Because it Pisses off Democrats. That's why.

Medicare fraudster, and Florida governor, Rick Scott has decided to cancel a high speed rail project between Orlando and Tampa Florida:

Florida's congressional delegation, state officials and Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer are pushing back against Gov. Rick Scott's decision Wednesday to reject $2.4 billion in federal stimulus money to build a high-speed train between Orlando and Tampa.

"This is a century-type decision that needs to be vetted," Dyer said. "I don't think it was given a fair hearing."

U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood intends to meet either in person or by phone Friday with Florida elected officials, likely including Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and Reps. John Mica, R-Winter Park, and Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, to discuss ways of keeping the project alive even as California, New York and Washington state offered to take some of the money.

And some officials were bitterly critical of Scott for pulling the plug even before bids had gone out to build the 84-mile system. Eight consortia of companies from 11 countries had indicated they would be willing to put up some or all of the state's $280 million share of the project, while the bid terms would have required them to absorb cost overruns and any operating losses for 20 years.

So, let's look at this, it would:

• Cost the state little or no money.
• Losses and cost overruns are someone else's problem.
• Disney wanted it for their Disney World Theme park.
• It would have created 23,000 construction jobs.

So, why did he cancel it?  Because in so doing, he's pissing off Democrats and liberals.

When looking at Republican policy making, one needs to realize that there is an imperative, pissing off Democrats, that frequently subordinates good policy, and sometimes even good politics.

Basically, Republicans are dicks.

No, they aren't dicks, a dick has a head.

The Only Answer is that Some People Are Above the Law

The great Matt Taibbi Asks, "Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?," and he doesn't have an answer per se, but he does explain the consequences of the fact that the banksters are untouchable:

The mental stumbling block, for most Americans, is that financial crimes don't feel real; you don't see the culprits waving guns in liquor stores or dragging coeds into bushes. But these frauds are worse than common robberies. They're crimes of intellectual choice, made by people who are already rich and who have every conceivable social advantage, acting on a simple, cynical calculation: Let's steal whatever we can, then dare the victims to find the juice to reclaim their money through a captive bureaucracy. They're attacking the very definition of property — which, after all, depends in part on a legal system that defends everyone's claims of ownership equally. When that definition becomes tenuous or conditional — when the state simply gives up on the notion of justice — this whole American Dream thing recedes even further from reality.

This is the America that we live in, and Barack Obama and Timothy Geithner like it that way.

It really is a pity that the other side is so thoroughly contemptible, because there appears to be no good option.

Read the whole thing.

Bad Day at the Office…

I know that it was German defense posture to land and launch aircraft from the autobahn as a backup to bombed air fields during the cold war, but doing it in the F104? That is nuts!

Just When You Thought that Republicans Could Not Get Any More Evil…

Republicans in South Dakata are pushing a law to legalize the murder of abortion providers:

A law under consideration in South Dakota would expand the definition of "justifiable homicide" to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus—a move that could make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. The Republican-backed legislation, House Bill 1171, has passed out of committee on a nine-to-three party-line vote, and is expected to face a floor vote in the state's GOP-dominated House of Representatives soon.

Jeebus.

I don't mean to state the obvious, but it's pretty clear that there no middle ground here to negotiate. You would sooner get meaningful consensus from Osama bin Laden.

Props to Obama on Generic Drugs

Obama's budget achieves a fair amount of costs savings by shortening the exclusivity period for drugs and ending payments from big pharma to generic drug manufacturers not to manufacture their drugs:

Big pharmaceutical companies could face increased competition from generic drugmakers under two proposals put forth by the Obama administration on Monday despite earlier savings extracted from drugmakers as part of last year's healthcare law.

President Barack Obama, as part of his 2012 budget proposal, called for cutting the number of years drugmakers could exclusively market brand-name biologic drugs to 7 years from 12.

He also set his sights on ending controversial "pay-for-delay" deals that affect traditional, chemical drugs by giving the U.S. Federal Trade Commission power to block them. Under such pacts, brand-name and generic drugmakers settle patent challenges with payoffs that delay lower-cost rivals from reaching the market.

