ORACULATIONS

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

How's that to start you reading? I'm an eclectic reader and library rat and sometimes I just grab stuff. I've been reading about what a couple of these terrorist orgs do in the Arab and Asian countries: think the old ward heelers in this country and you get it. Back in the days when government was not in our lives immigrant families or families down on their luck went down to the local Democratic or Republican HQ for some "help". Many many times the local pol, in exchange for favors later, would get a job or a doctor, or some food for a family in need. Sometimes get a kid back in school. The little things. This came with a price: vote the way we tell you, vote often, "get" others to vote, and if somebody needs to be "worked" you work them.

Hamas works exactly the same way but with much more effective control. There is a huge
Arab population moving to the cities and once there they are lost. Governments are weak or criminal and new arrivals have no direction. Up to the plate steps Hamas (or other terror groups), puts the young people into "madrassas" (Wahabi Mosque Schools), supply jobs and food for the families (funded almost entirely by Saudi money). and the price paid is not a conscious one. A life serving Allah. Do they recruit suicide bombers and terrorists? Not directly but they do solicit volunteers if someone wants to become a martyr. All these groups perform the ward heeler jobs in a poor population, but what is more important is that the educated see these services as desirable and join as well.

Make no mistake, these groups are more than just a "popular front" in the old time Communist sense, they are rooted in the community and have very wide support.

California, it's a hell of a staaaaate Oh my, it's just so awful. 150 no bodeees who think they can run the state. Think 150 nobodies back in 1776 who thought they could build a country. Oh my Gaaawwwd a bunch of actors with no experience think they can run: think several hundred totally inexperienced criminals (defined by Britain) wrote the Declaration of Independence and hundreds more wrote and passed the U.S. Constitution. "My God, the state has no money and this election will cost too much", the usual prattle from the intellectuals when it looks like "the people" will elect somebody from out of their self designated upper class.

No matter how you put down this "recall" the fact is that once in a while democracy is going to rear its beautiful head in this country and whenever it does you can bet the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and the rest of the media elite won't like it. The people, meaning all of us, will speak; not in one voice but in a non melodic cacophony of sound that elites cannot stand and will try to overturn. The liberals have already announced before the election that they will go to court to overturn the result they know they won't like. Because this recall is a warning to every lying politician in the country: you are NOT safe; be afraid of the people. Be very afraid. This "circus" out here is exactly what the framers of our country wanted. Actors, writers, plumbers, porn stars (well not porn stars), butchers, business people, everyone has a right to run and a chance to win. Get ready America.......California is real. And if you doubted recall is good, NOW (National Association of so-called Women) will fight it tooth and nail. Late Add> Just got back from knoshing at Barney's with Bill Quick and while waiting I noted that most around me were talking about this election. When was the last time you went into a neighborhood bar and heard people talking about an election? Two months before it was to be held? Everybody is involved in this. Forget about voter apathy. We are all into this thing. At last a real election. If you're not from California, you are missing something grand.

Arnold didn't vote? How do they know? Most actors and others who travel for work vote absentee; I haven't "voted" in years IN PERSON. How do these assholes know he didn't vote? Just one more reason to totally ignore the media. Listen to what candidates say and hope they can deliver. BTW how does anyone find out who or what you voted for?

LINK HERE and as they say one picture is worth a thousand words. There are two here and lots more if you want to link. Info on link furnished by Useful Fools from Bill Quick's comments blog.

Verified through the Fox outlet, KTXL-channel 40, that ran the story. I am unable to download the picture. This took place about a week ago.

The violent “WAR” (Workers Against the Recall) union workshop attendees rushed across J Street in downtown Sacramento – through traffic! – in several waves and attacked the pro-recall protestors.

Then there is a repro of the TV feed from FOX (a copyright protected feed I cannot download) captioned

Above: Recall Gray Davis Committee supporter, Shawn Cubbage – wearing a baseball cap – is attacked by union thugs wearing dark “NO ON RECALL” T-shirts paid for by the State Building & Construction Trades Council. Another Recall Gray Davis supporter, Donald Lacomb, is immediately behind Cubbage and had attempted to help protect Mr. Cubbage but was then assaulted himself.

The further problem is that the Union Thugs are funded by a $4,000,000 grant from the government.

On Saturday, several peaceful Recall Gray Davis protestors were brutally beaten, kicked, punched and tackled to the ground by union workers who were attending a taxpayer-funded workshop, WAR - (“Workers Against the Recall).” A 20-year-old woman and a 7-year-old boy were among those who were terrorized.

According to a communication from Channel 40, no charges have been placed against the Union thugs. The victims can only seek redress in civil courts. You cannot challenge the unions in Sacramento, and it is they alone that benefited from the Davis/Democrat/lap dog Republican pols.

Thanx to emailer Thor Rassmussen of Monterey for the tip
LATE ADD: Go here for a more detailed report plus how to get a video feed. He runs a Davis Thug Report on a regular basis. Does a dam good job.

There were too many errors to allow this post to remain. Thanx to Mike Haydin and Michael D. Holt for pointing them out to me and my sincere apologies to all who may have read this very inaccuate posting.

Labor will put big bucks and muscle behind California Democrats; and the ACLU steps in too It can be argued that the problems in California have everything to do with the labor payoffs made by the Democrats. The tripling of workers comp insurance fees to business, the continuing fraud in that program as well as the hiring of union government employees in the middle of the crises, the direct payoffs to the Prison Guards union, are all major causes of the budget problems. The an example of union payoffs, and nearly completely unreported, occurred back in 1999: the California Senate came to pass a $500-million-a-year pension increase for state employees after just 45 seconds of public discussion and no debate. This was in the Sacramento Bee column by Daniel Weintraub, "Cozy State Pension Deal Costs Taxpayers Billions", who is the only real reporter in Sacramento. Read the entire column and you will see what is wrong in California: a complete sell out to the Government Employees Unions. The cost to California will be more than $20 billion dollars over 20 years. Again, this handout passed in 45 seconds with no debate and it was structured in a secret meeting between Gray Davis and the Unions AND SUPPORTED 100% by Republicans too. READ THE WHOLE THING
The union Thing Two million votes here. The unions are balls out. They will hit every union household personally. Public Employeees, 260,000 votes, teachers another 300,00 votes, the college level teachers number 75,000; that is six hundred thousand VOTERS plus wives and family; that is a million people who will vote 98% for Davis or Bustamente. They owe everything to the Democratic budget busters and they will not cave. If you count the other labor interests you will arrive at around two million votes in the bag for Davis or Bustamente. Throw in the race stuff and Arnold has a big hill to climb.

ACLU files to stop election in no surprise the corruption supporting ACLU is claiming the punch card ballots, WHICH HAVE NEVER CAUSED A PROBLEM IN CALIFORNIA, cannot be used and the election should not be held. The ACLU is just a front for the Democratic Party, no surprise.

