It's a great sport that builds athleticism, team building, etc but the NFL sure seems to have not been that great in the last "x" number of years for me.
Finally, as football was intended. I'm starting a fantasy football league too.
What a timely idea.
Heard her again on Fresh Air.
At Wikipedia:
Karen Armstrong MRSL (born 14 November 1944 in Wildmoor, Worcestershire) is a British author of numerous works on comparative religion, who first rose to prominence with her highly successful A History of God. A former Catholic nun, she asserts that "All the great traditions are saying the same thing in much the same way, despite their surface differences." They each have in common, she says, an emphasis upon the overriding importance of compassion, as expressed by way of the Golden Rule: Do not do to others what you would not have done to you.
Bids start at $26,001.
Proceeds donated to one laptop per child.
Mission Statement: To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.At eBay.
From Forbes, not from The Onion:
...has argued that it doesn't need to pay the Treasury back because it was simply an oral agreement.Gimmie a B. Gimmie a O. Gimmie a Y. Gimmie a C...
Things looked differently nine months ago.
During the company's fourth-quarter conference call, which was held on Jan. 16, Chief Executive Ken Lewis announced BofA received a federal guarantee for $118 billion of toxic assets, most of which were accrued in its acquisition of Merrill Lynch, in addition to the $20 billion it received to complete the deal. (See "Ken Lewis Is Getting Lonely.") Lewis said the guarantee was worth $4 billion and that it was essentially insurance protection.
Join Change-Congress.org and drive special interests out:
Here at Change Congress, we believe that politicians should work for the people, not special interests. But it’s not enough to push politicians to stay out of the system of corruption—we have to reform the system itself. That’s why we support a hybrid of small-dollar donations and public financing, to keep big money out of politics.There is a bill in congress being pushed by Change-Congress.org that has 85 sponsors to give the country back to the people by changing campaign finance law.
NINA TOTENBERG: At issue in the case is whether the century-old ban on corporate spending in candidate election violates the constitution and whether the court should reverse decades of its own decisions that explicitly or implicitly have upheld the ban on corporate and union spending.
Yesterday, there appeared to be five conservative justices on the verge of saying the ban is unconstitutional. If so, that would dramatically change campaign finance law as practiced since 1907 when Congress, for all practical purposes, first outlawed corporate spending in candidate elections.
But Robert Pickel, the ISDA’s CEO, told members of the House Agriculture Committee yesterday, “Not all standardized contracts can be cleared.” Pickel said that derivatives contracts that are infrequently traded, even if they have standardized economic terms, “are difficult if not impossible to clear” because a central counterparty clearing facility’s ability to clear a contract depend on such factors as liquidity, trading volume and daily pricing. This “makes it difficult for a clearinghouse to calculate collateral requirements consistent with prudent risk management,” Pickel said.I have a business proposition for you.
“End-users are not systemically significant and regulations intended to improve stability and decrease systemic risk should not apply to them.” Jonathan Short, senior vice president and general counsel of the IntercontinentalExchange Inc., also said Congress should focus regulation on the segments of the market where risk is greatest. “Mandating that interdealer and major swap participant trades be cleared would eliminate the bilateral counterparty risk that was central to the liquidity crisis that occurred last year,” he said. Pickel also argued against mandatory exchange trading of OTC derivatives, warning it “would undercut their very purpose: the ability to tailor custom risk-management solutions to meet the needs of end-users.” Dan Budofsky, a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, who testified on behalf of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, agreed that “it may be more appropriate for products that trade less frequently to trade over-the-counter.”
Witnesses also challenged the Treasury’s plan to impose capital requirements on cleared swap transactions. This would require the end-user businesses to post collateral for the swaps, Budofsky said. Collateral requirements for corporate end-users “would create a significant disincentive to use swaps to manage risk,” he said.
Apparently only ious.
From CalculatedRisk.com:
According to the Fed, household net worth is now off $12.2 Trillion from the peak in 2007.That's not even the "downside". The "downside" is:
After a bubble, the value of assets decline, but most of the debt remains.As a percentage, from NYTimes.com:
...household net worth remains about 19 percent below its peak in the third quarter of 2007, before the recession began.
According to David Frum.
David Frum was a speechwriter for President George W. Bush and is a resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. More about him at Wikipedia.
From Marketplace where you can also hear his commentary:
And:In terms of income growth and poverty reduction, Bush performed worse than any two-term president of the modern era. Even in the best year of his presidency, 2007, the typical American household still earned less after inflation than in the year 2000. The next year, 2008, American households suffered the worst income drop since record-keeping began six decades ago.
In my Republican party, there is worryingly little discussion of this damning trend. We do criticize ourselves for over-spending in office. But economic management gets much less, almost zero, internal discussion.
