The Bell Tolls for Joe Sobran

The irreverent Joe Sobran, one of America's great conservative writers, has succumbed to complications of diabetes. He was just 64.

After years of stellar service at National Review, Sobran's opposition to the first Iraq war cost him his job, at the hands of CIA man William F. Buckley. It was Buckley who called him an anti-Semite, which prompted me to track down these entries from Joe's Dictionary:

anti-Semite: a person who’s hated by Jews

association, freedom of: discrimination

bigot: one who practices sociology without a license

bribe: an irregular transaction through which the citizen may get his
money’s worth of service from the government

civil rights: government power used in behalf of large groups

guilt: the deepest vested interest

isolationist: an American who thinks America should behave like other
countries

opinion polls: clever devices to make the hostages think they control
their captors

political correctness: the felt pressure of enlightened public
opinion, under which we sense that certain thoughts, though
technically legal now, are already destined to become taboo.

psychoanalysis: a form of aggression for humorless people

public opinion: what everyone thinks everyone else thinks

rich: politicians’ nickname for “other people” (as in “tax the rich”)

rights: authorizations for new areas of government control

rogue nation: a country that behaves like America

voting: trying to say something with a gag in your mouth

A big H/T to Joe, for contributing decades of principled articulate wit to the discussion.

Thank you, Sir, and Rest Peacefully...

End of an Era

Just saw an interesting statistic that drives home how far America has fallen as a manufacturing power: 2010 manufacturing employment is under 12 million. Last time manufacturing employment was this low was in 1941, before America ramped up production for WWII.

How will there ever be a real recovery, let alone a lasting recovery if we don't produce?

Housing Market: Fecal Matter, Meet the Whirly Thingie

Everyone knows that the summer months are the best months for residential real estate sales. So how did it go this year, in the summer of recovery?

2010 summer period: (June, July, August) 82,000 new homes sold (not seasonally adjusted). The worst summer sales period since record keeping began in 1963.

And how was August? Those numbers are just in, too:

2010: the worst August on record since 1963: 25,000 new homes sold (not seasonally adjusted). 1981 was the second worst August with 34,000 sales.

Yet the Dow is soaring(!). Perhaps the index should be loaded up with homebuilder stocks, so it could reflect reality...

Erik Scott Inquest Update

Well, results from the first day of the inquest are in.

LVPD is indeed going the character assassination route. They're going decades into Erik's past alleging drug use, although no illegal drugs were found in his system. These arguments have no legal validity, but when you don't have a real case you run with emotion.

The medical examiner admitted that Erik was shot five times in the back. His death was ruled a homicide, for whatever that's worth.

The medical examiner spent a long time on his tox results, with the help of giant charts. She made much of the fact that Erik had five times the lethal level of morphine in his blood when he was shot. (Apparently he was dead the whole time he was in the store.) If only the family attorney could have cross examined that bimbo on her lethal dose BS - but cross examination is not allowed in this marsupial court.

Once yesterday, the Scott family attorney lost all self control and dared to object to something out loud. He was scolded for being out of order, but I'm sure the cops wanted to shoot him for behaving erratically.

LVPD produced an eyewitness, a Costco employee, who testified that Erik drew his gun and aimed it at a cop. She swears that she was eight feet away and saw the whole incident clearly. Yet, she saw only one cop (??!?!?) and failed in several other ways to corroborate earlier police testimony. Again, we need cross examination...

The Scotts fully expect to lose at the inquest.

Stay tuned. (Or, if you wish to watch something less staged, I recommend Survivor, American Idol and Lady Gaga videos.)

A Few Statistics On That Pesky Recovery

1) (850 KOA Radio News) The unemployment rate here in Colorado rose three tenths of a percent in the last month.

2) (Federal Reserve) Americans lost $1.5 Trillion in household net worth in Q2 2010, which is the most recent data available.

3) (CNN) One in seven mortgages in America is at least delinquent if not in foreclosure.

