It Was One of You Who Invented the Bleep October 17, 2006January 9, 2017 I know, I know. But I spent much of the day taking credit card contributions (we have an election coming up), so all I can offer is this: GUYS PULLING PLANES Bob Fyfe: ‘You and several other readers seemed to gang up on Joel Wacknov today, pointing out that having thousands of men pulling planes around the tarmac wouldn’t be a practical solution. When I read Joel’s comments, I didn’t believe that he was recommending that men pull commercial jets for the airlines, but rather suggesting that perhaps having an electric motor pull a plane might not be such an impressive feat. Are you so certain that GE or any number of other companies cannot do this same thing? Joel is apparently very knowledgeable in this field. If I’m searching correctly, he has six patents and has won an award for one of his designs. Perhaps rather than mocking his disbelief it would be wise to try to learn more from him as to why he is a non-believer.’ ☞ Thanks, Bob. I was not mocking so much as being playful – or at least that was my intent. For some reason, Boeing felt the demonstration was worth a press release. If it was an easy thing to have done, I’m not sure why they would not just have had GE do it a long time ago. Not to say I am able to judge the merits of any of this – which is why I routinely make a little playful fun of Borealis, too. I bought a bit more at $8 yesterday. I don’t understand motors, but I do (vaguely!) understand what iron ore is, and what $3 million is (the amount an institutional investor put up to help get the Roche Bay reserves to the next step) and what an ‘off-take agreement’ is (under which a British steel company showed serious interest in buying a great deal of that ore if it proves feasible) – so with each $8 Borealis share owning approximately one Roche Bay share (last traded at $14), I figure I’m getting Wheel Tug and the rest more or less ‘for free’ – all the while emphasizing that all this is, without question, VERY speculative (not to mention bizarre), and ONLY for those who can truly afford to lose what they bet. Joel, again: ‘I have no doubt the Chorus Motor pulled the airplane. My point was that it is not a particularly hard thing to do (even a human can do it). I agree that having men, women, or horses pull airplanes is not a great idea. But I do think you can make more money with a rickshaw business than Borealis will make!’ ☞ And it turns out – this is what really hurts – the guy Joel was referring to was not my recently deceased 737-pulling Malaysian, but rather, ‘the Guinness World Record holder David Huxley, who pulled a 747 (much, much heavier than a tiny 737 or 767) on October 15, 1997, in Sydney, Australia.’ AND YOU THOUGHT I HAD NO READERS IN IDAHO JJ Dion: ‘The purpose of this note is to let you know about my partner Bob’s nautical paintings. He retired from Boise-Cascade Corp. a few years ago and got back into his artwork, won a couple of ribbons at local competitions, and had a showing at a local gallery. Since we’ve only just moved from Boise north to the Coeur d’Alene area, his website [is the only practical way for most people to see his work]. So, if you’ve got a few minutes, have a look. There may be something gift-worthy for someone you know with a place by the shore.’ ☞ I don’t know whether I’m more surprised people move north from Boise, or that Idaho has a sea shore. OR READERS WHO CHANGED THE WORLD Richard Factor (on the subject of the FCC and Janet Jackson’s boob, yesterday): ‘I don’t remember if I ever told you that one of your readers (that would be me) invented the digital version of the ‘7-second delay.’ When the ‘wardrobe malfunction’ occurred, we did about a year’s worth of business in a few weeks.’
