Provisional
Truth | Essays by Keith Hazelton | 2005 - 2008
Provisional Truth | Essays | June 2, 2008
As Published at LewRockwell.com 05/31/2008
Thanks Charley Reese for
Some Good Advice
New
A well
regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free
State, the right of the People to keep and bear Arms, shall
not be infringed.
Recently I took
Charley Reese’s advice (LewRockwell.com,
01/22/2008) and exercised my Second Amendment
right to keep and bear arms. I’m trying to exercise as many
of those constitutional rights as possible these days, while
available, given the increasing tendency of governments and
do-gooders to subjugate, circumvent or creatively interpret
those rights.
(Note: Many more
accurately have observed I was granted a "privilege" by the
state of Oklahoma.)
Fortunately I
have not had occasion to try out the Fifth, Sixth or Seventh
Amendments, but I thoroughly have enjoyed the First and now
am looking forward to the Second. Gettin’ while the gettin’s
good, I guess – one never knows these days.
Continue
Reading
Thanks Charley...
Provisional
Truth | Essays | May 24, 2008
Eye of the Storm?
We now are caught between the forces of inflation – food and
fuel – and deflation – homes and other assets: irresistible
force meeting immovable object. The Federal Reserve’s Open
Market Committee April meeting minutes released recently
gave indication the central bankers indeed now are worried
about the effects of inflation, namely higher prices
(inflation technically being an economist’s term denoting a
period of increasing money supply, as in “too much money
chasing a finite quantity of goods”).
But Fed officials also acknowledge they are fighting a
difficult, two-front war against slow economic growth and
soaring commodity prices – “stagflation” – an economic
phenomenon whose last known whereabouts were sometime in the
1970s during the last substantial period of vast amounts of
money in hot pursuit of agricultural, mineral and
hydrocarbon goods.
Continue Reading
Eye of the Storm...
Provisional
Truth | Essays | May 3, 2008
Food For Thought
By now you know there’s a rice shortage, or so you’ve heard
recently. Sam’s Club and Costco last week imposed limits on
the purchase of imported Asian rice – 80 pounds per person
per day – which, naturally, has encouraged hoarding behavior
among its predominantly food-service buyers of this
commodity, and which, in turn, may create the actual,
self-fulfilling shortage being reported. (Mind you, there’s
plenty of domestic rice available for sale, only Asian
imported rice is being restricted.)
The specter of global food shortages is arising like ethanol
fumes wafting from a gas pump, and food hoarding behavior,
begun in the last few months at a country-level, is entering
the psyche of our consumer society whose previous idea of
shortages – few remembering the gas lines of the 1970s –
consists of a lack of Cabbage Patch Dolls, Tickle-Me-Elmos,
X-Boxes or I-Phones.
Continue Reading
Food For Thought...
Provisional Truth | Essays | April
21, 2008
Inflation’s Early Warning System
Validated
When we’ve “told you so” and it turns out we guessed
correctly, we especially want to make sure you are well
aware of our forecasting genius.
As readers will remember in our June 23, 2007 commentary
entitled
“Inflation’s Early Warning System” we forecast the
growing inflationary forces assembling in commodities
markets as evidenced by the surge in crude foodstuffs and
feedstuffs prices buried in the May 2007 Producer Price
Index report.
Continue Reading
Inflation's Early Warning System Validated...
Provisional
Truth | Essays | March 1, 2008 |
Link to OK Gazette Essay Published February 27,2008
Plan B-Ball
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Plan A for the proposed Ford
Center upgrade is a Tuesday vote to extend Oklahoma City’s
1-cent MAPS for Kids sales tax for a year to fund major
improvements and another three months to build a practice
facility for a professional basketball team, raising about
$120 million. Read the entire commentary at the
Oklahoma Gazette by following the link above.
Provisional
Truth | Essays | August 22, 2007
|
Link to OK Gazette Essay Published August 15, 2007
All Fired Up
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Clean-burning natural gas or abundant, less-expensive coal?
Oklahoma's Corporation Commission has been asked to approve
a new power plant to be built in Red Rock, a joint venture
between OG+E and Public Service of Oklahoma.
Read the entire commentary at the Oklahoma Gazette by
following the link above.
Provisional
Truth | Essays | July 30, 2007
|
Link to Oklahoma Gazette Essay Published
July 25, 2007
Penn Square Bank's
Unexpected Legacy
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A quarter-century ago,
Penn Square Bank failed spectacularly in Oklahoma City,
ushering in the untimely end of a previous oil boom,
indelibly changing the landscape of banking throughout the
state and hastening the emergence of national mega-banks.
Read the entire commentary at the Oklahoma Gazette by
following the link above.
