3 Views of the Long-Term

With neither the expertise nor time to do these justice, I offer for others’ thoughts the following three sites which discuss both bin Laden’s and America’s long-term strategy:
A) Bruce Lawrence, having written an introduction to bin Laden’s works, summarizes some of his points – “In bin Laden’s Words” in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. Thanks to A&L Daily.
B) Belmont Club’s discussion of Iran’s threat and of Gingrich’s testimony about American intelligence and the “long war.”
C) Newt Gingrich’s testimony itself before Congress. This is relatively long and in PDF format; includes 4 appendices: Natinal Security Changes; Core Values of the Intelligence Community; Recommendations; and For Inside Assessment of Intelligence Reform.

He contrasts this “Long War” (taking 50-70 years if we are quite lucky) with the defensive alliance that contained the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The fitting comparison, he believes, are to the lengthy, multiple & bloody Reformation-era wars.

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This blog is good for you!

(Didn’t read Chicagoboyz.)

Tired of fishy rhetoric? Do some of your usual blogs smell a bit off? We’re not saying it was poor reading habits alone that did in our piscine friend, but maybe it’s time to fortify your blogging diet with a heaping helping of fresh Chicagoboyz. It couldn’t hurt.

Personal Experience is Referred to as “Anecdotal”

Steven den Beste sent me a private Email with a link to this article by John Lott. In the op-ed, Lott discusses how Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin brought the subject of gun control up during a visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. This is after badgering the new US Ambassadore on the same subject when he arrived in Canada to fulfill his duties.

Steven asked a question in his Email.

“Why is it that gun control activists have so much trouble with this
concept?”

I started to answer that question in the reply, but decided that it was long and involved enough to rate a post.

I’ve been a self defense advocate and active 2nd Amendment supporter for the past 14 years, and in that time I’ve debated a number of people who support gun control. It’s been my experience that the majority of the hard core true believers, the people who donate the majority of the time and money needed to keep the movement going, have lost a loved one to suicide by gun.

This makes sense when one considers that the majority of all gun deaths are suicides (close to 60%). I’m not qualified to render a psychological profile of the people with which I’ve come in contact, but it seems that they are uniformly extremely emotional about the issue. They also tend to be convinced that their program of abolishing all private gun ownership will reduce all levels of violence, from crime to suicides.

It’s obvious that the persons who provide the greatest impetus for the gun control movement are moral, concerned individuals that are genuinely convinced that they are attempting a great good for all of us. Unfortunately, the record shows that they are wrong.

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We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Malaise Exchange

Update: Joerg of Atlantic Review has written to note that the position on oil companies I thought was by one of their writers was not. I am sorry for misrepresenting the writers on their blog – which clearly does not as a general rule take such positions. And, apparently, the comment I thought attributable to one of them, was not by a contributor.
Yes, Joerg, I have been sick, but not that sick. I missed your posting on the comments. And no, I still haven’t gotten your e-mail. You might send it to Jonathan and he will forward it.

Post as original follows:
I’m thankful to David Foster for his link to Noonan and the spirited & thoughtful (& sometimes wistful) discussion that followed. He made me think & feel a great deal more gratitude for the deep pleasures I’ve found in life during the last few years. I’d intended to link to a couple of interesting discussions of cultural exchange in a short post this week-end, but was struck by the juxtaposition of those articles with Noonan’s sense of malaise. I suspect, at the heart of Noonan are doubts that what we do & feel, our history & tradition & values, are not defensible or shouldn’t be defended. (Or the people doing the defending might be the people who have already given up.)

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Trading Diary Notes – LWSN

I bought Lawson Software (LWSN) and Silicon Motion (SIMO) on Friday to get long. Both had stellar earnings beats, along with good charts.

One interesting thing I saw over the weekend on LWSN is that they have $248m of cash/mkt securities on their balance sheet with negligible debt. Current market cap according to Yahoo Finance is $856m. But since it’s profitable and cash flow positive, under M&A analysis, LWSN’s market cap is really closer to $608m since whoever buys them would pocket the cash and get the earnings stream. Assuming analyst estimates of 36 cents a share for FY06 earnings, and 105m diluted shares outstanding, LWSN should earn in the ballpark of $38 million. This makes its forward P/E closer to 16, rather than the current forward P/E of 22.5. Funny thing, Yahoo Finance’s market cap calc looks like 113m shares outstanding, but LWSN’s financials say 105m fully diluted. I’m guessing LWSN is more accurate, which would make LWSN’s true market cap closer to 793m. Call it a market inefficiency of info, ie more people look at Yahoo than SEC filings. Backing out cash, 793m-248m = 545m, brings forward P/E closer to 14. Downright cheap.

I’m hoping LWSN is a buy and hold. I won’t hesitate to sell if the market plunges, but this gives me comfort in holding the stock.

Some good news, the portfolio’s first full month performance (since inception/start of law school) as of this weekend is 15.5%. It was higher, but I’ll take that any day. So cheers, here’s to the return of Greed. Hopefully I won’t have to experience the return of Fear (and loathing).

Ding ding ding…

Update: I should have waited until the true “end of the month” to calculate 1 month returns like mutual funds do. It would have been 21% vs 15.5%. I love mark up day – good enough for a 5.5% improvement on returns today. But I bet my original calculation is a “cleaner” return than the potentially artificial end of month numbers. I should also write another post called “day trading for fun and profit”… I took advantage of the run up for some intraday gains. Not recommended, but it’s a way to play the gun up game, without the overnight risk.