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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Second rate reporter says what?
No one could have predicted…
A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.
I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.
This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.
… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP
An almost top 10,000 blog!
Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.
Nothing worth doing is easy.
Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.
Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.
White supremacy is terrorism.
It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.
But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.
Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.
Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.
I really should read my own blog.
This fight is for everything.
Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?
Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.
American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated
We are aware of all internet traditions.
Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?
This really is a full service blog.
Zifnab
Jesus!
Krista
Good catch, Zifnab. I once thought I saw the image of the Flying Spaghetti Monster in my cat’s litter box, but it just turned out that he had worms.
Xenos
Countrywide Financial being bought by Bank of America with a stock split.
I would love to see the prenup for this curious marriage – is there a dowry being supplied by CFC’s Uncle Sam?
meanshile, rate cuts are being promised to keep the deflation under control. Whoever wins the Presidency in November will have a grade A monetary [email protected] on his or her hands by inauguration.
I thought a new FDR would be a good idea – now it appears we are going to really, really badly need one.
Xenos
nevermind that link — wordpress’s idea, that was.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Jesus is probably getting annoyed with the evangelicals rallying their way into government power. I think he’s trying to prank them into kissing a dog’s ass.
Ned Raggett
It’s going to be a strange year. I intend to have as much fun as I can before it gets too expensive.
Face
Dow getting crushed again today, for what feels like the twelveteeth day in a row. My 401K is suing the NASDAQ for cruel and unusual punishment…
and I dunno eggactly who/what Countrywide is/was, but the clowns on da biz channel just predicted financial Armegeddeon if/when it finally buys the farm. Perhaps someone smarter than me here could explain this better than Atrios’ hit-and-run psuedopostings….
Jake
Merrill Lynch[ed] is poised
on the ledge of their HQto post the biggest writedown in its history.Citigroup is trying to keep up.
Start hoarding those canned goods folks. If you don’t hunt, make friends with someone who does.
And stay away from high-rise buildings that house financial corporations.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Salon has an interview with Goldberg about “Liberal Fascism”.
It’s … interesting.
4tehlulz
Countrywide, I think, is holding the biggest chunk of big shitpile. If they go under, then there is going to be a huge chain reaction throughout the financial sector.
Why Bank of America would buy them is beyond me, unless they’re just taking a bullet for the entire bank industry.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
There’s this idea that the further right you go the closer you get to Nazism and fascism, and the further left you go the closer you get to decency and all good things, or at least having the right intentions in your heart.
Wow. Just…
Maybe there’s a… I dunno… balance to be struck between left and right?
And how is it that a person learns to read and write but not that leftism is SOCIALISM??
Arg… just… errg. I want to rant about this, but I’m fried. Someone do it for me.
Jake
Huge mortgage co. Housematey owns a house in another state and his loan is through Cwide. About a year and a half ago he started getting bombared with calls, letters and e-mails suggesting, asking, begging him to re-fi. This in addition to perky TV commercials asking the same every five minutes.
So this isn’t a surprise.
Added irony: A rumor went around maybe a year ago that they were facing the big B. Cwide got its tighty-whities in a knot. How DARE anyone suggest their company was in financial trouble?
Uh? How about all those customers wondering why you’re pestering the shit out of them?
The Other Steve
I want to highlight something. There’s an article over at op-ed news about a curious concidence in the voting tallies from the New Hampshire primary. There’s some talk now that they’re going to go through a hand recount, to verify that the optical scan machines are accurate.
The idea is being rejected as conspiracy mongering, and normally I would agree. However, the op-ed was written by Bruce O’Dell, who is involved in advocacy for reliable voting.
I’ve actually worked with Bruce O’Dell professionally. He’s been in at our company on contract. I also worked directly for his business partner(Ann) about 8-9 years ago. I didn’t even realize he was involved in this voting stuff until after he’d left his contract. He’d never really talked about it when I was around.
