Newest Olympic Heroes USA Style

So far the Olympics have been long on advertising and short on heroes but two genuine articles have emerged from the sports competition to capture the fancy of the world. Of course there is everyone's hero Michael Phelps closing in on a bevy of records from most gold ever to most gold in a year. This golden boy is about to knock the cash register off the wall as over $100 million in sponsorships will be collected if he wins the last three races.



Now for two reasons Phelps, the newest Greek God, has a Coltons Point connection as he is a native Marylander and his sports management firm, Octagon Athletes and Personalities from DC, NYC and the world has a Coltons Point resident doing all his graphic art work from logos to birthday cards, posters to movie covers. Guess who?

Our other hero, regardless of how she does in the individual competition, is Shawn Johnson from Iowa, which just happens to be my home state as well. We have Michael Phelps at 6 feet 4 inches and Shawn Johnson at 4 feet 9 inches which just goes to show you that heart has no relationship to physical size.

Here is what the national media is saying about the power packed pixie from Iowa.

Chicago Sun Times

Johnson is Little Miss Perfect
August 8, 2008

BY Greg Couch Sun Times Columnist

BEIJING — Shawn Johnson sat straight with her fingers clasped on the table directly in front of her, and her smile big, straight and never wavering.

"In the end," she said, "if I give everything I have, I’ll be happy."

In every Olympics, we look for some tiny sweetheart to fall in love with.
Johnson is it.

She is the American gymnast, who not only is favored to win the all-around competition, but also possibly take down China’s team in the most hotly contested U.S.-China team matchup in the Olympics.

That’s right, all 4-9 and 90 pounds of this 16-year-old, probably the toughest Olympian pound-for-pound, is set to take down the big bad guys. This is a Wheaties box cover waiting to happen.

"It’s such an honor to know that USA (gymnastics) picked me," she said.

But wait, you don’t know the half of it.

The truth about Johnson is — and remember I’m a critic for a living — she is perfect. Little Miss Perfect.

If that sounds like sarcasm, forget it.

No, I’ve been studying this, looking for the flaws to expose. If she has one at all, it’s only that perfection can be annoying. It can be fake or plastic. And Johnson does have that perfect smile.

But somehow, she makes it work.

Here’s the deal: Johnson is from West Des Moines, Iowa. She had far too much energy as a baby, and was doing pull-ups in her crib. I swear. So her mom put her in gymnastics when she was 6.

She’s a straight-A student, who, according to the Palm Beach Post, spends her free time walking dogs at a shelter and wiping off muddy footballs for her high school’s team. I swear.

Her parents? Junior high sweethearts who met at a roller rink.

She’s the one.

Now, I’ve always liked gymnastics during the Olympics, found it amazing and one of the most courageous sports. You get your moment and you have to nail it. It’s beautiful movements mixed with incredible power.

But I don’t like to see how its made. These little girls are constantly overtrained and hurt, with plenty developing eating disorders.

"I have been remarkably injury-free my whole career," she said. "Minor sprains, yes. But anything big? No."

Her parents have said over and over how important it was that Johnson have a "normal" life, which, with prodigies can mean they’re allowed to make one phone call a day while starving themselves in the sports academy they’ve moved to away from their parents.

Johnson stayed in Des Moines and goes to public school. A typical work schedule for these kids is 40-hours a week of training. Johnson does 25, which would seem to be plenty, and might explain her lack of injuries. She also says she’s on no particular diet.

That’s all the plan of her coach, Liang Qiao, who now goes by "Chow." See, when Johnson’s mother enrolled her in gymnastics as a 6-year old, it turned out that the guy running the place was Chow, a former Chinese champion gymnast.

Now, I’m not sure how many Chinese champions can accidentally be found in Des Moines, but that’s where he was. He came to the U.S. to go to the University of Iowa, and then staying nearby to open his gymnastics school.

The Washington Post

By Thomas Boswell
Wednesday, August 13, 2008

BEIJING
Women's gymnastics at the Olympics always lifts or breaks your heart. On Wednesday, it did both. Few athletes in the world can make you catch your breath in disbelief or define the line of human beauty more powerfully that Shawn Johnson on the balance beam, Nastia Liukin on the uneven bars or Chinese captain Fei Cheng on the vault. Give a bird its wings, a squirrel his tree or a chimp her vines and they can't touch what these dervishes can do.

But if it's tears you want, the kind you feel inside when you see a small girl in glitter makeup trying to pretend she's 16 -- and eligible for the Olympics -- when she may only be 14, then National Indoor Stadium was the place to come for that emotion, too.

Yet the bitterest tears of all belong to an undeserving victim, U.S. captain Alicia Sacramone, who bombed on the last two events -- falling off the balance beam, then tumbling on her rump in floor exercises, a discipline where she was world champion in 2005. Her scores demolished the United States' (slim) chances at a comeback.

Sacramone has lots of disadvantages. She's 20, grown, smart, goes to Brown and is old enough to know what's at stake. All are nightmares to a gymnast. Better to be young, limber, oblivious and fearless.

As she left the mat, the two-year battle between the U.S. and China -- with each winning a world title by a tiny fraction of a point -- was as good as decided.

Sacramone fled her teammates, buried her head in her hand and began to cry. For the next 20 minutes, she fought back tears, sometimes failing. After the verdict was final, Johnson sat next to Sacramone, looped her arm through the older girl's, then laid her head on Sacramore's shoulder in an instant of consolation.

Such talent and grace, such sadness and sympathy, such ethical complexity, all tangled up together. In the end, it may be too much to digest. Who's juicing, who's not? Whose age is fake or real? Which judges are biased or wise? Forget it, Jake, it's the Olympics.

Only Johnson, who did well in all four events and is favored in Friday's all-around, saw the day in focus, got it exactly right with a kid's clarity. Sometimes complexity's a bore. Hold tight to the strong and solid -- what there is of it.

"I honestly think our team did great today," she said, smiling at a massive news conference. "We are proud of each other no matter what we do. We are like a family. We respect China. We will wear our silver medals proudly."

Johnson is 16. Really. Though she'll have a hard time growing wiser.

Christian Science Moniter

Amid US gymnastics disappointment, Shawn Johnson’s grace

Perhaps nothing at these Games will be more precious than that one moment, when we caught a glimpse of a young woman whose gifts stretch well beyond sports.

Mark Sappenfield, August 13, 2008 edition

Beijing
When the women’s gymnastics team competition was all but over, save China’s last, perfunctory turn on the floor – when American team captain Alicia Sacramone no longer had anything to distract her from the mistakes that had made a gold medal impossible, Shawn Johnson sat beside her.

China would win. The US, who had promised so much, would be silver medalists.

Sacramone looked as though she was on the edge of a cliff, holding back that inevitable moment when the disappointment in her falls on floor and beam would overwhelm her and plunge her headlong into tears.

But Johnson smiled that smile that comes so easily for her, and took Sacramone’s arm in hers, almost as if they were an old married couple on a park bench. For a moment, however briefly, Sacramone smiled, too.

No matter what Johnson does in two days’ time on the women’s all-around competition, I hope the world will remember that image – of a 16-year-old girl who is not only an extraordinary athlete, but also something altogether more profound and worthy of celebration: an uncommon human being.

“She is a very loving person,” says her coach, Liang Chow. “That shows in her gymnastics.”

To imagine that Johnson could ever blame her captain for preventing her from being the Michael Phelps of women’s gymnastics is not to understand who she is. Before today, it was by no means inconceivable that Johnson could have won four golds: in the team event, the all-around, and the floor and beam individual events.

But she knows, as does the entire team, that without Sacramone, they would not have won the world championship last year. After a shaky rotation on beam then, Sacramone gathered the team together – in a huddle as gymnasts often do – but this time, very clearly under her wing. On that day, the floor event was flawless and America was world champions.

Today, the result was different. Johnson was not.

“We love her no matter what,” she says.

