Odds ‘n Sods:

The latest murmurings from Wall Street and the Chicago Board of Trade are that the commodities markets have not nearly reached their peak. If anything, the traders say, we are in the opening stages of a secular bull market that will likely continue for several years. As I’ve stated on previous occasions, the second half of the Aughts will probably look a lot like the second half of the 1970s, with rising interest rates, consumer price inflation, international tensions, and galloping commodities prices.

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We just returned from a family trip down to California. (Which explains the brevity of today’s posts.) The trip was enlightening if not downright alarming. I was surprised to hear so many Spanish language radio stations–they are now scattered up and down the AM dial. Some of the city buses now carry advertising placards in Spanish. Immigrant day laborers cluster on street corners, hoping for work at construction sites. I have concluded that the illegal immigration problem needs to be resolved quickly and decisively. In my opinion, the United States needs: 1.) A stout fence and plenty of sensors, regardless of the cost, to make the southern border less porous 2.) Local police and sheriff’s departments empowered to arrest illegal aliens, and 3.) A larger staff for the Border Patrol. Without those measures, the gradual demographic of cultural and linguistic change will reach a tipping point in the border states and beyond. I should mention here that I am by no means a racist. Quite the contrary, I am an anti-racist. But I must concur with talk radio show host Michael Savage: “Borders, language, and culture” matter. They, in part, define a society. If those three underpinnings are not preserved, then we will wake up someday and find ourselves in someone else’s society

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A rare case of Bubonic Plague in California

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More revelations on Iran’s nuclear program