4) (various) The residential foreclosure rate in August 2010 was 25% higher than in August 2009

5) (FDIC) Through August 2010, the annual bank failure rate is nearly 50% higher than it was in 2009 through August.

6) (AP) 2009 saw the highest increase in the poverty rate in America in the 50 years that the statistic has been tracked.

7) (US Gov) The number of Americans on food stamps has risen more than 50% in the last three years, to 41 million.

8) (NAR) There are 4 million homes currently listed for sale - a 12.5 month inventory.

9) (Moody's) Another 2 million homes will be seized by lenders between now and the end of 2011.

10) (Me) Boomers reaching retirement age at the rate of 4 million per year starting in 2011 will seek to downsize and simplify, adding far more high-end homes to inventory. That is, they will if they can get their damn kids to move out.

11) (Morgan Stanley) Nearly 8 million bank owned and foreclosure bound homes have yet to hit the market.

12) (Bloomberg) As of July 2010, sales of new and existing homes fell to the level on record.

13) (Me) The massive student loan debt of recent college grads, combined with limited job prospects, will prevent marriages, families and home purchases for years to come.

14) (Various) The problems in commercial real estate are far from over.

15) (Shedlock) There is little reason to hang onto an underwater home, and no reason at all to buy one right now.

16) (Me) Retiring boomers will begin to liquidate the stock that remains in their qualified plans, putting significant downward pressure on markets.

17) (Me) With younger Americans drowning in debt, the likely buyers for those stocks are furriners - Chinese and Arabs saddled with trillions of our declining dollars. Most American companies that aren't already foreign owned will be within 10 years.

18) (Me) Expect downward pressure on employment, wages, home prices, stocks and consumer spending for years - with luck a decade, much longer without.

19) (Me) Expect rising food/commodity prices and taxes during the same period.

20) (Me) There will be no recovery. Never. The burden of government debt guarantees that. You'll never again live in a period remotely resembling the last two decades of economic activity.

21) (Me) For those finding hope and change to be of low caloric value, I suggest stocking up on food, seeds, precious metals and ammo - pronto. This mess is just unfolding, and I suspect our only way out is forward through a collapse.

Letter to NSSF

Here's a letter I just fired off to NSSF president Steve Sanetti regarding the Erik Scott murder by LVPD. I'll post developments as they happen.

Dear Steve,

I am writing out of anger over the murder of Erik Scott by LVPD, and in concern that the next SHOT show is to be held in a city where such a thing could take place. If you are not familiar with this case, here are the basics:

Erik Scott was a West Point grad, an honorably discharged veteran, a Duke MBA grad and a medical service rep who made house calls to service defibrillators and pacemakers. He was shot outside a Las Vegas Costco store where he was shopping with his girlfriend. Scott was carrying concealed, with a valid permit. A Costco employee saw the gun when Scott knelt down and his jacket rode up, and set this mess in motion. LVPD cops were happy to join in, shooting Scott seven times just outside the store. Two rounds in front, one in the armpit and four in the back. No exit wounds. By the credible accounts (which do not include LVPD) Scott's gun never left the holster, nor was there ANY indication it would. He wasn't shot for anything more than the joy of shooting someone, by cops who have shot several others.

The department that killed him is the same department that issued his permit.

The shooting took place on July 10, but the inquest is just getting underway this morning. There is a massive cover-up underway, and LVPD has decided on the course of character assassination of the victim rather than accountability. This is part of a much larger problem in America - the militarization and corruption of the police - and all the bad actors in this drama know they have the full support of the Obama/Holder justice department, thanks to the undeclared but obvious federal war on gun owners.

FYI, I am 51 years old. I've been shooting since I was 11. At two times in my life I have been an NRA certified instructor, and have taught handgun classes for concealed weapon permit applicants. I am also an entrepreneur. In this economy and in our present national circumstances, I have been seriously considering starting a preparedness store and had planned to attend SHOT in 2011.

