Winning In Iraq and Fort Lauderdale May 16, 2007January 6, 2017 IRAQ Excerpted from today’s THE HILL . . . How to win the Iraq war By Brent Budowsky Success can still be achieved in Iraq along historic precedents of Ireland, South Africa and El Salvador when armed combatants ended their wars and joined the political process. The current escalation is doomed because it encourages the dominant party to sectarian war . . . using American troops to achieve military victory in their war against Sunnis. . . . There are two wars in Iraq, both of which can be won, through completely different tactics. There is a war against al Qaeda that must be won through military victory, uniting America with patriotic Iraqis of all factions who oppose occupation by America, Iran or al Qaeda. There is a war pitting Shi’ites against Sunnis for dominance in post-occupation Iraq. The escalation places America on the side of Iraqi Shi’ites and Iran. It destroys the one hope for victory through a political solution similar to El Salvador, Ireland and South Africa. . . . We can only win military victory in the first war, against al Qaeda, by achieving political victory that ends the second war, among Iraqis. While we urgently want a political solution, the Iraqi parliament wants a two-month vacation to avoid it. While we urgently want an Iraqi government for all Iraqis, Maliki removes Iraqi generals seeking reconciliation because he wants military victory over the Sunnis, and will fight to the last American to achieve it. . . . Will Maliki and his allies agree to Iraqi power-sharing that is genuinely pluralistic, tolerant and fair? If not, Americans should not die for a sectarian cause serving Iranian interests. If they will, it happened in El Salvador, South Africa and Ireland and can happen in Iraq with demonstrable progress within 90 days. . . . Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen and to Bill Alexander, then-chief deputy whip of the House. He is a contributing editor to Fighting Dems News Service. He can be read on The Hill’s Pundits Blog. HATE As noted a couple of weeks ago, the House voted extended the federal hate crimes statute to include sexual orientation and gender identity. David D’Italiano: ‘I’m with the conservatives on this one; there is no need for extra laws, so adding yet another extra law really is a bad thing to do. [Why ‘bad?’ Why not, at worst, unnecessary? – A.T.] None of these laws will stop any violence; if someone isn’t put off by the laws against beating someone up or killing them, they won’t be put off by this, either; all it is is an extra ‘revenge’ law to whack the perp with later and I’d rather our justice system not be about that.’ ☞ It’s not an extra law, really, it’s fixing the one glaring omission in the existing law, to send an important signal: hate crimes against sexual minorities are repugnant, too. If every ethnicity were covered except Italians, would David feel the same way? Especially if Italians were routinely beat up or murdered simply because they were perceived to be Italian? (David’s last name, though I’ve changed it, is Italian.) Or what if he heard an announcement at an airport – ‘Flight 552 will begin boarding shortly; Italians shall be subject to death.’ Now that would be peculiar (read on) . . . although, to be clear, it would not be covered by the federal hate crimes statute. Only if the passengers in the waiting room, incited by the announcement, perceived David to be Italian (whether he was or not) and beat or killed him before boarding their flight would the law kick in. FROM A LAW PROFESSOR IN FORT LAUDERDALE Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 18:33:42 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [TheDolphinDemocrats] Thanks Waymon and I are sorry that we could not come to today’s meeting, but we are leaving for Washington DC for his sister’s wedding. We both wanted to express our appreciation for all of the hard work that Ken Keechl did for us over the past weekend. Without his hard work behind the scenes, we would not have had the result that we got. It was not until he was involved did the airport take the situation seriously. For those who did not follow the story (or only read the slanted story in the Sun-Sentinel), here is what happened: On Tuesday morning while Waymon and I were waiting for our luggage, we heard a weird announcement come over the airport’s PA system. It said that “a man who lies with another man as he would a woman shall be subject to death.” Upon hearing this twice, we looked for security or a phone, but could not find either one. We went home, and I called the airport when I woke up that morning. After talking with several different people, I finally was able to talk to the manager of the airport. He seemed disinterested, and just closed by saying that he was “sorry for the inconvenience.” I waited one day to see if he would follow up on the complaint. On Wednesday, after not hearing anything from the airport manager, I emailed Ken [a county commissioner] and contacted NBC6. NBC6 did a story and Ken started working his political magic. The next day, I received phone calls from airport officials and the sheriff’s department telling me that they were both doing investigations. On Friday morning, I received a call from the mayor who said that he was holding a press conference to apologize to us. On Sunday, I received a call from the police that they were able to locate the person who made the announcement and that he confessed. Ken contacted me as well. Throughout the interviews, we could not say enough about how much Ken did to move things along. He was constantly checking in with us and making sure