Is U.S. Now On Slippery Slope To Tyranny?

By THOMAS SOWELL  

When Adolf Hitler was building up the Nazi movement in the 1920s, leading up to his taking power in the 1930s, he deliberately sought to activate people who did not normally pay much attention to politics.
Such people were a valuable addition to his political base, since they were particularly susceptible to Hitler's rhetoric and had far less basis for questioning his assumptions or his conclusions.

"Useful idiots" was the term supposedly coined by V.I. Lenin to describe similarly unthinking supporters of his dictatorship in the Soviet Union.

Put differently, a democracy needs informed citizens if it is to thrive, or ultimately even survive.

In our times, American democracy is being dismantled, piece by piece, before our very eyes by the current administration in Washington, and few people seem to be concerned about it.

The president's poll numbers are going down because increasing numbers of people disagree with particular policies of his, but the damage being done to the fundamental structure of this nation goes far beyond particular counterproductive policies.
Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere.
And yet that is precisely what is happening with a $20 billion fund to be provided by BP to compensate people harmed by their oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Many among the public and in the media may think that the issue is simply whether BP's oil spill has damaged many people, who ought to be compensated.
But our government is supposed to be "a government of laws and not of men."
If our laws and our institutions determine that BP ought to pay $20 billion — or $50 billion or $100 billion — then so be it.

But the Constitution says that private property is not to be confiscated by the government without "due process of law."
Technically, it has not been confiscated by Barack Obama, but that is a distinction without a difference.

With vastly expanded powers of government available at the discretion of politicians and bureaucrats, private individuals and organizations can be forced into accepting the imposition of powers that were never granted to the government by the Constitution.
If you believe that the end justifies the means, then you don't believe in constitutional government.

 

BP Says Oil in Gulf Must be Changed Every Six Months

 

Bad Situation Gets Worse

GULF OF MEXICO   – At a time when many thought that news out of the Gulf of Mexico couldn’t get any worse, BP announced today that the oil in the Gulf needs to be changed every six months.

“The oil will need to be changed every six months or every 15,000 lies,” said the BP spokesman.  “Whatever comes sooner.”

The announcement about the oil change came on the heels of BP’s decision earlier in the week to separate the Gulf into two sections, full-serve and self-serve.

Sensing that the company was staring down a deepening public relations disaster, BP CEO Tony Hayward attempted to sound a compassionate note: “If this sort of damage were being inflicted on my yacht, I would be devastated.”

According to experts, the BP oil spill is now the second-worst leak in U.S. history, after Michael Steele’s mouth.


The Borowitz Report

Mistresses Blamed For China Property Bubble

HONG KONG - Prostitution is illegal in China, but the police crackdowns recently launched across the country indicate that the "world's oldest profession" is doing as well as ever. In Beijing, there are reportedly so many xiaojie (mistresses) that state media claim their numbers have driven up housing prices.

After efforts to "physically and spiritually" cleanse Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, prostitution has made a big comeback, so much so that municipal police launched a citywide "strike hard" vice crackdown in April entitled "Operation 4.11".

Coincidentally, in line with central government policy, the municipal government has also began taking measures (so far in vain) to bring down the city's skyrocketing housing prices.

The two crackdowns, one on social vices and the other on housing prices, seem unrelated. But a May 14 editorial in the Beijing Evening News, a sister publication of the Beijing Daily - the mouthpiece of the Communist Party's Beijing municipal committee - made an imaginative link between the two.

The article argued that a (downward) turning point in Beijing's property market could be achieved if prostitutes were driven out of the city. Skeptics say the article's flawed reasoning suggests that Beijing authorities are scrambling for a scapegoat for their failure to bring the property market under control.

The editorial, entitled "Turning point will come when all mistresses are driven out of Beijing", estimated that there were 200,000 xiaojie or "mistresses" in Beijing - xiaojie is a face-saving term for prostitutes as the trade is illegal. The article argues that if Beijing police kept up their "strike hard" crackdown, these mistresses could be forced out of the capital within three months. As a result, an extra 200,000 rental flats would be added to the property market. With the sharp increase in supply, "a genuine turning point" would be seen in housing prices.