Andrew Sullivan showing once again that he is just a one trick pony came off vacation to praise Arnold because Arnold is for gay people. Arnold hasn't mentioned just how he is going to control a wildly left wing Democratic Legislature, how he is going to fund schools (more spending), what he intends to do about the labor unions that control the legislature by the threat of strikes, how he intends to manage the unionized health care workers who also threaten to shut down services unless there is more money, or exactly how and why business should move back into a state with an anti-business pro-labor tax policy frozen in stone. It's OK, he's for gay people. What bullshit.

Have you noticed that the entire bolg community has now shut up about Iran? This "sphere" can be so full of it. I blogged early on that there was zero chance of these absolutely stupid kids doing anything. They were pissed at tuition and blamed the government. Had you read any of their stupid blogs you'd have known too.

See my posts HERE and my exposure of the pathetic lack of any intelligence here. I don't think there was a blogger from Sullivan to Reynolds who wasn't beating the drum about how stupid our government was about Iran and not supporting these stupid whining kids. Iran is serious business, in case you don't know it.

I think one can conclude from this campaign that any media has the capacity to mislead their readers. When "everybody" is saying something it's probably wrong.

The purpose of this piece and my prior one on Iraq is to jolt you with the fact that we are in a playground staredown with a world that believes in God passionately, and believes with a religious fervor in their cultural past; in the case of China they have "Confucianized", thrown out Western Marxist Leninism in favor of their past. In 1903 the people of the United States believed in the Bible LITERALLY, meaning they saw no allegory; Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale and so on. Every word was considered true. We are in a world where billions of people believe every word in the Koran is true; every word in all the Hindu Vedas and Upshanads are true and they memorize them. They devoutly pray to their God(s) every day. We must understand this better or we are toast, we will continue to be "puzzled" by world hostility. A solution to the "puzzle" of hostility is the purpose of these essays.

We are in a Culture War we may lose, and we don't seem to know it.

Have you ever had the urge to drop into a friend's Bar Mitzvah and read from the Koran? Or tell all those stupid women to stop their whining at an Irish wake?, I mean for no reason other than to piss everybody off? In many parts of the world our Bill of Rights, displays of sexuality, both homo and hetero, is like cutting a big one at Easter Sunrise Services and grinning while those around you fight inhaling the noxious fumes.

World wide, we are facing the Four billion man line and a million line backers with an offense of limited man power and unlimited destructive power; meaning we can kill the four billion plus their linebackers or we lose. That is the way we are looking at the world.

However it is possible to face reality. We are looking down the throats of four billion people who hate what they believe we stand for and what they think we want to do to their cultures if they allow our democratic "system" to prevail. Our system is seen as increasingly secularist, anti- religion, and against "Devine" law whether inspired by Koran, Talmud, Bible, or Confucius. Translated: we are immoral. We oppose morality. We seek to impose our immorality on everyone else.

How did we get to this point and what can we do? Four billion people lined up against us is not something to be addressed with slogans, military success, or money. Numbers just happen to be power.

No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

So you do your thing and I'll do mine, and in the end it'll all be fine......

Two corny adages that define two generations. The first defines the so-called "Greatest Generation", the one that led us during the Great Depression and World War II, and the second defines the 60's generation, the Boomer or Anti-War generation. Or maybe the Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll generation, who knows? The first adage, taken from a much longer (and boringly British upper class) piece by a guy named John Donne, told a generation that we had to look after one another because a thing that affects one person effects every person. The second, taken from a work by a guy named Frederick Solomon Perls, told a generation that the only thing that counts is what the individual wants, and the heck with everyone else; "it's none of my business what YOU think of ME" is another way to look at it. We jokingly refer to the way we think New Yorkers apply this mantra as "Fuck you just in case". Which, by the way, is what many of us feel should be our policy toward all Muslim states. In fact I have a friend who sells a flag design of a snarling eagle crapping on the world with just such a slogan ($14.95 plus shipping)

Those two old adages can be taken too far. The "for whom the bell tolls" aphorism gave us a universal caring that embraced Communism, Fascism (socialism with an attitude), Socialism, and various collectivization practices where "we are all in this together" prevails over everything. In this country it also gave workers "rights", started the "Civil Rights" movement, created rules for business and labor, and demanded that we care for each other. This thinking got the U.S. through the worst depression of the industrial age without a revolution, won WWII, and confronted International Communism. It put Social Security, Bank Insurance (our deposits were not insured before 1933), unemployment benefits, and progressive income taxes into the culture. This adage also meant that people defined what "group" was best, so we had Communist Spies, gulags, suppression of dissent (Hungary etc.), Elks Clubs, Labor Orgs, Rotary Clubs and so on. This group think largely divided us along labor and business lines and eventually led to an almost totally criminal labor movement and a "closed management" style of corporate governance; that corporate style led to business criminality illuminated by the S&L crises. These criminal activities were all "group" activities where the entire corporation involved every employee in the sale of worthless securities, land deals, and so on. Crooked labor unions coerced business into partnerships, corrupt business "got" crooked labor unions to join with them. We soon had a collective corruption masquerading as free enterprise. Union meetings were held in their hotels in Vegas and management had shareholder meetings in foreign countries they were bribing.

"You do your thing etc....." brought us rampant individualism. The current "Gay" Episcopal Bishop who deserted his two daughters to run off with another "man" is a disgusting example; he deserted his children because he "was doing his thing" but made OK because he left his family for another "man" instead of another woman (if you need to puke I'll understand). "Do your own thing "means everybody has a right to whatever it is they want to do and everybody does what they want to do; pornography, drugs, adultery, child molestation, homosexuality, stealing from your company, and almost every other individually defined behavior became OK, or OK under certain circumstances (your wife saying it's OK being the main circumstance). Doing our own thing has brought us a rebellion against big government, against government regulation, an entrepreneurial business climate (for good and ill), the demise of the large labor unions (except for the UAW and Teamsters), and an "almost anything goes so long as it feels good" society. Churches are bad, government is bad (except for foreign thugocracies), unions are bad, business is bad, the political parties are bad, God should mind her own business; in short every group is bad when defined by the "do your own thing" individual. The individual demands that other individuals and groups agree with them 100% or they are bad. Single agenda politics is one part of this.

The "for whom the bell tolls" generation went overboard and the population wanted something different. Younger people were appalled at the corruption; I remember when I shot my first movie I had to go to an older guy to learn how to bribe the city employees who blocked my camera shots til they were paid off. I didn't know how to do the bribe thing "right". Do you just walk up to them and hand them money? Do you call their union? Do you go downtown and give a bunch of money to a Councilman? None of those moron professors ever mentioned the real stuff. (You call the union guy and give him an envelope with $350 in it for this particular bribe; all twenties by the way) I didn't think "bribing" was something that actually took place. Once I learned the system I wanted to change it. And change it yesterday. So me and my pals embraced the "you do your thing" slogans. This has led us to the wide open culture we now show the world. And it is here that we are having our most serious problems right now. We will lose if we don't wake up. One of the few real intellectuals, Hannah Arendt, once pointed out in an essay called "On Power" (she could have sold a million copies had she called it "I Had Sex with my Dad and I Loved it" but you know how stupid those intellectuals can be). In this outstanding essay she points out that pointing guns at someone to control what they do is terror; Power is numbers, and numbers will always triumph eventually because the guys holding the guns get tired, careless, or just plain don't want to do it any more; at the end of Communism the Russian Army would not fire on their own people. Want to bet the Iranians won't fire on their own people? Religious thugs don't get as tired as most.