I'd feel a little bit better about this if he also wasn't cutting home heating aid to the poor in the same budget though.

Not Enough Bullets

No, but apparently we look like a bitch


This episode of Sesame Street is brought to you by the letter "B", as in bullet, and banker …

So, Citi's CEO, the incomparably incompetent Vikram Pandit, is saying that if if regulators reign in debit card fees, they will have to stick it to poor people:

U.S. banks may cut their services to the poorest Americans as a result of new U.S. financial regulations, including federal caps on debit card processing fees, Citigroup Chief Executive Vikram Pandit said Tuesday.

New U.S. laws, including the Dodd-Frank financial regulation act passed last year, "will change banking," Pandit said in prepared remarks due to be delivered at an investors' conference in New York Tuesday.

This makes me want to go all Samuel L. Jackson/Pulp Fiction on his ass …… OK, I want to go all Samuel L. Jackson/Pulp Fiction on his ass dressed in an Elmo suit, but that last bit is just me …… Or at least I think (hope) that the last bit is just me.

Let's be clear here the debit card fees are a fee levied disproportionately on the poor, and he's saying that if he can't f%$# the poor like a bitch, then he won't serve them?

This guy has a job because he f%$#ed so badly no one wants to take his job, because they would have to fix his mess, and so he, and the whole rotten bank, live off of TARP money, back door Treasury Department subsidies, and the largess of "Helicopter" Ben Bernanke's Federal Reserve, and he has the nerve to suggest that he is anything but a leech at the public tit.

Un-dirtyword-believable.

Shirley Sharrod Finally Sues Andrew Breitbart

About damn time:

Former USDA official Shirley Sherrod has filed a lawsuit against conservative firebrand and web entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart. The suit stems from the notorious video Breitbart posted online last year, showing an out-of-context excerpt from a speech Sherrod gave to the NAACP Freedom Fund in March 2010. The clip suggested she had used her position at the Department of Agriculture to discriminate against white farmers. The media devoured the Breitbart's version of story so voraciously that the NAACP denounced Sherrod and the Obama administration fired her. The charge was, in fact, entirely untrue.

Sherrod argues in the lawsuit that the clip "damaged her reputation and prevented her from continuing her work." Breitbart, meanwhile, denounced the suit, saying he "categorically rejects the transparent effort to chill his constitutionally protected free speech."

Let's be clear, as a public official at the time, Shirley Sharrod has a very high burden of proof, so I do not know her chances of prevailing, but even if she wins, it is highly unlikely that she will get anything unless she takes action in advance to ensure that the real assets of his operations are secure.

His real assets would walk out of his office tommorow, on a memory stick, we are talking about things like his subscriber database, so if I were her lawyer, I would suggest that she move to have the court appoint a special master to oversee this data, to ensure that it doesn't walk out the door.

Then again, I'm an engineer, not a lawyer, Dammit.<sup>*

*</sup>I LOVE IT when I get to go all Doctor McCoy!!!

God Bless The Onion

Don't be drinking anything when you read the rest of This:

U.S. Authorities Can't Really Fault Al-Qaeda For Deadly Bombing Of Carnival Cruise Ship
'Those Things Represent Everything That's Wrong With America,' Officials Say

February 9, 2011 | ISSUE 47•06

WASHINGTON—Following Monday's deadly terrorist attack on a Carnival Cruise Line ship, U.S. officials have had difficulty issuing a stern condemnation of the incident, saying that while any act of terrorism is inexcusable, they couldn't completely blame al-Qaeda for wanting to blow up what is essentially a giant, floating symbol of everything that is truly god-awful about America.

………

OMFSM, this is funny!

Bad Day at the Office

It just goes to show you that jet wash can be a real bitch (About 20 s into the vid):



H/t the DEW Line

Vasimr Electric Propulsion System Heading Out to ISS

NASA will be sending the variable specific impulse magnetoplasma rocket (Vasimr) up to the International Space Station (Paid subscription required) for tests and validation. (Earlier posts)

It's expected to put out about 5.7 Netwons, about a pound, with an ISP (fuel economy) of somewhere between 10 and 30 times that of chemical propellants.

