I found this article about the "healthcare overhaul" going on in Congress right now:

Health care overhaul suffers another setback
At first glance, this is good news - any trouble for this particular nightmare, any obstacle, is a blessing. Anything to buy time so more folks can see that this is a dead end (and a way to end up dead). But then you realize, upon reading it, that the bad news is that some Democrats are complaining that the current draft bill isn't complicated enough. Awesome.

Here's the thing: the government wants us to have health care. Ok, fine. Health care can be purchased with money. Right, check. The government is going to take away more of our money, making us each less capable of purchasing health care. Huh? The government is then going to give us what it decides is "health care." Uhhh...

Wouldn't it be easier to... I don't know... not take our money from us if we purchase health insurance or pay out of pocket for medical expenses? Maybe that would save a few steps and a few thousand bureaucrats? How about unhooking Health Savings Accounts from insurance policies? Why must you have a specific type of policy to begin building an HSA? Wouldn't simple stuff like this make more sense than thousands of pages of bills that will never be read before being voted on?

Of course it would, which is precisely why Congress won't do that. They're going to create a twisted, convoluted, inefficient "system" that would put Rube Goldberg to shame. Why? So they can employ more bureaucrats.

THE GOVERNMENT IS GOING TO SACRIFICE YOUR HEALTH AND LONGEVITY SO A JACKASS BUREAUCRAT LOSER CAN HAVE A JOB. THEY'RE GOING TO KILL YOU FOR MONEY.

That's right. You're going to die in pain in a filthy hospital somewhere so some government stooge can work 30 hours a week (if that), drive a nice car, live in a nice house, and take 30 days of paid vacation every year... with your money.

Nine hours of driving... that's quite a lot. It's not the longest drive I've ever done (Dumas, Texas to Billings, Montana in 13 hours), but close enough. I think I'll not move my car for a few days. Maybe more.

I saw family that I haven't visited with for close to two years, all of whom are settled into a new town I've never been to before (I think, anyway): Idaho Falls, Idaho. It's a nice little town situated in the middle of beautiful Idaho natural scenery. I plan to go back again, but I think I may fly next time...

I managed to briefly attend the Idaho Falls Tea Party event that was scheduled for Saturday. It was nice to be able to attend one of these finally, but I think the organizers committed a minor goof: they probably should not have scheduled the event to coincide with a 4th of July festival. I know that sounds funny since this is a movement dedicated to rolling back our Federal overlords and reestablishing freedom, the meaning on July 4th in the U.S., but it's hard to maintain a crowd when there are food vendors, bands, games, and other stuff to do all around. I guess what they lost in constant crowd size they may have made up in signatures - lots of people are backing this movement, despite what the lamestream state run media likes to claim (you should have heard all of the open talk of secession I heard this weekend, not just at this event but in general, including places I stopped while traveling to and from Idaho Falls).

Now it's time for some frozen pizza, relaxing, and tending to my sunburned head. I guess the hair up top isn't as thick as it used to be.

I'm about 40 minutes or so from hitting the road for the holiday weekend. I'm slugging coffee in an effort to boot up enough brain cells to make this happen. It will, just gotta give it enough time... and caffeine.

This line is for a repeated warning to myself and others that I continue to ignore: don't trade Forex when you have other commitments that may not allow time for it (some ugly trading last night, ugh - got out with a profit though, winning consecutive trade #47).

Also, this experience reminds me of another warning I already know and should learn to heed: don't bother trading when there's a bank holiday going on and volume is decreased. Low volume can exaggerate price moves and make your trades turn painful really quick.

I'm up something like 3.5% for the week, but I haven't tracked it exactly because this week also was the end of June and the start of July, I shifted funds around in my Forex accounts, etc. Up. The balance is up. Simple.

I've been keeping an eye on gasbuddy.com ahead of my trip. If you haven't heard of this site before, check it out before you go on the road. It uses user supplied information to help you find the lowest gasoline prices in a given area, and the Gas Buddy Trip Calculator can even tell you about how much fuel your particular make and model of car will use, where to buy it, and what it will cost for a round trip! I feed that info to my TomTom GPS and save a little bit more when I travel.

Found another cartoon that gave me a good laugh. I guess it's a cartoon day today:


This could explain Obama's response to the Honduran fracas. The other possibility is that he's really just another uninformed ass braying "Democracy! Democracy!" at the situation.

Or, maybe, The Obama doesn't like seeing an example of a constitution defended against a sitting president who attempted to undermine it. Hits too close to home, perhaps?

I deal with insects and rabbits in my pest control work, amongst other things, and I splatter lots of insects on the windshields of the vehicles I drive, so this one got me laughing this morning.

I've just closed out my 45th consecutive winning trade, hit my weekly target of 2.5% NAV growth, and figured my grand total gain for June: 21.17%.

Is this a fluke or a hint of things to come?

Only one way to find out.

Good luck to all!

Before accepting the fact that a pure carry trade strategy in Forex is in ways more perilous than a pure short-term trading approach, I pursued that method almost exclusively. As a result my trading account is still littered with the remains of that method, which creates a bit of a drag on my short-term trading returns due to the drag they create on my available margin.

I've got this topic on the brain this morning because I awoke to discover that my old USD/TRY (U.S. Dollar v. Turk Lira) short positions had moved very close to their break-even points. I was able to dump one of them and I have set take profit orders just past break-even on the others; based on chart formations, I expect these to trigger and close these positions within a day or two.

There are two ways I am addressing these old trades and cleaning them up:

1. As above, let them move to profit and close them out. This is the ideal scenario.

2. Some of these old carry trades are pretty far in the red and will not come up for air any time soon, so I gradually unwind them by buying them out. After I hit my weekly profit target for my short-term trading, an increase of 2.5% of starting NAV for the week, I use half of additional profits from each subsequent trade to purchase back the losing carry trade pairs. For example, if a short-term trade nets me $20, and I am whittling down an old EUR/TRY short carry trade, I'll buy $10 worth of EUR/TRY. I just keep repeating that process until the position is either purchased out of existence or it moves back to profit, enabling me to eliminate the remainder.

Many times I have been tempted to just close all losing positions and wipe the slate clean, but to do so is to eliminate capital. Sure, you can get it all back again later, but by doing so you skip the chance that the position will move back toward profit on its own.