Hope Is On the Way October 16, 2006March 5, 2017 Tomorrow. Today we’ve got some loose ends to clean up – and some phone bills to lower: AT&T’s GOTTA LOVE THIS Tom: ‘Future Phone is offering free international phone calls until 2010 from any phone – even from your cell phone. You are allowed unlimited calls at any time and no registration is required. Just call their Gateway Access Number listed on the site, dial the international prefix 011, the country code and then the phone number. For Canada, it is even simpler; after calling their Gateway Access Number, just dial 1 and the area code and the number. The Gateway Access Number listed when I looked was in Council Bluffs Iowa so you may incur a domestic long distance charge unless you live in Council Bluffs.’ ☞ What’s the catch? That is a frequently asked question. (Their answer: no catch.) FCC’s GOTTA LOVE THIS James Musters: ‘This works because it is performed so well.’ ☞ Only click the link if you have an irreverent sensibility and thought the fuss over Janet Jackson’s ‘wardrobe malfunction’ was silly. Otherwise, you may be offended, and that is not my intent. MASSACHUSETTS’ LOW DIVORCE RATE Dave: ‘Democrats do not marry, they co-habit. This cuts divorce rates and explains the paradox.’ ☞ Hmmm. According to this, the marriage rate in Massachusetts in a recent year was low: 6.4 marriages per thousand residents. But the rate in Georgia and Oklahoma was even lower (6.3 and 4.9), so that may not entirely solve it. (Then again, perhaps a preponderance of Georgians and Oklahomans chose to take their vows in Las Vegas – Nevada has 75 marriages per 1,000 population.) Robert Pohl: ‘I suspect that you’ll also find that people in red states get married much earlier than those in blue states. And that drives the divorce rate. If you can spend some time living with someone without benefit of matrimony, you’re more likely to marry someone with whom you can actually live for the rest of your life.’ David Williams: ‘James Wolcott in the November Vanity Fair [not yet online] does a very nice job running down a whole list of comparisons – crime, health, education – ALL demonstrating the contradiction.’ BOREALIS Dan: ‘Joel’s comments (‘My company designs and manufactures electric motors and generators, and my VP of Engineering has a PhD in magnetics design. We both think the Chorus Motor stuff is totally bogus.’) seem more like those of a guy who couldn’t do what he’s attacking. He and his associates seem to have been left behind by a new science. After all, we did see the ‘watermelon’ pull the plane around. It’s impossible to deny but easy to ridicule. Now, whether or not the company can sell the science remains the big question.’ Bill: ‘Can you ask Joel to be more specific? My impression about the motor was not that it was a special magnet design but that it relies on electronics to continually adjust itself to maximize torque. I’m not a motorologist (Ph.D. in biophysics) but it seems like something that could work.’ ☞ Hey, don’t beat yourself up; even motorologists have trouble predicting stuff more than a few days out. SCB: ‘You might remind Joel that the guy who pulled the jet is dead. Maybe plane-pulling isn’t the perfect isometric.’ Man Who Pulled Jet With Hair Dies (10/19/05 – KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia) – Letchemanah Ramasamy, known to Malaysians as “Mighty Man” for feats that included pulling planes and buses with his hair, has died of heart complications, his family said Wednesday. He was 55. . . . Ramasamy achieved national fame in 1990 when he used his hair to drag a Boeing 737 aircraft over a distance of nearly 56 feet at a Malaysian airport. ☞ Ah. Well now that we have all the facts, let’s be clear: first, the Chorus motor pulled a 767, not a 737, which is much smaller – and it was at full take-off weight, which I’ll bet the 737 was not. Second, the Chorus motor pulled the plane for miles, not 56 feet – and in 120-degree heat. Third, how the hell did Mr. Ramasamy do it? It makes my hair hurt just imagining it. But wait. Here’s a thought. If it’s impractical to have guys pull jets around the tarmac, how about teams of horses? That could work.
North Korea (And what rhymes with too-ish?) October 13, 2006March 5, 2017 NTMD For those still interested, here is the latest chapter. (The stock, just above 22 when we bought the puts, closed just above 2 last night.) BOREF Joel Wacknov: ‘I think you are doing a disservice regarding this Borealis nonsense. If Borealis is not a scam, I don’t know what is. Have you read their annual report? They finance the company by continually floating subsidiary public companies and then booking the shares they sold in the subs at a gain as ‘profit’. This way it looks like there is no dilution occuring in the parent company – isn’t this kind of thing known as a ‘Ponzi scheme’? I know you diligently tell everyone not to invest anything in Borealis that they cannot afford to lose. But you really shouldn’t be giving anybody even the SLIGHTEST HOPE of making money on this scam.’ ☞ It may not work out, but it’s not a scam, as best I can tell. (And it’s certainly not a Ponzi scheme. Ol’ Charles Ponzi paid eye-popping returns to early shareholders from the proceeds of sales to new investors. No one I know is investing in Borealis thinking it is profitable, let alone a source of eye-popping pay-outs.) How can you be sure their technology is phony? How can you be sure the geological results of their holdings on the East Coast of Canada are bogus? Joel replies: ‘I have an MS in Electrical Engineering, specifically in electric machines and motor controls. My company designs and manufactures electric motors and generators, and my VP of Engineering has a PhD in magnetics design. We both think the Chorus Motor stuff is totally bogus.’ ☞ And yet Boeing and Air Canada’s head pilot seem to think a prototype Chorus electric motor the size of a watermelon drove a 767 around like a golf cart. To which Joel replied by sending me a photo of a guy able to pull a plane. To which I would respond by suggesting you’d need thousands of such guys, and I doubt they could pull the planes at 20 miles an hour. Even if they could, they’d be slipping all over the place when it snowed and – whatever the weather – pulling groin muscles every minute and a half. NORTH KOREA Alan Rogowsky: ‘North Korea and the Bomb? Remember THIS?’ We forget that the Republican leadership got a jump on redirecting our foreign policy, even before moving into the White House: U.S. Senate Rejects Nuclear Test Ban Treaty WASHINGTON, DC, October 14, 1999 (ENS) – The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday night to reject the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, dealing a major blow to the international pact that has been the focus of efforts to control the global spread of nuclear weapons. The [Clinton] White House, environmental groups and the governments of other nations were quick to condemn the move, which may send a dangerous message to countries interested in developing nuclear weapons. The Republican controlled Senate voted 51 to 48 against ratification of the treaty, with all 44 Democrats and only four Republicans supporting the treaty. Approval by two-thirds of the Senate is needed to ratify a treaty. ☞ As soon as they did move into the White House, they quit the Mideast Peace process, cut off talks with North Korea, and began planning for Iraq. THEORIES, PLEASE James Musters passes this along: Why Do Republicans Divorce More Often Than Democrats? . . . Of the top 15 states for divorce rates in 2005, all 15 voted for Bush in 2004. All fifteen. Of the 12 lowest states for divorce rates, 11 voted for Kerry. Massachusetts, where gay marriage is allowed (and where, according to Republicans, civilization would fall apart), has the lowest divorce rate in the country. CAMPAIGNING FOR TOM REYNOLDS So Senator John McCain canceled fundraisers with New York Republican Congressman Tom Reynolds, who was caught up in the Mark Foley mess. McCain’s cancellation came a day after Republican Congressman Don Sherwood – having been accused of choking his mistress – also canceled a fundraiser with Reynolds. Reynolds replaced McCain with Karl Rove, just days after Rove’s assistant resigned (weeks before an election?) as it became clear the White House had been a bit modest in claiming only minimal contact with convicted former Republican super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. (Turns out, there were 485 contacts between Abramoff’s lobbying team and White House officials.) # Have a great weekend. Like you, I’m getting very tired of all this Republican bashing. (Then again, I’m getting very tired of watching the world fall apart.) I aim to have something more hopeful – or at least less preachy – next week. It may even be time for another poem. (The House, it is red; the Senate is, too-ish; if we don’t win them back, I will feel awfully blue-ish.) It is well past time to tell you how I’ve learned to pickle my own cucumbers. Charles just rolls his eyes.
Apocalypse Now October 12, 2006March 5, 2017 TAKE THE DAY OFF Not today – November 7. If you can afford to spend all or part of Election Day working to get our country back on track, click here. HERE’S WHY YOU SHOULD Or at least yet one more reason: Chris Hedges [former Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times, Harvard Divinity School grad] The aircraft carrier Eisenhower, accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Anzio, guided-missile destroyer USS Ramage, guided-missile destroyer USS Mason and the fast-attack submarine USS Newport News, is, as I write, making its way to the Straits of Hormuz off Iran. The ships will be in place to strike Iran by the end of the month. It may be a bluff. It may be a feint. It may be a simple show of American power. But I doubt it. War with Iran – a war that would unleash an apocalyptic scenario in the Middle East – is probable by the end of the Bush administration. It could begin in as little as three weeks. This administration, claiming to be anointed by a Christian God to reshape the world, and especially the Middle East, defined three states at the start of its reign as ‘the Axis of Evil.’ They were Iraq, now occupied; North Korea, which, because it has nuclear weapons, is untouchable; and Iran. Those who do not take this apocalyptic rhetoric seriously have ignored the twisted pathology of men like Elliott Abrams, who helped orchestrate the disastrous and illegal contra war in Nicaragua, and who now handles the Middle East for the National Security Council. He knew nothing about Central America. He knows nothing about the Middle East. He sees the world through the childish, binary lens of good and evil, us and them, the forces of darkness and the forces of light. And it is this strange, twilight mentality that now grips most of the civilian planners who are barreling us towards a crisis of epic proportions. These men advocate a doctrine of permanent war, a doctrine which, as William R. Polk points out, is a slight corruption of Leon Trotsky’s doctrine of permanent revolution. These two revolutionary doctrines serve the same function, to intimidate and destroy all those classified as foreign opponents, to create permanent instability and fear and to silence domestic critics who challenge leaders in a time of national crisis. It works. The citizens of the United States, slowly being stripped of their civil liberties, are being herded sheep-like, once again, over a cliff. But this war will be different. It will be catastrophic. It will usher in the apocalyptic nightmares spun out in the dark, fantastic visions of the Christian right. And there are those around the president who see this vision as preordained by God; indeed, the president himself may hold such a vision. The hypocrisy of this vaunted moral crusade is not lost on those in the Middle East. Iran actually signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has violated a