Credit Crunch Comedy

These guys are still funny, spot-on, and relevant over a year after I first saw this video mocking bankers:

September Madness!

Heh.

Two amusing (to me) links

For whatever reason, I found this amusing:


Also, I sincerely hope this isn't real, because it makes Christianity seem ridiculously silly (but it is hilariously sectarian).

Those aren't the containers you're looking for...

This seems a little fishy:

A tense standoff has developed in waters off Somalia over an Iranian merchant ship laden with a mysterious cargo that was hijacked by pirates.

Somali pirates suffered skin burns, lost hair and fell gravely ill “within days” of boarding the MV Iran Deyanat. Some of them died.

"Hello officer. Please read my doormat."

I want one of these.

File under "reasons politics frustrates me."

The major parties ignore Texas electoral law:

If you've been following The Freedom Files, you know that Bob Barr has sued Texas to get John McCain and Barack Obama taken off the ballot. You see, according to Texas election code, they needed to file by August 25th.

McCain didn't certify until September 4th, Obama on August 28th...

They're allowed to get away with it:

... and yet they were still included on the ballot, in violation of election law.

Bob Barr's campaign sues to keep them off the ballot (essentially attempting to force the state to enforce state law, or give some justification for flouting it), and here is the decision in its entirety:

THE SUPREME COURT OF TEXAS

Orders Pronounced September 23, 2008

MISCELLANEOUS

THE FOLLOWING PETITION FOR WRIT OF MANDAMUS IS DENIED:

08-0761 IN RE BOB BARR, WAYNE ALLEN ROOT, AND THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF TEXAS

No explanation. Not even vague platitudes about it being "in the interest of democracy" or "for the sake of the voters." Just "denied." This is an offense against the rule of law, one of the foundations of the republic, but I suspect that nobody will care.

I call bullshit on this decision.

Are the Candidates Coke vs. Pepsi on the First Amendment?

I vowed not to vote for McCain because of his atrocious record on first-amendment issues, but it's looking like Obama may not be much better:

Instead of, say, crafting a response ad [to the NRA], Obama's team had general counsel Robert F. Bauer send stations a letter [pdf] arguing that "Failure to prevent the airing of 'false and misleading advertising may be 'probative of an underlying abdication of licensee responsibility.'" And, more directly: "For the sake of both FCC licensing requirements and the public interest, your station should refuse to continue to air this advertisement."

As Radley Balko notes:

You know, if you’re going to run as the antidote to the current administration’s abuse of power, silencing of political foes, and suppression of dissent, sending chill letters threatening to shut down TV stations that run ads critical of you isn’t exactly the way to show off your bona-fides.

McCain’s hardly a paragon of free speech. But Obama’s choice to threaten government censorship as his first resort–while still a candidate–doesn’t bode well for how he may treat his critics as president.

It's a shame that the two-party system doesn't allow us to branch out meaningfully to other parties or candidates. But I'll still probably end up voting for Barr, because I can't stomach the policies of either of the two "real" candidates.

Chronologically Confused

Biden on leadership in trying economic times:

Part of what being a leader does is to instill confidence is to demonstrate what he or she knows what they are talking about and to communicating to people ... this is how we can fix this," Biden said. "When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed. He said, 'look, here's what happened.

Hit and Run responds:

And if you owned an experimental TV set in 1929, you would have seen him. And you would have said to yourself, "Who is that guy? What happened to President Hoover?"

Zing!

(Hat Tip: McMegan)

You put WHO in charge of WHAT?

The case for putting Colonel Sanders in charge of US data security:

He’s a military man, and he couldn’t do worse than the current gangs in charge. Even Ronald McDonald would probably be an improvement.

Go read it all. (Bonus points if you get the reference in their post title)

Given the recent government interventions all over the economy with seemingly no constitutional authority to back them up, I'm finding myself agreeing with TJIC more and more these days:

TJIC thinks that the Constitution is a great document, and it’s a shame that no one uses it anymore.

Heh.

So sadly true:

Last June, the TSA changed the name of its main hub to the "Freedom Center."

The new name was apparently chosen from an agency-wide competition.

Which means that in addition to being creepily and predictably Orwellian, the government agency in charge of preventing another terrorist attack in our country’s transportation system also suffers from a disturbing lack of creativity.

What's going on with the financial sector?

Here are a few good articles to help figure out just how specifically the American financial industry is attempting to go all 'splodey:

1. An article covering what was up with Bear Stearns, Lehman, and the AIG bailout (which, amusingly, makes you the taxpayer the principal sponsor of Manchester United).
2. How a run on money market funds in the last few days almost killed many, many more banks.

UPDATE: A really, really terse summary over at Kiplinger for all you ADD types.

That's a really broad brush you're tarring with...

Sheesh, the photo is just a touch over the top for this article, no? (And no, I've never actually used that website - this linked was stumbled across from a blog I cannot now recall.)

Oops!

Here are a couple of epic mistakes:

1. Guy stabs self while demonstrating katanas on shopping channel



2. Really bad ad placement