The Crash of 2:52

We have long feared the day Computers Became self Aware and took over the world.

Something like that is afoot.

Let me explain,

The market, and by extension the economy of the US and the world has been punctuated by bubbles and bursts over the ages. We come to know them as the Crash of the 19th century, The boom of the turn of the century, the crash of 1904, The crash of 32, the crash of October 07.. etc.
The trend is to mark these "corrections" in terms of a time.
The time getting shorter and shorter. Beginning with Centuries and reducing to Minutes. The Thursday crash was referred to by more than one financial pundit as the Crash of 2:52.

The reason, of course, is automation. All the trading firms have highly sophisticated algorithms that automatically buy and sell stock without human intervention. The programs are all different but they are evolving into a consensus about what the spread should be and what the "Delta T" of a stock is. The math professor within my gentle reader will recognize the term.

The crash of 2:52 occurred because 60% of all stock trades are done automatically, by machine, in something called "High Frequency Trading". With this going on individuals who trade online should glue a lever to the side of their monitor. It is like being in a gunfight with a robot Yul Brynner. (Sorry for the dated reference.. if you need to - look it up) People react in minutes or days, computers react in nanoseconds.

There is a condition, known as population inversion, in which most of the individual elements of a society become excited. This can happen with mobs of people in train stations, atoms in a ruby, or even nuclei of Hydrogen. The result is an explosion in the form of riots, or lasers, or atom bombs.. It even happens in your brain in the car lot when a sexy sales person is showing that that sporty little red number.

Unfortunately it can happen to computers too. If there happen to be a million computers trading and more than half trip at the same sell point the stock market will drop like the discharge from a 707 toilet. That happened at 2.52 on Thursday causing a number of cyborg traders to jump out their Microsoft window.

Some in the EU say it was caused when Hungry fried Turkey in Greece..

I think maybe it is Just Greed.

Greedy Little Computers.

A Mothers Prayer Day

Another one of those slow news days. The headline story is teachers insurance costs go from $2 to $15. Wow what a news item!

The Region story is about a guy arrested for coming into a woman's house with a gun and demanding money she owed.. DaNg! - What kind of people do you owe money to that makes collections in the middle of the night with a 357?, (I will give you a minute to ponder that)..

Most of my bill collectors are in ChInda anyway so I my worst worry is that they will call in the middle of the day .. IN INDIA.

But of some importance is the story on "National Day of Prayer" .. I suppose what day it is doesn't matter much as long as we have one but there seems to be some disagreement as to what day.. (We could make it April 15, as one person pointed out - everybody in the US of A is on their knees anyway.)

April 19 is considered.. Since for some reason the vampires on both sides of the isle seem to come out of their coffins on that day .. Then there is May Day, The Ruskkies would love that.. (sorry some of my best friends are .. never mind)..

There is Cinco De Mayo, Which has some controversy regarding illegal immigration. I guess we can't do that.


For my money, I could be persuaded to overlap it with mothers day.. After all if we could take our mothers to church, give them a nice corsage, hold their hand while we Pray . Knowing that every person in America who believes in God is holding the hand of their mother and praying for our Country would be a request the Lord God would not ignore.


I certainly wish I could pray with my mother on Sunday. If your mother is still of flesh and blood I promise you could give her no better gift.

(Although my mother has passed.. I assure you that this Sunday I will be praying. -And she will be right at my side.)



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Investment Tip of the day:

Cash in your 401K and put it on Super Saver in the Preakness.

Best Contest.

Oh Gosh.. better than the thriller in man'niller..

Young Boozer VS George Wallace Jr on Goat Hill

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY..!!!



Gosh... except this is not a WWE event or even NASCAR..

It is the Republican race for State Treasurer.

I know both guys.. in passing.. and frankly they are both quite qualified.

I Just think there is no better name a person can have for Politics in Alabama than George Wallace.

And there is no name better for a manager of State Finances in the coming storm than Boozer.. (sorry Mr Boozer but even Leno noticed)

I have the same trouble sometimes.. some put the wrong emPhasis on BoOner..

