The image of polar bears adrift on small ice cubes may create concern about climate change but it is going to be a tough sell this year.

Arctic temperature is still not above 0°C – the latest date in fifty years of record keeping

There was a mad flurry of twitter posts today as a news piece by celebrity gossip site TMZ.com announced the death of Michael Jackson. While TMZ may be the National Enquirer of the web, they did manage to break the story well in advance of their competitors.

Initially, people who were skeptical of the TMZ report were looking for “official” reports and confirmation. I think they were asking the wrong questions.

A “real” news network wouldn’t have direct access to a loose network of celebrity stalkers and freelance paparazzi. These people live and die by their sources who can provide them with the whereabouts and activities of LA’s celebrities. Can you visualize a CNN reporter shouting “get me Jocko’s dermatologist on the line!” I didn’t think so.

I’m not sure what the value of breaking celebrity death news is but TMZ has captured most of it.

The US Airline industry has an uncanny knack of attacking “oil speculators” at market tops. It is with great interest that we observe their  most recent attacks on oil speculators -  Airlines renew call for rules on oil speculators.

We saw a well orchestrated “astroturf” (faked grass roots) campaign last year leading to a site called stopoilspeculationnow.com. The airline industry went to great expense to publicize their cause, including mass emailing their clients (even the ones who fly regularly between Houston and Calgary).

Speculators in the Crosshairs
Stop Oil Speculation.com Still Going Strong…why?

Eventually they mothballed their pricey PR site but not before hedging fuel prices at near record high prices - Airlines Hedging Oil at $147.90/BBL?

Now that the airline business is back attacking speculators we can’t help but wonder if the current oil price rally is doomed.

The Impotence of Proofreading by Taylor Mali is a hilarious look at the perils of the spell check function.

Thanks to Shahe Sabag, President of Dumont Nickel (DNI.V), for passing it along.

More on waves… this video comes via Paul Kedrosky

A great illustration of the frustrating stops and starts that occur during traffic jams. I’d be even more interested in some workable solutions.

Here are a few highlights from a series of live Twitter posts from the Hathor Exploration (HAT.V) analyst tour.

The results of the Alberta program as well as other installations were the focus of presentations given last week in Mexico to 104 engineers and management officials in five operating districts of PEMEX. Wavefront is very optimistic that given the state of oil production in Mexico, that PEMEX will implement Powerwave in several of their operations to reverse or slow down rates of oil production decline. Negotiations with PEMEX are on-going.

More here

Pretty exciting developments for Wavefront Technology Solutions Inc. (WEE.V). I’ve met with Brian Wilson but I don’t think he’ll be hiring me for his band anytime soon. I think Wavefront has better odds.

If you weren’t sure of my position in WEE.V from my interview with Dave Pescod, I currently own shares.

A while back I was interviewed for Dave Pescod’s StockTalk Late Edition. Here are a few quotes…

• it only takes one person to say “I heard it doesn’t work”. I don’t know where he got that from and suddenly he talks to 10 people and the ten people think something doesn’t work.
• I like to say we’re having an IUM bull market. Where lithium, uranium all the rare earth elements, the niobium, tantalum and berylium, all these things that have just really started to move. I think that the commodity bull market isn’t over.
• I am short-term bullish but medium term terrified!
  

Click Here to read the entire interview

I was twittering up a storm yesterday. After an analyst tour with Hathor Exploration (HAT.V), I had some quiet time at the Saskatoon John G. Diefenbaker International Airport. This gave me a chance to check out the Potash Corp. (POT.TO) sponsored Blairmore Ring. In Saskatchewan, sinking large potash shafts requires sealing off a major aquifer at a depth of 400-600m, the Blairmore Formation. This was done by first freezing the formation and then installing large steel ring to seal off the water.

There is no shortage of potash but many companies are trying to capture the opportunity presented by higher prices.

The people of Saskatoon know who “butters their bread” as there is also a mural at the airport sponsored by Cameco.

I’ve collected a few domain names over the years. Now that people are excited about the price of gold,  Gold fever grips Chinese investors, I’m going to be marketing a few of them.

• GOLDBULLION.CN
• GOLDCOINS.CN
• SILVERBULLION.CN

.cn is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the People’s Republic of China. It is currently the second most common top-level domain.