There are three kinds of lies, wrote Mark Twain in 1906, “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Take a page from his book and consider that the latest unemployment report is nothing more than an attempt by the custodians of our government, who are increasingly coming under fire from the populace, to hide the fact that their grand plans for centralizing social, financial and economic control are failing miserably.

This excellent synopsis about the B.S. in the BLS statistics last Friday, is posted over at the wealthwire.com website. I thank Australian reader Wesley Legrand for sending it along...and the link is here.

"I believe the European debt Bubble has burst – and this would no doubt be a momentous development. For years, European debt was being mispriced in the (over-liquefied, over-leveraged and over-speculated global) marketplace. Countries such as Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy benefitted immeasurably from the market perception that European monetary integration ensured debt, economic and policymaking stability. Similar to the U.S. mortgage/Wall Street finance Bubble, the marketplace was for years content to ignore Credit excesses and festering system fragilities, choosing instead to price debt obligations based on the expectation for zero defaults, abundant liquidity, readily available hedging instruments, and a policymaking regime that would ensure market stability. Importantly, this backdrop created the perfect market environment for financial leveraging and rampant speculation – in a New Age global financial backdrop unsurpassed for its capacity for excess. The arbitrage of European bond yields was likely one of history’s most lucrative speculative endeavors."

This is Doug Noland at the top of his game. This was a paragraph from last Friday's Credit Bubble Bulletin. As always, it's posted over at the prudentbear.com website. I thank reader U.D. for bringing it to my attention...and the link is here.

Economist and former banker Alasdair Macleod writes that raw monetary inflation via the cashing of Special Drawing Rights from the International Monetary Fund likely will be the next step by central banks to save bankrupt nations, last week's currency swaps having been undertaken to rescue insolvent banks. Macleod's commentary is headlined "Currency Swaps -- the Beginning of a Solution?"

I plucked this story, along with Chris Powell's introduction, from a GATA release yesterday. The short essay is posted over at the goldmoney.com website...and the link is here.

This interview was done on Sunday over at all-talk radio WAAM 1600...Dr. Dave's Operation Freedom show. Dave says that the interview contains information that all of us need to be aware of...immediately. The audio interview runs about 30 minutes...and the link to the mp3 file is here.

NATO recently literally shot itself in the foot, imperiling the resupply of International Assistance Forces (ISAF) in Afghanistan by shooting up two Pakistani border posts in a “hot pursuit’ raid.

Given that roughly 100 fuel tanker trucks along with 200 other trucks loaded with NATO supplies cross into Afghanistan each day from Pakistan, Pakistan’s closure of the border has ominous long-term consequences for the logistical resupply of ISAF forces, even as Pentagon officials downplay the issue and scramble for alternative resupply routes.

Pakistan, long angry about ISAF/NATO cross border raids, has apparently reached the end of its tether. Following the 26 November NATO aerial assault on two border posts in Mohmand Agency in Pakistan’s turbulent Northwest Frontier Province, Islamabad promptly sealed its border with Afghanistan to NATO supplies after the allied strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

The U.S. military insists a joint patrol with Afghan forces was fired upon first and only responded with return fire and calling in airstrikes on the posts, which a commander mistakenly identified as Taliban training camps, after reportedly checking that there were no Pakistani military forces nearby. Pakistan Major General Ishfaq Nadeem, director general of military operations, rebutted Washington’s assertions one by one, commenting, "The positions of the posts were already conveyed to the ISAF through map references and it was impossible that they did not know these to be our posts."

This story was posted over a the oilprice.com website last Thursday...and it's reader's U.D.'s second offering of the day. It's definitely worth the read..and the link is here.

France is repatriating a number of diplomats and their families from Iran following an attack on the British embassy in Tehran.

French officials said the move was a temporary security measure.

Britain expelled 25 Iranian diplomats following Tuesday's attack, when hundreds stormed the British embassy.

This bbc.co.uk story was posted on their website on Saturday...and I thank Washington state reader S.A. for bringing it to my attention. The link is here.

When Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the charismatic prime minister, first swept to power in 2002, he made Turkey’s entry into the European Union his overriding goal. Determined to anchor the country to the West, Mr. Erdogan’s Muslim-inspired Justice and Development Party tackled thorny issues like improving minority rights and easing restrictions on free speech to move Turkey closer to Western norms.

But Turkey’s bid was greeted with skepticism and even disdain by some members of the union, not least because of Turkey’s large, almost entirely Muslim population. The negotiations dragged on endlessly without ever yielding a clear pathway to membership.

Now it is Turkey that has soured on the idea, analysts here say...and as economic contagion tarnishes the European Union, a newly assertive Turkey is increasingly looking east instead of west, and asking a vexing question: Should Turkey reject Europe before Europe rejects Turkey?

This story appeared in the Sunday edition of The New York Times...and is Roy Stephens first offering of the day. This is well worth your time...and the link is here.

The British government is trying to obstruct the establishment of a common EU foreign and security policy. The formation of an autonomous military headquarters failed last week after Britain alone resisted the move. The government of Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has also been preventing the EU from issuing joint statements in international organizations.

London commissioned a legal report that cast doubt on the EU's role in many foreign policy issues. For example, when the EU ambassadors agreed to a common statement at the World Health Organization in Geneva, the British representative vetoed the move, saying the issue wasn't a matter of foreign policy but of health policy -- and therefore fell under national sovereignty.

The British have been using similar nit-picking arguments in other UN organizations and at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna, on issues such as peace missions and disarmament conferences.

This spiegel.de story from yesterday is Roy Stephens second offering of the day...and the link is here.

She means prior vetting of fiscal plans. She means automatic fines, cuts in EU development funds, and loss of EU voting rights for alleged violators, all justifiable before the European Court.

