Good evening M&Ms and welcome to another boring Tuesday.

When Implosions Go Bad
Doh! It seems so easy until you screw it up. Oh well I guess now the PLA can use it for target practice.

Posted by: Open Blog at 05:50 PM | Comments (820)
Post contains 285 words, total size 3 kb.

I'm guessing that the Federal Reserve Bank isn't paying much for these even though the tab is $1.2T.

...In addition, the Federal Reserve is buying up $1.25 trillion in mortgage-backed securities to help keep interest rates at or near record lows. That program is scheduled to run out at the end of March, though a sudden jump in rates could force the Fed to extend it...

I wonder who's books they coming off of? I wonder how much this might impair the Federal Reserve's ability to make adjustments in the future? Being light $1.2T cash and heavy $1.2T in illiquid stuff that could take several years to sort through and dispose of is going to cramp anyone's style.

This sounds like a major bet by the Federal Reserve member banks that the real estate market has bottomed and MBS values are at an absolute low point.

Oh, and you'll have to scroll down to around paragraph 15 in that article to find this little nugget. Not like AP is trying to hide anything though. They'd never ever do that.

I bet the Federal Reserve is buying some of the GMAC MBS's as the taxpayers get fleeced for a huge loss and writeoff.

GMAC Financial Services, the consumer lender now majority owned by the government, said Tuesday it expects to report a loss of about $5 billion in the fourth quarter thanks to deep writedowns on underperforming mortgage loans it plans to sell.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 05:12 PM | Comments (100)
Post contains 310 words, total size 2 kb.

Wow.

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) announced this evening that heÂ’s retiring at the end of his term, a shocking development that threatens Democratic control of his Senate seat next year.

Dorgan was up for re-election in 2010, but the third-term senator wasn't facing any strong Republican opposition-- but was facing the growing possibility of a serious challenge from popular Gov. John Hoeven.

In his statement, Dorgan said his retirement was borne out of the desire to spend more time with his family.

He's the first incumbent Democrat (other than place holder appointments) to announce he's retiring. He may not be the last.

Looks like a bad year to be a 'moderate' Democrat in a nominally red state.

How does this impact health care? Will Lincoln and Landrieu start looking for excuses to vote against it or will this add pressure to the House to suck it up and vote for the Senate bill as is in order not to give them a reason to flip? My guess is the latter.

Added: Oh why not? The case for why Scott Brown could in Massachusetts.

Posted by: DrewM at 02:50 PM | Comments (208)
Post contains 235 words, total size 2 kb.

We beer-swilling, knuckledragging, petulant boobs have to have some sort of entertainment after a hard day of churlishly taking positions opposite those of the educated class, and football certainly qualifies. The regular season is finished and with it our little competition is over. This year a tie for first with a close second and third.

Morons who can actually find a G spot with both hands and a flashlight

1.buzzion 142
1.Truman the Greek 142
2.Superfly TNT 141
3. NAM Grunt 140

Congratulations football geniuses. Thanks for playing everyone, and thanks again to Ben for pulling all the stats and stuff. He ran a clean game, kept it honest.

As far as you know.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 01:32 PM | Comments (42)
Post contains 126 words, total size 1 kb.

Uhhhh... "Poker Face" becomes "Whorish Face."

It might help if the women they having singing this could, what's the word?, sing.

I'm not even really a fan of Lady Gaga. (Well, I kind of dig that her primary stagecraft influence seems to be Alice Cooper, which is odd for a pop-tart.)

But... oh man.

Just don't, just don't.

Worth listening to, I think. It's just funny to see what stone-cold retards think is witty.

Thanks to Andy Levy's Twitter feed.

Posted by: Ace at 12:44 PM | Comments (152)
Post contains 100 words, total size 1 kb.

Rachel Maddow endorses this theory, too.

Wow.

It's really All About Him, isn't it?

Trutherism: This is basically the same claim made in the 9/11 "Truth" Conspiracy -- the CIA and rogue elements in the government killed, or tried to, lots of people in order to help, or hurt, a president politically.

Yes, the killed 3000 people on 9/11 to help Bush, and now try to kill 300 to hurt Obama; might not make sense, but that's the theory.

And Olbermann and Maddow are pushing it.

Just to spare Captain Wonderful some much-deserved and much-needed embarrassment.

Posted by: Ace at 11:39 AM | Comments (220)
Post contains 138 words, total size 1 kb.

I'm not sure if this is going to work, but just in case you're interested and can arrange it, Iowahawk has told me he's in NYC on Monday, and wants to have a beer.

Since I don't really want to talk to him very much, I figured I could round up a bunch of people for it so I could less-obviously ignore him.

This is kind of sketchy because he's got some kind of stupid thing to do later on that night and I'm not sure if it will all actually work.

Anyway, if you're in NYC or can get here, maybe keep the day open. I'll talk with him (and some folks who recommend meeting places) and see if I can't lock this down.