The article's first confusing premise is that the "more than 200,000 mistresses" working in Beijing could be cleared out of the city within three months. (The assumption that each xiaojie rents a flat is already problematic, since most likely share flats to reduce living costs.)

Since the start of "Operation 4.11", Beijing police have smashed about 400 small prostitution rings, usually working out of hair salons, with some 1,100 suspects detained, according to local media. The operation has been hailed as a "great success", with even high-class night clubs raided, such as Tianshang Renjian or Paradise on Earth, which is rumored to be owned by a Hong Kong tycoon and senior Chinese officials.

However, if after a month such a high-profile crackdown has only been able to net some 1,000 working girls, then it would take 20 years to clear Beijing of 200,000 mistresses. This also doesn't account for newcomers arriving. It is also hard to believe that if mistresses were forced out of the city they would stay away - past experience tells them such anti-vice campaigns are usually short-lived.

Another mistake made by the Beijing Evening News article is that it confuses rentals and sale prices. The two are related to each other - in the long term - but rents do not rise or fall immediately with sale prices, especially when the property market is highly speculative, like Beijing's. One of this author's friends bought a 70-square-meter flat for nearly 1 million yuan (US$146,443) four years ago. It is now worth more than double that, 2.1 million yuan, but the monthly rent has only risen by 30%, from 3,000 to 4,000 yuan.

Most prostitutes come from poor rural areas and use their income to support families at home, they are unlikely to be involved in the sector that has seen the greatest price hikes - luxury housing. While the average price of an apartment in Beijing within the city's Third Ring highway is around 30,000 yuan per square meter, luxury downtown apartments sell at 70,000 yuan per square meter. The average per capita monthly income is only 2,000 yuan.

It is difficult to see how removing prostitutes from Beijing would affect the property market. Moreover, if the owners of flats who rented to "mistresses" wanted to sell their property for profit, they could do so at any time. Why would they wait for the police to scare away their tenants?

Skyrocketing housing prices are an emotive issue in China, particularly in Beijing. Fresh university graduates make about 2,000-3,000 yuan a month if they are lucky enough to find a job. Their total income in a year (without spending) is not even enough to buy a toilet in an average-priced apartment.

Fully aware that high housing prices could become an issue that threatens social stability, Premier Wen Jiabao pledged that his government would keep housing prices in check until March 2013, the end of its term. The State Council has launched tough measures to curb rising prices, such as tightened restrictions on mortgages for second homes, a ban on unauthorized state-owned enterprises investing in the property market, and threats to punish local officials if local housing prices were not brought under control.

However, as many analysts point out, keeping housing prices high is in the interests of local governments (to boost revenues from land sales) as well as for local officials (to collude with developers for kickbacks). Reducing housing prices may be impossible unless the central government finds a way to rein in local governments and officials.

The Beijing Evening News seems to have chosen an easy target. As prostitution is illegal, the women cannot respond publicly to the attack, only accept it in silence.

Marvin Gaye's Mentor Harvey Fuqua, dies at 80

Harvey Fuqua, 80, a singer, songwriter, record producer and early mentor of Marvin Gaye, died of a heart attack Tuesday at a Detroit hospital, according to Ron Brewington of the Motown Alumni Assn.

The Louisville, Ky., native founded the R&B-doo-wop group the Moonglows, which signed with DJ Alan Freed. The group's first single was the 1954 hit “Sincerely.”
Fuqua added Gaye and others in 1958 to a reconstituted group Fuqua called Harvey and the Moonglows. It had the 1958 hit “Ten Commandments of Love.”

Fuqua started Tri-Phi and Harvey Records in 1961, recording the Spinners, Junior Walker & the All Stars, and Shorty Long.

Motown Records founder Berry Gordy later hired Fuqua to develop recording talent.


