The REALLY good side of college sports. Do names like Omar, Lua, Torres, Ting, Chavez and Matua along with the always present McDonald, Adams, Spanos, and so on appear in your work place? In your department? On the executive wash room list? Well they do on the playing roster of the University of Southern California football team. Every color, every eye shape, and one presumes every religion is not only playing, but kicking ass on a top college team. This is the very good side of college football. Diversity based on merit. No, it's merit only and when it's "merit only" Diversity is the result. Nobody is playing on this team because some liberal bean counter demanded so many "Latinos" or something else. Sports on the college level and the entire military from top to bottom show what can be done based on merit. USC broke the "color barrier" in the SEC back in the 70's when their black players kicked the shit out of all white Alabama; yesterday a United Nations football team kicked the shit out of an exclusive club of black southern players. Not a bad deal.

SPORTS SECTION

Under the NEW YORK TIMES IS STILL FULL OF IT file I refer you to the Sport Section (ho ho) where they featured the awesome backs allegedly going to school at Auburn and under their pictures they asked: "Can anybody stop them?" Final score: USC 23 Auburn 0 and the three backs put together didn't make 70 yards. This is more "praise southern blacks bullshit" from our liberal media elite. If you want to see a virtual United Nations football team you need look no further than USC; Africa, the South Pacific, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and NO EU chickenshits. They even have a guy named Omar (Nizel); you don't hear too many camel jockey jokes around there. The New York Times can't even cover sports straight.

Oh, for those of you with outstanding children athletes read this. Kyle Boller was a legendary high school quarterback in Southern California, most people who saw him thought he was the best ever from that area. He chose to go to school at Cal Berkeley so he could be coached by a former all pro from the 49ers, a guy named Holmo who turned out to be the worst coach in the history of the school. His last year there he was coached by an former Oregon assistant coach who was air minded (Telford) and he put up good numbers. He was drafted down at tenth round or something. He is now the starter for the Baltimore Ravens whose coach regards him as the best talent he has ever seen. The lesson here is that if you have a kid who is gifted in sports you better send the kid to a tried and true program. I predict that Boller will be the "find" of the year. When you see the velocity on his ball you think of Brett Farve and John Elway; when you see the accuracy you will think Kurt Warner vintage 1999. Just wait.

GIBSON'S "MESSIAH" OR FUCK YOU JUST IN CASE

I'm seeing this movie because all the people against it are telling me not to. An artistic selectivity based on "fuck you just in case" or in this instance nobody is going to tell me what not to see, what is bad for me or society, or bad for Jews. I grew up in a Jewish Catholic household (The Church was always banning stuff and I was always seeing stuff) and the hypersensitivity of Jews always made me laugh inside; there was some Jewish Mafia guys, Mickey Cohen and Myer Lansky that used to drive them nuts ("don't they know what they are doing to "us" with all this shooting?"). It is now clear that the Jewish community and the ACLU will do anything to stop this movie. ANYBODY, and trust me I have read some scholarly things on the life of Jesus and those times, anybody who knows that era knows that some powerful and wealthy Jews set Jesus up and the Romans killed him. So Mickey Cohen and Myer Lansky turned Jesus over to Al Capone and he was killed. That's it.

There's lots of discussion going on about a picture nobody has seen and too many people want me not to see. I'm seeing it. There is a discussion about Gibson being frozen out of theatres over at Josh Claybourn's site, which is a very good site if you haven't been there, but have no fear Gibson will get his movie shown. In Claybourn's comments section I posted the following:

I produced five movies in my ill spent and horrid youth. Here's facts: you have to fight the unions because their rules will ruin you; you have to know some independent distributors or you will get raped no matter what your grosses are; but finally you have to find the "niche".

Back in the days what we used to do was "four wall " it, meaning that we'd rent out the theaters ourselves and keep 100% of the gross. The other way, and this is how Fox and many other companies started, is to "tent" it; meaning literally to buy a big tent and show the goddam thing. Now Gibson will have to deal with the Christian hating ACLU, much of the Jesus hating Left, and so on but this movie WILL see wide viewing. Gibson has laid it out there and he will go the whole nine yards to be sure people see it. Don't forget he will have pals in the church community who will make churches available.

There's lots of ways to get around the big money and like one of your commentators said, I too will see the movie, just because.

I am as agnostic as a person can get but I resent the forces that are trying to eliminate Christianity from our consciousness. I'm pissed in fact. I may even learn Aramaic, the language in the film, so I don't have to read subtitles.

Road map of a coverup of MEChA can be found at Google News where you see that only "Right Wing" blogs, NewsMax and World Net Daily, tell anything about the racist org. Everyone else calling it a student activist group in spite of the public displays published by MEChA of what they really are. HERE AND HERE if you haven't read from their own lips who they are.

BLUE STATE RUNAWAYS: THE "I WANT YOU TO PAY FOR MY WANTS, I DON'T WANT TO PAY FOR YOURS" LIBERALS

Populations are fleeing the terror in record numbers, except the "terror" is the Welfare States of California and New York. Here's one stat for you: you've got to earn $45,000 in the Big Apple to buy what $7,191 gets in Durham NC. The WSJ on line has the gory details but comes to a typically Right Wing conculsion; they say this means the red states will get redder. WRONG these people are the socialists who voted the tax and spend Democrats into office and they will continue their behavior wherever they move to. This is NOT good news for the Republicans. Read the online version here A thought provoking read. My proof? New Mexico where the fleeing Left took residence in one place: the metropolitan Santa Fe. Check the maps on the last election. Bush won every county but lost Santa Fe, enough to turn the state to Gore. Again, this is NOT good news for Republicans, it's great news for Hillary liberalism and Howard Dean. My thoughts are exactly what all the responders to the article think too at the WSJ reader response page. These are simply greedy "take care of me" left wing shitheads and they will make the red states blue. They only leave because they don't want to take care of anyone else.

Economy and MarketsDON'T THINK, DON'T LISTEN

For the small investor: 5K to 25K
Whatever you hear, just watch your numbers, your charts, or whatever it is you watch for MARKET INFORMATION. The only important news this week happens Friday at 8:30EDT; that is when the jobs number comes out (unemployment) and the number there is important. I am depressed as you are about Iraq (good stuff here); even more pissed off than you are about gasoline prices; enraged at local media where I live that covers up stories; BUT I know I must not allow my emotions to affect my trading. My natural gas/gasoline post below is depressing, I can't help it. You need to know what is out there. Reality is that the rise in gasoline prices completely wipes out the tax cut; heating oil prices for the winter are going to be at least 50% above normal and natural gas prices will be at least double what you've been paying. These will negate the tax cut; in fact these prices are the same as a new tax. Pay no attention. Only get out of your positions on NUMBERS. Chances are that all of that negative news is already IN the markets. Mutual Funds with their obscene amounts of money still make their quarterly moves in order to look good; hedge funds ditto. Stay focused and pay no attention to anything. The markets themselves still look strong. But if your sell signals say sell, sell. September and October are traditionally rough months (August too but it was stellar). You can always buy back in at a lower price.

EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT NATURAL GAS BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK

We could have a French style body count this winter and gasoline may cost too much to transport the bodies to the morgue.
Unlike what I and many others believed, retail gasoline prices aren't coming down any time soon. Iraq oil will be back on line September 4th and the smart money is betting the pipeline will be blown up no later than September 6th. It is the failure to bring this promised oil into the market that is causing the current high crude prices (gasoline too).

Natural gas is an even bigger problem. Enviros have stopped all drilling for the fields upon fields of natural gas available in this country. The normal price has been under $2. Right now it is over $5 for all winter months and it will go to $8 if we have a freeze with no new supply. If you live in a cold climate outside the heating oil burning east coast, you use natural gas. You are fucked. No. You are raped. Your heating bills could triple. You could actually run out of natural gas.

There are problems in getting correct inventory numbers on natural gas. This is because as a gas the volume expands in hot weather and contracts in cold weather. So a mathematical formula is brought into play to measure it. The real interesting thing is Liquified Natural Gas, natural gas made so cold that the volume shrinks. Even more interesting is that once "re-gassified" it can be pumped BACK INTO THE GROUND and stored that way, instead of in some big open air tank. BUT, BUT, BUT you meant the liquid gas has to be "re-gassified", like warmed up so it can be used? Thaaaaat's right and here come the enviro wackos and the NIMBYS

LNG re-gasification terminals are viewed as large, obstructive and generally displeasing to the eye for local residents and businesses. Although designs to bury such large facilities underground have been forthcoming, general apprehension related to the "don't build in my backyard" philosophy still emphatically exists. So, like oil refineries, we don't have the capacity to re-gassify as we should.

Even more weird, since you can store the crap underground by pumping it back into the ground, some companies have done just that. And guess what? The government has no idea how much is sitting in this type of storage right now. Neither does API. So.....is there enough gas for the winter or isn't there?, that is the question. Right now NOBODY knows and that is one of the reasons traders left for holiday one day early.

Have a nice winter.

Oh, and did I mention a terrorist attack? One on a re-gassification plant would cause an explosion like your wife catching you with another man. Well, not quite. Even though an LNG explosion of an entire ship would only be bad, the enviros are picturing it as a mushroom cloud explosion capable of killing hundreds of thousands.