Provisional
Truth | Essays | June 23, 2007
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Inflation's Early Warning System
Red lights are blinking on inflation's early warning system
control panel – fasten your seat belts. “Crude Foodstuffs
and Feedstuffs,” commodities such as grains, raw milk, sugar
and slaughter animals making up the raw materials that
eventually become the finished products we call “food,”
registered an unadjusted 35 percent year-over-year increase
in the May Producer Price Index reported June 14th. Its
five-month annualized increase is nearly 22%.
Continue Reading
Inflation's Early Warning System>>
Provisional
Truth | Essays | June 13, 2007
Link to Oklahoma Gazette Essay Published June 13, 2007
Rein in the Rainy Day Fund
Oklahoma's economy is bright and sunny but taxpayers should
note the balance of the interest-free loan we have made to
the state in the form of our rainy day fund.
Read the entire commentary at the Oklahoma Gazette by
following the link above.
Provisional
Truth | Essays | May 23, 2007
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Economic Tsunami Warning
More than anecdotal evidence now points to an economic
tsunami forming from the sub-prime mortgage meltdown
“ripples” which began to register on financial seismometers
18 months ago.
It's an instructive image, how a seemingly small,
inconsequential thing can later, unexpectedly manifest
itself in a big, deadly, destructive way.
Continue Reading
Economic Tsunami Warning>>
Provisional
Truth |
Essays | May 9, 2007 |
Link
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Thin Paper Line
A recent study
funded by the Pentagon concluded the U.S. Army was stretched to its
limit, a “thin green line” as the media have taken to calling the
controversial conclusions of this report, referring to James Jones's
1962 novel The Thin Red Line. The novel's title is derived from
an old Midwestern saying that “there's only a thin red line between the
sane and the mad.” War, accurately portrayed in his book and the 1998
movie, seems to stretch that line almost to the breaking point, as any
combat veteran would know.
Continue Reading
Thin Paper Line>>
Provisional
Truth | Essays | May 1, 2007 |
Link
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Presidential Vanity of Vanities 2007, Vol. 4
As we remember
on May 1st the fourth anniversary of what
then was proclaimed the end of major combat operations in
Iraq, many rightly have re-examined, as should all
Americans, our opinions of a war now lingering far longer
and exacting an American and Iraqi human and financial toll
far greater and more terrible than we were led to expect
when the drums began beating for regime-change in Iraq in
2002.
Continue Reading
Presidential Vanity of Vanities 2007>>
Provisional
Truth | Essays | April 29, 2007 |
Link
This I Believe: Truth is Provisional, Love is Absolute
April 2007 CE
Like many, I received ample childhood religious instruction,
raised to follow the faith of my parents, but I never
encountered that sense of peace others professed and I never
outgrew my doubt and concern about the conflicting doctrines
proclaimed by myriad religions.
Over the years I sampled several variations of Christianity,
from Catholicism to Fundamentalism to end-times Hal
Lindsay-ism, but eventually, invariably, I drifted away.
Always so much attention –
infatuation really –
not on this life, but the next.
Continue Reading
This I Believe>>
Provisional
Truth | Essays | April 22, 2007
|
Link
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If YOU Were The Decider
A billion here,
a billion there and pretty soon you're talking some real
money, as it often is inaccurately attributed to late
Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen.
The cost of our
unilateral global war on terror since 9/11 is approaching a
very real $500 billion, all financed “off budget, off
balance sheet,” by the Federal Reserve, a privately held
corporation owned by its member-banks, which creates
Treasury Bonds from its magic, never-overdrawn checkbook.
Continue Reading
If YOU Were the Decider>>
Provisional
Truth | Essays | April 18, 2007
|
Link |
Link to Oklahoma Gazette
Essay Published April 18, 2007
The Ethics of Ethanol
Addiction, it is
said, often blinds those so afflicted to the moral and
ethical considerations of behaviors intent on satisfying
their habits.
Read the entire commentary at the Oklahoma Gazette by
following the link above.
Provisional
Truth | Essays | April 13, 2007
|
Link
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Judgment
Day - Apophis the Destroyer
As
if we didn't have anything else to worry about, here comes
some dandy news from outer space. Asteroid 99942 Apophis, a
thousand-foot diameter chunk of rock discovered in 2004,
will rendezvous with Earth again on April 13, 2029 (a
Friday, of course), hopefully slipping by us at a near-miss
distance of about 18,000 miles.
Continue Reading
Judgment Day - Apophis the Destroyer>>
Provisional Truth | Essays | March
16, 2007 |
Link
The Inescapable Irony of 9/11
American essayist Agnes Repplier said humor brings insight
and tolerance but “irony brings a deeper and less friendly
understanding.”
As
our collective grief and anger slowly dissipate in the years
since 9/11, an inescapable irony emerges in the aftermath to
be confronted, which, with hope, may bring us understanding,
and, more importantly, the courage as a nation and its
leaders, and as a people, to change.
