If You Want to Go Postal at Work, Follow the Example of the Indians

And I mean East Indians, not American Indians.

You see, they don't go after their cow-orkers, they go after their boss, as in this case where they fired a member of senior management:

Indian police have detained two people after an angry mob of sacked steel workers burned to death a senior executive.

After learning they were laid off, about a dozen workers attacked a 4x4 vehicle carrying Radhey Shyam Roy as he was leaving the factory in eastern Orissa state on Thursday.

They doused it with petrol and set it ablaze, said police Superintendent Ajay Kumar Sarangi.

Needless to say, I do not endors violence against employers, even senior managers, but the fear of such violence does appear to be the only way to restrain their behavior, given that the moneyed class is pretty much above the law in most of the world, including the good old USA.

H/t JR at Stellar Parthenon.

Well, Here's a Surprise

Warning, listening to Rush Limbaugh may cause substance abuse, impotence, failed marriages, and hypocricy

We had a report that right wing radio talk shows were hiring actors to juice up their phone callers:

But what exactly was the work? The question popped up during the audition and was explained, the actor said, clearly and simply: If he passed the audition, he would be invited periodically to call in to various talk shows and recite various scenarios that made for interesting radio. He would never be identified as an actor, and his scenarios would never be identified as fabricated—which they always were.

“I was surprised that it seemed so open,” the actor told me in an interview. “There was really no pretense of covering it up.”

Curious, the actor did some snooping and learned that Premiere On Call was a service offered by Premiere Radio Networks, the largest syndication company in the United States and a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, the entertainment and advertising giant. Premiere syndicates some of the more sterling names in radio, including Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity. But a great radio show depends as much on great callers as it does on great hosts: Enter Premiere On Call.

, as the CJR notes, it's Ensuring the authenticity of your programming… with paid, planted callers.

Well, we now have confirmation, because Rush "Drugs are bad, marriage is sacred, I did not f%$# little boys in the Dominican Republic" Limbaugh has now officially denied that he used actors as phoney call-ins.

I consider this to be confirmation because Rush lies about everything, and the story is nearly a month old, and any innocent person would have let it slip beneath the waves.

More Evidence that the Wall Street Journal is Going to Rupert Murdoch in a Handbasket

They were reporting that the Wisconsin State Democratic Senators were returning to the capitol shortly, which was emphatically denied by the state Senators in question.

This was clearly planted because as time goes on the Republicans are losing ground. For example, one of the more prominent teabagger PACs is begging for money because they are losing this fight, and a counter protest, complete with Koch brothers free bus service, could only muster 700 attendees.

The lesson to be learned here is that when you make nice, no one notices who was on what side, but when you fight back people do notice, and if you are on the sane side of the argument, you win.

Is Bradley Manning in Quantico, or Abu Ghraib?

Representative Dennis Kucinich is asking this question, and considering the extended isolation, the enforced nudity, etc. He's right.

What is particularly telling is the fact that he has asked to speak to Manning, and it's being deliberately slow walked.

That being said, Kucinich is being far to circumspect in his statement. It is clear that this behavior has been authorized at the very highest levels, and Barack Obama needs to be named, and shamed, over this.

Your Moment of Schadenfreude

David Dayen notes that, "A Liberal Is a Villager Who’s Been Screwed By a Mortgage Servicer, and if this is the case, Washington Post hard core villager Dana Milbank has just discovered liberalism:

Behind the foreclosure crisis, big banks' reign of error

By Dana Milbank
Sunday, March 6, 2011;

The problem in the nation's housing market now isn't subprime lending. It's subpar lenders.

Last fall, my wife and I refinanced our mortgage with Citibank. Sixty days later, we received a "cancellation notice" from our homeowners insurance company "for non-payment of premium."

Turns out Citibank, which had been collecting hundreds of dollars a month from us to pay the insurer, hadn't made the payments. It was, I later learned, one of the usual tricks mortgage servicers use to squeeze more cash out of their customers. About a month later, I learned of another trick: Citibank informed us that it was increasing our monthly payment by nearly $300.

