As any student of history could have predicted, this trend toward a more socialistic system of government is having a number of unintended consequences. The most immediate of these, of course, has been the growing disdain for the U.S. dollar (and a corresponding growth in affection for gold) among the world’s investors and savers.

But more repercussions are now becoming evident. The recent selloff in U.S. Treasuries sent rates spiking higher and pushed the yield curve to its steepest slope in history.

The problem is that traders have had to sell Treasuries to hedge against rising rates in mortgages. But now that selling in Treasuries is rippling into the mortgage market. That is sending rates higher and endangering the fragile healing process in the nation’s housing market.

The Fed simply cannot allow this to happen. But again, there’s a problem: The Fed has been buying mortgages and Treasuries through their quantitative easing program to keep rates low. Now, they’re going to have to ramp up that program, to a very large degree, to keep rates at levels conducive to an economic recovery.

“You can’t have a spike in interest rates in the long end without it impacting the economy,” warned Brian Edmonds, head of interest rate trading at Cantor Fitzgerald. “That’s why the Fed has been a supporter of the quantitative easing. They have a choice. They could walk away from it or they could increase it to the point where it’s meaningful. The $300 billion is not effective….You’ve got to start to talk trillions.”

The end result, of course, will be double-digit inflation rates, a collapse in the dollar, and a correspondingly large increase in the value of gold. There will be other unintended consequences of this new, more socialistic America. The most frightening of these will be the significant erosion of our individual rights. We need to prepare for these events, not only as investors, but as American citizens.

 The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is fighting a Nevada U.S. Attorney who is seeking the names and personal information of anonymous posters responding to a Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper story.

The story about a federal case against Nevada businessman Robert Kahre, drew some caustic—some have said possibly threatening—comments about U.S. Assistant District Attorney J. Gregory Damm and the jury hearing the case.

Kahre, a construction company executive, was charged with income tax evasion, fraud and criminal conspiracy for paying contractors with gold and silver U.S. coins based on their precious metal value but using the much lower face values on the coins for tax purposes.

Ironically, those coins are considered legal tender by the big government boys and girls, but they don’t like the coins being used that way. But that’s an article for another day.

The story ran May 26, 2009, and within days had more than 200 comments posted on the story. By June 2 the paper had the subpoena in hand requesting the information, according to press reports.

The U.S. Attorney initially sought the names of all who posted remarks about the article. But the paper resisted and the government backed down and singled out two it didn’t like. The newspaper was willing to relent on those two, but the ACLU filed court documents to stop it.

In the comments, one of the posters called the jury members “dummies” and said they should be “hung” if they convicted Kayre. The other wanted to bet the U.S. Attorney wouldn’t celebrate his next birthday.

There were others, too. In them Damm was called a fascist and other names. In response, Damm did what any self-respecting fascist would. He sought to intimidate, if not arrest, those who so labeled him.

Freedom of speech in America is supposed to mean people are free to express themselves regardless of who gets their feelings hurt. But of late the government boys and girls don’t seem to like that idea. Hence we get terms like hate speech and terrorism and threats lumped into one big category that makes one person’s speech unacceptable—meaning no longer free.

I wonder what the British government thought about Thomas Paine? Probably thought his Common Sense was hate speech. He wrote it anonymously and it helped to foment the ideas that led to a revolution. That should be a particularly poignant thought coming off the 233rd birthday of our Republic.

And I’m sure that if someone wanted to be offended some of the comments posted on Personal Liberty Digest could be considered offensive, what with names like right wing nut job and commie pinko—and some worse—being slung around willy-nilly.

But America is not Iran. Americans can still—today at least—lean on the First Amendment when they want to express themselves.

They can even hold Tea Party protests—although Tea Parties upset liberals and government boys and girls who like to use free speech to call the Tea Party participants ugly names and then turn around and claim hate speech when the names are turned back on them.

In San Diego, county officials have reneged on their demand that a preacher and his wife discontinue weekly Bible studies in their home until they obtain a Major Use Permit, a process that costs tens of thousands of dollars.

According to news reports out of San Diego, Pastor David Jones and his wife Mary were interrogated by a county official and then threatened with increasing fines if they continued holding their Tuesday night Bible studies. The studies regularly drew about 15 people.

Attorney Dean Broyles of The Western Center for Law and Policy told 10 News television the county official asked:

• Do you have a regular meeting in your home?
• Do you say amen?
• Do you pray?
• Do you say “Praise the Lord?”

They answered in the affirmative on all four questions. The official then told the couple they were in violation of county regulations. A few days later they received a written warning that listed “unlawful use of land” and told them to “stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit,” according to Broyles.