He’s professional and sharp. He has a good record in our industry as a software architect. I’m confident he’s not a conspiracy kook. He’s simply concerned about the validity of these systems.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
It’s the crack house on the corner of the block. If you think you’re capable of getting out the problems, you can lobby the rest of the neighborhood for financial backing to buy the house.
You remove the problems, and you get a nice house to fix up at a profit, mostly on someone else’s dime.
BoA is most certainly big enough to take charge.
Xenos
There are rumors that the main shitpile underwriters, CFC and WAMU, are being purchased by BoA and Citi, respectively, at the behest of regulators. The shitpile will then be owned by too-large-to-fail banks, which will get wide latitude from the regulators to write down the losses while keeping their books in the black.
These are fairly convoluted theories, but there has to be some reason that the stockholders of BoA and Citi are having these irrational deals imposed on them by the corporate managers.
Either way, don’t go buying real estate for at least a couple more years. All asset prices, aside from precious metals, are going into the crapper for a long time.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
I wasn’t even thinking there was a problem in doing this. You can rest easy.
Fact of the matter is, a lot of us software guys are feeling a bit hoodwinked that something so vital isn’t open source and open process. These tests are necessary, and now is the better time to do them, rather than the general.
Besides, the conspiracy nuts are usually the guys that rally around the guys doing their job. The kooks are just there to look concerned and important, like most armchair losers.
TheFountainHead
Caidence may be correct, the other side of that coin is that when the shit DOES hit the fan, BoA will be in a better place to plead for a bigger chunk of the government bail-out money. As far as their customers are concerned, it’s actually not a sinister move as far as I can tell, BoA is a big enough institution that it may act as a shock absorber for the fall.
Billy K
They take the hit now (when they can absorb it), maybe even get some taxpayer bailout money, then when things rebound, they are suddenly the larest mortgage lender in the Us, in addition to the largest bank.
I despise them, but BofA is actually pretty smart.
The Other Steve
I think the Countrywide news is a big big bad thing.
I work for their competitor, and I can tell you, we are fucked. Big time fucked. I’ve never seen an industry collapse like this so quickly in my lifetime. Especially not an industry that is so widely entrenched into the US economy.
Sure, CB radios and pet rocks died, but those were niches.
IanY77
Line of the day from Walcott re the Mittster and Hugh Hewitt:
I don’t visit his blog regularly, but damn me, that’s a good burn.
ThymeZone
{ voice of Hank Hill } I tell you what, that is the most beautiful Jesus I have ever seen. Even the real photos of Jesus were never that gorgeous.
/Hank
And I mean no disrespect to my yard man, either. He is a very good looking fellow.
But anyway, that photo has made me a believer. As of today, I am supporting Mike Huckabee.
The Other Steve
I think Bank of America had to buy them, because they’re already invested into Countrywide by much much more. They’re afraid if Countrywide were to go into bankruptcy, they’d default on their bonds.
That’s my suspicion.
Zifnab
Why not buy the cow if they’re going to charge you the same price for milk either way?
Wilfred
Me, too, except the anomaly is so glaring it has to be looked into.
Some years ago, my wife ran for vice-president of our university in a very contested election. Her ticket won over 65% of the student vote but the election came down to professors. We voted at two computer terminals, touch screen voting. The faculty was divided A-L and M-Z, evenly, with about 325 professors in each. The first terminal divided 162-160.
The second computer terminal broke after 8 people voted. During the time it was being repaired, many people voted by hand. In the final tally, the hand counted votes broke as evenly as the first terminal. Our ticket lost the (repaired) computer terminal by 120 -62. When the vote was analyzed, it ‘showed’ that the first 8 votes were either null, or blank, i.e. no choice or a protest vote, meaning that the first 8 people, who voted at 6am, woke up early to cast protest votes. All hand ballots broke evenly.
The head of the mathematics department told me that the statistical probability of all those events was less than that of being hit and killed by a meteorite particle.
Have a recount.