Along the way, a simple refi became a months-long odyssey: rates misquoted, interest charged on a phantom account, legal documents issued in wrong names, a mortgage officer who disappeared for days at a time (first it was his birthday, then his laptop was in the shop), a bounced check from Citibank's own title company, and the freezing of our bank accounts.

For me, this amounts to no more than the hassle of arguing with Citibank to fix its "mistakes." But consumer advocates tell me these are typical of the screw-ups by the big banks that service home mortgages. And these errors - accidental or otherwise - are driving large numbers of people into default and foreclosure when it otherwise would not have happened.

It's a bad situation - and the new majority in the House is poised to make it even worse.

He got seriously boned by his bank, and now he realizes that it ain't just a bunch of deadbeats who are trying to stiff the banks.

Unfortunately, he's also singing the praises of HAMP, which was clearly constructed for the benefit of the banks at the expense of homeowners by Obama and His Evil Minions^™, so he's still that lovable clueless scamp we've always known.

Why Yes, F%$#ing Your Best Friend's Wife, and then Paying Them Hush Money is Bad for Reelection

This is why John Ensign announced today that he will not run for reelection.

The pity here is that Barack "The Audacity of Nope" Obama, and Eric "Place" Holder have decided not to further investigate the matter, though it is refreshing that the Senate Ethics Committee has hired a special counsel to look into this.

I Generally, Don't Approve of Armchair Generals…

But with all the inside Beltway pukes, (and yes, I do mean you, John Kerry) calling for aggressive air strikes in Libya under the fig leaf of a "no fly zone", I think that I need to put on my incredibly incompetent tactician cap, and kick some metaphorical butt.

First, I think that a lot of people think that a "No Fly Zone" is where we wave some sort of magic wand, and fly planes over hostile territory to keep the other guy from flying his planes.

It's a lot more involved.

In order to enforce a no fly zone, you have to be able to fly over hostile territory with impunity, which involves:

• Thoroughly disabling every SAM site in the country.  (Bombing)
• Thoroughly disabling every AAA site in the country.  (More bombing)
• Crippling the command and control systems (yet more bombing, and likely boots on the ground to confirm this).
• Bombing all the air fields, and pretty much anywhere that an attack helicopter might be based.

A no fly zone is invasion-lite.

OK, so, if you want to support the anti-Gaddafi forces, what do you do, if you don't want to go Nixon's secret bombing of Cambodia on his ass?

Well, here is where I put on my stupid hat, and make a military suggestion.

What you do, is that you give the insurgents some sort of aid that:

• Has a low marginal cost.
• Cannot be transferred to entities who are hostile to the US (see Stinger missiles given to the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan)
• Is highly perishable, so that you can withdraw it and get them to stop when you want it to stop.

The thing is that there IS something that fulfills all this criteria:  Accurate real-time tactical intelligence.

Between satellites, long range radars on AWACS and E-2Cs, and signals intelligence (Sigint), we could be giving warnings of things like air-strikes, and the specific order of battle of Gaddafi's forces.

Ironically, about a decade ago, the US Army thought that this sort of situational awareness would allow them to largely dispense with armor on their vehicles, which brought forth the abortive FCS, but the Army, as is the rest of the Pentagon, is constrained by a need to have zero casualties, while the rebels in Libya are under no such artificial constraint.

They just need to die less than their opponents.

Then again, my military experience would fit in a thimble with room to spare.

Ouch! This is Gonna Leave a Mark

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Brutal!

Jon Stewart, whose mother is a teacher, draws parallels between statements made about teachers, and statements made about the incompetent f%$# bankers who destroyed our economy.

Remind me to never piss off Jon Stewart, EVER.

Economics Update for the Week

The news has been good this week.

First, the jobless rate rate fell to below 9% for the first time in about 2 years, and initial unemployment claims fell to a roughly two year low as well.

Note that while the improvement in the labor force was good, 193,000 that rate means that something like 7 more years would be required to reach something approaching a normal employment picture.

Additionally, productivity rose strongly in the 4^th quarter, while the Institute for Supply Management's Manufacturing and Non-Manufacturing indices both rose strongly.