The more plausible culprit is the surge in health care costs. Over the years from 2000 to 2007, the price employers paid for labor rose handsomely: on average, 25 percent. Yet for the typical worker, none of that extra cost translated into higher wages.In other words, we've wasted far too much time in fixing health care in America. It needs fixed now and it's dangerously foolish to waste time making up crap about why we shouldn't fix it, vs. having intelligent discussions on how to fix it.
According to a survey published at The New England Journal of Medicine:
Overall, a majority of physicians (62.9%) supported public and private options (see Panel A of graph). Only 27.3% supported offering private options only. Respondents — across all demographic subgroups, specialties, practice locations, and practice types — showed majority support (>57.4%) for the inclusion of a public option (see Table 1). Primary care providers were the most likely to support a public option (65.2%); among the other specialty groups, the “other” physicians — those in fields that generally have less regular direct contact with patients, such as radiology, anesthesiology, and nuclear medicine — were the least likely to support a public option, though 57.4% did so. Physicians in every census region showed majority support for a public option, with percentages in favor ranging from 58.9% in the South to 69.7% in the Northeast.Saw it first at NPR.org.
From NPR.org, an update to this story:
A Sudanese judge convicted a woman journalist on Monday for violating the public indecency law by wearing trousers outdoors and fined her $200, but did not impose a feared flogging penalty.And:
"I will not pay a penny," she told the Associated Press while still in court custody, wearing the same trousers that had sparked her arrest.
Hussein said Friday she would rather go to jail than pay any fine, out of protest of the nation's strict laws on women's dress.
"I won't pay, as a matter of principle," she said. "I would spend a month in jail. It is a chance to explore the conditions in jail."
PARK(ing) Day is an annual, one-day, global event where artists, activists, and citizens collaborate to temporarily transform metered parking spots into “PARK(ing)” spaces: temporary public parks.
Nice. Check it out:
...is a web application that lets users discover and share news articles. It combines qualities of print and the Web, with the ability to "flip" through pages online as quickly as flipping through a magazine. It also enables users to follow friends and topics, discover new content and create their own custom magazines around searches.
At reddit.com:Facebook FAIL: A misconfigured webserver has leaked notes for 16,000 accounts with privacy settings turned on. (Mine was one of them)
One would certainly hope Google would delete this info permanently.
Did you know:
Gender, ZIP code, and birth date feel anonymous, but Prof. Sweeney was able to identify Governor Weld through them for two reasons. First, each of these facts about an individual (or other kinds of facts we might not usually think of as identifying) independently narrows down the population, so much so that the combination of (gender, ZIP code, birthdate) was unique for about 87% of the U.S. population. If you live in the United States, there's an 87% chance that you don't share all three of these attributes with any other U.S. resident.And:
But research by Prof. Sweeney and other experts has demonstrated that surprisingly many facts, including those that seem quite innocuous, neutral, or "common", could potentially identify an individual. Privacy law, mainly clinging to a traditional intuitive notion of identifiability, has largely not kept up with the technical reality.Read entire Technical Analysis at EFF.org.
This should work out well.
From Wikipedia:
A life settlement generally refers to the sale of a life insurance policy by a policyowner for less than the face value of the policy to third party investors.[1] The third party investor(s) plans to profit at death of the insured by collecting more in death benefits that were paid out (e.g., the purchase price, the transactions costs, and premiums). This translates into higher profits the sooner the policy holder dies.
The product, known as a life-insurance settlement, has come under greater scrutiny following the financial crisis. In recent months, Wall Street firms have begun securitizing the products by slicing them up and selling bundled pieces to investors.This is kinda funny.
Regulators are concerned about the securitization of these products and whether those who are selling their life-insurance policies and those buying them know exactly what they are getting, according to people familiar with the matter.
Some see echoes of the residential-mortgage market, in which pieces of mortgage-backed assets became widely distributed among financial firms and few people had a good grasp of the value of the underlying mortgages.
Depending on internet speed, this page may take a few minutes to loadSimplified eh? And that's before securitization.
A federal judge threw out the Securities and Exchange Commission's proposed settlement with Bank of America over its disclosure of controversial bonuses paid to Merrill Lynch employees, in an unusual ruling that casts doubts about how the agency handles probes of major U.S. companies.From Huffingtonpost.com:
Rakoff, in his ruling, found that the settlement "suggests a rather cynical relationship between the parties: the SEC gets to claim that it is exposing wrongdoing on the part of the Bank of America in a high-profile merger, the bank's management gets to claim that they have been coerced into an onerous settlement by overzealous regulators. And all this is done at the expense, not only of the shareholders, but also of the truth."Last year Bear Sterns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Washington Mutual, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch & others were on their way to insolvency, some getting bailed out by us tax payers, others being taken over and yet others being allowed to crash and burn.
Hear The Bill, We Read...You Listen...We ALL Decide
Many voters have been questioning whether their Congressional representatives have read the entire health care reform bill, HR3200. Now, they don't have to - they can listen to it.Pretty darn cool. You can download the audio and listen to it on your MP3 player like your iPod so you stay informed and have an intelligent debate about the health care bill.
