I use basically one factor to pick mutual funds for my rollover IRA: 10 year return. I look at the big list of mutual funds on eTrade and pick the ones with the best ten year return. Sometimes I look at the Morningstar rating. Sophisticated!

Ah, whatever. Most of my picks have turned out OK for me. Some have done very well, even. But one fund has consistently beaten all others over the past few years: AMAGX / Amana Trust Growth. While the others have struggled through all the big dips of the past few years, it just keeps going. It rocks.

But, it wasn't until last week, thanks to a random eTrade info message, that I learned how the investments within AMAGX are picked:

Amana Mutual Funds Trust is designed to provide investment alternatives that are consistent with Islamic principles. Generally, Islamic principles require that investors share in profit and loss, that they receive no usury or interest, and that they do not invest in a business that is not permitted by Islamic principles. Some of the businesses not permitted are liquor, wine, casinos, pornography, insurance, gambling, pork processing, and interest-based banks or finance associations.

The Funds do not make any investments that pay interest. In accordance with Islamic principles, the Funds shall not purchase bonds, debentures, or other interest paying obligations of indebtedness. the businesses not permitted are liquor, wine, casinos, pornography, insurance, gambling, pork processing, and interest-based banks or finance associations.

If I'd known that, I probably would've never bought AMAGX, thinking such a strategy would avoid too many good buys. But, I would've been wrong, because whatever they're doing is clearly working out. I suppose that's a strong point in favor of my simple 10-yr return strategy - focusing on that one number keeps me from introducing my own ridiculous thoughts into these decisions.

More disturbingly, I might have avoided it on principle: I wouldn't want to encourage religious thinking if I could help it - and with thousands of MFs out there, avoiding one is no problem. Maybe there's an atheist fund somewhere! But, that would've been totally out of character for me, since that principle never affects anything else I buy: I happily eat Hebrew National hot dogs and dine at Indian vegetarian and Halal restaurants; I buy stuff from stores that play Rush Limbaugh from behind the counter, and I eat at Cookout which prints Christian messages on its cups. So no, I don't factor religion into my purchases. But I do find it strangely ironic that the best-performing fund in my portfolio does.

Hugs R Bad, Mm K?

A morally bankrupt bloviator has an opinion about waterboarding:

While the White House must beware not to inform our enemies what to expect if captured, today’s clueless anti-waterboarding rhetoric merits this tactic’s vigorous defense. Waterboarding is something of which every American should be proud.

About the benefits of insurgent bloggers vs. those who have to defend the establishment, Tim at Balloon Juice writes:

More than that I think people realize blogosphere left faces real trouble when when and if Dems sweep government in ‘09.

Yes, indeed. It is going to be tough for lefty bloggers if the Dems win. But it's going to be tough for conservatives, too. In each case, there are going to be multiple year's worth of hastily-taken positions which will give them trouble when their opponents go back and read the archives.

"You were all in favor of _____ when Bush was president, now that Biden [ha!] is president, you've changed your mind? Hypocrite!!111elevn!!"

"But it was diiiffferennnnnt!!! Wah!"

Yesterday's fans of oversight will become tomorrows defenders of presidential privilege; isolationists will find good uses for intervention; nuances will take precedence over hard and fast rules they favored mere months ago; fans of the filibuster will find reasons why it's unconstitutional (again). It will become really obvious that so much of the noise the political blogs make simply boils down to "_____s are stupid and evil !"

In my ideal world, because I'm a big fan of out with the old, in with the new, a lot of intelligent people will give up political blogging after realizing there's nothing they can say in defense of president Richardson that won't be a 180deg reversal from the position they took when Bush was president. They'll switch to blogging about music and posting pictures of their cats. And then the next generation of political bloggers will show up, full of fire and passion, carrying none of that Bush-era baggage, free to take any position they want so long as it serves the cause. And they will. And they'll repeat all the same arguments, get into the same fights, defend the same indefensible positions that their predecessors did - until the next change of power, when the next generation will sweep in and repeat all the same mistakes, etc., etc., ad infinitum - all of them oblivious to their part in the great cycle of amateur punditry.

Over here on a TNR blog, Christopher Orr writes:

To recap: Rudy Giuliani has now argued that his tenure as Mayor of the Universe New York City gives him better foreign policy credentials than Joe Biden, a keener understanding of torture than John McCain, more experience at Ground Zero than the actual recovery workers, and a unique ability to secure the nation's borders against illegal immigrants.

At least now his contention that his wife is a bioterror expert thanks to her nursing background seems a little less out of left field.

And his commenters follow-up with witticisms:

1. He also has a far better understanding of marriage, having been married 3 times. And is more knowledgeable about theology than most Christians, because he studied theology.
2. Subsequent commercials feature him miraculously cleansing the city streets of lepers, and raising Fiorello LaGuardia from the dead.
3. Giuliani would take the two windshield squeegees from the beggers and restore the twin towers.
4. Another little known fact: It was really Giuliani who fended off the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man back in the day

Which suggests that it's time for a Rudy Giuliani Facts list, in the same spirit as the Chuck Norris Facts List...

Anybody got any ?

And we're off:

1. Rudy Giuliani drove the prostitutes from Times Square by sleeping with all of them.
2. Judith Nathan bathes in the tears of 9/11 widows and orphans that Rudy collects thrice weekly.
3. Rudy Giuliani has already defeated all the terrorists, in Imagination Land.
4. When Rudy Giuliani cries, each tear has the power to extinguish a fire in any one of the five boroughs. But Rudy Giuliani never cries.
5. Rudy Giuliani rid NYC of crime by having Bernard Kerik monopolize it.
6. Rudy's divorces are not due to any fault of his, he's just too much man for one woman to bear.
7. Rudy isn't opposed to torture, he's opposed to crybabies who can't take it.
8. Rudy's so powerful, his past self grows stronger every time his present self describes something his past self did.
9. Rudy Giuliani is so powerful that Pat Robertson will endorse him despite Giuliani advocating everything that Pat Robertson is against.
   

To qualify for a prize, users had to scratch away a window to reveal a temperature lower than the figure displayed on each card. As the game had a winter theme, the temperature was usually below freezing.

But the concept of comparing negative numbers proved too difficult for some[.] Camelot received dozens of complaints on the first day from players who could not understand how, for example, -5 is higher than -6.

Happily, this particular idiocy isn't happening in the US, it's in the UK.

100 Awesome Music Videos

That's my title for scoring 31/58 on Rolling Stone's Almost-Impossible Rock & Roll Quiz. It really was quite tough.

(via)

assholes

PlanetHiltron