The only real question is whether the pain caucus calling for government austerity will screw this all up by cutting government spending, and possibly tightening monetary policy, too soon.

Second Russian PAK FA Prototype Makes First Flight

Second Russian PAK FA Prototype Makes First Flight

So, the good algorythms at Google^™ Adsense^™ are at it again.

Another poll from Newsmax^™ and its gaydar tripping^* publisher Joseph Farah trying to manufacturing consent.

With his poll numbers in Wisconsin falling faster than Pan Am flight 103, it's not surprising that they are coming up with internet polls with slanted questions in order to allow them to pretend that Walker is really doing the public's business.

Well, to the degree that Google^™ and I make money off of this, at least there is some poetic justice.

Also, please note, this should be in no way construed as an inducement or a request for my reader(s) to click on any ad that they would not otherwise be inclined to investigate further. This would be a violation of the terms of service for Google^™ Adsense^™.

^*Which is kind of surprising, since I did not know that I even had gaydar.

Trophy Active Protection System Has First Successful Combat Engagement

Here is some Video Pr0n from Rafael

Rafael's active protection system, Trophy, received its baptism of fire along the Gaza border, when it intercepted an RPG fired by Palestinian militants:

According to IDF sources, the Merkava tank was patrolling the border with Gaza, when a missile launch was detected by the tank's radar system. The Elta System's EL/M 2133 'WindGuard' sensors classified the threat as 'severe', alerted the crew and tracked the missile closing-in on the tank. As the RPG entered the system's kill-zone, Trophy fired at the missile, destroying it at a safe distance from the tank.

The "on patrol" bit appears to indicate that the tank was on the move when Trophy intercepted the RPG, which is particularly significant, since one of the tougher nuts to crack for such systems is the ability to work when the target is in motion.

I'm not clear on its ability to counter long rod penetrators, or EFPs, both of which through a slug at something in excess Mach 2, as opposed to the subsonic speeds of typical ATGWs and RPGs.

My only question is what excuse the US military, which is looking to smaller, lighter, and more mobile, forces will use not to buy the system.

They will come up with a justification, but the real reason is that retired generals don't get lucrative consulting gigs at Rafael, and they do from Raytheon.

It's Enough to Make Me Want to Subscribe to HBO

It's OKIYAR

I miss Bill Maher's late night show on ABC, Politically Incorrect.

He has this thing on HBO now, and in some ways, it's better, because he can use George Carlin's 7 dirty words on it, but I don't have HBO, and don't plan to pay for it, but he's good at what he does.

Keith is Online and Blogging

The Official Not-For-Profit Blog of Keith Olbermann

And it looks like he's trolling for a lawsuit from Rupert Murdoch.  (Click image for site)

 It's a good read, and it is going on my blog roll.

Yes, This is a War Crime, and Barack Obama is Authorizing It

So now alleged Wikileaks source Bradley Manning is forced to stand outside of his cell naked for extended periods:

Manning, a 23-year-old Army private suspected of passing thousands of classified documents to the online site WikiLeaks, was placed on suicide watch for two days this week - against the recommendation of the jail's forensic psychiatrist, attorney David E. Coombs said.

During this time, Manning was forced to stay in his cell around the clock, stripped to his underwear, the lawyer said. His prescription eyeglasses were taken from him, except for the hour of television he is allowed to watch or when he was reading, Coombs added.

The circumstances of Manning's confinement have drawn public attention. The United Nations special rapporteur on torture has said he submitted to the State Department a formal inquiry about Manning's treatment.

You know, the other stuff, covering up the war crimes by Bush and His Evil Minions^™ is a secondary crime, an accessory after the fact.

This is something different. This is him authorizing torture on his own, because he is at the top of the chain of command, and he knows it is going on, and he is allowing it to happen.

I'm with Mark Kleiman on this, "This is a total disgrace. It shouldn’t be happening in this country. You can’t be unaware of this, Mr. President. Silence gives consent."

There is a part of me who wants a Republican to win the 2012 election, who then prosecutes Obama  for war crimes.

