Gene Morphis ' View

Carly Fiorina is now Chair(person) of John McCain's campaign. I've made a couple of modest donations to the campaign, and I probably will again. However, stop sending me those trumped-up phony surveys. If you want to know what I really think - or even care - send me a real survey. But not these made-up things supposed to rile me up: "Should we do everything we can to stop Democrats from weakening border security?" Please. We had the majority and a Republican President and you didn't do a damn thing for border security. You think I have no memory at all? The party got what it deserved - in fact what it worked hard for: it abandoned all its principles and as a result got thrown out. Come up with a real plan you are prepared to go to the mat for and tell me about that. Don't give me a negative sell about how much worse the Democrats are going to be. Tell me about how much better you are going to be. No more BS surveys.

A friend of mine and I were talking about oil prices and the effects that imposed on the economy. I mentioned that I had sent letters to Senators and Congressmen beseeching them to streamline the process for commissioning nuclear plants. "Why nuclear" she inquired, "why not solar and wind?". Simple answer: the solar companies are doing fine on their own with new developments (thin film solar panels, etc.) making them more competitive, and the wind power folks are moving along and harder to stop (property laws give landowners - particularly in rural areas - a little more freedom of action). Nuclear, on the other hand, has been plagued by litigation from wide ranging groups including adjacent property owners, environmentalists, anti-growth groups, etc. Energy companies are now loath to even undertake development activities, given that they can expect 15 years or more of approval process and millions of dollars in legal fees. If we want to have power and reduce our de...

I had concluded early Sun. morning that I would sell my MSFT. I remained convinced that MSFT could spend $4 billion a year for the next ten years and take whatever market existed at that point from YHOO. So, in my view, an acquisition for $44 billion, a meaningless few thousand of which represents my MSFT stock position, was a giant waste. I was pleasantly surprised - almost shocked really - to learn later on in the day than MSFT had called the whole thing off. Steve B.: sometimes the best deals are the ones you don't make. This is one of those times.

I need to post a correction to my summary of Ed Rose's position on the election. In his words: "Supporting Obama based on the fact that he is more likely to beat McCain whom I believe will destroy the Supreme Court (and the constitution) for decades. I believe that while Clinton's Policies are probably slightly closer to McCain's in many ways, her Supreme Court picks will be much closer to Obama's in terms of being safely liberal. (i.e., not like Scalia who was recently quoted as saying "who ever said Torture was Punishment?") So...First Choice: Anyone but McCain. So...Obama based on current thinking in terms of who can beat him...but also support Hillary. I think the (R)s have done quite enough for the country for now. " So, my interpretation would be that he is taking more of a pragmatic view than I concluded in my original post... I'll post on my view on the economy shortly - which Ed and I discussed as well. He is more confident than I am ...

Stay with me on this one: I'm going to bounch around a bit. First, for political junkies, Noemie Emery's ground breaking article on Hillary Clinton is a must read: follow this: Weekly Standard This is a bit of a fascinating conincidence. I was talking to Ed Rose , CEO of Open Channel Solutions, overall smart guy and I think fairly described as a liberal. Ed surprised me by saying he was supporting Obama even though he wasn't sufficiently ready to "drive the bus", in part because he thought Hillary would be too much like McCain. (To my conservative friends, take a diffibulator minute). Part of his argument is that one of the things that matters most is the appointment of Supreme Court justices, and her appointees would be too moderate. Since I voted for Bush last time largely for the same reason (us deficit hawks having no where else to go even though we've been thoroughly dissed) his logic was persuasive. With her "obliterate" speech she is cl...