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Just back from a late walk with the doggies... best time to see foxes, rabbits and occasional deer in the city :O)
Selling... Was a hard choice... HOD was down hard.. but DUG was up .. 10+ pop on oil... despite what to I believe to be the LT trend.. it just seems too much too soon... Anyway hedged what I kept with HOD.TO at the end of day..
Looking @ the PWT.UN chart it could either pull back.. or go parabolic :O) Since I played the pullback... guess what the odds are of a parabolic blowoff yet to come this go :O) Place your bets and send me my kickback LOL...
Silence... am I ten bucks too early :o(
Dumped a lot of energy... (still get my trust distributions for May)
went long HOD at the close..
Nice to see KCL hang on to 3.70 @ the close :O)
POWERED BY POTASH ONE
and now for something completely different...
starter position (bottom feeding) PSS Collective Brands (Payless shoes :O) 12.15
Ever since I bought BFR I can't stop singing Marley's Buffalo Soldier... :O)
POWERED BY POTASH ONE
BFR anyone familiar... I started a small position... now I need to DD it :o)
so that's where the volume went... :O)
HOLY CRAP 35 seconds left... Pittsburg scores....
Well everything looked green in the AM...
POWERED BY POTASH ONE
Stop trying to cheer me up... What's up with RAY... promo done or bleeding in sympathy... I'm still in a fair bit.
Yeah I heard the news on the way home... shouldda figured you wouldn't have posted that outta the blues :o)
http://spots.kicks-ass.org/tunes/WhoDoYouLove.mp3
Just shoot me..
George ... and the Destroyers
I know it's a cover just like One Bourbon One Scotch One Beer
(John Lee Hooker)
POWERED BY POTASH ONE
OK looks like I junxed it :O(
Now it looks like folks taking advantage of the strength to sell.. Waiting to see the close on this one to see if it is following its recent behaviour (good)
POOF they are gone :O)
There are 255 lots on the ask @ 2.60... let's see what happens to them and then next stop a big whack @ 3.65... It's actually getting interesting...
No you are not alone. Have you wants the tape action recently ? Still overhead... but lots of chewing to the upside.. much better action than before to my untrained eye anyway...
Thanks. That was quick.
so... time for 90% cash...
Added a new bookmark, then went to the board via 'New Posts' 'nnn unread' counter.. tried a second board but that one worked..
Got this:
Server Error in '/' Application.
Conversion from type 'DBNull' to type 'Integer' is not valid.
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.
Exception Details: System.InvalidCastException: Conversion from type 'DBNull' to type 'Integer' is not valid.
Source Error:
The source code that generated this unhandled exception can only be shown when compiled in debug mode. To enable this, please follow one of the below steps, then request the URL:
1. Add a "Debug=true" directive at the top of the file that generated the error. Example:
<%@ Page Language="C#" Debug="true" %>
or:
2) Add the following section to the configuration file of your application:
<configuration>
<system.web>
<compilation debug="true"/>
</system.web>
</configuration>
Note that this second technique will cause all files within a given application to be compiled in debug mode. The first technique will cause only that particular file to be compiled in debug mode.
Important: Running applications in debug mode does incur a memory/performance overhead. You should make sure that an application has debugging disabled before deploying into production scenario.
Stack Trace:
[InvalidCastException: Conversion from type 'DBNull' to type 'Integer' is not valid.]
Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.Conversions.ToInteger(Object Value) +1174
JFetchMsg3Row.get_previd() +42
[StrongTypingException: The value for column 'previd' in table 'JFetchMsg3' is DBNull.]
JFetchMsg3Row.get_previd() +97
Boards_read_msg.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e) +2890
System.Web.UI.Control.OnLoad(EventArgs e) +99
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +47
System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +1436
POWERED BY POTASH ONE
I can email them a good prospect :O)
if this becomes real you'll hear a lot less about that first line except maybe in the way you hear about homebuilders in the US today :O)
worth keeping an eye on at any rate... especially if one has lots of long life reserve oil stocks :O)
http://siliconinvestor.advfn.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=24625008
From: sageyrain 5/27/2008 3:22:24 PM
Read Replies (1) of 4856
Cold Fusion (re)Produced
------
Scientist Creates Cold Fusion for the First Time in Decades
cold fusion, the act of producing a nuclear reaction at room temperature, has long been relegated to science fiction after researchers were unable to recreate the experiment that first "discovered" the phenomenon. But a Japanese scientist was supposedly able to start a cold fusion reaction earlier this week, which—if the results are real—could revolutionize the way we gather energy.
Yoshiaki Arata, a highly respected physicist in Japan, demonstrated a low-energy nuclear reaction at Osaka University on Thursday. In front of a live audience, including reporters from six major newspapers and two tv studios, Arata and a co-professor Yue-Chang Zhang, produced excess heat and helium atoms from deuterium gas.
