Louis' Phantasy World 小狗的幻想空間

Due to many targeted audience's complaint about the unfriendly nature of Chinese language platform where this blog has situated, yours truly has decided to conduct his babbling mental exercise in another space. The blogspot was chosen for this specific task. So be

PHREE MARKET


Certain articles from this blog will be moved to the phree market to reflect the nature and timing of phree market.

Moving is quite a hassle. It really doesn't amuse me.

Yours truly has been too busy to wander in this realm for a while. Truth be told, my company actually bans posting on blogs. To comply, I've honored that code of conduct by bolting the door to this domain during my work hours. Unfortunately, when I was home I watched FoxNews until I was spent. That's just how my life has been lately. One pleasant surprise about my new job is that I have an Indian co-worker ,whose talent ought to be utilized in the financial sector rather than in the engineering industry, and I've learned a thing or two from him about the financial market. Being away for a few weeks, I would like to contribute my newly acquired market insight on how to maneuver through the current market uncertainty.

Ready for the crap?

Gold, the ever desirable, has always been the symbol of value, love, and standard. If you happened to invest in gold as recent as two years ago, please pat yourself on the back for doubling your investment, on paper. Look at the gold price now:it is $870 per ounce as the market closed this afternoon. Too high to buy? Let's look closely and from a slightly different angle. The following is the gold price history over the past 10 years:

In May 2001, one ounce of gold cost you around $300. 300 bucks!! In May 2008, one ounce of gold cost you around $870, 870 bucks!!

Kicking yourself for not jumping into the golden pool 7 years ago?

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Spring is still more than a week away. As much as I like the change of seasons in New England, I have to say that the on-going icy and snowy winter is really getting under my nerve. Many New Engalnders can't wait to move to sunnier and warmer part of country, just to get away from the dreary winters, even under the influence of the bogusly portrayed man-made gloabl warming.

Ladies and gentlemen, the 2008 January global land surface average was below the 20th century mean (-0.02°F/-0.01°C) for the first time since 1982. Shocking? how can it be? Hey, I do not have the audacity of those environmental commies' to fabricate data. If you are interested in a more complete climate data of 2008, please do yourself a favor by checking National Climate Data Center for the inspiring data. The following is the rundown:

1) Certain regions had above-average surface temperature, others had below-average surface temperature. Overall the average global land surface average temperature was below the 20th century mean.

2) The January 2008 snow cover extent was the largest extent over the 42-year historical record, surpassing the previous record set in 1985.

3) the January 2008 Northern Hemisphere sea ice extent, which is measured from passive microwave instruments onboard NOAA satellites, was below the 1979-2000 mean, but greater than the previous four years.

So, what does all those mumbo jumbo mean?

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Verb,

1. To remove the part of the head from where the hair grows, by brutal act or accident.
2. (slang) To sell for a greatly inflated price to those in desperation, as in scalping tickets to a ball game.

In this case, I'm not talking about the good old fashion American Indians' war practice: removing the part of an enemy’s head where the hair grows. Instead, what I'm interested in is the practice of inflating ticket prices.

Scalping tickets, A.K.A. 賣黃牛票 (the direct word by word translation from Chinese), is quite annoying. I had a little discussion with a co-worker of mine during lunch break the other day. Conveniently, our topic evolved from watching Red Sox games in Fenway to scalping tickets. The dude said that scalping tickets is illegal and cops can arrest you if you scalp Sox's tickets. Being a free-market defender, I argued with my friend with the legitimacy of ticket scalping.

His point is simple: ticket scalping disenfranchises those poor people and keeps them from participating the entertainment, because poor people are entitled to the entertainment, in this case it is Red Sox games.

My point is simpler: a ticket scalper takes the risk of losing his money if game-goers refuse to buy his tickets, therefore, the scalper deserves everything he does, either gaining or losing money. Free Market, that is.

Well, my argument obviously didn't work out so well. My friend vehemently defended the so-called poor people, and declared how unfair it is that poor people can't enjoy the baseball game. Here is the best part, earlier in the conversation he mentioned that football tickets have become so outrageously high that he can't afford to go to Patriots' game.

So, he is OK with unaffordable aspect of the football games but he has so much beef with the unaffordable aspect of the baseball games under the scalping influence. Don't poor people also deserve the excitement of watching a live football game? How come he is OK with it?

Ladies and gentlemen, do you know why?

I do.

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Needless to say, I'm very pissed by the outcome of the Florida Republican primary. The great conservative people of Florida decided to choose a media darling, instead of following their hearts. What a letdown! Think about this, when Bill Clinton stated that the presidential debate between his wife and John McCain is going to be the most boring one due to the two candidates' stunning similarity in ideology, it makes you wonder if there is any hope left for the next 4 years.

