The President has made his case to the UN. It was a direct, forceful statement. The President took Iraq to task for its failure to comply with every UN resolution that was passed by the Security Council following its defeat in the Gulf War. His speech detailed the suffering of the Iraqi people, its support for terror, and the waste of Iraq's treasure and productivity on weaponry and on enrichment for Saddam. The President detailed the US' long standing support for the UN. However, he cautioned the body that inaction on Iraq was not an option.

Prior to the President's speech, President Chirac of France proposed a time limit for compliance with UN inspection resolutions. His proposal outlined a three week period during which Iraq must begin to admit inspectors. I agree; Iraq should comply in short order, without further delay. However, the original resolutions--and their full terms--in all of the aforementioned UN Security Council resolutions must be complied with in that time. Failure to do so will only give the Butcher of Baghdad more time to pursue and acquire weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. As the President said, once Saddam has such weapons, the world's options to deal with him will be limited indeed.

Today was a very tough day for most Americans. Like that fateful day a year ago, I sat riveted to the TV. I watched the ceremony at the Pentagon, the reading of names at Ground Zero, and the wreath ceremony at Shankesville. I tried to avoid the voices of the commentators; most of what can be said has been said. The best coverage was simply the images. Thankfully, CNBC World showed President and Mrs. Bush's interaction with the families at Shankesville without any announcers at all. The only sounds that were heard were the sounds of the wind, and faint, unintelligible speech. I shed tears more than once today. I said a prayer for those who lost a loved one that day and for those whose loss occurred in service to our country since then.

I hope that today has brought some solace and peace to those in pain of loss. For the rest of us, buck up. We have a call to action to heed. Let us listen carefully to the President's words tomorrow. I trust that they will shake the foundations of the butcher of Babylon to the core.

Then, let's roll.

Susan Sontag and Paul Krugman have forgotten much of what the President has said about the war on terror. The terrorists are not a group of thugs who act independently of any nation, like some set of characters from a Bond movie. They live somewhere; they receive economic support and aid from a government, or from a group of people within a nation, or both. While the war on terror may force us to live with ambiguity, it will have its D-Day and Vx-Day equivalents. It may not fit into the neat categories that the New York Times editorial board would like it to have--but it is no Vietnam.

If Saddam obtains nuclear weapons, he can place terrorists and his fellow "Axis" members under his protection. All of the Middle East, and Turkey, would be under constant threat, as we were during the First Cold War. This situation cannot be tolerated. We must deny terrorists their hidey-holes, and madmen their nightmare weapons, while we still can.

Many will link to Dave Barry's tribute to the passenger's on United Flight 93. I was very moved by it.

It will take some time, but I recommend reading this. Francis Fukuyama is the author of the famous article entitled "The End of History?". I don't agree with everything he says, but I agree with quite a bit, and respect his point of view on the rest.

I also enjoyed this. Remembrances and mourning have their place, and are important. However, let us get on with the job that we have been forced to undertake.

Many, many things have been written about the impact of 9/11 on America, and the world since that tragic day. Now a debate rages about Iraq: is it a sponsor of terrorists, or not? Should we give Saddam a chance through negotiation for more inspections, or assume that he would make a mockery of the process? Should we attack now in order to force a “regime change”, or wait?

Wait for what? For Saddam to strike? Or for Saddam to present incontrovertible evidence that he has nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, if not to the US or Europe, then to Israel or other friends in the region?

It occurs to me that we were given a brief respite between the original Cold War and a new, more malicious version. The New Cold War pits America against a type of enemy who we call “evil doers” and terrorists. However, these enemies are not in one country, not sponsored by one state. They cannot be defeated on a battlefield; they do not seek that kind of war as a rule.

There are many parallels between this Cold War and the last:
• The enemy includes a number of states and a number of terrorist groups funded by them.
• Destruction of a group, or toppling a regime, will not end the threat. The threat will take years to contain, years longer to defeat.
• We will achieve victories in visible, and invisible, battles.
• Ideas, ideals, and economics are among the chief weapons to be used in this battle.
• Our convictions will be tested from within as well as by our enemy directly. There are many free people who fear war, who fear the loss of young lives, who fear—fear.

Are we more secure a year after 9/11? In some ways we are. Passengers have already shown both the willingness and the ability to protect themselves on aircraft. Citizens are volunteering for duty in police, fire, and military service in increasing numbers. We honor those willing to make the sacrifice in defense of our liberty more now than on 9/10.