"What the world thinks of us is of no concern to us" will bite us in the jugular as we try to deal with the three main competing cultures on the planet: Confucianism (you know, like in "Confucius say, Virgin like balloon — one prick, all gone"), Hinduism (the guys who drink their own piss for shit sakes), and the Muslim block (Men who dress in robes are always pissed off); almost four billion people who don't like what we show; or to put it more precisely, hate what we show them and conclude what we show them is what we are. And to a billion Hindus you are what you DO. Our culture of rampant sexual excess portrayed in movies, plays, and books; a society that displays gay priests and bishops, unlimited excessive use of drugs and alcohol, the widespread family breakups, and rampant crime; these are things that cannot be viewed by these other cultures as desirable; how this stuff came to be desirable to us would be the subject of another essay. Our culture is viewed as Satan, evil, and every other synonym for just plain bad. These other societies are looking at us. They are evaluating what we say we are; then they compare it what we actually project and hold it up to their own cultures. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights has produced an obscene society to them; a thoroughly despicable Hollywood culture of depravity.

The comparison is odious to them. We are obscene. But we have money.

So here's a shock: China is NOT Communist. Today it is a society based on Confucius (500BC). They base life on---order, family responsibility, hard work, collectivism, discipline, and moderation in food and drink--China is becoming a successful economic power . Money makes you a successful society; "He who has the gold makes the rules" is a widely applied aphorism. Asian cultures in South East Asia are becoming Muslim or Confucian (Singapore, Taiwan). When you are successful you become a "role model" for other countries and cultures. Muslim "success" is a negative success; destroy America; bring America down instead of bringing yourself up.

China is culturally older than Europe, Africa, older even than Egypt and Sumeria. What they are doing is reaching back into the cultural past, and their cultural past always regarded the West as barbarians, cultural inferiors, and a people to be scorned; this includes the "new" Muslims, the Japanese (regarded as a separate culture by most academics), Christians, and to a certain extent the Hindus of India. Increasingly, they are showing the world and Asia that there is an "Asian Way" that doesn't have to cough when America catches cold.

All of these cultures reject the gay Episcopal Bishop who deserted wife and two young daughters to engage in sodomy with another man (beyond disgusting to Muslim or Hindu); the serial sexual encounters by men and women with no regard for morality; ignoring family responsibilities; abandoning self discipline in favor of drugs, drink and debauchery; the lack of order to any moral principal; and no moderation in any phase of our Hollywodized lives. The direct opposite to cultural traits of Muslims, Confucians, and Hindus. When we say we are "right" we tread on sensibilities and cultures that are thousands of years old. When China intervened in the Hong Kong stock market to support their stocks it was a Confucian "collectivist" move, protecting the entire society and rejecting the individualism of Western markets, not Communist dictators riding roughshod over rules. They are "right" in their view and we are totally "wrong". And they proved it. They saved their stock market from random predators like George Soros (now raising money for people he probably believes will allow him to rig currency markets again), Nobel Prize winning predators like Long Term Capital Management, and so on. The currency speculation that had wrecked the economies of South East Asia was stopped dead by the Chinese actions. They "showed" Asia how to deal with the immoral West. George Soros was not going to wreck Hong Kong. Period. End of story.

China does not have a single period in their 5,000 year history where any form of democracy held sway. They have had autocrats of one kind or another for the entire period; theirs is a society ruled by tradition, a willingness to sacrifice for the "greater good", and the need for strong leadership. That is the Chinese way. It is impossible to overstate the influence of Confucianism on all of Asian thought. Everyone everywhere is at least partly Confucian. Politically, Confucius advocated a paternalistic government in which the sovereign is benevolent and honorable and the subjects are respectful and obedient. This is IT. No argument, and it's been this way, the Confucian Way, for more than 2,500 years. Further, the philosophy teaches that original human goodness can become depraved through one's own destructive effort or through contact with an evil environment (the West). Communism tried to stamp this stuff out but now it is back. And we need to understand the difference between Communism and Confucianism as well as their similarities when dealing with them.

In largely Hindu India religion is an occupation to much of the nearly a billion Hindus . Their religion dates back to 1,500 BC. The basic (if you can apply such a word to this most complex of religions) tenant is that you are what you DO; not what you think. And what we are DOING in our culture is what they believe we are; drunks, drug addicts, sex perverts, serial seducers of women, and so on. They have a caste system which we disapprove of, they have "holy cows" we disapprove of, they regard certain trees and plants as sacred, and so on; we don't approve of anything one billion people regard as their religion. Some drink their own urine, we just hate that. Some sit under a tree for weeks without eating (how the hell are we supposed to open a McDonald's for such slime balls?), some will let crocs eat children without intervening because that's the way nature is (we really hate that), they kneel and pray EVERY morning so our secular elites can look upon them with scorn, and so on and so forth. Starting in 1,300BC and added upon til 900BC are the "Vedas" which Hindus memorize (like the Muslims do the Koran); some memorize the Upanishads as well. All this proves to us they are even dumber than Muslims. There can be no argument that the Hindu philosophy is the most complex on the face of the earth and that their religion is by far the oldest. They believe in hundreds of Gods as opposed to The One True God, if that isn't a pain in the ass.

What many of us (not so) secretly like about them when we are young men is that we think they worship their dicks. Like in Penis Worship. Many of us believe they are on the right track and we go over there to meditate about dicks and vaginas hoping for a lifetime of great pussy with no responsibilities because we are "holy"; "Not so fast Tonto!" Hindus live a Greek like mythology, in fact much of Greek mythology is derived from Hindu. They actually live Hindu myth. Re- inactors include Kapalikas, who carry skulls to reenact the myth in which Shiva beheaded his father, the incestuous Brahma, and was condemned to carry the skull until he found release in Benares (Oedipus anyone??); yogis who eat ordure (that's a dignified literary word for shit) or flesh in order to demonstrate their complete indifference to pleasure or pain; and then there is Shiva, which is also the deity whose phallus (dick to you illiterates) is the central shrine of all Shaiva temples and the personal shrine of all Shaiva householders. (One of my friends in show biz came back from "Meditating in India" with an idea for a movie he was going to call: "Ordure eating Phallus Worshipers of the East". He actually wrote it; all his friends decided to stay away from both him and India). Now this phallus worship is what many Westerners try to get into til they find out that Shiva's priapism resulted in his castration and the subsequent worship of his severed member (his actual goddam penis). This means it's not so sexy after all, in fact it's anti-sex. So Hinduism is an all around pain in the ass to Westerners, most of whom worship T&A anyway. Or more precisely, young T&A.

