Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.

Thursday 03.29.2012

Goldman Sachs: Buy Gold!
By Steven Russolillo - WSJ.com
Hey gold bugs, Goldman Sachs reiterates this morning that investors should buy the precious medal.
Goldman Sachs remains bullish on gold, citing low interest rates and subdued economic growth as catalysts for gold prices to rise this year.
Goldman economists expect another round of quantitative easing from the Federal Reserve will weigh on the U.S. dollar and push gold higher. From Goldman:

Gold prices remain too low relative to the current level of real rates. Under our gold framework, US real interest rates are the primary driver of US$-denominated gold prices. However, after being remarkably strong in the first half of 2011, this relationship broke down last fall, with gold prices falling sharply in the face of declining US real rates, as tracked by 10-year TIPS yields. While gold prices have returned to trading with a strong inverse correlation to US real rates since late December, at sub-$1,700/toz they remain below the level implied by the current 10-year TIPS yields.

The next leg of gold's bull run
Commentary: Buy the big central banks
By Matthew Lynn
LONDON (MarketWatch) — Has the great bull run in gold run its course?
On the surface it looks as if it might have. After running up close to $2,000 an ounce during the market panic of last autumn, it has slipped below $1,700. And it shows little sign of reclaiming its highs.
But here's one reason why it could have a lot further to go.
The big, developed world central banks will start buying again. And if they do, it would put real rocket fuel into the price of the precious metal.

The Gold Groundhog Grind
BY JIM WILLIE - FinancialSense.com
A very important objective change has taken place in the gold market. Its price is not moving above the resistance established in the 1600 to 1900 wide berth range. Its price is not moving below support in the same wide permitted range. When the gold price has approached the 1800 level recently, all manner of naked soldiers emerge with imaginery swords to whack the price down, to bring it under heel. The ruse has a high cost in the real world though, as the gold cartel has been forced to shed an enormous supply of gold as punishment for each naked short episode. The opponents to fraudulent controlled manipulated markets have emerged in force to respond. They fight from the East. They fight for a fair and equitable market. They are poking holes in the floor of the syndicate helm where legs fall through. Demand for the gold core has become acute with pitched battles. The financial presss reports none of it. In desperation, the cartel has conducted regular and routine raids of the Exchange Traded Funds, using shorted shares as the ticket at the rear dock window to cart off gold bars. What a corrupted bill of lading. Meanwhile, the major gold suppliers from mine output appear to be on the defensive or actually on the ropes. The deficit in silver only punctuates the precious metals shortage, as investment demand ramps up.

Could U.S. Dollar take Big Hit by Summer?
By Greg Hunter's USAWatchdog.com
There are plenty of reasons why the U.S. dollar is under downward pressure. There have been massive bailouts of the global banking system by the Federal Reserve, exploding deficits and a movement globally to move away from doing business in dollars. Now, there is a new threat, and it is being pushed by U.S. foreign policy with Iran. Iran's financial institutions are being shut out of the international banking system known as SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication). The U.S. State Department is threatening other nations that trade with Iran with the same punishment. Ten countries, including the powerhouse economies of India and China, are in the crosshairs of SWIFT if they don't dramatically cut Iranian oil imports by summer.

Hyperinflation Isn't a Threat
BY LANCE ROBERTS - FinancialSense.com
A couple of days ago Cullen Roche at Pragmatic Capitalist, a daily must read site, posted a very interesting piece on hyperinflation stating:

"The latest reading from the Billion Prices Project clearly confirms the latest CPI readings from the government. This index appears to debunk many of the known conspiracy theories about the government's inflation data. The latest reading of just over 2% confirms much of what Ben Bernanke has been saying over the last year – that inflation would prove transitory."

Cullen is very correct. Hyper-inflation is not a threat. Hyper-inflation comes from a complete loss of faith in a currency from the threat of losing a war (Weimer Republic), an economic collapse or some other catastrophic event. The U.S., even with all of our economic ills and woes, is still the safest place, in terms of liquidity, depth and strength, to store excess reserves. The near historic low yield on government treasuries tell the story here. However, inflationary worries continue to grab daily headlines as gasoline approaches $4 per gallon.

