by Joe Tacopino
Daily News Writer
Monday, January 25th 2010, 1:42 PM
Oprah Winfrey may be the queen of television, but she has some surprising new company.
A new Harris Poll shows Ms. Winfrey on top as America’s favorite TV personality.
Debuting on the list in second place is Fox News commentator Glenn Beck.
The poll, conducted each year, had Oprah regaining her first-place position after trailing talk-show hosts Ellen DeGeneres and Jay Leno last year.
Beck, a nationally syndicated radio host, premiered his Fox News television show last year.
The highly charged political program has generated controversy and ratings during the first year of Barack Obama’s presidency.
The poll also found Conan O’Brien topping the list among 18- to 32-year-olds -- the so-called Echo Boomers.
Leno was the favorite among men, and Jon Stewart topped the list among liberals.
The poll was conducted Dec. 7-14, 2009, among 2,276 adults surveyed online.
Stratfor acknowledges Russia defeated US, not Georgian army in South Ossetia | ||||||||
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The USA acknowledged that Russia had virtually defeated the US, but not the Georgian army in South Ossetia. US instructors have spent four years training the Georgian army for an attack against Russian citizens. The US administration refused to help Saakashvili, because the true goal of the new game in the Caucasus is absolutely different.
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Experts of Stratfor, the so-called Shadow CIA, stated that the Russian army had not only preserved its battling capacity but also proved to the whole world that was it capable of defeating an armed enemy, trained by US instructors.
A report from Stratfor particularly mentions that the operation in South Ossetia has exercised three things. First off, Russia has proved to have the army capable of conducting successful operations, in which many Western observers doubted before. Secondly, the Russians have showed that they can defeat the forces trained by US advisors. Finally, Russia has shown that the USA and NATO do not find themselves in the situation when they can interfere into a conflict from the military point of view.
At the same time, the experts consider it to be a military demonstration of Russia to former republics of the Soviet Union, including Ukraine, the entire Caucasus and Central Asia. In addition, they see a hidden warning to Poland and the Czech Republic against the background of a possible deployment of elements of the US missile defense system in those countries. However, the experts exclude an opportunity for Moscow to organize an intervention against some of the above-mentioned countries.
Stratfor’s statement means that the fight is over for Georgia and that the US administration is not going to cross the red line in its relations with Russia. Saakashvili’s hopes for NATO to become involved in a conflict with Russia went up in smoke.
The USA is pursuing absolutely different goals, and the creation of the Great Georgia is surely not on its list. The Republicans organized the provocation to portray Russia as a monster on the globe on the threshold of the November elections. This plays into the hands of John McCain, who openly says that “Russia’s imperial ambition” needs to be curbed.
This way or other, the USA has used the small country of Georgia as a toy.
Sergei Balmasov
Pravda.ru
EVER since the financial tsunami hit the United States and then the whole world, the price of gold had been close to reaching the $1,000 per ounce ceiling. In December 2009, it not only broke through that barrier but also reached a record of $1,216.75 an ounce -- a rise of more than 30% in one year. Now some analysts are predicting that this trend will continue in 2010 and that gold price may soon reach $2,000 an ounce.
Gold has always been considered a precious metal. Since the dawn of civilisation, it has attracted human attention. People in Mesopotamia and Egypt used gold for decorative and ornamental purposes as far back as the fifth millennium B.C. Although some gold coins from this period have been discovered, it is widely believed that the large-scale use of gold for monetary purposes did not start until the sixth century B.C. in Lydia, modern-day Turkey.
As far as we know, under King Croesus (560-546B.C.), coins made of pure gold with his royal emblem were used for the first time as the standard of exchange for worldwide trade and commerce. Although gold coins are no longer the standard of exchange for international trade, gold is probably the only material which continues, even today, to be universally accepted in exchange for goods and services because of its unique characteristics.
In 1821, the United Kingdom started using gold as the standard, or the single reference metal, to back its paper currency system. Under the gold standard, a single unit of currency was freely convertible at home or abroad into a fixed amount of gold. In the 1870s, this system was adopted by other trading nations like Germany, France and the United States. This system called for fixed exchange rates among the participating currencies. It was designed to bring automatic adjustment to balance of payment imbalances.
