Year: 2009

Out of the Mouths of Babes

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So, I was eating dinner with the family, and I happened to express the exquisite lust that I feel for Sharon.*

This is not an uncommon occurrence. The expression of affection, including physical affection, is something that occurs in our house…..It’s not like we are making love on the dining room floor.†

In any case, my son, Charlie, who is not quite 10, his birthday is in September, rolls his eyes, and says, “I cannot believe that I’m going to be that way when I’m 15.”

He has no idea whatsoever as to the hormonal roller coaster that awaits him.

*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

†At least not while the kids are in the house.

How is Hank Paulson Like Bernie Madoff?

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Well, Eric Falkenstein has the following take on Bernie Madoff:

Clearly, he understood phone calls are best. People who meticulously avoid email should not be trusted, because it is simply too calculating, as if they know they are regularly committing crimes. A phone conversation can always be disavowed, you just say you were talking about last weekend’s bar mitzvah.

And Felix Salmon, who has one of the sharpest minds in finance, notes a parallel with Hank Paulson in his exchange with Representative Jackie Speier:

Jackie Speier (D-Calif): Do you use email?

Hank Paulson: Do I use email? No, I don’t use it, personally.

JS: You don’t use it personally, or professionally?

HP: Yeah, I just don’t. So I’ve never used it for any business communications. Just never use it.

JS: So while you were secretary of the Treasury you never used email?

HP: No.

JS: How did you communicate with people?

HP: Telephone.

This does not prove that he is a dishonest person, though being a former head of Goldman Sachs certainly implies it, and as someone born in 1946, I understand how this might be a generational thing, but as someone who worked in finance, the value, and risks, of having a clear and incontrovertible copy of his discussions had to be clear to him.

If I were a betting man, I’d go with the fact that he knew that he broke the law regularly, and wanted deniability.

Nostalgia…..

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It looks like Russian attack boats Akula class according to reports, are patrolling off of the US coast.

The military says that they are not concerned, and that they tracked them all the way here:

Two nuclear-powered Russian attack submarines have been patrolling off the eastern seaboard of the United States in the first mission of its kind so close to shore in nearly a decade, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

The Pentagon said it was not alarmed by the maneuvers, carried out by what officials described as Soviet-designed Akula-class submarines in international waters as little as 200 miles off the coast.

Interesting in all this is the rather matter of fact statement that there was no problem tracking the boats:

The official said the Navy was able to track the submarines as they made their way through international waters off the American coastline. This can be done from aircraft, ships, underwater sensors or other submarines.

It makes me wonder if this was not intended to be public in the first place. The Russians have already leased a sub to India, and there are other potential customers, and patrolling off the US coast, if it makes it into the papers, is an advertisement for the product.

The Akulas may not be Virginia class boats, but they are pretty quiet, after all.

Then again, maybe they just wanted some good cigars, as some of the reports note that at least one of the boats paid a visit to Cuba.

H/t Information Dissemination.

Punk’d

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It now appears that the was a practical joke designed specifically ensnare the birthers.

It’s looking more and more like the forged “Kenyan birth certificate” released by Orly Taitz on Sunday was a prank by a supporter of President Obama. Politijab points to an anonymous blogger at FearlessBlogging, who has uploaded four photos of the original forgery and a mocking declaration:

Fine cotton business paper: $11

Inkjet printer: $35

1940 Royal Model KMM manual typewriter: $10

2 Shilling coin: $1

Pilot Varsity fountain pen: $3

Punkin’ the Birthers: Priceless

Morons.

Economics Update

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While the (only relative to prior months) good job numbers for July got their own post, there is other news out there.

Most notably, conflicting figures on two important economic indicators, with the Baltic Dry Index hitting a 10 month low, indicating that international shipping is hurting, but the July Manufacturing hour numbers up.

Not surprisingly, the job numbers increased risk appetite, and so Treasuries fell, and their yields rose, as people pulled out of them in search of a greater return.

Currency and energy have me confused…..Good jobs news should push the dollar down, as there is less of a flight to safety, and oil up, as it signals increased demand, but today, the dollar rose sharply, and oil fell.

You know, as much as I blog about this stuff, I really don’t have a damn clue.

Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) Resigns

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No indications of any “hikes along the Appalachian trail,” my guess is that he is just sick and tired of an increasingly racist and anti-Hispanic GOP, and wants out.

It may also be that he does not want to be in the position of ,making the swing vote for cloture on healthcare reform, and you still need 60 votes even if he is gone (it rounds up).

Charlie Crist, who is running to replace him in 2010 (he had announced that he would not seek reelection) would appoint his successor, but has promised that he will nto appoint himself, so the dynamics are interesting.

Bueller???? Bueller????*

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Yes, as Felix Salmon notes, with no small amount of exhultation, the New York Times has fired Ben Stein as a columnist.

Of course, it was not his deliberate lies, nor his stupidity that got him, but rather the fact that he was cashing in on his Times gig in a way that did not generate them money:

NYT spokeswoman Catherine Mathis confirmed this, telling Gawker that “Ben Stein’s fine work for us as a columnist for Sunday Business had to end, we told him, after we learned that he had become a commercial spokesman for FreeScore, a financial services company.”

More’s the pity that he got the gig in the 1st place.

*A reference to what was John Hughs’ best movie. The director and writer of teen angst flicks died yesterday.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?!?!?!? Journalism on CNN!?!?!?!?

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CNN Anchor Rick Sanchez interviews medical tea-bagger* in chief Rick Scott, currently director of Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, and went Mr. Sanchez actually did his homework:

  • He notes that Scott was fired as CEO of Columbia HCA for the largest case of Medicare fraud uncovered ever , with fines and restitution in excess of $1.7 billion.
  • He called Scott a “poster child for everything that is wrong with the greed that has hurt our healthcare system”.
  • Calls out Scott on his argument that that “everyone was doing it,” which argues for a public option.
  • Did his homework: When Scott claimed that the fines paid were after his tenure at Columbia HCA, Sanchez notes that the fines were for when Scott ran the firm.
  • Noted his history of shutting down hospitals in the area.

When TV media folks do their homework this way, they are either Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, or Journalists.

Somehow, it appears that CNN allowed a journalist to infiltrate their network. My congratulations to Rick Sanchez.

H/T Talking Points Memo.

*I mean that in the political sense, not the sexual act sense, and no offense toward people who engage in the sex act is intended.