Category: Stupid

Hank Paulson, Go Cheney Yourself

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So now Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson is warning that the financial meltdown might create too restrictive a regulatory environment for financial companies:

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson called the financial crisis now plaguing the world economy a “once or twice” in a 100 years event, even as he warned Thursday against imposing too-strict regulations to prevent a repeat calamity.

The translation for this is, “I made my money because the SEC and the CFTC were muzzled, so I could use deception and extortion to get money out of the average working Joe’s pocket, and this should not change, because I have relatives.”

Paulson is an idiot. While the financial crisis we’re having right now mirrors the stock market crash in 1928, almost 80 years ago, the fact is that these fiscal implosions have gotten more common as we have backed off regulation, and before 19289, they happened every decade or so.

The reason that nothing has happened in the past 80 years is because of the regulations you dispise, and the reason that it is happening now is because of the slow deregulatory movements from about 1975-2001, and the rush to deregulate since then.

Krugman Pwn35* Amity Shlaes

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Though I would have to say that Pwn463† of Ms. Shlaes is like shooting fish in a barrel:

When you hear claims that the New Deal made the depression worse, they often come directly or indirectly from the work of Amity Shlaes, whose misleading statistics have been widely disseminated on the right.

…

Krugman then goes to show that Shlaes is suggesting that actions based on Keynes theories failed to contain unemployment in the 1960s.

Yes, I was unaware of the historically high unemployment rates in the 1960s too.

Just go read… A few hundred words, and he destroys her.

*Owns.
†Ownage.

Paul Krugman pwn$* George Will

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It’s nice that Krugman was there when George Will started spewing the standard talking point of the Republicans about the Great Depression, that Roosevelt made it worse because investors went on strike.

The reality is, that the economy clawed its way back because of the New Deal, and when Roosevelt eased up on the fiscal gas in 1937, everything went down again.

In 30 seconds, he showed Will that he did not know what he was talking about.

What worries me is that most days, Krugman would not have been there.

*Owns

The FDIC is Guaranteeing What???

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It looks like the FDIC will be guaranteeing store gift cards, according to their most recent release

  • The new General Counsel’s Opinion No. 8 addresses the issue of whether the funds underlying stored value cards and other nontraditional access mechanisms qualify as “deposits” as defined in the Federal Deposit Insurance Act.
  • Under the new opinion, the funds will be “deposits” to the extent that the funds have been placed at an insured depository institution. Consequently, the funds will be subject to assessments. Also, the funds will be insured (up to the insurance limit).
  • In applying the insurance limit to a pooled custodial account, the FDIC will recognize the holders of the stored value cards (or other access mechanisms) as the owners of the deposits if the FDIC’s standard requirements for “pass-through” insurance coverage have been satisfied. Otherwise, the card distributor or other named accountholder will be recognized as the owner.
  • The treatment of the funds underlying stored value products does not differ from the treatment set forth in the FDIC’s proposed rule published in August of 2005 (see FIL-83-2005 at http://www.fdic.gov/news/news/financial/2005/fil8305.html).

Let me be the first to say that this is fracking nuts.

Start by Firing Deborah Howell

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The Washington Post has a problem with reality.

While its news gathering operation is pretty good, its editorial outlook, which seems to be in a constant state of apology for having uncovered Watergate, seems to have no recognition of reality or truth

This is a problem, because truth, not balance, should be the goal of a journalistic enterprise.

Case in point, Ombudsman Deborah Howell, who is calling for political affirmative action in the news room:

Are there ways to tackle this? More conservatives in newsrooms and rigorous editing would be two. The first is not easy: Editors hire not on the basis of beliefs but on talent in reporting, photography and editing, and hiring is at a standstill because of the economy. But newspapers have hired more minorities and women, so it can be done.

She is calling for wingnut welfare (affirmative action), and this is wrong for a number of reasons:

  • She is implying that women and minorities were only hired because of affirmative action,
  • She is calling for the hiring of unqualified conservatives.
  • She is asking editors to vet new hires on their politics rather than their professionalism.

I have no clue what Ms. Howell does for a living, but it does not appear to be journalism.

Tom Friedman, Suck on This

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Tom Friedman, the New York Times Columnist, and blithering idiot, who is always suggesting that we should give the Iraq War, “Another 6 Months,” is having financial difficulties.

You see, he married into money, a lot of money. His wife is an heir to the General Growth Properties fortune, and since September, the value of the stock in the company in which the family wealth is held has fallen in value from a high of $51/share to 35¢ a share (See stock chart below), taking the value of the family fortune from $3.6 billion to $25 million.

In fact, GGP is warning of a potential bankruptcy.

As to my saying, “suck on this,” I am actually quoting Thomas Friedman, who, in an interview with Charlie Rose, suggested that it was imperative that we invade some Arab country to show that we were serius:

We needed to go over there, basically, um, and um, uh, take out a very big state right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble, and there was only one way to do it.

…

What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, um and basically saying, “Which part of this sentence don’t you understand?” You don’t think, you know, we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we’re just gonna to let it grow? Well, Suck. On. This.

