twice-elected Illinois governor must say goodbye to his family and begin serving a 14-year sentence for corruption.

During those days, he will scramble to get his financial affairs in order and spend a final birthday and Christmas at home with his wife, Patti, and their two young daughters before heading off to prison to serve the sentence handed down Wednesday.

The next time Blagojevich gets to spend Christmas or his birthday with his children — 15-year-old Amy and 8-year-old Annie — they will likely be young adults. Blagojevich, whose 55th birthday is Saturday, won't be eligible for early release for about 12 years, when he will be around 67 years old.

"I've had a lot of clients who've had to start making preparations the day after they were sentenced," said Gal Pissetzky, a federal defense attorney based in Chicago. "But not a single one of them has been able to prepare for saying goodbye to their children."

Judge James Zagel sentenced Blagojevich on Wednesday on 18 counts of corruption, including his June convictions on charges that he tried to sell or trade an appointment to President Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat for campaign cash or a top job. The impeached governor must report to prison on Feb. 16.

The Blagojeviches, who say his legal troubles also devastated them financially, put their home up for sale after he was convicted in June, and he would likely want to find a buyer before he heads off to prison. They initially listed it for $1.07 million but reportedly lowered the price recently by several thousand dollars.

Federal authorities must still make a final decision about where Blagojevich will serve his time. Wherever it is, Blagojevich will be largely cut off from the outside world. He will have to share a cell with other inmates and work a menial job, possibly scrubbing toilets or mopping floors, at just 12 cents an hour.

On Wednesday, the Rod Blagojevich who once challenged a prosecutor to face him like a man, the glad-handing politician who took to celebrity TV shows to profess his innocence, was nowhere to be found. Frowning and pulling nervously at his tie, the disgraced former governor did his best to display humility in hopes of convincing Judge Zagel to hand him a lesser sentence.

Rod's new cellmate Tyrone taking him to their conjugal bunk

I think the part that made me cum the hardest was the "mopping floors for 12 cents an hour" part. Although the "devastated financially" part was good for a few drops of pre-cum.

No way does Patti stay married to this shit stain. She'll be filing for divorce within two years and her daddy, Dick Mell, will be finding her a new scumbag to marry. I have no doubt that Dick Mell is behind all this in the first place. They hate each other and Dick is just a Chicago scumbag with more power. Rod still doesn't even know what hit him. Nobody - and I mean NOBODY - in Chicago goes to jail over piddling shit like this. I guarantee you, Rod has far larger and more numerous crimes in his past.

And while I'm celebrating the destruction of one scumbag, let me also express my joy at the death of Richard Daley's wife a couple weeks ago...just in time for the holidays. The whole Daley clan can suck my schlong, every last one of them. Hope your holidays are fun without mommy around, you cocksuckers.

Deja Vu - An Even Dumber Couple Still Didn't Get the Message

2011-12-06T20:47:00.004-06:00

A Tennessee couple helplessly watched their home burn to the ground, along with all of their possessions, because they did not pay a $75 annual fee to the local fire department.

Vicky Bell told the NBC affiliate WPSD-TV that she called 911 when her mobile home in Obion County caught fire. Firefighters arrived on the scene but as the fire raged, they simply stood by and did nothing. "In an emergency, the first thing you think of, 'Call 9-1-1," homeowner Bell said.

However, Bell and her husband were forced to walk into the burning home in an attempt to retrieve their own belongings. "You could look out my mom's trailer and see the trucks sitting at a distance," Bell said. "We just wished we could've gotten more out."

South Fulton Mayor David Crocker defended the fire department, saying that if firefighters responded to non-subscribers, no one would have an incentive to pay the fee. Residents in the city of South Fulton receive the service automatically, but it is not extended to those living in the greater county-wide area.

"There's no way to go to every fire and keep up the manpower, the equipment, and just the funding for the fire department," Crocker said.

The South Fulton policy produced precisely the same nightmare scenario last year, when homeowner Gene Cranick--who had likewise failed to pay the $75 annual fee for rural Obion County residents--saw his house engulfed by flames as South Fulton firefighter watched close by. That incident sparked a debate among conservative pundits over the limits of fee-for-service approaches to government.

Fucking incredible. When I just saw this, I thought they had recycled a story from over a year ago when I orgasmed six times and pissed off a bunch of pussies who read my blog.

But no...it was just a completely different set of morons who learned absolutely nothing from last year's lesson. Too busy watching Dancing with Asshats to read about Gene Cranick last year and make a "Note To Self" to fork over a couple of $20 bills this year.

What could you POSSIBLY have had to run back into your shitty trailer for? Your collection of old TV Guides? Mangy old cat? Hair net? Now you and fellow idiot Gene Cranick can get together at the local shit hole and cry into your Mad Dog about the injustice of it all.

Stupid fucking assholes. I guarantee you this will happen again, because this is America - country of cretins.

NFL - Week Thirteen

2011-12-05T15:10:00.004-06:00

Week ending December 5th:

Faves: 7 (92) [48%]
Dogs: 9 (98) [51%]
Push: 0 (2) [1%]

Overs: 8 (93) [48.4%]
Under: 8 (99) [51.6%]

Home field favorites went 4-5 (61-66-2) against the spread and 5-4 (86-42) straight up [67.2% win rate]

Fave/over: 3 (42) [22%]
Fave/undr: 4 (50) [26%]
Dog/over: 5 (50) [26%]
Dog/undr: 4 (48) [25%]

Push/over: 0 (1) [0.5%]
Push/undr: 0 (1) [0.5%]

One overtime game this week (AZ/DAL)...8 occurrences in 192 games (4.16%)

Gahh!! Fuck Barney Frank and Maxine Waters and American Airlines and The Postal Service and also the Butthole Posting as Me in the Comments Section!!

2011-12-04T09:06:00.004-06:00

Aaargghh! I can't take it any more. My piss and vinegar runneth over. I've had over a month off in the desolate plains of south Texas building doomsday structures with a bearded visionary known only as "Tater" and I come back to this bullshit? I leave my simple life of goat herding and shooting coyotes and shitting in a bucket to return to THIS?!?! This...this....travishamockery??

To wit:

Barney Frank is leaving office but Maxine Waters is replacing him as head of the House Financial Services Committee. MAXINE WATERS is going to be in charge of something more complicated than operating a door knob. This cannot happen. Barney Frank is a scumbag and a liar and a hypocrite and a criminal, but he can count to ten without resorting to dactylonomy. This stupid cunt is a proven certified moron...and now she will control purse strings. No doubt the glittery-fingernail and fake-weave industries will be seeing large tax dollar infusions in the near future.

American Airlines, those cocksuckers I have hated for decades, finally goes under but I still see their planes in action while they (no doubt) negotiate some kind of taxpayer-funded loan guarantees or something. You bitches ran that airline like shit and deserve to all go broke, but it won't happen! Dammit! Southwest and JetBlue should be handed all their operations so they can fire all the cunts in charge of that dog.

Fucking post office is raising the price of stamps and cutting delivery all to protect a couple hundred thousand union buttholes at the expense of the other 300 million of us? SUCK MY COCK!! I'm going to wrap a giant shit in newspaper and mail it to Patrick R Donahoe...and then I'm going to do it 276,000 more times. One time for every dollar that overpaid government bureaucrat makes in salary every year for foisting a bunch of microcephalic chimps on me every time I need to pick up an oversized package of ball gags and inflatable dolls at the post office.

And whatever happened to Solyndra?? Surely there is a pile of fraud and scumbaggery going on there, but it just vanished from the news...to be replaced with more important shit like Shaq's girlfriend carrying him piggyback on the Letterman show. ARGHRGFHE!&#$*((@ Who fucking cares?!? Stupid assholes! Kardashian divorce...ANOTHER Mission Impossible movie....the fucking mind boggles and turns to American mush.

Now I see in the comments section some butthole is posting under my name? Yeah, ok, I'll take a blowjob from Wolfbitch - you got that part right. But the rest is bullshit! No way did my readers fall for that horseshit. When I comment, my name is highlighted in blue...not black.

Did you think Rat and O'Douchebag Rules and Paddy and JMc and Dsuds would fall for such a transparent ruse? Were you trying to anger me into posting! Well, it worked, you fucker! Now I've broken my silence and I have to take a shit and my elbows hurt from smashing rock with a mattock so I can lay irrigation pipe to the rest of Tater's cult down there near Mexico.

I was happy eating cactus and playing in the sand and every time I try to get out....they pull me back in. You can all go straight to hell!!!!!

College Football - Week Fourteen

2011-12-03T23:00:00.002-06:00

Week ending December 3rd. End of regular season.

Faves: 11 (334) [49.2%]
Dogs: 11 (345) [50.8%]

Overs: 15 (341) [50.2%]
Under: 7 (338) [49.8%]

Breaking it down further....

Fave/over: 9 (183) [27%]
Fave/undr: 2 (151) [22.2%]
Dog/over: 6 (157) [23.1%]
Dog/undr: 5 (188) [27.7%]

NFL - Week Twelve

2011-11-30T07:53:00.002-06:00

Week ending November 28th:

Faves: 9 (85) [48.3%]
Dogs: 7 (89) [50.6]
Push: 0 (2) [1%]

Overs: 7 (85) [48.3%]
Under: 9 (91) [51.7%]

Home field favorites went 5-6 (57-61-2) against the spread and 8-3 (81-38) straight up [68% win rate]

Fave/over: 3 (39) [22.2%]
Fave/undr: 6 (46) [26.1%]
Dog/over: 4 (45) [25.6%]
Dog/undr: 3 (44) [25%]

Push/over: 0 (1) [0.5%]
Push/undr: 0 (1) [0.5%]

One overtime game this week (SD/DEN)...7 occurrences in 176 games.

College Football - Week Thirteen

2011-11-26T12:17:00.001-06:00

Week ending November 26th

Faves: 33 (323) [49.2%]
Dogs: 21 (334) [50.8%]

Overs: 22 (326) [49.6%]
Under: 32 (331) [50.4%]

Breaking it down further....

Fave/over: 14 (174) [26.5%]
Fave/undr: 19 (149) [22.7%]
Dog/over: 8 (151) [23.0%]
Dog/undr: 13 (183) [27.8%]

More of the Same

2011-11-26T12:16:00.002-06:00

NFL - Week Eleven

2011-11-22T07:46:00.004-06:00

Week ending November 21st:

Faves: 7 (76) [47.5%]
Dogs: 7 (82) [51.3]
Push: 0 (2) [1.3%]

Overs: 6 (78) [48.8%]
Under: 8 (82) [51.2%]

Home field favorites went 6-5 (52-55-2) against the spread and 9-2 (73-35) straight up [67.6% win rate]

Fave/over: 3 (36) [22.5%]
Fave/undr: 4 (40) [25.0%]
Dog/over: 3 (41) [25.6%]
Dog/undr: 4 (41) [25.6%]

Push/over: 0 (1) [0.6%]
Push/undr: 0 (1) [0.6%]

No overtime game this week...6 occurrences in 160 games.

College Football - Week Twelve

2011-11-22T07:44:00.002-06:00

Week ending November 19th

Faves: 20 (290) [48.1%]
Dogs: 36 (313) [51.9%]

Overs: 26 (304) [50.4%]
Under: 30 (299) [49.6%]

Breaking it down further....

Fave/over: 13 (160) [26.5%]
Fave/undr: 7 (130) [21.6%]
Dog/over: 13 (143) [23.7%]
Dog/undr: 23 (170) [28.2%]

NFL - Week Ten

2011-11-14T09:11:00.005-06:00

Week ending November 14th:

Faves: 9 (69) [47.3%]
Dogs: 7 (75) [51.3]
Push: 0 (2) [1.3%]

Overs: 6 (72) [49.3%]
Under: 10 (74) [50.7%]

Home field favorites went 5-6 (46-50-2) against the spread and 5-6 (64-33) straight up [66% win rate]

Fave/over: 5 (33) [22.6%]
Fave/undr: 4 (36) [24.6%]
Dog/over: 1 (38) [26.0%]
Dog/undr: 6 (37) [25.3%]

Push/over: 0 (1) [0.7%]
Push/undr: 0 (1) [0.7%]

One overtime game this week (NO/ATL)...6 occurrences in 146 games.

College Football - Week Eleven

2011-11-14T09:06:00.002-06:00

Week ending November 12th

Faves: 28 (270) [49.4%]
Dogs: 29 (277) [50.6%]

Overs: 27 (278) [50.8%]
Under: 30 (269) [49.2%]

Breaking it down further....

Fave/over: 13 (147) [26.9%]
Fave/undr: 15 (123) [22.5%]
Dog/over: 14 (130) [23.7%]
Dog/undr: 15 (147) [26.9%]

NFL - Week Nine

2011-11-06T18:09:00.005-06:00

Week ending November 7th:

Faves: 6 (60) [46.1%]
Dogs: 8 (68) [52.3]
Push: 0 (2) [1.5%]

Overs: 5 (66) [50.8%]
Under: 9 (64) [49.2%]

Home field favorites went 3-8 (41-44-2) against the spread and 4-7 (59-27) straight up [68.6% win rate]

Fave/over: 2 (28) [21.5%]
Fave/undr: 4 (32) [24.6%]
Dog/over: 3 (37) [28.4%]
Dog/undr: 5 (31) [23.8%]

Push/over: 0 (1) [0.8%]
Push/undr: 0 (1) [0.8%]

One overtime game this week (STL/AZ)...5 occurrences in 130 games.