But now, I will not be coming to Las Vegas. Not for SHOT, nor for anything else. Never again. Clark county Nevada is not a safe place for gun owners.

This decision is reversible, but not without cleaning out the sewer that is the Clark County government.

The cops are shooting your industry's customers, on the sidewalks of the city where you're holding your next trade show. So, you have a role in this, whether you like it or not. If you think the "SHOT" industry is sustainable on government contracts, well, feel free to hold the show anywhere you please. But if you want to maintain the level of consumer support you presently enjoy, you will need to get the NSSF on the right side of this mess, pronto.

I've no doubt that venues for shows the size of SHOT are booked half a decade to a decade in advance. I don't expect you to move the show. But, I do expect you to let the hotels know that the cops they control (and they do control them) have gone too far, and that attendance may suffer to the point where their relationship with NSSF is in jeopardy. This situation needs to be dialed back, a lot, and the cops and the current bosses need to go. As in, to prison. Economic pressure will be more effective than moral pressure. (This is true everywhere these days, but it's particularly powerful in Las Vegas.) You can exert the same pressure on the Clark County commissioners, and I expect you to. Every correspondence should remind these clowns how much money SHOT brings to Vegas.

NSSF should address this on its website, and soon. There is a groundswell starting, and you would look good to be ahead of it rather than lagging behind. I think it would be a grand idea to set up a virtual SHOT show for people who are boycotting Las Vegas. People could browse a virtual show, presentations could be streamed live and archived, and company reps could devote a day or two to web conferences after the live show closed, with the same incentives and promotions they offered at the show. I would happily pay for access to such a thing, and just might proceed with my business idea under those circumstances. Your press release could start "Obviously, NSSF wants everyone to attend SHOT. That's what makes the show a success, and success of the show means success for the industry. But we understand that a lot of gun owners are boycotting Las Vegas in the wake of the repugnant killing of Erik Scott. We appreciate that position, and have set up a virtual SHOT show so those people can attend SHOT without patronizing Clark County, Nevada."

Under the circumstances, it's a shame that SHOT will be held in Vegas next year. By then, this is going to be a gigantic scandal. Erik Scott's dad Bill is an honest to God test pilot and an acclaimed aviation journalist, with years at Aviation Week and several published books. The LVPD thugs don't begin to grasp the connections this guy has, and is digging it's grave as you read this.

I'm sure you're aware of the rising disgust with the NRA. I hope the NSSF doesn't operate by a similar philosophy. I intend to find out, starting with this letter. It will be easy to organize a boycott of Las Vegas over this incident, and such is already underway. I'm helping with that, and, pending your response, I plan to contact every SHOT exhibitor as well. I will do everything I can to make this mess as big as possible, because this crap has to stop before America is completely lost to corruption and thuggery. I am not alone. That subset of gun owners that is highly attuned to liberty issues will be all over this long before your show opens. It is my hope that this subset of your market matters to you, but I understand the economic reality that the cops who shoot at us may represent more revenue to your manufacturers than we do, and that NSSF may be just that pragmatic. Time will tell.

My contact info:

omitted
omitted
omitted
omitted

My blog entry: http://invertebratenation.blogspot.com/2010/09/warm-blooded-murder-of-erik-scott.html

Bill Scott's blog: erikbscottmemorialblog.blogspot.com/

Thank you for your attention to this, and my apologies if the pungent nature of my words offends. Fact is, Americans have neglected the source of their liberty for a long time, and that neglect is now coming home to roost, with interest. I'm pretty angry, and expect to remain so for some time. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Regards,

omitted


UPDATE: Had a nice reply from Steve Sanetti in my e-mail tonight. Prompt. Thoughtful. Not a form letter. As of now, NSSF is verifying the info...

The Warm Blooded Murder of Erik Scott

Warm blooded murder?

Yep.

In the Las Vegas desert sun, even the reptilian cops have warm blood.

On July 10, 2010 Erik B. Scott, West Point grad, honorably discharged veteran, Duke MBA grad and medical service rep, was executed by Las Vegas police for the crime of shopping at Costco with his girlfriend. You see, Scott was in possession of a permitted concealed weapon, which permit was issued by the department that killed him.

This is part of a much larger problem in America - the militarization of the police. That militarization isn't helped by the fact that tens of thousands of departments use a version of IQ testing to deliberately hire people who are slightly BELOW average to average. Whether this is an outgrowth of affirmative action or a result of departments simply not wanting smart people looking at them from the inside, this is an intolerable practice. Then there's the fact that power corrupts, and the corollary fact that the police have far too much power these days.

I know this will anger many LEO's and .gov types, but the situation is completely out of hand. Cops have been getting away with executing people for years, aided and abetted by compliant coroners, prosecutors and judges. I would hope people's patriotism will eventually overrule their blind support of law enforcement and bring a halt to these murders.

The majority of police shootings I've studied are tainted, at best. Up till now, it has been all too easy to marginalize those they executed, and get away with the crimes. It's been obvious to anyone watching this that they would eventually screw up and kill a really good guy, and they did just that when they shot Erik Scott. He comes from an intact family. Father William Scott is an Honest to God test pilot and acclaimed aerospace journalist, with years at Aviation Week. This guy has contacts all over. Powerful contacts. He's giving them a chance to fess up to his son's murder, but sooner or later, his patience will run out.

Erik, from his bio, was an exemplary man. To reiterate: West Point grad. Honorable service. Graduate degree (Duke MBA) while working full time. The only blotch on his life was two failed marriages (not at all difficult to understand in a military man's life) and allegations of threats and violence, made during divorce proceedings by an ex, later dropped and subsequently sealed by the judge(!).

Sealed, that is, until the untouchables need to get away with his murder.

Lots of people carry guns. The ones who bother to get a permit are, by definition, the good guys. Costco apparently has a policy against carrying guns in their stores, which they don't post anywhere. (Dang. How many of us have carried into a Costco, not knowing our peril??) The Costco employee who set this mess in motion only saw Erik's gun because his jacket rode up when he bent down. He wasn't waving it around, and he wasn't acting erratically. He was SHOPPING with his girlfriend.

Did the employee ask him to leave? Don't know. We do know that Erik Scott informed the employee that he had a permit, that he was carrying legally, and that he then went back to his shopping. From there, the only thing we know for sure is that the employee called a manager.

Did the manager ask Erik to leave? Don't know. It's essentially a certainty that Scott told the manager he had a permit. We do know the manager called a security guard, who called the police. Now, I belong to Costco (did, anyway. Mine expired two weeks ago, and pending resolution of this case I have not renewed) and I know how they operate. Managers carry radios. That's how they communicate. I was in a Costco office once, too, talking with a manager about a special order. I saw where the security camera monitor sat, and it was not monitored by a live human being. In fact, there was a stack of paperwork on that chair. The security guard, wherever he was, has a radio too. It's pretty likely (obvious, actually) that the security guard who called 911 was at best acting on radio transmitted hearsay, and more likely was engaged in his own speculation (spelled L Y I N G) when he said Erik was acting erratically and that he might be on drugs. That's called false reporting, and when someone dies as a result, Costco is complicit in the death.

Is it possible that Erik Scott was asked to leave and refused? Yes. But we don't know, and Costco likely would have been trumpeting that long before now if it was true, as a CYA/PR measure. I'm guessing he wasn't asked to leave. Erik was a smart guy, and he was with his girlfriend. The only plausible response would have been for him to say "sure - I'll take my business elsewhere, and I'll leave just as soon as you refund my membership fee". That's exactly what I would have done.