There is a government take over of health care going on. It's called sticking with the status quo. The VA. Join the Military to defend your country, and work for an organization that has a proud history. One of the benefits you get is health care. Depending on time served, even for life.
Everyone knows one of the great benefits of working for a government, whether it's a local city or town government, the Post Office, Civil Service, etc, knows it's health care. Even elected officials in a government large enough to provide health care has it.
You have a job that provides health care, great! As long as you keep the job, and as long as the business is large enough to negotiate to keep the same benefits you had years ago the same today and in the future for the same cost you're ok. If. One example of what's probably happening for most employer based plans, again, is our health care went up 30% vs. last year. It's with a Fortune 500 Company and we have no "conditions".
Lost your job and/or your health care? Good luck affording COBRA. Have a pre-exisiting condition? You'll probably be dropped if you haven't been yet thanks to existing law and reality.
Conclusion?
Unless you are very wealthy to afford your own health care, sticking with the status quo you will likely lose your job sponsored plan, or significant benefits from it in "x" number of years. If you're fortunate enough to work for a government that provides you affordable health care you are part of the secret government plan to take over health care by having everyone work for government to get health care.
It's true. A manager at Blue Ridge Mountain Sports recommended Dave Page, Cobbler to repair an old pair of Alp styled Teva's that had both blown out. They were super comfortable sandals and I missed them. Tossed in the back of the closet I stumbled on them one day hoping to revive them. Dave answered questions in email quickly & let me know when he received them & when the work was done without asking. I'm glad they're back. They're super comfortable. Thanks Dave.
That sounds like it's going in the right direction.
What's the Repo market? It's where:
An investor places its money with the custodian bank, which in turn lends it to another institution, and then assets are pledged as collateral for the loan.Repos are used to increase leverage. They also usually have incredibly short terms, like one day, or even hours. As such, they are typically viewed as "cash".
The consequences for the repo market are best highlighted by the plunge in dealers financing corporate securities. A common transaction during the boom involved investors lending out Treasuries and then using the pledged cash to borrow corporate securities. They made money on the difference between the higher rate for corporates than Treasuries. This daisy chain collapsed when investors lost faith in using corporates as collateral and the relationship between Treasuries and corporate securities changed sharply.
Standards for collateral used in repo remain much higher and traders say reforms for the repo market, which are still being discussed by dealers and the Fed, should focus on making sure that continues.The reasons you should care are you want tighter regulations on the repo market and the more intelligent use of risk so the 2008 blowup has less chance of occurring again, and to understand to some extent, how much you risk you take in thinking the stock market will "come back" like it always has. "Come back" to "where & when"?
During President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress tonight regarding health care reform, Republican Congressman Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) yelled out "lie" when the President said his health care bill would not mandate coverage for illegal immigrants.
Saw Julie & Julia yesterday. Really good flick! I'd highly recommend taking someone you know who is an amazing cook, then buying whatever ingredients they want to cook after the flick.
Meryl Streep was perfect. The rest of the cast were just really, really good.
The flick at IMDB.com.
Watch Julia Child at PBS.org.
The blog that was made into the movie.
And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.
A cool groove I made using the iPhone app GrooveMaker is, well, groovy. It's so groovy, you export your track or complete song from your iPhone/iPod, type in the http link you're given and wala, it's on the interwebs . I think. your machine.Not sure if the link for my groove works for you. Just started messing with exporting late last night. Enjoy. I think.
Lengthy, readable, excellent article by Krugman:
Unfortunately, this romanticized and sanitized vision of the economy led most economists to ignore all the things that can go wrong. They turned a blind eye to the limitations of human rationality that often lead to bubbles and busts; to the problems of institutions that run amok; to the imperfections of markets — especially financial markets — that can cause the economy’s operating system to undergo sudden, unpredictable crashes; and to the dangers created when regulators don’t believe in regulation.Short version:
I. MISTAKING BEAUTY FOR TRUTH
II. FROM SMITH TO KEYNES AND BACK
III. PANGLOSSIAN FINANCE
IV. THE TROUBLE WITH MACRO
V. NOBODY COULD HAVE PREDICTED . . .
VI. THE STIMULUS SQUABBLE
VII. FLAWS AND FRICTIONS
VIII. RE-EMBRACING KEYNES
This seems, however, like a good time to recall the words of H. L. Mencken: “There is always an easy solution to every human problem — neat, plausible and wrong.”A translation?
I'd like to think it was all of us "workers" doing what we need to do to resolve our minor, petty differences and to protect our government. That also means our government needs us to stick together, to protect the larger colony so we can continue on another day.
Hattip for the vid to kottke.org.
First, the CFPA will regulate consumer financial products across the board-using the same rules for all mortgages or for all small dollar loans, regardless of whether the mortgage or the loan is issued by a national bank, a state bank or a non-bank.A research paper is available at CreditSlips.org if you want to learn much more.
