wapo comments always get me

"PreAmeriKKKan wrote:
if you are from an indigenous group and you have seen invaders come and kill your relatives and destroy your home, you tend to want the man responsible to be aware that at least one person objects. i wish i could have thrown an arrow at andrew jackson, for example."

the above comment was in response to seeing video of our infamous 43rd preznit almost getting beaned by a pair of thrown wingtips.

Split-strike strategy?!

Reading a Barron's article on Bernie Madoff's so-called trading strategy and since i know little to nothing about stock trading, i'm interested to find out how cheaters cheat, it is amazing.

Jargon seems to be the one thing that enables people to fuck around with other people's heads and steal from them at the same time.  Here's what the Barron's writer, Erin E. Arvedlund, wrote about Madoff and the strategy: 

"A Madoff hedge-fund offering memorandums describes his strategy this way: "Typically, a position will consist of the ownership of 30-35 S&P 100 stocks, most correlated to that index, the sale of out-of-the-money calls on the index and the purchase of out-of-the-money puts on the index. The sale of the calls is designed to increase the rate of return, while allowing upward movement of the stock portfolio to the strike price of the calls. The puts, funded in large part by the sale of the calls, limit the portfolio's downside."

Among options traders, that's known as the "split-strike conversion" strategy. In layman's terms, it means Madoff invests primarily in the largest stocks in the S&P 100 index -- names like General Electric ,
Intel and Coca-Cola . At the same time, he buys and sells options against those stocks. For example, Madoff might purchase shares of GE and sell a call option on a comparable number of shares -- that is, an option to buy the shares at a fixed price at a future date. At the same time, he would buy a put option on the stock, which gives him the right to sell shares at a fixed price at a future date.

The strategy, in effect, creates a boundary on a stock, limiting its upside while at the same time protecting against a sharp decline in the share price. When done correctly, this so-called market-neutral strategy produces positive returns no matter which way the market goes." 

HolyFS!  what does this mean?!  the only thing i've ever had is visions of the future and right now i see the dow at 5000, 25% unemployment, no doubt. don't ask me how and why i have any credibility to predict this, but considering how badly "professionals" have done "playing" the market, i don't think i will be far off. HolyFS!!  go to plan b.

Ecotopia

From NYTimes article, "The Book That Foretold Portland" (of "Ecotopia" by Earnest Callenbach):

"Mr. Callenbach hopes the book will resonate among the greening edges of an evangelical movement. But the novel’s relatively free sex and liberal politics may limit that readership. Susanna Hecht, a professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles, sees it as a counterpoint to Thoreau’s more austere “Walden.”

“ ‘Walden’ is very Protestant,” she said. “This is pagan, with a Zen relationship to nature.”

But to Mr. Callenbach and many of his fans, “Ecotopia” is a blueprint for the future.

“It is so hard to imagine anything fundamentally different from what we have now,” he said. “But without these alternate visions, we get stuck on dead center.”

“And we’d better get ready,” he added. “We need to know where we’d like to go.”

As a Eugene Native, I remember feeling that way about the Northwest, especially after reading this book and histories of our famiy before contact.  We do have a huge opportunity in front of us now that everything we thought was "true" is exposed for what it is, a simple experiment that we have to let play through and learn from.  Our major problem is that we do not learn well.  We may be forced to from now on, so my heart and mind is open to creating a place where we can go, is yours?

June 25th - Giveaway Day

Religion does not belong in government, at all.  Our state has allowed people to make religious public relations campaigns commonplace in our state buildings by placing crosses, xmas trees, menorahs and atheists placards in the lobby of our capital.  Same as with the federal faith based initiatives, it has got to stop.

Or, we could go with an alternative "holiday", Giveaway Day, to encourage people to giveaway to friends and family or the community on June 25th, and do it in celebration of a simple life where your worth is valued more by what you giveaway, rather than what you keep.  It would be a way to distribute wealth in a more equitable way and teach earth sustainability with a greener consumer ethic.

If we have to have a federal holiday for a religious purpose, we have to have one that is not.  Or neither, there is no other way to prove that we are a nation based on democratic principals and whats left of our constitution.

Hogan's Heroes

Where hogan is home and we are laughing alot.  there is no monetary value in it, just another thought for tomorrow.

Kuutnuu

there is no way to know who is "right" when it comes to religion.  the best idea is to believe what you believe, allow that others believe differently and encourage everyone to acknowledge the one thing we all know:  "WE DON"T KNOW but we can live with that."

What is so difficult about this small thing?  We can stop fighting about this if we could each be brave enough to not "know" something but be certain that everyone one else is in the same boat, seeking, not knowing but accepting that, for once.

btw, ALL of the displays are our of bounds on state or federal property.  The idea is to be in a shared nation but with absolute freedom to practice whatever your belief system requires without restraint.  When government shows that it has a bias for or against one belief against another, that is tyranny.  Let's face it though, these display simply fear-based posturing anyway, someone NEEDS to be right or their whole belief system is debased.  If their faith is that rock solid, who needs a display to prove anything?  

We need dialogs to help us understand each other, to lessen the fear of each other's practice and to come to terms with our essential ignorance so we can have that to share, at the VERY least.  It is time to come together, but we have to adjust to fit together, not try to force to world to fit to us, or the whole puzzle falls apart.  

 Comment quote from Huffpost: "steveo39 See Profile I'm a Fan of steveo39  I'm a fan of this user   permalink

I'm reminded of the Bertolt Brecht quote: "Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men.
For though the bastard is dead, the bitch that bore him is again in heat."
 
