While the neo-cons have rapture, the rest of us have rupture, partly due to GWB at the behest of his wingnut cohorts and "special interests". Congratulations George, you have achieved a specious phenomenon: the world is a much poorer place, the arctic ice won't be with us much longer, Iraq and Afghanistan are in a deeper quagmire than your lackeys have imagined, the grand illusion about an Iraqi windfall is just that, an illusion, and the world is largely united against you.

Rupture: noun 1: breach of peace or concord; specifically : open hostility or war between nations; 2: the tearing apart of a tissue <rupture of the heart muscle>; 3: a breaking apart or the state of being broken apart.
Verb 1 a: to part by violence : break, burst b: to create or induce a breach of.

Back in 2003, the Washington Post told us that U.S. embassies around the globe were inundating Washington with cables saying that the world both hates and mistrusts this "dry drunk",

megalomaniac who would be laughable except for the fact that he represents a power structure as demented as he is.

They weren't wrong.

My email box this morning bristled with an inordinate amount of messages from various food agencies but the one that I opened up straight away came from the FAO, with a link to their latest pdf prepared & published for next week's high level conference on world food security in Rome.

"Speculators outside of the food industry pouring money into financial mechanisms in the commodity markets could be cause for concern"

In a far-reaching report on global food prices, the UN questions the contribution of institutional investors to the recent turmoil in commodity markets.

"A key concern now is the participation of new agents that are perceived to be motivated by risk-diversification to the exclusion of serious assessment of price levels,

A month ago I wrote a diary which, gasp, dared to suggest that indeed there was a tidal wave of investors and speculators pouring into the futures markets for corn, wheat, rice and other commodities and who were driving up prices.

An outbreak of sharp eyespot disease (SED), which affects cereals, is threatening 72.46 million mu (4.83 million hectares) of wheat in China's major producing regions, according to local agricultural authorities.

This is exactly what I warned about in earlier diaries on the grain situation. With grain inventories at 40 year lows and demand booming the earth cannot afford any crop failures or outbreak of diseases that will lower yields. All we need is a drought here and a pestilence there, and we're toast.

Do you know if the Democrats have a plan of action 'cause we sure can't rely on the repukes to come up with anything except showering bombs anywhere in the Middle East.

The sharp increase in food prices over the last couple of years has raised serious concerns about the food and nutrition situation of poor people in developing countries, about runaway inflation, and in some countries, growing civil unrest, as food riots break out across the globe.

Much has been written in these boards about the causes of rising prices and it should be noted that one of the major culprit is the shadow of "a new hunger" that has made food far too expensive for millions. Rising prices for all the world's crucial cereal crops and growing fears of scarcity are sending shivers through international markets, creating turmoil and, as GWB is fond of stating his newly found word, uncertainty.

Uncertainty creates panic buying. Brokers know this well.