College Football - Week Ten

2011-11-05T09:45:00.002-05:00

Week ending November 5th. Top-ten teams went 5-5 ATS and 7-3 SU. Two games pitted top-ten teams against each other with LSU and Arkansas victorious over Bama and South Carolina.

Faves: 22 (242) [49.4%]
Dogs: 30 (248) [50.6%]

Overs: 29 (251) [51.2%]
Under: 23 (239) [48.8%]

Breaking it down further....

Fave/over: 13 (134) [27.3%]
Fave/undr: 9 (108) [22.0%]
Dog/over: 16 (116) [23.7%]
Dog/undr: 14 (132) [26.9%]

NFL - Week Eight

2011-10-31T19:20:00.005-05:00

Week ending October 31st.

Faves: 6 (54) [46.6%]
Dogs: 7 (60) [51.7]
Push: 0 (2) [1.7%]

Overs: 4 (61) [52.6%]
Under: 9 (55) [47.4%]

Home field favorites went 5-3 (38-36-2) against the spread and 7-1 (55-20) straight up [73.3% win rate]

Fave/over: 2 (26) [22.4%]
Fave/undr: 4 (28) [24.1%]
Dog/over: 2 (34) [29.3%]
Dog/undr: 5 (26) [22.4%]

Push/over: 0 (1) [0.8%]
Push/undr: 0 (1) [0.8%]

One overtime game this week (KC/SD)...only 4 occurrences in 116 games now.

Fuck You Very Much

2011-10-30T14:01:00.003-05:00

Spain and Portugal said on Saturday the euro zone's debt crisis is a global problem, calling on the United States and other G20 powers to help contain the fallout.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero urged the G20 countries least affected by the crisis to provide "urgent stimulus plans" to shield the global economy.

Europe's debt crisis looks set to dominate the summit of Group of 20 leading economies in France from November 3-4.

The gathering in Cannes will take place a week after euro zone leaders reached a deal to recapitalize their banks, boost the firepower of a euro zone rescue fund and impose hefty losses on holders of Greek debt.

"We hope these deals, together with those made by the G20 next weekend ... restore the confidence needed to keep the economy moving," Zapatero told leaders at the Ibero-American summit in Paraguay.

"I hope they will rise to the challenge next week. The United States has a role, the Federal Reserve has a role, all the central banks of big countries have their role -- of course, China, India, Brazil, the Europeans and Japan," he said during a news conference.

So after bailing out all the irresponsible banks and home buyers here in the U.S., I get to do the same for the idiot Spaniards? Yeah, I like that idea. Their property bubble is even worse than ours was, believe it or not. China isn't far behind. They are in for a brutal hard landing and social upheaval.

This is all coming to a head. Tomorrow is the three-year anniversary of Cretin Country and I've said just about all I have to say during that time. Our 'leaders' are bigger morons than they were three years ago. They are implementing policies that are even more retarded than they were three years ago. Obama is bypassing Congress and blatantly bribing idiots for votes now (just two examples here and here), and the eventual cost will be borne by you and me.

The euro "bailout" is a total fucking joke, and yet the morons believe it and run the stock market higher, despite horrible earnings and stubbornly high unemployment. Obama is going to be wasting money left and right to get elected...which I still say is not going to happen. We'll be stuck with a Romney or worse.

The government is getting more bold by the day, with just one example being the TSA branching out all over the place. Plus this bullshit. It never ends.

Oh, and to cap it all off the debt 'super-committee' is supposed to come to an agreement in about 3 weeks. Yeah - remember that whole thing? It's going to return with a vengeance. Get ready for another downgrade of our government debt.

I'm going to be busy in the coming months and years getting ready for this inevitable crash and ugly aftermath. Three years from now, gold ($1740) will be much higher, stocks (S&P 1285) will be much lower and you will be far less free than you are now. These are not difficult predictions to make.

I'll be posting sparsely when I have a spare moment, but for the most part I'm done besides some photos from future trips and some football stats for my own amusement.

Thanks for reading.

I Can't Wait to See Tebow Humiliated Today

2011-10-30T11:47:00.004-05:00

Today all the Tebow acolytes will be out in full force thinking St. Timothy is the second coming of Denver quarterbacks who will lead them to the promised land like nobody since Elway.

They will be wrong.

What these fools forget is that Tebow looked like his usual terrible self for 98% of last week's game against the Dolphins. Every pass he threw looked like a wounded duck and he rarely picked up the blitz or read coverage quickly. He still sucks and a shitty Dolphins team handing the game to him doesn't change that.

Nor does all his pious kneeling and praying on the field after that win. Douchebag.

I will go out on a limb here and predict a Detroit win by at least 14 points and Tebow will throw 3 interceptions. Hopefully, he'll also break his leg trying to pick up meaningless yardage at the end of a 31-10 rout. Then we can watch him pray to his messiah to heal his femur in time for next year's season.

I've never been so sure of anything since I bet the farm on New Orleans +5 in Superbowl XLIV

College Football - Week Nine

2011-10-29T18:11:00.009-05:00

Top-ten teams went 2-5 ATS and 4-3 SU as reality came crashing down on the chalk eaters. Not even mighty Oregon can cover 30-point spreads week in and week out. Tons of shockers today with Wisconsin, Clemson, Michigan State, Texas Tech and Texas A&M all getting beaten.

Stanford escaped by the skin of their nutsack thanks to a game-tying TD with 38 seconds left in regulation and ridiculous fumble by USC at 1st and goal on the 4 yard line in triple overtime. As much as I despise USC and like seeing them lose heartbreakers, I have to admit they got robbed on several calls in that game. Too bad. So sad.

Vegas must have raked it in today with all the upsets and favorites failing to cover.

Faves: 29 (220) [50.2%]
Dogs: 24 (218) [49.8%]

Overs: 28 (222) [50.7%]
Under: 25 (216) [49.3%]

Breaking it down further....

Fave/over: 15 (121) [27.6%]
Fave/undr: 14 (99) [22.6%]
Dog/over: 13 (100) [22.8%]
Dog/undr: 11 (118) [26.9%]

Dick Pierce Austin Permaculture Class is a Waste of Time. Dick Pushes a Political Agenda and Runs the Meetings Like AA

2011-10-29T08:43:00.006-05:00

Today would normally be the sixth week of my permaculture class with Dick Pierce but after five weeks of giving this moron another chance and hoping for something useful, I must throw in the towel.

I'm not writing this for my regular readers, since they could give two shits. Feel free to stop here and go back to bed.

No, I'm writing it in hopes the next poor sap does Google research and finds this lone review. I wish I'd been able to find it three months ago and save some aggravation.

If you are thinking of taking Dick Pierce's permaculture class in Austin, Texas....don't. Just read Bill Mollison's Intro to Permaculture and use your highlighter. Great book and lots of good ideas. Dick Pierce is a bumbling con artist who runs the meeting with lots of time-wasting and group hugging.

Among the retardation I witnessed:

(1) LOTS of bullshit at the start and finish of every 9-hour day. Stupid crap like "OK, we're going to go around the room and I want you to tell us how you're feeling and what your favorite part of today was - and you can't repeat what anyone else said. Just stand up and say your name and everyone else will say 'Hi, [fill in name]'"

Are you fucking kidding me? Do you know how long it takes 25 people to do that at the start and finish of the class? Especially since most of the people in the class are morons (I'll get to that) who have had 15 minutes to sit and think about it and by the time it gets to them they still aren't ready???

You know what, Dick? Every class only had maybe ONE useful nugget, so it's hard for the other 24 assholes to make up 24 pieces of new bullshit every week. That's why I always said "I'm feeling thirsty for a beer and the ball game starts in 10 minutes so that's all I have to say," which you did not find amusing. I also heard through the grape vine that you are a recovering alcoholic, which is why you run every meeting like it's AA. I didn't sign up for that. You're the one who is the quitter and gave up drinking, not me. Keep the AA stuff at AA and concentrate on permaculture, not how everyone is feeling twice a day.

(2) We spent over and HOUR one day walking a 100-foot line and counting our steps so we would know how long our stride was and could measure things that way. Something everyone pretty much knows by age 15. Then we did it twice more and took an average (which he had to (poorly) explain how to do for the idiots) and THEN, just to enrage me more, he went around the class and had EACH PERSON tell the class how many steps they took and how long their stride is. I should have walked out right then, but I foolishly thought that would be the low point.

(3) Dick likes to push a collectivist mindset, bash capitalism and praise Europe every chance he gets. This is what riles me the most. It riles me because it is incorrect AND it has nothing to do with permaculture. Dick is the kind of hypocrite who bashes "corporations" and then pulls out his iPhone and uses his laptop to make his presentation. He says we need to use more public transportation but then gets in his car. In other words, a nitwit.

(4) Dick thinks Darwin's theory of evolution is a myth and that there has to be a Grand Designer. Perhaps he believed this nonsense all along. Perhaps his presumably biblical drinking destroyed his brain. Either way, it was painful to listen to a grown man believe in fairy tales. It also has no place in a permaculture class where we should be learning about shit like which flowers attract beneficial insects. God forbid we learn anything useful. Much better to stand up there and tell us all we need to recycle more.

Now, as you may imagine, I called out Dick repeatedly for the lies he stated as gospel. I didn't waste class time, but I DID email him my arguments against his bullshit. Without fail, I would paint him into a corner and he'd just say "well, that's what I believe...you have to find what fits for you," and that was supposedly the end of the argument. He would then continue to spread his bullshit the next class, even though I had refuted it and cited my references. I went after him on everything from recycling to paved roads to global warming to public transportation. To no avail.

No Dick, I want to find the truth, not "what fits" for me. Fucking idiot.

I wish I had kept all his ridiculous emails. In one of our many arguments, I questioned his ridiculous assertion that the Lakota Indians have a special way to approach a berry bush so the bush doesn't know the Indians are coming and turn the berries sour. No joke. He believes this crap.

Naturally, I could find ZERO reference for this on the Internet...even anecdotally. His response? "Well, I heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy who heard it from an Indian. I've known it since I was a kid. That's good enough for me. There are many secrets they keep from the White Man."

Another time he made the assertion that Watt not only invented the steam engine (wrong) but that it was so inefficient that it used more coal to pump water out of a mine than the mine produced in an entire day. I told him that made no rational sense and to show me where he read that. He got pissed and again said "I've known it from when I was a kid."

As the weeks progressed, Dick got angry I wasn't a good little robot lapping up his left-wing horseshit. The other people in the class got angry too when I questioned their religion. One idiot in the class (I'm looking at you, Margot) would repeatedly yammer about the "nature spirit" that inhabited her garden and how she made a special space for it. Total fucking loon and AGAIN, it has nothing to do with permaculture.

That's great, Margot. But is has nothing to do with the hard science of managing water flow on your property or mixing trees properly to create a wind and firebreak. Stupid twat.

Then we have my fellow students. Just a small sample:

1) Tim the Baby Dropper. Tim brought his whining baby to every class until he dropped her on her head towards the middle of week three. Yes, Tim we all saw it. Tim didn't bring the baby after that (which makes me wonder if it died or if he found a sitter) but he DID bring an endless supply of stupid statements. Tim sees overpopulation as a problem in the world. Tim doesn't see the irony.

2) Kibi the chick who looks like Phyllis from The Office. Holy shit you are weird as fuck. I got stuck with you in every group exercise and cannot figure out if you are insane or on drugs. Do you even own property? Why are you there everyday? Are you a street person?

3) Margot the Nature Spirit Cunt. Gave me dirty looks every time I pointed out anything that didn't jibe with the left-wing environmental-wacko bible. Definitely needs to get laid but never will with that fucking scowl on your face every minute of the day. Somewhere along the line, she must have been fucked over so badly by a guy that she turned to trees for companionship.

4) Matt the Hippie Granola. This bearded beatnik would yammer on about how the problems in the world were due to corporations and the GOP. He would spout socialist nonsense that would make an uneducated 16-year-old blush. Problem was, the guy is like 30 years old. Grow up and join the real world, moron. Oh, and we all saw you standing back doing nothing when we built the compost pile in our first class. Didn't want to get your hands dirty, right? Typical socialist. Let someone else do it.

Also, Mike and I saw you in Home Depot two weeks ago, Mister "Giant Corporations Are Ruining the Planet" hypocrite douchebag.

5) Lori the chick who looked like Pauly Shore. This chick was about as fruity and nutty as they come but she didn't waste class time, at least. During one break, she went to her car and got out to hula-hoops to channel spirits or something. I asked her if she got good weed, since she seemed like the type. She finally admitted she did. Lori was OK in my book, but the Pauly Shore look was unfortunate.

Ugh. There are more but you get the idea. A bunch of left-wingers wanking each other off every Saturday for 9 hours. Total waste of time. Better to spend that time improving your own land using Mollison's basic tenets.

Oh, and Dick's right-hand woman, Jenny Nazack? Believes in this unbelievable bullshit, which I'd never heard of until recently. I guess there is a sucker born every minute.

The only GOOD parts of the 5-weeks of bullshit: guest speakers Kirby Fry and Scott Harris. Rumor has it that Kirby will be starting his own class and I'd take that in a second. He actually has hands-on projects and practices what he preaches. He is also an interesting speaker and a pretty cool guy. Complete opposite of Dick Pierce. My advice is to look up Kirby Fry - he studied DIRECTLY under Mollison and has implemented lots of his ideas.