-- Associated Press


From Wikipedia:- 

Harvey Fuqua, (pronounced /ˈfjuːkwɑː/, born July 27, 1929 in Louisville, Kentucky - July 6 2010), was an African-American soul singer, songwriter, record producer, and record label executive.

He is noted for having been one the key figures in the development of the Motown label in Detroit, Michigan: his doo-wop group gave Marvin Gaye his musical career a start, and he and his wife at the time, Gwen Gordy, distributed the very first Motown hit single, Barrett Strong's "Money (That's What I Want)", on their record label, Anna Records. Fuqua later sold Anna Records to Gwen's brother Berry Gordy, and became a songwriter and executive at Motown.

Fuqua founded the seminal R&B/doo wop group the Moonglows with Bobby Lester, Alexander Graves and Prentiss Barnes.

Mentored by Alan Freed, the group's doo-wop harmony style achieved great success on the national R&B charts in the mid 1950s. Recording on Chess Records, Fuqua initially shared lead vocals with Lester, but eventually asserted himself as the leader of the group. This changed in 1957 when he, in effect, sacked the other members and installed a new group, previously known as the Marquees, which included Marvin Gaye. The new group, billed as Harvey and the Moonglows, had immediate further success, but Fuqua left in 1958. The Moonglows reunited temporarily in 1972, and in 2000 were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Fuqua left the Moonglows when Leonard Chess suggested that he join Anna Records in Detroit. At Anna Records, Fuqua began working with Anna Gordy, Billy Davis, Lamont Dozier and Johnny Bristol. He also introduced Marvin Gaye to Anna's brother, Berry Gordy, and married their sister Gwen Gordy. In 1961, he started his own labels, Tri-Phi Records and Harvey Records, whose acts included the Spinners, Junior Walker and Shorty Long. However, tiring of running a small independent label, Fuqua welcomed the opportunity to work at Motown, and was hired to head the label's Artist Development department and meanwhile worked as a producer for the company. Fuqua brought the Spinners and Johnny Bristol to Motown, and co-produced several hits with Bristol. He was also responsible for bringing Tammi Terrell to the label, and for suggesting and producing her duets with Marvin Gaye, including "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "Your Precious Love".

Around 1971, Fuqua left Motown and signed a production deal with RCA Records, having success particularly with the band New Birth. He also discovered disco pioneer Sylvester, and "Two Tons O' Fun" (aka The Weather Girls), producing Sylvester's hit singles "Dance (Disco Heat)" and "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" in 1978 as well as his album StarsSmokey Robinson's road manager. In 1982 he reunited with Marvin Gaye to produce the singer's Midnight Love album which included the single "Sexual Healing". In 2000 he set up his own "Resurging Artist Records", and also acted as a trustee of The Rhythm and Blues Foundation. in 1979. He also served as

Fuqua resided in Concord, North Carolina until his death on July 6, 2010.

Famous Last Words of Musical Legends

When someone you love dies, the tiniest details became terribly important. You want to know which shirt he was wearing and was it tucked in, what meal he last ate and what cup he last drank from, whom he last talked to and what specifically was said before he took that dying breath. It’s comforting to arrange the particulars in your mind, to try to make sense of what doesn’t make sense at all.

The same is true of the late musicians we’ve loved, many of whose deaths have been recounted and retraced enough times to be rendered controversial. Whether their last words sound spookily prophetic or regrettably ordinary, these are sentences that resound with us. Here are the last known utterances of some of our favorite artists.

Marvin Gaye: “Mother, I’m going to get my things and get out of this house. Father hates me and I’m never coming back.”

Marvin Gaye’s father shot him point blank in the heart the day before he would have turned 45, in plain view of Marvin’s mother Alberta. Gutted by drugs and other illicit pleasures, the singer had moved into his parents’ home, where he spent his days in a burgundy bathrobe. Following a dispute with his father on April 1, 1984, Gaye told his mother, “I’m going to get my things and get out of this house. Father hates me and I’m never coming back.” Seconds later, Gaye was dealt a fatal gunshot.

Kurt Cobain: “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.”