codicil of that treaty written by European foreign ministers, but this codicil was never ratified by the Iranian parliament. I do not dispute Iran’s intentions to acquire nuclear weapons nor do I minimize the danger should it acquire them in the estimated five to 10 years. But contrast Iran with Pakistan, India and Israel. These three countries refused to sign the treaty and developed nuclear weapons programs in secret. Israel now has an estimated 400 to 600 nuclear weapons. The word ‘Dimona,’ the name of the city where the nuclear facilities are located in Israel, is shorthand in the Muslim world for the deadly Israeli threat to Muslims’ existence. What lessons did the Iranians learn from our Israeli, Pakistani and Indian allies? Given that we are actively engaged in an effort to destabilize the Iranian regime by recruiting tribal groups and ethnic minorities inside Iran to rebel, given that we use apocalyptic rhetoric to describe what must be done to the Iranian regime, given that other countries in the Middle East such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia are making noises about developing a nuclear capacity, and given that, with the touch of a button Israel could obliterate Iran, what do we expect from the Iranians? On top of this, the Iranian regime grasps that the doctrine of permanent war entails making ‘preemptive’ and unprovoked strikes. Those in Washington who advocate this war, knowing as little about the limitations and chaos of war as they do about the Middle East, believe they can hit about 1,000 sites inside Iran to wipe out nuclear production and cripple the 850,000-man Iranian army. The disaster in southern Lebanon, where the Israeli air campaign not only failed to break Hezbollah but united most Lebanese behind the militant group, is dismissed. These ideologues, after all, do not live in a reality-based universe. The massive Israeli bombing of Lebanon failed to pacify 4 million Lebanese. What will happen when we begin to pound a country of 70 million people? As retired General Wesley K. Clark and others have pointed out, once you begin an air campaign it is only a matter of time before you have to put troops on the ground or accept defeat, as the Israelis had to do in Lebanon. And if we begin dropping bunker busters, cruise missiles and iron fragmentation bombs on Iran this is the choice that must be faced-either sending American forces into Iran to fight a protracted and futile guerrilla war or walking away in humiliation. ‘As a people we are enormously forgetful,’ Dr. [William R.] Polk, one of the country’s leading scholars on the Middle East, told [a September 13] gathering of the Foreign Policy Association in New York. ‘We should have learned from history that foreign powers can’t win guerrilla wars. The British learned this from our ancestors in the American Revolution and re-learned it in Ireland. Napoleon learned it in Spain. The Germans learned it in Yugoslavia. We should have learned it in Vietnam and the Russians learned it in Afghanistan and are learning it all over again in Chechnya and we are learning it, of course, in Iraq. Guerrilla wars are almost unwinnable. As a people we are also very vain. Our way of life is the only way. We should have learned that the rich and powerful can’t always succeed against the poor and less powerful.’ An attack on Iran will ignite the Middle East. The loss of Iranian oil, coupled with Silkworm missile attacks by Iran on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, could send oil soaring to well over $110 a barrel. The effect on the domestic and world economy will be devastating, very possibly triggering a huge, global depression. The 2 million Shiites in Saudi Arabia, the Shiite majority in Iraq and the Shiite communities in Bahrain, Pakistan and Turkey will turn in rage on us and our dwindling allies. We will see a combination of increased terrorist attacks, including on American soil, and the widespread sabotage of oil production in the Gulf. Iraq, as bad as it looks now, will become a death pit for American troops as Shiites and Sunnis, for the first time, unite against their foreign occupiers. The country, however, that will pay the biggest price will be Israel. And the sad irony is that those planning this war think of themselves as allies of the Jewish state. A conflagration of this magnitude could see Israel drawn back in Lebanon and sucked into a regional war, one that would over time spell the final chapter in the Zionist experiment in the Middle East. The Israelis aptly call their nuclear program ‘the Samson option.’ The Biblical Samson ripped down the pillars of the temple and killed everyone around him, along with himself. If you are sure you will be raptured into heaven, your clothes left behind with the nonbelievers, then this news should cheer you up. If you are rational, however, these may be some of the last few weeks or months in which to enjoy what is left of our beleaguered, dying republic and way of life. ☞ Let’s assume Mr. Hedges is being way too apocalyptic – that we would never actually attack Iran, any more than we would ever actually have attacked Iraq. In both cases, we just needed to make a credible threat, which is why even most Democrats voted to authorize the President to use force against Iraq as a last resort for our self defense. Fortunately, the Administration wasn’t crazy enough actually to use that authority. If it had, we could by now be half a trillion dollars in the hole, having turned much of the world against us, ignited a ghastly civil war, weakened our military, hugely amplified the terrorist threat, and seen hundreds of thousands of Americans and Iraqis killed, maimed, and orphaned. But even if you are pretty sure, like me, that Mr. Hedges’ fears are overdone – as surely they must be – wouldn’t you sleep better if there were some checks and balances on this Administration’s power? If you can afford to spend part of Election Day working to get our country back on track, click here.
