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10/7/2006

CHINA MASSING TROOPS ALONG NORTH KOREAN BORDER :.

If North Korea lights off that nuke I don't think anyone knows how weird the situation could get. Do the Chinese just want to contian the mess? Or are they thinking about stepping in before a failed state situation turns into complete chaos...

As international tensions over North Korea have soared, China has deployed extra combat units of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to man the border from the Yalu River in the south to the Tumen River near Russia - evidently fearing the risk of chaos and collapse.

The troop trains were rolling even on the Chinese mid-autumn festival on Friday. Civilian traffic on a main line was halted to allow one train to pass, with carriages jammed with glum soldiers in camouflage uniforms and flat cars carrying olive-green military vehicles.


10/6/2006

U.S. Government "Sentiment Analysis" Software :.

A consortium of major universities, using Homeland Security Department money, is developing software that would let the government monitor negative opinions of the United States or its leaders in newspapers and other publications overseas.

Such a "sentiment analysis" is intended to identify potential threats to the nation, security officials said.

...

American officials have long relied on newspapers and other news sources to track events and opinions here and abroad, a goal that has included the routine translation of articles from many foreign publications and news services.

The new software would allow much more rapid and comprehensive monitoring of the global news media, as the Homeland Security Department and, perhaps, intelligence agencies look "to identify common patterns from numerous sources of information which might be indicative of potential threats to the nation," a statement by the department said.



Dow Sucker Rally Illustrated :.

They better get the Money Honey ready for action!

Here is the Dow Industrials with all three groups of traders as classified by the CFTC. What is important to note here is the level of net percent holdings by group. Commercials: 38.2% net short, Non-Commercial (Large Traders): 8% net long, Non-reportable (Small Traders) 30.2 % net long.

What does this mean? It means the least knowledgeable, least capitalized group of traders is holding the greatest OI (open interest, in this case long positions) against (betting against that is) the most knowledgeable, most heavily capitalized traders. Normally Large traders (hedge funds and the like) offset Commercials but their net long position is anemic. It might be time to pop the popcorn, pull up a chair and watch how this turns out or position oneself to take advantage of the rout should it occur.

There are a number of influential folks who would dearly like to see the "rally" extend to November 3 (for instance, those incumbents running for Congressional offices). But it remains to be seen if their pals will keep buying the "rally" to goose it along until the incumbents are duly re-elected on a platform of "lower gasoline prices and continued prosperity, as proven by the new Dow record high." Or, maybe even the "Plunge Protection Team" won't be able to maintain air pressure in this phony Dow "record."



UPDATE: "Diamonds Cut Diamonds"

If you haven't already, please see the "Diamonds Cut Diamonds" story below. Now see Al Qaeda Tapes: Direct Link To Military Psyops And Donald Rumsfeld. In that story, Steve Watson writes about IntelCenter, a private, U.S. based counterterrorism intelligence service that is staffed with former intelligence and military personnel and is heavily involved with the collection and dissemination of Al Qaeda videos.

Al Qaeda videos. Like the one with the "Diamonds Cut Diamonds" phrase...

Oh yeah. There's one more thing. The following message now appears on the intelcenter.com website:
IntelCenter analysis indicates al-Qaeda may have completed its warning cycle for a mass casualty attack in CONUS, heightened threat now exists, no hard end to threat period identified
Stay tuned. Or not.