These sorts of things are said every day at the Olympic Games. Often they are honest, sometimes they are not. With Johnson, there is no doubting.

Much has been made of the age of the Chinese gymnasts. We know Shawn Johnson is 16. But she is so much older than that, too.

McCain the "wrinkly", "white-haired dude" says Paris

"Hey America, I'm Paris Hilton and I'm a celebrity, too. Only I'm not from the olden days and I'm not promising change like that other guy. I'm just hot. But then that wrinkly, white-haired guy used me in his campaign ad, which I guess means I'm running for president. So thanks for the endorsement white-haired dude."

With that video response to McCain's unauthorized use of her image in an ad blasting Obama and the rather negative copy about the celebrities in America, our favorite celebrity brat came out of hiding and announced plans for her new presidential campaign.

Notwithstanding the fact she is just 27 and the minimum age for president is 35, I am delighted she is in the thick of it because our other two presidential candidates were acting very much like a couple of spoiled brats and Paris might knock some sense into them.

Hilton might be one of the most underrated celebrities in America because the press has been so quick to paint her as an airhead. She came from a super rich family but her grandfather has already disinherited her. That means she has no multi-million dollar inheritance and no sugar daddy paying all the bills for her to play.

So faced with that reality what did Miss Hilton do? She started charging to make appearances at clubs, parties and practically everywhere she goes. Not a bad move for a party girl certain to grab headlines. Rumor has it her fees run up to $100,000.

She also started several of her own businesses which own the rights to her name, image and whatever else she does. And companies from around the world have hired her for ad campaigns, new perfume products, clothes and who knows what else? Last year the bad girl of LA who the media portrays as a spoiled brat made over $7 million and none of it came from the Hilton estate.

I get a good laugh watching Paris and we even invited her to come to Coltons Point with her TV show, the Simple Life, and see what we had to offer. We promised her Hillbilly Joe would escort her around. Unfortunately she wound up in jail at the time.

She brings a breath of fresh air and laughter into a race that was getting all to hot and heavy with both candidates resorting to the old macho mode, name calling, finger pointing and stupid things coming out of their mouths.

In the range of small world, Paris's mother gave $4,600 to McCain during the campaign. You would think the McCain advisors would check to see if they were going to offend any donors before putting Paris into his ad. Hilton's mother said McCain's ad is "a complete waste of the country's time and attention at the very moment when millions of Americans are losing their homes and their jobs." Too bad the candidates don't share her sentiments.

What a Waste of Energy - America's Energy Policy

Its Time for "North America for Americans"



Hey guys, take a minute to catch your breath and look around. Well, that might be a lot to expect as I've been in campaigns before and I know how hard it is for a candidate to find advisors who actually listen to the public rather than try to tell the public what to think. This campaign seems to have more than its fair share of experts who continue to miss the point and miss the opportunity to show us how their candidate is prepared to lead.

If the candidates want to be responsible then act responsible. If the candidates want to be taken seriously on energy, then act like you know what you are talking about. And if the candidates want to save America then be gentlemen and work together to save us. Otherwise, get out of the way and shut up!

Our first and only concern should be energy independence from foreign control and manipulation. There must be an American strategy that includes our neighbors to the north and south, Canada and Mexico. Between the three (USA, Canada and Mexico) we have more than enough reserves of oil, natural gas and alternative energy capacity to meet our needs forever.

Between the three we have the technical skills, exploration capacity, financial resources and the spirit of freedom needed to create our own cartel to meet our future needs, to control inflation which is now driven by oil prices, to offset problems in one area (hurricanes) with increased production in another area (Canadian shale reserves), and to finally gain independence from foreign manipulation.

There should be no more Dubai's financed with the blood money from American consumers. In the future the horrendous transfer of wealth from the Americas to Arab nations and hostile energy producing nations for oil should stay at home. Instead of $15,000 hotel rooms in the desert, we can give away health care to our citizens. Instead of pro golf courses in camel country how about a good education for everyone here.

If the United States, Mexico and Canada decided our shared interests were far more important than our differences, that our heritages are bound together through generations, that our borders touch and that if the citizens of all three countries had good homes, good health and good jobs, there would be no need for illegal immigration, then we could all live in peace and harmony.

Well the money we wasted buying inflated oil could have accomplished just that and isn't it about time we used that money to do some good for the Americas? Stop pointing fingers and building walls and work together. Mexico and Canada have incredible oil reserves. We all have a need and desire to help each other grow. And we sure don't need the rest of the world to interfere.

Years ago when we passed NAFTA our biggest mistake was not that it went too far, it didn't go far enough. Oh we moved jobs to Mexico and US manufacturers saved money, but at what cost? We didn't protect the workers down there like we protect them here. We didn't make sure the people of Mexico got a better standard of living, decent homes, food and housing and a better education for their children.

Maybe it is time we stepped back and did it right. Maybe we need an agreement based on a shared interest in creating energy independence for all three nations. One that assures that excess profits are invested in the people, in their standard of living and quality of life. Maybe we should stop glamorizing the excesses like the development of Dubai and start focusing on the real world which is the people living in our three countries in substandard conditions with inferior education and jobs in the wrong place.

Take the current popular energy issue. Every day McCain and Obama cram more and more ideas into their energy programs, sometimes changing from the day before and sometimes saying things that are just plain crazy. The only thing worse than the candidates butchering of the energy issue is the press failing to challenge the candidates on their smorgasbord of mishmash to solve our energy problems.

Did anyone tell the candidates that the price of oil has dropped $28.00 a barrel? Did anyone tell them the price of gas has gone down for 18 straight weeks? How about the fact the American public knows what to do and have reduced the use of gas every week for the last 19 weeks, the greatest decline in gas usage in history? Do our politicians know while they spit out ideas like machine gun bullets and fail to take any action on anything, the people have said enough is enough and stopped driving so much, turned up the thermostats, got rid of the gas guzzlers, and reduced the amount of travel.

While the candidates run attack ads and tell us how stupid their opponent is the people have driven oil prices down. While congress goes on vacation to tell us why the Democrats or Republicans are blocking energy reform, the price of oil is dropping without their reforms. Now it is a start and there is a long ways to go but the nonsense being offered by congress and the two candidates to help us out of the mess only compounds the problems.

If the price is coming down for no reason just like the price went up for no reason then something is wrong with the system. All the nuclear reactors in the world and all the alternative energy boosts in the world will not overcome corruption in the marketplace, unfair business actions, malicious price manipulation of the futures market, and the evil intentions of oil speculators.

We need an investigation of the price manipulation and prosecution of the perpetrators of the crimes, meaningful prosecution of the bad guys, if we want to stop the same corruption from corrupting the energy alternatives. Hiring a lot more investigators and prosecutors will have an immediate effect on prices. Candidate proposals may have an effect by 2012 or later. I don't know about you but I am not content to wait until the Mayan Indians say it is the end of time (December 21, 2012) before we achieve anything.

Nuclear reactors, contrary to the vast experience of McCain, are still dangerous. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were not jokes nor movies, they were real. I was at TMI for the multi-billion dollar clean up of that "harmless" accident. If $5-7 billion is harmless what is the world coming to? And Chernobyl, I met the kids that were victims of radiation poisoning, the kids that must remain in the hot zone for life because they can contaminate other people. Of course life for them is about 10-12 years.

There is an accident in the Ukraine and sheep die a thousand miles away in Scotland. Land from nuclear testing over the years is a dead zone for hundreds of years. Nuclear waste at our nuclear plants sit stored at the plants, vulnerable to terrorist attack, because congress cannot get a nuclear disposal facility built in the desert. When a nuclear plant wears out, and they do just like everything else, the plant must be decommissioned and that cost is now more than the cost of building the plant in the first place. Nuclear has a role but must be used with great caution.