But industry executives vowed on Tuesday to fight Mr. Obama’s plan with everything they have, even though banks are still heavily dependent on many taxpayer-supported loans and loan guarantees to get through the crisis.To me, another reason banks who have been bailed out should not be allowed to lobby for anything until they pay us back. Period. If they didn't want the money with strings attached in Fall 2008, they should have been allowed to fail and sold off. If they wanted the money, there should have been plenty of strings attached to protect us, the tax payers. The previous administration blew it.
Great news on one of the causes of the financial meltdown, the rating agencies can not use the First Amendment as a defense for their, what many term, fraudulent actions.
From the Wall Street Journal:
The ruling is expected to spur more lawsuits and could apply to structured investment vehicles once valued at as much as $400 billion.Why should you care?
The most significant development, however, is the commitment by the Obama administration to affirmatively post visitor records online on an ongoing basis, bringing a historic level of transparency to the White House. CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan praised the White House, stating, “The Obama administration has proven its pledge to usher in a new era of government transparency was more than just a campaign promise.Transparency good.
Check out some pics from the Cardboard Knight Director's blog.
I got to help with the costumes, I mean armor, for the White Knight on the left, and the Ninja on the right this past Saturday. About 50 people were on the set that day. Actors, cameramen, gaffers, grips, ADs, catering, tents, port-a-lets, costume designers, etc. Huge crazy fun.
I was helping my buddy, Chris Groffman. Contact him any time you're working on a movie project. You'll be happy you did.
Check out the site for the flick, Carboard Knights.
From DOJ.gov:
As a part of today’s resolution, six whistleblowers will receive payments totaling more than $102 million from the federal share of the civil recovery.It's the first-Ever Qui Tam Whistleblower Settlement of its type. In common law, a writ of qui tam is a writ whereby a private individual who assists a prosecution can receive all or part of any penalty imposed. From Wikipedia.
The government also discovered that Pfizer offered and paid illegal compensation to health care professionals to induce them to promote and prescribe Zyvox in violation of federal kickback laws.It was the largest health care fraud settlement and the largest criminal fine of any kind ever.
Why would you see a movie with a cast like that?
It'd probably be better than staring at goats though.
Read the entire article at Wired.com:
Previously here.So why write the bill if it doesn’t give the president any more authority? I’ve heard two reasonable theories. Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic suggests that the goal may be to give power to the president on these issues at the expense of the less-open NSA and DOD. Under that theory, the bill is actually designed to keep potential channels of dissent in a crisis more open to the public, rather than less.
The second theory is that it’s just a senate jurisdictional battle.
From their website:
Chrysler Museum of Art announces free general admission to all visitors all the time starting Sept. 2.And:
The launch of the new “Free to All” policy is made possible by special gifts from a number of generous donors and foundations. Membership retention and recruitment are vital to ensure the program is sustainable.Wow! This is a terrific museum with great programs we don't spend enough time going to. Membership info.
Wall Street is suiting up for a battle to protect one of its richest fiefdoms, the $592 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market that is facing the biggest overhaul since its creation 30 years ago.And...
The five biggest derivatives dealers in the U.S. -- JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc. -- held 95 percent of the $291 trillion in notional derivatives value of the country’s 25 largest bank holding companies at the end of the first quarter, according to a report by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. More than 90 percent of those derivatives were traded over the counter, the OCC data show.Have you attended a town hall meeting about regulating derivatives? Get your legislator to have one! Don't want to deal with this, then you shouldn't be able to sleep at night if you're still contributing to your IRA/401(k).
...instead of 4 minutes texting while driving.
Watch it over at ShareShoreDriveDay.net.
On a related note, from a Republican National Committee mailer entitled "Future of American Health Care Survey", this question:
"It has been suggested that the government could use voter registration to determine a person's political affiliation, prompting fears that GOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment in a Democrat-imposed health care rationing system. Does this possibility concern you?"Read entire "push poll" mailer at The Washington Independent.
Probably the most controversial language begins in Section 201, which permits the president to "direct the national response to the cyber threat" if necessary for "the national defense and security." The White House is supposed to engage in "periodic mapping" of private networks deemed to be critical, and those companies "shall share" requested information with the federal government. ("Cyber" is defined as anything having to do with the Internet, telecommunications, computers, or computer networks.)
"The language has changed but it doesn't contain any real additional limits," EFF's Tien says. "It simply switches the more direct and obvious language they had originally to the more ambiguous (version)...The designation of what is a critical infrastructure system or network as far as I can tell has no specific process. There's no provision for any administrative process or review. That's where the problems seem to start. And then you have the amorphous powers that go along with it."
Translation: If your company is deemed "critical," a new set of regulations kick in involving who you can hire, what information you must disclose, and when the government would exercise control over your computers or network.
FINALLY!
