Odds ‘n Sods:

A 50/50 chance of mutation and then up to 50% of the world’s population dead?Yikes! This one is a must read: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/AvianFlu/story?id=1724801

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Arab Central Banks Switch Some Assets from Dollars to Euros. See: http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article351127.ece

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I just heard thatReady Made Resources has received some scarce late issue digital TA -1042A/U U.S. military field telephones, brand new in the box. This is the current issue type requires a four conductor wire (or two runs of standard WD-1 commo wire.) The good news is that you can talk in full duplex! Any 12 volt power source works fine: a car battery, motorcycle battery, or a pair of lantern batteries. You can talk point-to-point with these without having go through a switchboard. They have just a few pairs available, so don’t hesitate.

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Bill Bonner, editor of The Daily Reckoning cites an ominous piece that ran in The Wall Street Journal: “More than $2 trillion of U.S. mortgage debt, or about a quarter of all mortgage loans outstanding, comes up for interest-rate resets in 2006 and 2007,” reports the WSJ this morning. “…some borrowers will have trouble meeting the higher payments and may be forced to sell their homes or could lose their homes to foreclosures.”

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Bernanke: Budget Deficits Endanger Economy: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/3/14/163001.shtml?s=br

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Climate change ‘irreversible’ as Arctic sea ice fails to re-form: http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article351135.ece

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More on the Silver Exchange Traded Fund: here