I'm back to my cheerful pursuit of monitoring The Bradley Model        and it's prognosticative powers as we approach the doom period of the summer of 2010.

If you remember from our previous discussions, Red is bad, Green is good, Purple isn't terrible, but it ain't all that helpful either.

The last of the good is abating this day.

We shall see.

 

 

It's always great hearing from Arch. 

 

Keep your head on a swivel.

 

 

From The Boston Globe July 23, 2010.

Click anywhere below for the entire piece. 

Sen. John Kerry skips town on sails tax

 

I've posted the occasional chart demonstrating this same relationship in the past.

This one might be a little better.

From Casey Research, which Im really starting to like a lot.

 

 

 

 From Scientific American and Reuters July 13, 2010

Click anywhere below to get to this short, easy to read story.

 

 

Unlike BP's, natural oil seeps can help sea life

 

Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent 

 

Some marine life thrives on oil bubbling up naturally from the seabed even though it cannot cope with giant single leaks like from BP's ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico, experts say.

Natural seeps from thousands of spots from the Pacific Ocean to the North Sea account for about 45 percent of all oil entering the oceans in a typical year, according to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. The rest is from leaks caused by people.

The little-understood seeps show that the oceans can absorb what is normally viewed as harmful pollution -- a host of microbes can eat oil and gas, especially light compounds such as gasoline, while finding thicker tars indigestible.

 

 

Tall Paul called again.

"I read your sermon .............................................................................."

Finally I bite, "And?"

"Too long."

"Too long?"

"Yeah. ....................... You working out tomorrow?"

"No, I have a couple of meetings, probably Monday."

"Allright, Catch you there."

"Wait a minute, you got anything other than too long?"

"No."

"Ok, see you Monday."

"Allright."

 

 

Chart of the Day strikes yet again with the inflation adjusted S&P 500 since 1990.

Click anywhere on the chart for a very short and worthy discussion.

I'll grab one small statistic for myself.

The annual rate of return for the S&P 500 when adjusted for inflation since 1900?

1.7%

A question worth asking here has to do with what this chart would look like when dividends are figured in.

 

When someone signs up as a user at this site, I send out an email to thank them and explain that there is absolutely no benefit at all associated with signing in here excepting that you can now post a comment (which nobody does anyway).

Well, it seems that there is a second feature that I had not thought of in that new users get to capture my email address.

Evidently, one of you forwarded my thank you through to your mom.

And your mom (Shelly) loves it here.

So yesterday, I'm at the tail end of clearing up the debris that had piled up during a two week vacation (almost three weeks actually if you count the week spent accomplishing damn near nothing while staring blankly at my screen thinking about being gone), when I decided to cruise through my junk email box to see if something worthy might be sitting there.

"Hmmmm." I say, "What's a Shelly?"

I'm not going to take up your time going into all the nice things Shelly had to say about the site ... the wit, the obvious intelligence, the great writing, etc.

Although I could, having memorized the entire note.

Shelly ended her note by asking, "Why are you doing this?"

"Hmmmm." I say yet again. "Why indeed?"

Well?

 

Just Thinking is where I decide what I think and what I believe.

 

I used to keep notebooks.

I save ideas, research, random crap that I think could amount to something someday, lists, quotes, etc.

Then, as computers became more useful, folders (I have folders holding folders of folders holding folders).

Then, as the internet bloomed, links.

I'm sure you believe me when I tell you, "I got the links".

Just Thinking is where I try it all out.

I grind around out there until something shows up.

When something I think has a chance finally pops up, I test it.

I grind around some more and honestly try to blow it up.

The more it fits into my world view, the harder I try to blow it up.

I'm not asking anybody to believe me on that one.

I write it down in my own hand (so to speak), stare at it a good long while ..... until I decide if I think it's true.

If I hit the publish button, you can be certain, I'm certain.

Now, the fact of my certainty does not necessarily mean that I think I'm always right, it just means that I'm certain.

One of my very favorite features when it comes to me, has to do with the fact that if I think I'm wrong, I just change my mind, and in so doing, become right.

While all the while, remaining certain.

To quote George Bernard Shaw one more time.

 

And thank you Shelly for your kind words.

 

 

My little editorial inspired pretty close to twenty emails, about that number again in calls, two face to face conversations, and not one lousy posted comment.

Damn!!!!!

Out of probably forty total responses, thirty nine disagreed (mostly strenuously) about that part having to do with returning our troops to our shores, and retiring from providing military for the rest of the world's defense.

My very, very long time friend Terry D. was my single supporter.