While a pound does not seem like much thrust, it's more than enough for station keeping and orbital, or for that matter interplanetary, maneuvering, as you can get the thrust for months, rather than hours, and compared to other electric thrusters systems, like the ion drive used on the Dawn Probe, it provides a lot more thrust. (Dawn has a thrust of only 90mN, about 1/50 that of the Vasimr).

If I Were Single, I Would So Avail Myself of this

Asshole For Hire from James Van Der Beek

Heh.

It's Bank Failure Friday!!!!

And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.

I would note that this trend seems to be hewing fairly close to last year's pattern so far,

15. Sunshine State Community Bank, Port Orange, FL
16. Peoples State Bank, Hamtramck, MI
    
17. Badger State Bank, Cassville, WI
18. Canyon National Bank, Palm Springs, CA

Full FDIC list

And we have the first credit union closing of the year:

1. Oakland Municipal Credit Union, Oakland, CA

Full NCUA list

So, here is the graph pr0n with last years numbers for comparison (FDIC only):


And since it's early in the year, here is a detail of the first few weeks:

What if HP Lovecraft wrote Dilbert?

I was doing a Google^™ search, and found this:

Clearly the British Isles Must Be Invaded For Their Own Protection

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Yes, These Are Royal Wedding Commemorative Condoms

I came across a web page titled, "Lie back and think of England," in which someone is flogging condoms commemorating the royal wedding.

Clearly they have forfeited any right to self governance.

Needless to say, this does not apply to the Republic of Ireland, who do not have the Royals as head of state, though their dealings with their banks does make one wonder about whether they are suited for self government, but that is a post for another day.

Deep Thought

Heh

This reminds me of a cartoon of Smokey the Bear shooting the FTD man while shouting, "Remember, only you can prevent florist flyers."

H/t JR the Stellar Parthenon BBS

Mubarak Flees Cairo, Soon to Go to R'Lyeh* Riyadh

Well, it looks like something between a popular uprising and a military coup just took place in Egypt, as Hosni Mubarak has resigned as President and left the capital:

Egypt erupted in a joyous celebration of the power of a long repressed people on Friday as President Hosni Mubarak resigned his post and ceded control to the military, ending his nearly 30 years of autocratic rule.

Shouts of “God is Great” competed with fireworks and car horns around Cairo after Mr. Mubarak’s vice president and longtime intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, announced during evening prayers that Mr. Mubarak had passed all authority to a council of military leaders, bowing to a historic popular uprising that has transformed politics in Egypt and around the Arab world.

Protesters hugged and cheered and shouted, “Egypt is free!” and “You’re an Egyptian, lift your head.”

“He’s finally off our throats,” said one protester, Muhammad Insheemy. “Soon, we will bring someone good.”

The departure of the 82-year-old Mr. Mubarak, at least initially to his coastal resort home in Sharm el-Sheik, was a pivotal turn in a nearly three-week revolt that has upended one of the Arab’s world’s most enduring dictatorships. The popular protests — peaceful and resilient despite numerous efforts by Mr. Mubarak’s legendary security apparatus to suppress them — ultimately deposed an ally of the United States who has been instrumental in helping to carry out American policy in the region for decades.

The country is now being run by a "council of military leaders," but they have made strong assertions that they will return the country to civilian rule, and something resembling a representative democracy, in a timely manner, but, there have been lots of promises throughout the Arab world about reform of governance, and they generally have not panned out.

Time will tell, I guess.

^*"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn," (In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming) as the fictional "Mad Arab"^†, Abdul Alhazred, would say.
^†And yes, I appreciate the irony of referring to the "Mad Arab" in the context of the overthrow of an Arab despot.

Truth in CGI

A "deadbeat" home owner and a bankster debate on Xtranormal



H/t Trit at by invitation only Stellar Parthenon BBS.

Unsurprising News of the Day

In the last election, the City banks, the London equivalent of Wall Street, supplied half the campaign donations for the Tories:

Financiers in the City of London provided more than 50% of the funding for the Tories last year, new research has revealed, prompting claims that the party is in thrall to the banks.

