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Sawmill subdivision lots in foreclosure

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Sedgwick County filed suit this week to foreclose on part of the Sawmill Creek subdivision at the northeast corner of 45th North and Rock Road. The tax foreclosures cover 65 lots on which no property taxes have been paid since 2006.

Earlier this month, a judge approved the Bank of Kansas' foreclosure on more than 129 lots in the development in lieu of repayment of $644,000 in mortgage principle, plus interest.

Homes are still going up in the existing phases of Sawmill Creek. With one exception, the foreclosures affect only the vacant lots. The developed lots have been sold to builders and homeowners.

GWEDCs jobs tally for last year 697

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

The Greater Wichita Economic Development Coalition cited the poor economy for keeping it from hitting 2009 jobs and investment goals.

Coalition officials summed up their performance at an annual meeting with their business and government overseers on Thursday.

Last year, the coalition worked with nine companies to attract or retain 697 jobs.

Child Start to open Head Start center in European Car Co space

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

WICHITA — Late last year, Have You Heard? reported that European Car Co. owner David Leivian is leaving his almost 10,000-square-foot building at 1510 E. Second St.

At the time, he couldn't say what would be moving into the space.

It's Child Start, which will lease the building.

El Dorado firm to take over Verus Financial

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Verus Bank will turn over its wealth management business to an El Dorado firm beginning Monday.

Officials of the $102 million Derby-based bank said Thursday that Spencer Wernli Financial Consultants has acquired Verus Financial Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Verus Bank.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

WalMart pushes suppliers to go green

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

NEW YORK — Wal-Mart Stores wants its suppliers to reduce 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions by the end of 2015.

The world's largest retailer's push goes beyond its efforts to date to reduce its own emissions by designing more energy-efficient stores and pursuing alternative fuels for its fleet of trucks.

The goal is equivalent to taking 3.8 million cars off the road for a year, the company said.

Fed comes in from Senate deep freeze

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve, once in danger of being stripped of its bank supervision powers by the Senate, is getting a second look from key lawmakers amid a new flurry of bipartisan negotiations over a massive overhaul of the rules that govern Wall Street.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Republican Sens. Richard Shelby and Bob Corker are now looking at letting the Fed keep some of its regulatory authority after all.

"The question before the committee is, do we exclude the Fed entirely or do we bring them back, keep some type of regulatory authority... with the Fed," Shelby said Thursday. Shelby has been one of the main critics of the Fed's conduct as a banking regulator.

Stocks fall on renewed worries about economy

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Stocks backtracked from an early plunge Thursday but still closed lower on concerns about lingering economic weakness in the U.S.

Investors were also uneasy about the possibility that Greece's rising debt problems might spill over to other countries.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 53 points after having fallen 188.

Drake opens separate PT office

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Drake Chiropractic has split off its physical therapy department, moving it to new space in Tallgrass Executive Office Park.

Office manager Rayleen Mermis said Kansas PT and Spine Rehab opened earlier this month at 8100 E. 22nd St., Building 2200-4. It is a general outpatient physical therapy clinic and specializes in the treatment of lower back conditions. The telephone number is 316-201-6445.

"We wanted to be able to broaden the types of conditions that we could treat, and we didn't have the space here to do that," Mermis said. Drake Chiropractic's office is at 154 S. Rock Road.

Boeing considers new engines for 737s

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Boeing is deciding the future of its money-making 737 family of aircraft as competition increases for the single-aisle plane.

Boeing will decide this year whether to put new engines on its 737s to improve performance, Boeing CEO Jim McNerney said last week at the Cowen and Co. Aerospace and Defense Conference.

"We're studying it very seriously," McNerney said.

Parkstone developer finds new financing

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

The troubled Parkstone at College Hill condominium development has new financing, its developer said Wednesday.

Developer Mike Loveland said he has secured more than $1 million in new private equity in the project, buying time for the development to weather the economic downturn. He would not say who the money is from or how much of the project that is worth.

He also recently struck a deal with his prime contractor, Key Construction, to pay off the claims and those of Key's subcontractors, who have filed liens valued at $267,000.

Sisters find the novelty in Delano shop

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

"All sorts of crazy stuff" is the motto of Central Plains Novelty — and explains what it is, too.

Two sisters have been running the novelty shop, at 905 W. Douglas in the Delano district, for 24 years.

"We have seen a lot of people come and go, but it's interesting how many people come back to the historic Delano district and say that they like the fact that we are still here," said co-owner Nancy Lawrence. "We're not a chain store. I guess you could call us a sister-to-sister business, not a mom-and-pop."

For specialty hospitals restrictions on growth

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Physician-owned hospitals say efforts to limit their growth make it difficult to plan for the future, not knowing when — or whether — they'll be able to add services, beds or jobs.

For at least five years, congressional action or talk of it has kept the hospitals from expanding and restricted investment in them.

And the hospitals have no reason to think that will change anytime soon: The current health care debate includes language that limits their growth except in rare circumstances, and the legislation includes retroactive language — so a new project started today wouldn't be allowed unless it had been completed before a deadline.

Boeing rivals absence may delay tanker deal again

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

If Northrop Grumman decides not to bid to replace U.S. Air Force refueling tankers, the lack of competition could delay the program once more, a defense analyst said.

Northrop Grumman, which has spent four years and reportedly $200 million in an attempt to win the contract, has said it might walk away from a competition that is stacked against it.

That would leave Boeing as the sole bidder for the $35 billion contract to build 179 tankers.

Wells Fargo to add jobs at branches in Kansas

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

The Wells Fargo Bank executive who oversees Kansas said the bank likely will increase its branch staffing by 20 percent this year.

Kirk Kellner, Wells Fargo regional president of Nebraska and Kansas, said that includes five additional bank positions in Wichita.

"We usually staff more people in the stores than I've seen in the Kansas Wachovia stores," said Kellner, who has worked for the bank since 1981.

Without a buyer GM has to close Hummer

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

NEW YORK — One thing you can say about the Hummer, roaring down the road, towering over subcompacts like an NBA center in a sea of toddlers: It always drew a reaction.

The beefy, military-inspired SUV began as a macho icon for enthusiasts like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who campaigned for governor in a Hummer.

For others it was a symbol of excess, environmental ruin and tackiness — a view that seemed to grow in direct proportion to gas prices and economic distress.

Hybrid planes are on the horizon

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

A former president of Cessna Aircraft is working on a project to use electric hybrid propulsion instead of aviation fuel to power light general aviation aircraft.

Charlie Johnson, the former Cessna leader, is chief operating officer and one of the founders of Bye Aerospace, and its subsidiary Bye Energy, the company heading the effort.

The project — called the Green Flight Project — was officially launched last week.

Trip inspires young Wichitans to help city grow

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Four young Wichita professionals came back from a community revitalization conference in Tennessee this month raring to get to work.

Jamil Malone, Sommer Keplar, Jason Dilts and Heather Denker took part in the City Share Conference Feb. 18-20 at CreateHere in Chattanooga, Tenn., attended by 25 people from cities such as Chicago, Memphis, Charlottesville, Va., and Windsor, Ontario.

The trip's goal was to share ideas on how to retain and energize the city's young creative base. They returned determined to take a lead role in the city's efforts to revitalize downtown and grow.

Insurance chiefs warn of interstate options

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Three state insurance commissioners — including Sandy Praeger of Kansas — said Friday that they oppose interstate health insurance options, warning that they could increase costs and destabilize local markets.

Praeger was joined by Kim Holland of Oklahoma and Jane Cline of West Virginia in a conference call to talk about health reform efforts and how they would affect state insurance regulation.

Cline is president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners; Holland is secretary-treasurer; Praeger is chairman of its Health Insurance and Managed Care Committee.

PS Designs hopes for more traffic at the mall

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

PS Designs is heading back to the mall. The home and garden accessories shop left Towne West Square in early 2007 to open at the Collective , J.V. Johnston's development at 21st and K-96.

Now, the store is moving to Towne East Square .

"They just got too far behind on their rent, honestly," Johnston says. "It happens. I hope they do well."

Feds lawmakers wrangle over fund

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

WASHINGTON — U.S. regulators fended off complaints Friday from lawmakers and small-business owners that overly strict rules for banks have prevented crucial credit from flowing to where it is needed most.

U.S. bank lending last year posted the steepest drop since World War II, with the volume of loans falling by $587.3 billion, or 7.5 percent, from 2008. Some lawmakers are laying the blame on the policies of federal regulators.

At stake at a House hearing was a $30 billion small-business lending fund for banks proposed by President Obama.

WriteOffs 022510

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

$$$ A little more info on the changes at Pirate/Captain Jack/Doubloon Capital we’ve been writing about. [WSJ]
$$$ Bonus Watch: RBS [Guardian]
$$$ The Street’s jobless recovery [Reuters]
$$$ Jon Corzine To CNBC? [HuffPo]

Correction Citi Loves The Gays

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

There were some rumors today that Citi hated the gays after the bank account of Web site Fabulis was shut down. But Citi now says it was all based on technical issues and the account has been unblocked, and Fabulis just wants to put the whole thing behind them. Also, Citi would like to remind everyone that they’re actually gay-lovers anyway. “In fact, this week Citi has announced the financing for the True Colors Residence, a housing facility for homeless GLBT youth in New York City,” the bank told us. So there. Carry on.

Ping Jiang “I Left SAC Capital On Good Terms”

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Okay, so, the above statement? Maybe not necessarily entirely true, as Ping Jiang was fired from SAC in February 2008, for failure to make it rain like he used to. Obviously, though, not the point. The point is that the Maestro of the Whiteboard Marker is speaking. Finally, we can point a voice to the phrase “you’re going to have to give me a blow job if you want to make that trade.” Unfortunately, this interview doesn’t touch on Mr. J’s “trading philosophy” but as it seems like he’s actively getting out there and making the rounds in an effort to promote his new fund and raise a little capital, a gripping first person account can’t be too far behind. (Perhaps as part of some sort of Sex and the City-like bus tour, for those ponying up 100 million or more? Just a suggestion.)

Opening Bell 030110

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Math Is Hard (NYT Magazine)
NYT: You met last year with Mary Schapiro, the current head of the S.E.C. How did that go?
HM:I would say she was coldly polite. Her general counsel, David Becker, did most of the talking. He and I did not get along at all. He was getting ready to come across the coffee table and strangle me.

RBS paid £1.3bn bonuses on profit of just £1bn (Telegraph)
RBS did not dispute the analysis but declined to comment. Insiders pointed out that roughly 7,000 jobs have been cut in the investment bank in the past two years and the management overhauled. They produced record revenues despite a huge restructuring. The “non-core” assets are now handled by an entirely different team.

Hedge Funds Profit From Greek Debt (FT)
“We have no physical presence in Greece or any other eurozone country and 90 per cent of our portfolio is in North America,” Paulson and Co. said. “There are many better informed investors, economists and government regulators to comment on European fiscal matters.”

Toyota Chief Apologizes To China (WSJ)
No hard feelings?

Warren Buffett: Economic War “Going Slightly Our Way” (CNBC)
“We got past Pearl Harbor. We will win the war, and it’s going slightly our way.”

AIG Agrees to Sell Asia Unit (WSJ)
Prudential is the lucky guy, for $35.5 billion!

Free tip: Want to get in good with Warren Buffett? Stick a centerfold in your annual report.

WriteOffs 022610

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

$$$ Gatorade drops Tiger Woods [WSJ]

$$$ Another Madoff Defendant From the Fringes [Dealbook]

$$$ A new way to buy and sell ideas. [The Atlantic]

$$$ Are the Feds getting closer to nailing NIR Group for stock kickback scheme? [CTNews]

$$$ Petra sets record, sells diamond for $35 million [Reuters]
$$$ Utah Developer Provides A Real Rustic Experience® For Finance Types [Daily Intel]

Ken Lewis Wasn’t Completely Gypped Last Year

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

No, he didn’t take a salary or bonus last year, which chafes. But don’t cry Strawberry Hill tears for Boone’s Boy just yet. ‘Cause there’s this:

Former Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis received…$32,171 in 2009 as the bank struggled with loan losses and repaid billions in federal bailout money, according to an Associated Press analysis of a regulatory filing.
Friday’s filing shows that Lewis received no salary or bonus. His compensation was limited to perks including tax services and parking.

Vikram Is Watching You

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Team Citi can’t keep track of its own money, but they will track yours and that of your neighbor, thanks to the Bundle, which “removes the veil of secrecy from how other people save and spend their money.” For example, you can learn that “Singles, 36- to 49-year-olds in Dallas spend $57 per month on hobbies. Who knew?” The main argument is that “being privy to the financial habits of others helps guide a person’s own activity.” What? Okay no but seriously– WTF?

Winners And Losers

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Apparently John Paulson’s luck hasn’t run out just yet.

Hedge Fund Performance: February 22-February 26 [PDF]

Jamie Dimon No Longer Wanted In Hotlanta

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

As of Wednesday, Jamie Dimon couldn’t fly through Atlanta, because he was at risk of being arrested, for illegally dumping used tires, according to CBS news. Apparently, though, ha ha, it was just a bit of a mix up.

Yes, there is a dump in Georgia, and yes there are tires there, where they shouldn’t be, and yes, City Solicitor Raines Carter is holding JPMorgan responsible, but not JD, per se, entirely. The city tried to hold a hearing, but no one showed up and that’s when Dimon had his name added to the most-wanted list. They were totally JK’ing about him being the actual person making bi-weekly runs to Atlanta to drop the tires. Nevertheless, the fact that that’s what people were thinking was a little bit embarrassing for the bank/boy-toy CEO, who got their people on the horn to clear Jamie’s name. The warrant for Big J’s arrest has been dropped but if you thought JPM was off the hook, think again. Despite JPMorgan spokesman Joseph Evangelisti noting that the property’s title shows the bank is not the owner, Carter still wants someone to clean up this mess ASAP. If it has to be a busload of first years, so be it.

An official with the department agreed that the warrant had been dropped, but denied the bank is off the hook with respect to owning the property.

The official added the city is still investigating who owns the dumping ground because they are hell-bent on getting someone to clean up the mess.

“We have a very serious code violation down here,” said Carter, who described the site as “an illegal dump site with thousands of old tires and other debris.

Atlanta targets JPMorgan Chase over dump site [NYP via FTAlphaville]

How Will Eliot Spitzer Back Governor Paterson?

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

As you’re aware, Governor Paterson won’t seek reelection ’cause of a few little bombshells in the Times. So Mr. P is having a press conference at 3 and we’re hoping he’s going to announce a Spitzer involvement in some capacity (as we wrote last week, the Gov has been asking Spitzer to “advise” him on several matters). Any ideas how?

RBS Bonuses Maybe Not So Bad This Year?

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

The other day we mentioned that RBS had been granted permission to give out bonuses, though casually suggested the sums wouldn’t be anything to write home about, unless you’re into subordinated debt, in which case, buckle up. There’ve been a few stories out about how the numbers were actually pretty okay, and while Bambi at Beamers is yet to mention anything about her favorite Stamfordians making it rain, at least for the chippies across the pond it seems like the Queen’s bitches might not have fared to badly.

On the day when Royal Bank Of Scotland announced it was handing out £1.6 billion in bonuses, a mystery banker ran up a bar bill of almost £44,000 at Mayfair club Aura. He was with five friends as they splashed thousands on Cristal champagne in just two and a half hours.

The bill included 40 regular bottles of Cristal, at £330 each, and when the bar ran out, they simply moved on to bigger sizes, eventually ordering nine £1,100 magnums and a £4,000 jeroboam. The man also ordered two bottles of vintage Pommery champagne at £5,000 each, although the price was slightly more justified as they included free flights to France. Two magnums of Grey Goose vodka at £360 each and £70 of Red Bull topped off their order.
A source said: “They were a smartly-dressed group led by an American banker in his thirties. They took a table in the VIP area and seemed determined to celebrate.

Robert Benmosche Loves You All

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

As you know, AIG’s fourth quarter results came in– not so good!. In any case, Bobby B. is happy and wants the world to know it. AIG reported a loss of $8.9 billion in the fourth quarter, which is an improvement from the $61.7 billion loss in the year-ago period. And this, my friends, is making Bobby “proud” and he wants to thank you. Yes you, all of you. He “appreciates the support of the people in this country.” Bobby is also very thankful to have such wonderful employees. Employees, who not only work at the most despised company, but who do so “with commitment and enthusiasm.” He’s “very impressed with their attitude and the willingness to roll up their sleeves and make things happen.”
Also, he’s got a plan.

In AIF Financial Products Corp, our employees continued to unwind and de-risk the portfolio, cutting the number of positions in it by 54% in 2009 to just over 16,000 and decreasing the notional amount of derivatives outstanding from $2.7 trillion in 2008, to under $1 trillion at the end of 2009. Our strategy remains to exit the vast majority of the risk at AIGFP by the end of 2010. Any remaining positions, which will be largely de-risked and not require active management, will either be managed by AIG or third parties. Cleaning up and downsizing AIGFP is of paramount importance. As a result of our efforts, all key risk measures are down significantly from last year, and I expect continued progress in 2010.

