
Now Representative Frank, don't be greedy. Let's pass it along and make sure everyone
gets a piece.
Myopia: (n) a lack of foresight or discernment: a narrow view of something
Not because I'm offended by naked cartoons or bar owners who mistake themselves for artists:Despite their political differences, Elliott admits to a bit of a crush on the Alaska governor. He began painting her smile and trademark glasses, he said, before filling in the details: a gun, red high heels, polar bear rug, rugged Alaska landscape and a scared moose. His daughter, who looks a little like Palin and does a great impression of her, served as model for the governor's body.but there is something creepy about painting your daughter nude and then putting a politician's face on her. And I gotta be able to trust the guy making my drink, you know?
In a post called "Atheists don't study the bible," Ray Comfort* calls out an atheist:Carl, Isaiah 7:14 says "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel" (italics added). If the word "virgin" had been mistranslated and should rather have read "young maiden," then that wouldn't be a "sign" from God. Every day, thousands of young maidens conceive. Only once has it happened to a virgin.Even though I do think Jesus was born of a virgin and even though I accept Matthew's assertion that Isaiah was in some sense prophesying a coming savior, I think we need to be honest with the text and realize that that was not ALL Isaiah was prophesying.
"Therefore** the Lord himself will give you a sign; Behold, a virgin will conceive and bear a son, and she will call his name 'Immanuel.' The child will eat butter and honey when he learns how to refuse evil and choose good. But before the child learns to refuse evil and choose good, the land that you hate will lose both her kings."You may recognize the first sentence, it's the Jesus prophecy that Comfort refers to. But what's the rest of this? Its words are plain enough: a young child is going to be born and before he's old enough to know right and wrong, maybe three years, both of Ahaz's tormentors would be dead.
-- Isaiah 7:14-16 (my translation with help from King James)
Our favorite Archbishop of Canterbury discovers a new kind of idolatry:We expect an abstraction called 'the market' to produce the common good or to regulate its potential excesses by a sort of natural innate prudence ... so we lose sight of the fact that the market is not like a huge individual consciousness [and] not a machine governed by inexorable laws.In one sense the good archbishop is quite correct: building an economy on little but the movement of little pieces of paper was not very wise and therefore will cause a lot of people a lot of pain. But it is rather funny when one idolater calls another an idolater.
And this is part of the same mindset that turns the specific, goal-related transactions of borrowing and lending into a process producing pseudo-things, paper assets - but pseudo-things that (when matters do not go well) cause real and crippling damage to actual persons and institutions. The biggest challenge in the present crisis is whether we can recover some sense of the connection between money and material reality - the production of specific things, the achievement of recognisably human goals that have something to do with a shared sense of what is good for the human community in the widest sense.
Section 132. Authority to Suspend Mark-to-Market Accounting.The SEC is being reminded that it should allow banks to value assets at a mythical value if such lying about their actual value would protect investors. Is this a great country or what?
Restates the Securities and Exchange Commission's authority to suspend the application of Statement Number 157 of the Financial Accounting Standards Board if the SEC determines that it is in the public interest and protects investors.
Fezzik, you did something right:A rescue for the U.S. financial system unraveled late Thursday amid accusations Republican presidential candidate John McCain scuppered the deal...I guess dreams really do come true. Not that I think the House GOP plan that McCain jumped on will work*, but it is going to be funny how quickly the leftern half of the blogosphere will retroactively find Bush's obscene plan to have been the one thing that would have saved America from having to change.
...and Washington Mutual was closed by U.S. authorities and its assets sold in America's biggest ever bank failure.WaMu's assets: $309b. Previous biggest failure: Continental Illinois (1984), $40b. The FDIC said the closure would not affect its insurance fund, which weighs in at a svelte 15% of WaMu's assets. Not sure how that works yet, but I'm not the one saying it.
It appears that fighty mouse is on his way:NEW YORK (CNN) -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced Wednesday that he is suspending his campaign to return to Washington and focus on the "historic" crisis facing the U.S. economy.It would be supremely ironic if John McCain's economic incompetence, combined with his legendary temper, brought this Hindenburg of a bill down in flames.
The president, in remarks to the news media clearly aimed at reluctant Republicans in Congress, said, “Our financial system rests on a foundation of huge banks, brokerage houses and quasi-governmental agencies that followed Washington’s lead by gambling on long-shot, poorly-collateralized investments. Now this glorious way of life is threatened, and we must act to preserve it.”Read it twice.
The banking system needs another $500 billion to survive beyond the $700 billion rescue plan being contemplated by Congress, said Pimco founder Bill Gross...It's not up in the air at all. They just haven't told you yet.
