One of the most entertaining side-shows in the three-ring circus that is the American Presidential election is that of Larry Sinclair. In case you’ve not been listening to right-wing talk radio, I’d forgive you for not knowing who Mr. Sinclair is – he’s the guy who claims that claims he took cocaine and had gay sex with Barack Obama and is demanding that the Presidential candidate address his allegations.
Normally the right-wing, fundamentalist Christian talk-radio circuit would be the very last forum that might give a voice to an openly gay drug user. These are the same people who blame “the gays” for 9/11, the New Orleans flood and the falling dollar: This is especially significant when you consider that Larry is a sort of stereotypical gay male: He acts and dresses camp and he speaks with a vaguely comical lisp in the way that only fictional gay villians allegedly speak – in short he’s the sort of person that right wing radio would find utterly objectionable, so why are the wingnuts so keen to give him the benefit of the doubt
Larry claims that a few years back he went ‘cruising’ in a limmo around the Senator’s home-town of Illinois, and just happened to have a casual hook up with a man who would later become a Senator and later-still become a Democratic Presidential candidate. If true, these allegations would hand the ‘wingers a weapon that could politcally destroy Senator Obama - after all the only thing that American conservatives hate more than a drug user is a gay drug user…
Unfortunately, Larry’s claims are flimsy and preposterous. His court case against Obama was immediately dismissed for for it’s frivolity and lack of evidence. When Whitehouse.org, an America news-blog offered to give Larry the chance to take a lie-detector test, he failed it twice. And since his torrent of allegations began he’s not actually presented a shred of evidence to back up his outrageous claims. Nevertheless, American right-wingers are noted for their tendancy to belive preposterous things for which no evidence exists. A few of them have grown rather fond of Larry’s claims and cannot get enough of hearing him dish the dirt on Obama, even if more sensible bloggers have debunked just about every claim Larry has ever made.
The President of France is visiting the Queen today. I’m watching the encounter as it happens. So far it’s just soldiers riding around on horses, blowing on trumpets and looking generally official. Unfortunately it’s dull as ditch-water. Might I suggest that when the Queen makes her reciprocal visit to France she emulates the actions of her ancestor King Henry VIII:
The Kings of England and France built themselves temporary palaces complete with thousands of knights, courtiers and a schedule of entertainment of almost Olympic complexity. The highlight of this was an arm-wrestling match between Henry and Francis I, which the obese Henry lost causing a minor diplomatic incident. That is the kind of Royal visit that I’d like to watch.
Karmabanque is a show about finance - it’s presented by former trader and stockbroker Max Keiser and his journalist and film-maker wife Stacy Herbert. Max and Stacy made their fortune playing the markets back in the day, and freed from having to actually earn a living they now take delight exposing the finance industry’s dirty laundry - this makes for very compelling listening.
Karmabanque is not like the other finance shows which purport to offer stock-tips and money saving ideas. You will find none of this in Karmabanque - Max only has one tip, and he’s given the same one in practically every show they have ever put out. Mostly the the show is an analysis of the week’s finance news followed by quite detailed and funny explanations of the technical and historical concepts behind the big news.
Karmabanque is not intended for people who want to feel good about their economy - the show is for people who have moved beyond normal panic and paranoia into the realm of the financial survivalist - Max and Stacy want us to understand that gross corruption, lack of regulation and excessive greed have planted fiscal a time-bomb within the global banking system - all they are trying to do is warn their listeners what to do to prepare for when it goes off.
It might be easy to call these people conspiracy theorists, especially when their ultra-bearish message stands in clear contrast to the chipper “nothing to worry about” message from the mainstream financial press. I’d love nothing more than to dismiss the doom and gloom, but I grudgingly admit that the few predictions Max and Stacy have made have been astonishingly accurate:
Max’s one stock-tip (it’s actually a commodities tip) is is to buy gold. If you’d been buying gold since Max started hyping the yellow metal your bling would be worth ten times as much as your original investment. Likewise Max & Stacy were the first podcasters to cover the sub-prime scandal and the resulting credit-crunch in any significant detail.
They deconstructed the global credit crisis and how banks would be the casualties long before Northern Rock and Bear Sterns imploded. They are the soothsayers urging us all to beware those pesky Ides of March.
If this sounds like your kind of thing then get your podcasts at KarmabanqueRadio and listen to them live on Resonance FM on Saturday and Sunday nights.