This is my current favorite kitten video:

The Onion, July 14

WASHINGTON—A panel of top business leaders testified before Congress about the worsening recession Monday, demanding the government provide Americans with a new irresponsible and largely illusory economic bubble in which to invest.

"What America needs right now is not more talk and long-term strategy, but a concrete way to create more imaginary wealth in the very immediate future," said Thomas Jenkins, CFO of the Boston-area Jenkins Financial Group, a bubble-based investment firm. "We are in a crisis, and that crisis demands an unviable short-term solution."

Obama is defining himself via this Fisa vote. Anybody who is not on board will not be considered for VP. Kinda makes somebody like a Jim Webb, for example, a more likely choice. Who else? Hillary?

h/t Larisa Alexandrovna

The following article, Exposing Pentagon and CIA Corruption from CounterPunch is so over the top that .... Well, just read it yourself and see what you think. It purports to claim a level of graft and cynicism at the highest levels of government beyond imagination. The article comes from only a single source, SueAnn Arrigo, a "high-level CIA insider." Here are a few paragraphs.

SueAnn Arrigo offers a glimpse and at great personal risk. In August 2001, DCI George Tenet told her to assemble "a moving van full of Pentagon documents showing Defense Contractor kickbacks to Pentagon officials." She did as instructed but not to expose corruption as she learned - to conceal it and in her judgment so CIA could divert defense business to Halliburton and "Carlyle-related contractors." She stated: "The mood at the CIA and Pentagon was 'war is coming' because the Bush Family stands to make billions from it -- so get ready."

by James W. Douglass
Orbis, 2008

"As Albert Einstein said, with the unleashing of the power of the atom,
humanity reached a new age. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima marked
a crossroads: either we would end war or war would end us. In her reflections
on Hiroshima in the September 1945 issue of the Catholic Worker,
Dorothy Day wrote: “Mr. Truman was jubilant. President Truman. True
man; what a strange name, come to think of it. We refer to Jesus Christ as
true God and true Man. Truman is a true man of his time in that he was

When Barack Obama made his first appearance on the Senate floor after becoming the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party, a very significant public event took place. First, Obama took Joe Liebermann into the corner for a private conversation. The words were private but the public aspect was the fact Obama physically took Liebermann aside and backed him against the wall.

The significance of this act, in part, is that Obama has announced to the Senate, the House, and the Democratic Party that he intends to assume the mantle leadership.

Mish Shedlock commenting on this from Bloomberg. Sounds like things are getting worse as described by SPK.

Bernanke Loses Support

The seeds of this crisis were sewn by the loosey goosey policies of Greenspan for which there was never a dissent from Bernanke, or that matter anyone else (at least in public). And what started as a minor revolt has now turned into a major question of confidence regarding the anything goes policies of Bernanke. That Congress is holding up votes on Fed nominees is also not helping Bernanke any.

Auditor: Supervisors Covered Up Risky Loans

Morning Edition|May 27

Now that millions of people are facing foreclosure because they got into loans that never should have been approved, everybody's looking for someone to blame. Borrowers, or their brokers, lied on loan applications. Others got high interest rates they couldn't afford.

A big unanswered question is whether the Wall Street investment banks that were packaging these mortgages knew they were selling garbage loans to investors. A wave of litigation is starting against these firms. One former worker whose job was to catch bad loans says her supervisors covered them up.

Rolling Stone | May 29

With the help of U.S. defense contractors, China is building the prototype for a high-tech police state. It is ready for export.

In Shenzhen one night, I have dinner with a U.S. business consultant named Stephen Herrington. Before he started lecturing at Chinese business schools, teaching students concepts like brand management, Herrington was a military-intelligence officer, ascending to the rank of lieutenant colonel. What he is seeing in the Pearl River Delta, he tells me, is scaring the hell out of him — and not for what it means to China.

Over the top HILLARitY:

LA Times, March 13

Donald Rumsfeld is today a discredited and widely reviled figure. Robert Gates, Rumsfeld's successor as Defense secretary, is generally admired for manifesting qualities that Rumsfeld lacked -- a willingness to listen not least among them. Yet on one crucial point, the two see eye to eye: Both believe that the United States has no alternative but to wage a global war likely to last decades.

In the wake of 9/11, Rumsfeld wasted no time in telling Americans what to expect. "Forget about 'exit strategies,' " he said on Sept. 28, 2001, "we're looking at a sustained engagement that carries no deadlines." Speaking at West Point last month, Gates echoed his predecessor's assessment: "There are no exit strategies," he announced. Instead, Gates described a "generational campaign" entailing "many years of persistent, engaged combat all around the world."

speech(.pdf) from the Grant's Spring Investment Conference:
April 8th

A great read. Introduces a term I have not heard before: Value-at-Risk.

from The Daily Reckoning

A Reader Writes…

"…My firm and I have contacted the Merc on three different occasions with video proof that I recorded of my trading. It shows blatantly this guy crossing his orders thousands of times a day. The first person we talked to in compliance admitted that he saw something there when they reviewed the video of the trades I taped of him. He was mysteriously fired the next day…"

Only have a minute, but will write more later but…The entire S&P price action in the Futures is being controlled by one counter party. All the guys strongly hate them: their CME clearing number is 990N and they clear through Gelber trading.

