"Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies."
John 8:43-44
Not the finest moment for the national mainstream media.
Please know that Glenn Greenwald is a regular writer for The Guardian newspaper, and has been reporting on certain policy issues for years.
I found it repulsive that David Gregory could question Greenwald's right to the title of 'journalist,' preferring to label him a 'polemicist.' Is that because Greenwald was never a stand-in for Don Imus' morning talk show like David Gregory had been?
Where are the journalism schools in this time of official assault on their profession?
Gregory resorts to the bullyboy 'questioning' style in which statements and assumptions are first put forward as if they are true, to provoke a reaction of the person being questioned. It is often saved for those whom the network views as undesirable, and in a weaker power position.
Television national broadcast media often resembles entertainment and infomercials moreso than straight journalism. And it is little wonder why so many are turning to alternative sources for real news.
“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.”
George Orwell
This is like some bad version of The Hunger Games.
In the video below Glenn Greenwald discusses the recent election of Jair Bolsonaro, and what makes him substantially different from Donald Trump.
But he also ties in the dynamics that led to this election with the other recent political scenarios in Western democracies, like the US and the UK.
It is a short video and worth watching.
"The Right wing authoritarian Jair Bolsonaro cruised to a 10-point victory on Sunday night in Brazil, becoming president-elect of the world’s fifth most populous country and the most extremist leader in the democratic world. While some of the dynamics driving his victory are unique to Brazil, many of them are similar to prevailing political currents in North America, Eastern Europe and, increasingly, Western Europe.
Bolsonaro’s victory is highly consequential in its own right: For the 210 million people who live within the borders of the country, as well as for the region and the globe, he and his tyrannical movement now dominate. But beyond those consequences, there are valuable lessons to learn for all of the democratic world by understanding the sentiments that led Brazilians en masse to support someone who, a very short time ago, was relegated to the far fringes of political acceptability and whose ascension to power was unimaginable. I explored some of those key lessons in the eight-minute video."
Nothing really interesting happened yesterday in the warehouses of The Comex. And no surprise there.
And nothing really happened in the gold and silver markets in New York today. Silver is still proving to be remarkably resilient in its active month.
This is a sleepy week, and bound to get a lot sleepier quickly after the Non-Farm Payrolls report comes out on Thursday morning. I assume the algos have been pre-programmed, the junior traders firmly instructed, and the second tier shills provided their talking points du jour.
I think we may have discovered that the best way to effectively muzzle some of the great dissenting voices of your time, including Greenwald, Scahill, and Poitras, is to have some fortunate billionaire fund an electronic journal with John Cook as rédacteur-en-vacances, and then let it falter. The Intercept is remarkable chiefly for its lack of output, almost incredibly so since mid June.
At least Greenwald and Taibbi have their book tours to occupy their time, and twitter as a means of communication.
"Most of the events that we consider to be progress in American history were driven by the reverence for this concept that we are all equal under the law, that equality under the law is how we determine if we are perfecting the union...And what I think is radically different about today is not that the rule of law suddenly is not always being applied faithfully, because that has always been true. What is different about today, radically, is that we no longer bother to affirm that principle...
You can often, and I would say more often than not, in leading opinion-making elite circles, find an expressed renouncement or repudiation of that principle...All of these acts entail very aggressive and explicit arguments that the most powerful political and financial elites in our society should not be, and are not, subject to the rule of law because it is too disruptive, it is too divisive, it is more important that we should look forward, that we find ways to avoid repeating the problem...the rule of law is not that important of a value any longer...
The law is no respecter of persons, but the law is also a respecter of reality, meaning if it is too disruptive or divisive that it is actually in our common good, not the elite criminals, but in our common good, to exempt the most powerful from the consequences of their criminal acts, and that has become the template used in each of these instances."
Glenn Greenwald
I have been thinking along these lines for some time, that the rule of law in the West is becoming supplanted by a new kind of utilitarianism, relying on expediency in the service of power and the faux science of amoral economics, in order to excuse the massive frauds and criminal acts of the Anglo-American Empire that seems to be increasing.
