Global Toad News

One of the things that I have learned is just because you have inside sources that feed you 99% reliable information, doesn’t mean that you will always be right, just mostly.  This doesn’t mean that your sources are “turned”, just that sometimes bad information is put out through lots of different channels.  With that in mind, I will try to explain what I think is going on and why.

As many people are aware there is some questions aboutBarrack Obama’s constitutional ability to actually be president.  Regardless of the merit of this issue, which I believe has some merit, as it allows Obama to be compromised (or according to the Editor of Internation Currency Review “Blackmailed”) the question is beginning to wear away at the long term economic picture for America.  I think this is one reason why the Republican party insiders are not publicly going anywhere near this issue.

There has (allegedly) been high level international discussions in the middle of May about how to cause the demise of the dollar.  Part of that move would be a world wide Department of the Treasury, and moving many functions of current nation states to a global governing body.  If you think this is something that is made up, you need only read how the reporter from the British paper the Guardian was treated as he tried to report on this meeting, and contrast that with the reports from other, smaller international “policy” events.  Of course this is how ALL independent media coverage of these events is treated, it’s just unusual to see a major media outlet actually trying to report the news.

Obama is helping this whole mess right along, playing into the weakness by refusing to provide simple proofs of his birth, and working against plans to promote “Buy American”. (And  I won’t dwell on why it seems that auto dealerships that gave money to Republicans are being targeted for closure).

What all these pundits seem to forget is that there is, and has been for centuries, a true global currency, Gold.  It’s strange that there is so much effort to prevent talking about going back to the LAWFUL money of the United States, and given the total abandonmentof the constitutional guidelines, it is no wonder that China is trying to do it’s business in ANYTHING BUT DOLLARS! What is surprising is that the current Secretary of the Treasury (who I WISH was an idiot, but alas he is not, we are), said he was “quite open” to some other currency (but no apparently the LAWFUL currency of the United States).  After Geithner’s statement in March, the AP has reported that the dollar has dropped 10%, and other reports show the dollar decline is accelerating.  Also Russia has shifted it’s assets away from the dollar.

Now the question is what can we do?  I realize that it’s hard to move from the dollar we have all grown up on (and become addicted to)  but I think that Gold has a long way to climb in relation to the dollar.  Jeff Clark at 321Gold.com expects gold to go much higher that $2000/oz, and I agree with that picture.  The problem is that managing a gold portfolio is not like leaving your money in a bank and getting interest.  Though it is getting easier to get gold in other countries, with ATMs for gold being installed across Europe. [As a side note I came across an interesting comparison of house prices to gold bars over 80 years]

However, if you have signifigant assets you might want to look at Euro Pacific Capital, which is managed by Peter Schiff who has written books that have been endorsed by Jim Rogers and regularly is interviewed by Fox, CNBC, CBC, MSNBC and Bloomberg.

I realize that most of the people who stumble across this corner of the internet have gotten used to my ramblings on politics, and while I have a lot of things that I should write about in that area, I want to point out some decent free tools for people who have Windows machines.

• Antivirus
  • The best antivirus according CNET and PCWorld is Avira which has a free edition.  Apparently it is much better than AVG (which also has free version)
• CNet also recommends Smart Defrag from IOBit (which is free).  Apparently it is equivalent to Perfect Disk.
• While you are at IOBit, you might want to look at their Advanced System Care Free version
• If you want to protect your data I recommend using TrueCrypt to create encrypted partitions and “containers”
• Gizmo is a nifty multipurpose tool that has a bunch of features that are useful.

Recently I got an email from a major corporation saying that if I sent an email with a special word in the subject the email will be magically encrypted.  If someone tells you this, it’s not true and they are uninformed.  However, I still need to figure out how to convince people (at a very large company) that just putting a word in the subject will not encrypt emails.

[Update]

The people at the company that I am dealing with believe (wrongly in my opinion) that I could send an email from say gmail to them with the magic word with no software on my end.  This is different from a gateway (see http://www.pgp.com/products/universal_gateway_email/index.html) where there would be a browser or some other client side pathway different from normal internet.

Now that everyone is talking about the dangers of dying from the flu, it might be a good time to remind people that 12 Americans are murdered every day by illegal aliens.  Of course the U.S. government doesn’t care about those deaths, because after all they are just Americans.

It appears that Comcast has a major outage today, like most companies they aren’t saying anything about it.

