The Palin Drone - Two Comedians

Who of you remembers Michael Palin? This guy used to be a "Python" - a Monty Python, to be exact, and he was one of the funniest guys I've ever seen. Smart, witty, and with that indestructible kind of Britsh humor. He still makes me laugh my ass off every time I watch "The Meaning of Life" or "A Fish Called Wanda".

Thank goodness, he's not related to his namesake, the current runner for American Vice President, Sarah Palin.

She may have bigger tits than Michael, but - strangely enough - she's just as funny! Unfortunately, she's not as smart, and her wit is largely unintentional. Or isn't it? Could she really have been serious when she called Russia a neighboring country of Alaska? "They're right across the border!" Nah, c'mon! I'm sure that was a joke. She can't fool me!

Or can she?

You know, dear non-existent reader, I'm afraid it wasn't a joke. I don't know (really, I lack the facts!) if Obama is any smarter than she is (or Biden, for that matter), but at least when he's interviewed, he comes across with the regular attributes of a politician. I've called them all rats before, and I'm not about to change my mind here. Stupidity is not necessarily an attribute of politicians. There are smart ones (albeit precious few), and I'm reasonably confident (though, as I said, I lack the facts) that Obama is on the positive side of the smartness median of politicians.

So, when I have the choice between a smart rat and a stupid rat with tits, I kinda know which I'm gonna go for. (This is beside the fact that McCain has bigger tits than Sarah Palin.)

And unlike with women, I'm not interested in rat tits.

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Stock Market

Someone must've pushed this button...


Oh, well, yes, the US housing market has been in trouble for quite a while, and banks have been letting blood like crazy, writing off money they were hoping for and with which they worked - or tried to.


What has become of the old saying "Don't sell the eggs before the hen has laid them!"?

Because that's the whole bloody reason for the current "crisis" on the stock market!

For years, brokers were selling foul credits they'd bought from the banks, sold them people who were dumb enough to believe the claims of infinite prosperity, double and triple safeguards and massive wins "when the time has come!" It was only a question of time until the whole bubble would burst.

Haven't we seen this before? Wasn't there something called the DotCom Bubble? Don't people ever learn?

Nope.

Not a sausage. Fuck all.

With some quite distressing results. The whole stock market is in free fall - or rather, in a troublesome downhill tumble, because of

a) idiots who believed the banks that they'd never have to pay off their house
b) idiots who told the house owners that they'd never have to pay off their house
c) idiots who sold the foul credits to other idiots
d) idiots who bought them for the reasons mentioned above
e) idiots who sold them on when the shit started hitting the fan
f) I could continue this list for quite a while...



Companies which have never had anything to do with housing markets are now three miles up shit creek without a paddle, because of the crystal ball idiots I mentioned in an earlier post, a long while ago. Good, strong enterprises are losing value and money, even though they never even touched any of these "structured instruments" the brokers like to drone about.


And right now, everyone is panicking as if there's a leaking, ready-to-burst septic tank hanging over their airheads. They tell you they know everything about the stock market, all the subtle rules and tricks of the trade, but the one thing they should know, but seemingly don't, is that panic only makes it worse.

"Herd dynamics" one newspaper called it.

Herds are made up of stupid animals, like sheep, for example. Yup, that sounds about right.

When I was a student, I once had a summer job, herding cows, and the neighboring sheep herds would come over and eat the grass that was reserved for our cows. We tried to chase them away, but they wouldn't be chased. We took to hitting them on the foreheads with our walking sticks. You actually had to smack them in the face quite hard for them to get the idea that they were on the wrong pasture. When you hit them hard enough, they ran away a couple of meters, waited for 10 seconds, then they came back, so you could hit them in the face again (they actually seemed to enjoy it... somehow).

Repeat at nauseam.

Exactly what we're seeing now.

I, for one, will hold on to my shares (not that I own a lot), but selling them now would be the most stupid, sheep-like behavior imaginable. I'm in no hurry - and neither should be anyone owning stock of a good, solid company.


Give it 10 seconds. Think hard. If you still want to sell after that, then go back and let them smack you in the face.


Oh, and when you get there, tell them it was me who told you.