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Opinions expressed here are those of J. F. Phillips. They may be entirely
inaccurate and off the mark. Do not trade on the basis on these opinions. 
They are mostly for entertainment purposes and for those curious about what 
goes on in the mind of J. F. Phillips. Always seek professional advice and 
independent verification before making a trade and remember...J. F. Phillips 
may have positions in the underlying text mentioned.


Wednesday Editorial Special, January 16, 2002


GEORGE  W.  BUSH  IS  A  SHIT-HEAD

Everybody seems to be kissing U.S. President G. W.
Bush's ass these days. Saturday Night Live praises
him. Anyone connected with New York City is running
scared, hoping that Bush can save them.

Well, Bush-League George has been President for
a year. Do you feel safer? Are you better off than
you were four years ago?

Not me, pal. Let's face it, when Democrats are in
power vast segments of the general population benefit.
But when Republicans are in power, only a handful of
close, personal friends benefit. The state of Florida,
under Bush-League brother Jeb's control, is a virtual
hotbed of terroist training camps, sort of a parallel
to the corrupt drug money already running things 
down there.

This the the upstart of the Enron debacle. Just some
pyramid scheme to benefit a handful of people, including
in my opinion Bush-League George himself.

Vast segments of the general population will now suffer
as the Republicans squeese workers into accepting lower
wages, environmentalists into accepting lower EPA 
standards, and all of us will suffer from tightening
security laws. How long before you get pulled over by
Homeland Security forces for having the wrong bumper
sticker?

Osama bin Laden has, in my opinion, been allowed to
escape as the Bush-League administration needs to keep
on good terms with Saudi Arabia and Osama is Saudi
Arabia's favorite prodigal son. The U.S. does not want
his blood on their hands. The war in Afghanistan has
basically been against some ragtag, Muslim extremists
who pose as big a threat, if not bigger, against Saudi
Arabia as against America. Bush has been doing the
Saudis a favor by eliminating the Muslim threat for them.

All this does not bode well for the financial markets.
Texans consider two classes of people...themselves and
everybody else.

I wouldn't trust a Bush family member any futher than
I could kick them.

Big blue chips will be taking it on the chin. Texans hate
Wall Street and Bush will do his utmost, in my opinion to
screw over the Fortune 500 crowd. But there should be plenty
of action in smaller companies that slipped by the crooked 
Bush radar screen (companies like Backyard Burgers (BYBI),
Findwhat.com (FWHT) and AskJeeves (ASKJ)) and of course, 
there should be plenty of action in precious metals. Lots
of crusty old Texans have been holding gold since the Reagan
years and expect to reap their bonanza under Bush.

And it will be fun watching the morons who voted for
Bush trying to explain why they are now loveless and
jobless and how naieve they were not to suspect that
Bush could lie, cheat and steal with the best of them.




Friday Editorial Special, October 19, 2001


PRESIDENT  GEORGE  W.  BUSH,  RECONSIDERED

Much has been said about how liberals and arch-
conservatives (who preferred Pat Buchannan to
Bush) are now climbing aboard U.S. President
George W. Bush's band wagon. When some 96% of 
Americans polled favor nuking the bastards 
responsible for the World Trade Center attack, 
it's hard to fly in the face of popular sentiment.

And why should anyone fly in the face of popular
sentiment at this point? America has often been
compared to the Roman Empire. We are it. Top
dog. Osama bin Ladin and for that matter, The
Irish Republican Army, White Supremacists, Black
Nationalists, WTO militants, corrupt police and
organized crime and gangs, spouse abusers, punks
spraying graffiti on buildings...all are as so
many barbarians at the gates threatening our way
of life. They are the Attila the Huns, the Visigoths,
the Ghengis Khan.

And what, exactly is this way of life of ours?

It is too settle differences reasonably and rationally
by law as proscribed by the will of the people.

The late Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. did not
crash hijacked commercial flights into buildings to
help establish equal rights for black Americans. He
resorted to the rule of law.

The CIA is always suspect of all sorts of schemes to
destroy our way of life, but I've known many of these
guys during the bad old days of Latin American "Right
Wing Death Squads," and these guys do have our best
interests at heart. Believe me, as bad as things may
have been under Nixon or Reagan, or Carter or Clinton,
things would be much worse under Maoists, Castorites,
Trokyists, White Supremacists, Black Nationalists or
the Taliban. If it's a choice between backing a CIA
puppet government led by George W. Bush or a truly
totalitarian state led by true "revolutionists," I'll
take my chances with the former, thank you very much.

In a truly totalitarian state it is suspect merely
to ask what time it is, since the police can then
assume you are a spy. Why else would you need to
know what time it is? In America, politicians
couldn't care less about singer/songwriters warbling
about loss love and heartache. In a truly totalitarian
state, all songs must serve the glory of the
revolution, not bourgeois ailments like romance.

If the World Trade Center attack was done under the
auspices of the CIA to stun Americans into surrendering
their rights to a dictorial government led by George
W. Bush who is a mere puppet of former CIA Director
George H. W. Bush Sr., then it is a plot that has been
hatched by only a very few wicked people: too many
more people involved would lead to a breakdown in
secrecy. Yes, the FBI did as much in th 1960s to discredit
Martin Luther King, Jr., but I believe the rank and file
of the CIA are good people and someone will blow the
whistle at some point. What disturbs me is how the
American public, particularly our elected officials, can
just swallow everything the current White House Administration
is saying without protest. If the Bush consortium didn't
hatch this plot to attack the WTC, they certainly have
been very adroit at capitalizing on it. And nobody is
standing up to them.

These terrorists are also being whipped up into an emotional
frenzy (also probably caused by the CIA) to become their own
worse enemies by institgating independent terrorist acts and
are rapidly getting on our collective last nerve and will soon 
awaken our primal, racist bloodlust. We are a very diverse people 
withmany animosities. People from Detroit don't like people from 
Chicago. New Yorkers don't get along with people from Jersey. 
Blacks and whites. Gays and straights. We soon will be venting 
those frustrations on the Middle Eastern people. They will soon 
learn that jihad, hamas, Osama bin Laden doesn't mean squat. 
Nor does the CIA or George Bush. They may even learn, that Allah, 
like all true and just gods, is on our side.






Friday Editorial Special, September 21, 2001

WHY  THE  BUSH  SPEECH  IS  A  FAILURE

I must admit, when 43rd U.S. President George W. Bush addressed
America, and the world, Thursday night, September 20th, 2001,
I was impressed. He stood tall; looked us in the eye; didn't
rely on platitudes; didn't trip over his words; or act like he
was reading from a script. But hasn't this been his method of
attack from the beginning...to have us underestimate him and then
surprise us by not making an ass of himself?

So I immediately checked the Asian markets. They are twelve hours
ahead of us. When Mr. Bush's speech ended around 9:45 PM, Washington,
D. C. time, it was around 10:00 AM in Japan. I assumed they had had
time to catch the speech and react. The Tokyo Stock Exchange's Neikki 
Average was down a couple hundred points. That was not the vote of
confidence I was hoping to find. What could be in the speech that
might have spooked the Asian markets?

I reexamined the speech. Forget the confidence and forthrightness
of the delivery. The speech was about war...unlimited, endless war.
War is bad for economies. It disrupts supply/demand dynamics; misspends
capital; creates uncertainty and distrust. And there is now the fear
of terrorist retaliation against any nation seen as an ally of America.

And there is the ominous OHS...Office of Homeland Security that was
suddenly announced by Mr. Bush. Yet no talking head focused on that.

I believe, the White House is over-reacting to the September 11th 
World Trade Center terrorist attack.

In cold blooded terms, there were only a few skyscrapers destroyed.
America has hundreds more, if not thousands. The loss of innocent
life, while deplorable, is, in objective terms, less than the 
number killed by drugs, homicide or traffic accidents on any given
day. A lesser civilization would have been destroyed. America will
endure; America will triumph. Yes, the destruction of the World
Trade Center is shocking, but it's not the end of the world. The
terrorists slipped one by America...so, heads up!

Identify the guilty. Hunt them down like dogs. Destroy them and
their agents. Secure the borders and redouble efforts to thwart 
future acts. Be eternally vigilant. But to divert tens of billions 
of dollars from peacetime economy to a nebulous, airy concept of 
perpetual war against a perennial enemy is lunacy.

I expect gold and silver prices to continue their climb.






Cosmic Investor Editorial Special, Wednesday, September 13, 2001

LESSONS  OF  WAR,  21ST  CENTURY  EDITION

It is a bitter irony that my last editorial here was
titled, LESSONS FROM PEARL HARBOR, while yesterday
morning's act of terrorism against America's premier
city is now being compared with the Japanese attack 
on Pearl Harbor some 60 years ago.

There are differences of course. Pearl Harbor was a
military target, not a civilian target. And we knew
it was the Japanese who had attacked us, not a faceless
"terrorist cell" hiding behind some cryptic cult alias.

And there is another chilling difference: we are not
likely to declare war on those harboring the source
of this attack. We will merely attempt to arrest, try,
convict and sentence the major players, if possible, and
then shake our shoulders when other fanatics take their
place and produce yet greater acts of terrorism.

Some lying, mealy mouthed Pentagon spokesman spoke with
self indulgent piety about how our country would never
attack civilian targets, only surgical military strikes
against military targets. And therein dwells the problem
in dealing with terrorism. Our military relies too much
on a push button system of warfare, of surgical strikes
that take out a few easily rebuilt enemy bunkers but do
nothing to break the spirit of the enemy.

Those comparing yesterday's devastating destruction of
the World Trade Towers to Pearl Harbor forget that in the
end we, the United States of America, did indeed bomb
innocent civilian populations...in Hiroshima, Nagasaki,
Dresden and God knows where else. 

And we bombed those populations for a sound reason. If
you wish to destroy the concept of Aryn Supremacy or
Japanese Imperialsim, you must destroy any and all 
people who might possibly think that way. You must
destroy their culture, their very civilization. And you
do that by decimating civilian populations. 

I speak here of course, in strictist clinical terms. I
don't really expect the U.S. to turn all of Kabal, 
Tehran and Baghdad into rubble; but if we want to
destroy this mindset of the Terrorist Bomber, of the
Holy Islamic Warrior, then the people who think that 
way or who might conceivably ever think that way need 
to be destroyed. 

I'm told that such action will only escalate the situation.
That we won't be any better than our enemies. Well...I've 
got news for those who say that. The situation has already 
escalated. And we are better than our enemies. We know 
when to stop.






Memorial Day Special, May 28, 2001

LESSONS  FROM  PEARL  HARBOR

Don't get me wrong. I am a big supporter of the
U.S. Constitution's 2nd Amendment to keep and
bear arms; but all too often having a firearm
merely creates a sense of false security.

The battleships, destroyers and aircraft carriers
stationed at Pearl Harbor back on that fateful day,
December 7th, 1941, certainly constituted one big
gun and people had a false sense of security. Most
of the ships were destroyed in under two hours by a
surprise attack.

It's much like the hapless homeowner gunned down by
a SWAT team that got the wrong address. This homeowner,
too, had a gun for his safety but was helpless against
the surprise attack of the SWAT team.

Guns don't kill people; people kill people. Yet, the
other side of that equation would have to be: Guns
don't protect people; people protect people. A gun
doesn't sense danger then jump up and protect you.
You have to sense the danger and jump up and protect
yourself. Whether you use a gun, ball bat or your wits
to protect yourselve is immaterial to having the sense
to be alert to danger in the first place. This is what
Thomas Jefferson meant that "the price of liberty is
eternal vigilance."

One of the problems of Pearl Harbor was trying to run
the military like a business. It was run like a business
alright; a very poorly run business. Remember the XFL? 
Is that the type of business acumen you want running the 
government?

Ships at Pearl Harbor were kept moored there rather
than sent out running maneuvers so as to save the taxpayers
money. Sargents and officers were often picked from
wealthy families and were all white males. Sort of like
a quaint notion of Camelot with knights in shining armour.
The best of the best. Breeding and all that rot. But what 
a terrible waste of potential by denying leadership roles 
to blacks and other minorities. 

And those sargents and officers were like lazy, self
absorbed middle management looking for ways to make their
jobs easier to do. When a blip appeared on the radar screen 
suggesting a vast number of "unidentified flying objects" 
heading towards the Hawaiian Islands, the lieutenant in charge 
dismissed it as a flight of B-17s arriving ahead of schedule. 
No attempt was made to confirm this by radio. No attempt was 
made to confirm this by sending up a fighter squadron to make 
visual contact. That would have been too much like work.
Besides, radar was a new fangled invention that old timers
didn't understand. Understanding this new invention would
also have been too much like work.

As a former member of the armed forces, I often approach
investing in the stock market like going to war. I try not
to overlook anything. I try not to depend too much on my own
limited opinion. I check out everything I can. I keep up with 
everything I can.

What about your investment life? Your business? Do you stick with
people you feel comfortable with at the expense of discovering
truly genuine talent? Do you dismiss technology because it's too
much trouble to learn it? Do you even backup important files? Or
are the ways you look to make your life easier merely a way of
getting out of doing work altogether? Are your assets being
deployed and redeployed, or are they sitting in a safe harbor
growing stagnant? Is your intelligence updated regularly; or are 
you still fighting the last war? Are you ever alert to changes 
that can devastate your portfolio, or are you smug that everything's 
fine? And perhaps most importantly, do you have the will to survive? 
To come back against great odds? Remember; money doesn't make money: 
people make money.







Friday Editorial Special,  May  04,  2001

DEFENSE  SPENDING  HURTS  THE  ECONOMY


Since my Cosmic Investor Breakaway Notes are called
"The Bible of Capitalism," I thought I'd explain
why defense spending hurts the economy. It hurts the
economy because it drains a nation's resources and potential
towards a very small group of companies...defense companies.
This is supposedly what drove the old USSR into collapse...
defense spending. Of course, some defense spending is
necessary and healthy for the economy but not the massive
spending that U.S. President George W. Bush's Missile Defense
System may ultimately cost. 

Democrats typically tax and spend but the spending tends
to benefit large classes of people: those on welfare seeking
larger handouts or university researchers seeking larger
funding. Communities line up at the trough to receive tax
money to build homeless shelters or plant trees. The worth
of these projects is debatable, but the spending is spread
across hugh numbers. Republicans, on the other hand, tend to
reward just a few private friends who helped get the Republicans
elected. Thus, the Missile Defense System will certainly benefit
the executives of defense contractors like General Dynamics and
Lockheed. Expect cost overruns. Expect failed expectations (remember
the Hubble Space Telescope and Mars Probe?). Expect expensive upkeep 
and updating costs.

And what is the reported point of the Missile Defense System? Here
is another key difference between Democrats and Republicans. 
Conservatives are always quick to spout off on how people should
behave; on how things ought to be, but are numbstruck by how things
actually go. Democrats understand how things actually go. Conservatives
might like single women to stop having children out of wedlock; so
they propose cutting off welfare to anymore children born out of
wedlock. Convervatives reason that this will force single women to
stop getting pregnant. But in reality, the single women will protest
and demostrate, organize and regisiter to vote and threaten to unseat
any politician who cuts off their welfare. The conservatives didn't
expect that, and want to blame outside agitators whipping up these
women's emotions, blah, blah, blah. But basically the conservatives
do not understand how people truly behave. Conservatives might call
in the police and National Guard to bully these protestors into
submission, but that action will atagonise many on the sidelines who
don't care anything about welfare but are now outraged at the police
tactics used against innocent protestors. Again, the conservatives 
didn't anticipate that would happen. On and on it goes. The conservatives 
just don't understand how people really are; not how they should be 
but how they really are.

The same applies to the U.S. Missile Defense System. The idea is that
it will detect and destroy any enemy missile before it even leaves its
silo. If it works. But rogue states simply don't have the capability to 
launch ICBMs. Remember Iraq's ridiculous Scud missiles during Desert Storm?
And remember how impossible it was for U.S. forces to locate them? With
what magic will a Missile Defense System succeed where all other efforts
have failed? We don't need a Missile Defense System to fight rogue missiles. 
We need better intelligence: spies, double agents, infiltrators, resistance 
fighters. But that kind of spending won't help U.S. defense contractors get 
richer. Nor will it send pork home to the voters.

And how will the Chinese Communists see the U.S. Missile Defense System? 
How will the Russians, North Koreans, Vietnamese Communists, Iraq, Iran 
and Afghanistan likely to see this? I'll tell you. To them, it seems the
U.S. could very well launch a premptive first strike without fear of
retaliation. The U.S. could launch nuclear missiles at China then shoot
down China's missiles before they ever leave their launching pads. That
is how the enemies of the U.S. are going to see this. 

Now what are the Chinese likely to do about this? I'll tell you. They will 
build thousands more missiles. Then they can launch far more missiles than 
the U.S. can possibly detect and destroy. The Chinese will simply overload 
the U.S. Missile Defense System. So of course, the U.S. will have to enlarge 
it at greater costs to taxpayers. The Chinese will keep trying to overload 
the system with greater numbers of missiles and the U.S. will keep enlarging 
the system to handle the overload until, hopefully, China spends itself into 
collapse as the USSR did. That's the only silver lining behind this nonsense. 
U.S. defense contractors will benefit from this new arms race, but where is 
the average investor likely to make the most money? From General Dynamics stock 
going from $70.00 a share to maybe $100.00 a share? Or from a small e-business 
company whose new approach to filing insurance claims sends its stock from $1.00 
a share to $40.00 a share? Under the Clinton administration, e-business entrepreneurs 
ruled, he and Gore were high tech friendly despite the Department of Justice's 
battle with Microsoft, they encouraged computer usage and Internet facilitation.
Under the G. W. Bush administration, it's going to be reward the handful of 
personal fat cats via defense spending. And that sucks; big time.




Friday Editorial Special,  April  27,  2001

CHINA  AND  THE  U.S.  STOCK  MARKET


I have been listening to various self proclaimed conservative 
talk shows and assumed liberal newscasts. The China issue is
glaringly abscent from all. The liberals seem loathe to portray
China as the enemy while conservatives seem to want to forget
the sloppy, unprofessional way U.S. President George W. Bush 
handled the EP-3 incident. Newscasts are full of boring stories
about the Mississippi River flooding its banks while talk shows
are full of irrelevant diatribes against grandstanding Democrats
trying to derail the precious Bush budget.

The American public seems apathetic and complacent; as if China
were on the other side of the world. Which it is. But a steady
Sino influence has been worming its way into American life since
then U.S. President Richard Nixon began cultural and scientific
exchanges with China in the early 1970s. They got sophisticated
micro ball bearing technology; we got Kung Fu. The bearings were 
supposed to help them develop better kidney dialysis machines, but 
the Chinese used them to develop better guidance systems for their 
missles. The missles were then able to shoot our spy planes out of 
the air space over mainland China. In 1974 the U.S. stopped sending 
anymore spy planes into the air space over mainland China.

The Chinese influence has spread into everything from The Beatles'
"Revolution" line about "Chairman Mao," to Jackie Chan and now 
even Japanese brand products that carry the "made in China" label.

There does seem to be a hard core group of arch-conservatives now
disowning George W. Bush over the U.S. letter of apology. Arch-
conservatives tend to bear a grudge and it seems doubtful to me
that G. W. will be relected in 2004. Hard core liberals, I guess,
will simply ask their therapists to up their Prozac dosage to blot 
all this unpleasantness from their feeble minds.

Red China, I'm sure, would like to dominate the Asian Pacific; 
including Taiwan, South Korea, Tibet and why not Japan and Singapore
while they're at it?

In fairness, no recent U.S. President has ever had to deal with China 
holding Americans against their will. In the old days, when the U.S.S.R. 
shot down U.S. spy planes, the U.S. would deny they were spy planes. They
were called weather planes that had drifted off course. After some torture, 
the captured pilots would confess to spying. The U.S. would acknowledge it 
was all true, Russia would feel vindicated and the U.S. pilots would be 
returned. It also helped if the U.S. had some Russian spies to exchange 
for the pilots.

I think a military operation to rescue the U.S. detainees would have
been fraught with diaster. Bush did the prudent thing, abeit the dumb
thing. As the joke goes, it takes a man to swallow his pride...not a
very smart man, but a man all the same.

The question is: how far will China go? What's next? Can the Chinese
Communists really be as stupid as they seem? "We want to trade with you 
because we need the money. And we want to take over the world because we 
want to rule everybody. There is nothing wrong with this." Yes. I think 
the Chinese Communists are really that stupid. I think they deliberatly
downed the EP-3 to cause an incident to destablize the Asian Pacific region. 
Just as I believe they are behind this absurd tale of Sen. Ret. Bob Kerrey's
1969 raid on a Vietnamese village. It wouldn't surprize me if the Viet
Cong hadn't killed the villagers shortly before the American raid, then
waited in ambush to draw American fire after having arranged the dead to
appear the Americans had done it. Anything for the cause of world
domination.

I don't see China going the way of the old U.S.S.R. That regime was a
patch work quilt of differing ethnic groups each wanting independence
from the other, held together only by brute force. China is a homogenous 
race. At best, China may become another Mexico. Thriving cosmopolitan
populations in the larger cities with backwards farmer peasants clinging
to tradition in the broad outlying regions. Like Mexico, I see a strong
single political party ruling for a long, long time. Gradually, as in
Mexico, the peasants may be weaned from the Stone Age by way of foreign
(U.S.) factories setting up shop in the countryside. Finally, fifty to
a hundred years from now, China may actually achieve something close to
a genuine democracy.

For now...I think America's complacency will allow the U.S. economy to
recover. The stock market should do well. But I would stick with American
blue chip leaders. I fear high tech is going to be highly compromised by
cheap Chinese imitations. All that spy equipment aboard the EP-3 should
allow them to copy the best that Cisco, Oracle and Intel have to offer,
then dump it on the world market at rock bottom prices. I also like brokerage
stocks, especially online brokerage stocks. They should immediately benefit
from any increased investor activity.

Just 100 days in office and already G. W. Bush has had one calamity after
another. Gold usually rises in price whenever there's a new U.S. President,
particularly one from the opposing political party. Gold stocks have risen
in price since December, 2000 and seem to be staying there. I see things 
getting worse. Bush still has three years and nine months to go. I don't 
think he's up to the job. And I don't think his cabinet cares to cover his 
ass time after time after time. I would seriously consider hedging bets with 
at least a modest holding in gold mining stocks (CLICK HERE AND SCROLL DOWN
TO DECEMBER 4TH).








Good Friday Editorial Special,  April  13,  2001

THE  TREES  OF  FORBIDDEN  FRUITS


Here it is, Good Friday falling on Friday the
13th in the year 2001. How apocalyptic. If ever
the anti-Christ were to appear, today would be
the day.

Certainly recent events would suggest it. A dried out drunk
for a U.S. President who seems focusing all his energy on 
fighting the bottle, a U.S. Vice President who has one
foot in the grave and a U.S. Secretary of State who seems to
be sleep walking, fearing all hell may break lose at any
moment necessitating he jump aboard a private jet to a safe 
haven, while the general public is obsessed with becoming an 
instant millionaire via TV game shows, state lotteries, state 
sanctioned gambling casinos and the stock market; and in
Cincinnati some blacks and whites think it's still the 20th 
century.

Into this comes The National Arbor Day Foundation. They think
Americans need a national tree to go along with the national bird
and national anthem. Yes. A national tree will solve everything.
It will bring all of us together. Well, at least it's a welcome
relief from the hell hole world currently around us. How arcane. 
How esoteric. How acadamic. How boring. Vote for your favorite tree.
Take your mind off the day's troubles for a few minutes.

Well...here's how it went.

Donna, an aspiring actress from California, wanted to vote for 
bamboo. "It's, like, everywhere...you know?"

"Bamboo, you bimbo, isn't even a tree! It's grass!" This was said by 
Kazuo, a Japanese American. He favored the cherry tree.

"Grass?" said Donna. "You mean, people smoke it and get high?"

"You probably would!" exclaimed Kazou.

"Well, what tree do you want?" asked Donna, trying to be diplomatic.

"The cherry tree."

"But that's Japan's tree!" said Bob, a conservative Christian.

"I don't like cherries," said Donna without thinking.

"Ha!" Kazuo laughed. "That's because you probably never had a cherry, 
you slut!"

"I like an evergreen tree," said Bob. "It signifies everlasting life 
in Christ."

"That violates the American priniciple of separation of Church and 
State," said the Arab-American faction.

"We like the fig tree," they added.

"A fig tree?" The others exploded. 

"Fig trees arn't even indigenous to America!" said Bob.

"Great," said Abdu. "We are Israeli, Palestinian, Iraqi, Iranian 
and Kurdish. We finally find something we can all agree on and you 
Yankee devils reject it. May a camel piss in your beer."

"Well, shit, then," said Mike, an African-American. "If they can 
nominate a tree from their homelands, then so can I. I choose the 
ebony tree of Kenya."

"That's not a tree," said Jack, a Canadian living in America. "It's 
a magazine. This is supposed to be free of commercialism."

"It is a tree, Jack 'ass,'" Mike retorted. "It's the diospyros 
mespilliformu."

"Fuck you," said Jack.

"Yeah?" Mike replied. "I suppose you favor the maple tree because 
the maple leaf is Canada's emblem."

"Not at all," Jack answered. "I think America's tree should be the 
oak. A symbol of strength and endurance."

"Ha!" Mike sneered. "Probably a white oak. The symbol of your rigid, 
honky racism and intolerance."

"How would you like a slab of white oak up against the side of your 
ebony head," said Jack angrily.

"Bring it on, motha'!" Mike was on his feet. "Bring it on!"

"Is a cactus a tree?" Donna wondered out loud. "I'll have to ask one 
of my Native American or Mexican boy friends." But nobody seemed to 
hear her. When they weren't throwing figs at each other, they were too
busy beating each other with ax handles made from the finest cherry, 
oak, pine and ebony.

VOTE FOR AMERICA'S TREE




Sunday Editorial Special, January 28, 2001

UNDERSTANDING  THE  CALIFORNIA  POWER  CRISIS


There's nothing worse for the American economy than
bumbling bureaucrats obecessed with the spirit of law
rather than the spirit of Amwerican enterprise; fixing
things that aren't broken.

The antitrust case against Microsoft is one such example.               SOME GREAT YAHOO LINKS
So is the deregulation of the power industry.                           ON DEREGULATION

Deregulation of the power industry got its start with the
Clinton adminstration's Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission which, along with the Federal Trade Commission,
decided it was high time to stand up to the monopolistic
electric and gas utilities. President Reagan had deregulated
trucking and airlines. AT&T had been broken up to help
smaller long distance providers compete. So on April 24, 1996           STATE BY STATE STATUS
the FERC decided utilities should be deregulated. All states            FACING DEREGULATION
would hence forth work to deregulate their utilities. That is,
consumers would be offered some choice in who would provide
them with electricity and natural gas and would provide them            U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT
with the actual delivery and service. Thus, a power plant in            DEREGULATION LINKS
Utah might be generating your electricity but an utility in
Flagstaff, Arizona might actually be delivering it to your
home, while another power company based in Texas could be
providing repair service.

Nobody particularly wanted the utilities to be deregulated.
The utilities themselves feared loss of revenue which in turn           COSMIC INVESTOR VIEWS
would cause shortfalls in services. Consumer groups feared              ON INVESTING IN THE
confusion and price gouging. Environmentalists feared the               POWER CRISIS
power plants in areas with lax environmental laws would produce
more and more power to sell to those areas where tougher EPA
rules kept power generation to a minimum.  

With trucking and the airlines, at least the government could
save money by doing away with various agencies that ran trucking
and airline regulations, but nobody could see any real savings
from deregulating the utilities. It just seemed like the "right"
thing to do considering one's views on monopolies and competition.
The FERC under President Clinton thought it was the "right" thing
to do. So they did it. They ended up fixing something that wasn't
broken.

By August, 1996, California became the first state to implement
utility deregulation via Assembly Bill 1890. It was passed by
both state houses but since nobody wanted it in the first place,
it was loaded down with various clauses to protect consumers from
rate increases. Since the idea of deregulation was cheaper electricity,
why shouldn't consumers be protected from rate increases?

Now, with the idea of buying "cheaper" power from outside sources,
local utilities had even less incentive to build expensive power
plants of their own. A lot has been said of the environmentalists
hamstringing construction of new power plants in California but anybody
who has been to Los Angeles knows how filthy the air quality is and the
need for tough laws to keep the air from getting worse. Deregulation
simply made things ridiculous. Some even feel that local utility
monopolies have simply been replaced by a handful of larger power
generating monopolies.    

It's amazing how many otherwise well informed people
believe competition is about lowering prices. The nature 
of competition in a free society is not to assist in the
lowering of prices but to assure that everyone has a
fair opportunity to make money. In fact, it's rare when
a competitor can actually compete on price alone. The
full potential of geniune competition is the ability to
compete on quality. A Ford vehicle is not necessarily
cheaper than a General Motors vehicle but may offer
superior gas mileage or safety features or warranties.

The legendary typewriter company, Smith Corona, went
banrupt several years ago because it could not compete
against the new desk top publishing concept uhsured in
by the computer age. Few would argue that the time and
money spent on an initial computer system with laser
printer and word processing software is "cheaper" than
simply buying a new typewriter but the computer approach
is certainly considered "superior" to the old typewriter.

True competition thus offers a totally new concept, not
just a "wannabe" entry to the market place. 

But many competitors do stick to reinventing the wheel.
IBM builds a personal computer using MS DOS and suddenly
dozens of "wannabe" companies think they can do the same
thing faster, cheaper and/or better. This usually works
fine unless there are limited resources. When there are
limited resources, competitors find themselves out bidding
each other to obtain those resources thus running up the costs 
of doing business and the prices that will be charged to consumers.

Consider professional sports, for example. The number of people
qualified to successfully play pro football is very limited and
so owners find themselves offering more and more money to get the
key players they need. And so the price of tickets and stadium beer
also rise. The same is true of hospitals. They too are competing
with each other for limited resources (staff and equipment).

This is what has happened with deregulation in the utility
industry. The resources required to generate power (natural gas,
coal, nuclear fuel, running water) and the skilled labor to do
so are all limited.

So, let's stop beating up on California and the tree huggers
and focus and the idiots running things on Capitol Hill.






Wednesday Editorial Special, February 21, 2001

IN MEMORY OF DALE EARNHARDT, 1951 - 2001

A business commentator once compared successful market timing
to movie spy James Bond's handling of a sports car: in and out
in the blink of an eye. Auto racing is chess played at 200 miles 
per hour. Investing is chess played at $200,000 a move. There are 
lessons to be learned from racing that apply to investing. Picking            THE
the right vehicle. Honing critical decision making. Taking full              LAST 
responsibility for one's actions. And Lord knows death stalks                LAP 
individual investors who take too much risk, almost as much as it 
does race car drivers. No one is immune. 

I for one do not watch racing to see a crash but to see how one
cheats death; how one handles the impossible. That, I know now, is 
an illusion. Successful investing may be an illusion too. Every new
trading moment could be our ruin. Are we succeeding on our own terms?
Or are we merely lucky? The wise know when to quit while they are 
ahead. Maybe Dale Earnhardt was too old to be racing. Maybe he was 
letting pride to win more races than anybody else get in his way to 
see clearly. That may seem like a low blow, but it's a fact of life 
we all need to face. I'm sure Dale Earnhardt thought of that, and 
apparently decided it was worth the risk. That's why he'll be 
remembered as a champion. And that's something worth thinking 
about too.

Most real money is made in the first and last minutes of trading.
It's a bittersweet truth that in the last few seconds of any race,
it's a contest between the best of the best. Sunday, February 18, 
2001 at the Daytona International Speedway on the final lap of the
Daytona 500, this included Dale Earnhardt, Sterling Marlin, Ken 
Schrader and Rusty Wallace. Dale died among friends, doing what 
he loved to do to the best of his ability. I'm sure his last 
thought was that he was going to win. And that is more than 
investors jumping off ledges can say.




Sunday Editorial Special, February 18, 2001

THE SUNDAY NEW YORK TIMES CLINTON EDITORIAL

Cosmic Investor Note: Below is a full transcript of the Sunday New
York Times Edtiorial, February 18, 2001 by 42nd U.S. President, William
Jefferson Clinton (click here for details).
          


          February 18, 2001

          My Reasons for the Pardons

          By WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON

          HAPPAQUA, N.Y. — Because of the intense scrutiny and criticism 
          of the pardons of Marc Rich and his partner Pincus Green and 
          because legitimate concerns have been raised, I want to explain 
          what I did and why.

          First, I want to make some general comments about pardons and
          commutations of sentences. Article II of the Constitution gives 
          the president broad and unreviewable power to grant "Reprieves 
          and Pardons" for all offenses against the United States. The 
          Supreme Court has ruled that the pardon power is granted "[t]o 
          the [president] . . ., and it is granted without limit" (United 
          States v. Klein). Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes declared that "[a] 
          pardon . . . is . . . the determination of the ultimate authority 
          that the public welfare will be better served by [the pardon] . . ." 
          (Biddle v. Perovich). A president may conclude a pardon or commutation 
          is warranted for several reasons: the desire to restore full citizenship 
          rights, including voting, to people who have served their sentences and 
          lived within the law since; a belief that a sentence was excessive or 
          unjust; personal circumstances that warrant compassion; or other unique 
          circumstances.

          The exercise of executive clemency is inherently controversial. The
          reason the framers of our Constitution vested this broad power in the
          Executive Branch was to assure that the president would have the
          freedom to do what he deemed to be the right thing, regardless of how
          unpopular a decision might be. Some of the uses of the power have been
          extremely controversial, such as President Washington's pardons of
          leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion, President Harding's commutation of
          the sentence of Eugene Debs, President Nixon's commutation of the
          sentence of James Hoffa, President Ford's pardon of former President
          Nixon, President Carter's pardon of Vietnam War draft resisters, and
          President Bush's 1992 pardon of six Iran-contra defendants, including
          former Defense Secretary Weinberger, which assured the end of that
          investigation.

          On Jan. 20, 2001, I granted 140 pardons and issued 36 commutations.
          During my presidency, I issued a total of approximately 450 pardons and
          commutations, compared to 406 issued by President Reagan during his
          two terms. During his four years, President Carter issued 566 pardons
          and commutations, while in the same length of time President Bush
          granted 77. President Ford issued 409 during the slightly more than two
          years he was president.

          The vast majority of my Jan. 20 pardons and reprieves went to people
          who are not well known. Some had been sentenced pursuant to
          mandatory-sentencing drug laws, and I felt that they had served long
          enough, given the particular circumstances of the individual cases. Many
          of these were first-time nonviolent offenders with no previous criminal
          records; in some cases, codefendants had received significantly shorter
          sentences. At the attorney general's request, I commuted one death
          sentence because the defendant's principal accuser later changed his
          testimony, casting doubt on the defendant's guilt. In some cases, I
          granted pardons because I felt the individuals had been unfairly treated
          and punished pursuant to the Independent Counsel statute then in
          existence. The remainder of the pardons and commutations were granted
          for a wide variety of fact-based reasons, but the common denominator
          was that the cases, like that of Patricia Hearst, seemed to me deserving
          of executive clemency. Overwhelmingly, the pardons went to people who
          had been convicted and served their time, so the impact of the pardon
          was principally to restore the person's civil rights. Many of these,
          including some of the more controversial, had vigorous bipartisan
          support.

          The pardons that have attracted the most criticism have been the pardons
          of Marc Rich and Pincus Green, who were indicted in 1983 on charges
          of racketeering and mail and wire fraud, arising out of their oil business. 

          Ordinarily, I would have denied pardons in this case simply because
          these men did not return to the United States to face the charges against
          them. However, I decided to grant the pardons in this unusual case for
          the following legal and foreign policy reasons: (1) I understood that the
          other oil companies that had structured transactions like those on which
          Mr. Rich and Mr. Green were indicted were instead sued civilly by the
          government; (2) I was informed that, in 1985, in a related case against a
          trading partner of Mr. Rich and Mr. Green, the Energy Department,
          which was responsible for enforcing the governing law, found that the
          manner in which the Rich/Green companies had accounted for these
          transactions was proper; (3) two highly regarded tax experts, Bernard
          Wolfman of Harvard Law School and Martin Ginsburg of Georgetown
          University Law Center, reviewed the transactions in question and
          concluded that the companies "were correct in their U.S. income tax
          treatment of all the items in question, and [that] there was no unreported
          federal income or additional tax liability attributable to any of the
          [challenged] transactions"; (4) in order to settle the government's case
          against them, the two men's companies had paid approximately $200
          million in fines, penalties and taxes, most of which might not even have
          been warranted under the Wolfman/Ginsburg analysis that the companies
          had followed the law and correctly reported their income; (5) the Justice
          Department in 1989 rejected the use of racketeering statutes in tax cases
          like this one, a position that The Wall Street Journal editorial page,
          among others, agreed with at the time; (6) it was my understanding that
          Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder's position on the pardon
          application was "neutral, leaning for"; (7) the case for the pardons was
          reviewed and advocated not only by my former White House counsel
          Jack Quinn but also by three distinguished Republican attorneys: Leonard
          Garment, a former Nixon White House official; William Bradford
          Reynolds, a former high-ranking official in the Reagan Justice
          Department; and Lewis Libby, now Vice President Cheney's chief of
          staff; (8) finally, and importantly, many present and former high-ranking
          Israeli officials of both major political parties and leaders of Jewish
          communities in America and Europe urged the pardon of Mr. Rich
          because of his contributions and services to Israeli charitable causes, to
          the Mossad's efforts to rescue and evacuate Jews from hostile countries,
          and to the peace process through sponsorship of education and health
          programs in Gaza and the West Bank.

          While I was troubled by the criminalization of the charges against Mr.
          Rich and Mr. Green, I also wanted to assure the government's ability to
          pursue any Energy Department, civil tax or other charges that might be
          available and warranted. I knew the men's companies had settled their
          disputes with the government, but I did not know what personal liability
          the individuals might still have for Energy Department or other violations.

           

          Therefore, I required them to waive any and all defenses, including their
          statute of limitations defenses, to any civil charge the government might
          bring against them. Before I granted the pardons, I received from their
          lawyer a letter confirming that they "waive any and all defenses which
          could be raised to the lawful imposition of civil fines or penalties in
          connection with the actions and transactions alleged in the indictment
          against them pending in the Southern District of New York."

          I believe my pardon decision was in the best interests of justice. If the
          two men were wrongly indicted in the first place, justice has been done.
          On the other hand, if they do personally owe money for Energy
          Department penalties, unpaid taxes or civil fines, they can now be sued
          civilly, as others in their position apparently were, a result that might not
          have been possible without the waiver, because civil statutes of limitations
          may have run while they were out of the United States.

          While I was aware of and took into account the fact that the United
          States attorney for the Southern District of New York did not support
          these pardons, in retrospect, the process would have been better served
          had I sought her views directly. Further, I regret that Mr. Holder did not
          have more time to review the case. However, I believed the essential
          facts were before me, and I felt the foreign policy considerations and the
          legal arguments justified moving forward.

          The suggestion that I granted the pardons because Mr. Rich's former
          wife, Denise, made political contributions and contributed to the Clinton
          library foundation is utterly false. There was absolutely no quid pro quo.
          Indeed, other friends and financial supporters sought pardons in cases
          which, after careful consideration based on the information available to
          me, I determined I could not grant.

          In the last few months of my term, many, many people called, wrote or
          came up to me asking that I grant or at least consider granting clemency
          in various cases. These people included friends, family members, former
          spouses of applicants, supporters, acquaintances, Republican and
          Democratic members of Congress, journalists and total strangers. I
          believe that the president can and should listen to such requests, although
          they cannot determine his decision on the merits. There is only one
          prohibition: there can be no quid pro quo. And there certainly was not in
          this or any of the other pardons and commutations I granted.

          I am accustomed to the rough and tumble of politics, but the accusations
          made against me in this case have been particularly painful because for
          eight years I worked hard to make good decisions for the American
          people. I want every American to know that, while you may disagree
          with this decision, I made it on the merits as I saw them, and I take full
          responsibility for it. 

          William Jefferson Clinton was the 42nd president of the United
          States.








Thursday Editorial Special, December 14, 2000

"IT  WAS  A  DARK  AND  STORMY  NIGHT..."

Wednesday, December 13, 2000 at 9:00 pm eastern time, Albert Gore, Jr. 
withdrew from the year 2000 U.S. Presidential election leaving George 
W. Bush President by default; but like the fabled dog chasing cars (would 
he know what to do with it if he ever caught one?) will George know what 
to do next?

No doubt conservative radio talk show hosts will spin this as a
mandate for a conservative agenda but remember many voters didn't care
for either candidate and many voted for Bush as the lesser of two evils.
Bush received no mandate. There is no hew and cry from the masses for
any conservative agenda. I suspect many "conservatives" will be sorely
disappointed and disillusioned by the George W. Bush administration when
they realize there will be no reversals of Roe v. Wade and gays in the 
military nor any School Prayer Amdendment to our U.S. Constitution but 
indeed there will be some effort at more gun control and stricter
pollution laws since there are enough liberals on Capitol Hill to demand
it.

Bush is not Reagan. Reagan had charisma, no doubt honed from his years
as a matinee idol where he learned how to handle an unfriendly press and
fickle public. Bush is not Reagan. Nobody on Capitol Hill wants to suck 
up to him to impress the voters back home. More than likely, the voters 
back home will remind the Hill politicians that they didn't vote for Bush 
and don't support his views.

In fact, Bush and Gore were so identical some absent mindedly called
them "Gush" and "Bore." This was basically an election between Luke
of "Dukes of Hazard" and Jethro of "The Beverly Hill Billies." In
another world, George W. and Bill Clinton could have been fraternity
brothers the equal of Bluto and Otter in Animal House.

There's sure to be a Congressional inquiry into the Florida vote: don't
forget Hillary Rodham Clinton is now a U.S. Senator. I don't, however,
believe much will come any such inquiry. Florida is largely conservative.
Rednecks in the panhandle; anti-Communist Cuban Americans; active duty
and retired military; rich Jewish retirees from New York...all tend to
be conservative. Floridians freely elected a Republican Governor, a 
Republican Secretary of State and an overwhemling Republican State
Legislature. The real question of any inquiry would be how the hell did
Gore manage to get any votes at all in Florida?

All this is sure to haunt us again in 2004 when Bush runs for "re-election"
against Gore a second time (who I imagine will beat Hillary in the Democratic
primary should she even consider running for President).

Perhaps a bid by Jesse Ventura will save us from another "who cares" election.

I think it was Newt Gingrich on Gore's "concession" speech who reminded
us that Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and even Bill Clinton had all been
elected by slim margins and may not have had much of the popular vote yet
they managed to achieve much of their agenda. It should be mentioned that
two of these Presidents were assasinated and one was impreached.

Fans of the late Charles Shultz's comic strip "Peanuts" will remember how
Charlie Brown's dog Snoopy was always aspiring to be a great American
novelist with the opening line, "it was a dark and stormy night."

It was a dark and stormy night in Nashville on election night, November
7, 2000 when Gore first moved to give his concession speech. Likewise,
it was a dark and stormy night in Nashville on December 13, 2000 when
he formally conceded. During the campaign, Gore himself had said it would 
be cold, rainy morning in America if George W. Bush were to be elected
President. Today, December 13, 2000, it is overcast here in Nashville while
ice storms, snow and freezing winds lay waste to much of the country. And
the Dow Jones Industrial Average is off over 100 points. Let's hope these 
clouds don't stay long over America.





Saturday Editorial Special, December 09, 2000

FLORIDA  BOYCOTT  BEING  ORGANIZED

Some contributors to the YAHOO PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION MESSAGE BOARD
are talking about boycotting Florida products. Don't buy Florida
citrus. Don't attend Disney World. Go somewhere else for vacation.

Tech stock message boards are already reading like political message
boards. Intel is already on the Florida Boycott bandwagon (CLICK HERE).

Interesting idea.








Saturday Editorial Special, November 11, 2000

SEANCE  WITH  THE  FOUNDING FATHERS, II

And now, after breaking my fasting and taking
some rest, I continued my communion with the founders
of our great nation. I sensed they were not concerned
with how things ought to be...but with the way things
are. I wanted clarification on this "will of the
people" concept and so begins the second transcript.


THE SEANCE, II:

This phrase, "The Will of the People, is bandied about like
some magical incantation and like a sorcerer's apprentice prancing
about the beach saying, "I shall build my house here and a grand house
it shall be," the orator may be pulverized by the tidal wave of geniune
will-of-the-people he then realizes he never fathomed nor imagined.

Whenever I hear a pompous barrister reciting, "the will of the people," 
I take guard for what is really meant is, "my will that I've convinced
some rabble is actually theirs and what we want is to have everything
our way which we, being a small noisy crowd, shall never have unless we
can invoke some magical spirits to convince you this is really the will 
of something greater, but unseen, than all of you put together."

Yes, when I hear a single man exclaiming the will-of-the-people, I look
to myself and those around me and realize it is not our will but the will
of a small group that having lost a round wants it back in spades.

True will-of-the-people is uncontested will, a truth or right that every man, 
woman and child holds sacred without mental reservation. Such as free speech, 
or the right to vote. 

On voting, there is sure to arise heated arguments and accusations of fraud,
which should be reported, investigated and punished if true, but of the right 
to vote there should be no disagreement. One awakens and by force of will leaves 
the bed, fights the traffic, waits in line, and votes. Now to say, "I voted wrong! 
I made a mistake! I was not diligent enough," is not the responsibility of the law; 
the responsibility of the law is that the will of the people to vote fairly was
upheld. One can say, "I solemnly swear to uphold the right of the people to vote
without coercion or persecution and to hold to one vote for each eligible citizen;"
but one cannot say, "I solemnly swear to uphold the right of the people to vote
and stand over each voter to ensure each has voted correctly with no mistakes," 
for who shall decide what is the right vote?


