JustThinking.us

To quote the Napoleons, Bonaparte and Dynamite

Sun, 10/31/2010 - 09:34 — Roanman

Richard Russell makes it simple

Sat, 10/30/2010 - 09:05 — Roanman

More than once now, I've plugged Richard Russell and his fine site Dow Theory Letters.

As though he needs it.

The following perfectly simple explanation of how to read a chart, perfectly illustrates his value.

Question -- Are charts really of any use?

Answer -- You might as well ask the question, "Are maps of any use?" And the answer is "Yes, both charts and maps are useful with one caveat, you must know how to read them."

Let's take a current example. Below I show a daily chart of the Dow going back three months. The first thing I see is that long blue ascending trendline. It continues higher until it hits what I call a consolidation box. The box is defined by a horizontal line at its top and another one at its bottom. So far, the Dow is "caught" in the middle of the box; it hasn't broken out to the upside or the downside.

Then I see the red arrow at RSI. The arrow points to RSI heading down. Next I see another red arrow at MACD at the bottom of the chart. Here we see MACD rolling subtly over. In both cases, RSI and MACD appear to be ready to sink lower. This suggests that the Dow will break out below the box.

If the Dow does break below the box, where is it likely to stop? The first support appears to come in at around 10800 on the chart. That is where the last decline halted when it touched the rising trendline. Often, moving averages will provide mysterious support and resistance levels during advances and declines. Today, the 50-day moving average for the Dow comes in at 10671. This should represent a resistance level on the downside. Below that we have the 200-day MA, which comes in at 10523.

And that's the valuable information this single daily chart of the Dow provides us with. So are charts useful? Do they serve any real purpose? I'm convinced that they do. But like an explorer with a map, you have to know how to use charts.

Piece of cake.

To quote Paul Valery

Sat, 10/30/2010 - 08:32 — Roanman

Lady Marmalade

Fri, 10/29/2010 - 12:20 — Roanman

I've been looking around for a nice live vid of Nona Hendryx and Material performing "Bustin Out".

And while I found a pretty good one, I keep coming back to this.

This is Patti Labelle, Nona Hendryx and Sarah Dash fronting a band I can't see well enough to identify, performing live on Burt Sugarman's Midnight Special.

LaBelle.

Lady Marmalade.

Lady Gaga my ass.

To quote Joseph Sobran

Fri, 10/29/2010 - 06:09 — Roanman

For Mary Margaret

Thu, 10/28/2010 - 11:36 — Roanman

We have been called into question over our cynical nature with regards to our choices of quotes about politics.

It's true, we're copping to it.

Our only defense here is that after an honest twenty page search of Thinkexist.com and Brainyquote.com seriously looking for any positive thought about politics or politicians, we could only come up with three of four total.

We mixed them in here indiscriminately.

We bolded them in an effort to help you avoid our despair.

Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds. Henry Brooks Adams

Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory. John Kenneth Galbraith

Democracy encourages the majority to decide things about which the majority is ignorant.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. Henry Louis Mencken

Practical politics consists in ignoring facts. Henry Brooks Adams

Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.

Why are we surprised when politicians play politics? It's not like they are supposed to be real adults... they are, after all, politicians and don't have real jobs and aren't playing around with their own money.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. Plato

I have come to the conclusions that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians. Charles de Gaulle

In politics it is necessary either to betray one's country of the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate. Charles de Gaulle

Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary. Robert Louis Stevenson

High politic is only common sense applied to great things. Napoleon Bonaparte

Politics ruins the character. Otto von Bismarck

Public life is regarded as the crown of a career, and to young men it is the worthiest ambition. Politics is still the greatest and the most honorable adventure. Pat Riley

Without alienation, there can be no politics. Arthur Miller

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed. Mao Tse-Tung

Politics is largely governed by sententious platitudes which are devoid of truth. Bertrand Russell

Politics is the diversion of trivial men who, when they succeed at it, become important in the eyes of more trivial men. George Jean Nathan

Politics are the divine science, after all. John Adams

The only thing we learn from a new election is we learned nothing from the old. Gerald Barzan

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. Pericles

Politics isn't about big money or power games; it's about the improvement of people's lives. Paul Wellstone

If the gods had intended for people to vote, they would have given us candidates. Howard Zinn

Many a man goes into politics with a fine future and comes out with a terrible past. Otto von Bismarck

During a political campaign everyone is concerned with what a candidate will do on this or that question if he is elected except the candidate; he's too busy wondering what he'll do if he isn't elected. Everett Dirksen

Politics is very much like taxes - everybody is against them, or everybody is for them as long as they don't apply to him. Fiorello La Guardia

Politics: The highest calling to the lowest falling. Gregory Nunn

Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical fears and hopes. Murray Edelman

To succeed inside a political party, one must cultivate an ability to sit still and remain polite while foolish people speak nonsense. Morton Blackwell

One of the most curious things about American politics is that without a single historical exception a partisan is invariably a member of the other party.