that the investigation was continuing. Having Ken immediately push this forward resulted in exactly what we wanted all along – to make sure the person who made this announcement was fired. Waymon and I can’t thank him enough. We have learned many lessons over the past week. First, we realized how important it was to have an openly gay official who could help us. He immediately understood the issue and pushed it when others were not so understanding. Second, we learned how people still blame the victim for these types of events. I have been asked what we were doing to get attention (getting our luggage, by the way). Others quickly questioned our credibility (like I would make this up and possibly lose my license as a lawyer). Some of the media focus was on the Bible, claiming that the main source of our complaint was hearing a Bible verse (see the Sun-Sentinel’s headline this past week). Third, we realized how we need to become more active in our community, so you will be seeing more of us here at Dolphin Dems meetings. The biggest lesson, however, was that we still have so much work to do as a community. The level of hatred that has now been directed towards us this week has been amazing and eye-opening. Just yesterday, a older woman approached Waymon at the grocery story and asked if he had been on TV this week. He said that he had, and she responded by saying: “You faggots deserve what that guy said.” Earlier today, Waymon left the gym and found a piece of paper on his windshield that said “FAG!” Through email and comments to articles online, we have been called every imaginable derogatory name for gay men. Some even said that we must have been having sex in the bathroom and we just heard God talking to us out of guilt. We have kept almost one hundred pages of comments that have circulated about us and the incident. The majority of them have been hate-filled and even scary. We are actually a bit scared and are taking security precautions, simply because we spoke out about hearing the words “subject to death” on the PA system of an international airport. As I have said several times this week, if the words preceding “subject to death” were “Americans”, “Christians”, or “Muslims” instead of referring to gays, homeland security would have been involved! All of these threats and hateful words we have heard this week just prove that we, along with Ken, took the right steps in pushing this important issue. I would like to close again by thanking Ken and all of the officials that stepped up and helped solve this matter. Waymon Hudson & Anthony S. Niedwiecki Ass’t Prof. of Law Director of LSV Program Shepard Broad Law Center Nova Southeastern Univ. Tomorrow (I hope): ‘The Pinchot Retirement Program’
1.8 Million Species, But a Single Stamp May 15, 2007January 6, 2017 BOREF According to this press release last week, Gilbert Thomson has signed on to get WheelTug certified with the FAA and has 30 years’ experience in the field. ‘I’m proud to help make this groundbreaking technology a reality,’ he says. Time will tell. ‘GEORGIA RULE’ Jane Fonda, Felicity Huffman, and Lindsay Lohan. It’s set in Idaho, not Georgia, and it’s good. (I went having no idea what to expect – my favorite way to see a movie.) Click here. ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIFE II Ron G.: ‘Your mention of the Encyclopedia of Life is a good thing. For readers interested in more detailed and somewhat critical discussion of the project, this is helpful. It’s at a biologist’s blog titled ‘Pharyngula: Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal.’ It’s very popular.’ ☞ With a title like that, how could it not be? ‘There are some related projects [Ron continues], like Tree of Life, which emphasizes phylogeny (evolutionary relatedness) so that even if a species is now extinct, one can learn what its relatives are (or were) like. TOL and EOL should obviously collaborate. Also, a bunch of different relevant databases aimed at particular taxa already exist (FishBase, CephBase, Hexacoral, etc.), and a number of these face the real possibility of becoming financially orphaned.’ FOREVER STAMPS Ralph: ‘Thanks to your suggestion, on Monday the Post Office started selling first-class stamps that are good ‘forever.’ Today will be the last time I will trade-in the remaining stamps (currently 88) on my roll of 100.’ ☞ I hardly think it was thanks to my suggestion, but it is a bureaucratic triumph barely a million years from conception to execution. Larry: ‘The forever stamp is valid on international mail (contrary to what one of your readers feared). From the USPS site: ‘The postage value of the Forever Stamp is always the domestic First-Class Mail single-piece 1-ounce letter rate that is in effect on the day of use (mailing).’ So when the rate for mailing a standard letter goes to 43 cents, the forever stamp will be worth 43 cents towards the postage on international mail.’
Listen to the General May 14, 2007March 6, 2017 CBS fires Gen. Batiste over VoteVets ad. Iraq veteran Gen. John Batiste ‘has been asked to leave his position as a consultant to CBS News’ over a new VoteVets ad criticizing the Iraq war. He was interviewed [Thursday] by MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. From Carolyn Kay: ‘Click through to watch the video. You can be for the war and do commentary for CBS, but you can’t be against the war and do commentary for CBS. And just how is this different from the blacklisting of the 1950s?’ ☞ General Batiste is a strong Republican. It’s really worth watching at least the first few minutes of this 6-minute video. Lots more stuff to write today, but the General deserves our undivided attention.