And did I mention FERC? That's a government regulatory body that won't let companies that build and own re-gassification plants SELL their product to anyone other than a FERC desiginated buyer. Meaning no free market. Meaning no profits unless the government says they can have a profit. And the government decides how much. Sort of hurts investment too.

Have a nice year and may you spend Christmas in a bathing suit.

Athletes are victims, Volume 507 Ramon Castro, a MARRIED catcher for the Marlins has been charged with rape. His lawyer says athletes have these "special problems". Right, like taking a woman you just met in a bar into a hotel room. This poor athlete has been charged with everything you can think of besides kindness and concern. Hey, all you Victim Athletes who are married. You don't go into a hotel room with another woman. End of story. And isn't it strange that actors and writers and musicians almost never get caught up in that? It's not that they are pure. It's that they have the brains to stay away from bar sluts, waitresses, bell hops, and the ushers at their events. If you're going to cheat on your wife, cheat with somebody who has something to lose TOO.

WE FACE A FRENCH STYLE DEATH TOLL THIS WINTER

We are in serious trouble with gasoline supplies and the WSJ (sub required) did a very good job reporting it yesterday. We are simply using far too much and don't have the refining capacity to make enough. It looks like high retail prices are here; in both northern and southern California unleaded is well over $2 and still close to $2.60 in Phoenix. One stat for you, back in the mid 80's refineries operated at less than 80% of capacity; this gave them time to repair them, use reformulated gasoline, change things and so on. Now, discounting the seven refineries shut down for a week due to the blackout, they are operating at 91%, which has been the case for several years. That means they have no flexibility at all; every time one or two shut down for maintenance a shortage is created. We may be looking at the new high prices for a long time. The storage and supply data is not in the market because "traders", as opposed to hedgers, just threw up their hands and went on vacation, because there was a huge difference between the Department of Energy figures and the API numbers. I don't want to sound like an SUV bashing Left Wing Terrorist but I think consumer fuel consumption has to be curbed. We may even find ourselves in WWII rationing by 2008 if we don't. Time to put away politics and look at reality, part of which is building more refineries, something the envornuts have stopped for twenty years. We are now paying for this environmentalism too. And natural gas supplies are in even worse shape due exclusively to the environmental lobby halting the drilling for natural gas. All who laughed at the French body count from the heat this summer may see the same here this winter because people freeze to death in our big cities. This is a major disaster waiting to happen; a disaster that is only covered from this phony environmentalist angle by our media. Alan Greenspan warned about "exuberance" in the stock market and look what happened; he has warned "that we are headed into a dire situation" regarding natural gas. Wake up.

The entire gutless LA media is covering up the Bustemente MEChA connection., not to mention MEChA itself ("a student activist organization"). Kissing ass with the Mexican population here. So if you live in LA and don't surf the web, you don't know about it. But you can bet your life they cover The Nazi Dad, the Schwarzenbangengen sex stuff, and anything else the left here can come up with.

I'M EITHER A GENIUS OR A FORTUNE TELLER

In my post on Friday, August 22nd here I stated that the Democrats would refuse to recognize that the recovery has been caused by the tax cuts (and the attached dividend cuts to same) and that it was just a question of time before they announced the recovery would have been even better without them. Taaaaa Daaaaa. These lying slimeballs not only came out with the charge, they fabricated the data they used to prove it. Starting with a Slate fabrication and then the Tax me Tax me army, the beat goes on. This disgraceful tissue of balderdash (Ancient Greek for bullshit) uses data that would put any broker or investment firm that used it out of the business and possibly charged. NRO tries to fisk this clown but the fisking is too complicated. Let me do it in a simple way, simple because I am a simpleton and know how. It is fraud if I tell you that had you invested in the stock market you made 500% by 1965 and I used data that I "cherry picked" to prove my point by starting my "proof" at November 1929 stock market bottom and ending 1965. You are not allowed to do that. One must specify the data and start from a high point, for example September of 1929 to 1965. This guy, Daniel Gross(out), violates this rule. THEN to "prove" that dividend tax relief didn't work he takes data from before the tax bill went into effect and calculates forward. NRO spelled out this fiasco really well

The stock market is at or near its year-to-date high, and it logged most of its recovery since April--— when the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress got serious about enacting the tax cuts. The burden of proof is squarely on anyone who'd try to say that the tax cuts didn't boost the market like the administration said they would.

This jerk-off Gross starts his "study of dividends" from June, like you know, THIS fucking June as in 75 days ago long AFTER companies started paying big dividends to boost their stock price. Then thisGrosss(out) scumbag goes back to JANUARY to dig up more data BEFORE there was a dividend tax break to calculate data. Again, let me guarantee you that any financial firm stating data in that fashion would be prosecuted, especially in today's business climate.

THEN, in order to make another non point, Gross(out) goes back to 1980 to calculate. I am a person trained in technical analysis. I understand the process. You cannot go back that far for a few of the following reasons: about 1500 companies have vanished ( Goodyear, U.S. Steel, and Texaco have been replaced on the DOW by MacDonalds, Intel, and Microsoft to name just a few); there have been so many mergers no one can count how many; there have been so many new companies formed no one can count how many (these NEW companies start from zero); there were no options (not on stocks, stock indexes, ANYTHING) and options act to reduce volatilityy and risk; but the biggest reason is TAAAA DAAA---- that the indexes themselves have been changed; hundreds of the 1980 S&P 500 have been changed (added or dropped) and the Dow has been changed a number of times. as has the "weighting".

Going back to 1980 to extrapolate data is fraud on its face.

Take a good look at Don Luskin's piece in NRO but I told you guys: the Liberals would say the stock market was better without tax breaks for dividends. But for the life of me I didn't know how they'd make it all up. The lying of the Left simply astounds me.

Hillary considering a run right now and it's all because of Howard Dean's big showing. I said here that Hillary was toast in '08 because Dean has been the one to stand up. In my opinion it is still too late for her. She is purely an opportunist with no principals at all. Dean, like him or not, agree with him or not, has stood for principal. If nothing else he has slain The Hillary. Good for him.

Gasoline prices eased about six cents per gallon in the distant months, all months are under a dollar. It looks like the retail price will drop from here. The cash dropped .05 but is still over a dollar. There is still the mild threat of a short squeeze but I don't think it will affect retail prices. Meantime the numbers from the API/DOE came in about as expected, the refinery shutdowns in the east affecting gasoline stocks. The refineries have been operating full bore since they went back on line which is good for the east coast.

Stop EU heatwave death tolls on the cheap just install portable a/c units in every apartment for people over 55. Or build those big ice making units and allow the elderly to buy bags of ice on the dole and put the bags into bath tubs so they can bathe in cold water to cool off. Cheaper yet is swimming pools with cooling units. BUT BUT that would mean the "health care professionals" would be frozen out of jobs, money, and stuff like that. REAL problem with installing a/c? Electricity use would soar, the French don't have enough power, power lines, or the capital to invest in same. Chances are this heat wave is a 100 year event and won't repeat. If this is a climate change, meaning climate is reverting to the middle ages, then EU will have to go to a/c. For the longest history of warming and cooling trends on the planet go HERE. You'll learn stuff like the Mayans starved to death (no dirty white EU shitheads around to kill them off so the PC crowd doesn't want you to know), just how warm Iceland and Greenland was at one time (the Vikings didn't call it Greenland because it had green ice), and the Romans and Vikings thought of England as "The Sunshine State".

Forty-eight percent (48%) of Americans believe the country is still in a recession, while 30% say it is not. Among investors, 46% say the country is in a recession while 38% disagree. For non-Investors, those numbers are 49% and 25%. This according to the Rasmussen Poll. He is well regarded BUT he also polls by phone. This figure on "investors" is probably why we are in a trading range right now, too many poeple are hiding out and paying no attention to the actual numbers. These are the "investors" who are always wrong no matter what they do. But these numbers are from one of the top polling people around.

Arnold's polling and polling in general is getting worse because of cell phones. In states like California where it seems that 90 percent of us are wireless, the young have no land lines at all, preferring to use the combo of cell phones with free time plus the now super cheap beeper/voice mail as a land line number. The result, for young and old, is that they are not reachable for polling. Thus polling measures the old farts sitting around the house with nothing to do. NOBODY is going to sit still for a poll taken on a cell phone when the person polled PAYS for the call. To show you just how serious this is, incoming telephone sales rooms, the ones that take all the TV deals and phony foreclosure and car auction ads in the throwaway papers, those operator/salespeople get paid a bounty for collecting cell phone numbers and are fired if they don't ask each caller for their cell phone number. We have at least 1/3 of our urban population in California unreachable by conventional land line telephones.

Governor Gangenbangen?

Is this leak from Arnold's friends or his enemies? The Smoking Gun piece broken by Drudge might get him a hell of a lot more votes than it costs him. Certainly helps him with the gay crowd, probably with the young hetero sex starved men, and maybe lots of men in general. Hurts him with the religious Right and a lot of women. The only thing I wonder about is the term "gang bang" , which implies a non-consensual rape. Obviously in Arnold's case they were all consensual. Doesn't help him with lots of women though. We'll just have to see. Lots of people now call him Schwarzenbanger, von Orgy, and one guy on TV called him "Gangenbangen". As he simultaneously sets out his positions he looks more and more like a New York Times centerist, with no opinion that might disturb anybody on anything except the budget.

The Ten Cs in Alabama not OK but it's OK to have an Indian Totem celebrating religion of a minority on the courthouse steps in Juno. I'd explain why it's OK but you are all too stupid to understand; new Supremes Decision at 11 that you won't understand either.

