Shutting down

Eric Schmidt, Sergei Brin and Larry Page are now officially off my list of businessmen worthy of respect!!! They are turning over their misguided, stupid intercepted data to a national government!

What part of "Big Brother is watching" do you not understand? Delete the data and show the server logs verifying the deletion, but DO NOT TURN IT OVER to the government! Are you F#%&ing IDIOTS?

I will never access a website in any way connected to Google. I will NOT be associated with any product of any kind connected to Google. That includes Google.com, maps.google com, Gmail and Blogger.com. This blog will be shut down soon. Google is HISTORY as far as I'm concerned.

Dudes, if you think you've dodged a problem by turning over this data, you ain't seen nothing yet. Oh, yeah, and I'm shorting GOOG.

Brad DeLong's Diagnosis

Brad DeLong has mastered the technique of the petty, ad hominem attack.

His latest attack is on Mario Rizzo, whom I don't know, but wish I did (in contrast to Brad DeLong).

At any rate, as long as Brad is practicing pop/shlock psychology, there's another diagnosis I think he should look at. The part I think applies the most to Brad is this.

Treatment for this disorder is very rarely sought. There is a limited amount of insight into the symptoms, and the negative consequences are often blamed on society. In this sense, treatment options are limited. Some research has found long term insight oriented therapy to be effective, but getting the individual to commit to this treatment is a major obstacle.

Good luck with that, Brad.

The Question Is...

Moody's was so slow to downgrade the ratings of subprime CDOs, does this mean that the United States Government is already no longer a AAA credit?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601010&sid=a8c_1vtVGzD8

Of more importance to me, if the 3-mo T-bill rate is no longer the risk-free rate, what do I use to calculate a Sharpe ratio?

Freedom's Last Stand

OK, the title of this post is a little overwrought, but not by much. If Pelosi/Reid/Obama/Axelrod/Emanuel/Soros/Moulitas/Sullivan can pass this bill using this method, then they can pass anything. They can do to the United States what the Bolsheviks did to Russia.

Losing your life, losing an election

To Obama, it's all the same.

If I read this correctly, our President compared soldiers losing their lives to an insane, fanatical Muslim to Democratic Representatives losing an election over their vote on the health care bill.

It doesn't get any more crass and asinine than that.

Leave it to the BBC

The BBC has finally run an article that identifies a benefit of gun control. This result if probably not generalizable, but the story is both ironic and funny. My annotated summary is below.

1. India forces residents of Kashmir to turn in their weapons.



"Following the outbreak of the insurgency, people had to hand in their weapons to police - which put a halt to poaching."



2. The bear population in Kashmir increases.



"Wildlife experts say the conflict in Kashmir has actually resulted in an increase in the population of bears and leopards."



3. A bear kills two terrorists that it discovers in it's den.
   

   "A bear killed two militants after discovering them in its den in Indian-administered Kashmir, police say."

You just can't make this stuff up. LOL!
Thanks to Ann Althouse.

Thank you, Congressman Frank

Congressman Barney Frank--in the odd position of trying to sound reasonable compared to Ralph Nadar--admits what he and the Obama Admininistration are trying to achieve as a result of the economic crisis.

Barney Frank's Fingernails

Update: One of the commenters points out correctly that Frank ostensibly is referring to financial regulation in his comment. But can anyone seriously doubt that his statement doesn't apply equally to economic and social policy as well?