It’s Leap Year — Take the Day Off February 29, 2008January 5, 2017 NEW SYMBOLS Dave Nelson: ‘Hey, has the symbol for Aldabra II warrants changed? It hasn’t showed up for a couple of days.’ ☞ Aldabra 2 is now Boise, Inc. – BZ – with the symbol for the warrants, BZ_t or BZ+ or who knows what else, depending on the service you’re using to get a quote. SYMS, meanwhile, after its aborted self-delistation*, has gone back to being SYMS. *I know ‘infinity’ is a very long time, but the idea that an infinite number of monkeys typing for infinity would eventually produce one of Shakespeare’s plays – or even one of his sonnets – is silly. Since the dawn of time, with more than 6 billion people on the planet, not one of them has ever previously typed ‘aborted self-delistation.’ Think about that.. NAQ This Special Purpose Acquisition Company has not changed its symbol, sits on about $400 million in cash looking for an attractively-priced acquisition, and sold yesterday for $9.30 a share. The warrants, first written up here three months ago, give you the right to buy the stock at $7.50 (if an acquisition is completed) yet sold yesterday for just 69 cents. All the usual caveats apply (truly, truly, truly), but if you have money you can truly afford to lose, it’s a speculation to consider. DO YOU STILL BUY BOTTLED WATER? James Musters suggests this comic strip. THE CREATIONIST’S DILEMMA And speaking of strips . . . Garry Trudeau strikes again. LEAP FRIDAY Have a good weekend. A beagle – quite possible the one that won Best in Show recently – ate the rest of this column. Shouldn’t Leap Year be a holiday anyway?
TXCO, ACAI, CZAR, WFBJ February 28, 2008March 10, 2017 TXCO We first bought this tiny domestic oil and gas exploration company at $4.50 four years ago. It closed last night at $14.72 (having touched $15.30 mid-day). I’m holding mine, but I want you to sell a third of yours so that from now on ‘you’re playing with house money.’ If only I had had the sense to suggest the same with FMD ($13.26 last night) when it hit $56. ACAI Not a stock, a berry. I don’t own any Bolthouse Farms (a private company?) but I sure drink a lot of their juice. The ‘vedge’ variety is great – a cross between tomato and V8. The two new acai varieties, one with pomegranate and one with mangosteen, are terrific. I don’t see those two on the Bolthouse website, so maybe they’re still in test markets only. But if you find them, try them. (Like a guy: straight out of the container.) CZAR PUTIN How sad to see democracy snuffed out in Russia. Frontline tells the story. If you have 21 minutes, take a look. If nothing else, it reminds us never to take our freedom of speech, or of the press, for granted. And to be fearful of the decline in hard-hitting journalism. Where was our press these past seven years? WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR. There was so much I thought he was wrong about; but what a man he was. Frighteningly intellectual, prolific, consequential, mischievous – and gracious. Father to a wonderful son. And a eulogist at the funeral a quarter century ago of Al Lowenstein, who was as brilliantly liberal as Buckley was brilliantly conservative . . . a eulogy that spoke well of them both. May he rest in peace.
Why You Have to Be 18 to Vote February 27, 2008January 5, 2017 NADER Bob Perlman: ‘I’ve always been struck by the similarity between Nader’s inability to realize exactly how much power he held in the days leading up to that election – and how to use it – and George W. Bush’s inability to grasp the opportunity he had to unite the country to good purpose in the days following September 11th. In Nader’s case it was most likely ego, in Bush’s either ignorance or witlessness, but the result was the same: disaster for our country. Sometimes great leadership is seeing a path that no one else can discern, but at other times it’s just the ability to set aside pride and preconceptions, and see what’s right in front of you.’ Aaron Long: ‘Everything you say about Ralph makes sense and yet it bugs me nonetheless. Imagine you are an elementary school teacher and your class is studying about how our system of government works, how any kid could grow up to be president. Maybe you run a mock election in your class. How much fun is it going to be to explain to the kid – who has read about Nader and decided he is her man and she is going to vote for him – that her vote for Nader is not just misguided, but probably a morally reprehensible act, that she cannot vote for the person she prefers, but has to vote for this other person she doesn’t especially care for, whose beliefs don’t particularly match her own, just in order to prevent an even bigger jerk from winning? This is your birthright, your franchise. Enjoy.’ ☞ I hear you. That’s why we need Instant Run-Off voting. But there’s another lesson for our elementary school class . . . which is: sometimes in life we need to compromise to get a good result. If we insist on getting a perfect result, we could wind up really hurting ourselves and our classmates. ‘The perfect is the enemy of the good,’ we might tell our fourth graders. And, when they look perplexed: ‘You’ll understand when you’re older. That’s why you have to be 18 years old to vote.’ Meanwhile, enjoy this video. Seriously, dude: too much fun to miss. STEAMING CUP OF COFFEE And how about this video? Yet more fun. And you’ve got to admit, it’s a good idea. GOVERNOR SIEGELMAN If this story has captured your attention, here‘s a lot more background on it. Is it possible this could have happened in America?