Dick Pierce is a wanna-be snake-oil idiot who reportedly doesn't even have his own garden. Save your money.

Oops....Goodnight, Sweet Flix

2011-10-24T16:09:00.002-05:00

Netflix Inc warned of continued steep declines in DVD subscribers this quarter and said a costly expansion into Britain and Ireland would push it into the red in the first quarter, walloping its shares.

The top video rental company reported a better-than-expected 49 percent surge in third-quarter revenue to $822 million, surpassing Wall Street's target of about $812 million.

But investors -- mindful of how the company led by CEO Reed Hastings had driven away customers in recent months and damaged its credibility with an unpopular price hike and other high-profile stumbles -- focused on the fourth-quarter warning.

Netflix shares plummeted almost 30 percent to $86.50 in after-hours trading.

Jim Cramer recommendation to buy NFLX on Sept 26 at $135 doesn't look too hot here. Stock is now down over 70% off its highs. I guess earnings DO matter eventually. No worry. I'm sure everyone got out at the top in a timely manner.

Poor Whitney Tilson. Must be ready to put a gun to his head. Talk about picking the dead-nut top to cover your position. Fucking guy was 100% right but he was early. I can relate to that.

NFL - Week Seven

2011-10-23T09:28:00.006-05:00

Week ending October 24th.

Faves: 7 (48) [46.6%]
Dogs: 6 (53) [51.5]
Push: 0 (2) [1.9%]

Overs: 6 (57) [55.3%]
Under: 7 (46) [44.7%]

Home field favorites went 5-4 (33-33-2) against the spread and 5-4 (48-19) straight up [71.6% win rate]

Fave/over: 4 (24) [23.3%]
Fave/undr: 3 (24) [23.3%]
Dog/over: 2 (32) [31.0%]
Dog/undr: 4 (21) [20.4%]

Push/over: 0 (1) [1.0%]
Push/undr: 0 (1) [1.0%]

One overtime games this week (Denver/Miami)...only three occurrences in 103 games now.

Fuck Tim Tebow and his god-fearing, comeback-kid bullshit. It wasn't god who handed you that game, it was the unbelievably inept Dolphins and their inability to hold onto an on-side kick. That, and some incredibly shitty play calls down at the wire.

College Football - Week Eight

2011-10-22T22:57:00.002-05:00

Ton-ten teams went 7-3 ATS and 8-2 SU. My alma mater continued its streak of losing Homecoming games...at least this year they didn't give up a huge halftime lead.

Faves: 24 (191) [49.6%]
Dogs: 26 (194) [50.4%]

Overs: 26 (194) [50.4%]
Under: 24 (191) [49.6%]

Pretty amazing that after 385 games, the numbers on BOTH work out to almost exactly 50/50.

Breaking it down further....

Fave/over: 13 (106) [27.5%]
Fave/undr: 11 (85) [22.1%]
Dog/over: 13 (87) [22.6%]
Dog/undr: 13 (107) [27.8%]

Anniversary

2011-10-17T13:22:00.005-05:00

It may have only lasted 30 seconds, and it may have been 24 years ago...but today I celebrate losing my virginity all those years ago. I remember this mainly because it was two days before the stock market crash.

I won't name the poor girl but I think she is a nun now. No joke.

I'll be busy this week on farms and volunteering at an elementary school installing irrigation (not out of the goodness of my heart, but to learn and avoid mistakes with my own money someday) so I doubt I'll be posting much.

This should hold you over:

Blah blah blah Pelosi is a cunt blah blah blah the economy is doomed blah blah blah gold is going higher blah blah blah George Lopez sucks blah blah blah the moochers are taking over this country blah blah blah tits and ass blah blah blah Jew are horrible scuba divers blah blah blah how the fuck is the euro holding together blah blah blah the market should be lower blah blah blah Mila Kunis blah blah blah Bernanke should be hanged blah blah blah you're all a bunch of idiots and shit birds blah blah blah Illinois is going down hard blah blah blah too bad McCain hasn't died yet blah blah blah Halloween is fucking stupid blah blah blah I think I'll go see a World Series game this weekend in Dallas blah blah blah fucking drivers around here suck balls blah blah blah.

That should about cover it for this week.

NFL - Week Six

2011-10-17T13:13:00.004-05:00

Week ending October 17th - the unders come back with a vengeance to even out the YTD numbers.

Faves: 7 (41) [45.6%]
Dogs: 5 (47) [52.2]
Push: 1 (2) [2.2%]

Overs: 3 (51) [56.7%]
Under: 10 (39) [43.3%]

Home field favorites went 6-4-1 (28-29-2) against the spread and 10-1 (43-15) straight up [74% win rate]

Fave/over: 2 (20) [22.2%]
Fave/undr: 5 (21) [23.3%]
Dog/over: 1 (30) [33.3]
Dog/undr: 4 (17) [18.9%]

Push/over: 0 (1) [1.1%]
Push/undr: 1 (1) [1.1%]

No overtime games this week...only two occurrences in 90 games now.

Nigel Farage Takes Juncker to Woodshed

2011-10-16T14:22:00.003-05:00

This guy is so awesome. Refuses to drink the Kool-Aid. I continue to be amazed at how people keep believing the same lies. The euro is toast. Greece is toast...they are delaying the inevitable and making it worse.

College Football - Week Seven

2011-10-16T08:49:00.003-05:00

Groundhog Day all over again as the top ten ranked teams go 7-1-1 against the spread (Arkansas had the week off). Vegas must be getting murdered. The only team failing to cover was Oklahoma, who won by 30 on a 35 point line. Everyone else - LSU, Bama, Wisconsin, Boise, Ok St, Stanford and Clemson - rolled to covers AGAIN this week. Oregon was the push at 14 or a loser if you bet it last-second at 14.5

Faves: 24 (167) [49.9%]
Dogs: 26 (168) [50.1%]

Overs: 21 (168) [50.1%]
Under: 29 (167) [49.9%]

Breaking it down further....

Fave/over: 14 (93) [27.7%]
Fave/undr: 10 (74) [22.1%]
Dog/over: 7 (74) [22.1%]
Dog/undr: 19 (94) [28.1%]

American Frogs Oblivious as Kettle of Water Goes Up Another Couple of Degrees

2011-10-14T12:29:00.002-05:00

From Infowars...

On September 22, 2011, H.R. 3011 was introduced in the House. It is entitled the “Transportation Security Administration Authorization Act of 2011” and it contains some curious language.

Two thirds of the way through the ponderous bill, in Sec. 295, we find the following:

Whoever, except with the written permission of the Assistant Secretary for Transportation Security (or the Director of the Federal Air Marshal Service for issues involving the Federal Air Marshal Service), knowingly uses the words ‘Transportation Security Administration’, ‘United States Transportation Security Administration’, ‘Federal Air Marshal Service’, ‘United States Federal Air Marshal Service’, ‘Federal Air Marshals’, the initials ‘T.S.A.’, ‘F.A.M.S.’, ‘F.A.M.’, or any colorable imitation of such words or initials, or the likeness of a Transportation Security Administration or Federal Air Marshal Service badge, logo, or insignia on any item of apparel, in connection with any advertisement, circular, book, pamphlet, software, or other publication, or with any play, motion picture, broadcast, telecast, or other production, in a matter that is reasonably calculated to convey the impression that the wearer of the item of apparel is acting pursuant to the legal authority of the Transportation Security Administration or Federal Air Marshal Service, or to convey the impression that such advertisement, circular, book, pamphlet, software, or other publication, or such play, motion picture, broadcast, telecast, or other production, is approved, endorsed, or authorized by the Transportation Security Administration or Federal Air Marshal Service .(Emphasis added.)

In other words, if you print a t-shirt or produce a publication with a TSA logo, the government may soon be able to arrest and prosecute you.

The language states that it would be illegal to “convey the impression” that you are representing the TSA, but this interpretation would likely be left to federal prosecutors.

In the past, satire was protected under the First Amendment, but it may soon be illegal to poke fun at the TSA or use its logo or even utter its name. Notice there is no exception in the above language for parody.

Political satire is as old as the Greeks and the Bible. But it may now become a punishable crime if this legislation is enacted.

The TSA and the Justice Department are obviously serious about making sure we don’t criticize their Gestapo operation. Since they began irradiating citizens with naked body scanners and shoving their hands down the pants of old ladies and grade school kids, public outrage has reached a crescendo.

Aging Libertarian Agitator Beauchamp Goes Downtown to Meet Pepper, the 18-Year-Old Activist Hippie Chick With Nice Breasts and Jealous Boyfriend

2011-10-14T10:56:00.012-05:00

Somebody failed 3rd grade math

So I finally went down to city hall this morning to get some answers straight from the horse's mouth. To be honest, I had intended to find the biggest freak I could lay hands on and put him on video while asking some basic questions like "what is the Fed?" and "are you employed, Mister Lebowski" so I could get a good laugh at his convoluted and mangled responses...and maybe score some sticky bud.

But I couldn't bring myself to write them off as nutters without giving them a fair shake. I've been on the receiving end of that for 20 years as a Libertarian. At our conventions (notably in Anaheim in 2000) when the news cameras would show up, they would eventually seek out Starchild to interview.

Here is a stock photo of Starchild. He actually looks tame in that photo. He usually sported butterfly wings and a crown. He looked like a fucking loon but he was a very sharp guy. No matter - he still made us look like freaks on national TV. I personally didn't care, but it definitely didn't help our cause. On the other hand, he let me bang his Asian wife in exchange for my girlfriend at the time. Talk about free market. But I digress.

So I went and found the most normal-looking person I could: an 18-year-old blonde chick named Pepper. I don't want to bore you with the entire conversation (a conversation her little ginger boyfriend Harry kept interrupting bringing her offerings of PBJ sandwiches and water) but here is the gist of our back-and-forth:

My basic points:

1) Your "End the Fed" message is the right one. Your other "demands" are contradictory and self-serving and violate the freedoms of others (i.e. 'free' education, 'free' healthcare, 'living' wage, etc).

2) Your movement lacks a central coherent tenet and voice, which is allowing many other groups to attempt to co-opt you. Groups like the unions, homeless advocates and socialists/anarchists.

3) Bailouts are bad but corporations are not bad, in general. The government is more to blame for the corruption than the corporations - since the bailout money wouldn't exist unless it was voted into being by politicians. Corporations are acting in a rational manner predicted by basic game theory...similar to the Prisoner's Dilemma. The first corporation to act and grab bailout money has a leg-up on the others.

4) You are all being very quiet on the wars Obama promised to end but didn't...why?

5) This ginger you are sitting with is going nowhere. He has regurgitated a bunch of beatnik slogans from the 1960s and Bob Dylan lyrics and has just offered you soggy peanut butter. That is a bad omen. Wouldn't you rather spend time with a middle-aged, bronzed Adonis farmer with some money in the bank?

Kidding on that last one.

So this chick was fairly well-spoken and agreed with much of what I said. Her responses in general:

Agreement that not all corporations are bad. Agreed that farm subsidies are wrong. Agreed that banks should be allowed to fail. Stated that, yes, most people there were Obama supporters years ago but will not do so again (I was a bit surprised by this - perhaps they ARE waking up).

She claimed the mainstream media was distorting their message about all the other stuff (the $20 minimum wage and the "free" education) and claimed there was no official "list of demands". I guess she is correct if you look at THEIR website. It is quite sparse.

She also claimed that there were plenty of people there at City Hall for their own reasons, which can't be helped. I agree with her there.

She and her ginger puppy dog were very much anti-war and pissed Obama hasn't brought the troops home. They didn't have an answer about why all the previously anti-war people are now so quiet about the wars. I suggested hypocrisy.

She did spew some pablum about "people over profits" which is a phrase that has always driven me insane and to which I argued the following:

Free market capitalism may not be perfect, but it is the best system we have given the two unavoidable facts that humans (and all animals) are self-serving and that resources are limited. In free-market capitalism, the urge to survive is channeled into useful activity. In order to make a profit as (for instance) a deli owner, you had better serve up a great meal and be nice to the customer. In this manner, the person's greed (to survive, to thrive, to 'profit') is turned for the 'good' purpose of being kind to your fellow man and providing something he needs or wants.

Contrarily, somebody who served up shit sandwiches while yelling at you and making you wait in line for 30 minutes would not last a week. Unless you are the post office, who has been serving shitburgers for decades without consequence. All thanks to a GOVERNMENT-granted monopoly on the delivery of first-class mail. Hmmm. Government again.

She seemed to chew on this for a while. Maybe it will sink in.

Apparently they have "open assemblies" there every night at 7pm. I may go down again to see what that's all about.

In closing, I told these two idealistic youngsters that their most powerful and USEFUL message is to End the Fed. Forget all the other bullet points, as people have an attention span of 20 seconds. If I were them, I'd be burning Bernanke in effigy and getting some coverage on that kind of thing. But what do I know.

When Will These Smelly, Misguided Hippies Finally Go Home and Hit the Bong?

2011-10-14T09:10:00.007-05:00

So I'm getting to the point I may have to go down to City Hall today and ask some morons WHY they think they are there and WHAT they want and HOW that will change anything. I'm so sick and tired of reading about it. I won't reiterate what I said earlier about them not knowing what the fuck is going on, but I will print below a typical comment I saw on a Yahoo! board this morning when somebody called them all parasites and a drag on society:

drag on society? please,last week i was employed in a school and made a difference in families lives,this week-no job. sick and tired of being kicked around by people making so much money they can’t decide what to do with it,while we fall further and further into poverty.now, i am a drag on society- now i have to file for unemployement,food stamps, goverment health care -why? because bloomberg decided so? i didnt make much money, never asked for anything,worked tons of extra hours without asking for an extra dime in pay. screw you and your better than the rest attitude,screw you and all the people like you who think you deserve more than the rest of us. or are better than us, I hope these people take over the whole city and screw everyone who is not paying attention. - nancy

Oh boy. Where to start?

I'd like to make fun of Nancy's terrible writing considering she was a teacher...or rather, she was "employed in a school" which sounds intentionally misleading. Was she a janitor? Administrator? Either way, I highly doubt she made any difference in anyone's lives with a brain like that in her head. She was also probably cut loose by her own union...a union that always values seniority over merit. But it appears she had neither. Good riddance.

Also, within ONE entire week, you are already broke and on food stamps and unemployment? That's it? You get fired and it's the end of the world and everyone else owes you a living? Ever hear of "try, try again" you lazy cunt? THIS is the mindset of today's youth? At least, I'm assuming she's young. If not, she is an even bigger loser than I thought.

No Nancy, the world doesn't owe you anything. Not $20 an hour or a guaranteed "living wage" or "free" health care anytime you wish for it. It doesn't owe you these things any more than a squirrel is owed a nut or a cheetah is owed a zebra dinner. Normal, dignified and hard-working people go out and take care of themselves.

I'll also point out that all the Nancies of the world were loving Wall Street about 6 years ago when they (once again) thought they could get something for nothing and treated their home like an ATM. They took out second loans and bought more house than they could afford and spent it all on lavish vacations and other shit. I'd be willing to bet big money that Nancy has just such an episode in her recent past.

Now, I WILL grant you that it's tough to make ends meet these days. The middle-class has been shit upon for decades. But if you want to right that particular wrong, you are pissing up the wrong pole. Think Greenspan, Bernanke, Frank, Pelosi, Obama and the rest of the Washington scumbags. The ones who sip expensive booze on your dime, fly all around the world on junkets and eat $18 taxpayer-funded muffins, who get a huge pension and huge salaries and who are laughing at you as I write this, since someone else is taking the blame for their multiple criminal acts.

Worse comes to worst, Nancy - you can always suck a dick.

Farming - Weeds and More Weeds

2011-10-13T15:17:00.003-05:00

Short post today:

Arrived.

Harvested arugula, beans and cubanella peppers.

Weeded the shit out of the potatoes. Weeded more. And more.

Took a dozen eggs fresh from the chickens' asshole as thanks.

Went home to soak my lower back in hot water.

Taking applications for masseuse/fellatio expert this week. Must be female.

Today is October 13th, 2011 and Warren Buffett is Still a Gigantic Asshole Hypocrite

2011-10-13T12:05:00.004-05:00

Warren Buffett is bringing his fight to raise taxes on the super-wealthy to Congress' deficit-reduction supercommittee.

In an exchange of letters between the billionaire investor and a Republican congressman that Buffett sent the committee this week, Buffett is offering to release his federal tax returns — with a condition.

"If you could get other ultra rich Americans to publish their returns along with mine, that would be very useful to the tax dialogue and intelligent reform," Buffett wrote.

The letters, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, were among several sent in recent days to the special bipartisan panel created this summer to find ways to reduce the mushrooming national debt by at least $1.2 trillion over the coming decade.

Oh really Warren? All this class warfare bullshit will raise about the same amount of money over ten years that the government spends in under a year...so it's spit in the ocean. But let's take a moment to review what a gigantic hypocrite asshole douche bag you really are:

(by John Hayward)

Warren Buffett, President Obama’s pet billionaire, spends a great deal of time calling for tax increases on wealthy people. He began a recent New York Times op-ed, entitled “Stop Coddling the Super-Rich,” as follows:

OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.

While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors.

These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It’s nice to have friends in high places.

That’s right, serfs: anything your benevolent “leaders” in Washington allow you to keep is a “blessing” that has been “showered” upon you. All money rightfully belongs to the State. It’s about time you spotted owls got with the program.

Funny thing is, it turns out Buffett was being… shall we say… disingenuous when he claimed his “leaders” never got around to asking for his “shared sacrifice.” His company, Berkshire Hathaway, has been fighting the IRS tooth and nail to avoid paying its federal tax bill for nearly a decade.

How much of the State’s rightful money has this hypocrite been clutching in a white-knuckled death grip? Oh, only about a billion dollars or so. Bill Wilson of Americans for Limited Government tallies up the bill:

Using only publicly-available documents, a certified public accountant (CPA) detailed Berkshire Hathaway’s tax problems to ALG researcher Richard McCarty. Now, the American people have a better idea of how much in back taxes the company could owe Uncle Sam.

According to page 56 of the company report, “At December 31, 2010… net unrecognized tax benefits were $1,005 million”, or about $1 billion. McCarty explained, “Unrecognized tax benefits represent the company’s potential future obligation to the IRS and other taxing authorities. They have to be recorded in the company’s financial statements.”

He added, “The notation means that Berkshire Hathaway’s own auditors have probably said that $1 billion is more likely than not owed to the government.”

On top of this tax bill, figure the value of the time IRS agents have invested trying to collect it – they don’t work cheap, and we pay their salaries – and the resources Buffett’s people have invested fighting back. All of which would have been saved if Buffett simply practiced what he preached, and willingly handed over his fortune to the brilliant and compassionate “leaders” he commands the rest of us to support without resistance.

Warren Buffet is no different from the other liars and frauds orbiting Barack Obama. His hypocrisy just runs billions of dollars deeper. When it comes to “shared sacrifice,” you do the sacrificing, and they do the sharing.

Cain Caught in Fed Reserve Lies by Ron Paul

2011-10-12T09:22:00.000-05:00

Ron Paul on Killing Citizens

2011-10-11T21:43:00.002-05:00

According to the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, Americans are never to be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The Constitution is not some aspirational statement of values, allowing exceptions when convenient, but rather, it is the law of the land. It is the basis of our Republic and our principal bulwark against tyranny.

Last week’s assassination of two American citizens, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, is an outrage and a criminal act carried out by the President and his administration. If the law protecting us against government-sanctioned assassination can be voided when there is a “really bad American”, is there any meaning left to the rule of law in the United States? If, as we learned last week, a secret government committee, not subject to congressional oversight or judicial review, can now target certain Americans for assassination, under what moral authority do we presume to lecture the rest of the world about protecting human rights? Didn’t we just bomb Libya into oblivion under the auspices of protecting the civilians from being targeted by their government?

Timothy McVeigh was certainly a threat, as were Nidal Hassan and Jared Lee Loughner. They killed people in front of many witnesses. They took up arms against their government in a literal way, yet were still afforded trials. These constitutional protections are in place because our Founders realized it is a very serious matter to deprive any individual of life or liberty. Our outrage against even the obviously guilty is not worth the sacrifice of the rule of law. Al-Awlaki has been outspoken against the United States and we are told he encouraged violence against Americans. We do not know that he actually committed any acts of violence. Ironically, he was once invited to the Pentagon as part of an outreach to moderate Muslims after 9/11. As the US attacks against Muslims in the Middle East and Central Asia expanded, it is said that he became more fervent and radical in his opposition to US foreign policy.

Many cheer this killing because they believe that in a time of war, due process is not necessary – not even for citizens, and especially not for those overseas. However, there has been no formal declaration of war and certainly not one against Yemen. The post-9/11 authorization for force would not have covered these two Americans because no one is claiming they had any connection to that attack. Al-Awlaki was on a kill list compiled by a secret panel within President Obama’s National Security Council and Justice Department. How many more Americans citizens are on that list? They won’t tell us. What are the criteria? They won’t tell us. Where is the evidence? They won’t tell us.

Al-Awlaki’s father tried desperately to get the administration to at least allow his son to have legal representation to challenge the “kill” order. He was denied. Rather than give him his day in court, the administration, behind closed doors, served as prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner.

The most worrisome aspect of this is that any new powers this administration accrues will serve as precedents for future administrations. Even those who completely trust this administration must understand that if this usurpation of power and denial of due process is allowed to stand, these powers will remain to be expanded on by the next administration and then the next. Will you trust them? History shows that once a population gives up its rights, they are not easily won back. Beware.

Drinking With Bob Slams Hollywood Toolbags

2011-10-11T16:46:00.001-05:00

Government Gold Seizures

2011-10-11T12:04:00.002-05:00

From Simon Black of Sovereign Man

How Bankrupt Governments Will Confiscate Your Gold

About two weeks ago, GoldMoney sent out an apologetic email to all of its Dutch customers. The email explained how the Dutch financial regulator (AFM) considered GoldMoney to be in violation of various licensing rules and compliance requirements.

Among other things, AFM indicated that GoldMoney was selling ‘investment objects’ without a license… something that they consider a heinous breach of their silly bureaucracy.

Now, there are so many technicalities involved here– whether physical metal constitutes ‘investment objects’ anymore than a collection of 80s action figures or a cellar of fine Bordeaux. Then there’s the jurisdictional issue– GoldMoney doesn’t even operate in the Netherlands, nor does the company sell its own inventory. Etc., etc.

None of these points seem to matter; the regulators have spoken, and as a consequence, GoldMoney is now closing the accounts of every customer living in the Netherlands.

It’s always troubling when governments go after firms like GoldMoney. The more signs I see, the more I’m starting to believe that we’re heading down a path where precious metals are once again confiscated, outlawed, or at least severely restricted in many countries.

Let’s start with the why. What possible sense would it make to reduce or restrict gold ownership?

Simple. The modern financial system is a complete joke. Money is conjured from thin air, backed by false promises from bankrupt governments. Then there’s the fractional reserve swindle, centrally planned interest rates, government-produced inflation, manufactured statistics, insane credit and sovereign debt bubbles, etc.

It’s a total fraud… and like any good con, it depends on just that: confidence.

In order for a system based on -nothing- to perpetuate, it’s imperative that it commands the confidence of the people within it. And people in rich western countries have been programmed since birth to believe that the colored pieces of paper circulating around in their economies are intrinsically ‘valuable’.

It’s funny, because developing countries already know it’s a scam. They don’t trust their governments, and they don’t trust those silly pieces of paper either. Out here in Asia is a great example– most of the region is very gold-oriented. They use paper as a medium of exchange, but it’s a cultural norm to save with gold.

In fact, when I walked into an Internet cafe earlier today here in Thailand, I noticed quite a few people at the computers checking out live gold charts (from Kitco).

People in western countries are just starting to get it… and as more people peek behind the curtain to see the true crimes being committed, the system will be finished.

The gold price is a constant reminder that the fiat financial system is a con job. And the higher the gold price becomes, the more people become aware. The political establishment will do whatever it takes to maintain the status quo, and it’s possible that precious metals restrictions will become a tactic:

Step 1: Just make gold ‘harder’. To buy. To transport. To own.

Think about the changes we’ve seen over the last two years; government-regulated exchanges are continually hiking their gold margin requirements, increasing investors’ burden to buy.

On the physical side, the US government buried some insane regulations deep within last year’s healthcare bill. The new rules required a mountain of paperwork such that anyone who purchased a single ounce of gold from a coin shop would have to submit a special 1099 form to the IRS.

(The rule was later modified under intense pressure from various lobby groups, but it still gives you a good idea of what these people are thinking…)

Then there’s the new Dodd-Frank legislation that makes it nearly impossible for US citizens to trade securities and commodities from overseas accounts beyond the reach of the federal government.

Then there’s the Liberty Dollar debacle in which the US government used obscure counterfeit laws to seize millions of dollars of silver coins that were owned by the firm’s customers!

Then earlier this year, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued new guidance requiring that US taxpayers who hold gold in certain offshore financial accounts report such holdings on their annual FBAR. Conveniently, this ruling put up a barrier for Americans to use GoldMoney.

GoldMoney’s battle with the Dutch regulators is just another example of governments making gold ownership more cumbersome.

Step 2: Plant seeds of doubt

We’re seeing signs of this as well. “Prominent” economists have been pounding the table against precious metals with vigor, and the propaganda ministry is focusing its efforts on gold’s recent price drop to make people believe that it’s dangerous to buy.

This recent media clip in which a reporter extols the virtues of the US dollar being backed by the federal government says it all. It’s already begun, and we should expect more.

Step 3: Tie gold to terrorism. Plant evidence.

Here are two incontrovertible facts: Westerners are petrified of Arab terrorists. The Arab world is a very gold-oriented society. It wouldn’t take much effort to link the two by suggesting (and planting evidence) that terrorists use gold to move money and finance their operations.

This will be surely be the next step… and if we start seeing this, you can bet your last ounce that restrictive controls are coming.

So what to do…?

If you live in a broke western nation, whatever you do, don’t store your gold in a bank safety deposit box. Bankers are unpaid government spies, so you might as well hang a sign up that says “please seize my assets”.

Ideally you want to move your gold out of the country. We’ve talked about anonymous boxes in Vienna’s Das Safe facility in the past, as well as Hong Kong’s The Storage. Both of these are great options to buy and store gold.

Farming - Grunt Work

2011-10-11T11:52:00.002-05:00

Jen wasn't in today, so I was taking orders from Jose today.