As the Senate moves to pass the “Hate Crimes” bill, new reasons are being put forward to limit the internet.  Supposedly the internet is going to destroy the planet and use up all the energy.  So now to stop global warming,  internet usage needs to be sharply reduced.  Of course we are also (supposedly) running out of bandwidth so when you can’t get to a site, it won’t be because it was censored, but because the internet is going to have “brown outs”.

You would think that the fact that police have finally identified a man who they “suspect he killed at least 30 women and raped many more” would be all over the news.

Unfortunately this a nonstory because this was an “african-american” (who has never been to Africa) who killed and raped mostly white women.  It would be racist to mention that aspect of the story, just as it is racist to mention black on white crime (which is never a hate crime, it’s because “african americans” are discriminated against).

But then again it’s a “hate crime” to say things that the government doesn’t want you to say.

Some people think that hand sanitizers do not work for viruses.  According to Science Daily:

The alcohol-based gels, widely available in stores, do not require water and rapidly kill most bacteria and viruses on the skin.

Hope this helps, though most people should be just fine.

It seems interesting that as the government is moving against people who believe in the constitution (including tasering a person three times who asked why he was being detained), we all of the sudden are being scared with the boggy man of flu.  According the CDC (as of July 16, 2008):

Each flu season is unique, but it is estimated that, on average, approximately 5% to 20% of U.S. residents get the flu, and more than 200,000 persons are hospitalized for flu-related complications each year. About 36,000 Americans die on average per year from the complications of flu.

Or rather about 100 Americans die every day from the flu in an AVERAGE year.  But having a boogeyman takes the discussion off of the real threats to our freedom and liberty, and accelerates the loss of freedom.  THe WHO (World Health Organization) is heading towards declaring this thing a PANDEMIC.  Takes the focus off of the 3 TRILLION dollars that Obama thinks he has to spend.  Of course even if this flu is a problem, the Department of Homeland Security is instead warning that:

“Rightwing extremismin the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.” {emphasis added by Shane}

So I guess I am danger to national security because I point out things, like say the first person to die from the “swine flu” in the United States was a person from Mexicowho was probably not here legally.  That’s not to say there haven’t been real incidents with the Swine Flu, for instance the Swiss government had an accident where they were transporting Swine flu on a passenger train and it exploded (if anyone other than the government had done it, this would be classified as an act of terrorism).  Of course, if Senator Kennedy has his way, I will soon be arrested for Hate Crimes.  But then again that is the new face of America, the new intolerance, if you want to “cling to guns or religion” then you will be dealt with.

The sad thing is that so many people are happy about this.  It reminds me of other leaders who had fanatical followers.

It seems that Cass Sunstein, Obama’s nominee for some sort of regulatory czar,  had proposed a plan that even he (a law school professor) said would probably be unconstitutional,where people on the internet would be required to display opposing viewpoints.

Now this alone would be disturbing, but the movement towards a vote on the “hate speech” bill makes the issue of freedom of speech a little more pressing than most people realize.  For instance, according to Janet Porter, the hate speech bill:

specifically targets anyone who dissents to the homosexual agenda as aiding in the commission of a crime, making them “punishable as a principal.”

Of course that would make Carrie Prejeana federal felon at any point if she continues to hold her views.  Now I know there are those who diminish her because she was in a beauty pageant(much like Sarah Palin once was).  I have to tell you that the only people I know who watched that pageant where, uh, women.

Let’s face it, in today’s world the Miss America pageant is a lot more tame than most of what people get on the internet where sex is allowed to be promoted, but opposing viewpoints are not.  But much as people (such as me at times) want to blame the politicians, the blame falls more correctly on the people of America.  Unfortunately the politicians are a reflection of the decay of American society and the decline in rational thinking.

That said, I entirely understand the unwillingness of people to be the nail that stands out (and gets hammered).    But at some point people need to wake from their slumber and take responsibility for what is going on.  Hopefully they will do it while it is still legal to express dissent.

Recently Carrie Pejean gave an honest (and polite) answer to a loaded question, and as a result was called all sorts of names.  This all part of the bias against tradition values in America.

What most people are unaware of is that there are bills in congress right now to make what Carrie said a FEDERAL hate crime! I think that these steps are part of the process of controlling what people believe, similar to the novel 1984.

