Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

More on PGF

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My biggest gainer, in both percentage and absolute dollar terms, is PGF ("Powershares Exchange" – – which means absolutely nothing).

I managed to short this one on August 14, where the arrow shows, and I'm really happy with its direction so far. This is one of those blessed situations where I just have to keep ratcheting the stop down and let it slide. My new stop is at 15.44.

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The Happiest Place on Earth

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I shouldn't say it, but I simply cannot help myself: here goes: Since I'm away from my normal workplace, posts will be less frequent than usual (sigh; deja vu; you can start mocking me now). There has always been Starkadders on Cold Comfort Farm.

Anyhway, I was delighted to see that we flipped from 1031 down to 1015 in a big, big hurry. It's nearly 7:30 a.m. here, and I just got up, which is ungodly late considering how early I normally wake up.

I think things are very, very slowly starting to turn the way of the bears. The pace may be glacial, but it's happening.

Allow me to get a skosh more coherant and get my face on, and I'll be back here for more.

Stick a Fork In It

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As regular readers know, even family travel does not prevent me from doing multiple posts in short spans of time. I'm literally at the gate of the airport with Mrs. Bear and my cubs, heading to the land of Dopey, Grumpy, and Wheezy, but I can't leave my readers high and dry.

{Update: I typed the above at 8:45 p.m. and my 12 seconds of battery life gave out of me; so here I am, 12:32 in the morning, finishing this oh-so-important update). Anyway.

When we ate at the airport restaurant at SFO, Mrs. Bear noticed the following about out cutlery. See if you can spot what's unusual. I'll bet you can!

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Did you guess that one of the items – the knife – was made of plastic instead of metal? That's right! See? That's why you belong here on Slope.

The logic, I suppose, is that the Federal Government has insisted that restaurants inside the security zone not provide knives to passengers.

Now, if we were talking about steak knives, that makes complete sense to me. Thank you, Washington D.C.! But………..we're not. This is a substitute for a case knife. And – more important – the multiple-sharp-prongs of the fork await the use of anyone with ill intent.

Now, tell me: if you were going to take on someone in a fight, and you could have first choice of weapon – case knife or fork – which would you choose? I would hope the fork. Because, see, a fork can do a fair bit of damage. Eyes, throats, and other squishy parts of the body don't do so well against a fork. Added to which, a case knife can be grabbed with very little risk to the person defending himself.

I cannot be surprised at the logic of an entity that created Cash for Clunkers, gave Henry Paulson a tax-free ride on hundreds of millions of dollars of Goldman Sachs stock, and handed AIG $160 billion as a reward for completely screwing up.

These are the people in charge of your lives.

But at least you're not going to have to stare down some punk-ass terrorist with a case knife. And, with that, I shall rest easier here in the Magic Kingdom.