Michael Ruppert interviews Max Keiser

An hour long, but I think worth the time.

Listen here.

More on oil and the SPR

Oil price manipulation

The geniuses in our government decided to release oil from the strategic reserve to drive oil prices down.

That oil is for emergencies--real emergencies--it shouldn't be used as a tool to alter prices.

Today's high oil prices ensure more exploration and drilling activity which will help keep future prices in check. Speculators guess that shortages loom in the near future. That's why they bet oil will go up.

The day will come when we need that oil. Really need that oil. As in, our lives will depend upon it.

Dumb ass motherfuckers.

Not near enough

Sabbath day, June 18, 2011

Outside my door the wind blows hot, like the exhaust off of Satan’s nostrils.

Irrigation pivots, which have run incessantly over the last month, now sit idle due to a busted gear box on a center pivot.

The word is out: I still have hay left over from last year’s rain. The trickle of calls turns into a flood. I need a cash flow, but my ass begins to pucker as the size of the haystack diminishes. I can feed hay to my animals. Dollars may or may not be much good in the future, depending on whose forecast you believe. To be sure, I need dollars to pay my bills today. The guys that work for me have families and they need money to pay their bills. Today.

So I continue to sell hay. I suppose I could raise the price to discourage sales, but the people that buy my hay don’t have much money.

The weatherman says we have a chance for rain next week. We’ve had chances for rain. A forty per-cent chance for rain means a sixty per-cent chance against rain. In a non-drought year, you get rain with forty per-cent chances. In a drought, most times you don’t. We have had only a single inch of precipitation since February.

Cattle prices have held, but I suspect that will soon change as ranchers are forced, once again, for the third time since 2005, to cull or liquidate herds.

I hear stories of world-wide turmoil. The folks that got rid of Mubarak in Egypt now rail against his successor. There’s no more food or oil to be had. No matter how much money you inject into the economy, that equation remains the same. Not enough remains not enough.

Libyans continue to fight. There’s new unrest in Iraq. Riots in Greece. Syria. China.

The Missouri River surrounds a nuclear power plant in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska and the river is forecast to rise another five feet—if a damn doesn’t burst first and wash the whole goddamned thing away. But don’t worry—there’s nothing to fear—government officials assure us.

Meanwhile the news speaks of Caylee Anderson, dead since 2008. Or which politician fucked what whore. The last son-of-a-bitch on the hot seat didn’t even get his dick wet and that proved good for two weeks and counting of news headlines.

I saw a mentalist hypnotize 85% of a movie theater crowd on the Discovery channel a couple of weeks back. Participants came out of the theater applauding a movie they never saw. My mind traveled back to throngs of people at Barack Obama’s speeches, then to masses of people at Adolf Hitler's black masses. I remain astounded how gullible and susceptible to manipulation people can be. Comparing these folks to sheep insults the sheep.

My spring garden offers its last fruits—only peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and a few melons continue to produce. I am setting out additional sweet potato vines as I go and recently planted a couple of short rows of okra. My wife says I’ll get divorced if I plant any more black-eyed peas.

The pantry is packed with jars; peas, corn, carrots, green beans, pickles and more. The freezers are stocked with meat and corn on the cob. Hogs await slaughter in the pens. We winnowed and sacked dried pinto beans last week. Onions are harvested and stored as are Irish potatoes.

We have cheese and tallow stored. Chickens, eggs, goats. Milk cows keep giving milk.

I sold most of last year’s corn to make room for the new crop, which should be ready in a couple of weeks. I also have 120 acres of milo to harvest, or so I hope.

Roy and Urlit Miller are preparing a molasses mill for some sorghum cane we grew. We hope to start cooking sorghum syrup next week.

All of this is way too much for Leah and I to consume. And not near enough if the trucks stop arriving.

Not anywhere near enough.

Ray Wylie Hubbard

I wrote a piece on Ray that became a casualty in someone else's war.

I also failed to pick an album of the year (and if I did, I may have erred). With the benefit of hindsight, A. Enlightenment, B. Darkness, (hint, there is no C.) is my pick.

Two selections, the first about tornados, the second...

K. Phillips, Guy Forsyth

Confession: Sometimes I only want what I don't have. K Phillips:



Listening to Guy helps:

Mexico, Guns and Drugs

These are not your average run of the mill Wal-Mart hunting rifles.

Scroll down for more here.

Abolish income tax

I've been saying for some time that I think income tax should be abolished, replaced with consumption taxes. Apparently Jesse Ventura agrees:

Spring harvest grind

Continued hot and dry weather has quickened spring harvest. We’ve been covered up with produce, but I suspect this will be short lived. Both Leah and I are tired and a bit crotchety.

I’m sick of politicians and pundits, their lies, half truths and outright refusal to address real issues. For me, they have become irrelevant.

Back to picking and canning, irrigating, cutting, baling and hauling hay, milking cows and working from can to can’t. Hopefully the day comes when I can slow down enough to reflect a bit on all of this.

Now ain’t that day.