Two Views A University President, A New Yorker, A Retired Admiral November 30, 2004February 28, 2017 But first: TWO VIEWS ON BOREALIS Chris W: ‘You’re leaning pretty hard on Boeing. I’d better toss in a few tidbits. The press release talks about ‘Boeing Phantom Works’ as ‘the aerospace company’s advanced research and development unit.’ Well, yeah. But. Boeing Phantom Works is euphemism for ‘The old St. Louis McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom fighter aircraft R&D and production facility.’ That plant is BINO, Boeing In Name Only. The senior guys there would rather McDonnell Douglas had never been bought. They retain as much autonomy as they can and their R&D focus is about 99% military. They made $1 billion last year on JDAMs alone. Boeing’s commercial aircraft work is in Seattle, almost entirely. The point being, this press release looks shaky to me. Maybe they found some guys around St. Louis to give it a nod, but those guys are not the focus of St. Louis and probably have damn little money to spend on this stuff. When you get a press release out of Seattle, then you should maybe perk up. St. Louis is not the right place.’ ☞ Okay, but for what it’s worth, the May, 2001 press release did list a Seattle contact. And the engineer I spoke with last week who seems to be intimately engaged in this latest project had a Seattle phone number. Steve Ralph: ‘It’s taken a long time, and some shareholders have quite understandably given up. I got my shares by doing some consultancy work for them, so I’m in a different position to many, and can understand the technology, which helps in the face of such outrageous claims. Nonetheless, I am surprised at what a long winding road has been traveled to get to the recognition the current situation with Boeing indicates. Seems they are finally being taken seriously. I think until the certificated motor test appeared most people thought they were crooks and con-men. I have understood for years that the Chorus motor represents a huge shift in the way AC motors are built. If you can efficiently move a plane on the ground, you can do pretty much all the stuff electric motors aren’t so good at – i.e., high efficient torque at low speed. That’s a lot of stuff. And as a physicist, I can be quite certain the Cool Chips/Power Chips stuff works. The creation of the nano-gap seems to be sorted out now, so that should begin to roll. I’m currently working out how much energy I can get from a bucket of slush (which will end up at about -10C) using a low grade powerchip. Anyway, I’m sitting on a pile of assorted Borealis stock, currently valued about $30K, and feeling glad that I can understand physics.’ ☞ The only thing I understand about physics is that you must not put money into this stock that you cannot afford cheerfully to lose. But if some of this stuff proves to be real and commercially viable, you’ll definitely be able to get the lawn reseeded. Maybe even paper the den. And now: TWO VIEWS ON EVERYTHING ELSE When I first saw this letter going around, I thought it might be a hoax. But it doesn’t show up on Factcheck.org or Snopes.com or Hoaxbusters.com or Truthorfiction.com, so here it is . . . from the President of Bob Jones University to the President of the United States: Dear Mr. President: The media tells us that you have received the largest number of popular votes of any president in America’s history. Congratulations! In your re-election, God has graciously granted America-though she doesn’t deserve it-a reprieve from the agenda of paganism. You have been given a mandate. We the people expect your voice to be like the clear and certain sound of a trumpet. Because you seek the Lord daily, we who know the Lord will follow that kind of voice eagerly. Don’t equivocate. Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ. Honor the Lord, and He will honor you. Had your opponent won, I would have still given thanks, because the Bible says I must (I Thessalonians 5:18). It would have been hard, but because the Lord lifts up whom He will and pulls down whom He will, I would have done it. It is easy to rejoice today, because Christ has allowed you to be His servant in this nation for another presidential term. Undoubtedly, you will have opportunity to appoint many conservative judges and exercise forceful leadership with the Congress in passing legislation that is defined by biblical norm regarding the family, sexuality, sanctity of life, religious freedom, freedom of speech, and limited government. You have four years-a brief time only-to leave an imprint for righteousness upon this nation that brings with it the blessings of Almighty God. Christ said, ‘If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my father honour’ (John 12:26). The student body, faculty, and staff at Bob Jones University commit ourselves to pray for you-that you would do right and honor the Savior. Pull out all the stops and make a difference. If you have weaklings around you who do not share your biblical values, shed yourself of them. Conservative Americans would love to see one president who doesn’t care whether he is liked, but cares infinitely that he does right. Best wishes. Sincerely your friend, Bob Jones III President Clearly heartfelt. The challenge for America is to continue to be a place where views like that can coexist with views like this: A NEW YORKER’S POINT OF VIEW ON THE ELECTION I am writing this letter to the people in the red states in the middle of the country — the people who voted for George W. Bush. I am writing this letter because I don’t think we know each other. . . . I am a New Yorker. I was here, in my apartment downtown, on September 11th. I watched the Towers burn from the roof of my building. I went inside so that I couldn’t see them when they fell. I had friends who were inside. I have a friend who still has nightmares about watching people jump and fall from the Towers. He will never be the same. How many people like him do you know? People that can’t sit in a restaurant without plotting an escape route, in case it blows up? I am a worker. I work across the street from the Citigroup Center, which the government told us is a “target” of terrorism. Later, we found out they were relaying very old information, but it was already too late. They had given me bad dreams again. The subway stop near my office was crowded with bomb-sniffing dogs, policemen in heavy protective gear, soldiers. Now, every time I enter or exit my office, all of my possessions are X-rayed to make sure I don’t have any weapons. How often are you stopped by a soldier with a bomb-sniffing dog outside your office? I am a neighbor. I have a neighbor who is a 9/11 widow. She has two children. My husband does odd jobs for her now, like building bookshelves. Things her husband should do. He uses her husband’s tools, and the two little girls tell him, “Those are our daddy’s tools.” How many 9/11 widows and orphans do you know? How often do you fill in for their dead loved ones? I am a taxpayer. I worked my butt off to get where I did, and so did my parents. My parents saved and borrowed and sent me to college. I worked my way through graduate school. I won a full tuition scholarship to law school. All for the privilege of working 2,600 hours last year. That works out to a 50 hour week, every week, without any vacation days at all. I get to work by 9 am and rarely leave before 9 pm. I eat dinner at my office much more often than I eat dinner at home. My husband and I paid over $70,000 in federal income tax last year. At some point in the future, we will have to pay much more once this country faces its deficit and the impossible burden of Social Security. In fact, the areas of the country that supported Kerry — New York, California, Illinois, Massachusetts — they are the financial centers of the nation. They are the tax base of this country. How much did you pay, Kansas? How much did you contribute to this government you support, Alabama? How much of this war in Iraq did you pay for? I am a liberal. The funny part is, liberals have this reputation for living in Never-Neverland, being idealists, not being sensible. But let me tell you how I see the world: I see America as one nation in a world of nations. Therefore, I think we should try to get along with other nations. I see that gay people exist. Therefore, I think they should be allowed to exist, and be treated the same as other people. I see ways in which women are not allowed to control their own bodies. Therefore, I think we should give women more control over their bodies. I see that people have awful diseases. Therefore, I think we should enable scientists to try to cure them. I see that we have a Constitution. Therefore, I think it should be upheld. I see that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Therefore, I think that Iraq was not an imminent danger to me. It seems so pragmatic to me. How do you see the world? Do you really think voting against gay marriage will keep people from being gay? Would you really prefer that people continue to die from Parkinson’s disease? Do you really not care about the Constitutional rights of political detainees? Would you really have supported the war if you knew the truth, or would you have wanted to spend more of our money on health care, job training, terrorism preparedness? I am an American. I have an American flag flying outside my home. I love my home more than anything. I love that I grew up right outside New York City. I first went to the Statue of Liberty with my 5th grade class, and my mom and dad took me to the Empire State Building when I was 8. I love taking the subway to Yankee Stadium. I loved living in Washington DC and going on dates to the Lincoln Memorial. It is because I love this country so much that I argue with my political opponents as much I do. I am not safe. I never feel safe. My in-laws live in a small town in Ohio, and that town has received more federal funding, per capita, for