Old Irish Proverb

There are two versions of every story and twelve versions of every song.

Love's Gonna Live Here

No matter what you thought about Buck Owens, he was huge to country music. Rockabilly owes itself to Buck. One of my favorite songs that he wrote is "Love's Gonna Live Here". Ringo has Buck to thank for his biggest hit, "Act Naturally".

Google

When Google launched it's finance page last week, I said it was time to buy, heck it's down from $470 so I picked up some shares at $350 then watched it promptly head down to $340 . . . . then it was added to the S&P 500 on Friday . . . . instantly $26 higher. Google has a market cap of $104 billion.

the Real Estate bubble bursting . . . are we there yet?

So, is the wealth created by real estate an illusion or not? That comes down to what side of the housing bubble debate you are on. What is clear is that without the gains in household real estate equity during the past several years, there would have been no wealth creation. This just adds to the danger of the housing bubble. Essentially, we have not been creating other wealth to go along with the increase in real estate equity. Therefore, if the housing bubble bursts, then we have not created other wealth to fall back on. Remember, when you account for inflation the picture is even worse. Adjusted for inflation the mean household net worth in the U.S. from 1999 through the 3rd quarter of 2004 is down substantially. It should also be noted that median household net worth in the U.S. is far less than the mean. In 2000 median household net worth was $55,000. Accordingly, most households don’t have as big of a nest egg as the mean household net worth numbers suggest.

Avian Flu legislation . . . whatever happened?

Remember back a few months ago when the political hot button was Avian flu and how the US is unprepared for a pandemic? Back then President Bush called for $7 billion dollars to make us ready . . . . wonder what ever happened to that legislation? Isn't interesting that something that has been lableled by most administration topsiders as more threatening than terrorism has lost it's place in the media spotlight?

When you're on your own in the wilderness . . .

Drink before you're thirsty, eat before you're hungary, get warm before you're chilled to the bone and rest before you're exhausted. You just can't let your energy reserves fall danerously low.

Remebering Harry Browne

One of the great intellectual and political thinkers has passed away. Harry Browne was the heart and soul of libertarianism. He was also the party's Presidential candidate during the last two elections (I voted for him both times). If you ever wondered what libertarianism is all about, you didn't have to go any further to read or listen to

Harry Browne

Harry died as a result of complications from Lou Gehrig's disease. We must find a cure for this disease.

Technology is where it's at . . . .

Aside from their economic importance, technology stocks also are a good measure of speculative health. When market players are especially bullish and anxious to put cash to work they will almost always gravitate to technology stocks simply because they tend to be fast movers. If we don't have strong speculative action in the group we have to be concerned about how long it will persist elsewhere.

Billionaires

According to Forbes Magazine, last year saw and addtional 102 billionaires come on board to that most rare list. Now there are 793 billionaires on the planet. For those of you who can't quite get it . . . ... a billionaire is

1,000,000,000.00

Opium production in Afghanistan is now 90% of the world's supply

According to an internal report for the American Special Forces on what's been going on in Afghanistan, opium production has gone from 74 metric tons a year under the Taliban to an astonishing 3600 metric tons, which is almost 90% of the worlds production. Profits from the drug trade equal $2 billion per year and is funding the insurgency.

Does God sanction homophobia??

In a very thought provoking op-ed piece in the Miami Herald, Leonard Pitts writes about how some people use the bible to promote their biases by quoting scriptures and ignoring other quotes from the bible that are conflicting at best . . . read his piece here

AIX is the symbol for Access Integrated Technologies

Most theaters are still run the old-fashioned way. Studios duplicate film reels and ship them out to the theater owners. It costs the moviemakers about $1,000 for every screen showing their film. It was never an attractive proposition, even before the patron defections. AIX specializes in digital projectors. Studios don't need to ship out costly copies of the film. Instead, they simply beam the movie over to the local theater.

