America has plenty of oil reserves to meet our energy needs for many years, except that our government does not allow companies to drill in the oil rich regions offshore and in ANWAR. Congress has sponsored legislation to allow token offshore drilling, but still no drilling in ANWAR. Contact your Congressmen now to tell them we want these restrictions lifted so we will not be continually held hostage by oil from the Middle East. Capwiz is a great site which will allow you to form an email and automatically send it to all of your Congressional representatives.

From Richmond Times-Dispatch, Monday, July 7, 2008                    
 
Dear Editor, Times-Dispatch:

Each year I get to celebrate Independence Day twice. On June 30 I celebrate my independence day, and on July 4 I celebrate America's. This year is special, because it marks the 40th anniversary of my independence.
 
On June 30, 1968, I escaped Communist Cuba, and a few months later, I was in the United States to stay. That I happened to arrive in Richmond on Thanksgiving Day is just part of the story, but, I digress.
 
I've thought a lot about the anniversary this year. The election-year rhetoric has made me think a lot about Cuba and what transpired there. In the late 1950s, most Cubans thought Cuba needed a  change, and they were right. So when a young leader came along, every Cuban was at least receptive.

SchoolTipline is a website which allows students to anonymously notify the school administration about problems. If a student sees someone selling illegal drugs, for example, but is afraid to report it because of reprisals, he can report it anonymously on this website and the school administration will be notified. This sounds like a good idea to me. We need to encourage students to report illegal/dangerous activities to make our schools safer. The site was created by BYU student Justin Bergener who won second place in The Business Plan Competition sponsored by the Marriott School of Management.

The US, UK, and France are sending the largest Naval armada to the Persian Gulf since the First and Second Gulf wars to create a Naval Blockade against Iran, which is an act of war under international law. The armada reportedly includes: the USS Abraham Lincoln nuclear powered supercarrier and Destroyer Squadron, the Peleliu Expeditionary Strike Group, the USS Theodore Roosevelt nuclear powered supercarrier and Destroyer Squadron, the USS Springfield nuclear powered hunter-killer submarine, the USS Hartfore nuclear powered hunter-killer submarine, the Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group, the USS Ronald Reagan nuclear powered supercarrier and Destroyer Squadron, the UK Royal Navy HMS Ark Royal Carrier Strike Group with guided missile destroyers and nuclear hunter-killer submarines, and French Navy nuclear powered hunter-killer submarines.

In his book Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War, Nathaniel Philbrick estimates that there are 35 million descendants of the passengers on the Mayflower. Remember, only 102 people came to this country on the Mayflower and 52 of them died of disease and starvation before the first spring.

That left only 50 survivors, and from them, there are now nearly 35 million descendants. Can you believe that? That number shows that men and women who are willing to take up a courageous cause will affect an untold number of future lives.

So what mission is your family willing to risk everything for? Why not call a family meeting and figure out what that should be? Your many descendants will be blessed.

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.
      
-- John Quincy Adams

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told reporters it was time for Russia to rebuild links with former Cold War ally Cuba. News reports suggest Russia might use Cuba as a refueling stop for nuclear-capable bombers. Could this lead to another Cuban missile crisis-like incident?

The Book of Mormon makes numerous references to secret combinations and that secret combinations overthrew the Nephite government and caused the destruction of their people.  Mormon and Moroni also warned that secret combinations would seek to overthrow the freedom of all lands in the latter days.  I've often wondered what the word combination means.  In looking at Webster's dictionary of the 1828 version around when Joseph translated the Book of Mormon, the word combination has a direct reference to conspiracy and conspiracy has a direct reference to combination.

Here's a company who wants you to help them produce a movie, it's called www.coproducer.org if you want to check it out. They will pay investors 55% of the movie profits.

T. Boone Pickens is one of the most successful oil men in the world. He is incredibly smart and a great investor. He has a number of great ideas for America to reduce it’s dependence on foreign oil and use alternative sources of energy. Click here to watch 5 minute video where he explains how America can reduce it's dependence in the next 10 years.

The BBC is reporting that China now has more than 253 million people on the Internet, compared to 223 million people in the US. This is more than any other country. About 95% of Chinese net users have a broadband connection. The penetration of Internet users in the US is 71%, but only 19% in China.The Chinese economy is about the size of Germany's economy which makes it the 3rd or 4th largest after the US and Japan. As the average standard of living for the masses in China increases, China will have the largest economy in the world in a few years.

Bill Phillips spent nearly 50 years in the US oil and gas industry; most of his career was with the Phillips Petroleum Company. Bill is a descendant of Frank Phillips. Frank Phillips, along with his brother Lee Eldas (L.E.) Phillips, Sr., founded the original Phillips Petroleum Company in 1917 in Bartlesville, OK. Do you remember Phillips 66 gas stations? Phillips Petroleum Company merged with Conoco, Inc. in 2002 to form the current ConocoPhillips oil company.

So, when Bill talks about oil and gas issues, listen very closely. You will find Bill's thoughts and facts very revealing, very compelling and very difficult to argue with. Click the "read more" link to read Bill's explanation of the current price of oil.

Section 8 of the 1st Article of the U.S. Constitution grants Congress the exclusive power to declare war. The Founders purposefully designed our government this way so that war could only be declared by the people through their congressional representatives. Historically monarchs and dictators used war to expand their dominions at the cost of the lives and properties of their subjects. The last time the U.S. Congress declared war was in 1941. Since then, Presidents have unconstitutionally sent U.S. soldiers to fight in foreign wars in Korea, Vietnam, the 1st Iraq war, and the current Iraq war. (Click Read More for the full story)

Here's a free online personal finance tool that syncs up all your bank and investment accounts and has a budgeting tool.  My friend uses it and just loves it.  Haven't tried it myself but it does sound kind of cool.  It's www.mint.com.

