A little something for everyone out there that thinks oil prices are fixed by companies, speculators, the Illuminati, etc.
In other words the free market would lower prices, government intervention on behalf of fantasy based environmentalism raises prices. Surprise! Factor $5-7 dollar a gallon gas prices into your budget in the summer, especially if war breaks out in the middle east.
h/t Hot Air
Take this one with several hundred grains of salt because the information is coming from the same part of the world that recently announced they didn’t think there was enough evidence to prove that water cured dehydration. To be fair England has a lot of good people trapped there, but their government is crazed. Still, something to watch:
The bacteria are more virulent than the infamous hospital MRSA, can affect otherwise healthy people and are spreading across Britain.
They can be transmitted through skin-to-skin contact and hugging as well as sneezing and coughing.
One strain, called USA300, can lead to blood poisoning or a form of pneumonia that eats away at lung tissue.
The bacteria are usually resistant to several types of antibiotics and can cause large boils on the skin.
Chris Williams, professor of molecular genetics at the University of Birmingham, said: ‘It breaks down tissue. If it gets into your heart, bacteria can get into your bloodstream and take hold of different parts of your body. That could lead to death quite easily.’
The dangers of the ‘community- acquired’ superbugs are raised in a new study, examining the way they spread. Researcher Dr Ruth Massey said USA300 was ‘causing huge problems in America and is being reported here increasingly’.
She added: ‘These community- acquired strains seem to be good at affecting healthy people – they seem to be much better than the hospital ones at causing disease.’
Dr Massey said there were 1,000 cases of so-called PVL-positive community-acquired MRSA in England in the last year, of which 200 were USA300 strains.
Prof Williams added: ‘If you’re on a crowded tube or bus and you sneeze you can spread the bacteria.
‘But your sneeze can also land on a metal surface and when someone else gets up from their seat and steadies themselves on the hand rail they can catch it.’
Again, grain of salt. The article presupposes that America is virtually under siege by this superbug but I’ve never heard of it. If you’re worried about MRSA though studies have shown that both green tea and honey have been successful in treatments.
I’m going to reprinting this piece from Ann Bernhardt in it’s entirety because her site has, as far as I can see, has no permalink function for individual posts. To bad she has some great blog posts. It comes from NC Renegade:
I have received enough calls and emails on this within the last few weeks to A.) cause concern and B.) merit a post.
People are having difficulty withdrawing cash from banks. I just received the SECOND call on this from California this week. The question is, do banks have the right to deny you cash withdrawals?
The answer is NO. They do not. And both of the men I have heard from in California were obviously being bee-essed by their bank. The bank couldn’t cite statute, and then started haggling over the amount of cash withdrawals they would allow. That’s your dead give-away. If there were ANY statute or actual rule, the bank wouldn’t set up a conference call and then start haggling. You don’t haggle over laws and rules.
What banks can do is ask for up to 7 days notice on a large cash withdrawal just so that they can order the cash in special and not completely drain their cash on hand. This is very logical and sensible. For transactions over $10,000 the bank also does have to file a transaction report. Again, this is standard. We may not like it, but that has been the law for a very long time.
Also, one chap in CA reported that his bank told him that if he took more than $20,000 out of the bank in cash that he would have to hire an armored vehicle and security. This is an abject lie. $100 bills are bundled in 1/2? stacks. a 1/2? stack contains 100 bills. Therefore $20,000 would be two standard 1/2? stacks of hundred dollar bills, which would fit in ANY purse or easily into the inside pocket of any men’s sportcoat. We aren’t talking bags and bags of cash. Cash is still shockingly compact.
For now, what I would recommend is setting up your new destination bank account FIRST, and then simply closing the old account with the mega-bank and taking the deposit in the form of a cashier’s check. Then drive the cashier’s check directly to the new bank and deposit it. BUT, if for whatever reason you want or need cash money, no, banks have no right to deny you cash provided you give them the sufficient 7 day notice.
Limiting cash withdrawals is a sign of an insolvent or failing banking system. These sorts of limits are happening in Italy as we speak. It is very telling that banks in the U.S. are now lying and dissimulating in order to avoid and thwart cash withdrawals by their customers.
I’m wondering if anyone else is having these problems. The banking system is basically insolvent so I’m betting there are lots of you out there having trouble withdrawing large amounts of funds.
Don’t invest in China. If you think that’s bad advice check out this Daily Ticker episode from Friday that explains how companies in China use reverse mergers and sketchy earnings reports to rip off Americans – and how the Chi-Coms are fully involved:
Hey, world war starting in the middle east with a second holocaust could never affect America, right? I mean unless you count the destruction of Jesus’ tomb by Muslims and the subsequent bloody crusades by Christians, Muslims stopping oil shipments to the Great Satan once the Little Satan is gone and of course the inevitable demand by the newly formed Caliphate that America turn over all American Jews and pay the annual Jizya to the Islamic world. But hey, other than that there’s no reason for us to care about this, right Paulnuts?
The Third Intifada is coordinated via several social networks and as NewsReal Blog points out they are organizing a huge push into Israel for after Friday prayers today. The hope is that they can get several thousands “Palestinians” (many of whom will be Muslim Brotherhood agents an non-Muslim Marxists) to surge into Israeli territory forcing a response from the IDF, which will then draw Hamas, Fatah, the Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda into the fray. If these organizers are successful (and they have been in Egypt and Tunisia) then we will be watching the beginning of an Arab-Israeli war that will likely lead to the extermination of the Jews in Israel and the destruction of the Christians most holy sites. Think there won’t be “blowback” from that?
At the very least we will see more spikes in oil if the Intifada organizers are even marginally successful. Fill your tanks now and putting a little extra in a gas can is not a bad idea.
If you are Jewish or have Jewish friends be on alert. The IDF’s provoked response will be used to justify anti-Semitic attacks here. Palestinian sympathizers of all stripes will be more likely to commit acts of violence against Jews and Americans after tomorrow so be careful. In the southwest this includes Reconquista groups.
I am not a Christian or a Jew but I am praying for Israel today, and praying the Intifada fails for all our sakes. But I’ll also be at Costco today adding to my larder. Toilet paper and bottled water are things you can’t have too much of.