From Buffett to Borealis (from the sublime . . . ) October 11, 2006March 5, 2017 THAT ‘RECORD’ STOCK MARKET Carol Vinzant: ‘Forget euros, check out how the Dow compares in real dollars. What cost $11,722.98 in 2000 (the Dow peak) would cost $13,018.82 in 2005 (that’s as far as the online calculator I was using would go). [So, in real terms, the Dow, let alone the S&P or NASDAQ, is not yet back to where it was six years ago.]’ A MEMO FROM WARREN BUFFETT Something to show your kids as well? To: Berkshire Hathaway Managers (‘The All-Stars’) From: Warren E. Buffett Date: September 27, 2006 The five most dangerous words in business may be ‘Everybody else is doing it.’ A lot of banks and insurance companies have suffered earnings disasters after relying on that rationale. Even worse have been the consequences from using that phrase to justify the morality of proposed actions. More than 100 companies so far have been drawn into the stock option backdating scandal and the number is sure to go higher. My guess is that a great many of the people involved would not have behaved in the manner they did except for the fact that they felt others were doing so as well. The same goes for all of the accounting gimmicks to manipulate earnings – and deceive investors – that has taken place in recent years. You would have been happy to have as an executor of your will or your son-in-law most of the people who engaged in these ill-conceived activities. But somewhere along the line they picked up the notion – perhaps suggested to them by their auditor or consultant – that a number of well-respected managers were engaging in such practices and therefore it must be OK to do so. It’s a seductive argument. But it couldn’t be more wrong. In fact, every time you hear the phrase ‘Everybody else is doing it’ it should raise a huge red flag. Why would somebody offer such a rationale for an act if there were a good reason available? Clearly the advocate harbors at least a small doubt about the act if he utilizes this verbal crutch. So, at Berkshire, let’s start with what is legal, but always go on to what we would feel comfortable about being printed on the front page of our local paper, and never proceed forward simply on the basis of the fact that other people are doing it. A final note: Somebody is doing something today at Berkshire that you and I would be unhappy about if we knew of it. That’s inevitable: We now employ well over 200,000 people and the chances of that number getting through the day without any bad behavior occurring is nil. But we can have a huge effect in minimizing such activities by jumping on anything immediately when there is the slightest odor of impropriety. Your attitude on such matters, expressed by behavior as well as words, will be the most important factor in how the culture of your business develops. And culture, more than rule books, determines how an organization behaves. Thanks for your help on this. Berkshire’s reputation is in your hands. BOREALIS Greg Forrester: ‘I originally invested in Borealis because a friend of mine shared one of your earliest articles on the company. I have been very pleased with the return, although it is only on paper. I have since become involved as a consultant with the group, attempting to market WheelTug™ to major US and International air lines. Rodney and Isaiah Cox are fun to work with. I think some big things are going to happen. What are your thoughts?” ☞ Well, first let’s hear Del’s thoughts: Del Rickel: “I have been buried in Borealis for about 10 years now. I never cease to be amazed at what the Cox’s are able to do when they gain a sliver of notice. The Boeing WheelTug™ demo was, I am sure, due to the contacts that Bob Carman, now departed from Borealis, had maintained during his years at Boeing. The demo provided an awesome example of the power density available thru an implementation of the Chorus motor technology. But as a retired aerospace, system engineer, I am quite confident that there will never be a WheelTug™ installation on currently existing commercial aircraft. The reason is pretty obvious. The landing gear is one of the most critical flight systems on an airplane. As such, the certification of airworthiness that any civil aviation regulatory body would require would be a Herculean engineering effort. As a minimum such an embodiment would require a comprehensive technical data package for each configuration of aircraft to be retrofitted. Such a package would require detailed installation and operating parameters as well as thousands of hours of full up airframe testing, on each aircraft type. This is an exercise that would cost more to complete than the market cap of Borealis. It is an undertaking that no one in the user community would even consider and the OEM’s have little incentive to undertake such a mod on delivered aircraft. It’s a neat idea, but no one can or will pay for it. The only hope of delivering a WheelTug™ product would be if the OEM’s were somehow enticed to qualify the hardware as part of a new airframe design. Given the problems that Airbus is having, and the state of development of the new Boeing plane, this is an idea whose time has not come. It is folly or disingenuous for the Borealis management to string their shareholders along with these gibberish statements about talking to airlines. Airlines cannot just go out and reconfigure their airplanes without extensively validated engineering and test of any hardware modifications. This is another example of Borealis BS that underscores why they are their own worst enemies. Especially if they are wasting time on this without getting good counsel on what is required. The motor is amazing. They should focus on selling it on the ground.” ☞ So, here’s what I think: who knows? The company is valued at $50 million (5 million shares selling for under $10 each, no debt) and has two potential multi-billion-dollar bonanzas: one, a portfolio of promising technologies whose commercialization is always just around the corner (I keep waiting for the spray that I can use to make myself invisible); the other, a reportedly humongous, advantageously located iron ore deposit that Mr. Cox has been patiently stewarding for 41 years (you read that right), which may now be on the verge of exploitation. To me this continues to be a bizarre, wildly unconventional, yet attractive bet. There is a real chance that nothing will ever materialize and we will ultimately lose every penny. Which is why the shares must be bought only with money you can truly afford to lose. But there is also a chance, I think, that those of us who paid $3 or $4 a share a few years ago could ultimately see a twenty- or perhaps even a fifty-fold gain. Which is why I patiently (okay, impatiently) hold on.