A study by the Bureau for Investigative Journalism has found that the City accounted for £11.4m of Tory funding – 50.79% of its total haul – in 2010, a general election year. This compared with £2.7m, or 25% of its funding, in 2005, when David Cameron became party leader.

The research also shows that nearly 60 donors gave more than £50,000 to the Tories last year, entitling each of them to a face-to-face meeting with leading members of the party up to and including Cameron.

The study shows the impact that Michael Spencer has had on party funding. He was appointed by Cameron as Tory treasurer in an attempt to reduce the influence of Lord Ashcroft, the party's former deputy chairman. Spencer was asked by Cameron to increase the number of relatively small donations of £50,000 to curb the influence of large donors such as Ashcroft, and for these smaller donations the City was place to look.

Relatively small donations of fifty thousand quid? That's like eighty thousand US Dollars!

This might explain why their proposals to reign in bankster pay are so toothless.

It's Jobless Thursday

Well, it's Jobless Thursday, and the initial unemployment claims numbers are good, they fell to 383,000, a 36,000 drop, with the less volatile 4-week moving average falling to 415,000 from 431,000, and continuing claims fell by 49K to 3.89 million, though extended and emergency claims rose by 84K to 4.64 million.

I hope that this is a part of a trend, but much of this may be driven by the extreme weather that we have seen recently, which has the effect of delaying people trying to get to the unemployment offices.

Of particular concern is the rising emergency and extended claims, because there are large numbers of people, the so-called "99-ers" who have run out of benefits completely, and are so not caught in any of these numbers.

The Football is Pulled Away Again…

Who knew that Lucy Van Pelt was an 82 Year Old Egyptian President?

In a move that stunned observers, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak refused to step down, and instead delegated his powers to his VP, Omar Suleiman, who is also doing duty of the state intelligence services, which, unsurprisingly, does not bode well for the prospects of democratic reform.

Note here that he did not "transfer" his authority, he "delegated" it, which means that he can take the powers back whenever he wants:

President Hosni Mubarak told the Egyptian people on Thursday that he would delegate authority to Vice President Omar Suleiman but that he would not resign, enraging hundreds of thousands gathered to hail his departure and setting in motion a volatile new stage in the three-week uprising.

The declaration by Mr. Mubarak that he would remain president appeared to signal a dangerous escalation in one of the largest popular revolts in Egypt’s history, and some protesters warned that weeks of peaceful rallies might give way to violence as early as Friday.

The 17-minute speech itself underlined a seemingly unbridgeable gap between ruler and ruled in Egypt: Mr. Mubarak, in paternalistic tones, talked in great detail about changes he planned to make to Egypt’s autocratic Constitution, while crowds in Tahrir Square, with bewilderment and anger, demanded that he step down.

Mr. Mubarak seemed oblivious. “It’s not about me,” he said in his address. When he was done, crowds in Cairo waved the bottoms of their shoes in the air, a gesture intended to convey disgust, and shouted, “Leave! Leave!”

This is not going to end well.

And Now for Some Non Congressional News…

George W. bush canceled a speaking engagement in Europe because he feared that he would be arrested for torture:

Former U.S. President George W. Bush has cancelled a visit to Switzerland, where he was to address a Jewish charity gala, due to the risk of legal action against him for alleged torture, rights groups said on Saturday.

Bush was to be the keynote speaker at Keren Hayesod's annual dinner on Feb. 12 in Geneva. But pressure has been building on the Swiss government to arrest him and open a criminal investigation if he enters the Alpine country.

Criminal complaints against Bush alleging torture have been lodged in Geneva, court officials say.

Human rights groups said they had intended to submit a 2,500-page case against Bush in the Swiss city on Monday for alleged mistreatment of suspected militants at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. naval base in Cuba where captives from Afghanistan, Iraq and other fronts in the so-called War on Terror were interned.

Well, it's nice to know that there are still a few nations out there that take crimes against humanity seriously.

Unfortunately, I'm not living in one of those nations.