Any concerns about the rule of law are roundly dismissed as a false concern with moral hazard as we saw so clearly in the great push for $700 Billion TARP based on a couple of handwritten sheets of paper, and a general amnesty for the perpetrators.
Some of it is professional not-initiated-hereism, but quite a bit more is a culture of privilege and practical exemptions for the few who run the system. And professional courtesy with London for both our banks and theirs.
Cronyism and complicity, active or passive, take your pick.
"If you want to understand exactly what's going on here, reread the four or five pages in chapter 1 of my book about my battles with Washington over the FARC case. Exactly the same thing happening here.
They'd rather trash a potentially legitimate case than admit that they were asleep at the switch, especially now after the recent revelations about their failures with LIBOR and HSBC."
Neil Barofsky, speaking about the Standard Chartered affair.
They didn't "fail" to regulate LIBOR. They did not even bother, for whatever motives that you care to impute or infer. They knew what was going on and turned a blind eye to it, just as they are doing with the rigging of the commodity and equity markets.
The incompetence and non-involvement defense is getting a little worn out in this financial scandal.
Casual corruption of the markets is now being accepted as a necessary system overhead, as a tax on the public to support the failed financial system, which is being kept alive to support a kleptocracy of politicians and the monied interests. It is sustained through fraud and force, but has little to do with the real economy anymore.
It is important to get this to understand what is going on.
As Glenn Greenwald describes it so well, the kleptocracy based on class position has become fully rationalized and institutionalized.
"What is radically different about today is not that the rule of law suddenly is not always being applied faithfully, because that has always been true. What is different about today, radically, is that we no longer bother to affirm that principle...
You can often, and I would say more often than not, in leading opinion-making elite circles, find an expressed renouncement or repudiation of that principle...All of these acts entail very aggressive and explicit arguments that the most powerful political and financial elites in our society should not be, and are not, subject to the rule of law because it is too disruptive, it is too divisive, it is more important that we should look forward, that we find ways to avoid repeating the problem...the rule of law is not that important of a value any longer...
The law is no respecter of persons, but the law is also a respecter of reality, meaning if it is too disruptive or divisive that it is actually in our common good, not the elite criminals, but in our common good, to exempt the most powerful from the consequences of their criminal acts, and that has become the template used in each of these instances."
"And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that."
John Dalberg Lord Acton
While I obviously can not agree with everything in this long documentary, Orwell Rolls In His Grave, I found the discussion and examples to be interesting.
I have included a short video clip concerning the standard visual media set piece afterwards just for fun.
The problem is not that there is advocacy in journalism. There is always advocacy in journalism, even despite a striving for objectivity. Taibbi goes to some lengths to show this in the piece I quoted from above.
The problem is the concentration of ownership in a few powerful hands, and the accompanying diminishment of the exposure of all the facts and perspectives. Even deciding what is not covered becomes a form of censorship.
Like the deregulation of the financial industry, the concentration of the media in a relatively few corporate hands was a ongoing trend that took a great leap forward under the presidency of Bill Clinton, and was then continued and reinforced under George Bush and Barack Obama. It was the conscious undoing of reforms from past lessons learned.
It is the concentration of ownership of the corporate media that is at the heart of the problem of the decline of independent journalistic standards. That, and the culture of unprincipled expediency in the service of power and shameless greed.
We are not responsible, but are culpable to the extent we accept this decline in decency and justice, even by doing nothing as simple as passing on a leaflet, conveniently electronic these days. As Sophie Scholl once said, many years ago in Munich, a people deserve the government which they are willing to tolerate.
"And the Lord went before them by day as a pillar of cloud to lead them on the way, and by night a pillar of fire to give light in the gloom."
Exodus 13:21
Stocks were a bit jumpy this morning as The Donald, aka Cheeto in Chief, spoke at his first press conference in about six months.
Hard to believe, but these jokers in the press, sometimes going by the name of journalists, actually make the guy look better than he probably is. They are just terrible, and go for the low road like ducks to water.
Did not vote for the guy, but it seems like every day I become even more content that Hillary is not in the White House.
