2009 archive
Stray Thought 0
If I hear one more blowhard public figure use the phrase, “a conversation we have to have,” I think I shall scream.
How To Make a Disaster 0
Wiliam K. Black on Bill Moyers Journal:
“[T]he way that you do it is to make really bad loans, because they pay better,” he told Moyers. “Then you grow extremely rapidly, in other words, you’re a Ponzi-like scheme. And the third thing you do is we call it leverage. That just means borrowing a lot of money, and the combination creates a situation where you have guaranteed record profits in the early years. That makes you rich, through the bonuses that modern executive compensation has produced. It also makes it inevitable that there’s going to be a disaster down the road.
“…This stuff, the exotic stuff that you’re talking about was created out of things like liars’ loans, that were known to be extraordinarily bad,” he continued. “And now it was getting triple-A ratings. Now a triple-A rating is supposed to mean there is zero credit risk. So you take something that not only has significant, it has crushing risk. That’s why it’s toxic. And you create this fiction that it has zero risk. That itself, of course, is a fraudulent exercise. And again, there was nobody looking, during the Bush years.
Greater Wingnuttery VII 2
And I thought H. P. Lovecraft crafted craziness.
Wingnuts make Cthulu seem like a marshmallow and Nyarlathothep, a boy scout.
The Booman on the murder of the policemen in PIttsburgh:
And yet these deadly incidents keep happening. And evil media clowns like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and even politicians like Michelle Bachmann keep screaming their twisted diatribes of hate over the airwaves, ratcheting up their deceitful, mendacious and dangerous rhetoric to levels we haven’t seen since the days when the Klu Klux Klan dominated vast regions of this country in the twenties and thirties. Days when lynchings were common. Nor do we need to look that far back. It was only 14 years ago, during the administration of another centrist Democratic President that we suffered the worst act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by another crazy bastard who swallowed the far right lies hook line and sinker: a bastard named Timothy McVeigh.
It embarrasses and shames me that the people who do this stuff almost always loudly proclaim themselves to be “true Americans” and “Christians.”
It should embarrass and shame us all, American or not, Christian or not, who understand either the ideals of America, the ideals of Christianity, or both.
End the politics of hate.
Bushonomics: Hit the Road, Jack, Dept. 0
The unregulated free hand of the market:
The joblessness is perverse: It is the direct result of the battered economy and the major reason economic recovery will be slow and painful – with most analysts foreseeing little in the way of even a modest turnaround until midway through next year.
Meanwhile, consumer spending and the housing market – to name two key economic drivers – are certain to suffer prolonged damage by the high level of unemployment.
Debian Linux 0
And you are still using Windows why?
Learn how to install Debian here: Step One, Step Two, and Step Three.
Greater Wingnuttery VI 0
Fruitcakes. All fruitcakes.
It’s Comcastic. Well, Not So Much. 4
Not just me.
Judging from the error messages that their POP3 server has been throwing, they’ve suffered a major hardware failure and their IT gnomes are trying to pick up the pieces.
It is a good day not work in Comcast IT. I’m sure the adrenaline level is out the roof.
Slightly later:
It appears to working again.
Much Ado about Not Much of Anything 0
Not that I’m a big fan of Larry Summers or of the whole Wall Street rat pack, but the only significance of this is to illustrate what an incestuous inbred little group sits at the top of the financial hill.
Stand and Deliver, Mark to Market Dept. 0
Fiduciary smiduciary.
Disregard market value. Just make stuff up:
The vote by the Financial Accounting Standards Board followed a debate in which members of Congress pushed for steps to help banks weighed down by troubled assets, while some investor groups warned that the plans would allow executives to cover up losses. The rules change spurred Thursday’s stock-market rally.
From an interview I heard on Marconi’s Magic Box this morning, but which I cannot find to cite (I’ll keep looking):
“My only hope is that it does less damage than it’s going to do.”
“You’re (persons who ignore market value–ed.) disguising reality.”
Dodgy 0
Taxes are the fees for living in civilized society.
Prem Sikka in the Guardian on corporate tax dodgery (emphasis added):
Stray Thought 0
There are few things more frustrating than losing your morning cup of coffee while you’re still too asleep to look for it.
PEBCAK 0
The weakest link in security: the Problem Exists Between the Chair And Keyboard.
The moral of the story: Whatever OS you use, do not go online without a firewall and an anti-virus.
Dustbiter Watch 0
None so far tonight.
The Truth Shall Set You Free (but Only If You First Set Free the Truth) (Updated) 0
Evil has no better friend than the dark.
What, one wonders, do they fear, other than the truth.
Via Andrew Sullivan.
Addendum, the Next Morning:
The Booman has some thoughts.