Ireland’s unfolding crisis may be followed soon by Portugal, and then Spain and Italy. That many sovereign debt failures would spell the end of the Euro. If the Euro collapses it might cause a temporary jump in the value of the US Dollar, and a corresponding drop in precious metals (at least in Dollar terms.) That dip may be the last chance to buy silver before it vaults into $50+ territory.

Robert Rubin: “US In Terribly Dangerous Territory,” Bond Market May Be Headed For “Implosion”

Meredith Whitney sees 5,000 bank branches closing

How Max Keiser Was Betrayed by Ellen Brown

Bob Chapman on Gold, Silver, Economy and More

Pay Cuts Aren’t Enough: Time to Lay-off Federal Workers

Gloom, Anger Spread as European Economics Teeter

Consumers Spend and Earn More, Layoffs Slow

Record-High Turkey Prices Are Just the Beginning. “Currently, wholesale prices are hovering around $1.09 per pound, the highest they’ve ever reached. This represents a 28% increase over 2009’s prices and a 37% increase over 2008’s.

The BHO Administration still claims that inflation is low. Yeah, right. The 2010 list price shows that a standard blue steel Colt M1911 .45 automatic is now $919. (Or $950 for stainless steel.) I can only wonder what the 2011 prices will be. Certainly not lower. For comparison, in the early 1960s a standard blue steel Colt M1911 sold for around $60. But by the early 1990s they had jumped to around $375. Here is a thought: If I just liquidate three of my 1/4-ounce American Eagle gold coins… Here is the math: They cost me $95 each in 2001. ($285 for the three coins.) I can now sell them for $337.50 each. Selling those three coins will put $1,012.50 cash (or a Colt .45) in my pocket. So I shouldn’t so much be concerned that a Colt pistol that has gone up. Rather, it is the dollar that has gone down.

Dr. F.J.D. sent: Consumer Prices For Hospital Services Increased. Modern Healthcare reported, “Consumer prices for hospital services increased 0.7% in October after rising 1.8% the prior month, according to seasonally adjusted figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.” Conversely, “consumer prices for physician services dropped 0.1% last month after a 0.4% increase in September.”

Reader “Sam’s Mom” notes: “For the past few years I’ve bought boxes of 24 StarterLogg fire starters for use in our wood stove. Over time the price has increased from about $7 to $10 at the end of last winter. Yesterday I was surprised to see the price at Wal-Mart for the 24-count box is still $10, but when I picked up a box I realized it was smaller than before. At home, I compared it with boxes from last year and found the older boxes were 9.75 pounds; the new box (with identical packaging) was 6.83 pounds. I’m considering instead using Dollar bills to start fires. Thank you for a life-changing blog.”

“Greece will certainly default on its debts, and it is an open question whether Greece will experience some form of revolution or coup – I’d put the likelihood of that over the next five years as around one in four.” – Andrew Lilico, chief economist, Policy Exchange. (Quoted in June, 2010.)

11/26/10

We Still Hold These Truths

Hat Tip: Brian B.

In a world of moral confusion, and of arbitrary and unlimited government, America’s founding principles are our best access to permanent truths and the best ground from which to question the current direction of our nation. Join Matt Spalding, author of We Still Hold These Truths and an authority on American political thought and religious liberty at The Heritage Foundation, as he highlights some everyday Americans on a journey to reclaim our future.

11/26/10

TSA – Moving On to Third Base Version – Part VIII

Hat Tips: Brian B.

TSA Groping and Obama’s Black Revenge Narrative

Body Scanner Operator Caught Masturbating at Colorado Airport

Doctors sound TSA germ alert

The TSA and Our T-’n-A

REPORT: TSA agent accused of rape had criminal record – Harassment and stalking not disqualifying offenses for TSA employment

Sanitary Towel Prompts TSA To Grope

Funny? TSA Tweets About Airport Security

11/26/10

“The Collapse Of Communism: The Untold Story”

By: Trevor Loudon
New Zeal

Here is the trailer for the as yet unreleased film by Czech/American producer Robert Buchar.

The film features interviews with former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, former Czech dissident and prominent political activist Petr Cibulka, KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky, former senior Romanian intelligence official Ion Mihai Pacepa, author Edward Jay Epstein, current US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, prominent academic Angelo Codevilla, Washington Times journalist Bill Gertz, analyst Jeff Nyquist and former deputy head of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Soviet Bloc Division, Tennent Bagley.

According to Buchar:

Our witnesses testify that what appeared to be a spontaneous freedom movement in 1989 was in fact a coup d’état orchestrated from Moscow — in offices of the Russian KGB…

People will simply believe what they wish to believe. More people indulge their own ideas of the world rather than deal with its realities…

I realized that the collapse of the communism in Europe is one of the most incredible stories of the century and the public should know what really happened…

I collected an unprecedented body of interviews that, when edited together, paints the big picture of what really happened…

From Buchar’s website:

The Collapse of Communism: The Untold Story is a feature length documentary film currently in post production.

The great political upheaval of the late 20th century — the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union — is now generally regarded as the spontaneous product of long-accumulating social and economic pressures. The political confusion and economic disarray that followed is seen as nothing more than a passing phase in an inevitable march toward a more perfect democracy.

During the final phase of the Cold War the Soviet Union, under its dogmatic and visibly senile party bosses, was sinking into near-bankruptcy. Yuri Andropov, Chairman of the KGB, the only organization with both a full knowledge of the state of the economy and a mastery of strategic decisions, came to the conclusion that there was no cure for the grave illness of the communist system. To preserve the wealth that threatened to slip out of the leaders hands, he masterminded a nearly unthinkable program, throwing into the fire Moscow’s rule over the Eastern European bloc, and, as it turned out, the ruling party of the USSR itself. Though Andropov died in 1984, the signs of his hand in the events that followed remain visible, as well as the role of his handpicked successor Mikhail Gorbachev. Our witnesses testify that what appeared to be a spontaneous freedom movement in 1989 was in fact a coup d’etat orchestrated from Moscow, in offices of the Russian KGB.

Perhaps for the first time in known history, we have walked through a revolution without realizing who are the real winners and losers.

The consequences are far reaching and people in the West seem to have a short memory. It’s clear today that development in Russia didn’t go the way the West anticipated. Russia became the perfect KGB state. 80% of government officials are former or active KGB officers, including President Vladimir Putin himself. The objective of the Soviet regime was to overthrow the United States as the world’s leading power. The Soviet KGB fathered state sponsored terrorism. The PLO was dreamt up by KGB. In the 1960s a new element was added to the Soviet/PLO war, international terrorism. Today’s international terrorism was conceived at the Lubyanka.

As Yuri Andropov once explained to Ion Pacepa, the Muslim world was a Petri dish in which the Russians might nurture a virulent strain of America-hatred from the bacterium of Marxist-Leninist thought. KGB General Alexander Sakharovsky once said to Pacepa: “In today’s world, when nuclear arms have made military force obsolete, terrorism should become our main weapon.” Americans and Europeans no longer remember the past and don’t realize that history is now repeating itself. No effective counter-strategy is likely to emerge from Washington because a regime predicated on economic optimism cannot accept the negative implications of ongoing Russian enmity. People will simply believe what they wish to believe. More people indulge their own ideas of the world rather than deal with its realities.

Hat Tip: Spirit of Truth

Whether the collapse of communism was planned in the 1950s, or in the 1980s, there is overwhelming evidence that the scenario was largely faked by East Bloc intelligence services.

What does it mean for the West, that the enemy most of us thought was dead, was instead secretly consolidating its power, in preparation for a decisive assault?