Akkam’s Razor

• The Candidates, Comically Drawn - The Caucus - Politics - New York Times Blog
  Where better to chronicle the stories of Senators John McCain and Barack Obama and their bids for the White House?
  (tags: comics democrats election08 mccain news obama politics republicans)
• SurfTheChannel - Homicide: Life On The Street - Season 6 Episode 7
  Best. Episode. Ever.
  (tags: Homicide vincentdenofrio 1997)

• The Big Picture | How Much of Fannie/Freddie Paper is Held Overseas?
  When the hell is this going to end? The US taxpayer simply cannot be the guarantor of last resort for every bad bet made by anyone anywhere. Any nation that does that turns their children into indentured servants for generations.
  (tags: finance bailout GSE SIV fanniemae fanniemac)
• The Dark Knight: 25 Sites to Expand Your Batman Knowledge
  (tags: batman comics mashable)
• Portable Applications on a USB Memory Stick
  (tags: software usb portable freeware free downloads stick)

By now, you must be aware that the new Batman movie has been released, and also that Heath Ledger is dead.  You are also quite aware that the film has broken many records. You have also heard the Ledger’s Joker performance is being heralded as brilliant.

As a child of the 1980s, my heart has always belonged to reruns of the 1960s campy show, the Superfriends Saturday morning cartoons, and the early Batman movies (I & II, forget the rest). I’ve resisted all the fanboy hype, but tonight I had to watch Batman Begins on FX.  OK, I’ll admit, I think I’m hooked.  Besides, the new film’s is as much a homage as a reboot.

• ‘Jefferson Bible reveals Founding Father’s view of God, faith’ by LA Times - RichardDawkins.net
  “Can you imagine the reaction if word got out that a president of the United States cut out Bible passages with scissors, glued them onto paper and said, ‘I only believe these parts?’ “
  (tags: america Heroes President skepticism)
• The 20-year-old at heart of web’s most anarchic and influential site | Technology | The Observer
  [The] free-for-all [is] liberating, turning 4chan into an ideas laboratory and unleashing a ferocious creative force. [The] stuff that survives can easily jump to the wider web community and ‘go viral’, passing from person to person across the world.
  (tags: 4chan culture internet web2.0 socialmedia google social meme)

• 1930s Marital Scale
  How do you rank?
  (tags: history gender culture marriage psychology quiz reference)

I’m sure the nativist and xenophobes are quite upset at the loss of American icon Anheuser-Busch to InBev, but fail to notice the contribution of Conservative monetary and fiscal policy - the Belgians were able to purchase AB for 52 billion EUR.  Based on current exchange rates and the weakened dollar, the 52 billion EUR equates to purchasing power equivalent to $82 billion USD.  That’s the equivalent of a 37% discount.  After accounting for the share premium paid to AB (22%), that is still a currency advantage of 15%.

It goes without saying that given the stream of news through this weekend through Monday (Fannie Mae, Fannie Mac, IndyMac, and National City), the most popular post on Akkam’s Razor is this one, detailing my findings in search for the FDIC’s bad bank list.

bankrun, banks, business, CAMELS, economics, Election 2008, fannie mac, fannie mae, FDIC, finance, government, indymac, moral hazard, national city, news, politics, UBPR

A great FireFox extension - Extension List Dumper - if not new, than new to me, allows you to get a list complete with version data, descriptions, and URLs of all of your installed extensions by hitting the Dump List button in the Add-In (or Extensions) box.

(Side note to the FireFox team - sharing extension lists between users via social networking has some value to it, doesn’t it?)

My list, as currently installed, is after the jump.

Application: Firefox 2.0.0.5 (Portable)

• ColorfulTabs 2.0.11http://www.binaryturf.com/

  Firefox 2.0 - 2.0.0.*

  Colorful Tabs colors every tab in a different color and makes them easy to distinguish while beautifying the overall appeal of the interface.

Can’t help but wonder why Pat Meehan’s sudden resignation, news that Vince Fumo isn’t resigning, and yet more alleged shenanigans regarding Curt Weldon have all crossed through my feed reader today?  Maybe there’s some meat to allegations of political prosecution at the urging of the Bush White House?  You may recall that the FBI had to run the investigation against Weldon as the Delco GOP (and Meehan) had no interest in investigating their own, having focused their attention on Philadelphia Democrats (rightfully so).   Or is the former Arlen Specter aide (or his sidekick) planning on running against Joe Sestak?

A couple of semesters ago, I read a Businessweek article on Home Depot then-CEO Bob Nardelli’s plan to turn around Home Depot.  BW glowingly reported on Nardelli’s personnel changes and differing style, with his strong preference for hiring former-military persons in key rolls.  Anecdotally speaking, a masters program classmate who was also a Naval Academy graduate mentioned that Home Depot had indeed made a push for hiring employees who were formerly Officer Grade to run their stores, casting the opportunity as entrepreneurial.  Businessweek gave several hints as to what was coming in their description of Nardelli’s style:

George Carlin is dead.  In his own words:

I’m getting old. And it’s okay. Because thanks to our fear of death in this country I won’t have to die. I’ll pass away. Or I’ll expire, like a magazine subscription. If it happens in the hospital they’ll call it a terminal episode. The insurance company will refer to it as negative patient care outcome.

I agree that he wouldn’t want to be eulogized, so instead reminisce at some of his bits (with more here with some memorable quotations).

Given that the Democrats, including some favored by the progressive blogosphere have rolled over and ‘compromised’ on FISA with the Republicans and given them everything the Bush Administration wants - including immunity, as discussed previously.

In hindsight, this entire ordeal is exactly the same as that of the war, with the same rationale and the same problems.  The Administration made its case for action, and Congress, or in this case, the Telecoms, wanting to be good patriots and assist in the war on terror, believed them and cooperated.  To also be fair, some didn’t, and we see how that played out for Qwest.  As time wore on, others, perhaps after acknowledging  their  reservations, put processes in place to document the admins actions.