The Belle's birthday is coming up. Cause for celebration. I only want two things for my birthday. OK, maybe it could be considered three.

An electric car, specifically an EV1 (if you haven't seen it yet, watch Who Killed The Electric Car).

Solar Panels and the permit allowing them to be placed in downtown Charleston.

Bush Asks, Is It A Mir-a-gee?

"Masdar would be the largest and one of the most advanced sustainable communities in the world."

"The vision of One Planet Living is a world where people everywhere can lead happy, healthy lives within their fair share of the Earth's resources...Masdar gives us a breathtaking insight into this positive, alternative future."

-Pooran Desai

Masdar is an impressive, cutting edge, carbon neutral, car-free, solar-using, sustainable city. It just sounds really cool..and awesome. But, we weren't the only ones impressed. President Bush appeared to be in his own state of shock and awe during Masdar's unveiling and presentation to him last week on his tour of the Middle East. For some reason as he walked around gawking at the greatness of Masdar and the vision behind it, we wondered what he could possibly have been thinking. We imagined Mr. Bush might have thought he was seeing things, like in one of those old Bugs Bunny cartoons where Bugs finds himself in the desert fooled by a mirage. Bugs is smart though, so about the only parallel with the President was the mispronunciation of the word mirage. LOL. It is true, though that interesting cross-references to historical analysis lie buried under the guise of these children's cartoons.

Masdar is located in Abu Dhabi (UAE). What we want to know is, where's our Masdar, Mr. President?

Some Great links:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080124092447AAh8tfT

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/3E33C34E-6C4E-4070-811F-304B045F5F24.htm
http://www.masdaruae.com/text/news.aspx

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/world/middleeast/18abudhabi.html

THE NEXT BARBIE (& KEN) BANDITS

I believe that the moment is near when by a procedure of active paranoiac thought, it will be possible to systematize confusion and contribute to the total discrediting of the world of reality. - Salvador Dali

So like some sort of strange spies in our own country, we’ve begun going “underground” for our news. It’s an election and there is trouble amiss in the financials. Everything we see on network television during this time will be paid for by someone with an unbelievably strong interest in the promotion and peddling of any number of saviors, from Viagra, to re-inflate many lost hard-ons watching thousands slip away in the markets, to cars that can now breathe air while spitting flowers out their mufflers. We can believe nothing we see right now.

So, off the beaten news path, we creativly dug around attempting to piece together clues to the enormity of this weeks' bubble led by credit insurers. We note that even Cramer went mad (again). Right before Monday's grand decoupling test, he expressed outrage over the lack of accountability and utter ILLUSION in charge of the markets right now, asking where’s the SEC, as he slid into a rant on country club cronyism. And did you know he’s, like, in his sixties? Looks good, eh? Plastic surgery or what? We don’t know…speculation…like everything else these days. There are times we've admired Cramer's blood-vessel bursting, spit-flying out of his mouth, insane tirades. This, however, is an excellent piece targeting Cramer's more thoughtful side, and with decent accuracy pinpointing a resentment that as a general observation seems to be building toward “big finance.” Cramer delivers, albeit with a born-again sense about him, in his usual dramatic flare.

Perusing the online news and gathering our thoughts as to where this financial trouble for the U.S. could be leading, we suddenly had a scary thought. Remember those chicks that disguised themselves in nothing more than sunglasses, dubbed the Barbie Bandits? Get ready for Act II, when Barbie, Skipper and Ken show up at the local teller window with a big, black knapsack and a couple of Magnums. Then, they bust ass for the border where the money might go just a little farther. Don’t worry - if you happen to be standing on line when the incident occurs, you will most likely be stunned like a deer in headlights by their trendy looks, coordination abilities and hip attitudes, sporting their fleece, black, hooded sweatshirts and Chanel sunglasses, picked up a day earlier with a five-finger discount at Macy’s. Don’t do anything stupid and it will all be over in a minute. Of course, the doomed trio will be caught as were the Barbies. They're just thinking about their next shopping spree. They haven't really thought this one through. Regardless, we may end up seeing any number of news stories in this country related to shop lifting, grocery-lifting, gasoline requiring payment before pump both day and night, dine and dash schemes and yes, bank robberies. And that’s when we’ll know the credit cards have run out.

Ironically, in Davos, Switzerland, The World Economics Forum is taking place while our stock market gyrates from day to day as if the U.S. has suddenly gone bi-polar. Several economists attending the event are openly criticizing our (the U.S.’) irresponsibility while Soros imagines the dollar will soon be replaced by the Euro as the world reserve currency. Suffice it to say, the news coming out of Davos is not very complimentary of the United States.

So, how better to wrap this post up considering the last few days seem to be of some consequence? In the last leg of this evening’s internet searches, we found an excellent presentation by Chalmers Johnson on his 2007 book, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic. Chalmers helps make a lot of sense out of where we are right now. He explains military Keynesianism and the bankruptcy of America as a result of the policies the U.S. is operating under (which to this day are allowed to remain unchecked). This is a measured and level headed discussion on how it got to be this way. It’s looking more and more like our story…we might as well know it. Reflecting on the fall of Rome, Mr. Johnson casts a flame for a glimpse into our near future, which is far less Paris Hilton “hot” than the sportswear flaunted by the next phase of bank-robbing beauties and their boy-toys out to win back a few dead presidents they come believe are somehow still rightfully theirs.