November, 2007 archive
“Black Friday” 0
It was a Philadelphia thing.
Bill nailed it (see the comments here). And the term had more to do with the Army-Navy game than with shopping.
Listen to the entomology here.
Support the Troops 0
The blankety-blank DOD sure doesn’t.
Oh, yeah, and Bushie incompetence is losing Afghanistan, too.
Everything the Current Federal Administration touches turns to shit.
Little Ricky Is Back 0
Little Ricky had his first column in the local rag yesterday.
I could not bring myself to read it. I didn’t want to ruin an otherwise okay Thanksgiving. Okay because my girlfriend’s convalescense from her recent hospitalization is pretty rough: she’s convalescing–that’s good; it’s not easy–that’s not good.
So I didn’t want to ruin it with Little Ricky Sanctimonious-orum.
Fortunately for me, Will Bunch saved me the trouble of backtracking and reading Little Ricky’s drivel.
Via Atrios.
McMansions. McDoughnuts (Updated) 0
Investors met in Philadelphia.
The subprime crisis, which has claimed the jobs of three chief executive officers and prompted more than $45 billion in write-downs at the world’s biggest banks, may end up spilling into 2009.
“These events tend to become deeper and play out longer than most people initially expect,” said Michael Mayo, an analyst who covers securities firms at Deutsche Bank AG in New York. “This is one of the slowest-moving train wrecks we’ve seen.”
The tumbling U.S. housing market will continue to inflict the damage. Mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations containing those securities are falling in price and will not find their footing anytime soon. That’s because most of the subprime mortgages, which provide collateral for $800 billion in securities, have yet to go bad, said Christopher Whalen of Hawthorne, Calif.-based Institutional Risk Analytics.
And the U. S. housing bubble is bursting all over the world.
Note the banks cited in the article:
American securities firms sold their “securitized” junk all over the world.
In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith talked about the “invisible hand” of supply and demand. Sadly for the mortgage hucksters, the “invisible hand” works reliably only when the producers are producing real stuff, stuff that people need and use, not when they are producing phony stuff, financial vaporware.
And who is producing real stuff these days?
China. Korea. Japan. Malaysia. India.
And who is producing financial vaporware?
American financial houses.
Our economy has become a house of cards, dealt by card sharks.
Addendum, Later That Same Evening:
Follow the link.
Drumbeats 0
Joseph Galloway of McClatchy Newspapers:
(snip analysis–follow the link to read it)
When you add it all up, you have your answer: No one in their right mind would believe that attacking Iran now makes any sense at all.
But that doesn’t mean that Bush and Cheney won’t do it.
There were a lot of reasons why a pre-emptive strike into Iraq based on flimsy and bogus intelligence and far too few troops made no sense, yet they did it anyway, with trademark arrogance and ignorance.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Thanksgiving, USA 1
Have a thoughtful Thanksgiving, whether you are in the USA, where it is a holiday, or somewhere else, where it may not be a holiday.
Think about what is good, what is okay, and what could be worse.
And be glad it isn’t worse.
Remember, the Pilgrims didn’t have anything to do with it.
Oh, yeah, and while I’m on the subject, the Pilgrims didn’t come here for religious freedom. They came here to start their own little theocracy.
They were the original Religious Right.
But they sure had a great PR firm.
What Digby Said 0
Think about it.
Black Friday . . . 4
. . . is a term referring to the day after Thanksgiving in the USA, a term I did not hear until I moved to the Greater Philadelphis Co-Prosperity Sphere.
Somehow, I have never been able to wrap my tiny brain around the idea of compulsively doing Christmas shopping on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Actually, I rather like shopping on Christmas Eve. There’s a certain desperation about last-minute shopping that appeals to me.
Karen Heller dissects Black Friday here.
(Aside–I don’t get lots of hits, but I know I do get hits from all over the place. How common is the term, “Black Friday” for the day after Thanksgiving in your part of the world?)
(Aside again–One of my neighbors has already decorated his yard for Christmas. He had his landscapers out to hang lights in his cedar tree. A little early, thinks I.)
I-95, Main Street of the East Coast 0
“Don’t look twice, it’s all right.”
(snip)
Troopers took Gilbert (Ardonas Gilbert, 26, of Chester, Pa–ed.) into custody at the scene and took him to Troop 1, where it was determined that he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol, Whitmarsh said.
He said Gilbert’s actions resulted in three separate traffic crashes as motorists swerved to avoid running into him.
Words of Wisdom 0
Frankly, I think Duncan is right. A normal person wouldn’t want the job. Maybe we should just try to vote for the least abnormal (but don’t go for the “folksy guy“–go for someone who can think):
The Truth Will Out with Most Miraculous Organ 0
Scott McClellan:
There was one problem. It was not true.
I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the president himself.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Via Atrios.
DL 0
Tomorrow.
6 p. m., Tangier Restaurant, 18th and Lombard, Center City Philadelphia.
Make it there, say “Hi” to Brendan and the gang, and hoist one (Scotch, rocks, “if God ha’ wanted water in it, he’d ha’ put water in it”) for me.
I’ll be doing the cooling tower thing. It’s deadline time in the world of billable hours.
Words Fail Me 0
Beyond comprehension. Follow the links.
Dirty Tricks 0
On the Media investigates political dirty tricks in the day of the Innertubes.
Lefties tend towards blogs; righties tend towards email whisper campaigns, such as infamous, fraudulent, and apparently immortal Obama madrassa email.
Visit the website or listen here:
