It is, I am certain, pure coincidence that when the government wanted to investigate the inter-generational effect of in-breeding, two of the three sites where here in Maine [wry smile].

Didn’t he also say that all democracies eventually become kleptocratic oligarchies? Or was that Trotsky? That part hasn’t been a laugh riot.

…And the shift to the left, however slight and imperceptible now, has begun. I’m starting to think Marx was correct: All economic systems are merely stages of the inevitable progression to some form of socialism.

Frankly, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Yeah, we gave Wells Fargo $25 Billion during the first round of TARP funding. The only way one could eff that up is if their initials spell A-I-G.

@Tommmcatt the Wet Sprocket:

I just had to share the following ’cause it’s beyond insane. We receive Fortune magazine delivered against our will to the office, but I read it anyway so that I can get inside the reality-immune, narcissistic cesspool that passes for Wall Street’s mindless financial acumen these days. In the current issue (April 13th), there’s an article (“The Impostor” page 59) that contains passages that are simply astonishing in their newly found accuracy. I had to read it three times and check the cover to make sure that Alternet hadn’t started publishing a weekly. To wit:

The biggest fraud of 2008 was metaphorical: the nation’s
economy itself, which had been built upon house-of-cards financial products. The most tragic fraud of the year was Bernie Madoff’s decades-long Ponzi scheme, which gulled charities, widows and orphans out of tens of billions of dollars while whistleblowers blew themselves hoarse before deaf and dumb regulators.

I can only imagine the reaction of the Free Market Supremacists: Thanks for the update, Herr Marx; will Chairman Mao be editing the next issue? It reminds me of that delicious Barbara Ehrenreich quote about how capitalism has decided to celebrate the 160th anniversary of the publication of The Communist Manifesto by dropping dead.

I never in a million years thought I’d be reading a POV like that in Fortune. Hell, it could have been lifted verbatim from my comments.

Sure we did! 25 billion. Don’t you remember the Vegas Vacation kerfluffle?

We’re seeing the first trickle of stimulus effect all around…Wall Street is up right now (at least at 7:28 pst), due in part to the fact that Wells-Fargo is reporting that it will beat its’ first quarter earnings projections by almost 2-to-1 (which means that the government will get some of the money they put up to save them back, by the way). State initial claims for jobless benefits dropped by about 20,000, although unemployment is still crazy high.

Too early for much enthusiasm, but still, go Barry!!!!!

I immediately thought “hyperthyroidism”, because of the bug eyes, but the pupil dilation is the really creepy part.

Is this why I don’t get all hot and bothered by most fashion models?

In college, I took this Human Sexuality course, and they said there that a “disproportionate” amount of Female Models have a condition called “Pseudohermaphrodism”, in which, while biologically male, they are not responsive to the testosterone their bodies give off and therefore do not develop the peen in the womb- what they have instead is a vagina with no uterus and undescended testicles. This condition is detected at puberty when they don’t have their first period or develop breasts. The genes that cause this condition tend to make you very tall, and very thin…hence the modeling.

I found that interesting.