terrorism preparedness than New York City has. I take subways and buses every day. I work in a skyscraper across the street from a “target.” I have emergency supplies and a spare pair of sneakers in my desk, in case something happens while I’m at work. Do you? How many times a month do you worry that your subway is going to blow up? When you hear sirens on the street, do you run to the window to make sure everything is okay? When you hear an airplane, do you flinch? Do you dread beautiful, blue-skied September days? I don’t know a single New Yorker who doesn’t spend the month of September on tip-toes, superstitiously praying for rain so we don’t have to relive that beautiful, blue-skied day. I am lonely. I feel that we, as a nation, have alienated all our friends and further provoked our enemies. I feel unprotected. Most of all I feel alienated from my fellow citizens, because I don’t understand what you are thinking. You voted for a man who started a war in Iraq for no reason, against the wishes of the entire world. You voted for a man whose lack of foresight and inability to plan has led to massive insurgencies in Iraq, where weapons are disappearing into the hands of terrorists. You voted for a man who let Osama Bin Laden escape into the hills of Afghanistan so that he could start that war in Iraq. You voted for a man who doesn’t want to let people love who they want to love; doesn’t want to let doctors cure their patients; doesn’t want to let women rule their destinies. I don’t understand why you voted for this man. For me, it is not enough that he is personable; it is not enough that he seems like one of the guys. Why did you vote for him? Why did you elect a man that lied to us in order to convince us to go to war? (Ten years ago you were incensed when our president lied about his sex life; you thought it was an impeachable offense.) Why did you elect a leader who thinks that strength cannot include diplomacy or international cooperation? Why did you elect a man who did nothing except run away and hide on September 11? Most of all, I am terrified. I mean daily, I am afraid that I will not survive this. I am afraid that I will lose my husband, that I will never have children, that I will never grow old and watch the sunset in a backyard of my own. I am afraid that my career — which should end with a triumphant and good-natured roast at a retirement party in 2035 — will be cut short by an attack on me and my colleagues, as we sit sending emails and making phone calls one ordinary afternoon. Is your life at stake? Are you terrified? I don’t think you are. I don’t think you realize what you have done. And if anything happens to me or the people I love, I blame you. I wanted you to know that. ☞ I’m not sure this tone will win many Red State converts. But then (speaking of tone) you have this, from the other side: PARDON ME WHILE I GLOAT By Rear Admiral Dick Van Orden, USN (ret.) I am not normally a cheerful loser or a gracious winner. Whether its tiddly-winks or war at sea, I want to win, win, win! In fact, I hate to lose and when I win I sometimes want to rub the loser’s nose in his defeat. After a sleepless night I feel just rotten enough that the past six months of lies and innuendoes from the Kerry camp have it all come home to make me more vindictive than usual. As a result, I want to gloat. Here’s why: I am happy that the sound common sense of a majority of America’s voters resulted in a solid victory for a true patriot-and in the humiliating defeat of a lying traitor. There was no doubt in my mind that Bush’s truthfulness and forthrightness would prevail against the lies and half-truths of Kerry and his supporters, and I am pleased that a majority of good folks saw the light and pushed the Bush/Cheney button for justice and for increasing support for the nation’s bright future. I am pleased that the left-leaning media-newspapers, radio, TV and newsmagazines-got their bell rung, but good. Now we are assured that these self-appointed “opinion makers” cannot pull the wool over the eyes of most of us, no matter how hard they twist the facts. Their early reporting of the “leaked” fraudulent exit polls and their sponsorship of other badly skewed voter polls were designed to mislead voters, in which they failed-miserably. And Dan Rather deserves a special place in hell. I am delighted that the fat, disgusting A-hole, Michael Moore did not achieve the success that he wished for and that he was repulsed by so many intelligent Americans. May his soul burn in hell. I hope the Hollywood friends of Michael Moore – especially Barbara Streisand, Whoopi Goldberg, P-Diddler, and their friends-are roasting in the hell of their own making. It seems to me that they all offered to depart the U.S. if Bush won the first time, which they did not do. The time is now doubly ripe for their exit. I am blissful that all the treasure and invective of George Soros devoted to defeating George Bush went for naught. I only wish for a financial future of similar poor decisions by Soros; I want to see him as bankrupt in bank account as he is in patriotism. I find it particularly satisfying that the high ranking military suck-ups whose lack of integrity led them to desert their commander-in-chief and follow a lying cheat, even though they knew, or should have known, that his dismissal from the Navy was “less than honorable,” as detailed in the military record that he refused to release. It is sad that such Navy types as Bill Crowe, Stan Turner, and even Jimmy Carter would be in that group. It is obvious that their motivation was the hope of a cushy job when their new-found knight in shining armor moved into the White House. Even their strategy was flawed, for Kerry is, and always has been, anti-military; he only used his military service-and those military “advisors”-for personal political gain. He would never have offered that cushy job, once he had used them, just as he never voted for the needed armament that they and their shipmates and their Marine Corps, Army, and Air Force brothers-in-arms needed so badly. I am thrilled that the whiners who have complained bitterly about the “stolen” 2000 Presidential election must leave that fallacy in the past and now try to find something else to whine about — maybe they can even develop a fantasy that the four million vote plurality was a miscount, and continue their whining as they slink away into their caves. It pleases me that Kofi Annan and the other United Nations sycophants failed miserably when they tried so hard to influence this election to ensure that a more pliable President Kerry would be elected. I hope they will now realize that either they clean up the bureaucratic, corrupt, do-nothing UN, or they will be short of funds when the Bush-led US decreases-or ends-its support. I am overjoyed at the failure of Osama bin Laden’s carefully timed video of invective against the US and its President in hopes of using Islamic scare tactics on the American people. Bin Laden’s aim was to entice our voters to elect a new President who will not be as robust in his pursuit of terrorists and more willing to “negotiate” with Islamic Fundamentalists. He did not understand that Americans are not as panicky as the French, fearful as the Spanish, or unthinking as the English. (As for the Germans, they should know better; we have defeated them in battle often enough to convince them of the rightness of our ways.) I hope Osama dies in a blast from a bunker-buster before he gets a chance to make another video or another attack on our nation. The blatant attempts of European nations and the EU to cause our President discomfort in his efforts to bring peace to the world make me glad that they are so disappointed with the election results. My joy is unbounded at the chagrin of the French and German and other anti-Bush, anti-American nations (including the people of the UK-but not their loyal and faithful government led by Prime Minister, Tony Blair). Now let those U.S.-sheltered Europeans worry about the end of American financial and military assistance when they have problems. Let them beg for American military aid and other handouts that have helped to sustain their economies. And let them perish in their own sweat when we remove out troops from Germany, the Balkans, and other trouble spots where we have pulled their chestnuts out of the fire. I relish the hope that Islamic fundamentalists will now understand the election result as a blow from which they cannot recover. It fills me with joy that their dreams of world domination will be shattered by Bush’s and the American nation’s resolve to see them defeated and sent to join their Allah-without the 72 virgins waiting for them. It pleases me more than I can say that the Senate Minority Leader, Thomas Daschle lost his seat. As the leading obstructionist for the Democrat party, he was primarily responsible for withholding approval of many Bush appointments to Federal judgeships, high-level positions, and other necessary personnel. Good riddance! The demise of the junk-yard dog, loudmouth James Carville, also brings me great happiness. That happiness is further enhanced by the victory of the first Republican to win a Senate seat in Louisiana, Carville’s home state. I am delighted with the success of John O’Neill and his Swift Boat Vets-and with those thousands of non-Swifties who joined with them-on their forthright revelation of the truth of Kerry’s service in Vietnam. They took a truthful but difficult position and made an impact — good and honorable Navy men all. Bush gets gentlemanly credit for not using them and their data in his campaign to demean Kerry, but the word was out that they spoke the truth. I maintain that they were the MVPs of this election; their testimony turned the tide against Kerry, and he never recovered. And, finally, I must express my unbounded gratification at the defeat of Senator Kerry, a worthless Senator, anti-military extremist, lying self-promoter, and