Which made me laugh out loud, as I had told my secretary not more than a month ago that I could think of only one issue in over 35 years where Terry and I had not been in complete agreement ..... that exception of course being his first wife.

He did come around to my way of thinking on that one sometime after it was just too damn late.

His defense on this particular subject consists mostly of his accusation that all I had to say amounted to just a lot of "mumbling under my breath" and that had I felt that strongly about it, I should have just manned up and spoke out on the subject, and ..... in light of that fact that I didn't, I need to just shut up.

But I digress. 

My personal chef, Kelly doesn't want nuclear weapons to fall into the wrong hands as that could result in disaster.

Dougy F. wasn't totally disagreeing, but he did worry that if we scrapped out the offensive weaponry, "we will need it when the rest of the world falls into total chaos."  Then, "after a couple of years we can go in and clean up whatever is left and run it right".

T.G. finds the idea of "surrendering" to Islam to be unthinkable.

Tommy ? believes my plan would leave a vacuum, which as we all know nature abhors, that would likely be filled by the Chinese.

I mostly don't disagree with that one.

I also mostly don't care.

Japan, Russia and India have a lot of history with China.

All three of them will almost instantaneously start to rethink the way they go about their business.

Japan in particular will most likely get after developing a military that can deter Chinese aspirations.

Getting out of Europe is the best thing that can happen to us, if for no other reason than instead of supporting continental economies with American tax dollars, we will be supporting the local communities that are home to our military people.

You guys want a European Union?

Your gonna need to throw in the cost of defending it.

I'll admit to a twinge of guilt with regards to the British.

They are a great friend and ally (pretty much from the day they stopped attacking us).

Leaving them with the French seems cold.

But alas .....

What about Israel?

I'll cheerfully sell them missiles and warheads sufficient to roast anyone, anywhere that might think they want a go.

It's called "mutually assured destruction" and it's been working like a charm .............. so far.

 

Here's the issue as I see it.

We have within our capabilities the power to win any war we fight.

Including this war with Islam (not radical Islam) (or terror) that we are presently involved in.

The way to win it is to decide to win it.

I'll say it again.

 

The way to win this war is to decide to win it.

 

 

Understand now, this means going to war with the intent of killing everybody you can find and breaking everything you see until your enemy surrenders under your terms.

Wanna take Kandahar (Qandahar) Province?

Carpet bomb Kandahar (Qandahar) City.

Kill em all, break everything there (that's about 470,000 people, about 40 times that in sheep and goats), reduce it to rubble, then make that rubble bounce.

When you're finished there, move on up the road to Spin Bolduk.

Can you imagine the uproar?

The UN would be going nuts, people would be screaming about war crimes.

They'd spend hundreds of hours happily debating language for the non binding resolution condemning the action.

Now, just to make the point that you're no longer fooling around, move north to Khost (only about 160,000 people), continue the proceedure.

Every couple days, take the morning off from the bombs, and drop leaflets around the rest of Afghanistan which read as follows.

 

Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?

 

Kidding ..... sort of.

Send copies to Mahmoud Ahmadinijad, Mullah Ali Khamenei, the entire Iranian Parliment, Bashar al-Assaad (President of Syria), Hamas and Hezballah.

When the calls come in wanting to negotiate some peace, forget to return them for a couple of days.

Set up the appointment for sometime around the end of next month.

Then stay busy.

You've just won your war.

And here's the best part, not one American mother's son has been lost.

Seem harsh?

I offer a series of letters from the month of September 1864 between Generals Hood, Halleck and William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army and the Mayor and members of the Atlanta City Council prior to the destruction of Atlanta.

These letters should be read by every citizen of this country.

Hell, they should be read by every citizen of the world.

They are reasonably short, to the point and with regards to General Sherman's final reply to Mayor Calhoun (go ahead, just scroll to the end), contain extraordinary wisdom.

Click on the gears.

Do it now, you're not doing anything important.

 

 

Now, it is my strongly held opinion that we are unwilling to do any of that.

And I say, that if we are unwilling to do what's necessary to win, and by win I mean force an unconditional surrender on our enemy, completely on our terms, what the hell is it that we are sacrificing the lives of our children for?

Our thinking here is that by invading someone else's country and keeping our military there to enforce our will, our enemy will soon grow fond of us, and want to become just like us.

Dwell on that one for just a moment.

Let's say just for fun someone else had the military power to successfully invade America with the same thinking.

What would you likely do.

My opinion is that a mess of people would roll over in the beginning, but another group would make it their personal business to kill and/or maim every foreigner they stumbled across ..... and then hide.

