Brian Williams NBC Anchor leaves Canada a Thank You Note...

Leaving behind a thank-you note


Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor

After tonight's broadcast and after looting our hotel mini-bars, we're going to try to brave the blizzard and fly east to home and hearth, and to do laundry well into next week. Before we leave this thoroughly polite country, the polite thing to do is leave behind a thank-you note.

Thank you, Canada:

For being such good hosts.

For your unfailing courtesy.

For your (mostly) beautiful weather.

For scheduling no more than 60 percent of your float plane departures at the exact moment when I was trying to say something on television.

For not seeming to mind the occasional (or constant) good-natured mimicry of your accents.

For your unique TV commercials -- for companies like Tim Hortons -- which made us laugh and cry.

For securing this massive event without choking security, and without publicly displaying a single automatic weapon.

For having the best garment design and logo-wear of the games -- you've made wearing your name a cool thing to do.

For the sportsmanship we saw most of your athletes display.

For not honking your horns. I didn't hear one car horn in 15 days -- which also means none of my fellow New Yorkers rented cars while visiting.

For making us aware of how many of you have been watching NBC all these years.

For having the good taste to have an anchorman named Brian Williams on your CTV network, who turns out to be such a nice guy.

For the body scans at the airport which make pat-downs and cavity searches unnecessary.

For designing those really cool LED Olympic rings in the harbor, which turned to gold when your athletes won one.

For always saying nice things about the United States...when you know we're listening.

For sharing Joannie Rochette with us.

For reminding some of us we used to be a more civil society.
Mostly, for welcoming the world with such ease and making lasting friends with all of us.

Bankers Is Rocking Again

Pescos Talks Stock

EAST ASIA MINERALS

Today was recognition that it is a new, new world out

there as India suggests their economy is now chugging

along at 7% GDP growth rate and they feel that within two

years, it will be back up to 9%.

It definitely is a new world out there as China, India and

Asia chug ahead, while the United States looks like it

could be mired in a bit of mess for years to come and

Europe, the old, old world, has too many countries with

too much debt problems.

Of course today making it an almost perfect world was

Greece looking like they are going to do what they have to

do to get their budget in line because after all, wouldn’t it

be embarrassing to have such a historical country declare

bankruptcy down the road.

With all the good news out today, it was a near perfect

day in the markets as oil for a while was above $80.00;

gold was flying and once again, it’s a reminder that as

long as the Indian, Chinese and Asian economies chug

along, our little sector of the world of metals, mining and

oil and gas can still be a profitable niche to be in.

Meanwhile, time to catch up with David Coffin, the Van-

couver-based editor of the Hard Rock Analyst because

East Asia Minerals comes up with another sweet result an-

nouncing 3.2 grams of gold over 61 metres within a much

bigger section of 116 metres of over 2 grams per ton gold.

Coffin suggests that this is just “more of the same in a

market that is still a little bit soggy.” “They keep building

up the resource” he suggests, “slowly and steadily.” We

ask, are they going to be hit like many other stocks with

the curse of PDAC?

Coffin replies that no, he is still more concerned with

tightening financial conditions in China and he doesn’t

think that the debt crisis is over.

Meanwhile, Coffin who had a great seat watching all

the developments on the Olympics, as he could see

Robson Square and the happenings right from his office

window. He takes his hat off to the volunteers of the

Olympic Organizing Committee and suggests that Robson

Square, with the fireworks every so many nights, the free

bands almost every night, all helped it make 17 wonderful

days. He suggested that the weather, which was so un-

usually warm and hurt some of the snow conditions, actu-

ally helped everyone get into the mood and party in down-

town Vancouver.

It truly was folks, an event Canada will be proud of for

some time...

OIL

(V-TAO)

As we mentioned earlier, it’s an almost perfect day world-

wide for the economy and it’s a time that Peter Tertzakian,

Chief Energy Economist at Arc Financial does a look/see at

the oil and gas sector.

He has quite a profile as the author of several books on

energy, but yesterday on a piece he writes, “Back to A Thou-

sand Barrels a Second...After over 18 months of crisis and

recession, world oil consumption has recovered back to

where it was at its pre-crash peak. Numbers published for

December 2009, and January 2010 show that demand for the

wonder-fuel once again touched 86.4 MB/d, or A Thousand

Barrels a Second. It’s a milestone rate-of-consumption that’s

tough to fathom, but can be envisioned by imagining an Olym-

pic sized swimming pool being drained every 15 seconds.

Admittedly, a metaphor from the winter Olympics would be

more appropriate, but frozen liquids don’t flow.”

Tertzakian continues, “A quick conclusion stemming from

this recovery in global oil demand is that one of the primary

pillars supporting positive price momentum is back in place.

That’s true, but consumption is only one pillar. The next indi-

cator that has to start aligning into place is a gradual decline

in OPEC spare capacity. It’s a likely trend; analysis shows

that the current 6.5 MMB/d capacity surplus, twice what it was

18 months ago, should start retreating again by year-end, po-

tentially by up to 8%.”

He continues, “The third pillar of oil price strength, produc-

tion declines among non-OPEC producers, is going to take a

little longer. Nevertheless, two out of three supporting factors

should be enough to gradually reinforce prices by the latter

half of this year.”

He continues, “While the barrels appear to be lining up for

higher prices, it’s too early for Canadian oil producers to pop

open the bubbly. That’s because the character of global oil

consumption, and the dynamics of oil supply, have shifted

over the past year and a half.”

Tertzakian also points to China noting, “China’s year-over-

year oil use continues to lead the emerging world’s uptrend.

Recent numbers continue to validate that world oil consump-

tion is going to grow by another 1.15 MMB/d in 2010. Impor-

tantly, none of the increment will come from North America,

the European Union or Japan.”

Meanwhile, for those looking for ultra-high risk, hopefully

high impact drilling plays, we featured recently, a pick by

Clive Stockdale, the analyst that some time ago got us into

Ultra Petroleum, one of the biggest plays we probably ever

been involved in. He now says Tag Oil is one to watch.

Internet news overtakes printed papers for US readers

For the first time ever, Americans are more likely to turn to the internet for news rather than printed newspapers or the radio, research revealed yesterday.

Internet and mobile phone technology had changed news "into a social experience", said the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, based in Washington DC.

Most respondents to a Pew survey said they turned to multiple sources for news – about 46pc used up to six different sources a day. The number of people going online has overtaken newspapers and radio and is fast catching up with the TV.

Half of those polled read the news in a local newspaper and 17pc read a national such as the New York Times or USA Today. This compares with 61pc of respondents who searched the internet for their news.

About 54pc said they listened to a radio news programme at home or in the car. The most popular news sources were local TV stations, with 78pc, followed by the 73pc who watched the news on a national network such as CNN or Fox News.

"Americans' relationship with news is changing in dramatic and irreversible ways due to changes in the 'ecology' of how news is available," the report said. "Traditional news organisations are still very important to their consumers but technology has scrambled every aspect of the relationship between news producers and the people who consumer news."

The most common online news sources were portals such as AOL and Google, which are visited by more than half of online news users a day.

This will provide organisations such as Rupert Murdoch's News Corp with more ammunition against search portals.

He has accused them of profiting from others' content, while the editor of The Wall Street Journal, Robert Thomson, has said the aggregators "encourage promiscuity" among readers.

Source: The Independent