Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Check your conscience at the door.

There is a reason military defection and suicides are at an all-time high. No, it is not tour durations, although it doesn't help anyone's morale to be redeployed over and over to a foreign wasteland.

The reason is far more basic. Our soldiers are not being entirely successful in turning their consciences over to their sergeants. Just like in Vietnam, thousands of innocent lives are being disrupted and ended in a war whose beginnings were contrived in a web of lies by madmen like Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Men of good conscience have questions.

Once a soldier sees in an upfront and personal way the damage and destruction of war some soul searching is inevitable. If a soldier ends up personally responsible for the deaths of women, children, and other noncombatant casualties, what residue of conscience that remains intact and wasn't completely replaced with the "just following orders" mindset begins like acid to erode and corrode the soul. Vitally important questions like “why are we really here and doing this?” slip around the official blarney smokescreen and into your consciousness. Seeing the fear and helplessness in the eyes of rural peasants, whose lives are being turned upside down and ended for reasons which can't make sense to any sane person, works in the soul like leukemia in blood.

And it should. The taking of someone's life is as personal as it gets in life. If you are not absolutely truly positively beyond a shadow of a doubt certain that ending someone's existence is necessary, you should not do it; possibly not even then. You can not in clear conscience, years later as you replay the scene over and over in your mind, ease your sense of guilt by telling yourself, "I was just following orders."

When you face your maker, I can guarantee you your sergeant will not be standing by to take your rap for you.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Doing the limbo with the precious metals ratio

Historically speaking the price of gold has had a 30X1 price relationship with silver. Now it is currently trading for about 46X as much but recently was trading much higher However, the ratio has been plummeting, so how low can the gold to silver ratio go?

Could it ever return to its historical average of 30:1?

If so, we'd have to see one of the following occur:

* Gold would need to plummet to less than $1000/oz., with silver remaining stable at around $30.00/oz.
* Or, silver would need to gain another 50% to over $45.00/oz., while gold holds
steady at $1400.00/oz.
* In perhaps the most likely scenario, gold would need to see some retrenchment
combined with continued strength in silver.

The idea of gold plummeting back below $1000 without affecting silver or silver doubling to $45 with gold holding steady is pretty unlikely. However, there is some support for the possibility we might see silver prices decoupling from gold's coattails. Back when gold broke the $1,000 mark for the first time, in March 2008, silver was trading about $20/oz, or 50X1.

Today's disparity in price could indicate silver may be undervalued at the moment by historical standards.

In addition, silver's fundamentals are improving. With around 50 percent of silver demand coming from industrial applications such as batteries, electrical switches and other components, analysts have predicted that as the economy recovers so will demand, thus pushing silver prices even higher.

The biggest trick of all, if you play the spread, is to avoid trading a quarter for two dimes! The best and safest way to play is with Hecla Mining, ticker HL. If precious metals stay at these levels this company's profits will explode!

Friday, November 19, 2010

Heads up home gamers.

If you missed the incredible run up in shares of Ford, Newcastle or Hecla mining, among hundreds of others, you have another chance to grab the gold ring.

A new segment in computer hardware/software is about to explode. I'm talking about computer security, and in particular encryption technology. Encryption is now available with the purchase of software operating systems like Windows 7.

With this new technology everything printed to your hard drives or storage devices is encrypted with the latest impenetrable code specific to your machine.
Also anything streaming into your machine, like e-mail or social network sites for example, would also be encrypted.

Networks for universities and businesses, hospitals, insurance data banks, and banks in general will all be secure, or at least more secure, from hackers than ever before. Some have already begun to use this technology.

Where they are getting this technology is from a little-known company called Wave Systems. WAVX will soon be licensing this technology all over the globe,
not just to Microsoft.

The company has seen its revenues and earnings grow at a 50% clip year-over-year and they are just getting started. Earnings are poised to explode. If you are building for the future, grab your surfboard and catch the WAVE.

Here is what Yahoo Business has to say:

“Interest in data protection has been growing as the incidents of data breach have escalated. Legislation in many jurisdictions now requires tough penalties, as well as public disclosure, when personally identifiable information is mishandled.
That's led many SMBs and enterprises to explore implementing full disk encryption. With the much-publicized launch of Microsoft Windows 7 operating system (OS), many are examining the full disk encryption feature that comes standard on Ultimate and Enterprise editions of the popular new OS. By providing full-volume encryption, BitLocker ensures that any file saved on a computer's drive is encrypted automatically.”


If you are interested here is a direct link:http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Wave-Introduces-Wave-iw-1079303132.html?x=0&.v=1

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

We will get high speed rail eventually.

Hopefully soon!

At the moment this fantastic people movin revolution and product moving evolution has been side railed in the once good USofA. Here is a glimpse of what we are missing out on right this minute by delaying the reconstruction and upgrading of our infrastructure.

With high-speed rail we could move up and down either coast in under 10 hours. Talk about a boost to travel and the tourism industry! We could go from side to side across the middle flats of our country in about the same amount of time. Chicago residents could visit the MardiGras in a pleasant day's ride, and so could San Francisco and Miami residents; all of the above trips on the safe and cheap.

Anywhere within a 250 mile radius of Washington, DC. would be only an hour away. Talk about a boon to rural real estate in those neighborhoods!

So what are we waiting for? Why do we still spend money on worthless wars when we could do so much more for ourselves and the world by investing that money in our own country? As the US goes so goes the world doesn't have to be long gone and forgotten.

According to T. Boone Pickens we may have a national energy policy before the lame ducks leave Congress. I doubt it, but we'll see.

Unless our national energy plan calls for massive infrastructure spending in the transportation area, and of course in reducing energy dependence on foreign oil, we will do very little to improve our future, or create any jobs. Without a bunch of unskilled jobs for unskilled labor our unemployment situation won't improve.

The people around the nation were heard during the midterms. However, the "throw the incumbents out" plan of attack only works if the newbies in Congress are not already bought and paid for. With the judicial system making things ever easier for deep pockets to buy elections that ideal is becoming less and less likely.