On the other hand, there are known reserves of oil sufficient to meet the world needs for 300 more years. We are not running out of oil tomorrow. The price manipulation of oil has nothing to do with the supply and demand, the normal supply and demand. Off shore drilling, even the very limited Alaskan drilling, can only help us be more independent. But we need refinery capacity to make the various types of gas and oil we need if we get the crude locally.

Together the three nations should develop and implement a long term energy independence plan that makes all known and unknown reserves available to the producers including the Gulf, Atlantic and Pacific deep water reserves, the limited areas in Alaska that should be developed, and the many other known reserves in the countries.

As new territory is made available for drilling refining capacity must be expanded in the Americas to produce the products we need. There must be substantial incentives for alternative energy and energy conservation programs. For example, energy savings of 50% or more can be made in our older housing stock. Multiply that by a few hundred thousand homes and a real dent in energy demand can be realized.


I say withhold foreign aid to oil producing nations until the foreign governments lean on their local producers to stop speculation. If they want to play games against us then cut off our foreign aid to the crooks.

A meaningful partnership is needed between the three bordering nations, the energy companies in those nations, the conservation and alternative fuel companies in those nations, and the building code enforcement authorities in those nations. Such a partnership will protect and create jobs, stop foreign trade deficits, stop the transfer of wealth to Arab nations, and stop the out of control oil and gas prices. Together we have a chance to change history.

STAY TUNED TO THE LATEST RERUNS OF THE NEWS

Tell me I'm not the only person to notice that more and more television newscasts are rerunning stories from the day before and even two days earlier. It used to be they might try to update an earlier story for filler purposes on slow days but now it seems that over half the news stories on news programs are reruns from the previous broadcasts. I think they have cut the budgets so much that they might not have any reporters left to report fresh news.

Most network and cable news channels now run long blocks of paid advertising during the late evening, early morning and weekend hours. That never would have happened under Ted Turner at CNN who believed a news channel was supposed to report the news twenty-four hours a day. Guess it is kind of hard when most of the reporters have been eliminated.

The networks have found other ways to try and milk more money from the news divisions. CNN did a special on Black America, a two part special, and then proceeded to broadcast the entire thing about 5 times over a couple of days killing off about 10 hours of coverage. Remember, every rerun means that much less original production.

Most talk shows on CNN, Headline News and others, programs like the O'Rielly Report, Glenn Beck, blah, blah, blah are rebroadcast as many as three times in 24 hours as if once wasn't enough. When too many reporters are laid off they start broadcasting more and more entertainment and celebrity expose stories since the self-promotion of the stars is always available from the studios.

Most quasi-news shows like Today, Good Morning America and others often have guests introducing new movies, television shows or books and more often than not they work for another division of the owner of the network. Thus Miley Cyrus of Hanna Montana fame who is owned by Disney is being interviewed on Good Morning America, plays a concert on that show to introduce her newest song, and shows up on several other ABC related shows which is also owned by Disney.



Fox, NBC and CBS all do the same thing when they get the chance so you never really know if a morning show is featuring talent because of the merits of the talent or because that person is contributing to the profit margin of the network. If you watch the news footage closely you can also see the same footage being used over and over again although the story may change slightly.

Which leaves us with the big question. Is our news being pre-packaged as Hillbilly Joe and Dogman say and are we being spoon fed stories that keep our attention diverted away from the truth? If we are getting a daily dose of propaganda then is anyone getting the truth? And what sinister force is behind the disappearance of real news on American television?

Stay tuned for the rest of the story...

THE BROKER FROM INDIA CRUSHED BY AN ELEPHANT STAMPEDE

Just after the dogs took me for a walk this morning at the crack of dawn I was watching the wayward satellite signal that keeps interfering with my television and the MSNBC early morning show came on. For those of you not familiar with MSNBC, it is the joint venture between Microsoft and NBC and I think it thinks they are financial gurus as they have all these financial experts in stock markets around the world reporting in. Truth is they have the lowest ratings of any of these type of networks so either no one takes them serious or they needed a place to put their kids to work.

The "experts" were reporting in from around the globe and when they got to the guy in Hong Kong, he was actually from India, they made a point of how he managed a few billion dollars in some fund. This guy talked as if he represented the financial experts in India, Hong Kong, China, Viet Nam and all those other places not generally known for being masters of capitalism.

He said about 67% of his billions are invested in commodities, meaning oil and food futures. That got my attention because oil has been going down almost every day, already exceeding a loss of 14% in two weeks, while food has been falling even faster. He explained that in India, China and Viet Nam the inflation rate is 12-24% and they are growing economies. Since the USA claims an inflation rate of just 3% he knew the Americans were lying and as soon as we tell the truth oil and food futures will skyrocket back up. He also said the Europeans were lying about inflation as well.

When questioned by the other experts he became adamant saying the US economy was crumbling and the press and government were keeping the truth from the public. He said there was no way the US could have a 3% inflation rate when oil and food doubled in price. When the others pointed out that food and oil are major economic factors in emerging economies, but are a very small part of the huge US gross national product, the guy gave the camera a real goofy look and said we would see.

I quickly checked to see if I was accidentally tuned in to the Comedy Channel. This was a classic Saturday Night Live skit. But no, it was the real deal. And when I thought about it I got a little nervous. All along I've said the speculators were driving up the price of oil and food and when they made their billions they would start selling, which they are. Well this whiz kid from India convinced someone to let him handle billions of dollars and he is throwing it into the speculation market based solely on his insight that everyone in America is lying about the inflation numbers.

There are clearly two types of speculators, the informed sharks and the wallowing minnows and the whiz kid belongs in the latter. When the commodity prices continue to fall, which they are doing again today, in time the guru is going to see his assets go down faster than oil prices and one day the rich in India are going to ask him what happened to all their money and he is going to say the Americans defrauded him out of it.

So the USA gets a bad name in the world because some idiot from India claims we are lying about our inflation rate. Since Hong Kong is now part of China and we are not exactly best friends with China I wonder if the guy from India who is in Hong Kong is a plant to undermine the US economy or just another illegal immigrant to China. If he is truly investing billions of dollars from India and China and the oil and food prices continue to fall then don't be surprised if you read about an Indian broker who was crushed by a mysterious elephant stampede.

Almost 30% of the population in India lives below poverty standards, with suffering so great it made Sister Theresa a saint. Class and religious warfare are rampant. In spite of this the US has lost all of its computer customer service operations to India so now if you call customer support or technical support you have no idea what they are talking about. They might speak English but they have little understanding of the English speaking people over here. The whiz kid is the same. He may speak our language but he has no clue what makes us tick. I only hope he can explain what happened to his investors.

China's Cyber-Militia

National Journal
(Excerpts from COVER STORY - China’s Cyber-Militia)

Full story:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/cs_20080531_6948.php

Chinese hackers pose a clear and present danger to U.S. government and private-sector computer networks and may be responsible for two major U.S. power blackouts.

by Shane Harris

Sat. May 31, 2008

Computer hackers in China, including those working on behalf of the Chinese government and military, have penetrated deeply into the information systems of U.S. companies and government agencies, stolen proprietary information from American executives in advance of their business meetings in China, and, in a few cases, gained access to electric power plants in the United States, possibly triggering two recent and widespread blackouts in Florida and the Northeast, according to U.S. government officials and computer-security experts.

One prominent expert told National Journal he believes that China’s People’s Liberation Army played a role in the power outages. Tim Bennett, the former president of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance, a leading trade group, said that U.S. intelligence officials have told him that the PLA in 2003 gained access to a network that controlled electric power systems serving the northeastern United States. The intelligence officials said that forensic analysis had confirmed the source, Bennett said. “They said that, with confidence, it had been traced back to the PLA.” These officials believe that the intrusion may have precipitated the largest blackout in North American history, which occurred in August of that year. A 9,300-square-mile area, touching Michigan, Ohio, New York, and parts of Canada, lost power; an estimated 50 million people were affected.

