Okay.  So.  I'm totally confused.  Can anyone tell me what the hell it is that Goldman Sachs is being charged with?  Heaven knows I'm not a financial genius, but there's nothing wrong with betting both sides of a market.  Hell, I think it would be a violation of fiduciary responsibility to NOT attempt to hedge investments.  A market, any market, will either go up or down.  There is nothing wrong with selling a fund premised on the market going up.  There is nothing wrong with simultaneously selling a fund that says the market will go down.  Someone will win, someone will lose.

Now, if GS did not disclose the true facts about those funds or if GS misrepresented the contents of those funds, that's fraud and throw the book at them.  But I cannot for the life of me figure out what the actual facts are beneath the screaming.  So put me some knowledge, what the hell did GS do? 

Posted by: alexthechick at 01:44 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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L'audace, l'audace, tojours l'audace.

Never quit.
Never retreat.
Never run from adversity, despair, or trouble.
Always be fearless when trouble comes your way.
Always be the rock upon whom all pin their hopes and wishes for a better tomorrow.
Never equivocate.
Always stand in front of your charges and lead in the same fashion.
Always be willing to sleep coverless, cold, and wet to make sure your charges are warm and dry.
Always give your charges your portions to keep them sustained.
Always shoulder the blame and share the glory.
And never, ever, ever think that you or your cause are insignificant. Never let your fear of failure keep you from taking a risk.
And ALWAYS be bold and never run from a challenge, for the challengers will nopt anticipate a response.

Oh, and tell anything in your way that it better move, or it will get goatfucked so hard, the dried up juices will be squeezed out of it by the asskickingly asskicking boot of asskiciking.

So, be brave. Never quit, and fuck anything that tells you not to try something. Fuck them with a pair of rusty roller skates soaked in liquid hate.

Posted by: eddiebear at 12:10 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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A year after he switched parties, Arlen Specter gives us this gem:

"Well, I probably shouldn't say this," he said over lunch last month. ''But I have thought from time to time that I might have helped the country more if I'd stayed a Republican.''

Specter mused that perhaps if he'd remained in the caucus he could have persuaded one or two of his GOP colleagues to support health care reform. Not one Senate Republican voted in favor of it, but he swears he would have regardless of party affiliation.

Posted by: JoeCollins at 08:58 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Hawkins has a good breakdown of the races, and his picks (and sometimes non-picks) in the primaries.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 09:04 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Breaking:  Al Masri, leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq Killed By Intelligence Team

Claimed by Iraqi Prime Minister, still breaking at Fox.  No link.

Update:  Link.

Update Part Deux:   There isn't too much detail but reports are that this was an Iraqi score which is great news.  Even if it was planned/organized by U.S. forces it would be a big win for the Iraqi intelligence agencies but if they did it all by themselves it would show a very impressive improvement in Iraqi capabilities and would do much to reassure me as to their ability to remain independent in the long run.

Either way, rot in hell you piece of shit.  Get Satan fucked.  Like a viking.

Update:  They got Baghdadi, too.  This is the biggest score since Udey and Qusay got blowed up. 

The U.S. military said Monday that Al Qaeda in Iraq leaders Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Umar al-Baghdadi were killed early Sunday morning in a raid led by U.S. and Iraqi forces, after a week of operations led them to a safehouse where the terror chiefs were hiding.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki showed reporters at a news conference on Monday pictures of two dead bodies he identified as al-Baghdadi and al-Masri. 

The U.S. military said the two terrorists were killed in a nighttime raid just southwest of Tikrit, the hometown of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

"The death of these terrorists is potentially the most significant blow to Al Qaeda in Iraq since the beginning of the insurgency," the U.S. top commander in Iraq, General Raymond Odierno, said in a press release Monday.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 08:32 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Apparently, a member of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's staff and her male companion were beaten fairly severely outside of Brennan's in New Orleans.
This is some ugly stuff, and I hope the couple recovers as soon as possible, and the criminals, regardless of motivation, get sodomized sans lube by the flaming sword of justice.

Posted by: eddiebear at 11:09 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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... should be going out to the families of the 97 people who died in this plane crash, the Polish President included.  What a terrible tragedy.

Posted by: Ember at 01:07 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Ka-ching.

The trend for previous midterm elections reveals that the 28% re-elect figure puts the sitting majority party in a danger zone. In the two recent midterm elections in which the congressional balance of power changed (1994 and 2006), the percentage of voters saying most members deserved to be re-elected fell below 40%, as it does today. By contrast, in 1998 and 2002, when the existing Republican majority was maintained, 55% or better held this view.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 09:07 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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In case you haven't checked the Head Moron's place.

Update: Or not.  No explosives found.  Seems like it was probably a big misunderstanding.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 09:34 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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As you've probably heard, we had a pretty big earthquake here in Southern California (the epicenter was actually down in Baja) this afternoon. Thankfully, there doesn't seem to have been any serious damage. But the local news is full of videos people took of water sloshing out of their pools in waves, so you can imagine the force of it.

And, here's the damnedest thing—I was standing out in the front yard having a smoke when it struck, and I didn't feel it at all.

Posted by: Sean M. at 08:01 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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