Arata used pressure to force deuterium gas into an evacuated cell that contained a palladium and zirconium oxide mix(ZrO2-Pd). Arata said that the mix caused the deuterium's nuclei to fuse, raising the temperature in the cell and keeping the center of the cell warm for 50 hours.
Arata's experiment would mark the first time anyone has witnessed cold fusion since 1989, when Martin Fleishmann and Stanely Pons supposedly observed excess heat during electrolysis of heavy water with palladium electrodes. When they and other researchers were unable to make it work again, cold fusion became synonymous with bad science.
But the method Arata showed was "highly reproducible," according to eye witnesses of the event. If nobody calls this demonstration out as a sham, Arata might have finally found the holy grail of cheap and abundant energy—nuclear power, without its destructive heat. [Physicsworld via Slashdot]
http://gizmodo.com/393119/scientist-creates-cold-fusion-for-the-first-time-in-decades
http://siliconinvestor.advfn.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=24625008
From: sageyrain 5/27/2008 3:22:24 PM
Read Replies (1) of 4856
Cold Fusion (re)Produced
------
Scientist Creates Cold Fusion for the First Time in Decades
cold fusion, the act of producing a nuclear reaction at room temperature, has long been relegated to science fiction after researchers were unable to recreate the experiment that first "discovered" the phenomenon. But a Japanese scientist was supposedly able to start a cold fusion reaction earlier this week, which—if the results are real—could revolutionize the way we gather energy.
Yoshiaki Arata, a highly respected physicist in Japan, demonstrated a low-energy nuclear reaction at Osaka University on Thursday. In front of a live audience, including reporters from six major newspapers and two tv studios, Arata and a co-professor Yue-Chang Zhang, produced excess heat and helium atoms from deuterium gas.
Arata used pressure to force deuterium gas into an evacuated cell that contained a palladium and zirconium oxide mix(ZrO2-Pd). Arata said that the mix caused the deuterium's nuclei to fuse, raising the temperature in the cell and keeping the center of the cell warm for 50 hours.
Arata's experiment would mark the first time anyone has witnessed cold fusion since 1989, when Martin Fleishmann and Stanely Pons supposedly observed excess heat during electrolysis of heavy water with palladium electrodes. When they and other researchers were unable to make it work again, cold fusion became synonymous with bad science.
But the method Arata showed was "highly reproducible," according to eye witnesses of the event. If nobody calls this demonstration out as a sham, Arata might have finally found the holy grail of cheap and abundant energy—nuclear power, without its destructive heat. [Physicsworld via Slashdot]
http://gizmodo.com/393119/scientist-creates-cold-fusion-for-the-first-time-in-decades
The tape has changed on this one. Looking much better.
US Agrees to let Japan Flood Rice Market with Stored Rice
Prices quickly fell on Tokyo's call to tap into its huge reserves. But how did the stash get so big, and why does rice-rich Japan import the staple?
http://images.businessweek.com/story/08/600/0522_rice.jpg
With prices now falling, the global rice crisis seems to be subsiding. That's thanks in part to a policy announcement by a Japanese bureaucrat. On May 19, Japan's Deputy Agriculture Minister, Toshiro Shirasu, said that Tokyo would release some of its massive stockpile of rice to the Philippines, selling 50,000 tons "as soon as possible" and releasing another 200,000 tons as food aid. The first shipment could reach the Philippines by late summer. Shirasu also left open the possibility of using more of its reserves to help other countries in need.
To understand Japan's role in deflating the rice market, it helps to visit the warehouses rimming Tokyo Bay. It's here in temperature-controlled buildings that Japan keeps millions of 30-kilogram vinyl bags of rice that it imports every year. Tokyo doesn't need rice from the outside world: The country's heavily subsidized farmers produce more than enough to feed the country's 127 million people. Yet every year since 1995, Tokyo has bought hundreds of thousands of metric tons of rice from the U.S., Thailand, Vietnam, China, and Australia.
A Rice Imbalance
Why does Japan buy rice it doesn't need or want? In order to follow World Trade Organization rules, which date to 1995 and are aimed at opening the country's rice market. The U.S. fought for years to end Japanese rice protectionism, and getting Tokyo to agree to import rice from the U.S. and elsewhere was long a goal of American trade policy. But while the Japanese have been buying rice from farms in China and California for more than a decade, almost no imports ever end up on dinner plates in Japan. Instead the imported rice is sent as food aid to North Korea, added to beer and rice cakes, or mixed with other grains to feed pigs and chickens. Or it just sits in storage for years. As of last October, Japan's warehouses were bulging with 2.6 million tons of surplus rice, including 1.5 million tons of imported rice, 900,000 tons of it American medium-grain rice.