An even bigger pain in the ass is that half the Hindus seek the sacred and profane rewards of this world. THIS world, not the mythological stuff. They want health, wealth, children, family, and a good re-birth. Half the Hindus are materialists. You could say it's almost free enterprise with a lot of praying and severed dick worshiping. These religious bastards are going to med school, university, and inventing bombs and things. These people are the part of the culture of India that is responsible for their exploding economy. GDP growth in excess of 8% for the past five years. One thing about all of them: they believe in God (Gods), totally. As they prosper they look down on us. They don't think we are so hot.

What we show all these other cultures as a better way, is our "culture", not our Bill of Rights. One rap song is enough for everyone to say "get out of my life". India is now a certified power. They have the bomb, a ton of money, a successful university system turning out some of the world's top programmers and scientists. They are a net food exporter. They think they are every bit as good as us. They are right, because they have money too.

So we better re-think our dealings with all of these people before it is too late. We are outnumbered. Europe is a decaying and putrid corpse. The U.S. has become a culture that is selling out to personal indulgences that four billion people hate and regard with contempt.

This includes the various dictatorships and thugocracies scattered about the world who care about nothing other than power, but pretend a religiosity. Egypt, Sudan, our pals the Saudis, Palestine, the game players in Europe and the posers in Latin America starting with drug enabler Mr. Fox in Mexico. We have to differentiate between cultures and political thugs. But some political thugs become religious thugs, while some religious zealots become criminal political leaders. See my post HERE.

So where is the threat? Are Hindus going to visit your house and insist you join them in a urine cocktail? No. What about the Confucian Chinese? If we understand the philosophy we will "get" that all of Asia wants to be Asia and not California (Kah-lee-foh-nee-ah, in Ah-nold speak). They want to do things "the Asian" way. They think that we can learn from them, that their way is better. One "Asian Way" that most Asian immigrants use to fund their businesses when they first arrive here revolves around the "Thirteen" (known by at least ten other names too). Thirteen people who have jobs form a unit. They pool their capital for thirteen weeks and then donate it by lot to one of them to start a business. They continue this process til all thirteen have received the largesse. Not all business succeed, but a hell of a lot of them do. That is why you see so many successful Asian business enterprises start up"from nothing". American blacks refuse to learn from this and continually whine that Asians get money from China. They don't, they generate it themselves. In the Asian Way. The Asian Way is not to go to Uncle for a welfare handout.

Numbers is Power, eventually. We are outnumbered. So are we to fear a mob of Hindus opening up some fast-ordure restaurants? A bunch of Asians attempting to make us memorize the two books of the Shih Shu by Monday morning or else? Won't happen. What can happen is the Muslim Terrorists representing the Wahabi wing of their "religion" will continue their reign of terror. This is the only segment of the four billion we have to fear. But we do need to understand their "ways" if we want to do business.

SO WHAT DO WE DO IF WE WANT TO "PROTECT" THEIR CULTURES
1. Only make movies that Muslims, Hindus, and the Chinese government approve of.
2. Only allow books to be published that Muslims, Hindus, and the Chinese approve of.
3. Only allow music that is approved by the above groups.
4. All our laws must be cleared by a religious council. And the Bill of Rights must not be mentioned in mixed company (Westerners and others)
5. Force everyone to memorize either the Bible, Koran, Shih Shu, or Vedas.
6. Force everyone to live by one of the above.
7. Stop with this voting bullshit, that is what is causing all the trouble.

Because that is what we'd have to do; that is what our schools and universities are doing to us right now so people don't get their "feelings" hurt. The other way is to show these people that if they leave us alone we will certainly leave them alone. But if you attack us, we will strike back. Hard. There is positive evidence that these Muslim theocratic dictatorships will be overthrown, eventually. Unlike the other major movements in the world, the Muslims cannot hold up success as a model. We can, and should, continually point out to the world that other cultures not practicing terror are successful; every bit as successful as we are. Eating ordure can build character, if you do it right (I have a video on that: "Ordure Cooknin': Ordure Terryaki, Ordure Alfredo and 50 other exciting Meditational meals: $19.95 plus shipping. Toilet paper not included).

Anyway, some stuff to think about.

No posts again today because Blogger was down all day AGAIN. Par for the course with them

Anybody who tells you they made a killing in the market this week must have shot their butcher. This was both a nothing week and a significant week. The interest rate scare, and it was a scare, seems over. The auction went well, rates dropped .3, the shorts (hedgers) were able to cover and there seems to be agreement that rates are now "right" and that the Fed won't touch interest rates for a year.

Jobless claims look good yet again; the fifth straight week under 400,000. The Jobs Numbers don't come out again for another month. The "scare of the week" (we will have these til the market runs again because all these writers and news shows have to have something to talk about) is oil prices. Some of the biggest "free enterprise/stinking government stay out of markets types" calling for a "look". Translation: something fishy is going on with energy prices. Iraq is supposed to be pumping 2 million bls. per day by year end. Retail exploded with consumers spending like mad in the chains. Productivity gains bode well for profits. These huge gains MUST result in better Jobs numbers, or else. Or else what? The end of capitalism as we know it and I'm not really kidding.

Check my post HERE on the car market. Ford, which is now just a ten dollar stock, may be in serious trouble. GM has a better UAW contract but the question for the past five years still holds: can anybody that has a UAW labor agreement make money? Diamler Chrysler is having trouble too.

Stocks are a pickers market, meaning "do your homework". There are lots of mid cap stocks to buy. Every number other than unemployment looks really good. The effect of the Jobs numbers at the end of August will be huge. Do not assume you know anything, because you don't. Don't even assume the market will explode upward if the unemployment rate drops to 5.5% or drop if the number rises to 6.5%. We KNOW absolutely nothing. Just invest with stops, scale out, use your system. The Jobs Number will tell us if we MAY be emerging from this recession or not. Meanwhile this is a trading range market with a range so tight that an explosion, either up or down, is a sure thing, EVENTUALLY according to technical analysis; and remember technical analysis clearly predicted seven out of the last two recessions. Set stops and be in because you could see a Dow at 10,000 in a few weeks time.

Another phony research study by a reputable scientist exposed HERE. It has now come to the point that we cannot trust any research from academia, environmental groups, and now medical groups. They all have an agenda, either they hate Bush, demand government (our) money, or support foreign governments. ANY study is not to be believed without double verification.

I am not a fan of Lileks like so many in the bolg community. I think he over writes everything, never using five words when a hundred will say the same thing. However this link is very well thought out and has no extra words (well a few) but the morality is right on; something I didn't think of. Go there for a real treat. It is midway down the page. Thanx to Hoystory for the link. Hoystory, BTW, is a dam good site if you haven't been there. Late add Lileks archive is down so let me summarize: He points out that the "Gay" Bishop left his two daughters so he could run off and have sex with someone else; because that someone else happens to be a man somehow makes it OK. He points out that had he run off to have sex with another woman and deserted his daughters he'd have been roundly condemned. His behavior is despicable. He left his daughters to fend for themselves. This is a POV I hadn't considered and Mr. Lileks is to be commended. Link to Hoystory above for most of the post.

