Oil/Giuliani/Obama/Buckeyes/Portfolio/Movie Review

Whew! Let's see how much I can cover in this post.

Oil
-Let me tell you, if on a scale of 1 to 10 my reluctance to buy a car was a 7 before October 1, 2007 it is now officially a 10! Why you ask? Well, I read this book titled "Out of Gas-The End of the Age of Oil" by David Goodstein.
-I highly recommend that all of you reading this read it. Goodstein is a Proffesor in the Physics Dept at Cal Tech and has used simple fundamental science and math to illustrate the seriousness associated with the disappearance of Oil in the World.
-I am usually sceptical about people coming up with extreme forecasting to rile up the crowd but this one uses simple science that we can understand. And it is scary.
-Let me summarize briefly what his projections are: Demand for Oil will outgrow Supply in the next 5-8 years; Not only will prices go up but slowly the fundamental forces keeping the economies robust will be affected since Oil is a source of not only fuel but of 80% of all organic materials we use; Humankind has used up almost 2/3rd of the Oil reserves in the earth's interior within 80 years which needed a million years to be made; Alternative sources like natural gas and coal can be used but they may only last another 80 years. He claims that there is an urgent need for the leaders of the world to use a visionary approach in seeking alternate sources of energy (Solar/Nuclear/Wind etc).

Giuliani
-Caught Rudy's interview on CNBC this past week and was shocked to see how personal the US Presidential Campaign has become already.
-The whole interview lasted for about 10 minutes and I think Rudy attacked Hillary's stands, her record, her personal demeanor, etc for about half of that time.
-Not sure if political campaigning needs to get so aggressive and personal. Maybe this is a sign of the times since so little separates the candidates policies that distinctions have to be made any and every way possible.
-I am not sure how campaigning is in Europe but one thing that is kept off limits there is personal attacks. If you want to attack policies of the candidates it's fine but why the ugly personal attacks.
-Well anyway, Rudy's selling point (atleast in the interview) was that he is THE ONLY candidate that has experience with dealing any crisis-and this is not only limited to handling 9/11 according to him: he was responsible for making NYC crime-free; he was responsible to changing the tax structure in NYC; and helped the poor with healthcare.
-One poll that I saw had him a point or two ahead of Hillary in the national race.
-Let's see how this campaign pans out.

Obama on MTV
-Was flipping through the channels and stopped when I saw Barack being interviewed in a stage audience setting on MTV.
-First thing that seemed strange was how serious and political the questions from the young audience were. The dudes looked not a day over 20 and they were asking pretty serious questions on foreign policy and healthcare. Not sure what to make of it, either they were staged or it was genuine.
-Anyway, as usual Barack was a smooth operator. Nothing fazed him, he did not even hesitate while responding, the guy is one slick Willy!
-Looks like the pressure is getting to him and he is getting personal in his attacks as well (not during the interview).

Buckeyes
-College football is getting interesting now! Me being a HUGE Ohio State Buckeyes fan am happy to see that they are ranked #1 this late in the season. Plus the times that I am not a big fan of are languishing at the bottom! Ahhhh! That always feels good.
-The #1 ranking this year was definitely not expected especially considered they lost a lot of kids to the NFL last year. But the whacky season this year has almost by default put them on top. The so-called "better" teams have one by one lost atleast one if not more games: USC, Florida, LSU, and Oklahoma were all supposed to be National Title contenders but ending losing a game each already. Meanwhile the Buckeyes quietly have taken care of business and are sitting pretty, thank you very much!
-There are still 2 big games to play for the Buckeyes, one of them the biggest and grandest of College Sports Rivalries: OSU-Michigan. I dont see them losing either of them. So come the New Year expect them to be playing for the title game!
-Who are they going to play, let's see. I would put my money on LSU but they have it tough with a conference championship game to win in addition.

Portfolio
-No, I have not forgotten about my portfolio! And it has recovered very well from the bashing in August!
-As expected my bets on the Oil stocks recovered well. COP and E are both close to even while CHK is making money! My bet on the alternate fuel stocks, CCJ, is also recovering nicely. PAL on the other hand is not doing so well.
-I did a little of research on all of them this weekend and was pleasantly surprised to read about the COP CEO's comments on alternate energy research. I will post more about this later.
-Overall still about 5% in the Red for the year. But this is better than the 20% hole I was in in September.

Movie Review
-Went to see "We Own the Night" this weekend. One word: Confused!
-The movie makers had no idea what they wanted the movie to be and in the end this confused the audience. Not really sure what the story line or message from this movie was. The trailers make it out to be a "Good Brother Vs Bad Brother" type movie with one being a cop and the other a mafioso. The actual movie was anything but!
-Once the movie ended, I waited for the credits to roll and once I saw that both Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg were producers of the movie it made a whole lot of sense. Looks like they wanted to make a movie together and chose whatever script came their way! Seriously, I had no idea what the movie was supposed to be!
-Having said all that, Phoenix is good in his role. Marky Mark had a bad role so there is not much he could do. Robert Duvall was adequate. And Eva Mendes (I still remember her as that Naked Chic from "Training Day") was there to show some skin and act cool in one shot.


Allrite then, that is all for this week.