Beginning September 1, 2009, prerecorded commercial telemarketing calls to consumers – commonly known as robocalls – will be prohibited, unless the telemarketer has obtained permission in writing from consumers who want to receive such calls, the Federal Trade Commission announced today.Read the press release at FTC.gov.
Tarantino was on Fresh Air yesterday. The interview was so interesting we went to see it last night. Wanna go? I'll see it again & again... Audio is available around 3pm est at NPR.org. Here's the transcript:
I just love movies. And I loved seeing, you know, I guess around the age of like 13 and 14 is when I started venturing out from just like, you know, the standard Hollywood movie to see a lot of these different exploitation movies or art films. You know, I guess like, say, like around my '76, where, you know, I guess the standard Hollywood movie would be "A Star Is Born," with Barbra Streisand, okay, that would be that movie.Official site for Inglorious Basterds.
First noted screenplay was titled "Captain Peachfuzz and the Anchovy Bandit," which was written in 1985.
Has stated that he would like to direct a James Bond movie at some point in his career.
When people ask me if I went to film school I tell them, 'no, I went to films.'
From Wired.com article about craigslist:
Only programmers, customer service reps, and accounting staff work at craigslist. There is no business development, no human resources, no sales. As a result, there are no meetings.Hatip to kottke.org.
Financial institutions diversify into their level of incompetence.Then they blow up?
...It is therefore particularly easy for those who work in financial institutions to make the mistake of believing that their success is the result of exceptional skill rather than good fortune. What more natural to believe than that extraordinary talent will find pots of gold under other rainbows?When you're considering diversifying your portfolio into stocks keep in mind on Tuesday, trading in 4 stocks represented 37% of the trading volume. Two of them are essentially insolvent companies too. Here's the scoop at Seeking Alpha.
From an interview at Fox w/Greta on August 25th:
Excerpts posted if you don't have time to read entire transcript.
VS: But can you sort of, you know -- you know, bring me in on the secret why the Republicans didn't do health care reform when they owned the House, the Senate and the White House? Do you have any idea?From Washington Post opinion piece from August 24th:
S: No, I don't have an idea, and I think, you know, again, it's one of those -- those flaws of the past that, you know, we tripped ourselves up on. We had a perfect opportunity even when we didn't have control of the House and Senate during the early days of the Bush -- of Bush first term to at least put in place some of the -- some of the efforts to put, you know, our imprimatur, if you will, on the health care debate.
...What I do not applaud is the way they want to go about reforming our health care system when, in fact, the parts that they want to reform and don't need it, and the parts like Medicare that do need to be addressed, they're kind of slipping off to the side because everyone knows there's no money here, Greta, in about six or seven years. And so with all this spending now, where will the money come from to deal for our seniors in about six years when there is no money for Medicare?
Furthermore, under the Democrats' plan, senior citizens will pay a steeper price and will have their treatment options reduced or rationed.So part of the goal is to drive the conversation for health care reform to:
...Many of the most significant costs of care come in the last six months of a patient's life, and every American household must consider how to treat their loved ones.
The parts like Medicare that do need to be addressed do not touch?
Continue to spend the most significant costs of care...in the last six months of a patient's life?
Wednesday Morning Launch Attempt Called OffPreviously.
Mission managers have decided to scrub Wednesday morning’s launch attempt due to a stuck valve associated with the fill and drain plumbing of the main propulsion system within the orbiter aft compartment.
At Major League Baseball dot com.
Did ya hear the one about the Mets losing from being on the wrong end of the first unassisted quadruple play?
Check out the idea at the GOP's official page.The country's largest lobbying group for seniors, AARP, said it welcomed the RNC's commitment to protect Medicare. But the group, which supports efforts to overhaul the health-care system, also dismissed the RNC statement as misleading and alarmist.
"Change by itself is anxiety producing, but as we have analyzed the various bills [before Congress], the proposed Medicare savings do not limit benefits, they do not impose rationing and they do not put the government between patients and their doctors," said John Rother, AARP's executive vice president.
From Bloomberg:
The Federal Reserve must make records about emergency lending to financial institutions public within five days because it failed to convince a judge the documents should be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.And:
Bloomberg said in the suit U.S. taxpayers need to know the risks behind the central bank’s $2 trillion in lending because the public is an “involuntary investor” in the nation’s banks.Previously at Bloomberg:
The Fed began expanding its lending programs in August 2007 with the Term Discount Window program. The central bank’s loans don’t have oversight requirements or compensation limits that Congress imposed upon the TARP.This is going to make some incredibly fascinating, & hopefully, "indictful" reading.
At the NFOIC conference in June, Bloomberg's inhouse lawyer, Charles Glasser, was a great panelist on the topic.More from Huffington Post, the docs from the lawsuit Bloomberg v. Fed.
Here's a link to the blog coverage on his panel on fiscal transparency.
Video link to fiscal transparency panel.
Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill or COLBERT is launching in a few hours! Woo Hoo! [In your best Stephen voice.]
