The DNC, First Impressions

My old friend Jerry Zremski, Washington reporter for the Buffalo News, is in town for the DNC, so I went to the Rockies game with him yesterday afternoon (he is, first and foremost, a baseball fan!). After the game, we walked around downtown for a bit. Denver is not one of those cities whose downtown is empty at night, but on this Sunday night it was a circus. Mostly just a lot more people than normal, but there were pockets of protesters of all ilk....we saw both anarchists and anti-abortionists.

The most striking thing was the show of force by the authorities. There seemed to be groups of 4 cops in full riot gear on every corner, and at one point an SUV went down the street with about 10 fully outfitted cops clinging to the outside. It looked like something you would see on TV after a coup in Africa. And the police have been brought in from all over the area, so if you are looking to rob a liquor store this week, the Denver burbs would be the place to go.

My friend Fiona was out marching with some people before joining us for the game (I don't know if she knows what she was marching for or against, but she wanted to participate). She said she wanted to march with the anarchists, but they couldn't get organized!

I am planning to go down there Tuesday afternoon and evening to walk around see what is happening outside. Hopefully I won't have to bail Fiona out of jail.

VP in Springfield

It seems to me that if Obama is going to go to Springfield to announce his running mate, that his choice should have been Homer Simpson.....or at least Mayor Quimby!

I can't wait to see them try to limit Biden to his allotted time during Vice Presidential debates.

Pollitcal Ad Bull

One would have to be a complete idiot to take at face value anything in a politcal ad run on TV. Of course, we have a complete idiot in the White House now, who was voted in twice, so there obviously must be quite a few morons in this country.

Most of the negative claims made about candidates in these ads are at best misleading, and often just plain lies. So, if you would like not to vote as a complete idiot, there is a great, non-partisan web site called Factcheck.org. They check the veracity of claims made in ads or speeches by candidates of both parties, and identify the bullshit.

The down side of Factcheck is that you will quickly realize that both sides are completely full of shit......but then, they wouldn't be running for office it they weren't!

There was no oil bubble.....RIGHT!

For the past year, as the price of oil broke through one big number after another, you could find someone, or, as oil reached $145, almost everyone, saying that is was not a speculative bubble. It was all fundamentals, as if suddenly in the past year China's economy had tripled. If you watch CNBC, which I love to do, you would see experts saying it was going to $150, $200.....oh, pick a number. And even the anchors on the network started to buy into the idea that increased speculation had nothing to do with it.

To me, this sounded like the internet bubble all over again (Yahoo is going to $1000!). When everyone believes something, and there are few naysayers, then you can be sure of one thing: there is a bubble, and it's near bursting. (Of course, I said the same thing when it $50, so how smart am I?) Remember, it was impossible for home prices to decline....everyone said so. What this type of chatter really indicates is that everyone has put in their money, which means there is very little money left to go into the market to rise prices higher. Once the decline starts, the amateur speculators run for the exits, while the pros switch to the short side.

As the price of oil skyrocketed, it was clear that those who might wish to go short were sitting out, not wanting to fight the trend. This meant fewer sellers, so the price had to rise with all the money bidding on contracts. Now the bubble has burst, and the shorts are back in, restoring some balance to the market.

How have things changed in the past few weeks? Look at the situation in Georgia ( the one the Russians are warring with). 2 months ago, all the market had to hear was the crazy leader of Iran say he hates Israel, and oil goes up $5 in a day. Now, there is a real war threatening an oil pipeline, and the price is actually down this week. In other words, the short term momentum players have found the momentum is gone, and have moved on to something else, at least for a while. Before, all news was bullish. Not so anymore.

Does this mean we will have $2 gas soon? Probably not. In fact, it could turn around again at any time. But, if you know how to read a chart, oil made a double top, and has broken through several key support levels, which would indicate a downtrend, so $5 gas is not likely this fall either. And the people who were sure the price of oil could never go down are losing their asses in a big way.

Do Republican drive Priuses....and is that the plural of Prius?

I was sitting on my patio reading earlier when a neighbor drove by in her red Prius, with an Obama sticker on the back bumper. Prius with an Obama sticker......isn't that redundant? Surely there are no Republicans driving around in hybrids. Isn't burning as much oil as possible part of the GOP platform?

Some vision on energy.

Here in America we are getting real visionary thinking during this election season regarding energy policy......and by that, I mean the kind of vision you can only have by sticking your head up your ass and looking backwards! Thomas Friedman is writes today from Denmark, where they have been looking the other direction.

We are addicted to oil, and more drilling will just bring false hope, more pollution, and lengthen the time until we come up with new ways to power our lives. And, by the time that oil goes to market, we can be driving cars that move by other means. But the Republicans are counting on Americans to be ignorant enough to think that drilling will make their SUV's affordable again. And why not: Republicans have depended on us to be stupid for years, and it has worked really well for them. And Obama is now taking the bait himself. We can forget about getting an energy policy that makes sense anytime soon.

New Dave Barry

Sorry I haven't written much lately. I've had a busy couple of weeks. However, here is some good news: Dave Barry is at the Olympics and writing daily for the Miami Herald. We can only hope that he will also be attending the political conventions. Personally, I've felt a void on Sunday mornings ever since he gave up his weekly column. So, for the next 2 weeks, I'll be going here for new Dave.