10/5/2006

"Diamonds Cut Diamonds"

I don't know what it is about times like this. You know, when lots of people start noticing what seems like more signal in the noise produced by the infoverse. From long experience, we know that the more we think "the event" is imminent, the less likely it is to happen. We also know that trying to piece together actionable intelligence (or a better understanding of events) out of smoke and mirrors and nonsense is a mostly futile waste of time. But that doesn't stop some of us. ;)

Jeff Wells wrote recently:
...in a holographic model, things change. It is consciousness - not individual consciousness, but the collective consciousness of all life - that draws locality and temporality out of the wave pattern of higher vibrations that form the holographic universe and constructs the space and time setting for our life narrative. And consciousness is a storyteller, employing literary devices such as foreshadowing as well as metaphor in our waking curiosity and dream state, while some astral project and remote view, and as plant shamans, with heads full of snakes, explore innerspace via such gateways as DMT and ayahuasca.
So, with all the bones and entrails out there to read and interpret at the moment, I'll offer the following, not as evidence that "the event" is going to happen soon---far from it, probably---but more for your parapolitical viewing pleasure.

Don your tinfoil hat, underwear and robe:

As you know, I've been following the silly rally in the Dow, with its three new record high closes in a row. Yep. Each of the last three days has seen the Dow close higher than the last; further higher into uncharted, record, territory. Meanwhile, the housing bubble, the only thing keeping the U.S. (and world) economy going over the past several years, is popping right in front of our eyes.

And, as you know, I thought it was interesting that bets on the Dow declining substantially by October 20th outnumbered the bets on the Dow rising substantially by October 20th by: 12 to 1 on October 3rd, 19 to 1 on October 4th, and 16 to 1 today.

How, exactly, am I getting these numbers?

I'm following the out of the money, open interest on the options that track the DIAMONDS Trust, Series 1 (symbol:DIA) exchange traded fund. In plain language, this means that I'm following the most speculative bets on where the Dow Jones Industrial Average will be at the close of trading on October 20, 2006.

What I have to say about the options on the DIAMONDS, however, might not be as interesting as what someone else had to say about diamonds. The following are purportedly the words of Osama bin Laden, as reported by al Jazeera back in January 2006:
"My message to you is about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the way to end it.

I had not intended to speak to you about this issue, because, for us, this issue is already decided on: diamonds cut diamonds."
I know it's probably nothing, but I think that They like to make us look anyway.


10/4/2006

Real Estate Bubble: "The End is Upon Us" :.

Is it sick to be taking some pleasure from this? I can't help it. I just think about the smug, imbecile, dope smoking loan officers at that paper mill I used to work for, and the deranged, greedy, liar loan, bubble huffing clients of that thing...

This could not be happening to a more deserving bunch of pricks:

Yes, the explosive charge in the foundations of America's housing boom has been detonated. The wrecking ball has swung. After 17 consecutive interest-rate rises by the Federal Reserve, sales of existing homes in California have suffered their biggest fall in nearly 25 years, while the median home price across the entire country has recorded its first decline in a decade.

...

Just a few months ago, "open houses" in LA were like orgies. Real estate brokers would lay out tables of finger-food, while throngs of potential buyers would swoon over the stainless steel bathroom fixtures, fantasise about the remodelling potential (we can fit a hot tub in the back!) and, most importantly, jostle to outbid each other.

These days the ahi tuna canapes are gone, the brokers look ill and the only buyers are professional vultures, offering 30 per cent below listing. As for the sellers, they can be found upstairs in bed, hyperventilating.

The worst affected are the "flippers": people who bought multiple properties in the hope of reselling them quickly. Now they're left with more homes than Bono and no money for groceries.



Shouting Telescreens Announce United Kingdom of Fascism :.

Written by a British citizen:

If the final nail in America's descent into fascism was the Military Commissions Act then the telltale sign across the Atlantic is the installation of Orwell's telescreens - surveillance cameras fitted with loudspeakers that bark orders at passers-by who the watcher deems suspicious.

The voice of Big Brother has already echoed across several major cities, the latest of which being Middlesbrough in the north-east, and the program will no doubt be unfolded nationwide once the salivating control freaks in council offices have their way.



Another Dow Record

Remember the Dow Diamonds options story from yesterday? With 11.95 times the number of out of the money puts to calls?

I created a little tool that automatically does the calculations for me on the Diamonds. When I ran it today, I was sure that the thing was broken, so I did the math by hand. Nope, the thing wasn't broken. It was correct.

