Earthquake Video Footage

Unbelievable.

Practice What You Preach?

Being nonpartisan and an independent thinker provides one the opportunity to laugh at news like the one posted below.  Isn't it ironic that Team Red is preaching about decreasing spending, yet the RNC has $23 million in debt.  Too funny.  It's also been reported that former chairman Steele spend $2 million in his final two weeks.  What a party that must have been!!

"As Republicans and Democrats prepare for what is sure to be a contentious 2012 election cycle, the Republican National Committee finds itself $23 million in debt, committee chairman Reince Priebus announced on Monday.  Priebus said the RNC's year-end report would announce $21 million in debt for 2010, but that updated figures put the debt at approximately $23 million.  'While the year-end FEC report reveals the Republican National Committee is $21 million in debt, I believe it is best to get out all the facts as we know them associated with our financial position,' Priebus said in a statement. 'To date, the committee has approximately $23 million in debt: $15 million in loans, and $8 million owed to vendors.'"
Source: CBS News

We Are Small

Another day that the earth reminds us how small we really are.

Funny The Way It Is

"Funny The Way It Is" - Dave Matthews Band
Lying in the park on a beautiful day
Sunshine in the grass and the children play
Sirens pass in fire engine red
Someone's house is burning down on a day like this

The evening comes and we're hanging out
On the front step and a car goes by with the windows rolled down
And that War song is playing
"Why can't we be friends?"
Someone is screaming and crying in the apartment upstairs

Funny the way it is
If you think about it
Somebody's going hungry and someone else is eating out
Funny the way it is
Not right or wrong
Somebody's heart is broken and it becomes your favorite song

The way your mouth feels in your lover's kiss
Like a pretty bird on the breeze or water to a fish
A bomb blast brings the building crashing to the floor
Hear the laughter while the children play war

Funny the way it is
If you think about it
One kid walks ten miles to school, another's dropping out
Funny the way it is
Not right or wrong
On a soldier's last breath, his baby's being born

Standing on a bridge
Watch the water passing underneath
It must have been much harder when there was no bridge, just water
Now the world is small
Remember how it used to be
With mountains and oceans and winters and rivers and stars?

Watch the sky, a jet plane so far out of my reach
Is there someone up there looking down on me?
A boy sees a bird, so close but every time
He'll never catch her but he can't stop trying

Funny the way it is
If you think about it
One kid walks ten miles to school, another's dropping out
Funny the way it is
Not right or wrong
On a soldier's last breath, his baby's being born

Funny the way it is
Not right or wrong
Somebody's broken heart becomes your favorite song
Funny the way it is
If you think about it
One kid walks ten miles to school, another's dropping out

Standing on a bridge
Watch the water passing underneath
It must have been much harder when there was no bridge, just water
Now the world is small
Remember how it used to be
With mountains and oceans and winters and rivers and stars?

Deja Vu All Over Again?

"We are spending more money than we have ever spent before, and it does not work... After eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started...and an enormous debt, to boot." Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau conceded to Congress in 1939

Shell's Energy Outlook

Shell has released their perspective on the future of energy with two forecasts titled "Scramble" and "Blueprint".  Take a moment to review:

http://www-static.shell.com/static/public/downloads/brochures/corporate_pkg/scenarios/shell_energy_scenarios_2050.pdf

Today's Tom Joad

“And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.”
John Steinbeck – "Grapes of Wrath"

Kinda Corny

"The smallest corn inventories in 37 years are a sign farmers around the globe are failing to produce enough grain to meet rising consumption, even as planting expands and food prices surge."
Source: Bloomberg

"Commodities gone wild: Things will rise rapidly in price....food, fuel, gold, oil, grains, uranium, copper."
Random Roving, January 1, 2010

And yes, there is a corn ETF (symbol CORN).