Officially, the blackout was attributed to a variety of factors, none of which involved foreign intervention. Investigators blamed “overgrown trees” that came into contact with strained high-voltage lines near facilities in Ohio owned by FirstEnergy Corp. More than 100 power plants were shut down during the cascading failure. A computer virus, then in wide circulation, disrupted the communications lines that utility companies use to manage the power grid, and this exacerbated the problem. The blackout prompted President Bush to address the nation the day it happened. Power was mostly restored within 24 hours.

There has never been an official U.S. government assertion of Chinese involvement in the outage, but intelligence and other government officials contacted for this story did not explicitly rule out a Chinese role. One security analyst in the private sector with close ties to the intelligence community said that some senior intelligence officials believe that China played a role in the 2003 blackout that is still not fully understood.

Bennett, whose former trade association includes some of the nation’s largest computer-security companies and who has testified before Congress on the vulnerability of information networks, also said that a blackout in February, which affected 3 million customers in South Florida, was precipitated by a cyber-hacker. That outage cut off electricity along Florida’s east coast, from Daytona Beach to Monroe County, and affected eight power-generating stations.

Bennett said that the chief executive officer of a security firm that belonged to Bennett’s trade group told him that federal officials had hired the CEO’s company to investigate the blackout for evidence of a network intrusion, and to “reverse engineer” the incident to see if China had played a role.

Bennett, who now works as a private consultant, said he decided to speak publicly about these incidents to point out that security for the nation’s critical electronic infrastructures remains intolerably weak and to emphasize that government and company officials haven’t sufficiently acknowledged these vulnerabilities.

The Florida Blackout
A second information-security expert independently corroborated Bennett’s account of the Florida blackout. According to this individual, who cited sources with direct knowledge of the investigation, a Chinese PLA hacker attempting to map Florida Power & Light’s computer infrastructure apparently made a mistake. “The hacker was probably supposed to be mapping the system for his bosses and just got carried away and had a ‘what happens if I pull on this’ moment.” The hacker triggered a cascade effect, shutting down large portions of the Florida power grid, the security expert said. “I suspect, as the system went down, the PLA hacker said something like, ‘Oops, my bad,’ in Chinese.”

The power company has blamed “human error” for the incident, specifically an engineer who improperly disabled safety backups while working on a faulty switch. But federal officials are still investigating the matter and have not issued a final report, a spokeswoman for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said. The industry source, who conducts security research for government and corporate clients, said that hackers in China have devoted considerable time and resources to mapping the technology infrastructure of other U.S. companies. That assertion has been backed up by the current vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said last year that Chinese sources are probing U.S. government and commercial networks.

Asked whether Washington knew of hacker involvement in the two blackouts, Joel Brenner, the government’s senior counterintelligence official, told National Journal, “I can’t comment on that.” But he added, “It’s certainly possible that sort of thing could happen. The kinds of network exploitation one does to explore a network and map it and learn one’s way around it has to be done whether you are going to … steal information, bring [the network] down, or corrupt it.… The possible consequences of this behavior are profound.”

Brenner, who works for Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, looks for vulnerabilities in the government’s information networks. He pointed to China as a source of attacks against U.S. interests. “Some [attacks], we have high confidence, are coming from government-sponsored sites,” Brenner said. “The Chinese operate both through government agencies, as we do, but they also operate through sponsoring other organizations that are engaging in this kind of international hacking, whether or not under specific direction. It’s a kind of cyber-militia.… It’s coming in volumes that are just staggering.”

The Central Intelligence Agency’s chief cyber-security officer, Tom Donahue, said that hackers had breached the computer systems of utility companies outside the United States and that they had even demanded ransom. Donahue spoke at a January gathering in New Orleans of security executives from government agencies and some of the nation’s largest utility and energy companies. He said he suspected that some of the hackers had inside knowledge of the utility systems and that in at least one case, an intrusion caused a power outage that affected multiple cities. The CIA didn’t know who launched the attacks or why, Donahue said, “but all involved intrusions through the Internet.”

Donahue’s public remarks, which were unprecedented at the time, prompted questions about whether power plants in the United States had been hacked. Many computer-security experts, including Bennett, believe that his admission about foreign incidents was intended to warn American companies that if intrusions hadn’t already happened stateside, they certainly could. A CIA spokesman at the time said that Donahue’s comments were “designed to highlight to the audience the challenges posed by potential cyber intrusions.” The CIA declined National Journal’s request to interview Donahue.

Cyber Terrorism - America's Achilles Heel

Cyber Terrorism - Part 1
What Price for Freedom?

Series by Jim Putnam


We live in a society that dictates the need to protect our selves, families, homes, property and business. America without insurance would be like air without oxygen. It is difficult to find a single aspect of life in America in which protection is not integrated and essential.


Yet our leadership tell us that the most basic services in which our life and lifestyle depends, the infrastructure of the American standard of living, cannot be protected. The necessities of life, food, air, water, housing and transportation, are all vulnerable to terrorist attack.


We can protect the president. We can protect our money, our gold and our treasures. We can even protect our nuclear arsenal and weapons of destruction. But we cannot protect our quality of life and our people from the threat of cyber terrorism.


Former Bush Administration cyber expert Richard Clarke predicts an “Electronic Pearl Harbor” and has blasted the private sector for failing to protect our infrastructure. Yet all experts agree it is a complex issue. Cyber security seems to demand a trade off. More security can be given if we are willing to sacrifice our freedom and privacy.


America’s corporate world, especially the financial and international commerce communities, refuse to accept the government intrusion into their world of corporate secrets for fear the information will be used to tax or prosecute them. Recent examples of corporate greed and abuse suggest there is a lot to hide from the government. Yet the privacy issue is valid.


At the same time, the corporate world has been reluctant to tell us if they have been successfully hacked. To do so would acknowledge they are vulnerable. It would raise doubt as to their ability to protect their records, clients and intellectual property. It would threaten their credit rating and worst of all, it could cause their stock value to fall. Better to cover up the attack than to undermine investor confidence.


Politically, with the federal elections on the horizon and control of the White House in the balance, it is always safer to blame someone else or deflect blame than to assume responsibility. The politicians use the convenient mantra we can’t protect our infrastructure from cyber attack. They blame the private sector for failing to develop adequate security. And they accuse the private sector of refusing to cooperate and of withholding information about cyber vulnerability.


Wouldn’t you refuse to tell the government all your secrets? The government can’t keep it’s own secrets, let alone be trusted with proprietary corporate secrets. Still it is a “Catch 22” that must be overcome for the average citizen to go to sleep at night feeling secure that their essential services are protected from the hands of blood thirsty, hate filled terrorists committed to killing Americans and destroying our way of life.


Because tonight the water supply could be poisoned. Tonight the electrical grid could be shut down and air conditioners would stop working in the heat wave. Nuclear reactors could have a melt down sending clouds of deadly radiation into the air and contaminating the countryside. Air traffic controllers could be stopped from contacting the thousands of planes in the air.


Floodgates on dams could be opened sending billions of gallons of water crashing down on communities. You could wake up tomorrow and your bank records could be gone, your insurance coverage cutoff, and health care disrupted. Raw sewage could be diverted into your drinking water. Emergency calls to 911 could go unanswered.


Because our standard of living is excessive, it takes an excessive infrastructure to support it. Our lifestyle is computer and energy dependent. From the cockpit of an airplane to the control room of a nuclear reactor, the 500 digital TV channels to the cell phone attached to your ear, we need the infrastructure to feed our addiction for more.


The techniques that could be used by a single terrorist cell working through cyber space could threaten the very existence of our national infrastructure. Every single catastrophe I mentioned is possible from a few keystrokes on a keyboard. So if the politicians are not responsible, the government can’t help, and the private sector is in denial, where do you turn for help?


We need a wake up call to America, to the government leadership and the business community on the threat to our national infrastructure and what can be done to protect our resources and people. It is too late for theories and hypothetical solutions to very real problems of today threatening our standard of living and quality of life.