Bernanke: Fed actions prevented a depression
Lectures at GW a lesson in history
By Patrice Hill - The Washington Times
For Americans who have forgotten, or who never knew, how much worse things could get - shantytowns, gnawing hunger and a desperate 1 in 4 people out of work - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is providing a reminder.
In a series of four lectures he is delivering at George Washington University this month, the one-time Princeton professor and renowned specialist on the Great Depression is expounding on the horrors of the Depression and how the austerity policies of the central bank at the time made things worse.

Are Millionaires Pulling Out of Stocks?
By Robert Frank - WSJ.com
Financially speaking, it's a good time to be a millionaire.
Stock markets are up. The population of millionaires in America grew by 200,000 last year. And millionaire optimism has surged at its fastest rate in years.
Still, a new study from Phoenix Marketing International shows that many millionaires are pulling money out of their financial investments. The study shows that the percentage of millionaire investors who plan to pull money out over the next 3 months stands is at 12%, a multi-year high. For most of last year, only 7% of millionaire investors were planning decreases in their investments.

Bill Gross:
Investor returns to shrink in 'repressive environment'
By Tiffany Hsu - LATimes
The days of easy double-digit gains in stocks and other securities are coming to an end, says PIMCO's Bill Gross, the best-known bond manager in the world – but bonds are still "critical components of an investment portfolio."
Consider the classic 1963 Steve McQueen film "The Great Escape," in which American POWs are trapped in a German prison camp during World War II. There, "the living conditions were OK … but certainly not what they were used to on the other side of the lines," according to Gross.
And that, to him, represents the situation investors are in now: "locked up in a financially repressive environment that reduces future returns for all financial assets."

Bill Gross:
"The Game As We All Have Known It Appears To Be Over"
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
First it was Bob Janjuah throwing in the towel in the face of central planning, now we get the same sense from Bill Gross who in his latest letter once again laments the forced transfer of risk from the private to the public sector: "The game as we all have known it appears to be over... moving for the moment from private to public balance sheets, but even there facing investor and political limits. Actually global financial markets are only selectively delevering. What delevering there is, is most visible with household balance sheets in the U.S. and Euroland peripheral sovereigns like Greece." Gross' long-term view is well-known - inflation is coming: "The total amount of debt however is daunting and continued credit expansion will produce accelerating global inflation and slower growth in PIMCO's most likely outcome." The primary reason for Pimco's pessimism, which is nothing new, is that in a world of deleveraging there will be no packets of leverage within the primary traditional source of cheap credit-money growth: financial firms. So what is a fund manager to do? Why find their own Steve McQueen'ian Great Escape from Financial Repression of course. " it is your duty to try to escape today's repression.

Bill Gross Predicts QE3 and Operation Mortgage Twist
Mike Shedlock - GlobalEconomicAnalysis.blogspot.com
PIMCO founder and co-CIO Bill Gross spoke with Bloomberg Television's Margaret Brennan today, telling Bloomberg TV that the Fed will likely shift focus to mortgage securities to keep borrowing rates low when Operation Twist ends in June.
On Gross's view that we may see a sign from Bernanke in April that QE3 will be rolled out:
"I think [Chairman Bernanke] is very satisfied…I think the Fed is outcomes-oriented. They want an outcome in terms of a higher stock market, in terms of housing starts and lower unemployment. What [Bernanke] said on Monday, in terms of the employment, he suggested that up until now, we've done very well in terms of reducing unemployment but it'll be tougher going forward if only because of structural impediments that he outlined. Going forward, he's looking at jobs, at unemployment and the housing markets. You know, future QEs will the outcome-oriented type of strategy which seeks to provide jobs and provide higher housing prices and housing starts to continue on."