By criminalizing comments, the discussion of certain ideas is made illegal, and it has already happened in cases in the United States.   If you have information about drugs or explosives on a web page, you can go to jail. I find that by looking at the UK, I can get an idea of the policies that will be put into place in the United States (like cameras that are used to issue tickets).  While the UK is increasingly friendly to immigrants, one of the Prime Minister’s leading advisers has said that the natives of the UK must reduce their numbers.  Already the steps towards this punishment of the people who are citizens of only one nation is being pushed in the United States, where illegal immigrants are given special treatment, while the government instead targets veterans as dangers to America.  I find it amazing that with unemployment at least at 20%, and unemployment benefits running out for many, Obama is working on giving money away to people who are here illegally, while claiming that veterans are the real danger to Americans. Of course some say that this is part of Obama’s war on labor, but I tend to think it’s part the steps that are needed to force Americans into accepting global governance.

Even now, companies that got bailout money are trying to shutdown sites that are critical of them.  And they aren’t even real people.  Of course, in Australia some think it’s a crime to even know that the government won’t let you view websites.

Some countries in the free world are moving to try and capture all internet traffic that a person has, and meanwhile we cry about how the Chinese are going to get our email.  At the same time, in the UNITED STATES the government can seize all your electronic equipment if someone sees you typing commands on computer instead of clicking with a mouse!

And talking about any of these things can be considered hate speech, but we are supposed to embrace the “happy thoughts” or we are obviously anti social criminals who should be taken care of one way or another.

As long as people continue to chase dreams, and fail to see what is really happening, I don’t see any real hope for America, but Obama isn’t the one to blame for this, it’s all the people that fail to think, and just want to be part of the (mad) crowd.

The American dream is becoming just that, merely a dream.  The United States is marching off a cliff with Obama playing the tune that the people are marching to. 

We have the strange issue where the Department of Homeland Security is arguing that veterans are a threat to America (but when they are working for the government and are armed they are not, just when they are no longer armed).

The current trend towards a police state is shown by a New Yorker who was arrested and held for 24 hours without being told why) because as he found out (days later) at one time (many years ago) he had walked a dog without a lease.  This is at the same time that people who are in this country illegally (except for the Irish, who are the targets of a nationwide crackdown) are routinely let go. 

The sad thing about this is that when these people are working for the official government they are assumed to be right no matter what they do, but when they are disarmed and supposedly free, they are threats to the power system.

The truly frightening thing is that most people seem to like things this way.

I don’t know anyone who really wants Obama to destroy America.

That said, it does seem that people who thought Obama was going to bring “real change” are waking up to the fact that he is just a figurehead, who will say whatever you want to hear, or rather what the polls say most people want to hear.

When Obama was running he was against enhanced interrogation techniques, but now he says that the people at the CIA get a pass for whatever they might have done.

Of course, what can Obama do?  Despite the “Hope” sold during the campaign, no one wanted to listen to what Dr. Ron Paul had to say on the economy, calling him names and playing childish pranks on him instead.

Indeed, the collapse of America is something that many people throughout the world have strongly desired, even our big trading partner, the Chinese, has been working on (and succeeding) beating the United States economically.  But then again it’s easy to topple a country that is rotten at the core.

I often comment to people on one side or the other that if the party that they feel affinity for does something, they seem to be less outraged then when the other party does it.   For example I still see people with all these Obama stickers on their cars and anti-war stickers.

I took flack for being too anti-Obama before the circus we call an election, and as I have said before I take no pleasure in being right about bad things coming down the line.  In fact it was my youthful folly in thinking that the “system” was honest that made me into a de facto enemy of the state (while I am not a “criminal” I do have to supply the IRS at least quarterly with where the money goes so they can decide if I can live on whatever they leave me).

Of course, we might all become enemies of the state with recent trends, recently some “men were found guilty of providing a conduit for others to break the law, rather than breaching copyright themselves“, or basically for providing a google like interface to files that they did not themselves have.  This ties right in with the new pushes for “hate crimes” laws in the United States, or rather “anti free speech” since a hate crime appears to be a crime that makes a “protected class” feel bad.