Cyber Terrorism - Part 2
Media Awareness?


In America there are time-honored traditions for using the media to sell you everything from the news to the latest unnecessary drug. Once upon a time you could distinguish between media’s supposedly unbiased news stories, and those selling goods, services and points of view.


That day is gone. The editorial policy of the media outlet dictates the slant of the news coverage. Revenues rule philosophy and news is no longer a service but a profit center. News content and presentation is designed for ratings, sales and advertising revenue, not objectivity and public good.


In light of this, why is news coverage of cyber terrorism generally limited to technology stories for special interest groups and safely tucked away in the egghead section? Three obvious reasons come to mind. 1.) It is a complex issue. 2.) It might scare the public. And 3.) It might upset the advertisers on the media.


Cyber terrorism is the largest single threat to the quality of life for our citizens. It represents a far greater threat than corporate corruption, government inertia, media bias or bank and phone company service charges. So why are we not being warned about it?


Sure, the cyber world is complex, isn’t all technology? How many consumers know how their air conditioner, television, automobile or computer work? How many know how their money got from a bank into the ATM to them? They don’t. You throw a switch, push a button, or turn a key and it works.


People are not stupid. They don’t need to know how technology works, just what it can do for them. They know all aspects of American life are dependent on the computer, or the electricity that powers the computer. They know we are being bombarded by microwave beams and every other form of electronic signal and frequency to support that technology.


I have a simple way to perceive the cyber world. Our physical world is three dimensional and interpreted by the physical senses. The cyber world is what is beyond the physical realm, is limited only by one’s imagination, and is interpreted by the expanded mind.


As to our concerns cyber terrorism stories would scare the public, so what! One of our constitutional freedoms has always been the right to be scared to death. Stephen King and Dean Koontz wouldn’t sell many books if the public did not want to be scared. Many movies and TV shows were successful because they were very scary.


People pay billions of dollars to be frightened. Supposedly “free” news stories on cyber terrorism would be a great bargain. Sometimes the power of the media to scare people can change our way of life, and sometimes for the better.


Finally, there is the concern that cyber terrorism stories might upset advertisers. Does anyone doubt it? Computer manufacturers, software companies, technology driven companies and companies dependent on communications and advertising for sales are all directly affected. So are services that are electronically dependent like ATM banking, credit cards, phones, etc.


Of course they don’t want stories about how their product can be hacked by terrorists, or how easily services can be disrupted. Billions of dollars in advertising revenue from these companies are poured into the media, the same media that brings you the news. Do you really think “truth” is more powerful than investor confidence or corporate stock valuation?


Those advertising dollars can buy a lot of influence, especially when the advertising and media companies are losing ratings, readers and revenues. As long as the news sources are owned by the same media companies dependent on ad dollars for valuation and survival, there could be a potential conflict of interest. The recent collapse of stock prices, lost advertising revenues, increased cable and digital competition, and fewer viewers or readers have already caused media companies major problems.


They can ill afford to lose more. In spite of all these reasons why the threat of cyber terrorism is not adequately covered by the news media, occasionally there are stories that contribute to understanding the truth. Barton Gellman, Washington Post Staff Writer, wrote a story titled, “Cyber-Attack by Al Qaeda Feared”, published June 27, 2002. It clearly identified the problem. Unfortunately, to find it you had to get to the Internet online technology section of the Washington Post, but at least it was a start.

More recently The National Journal, not the traditional news media, ran a cover story (May 31, 2008) titled China's Cyber-Militia by Shane Harris which discusses how Chinese hackers pose a clear and present danger to the U.S. government and private sector computer networks and may be responsible for two major U.S. power blackouts. The story is reprinted in the CPT.

Cyber Terrorism - Part 3
Who are the hackers?


Most experts seem to agree we face an unprecedented threat from cyber terrorism, and we are all but helpless to stop it. Who are these “hackers” poised to bring the mighty America to its knees through a cyber space assault? Webster’s New World Dictionary defines a hacker as “a talented amateur user of computers, specifically, one who attempts to gain unauthorized access to files in various systems.” I think the definition falls far short.


Hackers are the new Messiahs of the cyber universe immersed in a quest to create like God. The fact they are creating illegal ways to access other people’s files is not a concern to them, as long as they are creating. Still, there is no convenient way to stereotype hackers.


I sense there are at least three distinct types of hacker, the Idealist, the Invisible and the Insidious. Popular books and movies glorify the first type, the Idealist. Hacking secured systems is a challenge to them and when they are successful it is essential they receive proper recognition for their prowess.


The need for peer recognition and ego insure they take credit for their handiwork. But in a distorted way they are not malicious in their intent. Their goal is not the destruction of property or disrupting lives, although that may very well be the consequence of their efforts.

Far more dangerous are the Invisible types. To them successful hacking is not merely to penetrate a secured file or system, but to go undetected in the process. Thus they are able to come and go at will. Government, quasi-government and shadow government agencies fall into this category. They all want to know everything you are doing. There is no system or network in the world safe from their prying eyes.


Thanks to the digital revolution our Constitutional guaranteed Bill of Rights is now obsolete. There is not a phone call, bank transaction or Internet communication safe from big brother. Private corporations have their own Invisible hackers as well so it is not just the government monitoring your life.


Curiously, all those politicians claiming to be defenders of freedom, and that includes Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, are mostly silent about the wholesale invasion of privacy now underway.


Fortunately, the eavesdroppers are so successful at capturing all calls, emails and transactions that the sheer volume is beyond their processing capability. For now our dwindling freedom is protected more as a result of bureaucratic constipation than political action. Super computers will soon eliminate that processing limitation, and everything about your life will be an open book.


The last category of hacker, the Insidious, is the most dangerous. Insidious hackers possess the skills and resources of the Idealist and Invisible hackers, but their motivation is without conscious. To them the art of hacking is a tool to get what they don’t have but want, or for bringing about war and destruction.


Criminals and fanatics, and often they are one in the same, go beyond the game of hacking through computer security barriers. Penetrating the systems is not enough. They steal the information, divert money or damage their targets in a way they cannot be caught. Or, they become cyber mercenaries for a terrorist cause and will use hacking to wreak havoc, devastation and destruction on unsuspecting victims.


Lives destroyed and human deaths resulting are nothing more than digital statistics in a higher cause being served. Unfortunately the combined power, resources and might of the vast American intelligence, law enforcement and defense communities is of no advantage when confronting cyber criminals or cyber terrorists.


The Insidious hacker is incorporeal, without material body or substance in the cyber universe. They have no base of operations, no geographic limitations and no political boundaries to restrict them. You cannot identify them with metal detectors or profiling and you most certainly cannot stop them with current computer security techniques and technology.

THE CPT ILLUSTRATED PRESIDENTIAL POLL OF 2008 - YOU DECIDE!

I am sick of reading and hearing about the polling nonsense every day concerning the presidential election. How many times do the political pundits have to prove how stupid they can be? Political polls in the media have about the same degree of accuracy as the weather man and we all know a single digit IQ qualifies you to be a meterologist.

So we are having our own poll and we are declaring the accuracy to be within 1 to 3% of the accuracy of all those political polls in our face every morning. While they claim statistical accuracy because they use voting age, eligible voters, registered voters and likely voters or whatever might be the fad that morning, we claim statistical accuracy because we simply don't care.

They have a poll sample of between 300 and 2000. Now how in the world can 300-2000 interviews tell you what 300 million people think? So we are conducting a single interview assuming our single citizen does indeed represent a cross section of America. We are going to interview Hillbilly Joe from Coltons Point.

Now some Coltons Pointers are not big on reading, Hillbilly being among them so we are going to use pictures to ask questions in hopes of getting coherent responses. Here is our first Illustrated Presidential Poll of 2008.

CPT: Who do you like for president between these two characters?

Hillbilly: That's it? Those are my only choices? What ever happened to the great American heroes like Ronald Reagan or John Wayne. What happened to America?