It's one of the cruel ironies of global trade that poor countries have been paying through the nose for rice while Japan has been sitting on reserves (BusinessWeek, 5/1/08). The imbalance is a cause for concern because half the world's population depends on rice as a staple food. Following Shirasu's announcement that Japan is putting its reserves to good use, U.S. trade officials have sent word to Tokyo that they back the move. The two sides will meet in Washington on May 23 to discuss the details.
That's good news for poor nations like Bangladesh and the Philippines that either import rice or get handouts. The Japanese gesture has helped to rein in rice prices. On the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), rice futures have fallen almost 20% since reaching an all-time high of $25.07 per 100 lb. on April 24. But they are still nearly three times their levels from a year ago.
WTO Rules Act as a Safety Valve
What started the panicky buying? Worries about a scarcity of rice after major exporters banned or drastically cut back their overseas shipments (BusinessWeek.com, 4/28/08). Since last fall, countries such as India and Vietnam—among the world's top rice-exporting nations—have curbed shipments to keep a lid on domestic inflation caused by soaring food prices. That forced many countries to dip into their own inventories. The U.S. Agriculture Dept. estimates that such stockpiles are now at their lowest levels since the early 1980s. The recent cyclone that devastated Myanmar's rice crop, hoarding by consumers, and speculative buying at the CBOT added to the panic. In Haiti and parts of Africa, food riots erupted.
This time, the WTO rules—formally known as Minimum Market Access—acted as a safety valve for the market. Japan's 1.5 million tons of imported rice reserves amount to roughly 5% of the 28 million tons that are traded globally ever year, which explains why Tokyo's announcement had a sizable and immediate impact.
Signs that India and Vietnam plan to relax curbs on rice exports also helped assuage concerns about a shortage.
A Report Makes the Rounds
But with oil prices edging toward $140 a barrel, rice prices might not stay put for long. Some experts think the U.S. and Japan should consider changing the WTO rules. "As a short-term solution the WTO program was a way to open a closed market," says Nobuyuki Chino, president of Tokyo-based Unipac Grain, which is owned by Minnesota-based CHS Inc. "But now it should be reviewed because it's an obstacle for free trade."
To tap its import reserves, Tokyo had to get Washington's imprimatur. That might not have happened if not for Tom Slayton, a former U.S. agriculture official, and Peter Timmer, a visiting Stanford University professor, who drew attention to Japan's reserves in a report on the Center for Global Development's (CGD) Web site in early May. Releasing the rice, they wrote, "would bring prices down immediately, averting hunger, malnutrition and increased mortality among poor people in Asia."
Even so, giving Japan the green light wasn't an easy decision for Washington. High rice prices had brought American farmers an unexpected windfall. What's more, the U.S. had a more pressing matter to attend to, the $300 billion farm bill working its way through Congress. But the CGD paper circulated in Washington. Two Congressional committees and a Washington Post editorial referred to the paper, and U.S. trade officials were soon reaching out to the Japanese.
Only a Short-Term Fix
Temporarily using Japan's stockpile as food aid is a stopgap measure, not a solution, says Slayton. That's because food aid has its limits. The World Food Program shipped an average of 461,000 tons of rice annually as aid from 2002 to 2006. That would feed just 2.5 million people in Cambodia or Bangladesh, a fraction of the estimated 1.6 billion people who live on less than $1 a day, Slayton says.
However, neither Washington nor Tokyo seems prepared to change its tack. The U.S. first lodged a trade complaint against Japan over rice in 1980, and since the 1990s Washington has insisted on forcing American rice on the Japanese. U.S. trade officials say the policy helps Corporate Japan. Even at current price levels, they say, imported rice costs Japanese companies half the price of domestically grown rice. Tokyo says Japanese consumers have no appetite for cheap foreign rice, though it may simply fear undermining its own farm policy. "One of the problems in the global rice market is that it's inefficient and opaque," says Nick Cashmore, CLSA's head of commodities research in Asia. "And it's also controlled and influenced by state-owned enterprises which do the buying and selling rather than letting the private sector do the job."
.
http://siliconinvestor.advfn.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=24619774
Some tank job on on the US side today for Potash Corp http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=pot
Thanks, I had put john's RSI.UN (sugar trust) on my priority watch list.. (meaning good chance I'll buy in).. I've owned that one before..
