It appears that the collapse of the industry, and a government bailout will do little or nothing to rein in executive pay.
Category: Evil
LOL Pic of the Day
Courtesy of Group News Blog:
Bush Goes to Jail
Or more accurately, he would in any system that has the real possibility for justice and honesty, so notes Dan Froomkin, who makes the point that it is now clear that Bush specifically authorized torture in a memo to the CIA.
Here is hoping that Obama goes after Bush and his Evil Minions ™, because healing by allowing the evil to skate, as was done by Gerald Ford with Richard Nixon, only encourages further evil.
Let Dick Cheney Live
Because I want him to spend the next 25 years in a cage, where tourists can throw rotten fruit at him.
He was taken to hospital with a heart rhythm problem, though that appears to have been corrected.
Joerg Haider Finally Did Something to Make the World a Better Place
He died in an auto accident. It appears that Austrian anti-immigration activist was speeding.
I’m pretty hard-ass on immigration, but this man was just a bigot and demagogue, and he leaves the world a better place by leaving this world.
Alan Greenspan, How About a Nice Steaming Dish of STFU?
Because now the failed jazz musician is predicting a recovery for housing in the first half of 2009.
Seriously, did he get his PhD from the back of a cereal box?
Oh…I forgot….He DID get his degree from the back of a cereal box.
F%$#-you Greenspan, and your muse, Ayn Rand.
Not Enough Bullets…Again
The AIG executive’s posh “retreat” on our tax dollars.
Not Enough Bullets, Part 3
NY Magazine writes about the heart rending adjustments that have to be made by the until recently overpaid traders at Lehman.
The janitors, receptionists, etc., maybe I have some pity for them.
As for one of the examples, a woman engaged to a Lehman trader who dumped him once he was no longer a millionaire, he’s better off.
This is So Undeniably Cynical and Dishonest
It appears that the McCain campaign wants Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston to have an October wedding, because they think that it would have a positive impact on their campaign:
In an election campaign notable for its surprises, Sarah Palin, the Republican vice- presidential candidate, may be about to spring a new one — the wedding of her pregnant teenage daughter to her ice-hockey-playing fiancé before the November 4 election.
Inside John McCain’s campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. “It would be fantastic,” said a McCain insider. “You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week.”
As Lily Tomlin says, “No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up.”
Unfortunately for John Sidney McCain III and His Evil Minions™, it appears that the love birds are looking at a Summer wedding.
I really don’t want to know who they cast as Barbara Mikulsky!!!!
I suppose that it was inevitable, but Ewwwww!!!
What Do You Call This?
The punch line is the same as for the joke that starts, “What do you call 100 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?” (Answer at bottom of post)
The head of the Indian operations of Graziano Transmissioni, Lalit Kishore Choudhary, was beaten to death by employees he had sacked.
I have said on a number of occasions that if you want to go postal, go after upper management first, and it seems that these employees were of a like mind.
The quotes regarding this, show just how callous people are:
A spokesman for the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry said: “Such a heinous act is bound to sully India’s image among overseas investors.”
That is an unbelievably cold statement. Some dude got beaten to death, and the only comment is, “It’s bad for business.”
Of course, being the Times of London, they are wringing their hands over this, and note the violence at the location selected by Tata for a factory to manufacture its ultra cheap Nano, but refuse to mention the fact that the land in question was stolen from the peasant farmers who had worked it for hundreds of years.
Meanwhile India’s Labor Minister has apologized for saying that the murder of Choudhary should, “serve as a warning” to managers to treat workers compassionately.”
He was right the first time.
If you want to read a more full throated, and more eloquent endorsement of actions that might make senior executives think twice, you need to go no further than Exiled Online
Live by heartless officialese, die by heartless officialese plus a hammer upside the skull. Nothing could be fairer than that. Proceed with the mob beatifications as soon as we get their names. And somebody find that f@#$-you-Mr.-Cheney guy’s name too while you’re at it. Something about the politeness of the “Mr.” right after the “f@#$ you” really enchants us. This is a guy who understands the importance of human dignity. No doubt, with a little encouragement, he could put together a nice mob.
Damn good writing, and you should read the rest right now.