CPT: These are the choices the people decided on during the primaries.

Hillbilly: Must be more idiots in America than I thought. Daddy is right, we are being overrun.

CPT: So I guess you are undecided. Which one of these two has the image you want for your president?

Hillbilly: That ain't right man. Somthing just ain't right. Where is my old bomb shelter? We are in deep shit!

CPT: That's okay Hillbilly. How about their position on war, which one is closer to your stand on war of these two?

Hillbilly: Good Lord, are we being punished by Divine Providence or what? One wants to fight and one wants to run. One wants to fight forever and one wants to stop in 16 months. Ain't there no happy medium? Can't we just kick some ass and get it over with like the good old days?

CPT: So you must disagree. How about on the economy?

Hillbilly: What the hell do they know about the economy? They're both on federal welfare aren't they? Both US Senators. And both live off their rich women. McCain should retire to Bora Bora while he can still enjoy his wife and Obama should retire to Hollywood where he can really make some big bucks in movies about presidents.

CPT: So who do you want for president?

Hillbilly: Good thing I ain't got no kids. They'd be cursed by the choices we make this generation. The people didn't nominate these dudes, the media did! So I say pass a law and make the network media stars liable for the next president. Whatever happens they are to blame, not us!

CPT: So who are you going to vote for?

Hillbilly: Are you crazy? I'd lose my lifetime Redneck membership if I backed either one. Ole McCain changes position every day and I ain't got a clue what Obama's position is to begin with. It's like Clinton and Bush. They all came from the same place, speak the same double talk, and think the American public has been taking stupid pills for life!

CPT: What place is that Hillbilly?

Hillbilly: You know, Yale, Harvard, those uppity, uppity Ivy League schools where they are brainwashed from birth. I ain't registered to vote and I ain't voting and that's all there is to it! Now leave me alone dude, I'm going to see Rambo 5 at the movies.

Who Can You Trust?

So we gave you our pick for the Queen of Network News Diane Sawyer, the Kentucky girl who rules ABC News. Diane proved that beauty and brains can be combined when she won the America's Junior Miss scholarship pageant and went on to break down all the doors of television news for women becoming the highest paid woman in network news.

However, not even that is good enough for the CPT Who Do You Trust? honor. The person must demonstrate a strict adherence to the ancient rules of journalism where you are objective, fair, unbiased, and never ever try to advocate a political philosophy or cause. Diane stands alone on network TV in this regard.

Today we are announcing the winner of the cable news Who Do You Trust? honor and once again beauty and brains are packaged in the Queen of Cable News, Robin Meade, anchor of CNN Express morning news. Robin was Miss Ohio and a Miss America finalist and went on to broadcast journalism in Ohio, Florida and Chicago before joining CNN.


You can find her every morning lighting up CNN Headline news where most CNN news personalities will put you to sleep. Many shows on CNN, Fox, MSNBC and whoever claim to be fair, unbiased and no spin but they are liars of course and all have an agenda to push on the unsuspecting public from right wing to left wing, conservative to liberal, and I for one am sick of hearing them tell me what to think.

You want a refreshing, upbeat news report go to Diane or Robin. They stand alone in preserving journalistic integrity. Interesting that they came from neighboring midwestern states.

What happens if the USA has a Financial Meltdown?

If any other nation of the world faced the financial disasters we faced the last year from the oil price spiral to the housing catastrophe, the doubling of food prices to the largest budget deficit in history they would have been foreclosed, bankrupted and sold at a sheriff's auction.

The leaders would have been strung up from the nearest lamp pole, the people would be rioting in the streets, there would be a breakdown of authority and anarchy would rein supreme. So why are oil prices in a free fall, the stock market soaring, people calm and politicians still in office?

There is one intangible in economics that defies all rules of accounting and all standards of financial integrity. It is an intangible that stands in the face of common wisdom and sinister manipulation. It makes executives buffoons, analysts liars and politicians fools and in the end stands in defense of the helpless and silent majority called citizens.

It is the spirit of a nation born out of revolution, hardened by civil war and awakened by world wars. It is the spirit of freedom that guides the United States and makes it the envy of terrorists and financiers, the super rich and despots, warmongers and human rights violators, and all of those whose lives are grounded in evil and motivated by greed.

The American Spirit has withstood the test of time and the trials of sacrifice and never faltered from its ferocious defense of freedom, protection of human rights, its sense of fair play, its tolerance of diversity and its foundation in spirituality. True spirit can only come from a higher force like spirituality, a fact our Founding Fathers knew well and our current leaders keep trying to forget.

The United States is not old, it is still young and it will never lose its youthful enthusiasm because our Founding Fathers made it a living, breathing modern nation the day they adopted a Constitution that was the first in world history to be first person present tense.

The USA is the richest, most powerful and still most generous nation on Earth no matter who is the present pretender to the American seat of power (the president) for in truth the president and congress work for the people.

Our nation, under God, has evolved and grown for 232 years making it one of the oldest continuous forms of government yet one of the youngest nations in world history. Our role in the world far surpasses that of being a super power. People want what we have and we buy from others what we need and the result is an economic system that is the most unique, yet most stable in history.

I mentioned in a recent banking article how 15 of the top twenty banks in the world are from Europe. Two others are from Japan, meaning 17 of the top 20 banks in the world are from other nations leaving just 3 of the top 20 from the US. Yet the profits and losses of all those world banks are dictated by the US economy, no one else.

The world would be bankrupt if the US was bankrupt. The vast majority of money in the world is driven by the US economy, what the US needs and what the US generates, and the nations of the world, like it or not, would fade away and die without access to our markets, goods and services.

That is not an indication of arrogance but a statement of fact. We are in a financial mess but one we have faced before and when our leaders prosecute the crooks including those sitting next to them in our seats of power the system will heal and the world will be stabilized for a time.

Pay no attention to the purveyors of doom and gloom in the corporate boardrooms or on the evening news. They do not share our agenda. And we do not share their agenda. In the end they cannot win as their motives are not pure and their actions are not good.

Those that have tried to use the resources of America for personal gain will be stopped. Those whose greed drove them to manipulate markets, fix prices, corrupt associates and bribe officials have had their moment, even disrupted the world economy in the process.

In the end all the true enemies of the US are dependent on the US and cannot allow our country to fall into ruin. We have the only economy capable of making them billions of dollars and of protecting their trillions of dollars of investment in the US. The Spirit of America remains a beacon drawing the people of the world to us and that spirit will continue to dominate the world until it has spread throughout the world.

Another Miracle at Coltons Point?

What is it about this ancient site in Southern Maryland that is the birthplace of religious freedom in America, the site of the first Catholics in English speaking America, the site of the first Jesuits in the continental United States, the site of the first miracle in North America, and the site where the first relics of the Cross of Jesus were brought to the new continent?

This unknown sacred site on the banks of the Potomac came to the attention of the world last spring when the Pope made his first trip to America and St. Clements Island at Coltons Point was mentioned on worldwide television as the birthplace of Christianity in the new world.

Ever since the miraculous healing of the fatally sick son of the leader of the Native Americans back in 1634 when the first Jesuit, Father White, placed the relic of the Cross of Jesus on the dying boy and he came back to life things have been unusual.

Tornadoes hit all around Coltons Point but none hit here. Hurricanes devastate and flood the surrounding area of Maryland and Virginia but there is never much damage here. It was almost 400 years ago that two ships from England brought Christianity, religious freedom, Catholics and Jesuits to this site and things just haven't been the same since.

Our most recent miracle happened just this past Monday when I was driving back to Coltons Point after dropping Hillbilly Joe off at his job. Around 7:00 am I came around the turn by the Catholic Church and there were two cars smashed beyond recognition nearly in front of the church.

One sat crossways in the road and the other was down in a drainage ditch with the driver's door pinned against the earth. The damage was so extensive it was impossible to tell the make of either car. I could see a body hanging out of the car on the road and I pulled over and rushed to the scene.

