Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Brevity Continues

Being still a bit ill, today's post features "brevity".

My "Oxford Dictionary of Quotations" lists five quotations including the word, "brevity".

"Brevity is the sister of talent." From a letter to Chekhov.

"Brevity is the soul of lingerie, as the Petticoat said to the Chemise." Dorothy Parker, in caption written for Vogue in 1916.

"Brevity is the soul of wit." Shakespeare in Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2.

"The brevity of our life, the dullness of our senses, the torpor of our indifference, the futility of our occupation, suffer us to know but little: and that little is soon shaken and then torn from the mind by that traitor to learning, that hostile and faithless stepmother to memory, oblivion." John of Salisbury, an English ecclesiastical scholar c. 1115-1180.

"What is an Epigram ? a dwarfish whole
"Its body brevity, and wit its soul."
-Coleridge in "Epigram", 1809.

Word of the Day

"Chiral" - adjective [$10]
Chiral means (of a molecule) not superimposeable on its mirror image; compare to handedness - left or right.
Chiro - of a hand
Sentence: The American political spectrum is chiral. The common metaphor of a line from the to the right just doesn't fit reality. Leftist and rightist 'atomic' components - opinions on issues - are combined in people into complex chiral molecules. Even a mirror candidate's political support is unpredictable from the components alone. The relative positions matter.

23 comments:

Bunkerman said...

bought some MT, X, CIT

Was dumb of me not to get MT and X yesterday - great charts.


Guess being sick cost me $ too.

Bunkerman said...

I'd guess mern is in Costa Rica scouting out a place to live, jobs, girls.

Bunkerman said...

bought some IR, too.

mfl59 said...

are you bullish Bunkerman?

Bunkerman said...

darn, missed IDSA on list. Will wait for pullback.

Bunkerman said...

for two year hold, yes I am bullish.

For ST (month), not really. I don't trust this move.

But for my strategy, fine tuning price doesn't matter much.

Frosty said...

Bunky...Factory orders (-4.6% versus -2.3% expected) and Pending home sales (-4.0% versus -1.0% expected) were down...after yesterdays data, we could well be talking over 600k job losses friday.

Price dosen't matter, you really are sick...get well soon Bunky.

mfl59 said...

sheesh all these big shots lose a few $$$ and kill themselves....pfffttt....

Frosty said...

Bunky...the ISM better than expected...enough to keep job losses in check at current levels perhaps...makes for a tough call indeed.

Bud said...

omg......all these posts about where mern is.......not one for me......oh well......no one cares about me


fightin an illness here.......oh wait.....nobody cares.......ignore me


'call the cops'

Bud said...

'2 year hold'


huh??? no one here holds more than 2 weeks........i'm more like 2 days


oh yeah.......the non-posters.....ira types

pfffffffffffffffffft

Bud said...

hope y'all took some sugar on the buckeyes......oh wait.....that was a 'private' phone-call

never mind

Bunkerman said...

frosty, do you drive looking out the rear or side windows ?

Bunkerman said...

sheesh, Bud ... you posted on Friday.

I figured you just took a day on Monday ... or were hungover ... or ...

Bud said...

is frosty a f'ng economist now ???

Bunkerman said...

Citadel's main hedge fund dropped an estimated 53% in 2008 - DJ

I am wary of more beefer liquidations over the 1st quarter or half of the year - that's why I am wary ST.

For me, 'wary" means no margin; a bit of extra cash ready to buy more if good sell-off occurs..

Bud said...

that is the main hurdle for this market in the near term

are beefer liquidations behind us ??? i'm not sure...........but Citadel amongst the smartest guys out there.....

Bunkerman said...

I guess if smart = scamming the rich for billions in fees over teh years, they were "smart".

Bunkerman said...

well, to be precise re "price", why worry about 2 pts on a $40 stock when I want to make 100 pts ?

I remember someone worrying about $20 on gold at $600; I said why worry, we'll get $1000.

Worrying about that $20 would have meant missing $400 profit.

mfl59 said...

were you sick Bud or hiding out from Vinny Knuckles?

Bud said...

why wud Vinny be lookin for me ?? oh.....to take care of me


i pounded him with my Trojans play


a few extra units indeed

Bud said...

'were you sick'



lmaoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

mfl59 said...

so who do we like on Thursday night? or has Knuckles cut you off?