As the dawn of the super Tuesday is approaching, I'm still holding onto a thread of hope that somehow the spirit of conservatism will rebound in the next few days, which would propel Romney to the unlikelihood. Per Weekly Standard's "keeping hope alive", please look at our screwy government's chance to redeem itself through some real business shakeups.

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It's been a while since I massaged this blog. Well, what can I say? I got new work address, work number, insurance carrier, and employee ID. To decipher, I changed my job. Anyway, many things have happened during my absence, notably the calender turned 2008, the day has started getting longer, my daughter lost both of her front teeth, she jumped from kindergarten to the first grade after the New Year, and etc. Of course, the most notable thing was that my loyal readers clicked in my blog then went away cursing the sterile field for total waste of time. And that happened over and over again. Dear readers, if this blog has inevitably dropped to your B list, yours truly won't have a bit of complaint.

Being a political junkie, I would like to indulge my political readers with the political re-entry. 2008 is a critical year for our country's future. Considering the Democrat side has 3 communists on the top 3 polling, who Republicans choose will dedicate the future of America.

Who would you vote then? I would like to post an Ann Coulter's article:

The Elephant in the Room

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Laus Deo

One detail that is never mentioned is that in Washington, D.C. there can never be a building of greater height than the Washington Monument. With all the uproar about removing the ten commandments, etc., this is worth a moment or two of your time.  On the aluminum cap, atop the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., are displayed two words:

Laus Deo.

No one can see these words.  In fact, most visitors to the monument are totally unaware they are even there and for that matter, probably couldn't care less. Once you know Laus Deo's history, you will want to share this with everyone you know.  These words have been there for many years; they are 555 feet, 5.125 inches high, perched atop the monument, facing skyward to the Father of our nation, overlooking the 69 square miles which comprise the District of Columbia, capital of the United States of America .

Laus Deo!  Two seemingly insignificant, unnoticed words. Out of sight and, one might think, out of mind, but very meaningfully placed at the highest over what is the most powerful city in the most successful nation in the world. So, what do those two words, in Latin, composed of just four syllables and only seven letters, possibly mean?  Very simply, they say

"Praise be to God!"

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Today is just another day.

Everyday we go by our own business. Some celebrate certain events, some mourn for certain events, and some feel indifferent for certain events. The significance of today is the death of Nobel Prize, the award that has inspired so many people since 1901. The truth of scientific spirit and discipline, unshaken, has sustained never-ending painstaking debates and cross-verifications, and the pinnacle of the honor in our time, the Nobel Prize, has graced those who humbly explored the new realm of the nature by faithfully defending the integrity of science. It is no more.

Science is humble, but scientists are arrogant.

A joke I used to make, every once in a while when the opportunity presented itself, was that if I hadn't been distracted or sabotaged by certain things during my teenage/young adulthood years, I could've won a Nobel Prize by now. Well, the joke had more to do with my respect for the Nobel Prize than my actual potential per se. So what happened all of the sudden I mourn for the death of the Nobel Prize? DIdn't the Nobel prize panel just gave out awards over the past few days?

It's all because of the inconvenient Nobel Peace Prize winners Al Gore and IPCC( International Panel on Climate Changes) for their manipulative work of anthropogenic (man-made) global warming. The presentation of the award has symbolized the death of the Nobel Prize. For that, I'm writing this obituary to mourn for the corruption of the Nobel Prize review panel and disgrace to our science community.

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Due to my less-than-stellar Chinese typing hand-eye coordination, I've always tried to avoid blogging with Chinese. However, this blog will be dedicated to Chinese readers, therefore, I will bite my lip and suck it up to compile this article. So here we go..

我的高中同學阿峰寫了好幾篇有關全球暖化的文章,

全球暖化與馬克思主義再起

全球暖化小測驗

全球暖化 III

全球暖化 II

美國右派看全球暖化

美國是環保模範生?

有一點要澄清: 〝全球暖化〞和 〝人為全球暖化〞是完全不同的概念. 地球形成於大約四億年前. 過去的四億年中,地球的氣候歷經許多變化. 早期的地球無法提供生物生存的基本條件. 一旦地球的氣候穩定之後,生物開始大量繁衍. 所謂地球的穩定氣候,它代表的是氣候變化在一定的範圍 (within a climatic window for biological propagations). 地球歷經許多週期行的氣候變化,像是冰河時期和暖化時期. 對於地球過去氣候的了解,科學家利用一些地質的研究資料去〝預測〞.

