Disciplined By Deadlines

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Henry Brandon shares his opinion of Jimmy Carter in this 1989 appearance on Booknotes:

"I had a feeling that Carter suffered from an inner insecurity. If you watched him on television there was an expression of anxiety usually in his face. We were ... talking about [what] a leader needs and he needs to project inner self confidence and Carter did not. I think Carter would have made a very good Secretary of State because he was a good negotiator. He proved that in the Camp David negotiations for instance. But I don't think he had the stature for the Presidency."

Authors' Closing Words

Added on by C. Maoxian.

A running collection of closing words from the authors interviewed on Booknotes … this also serves as a record of all the episodes of Booknotes that I have viewed:

  • Zbigniew Brzezinski -- "I enjoyed it. Thank you."

  • Judy Shelton -- "My pleasure. Thank you for having me."

  • Bruce Oudes -- "You're quite welcome."

  • Susan Moeller -- "Thank you, sir."

  • Henry Brandon -- "Thank you for asking me."

  • David Hackworth -- "My pleasure."

  • James Fallows -- "Thank you. It's been a great pleasure."

  • Gregory Fossedal -- "Thanks for having me."

  • Stanley Karnow -- "Thank you, Brian."

  • James MacGregor Burns -- "Thank you."

  • Robert Christopher -- "It was a lot of fun. Thank you."

  • Robert Byrd -- "Thank you very much. Thank you."

  • Nathaniel Branden -- "I really enjoyed this. It was absolutely, from my point of view, wonderful. Very relaxed, very easy, very natural, I don't know how it even sounded to you, but whatever your personal agenda was, I had a very good time."

  • Roger Kennedy -- "Thank you."

  • George Wilson -- "Thank you."

  • Jeanne Simon -- [interview cut off]

  • Gina Kolata — “Thank you.”

  • Clifford Stoll — “Many thanks to you. I appreciate it.”

  • Hilary Hinton ‘Zig’ Ziglar — “Thank you very much.”

  • Jennifer Toth — “Thank you.”

  • Robert Wright — “Thank you.”

  • Ted Yeatman — “Thank you.”

  • Ellen Joan Pollack — “Thank you.”

  • Roy Morris, Jr. — “Thank you for having me.”

  • Peter Charles Hoffer — “Thank you.“

  • Linda Greenlaw — “Thank you.”

  • Jill Jonnes — “Thank you so much for having me.”

  • Simon Worrall — “Thank you, Brian. It was a pleasure. Thanks.”

  • Liz Trotta — “Thank you, Brian.”

  • Malcolm Wilde Brown — “Thank you very much for having me.”

  • Fitzhugh Green — “….“

  • Adam Bellow — “Thank you, Brian.” | 2019 Jan 28

  • Walter Berns — “…” | 2019 Jan 30

  • Carl Cannon — “Thank you.” | 2019 Feb 6

  • Robert Conquest — “…” | 2019 Feb 7

  • Barbara Crossette — “Thank you.” | 2019 Feb 8

  • Midge Decter — “…” | 2019 Feb 13

  • James Abourezk — “…” | 2019 Dec 4

  • Jean H. Baker — “Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.” | 2019 Dec 4

  • Irving H. Bertlett — “…” | 2019 Dec 4

  • A. Scott Berg — “Thanks for having me here.” | 2019 Dec 9

  • David Aikman — Thank you, Brian. | 2019 Dec 9

  • Liva Baker — Thank you. | 2019 Dec 9

  • Nicholas Basbanes — Thank you, sir. | 2019 Dec 9

  • Jane Alexander — Thank you, Brian. It's been a pleasure. | 2019 Dec 10

  • Neil Baldwin — “Thank you very much.” | 2019 Dec 10

Duty and Destiny

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Here are some of the bits I liked best from Susan Moeller's appearance on Booknotes, discussing her cleverly titled book, "Shooting War: Photography and the American Experience of Combat."  [emphasis mine] 