Dreggas
Let’s put it this way. Countrywide serviced the largest chunk of big shit pile’s loans. They were bailed out by BofA not long ago and BofA lost a LARGE amount of money on that deal.
Good thing I remember all those skills I learned about living off the land. Fun times, fun times.
Punchy
There’s ancillary bennys down the road. Whether it’s govt handouts, or easy writeoffs, or sumpin. No company does this just to “take a bullet” for the rest.
Hell, AT&T unplugged Johnny Snoopalot simply b/c he forgot to forward his new addy. Companies are all about profit. Somehow, in some way, BoA profits big time from this scoop.
myiq2xu
Are y’all calling Jeebus an asshole? And who in the hell takes a picture like that?
“Look Marge, Fluffy’s brown-eye looks just like the image of Jeebus. Let’s take a picture and post it on the web!”
Grumpy Code Monkey
Which is why I’m halfway convinced the Republicans are taking a dive this time around.
myiq2xu
John sure stirred up the Obamaniacs yesterday with that unity pony post.
I ain’t buying in to that OMN craze, I’m less inclined to vote for him now than I was before.
Maybe if Obama girl showed up at my house . . .
4tehlulz
Considering what happened the last time things seemed this hairy *cough*’29*cough* and they were in charge, that may not be a bad thing.
Krista
As anybody who’s ever had a dog or cat can attest, they have a rather unnerving tendency to often plant their butts right at eye level with you. It could just be that the owners noticed the funny shading that made his bum look like Jesus, they laughed hysterically, and decided to take a picture to show some friends. And you know perfectly well that once a picture leaves your computer, goodness knows where it’ll wind up.
And no, Jesus wasn’t an asshole. Shame that so many of his followers are, though.
Ed Drone
Naahh. Modern buildings don’t have windows that will open. The stairwells, though….
Ed
Zifnab
4 more years of Republican rule would do two things.
1) More cover-ups and less accountability for the big spenders. We’d get to relive the happy-go-lucky days of Enron, when a handful of guys get crucified to appease the masses and its back to business as usual.
There are some eerie similarities between Enron’s invisible money and the AAA rated securities getting peddled by Countrywide that had nothing to back them up.
2) Bail-outs and obstruction. The “serious people” nash their teeth and wail about how vital the Finance industry is to America’s well-being. BoA, Citigroup, and the like receive giant sacks of money so they can stay in business. New and inventive means are found to squeeze blood from the stones of the Middle American who got stuck with these bad loans.
And that’s just on the Mortgage loan crisis. Sure, Republicans will be quick to plaster Dems with all the failings of the economy, any downturns in Iraq, failures in national security, taxes, the medicare crisis, or whatever the problem du-jour of the day is. They were doing that as the majority party. What’s new?
But Republicans would absolutely love another term in office for oh-so-many reasons. Under their “unitary executive” theory and after two years of Rubber Stamp Dems to replace the Rubber Stamp Republicans, who wants to take a dive when you can drill this country in the ass one more time?
Jake
And then there are those danged activist judges in Ohio…
If you can get your hands on the actual ruling (I can’t seem to dig it up right now) it is a riot. “Fuck You Douchebank,” is engraved between every line.
Jake
Oops, found it.
From the footnotes:
Punchy
Not to be too crass, but how do we know this? Just cuz the Bible says he gave bread to the poor doesn’t mean he didn’t get up in the grill and act all “Do you know who the fuck I am, little man?” to the guy making his sandles, or the used donkey salesman.
It’s possible JHC really was the Bill Gates of his time…
ThymeZone
Here’s a story that follows a recent thread about Mike Hucksterbee’s phony “challenge” to build a 100 mpg car.
(Phony because the challenge is missing specifics necessary to define the thing, and because the 100 mpg car can be built today, except that nobody would buy it. The 100 mpg car is only viable if it can be sold to the real market for cars).