Our greatest right is free speech and yet there are private gentlemen's clubs
where no word is to be mentioned of politics or women but only of horse racing
and its attendents: breeding, grooming and the like. This is much like dandies
or children, wading in the shallow end of the pool afraid to plunge into the
deeper parts. Free speech finds the-will-of-the-people most at work, setting 
what to some seem harsh restrictions on free speech. "You can say what you want, 
but you can't say it here," and the speaker can only stride away, head high, and
hope for a more enlightened audience. But in a true Republic, the listner ought
to take responsibility for what is being heard as much as the speaker should for
what is being said.

Odd that which is uncontested in the pure ideal is often so hotly contested in 
the actual practice. More odd, is that one right may often be used to constrain 
or eliminate itself, as when a prudish congregation uses the right to assemble 
to deny the right to assemble to a libertine troupe wishing to stride nude, singing 
obscenities. Or when law enforcement uses its right to keep and bear arms to take 
away the right to keep and bear arms from individuals.

My mere opinion of a truth is not enough to sway an unconvinced crowd and I may
find myself hawking, "The Will of the People Shall Not be Denied" in defense of
my own small gathering! 

The People of this great Union once rose enmasse, demanding the right to keep and
bear arms but in time a new People may rise enmasse demanding this right be abolished,
unless all sign a law promising this right shall never be revoked and unless all who
later regret signing that law content themselves to a gnashing of the teeth...firearms
will indeed be abolished that once were a sacred right. The same applies to all other
rights...if the People so desire it.

Again, it is the two-faced citizen who does not see the logic of this, who wants the
right to free speech to tell me I don't have the right to free speech and who wants
police to have guns to take by force my guns. When only the orators, the politicians
and clergy, have free speech...we will be governed by propaganda. When only police
have guns...we will have a Police State.

That I say this cannot establish it for all people for all time but can hopefully
take root and blossom in their hearts, souls and minds for some time.

Even a casual reading of our Nation's history will show a steady ebb tide of 
controversy, scandal and even armed insurrection. It seems no sooner had the 
Republic been established than some took arms to secede their territories from
the greater Union that they ten years past had fought to establish! 

Where some students will be appalled at scene after page after chapter of
mule headed antagnoists locking horns, dragging their dirty political laundry
through our Nation's streets from soap box to courthouse to the U.S Supreme
Court and Congress...other students will be inspired; so lessons are had.

Ultimately the greatest of these insurrections was the Confederate States of
America sworn to by seven Southern States in 1861 in deliberate violation of 
the U.S. Constititution forbidding any such Confederacy, as those so sworn
did not accept the legitimacy of the 1860 Presidential election of one Abraham
Lincoln, nor of the Congress or Senate which did. A horrendous War Between the
States resulted, but there had and always will be innumerable other outbreaks
of violent rebellion sprouting up like toad stools.

The nature of an insurrection invaribly is the work of men who would be utterly
destroyed by an exisiting law; and finding it impossible to rescind the law, they
find it more expedient to secede from the Union whose law they now disown. They
claim a new settlement and in this new settlement the pesky law is stricken from
their new books. Within modern times, it has been men at loggerheads with the 
Internal Revenue Service or Civil Rights Act that seek insurrection.

That the Union must and will be held together, Confederacies and insurrections be
damned, has been well established. That these rebellions have as their lifeblood
the convenient obtaining of firearms is well known. Crime itself is but a smaller
version of insurrection and organized crime a rather elaborate and plastic nation
within a nation. I believe it is folly to prevent insurrections and crime by 
confiscating all firearms; as it would be maddness to prevent offensive speech by
removing all citizens' vocal chords.

Rather, it is to be assumed the ultimate Will of the People anywhere at anytime
is to do anything they can do without being caught; therefore, proper laws being 
defined and accepted by the body politic, it's the sacred responsibility of the 
law abiding citizens to immediately and accurately report any and all crimes and 
plots they may happen across being hatched by the lawless citizens. And the sooner 
these transgressions are reported and attacked, the safer the body politic shall be.






SEANCE  WITH  THE  FOUNDING  FATHERS, I

Writer's Note; I conducted this seance with our
nation's founders in good faith. I didn't recognize all
of them, but feel Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson,
Benjamin Franklin and John Adams did most of the writing,
although I have no idea who was saying what, when nor when
or if I was interjecting something of my own (other than
"Prom King" and "Miss Congeniality"?). 

I was a bit alarmed about the "African origins" reference, 
being myself a white guy. John Adams offered to bring in 
Fredick Douglass to address this issue and I hit the panic 
button! I had great fun explaining who Dolly Parton and 
Ice T are and cracked up when (John Adams?) used words like 
"hip-hop" and "rap." I was amazed the founders knew all about 
Hitler! Hey! I found these guys, our founders, to be very hip 
and on top of things. They just tell it like it is, but heartily 
welcome any other points of view. Total balls, man.


THE  SEANCE,I:
 
I'm usually fortunate if I write one essay every 
six weeks or so. This past Wednesday, November 08th
the day after the Presidential Election for the
year 2000, I wrote three essays in one night. In 
the style of our founders I opt to write for posterity 
and not the pop culture quick fix crowd. Our founders 
knew human nature quite well, its follies and weaknesses 
as well as its strengths and potential. They knew of 
charismatic charlatans that would lead an enraptured 
rabble to despotic ruin. The Electorial College, I believe, 
is a saftey valve, a backup system to the popular vote to 
prevent that. 

Politics is not a popularity contest. In voting for our
leaders we are not voting for Miss Congeniality or Prom King,
despite the careful detail to dress and manner that candidates
follow to woo the masses. Politics is ultimately the will of 
the people. But what is this "will of the people?" Is it those 
who shout the loudest or threaten the most violence? Is not faith
and patience and tolerance a strength of will of their own? And 
what of bad people? How may their ill will be expressed without 
triumphing over people of good will?

The popular vote allows people to get somethings off their
chests, but the electorial vote better represents the vast
cross section of American sentiment. Blessed is the candidate
who wins both, but wisely we must place greater emphasis on
the electorial vote. A man losing the popular vote but winning
the electorial vote must then know he is not very popular but
was chosen for some other traits which he must then call upon
to lead all the people. He will at all times be reminded he is
not that popular and will rule sparingly and benevolently in
hopes of gaining more popularity with the people.

Conversely, a man winning the popular vote but not the electorial
vote...should he become the leader solely on the strength of his
popularity...will feel the people are on his side and eventually
believe everything he does has the support of the people. He
undoubtedly will have resorted to some cute trickery here and 
there to get the popular vote and will pride himself on this slight 
of hand and undobtedly resort to trickery again now and then if 
confronted with dangerous adversity.

He will eagerly and quickly forget that he lost the electorial vote 
but those that cast those votes will not forget and will conspire 
to secede even perhaps to the point of open warfare. Gross popularity 
begets open demagoguery begets world despotism. Adolf Hitler running 
for President might win the popular vote but hopefully not the electorial 
vote. Hopefully then, he would not be elected President. Hopefully 
those winning the electorial vote could stare him down from a position 
of greater confidence.

We are not at that point. I believe most citizens feel like a fool,
that they could not overwhelmingly decide beyond all doubt who their
President should be. They want a clear and decisive outcome. How did 
we come to this?

I firmly believe our nation is one of great peoples, across the
board: in sports, entertainment, science and industry and in
political and military leadership. The major parties are well
financed and well organized. They have access to the best of the
best. Each has a staff equal in ability, experience and political
savvy, to conduct focus groups and to package their candidates to
push the right buttons to reach that great cross section of 
"Middle America." The candidates have become mirror images of
each other and are adept at playing both sides of an issue. And
the citizens for the most part find this to be great sport. The 
founders themselves, I'm sure, are slapping their knees and laughing 
in joy at the cleverness of their posterity. They enjoyed as much 
when they campaigned in their day.

Add to this the managers of campaigns and parties who themselves
haven't the talent or good fortune to become leaders but attach
themelves like leeches to the candidates seeking to become leaders,
fancing themselves as "King makers," in a land ardently opposed on
principle to Kings.
 
Such managers cannot guarantee a candidate's success but can certainly 
guarantee a candidate's defeat through chicanery ("dirty tricks")
worthy of the most demeaning and envious of spurned love, and thus 
do these managers bore their way into the peoples' will requiring a
candidate with extraordinary leadership who can stay two steps ahead
of the managers and bosses without invoking their ire. Rare is the
politician who searches heart and knows the opposition is better suited
to govern and thus thumbs a nose at the managers and bosses, short-
circuiting their nefarious schemes. 

More often than not, politicians pose looking Heavenward as if 
annoited by God, despite clear separation of Chuch and State, and 
decide their vision for America is truly worth this pact with the 
Devil: perhaps if you are Abraham Lincoln who can abolish slavery 
once and for all in America and therefore, in time, from the world, 
this pact would be worth it; but if it's merely to wax further 
Heavenward from the Capitol itself, shaking one's head over "this 
stiff necked populace that doesn't recognize I am the most intelligent
statesman ever conceived," you are merely selling the inheritance 
of the peoples' will for self importance and no good will come of it.

But I find less fault in the politicians and more in the people 
who make up this "Middle America." If the people are wishy-washy,
the candidates will be boring and noncommitted. If the people 
want their cake and to eat it too, the candidates will promise
them a way to do it; impossible as it might be. And if the people 
are two-faced hypocrites, they will have candidates playing to 
both sides of an issue. This is where I believe "Middle America" 
is today.

I have known "liberals" who favor strict, often outrageous,
gun control laws...who themselves own not one but several
firearms! And they didn't purchase their guns through
approved gunsmith shops, nor bother with a background check
or waiting period. Most were bought from a friend of a friend
of a friend. More perplexing is that these same Liberals are
haughty at the mere suggestion that they should ever have to 
submit to such rigors as a background check or waiting period,
although they favor such rigors for others wishing to arm
themselves. In short, these Liberal acquaintances of mine
want guns for themselves but not for others. That is their
idea of security.

I have known Conservatives that abhor abortion and would 
vote to outlaw it were it on a ballot. Yet, after becoming
intimately acquainted and a part of their home, a husband
confides in me that he and his wife agreed to her having an
abortion years ago in the early days of their marriage. They
were young and unproven; his career had yet to gel and she
wanted to finish college and at least start a career as a
beginning to something she could fall back on later. So, she
had an abortion but has evermore regretted it. Not a day goes
by that she doesn't wish she had not done it. And now they are
committed to outlawing abortion to save other women from such
a fate. It is fine for themselves to have made a mistake and
regretted it but not for others to have the same learning
opportunity. That is their idea of morality.

I have known those of African origins, whose American
ancestors were enslaved and now they themselves being free
have entered into business very successfully. Yet, they
steadfastly vote for candidates promising special assistance
programs for their brethen because despite their own self-evident
success in business they firmly believe others of their race lack
such luck. They see their own success as accidental, against
great odds, a fortunate series of events that will never again
be duplicated by anyone else in their lifetimes. And to assure
their political careers the candidates outlaw any common means
by which the lowliest of the low might even start to ascend. 
Prostitution, drugs, and now even that genre of music termed
"hip-hop" or "rap," are all frowned upon. Not to besmear the
descendants of any fine established families in our nation, but
do consider that even their forebears often got started as it were
in rum smuggling, arms dealing, poppy cultivation, distilled
spirits and riverboat gambling among other crafts. 

One can hardly find two more diverse citizens today than a white 
Applacian woman singer of country music named Dolly Parton and a 
African-American rapper from the innercity streets of Los Angeles 
named Ice T. Yet both hold more potential for solving the problems 
of isolated economic development for their districts than all 
government programs combined. Dolly through her Dolly Wood Enterprises 
and Ice through his Rhyme Syndicate Productions provide a geniune 
gateway to self-determination for their local residents; but rather 
than encourage and nuture this phenomena, the politicians  fearing 
lost of control and end of careers either try to aggrandize the 
operation in the case of Dolly Wood or antagonize the operation
in the case of Rhyme Syndicate. That is the current ideal of social 
progress.

And then there are those who clamor about freedom of speech and
expression on the one hand when lashing out at a political or
business rival, but rage against perceived excesses of sexual content 
and violent episodes in the cinema, print and musical arts when someone 
else wishes to captilize on a different aspect of free speech and 
expression. This is their idea of a social conscience.

And so these two-faced "Middle America" citizens attract candidates
who support a woman's right to choose abortion but oppose partial 
birth abortions and Federally funded abortions; who come out for 
stronger gun control laws, but with a wink and a nod never intend 
to see those laws actually enforced; and who finance social programs 
to hire party campaign locals to essentially teach unempowered people
how to teach unempowered people how to teach unempowered people how
to teach unempowered people on into infinity and beyond until God Almighty 
ends it for once and for all...if we don't end it now.









Wednesday Editorial Special, November 08, 2000


UNDERSTANDING THE ELECTORIAL COLLEGE

I always find our U.S. Constitution an amazing
document to read. Imagine the people like Lincoln,
Martin Luther King, Jr. and others who read it
and said, "hey; according to this....." And the
history of the world was changed. And there always
seems to be something here-to-fore overlooked that
springs alive and vibrant with new meaning. So it
is with the concept of the Electorial College in
the midst of our year 2000 Presidential election.

Originally some of the founding fathers wanted
Congress to elect the President while others
favored a direct popular vote. It could have
been feared that a direct popular vote would
give undue influence to areas heavily populated
at the expense of areas sparsely populated, while
having Congress elect the President seemed to take
all the fun out of democracy and self-determination.
The compromise was the Electorial College.

The Electorial College is set up like this: each
State is allowed no more than one Representative
per 30,000 people and each State is allowed at
least one Representative. Each State, of course,
is allowed two U.S. Senators. This loose ratio
of "no more than one Representative for every
30,000" is spelled out in our U.S. Constitution
under Article One: "The number of Representatives
shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand,
but each State shall have at least one
Representative." It is law. As simple as that.

Under Article Two, States are allowed to 
appoint "a number of electors, equal to the
whole number of Senators and Representatives to
which the State may be entitled in the Congress."

California, for example, has 52 Representatives in
Congress and two Senators. Therefore, it is allowed,
and has, 54 electorial votes. Florida has 23
Representatives in Congress and two Senators for a
total of 25 electorial votes.

Our U.S. Constitution strictly forbids actual
Representatives or Senators from serving as electors
(Article Two again).

Who does serve as electors are chosen by each
State's own political parties at their own State
political conventions. The electors are usually
chosen for their party loyalty and dedication.

In Presidential elections, the electors seldom ever
ignore the popular vote. Nor is there any need to.
If a State has a majority of Republicans, it stands 
to reason it will have more Republican Representatives, 
Senators and Electors than Democrats. It stands to reason 
the voters of that State would likely vote Republican for 
the Presidential candidate and its majority of Republican
Electors would to. 

California, according to the 1990 Census, had a population
of 30,597,578 people. Florida had 13,197,755 people.

Allowing one Representative per 30,000 people equals 1,019
possible Representatives! Yet California "only" has 52.
I mention this as an aside. For practical reasons there's
no need for California to actually have this many 
Representatives. They would be too expensive to maintain
and get in each others' way. Also, if you could be the
sole Representative for West Hollywood as Henry Waxman is, 
or the sole Representative of Central Los Angeles as Maxine
Waters is, would you want to share power with a couple
hundred other Representatives in your district? Hell no!

Populations rise and fall and it's difficult to determine 
exactly how many Representatives you need to fairly and 
strongly represent the people in your State. It's the stuff 
of good old fashioned politics, but population and the 
Electorial College do go hand in hand.

Imagine if California had just 30,000 people. Under our
U.S. Constitution it can't have anymore than one 
Representative. Imagine that Florida has 28,000 people.
It likewise can't have anymore than one Representative.
And imagine that Utah only had 1,000 people. Still, under
law, it is entitled to at least one Representative. For
now, forget about each State having two Senators. Just
assume they each have just one Representative and therefore
they are entitled to one elector.