Of course, they won't, because it would apply to them then, but the fact that there have not been cabinet level prosecutions over this is a travesty.

White Supremacist Shot to Death In California

David Lynch, who is a veritable Forrest Gump of the American white supremacist movement, was shot dead outside of his home.

It has been said that there are some people who make a party better by leaving it.

Mr. Lynch made the world better by leaving it.

Again, I Invoke Saroff's Rule

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Here's a Shocker, MERS is a Fraud

As I have said many times, "If a financial transaction is complex enough to require that a news organization use a cartoon to explain it, its purpose is to deceive."

Well, Michael Powell and Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times, cover it, and I think that this is the important take away:

Apparently with good reason. Alan M. White, a law professor at the Valparaiso University School of Law in Indiana, last year matched MERS’s ownership records against those in the public domain.

The results were not encouraging. “Fewer than 30 percent of the mortgages had an accurate record in MERS,” Mr. White says. “I kind of assumed that MERS at least kept an accurate list of current ownership. They don’t. MERS is going to make solving the foreclosure problem vastly more expensive.”

(emphasis mine)

Regardless of issues of law, on matters of basic fact MERS is completely unreliable, and the attempts by regulators to protect it are actually an assault on basic property rights, which depend on the rule of law, in the United States.

I'm not suggesting that anyone should go full Tyler Durden at "Library Street, in Reston, VA," but I am suggesting that someone with a law go full avenging angel on their asses, with a good dose of RICO mixed in.

H/t Barry Ritholtz.

It's Bank Failure Friday!!!! (on Saturday)

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Here's what I saw on the way to the lab

It's a fairly slow week, no banks, and one credit union failed, so banks remain at 24 failures, see the Full FDIC list

And here is the credit union closing:

4. Wisconsin Heights Credit Union, Ogema, WI

Full NCUA list

I also have a special bonus pictorial. I snapped some pix of K-Bank, which was closed in November. I noticed when I was walking to the lab to get some bloods drawn.

I have been aware for some time that Maryland banks have been closed, but this is the first time that I've seen one with an FDIC notice on its door.

                                                       
In any case, 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:

Appropriate Use of Language is a Must

Received via email

And A Maryland Democrat Joins the Ranks of the Morally Repugnant

And here he is tweeting his support a month ago

When Maryland Delegate Sam Aora (D-Silver Spring) ran for office, he said that he supported gay marriage.

He's one of the cosponsors for the bill that provides for recognition of Gay marriage in Maryland.

Well, now that it's passed the state Senate, and looks like it is going to pass , he says that he is going to vote against it.

This isn't just about a politician lying. This is about a politician making the issue the core of his campaign, and then betraying the people who supported him because of it.

It was at the core of his campaign.

He campaigned on in, and raised money on it.

Unsurprisingly, there is now a drum beat of people who are asking for their campaign contributions back, particularly since it looks like his vote will kill the bill.

This guy might be the biggest slime ball in Maryland, and that says a lot!

Good

Neera Tanden is out as OMB head.

In the long run, this is a good thing.  She had no background in budgeting, she is a horrible boss, and she encapsulates everything wrong with the  Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment).

Even though the reasons for opposition to her were stupid and self serving, keeping her away from the reins of power is an unalloyed good:

Joe Biden’s pick to head the Office of Management and Budget, Neera Tanden, has withdrawn her nomination after she faced opposition from key Democratic and Republican senators over her past controversial tweets.

Her withdrawal marks the president’s first failure as he seeks Senate confirmation for his cabinet nominees.

“I have accepted Neera Tanden’s request to withdraw her name from nomination for director of the Office of Management and Budget,” Biden said in a statement. “I have the utmost respect for her record of accomplishment, her experience and her counsel, and I look forward to having her serve in a role in my administration. She will bring valuable perspective and insight to our work.”

Tanden’s confirmation had faced increasingly steep odds. Republican senators who opposed her nomination cited tweets attacking members of both parties prior to her nomination. And last week, Joe Manchin, a conservative Democratic senator, announced he would oppose her nomination, also citing her tweets. That left Tanden short of the majority of votes needed on the Senate floor and in the committees involved.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Little Davey, Don't You Know That This Was a Political Ploy? Why Do You Hate America?

