Gold and silver are strange things.  They have been used for centuries as money and only in the last 40 years have they been shoved aside by the financial communists - yet they still exist as a free market monetary asset despite the force of all the government's guns.

The strange thing about gold & silver, however, is that while they are the last vestige of a money that is not in and of itself able to be manipulated by the political criminal class many people still trade instruments in gold and silver which are easily manipulated by the aforementioned.

On my recent trip to New York it was much harder to leave the country than it was to enter - something that should make every American's ears perk up.

Here is what I had to go through to get on my flight bound from New York's JFK to Mexico City.

The first stop was the TSA screening procedure.  The TSA recently announced that they will give "extra screening" to those who show "contempt" to the TSA procedures.

Let's look up a definition of the word contempt:

con-temp - noun  1. The feeling with which a person regards anything considered mean, vile, or worthless; disdain; scorn.

It was only a few days ago in our blog post, "Rejoice!  The War on Terror is Over!", that we made note that some of the criminals and sociopaths inside of the US Government, like Janet Napolitano and former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, started changing their overall theme.

I am currently at the New York Hard Assets show and am very busy all day so I thought I would post this link to a recent interview I did with Shelly Kraft of SNN Live.

I covered many of the usual topics, including the collapse of the US dollar.  As well, I spoke about why the Canadian dollar is not a viable alternative to the US dollar in the event of a US dollar collapse.

I will be happily back on the beach in Acapulco tomorrow after a whirlwind tour through Miami, Edmonton, Saskatoon and NYC for a total of 3 different conferences over 10 days.  To put it simply: While I've had a great time and had the opportunity to meet hundreds of our subscribers I am REALLY looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again for a while!

I was recently asked by friend and son of the man who owns one of the top investment conference companies in Canada if I would run an article published by him.

I quickly scanned the article and was about to tell him no.  After all, he didn't attack governments or central banks at all!

But I agree very much with what he is saying.  And he is making an important point to investors that I do wish to pass along.  The point is this: If you are a serious investor in the sectors of the stock market that we cover (precious metals, commodities, agriculture, energy) you should make a point of attending a minimum of one or two conferences per year.

Despite my fact-based reservations about Osama bin Laden's involvement in 9/11, the announcement of his killing, which also hasn't been very convincing, seems to have convinced the majority of the masses.

Note: I'll be appearing on Jay Taylor's "Turning Hard Times into Good Times" radio program on Voice America at 4pm Eastern today.

I couldn't have been in a worst place when the news hit.  I was not only in the US but about to spend my day in and out of US airports, where CNN shreaks at you from every TV screen.

We got him, they shouted!

We removed him from the battlefield, said more than one US military speaker.  Are million dollar mansions "the battlefield" now?

Ed Bugos here.  Jeff is en route from the Casey Research conference in Florida to Canada for the Saskatchewan Investment Conference and so I man the controls of the TDV ship today.

I am sure Jeff will have some comments on the big news of the day, the reported killing of Osama bin Laden.  Until then, it is national election day here in Canada and I wanted to add to Jeff's commentary on Friday and hopefully persuade a few Canadians to abstain from the political process.

Don't vote. That is a right too. The objections to this idea typically fit into one of the following categories:

As many of you know, I was born and raised in the Soviet Republic of Canuckistan but defected about 8 years ago and have been free ever since.

Part II of the Keynes/Hayek rap battle came out yesterday.  If you haven't seen Round 1, check it out here.

The quality and content of the video is truly remarkable.  What is also remarkable is that they just filmed this ten days ago and already have produced such an incredible product in such a short amount of time.  It's a good thing there still aren't government regulations on producing YouTube videos or this would have taken years!