Demand for U.S. Debt Is Not Limitless
[Google title for free article pass]
In 2011, the Fed purchased a stunning 61%
of Treasury issuance. That can't last.
By LAWRENCE GOODMAN - WSJ.com - $$
The conventional wisdom that nearly infinite demand exists for U.S. Treasury debt is flawed and especially dangerous at a time of record U.S. sovereign debt issuance.
The recently released Federal Reserve Flow of Funds report for all of 2011 reveals that Federal Reserve purchases of Treasury debt mask reduced demand for U.S. sovereign obligations. Last year the Fed purchased a stunning 61% of the total net Treasury issuance, up from negligible amounts prior to the 2008 financial crisis. This not only creates the false appearance of limitless demand for U.S. debt but also blunts any sense of urgency to reduce supersized budget deficits.

Saudi Arabia will act to lower soaring oil prices
By Ali Naimi - FT.com
High international oil prices are bad news. Bad for Europe, bad for the US, bad for emerging economies and bad for the world's poorest nations. A period of prolonged high prices is bad for all oil producing nations, including Saudi Arabia, and they are bad news for the energy industry more widely.
It is clear that sustained high prices are starting to take their toll on European economic growth targets. They are contributing to trade balance deficits and feeding inflationary pressures. It is an unsatisfactory situation and one Saudi Arabia is keen to help address. In an interconnected world, European economic growth is in our national interest. No one benefits from a stagnating European economy and we want to do what we can to help encourage growth.

Not Even Saudi Arabia Can Save Us From High Oil Prices
BY JASON SIMPKINS, Managing Editor, Money Morning
With oil prices soaring ever higher, Saudi Arabia stepped in last week and vowed to increase its production by 25% if necessary.
But while that assurance managed to siphon a few dollars off of oil futures, the reality is there's nothing Saudi Arabia - or anyone else, for that matter - can do about rising oil prices.
In fact, crude is still on track to reach $150 a barrel by mid-summer.
As Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi pointed out last week, current oil supplies already exceed global demand by 1 million-2 million barrels per day.

Geithner urges no more debt-ceiling drama
Geithner says Congress
will likely have to raise debt ceiling late this year
By Jeffrey Sparshott
WASHINGTON -- Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Wednesday told lawmakers they would probably have to raise the debt ceiling late this year, and warned against another high-stakes showdown that could damage confidence in the U.S.

"We cannot put the country through what we put the country through last July and August, with the threat of default for the first time in our nation's history hanging over the United States for a long period of time," Geithner said at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing. "That did more damage to consumer confidence almost than was caused by the [financial] crisis in the United States."

The Three E's And The BRICS
An Expansion of Variables Leads to More Confusion
How The Relationship Between Europe And The BRIC Block Is Moving Money Back Into The U.S.
BY JOE DUARTE - FinancialSense.com
The last two weeks in the stock market have been a path to nowhere as measured by the major indexes. Yet, if you look around, it's plain to see that the three E's: the Economy, the Election, and Europe are still weighing heavily on the markets. Now, a new worry has surfaced, the potential decline of the BRIC block, as Brazil, China, India and Russia are showing signs of slowing growth. The upshot is that the U.S. is likely to benefit in a big way.

Europe's Bazooka Will Fire Blanks…
Good Luck Killing the Crisis With That
Submitted by Phoenix Capital Research - ZeroHedge.com
Europe continues to take a page out of Hank Paulson's "Crisis Combat" booklet, by unveiling one monetary "bazooka" after another. Obviously, EU leaders didn't notice that Paulson's "bazooka" completely failed to stop the 2008 Crash.
Even more strangely, they keep pulling out bazooka after bazooka, first unveiling the EFSF which was supposed to raise €1 trillion but failed to raise even €10 billion without having to intervene in its own bond auctions.
Then came the ESM, which was supposed to be another mega-bailout fund, which as before, is having trouble raising funds. After all, if one bailout fund is a dud, why would launching another fix anything?

MF Global Treasurer Declines to Answer Questions From Panel
By Phil Mattingly and Silla Brush - Bloomberg.com
Edith O'Brien, the MF Global Holdings Ltd. (MF) assistant treasurer who has become a key figure in the disappearance of as much as $1.6 billion in customer funds, declined to answer questions from U.S. lawmakers.
O'Brien, who appeared today under subpoena before a House Financial Services subcommittee, invoked her constitutional right against self-incrimination during a hearing on the New York firm's Oct. 31 bankruptcy, the eighth largest in U.S. history.