former Naval officer who disgraced us all. His traitorous collusion with the enemy is second only to that of Jane Fonda. He should have been court-martialed for giving aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war. His dishonorable quest for medals and a quick return to the US, where he turned against his shipmates and lied about their actions resulted in a less than honorable separation from the Navy. Jimmy Carter’s amnesty allowed him to file for, and get, an honorable discharge 18 years after he left the service. He should have received a court martial. While my thoughts may seem to be mean-spirited, do not be confused-they really are mean-spirited, as I mean them to be. I have suffered the tortures of the damned over the past year as I heard and read the lies and nasty remarks from politicians, citizens, and media “experts” about our President. I have barely tolerated the feeble but divisive attempts of foreign and domestic peaceniks to build a case against our war on the Islamic fundamentalists, who use terrorism as a weapon against us in order to intimidate out citizens and drive some of our gutless politicians to seek “negotiations” to avoid “confrontations” with those who seek to kill our citizens. Most of all, I have seethed with anger at those who shamefully derided out military, blissfully reporting on their failures and neglecting their successes. They triumphantly celebrated our difficulties by running daily body counts of our own heroic men killed in battle with the enemy, even publishing their pictures in papers and on TV as if to mock the President who sent them to defend our nation. I have only disgust for such tactics. And those are the very same people who now plead for “united actions” in the House and Senate, now that they are in a steadily declining minority. I would advise our President to ‘watch your six’ because these are really enemies and they are not to be trusted. Four more years! How sweet it is! Rear Adm. Dick Van Orden, USN (ret.) served as chief of naval research, vice commander of the Naval Electronics Systems Command, commander of the Naval Electronics Laboratory Center and project manager of the Navy Satellite Communications Project. ☞ Needless to say, I find the above appalling – as I expect quite a few Bush voters would. But from a financial point of view, how bullish is it that we live in a country so deeply divided – yet governed now largely without checks and balances? I have smart friends who think the stock market is cheap here, and they may well turn out to be right. But I think we have some problems to work out.
Presto! You’re Up 49% November 29, 2004February 28, 2017 Wednesday’s column provided free books, cheap calls (my apologies to those of you who tried this in the last day or so – unbeknownst to me, the site has been down for maintenance), and a stock that could go to zero or, perhaps as likely, jump tenfold. Today I am suffering from acute tryptophanemia, a condition I have invented that involves yawning happily throughout most of the generally delightful Thanksgiving weekend. But if you managed to avoid that and have the strength: 1. Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for linking to this extraordinary account from a marine in Fallujah – and thanks, obviously, to our extraordinary men and women fighting these fights. However you feel about the war, you will feel proud of these soldiers. 2. That said, take a look at this report of a Pentagon assessment of how we are doing at winning hearts and kinds. (Executive summary: ‘Al-Qaeda and radical Islamists are winning the propaganda war against the United States.’) 3. Many of you have asked me to stop kvetching about the election. Okay, so it may result in involuntary sex-changes (see #4, below) and further largesse for the rich at the expense of everyone else. And, yes, we’ve turned most of the world against us. But it’s already been three weeks – get over it. To which Mel Gilles responds with this, that’s been making the rounds. She calls it ‘The Politics of Victimization.’ Like the syndrome an abused spouse falls into. 4. Alan Farago worries in this piece that the same environmental degradation that’s producing hermaphroditic, legless frogs could have an impact on our own offspring – and wonders why we don’t seem to be worried about this gathering threat. NATIONAL PRESTO John Brownie: ‘On 9/29/00 you recommended National Presto (NPK) at $30. Now $44.76, do you recommend Sell, Hold?’ ☞ Well, it’s up 49%, or about 13% a year if you include the dividends. I don’t know nearly enough about it to give you a sharp answer. The company continues to be a steady, stodgy cash-rich holding. But no one ever went broke selling too soon. Sell half?
Free Books, Cheap Calls, I Called Borealis, Burning in Hell for Eternity Happy Thanksgiving November 24, 2004February 28, 2017 I gripe a lot in this space, but the truth is I wake up counting my blessings every morning and then continually throughout the day. I hope you feel the same way. THANKS FOR THE FREE BOOKS Bob Anderton: ‘Your notion that one could read an entire book for free using Amazon’s ‘search this book’ box becomes even more useful with the realization that the page number is searchable. I.e., put ‘54‘ into the search box and one of the search results will be page 54. Too funny.’ THANKS FOR THE CHEAP CALLS I don’t know how often you call Zambia, let alone from Bolivia, but this link opens up a whole new world of cheap calls. Calling from Indiana to Italy? One thin dime. From Utah to Uganda? Thirty-two cents. Or take this example. Say you are calling someone in China from your room at the Motel 6 outside Cleveland. Using the phone by your bed would cost three million dollars. But if you have a cell phone – even if it doesn’t let you make international calls – with this link it will cost you one dime . . . per minute, plus a flat 95 cent charge for all the calls you make this month. (No such charge in months you make no calls.) So 100 one-minute calls to China would cost you 100 dimes plus 95 cents – $10.95.) If you’re in China calling Slovenia, land line to land line, it’s 23 cents. But just 18 cents from China to Slovakia, and a dime from Iceland to Ireland. It’s 82 cents from Bhutan to Botswana, but I am guessing – and this is only a guess – that’s still a bargain. You don’t need broadband, you don’t need to download any software, you don’t need to sign any contracts or agree to any minimums or remember any calling-card numbers. Sharp-eyed readers will see that this site allows you to do something entirely different as well: send up to 50 of your cousins or teammates or employees a voicemail (attached to an e-mail) simultaneously. Total cost? Twenty-two cents if it’s under three minutes. Sharp-eyed readers will also see my name in the link and figure I get some fat commission on each of your calls to Burundi. Actually, it’s more insidious than that. Though I get no commission, I own part of this fledgling company. If it proves popular, there is the slim but real chance I could get my investment back. (There is even the theoretical chance, just as a monkey could accidentally type a coherent sentence if you kept him at the keyboard long enough, I could get more.) Note that the site is still in beta, and that one particularly cool feature has not yet been implemented but shortly will be: the ability to store your frequently called numbers. So you’d just click on a friend’s name on your Palm Pilot, say, and, moments later, be talking to her. Note further what a brave new world this is. The entrepreneur/owner runs the show from his office in Harlem. His engineers are in Argentina. Most of his customers so far are in South Africa (because it was featured in the paper there). Writes one of them: “I have now made calls to UK, USA and just now to France. It works perfectly. I’m telling my friends and business associates about it.” Of course, not everyone can get on the Internet so easily. I asked our occasional housekeeper how often she calls her family in Peru. “Every day.” Turns out, she buys a $5 Boss New York phone card at the newsstand and gets 200 minutes from it – 2.5 cents a minute. (You can buy them on-line as well . . . or click here to find cards if you live elsewhere.) She has no reason to call China, but China is even less than 2.5 cents a minute. And here I thought I was so smart at a dime. THANKS FOR NOTHIN’ – I’M GOING TO HELL Well, thanks to Nick Kristof for this great column from the New York Times, almost entirely excerpted here. (Thanks, by the way, for the New York Times. Where would we be without it?) November 24, 2004 OP-ED COLUMNIST Apocalypse (Almost) Now By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF If America’s secular liberals think they have it rough now, just wait till the Second Coming. The “Left Behind” series, the best-selling novels for adults in the U.S., enthusiastically depict Jesus returning to slaughter everyone who is not a born-again Christian. The world’s Hindus, Muslims, Jews and agnostics, along with many Catholics and Unitarians, are heaved into everlasting fire: “Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and . . . they tumbled in, howling and screeching.” Gosh, what an uplifting scene! If Saudi Arabians wrote an Islamic version of this series, we would furiously demand that sensible Muslims repudiate such hatemongering. We should hold ourselves to the same standard. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, the co-authors of the series, have both e-mailed me (after I wrote about the “Left Behind” series in July) to protest that their books do not “celebrate” the slaughter of non-Christians but simply present the painful reality of Scripture. “We can’t read it some other way just because it sounds exclusivistic and not currently politically correct,” Mr. Jenkins said in an e-mail. “That’s our crucible, an offensive and divisive message in an age of plurality and tolerance.” Silly me. I’d forgotten the passage in the Bible about how Jesus intends to roast everyone from the good Samaritan to Gandhi in everlasting fire, simply because they weren’t born-again Christians. I accept that Mr. Jenkins and Mr. LaHaye are sincere. (They base their conclusions on John 3.) But I’ve sat down in Pakistani and Iraqi mosques with Muslim fundamentalists, and they offered the same defense: they’re just applying God’s word. Now, I’ve often written that blue staters should be less snooty toward fundamentalist Christians, and I realize that this column will seem pretty snooty. But if I praise the good work of evangelicals – like their superb relief efforts in Darfur – I’ll also condemn what I perceive as bigotry. A dialogue about faith must move past taboos and discuss differences bluntly. That’s what blue staters and red staters need to do about religion and the “Left Behind” books. For starters, it’s worth pointing out that those predicting an apocalypse have a long and lousy record. In America, tens of thousands of followers of William Miller waited eagerly for Jesus to reappear on Oct. 22, 1844. Some of these Millerites had given away all their belongings, and the no-show was called the Great Disappointment. In more recent times, the best-selling nonfiction book of the 1970’s was Hal Lindsey’s “The Late Great Planet Earth,” selling 18 million copies worldwide with its predictions of a Second Coming. Then, one of the hottest best sellers in 1988 was a booklet called “88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988.” Oops. Being wrong has rarely been so lucrative. Now we have the hugely profitable “Left Behind” financial empire, whose Web site flatly says that the authors “think this generation will witness the end of history.” The site sells every “Left Behind” spinoff imaginable, including screen savers, regular prophecies sent to your mobile phone, children’s versions of the books, audiobooks, graphic novels, videos, calendars, music and a $6.50-a-month prophesy club. This isn’t religion, this is brand management. If Mr. LaHaye and Mr. Jenkins honestly believe that the end of the world may be imminent, why not waive royalties? Why don’t they use the millions of dollars in profits to help the poor – and increase their own chances of getting into heaven? Mr. Jenkins told me that he gives 20 to 40 percent of his income to charity, and that’s commendable. But there are millions more where that came from. Mr. LaHaye and Mr. Jenkins might spend less time puzzling over obscure passages in the Book of Revelation and more time with the straightforward language of Matthew 6:19, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth.” Or Matthew 19:21, where Jesus advises a rich man: “Sell your possessions and give the money to the poor. . . . It will be hard for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” . . . AND SPEAKING OF THE END OF THE WORLD Matt Ball: “You need to run this from the Boston Herald.” Several of you felt the same way: Economic ‘Armageddon’ predicted By Brett Arends / On State Street Tuesday, November 23, 2004 Stephen Roach, the chief economist at investment banking giant Morgan Stanley, has a public reputation for being bearish. But you should hear what he’s saying in private. Roach met select groups of fund managers downtown last week, including a group at Fidelity. His prediction: America has no better than a 10 percent chance of avoiding economic “armageddon.” Press were not allowed into the meetings. But the Herald has obtained a copy of Roach’s presentation. A stunned source who was at one meeting said, “it struck me how extreme he was – much more, it seemed to me, than in public.” Roach sees a 30 percent chance of a slump soon and a 60 percent chance that “we’ll muddle through for a while and delay the eventual armageddon.” The chance we’ll get through OK: one in 10. Maybe. In a nutshell, Roach’s argument is that America’s record trade deficit means the dollar will keep falling. To keep foreigners buying T-bills and prevent a resulting rise in inflation, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will be forced to raise interest rates further and faster than he wants. The result: U.S. consumers, who are in debt up to their eyeballs, will get pounded. Less a case of “Armageddon,” maybe, than of a “Perfect Storm.” Roach marshalled alarming facts to support his argument. To finance its current account deficit with the rest of the world, he said, America has to import $2.6 billion in cash. Every working day. That is an amazing 80 percent of the entire world’s net savings. Sustainable? Hardly. Meanwhile, he notes that household debt is at record levels. Twenty years ago the total debt of U.S. households was equal to half the size of the economy. Today the figure is 85 percent. Nearly half of new mortgage borrowing is at flexible interest rates, leaving borrowers much more vulnerable to rate hikes. Americans are already spending a record share of disposable income paying their interest bills. And interest rates haven’t even risen much yet. You don’t have to ask a Wall Street economist to know this, of course. Watch people wielding their credit cards this Christmas. Roach’s analysis isn’t entirely new. But recent events give it extra force. The dollar is hitting fresh lows against currencies from the yen to the euro. Its parachute failed to open over the weekend, when a meeting of the world’s top finance ministers produced no promise of concerted intervention. It has farther to fall, especially against Asian currencies, analysts agree. The Fed chairman was drawn to warn on the dollar, and interest rates, on Friday. Roach could not be reached for comment yesterday. A source who heard the presentation concluded that a “spectacular wave of bankruptcies” is possible. Smart people downtown agree with much of the analysis. It is undeniable that America is living in a “debt bubble” of record proportions. But they argue there may be an alternative scenario to Roach’s. Greenspan might instead deliberately allow the dollar to slump and inflation to rise, whittling away at the value of today’s consumer debts in real terms. Inflation of 7 percent a year halves “real” values in a decade. It may be the only way out of the trap. Higher interest rates, or higher inflation: Either way, the biggest losers will be long-term lenders at fixed interest rates. You wouldn’t want to hold 30-year Treasuries, which today yield just 4.83 percent. ☞ Which is why you were smart enough to put a chunk of your core holdings in 30-year TIPS – Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (though at today’s prices, now up from 100 to about 129, they are harder to recommend) . . . and why you have a third of your stock market holdings deployed in overseas mutual funds . . . and why you may not have been enthusiastic about the disastrous Bush economic policies (although you never know; things could go just fine; I hope they do) . . . and why I have suggested such bizarre speculative alternatives – although ONLY for money you can afford to lose – as Borealis. I CALLED BOREALIS At the bottom of the November 11 Borealis press release – the one that says Boeing has selected a Borealis subsidiary to build a system to let pilots drive their planes around like golf carts without burning a lot of fuel or needing tow trucks to back out of their gates – there is a contact given for verifying the validity of the release. So I called. And after a nice conversation called Boeing as well. And here is what I think I’ve learned: 1. It’s true. 2. It’s just a very early “proof of concept,” test, to see if the Chorus Motor strapped onto the front wheel of a 767 can actually pull the thing. (You may recall Jack LaLanne towing a barge with a bit in his teeth as he swam . . . this is similar.) Boeing will be paying Chorus approximately $600,000 to do the work required to perform this test. 3. The test will be performed on a real Boeing 767 belonging to a real airline at a real gate at a real airport. “Can’t you just run it around the parking lot in Seattle?” I asked. “We don’t own any airplanes.” I was told. “Boeing doesn’t own any airplanes?” “No, they are built to order. As a plane comes off the line, it is already owned by somebody else. But we have gotten an airline to cooperate with us on this, and we have gotten an airport to go along with the test as well.” 4. This is not a test of a real, I integrated system where the plane will actually take off. It is just to see whether Jack LaLanne can really pull the barge. We should know that around April, give or take. 5. If it works as well as expected, Boeing will then put out to competitive bid a contract for developing a fully integrated system that, if successfully developed, could actually become part of commercial aircraft. There are some companies that make DC motors that may be invited to bid. Chorus could have an edge because its motor is AC. There are safety issues involved. 6. Whoever gets the contract, if it gets that far, developing a successful system could be about a two-year project. If all went well, the first planes might be tooling around the tarmac like golf carts in 2007 or 2008 . . . but, obviously, there are a great many “ifs” along the way. OK? What this suggests to me is that Borealis may indeed be a real company with real technologies sufficiently interesting to have gotten Boeing to go this far. And if the Chorus Motors subsidiary has some promise, so may the other subsidiaries. If the company projections were to prove true – which they won’t and certainly have not to date – the parent company would be worth many tens of billions (it closed Wednesday night at a market cap of $40 million). Dell, which has absolutely nothing to do with any of this, but provides a means of comparison, makes computers. It makes them very well, but it is not the only company that makes computers. Its market cap is $100 billion. If Borealis’s patented technologies truly revolutionized something as basic as electric motors, the stock could rise 100-fold and still have a market cap just 4% the size of Dell’s. It could rise 1000-fold from here and have a market cap 40% the size of Dell’s. It is preposterous to think anything like this will happen. I am prepared for every one of Borealis’s subsidiaries and patents to prove worthless and the stock one day to be zero. But it’s also possible that the interest in these technologies expressed by the folks at Boeing and Rolls Royce and Semikron just might be a sign that there is some “there” there. I no longer believe, even a little, this is “a stock that is surely going to zero,” as I titled my first few accounts of it here years ago. My own guess – and it’s crucial to stress that it’s just a guess – is that it’s as likely to be up 10-fold a couple of years from now as to be zero, and that’s a coin-toss I like betting on. FINALLY, THANKS FOR JOURNALISTS LIKE KEVIN SITES Whatever one ultimately makes of this awful incident (I posted one former Navy Seal’s commentary on it yesterday) – where a marine was caught on tape executing a wounded Iraqi in a mosque – Sites has provided us with a vivid close-up account of what happened. Which brings me back to giving thanks. We owe huge thanks to our brave young servicemen and women. However poorly planned the mission on which they were sent, they are doing their damnedest, at enormous risk and sacrifice, while all I was asked to do was take a huge tax cut. Happy Thanksgiving!