Chuck Grassley Wants To Talk To Lloyd Blankfein

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Senator Chuck Grassley would like Lloyd Blankfein to please stand up, leave his nuclear balls behind and explain what the deal is with the ad Goldman placed in Politico about being “one of the principal underwriters of the “Build America Bonds” program.

Specifically, Grassley is interested in finding out whether “the big Wall Street investment banks being so involved in, and profiting from, the Build America Bonds program siphons off a lot of taxpayer dollars that are meant to help cities and states.”

So he has a few questions for LB and expects a prompt response. We can’t wait for LvP’s answers.

1. How much in total underwriting fees has Goldman Sachs collected to date on Build America Bonds’ issuances?
2. How has Goldman Sachs determined its underwriting fees on Build America Bonds’ issuances?
3. Are these underwriting fees larger than the underwriting fees that Goldman Sachs has charged on tax-exempt bond issuances? If so, how much larger are these underwriting fees?
4. Has Goldman Sachs received any money, in addition to the underwriting fees, in connection with the Build America Bonds program?
5. Does Goldman Sachs expect to receive additional underwriting fees if the Build American Bonds expansion and subsidy increase that passed the Senate today is enacted into law?

The ‘Brotherhood’ Of The SAC

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Bloomberg Markets magazine has a long profile on SAC Capital today, and the grand poobah who runs the place, Stevie C. For those of you who’ve never had the pleasure of working for the king, here’s a bit of a primer.

* For the serious neophytes, who should be ashamed of themselves for not knowing the big man’s likes and dislikes: “He doesn’t like noise, so the phones on the floor don’t ring; they light up.” Make one move, one audible squeak that disturbs him, be it a hiccup or moan of ecstasy at the hand of a whiteboard marker and you’re out of there.

* Don’t forget your fleece (“Cohen maintains the temperature on the trading floor at 69 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius) to make sure no one dozes”) though in all seriousness, I’d slay a newborn if one of you would offer yourselves up as a test to see what exactly would happen were you caught sleeping on the floor during the course of a trading day. For extra points, make your snoring audible about 15 minutes from the close, and once he approaches your desk, open your eyes like he just woke you up and go “I’m tired baby what are you doing?” then roll over and close your eyes again. Oh, someone please do this. Berkowitz, I know you don’t sit on the floor, but please, take one for the team.

* If you don’t know your shit, you are gonna get called out. Simple as that: “If a portfolio manager or analyst can’t answer a question about a stock, Cohen is likely to lash out. ‘Do you even know how to do this f—ing job?’ is a standard barb, current and former employees say.” I see nothing wrong with this.***

* And guess what, fucksticks? You’re not the only ones who will get the horns if you mess with this bull. Remember this? What the short clip didn’t include was what happened later in the show: “Cohen…spars with a man in a muscle shirt in the audience after admitting he slept with his ex-wife while courting Alexandra.”

* Okay, but enough about how you’re going to get your ass stomped inside out for being an idiot or audibly breathing, which you’ll have probably deserved. Working at SAC can be really fun too. Like a Saturday night at the Laugh Factory: “The boss has a sense of humor that’s dry, along the lines of Jerry Seinfeld, former employees say. In September 2008, before Lehman’s bankruptcy, Cohen sent a companywide e-mail: It’s all up to the government now. I have no idea what will happen. Good luck to you all. This is a recording.” (Also: the “Steve-isms.” Oh that you should one day have the “Steve-isms” in your life.)

* There will be a quiz on this: “Working at SAC is tough, even as hedge funds go. One of the worst aspects, at least for people who like weekends, is Sunday “homework.” Every week from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., Cohen has his portfolio managers and analysts call in to tell him what’s coming up that week for the companies they follow.” If you can’t cut it, like one former analyst who “says she worked every weekend one summer before, fed up, she quit,” good riddance.

* And you should be so lucky as to work every day all summer. Goldman’s 57 interview process is child’s play compared to what SAC’s gonna put you through. “…an interview process that can take 14 months, including multiple rounds with executives, including Cohen, and a background check that employees joke will turn up the name of a candidate’s second-grade teacher.”

* Also, not interested in hearing any bitching about this: “Managers’ contracts have ‘down-and-out’ clauses: lose 5 percent from your peak assets, and SAC can take away half of what remains. Suffer a 10 percent loss, and you could be out. ”

* Like basically every company in corporate America, but especially hedge funds, your IMs will be monitored and recorded. There are extra precautions taken at SAC though, so consider not dishing about the bra sizes of your co-workers over AIM, utterly hilarious as the contents of that conversation might be, as someone’s probably reading it right now: “Cohen’s staff of 800 includes 20 legal and compliance workers who, among other things, monitor instant messages and e-mails, including those sent and received by Cohen.”

* Honestly, though, you’re gonna love it, especially the camaraderie, not unlike the kind you’d find in a fraternity house or on an ante-bellum slave plantation: “It was a brotherhood,” says Dan Cherniack, who with Cohen started the firm that became SAC

* This isn’t a ‘what it’ll be like for you’ so much as an opportunity for us to say, how dare you, Bloomberg News: “Cohen prefers jeans and sweaters to suits and looks more like a tax accountant on casual Friday than a trading titan running a $12 billion hedge fund firm.”

* And a final plea, to SC. NEVER LEAVE US. “It’s Cohen’s ability to adapt to a changing environment that’s his biggest strength,” Infinity Capital’s Vale says. “My biggest fear is that he retires.” As is mine, Vale. As is mine.

Photo credit: Bloomberg Markets Magazine.

***The young trader meeting with Steve in the Suburban, in the few minutes he had to spare during the drive home, who was told he was so stupid that he didn’t deserve to be riding in the car, followed by a silence that implied, “I am seriously considering telling you to get out and walk” may have seen it differently. And that’s why he’s a B-team player.

Opening Bell 022610

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

AIG reports $8.9 bln quarterly net loss (MarketWatch)
AIG Chief Executive Robert Benmoshe said the insurer is making “significant strides” toward selling two big businesses, American International Assurance Company, Ltd. and American Life Insurance Company.

Blonde captures attention at TZ Ltd bail-out (SMH)
“The room was sealed from prying eyes and shareholders were safely ensconced in front of the chairman when the leggy blonde sashayed up the hallway. Shari-Lea Hitchcock, the mistress of the late billionaire Dick Pratt, arrived fashionably late in black miniskirt and high heels to the bail-out meeting of the tech tiddler TZ Ltd, upstaging even the celebrity chairman and reality TV star of The Apprentice, Mark Bouris.”

On Wall Street, Romancing The (Curling) Stone (Dealbook)
Raj Atri, a research analyst at Bank of America, said the game’s plodding pace was a plus. Curling is so leisurely that he can easily multitask, with one eye on his Bloomberg terminal and another a game.

Merrill Lynch Guaranteed Ford Annual Pay of at Least $2 Million (NYT)
His guaranteed pay was twice that of the Merrill Lynch chief executive who hired him, E. Stanley O’Neal.

Scoring Sundays Nuptials Til Blog Do Us Part [Altarcations]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Every weekend, the New York Times' Weddings & Celebrations arise like media manna from the heavens for vicarious brides-to-be and nostalgic has-beens. And every weekend, Gawker Weddings Expert Phyllis Nefler scores them. I now pronounce you blog and Altarcations.

I'm not sure if you guys know this, cause it hasn't been announced
(Psych! The phone's been ringing off the hook from here inside the house)
But this weekend is the last time Foster Kamer has the keys
To the once-great website which he's aptly driven to its knees.

So because we're clearly operating absent any rules
And this final weekend feels like Quasimodo's Feast of Fools
And these newlyweds are basically the contra of legit
I figured, hell, I'll monkey with the format just a bit.

Leslie Streeter writes a weekly column in a Palm Beach rag
Where she chronicles the happenings of all the gents and hags.
Given Florida's demographics, I suspect that we could get
A situation where the subjects die before The Death of Print.

Leslie first met Scott Zervitz, the man she'd later come to catch,
As a "very nice girl" in high school (he drove a Camaro, natch.)
Facebook brought them back together, as that thing is wont to do,
And she told her readers he'd proposed in a restaurant review.

In a story that kind of conjured up the Dirty Dancing plot,
Hali Feldman's dad first met Ben Friehling in a vacation spot.
And the Feldman family starting dining yearly at Benji and Jakes,
A restaurant owned by Friehling near the Catskills in White Lake.

Friehling fell "immediately in love with her, without a doubt,"
And when he served their table he would always go all out.
Although Hali found him too young (at that point he was 22)
They ran into one another on a Tulum beach; sparks flew.

Later, on a sunset horseback ride on "Ms. Feldman's family ranch,"
She was thrown off saddle, causing frantic Ben Friehling to blanch.
Paralysis was feared but thankfully did not occur
Hali was confined to bedrest for a month; Ben stood by her.

If you're someone who gets riled by gentrification creep
You might dislike this happy pair who have "classed up" the Bowery.
Jeffrey Goldstein's store, called Blue and Cream, is a Hamptons import
That went up right near the time that CBGB's closed its doors.

The couple grew up near each other (Upper West Side, obvi)
And first met, the story goes, on New Years Eve down in Miami.
And now they work together selling overpriced apparel,
Their wedding, unsurprisingly, was at the Standard Hotel.

(You have to put the em-pha-sis on the first syl-lab-ble for that last one to work, but just go with it, k?)

The law school at GWU was the first date spot for this pair,
They're like a median composite sketch of every student there.
The bride in this other couple analyzes all the ads
That run on CNN.com; does that mean this FAIL was her bad?

To the Faceoff we now go, although this week's so mediocre
That they're kind of the head fleas on a dead dog among these jokers.
But still, props to our two couples who by virtue of their status
Have come out on top per Altarcation's scoring apparatus.

Cindy Hwang and Jay Chiang had quite impressive undergrads,
He went to MIT; she was cum laude at Yale. Not bad!
That's five points right there, and two more points for their advanced degrees:
She's a lawyer out of NYU, and he's a PhD.

Jay's a worker at McKinsey and his dad's a physicist;
Cindy works in law: I wonder, are her doctor parents pissed?
That's another five for these two, bringing them to twelve in sum,
I look forward to the power couple they will soon become.

Sarah Burley and Doug Reid get minus one for being old,
But she gets plus seven from her Harvard/Dartmouth path, all told.
And her mother is a) named "True" and b) the piano lady
At the Brookline schools, which are the very opposite of shady.

Plus two for that, and plus one for Reid's MBA degree,
Since it wasn't from an Ivy school he does not get plus three.
But they were married up at Harvard by an Episcopal priest,
So that nets them two more points, they'd get eleven at the least.

I like the looks of these two though, especially her pearls
And the pink cableknit sweater is a must-have for good girls.
(Note to Julia: this is how pink and preppy is best done!)
So we'll finish them with thirteen points, which makes them number one.

Foster's moving to the Village Voice, just a few clicks away
So I want to take a moment of your time so I can say
That we'll miss him very dearly (unless Nick Denton is our name)
and it's safe to say he's going out atop his fearsome game.

[I will never—ever—watch 'Say Yes to the Dress.' Ever. But Altarcations will continue to run after I'm gone, every Sunday, right here. Nefler: You're awesome. - F.]

Knopf Editor Makes Great Case for Editors in Poorly Written Post About Needing Editors [Fuckups]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

If you wrote a piece for the Huffington Post entitled Do You Really Need an Editor at a Publishing House?, you'd make a strong case, right? The answer, as evidenced by Knopf editor Carole Baron, is a resounding absolutely.

Besides the fact that no good editor in their right mind would tell someone trying to make a coherent argument for their job to write a post so explicitly arguing for their job, they wouldn't let them title it Do You Really Need an Editor at a Publishing House? nor would they let them publish it on the Huffington Post. Where content mostly goes to die. Unless someone else picks it up for being extraordinary in some way, which Baron's post most certainly is.

Clunky Prose: It starts in the lede.

Do you really need an editor at a publishing house?

I am really annoyed. All this talk about digital.

Not to nitpick, but why not? Besides the fact that the text itself is pretty misshapen on the site—a good web editor would've taken care of that—the first sentence is also the title of the post (redundancy), the second sentence is a wooden declarative that could simply be spiced up by making a contraction out of "I" and "am," and the third sentence is a jagged fragment that doesn't explain what the "talk" is nor what kind of "digital" she's referring to. Yet most of you are cognizant individuals, and you know she's referring to digital media, and that the "talk" of which is some idle chatter we're probably going to learn about. Assuming readers can make it past the first three sentences.
Clunky Pronouns:

The writer said: "Why not? There is no editing anymore." Not only is that not true, but it certainly didn't understand the complex role of the editor in a publishing house.

First of all, what kind of braindead company is Baron keeping? Jesus. Also, I know editors often think of writers less as people and more like book-writing-creatures who cost money, but referring to one as "it" seems mildly unnecessary. That is, of course, unless Baron was talking about the writer's statement, which can only "understand" something in the figurative or poetic sense. Which she already lost credit for in the first sentence, regardless of which, that intention just patently isn't the case. Finally, who refers to their own job as complex? Lady, you're not a machinist.
Misspellings and Title Form:

Jonathon Gallassi's: "There Is More to Publishing Than Meets the Screen" in the New York Times, January 2, 2010, expressed it logically and eloquently.

"Jonathon Gallassi" has a name, and it isn't spelled like that. It's Jonathan Galassi. He's not exactly a name you want to spell wrong, as he's the the President and Publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Also, New York Times should be italicized, and from a later sentence in the piece, "short changed" is one word.
WTF?:

"And I am happy to say that as many as there are who complain, there are just as many who acknowledge the good work that editors can and do for a writer."

As many what, exactly? People? Penguins? If they're penguins, they don't acknowledge what an editor "can and do for a writer" so much as they acknowledge what an editor can do for a writer.

Credit where credit's due: we cribbed this item from a tipster...who wrote "makes the care for" instead of "makes the case for" in their original tip. And please, like we don't have our fair share of typos on this site even with an editor. There's probably one in this post! The difference between Baron and me, though, is that I'm not trying to make a case for an editor. My life is a case for editors. Ryan Tate put it best earlier this evening via email:

Who will edit the editors? And who will edit the people who call for editing of the editors?

Everything must eventually be published via wiki, is my point. A wiki that no one is qualified to edit.

Then again, she could just be playing with our heads, as this might be part of an elaborate "meta" campaign for her job, in which case: golden.

But that probably isn't the case. She's probably just an editor who needs a good editor. Or a good writer.

All The quotSadquot Young Aspiring Media Careers The Kids Are Apparently Just Fine [Youngfolks]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Since this is my last weekend on the site until I return, begging for a job as James Del's assistant, I've invited some friends to jam with me. Joe Coscarelli is a young writer with Things To Say. Joe?

"These English majors wanna be some super genius novelists/ They end up music journalists/ chicks ain't that into it," noted Craig Finn in 1990, as the lead singer of Lifter Puller. Finn went on to front The Hold Steady; music journalists went on to write listicles. I was a child. "Touch My Stuff," indeed. (Here, I hoped to link to a YouTube video of the song, as blogs do. As it turns out, the only version of it that exists is an acoustic cover by a round boy in a small dorm room. This means something.)

No one is listening.
But this version is easier to understand.

Finn's sentiment sounds outdated now in a post-David Foster Wallace era. Or at least an era in which nobody sincerely cares about Chuck Klosterman anymore.

Aspiring novelists are archaic. I know this because in four years of higher education, no one ever offered to show me a manuscript, but I've seen more blogs than bongs. The bearded, bespectacled Pavement fans Finn was singing about are unemployed or out of touch. Or dead. No one in their early twenties wants to be a music journalist—that would be absurd. These English majors want to be some super genius bloggers. They end up unpaid interns.

Aspiring to write on the internet is like aspiring to shred on Guitar Hero. The best part of both is wearing your pajamas. The worst part is the tense shoulders.

This past week, online, kids like me made a push for employment. It was sad, sloppy and sweet. It was transparent, but necessary, and tangentially related to the New Niceness we heard so much about. Hamilton Nolan wrote eloquently of the media via the internet and its "currency of 'friends,'" and he spoke of the days when "feisty young upstarts believed they could circumvent the existing calcified media power structure via the amazing unfettered internet."

My friends and I aren't that feisty.

Pebbles are easier to throw at thrones than rocks because you can grab a whole handful and they fit in 140 characters. Plus, we wouldn't want to jeopardize any job prospect, however slight. Today, it's kissing ass. Observe:

A senior at Columbia edits a semi-popular blog; it doesn't pay. Said senior writes a profile for The Awl; it doesn't pay, but it gets more comments. The piece is an employment-oriented personal ad for a talented, eager and obsessive Midwesterner, but a reader calls it a "wet kiss (with tongue) to Gawker." The subject is seeking full-time employment from The Empire, the one you're reading, or a similar entity. Possibly the author is too? It was suggested. Everyone involved is a total sweetheart. They need to pay their rent and they don't have a manuscript.