Reports of the county’s actions drew howls of protest from liberty-minded groups and received a lot of attention in the blogosphere, as well they should. As a group, government bureaucrats lack any kind of common sense. That one would attempt to shut down a home Bible study demonstrates a lack of understanding or lack of education about our country’s founding and what led to the establishment of our nation’s Bill of Rights.

The hue and cry from freedom-loving Americans obviously worked. On May 29, County Chief Administrative Officer Walt Ekard issued a statement saying the Bible study could continue.

“I have received dozens of emails and calls from people concerned about reports that the county is attempting to muzzle religious expression by shutting down a neighborhood Bible study. As chief administrative officer for San Diego County, I want to say in the most direct terms: the county has never tried to stifle religious expression and never will,” Ekard said.

“More importantly, let me be clear: religious intolerance in any form is not, and never will be, allowed under any circumstance in San Diego County government,” he said.

As encouraging as it is that the county reversed itself, nothing in Ekard’s statement addresses the questions asked by a county official about what the Joneses were doing in their home.

It’s none of the county’s business what the Joneses were doing in their home, and the questions about whether they were saying amen, praying and praising the Lord should have been answered with a slammed door.

So, religious freedom in America has withstood, for now at least, another attack. But stay vigilant. The agents of tyranny are persistent.

On July 4, 1776, after months of heated debate, representatives of the Continental Congress voted unanimously that, “These United Colonies are and of right ought to be Free and Independent States.”

Thirteen colonies voted to become something new in history—the United States of America. Now, all they had to do was to win their independence from a government that would consider them traitors.

Fifty-six men bravely affixed their signatures to the Declaration of Independence. What sort of men were they? And what became of them?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists, 11 were merchants, nine were farmers or plantation owners. They were well-educated men of means. All of them had a great deal to lose when they voted to defy what was then the most powerful nation on earth. Yet they willingly risked everything when they pledged to each other “our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

As I said, all of us can explain why we celebrate Independence Day on July 4th. But how many of us can name even a handful of the signers of the Declaration of Independence? What do we know, really, about the men who risked their lives, and everything they owned, in the cause of freedom?

Because the story of the signers is so inspiring, we’ve arranged a special treat for you today—a free copy of a wonderful little book called They Signed For Us.

Half a century ago two patriotic ladies in the Midwest wanted to help others learn more about the remarkable men who signed the Declaration. Merle Sinclair and Annabel Douglas McArthur wrote a delightful book about the events of that time, including a history of each of the signers. They called it, They Signed For Us.

At the end of today’s column you’ll find a link that will take you to a copy of the book. You may read it online or download it and print your own copy. The file also includes a list of all of the signers and the states they represented, plus the complete text of the Declaration of Independence.

To whet your appetite a bit, here’s an excerpt from They Signed For Us.

“SUDDENLY THE BIG BELL in the State House steeple pealed joyously. The appointed signal! Cheers rose from the waiting crowds.

“‘Proclaim liberty throughout the land….’

“Cannon boomed, drums rolled. Church bells rang, sounding the death knell of British domination!

“News of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence spread like wildfire. Ready messengers leaped into their saddles to ride and spread the word. The Declaration had been ordered printed on a single large sheet, ‘45.5 x 37.5 cm.,’ or approximately eighteen by fifteen inches. These broadsides were distributed with all possible speed, to be read in the provincial assemblies, pulpits, market places, and army camps.”

The story continues:

“On July 8, the Liberty Bell summoned citizens of Philadelphia to the State House yard for a public reading of the document. Colonel John Nixon mounted a high platform and spoke the noble lines in a strong, clear voice. The crowd, now hushed, listened intently throughout.

“‘…for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.’

It was almost a month later that the Declaration was engrossed on parchment and ready for signing by the delegates to the Continental Congress. Members gathered on August 2 for the ceremony.

The only person who had signed the Declaration on July 4 was John Hancock, a delegate from Boston who had been elected president of the Continental Congress. He wrote his signature in large, bold letters and as he did, in a reference to the near-sightedness of the British king, he declared, “There! John Bull can read my name without spectacles and may now double his reward of £500 for my head. That is my defiance.”

As the delegates gathered around a desk to sign the Declaration, William Emery, one of the representatives from Rhode Island, moved as close as he could. “I was determined to see how they all looked as they signed what might be their death warrants,” he later wrote. “I placed myself beside the secretary, Charles Thomson, and eyed each closely as he affixed his name to the document. Undaunted resolution was displayed on every countenance.”