However, the Homeland Security Department is a politicized mess, bogged down over turf and Civil Service rules. The Transportation Security Agency is at best a work in progress.

We have no choice but to slog through these messes. Our borders must be better protected than before. We have a right to know who is in this country, whether that requires a form of “profiling” or not. Public gathering places, mass transit, seats of government, and critical infrastructure must be protected. Sadly, we cannot count on the oceans to protect us from attack. We cannot hope for the best, and fail to prepare for the worst.

We have been called to act in our own defense. This is not like a failure to prepare for a natural disaster—something that may or may not happen. Something that can be compensated for by a neighbor’s generosity, or parcels from a relief agency. Now lives, and the future of our way of life, are at stake. To fail to act would be to fail ourselves and our children, and to embolden an implacable enemy who seeks signs of our weakness, and draws strength from them.

There is plenty of evidence that Saddam is a psychopath in the mold of Hitler and Stalin. Let us not give him the opportunity to prove that he is a killer on the same scale.

I have been thinking about investment quite a bit lately. After losing $30,000 in three weeks around a month ago, I decided to pull out of the market for a while. I will remain out until the hysteria over corporate responsibility shakes out and the prospects for the economy improve in an unequivocal sense.

Of course, there is a way to change investor psychology that would help offset these factors almost overnight.

Government loves to collect taxes. Here is a section of a report from the Congressional Budget Office that speaks to likely causes for the decline in income tax receipts; the full report is here :

The Usual Suspects

The first likely factor is capital gains income. Realizations of capital gains are not part of national income or GDP. But they are taxable income to individuals and corporations. Consequently, they can grow more rapidly or fall more precipitously than national income, resulting in changes in revenue proportionately greater or smaller than changes in overall economic activity. CBO's analysis indicates that rapid growth of capital gains realizations explains about 30 percent of the growth in individual income tax receipts relative to GDP from 1995 to 1999, so they may be playing a major role in the decline in FY 2002 receipts.

When projecting gains receipts in its January 2002 and March 2002 baselines, CBO already had good estimates of the calendar year 2001 level of the stock market and GDP--big influences on the level of gains realizations that would help determine final tax liability payments in April 2002. As a result, the March baseline, in comparison to the baseline of January 2001, projected a 23 percent decline in realizations and a $27 billion decrease in gains receipts. But because realizations are so volatile, the decline may be greater than econometric analyses of past behavior would suggest. Distributions of capital gains from mutual funds were down in calendar year 2001--reportedly by about 80 percent. Total gains realizations differ from those in mutual funds: stocks are the principal component of mutual funds, but only about half of total taxable gains come from stocks, with the rest coming from other capital assets, such as real estate. As a consequence, total gains would likely have fallen less than gains in mutual funds. Thus, while realizations almost certainly explain some of the FY 2002 shortfall, they very likely do not account for all of it.

A second likely factor is the slower growth of very high incomes in comparison to that of overall income. Those incomes are taxed at the highest rates and produce a disproportionate amount of income tax revenues. From 1995 to 1999, very rapid growth in very high incomes accounted for about 16 percent of the growth in the revenues in excess of GDP. A reversal could very well reduce receipts by a significant amount.
In addition, enough changes occurred this year--including the tax cut, the recession, and the drop in the stock market--to have altered the usual division of tax liability between withholding and estimated payments on the one hand and final payments and refunds on the other. In the 2001 tax year, the ratio of refunds to withholding departed from its previous, relatively stable, pattern. The larger-than-usual role played by final payments and refunds may mean that taxpayers were surprised by economic developments in 2001 and continued to withhold higher-than-necessary amounts. That overwithholding could have been simply the consequence of lower capital gains realizations; but it could also have been because earnings weakened over the course of calendar year 2001, and taxpayers paid withholding at a higher marginal rate than would have been the case had their earnings been steady throughout. In either case, the overwithholding suggests that shortfalls in receipts from two different years could have been bunched into a single year's collections, making the reduction look more ominous than it really was.

Noticeably absent from this list of likely causes are stock options and bonuses, because bonuses are a form of wage income, and most options are included in wage income measures when exercised. They also reduce taxable corporate profits at the same time that they increase taxable wage income. Nevertheless, options and bonuses may play a role in the distributional effect just described. To the extent that they accrue primarily to people with very high income, their rise and fall can affect the receipts-to-GDP ratio. The lower the proportion of income coming from bonuses and options of high-income individuals, the lower the receipts from a given level of wages and salaries. And because options income is typically withheld below the top marginal tax rate, it can disproportionately affect April payments when taxpayers settle up on their liability. Some early evidence suggests that options income may have fallen by 50 percent in calendar year 2001, in contrast to the 30 percent decline built into CBO's projections.