"The plan goes far but it doesn't go far enough in terms of recapitalization," he said. "The banking system and the investment banking system in total really requires about $500 billion more. Where that comes from is still up in the air."
It's therapy:Stewart Barr, of Exeter University, who led the research, said: "Green living is largely something of a myth. There is this middle class environmentalism where being green is part of the desired image. But another part of the desired image is to fly off skiing twice a year. And the carbon savings they make by not driving their kids to school will be obliterated by the pollution from their flights."A lot of people are critical of the blatant hypocrisy of most* proponents of so-called "green living," those who fly around the world telling people they can save the planet by only using one square of toilet paper. "When Al Gore turns his thermostat down," they say, "I'll listen to him prattle on about how mine is set." And they are correct; it is profoundly hypocritical and is itself evidence that the green livers are full of crap. But one problem they face in trying to get this logic across to those attracted to sorting trash and giving carbon credits for Christmas is that it's not a matter of logic.
Some people even said they deserved such flights as a reward for their green efforts, he added.
Livescience draws precisely the wrong conclusion:Women who had only one female boss reported more psychological distress (such as trouble sleeping, difficulty focusing on work, depression and anxiety) and physical symptoms (such as headaches, stomach pain or heartburn, neck and back pain and tiredness) than women who worked for one male boss...I would suggest that the "theories" mentioned above are based more on political presumption than studies, as it is obvious to anyone who has worked in an office where a woman manages multiple women that they simply do not - cannot - get along with their subordinates.
The findings, specifically those of female subordinates with females bosses, contradict theories suggested by previous studies that demographic similarities between a boss and their subordinate would promote harmony in the work place, while demographic differences would create problems.
Somewhere, the Founding Fathers are writing suicide notes:
"We must act now to protect our nation's economic health from serious risk," Bush said at a White House press conference. "There will be ample opportunity to discuss the origins of this problems. Now is the time to solve it."I guess maybe there will be ample opportunity to discuss the nature of this problem as well, but not until we've passed a law banishing inconvenient mathematics to the furthest ends of the cosmos. Given the indisputable fact that, as another article notes, "The effort is a recognition that Paulson's and Bernanke's earlier efforts failed to revive financial and housing markets," I do not see a single reason to believe this one will cure a disease that has been purposely misdiagnosed from the start. But I do see plenty of room for a poorly-thought-out imposition of martial law on the markets to have very bad unintended consequences.
Sec. 8. Review.Our Democrat Congress*, sworn enemies of Smirky McBushitlerchimpco™ (or whatever their Legion of the Least Clever minions call him) and all that he stands for, and defenders of the middle class from the predations of greedy Wall Street privateers**, are falling all over themselves to give Bush's Secretary of the
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency...
Sec. 10. Increase in Statutory Limit on the Public Debt.
Subsection (b) of section 3101 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by striking out the dollar limitation contained in such subsection and inserting in lieu thereof $11,315,000,000,000.
I mentioned before* that I was giving up on Nennius as a subject for my thesis, mostly because I don't know enough Medieval language but in the end because when I found the answer I was looking for it turned out to be far less impressive than I'd hoped. So next on the list was Custer, who was the subject of a very interesting conversation my dad had with an Indian guide he pigeonholed at Little Bighorn last summer. Basically, it was this:[The] attack at Little Big Horn was a perfect pincer: split the troops and hit the Indians from 2 sides. But when Custer's group got to a ford that was defended by no more than half a dozen Indians, the crossing of which would have given Custer unimpeded access to the interior of the Indians' position, his group inexplicably turned aside after a brief exchange of fire. They didn't cross but turned back up a hill, whereupon they were slaughtered. The Indians say that Custer, leading the charge, was killed at the ford...I had never seen that idea before, and while the pincer idea may be a bit overstated**, the idea that Custer was killed almost immediately seemed like decent one. Custer was an arrogant and feisty leader who led from the front. One Indian account of the battle says that there were just 6 Indians at the ford when the Americans came to cross it; they shot a guy or two and the whole column stopped, reorganized - very poorly - and turned back up the hill where they were slaughtered. The original Indian accounts do not say they killed Custer at the river, but if that's what happened it might explain the Americans' unusual actions in the face of a far inferior force.
"What Custer intended, or indeed whether he accompanied Yates or Keogh, is conjecture. Some students even believe that he fell, killed or wounded, with Yates at the river and was carried to the hill where his body was later found."There might just be one more student who thinks that today. It's not Parks Service doctrine in the least, but sometimes it's strangely reassuring when you find that a few others see the same possibilities you do. HIST 700 - Kansas and the West definitely looks like it's on the agenda once I finish up with Alexander the Great in December.