From today's option action on DIAMONDS Trust, Series 1 (DIA):
Open Interest in Out of the Money PUT OPTIONS, Expire at Close Fri, Oct 20, 2006:
200659

Open Interest in Out of the Money CALL OPTIONS, Expire at Close Fri, Oct 20, 2006:
10460
200659 puts / 10460 calls = 19.18 times more puts vs. calls.

This is one of those short squeezes where you just stand back, look at the thing in awe and mumble to yourself.



Cryptogon Readers Get October Contributions Started Off Right

Long time Cryptogon readers and supporters, Number One Son and PW, are at it again! Number One Son sent $30. PW sent $40.

Additionally, Unlocking 9/11 has taken one of the three ad positions at the top of Cryptogon's homepage. Only one spot remains. Click "Your Ad Here" up there to advertise on Cryptogon now. Only $21.38 per month?! Can that be right? Daily and weekly blocks are also available.

Many thanks to all of you!



U.S. Plans Massive Data Sweep :.

This is my favorite part:
Is a burst of Internet traffic between a few people the plotting of terrorists, or just bloggers arguing?
WTF!?

If you're still free start running away:

The core of this effort is a little-known system called Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement (ADVISE). Only a few public documents mention it. ADVISE is a research and development program within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), part of its three-year-old "Threat and Vulnerability, Testing and Assessment" portfolio. The TVTA received nearly $50 million in federal funding this year.

DHS officials are circumspect when talking about ADVISE. "I've heard of it," says Peter Sand, director of privacy technology. "I don't know the actual status right now. But if it's a system that's been discussed, then it's something we're involved in at some level."

Data-mining is a key technology

A major part of ADVISE involves data-mining - or "dataveillance," as some call it. It means sifting through data to look for patterns. If a supermarket finds that customers who buy cider also tend to buy fresh-baked bread, it might group the two together. To prevent fraud, credit-card issuers use data-mining to look for patterns of suspicious activity.

What sets ADVISE apart is its scope. It would collect a vast array of corporate and public online information - from financial records to CNN news stories - and cross-reference it against US intelligence and law-enforcement records. The system would then store it as "entities" - linked data about people, places, things, organizations, and events, according to a report summarizing a 2004 DHS conference in Alexandria, Va. The storage requirements alone are huge - enough to retain information about 1 quadrillion entities, the report estimated. If each entity were a penny, they would collectively form a cube a half-mile high - roughly double the height of the Empire State Building.

But ADVISE and related DHS technologies aim to do much more, according to Joseph Kielman, manager of the TVTA portfolio. The key is not merely to identify terrorists, or sift for key words, but to identify critical patterns in data that illumine their motives and intentions, he wrote in a presentation at a November conference in Richland, Wash.

For example: Is a burst of Internet traffic between a few people the plotting of terrorists, or just bloggers arguing? ADVISE algorithms would try to determine that before flagging the data pattern for a human analyst's review.



Mesa, Arizona Home Sellers to Take Bids $100,000 Below Market :.

Keep my piece on selling outside the spread in mind as you read this:

Two Mesa home owners use an unconventional method in desperate times to sell their homes by an auction.

There will be an open house on Saturday, October 7th and Sunday, October 8th from 12pm to 5pm, and the two homes will be sold to the highest bidder on Sunday, October 8th at 6:00pm.

"The opening bid for both of our homes is $100,000 below the other comparatives in the neighborhood. Yes, we are willing to sell the homes at that price, but we believe that by using this method to sell our homes, the market will determine the true value," said Brian Kingdeski, who owns one of the homes that will be auctioned.


10/3/2006

With the Dow at a Record High and the Financial Media Cheering...


WARNING: The following is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.

Let's take a look at the out of the money option bets on the Diamonds, the ETF that tracks the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Why use the out of the money numbers? Because that's where the criminals would make the most money on an October surprise.

