Up all night getting last corrections on the book in. After I crash, will do proper Links later (readers sent me some particularly interesting material, from the looks of my inbox). So check in later!
Hope you are enjoying your holidays!
Hat tip reader Barbara (from the National Geographic
):
This is a Cuban tree frog on a tree in my backyard in southern Florida. How and why he ate this light is a mystery. It should be noted that at the time I was taking this photo, I thought this frog was dead, having cooked himself from the inside. I’m happy to say I was wrong. After a few shots he adjusted his position. So after I was finished shooting him, I pulled the light out of his mouth and he was fine. Actually, I might be crazy but I don’t think he was very happy when I took his light away.
Photograph by James Snyder
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12:00AM GOzT
Thank you SW and all.
As a biologist, I thought maybe the warmth of the light. Or as simple as mistaking it from prey. Or possibly just being a silly frog. How the ways of the world protect the fools, the frog has no idea that the moisture of his mouth and the electrical current pulsing through what is IN his mouth can in fact kill his instantly. Ah, to be ignorant and uneducated is not always a negative energy draw. Seems to work for most politicians.
As always, your work and its presentation is awesome. The daily pic are fabulous and at times become a repost. Many thanks for the energy and effort you put into your posts, your’s in a must site for me. Best Wishes to you and yours for the holidays and the new year!
Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake has teamed up with Grover Norquist to go after Rahm Emmanuel on Fannie and Freddie.
http://firedoglake.com/2009/12/23/jane-hamsher-grover-norquist-call-for-rahm-emmanuel%e2%80%99s-resignation/
This is causing quite an uproar among the Obama-bots at Daily Kos among other places.
Rahm Emanual is no doubt the Dr. Frankenstein behind the Blue Dogs’ rise to power. So it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to learn that he is also a financial crook with a shady past. Therefore, I see this alliance of the far Left and far Right as a welcoming sign. I think it’s our best hope of putting a stop to Washington’s mushy middle which has become a kleptocratic hotbed for aiders and abettors of our nation’s war criminals and financial terrorists.
Great hopeful observation. It often seems like a losing battle, but the tide can turn rapidly. There may be dancing in the streets next year.
Happy Holidays to all!
The frog is just trying to stay warm. Really. New species- cuban christmas tree frog.
The frog is trying to tell us, Homo Not-So-Sapiens Not-So-Sapiens something.
With the light symbolizing scientific progress, the frog is saying that while making you believe falsely that science will make life more comfortable for you, it is actually killing you slowly, as we have gone from one hunter/gatherer per 10 square miles to 100 times that for farmers (the numbers according to Jared Diamond).
This Kamakazi principle is also evident in reproduction. The better a species is at reproduction, the faster it will go extinct. You can quote me on that. By better, I mean, either faster or more. Flies reproduce incredibly fast and so, mutations happen often. When we Homo-Not-So-Sapiens Not-So-Sapiens reproduce in billions and billions, instead of millions and millions, the likelihood of mutation increases and thus it hastens the arrival of our own replacement and our extinction. Trust me, the new guy won’t have any endangered species act for us.
I ♥ Jane Hamsher, ♥♥♥. The only way to get some transparency may be to start an interparty nuke war: menace Rahm with GSE muck until he retaliates by exposing Bush era private-lending crime (or maybe torture!) Let it come down. Would you rather be warring over blowjobs?
‘Twas the Night before Christmas
And all through the bourse-houses
All the traders were clicking,
Glued fast to their mouses,
Their bids were all tracked
By the market with care
In the hopes St. Bernanke.
Soon would be there.
Taxpayers were nestled
All snug in their beds,
While visions of early retirement
Danced in their heads.
And Roubini his ‘kerchief,
and Taleb in his cap,
Had just settled down
For a long winter’s book tour
When out in the banking sector,
There arose such a clatter,
That congress sprang from their junkets,
To see what was the matter!
Away to the VIX,
We flew like a flash,
The banks were all broke,
And demanded hard cash!
Sub-prime had all tanked
Each new wave was a blow,
The pundits were lost,
From Krugman to Kudlow!
When, who should appear
with a strange bag of solutions
But Timothy Geithner and
eight to-big-to-fail institutions!
More rapid than Washington
lobbyists they came,
He whistled, and shouted,
and called them by name;
“Now Goldman, now Citigroup,
now B.O.A. and Morgan Stanley!
On Fargo, On Chase!
On G.M. and A.I.G.!”
“To the top of the TARP, to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! To the discount window, one and all!”
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When the meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the market-top the cash-flush banks flew,
With a long list of bonuses for all of them too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on blogs
How this bail-out had stepped on innumerable laws
For no matter how much money approved by the Senate
The banks still were screwed in the derivative market.
As I turned off CSPAN and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Bernanke came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of T-Bills he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes, how they twinkled! His style, so dapper!
Behind him was filled a cash-stuffed helicopter!
He seemed quite unworried, his brow was unfurrowed,
He explained any amount of money could be borrowed!
Production, he explained, was a thing of the past,
Interest-payments were high, why, we’d just print more cash!
He was chubby and plum, a right jolly old banker,
And I laughed when I heard him, in spite of my anger.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He gave no more speeches, but continued his leering,
(His lawyers advice ‘till after the next Senate hearing)
He spoke not a word, but went straight to work,
And he filled all those banks, and threw in a few perks.
And raising a finger from the mid of his fist,
He searched for tax-payers he might have just missed.
He sprang to his sleight, to his legal team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he fled from this caper,
“Don’t worry you rubes! In the end it’s just paper!”
Better luck to us all in 2010!
-Cullen McGough, with thanks to Clement
damn witty!
Merry Christmas! and a prosperous New Year (the good news is that we will have lots and lots of money…the bad news is that it won’t be worth much ;(
Brilliant poem! Thanks for sharing it with us, Cullpepper. And I must say that Cullen’s poetry is too good not to make a youtube video of it.
Zero hedge had this interesting and juicy speculation.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/sprott-calls-fed-ponzi-scheme-half-trillion-treasury-purchasers-are-unaccounted
The implications of this can be huge.
I did not see any link fest today. Thought, I should bring this to everyone’s attention.
Yves, best wishes for enjoyable holidays in spite of the crunch and a very prosperous and successful New Year. The volume of high quality work you post in spite of it is astounding. Thank you. I, too, check out NC every morning.
And its good to know the bulb was removed from the little froggie; would hate to see the follow-up photo if it hadn’t.
Merry Christmas to all NC’ers from Sydney, Australia on a warm, humid Christmas morning!
I’ll bet $20 that you could put up a picture of a dust mite and get a decent thread out of it.
Tree frogs — I had a friend that lived in Puerto Rico years ago. He became an under-sleeping nervous wreck just after he arrived because the frogs would start their KO-KEE KO-KEE around bedtime and it would last until morning. But, eventually he came up with a plan. Everytime he heard a KO-KEE, he yelled out “KEE-KO.” It either, stunned, confused, or rewired the neurons in the frogs to the point that they actually shut up or left.
Fascinating financial journalism
http://gawker.com/5433922/bloomberg-reporter-caught-putting-words-in-sources-mouth