It's easy to see how Presidential Candidate "X" might win
the entire popular vote in Florida and Utah while Presidential 
Candidate "Y" might win the entire popular vote of California. 
Under the popular vote, Candidate "X" would have just 29,000
popular votes but two Electorial College votes while Candidate 
"Y" would have 30,000 popular votes but just one-half the
number of electorial college votes!

Confusing! But ingenious. Remember, it has withstood over
200 years of history, war, and social change that has made
our nation the greatest nation civilization may have ever
produced. It has served us well. There is nothing wrong with
the Electorial College.  What's wrong is the means by which 
individual voters are registered and the physical means by 
which they actually vote. 

In our highly vaulted computer age, you would think we could 
find a better way to register all who want to vote and make
voting more convenient and secured against fraud and miscounts. 
I am confident we will indeed find a way. Be pround. And vote.
Join a State political party. Get involved with this damn
thing instead of scratching your head over it and leaving it 
to others to handle. You could become the next James Carville 
or William Bennett.





WHEN A WELL OILED POLITICAL 
MACHINE GRINDS TO A HALT

I had a premonition when writing my first
Election 2000 essay (appearing below) that
I should have predicated it with the warning
that it all hinged on Florida not demanding
a recount.

Well, Florida state officials are demanding
a recount and Al Gore officials may demand
a second recount, although that is not likely.

This is what we voters get for not voting
our conscience but being led by the nose
by the big, well financed, slick, political
machines now comprising our two major parties.

They are so skilled and well staffed with
focus groups and public relations and sound
bites that they truly are indistinguishable
from each other. One may as well flip a coin
when deciding for whom to vote. And like any
coin toss, the results are 50/50...or in this
case, 49/49 (thanks to Ralph Nader).

Tying in to my first essay below, I (like
countless others) would like a candidate that
understands fiscal responsibilty and
social obligation. One who understands the
2nd Amendment and the 1st Amendment are
equally sacred. Don't touch my gangsta rap 
and I won't touch your guns. Keep your laws
off my body and I'll keep my laws off your
guns. 

Third parties understand that but voters are
going to have to overcome the razzle-dazzle
snake oil charm of those well oiled damnable
old established parties and vote for what's
right. 




LOWER TAXES, SMALLER GOVERNMENT

I thought Bill Clinton had learned his lesson:
Americans want smaller government and lower
taxes along with social reform...gay rights,
abortion rights, firearm rights.

I hope George Walker Bush has learned this
lesson. 

There will be hell to pay with demonstrations,
protests and boycotts if President Elect Bush
thinks he has a mandate to trash these social
reforms.

Remember Richard Nixon rose up from the ashes
after losing to John F. Kennedy. Remember rank
and file conservatives deserted George Bush, Sr.
when he screwed up, paving the way for Bill
Clinton.

Al Gore, Jr. could yet win the White House,
with Hillary Clinton as Vice President. Let's
hope we can do better than Bush or Gore or
Clinton in 2004. Let's hope Jesse Ventura,
Ralph Nader, The Libertarian and Natural
Law Parties are the tip of the iceberg.

Al Gore's campaign manager, Bill Daley, son
of the infamous Daly family of Chicago tried
to win with bad old tactics of knee jerk,
October surprises, dirty tricks, baby kissing,
hustling (exploiting) the black vote, trying
to groom Al Gore to be all things to all
people. Let's hope that's all in the past
as well.






Saturday Editorial Special, November 04, 2000


UNDERSTANDING  THE  SOCIAL  SECURITY  
DEBATE,  PART TWO


I am not a professional accountant or economist,
and I am pressed for time...but I believe my
facts and figures to be correct.

According to the Internal Revenue Service,
$572 billion was collected in 1998 as Social              CLICK HERE FOR THE SOCIAL
Security Tax.                                              SECURITY STRATEGIC PLAN
                                                       (REQUIRES ADOBE READER PLUG-IN)
According to the Social Security Administration,
$391 billion was spent in fiscal year 1999 as
Social Security benefits.

Though the figures are off by a year, it's clear         GEORGE W. BUSH SAYS HE WANTS TO
to see the Federal government is taking in more          GIVE "SOME" OF THE SURPLUS BACK 
in Social Security tax than it pays out in Social        TO WORKERS...BUT HE DOESN'T SAY 
Security benefits.                                       HOW MUCH. 1%? 10%?  

That difference, $181 billion, in ten years could        THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TAKES 12.4%
add up to a $2.4 trillion surplus...say the "experts."   OF PAYCHECKS FOR SOCIAL SECURITY
                                                         TAXES. YOU DO THE MATH. 12.4% OF
$181 billion multiplied by 10 years is itself $1.8       $30,000 IS $3,720. BUSH WANTS TO
trillion, so I suppose $2.4 trillion isn't hard to       RETURN "SOME" OF THAT $3,720 BACK    
believe. Noted Nobel Recipient, economist Milton         TO YOU. 1% OF $3,720 IS JUST $37.20.
Friedman is comfortable with the $2.4 trillion figure.   AND THAT IS PER YEAR!

The question is: what to do with all that extra
money?

Some, like Al Gore, Jr., fear the baby boom generation 
nearing retiremnet plus unforseen slowdowns in the American
economy, could put a strain on Social Security and wants to 
set aside "some" of it for a rainy day and use the rest to 
pay off the National Debt.

Others, like George W. Bush, see the economy staying on track 
endlessly, especially if protected and encouraged by appropiate 
tax breaks. People may be having smaller families, but the U.S.
population can continue growing with immigration of younger
workers who's taxes will help pay for the baby boomers Social
Security.

Bush, therefore, wants to use $1 trillion of the forecasted
$2.4 trillion surplus to buy back U.S. bonds. They could be
resold later to bring in money to pay retiring baby boomers
in the event of an emergency. Gore believes the interest we
would save by not having to pay on the National Debt would
be greater than what Bush could earn on reselling bonds at
a later date. Makes sense...if we can truly stay out
of debt and interest rates remain low.

If interest rates rise and we continue borrowering, then
Bush's plan would probably bring in more money in the
long run.

Bush would also use $1 trillion to give current workers a
break on the Social Security tax they pay each pay period.
The Federal government currently collects 12.4% of each
person's pay check for Social Security. Under Bush, as best
as I can understand it, the Federal government would collect
only 10.4% of each person's pay check for Social Security.
The remaining 2% would be kept by workers to invest in
reputable retirement accounts, such as mutual funds.

The idea is that in ten years, this 2% would add up to
a trillion dollars. That's a trillion dollars that the
government would not be collecting and hence it is feared
it may place a strain on Social Security in the future.

Take a yearly income of $20,000. The 12.4% tax bite equals
$2,480. Under Bush, 2% of that could be kept by the worker
to invest in savings or mutual funds. Well, 2% of $2,480 is
$49.60...not much in my opinion. And remember, that's per
year!

That's the problem I have with Bush's plan. It doesn't do
ordinary workers much good and "robs" Social Security of
important funding. It also feared that a downturn in the
economy or bankruptcy of some major fund or bank could
cost the taxpayers a small fortune in bailing out all 
those workers who have invested their yearly $49.60 in
a private retirement account.

Well, there you have it. The problem with Social Security
isn't that we are running out of money but that we have
too much and don't know what to do with it.






Saturday Editorial Special, October 21, 2000


UNDERSTANDING  THE  SOCIAL  SECURITY  
DEBATE, PART ONE

Although not as exciting as fighting
international drug lords or undertaking
a manned Mars expedition, Social Security
is in trouble and needs a smart, determined
plan for survival. I hope this report helps
in understanding the situation.

In 1935 President Roosevelt signed the Social 
Security Act into law, as a way to help
victims of The Great Depression.

2% of workers' paychecks were collected by
the U.S. Government and invested in Treasuries    THIS REPORT TRIES TO BE HONEST
to earn money to supplement the retirement        AND TRUTHFUL BUT READERS SHOULD
of already existing elderly people no longer      DOUBLE CHECK AND VERIFY ANYTHING 
working.                                          IN DOUBT.

Over the years more and more people were          SOURCES INCLUDE:
allowed to receive benefits, including
dependents and survivors. Disability              CATO INSTITUE ON SOCIAL 
insurance and automatic cost of living            SECURITY PRIVATIZATION
increases were also added.
                                                  HERITAGE FOUNDATION SOCIAL
Currently, some 12.4% of workers' pay             SECURITY REFORM CENTER 
goes to the Federal government to cover
these Social Security benefits.

People are living longer and more are
retiring faster than the people working
can pay to support them. A special 1996
Social Security Trustees' Report suggested
Social Security would be bankrupt by
2029 unless up to 18% of workers' pay
were to go to the government or else cuts
of up to 30% of benefits would have to
be made. 

It has even been said that some African 
American males may actually end up recieving 
less in Social Security benefits than they 
actually paid into the system!

President Bill Clinton has favored using
a portion of the Federal budget surpluses
to shore up Social Security and to invest
a portion of Social Security funds in the
stock market to earn greater returns.

Critics feel this would be the height of
folly. For example, could the U.S. government
be objective in pursuing antitrust action
against Microsoft if millions of the
government's own money was invested in
Microsoft stock? Would the government be
any better at running its investments than
it does the military with its cost overruns
and pork barrel projects?

A solution, therefore, is to let the workers
themselves invest a portion of their pay
into private retirement accounts.

George W. Bush favors sound, reliable mutual
fund type accounts: no day trading or idle
market speculation. The monies earned would
be for retirement only but could be passed
on to heirs.

Al Gore, Jr. favors using the Federal budget
surpluses to pay down on the national debt; the
money saved in interest could then be used to
shore up Social Security. However, Gore also
favors extending benefits to even more people,
such as women who take time off from work to
have babies and stay at home to raise them.
Gore agrees with allowing workers to make
contributions on their own behalf but also
wants the government to match those contributions.

Bush feels Gore's plans are too expensive and 
involves too much government. Gore feels Bush's 
plans are too parsimonious and shortsighted.







Saturday Editorial Special, October 14, 2000


UNDERSTANDING  THE  CULT  OF  INSANITY

Virtually two months to the date after the 
Russian submarine Kursk was destroyed by an
assumed internal explosion, the USS Destroyer 
Cole was hit by a suspected terrorist bomb.

I mention this, since war machines are like
gigantic guns that do go off by accident from
time to time; it is self-defeating to say this
wouldn't have happened to the USS Cole if the 
U.S. would only stay out of foreign affairs.

Many of us have daydreamed about what it would
be like to be Superman. Would we use our powers
for good or evil? And would we lie in bed at
night unconcerned about a scream for help from
the street below? We're Superman; we should
use that power for good and spring into action
to help those in need.

As a Super Power and perhaps the only Super
Power, America need not shirk from such duties
nor feel alarmed about exercising such powers.

We have all too many full blooded All-American
terrorists right here in America who would have
gladly done the same thing to the USS Cole to
protest one thing or another. Ted Kaczynski (the
Unabomber); Timmy McVeigh (Oklahoma City bombing);
Mark Chapman, John Hinkley Jr., and Lee Harvey
Oswald, Eddie Harris and Dylan Klebold (Columbine
High School) are just some that come to mind.

Imagine a country where half the population 
aspires to become another Kaczynski or McVeigh
or Chapman? Where such are heroes and others
are encouraged to do likewise? Such is the
mindset of the poorer regions of the Middle
East.

The presumed suicide bombers in the USS Cole
attack are not Holy Warriors or brave freedom
fighters but self-deluded, psychotic, ignorant
fools being misled by one power broker or 
another in one power play or another.

Economic development is taught to these people
to be the lie of Satan; a ploy to fall prey to
the Great Satan of U.S. capitalism. Education
is equally taught to be a waste of time.

We spend countless billions on larger and
fancier war machines to satisfy the hawks.
We spend billions on unwanted economic 
development programs to satisfy the doves.

We need to spend more on espionage agencies,
to develop greater networks of informers and
survillance systems. We need to identify the
crazies out there and apphrehend them. Then
the economic programs can take root. Then
the war machines will indeed have something
to protect.

 




Columbus Day Editorial Special, October 09, 2000

THE  COSMIC  INVESTOR  CHOICE  
FOR  U.S.  PRESIDENT

Making difficult choices is a hallmark of           I have spent a great deal of time on
leadership. In business, entertainment,             my decision. And will continue making
sports or life in general the right choice          up my mind right until I pull the lever.
is often not the easiest choice. 
                                                    I am not some squirrel who is going to
The person you like the most and are on             vote for Al Gore, Jr. just because I  
the same wavelength with is often right             want Barbara Streisand to like me. Nor  
for most jobs except the one really big,            am I some idiot voting for George W. 
critical job. Slowly you realize the                Bush just because I hate Bill Clinton 
right person for the big job is actually            and want Bush to exact vengence. I don't
someone you never cared for that much,              think Bush is that type of small minded
whom you never really understood or                 individual.
thought about very much, but you know in          
your heart...the bastard can get the job            I'm not some selfcentered idealist stuck             
done.                                               in an ivory tower voting for an 
                                                    independent candidate with no proven
Often that person might be worlds apart             ability to lead the world (nor any 
from you; an African American if you                governing experience) just to show
happen to be white; a woman if you happen           everybody I put my conscience and
to be male; a gay if you happen to be               beliefs above the common good of the
straight. A conservative if you happen to           nation.
be liberal.
                                                    And I detest dismissing the some 124
It's unsettling to realize how little you           candidates seeking the Presidency as
have in common with someone so right for            none of them being right for me. It's
the job.                                            like someone who can't find anything
                                                    to eat on the menu: this is it. Order                                                  
Our present U.S. Presidential race is               something now, or go to bed hungry.                
rapidly taking on the look of a Scooby              We arn't going to put the nation and
Doo movie. A nice, dimwitted fellow with            the world on hold for 10 years waiting
good intentions, happily enjoying his               for Jesse Ventura and George Prescott
life; then enters the exciting stranger,            Bush to run.
with unorthodox ways and speech; a                               
smoothie, a rich kid from out West. Who             They may run someday. I may vote for            
is he? What does he want? Can he be                 one of them someday. But today it's
trusted?                                            between Bush and Gore. We're not
                                                    expected to like them, or be excited,
In the movie, he would be a good guy                but to choose the best qualified to
afterall. He would save the day, but let            serve our nation. The Democratic National
the nice dimwitted guy take credit for it.          Committee and the Republican National
Then we would disappear just as strangely           Committee have decided their platforms
as he appeared. Life would go on as                 and chosen their front men, their poster
before, only everybody would be wiser and           boys...Bush and Gore. Certainly others
happier for the encounter.                          will be there to serve either of the
                                                    Administrations: Colin Powell, Ralph 
In realty, he's not going away if he can            Nader, John McCain, even Jesse Ventura.
help it. He is George W. Bush and he aims           But the race is between Bush and Gore.
to become President of America. Al Gore,
Jr., I fear, is the nice dimwitted lad who          I don't like how freely Bush executes
will be sadder, but alas, probably no wiser.        people on death row. Particularly as
                                                    he claims to be a Christian. I don't
I will probably vote for Bush. I don't care         trust him on respecting Roe v. Wade.
if he's articulate or detailed. I think he          But he didn't become Texas's only
can get the job done. Gore makes everything         three consecutive term governor by
too complicated.                                    screwing up and pissing people off.
                                                    And I can't for the life of me figure
The debates have been revealing and                 out what Al Gore, Jr. did as U.S. 
important. Presidents spend most of their           Senator or U.S. Vice President that
time debating. They debate Congress to              warrants his being President.
advance their agenda. They debate NATO to
advance U.S. interests. They debate the             When Bush offhandedly called Adam
United Nations Security Council to advance          Clymer a "major league asshole," I
democracy.                                          wondered what else Bush says behind
                                                    people's backs? What does he really
I don't think it would work for President           think of the NAACP? Conservative gays?
Gore to be rolling his eyes and shaking             Rednecks and their Confederate flag?
his head as Yasser Arafat tries to explain            
his peoples' position on peace in the               But maybe I'm just being an alarmist.
Middle East. I think Bush may be a "go along,       Maybe Bush has nothing against the
get along" kind of guy. That is what would          NAACP or gays or the Confederate flag.
work with Arafat.                                   Maybe Bush and Cheney are major league
                                                    assholes themselves. Maybe it takes one
I don't like Gore making up stories,                to know one. And maybe that's what we
and I don't like his insecurity. He might           really need to run this world. Just as
bomb Iran just because he wants to look             long as Bush and Cheney understand they
Presidential. Then he'd make up a story             are assholes working for all of us. 
about how he consulted with the Pentagon
and NATO and the U.N., because that sounds
good too. All politicians lie, but my Gawd!
Lying about your mother-in-law's prescription
bills?