A Graduation Day Gift (And Don't Forget Mom on Sunday!) May 11, 2007March 6, 2017 YOU NEVER CALL . . . Wayne Arczynski: ‘Never! Never! Never put your email address on a web page! Just as Google traverses the web to index content, a bazillion spam and phishing engines do the same looking for email addresses, phone numbers, SSN numbers and credit card numbers. Expect a serious increase in spam and phishing in about a week.’ ☞ Ugh. Well, too late now, I guess. But I was desperate to hear from you guys. IT’S FIXED! It seems AOL’s server suddenly – after all these years – somehow stopped communicating with my web site provider’s server. So my trusty webmaster, Jason, has switched the ME-MAIL address to a non-AOL account and we’re back in business. BOREALIS Joe: ‘Are you sure the plane moved?’ ☞ Joe attached a copy of his confirmed purchase yesterday morning of 400 shares at $8.50. All I can say is, you must truly only do this with money you can afford to lose – because you may. But just as (to me, anyway) the facts of the Nitromed story last year made the stock’s high valuation bizarrely irrational – and its puts a greta speculation – so what we know of Borealis makes its low valuation bizarrely irrational. Not to say the company can’t fail – it absolutely can fail. But why is the chance it will succeed currently valued at under $45 millon? (Five million shares at $8.50 each when Joe bought his.) A Jackson Pollock painting recently fetched $140 million, more than three times as much. And it’s not the only one he did. GAS PRICES Gennady: ‘Please explain to this neophyte how this works: GOP lowers the prices for mid-term elections, loses them, then raises the prices? If this is the logic, why did they wait six months? Nov. 8 was as good time as any, and if the price increases were instituted for profits, why start in May 07 instead of Nov 06? Makes little sense. Your obsession with Reps and Bush reminds me an old saying: ‘If all you have is a hammer, the rest of world looks like a nail.’ Admit it, not every problem, catastrophe or event are Bush’s fault!’ ☞ I admit it. And I absolutely don’t know for sure that the Saudis and the oil companies leaned against high gasoline prices in advance of the election. But they surely did not want to see the gavels change hands. And they surely have a bit of influence over oil prices. Given their past track record, and their closeness to the Administration, I think it’s naive to think this could not have been a factor. (Look at how the Administration failed to lean against high electricity prices in the artificial California crisis, despite the clear power of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to do so.) This is an Administration that got elected saying of their giant tax cuts that ‘by far, the vast majority of the help goes to the people at the bottom end of the economic ladder.’ This is an Administration that got elected promising a humble foreign policy – yet was planning how to split up Iraq’s oil even before 9/11. This an Administration that even under subpoena from the General Accounting Office would not release the names of the participants in Vice President Cheney’s energy task force. This is a team that threw out thousands of ‘overvotes’ in Florida because the intent of the voter – who had punched Gore but also written in Gore – could not be discerned. So, no, I may have just been lucky in guessing that gas prices would rebound after the election (‘don’t sell your oil stocks’). But please don’t tell me the oil interests didn’t want a Republican win or that the oil interests have no influence over the price of oil. (As to the timing, would it really have been possible – or smart – to drop the price of gasoline a buck and a half November 6 and then hike it back up November 8? Would that have left you arguing that it was just coincidence, as you do now?) FOR FATHER’S DAY, FOR GRADUATION I am in a twelve-step program for self-promotion (‘Hello. I’m Andy and I’m a shameless self-promoter.’ ‘Hi, Andy!’), but this generous review over at Amazon a few weeks ago knocked me off the wagon: Truly the only investment guide you will ever need!, March 24, 2007 Reviewer: Douglas Lindal “SeaBear” (Seattle, WA USA) I purchased my first copy of Mr. Tobias’s book when I was in my mid thirties and it truly changed my life. I found it to be such practical advice that I started following it immediately. Written in a self depreciating manner the author just made the complicated financial decisions we all mishandle or put off seem so simple. Insurance, banking, investments, clipping coupons, saving money – he addresses it all and you can understand it. I am now 56 and retired and I know a lot of it I owe to this book. Read it! ☞ I net 82 cents if you buy the book, so I hope you will. 65 years ago today two very wonderful people got married in New York
I Miss You! May 10, 2007March 6, 2017 YOU NEVER CALL, YOU NEVER WRITE Well, I’m glad you never call – but I really miss your e-mails, and finally realized why they shrank to a trickle a week or two ago. ME-MAIL is broken! It seems to work – I sent one myself yesterday and the confirmation screen said, ‘It worked!’ But it didn’t. I really apologize to those of you who took the time to write. I would have noticed it sooner if the emails had stopped altogether. I just thought at first I must really be boring you . . . or that you had finally all come over to my point of view on cauliflower, gasoline prices, and Borealis. But I finally realized that the emails that were coming through were not the ones from ME-MAIL, but rather the ones from those of you who have added my e-address to your address books and write directly. (It’s “myvastfortune” over at AOL – but, please, links only, no attachments.) How the heck am I supposed to write this column without your estimable contributions? Until we get this fixed, please use the direct e-address. And on the off-chance you have a copy of what you sent in the last 10 days (though I know ME-MAIL makes that unlikely), by all means re-send. ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIFE Here is an inspiring project that you – or your kids – will certainly want to know about. (Thanks, Nathan.) It’s a sort of cross between SETI (everyone working together to find extraterrestrial life) and wikipedia (everyone working together to drive the poor CEO of Encyclopedia Britannica into an unrecoverable depression). Its aim: to catalog all the world’s species. (That should keep them busy for the summer.)