And the anonymity on the internet is being whittled away with the “war on terror” that appears to now include anyone who believes in the constitution, especially veterans.  Because of this dangerObama is being given a “kill switch” for the internet (if he doesn’t already have one), of course this being sold to combat terrorism and protect the children.   In fact the FBI has already started down shutting entire ISP’s leaving both the suspects and the innocent without access. Obama is already taking control of the banks, refusing to let banks give the TARP money back so he can continue to control them.  Of course, the banks aren’t helping matters with increasing their pay so that they don’t lose bonuses.  Once you let the government in, they are like any parasite, hard to get rid of, and the banks did ask for the money.  And anyway it’s great to be able to fire people at will without taking responsibility for fixing anything.

All these events make it only more prudent to buy gold, but many people still believe in Obama’s hope.  Of course that doesn’t stop people being detained for having “Campaign for Liberty” material on them.  But so many people are living in the fantasy world of television (and who can really blame them when the television picture is so much more vibrant and interesting than their own lives SEEM to be).  And of course we are constantly being told that we should only think happy thoughts or bad things will happen to you (similar to the Scientology brainwashing that you “pull in” things like being raped, or rather the old “she was asking for it” excuse).

Recently Engadget wrote about some changes to AT&T’s wireless terms and condtions while includes language forbiding things like:

 backup for private lines, landlines or full-time or dedicated data connections

In other words, you shouldn’t use a AT&T wireless phone if you could use a landline.  I find it interesting that engadget (which is a nice ADVERTISING SUPPORTED site) wrote on April 3rd that AT&T had changed their terms and conditions.

Interesting on April 7th, I found that AT&T had the terms and conditions of:

prohibited uses include, without limitation, the following: (i) server devices or host computer applications, including, but not limited to, Web camera posts or broadcasts, automatic data feeds, automated machine-to-machine connections or peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing; (ii) as a substitute or backup for private lines, landlines or full-time or dedicated data connections; (iii) “auto-responders,” “cancel-bots,” or similar automated or manual routines which generate excessive amounts of net traffic, or which disrupt net user groups or email use by others; (iv) “spam” or unsolicited commercial or bulk email (or activities that have the effect of facilitating unsolicited commercial email or unsolicited bulk email); (v) any activity that adversely affects the ability of other people or systems to use either AT&T’s wireless services or other parties’ Internet-based resources, including “denial of service” (DoS) attacks against another network host or individual user; (vi) accessing, or attempting to access without authority, the accounts of others, or to penetrate, or attempt to penetrate, security measures of AT&T’s wireless network or another entity’s network or systems;  (vii) software or other devices that maintain continuous active Internet connections when a computer’s connection would otherwise be idle or any “keep alive” functions, unless they adhere to AT&T’s data retry requirements, which may be changed from time to time. This means, by way of example only, that checking email, surfing the Internet, downloading legally acquired songs, and/or visiting corporate intranets is permitted, but downloading movies using P2P file sharing services, redirecting television signals for viewing on Personal Computers, web broadcasting, and/or for the operation of servers, telemetry devices and/or Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition devices is prohibited. Furthermore, plans(unless specifically designated for tethering usage) cannot be used for any applications that tether the device (through use of, including without limitation, connection kits, other phone/PDA-to computer accessories, Bluetooth® or any other wireless technology) to Personal Computers (including without limitation, laptops), or other equipment for any purpose.

Hmm, it seems that AT&T issued a statement to engadget that they were thinking of changing the terms and conditions, and MAYBE changed it, and then changed it back, or engadget just ran with what AT&T said, because after all that is what “real” reporters do, just write what they are told.

NASA claims that 2008 was the coolest year since 2000, agreeing with the report of David Archibald (pdf), but NASA must be measuring the temperature wrong according to TWO (yes TWO) scientists who are soon going to be rich, rich, rich,  and who say that the Artic Ocean will be ice free in 30 years.  Strangely this seems to be the opposite of what the data from NASA shows, which is a record rate of increase.  Oh, well let’s not let facts get in the way of a good story and model that will make you rich.

In a way I don’t blame the scientists, it would suck to go to school for all those years and not be able to get a job because you base your reports in reality instead of the politically correct fantasy world.

Many people have asked me who is George Soros and why it matters what he says, after I wrote:

Obama insider George Soros is “having a great crisis” calling it “the culmination of his life’s work” (I wish I was making this up).

One web site summarizes some of his more notable achievements as:

His assault on Sterling caused the British empire to shutter. The Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad blamed the American billionaire for nearly ruining Malaysia’s economy with massive currency speculation. And Hard-core Russian nationalists decried as “meddling” his funding of progressive newspapers and institutions in post-Soviet Russia.