I believe that the drop in capital gains income is due to factors that include 1) lower receipts from the sales of stock, mutual funds, businesses, etc. and 2) a decline in dollars invested in these instruments.

One factor that could help increase investor interest in putting more capital to work is equal treatment of capital gains and capital losses in income tax law. If your investment earns a dollar today, that dollar is fully taxable less applicable deductions. However, under current law, if your investment loses money, you cannot fully deduct those losses on a dollar for dollar basis. The government allows you to write off a maximum of $3,000 per year until your loss is deducted completely. If you lost a little, this may only take a year or so. In my case, and I believe in the case of many people nearing retirement age, the losses cannot be deducted in the investor’s remaining lifetime.

This is unfair, and stacks the deck against those willing to put capital at risk.

Please take the time to read this and this. There may be better indictments of some of the most stupid behavior and ideas in America, but these will do for today.

This story does an even better job of exposing Terry McAuliffe. I wonder if he'll crawl under a rock for a few months until the dust settles on all the "corporate responsibility" and insider trading scandals.

This analysis of the PC economy and the Microsoft anti-trust ruling is the best I have read--I wish I had written it.

This should be especially interesting for all those Democrats who try to claim that the government had a role in the growth of the stock market in the 1990s; maybe this will enlighten you as to the government's power to damage the true engine of growth--hard working businessmen and women. Usually, the government's role is similar to that of the amazed mother-in-law who stares incredulously at the success her no-account son-in-law became--despite her warnings to her daughter.

From FoxViews at the Fox News site:

Sam Donaldson interviewed Terry McAuliffe on This Week. Appearing to be enjoying an adrenaline rush, the Democratic party leader stood by his criticism of Bush and the upcoming economic forum.
He also defended his Global Crossing investment by saying he was a "venture capitalist."

A jovial Donaldson appeared to enjoy McAuliffe’s energy level and failed to press him on the issues.

Now that's funny. Terry McAuliffe, the venture capitalist? As this story in Business 2.0 points out, McAuliffe was simply offered a chance to buy pre-IPO shares that were frequently flipped--sold for a quick profit after the IPO date--in the 1990s. McAuliffe was smart enough--or lucky enough--to hold onto his shares until 1999 and sell them for $18 million.

If McAuliffe were a "venture capitalist", he'd have done due diligence, reviewing start up business plans. He would have stayed awake at night worrying about the money he had at risk, about tough personnel decisions he might have to make. Nope, Terry is just a friend of a contributor to the Democratic party who got in on one of the most lucrative opportunities of the past century. Whether McAuliffe did anything wrong or not, he is certainly stretching the truth by calling himself anything but a crony of a fat cat.

Will there be a baseball strike? Reports out of the player representative meetings in Chicago today seem to indicate that the answer is yes. That is sad news indeed for all of us baseball fans.

My wife was offered a chance to buy Mariner’s playoff tickets for this season. I would jump at the chance, despite the slender lead the team is clinging to, if not for the threat of a strike.

We bought SeaHawk season tickets earlier in the month. Although Seattle’s star quarterback, Trent Dilfer, sprained his knee in an exhibition game Saturday, I’m still cautiously optimistic about the season.

Football—college and pro—is the number one sport in America. NASCAR appears to be well on its way to breaking into the top three, if not the top two. A baseball strike will only hasten the change. NASCAR drivers do not strike. Neither do professional golfers.

In an era of declining discretionary income, baseball cannot afford to take fan loyalty for granted. My wife and I had a great time on a tour with the BMW club on Saturday. We may decide that our spare time—and dollars—are all accounted for with SeaHawks and driving adventures.

Baseball, be careful. Will the networks pay for rights to games no one watches?

Now we read that Saddam plans to draw US forces into Iraq’s cities rather than deploy his armies in the desert. Apparently, he thinks that he can bog us down in house to house fighting, popping up to shoot at us from a rabbit warren of tunnels and bunkers underground.

Hmmm.

As I recall, a favorite tactic in modern mobile warfare is to bypass enemy strongholds in order to capture and hold strategic chokepoints. If Saddam hides his army, we could set up an interdiction plan to control his borders, destroy his media outlets (and replace them with ours), secure his oilfields, and generally starve him out in the open. This would take more than a few weeks of bombing followed by a few days of combat, as in Bush vs. Saddam I, but would be even more effective. We could create an UN-administered zone containing the captured territory and leave him the ruler of a land-locked, resource poor slum.