Jose's English is as poor as my Spanish so we spent most of the morning gesticulating at each other while brandishing different tools. Perhaps Yerkish would have been better.

I'm fairly convinced Jose was taking advantage of his new position as El Jefe since he told me to move a bunch of bricks around the farm for no reason I could discern. My broken Spanish failed me when I finally understood his order and tried to ask "brick moving? What the fuck? Who is the Mexican around here, guy?"

Instead I only came up with "esta bien"

After that, we sprayed the cabbage with Thuricide since some kind of caterpillar fuck or bastard worm has been eating the leaves. Then we ran bamboo poles in and out of the jalepeno plants in their wire cages to keep them upright. A lot of stuff was fucked up today from all the rain and mud. At least it was easy to drive stakes into the ground.

Then I was on pruning duty with the hand saw, chopping down palmetto branches. Then I pulled basil plants and weeded and raked that bed for planting something else later.

All in all, just a grunt work day....although the bamboo pole trick was a good one. I'm filing that one away for later.

NFL - Week Five

2011-10-10T18:09:00.006-05:00

Another nice even distribution this week on the sides, but overs trounced unders by a 3-1 margin. A ridiculous amount of scoring this week: one game over 60 points, eight games with a score of 50 or higher, two games in the 40-50 point range...and two games under 40 points (39 and 37, to be exact). Very bizarre. Not a single game total was less than 37 points.

Faves: 7 (34) [44.2%]
Dogs: 6 (42) [54.5]
Push: 0 (1) [1.3%]

Overs: 9 (48) [62.3%]
Under: 4 (29) [37.7%]

Home field favorites went 5-4 (22-25-1) against the spread and 5-4 (33-14) straight up

Fave/over: 4 (18) [23.4%]
Fave/undr: 3 (16) [20.8%]
Dog/over: 5 (29) [37.7]
Dog/undr: 1 (13) [16.9%]

Push/over: 0 (1) [1.2%]

No overtime games this week...only two occurrences in 77 games now.

College Football - Week Six

2011-10-09T08:54:00.004-05:00

Dumb money has a field day again as the favorites cover at a 2-1 ratio...and come in especially hard (14-3) on the high-ranking, nationally-televised games. The games the sharps are supposed to be on top of.

Does this list of higher-ranked teams look familiar? LSU, Stanford, OK, Bama, Notre Dame, GA....all covered once again this week. Throw in W VA, SC, Clemson, Ok St, MI, AZ St and even Illinois.

The only ranked favorites that failed to cover were GA Tech, FSU and Nebraska. Rough week for sharp money and Vegas again.

Our totals:

Faves: 35 (143) [50%]
Dogs: 17 (142) [50%]

Overs: 26 (147) [51.6%]
Under: 26 (138) [48.4%]

Breaking it down further [ytd percentages in brackets]

Fave/over: 16 (79) [27.7%]
Fave/under: 19 (64) [22.4%]
Dog/over: 9 (67) [23.5%]
Dog/under: 8 (75) [26.4%]

Farming - Artichokes and Root Crops

2011-10-07T08:58:00.003-05:00

Well, in all the excitement my violent stalker yesterday, I didn't get a chance to post about my morning at Springdale. Too busy hiding under my bed with my knees knocking.

We harvested some squash and sage for the morning restaurant orders and then I went back to help Jose. Springdale was having a dinner there last night and TWO weddings this weekend, so things were busy around there. Every the capitalists, Glenn and Paula find many other uses for the farm besides growing food. This is called "stacking," boys and girls. It's what smart people do. They find every angle possible. Very admirable and clever, in my book.

So, Jose and I cut off all the sunflower heads and took them in for seed removal. We kept the nice ones for the wedding. Next, Jose chopped down the stalks with his machete (Jose is deadly with a machete, hear that Aaron?) and we planted artichokes in between the old stalks and root clumps. This is classic permaculture and it's cool to see in action.

The old way of doing things would be to till all the old shit up and then plant. This way, the old sunflower roots will slowly rot and provide a sort of primitive compost to the artichokes as they grow. Nature abhors a vacuum and bare soil is definitely a vacuum. Better to leave a cover crop or old crop in there and plant between them.

Then it was time to get seeds ready to germinate. LOTS of seeds. Jose has his special germination mix of peat moss, perlite and a few other items I cannot disclose but his germination rates are excellent. He stamped out over 1200 planting blocks in their little trays and I filled them with some tiny-ass seeds. Celery and lettuce seeds are literally the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Very difficult to place two of them in each hole.

We went through space spinach, bloomingdale spinach, mizuna, beets (gold, red, bull blood), rutabaga, celery, and lettuce. You wouldn't believe all the stuff sprouting in the greenhouse. Leeks, snapdragons, red cabbage and more. The cubanelle peppers are looking good out in the field too.

Jose says we'll be planting a lot of stuff the next couple week, including my favorite - red onions! Also looks like rain this weekend, which would be nice.

Crazy Stalker Jew Claims I Can't Run 18 Miles. Wants To Meet Out At The Bike Rack After School. Is Also a Biker Douche

2011-10-06T12:08:00.012-05:00

Some Houston Jew is none too pleased with me pointing out that Jews are generally not good divers, in my experience. In case you missed his written threat of violence in the previous post, it went like this:

Matt, nice that you blocked me on Yelp... Anytime you would like to strap on some running shoes and see who really is in shape let me know.. Matt, from the looks of your pics it looks like you might last about 18 miles.. Don't hate others because they can afford equipment that you can't. AGAIN, I will be in Austin in about a week if you would like to show me that you are a tough guy. Matt, lets see if you can outlast this Jew and aftre [sic] that I can punch you in your pathetic face...

Bahahaha! I might last 18 miles? That's almost a compliment! If you're trying to insult me, you should have set the bar way lower...like 2 miles or something. You'd probably still be right. I hate running. Did it for four years in high school.

High school is over, by the way.

Also, it is kind of creepy gay how many times you say my name. I'm not sure how me saying "jews are bad scuba divers" got translated into "I'm a tough guy" but I guess to aging jocks like yourself, that's how it all boils down.

To quote Kenny Powers when he was ridiculing the triathlete principle: "I play real sports...not try to be the best at exercising," and by 'real sports' I mean steel-tip darts, pool, foozeball or eating pussy. I will crush you in those sports. Running and biking in circles early in the morning while wearing spandex? Not so much.

I'm also not good at hopscotch...so you have me there as well. Happy?

I figured right away that Aaron is one of those douches my friendgirls date now and then. The kind who occasionally comes out to the bar but announces loudly that he can't drink beer and is eating fruit salad because he has a Big Race tomorrow. The kind of sad, aging jock who thinks it's the Olympics when it's really the 7th Annual Colluxahatchie Turkey Trot and Diabetes Fundraising Triathlon and he's really hoping to "win" that piece of computer paper that declares him "Top Ten in the 31 to 35-Year-Old Age Group!"

After you leave, we make fun of your shaved legs and lack of drinking ability. Fuck your 18 miles of running...I'll be glad to challenge you to 18 shots of Southern Comfort any time you wish.

Of course, my friends only date them for a month or two before realizing they are more interested in shaving their legs and riding bikes in circles than they are in eating pussy or some BBQ ribs once in a while.

My suspicions were confirmed when I went to Yelp and found a picture of Aaron the Angry Stalker Jew. He has SIX photos of himself...all biking or running. Dude - it's a site to critique restaurants and bars and stuff....not to post photos of yourself dressed like Richard Simmons. He also had the Ultimate Mark of the Douche Nugget: the visor with the sunglasses on top. Here is a screen grab:

"I got scared in scuba class and quit. Now I ride bikes."

Even more of my suspicions were confirmed after reading his hilariously horrible and arrogant douchebag review of a bike shop. Yep! He's one of THOSE guys who will babble about rim size and handle bars. Here is the post in it's pathetic entirety:

So, I was going to buy a Cervelo P4 from this guy in North Carolina. He thought it was a 56 but it was a 54. I currently ride a 56 Cervelo p2c frame. Guy was cool enough to give me my money back and no hard feelings but the deal was awesome.. Can't say how much, but a rockin deal. I still wanted the bike so I thought I would go to a Cervelo dealer to see if there was any way I could get on a 54". Actually a non-Cervelo bike shop told me to go to Bicycle World and jump on the 54" and see if it might work. So this is what happened.

Just today, Sunday, I walk into the Dairy Ashford Bicycle World and decide to ask the gentleman if I could see if one of the 54" Cervelo bike frames fit me. He asked why and what I was currently riding. I told him the story about how this guy that wholesales bikes has a 54" for sale for a very good deal. The Bicycle World employee, Tom, freaks out that I would ask him such a question. He told me that the deal just doesn't sound right. I said that isn't my problem I am here to see if their is anyway this bike might fit. He says that he takes offense that I would buy a bike somewhere else and ask his store about fit questions. He told me why not go to the guy in North Carolina to get my fit. Tom Tirado, is that really possible? After my experience today I am actually thinking about it We ended up yelling at each other in the store and I told him I HAVE NEVER EVER been treated like this from a bike store. He told me that their are only two Cervelo dealerships in Houston at the only other one is in Clear Lake. I told him that their is one in Pasadena also. He yelled at me that their isn't one and if their is someone in Pasadena selling Cervelo's that they aren't a dealership. Tom chooses to go online to Cervelo and show me that their isn't one in Pasadena and then says "oh". I also told him that as soon as I make the purchase I will need different aero bars that are around a 1000 dollars and I will be sure not to go to Bicycle World. He actually apologized for being so rude. I think it was a bit too late after being yelled at for buying "a possibly stolen bike". I mean is this guy in North Carolina going to give me my money back on a stolen bike, in a box? Not saying it wouldn't happen but it sounds more fishier.....not a word, that he gave me my money back but he stole the bike. HONESTLY I AM NOT A BUSINESS MAJOR BUT YELLING AT THE POTENTIAL CUSTOMER IS NEVER AN OPTION, RIGHT???? Maybe I am wrong.

I have had it with bike shops that think you should buy everything from them. I am the consumer and if I find a good deal from someone else than so be it. I mean we are triathletes.... we are never happy and continue to waste our money on more stuff that we think makes us go faster or makes our bikes lighter. They know this but then hire guys like Tom that make me never want to return to their store ever again. If you know bicycles.. people riding P4's are not riding around on stock wheels.. So I guess you could say bicycle world lost out on the Zipps full disc and and front 808 that I have no choice other than to buy. Is it me or is this just bad business..

I just writing to my fellow triathletes and cyclists that this is the what I experienced today. I am sure that this isn't the norm, well, I would hope not.

Christ Aaron! Ever hear of breaking things up with paragraphs? Or learn the difference between "there" and "their" maybe? Also, it's "then so be it", not "than so be it," among many other glaring fuckups. If I were you, I'd spend more time writing a coherent review than I would posting poseur photos. Just a thought.

You must be a real disappointment to your successful Jewish family of lawyers, doctors and astrophysicists. I'm guessing you try and compensate by riding bikes for lots and lots of miles so you have some big numbers to throw out at Christmas dinner. Whoops. I mean Passover. I'm also guessing your job involves sales - perhaps in a cell phone store. Am I getting warm?

And here is another from his blind date. Man, you sound like a gigantic wet blanket. No wonder you're being set up on blind dates. You must bore the girls to tears with your yammering about spokes and chains:

My blind date asked me if I would like to meet at SOMA. Not blind like not being able to see but just another "set up" from a friend. Me being brand new to Houston decided it was a good idea. After we arrived I found out that she doesn't eat much sushi. OK!

The place was way cool. Different crowd than what usually hangs out in Houston. At least what I have seen so far. The crowd seemed to be in their upper 20's to mid to upper 30's. After asking what my date wanted to drink I decided to order from the bar. While I am walking up to the bar the Asian waitress tells me that it would be faster to order through her. I was like umm ok.. WHY NOT? She gets the order and off she goes.

The date and I talked a little bit and still no drink. The bartender sees me waiting for a drink and asks me what I want. So I guess Asian girl wasn't so fast. We decide to go find the Asian waitress and she gives us our drinks. It was a bit loud and I found myself asking what everytime my date finished a sentence. We decided to take our conversation outside while we wait to be seated.

45 minutes go by and we finally get sat. I noticed that the price are ridiculous for Houston. These were Las Vegas/Scottsdale prices on Washington. Whatever, I am not going to be the bad date and complain. The Sushi was really good but honestly it better be for 18 dollars a roll. They had a pretty good selection of entrees so that helped out my non-sushi eating blind date. My date mentioned to me that we have to get some weird berry martini. I never complain when a girl wants a drink considering more alcohol makes me better looking! WOW, the martini was out of this world.. So waiter ends up giving me the bill. I was still talking to my date when he decided to pick it up and assume that my card was there. Eventually he gave it back and said "take your time" , ummmm ok! So I pay, tip, sign.. He ended up coming back to the table just to pick it up before we had left the table. DUDE, this isn't Denny's...

TO sum it up, food was good but way too much when it comes to price. I think if I go back it will just be for an early drink on my way out to a lunge [sic] or something.

Whoa! Hey man! ASIAN waitress?? Why did you need to point out her ethnicity?!? Are you some kind of racist?? Are you saying Asians make bad waitstaff, you racist fuck?? I'll have you removed from Yelp!