From today's option action on DIAMONDS Trust, Series 1 (DIA):
Open Interest in Out of the Money PUT OPTIONS, Expire at Close Fri, Oct 20, 2006:
189295

Open Interest in Out of the Money CALL OPTIONS, Expire at Close Fri, Oct 20, 2006:
15842
189295 puts / 15842 calls = 11.95 times more puts vs. calls.

So, on this historic day, with the triumphant Dow "soaring" to a glorious, record high, the amount of money being placed on very speculative bets that the Dow is going to decline substantially by October 20 is nearly 12 times the amount of money being bet that the Dow will rise substantially by October 20.

In case you're interested, total open interest on DIA is calls 87908 vs puts 197303 or 2.24 times more puts vs. calls.

Hmm. That's interesting no matter how you slice it. I might just have to keep track of this over time. Anyone know of some free method of charting an out of the money put / call ratio? Doing it manually is a bit of a pain. I managed to get Open Office Calc to parse the DIA data tables right out of Yahoo, then I do a sumif on column Last < 1, add column Open Int. Doing this on both calls and puts gives me the out of the money open interest on each. Now, if I could somehow automatically store the results from these sumifs on different rows each day... I'll just copy and paste them for now.



DOW RECORD HIGH

WARNING: The following is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.

A couple of days ago, in the forum, with regard to the October put options, I wrote:
These puts might just be an automated hedge strategy by large institutions. With the DOW near a record it makes sense. They might be trying to have their cake and eat it too. They might want to stay in to catch more upside, but they know there's a (possibly strong) chance of decline. What do They do?

They stay long, but they buy a bit of insurance with the put options.
Guys, I'm the first one to say that I DON'T KNOW where the thing is going today, tomorrow or next week. And I put that warning at the top of messages like this because I don't want you to take action based only on my analysis, if you can call it analysis. If I had more confidence in making calls in the market, I'd be trading the damn thing myself, and we'd have more solar panels on our roof than anyone else in the district. And a wind turbine. A big one! And a hot house to grow tomatoes in the winter, and, and...

Now, that I've told you that I have no idea what's going to happen, and with the Dow at a record high, let's examine the Short Squeeze.

This is the most incredible move of them all, in my opinion. When lots of traders and pundits start to believe "the top is in / it's coming down" they short everything, like Fred Hickey.

When so many people get short, it doesn't take much to shake them out of their positions and actually cause a strong (temporary) rally! All They have to do to cause a massive short covering rally is to start buying index futures, in a sustained way, for a few minutes and * boom * it's on. Many shorts will yield to the "unseen hand of the market" and cover their positions. It only takes a couple of hundred million leveraged dollars to touch off one of these moves. I've seen it happen dozens of times. TR and I used to have this radar thing scanning the market, looking for "weird" momentum, among other things. A couple of times, we got alarms on nearly the entire NASDAQ 100 and lots of lower tiered relatives.

Once, TR yelled out, "What the hell happened!?"

I said, "The 'unseen hand of the market' just slapped everyone across the face and said, 'I own this show.'"

The clinical term for this is buy program (or sell program) and if you have a way of visualizing the market, like we did, it's an awe inspiring thing. Most of the time, the market looks mostly like semi-random noise. Sometimes, you get more up trending noise. Sometimes, more down trending noise. Occasionally, though, nearly all of the money goes mostly one way or the other. These are the times when the wizard behind the curtain (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, etc.) starts pulling the big levers.

Now, why didn't we make money? Sadly, we couldn't determine how long the "programs" would last. We'd try to catch some and then get shaken out. Then, we'd see one, sit there and look at it, look at each other, "Is this one real?" It climbs and climbs. "No it's probably fake." It climbs. Climbs more. Still climbing. "I think it's real. F it, I'll jump on." Bang. It goes down again. It was some of the most nauseating nonsense you could imagine. None of the technical tools matter in times like this. That thing will barrel through every support or resistance you can draw on your chart. Oscillators will peg the extremes and stay there for long enough to make you feel like an idiot for using them at all. Being out starts to feel really good.