Anyway, it appears that hybrid technology is advancing faster than I thought it would. The car still costs too much to build, so that fuel cost savings would take a long while to add up to the higher price tag for the car … but that seems to me to be more easily solvable than the fuel economy problem itself. I still wouldn’t buy a hybrid unless I could pay for the hybrid in 3-4 years of fuel cost savings. Some people could do that now based on the miles they drive per year, but I couldn’t do it until the price of gas hits about $5-$6 and I don’t see that happening for several years. Unless Giuliani becomes president, and then we’d have gas rationing and $10 a gallon prices.
I am comparing a Prius to a Civic (nonhybrid, the car I drive now) and guessing that the city mileage would be in the area of 45 and 25 respectively. Those numbers are SWAGS since nobody can seem to agree on what the Prius will actually do in real life.
Cyrus
Interesting indeed. I liked it. It could easily have been funnier, but I think the interviewer did a pretty good job.
So, Goldberg’s defense of his work is apparently that “fascism” really just means “authoritarianism.” Never mind the fact that there are already perfectly good words for general authoritarianism, or that no serious thinkers use “fascism” so broadly, or that it’s useful to have “fascism” as a separate word to denote a certain kind of authoritarianism, or that fascism is a loaded, emotionally charged term. Fine; Mussolini probably was roughly as
fascistauthoritarian in his socialist days as in his days when he was an actual Fascist, after he had explicitly disavowed and criticized socialism and other leftist thinking. And sure, I’d admit from the start that the Democratic Party is more authoritarian than a hypothetical moderate civil libertarian.Also, never mind that by Goldberg’s standard, we are all fascists now. (Well, that’s the name of one of the chapters, isn’t it?) He concedes that all kinds of recent Republicans have been authoritarian in various instances. It’s too bad the interviewer didn’t ask Goldberg about stuff like preemptive war and waterboarding and denial of habeas corpus, but we can’t have everything.
So Goldberg draws all kinds of connections between the American left, Nazis, and Fascists, while acknowledging that there are no similarities in any ways that matter. When he’s mocked and insulted for this, his defense is that Republicans are authoritarian sometimes, just not as much, and the valuable message of the book is that liberals are fascists too, so everyone who mocks him is being a hack. This book will probably be the dumbest thing he’s written for at least the next three months or so.
myiq2xu
The “Goldberg Principle” – You can prove any thesis to be true if you make up your own definitions of words.
ThymeZone
Jesus and Paul Allen sold BASIC to Tandy Jerusalem Radio Shack 2000 years ago? Who knew!
LiberalTarian
O gawd.
Too much beer.
TheFountainHead
I almost took the bait…damn you.
Billy K
Thank Jeebus I didn’t buy a house last year and my car loan is freshly paid off. I’m pretty well-suited right now to bunker up for a year or two. I may need a firearm and a wetsuit, though.
zzyzx
45 is the low end of what people get. It depends largely on your driving habits, weather (batteries work better in warmth), hills, and how many ubershort trips (a Prius takes extra energy in the first 5 minutes of a drive in order to reduce emissions… it’s a clean emissions car first).
I get about 52-56 mpg in the summer and 46-49 mpg in the winter.
Zifnab
If by “nobody” you mean “the people pimping the Hummer when compared to the people pimping the Prius”, then… no shit. The North Pole is on its way to becoming a giant slushie and we’ve still got people arguing about whether Global Warming is real. Its no surprise you hear “argument” about how fuel efficient the Prius really is. Not to give Toyota too much credit, but I’ll trust them over F(ound)O(n)R(oad)D(ead) and their ilk any way.
But if you want real energy efficiency, look no further than TaTa’s CityCAT, the car that runs entirely on air pressure. I think the quote was 1.5L to fill her up – so roughly $2.12 – for 125 miles. Refueling at a pump would take minutes, but even plugging it into an air compressor at home would fill the car in 4 hours. Totally amazing stuff.
And it gets crazier, because TaTa just purchased Jaguar and Land Rover. So we could start seeing air-powered cars in the US in a few years if we are lucky.