Elsewhere, but really in the same place, a blogger-turned-journalist blogs advice to Millenials with misguided dreams of working in media. She was vexed, you see, with a boy who graduated from an Ivy "expecting to easily find work at a magazine." Turns out, he works for this website, too, if you can call it work, as he doesn't receive any compensation. He is frustrated and he is frustrating: he should "forget about the 'media internships' and 'high-end retail' jobs and do something else, where he will actually make some money and gain some life experience, and that does not include starting a Tumblr."

Get off my internets!
Do something.

Here is what we are doing: We 'follow' writers we like, in multiple senses, in hopes of them, for some reason, following back. We link to posts they write, often. We tend to the shaft. We disagree with them, respectfully, in hopes of a counter-argument. In hopes of being discovered. We work for free. We blog when they instant message us, asking about our internships. We compliment how cute their kids are. We 'like' them, we really 'like' them. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his followers count. Replies are encouraging; @'s are encouraging. It is all about ego and misplaced hero worship and low expectations. And it doesn't come with a paycheck.

But it is relatively easy, and the risks are not great, assuming your parents will subsidize your rent, or the hours at your shitty day job aren't too bad, plus the pay is pretty good. And at that internship, your boss keeps promising he's figuring out a way to pay you soon. Maybe by the time you graduate, there will be money in the budget for a real assistant's position, says your boss at that other internship. And in the meantime it's the bylines and the comments and sometimes the parties. David Carr retweeted you that one time and that was pretty heartening. "It ain't just a money thing/ It's a question of community," Finn sang. "The liberty, the ecstasy, the love, the drugs, the unity." Like the internet, really.

It's pathetic when we do this to ourselves and whether it even works remains unseen. But is this even what we really want? The ones who came before us insist it's not, and they drink a lot. [Ed. They also do way too much blow for people their age. Truth.] But on some minuscule level that's like an actor rejecting fame. If I would've known it was going to be like this...

The aspiring media kids know what I mean. To the rest of you, I want you to know that this generation isn't doomed yet. We're not all like this, I promise. The entitled Ivy Leaguers giving nauseating quotes to Newsweek just need something to do while their girlfriends are at med school. Plenty of my peers are doing really well on the LSAT and at investment banks, continuing in the proud tradition of fucking this country somewhere very uncomfortable. They're just not broadcasting it, or they're only on Facebook. They will hold down respectable jobs and make their parents proud. They will make the money and we'll marry them. Whenever you need a break from this, stop fucking reading Gawker. Close the tab and go outside. Get off your Tumblr. Do something.

Which is all to say: tomorrow I'm going to start my novel.

Joe Coscarelli used to slave under the well-regarded penis of Dan "Slim Shady" Abrams as the Weekend Editor at Mediaite before being like "peace I'm out this bitch." I also hired him to do stuff at BlackBook once. I never really edited him. I didn't here. You can go ahead and re-tweet him, but neither one of us gives a shit.

He knows you might think this is meta. It isn't.

Julia Allisons Birthday Party Starring Everyone But Julia Allison [Deep Thoughts]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

I couldn't abandon ship without saying goodbye to Julia Allison. Her birthday party was last night! And I know, I know: you're so over Julia Allison, Why do you keep posting about her? I'm tired of hearing about her! Etc.

Well, you bitches wouldn't have clicked on the post if you didn't want to read something about her, would you?

Here's what I think of Julia Allison: she's like fuckin' Bloody Mary, or Tao Lin. Every time her name pops up on the site, so does she. Emails! Comments! And so on. But people who completely freak out about Julia Allison and are her creepy internet stalkerazzi? I say, everything in moderation. And I don't view her so much as a thing or this thing or a sociological experiment or whatever. Julia Allison is a business, and the business of Julia Allison is successful, and that business of being Julia Allison is predicated upon being a walking, talking publicity agency, fighting on all fronts, where the only client is Julia Allison. And people who want to be this well-known this badly probably will be—for better or, well, otherwise—but they also inherently accept everything that comes with it. Stalkerazzi and all!

That said, I don't really understand the out-and-out hatred of Julia Allison either. As far as breathing capitalist enterprises go, her business only comes at the cost of her own relationships and your airspace—which you can manipulate to your liking at any moment—and, well, Isn't there someone better to rage against? Like Kim Jong-Il? At least with him, raging doesn't necessarily help his cause. And let's say Julia Allison does something nefarious, like lies about her media freebie disclosures, or cheats on her taxes, or stiffs a cab driver. You actually give a shit? You actually have time to give a shit? Especially if you aren't paid to do so?

Hopefully not. I just found her fascinating. A lot of Gawker readers did too, because they kept clicking until she landed the cover of Wired and was hanging out at Davos and shit. Isn't that a goddamn gas? This person was so hated, she ended up at Davos. Ha.

I guess I just wouldn't be able to trust Julia Allison, because the everyday details of her personal life and relationships are—pretty much more than anyone I can think of off-hand—inextricably linked to her financial success. That must be tough. Ha.

Here's a gallery of pictures from her birthday party.
She's not in any of them.
Obviously if you were there or know who her boyfriend is, I'd love to talk to you.
This all makes me feel uncomfortable.
I wouldn't advocate huffing anything, but these might be more interesting on a glue high. You know?

That's her boyfriend on the left. If you know who it is, that'd be a fun story to go out with. She's keeping him anonymous. Here they are at a party. Party!

Here's Julia Allison acolyte Jordan Reid. I actually bet Jordan's a decent type! Did you know she was almost on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia? True story. Also, her husband, standing next to her, isn't really anonymous. I think she just put the smiley face there to impersonate Julia? This entire thing is like reading hieroglyphics and I just don't get it. Really, truly. I don't understand much of this. If anything. Anyway, her boyfriend is this guy Kendrick Strauch who used to be in Harlem Shakes, who was a band everyone in New York had heard of, seen, or listened to, but also a band nobody could name a song by. Anyway, they broke up. Julia Allison's Birthday Party, or Indie Rock Obscurity? Ehhhh....*Makes Scales With Hands*

We're gonna get a little place.
Okay, yeah, we're gonna get a little place and w're gonna...
We gonna...gonna have a cow, and some pigs, and we're gonna have, maybe-maybe, a chicken.

Post-op castration patients are often rehabbed with pictures of their spouses' friends photo albums to ease them into their new roles in the world.

. Dorrian's, A Portrait. Mixed Media., 2010. Art courtesy the artist.

If one of these women were to appear above my bed demanding alimony payments, I'd shit myself. And then consult the closest Dickens novel for advice.

When the Mighty Morphin Sephora Rangers combine powers, it's like Voltron, except nothing cool happens. They just drunkenly tumble to the ground and scrape their knees.

Bronimal Collective. The Brosten Celtics. BroYPD: Bro York's Finest. The Bro Team! Florence + The Brochine. Grizzly Bro. The Bro Steady. LCD Brosystem. The Bro-End Theory. Of Bros and Men. Brosserie. Brontausaurs. Keep it on the down-bro. Etc.

CNNs Rick Sanchez Exponentially More Assy Than Usual Not a Fan of Metric System [Reporters]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Bloggers are now noting CNN's Rick Sanchez, while covering the Chilean earthquake and oncoming tsunami in Hawaii, acted in a manner befitting "an ejaculation that should have been swallowed." If you have video of this, shout. Update! We've got video.

Rick Sanchez, to a scientist: "Nine meters in English is what?"

Ha. In Portuguese, now! Also, via Dan "Slim Shady" Abrams' Mediaite, Drew Grant grabs video. Highlights:

1:37: Rick Sanchez trying to explain to his viewers, who are apparently too stupid to understand the most basic law of "every reaction" physics: "The yang of that yin.."

1:46: Rich Sanchez screaming at this poor weather nerd: "I'm not asking you to do 27 to 27, I'm asking you if there's a drop, will there be an increase?!?"

Also, more Rick "No Shit, Sherlock" Sanchez here:

2:20: "But what we can say is—tell me if I'm wrong—there is a tsunami there, and it was just detected, that it caused a 27-foot drop."

Maybe if he lived life like fellow anchor Jeffrey Toobin—Toobinstyle—he wouldn't be so anal. Or at least, anal like this. If you know what I mean. I'm talking about Jeffrey Toobin being an ass man. An ass sex man. But for now, Rick Sanchez is just an asshole.

A List of Central Parks Endangered Creatures Worth Saving with Commentary [Listicle]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

If you live in New York, you know Central Park is - despite smog-spewing cars blazing through it, kids who shit everywhere, dogs who shit everywhere, tourists who're everywhere, and facepalm-worthy Beatles tributes at Strawberry Fields - pretty magical. But!

The magical coyotes of Central Park are being taken away from us by people who are scared they're going to, like, bite you or something. But seeing one is, as evidenced by this New York item, so awesome:

The three people followed the coyote as it wandered west. The Nashville man began using a flash on his camera. This seemed to irritate the coyote. Suddenly, it crossed the ice warily, then jumped a fence at a low point, taking the very walkway the humans were using. It was a week in which a whale trainer was killed by an orca and Travis, the Xanax-fed, human-attacking chimp, made the news again, yet Gardner followed the coyote eagerly. Then, it walked up the stairs, toward Central Park South, the lamppost light on the slick sidewalks making its exit seem very noir. If you looked, you could find its big non-dog-like tracks in the snow.

Because people in New York—whether you're just visiting, or live here—are exceptionally stupid and especially exceptionally crazy, particularly in Central Park, this big, beautiful, urban-rural landscape sandwiched between a bunch of senile-bound hyper-intellectual liberal Jews and a bunch of senile-bound hyper-capitalist WASPs (and Jews) and, uh, Harlem. How can you not be?

But Central Park needs to stay magical. It's like Narnia, except we can't keep all the assholes out. Anyway. Here are some creatures that we need to preserve in Central Park:

1. Muggers. Not that I want to get mugged or not that I think other people getting mugged is a good thing, but really, Central Park having an element of danger to it does keep out lots of people who mostly just get in your way when you're there. Also, it would help people move faster, maybe, and if there's anything you hate about Central Park, it's that people are slower than they need to be in places you shouldn't be allowed to be slow. Maybe we could subsidize muggers with taxpayer money, and get them to mug slow tourists or loud assholes or people who let their dogs shit everywhere without cleaning it up, and then they can take that money and put it towards the MTA deficit. Also, people will start taking the N/R/W, 4/5/6, and I guess kind of the F/V when they hear about the scary muggers in Central Park, which will also chip away at the MTA deficit. Of course, this doesn't matter because the MTA is run by the biggest bunch of bureaucratic buttfaces (yes, "buttfaces," that's a technical designation, also see: "assfaces" or "fuckfaces" for higher-ranking members) ever, so this might not matter. But it's worth a shot.

2. Weed smokers. Why do you think the New York branch of Marijuana Anonymous is on 57th and 8th? Smoking weed in Central Park is a time-honored tradition, recognized by pop culture in film (the first episode of Gossip Girl, Igby Goes Down, etc) and music (like, every Simon and Garfunkel song, and that one Harry Nilsson song, and not the one by Randy Newman about the dancing bear and borrowing a coat, but that one, too), now only carried out by the few daring locals who have their spots and don't fear getting fucked in the ass with a police baton, which cops in New York are now allowed to do when they find weed smokers. The faint smell of a nearby marijuana smoker is a beautiful one, certainly better than the dogshit you just stepped on. Smoking weed in New York is already a kinda magical experience: the weed comes to you. People who don't live in New York, you know we get our drugs delivered, right? Anyway, the point is that there really isn't a better place to get high in New York, because when you see coyotes, apparently, they're actually coyotes. Also, there are swings and rowboats and ducks to feed and laugh at. The rowboats are an especially great place to get high. Anyway, New York should make Central Park a "safe zone" for public weed smokers. And then the muggers could mug them and donate their weed to people who need it. Like me. Smoking weed in Central Park is also a blast of nostalgia, and who doesn't like nostalgia? Do you see what I'm saying, man? Have you ever been called Maurice? You'd enjoy it.

3. Coyotes. As previously mentioned. Beautiful, majestic creatures who will eat New York's Burberry-clad kickdogs and Bugaboo-shuttled babies for a light snack. Necessary for natural selection and totally awesome weed experiences. If you follow one, it may take you to a magical places, like the lines of a New York Magazine piece, or a new weed-smoking spot, or Harlem. Or eat you. It might eat you.

4. Gay pickups. Okay, so, not being a gay man and all, I don't know what the status of these guys are, but I know they existed at one point. Basically, if you were gay, you could go to Central Park and get your fuck on and maybe catch something. Straight people aren't cool or adventurous enough to live like this—at least none of the straight people I know, and maybe I just don't have cool enough friends—but I know that there are probably less than there were when Tony Kushner wrote that scene into Angels in America when Ben Shenkman tries to have sex with the leather-clad pickup who lives with his mother. You know what I'm talking about. Anyway, this is almost totally unselfish of me because I don't really benefit from this but more leather-clad gay pickups in Central Park will definitely keep more conservative (read: slower walking) tourists out. So it's not totally selfless.

5. The Casual Runner. "All runners look like spacemen, now," notes Night Editor ninja Adrian Chen. He's correct! Running should be a low-maintenance thing! You know how they do it in Philly? Well, lemme tell you this: they don't need an expensive space-suit to do it, you bougie pussies. You gonna let Philly show us how it's done?

6. Roller skaters. Not rollerbladers, mind you, but roller skaters. Have you ever seen some dudes roller skate in Central Park? Right, because they only appear on Sundays, beautiful Sundays, when the sun is out. They bring boomboxes and skate in a circle and it's basically like something directly out of Roll Bounce except the real-life version, which is one of the things that's exceptionally cooler in real life than it is in a movie starring (PKA Lil') Bow Wow. Unlike many of the "entertainers" in Central Park who want to take your money without actually working for it (like mimes or those people who dress up as the Statue of Liberty and just stand there and totally creep you/me out), these people actually have incredible talent. Not only are they great roller skaters, they make you want to roller skate. In fact, they make you feel better about life. Which everything should.

Basically, we should have weed-smoking rolling skating coyotes who will mug you if you run in a spacesuit or walk too slow.

Central Park is awesome.

Real Housewives of Orange County A Far Off Face [Recaps]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Housewives. They just never stop, do they? They just keep going and going and going and they will continue to do so until we are all, every one of us, dead in their acrid wake. I mean, until next week.

Last night's episode was all about change. About the changes we make when we try for something new, like Gretchen did. About the changes we make when we return to something old, like Vicki did. About the changes we make when we are faced with great difficulty, like Lynne was. About the changes we make when we begin to reconsider the world, as Tamra did. And about the the changes we make when we pay a stranger to cut parts off parts of our face and replace them with other parts of our face, as Alexis (and her mother!) did. Change change chaaaaange, change of liiiiife. That's a lyric from Menopause: The Musical, a beautiful piece of theater that I spent my first year out of college selling tickets for. Ohhh I heard that show so many times. I think of it now, when regarding these blonde apocalypses.

Let's start with Tamra. Oh Tamra. She is a curt and sour, her eyes are beginning to look like darkening slot canyons, like Antelope, the flash-flood waters coming. To celebrate this fact, Tamra threw herself a funeral, otherwise known as a 42nd birthday party. Yes, she is just three short years away from the date when the Orange County Woman Control squad hauls her off and buries her in a shallow grave somewhere near Barstow. So might as well whoop it up before some government bureaucrat wearing a tie and some Sears chinos makes the sign of the cross and puts two bullets in the back of her head, desert winds rustling through his combover. Might as well live it up.

All the girls were there! Trixi and Marbella and Ruby Foo and Vandella and Garbage Marge the Garbage Barge. All of Tamra's good friends. They took turns playing Pin the Tail On the Donkey and Marry the Millionaire and they all guzzled shots and Vicki sent her poor little assistant — named Heather or George or Martinique, no one really remembers, but it seemed sad and confused and was murmuring things, whole sentences to itself, and nobody knows for sure, but when Garbage Marge the Garbage Barge leaned in close she swears it was saying "I want to go home, I want to go home" over and over and over again — to deliver a gift and everyone was so horrified that Vicki couldn't even come by, especially because she was just two blocks away. Cut to Vicki, naked and smeared in copy toner, a Staples' employee's severed head stuck on a pike made of staple removers, shrieking "Wooorrrrrrkkkkkkkkkkkkk! The Vicki is worrrrrkkkinggggggg!!!" And we all shuddered and realized that she had thumbtacks stuck in her gums, either she'd placed them there as decoration or she'd been eating thumbtacks again, and we knew that this Work that Vicki speaks of, this is a very important thing. Tamra wasn't buying it.

