Gold reaches $1000 an ounce

gold ingots - Credit Suisse

Concerns about a possible US recession are seeing investors buy up refuge commodities such as gold as an alternative to equities or the greenback.

Since the January the value of gold has increased by 20%, following a rise of 32% last year.

This price behaviour cannot be explained by either scarcity or increased demand of gold as a metal, but only due to increase demand a means of storage of value. Gold is increasingly used as a hedge against global inflation and unreliable equities. Its trade grown immensely since the introduction of exchange traded funds (ETFs).

Is the increasing uncertainty about the economy in the US and in a number of European nations leading to a para-gold-standard age through the back door?

If the fears regarding these economies are not placated through good governance, then there is a lot more space for the price of the yellow metal to go up.

Oil at $100

Happy 2008!

Nice new year news: crude oil reaches $100.

Serves us well in the West for engaging in or supporting stupid wars, and moreover for leaving natural resources in the hands of greedy regimes in states that for the most part should never have become independent in the first place!

oil rig fireworks

Bravo Western world!

Benazir Bhutto is gone - Pakistan on the way to be a failed state

Benazir Bhutto

The violent death of Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi is one more sign of a country tribalized and out of control.

So much worries about Iran, when the real danger is next door in Pakistan: a "country" that has nuclear weapons, controls only half its territory, persecutes its minorities and has vast stretches of the population embracing radical Islam and on the path of Jihad and terrorism.

Any other ingredients required for a failed state?

Lets always keep in perspective that Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, called the flag of his party, the Muslim League, the Flag of Islam, and had stated that it cannot be separated from Islam.

The US provided about $600 million in military aid to Pakistan in fiscal year 2006-2007. It would be interesting to see how much of this ended up in the hand of Jihadists. After all the Pakistanis are only continuing the American designed routines previously used to finance the Taliban against the USSR.

The A380 enters commercial service

Champagne is in the air!

The Airbus A380 has entered service with Singapore Airlines!

Where is your 787 Dreamliner, Boeing?

Airbus A380 - Front View - on the runway

Airbus A380 - cockpit - intruments

Airbus A380 - Singapore Airlines

Toy for the boys

Jose Socrates on a Lego box - "porque nem todos podemos ser Engenheiros"

After all we can't all be engineers... or can we?
(pun on the strangely obtained civil engineering degree of Portuguese prime-minister Jose Socrates)

Salazar: elected the "Greatest Portuguese of all time"

Portuguese premier Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, close-up - 1960 - photo by Paul Schutzer for Life magazine

Portuguese television viewers have voted 20th century politician and professor of economics and political economy António de Oliveira Salazar as the greatest Portuguese of all time. It was a clear victory, Salazar received over twice the votes of the runner up.

It took Portugal 67 years to acknowledge the obvious, as already in its edition of July 29,1940, Life Magazine described premier Salazar as "By far the world's best dictator, he is the greatest Portuguese since Prince Henry the Navigator".

As early as 1962 Salazar applied for European Community membership for Portugal. A fervorous patriot, he was also a believer in Europe's values, shared mission in the world and in the inevitability of a united future.

Salazar with a signed Mussolini portrait on his desk - Life magazine 1940 - photo by Bernard Hoffman

Salazar receives US President Dwight D. Eisenhower - May 1960 - photo by Ed Clark for Life magazine

Salazar - cover of Time Magazine, July 22, 1946 - capa da revista Time

Salazar with Queen Elizabeth II (1957)

Salazar and the Galician leader of Spain, Francisco Franco

Salazar, the professor - statue in academic dress - replica of a 1937 work by the sculptor Francisco Franco - it used to stand in front of the Salazar high-school, in the capital of the province of Mozambique, Lourenço Marques  

Salazar with president Carmona - Roman / Fascist salute

Salazar looks at the Ocean - Portugal's only constant friend - Forte de Santo António do Estoril - photo by Rosa Casaco

Update (April 5, 2009):
According to a new book by Costa Pimenta the man was even a freemason! He was initiated in 1914 in Coimbra, by the lodge Revolta n.º 336, of the oldest Masonic Obedience in Portugal, the Grande Oriente Lusitano (GOL).

(see "Salazar, o maçon", Costa Pimenta, Bertrand Editora, Lisboa, 2009 - 972251914X, 9789722519144)

Not really a surprise: all the main pillars of the Estado Novo were freemasons. All the presidents of the Republic, all the presidents of the National Assembly, all military commanders, all the attorney generals, all the presidents of the Supreme Court, all the presidents of the Supreme Administrative Court, all the presidents of the Court of Appeal, all District Governors, all police chiefs, all directors of the public televison (RTP)... were Masons.

Salazar, the freemason (Salazar, o maçon) - book by Costa Pimenta, University of Lisbon researcher

Palestinians already have state

Cannot resist getting the bulk of a 2002 opinion piece by Noach Milgram published by University of California's "Daily Bruin":

"...
First, Palestinians are supported by over 150 million Arabs who care nothing for them personally but wish to eliminate the Jewish state and have said so all along.

Secondly, the Palestinian Authority has stated in every religious sermon and in every school textbook that Israel has no right to exist as a sovereign Jewish state. When I say they reject Israel in every statement, I mean just what I say, but of course these statements are in Arabic.

Thirdly, Palestinians already have a state, it is called Jordan and it occupies over 70 percent of the original Palestine land freed from Turkish control after World War I. Why should there be two Palestinian states side by side? Keep in mind over 75 percent of Jordanian citizens are Palestinians. If Mexicans crossed the border into Texas to kill Texans because they wished to establish a Mexican State, you would not suggest they first be allowed to establish a state and then boycott both states equally, the United States and the new Mexican state? You would say a Mexican state already exists and Texas belongs to the United States
Lastly, we Jews live in the Middle East, where militant Islam is driving Christian Arabs out of Lebanon and the Copts (six million in number, the oldest Christian sects in the world) out of Egypt. Arafat, when he is not busy inciting his people to kill Israelis, is driving the Christian residents out of Bethlehem. More than half have already left Bethlehem since he came into power. If he isn’t stopped, you will find only a few token Christians there the next time you come to celebrate Christmas or Easter in the Holy Land
...."

Land for Peace may not have been such a good idea - Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah