I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas Day! Yesterday, I paid a visit to my neighborhood coin/precious metals dealer. I picked up another 7 oz. of silver. I have been buying gold and silver incrementally on dips in price. I have done gobs of research on precious metals. I frequently post some of the funniest videos on here. I thought what I'd do is explain some things about precious metals that you might have not heard before. My chief reason for buying precious metals is that I don't think most people understand precisely what Ben "Bernank" is doing. I also don't think most people understand why he can't stop doing it. The last great act of hyperinflation is money printing. That has happened in Zimbabwe, Weimar, Germany and other places. The last great store of wealth in the United States is private and public investment accounts. Virtually everyone's wealth is tied somehow to the stock market. Real estate has taken it's haircut. If the stock

There was a fundamental shift in my family this year. Now as I refer to family, I am talking about my brother, sister, mother, and significant others. They want to go to church tonight. This is new. We have done comedy clubs, movies, and other things on X-Mas eve but church is something we haven't done for many years. My father is singing in his choir. Last night, my sister and brother trimmed the tree. That is their annual job. My brother hung the tuna fish can on the tree. I watched and teased them about how shitty the tree looked. This always kicks off the usual "get your ass over here and help" rhetoric which I counter with I am the eldest and it is still my job to keep you guys in line. At 50, and after a few decades, you'd think they'd learn by now. My family became a little fractured after my parents' divorce. It took us a long time to recover.  But we are recovering. Each year it gets better and this year I saw real spiritual progress and growth.

Think the government is running scared? I just saw this posted at American Thinker. I looked everywhere for the pilot's videos and they must have been pulled. Lord knows, the only first amendment rights we have are the ones that our government masters give us. I am still trying to determine what illegal act this pilot did that allowed our THUGOCRACY to descend upon him. You decide. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/12/tsa_punishes_pilot_for_critici.html How could this be a month old? This link is worth cutting and pasting anywhere it needs to go. Found a second link to the Channel 10 story. http://www.news10.net/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=113529&catid=2 The bottom part of the article answers many of my questions of why this has been a mystery. Because they wanted it to be. PS 12/24/10...a big thank you to Jim at Conservatives on Fire for getting this Fox News link...apparently this story is now getting out. Like to hear what nanny government has to say... h

Be forewarned, there are some things in life that once imprinted on your brain, you cannot remove. And then there is this survey, way too funny to miss... http://ogdaa.blogspot.com/2010/12/dont-ask-if-you-dont-want-to-know.html

While diligently working last night, and posting hateful comments, I stumbled across this lost quatrain of Nostradamus. I've been staring at it all morning but I'll be damned if I can figure it out. Bats what be from moon start circling the great city, Great plagues arise as hordes inhale the toxic guano fumes, The printer tries to save the wretched city, but hordes remain steadfast Crippled birds replaced by fresh fowl, bat shit stuck on brooms.

One of the last acts of the Roman Empire, not unlike those acts of the current United States, was to remove valuable metals from coinage. First we saw gold coins disappear. In 1965, we saw silver disappear. In 1983, we saw copper disappear. We now make coins out of essentially worthless zinc and reclaimed Buick parts. The last two coins of value, where the melt price exceeds their face value, is the nickel and the penny. In 2006, Congress passed a law preventing you from melting your own money. So as JP Morgan has essentially cornered the copper market (which is not illegal) and the price is ramping up, your pre-1982  pennies are now worth nearly three times their face value. It presents an interesting argument. What is worth more? A dollar that has lost 97% of it's value, or a penny that has tripled in price? Note the value of ten dollars worth of old pennies in the box below... Base Metal Coin Melt Value Calculation Generated on December 22, 2010.                 Value

I've been trading stocks, a lot of options, for years. I learned everything the hard way. College classes, economics, business. I read every book in the library. Chart theory, random walk theory. I've done some exotic option buying, I've used options as insurance. And I am certainly not going to say I was victorious all of the time. I've made a lot of trading mistakes. Some were brutal. One Chinese shell corporation I bought was a horrible trade. Three years ago, I packed it in after I had my very own black swan event. Parked my dough in treasuries. I did ok in 2008, while the equity universe got a haircut. I cashed out in 2009. I am getting ready to get back in. The reason is simple. I think that we are on the verge of a major black swan event. I think the odds are better than 60-40. As a gambler and an odds maker, I make a personal line for everything. And trust me, I am not going long. The Black Swan Theory or "Theory of Black Swan Events" was deve

Well after the government let Countrywide thief Angelo Mozilo out of jail in lieu of 67 million dollar in fines...I see they are at it again. This time, they let AIG officials off the hook for stealing from workman's compensation pools. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-22/aig-will-pay-146-5-million-to-settle-50-state-insurance-probe.html Apparently we no longer have any rule of law in this country. Commit widespread fraud and grand theft and buy your way out of prosecution. Post your bail and subsequent forfeiture with taxpayer funds. It doesn't cost you a dime. Hey USG...what's the fine for a murder or two? You truly can't dream this shit up.

Much ballyhoo over nothing. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40777922/ns/politics-white_house I have paid little attention to "don't ask, don't tell." I dealt with that issue long ago. It was easy. Like all things the libertarian way. Years ago, I hired an openly gay man. Not because he was gay, but because he was the best man for the job. The macho guys, and the homophobes, gave me a fair amount of ridicule. I think the funniest part was watching them walk by my office with their hands covering their backside. They thought that shit was funny and it was. Lefties might gasp here. I had a feeling it would stop when he came on board. It did. He turned out to be an excellent cop, nobody was molested, and the world didn't stop turning. I never had one complaint about the guy. When public servants serve together a weird thing happens. Battles, in any theater, tend to have a unifying effect on people. The small shit gets forgotten quickly. He only stayed with us a ye

I don't like bashing President Obama any more. At this point in his presidency, I think he has demonstrated what kind of man that he is. As I have written about many times before, he has an agenda which has nothing to do with what this country really needs. He lacks the capacity of perception and he lacks personal courage. Late last night I was reading an article on "American Thinker." I like AT but I think the authors go overboard on Obama bashing. I think a lot of people feel deceived or angry. Like they bought a handsome lemon. Obama has not been any mystery to me. He was never properly vetted by any stretch of the imagination and let's face  the truth- this country was so angry at Bush that they would have voted for anyone. I'd like to introduce that AT article, "Obama's Problem as the Smartest Person in the Room." http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/obamas_problem_as_the_smartest.html I commented on this article, 5 or 6 comments down, as

Just 4 days after writing my blog, "10 Reasons Not to Buy a Chevy Volt" out comes this report... http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/1633/hyped-hybrid-the-chevy-volt-gets-average-mileage-for-a-hybrid/ This article makes comparisons to other vehicles but leaves out- perhaps the best in class hybrid.  http://www.hybridcars.com/vehicle/hyundai-sonata-hybrid.html If you wanted a real electric car, with a one hundred mile range, and still a lot cheaper...here's the Leaf. It would save you a lot more than the Volt. http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/index#/leaf-electric-car/specs-features/index Here's the Prius. For 15 grand less.  http://www.toyota.com/prius-hybrid/trims-prices.html The Chevy Volt. Overpriced, over hyped, ho-hum. GM never stood a chance once government got involved.

I thought I'd tell you  a couple of funny war stories today. I need a break from all of this government nastiness. War stories from small town America. Cops.   Years ago, we hired this young, skinny kid. He didn't have a whisker on his face or maybe even a hair on his ass. You know the type. Nice kid, naive. I think he was 22 but looked 18 or so. Still had pimples and shit. His situation was further complicated because we couldn't find a uniform to fit him from the storeroom. Cops aren't particularly known for being nutritional specialists or health nuts. Well not back then anyway. So after our guys died of weight related complications, we would nab their old uniforms. So it was, we found this kid a couple of uniforms that hung off him like a potato sack. We should have had them tailored while we waited for those special order- petite sizes to arrive. Now older folks tend to take getting pulled over a little better than young folks do. But as nice as some of those

Gallup says so. http://www.gallup.com/poll/145238/congress-job-approval-rating-worst-gallup-history.aspx A 13% approval rate?? Could it get any worse? I view this as very good news actually. It may mean that people are willing to set aside whatever partisan views they have and actually start seeing this crew for what they are. It makes you wonder just who those 13% percent were that approved of this Congress...where did they find those people? Harry Reid is one of the biggest idiots in Congress. After barely retaining his seat, through some shady tactics that involved union workers literally being threatened and shuttled to voting booths, this moron has the balls to propose another gargantuan waste of money- the 1.2 trillion porkubus spending package. While the lame duck session is in, of course. Reid is either brain dead, contemptuous, or both. I wish he were retired. http://newsok.com/proposed-omnibus-bill-was-affront-to-u.s.-voters/article/3524531 I am not a partisan hack. I

Some things make me yearn for summer. Like the background in this photo, the green grass, the trees, the autumn colors- no snow. Oh yea, and maybe this absolutely gorgeous bike. Check out those ape hangers- a tad much even for me. Given a choice of Anne Coulter or this bike...well, let me think for a moment. After ten years or so, I'd still love the bike.