Or You Could Buy Mom Some $3 Gas May 9, 2007January 8, 2017 GAS PRICES Just six months after the mid-term election, gas prices are about to break through to new all-time highs. Now there’s a surprise. I wrote last fall: So gasoline prices have come down and people are happy again – just in time for the mid-term election. What a stroke of luck for the oil companies! What a further stroke of luck it would be if prices then went back up after the election. Of course, there’s that old expression about ‘making your own luck.’ But only a cynic would suggest that oil companies have any influence over the price of gasoline. Or that, even if they did, they would ever try to use their influence to help the Administration retain unchecked power (other than with political contributions, which thus far in 2006 exceed $12.5 million, 83% to Republicans). ☞ Or that the Saudis, who are blood-brother Bushies, have much to do with the price of oil, either. Some thought I was being too cynical – and I’m not sure they were wrong. But I no longer dismiss such things out of hand as I would have before we became a nation that does not torture (we just waterboard) and a nation that goes to war only as a last resort. IF YOU’RE A PROGRESSIVE WHO LOVES HIS MOTHER . . . . . . Go here, click on the little radio microphone in the top right corner, and type PRESS. If you decide to buy something, you get a free vase and my pal Bill Press (formerly of CNN’s Crossfire) gets credit from his advertiser. RUNNING DOS UNDER VISTA I was scared to try Vista until I saw this free software that lets you run DOS programs – like, oh, say, Managing Your Money – just the way you did even back in Windows 98. I’m still scared to try Vista, but less so.
Yet More o’ Borealis May 8, 2007March 6, 2017 I have clearly lost all perspective. It’s gotten to the point that – as much as I’d like the millions (oh, baby!) – my Number One goal for Borealis is to be able to say to the rocket scientist friend who taunts me and pooh-poohs each new development (‘The plane moved? With enough gearing, an ant could move the plane – it is a scam.‘) . . . ‘HA!’ That’s what I want to say to him: ‘HA!’ I live for the day. ‘HA!’ Clearly, this is no way to run your finances, which is why you must bet on Borealis only with money you can truly afford to lose. IRON ORE So according to this press release a couple of weeks ago, Borealis subsidiary Roche Bay’s joint venture partner Advanced Explorations has scraped together some cash to continue work up North evaluating our prospects. It goes on to say: Recent (2006) metallurgical studies by SGS Lakefield from core samples collected in 2006 and historical core from the property corroborated earlier studies that consistently found that upgrading of the iron content was achieved by grinding and magnetic separation alone. The iron content of the concentrates produced varied between 66% and 71%. It was also shown that dry magnetic separation of a crushed product can lead to upgrading the feed material to 40% iron, while recovering 99% of magnetic iron in the feed material. The studies also found that the vast majority of deleterious elements reported to the tailings, resulting in a clean, high quality concentrate. The only exception was sulphides, but during pelletising tests conducted in the past, the sulphur content came down to 0.01%. The Bond ball mill work index was found to be between 6 and 9 kWh/ton. Paul Palmer P. Geo, P.Eng of Golder Associates is the QP within the meaning of 43-101. The geologic information within this release is extracted from a qualifying report filed on Sedar and coauthored by the QP. The content of this release has been reviewed by the QP who approves the content of this release. ☞ I know as little about iron ore as I do about dredging (see yesterday’s disquisition), but I have learned that ‘Sedar’ is the Canadian equivalent of our S.E.C.’s ‘Edgar,’ and that a ‘QP’ is a ‘Qualified Person,’ which is a professional designation harder to come by than, say, a beautician’s license. Click here for the definition. Meanwhile, last week Advanced Explorations announced what appears to be a hoped for May 16 closing of their financing agreement, going on to say that: An exploration camp has been established on site and two drills and crews are expected to be mobilized in the near future. The Company anticipates completing sufficient drilling in the next 4 months to generate an updated resource calculation. Historical work undertaken on the property was not to NI 43-101 standards and no resource could be stated from the previous work. ☞ All I’m saying is that this is an awful lot of trouble to go to – and cold! Oh, my God it must be cold! (and there are polar bears) – if someone, including a Q.P., didn’t think there were potential here. WHEEL TUG And then there is the Wheel Tug subsidiary of the Chorus Motors subsidiary. I know I posted the Wheel Tug press release about its agreement with Delta Airlines, but in case I forgot to, here is Delta’s own version: “Certainly we expect this