I heard weird rumors of some guys who had a system based on a heat map of where out of the money option bets had been laid on. They basically thought, "What's the most criminal way for Them to make money?" and devised a system based on it. Who has enough capital to start a move in a stock that can make the out of the money options suddenly very profitable?

I thought it was BS, but on an up market day, I watched a big market maker crank Amazon down $2 in a few minutes. Just Amazon. Someone in the chat room I was in said, "I guess those AMZN puts weren't so far out of the money after all." That was my last cracked lightbulb moment before I gave up on trading. The thing is a total scam, and They like having retailers participating because it provides liquidity for Their antics.



NORTH KOREA WILL CONDUCT NUCLEAR TEST :.

Well, well, well... I seem to remember a little story about some October put options...

SEOUL (Reuters) - An increasingly isolated North Korea said on Tuesday it would conduct its first-ever nuclear test, blaming a U.S. "threat of nuclear war and sanctions" for forcing its hand.

The statement by North Korea's foreign ministry, carried on the official KCNA news agency, was condemned by neighboring Japan as "unacceptable" and caused South Korea to increase its security alert.



Pessimistic Stock Guru Goes with the Short Answer :.

WARNING: The following is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.

This story will seem frighteningly familiar to Cryptogon regulars. And Hickey's Portfolio of Doom looks excellent for those of you who are still in the paper game and looking for strategic shorts:

Fred Hickey is used to going against the crowd.

Everyone scoffed in 1999 when the veteran Nashua, N.H., stock market guru, who publishes the influential High-Tech Strategist investment newsletter, warned that the tech bubble was going to pop.

And they dismissed him as a wild alarmist early last year when he said house prices were going to slump.

What's his view now?

"I think we're going to have a crash, across the stock market," he told me Friday.

Yes, Wall Street has been flirting with new highs. And the stock market cheerleaders on TV are waving their pom-poms madly, urging you to put more money into the market.

But people with long memories know that is exactly the time to get nervous.

Think: 1929, 1987 and 1999.

Hickey isn't alone in his worries. As reported here, several top investment managers - from Warren Buffett to Jeremy Grantham to Manu Daftary - have been pulling back from the stock market and hoarding cash.

Many simply think equity prices are too high.

Hickey's viewpoint is more alarming. He thinks the real estate slump is going to develop into a crisis that will spread across the economy.

Hickey points out that housing sales have collapsed, prices are eroding, and a whole army of homeowners on adjustable-rate mortgages face sharp spikes in their monthly payments as their introductory periods expire.

And he thinks it's going to get a lot worse.


"Even with everything we've witnessed to date, people still think it isn't going to be that bad, that it's going to be a nice, slow, measured (decline)," he said with disbelief.

Early last year Hickey backed his prediction by betting his own money against shares in high-end homebuilding company Toll Brothers.

He cleaned up. They've collapsed from $57 to just $27.81 as the housing bubble - to the astonishment of Realtors, naturally - finally popped.

He's closed that bet, but opened up two others: Against homebuilders WCI Communities and Lennar. Both, he notes, have big exposure to the wild Florida real estate market. WCI, he adds, is also running low on cash.

But it doesn't stop there, he argues. If housing crashes, the debt-ridden U.S. consumer will stop shopping. And the knock-on effects will follow through across the economy - and around the world.

Is he right? We'll see, one way or another.

But he's certainly putting his money where his mouth is. Hickey is betting against a wide range of U.S. stocks, including Google, IBM, Motorola, Intel, Apple, Research In Motion, Texas Instruments and Amazon. "I've got the biggest number of short positions I've ever had," he says.



Venturi Eclectic Electric Car :.

