FRIDAY POTPOURRI

Kelso had promised to do some finance today. Specifically, he was interested in analyzing the texture of the energy futures markets. He reckons that they are in a state of "backwardation" meaning that the spot price is more expensive than the forward price, implying a negative rate of interest. If that condition obtains, he was planning to look for a "contango" market -- positive interest rate -- in a reasonably well-correlated market like gold, for example. If that condition were to obtain, he would have been able to offer his Floppers a nice forward rate pair-off trade. But how the fuck would Kelso even figure this out?

The Tissue Of Lies business section only has stock and mutual fund information. Bloomberg's commodities section gives only the spot prices and an undated future price. The Wall Street Journal site requires that you pay for this information which ought to be public. Kelso digs. Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal are greedy pigs and readers of the Tissue Of Lies are too ignorant to understand anything but stocks and funds. And, no, Kelso does not particularly feel like going to the newsstand to buy the Journal. He's loaded with other work to do and supposedly has all the information he needs at his fingertips in "this increasingly wired world." Kelso is also a lazy sonaofbitch. Maybe he'll pick up Barron's tomorrow and do it for you all, along with the college football. You're all hip to the fact that Kelso is a greedy pig himself and a total hypocrite, right?

Back in the day the New York Times used to carry all the commdities futures in tabular form going out to the longest dated contract. Guess its readers were smarter than; based upon what goes throughout the paper -- Selena Roberts's stylings the perfect emblem -- they sure seem dumb as dirt now. Heavens-to-Betsy, why should they worry their tiny "beautiful minds" with trivial little things like interest rates and fucking CRUDE OIL FUTURES when they have to worry about "important" things like Israel. Or Miramax. Or Bush's favorite lawn-jockey preacher. And to top it all off, Kelso PAID for an online subscription to the Tissue Of Lies so he could do the puzzles when he wanted and they want STILL MORE MONEY to read the crappy opinion page.

Luckily for Kelso, Mrs. K has a subscription, so Kelso was able to read the Walrus's slightly dovish column on Israel in which he ironically hopes Netanyahu beats Sharon in a Likud primary or convention or whatever, so Likud is marginalized and Sharon (!) can bring peace to the region. Walrus, if you love Sharon so much, this isn't the thing to root for. You saw what happened to Rabin. Fuck the Walrus sideways, Kelso backs Labor.

Kelso continues to be more and more impressed with Cindy Sheehan by the day. She came to New York and let Hillary have it on her steady support of the war. Cindy Sheehan stood up and threatened St. Hillary with taking her out in 2006! When is the world going to wake up to this bitch Hillary? Cindy Sheehan has Hillary dead to rights. She's slightly to the right of Ronald Reagan and slightly to the left of Pat Robertson, hates the poor, hates children (20,000,000 off welfare in the middle of a boom, remember?), loves the death penalty and hates all the fun stuff that could actually attract one or two male votes. There is disagreement on this issue in the ranting male blogosphere. Bartcop thinks she's the only one with a chance to beat the Republicans so he's on the bus. Bartcop, you're one of the greats and a real inspiration to Kelso, but you're wrong here. Kelso sez: Edwards, Warner, Bayh, in that order. With any of those three you get more compassion and more fun and maybe a little narrowing of the gender gap, and CERTAINLY a clearer look at Iraq. About the best we doves can hope for.

A little more John Roberts handicapping. Republicans will vote aye on a straight party line. The Democrats on the committee voted 5-3 against which would suggest 28 votes against in the full chamber, but the Judiciary Committee tends to the more liberal and more conservative, so we'll have to do a head-count here for the nays. The 5 who voted against in committee plus Lautenberg, Corzine, Mikulski, Sarbanes, Dayton, Boxer, Wyden, Murray, Stabenow, Levin, and Cantwell. Obama's a possible nay but that will hang on what he works out with Durbin. He'd probably like to vote aye, but he'll have to defer to Durbin unless he wants a primary fight with Jesse Jackson, Jr. Dodd is hard to read. Probably some Kelso is missing, so he'll put the number on 82-18 aye. As far as Kelso is concerned, there are better and worse than Roberts. Many more that are worse in Cheney's folder. If Kelso were a Democratic senator he'd say "screw it," vote aye, and then put a hard beating on any of Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, Edith Jones, Alberto Gonzales, Miguel Estrada or Harvie Wilkinson. A Sonny Liston battering. That kind of beating. The kind of beating you never recover from. The kind of beating that cuts your value on the lecture circuit by 75% and makes you want to resign.

Kelso's pissed today because Rudy Giuliani's Girls have extended their lead over the beloved Sawx to a full game, but...

Kelso's Nuts love you.