to be a ‘win’ for us on the business side by reducing our costs, but we’re also excited about the potential for removing some complexity from gate operations for our ground personnel and doing it in an environmentally friendly fashion,” said Walt Klein, Delta’s director of Quality, Engineering and Training. Full development and approval of the system is expected sometime in 2009 and Delta, as WheelTug’s launch customer, could begin installing the system on its fleet of B-737NG aircraft as early as late 2009. The WheelTug system includes powerful electric motors in the airplane’s nose wheel that will enable pilots to back away from gates without a tow tug and then taxi to their takeoff, or a remote start point before starting the airplane’s engines. After landing, the pilot can turn off the jet engines and use the system to drive the airplane to its gate. ☞ You can inspect a WheelTug patent here, but of far more interest to the lay reader (well, me) is this Powerpoint presentation to a conference of landing gear engineers last week. Not that I understand the engineering – but I sure understand the projected annual savings of $1 million or more per retrofitted aircraft, and the environmental benefits. So if WheelTug earned a royalty of $50,000 a year – 5% of the projected savings – on, say, 5,000 jets, that would be $250 million a year, pre-tax . . . which ain’t hay to a company whose present market cap is $50 million. (The savings are fun to imagine. There’s the fuel, of course, and the tow trucks. But all kinds of other things you wouldn’t think of at first. Such as that the pilot could turn on his WheelTug motor to get his wheels spinning rapidly as he’s about to land – so instead of that rubber-burning jolt you feel when giant, expensive tires have to go from zero to 200mph in an instant, you’d land smoothly, with the wheels already turning.) My rocket-scientist friend may certainly prove right, which is why this is a speculation. And neither the iron ore nor the motor is likely to start gushing actual cash – if either ever does – until 2010 at the earliest. Maybe the motors will prove unreliable. Maybe the Canadians will find endangered species living on our iron ore. But we’ve certainly made progress. Here are some excerpts from the company’s (admittedly wacky) weekly investor email: ********************************** WheelTug plc We have had a great conference, making contact with the relevant companies, and some very impressive and experienced engineers. There was a session on towbarless towing (which usually means tugs that lift and carry the front gear instead of pushing and pulling with a towbar), and the speaker of that session asked us to present WheelTug. He gave us his whole time, and we used it – all 90 minutes. The room was standing-room only, and most people there asked at least one question. The Powerpoint show we delivered will be posted on the SAE web site. . . . We continue to add to our staff. . . . This week we welcome on-board experts in FAA certification and airport operations. . . . The first of many WheelTug patents has been issued, and is available on our web page. ************************ Power Chips plc, Cool Chips plc, Avto Metals plc As reported, a recent modification of deposition conditions of Avto Metals yielded a 3x increase in reduction of Electron Volt Work Function over previous work. In absolute numbers we saw about a 30% reduction in eV, which is huge news. This has to be confirmed and confirmed again, though this is very exciting news. The wafers from the second manufacturing round from our European foundry have arrived. We made a few improvements to the mask and deposition process, expecting some improvement in Avto effect. We will attempt to replicate the recent findings on Avto Metals deposition condition on these new wafers. Sourcing of wafers for “Round 3” has commenced but we don’t have a firm delivery date yet. We expect a much larger Avto effect from “Round 3”. The latest tests are beginning to verge on commercial results and there is actually a possibility that “Round 3” can give us commercial results. This is almost too much to hope for, but it is a real possibility. We continue to have discussions world-wide regarding funding. [. . .] Our general research and patenting work continues apace. We are working on fundamental additional scientific breakthroughs in several fields which we are patenting. These are truly exciting times. Please pray for Gogita. Chana B. Cox [the chairman’s wife] has just completed another book, “Reflections on the Logic of the Good”. This is another super read. This book and “Liberty, God’s gift to Humanity” are both very basic political theory. Please look at www.religiousliberalism.org. This is a great show done by Rebecca Becker on the “Liberty” book. It is a marvelous visual presentation. “Liberty, God’s Gift to Humanity”, by Chana B. Cox is a spectacular read. Tonight is the 31th night of the Omer. Lag B’Omer is Sunday. We are planning on building great bonfires. Good Shabbos. And to you.
