Furious Indifference.

Bye, bye Money... sniff. Now, I would love to deflect the seriousness of the economic troubles we've seen so far and what seems to be coming "down the pike," with sarcasm. Would that it'd work to stave off the jittery nervousness... Today was a bad day at the international, craps table . Even relatively calm, staid even, investors are getting a wee bit dodgy. I'm not liking the looks of this slow-motion train wreck one little bit. I had to liquidate my paltry 401(k) a few years ago, so I don't have much dough on the table. Though, I can just imagine how painful it must be for others who were contemplating retirement in the next few years... it's almost as if the timing is just too coincidental to be, well, simply coincidental . To see your portfolio value drop by double digit percentage points every quarter must be at minimum, disconcerting... There are a dozen or so "baby boomers," in my office that seriously were plotting retirement in the nex

Don't get me wrong, I sort of like George Will, but DA'AM!!, could you just throw an easier and more stupid underhanded softball across the plate of a Nobel Prize-winning economist, who along with very few economists (on both sides of the political isle) predicted the current credit market/economic meltdown? Are you intentionally throwing the game, pulling a 'black-sox,' George? I guess that would be charitable. Did you toss him that meatball because you're slipping or is there something you know, or are hearing things among the DC cocktail party set about which you aren't telling? Are you so rattled, that you prattled on with "Free-Market" talking points with your pants tightly wrapped around your ankles instead of actually engaging Dr. Krugman in a sentient conversation? I mean, I know George is one of the "kool kids," in DC, and probably hasn't been challenged seriously since I was a zygote, but jeesh, you have to wonder if their is so

Yahoo News awards senators to Toyota, BMW Cynics have long linked senators with the major companies in the states they serve -- or simply have said Washington was in the pockets of big corporations.Vice President-Elect Joe Biden , for example, was tagged with the label D- MBNA , after the credit card company, for his support for a recent bill making it harder for consumers to declare bankruptcy. Delaware is home to MBNA and other major credit card issuers. But never in recent memory have news organizations labeled senators as being representatives of those companies outright.Until today.... Yahoo News today listed two United States senators as proxies for the major auto manufacturers BMW and Toyota. The senators in question are Sen. Jim DeMint(R-SC) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).Their headline? "Toyota, BMW senators oppose auto rescue." I'm so sure these two really are simply being 'principled conservatives,' um, yeah. To object to a $25 billion loan to auto ma

I mentioned in an earlier post about getting high and watching stupid 80's movies while in college. Continuing that theme, and the reminiscences and fondness and reappearance of simpler times when deep thoughts were cheaply derived and spent. I was reminded of an album called Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield that famously incorporated what is popularly known as the "Exorcist's Theme," in a way that made getting high, and driving to the beach with life-long friends all the more surreal and super-cool! And yet, Tubular bells is so much more for me... at least. The entire album was a spectacular masterpiece of paced hypnotic, slow-motion crescendo, and back when you had to get up and flip over the vinyl and very easily damaged (i.e., scratched) disk and drop the synthetic diamond-electrode attached tip of your turntable's arm into a microscopic valley of millions of undulating bumps and smooth troughs like so many tiny luge runs, that were inversely pressed their by t

Fuck Michigan, They Don't Vote For Us Anyway h/t - Atrios I'm not especially surprised that the Republican senators oppose a Big Auto bailout, though I am a bit surprised at the harshness of the rhetoric. WASHINGTON — Top Republican senators said Sunday they will oppose a Democratic plan to bail out Detroit automakers, calling the U.S. industry a “dinosaur” whose “day of reckoning” is coming. Their opposition raises serious doubts about whether the plan will pass in this week’s postelection session. Democratic leaders want to use $25 billion of the $700 billion financial industry bailout to help General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler. -------------------------------------------------------------- My take is that the Republicans are half right, GM is a freaking Dinosaur alright, so are a lot of other industries around the world, but most, unlike US industries, don't have to factor in the cost of health care for employees ( until they turn 65, when Medicare kicks in. Whi

The duality of sexual ideation and the biological function of female breasts first occurred to me, in a seriously conscious way that is, over 20 years ago while I was getting stoned with a college friend (Hi Rick!) We were watching a juvenile movie ( Party Animal ) that had a scene panning left to right across a long line of breasts filmed from the neck down. I was struck profoundly by the surreal nature of it, like watching a documentary on mammary glands and breast milk production rather than the intended sexually provocative scene. That said, cleavage arouses me, as I'm a heterosexual male; but, I'm not so obtuse I fail to understand complaints that when guys objectify breasts in a way that separates them from the human they are attached to, it pisses women off. And rightly so. Salma Hayek is beautiful and sexually attractive. No kidding. She has large breasts, and apparently the larger the breasts, th e broader the license to make fun, debase, and, or sexualize the