If it can get over a buck and hold it there a month I may be out then :O)
Still looks like promo but at least we get exposure... They have a touchy feely ad on BNN occasionally .. It doesn't 'taste bad' though :O)
cool spring here ... just put in some annuals Geranium (pelargonium), added a few perennials (Iceland and Asian poppy, delphiniums two kinds) and some lupin which I understand is a weed in BC :O) Pulled the dandelions, easy, and the damn pernicious violets.. work!!) Got some Asian lilies popping up that I'm trying out... we lost all our lilies a few years back... some bug.. New to scarf some more trillium, fern and Jack in the Pulpits on vacant land for my woodland garden plots before the developers roll in :O).. they are pricey to buy ...
off to the birthday party shortly... later
Barrons had an article about the CRP program, which I have mentioned here before. I believe there are a couple of points missing from the article. The main point that is missing is that land in the program was marginal to begin with and, from a financial perspective, still could be marginal because of the high cost of diesel and petrochemicals. Fifty dollars an acre isn't bad when you have very few input costs.
I think the other point to make is that the US press tends to look at production within the US without examining what is going on internationally. Overall, world production has increased from 589.9 mmts. in 98/99 to 603 mmt in 17/08. So there hasn't been a dramatic increase in production except in what is designated as the FSU-12. These are countries that were formerly a part of the Soviet Union. Production in these countries has increased from 56.1 mmts. to 93.49 mmts. in the same period. Their dramatic increases in production has remained fairly static, however, since 2002. My opinion, which is limited at best, is that if dramatic increases in production are to occur, they will be the result of increases overseas. Here is the article:
A DECADES-OLD SUBSIDY PROGRAM that pays farmers not to plant is losing its appeal amid record-high crop prices. The Conservation Reserve Program was designed to save soil from being over farmed and keep environmentally sensitive land out of production, government officials say. The lure of hot money is putting more land to work, but a slow bureaucratic process and financial penalties impede early withdrawal. Therefore, hoped-for U.S. acreage expansion will be limited, likely keeping crop prices in the stratosphere.
Unless, of course, President Bush's administration bows to pressure from livestock producers to allow an early release of acreage from the no-planting regime -- something officials have repeatedly promised to consider.
Burgeoning corn use for ethanol production has pumped up prices from corn to cotton as crops fight for land. The U.S. Agriculture Department sees total 2008 cropland at 252 million acres, up seven million acres, or about 3%, from 2007's figure, as more acres exit the CRP and farmers reallocate land.
Uncle Sam now pays producers to not farm 34.6 million acres under the CRP, down from the 37 million last year. But there are questions about how much of that land is really suitable for crop production. Much idled CRP acreage wouldn't be fit for farming, says Wachovia Securities grain analyst Bill Nelson, yet he thinks that nearly half could sprout wheat, corn or soybeans if farmers were to seed it. Indeed, recent USDA data show nearly 10 million acres of high-quality farmland in the CRP, along with another 15 million lower-quality but plantable acres.
Although farmers were offered the option to stay in the CRP, they allowed land-idling contracts on about 2.6 million acres to expire in September 2007 and are scheduled to take 1.3 million more out of the program this September and 3.9 million in fall '09, says John Johnson, a USDA deputy administrator. Discouraging a quick exodus: Breaking CRP contracts can carry steep financial costs for farmers who don't fulfill their 10-to-15-year terms. USDA officials say the average rental payment to participating farmers is $50 an acre, and a farmer would have to refund all proceeds for the life of the contract to get out.
Meanwhile, prices for corn, wheat and soybeans remain in historically high ranges, even though corn and wheat eased last week. Chicago Board of Trade corn ended the week at $5.91 a bushel, down 6.1%; wheat was at $7.75½, off 3.6%; and soybeans settled at $13.78, up 1.5%. Demand for grains, particularly corn for ethanol production, shows no slowdown -- meaning that prices could keep ascending. That could lead more farmers to consider leaving the CRP program.
In addition, livestock producers, who are choking on higher feed costs, have urged the USDA to suspend penalties for farmers who want an early exit from the CRP to quickly get more land into production. But Bush administration officials have said that option was considered but rejected.
This summer, the USDA will tentatively revisit allowing early release of CRP land, but any decision would be too late for this year's plantings.
http://siliconinvestor.advfn.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=24597299
The sugar chart looks eerily like the wheat chart...
http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri/Solar_Arch_NY_Mar2_08.pdf
see page twenty for a Looooooooong term Canadian wheat forecast ....
A new tack I've noticed on the tape these last few days... Not the 1 or 2 lots asks just under the current but a pile of orders for a few thousand shares.. ie 2800 shares split between 12 orders ?????
$3.52 28 12
5 minutes into the day and RAY up .03 on 700 shares ROTF...
I'm rich !!!
well I mentioned it again on the SI oilsands thread.. I sneak those ferts in whenever I can :O)
http://siliconinvestor.advfn.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=24590002
Well it was mentioned on BNN, symbol even :O) as one of the juniors that was smokin' when the BHP/Anglo deal was announced...
RAY has tv commercials LOL
Not knocking him actually,... would be nice to see some effective promo...