“Once burned, twice shy” should be the rallying cry of the future. Politicians better beware. They won't be able to count on misinformation or stupidity to help them get away with murder forever.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Is there a double left in the price of gold or silver?

Is there a double left in the price of gold or silver?

The answer is a matter of simple arithmetic believes
one USA producer. David Garafalo, president and
CEO of Hudbay Minerals, who recently relisted his
minerals mining company on the New York exchange,
(HBM) figures it this way. He equates conditions
today to those at the beginning of the 70s decade.
At the end of that decade gold reached an all-time
high of $850 an ounce.

On an inflation-adjusted basis that would put the
value of gold today north of $2400 per ounce. So
according to David Garafalo the price of gold still
has a great deal of catching up to do.

For those looking to capitalize on the gold rush
but don't want to own the metal itself, owning a
mining stock is a great way to participate. My
favorite pick is Hecla Mining (stock ticker HL).
If you're still getting back to even, get on board
the fast boat here.

If you Google Hecla Mining they have a great video
link which captures the fervor Associated with the
precious metals mining group today.

Warmest regards, Bob Parmelee

Thursday, November 4, 2010

It's us (USA) against the world now.

Recent moves by the FED are guaranteed to cause the dollar to continue to decline against foreign currencies. A declining dollar guarantees that prices
of commodity-based assets and other asset classes like stocks are going up.

This policy will stimulate our economy but eventually, say over the next couple of years, this will spark countermeasures by countries whose exports get hurt by the steadily increasing value of their currencies and hence higher export prices.

There are advantages to being the largest economy in the world. One of those is the ability to force other countries to accept our economic policies simply because they must trade with the USA to survive and grow. But we had better take advantage while we still can. This may be our last chance to flex our economic muscles before China holds the whip and we’re doing the genuflecting.

If we come to our senses and quit blowing the nation's resources on the bloodiest military decade since the Vietnam era we may hang onto the benefits this current FED policy gives us relative to the rest of the world.

Here is what happened.

Centuries ago marauding militaries cost their home treasuries a small fraction of the bounty they generated by planting their country's flag on someone else's soil. After the conquering heroes secured the land the invading countries "businessmen" moved in to exploit the resources of the vanquished land. The damage done to the host country and its people were largely ignored or kept under the radar, politically speaking. In other words, the spoils of war far outweighed the cost.

Today things are different. Hiding under the radar is less and less feasible so political capital is at risk on these military adventures, as Barack Obama is finding out. At the very least, in order to survive world opinion, we are forced to repair the damage our military causes while wasting our resources on useless offensives. Chasing long dead terrorists as an excuse for war is growing old.
Worse, as recent history has proven, we don't even get any spoils to speak of.

So we need to quit this medieval crap. Being as bloodthirsty as the Khan may be fun for the nation but we can't afford it anymore. It is time to try civilized behavior for a change. Buying people's love and affection is just so darned cheaper than killing them that we need to take mass murder off the table.

Friday, October 29, 2010

Here is the news today -- -- Oh boy!

We just lost the speed advantage in computer computing to China recently. They won with the astounding number crunching capability of 2.5 times 10 to the 15th power per second. In other words:

2,500,000,000,000,000 calculations per second.

Talk about a twinkling of an eye. So once again in yet another venue we have ceded first place to the Chinese.

Here is what this could mean. Let's take the stock market for example. High-speed computers can now sample the fluctuations in stock prices in almost real time. They can tell, within microseconds, trends in an individual stock price based on two simple factors; one, the most recent price and two, the volume of shares traded. Pretty simple algorithm really. As share volume and prices in a stock fluctuate the computer calculates to a certainty of 99% the next trade share price and then executes a buy or sell transaction. If you're trading millions of shares, by trading in the right direction 99% of the time you will, without a doubt, make millions of dollars. Do this millions of times a day and, well, you do the math.

High-speed computing gives the user untold advantages in every endeavor man attempts.

Fortunately, access to equipment of this kind is not available to currency traders, commodity brokers, stockbrokers, bond traders, or money manipulators of any kind.


HA!

HA!


HA!


HA!


Happy Halloween

Friday, October 22, 2010

Another platitude bites the dust

As the media relentlessly scours every dark corner of people’s lives for daily grist, one thing has become abundantly clear; at least to me. No one seems to be the saint they claim to be.

Virtue is no longer the key to success. Guile seems to be the new key.

Take banking for example. Banks have been the self-described bastian’s of integrity and honesty for centuries. Now they hang their heads in disgrace after news that their outrageous incomes come at great expense to their own investors. What’s up with that?

The dawn of our new millennium is not as yet spiritually uplifting. War is up while the workforce is down, and Wall Street is being held responsible.

We need a way to stimulate our nation’s morale. Blowing away less developed parts of the world will not accomplish that. Falling behind in every humanitarian statistic which measures our place in the world is not the answer.

Doing something for ourselves like rebuilding our infrastructure or reinventing our educational system or reducing our dependence on foreign oil, all the while creating jobs and alternative energy solutions in the process is the answer.

It is time to elect a few politicians who realize that the way forward is not to go backward. Getting rid of the politicians who have been presiding over the declining circumstances of America will be a great start to correcting our decades long losing trend.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Most of us are in the middle.

Golly, how profound; knock me down with a feather!

The truth is, there is a huge difference between:


• The brightest and the dullest among us
• the most beautiful and the most visually challenged
• the most athletic and the clumsiest
• the richest and the poorest
• the most erudite and the least educated

The dichotomies are endless. But the fact is both extremes amount to a very small percentage of humanity. The vast majority of us fall into the middle 90 percentile.

With the middle’s overwhelming numbers it would seem the world should be a middle-class oyster. But we don't control our own destinies. We defer to others to decide our fate.

We could bequeath the world to the future with no more wars… no more poverty, or starvation, or disease. It seems unfortunate we spend far more of our combined capital and resources today blowing ourselves apart than we do working towards what should be every one's common goal.