Gross: Fed to Shift Operation Twist to Mortgages
By Margaret Brennan and Liz Capo McCormick
Pacific Investment Management Co.'s Bill Gross said the Federal Reserve will likely shift focus to mortgage securities to keep borrowing rates low when its so- called Operation Twist program ends in June.
It will be a "twist on another twist going forward," Gross, who runs the world's biggest bond fund, said in an "InBusiness with Margaret Brennan" interview on Bloomberg Television.
The Fed purchased $2.3 trillion of debt in two rounds of s- called quantitative easing that have become known as QE1 and QE2 as part of its efforts to support the world's biggest economy. The Fed is replacing $400 billion of short-term debt in its portfolio with longer-term Treasuries to limit borrowing costs and counter risks of a recession.

Recovery? Housing says it's a Hoax
By Greg Hunter's USAWatchdog.com
Watching the financial channels yesterday, I could not tell you how many times the word "recovery" was used. Sure, the stock market is up, but that is compliments of the Federal Reserve. Since the 2008 financial meltdown, we've had a money printing extravaganza. There was QE1, QE2, Operation Twist, dollar swaps with Europe and 0% interest rates (on a key rate) through 2014. Of course the stock market is up, it loves free money. Wall Street may have recovered, but Main Street is still in the dumper. (Actually, Wall Street has just broken even since the 57% plunge it took up to March of 2009.) Professional commodities trader Dan Norcini said, this week, on his blog, ". . . the FED IS TERRIFIED OF RISING INTEREST RATES." Norcini explains, ". . . the US federal debt is at banana republic levels and any, I repeat, any rise in interest rates, will suck more of the incoming federal revenue into servicing the cost of this debt (paying the interest on it), leaving less for the spendthrift class to buy votes with. Bernanke and company cannot afford to have a stock market that stops moving higher because if and when it did, the entire facade of an economy on the mend would come crashing down with it."

Home prices fall to 2002 levels
By Les Christie @CNNMoney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The housing market started the new year with a thud. Home prices dropped for the fifth consecutive month in January, reaching their lowest point since the end of 2002.
The average home sold in that month lost 0.8% of its value, compared with a month earlier, and prices were down 3.8% from 12 months earlier, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index of 20 major markets.
Home prices have fallen a whopping 34.4% from the peak set in July 2006.

Geithner says closer to Fannie, Freddie reform
Analysts see no progress until after election
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Wednesday that the White House and Congress were inching closer to a plan to wind down government seized giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
"It is very important we work to find a bipartisan consensus with Congress on how to wind them down, bring private capital back into this market, and ultimately replace the GSEs with something that is going to work better for the country in the future," Geithner said in testimony to the House Appropriations subcommittee on financial services.

Rethinking America's Supreme Judicial Dictatorship
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo - LewRockwell.com

"The War between the States established . . . this principle, that the federal government is, through its courts, the final judge of its own powers." ~ Woodrow Wilson, Constitutional Government in the United States, p. 178

Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Jeffersonians warned that if the day ever arrived when the central government became the final judge of its own powers, Americans would then live under a tyranny. The government, they believed, would inevitably proclaim that there are in fact no limits to its powers. That day came in 1865 when citizen control over the federal government ended along with the rights of nullification and secession. Not surprisingly, a warmongering, imperialistic megalomaniac like Woodrow Wilson would then celebrate this fact several decades later, as the above quotation attests.

20 Signs That We Are Witnessing
The Complete Collapse Of Common Sense In America
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
What do you do when an entire nation begins to lose the capacity to think rationally? Many Americans spend a great deal of time criticizing the government, and there is certainly a lot to complain about, but it is not just the government that is the problem. All over America, people appear to be going insane. It is almost as if we have been cursed with stupidity. Sadly, this applies from the very top of our society all the way down to the very bottom. A lot of us find ourselves asking the following question much more frequently these days: "How could they be so stupid?" Unfortunately, we are witnessing a complete collapse of common sense all over America. Many people seem to believe that if we could just get Obama out of office or if we could just reform our economic system that our problems as a nation would be solved, but that is simply not true. Our problems run much deeper than that. The societal decay that is plaguing our country is very deep and it is everywhere. We are a nation that is full of people that do not care about others and that just want to do what is right in their own eyes. We hold ourselves out to the rest of the world as "the greatest nation on earth" and an example that everyone else should follow, and yet our own house is rotting all around us. The words "crazy", "insane" and "deluded" are not nearly strong enough to describe our frame of mind as a country. America has become a sad, delusional old man that can't even think straight anymore. The evidence of our mental illness is everywhere.