Link HERE for more letters from Iraq you won't see in the media because it's positive and from somebody who is really there. Courtesy of Glenn Reynolds although this may be a different letter than the one he mentions in his post.

There were no posts today because Blogspot was down again, all day.

Question for investors Company A makes cars for a market that runs from the bottom to the middle. The cars are good. Company B makes cars for the same market. The product is about the same. This means that price of end product will determine the buying decision in at least 75% of the purchases. Now Company A has a cost of benefits to their workers of $1,700 per car. Company B has a cost of benefits of $200 per car. Who will win the competition?

In this example Ford Motor Company is A and Toyota is B. Ford is giving rebates of thousands of dollars per car to stay in the race. Do you do what several big shot analysts have said, namely to buy Ford?

This is why you have to do your own homework. Ford must get a labor contract that allows them to close three factories that their UAW contract forces them to keep open or they may face bankruptcy. Ford? Ford? Yes, Ford.

Checking the info the way I look at information there is not one reason on the planet to buy this stock. The charts suck, profits suck, they have a few new products coming on line but so what? This is not a stock for the small investor, ever. Don't pay attention to the people who have multimillionaires as clients.

Another jerk judge now takes the bench in a major trial. A small time media hunting jerkoff can turn this rape trial into a major farce, mis-carriage of justice, and a race case.

When it's 104 degrees where I live we turn on the heat What a bunch of pussys those EUs are. Try the San Fernando or San Juaquin Valleys in California or the El Centro area where temps of 115 are common. Try Texas, or anywhere in the Southwest. Paris is dying at 84???? No wonder they didn't want to go to Iraq, poor babies. Maybe it's the humidity that gets them. I read this shit about a heat wave in Europe and I want to scream. BTW there has been in interesting finding that the mild temps in Europe have nothing to do with the Gulf Stream as thought for the last 200 years. It's the Rocky Mountains. Very interesting finding at HERE and even HERE

Economics and Markets OH OH. The Freddie Mac situation that I thought was all wrapped up is now looking like a MAJOR scandal and problem for the economy. What they did in addition to cooking the books by shifting profits to another quarter is a series of fictitious trades called in the business "round tripping". The purpose of round tripping is to create profits that don't exist. Here's how this scam, and it is a total scam, works:

You and I agree that I will buy your gold piece (worth $10) for $11 and sell it back to you for $11.50. The deal looks like it happens but it doesn't . It just takes place on the "books". But Freddie Mac then executed the same sham trade with two other people. The net effect is to inflate the value of this gold piece to $12 and show it as a $2 profit. Freddie Mac executed these trades with the big boys: Merrill, Chase, and a few others. This means the other "big boys" knew exactly what they were doing too. The SEC is now ready to pounce and people are really scared. The rise in rates is shaking everyone since this should not be happening.

This is large and yesterday's stock market plunge has everything to with this now major criminal operation inside our largest mortgage players, in addition to corporate layoffs. The Washington Post is doing a good job on this and if you are an investor, you better read it.

Comments by deputy enforcement director Linda Chatman Thomsen made clear that financial institutions are a particular target for the SEC.

"We continue to hold counter-parties responsible for helping companies manipulate their reported results," she said. "Financial institutions in particular should know better than to enter into structured transactions where the structure is determined solely by accounting and reporting wishes of a public company."

That comment must have put the fear of God -- or at least the SEC -- into firms that arranged deals that allowed Freddie Mac to manipulate its reported profits by as much as $4.5 billion.

The usual regulator reaction is, "Bad boys, go to your rooms and no TV for a week." Not this time. The SEC is after blood.

The WSJ doesn't seem to share the Freddie Mac fear, but I think they are missing something the rest of the investors are not missing, a ton of "over priced" mortgage paper that has been dumped on the market. People will have to discount this incredible increase in risk. My opinion has been published on their letters page. Add at 11:10AM PDT The treasury auction went surprisingly well today with huge demand from overseas. There are two market rules at work: 1. The news is in the market; meaining that investors already knew the bad Freddie Mac stuff and were ready to buy back in and, 2. the price in the market is ALWAYS the right price. The sell off in stocks yesterday "on news" that everybody on the inside already knew was usual. Technical analysis is not over rated. Rates fell today and that is good news. As I write this the 10 year is up a full point, which means rates have dropped about .30. Hedgers of mortgage securities are all in so the next rates will honestly reflect how people feel about our economy. end

Go HERE and I'm sure that you, like me, would like to get behind her. Would she have put this state $35 billion in debt? Hell no. If she would have put us into debt it would have been real debt, like $200 billion, so we could end this Democratic Left charade out here. "Get behind her, I mean REALLY get behind her" is the motto.

The new "you are a bigot" spin from more than the usual places Opposed to Gay Marriage, you're a bigot. Opposed to the gay bishop, you're a bigot. Never stated outright but clearly implied by Glenn Reynolds too. Link homosexuality to the child molestation in the Catholic church and you are a "homophobe" (bigot). Well if that is the way the cookie crumbles then count me as a bigot. I'm certainly not afraid to state a case as I have many times on this blog. (link to why Gay Marriage is Bad on left, written a month before Rush Limbaugh stated most of my essay word for word yesterday 8/6, and here for another).

Gay Episcopal Bishop I don't care what Episcopals do about anything. What I do care about is that an anonymous email can wreck somebody. While the ID of the mailer is now known, it should take more than one accusation covering a career of twenty years to wreck somebody in any field.

PRE SEASON NFL FOOTBALL As bad as ????? Just pretend it isn't happening.

Real Live People, citizens of the state of California can file for the election without being "selected" by the sorry media scum, the party hacks, and the requirement to have millions in the bank in order to run. And the "oh so pure crowd" like Sherry Bebitch Jeffe of the University of Southern California are shocked by democracy. I'll post the revenue raising schemes they come up with as they come up.

1. Install slot machines throughout the state and tax them; Larry Flynt

2. "Think Pink" by a billboard goddess named Angelyne (she'll have to update her site if she hopes to beat Mary Carey, link below). All the college educated pretentious scumbags in the media pretend not to know what she means. Us slobs know dam well what she means: pink is slang for vagina and she wants to legalize prostitution and tax the profits. A sure billion dollars for the state.

3. Porn Star Mary Carey (wraped in the flag and seeking your vote) wants to run and she'd tax breast implants; in Hollywood alone this will put $100 million into the coffers

Other ideas include taxing the Amber Alerts, legalizing off shore oil drilling and taxing that (a great way but the environs will stop it), legalizing marijuana growing and taxing it, taxing abortions, and other ideas will be pushished.