On April 5, 1994, Kurt Cobain pressed a shotgun against the stubbly flesh of his jaw and pulled the trigger. In the note, left behind, his uneven scrawl attributed the suicide to suffocating guilt over having lost – or never having felt at all – the ecstasy of performing. “Sometimes I feel as if I should have a punch-in time clock before I walk out on-stage,” explained the Nirvana frontman. Cobain ended the note with a lyric from Neil Young’s anthem “Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black”: “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.” Though Cobain and Young never met, the two frequently praised one another’s work in the media, and Young even tried to track down Cobain the week prior to his death. In a 2002 interview with The Guardian, Young revealed, “I like to think that I possibly could have done something [to save Cobain]. … I had an impulse to connect. Only when he used my song in that suicide note was the connection made. Then, I felt it was really unfortunate that I didn’t get through to him.”

Sam Cooke: “Lady, you shot me!”

In his Civil Rights anthem “A Change is Gonna Come,” Cooke admits, “It’s been too hard living but I’m afraid to die / ’Cause I don’t know what’s up there beyond the sky.” A year after writing that song, a half-naked Cooke was shot and killed by the manager of a Los Angeles hotel that he’d just checked into with a rumored prostitute. Though details of the death are debatable, it was ruled a justifiable homicide. Bertha Franklin, the woman who says she killed 33-year-old Cooke in self-defense, reported that his surprised last words were, “Lady, you shot me!”

George Harrison: “Love one another.”

Former Beatle George Harrison had battled cancer for four years by the time he passed away in 2001 of lung cancer that had traveled to his brain. Harrison spent his last days meditating in a Hollywood Hills mansion, visited by friends like Ravi Shankar, who had introduced him not only to the sitar but to Eastern philosophy, with which Harrison became fascinated. His final words were spoken to wife Olivia and son Dhani: “Love one another.”

Michael Jackson: “This is it... this really is it.”

After a press conference the month he died, Michael Jackson told fans, “I don’t know how I’m going to do 50 shows. I’m not a big eater. I need to put some weight on.” The King of Pop’s ill health was common knowledge, but his death a year ago of cardiac arrest nevertheless stunned the music community. The eve before he died, the 50-year-old had put the finishing touches on his This Is It comeback tour and was entering his limo when he reportedly remarked, “This is it... this really is it.”

John Lennon: “Yes, I am.”

In the back of a speeding squad car bound for New York City’s Roosevelt Hospital, John Lennon was asked to verify his identity, as his blood pooled on the floorboard. “Are you John Lennon?” a policeman asked him. “Yes, I am,” he replied and lost consciousness. The former Beatle was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital that Monday evening, December 8, 1980. Deranged fan Mark David Chapman had shot him four times in the back under the elegant arched entranceway of Lennon’s apartment building.

Bob Marley: “Money can’t buy life.”

In May 1981, Bob Marley hopped a flight out of Germany, intending to make it home to Jamaica. The reggae forefather had resigned himself to the fact that he would soon die of the skin cancer that had tormented him for three years, but he would make it no further than Miami before he had to be rushed to a hospital. Marley, 36, died in Miami on May 11, 1981, but not before telling son Ziggy, “Money can’t buy you life.”

Elvis Presley: “Okay, I won’t.”

On the night of August 16, 1977, Elvis Presley couldn’t sleep and told fiancée Ginger Alden that he was retiring to the bathroom to read. Alden says she told 42-year-old Presley not to fall asleep in there and he replied, “Okay, I won’t.” She found Presley dead on the bathroom floor of his Graceland home several hours later. An autopsy identified 14 drugs in his system. Of note, Presley ended his final press conference by saying, “I hope I haven’t bored you.”

Randy Rhoads: “Why do you drink that stuff, Ozzy? One of these days it’s gonna kill you.”

