Arab States Ditching Dollar for Oil Sales?

From FoxNews: Gulf States Deny Secret Plan to Dump Dollar

The world's oil producers will continue using the U.S. dollar as the currency for buying and selling crude, high-ranking oil and finance officials in the Gulf said on Tuesday, denying a report in a British newspaper.

Earlier, The Independent reported that Gulf Arab states, as well as China, Russia, Japan and France, are in secret talks to end the use of the U.S. dollar to trade oil, causing the American currency to fall in overseas trading Tuesday. ...

Click the link above to read the rest of the article.

What am I up to?

I know I've been quiet lately. I'm still around, it's just that I have switched from a phase where I was hell-bent on prepping as quickly as possible, to a phase where most of the things that can be immediately done, have been done. Now, I'm just watching and waiting and tweaking things here and there.

Behind the scenes, I'm still working on eliminating debt and improving my finances, networking with like-minded people, and slowly increasing my food storage. I'm closely monitoring the current utter failure of the Obama administration to deal with Iran (see the post just before this one) and the stock market, which appears to be entering a perilous time. I'm also considering pulling my accounts out of Bank of America and switching them to a local, more stable bank.

It feels like the calm before the storm.

Krauthammer Punctures Obama's Posturing, Once Again

It's so good that I've posted the entirety of his editorial below:

Obama's French Lesson
by Charles Krauthammer

"President Obama, I support the Americans' outstretched hand. But what did the international community gain from these offers of dialogue? Nothing."
-- French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Sept. 24

When France chides you for appeasement, you know you're scraping bottom. Just how low we've sunk was demonstrated by the Obama administration's satisfaction when Russia's president said of Iran, after meeting President Obama at the United Nations, that "sanctions are seldom productive, but they are sometimes inevitable."

You see? The Obama magic. Engagement works. Russia is on board. Except that, as The Post inconveniently pointed out, President Dmitry Medvedev said the same thing a week earlier, and the real power in Russia, Vladimir Putin, had changed not at all in his opposition to additional sanctions. And just to make things clear, when Iran then brazenly test-fired offensive missiles, Russia reacted by declaring that this newest provocation did not warrant the imposition of tougher sanctions.

Do the tally. In return for selling out Poland and the Czech Republic by unilaterally abrogating a missile-defense security arrangement that Russia had demanded be abrogated, we get from Russia . . . what? An oblique hint, of possible support, for unspecified sanctions, grudgingly offered and of dubious authority -- and, in any case, leading nowhere because the Chinese have remained resolute against any Security Council sanctions.

Confusing ends and means, the Obama administration strives mightily for shows of allied unity, good feeling and pious concern about Iran's nuclear program -- whereas the real objective is stopping that program. This feel-good posturing is worse than useless, because all the time spent achieving gestures is precious time granted Iran to finish its race to acquire the bomb.

Don't take it from me. Take it from Sarkozy, who could not conceal his astonishment at Obama's naivete. On Sept. 24, Obama ostentatiously presided over the Security Council. With 14 heads of state (or government) at the table, with an American president at the chair for the first time ever, with every news camera in the world trained on the meeting, it would garner unprecedented worldwide attention.

Unknown to the world, Obama had in his pocket explosive revelations about an illegal uranium enrichment facility that the Iranians had been hiding near Qom. The French and the British were urging him to use this most dramatic of settings to stun the world with the revelation and to call for immediate action.

Obama refused. Not only did he say nothing about it, but, reports the Wall Street Journal (citing Le Monde), Sarkozy was forced to scrap the Qom section of his speech. Obama held the news until a day later -- in Pittsburgh. I've got nothing against Pittsburgh (site of the G-20 summit), but a stacked-with-world-leaders Security Council chamber it is not.

Why forgo the opportunity? Because Obama wanted the Security Council meeting to be about his own dream of a nuclear-free world. The president, reports the New York Times citing "White House officials," did not want to "dilute" his disarmament resolution "by diverting to Iran."
Diversion? It's the most serious security issue in the world. A diversion from what? From a worthless U.N. disarmament resolution?