Borealis, Mud, and Cauliflower May 7, 2007March 6, 2017 CAULIFLOWER It is amazing how long a head of cauliflower stays good in the refrigerator – especially if it’s Andy Boy cauliflower* – and I have learned that you can just ignore those brown ‘scuff marks’ that begin to appear; they’re entirely harmless. Or have been, so far, to me.** So to vary the pace, consider having a head of cauliflower in the refrigerator from time to time, and just breaking off a lobe or two every so often as a healthy, palate-cleansing snack. Ketchup never hurt, either. (Don’t worry about the inevitable cauliflower crumble that will wind on the floor. So bland is this food, neither ant nor roach nor rodent has any interest, and it doesn’t smell as it dehydrates and, under foot, gets ground to dust. It will just blow away, most likely into the adjacent carpet, to await the semi-annual vacuuming and permanent residency in the vacuum cleaner bag no one knows how to replace.) _______________ * Oh, the potential tie-ins! ** This may be an opportune moment to share with you the first few paragraphs of the first chapter of my long-awaited work in progress: Chapter 1 – These Recipes Could Kill You Seriously. Nothing in this book has hurt me — but that’s me. None of the recipes in this book, nor the general disregard for hygiene they embrace, has been tested for safety by any private lab or government agency, and I hereby disclaim any responsibility — I mean, ANY responsibility — for stomach cramps, mental disorder, loss of sleep, loss of friends, or even DEATH that could ensue from following any of the advice in this book. I have a pretty strong stomach. You may not be so lucky. Seriously. MUD So we bought the GLDD warrants at 70 cents and 38 cents in the past year or so, and Friday they closed at $3.29, so if you bought 10,000 of them for, say, $6,000, they’re now worth $32,900 on paper. Think of the money you now have available to support the DNC. But wait – I wouldn’t necessarily sell until, at the earliest, your warrants have gone long-term. And with just a 5-cent premium over their intrinsic value Friday (they give you the right to buy GLDD at $5 and GLDD closed at $8.24 Friday), I wouldn’t necessarily sell when they go long-term, either. Anything can happen, of course, and I know nothing, really, about mud, sediment, dredging, or barges. (GLDD is Great Lakes Dredge & Dock, the nation’s oldest, largest company in this field.) But for someone who does want to own the stock, at $8.24, the warrants essentially do two things for that extra nickel: First, they save your having to put up $5 of each $8.24. With nearly two years to run on the warrants, that’s like being able to borrow $5 for two years for just a nickel in interest. Which works out to a rate of about half a percent a year. (The wrinkle – see below – is that if the stock rises much higher, the warrants may not have 2 years to run after all.) Second, if something awful happened and the stock crashed to $2, you’d have lost 100% of your $3.24 . . . but not the full $6.24 drop from $8.24 if you had bought the stock. (Admittedly, one can argue that it’s worse to lose 100% than “only” the 75% or so drop from $8.24 to $2. But not necessarily. In this unlikely scenario, you could then buy the shares at $2, if you wanted to, giving you a total cost for each one of $2 plus the lost $3.24, or $5.24 in all – versus the $8.24 it would have cost you to own the shares buying them outright today.) So the warrants are not overpriced relative to the stock. But how good a value is the stock at today’s price? I have read research reports making the case for significant further gains in the years ahead. One of them argues that the nation’s normal level of dredging activity has been halved because of budget constraints from the Iraq war, and that at some point soon it will need to be restored to traditional levels, which would be very good for GLDD’s sales and profits. But who knows? The company is releasing earnings before the market open Wednesday and you are invited to listen to management’s conference call later that day, at 11am Eastern Time – details are here. If the news Wednesday is discouraging, the stock will drop. If it’s good – but no better than investors were expecting, the stock may also drop. If the news exceeds expectations, the stock could continue to climb. Which raises one last important wrinkle with the warrants – namely that, as described here (see paragraph 6), the company has the right to force conversion of the warrants if the stock hits $8.50 and stays there for 20 consecutive trading days. Which means that, for those not in a position to, or inclined to, pay an additional $5 to own the actual stock and hold it for the long term, it will be advisable to sell the warrants once the stock begins trading at or above $8.50. Which could be as early as this week or as late as . . . never. But when if and when it does begin to trade at $8.50, I’d expect to write about this in more detail. (One advantage of spending the extra money to exercise the warrants if that you could then enjoy whatever future appreciation might remain. But the other is that you would be deferring the tax that would be due if you closed out the position and took your profit.) BOREF I know, I promised. Well, I have posted that tomorrow. Which, because I work very late into the night, you can read today.