Late Add, 8/4: Since I wrote this piece on 8/2 information published on LFG and Daily Pundit indicate a startling similarity between the Seattle Times cartoon and an old Nazi cartoon. Nobody I know is familiar with the old cartoon but the cartoonist may have. The charges of anti-Semitism regarding the cartoon were launched without mentioning the link. Bill O'Reilley has also repeated my charges here and many in the religious community. This is a professional hit job by the secular Left. Jews on the extreme are joining in.

The attack on the Mel Gibson movie called "The Passion" is in full swing, led by the still totally Left New York Times. It is an organized attack as proven by the similar charges in every column repeated word for word. The real purpose of the attack is that Jews and atheists fear an active Christianity. The attack is focusing on the Catholic Church and particularly on Opus Dei, not mentioned because they fear this group. Opus Dei, actively proselytizes. They are the only part of the Catholic Church evangelizing. And the Atheist Left fears an active vital Catholic Church more than they fear Saddam. Opus Dei has a large and influential following.

This unreleased movie is going to show how far Left and dogmatic the "Secular" (actually anti Christian) media has become. They will viciously attack this movie on any ground they can find. The two hit pieces so far are from the New York Times and the other pub is disguising who they are by running the hit by Frank Rich in the New York Times owned Paris Herald Tribune. These links courtesy of Drudge.

Sample: Rich from Paris---"Traditionalist Catholicism is the name given to a small splinter movement that rejects the Second Vatican Council ?— which, among other reforms, cleared the Jews of deicide."
Laurie Goodstein from the NYT: "Mr. Gibson's affiliation with a splinter Catholic group that rejects the modern papacy and the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, which in 1965 repudiated the charge of deicide against the Jews."

Fact: Opus Dei is very active within the Vatican and their presence there has also been attacked. It is the most influential group in the Catholic Church, supplanting the Jesuits; so much for the term "splinter" group. Their founder has been cannonized. The charge that Opus Dei is anti Semitic which is repeated in both Times articles is a lie. The Opus Dei group rejected a Vatican II statement that would forbid Catholics from trying to convert Jews to Catholicsm. This is anti-Semitism to the two Jewish writers in the Times as well as to the Liberal Left. . Specifically Opus Dei rejected this sentence: " The thesis of Reflections is that "Campaigns that target Jews for conversion to Christianity are no longer theologically acceptable in the Catholic Church." By this Left logic every person stopping by your house or stopping you on the street distributing "Watchtower" is an anti-Semite. So are all the evangelical Mormons on missions all over the world. Ditto the Hare Krishnas. This is a despicable charge from low rent intellects on the left. These shanty town liberals are hurling charges of anti-Semitism at every writer and cartoonist on the planet that dares to criticize anything Jews don't like. Go to this cartoon and see if this isn't simply a depiction of the state of Israel fencing in Palestinians and Arabs; yet it is being attacked as a viciously anti-Semitic cartoon. Any criticism of Israel's relationships with their neighbors and enemies is now anti-Semitic. In other words, "shut up about Isreal unless you want to praise it or we'll smear you with a racist charge." So now it is a movie they don't like? I doubt it. It is active Catholic evangalism they don't like.

The "problems" with Opus Dei is that they are secretive. So is every Buddhist monistary on the planet. Are they Anti-Semitic too? Opus Dei is Catholic, albeit an off the beaten track version.

Both Times pieces trash Gibson (who may or may not be a member of Opus Dei) as an anti-Semite, they attack the people who like it as Jew haters, and by extension anyone who sees or likes the movie is anti-Semitic according to the Gospel of the Left. They include Drudge in this sewer of invective clearly implying that Drudge is a "dumb Jew" as opposed to the "smart Jews" like Frank Rich and Laurie Goodstein of the oh so smart New York Times..

Even though I am a registered Agnostic I have already made up my mind to see this movie because I cannot stand being told what a work of art is supposed to be by a bunch of dilettantes in the media with any "Agenda". I hope you will all join me in a gigantic "fuck you" to the Anti Defamation League the New York Times and the Left Wing atheist crowd that is sure to pile on.

BTW I'm sure most of you would not join or necessarily endorse Opus Dei because they are similar to the Orthodox Jews in the purity of their beliefs and practices, but under our Constitution they have the right to express their views, exist, and prosper. The Secular Left will do their best to see that success doesn't happen for Mr. Gibson. Opus Dei, because it really is deeply held, is beyond all the sexual abuse scandals, and is becoming more and more influential in Catholic thinking. This Catholic movement is feared by all on the secular Left. They do not want this movie to succeed because they do not want Opus Dei to succeed.

As a personal aside. I was raised in a Jewish Father, Catholic Mother household. My experience with my father's Jewish friends is that the racial and religious slurs from Jews was the order of the day. Goy means heathen or pagan and the term was thrown at every Christian; the terms chicksa, schwartza, and other demeaning slang terms are just the way things are. I get really pissed when I hear Jews get on some ethical high horse about liberalism. I never heard my mother's Catholic friends or family ever engage in the slurs like my dad's Jewish associates. Not that the Catholics were pure, it just wasn't as constant.

The attack on Gibson's movie is a blatant Jewish and liberal attack on religious Catholics and other Christians. The movie must be terrific to cause such a stir. BTW I'm pretty well read on the Life of Jesus and it is beyond question that the Jews set Jesus up and the Romans killed him. Jesus was a revolutionary, a major threat to the Jewish money interests and a potential threat to Rome. But that was 2,000 years ago for Christ sakes. Get over it. Oh, and my name is Veit, and like Drudge I'm another stupid Jew.

Movie Note Notice the total pile on regarding the J Lo-Aflek film? If a movie is this bad why dwell on it? Obvious reason is the total envy these $500 per week losers have toward successful people in any field. They want to hurt these two people for no reason other than to hurt them.

Human behavior

When a blue collar guy gets laid off he goes home and screws (a revenge fuck or a depression lay), thus producing another baby. When a middle class guy or woman gets laid off they shop (living well is the best revenge), thus increasing debt and the cost of borrowing. Checking the numbers this week may back up my observation.

Everybody I've learned from has always told me that Consumer Confidence is just another stupid study by somebody earning a living by making stupid studies. There is no such thing as Consumer Confidence. The survey is a "snapshot in time". This means the people answering the survey just after an American soldier has been killed don't feel good while the people answering after we capture Saddam's sons feel great. It's a number nobody who knows anything pays attention to. Other thanto go long or short the S&P immediately after the report and bail after making score because everyone knows the dopes think the numbers mean something and will buy or sell based on it.

Interest rates remain high as bonds go on a fire sale. If you are confused on bonds go to this post below. I was WRONG last week when I said the dumb money had come into the market; it has not. It is still on the sidelines.