Steve Inskeep interviews Phillips about his new book: Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism.

Dick Cavett's blog

Once again it is time to bid aloha to that sober team of mirthless entertainers, Petraeus & Crocker.

It’s hard to imagine where you could find another pair of such sleep-inducing performers.

I can’t look at Petraeus — his uniform ornamented like a Christmas tree with honors, medals and ribbons — without thinking of the great Mort Sahl at the peak of his brilliance. He talked about meeting General Westmoreland in the Vietnam days. Mort, in a virtuoso display of his uncanny detailed knowledge — and memory — of such things, recited the lengthy list (”Distinguished Service Medal, Croix de Guerre with Chevron, Bronze Star, Pacific Campaign” and on and on), naming each of the half-acre of decorations, medals, ornaments, campaign ribbons and other fripperies festooning the general’s sternum in gaudy display. Finishing the detailed list, Mort observed, “Very impressive!” Adding, “If you’re twelve.” ...

Everyone wants to close Guantánamo, but what will happen to the detainees?

The New Yorker | April 14

by Jeffrey Toobin

The future of the detention facility on the American naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, inspires an unusual degree of bipartisan consensus, at least in theory. All three remaining candidates for President, the Republican John McCain and the Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have called for Guantánamo to be closed. So have Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, and Robert M. Gates, the Secretary of Defense; after touring Guantánamo in January, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “I’d like to see it shut down.” At a news conference in 2006, President Bush said, “I’d like to close Guantánamo.”

Stratfor | April 8

George Friedman

The Arab-Israeli region of the Middle East is filled with rumors of war. That is about as unusual as the rising of the sun, so normally it would not be worth mentioning. But like the proverbial broken clock that is right twice a day, such rumors occasionally will be true. In this case, we don’t know that they are true, and certainly it’s not the rumors that are driving us. But other things — minor and readily explicable individually — have drawn our attention to the possibility that something is happening.

Mother Jones | April 11
by James Ridgeway

A private security company organized and managed by former Secret Service officers spied on Greenpeace and other environmental organizations from the late 1990s through at least 2000, pilfering documents from trash bins, attempting to plant undercover operatives within groups, casing offices, collecting phone records of activists, and penetrating confidential meetings. According to company documents provided to Mother Jones by a former investor in the firm, this security outfit collected confidential internal records—donor lists, detailed financial statements, the Social Security numbers of staff members, strategy memos—from these organizations and produced intelligence reports for public relations firms and major corporations involved in environmental controversies.

I need to convert to .wmv or .avi? Thanks.

Maybe they are just trying to survive. I have wondered this now for a year or so, and now after Larisa's article, my index of suspicion has gone up.

Now that the domestic surveillance is now totally cool, and we are ruled by a few people who politicize everything, wouldn't you think twice if you were opposed to the administration. Maybe you have had a visit or two from somebody in shiny metallic shades giving you some friendly advice.

Raw Story's headline reads We invaded Iraq because we were afraid they'd attack us but it is not entirely fair. This is what Ray Story's article says:

During an interview to be broadcast on 60 Minutes this Sunday, former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith was asked why the US chose to go after Saddam Hussein instead of Osama bin Laden.

CBS's Steve Kroft asked Feith, "Why was the decision made to go after him after 9/11? Because we knew even then, he didn't have anything to do with it."

Sic Semper Tyrannis 2008

"My problem with the present course of events is the ruthlessness of the propaganda campaign being successfully waged by the Bush Administration. The president has succeeded in "framing" the discussion in such a way that Maliki and his assembly of Badr Corps militias are represented as being the equivalent of George Washington suppressing the Whiskey Rebellion. The noble Maliki is portrayed as motivated by a selfless desire for "national" unity. The MSM has re-transmitted that idea without serious question.

Henry Paulson in the wake of last weeks program to extend the range of collateral securities that would be accepted to include cereal boxtops, have announced a new program to encourage banks to actually loan the money they get from the Fed. For every dollar loaned, for any purpose whatsoever, the loaning institution will be given stamps. Since the name Green Stamps is already taken, they will be called Greenspans. The original Green Stamp program required tired house wives to past their stamps into books by the thousands to get a few crumby products. The Greenspan will be redeemed at par value; one dollar per Greenspan. As far pasting the sticky stamps in the books, just get your people to do it for you.

Paulson when asked what the heck he was talking about, said this: "Look dude, we're talking about the green stuff, the lettuce, suitcases of it. You make a loan, put your stamps in the books, and come get your money. This will get the economy going. When FDR said that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself, we figured how to solve that problem. We replaced fear with good ol' greed."

When asked if this would be inflationary, Paulson said not to worry since he had boxes of "Whip Inflation Now" buttons.

UPDATE: Ole Gunderson, Chief Financial Officer of First Banks of Dead Duck, North Dakota, was highlighted as the first bank officer to "test" Greenspan Facility. When asked how it worked, he said: Well, I went in to this place and turned in my stamps, and they have me this big suitcase of money. There ya are. Time to make some more loans on shit at all. These guys are really smart, dontcha know din."