Acquitted in Under Two Hours Including Time for Lunch February 26, 2008March 10, 2017 KARL ROVE SHOULD GO TO JAIL You probably didn’t have time to watch this yesterday, so here it is again: the ’60 Minutes’ report about our wonderful Justice Department finding a pretext to send the Democratic governor of Alabama to prison for seven years (where he resides today, whisked straight from the courthouse in shackles). Even Republicans are stunned. Rove is the one who needs to be in jail, and Bush needs to pardon Siegelman yesterday. BUT THEY DIDN’T SHOW IT IN ALABAMA Morrie Hartman: ‘As you might know, the local CBS affiliate in Huntsville, Alabama, WHNT, did not air the Siegelman story as scheduled during ’60 Minutes’ last night, claiming ‘technical difficulties’ just as the Siegelman story was about to air. The station does say that they did air the story later last night. I emailed WHNT today to complain about the apparent censoring of the Siegelman story, and they did respond. More precisely, their weatherman, James Dice, responded. (‘Take it from the weather guy here – we had a satellite receiver fail. It broke. We scrambled engineers to the receiver site to get a backup receiver in place. We rebroadcast the piece and it’s available on whnt.com for people to watch as often as they wish. My gosh – I hope nothing ever breaks here at the station again because the public is not forgiving of anything. We’re accused of being the liberal media by the Republicans and the Democrats accuse us of covering things up. My friends in the news department are taking a very undeserved beating over this. We try to do things right, but I can assure you equipment will break again. I’ve had radar fail during severe weather and I didn’t receive as many e-mails as this.’) A moment ago the station added a banner to the top of their home page linking to the story and enabling people to watch it online.’ ☞ It’s hard to believe their equipment failed at the precise moment that the most important broadcast segment of the year (for Alabama) was about to air. But it’s good to know wiser/more-decent minds prevailed and they’ve tried to make amends. Robert Haugland: ‘Congress is too busy investigating whether baseball players used steroids to investigate something like this, which affects us all and is one reason for Congress being there in the first place (checks and balances). Congress also convened a special session a few years back to cover the Terry Schiavo case but this case in Alabama, I guess, is just not really important!’ AND HOW ABOUT NEW JERSEY? Jeff Schwarz: ‘Siegelman is not an isolated incident. In NJ, they tried that with the guy who is now our senator, Bob Menendez. And statistically, according to this Paul Krugman column, the Bush Justice Department prosecuted hundreds of Dems, but almost no Republicans.’ From that March 9, 2007, column: Donald Shields and John Cragan, two professors of communication, have compiled a database of investigations and/or indictments of candidates and elected officials by U.S. attorneys since the Bush administration came to power. Of the 375 cases they identified, 10 involved independents, 67 involved Republicans, and 298 involved Democrats. The main source of this partisan tilt was a huge disparity in investigations of local politicians, in which Democrats were seven times as likely as Republicans to face Justice Department scrutiny. How can this have been happening without a national uproar? The authors explain: ‘We believe that this tremendous disparity is politically motivated and it occurs because the local (non-statewide and non-Congressional) investigations occur under the radar of a diligent national press. Each instance is treated by a local beat reporter as an isolated case that is only of local interest.’ And let’s not forget that Karl Rove’s candidates have a history of benefiting from conveniently timed federal investigations. Last year Molly Ivins reminded her readers of a curious pattern during Mr. Rove’s time in Texas: ‘In election years, there always seemed to be an F.B.I. investigation of some sitting Democrat either announced or leaked to the press. After the election was over, the allegations often vanished.’ ☞ Seems as though they’ve managed to do for the Justice Department what they did for FEMA. AND HOW ABOUT IOWA? Erich Riesenberg: ‘There must be dozens of cases of politically biased charges from the Justice Department. My neighbor, the first ‘out’ gay Iowa state senator, was acquitted after less than two hours . . . . . . A federal jury in Des Moines took less than two hours Thursday, including time for lunch, to reject charges that state Sen. Matt McCoy used his political power to pry $2,000 from two former associates in a business deal gone wrong. McCoy’s relatives sobbed with relief when jurors announced their verdict in court. The smiling senator, who faced up to 20 years in federal prison, repeatedly hugged his lawyers. . . . Here is some info on the US Attorney . . . . . . How partisan is Whitaker? Well, he’s quite the Republican. He’s a social conservative and supportive of the Iowa Christian Alliance (formerly the Iowa Christian Coalition . . . Bias at the Justice Department seems as common as closeted gay Republican legislators.’ ☞ Ouch. But you know what? Politicizing the Justice Department deserves some stinging criticism. And Karl Rove really should go to jail.