Forty-One Years May 4, 2007March 6, 2017 First the bad news: Although my Congressional friend (as described yesterday) ultimately voted for the Hate Crimes bill, earlier in the day was one of just 9 Democrats who voted – along with every Republican – for a procedural measure designed to kill it.But that’s just a footnote to a very wonderful day in which the House passed legislation, 237-180, that, pending Senate and Presidential approval, will extend the existing Hate Crimes statute to include sexual orientation and gender identity. Now you ask, how could 180 Congressfolk – 166 of them Republicans – vote against this? Their two biggest arguments were that: Murder and assault are already illegal. No special provisions are needed to cover hate crimes. (But even if you buy that – and as I argued yesterday, you shouldn’t – what’s the justification for excluding just one group of hate crimes victims from the existing law?) A 101-year-old woman was hit in the face three times by a New York City mugger who had followed her home to steal her purse – yet she, and old people like her, wouldn’t be covered by this law. And what about veterans? Why doesn’t this bill include them? It’s unfair to single out gays and lesbians for special treatment. (But it’s not just gays and lesbians – the existing statute already covers whites and blacks and yellows and browns who may fall victim to hate crimes; and Catholics and Jews and Baptists and Muslims; and Poles and Latinos and Turks and even the French. Not to mention that the 101-year-old woman was attacked her for her money, not because the mugger’s motive was hatred.) Even so, in a particularly dramatic moment, Chairman John Conyers turned to his Republican counterpart and asked if he would accept an amendment extending the statute to cover people over 65 and veterans. And the Republican floor manager would not allow old people and veterans to be added to the bill. I lack the time and skill to bring the proceedings to life. But the contrast was stark: Every Democrat who spoke supported the bill, in many cases eloquently. Every Republican who rose argued against it. Let me end with just this. Forty-one years ago, give or take, two deeply closeted gay men were in the basement grill of an all-male college dorm. One was a senior, determined never, ever to have anyone know he was gay – because it was the worst thing anyone could be. He was perpetually depressed and, though not without friends, completely alone with his secret. The other was a “resident tutor” – a wildly popular assistant professor who compensated for his secret by chomping cigars, swearing like a sailor, and destroying all comers in political debate. And oh, how they came to debate him. They thought themselves pretty smart and funny and cool. But up against this guy, seven or eight years their senior, they stood no chance. They would be at once convulsed with laughter and dazzled by his wit, speed, and breadth of knowledge. They never would have imagined he had crushes on many of them, so gruff and macho was he. Only that senior with the secret could tell, because he had crushes on the same students. One evening in particular, down in that depressing little college grill, with its greasy hot dogs and hamburgers and a lone pinball machine, the student saw how the assistant professor was trading manly arm punches with a couple of the jocks – and it hit him: He (the student) was not the only one in the world who had been wired backwards. This wildly smart, funny, resident tutor shared the same terrible secret. And the great thing about this country – or at least one of the great things, and the one I have experienced most personally – is that with time, things got better. Not all better, to be sure, but a lot better, with further improvement in sight. With each passing year, more and more gays and lesbians felt freer to be themselves and to stand up for their equal rights. And on May 3, 2007, the former assistant professor, Congressman Barney Frank, Chairman of the Financial Services Committee, took the gavel as Acting Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America – an openly gay man – and called for a vote on the hate crimes bill, HR 1592. When time was up and the vote tallied, he announced the results: 180 against, 237 in favor. It was a good day for America. (Little was heard of the student, meanwhile. Rumor has it he went on to live a happy life and can be sighted from time to time on airport tarmacs, watching jets being towed to and from their gates, dreaming great thoughts.) Monday: More o’ Borealis