Contrasting with Hancock’s confident signature was the shaky scratch of Stephen Hopkins from Rhode Island. Hopkins was the second-oldest signer and suffered from palsy. As he handed the quill to the next person, he valiantly proclaimed, “My hand trembles, but my heart does not!”

As one or two delegates hung back, seemingly reluctant to add their signatures to such a momentous declaration, John Hancock encouraged them. “We must be unanimous,” he said. “There must be no pulling different ways. We must all hang together.”

Legend has it that Benjamin Franklin replied, “Yes, we must all hang together. Or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

Happily, none of the signers was hanged by the British. But all of them were considered traitors to the Crown. And many of them suffered terribly for the cause they so ardently supported.

When New Jersey signer Richard Stockton returned to his home after signing the Declaration, he learned that British troops were coming to arrest him. He fled to a neighbor’s house with his wife and children. But a Loyalist, as supporters of the British cause were called, betrayed the family’s hiding place. Here is how Merle Sinclair and Annabel Douglas McArthur describe what happened to him:

“The judge was dragged from bed and beaten, then thrown into prison. This distinguished jurist, who had worn the handsome robes of a colonial court, now shivered in a common jail, abused and all but starved.

“A shocked Congress arranged for his parole. Invalided by the harsh treatment he had received, he returned to [his home at] Morven to find his furniture and clothing burned, his fine horses stolen, and his library—one of the finest private collections in the country—completely destroyed. The hiding place of exquisite family silver, hastily buried, had been betrayed by a servant.

“The Stockton’s were so destitute that they had to accept charity. For the judge’s fortune was gone, too. He had pledged it and his life to his country. He lost both. He did not live to see the Revolution won.”

John Morton, a delegate from Pennsylvania, was the first of the signers to die. His last words for his family, before his death in April 1777 (just eight months after he signed the Declaration), were, “…tell them that they will live to see the hour when they shall acknowledge it to have been the most glorious service I ever rendered to my country.”

The following month, Button Gwinnett, the commander in chief of Georgia’s militia, was badly wounded in a duel with a political opponent. He died a few days later—the second signer to die.

But by and large, the signers of the Declaration of Independence were a hardy bunch. Three of them lived until their 90s—a remarkable accomplishment in a time when most men did not see their 50th birthday.

Only two of the signers were bachelors. Sixteen of them married twice. Records indicate that at least two, and perhaps as many as six, were childless. But the other 50 signers were a prolific lot, having a total of 325 children between them! William Ellerey of Rhode Island had 17 children; Roger Sherman of Connecticut had 15.

Fifty years after the united colonies declared their independence from Britain, plans were made for jubilant celebrations on July 4, 1826. Only three of the original signers were still alive—Charles Carroll, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. Here is how Sinclair and McArthur describe what occurred that day:

“In a dramatic climax that even their agile minds would not have contemplated, these two principals in the struggle for Independence left the nation awestricken and touched, by dying hours apart on the Fourth of July. Jefferson died at one o’clock in the afternoon, Adams toward evening.”

Ten days earlier, Jefferson had written the mayor of Washington, expressing his regret that ill health prevented him from coming to the nation’s new Capitol to join the festivities.

“I should, indeed, with peculiar delight, have met… with the small band, the remnant of that host of worthies, who joined with us on that day, in the bold and doubtful election we were to make for our country, between the submission or the sword.”

And he concluded by writing, “Let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollection of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.”

As part of that “undiminished devotion,” we are delighted to provide you with a copy of They Signed For Us. Please click here for it.

And please share this copy of Straight Talk with others you know, so they may enjoy it as well. Just forward this column with a short note, urging them to read about the incredibly brave patriots who won our freedom for us when They Signed For Us.

Until next time, keep some powder dry.

Chip Wood

But modern warfare is seductively esoteric. I will describe it. It goes directly to the psychic

• It is almost totally invisible to the natural eye.
• It is almost totally invisible to the human spirit.
• It cannot be measured and calculated by the human I.Q. because it operates above the threshold of intelligence.
• It is an organism that suppresses the human intellect.
• It is not a phenomenon that the natural mind can confront and deal with.
• But it can be discerned by those prolific readers with background information.

When one comes to understand this cause of human motivation, all frivolity is stripped away and the Emperor has no clothes.

Within the world ruling elite is a death cult. These are simply humanoids who do not reproduce themselves and they worship death. They love warfare and killing. They want to spill blood. “Some men love death more than they love life because their deeds are evil.” John 3:19.

They have survived through the ages and they are modern-day throw backs of Old Testament animal sacrifices. They love death more than they love life.