I think it was May West who said there was no bad publicity.

Nub Todd was credited with "I don't care what you say about me, Just spell my name right" A quote attributed to everyone from P.T Barnum to Mark Twain but of particular importance if a misspelling can get you censored or bleeped.

Anyway.. the names bring such focus to the contest that I don't know or care who is running on the Democratic side.

I think maybe you shouldn't either.


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In other news;
Vast numbers of Politicians, Public Officials and Journalists have washed up on the Beaches at Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and Mobile Bay. No word yet on who will bear the expense of the cleanup.

Notes from the dead letter office.

My hip fell apart a few months ago. The healing will probably last longer than I will.

Last night I fell asleep, tired, but after an hour or two the discomfort got to the point that needed to stretch a little bit. I went to do my nightly security check of the kitchen. In a moment I had a Bacardi sniffer half full of warm milk and a couple of Advil.

Sitting at the dining room table, I noticed between the Pearl Tea Lites and the Plastic Cranberries, several envelopes of unread mail. Most were the legal size with the “bulk postage paid” look about them but one was a brown envelope, slightly smaller than the regular size, with tattered ears and even darker stains the color of the skin of a man who has worked hard all his life.

I pulled the corner of the envelope and with little resistance it slid from the pack toward me. The address was my Mt Hester Road, but the stamp -A three cent George Washington. I rubbed my thumb across the upper left corner thinking maybe a return address was lost in the gray brown patina. Nothing.

I weighed it in my hand a moment. Turned it over and slipped my thumbnail under the lip of it. It popped open with the sound and feel of an August touch-me-not pod.

The letter was written on a single sheet of note pad paper, torn ragged at the top edge. The script was barely legible, a pencil scrawl against a paper so old and frail that it threatened to break in my hands.

It began,

Son, - I love you.

Soon I will be leaving this place. I wanted you to know some things before I go.

First, I regret the mistakes I made, and I hope you can someday pray that line in the Lords Prayer “Forgive me as I Forgive others” without flinching.

I want to say that Heaven and Hell are the same place the only thing that makes them either is that we must live with only the treasures we brought along.

God refills the bucket when it is empty, so don't be afraid to give away your last crumb. Too many people live their whole lives trying to keep a little in the bottom and never realize that if they clean it out it will refill like the magic pitcher we read about when you were small.

I wanted you to know the Church is a lock, your Heart is the key, and what is behind the door you will never know from the outside.

I hope you understand that my personal hell is the way you looked at me in my rear view mirror that last fateful day.

And you must know, that on the last day of your life, the Angel of the Lord will grant you a day to review.

She will allow you to re-live it second by second.

The joke is the Angel chooses the day.

And the day she grants might be today.

So live every one carefully.

Very carefully.

And finally, As Yoga Berra will soon come to say “When you come to a fork in the road -take it.”

There is no sin greater than a life unlived.

I love you son.

I will see you soon enough..

It was signed in the familiar scrawl of my daddy's own hand.

I picked up the letter, carefully folded it back into the envelope. Drank down the last of my warm milk. Then bound it with a ribbon and laid it into my home safe. I went to bed and instantly fell asleep.

7:00 a.m.

"Honey?"

"What is it babe?"

"Why is the utility bill in the Freezer?"

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Apologies to Loyce Bonner, May 5th 1922 - October 4th 1960

May 4th - National Prayer and Reconciliation day.

There's blood in the streets, it's up to my ankles
Blood in the streets, it's up to my knee
Blood in the streets in the town of Chicago
Blood in the streets and it's following me

J. Morrison, 1970

As I make my way around the district talking to people most are concerned as I am about Immigration, Unemployment, Taxes, and Political Corruption.. But about one in, oh maybe, 100 pull me by the elbow or cuff and start talking about Pelosi and Obama and the coming blood revolution..

I remind myself, and them, that faith and obedience to God is the solution.

I quietly extricate myself, go back to greeting voters, kissing babies, and shaking hands as soon as possible.


Much has been said of Pelosi and Obama and Socialism and what is going on in D.C.