Then there's the trigger happy cops. They screwed up big time on this one. They should have shot a Mexican or a black man, preferably one with a long criminal history. (And simmer down. I'm being cynical, not racist.) Anyway, how do you explain shooting a guy like Erik?

The answer is you don't explain it. You CAN'T explain it. You just don't kill West Point grads for shopping at Costco with their girlfriends. And here's where this turns truly disgusting. The cops are trying to smear Erik Scott in order to get away with it. They have managed to unseal the allegations made by his ex, and are trying to make hay of the fact that he was on painkillers, implying addiction, but conveniently ignoring the back injuries he sustained jumping out of military aircraft in service of his country.

A smart crime family, one that has gotten away with murder hundreds of times, takes their lumps when they finally get caught. Cops, though, aren't anywhere near that smart. They're untouchable, so they're smearing an outstanding man instead of fessing up. A man they killed in cold blood, entirely without cause. And, they've had plenty of time to figure out who the father is, and that he's not a man to trifle with. Yet on they go, digging their own grave...

The inquest, long delayed, will supposedly be broadcast live for the next three days on mynews3.com starting at 10 AM PST tomorrow - and it's a kangaroo court if there ever was one. The family and their counsel are not allowed to cross examine anyone, and only evidence deemed acceptable by the County marsupials will be allowed.

This isn't over, and I predict it will blow up big time. (Sure hope so.) Conservatives, who usually rationalize police violence because they support "law and order" will have a tough time swallowing this one. A really tough time. A lot of us are already choking, and the word is still spreading. And conservatives are the support base of law enforcement, at least as far as the public is concerned. Because of who the victim was, and who his father is, this case has the potential to blow the lid off this sordid aspect of police corruption nationwide, and I hope and pray it does. Killings by the police shouldn't be routinely swept under the rug in a free society, no matter what kind of people they kill. It's gone on long enough.

ETA: Eric Scott's father, William Scott, has a blog going about this. Here.

Vocabulary Word of the Day

OK, so I do one of these about six times a year. But, I've been ruminating on political correctness, which has it's origins in Marxism, so here you go: The word is Zampoliti

Zampoliti were Red Army political/cultural officers. One was assigned to (infllicted on) every unit, and was responsible for the maintenance of ideological purity. Zampoliti monitored all speech and thought, and set errant Soviets back on the straight and narrow when they drifted from unquestioning admiration of all things Commie. Can't have those conscripts poking fun at socialism, after all. Why, they might get all cynical and pretend to work or something.

Zampoliti were the thought police, and Orwell would have been proud...

Most of the time, their mere presence was all that was required to stifle independent or critical thought. However, the unit Zampolit could and did rat people out to Moscow, and ruined many a career.

This relates to modern PC in a rather sick way: Today, Zampoliti are alive, well and entirely homegrown. They're our own children. We pay dearly to have them transformed into political officers by our "educational" system. PC indoctrination begins at an early age in America, and reaches its apogee in college, with disastrous results for society. PC is censorship, censorship which works by instilling fear of the truth in people otherwise capable of apprehending it. PC prohibits the telling of many truths about our predicament. Of course, our predicament is dire, and these truths need telling.

I ran across this excellent video on the origins of PC by way of Billy Beck's blog two--four. It chronicles the entire sordid history of this form of censorship.

Watch it. Forward it. Do something to stem the tide.

Obama's Vacations

Martha's Vineyard. Chicago. Yellowstone. The Grand Canyon (do ya suppose he realized how we feel, peering into an abyss?) Send the wife to Spain. Take the family to Hawaii for 11 days.

Much is made of these vacations, which are certainly a perk of the office. All presidents do it, and the only thing that changes is which side is doing the complaining.

Enough. Far as I'm concerned, people should quit objecting and thank God the boy king only works part time.

Succeeding, Where the Soviet Union Failed

It happened gradually. Few noticed. Fewer complained. But here we are, on the cusp of totalitarianism. What's left of America is all about appearances.

