Here's a link to a very interesting article in the Guardian (a UK paper) about how America is paying off local warlords and Taliban and insurgents, in order to move supplies across the country. One more example of why the country is in such a mess, and will continue to be the financial toilet down which America flushes away billions and billions of dollars. Note how the Afghan recommendation to spend the money on security force instead of warlords was ignored by Americans. Probably because "Well, these people don't know anything, they just live there".
Stupid, stupid.

Afghanistan

UPDATE 11/16/09:
A subscriber named Frank wrote the following to Casey Research, a financial newsletter outfit. It was dead on:

" I agree with your view on Afghanistan. Interestingly, on Veteran's Day I was standing in line waiting for a sandwich and I happened to overhear the young man next to me say he was going to Applebee's for dinner because on Veteran's Day, "Vets eat for free."

I asked him if he was a vet (he looked awfully young to me), and he said yes. I thanked him for his service and asked if he had been to Iraq. He said, "No, I just got back from Afghanistan." I replied, "Really, what do you think we should be doing there?" He looked directly at me and stated clearly, "Getting out."

I asked why he felt that way, and he said that no one there, including those on the front lines, really knows why we're there or what we're trying to achieve. He said if it's "nation-building" we're there for, the Afghans "don't want our help."

Just thought I'd pass along this first-hand opinion."

This apparently happened back in June, but I only found out about it this week. There was a 13 story building in China that was being built, and they were excavating on one side. They excavated a bit too much, and also dumped some of the dirt near a river on the other side of the building, which diverted water and voila, a new horizontal building..... The pictures are really neat. Looks like the building went smoothly over, pretty much intact.

Link for a blog post with several pics:
China Building

There's another link to a Wall St Journal story about the same thing. The WSJ story has fewer pics but more info. Link is below:
ChinaWSJ

Andy Frazer at gorillasites.com sent me info on a talented artist who does pencil drawings of people. Sounds like he does photos before, then spends 70 to 100 hours to create the drawing. Really amazing drawings. Link is below:

Portraits of the North

Nice video of the antics of some Scottish sheepherders, underwritten by Samsung. Link is below:

Sheep

It seems that Ron Paul's proposed bill to audit the Fed has just been gutted by Mel Wyatt, a Democrat from North Carolina, which coincidentally is home to Bank of America. Somebody got paid off, apparently. While not a major surprise, it is a bit disappointing. Link is below:

Audit the Fed