More Must See TV October 10, 2006March 5, 2017 ANTIQUE APPLES Jeff Bauer: ‘You write: ‘You’re wondering just how long apples in a refrigerator can last?’ Would you believe six months? My father used to run an apple orchard – about 12,000 trees – and built a cold storage building. Why? Because apples fetch higher prices in January. Not much different than what you’re doing with your fridge, but on a larger scale. Purchase your favorite varieties in October and enjoy eating them through the winter when the prices go up. For maximum freshness, place them in the crisper drawer, in a perforated plastic bag. ‘If there’s no column tomorrow, you’ll know why. But so far, I feel fine.’ You’ll be better than fine. Keep eating those apples. (Fujis rock.)’ ☞ And carrots can last up to 9 months. Click here for ideal storage temperatures and hints on which fruits don’t huddle well with others in the dark. THAT AMAZING VIDEO As of two nights ago, only 7,889 YouTubers had seen it since March 2. Now, 24 hours later, thanks to you, twice as many have. But what about the other 200 million eligible US voters? If the number keeps doubling every day, as friends tell friends to watch, we’ll get to them all in two weeks. (Not that this will happen; but 15,000 doubling each day does get you to 200 million in under 14 days.) HOTEL MINI-BAR KEYS OPEN DIEBOLD VOTING MACHINES Click here (but that’s the story in a nutshell: hotel mini-bar keys open Diebold voting machines). STEAL AN ELECTION IN UNDER A MINUTE Click here to watch a demo from Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy on how to steal an election on Diebold machines undetectably – in under a minute. The demo simulates an election between George Washington and Benedict Arnold. Guess who wins. Note, near the end of the demo, how a single machine can be rigged to infect many more. Tell me again why so few Republicans co-sponsor HR 550? Next to motherhood and apple pie, shouldn’t verifiable elections – which underpin democracy – be the easiest bipartisan issue in the world? If you are represented in Congress by a Republican, please consider bringing this to his or her attention right now. Just call the Congressional switchboard – 202-224-3121. No need to talk with your Representative directly; see if you can get his or her legislative aide on the phone, or just leave a message asking for support of HR 550. Tomorrow: Buffett and Borealis (from the sublime to the ridiculous)
Chilled Fruit October 9, 2006March 5, 2017 You’re wondering just how long apples in a refrigerator can last? You may not have been wondering that before, but now you are. A week? Two weeks? Three? How about four and a half months, baby!* In Columbus’s day, they had no refrigerators, only maggots, rickets, and terns. It’s a miracle he ever found this place. But he did, and the bond market and banks are closed today in commemoration thereof. The stock market, by contrast, is open – if only to vault the Dow tenfold, from 1175, where I carelessly placed it Friday (throwing off the rest of my calculations by a zero as well), back to where the rest of the world thought it was. ☞ But sure enough, on the Sunday shows yesterday, the Republicans on to talk about Mark Foley found ways to talk about the record-high stock market. Except that, as noted Friday, the S&P 500 is down 11% after six years, the NASDAQ is down 54%, and both are down way more than that against the Euro or the Canadian dollar – let alone gold. (They also emphasized the wonderfully low gasoline prices, about which you already know my suspicions.) MUST SEE TV Only 7,889 people have viewed this video on YouTube since it was added March 2. I’m almost sure you’ll be glad you were the 7,890th – and that you’ll want to share it widely. Meanwhile, HR 550 – a bill that has the support of virtually every Democrat in the House – would restore the integrity of our elections, and thus our democracy. Whether you’re sleeping in today or racing to work, this video is worth your time. *If there’s no column tomorrow, you’ll know why. But so far, I feel fine.