Billy K
Well, if Bill Gates can revise history so that he wrote Apple BASIC and half of the Mac’s OS and software, why the hell not?
Dreggas
Well maybe you should get the wetsuit dildo combo…jus sayin…
myiq2xu
A Microsoft hit squad is coming to reformat you. Thou hast blasphemed!
Punchy
I have no prob wit dat.
myiq2xu
Either that or the gay-hooker/crystal meth combo
ThymeZone
Exactly. Conventionally powered cars can also be driven, used and maintained across a wide mileage range (I can drive the Civic at 22 to 26 mpg just by modulating my lead foot in town. I tend to drive a little fast).
On my spreadsheet, the Prius starts to pay off for me only if I drive it a lot more than I drive now, or the price of gas goes up considerably. And I am just looking at the fuel costs. I am not figuring in the possible extra service or repair costs for this new technology, not figuring in the possible effects on resale value, which really aren’t known right now (there aren’t many old hybrids for sale on used car lots out there). And I’m not willing to be a guinea pig, incur possible higher costs, just to be a greener citizen. I take a rather hard line on this: The car has to pay for itself over conventional powertrains, or I won’t buy it. I don’t know how typical I am. No idea. I do know that I have been following rumors of a Honda Fit-like product that is a couple years out, getting in the 70-80 mpg range and staying inside the price point brackets for hybrids (say, comparable to Civic hybrid or Prius, WRT to the delta between conventional fuel and hybrid power). Would I buy an 80mpg Fit, at a price 15% higher than the standard Fit? Yes. I am almost ready to consider the 2009 Fit as a replacement for the Civic now, anyway (it’s a little bigger and better looking than the current Fit).
Jen
That was a fascinating Air Car link, Zif (I really am interested in where all this alternative fuel research is headed), but this sentence kind of put the brakes on:
When will I read about some bizarre alternative car that actually stands a Huckabee’s chance at the Preznitzy of being plausible here?
r€nato
saw We Are Marshall on HBO last night. Very, very good flick! Did I miss this, when it was in the theaters? I don’t recall seeing it come out. Anyway, go catch it on HBO or Netflix if you can.
LiberalTarian
So, how’d you like to be a staffer in a Giuliani campaign? This guy can’t run a campaign and he wants to run the country??? Gag.
Billy K
How much of a difference is there in city vs. highway driving, though? I drive about 50-60 miles/day, but 75% of it is stop n’ go. I’ve heard the hybrids aren’t much better than a well-engineered 4 cylinder under these conditions.
zzyzx
Well I don’t feel like a guinea pig to be honest. The car has a bunch of other fun features (keyless unlocking and driving, rear view camera) that are pretty damn cool. It was between this and an Outback for my car and the Prius was maybe $200 more but it had twice the mileage.
…oh the $3150 tax credit that used to exist didn’t hurt either :)
ThymeZone
911 911 911 911 911, 911 911 911 911 911 911 911.
911 Hillary Hillary Hillary 911?
911.
911 911 911!
ThymeZone
Now you’re talking my language! I can be bought. I ain’t proud.
zzyzx
“I drive about 50-60 miles/day, but 75% of it is stop n’ go. I’ve heard the hybrids aren’t much better than a well-engineered 4 cylinder under these conditions.”
It depends on how you drive. If you let yourself coast to red lights (and therefore charge up the batteries) rather than rushing to the light and then slamming on the brakes, you can easily get mid to upper 50s.
It’s fun being stuck in a traffic jam with a full battery and watching your mileage go UP.
ThymeZone
Alas, the Phoenix Factor. Around here, a/c is six months of the year or more.
Stuck in traffic means the gas motor has to kick in to run the a/c. That will degrade mileage I’m sure. The heat here is good for about 10-15% of fuel costs, May through September. This is a climate where you can expect to run your a/c on St. Patrick’s Day or Thanksgiving day some years.
Solar-electric roof panels would power the a/c but those are costly too, I think.