The illusion of press freedom persists, but in reality the press speaks little truth, and much propaganda. The press isn't exactly controlled by the government, but the press and the government are in the same hands.

The illusion of democracy remains, too, but no recent election has offered a meaningful choice. Would things have been meaningfully different under President McCain? After all, he suspended his campaign to vote for the bailout, and campaigned for socialized medicine. Sure, there'd be a few more black Marxists stranded in academia, but what would really be different?

Then there's the facade of an independent judiciary looking out for our rights. Sure. What is the court, really, besides the mechanism by which the ruling class thwarts the public will? The court acts as a ministry of culture, imposing transformative laws like abortion, the elimination of gun rights and corporate control of vast areas of life that could never pass by an honest vote.

We have "democracy" that circumvents the will of the people, a "free" press in which only certain things are said, "education" wholly divorced from learning, a state war on religion, etc., etc., etc. We have handily demonstrated that if the masses of people have even vaguely comfortable lives, they will care about nothing else.

This vague comfort will soon be the only difference between the old USSR and the present USA. Pathetic, isn't it? But for the fact that the Soviets never quite managed the comfort part, we're damn near the same. We're succeeding, where the Soviet Union failed.

Flags

Bought a nice Gadsden flag from a Craigslist advertiser today. Noticed it's made in China. Checked, and found my US flag was made in China as well.

Apparently the only flags we still make here are the false ones.

Burning the Koran: The Sequel

Pastor Terry Jones' apparently never planned to burn any copies of the Koran. At least, that's what he says. He says the purpose of the entire stunt was to expose the dangerous aspect of Islam. In this respect, I regard his ploy as brilliant.

By way of the worldwide reaction he "facilitated" it's clear that Islam is indeed a serious threat. From the Islamic world's fury to the State Department's worldwide travel advisory, from the threats against the pastor himself to Gen. Petraeus' plea to abstain - this was brilliant all the way. For the last few days, everyone has been forced to acknowledege the violent nature of Muslims - this, even as many engaged in the conversation continued to delude themselves that there's a moderate wing of Islam to be found somewhere out there.

There isn't.

Many people cling to the gentler aspects of Islam, stated earlier in the Koran, while ignoring the Koran's clear instruction that with any contradictory aspect of the Koran, the passages found later in the text will be decisive. It's the only religious text in the world to supersede early peaceable statements with later violent ones as a matter of law.

And the matter of law is no small thing in Islam. I have written that religion and government are joint tenants in Islam, and that is precisely the case. Expanding on that analogy, I would add that government is the husband and religion is the obedient wife. It is obligatory for all Muslims to impose Sharia law - Islamic government - wherever they go. They are not to rest until it has spread worldwide. In this way, it is as expansionist a doctrine as communism, and just as brutally totalitarian.

Islamic law states unequivocally that all governments instituted by and for man must be abolished. Free speech does NOT exist, even conceptually. In fact, dissent with the Koran carries the death penalty. Obviously, freedom of religion does not exist either, nor do any of the other rights that distinguish us from slaves.

Under Sharia, homosexuals must be killed, thieves must have a hand cut off and men are to beat women. Honor killings are sanctioned, and such killings have already occurred in America.

All this spreads globally under sanctioned deceit. It is well known that the Koran sanctions lies to infidels (non Muslims) for the purpose of spreading Islam. In fact the Koran does more than sanction dishonesty - it mandates it. Thus, Muslims will stand there and lie to us for the purpose of defeating us. The fact that they lie as a matter of course is nowhere near as upsetting as the fact that so many westerners insist upon taking them at their word.

It's obvious that all Muslims must follow these tenets, or at the very least not speak out against them and act in support of those who do follow them to the letter. Philosophically, there are no moderate Muslims - Islam is a study in extremism, and it's simply not possible to follow the rules and be a moderate. When your leader and his written instructions are radical, so is your government/religion - period.