Dr. Ed Mitchell, former astronaut and the sixth man to walk on the moon, publicly stated that he absolutely knows "the inside story" that the earth has been visited by extra-terrestrial beings and that the encounters have been consistently covered up by governments around the world. You can listen to the audio of his interview at this site.

Here is an interesting site that tracks the national debt and each citizen's portion of that debt as well as other news related to the debt.

"A taxpayer voting for Barack Obama is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders."

-- Bud Gregg

Granite naturally contains radon and uranium, known sources of radiation which cause cancer.  Some people are finding that their granite counter tops and granite flooring contain elevated amounts of these cancer causing agents as reported in The New York Times article.

The YouTube Subtitler is a Google AppEngine application which allows anyone to add subtitles to any video on YouTube. It's amazingly easy to use if you want to add subtitles for the deaf or translations to other languages. Click here for an example of a video to which I added subtitles.

Congressman Ron Paul has warned the House that he is "convinced the time is now upon us that some Big Events are about to occur" that will cause liberty to go "into deep hibernation". Furthermore, he said "These fast-approaching events will not go unnoticed. They will affect all of us. They will not be limited to just some areas of our country. The world economy and political system will share in the chaos about to be unleashed." Click here to read the full article.

Record Search is a new pilot Web site that can help people find their ancestors. The site, at http://pilot.familysearch.org, provides access to millions of original source documents from many areas of the world, and more records are being added all the time. For example, among the growing collection of records in Record Search, you can search Ellis Island New York passenger arrival lists, 1892-1924; US Civil War Pension index cards; and the 1895 Argentina Census.

An Apple Box oven is made from an apple box covered in tin foil. Using charcoal and a wire rack stacked on pop cans, you can cook in it just like a conventional oven. It's a good, inexpensive item to have on hand along with charcoal to be able to cook in an emergency. Click here for simple instructions on making one and cooking with it.

Scientific researchers at Valcent Products, Inc. have now created a closed-system using algae to make fuel. Unlike corn which can produce 18 gallons of oil per acre per year, this algae system can create 20,000 gallons per acre per year.

Shortly after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed an agreement with the Czech Republic on hosting a radar system for a US missile defense system in Europe, the Russian Foreign Ministry said “We will be forced to react not with diplomatic, but with military-technical methods,” in a statement.

Economist Jeff Thredgold thinks that the high prices in oil, gold, and other commodities is just another investment bubble like the previous DotCom and Real Estate bubbles. He says these bubbles are created by "monster money" from "hedge funds, pension funds, Wall Street and global commercial banks and investment firms, insurance companies, and sovereign wealth funds" seeking the best returns. He predicts that commodities will rise a little higher and then fall sharply just like the previous bubbles. He also predicts that the next bubble will be in stocks again. Very interesting theories...

The SLC Downtown Rising website has a cool flash virtual fly-through of what downtown will look like when the construction is completed in 2012

Isn't some agency required to "manage the money" and "stabilize the economy"?

John Birch Society Founder Robert Welch famously stated that there has never been honesty in the management of money. History proves him correct. If money is a commodity, it needs no more management than any other commodity (tools, autos, basketballs, etc.). Stabilization of the economy should never be the task of any person or organization; it should be accomplished by the market place. If the Fed were abolished, a step very much needed, there would have to be some entity established for check-clearing. But no agency, government or otherwise, should have power to set the value of the currency, the amount in existence, the interest rates for borrowing it, and the ability to inflate--which is what the Fed does today.

Doesn't the Constitution supply authorization to the federal government to issue money?

No, the Constitution granted power to Congress to "coin money." Coining money is the action of a mint and Congress created one almost immediately after the Constitution became ratified. Early leaders of the United States recognized the need for a standardization of the size, weight, and purity of coinage. The mint they established took metals from individuals and stamped them into coinage of a fixed size, weight, purity, etc. This stimulated commerce at a time when foreign coinage of varying size, weight, and purity was circulating in our infant country, and there was abundant confusion, even worry, about its worth. Individuals actually paid a fee to the mint to have their metal coined. Nor was there ever any intention to have government store money. When coins were produced at the mint, they did not belong to the government. The government's role in making them served only as a reasonable guarantee that the coins were honestly made (purity, etc.). This is all the Founders wanted of government. Nowhere did the Constitution authorize government to issue currency, and nowhere is there any authorization to delegate nonexistent power to a private entity.

This website has an interesting idea for combating rising gas prices, it allows you to pre-purchase gas using a credit card and then redeem it for gas later when prices are higher. Unfortunately, it has a $29.95 annual fee for the service and of course will only provide benefit when gas prices rise.

How can we go back to a gold standard when there's not enough gold to back all of the currency?

 There is no need for an amount of gold to back the number and value of all the dollars currently in circulation. Any amount of currency backed by gold would immediately be recognized as extremely valuable. Its value can be gauged by realizing that today's price for an ounce of gold now exceeds 800 Federal Reserve dollars. Currency backed by gold would dwarf the value of the currency we are forced to use today. What is needed is a competitor--or many competitors--for the Fed dollars. Also, advocating a gold standard does not mean that gold-backed currency would be issued by a government or a quasi-government agency. The argument based on the relatively small amount of gold in the world overlooks the fact that, in the years prior to FDR taking our nation off the gold standard, a high percentage of transactions in America were compete using silver and silver-backed currency. Nor does the nation have to be committed to gold alone to back currency (although gold would be the best) because any worthwhile commodity will suffice as backing for honest currency.