What IS The Matter With Kansas?

(And with the price of Borealis? But first . . .)

KANSAS

This was such a good 45 minutes . . . Chris Hayes, reporting from Kansas, segment after segment (if you have only 7 minutes, here’s a summary):

Kansas as a laboratory for what the right hopes to do nationwide.

Kansas as Koch brothers country.

Kansas Republicans denying the working poor Medicaid (even though the state wouldn’t have to pay for it).

Kansas Republicans cutting back on education (and shutting down the only school in town).

Kansas Republicans putting six-shooters back on the streets of Dodge (Wyatt Earp be damned).

Kansas Republicans working to force you to bear your rapist’s baby.

BOREF

According to its latest weekly letter, Wheeltug has “completed a major slot sale which looks to be announced at Farnborough.  We can expect our slot sales to be in 4 digits soon” — which would be 1,000 or more, up from the currently announced 785.  They say this would represent about 10% of all the 737’s and A320’s currently flying.  Farnborough is just one of several upcoming trade shows and conferences at which they say they will have a presence:

So — as usual — who knows?  But one likes to think this pipe dream, so long in the making, is becoming ever more real.  (At least, one does if one is drowning in Borealis shares, as I am.)  At its current market value of $50 million – about one fifth of that really nice Cezanne — the company remains, to me, a remarkable lottery ticket.

Not least because, if the technology underlying WheelTug is real, as it seems to be, it may have other applications.  In cars, perhaps?  In forklifts or locomotives or elevators?  And the companies other improbable technologies may be real as well.

I have zero capacity to evaluate this post, on a site dubiously titled, “cold fusion now” (quick! run for the hills!).  But as the old line goes, usually with a heavy yiddish accent — “couldn’t hoyt!”

I am also keenly aware this begins to take on the tone of a late night infomercial.  “And that’s not all!  If you order now, you get not just the WheelTug, and not just the Chorus Motors technology, and not just a bag of Power Chips and a carton of Cool Chips.  No, if you are one of the first 1,000 callers, you will also get an interest in the company’s vast Roche Bay and Faraway mineral holdings!  All this for the unbelievable price of $50 million.  Not available in stores.”

Crazy, no?  And yet if there’s not something real here, explain to me how this 737 is taxiing around with its engines off.  And why 14 or 15 airlines, and serious partners like Parker Hannifin, and an airline industry legend like Bob Crandall, appear to be believers.

Fun, no?