It seems our overwhelming fear of humanity, in its various unfamiliar forms, overwhelms our love of humanity and the self-sacrifice it takes to do well by each other. Perhaps another millennium is required for humanity to reach the level of benign neglect we need to survive one another.

One thing is guaranteed. Polar religious views will not help speed the way. Religious leaders will in fact, only be dragged by the heels, kicking and screaming, into the future. Their vision will cause loss and disruption and devastation until their progeny, the product of their continual, millennium long, brainwashing has finally been replaced with a less self fulfilling, self-aggrandizing prophecy. Once the fanatics have finally been eradicated in all their myriad forms can humanity rest in peace and look forward to its future.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

We are entering the final stretch.

November elections are just around the corner and the airwaves will soon be saturated with political ads. At this point the best prevaricator usually wins.

The few voters who have kept themselves apprised of issues will soon be outnumbered in the polls by those whose entire knowledge of a politician's position has been formulated by 30 or 60 second sound bites. At this point in an election cycle total gibberish holds sway in the media. For an opinion favoring your bias just pick your favorite talking heads and follow their lead.

Those citizens whose opinions are formed by a close analysis of an individual candidate's voting record ... wait a minute what am I thinking? The few voters who even know the names of the candidates running for office in their district prior to the "voting season", or those who actually understand the issues, are so small in number as to be, polling wise, insignificant.

Is This Smart?

Is a democracy bought and paid for by the deepest pockets really the best answer to running the country? After all, as a population we are incredibly naïve. We have bought into it every subterfuge our government has run by us for over 40 years. We are suckers for a good pitch.

However, allowing the best advertising agencies to run campaigns which eventually dictate the future of this country seems, well, even more insane.

Without an educated electorate I wouldn't bet against Wiley Coyote winning the race for governor in Arizona… if he was running against immigration.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

The "TYPO" of the 2010 election season to beat.

If I were a cynic I would probably read more than is strictly necessary into this story I heard on Keith Olbermann's show (MSNBC 5 p.m. on DirecTV channel 356). Keith picks up this thread from a reporter in the hotly contested November election race for governor of Illinois:

A Chicago Board of Election’s touch screen test poll covering about half the counties spelled the “Green” candidate’s name correctly in their listing all of the candidates, but as soon as you cast your vote on those machines the green candidate’s name comes up misspelled. The error, according to the Chicago Board of Elections, cannot be fixed in time for the election.

Half of the wards where the test was conducted are predominantly African-American. The candidate's name is Rich Whitney and the typo was a loss of the letter “n” from his last name.

Good luck, Rich Whitey, in those close black districts come November's election.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Platitudes are the bane of truth seekers.

Take, for example, this pearl of marketing wisdom, and I pseudo-quote, having been genetically overlooked in the eidetic memory department: “if you are looking to build a giant list, make your customers an irresistible offer and they will join your list! Let me repeat, make your customers an irresistible offer and they will sign up to join your list!" DUH!!

This sounded like an interesting approach so I followed up on the results of this guru’s conference call and found that one avid devotee of the above advice offered his subscribers a $600 laptop for each one year, $150 per month subscriber who joined his list. He subsequently went broke trying to fulfill his promise! Everybody took the laptop and most subscribers subsequently cancelled their subscription.

The guru was right but his advice overwhelmed and quickly buried his student.

Moral of the story: beware the gilded thorn for, while pretty, It will pricketh or sicken thee.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Mother Nature Abhors A Phony!

Whenever we as a race have, in our supreme arrogance, thought we have mastered some technical problem like living below sea level, read New Orleans, or living on hillsides and beach front property, read California, Peru and elsewhere, or thinking we are safe behind some dam, read the entire middle of the country of Pakistan, for one example, we are corrected.

And not in a gentle way. Mudslides, tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, fires, drought, solar flares, volcanoes, viruses, plagues, and nonspecific diseases will continue to torment humanity.

We will continue to suffer smack downs for quite some time to come from nature, as ants do, for as long as we live on this planet. We will never rule here. After all, we are only human.


PS: George Carlin is my muse.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Looking forward—please don’t firebomb the messenger!

Here are some changes that progress is bringing to our lives you can believe in!

As sure as Apple et al are changing the way we live our lives, technologically speaking, genetic engineering will be changing the way our religious beliefs fit into our lives. Although Western-style religions have been able to successfully resist changing their basic premise over the millennia, church elders have been forced to make concessions to accommodate scientific advances since the days of Copernicus and Galileo.

Taken together recent advances in physics, biology, chemistry, nanotechnology, and medicine all have made the possibility of creating life a reality. Does that fact, in and of itself, mean we have reached the final stage of our evolution?

When we begin to clone ourselves, or at least to clone replacement parts, a procedure which will become a reality in the next 20 years or less, we can all stay at the peak of health indefinitely, at least theoretically. (Subject to cash on hand, of course.)

So where does this leave our religion? Religion has always served the purpose of answering the question; what happens to sentient beings after the body dies? My question is, "what happens to religion if the body never dies".

What if, as proposed 10 years ago, a lifespan is just a plumbing problem on a nano sized scale? If we solve the problem of the ever shrinking telomeres at the end of our genes, insuring cell reproduction can continue without degradation, can't we live forever? If we eventually correct that one minor flaw in our genetic make-up, and we can extend our lifespan to at least biblical proportions if not galactic spanning lifetimes, are we gods?

The advance of science will not be stopped so the probability of man's living a lifespan of hundreds of years, dying only when tired of living, will become a reality eventually. Are our Western religions like Christianity and Islam prepared to deal with that eventuality? Seems those religions are based more on dying than on living.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

How is this for a concept steeped in self-delusion? The American Dream.

The American Dream has been blown to smithereens over the previous decade and “the dream” shows no sign of reappearing anytime soon.