In fact some sites are calling the Obama Foreign Policy the Soros Doctrine.  Soros has been accused of taking over the Democratic party, and Obama seems all to willing to be the front man.   And of course Soros is perfectly willing to pull the strings behind the scenes.

So you should know who George Soros is, because he handpicked Obama to be his front man, and it’s his policies that we are going to see from Obama.

It seems that you can now get low power, quiet (relatively) and high capacity drives at Amazon.

The Western Digital 2 Terabyte drive (5 stars on Amazon) is out, and the  reviews are positive.

I think this is something worth looking at.

The other day after it snowed, a colleague accused me once again of not understanding Global Climate change, telling me that 99.999% of scientists say that the ocean is going rise “like 200 feet” in the next century.

This is an example of how some people are perfectly willing to make up numbers to suit themselves.  For instance the UN’Ss IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 2007 report only claimed that sea levels COULD rise 18 to 59 cm (7 to 23 inches) in the next century.

That said, the former chairman of the International Commision on Sea Level Changes claims that the sea level is not rising and hasn’t risen for 50 years.

What about this U.S. government web page (pdf) that states over 700 scientists dissent over the global warming claims.  It includes information like:

Climatologist and Paloeclimate researcher Dr. Diane Douglas, who has authored or edited over 200 technical reports, also declared natural factors are dominating climate, not CO2. “The recent ‘panic’ to control GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions and billions of dollars being dedicated for the task has me deeply concerned that US, and other countries are spending precious global funds to stop global warming, when it is primarily being driven by natural forcing mechanisms,” Douglas, who is releasing a major new paper she authored that will be presented at a UNESCO conference in Ghent, Belgium on March 20, 2009, told the minority staff on the Environment and Public Works Committee on March 10, 2009.  

That said, unlike many people who believe in Global Warming because they see it on television, I have a degree in Engineering, and I know that science is not as precise as they teach in grammar school.  I can tell you that modeling something as “simple” as a closed system burning a substance is complex, much less modeling a planetary system.

But the lack of scientific training doesn’t seem to stand in the way of people making completely unfounded claims to people with an air of authority.

The sad thing is that we will all pay for ”global warming” if Obama has his way, as he has been pushing this nonsense for years.

I have some contacts that are far away in strange places, and they like to keep in touch using Skype.  I prefer to use a communication channel that is a little more secure, so I like to use Pidgin, with the Skype plugin, and the Off the record encryption plugin.  This also works for several other protocols, but you need to have both ends running Pidgin.

Recently I had a conversation with a person who was very concerned about the plans for mandatory service for some people.  All I could say is that I wish that I was wrong all these years, because where the United States seems to be headed is not in a positive direction.

In fact, some argue that the government considers us all terrorists now (no really read this).

Of course, the Obama government is all about rewarding the banks while punishing the working class.  Obama insider George Soros is “having a great crisis” calling it “the culmination of his life’s work” (I wish I was making this up).  Meanwhile after giving even more money to AIG, Obama is taking a tough stance with the Auto companies.

Rolling Stone magazine (apparently the only major media outlet that can research complete financial issues) recently published a story about AIG.  The story goes like this, AIG wanted to sell financial instruments, so they had a London subsidary create these products call Credit Default Swaps (CDS), which is the insurance on Collatoralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) which were packages of mortgages.  Now AIG didn’t want to be regulated as an insurance company or by the EU authorities, so it bought a savings and loan, and got itself classified as a “thrift” so it could be regulated by the Office of Thrift Supervision (a joke of a name, since it didn’t supervise AIG).

The nice thing about CDS’s is that AIG did not have to actually have the money to insure these things, so AIG insured over $500 BILLION of CDO’s.  That means that all the money that AIG is losing (and it will probably lose at LEAST $300 BILLION more) goes into the pockets of Obama’s banker friends, the same friends who are AT THE SAME TIME, cashing in from the government purchases of other crap (because the NEED more money).

I had people tell me I was too hard on Obama during the election, and I don’t really blame him, he has been an advocate of socialism for years, it’s the 50+ million Americans that voted for him that are really the problem, because as long as he has his fanatical supporters, it’s hard to see this thing turning around.

But George Soros is smiling all the way to the bank.