Corn ETF

At The Foot Of The Volcano

I always conclude one thing after reading a book or article written by Thomas Friedman, "the guy knows the Eastern geopolitical scene extremely well".  His most recent NY Times article is significant:

"What’s unfolding in the Arab world today is the mother of all wake-up calls. And what the voice on the other end of the line is telling us is clear as a bell: 'America, you have built your house at the foot of a volcano. That volcano is now spewing lava from different cracks and is rumbling like it’s going to blow. Move your house!” In this case, “move your house” means “end your addiction to oil.”  No one is rooting harder for the democracy movements in the Arab world to succeed than I am. But even if things go well, this will be a long and rocky road. The smart thing for us to do right now is to impose a $1-a-gallon gasoline tax, to be phased in at 5 cents a month beginning in 2012, with all the money going to pay down the deficit. Legislating a higher energy price today that takes effect in the future, notes the Princeton economist Alan Blinder, would trigger a shift in buying and investment well before the tax kicks in. With one little gasoline tax, we can make ourselves more economically and strategically secure, help sell more Chevy Volts and free ourselves to openly push for democratic values in the Middle East without worrying anymore that it will harm our oil interests. Yes, it will mean higher gas prices, but prices are going up anyway, folks. Let’s capture some it for ourselves."

Read the remainder of the article

Finally, The Truth

The facade continues to crumble across the world, but we finally have one politician speaking the truth:

“For us, this is about balancing the budget. We've got a $3.6 billion budget deficit. We are broke. Just like nearly every other state across the country, we're broke. It's about time somebody stood up and told the truth.”
Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wisc., on “FOX News Sunday”

Meanwhile the jackasses that the Wisconsin people elected into office have fled the state.  Unbelievable.  Time to organize a sheriff's posse to go find them and put them behind bars.

The unions across the world continue to make the news.  Hmmmmm.
"In a downward trending mass social mood, it's very likely that labor strikes will become very popular again. We might even see a professional sports strike in the next few years. An angry mob loves a strike and a picket line. The cycle will likely bring unions back to strength as fear and anger 'drives the herd closer together'."
Random Roving, "Three Strikes You're Out", November 29, 2009

"Reading about the British Airways strike over the past week made me realize that organized labor strikes don't occur that much anymore. The last significant one that I remember was when The Gipper defeated the air traffic controllers. I quickly had the Google Elves do some research, and sure enough since 1980 (the beginning of the SuperSizeMe Era), strikes have basically been nonexistent....interesting. Does the British Airways strike signal a "change in trend"? The tea partiers probably think so. Stay tuned."
Random Roving, "3 Strikes, You're Out", March 27, 2010

On To Iran

I can't say that I've ever heard a President or VP try to incite a riot in another country.  Ole Joe had this to say:
“I say to our Iranian friends, let your people march, let your people speak, release your people from jail, let them have a voice.”

Source: The Courier Journal

All I can say is, "be careful what you wish for".

Gates On Rose

I highly recommend that everyone watch this interview.  The first part of the interview focuses on world health, and during the remainder of the interview, Gates speaks very frankly about some key issues facing the world.  Watch and learn.

http://www.charlierose.com/view/content/11456

Contracting Multiculturalism

"Nicolas Sarkozy declares multiculturalism had failed. French president Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday declared that multiculturalism had failed, joining a growing number of world leaders or ex-leaders who have condemned it.  'We have been too concerned about the identity of the person who was arriving and not enough about the identity of the country that was receiving him,' he said in a television interview in which he declared the concept a 'failure'. Prime Minister David Cameron last month pronounced his country's long-standing policy of multiculturalism a failure, calling for better integration of young Muslims to combat home-grown extremism. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Australia's former prime minister John Howard and former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar have also in recent months said multicultural policies have not successfully integrated immigrants."
Source: The Telegraph

 "Xenophobia is a powerful force in the down cycle."
Random Roving, October 9, 2007

Xenophobia continues to rise at an alarming rate.
Random Roving, November 6, 2009

"Although the language of race has rarely been explicitly invoked, terms like 'Marxist,' 'Nazi,'extremist', and 'foreigner' have been used to smuggle racism and xenophobia into the public conversation without political consequence."
Marc Lamont Hill, Columbia University professor and FOX News contributor

The Fury

"The mob doesn't think. It has no mind of its own."
Joe Wilson (Spencer Tracy's character in "The Fury")

Prechter On The Rebellion

"When the bottom is at hand or already in place, the rage will be greater and more widespreead, and there will be no question what the rebellion is about."
Robert Prechter - Elliott Wave Financial Forecast - April 2009