(emphasis mine)

This places him in exactly the same position as the Rwandan radio broadcasters who were convicted of crimes against humanity, and any misfortune that he suffers for his continuing advocacy of an invasion that has cost hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians renders me incapable of feeling the smallest bit of sympathy.

I guess it makes me a bad person, but I haven’t had a hand in killing nearly a million Iraqis….Scratch that…We all had a hand in that as Americans, because it was done in our name, but he was cheer leading from his position atop the most respected news paper in the nation.

Here is the vid of the interview. Look at it, because this is what evil looks like.

How George W. Bush Saved Mikheil Saakashvili from Being Hung by the Balls

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We now have the following repors from the Times of London:

With Russian tanks only 30 miles from Tbilisi on August 12, Mr Sarkozy told Mr Putin that the world would not accept the overthrow of Georgia’s Government. According to Mr Levitte, the Russian seemed unconcerned by international reaction. “I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls,” Mr Putin declared.

Mr Sarkozy thought he had misheard. “Hang him?” — he asked. “Why not?” Mr Putin replied. “The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein.”

Mr Sarkozy, using the familiar tu, tried to reason with him: “Yes but do you want to end up like [President] Bush?” Mr Putin was briefly lost for words, then said: “Ah — you have scored a point there.”

Bush has become the Bogeyman for the world.

He is now Homer Simpson, the stupid pathetic avatar of all that is stupid and pathetic, without the charm.

Sanity in IP: Lego Trademark Edition

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Here is some sanity on trademark:

Lego has failed in its bid to register the shape of its play bricks as trade marks. A European court said that the brick shape was functional and that it had to be that shape to operate as it did, so could not be registered as a trade mark.

The Court of First Instance (CFI) of the European Communities backed a 2004 decision of the EU’s trade marks office the Office for the Harmonisation of the Internal Market (OHIM) to cancel Lego’s trade mark registration.

You heard right….The Lego Corporation was trying to trademark a brick.

It’s Worse Than a Crime, It’s a Mistake

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To quote Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, there are reports that Democrats in the Senate, and Barack Obama, are now scrambling to find a way to do let Joe Lieberman keep hisposition as Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

You know the old saying, better to be inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in, but Joe Liberman will be in the tent, and he will continue to piss inward.

Joe has been acting out of vindictiveness and ego ever since his Presidential bid crashed and burned in 2004, and his primary loss in 2006 only made this worse.

He does not care about policy, all he cares about is puffing himself up and hurting those who he believes have slighted him.

There is now a report on Rollcall (paid subscription required) that strongly implies that Obama is making calls in support of Lieberman.

If true, and this could be (I hope it is) some sort of head fake, it does now bode well with regard to how Obama, or the Senate Democrats intend to govern.

It feeds straight into the meme that Democrats are wimps. If they don’t stand up for themselves, how can we expect them to stand up for us.

George W. Bush Can Kiss My Shiny Metal Ass

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Well, it now appears that the lamest lame duck since Nixon announced his resignation 18 hours hence is now warning about the dangers of over regulation of a free market economy.

It appears that he is concerned that the G-20 meeting will result in calls for additional regulation to keep the Harvard Business School types from raping the general public.

So, George W. Bush, a man who was born on 3rd base, and thought that he had hit a home run,* can kiss my shiny metal ass.

*Yes, I know that I am mixing my metaphors. So sue me.

Not the Onion, But an Incredible Simulation

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Power Line’s John Hinderaker wrote, and I’m not linking to his post, but rather to Steve Benen’s post on Washington Monthly, because any page views that Hinderaker gets will just encourage him:

Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn’t raise his standards, he will exceed Bush’s total before he is inaugurated.

I’m sure that someone from The Onion read this, and had to check and see if someone on their staff had actually written it.

Michael Steel as Head of the RNC?????

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Excuse me while I clean what I was drinking from the screen.

It appears that former Maryland Lieutenant Governor and US Senate candidate Michael Steele is looking to chair the RNC.

There is no way to put this delicately.

Michael Steele is stupid….Mind bogglingly stupid….I mean comparing stem cell research to the Holocaust in front of the Baltimore Jewish Council stupid.

I think in terms of raw brain power, he’s probably not that stupid, but it’s clear that he is so convinced of his own wit and genius, that he cannot help but make it worse.

He may not actually be stupid, but he has a penchant for doing stupid things that buggers the mind.

If he gets the post, I’m going to need to take up a collection for the popcorn.

Your Defense Dollars at Work

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Yes, the U.S. Air Force has paid to become the exclusive sponsor of the Xbox LIVE short film series ‘Horror Meets Comedy’:

As the sole sponsor of the series, Air Force will create custom intro billboards that will run with each pilot and interactive media placements that will live across the Xbox LIVE online entertainment network and the Xbox.com website. Users can click on these custom units and engage directly with the Air Force Brand Destination which offers users the opportunity to learn more about the Air Force through video downloads, gamer pictures and theme packages. GSD&M Idea City, the Air Force’s advertising agency orchestrated the sponsorship.

Barney Frank is right, we are spending way too much money on defense.