But the second type of warfare can only be described as above. Let’s expand: The modern-day political and economic arena is a stage and a front for socialism. It is called many things such as democracy, representative government, and a few diehards occasionally refer to modern America as a Republic.

These names (democracy, etc.,) are foolish and child-like frivolity. They are fog, not substance. Their purpose is to cloud the mind and reality.

There are many serious and honest economists and analysts who are very astute at reading the circus of American politics and economics. Many of them, like Marc Faber, see very clearly that the so-called financial and economic “solutions” to the current credit crisis (really a dollar crisis) are made to fail. In fact the bailout “solutions” will move the system further toward collapse.

A thought here on psychological warfare: Since the American system poses as an “open society” with a “free press,” there is the pretension to allow open debate, but only on spurious issues. The effect is that as long as the issues are not real or are spurious they are welcomed and promoted as open debate and commentary. The people do not have a clue that all public commentary is spurious.

Shakespeare wrote in As You Like It, “All the world’s a stage.”

What then is the issue that even very savvy commentators fail to understand or even mention?

The problem is that all of them are trying to see and understand the American system as free enterprise when in fact it has been socialist for a hundred years.

“The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined.” —Benjamin Disraeli.

This is a most sensational testimony of the power of naming government systems something that they are not and imposing it on the public mind and psyche by a long process of “public education” and highly sophisticated and organized propaganda on a world-wide basis. There has never been an equal and even at this moment it is more powerful than ever, deceiving more people than ever.

Socialism in America today is seen as a raving success because its hidden handlers call it by other names. Hitler indeed made an attempt to call Nazi Germany “the great democracy.” Through his effort to put a pretty face on an ugly system, he certainly must have understood the propaganda significance of the sensational power of people persuasion with names, fronts, and high-sounding human freedom terms.

Alas, for the record, you historians will not, I hope, see national socialism as any different from American democracy today or even at the time of World War II when the two (U.S. and Germany) were locked into mortal combat.

In fact, except for their different names bestowed upon each by their hidden elite masters, they are more identical than identical twins. The bad guys versus the good guys propaganda was meaningless and ridiculous but served well to drive millions to their deaths on all sides as well as motivated parents to sacrifice their young in total ignorance of reality.

All is a disgrace before God, as my mother used to say, that the human race will allow itself generation after generation to be twisted and perverted like animals to the slaughter and precious few ever question “why” about anything.

In fact the more learned and “educated,” the less capacity to think outside the prescribed system.

Few ever conclude that the system that they grew up in is neither legal nor illegal as taught by the system itself. It is manipulated fraud in which the owners of the system do not live within their own law but above the law. The law is for you! Things may not be nice just because they have a pretty face.

The major combatants of World War II were identical, making the Nuremberg Trials a sham and a disgraceful spectacle. Of course this perspective bears directly on the current financial crisis.

The world systems hide their dirty deeds by hiding the issues. They don’t dare let the real issues arise. All kinds of stupid and meaningless debates are fostered to throw sand in the eyes of the uninitiated. This satisfies the people that they are in the know because they saw it on Bloomberg. My friends, it is the esoteric that runs the system. Frustrate not yourself with crass frivolity and ridiculous drivel. This nonsense is for the crowd who loves deception and who gets mad at the truth.

Back to the issue of World War II, for it is the issue today: WorldWar II was prosecuted and carried out with fiat paper money on all sides. It would never have happened otherwise.

There would have never been any Hitler Germany or four-term Franklin Roosevelt without paper money. This should have been the issue at the Nuremberg Trials with all sides on trial as equal defendants, including the money creators. This issue was oblivious to everyone without exception at the Nuremberg Trials. These deceptions carry forward to generation after generation.

It carries to this very day as it lies at the heart of the so-called “debt bailout.” This drama could not be more deceptive or more satanic. It is difficult to find a nice or polite word to fit any of this monumental fraud and deception.

This is the grandstand and easily qualifies as fraud, theft, and deception without historical precedent.

Here is what has happened to the American people: The money creators, the Federal Reserve, and the U.S. Treasury as symbiotic partners, are creating non-substance (fiat money) and “buying” (stealing) substance with it.

Has anyone wondered why “Federal money” never gives out? As admitted in Congressional testimony and in Federal Reserve publications, the Federal money creators can create any amount of “money.” Of course this money is non-substance fiat. It is imaginary numbers that appear either on green pieces of paper called dollars, or as computer symbols.

The key word to describe fiat non-substance is infinity. This imaginary money system can be created to infinity and indeed is on its way. The American people (and the world) believe that this non-substance is real money. This is an exercise in an unbelievable and unimaginable delusion that is accepted by the mind as real.