It doesn't just make economical sense. It also gives the studio and theater operator a great deal of flexibility. Studios can beam over new versions with things like bonus footage, new endings, and bloopers to keep audiences coming back. Digital distribution also opens up the potential for live concert and sporting event broadcasts. AIX isn't the only company in this promising field. Thomson's Technicolor Digital Cinema subsidiary is making major inroads here. AIX just happens to be the pure play. Learn more about Access IT here

Housing Comments from the NY Times

". . . .Washington Mutual Inc., one of the nation's largest residential mortgage lender, had announced that it was closing ten ( or 38%) of its loan processing centers, which would result in a 2,500 person staff reduction. Well, in the grand scheme of things, 2,500 workers is not even a rounding error. But we have not yet experienced the housing bust, five consecutive months of declining used home sales notwithstanding.

But if we do have a housing bust -- and we likely will if Bernanke does not soon declare a ceasefire -- then a lot more than a rounding error of workers could be lining up for unemployment insurance. The cutback in spending by these unemployed would have a, excuse the Keynesian _expression, multiplier effect on total spending in the economy -- adding some homeowners not associated with the residential real estate industry to the length of the unemployment lines." read the whole story here

The Largest Telephone Company

Let's see now, the government broke up AT&T in 1984 amid cries that it was too big and not in the best interesets of consumers . . . . fast foward to yesterday when AT&T announced that it would buy Bell South. SBC owns AT&T so aren't all the pieces back together again?

Photos of the 1906 SF Earthquake

A new exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will show a wide range of photographic views of the earthquake stricken city. After 2 years of considering thoughsands of candidates from public sources and private collections the curator, Corey Keller selected 100 images for the exhibit. learn more at

Crash

Knew it would win. What a great film.

What's causing the volatility and weakness?

The main driving force for this weakness is interest rates. An easy way to see this is to look at the iShares Lehman 20-year Treasury Fund ETF (TLT:AMEX), which has fallen sharply for four days now and is approaching levels we saw in November. In some respects this is a positive, because it indirectly accomplishes what the Fed said it plans to do by raising interest rates.

Rain falling on the surface of the ocean can be heard a mile deep

and at some frequecies it's louder than passing ships, according to oceanopgraher Jeff Nystuen. Nystuen, of Applied Physics Laboratory at the U of Wash, is one among scientists studying how sound travels through the ocean to better understand how loud, manmade noises might affect marine creatures. Loud underwater noises, particularly US Navy sonar, have long been blamed by environmentalists for the fatal beachings of whales. The Natural Resources Defense Council and other plaintiffs alleged in a federal lawsuit last fall that the Navy's mid-frequency sonar used for detecting enemy submarines disturbs and somtimes kills whales and dolphins. The Navy settled a similar lawsuit 3 years ago by agreeing to limit it's peacetime use of experimental low-frequency sonar.

They are not the Anaheim Angels!

Orange Country Superior Court Judge Peter J Polos ruled that he had no authoirty to reverse the ruling of a jury that 3 weeks ago decided in the teams favor . . . . they are the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

is this funny or what?

Tom Paine

Progressives have to be a like the Irishman walking down the street who comes up to a brawl and says, "Is this a private fight or can anybody get in?" check out what progressives think and say at TomPain.com

Posturing over Ports more hypocrisy

David Corn at Tom Paine.com writes

Furthermore, these critics are overlooking a not-so-easy-to-exploit reason for questioning the transaction.

The UAE is an autocracy that affords its residents few, if any, guaranteed rights. Human Rights Watch reports that the UAE

does not hold elections for any public office, and political participation is limited to the ruling family in each emirate. The government has not signed most international human rights and labor rights treaties. Migrant workers, comprising nearly 90 percent of the workforce in the private sector, are particularly vulnerable to serious human rights violations.

If it is the United States' mission and obligation to spread democracy and freedom across the globe, as George W. Bush insists, should it be doing significant business with autocrats? Just last Friday, Bush defended the war in Iraq by saying, "Our freedom agenda is based on a clear premise: the security of our nation depends on the advance of liberty in other nations." Dubai Ports World is controlled by a government that does not allow its people to govern themselves. What message does Washington send if it opens its arms to corporate entities run by such rulers?

Google Video

just another great website developed by Google. Google Video Google is partnering with the National Archives to make available all of the films held there (which heretofore were only available if you went to Washington DC to see them). There are also TV shows, Sports, News, Music Videos and on and on . . . . pretty soon I won't need my TV set.