Happy Birthday To Me

I made it another year.

Damn Right I'm Angry, Mark Potok

However, I think you may have your head so far up Barak Obama's ass that you can't see straight, much less begin to understand the reasons that I and so many others are angry. I heard you on Laura Ingraham's show earlier in the week, and your arguments were so weak and ridiculous that I had to pull off the road until I was able to stop laughing and wipe the tears from my eyes. When Laura Ingraham asked you to cite specific instances of Tea Party activists and of talk-show hosts inciting hatred and violence, the best you could come up with was Michelle Bachmann, a politician, saying the government is (and I paraphrase) a thuggish criminal enterprise. Well, Mark Potok, she is right.

Where were you, Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, when President George W. Bush was compared to Hitler, when a movie was made about his "assasination", and when scores of insanely left-wing protesters were foaming at the mouth and inciting violence against Bush? By the way, where have you been regarding Islamic terrorism? That is an institutionalized hatred of everything non-Muslim that dwarfs all of your home-grown "threats" combined.

Just so you know, Mark Potok, millions of Americans are angry with the government and it has nothing to do with the color of Barak Obama's skin. Barak Obama could be orange-skinned with purple hair and he would probably still be a left-wing Chicago politician with ideas as stale as the air in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's coffin. The left is bereft of any new ideas and keeps pushing its ancient statist agenda. When productive citizens such as myself are squeezed by the government, the left can be reliably counted on to demonize anyone (left, right, up, down, independent, etc.) who protests the Marxist agenda. The left even has stooges like you, Mark Potok, to publish reports demonizing American citizens who are guilty of nothing more than expressing constitutionally protected dissent. Stooges like you, Mark Potok, report your secret findings to other stooges, such as Janet Incompetento Napolitano, who sometimes are able to make the findings look legitimate with a shiny government seal and cover page.

I know, Mark Potok, that left-wing kooks have extremely short memories. It's a symptom of the mental illness of moonbattery. You probably don't remember this quote from almost-Chicago politician Hillary Rodham Clinton, "I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration." As a Christian, Mark Potok, I believe in forgiveness and I do forgive you for forgetting that disagreeing with the Obama administration is, in fact, patriotic.

Here are some things on which I disagree with Obama and that I am angry about:

--Said he would not raise taxes on those making under $250,000.00 a year, which was a lie. Twice raised tobacco taxes in the past fourteen months, and his Obamacare contains taxes and fines. All of these affect people who make under $250,000.00 per year.

--Obamacare. We don't need it, a majority don't want it, and we can't afford it.

--Government deficit spending and national debt. Obama is beyond Keynesian. This is just Marxist fantasy being played out in real life. Bush was bad enough for allowing deficit spending and growth of the national debt. Obama is insanely spending us into hyperinflation and bankruptcy.

--Has no effective strategy of his own for ending our military involvement in two wars after criticizing the Bush administration as a cheap ploy to get elected.

--Is ignoring the Iranian nuclear threat while abandoning Israel. I'm not Jewish, but I am a defender of Israel. Obama screwed this one up big time, and we will pay for it. Even Ed Koch agrees with me on this one.

--Is supporting Saudi Arabia becoming a nuclear state as a Sunni counter to Shiite Iran. Partially explains his hostility to Israel. Does Obama recall what happened to his spiritual predecessor, Jimmy "Dhimmi" Carter when the last Islamic Revolution took place on his watch. At least Iran did not have nukes in 1979.

--Is planning to use "financial services reform" as a political ploy to make people forget Obamacare. While financial service regulation could use some tinkering, Obama should start with reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but won't because they are too politically sensitive for him to mess with. Besides, he might have to have a romantic dinner with Barney Frank to get anything done.

--Regarding "financial services reform", don't even get me started on the Obama administrations connection with and infiltration by the big financial firms. Lawrence "Did I really tell Bill Clinton to repeal Glass-Steagall" Summers, Timothy "Turbo Tax Cheat" Geithner, and Ben "Printing Press" Bernanke are only a few that come to mind. They are part of the problem and should be fired.

--Unemployment. It's high and I believe it is headed higher. Obama has shown that the only kind of jobs he can create are government jobs. These government jobs produce nothing and are a net drain on a struggling economy.

--Has absolutely no plan for increasing domestic energy sources. Does not support increasing domestic production of oil, gas, coal-fired power plants, nuclear power plants, or anything else that will provide energy for less than $100.00 per kilowatt hour.