Supposedly John Q. Public is on the fence about whether or not to allow the tax benefits enjoyed by the top 2% of the nation’s income earners to expire.

Are You Kidding Me!

We are talking about those whose incomes have been above $250,000 per year, on average, for the previous several years. Is that you, or anyone you know?

Of course not! But that is the grand American delusion. We all think we are just a year or two away from having to consider how to manage our finances after a huge income tax increase comes down on our soon-to-be huger incomes.

The last thing we want to do is to put into place a tax code which might adversely affect our own future net incomes. Stupid. Stupid! Stupid!!

The top 25 hedge fund managers each earned over $1 billion last year. Each one of those incomes could have paid the yearly salaries and benefits of an additional 20,000 teachers, firemen, or police officers to the nations labor forces. And we are supposed to feel sorry for these people’s tax consequences?

I will say it again. How ridiculous! How stupid are we that we feel sympathy for the rich? Why are we crying for the only segment of our population that has managed to increase its wealth over the last decade? Let us not forget that most of these people were rich to start with, will never miss a meal in their life, and will continued to enjoy the best of everything regardless of whether they end up paying a few thousand dollars more in income taxes next year.

We vote and act against our own self-interest frequently because we believe that some kind of divine intervention will balance the scales of our lives some time down the road; at least in many versions of heaven. Unless we start sharing the wealth more equitably immediately and forget about down-the-road most people’s lives will continue to degenerate. We used to consider ourselves to be living in a land of equals but, in fact, nothing is currently further from the truth.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Has the day of the honorable man run its course?

After watching four decades of political leaders around the globe becoming embroiled in controversy, I am now convinced that very few, if any, of our public figures are less than a total cretins in disguise.

Prior to Bill Clinton's presidency there was no such thing as moral turpitude
when it came to public figures sitting in office. Nor, for that matter, were any of our nation's other leaders and public figures any better. John Kennedy was a closet hero when his relationship with Marilyn Monroe became public. Forget about Jefferson's legendary cross culture and public policy misadventures.

But times change and dirty laundry is in the air everywhere today. There is no limit to the number of “stains” exposed on a daily basis around the world and no concern to the degree to which these exposures offend every Nation’s morality, let alone what's left of any country's dignity. For more disgrace for example take the world's captains of industry, people like Tony Hayward, or the leaders of Enron, or Bernie Madoff. These people make the news, but they are by no means the only news of this kind.

How about the military endowment fund; A pseudonym for the military appropriations committee and its band of modern-day treasury looting Robin Hood's. You remember Robin Hood, king of a band of merry men who looted the king’s treasury, stole the king's fortune, and then waged war for profit with those gains. If times do change, it doesn't seem like much of a change over many centuries.

There are always, of course, people of outstanding character and integrity. These people seem to avoid the public whenever possible, and avoid public service with a passion.

I wonder why.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

When is the right time to reject...

False promises, phony science, religious dogma, racial prejudice, and anything else we are taught from birth?

Society has survived this far because we have learned to challenge what we were taught to believe from birth. If Galileo had not challenged the church position on what was, at the time, considered to be the center of the universe, we might still believe the universe revolves around Earth.

Lord knows the church doesn't change its position until told to do so. Lately, or for at least the last 2000 years anyway, communication between the church and God seems to be experiencing technical difficulties, especially where canon law is concerned. What priests do is frequently ungodly.

The old saw blade doesn't fit the new kerf profile carved in our new wave of future generations. Slices of society become thinner and thinner and overlapped and overlaid until the vectors which point to society's future direction now point in all directions.

We have lost our compass.

Where religious dogma once filled the herd instinct of humanity (come all yea sheep to my flock), the Internet now is, and has replaced and obliterated the blinders and constraints religious leaders once placed on society. Frankly, people are smarter, better educated, and less easily lured down the garden path than at any other time in the history of humanity. They are moving to a different drummer than a 250th generation, frequently morphed BAAL.

Putting laptops in the hands of every remote segment of humanity will have consequences far beyond commerce. This will spawn a new world morality eventually.

Hopefully, it will be a more humane one. Hopefully, we will grow to appreciate each other for our differences, not just our similarities. And, hopefully, we will not try to imprint a herd mentality on a sentient society based on a Neanderthal
heritage.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

The Root of All Evil II -- The US Tax Code

Fellow Americans,

According to Paul O'Neill, former Secretary of the Treasury and CEO of Alcoa, our tax code is an "insult to intelligence", and a fundamental disaster for the country going forward.

Mr. O'Neill opines that a group of intelligent people would "design something that is sensible, that encourages savings and investment, and that fairly distributes the burden of public goods and services we need". In his opinion our current tax system accomplishes none of these.

The reason his suggestion for a fairer tax code is doomed to fail is because, well, it is fairer. At the core of power in this country lies a special-interest lobby which basically directs Congress to do its bidding. The last thing that cabal wants is a fair tax system. Those with the most have the most to lose under a fairer system.

Money talks, fairness walks.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

The only way to get attention is to step on toes.

Folks, the country is broke. We see millions of unemployed people losing their support lifeline over the past and continuing weeks because our government can't seem to find $34 billion. This small amount of congressional spending indigestion comes at a time when Congress is poised to approve another $60 billion, $33 billion of which is earmarked to expand the war in Afghanistan; a war which accomplishes absolutely nothing as far as the taxpayers in this country are concerned.

Congress deliberates on whether to extend the tax cuts for the rich. Fathom this:
Forbes list of 400 of America's wealthiest people pay a smaller percentage on their taxable income than our firefighters and policemen do. Make sense? Our national budget is 3.4 trillion and a huge percentage of that goes to pay interest on our skyrocketing budget deficits. Another huge portion of our budget goes to wage unpopular wars. Are these wise and necessary expenses?

We are being looted by our legislature easily because of our perpetual state of confusion, the public's ignorance of the truth thanks a biased media, and our own apathy. As our society becomes more polarized our ability to function as a society in any meaningful way continues to be diluted. Meanwhile, the pigs continue to gorge at the public trough while attempted reforms are gutted and proposed new laws are filibustered into the trash bin.