More about C.O.L.B.E.R.T. at NASA.
Space Shuttle Missions at NASA.
Check out the Official Patch:
Seriously, it's the official patch. Check out the link about COLBERT at NASA.
Occidental College Course Catalog 2008-2009:
Seriously. Don't be stupid. Follow the above link too.
Note: It's only a 100 Level course so you probably just touch on the subject.180. STUPIDITY.
Stupidity is neither ignorance nor organicity, but rather, a corollary of knowing and an element of normalcy, the double of intelligence rather than its opposite. It is an artifact of our nature as finite beings and one of the most powerful determinants of human destiny.
I wonder if you have to get an "F" to pass this course?That could be true, but it might not be good enough in Canada:
B.C. university adds grade worse than FArticle at the Calgary Herald.
I suggested you check out Change Congress here to learn what we can do to take big lobbying out of our government. Today, in an article by Larry Flynt, he has another idea:
As Thomas Jefferson famously quipped in regard to the insurrection: "A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."Read his whole article. I hadn't planned on linking to it, but several financial blogs I read pointed it out. They are livid, as you should be too, about the Wall Street bail out with seemingly little accountability plus a lot of the jerks who helped get us in this mess are still getting their obnoxious multi-million dollar salaries to "clean it up".Perhaps it's time to consider that option once again.
I'm calling for a national strike, one designed to close the country down for a day. The intent? Real campaign-finance reform and strong restrictions on lobbying. Because nothing will change until we take corporate money out of politics. Nothing will improve until our politicians are once again answerable to their constituents, not the rich and powerful.
Let's set a date. No one goes to work. No one buys anything. And if that isn't effective -- if the politicians ignore us -- we do it again. And again. And again.
The real war is not between the left and the right. It is between the average American and the ruling class. If we come together on this single issue, everything else will resolve itself. It's time we took back our government from those who would make us their slaves.
View Press Releases from Cantel Medical Corp:
CANTEL MEDICAL CORP. (NYSE: CMN – News) announced that on August 20, 2009 it received a letter of resignation from Ms. Elizabeth McCaughey as a director of the Company. Ms. McCaughey, who had served as a director since 2005, stated that she was resigning to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest during the national debate over healthcare reform.On Wednesday, the day before she resigned, she appeared on the Daily Show and could not find her "proof" of the so called death panel crap.
Be part of the solution to help get an appropriate health care bill done. Find out where an event is near you & take part in it.
At CharlieRose.com:
A fascinating interview how Palantir is able to "spy" while adhering to their core principle of:
Putting our values to work, Palantir voluntarily developed new technologies and a rigorous framework to: protect privacy and civil liberties; empower policymakers and administrators to enforce legal, regulatory, and policy requirements; and, equally important, ensure that the implementation of all requirements is audited.More about their privacy & civil liberty policies.
Remember last fall when the world's financial system came within hours of completely melting down? Welp, the SEC has released letters it exchanged with AIG starting in spring 2008.
Check post at Footnoted.org.
Do some investigative reporting and read the letters at SEC's site.
There's some fascinating stuff in there like this.
From this link at SEC:
Question by SEC attorney, note date:
Form 10-Q for the Fiscal Quarter Ended March 31, 2008Note 4—Shareholders’ Equity and Earnings (Loss) Per Share, page 19
1. You disclose that you shortened the vesting period of outstanding awards under your share-based employee compensation plans during the first quarter of fiscal 2008. Please provide us your evaluation of the modification[.]
2. You state that your credit-based analyses estimate potential realized credit pre-tax losses of approximately $1.2 billion to approximately $2.4 billion, as compared to the $20.6 billion of unrealized market losses recognized in the fourth quarter of 2007 and first quarter of 2008. Please expand your disclosure to explain the specific factors causing the divergence between your estimates of fair value and amounts to be ultimately realized upon settlement maturity.To the uneducated, say someone like me, it appears AIG gave "x" number of employees early vesting, re: faster bonuses, at the same time they were trying to explain to the SEC why their hallucinogenic valuations of their credit default swap portfolio was $18B "off".
AIG Response:
The unrealized market valuation losses of $20.6 billion recorded on AIGFP’s super senior credit default swap portfolio represent the cumulative change in fair value of these derivatives. Consistent with the definition of fair value in the Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 157, “Fair Value Measurements” (FAS 157), the unrealized market valuation loss of $20.6 billion represents AIG’s best estimate of the amount it would need to pay to a willing, able and knowledgeable third-party to assume the obligations under AIGFP’s super senior credit default swap portfolio as of March 31, 2008.
