———————

I admit it – I’m a closet Randi Rhodes fan. It’s not even her show so much as her personal story, her ‘damned the torpedoes’ approach to life, and her in-your-face style. If I ever had the pleasure of meeting her, I would be thrilled if we hit it off and became friends.

But I cringe every time I hear one of her radio commercials.

In the ad, Randi advises her listeners to buy gold. She gives a bunch of solid reasons, and plugs a specific gold-based security. For the plug, I assume Randi gets paid both for her personal endorsement and again when the ad airs on her show.

I hate the ad for the same reason the folks who pay her for it presumably love it.

I hate it because it works.

Listening to her radio show, it’s obvious many of her callers are big-time Randi Rhodes fans. These fans end up building a personal relationship with the personality known as ‘Randi Rhodes’, and they trust her. So when Randi says ‘buy gold’ it’s pretty safe to assume some (many?) of her listeners do so. Blindly. Otherwise, they wouldn’t bother running these ads, and as I recall they have been running for months.

To me, these ads are worse than the Chevron ads appearing at Dkos. The Chevron ads are pernicious, but at the end of the day one gas company is simply trying to convince you to spend your dollars on them rather than someone else. By pretending to be something they are not. Either way, you are spending money on a consumable item you would buy anyway.

Financial advice is a very tricky business. Financial advice is for keeps. In following someone’s advice, you will either make money or lose it. Your chances of breaking even are slim.

So my Free Financial Advice is very simple. Be very wary before following somebody else’s Free Financial Advice. So when you need financial advice, you must go to the professionals first, talk to them at length about what you need to do, it can help you gain a lot more clarity and stop you from doing something you may regret.

Let’s take the US Dollar as an example. The Dollar is on a downward trend, and has been for years. But like any other ‘investment’ there are fits and starts to the trend. As I type this, on the morning of Monday October 22, 2007, the Dollar has hit a record low against the Euro.

But will the Dollar stay low? Will it go down further? If so, when will it bottom out? Or will it?

These questions are impossible to answer with certainty.

For example, it is possible that The Fed will react to the latest slide and do something very unconventional this week. They might raise interest rates. If not this week, they could do it next month. If they were to raise rates, the dollar would strengthen at least for the short term. This morning, I read one prognosticator predicting that even if the Fed maintains the current rates, the dollar will rise because it will be seen as a sign of stability. Makes my head spin, all these predictions.

Another scenario – the current account and trade deficits may shrink faster than most people anticipate. If so, again the US Dollar could rebound a little.

Or, we could get some really bad financial news and the Dollar could sink even lower. And faster than most would expect.

The key point – Nobody Knows For Sure.

I don’t know your personal financial situation. I don’t want to know. But I do know that I would be very careful before advising you on how to invest your money. I certainly wouldn’t suggest you borrow money to invest in something I thought was a sure thing.

Unless it was, as Buhdy suggested the other day, to buy beer.

Beer is always a good investment. And now, thanks to CD, we now know how to make it ourselves!

Cheers.

This is an Open Thread. Commence Talking

News Happening Now

2 U.S. Sailors Shot to Death in Bahrain

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: October 22, 2007

Filed at 5:30 a.m. ET

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — Two U.S. Navy sailors were killed and a third was critically wounded early Monday in a shooting incident on a U.S. military base in Bahrain, the U.S. Navy said.

The incident was not terror related and was under investigation, a Navy official said on condition of anonymity as they weren’t authorized to discuss the case with the media. No other details were immediately available.

The shootings took place in the barracks on the U.S. Naval Support Activity Bahrain base around 5 a.m. local time, the Navy said in a statement. It wasn’t immediately clear what triggered the shootings.

USA

Winds drive Southland wildfires

By Bettina Boxall, Scott Glover and Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

October 23, 2007

Thousands of Southern California homes could be at risk in coming days as powerful Santa Ana winds continue to stoke wildfires, fire officials said. Blazes on Sunday scorched thousands of acres from the Mexican border to Santa Barbara County, destroyed at least 39 homes and other buildings and killed at least one person.

Some of the worst devastation has been in and around Malibu, where the losses included two beloved landmarks; in San Diego, where at least one person died and 14 were injured; and in the communities of Agua Dulce and Canyon Country, midway between Santa Clarita and Palmdale. At least 25 buildings there were destroyed and 3,800 remained threatened by a rapidly moving blaze driven by winds gusting to 80 mph. At least four people were reported injured, one severely.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Looks Beyond Current Wars

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 – The new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff plans to press Congress and the public to sustain the current high levels of military spending – even after the Iraq war – arguing for money to repair and replace worn-out weapons and to restore American ground forces he described as “breakable,” though not yet broken.