Welcome to third world America
The Receding Tide
by Fred Reed - LewRockwell.com
Several things characterize countries of the Third Word, whatever precisely "Third World" means.
The first is corruption. America is rotten with it, but American corruption is distinct from corruption in, say, Guatemala or Thailand, being less visible and better organized.
Several major differences exist between the usual corruption in the Third World and that in America. In most of the Third World, corruption exists from top to bottom. Everyone and everything is for sale. Bribery amounts to an economic system, like capitalism or socialism. By contrast, in the United States, graft flourishes mostly at the level of government and commerce. You don't (I think) slip an admissions official at Harvard twenty grand to accept your shiftless and dull-witted slug of a misbegotten offspring. Nor do you pay a local judge to drop dope charges against your teenager. And in the Guatemalas and Egypts of the planet, corruption tends to be personal. The briber and the bribed act as individuals.

Why Can't Ron Paul Get More Traction?
By KA - Truthdig.com
He doesn't lack enthusiastic supporters, nor is his campaign short on cash, and he's galvanized scores of younger voters. So why isn't Ron Paul able to clinch the Republican presidential nomination—or even come within spitting distance—this time around? Those are questions The New York Times attempted to answer, with some input from Paul himself, on Wednesday.—KA

The New York Times:
It never happened. His strategists are searching for answers, and one may be that many who turned up for his rallies were less eager to take part in Republican primaries or argue Mr. Paul's case at Republican caucuses.

Why the April Jobs Report Could be a Disaster
by Tim Iacono - IaconoResearch.com
In a speech by Fed Chief Ben Bernanke the other day – the one that turned any lingering "risk off" thoughts in financial markets decidedly back to "risk on" (at least for the day) as another round of central bank money printing suddenly seemed possible again – the subject of a surprisingly good labor market being out-of-step with other economic indicators was raised when Bernanke commented:

… we cannot yet be sure that the recent pace of improvement in the labor market will be sustained. Notably, an examination of recent deviations from Okun's law suggests that the recent decline in the unemployment rate may reflect a reversal of the unusually large layoffs that occurred during late 2008 and over 2009.

1 Big Chart: There Is No Social Security Crisis
By Matthew O'Brien - TheAtlantic.com
Here's a question for the under-30 crowd: Do you think Social Security will still be around when you retire?Half of you don't. Here's why you should.
The below chart, courtesy of Peter Diamond and Peter Orszag, compares what we spend on Social Security and Medicare today (blue) as a percent of GDP versus what the CBO projects we will spend on them in 2050 (red). It's a tale of two very different entitlements.

Last day of high court hearing on Obamacare
Justices consider scuttling health-care law
Supreme Court takes up issues of mandate, Medicaid expansion
By Russ Britt, MarketWatch
LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — Supreme Court justices finished debate Wednesday afternoon on whether to scuttle the Affordable Care Act entirely or keep parts of the legislation, should they decide that requiring individuals to buy insurance is unconstitutional.
The high court then moved on to the question of whether one part of the law requiring states to expand Medicaid programs with some federal backing should be overturned.
Transcripts from the court's proceedings showed that when it came to scuttling the entire 2010 landmark law that is President Barack Obama's signature achievement, the court's liberal and conservative blocs appeared to continue arguing along ideological lines. When the subject turned to overturning the state Medicaid requirement, it seemed very little support came from justices for that proposition but conservative justices spoke up as the hearing wore on.

SCALIA LIKENS READING OBAMACARE
TO CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT
BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia humorously invoked the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids cruel and unusual punishments, when discussing the Obamacare legislation during oral argument today at the Supreme Court.
JUSTICE SCALIA: Mr. Kneedler, what happened to the Eighth Amendment? You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages?