Fresh on the heels of claiming that Afghan parents burn their own children for crall political purposes, little Davey Petraeus is apologizing for a helicopter strike that killed 9 children who were collecting wood:

A NATO airstrike that Afghan officials said Wednesday killed nine children collecting firewood in eastern Afghanistan the day before became the latest irritant in the tense relationship between President Hamid Karzai and the international force in the country.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top NATO commander here, issued an apology for an error that military officials attributed to faulty communication as an air weapons team responded to an attack on a NATO base Tuesday in Konar province.

"We are deeply sorry for this tragedy and apologize to the members of the Afghan government, the people of Afghanistan and most importantly, the surviving family members of those killed by our actions," Petraeus said in an unusually contrite written statement. "These deaths should have never happened and I will personally apologize to President Karzai."

The strike increased the already high tension between Karzai and NATO commanders, who came under scrutiny late last month because of another case in which Afghan officials alleged that dozens of civilians were killed in a U.S. military operation, also in Konar province.

Why does he hate America?

Doesn't he know that whenever we blow up innocent civilians, it's because they were trying to get killed, because it helps the Taliban?

"Unusually contrite" my ass.

I'm not sure why he isn't following his usual pattern, lie, release phony facts, and a few weeks later issue a correction on the weekend, but somehow or other the truth got out despite his best efforts.

This is not typical behavior for him.

Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI) to Retire

It could be that he figures that, at age 88, he won't finish his next term, but considering the mathematical realities of the 2102 Senate races, my guess is that he realizes that the Dems lose the Senate in 2012, and he does not want to be in the minority Again.

Thankfully, Alaska is a safe seat though.

Could Wisconsin Democrats Please Send Some Spare Backbone to Washington, DC?

After a couple of weeks of a growing grassroots effort to initiate recall campaigns against 8 Republican state Senators, the Wisconsin Democratic party has officially joined the effort:

The Wisconsin Democratic Party has decided to throw its weight behind a nascent grassroots drive to recall a number of GOP state senators, a move that will considerably increase the pressure on them to break with Governor Scott Walker, the Dem party chair confirms to me.

"The proposals and the policies that Republicans are pushing right now are not what they campaigned on, and they're extreme," the party chair, Mike Tate, said in an interview. "Something needs to be done about it now. We're happy to stand with citizens who are filling papers to recall these senators."

Previously, Wisconsin Dems had not publicly supported talk about recalling GOP Senators, in hopes of privately reaching a negotiated solution to the crisis. The Wisconsin Democratic Party's decision to support the recall drives represents a significant ratcheting up of hostilities and in essence signals that all bets are off.

Eight Republican Senators are eligible to be recalled right now, [the state Senate has staggered terms, and you cannot initiate a recall in the first year of a term] and various groups around Wisconsin are beginning to file papers to make it happen. Tate told me that the party would throw its organization behind such efforts.

You know, I think that when the base is motivated, this might be a better idea than what they do in DC, which is to try to defang motivated Democrats, and call them names like "Professional Left."

Then again, what do I know.  I don't have experience engineering the biggest electoral reversal for Democrats in history with the realities of politics.

Maybe deliberately demoralizing the party faithful actually works.

And maybe I'm Charlie Sheen.

Now They are Charging Bradley Manning With a Capital Crime

They have added, giving aid to the enemy, which carries the death penalty to the list of charges against the soldier accused of leaking diplomatic cables, and probably the "collateral murder" video, to Wikileaks.

What is going on here, with his pre-trial detention, with 23 hour a day solitary confinement, which is best described as torture, and now the threat of execution, is that they are clearly attempting to coerce perjured testimony, so that they can gin up some charges to engage in a political prosecution of Julian Assange.

Yet another truly repulsive embrace of Bushes Stalinesque embrace of the unlimited national security apparatus by Barack Obama and His Evil Minions^™.

