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Gold soars as speculators bet on inflation:

Gold soared to within a few dollars of its highest price for seven years yesterday as speculators gambled that inflation - and not deflation - is now stalking the world economy thanks to a recovery and bulging government deficits.

The gold price shot up by $10.50 to $371.50 an ounce, its highest level since May and just below the seven-year high of $378 reached in February.

The immediate trigger was the expiry of options contracts in New York, but nearly all the world’s major central banks are
locked in a battle to hold their currencies down to see off deflation, or continuously falling prices. The US Federal Reserve continues to warn of a possible “unwelcome fall” in inflation.

However, some investors are starting to believe that central banks have gone too far and may set off price rises on the high street. Furthermore, governments around the world have started to run up massive deficits.

This week, the US Congressional Budget Office warned that the American government deficit could be as much as $401 billion (£255 billion) this year. Higher inflation could be good for the gold price. Gold is unlikely to be devalued as it does not depend on any central bank or government for its value.

John Reade, an analyst at UBS, said: “The market hit important technical levels yesterday and could now rise further. The investors we are talking to are now looking through the short-term risk of deflation and focusing on economic recovery and reflation. I think people are losing faith in the ability of politicians and central bankers to keep inflation under control.”

Evey Hambro, who manages the Merrill Lynch Gold & General Fund, said: “The market has been like a pressure cooker and the lid blew off today. It takes place against a background of rising government deficits. Unlike paper currencies, you can’t just run gold off the printing press.”

Central banks are the biggest holders of gold and have a pact to limit their sales. There are hopes that at the International Monetary Fund meeting in Dubai later this month the pact could be renewed on stricter terms.

Wow, some of the quotes were worth their weight in gold! Too bad I don’t own any of that pyritish stuff, yet — need to sell a kidney or two. Though, feel free to donate to the Tim Swanson, I Really Want Gold Fund, now. It’s tax deductible*… so why wouldn’t you want to?

*Note: consider it a service to humanity.

Gujarat conversions outlawed:

Churches in India expressed shock over the enactment of a law curbing religious conversion that passed without debate in the state of Gujarat.
The legislation, called the Freedom of Religious Conversion Bill, carries a penalty of three years’ imprisonment and a fine of $1,045 US for religious conversion “by force or by lure.” A conversion acknowledged as not having been coerced could bring a one-year prison sentence and a fine unless it received approval from the district head.
The National Council of Churches in India, which represents 29 Orthodox and Protestant churches, called the legislation “an act of conscious and wilful harassment of the minorities, especially Christians, prohibiting them from practising their faith.”
The ecumenical United Christian Forum said “conversion is a grace of God and cannot be subject to the scrutiny of the civil government.” The conversion bill was passed by the legislature after the opposition Congress party was suspended from the assembly.

Poetic justice? Up until the Treaty of Westphalia the Church would do the same thing the State does today.

Doctor, doctor, I’m pumpkin positive:

THE doctor purses his lips, looks at you pityingly over his half-moon spectacles and quietly writes something on his clipboard, something short, sharp and authoritative.

He turns away to answer the phone and you seize the diversion to sneak a look at your case notes.

He has written: “Plumbum oscillans.”

What disease can this be? It sounds contagious… maybe even fatal… Is it time to phone friends and family and say farewell? Is your will up to date?

Relax.

Plumbum oscillans is no threat to health - it is Latin for “swinging the lead,” and it is the doctor’s discreet way of concluding that you are a malingerer, someone seeking a sick note to take time off work.

These and other terms are part of a secret language, indecipherable to outsiders, that doctors use with each other to convey a truth that is otherwise unsayable, especially to the patient.

The slang can be cruel, insulting and highly inventive, says Adam Fox, a specialist registrar at the Child Allergy Unit at St. Mary’s Hospital in London, who has put together a dictionary of the terms.

They include British emergency-room acronyms such as UBI (for “Unexplained Beer Injury”), PAFO (”Pissed And Fell Over”) and ATFO (”Asked To F… Off”), not to mention Code Brown, referring to a faecal incontinence emergency.