After the birthday party, Garbage Marge drove everyone home in her garbage barge and dropped Simon and Tamra off at a fancy restaurant for fancy people, which Simon and Tamra are. There they had a lovely romantic conversation about boobs and tits and sacks and funbags and sweater melons and over the shoulder boulder holders and goody lumps and smugglin' Hare Krishnas and chest balls. But mostly they talked of love and breasts and Tamra licked Simon's face, which I imagine tasted like the underside of a shoe that smokes menthol cigarettes, and oh man is their marriage over. Just over over over. So over. It's over next week. It's already over. Time warps and bends around this show. It's like a black hole only less interesting. It's a hole.

Once she and Simon had finished playing a sexy game that Simon affectionately calls Lizard Tongue, Tamra hopped aboard her bejeweled moped and puttered over to the house where Lynne will soon be not living. She knocked on the door and it creaked open, unlocked. She walked into the house. There was an eerie silence. "Hellloooo?" she called out, becoming strangely cold and frightened. "Lynne? Lynne's hubby? Troll monsters?" She walked into the Great Room and stood, looking around. Suddenly she felt a presence. Lynne was in the room. But where? She looked all around. Then she heard a sickening shuffle coming from above her. She looked up to see Lynee skittering around the ceiling, transfixed by the light fixture. "Lynne... Lynne honey?" As soon as Lynne realized she was being watched she plummeted down toward the ground, bounced off the leather sofa and crashed through the coffee table. Lying in a bloody, shardy heap she slurred "Hiiiiiiiiii Tamra. Come on in. I was just... I was just, uh, breaking the table here."

The ladies opened a bottle of wine and got to chatting about men. Tamra thought they were all liars and Lynne remarked at how when sometimes you think you pooped that day but you didn't really poop that day and then at night you have Poop Dreams? Tamra stared at a fixed spot on the wall just to the left of Lynne's eyes and said "Uh huh." And then Lynne said "Oh yeah, Hubby would never cheat on me. He's a germaphobe." Tamra blinked harder, seriously confused. But I got that! That little tidbit of Lynne's actually made sense. He wouldn't stick it in another wicket because who knows what sort of strange disease one could get from that. I get ya Lynne. You're one batty bitch, but I get ya. Tamra shrugged her shoulders and continued on talking, while Lynne crawled up onto the counter and managed to get stuck in the disposal, where she stayed all night, softly purring to herself, having wonderful Poop Dreams.

While she was doing that, her two daughters, Encyclopedia and Britannica, went to have a very serious conversation. As the two Merit Scholars had been studying very hard, they knew just what to say and how to say it. There's a very important education program on television called The Hills, which teaches girls from Carlsbad to Kennebunk how to talk and what to talk about. You takkkk lakkkk thissssss and you barely open your mouth so a burble of word-ideas comes sluicing out of your glossed lips, followed soon after by gallons and gallons of feces and bile and zombie vomit. And, like, they said "like" more times than I have ever heard that word ever, and I grew up in the Valley. (I mean, I certainly watched enough things about the Valley growing up to have vicariously grown up there, right) It's really some entirely new mode of linguistics these California reality show girls have come up with. It's almost tonal and click-based. "Yeahhh" means a very different thing than "Yeahhhhh." Completely different.

Anyway, while I was digging in that ancient temple dedicated to the goddess Laguna last night, I uncovered a sort of Rosetta Stone that translates Shitspeak. In Shitspeak, the girls were apparently talking about moving to LA. Because LA will be their savior. In LA nothing is hard, everything is good and pure and merciful. No one will treat you cruelly, even if you look like one of the bad guys from Labyrinth. (...) It's a city of nice people where you don't need a jawwb. Who wants a jawwwwb. Nobody wants a jawwwwwb. Oh it was so sad and awful and pathetic watching these girls audition for their own show. Shitspeak: Girl Talk premieres this fall on BravoTeen, which is a channel named after Andy Cohen's brain. (But seriously, if anyone over there wants to start BravoTeen, you will have one dedicated viewer.)

We pack up, we move on. Over to Gretchen. Does anyone care about Gretchen anymore? Do you think Gretchen realizes that everyone stopped caring a little while ago? It's sort of sad. She just keeps on showing up and saying things with those coin purse features of hers and she has no idea that nobody's watching anymore. Hey, here's a segment where Gretchen gets her makeup done by her best friend/makeup artist LouMitsy, and if anyone was watching they would get out their little weed dealing scales to try to figure out how many ounces of makeup Gretchen is wearing. But no one's home. Hey, here's a segment where she takes her own makeup line to a trade show and, shocker!, no one shows up. At that point Gretchen must have realized that no one was paying attention, right? I mean, it was manifestly in her face right then, wasn't it? Just staring right at her, unblinking as a bird. I have nothing interesting to say about Gretchen except that Ha Ha Ha no one showed up to her stupid makeup party, because why would they? Time to try to find a job that is actually real, Gretchen. (As if. Who wants a jawwwwwwb. She's gonna move to LA with the Doublets of Belleville and do nothing forever.)

Let's go toot toot tooting back over to Lynne, who managed to finally get out of the disposal and stumble into her Flintsones car and callous-foot her way over to dinner with Hubby. "Hey Hamslacks, how's fritters?" she asked him with determination. He sighed and patted her hand. "Who's on the menu, Jackson?" she asked brightly. He sighed again and a small tear trickled down his face. "The toucan sure sounds like something I'd like to talk to, I'll have that, Dudley" Lynne said to a freckle on her arm. Hubby put his head down on the table. ""Didja ever think about babies that wear hats? I think about that a lot." By now Hubby was curled up under the table, weeping. Though he was secretly glad that he didn't have to answer any questions about his terrible finances, because that would be scary and he doesn't like scary things. Suddenly Lynne's head popped under the table and she said "Your seltzer's ready!" Then there was a gunshot.

Next we take a peek at Alexis, our big-titted funbag of a Jesuswoman, who was doing Christly things like taking her momma to get her face rearranged. Ha ha, no. She wasn't taking her mom to a 1950s school bully. She was taking her to a plastic surgeon! Plastic surgery is listed in the Bible right after that strikethrough part about the body being a temple and not having too much pride and all that. Alexis and Ma Juggs had a nice serious lunchtime chat about wrinkles and aging and the long slow molasses ooze towards death that is living, and her mother frowned and looked like Alice Krige or Piper Laurie and we felt bad for her, because soon she would be disappeared, never the same again, a whole different, lesser person. Alexis smiled in an eerie, glassy way and said "One of us, now. One of us." Alexis also remarked at how her mom's forehead was as smooth as Andy Cohen's "assistant" and yet she had never had any work done, and Alexis is sixty-eight and has had so many surgeries she can't even count them. I mean, she used to be black!

So Alexis pulled a giant mallet out of her purse and whacked her mother over the head and the next thing poor Piper Laurie knew, she was strapped into a chair with the doctor from Brazil sharpening his Defacer. It was just so sad watching her, because she clearly didn't want the surgery, but there was a camera crew there and she did want to do something with her daughter, who seemed further and further away with each passing month, so she did it. She sat there as the doctor scrawled all over her face with a marker and then the doctor's mom came in and said "Oh honey, that's very pretty. You know what? I'm going to put it on the refrigerator," and then took Piper Laurie's face and stuck it onto the fridge with a big magnet. She hung out like that for a while until Alexis ran in and yelled "Now! Do it now!!!! Begin the Defacening!!!"

After Alexis's mom's face was cut off, she was wheeled over to a plastic surgery recovery center (these only exist in Southern California, they're the Newport Creameries of the West) where she would stay until the lizard DNA had fully fused with her own and her face could begin regrowing, a taut new hide. Alexis took some time off from her busy daiquiri and Christoga schedule to spend some time with her mom at the center and she yammered on about many things and shared many memories. One memory was of when they were at lunch before and her mother said "Remember how you wouldn't walk anywhere because you didn't want your hair to smell like air?" At that point all of our faces fell off and the Lizard King cackled and said "You are all mine nowwwwww." Srsly, Alexis? And this is, like, a funny a story we are telling? Not a horribly depressing one about a horrible girl with ugly outsides and hideous insides who was so fucking stupid and vain that she preferred her hair to smell like a bucket of chemicals instead of "air"? Are you sure it's not that kind of story?

Anyway, Alexis is awful and stupid and we all know that. That's no surprise. Eventually Jim will finish digesting Quinn ("wah-lah!") and he will probably devour Alexis, so we don't need to worry about her too much longer. What we SHOULD worry about is his atomic poops. Talk about a Poop Nightmare. Poop. Breaking: 26-Year-Old College-Educated Man Can't Stop Making Poop Jokes.

Our last stop on this freight train of horrors is Vicki. Oh Vicki. Vicki who was an electric pencil eraser accident some years ago and has never been the same. If I've said it once I've said it a thousand times: You have to wait until the gecko DNA has fully fused with your own before you take the bandages off, Vicki. Otherwise you come out looking like cold pizza. Here's the straight honest good news: Briana doesn't have thyroid cancer. So good for that. Good things. Sincere good things.

BUT THE BIG NEWS was this: Vicki was making Housewife water, which we folks out here in Stinktown call margaritas, and she walked out to her patio and it was verryyyy sneaky the way they didn't show us who she was making the drink for and then...!!!! It was Jeana. Big fat bellowing Jeana, come from down the block to forage for crullers. It was so nice to see two old lizard friends hang out again. They spoke of old times and new times, fun times and sad times. Vicki was interviewed and she said "I think we're going to always be friends." Immediately Jeana was interviewed and she said "I hate that bitch." So, yay! Sweet times.

Vicki spent most of her time with Jeana bitching about all the other "bitches" calling them bitches and saying that they are so bitchy, those bitchy bitches. Jeana rolled her eyes so hard they popped out of their sockets and rolled into the pool, and while Vicki had Andy Cohen's "assistant" fish it out with the pool skimmer, she continued to harp on Alexis and Tamra and Gretchen and Garbage Marge the Garbage Barge and alla them. Will this be Vicki's last season? I think it might be! But who knows. We will have to wait until next week to find out. Next week is the finale. We've one episode to go.

In the meantime, Tamra will stare hard at her husband as he sits and watches the TV, she'll think about back when the marriage was young and the kids were babies and how she used to pray for moments of silence, for a quiet night like this one. But now all she wants to do is scream and shake the walls, yell something profane and shocking in Simon's ear, to break dishes and windows, to set off the burglar alarm and let it go forever. Then people will know, everyone will know. There's a fire inside her, a hot churning core. Something is happening to Tamra Barney. She just thought you should know.

And Gretchen will spit and stutter and fart and worry, because nobody likes Gretchen Rossi and she's wondering if maybe anyone ever did. She'll get drunk on sangria and take her stubby fingers and dial her phone and a sleeping Andy Cohen will answer and he'll say "Gretchen? What is it?" And Gretchen will laugh sadly and sneer at the phone and slur "You're such a fake and a liar and nobody likes you. Why doesn't anybody like Gretchen?" And Andy will be confused and then he'll hear the phone drop to the floor and a glass door sliding open and then a faint splash and then just the night, just the crickets, just the connection softly buzzing, the sound of distance.

Alexis will be bashing in her mother's chest with a hammer to convince her to get a boob job and Jim will watch her from the doorway, his beautiful blood-spattered Christian bride, smashing through bone and muscle, her mother's eyes wide with terror, Alexis weeping and screaming "You'll look so beautiful, mother!! Just like me!! Just like me!!" and then with one final thud the room goes quiet and her mother lies frozen on the bed and Jim looks at Alexis and undoes the sash on his dressing gown and says "God you're sexy," and they make love on her mother's pulverized body.

And Lynne will wander into the fifth dimension, or the fourth and a half, she can never quite tell. And in that place, up won't be down, it'll be sideways or hat. And everyone will speak Lynnelanguage and everyone won't even be there, there won't be an everyone or a no one, just one, just Lynne, just everything twisting and shifting, never staying still, and Lynne will be so happy, so warm and content until there is a loud slamming noise and she hears Hubby yelling "Jesus Christ, honey. How the hell did you get in the drier again?"

And Jeana and Vicki will just sit on the patio, drinking their juice, and they will laugh at it all. These too old broads, been around the word together, to hell and back, leathery bats flapping their wings toward the sky. "I love you," Vicki will murmur. And Jeana will chortle and say "Oh fuck you." And VIcki will smile and lean back in her chair and close her eyes and say "Yeah, fuck me."

And somewhere Andy Cohen will awake with a start, not from a phone call not from an alarm not from anything but a feeling, a strange and urging thought. "I've done something wrong," he will whisper in the dark apartment, New York droning along outside. "I've done something terribly wrong." And his "assistant" will stir and pat his back and lazily say, halfway between dreams and the world, "No baby, it was just right."

Just right.

Paterson Quits Campaign Will Remain Governor I Am Being Realistic About Politics [Breaking]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

David Paterson press conference time! ~~Watch it here.~~ He is going to stop campaigning, but keep being governor. Update: It went by so quickly! Some quotes from the governor are attached.

Paterson is talking about all the wonderful things he has done as a legislator and accidental governor. "We have eradicated the Rockefeller drug laws," he says, which is not quite true. But he did do more about this than any of his predecessors!

Finally, the announcement: "Today I am announcing that I am ending my campaign for Governor of the State of New York." Because he can't run for office and manage the state's finances at the same time, not because of any of that other stuff.
AND:
"I have never abused my office. Not now, not ever."
AND:
"Let me make this clear: there are 308 days left in my term and I will serve every one of them"

The governor took a few questions, but not many. He looks forward to a full investigation of the thing about abusing his office, with the state police and the phone calls. Disappointingly non-crazy!

Variety Will Kill a Bad Review of Your Mediocre Movie For Just $400000 [How Things Work]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Last month, Variety panned a thriller called Iron Cross. But the review has been disappeared from Variety's web site, which probably has something to do with the $400,000 Iron Cross' producers paid to Variety for an awards campaign.

Iron Cross, which ended up being Roy Scheider's last film (he died during production), is a Holocaust revenge fantasy in which Scheider, a Holocaust survivor and NYPD cop, hunts down and kills the SS officer who killed his family. It's also, according to Variety freelancer Robert Koehler, who reviewed it for the Hollywood trade paper on January 20, "hackneyed," "preposterous," "mediocre," "choppy," and "uncertain."

But if you want to read Koehler's take on Iron Cross, you'll have to find it in Google's cache, because it was promptly spiked from Variety's web site.

We're told publisher Brian Gott ordered it removed after the movie's producers called to complain. They had a point—according to the Los Angeles Times, they'd paid Variety $400,000 in a failed bid to mount an Oscar campaign:

To that end he has gotten his investors to agree to a "substantial" buy (about $400,000) in the Hollywood trade paper Variety with ads of one sort or another running every day until Oscar voters have turned in their ballots in late January.... The film is booked into Variety's LA, NY and San Francisco screening series, where [director Joshua] Newton and his son Alexander, who's in the movie as the young Scheider, will do Q&As.

Iron Cross' presence on Variety's screening series, which is usually reserved for actual Oscar contenders and serves to give members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences a chance to see potential nominees in the theater before the voting begins, was a mystery to many in Hollywood. It was a tiny film by relatively unknown director Newton, and was notable only for the unfortunate fact that Scheider died while making it. But Newton and his fellow producers' huge outlay to Variety certainly explains its presence, as well as the January Variety story touting the otherwise unremarkable picture as "a World War II revenge drama [that] has hit the screens with hopes of awards."

We asked Gott why Koehler's review was spiked, and he replied, "Unfortunately Variety does not comment on internal matters. I hope you understand." We tried to reach Iron Cross' producers, including Newton, without success. Koehler didn't respond to an e-mail.