I never tout books but NRO reviews a book about trashy movies that sounds good. Check it out.

EPA to ban ice cream if the evironuts get their way. Dioxin, the enviro-EPA favorite "worst health threat on the planet", is the reason. Even though there is proof it is harmless.

A single serving of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, for example, has been measured to contain about 2,000 times the amount of dioxin that the EPA claims is safe according to its new assessment.

Fraud within the EPA under this Republican Administration is rampant and this Dioxin fiasco is just part. See the story HERE. The power of these so-called enviros has got to be curbed and the way to curb it is to examine every charge they make, but when the government agency charged with examining charges is corrupt nothing works. I've said it before and I say it again: these environmental groups want to use environmentalism as a vehicle to destroy our economic system; period.

One way to lower gasoline prices is to double the margins (cash you have to put up) to trade a contract at the futures exchanges. That is why the futures prices fell yesterday. This acted to force out the small speculators looking to make a buck on the shortages and helped to "match" contracts. We are not out of the woods yet, but the woods are thinning. The problem is still out there because the "back months" (months other than Sep) rallied sharply. Today's API report will tell us something. Expect a "build" in crude due to refinery shutdowns due to blackout but a drop in gasoline. If gasoline supplies drop more than 3 million barrels the September contract could go crazy even with the margins. This futures market does indicate retail cash prices near term. Governments, state and Federal, could help by a temporary halt in taxes....BUT OUR GOVERNMENTS? Don't turn blue holding your breath.

BYE BYE HILLARY IN 08???

It's amazing how quickly Howard Dean turned to the Right. And don't think he can't win. Will he hold his base? Does he care? This WaPo piece is just one of many, but he is now really really running. And Bush IS in trouble as I have stated many times here. If Dean gets traction to the center he will be the odds on favorite to run in 08. The script will be that when Hillary laid in the weeds like a left wing chickenshit Howard Dean stood up, said something, and RAN. LINK to WaPo courtesy of Glenn Reynolds. Google News, keeping their useless reputation in tact, has no links at all.

U.S. Temps Over 100 Blamed in Two Deaths -----French advise U.S. to blame UN. I mean why not? They didn't take care of the victims.

Under reasons to tour the web once in a while in reading the comments on Bill Quick's great site a commenter suggested reading Neal Bootz's site. I hadn't hit it in a long time, shame on me. In addition to an outstanding take on the Alabama Ten Commandments hulabaloo, he posts this within a commentary on "tax the rich":

Republican candidate Peter Ueberroth has some interesting statistics for those of you who think this "tax the rich" thing is such a good idea. In 2001 there were 44,000 taxpayers in California reporting incomes of $1,000,000 or more. One year later there are only 29,000. In 2000 millionaires paid $15 billion in California income taxes. That was 37% of the total amount of state income tax paid by all Californians. One year later this figure was cut almost in half, down to $8 billion or 25% of total state income taxes paid. Some of this is due to reduced incomes for some high-achievers. But the evidence is clear. .....

Go there, it's more than worth it. Late add emailer Katherine K let me know that the stats in this case are seriously flawed. She pointed out that the "millionaires" included the dot com guys who actually went broke and that nobody knows where a lot of them went etc. So......????? Thanks Katherine.

Most popular show on TV? Everyone at a party on Sunday, male and female, young and old, said they watched g the World Series of Poker on ESPN a show with no regular start time. A Taco Bell Survey? Yeah, but I think this may be a very popular show. BTW The kid, Moneymaker beat the pro Farha in the final final final. And Moneymaker's starting capital in the Tournament? $40! $40 to enter a qualifying tournament and then a 10K buy in and he walked away with a TWO AND A HALF MILLION. I mean you have to love it. Factual corrections supplied by emailer David P., Thanks David even though this was a better story when it wasn't right.

OPEC AND ENVIROS ARE VILLAINS, AGAIN

More gasoline news from one of the TOP energy traders in the business: The blackout in the East that shut down 7 refineries stressed an already stressed supply situation. The pipeline outage in Arizona stressed supplies even further. To top it off, reduced production from OPEC who feared the promised Iraq oil that was to come back on the market, BUT IRAQ OIL HAS NEVER SHOWED UP due in large part to the blown up pipeline and the looting at Basra by Kuwaitis.
OPEC lied. Leading up to the Iraq war, the IEA and the US Dept of Energy had a quid pro quo with OPEC. There was a general agreement between the parties that the US and the IEA would not release reserve oil and OPEC would supply the market with plenty of oil. OPEC may have during the war but they sure aren't now! OPEC is perfectly happy about oil being above $30.00 per barrel and it's discouraging us from building inventory. This lack of build means our supplies are tight and leaves us vulnerable to price spikes. OPEC's lack of cooperation to step up oil production is putting our economic recovery in danger. They need to step up pumping and do it now!
An Exxon cat cracker in Joliet, Illinois was shut down over the weekend due to unscheduled repairs. This will add a few more pennies per gallon for Illinois drivers.
Terror threats are causing us to put oil INTO the strategic reserve. The FBI warned yesterday that petroleum and power plants are targets in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Traders think that after Friday, prices will ease. The short squeeze is looking better as NYMEX is reporting most sales now matched. Lots of recommendations to go long Natural Gas again because environmentalists are fighting natural gas drilling, this will kill people in low temp areas.

Above notes are from HUGE traders who are friends of mine. they think all the BAD NEWS is now in the market. Short squeeze is less of a fear at 3PM EDT.

EEEEKK IT'S THAT HORRIBLE SOCIALISM

Did Socialism kill old people in the French heat wave? Did capitalism kill all those people in the Chicago heat wave of 1995? Did Democracy kill everybody in the big freeze of 1947? These are moronic statements but Virginia Postrel and the rest of the New Right would like to blame Socialism for the French deaths this time. You could credit socialism for keeping those old farts alive past their time, but nobody wants to say that. You could blame the French weather for being so mild for 100 years that nobody anywhere had air conditioning, but you don't hear that. Ask yourselves this: How many people would die in Los Angeles if the temperatures dropped to 20 degrees and stayed there for thirty days? Would you blame the Democrats? Capitalism? Republicans? Come on. Virginia Postrel is an intellectual fraud and so is Dynamism. So is much of the so-called Right. What would the people of Los Angeles say if the mayor suddenly called for totally new building codes for everyone everywhere so the population could be ready for twenty degree weather? The European heat wave hit a part of the earth that up til this year has been blessed with mild climate. Naturally they were unprepared for a heat wave.

There are too many people "on the so-called Right" with too much time on their hands.

NOT GOOD NEWS FOR GASOLINE PRICES; A CLASSIC "SHORT SQUEEZE" COULD HAPPEN

The pros give reasons for high gasoline prices (Later info is above)
1, Discount SoCal AZ broken pipeline, that is over and prices will be OK by Wednesday
2. The blackout back east knocked refineries down for almost a week.
3. The literally insane variety of gasoline mixtures required by local govenments make it dam near impossible to have supplies on hand once they run short.

While foreign gasoline is available, it either doesn't arrive in time for the Nymex September delivery or doesn't meet the fall specifications, which allow for higher vapor pressure, said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, a provider of gasoline commentary.

Translation: Foreigners won't reformulate gasoline for us so they sell regualr gasoline to now recovering Asia.
4. Because all future gasoline is traded at the NYMEX and contracts are standardized

"So with just five days of trading left in the Nymex contract, there are real worries about everyone performing as required for the September futures delivery," he said. The September contract for unleaded gasoline expires at the end of Friday's trading session.

Translation here: prices could go much higher because there isn't enough gasoline to deliver against the contract. Local enviro regs are screwing all of us. There is no gasoline that meet all the regs.
5. Problems in oil producing countries

Additionally, "Iraq is slow to develop, Nigeria is trying to suppress fighting in the south, and Venezuela's political problems could resurface again at anytime"

6. Oil production traditionally falls during September, with no environmental give by our conservative administration in Washington, and with demand on the rise, don't look for lower gasoline prices soon. Bad news for the economy

The SHORT SQUEEZE: Here's what happens when supplies run low. Imagine you are a person who buys gasoline on the open market for delivery to others later. What you always do is sell it "in the future", meaning if you buy it in June and expect to deliver the end August (called the September contract). BUT YOU USUALLY SELL IT BEFORE YOU HAVE IT. Most likely in April or May. You have taken the money. This means you MUST deliver. In the language of the trade you are "short" gasoline. OK, September rolls around and you DON'T HAVE the gasoline because you sold it months ago at fifty cents and were unable to actually buy gasoline for less than that price. Now the price is seventy five cents and you have been "waiting" for prices to drop----along with a thousand other gasoline operators. ALL of you, one thousand of you, are "SHORT" gasoline and the people with whom you signed contracts are "squeezing" you for product. You now have to scramble on the open market and pay any price to deliver. The government would have to act NOW but they are sleeping in Crawford TX, or other vacation spots and paying no attention. When August 29th rolls around (the delivery date on the September contract) you could see gasoline prices at almost anything. This is what can happen when government doesn't intervene in markets. The strategic reserve could, and should, have been made available weeks ago. If there is one thing these guys in the administration understand completely it is oil, the oil business, and energy. They won't release the reserve, if they ever do, until after prices get crazy. Get ready. Watch your financial section under September Unleaded Gasoline. This could be bad for stocks no matter what the jobs number is on September 5. Later add: The meaningless but much reported Consumer Confidence number is up big; New Home sales are through the roof. It looks like everyone but the Democratic Left knows the economy is roaring. Consumer Confidence report from a prior posting

CONSUMER CONFIDENCE: Again the most useless stat there is. It's done by the University of Michigan and all they survey is the labor force, the most uninformed segment of the society. They get their info from network TV and don't read at all (The Globe and Enquirer don't count). There is another poll HERE that measures both the labor force and the investor class. This is the only poll that is accurate. He measures both the investor class (45%) and the labor force (55%) and he does it every day and measures it against a month ago each day. His figures have been rising for quite a while. Keep in mind that the investor class gets their news from cable news, the web, the Journal, IBD, and the major daily newspapers. This class is well informed and usually ahead of the curve.