On the other hand, AIG’s estimate of the potential pre-tax realized credit losses of approximately $1.2 billion to approximately $2.4 billion as of March 31, 2008 represents its then current estimate of the potential credit losses that it may incur if the multi-sector CDO portion of AIGFP’s super senior credit default swap portfolio and the referenced obligations acquired by AIGFP in extinguishing its obligations under the swaps are held to maturity. Credit losses represent a point-in-time estimate, using information available at that particular date, of the potential shortfall of principal and/or interest cash flows on the referenced obligations and credits underlying the portfolio that will not be recovered assuming the credit derivative portfolio and referenced obligations are held to maturity. At March 31, 2008, AIG derived its estimates of the potential pre-tax realized credit losses by applying two distinct methods, a ratings-based static stress test and a roll rate analysis.
At March 31, 2008, the estimates for the range of the potential realized credit losses were lower than the fair value of AIGFP’s super senior multi-sector CDO credit default swap portfolio, a net loss of $19.3 billion at March 31, 2008. The fair value of AIGFP’s super senior multi-sector CDO credit default swap portfolio is based upon fair value accounting principles, which rely on third-party prices for both the underlying collateral securities and the CDOs that AIGFP’s super senior credit default swaps wrap. These prices currently incorporate liquidity premiums, risk aversion elements and credit risk modeling, which in some instances may use more conservative assumptions than those used by AIG in its roll rate stress testing. Due to the ongoing disruption in the U.S. residential mortgage market and credit markets and the downgrades of RMBS and CDOs by the rating agencies,the market continues to lack transparency around the pricing of these securities. These prices are not necessarily reflective of the ultimate potential realized credit losses AIGFP could incur in the future related to the AIGFP super senior multi-sector CDO credit default swap portfolio, and AIG believes they incorporate a significant amount of market-driven risk aversion.
In conducting its risk analyses as of June 30, 2008, AIG discontinued use of the rating-based static stress test and used only the roll rate stress test because it believes that the roll rate stress test provides a more reasonable analysis methodology to illustrate potential realized credit losses than the rating-based static stress test used previously.
Read the info behind the video at Socialnomics.
Thanks to Virginia Bicycling Federation's blog for the link.
The case against Countrywide is being closely watched by pension funds, insurance companies and other investors in mortgage securities who contend that loan servicing companies that agree to change the terms of mortgages are breaching contractual obligations to owners of those loans.In other words, the derivative called a mortgage back security[MBS], which is bundled mortgages, has complicated any home owner assistance programs, balance sheets of banks & other holders of the MBS.
Investors who own mortgage securities receive interest and principal payments from borrowers over the life of the loans. When servicing companies modify those loans, investor payments are typically reduced.
“I view this as an opening salvo and a demonstration that investors do have contractual rights, even when it is politically unpopular,” said William A. Frey, one of the investors who brought the lawsuit. “This is ultimately going to be one of many legal battles over who should pay the hundreds of billions of dollars in losses on mortgages.”
It is well known, heavily documented & is considered fact that plastic litter, particularly in water like bays & oceans, kill. It kills sea life, as an example, when it's eaten, can't be digested and plugs up the animal.
There's also a pretty good argument that "waste" kills, like too much packaging as an example.
So if a local restaurant packages their mints in packaging like this:
And undoubtedly some of this packaging is washed down our storm drains which lead to a creek which flows into an inlet which flows into the Chesapeake Bay, and we're talking only a few hundred yards from creek to bay:
The question is, who is more un-patriotic?
The seafood restaurateur for over packaging their mints?
The few patrons who litter every day?
Or both?
BTW, there is cigarette butt litter on the ground, visible in the storm drains & on the streets everyday as well.
The future doesn't bring an army of robots walking down the streets shooting at humans who don't obey them. You've seen the movies & read the sci-fi.
It would be a lot easier if the robots just took our money wouldn't it? Then we'd kill each other.
Wanna help me write the movie/book? Contact me.
On a side note, from an article at Security Industry News:
The rise of high-frequency trading and speed-of-light transactions has fueled the need. Now, 70 percent of average daily trading volume in equities involves a buy or sell order from a high-frequency trader, according to research Aite Group[.]The article goes on to describe how the industry is working it's butt off to increase that & to speed up the trading which is currently measured in milliseconds.
There's even a thriving business to be had in "latency arbitrage," which focuses on fast and frequent trading.This so called "trading" is done by algorithmic software written for the most powerful hardware & stretched to squeeze out "profits" in milliseconds. Sounds like it's simply trying to squeeze out waste, but what happens when the computerized trading "breaks" and loses control?
“Through higher capital requirements and higher margin requirements for non-standardised derivatives, the legislation will encourage substantially greater use of standardised derivatives and thereby will facilitate substantial migration of OTC derivatives onto central clearing houses and exchanges,” says the Treasury.If you do not understand the high priority this legislation needs, how these contracts have been traded & what they did to the global economy & will do again; and, you have money invested "for the long term", you should worry.Paul Hamill, a director in Credit Trading at Barclays Capital, says: “Liquidity will determine how the market settles on a concept of what is a standard contract and therefore can be cleared.