UPDATE: We still haven't reached Newton, but we've obtained an e-mail he wrote to a tipster in December saying that Variety removed Koehler's review due to "the absolute embarrassment endured by Variety bearing in mind we have worked with them for months to develop an effective Oscars campaign." How embarrassing! Here's the entire e-mail, which notes that Koehler isn't a staff writer and argues that his "views on the film are not shared by anyone else at that publication." Newton also accuses Koehler of being "sneaky" in catching Iron Cross at one of its few public showings rather than at the one of the paid Variety screenings that he purchased a slot in, and says "he must have known that his review would compromise our Variety campaign." Here's the full e-mail:

Robert Koehler is in fact not a staff writer for Variety and his views on the film are not shared by anyone else at that publication. One of the top staff journalists had been assigned to do a review after the Oscars campaign, but Koehler took it upon himself to review the film first and managed to sneak it into the publication. You can imagine the absolute embarrassment endured by Variety bearing in mind we have worked with them for months to develop an effective Oscars campaign. If you do a search, this will confirm that Variety have now deleted the article from the database. This is because Koehler's review was considered sloppy and grossly unfair and that he described the events in the film incorrectly. Kindly note as follows: Roy Scheider does not imagine taking a chainsaw to a random German's throat. Roy does not realise the guy they abducted is the wrong man. That is not the reason why he couldn't pull the trigger. I set out below the film's synopsis, which you can see is somewhat different to Koehler's and your friend's description:

"IRON CROSS is a revenge drama in which the late Roy Scheider stars as JOSEPH, a retired New York police officer tormented by memories of escaping the execution of his family as an 18-year old in Nazi-occupied Poland. The faces of TWO SS men, one the COMMANDER in charge of the massacre, the other a PRIVATE who pursued Joseph through the forest, have obsessed him ever since. When Joseph arrives in Nuremberg to reconcile with his son RONNIE (Scott Cohen), he coaxes him into abducting SHRAGER, (Helmut Berger) a neighbour, convinced that he is the aging SS Commander living under a false identity. En route to the execution site in a stolen truck to deliver what Joseph considers justice but what Ronnie protests to be vengeance, Joseph recounts to his son for the first time his harrowing escape from the massacre and his teenage love for a heroic Polish girl, Kashka. As flashbacks to the 1940s depict Young Joseph (Alexander Newton) and Kashka (Sarah Bolger), the face and eyes of the SS private who chased Joseph through the forest plague him with increasing intensity — nightmarish visions that challenge his humanity and lead both the past and the present to a gripping and unforgettable climax."

Roy's last performance is outstanding and Oscar-worthy. Last week we had three Variety-organised oscar screenings to packed 300-seat theaters in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, each followed by considerable applause, praise and a Q&A. Koehler was not at any of these, instead he chose to view it without his colleagues knowing under the radar at the picture's one week qualifying run in a tiny theater with terrible sound in West Hollywood. Had he been at the official Variety screenings or bothered to check with his colleagues or get Production Notes from our publicists, he would have known that the story is inspired by my late father, a holocaust survivor and based on a question I asked myself a couple of years ago "What would my dad do if he came across the person responsible for the murder of his family? Would he take the law into his own hands? Would he ask me to help him kill this man?". He would also have known that there are several strange coincidences surrounding the production of this film. In particular, Roy was playing a character modeled on my father – and when I cast Roy I had no idea he had the same cancer my dad had -– multiple myeloma. Both died from it, my dad on May 10th 2007, Roy on February 10th 2008 –- and Roy's memorial service took place on May 10th 2008 -– exactly to the day one year after my father's passing. I can't say why Koehler took such a negative view –- but his actions were sneaky and he must have known that his review would compromise our Variety campaign. He didn't even mention the film's wonderful score performed by the London Symphony Orchestra or the stunning cinematography. I have checked him out. For instance, look at this list of reviews for the hit comedy Rat Race:

http://www.metacritic.com/video/titles/ratrace

You'll note the very high percentages awarded by the top critics – reaching 100% by the San Francisco Chronicle. Koehler, who trashes many movies, gave it only 20%, stating "A lineup of comic actors running on empty long before the dust settles". Clearly a man without a sense of humour. Which probably explains why he hated Iron Cross. In the first act of the film, well before the neighbour is abducted, I depict several humorous moments, amongst which Roy's character imagines what he'd like to do to the man he believes killed his family –- not as your friend suggests, some random German. These include gassing, hanging and cutting off his head –- three methods the Nazis used to kill people. These moments — and several others –- received widespread audience laughter, as intended, at the three Variety screenings we have had. The rest of the film is a serious study into the mind of a man whose heart is filled with anger — the consequences of which are tragic. It's an anti-killing story, that if watched with attention offers the viewer much below the surface and raises meaningful discussion.

Except for the synopsis, this email is sent to you in strictest confidence and not for publication – many thanks.

Kind regards

Joshua

Joshua Newton | Producer-Director | Calibra Pictures

Snow Day Your Horror Stories Are Welcome [Shut Up Snow]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

It has been snowing since yesterday morning. It is not the Snowpocalypse or Snowmageddon or Snowicane. It is just snow. It happens every year. And it is awesome, glorious, and beautiful. But when it's done being those things, it sucks.

So please quit bitching when it snows, and the news needs to stop making it sound like the end of the world every time a little precipitation descends on us. The only time when white powder is a threat to the public safety is when it is Anthrax in some taped-up, ratty-looking envelope mailed to the mayor's office. We don't need to remind you, but you live in New York City, and it snows here. It happens every winter, more than once, and sometimes a lot all at the same time. You're going to get through it. No one will die (well, almost no one) and you will not starve sitting in your apartment waiting for the plows to clear the streets so that the FreshDirect boy can whisk your groceries up to your apartment with his muddy boots.

The city has pretty much shut down. It's a real, actual show day. That is great, because it never happens and you should take this respite before the hastened pace of spring takes over with its bike rides, barbecues, and beautiful weather. But the weather right now isn't so bad. It's not too cold or windy. The streets look picturesque as the flakes rain down and you can spin in the street, round and round under the flurries, just like Winona Ryder in Edwards Scissorhands with her blonde wig whipping around as her hands lash out and grasp at the falling ice right before the town turns on Edward and everything goes to shit.

That's kind of what happens with snow too. After a few days in the house, you're going to be sick of your boyfriend/roommate/husband/kids/snoring dog. The Netflix will be finished and all the good snacks eaten. Every time you cross an intersection there will be a deep puddle on the other side. You'll be stuck wearing crappy outfits because you don't want to ruin your nice shoes (well, unless you work at GQ).

Some people have it bad already. You can't get to work, planes have been canceled, the place down the street with the good bagels closed early. Our very own Alex Pareene tried to come into the office today until a group of errant thugs threw him head first into a snow drift! (OK, that didn't really happen, but he still gave up on the messy sidewalks and the messed-up subway and went back home to work from his couch and fix himself appletinis all day.

We're sure you have plenty of horrible stories to share with us about your commute and shoveling and being stuck. Please, share them in the comments. But you also have lots of fun stories about snowball fights and lying in front of the fire lazily watching the Olympics on TV and that really hot hooker you ordered up from Craigslist who gave you a discount because things aren't so busy today. Share those, too! Along with pictures and anything else you want. It's a snow day! The rules are off and we are here for revelry...and bitching.

[Images via Flickr/NYHispano and Flickr/Marilyn Cvitanic]

Were The Vancouver Olympics Cursed? [Olympic Mysteries]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Some might say so! With malfunctions both technical and human, with real sadnesses and imagined ones, these winter games have been fraught with hiccups and hold-ups. So do we leave them with a grim feeling?

Though today's not the last day of the Olympics, that's ~~tomorrow~~ Sunday, there is a sense of finality in the air, mostly because the ladies twirled to the podium last night for Ice Maneuvering and that's the most important medal ever competed for in any of the Olympics. So taking a look back, were these strange, dark games afflicted in some way? A little bit.

Of course there was the obvious pall cast over the festivities with the death in luge, a tragic and frustrating story about track builders flying too close to the sun or something. And it happened a day before everything really even got kicked off, so even the usually joyous (if ridiculous) opening ceremonies had a long shadow cast over them.

And speaking of those! There was that whole yikesy technical malfunction during the ceremonies that left Wayne Gretzky's date standing there like a jackass, holding her flaming phallus like a chump. If part of your grand mechanized Olympic Cauldron breaks down at the bigtime opening ceremonies, well, that's not a good sign.

We also had Lindsey Vonn's ski crash during the Giant Slalom that led to her teammate Julia Mancuso, the gold medal defender from Torino, winding up in eighth place. One skier's crash ruins the chances for her teammate? Only in these hexed Olympics.

The Dutch felt the sting as an absent-minded coach steered his star speed skater, bellicose handsome guy Sven Kramer, down the wrong lane, costing him a gold medal and a world record.

There was the weather, a nasty soup of rain and foggy snow and bad winds, delaying events and causing various mishaps. Just yesterday a host of favorites in the Nordic Combined totally whiffed it because of a perilous tailwind at the ski jump. The expressions on their faces kind of said it all: What the hell is going on? Plus we had other dangerous conditions, with a women's downhill fraught with crashes and a sliding track that, even after being altered in reaction to the young luger's death, caused a nasty pair of bobsled accidents in the women's two-man earlier this week.

People got sent home for doing stupid shit, the condoms ran out early, an American woman was denied a spot on the figure skating podium for the first time since Peggy Fleming. Russia had their own streak-breaking failure in ice dancing. And on their hallowed home ice, Canadian hockey was beaten by a rowdy and jingo-fanatic US.

And then there was Joannie Rochette, the French-Canadian figure skater whose mother died suddenly, mere days before her competition. Rochette bundled it all up and tied it down and grabbed a bronze medal despite her grief, doing her small part to try and break the spell, to cast the curse out.

Yes there's been obvious calamity at these games, they haven't gone smoothly. But I suppose — in some corny, misty-eyed way — that these struggles and mishaps are really what the Olympics are all about. It's not a curse, it's just the affliction of living. Dealing with the imperfect, rising to frustrating challenges and sometimes failing, sliding away into the unknown. It's the entirety of human drama writ small and Canadian. For all of the McNuggetsy corporate shilling and cynical NBC coverage and silly puritanism, the Olympics are still, at their metal core, something good and stirring. They are their own small proof of humanity, of how we tumble and succeed and regret. As I'm sure any Olympian can tell you, we all have off years. And Vancouver's year was certainly not the finest in winter games history.

But they happened, and people flew. People did things, wonderful and scary and dangerous things, in the name of silly sport. As it does every two years, the world tilted its head and watched, as if to say "Ah yes, there we are." There we all are, navigating this frozen and rocky world. Falling all over ourselves, testing and straining these miracle bodies, always thrilled to pick ourselves up and race on into the white.

Apple Only Wants 16 YearOlds Working Its Dodgy Sweatshops [Evil Corporations In Action]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Apple products are made in factories that regularly employ young teenagers, constantly work people more than 60 hours per week, and falsify records to cover up their misdeeds. That's according to the shameless gossiping muckrakers at... uh, Apple Inc.

The company's brightly-named "Supplier Responsibility 2010 Progress Report" (PDF) contains some dark information about the contractors who actually make Apple products, mostly overseas and mostly in China.

Like workers who were really 15 when they were supposed to be at least.... uh, 16, the ideal age for anyone in a factory:

As Fake Steve Jobs put it, teenagers have "tiny fingers, sharp eyes" — perfect, he ventures, for making little digital devices.

Also, it sounds like pretty much everyone is working insanely long hours, in excess of 60 hours per week:

According to Apple's report, workers often pay for the privilege of working these hours via recruiting fees, which in eight facilities were so extortionate as to be in violation of local law.

At 24 factories, workers weren't even making the local (shitty) minimum wage. At 48, they were deprived of proper overtime. At 57, they were screwed on sick leave and other benefits. And so on and so on.

Then there was the lying: Three facilities were caught falsifying records for Apple on underaged labor and/or working hours, and one even got fired from doing business with Apple, for getting busted lying two years in a row. Apple has standards, you know.

The Apple fanboys, naturally, are already defending the company from the negative press that's come out of this report, saying other companies don't even bother to investigate suppliers as Apple does. AppleInsider quoted CEO Steve Jobs at the Apple shareholder meeting:

Jobs... passionately argu[ed] that the media and environmental groups have ignored the real issues to focus mainly on what promises companies were making, even though many companies do not actually meet their promised goals. Apple, Jobs said, was focused on actually achieving results.

Jobs's argument about achieving results rings hollow given that Apple got serious about this issue nearly four years ago. Apple launched audits — and promised progress — in response to a 2006 report in the Daily Mirror about low pay and marathon work hours at iPod factories in China.

Yet the past year has seen the violations cited in Apple's report, a worker at one of Apple's largest contractors, Foxconn, committing suicide after an aggressive interrogation by Foxconn security, and the reported roughing up at least two journalists investigating Apple product factories.

In response, from Apple, we have a report that names no names, specifies very few penalties and generally offers to fix things with toothless or meaningless correctives like "detailed standards," "appropriate management systems," "third-party consultants," self inspections, "management systems... to drive compliance," "management systems to ensure accurate payment," and the always reliable "clear policies and procedures."

If this is "achieving results," things must have been pretty terrible a few years ago. Perhaps Apple is making progress after all. And maybe, just maybe, in a couple of years, the 16-year-old child laborers in Apple product factories will pay legitimate fees to work 60-hour weeks for no less than the crappy local minimum wage. Progress!

(Pic: A customer at the first Apple Store in China, 2008, Getty Images.)

National Enquirer Editor Corrupts Impressionable Columbia JSchool Students With Stories About Reporting [Barbarians At The Gate]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

If you're a journalism Brahmin who's simply appalled at the prospect of the National Enquirer winning a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of John Edwards' atrocious moral life, look out—they're going after your young now!

The high priests of pedigreed journalism-with-a-capital-j gasped at the news earlier this year that the Enquirer was throwing its hat in the ring for a 2009 Pulitzer Prize for its ownership of the John Edwards scandal. Well, it's too late—the foul tabloid barbarians have already penetrated the barricades of Columbia University's journalism school, the keepers of the hallowed prize. National Enquirer executive editor Barry Levine gave a lecture to journalism graduate students there last week.

"Yes, I was in the belly of the beast," Levine told Gawker. "I had never been there before. I was happy to be greeted by a giant statue of [tabloid progenitor] Joseph Pulitzer, which I thought was appropriate."

Levine had been invited by Columbia professor John Martin to tell the story of his paper's relentless, three-year pursuit of Edwards and Rielle Hunter, a story that he had virtually to himself for much of that time because "respectable" newspapers didn't deign to get down in the mud with trivial stories about politicians who cheat on their dying wives and have illegitimate children and attract federal grand jury investigations for paying hush money out of campaign funds. We learned of the visit from Gawker contributor Hunter Walker, a Columbia journalism school student, who spotted a leftover stack of Levine's business cards and some print-outs of a New York Post story about the Enquirer in one of the school's classrooms this morning. Like any upstanding member of Columbia's journalism community, Walker immediately ~~reported the intrusion to a responsible adult~~ grabbed a card for future employment prospects and contacted Gawker.

The lesson, apparently, is that Columbia is happy to let the rude, ink-stained wretches of the Enquirer teach its charges the hard-won lessons of how reporting is done, but when it comes to actually honoring that reporting—surely you jest! After initially trying to preemptively blackball the Enquirer based on the preposterous notion that it's really a magazine, and not a newspaper, the Pulitzer Committee has reportedly relented and will consider its application in earnest. Maybe they're doing so right now! Jurors are meeting as we speak in the school's "World Room." We hope they grabbed one of Levine's cards on the way to the meeting, because you never know in this economy.

Every Mediocre Person in America Running For Office in New York [2010]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

This is the depressing state of affairs in New York, in 2010. The various monsters and morons currently running-without-running for statewide office include Andrew Cuomo, Harold Ford, Mort Zuckerman, and, yes, Larry Kudlow.

None of them have announced their actual candidacies. All of them are establishment hacks with mundane ideas pretending to be outsiders. (Though who the fuck knows what any of them actually believe, besides that rich people should not have to pay taxes.) They are the absolute worst New York has to offer, and we say this going into the third term of a blinkered billionaire mayor and the soon-to-be-aborted partial first term of the accidental incompetent blind governor who took over the for the raging vengeful prick who had to quit because he fucked prostitutes with his socks on.

And despite their ridiculousness we must take each of these people semi-seriously entirely because of their friends, who have money and power and influence (and who are all, universally, vapid and stupid people). Ford has the DLC and the Rattners. Mort has Bloomberg. Andrew has, uh, New York's Democratic Party—a particularly useless organization of corrupt wardheelers, rich dingbats, and general incompetents. (Andrew is also the only person on this list guaranteed the job he has not yet deigned to campaign for.)

But Larry "Kuddles" Kudlow just might have the best friends of all. For they are Roger Stone's friends!

GOP dirty trickster Roger Stone has finally openly jumped on the Kudlow-for-Senate bandwagon. The inexplicably still-employed always-wrong economist wants to run against Chuck Schumer.

(Please keep in mind that the "Draft Kudlow" movement is an attempt to invent a drumbeat of popular support for a man who is already running for office, before he acknowledges that he is running for office. Also it is a fundraising campaign.)

Now, Stone correctly notes that Kudlow is a very good dresser. Stone is also right that Chuck Schumer is "perhaps the most odious, pushy, abrasive and self-absorbed jerk in Congress today." (But, you know, very few of those qualities necessarily make someone a bad legislator.) Stone is also right that Kudlow got everything wrong in the run-up to the economic collapse. Then he stops being right.

Some decry Kudlow, saying he was wrong in his economic predictions as our global economic meltdown approached. But who was right? Here is what we do know: taxing and spending got us to where we are today, and higher taxes and more pork spending are making it far worse.

Amazing. I didn't even know we knew that! (This comes after a line about leftists "rewriting history" to make it seem like supply-side economics don't work, just fyi.)