I don't like the U.S. Department of Justice
under Clinton-Gore, from Waco to Microsoft to
Wen Ho Lee.

This isn't about ideas. Politicians seldom
can deliver on half of their promises. It's
about liking the candidate. It's very 
important for the leaders and peoples of
the world to like our President if anything
is to be done on a global scale. If we like
our President, chances our other nations will.

Both men are sons of famous politicians and           *****      ****     ****       *****   
like children of famous rock stars and movie
stars, they need to build on the family
dynasties while emerging as individuals. Hank
Williams, Jr. comes to mind. I don't think
Gore has gotten there yet. Neither has Bush,
but he's closer to it than Gore. I just don't
feel Gore really cares for politics; I think
Bush does.







Monday Editorial Special, September 25, 2000

OIL  UPDATE:  OIL  FOR  THE  
LAMPS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND  VOTERS
Don't you just hate people who bitch and moan about the
high cost of one thing or another when they could be profitting       
from it? When I first heard several months ago that OPEC would        
be working to raise the price of oil, and oil prices indeed began
moving upward, I didn't bitch about America's energy policy, or
those damn Arabs...Duh! I bought shares of oil company stocks!
It was a no-brainer. Many oil stocks were at their 52 week lows.

Now, I believe, it may be a good time to start selling oil stocks.
There may be a quarter or two left of rising oil company profits,
but President Clinton's decision to tap into the U.S. Strategic
Petroleum Reserve has already sent Saudi Light Oil prices below 
$30.00 a barrel. 
                                                                     From a capitalist point
President Clinton's move, apparently, took the oil industry by       of view; there's no need 
surprise. It was one of the few decisions he could make on his       for government to manage
own without consulting Congress. Many people are pissed about it.    the economy by controlling
Ha-Ha! Tough. Many analysts expect oil prices to drop further        interest rates and tax 
and faster in the coming weeks to around $25.00 - $27.00 a barrel.   laws when OPEC can do it 
$21.00 a barrel is considered ideal by economists, while $30.00      with production quotas. 
a barrel is preferred by most oil companies. $40.00 a barrel is      
considered too unstable by just about everybody as it often leads
to public protests and switches by factories and utilities to natural 
gas and by utilities to coal...not to mention renewed interest in
nuclear, geothermal, solar and ethynol.

There's much chatter about Clinton's decision to release this
oil. It is 30 million barrels to be released at the rate of 
1 million barrels a day. Critics say it's too little to do any 
real good, yet too much to be absorbed by the oil refineries. You 
can't have it both ways guys. Here's how I see it.

There's roughly about 42 gallons of oil per barrel of oil.
Therefore, 30 million barrels equals 1.26 billion gallons.
Supposedly, the U.S. consumes 20 million barrels of oil a day.
Thus, refineries are producing some 840 million gallons of fuel
a day. Adding an extra 42 million gallons a day won't overtax the
refineries. 

The oil is being targeted to the fuel oil consuming residents
of New England in anticipation of a cold winter. Let's say they
number some 10 million people. That equals 126 gallons of fuel
per customer...enough (I believe) to handle a week or two of
the dangerously super cold weather that usually hits around
January and February.

Who cares if there's a political ploy involved? What action 
by government doesn't? It has had a marvelous psychological 
effect on the markets, much like the Federal Reserve moving
interest rates by a quarter point. It's a shot across the bow
of OPEC and the economy as a whole. A wonderous thing to
behold for those of us intrigued by economics. 

From a capitalist point of view, new industries are 
supposed to replace old industries as the old industries
become too expensive and inefficient. Unfortunately, from
a practical standpoint, powerful capitalists are seldom that
enlightened and cannot always be trusted to fade gently away 
as their old industries are replaced by new industries. They
lobby and rally behind protectionism and loopholes to safe
guard their interests and to hell with efficiency. That's 
why we have governments; to steer industry in the right
direction. Sometimes this gets out of hand, like with Stalin
and Lenin. But our government does a pretty good job of it. 

This country imports some 55% - 60% of its oil. Even if we
began drilling on every acre of ground and sea bed we have,
we couldn't end our dependence on foreign oil. We need
alternatives to petroleum. We need oil companies to stop
lobbying against these alternatives. We need politicians not
to try and regulate them when they do come onboard.

The first of these 30 million barrels is being released
today (Septmember 25, 2000). And I already own stock in
FUELCELL (FCEL), an energy alternative company. Do you?
Why not?








Saturday Editorial Special, August 19, 2000

COSMIC  INVESTOR  LOOKS  AT  THE  
PRESIDENTIAL  CANDIDATES

With a U.S. Presidential election upon us and most major political
conventions at an end...Cosmic Investor feels its a matter of
public service to define the leading contenders for Office of the
President of the United States of America (sob, sob).


PAT  BUCHANAN:

Crazy old fart. Born in 1938. Married. Child-less.

Believes government's first and foremost goal is the
physical protection of the American people through
tighter borders. With more diseases entering the U.S.
via illegal immigrants, who can argue? Favors a return 
to Colonial American economics and policies...replacing 
taxes on the American people with tariffs on foreign
goods being sold in America, which led to The Great
Depression when it was tried in the 20th century. On 
isolationism, although caricaturized as a "hawk" who 
would bomb countries having disputes, his attitude is 
really, "Who cares? It's not our problem". Last time 
America had that attitude, our capitol was burned to 
the ground...it was the War of 1812.

Hmmm...Pat likes to be a jokester. Like just when we
think he hates minorities and women he chooses a
black woman to be his running mate! Ha-Ha, what a
card. His point is that, see, we don't really know the
real Buchanan. Okay; we don't know the real Buchanan.
But do we want a man as President we don't really know? 
I don't think so.

Probably would appoint Rodney King and Charles Manson
to the Department of Justice and Department of
Defense respectively, just to see the look on Congress'
face. Ha-ha, what a knee slapper that would be.

I liked Pat until he named a woman as his running mate.
Cheesh! I thought a woman's place is in the home. Barefoot 
and pregnant. 

At least we shouldn't have to worry about any sex
scandals between Pat and his V.P., Ezola Foster. She's 
African American. He's Irish American. Surely he still 
believes in separation of the races...right???


RALPH  NADER:

The original pencil-necked geek. Geesch...I thought the 
poor old bastard was dead. Guess that was Timothy Leary;
I often get the two confused.

Never married. Born 1934 (even older than Pat Buchanan!).
Believes America's problems are because too much wealth and 
power is concentrated in too few hands. Thinks some of that
power and wealth should be redistributed to...well, him!

Just what we need: fewer Bill Gates generating opportunities
but more money for bag ladies to buy steaks and hamburgers
to feed to stray dogs and cats. Now, that's a progressive
society.

Wants fast food workers to have unions with benefits. Wants
overseas workers of U.S. companies to have unions with benefits.
Thinks corporations can be forced to pay union wages and benefits.
They won't. They'll pass the costs on to customers. "Burger
and fries and a medium softdrink? That'll be $22.00 please."


GEORGE  W.  BUSH:

Red-neck dullard.  Born in 1948. Married. Two children.

Would restore "Reganomics;" tax cut incentives to create
more jobs (despite an all time high employment rate); more 
dismantling of the Federal bureacracy by privatizing social 
security (despite downside risks if the stock market collaspes). 
As a Republican governor, he's had great experience dealing 
with a mostly Democratic State Legislature; too bad he can't
deal with the Clinton Administration. While chastising Clinton 
for coasting on Reagan's coat-tails, George has been doing it 
all his adult life. May as well have somebody in the White 
House who's a professional at it.

Seems Bush believes we need to get America back to work; and
stand strong against the threat of global Communism; and give
Americans pride in their country again. Hey, it worked for 
Ronald Reagan. Bush probably also believes in building UFO 
landing pads.

His "inclusion" policy shows that regardless of race,
color, sexual preference or religion...there's shit-
heads everywhere.

After bitching about "character" in the Oval Office,
the need for a Commander in Chief to have actual military
experience, etc., Republicans thumbed their noses at John 
McCain and nominated a real "character," George W. Bush.

Don't know if the "W" stands for "Washington," or
"Wallace," but his campaign reminds me of some old
'70s rock band trying to do a reunion concert tour.

"And on drums...laying down the law; keeping us
all in line, is the one and only...General Colin 
Powell!

"On bass, we have an oldie but a goldie; with plenty 
of tricks still up his sleeve...Dick Cheney!

"And on lead guitar and vocals (sorry Ronald Reagan
couldn't make it, but we have the son of one of his
closet associates)...George W. Bush!"

It's like replacing John Lennon in a Beatles reunion
tour with his son, Julian. Or having a Jimi Hendrix
reunion tour, without Jimi Hendrix. But with a big 
fan of Hendrix. 

Yeah, that'll work.


AL  GORE,  JR.

Born in 1948...with a silver spoon up his ass. Married. 
Four children (guess he truly practices keeping women 
at home, barefoot and pregnant).

He'll keep abortion safe and legal, if anybody still
cares. He'll get really angry over hate crimes. He'll 
wave his finger and admonish anyone who flies the
Confederate flag or doesn't like gays in the Boy Scouts. 
Will tilt at other windmills...like fighting global warming 
and will work to impose restrictive U.S. rules and 
regulations on the rest of the world. He's Mr. Political
Correctness himself.

Know why Al Gore is so stiff? He's totally focused on
keeping his act together. One chink in his armor and we
would see him for what he is...Jethro Bodine of The
Beverly Hillbillies, or Gomer Pyle. Complete with
buck teeth, cow-lick, high-water trousers and clod hopper
shoes.

"Golly gee...I'm so thrilled to be runnin' for President
and everything! You all vote for me, okay? And we'll have a
big party when I get to the White House."

That's my boy.


Well...there you have the leading candidates for the
highest office in earth's history. And remember, if
you don't vote, somebody else will. And if nobody votes...
ahhh...Congress gets to name the winner. 

What a great country.









Saturday Editorial Special, July 22, 2000

GORE,  BUSH  PICK  RUNNING  MATES

Hello...another Cosmic Investor exculsive scoop: the Republican 
and Democratic Vice Presidential running mate choices.

Tennessee is the home of Al Gore, Jr., and it's no surprize that
Al is picking "Buddy," President Bill Clinton's dog, to be his
running mate. "He's the only one in the Clinton administration
untouched by scandal," Al confided to my sources. "And he's the
only one with even less personality than me," he added (he also
supposed muttered, "I've been cleaning up his crap all this time 
and it's pay-back time!").

But what about the "cat lovers" special interest groups? 

"They're just a bunch of gays and little old ladies living off
social security. Al's got them in his pocket already; besides he
doesn't need the pussy jokes that would inevitably result from 
choosing a cat."

But really, what's the deal with a dog for VP? 

"It's simple," my source said, "whenever Congress tries to
subpoena important files...Al can safely hide behind the trusted
phrase: my dog ate them!"

Perhaps it's the Texas heat, but George W. Bush has been slipping hints
about his ultimate choice for running mate: Cindy Crawford (he swears he
was asked his choice of playmate). Faced with reality, he has decided to 
run with a sure fire Republican favorite...his father.

George W. tipped his hand when he supposedly said, "Nobody will know my
choice except my wife and my father and the candidate which are the one
and the same." I think he had been drinking at the time.

ABC Television is already rumored to be interested in a series: "My Father
the VP". Sort of a West Wing Lite.

Like Al's choice, George W. hopes to pass off any Presidential errors on
his father. "That crazy old man did it again! I keep telling him, I'm the 
President, I'll decide whether to grant asylum to Castro."

How reliable are my sources? Not much. In fact I have a strange feeling that
Al Gore, Jr. is going to chose George W. Bush to be his running mate, while
George W. Bush is going to chose Al Gore, Jr. to be his running mate. Hey...
the voters get just what they deserve.




Monday Editorial Special, July 03, 2000

THINGS  I  LEARNED   FROM  "THE  PERFECT  STORM"


What with the Wall Street July 4th Holiday and all, I decided to watch a
movie. I chose "The Perfect Storm", since it had lots of water and I
thought that would make me feel less hot in this summer weather. In addition 
to feeling cooler, I reconsidered maybe becoming a vegetarian and learned a 
whole lot more about the high seas.


 1:  A storm at sea is of crisis proportions only if it affects,
      (a) U.S. commercial interests;
      (b) rich white folks in a yacht;
      (c) overly heroic military types.

 2:  Never ship out to sea with a captain wearing a John Deere baseball cap.
     (John Deere is a fine maker of farming equipment, not deep sea fishing 
     equipment).

 3:  Never ship out to sea with a crew whose chief mechanic is nicknamed "Bugsy,"
     stick with "Scotty" or "Sparks."

 4:  Question a captain's decision to get halfway through a hurricane then decide
     to turn around and go back the other way because he thinks it's safer.

 5:  To assure maximum crew disunity, go out of your way to enlist a crew member
     who has had ribald sex with another crew member's ex-wife.

 6:  When preparing to charge through a rough sea be sure to drop the anchor so it
     can swing madly about the boat.

 7:  Make sure the captain used to play a doctor on a hit television series...comes
     in handy for first aid emergencies.

 8:  Whenever possible, leave the helm in the hands of an unseasoned youngster.

 9:  Never, never, wear any life jackets.

10:  And always, always, make sure your entire crew gets sloppy-faced-dead-ass
     drunk the night before shipping out to sea.




Monday Editorial Special, May 29, 2000




POWERLESS  IN  NASHVILLE;  
SHAKESPEARE  AND  WALL  STREET

The Trade Wind Gulf Stream blows in from New Orleans,
funneled and channeled along the Mississippi Valley,
growing stronger, hitting the Jet Stream vacuum over
Tennessee like the collision of universes. Tornado
Alley.

Poor Memphis, Tennessee never could make a go of it,
floods and fires and earthquakes and disease; but
Nashville futher North missed the brunt of nature's
whirlwind romance with oblivion until recent years.

God's punishment on us for catapulting Al Gore, Jr. to 
the national spotlight? Or a comeuptance for the ungodly 
sin of mixing pop and rock with traditional country? I
hear ye, St. Alan Jackson. I repent!