Obamacare and the Supreme Court expectations game
Posted by Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake - WashingtonPost.com
Expectations are a funny thing.
Heading into Tuesday's oral arguments on President Obama's health care law at the Supreme Court, supporters of the measure were brimming with confidence about the likelihood it would be found constitutional.
Twelve hours later, that confidence was shattered amid a less-than-stellar performance by the solicitor general (the government's head lawyer) and a series of questions from the justices — including swing vote Anthony Kennedy — that seemed to suggest they were not favorably disposed to the law.

The 3 ways the Court could rule against Obamacare's mandate
Posted by Ezra Klein - WashingtonPost.com
By nearly all estimates, yesterday's oral arguments were not good for Obamacare supporters. Solicitor Donald Verrilli, who represented the Obama administration, stumbled in his opening defense of the health reform law's individual mandate. Paul Clement, representing the law's opponents, proved a strong opponent. Justices aggressively questioned Verrilli, showing some signs of skepticism over Congress' authority to require Americans to buy insurance.
That all could lend even more gravity to the issue that the Supreme Court takes up today: If it does toss the individual mandate, what else would have to come down with it? In legal jargon, it's an issue of "severability:" How much of the law could, or couldn't survive, if the Court rules the mandated purchase of insurance to be unconstitutional. Here are the three outcomes that will be presented to the Court this morning, and what they would mean for the health reform law:

HATCH: Obamacare carries too high a price in liberty
Forcing purchase of health insurance
not grounded in Constitution
By Sen. Orrin G. Hatch-The Washington Times
In October 2009, a reporter asked then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "Where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?" She responded, "Are you serious?" Few questions could be more serious, and this week, the Supreme Court is spending three days exploring this and several other questions about the legitimacy of Obamacare, the president's signature achievement and the largest expansion of government in generations.

Health Care Mandate Threatens Progressive Legacy
By Bill Blum - Truthdig.com
Day Two of the historic arguments before the United States Supreme Court on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, is a wrap, and it's hard to see the ultimate outcome being anything less than a total train wreck for the administration and a long-awaited godsend for the American right.
Topping the agenda on the second of three days of arguments was the constitutionality of the legislation's centerpiece—the so-called individual mandate that requires virtually all Americans not covered by Medicare, Medicaid or their employer to purchase at least minimal health insurance. Supporters of the mandate say it is vital to offset the cost to insurers of some of the act's protections by forcing people who might otherwise not pay for or need health insurance to buy into the system.

Psalm 14:1 -
The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God."...

Why Do So Many Believers
Think Atheists Are Worse Than Rapists?
Looking for answers at the Reason Rally in Washington, D.C.
By Ronald Bailey - Reason.com
"We're here! We're godless! Get used to it!," chanted the crowd of 20,000 or so atheists at this past weekend's Rally for Reason in Washington, D.C. As the chant suggests, the protesters styled their event on the National Mall (which was not affiliated with Reason magazine in any way) as a "coming out" party for atheists. One participant even carried a sign ripped off from the heyday of gay rights demonstrations: "Hi Mom. I'm an Atheist!"

Atheists Darken D.C.
By L. Brent Bozell - PatriotPost.us
What if the atheists declared they were about to throw "the largest atheist event in world history" on a Saturday in Washington and few people showed up? Reason Rally organizer David Silverman estimated that "99 percent of all atheists are closeted." The closet must still be full, because they sure weren't in Washington.
The Washington Post story on Sunday guessed there were "several thousand" people in the intermittent rain. But Paul Fidalgo of the Center for Inquiry told the Post, "We have the numbers to be taken seriously. ... We're not just a tiny fringe group."

Liminal Christians: Christianity Without the Church?
By Chuck Colson - PatriotPost.us
Want all the blessings of Christianity without having to hassle with a church? Well, it isn't possible. I'll explain why not.
In his 1985 book, Habits of the Heart, Robert Bellah and Richard Madsen introduced the world to "Sheila Larson." Sheila described her belief system this way: "I believe in God. I'm not a religious fanatic. I can't remember the last time I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way. It's Sheilaism. Just my own little voice ... It's just trying to love yourself and be gentle with yourself ..."
Bellah and Madsen called "Sheilaism" a "perfectly natural expression of current American religious life."

