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8:30 AM EST Friday, September 29, 2006: Several readers have suggested that Washington conspiracy theories don't fly. Washington isn't smart enough. Yet...

1. Cheaper oil and lower interest rates will help get Republicans elected.

2. We have an "oil" administration -- Cheney and Bush are from oil. They understand it.

3. There are only a handful of oil producing countries, each of whom could be spoken with. If Pakistan got the message, why not Saudi, Kuwait, etc.? It's a small favor to drop prices until November.

4. There are only a handful of big oil producing companies, all of whom are major contributors, and major beneficiaries from recent tax and other legislation Washington has passed.

5. oil producers, enjoying the recent spike in fuel prices, raked in petrodollars and put much of their profits in U.S. Treasury bonds, causing bond prices to rise and interest rates to fall. That was serendipitous.

It would not surprise to see both oil prices and interest rates rise after the November elections.

Even if you think there is a only a 10% chance of Harry's theories coming true, you will owe it yourself:

1. To organize your borrowings now while interest rates are cheap. Now might be a good time to buy that piece of real estate you've always wanted.

2. To organize your energy needs for the next year or so. Can you hedge your home and office energy needs?

Absolute Software has moved up. It could go higher as more laptops gets stolen and the need for protection becomes stronger.

How to read The New York Times. There are now four ways:

1. The paper version. Pro: It's familiar. Con: It's a pain to dispose of.

2. The Internet version -- go to www.NYTimes.com.. Pro: It's all there. Con: It doesn't look like a newspaper. You also need a broadband connection and you need to stay connected.

3. Download it from NewsStand.com. Pro: It's nice to read. Con: Waiting while it downloads is a pain. And it's not cheap.

4. The new Times Reader beta. Pro: It's nice to read. It comes up instantly. You can load up and take the day's issue electronically with you. Read it on a plane. You will be able to search, highlight, annotate, print and email. Try this beta. It's neat: Click here.

This is what the New York Times looks like on the Internet.


This is what it looks like courtesy its new, neat Reader.

Quote of the day:
The trouble with being in the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat. – Lily Tomlin

Fed up with fakes
EBay is loaded with fakes that are promoted as real. Several companies including LVMH and Tiffany have filed lawsuits against eBay. LVMH contends nearly all Vuitton and Dior items sold on eBay are fakes. EBay says it does everything to stop fraud (but clearly doesn't do very much.) Only a minute number of products sold on eBay are fakes, it says. In short, buyer beware. Newton's eBay rule: If it's too cheap to be real, it isn't.

Every home needs a lovable bunny rabbit

This 9" plastic white bunny is called Nabaztag, the Armenian word for rabbit. It comes from Violet, a small French company. Nabaztag connects wirelessly to your home's computer network. Its ears can twirl or point up or down to notify you of incoming e-mail or the rise and fall of stocks. It can read aloud emails or news headlines, converting text to speech. It can announce the time or play songs from your digital music collection. Color lights that glow inside its belly tell the weather. All yellow, for instance, can mean sunny; all blue can mean snow. Your rabbit performs according to preferences set up by the user on Violet's Web site. You can assign different light signals for emails that come from different people or contain certain keywords in the subject line. Nabaztag can even marry another rabbit, and the two can link up over the Internet. The owners of the pair enjoy bunny love, by getting their bunnies to mimic each other's ear movements. It costs $150 in Europe.

A fancier Bluetooth earpiece:

Mvox Duo is a Bluetooth headset and a Bluetooth speakerphone. It tells you who's calling. It has excellent voice recognition and does voice calling over a cell phone or a PC (e.g. Skype). It has 8-megs of memory for storing phone numbers -- a mini-Outlook. The $199 gadget will be available for $199. I like the idea. To watch the Mvox VP marketing demo the phone, click here.

DEMO demonstrations are on the Internet

DEMO shows off 70 new technology products twice a year. Eager executives pitch their wares. Some of the videos are neat. Click here. Caution: Not all work.

The punchline is obvious, yet still funny
As part of his yearly physical exam, the doctor requested a sperm count from his 85-year-old male patient. The doctor gave the man a jar and said, "Take this jar home and bring back a semen sample tomorrow."

The next day the 85-year-old man reappeared at the doctor's office and gave him the jar, which was as clean and empty as on the previous day. The doctor asked what happened.

The man explained: "Well, doc, it's like this. First I tried with my right hand, but nothing. Then I tried with my left hand, but still nothing.

Then I asked my wife for help. She tried with her right hand, then with her left, still nothing. She tried with her mouth, first with the teeth in, then with her teeth out, still nothing.

We even called up Arleen, the lady next door and she tried too. First with both hands, then an armpit, and she even tried squeezin' it between her knees, but still nothing."

The doctor was shocked! "You asked your neighbor?"

The old man replied, "Yep. None of us could get the jar open"

This column is about my personal search for the perfect investment. I don't give investment advice. For that you have to be registered with regulatory authorities, which I am not. I am a reporter and an investor. I make my daily column -- Monday through Friday -- freely available for three reasons: Writing is good for sorting things out in my brain. Second, the column is research for a book I'm writing called "In Search of the Perfect Investment." Third, I encourage my readers to send me their ideas, concerns and experiences. That way we can all learn together. My email address is . You can't click on my email address. You have to re-type it . This protects me from software scanning the Internet for email addresses to spam. I have no role in choosing the Google ads. Thus I cannot endorse any, though some look mighty interesting. If you click on a link, Google may send me money. Please note I'm not suggesting you do. That money, if there is any, may help pay Claire's law school tuition. Read more about Google AdSense, click here and here.
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