Nader, McCain, and Rove February 25, 2008March 10, 2017 RALPH My history with Ralph Nader goes back a long way – my dad wrote his first ads, pro bono, for Public Citizen and Congress Watch, which made me very proud; I wrote a cover story about his almost single-handed deep-sixing of meaningful automobile insurance reform (‘Ralph Nader Is a Big Fat Idiot’), which has likely cost you thousands of dollars in too-high premiums over the years (and God forbid you should be badly injured in a car crash not caused by a wealthy driver whose fault you can prove); and then of course there was ‘the election.’ So it was with some interest I watched his announcement on Meet the Press yesterday. And the truth is, I think much of what he has to say makes sense. Under Bush, especially, it’s all been about skewing the equation ever further toward corporate interests and the rich. I favor Instant Runoff Voting, which would let folks vote for a third-party candidate like Nader as their first choice – but specify a second-choice candidate (like Gore or Bush), in the event their first choice failed to win. With that system, you’d encourage more points of view, more vigorous discussion – all good, in a democracy – and, especially, encourage more people to remain engaged in the process. Failing that system, Nader could still have run as he did in 2000 (and is doing again now). But what he can’t do is what he tried to do on Meet the Press, and has been trying to do ever since the disastrous outcome of 2000: escape blame for what happened. He said on MTP – how come people blame me? Why don’t they blame Gore for not winning his home state of Tennessee? Why don’t they blame Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush and the Supreme Court? And there’s a simple answer: On a planet with 6 billion people at the time, there was only one person – Ralph Nader – who could with half an hour’s effort been reasonably expected to keep this disaster from happening. All he would have had to do was issue a statement three days out saying, in effect: ‘Listen, if you live in Texas or Massachusetts, vote for me. But if you live in a swing state like Florida or Ohio, vote for Gore.’ Gore would have won; Nader’s stature and ability to make progress on the causes he cared about would have been enhanced; there would be no war in Iraq; Bin Laden would have been dead by now, if 9/11 had even occurred at all; we would lead the world in stem cell research and in the development of alternative energy. Sure, Gore would have won if he had carried Tennessee – but how, in half an hour’s effort, could he have done so? Does Nader think he didn’t try? Sure, George W. Bush could have had an epiphany and dropped out of the race, or Katherine Harris could have asked to be indicted for crimes against democracy. But those are not reasonable scenarios. The Nader scenario was not only reasonable, it was urged on him, in some form, by thousands of people, including many of his closest lifelong allies. It’s hard to imagine anyone in all of human history who could so easily have made such a positive difference with so little effort. So go ahead and run, Ralph. But when the time comes, you’d better beg your supporters in swing states to vote for the progressive in the race, which will be the Democrat. And, boy, did you ever blow your chance to be a hero, in 2000 – and perhaps to extract a promise from Al Gore to support Instant Run-off Voting. STRAIGHT TALK FROM 59 LOBBYISTS ‘I’m the only one the special interests don’t give any money to,’ says John McCain – there’s no way they’re going to gain access to him. This short video tells a different story. And this one shows him telling us Iraq would be easy . . . and then, years later, telling us he always knew it would be hard. This is not to vilify John McCain; but once you tell everyone you’re the straight talker, you’re the guy the lobbyists can’t reach, you more or less invite scrutiny. Five minutes well spent, and perhaps shared with your Uncle Art. KARL ROVE SHOULD GO TO JAIL I don’t get this angry easily, but the gist of the ’60 Minutes’ report last night – about our wonderful Justice Department basically finding a pretext to send the Democratic governor of Alabama to prison for seven years (where he resides today, whisked straight from the courthouse in shackles) – is so outrageous that enough is enough. Even Republicans are stunned. Rove is the one who needs to be in jail, and Bush needs to pardon Siegelman yesterday.