The correct term is 'Stability Union', as the Chancellor calls it at home. It certainly entails unprecedented intrusion into the internal affairs of sovereign states, but in one direction only: discipline, without transforming help.

The Greeks have had a taste of this with EU commissars lodged in each ministry under the occupation terms of their loan package, and it may come back to bite Germany itself one day as the economic cycle plays its trick.

This Ambrose Evans-Pritchard offering was posted on Sunday evening in The Telegraph...and is another contribution from Roy Stephens. The link is here.

Market denizens are desperate for "fiscal union" before the end of the year. The phrase is code for the mighty Germany agreeing to stand behind the liabilities of the more profligate single currency members – something that frazzled debt markets crave.

All last week, speculation rose that "a grand European bargain" is coming. Germany, we're told, will soon agree to clean-up the eurozone's mess, in return for a more assertive pan-European role.

On cue, Italian 10-year sovereign debt traded below the crucial 7pc level, beyond the "bail-out" zone. Spanish sovereign bond yields similarly eased. I have to say, though, analyzing what Merkel actually told the deeply-suspicious lower house of the German Parliament, I see scant evidence of "fiscal union" happening any time soon.

This story appeared on The Telegraph's website late on Saturday night...and I thank Roy Stephens once again. The link is here.

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services today placed its long-term sovereign ratings on 15 members of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU or eurozone) on CreditWatch with negative implications.

This zerohedge.com piece was sent to me by reader Matthew Nel...and the link is here.

Wall Street sought to deliver another blow to the financial regulatory overhaul on Friday, as two industry trade groups sued a federal regulator over a new rule restricting speculative trading.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association filed a lawsuit challenging the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s so-called position limits rule.

The agency adopted the rule in October to cap the number of contracts a trader can hold on 28 commodities. The vote was an important step in the Obama administration’s effort to enforce the Dodd-Frank overhaul.

I pulled this story out of Ted Butler's weekly review on Saturday. It was posted over at the dealbook.nytimes.com website last Friday evening...and it's a must read for sure. The link is here.

Longtime GATA supporter Swiss America Trading Corp. reports that two television commercials it produced to advocate purchase of precious metals as a defense against the political "inflatocracy" that controls the U.S. government, have been rejected by all major TV networks.

But the commercials are pretty funny and refer to the likely disappearance of the U.S. gold reserve, and at least you can watch them at Swiss America's Internet site here

This is another item that I borrowed from a GATA release on Sunday...and I thank Chris Powell once again for providing the preamble. Both commercials are posted over at the swissamerica.com website...and the link is here.

Eric sent me these three blogs yesterday...and I have no time to post them as separate stories. I've also had no time to read them myself. But the titles show that they all have something to do with gold. The link to the Michael Pento blog headlined "S&P Europe Credit Watch & Why Gold Will Skyrocket" is linked here...the Stephen Leeb blog headlined "Expect Gold Price to Double in Twelve Months" is here...and the Rick Rule blog titled "Flight to Quality & 2012 Gold Takeovers" is here.

A Utah man who wants to pay his taxes with silver coins has been rebuffed by state and county officials who claim it's impractical to accept the precious metals despite a state law making them legal tender.

Earlier this year, Utah became the first state in the country to legalize gold and silver coins as currency. But because the law doesn't require businesses to accept the metals, most government agencies and private merchants have not embraced the alternative method.

Some businesses have accepted silver from Bowen, he said, and he has made charitable donations with the coins, but he wants the state to follow its own law.

This AP story was posted in The Washington Examiner on Saturday...and I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for sending it along. The link is here.

I knew that all of yesterday's edition of Casey's Daily Dispatch was worth reading long before I finished reading what BIG GOLD editor Jeff Clark had to say. Co-staring in yesterday's column was International Speculator editor...and resident CR geologist...Louis James.

This is an absolute must read from top to bottom...and the link is here.

AngloGold Ashanti CEO Mark Cutifani told Takoa Da Silva of the Bull Market Thinking Internet site that big buyers of gold are having trouble getting the volumes they want and so are approaching the mining company to try to get metal directly. Apparently bullion bank deposit receipts don't have the respect they once did.

The link to this story is imbedded in a GATA release...and the link to that is here.

Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi will be rewarding investors who buy more than 10 million yen ($129,000) in reconstruction bonds with gold in the government’s latest attempt to bolster demand for the debt.

Individual investors who hold the bonds for three years will be eligible for a gold commemorative coin valued at 10,000 yen, the Finance Ministry said in Tokyo today. At 15.6 grams, (0.55 ounces), it would be worth about $948 based on prices for the precious metal. Only a limited number of coins will be issued, the Finance Ministry said in a statement.

You can't make this stuff up! This short Bloomberg story was filed from Tokyo late on their Monday night...and I thank Australian reader Wesley Legrand for digging it up on our behalf. The link is here.

Here's a story that was sent to me by Swiss reader B.G. last night. It's sort of a combination of Ted Butler's work on silver, combined with Adam Hamilton's graphics...the very best of both worlds.

The thing that I noticed right away is the first chart, which shows the Commercial net short position in silver. The graph [which you can click to enlarge] showed that the Commercial net short position hasn't been this low since the spring of 2003...long before silver started its really big bull run. I talk about this net short position all the time...and now here's a graph that shows it going back to 1986.

I was also intrigued by the Accumulation/Distribution graph which I'd never seen before...and as the author points out, it's showing brand new highs, even as the price plunged.

Some of the other graphs are pretty heavy going for newbies...but I urge you to spend the time on this essay that it richly deserves. It's posted over at the safehaven.com website...and the link is here.