"Can a corrupt leader be allied with you –
a throne that brings on misery by its decrees?
The wicked band together against the righteous
and condemn the innocent to death.
But the Lord has become my fortress,
and my God the rock in whom I take refuge.
He will repay them for their sins
and destroy them for their wickedness;
the Lord our God will destroy them."
Psalm 94:20-23
"The antidote to hubris, to overweening pride, is
irony, that capacity to discover and systematize clear ideas."
Ralph Ellison,
Address to the Harvard College Alumni, Class of 1949
"Twas thine own genius gave the final blow,
And helped to plant the wound that laid thee low:
So the struck eagle, stretched upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart,
And winged the shaft that quivered in his heart."
George Gordon, Lord Byron,
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers: A Satire (1809)
"Pride goes before disaster,
and a haughty spirit before a downfall."
Proverbs 16:18
"Of the lessons also gained from the history of mankind is the fact that greed and arrogance, when combined, lead the oppressor to do injustice not only to others, but to himself as well; once this combination of greed and arrogance has misled him into a sense of undefeatable capability and power, as he takes the road of falsehood and aggression, committing the most heinous acts and proceeding from that sick imagination, to fall down the precipice and then into hell."
Saddam Hussein,
Speech in Observance of 14th Anniversary of Iran-Iraq War, The Guardian, 8 August 2002
"Hubris as doing or saying things that cause one's victims to incur shame, not in order that one may achieve anything other than what is done, but simply to get pleasure from it."
Aristotle,
Rhetoric, Book 1, Chapter 9
"The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world."
Václav Havel,
Address on Receiving the Open Society Prize Award, 24 June 1999
Stocks managed to eke out another step up in their rally off the recent bottom, compliments of a rosier than expected Non-Farm Payrolls Report.
A stronger Dollar helped to push gold and silver lower, although silver managed to hold up a little better thanks to its correlation with equities.
Gold has now retraced 50% of its most recent rally.
Let's see if it can find a footing.
There will be an important meeting of the BRICs later this month, that may have implications for the precious metals.
It is hard to take an honest, objective look at things in the world through the fog of war propaganda and the cognitive dissonance of shameless savagery, and not conclude that we have been taken over by mediocrities and madmen.
"With the tools of democracy, democracy was murdered and lawlessness made ‘legal.’ Raw power ruled, and its only real goal was to destroy all other powers besides itself.”
Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, April 2010
End this will, but how will this end— and will we be silent?
Have a pleasant evening.