Speaking of, I WAS removed from Yelp for my content this morning. I knew the Jews ran the banking and entertainment industry...but I had no clue they also controlled Yelp! No matter. Google will put them out of business in a couple of years.

I think I'll go Yelp about it.

Guy Gets Mad When I Inform Him That Jews Are Generally Not Good Scuba Divers on Yelp

2011-10-05T11:11:00.005-05:00

Two terrified divers were left stranded in shark-infested waters when their charter boat disappeared.

Paul Kline and Fernando Garcia Puerta had to cling to a buoy for two hours after surfacing from their late-afternoon dive in the Atlantic Ocean three miles from Miami and finding no trace of their boat.

'We were in shock. We could easily have died,' Kline, 44, told the Miami Herald.

'If night had fallen, the situation would have turned into panic.'

He said they kept talking to each other throughout their ordeal 'to try to keep up our high spirits'.

Mr Kline, a married father of six from Texas, told WSVN-TV that he could only think about getting back to his family while stranded in the water.

He said: 'I wasn't giving up anytime soon.'

Mr Kline and Mr Puerta, a Spanish tourist, were eventually spotted by the crew of a passing yacht and brought safely to shore.

'You could notice a strong feeling of relief,' said Elie Trichet, captain of the No Compromise which was returning to Miami from the Florida Keys when his passengers saw the men clutching their diving equipment.

'They had been clinging to that buoy for two hours hoping somebody would rescue them.'

The rescued divers each paid $85 for the four-hour adventure in Biscayne Bay, which was meant to include two one-hour dives at different locations.

Mr Kline said that he initially thought there had been a medical emergency aboard the boat, which is why it was not there when he and Mr Garcia surfaced 55 minutes into the first dive after studying coral reef. He said he assumed another boat would be sent back for them.

Instead, the other divers on the trip had already boarded and the boat was en route to the second dive site with the captain unaware he had left the two behind.

Mr Kline said they realised after a while that they had been forgotten.

The two, who did not previously know each other, were recovering in Miami today while coastguards launched an investigation.

Whaaaa...whaaaa. Two whole hours? Jesus christ. I'm embarrassed this guy is from Texas. Probably a transplant from New York - one of the many who are moving to Texas and fucking everything up with their shitty driving and liberal views.

I know that dive boats sometimes leave people behind and there's no excuse for it, since there are easy ways to make sure everyone is one board...but in this case, I'm guessing the Jew and the Mexican are to blame for not following directions.

I make this guess from decades of watching Jews on dive boats. I can tell you that much like Asians are bad drivers - Jews are bad divers. You just don't hear that stereotype as often because not everybody dives. But I'm here to try and change that oversight.

Much as they suck at sports and are underrepresented in pro football, they also suck at diving. It's just one of those things.

In just one of many incidents, I was in BVI last year and we had a classic Miami Jew on board. He was bald, grossly overweight and was a lawyer. He had all the expensive gear and was highly annoying on the ride out to the site. I disliked him immediately.

When we got to the site, the divemaster gave us instructions and paired us up. We said he'd be heading to the anchor and then would come back to us on the bottom - the visibility was for shit, btw.

So we followed his instructions and waited. He came swimming up and did a count and realized someone was missing. After fucking around on the bottom for 10 minutes looking for this idiot, we had to RESURFACE! Then we looked all over and I laid into his buddy for not knowing where he was.

We searched all over and eventually found this cockhead swimming in circles about 30 yards from where he was supposed to be. We then went back down and continued the dive. To cap it all off, the fucker RAN OUT OF AIR in about 20 minutes and was freaking out on the divemaster.

Afterward, he was strutting around the boat yammering about how great the dive was. No apologies for fucking it all up. Twice. I wanted to punch his face.

The problem with the Jews I dive with is they are usually fat as shit and have trouble getting out of the water after burning their air in about 30 minutes. They also have all the latest gear while flailing around underwater and fucking up things for everyone else.

The other problem is they think they know everything and don't need to listen to the divemaster. Hey buddy: you may be a genius in the courtroom when it comes to destroying people's lives or at your bank when it comes to slimy ways to save money, but you are a shit head out here in the ocean.

Also, a lot of shit stinks about this story. It was a four-hour trip with two dives? They could not have been that far offshore, then. Two dives is roughly two hours with a surface interval making it 3 hours...leaving only 30 minutes to get to the site and 30 minutes back. That's not even taking into account all the time it takes to get 30 people geared up and in and out of the water. You read right: the boat had 30 people which means it was a shitty operation to begin with and you get what you pay for. It's called a "cattle call" and a decent diver would never bother with a joke like that.

Furthermore, it's kind of your job as a diver to keep an eye on the group...or at least another pairing from the group. These two clowns probably had their heads buried in each others asses the whole time, getting excited about a fucking parrot fish or something. Bunch of fucking amateurs!

So now this pussy wants to SUE because he had to float a couple of hours in a high-traffic area that was barely off shore? Typical.

I went to Yelp and looked at the reviews for this dive outfit in Miami and they had a mix of good and bad. I took the time to post my feelings on Jewish divers and some guy got all snippy! You believe that?

I said look guy: white men can't jump or dance, Asians can't drive, chicks suck at math, blacks hate the water, and Jews are terrible divers. Deal with it. This is not rocket science. It's regular science. Take a look around.

Anyway, some guy went nuts on Yelp and called me a moron and a racist! Some people.

Today's Shithead Youth

2011-10-04T23:09:00.003-05:00

With protesters impeding traffic, shouting slogans, holding signs and generally disrupting financial centers across the country, most notably Wall Street, the logical question is, why?

The answer is less obvious than might be expected, as there is no “official” list of demands or leader. Indeed, even big-name supporters of the movement have cited incoherent reasons when trying to spell out what has made these young people eschew their sofas, coffeehouses and showers to take to the streets.

Michael Moore suggested Monday that they want to see justice, or in his words, “perp walks” for bankers. Actress Roseanne Barr speculated that “reeducation camps” and “beheadings” for bankers might be good goals. And according to former Obama Green Jobs Czar Van Jones, “Occupy Wall Street” is a movement to save the “middle class.”

While the establishment scratches their heads in curiosity at the movement which has attempted to model itself after the Arab Spring, the motivations and demands that are cropping up on message boards and forums are far-reaching and disparate.

On the “unofficial, defacto online resource for the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests,” there is a proposed list of 13 demands, including immediate debt forgiveness for all, free college education, elimination of free trade, a $20 an hour minimum wage, guaranteed “living wage” regardless of income, open borders, $1 trillion government spending on infrastructure, $1 trillion government spending on ecological restoration, a racial and gender equal rights amendment and easier unionization voting procedures.

“These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy,” “LloydJHart,” the drafter of the online demands, asserts. “LyoydJHart” lists his hometown as Vineyard Haven, a Massachusetts town on the island of Martha’s Vineyard — a favorite summer vacation spot for the president.

Christ, what an embarrassment. These trust fund idiots with iPhones and designer jeans don't even know what's going on in this country. Nor do they have the slightest clue about how the world works. Just a bunch of free-loading moochers and hippies blindly blaming "corporations" for everything wrong in the world while demanding all sorts of goodies at someone else's expense. Sound like Ralph Nader's retarded platform or half of my permaculture class: the class where a guy was bitching about overpopulation while holding his baby, which he brings to class every week. Fuck you, Tim and all the other Tims of the world.

Apparently, one of these stupid fucking protests is coming to Austin on Thursday. Of course, the advocates for the homeless want to get in on the action too - and demand even more free stuff. A trillion bucks and counting since LBJ apparently couldn't get the job done. They want more.

You want to throw bad looks somewhere? Head down to the Federal Reserve or 1600 Pennsylvania, you dumb cunts. Out-of-control spending on your moronic failed pet programs got us here. Barney Frank and Fannie Mae got us here. Franklin Raines and Alan Greenspan got us here. Idiot military excursions got us here. Making people think they can have guns AND butter got us here.

Did Wall Street get bailed out at your expense? Yup. Are Wall Street bankers mostly a bunch of pussies and white-collar moochers? Yup. But the people handing out the money are your Democrat friends in power along with the Federal Reserve. You'd be grabbing the cash too, if you had the right connections instead of just a rusty old bike, a ponytail and some shitty tattoos.

Do us all a favor, and either go home or start torching the buildings where the REAL problems lie.

Ron Paul - Right for 30 Years and Counting

2011-10-04T21:06:00.001-05:00

Farming - Planting Romaine

2011-10-04T14:38:00.003-05:00

Out at Rain Lily today and spent the entire day planting. Jose and I must have gone through 4 or 5 trays of seedlings - with 72 in each tray, it made for a lot of digging, planting and filling. I think we planted 4 different kinds - but hell if I can remember all the names. I know one of them was Speckled Trout Back, since it's such a weird name.

Squatting for hours played hell with my knees and calves. I'm sure there's an easier way, but I haven't found it yet...unless it's transforming into a 5'4, 25yo Mexican guy. He didn't seem to have any problems planting from a standing position. Fucker.

About a dozen new baby chicks arrived last week! Adorable.

Chinese cabbage is going strong

Beans I planted weeks ago are finally getting larger

Today's work - an entire row of different types of romaine

Permaculture class on Saturdays has been a gold mine of idiocy, both on the part of the students and the instructor. I've been saving it all up for a decent blog, but can't be bothered right now. I've already argued with the instructor over whether rocks are alive and plants can sense humans enough to change the flavor of their berries. Not to mention the kumbaya shit every morning where we individually tell the group "how we are feeling" that morning and what our favorite part of the previous week was. As a misanthrope, I find the entire thing unbearable.

Suffice it to say that over 9 hours every Saturday, I'm picking up 45 minutes of useful information...which does not play well in my world. An idle mind is Beauchamp's workplace and it's only a matter of time before I need to pull some meaningless prank or stunt in there that nobody will appreciate.

NFL - Week Four

2011-10-03T15:55:00.007-05:00

A nice even distribution this week, although the favorites dominated in the late games...allowing the pigeons to recoup their earlier losses on Chicago and Buffalo, no doubt.

Faves: 8 (27) [42.2%]
Dogs: 8 (36) [56.3]
Push: 0 (1) [1.5%]

Overs: 9 (39) [60.9%]
Under: 7 (25) [39.1%]

Home field favorites went 4-5 (17-21-1) against the spread and 6-3 (28-10) straight up

Fave/over: 3 (14) [21.9%]
Fave/undr: 5 (13) [20.3%]
Dog/over: 6 (24) [37.5]
Dog/undr: 2 (12) [18.8%]

Push/over: 0 (1) [1.5%]

No overtime games this week...only two occurrences in 64 games now.

College Football - Week Five

2011-10-02T10:39:00.004-05:00

Chalk eaters got crushed huge yesterday, unless you took all the big-name favorites (TX, Bama, WI, MI, OK, Stanford, ND) who - once again - covered their spreads.

Seriously...Wisconsin, Alabama and Stanford are ALL 5-0 ATS. Wake up, LVSC, and smell the fucking coffee. The sharp money needs a break.

Faves: 17 (108) [46.4%]
Dogs: 36 (125) [53.6%]

Overs: 32 (121) [51.9%]
Under: 21 (112) [48.1%]

Breaking it down further [ytd percentages in brackets]

Fave/over: 11 (63) [27%]
Fave/under: 6 (45) [19%]
Dog/over: 21 (58) [25%]
Dog/under: 15 (67) [29%]

Fave/over and dog/under still lead the pack. Who said correlation parlays were dead?

Flora Identification

2011-09-30T15:45:00.008-05:00

Mainly posting these for identification in class tomorrow. If anyone knows what these are, I'd love to hear...

Upon Further Study: Fuck Herman Cain

2011-09-30T12:27:00.002-05:00

Businessman Herman Cain has made remarks somewhat unbecoming of a presidential candidate, declaring his annoyance at “stupid” questions continually put to him by Ron Paul supporters.

The former Godfather’s Pizza CEO, who is running for the GOP nomination on a broadly libertarian platform, seems to have a problem with Paulites’ concerns regarding the Federal Reserve.

“I get the same stupid question at almost every one of these events,” Cain writes in a forthcoming book “This is Herman Cain,” to be released in early October.

According to the Daily Caller, which has obtained an advance copy of the book, Cain claims that Paul’s supporters are “threatened by me” and are “trying to destroy me on the fact that I was once affiliated with” the Federal Reserve.

Cain even has his own conspiracy theory that Paul’s campaign is deliberately sending people out to Cain events to attempt to discredit him:

“I know it’s a deliberate strategy.” Cain writes, “How can a person randomly show up at a hundred events and ask the same stupid question to try to nail me on the Federal Reserve?”

Is Cain serious? Clearly he has no concept of the determination and reach of Ron Paul’s grassroots support base. Paulites are focused and unwavering, just as their chosen candidate has been for thirty plus years.

Ron Paul has warned his supporters for three decades and more about the dangerous of a fraudulent fractional reserve banking system in the hands of private central bankers, and no one can legitimately argue any longer that those concerns have not been justified. Why is it so hard for Cain to accept that every Ron Paul supporter would share the same concerns?

Paul’s supporters have argued that Cain is not serious about reigning in the power of the Federal Reserve over US monetary policy, pointing to the fact that he was chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in 1995 and 1996.

