Wednesday’s column provided free books, cheap calls (my apologies to those of you who tried this in the last day or so – unbeknownst to me, the site has been down for maintenance), and a stock that could go to zero or, perhaps as likely, jump tenfold.
Today I am suffering from acute tryptophanemia, a condition I have invented that involves yawning happily throughout most of the generally delightful Thanksgiving weekend.
But if you managed to avoid that and have the strength:
1. Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for linking to this extraordinary account from a marine in Fallujah – and thanks, obviously, to our extraordinary men and women fighting these fights. However you feel about the war, you will feel proud of these soldiers.
2. That said, take a look at this report of a Pentagon assessment of how we are doing at winning hearts and kinds. (Executive summary: ‘Al-Qaeda and radical Islamists are winning the propaganda war against the United States.’)
3. Many of you have asked me to stop kvetching about the election. Okay, so it may result in involuntary sex-changes (see #4, below) and further largesse for the rich at the expense of everyone else. And, yes, we’ve turned most of the world against us. But it’s already been three weeks – get over it. To which Mel Gilles responds with this, that’s been making the rounds. She calls it ‘The Politics of Victimization.’ Like the syndrome an abused spouse falls into.
4. Alan Farago worries in this piece that the same environmental degradation that’s producing hermaphroditic, legless frogs could have an impact on our own offspring – and wonders why we don’t seem to be worried about this gathering threat.
NATIONAL PRESTO
John Brownie: ‘On 9/29/00 you recommended National Presto (NPK) at $30. Now $44.76, do you recommend Sell, Hold?’
☞ Well, it’s up 49%, or about 13% a year if you include the dividends. I don’t know nearly enough about it to give you a sharp answer. The company continues to be a steady, stodgy cash-rich holding. But no one ever went broke selling too soon. Sell half?