This is socialism at its most perfect creation and it is doing exactly socialism’s work of transferring the wealth and savings of the American people to the state without payment.

My friends, you may have title to your home, your savings, and your accumulated wealth but the state is the owner without compensation to you.

Why? Everything that you “own” is denominated in fiat U.S. dollars. As the Fed creates fiat to buy up America (euphemism for bailout), the nominal dollar ownership of your property diminishes. This system allows no escape from its fiat. Remember I said that if you buried your pile of fiat 40 miles deep in a concrete vault, the Fed system can diminish your purchasing power and real savings by simply multiplying the dollars (numbers) in circulation.

The Fed is creating fiat to buy up (bailout) the American bankrupt system. All this wealth flows to the system for FREE without payment. This dilution of fiat money equally diminishes your personal savings and retirements.

What about this scenario causing a huge government debt? Listen and read closely my friends. Remember the key word used above to describe the nature of fiat creation? That key word is infinity. This word defies, voids, and cancels the word debt. Now how can the system have debt (as advertised and propagandized) when it creates fiat money to infinity as revealed in the Federal Reserves’s own publications.

Debt implies that there are limits to money and spending. This applies to government at all levels except the Federal Government. Debt is not a concept that can be applied to Fed Government so-called accounting. This is one of the system’s deep dark secrets. The whole Federal System is a fiat paper Ponzi.

What Should You Do?

Stop thinking conventional thoughts. They are not your own. If you will digest completely what is in Personal Liberty Digest or subscribe to The Bob Livingston Letter, you will be catapulted into the real world. You will not spend your life with frivolity and off point. In fact this column should alert you to know how far from reality you really are and have been.

Preserve your labor, savings and retirement with gold and silver in your possession.

You will know what to do with your precious metals when the time comes, and it will come.

Precious metals don’t pay interest, you say? This is conventional thinking backed by the paper money myth. Gold and silver are the only real money in existence. They are real money as well as intrinsic wealth. Moreover, gold and silver appreciate in purchasing power as paper money depreciates. That is your real interest.

All understanding of hard money has been lost down the memory hole of the fiat paper world money regime.

I am proud to be an American but I know that my government and my country have been stolen by the money creators.

But census workers are already on the streets of America, and they’re doing more than just seeking the number of people in each household. They’re tasked with marking the Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates of every house in America.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau website, “This GPS technology allows us to reduce the amount of time spent by census workers in locating addresses while increasing productivity. Most importantly, by adding a GPS coordinate to each housing unit, the Census Bureau is able to ensure that residents are counted in the right location. This is important as the data are used to apportion congressional representation and used to draw redistricting lines.”

But the idea of mapping GPS coordinates for every front door in America reeks of Big Brother intrusion. And it’s just a continuation of Big Brother Government’s efforts to compile more and more data on each individual.

Already the census goes far beyond its Constitutional charter of counting the population. Census forms ask intimate questions that are not the government’s business.

Information such as income, description of your property, whether you have running water, a shower or bathtub, type of heating system, the type of fees you have to pay in your community, rental or mortgage payment amounts, education level, whether you have insurance, whether you have a disability, how you get to work and much more is requested on some forms. All of it beyond the scope of what our Founders had in mind when they set up the enumeration.

All that information is great for pencil-pushing, snooping bureaucrats and newspaper editors writing statistical stories. But it’s much too much information for the government to have on its citizens.

Now comes the GPS coordinates as a further intrusion. As blogger Douglas V. Gibbs wrote on his American Daily Review, “GPS coordinates of your front door will make it easier for the government to monitor you. The U.S. Census Bureau is simply an excuse—a harmless-looking means of obtaining the front door coordinates. The creation of GPS coordinates for front doors has nothing to do with the Census, in all honesty, no matter how much the United States Government tries to convince you that it does.

“Why would the U.S. Government desire the exact location of your front door to be entered into their GPS data base when they already have the location of your home in the system?” Gibbs asked.

How’s this for a scenario? With the military stretched thin by fighting a two-front war, what’s going to happen in the case of a national emergency?

Gibbs posits that perhaps United Nations troops, many non-English speaking and certainly unfamiliar with U.S. communities, would use them to locate the neighborhoods they are required to police or the houses of people they are sent to take into custody.

Certainly foreign troops would be more willing than U.S. soldiers to quell an uprising of U.S. citizens fed up with an increasingly socialist/fascist government.

And who can forget the scenes of smart bombs and tomahawk missiles, guided by GPS coordinates, going through the windows and doors of buildings during the invasion of Iraq?

Who thinks this is what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the census into the Constitution?