What Stone leaves out (which is funny, because surely a political operative as experienced as Roger knows this) is that Larry Kudlow was also, for more than a decade, a cocaine addict who spent tens of thousands of dollars a month on binges and who went to rehab for his addiction four times. But, to borrow Stone's inspiring defense of Kudlow's awe-inspiring constant wrongness, who hasn't been fired from The National Review for being a crackhead?

Congrats, Larry Kudlow, for making Harold Ford look electable.

[Top photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images]

The Russian Jersey Shore Rip Off Is a Stupid Idea [Reality Check]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Since it was the most important sociological event of our time (and a ratings success) there will inevitably be dozens of new reality shows trying to rip it off. Just stop now. These are always horrible ideas.

Failing to see that there would be countless lame imitators is like failing to see that JWOWW's boobs are fake or The Situation is going to try to lure loose, drunk women into his frothy hot tub of love for a little bit of sexin'. Brighton Beach sounds like the first entrant. Though it doesn't have a network, the show's creators are already casting. And based on what they told the NY Post today, it sounds like they're sticking close to the script of gross ethnic stereotypes behaving badly next to the surf. "There will be plenty of vodka, techno music and guys wearing Adidas pants, leather jackets and gold chains, and driving souped-up cars. There will also be a lot of hot, decked-out Russian girls," Elina Miller, the show co-creator says.

And that's not the worst, they're already biting off the show's nicknaming convention. "We've heard from 'The Entity,' 'B-Boy' and 'Mr. OTB' [Off The Boat]," another show creator, Alina Dizik, says. This is why this is a bad idea. Brighton Beach had the potential to be as big as Jersey Shore because it probably has everything we love about JS: young people reveling in their tackiness and scummy ways and behaving very, very badly in public. However, now it's just going to try hard to copy the guidos road to success. They'll all have silly nicknames, they'll have a "Siberian Husky" phone, they'll call their spot at the club the "revolutionary square" instead of the "battle field." Instead of trying to be authentic (which is really what we love the most about Snooki and Co), they're just going to try to be what they think the public wants. That's not good programming, that's just craven fame whoring. The problem with reality show rip-offs is that they try to run with the fever for the original product but they only end up stinking like so much Designer Imposters Body Spray.

This is a long tradition in the genre and every successful reality show tries to become genre onto itself. After The Apprentice was huge we had to deal with The Rebel Billionaire: Branson's Quest for the Best, Mark Cuban's The Benefactor, and Martha Stewart's very own ill-fated shot at finding a much-maligned second in command. The Deadliest Catch gave way to countless "perilous jobs" imitators like Ice Road Truckers, Black Gold, Swords, and Ax Men. Sometimes they even cannibalize themselves—Flavor of Love begat A Shot at Love begat I Love New York begat Rock of Love begat Scott Baio Needs Someone to Fuck begat The Gays Want Antonio Sabato Jr Back on TV.

Reality television is like a retrovirus. Once a good strain is introduced it constantly tries to trick our collective immune system by changing in slightly different ways so that we can't get rid of it. How else can you explain all the permutations of Real Housewives. The problem is, with each change it become exponentially weaker. The new shows will trick some of us, but not all of us, and the ones that are fooled won't even like it, they're just lulled into a safe place by easily recognizable programming. Well, it's time that we offer the world a great big inoculation against this copy catting run amok. Stop trying to just make a few tweaks and cash in quickly—it never works as well as you think. Instead take some time and try to dream up a whole new strain. It's certainly harder to come by, but it's a million times more deadly.

[Image via Bauer-Griffin]

Big Love Love Tether Ball [Recaps]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

In last night's penultimate episode of the season, we saw all the problems of the season converge in a screwball comedy of manners that sank this season even deeper into the mire.

Admittance time: I steered you guys wrong. I urged everyone so hard to watch this show, because last season was so good, and now this year has been... such a manic, overstuffed bust. Still an entertaining show, yes. But daaangerously teetering on the brink of ridiculous.

What happened last night? Ohhh what didn't happen last night? I don't even know how to write about it, so let's just do a list.

Ben came home from their Mexican arm-chopping adventure and is back in love with his dad.
Amanda Seyfried showed everyone a trailer for Letters to Juliet as a means to announce that she is moving away.
Nicki showed up to family backyard dinner in Margene-style hoochie wear, shocking everyone and making us wish that she'd get her own spin-off. Following Nicki's exploits as she remakes her life on her own could be fascinating and stirring in a way this show has not been more a lot of this season.
Bill found out that Margene is planning to marry Serbian Kevin Sorbo, and was mad and didn't want it to happen, but later wanted it to happen, but was still mad.
Barb and Bill confronted Sissy Spacek about her naughty wheelings and dealings, she countered by yelling at them and calling the casino a "fucking pup-tent." (Great line. She is great.)
Later on Sissy found out that there is badass polygamy going on in the Henrickson household, and she's going to war.
Nicki found out, via a Barb tongue slip, that Joey killed her dad. She raged at Bill, ran to the compound and took Wanda away from creepy JJ.
Creepy JJ caught Mary Kay Place snooping in the files, she found out that Roman was censuring him for some reason, he chloroformed her. Because he walks around with chloroform on a cloth, always?
Barba and her Injun Interest hugged... intensely.
Margene is worried that she is going to be attracted to Serbian Antonio Sabato Jr., and so is Bill. To prove his manliness, Bill challenged him to an intense game of tether ball.
Everyone hates each other now. The women of Utah especially hate Barb, because she babbled something about put-upon Utah women and all their pill-popping at a big Ladies Meeting. Bill found out, got mad.
Bill and family had to do a TV interview to prove that they are pro Family Values (no one knew they were such big Korn fans!). Amanda Seyfried showed up with a big sack of money with the words Dear John scrawled on it and was all "Heyyyy, what'd I miss?"
Tini is played by Selena Gomez now.
Nicki went to the Compound to try to rescue Alby, who was listening to Nancy Sinatra and weeping (creepy, interesting, more of that kind of stuff, please!). He seemed maybe about to accept her love and leave that awful place, but then the ghost of Roman convinced him to stay and he yelled at Nicki. She went home and told Bill that she wanted love, real love, and he didn't know what to do with that.
Other things happened?

There were definitely good moments — anything with Sissy, Nicki's sad revolution — but on the whole the episode felt like it was laid out in meter, with a rhythm of Problem Happens, Problem Is Discovered, People Get Mad repeated over and over again. I'm not really sure why the writers decided to make this season as crowded as they did, but it's just too much. The whole conceit of the show is already a big pill to swallow and it just doesn't need this much jazzing up.

I read Under the Banner of Heaven this weekend, and I wonder if that maybe colored how I watched last night's episode. In light of that book, Bill really is not much more than a hateful monster, his family a strange and cruel institution that has ties to a really insidious and violent history. Sure I knew that Mormons Are Weird before reading the book, but I didn't quite understand to what depths the whole church is an obfuscating cult bent on world domination. I appreciate attempts to humanize people associated with such a nasty thing, and that dynamic made this show a really interesting one last season, but trying to infuse more drama on top of the inherent craziness just comes across a bit greedy, doesn't it?

Sorry to be a downer this week, y'all. Hopefully next week we'll get some satisfying resolutions and some hope for a more reasonable fifth season. But right now I'm just... Tether ball. Ohhh tether ball.

Mancusos Facebook Fans Think Lindsey Vonn Is Fugly and Fat [Olympic Hangover]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

And you thought the Olympics were over. America's two best female skiers sparred on Twitter after Vonn's crash messed up Mancuso's giant slalom. Now, check out Julia's Facebook page. Her fans totally hate that chick. And her big, gold-medal-winning butt.

It's the cyberbullying trend plaguing America's youth! Where are Tina Fey and Mean Girls trust falls when you really need them... [Twitter] [Facebook]

Jerry Seinfelds New Show Almost Cancels Out Seinfeld [The Marriage Ref]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Everyone was puzzled upon learning that Jerry Seinfeld's triumphant return to NBC would be as the producer of a reality/game show called The Marriage Ref. After seeing the first episode, we are still puzzled. The Marriage Ref is a mess.

The Marriage Ref is about married couples getting in absurd arguments and the panel of celebrities who riff on and, ultimately, judge them. On tonight's premier, that panel consisted of Alec Baldwin, Jerry Seinfeld and Kelly Ripa. Seinfeld told The New York Times that the marriage refs do not themselves need to be experts at marriage. This is good because, judging from his screamy phone calls and rage-related divorce from Kim Basinger, we imagine Alec Baldwin would not handle a fight with his wife with the same wit and charm as he did the problems of other couples. Plus, if all celebrities who sucked at marriage were ruled out of the show, it would basically just be Michelle Obama and Kevin Bacon up there wisecracking every episode. (although Wikipedia tells us that both Seinfeld Ripa have improbably functional marriages.)

Many things are bad about The Marriage Ref. The worst is that the married couples never actually appear in the studio, except in a short docudrama introducing their problems, and via satellite to hear the refs' judgment. So The Marriage Ref falls into the reality show trap of making real relationships seem more contrived than anything the hackiest comedy writer could come up with. The first marriage our panel referees is being torn apart by the husband's desire to have his dead dog taxidermied. The dog's name was The Fonz. The wife hated The Fonz. If this is an actual argument two real humans had (the excruciatingly edited video suggests not) there is something strange going on in this man's head worth exploring: Is he an insane person? Is he dangerous? On what obscure Internet message board did he meet his wife? This could have been funny!

Instead, the conflict is framed in the video basically as: Husband = lovable, bumbling schlub; Wife = no-fun evil harpy. There is a darkly funny moment when the wife says the day The Fonz died was the best day of her life, but it is spoken with such a practiced sneer that it obscures the real sadism that is a necessary component of love. The Fonz's ghost will take a ghost shit on this couple's comforter tonight for disrespecting his memory with this tripe. It's just way too fake, and you have to pity the panel of legitimately funny people (well, Kelly Ripa maybe not) forced to dredge jokes out of relationships that are so poorly caricatured—without making fun of the caricaturing itself. It's like if you could only riff on shitty movies with your friends by making jokes the characters in these movies would find funny.

Even with this sparse material, Alec Baldwin got off a few good one-liners ("I think if you're going to stuff your dog, you should stuff it in either a useful or an attractive position."). Seinfeld managed sometimes to dice up the marriage problems humorously, as in the above clip about a couple arguing over placing a stripper's pole in their bedroom. And Kelly Ripa told it like it was, in that way she does. The host, comedian Tom Papa, was generally agreeable but laughed too much at the panel's jokes, like he couldn't believe that he had his own show. (We feel you.) And the humor behind too many of those jokes came from way too similar a place as The Jay Leno Show's.

In a nightmare world, The Jay Leno Show would still exist, and it would be The Marriage Ref's lead-in. In this world, NBC would feature back-to-back shows where audiences could be busted up by someone just saying the word "thong"—just the word itself! Not even a joke about it! It would be a world where there never existed a wildly popular sit-com called Seinfeld that showed how the funniest parts of a relationship are often the least obvious. A show that changed comedy in such a way that it is possible to imagine an actually funny version of The Marriage Ref, where all of the guests (Tina Fey, Ricky Gervais and Larry David will all be on future episodes) get together at a nondescript diner after a taping and kvetch about how hard it is to say no to something, even if you absolutely know it's a terrible idea.

Jerry Seinfelds New Show Almost Cancels Out Seinfeld [The Marriage Ref]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

The Marriage Ref is about married couples getting in absurd arguments and the panel of celebrities who riff on them. Seinfeld told The New York Times that the marriage refs do not themselves need to be experts at marriage. This is good because judging from his screamy phone calls and rage-related divorce from Kim Bassinger, we could not imagine Alec Baldwin would handle a fight with his wife with the same wit and charm as he did the problems of other couples. Plus, if all celebrities who sucked at marriage were ruled out of the show, it would basically just be Michelle Obama and Kevin Bacon up there wisecracking every episode. (although Wikipedia tells us that both Seinfeld and Kelly Ripa, the third ref, have improbably functional marriages.)

Many things are bad about The Marriage Ref. The worst is that the married couples never actually appear in the studio, except in a short docudrama introducing their problems, and via satellite to hear the refs' judgment. So limited, The Marriage Ref falls into the reality show trap of making real relationships seem more contrived than anything even the hackiest comedy writer could come up with. The first marriage our panel referees is being torn apart by the husband's desire to have his dead dog taxidermied. The dog's name is The Fonz. The wife hated The Fonz. If this is an actual argument two real humans had (the excruciatingly edited video suggests not) there is something strange going on in this man's head worth exploring: Is he an insane person? Is he dangerous? On what obscure message board did he meet his wife? This could have been funny!

Instead, the conflict is framed in the video basically as: Husband = lovable, bumbling schlub; Wife = no-fun evil harpy. There is a funny dark moment when the wife reveals that the day The Fonz died was the best day of her life, but it is spoken with such a practiced sneer that it obscures the real sadism that is a necessary component of love. Hopefully The Fonz's ghost takes a ghost shit on this couple's bed tonight for disrespecting his memory with this tripe. It's just way too fake, and you have to pity the panel of legitimately funny people (well, Kelly Ripa is funny, sort of) who have to dredge jokes out of relationships that are so poorly caricatured—without making fun of the caricaturing itself. It's like if the Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys could only make jokes the characters of the terrible sci-fi movies they riffed on would find funny.

Even with this sparse material, Alec Baldwin got off a few good one-liners ("I think if you're going to stuff your dog, you should stuff it in either a useful or an attractive position."). Seinfeld managed to dice up the marriage problems in a humorous way, and Kelly Ripa told it like it was, in that way she does. The host, comedian Tom Papa, was generally agreeable but laughed too much at the panels' jokes. But the humor behind many of those jokes came from way too similar a place as The Jay Leno Show, which, in a nightmare world, would be The Marriage Ref's lead-in, and NBC would feature an hour-and-a-half of an audience laughing at the fact someone said the word "thong"—just the word itself! Not even a joke about it! In this world, it would be as if there never was a wildly popular sit-com called Seinfeld that showed how the funniest parts of a relationship are often the least obvious. A show that changed comedy in such a way that it is possible to imagine an actually funny version of The Marriage Ref, where all of the show's guests (Tina Fey, Ricky Gervais and Larry David will all be on future episodes) get together at a nondescript diner after taping the show and kvetch about how hard it is to say no to something you absolutely know is a terrible idea.

A Formal Offer of Employment for John Mayer Gawker Columnist [Offers]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

On Friday evening, John Mayer publicly apologized to a gathered "at capacity" audience for the recent kerfuffle over his Playboy interview. We would like to now take this time to finally extend a formal employment offer for Mr. Mayer.

Dear John -

We recently got wind of your apology at Madison Square Garden ("The Garden") on Friday, February 26, 2009, sometime in the evening, during one of your performances. You explained to the audience before you, and we quote (via the New York Daily News):

"I hate to come off like an a—hole ever, and thank you guys for believing that I am not an a—hole," he said. "It's a clean me now, people, clean me....Never, ever, in my entire life did I ever think that it would be a good idea to be an a—hole...But you know what? There's plenty of a—holes who think the same thing, so I have to thank you."

The article was entitled: John Mayer attempts to rescue his shamed reputation by apologizing - again - for being an 'a—hole'.

Let us assure you, Mr. Mayer, that your reputation for what noted, established urban sociologist Robert Sylvester Kelly once established as "Real Talk" has been violently misconstrued; the multitude of your talents has been, in a word, steamrolled. We see them differently. Particularly, as they were intended. It was once noted: "If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." George Washington said that. And the next person to say the next thing to be quoted in our next recruitment letter can—and should—be you. Why?

Because that shit was funny.

But an explosive reaction ensued for various reasons, chief among them: the words weren't entirely coming from you. There was a middleman involved. Sure, you said them. And you took responsibility for them. But you didn't write them. And you weren't in control of the context. Which, regardless of the words within, were notably legion. Even the writer of the interview, Rob Tannenbaum, noted:

The article is long and it's complicated. It's 6,870 words total. Holly Robinson Peete, an actress Mayer mentioned in the interview, called it on her blog "quite possibly one of the longest interviews ever published." Which isn't a fact (Playboy publishes an interview of that length every month), but it is a feeling. Articles are much shorter now. So are sentences. Who has time to read 6,870 words?

If you just thought to yourself, Not many people! you're correct.

Enter the blog post.
Short.
Concise.
Or shorter and more concise than other things people don't take time to read.

If you could go back and make "Split Screen Sadness" a better song, would you? Maybe. Maybe not. But you can't. You know what's nice about blogging? You can. Just ask Nikki Finke.

But you probably wouldn't make that mistake. Given your record of saying things that may offend people, you're not "batting well." Given your record of blogging, you're 1.000. As previously noted, your takedown of the celebrity paparazzi paraphernalia leech-economy complex was masterful. Your call-to-action against conspicuous media consumption was, in a word, inspired, plunging one of our writers into a bout of insecure paranoia. A good columnist can do this! This all goes without mentioning that everyone thinks you already work for us anyway.