No, This is Not The Onion…

Click for full size

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Just Because This Needs to Be Shared, So That His Shame Endures for a Very Long Time

But when a married Congressman trolls Craigslist for female companionship and sends a picture of himself topless, it certainly sounds that way:

Representative Christopher Lee of New York abruptly resigned on Wednesday night after a shirtless photo of himself, which he had e-mailed to a woman, was published on the Internet.

Mr. Lee, a two-term Republican from western New York, notified the House speaker, John A. Boehner, of his decision in a letter on Wednesday afternoon, after the scandal had erupted, according to senior Congressional officials.

Mr. Lee’s office released a statement in which he asked for forgiveness. “I regret the harm that my actions have caused my family, my staff and my constituents,” he wrote. “I deeply and sincerely apologize to them all. I have made profound mistakes and I promise to work as hard as I can to seek their forgiveness.”

The resignation came hours after Gawker, a gossip Web site, published an e-mail exchange that Mr. Lee, who is married and has a son, had with a 34-year-old Maryland woman he had met through Craigslist.

In his response to said woman, he described himself as "classy".

This must be a meaning of the word "classy" I've been previously unaware of.

Jim Webb Not Running for Reelection to US Senate

I am unsurprised by his announcement, he never struck me as someone who enjoyed the "World's Greatest Deliberative Body" (Hah!), but it means that it's highly likely that whoever the 'Phants nominate in 2012 will take the seat, which means that they will need only 3 more seats to take control of the Senate.

While from a numerical perspective, this is a bit of a bummer, from an ideological perspective, he was always a bit of a DINO, he served in Reagan administration, so I am not sad to seem him go from that perspective.

Republican Fail

I'm not sure how it happened, but the Republicans in the house failed to pass an extension of some of the more contemptible parts of the Patriot Act:

Too clever by half, the House GOP leadership allowed only 40 minutes of debate on the extension of the PATRIOT Act today, and brought the bill up for a vote under a rule allowing no amendments and requiring two-thirds of the body to vote YES.

Well, that didn’t happen. Apparently, the Tea Party Congresscritters discovered their love for the constitution, Amendments One and Four inclusive, while taking the opportunity to stand up to their leadership’s lackadaisical attitude toward the Act’s extension.

I believe that the Republican House leadership may have a much deeper appreciation of just the deeper meaning of the exclamation that Dan Castellaneta created as the voice of Homer Simpson.

Heh.

Good Riddance

Representative Jane Harman (CA-36) is retiring to run the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC.

My guess is that she realized, after Marcy Winograd lost in the primary with 41.2% of the vote, that with a Republican Congress, and the attendant loss of power (and pork for her district), she would be toast in either the primary or the general election.

So, less than a month into her new term, she's bailing for a cushy job working in Washington, DC, and saddling the taxpayers with the cost of running another (2 if there is a run off) elections.

Stay classy, Blue Dog.

Some Good News

Representative Gabrielle Giffords is recovering remarkably quickly from her head wound:

Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has recovered enough from a bullet to the brain to ask for toast with breakfast.

Few details are available, but Pia Carusone, Giffords' chief of staff, confirmed that the congresswoman made the verbal request on Monday when hospital workers at TIRR Memorial Hermann brought her a meal.

"Yes, that's accurate," Carusone said in an e-mail.

This is really remarkable progress.

AOL Buys HuffPo

For $315 million dollars.

I think that this explains why they have been moving to a paid writing staff lately.

Many of the celebrities who have contributed non-remunerated articles to the Huffington Post may be less inclined to do so now that it is part of the AOL empire, if just because the whole "cool factor" is much diminished. (See the term "AOLamer")

Ms. Huffington will stay in charge of her web site, as well as taking over supervision AOL's media operations, things like Techcrunch and its hyper-local news operations.

I think that this will turn out better than the AOL/Times Warner merger, but that's a very low bar.

Kucinich (D-OH) Demands to Visit Private Bradley Manning

Good for him. He is is clearly using his position as a Representative to shine light on what is clearly an attempt to torture the alleged Wikileaks source into fingering Julian Assange:

Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich has asked the Defense Secretary Robert Gates for a visit with an Army private suspected of giving classified material to WikiLeaks.