If the tea party accomplishes nothing other than getting incumbents thrown out of Washington it will have accomplished a great deal. It's time we the people get the representation we are paying for.

But nothing will happen if toes aren't stepped on.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Capitalism, or the lack of it, is the reason the US is a failing enterprise.

Capitalism, by definition, is an economic system characterized by freedom of the marketplace. Private and corporate entities own the means of production and distribution and making a profit is the goal for every business.

With that freedom of choice, capitalists have chosen to relocate their means of production around the globe to achieve the lowest labor costs. Because of the disparity in wages between the East and the West the rate of migration of labor-intensive manufacturing to the East will continue and increase in the future.

Because people value their lives more than anything, duh, they are subject to extortion in the most perverse fashion by the healthcare industry. By artificially restricting the number of healthcare professionals and resources available (a subject for future discussions, I hope) healthcare costs have gone beyond ridiculous. This is causing the migration of millions of patients to institutions out of this country.

For example, the fact that our hospitals need $100,000 to perform an operation a hospital in India can do for $10,000 will simply increase the rate of exportation of our professional jobs to emerging nations.

Business cannot remain competitive when government expects an ever larger slice of gross revenues, which is another problem that capitalism is struggling with in this country.

Capitalism and greed are not the same, but greedy capitalists are destroying the distinction. Business has been able to replace capitalism (remember, freedom is the key word in capitalism) with rule by a financial elite. It is the members of this elite who determine market movements. By manipulating and bending our Congress and executive branches to the will of special interests they have effectively circumvented the markets from operating freely. Since nothing is really “free” about our economy in a capitalist sense, we can’t really consider ourselves living in a capitalist nation any longer.

It has been really amazing to have witnessed, over the past 30 years, the shift of capitalism from the US and Europe to, of all places, Communist China.

Capitalism, as a business model in this country, is in the wind.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

They're never going to kill it!

July 13, 2010 -- progress halted.

The fountain of black crude oil is pure gold to BP
and will be harvested because otherwise... if they
quit now everyone will have lost huge and benefited
nothing.

Regardless of who is at fault we all share an
obligation to salvage the best of a bad situation.
The damage is done, triage is in place, so let
the spilling continue.

Here is the rest of the story.

The unheralded pencil pushers will prevail and defer
containment until contractual obligations and BP
indemnities are secured. Meantime, the disaster will
not be salvaged; not until the last t to protect BP is
crossed and the last i is dotted and shifted down the
line.

BP stock is on the rise at the news. Potential
partners abound. The tax consequences will shift
any real penalty to you, the taxpayers, and will offset
obscene profits for years to come. The government
will get fat from huge fines levied against BP,
lawyers will generate billions of dollars in fees and the
burden on the taxpayer will continue to increase.

And that's the way it is.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Defense budget, my butt!

Who are we kidding? No country on earth is stupid enough to attempt an
attack on the United States. The idea is as ludicrous as a flea climbing up
an elephant’s leg with rape on his mind. So why do we call it a defense budget?

Let's call a spade a spade and an offensive budget, well, offensive. The idea we need to spend a half $1 trillion annually to protect this nation by fighting on the other side of the globe is preposterous. Why are we taking the fight to countries when it is actually individuals we are after?

The answer is as obvious as it is immoral. We are in Afghanistan, for example, to secure an administration favorable to US business interests. It's the same as our reason for being in Iran or Iraq. We now have one soldier for every businessman in Iran. We’re not protecting America from threats over there; we’re protecting American businessmen over there. At a cost of up to a $1/2 million per year per mercenary somebody needs to be making a whole lot of money to justify the expense.

I guarantee you that that somebody is not the American taxpayer. We are in the grip of such monumental stupidity that it doesn't faze us that our military budget is at least twice what it ought to be. What we are doing is at least as dumb as what we attempted to do in Vietnam; colonize a country to steal their raw materials.

Once again, we don't stand a chance.

We are bankrupting our country, while disgracing our legacy. We used to stand for something besides stealing from the natives. Er, that was after we were done stealing from our own natives. Now that we have no opposition from Russia, our only military opposition to speak of is in the Middle East and Pakistan. These are poor countries rich in mineral wealth, and we will have those riches for ourselves! (Geeze we are disgusting)


The final result of our wars over in the Middle East will be the warmongers will be up a trillion dollars, US taxpayers will be out two trillion or more and the Afghans will be getting their country rebuilt on our dime, as we are now doing everywhere else we have been busy terror-forming the natives… just so we can plant a McDonald's in the middle of their society.

Oh, and let's not forget the lives lost or dislocated or disfigured on two continents which get left in the ruins resulting from our imperial policies.
They number in the millions.

Trying to steal from the Afghans is the stupidest thing imaginable. WHY? Trying to put the most fiercely independent people on earth under our thumb is why. Trying to organize a bunch of warring tribes into a single government is why. Trying to wage modern warfare against a nation whose primary mode of transportation is the camel is why. And because Afghanistan’s treasure belongs to the Afghans. Our military offensive is just plain wrong. These are just a few of the reasons why.

Bob Parmelee blogging at ILGP.com AKA parmsplace

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Beware of ransomware

I spent an entire day grappling with the most perninious virus todate. It piggybacks into your computer on the back of legimate, trusted sites we probable all use at one time or another. If you find yourself affected, after my experience yesterday, I can help.

Here is the story about this new virus called ransomware or scareware disguised as a security suite. Diabolically brilliant!