Much has been said of blood in the streets.


But I recall a nation divided.


I recall talk of revolution.

I recall blood in the streets.

And I didn't care for it.

Official Song of the State of Arizona

Come to this land of sunshine
To this land where life is young.
Where the wide, wide world is waiting,
The songs that will now be sung.
Where the golden sun is flaming
Into warm, white shining day,
And the sons of men are blazing
Their priceless right of way.

chorus

Come stand beside the rivers
Within our valley broad.
Stand here with heads uncovered,
In the presence of our God!
While all around, about us
The brave, unconquered band,
As guardians and landmarks
The giant mountains stand.

chorus

Not alone for gold and silver
Is Arizona great.
But with graves of heroes sleeping,
All the land is consecrate!
O, come and live beside us
However far ye roam
Come and help us build up temples
And name those temples "home."

chorus

Sing the song that's in your hearts
Sing of the great Southwest,
Thank God, for Arizona
In splendid sunshine dressed.
For thy beauty and thy grandeur,
For thy regal robes so sheen
We hail thee Arizona
Our Goddess and our queen.


Arizona
Written by Margaret Rowe Clifford

I don't want to say "I told you so!'

I am writing today from my somewhat imperfect memory. I encourage the gentle reader to check my facts and remind me of the true and narrow way if necessary. I recall an episode of the "Beverly Hillbillies" where Jed and Jethro were driving nails with the rifle. Ellie May says "Shucks that ain't no sport, we should be bouncing them off a flat rock first."

But as I remember, on April 19 of this year I spoke to you of the pending transportation bill in the Alabama Senate. I suggested that perhaps it would be wise to secure the Alabama Trust Fund for use in emergencies like Katrina, or for economic development for rural areas, instead of passing a billion pound pork roast around the populous areas of the state.

Then on April 20 the top blew out of a BP oil rig fifty miles from the Louisiana Coast. First land fall of the oil slick was right below the place where Katrina landed in 2005. The explosion instantly killed eleven men and injured several others. As you know drilling into a pressurized oil dome is dangerous. Doing it safely on the open ocean is almost impossible.

The origin of the spill is within 200 miles of the Gulf of Mobile and is presently spilling between 200,000 and 500,000 gallons of oil a day into the gulf.

In that time span the Gulf will have seen four and a half times the oil from the Exxon Valdez in 1989. Valdez was the largest oil spill in US waters and is still regarded the worst man made ecological disaster of all history. This is worse. Much worse.

What has this spill to do with the transportation bill?

Well, it has to do with the origin of the Trust Fund. It is my recollection that the State entered into an agreement with the oil and gas industry to produce oil and gas in offshore wells in the Alabama waters and forgot to pay.

The state sued and got a judgment for 20 Billion for back payments.

The companies appealed.

The judge reduced the payout to 6 billion.

Which they still did not pay.

The final payment amounted to an agreement to pay half and and to pay monthly payments. ( Of which we lost a third in the crash of 'ought'seven)

Natural Gas payments and a recovering market got the balance up to near the 3 billion dollar mark in 2009 and the Hogs began to squeal. This resulted in the present transportation bill that allocates the majority of a billion dollars to less than 5% of the State.

So; it appears the cost of tourism lost, (10 billion) the cost of Shellfish lost (5 Billion) the cost to the shrimp industry (15 Billion) makes our 2 Billion remaining trust fund seem like a bag of peanuts in the elephant exhibit. The total cost to Alabama could easily break 30 Billion. Louisiana says it will cost them 65 Billion to recover. If they ever do. The effects of this spill will be seen on our beaches for a hundred years. Never again will we advertise " The Pristine White Sands of Alabama"

The spill will reach Alabama within the next week despite all possible efforts to contain it. BP says they are drilling an intercept well that “should” stop the flow in about 100 to 150 days. This solution, provided by BP, is to drop a drill through a mile of water then drill another half-mile of rock and hit a four inch unseen target to divert the pressure. Sounds a lot like Jed Clampett shooting a possum in the eye at 100 yards off the reflection in a wet rock. Good luck with that.