This is a comment post from a political blog call Huffington Post.  I do comment as well, i have put them here, but i want to keep better track of them as well as thoroughly cite anyone's else writing here just to keep the content honest. 

love the quote though and that it came from Brecht is even better.

I only think of this

My greatest wish is peace, i have to accept that about myself, i am ashamed to say it because i am so flawed and how can i worry about the world when i'm so fucked up?  that a person can escape their own life by becoming a policlone with no immediate concern for family or friends or even survival, holding signs on the freeway overpass warning that the world will end.  Luckily, i'm too lazy for that so i can sit here, read, eat, drink, write, pet the cat.  because i'm so lazy and most people are, we will descend into madness and war rather than rationality and peace, unless we listen to the world asking us to act.  if you are willing, you can hear them, even and especially in your dreams, saying "Wake UP! NOW!"   yes, it's crazy, but who cares anymore?  the world is what it is because of craziness, so no one will disbelieve a peace movement born of total dissolution.  it is a bottom up philosophy, where no one knows anything and we've already wasted our lives and trashed the planet to boot, what is left to lose?

over the course of it, some inner voice is always there, mmmm, peace.

10k rebate to everyone

seems like a good idea until you realize that if the government decides to a huge "fiscal stimulus" plan that gives each taxpayer ten thousand dollar checks they have just signaled how dire the situation really is and how little of an amount 10k really is as well.  if your pension plan loses 10k a week, how is a relatively small check helping the average worker, never mind how much of a difference it makes to those who have not paid taxes for years because they have not had jobs so will not get the check even though they need it most. then, some do not have pension funds saved, some have lost it all this year.  what is 10k going to do for you?

i have to stop watching bloomberg and cnbc. 

mmmm

macro to micro to macro to micro - mmmm, how what is happening revolves around what we all are together and how we have to take momentous responsibility for what we do, how we do, why we do and how it effects everybody/thing else or else.  "Else" meaning in this case, total self-anihilation.

i tried suicide a few times as a teenager.  how i failed and why are simple:  i do not want to die.  i want to be alive, i want to be aware, i want to learn how to live better and with empathy.  having suicidal thoughts brought shame to me but now i see that i was not the only one who had them and even now, being a part of our society, i stand by and watch our economy and everyday survival are unraveling and becoming so unstable, panic has set in.  No one does well under multiple pressures and multiple people under multiple pressures do worst of all.  How are we as citizens able to watch bailout hearings on cspan without walking away in disgust?  how and why we got here must be explored and solved but right now, we have to figure out how to socialize our lives in creative ways.  the rich are hateful but they are human just like us and they will not like being taxed at fair levels, so there will be much resistance to change at the level we need to bring our world back into a semblance of "growth".  just as growth in the last eight years was borrowed, the solution must be a tax increase.   why?  there are more out there than me who are self-destructive and stupid.  hello me, meet the world.  jeez.  we ARE in trouble.  we are optimistic as well.  

i know how i got here, how do i get there?

Welcome mat

Not sure if there were any People here when our family arrived those many generations ago but I would hope that they would take our plea to live and work here and give us permission to do so.  We already give our nod to the four legged and elements and insects, and most especially, we have always made friends with dogs, cats and best of all, horses.  Some of these People were here when we came and some came after, in no way was there ever a need to say, "You're not welcome here" until a marauding group entered our waters and started shooting.  For a long while, many of us have been ambivalent about the newcomers and still have hard feelings, me included.  So much has happened since, culminating in the "administration" of "our" country by gwb, but if nothing else, it crystalized one's view about what must be done.  Have a passion, life is short, do it for the People.

Being Nii Mii Puu was so important to me, no more.  I am a Zircon.  Being literate, connected, loved, comfortable, fit, happy, honest, empathetic, dancing, alive, all out the window I can no longer afford.  It is all about survival now, but as a Zircon, I know that we have been here before.  I'm still Nii Mii Puu though, ayy!

So it's possible to forgive those that came after for all that they have begat and begun and lay out the welcome mat once they do their bit, asking permission.  It might bring a bit of balance and humble-tude to the mix.  

My dream is that we get all the nations together and either ride or walk into the Obama inauguration and present that welcome mat and pledge our friendship and our hope for harmony and health to all.  We have to have a hoop and a staff but we won't make him wear a headdress, even I hate that.  Once this symbolic act is accomplished, the welcome is out and we start something REALLY different, but we start is over with real compassion and respect.  We have to start over.  

We have done it

Pre-Amerikkkan people have lived through the most wrenching and enlightening times in our entire history and that includes almost being burned to death by an asteriod and countless earthquake or floods.  What has happened to us in the last century should not have happened to any tribe but it did and some of us are here to document it and to write about those things, those issues and lifestyles, opionions and lies that get us up at night to scribble away, no logic, no story, no narative, no grammer.  Everything else has to be there though, the unscripted thought, the "frist" thought, hey, and done with passion, but unfortunately, no much self-knowledge, hopefully , that will come.  Until then, this is just as much a start as any to continue my personal manifesto and tell my kids and on into the future, what a few of us were doing and thinking during the most hellacious (i have a satan fetish, wonder why) times EVER! 

Zircons - made primarily of the elements zirconium, oxygen and silicon

we are the zircons, a tribe, a mass of know nothings but alive forever and through everything everywhere, awake and a rock at the same timeless time.

i used to say to people, "we were fish together" when it's more accurate to say, "we are rockin'!"

O appointed Richardson to commerce and as he accepted, he spoke spanish.  i cried hearing it, it was so much of a leap to think we would have diversity like this in our government, diversity that dares speak it's (co-opted) language.  stunning.  congratulations to us.