Safe and Secure November 23, 2004February 28, 2017 HERE AT HOME Wed Nov 17, 6:49 AM ET By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY A day after Attorney General John Ashcroft told the nation’s largest association of law enforcement executives that the Bush administration had made the nation more secure from terrorist attacks and violent criminals, the group lashed back at the White House on Tuesday. The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) said that cuts by the administration in federal aid to local police agencies have left the nation more vulnerable than ever to public safety threats. The 20,000-member group also said in a statement that new anti-terrorism duties for local cops – which have come as state and local budgets have declined and historically low crime rates have crept upward – have pushed police agencies to “the breaking point.” FROM THE FLU Excerpted from American Progress Report: THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S CRONYISM AND INCOMPETENCE WILL COST AMERICANS DEARLY THIS FLU SEASON. More than 1,000 pages of documents obtained by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) reveal, in striking detail, “that despite being aware of major problems at the [Chiron] vaccine manufacturing facility as early as June 2003, [the Food and Drug Administration] missed repeated opportunities to correct them.” (The Chiron facility was located in Liverpool, England, but Chiron is a California company whose operations are regulated by the FDA.) Sixteen months later, British regulators shuttered the facility because of contamination problems and the United States was left with a massive flu vaccine shortage. The incident draws focus to bipartisan concerns about the impact of the Bush administration’s personal and financial ties to the drug industry. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) said, “The kind of mismanagement we’ve seen this year by the Food and Drug Administration demands tough scrutiny. One of my concerns is that the FDA has a relationship with drug companies that is too cozy. That’s exactly the opposite of what it should be. The health and safety of the public must the FDA’s first and only concern.” . . . FOR 16 MONTHS FDA DOESN’T INSPECT THE PLANT: For 16 months, the FDA failed to send inspectors to the plant to see if Chiron had fixed the problem. FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford “defended the decision not to send inspectors into the plant.” Crawford claimed that occasional conference calls with the company were “a form of ‘re-inspection.'” (For more on the Chiron debacle, check out this column.) . . . CRAWFORD SAID HE WOULD DO VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING THE SAME: The FDA’s negligence has put the health of tens of millions of Americans at risk. But appearing before the House Reform Committee Crawford testified, “except for the late delivery of its full report, the FDA has done nothing wrong – and would do nothing differently if given the chance.” Sound familiar? IN FALLUJAH What’s so deeply troubling about this post by Matthew Heidt, a former Navy Seal – well, there are lots of things deeply troubling about it, but one is, it rings authentic. The fault may not lie with the soldiers he describes shooting wounded Iraqis in the head, but with the civilians who put them in this impossible situation . . . choosing to ignore the advice of Bush 41* and Colin Powell and various generals, relying on the advice of known swindler Ahmed Chalabi instead. Anyway, here’s the post. Don’t read it if you’re feeling fragile. They’re Called Security Rounds Its a safety issue pure and simple. After assaulting through a target, put a security round in everybody’s head. Sorry al-Reuters, there’s no paddy wagon rolling around Fallujah picking up “prisoners” and offering them a hot cup a joe, falafel, and a blanket. There’s no time to dick around in the target, you clear the space, dump the chumps, and moveon.org. Are Corpsman expected to treat wounded terrorists? Negative. Hey libs, worried about the defense budget? Well, it would be waste, fraud, and abuse for a Corpsman to spend one man minute or a battle dressing on a terrorist, its much cheaper to just spend the $.02 on a 5.56mm FMJ. By the way, terrorists who chop off civilians’ heads are not prisoners, they are carcasses. UPDATE: Let me be very clear about this issue. I have looked around the web, and many people get this concept, but there are some stragglers. Here is your situation, Marine. You just took fire from unlawful combatants shooting from a religious building attempting to use the sanctuary status of their position as protection. But you’re in Fallujah now, and the Marine Corps has decided that they’re not playing that game this time. That was Najaf. So you set the mosque on fire and you hose down the terrorists with small arms, launch some AT-4s (Rockets), some 40MM grenades into the building and things quiet down. So you run over there, and find some tangos wounded and pretending to be dead. You are aware that suicide martyrdom is like really popular with these kind of idiots, and like taking some Marines with them would be really cool. So you can either risk your life and your fireteam’s lives by having them cover you while you bend down and search a guy that you think is pretending to be dead for some reason. Also, you don’t know who or what is in the next room, and you’re already speaking english to each other and its loud because your hearing is poor from shooting people for several days. So you know that there are many other rooms to enter, and that if anyone is still alive in those rooms, they know that Americans are in the mosque. Meanwhile (3 seconds later), you still have this terrorist that was just shooting at you from a mosque playing possum. What do you do? You double tap his head, and you go to the next room, that’s what. What about the Geneva Conventions and all that Law of Land Warfare stuff? What about it. Without even addressing the issues at hand your first thought should be, “I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.” Bear in mind that this is a perpetual mindset that is reinforced by experiences gained on a minute by minute basis. Secondly, you are fighting an unlawful combatant in a Sanctuary which is a double No No on his part. Third, tactically you are in no position to take “prisoners” because there are more rooms to search and clear, and the behavior of said terrorist indicates that he is up to no good. No good in Fallujah is a very large place and the low end of no good and the high end of no good are fundamentally the same… Marines get hurt or die. So there is no compelling reason for you to do anything but double tap this idiot and get on with the mission. If you are a veteran then everything I have just written is self evident, if you are not a veteran than at least try to put yourself in the situation. Remember, in Fallujah there is no yesterday, there is no tomorrow, there is only now. Right NOW. Have you ever lived in NOW for a week? It is not easy, and if you have never lived in NOW for longer than it takes to finish the big roller coaster at Six Flags, then shut your hole about putting Marines in jail for war crimes. Be advised, I am not talking to my readers, but if this post gets linked up, I want regular folks to get this message loud and clear. Froggy OUT. UPDATE #2: See my Prayer for some insight as to how The Big Judge in the sky might rule on this case. posted by Matthew Heidt @ 17:19 *In case you missed it, this is the oft-quoted passage from President Bush 41’s 1998 memoir, A World Transformed: Trying to eliminate Saddam…would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible…. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq…. There was no viable “exit strategy” we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations’ mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. Yes, 9/11 changed everything. But we were planning to ‘do’ Iraq even before 9/11. The only thing we failed to plan was how to do it successfully. The consequences of this overarching misjudgment (we would be greeted with flowers) and the crucial misjudgments that followed (e.g., disbanding the Iraqi army, sending billions to Halliburton while failing to employ the Iraqi people in their own reconstruction) are weakening our country in a major way. And the tragedy is that, having begun to leap across the ravine, there is no easy solution.