Quote of the Day, from Vox:Those who have never sat on a corporate board or had much contact with the executive class don't realize that the executive class is largely parasitical ... it can be more accurately understood as a sort of pirates union that is loosely allied in common cause against the capitalists who actually own the companies that they are systematically pillaging under the guise of "managing" them.The only problem I see with Vox's quote is that, here in late-stage, bureaucratized corporate capitalism, the capitalists don't actually own the companies; the pirates own them in the form of the mutual funds and pension plans they direct. And every dollar that the middle class capitalist contributes to his mutual fund is another dollar that falls under the control of the Pirates Union.
I would rather it be Chad Pennington, but still:After losing the first two games of the season, Minnesota coach Brad Childress decided the Vikings can no longer afford to let 25-year-old quarterback Tarvaris Jackson learn on the job. On Wednesday, Childress turned to 15-year veteran Gus Frerotte to run the offense.Actually, I would even be happy with JD Booty.
I don't know what this means:10:35 am : The Treasury is setting up a temporary financing program at the Fed's request. The program will auction Treasury bills to raise cash for the Fed's use. The initiative aims to help the Fed manage its balance sheet following its efforts to enhance its liquidity facilities over the previous few quarters.I don't have any idea what it means, unless it means that the Fed is simply out of saleable assets. They may have taken on so much crap that they are broke, and so Treasury has to hold a bake sale to raise money* for its central bank. I don't know the implications of that, only that they are bad. Given that gold is up more than $50 in the last hour, it would appear I'm not the only one drawing that conclusion.
The announcement represented an unprecedented action in which Treasury will be selling debt securities in the form of Treasury bills for the nation's central bank.Move along.
Treasury officials said the action did not mean that the Fed was running short of resources but simply was a way for the government to better manage its financing needs.
Congratulations! It's a basket case!Reports Tuesday said the Fed was considering a conservatorship for AIG—which would mean bringing in an outsider to run the company. But sources told CNBC that no legal authority exists for such an arrangement.Why should that be an issue?
The voters are presented with a stark contrast:WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama on Monday both blasted regulators and managers for failing to head off the financial woes rocking Wall Street and called for an overhaul of the rules governing financial institutions...So Obama says that the problem is that government's regulation is not working and he has a new set of regulations that will fix it. On the other hand, McCain says that government's regulation is not working and he has a new set of regulations that will fix it.
Obama has called for modernizing regulations "to suit a 21st-century market" to protect investors and consumers...
[McCain said] that a top priority of his administration would be to "replace the outdated patchwork quilt of regulatory oversight and bring transparency and accountability to Wall Street."
Wall Street, we have a problem:Stocks fell sharply at the opening bell Monday after a trifecta of Wall Street pain: Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch was bought by Bank of America and AIG asked the Fed for short-term financing.What's important is not that Wall Street is down over
Jack Kinsella lays down the wrong plumb line:The Christian faith stands or falls based on the truth of the Scripture. Christianity has no plan “B”. Should the Bible somehow fail, Christianity fails with it.But that's not what the bible says.
The Bible claims of itself that is 100% accurate, 100% of the time. It is, as 2nd Peter 1:21 tells us, the product of holy men who “spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
Therefore, if Noah didn’t build an ark, if Jonah wasn’t swallowed by a big fish, if David didn’t slay Goliath and if Jesus wasn’t born of a virgin, then our faith is in vain and we are yet dead in our sins.
If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins - 1Cor 15:17The proof of Christianity is not a book but an historical event celebrated by Christians as Easter: the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead on a cold Sunday morning following Passover.
Dr. Pavlov would be so proud:A high-level meeting between top Wall Street executives, US Federal Reserve and Treasury Department officials Friday night was, at least in part, an attempt to prepare Wall Street for the possibility that a Lehman Brothers deal might not get done this weekend, CNBC has learned.That the government now has to hold meetings with executives to inform them that maybe there is no plan to save this week's losers illustrates how quickly the captains of capitalism have become conditioned to rely on the government.
Not surprisingly, Financial Times goes looking for the wrong debate:Sarah Palin, the running mate of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, on Thursday said the US would be obligated to go to war with Russia if it invaded a Nato ally – a status she advocated for Georgia, which Russia invaded last month...Sarah is exactly correct: if Russia invaded a NATO country, the United States would be obligated by that treaty to go to war with Russia. That's the purpose of the treaty. Period. End of story. Why understanding the consequences of the NATO treaty should "reinforce the debate*" over Palin's qualifications is beyond me. Perhaps she's only qualified if she doesn't take our nation's legal obligations seriously?