The new chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, expressed deep concerns that the long counterinsurgency missions in Iraq and Afghanistan have so consumed the military that the Army and Marine Corps may be unprepared for a high-intensity war against a major adversary.

Editorial

Ain’t That America

Think of America’s greatest historical shames. Most have involved the singling out of groups of people for abuse. Name a distinguishing feature – skin color, religion, nationality, language – and it’s likely that people here have suffered unjustly for it, either through the freelance hatred of citizens or as a matter of official government policy.

We are heading down this road again. The country needs to have a working immigration policy, one that corresponds to economic realities and is based on good sense and fairness. But it doesn’t. It has federal inertia and a rising immigrant tide, and a national mood of frustration and anxiety that is slipping, as it has so many times before, into hatred and fear. Hostility for illegal immigrants falls disproportionately on an entire population of people, documented or not, who speak Spanish and are working-class or poor. By blinding the country to solutions, it has harmed us all.

Thompson, Giuliani spar over conservative records

WASHINGTON — Eight presidential hopefuls clashed sharply over conservative purity Sunday night in the most contentious Republican debate of the 2008 race for the White House.

Former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee set the tone by saying rival Rudolph W. Giuliani believes in federal funding for abortion and “sanctuary cities” for illegal immigrants.

“He’s for gun control,” Thompson said of the former New York mayor. “He supported Mario Cuomo, a liberal Democrat, against a Republican who was running for governor, then opposed the [Republican] governor’s tax cuts.”

Middle East

Turkey bombards northern Iraq after ambush

Michael Howard in Saleheddin

Monday October 22, 2007

The prospect of a Turkish invasion of northern Iraq in pursuit of fighters of the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK) drew closer yesterday after another round of clashes in the mountainous frontier region that left at least 12 Turkish soldiers and 23 PKK guerillas dead, and saw a number of Turkish troops captured by the rebel group.

The Turkish army stepped up its bombardment of the Iraqi side of the border after the rebels ambushed a military unit inside Turkey, hitting 11 different areas close to towns and villages, Kurdish officials said. In a separate incident in south-eastern Turkey, one person died and 17 were injured when their minibus was hit by a roadside bomb allegedly placed by the PKK.

With tension rising, Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, who heads one of the country’s two main Kurdish parties, expressed condolences to the families of the dead Turkish soldiers and demanded that the PKK disarm and commit itself to peaceful politics, or else get out of Iraq.

Abbas resists US pressure to name Dahlan his deputy

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH

The Bush administration is exerting heavy pressure on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to appoint senior Fatah figure Muhammad Dahlan as his deputy, sources in Ramallah said Sunday.

According to the sources, Abbas has rejected the US demand, triggering a crisis with Washington. They said tensions between Abbas and Dahlan had escalated over the past few weeks after the latter criticized the PA president’s performance.

Sources close to Abbas told the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masriyoon that Dahlan had been inciting Fatah cadres in the West Bank and Gaza Strip against Abbas.

Asia

China workshop blaze ‘kills 34’

A fire at an illegal shoe factory in eastern China has left 34 people dead, according to state media.

A further 21 people needed hospital treatment after being hurt in the blaze in the city of Putian, Fujian province, on Sunday, Xinhua news agency reported.

India, Dow Chemical may settle Bhopal gas disaster claims: report

NEW DELHI (AFP) – India could reach an out-of-court settlement with US giant Dow Chemical to clean up the Bhopal gas disaster site and end liability claims after more than two decades, a report said Monday.

India’s law ministry said the move would clear “legal hurdles” to future Dow Chemical investments in India by setting up a fund to clean up thousands of tonnes of contaminated soil along with other measures to resolve long-running lawsuits linked to the disaster, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported.

The government was prompted by Indian industrial conglomerate the Tata Group to pursue a settlement, and Dow Chemical’s chief executive wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh earlier this year on the issue, the newspaper said.

The Telegraph is published in Calcutta India

3 engineers in rebel custody

– Police not informed even after 8 days

KHELEN THOKCHOM

Imphal, Oct. 20: Three engineers of the Manipur public health engineering (PHE) department were taken hostage by the Kuki Revolutionary Army eight days ago, but their whereabouts still remain unknown.

