MetaFilter posts by Ignatius J. Reilly.
Displaying 51 through 60. Subscribe: http://www.metafilter.com/user/14418/postsrss 
I, like, pick good stocks. Chris Lahiji, the 19 year-old "LeBron James of Wall Street", spent his summer analyzing the annual reports from thousands of companies. He then put together the semi-experimental Lahiji Tiny Fund with a lofty long term goal: Ideally, I wish for my analysis to one day be synonymous with the entire micro-cap segment (really small companies). This group of stocks, composed entirely of smaller companies, is up an impressive 80.78% as of 4/15. Lahiji's site also documents the impressive amount of crap [and QT video] that he received from companies as a result of requesting 12,000 annual reports. He spoke with Wall Street Week's Geoff Colvin on Friday.
posted on May-19-03 at 2:14 AM
Feds hit the Bongs [and, by extension, the Chong]. The venerable entertainer Tommy Chong is the latest to go down in a recent bizarre DOJ sting against online retailers of smoking accessories that stems from a 1994 supreme court ruling removing from prosecutors the burden of proving that a retailer intended a product to be put to an illegal use. An odd campaign and questionable use of limited resources, indeed, but more shockingly, now that the man has Chong, who's next?
posted on May-14-03 at 1:28 PM
Graham Alleges a 9/11 'Coverup' Long a favorite issue of alternative (and tinfoil-hat-oriented) media, now this is getting picked up by a prominent Democrat. It would appear that Graham is the only moderate Democratic candidate to even approach topics that reflect negatively on the Bush administration. Certainly, when even the US military speculates that yesterday's attacks in Saudi Arabia were started by Al Qeada, and people in Chicago and Seattle are reminded of the reality of ongoing threats, it is reasonable to ask if the "War on Terror" is indeed being won. Is Graham someone with the power and place in the spotlight to make that a serious issue for voters?
posted on May-13-03 at 12:03 PM
Earth to Bill Gates: Thank you This little editorial that appeared recently is (obviously) dancing on the fringe of cheesiness, but it begs an interesting question about philanthropy and the world's richest man. Gates appeared on Bill Moyers' NOW last night, and was reasonably candid (he used the phrase "failure of capitalism"), mentioning more than once that he intended to give away ~95% of his wealth, mostly to aid public health. Our perceptions of his politics aside, it would seem as if Gates intends to go out with a humanist bang.
posted on May-10-03 at 12:22 PM
Judge, citing al-Qaida-Iraq link, awards $104 million to Sept. 11 families A judge ruled yesterday that lack of evidence should be no barrier to suing people who cannot be found. "The judge wrote that lawyers relied heavily on 'classically hearsay' evidence, including reports that a Sept. 11 hijacker met an Iraqi consul to Prague, Secretary of State Colin Powell's remarks to the United Nations about connections between Iraq and terrorism, and defectors' descriptions of the use of an Iraq camp to train terrorists." --This would hardly be the first documented example of a court being overtly political, but the judge himself has no problem commenting on how shoddy the case was. "The judge noted that the experts provided few actual facts that Iraq provided support to the terrorists." --Apparently, the judge had just been waiting for Saddam to cease to be a diplomatically immune head of state before ruling against him. Is the low standard of evidence needed for civil rulings allowing the courts to begin establishing something that the military and intelligence can't? [more inside]
posted on May-8-03 at 8:53 AM
Did Bush know? An article in today's New York Times (link to mirrored site with no reg. req.) pieces together data that the author claims proves that Bush and his inner circle were well-aware that they were using false "evidence" of Iraqi WMD. Sy Hersh from the New Yorker is also chiming in, as is Salon's Joe Connason and Katha Pollitt of The Nation. A pretty decent subsection of media is finally descending on this story. If Bush or Powell or Rumsfeld are proven to have been knowingly deceitful, will the American public be even half as angry as the rest of the world?
posted on May-6-03 at 12:11 PM
Former N. Korean Nuclear Contractors are "pretty sure that at some point Don was involved," since it was not unusual to seek help from board members "when we needed contacts with the U.S. government." An article in yesterday's Fortune mentions and quotes a number of former employees/contractors for a Swiss engineering firm -- headed by Donald Rumsfeld at the time that Pyongyang began getting its nuke on. Nevertheless, Today Rumsfeld, riding high after the Iraq war, is reportedly discussing a plan for "regime change" in North Korea. But his silence about the nuclear reactors raises questions about what he did--or didn't do--as an ABB director. unsurprisingly, the media is not exactly all over this.
posted on Apr-30-03 at 11:40 PM
Mike Hawash Charged with conspiracy to levy war against the United States, conspiracy to provide material support to al Qaeda and conspiracy to contribute services to al Qaeda and the Taliban. Heavy. 5 days ago, a now near-famous letter was removed from a website that had recently been trumpeting his cause. Today, the Feds allege terrorism. -- Of note: the frequent allusion to "secrecy" and "secret warrants". Is this ammo for the pro-PATRIOT crowd? Any changing opinions on Mefi?
posted on Apr-28-03 at 6:29 PM
Habla Usted Clear Channel? So Clear Channel wants to dominate Spanish-language radio? Nothing new. From the first link, the final piece in a Salon series on media consolidation: The deal is big and contentious, and involves politics, music and media -- and, to make matters even more interesting, Clear Channel, the U.S. radio station conglomerate, has a starring role. Clear Channel is HBC's largest shareholder, and the company has been accused by opponents of the deal of maneuvering illegally behind the scenes to exert control over HBC, as well as spreading rumors of drug use about the CEO of HBC's chief competitor.
