The hand grenade article mentioned above says things like "a suspicious item was found in his luggage", and "it appears to be a live grenade". Why don't they just come out and say it's a grenade if it's a grenade? They're writing it as if it is, without actually saying it. 95% chance it's legit, but 5% chance that it's not. That's "a reasonable doubt", as they say in the legal profession. This morning, the same link said "Officials refuse to comment on the possibility of a hand grenade being found". That was enough to get people scared (The link's content has changed since TGregg first posted it). If the news headline screams "President Bush refuses to comment on rumors of his homosexuality" what would you think? "No comment", says Bush. That is an admission of guilt to many, but really, it's just a "no comment". You have to understand the reasons to understand the truth. Watch the movie "The Contender" to see how political and media manipulation operates.
Please note that this grenade incident was in Britain, NOT the States, and the guy was a Venezualan, not an Iraqi, and probably not a moslem. Is it related to Iraq? Where is the link, and how strong is the link?
The duct tape thing is like the government in the '50's telling schoolkids to hide under their desks in case of nuclear war, funny but kind of sad. If we get hit by chemical weapons or nukes here, it's over. Even if we survive the enemies' attacks, we won't survive America's retaliation, especially if Dubya goes "Nucular". Fallout lasts a LONNNG time, and blows on the wind wherever it wants to go, causing cancer to anyone in its path for years after the attacks. Read about the Chernobyl accident. Scary. They can link increased cancer rates WORLDWIDE to that mistake. Hey, at least I won't starve to death in my duct taped and plasticked house, I've still got all my Y2K food!!
But we won't likely survive financially if the very fragile thread our world economy hangs by is shredded. I'm not saying it WILL happen, I'm saying it COULD happen. Have you guys seen America's debt lately? We're like a guy working at MacDonalds borrowing to buy a $50 million dollar yacht. We're in trouble if we don't kill that debt before we can't afford to pay even the interest on it. And we can't kill the debt unless we either raise taxes to get more money to put against the debt, or cut spending - which ain't gonna happen when Patriots are a million bucks a pop.
I'm NOT anti-American, btw - as a Libertarian I feel more "American" than Republicans or Democrats, both of which have strayed from the American ideal in my opinion... I'm anti-fear and anti-irrationality. And there's a lot of that in the media nowadays. Journalistic integrity's gone down the tubes, what with "articles quoting other articles who quoted other articles", etc. as journalism. Even some of Colin Powell's speech info from last week was word for word off the net from a student's paper. We need to watch the quality of our information in politics as much or more than we do with our trading. If I get wiped out because of a "hot tip" or internet guru's recommendation (pump-n-dump), it's not nearly as bad as Powell giving a speech recommending pre-emptive military strikes to millions and not having accurate sources to back up his claims....
I'm sorry to be saying so many obviously unpopular things here, but traders must learn to *doubt first* until sufficient evidence proves your theory correct, and to be independent and contrarian. I know I am. Are you?
I want irrefutable proof, and the CIA says they have it, but won't show us. That's not proof, that's faith. And where the government is concerned, I don't DO faith.