There's his campaign slogan for 2012: Marginally less morally repugnant than whoever he is running against.

Anonymous Gets Scalp of HBGary Fedral CEO

Following revelations by Anonymous that HBGary Federal was developing a plan of Nixonian dirty tricks, with false identities, forged documents, and other disinformation, the CEO of HBGary Federal has been fired resigned:

Aaron Barr's departure as CEO of HBGary Federal represented the latest twist for the company and its Sacramento affiliate, HBGary Inc. A spokeswoman for the Sacramento company confirmed the resignation.

According to numerous reports, Barr's company, which is based in Colorado and Washington, D.C., proposed conducting a disinformation campaign against critics of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The plan was presented to the chamber's law firm, but the chamber says it wasn't aware of it.

The plan was aborted after the hacker group Anonymous stole tens of thousands of e-mails from both HBGary and HBGary Federal – and posted many of the messages on the Web.

And now Democratic members of Congress are calling for an investigation of these activities.

Of course, there won't be an investigation in the House.  The Republicans are busy looking for a blue dress.

Economics Update

The Fed's Beige Book is out, and it is the same old, same old, a slow recovery that will take years before we are back to what should be normal:

The Federal Reserve said the labor market improved throughout the country early this year, driven by rising retail sales and “solid growth” in manufacturing.

“Labor market conditions continued to strengthen modestly, with all Districts reporting some degree of improvement,” the Fed said today in its Beige Book report, an anecdotal account of the economy released two weeks before meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee. Its last survey, released Jan. 12, said the job market was “firming somewhat.”

Overall, the economy “continued to expand at a modest to moderate pace,” the central bank said in Washington. Eleven of the Fed’s 12 regional banks, including San Francisco and Philadelphia, described their regions as expanding, improving or experiencing moderate growth. Only Chicago reported growth “at a pace not quite as strong” as before.

This translates to, "Well, stocks are up, but this is not really a recovery."

I am uncertain just how much this fragile and slow recovery might be harmed by the recent spike in oil prices.

We also have conflicting job news, with Challenger, Gray, and Christmas saying that large planned layoffs are up, largely on the loss of jobs at state and local government level, but ADP is forecasting fairly strong private sector job growth.

Signs of the Apocalypse

Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
The dead rising from the grave!
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

The man who pursued William Jefferson Clinton's penis from Arkansas to the District of Columbia, Richard Mellon Scaife, has lambasted Republicans on their attempts to completely defund family planning:

The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives -- urged on by conservatives opposed to abortion -- has voted to defund Planned Parenthood. On this issue, Republicans and conservatives are dead wrong.

My grandmother was a friend and a supporter of Margaret Sanger, one of America's earliest, most effective advocates of birth control.

I met Sanger several times before her death in 1966 and was impressed by her intellect and her commitment to many issues, not the least of which was enabling every woman to be "the absolute mistress of her own body," as she put it.

I didn't agree with everything the formidable Mrs. Sanger espoused. Yet I respected her dedication to making health-care and birth-control services available to all Americans, especially to those with low incomes, no insurance and no other recourse to medical services.

When you have gotten too combative for rabid right wing Pit Bull for Dick Scaife, you have seriously gone off the rails.

OK, This is F%$#ing Lame

In response to the prank call that pwn36 (owned) Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, a law has been proposed in Wisconsin to criminalize prank calls.



Un dirty-word believable.

AT&T Has No Right to Privacy

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court decided that corporations do not have a right to personal privacy under the Freedom of Information Act statute.

It was not even close.  It was unanimous, and there wasn't even a separate concurring opinion.

The facts are clear:  AT&T cheated the government when it was wiring up schools and libraries, got caught, and paid a fine.

What happened next was that its competitors made FOIA requests to find out exactly what they did, and AT&T claimed that this would constitute an unwarranted intrusion of the corporation's personal privacy which might "embarrass" it, which some some federal appellate judge who did too much LDS in the 60s actually bought that crap.

