Lose Money for a Dumb Cause! Diane E sent me a Letter from Gotham about an idiotic "investment" site called Karma Banque. Under the slogan "what goes around comes around", the site's mission is to encourage people to boycott and sell-short the stock of companies that "hurt society" (as defined by the site's anonymous but seemingly left-leaning operator). Never mind the fact that the people who care enough about social change to short stocks aren't likely to have enough clout in the market to have much of an impact, short-selling is a really dumb way for an individual to invest. Short selling may make sense for institutional investors, but not for individuals. When you add up the tax disadvantages, the fact that most retail brokers charge margin interest on stock loans, the fact that stock returns have an upward bias, and the fact that it can take the market a really long time to recognize mispricings, short-selling is stupidly risky. Don't do it. Then again, do I really care if a bunch of moronic left-leaning do-gooders hurt themselves in a misguided attempt to make the world a better place? Nah.

Need to reach the PLO for some reason? The contact information for their Washington, DC office is here. The after-hours voicemail is as pleasantly professional and banal as any other corporate office: "You have reached the PLO mission to the United States in Washington, DC. The office is now closed. Please leave a message after the tone. Your call will be returned. Thank you." Your call will be returned and your people will be murdered. Have a nice day.

Daneshjoo.org has nothing to do with synagogues in Copenhagen. It's the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran. And they're on a roll.

But nobody wants it "Dissatisfied with the speed at which television is going digital, the Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to require television manufacturers to include digital tuners on all new sets by July 2007."

But the main reason, one suspects, that the speed of the digital conversion is so slow, is that there aren't enough customers who perceive enough value in HDTV to pay enough money to motivate manufacturers to produce enough equipment. Has anybody over at the FCC ever heard the phrase "free market"?

Life without Arafat would be indistinguishable from life with Arafat, according to Saeb Erekat: "the alternative to Arafat is chaos, ladies and gentlemen, Palestinian militants spread in each neighborhood, maybe having civil strife... and competing to send more suicide bombers to Israel."