Billy K
Same here (Dallas)*. I’m thinking my next car will be a Hybrid, but I’m not about to rush out and get one. I think 2-5 years it’ll be more than obvious.
(AC was on through Thanksgiving here, then turned it back on last week!)
myiq2xu
But can you outrun the cops in one?
ThymeZone
Oh sure, they drive those ugly General Motors tankmobiles.
Unless you are talking motor cops. Here, they ride Moto Guzzis.
Punchy
Cant wait to see how the mortgage or car loan gets paid off in coupons that say “I work for Guliani, beeyotch!” instead of a wad of real cash.
It’s been my experience that people don’t usually voluntarily miss more than 1 paycheck. Guliani is 2 weeks from dropping out minus hitting the lottery.
ThymeZone
What a damn shame! That crooked dictatorial sociopath was my first choice for the GOP. I was looking forward to crushing him like a beer can in November.
Oh well.
myiq2xu
It seems like Rudy has ridden that 9/11 pony just about as far as it can go.
Xenos
Suicidal financial services professionals, in my limited experience, tend to prefer dying by way of single vehicle accidents. One broker I know of who lost his clients’ money on naked shorts managed to survive intentionally crashing his car… a few weeks later he just wandered off into the woods to die from exposure.
Vanity leading to recklessness leading to humiliation leaduing to a lonely suicide. It is like the entire country following the Reagan revolution on a micro scale.
Jake
Without any snark at all, I really am surprised.
Surely a man with that many criminal connections ought to be rolling in the scratch. (Still no snark.)
myiq2xu
You don’t expect him to spend his own money, do you?
Robert Johnston
Even criminals expect more for their money than a batshit insane cousin fucker who can’t go more than 30 seconds without making a complete ass of himself through 9/11-Tourette’s or some comparable display of totally unjustified sociopathic egomania. Rudy may have criminal connections, but most successful criminals are far more rational and less sociopathic than Rudy.
Zifnab
Ask Al Gore’s son.
bernarda
You sometimes write about sports. Well, some wanker judge has sentenced Marion Jones to jail time. How stupid is that?
Is Jones a danger to the community? Get real. This is another sign of the reactionary repression which is growing all around the country.
The lesson is, don’t ever say anything to the police.
The Other Steve
Applesoft BASIC came from Microsoft. No history revision there.
The Other Steve
She’d have been better off embezzling millions of dollars from Enron stock holders.
HyperIon
well, don’t lie to them, anyway.
PeterJ
Giuliani’s top staffers are asked to work without pay.
That made me think about this.
Hopefully the campaign still have enough money for Giuliani’s posh suites and charter jets…
Also, from the story:
That guy can’t be happy now…
Jake
I’m so stealing this.
jcricket
BofA did pick up CFC for a pittance – $4 billion, plus a $2 billion “investment” back in the summer, giving BofA gets a huge new set of customers. Of course one might wonder if Countrywide was too big to fail, what BofA will be, with 10% of all consumer deposits, 1/10th of all mortgages, etc. I shudder to think about the next financial crisis and what kind of tab the government (read: you and me) will be left holding.
I expect to see lots of cash-rich companies, in all industries, snapping up the weaker players for pennies on the dollar. For example I expect nearly all the Web 2.0 startups to be picked up not at YouTube like $billions, but at levels that just maybe cover the initial investment (or not).
It’s gonna be a bumpy ride for a couple of years. Glad I have a job at a stable, diversified employer with good cash reserves (coupled with a good emergency fund, large unused HELOC and a 2nd income through my wife).
PeterJ
I’m so stealing this.
When you do, please think of the striking writers of The Daily Show. (Unless someone know of anyone else using that one before them…)
Ryan S.
Prolly not safe for work, but I mean like wow…….
Robert Johnston
I’d say feel free, but as far as I know PeterJ is right about where the first credited use goes, although I’d not be surprised if an example of someone else coming up independently with the same phrase before the Daily Show did can be dug up.