The gold standard had two main advantages. First, it gave a stable monetary framework for international trade and investment, and second, it minimised the risk of internal inflation. But the system also had great disadvantages. Besides the risk and cost involved in shipping gold from one country to another, the system required the participating countries to give absolute priority to external adjustments.
Domestic objectives focused on the resolution of problems like recession, unemployment and inflation, and were secondary. Because of the limited supply of freshly mined gold, the system was also not sufficiently flexible to supply enough money to meet the growing needs of the world economy.
The outbreak of World War I brought an end to the full gold standard. Severe restrictions on gold export were placed by most trading nations. After the end of the war, the system was replaced by a gold-exchange standard under which the participating countries could maintain their currencies convertible into gold at a stable rate of exchange, without having to keep as large a gold reserve as was required under the full gold standard. They could supplement their central bank gold reserves with reserve currencies, like the United States dollar, which were convertible into gold at a stable rate of exchange. The Great Depression of the 1930s brought this system to an end.
The United States came out of World War II as the most powerful nation on earth and the United States dollar, in effect, became the principal reserve currency of the world. In 1958, most major European countries accepted free convertibility of their currencies into dollars or gold at fixed exchange rates. But the Vietnam War and the consequent runaway deficit in the US balance of payments forced the United States in 1971 to abandon this system of free convertibility of dollars into gold at fixed exchange rates. Thus gold's central role in the world currency system came to an end.
If gold has lost its central role in the international monetary system, why do financial analysts still keep monitoring the price of gold so closely? Because, in the current worldwide recession, the relative strength or weakness of the world's number one reserve currency, the trillions of dollars worth of stimulus packages pumped into fragile economies, the expanding deficits in the US and Europe, the low interest rates, the fear of runaway inflation and the price of gold have, in more than one way, become interconnected.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to assess exactly how these factors influence each other. But past experience has shown that in times of economic recession in the United States (by far the largest economy of the world), there is a tendency for gold prices to rise and as soon as the recession is over, gold prices tend to fall. In other words, in times of crisis, gold is used as a hedge against uncertainties.
In this context, the other factor to be considered is that though gold has lost its central role in the monetary system, central banks across the world still hold significant quantities of gold as part of their reserves. For example, it is estimated that the value of gold held by the United States Federal Reserve at current price equals approximately 15% of the US monetary base. In 2009, India, Russia, Sri Lanka purchased substantial quantities of gold, which, no doubt, had an impact on current gold prices.
So what is the conclusion? Will the gold price keep rising in the future or will it fall when the dollar becomes stable and the economic recession is over? Most probably, it will fall. After all, in January 1980, when political and economic uncertainties caused by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Islamic Revolution in Iran forced the gold price to hit a record of $850 an ounce (equal to inflation-adjusted $2,200 of today), many people thought that it would never come down. Twenty years after that record price, the price of gold today, even after the recent rises, barely reaches the $1,100 mark.
Jan 11th
This brings the total number of dropped sponsors to 98.
Alpro Soya’s statement:
Thank you for your email.
We have spoken to our media buying agency who place all of our advertising and they are aware of the situation. In fact they are in the process of pulling all advertising out of this TV channel and that includes the Alpro soya advert.
I hope this reassures you of our best intentions and hope that your confidence in Alpro soya is now fully restored. Thank you for taking the time to bring this issue to our attention.
Kindest Regards
Kimberley Scholes
Alpro Customer Care
Big thanks to the Stop Beck – UK Effort and everyone else participating in this cause. Great work all!
Jan 8th
Our Media buying agency has assured Virgin Atlantic that no further advertising will appear around this show
This brings the total number of dropped sponsors to 97. Many thanks to Stop Beck – UK Effort and all those who tweeted and emailed Virgin Atlantic.
Jan 7th
This morning, ING DIRECT advised that their ads will no longer appear “in or around” Glenn Beck’s show.
This brings the total number of dropped sponsors to 96. Many thanks all for your efforts!
Statements:
Martin Rutland, head of corporate communications for ING DIRECT, offered this statement:
“ING Direct UK has confirmed they do not sponsor or endorse the Glenn Beck show. Additionally, no ING Direct advertisements are being screened during or either side of this show and there are no plans to do so in the future.”
I replied:
Source: 
