Lisa Bonet ate no basil

'He who is tired of Weird Al is tired of life.' -- Homer Simpson

This is one of Weird Al's classics, a backwards (and forwards, I suppose) tribute to Bob Dylan. That same album also has a Zappa tribute ('I'm a Genius in France') showing that Weird Al is a real musician, a guy with tastes and passions and not just some shlocky knock-off guy. That said, his knock-offs are still pretty great and clearly where his bread gets buttered.

Russell 2000, 8.15.8

......... 734.30 (8.8.8) ...................... 753.37 (8.15.8)......
............................+19.07 for the week.......................

This week's economic events

Aug 11-15

Trade Balance Jun (-$56.8B)
Treasury Budget Jul (-$102.8B)
Export Prices ex-ag. Jul (0.8%)
Import Prices ex-oil Jul (0.9%)
Retail Sales Jul (-0.1%)
Retail Sales ex-auto Jul (0.4%)
Business Inventories Jun (0.7%)
Crude Inventories 08/09 (-316K)
Core CPI Jul (0.3%)
CPI Jul (0.8%)
Initial Claims 08/09 (450K)
NY Empire State Index Aug (2.8)
Net Foreign Purchases Jun ($53.4B)
Capacity Utilization Jul (79.8%)
Industrial Production Jul (0.2%)
Mich Sentiment-Prel. Aug (61.7)

Wilshire 5000, 8.15.8

Shanghai meets Dushanbe

Will Georgia dominate the talks? We've seen Bush and Sarkozy harrumph around and wring their hands but what about Hu Jintao? Clearly this cross border incursion was not spontaneous, so were the Chinese privy to Putin's plans (or were they Medvedev's--he'll always be in parantheses, no?)? Sure, the Chinese don't mind poking the Americans and the Euros in the sphere of international diplomacy but are they truly supportive of an aggressive Russia? Or do they see this as far from their sphere of interest? Will the agenda include extending SCO membership to Pakistan, Iran or India? And why are the Russians intent on shutting out Belarus?

More questions than answers heading into their upcoming summit and its hard to imagine any of them actually get resolved but I'm curious nonetheless. Summits such as this are for the media in the front and the Machiavellians in the back.

Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit Aug 16

Who ya got?

It's been a bad summer for Georgians, no? One gets invaded by blood thirsty Cossacks, another is unable to defend its LLWS crown. Okay, not the same thing but in a civilized world everyone would settle their disputes with children's games rather than warfare. A bit of a pipe dream--perhaps even in poor taste at that!--but I'm still convinced contests are better than wars.

Incidentally I like Florida to represent the Americans and Tokyo to represent the World. We'll see.

Little League World Series Aug 15-24

Harrington -3

Damn, the dude did it again. Back to back majors--yeah, yeah, Tiger's at home recuperating but I don't care. A lot of guys could've won these last two majors but they didn't. Paddy Harrington did. Nice work, bro. And he won the PGA the same way he won the British: he stuck the shots he needed down the stretch. At the British his approach shots on 17 and 18 finished off the competition, at the PGA it was his putting on 16, 17 and 18 that were not matched. Back to back rounds of 66 to finish off a major, impressive.

Sergio Garcia had his chance. Indeed, for most of Sunday it looked like it was his to lose. And lose it he did. He wasn't awful--though going into the drink on 17 was certainly poor form--but he just wasn't as good when he needed to be. He didn't make his putts, he wasn't aggressive in his approach shots and he couldn't hold off Harrington. Ben Curtis, a previous major winner, hung around throughout the round but never looked particularly dangerous. (Personally I was wondering why when the Red Wings just won the Stanley Cup, the Pistons just made their 6th straight Eastern finals and the Tigers only 2 years removed from winning an AL pennant, Curtis chose to wear Detroit Lions gear to suck up to the locals. Dude, that's why you lost)

I was rooting for Kentucky boy Kenny Perry going in but he dropped out early after a scratched cornea clearly wreaked havoc with his game (hope he's still Ryder bound). And then I was rooting for the other Kentucky boy, JB Holmes, who was leading after 2 rounds and just a stroke off the pace after the 3rd. But his first shot of the final round went beyond the rough coming to rest under a tree; he tried to jimmy his way out but it didn't work so he started the round off with a triple bogey and was pretty much instantly out of the running.

Paddy, my man, I don't care where Tiger was, you've won 3 of the last 6 majors and that's good enough for me. I'm curious to see this guy from here on out now. I'm tired of waiting for Els to come back from injuries or Vijay to get his putt back or Sergio to figure out how to win or Mickelson to overcome his…whatever it is that happened to him. I'm already looking forward to seeing Harrington at the Masters where Tiger is surely planning a triumphant return.

Muppets as Manhattan

Seeing Miss Piggy and hearing Diane Keaton is a bit jarring but Kermit as Woody works for me. Funny re-take on a scene from Manhattan, muppets as wheezy New York intellectuals is better than Woody's last 12 movies.

Russell 2000 (Aug 1-8)

......... 716.16 (8.1.8) ...................... 734.30 (8.8.8)......
............................+18.14 for the week.......................

This week's economic events

Aug 4-8

Personal Income Jun (0.1%)
Personal Spending Jun (0.6%)
Factory Orders Jun (1.7%)
ISM Services Jul (49.5)
FOMC Policy Statement
Crude Inventories 08/02 (1614K)
Initial Claims 08/02 (455K)
Pending Home Sales Jun (5.3%)
Consumer Credit Jun ($14.3B)
Productivity-Prel Q2 (2.2%)
Wholesale Inventories Jun (1.1%)

Wilshire 5000, 8.8.8

Russell 2000 (Jul 25-Aug 1)

......... 709.56 (7.25.8) ...................... 716.16 (8.1.8)......
............................+6.50 for the week...............…......

This week's economic events

Jul 28-Aug 1

Consumer Confidence Jul (51.9)
ADP Employment Jul (9K)
Crude Inventories 07/26 (-81K)
GDP-Adv. Q2 (1.9%)
Chain Deflator-Adv. Q2 (1.1%)
Employment Cost Index Q2 (0.7%)
Initial Claims 07/26 (448K)
Chicago PMI Jul (50.8)
Auto Sales Jul (4.4M)
Truck Sales Jul (4.6M)
Nonfarm Payrolls Jul (-51K)
Unemployment Rate Jul (5.7%)
Hourly Earnings Jul (0.3%)
Average Workweek Jul (33.6)
Construction Spending Jun (-0.4%)
ISM Index Jul (50.0)

Wilshire 5000, 8.1.8