The markets won't do much this week, people are on vacation and trading is thin. I personally think that the Indexes are once again in a trading range; gasoline prices a major negative.

Market note The high retail gasoline prices are topic du jour on Bloomberg and CNBC this AM. The prices posted look like LA prices yesterday: $2.09 to $2.39. Everybody is pissed and this could hurt both the markets and the still silent Bush. Keep in mind that posted prices from CA include 38 cents in taxes so subtract for your area. The economic data, you know, the actual economy, is booming with housing RESALES up again. LITTLE NOTED VALUE LINE INDEX shows stock market hit an all time high last week. This index is not weighted, all stocks are the same regardless of market cap. It shows that smaller companies are leading the rally and that this thing is for absolute real. Most pro insiders watch this index. For the rest of us it is a guide, but a very relaiable one.

100 degrees for the past several weeks and the pool was 90 degrees. Where? Encino in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. Difference from Paris? A/C in all the houses, restaurants, markets, etc., and people eating ice (cream, frosties etc.). In other words we know how to live in the heat. Encino is not the hottest place around here, those honors go to Woodland Hills and Chatsworth, places that average five to ten degrees hotter. My grandson is at football practice six days per week (just like all of us used to do) and my other grandson plays summer hockey (his parents and he are smart), but also rides dirt bikes in the outside almost every day. Nobody dies. I still think those French numbers are bogus.

California's so-called conservatives will kill Arnold in order to retain their ideological purity. They are like a Taliban, either you do EVERYTHING I like or we will fight you and destroy you. They haven't won here in a lifetime and won't win again. The national Republican Party could fall to these articulators of a flawless conservative view and die as well. I don't know what it is about this state that seems to breed unyielding extremists on both Left and Right but we do. Arnold will have to pull the center or he will lose because the Right is always Right and there is only one true message the anointed will accept. It's like a Robert E. Lee syndrome; look good losing and kill 100,000 of your own troops along with you in the bargain. Total bullshit.

The black-white divide gets worse turning loose a murderer because the killings were done "for" black people is the latest. Go to Front Page for the story, but the OJ jury was no accident, and all it will take is one juror and Kobe will walk too. Evidence means nothing. Blacks are in a Third World inside this country. And it's nice to know that the New York Times actually covered this story straight, but has not disclosed the clear racism of the "parole officers".

$5 million offer to Kobe victim branded as absurd in email exchanges with two attorney friends. Both consider any offer like that in a criminal case a bribe, and would result in long prison terms for any attorney involved in such a thing. This is not a civil case. It is a criminal case. You don't bribe a witness in a criminal case. So forget this story. It didn't happen. If if did happen, somebody will go to jail.

BUSH IN MAJOR TROUBLE

Published this AM on VOA,

the majority of American voters would not like to see President Bush re-elected to another term according to a poll by Newsweek magazine.

Even worse are the reasons

Only 18 percent of those polled believe a stable, democratic government can be set up in Iraq in the long term. And only 13 percent of respondents said U.S. efforts to establish security in Iraq and rebuild the country have gone well since May 1, when combat officially ended.

The methodology in all polls is in question because these are land line telephone polls in a nation that is increasingly wireless. The last election showed how far off these polls have become. However there is not doubt that Bush is in trouble and his trouble is spelled R u m s f e l d; specifically his miserable planning for Iraq after the war. The same poll finds that nearly 70 percent of Americans feel the United States will be bogged down in Iraq for years without achieving its goals.
The economy is troubling people too and again the methodology of the poll is in question because the investor class is happy, it's the labor class, the least informed class of people, that is unhappy. When the jobs numbers turn around (this week???) that will change.

This poll was taken before news of the equipment breakdowns, shortage of tires, no tracks for the tanks etc., hit the news yesterday, WHICH WERE ONLY ON FOX, DO NOT APPEAR ANYWHERE ELSE AND NOT EVEN FOX CARRIES IT ON THEIR WEB SITE, probably another phony report from this increasingly unreliable news source. Sooner or later Rumsfeld is going to have to be held accoutable; and the ultimate accountability is George W. Bush.

Also lining up against Bush is the Republican Party which increasingly sees their entire party heading over the cliff. We have to have more troops. Bush is on vacation, mentally and physically. HE IS IN TROUBLE. WE ARE IN TROUBLE. 135 guys have died because this administration did not prepare for the occupation.

All the polls, ALL of them, are showing big big problems for Bush.

It's official: EU is basically our enemy they are refusing to freeze assets of charaties that fund terror orgs. The New York Times reports same. Google News, increasingly a joke, has either gone off line again or can't locate other stories so the NYT is only link. You can bet these EU slobs will be coming to us for food in a month or so. I know what I'd LIKE to tell them. Get this: the EU is supporting Hamas, under the story that Hamas is a humanitarian organization. As I covered at length HERE, Hamas is like an old line American corrupt machine in many ways. But they are the number one terrorist org in the Middle-East. We better face facts: the EU is anti-Semitic and they are NOT our friends.

Let 'em eat.....er...um...grapes?? EU heat wave is a bonanza for the grape crop and French Wineries are raking it in. Vineyards are hauling in their most promising crop in years. With weather more like California than France, the wine farmers prepare for the best harvest in more than a century. Meanwhile back on the farm, things are bad:

cows are producing less milk, Bresse chickens are not fattening as they should, and even the country's famously stuffed ducks are growing smaller livers.

And the New York Times, publishing under their fake International Tribune name, has a big article blaming the deaths of all people in the Chicago heat wave of 1995 on.............the government. Yes folks, now we are supposed to take care of everybody during a heat wave with a new government agency and several billions of dollars. Get ready. It will be the next Democratic "issue" when temps get over 90 somewhere. BTW I still think those French body counts are from Mars. Speaking as a registered old fart, let me just bet that the people who died during the heat wave were dying anyway and they just bought the farm a few months early.

In Kansas it's 97 degrees, humidity 77%, and K-Sate and Cal are playing football before 50,000. In Paris they are in T shirts, laying around, and they are dying. It depends on what you are used to, I guess.

Partisan Economics--GOP faithful see economic glass half full. Democrats see it as nearly empty. This is crazy thinking but that is where the Left is. Numbers mean nothing to them. They are in a dream world. Drop by Rasmussen today, his polls are interesting and he is one accurate SOB. Thinking the glass is nearly empty when the stock market has moved from 7400 to 9400, jobless claims are down four weeks running and below 400,000 on the four week moving average, profits are up, yadda, yadda, ; when you think the glass is empty you are crazy. You need medication. Nuts.

TERRORISM--- ONCE AGAIN, THE INTELLECTUALS ARE WRONG

Mort Sahl once observed that, "When I said I wanted intellectuals in Washington I didn't mean I actually wanted them to run things."

As the kind of a guy who didn't read Plato's Republic in college because I didn't want to read more bullshit from a Republican, I'm reminded again of Sahl's line as I read the "analysis" of Iraq from all the usual places; you know, the thinkers from Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, and the Sorbonne.

They actually believe a guy who decides to kill himself while killing ten others has some sort of deep philosophic connection with a universal process. GET THIS: when any of us decide to kill people we have to have no thought at all. We have rage. Rage is an emotion that suppresses all thought. You just do.

"You just don't know man, what it takes to go out and take somebody down, like I mean just fucking go out and grab their money or their wallet just because they are there.....I mean we used to go out and snort and drink and smoke til we were fucking crazy laughing and just strike. Kill? Fuck, who the fuck cares? Just take. Take and stomp. That's who I am." From a guy I was helping one time. A guy who "got it" about himself but didn't know how to end it. Everybody I have come in contact with who has engaged in this type of crime simply doesn't think.

"I see some stupid bitch at a bus stop wearing a gold chain I just walk up to her and take it. That's who I am, dude. I see it. I want it. I take it. She says something I punch her face in", another guy I worked with but couldn't help at all. I asked him if he had always been "like this" and he looked at me for a long time, at least it seemed like a long time, "since the fourth grade" he finally said, "I was getting even". That was as far as we got. He didn't want to think about anything but his rage. He went away for a long time.

All of them wanted to "to go out like a man". They were going to prison, which suited them just fine.

The street criminals all belong. Belong to a group or gang that has a "philosophy", namely this is my turf, set foot in it and I'll kill you. "La Raza, Black Pride, a whole life style of sex, rape, and fighting are shows of power to the neighborhood. The ability to instill fear into everyone is important, they think fear is respect. That is their purpose. They don't think about their philosophy. They just do it. In prison they join another gang. Always racial.