The Kuki outfit has allegedly demanded Rs 1 crore from the PHE as ransom for their safe release. The PHE has not formally approached police as they fear for the officials’ safety.

Executive engineer Laishram Ibomcha Singh, assistant engineer Okram Meino Singh and section officer Ningombam Upendro were taken hostage by the militants, their colleagues said today.

The three engineers, posted at the PHE’s Imphal East division, were visiting Nongren area of the district on October 12 to inspect projects when the militants abducted them, sources said.

Europe

Asylum-seekers ‘are left to starve’ in Britain

Published: 22 October 2007

Thousands of people are forced to spend years living in abject poverty on the streets of Britain’s cities after fleeing persecution in their own countries, an independent asylum inquiry has heard. The destitute have no access to help from the state as they have not been granted asylum, yet they prefer to stay in Britain rather than return home because they fear of being tortured or killed.

Senior lawyers, doctors and immigration officials even claim such destitution is, in effect, now being used by the Government as policy, in an attempt to force desperate people out of the country.

There are at least 280,000 people living in poverty in Britain after having their leave to remain refused. Some of them are appealing those decisions. Some just go completely underground, taking their chances on the streets of the UK with no money or shelter.

‘Racist’ campaign pays off in Swiss poll

By Tony Paterson in Berlin

Published: 22 October 2007

The right-wing Swiss People’s Party won its best-ever showing in general elections yesterday after a virulent anti-foreigner campaign that was widely denounced as racist, but failed to obtain the landslide victory it had been hoping for.

The SVP, led by the controversial billionaire and Swiss Justice Minister Christoph Blocher secured almost 29 per cent of the vote and an extra six seats in parliament, the first exit polls suggested last night.

Mr Blocher’s campaign was dominated by the single issue of immigration. His party’s election posters featured three white sheep standing on a red and white Swiss national flag kicking a black sheep out of the country. Alongside ran the slogan “more security!”

Africa

Don’t go near the baobab at Nigerian heritage site

By Estelle Shirbon Mon Oct 22, 12:33 AM ET

SUKUR, Nigeria (Reuters) – Visitors to Sukur are warned not to approach a certain ancient baobab tree because, villagers say, it turns people into hermaphrodites.

It is an atmospheric introduction to this Nigerian World Heritage Site for the trickle of outsiders who come, but villagers who trek up and down from the remote hillside community are ready for an injection of modernity.

A road would be a start.

As the outside world starts to take a greater interest in the hilltop outpost, which earned its World Heritage label from UNESCO in 1999, the people there would also like to see more of the outside world.

Muse in the Morning

The muses are ancient.  The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them.  Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward.  In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.

It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse.  Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets.  Others have been suggested throughout the centuries.  I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts.  And maybe there should be many more.

Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…

In 1992 I learned to speak my truths.  They were tentative at first, hardly more than notes about the reality of my life.  Later some of them became poems.  Still later, more poems were added to add the view of hindsight.  I’ve tried to arrange them into a cohesive whole.  Maybe it works.  Maybe it has more meaning this way.

The first one was actually a list of chapter titles about a biography as once conceived.  I think of it as an overview.

A Transition through Poetry I

Art Link Organizing a Rainbow The Migration I am. I am a boy. I am different. I am supposed to be who my family wants me to be. I am bad. Something is wrong with me. Something is wrong about me being a boy. I have to be who my mother wants me to be. I am supposed to be a boy. I am counter-culture. I am supposed to be a man. I am supposed to be a husband. I have to be who my wife wants me to be. I am supposed to be a father. I have to be who my daughter needs me to be. I am caught. I have to be who society wants me to be. I am a soldier. I am a student. I am a teacher. I have to be who my employers want me to be. I am unhappy. I am suicidal. I have to take a chance on being who I want me to be. I am afraid. I am really a woman. I really am a woman. I am a transsexual. I am proud. I am transsexual. I am a transsexual woman. I am transgendered. I am transgressively-gendered. I am queer. I am gender-variant. I am Robyn. I am free. I am me. –Robyn Elaine Serven –September 22, 1998

I know you have talent.  What sometimes is forgotten is that being practical is a talent.  I have a paucity for that sort of talent in many situations, though it turns out that I’m a pretty darn good cook.  🙂 

Let your talent bloom.  You can share it here.  Encourage others to let it bloom inside them as well.

