1/ It's an indication of the toxic political dialogue in this country that the only thing Republicans have as a jobs program is "drill baby drill".....and Paul Krugman looks at this claim and as usual demolishes it with logic and facts.....
To be a modern Republican in good standing, you have to believe — or pretend to believe — in two miracle cures for whatever ails the economy: more tax cuts for the rich and more drilling for oil. And with prices at the pump on the rise, so is the chant of “Drill, baby, drill.” More and more, Republicans are telling us that gasoline would be cheap and jobs plentiful if only we would stop protecting the environment and let energy companies do whatever they want.
Thus Mitt Romney claims that gasoline prices are high not because of saber-rattling over Iran, but because President Obama won’t allow unrestricted drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Meanwhile, Stephen Moore of The Wall Street Journal tells readers that America as a whole could have a jobs boom, just like North Dakota, if only the environmentalists would get out of the way.
The irony here is that these claims come just as events are confirming what everyone who did the math already knew, namely, that U.S. energy policy has very little effect either on oil prices or on overall U.S. employment. For the truth is that we’re already having a hydrocarbon boom, with U.S. oil and gas production rising and U.S. fuel imports dropping. If there were any truth to drill-here-drill-now, this boom should have yielded substantially lower gasoline prices and lots of new jobs. Predictably, however, it has done neither.
2/ Believe it or not this is a British ad timed for St. Patrick's Day, and a subtle and amusing video indeed. I don't think border collies are used like this very often..... great fun and an amusing 2 minutes.....
3/ Haven't heard much about Goldman Sachs recently, so one might think they have mended their ways or changed their corporate culture after the "vampire squid" publicity they had last year.
Naaaaaa.....
This is an op-ed in the Times from a senior executive who just resigned from the firm in disgust at the moral bankruptcy of Goldman Sachs. This has shaken Wall Street, because here is an insider telling it like it is........
Hmmm.....don't we all want to quit like this and tell the bastards where to go? Absolutely, and mid-March is the time to do it, just after you get your yearly bonus......
TODAY is my last day at Goldman Sachs. After almost 12 years at the firm — first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York for 10 years, and now in London — I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.
To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money. Goldman Sachs is one of the world’s largest and most important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.
It might sound surprising to a skeptical public, but culture was always a vital part of Goldman Sachs’s success. It revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients. The culture was the secret sauce that made this place great and allowed us to earn our clients’ trust for 143 years. It wasn’t just about making money; this alone will not sustain a firm for so long. It had something to do with pride and belief in the organization. I am sad to say that I look around today and see virtually no trace of the culture that made me love working for this firm for many years. I no longer have the pride, or the belief.
4/ And coincidentally this piece from Matt Taibbi about a Goldman Sachs new hire appeared a few days ago......so timely......
Remember the story about the Wall Street guy who rented out all 94 rooms of an Aspen hotel for three days for his daughter's Bat Mitzvah?
The main character in that tale was an individual named Jeffrey Verschleiser, a former Bear Stearns executive who was instrumental in helping blow up that venerable firm. Verschleiser among other things was reportedly involved with an elaborate Wall Street version of a merchandise return scam, only instead of taking the proceeds from returned TVs and stereos, his unit was pocketing the cash from crap mortgages sold back to banks on behalf of investors.
Verschleiser also made a bundle burning Bear's bond insurers, whom he bet against after inducing them to insure his crappy mortgage bonds, nicknamed "Sack of Shit" bonds by one of the funny dudes in his department. Verschleiser reportedly bragged that he made $55 million shorting his own bond insurers in the space of three weeks. Those interested in the whole sorry story should check out reporter Teri Buhl's excellent Atlantic magazine piece entitled, "E-mails Suggest Bear Stearns Cheated Clients Out of Billions."
After Verschleiser decided to monopolize the elegant Hotel Jerome in Aspen for his daughter's Bat Mitzvah, news reports about his identity leaked out, and the event spurred some local controversy in Aspen and plenty of inflamed commentary around the interwebs. But it seems that the negative press has not hurt Verschleiser's career. This is from Bloomberg today:
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), the fifth-biggest U.S. bank by assets, named Justin Gmelich global head of credit trading as part of management changes in the wake of high-level departures.Jeffrey L. Verschleiser will become global head of mortgage trading, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg News. Gmelich and Verschleiser fill roles that were held by Donald R. Mullen until his departure earlier this year. Michael DuVally, a spokesman for the New York-based firm, confirmed the memo’s contents.