[Talking about a photo printed in Life Magazine in September 1943]
"MOELLER: The reason it's pivotal is that it was one of the first three photographs that were released of the American dead. So it's the first time in 50 years that Americans saw Americans who had been killed in combat. Up to that 1943 date, censorship for World War II was the same as for World War I. You couldn't show graphic pictures of any kind."
...
"World War II was the war that everyone felt needed to be fought. It was a good war. But the Korean War people had much more ambivalent feelings about -- so the photographs that came back mirrored the ambivalence."
...
[Discussing the controversial photograph of a South Vietnamese general using a revolver to shoot an alleged Viet Cong lieutenant in the head, in the street.]
"MOELLER: Well, it was very controversial for all kinds of reasons. It raised questions about how far photography go. How much should the media show us. But more importantly than the journalistic issues, it raised questions about was this a war that condoned that kind of action. Was that a war that Americans wanted to participate in?
LAMB: I can even remember -- and this is 20 years later -- that it was General Loan.
MOELLER: It was General Loan.
LAMB: I mean, did it have that kind of an impact on all us?
MOELLER: Yes. It really did."

There's video footage of that execution, which I have unfortunately seen, not just still photos. It's probably on YouTube, if you're inclined to search for it.

Updates on SunEdison and Valeant

Added on by C. Maoxian.

I wrote my widely-read posts on SunEdison ($SUNE) and Valeant ($VRX) back in January, and thought I'd post updated charts to show what has happened since. 

SunEdison (SUNE) was $3.41 when I wrote that post and last traded at $0.43, an 87% drop. The trend turned in July 2015 and has been continuously down since.  I'm flabbergasted that there are big-money hedge funds that rode this one all the way down, and continued to hold even after reading my post. 

Click to enlarge

Valeant (VRX) is a little more complicated. As you recall, the key exit was on September 28, 2015 at $196.73, the same day that Xuhua Zhou's blog post appeared. On December 7, 2015 my trend-following system signaled a buy in VRX at $94.08. The exit from that long occurred on February 16, 2016 at $90.49 (a loss of 3.8%), and the trend has remained down since, with the stock closing last Friday at $28.10, a 68.9% fall from the February exit.

Again, there were prestigious, big-money guys who rode this thing all the way down, and even *added* to their losing positions as it fell ... completely unbelievable from this frayed-shirtcuff chartist's perspective. 

Click to enlarge

Tweets for April 2, 2016

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Chairman Recommended: Flip-Flops

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Many have wondered what semi-retired Appalachians wear on their feet, and the answer in my case is flip-flops by Teva, specifically the Mush II Canvas model. I have a pair for indoors and a pair for outdoors. Actually, I have a couple of pairs for each in different colors since I'm such a fashion maven. Like the old Birkenstocks, the soles of these things conform to your feet exactly, making them super comfortable, but they don't have the ugly tops like Birkenstocks have. A steal at $25 a pair. 

Nixon and the Carrot and Stick Technique

Added on by C. Maoxian.

From an interview with Bruce Oudes in 1989 [emphasis mine]:

"Lou Harris, of course, is a pollster and he was putting out some polls in '70 and '71, I believe it was, that were very -- that Nixon thought were rather unfair, didn't cast Nixon in as fair a light as possible. So what happened was a campaign to put a bit of political arm on Mr. Harris. He was stroked on the one hand. The trip to Moscow, invitation to the White House, that kind of thing. But by the same token, it is very clear in these memos and materials that he was also threatened by the loss of the contracts that he held with some government agencies. And it is certainly for Mr. Harris himself to say how much he was or was not influenced by all this pressure. But you see from the documents themselves the fact that there was considerable pressure. And that he certainly in his responses to the White House seemed to change his attitude quite substantially before the '72 campaign."

Suckers Give Succor to the Soviet Union

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Judy Shelton tells a story about her trip to Russia in 1987:

"Things were worse than I expected [in Russia]. My study was based on numbers and looking at government figures and statistics. When you see economic problems on paper, it doesn't hit you as hard as when you go out and see decrepit buildings and lousy roads. Most telling was we had wonderful guides both in Moscow and Leningrad, and the young lady who took care of us in Moscow, she accompanied us to dinner and at the end of the meal sitting on the table was a little stand with some bad peaches. I mean, visibly rotting-with-holes-on-them peaches. 

And we had had a sumptuous meal and our guide wasn't interested in having any, but she looked around at the end of the meal and she whispered, 'Are you going to eat that fruit?' And we said, 'No, no we're not.' She said, 'Would you mind if I had some?' 'Of course, help yourself.' And she looked around and she opened her big bag and she dumped it into her bag and the next morning told us her son thanked us, her mother thanked us, her father thanked us, and it was the first fruit they'd had that year."