--Plans to tax the hell out of domestic energy usage through this "Cap and Trade" nonsense. Get ready for everything to get more expensive. Obama himself told us to get ready for our electric bills to skyrocket.

--Plans to increase his voter base by granting citizenship to millions of illegal aliens. My ancestors had to apply for entry to this country; so should everyone else. My take is that the Chicago political machine exhausted all the cemetaries of voters and got tired of driving the lunatics to the polls, so they decided to create new voters out of illegal aliens.

And there are so many reasons that I have run out of time for listing them. Let me just give you a quote from British Commentator Gerald Warner, who wrote, "Watch out, France and Co, there is a new surrender monkey on the block and, over the next four years, he will spectacularly sell out the interests of the West with every kind of liberal-delusionist initiative on nuclear disarmament and sitting down to negotiate with any power freak who wants to buy time to get a good ICBM fix on San Francisco, or wherever. If you thought the world was a tad unsafe with Dubya around, just wait until President Pantywaist gets into his stride." How true.

Oh, and Mark Potok, if you happen to run into Abe Foxman of the Anti Defamation League will you tell him that he has been promoted to the rank of Oberfuhrer? Reichsfuhrer Janet Napolitano is grateful for the ADL urging the government to have a major law enforcement operation against opponents of Obamacare. Link. Soon he will be a Gruppenfuhrer just like you. Kinda makes you proud, doesn't it?

Good Deal on 9mm Ammo

My favorite 9mm round is the Federal 9BP 115g JHP. An oldie but goody, so to speak. Not a +P round, but I don't like +P because it is too hard on the smaller nine pistols and has more recoil than my regular practice rounds. The 9BP will feed in just about any nine, has a history of decent "stopping power", and has little muzzle flash.

For a while there I thought that I was not going to be buying Federal ammo anymore. This was a personal choice due to their dirty dealings over scrapping once-fired military brass. Apparently the parent company, ATK, has changed their ways recently.

Anyway, Cheaper than Dirt has 50 round boxes of 9BP for $19.59 a box. Twenty round boxes retail for the same price where I live, when they are available. The CTD price, from what I can tell, can't be beat. As of this writing, it is in stock, item number AMM-4061.

Volcanoes and Preparedness

I was listening to the radio on my way to work this morning when I heard a news item about the Iceland volcano eruption. By now it should be news to no one that air travel between most of Europe and the rest of the world has been nonexistent for five days now due to the ash cloud from the volcano. Jet airliners cannot fly through ash clouds. The abrasive ash ruins jet engines.

This in itself is not unusual. Some years ago I had to sit around the SeaTac airport because flights to Anchorage, Alaska were postponed due to ash clouds from one of the volcanoes around Anchorage. Nothing major, just a couple of days delay. I don't recall shipment of crucial supplies to Alaska being interrupted.

The news today, the airport at Madrid, Spain was mentioned as having become the major air hub for traffic into Europe. What caught my attention was that the inability to land airplanes in most of Europe was causing a shortage of medications and medical supplies. These medications and medical supplies were arriving in Madrid and being trucked into other parts of Europe.

This raises two questions in my mind. One, how dependent are we on foreign suppliers for vital items such as medications and medical supplies? Two, do we have sufficient domestic inventory of vital items to last more than five days?

I am astounded that Europe is facing a shortage of medical supplies after only five days without air transport. If the United States functions anything like Europe, what shape are we in to weather any kind of disaster, whether natural or man made?

This reminds me that prepping is not just for TEOTWAWKI.

This Could be a Good Year

If we have elections this fall.

Former President and Cumspotter-in-Chief Bill Clinton has come out against groups standing up for Constitutional government. Clinton refers to them as "Hatriot" groups. Read it here. Of course, Clinton, like most lawyers turned politicians, could not be mistaken for a Constitutional scholar.

I think this bodes well for the anti-Democrat movement in the upcoming election. Historically, Bill Clinton has rarely, if ever, boosted a Democrat to victory. Just about every time 'ole Bill has been trotted out to rescue some Democrat in trouble, the Democrat has lost. I believe that this November will have more of the same. The Democratic Party should pay Clinton overtime to stump for as many of their ilk as humanly possible.