-Half- As Good As Gold (And, no, it's the FINNS who use euros) October 6, 2006March 5, 2017 THE PRICE OF STOCKS The market is at record highs (sort of), and this is good. But in a world where most companies pay out little in the way of dividends – reinvesting their profits and/or using them to buy in their own shares – you’d sort of expect highs sooner or later. Even a 5% savings account will hit new highs every year. Basically, as you know, the market got ridiculously overvalued in the late Nineties, peaking in early 2000, and has taken the last six years to catch up with itself. But it’s not as caught up as it may appear. Yes, the Dow has fully recovered – in dollars. But in euros, it is still only three-fourths what it was in 2000 – because back then a dollar bought 1.03 euros, whereas today it buys only about .78 of a euro. So to an Italian or a German or a Swede (do the Swedes use euros? I’m on the train, and I can’t remember), the Dow is about 25% lower today than it was six years ago. To a Canadian (I know they don’t use euros), same thing. In 2000, one of our dollars was worth $1.46 of theirs. Today, $1.12. When the Dow peaked in March of 2000, it took roughly 40 ounces of gold (at $290 an ounce) to buy one unit of the Dow at 11750 or so. Today, with gold roughly double, a unit of the Dow is worth just 20 ounces. And that’s the Dow. The S&P 500 hit 1527 on March 23, 2000. Last night, it closed at 1353, or about 11% lower (or, in gold terms, less than half its value six years ago). The NASDAQ hit 5048 on March 10, 2000. Last night, it closed at 2306, down 54% six years later in dollar terms, down 65% against the euro, down 77% versus having kept gold in a chest in the shed. (Who would think to look in a chest in the shed? That’s where I keep all mine.) That the market is still not back to where it was in 2000 is good if you are a buyer, and good if you are no fan of overvalued markets (fearing the consequences when they return to earth). The author of Dow 36,000, at which I poked a little fun when it was published seven years ago, still has a while left to wait. And if the housing slump turns into a vicious cycle – dampening consumer spending, causing recession, dampening home prices and spending further, even as it sends the budget deficit sky-higher – it might be a long wait. THE PRICE OF OIL A couple of weeks ago, I remarked on the great good luck of the Republicans (and thus of the oil companies and Saudis who want to see President Bush’s power continue unchecked by a Democratic Congress) that the price of gasoline has plunged just in time to make voters happy for the election. Now comes this post, adding a bit of color to the conjecture. In part: From Walter Shapiro’s Salon review of State of Denial by Bob Woodward: […]It is not accidental that “State of Denial” begins with a reprise of the Bush family’s intimate relationship with a former Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar. At the instruction of his father (Bush 41), Bush (soon to be 43) met with Bandar in 1997 and confided, “I’m thinking of running for president … And I don’t have the foggiest idea about what I think about international foreign policy.” You do not have to be a Michael Moore-style conspiracy theorist to find it worrisome that a Saudi prince is put in charge of giving a future president his worldview. Bandar, who may now be much more willing to go public with Woodward since he has returned home to Saudi Arabia, keeps popping up in the narrative in chilling ways. The administration’s infamous rendition policy … may have begun shortly after 9/11 when Bush told Bandar, “If we get somebody and we can’t get them to cooperate, we’ll hand them over to you.” The book also describes Bandar’s Oval Office meeting in early 2004 with Bush, Condi Rice (then the national security advisor) and White House chief of staff Andrew Card (another source, since he has now left the administration). Bush, Woodward writes, “thanked Bandar for what the Saudis were doing on oil — essentially flooding the market and trying to keep the price as low as possible. [Bush] expressed appreciation for the policy and the impact it could have during the election year.” Read on… CBS: Woodward says that Bandar understood that economic conditions were key before a presidential election: “They’re [oil prices] high. And they could go down very quickly. That’s the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly.“ THE PRICE OF FOLLY Mike Wallin: “Rep. Foley resigned (as he should have long ago). But why are people calling on the Speaker to resign? Is the Speaker supposed to keep track of EVERY member of his party?” ☞ I should probably let Bay Buchanan take this one – she’s the scarily conservative sister of conservative Pat Buchanan, and has been calling forcefully for Hastert’s resignation. But let me take a stab at it: No, the Speaker is not supposed to keep track of every member of his party (or every member of the other party – he is Speaker of the entire House, so far as I know). But if he gets information that a House member may be acting inappropriately with the pages, at that point he is expected to take a sharp interest. FAUX NEWS And, finally, this, about Fox’s identifying Foley as a Democrat (he is a Republican): I can understand if FOX and The Factor made an error the first time, but to post it repeatedly should be a firing offense, The most watched show on FOX News has now labeled the former Republican Congressman Mark Foley, who is in the middle of a sexual predator scandal that has Hastert’s career on the ropes – a Democrat. Was it an error or done by choice? I report – you decide.
