SO I FINALLY WATCH THE STEWART KRAMER THING...

...on the Daily Show website, and who is the advertiser?

Bank of America: Bank of opportunity.

Amazing...

And, by the way, I DID see it coming: in early '08, I took my "rainy day fund" out of stocks and put it into money markets. How did I see it coming? Basically by reading the Economist and thinking a little. "Hmm...so three quarters of a trillion of our economic activity is from home equity loans...hmm...people are buying houses and not paying off any principal on the loan...hmm...banks are using computer models - which unless used precisely, give you the outcome you want - to create investments that I do not understand...hmm...housing prices are rising at incredible rates in a lot of markets...hmm...here in Chicago they're building tens of thousands of condominiums and homes even though the market for them seems to be stalling."

It really wasn't that much of a surprise, but that's hard to know unless you get good information. And let's face it; that was the real problem. The people trusted to give information were liars, and the people who broadcast the information were ignorant dupes at best (that would be the NYT, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, Fox, NPR and the like), but more likely co-conspirators when it comes to the world of business reporting. Like I said, I read the Economist because I got it free at work. And thank God for that little British Torey magazine.

And of course Jon Stewart is right. But really, isn't it amazing that the first real truth-y look at CNBC and the marketing of Wall Street comes, A) in March of ''09 and B) from a comedian.

Pathetic...simply pathetic.

JAKE TAPPER HAS A TESTICLE.

Jesus Christ? This is what you get your hair up in a bun about?

Where was this truth squad the last eight years?

What the fuck? This is such a non-controversy. Even with this "issue", the Obama folk are being more transparent than the Bushies ever were. And they lied about stuff that actually caused the deaths of thousands of people.

But no...let's go after this...ahem...transparency issue.

Jesus...

DOPE SMACK A REPUBLICAN DAY.

Senator John Thune (Idiot: SD) shows what he's been doing with the money appropriated to his staff: figuring out how many 100-dollar bills is in a trillion dollars and how big a stack of bills that would be. Dear God...what a numbnuts.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/02/painfully_stupid.php

I would love, love, love to start a new holiday: "Dope Smack A Republican Day". Of course the problem is that, like Children's Day, every day would be "Dope Smack A Republican Day".

I kinda wish I lived in a GOP Senate state so I could call their office repeatedly and fuck with them...as a constituent.

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM SARAH PALIN'S INTERVIEW.

1) She's the perfect Republican: always ready to blame someone else for her own failings...always ready to create enemies among us. In her world the enemies include: the media, the Obama campaign, the people who laughed at her, and finally, the McCain campaign which made her go back before that meany Katie Couric.
2) She's unable to handle media scrutiny unless is pitying and indulgent and 100-percent friendly.
3) She's ready to return the U-S to the old GOP canard: Government is bad...bad, bad, bad.
4) Tina Fey done her wrong (perhaps forgetting that many of Ms Fey's best lines were not written, but TRANSCRIBED from Palin's own appearances.
5) She lost the election (not McCain/Palin mind you) because of a conspiracy against her and her family.

I could go on, but let's face it that would do no good. There's a decent likelihood that she's going to be the standard bearer for the GOP.

As I said, she's a perfect Republican: an angry and mean person who believes that God is on her side and that the other side is somehow evil and deficient. She's perfect for the remnants of the Republican Party: a party that apparently won't be happy until we are a nation with a small wealthy elite, a shrinking middle class hanging on by its fingernails, and an amorphous poor class...all looked upon by a God that would say if you can't make it? You don't deserve to make it. And if you're not an ideologue like them? Well then God doesn't love you.

The thing about it though is this: it looks like she's going to have some tough sailing in Alaska, the economy being what it is. Let's see if she earns a second term. I have a feeling that it might be tough for her.