Kucinich, a Democrat who is a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter Friday to Gates asking for a visit with Pfc. Bradley Manning.

Manning is being held in a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va.

Kucinich says he is concerned about reports of Manning's treatment while in custody. Manning's lawyer has filed a complaint with the Quantico commander about the conditions Manning is being held under.

I'm not a particularly big fan of the distinguished gentleman from Ohio, but he's right here.

The worst thing about this is that it is only his name on this letter.

Where are the other 434 people who have sworn to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution" in Congress?

WooHoo!!!! Verizon Has CurrentTV on Their Non Premium Channels

Channel 192 in Baltimore County.

Olbermann will be moving there sometime in the spring:

Keith Olbermann, the former MSNBC anchor, will host a prime time program for Current TV, the low-rated cable channel co-founded by Al Gore. The one-hour program will begin sometime in the spring.

Mr. Olbermann will also become the chief news officer for Current, the company said in a news release Tuesday.

“We are delighted to provide Keith with the independent platform and freedom that Current can, and does uniquely offer,” Mr. Gore said in a statement.

It appears that Olbermann will be getting an equity state in the network, which is probably most of his remuneration, it currently only draws about 60,000 viewers nationwide, and would therefore be very hard pressed to pay him a salary commensurate with his media profile.

He will also become "Chief News Officer," whatever that means.

I kind of hope that it's not what is normally called a "News Director," as my sense is that this would not be a good use of his skills. A news director at a cable network is someone who has to manage ……… People like Keith.

Keith is any number of things, but a calming influence he is not.

More Revolving Door Cronyism at the Obama Administration

Robert Fisk of The Independent explains why Frank Wisner, Obama's envoy to Cairo, told reporters that it was important for Mubarak to remain in power for some time, which surprised the reporters as well as the White House, which said that Mr. Wisner was speaking solely on his own behalf.

That's not really true though. He was speaking on behalf of his employer, the law firm of Patton Boggs, which happens to represents Hosni Mubarak in the United States:

The US State Department and Mr Wisner himself have now both claimed that his remarks were made in a "personal capacity". But there is nothing "personal" about Mr Wisner's connections with the litigation firm Patton Boggs, which openly boasts that it advises "the Egyptian military, the Egyptian Economic Development Agency, and has handled arbitrations and litigation on the [Mubarak] government's behalf in Europe and the US". Oddly, not a single journalist raised this extraordinary connection with US government officials – nor the blatant conflict of interest it appears to represent.

Mr Wisner is a retired State Department 36-year career diplomat – he served as US ambassador to Egypt, Zambia, the Philippines and India under eight American presidents. In other words, he was not a political appointee. But it is inconceivable Hillary Clinton did not know of his employment by a company that works for the very dictator which Mr Wisner now defends in the face of a massive democratic opposition in Egypt.

So why on earth was he sent to talk to Mubarak, who is in effect a client of Mr Wisner's current employers?

The only explanation I can see is that rather than "changing the culture of Washington," it has been subsumed by it.

The Bush and His Evil Minions^™ took incompetent self-dealing to new heights, but this appears to be yet ANOTHER area, like torture, illegal wiretaps, etc. where the Obama administration is determined to ape his ape-like predecessor.

This is What You Get When You Fist F%$# a Cobra …

Click for full size

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Complete PWN463!

I while back, I mentioned 4Chan, I should add the inventive group of people known as Anonymous who ofttimes frequent 4Chan:

Anonymous, the online collective that launched DDoS attacks on Visa, PayPal and others in support of whistle-blowing site WikiLeaks, has brought down the web site of a firm helping the FBI to unmask its members.

Security services firm HBGary Federal had been helping the Feds to track down the individuals behind a number of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on companies including Amazon, PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, Swiss bank PostFinance and Bank of America, after the firms suspended services to WikiLeaks.

In a sophisticated attack, Anonymous members hacked into HBGary's website and posted an image containing a message explaining their actions. In addition, they downloaded over 60,000 messages from the company's email servers and posted them on The Pirate Bay.

The Twitter account of HBGary's CEO, Aaron Barr, was also compromised and used to tweet a number of offensive messages, as well as his home address, social security number and mobile phone number.