I'm sometimes asked if I've noticed any change in Goldman Sachs since the financial crash of 2008. I'd suggest that anyone who would ask that question simply check out this news item. It's not merely that Verschleiser appears to be a titanically entitled asshole of the Let-Them-Eat-Cake variety; it's also that this is a guy who was personally named in a number of major lawsuitsinvolving exactly the sorts of tawdry behaviors that caused the crash -- like knowingly dumping "sack of shit" mortgages on the market, or betting against your own clients after sticking them with millions' worth of defective products.
So this guy, who made the news both for his professional unscrupulousness and for his personal assholedom, is the guy that Goldman picks to head its global mortgage operation.
http://www.rollingstone.com/5/ We will leave the final word on this to the comic writer Andy Borowitz, who nails this one......you have to read the last paragraph......
MARCH 14, 2012A Response from Goldman SachsFrom Chairman Lloyd Blankfein
NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) – The following letter to Goldman Sachs’ worldwide clients was issued today by Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein: Dear Goldman Client: By now, many of you have probably read the regrettable resignation letter published in today’s New York Times by former Goldman executive Greg Smith, explaining why he is leaving the firm after twelve years. In the letter, in which he excoriates Goldman and his practices, Mr. Smith comes across as a man of conscience, ideals, and high moral standards. And as you read his words, you no doubt asked yourself this troubling question: how could Goldman have hired such a person? At Goldman, we pride ourselves on our ability to scour the world’s universities and business schools for the finest sociopaths money will buy. Once in our internship program, these youths are subjected to rigorous evaluations to root out even the slightest evidence of a soul. But, as the case of Mr. Smith shows, even the most time-tested system for detecting shreds of humanity can blow a gasket now and then. For that, we can only offer you our deepest apology and the reassurance that one good apple won’t spoil the whole bunch. As to those of you who were serviced by Mr. Smith, it’s understandable that you would be concerned about who will be taking his place going forward. On that front, I have some exciting news: today, Goldman is pleased to announce that our new executive director and head of the United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa will be Mr. Joseph Kony. For those unfamiliar with Mr. Kony’s resume, let me assure you that he has the character and moral standards you have come to expect from Goldman, and like the rest of us here at the bank, he has dedicated his life to doing the Lord’s work. Sincerely, Lloyd Blankfein CEO, Goldman Sachs |
6/ Last week it was the incredible Cartier commercial, this week it's Absolut Vodka with something completely different.......mechanical greyhounds racing across a desert watched by some very strange people, maybe extras from "Mad Max".....
Three minutes of something you haven't seen before.......and very, very cool......
Music remix from Swedish House Mafia......
7/ Had to put this in because of the title of the article in the LA Times -
"GOP - Old, White and in Trouble".........and the story is quite good as well......
The Republican presidential primary campaign so far hasn’t produced a nominee, but it has had one clear outcome -- worsening the GOP’s image among the young, the better-educated and the non-white.
That finding, from the Pew Research Center survey released Wednesday, could be a serious handicap for the party in elections this fall and in years to come, said Pew’s director, Andrew Kohut.
"The Republicans really are the party of white people, and especially older white people," Kohut told reporters as the poll was released. "They’ve done nothing in this campaign to make themselves be more favorably viewed" among other parts of the electorate.
8/ Paramore with "Decode", a track from the soundtrack of the movie "Twilight - Breaking Dawn". Set in a gloomy forest, with cuts from the movie along with shots of the band......
Looks pretty tame for a vampire movie.....
9/ Rachael Maddow on abortion and the Doonesbury comic strip, and how Texas Governor Rick Perry has the nastiest law in the country in place for women needing an abortion.....an insightful 8 minutes.....
What an evil, slimy bastard Perry is......
10/ Here is the Doonesbury strip that has become controversial........click "next" and "previous" to see them in sequence, starting March 12th.......wonderful social commentary about the horrible state of Texas' new abortion law affecting women.....
Note the Orlando Sentinel is not carrying this strip as it's 'too controversial" for their redneck readership......hmmmm....is that you?
