Showing posts with label peace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peace. Show all posts
Saturday, October 10, 2015
A few photos
Ordinarily I take photos of the things I see around me. They aren't especially amazing just things that catch my eye. When we were in California I took only a handful of photos because it seemed like a time to be 'in the moment' rather than recording it. We were within walking distance of Venice Beach. It wasn't crowded but parking would be a huge problem if you drove there. It's not a small beach!
Not very crowded either! There is a pier here that is pretty laid back. I understand the Santa Monica pier is completely different with shops and all. Here there were walkers and people fishing. But it's a LONG pier!
I've seen quite a few photos of the blood moon. Living in the desert I thought this would be a piece of cake. Well, maybe not! The mountains in the east kept the moon hidden until it was quite high so the red color didn't really come through. Then there was a cloud layer! Oh well!
My wife and I like to walk around our neighborhood in the early morning. In summer that means before sunrise. Now that it is a bit more temperate we are still getting out by 07:00. We had some rain recently and that means snow on the mountain. It probably won't last but on October 7 we saw this for the first time since last spring.
The rain is also a signal for the desert to come to life for a few days. We pass this saguaro when we walk. This display lasted one day. The blooms are still there but the color is completely gone.
We don't get things that dramatic often but we do enjoy just looking at the clouds.
Even some man-made formations.
All those folks zooming past/over us travelling to and from California and other points East and West. I like the quiet, the cool morning air and the familiar path. Thanks for stopping by!
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Nice walk
We took a nice walk this morning. It was pretty much our usual walk taking about 45 minutes. We saw a quail, a couple jack rabbits and, unusually, a coyote. The parcel of land that we use for our walks is probably 100 acres (40 hec.), maybe more, I'm not good with knowing the size of an area. There are other odd empty pieces of land but they are more lot sized, 1 acre or 4,000 sq. m. Given that there is little vegetation, it doesn't seem like a lot of land for a coyote. Happily this guy just wanted to be left alone so took off in a direction opposite from us.
Read a very interesting article about value investing the other day but I didn't make note of the address so can't find the stupid thing. The whole point was that some university professor made a study of what would happen if you invested in 'value' companies vs 'growth' companies. In this country and overseas the result was that the value investments were more successful than the growth style investments. Now this was simply an article written for a magazine or Yahoo Finance or something equally un-rigorous so there weren't actual numbers. Not to mention, the professor has probably got, and needs, half a book full of charts to support his thesis. Nor were the terms 'value' and 'growth' defined. Do I agree with 'value' beats 'growth'? I guess so.
It seems to me that to be a 'growth' investor almost requires one to be a pretty active trader. Constant growth is pretty unusual. As an example, look at Google. In the last year it's share price has varied between $450 to almost $650 and is at about $525 now. There are no dividends so the way to make money is by trading; seeing a buying opportunity at $450 and selling at $550 would work if you can do it. So you are going to have more turnover in a 'growth' environment; and I'm not sure how many swings of up-a-third you are going to find. Apple did even better, it went from $240 to $320 over that same year. Another great performance but again, the only way you get money in your pocket is by selling. Apple's gain was less choppy than Google so the date of purchase was less important but if you bought in the last six months you are only looking at a 10% gain.
For me it's better to buy value and hold it for some period. In my experience as a trader, I make a good loser. I don't know if my basic stock choosing is too influenced by things I read or if there is some other reason but my timing stinks. What can I say? I just don't do timing well.
Have a good one!
Read a very interesting article about value investing the other day but I didn't make note of the address so can't find the stupid thing. The whole point was that some university professor made a study of what would happen if you invested in 'value' companies vs 'growth' companies. In this country and overseas the result was that the value investments were more successful than the growth style investments. Now this was simply an article written for a magazine or Yahoo Finance or something equally un-rigorous so there weren't actual numbers. Not to mention, the professor has probably got, and needs, half a book full of charts to support his thesis. Nor were the terms 'value' and 'growth' defined. Do I agree with 'value' beats 'growth'? I guess so.
It seems to me that to be a 'growth' investor almost requires one to be a pretty active trader. Constant growth is pretty unusual. As an example, look at Google. In the last year it's share price has varied between $450 to almost $650 and is at about $525 now. There are no dividends so the way to make money is by trading; seeing a buying opportunity at $450 and selling at $550 would work if you can do it. So you are going to have more turnover in a 'growth' environment; and I'm not sure how many swings of up-a-third you are going to find. Apple did even better, it went from $240 to $320 over that same year. Another great performance but again, the only way you get money in your pocket is by selling. Apple's gain was less choppy than Google so the date of purchase was less important but if you bought in the last six months you are only looking at a 10% gain.
For me it's better to buy value and hold it for some period. In my experience as a trader, I make a good loser. I don't know if my basic stock choosing is too influenced by things I read or if there is some other reason but my timing stinks. What can I say? I just don't do timing well.
Have a good one!
Monday, May 02, 2011
Osama - RIP
Well, after almost ten years and who could even guess how many billions of dollars, Osama Bin Laden is dead. Who really gives a fuck? It's not going to bring back even one of the 5,000 plus men and women who have died looking for him. It's not going to put a leg or an arm back on any of the many more thousands of men and women who have been injured. All it means is there is someone else running some terror group. Gee.
In other news, nothing much happened. At least not in our paper. Well, maybe now we can bring our troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq and let the local chieftains get on with their power struggles. In Iraq what are we doing? First we are giving the local religious zealots a nice 'Christian' target and secondly we are trying to keep the locals from killing each other. I'm really tired of religious wars and I'm really tired of having our troops being in countries where we haven't been invited. Bring the troops back home and let the locals do whatever they are going to do to one another.
Here's a link to Charlie Reese's article about Afghanistan. Charlie is one of my icons. He was a writer for various newspapers; he's retired now. (I'm hoping he is still alive and well!) I enjoyed his columns in the Orlando Sentinal in the 1980's when we lived in Orlando, FL. I was still enjoying them in 2008 when we were living in Palm Harbor, FL. Charlie thought that we in the U.S. are blessed to be living here and that we ought to expend our energy on making this an even better place to be rather than running around trying to be policeman for the world. He thought that if people in some far away land wanted to kill each other, it was just fine to let them do that. The more I think about it, the more I agree with that idea. So when you Aussies start fighting over which is the better beer, don't expect the U.S. to come & try to keep you apart. If you couldn't tell, I'm damn tired of paying in blood and money for other people's problems.
Have a good one folks, it's a tough world out there.
In other news, nothing much happened. At least not in our paper. Well, maybe now we can bring our troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq and let the local chieftains get on with their power struggles. In Iraq what are we doing? First we are giving the local religious zealots a nice 'Christian' target and secondly we are trying to keep the locals from killing each other. I'm really tired of religious wars and I'm really tired of having our troops being in countries where we haven't been invited. Bring the troops back home and let the locals do whatever they are going to do to one another.
Here's a link to Charlie Reese's article about Afghanistan. Charlie is one of my icons. He was a writer for various newspapers; he's retired now. (I'm hoping he is still alive and well!) I enjoyed his columns in the Orlando Sentinal in the 1980's when we lived in Orlando, FL. I was still enjoying them in 2008 when we were living in Palm Harbor, FL. Charlie thought that we in the U.S. are blessed to be living here and that we ought to expend our energy on making this an even better place to be rather than running around trying to be policeman for the world. He thought that if people in some far away land wanted to kill each other, it was just fine to let them do that. The more I think about it, the more I agree with that idea. So when you Aussies start fighting over which is the better beer, don't expect the U.S. to come & try to keep you apart. If you couldn't tell, I'm damn tired of paying in blood and money for other people's problems.
Have a good one folks, it's a tough world out there.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Loading....
We are headed to Vegas on Thursday to help our daughter move to her new place. There are some things we promised to bring over so I spent an hour or two loading the truck. The hardest part is tying everything so it won't get bounced around. The second hardest part is crawling around in the back of the truck on my hands and knees! Let me tell you, knees aren't made for crawling after sixty.
President Obama finally came out and talked about Libya. He is being criticized for it being an incomplete plan and I'm reasonably certain he'd rather have a better plan as well. He is certainly painstakingly thorough when he has the time. I've read that the Brits helped make up his mind to participate in the no-fly attacks. In this case I guess I'm ok with the attack. Having a U.N. resolution behind the action makes me a LOT happier than going off on our own as we did under GWB.
Politico.com had this to say: (His careful response)" is part of his DNA — a response to the grand strategic hopes that accompanied the Iraq invasion and, indeed, a return to his first foray into foreign policy: his little-noticed, later crucial, 2002 opposition to the Iraq war. “I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars,” he said at the time, and he and his aides Monday sought to make the case that in a careful analysis, the war over Libya is worth it."
“I’ve made it clear that I will never hesitate to use our military swiftly, decisively, and unilaterally when necessary to defend our people, our homeland, our allies and our core interests,” he said. If there is any semblance of an Obama doctrine, it is that a president who clearly sees force as a last resort will nonetheless use it, but only after deep reflection and only under circumstances that he feels give him no other choice; it is a doctrine that makes sure above all that one size never fits all.
President Obama finally came out and talked about Libya. He is being criticized for it being an incomplete plan and I'm reasonably certain he'd rather have a better plan as well. He is certainly painstakingly thorough when he has the time. I've read that the Brits helped make up his mind to participate in the no-fly attacks. In this case I guess I'm ok with the attack. Having a U.N. resolution behind the action makes me a LOT happier than going off on our own as we did under GWB.
Politico.com had this to say: (His careful response)" is part of his DNA — a response to the grand strategic hopes that accompanied the Iraq invasion and, indeed, a return to his first foray into foreign policy: his little-noticed, later crucial, 2002 opposition to the Iraq war. “I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars,” he said at the time, and he and his aides Monday sought to make the case that in a careful analysis, the war over Libya is worth it."
“I’ve made it clear that I will never hesitate to use our military swiftly, decisively, and unilaterally when necessary to defend our people, our homeland, our allies and our core interests,” he said. If there is any semblance of an Obama doctrine, it is that a president who clearly sees force as a last resort will nonetheless use it, but only after deep reflection and only under circumstances that he feels give him no other choice; it is a doctrine that makes sure above all that one size never fits all.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
What can one say???
My heart goes out to the people of Christchurch, NZ who have been so devastated by the terrible earthquake. How can it be understood to be riding along in a bus and have a building fall on it! What can prepare one for that?
"How's your mum?"
"Oh, she's dead."
"Oh, I'm so sorry. How did she die?"
"A building fell on the bus she was riding in last Tuesday."
What's with that! Well, I guess it's better than what's happening in the Arab world. In New Zealand we are talking 65 dead; in Libya it might be 500 or 5,000.
The changes we are seeing there; almost minute to minute are staggering. What on earth can one say about the Egyptian leader leaving office after 30 years? There are certain to be amazing changes in the direction of Egyptian politics. Then there are the other Arab/Islamic nations who are feeling the desire for change - Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, who knows where?
I'm no foreign policy genius but any nitwit can see that when an autocratic regime suddenly disappears there is a power vacuum and there is no guessing what will happen. All those boffins who advise the leaders of the world will be grasping at any straw to suggest the future direction of these countries. I'm glad I'm not one of the boffins or the leaders! Come on Obama, I supported you because I thought you were smart enough to lead us through mine-fields like this. Go buddy, go!
All I know is that almost everyone prefers stability to disarray so I'm expecting some military take-overs in some Arab countries really soon. The prince of Bahrain, in canceling the Bahrain Grand Prix, has signaled that he wants to talk with at least some of his people.
"Bahrain's priority is on overcoming tragedy, healing divisions and rediscovering the fabric that draws this country together to remind the world of the very best that Bahrain is capable of as a nation once again united. At the present time the country's entire attention is focused on building a new national dialogue for Bahrain."
At the very least, the Prince's words give one hope for this one nation. Libya is certainly not so fortunate! The death toll is still unknown; most likely will never be known. Who knows about the other Arab nations?
This is one of those times when I wish I believed in a God. I would certainly be praying for peace!
"How's your mum?"
"Oh, she's dead."
"Oh, I'm so sorry. How did she die?"
"A building fell on the bus she was riding in last Tuesday."
What's with that! Well, I guess it's better than what's happening in the Arab world. In New Zealand we are talking 65 dead; in Libya it might be 500 or 5,000.
The changes we are seeing there; almost minute to minute are staggering. What on earth can one say about the Egyptian leader leaving office after 30 years? There are certain to be amazing changes in the direction of Egyptian politics. Then there are the other Arab/Islamic nations who are feeling the desire for change - Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, who knows where?
I'm no foreign policy genius but any nitwit can see that when an autocratic regime suddenly disappears there is a power vacuum and there is no guessing what will happen. All those boffins who advise the leaders of the world will be grasping at any straw to suggest the future direction of these countries. I'm glad I'm not one of the boffins or the leaders! Come on Obama, I supported you because I thought you were smart enough to lead us through mine-fields like this. Go buddy, go!
All I know is that almost everyone prefers stability to disarray so I'm expecting some military take-overs in some Arab countries really soon. The prince of Bahrain, in canceling the Bahrain Grand Prix, has signaled that he wants to talk with at least some of his people.
"Bahrain's priority is on overcoming tragedy, healing divisions and rediscovering the fabric that draws this country together to remind the world of the very best that Bahrain is capable of as a nation once again united. At the present time the country's entire attention is focused on building a new national dialogue for Bahrain."
At the very least, the Prince's words give one hope for this one nation. Libya is certainly not so fortunate! The death toll is still unknown; most likely will never be known. Who knows about the other Arab nations?
This is one of those times when I wish I believed in a God. I would certainly be praying for peace!
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