(Link to torrent mine, and I make no claims as to the safety or veracity of the data.  I have not downloaded the data myself)

Yeah, and it has also been reported that they deleted HBGary's backups.

Not only did they pick a fight with Anonymous, but it also appears that they are complete posers as well, who were leaching publicly available names from Facebook and IRC, and trying to sell this to the FBI.

Well, not any more, because, according to the letter that was the HBGary home page (above) they sent the data to the FBI themselves.

What a bunch of complete wankers, Aaron Barr and company that is, I have nothing but the utmost respect for Anonymous.

And so Anonymous is added to my list of People I Do Not Want to Piss Off, and HBGary is added to the likes or Razorfish, to my list of people who I would never trust with anything more complex than a mechanical pencil.

Received Via Email

Dear Egyptian rioters, please don't damage the pyramids. We will not rebuild. Thank you.

--The Jews

I'm not sure if I should be offended or amused.

The Ever Present Football Play Rapist…

Was the quarterback of the team that lost the Superbowl today.

That is all.

How Obama Loses to Sarah Palin in 2012

If there was a Republican who was unelectable in 1967, it was Richard "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore" Nixon.

Following his surprise loss to Pat Brown in 1962, he signed off with a level of nastiness that seemed to be the final nail in his political career.

But 2 years later, he was president of the United States.

He was President because Lyndon Baines Johnson, and his Vice President, and designated heir, Hubert Humphrey, were unable to recognize reality with regard to the Vietnam war, at least publicly, because they felt the need to appear hawkish to take away the perennial Republican talking point that Democrats were "soft" on defense.

Well, we are seeing it yet again with Obama, who is poised to let Afghanistan define his presidency.

It's actually worse than Vietnam, because Afghanistan has never been a viable nation state, but rather is a void on the map where neither the Russians nor the British were able to maintain power in their "Great Game" for that part of the world, and we are in there supporting one side.

Additionally, we have the fact that, as mind boggling as it sounds, the regime that we are supporting is even more corrupt and ineffective than any that we ever supported in South Vietnam, and that we also have religious overtones in this conflict that were largely lacking in the 'Nam.

And now we have one of Obama's biggest supporters in the Senate, John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is saying that we need to get out now:

One of the Obama administration's key allies in Congress, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), is breaking with the president on Afghanistan and saying the strategy in the war needs to be revised. The development, coming from someone who was once a strong backer of Obama's decision to increase troops in Afghanistan, could deal a significant blow to support for the administration.

"What I don't want is to be party to a policy that continues simply because it is there and in place," said Kerry in an interview with the Boston Globe about his evolving views on the war. "That would be like Vietnam. And that is what I am determined to try to prevent."

Kerry, according to the Globe, is calling for "a more limited focus and fewer American troops than the 155,000 that are in place now." In the coming months, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will be holding a series of oversight hearings on the Obama administration's strategy.

Kerry is a creature of the Senate, and so is mild in his disapprobation of the current policy, particularly since he shares a political party with Obama, but this is very clear. He is saying that we need to get the hell out now.

He's right too.  Afghanistan is not called the "Graveyard of Empires" for nothing.

I do not expect that Obama will take this advice to heart though:  He is too concerned with political calculation, where he thinks that being hawkish will take away a Republican talking point (sound familiar?), and is simply unwilling to override the desires of careerist generals in the Pentagon, for whom the war is a path to advancement.

Not Enough Bullets

Here is a guy who is worth more than the GDP of something like 80% of the countries in the world, and he's bitching because people are not as nice to him as he would like:

What's eating Jamie Dimon?

At last week's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the JPMorgan Chase chief executive once again lambasted the media and politicians for portraying all bankers as greedy evil-doers.

It was at least the 12th time since the start of the financial crisis that Dimon has complained about Wall Street critics painting all bankers as cut from the same cloth. But the timing of his latest outburst seemed odd.