11/ Stephen Colbert chides the advertisers fleeing Rush Limbaugh's radio show......and includes some clips from Fox and how they tried to spin and denigrate Sandra Fluke......
Three funny minutes......
12/ OMG - it you want to see the ultimate in human flexibility watch this 5 minute video - two women fold themselves into a glass box.....
This one made me feel a little queasy......you've been warned......
13/ Jon Stewart loves to nail Fox News, and here he points out the double standard of their coverage of the Rush controversy......a good seven minutes.....
As the controversy over Rush Limbaugh's inflammatory comments about Sandra Flukecontinues, Fox News is finding itself in somewhat of a dilemma, as Jon Stewart pointed out on Tuesday night's "Daily Show."
The conservative news network had the choice of either defending or condemning Limbaugh, who many in the GOP vocally support, but instead raisedBill Maher's controversial Sarah Palin joke from last year as evidence that liberals are also guilty of irresponsible diatribes.
14/ A classic Gail Collins column - funny, with some wonderful zingers......look at the opening paragraph......
Good news, frustrated American citizens! Congress is not a clogged up, hidebound legislative slug after all.
Bills were flying through the Senate on Wednesday like great flocks of geese soaring into the turbines of a passenger jet.
First, the senators passed legislation that would keep all the federally financed highway programs from coming to a screeching halt when money runs out at the end of this month. (Completely unnecessary disaster averted!)
Then, the party leaders came to an agreement on easing a bottleneck of uncontroversial judicial nominations. (People with no enemies cleared for hiring!)
Some of you may be wondering how the judges got bottlenecked in the first place if they were uncontroversial. It’s a long story. But, basically, the Republicans, irritated about totally unrelated matters, vented their frustration by putting their feet on the necks of helpless judicial nominees, people without an enemy in the world, who just wanted to go in and help clear up the critical case backload in the nation’s federal courts.
“It’s easy to make Republicans look bad,” complained Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, accurately.
Senator Charles Schumer of New York dared to hope that “an idea of a moment of greater comity that we’ve seen this week is not just momentary, but will last on into the future.” It was possibly not the most stirring prose ever, but it was hard to talk coherently with all the emotion in the air.
One of the great challenges for citizens in an era of partisan rancor is figuring out whether to applaud whenever our elected representatives manage to accomplish anything whatsoever. The bar is getting pretty low. Are we supposed to be thrilled that Congress managed to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration? Doesn’t really seem much to ask. On the other hand, if you have seen this crowd in action, you know it’s a wonder that they’ve managed to keep paying the air traffic controllers’ salaries.
The transportation bill could actually have some trouble in the House, since the Republicans there were talking about slashing away at the spending and tying the whole thing to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It used to be that, if nothing else, you could count on our men and women in Washington to work together when it came to passing lots and lots of highway projects. But no more, apparently. I think I speak for many Americans when I say that I miss the Bridge to Nowhere.
15/ If you have a sensitive stomach, don't read this story as it might well make you vomit. Almost 70% of ground hamburger meat sold in supermarkets has "pink slime" in it......this is the unusable bits of cow carcasses, ground up and treated with ammonia, which is then mixed in with real beef to make the hamburger mix cheaper.
Watch the 3 minute "ABC News with Diane Sawyer" clip.......
That's led many consumers to shift away from steaks and towards cheaper hamburgers and meatloaves when they've had a hankering for cow. But record highs mean that even ground beef is getting pricier. What's a supermarket, looking to keep the price of ground beef competitive, to do? Use the cheapest possible kind of ground beef: the much-reviled "pink slime."
According to a recent "ABC World News" report from Jim Avila, 70% of ground beef sold in supermarkets contains the ammonia-treated sludge, which is the the product of a method for salvaging meat scraps from otherwise unusable parts of a carcass.
Avila was tipped off to the startling figure by a whistleblower at the USDA -- who says he has quit his job out of disgust with the product.
I contacted Publix and asked them if "pink slime" was in their ground meat, and this is what I got back from them....and I believe it. Please note I am not anti-Publix and I am not picking on them, I just don't understand their refusal to pay the tomato pickers......it's not their culture, and I don't get it....
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Thank you for your email. We appreciate our customers taking the time to contact us.
We have received many letters from customers asking if "Pink Slime" is in Publix Ground Beef.