First, the jobless claims. They fell to 388,000 in the July 26 week, down from a revised 391,000 the prior week, the lowest level of jobless claims since the week of February 8th. What is really important here is that this is the second straight week the number has been below the 400,000 mark, something very good. BUT THE MONTHLY JOBS NUMBER SUCKS this is the true unemployment rate and it continues to show business shedding jobs. Don't kid yourselves, this is a bad number and must improve. No other number means anything until jobs are being created. "Outsourcing" of jobs might become the only real issue the Democrats have and they will pound this one hard.

GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP) second quarter (GDP) rose 2.4 percent on an annualized basis, up from a 1.4 percent growth rate in the first quarter. Very bad news for Democrats, which speaks volumes about that sad excuse for a party. Inside the number is the fact that inventories fell by a monster $18 billion. Add to that, cap spending is up especially on equipment and software. Demand is up 3%. Overall profits are up 6%, productivity gains up 5%, both up bigger than GDP. Bigger is ad budgets are up for 8th week and travel is up, and copper a huge industrial metal is up 33% from the lows. Democrats may now switch to the homosexual marriage issue in order to recapture power hoping a majority of us will switch orientation if we will only attend the "right" schools. Consumer spending grew 3.3 percent, up from 2.0 percent in the first quarter (Consumer Confidence report??? When middle class people feel bad they shop).

BIGGEST NUMBER BY FAR: Business investment rose 6.9 percent; compared to the prior negative 4.4 percent. Huge number. Biggest gain was in federal government spending rising 25.1 percent. That is the biggest gain since 1967, driven by a 44.1 percent jump in defense spending.

LIBERAL MEDIA SLANT: The employment figure is smaller because people are so depressed they stopped looking for jobs (when blue collar guys get depressed they go home and screw); things are actually horrible (repeated in each paragraph). The defense spending that helped boost the GDP is not likely to be sustained, and layoffs threaten consumer spending. The economic figures are bloated by the unconscionable war and can't be sustained. The "supposed turnaround in business investment" acutally reveals fragility in business confidence; they are just reacting not leading. Consumer spending DROPPED 0.1 percent in June. Mortgage rates are now over 6% which punishes all working Americans (they will drop in the next two weeks so you won't hear this cry for long). And the JOBS number proves.... (everything bad you can imagine); but as I've said for months this is the only number that matters. Unemployment is an Atomic Land Mine under this market

STOCKS: No change. A ton of money to be made. Select carefully based on fundamentals of the company, their debt, and the dividend yield. Dow well above 10,000 by Christmas (unless the ACLU succeeds in banning it, then by Kwanzaa for sure; it will be 11,000 by Ramadan).
Warning: use the NASDAQ 100 not the broad market and keep an eye on the S&P 600, which is the small cap index. I think IBD runs this daily if not, they run it every other day.

Finally, if you don't have a system that tells you to get out of a stock that drops below a certain point or tells you to get out with a 6 to 8 percent drop from buy in, you just plain don't belong in the market at all. If you aren't ready to bail out of three out of four picks right away you don't belong in the market. You are ALWAYS going to lose 24% of your money while picking a stock that pays dividends and rises several hundred percent. PERIOD. Now if you buy a stock at $20 that yields 4% (eighty cents) and it rises to $40 and still pays eighty cents you have made a big score if you have scaled out on the way up. You will own thirty to forty percent of the shares you originally bought at $20 (thirty shares at $40 means $1200 vs 100 shares at $20 equaling $2000) but you have taken at least $1,000 off the table and reinvested it. You have turned $2,000 into $2,200 plus dividend yield which is still 4% based at your buy in price if dividends haven't gone up. That's 10% on your money money in a few months without greed. An effective yearly rate of at least 40% and what is wrong with that?

Add at 1:00 PDT In response to many emails chiding me for the gutlessness of "scaling out", which is absolutely sound practice. It commonly called "pyramid" trading, meaning you buy many positions and by scaling out you will have fewer so on a diagram it resembles a pyramid.

This is the only way for a small investor to play this market. You must know how to do it and do it. Unemployment is an atomic land mine under this market. Here are some facts:
1. We have shed almost 3% of the total jobs during this recession. Think about that one.
2. The working age population has GROWN by more than three million.

Look at it this way, we have lost 2.6 million jobs and gained 3 million workers. This recovery, if it happens, will have to generate 5.5 million NEW jobs in one year. Not impossible but it will take a balls out recovery of more than 5% GDP to do it.

You dam well better invest using sound investing practices or you may find yourself on the welfare line.

Aside from a detailed account of a French book giving a disgusting account of the diners at the top of the World Trade Center after it had been hit, there is this:

The French artistic, cultural, and we-take-you-all-for-a-bunch-of-jerkoffs circles are shaken by the beating given by Bertrand Cantat to his main squeeze, the actress Marie Trintingnant. The Paris Intelligentsia is a shithole populated by drug addicts, alcoholics, and other depraved individuals much too 'has been' to merit more than a half a paragraph in the National Enquirer. Here is an interview in Humanité which illustrates Cantat's fondness for the violence surrounding Attac and the Palestinien terrorist cause. As for the French leftist media slimeballs, they have provided us with a deafening silence since this whole affair started.

Go there, he's good.

Also Dissident Frogman has new site and I've corrected the link to the left.

To sum it up: there is now a ton hard proof of the crime family- terrorist connection.
A slew of honest research that I have shamelessly plagiarized include
Harvard University
Senate Hearings
St Andrews College UK
Jane's
Many reliable institutions and groups are connecting the dots linking criminal syndicates with terror networks. Money is the grease that makes these wheels turn. Drug money can finance terror, terrorist learn from the crime families how to launder money, steal large items like planes and trucks, and how to highjack commercial vehicles. The crime families then actually become political actually taking over countries.

The intelligentsia actually doing work in this area have broken it down into seven categories that are divided into four crime-terror relationships. They are
1. actual alliances;
2. what they call "convergence";
3. operational motivations, and lastly;
4. "The Black Hole Syndrome" which goes a long way to explaining this stuff.
As Jane's explains it

Alliances exist at both ends of the continuum, with criminal groups forming alliances with terrorist organizations, and terrorist groups seeking alliances with criminal organizations. Alliances can include one-off, short-term and long-term agreements, and are usually used to gain expert knowledge like, money-laundering, counterfeiting or bomb-making. There is also "operational support" like access to smuggling routes.
The most common alliances exist in the field of international smuggling operations, evident in the cocaine for arms ties developed between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - FARC), Mexican drug trafficking groups, and Russian criminal groups.

The Harvard study takes it further:

First, it refers to traditional criminal organizations–such as the Russian mafia and Albanian criminal groups– that initially used terror tactics as an operational tool, normally to eliminate competitors, but subsequently to seek political objectives. Second, the fulcrum of the crime-terror nexus refers to terrorist groups–such as Abu Sayyaf and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia–who initially used criminal activities as a source of financing, but subsequently changed the focus of their ideological beliefs from political to financial. Finally, it may be applied to contemporary civil wars–wars in which factions have evolved from basing their motivations on religion and ideology to crime (for example, the "diamond' wars of Sierra Leone and Angola) In Afghanistan and Central Asia the entire crime-terror continuum is represented. Thus, in addition to providing a base for organized criminal (drug mafias) and terrorist groups (Al-Qaeda), this region is also home to groups that simultaneously appear to be criminal AND terrorist in nature (the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan).