As for using his Scuds to launch terror weapons from Baghdad at Israel or Kuwait, does anyone think that we have not improved our ability to shoot down his largely ineffective missiles since the Gulf War?

$6 per barrel oil, anyone?

Things move more slowly in summer. The pace of the war against terrorism seems to be moving slowly in Afghanistan, but moves all too quickly if Israel’s battlefront is included. Moreover, it should be--the PLO and Arafat’s "government" are no less bent on genocide now than at any time in its sad history. The Israeli government must feel profoundly bitter and torn as they transfer funds to the Palestinian "government" in the aftermath of the recent university bombing.

Russia is assisting Iran with the construction of nuclear plants. That bears repeating. Russia is assisting Iran with the construction of nuclear plants. Fortunately, the Russian government is reconsidering its plans after pressure from the Bush administration.

Iraq now says that it may readmit UN weapons inspectors. Of course, Saddam Hussein has had years to perfect his camouflage techniques for his weapons stores and death factories.

Jordan’s King Abdullah says that talk of deposing Saddam is "somewhat ludicrous". Of course, Jordan depends heavily on support from Iraq, making the King’s motives subject to question.

The Saudi royal family is lead by a man near death in a hospital in Switzerland. Will his successor be friendly to the West? Or will his successor do anything to retain power, continuing to tolerate and even finance religious extremists up to the minute of his execution?

Indonesia, the largest predominately Muslim nation in the world, has its share of terrorists and revolutionaries who threaten its stability. The same is true of the Philippines. The US is trying to shore up these governments with aid, including anti-terrorism training for their armed forces.

The Russians are trying to exact heavy tolls and establish virtual control over oil shipped across the Caspian Sea from land-locked countries in the region. It recently held a series of naval exercises there that are clearly efforts to intimidate its oil-producing neighbors.

The list of truly serious problems goes on and on almost without end. Our nation, which seemed to want to turn inward after the 1992 election, cannot shirk its role in the world. However, we must accept that simple solutions are not to be found in any of these cases. Europe is long on criticism of US policy, but short on action--except in support of Arafat and Saddam. When and where we act, and act we should in many of these cases, we must accept that long-term US commitment to each of these regions is required to help foster stability and peace.

A slow summer indeed.

I wonder if bin Laden is still alive. We have read conflicting statements from those supposedly in the know in and out of government. What a blow it would be to the al-Qaida and their cronies if his body could be positively identified! What a boost it would be domestically!

As for the economy, who does the average investor trust to tell them that it is safe to invest again? Rather than the death of a hated enemy, who could return--alive--to save us? I doubt that a politician could have that kind of impact. Would a positive ruling in favor of Microsoft have the opposite effect of the guilty verdict back in early 2000 on the market? Would tech stocks bounce?

Probably not. But if you are going to own tech, own Microsoft.

While the run of stories on corporate responsibility is bad, let us not forget that this is America. Only in America can there be such widespread discussion of issues like this, whether the discussion takes place in the mass media, on talk radio and TV, or on the Web.

I enjoyed a comment I heard on the radio today very much. A caller challenged Congress to sign the federal budget with the same responsibilities for accountability that CEOs are expected to follow. Will Congressmen (and women) ever stop pointing fingers at "evil executives", or other scapegoats of the moment? The Democrats are returning to their roots as the "anti-business" party. Class warfare gets us--all of us--exactly nowhere!

I hope that some sort of reason takes hold and that the baby is not thrown out with the bath water; that is, that the stampede to "do something" about executive power run amok does not itself run amok. Many, many people in America have large personal stakes in the capital markets. Winning the 2002 elections through the long-term destruction of the investment class would be a pyrrhic victory indeed for the Democrats. What would the Social Security system--not to mention society at large--look like if every person entering retirement age truly depended upon it for 100% of his or her retirement income? I don't believe any Democrat wants that, not even those hypocrites who flew on corporate jets to get to fund raisers this weekend.

Give the SEC the headcount and budget it needs to vigorously uphold the laws that are on the books today. Change the law to make stock options an expense, if that is the right thing to do--after an informed debate. For God’s sake, stop demagoging the economy!

Do you remember the early days of the Bush administration? Back when the Democrats accused Republicans of talking down the economy? It turned out that we really were in a recession, and that a stimulus was required to help bring us out of it.

