Just go read Krugman, and read this by him too.
If there is a bright spot to the financial meltdown, it is that Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan has lived long enough to see his reputation collapse like those Ponzi schemes he thought were impossible in his magical free market.
You should read his whole post about what is going on in Wisconsin, but in the last paragraph, he asks the important question:
Where the f%$# is the President? Where the f%$# is the President? Where the f%$# is the President?
(%$# mine)
The answer, of course is that the President is busy, “Winning the Future,” because pursuing a lame ass slogan in order to be reelected in 2008 is more important than defending the rights of the ordinary working man.
This time, he notes the conflict between Representative Peter King’s full throated support for the IRA, and his the New York Congressman’s concerns about terrorism when the people blowing up school children and the occasional American are not white.
You know, I can think of no better way to encourage a 15 year old to consider making war against the United States than to have to hear Peter King talk about his religion in this way.
Brutal!
Jon Stewart, whose mother is a teacher, draws parallels between statements made about teachers, and statements made about the incompetent f%$# bankers who destroyed our economy.
Remind me to never piss off Jon Stewart, EVER.
I miss Bill Maher’s late night show on ABC, Politically Incorrect.
He has this thing on HBO now, and in some ways, it’s better, because he can use George Carlin’s 7 dirty words on it, but I don’t have HBO, and don’t plan to pay for it, but he’s good at what he does.
Here’s a Shocker, MERS is a Fraud
As I have said many times, “If a financial transaction is complex enough to require that a news organization use a cartoon to explain it, its purpose is to deceive.”
Well, Michael Powell and Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times, cover it, and I think that this is the important take away:
Apparently with good reason. Alan M. White, a law professor at the Valparaiso University School of Law in Indiana, last year matched MERS’s ownership records against those in the public domain.The results were not encouraging. “Fewer than 30 percent of the mortgages had an accurate record in MERS,” Mr. White says. “I kind of assumed that MERS at least kept an accurate list of current ownership. They don’t. MERS is going to make solving the foreclosure problem vastly more expensive.”
(emphasis mine)
Regardless of issues of law, on matters of basic fact MERS is completely unreliable, and the attempts by regulators to protect it are actually an assault on basic property rights, which depend on the rule of law, in the United States.
I’m not suggesting that anyone should go full Tyler Durden at “Library Street, in Reston, VA,” but I am suggesting that someone with a law go full avenging angel on their asses, with a good dose of RICO mixed in.
H/t Barry Ritholtz.
Jon Stewart on how f%$#ing absurd the assault on teachers is:
Charlie Sheen with diplomatic immunity:
If John Stewart was Italian, Berlusconi would already be in jail.
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 SayFebruary 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!
Brad Delong says not much really, Obamacare is Romneycare, Obama’s financial reform, except perhaps for Elizabeth Warren, would be what Romney had to do, Bernanke would be reappointed, he would have proposed, and lost on, cap and trade.
The big difference would be DADT and Gabby Giffords being shot.
I agree.
So much for the audacity of hope.
The bombing is clearly a horrible thing, but I don’t have much to add, though I would suggest that you look at Mark Ames article on Russian stoicism.
The Russian reaction may seem cold, or even heartless, in their reaction, but consider the alternative:
As appalling as it might seem, let’s remember what America’s far more sentimental reaction to 9/11 got us: two disastrous wars, tens of thousands of deaths, and the sorts of police-state measures once thought unimaginable. The difference may be more in our sentimentality than in our brutality.
By simply soldiering on, and letting it roll off your back, it makes it much more difficult for the Terrorists to win.
He has an essay on what went wrong with the Euro that is positively brilliant.
Dear Right-Wingers: You Are All Muslims Now
Just go read this bit of brutal brilliance.
H/t Cthulhuu* at by invitation only Stellar Parthenon BBS.
*Yes, I know the spelling. It’s a private joke.
First, an admission: While I saw the first 3 Star Wars movies, that is episode 4, 5, and 6, I only saw Revenge of the Sith among the prequels.
I was visiting my ‘Rents in 2007, and as a family thing, we all watched episode 3, and my reaction was a big Meh.
I actually found it a bit more disappointing than Return of the Jedi, which was surprising, since I’ve seen about 15 minutes of The Phantom Menace in dribs and drabs, the dialogue drives me to change the channel after about 45 seconds.
In any case it gives me the opportunity to review the review of the movie on Red Letter Media, and “Harvey Plinkett” is a genius.
There is some profoundly disturbing humor in the review (3 parts, at link), but this is a cogent and truly intelligent review of The Revenge of the Sith as cinema, and arguably packs more in it’s a bit more than an hour and a half than your average college level film course.
This is someone who loves cinema, and can use Citizen Kane (Which he admits is unfair) as well as the first three Star Wars Movies (I call that fair) to show just how poorly done and pedestrian SW III is.
It is entertaining, even though it is over half as long as the movie being critiques (100 min vs 140 min).
It’s delivered in a sort of Ben Steinesque creepy monotone, but that contributes to the enjoyment.
He has a post on his Rolling Stone blog titled, “An Extremely Long Metaphor to Explain Mortgage Chaos.”
It’s really not long at all, but it concisely nails all the basic points.
Go read it now.
Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, who is just a bit displeased at the fact that took 12 years for Duke Nukem forever to come out.