Car parts were strewn over 100 feet from the point of the collision. There was fluid leaking and moaning coming from both cars. I yelled at a person standing in front of the church paralyzed by shock from the horrific sight to call 911 which she did.

While searching the wreckage site for any sign of fire as fluid was everywhere I propped the guy halfway out of the car up, checked him for bleeding or obvious injuries, and went into the ditch to see if anyone survived the car that had been thrown through the air.

There was a woman pinned behind the steering wheel and trapped in the car as both sides had been crushed in the wreck. She was delirious, but no major arteries had been cut and she was falling in and out of consciousness. To reach her I had to crawl down the ditch and pulled the air bags away from her.

At that point one other person had reached the site and we did what we could to watch for fires while keeping the victims awake and comfortable. In the meantime Father Gurney, the Catholic priest came out of the church and administered Last Rites to the two people as both clearly were on the verge of death.

The woman in the car finally went out stone cold while we were waiting for the emergency vehicles with the jaws of life needed to cut her out of the wreckage. Now the wreck took place in front of the church and the EMS and Fire Departments were less than a mile up the road.

Still it took 20 minutes for the first responders to respond. During that time a fire or injuries could have easily killed the victims as there was no way to get the woman out. It was the longest wait I experienced in my life.

When they did arrive the EMS vehicle seemed to have two young kids and a woman in her 20's and that was the emergency crew. There was a great deal of confusion even after they arrived on how to proceed when there really was no choice, the guy on the road was available to treat while the woman trapped in the ditch needed to be checked.

Within minutes there were several police cars, fire trucks and ambulances on the scene and a committee kept meeting on how to cut apart the car and save the woman who already seemed to be dead or at least knocking on death's door. When they finally started using the jaws of life they seemed to be taking the most difficult path to saving her as they decided to cut the entire roof off the car to get her out.

Twenty more precious minutes passes before they completed the mission and twice they had to stop cutting and use axes to try and smash the windshield loose and then to crease the roof so they could bend it back. Both times the jolt of the axes and debris from the blows had to be affecting the woman trapped under the roof.

Later I learned that early morning calls to our all volunteer EMS and Fire Departments are the most difficult to fill because most of the veteran officers are at their regular jobs and only a skeleton staff is left. Helicopters came and landed in the field by the school and flew the two victims to the nearest trauma center about an hour after the wreck.

As for the miracle? The seventy-four year old woman we thought might be dead returned to consciousness as they were pulling her out of the wreckage and she looked at Father Gurney and I and waved. When the helicopter got her to the trauma center the only injury they could find was a broken wrist and by the next day she went home. The guy was recovering as well.

If you looked at the cars you would have said no one could survive such a wreck as neither car could be identified in the tangled mess. A high-speed head-on collision left the vehicles obliterated and the occupants should have been crushed. The 20 minute wait for emergency crews with the woman trapped, gas leaking and sparks flying should have resulted in an explosion and fire. When she lost consciousness and the priest gave her the Last Sacraments there seemed to be no life force left in her. Yet she awoke, waved to us, then walked out of the trauma center the next day with only a broken wrist.


As for me, as the helicopter flew away I went home thinking the whole thing seemed like a dream sequence. The things that can happen before your first cup of coffee. Then CuChulainn, my Irish Wolfhound, explained to me that Coltons Point is a mystical and mysterious place indeed.

Oil Hits Seven Week Low - How Low Can It Go?

Last Friday oil continued its two week decline bottoming out at $123.40 for US crude and $124.39 for Brent crude, both down over $2.00 for the day. Oil peaked two weeks ago at a record $147.37 a barrel and has been falling ever since.

So what does this mean to the consumer? The rule of thumb is the price of a gallon of gas should drop 2.5 cents for every one dollar drop in a barrel of oil. Thus gas prices should fall 57.5 cents a gallon based on the decline we have already seen.

It has dropped about 14 cents meaning a true market adjustment should see an additional fall of gas prices of around 43 cents, driving the average price from $3.94 to $3.51. This should conveniently happen before the November election with about 25 cents by September.

Now that is if prices remain as they are today. I expect prices to fall to about $90 a barrel by election day, meaning an additional $34 reduction in oil and an additional 85 cents in gas. By all rights our gas should cost about $2.68 a gallon by the time the next president is settled in at the White House.

Why does it take so long for gas prices to fall? Well the oil refiners and gas retailers benefit the least from high gas prices so they are taking their time lowering prices in order to get a little of the oil profits so greedily grabbed already by the speculators and producers.

So if the market forces cannot explain the high oil prices what is the reason? Read my article on the financial institutions. It may help shed some light.

Who Will Fall Next? Banks and the Credit Crisis

So who are the largest investment banks in the world?

1. Bank of America
2. Citigroup
3. JP Morgan
4. HSBC
5. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group
6. Royal Bank of Scotland Group
7. ING Group
8. Credit Agricole
9. Wachovia
10. BNP Paribus SA

How about the top brokers in the world?

1. JP Morgan Chase & Co.
2. Goldman, Sachs & Co.
3. Citigroup
4. UBS
5. Bank of America
6. Lehman Brothers
7. Merrill Lynch
8. Morgan Stanley
9. Bear Stearns
10. Credit Suisse


Finally who are the largest banks in the world?

1. UBS AG - Switzerland
2. Barclays - UK
3. The Royal Bank of Scotland Group - UK
4. Deutsche Bank AG - Germany
5. BNP Paribus SA - France
6. The Bank of Toyko Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. - Japan
7. ABN AMPRO Holding NV - Netherlands
8. Societe Generale - France
9. Credit Agricole SA - France
10. Bank of America NA - USA
11. JP Morgan Chase Bank National Association - USA
12. Banco Santander Central Hispano SA - Spain
13. Unicredito Italiano SpA - Italy
14. Credit Suisse Group - Switzerland
15. Citibank NA - USA
16. ING Bank NV - Netherlands
17. Bank of Scotland - UK
18. Fortis Bank NV/SA - Belgium
19. Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation - Japan
20. HSBC Bank plc - UK

Notice the names appearing on all three lists? How about the fact that four of the top 20 banks in the world are UK, three from France, two from Switzerland, two from the Netherlands, and one each from Germany, Spain, Italy and Belgium. Hummm, 15 of the 20 largest banks in the world are from Europe.

So there is a concentration of wealth but also a concentration of credit exposure. So far these banks have lost billions of dollars from investing in the US sub-prime mortgage market and the credit crisis but do we really know the scope of the crisis?

Losses of nearly $400 billion have already been written off from sub-prime mortgages. A confidential study by Bridgewater Associates, the second largest hedge fund in the world expects total losses from the credit crisis to reach $1.6 trillion, yes trillion. That is four times the current staggering losses.

One of these major players has already gone under (Bear Stearns) and more can be expected if the credit losses approach that level. In fact one of the major players, Fortis Bank, expects a collapse of the US financial markets with 6,000 US banks filing bankruptcy and major corporations like General Motors and Citigroup becoming victims to the US financial meltdown.

Very quietly 7 US banks have already gone bankrupt this year but are we prepared for a massive meltdown? Today the Bush administration announced we face the largest budget deficit in history. Oil prices are out of sight and housing prices are collapsing. Perhaps the meltdown is already well underway.

Of course many of these institutions are on the earlier list I published of the financial institutions that have paid billions of dollars in fines for fraud, price fixing and other economic high jinks that used to land you in jail but now just get you a slap on the wrist and a tax deduction.

Many of these banks already recovered billions of dollars of losses with their manipulation of the oil futures market so maybe the projections of Fortis have to be updated by adjusting them for the billions of dollars already stolen from the citizens of the world at the gas pumps.

Will we ever reach the point where our financial institutions won't have to steal, manipulate and defraud the public in order to cover their losses from creative stock frauds which should never have happened in the first place if the government regulators were doing their job? Stay tuned for Armageddon.