That's called Guerilla War.

It works pretty good.

Then what happens is your foreigners start getting frustrated and start killing people indiscriminately.

Which of course would include and subsequently enrage them that had previously rolled over.

Which would ultimately cause unacceptable casualties among the invaders as the formerly rolled over, now join in.

Which would ultimately result in your foreigner's withdrawal after an enormous toll was extracted from everyone.

So .....

Whoa whoa whoa .... wait a minute, isn't that exactly what you're proposing above?

Aren't you advocating indiscriminate killing out of frustration?

Nope, I'm just sayin' that if you want to win this thing, you're gonna have to get brutal.

If you're unwilling to get brutal, your gonna lose, and a bunch of your own will have been sacrificed for nothing.

My idea with regards to war is simple.

I'm disinterested in my enemy learning to like me, admiring me, or wanting to grow up to be just like me.

In this particular instance, I have little interest in walking off into the sunset arm in arm with my Muslim brother.

I think the entire concept of "nation building" is stupid.

After this is over, I'll be glad to do some business if he wants ... and there's a profit in it.

My idea is simply to make sure that everybody understands, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if you attack America, we're gonna come by for a visit, f&#$ you up real bad, and then leave.

Here's my ......

Whoa Whoa aren't you gonna piss off them that would have rolled over anyway?

Yup.

The difference here is that there aren't any Americans hanging around town waiting to be killed in retribution.

If I go, I'm "raining death and destruction" and then going somewhere real double tough for my enemy to get at me .... home.

The only guys hanging around to vent on will be the very guys that started the whole mess in the first place.

Poetic, ain't it.

Hey, they're just gonna attack us here.

Maybe, but they're doing that now.

And if/when they do, whether they are successful or thwarted, I would spend some time looking into who's responsible, and/or profited, and when my list is complete, go ape-shit crazy on everything they know.

The notion of "proportional response" should become, as they say, "another casualty of war".

 

The only real edge Islam has is the fact that everybody is pretty damn sure they're crazy.

Print a cartoon, they cut off your head.

Proportional doesn't register in the Islamic mind.

And for that reason, pretty much everybody is scared of em.

I believe it's a good thing when your enemy thinks you're crazy.

Makes em think twice ..... if not thrice.

 

My clear preference is to have my enemy think I'm crazy.

And the best part is, I'm going to have almost all my guys here at home where they belong, playing defense and helping out with thwartation.

 

You get only two choices with any chance of success in this kind of business.

Go to win, or don't even start.

Unfortunately we have attempted the "third way".

Just ask yourself here. "What do we really want?"

What I really want is for Islam to stop attacking the World Trade Center and killing innocent people.

I'd prefer it if Islam would play nice with Israel, but if Islam doesn't want to, the consequences are theirs.

If Israel chooses to make certain of it's survival as a jewish state?

(Should jewish be capitalized?)

Well ..... I can certainly understand that one.

Our decisions up to now have only resulted in the tragic destruction of our very best young people and a colossal waste of our resources.

If you're gonna fight the damn war, the idea is to effect the tragic demise and colossal waste on your enemy, and his resources.

If you're not up to it, leave it alone.

Apologies for the very long post, I'm well rested.

 

 

I can't remember any vacation remotely like this one.

To say that The Thumb of Michigan is slow, is to exaggerate in the extreme.

The cottage I mooched sits dead between Port Austin and Caseville at the northern tip of The Thumb and as such allows for a spectacular view of both the sunrise and sunset over Lake Huron.

The sun moves in a near perfect U around the cottage from about 3 o'clock at sunrise, to behind you at noon, and then sets at about 9 o'clock, at about 9 o'clock.

I caught both every day, coming and going.

Took my nap about 11.

The days' highlights were pretty much limited to sunrise, blueberry pancakes, adventure golf, nap, a walk, dinner, sunset, bonfire.

 

 

The occasional trip on the rope swing.

There was only lousy internet service anywhere nearby.

I failed to open any one of the eight books I brought.

As for scorekeeping.

Spain wins the world cup in a very ugly final, earning me a tidy little profit.

Treasuries are booming and thus kicking the crap out of my short position.

The stock market and gold are, in the grand scheme of things, pretty much where I left them.

With regards to "The Bradley Model" and "the summer of doom", the Cardinal Cross begins to perfect itself late this week.

I'll update charts and address another record breaking run of calls and emails tomorrow.

I missed you too.

In the interest of full disclosure, these are very, very, very small records we're breaking here.