I would not be shorting this stock market, yet. But sometime around or after the inauguration most likely something will happen to burst this bubble of happiness and self-delusion, and we might get a 10+% correction.
Gold is still struggling to move higher along with silver. The Comex is a joke when it comes to gold, and nothing much ever really happens there. Silver still stays busy with ins and outs of the warehouses, since this is how some wholesalers manage their working inventory for silver's domestic uses.
"While Democrats point fingers at anyone they can find, the evidence mounts that all critical sectors of their party’s apparatus fundamentally failed. Their renowned strategic geniuses were blinded with arrogance and error: David Plouffe, who ran Obama’s 2008 campaign, said that Clinton was a ‘one hundred per cent’ lock and advised nervous Democrats to stop ‘wetting the bed, reports The New Yorker’s David Remnick this week.
The party’s operatives and pundits used bullying tactics to clear the field for an obviously weak and vulnerable candidate, and then insisted on nominating her despite those weaknesses, many of which were self-inflicted, and in the face of mountains of empirical evidence that her primary-race opponent was more likely to win...
And the party is widely perceived to be devoted to elite Wall Street tycoons and war-making interests at the expense of pretty much everyone else, and chose a candidate who could not have been better designed to exacerbate those concerns if that had been the goal."
It is of course possible they would do this, but it seemed rather heavy-handed and clumsy to just drop a four year study one month before its expected release, especially since it is judged to be somewhat controversial. And it involves a futures market that has been rocked by scandal after scandal over the past two years.
Today we find out that the FT may have gotten their information wrong which is certainly a faux pas for a major news media outlet that generally would not run something like that without a dual confirmation of the facts, especially when it involves key market information.
At the end of the day, in the longer term, I am not sure that any of this matters. I think the market is heading towards a default in silver unless there is some sort of action or settlement imposed by the government and the exchange.
The metals manipulation has been as bad or even worse than LIBOR, and at some point rude reality is going to intrude given the stubbornly physical nature of bullion. At least that is what history suggests will happen after a long period of price manipulation.
But let's see what happens.
Still, this sort of nonsensical uncertainty and lack of transparency suggests that something is very wrong behind the scenes, and The Major Players and Very Serious People are trying to figure out what to do about it.
And of course, there is the impediment of the credibility trap for the government and the regulators to consider. Especially if He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Allowed-To-Fail has his tit irretrievably caught in the wringer, as they used to say, on the short side of a rising market where covering might not be 'practical.'
I hear the Brits are fit to be tied about the hypocrisy, especially after the public brow-beating they have taken over Barclays and LIBOR. And now the Yanks have the temerity to interfere with the attempts to clean their own house because of the potential collateral damage to Wall Street.
"You can often, and I would say more often than not, in leading opinion-making elite circles, find an expressed renouncement or repudiation of that principle...All of these acts entail very aggressive and explicit arguments that the most powerful political and financial elites in our society should not be, and are not, subject to the rule of law because it is too disruptive, it is too divisive, it is more important that we should look forward, that we find ways to avoid repeating the problem...the rule of law is not that important of a value any longer...
The law is no respecter of persons, but the law is also a respecter of reality, meaning if it is too disruptive or divisive that it is actually in our common good, not the elite criminals, but in our common good, to exempt the most powerful from the consequences of their criminal acts, and that has become the template used in each of these instances."
And for any who think that the problems are insurmountable, and that nothing can be done, here is a fine example of how wrong they can be. Each generation must take up its struggle with the principalities and powers, and dark forces in high places, especially those in their own hardened hearts.
Alas, Google has repeated its error of the other week. It must be tinkering with a library of code, fixing some things and breaking others. The lowly system test process is always underrated and under-appreciated, but crucial to large scale software development.
I have notified them and expect they will correct this, but for now, here is the news. I will update during the day.
Or perhaps more apropos, Mario Draghi on why you should own gold.
Tekoa Da Silva: “Dr. Draghi, what are your thoughts on gold as a reserve asset? You have central banks like China, Russia, increasing their reserves, especially over the last ten years. Germany for example asking for some of their holdings back from New York. It [gold] doesn’t produce any income unless it’s leased. So why do you think they would want that, and what value does it offer in your opinion?”