Now, it seems, Democrats are talking down the economy and the stock market. Investors are taking major hits. People who were looking forward to retiring are now looking at working for several years longer.
What are the motivations for this behavior?

I believe that the President, back in 2001, wanted to avoid a deep recession becoming the hallmark of his presidency, and acted quickly (with the support of both houses of Congress) to do what could be done by the government. The Fed acted in concert, perhaps concerned that the interest rate increases of 2000 were too much, too quickly, for the economy to take.

Now, the Fed is standing pat, having shot most of its bolts. Interest rates are more than low enough, if only businesspeople would borrow to make investments.

However, we are caught in the quarterly numbers trap. For many years, businesspeople have warned that business is becoming too beholden to next quarter’s profit and forecast data. Even mighty Microsoft has to beat the whisper numbers and year to year comparisons, no matter how much it invests in new initiatives that will, eventually, bring in more revenue and profit.

With this sort of scrutiny, coupled with terrorist jitters, corporate scandals that affect the most admired of companies (Enron, Fortune magazine’s poster child), and perhaps most nefariously, lack of pricing power, it is no wonder that the stock market averages are dropping like stones.

The Democrats, concerned only with winning, are not helping. They appear to have Republicans running away from good ideas like Social Security privatization. They appear to have a super majority forming in Congress that will pass any new corporate reporting/accounting regulatory bill that can be cobbled together--no matter the unintended consequences. Even John McCain now opposes stock options. How many political contributions were paid with those options in the "roaring '90s"?

Investor psychology is shot. I really wish my broker would have put me in Ginnie Mae issues back in March of 2001 when I asked him to. I’d be sleeping like a baby, earning about 7%.

As for what is next, I predict plenty of demagoguery, seasoned with overlarge helpings of attacks on President Bush’s Harken energy record. As to that, if you file the form saying you are going to sell stock, is it so critical to file the form saying that you sold the stock? I think the disclosure for most investors who pay attention has taken place. There's no there there--sorry Washington Post and New York Times.

I can hardly watch CNBC. I can remember watching it constantly back in 1998 and 1999. It was on a good portion of the time at the PRO Sports Club in Bellevue. All those Microsofties who worked out at the club had elaborate spreadsheets written in Excel, but really burned into their brain. I can still estimate the tax impact on a given level of income--like that!

Obviously, the late 1990s weren’t really about investing for a large number of people. To them, the stock market was a huge lottery that almost always paid you for playing. The coolest people flipped IPOs. Others bought the stocks of the day mentioned early on CNBC, then sold after lunch. Sadly, real investors tried to follow the buy and hold strategy that seemed to work for so long, and saw smaller returns than the gamblers. Still, do you know any day traders today?

It’s hard to see when the current negative psychology will turn. The business reporting in the 1970s and that of today seem eerily similar--there’s almost no good news, and what good news there is doesn’t matter.
I’m not an expert by any means, but I think that there are a few signs that could point to a turn-around--when and if these events occur are open questions:

• Coalition forces find the body of bin Laden and his top henchmen. Despite denials in the Arab world, the identities of the remains are established beyond a shadow of a doubt. I wonder what the market reaction to the discovery of Hitler’s body was back in 1945?

• The FBI, CIA and the agencies in the Department of Homeland Security (more on this below) stop the attack that Al Queda must be planning for the 9/11 anniversary.

• Accounting and brokerage/investment banking reforms are signed into law. Of course, the people in the agencies entrusted with the new powers must be competent and the agencies funded sufficiently to do the job.

• Some high profile cheats go to Attica, or some similar prison without a putting green.

• The Department of Homeland Security is formed. By the way, could that name be any lamer? How about calling it the United States Security Agency? Or the Department for the Protection of American Freedom? Homeland seems so Russian—they referred to their country as “the Motherland”. It's sad that one of the major impediments to the passage of legislation to create the agency is a provision that the President wants that would allow agency employees to be fired. Imagine, firing someone because they couldn't do their job. The union that represents government employees has made it all but impossible to get rid of incompetents, and it looks like they plan to oppose this provision "vigorously"

• The elections conclude this fall. I think that this cycle will surprisingly bitter and cynical, but the bitterest and most cynical may be surprised—at their losses. I believe that the public is weary of politics, and wants a government that really does work together for the common good without demagoguery.

Of course, people will feel better--at least for a couple of hours--when the next Tolkien installment comes out at the end of the year. The title has nothing to do with the WTC, as anyone who’s read the trilogy knows.