Jobs in this media economy are scarce, Mr. Mayer. Your reputation and talent for producing excellent editorial web content—and demonstration of a natural ability for creative prose—can be combined for what we see as a mutually beneficial relationship: an ability for you to get your message out to a wider audience, control it, and grow creatively.

With that, the Weekend Gawker Services division of Gawker Dot Com, a Gawker Media property, would like to extend a formal offer of employment for you to join us as a guest columnist. We'll pay you our regular columnist rate, which, upon receipt notification of this agreement, we'll discuss further. But one thing's certain: you can stop apologizing, and start being proactive. We're in a troubling economy, our talents, diverse as they are, should all be put to good use. For you, for readers, for America.

Basically, stop being a pussy and write for us.

Or at the very least, get a new publicist. For fuck's sake.

We look forward to hearing from you, and for the fruits this beautiful editorial relationship will bear. So long as they don't involve any literal incarnations of your penis.

Regards,

Foster Kamer
Vice President of Editorial Content - Weekend Gawker
Gawker.com

FK/ym
DBNR

CC: Remy Stern

Philip Morris USA Continues to Slowly Assassinate President Barack Obama [Politics]

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

President Barack Obama's first periodic physical exam—in which the Chief White House Physician examines him at Bethesda Medical Center to serve up "a candid assessment of the President's ability to carry out his duties"—is complete. The results?

He's fine! President Barack Obama is, as they say, "Fit for duty." But note the physicians recommendation, from the report:

For those who like words more than words in pictures, that says "Continue smoking cessation efforts," as in, keep quitting smoking. For the record:

cessation |seˈsā sh ən| noun a ceasing; an end : the cessation of hostilities | a cessation of animal testing of cosmetics. a pause or interruption : a cessation of respiration requiring resuscitation.

And how many smokers do you know who are "quitting" (all of them) and who have actually quit? None. Also, it notes that the president is using what's referred to as a "nicotine replacement therapy." Obama is not superhuman. We know this because he doesn't shoot lightning out of his dick. Therefore, like every other red-blooded American who's on The Gum, The Patch, or The E-Cigarette, he's either
(A) still smoking or
(B) addicted to The Gum, The Patch, or The E-Cigarette.

I know this because there are

1. No fewer than five smokers on the Gawker masthead, all of whom have probably told someone in the last year that they're "trying to quit" and
2. One who chews nine boxes of The Gum a day and
3. If you've ever smoked, know a smoker, have tried to quit, or have quit, you just know this. There's no such thing as "quitting" smoking. Just like there's no such thing as being on a "diet." You're either healthy or you're not. Or "kinda seeing someone." You're either leaving your cell phone charger at her apartment, or you're not. Or you're just dealing with more bullshit from people telling you to stop doing something you know isn't good for you, that you also kinda want to stop doing, but for the moment, don't, because you have more important shit on your mind, and you're either gonna get around to it before you're dying from it, or not. Bottom line. Obama's probably still smoking. And this is a good thing. After the year he's had, we'd have cause for concern if he wasn't smoking. You know? Smokers know. Let the guy enjoy a nail every once in a while. It's for our own good.

Gawker Presidential Health Assessment:

He's fine. Fuckoff.

More Patent Nonsense

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Facebook has received a patent on the idea of "Dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network." As if this was a novel idea whenever the patent was filed. Here's a comment I read on the...

The Startup Visa update

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

I've written about the Startup Visa movement on this blog before so many of you know what it is all about. For those that don't, it is the idea that anyone who wants to start a business here in the...

Healthcare Summit Wrapup

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

So what will be the basic Obama/Gibbs media takeaway from the healthcare summit? I figure there are three main possibilities:

"I'm disappointed that Republicans just fell back on the same old talking points instead of having a serious discussion."
"Our differences turned out to be pretty fundamental after all: we want to tackle real problems and Republicans just want to tinker around the edges. But I'm convinced the American people prefer something to nothing."
"I'm grateful that Republicans had some good ideas, but they fell far short of addressing our real problems."

If I were president, I'd choose #1. Luckily, I'm not, and I figure Obama will pretty much choose #3. The initial reaction of the press, however, appears to be "Jesus, what a waste of time."

Which it pretty much was.¹ As an aside, this is why I wasn't very excited about the idea of holding regular versions of the "question time" that Obama held with congressional Republicans last month. They got taken by surprise then, but there was never any chance that would happen a second time. And it didn't. They were armed with every talking point in the book this time, and some of those talking points resonate pretty well. What you saw today is about what any future question time would look like.

¹Just to be clear, I mean a waste of time substantively. In terms of its impact on the politics and public opinion of healthcare reform, we'll have to wait and see.

22 Comments | Post Comment

Financial Link Dump

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Looking for something to do instead of watching more healthcare bloviating? Mike Konczal has a bunch of good posts up:

Transparency in financial markets is a good thing.
Banks can boost savings rate by holding lotteries.
The good and bad of financial innovation.

Go read. It's all good stuff.

1 Comment | Post Comment

Obamas Hole Card Preexisting Conditions

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Here's my idiosyncratic halftime take on the White House's goal at today's healthcare summit. The one topic that Democrats keep hammering on over and over is the problem of insurance companies refusing to cover people with preexisting conditions. "This is an area where we can come together," Obama says. Republicans, in contrast, have been relentlessly trying to talk about everything but this. They've barely acknowledged the preexisting conditions problem at all.

For Obama, this is the ballgame. My guess is that he wants to maneuver Republicans into either (a) admitting that they're unwilling to regulate this, which would be highly unpopular, or (b) admitting, however grudgingly, that the practice needs to be banned. Because if they admit it has to be banned he can make the following argument:

If insurance companies are forced to take on all comers, then people can game the system by buying insurance only when they get sick. This would obviously decimate the private insurance industry.
So you have to require everyone to buy insurance at all times. It's the only way to have a broad pool that keeps costs down (another frequent Obama talking point.)
But obviously you can't force poor people to buy insurance they flatly can't afford. So if you mandate coverage, then you have to subsidize low-income families that can't afford insurance, and you have to provide incentives for small businesses so that they can cover their employees.
And if you do that, you have to have a funding source. Preferably one that also helps rein in premium costs. Like, oh, an excise tax.

This seems to be the direction he's trying to push things. The question is (a) can he force Republicans to address this? and (b) can he then make the rest of the argument in plain enough terms that it makes sense to everyone?

This is, basically, a debating trick, and Republicans obviously want to avoid getting sucked into it. This is why they try to mumble a bit about high-risk pools and then quickly move on. But the preexisting conditions problem is one of the few issues that almost universally resonates as unfair with the public, and Obama's job is to get everyone to understand what it takes to fix it. If he does, he'll come out of today's summit in better shape than he went in.

32 Comments | Post Comment

Has Pakistan Finally Turned Against the Taliban?

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Following up on yesterday's post about the capture of Taliban leaders in Pakistan, the New York Times fills in some details about increased cooperation between Pakistan's ISI and the CIA:

Interviews in recent days show how they are working together on tactical operations, and how far the C.I.A. has extended its extraordinary secret war beyond the mountainous tribal belt and deep into Pakistan’s sprawling cities.

Beyond the capture of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, C.I.A. operatives working with the ISI have carried out dozens of raids throughout Pakistan over the past year, working from bases in the cities of Quetta, Peshawar and elsewhere, according to Pakistani security officials. The raids often come after electronic intercepts by American spy satellites, or tips from Pakistani informants — and the spies from the two countries then sometimes drive in the same car to pick up their quarry.

....And yet for two spy agencies with a long history of mistrust, the accommodation extends only so far....Even as the ISI breaks up a number of Taliban cells, officials in Islamabad, Washington and Kabul hint that the ISI’s goal seems to be to weaken the Taliban just enough to bring them to the negotiating table, but leaving them strong enough to represent Pakistani interests in a future Afghan government.

This contrasts sharply with the American goal of battering the Taliban and strengthening Kabul’s central government and security forces, even if American officials also recognize that political reconciliation with elements of the Taliban is likely to be part of any ultimate settlement.

Italics mine. However, Spencer Ackerman suggests that far from being as sharp as the Times suggests, "the strategic differences here may be ones of degree." This seems like the better guess. Both sides now agree that the Taliban needs to be seriously beaten up, and at most, the argument is over just how much to beat them up in order to get them to sue for peace. Not only is that not a huge difference, but it's one that both sides will legitimately find difficult to calibrate anyway. If that's really the extent of their disagreement — admittedly a big if — there's a real glimmer of progress here.

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The Healthcare Summit So Far

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Quick comment on today's healthcare summit: John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are smart enough to know their own limitations and choose others to speak for the Republican side. And they've mostly chosen speakers who are good at this stuff and know how to talk in ways that make sense.

The Democrats, who should be in better shape because they have a single leader, are insisting on letting every leader speak: Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Steny Hoyer, and Max Baucus so far. These folks are not great speakers. Why are they so lame that they insist on speaking anyway? For once in their preening lives, why don't they just fade into the background and let President Obama orchestrate their side? Obama may yet come out on top in today's session, but the behavior of the Democratic congressional leadership so far constitutes political malpractice.

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A Tale of Two Bernankes

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Ben Bernanke testified before Congress yesterday. Here are two newspaper accounts of the exact same testimony. First, the Washington Times:

With uncharacteristic bluntness, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke warned Congress on Wednesday that the United States could soon face a debt crisis like the one in Greece, and declared that the central bank will not help legislators by printing money to pay for the ballooning federal debt.

And here is the Los Angeles Times:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke acknowledged Wednesday that the government's bulging deficits are reaching levels that are unsustainable in the long run, but he said substantial action to reduce them was probably at least two years away.

The embryonic recovery from the worst economic crisis in more than half a century, especially the nation's weak job market, is much too fragile to begin cutting back on government support any time soon, he said...."I'm not advocating, I don't think anyone's really advocating trying to balance the budget this year or next year," he said in delivering the Fed's semiannual report to Congress in front of members of the House Financial Services Committee.

Of course, there's another difference between the two accounts as well. Later in its piece, the LA Times does report that Bernanke also has long-term deficit concerns. They tell the whole story. Later in its story, the Washington Times.....reports that Alan Greenspan is concerned about deficits too. You can read their entire 1000-word account and never have any idea the Bernanke thinks big federal deficits are just fine for the next couple of years. Nice job.

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Afghanistan Update

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Via Spencer Ackerman, the Christian Science Monitor reports that Pakistan's offensive against Taliban leaders on its territory has been far more extensive than we thought:

Pakistan has arrested nearly half of the Afghanistan Taliban’s leadership in recent days, Pakistani officials told the Monitor Wednesday, dealing what could be a crucial blow to the insurgent movement.

In total, seven of the insurgent group’s 15-member leadership council, thought to be based in Quetta, Pakistan, including the head of military operations, have been apprehended in the past week, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.

....Much about the arrests and Pakistan’s motives remain unclear, but they do reflect Pakistan’s evolving approach to the Afghan Taliban leadership inside its borders. “A year ago when this [Obama] administration was completing its first Afghanistan review and we asked the Pakistanis about the Afghan Taliban leadership operating from their country, they flatly denied it,” says Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who led President Obama’s initial Afghanistan policy review. “Now not only do they say there are senior Taliban leaders in their country, but they are frankly taking action against them.”

Pakistan's motivations are still murky, but they're obviously pretty serious about this one way or another. And even if they're doing this only because they want to make sure they have a seat at the table when it comes time to negotiate a peace settlement with the Taliban, that's probably OK too. After all, no settlement is worth much of anything unless Pakistan is OK with it.

So far, Obama's Afghanistan strategy seems to be paying steady dividends. I'm still not especially optimistic about our chances of accomplishing much of lasting significance there, but things have certainly gone better than I expected. Stay tuned.

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Fun With Frank

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Via TPM, we bring you tomorrow's conservative conspiracy theories today! This one comes from neocon nutcase Frank Gaffney, who has discovered treachery in the newly redesigned logo of the Missile Defense Agency:

The new MDA shield appears ominously to reflect a morphing of the Islamic crescent and star with the Obama campaign logo....Even as the administration has lately made a show of rushing less capable sea- and land-based short-range (theater) missile defenses into the Persian Gulf in the face of rising panic there about Iran’s actual/incipient ballistic missile and nuclear capabilities, Team Obama is behaving in a way that — as the new MDA logo suggests — is all about accommodating that “Islamic Republic” and its ever-more aggressive stance.

Watch this space as we identify and consider various, ominous and far more clear-cut acts of submission to Shariah by President Obama and his team.

You know who else is secretly promoting Sharia? The Pillsbury doughboy, that's who. The proof is right here.

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The Slow Death of Financial Regulation

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

So how is Chris Dodd doing in his negotiations with Republicans over financial reform? Felix Salmon points us to a memo from Taylor Griffin and Tony Fratto that suggests a compromise on the Consumer Finance Protection Agency is in the works: "An independent agency with its own source of funding would be established to regulate all federally chartered banks. The agency would have two divisions: one to conduct prudential regulation and one for consumer protection. The agency’s director would decide disputes between the divisions." Felix comments:

I'm not entirely clear what this means, but it seems, on its face, to imply that the FDIC, OTS, and OCC will all be combined into one agency, which would then have somewhat conflicting goals, when it comes to the zero-sum tug-of-war between banks and consumers. On the one hand, it would be responsible for ensuring that banks are profitable and well-capitalized; on the other hand, it would be responsible for ensuring that banks don't gouge consumers in their search for adequate profits.

Most worryingly, the consumer-protection part of the agency would only seem to have control over federally chartered banks. That's a very bad idea indeed, since it's precisely the non-bank financial institutions — subprime lenders, payday lenders, non-bank credit card companies, Walmart, etc etc — which need as much if not more regulation, from a consumer protection point of view, as the banks.

....So, there's no good news here, I'm afraid. And I'm inclined to agree [] that if working with Corker means losing the guts of the CFPA, it's best to ditch him altogether and just try to push something through the Senate with the support of Democrats alone.

As much as I'm in favor of a strong CFPA, I've never thought it was the linchpin of financial reform. Much more important are broad, effective limits on leverage and capital requirements. Unfortunately, the Senate bill probably won't do very much on that front either, and what limits it does put in place are likely to be limited to conventional banks. But as with the CFPA, if the bill's scope doesn't include all the non-bank financial institutions, it's really not likely to do much good.

So I agree with Felix in one sense: if you don't have rules that go beyond conventional banks, you're not doing anything very useful. But what I don't get is his belief that if Bob Corker won't bend on this, then "it's best to ditch him altogether and just try to push something through the Senate with the support of Democrats alone." How exactly can Democrats do this? This kind of regulatory stuff can't go through reconciliation, and it's certain to be filibustered. So without some Republican support, passing a bill is impossible. I don't really see what alternative there is.

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Piercing The Corporate Veil

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Yet another MBA Monday topic comes from the comments of last week's post. This series is turning into a conversation which makes me very pleased. Mr Shawn Yeager said: As a recovering lawyer, and a serial entrepreneur, I constantly have...

Own Your Online Brand

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

This past friday afternoon, I joined David Karp, founder/CEO of Tumblr, Dennis Crowley, founder/CEO of Foursquare, Aaron Earls of New Media Strategies, and Chris Grosso of NBCU at the MBA Media and Entertainment Conference to talk about social media. This...

Entrepreneurship and Social Change

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

I posted about The Blue Sweater recently and said: I have always believed in the power of entrepreneurs and for profit initiatives to change the world. So I am really excited about an event next Thursday night where I get...

Reconciliation 101

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Are American journalists idiots? No, don't answer that. Just go read Jon Chait's description of Sen. Kent Conrad trying to explain the budget reconciliation process to Bob Schieffer and then having the exchange picked up by Politico. Is it any wonder that the public doesn't understand this either?

So here it is in simple terms: the Democratic plan is not to pass healthcare reform via reconciliation. It never has been. The plan is to pass it via regular order (i.e., have the House approve the bill already passed by the Senate) and then amend it with a few modest modifications that are passed via reconciliation and therefore can't be filibustered in the Senate. Only the amendments would be passed via reconciliation, and the only open questions are what exactly the amendments would look like and whether they'll be passed at the same time as the main bill or as part of a later budget resolution. Capiche? Here's Chait:

Look, it would be okay for reporters and pundits to be obsessed with what legislative method is employed to pass health care reform if they boned up on the issue. Alternatively, it would be okay for them not to understand it at all if they deemed it an irrelevant issue. (Which, in my opinion, it is.) But obsessed and ignorant makes for a bad combination.

Good luck with that.

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Chart of the Day LongTerm Unemployment

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Lots of people have been talking about this for months now, and I don't have anything new and unusual to add to the conversation. But it's worth keeping this chart front and center at all times: it's the number of people who are not just unemployed, but who have been unemployed for at least half a year. The red line is the key one, and it shows that the proportion of long-term unemployed during the current recession is nearly twice as high as it was during 1982, the previous record holder since the Great Depression.