In more recent days, the trend has accelerated. This time, Washington’s increasing involvement in the economy, and the politicization of American business, has sent overseas investors fleeing the dollar. Capital goes where it is safe and well-treated, and right now there are safer alternatives than the U.S. for foreign capital.

In short, investor sentiment has shifted from fear of financial collapse to fear of rampaging inflation and a dollar collapse. And gold has been the beneficiary, as it has taken off on a dizzying rally back toward $1,000.

While the long-term picture for gold remains very bright as the global supply of fiat currency is multiplied over the coming months and years, there has been another recent development with important implications not only for gold, but the entire world. To wit: China has announced that it has been secretly buying gold since 2003.

In an interview published by the official Xinhua news agency, Hu Xiaolian, head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, revealed that China had purchased 454 tonnes of gold since 2003, raising its gold reserves by about 75 percent, from 600 tonnes to 1,054 tonnes.

That ranks China fifth in official gold holdings among nations, although the IMF and the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD) still hold more than the Middle Kingdom.

The gold bulls seized upon China’s revelation as having tremendous bullish implications for the metal.

After all, the nation increased its gold holdings by three-quarters, siphoning hundreds of tonnes from the market. But the gold bears were quick to assert that China’s gold purchases weren’t a big deal, since their foreign currency reserves grew at about the same pace. As a percentage of its overall foreign reserves, gold stayed virtually constant from 2003 to today, averaging around 1.6 percent to 1.7 percent.

I think both sides are missing the point here. The significance of China’s purchases is more bullish than the bears would admit, and less dramatic than the bulls would like. In short, the importance of China’s admission isn’t what it has done, but what it can now and likely will do in terms of gold purchases.

Prior to this announcement, analysts could only guess as to China’s intentions as far as gold purchases. Many bulls hoped the nation was buying, many bears dismissed the idea… but no one simply assumed that China’s inscrutable leaders were accumulating gold along with U.S. dollars.

Now that they’ve come clean, the outlook for global gold supply and demand is fundamentally changed, for a number of reasons.

First off, when you take this announcement in context with the recent, repeated calls by China’s leadership for the ouster of the dollar as the global reserve currency, it seems likely that the stage is being set for a reduction of their dollar reserves in preference for, well, gold.

The upside posed by such a development is significant, but not earth shattering. It’s true that Western nations hold an average of 15 percent of their reserves in gold, and an increase in China’s gold allocation to that level would set the market afire. But, from a practical standpoint, that just won’t happen, at least not in anything short of a glacial time frame.

China simply couldn’t buy gold in the quantities, or at the prices, appropriate to lift gold to 15 percent of their reserves. Still, it appears that China’s leadership is quite motivated to reduce their dependency upon the U.S. dollar, and increase their holdings of gold and other tangibles.

In fact, if there is any open secret regarding official Chinese purchases recently, it is their stockpiling of strategic commodities, particularly copper. Copper prices have benefited greatly from China’s aggressive purchases this year.

One can rightly ask, is gold next on the shopping list? And has the official chatter regarding gold and the dollar simply been Beijing’s warning to Washington and the rest of the world of what is coming?

Good questions. And we’ll get the answers when China wants us to get them, and not before. You can bet any announcement will come after their major purchases are done.

A second interesting point regarding China’s purchases is that all of the supply/demand analyses of the past six years have been wrong. Because China’s purchases were unknown, and therefore couldn’t be credited to that nation or official purchases in general, other demand categories were credited with the 454 tonnes China was buying.

Hu stated that the purchases came from domestic production, but it seems likely that some significant percentage had to come from outside the local market. Regardless, assuming that aggregate global supply and demand figures over the time period are accurate, then it makes no difference whether the purchases came from gold inside or outside China’s borders.

So we can assume that global jewelry and investment demand totals since 2003 weren’t as high as originally envisioned — because we can subtract 454 tonnes, in some mix, from these categories.

One can argue that this is bearish. I’ll take a more optimistic viewpoint: It shows that these demand sources have been less significant so far, and therefore have more room to grow.

And if China’s purchasing program accelerates, or even if it remains constant, then increases in other demand categories will have a much more pronounced effect on the overall market.

All in all, it has to be encouraging that China has been buying gold, and is likely to continue doing so, while the nation publicly bashes the dollar.

Then a dozen government agents barged into your home and began searching it without first showing you a search warrant? And while this was going on, an armed federal agent dragged your pre-teen daughter out of her bed and into the living room?

What would you do if government agents then handcuffed your son, ransacked your house—taking a computer, cell phone, computer gaming equipment and personal papers—and took your son to jail? And, while this was going on, those same government agents refused to allow you to call an attorney?