Won’t you share your words or art, your sounds or visions, your thoughts scientific or philosophic, the comedy or tragedy of your days, the stories of doing and making?  And be excellent to one another!

(The other collateral damage ….11:15 – promoted by buhdydharma )

Today brought the news that Syria Shuts Main Exit From War for Iraqis:

DAMASCUS, Syria, Oct. 20 – Long the only welcoming country in the region for Iraqi refugees, Syria has closed its borders to all but a small group of Iraqis and imposed new visa rules that will legally require the 1.5 million Iraqis currently in Syria to return to Iraq.

1.5 million refugees are going to have to go back. Go back to what exactly?

A lack of potable water.

A lack of electricity.

Massive unemployment.

Lack of adequate medical services.

Hundreds being forced to scavenge for food.

A broken country, where hope has sometimes been in short supply.

All that said, there does seem to be good news coming out of Iraq. This today from IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, IRAQ: Violence-related deaths drop ‘remarkably’, say authorities and UN:

According to the ministry’s statistics, between January and the end of September 2007, the number of violent deaths involving civilian, police and military in all of Iraq was about 7,100, against 27,000 in the same period of 2006.

According to Muhsin, the average number of dead bodies sent to Baghdad’s main morgue just over a year ago was between 100 and 150 a day. Now, it is no more than 10 bodies a day, and about 50 percent of them are dying in normal circumstances.

That is still an astonishing amount of violence, but it is good news nonetheless, although neither the Dems nor the Rs nor the trad med seem to know what to make of it as LithiumCola so astutely noted yesterday in How We Should Understand the Relative Calm in Iraq (a must-read!).

Despite this drop in violence, however, the refugee crisis in Iraq has only worsened this year and is now at a critical level, according to the UNCHR.

Incessant violence throughout Iraq is forcing an estimated 60,000 people to leave their homes every month, presenting the international community with a humanitarian crisis even larger than the upheaval aid agencies had planned for during the 2003 war.

UNHCR estimates that more than 4.4 million Iraqis have left their homes. Of these, some 2.2 million Iraqis are displaced internally, while more than 2.2 million have fled to neighbouring states, particularly Syria and Jordan. Many were displaced prior to 2003, but an increasing number are fleeing now. In 2006, Iraqis had become the leading nationality seeking asylum in Europe.

With Syria’s new restrictions in place, including sending back 1.5 million refugess, the refugee crisis is only going to become more urgent.

And the violence may grow significantly. Today brought bellicose news from Turkey: Turkish PM: ‘We Will Attack Kurdish Rebels in Iraq’. And this is the region that had been enjoying the most peace and stability.

Turkey will launch military action against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq despite frantic appeals for restraint from America and Nato, its Prime Minister has told The Times.

Speaking hours before the PKK, the Kurdish Workers’ Party, killed at least 17 more Turkish soldiers yesterday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey had urged the US and Iraqi governments repeatedly to expel the separatists but they had done nothing. Turkey’s patience was running out and the country had every right to defend itself, he said. “Whatever is necessary will be done,” he declared in an interview. “We don’t have to get permission from anybody.”

Today also brought news of multiple civilian deaths caused, by U.S. forces, although the military disputes this claim.

BAGHDAD, Oct. 21 – American forces on Sunday came under heavy fire in three locations in Sadr City, the Shiite enclave in Baghdad, and returned fire, killing 49 militants, according to an American military official and a military statement about the episode.

Iraqi witnesses said that 17 people had been killed, one of whom was an elderly woman who died of her wounds, and that of 40 people who had been wounded, a number were children. At least four of the wounded children were at Imam Ali Hospital in Sadr City, where family members helped the overtaxed hospital staff and anxiously hovered over the children.

This in Sadr City, despite Al-Sadr’s cessation of operations against U.S. forces and his ceasefire with Al-Hakim.

What can we do to help the people of Iraq?

• Here are some ideas on charitable organizations from the American Institute of Philanthropy: The Best Ways to Help Iraqi Refugees
• Learn all about the refugee crisis from UNHCR, Amnesty International, Oxfam, and Human Rights Watch, and support their work.

  RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty has excellent articles and information.

  Educate others about the refugee crisis.

• Call your congresscritters and demand that the US admit more Iraqi refugees and call for an end to the occupation.