Other good news is the poll from the New York Times and CBS News, two bastions of liberal idiocy and Obamania. The poll reports that 52% of the public believes that Obama is moving us towards socialism. That is great in itself, as it shows that some Kool-Aid drinkers must be coming around. More interesting is the finding that 92% of Tea Party people agree with that 52% of the population, that the Tea Party members oppose Obama on policy principles, and that Tea Party members are wealthier, better educated, and more likely to vote. 97% are registered to vote.

What is most interesting about the poll is that the polltakers had to reduce consideration of Tea Party backers, because there was an "oversampling" of Tea Partiers in the telephone polling. The pollsters believed they had reached an artificially high number of Tea Partiers, and reduced their numbers and influence upon the results of the poll. I would expect this from liberal pollsters, I am only surprised that they admitted to doing it. The pollsters in all likelihood had a fair sampling, and the number of Tea Party supporters is likely higher than the pollsters reported.

This would mean: More than 52% believe Obama is taking us to socialism. More than 52% would prefer a smaller, less intrusive federal government to a larger one. More than 50% think that Obama has expanded government too much in trying to deal with the recession. More than 51% believe the economy would have improved without the bailouts. None of this is good news for Obama's minions running for re-election.

The Obocrats are in deep doo-doo. This could be a good year.

Preparing for Trouble in River City

Spokane Police held their riot training exercises today at Joe Albi Stadium. Spokane, which is a medium sized city considered to be a backwater by the elites who reside on the West side of the state, has the state's only police riot school. The Spokane police riot squad regularly attend large public events, although there has been no riot in the area since the Washington State University riots in 1998, and that happened in Whitman County, not in the River City or in Spokane County. What are they preparing for?

Read about it here. The story seems to imply that there have been no riots in Spokane since 1998 because of the riot squad (actually there haven't been any riots in Spokane in all of the years I have lived here). This makes as much sense as my claim that no elephants have invaded Spokane because I carry a lucky rabbit's foot.

Incidentally, Spokane has arguably the least corrupt police chief in the twenty years I have lived here. The Spokane Police Guild (the union) has recently voted "no confidence" in Chief Kirkpatrick, appearing to be largely based upon her discipline of misbehaving and rogue officers, who should be taken off the streets in the interest of public safety. Story here.

With the riot squad and a Region 10 FEMA camp at the old Farragut Naval Station at nearby Lake Pend Oreille, I wonder what the heck is going on here. I sense that we soon shall find out.

Fiction, Part 1

We met at the intersection of two county roads in the middle of the prairie. I was going east. He was going south. It was just happenstance that we met the way we did, as the wheat field to the north side of the road concealed him from me, and me from him, until we were each within a hundred feet of where the roads met.

I must have been weary from my journey not to be looking out for strangers as I approached that crossroads. My rifle was slung and my eyes were aimed directly in front of me. Then, from the edge of my field of view I noticed movement. I could feel my stomach tighten up in fear as I stopped in my tracks and looked up to see a man standing in the road on the north side of the intersection. From the expression on his face, he was as surprised as I was.

He looked to be about fifty years old, with torn, dirty clothes and a pack on his back. In the days before the world changed he might have been called a hobo, except for the slung lever-action rifle and the pistol on his hip.

“Hello there!”, I yelled, “I’m not hostile! Just crossing the road on my way east!”

“Keep your rifle slung!” he yelled back, “And keep on moving on down the road!”

“I’d rather meet you in the middle of the road, then we can each go our own way,” I said, not wanting him being able to shoot me once I had crossed the road. I’d had a bad experience back in Spokane when I had accepted the “courtesy” of a man who had insisted that I go first. Lucky for me that he missed. His luck ran out when I turned and drew my pistol. I didn’t miss.

“Alright, then,” said the stranger, “We’ll meet in the middle.”

We both walked slowly into the middle of the intersection, eyes on each other and hands straight down at our sides. Neither of us wanted the other to think that a threatening move was imminent. We stood there, face to face, sizing each other up for what felt like hours. In reality only a few seconds had passed.

Sensing that if this stranger had wanted to harm me he would have made a move by now, I stuck my hand out while cracking a half smile, and said, “Name’s Pete. What brings you this way?”

The stranger grasped my hand like a drowning man grasps a rope, and said, “Bill. Headed south. Can’t take another winter ‘round here the way things are now.”

The way things are now. That is why I am headed east. Well, that and some unfinished business.