On the Pews in Gander October 5, 2006March 5, 2017 Since some are trying to make Foley a gay story, let’s just note that the majority of child sex abuse is perpetrated by heterosexuals – as, for example, the other big story this week, a pedophilia nightmare a million times worse (yet no one seems to be talking about the perpetrator’s sexual orientation). It first involved sex with toddlers; and led, all these years later, to the murder of little girls. Virtually everyone – obviously – deplores behavior like Foley’s and would do anything they could to prevent it from happening. Except that the Republican leadership did not do everything they could, or much of anything, really, which is why this has become such a huge story. Which leads me to the other thought I had today: Isn’t it amazing that what got America so horribly off track these past six years was . . . sex with an intern? And that what might tip the balance and begin to get America back on track are some lewd IMs from a congressman to a page? The body politic moves in mysterious ways. And speaking of being off track: VIEW FROM ABROAD Roger Berkley, written this past September 11: ‘Three hours ago I stepped off a plane from Brussels, where I was at a trade show. On 9/11/2001, I was also in Brussels. That’s where some of us waited out the travel ban. Others from my company were in the air and diverted to Gander, Newfoundland, where they sat in the plane for hours before being moved to a local church where they spent the next three days sleeping on the pews. The people of Gander were warm, welcoming and delightful. Back in Brussels, we encountered the same sort of warmth and compassion, as well as bountiful supplies of great food, ice cream creations and chocolates, but that’s another story. The United States and its far flung citizens were embraced globally. ‘Five years later, as we mourn our lost countrymen and those foreigners, including a significant number of Muslims, who died at the hands of al Qaeda, I spent time reflecting on where we are now. Americans are shunned globally. Those of us who travel internationally have felt the change in attitude even if we haven’t seen it. I have seen it. I have been told by potential customers that they are concerned about doing business with an American company because they don’t want to be put in an awkward position at home. This is not just from Arab citizens, it’s from Australians, Swedes and even one Latvian (the only Latvian company I know in my business). Existing customers continue to buy from us but with sadness over what the U.S. has become. One person asked, ‘What happened? How did you let the United States I have loved and admired become what it is now?” ☞ We can begin to reclaim her November 7. CRITICIZED DICK CHENEY; ARRESTED Click here.
From His Lips . . . October 4, 2006March 5, 2017 Herewith, the bulk of Paul Krugman’s recent column in the New York Times. (But wait – isn’t it time you subscribed to New York Times Select – both because it’s great, and because the world needs a healthy New York Times? You can start with a free trial; you can give subscriptions as gifts; if you’re a student or faculty member, you can get it even cheaper. Click!) It suggests that the rightwing stranglehold on our government may have begun to crack. Things Fall Apart By PAUL KRUGMAN The New York Times October 2, 2006 . . . At its core, the political axis that currently controls Congress and the White House is an alliance between the preachers and the plutocrats – between the religious right, which hates gays, abortion and the theory of evolution, and the economic right, which hates Social Security, Medicare and taxes on rich people. Surrounding this core is a large periphery of politicians and lobbyists who joined the movement not out of conviction, but to share in the spoils. Together, these groups formed a seemingly invincible political coalition, in which the religious right supplied the passion and the economic right supplied the money. The coalition has, however, always been more vulnerable than it seemed, because it was an alliance based not on shared goals, but on each group’s belief that it could use the other to get what it wants. Bring that belief into question, and the whole thing falls apart. Future historians may date the beginning of the right-wing crackup to the days immediately following the 2004 election, when President Bush tried to convert a victory won by portraying John Kerry as weak on defense into a mandate for Social Security privatization. The attempted bait-and-switch failed in the face of overwhelming public opposition. If anything, the Bush plan was even less popular in deep-red states like Montana than in states that voted for Mr. Kerry. . . . James Dobson, the founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, accused Republicans of ‘just ignoring those that put them in office.’ . . . In any case, just as the religious right was feeling betrayed by Mr. Bush’s focus on the goals of the economic right, the economic right suddenly seemed to become aware of the nature of its political allies. ‘Where in the hell did this Terri Schiavo thing come from?’ asked Dick Armey, the former House majority leader, in an interview with Ryan Sager, the author of ‘The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians and the Battle to Control the Republican Party.’ The answer, he said, was ‘blatant pandering to James Dobson.’ He went on, ‘Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies.’ Some Republicans are switching parties. James Webb, who may pull off a macaca-fueled upset against Senator George Allen of Virginia, was secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan. Charles Barkley, a former N.B.A. star who used to be mentioned as a possible future Republican candidate, recently declared, ‘I was a Republican until they lost their minds.’ So the right-wing coalition is showing signs of coming apart. It seems that we’re not in Kansas anymore. In fact, Kansas itself doesn’t seem to be in Kansas anymore. Kathleen Sebelius, the state’s Democratic governor, has achieved a sky-high favorability rating by focusing on good governance rather than culture wars, and her party believes it will win big this year. And nine former Kansas Republicans, including Mark Parkinson, the former state G.O.P. chairman, are now running for state office as Democrats. Why did Mr. Parkinson change parties? Because he ‘got tired of the theological debate over whether Charles Darwin was right.’