The Road Goes on Forever but the Party Never Ends

These modern terrorists, the guys who actually do the deed, have put themselves into an emotional place. An emotional state. They want revenge, they talk themselves into it; revenge against (the West, America, the UN etc.) and like all gang members they want to "die like a man". The men who took out the UN Baghdad wanted to "die like men" killing others. There is no thought. The neighborhood they left behind "respects" them. Every criminal who ever lived has left notes around that sound like there's some thought there. Everybody who has ever "worked" with them knows there isn't. "I want it, I take it."

It really is that simple.

BTW Mort Sahl also said "I want to be buried in Chicago, that way I can stay active politically.", sort of an democratic terrorist.

UNION BUSTING LEFT WING SCABS LINE UP AGAINST ARNOLD>

Cybill (I didn't swallow) Shepherd and the gang get ready
Arnold quakes in his shoes as the Hollywood Left prepares to attack. The same Left Wing union busting scabs that shoot movies out of state and out of the country cheating the local union work force out of their wages, health benefits, and pensions: Cybill (I made out with Gray Davis when I was sixteen but I didn't swallow) Shepherd, Woody (won't somebody please, please, please see one of my movies) Harrelson; Barbra, Alec Baldwin, and the rest of the hate America crowd don't like Arnold. BIG DEAL. Late LA Times poll shows Bustamente busting up Arnold by a huge margin anyway. These union crooks will stick together like glue and the recall is no sure bet.

Anybody who "outs" MEChA can expect to be spammed by the angry Latinos. Read what I wrote here. This is a very dangerous group.

Economy and MarketsGASOLINE PRICES A REAL WORRY, FRENCH HEATWAVE AN OPPORTUNITY

French food crises, high gasoline prices, war in Iraq are inflation worry for first time

Link to commentary below because gasoline prices are a super worry. The ousting of the new Freddie Mac head was also not expected this week and probably caused a slight belch.

The markets look very good but will now be on hold for a while. My post for this week is up HERE and aside from the aforementioned gasoline prices holds.

The French heat wave is a bonanza for commodity prices, all companies engaged in food export, and the companies that make GE grains will now be in business. There is no way France will not buy GE wheat. Their farm animals have died, crops ruined, and the entire EU will need food. It's hard to believe that the same heat that we in this country get every year can wipe out crops, but we use genetically engineered food designed to withstand heat, lack of water, and freezing temperatures (winter wheat). Downside this is inflationary so gold at these high prices looks good and watch rates. Overall, gasoline prices, food crises in Europe, and the war in Iraq ARE inflationary. So watch yourself and don't get careless.

TODAY IS THE DAY AMERICA RAN OUT OF BREAD

Late Add: prices quoted here were Friday before 1PM. They have since dropped back down and as of Saturday noon the LOWESt price was $1.93. still an extremely high price.
Like King Louie, King George W May go to the Guillotine; gasoline is at $2.80

The Pharaohs of ancient Egypt kept seven years supply of grain on hand in case of famine, knowing the people would kill the King if they ran out of grain. Louis the XVI refused to pay the French farmers a fair price for their grain so they withheld wheat delivery to Paris; "Let them eat cake", rings to this day. Our bread in the modern world is gasoline and today the price is the highest it has ever been in our history. I just got back from the beach; a family beach where the waves are cool and the people cooler. Just after noon the wind came up and blew the waves out and everybody went up to Perry's at the Beach to snack. The only topic was "that asshole Bush sitting on his ass while these fucking gas prices go through the roof." Men, women, young people, all totally pissed. This is SoCal and not Bush country, but still these prices and the fact that he does absolutely nothing is just like his old man, something more than a few people in the crowd mentioned. Also mentioned was the fact that Clinton would have been "doing something"; meaning he would have felt our pain and at least talked about it. Make no mistake, when gasoline tops $3 per gallon the government is at fault. The people will get the King for this.

FRENCH CROPS DEVASTATED BY HEAT go here for all the gory details. NOW, like suddenly, they will dedide that Genetically Engineered crops are just fine for Frenchy, and still not fine for Africans.

Read this Hanson piece at NRO, in case you ignored Reynold's suggestion. It's a must read today.

Hold your breath on the economic recovery even the liberal Bush hating press is saying recovery is here. Start with the Wapo HERE. The data has been showing this for two months and the left just can't bring themselves to think that tax cuts work. Now they will fall into line claiming that the recovery would have happened sooner had there been no tax cuts at all. Just watch. Some honest concern is gasoline prices, which have become absurd. You are now paying the equivalent of $77 per barrel oil on ther West Coast. As I said many weeks ago, the "government should mind it's own business crowd" is screaming bloody murder over the energy prices thinking something is very wrong. No kidding. Energy prices could wreck the recovery if they last very long.

Leading economic indicators up .4%,jobless claims down 17,000, and the four week moving average is now below 400,000. Forecast for growth is now 4.8%. IF the jobs number at the end of the month is positive you can forget the Democrats for '04. How they could be running in the face of reality for the past four months is beyond me.

MEChA: LINKS TO INFORMATION ON THIS VIOLENTLY REVOLUTIONARY GROUP

"por la raza todo; fuera la raza nada" which translates "for those of our race everything, for those outside it nothing." Nazis anyone?

MEChA has been finally outed by a columnist with a following, Michelle Malkin. You really don't get how dangerous these people are unless you actually read what they are up to and understand that the Mexican (Mexican, not Mexican-American) population is now 40% of the Southwestern U.S. They are on the LINKED college campuses advocating the violent overthrow of the U.S. government in the Southwest and "returning" the land to Mexico. They are now operating on High School campuses planting their racist anti-American seeds there too. They fraudulently link the American Southwest with the ancient Aztecs. There are no Aztecs. That tribe was the Mexicas (that's why the country is called Mexico) and nobody knows where they came from except that they came "from the north". There is zero evidence that they ever were as far north as the Rio Grande, so the MEChA rants are simply racist appeals, like Aryan or Black appeals.

Burning any and all newspapers that publish anything that they don't want people to know is standard operating procedure. They publish racist tracts with impunity supported by faculty members of MEChA. They incite by using language like

"gringo" invasion of our territories, reclaiming the land of their birth and consecrating the determination of our people of the sun, the call of our blood is our power, our responsibility, and our inevitable destiny, Aztlan belongs to those who plant the seeds, water the fields, and gather the crops and not to the foreign Europeans. We do not recognize capricious frontiers on the bronze continent .

Go HERE for their detailed manifesto. And HERE for a more arty look. They are also (surprise) Communists

Land and realty ownership will be acquired by the community for the people's welfare. Economic ties of responsibility must be secured by nationalism and the Chicano defense units.

They also demand "reparations"

Restitution for past economic slavery, political exploitation, ethnic and cultural psychological destruction and denial of civil and human rights.

Their infiltration of high schools is particularly dangerous because they encourage juvenile crime and rationalize it

For the very young there will no longer be acts of juvenile delinquency, but revolutionary acts

They have been active in removing all Jews from teaching positions and are trying to take over the schools

the complete revision of the educational system: its policy makers, administration, its curriculum, and its personnel to meet the needs of our community

There are now more than a few websites that are focusing on this racist and REVOLUTIONARY group

....for the return (reconquista) of the lost provinces to form Aztlan. Chicanismo demands Spanish language and culture education, not English or American cultural schooling.

A mother lode of details by this group can be found here. MEChA members have also infiltrated the halls of Congress, Arizona congressman-elect Raul Grijalva being the latest. They are also funded by student fees, attack the American flag at every opportunity and pull it down.

Read Malkin's stuff here. Read Front Page archives here.

All of us better pay attention. Hitler started with Mein Kampf and these guys are every bit as racist and Nazi (National Socialist) with the compulsary "do what I say or else" philosophy. And they are everywhere, possibly in the governors mansion in Sacramento if Bustamente is elected.

End of the Comedy Show in California

Arnold made a hit with me mainly by convincing me that he is a serious player and will pull people into government who will be able to bring some sanity with them. (My comments are also on Wall Street Journal On Line) George Schultz (former Secretary of the Treasury, former Secretary of State, chairman of President Ronald Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board and a ton of etc. etc.) will bring the Stanford people from the Hoover Institution along; Condoleezza Rice came from Hoover. Some of Schultz's guys are the best in the country. They have consulted with congress, administrations, and private business regarding finance, medical care and finance (the MediCal fraud alone is half a billion), social security and pensions (one of our problems), etc. etc. etc. Actually understanding a budget that the current slimeballs in Sacramento deliberately structured so nobody could figure out where the money was going is a great start. Scharzenegger's performance yesterday ended the comedy. This is no longer fun time. Mary Carey no longer gets my vote. The test will still come in the Legislature which is owned by Labor; Teachers, Government Workers, and big unions who don't give a dam about anything other than their turf no matter what. We are faced by a conspiracy of left wing unions, envirnomentalists, lawyers (National Lawyers Guild is an outright Communist organization), and socialists who want to destroy capitalism, not fix government.