Free Books November 22, 2004February 28, 2017 BUY MY BOOK Christmas, Chanukah, and Kwanza are coming, and it appears you can buy copies of the new edition of my investment guide at Amazon for 25% off. Buy three or more and you can select free shipping, too. Surely you have three friends or relatives who like money? Three colleagues or employees looking to save $1,000 a year to stretch their paychecks? What about the grocer who serves you all year long? And the guy with three fingers in the butcher department? It’s not certain the book will arrive in time for the big day, whatever shipping speed you choose – the official pub date is January 3. But generally books are available well in advance of publication date. How about your kids’ teachers? Shouldn’t you buy copies for them? And that nice man who drills your teeth? Dentists love investing. Buy one for him. You think your dentist wants a fruitcake? OR STEAL IT When I clicked to buy one myself, I noticed that Amazon now allows you to search on the 2002 edition, which has apparently been digitized in some way. Just scroll down to the green SEARCH INSIDE THIS BOOK box. I typed ‘Malkiel’ and 2 seconds later there was a complete list of the references to Burton Malkiel in the 2002 edition. Click one of them, and a second later there is the page, with Malkiel’s name highlighted. And you can read the next two pages and the previous two pages as well. This is the clever way Amazon keeps you from reading the entire book for free. But that’s no problem – just search on (for example) ‘money.’ Up will come a list of virtually every page in the book. Read the first, on Page 3, and the two pages previous and following (i.e., pages 1-5) . . . then go to one on page 8, and the two pages previous and following (i.e., pages 6-10) . . . and on through to the end. If you want to do this with a book like Moby Dick, just search on ‘whale.’ It would appear you can do this for lots of books. What’s the Matter with Kansas is yours at Amazon for $14.40 . . . but if you search on words like, oh, say, ‘Kansas’ and ‘liberal’ you should be able to read most of the book for free. Where, oh where is the clickle?! At a penny a page, even, that would be $3 for a 300-page book – $1 for the author, who risked his life and spent the best years of his life writing this book for you (he was almost swallowed by a whale! he was almost blown to smithereens by a tornado!), $1 for the publisher, whose team of editors and publicists, art directors and marketing staff all have young children to feed, and $1 for Amazon, which made all this possible in the first place.. REMINDER Ho, ho, ho. Tomorrow: Safe and Secure.
Shhh! – Part 2 Enjoy Your Weekend - in Little Rock November 19, 2004February 28, 2017 Okay, so Charles and I got to go to the opening of the Clinton Library yesterday, and felt very privileged to be there. But you, thanks in small but real part to the funding Al Gore championed in Congress to develop the Internet . . . you get to be there without having to fly to Little Rock, without the mandatory three-day minimum at every hotel in town, without having to wait in the enormously long lines to get through the magnetometers (the presence of one sitting and three former presidents makes the Secret Service nervous), without having to sit in the cold rain in a suit and tie from 8:45am until 11:30am when it really started (note for future reference: it is best to get rainproofed with ponchos, pullovers, Holiday Inn towels, etc., before the rain starts, because once it does, and holding an umbrella with one hand, it is more than difficult to start rearranging things – like, might it be a good idea to put this windbreaker on over the suit but under the plastic garbage bag? Well, maybe, but it’s way too late now . . . and even getting the garbage bag over your shoes would require hands, one of which is by now deep inside the clear plastic saran wrap, and the other, holding the umbrella, longs to be – and every time you stand for an ovation, your seat gets wet, but how can you not stand for the Pledge of Allegiance or to cheer the arrival on stage of President Clinton?), and without spending the entire time feeling as if you’re listening to it on the radio under a cold shower (because all you can see are the umbrellas in front of you). All you have to do to watch or read the speeches, to take a 5-minute virtual tour of the library, and much else, is click here. As always, President Clinton’s remarks made all the inconveniences disappear. So it’s fine with me to amend the Constitution to allow naturalized citizens like Arnold to run for President – why limit our choices? – but the same amendment should reword the 22nd amendment to prevent a president only from serving more than two consecutive terms. If you catch my drift. Couple those two changes, and you could actually get momentum from both sides to pass it.