In reviewing the opinion, written by John Roberts (see here)what is exceedinbly clear is that John Roberts thought that this was an opportunity to sound "arch" or "witty":

We disagree. Adjectives typically reflect the meaning of corresponding nouns, but not always. Sometimes they acquire distinct meanings of their own. The noun “crab” refers variously to a crustacean and a type of apple, while the related adjective “crabbed” can refer to handwriting that is “difficult to read,” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 527 (2002); “corny” can mean “using familiar and stereotyped formulas believed to appeal to the unsophisticated,” id., at 509, which has little to do with “corn,” id., at 507 (“the seeds of any of the cereal grasses used for food”); and while “crank” is “a part of an axis bent at right angles,” “cranky” can mean “given to fretful fussiness,” id., at 530.

Maybe it's just me, but he sounds neither "arch" nor "witty", but rather like an 8^th grade student who thinks that he is far more clever than he actually is.

It was a good decision, but Roberts' opinion is just plain lame.

This is Not Going to End Well

So, the Republicans got a 2 week extension on the debt ceiling, just long enough to make them sound reasonable, and short enough that they can try to destroy the economy for the 2012 elections with stupid budget cuts.

It's like the Democrats are playing to lose.

If Obama had any guts, he would make sure that it was Republican oxen were gored by a shutdown, canceling things like the farm aid, etc., but since he doesn't, you can be sure that the cuts when a shutdown occurs, and it is when, not if, will fall disproportionately on the poor and the Democratic base.

They are Just so F%$#ing Classy

In an effort to remove demonstrator from the Wisconsin capitol, Scott Walker had the windows welded shut to prevent people passing food in.

In related news, a district judge has issued an injunction against Scott Walker's order to shut the capitol until a full hearing can be held.

Is it just me, or does dealing with Republicans remind one of the O. Henry story, The Ransom of Red Chief?

Maybe Your Mom Was a Sh%$ty Teacher…

Jon Stewart on how f%$#ing absurd the assault on teachers is:

Quote of The Day

From the list 25 Guys to Avoid on Wall Street:

Avoid the guy who offers his clients 'a very special opportunity' to invest in anything. He has a problem with cocaine.

I will note the parallel between this guy and just about every 'very special episode' of a TV series with young characters.

They both involve drug abuse.

End the War, Bitch

The official hed is that the Democratic National Committee has passed a resolution calling for an accelerate withdrawal from Afghanistan, but when you consider the fact that the sitting president, who has doubled down on escalation, and soft pedaled any exodus for both Iraq and Afghanistan, reclassifying soldiers there as "non-combat" and directing a torrent of private military contractors (mercenaries) into both nations, it is pretty clear that this was a deliberate challenge to Barack Obama.

Kathleen Parker Quits Parker Spitzer on CNN

Well, now that she is leaving, perhaps I can check out the successor show without the right wing idoocy for "balance":

Kathleen Parker has been dropped from "Parker Spitzer," and the show is being replaced by a new show called "In The Arena," the network announced Friday.

In a memo to staff, CNN President Ken Jautz said that "In The Arena" would be an "ensemble" show, with "several newsmakers, guests and contributors joining Eliot Spitzer each night." Among the regulars will be former Fox News anchor E.D. Hill and National Review writer Will Cain.

(emphasis mine)

<Facepalm>

Then again, it maybe not.

The interesting thing here is that when Kathleen Parker took a temporary leave for medical reasons, the show's ratings doubled.

Where Spitzer has credibility is his experience in dealing with Wall Street lawbreaking, and by larding the show up with "balance", it makes it worse TV.

I'll probably check it out at some point, if just because I can't stand Lawrence O'Donnell, who is opposite to their time slot.

Is there a site online where I can see CNN streaming?

Normally, I Don't Follow the Oscars

Good question


And the trailer

But Charles Ferguson, the director of the documentary The Inside Job, upon accepting his award for best documentary, raised an obvious point:

Forgive me, I must start by pointing out that three years after our horrific financial crisis caused by financial fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that's wrong.

It's a good question, and, considering the timing of the crisis, it really started in September 2008, and there was no way that anything but damage control could be done over the next few months, the answer has to be, "Because Barack Obama does not want a single financial executive to go to jail."