Wait a minute, 預測過去? 你有沒有搞錯? 過去已經過去,為何要預測?

很明顯的,大多數人對於科學的概念很模糊. 除非你活得和地球一樣久,沒有人可以確定地球過去的氣候. 所謂科學家的地質研究, 它叫做"proxy", 用來預測地球過去的氣候. 最有名的proxy是ice core analysis. Ice core analysis 最大的缺點是它的解析度. McElwain et al. 的研究指出Ice core study 的解析度大約是二百年到五百五十年. 從統計學的角度來看,每一個時間的樣本(二百年到五百五十年)基本上是是一個平均數.它無法明確的估計溫度的變化在二百年到五百五十年之間. 換句話說、沒有人知道在每一個二百年到五百五十年樣本之間、氣溫是否每隔幾十年上上下下個一兩度. 基本上,科學家對於過去地球氣候的了解仍究是在學習的階段. 〝全球暖化〞發生過 許多次,那是自然的現象; 而〝人為全球暖化〞是目前流行的假設. 胡亂下定論是違反科學的素養和理念.

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September has been a busy month. The toughest part is actually the schedule, the-3-times-a-week-waking-up-early-to-make-sure-Sarah-get-out-of-door-for-school kind of schedule. Because of this discipline, we sort of modified our nightly schedule as well. After all, there are only 24 hours a day and certain fixed hours are allocated to sleep. What is given up is Fox Hannity and Colmes. Well, Hannity and Colmes ends at 10 PM EST. However, watching it means that our brains would be so stimulated that we wouldn't be able to sleep for another half an hour. Therefore, we are phasing ourselves out of Hannity and Colmes, gradually.

My work has gone through a little transition. Due to the ending of the project I've worked on, I started searching new assignment. In the meantime a little design jobs here and there to keep me busy. Of course, I'm not limiting myself to the internal assignments, i.e. I'm looking for outside jobs as well. Hey, this can get very interesting.

I engaged in this on-line forum debate. Basically, I surfed the Boston Reef Society on-line forum periodically in that I'm into this coral reef keeping hobby. It is basically a small science/hobbyist communities in the Boston area. Unfortunately, as Boston is within the well-known "The People Republic of Massachusetts", you can imagine that the overwhelming numbers of communists in the area. The Boston reef society is, therefore, naturally a body of many faithful communists. I dropped by one day in the forum and saw "Ice loss opens Northwest Passage" thread. I jumped in immediately to defend our modern civilization way of energy consumption. Hey, guess what, it started a thread of man-made global warming debate. Fingolfin is yours truly. Please see for yourself how I held my own in this nasty verbal shooting practice.

Elitism: The belief that a society or system should be run by an elite.

That's how my family in Taiwan define the American society. Hey, if you ask any liberal (socialist or communist), he/she will tell you exactly the same thing. Their most frequent excuse is "economic inequality" (an extremely powerful tool used to manipulate the jealous nature of human beings) has benefited the very top in society and they dictate everyone's daily life. Therefore, those wealthy people are the elite, the evil, and should be punished for being too rich.

Does it sound familiar to you, Chairman Mao?

Indeed, some people are blessed with a prestigious heritage. But the majority of the people are not. In United States, if you worked your butt off in schools and at work, then you get rewarded financially. Unfortunately, some people look at your success and feel jealous. They want a part of you because they feel entitled to it.

"Yours is mine. Mine is still mine."

Of course, they don't want to make it too obvious, so they make it a moral issue.

"Look at those poor and sick without hope, how dare you enjoy your Caribbean trip. You cold-blooded capitalist."

To borrow a phrase from Vladimir Lenin: "Liberals are useful idiots". You constantly remind people that it's OK to get lazy because your government will take care of you nevertheless. In the process, government will take way your next door rich neighbor's hard-earned money to fund your lobster feast for your unemployed friends. Isn't that just beautiful?

The liberal-dominated media has successfully painted the American society with such a distorted picture that the liberals are fostering the ingredients to usurp the capitalism, the very core of the free society. To them, the capitalism doesn't sound threatening enough. Hey, how about elitism?

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What is a sense of mission (使命感)?

Do you have a sense of mission?

For starters, I had a pretty disturbing phone conversation with my older brother in Taiwan on Labor day. Quite fittingly, I practically labored through the conversation. As my usual self, I was foaming at the mouth about the evils of communism. Of course, I didn't disguise my displeasure with the prevalent ideology of pro-socialism in the media. Conveniently, I blasted this 60 something years old Chinese engineer who stole US navy warship technology and tried to smuggle it out to the communist China. Guess what, my brother defended that Chinese dude. His excuse? this 65 years old Chinese engineer had this wonderful Chinese sense of mission to contribute for the greater good of the Chinese legacy. Besides, the American elitism deserves some learning lessons by surrendering certain military supremacy.