Then there is DBI, for “Dirtbag Index.” This is a formula which multiplies the number of tattoos on the patient’s body by the number of missing teeth to estimate the total of days he has gone without a bath.

Relatives of patients on the critical list may blanche if they knew what CTD, GPO or Rule of Five mean on their loved-one’s records.

The first means “Circling The Drain”, the second signifies “Good for Parts Only” and “Rule of Five” means that if more than five of the patient’s orifices are obscured by tubing, he has no chance.

A patient who is “giving the O-sign” is very sick, lying with his mouth open. This is followed by the “Q-sign” — when the tongue hangs out of the mouth — when the patient becomes terminal.

General practitioners may use LOBNH (”Lights On But Nobody Home”) or the impressively bogus Oligoneuronal to mean someone who is thick.

But they also have a somewhat poetic option: “Pumpkin positive”, referring to the idea that the person’s brain is so tiny that a penlight shone into his mouth will make his empty head gleam like a Halloween pumpkin.

If a doctor is stumped for what is wrong with his or her patient, they may record GOK, for “God Only Knows.”

As for genetic quirks or inbreeding, FLK means “Funny Looking Kid” and NFN signifies “Normal For Norfolk,” a rural English county.

Fox says he has a list of more than 200 terms used by medical practitioners in Britain but his collection shows that doctors around the world make up their own versions.

In Brazil, for instance, physicians use the acronym PIMBA for what can be translated as “swollen-footed, drunk, run-over beggar.”

Fox agrees that some terms are offensive and even cause confusion to other doctors who are not in the know.

But he asks at least for critics to understand the stress that doctors face every day. And in any case, the colourful language is under threat of dying out because of fears of lawsuits.

“The use of medical slang helps to depersonalise the distress encountered in doctors’ everyway working lives,” Fox told the British Medical Journal (BMJ) last year.

“It is a way of detaching and distancing oneself from patients’ distress through loss, grief, disease, dying and death. Often someone else’s pain is too much for us, so we cut off.”

YAADTFOMK? Doubtful. OTYVR? Probably not. YFWTM? Yup.

The truly sad part is, I’ll forget what my own acronyms represent in the coming weeks — thus the fate of Western Civilization now rests in your hands Doogie.

Alrighty. Wish you were as educated, witty and well-read as me? Wish you could impress the college interns at your corporate job? Wish you could read a blog not from tards or Kims?

Well desear no more, as Primero Ultimo Coolio Czar Julio is now gracing cyberspace with his pyramid schemes (he who crosses the Rubicon first wins — the Alpha Warblogger).

I’m actually crossing my fingers on this one. Back in college, the most difficult class I had was Konrad’s history of the Roman Republic. Not only did he attempt to fill our heads with every detail possible (like ‘auspices‘) but he was German, and we all know how Confucian these guys are in their studies.

Hopefully the faceless individual behind this incarnation snookered a university out of a degree or three, or watched those Romanesque marathons on the History Channel. Either way I hope he has some phunus maximus with this Calculating Fellow of Doom™, and no, I don’t plan on being a Brutus or Cato anytime soon, so he can do pretty much what he wants por gratis.

Lastly, let’s all give him a warm welcome as he represents everyone’s favorite month of the Gregorian calendar.

Ave Caesar, morituri te salutant.

SCO CEO says IBM behind open source attacks

“We have absolute direct knowledge of this. If you go behind the scenes, the attacks that we get that don’t have IBM’s name on them, underneath the covers, are sponsored by IBM,” McBride said.

I’d like to take a moment out of my busy schedule to thank IBM for the huge bonuses, expense accounts and vacation pay time they have given me over the past 4 months. I also appreciated the time-share in South Padre and the sky-blue Rolls Royce, a nice touch to my greying world. Oh and Blue, just one request, try not to call me after-hours anymore, the lady friends get feisty and your calls interupt the mood big time.