Dr. Mario Draghi: “Well you’re also asking this to the former Governor of the Bank of Italy, and the Bank of Italy is the fourth largest owner of gold reserves in the world, which is out of all proportion to the size of the country.
But I never thought it wise to sell it, because for central banks this is a reserve of safety, it’s viewed by the country as such. In the case of non-dollar countries it gives you a value-protection against fluctuations against the dollar, so there are several reasons, riskdiversification and so on.
So that’s why central banks which have started a program for selling gold a few years ago, substantially I think stopped…most of the experiences of central banks that have leased or sold the stock of gold about ten years ago, were not considered to be terribly successful from a purely money viewpoint.”
"In Brazil, a far-right presidential candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, came close in Sunday’s national election to winning the 50% of the vote needed to win without a run-off (he received 46.2%), and is now highly likely to prevail on October 28 against his opponent, the liberal Workers’ Party’s Fernando Haddad, who finished a distant second with 29%.
That result, by itself, is stunning, given that Bolsonaro is an undiluted, explicit authoritarian in the model of Duterte and Sisi – one could easily say 'fascist' even using the narrowest and most most rigorous sense of that term – who had been a fringe figure in politics for decades but is now poised to assume the presidency."
"We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. It is not merely that at present the rule of naked force obtains almost everywhere. Probably that has always been the case. Where this age differs from those immediately preceding it is that a liberal intelligentsia is lacking. Bully-worship, under various disguises, has become a universal religion."
George Orwell
"Through his first year in Germany [1933], Dodd had been struck again and again by the strange indifference to atrocity that had settled over the nation, the willingness of the populace and the moderate elements in the government to accept each new oppressive decree, each new act of violence, without protest...
Dodd continued to hope that the murders would so outrage the German public that the [Hitler] regime would fall, but as the days passed he saw no evidence of any such outpouring of anger
The controlled press, not surprisingly, praised Hitler for his decisive behaviour...In a letter to Hull, Dodd forecast an even more terroristic regime... 'The people hardly notice this complete coup d'etat. It takes place in silence...I would swear that millions upon millions have no idea what a monstrous thing has occurred.'"
Erik Larson, In The Garden of Beasts
It can only be hoped that American democracy will thoroughly realize, and this before it is too late, that fascism is not confined to any one nation or any one party; and it is to be hoped that it will succeed in overcoming the tendency toward dictatorial forms in the people themselves. Only time will tell whether the Americans will be able to resist the compulsion of irrationality or whether they will succumb to it.”
Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism
"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
Robert Bolt, A Man For All Seasons
Aaron Mate of The Real News interviews Michael Isikoff about the Russian hacking indictment in the video below.
Michael Isikoff's dismissive and almost bullying remarks aside, I think most people will continue to look at this carefully, and will keep an open mind.
Isikoff is not persuasive, except if one is intimidated by veiled references to secret evidence and the invoking of 'authority.'
And clearly Aaron Mate is not. This is what makes him a much better, or one may say genuine, journalist.
I have trouble conceiving that this indictment will ever be tested in court, unless they decide to try the defendants in absentia. It is a convenient way to make public charges without ever having show the evidence, and test their veracity in a public court of law. But they do make nice talking points for the prevailing narrative.
It would be as if a prosecutor in Moscow were to indict top officials in the US government for cyber crimes, such as bugging the personal phones of allied heads of state, or interfering in other countries' elections, and expect them to fly over for a trial.
I can only imagine what the reaction here would be to such an obvious ploy.
But I am sure that this indictment will be frequently misused as 'proof' of the case, and widely referenced without critical thought, to try and shame honest skepticism and alternative views on this matter.
An indictment is proof of nothing, other than an indictment has been granted to proceed with something known as a 'trial' of the pertinent facts to determine guilt or innocence. As since 'the evidence' is part of an indictment, it is not subject to open, investigative examination and potential rebuttal.