Three Good Ideas February 22, 2008January 5, 2017 TURN OFF STOVE, CHECK; TURN OFF LIGHTS, CHECK; WALLET? KEYS? iPHONE? CHECK, CHECK, CHECK Rick Anhalt: ‘As a former airline instructor pilot, I can assure you everyday use of checklists is increasing, and for good reason. Whether it be a routine item or emergency there is a better way to do things, and that way is researched, documented, printed, and followed. As always, not all situations can be covered (UAL DC-10 in Iowa years ago, superior airmanship on the crew’s part) but most can and the traveling public is safer for it. I have no doubt the medical industry will follow, even if it takes the insurance industry to force the checklist practice with higher premiums for those who resist.’ ANOTHER GOOD IDEA The Democratic Leadership Council has been coming up with lots of good ideas this primary season (and for many years past). Here’s the latest – ‘a 21st Century G.I. Bill that would deposit $5,000 in the name of every child born in a 529-type college education fund. But to receive the government’s contribution with interest, a child would have to commit one year to military or civilian service. This type of program could help rebuild the middle class and dramatically increase the chances for ordinary Americans to prosper in the global economy.’ It would encourage parents and kids who otherwise might never even consider college to do so, and from a very early age. It would encourage national service. It would encourage further saving, aspiration, responsibility, opportunity, and community. AND A THIRD So I really didn’t know who Fran Drescher was when I was invited to go to some kind of cocktail party for her at a fancy-schmancy address (she’s an actress, no?). But I went anyway because a quick check of her political giving showed that she was a Democrat, and it sounded like the kind of party that might be attended by wealthy progressives – which is to say, potential DNC donors. I donned my best mail-order shirt and slacks, and when she opened her mouth, I instantly knew who she was. Not that I had ever seen ‘The Nanny,’ but – that voice! I almost laughed out loud. She’s not acting: that’s her real voice. I don’t know where I had heard it before, but it’s not a voice you forget. And it’s not a voice I had ever associated with any great intelligence, let alone gravitas. But guess what? This woman turns out to be a force. After being misdiagnosed seven times over a period of two years, but refusing to believe the doctors, she was finally found to have Stage 1 uterine cancer – she had a way of making this story funny and compelling, even to a man not ordinarily at ease wandering around the gynecologia – and, once she recovered, she founded Cancer Schmancer (yes, really) because had she just accepted any of those first seven expert opinions, her cancer would have progressed to a more dangerous stage. At Stage Four, only 17% of women reach the 5-year survival mark; at Stage One, over 95%. So the ‘cure’ for cancer, it turns out, is ‘Stage One,’ she decided – detecting it early makes all the difference. Yet women and their doctors are not nearly aggressive enough in striving for early detection. There was a great deal more to what she had to say . . . and the tests she advises women (and men) to go for . . . and the laws she is trying to get passed (one already signed) . . . but she tells it much better than I ever could, on her website and in her book. I raised nothing for the DNC from this outing, but I met a young woman who said Fran Drescher is her absolute number #1 hero – she ‘wrote papers on her in high school and college,’ she said – and I got Fran Drescher’s autograph for the partner of a DNC employee who, when he heard I might be meeting her, said it would be the greatest thing ever. See? And I had not even known who she was. Like the checklist, her efforts could one day save your life.
