Yeah, I know what you mean about Adrienne Arsenault. She's a contender for the title alrighty. I've got another contender for ya...look at those eyes and those lips... moneycentral.msn.com
Ya know, I tell myself that the reason I watch Maria Bartiromo on CNBC is because I should really try to get some of the American business view point and that she is very intelligent and does good interviews. But, there just seems to be a faint whisper of fine perfume, lingerie and lace about her that I find intriguing. Or, maybe she could be dressed in a long black evening gown, net stockings and a single string of pearls.
Which, strangely enough, is perhaps the same ensemble that I can see Bill Graham in while he’s checking himself out in a full length mirror on a Saturday night. I don’t know, I just can’t shake that picture loose from my mind. There’s just something not right about that guy. Stand him beside the constantly drooling McCallum in garb of either gender and we have a goofy looking couple of representatives in these trying times. McCallum looks like William Shatner’s stepbrother who didn’t quit the booze in time. A facelift would make him several inches taller. Zeus, there’s 30 million of us now, there must have been better choices. Maybe Chretien wants us to look and sound as if we are totally ineffectual to keep us out of trouble.
I’ve been doing a bit of DD on the current war. It seems to me that the coalition now has about 250,000 troops in Iraq and in wait. This is the total as I recall. They figured that in what the Vietnamese call the American War, there were 15 people in support jobs for each frontline American fighting soldier. This would give them 16,667 front line troops if the same distribution applies today. It begins to sound as if the Yanks and the Brits may be outnumbered when you consider that there are about 27,000,000 Iraqis.
This seems to mean, if the 15 to one ratio stills holds, that the front line coalition soldiers are outnumbered 1,620 to one by active or potential enemies. This is unless they all should decide to turn into "friendlies" which I don't find that likely, their memories can't be that short. A couple of farmers brought down at least one American helicopter. It seems that everybody packs an AK-47, even the kids.
Rumsfeld is saying that they are "...closer to the beginning than we are to the end of the war."...no kiddin'. Yeah, it could be an incredibly difficult peace if and when it should come. And then there is always the possibility of Gulf War Syndrome II slipping in under Tom Ridge's ever vigilant nose. Some of the reported incidents after 1991 were by people who unpacked the equipment and clothing coming back from Iraq. Who really knows what has been unleashed here? It ain't no video game or reality TV.
There was a documentary about sentiment in Iraq on CBC the other night, “Generation of Hate”, that brought home a few points to me. While I have known that the figure of half a million children’s deaths have been blamed on the US sanctions (and of course Saddam’s treachery and greed) the sight of the Children’s Cemetery with other children playing nearby was overwhelming. Madeline Albright, when once asked if she felt that half a million Iraqi children’s deaths were enough reason to lift sanctions, said “No”. She also put the 9/11 attacks down to jealousy.
Basra, which was supposed to be used for propaganda to show US humanitarian aid coming in has gone completely off the tracks with the liberators knocking out the clean water supply and electricity. It is now a military target where disease from dirty water could kill off many civilians, mostly frightened little kids. But now there is supposed to be a popular uprising against the regime, who knows what to believe.
Kofi Annan is taking the position that the US and the UK had better be ready to uphold their responsibilities toward Iraq beginning with Basra. He noted that the “welfare of the civilian population is the responsibility of the belligerents.”. Well put, I’d say.
I met and spent a good part of Saturday with a guy from Kirkuk while our sons were taking their flying lessons. When I first asked him where he was from, he answered,“You don’t really want to know.”. Of course, I pursued and he asked me, “Well, where are the Americans bombing right now?” I had to say the word “Iraq”, he wouldn’t at first. He had been a pilot in Saddam’s Iraq and managed to get himself, his wife, and two boys out after the temporary ceasefire in 1991. They landed in Newfoundland where his wife and kids learned English. Although Bassil spoke fluent English when he came to Canada, he said that he decided to move from Newfoundland to Vancouver when he couldn't understand his wife and kids in English...let alone anyone else in his neighbourhood. After I gave him the secret West Coast word “skookum” to add to his lexicon, we became immediate friends.