Continue Reading
Inescapable Irony>>
Provisional Truth | Essays |
January 31, 2007
|
Link
Immigrant Nation
An illegal
immigration issue now absorbing more of our national
attention than necessary has its roots in all prior
migratory waves: the search for a better life. We now are
told, however, the United States, peopled mostly by
descendants of European immigrants searching for a better
life since the early 1600s, can no longer tolerate those
huddled masses yearning to breathe free, at least if they
originate from below our southern border.
Continue Reading
Immigrant Nation>>
Provisional
Truth | Essays | December 22, 2006
|
Link
Mass Transit: Get On Board
Back when
gasoline cost under $1.50 a gallon and we didn't need to
swipe our credit card twice at the pump to fill up, the idea
of expanded mass transit and light rail systems in cities
defined by suburban sprawl and near-vacant downtowns seemed
as necessary as a 60-mile-per-gallon automobile.
Continue Reading
Mass Transit>>
Provisional
Truth | Essays | November 22, 2006,
Revised April 27, 2007
|
Link
Nuclear Power Necessity
To say we have been shortsighted about
nuclear power would be an insult to people with poor vision.
Frankly we have been morons, which one day we likely will
regret, and our love-affair with petroleum has blinded us to
the disastrous ramifications of our energy policies in the
last quarter-century.
Continue Reading
Nuclear Necessity>>
Provisional
Truth | Essays | November 2006
|
Link
Disposable Consumerism
We truly have
become a disposable, throwaway society and one day we will
regret this incredible wastefulness if our idyllic,
cheap-gas lifestyle fades into dim memories of better times.
Continue Reading
Our Disposable Consumerism>>
Provisional
Truth |
Essays | November 2006 |
Link
Faith-Based Money
Richard
Russell, author and publisher of the
Dow Theory Letter since 1958,
coined the phrase "faith-based money" in an October 7, 2005 newsletter.
I think it an entirely appropriate description of America's current
fiscal and monetary system as we continue to deficit-spend our children
and grandchildren into oblivion or - worse - second-tier global status
as a wholly owned subsidiary of one or more creditor nations, such as
China, to which we quickly are becoming so vastly indebted.
Continue Reading
Faith-Based Money>>
Provisional
Truth |
Essays | October 2006 |
Link
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace - 1984 Redux
It's likely
that America's military spending has surpassed $12 Trillion since the
end of World War II. Add another $4 Trillion for interest on the
national debt that has resulted from that military spending.
Continue Reading
Perpetual War>>
Provisional
Truth | Essays | September 2006
|
Link
Ask (Oprah) And Ye Shall Receive
Rarely do I
find myself tuned into to daytime television, aside from
news, and rarer still would I be found watching The Oprah
Winfrey Show despite that I actually have been an audience
member for an Oprah show taping a couple years back
(birthday present for my wife, who loves Oprah).
Continue Reading
Ask (Oprah)
>>
Provisional
Truth | Essays | August 2006 |
Link
The
Emperor's Clothes
Will somebody
please tell the emperor he's missing more than a few items of clothing?
Like that strutting monarch of fable, earlier this month President Bush
personally announced a better-than-expected revised 2006 U.S. budget
deficit of “only” $296 billion, thanks to a strong economy and the
impact of more than a trillion dollars in tax cuts the last five years.
Continue
Reading The Emperor's Clothes
>>
Provisional
Truth | Essays | July 2006 |
Link
Election Day
Sobriety
Will somebody please explain why alcohol cannot be served or purchased
before 7 pm on election day? In 2006? (Sorry, 3.2% beer is not real alcohol.) Oklahoma remains one of 9 states
that prohibit alcohol sales in some form on election day. Now the
deleterious effects of demon rum on human judgment are well understood.
Continue Reading
Election Day Sobriety
>>
Provisional
Truth | Essays | July 2006 |
Link
The Fever of
Gaia - An Inconvenient Truth
Take a couple of hours this hot summer and see Al Gore's documentary
An Inconvenient Truth in an air conditioned theater near you.
Forget the red-state/blue-state
politics and economics of our energy-driven republic for a minute and
think of your children and grandchildren. Better yet, take your children
or grandchildren to see this movie. If they're at least 10 years old and
reasonably bright, they'll understand the time-lapsed images of melting
icecaps, evaporating inland seas and changing coastlines, if not the
straightforward dialog itself.
Continue Reading The Fever of Gaia
>>
Provisional Truth |
Essays |
June 2006 |
Link To Published Version - Oklahoma Gazette 05312006
Addicted To
Oil
The President recently
conceded what every driving-age American already knows: we are addicted
to oil.
