ECONOMY
- Why things aren’t going to get better until Obama fires the banksters working for him. (And I ain’t holding my breath.)
- Did Goldman Sachs’ chief financial officer lie to investors on 9/16/08? (more)
- Dead government walking: “The United States government is on a trajectory to default on their obligations.”
- Shorter Bill Gross: The rally is over. Oh, and by any reasonable estimate of true market value the Dow should be at 7,000 and housing should cost half what it did in 2007.
- Bad money after bad: GMAC could be getting a third government bailout. In an era of bad ideas, this one stands out.
- Those raging reactionary wingnuts at the Nation call out Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., for putting bonuses for AIG employees beyond the reach of U.S. taxpayers, who just happen to own 80% of the company.
- Why this “liberal” administration actually is treating the banksters relatively nicely: “At some level, you must either accept the fact that you’re dirty, or, in the interest of denial, come to believe that these [rich] guys are really your brothers.” (When I said above that I wasn’t holding my breath, this is why.)
- How Hank Greenberg of AIG is like a mobster.
- And the fun continues. Municipal bonds? Not safe either.
HEALTH CARE
- I’ve said before that the cost of malpractice insurance isn’t enough of a factor in health care to justify damaging the legal system with “tort reform” (read: limits on the only real way to punish a lot of actors in the health-care field). At least one doctor agrees with me.
- Sen. Joe Lieberman represents a state, Connecticut, where 68% of voters favor a public option in health insurance. So, naturally, Lieberman supports it, too — if, by “supports it,” I mean “intends to filibuster it.” This would be the same Joe Lieberman who told his state’s voters in 2006, “[W]hat I’m saying to the people of Connecticut, I can do more for you and your families to get something done to make health care affordable, to get universal health insurance, to make America energy independent, to save your jobs and create new ones.”
AFGHANISTAN
- The report the outgoing Bush administration prepared on Afghanistan for the incoming Obama administration was put together in one hour. “The upside is that this was one more hour than was spent reviewing the ‘Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside The U.S.’ memo.”
CULTURE WARS
- Why Rush et al. are such WATBs: It’s in their political DNA.
- Asked and answered: Fox contributor and all-around moron Bernard Goldberg asks, “Who exactly at Fox News is inciting a rebellion against the government?” Crooks & Liars helpfully supplies the answer. In fact, it helpfully supplied an answer months before Goldberg asked the question.
SCIENCE
- Two years ago, while no one was paying attention, two German scientists broke the speed of light. Or so they say. If true, then Einstein is a putz our whole understanding of time and space will change.
CRIMINAL INSANITY N.E.C.*
- For more than two hours on a dark Saturday night, as many as 20 people watched or took part as a 15-year-old California girl was allegedly gang raped and beaten outside a high school homecoming dance. … police say witnesses took photos.
There’s a word for such people: sociopaths. I hope there’s soon another word for them: defendants.
*Not Elsewhere Classified