posted on Apr-23-03 at 10:38 PM
Excessive Democracy? Faree Zakaria, editor of Newseek International, has written a new book challenging perceptions of the relationship between democracy and constitutional liberalism. This lesson is meant to be applied at home as well as abroad. He has been a hot topic of late. Beyond the narrower scope of Iraq, is there anything to his underlying idea that : (more inside)
posted on Apr-21-03 at 5:27 PM
posted on May-19-03 at 2:14 AM
Feds hit the Bongs [and, by extension, the Chong]. The venerable entertainer Tommy Chong is the latest to go down in a recent bizarre DOJ sting against online retailers of smoking accessories that stems from a 1994 supreme court ruling removing from prosecutors the burden of proving that a retailer intended a product to be put to an illegal use. An odd campaign and questionable use of limited resources, indeed, but more shockingly, now that the man has Chong, who's next?
posted on May-14-03 at 1:28 PM
Graham Alleges a 9/11 'Coverup' Long a favorite issue of alternative (and tinfoil-hat-oriented) media, now this is getting picked up by a prominent Democrat. It would appear that Graham is the only moderate Democratic candidate to even approach topics that reflect negatively on the Bush administration. Certainly, when even the US military speculates that yesterday's attacks in Saudi Arabia were started by Al Qeada, and people in Chicago and Seattle are reminded of the reality of ongoing threats, it is reasonable to ask if the "War on Terror" is indeed being won. Is Graham someone with the power and place in the spotlight to make that a serious issue for voters?
posted on May-13-03 at 12:03 PM
Earth to Bill Gates: Thank you This little editorial that appeared recently is (obviously) dancing on the fringe of cheesiness, but it begs an interesting question about philanthropy and the world's richest man. Gates appeared on Bill Moyers' NOW last night, and was reasonably candid (he used the phrase "failure of capitalism"), mentioning more than once that he intended to give away ~95% of his wealth, mostly to aid public health. Our perceptions of his politics aside, it would seem as if Gates intends to go out with a humanist bang.
posted on May-10-03 at 12:22 PM
Judge, citing al-Qaida-Iraq link, awards $104 million to Sept. 11 families A judge ruled yesterday that lack of evidence should be no barrier to suing people who cannot be found. "The judge wrote that lawyers relied heavily on 'classically hearsay' evidence, including reports that a Sept. 11 hijacker met an Iraqi consul to Prague, Secretary of State Colin Powell's remarks to the United Nations about connections between Iraq and terrorism, and defectors' descriptions of the use of an Iraq camp to train terrorists." --This would hardly be the first documented example of a court being overtly political, but the judge himself has no problem commenting on how shoddy the case was. "The judge noted that the experts provided few actual facts that Iraq provided support to the terrorists." --Apparently, the judge had just been waiting for Saddam to cease to be a diplomatically immune head of state before ruling against him. Is the low standard of evidence needed for civil rulings allowing the courts to begin establishing something that the military and intelligence can't? [more inside]
posted on May-8-03 at 8:53 AM
Did Bush know? An article in today's New York Times (link to mirrored site with no reg. req.) pieces together data that the author claims proves that Bush and his inner circle were well-aware that they were using false "evidence" of Iraqi WMD. Sy Hersh from the New Yorker is also chiming in, as is Salon's Joe Connason and Katha Pollitt of The Nation. A pretty decent subsection of media is finally descending on this story. If Bush or Powell or Rumsfeld are proven to have been knowingly deceitful, will the American public be even half as angry as the rest of the world?
posted on May-6-03 at 12:11 PM
Former N. Korean Nuclear Contractors are "pretty sure that at some point Don was involved," since it was not unusual to seek help from board members "when we needed contacts with the U.S. government." An article in yesterday's Fortune mentions and quotes a number of former employees/contractors for a Swiss engineering firm -- headed by Donald Rumsfeld at the time that Pyongyang began getting its nuke on. Nevertheless, Today Rumsfeld, riding high after the Iraq war, is reportedly discussing a plan for "regime change" in North Korea. But his silence about the nuclear reactors raises questions about what he did--or didn't do--as an ABB director. unsurprisingly, the media is not exactly all over this.
posted on Apr-30-03 at 11:40 PM
Mike Hawash Charged with conspiracy to levy war against the United States, conspiracy to provide material support to al Qaeda and conspiracy to contribute services to al Qaeda and the Taliban. Heavy. 5 days ago, a now near-famous letter was removed from a website that had recently been trumpeting his cause. Today, the Feds allege terrorism. -- Of note: the frequent allusion to "secrecy" and "secret warrants". Is this ammo for the pro-PATRIOT crowd? Any changing opinions on Mefi?
posted on Apr-28-03 at 6:29 PM
Habla Usted Clear Channel? So Clear Channel wants to dominate Spanish-language radio? Nothing new. From the first link, the final piece in a Salon series on media consolidation: The deal is big and contentious, and involves politics, music and media -- and, to make matters even more interesting, Clear Channel, the U.S. radio station conglomerate, has a starring role. Clear Channel is HBC's largest shareholder, and the company has been accused by opponents of the deal of maneuvering illegally behind the scenes to exert control over HBC, as well as spreading rumors of drug use about the CEO of HBC's chief competitor.
posted on Apr-23-03 at 10:38 PM
Excessive Democracy? Faree Zakaria, editor of Newseek International, has written a new book challenging perceptions of the relationship between democracy and constitutional liberalism. This lesson is meant to be applied at home as well as abroad. He has been a hot topic of late. Beyond the narrower scope of Iraq, is there anything to his underlying idea that : (more inside)
posted on Apr-21-03 at 5:27 PM
« previous page |