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Showing posts from November, 2009

How "pure" am I?

Neocons are livid . Obama is driving them nuts. With the growing polarization of American society in general and within the Republican Party in particular conservative activists today issued a proclamation of tenets meant to weed out "false" conservatives from "true" ones. Supposedly, you have to score at least 7 out of 10 to pass. Let's see how I do based on the exact wording of their proposed resolution ... (1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill; As stated in earlier posts, I'm all for this. (2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare; If we haven't had "market-based health care reform" by now, when will we have it? This country has had decades to straighten out this mess and it is only getting worse. Still, things could get even worse . And the shortest rout to that is "government-run h

And the leaves fell all around

Note: Today was a perfect fall day. I remembered this a short piece of prose I composed two years ago about the time I first finished reading Proust's great novel . It inspired me to wax poetic about an event that is not made up at all. I took a Friday off from work. I had the afternoon and the land to myself. It was a gorgoues, sunny cloud-free day. This happened. After lunch I stepped out into the open carport. There was a shifting breeze, slightly gusting at times, mid-November, little fall color left. Two weeks past the peak, the remaining reds, burnt oranges, yellows, and golden browns clung to the reaching hardwood’s branched appendages, increasingly subdued. With the changing season the tall pines that once mastered the sky returned to rule all the greens of the coming winter. I found myself on the carport with the potting bench, the grill, and the Cadillac, my house with near gardens neglected. Pastures and abrupt, thick forest and brush surrounded my place. Through streamb

Let me brag about my Daughter

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My daughter recently won a local art contest with the above charcoal drawing. She's great with photography and painting too. So, now it's on to state competition with her "baby face" entry. Unfortunately, the pic I took doesn't really capture the sharpness of detail in the actual piece of art. I think she really captured the innocence of this child's smile. Drawn from a random photograph that caught her eye. I'm very proud of her.

4046.5

At the close today both the Dow Industrials (up 1.33%) and the Transports (up 2.17%) managed new highs for the rally , the Transports barely surpassing their October 20 high by little more than one point closing at 4046.50. The consensus among analysts is that cautionary remarks by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke which emphasized a continued commitment to low interest rates helped drive today's momentum. Still, there is no stronger signal in Dow Theory that "all is clear" for the markets than for both averages to close at new highs simultaneously . The markets should go even higher in the near term. Gold is now at an all-time record high . Most of my gold stocks were up 3%-4% today. This steep rise can't go on forever. Gold is severely overbought and due for a correction. Still, it doesn't seem unreasonable to look at $1500 gold in the weeks ahead. I'm watching GLD and GDX for signs of new entry points in order to broaden my position in the only "real"

Almost A Miracle

Among several books I am currently reading, I recently finished John Ferling ’s Almost A Miracle . I started it a couple of weeks before our trip to Boston, more or less in anticipation of the trip. I know very little about the American Revolution (the only other book in my library on the subject is Robert Leckie ’s George Washington’s War ) and Ferling taught me (and reminded me of) much. The British were so arrogant that they entered into the war without any real strategy on how to win it. “Incredibly, North’s government had led Britain into a faraway war without a plan for waging it. All along it had presumed that the Americans would back down when faced with British force. The government also believed if the rebels were so foolish as to resist, their army could not possibly be a match for regulars. It, and the rebellion, would be crushed in short order. Lexington-Concord , and especially Bunker Hill , awakened most ministers from their reverie.” (page 62) While General George Wa

Water on the Moon

NASA announced yesterday that the recent LCROSS satellite mission detected significant quantities of ice water on the Moon . To me, this could possibly be the most important discovery of 2009. In spite of everything else, if human beings don't destroy themselves they will go into space. Given long enough, the Moon will be settled. We simply cannot Be otherwise. It is our nature to explore and conquer. I was surprised to learn, however, this was not the first time NASA has announced the presence of water on the Moon. That happened several weeks ago regarding a report on the mission of India's satellite Chandrayaan -1 . So, the space program in India should really get more credit. But, of course, the LCROSS mission is an American endeavor. At any rate, water is the basis for life as we know it. Without water there is no biological possibility. With it there is vast biological potential. You can use water in so many ways, not only for drinking. It makes a permanent settl

4045.11

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Well, what has Dow Theory been telling us lately? Generally speaking, we have been in a "non-confirmation" status for the last couple of weeks. The Dow itself has risen through a series of new highs for this rally. Meanwhile, the Dow Transportation Average has not followed suit. In fact, from October 21 through November 2, the Transports were down dramatically. Since then, they have failed to rise above their most recent high, recorded on October 20 at 4045.11. For several days recently the Transports have been down while the Dow has been up (yesterday, for example). According to Dow Theory, such divergence is a sign of market weakness, a possible signal of a correction to the present rally. The recent battle for the 10,000 level in the Dow has been interesting to watch. So many forces are in play. Is this a bear market rally or a new bull market ? Will the future be dictated more by the forces of deflation or inflation ? A case can be made either way. Since early this ye

The Final Set

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The final bow. Pink Floyd, July 2005. David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright. The greatest rock band of all time. July 5, 2005. It is late afternoon and I’m sitting in the basement of my brother’s house watching Pink Floyd live at Hyde Park in London. It is a great image on a 50-inch high-definition flat screen TV. It is late evening over there. It is the first time Roger Waters has performed onstage with his former band mates in well over two decades. A heartbeat. Repeating. The crowd roars as the curtain opens. A female artist singing a scream in tune with the bass. In the crowd hundreds and hundreds of flashs of light from digital cameras trying to capture the moment. Then they ease us back into themselves with Breathe . Ah, yes. The Floyd . Glacial. Poetry. This is followed by what I consider to be the best version of Money I’ve ever heard anywhere, including the original record. Dick Parry joins them on-stage to brilliantly recreate his original saxophon

Why I quit the SCV

I am a charter member of the local Sons of Confederate Veterans ( SCV ) Camp. After many years of membership I have seen this organization evolve into something I don’t like. I joined the organization naively thinking it was meant to honor the bravery of my Confederate ancestor (who was drafted in 1862 and fought in a South Carolina infantry regiment until his capture in early 1865) and the more than one million men who served in the Confederate States Army during the War Between the States . Of course, the SCV does a great deal of honoring our Southern ancestors. But, now it has become almost a quasi-political organization greatly influenced by the ridiculous League of the South . Several key members nationally in the SCV came from the secessionist-minded League of the South . My reading for my bio-blog on Nietzsche took me through his brilliant essay on history a few months back. It was the second time I had read that “meditation.” The SCV has always been an “antiquarian” histo