Bill and I stopped looking straight at each other, and he let go of my hand. I could see Bill had become less tense, probably glad to encounter a human being who meant him no harm. I have to admit that I was happy to have human contact myself, as I had been on the road for weeks having seen few people. Those I had seen either shied away or made it clear they wanted no contact.

“Headed any particular place?” I asked, trying to keep the conversation going a bit longer. It had been a while since I had actually talked to anybody, and I wasn’t ready to move on yet. Someone once said that conversation was a lost art; these days it was just lost.

“Not really,” he said, “I just figured I’d go south until I found some place I wanted to stay. Right now I’m more interested in finding some water than anything else. You wouldn’t have any you could spare, would you?”

“Not much. I’ve got half a canteen left and I was hoping to find someplace to refill my water bottles. I figure that somewhere along this road there’s a farmhouse that’ll have a well or a pond. Maybe up over the next rise,” I said, as I raised my hand and pointed east down the road I was traveling.

Bill turned to look to the east. Since it was still morning, he put his hand up to shield his eyes and looked down the road. “Well, it seems as good an idea as any. You mind having company? Two might be better than one.”

“Not at all,” I said. Then we began trudging east in search of water.

* * * * *

The sun was beating down on us from high in the sky as we reached the top of the rise. Although I had a wristwatch, I seldom looked at it anymore. All I need to know now are night and day, and when each is beginning and ending.

About a mile or so off in the distance I could see a line of tall trees originally planted to provide some shelter from the frequent windstorms. A windbreak meant a farm, a farm meant a house, and a house meant a well. There would be water, if we could get to it.

Bill and I had stopped in the road to gaze at the windbreak and to scan for signs of the farm beyond it. I let my pack slip from one shoulder so I could get my binoculars from the side pocket. Looking down the road at the farm, I could make out the outlines of a house and an equipment barn behind the windbreak. I could see no signs of life, but that was not unusual these days. No one who intended to continue living would casually flaunt his existence. We would have to find out if anyone was alive at the farm.

We talked about how we would approach the house, and decided that the best approach would be to continue walking down the road, then to holler to the house to see if anyone answered. It did not seem to make much sense to us to attempt to sneak up on the house, as anyone in a second story window or the upper level of the equipment barn could see us over a mile away. We had no evil intentions, only to ask for water, so we figured that an open approach matched our intentions.

We agreed that we would keep an eye out for signs of mutant zombie bikers, a turn of phrase I had read in some post-apocalyptic fiction. Not really mutants or zombies, but a colorful description of the bad guys who always seem to find each other and make life miserable for survivors. At the first sign of MZBs, we would get off the road and find a hiding place to observe the farm and decide what to do next. Bill pulled out his own pair of well-worn binoculars, put the strap over his head, and let hang down from his neck. We were ready to keep moving.

As we approached the farm we would stop here and there to get a better look at the house and the yard around it. By the time we reached the edge of the yard, neither of us had seen any sign of life at the farm. The grass in the yard looked like it had not been mowed in over a month, debris had blown up against the side of the house and equipment barn, and weeds were growing knee-high in front of the man-door and overhead doors to the pole barn. There were no vehicles of any kind visible anywhere on the property. Looking through binoculars at the dirt driveway which ran some hundred yards from the road to the house and the barn, I saw no sign of tire tracks.

I looked at Bill to gauge his reaction. Seeing nothing which would change our plan, I turned to face the house and yelled, “Hello the house!”. No answer.

Bill said, “Give it a minute and yell again. If there’s someone in there, give ‘em a reasonable chance to get where they wanna be.” He put his binoculars up to his eyes and started scanning the house and barn.

I cupped my hands around my mouth to shout at the house again, “Hello the...”, which was all I managed to get out before I was shoved from the side and fell onto the road with Bill nearly on top of me. At the same time I heard five or six shots in rapid succession coming from the farmhouse. I started to yell, “What the hell?”, but thought better of it as I looked over at Bill and saw he had his index finger up to his lips.

“Quiet,” he whispered, “He may think he hit us. Start inching backwards to the ditch on the far side of the road.”

Not having a better plan, I did as Bill suggested. A couple of minutes later we were crouching in the ditch. Bill had his own pair of binoculars up and was searching the house. “I saw a rifle poke out of the upstairs window. That’s why I pushed you down. From the sound of it, probably was only a twenty-two.”

While Bill continued to peer through the tall grass with his binoculars from the safety of the ditch, I unslung my rifle, made sure I had a round chambered, and lay prone waiting for some sign of activity from the house. We didn’t have to wait long.