AV Security Suite is a scareware and ransomware program from the same family as Antivirus Soft and AntiSpyware Soft. The developers of this program are distributing AV Security Suite through the use of hacked sites, spam, and Trojans that install it onto your computer without your permission. Once installed AV Security Suite will be configured to start automatically when your computer starts. Once started it will scan your computer and state that there are numerous infections, but will not let you remove any of them until you purchase the program. All of these scan results are fake and are only being shown to trick you into purchasing the program, which you should obviously not do.
If you are running older software, and not updating Windows, you may find that you will be able to remove this program, but then become infected again within a short period of time. This is because the malware developers are hacking legitimate sites or inserting malware ads that use vulnerabilities in common programs such as Adobe Reader, Flash, and Windows to install the malware onto your computer. If you do not update your programs to remove these security holes then the next time you visit a hacked site distributing this rogue, AV Security Suite will be installed on to your computer. A great tool that can be used to scan your computer for outdated and vulnerable programs is the free Secunia Online Software Inspector program. When you scan your computer with this program it will display a report showing all programs and Windows updates that should be installed in order to fix security holes and vulnerabilities. It is advised that all users scan their computer with this program in order to prevent your computer from being infected again after you clean it.
When AV Security Suite is running it will also block you from running normal tasks in order to make it harder to remove the program from your computer. First, it configures Windows to use a proxy server that points back 127.0.0.1:1041. A proxy server is a program that listens to requests from your web browser and then handles the request itself rather than your browser talking directly to a site. As AV Security Suite is set to be your proxy server, any time you browse the web using Internet Explorer it will intercept the request and display a fake security warning that states that the site you are visiting is infected. The message it will display is:
This website has been reported as unsafe
We recommend that you do not continue to this website. This website has been reported to Microsoft for containing threats to your computer that might reveal personal or financial information.
Once you disable the proxy server all web requests will go directly to the site you wish to go to and you will see the legitimate content. Please note, though, that the next time AV Security Suite is started it will configure your computer to use the proxy server again.
The second method that AV Security Suite protects itself is to block applications from running while stating that they are infected. It does this to stop you from running anti-virus programs that can be used to remove this malware. When you attempt to run a program you will instead see the following message:
Windows Security alert
Application cannot be executed. The file mbam.exe is infected.
Do you want to active your antivirus software now?
Spyware Alert
Application infected! The file rundll32.exe is infected. Do you want to ALLOW this application now?
When you see these infection alerts do not be concerned as your programs are not infected. It is only showing this to further scare you into thinking you have a computer security problem.
While started, AV Security Suite will also display fake security alerts that contain warnings that malware has been detected or that malware is attacking your computer. These messages are all fake as well and only being shown to further convince you that your computer is infected. The text of these messages are:
Windows Security alert
Windows reports that computer is infected. Antivirus software helps to protect your computer against viruses and other security threats. Click here for the scan your computer. Your system might be at risk now.
Antivirus software alert
Infiltration Alert
Your computer is being attacked by an internet virus. It could be a password-stealing attack, a trojan-dropper or similar.
Last, but not least the rogue will also display a fake Windows Security Center. This fake Security Center will look exactly like the original one except that it states that you should purchase AV Security Suite to protect yourself.
As you can see, AV Security Suite was created for one reason only; to scare you into thinking your computer has numerous infections so that you will then purchase the program. It goes without saying that you should definitely not purchase this program, and if you already have, please contact your credit card company and dispute the charges stating the program is a scam. Finally, to remove this infection please use the removal guide below to remove it for free.

The program actually hijacks your browser, resides in your registry so you can't find it to remove it, and prevents you from running your security program to remove it.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

The solution to pollution is in not going to be dilution.

Michio KaKu, a recent visitor on the Keith Olbermann show, likened the suggestion to controlling the oil spill in the gulf by exploding the well with a nuclear bomb, or any other kind of bomb, the equivalent of giving the Three Stooges nukes.

"We are in totally uncharted territory” he says. By exploding an underground bomb to contain this spill we could inadvertently cause multiple additional fissures, leading to multiple geysers, all needing top caps.

The truth of the whole scenario is that the most profit producing companies in the world, year after year, have been the oil companies. Their corporate largess, spread over Congress since the Valdez disaster, has prevented meaningful safety legislation from becoming law for over 20 years.

Now we have the largest man-made ecological disaster in the entire history of man. If no so today, it will be so tomorrow, or shortly thereafter, for monies sake.

Some pencil pushing fool determined the drilling project was falling behind schedule. He began putting on the pressure to drill faster. Later, when confronted with irrefutable evidence that a gasket designed to prevent explosive back pressure from unleashing was disintegrating, another manly genius spouted the most infamous directive in man-made ecological disaster history by saying -- -- drill on!

Yet another pencil pusher had previously decided to avoid spending a $500,000 to install a blow out preventer. This will ultimately be ridiculed as the stupidest cost saving mistake ever made by any single man in any business to date. He was probably thinking about his bonus. He may be the man responsible for single handedly bankrupting BP.

The poor citizens of the Gulf and soon to be Florida will pay for these egregious mistakes for decades. We cannot put a price on this disaster. Not now, and probably not for another 20 years.

But the drilling goes on.

As long as we allow people like Dick Cheney, unmitigated master of disaster in the Middle East (Bush was simply too ignorant to connect the dots between big government, big oil, and Cheney’s company Halliburton), to have sway, the planet, or more correctly the people on it, don't stand a chance.

Friday, April 30, 2010

Bribes or Blackmail

Does it really matter which Achilles' heel brings down our elected officials? Sex, money, drugs, or a host of other seductive suspects are in every gangsters toolkit don't you know? Any one of which is a slam dunk for your average American.

When the wise guys go to work on someone... games over. Either they help you in, or they help you out, but the ever present quid pro quo applies, with one exception. If they help you win, they own you for life.

In my experience, no one is immune to coercion. Whether you are drawn to drugs, kinky sex or celibacy, whether you are orphaned or blueblood to the bone, you are vulnerable to someone or susceptible to something illegal, immoral, or just plain more fun than the law allows. (Junkets come to mind.) It is in our nature.

Even modest motivational sources, like ambition, family, religion, or sense of duty pale to the power behind the appropriate bribe or blackmail leverage.

Where this leads is to a society compromised by its own antiquated, hypocritical sense of morality. No society is any stronger than its most compromised officials, regardless of whether they are public or private.