What's worse is that we can't expect this to go away quickly. Paul Volcker deliberately created the recession of the early 80s by jacking up interest rates to unprecedented levels, and he dispensed with it just as easily by lowering rates in 1982. That's not going to happen this time because interest rates are already as low as they can go. At best, we're going to hit a plateau and then linger there before a slow, fitful recovery that takes years. At worst — well, things will get even worse.

Mass, long-term unemployment is one of the most corrosive things any country can go through. The fact that we're basically doing nothing about it is not just disgraceful, it's genuinely dangerous.

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Its Not Just Congress Thats Broken

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

David Frum argues today that the congressional revolution of the 70s — when the filibuster was made easier to use, the power of committee chairmen declined, Congress became more egalitarian, and campaign finance reform broke the power of the parties — has caused the legislative process to break down:

Take this quiz. Name the most important legislation enacted in the 30 years between 1950 and 1980.

Overwhelming isn’t it? Civil rights. Voting rights. Interstate highways. Medicare. Medicaid. The deregulation of the airlines, natural gas, trucking, rail and oil. The immigration act of 1965. Clean Air, Clean Water, and the Endangered Species Acts. Supplemental Security Income in 1974. I could fill the whole screen.

Now ... the next 30 years. There’s the Reagan tax cuts of course. Deregulation of the savings & loans in 1982. The Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. Welfare reform in 1995. Medicare Part D. What else?

Leave aside whether you are liberal or conservative, whether you approve the measures mentioned above or disapprove. It’s hard to dispute: Congress just got a lot more done in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s than in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

Matt Yglesias points out that you can hardly talk about polarization and gridlock without mentioning the racial realignment of the parties that's affected politics so strongly in the post-Reagan, and I think that's right. But I'd add something else. The era between 1950 and 1980 was an essentially liberal one. That applies to the 60s and 70s pretty obviously, but even the 50s, underneath McCarthyism and the man in the gray flannel suit, was defined mainly by consolidation of the New Deal. Eisenhower wasn't called a New Republican for nothing.

The succeeding 30 years, famously, were primarily conservative. And that makes a fundamental difference. Liberals, by nature, want to change things. They want to pass big stuff. Conservatives, by nature, want to conserve. They want to prevent change. Occasionally this takes the form of rolling back liberal programs (tax cuts, welfare reform), but rolling back progress is hard and rare. For the most part, conservatism takes the form of not undertaking big legislative changes. So it's hardly any surprise that a conservative era is marked by lack of seminal congressional actions.

What's really noteworthy isn't that 1980-2010 was a marked by a conservative approach to legislation, but that we should be at the start of a new liberal era right about now. Maybe not a repeat of the 60s, but still something. Times change, cultures change, and problems change — and conservatives can keep the lid on this bottle just so long before it's ready to blow. By now, America ought to be ready for fundamental financial reform, healthcare reform, energy reform, and social reform.

But it's not, really. All of these things poll well in vague terms, but don't really garner a lot of deep support. It's this, even more than legislative maneuvering, that's allowed Republicans to stop Democratic plans in their tracks. We liberals just haven't made the case for change compellingly enough.

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Reforming the Filibuster

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

OK, here's my idea: mend it, don't end it. How about if both parties agree to a limited number of cloture votes per congressional session? Let's say, 20 per session per party. Ditto for holds. Maybe one per senator per session. The minority would still have a broad ability to force a supermajority on major legislation like healthcare reform, or to hold a nominee who they considered truly noxious, but they wouldn't have the ability to simply bring the Senate to a grinding halt out of pique or pure partisan rancor.

I know, I know, it's not going to happen. But it would be interesting if it did! Maybe even better than pure majority rule, since it would introduce some genuinely intriguing strategy and maneuvering to Senate procedures. Sort of like coaches deciding when to burn timeouts or challenge rulings on the field during a football game. It would also give party leaders some much-needed additional power, since they'd necessarily be the clearinghouse for filibusters. Who's with me?

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Corn Ethanol Still a Boondoggle

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Corn-based ethanol is supposedly a green alternative to gasoline. The corn farming lobby certainly thinks so, anyway, and they've persuaded Congress to mandate (and subsidize) increased corn ethanol production through the year 2015.

But is corn ethanol really greener than gasoline? If you analyze total lifecycle emissions directly (i.e., including the CO₂ emissions involved not just in burning ethanol, but also in producing it), the answer is yes, though not by much. But there's more to it than just production. When you switch forest or pasture land to cropland in order to grow more corn, that releases CO₂ as well, and you have to take that into account whether the farm lobby likes it or not. (And they don't.) The chart on the right shows the effects. So what's the conclusion? A new paper in BioScience¹ takes a fresh look at what the market response is to increased corn production, including (a) reduction in food consumption due to higher food prices, (b) intensification of agricultural production, (c) land use change into cropping in the US, and (d) land conversion in the rest of the world. The paper suggests that previous estimates of induced land use changes (ILUC) have been too high, but:

Using straight line amortization over 30 years of production at current fuel yields [] results in ILUC emissions of 27 g CO2 per MJ....[A]dding our lower estimate of emissions to the direct emissions from typical US maize ethanol production (about 65 g CO2e per MJ) would nearly eliminate carbon benefit of this biofuel relative to typical gasoline (94-96 g per MJ).

(Note: MJ = megajoule, a unit of energy.) In other words, even giving corn ethanol the maximum benefit of the doubt, it's still no greener than gasoline: it releases about 92 grams of CO₂ per megajoule of energy compared to 94-96 for gasoline. What's more, if you assume a more reasonable 20-year amortization period, corn ethanol's greenhouse gas emissions are even higher. And if you don't assume that people eat less thanks to increased corn ethanol production, but instead just spend more on food, it goes up even more.

Bottom line: corn ethanol is no greener than gasoline. In fact, it's almost certainly less green, and at the very least, there's no urgent need for the U.S. government to pay billions of dollars to subsidize its production. Too bad Iowa is the first state on the primary calendar every four years, isn't it?

¹No link yet. I'll add one if and when it's available. UPDATE: It's not online yet, but the reference is BioScience, March 2010 / Vol. 60 No. 3.

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The Real Case for Broken Government

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Over at MoJoBlog, Andy Kroll declares that "Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) has dealt the death blow to consumer protection." He's talking about the Consumer Finance Protection Agency, a proposed federal agency that would (in Elizabeth Warren's words) regulate financial products the same way we regulate toasters. Republicans have been opposed from the start to a CFPA with teeth, and Dodd has finally given in. Here's the PowerPoint version of his latest proposal:

Instead of being an independent agency, the CFPA has morphed into a Bureau of Financial Protection within the Treasury Department.
The BFP would regulate large banks and mortgage companies. However, it would have no authority over banks with assets of less than $10 billion and it would have no authority over other non-bank financial institutions. (The BFP can petition for authority over other financial sectors, but this is almost certainly a fig leaf. It would never get it.)
States that want to enforce higher consumer standards for financial products wouldn't be allowed to. The BFP preempts all state regulation.
The BFP would have to confer with existing bank regulators before making any new rules, and its rules could be overriden by the Systemic Risk Council.

I don't have a good sense of how much Dodd is to blame for this toothless state of affairs. After all, Republicans instantly rejected even this watered-down proposal, objecting to the "rule-writing power Dodd proposed for the consumer division." But if they're objecting to rule-writing power, then they're simply objecting to anything that might have even the slightest chance of being effective. It's all kabuki.

This, far more than healthcare reform, is the most disturbing evidence of America's broken politics. After all, healthcare was always bound to be brutally partisan. Democrats and Republicans have been disagreeing about national healthcare for decades and there was no reason to think it would be different in 2009. We liberals may not like the result so far, but it was hardly unexpected.

But financial reform is different. Sure, Republicans are generally less enthusiastic about corporate regulation than Democrats. This was never going to be a chorus of Kumbaya. But Republicans aren't philosophically opposed to preventing economic meltdowns, and if there's anything that should have inspired even conservatives into agreeing that Wall Street needed to be reined in a wee bit, it was the reckless financial excesses of the aughts and the unprecedented economic devastation it provoked. The entire country is suffering through a grueling economic downturn that's the worst since the Great Depression, the collapse of 2008 makes the case for regulation almost irresistable, and even the GOP's tea party base is ready to lynch bankers on sight. The political case for regulation could hardly be more powerful.

But that hasn't made a lick of difference. Not a lick. On an issue where the facts on the ground were so compelling that Democrats and Republicans should have been easily able to forge a consensus for serious change despite philosophical differences, there's been barely even a recognition from conservatives that anything went wrong. It's as if Democrats had responded to 9/11 by flatly opposing any action whatsoever to beef up our anti-terrorist capabilities.

So what now? Unlike healthcare, where a weak bill is still worth passing because it might lead to stronger reforms in the future, I don't think you can say that about this. An agency with no rulemaking authority isn't going to suddenly gain some later on. It will just be one of those indestructible bureaucratic barnacles, taking up space in some federal office building forever without ever accomplishing anything.

Writing a decent bill and making Republicans kill it might provide Democrats with some kind of partisan advantage. Maybe. But passing Dodd's current proposal, let alone something even weaker, would certainly have no substantive effect, either now or in the future. There's literally no point in bothering to bring it to the floor. After going through the greatest financial catastrophe of our lifetimes, brought on by forces we understand perfectly well, we're going to do nothing to keep it from happening again. That's a broken government.

UPDATE: Paul Krugman writes essentially the same thing here. At this point, no bill might be better than what it's possible to pass in the face of Republican opposition.

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LASF Reality Check

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Well, that didn't take long:

Despite a new $2.25-billion infusion of federal economic stimulus funding, there are intensifying concerns — even among some high-speed rail supporters — that California's proposed bullet train may not deliver on the financial and ridership promises made to win voter backing in 2008.

....New inflation-adjusted construction figures show that outlays needed to build the first 520-mile phase of the system have climbed more than 25%, from $33.6 billion to $42.6 billion....Under the new scenario, one-way fares between L.A. and San Francisco rise from $55 to $105, closer to the cost of an airline ticket. The change shows healthier surplus revenue, which may appeal to private investors. But estimated ridership falls by about one-third, to about 40 million annual boarders in 2030.

So in a mere two years, projected ticket prices have gone up 90%, ridership has gone down 30%,¹ and construction costs have increased 25%. There's nothing yet about increasing the projected travel time from its original, very optimistic, 2.5 hours, but I'm sure that's coming too. Who could have predicted?

¹Actually, my recollection is that the original studies were based on a fantasy ridership of 100 million. So ridership projections are actually down 60%.

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Daniel Ellsberg on the Limits of Knowledge

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Jay Ackroyd went to a conference last week where he heard Daniel Ellsberg speak. He apparently recounted one of my favorite Ellsberg stories, and since it's one of my favorites I'm going to repeat it in full below. It's from Ellsberg's book Secrets, and the setting is a meeting with Henry Kissinger in late 1968 when he was advising him about the Vietnam War. The idea of Kissinger seeking out Ellsberg for advice on Vietnam initially seems a bit unlikely, but in 1968 Ellsberg was a highly respected analyst on the war who had worked for both the Pentagon and Rand, and Kissinger was just entering the government for the first time. Here's what Ellsberg told him. Enjoy:

"Henry, there's something I would like to tell you, for what it's worth, something I wish I had been told years ago. You've been a consultant for a long time, and you've dealt a great deal with top secret information. But you're about to receive a whole slew of special clearances, maybe fifteen or twenty of them, that are higher than top secret.

"I've had a number of these myself, and I've known other people who have just acquired them, and I have a pretty good sense of what the effects of receiving these clearances are on a person who didn't previously know they even existed. And the effects of reading the information that they will make available to you.

"First, you'll be exhilarated by some of this new information, and by having it all — so much! incredible! — suddenly available to you. But second, almost as fast, you will feel like a fool for having studied, written, talked about these subjects, criticized and analyzed decisions made by presidents for years without having known of the existence of all this information, which presidents and others had and you didn't, and which must have influenced their decisions in ways you couldn't even guess. In particular, you'll feel foolish for having literally rubbed shoulders for over a decade with some officials and consultants who did have access to all this information you didn't know about and didn't know they had, and you'll be stunned that they kept that secret from you so well.

"You will feel like a fool, and that will last for about two weeks. Then, after you've started reading all this daily intelligence input and become used to using what amounts to whole libraries of hidden information, which is much more closely held than mere top secret data, you will forget there ever was a time when you didn't have it, and you'll be aware only of the fact that you have it now and most others don't....and that all those other people are fools.

"Over a longer period of time — not too long, but a matter of two or three years — you'll eventually become aware of the limitations of this information. There is a great deal that it doesn't tell you, it's often inaccurate, and it can lead you astray just as much as the New York Times can. But that takes a while to learn.

"In the meantime it will have become very hard for you to learn from anybody who doesn't have these clearances. Because you'll be thinking as you listen to them: 'What would this man be telling me if he knew what I know? Would he be giving me the same advice, or would it totally change his predictions and recommendations?' And that mental exercise is so torturous that after a while you give it up and just stop listening. I've seen this with my superiors, my colleagues....and with myself.

"You will deal with a person who doesn't have those clearances only from the point of view of what you want him to believe and what impression you want him to go away with, since you'll have to lie carefully to him about what you know. In effect, you will have to manipulate him. You'll give up trying to assess what he has to say. The danger is, you'll become something like a moron. You'll become incapable of learning from most people in the world, no matter how much experience they may have in their particular areas that may be much greater than yours."

....Kissinger hadn't interrupted this long warning. As I've said, he could be a good listener, and he listened soberly. He seemed to understand that it was heartfelt, and he didn't take it as patronizing, as I'd feared. But I knew it was too soon for him to appreciate fully what I was saying. He didn't have the clearances yet.

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Friday Cat Blogging 26 February 2010

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

This has felt like a long week. Was it just me? Either way, I need to emulate my cats and catch up on some sleep this weekend.

And speaking of cats, here they are, just in the nick of time. On the left, Domino, as usual, has staked out one of the roving patches of sunshine in the house (entryway in the morning, top of the stairs in the late morning, in front of the dining room table in the afternoon, etc.). On the right, Inkblot is pursuing one of his favorite non-sleeping activities, namely preventing me from blogging.

In other news, Carly Simon has revealed that the subject of "You're So Vain" is named David. Let the guessing games begin anew!

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The Hard Road Ahead

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

The path forward for healthcare reform is now widely agreed on: pass the existing Senate bill through the House, and then tack on a package of changes negotiated between the House and Senate that can be passed through both chambers on a simple majority vote via the budget reconciliation process. Simple. Except for one thing: who goes first, and what gets passed when? Michael Scherer outlines the process:

The Senate does not want to go first because Republicans will be able to bottle up the reconciliation process, delaying the vote and making for another ugly sausage making spectacle that Americans hate to watch. If reconciliation takes too long, the thinking goes, then the House will never act, and the whole health care deal will die. But if the House goes first by passing the Senate bill, and the president signs it, then the incentive for Republicans to bottle up reconciliation would be diminished. Health care reform would, at that point, already be law. The horse would be out of the barn. Republicans would then be obstructing fixes to the law that would make the bill, arguably, better by getting rid of stuff like the "cornhusker kickback," a much tougher proposition.

Here is where it gets tricky: The House is not going to vote on the Senate bill (even with a separate package of amendments to match the Senate's reconciliation) until it is dead certain that the Senate will act. So how could those assurances be arranged? With the help of C-Span cameras, of course, or perhaps a letter from 51 Democrats vowing to pass reconciliation come hell or high water. Once the letter is read on the nightly news, the House can act, and suddenly the pressure would be on the Senate Republicans. With health care already law, the GOP will have to decide whether or not to spend weeks gumming up the Senate to delay some amendments to that bill.

Without a doubt, the whole thing is a long shot. It's not clear that Pelosi has the votes she needs, but if she can get to 217, then it is unlikely to be all that difficult to get the Senate to 51, despite Republican carping over process. There is a path. It's tiny. But it's there.

Of course, Scherer has skipped a step here: coming up with the reconciliation compromise in the first place. It has to be something that can still get 51 votes in the Senate — which probably isn't too hard — and a majority in the House. And since abortion language can't be changed via reconciliation (it has nothing to do with the budget), that means the House majority has to suck it up and accept the Senate's abortion language. Considering that the Senate language is pretty stiff, that shouldn't be too hard, but if anti-abortion Dems are casting around for an excuse to vote No anyway, that would be a pretty handy one.

Anyway, I keep reading that the House and Senate hate each other's guts these days, which is going to make this whole process difficult. That seems crazy to me, since you'd think a bunch of professional politicians would have a pretty hard-boiled view of the institutional issues that affect both chambers. But in the same way that inter-party relationships have gotten far more personal and vitriolic since the Gingrich revolution, apparently so have intra-party relationships. Obama's got his work cut out for him.

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