“The front door is opening,” said Bill, “It looks like someone is coming out.”

I could see the slim figure of a human being next to the doorframe of the house. Then it retreated and the door closed. I looked at Bill, but he continued watching the house, then scanning each side of the house and the pole barn. After a few minutes I could tell that Bill had a fix on something at the west end of the house.

“Looks like he’s trying to sneak into the field,” Bill whispered. I looked to the corner of the house, and sure enough, I could see a head poke out and look toward the road, then withdraw behind the house.

A few minutes later the figure dashed into the adjacent field and disappeared.

“I think he’s trying to cross over and come up behind us,” I said to Bill.

“Yeah, I think you’re right. Can you crawl back into this field to get behind him? I think he will try to come up behind the ditch. I’ll wait and watch to see if he crosses the road.”

“I can do that,” I said, “Whoever gets the draw on him first, yell out, then wait for the other. Okay?”

“Okay.”

I slowly took off my pack, turned, and belly-crawled with my rifle in my hand through the wheat field behind us. After I had crawled about fifty yards back from where Bill was still laying against the side of the ditch and watching the road, I sat down and lifted up my binoculars and scanned the area between me and the ditch. Nothing, yet.

For the next half hour or so I kept scanning the field behind Bill, still seeing no movement.

“Hold it right there! Put the gun down, put your hands up, and come up on the road!” I heard Bill yell. I turned with the binoculars to look down at the road near Bill, then directly across the road from him. I could see a pair of hands appear in the air, partially obscured by the grass growing at the side of the road.

I started walking, toward Bill, hunched over to keep my profile low. As I approached Bill’s location I could see the hands slowly move higher as the person made his way up the side of the ditch to the road. A few times the hands dipped as the person lost footing for a moment, but before long a thin figure in a dirty t-shirt and jeans appeared from the ditch and stood at the side of the road.

“My God,” Bill exclaimed, “It’s just a boy!”

* * * * *

Still Made In America

MSNBC has a fascinating page at its website, "Still Made In America". There is some surprising information there about products still made in America by Americans, products made in America by non-American companies, and products which were once made in America but no longer are.

Take the quiz "Are these brands American?" I did not do well, but the quiz does not give complete answers, either.

Quote of the Day

"Obama has made it crystal clear for even the most avidly self-duping progressive: He will murder his fellow citizens without trial or evidence if he sees fit. The state can murder whom it pleases. This is the system we have. This is what you support when you support Barack Obama.... If you support Obama now, in this, then there is no crime he can commit that you will not support. And thus you become one of those people that we all used to puzzle over, the accomodationists to brutal tyranny: `How did all those people go along with the Nazis? Why wasn't there more opposition to Stalin? How could they countenance all those obvious abominations? What kind of people were they?' Now you know. They were you. You are them."

Chris Floyd, in "The Accomodationists: Memo to Liberals on the White House Death Warrants".

My comment: This is a deadly important issue. If Obama can order the murder of an American citizen overseas, no matter how odious the character of that citizen, what is to stop him from murdering citizens here in the USA?

Quote of the Day

"I do pack, and I will not blink when I'm confronted. ... It's not a threat, it's a guarantee."

Charles Alan Wilson, 63, in a telephone conversation with and initiated by a government agent seeking to entrap him for supposedly threatening Senator Patty "Bonehead" Murray, D-People's Republic of Washington, over her support for Obamacare.

Read the Newsmax article, "Man Charged with Threatening Senator Murray." Nothing I read in the article constitutes a crime. Many Washington residents share Mr. Wilson's feelings.

Note that the article mentions, "Wilson has a .38-caliber revolver registered to him and has a concealed weapons permit, Woodbury wrote." Woodbury is one of the FBI agents. The mention of Mr. Wilson's revolver is very interesting, as Washington's concealed carry permits are not specific to any weapon nor is there any procedure to register a weapon to a permit. Nothing suggests that Mr. Wilson attempted to use his revolver in any crime, so I wonder if TPTB are violating the Tiahrt amendment, which prohibits accessing gun trace data except for weapons used in a crime.

Of course, this is all occurring in the same state where uncooperative drunk drivers are summarily executed by the police. Read that here.

More on Tangible Gold

New article by Nathan Lewis at Huffington Post about the paper gold trade. Read all the way through to see the dangers of dealing in paper gold. Again, do not buy precious metals unless you can physically possess them.