Some were surprised at the President's choice of words – addiction
having so many unpleasant connotations – but what else would you call it
when, as only 5% of the world's population, we mainline nearly 25% of
the world's energy output each day, and, unchecked, our daily minimum
energy requirement will increase by half to 30 million barrels of oil
per day by 2026?.
Continue Reading Addicted To Oil
>>
Provisional Truth |
Essays |
May 2006 |
Link
Petro
Victims Search For Clues
As we are wont to do in this great land of the victim class, we must
find someone else to blame for our problems and predicaments. And, of
course, someone to pay, someone with very deep pockets. As with
our other addictions, tobacco foremost, we have been quite clever in
extracting great sums of money from those evil corporations that hooked
us on such a wretched weed chock full of addictive nicotine.
Continue Reading Petro Victims Search
For Clues
>>
Provisional Truth |
Essays |
May 2006 |
Link
Immigration
Is OK
The real immigration issues in the Americas began after 1492, although
there is compelling evidence for a brief problem caused by Icelandic
Vikings as early as 1000 CE.
The current immigration issue now absorbing our national attention has
its roots in all prior waves: the search for a better life. And in
support of that better life, immigrants designated Monday, May 1st
as a national day of protest, a boycott of work and school designed to
demonstrate – peacefully – the economic impact of a “day without
immigrants”
Continue Reading Immigration Is OK
>>
Provisional Truth |
Essays |
April 2006 |
Link
Apocalypse
Soon
We may yet see Armageddon in this first century of the third common era
millennium, although there may be no happy ending for any of us left
alive on this planet, much less those who have read the recent
best-selling Left Behind series of novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry
Jenkins or Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth
series from 30 years ago.
Although some await this
looming horror in expectation they will have a cloud's eye view of the
carnage, count me among those who believe Armageddon's onset is nothing
to be eagerly awaited, nor will its conclusion yield the expectantly
desired result of a millennium of peace and happiness and prosperity.
Continue Reading
Apocalypse Soon
>>
Provisional Truth |
Essays |
March 2006 |
Link
Vanity of
Vanities
As we remember on May 1st the third anniversary of what then
was proclaimed the end of major combat operations in Iraq, I have
re-examined, as have many Americans, my opinion of a war now lingering
far longer and exacting a human and financial toll far greater than we
expected.
In his 2003 speech on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, with the now
much maligned “Mission Accomplished” banner behind him, President Bush
said, “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began
on September 11, 2001, and still goes on.”
Continue Reading Vanity of Vanities
>>
Provisional Truth |
Essays |
February 2006 |
Link
Thin Paper
Line
A
recent study funded by the Pentagon concluded the U.S. Army was
stretched to its limit, a “thin green line” as the media have taken to
calling the controversial conclusions of this report, referring to James
Jones's 1962 novel The Thin Red Line.
The novel's title is derived from an old Midwestern saying that “there's
only a thin red line between the sane and the mad.” War, accurately
portrayed in his book and the 1998 movie, seems to stretch that line
almost to the breaking point, as any combat veteran would know.
Continue Reading
Thin Paper Line
>>
Provisional Truth |
Essays |
December
2005 |
Link
Saving
Social Security 2006
The ticking is growing louder.
In 1998 then-President Clinton proposed plans to "save" Social Security
in his State of the Union speech. 2000 Presidential candidate Al Gore
pledged to create a Social Security “lockbox.”
Last year, President George W. Bush stumped for his version of Social
Security solvency by creating private retirement savings accounts for
younger Americans after making the issue a centerpiece of his 2004
campaign. Ironically, it was the grandparents – those already
receiving benefits – who most loudly shouted down the administration's
proposals.
Continue Reading
Saving Social Security 2006
>>
Provisional Truth |
Essays |
November 2005 |
Link
Color Me
Purple
I live in a “red” state, but, please, color me
purple. As the 2008 presidential election campaign gears up this
month, three years before election day, so inevitably will arise
again the need to label us red or blue by those hard-working political
pundits trying to fill the roughly 25,000 hours of news airtime between
now and November 4, 2008.
I'm not kidding about the 2008 race. Let's
assume current Vice President Dick Cheney does not run, which now
appears a safe bet that until recently was mostly related to the VP's
physical health. If so, 2008 will be the first election since 1952 in
which an incumbent president or vice president is not seeking the
nation's highest office.
Continue Reading
Color Me Purple
>>
Provisional
Truth | Essays | October 2005 |
Link
Summer Reading 2005
My “light” summer reading included one look backward and one look
forward, equally instructive and equally chilling despite the season's
heat.
Edward Gibbons' original The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
was published in six epic volumes between 1776 and 1787 as the world's
newest large-scale experiment in republican democracy, The United States
of America, was being created. Gibbons' look back offers an historian's
forthright assessment of the causes of the end of the Roman republic and
empire over the course of five centuries.
Continue Reading Summer Reading
>>
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