CORRECTION-RETRACTION

What Buffett actually said and what he didn't say. He did not say what was quoted: namely that Prop 13 should be rolled back and everyone should pay higher property taxes. What he did say was that the wealthy people in places like Malibu were not paying their fair share because their homes were deliberately under appraised; property tax in California is based on a percentage of appraised value. This is a fact. It has been spoken about in California before and the suspicion has been that somebody was paid off to appraise certain properties at an artificially low rate. This is taken from a local throwaway paper in Santa Monica called The Ocean Park Gazette

The sinfully rich of Malibu along with the Malibu City Council have persisted by placing Measure S (a re-worked version of the defeated Measure EE) on next week's special election ballot. The Santa Monica homeowners, Santa Monica renters and those individuals living on fixed incomes will once again be burdened with this additional property tax, if it is passed, for years to come. The sinfully rich celebrities and well-heeled corporate executives of Malibu, living in their gigantic ocean view citadels of 25,000-plus square feet will pay the same amount of additional inequitable school parcel property taxes as the owner of a 1,500-square foot Santa Monica house.
Santa Monica homeowners, fixed income and renters are paying the major portion of the current parcel taxes and contributions to the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District. The City of Santa Monica gave a donation (gift) of over $3,000,000 to the school district last year while the Malibu City Council was voting down a donation to the district.

The article goes on in purely local terms to explain how the scumbag movie stars with their 25,000 square foot homes are ripping a new asshole for the lower cost housing in Santa Monica. This is what Buffett was talking about and I erred greatly when I accepted media quotes regarding what he actually said.

Arnold stands up and does very well. He says he's rich. Unions can't buy him which pisses unions off; business can't buy him which pisses business off; and we can't buy him because we are too poor. Sounds good. One thing I need to retract is my quotes regarding Buffett which I have done above. Bustemente will run on the tried and true Mondale formula: raise taxes and cut spending a little. Compared to Swarzenbaby he is toast.

Glenn Reynolds is onto something big IF, and boy is this an "if", the Democrats are smart enough to take advantage of it. It's not "outsourcing" itself that is bad, it's outsourcing to incompetents only because they are cheaper. OUR (ho ho) government doing this is wrong and this could really bite because I know from talking to hundreds of people per week on the phone that this is a big big deal. Problem is the Dems are such left wing haters that nobody will believe they have the welfare of the country at heart.

LA Times comes out swinging against Prop 13 property tax relief I rarely read that rag anymore but I had some free time at the doctor's office yesterday. Most of the editorial page, including the letters column, was devoted to the proposition that property taxes are too low. The house communist, Rober Sheer, did a column; the letters section, the content of same controlled by the editors, had letters from people who were sobbing that they were undertaxed (honest). This paper has been waxing hysterical about Prop 13 since it passed in 1978 and they just continue. I'm sure the homeowners in CA are just dying to pay more taxes. I'm sure the renters in California are eager to pay higher rents, the sure result of higher landlord taxes too. Don't believe ANYTHING in the Los Angeles Times.

Attack on UN in Baghdad or How stupid can we be?? Once again a central command post is set up without a perimeter defense, like fences or walls. Jesus, is anybody in charge anywhere? AFTER the bombing somebody thinks about it. I just can't believe it. Add: late afternoon; 4PM PDT Newscasts have just announced that it was the UN that refused U.S. offers to secure the perimiter. They wanted to present a "friendly face". OK, they did. Now it's a friendly dead face.

MARKETS

For the Small investor 5K to 25K

Never do I comment mid-week but this week deserves comment now.

First the warning: California. This is serious because of the threat of bond default, continuing deficit spending, the looming ogre of tax increases including those on stock transactions if they can get away with it. The California economy is heading toward the rocks and there is no will to repair it. You may even have to separate the data from California and the rest of the country, it is that bad.

NOW THE GOOD STUFF: Japan looks to have turned around. The second largest economy in the world may finally have turned the corner with growth exceeding 4% in two straight quarters. Japan is roaring. Their stock market is up from 7,400 to more than 10.000. There is no way the world economies won't take off if both the U.S. AND Japan start growing at 4-5%. Computer sales in Japan are up 20%. Asia in general has shaken out of the doldrums and the entire area is hot. Japan has a zero cap gains tax and almost zero dividend tax.

Europe APPEARS to be growing, or at least their stock markets show growth. All markets are up between 27% and 40% (France). This is also a very positive sign. Their cap gains and dividend taxes are low (lower than ours but only slightly) which encourage investment.

HERE: There isn't a sector that doesn't look good. Those HORRIBLE TAX CUTS that the Democrats insist are bad for us are now in the market. Disposable income is up 10% due largely to the tax cuts, productivity is up another 4%, profits are rising again (10% each of the last two quarters) which means that corporations have raised prices without raising them due to productivity gains. Actual profit gain as calculated by the economist wonks is up around 20%. Consumer spending is going through the roof. Stocks are more attractive than bonds because even at 4.5% the Treasuries PE is 22-1 and stocks are about 18-1; unlike bonds, stocks rise in value as they pay a dividend. The dollar rally, which I'll discuss below makes stocks even better. Short term rates are low, housing starts the highest since 1994, every indicator for big growth is up; base metals, lumber, materials, everything. Keep in mind that all these new houses will need carpeting, refrigerators, TV sets....the works. This is a huge recovery. Add to that the replacement of older appliances in homes which have been on hold for two years will explode as well. Sales in Home Depot and other home centers are flying; same for retailers in general with the biggest back to school buying in years. Anybody on the sidelines now is just not ready for anything other than CDs. Any way you measure earnings they are roaring. Only the media says they aren't, I guess because Microsoft won't pay a dividend (Gates is advised by Warren Buffett who doesn't pay dividends either). Some are calling for a profits rise of 15-20% second half. Add to all this, margin borrowing rates are very low.

JOBS MUST FOLLOW. It doesn't mean they will. Remember that you don't KNOW anything. Don't let dreams and data cloud your investing. The only numbers that count are the ones in the market. I have been involved in markets for almost 20 years and I can't tell you how many times the market failed to do what I "just knew it had to do." You never KNOW. I don't know how unemployment can go up again with the positive data out there, I only KNOW that it can.

WHY THE DOLLAR RALLY IS GOOD FOR STOCKS: Especially if you are a German or some other EUer you have bought U.S. stocks with a low exchange rate of let's say $.86 and even if your stock hasn't moved you will now get $.89 (the dollar is up almost 9% since June). The Europeans are piling into our market with cheap money. On the other hand if YOU purchased when the dollar was low and you sold now, even though the stock hasn't moved, you would be able to buy more with the same dollar return. Super BULLISH for our market.

CONSUMER CONFIDENCE: Again the most useless stat there is. It's done by the University of Michigan and all they survey is the labor force, the most uninformed segment of the society. They get their info from network TV and don't read at all (The Globe and Enquirer don't count). There is another poll HERE that measures both the labor force and the investor class. This is the only poll that is accurate. He measures both the investor class (45%) and the labor force (55%) and he does it every day and measures it against a month ago each day. His figures have been rising for quite a while. Keep in mind that the investor class gets their news from cable news, the web, the Journal, IBD, and the major daily newspapers. This class is well informed and usually ahead of the curve.

The stock market measures the confidence of the Investor Class, the Michigan survey measures only the labor class. Each taken alone is not a correct measure. I hope you are IN the market.

TRADER??? The cheap way is spyders SPDR; Materials (XLB) and consumer staples are hot (Symbol XLV). Day trade the shit out of them but watch liquidity.

A bogus letter from the "front" appears today in the Wall Street Journal. When all of us who surf the net and hit Chief Wiggles, Braden, Lt. Smash, etc., read real stuff from real guys, "letters" from a professional writer pretending to be "one of the guys" ring false. There is just something about professional writing that is phony when compared to writing that is written straight from the gut. Check it out and then hit Chief Wiggles (link on left) and see the difference. The Journal printed military propaganda. Compare that "letter" with this paragraph on Chief Wiggles

We do get our share of totally bogus reports from people attempting to milk the system or get something for nothing. Boy could I tell you some stories that would just blow your socks off. Some of the craziest things you have ever heard of, at times wondering if I have the word sucker is written in Arabic on my forehead.

Big difference. And whatever you do LINK HERE for a commentary on life that is worth your time today, again from a guy in Iraq not some writer.

Good economic news could be bad for Republicans this is because the ultra-left Democratic presidential candidates have put all their money on a sagging economy which now looks almost sure to have turned: 7 year high on home building starts, high retail sales, all point to an almost sure improvement in the jobs numbers at month end. This means that Lieberman will start to show traction and Lieberman could beat George Bush. As I said a few weeks ago, Consumer Sentiment is the most useless number on the planet in forecasting markets or economy and it is off today. BTW it sure looks like the dollar has turned back up which means to me that Europeans are buying dollars so they can buy U.S. stocks. When both U.S. stocks go up and the dollar goes up.......means a boom. If you bought stocks a month ago and their value has risen 10% add another 5% with the dollar rise. Happy Days are here again, I think.

Once again, to media people, it's all about me as they whine and bitch because one of them was deservedly shot. We have an assault on a terrorist stronghold; 60 of our soldiers have been killed; some media scumbag comes up behind them with a shoulder mounted video camera. What the hell would you do? I'd have been shooting on sight and I hope our troops keep shooting on sight. But this will be like the scumbag media in the hotel in Baghdad who screamed because our troops opened fire on a sniper spotter in THEIR hotel. This war is all about journalists who are more than eager for us to fail.