While Ron Paul has continually pushed to audit the Fed, Cain seemingly does not believe an audit is necessary:

“I have said: ‘I don’t think you’re going to find anything to audit on the Federal Reserve.’” Cain writes. “But they (Ron Paul supporters) want you to believe that Herman Cain doesn’t want the Federal Reserve to be audited.”

OK, fuck Herman Cain...and it ain't 'cause he's a brothah.

What a Bitch

2011-09-30T12:16:00.003-05:00

Former Playboy model, Crystal Harris, was supposed to be the third wife of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. Harris broke off their engagement, but she held on to the estimated $90,000 ring, and now has plans to auction it off at Christie’s in New York in October.

TMZ reports that the ring has a 3.39 carat circular-cut diamond. A source told the site that Harris can no longer “...bear to look at the ring anymore because it brought back bad memories.”

According to Us Magazine, the ring in expected to go between $20,000 and $30,000, despite the price that Hefner paid.

Legal prostitute

What a bitch. It's my understanding that when you break off an engagement, you give the ring back. If she had actually gone through with the wedding and gotten divorced a year or two later, THEN you keep the shiny bauble you traded for exclusive use of her vagina...er, engagement ring. So if you can't stand to look at it, hand it back over you twat.

This is also Exhibit A for my lifelong argument that diamonds suck balls as a store of wealth. Gold is superior. Diamonds are not homogeneous or liquid and are subject to the vagaries of taste and style. Hef paid $90k and the ring will only get $30k at auction. That shows you what a ripoff they are. Not to mention they can be made in a lab for a fraction of the cost.

I also expect more of Hef. He could have purchased about 100 hookers with that money - none of whom would have made him look like a fool in the national news.

Overview From David Stockman

2011-09-30T12:04:00.001-05:00

Today's cut and paste...

David Stockman, former US Representative and Director of the Office of Management and Budget under Reagan, does not mince words. He sees the monetary systems of the world coming apart.

How did we get here? He identifies the root cause as the intentional over-leveraging of world economies by central planners in a misguided effort to enjoy growth without consequence.

I blame it on the Fed. I blame it on the 1971 decision by Nixon to close the gold window and let the dollar float. Because out of that has evolved -- or morphed -- a central banking policy in the world that absorbs unlimited amounts of government debt. And so we went on what I call the "T-bill standard" or the "federal debt standard." And the other central banks of the emerging mercantilist Asian economies -- Japan, Korea, and now, especially, the People’s Printing Press of China -- have absorbed this massive emission of debt that otherwise would’ve created powerful negative consequences that would’ve forced politicians to act long ago. In other words, higher interest rates, pressure for inflationary monetary policy, and the actual appearance of price inflation. But because all the bonds on the margin were being absorbed by the central banks, we got away for twenty or twenty five years with “deficits without tears.”

And he's just getting started. The only thing more impressive than Stockman's CV of insider roles in public economics and private finance is his talent for colorful metaphor.

On The Fed

As far as I’m concerned, Bernanke is the monetary Darth Vader. He has destroyed the bond market. Because fundamentally, in a healthy capitalist system, the interest rate in the money market and in the longer-term capital market is the price of money and the price of capital. And if the pricing system isn’t working, if it’s been totally crushed, disabled, manipulated, rigged, medicated, everything that the Fed has done with QE1, QE2, zero interest rates, Operation Twist - all the rest of this insanity - then we’ve destroyed the ability of the capital market to function and we’re giving false signals in every direction.

On The Economy

We effectively had, over the last thirty years, a national LBO - a leveraged buyout of the whole economy. And this is important because if you look at the difference between our historic leverage ratio [1.6 times debt to GDP], which seemed to be compatible with a stable and usually growing economy, notwithstanding periods, obviously, of boom and bust. But at 1.6 times, we would have about $22 trillion of debt -- public and private -- on the US economy today. We actually have $52 at 3.6 times. So the extra two turns have put on the economy -- households, business, government, we can go through the different sectors -- roughly $30 trillion in debt that’s being lugged around by the US economy as it struggles to stay even, to say nothing of recovery today. And until that massive over-leveraging is worked down and reduced and liquidated, which will take years and years in a painful process, we’re not going to get back on track as an economy.

On Our Political Leadership

It’s hard enough for politicians to face the music, to dispense bad news, to make hard choices, allocate pain to constituencies whether it’s spending cut or tax increase. But when the Fed destroys the bond market, which is the benchmark for the whole capital market, and tells the Congress that you can borrow money for two years at eighteen basis points, which is -- as far as Washington’s concerned -- that’s a rounding error. It’s the same as free.

When you’re giving that kind of signal, then there is no incentive, there’s no motivation for people to walk the plank and face down this monster of a fiscal deficit and imbalance that we have.

Washington thinks you can kick the can down the road, the debt is more or less free, and we’ll get around to solving the problem. But today, let’s not make any tough choices. That’s where we are.

On the Banks

The banking system has been saved on the back of the savers of the United States. We have totally destroyed any incentive for thrift, for deferred gratification. The Fed has become more Keynesian than Keynes.

Now, the fact is, if you were going to bail out the banking system with this kind of transfer -- I calculate it at $300 or $400 billion a year -- the suppression of interest rates on depositors, on the $7 trillion or so of deposit base that we have, is at least $300 or $400 billion a year. And that’s the same thing as taxing the public by $300 or $400 billion and redistributing it to banks based on the distribution of their deposit base. That wouldn’t get one vote. Okay, in other words, what I’m saying is if it were done in a proper way as a fiscal transfer put before the democracy to review and vote up or down, it would be voted down overwhelmingly. It would be shouted down. It would not even see the light of day out of committee, to say nothing of the floor of the House or Senate.

On Peak Oil

I think that is being totally ignored. It is another one of the headwinds or constraints that we’re facing along with the demographic time bomb of this huge generation retiring. And if you look at all of these, there’s no reason to expect much economic growth for the next ten or twenty years, even if you had a healthy monetary and fiscal situation. But given the situation that we’ve described and given the massive excess private leverage that was built up in the thirty-year debt spree, we have sort of added insult to injury. We have maybe an inevitable question of the rising real cost of the BTU being added to the demographic question being added to the totally distorted world labor market that the central banks have produced, which is another whole topic. But when you put all those together, the headwinds are truly frightening.

On Gold

Gold is becoming the de facto money. We’re going to be back to a gold standard, one way or another, through the back door in only a matter of time, simply because the central banks are dominated by the ritual incantation of dying Keynesian theory. And therefore, I would say that’s what someone needs to do to protect themselves.

Roast in Peace

2011-09-29T09:07:00.002-05:00

I've been pretty busy lately and that will likely continue...but I wanted to make sure I marked the one-year anniversary of the death of one of the greatest comics of my generation. Greg Giraldo died today a year ago. He is still missed.

Proving that god has no sense of humor, George Lopez, Pablo Francisco, Carrot Top and Larry the Cable Guy continue to draw breath.

The Black-Hating Half of Sea Monkey's Brain Is At It Again With Proposal Straight Out Of The Onion

2011-09-27T17:06:00.006-05:00

Advocates for the unemployed have cheered a push by the Obama administration to ban discrimination against the jobless. But business groups and their allies are calling the effort unnecessary and counterproductive.

The job creation bill that President Obama sent to Congress earlier this month includes a provision that would allow unsuccessful job applicants to sue if they think a company of 15 more employees denied them a job because they were unemployed.

The provision would ban employment ads that explicitly declare the unemployed ineligible, with phrases like "Jobless need not apply." As The Lookout has reported, such ads appear to have proliferated in recent years, prompting an inquiry by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Democratic lawmakers in both the House and the Senate have introduced similar measures. Obama said recently that discrimination against the unemployed makes "absolutely no sense," especially because many people find themselves out of work through no fault of their own.

Advocates for employers oppose the proposed ban. "We do not see a need for it," Michael Eastman of the Chamber of Commerce told the New York Times.

Lawrence Lorber, a labor law specialist who represents employers, told the paper the president's proposal "opens another avenue of employment litigation and nuisance lawsuits."

Louie Gohmert, a Republican representative from Texas, went further. He told the Times that the proposal would send the following message: "If you're unemployed and you go to apply for a job, and you're not hired for that job, see a lawyer. You may be able to file a claim because you got discriminated against because you were unemployed."

The current downturn is characterized by a relatively low rate of layoffs, but still high unemployment. Many of the jobless have been out of work for an extended period. Around 14 million Americans are officially unemployed, of whom more than 6 million are considered "long-term unemployed," because they've been out of work for six months or more. The average duration of joblessness is currently 40 weeks, the highest in more than 60 years.

There is evidence that when people are out of work for an extended period, their skills atrophy and it becomes increasingly difficult for them to find new work.

Earlier this year, New Jersey passed a bill banning ads that tell the jobless not to apply. But it did not go as far as Obama's proposal, because it didn't explicitly allow workers to sue if they thought they were denied a job because they were unemployed.

As we discovered recently, whereas most people are right-brained or left-brained the Sea Monkey is white-brained AND dark-brained. The white half has been undermining and discrediting the black half with increasing skill as of late...as evidenced above.

Are you shitting me? Do you have any clue how many unemployed, piece of shit lawyers are running around the country salivating over this? I can't think of a better way to complete the finishing-off of the American economy than this ridiculous idea.

I feel nothing but pity for the poor fucks who run businesses in this country. If I had to deal with bullshit like this (not to mention the EEOC, the ADA, the EPA, and the rest of the alphabet soup) I would be closing up shop and sitting on my ass until these piece of shit bureaucrats were dangling from the lamp posts. Seriously. You can't take a fucking shit in this country without some cunt from the government weighing it, cataloging it, asking for a permit or taxing you on it.

But hey - somebody mentioned a rumor of a rumor of a rumor about Greece, so go ahead and buy stocks! Jump in, the water's great!

Whole country = off its rocker.

Farming - Eggplants and Compost

2011-09-27T12:58:00.002-05:00

Back to the regular schedule this week after the disruption of ACL. Today I was at Rain Lilly and the plants look a lot better. I think because of the cooler weather and smattering of rain, but also perhaps because I took a week off and didn't fuck them up by looking at them wrong or breathing on them or something.

I spent the morning harvesting about four different kinds of eggplant. Then I weeded the shit out of the ends of the beds, as they were looking ratty. Lots of weeds grow there since the drip tape tends to leak out at the end and provide water for them. I used a new implement today - the turning fork, which I love. Far more effective than the shitty diamond hoe. I dominated every brand of weed - especially the Pelosiweed I have come to despise so much. Jen told me the real name of it, but that went out the other ear. Pelosiweed it is.

Then, I spent the next hour moving compost from bin to bin and turning it over. As luck would have it, we covered composting in my permaculture class last Saturday. I saw some problems with aeration and brown/green ratio, so I fixed that shit right up. The chickens are smarter than I thought as they all congregated near the bins while I turned and they pounced on all the roaches and bugs that came running out. Anyway, it was longer and tougher than a gym workout. I must have moved 2 tons of shit around.

The farm is moving to the "winter crops" (Texas has three seasons: fall, winter and spring) so a lot of stuff like dinosaur kale and bok choi are in the ground. We'll be ripping out the basil plants soon and making room for more root crops. I also met the beekeeper today and had a long discussion about that. Fascinating. Randy the Beekeeper has been in the business for 18 years and runs hives all over. I'm keeping him in the Rolodex for the future when I've got my own land to work.

NFL - Week Three

2011-09-26T18:27:00.005-05:00

Handicappers got the message finally as unders and dogs dominated play.

Faves: 5 (19)
Dogs: 11 (28)
Push: 0 (1)
Overs: 6 (30)
Under: 10 (18)

Home field favorites went 3-6 (13-16-1) against the spread and 8-2 (22-7) straight up

Fave/over: 2 (11) [23%]
Fave/undr: 3 (8) [16.6%]
Dog/over: 4 (18) [37.5%]
Dog/undr: 7 (10) [20.8%]
Push/over: 0 (1) [2%]

Another OT game this week (twice in 48 games now) with the Detroit game.

I'm Starting to Like This Motherfucker!

2011-09-26T17:21:00.004-05:00

Not everyone needs to go to Disney World to have fun in central Florida.

After one of Herman Cain's strongest showings yet at a Republican presidential debate Thursday, and two days with conservative activists in the state, he won the "Presidency 5" straw poll in Orlando over the weekend, beating front-runner Texas Gov. Rick Perry by more than 20 points.

While straw polls are not scientific and their results can be poor indicators of whether a candidate will win a party's nomination--the latest actual Florida poll put Cain near the bottom--they can help spark some momentum, especially for lower-tier candidates. For Cain, a 65-year-old businessman, mathematician, author and radio host from Atlanta, Georgia, his straw poll win could well be the high-water mark of his campaign. And by his own admission, the path that brought him this far wasn't an easy one. The morning before the straw poll, I met Cain for coffee in a hotel near the convention center that hosted the debate and straw poll. As we discussed the early phase of the Republican primaries, he told me that before coming to Florida, he had nearly called it quits on two occasions.

"The thing that I've learned about myself in this campaign--because I've never had this happen to me before on a single challenge--is that I've gone to the brink, ready to pull the plug, but came back, twice," Cain said. "I've only had two days where I personally felt, should I pull the plug? For different reasons. That's how frustrating a campaign can be."

When I pressed for details, he said he'd prefer to keep them to himself.

"I can't tell you what those two days are," he said. "But think about the number of days we've been on this campaign. Two ain't that bad."

