A LITTLE SILLY IN RETROSPECT. It’ll seem sillier still if gas prices actually get that high.
Archive for 2009
April 23, 2009
BOB KERREY held hostage at the New School.
HMM. Here’s Andrew Cuomo’s letter on shareholders being kept in the dark during the Bank of America / Merrill Lynch merger. (Via Securities Law Prof).
UPDATE: Related: Obama demands ‘clarity and transparency’ on credit.
ANOTHER UPDATE: A New York reader emails:
Govt demanding shareholders be kept in the dark . . .was a hot topic at a *parents* meeting at my daughter’s school tonight. Moms who are, well, moms, were talking about how the crowd in Washington “is a bunch of damn socialists”. It ain’t just the finance crowd.
Interesting. There seem to be a lot of upset moms out there.
MORE: Reader Fernando Colina writes:
Upset moms are a formidable force. Salvador Allende’s government was essentially brought down by a bunch of upset mums banging pots and pans every night in the streets of Santiago. Obama may want to take notice.
I doubt he will.
STILL MORE: Various readers suggest that Colina is confusing the Allende overthrow with the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina. Jose Guardia emails: “I believe your reader is confusing Chile with Argentina where a government was brought down by banging. Could be Menem’s government, but I’m not sure.” I think that’s right about the Argentina bit, but I don’t think it was Menem, and I should have noticed last night, but it was late and I was tired. Sorry!
WHY DIDN’T THEY HAVE TOYS LIKE THIS when I was a kid?
FRANK J. FLEMING: Did We Elect Borat President? “All of these goofy gaffes by the president prove that he’s really Sacha Baron Cohen and we’re all in his next movie.” It would explain a lot. . . .
JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE BEACH.
UPDATE: What, is this just some kind of blogging theme? Well, okay . . .
TEST-DRIVING THE APTERA. Verdict: “It’s a real car.”
“NO REASON FOR CONCERN YET:” New Swine Flu Outbreak in U.S.
UPDATE: Reader D.M. Walker writes:
As a physician I can think of only one good explanation for the following sentence in the swine flu article.
“”Unusually, said the CDC’s Nancy Cox, the viruses all appear to carry genes from swine flu, avian flu and human flu viruses from North America, Europe and Asia. “We haven’t seen this strain before, but we hadn’t been looking as intensively as we have,” Schuchat said. “It’s very possible that this is something new that hasn’t been happening before.”””
That is: that this virus was manufactured in a lab and released into the general public. How else does one get genes from 3 Continents and birds, pigs and humans.. All at once? Combined in the same virus? Notice it is coming along the southern border with “Mexico”?? And who has a presence in Mexico?
Just saying? Find me a more logical explanation..?
Well, possibly. But there are more things in heaven and earth . . . ..
More here.
OUCH: Is The Government Acting Like a Payday Lender? “Banks want to pay back their bailout loans early, but Treasury doesn’t want to let them go.”
THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Obama Earth Day Flights Burned More Than 9,000 Gallons Of Fuel.
If only he could be as earth-friendly as Stephen Green. “At that rate, it would take me more than 12 years to consume as much gas as the President did yesterday. By the time I’ve caught up, my three-year-old will have his learner’s permit.”
HEH: Executive bonuses at the New York Times: Schadenfreude is me. “Have you ever watched a war and wanted both sides to lose? Well, if you have you can imagine my delight in the Huffington Post’s hectoring of the New York Times Company for paying excessive executive bonuses while it is beating up on its unions for wage and rules concessions. Normally, my view is that executives should earn big bonuses by squeezing concessions out of unions — after all, that’s what the stockholders want the management tools to do — but since the editors of the Times and its affiliated newspapers would denounce that idea as evil I support the suits in this case with something less than my usual ardor.”
MOE LANE: “I’m a subscriber to revival.”
THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Larry Summers Falls Asleep During Obama Meeting.
TRUST THE GOVERNMENT WITH YOUR PRIVATE INFORMATION. What could go wrong? Botnet ‘ensnares government PCs’. “Almost two million PCs globally, including machines inside UK and US government departments, have been taken over by malicious hackers.”
AH, FOR THE OLD DAYS, when you could travel to remote and exotic locations and write about the doings of their quaint tribesmen, without worrying that the tribesmen might sue you for libel.
WHY I.S.P.s are metering bandwidth. “A report out today from Nielsen shows why Internet Service Providers and telecommunications equipment vendors are increasingly demonizing video. It consumes a lot of bandwidth, and could compete with an ISP’s existing video businesses, but the worst part is that it’s rapidly becoming more popular to the average consumer.” Well, if they’d get broadband infrastructure up to speed, it would be a smaller problem.
A FROZEN Baby Mammoth.
IN THE MAIL: From John Earl Haynes, Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America.
RANDY BARNETT: The Case For a Federalism Amendment: An intriguing proposal that — like all of Barnett’s stuff — is well worth your time.
LOWBALLING the deficits.
CALLS FOR JANET NAPOLITANO to resign.
BOB OWENS: Is That An Anti-Aircraft Gun in Your Pocket? “Mexican authorities misrepresent the weapons they are confiscating from drug cartels.”
VIRGINIA DEMOCRATS clash over cash. “During their first official debate earlier this week, Deeds, Moran and McAuliffe saved their most pointed words for each other’s fundraising techniques. Deeds went on the offensive, attacking Moran for accepting ‘tainted’ money from defense contractors with business before his brother — U.S. Rep. Jim Moran, D-Alexandria, who has powerful sway over federal military spending.”