When I mentioned about Kirkuk being in the fertile crescent ( I think I’ve mentioned that my wife is an archaeologist, she’d told me about it) he said that Baghdad also had quite a few trees before they logged them off to sell the properties to the foreigners to build factories and office buildings. Kirkuk is the area where agriculture started in the world, or it is at least the oldest found evidence of an agrarian culture. The culture in this area goes back 11,000 years, the regular folks call oil the "excrement of the devil" and they are right. The bombs are falling on the area that was known as the Cradle of Civilization and the Fertile Crescent. This was thousands of years before the land bridge gave North America its first homesteaders and many thousands of years before Manifest Destiny did it's best to eradicate them.
I’ve heard a few, albeit very sparse, comments made on the similarities between the US attack on Iraq and their attack on the Philippines in ages past after wresting it from Spain. This was one of the military actions that, as you’ve mentioned before, Mark Twain so adamantly opposed. My grandad was a big 14 year old Irish kid from Dublin during that time. Orphaned by “the troubles”, a runaway and stowaway who joined the US Marines to get out of New York, he fought in that action against the people of the Philippines. He showed the recruiting officer his early-erupted wisdom teeth as proof of age and joined under the alias that he retained for the rest of his life.
He’d tell us stories of the beheadings of the "rebels" while he was cutting our hair. None of us kids would ever squirm, outwardly at least, while we were being shorn.
Speaking of threats hanging over your head, I saw the Stealth bomber blocking out the sun at the Abbotsford Air Show last year...it is seriously frightening. It just wasn’t there, and then it was. I could imagine how it must feel if it were carrying the the cargo to kill you. It did a stopover on it’s way back to Whiteman Airforce base...really Whiteman...sure it’s a racist war, but still and all...we’d just assume that it was a Caucasian at the controls.
I saw Gore Vidal on CNBC last night being interviewed by (sigh) Maria Bartiromo. After giving a brief history of the Bin Ladin and Bush joint family outings, and advocating the impeachment of Bush, he offered the notion that the PR generals in this war look like they’ve come up through the catering corps. He looked tired, the war and its overtures are clearly telling on a lot of Americans who can think for themselves. I hope Michael Moore’s doctor has a close watch on his cholesterol counts.
Yeah, Enron et al may be just the tip of the old ice cube...Citibank has some 'splainin' to do as well and they are the second largest shareholders in the Federal Reserve Bank. It could get interesting. The war will no doubt be paid for in computer blip fiat and all of the hypocrisy that goes into business and politics could bring the Yanqui dollar more into line with the peso. Interestin' times, eh wot? Still there are those who are looking forward again to "improvement in the third quarter"...I mean, there'll be all of that cheap oil after all. Sometimes it's difficult not to be called a cynic.
On the stocks, I’ve been into, and mostly out of, and into again, a gold and silver mine whose price may be ready to go up again, with the possibility of good news this week or next, actually possibly the not-great financials news followed by what could be decent gold and silver recovery numbers. Note the “could be”. The company is ECU.V. They’ve got all of the usual warts and scars of any mining company but have survived and are using improved methods in a good area where they know the turf. This was what I was looking for when I found them a year or so ago. They’ve been recently beaten down by the Prudent Bear Fund pulling out their six and a half million shares through PI mostly at the bid; and the POG, of course, doesn't help at the moment. The heavy selling is over now in ECU Silver Mining and they are becoming a working mine again with some decent reserves. Michel Roy at ECU answers emails very promptly and completely; I’ve placed some bets there.
I’m thinking we could stay around the old support and new resistance level of $330 on the POG and build from there. We know that there will be lots of volatility with rumours and news from the war and overreactions to them.
I got into Wallbridge Mining today, near the low, looking for a bit of a bounce in WM.T tomorrow or the next day as yesterday's overreaction settles down. At least I think it’s overreaction, but that’s the game. I call this part of the home game "the Lame and the Halt" as I go out and daily become a hunter and gatherer of wounded stocks.
Happy Trails
Lenny |