President Barack Obama sent Congress his plan to rein in the $592 trillion over-the-counter derivatives industry, a measure that would cut into a profitable market for banks led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co.And:
“Operationally and legally, at least for a few years, it seems like it’s going to be complicated and costly,” he said.Obviously it'll take a couple years, even in a perfect world, to regulate something so large & complicated. Wonder what kind of an affect on stock & bond values, interest rates, etc there will be. Think you should still invest like it's 1989?
From nakedcapitalism.com post:
“The waiver was in anticipation of a need to rescue Goldman Sachs,” Ms. Davis said, “not to bail out A.I.G.”In case you didn't realize, "rescuing" AIG was not to rescue AIG, it was to rescue the planet's financial system as AIG's failure would have not only bankrupted "x" number of international companies, but would have further destroyed confidence in our ponzi scheme, I mean, confidence in our financial system.
...and if uneducated, will harm your brain.
Blog of the dentist, I mean lawyer behind the birthers:
What happened when Google visited this site?
Of the 42 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 26 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2009-08-07, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2009-08-07.
From today's Marketplace show:
The Nasdaq and the electronic exchange BATS say they'll both stop offering flash orders as of next month.Flash trades, or flash orders are computerized "looks" at the market for securities milliseconds before the "public" views them. Doesn't sound like a lot of time, but the fact ~50% of daily trading is computer generated, milliseconds gives an unfair advantage to unknown players.
According to CPR, they are:
...a non-profit organization dedicated to educating and informing the public about the principles of patients rights and, in doing so, advancing the debate over health care reform. Those principles include choice, competition, accountability and responsibility. We believe the path to effective health care reform must be based on the patient-doctor relationship and not from a top-down, big government perspective. Anything that interferes with an individual’s freedom to consult their doctor of choice to make health care decisions defeats the purpose of meaningful health care reform.CPR is run by the previous CEO of Columbia/HCA, now known as HCA and is a privately held company that is:
...the nation’s leading provider of healthcare.Scott was apparently forced out, in part, due to the 10 year DOJ investigation into fraud which the company eventually agreed to pay a $1.7B fine. That is billion:
LARGEST HEALTH CARE FRAUD CASE IN U.S. HISTORY SETTLED HCA INVESTIGATION NETS RECORD TOTAL OF $1.7 BILLION at DOJ.Surely Scott has no influence with HCA. He certainly does at CPR since he apparently runs it.
The public option will kill competition, increase health care premiums, lead to the delay and denial of needed medical care and put bureaucrats in charge of health care rather than the doctor. The public option tramples on patients' rights and puts government in charge of your health care. The public option is patient enemy number one and we must stop it.The talking point is being pushed by CPR at their website, with blog posts, tweets & Facebooking. According to them, on their own website, they are not organizing people to come out and discuss heath care at Town Hall Meetings.
Newsweek article via Daring Fire Ball:
Speaking of fair, it seems fair to me that cost-cutting bureaucrats at the insurance companies—not doctors—decide what's reimbursable. After all, the insurance companies know best.
Interesting name, flash orders. From The Wall Street Journal:
High-frequency trading, a lightning-fast, computer-based trading technique, now accounts for more than half of all stock trading in the U.S. Flash orders represent a much smaller part of the market, and are used by high-frequency and other traders....So high speed, non-human computerized trading is 50% of the daily volume, with a goal to increase flash trading. Running more orders through dark pools is growing as well.
Beyond the official scrutiny lies a tussle among exchanges for market share as high-speed trading becomes a central cog of the market.
From NYTimes.com, funny but pretty darn scary:
Attention on the issue was brought about with an outraged post on AOL’s Download Squad blog about a man who, while using a third-party app, saw an ad for a dating site that, to his surprise, was dressed up with his wife’s picture. No, she wasn’t looking for a lover. Her picture had been usurped by an ad network in the employ of a third-party application developer, which she believes was a quiz app.Originally from EFF.org newsletter.
The Problem & a plan to fix it includes you taking a pledge:
“I’m pledging not to donate to any federal candidate unless they support legislation making congressional elections citizen-funded, not special-interest funded.”
Umm, yeah.
So we had this crablike spiny orb weaver in our back yard for a day.
And then we spotted one hiking with friends in First Landing State Park yesterday. Pics didn't turn out.
And then I learned Mary really likes spiders.
And then:
Joel Shakespeare, head spider keeper at the Australian Reptile Park, said the spider was a Golden Orb Weaver.Are you sure you want to click here to read the article & view the image?
From Kottke.org, the first CG movie using fractals to generate graphics.
Vol Libre from Loren Carpenter on Vimeo.
In 1980, Boeing employee Loren Carpenter presented a film called Vol Libre at the SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference. It was the world's first film using fractals to generate the graphics.Fractals explained at Wikipedia.
A comprehensive resource of tutorials at Google Code.
There are many ways to make websites run faster.
By Maira Kalman posted at NYTimes.com. It is impossible that Ben Franklin ever slept.
From kottke.org.
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