What Caught My Eye Today

Greenland - On June 21, Denmark will grant the right of self-government to Greenland. Policymakers for island of 56,000 are making big plans. Since Greenland has an abundance of swift rivers, the potential for cheap hydroelectric power is huge. Then there are the oil, gold, palladium, platinum, and zinc deposits. An unusual twist in all this: the impact of global warming. Melting ice is causing rivers to run even faster making it easier to reach those deposits. First things, first. I thought Greenland was a country already. I mean you'd think that the distinction between what a country is and what it isn't would be pretty straightforward. Turns out...not so much. Greenland was a Danish colony for about 300 years. Then, in 1985, Greenland became an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark. Now don't confuse "autonomous" with "independent" like I did. Basically, Greenland was given the right of home rule (Home rule refers to a demand that constituent parts of a state be given greater self-government within the greater administrative purview of the central government--I looked it up). It wasn't until a referendum last year that Greenland was given control of the police force, coastguard, and courts. As an added bonus, Greenlandic will be recognized as an official language. And finally, here's a fascinating bit of trivia. Did you know that in 1946, the United States offered offered to buy Greenland from Denmark for $100,000,000, but Denmark refused to sell. If we had pulled that deal off, that would have rivaled Alaska for the steal of the century.

New York Stock Exchange - To quote that famous tagline (assuming you are familiar with "Project Runway"), "One day you are in, and the next day you are out." My, how the mighty have fallen. It didn't suit the blue-chip image of the Dow Jones Industrial Average to continue to include the stocks of bankrupt General Motors and ward-of-the-state Citigroup, So it's casting them out of the list of 30 in favor of Cisco Systems and Travelers. Interestingly, Travelers used to be a subsidiary of Citi. Cisco trades at around $20 and Travelers a bit over $40, compared with the less that $4 for the discarded companies. The higher prices will likely make the Dow move more erratically because of the way the average is calculated. But that's a minor blemish compared with the better reputations of the new stock. Yeah, that's right. Screw reality. We need those numbers to look good, darn it. The NYSE has more than 2700 listings (to say nothing of the more than 5000 on the NASDAQ), and yet the vast majority of the population relies on a revolving door index of 30 stocks (barely 1%) as its primary gauge of how well the economy is performing. Of course, if Jim Cramer and all those other "experts" say that the Dow is an accurate measure of the economy, then I guess it is...because they're never wrong.

National Secrets - The U.S. federal government mistakenly posted on the Internet a "highly confidential" 266-page report on the nation's nuclear plants, weapons labs, and nuclear-storage sites, with specific locations and details on what can be found there. Big deal. You've been able google that stuff for years. Seriously, this would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. Ever since, September 11, 2001, this country has been obsessed with securing the homeland. And then we do something like this. You know, if terrorists really wanted to hit us, they'd sit back and just wait for us to shoot ourselves in the foot.

Russia - The Russian Navy opened fire on a village near St. Petersburg during exercises in the Gulf of Finland. Somehow, no one was injured when artillery fire from an anti-submarine ship rained down on the village. I have a theory on this one. I'm thinking that no one was injured, because as soon as the village got word that the Navy was in the neighborhood, the locals got the heck out of Dodge. See, I don't think this is the first time the Russian Navy was aiming at the wrong target.

Golf - Tiger Woods won the Memorial this past weekend coming from 4 strokes behind in the final round. That's two wins in 7 tournaments that Tiger has entered since he came back from knee surgery. And he's finished in the top ten in 4 of the 5 other tournaments he's played in this year. That makes 67 career victories for Woods, 6 behind Jack Nicklaus and 15 behind Sam Snead.

Tennis - Roger Federer finally won his French Open and in the process tied Pete Sampras for most Grand Slam titles--14, and he became the sixth player to win the career Grand Slam. Some will say that the win wasn't as good, what with Rafael Nadal losing in the fourth round, but they're missing the point. Rafa lost, Roger didn't. That's how you win Grand Slams. Way to go, Roger. By the way, how many Majors do you think Tiger Woods has? Yup--14.