A Boy Named Sue How Will the Congressman Vote? May 3, 2007March 6, 2017 FOR FATHER’S DAY Have you seen the promo for the new Steven Wright DVD? (You know Steven Wright; the gloomy deadpan guy? As in, for example: ‘Borrow money from pessimists – they don’t expect it back.’) He makes fun of everything. (‘All those who believe in psychokinesis, raise my hand.’) The promo clip I saw: ‘I think it’s wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly.’ FOR JOHNNY HAS TWO MOTHERS DAY I’m not saying your Mom has no sense of humor; just that – at the risk of sounding old fashioned or sexist – I think you need to consider getting her something nicer than a comedy DVD. In the meantime, for the boy who has two moms, there is the continuing question of what we are to think – and the extent to which we are comfortable restricting the rights of others based on what we think. For example, it’s one thing to think inter-racial couples should not marry; another thing to forbid them to. One reason the country is making steady progress toward acceptance of its gay and lesbian children is simply that they’re getting to know them. (Is it even notable any more that Ellen Degeneres is gay? She’s just as widely beloved as any other celebrity in America, isn’t she? And considered more wholesome than many of them?) So if you have 12 minutes to meet some really nice people, both straight and gay, here they are. The focus is on what happened in Wisconsin – where the people voted down the right of their fellow citizens to marry – and what may happen in Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage is legal, and supported by the Governor and nearly three-quarters of the legislature . . . but where there’s a risk it will be outlawed by referendum. The clip speaks for itself, and appeals to the angels of our better nature. FOR JOHNNY’S DAD IS A MOMMY DAY The House may vote today on extending hate crimes legislation to include sexual orientation and gender identity. I know some of you believe there should be no hate crimes laws at all.* But that’s not today’s question. Today’s question is, since there already ARE hate crimes laws on the books, should one much-hated group – queers – be excluded from them? * The conservative position is that all crime is hateful, regardless of motive. And that – while distinctions should be made based on intent (first degree murder, second degree murder, manslaughter, and so on) – dragging a randomly selected black man on a chain behind a pickup truck until his head falls off, just because he was black (or for blacks to do the same to a white guy, just because he was white), does not fall into a category of crimes that threaten our diverse society more than any other. I disagree. The other reason special legislation is needed is that, sometimes, law enforcement in a given locality shares the same bigotry that led to the crime in the first place. In those cases, the law provides added resources to encourage the pursuit of justice. It would be odd to protect all religions except, say, Catholics; odd to protect all races except, say, Asians; odd to protect all ethnicities except, say, Poles. And so it seems odd to exclude one of the most hated and frequently assaulted groups of all – queers. (Many young gays and lesbians actually prefer that word; I never use it. But in the context of hate crimes, it does seem to have a place in the discussion.) Anyhow, as you would expect, most Democrats favor expanding the hate crimes protections to cover the LGBT community; many Republicans do not. Today’s outcome may revolve around procedural maneuvering over ‘gender identity.’ That is, can the bill be passed (or scuttled) by excluding from its protection the most hated and threatened group of all – the effeminate boy or masculine girl. One Democratic Congressman I know pretty well, who comes from a district far from New York or San Francisco, was wrestling with this issue last night. ‘Gender identity,’ he told me, was not a term the voters in his district knew . . . or would be comfortable with if they did. Come the fall of 2008, he could get beat up pretty bad, he feared, if he voted to include these protections. I don’t know how he will come down on it. Today will be an interesting day. My pitch was that – apart from it’s being the right thing – and the thing, certainly, Jesus would have done (can you imagine His saying ‘Blessed are the meek, except the sissies, whom you may judge without fear of being judged yourself, and beat up, because you are stronger than they are’?) – apart from all that, if his opponent did attack him for this, he might just be able to make it work to his advantage. As in: Well, you know, I’m a pretty square, straight, white guy. I had never even heard of ‘gender identity.’ But what it’s basically about is boys getting beat up or killed because they’re effeminate, and girls getting attacked or killed because they’re not feminine enough. Nobody’s for that, unless there’s a lot of hate in their hearts — and I know first hand there’s not a lot of hate in the hearts of my constituents. I’m kind of shocked that my opponent takes the sides of the bullies in this. Well, if that’s his best credential to represent you in Congress, so be it. But now let’s talk about jobs and why the Republicans have us paying so much more for prescription drugs than we should. The other thing I relayed to him was the story of my fellow high school alum (a dozen years ahead of me), Renee Richards. As it happens, she was profiled on CBS Sunday Morning just days ago, so her story is fresh in mind: Princeton tennis champ, military man, married, a dad . . . sex change operation, ranked 20th in the world on the women’s tennis circuit, highly respected eye surgeon (operating on a patient even as we speak) – and still much loved by her son. Is hers a typical story? Hardly. Is it likely to make people uncomfortable at first? Sure. But the few transgendered folks I’ve gotten to know a little have more courage and personal dignity than just about anybody. And, in any event, this is America. I hope my Congressman friend votes the right way.