Looking for a Green Close

Hello to folks from the land down under (albeit only in my mind today).

Qantas may have heard about the Boeing (BA) troubles from a source other than me, but as far as I’m concerned, an executive in Sydney read the ‘Ville, drew an enormous knife he keeps strapped to his crocodile pants, and stabbed the blade deep into the ivory and elephant-flesh desk. Using his Aussie pager (e.g. “shouting”) he howled, “Oiy! Get those blokes from Boeing on the yapper and tell them we don’t buy planes with detachable wings. And if they give you any lip I’m going to skin them and make a new desk."

Again, I may be assuming too much. But from where I’m sitting (wondering if I can get my face on Aussie currency), the enormous nation down under loves me more than Men At Work and their devotion to Rain Man combined.

“That Macke saved us a ‘ole pot o’ Aussie dollars. I love the man. If he was here right now, I’d take him out for a round of golf."

A man can dream, can’t he?

Here’s some other things I’m thinking and dreaming about as I get ready for an actual round of golf and a trip to the Bahamas until next Wednesday:
 

• Got some whimpering about the dearth of stock picks in yesterday’s column. Here’s a pick I wish I would have made: Palm (PALM). The capital structure is pure misery, with Elevation Partners (and Bono) owning most of the business, and the upside... it doesn’t matter. They have a smash-hit product, even if they can't make it in bulk yet. Anything people hate about the company will be blamed on Sprint (S).
  
  I nailed the Apple (AAPL)/AT&T (T) trade and never gave Palm a second thought. A hot product is the answer for anything in the capital structure.
  
  What’s the trade? Palm is up 154% since March 10. Traders chasing moves last as long as dogs chasing cars. Palm should pull back. Anything higher than 14 and 2 bits, and I’m done waiting, and will jump on board with Najarian. I was a freaking Psychology major, and I bothered with the capital structure of a great and easily understood comeback story? (Insert 5 minutes of self-abuse here.)
  
  
• By way of answering the stock-picks issue, if I’m buying, I’m telling you. Ditto for selling. What I’m saying today is what I’ve been saying for roughly a year: The market is unknowable and random. The autos should be dead. Citigroup (C) should have died ages ago. The airlines are part of the worst industry in the world (excluding Qantas). That's just a long, and from my end, boring way of saying that everyday the market's open is a great opportunity to sell airlines. That’s not boasting, it's just saying stocks down 60% year-to-date -- like AMR Corp (AMR) or a “service oriented” outfit like JetBlue (JBLU), which is down over 40% -- are lousy shorts and roulette-table buys.