Why is it that people do not act with enlightened self interest foremost in their thoughts? Of course, the obvious retorts are, "Enlightened--from whose point of view? Enlightened--by whom (or what)?"

So much of history shows these mistakes in naked clarity. Economic and political issues are not settled in World War II, leaving openings for the rise of Fascism and Communism. Today, Arabs sit on vast oil resources with the potential to make the desert bloom, and raise their peoples to the forefront in industry, education, social advancement--all the aspirations of first world democracies. Millionaire professional baseball players and billionaire baseball owners squabble over largely economic issues, threatening each other with a work stoppage that might, just might, finally drive the long suffering fans away for good.

Why are these things so hard to see now, when action is possible, rather than afterwards?

If national fascism and Communism--in Europe--can be conquered, then concerted efforts can conquer religious and political differences in Ireland, in the Middle East, and in other hot spots around the globe. Recent reports of the size of Israel’s nuclear arsenal attributed to the USAF put the number of warheads at 400 or so. This is more than enough to make Mecca and Medina uninhabitable for 57 years or more--if anyone would want to visit a slag heap--with more than enough left over for most of the other Arab cities. The Arab birth rate shows a growing need for land, food, water and services in Arab territories that must be met. Otherwise, those basic needs will couple with religious fervor to pressure Israel and its supporters in the West mercilessly for concessions. Add to this the decline of the Israeli birth and Jewish immigration rates, and it can be seen where economic and political power will fall inevitably.

What of immigration in the developed nations of the world. Declining birthrates among the indigenous populations coupled with legal and illegal immigration changes the political, cultural and economic infrastructures of these countries. Will a future US be as willing to intercede in the Middle East, Asia or Europe as it might be in Central or South America? Will our need to spend on Social Security--the effort to privatize it having been effectively countered by the news of ten or so spectacular corporate frauds and the commensurate impact on stock prices overall--overwhelm all other aspects of government spending?

Will government remain a driver for technology research and innovation? Will we even have a space program for anything other than communications satellites? Will basic science lack a sponsor other than those interested in directed research rather than pure scientific inquiry?

What will the world of 2022 be like? Will our leaders continue to demagogue each other on petty concerns of the moment, or will it take wake up calls louder than 9/11 to awaken the populace that a new class of leader is required? Will the great New York Times continue to print stories that blame an administration for cutting spending on items like Superfund site clean up when in fact the spending on such programs has increased over past years, just not at the rate that special (Democratic) interests demand?

I hope that my wife’s grandchildren grow up in a world where leaders lead from principled thought on such issues rather than be led by polls and pollsters who hope to "win the week". I urge everyone to read a wide variety of news sources in order to be informed independently of political flacks and party hacks. Use the tools to understand the issues, and insist that candidates address them. And vote, in every election.

Information--and the capacity to understand it through education--are the best tools that citizens have to protect their rights from those on both sides who would curtail them. All business is not bad, not even big business. Without investment there would be no products, no housing, no utilities or services. Without regulation--enforcement of laws on the books today, for example--opportunists who exist during every age will run rampant. The trick is to strike a proper, fair balance, and to restore confidence that the system is operating in its own "Enlightened Self Interest".

I had hoped to make this a daily occurrence; a catharsis of sorts. I have not been as diligent as I planned to be, however.

In order to eliminate availability of a PC in every room of the house as an excuse, I am trying an experiment with this edition. I am writing this on my Pocket PC in Pocket Word. I will e-mail the final result to myself, and then copy the text into the site tomorrow. Eventually, I will buy an 802.11 card for the Pocket PC so that I can complete the entire process from the Pocket PC from start to finish.

The NASDAQ average is down again today. It is about where it was 5 years ago. At one point during its run-up that ended above 5,000, "investors" jumped from one "New Economy" trend to another. The Dot Coms--any Dot Com. Then Palm. Then phone software. Then cellular networks and telecommunications infrastructure. Then Linux. Then optical networking. Then the bottom fell out.

Ironically, the explosion of demand for 802.11-based wireless networks in recent years has not seen a run-up in associated stocks. The momentum players are played out; the battered individual investor no longer trusts an analyst's recommendation.

Still, we will see. Microsoft embraced wireless LAN technology in Windows XP. As component prices drop and security is strengthened, more and more networks will go in--at home and at work. People will buy cheap, heavy laptops that can be put away & out of sight at home, yet brought out to connect through broadband anywhere they are needed.

Tech stocks, anyone?