Yes. And from Obama's star turn as planetary visionary: "The administration told the French," reports the Wall Street Journal, "that it didn't want to 'spoil the image of success' for Mr. Obama's debut at the U.N."

Image? Success? Sarkozy could hardly contain himself. At the council table, with Obama at the chair, he reminded Obama that "we live in a real world, not a virtual world."

He explained: "President Obama has even said, 'I dream of a world without [nuclear weapons].' Yet before our very eyes, two countries are currently doing the exact opposite."

Sarkozy's unspoken words? "And yet, sacré bleu, he's sitting on Qom!"

At the time, we had no idea what Sarkozy was fuming about. Now we do. Although he could hardly have been surprised by Obama's fecklessness. After all, just a day earlier in addressing the General Assembly, Obama actually said, "No one nation can . . . dominate another nation." That adolescent mindlessness was followed with the declaration that "alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long-gone Cold War" in fact "make no sense in an interconnected world." NATO, our alliances with Japan and South Korea, our umbrella over Taiwan, are senseless? What do our allies think when they hear such nonsense?

Bismarck is said to have said: "There is a providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children, and the United States of America." Bismarck never saw Obama at the U.N. Sarkozy did.

SHTF Scenario: Ventilator Rationing

Some health authorities are pushing ahead with plans to ration ventilators in the event of a severe pandemic:

"ProPublica, a nonprofit online news organization, published a story this week that says 'state and federal officials are pushing ahead with plans that -- during a severe flu outbreak -- would deny use of scarce ventilators by some patients to assure they would be available for patients judged to benefit the most from them.'

'The plans have been drawn up to give doctors specific guidelines for extreme circumstances and they include procedures under which patients who weren't improving would be removed from life support with or without permission of their families.'

The story, which criticizes the 'scant public input' given in the process, says the plans are designed to go into effect if the U.S. were struck by a pandemic comparable to the 1918 outbreak that killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide. It notes that
state and federal health officials have concluded that 'such a pandemic would sicken far more people needing ventilators than could be treated by the available supplies.'"

Guess what? Iran has the bomb

AP NewsBreak: Nuke agency says Iran can make bomb

This should come as a surprise to absolutely no one who has been paying any attention for the last few years.

And on a related note:

Israel may attack Iran by December
Link to news article courtesy of the Joel Rosenberg weblog.

Bad Sign: Insiders Selling Stocks

From CNNMoney.com: Insiders sell like there's no tomorrow

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Can hundreds of stock-selling insiders be wrong?

The stock market has mounted an historic rally since it hit a low in March. The S&P 500 is up 55%, as U.S. job losses have slowed and credit markets have stabilized.

But against that improving backdrop, one indicator has turned distinctly bearish: Corporate officers and directors have been selling shares at a pace last seen just before the onset of the subprime malaise two years ago.

While a wave of insider selling doesn't necessarily foretell a stock market downturn, it suggests that those with the first read on business trends don't believe current stock prices are justified by economic fundamentals.

"It's not a very complicated story," said Charles Biderman, who runs market research firm Trim Tabs. "Insiders know better than you and me. If prices are too high, they sell."

Biderman, who says there were $31 worth of insider stock sales in August for every $1 of insider buys, isn't the only one who has taken note. Ben Silverman, director of research at the InsiderScore.com web site that tracks trading action, said insiders are selling at their most aggressive clip since the summer of 2007.

Silverman said the "orgy of selling" is noteworthy because corporate insiders were aggressive buyers of the market's spring dip. The S&P 500 dropped as low as 666 in early March before the recent rally took it back above 1,000. "That was a great call," Silverman said. "They were buying when prices were low, so it makes sense to look at what they're doing now that prices are higher."

SHTF Scenario: Suitcase Nukes

Kellene Bishop at Preparedness Pro posted a warning today about the impending 9/11 anniversary and the possibility of suitcase nukes being detonated over large urban centers.

If this scenario could apply to you, as it does to me, then this information from GlobalSecurity.org will be helpful in assessing the ramifications of such an attack. I will note that it assumes a 10-kiloton payload; the information I found on Wikipedia suggested that a 5-6 kiloton device may be more likely, making the Global Security website's information a useful and reasonable "worst-case scenario."