The Peanut Gallery

Statements, comments and forecasts that have no substance, but just might turn out to be relevant.

1.Supplying a single gallon of gasoline in Afghanistan reportedly costs the U.S. military an average of $400, while sustaining a single U.S. soldier runs around $1 million a year (by contrast, sustaining an Afghan soldier costs about $12,000 a year). Afghanistan, a landlocked country in the heart of Central Asia, is one of the most isolated places on Earth. Hundreds of shipping containers and fuel trucks must enter the country every day from Pakistan and from the north to sustain the nearly 150,000 U.S. and allied forces.

2.When Barack Obama took office, there were 34,000 US troops in Afghanistan. This rose to about 104,000 and now will be ruduced to 70,000. Double the amount of when he took office. This war is an Obama priority, and he will be judged by the results. The peanut gallery thinks this war was and is a waste of time and money. In fact, the peanut gallery is of the opinion that any war whose goal is regime change, is doomed to failure. Our prediction is that once US Forces return home from Iraq and Afghanistan, none of the present regimes will survive.

3. Just when you think TSA can't get any worse...An elderly woman in the late-stages of leukemia was forced to undergo 45 minutes of additional screenings last Saturday when she tried to board a flight out of Northwest Florida Regional Airport, her daughter told FoxNews.com Lena Reppert, 95, was to say her final goodbyes to her daughter before she made what would most likely be her last flight to her native Michigan. After eight years of battling leukemia, doctors say she doesn’t have much time to live. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/26/dying-woman-undergoes-additional-tsa-security-screening-says-family/

COMMENT: Political correctness will be the end of this society. The peanut gallery has learned that TSA has stopped zero attempted terror attacks since its implementation after 9/11. And now they are demanding to be unionised.....

4.FT: The US dollar will lose its status as the global reserve currency over the next 25 years, according to a survey of central bank reserve managers who collectively control more than $8,000bn. More than half the managers, who were polled by UBS, predicted that the dollar would be replaced by a portfolio of currencies within the next 25 years. The peanut gallery predicts that this will happen much sooner, and that gold will be part of the basket.

5.FT: Central banks have bought about 151 tonnes of gold so far this year, led by Russia and Mexico, according to the World Gold Council, and are on track to make their largest annual purchases of bullion since the collapse in 1971 of the Bretton Woods system, which pegged the value of the dollar to gold.

6.Russell: Dennis Gartman writes that the raiding of the emergency oil reserves was the most blatant piece of political chicanery that he's ever seen. I agree. What's next? A free GM Volt for every person who castes his vote for Obama? Don't laugh, it could happen.

7.Greece...What problem? The EU funded underground in Athens is airconditioned with large plasma screeens to entertain while you wait. It is, in effect, free for the five million people of the Greek capital. The transport perks are not confined to the customers. Incredibly, the average salary on Greece’s railways is £60,000, which includes cleaners and track workers - treble the earnings of the average private sector employee in London. 

8.It gets better. The overground rail network is as big a racket as the EU-funded underground. While its annual income is only £80 million from ticket sales, the wage bill is more than £500m a year — prompting one Greek politician to famously remark that it would be cheaper to put all the commuters into private taxis. There isn’t a single private company in Greece with that kind of average pay.

9.We're on a Greek roll....Ridiculously, Greek pastry chefs, radio announcers, hairdressers and masseurs in steam baths are among more than 600 professions allowed to retire at 50 (with a state pension of 95 per cent of their last working year’s earnings) — on account of the ‘arduous and perilous’ nature of their work.

COMMENT: The peanut gallery believes that there might be a case for an idealogical connection between the far left and militant Islam. Try some of these words....corruption, fraud, decadence, dishonesty....all on a massive scale. These guys deserve everything they get.

10. There is now a new type of refugee. They call them "Water Refugees" or "Climate Refugees" or even "Environmental Refugees". The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) recently announced that some 50 million people have become climate refugees, displaced from their homes due to dramatic climate changes. They come predominantly from developing nations where climate changes are coupled with already existing war and poverty to intensify the situation. 

COMMENT: Its still a trickle......

11.A senior Jordanian official says the Hashemite kingdom will vote against a Palestinian statehood bid scheduled to be put before the UN General Assembly in September. "Jordan's top national interests will be in danger if the Palestinian Authority declares statehood unilaterally – especially in everything related to the issue of refugees, water, Jerusalem, and the borders," the UAE-based al-Bayan quoted a Jordanian state official as saying.

COMMENT:How believable is this report?. The majority of population in Jordan are Palestinians. Jordan has just received $400 million from Saudi Arabia to stay afloat economically. The Jordanians must be pretty nervous, considering the events unfolding in the arab world. Logical....but nothing logical in these countries.

The main dangers in this life are the people who want to change everything-or nothing - Nancy Astor