Isn't it time we stop crippling ourselves by expecting saintly behavior from everyone? Wouldn't our society be better served if our morals matured into a more tolerant, consensual set of values? Can’t we leave Victoria’s hypocritical influence, and the religious guilt tripping to the last millennia?

Haven't we had our collective noses rubbed in enough dirt to learn anything?

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

The Truth About Lies

Lies are all around us. We live our entire lives among them.

They percolate among us until they takeover our thoughts and emotions,
our finances and finally our freedoms.

• Lies which lead us into phony wars.
• Lies about the true cost of those wars and their results.
• Lies, which lead us into phony mortgages. These were even called liar’s loans.
• Lies that scare us into forfeiting our privacy.
• Lies that promise us security and cost us our freedoms in the bargain.
• Lies about global warming.
• Lies about national health care.
• Lies from our congressmen and senators, and even our presidents.
• Lies from our news media.
• Lies from our parents, siblings, children and friends.
• Lies from our lovers.

The above list is by no means a complete liars list. Lies are as common as cornflakes.
But how about we add in the misconceptions, half-truths, exaggerations and distortions,
and hundreds more cracks the truth can fall into or slip completely through.

Is it any wonder nobody listens to anybody anymore? Why bother, what’s the point?
I have known people who would rather tell a lie when the truth was 10 times easier.

Some of our most prestigious federal agencies are based on deception. One of the most
secretive professions to spring up recently is called “perception management”. This profession
involves creating a “truth” and then selling the “truth” to a gullible public wholesale. PM
people are to spin doctors as neurosurgeons are to witch doctors.

So does the truth, which is as often as not a matter of individual perception, matter?
After all, we seem to be able to function without very much of the real deal.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Carlin at the Copenhagen Earth Conference

Can you use a good laugh?

Here is a little George Carlin on the environment, and The Answer
to man's existence.

Please be advised, you will be exposed to adult language, adult concepts, and some very advanced thinking.

http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2009/12/video-in-honor-of-copenhagen-carlin-on-t/

Monday, March 29, 2010

Does this resemble you?

I am sure it doesn't, but...

It seems we have become so lazy or self-absorbed in trivia, some fed to us by the drama queens in our own lives and much more via the news media, that a majority of US citizens have literally tuned out and are leaving their important thinking for others do. The most important decisions we seem to be able to make on our own are things like what to watch on TV. Taking the time to become informed about the political, social, or environmental issues of the day is to be studiously avoided.

The final outcome of a country's people foregoing the heavy lifting required for informed decision-making is that the country becomes vulnerable to the master manipulators among us. For example, people completely ignorant of the facts behind the Nobel Prize winning scientific discovery of global warming and its consequences are easily persuaded to continue the ruinous behavior that is detrimental to all life on the planet.

Because we failed to act quickly in our own best interests, the people in this country responsible for relieving the citizens of trillions of dollars in savings and equity are in a position to do the very same thing again.

The very same people can do the very same thing… again.

Because we have been so focused nationally on sorting out the truth to the health care debate and its hundred billion dollar annual cost, we have allowed ourselves to be distracted from our wars. Phony wars based on lies and waged for the benefit of companies like Halliburton and Blackwater are where we waste hundreds of billions of dollars a year, gaining nothing except the opportunity to waste more money.

(You may disagree if you think spending billions of taxpayer dollars blowing up mountains and deserts while losing thousands of American lives in the process is good for America.)

We spend billions chasing long dead media darlings like Osama bin Laden(the only bite he has left is a sound bite). We pour billions more into a protection racket dedicated to making travel impossibly difficult and whose policies have literally rendered personal privacy in America a thing of the past, but haven't made us any safer from fanatics.

Fear mongers have convinced us we will be much safer as soon as big brother has a window opened into every corner of our lives. By dedicating ourselves to perpetual ignorance and prejudice we have opened the door to all master manipulators. We seem quick to forget that those who stick their heads in the sand are leaving their butts in the air for opportunists to take advantage of.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Misery Loves Company!

If you have or soon could have:

No coin, no cash, no credit and no credibility left.

And if you are literally:

Down to the last roll of the dice,
or the last spin of the wheel,
or the last flip of the coin.

Guess what?
Things can only get worse.
Have I cheered you up yet?
Misery does love company.

Have you lost your job, your house, and your family?
Do you have at least one tooth trying to fall out of your
head now and do the rest seem destined to follow soon?
Is there no insurance of any kind protecting anything of
yours although you paid in for what seems like forever?
And are you still years away from being eligible for
Medicaid or Social Security?

Is your wall papered with late notices? Has your license
been suspended for back child support or court fines? Is
there nothing left in your house to turn off but the water
and that's just because the water department is busy? Is
your camper in good shape?

You'd better hope so.

Or maybe your significant other of many years (some bitter,
some sweet) has decided to stick it out ( I mean, what choice
does she really have?) and is busy purchasing dinner at the
day old Exxon deli while you are filling up the home away
from home camper; soon to become home. You are eating
at the Exxon deli because the Exxon card is the only plastic
still honored in your wallet... for one more payment cycle.

As I mentioned, misery really does love company.

And yet our government is pouring trillions into the deserts
and mountains abroad. We can’t afford healthcare, we can't
help our own homeless, we can't afford good educators or
legislators or honest "Captains of Industry" no matter how
much we are willing to pay them. Enough, clearly and simply,
isn’t enough.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

The final dump on our democracy.

With the last load of rip rap dumped on” we the people”
the ship of state is now on it’s way to sinking. I am referring
to the recent coup de grace granted corporations recently.
With this seriously flawed ruling the Supremes have joined
the other branches of government in overstepping by a
country mile their mandate.

With the stroke of a pen our own Supreme Court has
kicked the supports out from under democracy’s
“equal rights under the law” provisions by allowing multi-
billion-dollar corporations to use their unlimited funds
as a weapon, either for or against, candidates in free
elections, It sounds like a strong defense of free speech
until you realize how easy it will be for the large corporations
to swamp the airwaves in support of their candidates.