It is a 'charge' that is as of yet unproven, and we need to be very careful about giving charges such weight in the public discourse. It can ruin lives and reputations without due process, and cause potentially innocent individuals to much hardship, intimidation, and even confinement.
No matter how many functionaries may have signed off on it. How many times do we need to have this proven to us both pro and con, from WMD's to allegations of mass government surveillance? It is presented to the public with such authority and weight— until the truth rears its ugly head.
And innocence is presumed, or at least it used to be, before the hysterics were engaged after Hillary's stunning loss.
As regular readers know I am no 'fan' of Trump, or Hillary, and especially not of the Russian government,. If anything I am concerned that we are falling into the same type of authoritarian oligarchy that prevails there.
But I am not willing to toss aside principles and reason for personal satisfaction or political gain. If we do, we are no different from those that we pretend to oppose— we merely serve different ends without regard to means, like competing crime families.
Isikoff and those who speak and write in the mainstream media know this. But they do not seem to care. Such is the lack of principles for the sake of partisanship to which our modern media has descended, especially since it has been concentrated into a few powerful hands.
I am afraid that Michael Isikoff's conclusions will obtain such thoughtful scrutiny and analysis from the Sunday morning television pundits, both pro and con.
And therefore one goes to other sources like The Real News to get a more balanced picture.
Do not point the finger at the underwhelming actions of the Russians for the lack of trust and deep partisan divide here.
We have ourselves to blame, our lack of critical thinking and demand for justice with accountability, and acquiescence to the repeated heavy-handed actions of enablers in service of money and power, might over right.
As long as the con jobs sell, and money is being made, no one in the money and power pipeline has an incentive to stop the lying unless it is their conscience. And with this craven and spiritually adulterous generation, good luck with that.
"An elite class that is free to operate without limits - whether limits imposed by the rule of law or fear of the responses from those harmed by their behavior - is an elite class that will plunder, degrade, and cheat at will, and act endlessly to fortify its own power."
Glenn Greenwald
"You! You made us in the house of pain! You made us... things!
Not men. Not beasts. Things!"
H. G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau
After the bell Moody's cut Greek bonds to CAA2 with the outlook negative. Greece is facing the gravest threat to its national sovereignty, even worse than the American supported military regimes of the 'Greek colonels,' since 1941.
Who will be next? Who can stand against the dark power of the world, and wickedness in high places? C'est la guerre, sans fin. Ainsi soit-il.
There was intraday commentary about the Fed's policy statement here.
Ex-accounting gimmicks, the US economy contracted in the first quarter. The BEA fudged this advance estimate a bit, showing one of the lowest positive numbers possible, but the economy is obviously teetering on recession driven by stagnant wages, policy errors leading to asset bubbles, and weak aggregate demand. It is not that people are 'saving too much.' The problem is that too many people have too little income.
They will show a revision of the truth at some point when no one cares as much about it. The credibility trap forbids Beltway Washington from being honest critics of their policy and political failures to reform.
I found it amusing that a few minutes after the Fed statement financial TV announced that 'gold was dropping,' and continued with that theme throughout the afternoon, without mention of the dropping dollar or stocks.
Gold declined from 1210 to 1206 to the dollar.
Reports from The Bucket Shop show that 'deliveries,' which are the exchange of claim checks, and warehouse movements were relatively quiet.
The bankers and financiers will have another shot at managing our perceptions of their own incompetence tomorrow.
I am keeping an eye on the upcoming elections in the UK. As you know Europe and the UK are 'bellwethers' of a sort in my thinking.
The situation in Greece might be more influential than some would allow.
The political and economic situation in the States is 'simmering.'
Uncle Oligarch, wrapped in the flag, is pushing the TPP with an almost desperate zeal. It is surprising how many politicians and professionals have been 'rented' by corporate money in support of the cause.
Smells like teen spirit.
Things are unfolding as badly as even a most cynical man might expect, alas.
And so a group of fools, driven by greed, will push their perceived advantages, blind to the consequences, even to the point of plunging into the abyss.
They see strength and power in numbers, for they are many.