The answer is NO. Publix Ground Beef specifications clearly call out that NO "Lean Finely
Textured Beef" is to be added to Publix Ground Beef.
What is "Lean Finely Textured Beef?"
The product, "Lean Finely Textured Beef", is a derivative of fatty beef trimmings, which are
warmed and put through a centrifuge to remove fat and treated with citric acid or ammonia to kill bacteria. It is then frozen into pellets and added to ground beef production. The pellets are pink in color,
thus the term "Pink Slime."
Respectfully,
Alan Dormeyer
Beef Buyer
Publix Super Markets, Inc.
We have received many letters from customers asking if "Pink Slime" is in Publix Ground Beef.
The answer is NO. Publix Ground Beef specifications clearly call out that NO "Lean Finely
Textured Beef" is to be added to Publix Ground Beef.
What is "Lean Finely Textured Beef?"
The product, "Lean Finely Textured Beef", is a derivative of fatty beef trimmings, which are
warmed and put through a centrifuge to remove fat and treated with citric acid or ammonia to kill bacteria. It is then frozen into pellets and added to ground beef production. The pellets are pink in color,
thus the term "Pink Slime."
Respectfully,
Alan Dormeyer
Beef Buyer
Publix Super Markets, Inc.
But I will guarantee you that if you buy your ground beef at WalMart you will be getting meat mixed with pink slime.......so enjoy those everyday low prices......yum.....
16/ I haven't drunk sodas for years, so this was a most interesting story....the state of California said that if Coke and Pepsi continued to use a certain colouring in their sodas they would have to put a cancer warning label on the cans....so they changed the formula.....
I know people who drink multiple sodas a day and have done so for years.....thousands of gallons of cancer producing chemicals......
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a consumer interest group, released a report today linking Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Pepsi and Diet Pepsi -- the 1st-, 2nd-, 3rd- and 6th- best-selling sodas in the world, respectively -- to a chemical that has been known to cause cancer in lab rats and mice. The report has raised alarm bells, not for the first time, about the risks soda poses to public health -- even though many experts were quick and unequivocal in their denunciation of its findings.
The CSPI argues that the amount of the chemical present in the sodas presents a risk to public health. For that reason, the group has petitioned the FDA to mandate a label on soda containers warning consumers of the risk of cancer.
The chemical, 4-methylimidazole, usually known as 4-MI and sometimes 4-MEI, is a byproduct of the chemical process soda companies use to create the artificial dye that gives the sodas their trademark caramel coloring. Studies linking 4-MI to cancer in mice prompted the state of California to list it as a carcinogen in spring of 2009. It's illegal to sell any food or beverage containing an amount of 4-MI that could increase the risk of cancer by more than 1 case per 100,000 people in California without a warning label. The CSPI alleges that the levels it found in sodas would increase the risk by as much as 4.8 cases per 100,000 people.
Officials from the FDA and the American Beverage Association (ABA) slammed the idea that the chemical poses a risk to consumers.
"Time and again, and even very recently," the ABA wrote in its statement on the report, "leading public health organizations have reaffirmed that caramel coloring, including the trace amounts of 4-MEI found in it, is safe for use in colas and countless other foods."
Todays video - one for the guys [no, not what you're thinking].......Why there are no more Lumberjacks......
Todays pilot joke
Once upon a time, a pilot asked a beautiful princess, "Will you marry me?"
The princess said, "No!"
And the pilot lived happily ever after and flew jets all over the world and drove hot cars and chased skinny long-legged big-breasted flight attendants and hunted and fished and went to topless bars and dated women half his age and drank Whiskey and Heineken and never heard bitching and never paid child support or alimony and kept his house and guns and ate cold leftover crew meals, potato chips and beans and blew enormous farts and never got cheated on while he was at work and all his friends and family thought he was frickin' cool as hell and he had tons of money in the bank and left the toilet seat up........
The end.
Todays Irish joke
Paddy & Mick are in the pub talkin about their sex lives.
Paddy boasts "The wife & me shag like rabbits every night".
"U lucky bastard" replies Mick,"I only get it once a month and I call it 'Bruce Lee Night'".
"Why the feck do u call it that?" asks Paddy.
Mick replies "Because it's the night I enter the fukin dragon......
Todays political joke
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