ENERGY BILL SOLUTION: Eat in the dark, Don't freeze food below 50 degrees, Boil water at 150 degrees

Study truck idling at truck stops; meaning let's fuck the truck drivers their lives aren't tough enough yet. A look at the total energy bill before Congress in both houses show a mountain of subsidies and buried in there you will find the detailed plan to repair the system. The repair of the grid is not what Congress has been dealing with. To sum it up: every environmental idea has a payoff, all industries falling into the enviro line up gets a payoff, and everybody who wants to support this stuff is crying for a payoff too. Power suppliers and transmission line builders get no profits to build anything.

THE BILL DIRECTS THE DOE TO: (Go here for the extra long version in PDF)
Have standards on ceiling fans, refrigerators, and vending machines. You can see the bribes here.
Set standards on furnace fans (fans inside of furnaces).
Label appliances and make Energy Star stuff (see any electricity flowing yet?).
Subsidize a bunch of enviro stuff that amounts to a cornucopia (I think a conrucopia is two shit loads) of subsidies to businesses that produce Politically Correct "energy efficient" things.
Subsidize fuel cells, consumers who USE energy efficient stuff, builders who use, and so on.

See the grid improving yet?

Then there are the usual subsidies for biomass, wind, solar etc. I have a relative using solar: No water over 100 degrees meaning lots of laundry and dishwashing is done off regular power; no a/c use possible (enviros want you to sweat in the dark), and heating is always a challenge in the winter. Making back the costs is impossible, but the government will now give us a subsidy to bury ourselves in this failed technology.

Wind Power: talk about NIMBY. The noise set up by the wind machines is louder than the New York Subway; totally stupid but it's in the energy bill. See the grid repair yet? The bill directs the states to DEMAND less usage; I suppose these envionmental nuts would have us eat in the dark, don't freeze food below 50 degrees because 32 degrees uses too much energy, boil water at 150 degrees instead of the standard 212 degrees, and fun stuff like that. DOE MUST set up a consumer education program to make us save money on HVAC (whatever the hell that is, just hope you don't have it because they won't pay you to cure it)

The Congress also demands that the power companies purchase energy from these horribly expensive "alternate fuel" sources. Raising your rates and not increasing energy flow. They will also subsidize the users of electric vehicles to drive up to the wall socket and soak up a bunch more electricity without providing for an increse in electric power.

Scientists want:

HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS PROGRAM:
NUCLEAR PHYSICS PROGRAM:
BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH PROGRAM:
BASIC ENERGY SCIENCES PROGRAM:
FUSION ENERGY SCIENCES PROGRAM:

You can go HERE for detailed info on these

THERE ARE HOWEVER, detailed plans for upgrading the infrastructure, but all this requires profits so that they can be done. Profits are left out. We are prisoners of the environmental lobby and their followers who think it's a sin to commit success. We are bad and don't deserve good things in life.

CONSUMER ALERT

Do not give out your cell phone numbers or you will be telemarketed to death. Two more emails from people who work in INCOMING CALL CENTERS, one in Omaha and the other in Santa Barbara. According to both, any sales person failing to ask for the cell phone number is subject to termination and people working there get a bounty of $2 per five cell phone numbers collected. This is because people forget to put their cell phone numbers on the don't call lists and leads containing these numbers can be sold for a higher price than those leads without cell phone numbers. When you "call in" on an 800 number for goods and services and give out any phone number that isn't on a don't call list you are in for it. All info is sold to telemarketing companies as soon as your credit card order clears (your money has been collected). They do not care that you will be paying for their solicitations. DON'T GIVE OUT YOUR CELL PHONE NUMBER
Under the too clever by half email the writer says that phone numbers are necessary because the phone number is the password needed to access information on line. If you want their service then you better have a phone number made up. Let somebody else get bothered.

Arnold tells it like it is and nobody wants to hear what "is" is. "Is" in this case means that California has run out of money. Part of the solution is higher taxes. Many conservatives won't hear of this. The problem in every state is that many of the wage agreements with unions are set in stone. Pensions too. Even the most right wing media guy out there, William J. O'Niel of IBD, said taxes will HAVE to go up. People keep saying Arnold isn't saying anything. He is saying taxes will have to be raised, but too many people don't want to hear. That Prop 13 gaffe may shoot him down anyway.

PREDICTION: THE NFL IS ON THE DOWNSIDE

As I write this my house is packed with teen age and pre-teen aged boys watching the taped X-Games (Extreme Games) on ABC, an event many of them attended LAST NIGHT. These kids skateboard, skate, ride bikes, surf and all the rest. They are into these games big time. These X-Treme "activities" make room for outstanding athletes who aren't 6'10" or weigh 300 pounds a shot at fame and fortune if they dare to do the craziest shit they can come up with on bike, skates, skateboards and other stuff. I live in LA, the place the NFL deserted and then told us to go to hell because the taxpayers refused to build them a stadium. What starts in SoCal spreads to the rest of the world and kids involved in this stuff is a world wide big time activity. There will never be an NFL team here, and I predict the NBA (already in a downslide in ratings), NFL, Baseball (a boring game for kids who won't play it anymore), are toast. These games have put 40,000 into the LA Colesium and another 17,000 into the Staples Center at the same time.

These are the young X-Game Kids doing activities that allow them to be super macho, dare devil, individualists. That's where we are headed. "Grind" opens this week and is a guaranteed monster hit. Get ready to take your boys, and maybe your girls too.

OWNERS OF 1860's AMERICAN GOLD COINS HAVE HEART ATTACK

GO HERE for the entire story, but a ship sunk off the U.S. coast in 1865 carrying a ton of gold coins has been found. Nobody knows if the gold coins came directly from minting or if they were coins of the day, meaning the dates would vary widely. Until this is discovered the "value" of existing pre-1866 U.S. gold coins will be on hold, causing coin owners a year or so of brown underwear. Understand that U.S. gold coins (in fact all early U.S. coins be they silver, copper, or gold) are the most valuable in the world because we had the only standardized coinage, meaning weights were honest and coins were all alike. Grading means everything. The best is MS68 meaning it is pristine and very rare, but most best knowns are MS66 and lower so that anyone holding an MS65, 64, down to 60 is in danger of seeing the value of their coins plummet. On the other hand the ship may have been rolling around down there, making the coins rub against one another causing "bag marks" so that they won't be graded MS (Mint State), but the far lower grade of UC (uncirculated) or circulated. Collecting hard assets other than art by dead people carries high risk. Fun for treasure hunters everywhere. Interestin story about forgeries surrounding gold bars here.

From around the wires, here's why the power breakdown happened Shorthand for a lot of this: Too many people want socialism; a tax supported zero electricity rate while the latest tech is used. As a result here is what caused the blackout. Much longer essay on the total history and possible solutions is here courtesy of Instapundit; Glenn Reynolds if you haven't already read it..

1. No significant additions have been made to the grid in 20 years plus decades of neglect.
2. We have added useage for twenty years without adding capacity. Air conditioners and computers especially.
3. There hasn't been major spending to improve transmission lines by the state since the 1970s and no major work by utilities since the 1960s.
4. Investors won't invest in something that can't make money. Rate control, state to state rule changes, and constant law suits over rates.
5. Nobody wants transmission lines in their backyard. "Consumer Groups" have stopped all construction when it dared rear its ugly head.
6. There is a patchwork of dozens of local power utilities - some private companies, others state-owned - with different operating rules. (Everybody wants their piece of the pie, political clout, and bribes to keep a system operating)
7. While investors withhold their funds until the complex process ends, utilities have stalled their own upgrades because rate caps prevent them from charging more to recoup investments. (Again, consumers will not pay for electricity)
8. New York State's high-voltage electric transmission system reported that nine out of 10 electricity capacity-boosting projects across the state haven't cleared the hurdles required to build them. All environmental.

Add to this the Congress trying to protect all the local turf and you have blackout. Many are saying that there will be nothing done because powerful local utilities like TVA with very low rates will not share and have congress in their pockets.

Bustamente now ahead of Schwarzenegger in CA link to my comment below. The appointment of Buffett was a really stupid move. It's like telling everyone in California: we're taking your house, your rents, raising the price of food, and we know best. And as I said HERE, the unions will do anything to keep their ill gotten gains and will back Bustamente to the hilt if it looks like Davis is toast. They are at least two million voters who WILL vote. Late Add; from the Contra Costa Times

The Oracle of Omaha may need a new crystal ball after Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday rejected comments by his adviser Warren Buffett that California property taxes should be increased.

The suggestions from billionaire Buffett that Proposition 13 may need to be scrapped unleashed a political firestorm, since the initiative is revered by California voters. Buffett provided Schwarzenegger's opponents with political ammunition, raised questions about the actor's solutions for California's financial disasters, and forced Schwarzenegger's campaign into damage control mode. The comments also opened the door for a renewed debate on the role property taxes should play in the state's revenues.

I agree with Bill Quick, in that Buffett will be an historical figure by Wednesday of next week. Nothing is as important in California as Prop 13 tax relief, and this was incredibly dumb. In Arnod's defense he has been a long time supporter of Prop 13 and spoken on numerous occasions in support.

"Mr. Buffett doesn't speak for Mr. Schwarzenegger," said Rob Stutzman, spokesman for Schwarzenegger's campaign. "Arnold Schwarzenegger has supported Prop. 13 for 25 years. ... Arnold is an admirer of Howard Jarvis and has referred to him as the original tax terminator." Jarvis and Paul Gann were the prime movers behind Prop. 13, the tax-slashing initiative approved overwhelmingly in 1978. Entire Article Here.