To let politics become a cesspool, and then avoid it because it is a cesspool, is a double crime. Howard Crosby

To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your principles.

In politics, you must let the other person have your way. Claiborne Pell

In politics nothing is contemptible. Benjamin Disraeli

Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks. Doug Larson

In politics, every day is filled with numerous opportunities for serious error. Enjoy it. Donald Rumsfeld

Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important. Eugene J. McCarthy

I don't know a lot about politics, but I can recognize a good party man when I see one. Mae West

To quote Oscar Ameringer

Thu, 10/28/2010 - 06:10 — Roanman

To quote Larry Hardiman

Tue, 10/26/2010 - 17:08 — Roanman

To quote George S. Patton, again

Tue, 10/26/2010 - 10:20 — Anonymous

Dropout Factories, continued

Mon, 10/25/2010 - 12:52 — Roanman

The following unfunny cartoon links (didn't want you to miss it) to an outstanding Associated Press interactive titled "Dropout Factories".

The interactive breaks down the country by state, and provides both a list of, and totals for the "dropout factories" within each individual state.

It also provides a discussion of the criteria from which the lists were developed.

You absolutely need to do this one, painful though it may be.

To quote Gene Fowler

Mon, 10/25/2010 - 11:00 — Roanman

Thanks to David Michaels for this one.

Dropout Factories

Mon, 10/25/2010 - 07:03 — Roanman

From todays Wall Street Journal, in a piece titled The NAACP's Unhealthy Tea Party Obsession, Jason Riley offers the following:

Black children are funneled into the nation's worst public schools, where they underperform and often don't graduate. Black boys in eighth grade read at about the same level as white girls in fourth grade. The achievement gap persists through high school, where the average black student is graduating with an eighth-grade education—if the student graduates at all.

The situation has remained essentially unchanged for three decades. President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have noted that just 2,000 of the nation's 20,000 high schools produce half of all dropouts, and nearly 50% of black kids attend one of these "dropout factories." But that hasn't stopped the Obama administration from phasing out a Washington, D.C., voucher program for low-income students that improved graduation rates. Still, the NAACP is worried about the tea party?

Prisons are teeming with black men, a problem not unrelated to the dearth of decent educational choices for black families. In the current issue of National Affairs, David Kirp writes that "among 16- to 24-year-old black men not enrolled in school, fewer than half have jobs; about a third are in prison or jail, or on probation or parole." Blacks are 13% of the population but comprise 38% of prison or jail inmates in the U.S., and black-on-black violent crime is the norm. Blacks commit 52% of all murders and make up 49% of all murder victims—90% of them are killed by other blacks.

Click anywhere above to link to the entire article ................ I think.

They've changed some stuff at the WSJ and sometimes you get it, sometimes you only get the tease, which is why I'm not linking there as much.

This one here is the good stuff and worth the effort.

With regards to that 2,000 of the nations high schools produce half of all the nations dropouts thing?

These here little gears here links to a Department of Education press release wherein the above statistic is referenced.

Recommended.

To quote somebody, but I don't think it's Benjamin Franklin

Sun, 10/24/2010 - 11:19 — Roanman

The Harry Schultz Newsletter Junior came out today.

I'm not going to recommend it only because his is a pay site and Mr. Schultz is very frail and is in the process of transferring his fine newsletter to the Aden Sisters whom I do highly recommend.

Anyway, Mr Schultz references the following quote which has been popping up with accelerating frequency lately and attributes it to Benjamin Franklin.

With all due respect, I don't think this is a Ben Franklin quote, but I can't find evidence one way or the other.

Which of course doesn't change the fact that I believe every last word of the following to be absolute truth.

This goes double for members of Congress, Senators, the entirety of the United Nations, many Mayors and City Council members, political hacks in general, most pundits, and for damn sure every single last scum sucking piece of excrement within the upper management of the world's largest banks (past, present and future).

Just my opinion.