Cain is certainly no stranger to adversity, having recently overcome Stage IV colon and liver cancer.

Even though he's known as the "pizza" candidate for his years as head of Godfather's Pizza, his background is much broader than that. After he graduated from Morehouse College with a degree in mathematics and a minor in chemistry in 1968, Cain landed a job as a ballistics analyst for the Department of the Navy, where he was responsible for the calculations that ensured battleship rockets hit their targets.

"It's not an easy thing to do," he said.

Cain later completed a master's degree in computer science and entered the business world where he led several companies--most recently Godfather's--and chaired the National Restaurant Association and the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. His résumé--from mathematician and rocket scientist to restaurateur and now politician--isn't exactly a typical one for a presidential candidate. But Cain said that while his presidential run may look unlikely from the outside, it's actually part of his larger career trajectory of seeking out new ways to test himself.

"I'm bored if I don't have a challenge," he said.

Cain said the run for the White House is his toughest challenge yet--and it's been anything but boring. Despite the frustrations of running a national campaign, you can tell he's enjoying it. But it doesn't take much to get him riled up.

After a few caffeine-heavy refills at our corner table, I asked him about President Obama's new effort to raise taxes on the wealthy, and Cain just about blew a blood vessel--especially when I mentioned the part where Obama says it's about "math" not "class warfare."

"Can I be blunt? That's a lie," Cain said, before the sound of his voice began to rise noticeably higher. "You're not supposed to call the president a liar. Well if you're not supposed to call the president a liar, he shouldn't tell a lie. If it's not class warfare, it's highway robbery. He wants us to believe it's not class warfare, oh okay, it's not class warfare. Pick my pockets, because that's what he's doing!"

Cain paused, took a breath and looked at me.

"I'm not mad at you, I just get passionate about this stuff," he said. "I have to tell people because I get so worked up . . . . I'm listening to all this bullshit that he's talking about, 'fairness' and 'balanced approach' to get this economy going."

As anyone who watched the past couple of debates knows by now, Cain has his own plan that he says would steer the country out of its economic downturn. He calls it the "9-9-9 Plan," and it would replace the current tax code with three flat, nine-percent federal taxes on income, consumption and business.

"With 9-9-9 guess what? How many loopholes?" he said, tapping his fingers on the table like a drumroll. "None. Everybody gets treated the same. What a novel idea."

Fuck yeah....testify!

Contrary to popular belief, I do not blindly hate blacks. I only blindly hate blacks who are corrupt, hypocritical, welfare-mooching, socialist, race-baiting, idiot pieces of shit like Obama, Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson Lee, Charles Rangel and Jesse Jackson.

This guy actually ran a business and understands math. Not to mention calling Obama the liar he is AND calling it all bullshit. That puts him way ahead of the pack in my book. He also told Morgan Freeman to stick it in his ass, in so many words.

Although I'm a Ron Paul man, I'm ready to get behind this guy if the need arises. He's got to be better than that corrupt piece of shit Perry or lunatics like Santorum and Bachmann.

I have not looked at this 9-9-9 thing, but if it involves a national sales tax AND the IRS still existing, I have a real problem with that. I'd be all for a national sales tax if the IRS and personal income taxes were abolished forever. But we can't have both, Herman.

Get That Blood Boiling Monday Morning

2011-09-26T12:24:00.005-05:00

Long lines formed early Monday morning outside state Department of Social Services field offices, as low-income residents sought one-time payments for losses incurred during Tropical Storm Irene.

By mid-morning Monday, more than 400 people stood in line outside the DSS office on North Main Street, next to the Connecticut Works center. The office is one of 12 statewide where state officials are distributing ATM-style cards allowing people to make approved purchases.

But many of those standing in the long, snaking line Monday said it wasn't clear who was eligible for the one-time payments or who needed to stand in line. Information was not readily available to applicants until they reached the front of the line, a two to four hour wait.

The program is not available for recipients of food stamps, which is the regular Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Eligible food stamp clients are already receiving disaster aid under another program and do not need to apply in person.

Despite that, many of the people waiting in line Monday, including Taushanin Valle, were regular food stamp recipients. Valle, a waitress who recently moved to Manchester, said she was away from her Hartford apartment during the tropical storm, and had left her windows open. Carpets and clothing was damaged and the food in her refrigerator spoiled after her building lost power.

At 10 a.m. Valle said she had been on line for about two hours. Valle said she had heard that the program is not for food stamp clients, but she said a friend on food stamps had received $375. She shrugged her shoulders and said, "We'll see….I'm still going to give it a try."

Shantae Ortiz, 32, a food stamp recipient, got to the front of the line only to be told that she did not need to have stood in line. "It's only for people who don't receive food stamps," Ortiz, a single mother, began telling others.

"This is for the people who don't receive food stamps. If you already get them, you will see the relief on your benefits card," Ortiz said.

A spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Social Services said this is the first time the state has offered disaster SNAP benefits and DSS wasn't sure what the response would be.

"Somebody went and got some money and posted it on Facebook," Jones said. "And you know how many people are on Facebook."

Where's Whitey?

Fat and well-fed? Check. Jewelry? Check. Watches and purses? Check.

Not much I can add here. I'll just let you simmer in rage, as I am. Now if you'll excuse me, there is a well-publicized storm approaching, so I'm going to open all my windows, fill my fridge with expensive steaks and then go drive around town for a while.

College Football - Week Four

2011-09-25T13:32:00.002-05:00

Week four numbers...

There were 47 games to grade. The parenthesis is running ytd...

Favorites: 24 (91)
Dogs: 23 (89)

Overs: 26 (89)
Unders: 21 (91)

Breaking it down further [ytd percentages in brackets]

Fave/over: 15 (52) [28.9%]
Fave/under: 9 (39) [21.6%]
Dog/over: 11 (37) [20.6%]
Dog/under: 12 (52) [28.9%]

Obama Fucks Up U.N. Picture

2011-09-22T16:54:00.003-05:00

Yes, this photo is for real, despite that fact that it looks so fucking ridiculous that it HAD to be Photoshopped.

Talk about not being able to get out of your own way! This fucker just can't do ANYTHING right! It's downright comical how he trips over his own feet every single day. He's like the anti-Midas...just turning everything to shit.

Everyone wants troops to come home? He sends more out. People want smaller government? He's there with a bunch of ridiculous new czars and programs that duplicate existing waste. He wants to spew another moronic speech re-hashing old ideas? Sorry - that's the night of the GOP debate...fuck you, do it the next day. Next day? NFL season opener.

Wants to look like the common man connecting with the little people on jobs? He gets a bus that's made in Canada and looks retarded to boot. He wants to be hip and edgy for his new campaign? His new website is ridiculed by everyone.

The list just goes on and on.

It's like the 50% of Obama that is white hates blacks and is trying to sabotage the black 50%. Kind of like the Chapelle Show episode where he plays a white supremacist who is black but doesn't know it because he's blind. I can almost hear the white 50% of his brain thinking "THIS will teach America to elect a nigger! Yeah...I'll fuck this up good."

Except this isn't a comedy show, it's a $15 trillion ship and there is a semi-retarded Sea Monkey at the wheel. Sleep well tonight.

Barton Biggs Gets Poleaxed

2011-09-22T16:40:00.003-05:00

In my earlier post, I forgot to mention Barton Biggs ridiculously retarded call last month about an impending 10% rally in the S&P. No matter...Zero Hedge skewered him for me. Great reading...and proof that these old cunts like Biggs and Buffett are a broken record talking their shitty books.

Sorry Buffett - the days of 10% dividends and broad-market P/Es at 5 are long gone...as your fortune will be when Wells Fargo, BAC and that OTC short put position go BUSTO.

To wit:

The last several times Barton Biggs was on TV we laughed, we cried, we laughed much more, but most importantly we faded every word out of his confused mouth with as much leverage as the CME would allow us (at last check margin requirements on Biggs Ultra Shorts had not been hiked in a while).

After all could anyone top-tick the market better than the Notorious BIGGS who on August third and fourth predicted a 7-9% rally in the S&P, only to realize a month later that he may have 99 (redemption) problem but a Biggs AUM ain't one. Even more conclusive proof that old people should take their RDA of Geritol and Gingko Biloba came two short weeks later, when the same former Morgan Stanley (what is it about that bank and producing some of the worst asset pickers known to man?) strategist told Bloomberg "I don't see all the bad news that you keep citing."

It then took him only a month to see precisely all the bad news that Bloomberg keeps citing. According to a just released comedic appearance by Bloomberg TV, the BIGgster is now only 20% net long, down from 85% 6 months ago. Said otherwise redemptions are rolling in. Then he further confirmed by his statements: "I wish I was minus 20,” and so do your LPs. "I wish I was zero. I don’t think any place is a place to invest." The slurring continues: "I want to see an important stimulus program in the United States, combined with major reform in social security, Medicare and our defense budget. If we did that, we could have a 20 percent rally."

Likewise, as much as we wish we had a magic stick made of gold to beat idiots on the head with, we don't. Which lead Bart-o to the following statement: "Markets are telling policy makers that they’ve got to change and act or we’re going to go into a double-dip recession, and we’re going to go down another 20 percent." Yes ladies and gents, the age old 100% guaranteed trade of fading old faithful means it is now time to go dodecatuple down all in the market and mortgage that 4th unborn generation: the direction has been called.

Ugly, Ugly, Ugly

2011-09-22T15:18:00.002-05:00

I've been busy with a lot of shit this week - like sleeping 12 hours a day to shake off the ACL cobwebs...as well as other super-secret and exciting things.

Anyway, looks like even the dullards are waking up and realizing the recession/depression never ended. Frankly, as ugly as today was it still felt like there was no real fear - and therefore, we are nowhere near a bottom.

It's been impossible to find any port in a storm...except, of course, U.S. Government-Issued Toilet Paper yielding close to zero. I couldn't have been more wrong on that call. But I'm nowhere close to throwing in the towel. I suffered with a long gold position for years before it paid off huge. Same with my long QQQ puts back in 2007 and 2008. It's just a matter of when, not if. This "flight to safety" is pure muscle memory, as Jim Grant opined months ago. Old habits are hard to break, but eventually the mathematics become untenable and there is no escape. Ponzi schemes always collapse eventually.

At least I have some august company. Jim Grant and Marc Faber are in the same camp. Brilliant guys, both of them, but they are having a rough time of it - especially Jim Grant. The poor bastard has been wrong time and again. His problem - and mine - is that he is far too rational and logical to be right in a world run by lunatics hell bent on destroying currencies and economies. He is constantly underestimating the lengths to which the central planners will go.

It just goes to show you, the "experts" don't know much more than you do and you may as well throw darts at a board nowadays. There is no way to know which manner of arson the inmates will use to torch the asylum next. A couple months ago, Grant and Faber (and Jim Rogers, I believe) re-iterated that they were extremely bearish on U.S. Treasuries. Even Bill Gross - the biggest 'expert' of them all - was caught with his pants down as a massive rally ensued minutes after the words left their mouths. Oops.

All the stock 'experts' like Buffet,were "bullish on America," as you'll recall just a couple months ago. They said there was no chance of recession and if America were a stock, they'd be "buying with both hands." Oops. I never agreed with that horseshit and sure don't now. There are some good stocks out there that have been decimated but there are plenty more that should be cut in half if any sane person were valuing them (I'm looking at you, AMZN).

I'm rubbing a sore ass from the bond rally and solar stock crushing, but I don't feel nervous holding stocks that are trading at P/E ratios of 2 or 3 and 1/3 of their book value. LDK alone is sitting on over $4 per share in cash...yet it trades at $3.50. We'll see who's right eventually.

If I were holding overpriced dog shit like LULU or GMCR or AMZN, I would not be sleeping well. Instead I can patiently sit and weather this bullshit until calmer heads see the bargains and run them back up again.

Bottom line: all the experts have been proven horribly wrong this year at some point. Rational investing has not paid off. Being prudent and being in cash has not paid off, since rates will be zero until 2013 at the earliest. The best thing to do is keep your powder dry, stay out of debt and hold those precious metals as a store of wealth for the long run. This too shall pass.

Eventually, the lemmings will realize they are holding pieces of paper emitted by a government that is long-past broke and has to roll trillions in debt constantly, while adding another $1.5 trillion per year as far as the eye can see. I'd rather be sitting on Verizon stock getting a nice dividend than holding shitty 10-year bonds yielding 1.7%.

But that's just me.

It also occurs to me that while everyone is freaking out about tiny, shitty little Greece (sorry Kosta), we have some very large states (CA, IL, NY) in BIG trouble. That trouble is only going to get worse as pension funds are destroyed in the coming down move. Something will have to give and I'm guessing it will be the pussies in Congress who will soon throw caution to the wind and forget all about the Super-Committee as they go on a massive spending spree to 'help the economy.'

College Football - Week Three

2011-09-19T21:23:00.004-05:00

Week three is in the books. A look at distribution of betting outcomes:

Another nice, even distribution. However, Vegas likely lost again with all the top-ranked teams blowing out the spreads (Stanford, WI, OK, LSU).

We had 48 games to grade. The numbers in parenthesis is the running total YTD

Favorites: 24 (67)
Dogs: 24 (66)

Overs: 22 (63)
Unders: 26 (70)

Breaking it down further into combinations per game...

Fave/over: 13 (37)
Fave/under: 11 (30)
Dog/over: 9 (26)
Dog/under: 15 (40)