Wind storms and floods encircled my little alcove that
Wednesday night, much like Custer's Last Stand, but no 
direct hits, until a lightening bolt blew a local transformer. 
Winter and summer storms have often left entire Nashville 
neighborhoods for days without power, but never my neighborhood 
until that Wednesday night, actually Thursday morning, at 2:00 a.m.

Not too cold, but dark and pounding rain...ah, like any man
my thoughts turned to sex with the hot lady next door who was
prancing about in her nightie at 2:00 in the morning. Obviously
a sign from God. But alas, she was only concerned about her
flooded basement and freezer full of food.

The old time cellar under my place likewise had around four feet
of water. The driveway looked like the Amazon River. Only no fish.

So much for taking cover in a basement. Right before the power
failed I had been watching the Weather Lady on channel 2. The
billion dollar weather computer on channel 5 had blown a fuse
during the lightening storm and was being rebooted. Channel 4
simply turned broadcasting over to some official weather
transmitter. Boring. So I was watching the Weather Lady on 
channel 2.

The time the big tornado hit downtown Nashville the Weather Lady
had started wimpering. "It's headed right towards the building
where my mother works!" She exclaimed and excused herself, sobbing.
Wimp. I don't care about your mother. What'a'bout me????

Well, the Weather Lady held up okay this night. It was midnight and
mama wasn't in any danger. Weather Lady was the one who urged us
to crawl into our flooded basements. Or into a closet. I could just
see the neighborhood's openly gay couple going for that. All those
years of soul searching and agony to come out of the closet, only
to be told to go back into a closet. I imagined Richard Simmons
standing on the street, hands on hips, declaring, "When I came out
of the closet I swore never to go back." And the police, "Please
sir. There's been a tornado spotted in your area. Go back into
your closet. And put some clothes on for Gawd's sake!"

Weather Lady also kept telling us to stay away from outside doors
and windows. "There's nothing to see," she said. "It's too dark
and rainy." Then she mentioned how she had looked out the door at
the television studio and sure enough it was too dark and rainy.
Ohh. Weather Lady can look out her door at the storm, but I'm not
allowed to. Huh! I defiantly opened my front door, but it was too dark
and rainy to see anything. Except for my sexy neighbor in her white
nightie.

"Are the lights out at your place too?" she asked.

"No," I felt like saying. "I'm a thousand miles away in London,
England. No storm here. You're viewing me, you see, from a space
warp. Best come over here where it's safe while the space warp is
still open. Cherrio."

But, no, I merely confirmed the obvious. The lights were out at my 
place and the entire street. That's when she told me about her freezer
and flooded basement. Didn't seem like the right time to ask her over 
for sex so I decided to check on my own refridgerator. Six frozen fish 
sticks, some stale crackers and two bottles of beer. Damn! The power 
better come on soon. I hate soggy fish sticks and warm beer. Maybe I was
in London, England afterall.


Of course, none of my batteries were up to par. But the flashlight
worked. I discovered the best way to light up a room with a flashlight
is to stand it on end high up on a bookshelf or refridgerator top, like
a lamp on a nightstand with the light aimed at the ceiling instead of
glaring at you in your eyes. Survival tip. 

But the Y2K crowd was better prepared and I heard the steady grrrr of
gasoline fired generators here and there. Guarded no doubt by shotguns
and wild dogs.

Funny, how I assumed nothing else worked just because there was no electricity.
Can't run water, because the faucet uses electricity. Can't go jogging, that
uses electricity. Can't drive my car. Can't brush my teeth. Can't change my
underwear. Can't go to bed and sleep. 

Slowly it dawned on me that I had water and could tend to basic needs. I also
wrongly assumed that unimportant things that use electricity still worked
as if only the important things stop working when the electric goes out. Couldn't
read. May as well watch television. Oops. Well, the computer doesn't work, but 
I can still check my email. Damn! Hmmm. Wonder if the light in my refridgerator
still works? Nope. 

The rain stopped and I wandered around comparing notes with other neighbors.
You got any lights? 

Strange how downright shabby a city looks without electricity. Like an old
floozy without her makeup. And how majestic the stars look, up above it
all, seemingly eternal, not ever to be dimmed by anything short of total
armageddon.

By morning, the sexy lady next door, still in her nightie, informed me most 
of the city had electricity and that there were only about ten houses in our 
neighborhood without power. Most of the surrounding neighborhood was back to
normal. We were the "have-nots." The tainted. Kids pointing at us and singing, 
"They don't have no power! They don't have no power! They're poor and dumb white
trash!" My lust for the woman next door had wrought this curse upon us. But not 
a bad trade off, actually. 

I thought of Leslie, the maintenance man for this house I partly rent. Strong,
even handed and no nonsense Southern black man. "Oh yeah," I thought he might
remark. "Us black people been without power for centuries. How you like it,
whitie? How you like being the one without any power now?" But Leslie just
couldn't get enough of those gasoline powered generators. "I gotta buy me one
on those! Sure 'nuff. Those things come in handy." We agreed that if there had
been any local politician on my street we would have had electricity restored
by now. Under the house was a mess, Leslie reported, but nothing could be
done until we had power...err...electricity again.

Of all the men the lady next door has had affairs with...why couldn't she
be sleeping with the guy in charge of Nashville's electric utility? Bitch!
It would be three days before we finally got electricity. But bless the repair
crew...this was over the Memorial Day Weekend; overtime; cancelled vacations;
no beer; no barbeque; no Indy 500.

But for now the rain had stopped and the sun was shining and I got to doing 
some paper work with pen and paper. I like keeping accounts the old fashioned
way and use computer accounting just as a double check.

I got to thinking how virtually all the important works of the English
language were written by daylight and candelight and how our writing has
suffered the more easily it is to write. Seems any idiot with a word
processor program can write some kind of crap and get it online. But to
write on parchment with a quill pen...that was real work and it separated
pretenders from those with true talent. 

Same thing applies to today's Wall Street. Any idiot with an online
brokerage account can trade stock and they do. In the "old" days, people
thought twice about the work involved in sorting through stocks by hand,
gathering information by mail, crunching numbers by rote. Their portfolios
weren't just set on automatic pilot but on understanding companies,
management, industries and economics, and most importantly took into 
account forces beyond our control. That's one thing today's noveau trader
may not fully appreciate: FBOC. Shakespeare and Warren Buffett may yet 
have the last laugh.

 

Friday Editorial Special, April 14, 2000



WALL  STREET  FREEZE-OUT

Today's markets fell with the doomsday finality and crushing imprint of some
prehistory asteriod wiping out the dinosaurs; only this one wiped out
easy-come-easy-go, crass, tasteless yuppies and their visions of early,
wealthy retirement.

The Computer Age is dead. 

Outside my window, I see neighbors tearing computer chips out of their cars,
fed up with anything resembling "high-tech." The French are now using this 
term, "high-tech," in place of the word, bourgeois. "Down with
la high-tech!" they are screaming in the streets of Paris.

It is evening and I see no electric lights in any of my neighbors windows...
only candles and kerosene lamps. The people are revolting against anything
electronic in nature! General Electric's stock is down and it won't be 
rising back up. To hell with light bulbs and the generating stations that
power them!

Scott McNealy, chairman and founder of Sun Microsystems, has resigned. He is
taking what cash he has and investing in a fast-food franchise. With luck, he 
hopes to expand to maybe a dozen sites in the Silicon Valley area. 

"Nothing global or even national," he says. "Just something simple and local."

And what about Java and Sun Microsystems?

"Crap. All crap. The people never wanted servers and routers, the Internet and 
Java. We crammed it down their throats. Forced high-tech on them and they
rebelled. They voted with their pocket-books and dumped our stock and our
competitors' stocks too."

Yes. The directors of Microsoft all resigned. Many joined monastaries, confessing
that their obsession with software had led them and their customers away from God. 
Bill Gates admitted to being insane. He agreed to have his money confiscated by 
the U.S. government as ill-gotten gains and is now doing 35 years community service 
work teaching math in inner city schools. He was going to supply names and addresses 
of Microsoft's shareholders to the Department of Justice as well, but there were no 
more shareholders left.

What about DOS and Visual Basic?

"Computer languages are today's "dead" languages," explained Gates. "They were
born as dead languages. Gobbly-gook. Utter nonsense.

"These kids were being led down a rosy path; learn computers! Yeah. Right. It's
a dead end. I'm amazed Microsoft got away with as much as it did for as long 
as it did. But I was a mad man; I had convinced people computers were the future.

"Face it. The crappy things never worked. Never could work. I can't make them work! 
Look around you. Everywhere people are tossing their computers into the trash. When
was the last time you used yours? It was just a fad...like the hula-hoop. And
so many people lost so much money over it. I'm ashamed of myself."

He's right. I read earlier accounts of how the Internet would be generating
billions of dollars by the year 2000 and I laugh. We are returning to a simpler 
lifestyle. Back to the days of horse drawn wagons and kerosene lamps. No more 
high-tech. Cisco Systems; Sun Microsystems; Lucent Technologies; Advanced 
Micro Devices; Microsoft....just silly names from a silly era. Gone. Forever. 
And not a day too soon.


Ahhhh....but what's that I hear? A voice murmurring. It says, I have some
money to invest. I think the market is over-sold. I think there are some
bargains to be had. I think I will succeed where others have failed.

Ha-ha-ha! Hope springs eternal. A sucker is born every minute. A fool and
his money are soon parted, especially when the fools have more money than
brains.

So, step right up. Have I got a stock for you! 









Saturday Editorial Special, April 08, 2000

             DON'T CRY FOR ME....HAVANNNNNA: 
                               THE ELIAN GONZALEZ MUSICAL


I know it's not very patriotic but let's face it: American leaders have sucked
at statesmanship throughout our nation's history. 

Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin really wowed us with their "solution"
to slavery in the land of the free. "Uhhh...okay; you have slaves but they can
only count as 2/3 of a person." Wow! Imagine what that census was like. When
staticians speak of a family having 1.3 children...yup, good ol' T. J. and
Benji.

James Madison was in Europe wringing his hands, trying to get everybody to 
respect America's neutrality in some war and while he was there, British 
troops marched into an unguarded Washington, D.C. and burned it to the ground. 
It was called The War of 1812....because it lasted about 18 minutes and 12 
seconds. See, Americans were too damn cheap to support a standing Army back 
then; they thought U.S. soldiers should pay for their own damn guns and ammo.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, at the infamous Treaty of Yalta, practically
gave China to Russia in hopes Russia would send ground troops to fight
the Japanese. Ol' Roosevelt wasn't sure about something called the Atom
Bomb that might take care of that problem. You know. One bomb. What the
hell can one bomb do????

Well, now here's this Cuban youngster. Conservatives would like to 
establish business relations with Cuba. Liberals would like to establish
cultural ties. Farmers want to sell grain there. Jocks want to play
baseball there. I'd like to take Spring Break there. Fidel Castro would
love the favorable internationale image (and U.S. dollars) but U.S.
Cuban-American refugees don't want the U.S. to normalize relations with
Cuba. So we don't.

But wouldn't it be wonderful if Bill Clinton made some "concessions" to
Fidel in exchange for letting Elian stay here? It's a golden opportunity.
Elian stays here. Cuba gets trade with the U.S. Everybody gets a little
something. Elian's natural father, Juan Miguel, could play the stoic,
suffering Communist hero who sacrificed his only begotten son for the
glory of Cuba.

Maybe he could stay here and marry Janet Reno and they could star in a sit-com. 

Something along the lines of "I Love Lucy." 

    "Oh...Juan! Whaaahhh!!! I did something terrible!"

    "What happened, Janet? It can't be as bad as that time you burned
    my in-laws' house down in Florida for refusing to hand Elian over to me."

    "Whaaah! It's worse! I've lost little Elian!"

    "Not again!"

    "And he's got your hand-gun."

    "The illegal one? The one I keep loaded? With no child-safety locks????"

    "Yes!"

    "Ohhh, Janet! You're so screwy!"


    "Say you guyz!"


    "Look, Janet. It's our fat, bald headed upstairs neighbor....Bill Clinton."


    "Whaaaah! I've lost little Elian."


    "Ah know. He's on television. I come down here to tell you'all as 
    soon as I seen him."


    "Juan! Look! It's our little Elian on TV."


    "What's he doing?"


    "O-My-God! He's highjacking a plane back to Cuba!"


    Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha!














EMAILINGS OF AL GORE, JR. AND GEORGE W. BUSH


Note: The following is believed to be accurate, but who knows??? It may all be  
lies, lies, lies.


Hackers have briefed me on what they claim are actual email messages between U.S.
Presidential contenders, Al Gore Jr. and George W. Bush. I've wasted no time on
checking for authencity in my rush to post this critical information for voters.
We're all big boys and girls here, right?


BUSH: These fishnet stockings you sent me are great....err: I mean, this Internet 
      you invented is great! LOL!


GORE: Thankx. But let's get serious. Where do you stand on gays in the military?


BUSH: I support queers in the military. I think every lonely GI away from home can
      appreciate a good blowjob in the shower. I think every barracks should have its 
      own offical blowjob artist. We could design them a special insignia...a patch of
      blue cloth with a semen stain on it. LOL!


GORE: You disgust me! You obviously have no respect for gays and lesibians. And if you
      use "LOL" one more time I'm gonna scream!


BUSH: Of course I support gays and lesbians. I'm married to a lesibian. But if you're
      such a big gay rights advocate then I challenge you to suck my cock in public.


GORE: I'll suck yours, if you suck mine.


BUSH: Okay. But you suck mine first.


GORE: No. You suck mine first.


BUSH: It was my idea. You suck mine first.


GORE: It was your idea for me to suck you off in public; but it was my idea for you to
      suck me off first.


BUSH: Fuck you.


GORE: Betcha you'd like to. LOL!


BUSH: I wouldn't mind butt f**king you, if your ass wasn't so damn tight! Ha-Ha-Ha!


GORE: You can butt fuck Tipper; she's got a great ass for fucking.


BUSH: I'd like to watch her and my wife eat each other's pussies.


GORE: Me too!


BUSH: Did Tipper and Hillary ever get it on?


GORE: Oh yeah! A couple of real sluts.


BUSH: Damn! I'm getting a hard-on!


GORE: I'm masturbating myself just thinking about it!


BUSH: Are you cut or uncut?


GORE: Cut!


BUSH: I like a cut man.


GORE: Whew! I got cum all over me!


BUSH: Ha-Ha-Ha! Wish I was there to lick it up!


GORE: Who would you rather suck off? Fidel Castro or Saddam Hussien?


BUSH: Castro! He's my man!


GORE: I thought so. I'm a Saddam kinda guy myself. I guess that's where we are
      different.


BUSH: Yup.


GORE: Well, gotta go! Don't forget to delete these messages! BTW, glad you liked the
      stockings.








     Friday Editorial Special, January 28, 2000

             Flags, Fags and Football




     It has been quite a time for Tennessee and the South in general lately.

     Our Tennessee Titans are in the Super Bowl and I think they will win. 
     Great defense. Strong running backs. Smart coaching. Though representing 
     the entire state, they are based in Nashville. Support seems sporadic, 
     as Memphis had hoped to land the team in their city and even many folks 
     in Nashville turn their noses up at sports, bitching about what all that
     money could do for public schools: to which I say, if the public schools 
     could accomplish in a couple of school seasons what Titans coach Jeff 
     Fisher has accomplished in a couple of football seasons I might be just 
     as excited about public education. Jeeesch...12 years of schooling just 
     to learn to say, "would you like fries with that?"