Doesn't every freak dream of an electric car with integrated rooftop solar panels and a deployable wind turbine? (I know I did.) These freaks did more than dream about it. As usual, don't look at the pricetag:

...a modern, autonomous and intelligent automobile. The energy that drives it exists all around it: it simply has to deploy its wind turbine, expose its solar cells or, if necessary, find a simple electric plug.


10/2/2006

Robert Anton Wilson Needs Our Help :.

As Becky and I are living pretty close to the financial edge ourselves (Cryptogon donations are our main source of funds at the moment, as amazing and frightening as that may be), I can only make a small contribution to Bob. If you're in better financial shape, please consider helping him out:

...Robert Anton Wilson, whose infirmity and depleted finances have put him in the precarious position of not being able to meet next month's rent.

Research Credit: JS



Balkee Tide and Wave Electricity Generator :.

Energy scarcity is probably the biggest scam of them all:

In the photo above, TWPEG is shown turning a car alternator at 40-60rpm on a knee deep lagoon water, where the waves are just ripples.



Thanks for Making September a Record Month for Contributions

Special thanks to everyone who made September a record month for contributions to Cryptogon!
MO $50
freemania1.com $65
Amazon $101.73
Anonymous $30
resist.ca $50
AB $50
EP $27.77
freeinternetpress.com $28.50
TM $30
cubapolidata.com $65
MW $20
The purchases through Amazon were shocking! It's amazing how all of those added up. The commissions ranged from three cents for a used book to over $9 for a video game system.

Many thanks to all of you.



Rounding Up U.S. Citizens :.

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 governing the treatment of detainees is the culmination of relentless fear-mongering by the Bush administration since the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Because the bill was adopted with lightning speed, barely anyone noticed that it empowers Bush to declare not just aliens, but also U.S. citizens, "unlawful enemy combatants."

...

Anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on Bush's list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies could be declared an "unlawful enemy combatant" and imprisoned indefinitely. That includes American citizens.



US Housing Crash Could Bring UK Down with It :.

It's going to bring down much more than the UK:

Peter Warburton - a member of the Shadow Monetary Policy Committee - warns that the UK will be badly hit by a US housing market crash.

He says: "There is an increasingly large possibility of a scenario where, frankly, economic activity could fall quite materially. In short, I do not believe that the UK has become a more stable economy."

His thesis is that for the past decade, despite its stable growth rate and low inflation, the UK economy has been brewing up potential problems. These include the record level of debt taken on by the household sector, a similarly large jump in government borrowing and a fall in manufacturing output. If, as many experts predict, the US suffers a housing market collapse next year, this could trigger an even more dramatic downturn in the UK.

The reason, he says, is that British companies are particularly reliant on the US for their exports. If they lose much of their custom, they are likely to have to lay off employees, triggering a rise in unemployment and a possible drop in consumer spending.

"The landscape can change quite quickly, and the UK is one of the most vulnerable economies out there," he says. "It's fanciful to suggest that just because corporate balance sheets seem to be in a more healthy state that businesses will carry on spending even if the consumer stops spending.



Irvine, California Real Estate Flippers Getting Decapitated

Over the last couple of years, Irvine went flip crazy, with the action in some developments comprised almost entirely of flippers selling properties to other flippers. Now, with the music stopped and not enough chairs to go around, it's decapitation time. Too bad, how sad!

Those of you who have escaped the festering, stucco box sh*thole of Irvine, California will love these blogs. Sit back and enjoy the show:

Irvine Housing Blog

and

OC FlipTrack

Related: Grass Under Renovation and Fleeing the United States


10/1/2006

Put Options Accumulating for October (Surprise)? :.

WARNING: The following is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.

With my recent commentary on oil in mind, add this to the mix:
"Do you like October suprises? Is there a big bang coming to hit the markets? If you believe that those in the know use insider information before major events then you might be interested on the HUGE number of October 6th put options for the big indexes.
Dow near record highs. The consumer going broke on stupid real estate deals. If I was a gambling man, which I'm not, I'd be taking puts on the major indexes too.