In conclusion, the philosophical foundation driving our current system is that the “entrepreneurial class” should be able to operate without any external limits on their behavior, and that they should operate without conscience or empathy, and this is a psychotic world view.
As to the riddle at the beginning of the page? The answer, of course, is “A Good Start.”
Maliki Says that Bush Wanted Changes in Withdrawal for Electoral Advantage
So Nouri al Maliki said in an interview with al-Iraqiya:
MALIKI: Actually, the final date was really the end of 2010 and the period between the end of 2010 and the end of 2011 was for withdrawing the remaining troops from all of Iraq, but they [the Bush administration] asked for a change [in date] due to political circumstances related to the domestic situation [in the US] so it will not be said to the end of 2010 followed by one year for withdrawal but the end of 2011 as a final date. Agreement has been reached on this issue. They are willing to respond positively because they, too, are facing a critical situation.
Impeach Cheney today.
Impeach Bush tomorrow.
Lehman’s New York Staff Still Getting Bonuses
To the tune of $2.5 billion to be distributed amongst 10,000 staff in New York, and a lot of former Lehman employees who are not part of this deal.*
Running the numbers, these folks will be getting ¼ of a million dollars each, despite that many of the folks are the ones who ran the company into the ground.
Not enough bullets.
*And any right thinking people.
Well, He Wasn’t Fired for Fighting Sexual Assault
It turns out that Walt Monegan’s trip to Washington to secure funding for fight child rape was with permission.
The McCain campaign’s response, and they are running the Alaska governor’s office right now, is that he may have been approved to travel, but preventing child rape was not approved by the governor.
Whatever these folks are smoking, I want none of it.
Why Friends Don’t Let Friends Use AT&T
Because when a company buries customer rights in a 2500 page manual, one can be reasonably assured that they are not customer friendly in their outlook.
The Undeniable Lightness of Being a Rich Pig
We are now seeing sob stories out of Wall Street like this:
‘A lot of those people will have to sell their homes, they’re going to cut back on the private jets and the vacations. They may even have to take their kids out of private school,’ said Frank. ‘It’s a total reworking of their lifestyle.’
He added that it’s going to be no easy task.
‘It’s going to be very hard psychologically for these people,’ Frank said. ‘I talked to one guy who had to give up his private jet recently. And he said of all the trials in his life, giving that up was the hardest thing he’s ever done.’
The Chinese have the right idea: A bullet to the back of the head for the folks who managed this fiasco.
H/T Kevin Drum.
Sarah Palin Hates Rape Victims
In a new twist of Troopergate, the McCain campaign is saying that Palin fired public safety commissioner Walt Monegan because he was “insubordinate” over budget issues:
On May 7 of this year, Randy Ruaro, the governor’s deputy chief of staff, complained in an e-mail to Rehfeld, the budget director, that Monegan’s department “is constantly going off the reservation.”
“The last straw” leading up to Monegan’s firing, Van Flein wrote, was Monegan’s planned trip to Washington, D.C., to seek funding for a new, multimillion-dollar sexual assault initiative the governor hadn’t yet approved.
So, not only did she sign off regarding charging rape victims for rape kits, she is now saying that fired her public security director because he was looking for money to help rape victims.
Remember, Alaska has the highest per capita rape rate in the nation, and it appears that Palin is determined to punish the victims.
This is repugnant.
Palin Had Direct Role In Charging Rape Victims For Exams
Seriously, she is the gift that keeps on giving.
We now have her signature on the budgets when the rape kits were deleted from the budget.
This is not a bug, this is a feature. Police investigations and evidence collection is only for rich people if you are a Republican.
Pizza Abominations
Courtesy of the Onion News Network, because these days, I have to tell people what is satire, because it is indistinguishable from reality.
Domino’s Scientists Test Limits Of What Humans Will Eat
“in other news the equivalent of five Americans were killed in Afghanistan today…“
Oh My God
Well, it turns out that while Mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin’s hand picked police chief, she had fired the predecessor for “insufficient loyalty”, instituted a policy of forcing rape victims to pay for their own rape kits.
It was the only town in Alaska to do so, and it so outraged the legislature that they passed a law against this.
Seriously, C-MI.