“The term propaganda rings melodramatic and exaggerated, but a press that, whether from fear, careerism, or conviction, uncritically recites false government claims and reports them as fact, or treats elected officials with a reverence reserved for royalty, cannot be accurately described as engaged in any other function.”
Glenn Greenwald
Silver and gold chopped sideways today with silver a little higher and gold a little lower.
Action was light.
Tomorrow is the Non-Farm Payrolls report from September that was delayed because of the Beltway antics.
There is a definite divergence between paper and physical gold, but the two are still related and influence one another. The notion that they are completely unrelated now is incorrect based on the data which I see. Even with premiums, the spot price of gold and the price you will pay or sell for plain bullion is definitely related.
I am sure some traders believe that the two are completely unrelated and shorting gold against the dollar is a nice paper trade. In some ways it is compared to the other vehicles one might trade. But given the carry trade like returns, I think that they are chasing nickels on the freeway.
When and if the two do diverge significantly, we will definitely know it. They will be carrying traders out on stretchers. When the gold price turns the short squeeze might become epic. And the privileged will be able to grab the available supply first.
It was JPM to the rescue again with another big chunk of 96,450 ounces of gold bullion for the COMEX warehouse in storage. I wonder where they are obtaining such large tranches of gold. Perhaps it has something to do with the price beating and disgorgement of metal by GLD last week.
A transfer of 24,218 gold bullion ounces out of deliverable into storage occurred in the Scotia Mocatta warehouse.
As you may recall Scotiabank cause a bit of a fuss when Harvey Organ and son went there with an auditor to verify the existence of some of their personal holdings for whatever reason. I believe that this was at the end of 2010 or very early 2011. The scandal was that when they went to the vault, there was very little actual bullion there, compared to what the total holdings there were reported to be.
And Scotiabank has had one of the better reputations in the industry.
Well, they repaired that. But the point that Harvey often makes is that just because you hold a title or a piece of paper for something, does not mean you can obtain it readily when you need it.
"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Saul Bellow
“State propaganda, when supported by the educated classes and when no deviation is permitted from it, can have a big effect.”
Noam Chomsky
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
H.L. Mencken
“The term propaganda rings melodramatic and exaggerated, but a press that—whether from fear, careerism, or conviction—uncritically recites false government claims and reports them as fact, or treats elected officials with a reverence reserved for royalty, cannot be accurately described as engaged in any other function.”
Glenn Greenwald
“The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.”
Garry Kasparov
Stocks were shoved around the plate by picky speculators who were not quite sure what to do at these levels when faced with a three day holiday weekend and continuing uncertainty with emerging markets and trade talks.
The 'NAFTA' talks between the US and Canada ended without a resolution today. They have agreed to continue speaking again on Wednesday.
Gold and silver came in strongly, but faded as the day went on and the Dollar appreciated modestly.
These jokers seem to be keen to keep the metals under wraps. If they lose control of the price, then a lot of dominoes will be falling.
But the setup here is very interesting.
"Commercials are currently net long (futures &options) in both gold & silver, 1st time ever for silver, at least going back to 95, which is as far back as my data goes."
Bill Fleckenstein
Smells like teen spirit.
Since today is the end of August, we will be seeing a Non-Farm Payrolls Report for this month next week. I have included a calendar of upcoming economic events for next week as the third chart below.
As you may recall, the US markets will be closed on Monday for Labor Day.
In honor of Labor Day, Trumpolini issued an order to freeze the pay of about two million Federal workers.
And he is considering a unilateral action to provide another $100 Billion in tax breaks for the .1% by indexing capital gains to inflation.
Let us pray for those whose hearts have grown cold, and become hardened against His grace by greed, fear, and the seductive illusions of pride.
We ask to receive the three great gifts of our Lord's suffering and triumph: repentance, forgiveness, and thankfulness—so that we may obtain abundant life, and the peace that surpasses all understanding.
It is available for your use at no cost, but with attribution and a link to the original posting.
I make every attempt to respect the rights of others. If you feel that something here has infringed your work please let me know and I will correct it immediately. It is not always easy to determine the status of material posted to the Internet with regard to fair use and public domain.
