Sort of boring but conducive to people watching. Some of the passengers are interesting to say the least.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0908/Biden_garbles_Depression_history.html

In the above link, Ben Smith reports that Katie Couric and Joe Biden were talking about the leadership the White House must show when markets are in turmoil. Hey Ben, actually watch the interview – I wouldn’t trust you to order a pizza.

1) Unlike what Smith “reported.” White House leadership was never mentioned during the aired interview with Couric.

2) FDR was the governor of New York during the 1929 crash. This said, like New York Governor Paterson this time around, FDR got on the airwaves and showed great leadership.

3) Ben Smith is an idiot…

You can skip forward to the 1:45 minute mark to see the “gaffe” in question…

P.S. Biden did misspeak – the television didn’t exist in 1929. One should assume he meant radio since FDR was a presence on the radio airwaves during the Wall Street crash.

The general election should OFFICIALLY end once this hits the nightly news tonight. Regardless, it will be interesting to see how these rat bastards try to squirm themselves out of this lie…

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26859857

“One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager from the end of 2005 through last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.

The disclosure contradicts a statement Sunday night by Mr. McCain that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had no involvement with the company for the last several years. Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the people said.”

Damnit, I wish I could shake Marcy Kaptur’s hand – well done!

Republican Senator Jim Bunning from Kentucky just asked paulson during the Senate Banking Committee meeting, “Why is the government bailout going to include student loan and credit card debt?  How does that fix the housing problem?”

Good question.  paulson danced around, stumbled about 300 times, and finally sort of admitted he didn’t have an answer.  No joke – it was REALLY embarrassing to watch.  He sounded no smarter than bush and that’s scary seeing that paulson is heading up this $700 billion bailout that seemingly hasn’t been well thought out.

I’m never tuning into CNBC via the Slingbox during my lunch hour again. I will try to find a video tomorrow on youtube so y’all can see how bad things have gotten.

Update: http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/09/23/congress-paulson-congress-biz-beltway-cx_jz_0923pinata.html

As seen in the above link, Senator Bunning went on to say…

“The Paulson plan will not fix [these] problems; the Paulson plan will not help struggling homeowners.” Bunning continued, saying the bailout out would do nothing but “prop up and clean up the balance sheets of Wall Street. It is a financial socialism and it’s un-American.”

It’s common knowledge that Microsoft Live Search blows/way underperforms.  As mentioned originally on BccList.com here, it will be interesting to see what happens to the world of online advertising if Microsoft ever delivers a somewhat decent search engine product.

In the interim, check out the differences between the mainpages (google.com/msn.com) of each search engine yesterday as they were collectively ringing in the fall season with a leaf.

Good Enough of a Leaf:

Embarrassing/Lame Attempt at a Leaf on MSN.com:

P.S.  Live.com is usually aesthetically pleasing but nobody goes there.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a42969f2-88e1-11dd-a179-0000779fd18c.html

The interest rate thankfully wasn’t slashed last week by the Fed. Demand of oil is down. Supply was only slightly cut the last time OPEC met. But, the price rose $25 a barrel yesterday. What the fck is going on? I’m not joking – there needs to be an investigation into market manipulation.

You’ve probably been forced out of your $95 (or so) short position by yesterday’s rise in price. If you weren’t, stay in the position – this price spike on 9/22 is unexplainable and should drop soon enough though I guess you can never tell.

The only thing I can imagine causing the recent oil price increase is the fact that nobody is trading in a stock market that can’t be shorted. Commodity and oil prices may be extra volatile for another 8-9 days – stock market trading will remain meaningless until the short ban on financial shares ends October 2nd. On that note, could October 3rd be known as Black Friday since traders are dying to get back into the market and short the bejesus out of worthless financial shares trading too high like Goldman Sachs?

Update: As of 9/23 at 12 pm CDT, the price slid back to a more realistic number of $105 a barrel during trading today.  Somebody start the above mentioned investigation IMMEDIATELY.

http://www.gaywired.com/Article.cfm?ID=20400

Hear me out…

I’m down with mark buse – mccain’s chief of staff – reportedly being gay.  This said, feel free to hold off on the “you’re homophobic/a hypocrite/etc.” comment.

I only post the blog entry because it will be interesting to see how mccain’s religious right reacts.  I assume not so well.  Will mark buse be out of a job with this revelation being made public?  If so, is that discrimination?  Ouch – stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Jason, thank you.

The fun begins at the 14 second mark.

“Of course, it’s a fungible commodity and they don’t flag, you know, the molecules, where it’s going and where it’s not. But in the sense of the Congress today, they know that there are very, very hungry domestic markets that need that oil first. So, I believe that what Congress is going to do, also, is not to allow the export bans to such a degree that it’s Americans who get stuck holding the bag without the energy source that is produced here, pumped here. It’s got to flow into our domestic markets first.”

Bob Cesca’s Goddamn Awesome Blog, thank you.

Seeing that I’ve been clicking on mccain’s Google, Yahoo, etc. PAID sponsorship online ads everyday over at least the last 3 months as originally seen on BccList.com here and here, somebody within the campaign is lying and/or offering incorrect information.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-money22-2008sep22,0,1726948.story

“Obama has been using more money than his Republican opponent on Internet-related costs, spending $651,000 on online ads and $884,000 on websites. McCain and the RNC disclosed no spending specifically on online ads, and $422,000 on Web-related costs.”

The screenshot below (click image to see full size) is a johnmccain.com online ad from today…

I heard about bits and pieces of the below email late last week.  Over the weekend, I finally received the forward – of course, unsolicited.

Seriously?  It looks like it was written by the same zit faced 17 year old that put together the Barack Obama is a Muslim email.  How does the gop still exist?  Meaning, isn’t their base support – the ones that forward such emails – sick of being labeled the idiots of America?

“Let me share some info with you that i have gotten from excellent sources within the DNC:

On or about October 5th, Biden will excuse himself from the ticket, citing health problems, and he will be replaced by Hillary. This is timed to occur after the VP debate on 10/2.

there have been talks all weekend about how to proceed with this info. generally, the feeling is that we should all go ahead and get it out there to as many blog sites and personal email lists as is possible. i have already seen a few short blurbs about this – the “health problem” cited in those articles was aneurism. Probably many of you have heard the same rumblings. however, at this point, with this inside info from the DNC, it looks like this obama strategy will be a go. Therefore, it seems that the best strategy is to get out in front of this obama maneuver, spell it out in detail, and thereby expose it for the grand manipulation that it is.

so, let’s start mixing this one up and cut the obamites off at the pass – send this info out to as many people as you can – post about it on websites and blogs – etc etc”

Being “forced” to watch the Bears play every Sunday afternoon – they don’t allow a game on CBS to be aired while the Bears play – is EASILY the worst thing about living in Chicago over the past five years. Yes, even during the year when they went to the Superbowl, I still scheduled an afternoon nap during any Bears game. Outside of Devin Hester, ZZZZZZZZ.

Not only are the Bears historically the most boring NFL team to watch, but, their losses are so frustrating that it’s hard to loan them any support – e.g. the blown 10 point lead in the 4th quarter today followed by the personal foul by tillman in OT when the bucs were stopped on 3rd down deep in their own zone.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers – 27
Chicago Bears – 24
Overtime Final