Shhh! November 18, 2004February 28, 2017 Shhh! I can’t talk now – I’m at the Clinton library. But here’s Tom Oliphant in the Boston Globe last week: THE GAY MARRIAGE DECEPTION By Thomas Oliphant Washington D.C. — The news media have grossly misreported the contents of state referendum questions targeting Americans who are apparently seen as more dangerous to national security than John Kerry — gay people. Using unthinking shorthand that carries out the hidden agendas of the people who want gays banished to the fringes of society, the press has over and over again referred to these measures as banning gay marriage. In fact that is only accurate regarding three of the 11 initiatives passed last week. In state after state — most prominently in Ohio (which Bush barely won) and in Michigan (which he nearly did) — these referendums went far beyond the question of who gets to be formally married. They also banned legal and other conventions incidental to marriage, which are central to the evolving institutions of civil unions and domestic partnerships. For political reasons, it was central to the hidden agendas of the groups pushing these restrictions (the target is homosexuality, not relationships between homosexuals) that they not become the focus of the debate. Therefore marriage was used as the cover for the far more consequential effort to strip contractual rights from gay couples who have formed hundreds of thousands of families in recent years across the United States. That is why proponents described them repeatedly as efforts to ban gay or same-sex marriage, a formulation the press has mindlessly repeated. It reminds me of the success of groups who spent nearly a decade on behalf of banning a rare pregnancy procedure, the name for which was invented solely for political and shock-value purposes — partial-birth abortion. Again, the press’s lazy penchant for a catch phrase, unexamined for accuracy, led reporters and editors to mindlessly repeat the phrase. The point about that phony campaign — already rejected once by federal judges of all stripes, including the Supreme Court, and back in the courts now — was to use the shock value of the procedure to create a ban written to cover all three trimesters of pregnancy without an exception to preserve a woman’s health, in other words to challenge Roe v. Wade and abortion rights themselves. Just for the record, the three states whose initiatives last week refer only to the granting of marriage licenses are Montana, Oregon (the one place where the vote was very close), and Mississippi. The states that used marriage as a cover to mount an assault on contractual relationships of all kinds were Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Utah. In pivotal Ohio, for example, the voters may not have realized it but they voted to strip people of the right to contractually arrange distribution of assets, child custody, pensions, and other employment benefits. They most definitely were not “protecting” marriage; they were attacking gay people. That is why the political and business establishment there, including Republicans, opposed the measure. The evidence is that the voters who approved it also opposed its actual contents. In the official exit poll Tuesday night, 27 percent of the voters said they support full marriage rights, 35 percent supported civil unions, and only 27 percent oppose any legal rights for same-sex couples. In other words, to underline the importance of artifice and deception in our sound-bite culture, the voters approved a measure opposed substantively by 62 percent of the very same voters. President Bush embodies this incoherence while he manipulates the sentiments cynically. Just before the election he tried to say he supports the rights of states to have civil unions, though he would have opposed them as governor of Texas. He also supports a federal constitutional amendment that would both limit “marriage” to man-woman couples and permit states to ban civil unions. The incoherence was tactical. Bush knew fair-minded supporters of civil unions were going to vote for him (according to the exit polls, up to half did); but he also knew he needed to keep his base of bigots happy, too — hence his campaign’s alliance with them at the grass roots in places like Ohio. The irony is that a federal amendment is probably necessary for the pro-discrimination forces to succeed. Many states have laws to keep groups from putting two issues in the same referendum, in order to avoid exactly the kind of deception that has occurred. In fact, injunctive relief on that ground has already been granted in states that passed such initiatives earlier. In addition, they directly challenge both the contract and the equal protection clauses of the US Constitution. The federal amendment does not have the votes, even in the new Congress, and my hunch is that Bush doesn’t have the stomach to truly fight for discrimination. He was, however, willing to benefit from the deception this year, and a lazy news media played right into the hands of those who would officially sanction discrimination. Thomas Oliphant’s e-mail address is oliphant@globe.com
Of Acorn Squash and Condoleezza Rice November 17, 2004February 28, 2017 CONDI The good news is that naming an extraordinarily talented black woman Secretary of State sends a terrific message, both to people here at home (especially young African-Americans) and to people around the world (especially in nations that oppress women or that would prefer to think of America as racist). Condoleezza Rice is a quadrilingual, figure-skating, concert piano-playing star. The bad news is that, unlike her two predecessors (who were, combined, a black woman), she is the wrong person for the job. Where Bill Clinton arguably needed a Secretary of State who could help him go to war in Serbia (namely, Madeleine ‘What’s the point of having this superb military . . . if we can’t use it?’ Albright) . . . and George Bush certainly needed a Secretary of State to slow his rush to war in Iraq (namely, Colin ‘you break it, you own it’ Powell) . . . what Bush gets in Rice is not a counterbalance but rather, in effect, a co-conspirator. Or so one fears. So State may be purged of dissenting voices, as the CIA will be; the House and the Senate are already under tight rightwing control; the Judiciary tilts ever more rightward, as does the press. What ever happened to checks and balances? YES BUSH CAN You may recall that I erroneously billed this group (yesbushcan.com) as Kerry converts, when in fact they were pro-Kerry all along, just having a little fun. ‘Other stunts they’ve pulled,’ I just now learn from one of your pre-election e-mails I’m catching up on, ‘include stealing Barbie and GI Joe dolls off store shelves and swapping the voice boxes, so Barbie wants to go to war and GI Joe wants to go shopping and do his nails.’ I’m beginning to get the picture. IS IT ME, OR IS IT HOT IN HERE? Dan Kinsella: ‘It would appear that the global warming increase in the last 100 years that you referred to a few days ago is actually due to bad math. Click here. That doesn’t mean that global warming isn’t happening, just that the study that everyone refers to as ‘proof’ is wrong. More refereed studies would have to be run to see if the temperature has actually changed much in the last 100 years.’ ☞ The temperature may not have changed much in the last 100 years. What I couldn’t tell from clicking that link is whether the two premises I’ve been operating on are wrong. The first is a spectacular rise in CO2 levels in the past century or so – after 400,000 years of moderate, regular cycles. (This data derived from glacial ice samples. The deeper you drill, the older the ice and the air trapped within. Or so I’m told.) The second, is the way, over those 400,000 years, temperature seemed consistently to follow the CO2 cycle. Did the bad math undermine either of those premises? If so, I need to post a correction here. But I’d also ask: Do we really need to be 100% sure before we do something? What if there were only a 20% chance of catastrophe . . . would that not be worth beginning to take action to avert? And doesn’t common sense suggest that the modern-day activities of 6 billion people likely would have an effect on the environment? I’m not saying that if we all stamped our feet at the exact same moment the planet would shatter, although if we all gathered in one corner, like a pimple on a baseball, I feel sure we’d wobble its rotation. But why wouldn’t burning 70 million barrels of oil a day into the atmosphere (and however many tons of coal) eventually have some impact? STUFF I OWE YOU It’s just so hard to catch up! But . . . the Ten Commandments of E-mails (thanks to your refinements) . . . the Calico Cat Denouement . . . some more of your thoughts about the election . . . an (insincere) apology for talking so much about the election . . . responses to your responses to my responses about the election . . . my acorn squash recipe* . . . and coming soon, I hope: ‘Bin Thinking About the Dollar.’ *Oh, okay, here it is: BUY one acorn squash, STAB it once with a knife so it doesn’t explode, MICROWAVE for 8 minutes unless it’s very small (6 minutes) or your microwave is pretty lame (10 minutes). Voila! CUT in half, SALT and BUTTER (I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Lite), DIG IN – and yes, it’s fine to eat the seeds and all the rest, though I eschew the skin. My God the things you learn from this column you never got from Rukeyser.
Duccio di Borealis And a Word About Your Loved One's Health November 16, 2004February 28, 2017 A COMPARISON From 1962 to 2002, each party controlled the White House for 20 years. It’s unpacked here, but the bottom lines (adjusted for inflation): The average yearly deficit under Republican budgets was $190 billion. The average yearly deficit under Democratic budgets was $36 billion. Of the 369,000 non-defense employees added to the federal payroll between 1962 and 2001, 84% were added under Republican administrations, 16% under Democrats. GDP growth was 2.94% under Republicans, 3.92% under Democrats. Unemployment averaged 6.75% under Republicans, 5.1% under Democrats. Inflation averaged 4.96% under Republicans, 4.26% under Democrats. THE BOREALIS WATCH Borealis remains unchanged at its $40 million market cap. (“Market cap” is short for “the whole thing” – all 5 million Borealis shares, at eight bucks each.) Yesterday I compared this with the $45 million that an acquaintance of mine recently paid for an unfurnished Manhattan condo. But the obvious comparison would have been to the more than $45 million that the Metropolitan Museum of Art recently paid for a painting – the size of a sheet of typing paper – by an artist no one ever heard of. [The New York Times, in a rare lapse of judgment, defended this purchase Saturday. My own view – and let us be clear that no one who cares about art could possibly care what I think about this, nor should – is that New York needs a refurbished school more than it needs one more treasure in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Crazy expensive things like this Duccio di Buoninsegna should come to the Museum, when they come, as gifts. Or “on loan from the collection of.”] Meanwhile, if we are to believe the Pink Sheets, someone paid $20 a share for 700 shares of Chorus Motors yesterday. This – at least fleetingly – values Chorus, which is divided into 6.5 million shares, at $130 million. (Twenty bucks times 6.5 million shares.) You might wonder how Borealis, which owns 5.2 million of those 6.5 million Chorus shares, could be trading at $40 million. At $20 a share, its holding in Chorus alone is worth $104 million. Either Chorus shares are overpriced at $20 (although if it actually has what it claims, Chorus stock could be cheap) or Borealis is underpriced at $8 (and all the more so if Chorus does turn out to have something). There are very few things one can know for certain in this world, but here is one of them: The fellow who bought 700 shares of Chorus Motors at $20 yesterday would have been wiser to spend the same $14,000 buying 1,750 shares of Borealis. YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK As you know, you (as an American citizen) are leaning hard on the U.N. for a global ban on embryonic stem cell research. Per yesterday’s New York Times: The Bush administration is once again trying to stampede the United Nations into approving a ban on cloning embryos for research or therapeutic purposes. There is deep irony in this ill-advised campaign. The administration has thus far been unable to force a ban on therapeutic cloning through a divided Congress, where even some prominent Republicans favor the research, so now it is pinning its hopes on the U.N., an organization it routinely reviles in other contexts. Last time, we lost by only one vote – 79-80. Let’s hope this time we lose by more. Or how about a deal where only Bush supporters would be denied the benefits of stem cell research? If that seems harsh, bear in mind that this is no worse than what the Bush crowd are trying to do to us – deny us the benefits of embryonic stem cell research. It’s the sort of thing that – until you realize you are in the early stages of Alzheimer’s or your partner is in the early stages or Parkinson’s or your daughter is in the early stages of juvenile diabetes or your son becomes paralyzed in a body-surfing accident – it’s easy to pass over as so much more blah-blah-blah. But ask Nancy Reagan what she thinks about this, or Ron Reagan, or Michael J. Fox, or (if only you could) Christopher Reeve.