He ain't a communist. He's my brother.

I'm saddened by the fact that my own flesh and blood fails to understand the bigger picture, I'm agitated by how he has been brainwashed by the vast media, and I feel hopeless that he is stuck in a little cage without knowing the freedom outside his immediate surroundings. He is subject to the bondage of his Chinese sense of mission, an arrogant vanity.

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I belong to the Massachusetts Audubon society, an organization that promotes the well-being of the environment and educates the general public about the virtue of conservation. Every year my wife took my daughter to the classes offered by Audubon society. In the class my little one learned how to identify animal tracks in the snow, how the birds migrate, how to spin yarns, how to grow your own garden, and etc. There's no denial that the Massachusetts Audubon society has a positive impact on the public education. However, the innocent scientific body is being corrupted by politics, with very vicious political agenda.

I received an Audubon newsletter on last Saturday. The very main article is about, surprisingly, anthropogenic(man-made) global warming. In the printed article, it stated that we are experiencing the warmest weather in the last 400,000 years. Under this threat of the increasing heat wave, all the little birds, frogs, and the small mammals will suffer severe consequences. We, as human beings, have the responsibility to reverse the disastrous trend. By "we", they mean regular Joe's. Of course, Al Gore and his celebrity sidekicks are free to fly around with charter planes and pay up their carbon credits so they can guiltlessly consume the energy. Of course, they can not promote their anthropogenic global warming righteousness without using some evidence. Therefore, the conveniently sexy Hockey Stick was produced. The following chart is the ever notorious Hockey Stick formulated by Michael Mann, which was presented in the 2001 IPCC. The figure clearly demonstrated that we as humans are experiencing the warmest weather over the past millennium.

Not so fast.

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I had a little trouble to fall asleep the other night, so I decided to surf the web to entertain myself. Accidently I came across this article. The author is a Taiwanese MD, whom I countered during one of the heated on-line debates about the anthropogenic global warming matter. As insensitive as I was, I set myself up in a no-win situation by engaging in a debate with a Taiwanese Ph.D. student in US. The kid was obviously a popular guy with huge followers. Needless to say, I absorbed a lot of bullets from that kid and his loyal followers. Anyway, there was something about this MD who drew my attention. At least she wasn't as biased as other soldiers. Now let's go back to that sleepless night. I'm a little stunned by her first paragraph of the article.

What's your impression upon reading it?

I don't know about yours, but I'm offering mine. 1) she seems stressed out by the pressure to come up with "QUALITY" product. 2) she seems to pay attention to her daily blog hit count as if her very well being is determined by her on-line popularity. I feel sorry for her. As a matter of fact, I believe that it is a very common phenomenon in the cyberspace. She is not alone. What she demonstrated is honesty, that many others refuse to acknowledge.

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"南海遊俠:力擎長安姣,智取重慶妖"

That was a good old saying back in my high school days. To decipher: 南海遊俠 was 建中; 長安姣 was 中山女中; 重慶妖 was 北一女. It was simply the product of the self-absorbing competitive academic snobbery. Somehow only those academically sophisticated girls from either 北一女 or 中山女中 were worth our 建中 boys' attention. Whoever came up with that line probably didn't mean to be a snob, but the underlying message was loud and clear.

Interestingly enough, I don't recall I ever established a conversation with any girl from either 北一女 or 中山女中 during my high school years. From today's secular progressive standard, the so-called certified social workers might have characterize me as a pro-homosexual candidate. Well, it wasn't like I would've really cared. I was quite rebellious in high school. The fact was that I WAS interested in a girl from 師大附中. Often time I would see her on the same bus. As crummy and bashful as I was, my most ever audacity was just peeking at her through a wall of crowd on the bus. And that was it, an utterly unsuccessful attempt to utilize my raging hormone. I was a sucker!! Hey, please do not use today's progressive standard to judge the typical social behavior back then, like 20 something years ago. It was that out-of-date dopiness to keep the society in check. At least you didn't hear much of teenage pregnancy back in those days.

Did I mention that I was rebellious? When I was a freshman in high school, there was this guy who sat right behind me in the classroom. He liked to listen to the so-called I-called-it-as-American-pop-music on his fancy walkman. Often time in the last class on Saturday morning, an English class, the dude would fall asleep. At the beginning, I was quite appalled by his offense. Gradually, I was OK with it. I guess that was how desensitization works in our mind.

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