But is there more to it? We'll find out in a few days.



Cafferty on CNN: "What Are We Becoming?" :.

"Here's the deal:" Cafferty said. "Under the War Crimes Act, violations of the Geneva Conventions are felonies, in some cases punishable by death. When the Supreme Court ruled that the Geneva Convention applied to al-Qaida and Taliban detainees, President Bush and his boys were suddenly in big trouble.

"They've been working these prisoners over pretty good. In an effort to avoid possible prosecution they're trying to cram this bill through Congress before the end of the week before Congress adjourns," he said.



Cryptogon Readers Ordering Survival Related Titles from Amazon



Colleges Coveting Home-Schooled Students :.

Home-schooled students - whose numbers in this country range from an estimated 1.1 million to as high as 2 million - often come to college equipped with the skills necessary to succeed in higher education, said Regina Morin, admissions director of Columbia College.

Such assets include intellectual curiosity, independent study habits and critical thinking skills, she said.

"It's one of the fastest-growing college pools in the nation," she said. "And they tend to be some of the best prepared."




Google


cryptogon.com
www

:. Reading

Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture by Andrew Kimbrell Readers will come to see that industrial food production is indeed a "fatal harvest" - fatal to consumers, as pesticide residues and new disease vectors such as E. coli and "mad cow disease" find their way into our food supply; fatal to our landscapes, as chemical runoff from factory farms poison our rivers and groundwater; fatal to genetic diversity, as farmers rely increasingly on high-yield monocultures and genetically engineered crops; and fatal to our farm communities, which are wiped out by huge corporate farms.

Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America by Bertram Myron Gross This is a relatively short but extremely cogent and well-argued treatise on the rise of a form of fascistic thought and social politics in late 20th century America. Author Bertram Gross' thesis is quite straightforward; the power elite that comprises the corporate, governmental and military superstructure of the country is increasingly inclined to employ every element in their formidable arsenal of 'friendly persuasion' to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Americans through what Gross refers to as friendly fascism.

The Good Life
by Scott and Helen Nearing
Helen and Scott Nearing are the great-grandparents of the back-to-the-land movement, having abandoned the city in 1932 for a rural life based on self-reliance, good health, and a minimum of cash...Fascinating, timely, and wholly useful, a mix of the Nearings' challenging philosophy and expert counsel on practical skills.

Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth by David Bollierd In Silent Theft, David Bollier argues that a great untold story of our time is the staggering privatization and abuse of our common wealth. Corporations are engaged in a relentless plunder of dozens of resources that we collectively own—publicly funded medical breakthroughs, software innovation, the airwaves, the public domain of creative works, and even the DNA of plants, animals and humans. Too often, however, our government turns a blind eye—or sometimes helps give away our assets. Amazingly, the silent theft of our shared wealth has gone largely unnoticed because we have lost our ability to see the commons.

The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-To-Basics Guide by John Seymour The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It is the only book that teaches all the skills needed to live independently in harmony with the land harnessing natural forms of energy, raising crops and keeping livestock, preserving foodstuffs, making beer and wine, basketry, carpentry, weaving, and much more.

When Corporations Rule the World by David C. Korten When Corporations Rule the World explains how economic globalization has concentrated the power to govern in global corporations and financial markets and detached them from accountability to the human interest. It documents the devastating human and environmental consequences of the successful efforts of these corporations to reconstruct values and institutions everywhere on the planet to serve their own narrow ends.

The New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener This expansion of a now-classic guide originally published in 1989 is intended for the serious gardener or small-scale market farmer. It describes practical and sustainable ways of growing superb organic vegetables, with detailed coverage of scale and capital, marketing, livestock, the winter garden, soil fertility, weeds, and many other topics.