There are some issues that were mismanaged by the Bush administration, they had no intention to reign in excessive bonuses, for example, but the only way that major figures, such as the recent decision to no-bill Angelo Mozillo, is if there was a conscious decision not to apply to the rule of law at the highest level.

This is very similar to, and as least as damaging in the long term as, his conscious to allow the worst excesses of torture, perjury, and civil rights violations for Bush and His Evil Minions.^™

This is corrosive to society.

The Irish Elections, and What it All Means…

Former Prime Minister, and former Fianna Fail head, Brian Cowen, in an unintentionally apt photograph

So, Fianna Fail, having been in government for 60 of the past 79 years, has been tossed out by a resounding margin.

They fell 59 seats to 18 in Parliament, and the Green party, its coalition partner, lost all of its seats, while Fine Gael picked up 19 seats to 70, the Labour Party picked up 16 seats to 36, Sinn Fein(!) picked up 9 to get 13, the United Left Alliance (a coalition of various socialist parties) picked up 5 seats, and the new "New Vision" Party picked up 1 seat.

This is obviously a crushing defeat for Fianna Fail, and for the bank coddling policies, where the indemnified not just the depositors, but the banks' bond holders, thereby committing the Irish taxpayers to what can only be called "debt slavery".

What is interesting here is that Fine Gael is actually a further right party than Fianna Fail, and what the voters were really calling for were basically three policies:

• F%$# the Irish banks.
• F%$# the foreign banks that hold Irish debt.
• F%$# the banks.

Whether this electoral landslide has any long term effects has to do with whether the people who voted for real change actually see it.

While there is both a moral and treaty obligation to make the account holders whole (up to something around €20,000), the idea that the Irish are impoverishing themselves in order to prop up foreign bond holders, largely British and German, who received higher returns than they would have at home because of the higher risk, banks is clearly something that the average Irishman finds unacceptable.

A lot of people are talking about how this is a seismic reshaping of the Irish body politic, but I doubt it.

My guess is that Fianna Fail will be back in the majority in the next election, because now that the opposition has control of government, we will see half measures, and coddling of both the Irish banks and their foreign creditors, which will result in a tsunami in the other direction in the next elections.

As has been noted, a, "deeply indebted economy with just 1.8 million people at work cannot underwrite private banking liabilities of €200bn."

If Fine Gael, (and one their likely coalition partner Labour) do not understand this, and do not force haircuts on the bond holders through threat of default (which has the added benefit of transferring the pain to the feckless Angela Merkel ), the voters will turn on them.

For a recent political case study on the wages of timidity in this sort of a crisis, one need only look to the US, and the Democratic Party under the leadership of one Barack H. Obama.

It's Bank Failure Friday!!!! (on Saturday)

It's a fairly slow week, with only one bank, and one credit union

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

23. Valley Community Bank, St. Charles, IL

Full FDIC list

And here are the credit union closings:

3. NYC OTB Federal Credit Union, New York, NY

Full NCUA list

I suppose that the OTB credit union closing was inevitable, as New York's OTB, state run Off Track Betting, was shut down recently because they could not make a profit. 

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:

I don't want to know what they put in coffee

Not worth almost $25 US

But the Covent Garden based creamery is selling breast milk ice cream:

When a well-stocked ice cream parlour says they sell every flavour, there are usually limits.

But one restaurant in London is selling breast milk ice cream which is being served to customers in a cocktail glass.

Icecreamists, based in Covent Garden, have named the £14 dish Baby Gaga.

Victoria Hiley, 35, from Leeds provided the first 30 fluid ounces of milk which was enough to make the first 50 servings.

But the company are looking for more women to provide breast milk - and are providing £15 for every ten ounces extracted using breast pumps.

The recipe blends breast milk with Madagascan vanilla pods and lemon zest, which is then freshly churned into ice cream.

A costumed Baby Gaga waitress serves the ice cream in a martini glass filled with the breast milk ice cream mix. Liquid nitrogen is then poured into the glass through a syringe and it is served with a rusk.

A rusk is a sort of biscotti, apparently.