In December, as part of President Barack Obama's bid to make nice with U.S. business leaders, Dimon was invited to a private Oval Office one-on-one with the president to discuss the economy. Dimon and his wife Judy were also guests at the state dinner the White House arranged for Chinese President Hu Jintao last month. And one of Dimon's top executives, Bill Daley, was tapped by the president as chief of staff.

BTW, the reason that the media portrays, "all bankers as greedy evil-doers," and critics of our banking system paint, "all bankers as cut from the same cloth," is because it's true.

You are all a bunch of contemptible greed-heads, Mr. "We started shorting Bernie Madoff because we knew he was a fraud, but didn't bother telling anyone."

This is why we need to prosecute every one of these rat-bastards to the fullest extent allowed by law.

It's Bank Failure Friday!!!!

And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.

12. American Trust Bank, Roswell, GA
13. North Georgia Bank, Watkinsville, GA
14. Community First Bank Chicago, Chicago, IL

Full FDIC list

As you can see below, the 2011 and the 2010 lines have finally crossed.  I don't expect 2011 to b e good, but I expect it to be better than 2010.

So, here is the graph pr0n with last years numbers for comparison (FDIC only):


And since it's early in the year, here is a detail of the first few weeks:

Still Deep Cleaning My Daughter's Laptop…

The outward effects appear to have gone, but I am running multiple pieces of software at it, just to be sure.

"See" you tomorrow.

Scientists National Enquirer Reporters Discover a Mythical Creature

The creature in question is a straight Republican, one John Boehner, who seems to spend a lot of his time f%$#ing staffers and lobbyists, as well as f%$#ing the country:

New Speaker of the House JOHN BOEHNER is embroiled in a bombshell sex scandal - involving at least two different women, The ENQUIRER has learned!

Capitol Hill insiders and political bloggers have been buzzing about an upcoming New York Times probe - detailing an alleged affair that the 61-year-old married father of two had with pretty Washington lobbyist LISBETH LYONS.

And an ENQUIRER investigation has uncovered a bedroom encounter that Boehner - second in line of succession to the presidency - allegedly had with LEIGH LaMORA, a 46-year-old former press secretary to ex-Colorado Congressman JOEL HEFLEY.

The Ohio native, a congressman for 20 years, and his wife Deborah, 62, have been married for 37 years.

It should be noted that Ms. Lyons has lobbied for industries that have shipped jobs from Boehner's own district overseas.

So while he was f%$#ing her, he was also f%$#ing his constituents.

I know what you are saying, but the Enquirer nailed John Edwards about his nailing Rielle Hunter, so they do have some cred on this, particularly since people have alluded to Boehner's wandering ………… Eye ………<sup>*

*</sup>I bet that you thought that I was going to use a crude term for a body part that is pronounced the way his name is spelled. While the thought did cross my mind, so the the phrase, "fish in a barrel." It would be like Dick Cheney when he shoots a bunch of birds (or a lawyer) released right in front of him.

No Posting Tonight

I'm not sick or anything, it's just that I am up to my elbows in removing a Trojan^* from my daughter's computer, for the 2^nd time in a week.

I do not know what she is accessing, but I am looking up her browser history, and trying to find a possible source, in addition to running multiple virus/spyware scans.

The joys of children are without number.

^*The computer infection, not the condom.  If it were as condom in her computer, my head would have exploded.

Mubarak Announces Retirement at End of Term

The protestors want him to leave both his office, and the country, immediately:

Egyptians wholeheartedly rejected President Hosni Mubarak’s announcement Tuesday evening that he will not run for reelection in September, continuing to demand that he step down immediately.

A roar of anger went up from the thousands of people in central Cairo’s Tahrir Square even before the president had finished his address, offering an immediate answer to an unprecedented offer from an autocrat who has ruled for almost 30 years with few concession to the people. They shook their shoes at a large screen where the president's image was broadcast, screaming “Get out! Get out!”

“I was angry, but now I am enraged,” said Abdullah Rawaq, shouting to be heard amid a crowd chanting: “He must go! We will not go!

Somehow, I do not think that it is likely that Mubarak will get either his 8 months or his wish to stay in Egypt.

A bit of doggerel about this follows the break, apologies to Theodore Geisel and Art Buchwald.