Sunday, September 27, 2009

Poco - Pickin' Up the Pieces

Such a great band then and their music is still great now . . . makes you appreciate how truly magical the Buffalo Springfield were . . . read this recent review of Poco's first LP click here

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Yellowstone Caution


Several years while visiting Yellowstone, I found a tee shirt with language that poked fun at how foolish visitors to the park have been.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Divisive Media Blowhards

Steve Lopez at the LA Times has really summed it up in his recent op-ed piece on the craziness from Rush to Beck, et al. Stuart Spencer, who ran four successful campaigns for the late governor and president, laments the state of politics and punditry. The Republican California political guru who crafted four successful Ronald Reagan campaigns, two for governor and two for president, does not watch Fox News or its conservative bobblehead pundits. read it here

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Healthcare around the world

Sick Around the World was presented on Frontline some time ago and is the result of research conducted by T. R. Reid. If you would like to see the comparisons, click here

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch's last lecture is wonderful, you can find it on YouTube. Here's one of the pearls, "don't bail; the best gold is at the bottoms of crap."

annoying telephone calls?

go to this website and post the number and what type of call it was. this is also a good place to start if you want to know more about a caller that you suspect is not known to you

click here for CallFerret

Is the recession over? Bernanke thinks so . . . . who cares?

from Barry Ritholz - - -

Ben Bernanke has declared the recession over.

This leads to one simple question: Why should you care what his recession forecasts are?

Based on his track record as a forecaster and his acumen in identifying economic problems before they exploded, his views on starts and finishes of recessions are, to be blunt, irrelevant.

Recall it was Mr. Bernanke who described the sub-prime situation as “Contained;” it was he who believed Housing would not spill over to the broader economy; and it was he who somehow thought the Bear Stearns situation was a one-off.

I don’t wish to single out Mr. Bernanke; After all, he is an economist, and if you were paying attention, you will note that the entire profession missed the oncoming recession, credit crisis and market collapse. You may also find it helpful to ignore what the profession that cannot forecast yesterday thinks about tomorrow.

Even now, the Federal Reserve Chairman said the recession was “very likely over” as consumers showed some of the first tangible signs of spending again. Never mind that all this retail activity has been driven by government subsidies.

Now, as an investor, you do want to be mindful of the Fed Chief’s economic views, particularly how they pertain to his interest rate policies. The ed has made it clear rates are staying low for the foreseeable future, so this becomes a non-issue in this context.

But his economic forecasts? Don’t bother.

Note that I have not been a particularly harsh critic of the Fed Chair. While he may not be Paul Volcker, he is also (thankfully) not Alan Greenspan. And we could have done much worse than having a student of the Great Depression, who is also an out-of-the-box thinker as Fed Chief.

But as a prognosticator? He is no better than his predeccessor . . .

Friday, September 11, 2009

Libertarian or Conservative

I know what a Libertarian is . . . that's someone who believes that less government is better except for running services that benefit the greater good . . . . . like regulating water, air, highway systems, defense.

It’s a bit harder to define a conservative. Is it someone who atavistically just wants to conserve the existing order of things (either now, or perhaps as they perceived them 50, or 100, or 200, or however many years ago)? Or is a conservative someone who believes in limiting social freedoms (generally that means suppressing things like sex, drugs, outrĂ© clothing and customs, and bad- mouthing the government) while claiming to support economic freedoms (although with considerable caveats and exceptions)? It’s unclear to me what, if any, philosophical foundation conservatism, by whatever definition, rests on.

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Insomnia explained

Psychiatrist Milton Erickson recognized that insomnia is basically a sleep slump. Once insomniacs start thinking and worrying about their lack of sleep, they can no longer relax and enter the frame of mind needed to naturally drift off. In one famous case, Erickson advised an insomniac to get out of bed when he couldn’t sleep and meticulously scrub his kitchen floor with a toothbrush. Willing to try almost anything, the patient followed the therapist’s advice and promptly became so dulled by the tedious task that he dragged himself to bed for a good night’s sleep. The task broke the cycle in which thinking about sleeping interfered with the process of falling asleep.