One man one vote sounds terrific until you realize that
giving a public voice in our politics to the richest corporations
on the planet, not just US corporations, and expecting a
fair result is ridiculous. This is similar to putting one man
on one side of a tug-of-war rope and putting one man
in a D8 cat on the other. Sure it is mono e mono until
the machinery is figured into the equation.

Over the previous decade laws were written or changed
which favored big businesses like drug manufacturers.
Take the law that was recently passed prohibiting the
government, the largest drug purchaser in the country,
from negotiating prices with suppliers. I find it simply
amazing that our lawmakers can get away with a law
so patently favorable to the industry while sticking it to
the rest of the nation.

Now our politicians will officially become the nation’s
highest-paid prostitutes. (Not that they weren’t already.)
No politician will survive if he isn’t beholden to a fat cat
funding his election campaigns.

Incredibly, most of the people in our once great nation
could probably care less about this incredible threat to our
individual liberties. The threat to our liberty is not from
another nation. It will now come from the feckless fortunes
of morally bankrupt rich corporations whose loyalty is only to
money.

Congress was originally charged with the responsibility to keep a sharp eye on the purse strings of the nation. The presidential power to wage war was supposed to be curtailed when Congress, following the will of the people, refused to pay for wars. Instead they just ordered up a bigger rubberstamp. Rather than safeguarding the country’s cash they are shoveling it out as fast as the presses can print it (almost literally).

So now all three branches of the government are vigorously exercising an unrestrained assault on the middle class. The President is wasting lives and resources at an unprecedented rate. Congress, while rubber stamping the largest military budgets in the world’s history (remember what peace used to feel like?), can’t get a single social program which may actually spell relief to the ailing middle class passed. And the Supremes, not to be outclassed by the other branches, have decided they no longer must wait for an issue to be raised before weighing in. They now feel free to advance any cause that takes their interest like the issue of campaign funding. There was no case before the court; they jumped on this issue before Obama has a chance to reseed the court with democratically minded judges.

So now what?

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Barack Obama was the exception... Republicans Rule

We are falling off the rails.

Recent disruptions in the force spell doom for the Democrats.
In spite of the fact that the Democrats had a majority in both
houses of Congress, and a sitting President, they have
managed to fail to pass any legislation which would have
been beneficial to "we the people" in any meaningful way.

The Republicans on the other hand, while small in numbers,
manage to accomplish their objectives in spite of the odds.
Republicans, generally recognized as being the party of big
business, stand to gain politically now that the Supreme Court
has paved the way for unlimited funding from corporate America.

For example:

Giant financial institutions, which brought the world economy
to its knees, are still free to do whatever they want with their
depositors money. In spite of serious efforts by Barney Frank
financial reforms are both slow in coming and watered-down.

Timothy Geithner, as quarterback for Wall Street, had the stones
to recommend less than full disclosure to regulators with regard
to government bailouts being used for obscene bonuses. I
suppose selling out your constituents (these would be the good
citizens of the United States for whom he theoretically works)
would curry favor among those he supposedly regulates and
guarantee a grand entrance into the ex government
pro-corporation Hall of Flamers.

The Bush Supreme Court just sunk the last nail in the coffin of
a government envisioned by our forefathers which was
a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Control of the country will finally and firmly rest in the hands of
corporate giants whose monopoly cash can dominate the media
and can now be used to openly purchase politicians.

Healthcare is back to the drawing board. By failing to move quickly
the Dumbdems frittered away their biggest asset in decades,
a filibuster proof Senate. If you thought they couldn't get anything
done before... Just wait till you see how little they get done now!

Unfortunately, America no longer bears any resemblance to
the country originally formed by the framers of our Constitution.

Money rules. Individuals no longer count in a society where cash
is king.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

A kingdom of thieves.

Country birthing is an expensive business.

Throughout our history, as we have grown into nationhood,
wealthy individuals have provided "loans" to the government.
The quid pro quo for these loans was usually a monopoly
granted by the government to these individuals for their
support in supplying the nation's treasury with liquidity.

The most recent chapter in our history started with the
robber barons acentury and a half ago. Carnegie, Mellon,
Vanderbilt, etc. all gained control of basic businesses
necessary for the survival and growth of the country.
These guys were no saints. They extracted a pound from
the treasury for every penny they loaned.

Here's what I think happened.

After the panic of '07 (last century and interestingly
enough this century also) an idea was hatched whereby
private individuals would help with a national liquidity
problem by establishing a bank called the Federal Reserve.
In 1913 the Federal Reserve was created.

There was nothing federal about it... it was a private bank
funded with private money.

The Federal Reserve System is the central banking system of
the United States. It was created in 1913, with the enactment
of the Federal Reserve Act , and
was largely a response to prior financial panics and bank
runs, the most severe of which being the Panic of 1907


A group of wealthy white boys saw a war looming on the
horizon and hatched a plan to finance the war. (Or maybe
they started a war with help from European bankers and then
hatched a plan???)

They needed security if they were to loan money to a
government under a war cloud so the government agreed to
establish an income tax as surety for the debt incurred
to these wealthy gentleman. Coincidently (the incidence
of coincidence decreases dramatically the older one gets)
the 16th amendment to the Constitution was ratified the
same year. The tax started at a maximum of 6% and before
the war was over that rate had risen to 77%.

Look out folks, I see this comming!

This 16th amendment would hearld the birth of the IRS.

This was the quid pro quo the government agreed with
in order to assure sufficient funds to wage the war.
It is similar thinking to the “carte blanche” the
government gave the railroad barons when they granted
a swath 100 miles wide from coast to coast to the railroad
on the off chance they could actually build a railroad
across the country. The risk was huge..The reward, well,
150 years later, still counting.

Amazing what a few "good old boys" could accomplish back then.

Suppose things are ever going to change?