COMMON SENSE AND EMPTY SUITS

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." -Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

STOCK OF THE DAY:
Aha! Foster Wheeler (FWLT) has been the only stock I've talked about since the inception of POD, and it has been absolutely getting its rear end kicked over the past few months. As stated in previous posts, the infrastructure firm has a huge energy bent, so it is no wonder that the stock has sold off in sympathy with the sharp decline in the price of crude since mid-July. With that said, famed trader Doug Kass had a great tidbit in thestreet.com today about a huge commodity-based hedge fund going under and thus liquidating its assets. I suspect stuff like this is much more the reason for FWLT's decline than fundamentals, since the company has a healthy worldwide backlog of projects and executes better than its peers. I reiterate my strong buy recommendation and I will buy more shares myself.

POLITICS:

GOP Convention Night #1, Grade: A-

Last night saw a solid triple-play in primetime featuring President George W., Fred Thompson, and Joe Lieberman capping the night. Thompson's speech had by far the most red meat attacking libs, and he delivered it well. He also went in-depth about McCain's experience as a POW which was EXTREMELY important given McCain's modesty about bringing up the heroic but painful memory. While the speeches weren't delivered perfectly--Bush is never going to wow you in a prepared speech, and Lieberman looked tired--the night was still effective and set the stage for tonight's huge attraction. Rudy Guiliani will be the keynote, and he has been looking as sharp as ever defending McCain/Palin, and the true headliner will be Sarah Palin, who I think will deliver a grand-slam propelling the GOP to a huge convention bounce.

Back to last night, not only did all three speakers predictably endorse McCain, but they gave specific, substantive details about McCain's past and his accomplishments, which is in stark contrast to the lofty, insufficiently focused rhetoric about Barack Hussein Obama at the Dem Convention last week.

In fact, all you'd ever really know about Obama from watching last week's convention is that he passed a high-paying wall street law firm job to run for president. Besides that, we really have not found out much about his professional accomplishments, i.e., being born to a father from Kenya is NOT a professional accomplishment, being half-black is not a professional accomplishment, being a good father is great but not a professional accomplishment.

Of course I'd be remiss to forget to say that even though Obama's professional accomplishments are severely lacking, his policies are also off the mark when it comes to appealing to Americans. Understand that for all intents and purposes, Obama should be up by double digits in every major poll given the unpopularity of Bush, the Iraq War, and the economy. Yet, this great piece in the Wall Street Journal today illustrates why Obama is still too close for comfort with McCain even after BHO's post-Denver bounce.

EMPTY SUIT ALERT!
Jack Cafferty, now of CNN, never misses an opportunity to inject left-wing cheap shots into his "file." One of his most recent blogs had the following gem about the GOP,

"It is entirely fitting that the headliner for this masquerade is a feeble looking 72-year-old white guy who doesn’t know how many homes he owns."

Oh, really Jack? That feeble looking old white guy is feeble because he let his ass get slaughtered on the verge of death for five years in Vietnam so that you can freely be the washed out hack you are with a job. And he doesn't know exactly how many homes he has because his wife owns them as per her own wealth and prenuptial agreement.

As column castigator "Roy St. Pittsburgh" notes, "It looks like Cafferty is trying to audition to host his own show at MSNBC once Joe Scarborough goes completely off the deep end having to deal with Marxists every single day at the office."