18 Years Shacked Up with the Birds and the Bees February 21, 2008March 10, 2017 WHY EQUALITY MATTERS “… Pond, Langbehn’s partner for nearly 18 years, was stricken in Miami with a brain aneurysm and died. Langbehn, a social worker, said officials at the University of Miami Jackson Memorial Hospital did not recognize her or their jointly adopted children as part of Pond’s family… Langbehn said she was informed that they were in an ‘anti-gay state’ and that they needed legal paperwork before Langbehn could see Pond.” — The Olympian, of Olympia, Washington, June 17, 2007 SEX ED – THE WINNING VIDEO Click here. And then show your kid this previously mentioned site (after assuring yourself you’re okay with it). SHACK UP Will Galway: ‘You and Charles are already doing your part. This is from the December 4 Quote of the Day that appeared in the online Wall Street Journal‘s Morning Brief:’ “Turning on the light uses the same energy whether there are two people or four people in the room. If you don’t want to get remarried, maybe move in with somebody you like,” Jianguo Liu, an ecologist at Michigan State University and author of a study finding that divorce hurts the environment, tells the Los Angeles Times. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, found that the resource inefficiency of divorced households resulted in an extra 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity use in the U.S. in 2005 – about 7% of total home use – in turn spewing more carbon dioxide into the air and exacerbating global warming. Other potential solutions, the Times reports, include polygamy, communal living or roommates. “I’m just a scientist trying to present the facts,” said Mr. Liu. “I’m not promoting one way or another.”
Now, That’s One Hot Grain of Sand February 20, 2008January 5, 2017 CHECKLIST Colin Ramsey: ‘Dude! To whom do we write?! Whom do we call!? We MUST not allow this research to be scuttled!’ ☞ Happily, sanity seems to have prevailed . . . David Plumb: ‘See this February 15 press release – good news.’ The Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) — part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — has concluded that Michigan hospitals can continue implementing a checklist to reduce the rate of catheter-related infections in intensive care unit settings (ICUs) without falling under regulations governing human subjects research. ☞ Good news indeed. Peter Kaczowka: ‘Re David Walker’s comment yesterday on the similarities between us and Rome: All Americans should read Wealth and Democracy by Kevin Phillips, then the rest of his books. From this review: The tilting of the US economy from production to finance as a source of wealth will spell the end of our economic dominance — just as it spelled the end of the Spanish (1530-1588), Dutch (1600-1702), and British (1815-1914) economic dominance. Phillips supports his thesis that in the modern U.S., laissez-faire “is a pretense. Government power and preferment have been used by the rich, not shunned. As wealth concentration grows, especially near the crest of a drawn-out boom, so has upper-bracket control of politics and its ability to shape its own preferment.” Wealth and Democracy is not a Socialist critique of Capitalism, but rather a Capitalist critique of excess. Phillips seems more in love with democracy than he is in awe of the invisible hand of the marketplace. ☞ Yes! . . . and yet never count America out. Innovation and technology (married to the responsible tax policy and regulation that a Democratic Administration and Congress might give us) could still ride to the rescue. To wit: DO NOT LOOK STRAIGHT AT IT Not even for a femtosecond. James Musters: ‘This will not make you smarter, or help you live a greener life, at least not for now. But WOW.’ ☞ Wow, indeed: If you could hold a giant magnifying glass in space and focus all the sunlight shining toward Earth onto one grain of sand, that concentrated ray would approach the intensity of a new laser beam made in a University of Michigan laboratory. . . . The pulsed laser beam lasts just 30 femtoseconds. A femtosecond is a millionth of a billionth of a second. . . . Such intense beams could help scientists develop better proton and electron beams for radiation treatment of cancer, among other applications. The record-setting beam measures 20 billion trillion watts per square centimeter. It contains 300 terawatts of power. That’s 300 times the capacity of the entire U.S. electricity grid. The laser beam’s power is concentrated to a 1.3-micron speck about 100th the diameter of a human hair. . .