The end of the cold war drove many criminal and terrorist groups to shift focus. Criminal groups are increasingly engaged in political activity

...in an effort to manipulate operational conditions present in the rising numbers of weak states; terrorist groups have increasingly focused on criminal activities to replace lost financial support from state sponsors. Iraq and Afghanistan for example.

There is motivational convergence in that some criminal and terrorist groups have evolved beyond using terrorism and crime as separate tactics. These groups perform both terrorism and organized crime simultaneously. Furthermore, these hybrid groups have the potential to transform into an entity situated at the opposite end of the crime-terror nexus from which it began.

In its most basic form, the convergence thesis includes two independent, yet related, components. First, it incorporates criminal groups that display political motivations; and second, it refers to terrorist groups who are equally interested in criminal profits, but ultimately begin to use their political rhetoric as a facade for perpetrating solely criminal activities. Meaning that terrorist groups BECOME criminal organizations pretending to be terrorist orgs.

Now the Black Hole part and this is critical; from Jane's again

The final point of convergence noted in the diagram is the 'Black Hole'. It is at this point that the convergence between criminal and political motivations within a single group allows it to subsequently gain economic AND political control over a state. The 'black hole' can contribute to the production of a failed state - such as Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Liberia (get that one), which are states that lack central authority, and displays the characteristics of anarchy;, or they can produce criminal states like North Korea, Myanmar, and potentially the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan.

If you are interested further I suggest you go to the Harvard site which MAY have been the source for most others including the world famous Jane's.

Bryant's $20 million at work must include ABC News which continues to "leak" data favorable to his case and NOTHING favoring the "alleged" victim. According the latest series of leaks and commentary a mentally disurbed young woman has no qualification to claim rape and a police force that has one officer involved in a department wide racial profiling case five years ago has no standing to investigate one if a black is the perp. So we can all get this right: 1. A black can rape anybody he chooses in a county that was once sued for racial profiling and 2. There can be no rape if a woman has been treated for mental illness recently. Keep going Kobe and the always reliable ABC Newswhores.

The bond yield vs stock purchase puzzle explained.

I was WRONG last week when I stated that the sideline money was coming into the market. It isn't. It is still scared. Partly because the people on the sidelines are people who hate and resent paying commissions, can't make their own decisions but eventually do anyway. Mainly they say they are "confused" by bonds.

Here's the deal. Treasuries are now paying 4.5% interest, never mind why. A ton of good stocks are paying better than 4%. There is "risk" in stock prices going down which negate any dividend gain. There is no risk at all of a Treasury Security going down once owned. Taxes on treasury yields are straight income, taxes on dividends are now 15%. So people who like to "study" and "analyze" get confused, poor babies. They have to sit around and figure and figure and figure.

1. A stock that yields 4% and rises in price gives a double kick. A rise of 5% plus a dividend yield of 4% at buy in price is 9% and the gain isn't paid until sold. BUT, oh my God, SUPPOSE the stock falls in price?

A QUICK BOND INTEREST RATE EXPLANATION: When bond prices rise---interest rates fall and vice versa. If you don't get it, here is what is what. PRETEND interest rates are at 5%. A $100 bond would then sell for $95 (making it simple here) allowing you to collect $5 on the coupon; you pay 95 to get back 100 GUARANTEED. Now if interest rates rose to 10% you would buy the bond for $90 (collect the $10 in coupon interest); you pay only 90 to get back 100 GUARANTEED. When rates rise from five percent to ten percent, the price you pay for the interest bearing note falls (you paid 95 when rates were 5% and 90 when they rose to 10%). What is happening in the market right now is that a lot of people are selling treasuries and presumably buying better yielding stocks. This selling is forcing treasury prices DOWN (too much selling meets too little demand) to the point where treasuries become attractive compared to alternative investments. So falling prices drive interest rates up. Personally, and I am just being personal, look for seniors seeking safety above all to buy bonds; treasuries are far above bank yields. This will boost prices (lower rates). The banks, never one to shun making a killing, can borrow from the Fed window at 1.5% and buy treasuries yielding 4.5%, a reason why bank stocks have soared. Again, a real Democratic Party would be all over this like bat shit on a cave floor, but they talk about abortion, sixteen words, and the economy.

According to this report in the Washington Post (link from Drudge) we don't protect informers. So big surprise, they are being assassinated routinely. Jesus how stupid can our people be. This planning just doesn't exist anywhere. If we had a Democratic Party anybody believed in, they'd win in a walk. But we don't and the deaths mount with every stupid day.

Everybody who chooses to produce essays on a web page runs the risk of becoming a "One Trick Pony"; a one agenda obsessional unending pontificator who becomes a crashing bore to everyone other than those who share the obsession. Andrew Sullivan is one such case and today is sadly typical of most of his days now. It is now just a "homosexuals are normal". He will have everyone feel homosexuals are poor and rightous victims of society, the Church, and the Right Wing of the Republican Party. The Homosexual agenda has a ton of sites, supporters, and apologists in every media. Even TV crap stories about them in a "favorable" light.

The fact that so many homosexuals are wealthy, successful, and have power in media gives them a major leg up on real victim groups that have no money, no power, no influence, and no chance to gain a voice except on web pages. The reality is that these groups have no web page presence either. So guess what? "Spokespeople" run sites that pretend to speak for them.. So other than list after list of disgustingly PC sites "recommended" by the usual crowd, there are no American Indian web sites that could tell everyone what things are like on various "reservations" (Google search: Native American web pages and American Indian web pages and sites). Asian Americans, a portion of the population being raped by Blacks and Hispanics, have no sites either, other than those totally safe and academic sites recommended by the "Diversity Crowd". Break it down in any way you choose: Vietnamese, Haitian (American), Pakistani, Indian, etc., and you find nothing. But Blacks, Hispanics, and Homosexuals are all over the web. As are Muslims, another very rich "victim" group.

I conclude from this that the groups of people who face real obstacles in life have no Internet presence and we the people have no knowledge of their challenges as stated by them.

So the cause du jour is now to recognize that men who insert their penises into the rectums of other men and then ejaculate are "just like you and me".. Men who thrust their members into the mouths of other men are normal. Men who dress up like women are normal, men who engage in the normal everyday practice of "fist fucking" with other men are to be respected by society, as are the "chicken hawks", slaves and masters, and a ton of other disgusting practices. We are being told we should sanctify these deviant couriers of lust through marriage, as if these disgusting people are normal and entitled to elevation to a pedestal of respect.

Sorry "guys" but you are in a personal and sexual sewer and my vote is to keep you there. I'm with the Pope on this one (I almost never agree with the Pope), with the President, the Christian Right, and everyone else opposed to this current homosexual propaganda campaign.