Anyways, IBM isn’t paying me for slouching, so viva Linux, viva IBM and muerte SCO.

Guess who said:

“It’s the most difficult [decision] I’ve made in my entire life, except the one I made in 1978 when I decided to get a bikini wax.”

“After watching mulattas shake it, I can totally understand why Brazil is devoted to my favorite body part, the ass.”

“As much as when you see a blonde with great tits and a great ass, you say to yourself, ‘Hey, she must be stupid or must have nothing else to offer’, which maybe is the case many times. But then again there is the one that is as smart as her breasts look, great as her face looks, beautiful as her whole body looks gorgeous, you know, so people are shocked.”

“I will go to Sacramento, and I will clean house”

“I will not change. Because if you are successful and you change, you are an idiot.”

“Pumping iron is a great feeling…like coming, but coming continuously.”

- On the Environment -

“Don’t worry about that!”

If you guessed McBain you win a million dollars from Parker Brothers. We would have also accepted Max Powers, Hercules Rockefeller and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The Louisiana State Police received reports of illegal cock fights being held in the area around Lafayette, and duly dispatched the infamous detective Desormeaux to investigate. He reported to his sergeant the next morning. “Dey is tree main groups in dis cock fightin’” he began.

“Good work. Who are they?” the sergeant asked.

Desormeaux replied confidently, “De Aggies, de Cajuns, and de Mafia.”

Puzzled, the sergeant asked, “How did you find that out in one night?”

“Well,” Desormeaux replied, “I went down and done seen dat cock fight. I knowed the Aggies was involved when a duck was entered in the fight.”

The sergeant nodded, “I’ll buy that. But what about the others?”

Desormeaux intoned knowingly, “Well, I knowed de Cajuns was involved when summbody bet on de duck.”

“Ah,” sighed the sergeant, “And how did you deduce the Mafia was involved?”

“De duck won.”

From Monsieur Kinsella.

If you’re reading this, then Tim Swanson is rotting in a Turkish prison whereby his daily meals come in the form of leather shoe soles and spamburgers.

Actually, he’s dead…

I’ve made a post everyday (except yesterday) for the past 4 months. I started blogging after I saw just how fast and easy it was to drive traffic to your site. Having an ego the size of Texas (fortunately I live in the great country of Texas) this was not a problem and in fact worked in my favor more often than not.

At the same time I also started a web hosting company to get others on the same super neat path of Zen/Ohm/42 I had discovered. Well, although that is still going, my entire life will for the foreseeable future be entirely consumed with my meatspace job in sales.

The reason I mention this is because I probably won’t be blogging much (yes, horror of horrors) and I thought it would be polite and courteous to inform you as to why.

It’s not your fault, it’s mine.

And no, I didn’t fake any of them.

Also, for those of you that would like to engage in a non-platonic relationship with me, I’m sorry to break it to you but I’m no longer interested in your inferior non-me livelihoods.

Feel free to send me any “Get Well Soon” or “I hope death wasn’t too bad” cards, I mean, what is this world coming to when Monsieur Moi is no longer blogging the night away?

- Timoguapo

PENSACOLA, FL - Attempting a feat that no mortal has ever successfully tried doing, members of an evangelical Christian group headed by one “Dr. Dino” undertook what some Creation Scientists* called a tour de force in proving just how miraculous and amazing God is.

Her unwillingness to publish cheat codes may have been a factor

This past weekend in Park City, Utah, Brian Miles, 28, in what is already being called a landmark move for the freedom of American males, left his girlfriend for his XBox. The event allegedly took place on Saturday at 6:35pm MST, after a lengthy discussion of “what are we going to do tonight?” [continued]

Boy isn’t that the truth? In my 7.32 minutes of spare time I’ve actually had some fun playing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. And I have to say, it’s loads of fun — so much so I’ve had to break up with all of my girlfriends, sorry Tamica, Shenana and Latishanif.

Up up, down down, left right, left right…