EyeWitless News: Obama to Favor Newly Designed Conventional Weapons over Nukes

The Obama administration has negotiated a new arms reduction treaty with Russia that would reduce America's stockpile of nuclear weapons, and has radically changed the decades-old American policy regarding the use of nuclear weapons.

Obama has pledged that the United States will not defend itself with nuclear weapons when attacked by conventional, biological, or chemical weapons. In changing U.S. policy, Obama has revealed America's latest and perhaps most effective technology in deterring America's enemies from attacking.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is at the forefront of deploying the new technology, which the administration claims will create millions of new jobs as workers across the United States go to work revamping missles, aircraft, and other delivery systems formerly dedicated to carrying nuclear payloads. Gates has even disclosed that significant numbers of the unemployed will be able to work at home assembling the electronic components necessary for the new weapons system.

Gates revealed that the new weapons system will consist of former nuclear warhead delivery systems loaded with mp3 players containing speeches by President Obama, Senator Harry Reid, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and Representative Barney Frank, D-MA. Gates stated that in the event of an imminent attack on the United States, the delivery systems will be used to launch millions of the mp3 players to be dropped over hostile territory.

The administration believes that after listening to the contents of the mp3 players, those planning attacks on the United States will realize that there is nothing left in the United States worth fighting for. Those hostile parties not convinced by the content of the speeches are expected to expire from asphyxiation after rolling around on the ground in convulsive fits of laughter.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was quoted as angrily demanding that the United States immediately cease plans for the new weapons system, as cruelty towards a civilian population is banned by the Geneva Convention. Lavrov further responded by threatening to retaliate by sending Backfire bombers loaded with borscht to cover the United States.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responded to Lavrov's comments by threatening to send former president Jimmy Carter to Moscow to monitor Russian elections.


And that's it for the faux news

Tangibles Should be Things You Can Touch

This post is inspired by all the advertising and discussion I have been reading over the past year or so about owning precious metals. There is a lot of information out there urging us to invest in precious metals such as gold and silver, and much of this makes sense given the state of the economy and the increasing decline of our fiat currency, the dollar.

I have to wonder, however, if the market for gold in particular is being manipulated by the powers that be for their own benefit. By "the powers that be" I am referring to the government, banks, and investment firms. I have noted before the interesting status of the price of gold, that it seems to be maintaining at between $1,100.00 and $1,125.00 per ounce for several months now. Having read a little about the nature of the commercial gold market and its manipulation (here), I am convinced that the price of gold is being manipulated to forestall the collapse of the dollar and everything attached to it.

I do agree with those "experts" who espouse owning gold (and silver) as a tangible which will hold most, if not all, of its value no matter the economic conditions. I particularly agree with those that advise physically owning gold rather than investing in gold "on paper".

I don't think that I am the only person who has noticed the exponential increase in advertisements and advice to buy gold. I can hardly turn on the radio, open a magazine, or visit a blog without some exhortation to buy gold. I note that this increase coincides with the rise in the price of gold over $1,000.00 per ounce. Given the money spent on the advertisements, I have to wonder what the profit expectation would be from the delivery of so much gold. If the gold has so much value now due to factors such as the weak economy, a weak dollar, and the possibility of impending economic collapse, why are so many companies eager to sell gold now?

Then the answer occurred to me: They aren't selling gold. Think about it. How many of these purchasers of gold are actually taking physical delivery of the gold? How many purchasers are simply holding pieces of paper which states that the buyer has purchased a certain amount of gold from the seller, and nothing more? What are these pieces of paper really worth? What does a purchaser get if he/she demands delivery?

The gold market consists largely of traders who buy and sell pieces of paper representing "ownership" of gold. The vast majority never see or possess the gold. The pieces of paper are worth what the traders say they are worth so long as everyone believes that the gold exists. If someone tries to call in their gold, the market rules generally allow for settlement of the gold contract in cash. As soon as someone seriously makes a substantial demand for delivery, or when the "cash" in the cash settlement is worthless (ala Zimbabwe dollars), the whole scheme will come crashing down. It will crash because there is nowhere near enough gold to fulfill the contracts.

If the price of gold starts breaking out into new highs every day, as would be likely in an economic collapse, delivery might be demanded but it will be too late. This will occur at the end stage, where survivors try unsuccessfully to pull what they can out of the rubble of the collapse.