     Just outside Nashville is Clarksville and Fort Campbell. The most "famous" 
     guy ever stationed there (in my book) was Jimi Hendrix who used to play 
     guitar on weekends in Nashville. There have been more than enough murders 
     there on post; sometimes involving a black soldier and a white soldier; 
     sometimes involving a woman; sometimes money and/or drugs. This time it 
     involved a gay soldier and a straight soldier and made "60 Minutes." Now 
     we know what we have to do to get on TV.

     
     As an old military man myself, I learned long ago "Mine is not to reason 
     why; mine is but to do or die." Yet some of my fondest memories are of us 
     guys lounging around the barracks in our underwear farting and belching. 
     I don't know if that entices gays or repluses them. Still, I like knowing 
     the guy watching my ass is watching my ass, not watching my ass. 
     Conservatives are using this episode to discredit Clinton's "don't ask don't 
     tell" policy but basically the hearsay says the gay killed was a gung-ho 
     snot nose out to show "straights" how to be a real man. Being a gung-ho
     snot nose has never gone over well in the military, which is why it's a 
     court martial offense to kill second lieutenants.


     In South Carolina (the first state to secede from the Union) there is flap 
     over the Confederate flag. Never mind that the state flag of Texas is also 
     a "Confederate" flag or that the one flying over South Carolina's capitol 
     is really a Confederate Navy jack, the traveling civil rights road show 
     apparently felt winter in New York City was too cold to be protesting racist 
     killer cops so it moved to sunny South Carolina to protest racist killer 
     flags. I suppose when it gets too humid and hot down south they'll go back 
     to protesting in New York City. They've done such a fine job of protecting 
     civil rights in California there's not many places left to go.


     I like the flag's design and consider it a part of real Americana right up 
     there with the 1957 Chevy. It is the No. 1 selling souvenir in the South.
     To me, it means standing up to centralist government. I think it's heavy-
     handed to compare it to the Nazi swastika. The South never cared to take 
     over the world and send millions of undesirables into gas ovens. The South 
     just wanted, among other things, to protect Americans' basic right to enslave 
     people.


     The problem is that too many racist groups have expropriated the "Stars and 
     Bars" for their own use, to create an illusion of support greater than they 
     actually have. It doesn't help that many southern states suddenly got civic 
     minded about displaying the flag during the 1960s as a show of opposition to 
     Federally mandated desegregation and while many conservatives want to protect 
     the U.S. flag from being burned or desecrated they are suspiciously silent 
     about standing up to racist groups and outlawing any inappropiate use they 
     may make of the Confederate flag. I guess a burning cross in a beaker of 
     human urine would be going too far.


     A lot of people consider it disgusting, immoral and a throwback to some 
     remote period in history best left forgotten. It should be banned outright 
     so decent people can get on with their lives. Now, let me see...was I 
     referring to the Confederate flag or homosexuality??? Maybe it was football. 
     Never mind.


    Putting this all together...it's clear the problem in South Carolina is
    that they don't have a football team, or much sports in general, to create
    intrastate rivalry so everybody is rallying around the flag. If only some
    historian could find that a strong, courageous regiment of gay, Confederate
    soldiers fought a decisive battle in The War between the States it could be
    renacted every year and people could cheer and argue the finer points just 
    like they do with football.


    Yeah. If that "Southern Cross" flag represented gay Confederate soldiers it 
    would be as sacred as O. J. Simpson's presumption of innocence.








         Friday Editorial Special, December 10, 1999


           Send Hillary to Mars!





	Shortly after losing its Mars Climate Orbiter, NASA apparently has lost
	its Mars Polar Lander. I'm told it's no big deal: the missions only cost 
	the taxpayers a few hundred million dollars. Still, NASA's prestiage and 
	America's role in space are being tarnished.

	What is needed is a manned trip to Mars to kick the tires around and see
	firsthand if there is/was/could someday be life up there. And who better
	qualified than the First Lady...Hillary Rodham Clinton? I mean, this 
	would be the fact finding mission to end all fact finding missions.

	Having lived in Illinois/Arkansas/Washington D.C. and now New York City, 
	she certainly has proven able to adapt to the harshest and most hostile 
	of environments. She has weathered Gennifer Flowers/Paula Jones/Monica 
	Lewinsky and Ken Starr! A few six-foot Martian cockroaches shouldn't 
	faze her at all. She's been married to one for years.

	Being the first known "earthnik" on Mars would be worth a billion dollars 
	in publicity for her U.S. Senate race and also finally allow her to live 
	up to her namesake, adventurer Sir Edmund Hillary. "I came. I saw. I 
	exploited it."

	I'm sure her husband Bill could persuade her to do it. "No, no, no! I'm 
	not trying to get rid of you sugarpie! This will make our marriage stronger. 
	Think of the service it will be to humanity (and the chicks I'll get as a 
	grieving widower if you die up there) errr...I mean, you look so damn sexy 
	in that EVA suit! Hot damn! I love the thought of you all naked inside there!" 
	Oh, yeah...he'd persuade her alright and send James Carville along to keep 
	an eye on her. No wussing out because of some damn breast tumor like that 
	dilettante in Antartica. Jimmy-Bob would whip out his trusty Buck knife 
	and cut that sucker out right now. 

	At least that's what the official coroner's report would say happened. "Wile,
	it looked like'a tumor to me," Carville would drawl, "awl small, 'n hard,
	'n ugly. You say it wuz her heart I cut out? Imagine dat!"
	

	I'm sure the Democrats in Congress would bankroll a Hillary mission to 
	Mars; visions of JFK and the moon landing and such. And I'm sure the 
	Republicans would go along, provided of course their lap dog, Rush 
	Limbaugh, could serve as the voice of mission control. He'd be good 
	at it too: "Hello Hillary...Earth to Hillary! Space Cadet Hillary! 
	Exactly what color is the sky on your planet????"

	Besides, I heard somewhere..."Mars Needs Women!"

	Indeed.

	






	
        Sunday Editorial Special, November 14, 1999

           Of  Monopolies  and  Property  Rights



        

        I am a Microsoft shareholder. I am proud of the company and its people.
        I think Bill Gates is among the hardest working, brightest minds and 
        captains of industry of this or any other century.

        However, as an investor in general I have learned long ago never to 
        become emotionally involved in a company. I am holding my MSFT shares, 
        but I am not yet adding to them.

        There are, I estimate, some 4,500 - 5,000 stocks with marketable merit 
	traded in this country. I could just shrug my shoulders at Microsoft's 
	problems and take my money elsewhere. I don't see Microsoft prevailing 
	much in its fight against City Hall. But there is a priniciple at issue 
	here. I'm not likely to become a rich monopolist anytime soon. But many 
	of the companies I invest in could! If one wants to shake up the 
	confidence of the economy and of saving and investing...this is one 
	sure-fire way to do it: declare the company a monopoly for having too 
	much market share; for making too damn much money and for having 
	a Shylock for a CEO. And who shall decide this? Our government, of 
	course. Fortunately, (sadly, actually) few companies in this country 
	ever measure up to such criteria but as I said; it's the principle at 
	issue here.

	I do not believe Microsoft is a monopoly but I believe monopolies
	should exist. In his findings of fact, Judge Thomas P. Jackson has 
	established for all intent and purposes that a monopoly exists in his
	mind whenever (1) a company has 70% or more market share in its industry 
	(2) is more profitable than any other company in that industry and (3) 
	has earned the scorn of the peers in that industry as a hardball playing 
	smart son-of-a-bitch.
      
        I don't believe Microsoft has a monopoly. If a football team wins just 
	70% of its games it's not likely to be in the Rose Bowl. Imagine a team 
	that hustles and scrambles to beat an opponent 180 to 0 and then a judge 
	decides that's too much and lowers the score to 30 to 0. Microsoft hustled 
	to avoid losing market share and is now being penalized for being too 
	successful.

	I don't see any "predatory" pricing. I do see Microsoft's operating 
	costs rising almost 40% between 1997 and 1999, most of that for 
	advertising and hiring top programmers. If they had a monopoly they 
	would be the only place in town for software programmers to work and 
	they sure as hell wouldn't need to advertise. Any increase in product 
	pricing simply reflects that 40% rise in costs.
	
	Ironically, when many companies that our government once tore asunder 
	for being monopolies later flounder and need to merge government
	often sets aside the antitrust laws! Thus is the case with Exxon, 
	and probably AT&T in years to come. Clearly by imposing and receding 
	the antitrust laws at will, our government tries to balance industry 
	and competition but we do not need government making these decisions. 
	Let the marketplace decide!

	Mark Chapman reportedly shot John Lennon because he didn't like 
	Lennon's "snotty" attitude when he approached him for an autograph. 
	Yes. I'm sure Lennon was a snot. Most rock stars are. But we 
	don't shoot people in this country for being snots! At least 
	we're not supposed to.

	It's my reading, my reading, that the antitrust laws were instigated 
	by a Senator Sherman who upon retiring entered business but found he 
	couldn't compete against the big guys. So he went back into public 
	service and hammered out the antitrust laws being used against 
	Microsoft today.

	At the grassroots level, small business has always complained about 
	Big Business. A mom-and-pop hardware store is always trying to keep 
	the big Wal-Mart discount store out of its territory. 

	So why haven't the politicians censured Wal-Mart? Because too many 
	voters like Wal-Mart. Politicians will not find a famous football 
	star guilty of murder if the surrounding community takes to rioting 
	in protest; nor sentence an au pair to prison for an infant's 
	shaking death; nor arrest a U.S. Senator for the accidental drowning 
	death of a woman, even where alcohol was undoubtedly a factor, if 
	that Senator is much beloved by constituents; if that au pair strikes 
	a responsive chord. If enough Microsoft shareholders (and others) 
	take to the streets in protest, the government will change its 
	attitude about monopolies. This is not a call to arms...it is just 
	simple truth. The people do rule in this country, but in lieu of 
	actual mass mandates, the government acts in its own best interest'
	...business as usual.

	I don't believe Microsoft is a monopoly but it would be fine with me 
	if it	were. It is said that monopolies stifle competition, yet it 
	is the nature of competition to eliminate competition! Furthermore, 
	it is the nature of monopolies to gobble up their competition...not 
	stifle it. A proper monopolist of vision and insight in Bill Gates' 
	position would have bought up Apple Computer and Sun Micrsosystems, 
	adding the likes of Scott McNealy and Steve Job to the Microsoft 
	board.

	It is said that monopolies can drive up prices. This can be 
	remedied by opening up our borders to foreign competition. It 
	wasn't the Trusts and Monopolies of yesteryear that caused The 
	Great Depression of the 1930s; it was American protectionism that 
	kept cheaper overseas goods out and led to a backlash against American 
	goods in those countries whose goods we were denying at home. And 
	it is only commonsense that businesses in competitiion for the same 
	resources actually do drive up prices for those resources by out-
	bidding one another. This is what is happening right now with the 
	cost of labor.

	Mr. Bill Gates...I simply want the right to "delete" that damnable 
	MSN icon from my desktop (and whatever else I don't want there) 
	without fucking up my entire operating system. Simple. A marketing 
	glitch. Fix it in the next version of Windows and offer free 
	upgrades to those with the old version. Nothing worth going to 
	court over, is there?



	










Bill  Gates,  the  Elvis  Presley  of  Free  Enterprise




***********************************************************************************************
*                                                                                             *      
*  Sunday Editorial Special, November 07, 1999:                                               *      
*                                                                                             *      
*  MSFT down 4 to 5 points in after-hours trading while Sun Microsystems has been             *      
*  climbing recently. I'm not selling my Microsoft shares unless Microsoft is totally         *      
*  going out of business, which is nonsense. Microsoft may simply become the Philip           *      
*  Morris of tech stocks (it's already part of the staid Dow Jones Industrial                 *      
*  Average!). Well regarded. Still solid. But one lawsuit after another. I may                *       
*  add to my position if it drops in a big way. I'm sure investors will benefit from          *      
*  a breakup of Microsoft, much as investors did from the breakup of AT&T. I'm sure           *      
*  Bill will do whatever is in the shareholders' best interests and I'm sure that             *       
*  will mean to settle.                                                                       *      
*                                                                                             *      
*  Time was an investment in Microsoft was money in the bank. Now it may be like any          *      
*  other stock: up and down on speculation, rumor, fear and hope. Small "Microsoftie"         *      
*  investors may remain loyal but arn't enough to keep the stock doubling every three         *      
*  years, unless there is simply some incredibly new exciting Microsoft product that          *      
*  launches its career all over again (like when The Beatles went from pop to psychedelic).   *      
*  For long term, invest and forget about it, I'll probably choose Intel (not withstanding    *        
*  INTC's own antitrust goblins!).                                                            *          
*                                                                                             *      
*  Long term, there will be endless debate on whether or not Bill Gates is smart              *      
*  enough to come up with such a product (probably not; his people are good but not           *        
*  that good). Or whether or not he was treated fairly (he was treated unfairly; it           *          
*  was his money that attracted all this attention not "the consumer's interest;" the         *      
*  government feared him and would have stopped him at any cost). Whether or not the          *         
*  antitrust laws need to be repealed (yes! they are the "Jim Crow" laws of capitalism,       *        
*  government "fears" its capitalists as racists fear other races). Free enterprise           *          
*  (buyer beware) versus Federal regulation (busy bodies and know-nothings). Was              *                    
*  Microsoft an innovator or a thief and a bully (probably all of the above). Could           *             
*  Bill Gates have prevented all this by spinning off his office software/operating           *      
*  systems/browser departments (makes sense legally, but it's more cost efficient to          *         
*  keep everything under one roof). But short term, most small investors will just lose       *
*  interest and start trading in Yahoo.                                                       *
*                                                                                             *
*  I don't see anyone coming to Microsoft's rescue in a big way. Protests? Sit-ins? Not       *
*  very likely. And it would take a massive public outcry, vis-a-vis civil rights             *
*  to change the Department of Justice's thinking. That won't happen unless the U.S.          *
*  population suddenly sprouts 100 million multibillionaires, each with their own private     *
*  monopoly/trust demanding better treatment; and that won't happen as long as the DOJ        *
*  keeps breaking up trusts. Why should the little guy fight the big guys' fight? There       *
*  are too many other equity fish in the sea for investors to chase without these             *
*  headaches. And all because PC users wanted to delete the Microsoft Explorer shortcut       *
*  icon from their desktops replacing it with the browser icon of their choice.               *                                                                  
*                                                                                             *   
*  It would be nice to see Microsoft pull a "Beatles" trick out of the hat but I fear         *
*  Bill Gates will be like most child stars, peaking early. Losing his genius and vision      *
*  in later years. The Orsen Welles of commerce. Microsoft always seemed to be playing        *
*  "catch-up" rather than innovating. But they played catch-up superbly; making               *
*  computers accessible to middle Ameica while Steve Jobs wandered off to play rock           *
*  promoter. So I'm holding onto my MSFT stock. I'm sure it won't be any worse than           *
*  General Motors stock. So God bless America. God bless Orsen Welles. And God bless          *
*  Mr. William H. Gates III. It was one hell of a party while it lasted.                      *
*                                                                                             *
***********************************************************************************************

Post Script,

When Elvis Presley died, Rolling Stone Magazine dedicated an entire issue to him, 
citing: "He was, afterall, rock-n-roll's first king." To many others, Bill Gates was their 
first "world's richest man." The first real tycoon of high tech who didn't fizzle out from 
drugs or ennui after making his first million, or his first billion. Like Elvis, Bill Gates
has inspired love, hate, fear, envy and reduced many rivals to gnashing their teeth in the
cold and wet. But he has yet to be equaled.

"If I do not weep for this man," Confucius said at a friend's funeral, "then for
whom shall I weep?"









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