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Boy, if I wouldn't have been for Bank of America and GE, May would have really been a bang-up month.
I gave some more thought on commodities and decided to take a position in oil, SU and PGH in particular.
My reasoning for these to is that they are on the North
American continent and not as easily subject to nationalization, like
that of the type practiced by one of our community organizer's new
found best friends - Hugo Chavez.
I added a bit more to Sprint after paying a visit to one
of their 'Boost' stores and coming away fairly impressed. This is
the same company that a few months ago was delivering text messages the
day after they were sent. Apparently most of the bugs have been
worked out and that is a good thing for those who are into texting.
The plan is quite popular and if the Palm Pre is a hit.................
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Personal Portfolio
The portfolio is working out rather well, all in all.
I'm beating the pants off Bob's portfolio this time around.
I ended up selling CLWR on a pretty good up tick and decided
to add another energy component to the mix.
This time around I opted for a Canadian energy trust fund - Pengrowth Energy Trust (PGH).
I
bought this for a couple reasons, the main being the potential for
stock price appreciation going forward. The other reason is I am
finding it preferable to look at energy stocks based in North America
and not elsewhere.
One caveat to this is that Canada
holds back 15% of the dividend as a foreign tax, which from all
accounts I have heard cannot be gotten back. If this was in a
taxable account, you could claim the foreign tax paid as a tax
deduction. Not so in a tax exempt account.
This will be interesting. I think it may just end up being worth it.
I'm
up 64% from the lows registered in February of this year and 21% for
the year, so I think I will just sit back and watch for the next month,
and see what the Palm Pre does for Sprint.
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Something Worth Digesting - and all the way from Russia:
Stanislav Mishin - originally appears on his blog, Mat Rodina
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It
must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American
decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the
back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant
people.
True, the situation has been well prepared on and off
for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial
testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it
was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms
and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the
fists of the Marxists.
Those lessons were taken and used to
properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their
freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.
First,
the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard
education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics.
Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC
that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to
choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their
constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our
rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.
Then
their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of
thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most
part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top
protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls
and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician
or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they
would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to
reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox
churches are scandalously liberalized in America.
The final
collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the
past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money
printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history
but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and
there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the
Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.
These past two weeks have
been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a
planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very
thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of
hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look
little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the
Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we
congratulate them?
These men, of course, are not an elected panel
but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and
their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American
dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the
rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again,
congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.
Then
came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motor) president step
down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in
the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the
power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other
employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the
centurion commands his minions.
So it should be no surprise,
that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of
declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will
now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the
guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance,
they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too.
Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK's
Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster.
Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored
horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our
"wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.
Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a "freeman" whimper.
So,
should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically
controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation
that would give the American Treasury department the power to set
"fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private
companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a
social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the
modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the
general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life
choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist
enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects
companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and
taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry
that has ever received a tax break or incentive.
The Russian
owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at
this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the
land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there
is still value left.
The proud American will go down into his
slavery without a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the
world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.
Stanislav Mishin
The article has been reprinted with the kind permission from the author and originally appears on his blog, Mat Rodina
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We
lost our female Catahoula this spring at 13 years of age. Our
male, who is her dad is still plugging along at 14, despite going deaf
and regular bouts with malignant tummy tumors. His name is TC,
originally short for Teeth & Claws. In his advanced age, TC
is now short for Tumor Control.
We decided the next time around the prospective dog was going to have several prerequisites:
1. More hair and little to no presence of the Merle gene.
2. Non shedder.
3. Can be protective and a bit formidable if need be (Cairn Terriers don't fit the bill here).
4. At least medium sized - 50 to 70 pounds.
5. IQ high up on the canine intelligence scale (Cairn Terriers don't fit the bill here either).
6. Veterinarian Approved for Climate, Health and Personality.
I
compiled a list of half a dozen or so breeds and presented it to the
local Vet. He took about ten seconds and pronounced the Standard Poodle
as reasonably bullet proof, highly intelligent, large enough to be a
deterrent and a non shedder (poodles have hair, not fur - I did not
know that).
The downside was the cost of grooming and some problems with stomach torsion.
The
other downside to this is my opinion of the breed in general and it is
specifically confined to the little teacup and slightly larger old,
almost always white football dogs with the gray circles around the
eyes, tear streaks down past their noses and temperaments paralleling those
of dachshunds.
I am sure you have seen them - walk by an
expensive full sized car and get startled out of your skin by a pint
sized Mike Tyson wannabe, held by a little old man or lady who just
can't quite seem to figure out why their darling is going nuts
yapping at you, an innocent passerby. Makes me wish as a minimum I
carried mace.
That wouldn't be a problem if owners would
actually take the time to adequately socialize their dogs.
Then
there was the
paperboy episode in the summer many moons ago when I was walking up a
long flight of stairs to an apartment when another
door opened and one of those football dogs darted in and grabbed my
ankle, drawing blood and bruising the hell out of my Achilles
tendon. I back-kicked the little *@*#$ off the stairs.
Lady called the cops, someone called my mom, dog didn't have
proof of vaccination, I had
to get shots, lady wanted to take dog to the vet, cops
called animal control to quarantine dog.......a fun filled afternoon.
To this day my opinion of poodles in
general is slightly 'colored' and it will be cold day in hell before I
ever own a white one.
Pictured here is the end result of a month
or so of further research.
We shall see.
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