Sacramento Bee opines that Arnold is a political amatuer making dumb mistakes, and implies he's going to make more. So far he's got a sex pervert (Rob Lowe) and a Tax Pervert (Buffett) on his staff. What next? Bloomberg reports that there is slippage from the Gallup Poll taken earlier in the week and that Arnold has taken a big hit.

Markets and EconomyCALIFORNIA BONDS AT GRADE WHALE DOO DOO?

For the small investor: $5 to $25K

Below junk bond status we have Whale Doo Doo resting quietly at the bottom of the sea. That's where California Bonds may be priced eventually. See my commentary HERE but you need to know that the Democratic Party in California is partly a Marxist party, many in the party are opposed to free markets and free enterprise. They will not only default on the Bonds if it suits them, many may actually be planning to default; I refer to Berkeley and most San Francisco reps. This threat has more than a little to do with high long term rates right now, as well as good bond demand.

BLACKOUT REPRESENTS HUGE OPPORTUNITY: If you're looking for a "SHOT" look at companies that build transmission lines, power generating plants etc., there will be billions invested in new equipment. Pick a top company not some long shot dog. Copper will be helped, wire makers, etc. BUT remember the environmental movement is basically an anti-capitalist movement and they are very strong. The NIMBY people will fight tooth and nail against any power lines, the anti-nuclear lobby will fight too so you might not see such a fast return on investment here. Most opposition will be from people who want socialism and not capitalism to rule the power needs of this country. This is what the fight will be about. Demands for rate regulation will hamper any start ups. To top that off, the cheap electric power states, TVA (built by THE NATION'S taxpayers) doesn't want to share with the people who built the TVA, neither do the states in the Southeast which have power companies that will fight this. So it won't be a quick profit, you can afford to find the right comnpanies.

Lots of talk by financial types that Greenspan is showing his age in a major way. His handling of the interest rates over the past year has been without redeeming value. He caused much of the recession fighting an inflation that didn't exist, concentrated on a deflation that was more in his mind than on any balance sheet, and now is acting like he can control long term rates when any dropout from Econ 101 knows the Fed can only control the short term Fed Rates; the market controls all the other rates. He is mentally incapable of continuing his job and the markets are screaming at us that investors have completely lost confidence in him. This is a big deal, meaning that markets will largely ignore what he says other than a direct statement.

Hope you all watched William O'Neil of Investors Business Daily on Kudlow and Cramer; he is the best teacher of the stock market on the planet, as Jim Cramer commented. His view is that the market bottomed in March, is now a Bull, but as I've been saying it is a stock pickers market. His observation that past market leaders will not lead again is crucial. This data has been collected from over 55 years of charting every stock. Past leaders do not lead again. Period. A small investor needs to look at the New America Pages every day and keep track of those stocks because it is in that field you will find the stocks that will explode for 500% or better.

Oil prices are still the concern of the market. The Blackout is an example of the unexpected Major Surprise. It took place AFTER New York closed so Tokyo and Hong Kong experienced the immediate downturn. Markets almost always recover right away from this type of surprise so that by the time stocks opened in New York they opened higher.

Nothing has changed this week. The Jobs number at the end of August are major. Most people studying Europe and Asian stocks think the rallies are not confirmed there. A world recovery would be so dam bullish here as to look for a 12,000 Dow.

Stay the course. Do your homework.

The Los Angeles Times confirms everyone's low opinion of the paper after reading the horrid major article trashing Arnold by linking his FATHER to the Nazis. Major article. The LA Times is a despicable and vile paper.

And the quotes attributed to Arnold from his movies are the WRITER'S words, not the actor's. The trash job on the guy is stupid as well as low.

The Low property tax in California is the Blessed Sacrament and you have to be a long time resident and homeowner here to understand. Arnold has made a major mistake in pulling in Warren Buffett, a guy who has advocated high property taxes for years. Millionaires can pay them. Working families get killed by them. You have to understand the history of Prop 13, the act that rolled back the taxes. Back in whatever year it was I was paying around $450 for my home. A tax bill showed up for $3,000 and I joined every Californian in the tax revolt. At that time we had the rudest nastiest government workers telling us off, treating us like shit, and behaving like....well like snotty union assholes who can't get fired. This could cost Arnold. You have to live here to appreciate it. Raise taxes and rents will go up (renters pay the tax not the landlord), food prices go up, everything goes up. This is a very dumb move by a guy who is supposed to be smart. Prop 13 is a bead on the rosary, a prayer at Temple, an atheists substitute for God. This is totally emotional and you can't screw with it.
Rob Lowe??? added to Arnold's staff?? This guy was involved in a video taped sex with a minor scandal back in the 80's. What the hell is Arnold thinking? I know what I am thinking.

I rarely agree even 75% with Fred Barnes but he has a dam good editorial in today's Wall Street Journal on line regarding Big Government Conservatism. It deserves a read because that is what is happening whether you like it or not. I happen to agree that this is the way to go, but Barnes explains it pretty well.

And here come the trial lawyers as if we didn't know. They will line their pockets on this power situation pretending to get damages FOR "victims" and this will delay any improvement for years. This situation has been public knowledge for at least three years, and if anything is wrong it's the Congress. Going back to Clinton this situation has been well known. So now the stinking lawyers will line their pockets; scum rises to the top.

CONGRESS SLEPT, AGAIN--SMALL STATES HALT ANY POWER PASSAGE

We tell you what the news is, you don't tell us: Vol 69: Proof that being an asshole is the basic qualification for being a reporter. The media "slant" is that people are outraged, angry, ready to explode. Then the stupid reporter shoves a microphone in the face of a totally calm New Yorker who shurgs and tells the reporter that they just go with the flow, that's the way things are sometimes, etc. Not to be swayed by facts the reporter turns to the camera and announces again how enraged everyone is. Same on FOX (the worst) and MSNBC and CNN. Very good overview of causes is here. and HERE TOO. Next we can all watch Congress blame business, local utilities, and investigate. The facts are that Congress has known about this and refused to do anything. See old DOE report HERE Details on the failure of Congress, specifically an alliance of small state representatives stopping any improvement in it's tracks. See HERE for a report issued in May of 2000. It's like this: we have cheap power and we ain't helping nobody, fuck you. All the TVA states (TVA was built by the NATION'S taxpayers), North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, fun places like that. Add to that nobody will allow power lines in their neighborhood, the environmental (Marxist) lobby, refusal to allow rate increases (people will not pay for electricity) and you sort of get it.

My Aril 5th essay on the prospects for Democracy in Iraq his HERE.
I said after I wrote it that I hoped I was wrong, but it seems pretty accurate now

All bad spelling corrected by emailer Mark Tomeo. Especially Ward HEELER and not Ward HEALER.....new one on me but he's right.

PHONY BALONEY PASSES FOR THOUGHT ON THE RIGHT; AT LEAST ON THE POSTREL VERSION OF SAME

Virginia Postrel, the empty dress of a movement called Dynamism or some such crap, passes this piece of zero intellect off in the New York Times (where else??). Like I'm going to pay more for a car that is painted the way I like it than I will for a car painted the way I don't like it represents some deep discovery. In an age of self promotion gone wild and completely worthless pseudo intellectual posturing, Postrel is up there with Maureen Dowd and Barbara Ehrenreich. An old Checkov line covers her: a character asks another character "What kind of writer is he?" The other character replies, "Not much really. He writes about the things intelligent people already know about, and what stupid people don't care about." I think Postrel has already achieved her fifteen minutes.

NEXT: Postrel discovers that people will buy things they like. Can't wait.

DEFAULT IS THE ATOMIC LAND MINE IN CALIFORNIA

ONE of the reasons long term interest rates are so high. If a country, Argentina, can stiff bondholders, why not a state? The Democratic Party is so controlled by the ever demanding unions that default on the bond debt is now a possibility. These people are funding the "deficit" by borrowing even more money. Put in plain road kill language:

YOU run up your credit card debt. And run it up. And run it up some more. You find that you can't earn enough money to pay it off. In your sick mind you decide to run up as much debt as you can and then file for bankruptcy.

This is what the very rich Orange County in California did a few years ago when they decided they didn't "want" to pay their bond debt. It's what the state of Washington did a while back in the "WHOOSH" scam. Make no mistake, the people buying bond debt are worried. These state of California people are out and out crooks. And the labor unions will never be held accountable without the courts stepping in to demand a repayment plan that includes reduction of wages and benefits.

Bond traders, a most sophisticated lot, are well aware of this possibility.

A racist bigot loses a daughter is the way I'd describe it but to The New York Times it reads: The 31-year-old daughter of Amiri Baraka, the poet, playwright and civil rights activist, was shot. Mr Baraka is the poet who has been issuing racist rants for the past few years . The Times could also have called him a Communist, a (gentler kinder) Marxist, and let people know he was an original Black Panther under the name of LeRoi Jones, but that might lead people to think that "what goes around comes around". Jones is also a noted anti-Semite. All these the New York Times left out. Sample of the "poetry":

"Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed;
Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers
To stay home that day
Why did Sharon stay away?
Who? Who? Who?"

Maybe they should be hunting for a WTC widow or two. This stanza might lead the cops to look after a white guy...

"We must eliminate the white man before we can draw a free breath on this planet."

I'd say it's sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind type of thing but the elite media wouldn't want us to think such a thing.