This Can’t Be Good February 19, 2008March 10, 2017 Happy day after Presidents Day. If this looks familiar, it’s because you read it yesterday. If you read it yesterday and it doesn’t look familiar – and you are a doctor – then you can see why we want you to use checklists. It looks as though we have good news on that score – tomorrow. But today, yesterday again: TIME TO BUY REAL ESTATE? Maybe not. This sobering assessment is worth your time. I would argue that our bubble never reached the heights of the Japanese bubble (with its 100-year mortgages), so the parallels, while real, may be exaggerated. But I think home prices could fall back close to pre-bubble levels, which in many parts of the country would mean a lot more pain to come. TIME TO BUY STOCKS? Maybe not that either. Especially if the deflating real estate bubble has the kind of related consequences one would expect. But my friend Tom Byrne, in his latest client letter, notes: ‘In late January, the earnings yield on the Value Line Index got to 2.5 times that of the five year Treasury note. When this occurred in October of 2002 and again in March of 2003, it proved to be a great buying opportunity even though it was against the backdrop of declining corporate earnings and other bad economic news. The last time this ratio was higher was at the end of the 1974 bear market when it reached 2.8. Nothing says it can’t get there again, but I think the economic backdrop was worse in 1974 than it is now.’ So maybe we’ve seen the bottom in the stock market. I doubt it. Things could get much worse. But I’d sooner buy a few shares of a company like Trailer Bridge (say) than buy the house next to mine. (The one that sold for $105,000 in 1998, then $765,000 in 2005, and is now a ‘bargain’ at $495,000.) There is a fresh TRBR presentation to analysts here. (Where it asks for ‘company name,’ just enter ‘self.’) It closed at $10.70 Friday. If it gets back down to its $6 low for the year – and if at that point I have any money or nerve left – I’d likely buy more. TIME TO WORRY? One of our best public servants, David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, has resigned. This can’t be good. (‘There were ‘striking similarities’ between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, he had said. These included ‘declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government.’ ‘) ROUGH DAY? Maybe after all that we need a smile. This short video starts slow – but builds.
This Can’t Be Good February 18, 2008January 5, 2017 Happy Presidents Day. The market is closed, so there is no column. Here is tomorrow’s column: TIME TO BUY REAL ESTATE? Maybe not. This sobering assessment is worth your time. I would argue that our bubble never reached the heights of the Japanese bubble (with its 100-year mortgages), so the parallels, while real, may be exaggerated. But I think home prices could fall back close to pre-bubble levels, which in many parts of the country would mean a lot more pain to come. TIME TO BUY STOCKS? Maybe not that either. Especially if the deflating real estate bubble has the kind of related consequences one would expect. But my friend Tom Byrne, in his latest client letter, notes: ‘In late January, the earnings yield on the Value Line Index got to 2.5 times that of the five year Treasury note. When this occurred in October of 2002 and again in March of 2003, it proved to be a great buying opportunity even though it was against the backdrop of declining corporate earnings and other bad economic news. The last time this ratio was higher was at the end of the 1974 bear market when it reached 2.8. Nothing says it can’t get there again, but I think the economic backdrop was worse in 1974 than it is now.’ So maybe we’ve seen the bottom in the stock market. I doubt it. Things could get much worse. But I’d sooner buy a few shares of a company like Trailer Bridge (say) than buy the house next to mine. (The one that sold for $105,000 in 1998, then $765,000 in 2005, and is now a ‘bargain’ at $495,000.) There is a fresh TRBR presentation to analysts here. (Where it asks for ‘company name,’ just enter ‘self.’) It closed at $10.70 Friday. If it gets back down to its $6 low for the year – and if at that point I have any money or nerve left – I’d likely buy more. TIME TO WORRY? One of our best public servants, David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, has resigned. This can’t be good. (“There were ‘striking similarities’ between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, he had said. These included ‘declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government.'”) ROUGH DAY? Maybe after all that we need a smile. This short video starts slow – but builds.