Olympics Just Days Away

The greatest gathering of athletes in the history of the world is about to take place at the XXIX Olympics in Beijing, China with 10,500 athletes competing in 302 events in 28 sports. NBC Network will be televising the event and all network executives have their fingers crossed that viewers will actually be able to see them.

Did I mention that China, one of the world's fastest growing economies does not really believe in environmental regulation nor human rights but those issues are being kept from the public as much as possible. Unfortunately, years of environmental abuse in China has left the air in Beijing so polluted that a total ban on automobiles in one of the largest cities in the world is being considered.

It would take such drastic action along with an order to shut down all the polluting factories in Beijing to clear the air enough for television cameras to see what the athletes are doing in the events. So enjoy what you can see of the Olympics and don't be upset if you can't see the faces of your favorite athletes because they most likely will be buried behind face masks to protect them from the pollution.

Randy Pausch, 47; terminally ill professor inspired many with his 'last lecture'

(Valerie Nelson of the LA Times reports this next story better than anyone.)

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-pausch26-2008jul26,0,1202748.story
From the Los Angeles Times

OBITUARY
Randy Pausch, 47; terminally ill professor inspired many with his 'last lecture'

His speech at Carnegie Mellon University after a pancreatic cancer diagnosis became an Internet phenomenon and bestselling book.
By Valerie J. Nelson
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 26, 2008

Randy Pausch, a terminally ill professor whose earnest farewell lecture at Carnegie Mellon University became an Internet phenomenon and bestselling book that turned him into a symbol for living and dying well, died Friday.

He was 47.Pausch, a computer science professor and virtual-reality pioneer, died at his home in Chesapeake, Va., of complications from pancreatic cancer, the Pittsburgh university announced. When Pausch agreed to give the talk, he was participating in a long-standing academic tradition that calls on professors to share their wisdom in a theoretical "last lecture."

A month before the speech, the 46-year-old Pausch was told he had only months to live, a prognosis that heightened the poignancy of his address. Delivered last September to about 400 students and colleagues, his message about how to make the most of life has been viewed by millions on the Internet. Pausch gave an abbreviated version of it on "Oprah" and expanded it into a best-selling book, "The Last Lecture," released in April.

Yet Pausch insisted that both the spoken and written words were designed for an audience of three: his children, then 5, 2 and 1."I was trying to put myself in a bottle that would one day wash up on the beach for my children," Pausch wrote in his book.

Unwilling to take time from his family to pen the book, Pausch hired a coauthor, Jeffrey Zaslow, a Wall Street Journal writer who had covered the lecture. During more than 50 bicycle rides crucial to his health, Pausch spoke to Zaslow on a cellphone headset.

"The speech made him famous all over the world," Zaslow told The Times. "It was almost a shared secret, a peek into him telling his colleagues and students to go on and do great things. It touched so many people because it was authentic.

"Thousands of strangers e-mailed Pausch to say they found his upbeat lecture, laced with humor, to be inspiring and life-changing. They drank up the sentiments of a seemingly vibrant terminally ill man, a showman with Jerry Seinfeld-esque jokes and an earnest Jimmy Stewart delivery. If I don't seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you. He used that line after projecting CT scans, complete with helpful arrows pointing to the tumors on his liver as he addressed "the elephant in the room" that made every word carry more weight.

Some people believe that those who are dying may be especially insightful because they must make every moment count. Some are drawn to valedictories like the one Pausch gave because they offer a spiritual way to grapple with mortality that isn't based in religion.

Sandra Yarlott, director of spiritual care at UCLA Medical Center, said researchers, including Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, have observed that work done by dying patients "resonates with people in that timeless place deep within." As Pausch essentially said goodbye at Carnegie Mellon, he touched on just about everything but religion while raucously reliving how he achieved most of his childhood dreams. His ambitions included experiencing the weightlessness of zero gravity; writing an article in the World Book Encyclopedia ("You can tell the nerds early on," he joked); wanting to be both a Disney Imagineer and Captain Kirk from "Star Trek"; and playing professional football.

Onstage, Pausch was a frenetic verbal billboard, delivering as many one-liners as he did phrases to live by. Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. When his virtual-reality students at Carnegie Mellon won a flight in a NASA training plane that briefly simulates weightlessness, Pausch was told faculty members were not allowed to fly. Finding a loophole, he applied to cover it as his team's hometown Web journalist -- and got his 25 seconds of floating.

Since 1997, Pausch had been a professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and design at Carnegie Mellon. With a drama professor, he founded the university's Entertainment Technology Center, which teams students from the arts with those in technology to develop projects. The popular professor had an "enormous and lasting impact" on Carnegie Mellon, said Jared L. Cohon, the university's president, in a statement. He pointed out that Pausch's "love of teaching, his sense of fun and his brilliance" came together in his innovative software program, Alice, which uses animated characters and storytelling to make it easier to learn to write computer code.

During the lecture, Pausch joked that he had become just enough of an expert to fulfill one childhood ambition. World Book sought him out to write its virtual-reality entry. He didn't get to be Captain Kirk, but actor William Shatner, who played the starship commander, visited Pausch's lab at Carnegie Mellon. Pausch believed that watching Kirk had taught him leadership skills. After the speech, Pausch was given a walk-on role in the "Star Trek" film due out in 2009.Inside the auditorium, Pausch dared the crowd to overcome obstacles.

The brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people.After his applications to become a Disney Imagineer were repeatedly rejected, Pausch said, he talked his way into spending a sabbatical in the mid-1990s at the company's virtual-reality studio. He helped design such virtual-reality rides as Aladdin's Magic Carpet at Walt Disney World.

Randolph Frederick Pausch was born Oct. 23, 1960, in Baltimore and said he won the "parent lottery" with Fred and Virginia Pausch. His father sold insurance and his mother taught English. As a teenager growing up in Columbia, Md., he was allowed to paint whatever he wanted on his bedroom walls. His artistry included a quadratic equation, elevator doors and the rocket ship that adorns the cover of his book.

After graduating from Brown University with a bachelor's degree in 1982, Pausch earned a doctorate in computer science from Carnegie Mellon in 1988. At the University of Virginia, he taught for nine years. When he got tenure, he thanked his research team by taking members to Disney World. Although he didn't make it to the NFL, Pausch said playing high school football taught him to master fundamentals and accept criticism. A month after his speech, the Pittsburgh Steelers invited him to a practice. Pausch caught passes, grinning ear to ear.

Last fall, he moved his family to southeastern Virginia so that Jai, his wife of eight years, could be near relatives. He tried to "build memories" with his children, taking his oldest, Dylan, to ride a dolphin and introducing his son Logan to Mickey Mouse at Disney World. For his final Halloween, his family -- including his youngest, daughter Chloe -- went as the animated characters the Incredibles, personifying his end-of-life mantra: We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.

With the newfound status the speech bestowed on him, Pausch called attention to the need for cancer research, appearing before Congress in March and filming a fundraising spot for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. The same friends who called him "St. Randy" to poke fun at his media image were "not surprised that he's moving the world," Zaslow said. "They always thought he was special. Even his doctor said, 'If I picked one patient who would become famous and inspire the world, it would be him.' "Weeks after his book was released, 2.3 million copies of it were in print. It is being published in 29 languages.

By the book's end, Pausch sounds like a parent imparting advice as fast as he can. The chapters grow shorter as he tries to fit it all in: Don't obsess over what people think. No job is beneath you. Tell the truth. Ever the comedian, Pausch delighted in his mother's use of humor to keep him humble.

After I got my PhD, my mother took great relish in introducing me as, "This is my son. He's a doctor, but not the kind that helps people. "His mother couldn't have been more wrong. In addition to his wife and children, he is survived by his mother and a sister. Donations may be made to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, www.pancan.org, or to Carnegie Mellon's Randy Pausch Memorial Fund, www.cmu.edu/giving/pausch.

valerie.nelson@latimes.com