This scheme of selling gold on paper works particularly well when, as now, gold prices are high. There is little risk that the big players in the market will ever have to deliver the gold, short of an outright economic collapse where the dollar becomes worthless. If the price stays the same or slowly increases, there is no reason to demand deliver of the gold, as it appears to be a good investment. If the price of gold declines, the owner of the contract will sell the "gold" in the contract without ever having seen it to avoid further loss.

The following analogy is how I see the current gold market: You give me a thousand dollars to invest, taking it on faith that I have invested in widgets. Of course, there would also be a small brokering fee and/or fee to store the widgets for your convenience. If the price of widgets holds or slightly increases in value, you will probably leave the "investment" alone and I will be able to use the money as I see fit. If I am smart I will have many investors just like you so that I can either live off the interest by investing the money for myself, or I will have enough of a cash cushion to pay off those investors who want to withdraw. With this system I could take advantage of most investors, if not all, by arbitrarily declaring that the price of widgets has declined by forty percent. Those investors who decide to take their losses and cash out will have abandoned forty percent of their investment to me without me actually investing anything in widgets or providing verification that the widgets exist. If paper money should become worthless and widgets worth their weight in gold, good luck collecting widgets from me as I will have disappeared in the chaos of the collapse.

Investing in tangibles, as those of us preppers are wont to do, should only be in items we can physically possess. Only items that we possess have any value in a future economic collapse, societal collapse, or other calamity. Silver coinage, ammunition, and even cans of chili will have more stored value than any pieces of paper denoting ownership of gold purportedly held in some far off warehouse. When the collapse happens, holders of paper gold will be occupying FEMA camps with people waiting for their government checks.

Went to the gun show today

This weekend we had the first decent gun show in a few months. I can usually tell whether the gun show is worth going to by how many days are scheduled. If the show is only Saturday and Sunday, it is a smaller event with fewer tables. This weekend was a three-day event combined with a swap meet. Altogether four buildings at the fairgrounds.

I usually go on Saturday as it is the first free day that I have. This Saturday I was busy getting an Easter basket together for my daughter and she was out roller skating with her mom. Because my daughter gets upset if I go to the gun show without her, I put it off until Sunday. Glad I did, as a couple of friends with tables at the show said that Saturday was a madhouse.

I can tell that gun shows are becoming more political. The last gun show I went to a few months ago had a militia organization attending. This gun show had a Constitution Party politician, a Tea Party organization, a local patriots organization, and a couple of other individual rights-type organizations in attendance. While I'm not looking for politics at a gun show, it was good to see some grass-roots organizations showing their faces. I honestly would not know that most of them existed if I had not seen them at the show.

Although I keep reading that firearms sales are holding steady and have personally witnesse the higher prices and shortages of ammunition, I did not see as many military style semi-automatic rifles and accessories as I had seen a year earlier. Actually, probably only a few dozen black rifles, AK clones, and SKS's altogether. I wonder if the demand for these has tapered off a bit. The majority firearms on the tables was hunting rifles, shotguns, and handguns.

Ammunition was not as plentiful as a couple of years ago, but there was plenty. There was also a fair amount of reloading components and gun accessories.

Probably a fourth of all the table space was taken up by non-firearm vendors selling knives, coins, books, and collectibles. I am not including the swap meet tables which were in only one of the four buildings for the event.

One trend has continued from prior years: Prices in general were higher than in local gun shops and from online sources. For example, used firearms were generally selling at higher prices than new firearms. A number of private parties had asking prices for used firearms that were higher than the new firearm price at other vendors in the same gun show. Ammunition prices were generally as high or higher than available at local gun shops or online. Even reloaded ammo of questionable quality (I consider all reloaded ammo in white boxes at gun shows to be of questionable quality)was priced as high as some commercial new production.

The bargain-hunting wasn't good, but I did pick up a few accessories that I would be hard-pressed to find in local stores and my daughter found a few things she wanted at one of the coin dealers and one of the jewelry/trinket dealers. I saw a couple of friends I had not seen in a while and met a few new people. All in all, a fun four hours for less than the cost of going to the movies.

Quote of the Day

"The responsible, non-partisan and indeed American thing to do is to harbor extreme skepticism toward the state when it spies, infiltrates, arrests and imprisons anyone, and most especially those whose alleged crime is “sedition” or “conspiracy” or in any way being the enemy of the state."

Anthony Gregory, in "How the Left Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the FBI"