Tugging Jets Through Kansas November 15, 2004February 28, 2017 So the world remains skeptical, as the world will and probably should. On the news last week that Boeing had selected one of Borealis’s subsidiaries ‘to design, build, and operate a system that should eliminate the use of airport tow tugs and jet engines to move most commercial aircraft on the ground at airports’ (in Borealis’s words) – the stock (which had closed the night before at $7.25) shot up by week’s end all the way to . . . $8. Several of you wrote in to tell me that electric motors need to be powered by electricity, and thus the glaring flaw in Boeing’s plan was that you’d have to leave the jet engines running to power the generator to supply the electricity to power the motor . . . so, yes, you might save on tow trucks, but not my imagined savings on fuel. To which I say: have you never heard of extension cords? Or how about this? A system of Stairmaster footrests that, during taxiing, passengers would be invited to pedal – left, right, left, right – with the energy from each flowing down to the motors in the wheels. Even a small minority of pedalers would suffice, and I think some of us would rather enjoy the exercise. (I know some of us could use it.) Or how about just using the substantial power supply commercial jets already carry in their tails to power stuff when the engines aren’t running? One of those three could work. Or maybe not. But my larger point was that for Boeing to have stayed involved with these folks since its initial connection in May, 2001, and then again in December of that year, and now this . . . and let us not forget the partnerings with Rolls Royce and Semikron announced last July and October, respectively . . . well, one almost allows oneself (if one has plunged into this wild speculation with as much gusto as I have) to imagine they may actually be on to something. And that if they are, then the current $40 million market capitalization for their company ($8 a share times 5 million shares) may be on the low side. In drawing this conclusion, I keep coming back to my acquaintance who bought a condominium in Manhattan earlier this year – enormous and brilliantly located, but still just an unfurnished condominium – for $45 million. If Borealis ever came to be taken seriously in the marketplace, it would sell for at least 10 times its current price. If it ever succeeded in fulfilling some of its claims (is it possible Boeing had already considered the issue of powering the motors before moving forward with this?), it could sell for 50 or 100 times as much. So, as always, the question in evaluating this lottery ticket is: what are the odds of either of those things happening? If they’re 1 in a million, then one would be a fool to take the gamble. The stock is wildly overpriced. (You would need to take 1 million such gambles, at $8 each, to get a winning ticket. And even if the stock paid off 1000 to 1, you’d have paid $8 million to get a single $8 share that, at a 1000-to-1, brought you just $8,000.) If the odds are 1 in 10 for the company being taken seriously and 1 in 50 or 100 for its having some actual success, then the stock may be valued about right. (Because the pay-off on the 1-in-10 chance may be 10 to 1 and the payoff on the 1-in-50-or-100 chance may be 50 or 100 to 1. Although, shouldn’t you add those two possibilities together in making this calculation? The head aches merely contemplating the question.) If the odds are higher – say 1 chance in 2 of being taken seriously and 1 chance in 10 of having a commercial success – then (do the math) the stock is cheap. OTHER WAYS OF LOOKING AT THE MAP Mary Black: ‘Don’t fall into the idea that a Bush voter believes everything in the Bush platform or that a Kerry voter believes everything in the Kerry platform. It just isn’t that black and white. We are not a nation divided but a large nation with a multitude of divergent opinions.’ ☞ True enough. And (as Mary points out elsewhere in her e-mail) it’s not as if the red states are all red, blue all blue. For graphic proof of that, click here . . . and note, especially, the mostly purple map. WORLD’S GREATEST BOOK REVIEW Even so, there are some pretty red states out there, including many that might well be better off if they voted blue. Why is this? I have been meaning and meaning and meaning to read Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter With Kansas to find out. But there are so many books stacked by my bed, and I am such an accursed slow reader (and who wants to read in bed when TiVo has the latest ‘Scrubs,’ ‘Daily Show,’ ‘Nightline’ or ‘Desperate Housewives’ waiting?) that I was tempted to leave it at this blessedly compact Amazon.com review . . . Amazon.com The largely blue collar citizens of Kansas can be counted upon to be a “red” state in any election, voting solidly Republican and possessing a deep animosity toward the left. This, according to author Thomas Frank, is a pretty self-defeating phenomenon, given that the policies of the Republican Party benefit the wealthy and powerful at the great expense of the average worker. According to Frank, the conservative establishment has tricked Kansans, playing up the emotional touchstones of conservatism and perpetuating a sense of a vast liberal empire out to crush traditional values while barely ever discussing the Republicans’ actual economic policies and what they mean to the working class. Thus the pro-life Kansas factory worker who listens to Rush Limbaugh will repeatedly vote for the party that is less likely to protect his safety, less likely to protect his job, and less likely to benefit him economically. To much of America, Kansas is an abstract, “where Dorothy wants to return. Where Superman grew up.” But Frank, a native Kansan, separates reality from myth in What’s the Matter with Kansas and tells the state’s socio-political history from its early days as a hotbed of leftist activism to a state so entrenched in conservatism that the only political division remaining is between the moderate and more-extreme right wings of the same party. Frank, the founding editor of The Baffler and a contributor to Harper’s and The Nation, knows the state and its people. He even includes his own history as a young conservative idealist turned disenchanted college Republican, and his first-hand experience, combined with a sharp wit and thorough reasoning, makes his book more credible than the elites of either the left and right who claim to understand Kansas. –John Moe . . . but then I got this even shorter précis – move over, Cliffs Notes! – from the estimable John Levy: Thomas Frank’s book makes one key point: A group of Republicans do an awful lot of complaining about things such as sex on television, etc. They then blame this on the Eastern intelligentsia, a.k.a. “liberals,” when in fact these things can’t be fixed (and the Republicans who control most of the businesses providing the bad stuff are the ones most advantaged by it anyway). It is because of the association . . . “liberals are for bad stuff” . . . that lots of folks end up voting against Democrats and against there own interests. There. I saved you a ton of time. Specifically, 14 hours and 41 minutes (294 pages at 20 pages an hour, less the minute it took me to read that paragraph) – though I may still dip into the book, which Molly Ivins calls ‘hilariously funny.’