In case you were wondering, I am still around.

Working on something huge right now.

Like, MEGA HUGE.

I will be releasing details early next week. You will not want to miss this.

It sure doesn't seem like it today, with red ink running in the Street like blood, but check this out ...Amid bluster over energy, Senate cuts a dealOver the summer a group of five GOP and five Democratic senators, dubbed the Gang of 10, hammered out a comprehensive energy proposal. And now, after taking withering heat from both left and right, the idea is gaining support. The proposal contains some items on the Republican wish list, such as opening areas of the Outer Continental Shelf to drilling and boosting nuclear power. The Democrats get incentives for wind, solar, and other renewables along with energy efficiency measures — and pay for much of the projected $84 billion cost by eliminating tax breaks on the oil and gas industry.In other news today ...OPEC consensus building for supply cutConsensus is building within ...

At least, if the latest models on Hurricane Ike are correct. CLICK HERE. You'll see it is now moving closer to Florida. Indeed, Florida is now projected to get a hammering from the Western side of the hurricane.The real problem is the trend -- this model used to show Ike curving nicely northward and leaving Florida alone (mostly). The question now becomes, what happens the next time they update the models? Will the trend shift westward again? If so, we could take a direct hit (I live in South Florida). And Ike is a Category 4 hurricane.There's really nothing to add. Crap

Oil has dropped below its 200-day moving average and, more importantly, hasn't been able to recover. This is not the behavior you see when the bull is charging.

  I talked to Phil at HoweStreet.com yesterday. You can listen HERE.And yesterday in MoneyandMarkets.com I wrote about Mexico’s supergiant oil field, Cantarell, which is in some serious trouble. Here’s that …A Storm Called Cantarellby Sean Brodrick Wednesday, September 03, 2008 7:30 AMThe oil industry along the Louisiana coast got off lightly from Hurricane Gustav. While 1.3 million barrels of oil and seven billion cubic feet of natural gas per day stopped pumping temporarily, ... [More...]XX Sean’s note: After I published that story, I then found another story on Mexican oil woes. It’s interesting …Cantarell Is Not Mexico's Only Oil Production ProblemThere are problems in two other large oil fields, the Chicontepec Basin and Ku-MaloobZaap. These two fields make up 72% of Mexico's non-Cantarell proven reserves. The fields differ significantly from Cantarell in terms of geology, ...

Hurricane Ike went from a tropical storm to a category 4 monster storm in a matter of hours. You can officially start freaking out now.Here is some other news ...ENERGYCrude Oil Rises as Hurricane Ike Strengthens in Atlantic, Dollar Declines Crude oil rose for the first time in five days as Hurricane Ike gained force in the Atlantic, causing concern that U.S. oil supplies may be disrupted.Oil Producers May Compel Opec to Cut SupplyThere are indications that major oil producers may compel Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to cut supply when the group meets on September 9, in Vienna, Austria.OPEC's Crude Oil Production Fell 0.6% in August, Survey Shows (Bloomberg) -- The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' oil production dropped 0.6 percent in August, led by declines in Iraq and Saudi ...

The Masters always keep an eye on Yamana Gold (NYSE:AUY) in reaction to gold prices, oil, the U.S. dollar, and everything else.  The five day move on AUY shares is at -12% and just 40 cents today above its 52-week low.  Place your bets for a bounce. The price of gold is killing Yamana, but at some point the ...

A growing global power crisis looks to be greater economic and political danger than oil

Lost in all the attention oil is receiving, reports from around the world indicate that 100 or more countries may be suffering, many acutely, from shortages of electricity. Given who is in trouble, both the economic and the political danger of this growing global power crisis are starting to look greater than oil’s. China and India, two of the biggest engines of economic growth, look to be in serious trouble. Pakistan and Afghanistan, hotbeds of terrorism, are routinely plunged into darkness. South Africa’s mining industry is vexed. Even some countries that can afford high oil prices don’t have sufficient electricity to run refineries.

While not facing shortages, many developed countries on whose consumers the world economy depends are increasingly facing what is called “fuel poverty,” a combination of rising electricity and home heating oil costs. The problem is already acute in

...

Source: The Gold Report  09/02/2008
A pioneer in global investing, with a reputation for discovering big winners, Adrian Day gives us his insight on whether he thinks gold has hit the bottom, and what it’s going to take to get the juniors going again. He also tells us which juniors he thinks are positioned to weather the slowdown. Day is President of Adrian Day Asset Management, which manages portfolios in resource and global equities, and the editor of “Adrian Day’s Global Analyst.”

The Gold Report: So what’s your take on where we are with the markets. . .you think we’ll see a change soon?

Adrian Day: People are still very, very concerned about the dollar and inflation, and rightly so. The core CPI numbers were up .7% in one month. That’s a high number and the precise number may be a monthly anomaly, but it’s very clear that the trend in …

Source: Jeff Clark, Casey Research  09/02/2008
Psychologists say decisions aren’t made simply on what you hear from others but also on what you hear in your own inner dialog. With investing, that can be the kiss of death if you let either fear or euphoria dominate the conversation.

So what did you tell yourself this summer when gold plummeted 20% in 5 weeks and most gold stocks lost a third or more of their value? Did the dialog help you make a wise decision?

I’ll tell you what I told myself. When I saw a chart of gold’s mid-summer drop, it looked scary…

…then I told myself to take a longer look at gold’s history.

What I saw is that gold’s recent drop is a blip in the big picture. So I told myself, “Maybe you should relax a little.”

Then I thought about corrections in past gold bull …