Oh, and re: Aceapalooza: I haven't done anything on this in a while. First I was waiting to hear back from a Big Macher (he seems to have passed, silently), then I got busy, and all during this time I was also lazy. I will get back on that soon.

Posted by: Ace at 10:56 AM | Comments (160)
Post contains 183 words, total size 1 kb.

Barack Obama: Splitting atoms... with his mind.

Gee, I wonder what kind of "balancing" and deep thinking he had to give this decision.

It's so difficult for a country-mouse like me to follow the cerebral perambulations of the "educated class."

All I know is that they seem to have a lot of trouble and take a lot of time comprehending the flamingly obvious.

The U.S. will not transfer any detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Yemen right now, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday.

Ninety detainees in Gitmo are from Yemen, which is combating a resurgent Al Qaeda.

Alleged Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is also said to have gotten training in Yemen before carrying explosives on a Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. His attempt to detonate the bomb was foiled when his device malfunctioned and he was tackled by a passenger.

"One of the very first things Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula used as a tool was Gitmo," Gibbs said. "We're not going to make transfers to a country like Yemen that they're not capable of handling (the detainees). While we remain committed to closing the detention facility, the determination has been made that right now any additional transfers to Yemen is not a good idea."

The announcement comes as President Obama misses his original deadline for closing the facility -- a pledge he made on his first week in office.

Tough call. Super-tough. I mean, it's just that a dozen Yemeni terrorists whom we released into Yemen's "custody" (and who then "escaped" -- whoopsie!) have rejoined Al Qaeda and are trying to kill us. Including blowing up planes over Detroit.

You know, it's a fundamental, unshakable premise on the left that these Gitmo detainees are innocent-as-lambs dudes who were just "scooped up" by our stupid, non-educated-class military.

It's kind of hard to make that claim when they all keep rejoining Al Qaeda, isn't it?

No, now that I think about it, it's not hard for the left to maintain any number of perfectly ridiculous claims.

Posted by: Ace at 10:48 AM | Comments (71)
Post contains 384 words, total size 3 kb.

I don't know that the question is itself terribly inappropriate if, and only if, you have a sketchy character who does a lot of world travel with an odd sort of job and you are trying to figure out if it's a real job or just a terrorist cover.

But... um, this sort of highlights how utterly stupid our practice of ignoring the fact that it is, Muslims, period, who are going to be terrorists, and particularly Muslims from 1) overseas or 2) who travel to a lot of sketchy places overseas.

Instead of focusing on those people -- which could get you fired for doing, by the way, which is why they don't do it -- they hassle someone they know for a fact is not a terrorist, just to log it in their quota book that they really asked tough questions of someone.

Someone they knew who could not possibly be a terrorist. They deliberately hassle the guy who can't be a terrorist and don't even look at the guy who may be because they continue to act under a jackass set of rules: 1) never give a Muslim any hassle (or it's your ass, buddy), but 2) go through the motions and pretend you are looking for terrorists by hassling non-Muslims, so the administration can offer the PR that you hassled some people today.

And just to clarify: I think that question -- how much do you make? -- is obviously out of bounds, just because so many people consider it a None of Your F'n' Business question. And maybe you could ask it if you have a strong reason to think you're dealing with a terrorist.

But for some guy who plainly isn't? Stupid.

And slapping on the cuffs for someone who doesn't answer? Firable.

Posted by: Ace at 10:21 AM | Comments (149)
Post contains 329 words, total size 2 kb.

Just a pdf of the opinion for now; Gabe just shot it to me.

Plaintiffs, minority citizens of Washington state who have
lost their right to vote pursuant to the stateÂ’s felon disenfranchisement
provision, filed this action in 1996 challenging that
provision on the ground that, due to racial discrimination in
the stateÂ’s criminal justice system, the automatic disenfranchisement
of felons results in the denial of the right to vote
on account of race, in violation of § 2 of the Voting Rights
Act (“VRA”), 42 U.S.C. § 1973. We earlier reversed the district
courtÂ’s grant of summary judgment to Defendants. See
Farrakhan v. Washington, 338 F.3d 1009 (9th Cir. 2003),
cert. denied, 543 U.S. 984 (2004) (“Farrakhan I”). On
remand, the district court again granted summary judgment to
Defendants. Plaintiffs timely appeal. We reverse and grant
summary judgment to Plaintiffs.

Reversing from summary judgment for the defendants (twice!) to summary judgment for the plaintiffs?

Gee, you think they sort of knew which way this case "should" come out?

Insta-Analysis From Gabe:

The major problem here is that it's summary judgment. There was no trial. The Court of Appeals takes the plaintiff's witnesses' word for it that there is racial disparity which cannot be explained other than by racism and that compells the conclusion. The problem is that with summary judgment motions, the court is supposed to construe facts in light most favorable to the other party, not the moving party.

Right, right.

Posted by: Ace at 10:07 AM | Comments (136)
Post contains 281 words, total size 2 kb.