After a couple of years without fluoride, I went back to it. Not so much went back to it, but got lazy. So lazy I stopped buying water in whatever container, just drank the tainted swill out of the government's pipe.
Now, though... the last of the fluoride ice cubes are gone... and the pure, safe, wonderful water is back in the fridge... Yes... no more of that government fluoridated water for me.
I can't believe it took this long to get back.
Predictions... I shouldn't make predictions. They come back to haunt me, generally.
In a lot of ways, it will be very-very-good if this one turns out to be complete bull.
First, a story. Back last winter sometime, I was on a trip with one of the salesdudes from work. Somehow or other we got to talking economics, and of course, I got into the full doom and gloom mode, perhaps with a few conspiracy theories thrown in.
D: "Wow, that's pretty grim. Any kind of a timeline on this?"
C: "I hate to try to predict something like that... not much of a clue."
D: "general idea?"
C: "Next summer. August-ish."
D: "that soon?"
Well, it seems to me that we're in the midst of a soft crisis in the dollar and the economy in general, and at this point, I've decided to record a bit of this.
I have to plant the beginning of this -- or at least the first manifestations of it -- as Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans. I don't think many have realized how much trade was disrupted or stopped, and how important that really is.
That was the end of August; the numbers based on it started showing in the end of September, but even then, the inflation numbers from the summer were pretty damn high already.
Inflation... ick.
Things improved for a bit. The dollar got to be quite a bit higher; I missed it somehow. I bet there was some extra fed credit creation; that's the one trick that the fed knows. Extra credit, extra money, raise interest rates, but still create new money.
As of now, the dollar chart shows quite the drop today.
The dow has been down... what, 3 days in a row? The tinfoilhat side of me thinks the plunge protection teeam must have been the only thing stopping the dow from dropping 100 today (only down 33 or so, and it was down 100 this afternoon.)
And from the technical side, (I don't put a lot of stock in analysis like this, but it may have some good points -- like lots of new highs and lows in stocks at the same time being an indication that something isn't healthy,) there has been talk of a Hindenburg Omen.
In general, the number of things that could really cause a dollar/economic collapse seems to be getting higher, and I'd just like to make a note of two of them at the moment.
1) Foreign countries/central banks get rid of their dollars.
2) OPEC starts stops selling oil in dollars.
I hope I'm proven to be a chicken little.
From the national archives.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Now, I'm not so sure on this whole 14th amendment thing, but myself, I find it very interesting that it includes the sentence "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."
For some reason, that just doesn't sit well with me. Seems odd that we need a constitutional amendment to say we can't question the validity of the debt. You got it, though.
There is nothing wrong with the public debt of the United States.
Glancing through some articles over at Lew Rockwell (I really need to start linking to other sites), I stumbled upon this wonderful article.
So many people, myself included, take it for granted that the rule of law is just. We believe that if the law says one thing, well, damnit, that's what will be done. Most of us have at least a few laws we don't like or disagree with, but we figure that if the government follows those laws the same as we do, it'll be okay.
And then you stumble on something like this article.
Martha Stewart’s indictment by U.S. attorney James B. Comey is another example of crimes invented by prosecutors. Stewart is not charged with felony "insider trading," but with felony obstruction of justice for allegedly trying to cover up evidence that might be construed as insider trading (if a person without a fiduciary relationship with the firm, ImClone, whose stock she sold can be guilty of insider trading). How can a person be indicted for covering up a crime for which one is not accused?
I mean, really, does this make any sense within the rule of law? Roberts goes into the legal principles behind most of these changes that we have seen, I'll just note that it's not Just.
This all makes me think of some of the various groups that I consider kindred -- the gold-fringe flag folks, the tax evaders who believe that if they speak the right magic words in front of the judge, they'll either be let go without a bill, or prove that the rule of law is gone. Guess which outcome comes up more?
As long as the laws still rule, it's okay. As long as the government is still following the laws, and not laying out trumped up charged in hopes of getting a plea bargain, we're still alright, right?
The common man has a hero in Eliot Spitzer, right?