A DAY OF DAYS

Well, it is accomplished... It will take me weeks to realize that Bush/Cheney are really gone. And I have to keep reminding myself that I did see Barack Obama bitch slap ol "w" over what he did to the Constitution. And I'm chuckling that an instantaneous order was issued to freeze and/or reverse all Bush presidential directives over the last month re: the environment and other issues. Rahm Emmanuel was right on top of that and I'd bet it was executed (excuse me Rahm) with German military precision. That's a good sign. I don't think that Mr. Obama wasted a micro-second in letting everyone know that he's his own man. What man that is remains to be seen but these two small signs are good ones.

Look guys, things are falling apart so fast I can't keep up. Forget that the Dow lost 300+ today. B of A is going down. Citigroup is going down... again. (Go back and see, I called this one too.) Global mining (of almost anything) has come to a virtual standstill. The business bankruptcies won't really begin for a week or two and they'll tsunami by March, April and May. Europe has declared itself in a Depression... I did note one interesting sign today. For the last four months or so, completely out of synch, as the Dow fell, so went gold. Not only counterintuitive but to me a sign that the panic was intense and that whoever is controlling the gold price suppression was thinking, "We can't let gold rise even three per cent aginst the markets. The panic is so intense that if people see even that spread it'll start a stampede." But today the Dow tanked and gold soared. Sign of a breakout?... Could be.

Every day Rice Farmer and others send me links to stories from around the world... in addition to the ones I find. There's good news and bad news. The bad news is that the list grows longer and scarier each day. I must take two long breaks and play with my dawg for twenty minutes to get through the lists. The good news is that more and more media outlets -- some of them very reputable -- are starting to tell it like it is.

I got a wonderful compliment today. Stan Goff would really appreciate this. I was talking to an Army returnee today. He was a medic with the 10th Mountain Division in the Iron Triangle. He told me that "Crossing the Rubicon" is on the Division's recommended reading list.

Hoo Ah!

-- MCR
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JO adds:

Asian cellist, Jewish white guy on violin, disabled, to boot! Venezuelan woman on piano; African-American on clarinet. The signal came through loud and clear: This is going to be a truly ecumenical administration, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, even women. Which is to say, we're all going down together.

Pity Obama. He will be viewed as the knight, ("Obamalot") who rode in with such promise, yet whose advent in fact ushered in disaster such as the world has never known.

Does he know he's been set up? Have they minced words in telling him what's in store? He seems awfully serious these days. And his speech started off on a grim note of warning.

But soon enough we were back on the familiar track of hope triumphant.

Perhaps eventually, depending on one's definition of 'triumph.' But to quote T.S. Eliot, "Between the conception and the realization falls the shadow." Between now and then is going to be an awful lot of TSHF.

For starters:

India Sends Message to Pakistan With New Missile Tests
Hu's Proposals for Taiwan Discussed with US, Russia, Norway
Doomers Go Mainstream
New Yorker article on Dmitri Orlov and Jim Kunstler, also touching on goldbugs and with a nice plug for Carolyn Baker's new book.
Saudi Intelligence Chief Meets Zardari, Gilani
Brazil Least Affected By Global Economic Crisis
Another Inauguration Not To Be Missed