It's just as obvious that Islam is by definition at war with the entire non-Muslim world, and must remain so until our defeat or their extermination. And I didn't say this - they did!

Liberty is fragile. We've proven that here in America, without any help from Muslims. Now, they're at full throttle, assaulting our liberty right along with the best of our domestic enemies. That has led to a curious alliance between leftists and Muslims, despite the havoc Islamic law yearns to wreak on the behavior of the left. This is why I often call them Dhimmicrats.

I know that our government has long alliances with Al Qaida and other elements of Islam, and that those alliances are most unsavory. I know that our alliances are with the Sunni and that this is a big reason we are at loggerheads with Shiite Iran. It's a twisted web. And, I know that the Shia and the Sunni are at war with each other. It's on their own that I hope Iran uses their nascent nukes, and, who knows - they may oblige me. Regardless, the 1350 year track record of Islam supersedes those alliances and conflicts, and demands that we take Islam seriously as a threat in and of itself.

It strikes me that the rules of epidemiology should be applied to Islam. Wherever Islam takes root, the result is the same. They demand to be exempted from the law of the land, and to impose Sharia. Muslims multiply rapidly and recruit rabidly. (They have the shortest generational cycle on earth and they recruit at gunpoint.) Since it spreads virally, the appropriate response is to quarantine and disinfect, and all should take heed that antibiotics are useless against a virus once it has taken hold. The key is obviously prevention.

It is in no way an affront to our religious freedom to disallow the practice of Islam in America. In fact, a ban on Islam is the ONLY means of assuring that our First Amendment rights survive. It's a simple equation: they are free to practice their exclusive, all conquering, death dealing totalitarian "religion" elsewhere, so long as they leave us alone, and we remain free to practice our relatively benign melange of religions here.

Or we can surrender and convert.

Or we can kill them before they kill us, which is what it may come to anyway.

I don't see any other choices.

Anyone else have a feeling of "suspended animation"???

The still fall air brings not merely a portent of seasonal change, but of unease - of something ominous looming around the corner. I can't shake it, yet there's no movement - like that cartoon where you've stepped off the cliff but gravity hasn't kicked in yet.

The election looms, but with the suspicion that the Republican version of hope and change won't be much different than the one we're already living. And in a way, I dread the confirmation of that thesis even more than I dread the status quo. If I'm right, that's one more door closed behind us, and no new door open in front. So, the days crawl...

Work is strange, as customers and suppliers both seem to be waiting for some defining event that tells them what to do next. The seasonal aspect of my business should be picking up, but much seems to be on hold. So we go through the motions.

I expect a false flag event any day, but nothing, thankfully, has happened yet.

When I read a book, it's prep stuff or doomer fiction. It's what's relevant. We go to dinner at a non-prepper friends house, expecting a break from it all, and now they're worried. They repeatedly steer the conversation to preps. I gave them simple ways to start, and they actually wrote them down. I'm sure that's why we were invited.

I look at the financial news, but with a dark fascination - expecting to see the Dow plummet, or that Greece or California has imploded. Inflation is rearing it's head, particularly in food and household goods. Recent talk of more stimulus puts paid to all Washington's hot air about a recovery. It wouldn't surprise me at all to wake up, turn on the 'puter and find that the Arabs will only sell oil for gold from now on. Yet, here, too, a relative stasis.

So here I sit. It's right in front of me, yet it's strangely remote - like watching a movie of people waiting for the bad news, news that everyone knows is coming, but which never arrives.

Do you feel like you're just going through the motions, just waiting for the other shoe to drop?

Burning the Koran

No doubt all have heard of the little book burning scheduled for next Saturday, September 11th. Of course, at the heart of this is the pastor of a little church seeking his 15 minutes, which have been granted. One hopes he'll not be killed for his grandstanding.

What interests me most, though, is the reaction of the Islamists, who are hard at work revealing themselves for what they really are. I wish them Godspeed in this endeavor.