Then a hearing was held early the next morning, before you were able to find an attorney to represent your son? And if, three months later, your son had not been charged with a crime but had been denied bail and was still being held in prison in another state?

When you hear of something like this, is your first thought that this is some third world or communist country? It’s surely somewhere other than the United States.

Well welcome to today’s America, my friends, courtesy of the USA Patriot Act.

Annette and Ashton Lundeby’s nightmare began March 5, when a North Carolina State Trooper knocked on the door of their Oxford, N.C., home at 10 p.m. and asked Mrs. Lundeby if she knew her son had hit another car and left the scene.

It was not true, and as she spoke to the officer a dozen FBI agents stormed past her into her house and began searching and demanding she get her 16-year-old son out of bed. When she asked about a search warrant the agents showed her one, but would not let her read it until later in the evening.

Her son was interrogated by FBI agents and her daughter was dragged from her bed and the family terrorized.

“I was terrified,” Mrs. Lundeby, a widow, told a WRAL television reporter. “There were guns, and I don’t allow guns around my children. I don’t believe in guns.”

As the evening progressed Mrs. Lundeby learned that her son, who had never been in any trouble with the law, was being accused of making bomb threats. The only evidence agents had was an email with the IP address of her son’s computer.

No bomb-making materials, wires or bomb-making literature was found in the home. What’s more, at the time Ashton was supposedly sending the threatening email he was attending a meeting at his church. After the meeting he and his mother cleaned the church building and then went to a grocery story on the way home. When he got home he went straight to bed.

Mrs. Lundeby believes her son is the victim of a computer hacker. She said the hacker has been at work for a couple months because she had received several strange calls prior to March 5. On one occasion the police called saying someone had called 911 saying there were drugs in her home.

All of these facts should be easy to confirm if an investigator cared to confirm them. But it seems authorities are more interested in persecuting Ashton than in finding the truth.

Under normal circumstances a habeas corpus hearing would be held that would force the government to present a case for holding Ashton. But the Patriot Act supersedes that. So Ashton remains in detention without being charged.

We wrote a few weeks ago about the liberty-infringing effects laws passed by Congress to fight terrorism and championed by a supposedly conservative president have had on Americans. Many of those commenting about that article disagreed with us on the deleterious nature of such laws.

Some of those comments called us “too right wing” for them and said they didn’t want to be a part of such a website as Personal Liberty Digest. But Ashton Lundeby’s case shows how, when given the power to deny rights, the government will do so every time.

It’s happened before in our country. In 1789 Congress passed and President John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts which authorized the deportation of “dangerous” aliens and also made a crime the publication of “any false, scandalous and malicious writing.” Twenty-five men, many of them newspaper editors, were arrested. Included among them was the grandson of Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Franklin Bache.

President Abraham Lincoln did it too, locking up state legislators and newspaper editors who were against the U.S. waging war on the Confederacy. Most of them were held without trial and charges for the war’s duration.

And President George Bush did it, pushing through Congress the Military Commissions Act and USA Patriot Act, which deny due process to enemy combatants and, as evidenced in the cases of Jose Padilla and Ashton Lundeby, Americans as well.

Our Constitution has been shredded and it seems there are few willing to acknowledge it, and fewer still trying to do something about.

For those willing to study our country’s history, the oppressive nature of government is no surprise. We were warned by the founders, who broke away from an oppressive government and formed one that guaranteed certain rights.

As Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “The system of justice will either protect citizens from tyranny or be one means by which tyranny is exercised over them. A just society rests upon an equal application of the law to each and every citizen; it protects the rights of individuals regardless of the inconveniences caused thereby. It is of inestimable importance to the happiness and security of the people that justice be administered strictly, according to the established forms of the law.”

Unfortunately, those elected to represent us seem to either have no knowledge of history and our Constitution or are blatantly disregarding it to consolidate their power. Concerned citizens need to hold accountable those they elected, for tyranny rests at your doorstep.

What is clear is that these scanners reveal far more than hidden weapons. They reveal every curve, nook and cranny in the human body and throw that image up on a computer screen for a TSA agent to view.

Called millimeter wave scans, the devices are set to replace the traditional metal detectors that passengers must go through to get from the ticketing to the boarding area of the airport.

The technology was first implemented a couple of years ago as a trial in the airport in Phoenix, Ariz. Similar machines were later put into operation in New York and Los Angeles.

When the TSA first began pushing the new technology it did so saying it would be used on a voluntary basis by those who didn’t want to have a more invasive physical pat down during a secondary screening.