Her response, while technically accurate, is likely to reinforce the debate about whether the Alaska governor should be a “heartbeat away from the presidency”.
CNBC starts throwing the D word around:The end result of the global economic slowdown may be the U.S. announcing national bankruptcy as the government cannot afford the bailouts that it promised and the market will not bail out the government, Martin Hennecke, senior manager of private clients at Tyche, told CNBC on Thursday.We are now some 15 months into the credit crisis that is actually a debt crisis that was set off but not started by subprime. The Fed has created a virtual alphabet soup of lending facilities to provide liquidity to the market, but which has in reality just filled their balance sheet with unsaleable crap. Fannie and Freddie have just been nationalized, even though exactly a year ago Washington* was still manipulating them to act as a bridge over a troubled real estate market. Bear Stearns, the nation's fifth largest brokerage, was forced via shotgun wedding to merge with Chase. It looks very much like Lehman Brothers, the nation's fourth-largest, is next**. The failure of IndyMac reduced the FDIC's insurance pool by nearly 20%, meaning that even though the FDIC has more than 100 banks on its trouble list, and banks nationwide are bleeding all over the place, it can afford just 4 more IndyMacs before it, too, must go to Congress. Add to that the fact that the wiping out of Fannie's shareholders, even though it should have happened, has roiled the entire preferred-stock market, just one more hit to bank balance sheets and perhaps more importantly, pension funds. Write "Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation" in your notes somewhere. That will become a household name pretty soon, and you'll be glad that you heard of it first.
"We expect a depression in the United States. We expect a depression, very possibly, also in Europe," Hennecke said on "Worldwide Exchange."

There seems to be a bit of confusion out there over the real and potential effects of the Large Hadron Collider. On the one hand, a CNN Science Editor* assures us that, as he understands it, the Earth is in no danger. On the other hand, the respected** International Earth Destruction Advisory Board regrets to inform us that the earth has already been destroyed***.
A funny little problem just arrived via email:We are on Mill 7.6, Crystal 9. We just got groovy new computers with Microsoft Office 2007. The problem is that when I click Database \Database Expert \History to access Tables and Views, nothing’s there but a sad little “no items found.”When I figured out the solution to this technological conundrum, I laughed pretty hard...
I do have an ODBC connection; I am able to run reports in Crystal and export them. I just can’t create any new reports or do any editing that involves adding new tables or views.
My IT department is stumped. They even retrieved my old computer in order to fish through its hard drive to find the old settings, but are not getting anywhere.
Does anyone know what the problem might be?
Thanks.
Fears have emerged that the [Large Hadron Collider] could produce black holes that could suck up anything around them -- including the whole Earth...So there you have it. No worries, mate.
Although physicists acknowledge that the collider could, in theory, create small black holes, they say they do not pose any risk.
According to CNN, "McCain vows to have Democrats in Cabinet":(CNN) -- Promising a "very bipartisan approach" to how he'll run his administration, Sen. John McCain said in an interview broadcast Sunday that he would appoint Democrats to his Cabinet...It does have to make Republicans feel good to know that if they work hard to keep the Democrats out of the executive branch, McCain will give those Democrats agencies to run as sort of a consolation prize.
And I'm here to save you:NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Federal officials unveiled an extraordinary takeover on Sunday of troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, signaling the most dramatic move to date aimed at shoring up the nation's housing market...I guess Paulson needed that bazooka* after all.
The cost of the government intervention remains unclear.
"...the ambiguities in the GSE Congressional charters, which have been perceived to indicate government support for agency debt and guaranteed MBS. ... as a result GSE debt and MBS are held by central banks and investors throughout the United States and around the world who believe them to be virtually risk-free.So we taxpayers have to bail out the foreign central banks because they are too stupid to read?
7) Are FreddieNotes securities guaranteed by the federal government?From Fannie's website disclaimer:
No. FreddieNotes securities are obligations of Freddie Mac only. FreddieNotes securities, including any interest on FreddieNotes securities, are not guaranteed by, and are not debts or obligations of, the United States or any agency or instrumentality of the United States other than Freddie Mac.
Securities issued by Fannie Mae are not guaranteed by the United States and do not constitute a debt or obligation of the Unites States or of any agency or instrumentality thereof other than Fannie Mae.Helicopter Ben has also said, on more than one occasion, that "as numerous government officials have asserted--the government has given no such guarantees."
"The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance."
-- Samuel Adams