Denver Targets Homeless
With Proposal To 'Ban Unauthorized Camping,' Critics Say
The Huffington Post | By Bonnie Kavoussi
A major American city wants to make it illegal to sleep on the streets.
Denver's City Council is considering an ordinance to "ban unauthorized camping" throughout the city, the Denver Postreports. The bill would make it illegal for hundreds of homeless people to sleep outside in tents or sleeping bags in the city.
The decision would come at a time when Denver has cut homeless aid, even as the number of homeless in Denver and around the country grows. Indeed, homelessness continued to rise in cities across the country in 2011, according to the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Nike sues Reebok over Tebow apparel
By Chris Isidore @CNNMoney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Nike is suing rival Reebok for selling New York Jets uniforms and other Jets apparel with the name of its new quarterback Tim Tebow on them.
Nike (NKE, Fortune 500) says it is the only company authorized and licensed to use Tim Tebow's name on clothing. Reebok, a unit of German sporting equipment and apparel-maker adidas (ADDDF), did not respond to requests for comment.
Tebow was traded from the Denver Broncos to the Jets on March 21, creating a media frenzy and a huge spike in demand for Tebow-related Jets apparel in the New York market.

Tiger Woods will never win back America
He had one of the most spectacular PR crashes
By Jon Friedman, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — America, it is said, loves a comeback. We are, after all, a famously forgiving nation.
Still, does this apply to Tiger Woods, whose role in a sex scandal triggered the most spectacular public fall from grace that I've ever witnessed in the sports world?
No, it does not. America will never quite forgive Woods. Even if Woods wins the upcoming Masters, America won't fall in love with him all over again. He will never again be Mr. Madison Avenue, either.
Today, Woods presents himself as an aloof, unlikable scandal-plagued golfer. He seldom smiles in public and doesn't seem in any way empathetic. He is only hurting himself by seeming so unappealing.

Why Does The Department Of Homeland Security
Need 450 MILLION Hollow Point Bullets?
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Somebody out there has decided that the Department of Homeland Security needs a whole lot of ammunition. Recently it was announced that ATK was awarded a contract to provide up to 450 MILLION hollow point bullets to the Department of Homeland Security over the next five years. Is it just me, or does that sound incredibly excessive? What in the world is the DHS going to do with 450 million rounds? What possible event would ever require that much ammunition? If the United States was ever invaded, it would be the job of the U.S. military to defend the country, so that can't be it. So what are all of those bullets for? Who does the Department of Homeland Security plan to be shooting at? According to the U.S. Census, there are only about 311 million people living in the entire country. So why does the Department of Homeland Security need 450 million rounds of ammunition? Either this is an incredible waste or there is something that the Department of Homeland Security is not telling us.

U.S. Outgunned in Hacker War
By DEVLIN BARRETT - WSJ.com
WASHINGTON—The Federal Bureau of Investigation's top cyber cop offered a grim appraisal of the nation's efforts to keep computer hackers from plundering corporate data networks: "We're not winning," he said.
Shawn Henry, who is preparing to leave the FBI after more than two decades with the bureau, said in an interview that the current public and private approach to fending off hackers is "unsustainable.'' Computer criminals are simply too talented and defensive measures too weak to stop them, he said.

North Korea's Cyberwarfare Strength Grows, General Says
By Tony Capaccio and Roxana Tiron - Bloomberg.com
North Korea's military has been increasing its ability to launch cyber attacks against American and South Korean forces, the top U.S. commander in the region said.
"North Korea employs sophisticated computer hackers trained to launch cyber infiltration and cyber attacks," Army General James Thurman, the commander of U.S. Forces Korea, said in testimony prepared for a congressional hearing today in Washington. "Such attacks are ideal for North Korea" because they can be done anonymously, and they "have been increasingly employed against a variety of targets including military, governmental, educational and commercial institutions."

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