In other words, those suspicious-looking white-haired grandmothers who didn’t want a TSA agent touching and feeling them all over would step into the machine so a TSA agent could instead ogle their image.

But now it’s not just the white-haired ladies, it’s everyone—children, teenagers, 20-somethings, middle agers and old-timers—going through the image scanners. There remains an option for those too squeamish to have their image made. You can step off to the side and a TSA agent can pat you down.

TSA says that the scanners will blur faces so no one will know whose body is being revealed. And TSA assures you the image is deleted the instant the passenger is cleared through the checkpoint. It also says only male TSA agents will view the males and only female agents will view the females.

Well that’s encouraging. We know there’s never been a man or woman who got their jollies from looking at naked members of his own sex.

Besides, the idea that the TSA is going to go to the trouble of separating the males and females into special lines once the checkpoints get backed up during peak travel times is unbelievable. And, in a news report demonstrating the working technology at an airport there was but one computer terminal in the room and the female agent was viewing a male scan. Later in the report a male agent was viewing a female image.

While news articles about the technology showed mixed reactions to the scanners by passengers, the very idea that one would have to submit to a virtual strip search just to travel on an airline should throw up all kinds of red flags. Big brother government already has too much data on your finances, medical records and shopping habits. This will give them a digital photo to go with it.

Thankfully the American Civil Liberties Union is considering filing a lawsuit against the TSA. Hopefully they’ll follow through.

If not, expect to have to reveal your naked body at every public venue in the near future because, coming soon to a subway station, stadium, concert hall and shopping mall near you, enhanced body scanners for the viewing pleasure of government agents.

And one cause of poor health among people in this age group is Vitamin D deficiency.

I have been so mesmerized, excited and overpowered with the benefits of vitamin D3 and sunshine that I have accumulated a small library on the subject.

The vitamin D3 excitement grows exponentially for seniors. I myself am in that age range. I have good seasoning like fine whiskey! I didn’t say that I drink it, just age like it—to perfection!

Increasing numbers of adults are developing a vitamin D deficiency-related bone condition known as osteomalacia (pronounced os-tee-oh-muh-lay-sha), sometimes called "adult rickets." This condition, characterized by vague bone and muscle aches, is frequently misdiagnosed as fibromyalgia or arthritis. This is a typical diagnosis of "conventional" or "orthodox" doctors. I just saw this happen and the patient (or victim) wouldn’t touch vitamin D3 and had to go on disability.

Activated vitamin D or vitamin D3 or sunshine is directly related to bone health and muscle health. It is in fact its main job.

Osteomalacia refers to bone pain with muscle ache. Osteomalacia is a condition in which the bones don’t harden properly during the building or rebuilding phase. Vitamin D3 deficiency is the most common cause of osteomalacia.

Yes, even seniors are always building bone and unhardened bone produces complaints of muscle achiness and weakness. Winter months produce this more when there is little or no sunshine.

Vitamin D3 deficiency affects seniors most simply because few of us get any sunshine or enough sunshine, including me. So my wife and I take large daily doses (10,000 units) of vitamin D3 almost without fail. If we slack anything else, we take vitamin D3 in tablets or liquid.

The rule is to take large doses daily. You should take it on and on. As with any natural nutrient, it will take a while to get D3 solidly in your system, say two months. Then we have to keep it there by continuing to supplement. It may take longer for some. Remember that you acquired this sunshine deficiency over a long period of time.

If vitamin D3 deficiency continues it will weaken your bones and predispose you to fractures, especially of the lower spine, hip and wrist. In fact some researchers suspect that carpal tunnel syndrome is caused by vitamin D3 deficiency. And most importantly, a D3 deficiency causes instability of balance. Seniors fall more than younger people, a whole lot more. Of course when they do, they break their bones, as you well know.

Osteoporosis

All seniors know what osteoporosis is. Osteoporosis is a basic deficiency of vitamin D3 which compromises the bone regrowth and remodeling process—which goes on until death. Vitamin D3 deficiency inhibits efficient absorption of calcium from the diet. Calcium enters the bloodstream and with the help of vitamin D3 is deposited in the bones. If this pattern doesn’t happen because of D3 deficiency, the bones become riddled with holes and become porous, brittle and weak. This is osteoporosis and can be verified with a bone density test.

The result of osteoporosis is death. How many seniors over the centuries have broken a bone, developed pneumonia and died? This was all needless, according to vitamin D research.

Our strongest impression is that you should take your daily units of vitamin D3 above all else.

Normally I wouldn’t include specific product names and links in my editorial articles, but I get so many questions as to which exact products I use that I thought I should do so here. I recommend you take Advanced D3 from Health Resources™.