In Ozzy Osbourne’s autobiography I Am Ozzy, he reports that guitarist Randy Rhoads chided him about his drinking problem the day he died in a plane crash in 1982. “Why do you drink that stuff, Ozzy? “ Rhoads asked. “One of these days it’s gonna kill you.” While Osbourne was napping in the tour bus, the 25-year-old went up in a small plane piloted by bus driver Andrew Aycock, whose autopsy would later reveal cocaine. A foolish daredevil plane ride ended quickly in the deaths of Rhoads, Aycock and a hairdresser also on board. An autopsy found only nicotine in Rhoads’ system.

KCPO:- Slow Drift To Lower - 5/7/2010

Last week saw another round of drifting down again. Both the Stochastic and MACD have turned negative and price went below the lower Bollinger Band. With  MACD  below its zero signal line, you should be more bearish biased.

The ADX starts to rise again but it is still above both the D+ and D-, this is usually taken as an oversold signal. So I remain unimpressed but if you had sold the market with the break below the lower band, then keep a stop at 2367. Otherwise you should just sit around and watch out for some clearer signals.

The weekly chart seems to telling us something else. The MACD has gone below its zero signal line which is usually a more confirming bearish signal. Prices stay below the lower Bollinger Band and the ADX has finally begun to rise. All seems to be telling us a big bear is in formation ! The only discomforting item is the Stochastic which is now at 9's. I would like to see a continuing rising ADX to offset the oversold Stochastic in order to call this a big bear move.

So with the weekly chart calling for a bigger bear while the daily chart is on a short term sell. But I cannot read anything particular too bearish on both the charts, so I would sell on the short term and keep stops tight. And let's see whether we can get some clearer signals on this market by the coming weeks.

I am also pondering on KCPO's  reactions to weaker USD and crude oil which traditionally KCPO tends to follow their direction.

FKLI:- Has The Mother Of All Bears Arrived ? 5/7/2010

My stop at 1328 was taken out last Monday but I did not reverse to buy again as the Stochastic remained negative. Instead I went back into shorts when prices went below the upper Bollinger Band  on Tuesday. On that same day, we have the D- crossing down D+, a lower low on the next day confirmed Wells Wilder's extreme rule for selling. Then on Thursday we have the MACD turning negative which added on another sell signal. By the coming week, any cross down below the lower Bollinger Band would flash another sell signal. And you should watch out for the MACD when it crosses down below its zero signal line and when the Stochastic crosses below its 0's signal line, both should bring out more intense selling.

With all the sell signals, what we lack is the 'easterly wind" which is the flat ADX, once we can see the ADX starts to rise and especially when it goes above the 20's, then we can safely say that the bear cycle has begun.


Another method to look at the return of a trend is to watch out a rising D- that break up above its prior peak which is marked out here.


Since the ADX is flat and lowly, I would concentrate on the Stochastic for possible reversal. Place stop at 1328. If prices continue to fall on the coming week, move stop to 1311.

The weekly chart is still full of uncertainty as the Stochastic is positive when MACD is negative. As you should have learnt from reading this column:- contradicting indicators mean the market is sideway and has not decided on its next course of direction. This is further confirmed by the falling ADX which is dangerously near its 20's. Prices getting stuck within the upper and lower bands also confirm the lack of trend here.


Things to watch out for at the weekly chart will be a closing of below the lower Bollinger Band at 1286 or the Stochastic starts to cross down which may make it in agreement with the MACD.

As mentioned here last few weeks, there is a bearish divergence found at both the daily and weekly chart and a Head and Shoulder pattern already formed, basically we have got all the mothers of all bears sitting in place. All we are waiting for next is their confirmation - a break in the H&S neckline, prices going below the lower Bollinger Band; MACD going below its zero line etc, then the party should begin.If you believe in the arts and science of technical analysis, then you would NOT get fooled by the politicians' spin doctors telling you how beautiful is our economy.


We need another cycle of nasty sell downs before we can enjoy our next super cycle of bull market. I always feel strongly about it:- come on, get on with the pains now instead of dragging on forever and ended up in decades of self pity and limping steps. If you look at how Thailand and Indonesia embraced their pains after the 90's crisis and boom to a new height and compare them to Malaysia, you would know what I mean.