That kind of thing always makes me nervous about forecasting a top — as a wiser analyst than me once said, bear markets always begin with full elevators, and right now there may be too many people (including me) standing around talking about a housing bubble for the bubble to pop.

Covering the Top

The Friendly Skies

The obvious truth is that in the globalization era, the phrase "homeland security" is an Orwellian oxymoron — particularly for a country with 9,600 miles of land and sea borders, 14,857 airports and 185 major seaports handling an estimated 214,000 ships a year. Clearly a forward strategy against terrorism is needed — which may about the only thing Donald Rumsfeld and I agree on.

Litter Boxes

News, views, opinions …

No good deed goes unpunished, they say, and I’m sure Judge Bridges will pay for his by being the target of a few conservative hate rallies. But to me it’s enormously gratifying to see that a backcountry judge in Washington State has more sense, and far more intellectual integrity, than the partisan majority on the Supreme Court in Washington D.C.

The Bridges of Chelan County

Despite all the rhetoric, winning the war against terrorism really isn’t all that important to the wingnut right — far less important, anyway, than always feeling morally superior to the hated liberals and never, ever admitting that the Bush administration’s critics might, just once, be right.

Captains Clueless

Edwards and Biden may have thought they were immunizing themselves by pushing the media knife a little deeper into Dean’s back, but all they did was ensure another couple of days of coverage for the "story" and give the GOP spinmeisters some fresh ammo to fire back at Dean — who, whether they like it or not, is the chairman of the entire Democratic Party, not just the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

Casey Stengel’s Lament

II. Young Bobos in Paradise

The shit-for-brains media culture that Brooks finds so amusing is one of the trends that has helped DESTROY investigative reporting, or at least, driven it to the fringes of mainstream respectability. Only in Bobo’s deluded world could they be seen as two examples of the same thing.

I. Digging To China

In a win for the progressive side the Supreme Court Rules Against Pot for Sick People:

Federal authorities may prosecute sick people whose doctors prescribe marijuana to ease pain, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, concluding that state laws don’t protect users from a federal ban on the drug.

The decision is a stinging defeat for marijuana advocates who had successfully pushed 10 states to allow the drug’s use to treat various illnesses.

Cont. reading: Victory over Marijuana

.. or even a bit higher.

by Barchart.com with additions by Bernhard

Human Events‘ Bonfire of the Vanities

(on Human Events see also my earlier post Reality & Satire)

I doubt few "mainstream" journalists are prepared to consider — much less cope with — the possibility that the U.S. government is waging information warfare against them (and, by extension, against the American people), even though Rummy and company long ago all but declared their intention of doing just that.

The Friday Flush

Time for Google to mark that site as satire too.  But then – you just can´t make this stuff up.

Bible-Based Baby Videos Offer Infants Interactive Learning Fun

(AgapePress)  – A new DVD series is introducing the youngest children to the Bible. Little Leaders founder Brad Silvius says parents can find numerous DVDs catering to kids age in the infant to toddler range, but his company offers the only truly Bible-based developmental product for this age group currently on the market.

Cont. reading: Child Molestation

Maybe we need to put up some signs, like: "I am a corporate journalist, kick me."

Memory Loss

Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly, Michele Malkin and other fine authors are publishing in the online version of Human Events, The National Conservative Weekly since 1944.

Some editor at Google News did read some of their fine pieces and correctly classified the content of that website as satire.

Thanks Google. Your stock price might be much too high, but your sense of reality vs. satire is just at the right level.

Link to the predecessor

Spencer Abrams, Secretary of Energy for Dubya’s first term, has a piece in today’s Financial Times where, although he doesn’t use the word, he pretty much acknowledges that peak oil is near:

Day of reckoning nears for energy markets

As high oil and natural gas prices continue to take their toll on the bottom lines of households and key industrial sectors, a great deal of speculation is taking place in the business and political worlds about energy markets.

Conventional wisdom and traditional market economic theory suggest high prices and profits will ultimately produce a correction on both the demand and supply side of the energy equation to bring prices back in line.

Yet…

The striking admission that follows, my commentary and more peak oil news below. Jump in!

Cont. reading: Peak Oil Goes Mainstream

What the health of the Republic requires, in other words, may not be a new crop of leakers and whistleblowers, or a fresh young generation of Woodwards and Bernsteins — or even a more independent, aggressive media. What it may need is a new population (or half of a population, anyway), one that hasn’t been stupified or brainwashed into blind submission, that won’t look upon sadistic corruption and call it patriotism, and that will refuse to trade the Bill of Rights for a plastic Jesus and a wholly false sense of security.

Sore Throat

No votes deepen European Union divisions

Cont. reading: Non.

Watch your money, there is A Cox in the Henhouse.